Whoops – forgot to post publish this to the site before bed last night… sorry, but hopefully you will like it anyway.
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ADVENTURE HOOK 009
Location:
Where-ever the party is about to find their next treasure parcel.
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Situation:
When the party is gathering the valuable items from their next treasure parcel, they discover a colorful tunic, decorated with geometric shapes with strong lines, woven out of a very fine material (quality silk, or whatever passes for expensive linen in you campaign world). All of the PCs notice how beautiful the shirt is, to the point of commenting on it – even the PCs that are normally stoic or pay not attention to such things. If they try to determine how valuable the shirt is, they will estimate it to be worth between 800 and 1500 gold pieces (adjust accordingly for your party).
Problem:
1) As they package it up, one (or more) of the players decide that they should be the one to carry the tunic. (You can roll a +10 vs Will to find out who wants and will argue about the shirt)
2) Once it is determined who will carry the shirt, it will be very hard for the party to stop the carrier from donning the shirt. (The PC will really want to put it on!)
3) The party will have a hard time getting the PC to sell the shirt.
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Tasks:
The players need to
1) Determine the actual worth of the shirt
2) Sell the shirt, or otherwise dispose of it
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Things to explore:
1) The shirt emits an aura of attractiveness such that any creature within 5 squares of the wearer is drawn to the wearer and enamored with him/her.
2) While wearing the shirt, a PC will get a +4 bonus to their charisma, which affects all charisma based skills and challenges.
3) When speaking to someone who is wearing the shirt, make a +10 vs will roll. If the result surpasses the Will Defense of the PC, they are at a -4 penalty to diplomacy and bluff checks against the person and they have a 25% chance of stopping mid-sentence to stare ate the beauty of the shirt (and the wearer).
4) The shirt is NOT cursed. The shirt is NOT sentient. Therefore, the shirt should not ‘just disappear’ like an artifact that tires of its owner. The shirt is also not bound to the wearer and there is no penalty to the wearer for removing it. There is also no side-effect of losing the aura.
5) The shirt was also NOT enchanted, which is why the players do not sense any magical properties emanating off of it. The power of the shirt is due to an ancient ritual gone awry (or too well), but there is no remaining magical signature.
6) When the players try to sell the shirt, they will have no problem selling it for a very high price. You could actually have this scene turn into something of an auction to the highest bidder in which all of the common folk want to purchase it; they will even offer their farms and all of their material possessions for the shirt. Someone may offer his daughter in exchange for the shirt. In other words – this is extreme!
7) Any commoner (read: non-adventurer) that wears the shirt will slowly go mad. People will be extremely enamored and fawn all over the wearer, doing his/her bidding just to be looked at favorably. The person’s demeanor will get more and more erratic and they will start asking for unreasonable things. It will become clear that a commoner doesn’t have the constitution or will to withstand the power of the shirt’s aura. The PCs may decide they need to do something about this, or they may decide just to leave town.
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Suggestions:
Regardless of the choice in #7 above, the party may find themselves accused of bewitching the shirt and the person to which they sold it. There may be an interesting confrontation there. It may affect the party’s reputation in teh entire region. If the party leaves town and comes back later, they might find that the town has become a strange waste-land where no-one does anything except the bidding of the one with the shirt. If it is very much later, they may find one crazed commoner wearing the shirt, babbling to himself, starving to death. It could be interesting to have the party try and remove the shirt from this one, who only received the shirt after everyone else in the town had their go and went mad.
That’s the end of Adventure Hook 009!
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I hope you are enjoying this series – post a comment and let me know what you think of them! Are they helpful? Is there something you wish I would address?
By the way, my blog will be moving web-hosting services in the next week or two. I will retain the wordpress shell, so not much will change, but the bookmark you use may need to be updated. I’ll keep you posted!
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Until next time, I wish you good gaming!
~DM Samuel
Quite amusing. Though I am not big on the ‘magic item that does not appear magic’ making it a ‘real’ magic item insures that your characters will be interested in it.
I know – it’s a precarious line to walk. I don’t care for the non-magic magic item myself, but in this case I don’t actually want the players to want it for its powers. I want them to want it for the money. That way I later get to show them that what they do has consequences for the world they inhabit (that’s why I threw in numbers 6 and 7 – there are consequences for a commoner to wear the shirt).