League of Assassins - Concluded.

More Guests and a Castle

I have decided to add two more guests to the Group B11 from Brondani. Netralitor Engwahilien, and 8th level Elvan Priest of Correllon Larethian will be part of the group. He currently owns the Safety Ring of King Gealdor, and wishes to acquire the Fire Ring of King Gealdor that will be in the auction.

With him is his personal bodyguard, Donald Brondani Smith. Donald appears to be human, but is in reality 1/6 elvan, and is Netralitor's great grandson. Donald has also had previous adventuring experience with two of the others in the group from Brondani. Thirty years earlier he, Andowen Llyr, and Railaina were three members of a quartet who went on a quest to seek information about the missing Stone of Llyr. Donald and Railaina have also had an on-again, off-again relationship during the past three decades.

Both of these characters are described in more detail under the "Kingdoms of the Elves" thread.

I have also found a great castle to steal. Piratecat's "Calphas Comforable Castle", featured on Page 8 of his story hour should work great. The structure is large enough and has several interesting rooms in it to have a lot of fun with.

Later Edit: I've decided to use the above mentioned building as the Silver Moon's headquarters during their stay in the city, especially now that a few readers have suggested some NPC's who will be attempting to break in to steal the auction items.

NOTE: I'm still looking for a good Inn, preferably at least two stories high, to use for the villain's headquarters and climax battle.

side plots:
1) ILA has been approached by one of the guests to do an actual hit outside of the contests.

2) The thieves guild has been approached to help frame someone else for stealing an item, hence the distrust of the other lords.

3) A Noble Guest is found dead and all the evidence points to a rival Noble who was seen in the company of other drunk nobles. (mystery, could be tied to other suggested side plots)

4) One of the items in question is actually intelligent, and has possessed one of the bidders, problem is there are other bidders that have more money. The possessed will now have to try and get it's "home" back from the richer and winning bidder.

5) one of the items hold significant religious value to a church and their demand that it be donated/returned to the church is non negotiable. the auctioneer would have to make a choice of not giving it to them or putting it up on auction, in which case the religious fanatics will probably make a mess of things when the ILA does it's thing and all hell breaks loose.

6) A bard comes to the games to watch and learn and write down the rules and descriptions of people. the bard is known to the ILA and they have a price on his head because he's described accurately a few of it's higher echelon members.

7) A paladin on a quest is brought to the island to retreive an item from the auction that is small enough to fit into his sword. this gem will enable the sword to become a holy sword and is subject to the paladin's deepest desire and temptation (he could be one of the pcs)

8) A would be lich needs one of the items to sacrifice it to his patron to finish his ritual to become an undead spell caster, problem a dragon that can shape change is out looking for it for the same reason.

9) a gnome illusionist/rogue has been waiting for this auction for a long time. He's been waiting for the old lord to die so that he can sneak in and steal the stuff but the new lord moved in before he could do it. He is going to try to replace the existing items with fake replicas and run away with the real ones.

10) An orc mercenary captain joins the auction by bribing the auctioneer enough money to allow him to mix it up with the nobles. He doesn't intend to actually bid on the expensive stuff he has a set limit to his spending (dm option here). He wants to know the faces of each othe the nobles and leaders. He may pass himself off as some orc noble or emperor. (cosmopolitan bluff and diplomacy) He plans to find the weakest link among the nobles, and send a search party to that noble's lands to see how well it is defended before putting his plan into effect. Knowing what the noble looks like face to face will also help him identify the noble later.

Plots and Sub-plots

WONDERFUL SUGGESTIONS! Thank you very much Kyramus! Here are my thoughts for each:

1. Good idea. I'll keep this on the back-burner and toss it in several weeks into the module - as by then the actions of the players will surely have caused several interesting consequences to occur - this being one of the.

2. OK, that might work. The local guild would love to discredit the ILA for excluding them, but as I explained to Rin in an earlier post, the local guild must be extremely careful how they handle this as they do not want to be expelled from the ILA and/or become targets themselves.

3. Sounds good, and might make for an interesting "kick-off" if we have this occur the day before or morning of the auction. Since I like "wild-cards" rather than tightly scripted modules, instead of picking which guest to off I'll probably have it be randomly rolled by a player just before it is scheduled to happen. The other pieces will then fall into place as to who is framed and who the assassin might actually be (although it will definitely not be an ILA sanctioned killing).

4. I like this idea too. I think I'll have Lord Guido Francis Rudolpho from group B6 be the one who gets possessed. His Kingdom is based on the Italian Renaissance, and just because he is an aristocrat does not necessarily mean he is rolling in cash.

5. This plot seems to be already covered by the Silvanost/Mengale/Brondani groups all seeking the same elf stone given to the original community by their god. I have no objection to adding yet another item sought by a different group of religious fanatics provided that the subplot is different enough from the other one. Perhaps a rather extreme and absurd religious cult seeking a rather mundane item which to them is seen as a relic?

