Who rules Korvosa in your game?


Curse of the Crimson Throne

Liberty's Edge

James Jacobs recently posted in Shattered Star that Sabine is assumed to take the throne. Who rules in your games after Ileosa?

Our group discovered through legend lore that one of the orphans we rescued in book 1 was the illegitimate son of the King. My character and Trinia had adopted them all so we now have King Oliver with the two of us serving as Regents.


Neolandus was named ruler for our game, with a couple PCs retiring to the city to help him out. None of the PCs were interested in ruling. Sabine was never shown the errors of her way and is still out there, somewhere, up to something.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

I had a PC use geas on the other party members and others to be made Queen and the head of the Church of Abadar in Korvosa.

I plan to do a sequel to CotCT with this group (new PCs) and the queen will be that character as an NPC. That campaign may include the group finding out how the queen came to power. I also plan to tie up all the other loose ends from the original campaign and there were several.


Why on earth would Korvosa accept Sabine as the new queen? Repentent or not, she was still Ileosa's right hand woman for most of her tyranical reign. Most people would probably consider her a criminal.

Silver Crusade

My group ended up giving the job over to Vencarlo.


Talk about getting a shitty job... Poor Vencarlo. And him so critical about all the stuff the government has done...


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The Paladin PC of one of my players and Cressida Kroft, the two of them being a couple.

Liberty's Edge

We aren't quite there yet, but I've been assume all along that Neolandus would take the job. He was the highest ranking official outside of the monarchy. Although, my players made it through without killing or even seriously confront Glorio Arkona, maybe I'll figure out a way to have him make a push. That's been his plan all along after all.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Note: the person assumed to have taken the throne in Korvosa in Shattered Star is far from set in stone yet... if I'll even nail it down, which I might not need to since Shattered Star never actually goes to Korvosa.


In our campaign, our orphan(bastard of the king) fighter Bog's ended up on the Throne with Cressida as his right-arm woman. We kinda assume he is micro-managed pretty heavily and generally kept from making any 'sweeping' proclamations while he is 'properly groomed' for the part.

He also owes my Shoanti some military compensation to help him raze Urgland and put an end to that orc stronghold.


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James Jacobs wrote:
Note: the person assumed to have taken the throne in Korvosa in Shattered Star is far from set in stone yet... if I'll even nail it down, which I might not need to since Shattered Star never actually goes to Korvosa.

*Whip Crack* Who said you're allowed to browse the forums? Back to work.


Not quite there yet. We started Scarwall this weekend. The only surviving member of the original group has plans to take over the underworld. They already took out Glorio so the power void has started.
It'll be interesting to see how the group handles the line of succesion.


I find this thread quite offensive as I, Queen Ileosa Arabasti the first am the true ruler of Korvosa and no mortal man or woman can take that throne from me.


Seriously though, my group hasn't gotten to that point. They're currently at part 3, fighting Arkonas and have yet to enter the dungeon. I can see the wizard taking the place or the urban druid. Certainly don't see Sabina being the one in charge since she was merely a handmaiden, bodyguard and lover to the queen so she really doesn't have that much of a grasp on the throne imo.


King Glorio Arkonas the first.

Glorio Arkonas was never killed in part 3. By the time the PCs overthrew the crown he'd ended up sinking half his fortune into stabilizing Old Korvosa for an eventual bid to retake the city. The Noble Houses that hadn't fled were facing civilian uprisings as multiple PCs began seeding unrest among the populace in their own attempts at seizing control.

Arkonas offered himself as a lawful replacement and the Noble Houses all hid behind him, offering their support. Vencarlo, knowing full well who Arkonas is, attempted to rally the paladins at the Octagon in support of an elected government. This backfired as a high level paladin of Iomedae was caught attempting to assassinate Arkonas. Being a smart bastard, Arkonas had the paladin publicly beaten but not executed and the people adored him for his mercy, his restraint, and his fairness. As for the paladin, well, what had the churches really done to free them from the oppression of Ileosa? It took a band of filthy adventurers (one of them was a gnoll!) to free the crown from tyranny.

Vencarlo's plan failed and King Glorio Arkonas the first was crowned less than two months after Queen Ileosa's death.


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The part I found more interesting was the reference I saw in shattered Star 3 to the possible pop-up of some Grey Maidens?


When I ended my campaign a few weeks ago, Judge Zenderholme was the new queen.


