Plot twist for a "heist" - help, please?

[Zogmo]

Sorry about the length, I got carried away.

I set up an "instant messaging" system from the thieves' guild to the party--an enchanted scroll tube that instantly teleports notes to and from the party to their guild contact back home.

This would be great to use to add to the overall story and generate a plot element at any time they are carrying this tube. This can unfold in many ways.

1)They get a new message from the thieves guild master but it's apparently been sent to them by mistake (consider that the guild has multiple tubes to multiple people throughout the guild).
The message is addressed to someone they don't know (or do know) saying:

"The trap has been set for the fools who are going to get the book of Kadath. Once they have it in their possession the Green Watcher will deal with them during their journey home."

Of course the note can be sent to them either right before or right after they have the book. Depending on how you want to play it.
Personally just to mess with them I would have them notice the new message once they are in the house and sneaking around right before they pick up the book. And I would have two journals together almost identical to each other so they will pick up both books not knowing which one it's supposed to be.

The two journals work like this. They are both needed because every other letter of each word is split between the journals. This is a magical journal of course so all she has to do is write in one and the letters will be automatically split up between the two books to make them seeming gibberish. It can be deciphered but it will take a while to unscramble the letters and both books are needed. Have one of the PC's figure this out when they investigate the books closer.

So, at some point, whatever they may be thinking, once they are on the way home in the woods there will be a stranger who accidentally runs across their camp at night looking for a bit of companionship/food (whatever) and he will be dressed in an over abundance of Green, looking like a bard perhaps.

This is of course not the Green Watcher but an innocent bystander made by you to seem like the guy their watching out for. You can have him talk briefly to them and then bid his farewells and off he goes into the wood telling them he's on his way to town (whatever the name of the town is where they stole the books.)

Having paranoid players is really fun.

The next day on the way back to the guild have them discover one of the journals has been stolen somehow. Even if it was locked up really safe.

And if they don't think of this themselves remind the PC's that the guild master was looking for only one book, so they can give the remaining book to him and their debt will be paid.

Much later on in the campaign, it will be fun for the PC's to run across the innocent green bard again whenever it's best for you. They will probably still believe that he is the Green Watcher and that he stole the journal from them. This will be a great opportunity to introduce almost any plot or direction you want the characters to go in.

Once they get back to the guild master, before any of the PC's tell him that they have the book, they will clearly see on his desk (in his hands, wherever) the missing book of the two journals, and he's not trying to hide it at all.

He tells them that even though he did get the book he wanted it didn't come from them, they are still in his debt.

If they demand to know how it came into his possession he will smile and simply tell them, "I am master of the thieves guild, I do have my resources."

He says he doesn't even believe they took the journey and that they probably were of in a tavern somewhere plotting on how to get out of the business deal they entered into.

If they had sent him a message when the job was done about completing their end of the deal, he will deny ever getting it and that they are lying. So, make sure he doesn't respond to any messages once the PC's steal the journals.

Of course the PC's have their own story but he will pretend not to believe it, whatever they tell him.

The guild master has always intended to not release the PC's from the bargain and keep them in his debt, always having something for them to do to pay back their latest screw-up/double cross/incompetence, whatever he calls it. This is how the mafia usually does it, sort of.

If they try to show him the original note they got by mistake from the tube, he may twitch a bit when they tell him about it since he didn't know it got into their hands. But alas, the parchment will be blank because of the magically disappearing ink it was written in and any knowledge of the book of Kadath will be denied. It was only an old womans journal he says.

Since the guild master is pleased with himself and sure he's pulled one over on the PC's he will be quite smug, not knowing of the other half of the journal even existing or of it being in the PC's possession.

So, if they want to get out of his grasp they can offer the other half of the book that they have, and can tell him how the two work together in order to fulfill their bargain as per the original agreement. Or they can keep the book, sell it to him later when he finds the one he has is useless or whatever the PC's come up with thats they think is in their best interest.

As for the message the PC's got about the "trap being set", it wasn't about them being killed, but they should think something sinister was going to happen to them. It just meant that if they got caught, the guild could totally deny anything the PC's might tell the authorities about the thieves guild being involved since they "obviously" wouldn't have anything to do with non members and for protection from other guilds since the PC's were operating in another guilds territory.

Just like a covert military operation. Plausible deniability.

 

[Cedric]

You've gotten some great ideas already, but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Once the PCs get inside and work their way to the old lady, they find her waiting with her two dogs. She interrupts them and offers them to have a seat and ask if they want something to drink.

She then explains that she's been a contact of the government for some time. They have leveraged some resources inside the Thieves guild to get the PCs selected for this.

The PCs will be encouraged to work for the crown (or equivalent form of government) to help take down the Thieve's Guild a few notches.

