The Golarion Gazette

Audiences at the Grand Dance Hall of Kortos erupted in applause yesterday following the first showing of “Tarrasque Tank”, a theater production in which entrepreneurs across Golarion pitch their products to the “Tarrasques”, a group of five powerful investors. Audiences were shocked when the “Tarrasques” turned out to be no mere mortals, but actually gods! We were able to acquire a transcript of the first production, and it is reprinted below.

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(Narjati, the entrepreneur, enters the room. Sitting in front of them are the five deities: Abadar, Cayden Cailean, Gorum, Pharasma, and Lamashtu.)

Narjati: I’m Narjati Talamina, of Xin-Shalast, New Thassilon. If you’ve ever been in a tough fight, you know the feeling. You’re toe-to-toe with a big monster, maybe a troll or a bearded devil, and you’ve taken a few big hits. You need some healing and fast. You don’t want to be fumbling around on your belt getting that healing potion when every second counts. It’s a good thing you went into battle with your trusty Potion Helmet.

(Narjati shows off a helmet with several large potion vials strapped to its back. Each potion vial has a different brightly colored liquid in it, and each potion bottle has a rubber tube coming out of it. The rubber tubes all lead into an enclosure on top of the helmet with a selector dial. Coming out of the enclosure is a single rubber tube that extends out toward the front of the helmet.)

Narjati: The Potion Helmet is so easy to use even a first le-

Pharasma: You can’t say the L-word on this show.

Narjati: – even a new adventurer could use it. I’ll have my lovely daughter, Sarabeth, demonstrate.

(Sarabeth puts the helmet on Narjati’s head. Narjati puts the exposed tube in her mouth, and Sarabeth takes out a sword and swings it at Narjati’s leg, leaving a visible gash. Narjati sucks on the tube and the gash closes up. Narjati takes off the helmet.)

Narjati: I’m looking for 5,000 gold pieces for 10 percent of the company. Who’s in?

Cayden Cailean: Tell me your story. How did you come up with this idea?

Narjati: It all started with my husband, Balmeros. He was on an adventure trying to stop the evil Runelords, but he got killed by a storm giant.

Sarabeth: That’s right, Mom. That’s why I want to grow up to be an adventurer, so that I can avenge Dad.

Narjati: The rest of the party saw what happened, but was able to escape. They said that when my husband got cornered by the giant, he cast his most powerful spell at it, but it didn’t stop it. Then he desperately tried to drink a healing potion to buy more time, but just as he grabbed the potion, the giant hit him with a club one last time and dropped him. I don’t want that to happen to my daughter.

Abadar: I’ve seen this before. Lots of people show me their kids for cheap cuteness points. Show me the numbers. How is this going to make me money?

Narjati: We’ve got our landed cost down to 8 gold pieces. With the markups, we’re planning on 40 gold pieces retail. We’ve had three thousand gold pieces worth of sales last year, five thousand so far this year.

Cayden Cailean: I don’t want numbers, I want stories. How are you going to market this? What will you tell people to get them to buy it?

Narjati: We’ve hired Brambar the Bumbling Bard to write a song about us, and he’s here to sing it.

(Brambar walks out from behind the curtain.)

Brambar:

Our world’s full of trouble, pain, and war and strife,

We have so much do to and such a short life.

As we live and breathe, our time slips away,

Each dusk brings the curtain forward one more day.
.

But to leave this cycle there is a path,

To devote your life to things that will last.

To defeat evil and promote the good,

To protect each town and neighborhood.
.

From Mendev to Osirion, adventurers roam

Making each inn and tavern their home.

Their days are full of libation and song,

Short and exciting rather than dull and long.
.

O great Potion Helmet, the savior of heroes,

The amount of wasted time goes down to zero.

From battle to bar, the liquid doth flow,

Potions you will no longer need to draw and stow.

Cayden Cailean: So you can put beer in there as well. I can tell you know your audience.

Narjati: And we’re in negotiations for a sponsorship deal with the Brevoy Barbarians. A gladiator team endorsement is going to put us on the map.

Gorum: There’s already the gloves of storing and retrieval prism. Those can already put an item in your hand without spending an action. What makes this different?

Narjati: The retrieval prism is one-use, so it’s not comparable. And our product is almost ten times cheaper than the gloves of storing, plus it’s better. With the gloves of storing, you still have to have a hand free to use it. But with the potion helmet, you’re drinking it straight from the bottle, so you don’t even have to take your hand off your weapon.