Two of my group's PCs assumed co-rulership of the Zon-Kuthonian City-State of Korvosa (ending the PF rules beta test campaign), oh, about 3 years ago real time?

About now they're setting about mopping up the few remaining internal "issues"...


Sabine...? Strikes me as a very odd choice and as another poster mentioned unlikely to be accepted due to her invovlement (willing or not) in Ileosa's reign.

Its been awhile but my group pretty well ended the monarchy setting up a council headed by Neolandus, a Varisian rep (one of the PCs), Thousand Bones, as the Shoanti rep, a noble PC and a few others.

The Grey Maiden hook for Shattered Star caught my eye too. It was one of my big regrets that I wasn't able to continue the CoCT campaign after the last book (I moved away). The campaign had left so many intriuging hooks and I would've loved to have done a series of adventures dealing with the consequences of the APs events. The Gray Maidens were known to be a big problem with no easy solution, Glorio while humbled was still alive and had the Thieves Guild as his muscle, Kavazon, Lorthact, the Shoanti conflict and many others. I think this is why its still my favourite of the APs the adventures and the setting felt like part of a living world and my players did a very good job in getting deeply involved as their characters. Curious to see what lies ahead for Varisia.


Furio Giunta, from the Sopranos.

His grandmother knew some spells. Sent him to Golarion, to avoid the wrath of Tony Soprano's hunters.

Dark Archive

Vencarlo got the kingship in my campaign.

Glorio Arkona, Cressidia Croft, Neolandus, Hellknight Lictor DiVri, Keppira d'Bear, and the head of the Necromancy Department from the Acadame (whose name escapes me at present) also have positions of power. The Bloodsworn Vale was turned over to one of the PC's cohorts as a separate nation and is being ruled by two of the PCs as puppetmasters behind the cohort. The rest of the PCs left to either help the church of Zon-Kuthon or semi-retire in various ways. Sabina got semi-redeemed by the PC side and went off to the nation that got built in the Bloodsworn Vale; Korvosa wasn't looking too kindly on her despite her help in the final battle, and the PCs offered her a place over there.

All of this said, I'm sort of glad to see Paizo moving ahead with the timeline for Shattered Star. I'm fine with making various adjustments to fit my campaign and am interested in where the canon version of Golarion is going.


This will be a matter of contention when I return to that group to run them through to 20th level. It was discovered in the latter portion of the AP that one of the PCs is actually descended from the original Arkona line, so she's got a shot at taking the throne. (Though she is, thanks to the Harrow Deck of Many Things, now a weretiger...that might be a bit of a foil.)

Never even considered Sabine as a possibility for queen. Seems to me one would have to be a member of the nobility to even be considered.


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Shadowborn wrote:

This will be a matter of contention when I return to that group to run them through to 20th level. It was discovered in the latter portion of the AP that one of the PCs is actually descended from the original Arkona line, so she's got a shot at taking the throne. (Though she is, thanks to the Harrow Deck of Many Things, now a weretiger...that might be a bit of a foil.)

Never even considered Sabine as a possibility for queen. Seems to me one would have to be a member of the nobility to even be considered.

Normally, that is true, but remember the Curse of the Crimson Throne. No one who has ever held the throne, has ever been able to have children, and they never die a peaceful death on the throne.

So it stands to reason, that the ruling family has changed over time. Either that, or the family relies on the siblings of whomever is heir to the throne, to produce more heirs.


Wyrd_Wik wrote:

Sabine...? Strikes me as a very odd choice and as another poster mentioned unlikely to be accepted due to her invovlement (willing or not) in Ileosa's reign.

Plus there's the little fact that she has NO tie to the line of succession and unless she was a conqueror Korvosa has many more legitimate contenders to overcome. People with a legitimate claim to the throne tend to take issue with things like a tyrant's lackey trying to place themselves on a throne that they view as rightfully theirs.

Out of the possible candidates/outcomes, Sabine makes ZERO sense. You've got the surviving nobility -- they're not going to roll over for a commoner, especially one tied to the tyrant they just had. You've got the Seneschal. If they're throwing over the monarchy, you've got prominent citizens that people DON'T want to lynch on sight, etc.

Given that we see how claims to a throne are taken seriously (JADE REGENT, for a very recent example), this just seems like an off-the-cuff suggestion that wasn't really thought out. If it was a deliberate choice, it smacks a bit much of Pet-NPC-Syndrome as it makes no sense.

If this happens to make it into the Golarion core, it'll be retconned out of existence in my campaign faster than I can read the words on the page.