Cedric

 

[Wraith Form]

You're right--there are some incredible ideas here....including yours! Believe me, if I don't use this idea this week, it'll be used sometime in the future...! That's the terrific thing about several of these suggestions--I can modify them for future use!

 

[freyar]

One of my players suggests having some sort of spell on the book such that it can't leave the house until the PCs solve a riddle.

 

[Quartz]

Lots of good ideas here, so I won't contribute on that front.

The PCs should be able to deduce the presence of the dogs by the amount of meat delivered to the house.

 

[Wraith Form]

Lots of good ideas here, so I won't contribute on that front.

The PCs should be able to deduce the presence of the dogs by the amount of meat delivered to the house.

Or by looking at the dog-bombs in the front yard.

 

[happyelf]

What if the potions she's making aren't as non-magical as the theives think?

What is the magic is in the note book, a rune hidden in the alchemical formula? The formula does create a workable healing potion, but it has a key ingredient- a drop of blood from whoever posesses the book. When the potion is drunk, it doesn't heal the damage, but transfers it from the recipient to the keeper of the rune, via the magical bond created by the drop of blood. This damage could manifest directly, or take the form of an illness or premature ageing.

Now, the noblewoman knows this, but the thieves don't- after all, they only know what she's leaked them. She's trying to get somebody to steal the book, because it's the only way she can escape what she sees as the curse of the rune. While she may think of it as a curse, it doesn't have to really be one- she's probably gone a bit batty from what she's been through.

If you don't want her to be the one to leak the info, you could introduce a third party (such as a servant) who wants to get the rune away from the noblewomen for her own sake, possibly even to save her from what they may seemas looming damnation for dealing in dark magic.

The noblewomen could be using the potions to prolong the health of her deathly ill daughter, but doing so is taking a huge toll on her. A loyal servant, or perhaps even the daughter herself, might leak info to the thieves, in order to free the noblewomen from the burden she's taken on, without letting her know what's going on.


This scenario gives you two main assets:

*Lots of plot twisty drama about people's motives and who did what, if you use the idea of the sick daughter leaking it herself, that would be particularly interesting I think. There's the moral issue of who deserve the potions, and the family tragedy of a sick daughter who would rather die than be such a burden to their mother. For an extra twist, make it look like a sour old butler leaked the info(possibly for personal gain), but reveal later that he did it at the daughter's request. Of course, he'll probably try and take the rap to avoid letting the noblewoman in on what's really going on.

*Even if the PC's do hand the forumla over to the thieves, it won't work how they expect and somebody (probably the pc's) will have to answer for it. Possibly in blood, one way or another. If you want to be really mean you could kill off the guild's chief alchemist during the first "test" of the forumla*, wich could for instance involve a NPC or PC being held down, dealt a gory mortal wound, and then given the potion- at wich point their wounds heal, and the alchemist screams and keels over dead.

*(assuming he think's nothing of adding a drop of his own blood, YMMV)

 

[ScaredofScissors]

Lots of good ideas here, so I won't contribute on that front.

The PCs should be able to deduce the presence of the dogs by the amount of meat delivered to the house.

Not that you should count on a fight here, anyway. If the PCs -are- heroes in town, then it should be easy enough to get an excuse to talk to the old lady during the day. They could do recon (thus seeing the dogs and maybe discovering other things) and even sneak off with the journal then if they're clever enough.

I'd also like to chime in and also say this is a thread full of great ideas!

 

[Darklone]

Great stuff here everyone, makes me wanna play the same story.

I particularly like the idea that some BBEG dude wants the formula or other stuff in the book for himself, such as turning himself into a lich or create the elixir of life or how to turn himself into a dragon.

Don't forget that the bard or someone else might sweettalk the dogs. High Charisma? Handle Animal?

 

[Zogmo]

Ok a few more.


1) The house could be a facade for a demonic temple and the daughter is it's high priest. The old lady is a shut in because she is actually a captive. Once the temple is taken down and the old noble lady liberated she will gladly give them the book as a reward. Exposing the temple and liberating the old noble woman will make them heroes in the new city too for exposing the evil that the authorities were trying to discover for a long time.

2) The dogs are actually her son and husband who have been transformed somehow and the daughter and old lady are using the book to try and create a potion to turn them back. The guild doesn't want them returned from dog status by the old lady because of information her husband and son have about the guild itself being involved in something nefarious. Hence the guild wanting the potion book out of her hands.

3) The old lady turns out to be a powerful wizard and easily catches them sneaking into her place. Even the guild doesn't know her true identity and only want the book because they believe the old lady doesn't know what it really is (a spell book) and they think it'll be more use to them than her. She realizes they are being blackmailed and asks them to help her turn the tables on the guild. Double agents of sort. Plots from here could be many.

4) Having the dogs be something more like werebeasts and have one of the PCs bitten. Of course they won't realize this till after the first transformation. Moo hoo ha!