el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
First Semi-Final Round: Nemmerle vs. CarpeDavid
Wag the Dog
This adventure can easily be scaled for characters of any level, or could even be used to bring a party through several levels depending on how the DM chooses to break-up the adventure in terms of time.
This adventure is more of an open scenario that allows for the PCs to become involved in many ways, or simply choose to not become involved at all and go along their way, though the actions of the antagonists in the adventures will have wide-reaching social and political implications if they succeed.
The City-State of Gamorea has enjoyed over a hundred years of relative peace. It grew from an outpost on the western shore of the continent to a great sprawling city, with satellite outposts; keeps of its own that defend the borderlands from invasion by the sea-raiders of the island of Tilo, the orcish barbarians of the northern hills and the dead men of the southern salt flats.
However, all these years of peace and prosperity have begun to take its toll. The city-state itself is over-populated, dirty and rife with disease. Unemployment is at an all time high, and the disparity between the rich and poor grows starker with each passing season. Last summer, riots and fires threatened the city from within, and as winter is about to turn to spring the people who rule the city have come up with a plan to handle it.
The City-State is ostensibly ruled by an oligarchy of noble families, but only the most naïve do not realize that the real power are The Dwellers of the Forbidden City. This network of thieves, smugglers, assassins, usurers and merchants gain their name from the euphemism for the shady side of the city’s life and politics. The underbelly of Gamorea is called the Forbidden City, for the network of criminals are very careful who they allow into their circle and who is allowed to profit from the darker side of things. It is also the nickname for the secret guildhouse located in the city’s expansive underground tombs in which the founders of the city are entombed.
The real leader of the city and mistress of the thieves guild is an unlikely person that goes by the name Queen of Spiders. This large matronly woman named Zelda (Exp10) can be found cooking in the noble district at a fancy in called the Golden Cockatrice. Her title as head of the guild has two meanings. One, ‘spider’ is another name for trivets (the three pronged metal racks pots are put on when placed in hearths to cook), and she is a master cook (maxed out skill ranks, and skill focus (cooking)), moving pots and bowls and saucers around with great speed and dexterity, and all the time a finger to her mouth tasting this and eating that (explaining her girth). However, she has also gained her power through information, and ‘spider’ refers to her network of informants that hang like a web over the city. No one of any importance of power does not come to Gamorea without her knowing, she knows every rumor, every scandal, every affair, every misuse of funds, and she uses this information to keep tight control over the noble families that supposedly rule the city (but always through intermediaries, ironically most time she is cooking for and serving them), and playing factions against each other. (her other class skills should be Gather Information, Diplomacy, Various Knowledge skills, bluff, sense motive, etc… )
The Plan
The plan to save the city is to manufacture a war that has its origin at one of the keeps on the borderlands. These keeps are small, enclosed towns, with a bunch of farmland around them (or in at least one case, mines) out on the edge of the frontier. When these were first established (and for years afterward) these were extremely dangerous places, often being raided by orcs or worse, but those times are mostly gone. Except for the occasional orcish pillaging party that burns a farm, or an ogre highwayman, the surrounding area is considered basically settled. Now the Keeps are satellites sending goods back to the city and staging points for groups of adventuring explorers who explore the northern orc-lands, or the Gray Sea Coast.
The war will serve several functions. 1) Give a jump to the economy as weapons, equipment and other goods need to be created in large amounts thus creating more work, 2) Give the people of the city an outer enemy to be concerned about, and thus be distracted from more local woes, 3) allow an excuse for martial law and conscription of young men to send to war, thus helping to lower population, buckle down on (unorganized) crime, and more easily detain citizens, 4) the various outposts have made noises about independence for some time, and a war and the resultant reaction of defense from the city would help reinforce the advantages of remaining loyal to the mother state. In other words, all of this is done with the best of intentions, as the thousands that will die in the near future are meant to keep thousands more from dying in a more distant future, and to prevent the chaos of the collapse of the mini-empire. However, there are other benefits as well, like 5) an increase in refugees from the keep will allow the Dwellers’ slaving interests to snatch more people to sell to the eastern city-states, for example.
How the PCs Become Involved
Since this is such an open scenario how the PCs become involved in the possible action will determine a great deal about what direction the action goes and at what point in “the plan” they will start to put two and two together.