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Does it actually say anywhere that Sabina is NOT a member of one of the noble houses? Just checking that angle. I didn't see anywhere confirming or denying that part, thus it wouldn't be hard for a GM to say "sure, why not" on that side.

Really I have no idea how that is going to play out for my group. Too far ahead.


Our group had a paladin who became Queen Everlyn when all was over.

My necromancer, Rufus Togatus,, is off to Castle Scarwall to make it his own.

Liberty's Edge

Tels wrote:


Normally, that is true, but remember the Curse of the Crimson Throne. No one who has ever held the throne, has ever been able to have children, and they never die a peaceful death on the throne.

So it stands to reason, that the ruling family has changed over time. Either that, or the family relies on the siblings of whomever is heir to the throne, to produce more heirs.

I think it actually states that no ruler has inherited the throne from his father, but the rest is essentially correct.... which is why my follow-up campaign builds on that. The paladin of our former group has become the Queen. For now...

Grand Lodge

When we ran through Crimson Throne, we ended up instituting a ruling council after toppling Illeosa. There was no clear successor, we had massive rep with all power groups (except the church of Asmoedus, but screw those guys) and one of the party members was a (minor) noble. We ended up sticking our party member on the throne, but also convening a sort of privy council including Cressida, a representative from the Shoanti, and a variety of other people (maybe Vencarlo...I forget. Definitely not the Arkonas, they were a bit dead), with the queen having the deciding vote on things, but power resting with the council as a whole.


I.Malachi wrote:
I think it actually states that no ruler has inherited the throne from his father, but the rest is essentially correct.... which is why my follow-up campaign builds on that. The paladin of our former group has become the Queen. For now...

In fact the curse is that no monarch of Korvosa has died of old age and that none of them produced an heir while ruling (Edge of Anarchy p. 6). Eodred II did actually inherit the throne form his mother, but she gave birth to him before becoming Queen Domina.


My approach to running CotCT has been...atypical in the extreme. But without boring you all with excessive detail, the current leader of Korvosa is Queen Daenazha Arabasti I, daughter of Venster Arabasti by an unknown mother.

For those curious...

The Messy Details:

Korvosa entered my homebrew campaign setting because I was running Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale and parts of RotR. I made Korvosa the capital of one of my homebrew nations so that I could easily reference the backstory provided in the adventure. When one of my PCs suggested as part of his character background that he had been part of another adventuring party, I decided to go one further and establish that said group was running through the CotCT AP and would occassionally share stories about their adventures. The big-picture details like Eodred's death, the plague, Ileosa killing Endrin and disbanding the Sable Company, etc. were known to the PCs as "other stuff in the campaign world that doesn't involve us".

Then, when they were about 10th level, during downtime, the PC decided to catch up with his friends via a sending spell, found out they were about to storm Castle Korvosa, and then promptly offered to help, serving as a distraction.

So my PCs teleport to the steps of Castle Korvosa, put a spear through Sabine's brainpain before she can get a word out, send the dragon packing, wipe out the Erinyes, and to my shock and awe, smack the cornugon down and proceed into the castle to aide the NPCs in their final battle against Ileosa's simulacrum, which I more or less glossed over as if it were a cutscene, since these NPCs didn't actually have stats. They shook hands with the NPCs, who thanked them for being such a great distraction, and then went back home and never gave Korvosa another thought.

Three years IRL and two campaigns later, I decided that in my current game I would tie up loose ends in Korvosa and run parts of the CotCT that I had never mentioned. I established that Korvosa had suffered a five year Interregnum, with the Seneschal barring anyone from seizing the throne, and the Korvosan Guard and Hellknights struggling to keep order. Rolth had escaped to another city where the PCs encountered him (repurposing events from Edge of Anarchy, and then homebrewing a second encounter). Capturing him alive, they dragged him back to Korvosa for judgement, and found that the real reason Rolth was expelled from the Academae was that he had killed one of Toff Ornelos' favored apprentices, which put the PCs on his radar, (thus laying the groundwork for running Academae of Secrets later).

The PCs also got the attention of the Seneschal who asked them to try and assist him in ending the interregnum by recovering an artifact called the Scepter of Succession from a dungeon complex beneath Korvosa. (running Monte Cook's "Vault of the Iron Overlord" adventure). While attempting to do so, they lost a party member and gave up the quest. When on a later date, we had a game cancellation due to missing players, I ran a one-shot where a group of "evil" PCs working for the Church of Asmodeus finished the job. One of the four bastards emerged triumphant from the dungeon over the corpses of his allies and handed off the scepter, which identified two blood heirs to the throne.

