In my current game I have a arcane fraternal organization that has worked its way into the upper echelons of political power in all the major cities of the rather obscure area that the campaign takes place in (on the edge of the Dreamlands on the world proper).
That the organization serves Asmodeus. They obviously don't advertise it. They talk about the greatness of human reason, enlightenment, the banishment of superstition and living in fear of supernatural beings. They run schools of magic, collect lore and generally do what they can to educate those they see as worthy. But they have other goals.
They've largely been successful in these goals. They started introducing the idea in seminaries and monasteries that it's not appropriate to actually say the names of the gods. They're holy names after all. So over the last few centuries, they've been doing their best to strip away the personal identity of the gods. And largely people now just call them "the gods of light" or "the dark gods" for the bad ones. They also work hard to get dirt on priests and monks and to have their men placed in positions within various temples and shrines and to cut short the influence of any itinerant preachers or lay revivalists who might call worship back to the gods as individual and personal beings. They've also been doing their best to make anyone who knew the rites to appoint true clerics and true paladins disappear.
The PCs are just about to loot the vaults of one of their strongholds. In them is a secret room that has the various ceremonial and pledge equipment that they only use for the more initiated members.
This particular stronghold is a minor one. It's master doesn't have the power to summon devils. He's probably not even all that capable. The only reason there's a stronghold in the town is that the town used to be a major one but has declined over the years and the stronghold is there pretty much out of tradition.
So what clues should the group find among the treasures? I was thinking of an upside down triangle symbol made up of 9 lines that gradually getting smaller. And perhaps a plaque inscribed with the Oath of Loyalty. And perhaps another with the Oath of the Inner Circle. The Oath of the Inner Circle would be an another language (Chelaxian?) which will be deciphered easily enough, I'm sure.
Should I just go all out and have really obvious Asmodean stuff here? A big obvious Asmodean star on tapestries? Should the Oath of the Inner Circle basically just say that they're interested in destroying the faith of the people in favor of "reason" and that their inner circle is dedicated to taking the position of herding the human cattle who can't make the right decisions for themselves or should it out and out praise Asmodeus and pledge their loyalty and souls to him? My gut says just to layer on enough clues so they can figure it out without too much trouble without being blatant.
One of the characters is actually up for membership in the organization and it would be interesting with putting them in the position of whether or not to join them knowing full well that they are nefarious Asmodeans who seek to dominate the area. If he joins, is he going to infiltrate? If he suddenly rejects membership after working to nominated and considered, what message would it send the members of the organization who sponsored them? And then when news of the robbery reaches those same ears, perhaps things will be pieced together.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Though this is undoubtedly vague and unhelpful, only give as much info as you're willing for them to know, and be ready for them to both completely miss the obvious/take something hilariously minute and make this gigantic rediculous theory that has no basis in reality/solve it immidiately and accidentally based on something like "They wear red and act orderly - DEVILS!"
In other words, without knowing how much you want to risk them founding out now and knowing your group, I can't really advise specifics :\
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I would include knowledge (religion) and knowledge (local) checks. After all, no matter how secret a secret is, the more people know, the more its going to be talked about, and someone will slip up.
I love this idea you've got going. How quickly do you want them to know? Will their revelation be the climax (p.s. for those who don't know, climax is NOT the end, its the high point)? Or do you want to leave them in the dark til the end to ramp up the "omg factor" they will experience when they realize what they've been dealing with?
I would include knowledge (religion) and knowledge (local) checks. After all, no matter how secret a secret is, the more people know, the more its going to be talked about, and someone will slip up.
I love this idea you've got going. How quickly do you want them to know? Will their revelation be the climax (p.s. for those who don't know, climax is NOT the end, its the high point)? Or do you want to leave them in the dark til the end to ramp up the "omg factor" they will experience when they realize what they've been dealing with?
Well, I ran the session and they pretty much figured it out just from the symbolism. The real drama came during the escape. They had to decide whether or not they were going to go back to another city and report to a member of the secret society who they were potentially working for or just make a run for it.
I'm trying to make the game more protagonist focused. Where what they choose is what we do. So I've been bombarding them with hints of villiany from a variety of sources.
The Asmodean secret society's main role is to demonstrate that there are no good guys that can just latch onto. They were heading towards working for the organization and the people in the cities the society controls, but now they won't. Now it's just them.
Golarian has a bit of the grimdark going on and I needed to bring that out by demonstrating that there's no one "good" but them and that working with these not good people might be necessary for their goals.
So now the question is what does the society do now that they know someone has seen their secret chambers and knows their secret. They know who it is as they chose to run and escape with the proof they found. Does the cult close ranks, or do the PCs become an opportunity for a power play within the organization? Two high ranking members of the organization know it was them who was in those vaults. Do they tell their higher ups? Do they consult and collude?