Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Maelflux 01-13-05, 06:36 AM	Last night my crew of players very unexpected decided to steal a chest full of Galifar Pearls (very precious pearls in my Campaign), and managed to get away with it from a large group of Defenders Guild guards assigned to escort it. This happened in Varna in Eldeen Reaches. They are now in the possession of pearls with a combined value of between 30.000-300.000 GP (of course alot less if they sell to fences, etc.) My question here is how do you think this would be handled by the houses involved (especielly Deneith), the owners, and the governments? As I see it Deneith will go very far to regain this, as to not lose face and more importantly their reputation, which could be disruptive for their entire business across the continent. But will they advertise in the Chronicle? Locally? Will the Chronicle itself write a story about this grand heist? Would they be outlawed anywhere? Inputs would be very great, if you have some ideas please :) Thanks in advance.
DJDave 01-13-05, 07:05 AM	I think the Chronicle would certainly run it. A big robbery is headline news here so we have to assume it is on Khorvaire too. As to what would House Denieth do? I reckon they would certainly want to see the PCs in serious trouble. After all you cant just have random brigands going round nicking things.. where will it all end? And also, if it becomes known that your party do get away with it they might find all sorts of job offers from less than noble sources? :)
Splendide 01-13-05, 07:19 AM	Deneith will lose massive face if the PCs get away with this. They'll want them dead, but will settle for getting the pearls returned, I imagine. Dead PCs and no pearls is much worse for them than living PCs and pearls. Tracking them down would be a top priority, but kill on sight doesn't help much. Capturing is great. I very much doubt they'll advertise, as that would be like admitting that House Deneith is completely incapable...finding the PCS would be an inside job, with preferably an excellent, but low-profile, member on the job. The press could well be the best way for PCs to survive the encounter...if they announced to a relevant reporter that they were just keeping some dozy Deneith honest and will willingly return the pearls, that could keep them alive. The owner/s of the pearls would also obviously have some interest in tracking them down. If the above press release came out though, you'd expect them to publicly sympathise with the stated intent of the PCs and maybe half imply that it was their idea.
Maelflux 01-13-05, 07:29 AM	Thanks for the input so far! :) As for it being kept secret for Deneith, that will most likely prove dificult as there was multiple witnesses to the theft, including at least one member of House Cannith, and a whole bunch of Lyrandar on the Airship they were to be transported to, as well as some locals from the City. They might not know what was in the chest, but from the bounty offered for information the same day in the city for any information to help catch the thieves, people are bound to know that it must be very valuable indeed. So at least some of the cat is out of the bag already..
Just another user 01-13-05, 08:25 AM	I think house Deneith will probably advertise it and will stop to nothing to be sure the PCs are captured, will put on a reward for you and the pearls (dead or alive would be good), hire bounty hunters, all the work. Basicallly they use the occasion to show that nobody could hope to mess with them and hope to go away with it. And when they'll have you (and they will), well, it depend on the GM, they could kill you, they could put you in jail and throw away the key or they could use you for some undercover job (of course you are free to pick one of the other two choices. :D
Streamweaver 01-13-05, 08:31 AM	Last night my crew of players very unexpected decided to steal a chest full of Galifar Pearls (very precious pearls in my Campaign), and managed to get away with it from a large group of Defenders Guild guards assigned to escort it. This happened in Varna in Eldeen Reaches. They are now in the possession of pearls with a combined value of between 30.000-300.000 GP (of course alot less if they sell to fences, etc.) My question here is how do you think this would be handled by the houses involved (especielly Deneith), the owners, and the governments? As I see it Deneith will go very far to regain this, as to not lose face and more importantly their reputation, which could be disruptive for their entire business across the continent. But will they advertise in the Chronicle? Locally? Will the Chronicle itself write a story about this grand heist? Would they be outlawed anywhere? Inputs would be very great, if you have some ideas please :) Thanks in advance. That's a pretty big dispersion of potential value and it's hard to say what the reaction would be with a varience that large. If we were talking 300K then that is a treasure many kings wont see and they would probably would use any and all means to recover it. Some interesting options are.. 1. Outlaw the PCs not just in Eldeen Reaches but in all the civilized kingdoms and have The Sentinels issue a warrent for them. 2. Have Dennith offer 10% of the treasure value to anyone who brings the PCs in. At 3000 to 30,000 gp for a bounty every person on the continent would be looking for these guys. 3. The Bounty Hunters guild would be after them with a really big reward so house whats-its-face and a number of their dragonmarked members would be looking for them.