6. Interesting idea, I'll consider it.

NOTE: Please send any recommendation(s) to me for the specific ILA target(s) as a private e-mail message. I assume that none of my players are reading this thread, but don't want to give away that key plot detail here just in case. (I also don't want to give away that surprise to readers who would prefer not to know in advance, as I will be posting this module as it unfolds as an ongoing Story Hour thread).

7. There are currently no paladins among the playing characters, but this subplot could work for the paladin in guest group B2.

8. Sounds like two more possible guest groups! If anyone would like to come up with a few more details about either or both of these I'm sure I could work it in. I doubt that Hiroshi would have actually invited a known Lich, but I'm sure that the identity of this individual could be somehow disguised. And as an added twist, how about the Lich having been a mage or mage/cleric that lost its humanity after being assassinated by the ILA, and is seeking revenge against them!

9. Actually, I think you filled a nice plot hole with this idea. It was never determined who assembled that gem and jewelry collection to begin with, although all of the items had been out of circulation for quite some time (tentatively 60 years). Lord Kindor has been the Lord for the past 14 years, and his predecessor (Lord Kohlorahdooh) had become Lord 23 years before that through a bloody coup. The lord who died in the coup 37 years earlier (Lord Todd) had ruled for only 6 years, and his father (Lord George) had ruled for 31 years before that. Let's say that George assembled the collection, so the gnome has indeed been waiting for a very long time! Maybe the gnome even worked for George, and had a part in putting the collection together to begin with.

10. I like this idea too, and it sounds like another guest group. If anyone has already put together the specs for an orc military leader and his entourage, please feel free to post them here and we will add them to the guest list as the character described in the post

Re: Plots and Sub-plots

Silver Moon said:

WONDERFUL SUGGESTIONS! Thank you very much Kyramus! Here are my thoughts for each:

2. OK, that might work. The local guild would love to discredit the ILA for excluding them, but as I explained to Rin in an earlier post, the local guild must be extremely careful how they handle this as they do not want to be expelled from the ILA and/or become targets themselves.

4. I like this idea too. I think I'll have Lord Guido Francis Rudolpho from group B6 be the one who gets possessed. His Kingdom is based on the Italian Renaissance, and just because he is an aristocrat does not necessarily mean he is rolling in cash.

8. Sounds like two more possible guest groups! If anyone would like to come up with a few more details about either or both of these I'm sure I could work it in. I doubt that Hiroshi would have actually invited a known Lich, but I'm sure that the identity of this individual could be somehow disguised. And as an added twist, how about the Lich having been a mage or mage/cleric that lost its humanity after being assassinated by the ILA, and is seeking revenge against them!

9. Actually, I think you filled a nice plot hole with this idea. It was never determined who assembled that gem and jewelry collection to begin with, although all of the items had been out of circulation for quite some time (tentatively 60 years). Lord Kindor has been the Lord for the past 14 years, and his predecessor (Lord Kohlorahdooh) had become Lord 23 years before that through a bloody coup. The lord who died in the coup 37 years earlier (Lord Todd) had ruled for only 6 years, and his father (Lord George) had ruled for 31 years before that. Let's say that George assembled the collection, so the gnome has indeed been waiting for a very long time! Maybe the gnome even worked for George, and had a part in putting the collection together to begin with.

10. I like this idea too, and it sounds like another guest group. If anyone has already put together the specs for an orc military leader and his entourage, please feel free to post them here and we will add them to the guest list as the character described in the post

Click to expand...

2. yup that's where the players come in. the guild will nudge them into making all sorts of problems for the ILA.

8. he isn't a lich yet, he's trying to be. so he can show up as is or in disguise. same with the dragon. both are vying for the gem to finish their list of things to use to become a lich.

9. that was the idea. the gnome can be old enough to outlast a human but he just got the bad luck of not being in the right place at the right time to collect. so he's been waiting for a long time.

10. addition to posted idea. the Orc might subjugate the area and crown himself a noble of that land, allowing him to meet the requirements of the league of assassins, maybe he's trying to be one of the armies that the league will hire if they go to war.

Thanks again Kryamus - I'll add the megalomaniac who wants to be a lich as Guest B21, the dragon as Guest B22, and the orc military leader as Guest B23. If you or any other readers have names and spec's for any or all of these it would be appreciated.

Attached is the picture I found to use for Item C8, the "Blood Stone", which is the gem that the megalomaniac and dragon are both seeking to move on to lichdom!

I found a good image for Item C5, the "Ring of Fortune", suggested by Dagger75

Attached is the image that I found for item C6, which was originally from Gilladian's Cloudlands.

Later Edit: This is item C7, and there is currently no story for it.

Attached is a revised picture for item C3, the Finder's Stone Prototype (the old one didn't look that great in the attachment).

Auction Items - Stories Needed

Stories needed for the following items: