Interrupting a Funeral

[Infiniti2000]

I was thinking of having a state funeral occur in my campaign (D&D). It'll be for a foreign dignitary, possibly of a special race (elf, dwarf, not sure yet). I want it in town and perhaps have the funeral traverse through some of the streets. That might be somewhat interesting to my players, but I want it to be exciting. So, it needs to get interrupted somehow.

To really stir things up and have some excellent plot development, how can I get my players to interrupt it? Of course they won't do it on purpose, so that leaves only two ways: accidental and blamed for it by someone else's doing. I'd much rather it be accidental, particularly if they weren't aware of the funeral in the first place (e.g. coming around a corner, bursting out of a pub, etc.). But, being blamed for it (e.g. chasing a bad guy, fighting near the procession, etc.) is probably easier.

Can you think of ideas to help? I'm not interesting in setting-specific or rules specific answers. I can flesh all that out. Also, any really important event would work, so if you think of idea that would apply to a wedding or some other party (e.g. birthday or holiday), that's cool, too.

 

[weem]

The first thing I think of is them blasting through an intersection on a carriage (they either stole, or are escaping from someone in) and t-boning the carriage/cart that is carrying the casket!

Big accident, maybe some falling damage - debris everywhere (corpse falls out of casket maybe? maybe not the right corpse?? Hmmm...) - pursuers, trail off and disappear, etc.

 

[Mistah J]

A case of mistaken identity?

The PCs need to stop a certain carriage for whatever reason. They search the city streets, time is running out when suddenly they see it.

..only it's the wrong one, and they end up interrupting the important funeral, wedding, or whatever.

For further plot development, maybe whoever asked them to stop the original carriage had this in mind.

 

[Gilladian]

I can think of a couple ways they might deliberately want to interrupt the funeral - they think the person being buried, burned or otherwise laid to rest, has something on or with their body that the PCs need, or that should NOT be buried/destroyed with the dead. Perhaps powerful magic will be loosed with the item's destruction/removal.

Or possibly they believe the person being buried is not really dead, and they want to prevent a horrible act. Or they believe the person being buried is not the correct person. A body switch has been done, and the real person is not dead/being raised somewhere/a prisoner/a powerhungry maniac intent on becoming a lich.

Any of these motives might lead to the party to feel they have no choice but to disrupt the funeral, seize or destroy the body, or otherwise raise a fuss.

 

[Webby140]

COFFIN HEIST!

The PCs are hired to steal the coffin from under the noses of the officials - because it doesn't contain a diplomat's (or whatever) body -- it contains gold!
Gives them loads of brain juice to plan it, use a clever system to get round the security and have a right good laugh fulfilling the plan! ... Either that or I've been watching too much Firefly.

Either way, I'm still stealing the idea for my campaign

 

[Mexal]

Feeling lucky to have got a good vantage point from which to watch the festivities, the PCs fail to notice the poor state of repair of the rooftop balustrade on which they are leaning... until it crumbles, dropping several sizable chunks onto the procession below.

This is assumed by the city authorities to be a deliberate act of protest/terrorism and the PCs are shortly fleeing with a sizeable price on their heads....

 

[Infiniti2000]

Okay, so this will be the very first encounter of the new campaign. Attached is my current description. I plan to also have a hostage (currently called a human, but that will be defined on the fly once I know more about the PCs). I don't need stats for the hostage as I will use the story method to identify how she's doing.

This encounter lacks something, though, I'm not sure what. Any additional help to give it some oomf?

 

[weem]

Okay, so this will be the very first encounter of the new campaign. Attached is my current description. I plan to also have a hostage (currently called a human, but that will be defined on the fly once I know more about the PCs). I don't need stats for the hostage as I will use the story method to identify how she's doing.

This encounter lacks something, though, I'm not sure what. Any additional help to give it some oomf?

I see (in the document) stats for some elves, some human bandits and a wagon - but I don't see a "description" really. Basically, I'm not sure how the PC's will be interacting with this stuff.

For example, you mention a hostage - I assume the bandits have the hostage? And if that's the case, how are they interacting with the funeral procession? Are they crashing into it? There is a line in the document that says "Guards of elven funeral procession may fire upon wagon to stop it." so I am imagining they might be side by side perhaps?

Anyway, maybe I'm missing something (would not be the first time) but I'm not sure what you had in mind - maybe nothing yet and this was the starting point?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Sorry, maybe I missed a step here. After getting responses here I went off and used the responses and came up with a plan. The document only captures the crunch.

Basically, the heroes will be in the city. I'll let them come up with reasons why and whethe they already know each other, but they will all be in roughly the same area (at a minimum). They may or may not know anything about the funeral procession (depending on if any of them are elves or dwarves), but will see the wagon come barreling down the middle of the street. A bystander will be bumped out of the way and injured and the wagon will be upon them before they can react. The non-minions and hostage will actually be on the wagon. The minions will be spread out along the street to try and keep others from interfering. For the most part, I plan to place the minions only when/as they are able to act. The heroes likely won't know about them until then, as you might actually expect for normal backup players.

The elves I 'statted out' (I love the monster builder, so easy to stat things now) in case things devolve enough to get to the procession and the heroes are somehow accused of wrongdoing. For example, I can see the case where they knock off the main bad guys and try (and fail) to steer the wagon away. The heroes might THEN be accused and if they fight back, they'll have the fight the VERY tough elven force.

 

[weem]

What will be the incentive for the players to get involved?

In other words, what would prevent them from saying, "I get out of the way - I don't want to get run over by the wagon"? Will something compel them to help (how will they know this is 'for' them basically)?