Maelflux 01-13-05, 08:39 AM	Just to clarify a few things: 1. I am actually the GM of this, if that wasnt clear. :) 2. The reason for the value of the chest being between 30.000-300.000 is that I told them the value was between 100-1000 a pearl. This was done mainly because I never expected them to be in the hands of the pc's, and they wanted an appraisal kinda answer, so they knew what they were holding. And it still does make sense, as there can be alot of variety in the size and quality of the pearls. So this I can still decide when needed. But yes, it is a potential LOT of cash for very little work (compared to ecploring in Xen'drik for 6 months). But I also like the fact that they will have a very hard time fencing it of, and since all were seen in daylight, it will not be *that* hard to make a scetch of them, even though 2 of them half-masked themselves. But they did act extremely spontanous. But I like the idea of Deneith going all out, to discourage others from messing with their goods! :)
nyysjan 01-13-05, 08:50 AM	if has come to the public knowledge house Deneith might decide to stomp down hard and declare them wanted criminals with a prize as much as double or triple the prize of pearls for live capture of the criminals and safe return of pearls
Leagle 01-13-05, 10:51 AM	I would say give them a +4 equiptment bonus to catch small animals and children, or trip an adult. Possible reach. :P
Maelflux 01-13-05, 11:09 AM	I would say give them a +4 equiptment bonus to catch small animals and children, or trip an adult. Possible reach. :P Sorry, but I have no clue what you are talking about?....
Tmpst2Prphsy 01-13-05, 11:27 AM	Heehee, reminds me when my party and I stole a prototype airship made of mithril for this wizard that hired us. The Korranburg Chronicle ran the headline Threat or Menace?. Besides the headline, lyrandar hired another group of adventurers to take us in. pretty common tactic for dm's when pc's do bad things as i understad but it IS a good idea. Never really had a definitive showdown with that npc party now that I remember, I think we made a deal with their employer. To summarize, I think decideing what to send against the pcs depends on whether you want them to keep the pearls to sell or not. The Silver Kraken served my party well for years, and I know 300k will buy something for your party that will serve them well.
lukelightning 01-13-05, 01:34 PM	That goes without saying. I would say give them a +4 equiptment bonus to catch small animals and children, or trip an adult. Possible reach. :P
motorfirebox 01-13-05, 01:59 PM	it should be next to impossible to sell these--galifar pearls are apparently rare, and that many galifar pearls in one place is going to exponentially more rare, which means that any attempt to unload more than 1-2 of the pearls at one time is going to attract quite a lot of attention from all the wrong people. the PCs will face the same problem that real-life art/jewel thieves face: how to make a profit on the booty without alerting the owners? the underworld is going to be abuzz with news of the theft to begin with; trying to sell them on the black market is going to paint a bright, glowing neon trail that leads directly to the PCs. in order to avoid that, the PCs will have to accept a much lower value for the pearls--if they're actually worth 100-1000 per pearl, the PCs might get 10-100 per pearl; the other 90% will pay for overhead costs on the part of the buyer--overhead costs, in this case, refers to the seller not ratting the PCs out to House Deneith for even more money. the PCs might actually be better off doing what some real-world art/jewel thieves do: sell the booty back to the original owner at something like 20% of the actual value. this presents danger as well, as the original owner isn't going to be happy about having to pay good money for something that's theirs to begin with. the best part is, the PCs are probably ecstatic about their haul. they think they're set for life. in reality, the bottom just dropped out from under their entire lives.
