Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 1176124" data-attributes="member: 3051">Okay, I thought of something else.  This is pretty long...We can safely assume the DoD will do a bunch more divinations as the wedding approaches, right?  They'll be trying to figure out WHY the wedding is happening, if there are ways to break the contract, and so on.  They'll ask whether Belle has a hidden agenda.  They'll ask whether her father had an agenda when he arranged the wedding.  They'll use Detect Evil on Belle and her father.  They'll ask more questions about the Pit Fiend.These divinations NEED to fail.  Not like all the Ghouleax divinations, I mean fail in the simplest way possible: Belle and her father aren't knowingly a part of any nefarious plan.  As far as they know, it's a legitimate marriage.  The only devil who knows there's a deeper plot here is one they've never heard mention of, and the item that spawned this whole strategy isn't anything magical.  (If Belle was the one who lost the item originally, she'd have to be evil, which means the PCs would feel free to just attack.  So, she HAS to be an innocent.)Start with Wizardru's scenario, except it probably shouldn't be a skull the devil BelGorgarangoran (let's call him BelGrande for short) wants.  It's got to be something Agar's family could keep on their mantel.  An antique sword, a large crystal, or an old beer stein or something.  Something nonmagical and relatively harmless, but distinctive in appearance.Enter Belle, the half-Fiend half-Halfling daughter of a newly-arrived businessman.  You need the half-Halfling part to make it legal in Halfling society; after all, if someone asks her if she's a Halfling she can honestly answer "yes".  Her father, the one who arranged the marriage, is a full halfling (mother was a erinyes), and is a friend and business associate of Agar's father.The whole reason he came to the town in the first place was that his daughter didn't fit in with other devils, and he didn't want her to grow up evil.  He only wants what's best for his little girl, so he asked Belle's maternal grandfather, a priest, to use magic to find the Halfling boy that would make the best husband for her.Her "grandfather" is actually BelGrande, the devil who wants the item back.  He's not actually her grandfather (maybe the connection is much further back, but still through her mother's side), and he told her father that divinations showed Agar's family to be the most suitable for marriage.  He was lying; Agar's family was just the one with the item he wanted.  But, when Agar became a powerful planar mage, Belle's family just assumed that the divinations were true, and that Agar really WAS going to be the ideal husband for their daughter.  Someone who travelled the planes wouldn't have much of a problem with an outsider wife, after all.When divinations showed that planar travel was going to be disrupted before the wedding, they were worried that any delay would be an excuse to nullify the marriage contract.  So, they abandoned the pretense of a normal halfling wedding, and sent a family friend (the pit fiend) to make sure Agar could make it in time.  This pit fiend didn't know about BelGrande's plot, either; once she had reassurance that Agar could make it to the wedding, she was satisfied.  And since the pit fiend didn't know about any deeper plots, she didn't realize that revealing Agar's wife's fiendish origins prior to the wedding ran counter to Belgrande's plan, since it gives the DoD more time to uncover the REAL reason for the marriage.Since this whole thing was arranged decades ago, Belle might not even be aware that they weren't told of her heritage; this IS the Outlands, after all, not some Prime, so it's not like the Halflings would immediately stone her to death.  But let's assume that she does know, which means she and her family are guilty of telling a small lie but nothing more.  She probably had an item that used the 3E Alter Self spell to look like a normal halfling (in 3.5E that spell wouldn't work), but even without the item it's not easy to tell her heritage other than the small bat wings.  After all, her mother was a erinyes, so she's very humanoid-looking.  She's not evil, either; maybe CN, so from her point of view, she's getting married to one of the few people that wouldn't have any problem with her unusual background (and Agar is NG, so it's not a huge alignment problem either).  This sort of marriage is exactly what she's always wanted, so she's really looking forward to a "normal" life.Belle doesn't know that her grandfather had a deeper purpose behind prompting her father to arrange the marriage.  Since she has no ulterior motive, casual divinations wouldn't set off any warnings.  Once they're married, though, BelGrande (or whatever his name is) plans on discreetly killing off Agar's family so that Agar inherits the item, again without her knowledge.  At that point, it'd be trivial to get the item through her.  Even if he fails in killing Agar's family, he'll still get the item eventually once Agar's parents die of old age.  And, it's practically guaranteed that Belle would outlive Agar, thanks to her longer lifespan and less dangerous profession.So, the DoD would be confronted with this situation, and their first instinct would be to threaten/accuse the bride and her family, who all happen to be innocent.  This'd lead to the fun roleplaying where you play the distraught bride-to-be, who's been waiting for this day all her life and is terrified the groom will back out...The best outcome for almost everyone would be for the wedding to go through; it's just what comes after that gets tough.Belle could just be a normal commoner-type, but if Agar wants a cohort she could make a good Horizon Walker.</blockquote>

Verification