Hell, shadows show more restraint than the average evil PC. Even moreso than the average villain. For an evil creature with much Charisma and human intelligence, who theoretically loves to suck out the life of living creatures and spawn minions under your control, slaughtering a village of humanoids would be both effortless and silent. It would be easy. So very easy. Nothing could stand against you. Unless everyone was covered in 24/7 death ward, you can kill it, and if you can't, avoiding it is effortless.
You could wreak terror through the populace. If the mortals hole up in their sacred places you can kill their livestock, haunt their dreams, make them fearful of the outdoors and triply fearful of the night sky.
A thorpe of twenty people, then a village of three hundred, tomorrow a metropolis. All under your control to do with as you see fit. So why don't you?
Why do you stay your hand at something you are seemingly motivated - almost engineered - to do? Why indeed. That is the question. Why do the shadows let us live?
They are smart predators. Why would a shadow chance going to a metropolis where there are clerics that can turn undead, when they can simply ambush lone adventurers and explorers far away from civilization? It's like how a predator rarely attacks a large group of herd animals, instead waiting for a straggler to separate from the herd before closing in for the kill.
Then again, I run almost all types of undead as not only evil, but vicious. There are ghost towns in my setting where shadows and other horrors in the night crawled through and decimated everyone.
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It happens as frequently as the story requires it.e.g "Rule of Cool," as I mentioned in my first post. I'm trying to get a handle on what the baseline is before I change it to fit the needs of the story.
True. But you also put your question in the context of world-building. And from that perspective I'm also saying that I think you are looking for an answer to a problem of your own creation that I don't think exists -- in the context of world-building.
If the world only exists to tell the story of the stars, the PCs. There may only be 4 active shadows on the world at a given time...and they are in the Lost Halls of Darkness. There's only three wrights in the world right now, although there are stories of others that have risen and been defeated, there are only three right now and they are in the deceased Necromancer Dorian Germooth. For which the PCs will face when they are level 4.
The problem is that warding against such an attack is borderline impossible. Are you going to death-ward 24/7 all of your subjects? Hallow only applies some penalties to undead, it doesn't prevent them from entering an area. Or preventing trade. Or doing all that sort of stuff. If you are prepared to face the shadows via your high level awesomeness they just leave (incorporeality allows them to sink into the ground and fly away). There's no "warn me of shadowocalypse" spell, so you're basically relying on a bunch of diviners spending their says trying to cast Augury or similar spells as an early warning system.
The shadow in control of everything needn't even be present during the activities because he controls the shadows who controls the shadows who controls the shadows.
Explain HOW you would protect a metropolis from shadows. However, doing so is obscenely difficult, even with huge amounts of currency. The best I can think of off the top of my head is certain powerful resetting traps, but then those have limitations and so you'd have to set thousands of them all over the city, and there would be need to make each intelligent so that they would observe and then attack only the undead instead of citizens.
Plus it would put a big hitch in your system if you can't have things like farms without a 20th level wizard protecting your farmers. Can high level parties effectively immunize themselves vs shadows? Without a doubt. But immunizing the world against shadows is something I'd like to be explained to me.
They are smart predators. Why would a shadow chance going to a metropolis where there are clerics that can turn undead, when they can simply ambush lone adventurers and explorers far away from civilization? It's like how a predator rarely attacks a large group of herd animals, instead waiting for a straggler to separate from the herd before closing in for the kill.
Problem with this is that the reasons predators do that is because it's dangerously stupid to try for a single predator to take down the whole herd. Shadows on the other hand A) generally have nothing to fear from a huge percentage of the herd (if you don't cast spells or have expensive magical weaponry) and B) turn the sick and weak into more predators.
Which means, again, we live because the shadows allow us to live. Pick any place in Golarion, shadows could wreck dat ****. Sandpoint? Sandbarren. Korvosa? Korvosgone.
There's also the fact that you have big problems. If "because the gods will intercede" then you have basically reached the point where you must use Deus Ex Machina to make the world consistent, which by its nature means it is inconsistent. Because if you need 20th level wizards and god to solve common dilemmas that threaten commoners, then there's not much point to having adventurers.
If Sandpoint is armed and ready to repel some shadows, then the goblins in RotRL would have died before setting foot in the town. But the world - most worlds - simply do not work that way.
So shadows let you live, until you can explain in detail how they don't.