-- The Leak: If the PCs have spent time in Gamorea, they could be approached by one of their contacts to the underworld, a snitch or a fence they have used in past who has heard about the plan to have one of the northern keeps destroyed. However, he has family that lives there and offers the party his life-savings to go there ahead of the attack and get them out. If the party mentions trying to stop the attack, he will balk – saying that it is best not to mess with the Dwellers of the Forbidden City. If such an exchange takes place, the news may get back to the Queen of Spiders, and she may send representatives of the Assassin’s Knot to stop them (see The Assassin’s Knot below). This hook will make it a ‘race against time’ type of adventure.
-- The Old Employer: Someone the PCs have worked for before is a noble and/or business man in the city with a reputation for honesty, who has become suspicious of the machinations of the Dwellers, and or the preparations of his fellow business for increased production, or very simply he has already been approached to take part in the plan and has balked. Regardless, when the PCs go to see him, he has been killed by the Assassin’s Knot. The PCs may feel compelled to investigate his murder, and perhaps they can find some cryptic notes or journal entries that give clues (a reference to the city’s Final Enemy being from within the city itself). If the DM wants to really make it interesting, if the Queen of Spiders know of the PC’s meeting (which she probably would) she might try to get them accused of the murder. This would make it an investigative adventure, with the PCs trying to stop the conspiracy and clear their own name.
-- Unwitting Pawns: This hook might work for a more neutrally-aligned party (or perhaps even an evil party if you are into that). The party could be hired to escort a delegate to the northern orc territory. While ostensibly to work out a pact with the barbaric humanoids, the sorcerer sent speak with them is really making the final arrangements for the attack with the orc chieftains, including giving them maps to one of the keeps and secret ways in through caves below. The party could find out about the plan one way or another (DM fiat) and then either feel compelled to stop it or reveal the conspiracy. This would make the adventure a kind of behind enemy lines kind of thing, as they try to stop the orcs preparations for war (or could easily link up with the “Against All Odds” scenario). Or if less than scrupulous, they might go along with the plan only to be back-stabbed later when it is decided they cannot be trusted to keep their mouths shut.
-- Against All Odds: In this scenario the party is asked the high priest of a local temple to intervene in the attack. Perhaps through divination (a warning that the city’s Final Enemy will come from within the city itself), the priest has discovered the plan, and knowing he and his church do not have the power to stop the Dwellers of the Forbidden City directly, he asks/hires the party to go to the keep with fore-knowledge of the attack to prepare the people there for the siege (though convincing them the truth of the coming attack might be a whole other challenge). In this scenario, the party’s tactical skills will be put to the test as they make a plan for the defense of the keep, and/or lead sorties out to harass the building orc forces before they arrive. Again, the Queen of Spiders, might send her assassins to deal with the party before they arrive at the keep, or even to attack them in the keep itself. Of course, the priest himself will likely end up dead.
Of course, a DM willing to juggle several hooks and plotlines at once should be able to mix and match from all of the above, getting the PCs involved in several interlocking ways is always better in terms of getting them to actually take part in the adventure without feeling railroaded.
The Assassin’s Knot: This is the name for the assassination arm of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The name of these assassins is well-known and they are feared. When a businessman, noble, townguard or some other person disobeys the Dwellers, the assassins are sent to deal with the situation, leaving their signature mark, the The Assassin’s Knot – this entails cutting open the victim’s throat and pulling the tongue out through the hole in the neck and tying it as if some kind of necktie on their chest. More than once a shop-keeper has come to open up to find a worker or family member hanging from the eaves in such a state – a warning they will not soon forget. Once the PCs’ aactions come to the attention of the Dwellers they can expect a visit from the Assassin’s Knot, masters of stealth and cruelty.
Regardless, of how the PCs become involved most likely the adventure will conclude (or draw out into a campaign-length conflict) with them investigating the Dwellers of the Forbidden City and trying to either destroy them (and thus destroying a lot of what keeps the powder keg of the city-state from popping) or coming to some compromise with them, either through bribery, blackmail, or offering some kind of counter-plan that is more profitable for all involved. This is an opportunity to have PCs explore the dark underbelly of a city, and get involved in some grim n’ gritty low fantasy nastiness.
One possible scene could even bring the PCs to consult the Queen of Spiders, hearing that she traffics in information, but not knowing (as very few would know) that she is the mastermind behind the whole thing, and as her servers come into her kitchen to get trays of food, they are also passing notes, codes and other commands to people at certain tables.