Gorum: I’m skeptical. Two of my biggest investment flops were the gnome flickmace and dark tendril shot. When the first tests came through they were just so much better than the competition. It was no contest. But the gnome flickmace data turned out to have been manipulated, and the dark tendril shot just didn’t work as well in the field as it did in the lab.

Narjati: So you’re saying you won’t invest in it because it’s too good?

Gorum: I’m saying it’s too risky and I don’t want anything to do with it until I can see real data from the field. I’m out. 

Abadar: This gadget doesn’t look pretty complicated. I bet anyone trained in crafting could look at this and reverse-engineer the crafting formula in a couple days. What stops someone else from copying this? Where’s your moat?

Narjati: We do our production in a castle, so there’s an actual moat.

Abadar: That doesn’t answer the question. How come someone couldn’t buy one of your Potion Helmets and copy it?

Narjati: We’re going to use our marketing and influence to position ourselves as the one and only genuine Potion Helmet. We’ll invest in strong quality control with a focus on reliability and consistency. For our customers, having a good Potion Helmet is the difference between life and death.

Pharasma: Life and death, huh?

Narjati: Customers will pay a premium for the real thing. Nobody is going to want to buy a knock-off.

Abadar: I think your valuation is a little high given the sales you have so far. I’ll give you 5,000 gold pieces for 20 percent.

Pharasma: I’ve got a better deal. I’ll go even bigger. I’ll go up to 7,000 gold pieces for 40 percent.

Narjati: Wait, that’s a lower valuation. That’s not a better deal.

Pharasma: I can give you more than money. Look, no matter how many healing potions you drink, there’s no guarantee you won’t end up in the resurrection temple. And when that happens, you know which god you’re going in front of to find out if your time on Golarion is up? And I’ll just say that because the cycle of life has existed throughout Golarion’s history, those who contribute to the cycle of life might also be blessed with a long existence.

Narjati: I didn’t think you were like that, Pharasma.

Pharasma: I’m just saying that the valuation isn’t the only thing you should be concerned about here. You said your daughter wants to be an adventurer? I will just warn you that that is a dangerous profession.

Abadar: I’m not going up against Pharasma on this. I’m out.

Pharasma: How about an even better deal? 8,000 gold pieces for 60 percent.

Narjati: That’s not a better deal!

Cayden Cailean: You know what? I like this. You may only know me for my work with alcoholic beverages, but that overlaps with a lot of potions and alchemical items as well. And this has been a problem the world over. I constantly get complaints about how clunky potions are to use in combat. This is a fix. This won’t just be a good product on its own, but it will raise the value of the rest of my portfolio as well. I’ll go in at your suggested valuation, but it’s been a rocky road these past few years, and I’m limited in how much money I can invest. My offer is 2,500 gold pieces for 5 percent.

Narjati: I don’t think that’s enough to scale up production. I think I’ll need the whole 5,000. I might need to take investments from more than one of you.

Lamashtu: There’s one group that’s been totally ignored in this discussion. Everyone hates them. But without them, the adventuring business wouldn’t exist. I’ll give you a hint: It starts with an M.

Narjati: Merchants? Like the merchants who sell the goods to the adventurers?

Lamashtu: That too, but that wasn’t what I was thinking of.

Narjati: Mentors? Minstrels?

Lamashtu: The monsters, of course. Adventuring couldn’t exist without monsters. Everyone hates me because I’m the god of monsters. But they don’t realize that I’m the only reason the adventurers have jobs in the first place. This is a chance for me to rehabilitate my image. Put my holy symbol on a product that every adventurer sees the value of. I’ll go in on the other 2,500 for 5 percent, under the condition that you put a big holy symbol of Lamashtu on every Potion Helmet sold.

Cayden Cailean: That sounds like a good idea. And I’ll tell you one more thing. You know who really needs a Potion Helmet? Monsters. In all those dungeons, there are all those potions and elixirs just lying on the ground, and the monsters never use them. The Potion Helmet is a solve for this. If we go in on this together, we can market this directly to both sides. And that means lots of profits.

Narjati: Cayden Cailean, Lamashtu, I’m going with you. Deal.

Pharasma: I just hope for your daughter’s sake that your product is as effective as you say it is.