The first was The Black Duke, a known vampire overlord of a neighboring nation who happened to be related to the Porphyria family. (Stats from MMV, and replaces the Conte Tiriac as Ramoska Arkminos' patron)

The second was Daenazha, a tiefling woman working as a guard at the Academae. Hoping to hedge his bets, Lorthact long ago plotted to have Venster Arabasti secretly sire a child, who he hid close at hand in case he should ever have cause to put a puppet on the throne.

When the normal PCs had reason to believe that the Church of Asmodeus was involved in some underhanded plots, they returned to Korvosa to investigate, and were invited by Toff Ornelos to the ball in which both candidates would be politicking for support. Seeing a good opportunity to gather information or confront the leaders of the church, the party agreed to attend, as neutral guests. Ornelos was firmly behind Daenazha, and the Black Duke was being given a cool reception due to a monster who is nonetheless a legitimate ruler of a neighboring nation. During the ball, the PCs discovered that, surprisingly, the Asmodeans were not involved in the plot they were untangling, but before they could leave, a creature attacked and killed one of the Black Duke's retinue, and then fled into the basement levels of the castle.

The guests were herded together under guard for their safety, and the PCs elected to investigate the matter themselves. Pursuing the creature, they ran into Ramoska Arkminos, who had slipped away from the party and opened up the sealed doorway into the Runelord of Lust's vault, inadvertantly unleashing the monster. Ramoska revealed that his true purpose was to investigate the vampires believed to inhabit Sorshen's tomb in the hopes that they might be close enough to the progenitors of vampirsm to hold the secrets of a cure. The PCs were moved by his plight, and they worked together to hunt down the undead-eating monsters in the catacombs below (rot reavers from Monster Manual 3, and a Ghorazagh from Bestiary 3). Satisfied that they had cleared the area of dangerous creatures and running into another sealed door, the PCs convinced Ramoska to return to the surface and make their report to the authorities.

It became abundantly clear after this adventure that the majority of the PCs had no real interest in pursuing the Sorshen/Cure for Vampirism plotline any further and that they wanted to just leave Korvosa to sort itself out.

Officially, then, the PCs washed their hands of the matter, leaving the way open for the Black Duke and the Church of Asmodeus to launch their own expedition, which succeeded in killing Sorshen in her eternal sleep, and resulted in the death of Ramoska Arkminos and the domination of Sorshen's vampire minions by the Black Duke, who subsequently renounced his claim on Korvosa's throne, and returned with them to his own realm, all the more powerful.

Without a competitor, Daenazha is scheduled to be made Queen, although she insists that the Crimson Throne be destroyed and a new one be commissioned in hopes of avoiding the Curse.

Despite my hopes of running Academae of Secrets, my PCs seem pretty much fed up with Korvosa, and are unlikely to return.


In our game I became Queen. My character Annata, a priestess of Sarenrae, got a Deck of Many Things pull in Crown of Fangs that gave her noble blood ("The Empty Throne"), so she managed to get the gig. And she married Vencarlo. Our session summaries!


so, Ill throw in an arguement FOR Sabine.

First, the Crimson throne still has a curse, as far as anyone else knows, unless the PCs are really astute, actually destroy said artifact and or know it has anything to do with anything that has been going on. So that leads to the fact who REALLY WANTS the job.

Second, no ruler of Korvosa has come to the throne by clearly legitimate means anyway. So the powers that be and the populous at large might just accept it.

Third, Sabine is Illeosa's lover/thrall and so there for, in the same way Illeosa became queen (through her relationship to the king) so would Sabine have a tenuous claim to the seat.

Additionally, Sabine does have (depending on how the campaign fleshed out) a considerable military might still at her command , in the gray maidens who were loyal to her instead of the queen as well as the would be gray maidens who didn't succumb to brain washing and were imprisoned, yet "taken care of" by sabine. So with the Sable company disbanded and most of the city guard decimated, Sabine's Gray Maidens put her in a decent position for a military coup, which puts in my final point:

Who except the PC's are really in a position to stop her? The Nobles in Old Korvosa are more likely to see her as a personality easily controlled and swayed than a person they could force out of the seat.

Lastly, with Sabine at the throne, that would make logical sense for the existence of Gray Maidens in Shattered Star.... tad a!

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