Ahh. That would be up to the DM. I assumed we only had 24 hours from the start of the ceremony...but if we can call the Devil later for 24 hours that would actually work much better...give Agrippa time to work on more nefarious things.
My first thought was use the devil to take out the rookery and teleport us behind the walls, but that plan is variable depending on whether we need to use the 24 hours now or whether we can use any 24 hours.
Poison is a thought, but poison is not cheap to make. I'd need a good amount of money and supplies and then we have to get the poison into their food or drink. We might need to murder a caravan deliverying supplies and taint their wares.
Lets see whats in town - rat poison may be available.
IF we have to use it tonight and I REALLY hope we don't have to - lets use it to take out any enemy wizards (see, we STILL don't know if there are any) - the suspicion will be that they were dabbling in devil worship and it got away from there (well, it will be by the time I get that particular rumour started anyways)... and then, IF it is still around tear through the rookery "escaping"... two birds one stone.
But two weeks away that MAY result in riders being sent for inquisitors/paladins to see what happened (I mean Devils are BAAAAAD) and we do NOT need them in town. They can seriously mess out stuff up.
Oh, and on the not cheap to make side? We are NOT light on cash. If you can guarentee results I'm happy to throw coin your way.
Immediate actions Okay, lets assume the 24 hours starts right now unless GM says otherwise. To Eldred's point, I think hitting the commander this early will send them into a tizzy that we aren't in a position to exploit yet, likely ending in reinforcements. We can't hide his assassination, and by all accounts he is capable and well loved - hard to frame. The Wizard and the chaplain on the other hand we could do. Wizards in Talingarde get little respect, and a devil popping up in his private sanctum and killing him could be explained away as a failed experiment and as yet more proof that wizards can't be trusted. The Chaplain can be lured to the farm house, and we can stall with messages back saying he has to stay by the child's bedside for a week , or has gone to another town to get medical supplies. That's their big wizard and their big cleric gone in 24 hours!
Long Con Next, we should work the affair. We know from the campaign traits that dueling is a capital offence but people still do it. Might be easier to set up an embarrassing encounter between all three parties involved and hope they murder each other. Rather than us trying to cook up a frame job, we get them to actually be guilty.
Love the poison. We'll have to keep working the town to see how food gets in and out of the fortress. So after we pull off "Operation: Have at thee, Cuckold!" we'll need to lay low for a bit and go into info gathering mode, with maybe some trips into the fortress itself disguised as servants to figure out what else we can do, and nail down a plan for the main gate. That will also give us time to see if the secret inquisition thing will work.
Cant count on Mitrans to do the right thing and fight it out - hells they may have a hug in forgive fest
Alternatively, the rumors mentioned and item of power having sunk in the lake. We could use our devil to retrieve it for us. We might potentially be able to use its power against the town and fortress.
oooooh :) Idea if we CANT delay
Since you guys are waiting for em says if It can or not be delayed, let me says this:
I do not know! Ask Kokb'ael!
Alternatively, the rumors mentioned and item of power having sunk in the lake. We could use our devil to retrieve it for us. We might potentially be able to use its power against the town and fortress.
Ooh! I totally forgot about that. So we should use the devil to do things we normally can't, and I think deep sea exploration counts. I vote we use him to do an in and out strike to kill the castle wizard ( and take his stuff - if we can get him in his study or laboratory we could score some useful stuff for later), then send him exploring for this mysterious relic. That's probably ambitious enough for 24 hours.
Yeah - Castle Wizard for sure then the lake artifact.
Ok, then my plan would revolve around books and a raven.
Agrippa would pose as a nobleman wanting to donate books to the Castle library, he would of course require a personal tour through the wizards library. As soon as it would be prudent to kill the man, Agrippa would send a feeling of cold delight through his empathetic bond to his familiar Poe the raven. Poe would then fly to the nearby Devil in hiding which would then Greater teleport into the room, and bam. Dead Wizard.
Ok, poke it full of holes so we can make it better.
We don't want any outside influences or ppl to be seen - just send him back tell him to go invis, home in on the most powerful arcane caster, kill. Destroy rookery openly screaming so all can hear 'I am free of your wizards binding - beware all those who make false bargains with the denzidens of hell' - then have him teleport back here and search the lake/sea for near the site for magical artefacts and return the spell book.
