How to Disrupt a Wedding

[DM with a vengence]

So I've got this plan for an adventure. The setting is basically George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, specifically the Riverlands roughly ten years before King Robert's War. Lord Hoster Tully has decided to force a wedding between Tytos Blackwood and Marianne Bracken, to end their historic feud.

Obviously, several groups don't want this to happen, and have disrupted the proceedings. The PCs will be a group of lesser lordlings, squires, sellswords, singers, servants etc who want the wedding to go on, probably because Lord Hoster has made it clear that it'd be important to him that this wedding continue.

The antagonists are the Brackens and Blackwoods, who don't want to get married to each other. Other than that, it's people who'd benefit from seeing the Tullies take a fall, which brings to mind the Freys. Their goal is somehow make Hoster stop the wedding, but not give him cause to raise an army and start playing the Rains of Castamere for the Brackens and Blackwoods. A secondary objective is to conduct the operation in a way that slanders all the other groups involved, since they all hate each other.

So now that we have a place, a time, a motive, and participants, we need a how. How would you go about inconspicuously wrecking a wedding?

-Sabotage the ceremony/feast. Steal clothes, waylay supplies, forge invitations, and in general cause chaos. Of course it's unlikely you could annoy Lord Hoster enough to make him give up, what with his reputation for stubbornness, but even if you've failed, you've made him look like a fool, which suits the Freys.

-Increase tensions to the point where you simply can't have a wedding. When you have several hundred armed men who actively hate each other, it's only natural that there would be a few duels and fights. If the violence gets bad enough, Lord Hoster may simply call the wedding off rather than have a red wedding under his halls. The Brackens and Blackwoods would be doing this already, and it'd only take a little inducement to start a war.

-Get rid of the bride. It's hard to have a wedding if there's no bride; you if you sneak here off and marry her to say, one of the Freys, then they can't have a wedding. Of course Lord Hoster will be pissed off, but that's the price you pay in the game of thrones.

Scene wise, I'd like lots of investigation and roleplaying, and at the moment of high tension, a trial by combat as the party confronts the Frey responsible as well as the Blackwoods and Bracken. It's not a GRRM book without a trial by combat, and it's a good way to have some swordplay.

Is there anything obvious that I'm missing and would greatly improve this adventure. I'm a little weak on specifics.

 

[Sejs]

Having the groom's "former lover" show up with "his" son, could work. All part of the discredit the validity of the union/mess with the family name angle.





Or fire. Fire works well. Have you considdered fire?

 

[Richards]

I recall there being a "disrupt-the-wedding" (actually, it was a "prevent-the-wedding-from-being-disrupted") adventure from the pages of Dungeon several years back. (It was a 2E adventure, written by Paul F. Culotta, and it was called "Wedding Bells" or something similar.) I'm at work, so I can't check my files, but if you could hunt up that issue (there's a handy Dungeon issue breakdown list by Emirikol floating around here somewhere) it may provide you wth some ideas.

Johnathan

 

[Hand of Evil]

How much time do I have.

First would be the shadow of doubt, the hint of fomer lovers and sexual deeds that should not be discussed. This would be done by rumormongers, that would travel from town to town, talking about the upcoming wedding.

Seduction - introduce an element of interest. Same interest, a lot in common, good looking with the right skills, drugs...

Make it so - you only have to make it look like someone is being scandalous. Look-a-likes doing bad things, think shapeshifter.

Okay, you can also poision people, mother of the bride, father, grandfather, brother, sister. Death in the family would delay the wedding, not stop it but could give time for other actions.

 

[reanjr]

Having the groom's "former lover" show up with "his" son, could work. All part of the discredit the validity of the union/mess with the family name angle.





Or fire. Fire works well. Have you considdered fire?

Traditionally (as in historically medieval), this wouldn't really work. A groom is allowed to have former lover. A bride is not.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Don't think there's anything obvious missing.

Some random thoughts:

Depending on how set 'they' are on stopping it: abduct or assinate the priest. For such a big wedding, I doubt the local cleric is going to be up to it. Perhaps tradition requires that it's the high priests of temple xxxxx and yyyyy or similar. Frame the other for abducting them?

A runaway bride or groom. Did they run or were they 'helped'? No ceremony without both of them. Did someone persuade them to do it?

 

[Hand of Evil]

A runaway bride or groom. Did they run or were they 'helped'? No ceremony without both of them. Did someone persuade them to do it?

Which brings up the "woe is us if this happens" - something bad could happen and the bride, groom or population finds out about it (hint, hint, wink, wink) and lead to the decession to stop the wedding, nothing like starting a riot. To lead up to the bad thing you can poision crops and livestock, cause illinesses in the masses, then have your rumormongers blame it on the coming wedding.

 

[WizarDru]

Off the top of my head?

Let's see: how about this: a lesser member of the Targaryens arrives on the scene, stating that he has a prior claim on the bride, and that she belongs to him. In reality, he's bluffing/disgraced/deranged from Targaryen in-breeding or the like. The players must find a way to rebuff him without having to call of the wedding to refute the claim. Worse, he's brought a bunch of bullies who call themselves knights (in traditional GRRM fashion, they're a bunch of vulgar hedge knights).

OR: Lord Walder Frey sends an envoy of some of his heirs, but here's the rub: You can have up to four Freys staking a breach of promise to the Tullies: two son's claiming promise of the bride, and two daughters claiming promise of the groom? Why? So they can stake OPPOSING claims. The Frey heirs genuinely hate each other, and could care less about Tully's problems...this is a Frey dispute, and the Brackens and Blackwoods just a convienent battleground. Ultimately, they're manuevering for position within their own house, waiting for old Walder to die (they wish).

OR: The Cleganes show up, and start trouble. Ostenstibly allies, they make poor guests, and start trouble wherever found. The players can't dishonor them, and at the same time, fear their martial prowess. How can they cage the Mountain, his father and the rest without turning them into enemies?

OR: House Fisher or House Justman are still chafing at loosing control of the Trident, long ago. The scions of one or both houses are looking to upset the Tullys, Brackens and Blackwoods all, in hopes of regaining what once was lost. Sudden attacks of bandits in the area call into question how well any of the three families can keep the wedding safe; could it be that the Tully's weak hand has led to lawlessness in the Riverlands? Of course, the minor house is behind it all, attacking caravans and guests on their way to the wedding, robbing some, killing others...but always leaving behind survivors. They seem to disappear...because they're actually loyal followers (as far as tully knows) and guests of the wedding. Things go from bad to worse when a minor lady of Targaryen, sent from King's Landing, is assualted and her retainers killed. NO ONE wants the king's attention in this, so they'd better find out the truth. FAST.


How's that for starters?

 

[Cor Azer]

Traditionally (as in historically medieval), this wouldn't really work. A groom is allowed to have former lover. A bride is not.

And particularly in Martin's Westeros, where bastards are fairly common, even from married men.

 

[Cor Azer]

Or fire. Fire works well. Have you considdered fire?

Hey, this is Westeros... Wildfire is even better