Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old Drew Id" data-source="post: 4169621" data-attributes="member: 12175">In a low-level "D&D crime family" game I played in at one point, we were assigned a mission to steal a package that was being transported by a caravan which included a group of good NPC's, including a paladin and a wizard among others. The DM left the entire operation up to the players to put together. The starting conditions were such that we knew the caravan had not arrived yet but it would soon have a layover in our town for a couple of days before heading on to its final location. Also, the caravan had recently been attacked in another attempt to steal the package. Many of the mercenaries hired to the protect the package, including the wizard, had been killed. (Otherwise the caravan would have been so well protected that it would have been impossible to even consider stealing it.)The great thing was how open the adventure was. It was a chance to really shine creatively, especially in a situation where a straight-up toe-to-toe melee would have been suicide. The party consisted of several evil or neutral characters, including a bard master-of-bluff-and-disguise (my PC) and a gnome sorcerer who specialized in necromancy. We spent several days doing gather information checks around town to learn everything about the caravan and its members before they arrived. We knew that they had a contact with a local well-respected mercenary company that they would work with to replenish their guards, and that this company was smart enough to not hire on a bunch of new volunteers on something this important. So, we waged a public relations war. We arranged for several members of this respected mercenary company to be caught very publically in various compromising situations, including drunkenness and other debauchery. We crafted a song that we performed at several taverns which made a joke of their reputation. We then discretely hired other bards to repeat that song around town and to spread the news of this company's downfall. In the meantime, we hired on with a smaller mercenary company that was the second-place company, and more willing to hire new guards. (Translation: more gullible and easily conned into believing that we were respectable people. ) I am pretty sure we got to take advantage of those rarely used Forgery skills to give ourselves references. On other rumor we spread around town, and perhaps the most important: we let it be known that the local cleric was upping his prices on raise dead, and that there was a new discrete necromancer in town who could perform the same service at a much lower cost if anyone was interested. When the caravan finally arrived, with their dead wizard in tow, and looking to hire new mercenaries, the trap sprung up perfectly around them. First, they heard all around town about how their favored merc company was on the skids, and that a formerly second-rate company (the one we signed up with) was the new recommended vendor. So, they signed up to have us help guard the caravan. Second, they heard about the new necromancer, and we (as their new loyal guards) recommended that they check it out to save some money on raising the wizard. A little roleplay later, and we're in the graveyard at midnight preparing to raise the wizard from the dead. This was a low-level campaign, and this sorcerer had nothing like a raise dead spell. What he did have was a spell called Armor of Undeath or something like that. The spell would cause a corpse to animate, grab hold of the caster, and then act as a form of undead armor for a short time. As a bonus, the spell had a side effect of destroying the body so that it could not be raised by anything short of a true resurrection. Now we're in the graveyard, and the NPC paladin is highly suspicious, but he is also greedy enough to want to save money on this whole raise dead business. And the bard and the gnome sorcerer are not evil, just neutral with some chaotic tendencies. So he agrees to let the sorcerer cast his spell. The gnome casts the spell, touches the body, and the wizard sits up and grabs the gnome and starts wrapping himself around the gnome's body. At this point the gnome and the bard start screaming, "AAH! THE SPELL WENT WRONG! HE'S TURNED INTO A ZOMBIE!! RUN!!" and they take off running. The bard uses some minor illusions to make it seem like several zombies were starting to rise from nearby graves while they made their (eventual) escape. So now the caravan has lost its most powerful protector, and has gained us as some of the replacement guards. From there, we also convinced the caravan leaders that one party member was not only a good guard but also a good cook. When we were about two nights outside of town with the caravan, they used the opportunity to poison just about everyone.</blockquote>

Verification