Particularly diplomatic PCs might be able to convince the orcish barbarians that they are being manipulated and will be destroyed in the process.
It is possible that the PCs could fail to stop the orc attack, but still escape (either never having gotten there on time, never going to begin with, or going, fighting and then running away) in which case they might still be embroiled in the underworld machinations of the Dwellers. In this case, one scene the PCs could possibly witness (depending on how they become involved in the adventure) is a great crowd at the steps of the Council Building listening to some statesman giving a great oration about how the orcs are the Final Enemy that stands against true freedom and prosperity for the City-State of Gamorea. Soon after there will be public support not only for retaking the Keep on the Borderlands, but for pushing into the orc territory and conquering it to expand the holdings of the State.
Conclusions:
There are far too many different conclusions and areas for follow-ups to list here and keep below 3000 words (which is what I am trying to do), as this is such an open scenario the DM has to be ready to deal with some variety of ramifications, many of which may be disastrous for the PCs and/or Gamorea. The PCs could become fugitives and/or freedom fighters. They might lead the Keep on the northern Borderlands into open rebellion, and maybe be sent as delegates to recruit the other keeps in the war of secession. Of course, there will be representatives of the Dwellers there as well, and the PCs may repeatedly find themselves hunted by the Assassin’s Knot.
The party might foil the plot, gather help of disgruntled nobles and get rid of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City only to have to deal with the eventual collapse of the city.
They may foil one plot, only to discover there was a back-up plot involving one of the other keeps. In the case of those PCs who believe the ends justify the means, perhaps the force of orcs destroying that one Keep was stronger than the Dwellers first realized, and they have jeopardized others, or be a danger to the city itself.
Review of Ingredients
---------------------------------
Keep on the Borderlands – One of several satellite keeps that mark the outer influence of the City-State of Gamorea
Queen of the Spiders – A master cook, Mistress of a Thieves Guild
Assassin's Knot – The assassin arm of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City Thieves Guild.
Dwellers in a Forbidden City – Name of the Thieves Guild, named for the City’s Criminal Underworld.
Final Enemy - The city has become its own enemy in a long line of antagonists after years of relative peace and prosperity.
Best of Intentions– The war is manufactured for the long term good of the City-State.
Wag the Dog
This adventure can easily be scaled for characters of any level, or could even be used to bring a party through several levels depending on how the DM chooses to break-up the adventure in terms of time.
This adventure is more of an open scenario that allows for the PCs to become involved in many ways, or simply choose to not become involved at all and go along their way, though the actions of the antagonists in the adventures will have wide-reaching social and political implications if they succeed.
The City-State of Gamorea has enjoyed over a hundred years of relative peace. It grew from an outpost on the western shore of the continent to a great sprawling city, with satellite outposts; keeps of its own that defend the borderlands from invasion by the sea-raiders of the island of Tilo, the orcish barbarians of the northern hills and the dead men of the southern salt flats.
However, all these years of peace and prosperity have begun to take its toll. The city-state itself is over-populated, dirty and rife with disease. Unemployment is at an all time high, and the disparity between the rich and poor grows starker with each passing season. Last summer, riots and fires threatened the city from within, and as winter is about to turn to spring the people who rule the city have come up with a plan to handle it.
The City-State is ostensibly ruled by an oligarchy of noble families, but only the most naïve do not realize that the real power are The Dwellers of the Forbidden City. This network of thieves, smugglers, assassins, usurers and merchants gain their name from the euphemism for the shady side of the city’s life and politics. The underbelly of Gamorea is called the Forbidden City, for the network of criminals are very careful who they allow into their circle and who is allowed to profit from the darker side of things. It is also the nickname for the secret guildhouse located in the city’s expansive underground tombs in which the founders of the city are entombed.