LachlarlanIII 01-13-05, 02:07 PM	First off, what levels were your PCs? Second, I would immediately make all their characters Chaotic in alignment. If anyone questioned the act, but went through with it anyway, I would make them Neutral. Third, why wasn't the king's ransom in pearls more heavily guarded, and why were the PCs allowed close enough to the pearls to make appraise checks in the first place. After all that. After stealing what could be an RPG equivalent of the gold housed in a certain RL fort, I agree that they should be made outlaws in the 5 kingdoms, as well as the Eldeen Reaches. House Denieth will probably place a bounty on all the PCs heads, and the PCs will most likely have to deal with bounty hunters from House Tharashk on a regular basis after that. Once captured, the PCs could stand at a massive trial where they are found unanimously guilty, and sentenced to exile on Xen'drik or some other locale far away from Khorvaire. Having a clause in the sentence that allows the PCs to return some day to Khorvaire could give them an adventuring initiative afterwords. Maybe after they've acquired 5x the ammount of the stolen pearls, and given it to Denieth may they return. But now I'm rambling on... ;)
Splendide 01-13-05, 05:22 PM	If you're running a not-very-nice sort of game, I'd recommend reading a synopsis of Things to do in Denver when you're Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114660/). Or hire it on video, its a pretty good film.
Leagle 01-13-05, 05:55 PM	Sorry, but I have no clue what you are talking about?.... The page is religeous in nature, but it best depicts what I meant. 1/4 of the way down, on th right. It was a play on words. http://www.dhunns.freeserve.co.uk/kmchurch/requests.htm
Maelflux 01-14-05, 03:13 AM	If you're running a not-very-nice sort of game, I'd recommend reading a synopsis of Things to do in Denver when you're Dead (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114660/). Or hire it on video, its a pretty good film. I have seen it multiple times, and I love that movie! :) And yes, it does give some good ideas - atm I was mainly curious about how you guys thought the world of Eberron would react :)
Maelflux 01-14-05, 03:54 AM	Reply to LachlarlanIII: > First off, what levels were your PCs? - around 6. > Second, I would immediately make all their characters Chaotic in alignment. If anyone questioned the act, but went through with it anyway, I would make them Neutral. - They're all a rowdy bunch. > Third, why wasn't the king's ransom in pearls more heavily guarded, and why were the PCs allowed close enough to the pearls to make appraise checks in the first place. - It was well guarded as I see Eberron. 10 House of Defenders with good gear. As mentioned earlier I *never* expected the PC's to suddenly decide to steal this treasure. And they just happened to have a really lucky get-away since they were at the moment clearing the sewers for rats.... (long story) - Oh and it was meant to be somewhat secret as to not attract too much attention, so it all happened early in the morning. And the PC's actually had no clue whatsoever about what was in the chests. It was a simple thiefs curiosity that got the best of them.. :) And I like your ideas for the aftermath - thankyou! :)
Maelflux 01-14-05, 04:00 AM	Reply to MotorFireBox: You're quite correct with what you say! :D The players are right now super ecstatic about their insane stunt, and the pearls. But as you say when fenced they will garner only a small percentage of the real value. AND they can't use too many pearls at once, as it would alert many on the lookout for it. So I actually suspect that they will end up wishing they never stole this, as they will be hard pressed with a way to get some money ofut of these pearls :)
LachlarlanIII 01-14-05, 10:12 AM	So I actually suspect that they will end up wishing they never stole this, as they will be hard pressed with a way to get some money ofut of these pearls :) They could always go to Droaam and try to sell them to the hags.. erm, I mean sisters! - Oh and it was meant to be somewhat secret as to not attract too much attention, so it all happened early in the morning. And the PC's actually had no clue whatsoever about what was in the chests. It was a simple thiefs curiosity that got the best of them.. :) Did they just up and steal the chest before knowing what was in it, or was it the other way around and you told them before they stole it. If it was the former, then there shouldn't have been an appraise check, and if it was the latter, then I still ask how they managed to get close enough to do an appraisal before deciding to steal it.
debatedeus 01-14-05, 11:08 AM	Second, I would immediately make all their characters Chaotic in alignment. If anyone questioned the act, but went through with it anyway, I would make them Neutral. I disagree. Switching someone's alignment suddenly is a little rash since alignment is not a toggle that changes around depending on what action you did last. If this was a single, weird variance, then I would write it off. If this was the culmination of a long series of chaotic alignment activities, then I would agree with you. Additionally, stealing these has nothing to do with the chaotic alignment. You can have lawful thieves. Recall that a chaotic individual merely respects the good of the individual over the good of the society, and is against the pervading effect of law. Someone capitalizing on an opportunity like the one mentioned in this post need not necessarily be chaotic. Not all crime is chaotic: imagine a lawful evil husband who beats his wife so that she obeys him.