Between all the divine classes that would be in Sandpoint/Korvosa, as well as other ways to combat incorporeal undead (holy water), I don't think they could actually overwhelm a city's defenses as easily as you make it out to be, at least not without some large force behind them. Now obviously, a large force of shadows would be a force to be reckoned with and possibly the focus of a campaign to stamp them out. Which would be fun. But I think humanity can survive the shadowpocalypse with proper items and casters.
Of course, it's also entirely possible that despite being "intelligent", the nature of shadows simply have them languish in whatever ruins they decide to form in, waiting for prey to come to them. Which, looking at other incorporeal undead, seems to be the standard MO to stay and haunt one spot.
I first ran into this dilemma a few years ago when considering wraiths in an urban setting. It's worse because the wraith is smart enough to plan his attack so there's essentially no risk to himself.
If you're running your own world, one way to tone this down is to change spawning to the next night, not half a minute after death. That would give local authorities some time to contain the problem.
I have no answer for why shadows let us live.
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Between all the divine classes that would be in Sandpoint/Korvosa, as well as other ways to combat incorporeal undead (holy water), I don't think they could actually overwhelm a city's defenses as easily as you make it out to be, at least not without some large force behind them. Now obviously, a large force of shadows would be a force to be reckoned with and possibly the focus of a campaign to stamp them out. Which would be fun. But I think humanity can survive the shadowpocalypse with proper items and casters.
The problem is that, while there are a lot of divine classes and holy water in Sandpoint, I think the odds of them being anywhere useful within the few seconds it takes to start the shadowpocalypse are fairly small. The math is just not in humanity's favor. We're talking about normal-commoner-to-full-on-shadow in less than sixty seconds.
Do you really think that there's a divine caster within sixty seconds of every location in Sandpoint?
Between all the divine classes that would be in Sandpoint/Korvosa, as well as other ways to combat incorporeal undead (holy water), I don't think they could actually overwhelm a city's defenses as easily as you make it out to be, at least not without some large force behind them. Now obviously, a large force of shadows would be a force to be reckoned with and possibly the focus of a campaign to stamp them out. Which would be fun. But I think humanity can survive the shadowpocalypse with proper items and casters.The problem is that, while there are a lot of divine classes and holy water in Sandpoint, I think the odds of them being anywhere useful within the few seconds it takes to start the shadowpocalypse are fairly small. The math is just not in humanity's favor. We're talking about normal-commoner-to-full-on-shadow in less than sixty seconds.
Do you really think that there's a divine caster within sixty seconds of every location in Sandpoint?
Honestly, I think unless they are being led by a necromancer, I'd hazard to say that most incorporeal undead tend to stay in one singular haunting ground like ghosts. But that's just my explanation of it.
Exactly. Besides, exactly how high of level are we talking here? It takes a 7th level CLERIC to cast both Death Ward and inflict 5d6 positive energy damage on a failed save. Good luck in him getting all around town as fast as the shadows (who can "run" silently, through walls, underground, and have perfect flight). This is assuming the priest is awake and ready (shadows have great stealth scores, especially in dim light) when they make their move.
A shadow can statistically eat 5d6 on a failed save and survive it (17.5 average damage vs 19 HP, but they also have an effective +6 on their save to take 1/2 damage). So more than likely a channel energy blast isn't going to kill one.
Or is sandpoint (or any other place) equipped with 7< level clerics with rings of sustenance placed in every room of every house in the town?
Honestly, I think unless they are being led by a necromancer, I'd hazard to say that most incorporeal undead tend to stay in one singular haunting ground like ghosts. But that's just my explanation of it.Between all the divine classes that would be in Sandpoint/Korvosa, as well as other ways to combat incorporeal undead (holy water), I don't think they could actually overwhelm a city's defenses as easily as you make it out to be, at least not without some large force behind them. Now obviously, a large force of shadows would be a force to be reckoned with and possibly the focus of a campaign to stamp them out. Which would be fun. But I think humanity can survive the shadowpocalypse with proper items and casters.The problem is that, while there are a lot of divine classes and holy water in Sandpoint, I think the odds of them being anywhere useful within the few seconds it takes to start the shadowpocalypse are fairly small. The math is just not in humanity's favor. We're talking about normal-commoner-to-full-on-shadow in less than sixty seconds.
