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Throughout my 3-year campaign, Razmiri faithful have proven their mantle as villains. Now almost 15th level, my players have recently completed a long adventure to procure a dangerous artifact before Razmiran does and used the artifact to resurrect a (potentially evil) dead god, who revealed a rather scandalous secret about Razmir. The question is, what would Razmir's next move be?
Background
In my campaign, holy scripture and history books describe that Razmir killed an obscure, minor demigod as one of the crucial steps towards his divinity. Now 50 years later, a fragment of that god haunted one of the party members, who live in a dusty town in Andoran.
After several adventures where the party thwarted evil plans of Razmir's faithful and even stopped a Razmiri invasion of Sevenarches, the god tasked the party with uniting three pieces of a dangerous artifact (Gluttonous Tome) in order to resurrect her. Razmir became aware of this and sent armies and assassins to beat them to the punch, but the party ultimately succeeded.
When the god was resurrected in a weakened child form, she revealed information that suggests Razmir may not actually exist and that he may just be a false figurehead created by a party of adventuring conmen that have now grown old and powerful -- the real people who killed the demigod in the first place.
The god that Razmir supposedly killed is now resurrected. The party now believes they know some of Razmir's darkest secrets. The gluttonous tome used to resurrect her is now locked up in Andoran's capital. Attempts to kill the party with military force and demonize the party politically have failed. The resurrected god is now biding her time to allow her weakened avatar to gain strength before enacting her revenge. Razmir is aware of all of this.
Now, I need to figure out what exactly would he do.
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He's a 19th level wizard in Golarion. If he's actually a group of high level Evil adventurers in your world, then I guess they'd have to take matters into their own hands covertly to defend their identity. So, a bunch of demigod slayers running black ops in Andoran.
They want to destroy the artifact, then the goddess. This ensures there's no proof of their ruse. Then they have to take out the people who know: The PCs and the Andoran higher-ups. The only reason this isn't a stomp for high level Evil people with access to magic is the PCs being 15th level. They can can hide themselves from divination and force a shell game.
Razmir has to target something they can find, be it the Supreme Elect, the Goddess or the Tome. The PCs, under cover of magic, can be defending any of the three. While they might be able to kill the party in a straight up fight, it's always desirable to take out the Goddess or secure the Tome first so that you're stronger before you face them.
Razmir is forced into a coin flip, and you may as well decide what they do the same way.
Sounds like a super fun campaign. Kudos on running high level stuff, it's always a challenge.
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It seems to me like it's time for the party to go on offense.
There's some pretty interesting stuff in Occult Realms about an ancient evil in one of the forests in Razmiran.
Possibly, these evil PCs are connected to this ancient evil (dominion of the black? Old Ones? Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen?) and make their final stand in the Gibbering Wheel of Unending Cyclocity in the forest cavern?
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These are some awesome suggestions. Especially by DominusMegadeus. I'm trying to embrace the fun big stakes stuff in high level play.
In my campaign, each of Razmir's Visions has a title and runs some aspect of his nation or represents an advising council of some subject. The three most feared Visions are the Vision of War (commander-in-chief of Razmir's military), the Vision of Arcana (Razmir's head mage), and the Vision of Faith (the head of Razmir's church). These three are Razmir's closest advisers. So far, the party has only indirectly interacted with the Vision of Arcana, who fought them using dominated followers, simulacrums, or constructs as a proxy.
The party that killed the goddess consisted of six people. I haven't totally figured out all of their classes, but I decided they should have a cleric and a monk at the very least. They might have a wizard and/or maybe a psychic class like a mesmerist. The monk was the one that dealt the killing blow on the goddess. Still-living members of the party are probably around 16th-17th level by now.
One of the six currently has their soul trapped inside of a soul gem. This is actually how the party found out about Razmir's secret -- this man has Razmir's face. During the battle that resulted in the goddess's death, the goddess disintegrated one of the evil adventurers and trapped his soul into a gem. The evil party wasn't aware of the second component of this spell and assumed the goddess had utterly destroyed their companion. The PCs saw a vision of the events that led up to the goddess's death and were rather shocked to see that "Razmir" not only did not kill the goddess but also did not survive the fight. After the goddess was reborn, she took the soul gem and interrogated the contained spirit, who never heard of Razmir and seemed completely oblivious that his face serves as the symbol of an religion and nation.
At the moment, the PCs doesn't feel any pressing desire to go on the offensive. The goddess is patient and prefers to build up her avatar's power and conduct investigation of the party that killed her before making her move. While she has godly powers, she's considerably weaker than she was prior to her death. This works in Razmir's advantage as he has time to plan.
Red Mantis assassins might not be a good idea. Not only are they extremely costly, but also if they catch wind of Razmir's ruse, they could just as easily turn on him.