The real leader of the city and mistress of the thieves guild is an unlikely person that goes by the name Queen of Spiders. This large matronly woman named Zelda (Exp10) can be found cooking in the noble district at a fancy in called the Golden Cockatrice. Her title as head of the guild has two meanings. One, ‘spider’ is another name for trivets (the three pronged metal racks pots are put on when placed in hearths to cook), and she is a master cook (maxed out skill ranks, and skill focus (cooking)), moving pots and bowls and saucers around with great speed and dexterity, and all the time a finger to her mouth tasting this and eating that (explaining her girth). However, she has also gained her power through information, and ‘spider’ refers to her network of informants that hang like a web over the city. No one of any importance of power does not come to Gamorea without her knowing, she knows every rumor, every scandal, every affair, every misuse of funds, and she uses this information to keep tight control over the noble families that supposedly rule the city (but always through intermediaries, ironically most time she is cooking for and serving them), and playing factions against each other. (her other class skills should be Gather Information, Diplomacy, Various Knowledge skills, bluff, sense motive, etc… )
The Plan
The plan to save the city is to manufacture a war that has its origin at one of the keeps on the borderlands. These keeps are small, enclosed towns, with a bunch of farmland around them (or in at least one case, mines) out on the edge of the frontier. When these were first established (and for years afterward) these were extremely dangerous places, often being raided by orcs or worse, but those times are mostly gone. Except for the occasional orcish pillaging party that burns a farm, or an ogre highwayman, the surrounding area is considered basically settled. Now the Keeps are satellites sending goods back to the city and staging points for groups of adventuring explorers who explore the northern orc-lands, or the Gray Sea Coast.
The war will serve several functions. 1) Give a jump to the economy as weapons, equipment and other goods need to be created in large amounts thus creating more work, 2) Give the people of the city an outer enemy to be concerned about, and thus be distracted from more local woes, 3) allow an excuse for martial law and conscription of young men to send to war, thus helping to lower population, buckle down on (unorganized) crime, and more easily detain citizens, 4) the various outposts have made noises about independence for some time, and a war and the resultant reaction of defense from the city would help reinforce the advantages of remaining loyal to the mother state. In other words, all of this is done with the best of intentions, as the thousands that will die in the near future are meant to keep thousands more from dying in a more distant future, and to prevent the chaos of the collapse of the mini-empire. However, there are other benefits as well, like 5) an increase in refugees from the keep will allow the Dwellers’ slaving interests to snatch more people to sell to the eastern city-states, for example.
How the PCs Become Involved
Since this is such an open scenario how the PCs become involved in the possible action will determine a great deal about what direction the action goes and at what point in “the plan” they will start to put two and two together.
-- The Leak: If the PCs have spent time in Gamorea, they could be approached by one of their contacts to the underworld, a snitch or a fence they have used in past who has heard about the plan to have one of the northern keeps destroyed. However, he has family that lives there and offers the party his life-savings to go there ahead of the attack and get them out. If the party mentions trying to stop the attack, he will balk – saying that it is best not to mess with the Dwellers of the Forbidden City. If such an exchange takes place, the news may get back to the Queen of Spiders, and she may send representatives of the Assassin’s Knot to stop them (see The Assassin’s Knot below). This hook will make it a ‘race against time’ type of adventure.
-- The Old Employer: Someone the PCs have worked for before is a noble and/or business man in the city with a reputation for honesty, who has become suspicious of the machinations of the Dwellers, and or the preparations of his fellow business for increased production, or very simply he has already been approached to take part in the plan and has balked. Regardless, when the PCs go to see him, he has been killed by the Assassin’s Knot. The PCs may feel compelled to investigate his murder, and perhaps they can find some cryptic notes or journal entries that give clues (a reference to the city’s Final Enemy being from within the city itself). If the DM wants to really make it interesting, if the Queen of Spiders know of the PC’s meeting (which she probably would) she might try to get them accused of the murder. This would make it an investigative adventure, with the PCs trying to stop the conspiracy and clear their own name.
-- Unwitting Pawns: This hook might work for a more neutrally-aligned party (or perhaps even an evil party if you are into that). The party could be hired to escort a delegate to the northern orc territory. While ostensibly to work out a pact with the barbaric humanoids, the sorcerer sent speak with them is really making the final arrangements for the attack with the orc chieftains, including giving them maps to one of the keeps and secret ways in through caves below. The party could find out about the plan one way or another (DM fiat) and then either feel compelled to stop it or reveal the conspiracy. This would make the adventure a kind of behind enemy lines kind of thing, as they try to stop the orcs preparations for war (or could easily link up with the “Against All Odds” scenario). Or if less than scrupulous, they might go along with the plan only to be back-stabbed later when it is decided they cannot be trusted to keep their mouths shut.