Do you really think that there's a divine caster within sixty seconds of every location in Sandpoint?
See, that seems to be what they do. But again it begs the question "why?". They aren't forced to. They have intelligence, and a very potent force of personality. So why do they let the living live? I think this is a very interesting question indeed. This very question could lead to a multitude of adventures, plot hooks, concepts, and story elements. This question alone is worth asking.
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Incorporeal creatures can't go through walls wider than 5 ft. They have to always be touching an outside surface. The shadow-apocalypse is stopped by thick doors and roofs. Though interestingly, this means that hamlets in isolated areas have thick bales of hay or some other such material padding out the outsides of their homes :)
This has been bothering me for a while. Obviously the real answer is "Rule of Cool," but from a worldbuilding perspective, executing a bandit that rapes and murders his victims is actually against your best interests, because he might become a guecubu and destroy your entire town. (snip)
It depends entirely upon both the setting and the circumstances.
It is my general sense, however, that in most fantasy worlds, undead rising spontaneously--that is, without the magic of a necromancer (term used broadly) to do it--is quite rare.
And looking at most folklore, the undead who do rise spontaneously most often do so because their corpse was defiled, they were never buried properly, or they died in an especially horrid way, with the first two being most common. Other times it happens because of pockets of necromantic energy showing up in a certain area. These things can and will happen, but you're not going to exactly trip over such creatures right and left.
I would agree, however, with the OP that the specific origins of the guecubu is somewhat problematic, because it basically defies the usual folklore, and demands specifically that the guecubu is the soul of an executed criminal, whom you would assume would be interred and laid to rest properly. The description even covers the cremation of the body not being enough to keep it from rising. However, I would still get the sense from the statblock, most specifically in that its broken ground ability does not work on concecrated ground, and that the remains are described as being disposed of "in the wilderness," that a guecubu would most likely rise if the remains are not buried or scattered in a properly prepared gravesite. And therefore, as long as you properly inter your executed criminals, their rising is going to be a rare occurrence at best. If any thing, the legend of the guecubu is a warning to treat all of the dead with respect, even if in life they lived as horrible people.
I'd also note simply that the guecubu is also supposed to be "particularly evil" and enormously strong willed -- it's not that every executed criminal is going to rise as one, but the most very terriblest. Your average bandit isn't going to become a guecubu; the horrible serial rapist-murderer might, and then still only under the right circumstances (remains being disposed of outside a proper graveyard, has strong enough will to avoid being pulled into an afterlife).
And also, that just because a certain kind of undead is created by certain circumstances, doesn't mean those circumstances ALWAYS result in an undead creature (perhaps with the exception of some undead spawned by another undead creature's ability). Not every single executed criminal becomes a guecubu. Not every single suicide victim becomes an allip. It's just that on the rare occasion that those creatures appear, the knowledgeable adventurer might realize the circumstances that influenced the creation of that creature, and thus can use that knowledge in dealing with it (if you know Bob the Executioner hacked the head off of Sam the Guecubu, and you tell Sam the Guecubu Bob is dead, that might buy you some time in working on exorcising Sam).
So, in short, "not often" and "in rare circumstances when it is appropriate."
-- sorry that answer is vague but it's about as good as I can give.
Incorporeal creatures can't go through walls wider than 5 ft. They have to always be touching an outside surface. The shadow-apocalypse is stopped by thick doors and roofs. Though interestingly, this means that hamlets in isolated areas have thick bales of hay or some other such material padding out the outsides of their homes :)
Citation?
I would agree, however, with the OP that the specific origins of the guecubu is somewhat problematic, because it basically defies the usual folklore, and demands specifically that the guecubu is the soul of an executed criminal, whom you would assume would be interred and laid to rest properly. The description even covers the cremation of the body not being enough to keep it from rising. However, I would still get the sense from the statblock, most specifically in that its broken ground ability does not work on concecrated ground, and that the remains are described as being disposed of "in the wilderness," that a guecubu would most likely rise if the remains are not buried or scattered in a properly prepared gravesite. And therefore, as long as you properly inter your executed criminals, their rising is going to be a rare occurrence at best. If any thing, the legend of the guecubu is a warning to treat all of the dead with respect, even if in life they lived as horrible people.
Minor quibble. As far as I can tell, the origin of the guecubu, as cited in the bestiary was manufactured out of whole cloth by some RPG publisher or another. While there is indeed a Mesoamerican monster called a guecubu, it's simply a demon of earth and has little to do with the restless dead. (As far as I can tell, a guecubu is not a warning to treat the dead with respect, as much as an explanation for why your crops failed.)
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Incorporeal creatures can't go through walls wider than 5 ft. They have to always be touching an outside surface. The shadow-apocalypse is stopped by thick doors and roofs. Though interestingly, this means that hamlets in isolated areas have thick bales of hay or some other such material padding out the outsides of their homes :)Citation?
An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object's exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own.
Minor quibble. As far as I can tell, the origin of the guecubu, as cited in the bestiary was manufactured out of whole cloth by some RPG publisher or another. While there is indeed a Mesoamerican monster called a guecubu, it's simply a demon of earth and has little to do with the restless dead. (As far as I can tell, a guecubu is not a warning to treat the dead with respect, as much as an explanation for why your crops failed.)
I would agree, however, with the OP that the specific origins of the guecubu is somewhat problematic, because it basically defies the usual folklore, and demands specifically that the guecubu is the soul of an executed criminal, whom you would assume would be interred and laid to rest properly. The description even covers the cremation of the body not being enough to keep it from rising. However, I would still get the sense from the statblock, most specifically in that its broken ground ability does not work on concecrated ground, and that the remains are described as being disposed of "in the wilderness," that a guecubu would most likely rise if the remains are not buried or scattered in a properly prepared gravesite. And therefore, as long as you properly inter your executed criminals, their rising is going to be a rare occurrence at best. If any thing, the legend of the guecubu is a warning to treat all of the dead with respect, even if in life they lived as horrible people.
Right, I was talking specifically about the Pathfinder monster, and how often it might actually pop up in a universe governed by Pathfinder-esque "rules." I did reference folklore first, so I apologize for not clarifying that leap.
A shadow will need about three hits to bring down someone of average strenght. Plenty of time for the guy to start running away while screaming: "Shadows! Everybody run to the church!"
The problem here is that shadows are intelligent. They won't just randomly mug people out in the open in broad daylight. They murder people in their sleep. And let's say they start with the casters.
Now what?
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A shadow will need about three hits to bring down someone of average strenght. Plenty of time for the guy to start running away while screaming: "Shadows! Everybody run to the church!" The shadow may manage to kill a few persons, but during that time everyone near them has ran away to alert the town wizard/cleric/guard force.
Er,... three hits. That's 18 seconds. The victim rises again as a shadow in 24 seconds, maximum. 42 seconds from the start of the surprise round until there are two shadows.
In a few minutes, most of the people are either in the local church or hidden in basements under 5 foots of terrain.
Do you realize how long "a few minutes" is in this context? That's long enough for the initial shadow to multiply itself eight times.
The militia and spellcasters meet at the church, as has probably been agreeded upon in cases of undead attacks. If the shadow(s) decide to attack the church, in one round of combat they'll face 11d6 of Channel Energy, 11d4+11 of Magic Missiles, a few dozens of crossbow bolts dealing from one of three points of damage if they hit, and a comparable amount of vials of holy water dealing one point of splash damage each, potentially to multiple shadows. The initial shadow will have to raise quite a formidable amount of minions to overcome those odds.
Hmm. First night -- the first three minutes of the first night -- one shadow becomes 8. Second night, 8 shadows become 64. Third night, 64 shadows become, er <does math quickly>... 512, half the population of the town.
We'll assume a small town that has a population of 1240 people (the population of Sandpoint!). This means that spellcasting of 3rd level can be obtained, so at least one 5th level wizard and cleric can be found. (For this thought exercise, let's assume that there are also two 3rd level clerics and wizards/sorcerers each and four 1st clerics and wizards/sorcerers. Not an unreasonable amount by any measure.) It will also have 12 regular military personnel and 62 militiamen. The regulars will probably each have an oil of Magic Weapon each, and a single casting of Greater Magic Weapon from the wizard will be enough to enchant fifty pieces of ammunition, enough for a majority of the militiamen.
Seems a remarkably well-trained and well-equipped small town militia. You're assuming that the town spell-casters are all carrying a full-on combat spell load at all time, ready at an instant's notice. But I'll let that slide.
