Greyhawk 911 (My players stay out!)

[Nareau]

I've been musing over my latest campaign setting recently, and been thinking about the effects of a highly organized magical dictatorship that rules over an entire continent.

One of the ideas I came up with was a sort of "Emergency Response System" for the kingdom. The idea is to have a force of about 30 mid-level wizards (need to be at least 9th level) and a couple hundred fighters on stand-by at all times. These troops would be located in a few centralized locations, scattered throughout the continent.

In every major city, there would be "Emergency Alarms" set up. They'd look a lot like modern fire alarms--a glass casing surrounding some kind of rune. In case of emergency, someone would break the glass and touch the rune. This would set off some kind of mental alarm (much like the Alarm spell, but higher level, with a longer duration, and an essentially infinite range).

Each wizard would be assigned to a group of cities. They would be responsible for maintaining the alarm spells, as well as being very familiar with their locations. Anytime an alarm went off, one or more of these wizards could teleport a small strike force to the location and deal with the situation. While not a perfect system, it would allow them to do much of what the US E911 system does today.

The important thing about this system is the fact that it dramatically reduces the number of "police" the state would need to keep order across the entire continent. Instead of each city having its own force of warriors and wizards responding to threats (and potentially sitting around eating donuts all day), each city would essentially have a small army at its disposal in case of emergency.

Any thoughts on this? Any thoughts on how else a highly organized magical dictatorship might use a force of powerful wizards to keep control over a continent for hundreds of years?

Spider

 

[Dragon Mage]

I would be concerned with false alarms.

 

[Roger]

The important thing about this system is the fact that it dramatically reduces the number of "police" the state would need to keep order across the entire continent. Instead of each city having its own force of warriors and wizards responding to threats (and potentially sitting around eating donuts all day), each city would essentially have a small army at its disposal in case of emergency.

Well... maybe. It somewhat depends on how large of a force you think the average city has at its disposal before going this route.

I see something more like the relationship (at least as depicted in some movies) between local law enforcement and the FBI. The locals are handling everything fine until THEY show up, big shots from the big city, and start throwing their weight around and generally abusing the locals.

Some mayors might find the cure worse than the disease.

Of course, this might be much more interesting than having a situation in which everyone plays nicely with each other.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Alzrius]

I'd wonder about how the gods would react to this. Whichever ones weren't approved by the state would probably be angry that their followers were driven underground and/or slaughtered.

Some gods are inimical to an organized empire. Trithereon would almost certainly love to see it smashed. There's one quasi-deity, Krovis, who lives on the Flanaess, and only takes action to prevent the forming of such an empire as you described.

 

[Nareau]

Heh, the wizards actually killed all the gods in the last campaign. They essentially staged a very bloody coup to wrest control of the Seven Nations from the god-kings. This campaign takes place 700 years later.

As for false alarms...Yeah, I thought a little about this. I think there probably are a few, but not too many. For one thing, the perp has about 30 seconds to get out of the area after setting a false alarm before a rather powerful wizard shows up. I'm thinking the punishment for a false alarm is pretty severe--something along the lines of 7 years of state "service" which takes the form of being mind-controlled and sent somplace terrible.

Each city will likely have some guards on patrol at all times. But these guards won't be the type who can put out a burning building, stop a rampaging demon, or quash a riot. I do plan on having some local vs. federal conflict between these enforcement agencies in the form of a centuries-old rivalry between the local, ultra-racist, non-magical guard and the overpowering, shady, terrifying wizards' regime. However, I'd rather the "911 wizards" be more like the SWAT than the FBI.

Ultimately, the campaign will focus on some of the issues we're facing in the modern world (especially the US): Liberty vs. Security, Technology vs. Wonder, Fear vs. Hope, etc. The thrust of the campaign will be the PC's helping the population overthrow their demon-worshipping, magic-using conquerers.

Thanks for the feedback!

Spider

 

[rushlight]

Hmm.

So, as the Evil Genius, here's what I would do.

1) Hire a large force of my own. Covertly position 100-200 men in each of say, five cities.

2) Go to a sixth city. Summon some demons, let loose some undead, cause havock!

3) Just after the cavalry arrives, order the men in the other cities to begin looting. The richest merchants, guilds, lower nobles, whatever could gathered the quickest. Using a set of ring gates, the loot could quickly be transported back to base.

Clearly gold, and small valuables (like gems and such) would be priority targets. After the action is over, I'd send the home-side ring gates to the plane of fire.

Since your reactionary force trades defending all the cities decently for defending one city very well, you will have gaps in coverage should a large-scale, multi-city disturbance occur.

4) Stand at top of tower and break out the Evil Laugh!

 

[Nareau]

This is why I love these boards. First off, I love these tactics. I hope the PC's can come up with something equally interesting. However, as the DM, here are my thoughts as to why your plan might not work perfectly.

Hmm.

So, as the Evil Genius, here's what I would do.

1) Hire a large force of my own. Covertly position 100-200 men in each of say, five cities.

The wizards (called the Mchonga) have a network of spies amongst the populace that would likely detect such a large movement. I'm excited about this spy organization--they're all bards. The way I see it, bards make the perfect sinister mind-controlling black ops people. I see them being very much like B5's psycorps.

2) Go to a sixth city. Summon some demons, let loose some undead, cause havock!

Part of the wizards' stranglehold on this continent is the fact that they identify anyone with magical aptitudes at an early age, and effectively brainwash them for life. They use an ancient divine magic to "chip" the future druids/rangers/sorcerers. This process leaves them utterly loyal to the state, and devoid of any unnatural abilities. So summoning demons and creating undead would be extremely difficult (unless you were a PC from another continent...)

3) Just after the cavalry arrives, order the men in the other cities to begin looting. The richest merchants, guilds, lower nobles, whatever could gathered the quickest. Using a set of ring gates, the loot could quickly be transported back to base.

Clearly gold, and small valuables (like gems and such) would be priority targets. After the action is over, I'd send the home-side ring gates to the plane of fire.

Again, without the rebellion's access to arcane and divine magic, communication, gates, and plane-shifting would be pretty difficult.

Since your reactionary force trades defending all the cities decently for defending one city very well, you will have gaps in coverage should a large-scale, multi-city disturbance occur.

This is very true. The wizards aren't expecting a large-scale disturbance such as this. Which is a great point--and perhaps the best hope for the rebellion to topple their terrible empire!

This leaves me with much to think on. Thanks again.

Spider