He can't go invisible at will, and Greater Teleport would allow him to Teleport to my side but would be unreliable if he just wanted to go somewhere he had never been before.
Stream of thought typing:
Agrippa, your plan sounds good as written but would leave questions about the nobleman benefactor. Faceless servant would eliminate the suspicion that would be caused by the nobleman visiting the library at exactly the same time as the devil attacks, but might not have the access we need to get to the Wizard - Ideally we could take a few days to test the place's procedures and routines first, but we cant.
Any way we could leave behind an extra bloodied corpse to represent the nobleman? Perhaps Agrippa/nobleman survives the attack and stays to bear witness to the inevitable investigation ( probably unnecessarily risky though).
I think the servant is our safest route. Aim for the wizard but settle for other targets as decided once on the scene - you're bound to bump into something important - rookery, chaplain, etc. - and a Wizard's sanctum has to be fairly well known. Hmm, no, scratch that - random devil attack with the wizard's own ineptitude to blame it on wouldn't work either.
Does Agrippa have any kind of messaging spell that would allow communication? It would allow us to send in more than one person.
The only spell is 140' range communication spell that has a few limitations.
I found the spell Whispering Wind, but Agrippa does not have it memorized, perhaps he can buy a scroll in town?
Hi all - tween lack of sleep from insomnia and my aniversary today I'm calling it a day here. Will post in 12 or so hours.
Well, part of the reason to take out the wizard was to score his stuff for our own use against the rest of the castle. If we can't teleport in and out with the devil, that becomes harder. Why don't we get him started on the ship wreck search while some or all of us try to lure out the cleric, or locate a patrol to ambush or something.
Nah - ace the wizard
I'm uncertain the devil will be all that reliable in taking out the wizard. We do not know what sort of defenses he has against creatures from another plane. In addition, the devil will bring quite a bit of attention to the rookery and may beef up security, which could make things difficult for us in the future.
I would much rather utilize the devil for outside jobs where it won't be seen within the fortress. We can deal with the Wizard and the rest of them ourselves. Let us not rely too much on a summoned devil.
I would instead favor using the devil for outside tasks:
1) Search the wreckage of the Dawn Triumphant and bring us its cargo.
2) Obtain for us a large wagon of food stuffs.
3) Obtain for us poison (Is devil's blood poisonous?)
Good point. We don't know anything about the capabilities of the wizard or the devil really. We had some good plans forming before the devil came into the picture, now we're totally distracted by how to use this little gift. Lets use him to do something we can't do on our own, like search for the wreck. If it doesn't work, we're not down anything. If the wizard assassination doesn't work, we will have stirred a wasp's nest.
So, start with the shipwreck, see how that goes and if we have any time left we can do something else creative.
But lets make a decision quickly so we can move on.
I'm uncertain the devil will be all that reliable in taking out the wizard. We do not know what sort of defenses he has against creatures from another plane. In addition, the devil will bring quite a bit of attention to the rookery and may beef up security, which could make things difficult for us in the future.
I would much rather utilize the devil for outside jobs where it won't be seen within the fortress. We can deal with the Wizard and the rest of them ourselves. Let us not rely too much on a summoned devil.
I would instead favor using the devil for outside tasks:
1) Search the wreckage of the Dawn Triumphant and bring us its cargo.
2) Obtain for us a large wagon of food stuffs.
3) Obtain for us poison (Is devil's blood poisonous?)
Good poison is injestable that needs an hour or two of Onset time - most important. If they die immedietely it wont work so good
Indeed, I have not met your bugbear friend Agrippa turns to the Devil and says Повеќето жедните Kokb'ael, ќе вчитајте на Mitran артефакт за нас денес? Јас разбирам дека е погребан на дното на тоа таму Езеро во потонатиот брод. he indicates the nearby body of water.
** spoiler omitted **
It may not be a MITRAN artifact - retrieve all magical items from the wreck site as well as any items of religious or planar significance and deliver them to us would be better.
Okay. I'm waiting you to decide on the exact orders to give the devil's answer.
My post by no means covers the sum of Eldreds actions - I still think that the secret inquisition con will get us a LOT but lots to do and man, I just aint to typing it all out right now
I don't disagree. We need information first though - and I think we can probably have multiple schemes working at the same time. I'd like to test the waters with the leads we already have, namely the guard captain love triangle, first though.