More importantly,.... what does everyone do once they're at church? Is the entire town shutting down indefinitely? Who's going to feed the horses, milk the cows, water the crops, mend the fences, weed the gardens, and do all the other tasks necessary to preserve life in this small town?
Bear in mind that these are shadows.... they can be literally anywhere, and they have scary-high stealth scores. Granting your carefully thought-out plan,... it will literally kill everyone. You've surrendered tactical initiative to the shadows. How many of the people hiding in the church are going to be able to beat the shadow's +12 Stealth check?
The shadows don't need to "overcome" the 11d6 of Channel Energy damage if they can simply sneak fly in through one of the stained glass windows without being noticed. Simply waiting for a minute will be enough to overcome the oils of Magic Weapon (check the spell duration), and a pack of four shadows will easily be enough to silently ambush and kill any normal villager to bolster their numbers.
Also, bear in mind that shadows are intelligent. This whole plan starts by assuming that the shadow's first victim survives the first few attacks and is able to run and warn people. How about picking on a drunk staggering around looking for a ditch to fall into? How about a vagrant sleeping in a churchyard, or an old and weak lady walking home after evening Mass? I could sneak into someone's house and kill everyone while they're asleep and helpless. Mister Tape, the tailor, was probably dead before he wakened; Master Tape, his son, wasn't even old enough or strong enough to survive one hit, but still makes a fine minion. I can go from house to house gathering up the entire Happy Families deck before anyone even knows what's happening.
A shadow will need about three hits to bring down someone of average strenght. Plenty of time for the guy to start running away while screaming: "Shadows! Everybody run to the church!"The problem here is that shadows are intelligent. They won't just randmly mug people out in the open in broad daylight. They murder people in their sleep. And let's say they start with the casters.
I'm not sure they're smart enough to spot the casters right off. But I don't think they need to. One they've rolled enough drunks to make a small gang -- "When you're a Fiend, you're a Fiend all the way, 'till the Fires of Hell, from your first dying day..." -- they don't need to worry about people giving the alarm, though. Surprise round, five attacks on a flatfooted commoner, four hits for 4d6 strength damage, and we've now got SIX gang members.....
I'm not sure they're smart enough to spot the casters right off. But I don't think they need to. One they've rolled enough drunks to make a small gang -- "When you're a Fiend, you're a Fiend all the way, 'till the Fires of Hell, from your first dying day..." -- they don't need to worry about people giving the alarm, though. Surprise round, five attacks on a flatfooted commoner, four hits for 4d6 strength damage, and we've now got SIX gang members.....A shadow will need about three hits to bring down someone of average strenght. Plenty of time for the guy to start running away while screaming: "Shadows! Everybody run to the church!"The problem here is that shadows are intelligent. They won't just randmly mug people out in the open in broad daylight. They murder people in their sleep. And let's say they start with the casters.
Agreed that they don't need to, but about not seeing the casters- The clerics would be in or near the local temple or church, logically enough. The arcane casters take some more work, but it's reasonable to assume that the strongest spellcasters live in the nicest non-manor residences and invade the bigger houses first. A bit sketchy for the arcane casters, but it'd be easy enough for shadows to target clerics.
Lots of stuff...
Maybe. But remember that the more shadows are around, the more likely is that one of them rolls poorly with their stealth check. And the more people are around, the more likely is that one of them rolls highly on their Perception check. My uneducated guess would be that around about new shade #6 somebody would notice and the town would be alerted. Besides, a commoner can actually survive about thirteen rounds against a shadow:
Rounds 1 and 2: Get out of the house;
Next 10 rounds: Run like hell;
Round 13: Be too tired to continue running and die.
Commoner's speed: 30 feet.
Shadow's speed: 40 feet fly (good).Nope, commoner's dead. Shadows are faster.
True. Of course you could factor in the shadow being more likely to win initiative, terrain and obstacles and the shadow's ability to pass through them, and the like, but that's going a bit too far. Point conceded.
But shadows wouldn't WANT to make new spawn. Their new spawn are directly competing with them for the metaphysical sustenance/thrill of the kill that makes their existence bearable.
I think Libris Mortis even said that an undead could abort their create spawn ability with a DC 15 Wisdom check.
The reason zombie apocalypses work is because zombies aren't intelligent enough to realize that each human they bite is an eventual competitor. If zombies were intelligent, they'd never attack unless they were absolutely certain to at least dismember their victim.