Maelflux 01-14-05, 11:58 AM	Did they just up and steal the chest before knowing what was in it, or was it the other way around and you told them before they stole it. They stole it without knowing what was in it. It was some time later when they found a place to disarm traps, pick locks and so forth that they realized what they had stolen.
lukelightning 01-14-05, 12:20 PM	Think of all the magic items they can identify now! Can my character buy some pearls from them? In our campaign we are always hurting for pearls...all these magic items and we don't know what they do...
Lara Flynn 01-14-05, 01:27 PM	Hm, here we go: 1. House Deneith sentinel marshals will hunt them. 2. Hous Tarashak bounty hunters will hunt them. 3. Wardens of the Wood will hunt them. 4. Maybe House Kundarak agents will hunt them. 5. Maybe House Thuranni or Phiarlan will be hired by House Deneith. 6. Perhaps the Aurum will hunt them. 7. They'll be outlawed in the Eldeen Reaches. In my opinion this is a force to be reckoned with. Especially if the Houses make it team play-like, something they most certainly would. So your players should be in for some entertaining events in the future if they don't think of giving the pearls back to the owner. If the players are sadistic and not quite fond of the Reaches they could flee to Auandair and sell the pearls to the local government. Maybe the Queen accepts - out of hatred for the Reaches. And the government of Auandair is a force which could protect or better hide the pcs from the wrath of the Houses and of course the Reaches. The Queen could order a member of the Royal Eyes to escort the group (in disguise) to Sharn where the Tyrants make them innocent citizens again. But perhaps the Shadow Network, employed by House Deneith, reveals the smart plan...While the other Houses heed for Sharn to intercept the Adventurers, the Reaches could declare war to Auandair. A brisk situation. :) And ah, I nearly forgot the Chronicle. It will certainly publish stories about the theft but I really doubt that House Deneith will be asking for help or comment on the incident thoroughly. Finally: Don't forget other adventuring groups.
Maelflux 01-14-05, 04:09 PM	Think of all the magic items they can identify now! Can my character buy some pearls from them? In our campaign we are always hurting for pearls...all these magic items and we don't know what they do... *LOL* I never thought about it being a coveted spell component ;) Oh, and thanks for the input LaraFlynn! You had some ideas there that I didn't think of :D
kisama 01-14-05, 04:10 PM	Ok so how about a plot twist to just to make things interesting. The very next day after the dust has settled, the PC's open the chests again to find, that's right, the pearls are missing! And in their place is nothing but a fine white dust. You see, some clever thief had already switched the real pearls with some imitations which would pass for real but decay after a set amount of time (long enough for the thief to get clear with the real goods). So now everyone thinks the players have the pearls but they don't really, and if they try to tell their story to the authorities nobody will believe them. So now the players have to discover who the real thief was, track him down and recover the pearls while at the same time evade an urban ranger who is reputed for using excessive force to apprehend his foes, a bloodhound (from the Complete Adventurer sourcebook) who likes to drug his marks rather than fight them outright, and a corrupt justicar who wants the pearls for himself so he can pay off a gambling habbit. On top of that, a major crime organization is royally upset the players pulled off a heist on their turf without being given a cut of the action. Oh yeah, and then there are the local authorities. Just to make things really nasty, the players need to somehow return to the scene of the crime (where the pearls were being stored) in order to do their own investigation to determine who the real thief was.
