Black Jack Rackham
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(Date Posted:09/12/2007 17:21:32)
Reply to : Plum du Plumage
1) Obviously, a big one... What is the treasure?
2) How is their pact to be honored?
3) How many years has it been since their pact, and how many of these brash, young fops were involved?
4) How did they come across the "treasure?"
1) Well, my first thought is, rather than give them some treasure (which they will certainly like, but which, ultimately, they know the answer to), make the box it comes in, the 'treasure.' On one of their 'life and death' adventures they stole into a (library, museum, abandoned warehouse, tomb, whathaveyou) and found this box. It is obviously not a normal box (beings as it has gadetry, wierd sigils, strange bumps, is 'rasping', glows in the dark, imitates sounds, whatever). In addition, it has not one but 'X' locks of various types (where X equals the number of fops in the pact). Now the player's imaginations take over. (the basic idea is to make the box cover as much territory as possible, it could be syrneth, or something else the ES would be interested in, it could be an Invisible College invention, or something entirely different. The box should be big enough to hold quite a bit but small enough to be easily transported)
2) Each of the stalwart heroes in the pact agreed to 'solve' one of the locks, and coincidentally, just last month the two PCs received a letter that the last of the fops had finally solved the remaining unsolved lock. (thus opening the way for the dishonorable villain to begin bumping them off in an effort to get at whatever the treasure is).
3) The problem I see here is you don't want the heroes to be old folks but you do want enough time to have passed that each could have researched enough (or bribed someone) to solve the puzzle. So having said that, between 5-10 years would be my guestimate.
4) See above. Though I would add that the reason for their adventure should be something in which they were in the wrong place for the right reasons (i.e. something heroic where getting caught would have meant serious consequences). They should have rescued the box from some foul villain bent on world domination.
An interesting twist could be to have the heroes play through the adventure where they initially get the box. That done, cut to current time and describe the outcome of their decision (to take the box). I am imagining them recalling the whole episode as they stand there holding several sheifs of paper, each one a letter from one of the other pact members, saying that they had solved the lock...
And let us not forget the villain that they took the box from initially...
Hope that helps.
Mark
EDIT: I forgot to answer your 'how many' question. Simple answer, as many as different solutions you can come up with for the locks.
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"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
Friedrich Nietzsche
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danar
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(Date Posted:09/12/2007 18:40:13)
1) Obviously, a big one... What is the treasure? a book. the diary of one of the original bargainers. a mysterious woman brought the noble secret society a chest which offered those opening it fantastical powers. they scoffed but agreed to open it after downing a few more bottles of wine. they didn't even mind when they discovered that the only way to open the chest was by cutting their hand and touching the chest with their blood. it opened and revealed the book. each one who touched the chest was given a small gift. they are then told that their gifts will increase as the openers die until one remains. 2) How is their pact to be honored? they don't have to do anything. as the original openers die, their power is divided among the remaining openers. when only one opener remains, they get to negotiate a new pact with the Bargainers. 3) How many years has it been since their pact, and how many of these brash, young fops were involved? Originally, there were 15 members of the noble secret society from several different nations. They were mostly the teenage offspring of ambassadors and important persons at the Montaigne Court. However, over the past thirty years, many have died. now they're the down to 4. (i'd suggest that the two involved in your initial story have sparred for years and came to this final conclusion while they've lost track of the other 2.) 4) How did they come across the "treasure?" see above)
For the gift, I'd suggest an extra kept die to all of a certain check different for each one. (so one gets a bonus to seduction, another to fencing attacks, another to cold read, etc.) This bonus has increased to +2 kept die to all of that certain check. This increases to +4 kept die when there are only 2 left.
I'd suggest letting the heroes interact with their employers a bit first so they realize one is really skilled at seduction (castillian) and the other is really skilled at appraising (vodacce). the "winning" noble becomes quite upset when he doesn't get the full power. he offers the heroes a bonus if they can find X. the only person from the original group who isn't dead.
this leads to a journey to find X who retired to a monastery to atone for her evil acts as a younger noble. X reveals the deal with the chest and the Original Bargain (X is a member of the Rilasciare and has the gift of faith) and asks for their help in stopping the evil Bargain from occurring. just after they agree, X is killed by Y who is the final noble who faked his own death and has a bonus to cold read.