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When you extrapolate the far-reaching implications of monster ecology to the point where your conclusion is that the fictional world cannot possibly exist even as a fiction, you have gone too far.
Then again, maybe there is an alternate universe populated by shadows in which living creatures convert shadows into living creatures, and that is how the balance is kept.
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In any world I run, properly blessed corpses cannot spontaneously become undead. Corpses blessed and buried in a consecrated graveyard cannot be transformed into undead.
Intelligent undead are in fact easier to explain in the world than mindless ones, because their actions cannot be predicted as if they were robots. They can make decisions that are just as self-destructive and inexplicable as those by people, or even more so.
Also, many undead prefer to attack lone individuals in remote areas at night. Since most humanoids are social, diurnal, and sedentary, that naturally limits the chances of encounters.
Ashiel, what if the shadows farm humans?
Shadows know they could kill them all, but then there would only be shadows, and that sucks. Instead, they hang out in ruins where rumours of gold and treasure are, so they can take the choicest bits
See, this is why it begs the question. The enemy is not the question. The enemy is never asking the question. Ask the question and you seek an answer. Adventures, stories, and more are created by answering that question. Far more than...
"Shadows kill stuff, except when they don't". <- Not the best plot device.
But a true statement.
In any world I run, properly blessed corpses cannot spontaneously become undead. Corpses blessed and buried in a consecrated graveyard cannot be transformed into undead.I like this, but for my purposes, I think I'd make it that they cannot spontaneously rise as undead. Being animated by magical efforts is a whole different kettle of fish.
Assuming "properly blessed" refers not to simple ritual, but the casting of a divine spell (need not be explicitly defined for our purposes), I'd require anyone attempting to animate such a corpse to use a counter-spell of some form (just as desecrate nullifies consecrate).
If it's a non-magical ritual (though, perhaps, involving holy water), and the consecrated earth is the primary factor involved in keeping the dead from rising, I'd simply require they be removed from the consecrated soil, and perhaps "symbolically" desecrated. Or, interred in desecrated earth as part of the animate dead spell.
I have a series of about 20 rituals that Clerics and other divine casters can perform (based upon level). Most have no or little actual game mechanics, Marriage, Holy Vows, etc. Others have some game mechanics like the ones for Burials, or Consecrating Churches and Cemeteries, or Excommunication. Others have direct effects, such as Exorcism, or Break Curse. But all take an hour to perform, along with proper vestments.
It happens. Followers of the Whispering Way have known to either simply not die from a death stroke or to be immediately returned as undead. There is no percentage chance or anything that I know of codifies this in the rules so it really is relegated to the rule of cool, as you put it. But, it happens and often enough to make undead a common menace everywhere and one to be feared once encountered. If an uprising happens you need to lock that stuff down or else it gets worse and spreads. What was simply a few skeletons is now unhallowed ground, morghs, and the like.
We could also theorize Shadows have some kind of weakness we do not know of... Maybe they are afraid of mobs. Maybe the life force of so many living creatures in a relatively small location is enough to scare them off.
Who knows? Probably a Necromancer or two, but they usually get killed by PCs before they can debate how incorporeal undead society works... ^^
But remember that the more shadows are around, the more likely is that one of them rolls poorly with their stealth check.
It's called "taking 10" Ed.
When you extrapolate the far-reaching implications of monster ecology to the point where your conclusion is that the fictional world cannot possibly exist even as a fiction, you have gone too far.
Then again, maybe there is an alternate universe populated by shadows in which living creatures convert shadows into living creatures, and that is how the balance is kept.
Perhaps it's that I ascribe to a sort of Gygaxian ecology thing. To me, the implications of what what a world has in it alters the state of the world. Things need to be consistent. Let's look at Drachasor's commentary about the anti-shadow-ocalypse that is preventing shadows from slaughtering all living creatures everywhere.
In his world, all walls an ceilings must be 5 ft. thick, where clerics roam wild all over the place, where people apparently don't sleep often, everyone has magical weaponry at the ready, etc. He describes divination spells as though there are tons upon tons of 9th+ level diviners sitting around divining which day and where a seemingly random shadowocalypse is going to occur (and probably being unable to cast spells for weeks at a time with no answer being a likely occurance).
