I'm trying to focus my campaign around an impending revolution, but I'm having difficulty in figuring out just what to do to bring it about. First, a little background:
The king has been poisoned by an advisor with a poison that saps the will and makes the victim a puppet. The advisor, in addition to being incontrovertably evil and just plain nasty (he's a half-fiend), is trying to create a situation where he can gather thousands of slaves as living sacrifices in order to break the Planar Seal, which prevents travel to and from the Astral plane (known as the Void). One of the things he has done is raise taxes to exorbitant levels, where many cannot pay the taxes and are sent to the mines. That brings up another point.
The country recently came to war with a neighbor as they expanded their territories onto a nearby island flush with natural resources. The war provides a convenient reason to send debtors to the mines, where the advisor's yuan-ti allies whisk the prisoners away through secret tunnels to a hidden temple that's being constructed in the jungles to the south.
Anyway... the local populace is getting fed up. A covert organization, known as the League of Freedom, has begun to show itself, recruiting people to oppose the king and demand fair treatment. They began by creating a petition to bring before the king, but this has been mired in political legalise and is doomed to failure. Still, for reasons to lengthy to list here, the League is determined to foment the ill-will of the citizens and bring about an open uprising... which brings me to my problem. What does open revolution entail? What sorts of actions can the League undertake to begin the revolution, and when it happens, what will it look like?
Please, I need any and all advice here. The Prince is firmly allied with the League, and he is popular with the commoners, so that is one resource they have at their disposal, but other than that I feel pretty clueless. Will the people just one day spontaneously form a mob and march on the palace? What can the League do to enhance the success, or trigger the spark, of the revolution? Also, what sort of actions by the king/advisor may unwittingly accelerate a revolution? The advisor is really focused on garnering sacrifices, and he couldn't care one whit about the well-being of the populace.
I eagerly await your advice.
The king has been poisoned by an advisor with a poison that saps the will and makes the victim a puppet. The advisor, in addition to being incontrovertably evil and just plain nasty (he's a half-fiend), is trying to create a situation where he can gather thousands of slaves as living sacrifices in order to break the Planar Seal, which prevents travel to and from the Astral plane (known as the Void). One of the things he has done is raise taxes to exorbitant levels, where many cannot pay the taxes and are sent to the mines. That brings up another point.
The country recently came to war with a neighbor as they expanded their territories onto a nearby island flush with natural resources. The war provides a convenient reason to send debtors to the mines, where the advisor's yuan-ti allies whisk the prisoners away through secret tunnels to a hidden temple that's being constructed in the jungles to the south.
Anyway... the local populace is getting fed up. A covert organization, known as the League of Freedom, has begun to show itself, recruiting people to oppose the king and demand fair treatment. They began by creating a petition to bring before the king, but this has been mired in political legalise and is doomed to failure. Still, for reasons to lengthy to list here, the League is determined to foment the ill-will of the citizens and bring about an open uprising... which brings me to my problem. What does open revolution entail? What sorts of actions can the League undertake to begin the revolution, and when it happens, what will it look like?
Please, I need any and all advice here. The Prince is firmly allied with the League, and he is popular with the commoners, so that is one resource they have at their disposal, but other than that I feel pretty clueless. Will the people just one day spontaneously form a mob and march on the palace? What can the League do to enhance the success, or trigger the spark, of the revolution? Also, what sort of actions by the king/advisor may unwittingly accelerate a revolution? The advisor is really focused on garnering sacrifices, and he couldn't care one whit about the well-being of the populace.
I eagerly await your advice.