Other Notes:
Loot sold, so that's 2,117gp each for Malgrim, Johan, and Eldred. Kept the Mstwk greataxe for Grumblejack, which leaves 1957gp in the party mischief fund.
Fet, Alchemists can use wands of spells that exist on their formula lists, yes? If so, then please take the wand of CLW we recently 'reapropriated' from Damien and use it to save our butts as needed. It has 20 charges
Yeah I can use wands that appear on the Alchemist lists without need for UMD (Which I have anyway for other things like scrolls).
I will store this little wand away for emergencies. What level is it?
Yeah I can use wands that appear on the Alchemist lists without need for UMD (Which I have anyway for other things like scrolls).
I will store this little wand away for emergencies. What level is it?
Just lvl 1
It should be interesting.
expect a few posts in the next day. Fried for now.
Mama Guiseppe's stew could be an excellent delivery system for any poison we want to slip into the guards food.
Okay - have some sleep and sanity in hand.
1/great idea Fet- but we'll need a lot.
2/ secret passage? We need a charm person on the innkeeper! We need all the information we can get on that. That's our way to kill the captain and any one else.
3/ Whacking the Captain on patrol with a summoned devil could be a god one but I like the idea of sneaking into his room at night - cut his throat.
4/ We can do the murder-lover thing via the passage too.
I think you're confusion Captain and Commander. So far we've identified three captains - the two in the love triangle and now a third that leads patrols into the hills weekly. No evidence that the commander ever leaves the fortress ( though I suppose he must at some point)
DM Aku, any objection to me adding all these names to the Dramatis Personae link so we can keep straight what we've learned?
Anyone has any news from Malgrim? I was not saying anything because if made a little bit o sense if the hobgoblin did not wanted to say anything because his 'almost' fight with the wizard. But it’s about 9 days since he last checked in the gameplay.
I'm gonna need another day myself Aku. Things are a bit messy.
So I'm thinking a scroll of decompose corpse is exactly what we need right now.
And as an added bonus, Agrippa, if you were planning on learning animate dead at lvl 5, you'd have a nifty skeleton all ready to go.
Lemonade out of lemons and all...
Been extremely busy this week with a long distance move, including arranging telecommuting with my job. Posts will be sporadic from me for the beginning of april.
...your above post was awesome Johan, that is pretty much exactly what Agrippa would have done.
Thanks for that! Sometimes its hard to make meaningful posts without assuming at least a little bit of action or dialog from fellow posters. Glad you approved!
@ Fet: Good luck with the move and all the chaos that goes with it.
@Fet Don't worry. If there's need I'll DMPC you for a time. :)
Just want to note that I'm here, waiting for you decide what to do with everything, including the devil body.
could you cook up something more effective on your own?
DM Aku what is the verdict on this? Could Fet cook up arsenic or a better poison by himself? How much time would it take? I can make a craft Alchemy roll below, but I think poison (even potent poison) and acid should be easy enough DC's to make with my bonuses.
I didn't know Fet could brew potions - that's great! Actually I've never played as or with an alchemist before. Beyond throwing bombs and turning into mr hyde I'm kinda clueless as to what to expect so, yeah, do chime in if we're underutilizing him.
So no decompose corpse huh? Man, you never make it easy, eh DM Aku? <rolls eyes in mock frustration>. Okay, so Agrippa I've ticked off 200gp to cover the cost of the 2 charm person scrolls, and 1 of the invisibility scrolls.
Eldred: you okay with the plan so far?
yeah - he should be able to use summoned beasties to eat the damn devil - admittedly he's only 4th level and the fun stuff like lemures come at 5th level.
Otherwise hoik it back into the lake and let it wash up normally. IF word gets out the suspicion would be it was looking for the artifact... or you know, the acid.
Well since I already posted, and since Agrippa is a snob who thinks very little of others....yeah Agrippa wouldn't trust something of an arcane nature to someone he considers a "dabbler" and "scribbler" of formulae.
If there are legit places that sell these scrolls, I can't think buying a couple would arouse suspicion - especially with Agrippa's believable story.
Its like buying jeans from a clothing store and the sales clerk thinking - "hmm that's suspicious, why's that guy buying jeans?"
lol
I'm not sure that Jeans is a good analog for a charm scroll or an invisibility scroll. I think it would be more like going into a arms and ammo store or an army surplus store and buying smoke grenades and tasers, and the like. Not directly lethal, legal, though possibily suspicious.