This does not sound like any world I've ever seen in D&D. Honestly the 5 ft. thick walls thing seems very strange indeed. That must be brutal in building towns and the like. But it is important because the world that Drachasor describes at least attempts to deal with the implications of its inhabitants.
I enjoy conversations like these because it makes you step back and realize how much the D&D world is not our own. It makes you think of things that would exist in their world. All of those things make impressions upon people about the majesty and fantastic things that are influencing life in the world.
These are questions worth asking and questions worth answering. Not worth seeking an answer from on high but for working out a solution, an idea, for oneself.
And we can think of that answer...
...while those shadows let us. :P
I heavily recommend the reading of the companion and campaign settings books as they really help put into perspective all the possibilities the rules texts provide. Golarion is a very organic world. Every creature is very unique. Not all demons have their eye set upon Golarion. There are COUNTLESS worlds out there that they're also working on. Even the vast resources of the abyss aren't enough to instantly squash all life on all worlds. Then you have the other planes with beings just as powerful fighting back with often times the same mojo. This keeps things in a fuzzy state of equilibrium. Then there are the race of outsiders whose entire job is to maintain that balance. Good gets too much? F$!& you. Evil gets too much? F#@! them as well.
It's a very organic place. Not all powerful beings have an all consuming desire and are all-knowing power houses that try to collect all 9th level spells. It takes YEARS to amass an even small collection of that kind of magic and that's still just "mortal" magic even when talking about outsiders. Then we have the gods which also help keep everything in check. There are reasons. We just have to really step back and consider all the wrinkles to see the pattern.
You mentioned contact other plane. Except it doesn't work like that. You get to ask 1 question / 2 caster levels, and there's a good chance it fails. And there's a pretty solid chance it fails and you lose the ability to cast spells for about five weeks or so. And if you're talking about seeing the future, good luck. It's likely the deities themselves don't even know the answers to that themselves (especially since predetermined destiny foils any idea of "free will"). So if you're asking about the future, expect a lot of those one-line answers to be "maybe", "maybe", "maybe", "mabye" and a little bit of "maybe".
"Will a bunch of shadows attack our kingdom?" - "Maybe".
"If they do, will they attack it within the next three months?" - "Maybe."
"Well are their any shadows IN our kingdom?" - "Yes."
"Can they be found on this location on this map?" - "Maybe."
"Do you know you're not very good at telling me things that haven't happened?" - "Irrelevant."
*please insert .10 cents to continue this call, thank you for using Contact Other Plane as your service provider to deities across the multiverse.*
Why though? Because at any given time someone can just make a new choice. Maybe the shadow decides on a different day, maybe he is interrupted and the attack doesn't go through, maybe he is interrupted and decides to proceed earlier than planned. Maybe he gets a shadow girlfriend and they feast on some adventurers one moonlit evening before spawning about five babies in a minute.
People clearly use divination to acquire a lot of information, but divining the future is a tricky and difficult thing. The best spell for doing so is humorously augury and that's limited to a half hour in advance and subject to failure most of the time.
If it were really so easy, then people would just ask when they are going to die or when a certain person is going to die, etc. The entirety of the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path would be easily unraveled before it ever happened if contact other plane was so incredibly effective (your simulacrum would be able to say "will any kings of Korvosa die this year?", "Will it be murder?", "Will it occur between X and Y time on the calender?", and bam, nothing ever happens that could shake things up).
If we're talking Golarion here it's in the Age of Ill Omen which means divination is fickle at best. If gods were so all knowing Aroden would still be alive. James Jacobs has verified he is most certainly dead dead dead and not just fake dead or he'll be back some day dead.
So what you're saying is...
Instead of letting your imagination explore reasons why shadows aren't killing everyone, your answer is to fill the world with house-ruled spells and high level casters who A) apparently existed before shadows (?) and B) have little better to do than sit around trying to use divination to guess how, why, or when, these low CR enemies are going to destroy them all without godly intervention.
Because gods are so good at wiping out things that irritate them. Like undead. And so good at seeing the future...except they can't (because time does not work that way in any world where free will exists, because if events are predetermined then choices are predetermined and thus free will does not exist; and if free will does not exist then alignment does not exist; if alignment does not exist the gods that reside on the planes of aligned origin do not exist). The real secret to why that one goddess didn't reveal that Aroden was going to kick the bucket is because she's a fraud.
EDIT: Buri the Ninja strikes with honor! :P