-- Against All Odds: In this scenario the party is asked the high priest of a local temple to intervene in the attack. Perhaps through divination (a warning that the city’s Final Enemy will come from within the city itself), the priest has discovered the plan, and knowing he and his church do not have the power to stop the Dwellers of the Forbidden City directly, he asks/hires the party to go to the keep with fore-knowledge of the attack to prepare the people there for the siege (though convincing them the truth of the coming attack might be a whole other challenge). In this scenario, the party’s tactical skills will be put to the test as they make a plan for the defense of the keep, and/or lead sorties out to harass the building orc forces before they arrive. Again, the Queen of Spiders, might send her assassins to deal with the party before they arrive at the keep, or even to attack them in the keep itself. Of course, the priest himself will likely end up dead.
Of course, a DM willing to juggle several hooks and plotlines at once should be able to mix and match from all of the above, getting the PCs involved in several interlocking ways is always better in terms of getting them to actually take part in the adventure without feeling railroaded.
The Assassin’s Knot: This is the name for the assassination arm of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The name of these assassins is well-known and they are feared. When a businessman, noble, townguard or some other person disobeys the Dwellers, the assassins are sent to deal with the situation, leaving their signature mark, the The Assassin’s Knot – this entails cutting open the victim’s throat and pulling the tongue out through the hole in the neck and tying it as if some kind of necktie on their chest. More than once a shop-keeper has come to open up to find a worker or family member hanging from the eaves in such a state – a warning they will not soon forget. Once the PCs’ aactions come to the attention of the Dwellers they can expect a visit from the Assassin’s Knot, masters of stealth and cruelty.
Regardless, of how the PCs become involved most likely the adventure will conclude (or draw out into a campaign-length conflict) with them investigating the Dwellers of the Forbidden City and trying to either destroy them (and thus destroying a lot of what keeps the powder keg of the city-state from popping) or coming to some compromise with them, either through bribery, blackmail, or offering some kind of counter-plan that is more profitable for all involved. This is an opportunity to have PCs explore the dark underbelly of a city, and get involved in some grim n’ gritty low fantasy nastiness.
One possible scene could even bring the PCs to consult the Queen of Spiders, hearing that she traffics in information, but not knowing (as very few would know) that she is the mastermind behind the whole thing, and as her servers come into her kitchen to get trays of food, they are also passing notes, codes and other commands to people at certain tables.
Particularly diplomatic PCs might be able to convince the orcish barbarians that they are being manipulated and will be destroyed in the process.
It is possible that the PCs could fail to stop the orc attack, but still escape (either never having gotten there on time, never going to begin with, or going, fighting and then running away) in which case they might still be embroiled in the underworld machinations of the Dwellers. In this case, one scene the PCs could possibly witness (depending on how they become involved in the adventure) is a great crowd at the steps of the Council Building listening to some statesman giving a great oration about how the orcs are the Final Enemy that stands against true freedom and prosperity for the City-State of Gamorea. Soon after there will be public support not only for retaking the Keep on the Borderlands, but for pushing into the orc territory and conquering it to expand the holdings of the State.
Conclusions:
There are far too many different conclusions and areas for follow-ups to list here and keep below 3000 words (which is what I am trying to do), as this is such an open scenario the DM has to be ready to deal with some variety of ramifications, many of which may be disastrous for the PCs and/or Gamorea. The PCs could become fugitives and/or freedom fighters. They might lead the Keep on the northern Borderlands into open rebellion, and maybe be sent as delegates to recruit the other keeps in the war of secession. Of course, there will be representatives of the Dwellers there as well, and the PCs may repeatedly find themselves hunted by the Assassin’s Knot.
The party might foil the plot, gather help of disgruntled nobles and get rid of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City only to have to deal with the eventual collapse of the city.
They may foil one plot, only to discover there was a back-up plot involving one of the other keeps. In the case of those PCs who believe the ends justify the means, perhaps the force of orcs destroying that one Keep was stronger than the Dwellers first realized, and they have jeopardized others, or be a danger to the city itself.
Review of Ingredients
---------------------------------
Keep on the Borderlands – One of several satellite keeps that mark the outer influence of the City-State of Gamorea
Queen of the Spiders – A master cook, Mistress of a Thieves Guild
Assassin's Knot – The assassin arm of the Dwellers of the Forbidden City Thieves Guild.
Dwellers in a Forbidden City – Name of the Thieves Guild, named for the City’s Criminal Underworld.
Final Enemy - The city has become its own enemy in a long line of antagonists after years of relative peace and prosperity.
Best of Intentions– The war is manufactured for the long term good of the City-State.