Y now declares that he will kill the "winning" noble and gain the prize. he's also skilled enough with a blade that the heroes cannot simply kill him here and now. the heroes must track down the mysterious woman who still has the book which is back in the book. they also discover she's preparing to make the same deal with a new group of spoiled nobles. they must defeat her, open the chest and destroy the book. this has the added benefit of eliminating all the gifts it has granted.
at least, that's my thought.
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-dana
"All of our best and oldest legends recognize that time passes and that people grow old and die."
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Salamanca
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(Date Posted:09/13/2007 02:02:51)
I'm pretty sure this pact was made a lot longer ago than you think.
The treasure contains a very handy thing for whoever is the last of the brotherhood to be alive...it grants youth.
that's right, the last one alive gets to be young again. Each man holds a cog in the device that houses this youth elixir and it cannot be opened without all the cogs. When one of them dies, a brother collects the cog and adds it to the machine. (or the dead man's will instructs the cog to be added)
Now a larger problem is that the Caligari family have heard of this item and are very interested.
If you wish to tie this into Danar's idea of each having a part that returns to the others, this pact is even older still. In this case all gained youth and when one member died of an unfortunate accident, all suddenly awoke the next day looking and feeling 10 years younger. While the remaining 5 look to be in their 60's they are actually closer to 130 years old. At this point Caligari and Louis-Claude du Sinjin are going to play a much bigger role than you expected.
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Damn! Asking for exposition is like kryptonite to NPCs!
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Plum du Plumage
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(Date Posted:09/17/2007 03:48:02)
First, thank you for your replies. I am impressed with your ideas. I keep rolling them around in my head to see which one, or perhaps what combination of them, will form into the "right fit." But, while I do that, an idea occured to me that I would like to get your opinions on. (It even has a few elements of your ideas in it.)
What if instead of the last surviving member gaining something, he (or she) will get something returned? The pact-signers are all nobles. They all had sorcery. An individual (a beautiful lady) approached their little club and made them an offer. In exchange for giving up their sorceries, they would receive wealth and success. Furthermore, as a long-term (in theory) reward, the last surviving member would have his sorcery returned to him along with youth.
The foolish, young nobles agree to the pact and it is signed in their own blood with some sort of syrneth device. The device appears to have taken away their sorcery. It seems the beautiful, gift-bearing stranger knows what she is talking about!
However, they have been duped. The device has, in fact, taken their sorcery away from them as per the offer. The rest is a lie. The nobles each became wealthy and successful in their own ways. Of course, who is to say they would have not normally? They were ambitious nobles to begin with, and still are. She picks her victims well!
The syrneth device converted the sorcerous energy into "eternal youth" for the woman. She became younger again. The nobles, over the years, began getting greedy for their ultimate reward. If they kill each other off in a vain grab for the prize, so much the better. After all, she, and the device, can only be defeated by one who has given their blood to it. She manufactures the bit about the "last survivor" because she knows human nature and she knows that the only people who will be able to defeat her will likely kill each other off. It works every time.
It's a game she has played for several generations. This time, however, her machinations will attract the attention of PCs.
What do you think? How can it be refined?
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"...and that's when they made me their chieftain."
SPLASH!
www.foulweatherjack.com
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danar
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(Date Posted:09/18/2007 01:23:25)
interesting. the only problem is that given the setup, you need one (or preferably more) of the players to be the corrupt nobles who made the deal. otherwise, you have a villain the heroes cannot actually defeat, which is rarely a good thing. another option is to have them be the children of the corrupt nobles who carry the blood of the nobles who made the "bargain". given those changes, i could see it working. i could also see a member of the rilasciare being really gung ho on using this device to remove all sorcery from the world. another possibility would be to set it up that the heroes try to stop her, but fail as she kills the last noble. then they have a few minutes to stop her before she signs the next "bargain" with a new group of nobles.
-d
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-dana
"All of our best and oldest legends recognize that time passes and that people grow old and die."
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