Maelflux 01-14-05, 04:17 PM	Reply to Kisama: I like your idea, but I dont want them to get the idea I am using a "cheap trick" to get rid of their sudden newfound wealth. Actually, as the plot was intended they should be really curious about these chests being loaded upon an airship with this much security, and just left to wonder. Then later they would actually spot the airship on fire, and slowly heading for land trying to crash, because there already was Emerald Claws going after the treasure to fund their troops and whatnot. And since it was going down smack down in the middle of Eldeen Reaches, other factions might be drawn to the spectacle like raiding Valenars, Druid sects, undeads and so forth. So... I had _expected_ the PC's to then somehow get involved in helping the people on the airship fend of these attacks, and try and get the treasure to safety. Anyways, this just reminded me that they will now have increased the security tenfold, so the agents of the Emerald Claw will probably not be able to sabotage the ship, and hence are missing out on a fortune.. ouchie.. more people really mad at my players there! :D Ah well - so much for plots that get backstabbed by PC's that don't always follow a straight line ;)
kisama 01-14-05, 04:54 PM	Ok so instead of cheap trick. Turn it around somehow so the players don't want to ever have anything to do with the pearls ever again. For instance the pearls might have actually been part of a money laundering scheme. Or payoff for some corrupt government official. Or they could not be pearls after all but instead eggs of some kind of monster, disguised to look like pearls.... Yeah, in fact the players accidently happened upon something bigger. The eggs are from rare critter and were on their way to a terrorist group. The eggs have a spell on them to diminish their size (giving them the perl appearance) and delay the hatching for a specific amount of time, after that they hatch at once. The container chests have a time activated animal growth spell on them to help shorten the critter gestation period. The terrorists were going to plant them in some city, where they would hatch and in a short amount of time turn into a major infestation and problem for the city. Something like that.
Gurv 01-14-05, 05:22 PM	A couple of heroes running around with WAY to much cash? Easy. Make sure that the entire world knows that these Galifar pearls have been stolen. No one should be willing to buy such pearls for some time to come unless Deneith gets them back. Because even fences will have a hard time unloading the pearls, the PCs should only be able to get the tiniest percent of their value (about exactly the amount they should get for an encounter of their level). Further, if everyone knows how many pearls have been stolen, approaching a criminal organization to try to sell them is suicide: unless the PCs offer them at a huge discount, the bad guys know it is worth their time to kill the PCs. House Thuranni and House Phiarlan will offer their services to Deneith. If their offer is not accepted, they will look anyway. The PCs might have one house of elves trying to catch them for the law, and the other trying to catch them for the pearls. Would be interesting to have both Houses after you, just to thwart the other. Wanted Posters. Placed at every city gate, every Lightning Rail station, every Lyrandar port (air or sea), as well as at every other dragonmarked enclave on House Sivis' delivery route. I'd say offering about 5% of th value of whatever pearls can be recovered. 1500-15000gp is a nice take for those bounty hunting Tharashk types...
lord zog 01-15-05, 11:59 AM	You do realise that "no one will believe them" is essentially meaningless in a mileiu with Truth spells and spell-like abilities?
fanpythonmonty 01-15-05, 12:21 PM	Another possibility is to give them a couple of close calls with the authorities to, hopefully, make them start thinking it's time to get rid of the pearls. Then have a nice NPC fence pay them a visit (he heard through the grapevine they had them/has a source inside the authorities/etc). The fence is willing to buy all the pearls for a pretty decent price--claiming he'll have an easier time getting rid of them than the players ever will. Then have the fence (or some agent of his) pop up at different points in later adventures because he needs a favor from the players--and since he put himself in alot of danger taking those pearls off their hands, he feels they owe him. That could set up a whole new set of adventuring possibilities for the party.??
Dundar the Bard 01-16-05, 05:54 PM	If you are going to put it in the chronicle which I recomend you do u can take your game almost anywhere. They could become so wanted that they would have to flee to places that dont get the chronicle which is pretty much no where so you would have to have like a new town in the mournland which would in turn open up totally new plot ideas like the town are believers in Vol or the church of the silver flame. Or if your characters like battles and straight out bust down the door fighting you could have bands of rouges hear about the theft and hunt down your party you can choose from so many diffrent ideas and plot themes I would say them stealing it benifits you a lot more then them.
kisama 01-17-05, 12:24 PM	You do realise that "no one will believe them" is essentially meaningless in a mileiu with Truth spells and spell-like abilities? 1. Truth spells can be fooled. 2. Not everyone in Eberron has access to the spell or even bothers to use it. A criminal underlord is not going to have a cleric handy with Zone of Truth nor is he/she even going to care about whether the players are telling the truth or not because a) you don't get to be leader of a criminal organization by having a reputation for being fair, b) the players were the last ones to have seen the pearls, ergo the players are responsible for the pearl's whereabouts and c) if the players don't divulge the location of the pearls through more conventional means of persuasion (anyone see the movie Payback) then they're useless anyways and as good as dead. At least that's how I would play it.