A recent thread about evil parties reminded me of a great game my fellows and I had recently.
Our party was tasked by the King's brother to travel across the land and enlist clans of monsters to join him. Essentially, we were to get them to invade our own nation so that the king's armies would be away when the brother's coup eventually came to pass. In return, the monster clans would be given the lands that they managed to conquer.
We succeeded in starting the invasion. Through clever use of disguise self, the forgery application of linguistics, and some charm spells, we even managed to get a neighboring nation to declare war. As war broke out across the land, the homeland armies often needed reinforcements, and so capable men (such as the local law enforcement) were also called to the front.
Crime began to run rampant (in no small part due to our party stirring things up behind the scenes).
Already in good graces with the king through his brother, the king asked us to do something about the rising crime rate. We disappeared for a week. During that time we kidnapped and murdered the head of the king's bodyguard. We broke into his home, found several letters that were meant to go to his sons on the warfront, and used them to forge documents that incriminated him. Through these letters and a few bluff checks, the king slowly began to believe that his former bodyguard had become infected with lycanthropy, turned evil, and had started the war in some grand scheme to destroy the royal family and bring chaos to the land (we even provided convincing evidence that would have incriminated us had we not placed the blame on the king's former head of security).
The king tasked us with eliminating the threat that lycanthropy posed to his kingdom. We spent weeks hunting down all of our enemies in the area and putting them to the slaughter, all with out king's blessing. All we had to do was "cry wearwolf."
Eventually, we realized the power of forgery when used with guile and minor magical trickery. We decided to go for something bigger. After destroying a local thieves guild (one of our enemies), we forged yet another letter, this one supposedly written by the king's brother himself.
We reported back to the king that our mission was a complete success, but that we also found something disturbing along the way. We showed him the letter, which incriminated his own brother in the chaos that had been ever-increasing, as well as exposing the plot to commit regicide. My sorceress witch then used silenced/stilled illusions to make it as though the prince (who had been shaking his brother and pleading with him to believe his innocence) to look as though he were transforming into a werewolf. The party fighter drew his sword and yelled, "Quick! Get him before he kills our king!" The guards in the hall drew their bows, but none were quick enough.
Much to our astonishment, the king won initiative, drew his longsword, and decapitated his own brother. We were hailed as heroes.
The kingdom fell a week later. While helping the king escape the invading monsters (who had all but devoured the armies of the king and the rival nation) we delivered him into the hands of a very greatful coven of hags.
The monsters, knowing us as the ones who recruited them and helped them find a nation to call their own, (mostly) submitted to our rule. Those who didn't were magically enslaved and/or killed.
We now jointly rule a powerful nation of monsters poised to take over the neighboring country whose army had been greatly weakened during the conflict. With that nation conquered the world will be split in two and we will be in an advantageous position when we try and take the rest of the world for ourselves.
Who knew a little bit of forgery and sorcery could do so much?
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Hmmm... I think your GM let you get away a bit too easily -- it may be that your scheming and plotting was more complex than implied in your post, but I don't think Disguise Self, Diplomacy/Bluff/Linguistics and Charm Person are enough to topple whole kingdoms. Why did the king trust complete strangers over his own kin and advisors... if he was paranoid about his men, how come he did not use spies and magic to make sure a bunch of unknown strangers/mercenaries are telling him the truth?
Hmmm... I think your GM let you get away a bit too easily -- it may be that your scheming and plotting was more complex than implied in your post, but I don't think Disguise Self, Diplomacy/Bluff/Linguistics and Charm Person are enough to topple whole kingdoms. Why did the king trust complete strangers over his own kin and advisors... if he was paranoid about his men, how come he did not use spies and magic to make sure a bunch of unknown strangers/mercenaries are telling him the truth?
My post was merely a brief summary in which I glossed over several finer points. Believe you me, we had to really work for it and the plan nearly fell apart on a number of occasions.
If I were to spell it out in full, it would be so long as to keep people from wanting to read it.
I think it's brilliant. You hear about this stuff in movies and books of the fantasy genre, but in games,it always comes down to fighting. I love that yall toppled the crown without use of arms.
Sounds like it was fun.
This is the kind of game I'd like to play in.
This illustrates the importance of some historical background concerning forgery. Often those who are speaking on behalf of a king or other leader would have to bear the royal seal, as an investment of power to speak on the leader's behalf. No seal, no deal. Thus, a simple forged document is useless.
This illustrates the importance of some historical background concerning forgery. Often those who are speaking on behalf of a king or other leader would have to bear the royal seal, as an investment of power to speak on the leader's behalf. No seal, no deal. Thus, a simple forged document is useless.
Unless you have a manner of forging the seal itself.
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This illustrates the importance of some historical background concerning forgery. Often those who are speaking on behalf of a king or other leader would have to bear the royal seal, as an investment of power to speak on the leader's behalf. No seal, no deal. Thus, a simple forged document is useless.Unless you have a manner of forging the seal itself.
such as by working for the kings brother and having access to his copy of said royal seal.
That is awesome, I wish I could do something like that, the closest I've come is convincing the monk in the party to question his own sanity and offer himself as my servant with nothing but a few bluff checks
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Seems like the forgery would be a magic arms race. You could use magic to replicate the seal. But then the king might have an adviser with arcane sight, who might notice the transmutation or illusion or what have you. Still, epic story, and since it's a campaign, fun for players and the DM trumps minor plot/historicity issues. Congrats on putting together such an awesome story.
I'm working on a first adventure for an evil party myself. Two are former members of a spy network run by an ice devil, the third is a half-orc who left his swamp home to get business and signed up with these two others when they went independent. Has potential for major insanity, hope it goes as well as yours.
Also had a thing where the PCs wound up being tragic villains, but in a way tragic heroes, but they did kill a lot of innocent people. It was a real shades of gray deal. It was good fun, but it has come to an end.
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such as by working for the kings brother and having access to his copy of said royal seal.
Any king that allows a sibling access to the royal seal without setting a pack of spies on him and everyone he comes in contact with should just hand over the crown right then and there. When one is a ruler, there is no such thing as being too paranoid.
At no point does the OP ever say he used the kings seal. He was delivering official messages for the king's brother, and then they forged similar messages.
A king without access to low level cleric divinations never mind high level ones? He may as well have been a commoner if he let illusions fool him.
He really should have invested more heavily in a royal funded state religion to watch out for him for 'spiritual.."magical" threats'.
It all depends on the campaign world. In a low magic campaign, I could see this working perfectly fine. I see no spell effect them mention higher than lvl 1, so it could have easily been low magic.