The campaign I'm playing in right now is city-based (Riddleport + home brew) and heavy on intrigue. The mage's guild is trying to control all magic and access to magic, and has a ton of spies, secret agents, public enforcers, and so forth. My character wants to hide a few of his spells from the guild, so that they don't know exactly how powerful he is.
The plan is to use secret page to hide some spells in a book no one would ever look at ("The Dwarfa Sutra"?). But I don't want the guild to know I'm scribing them. These are the steps I've come up with to try and hide my activities. I'm only level 5, so I don't have access to all magic.
So:
1. Can you think of other things I could do to try and hide my scribing? Things you could do as a normal character and/or level 5 wizard.
2. Can you think of higher-level things I could do when I have more money or levels?
For the purposes of this post, assume the mage's guild is an evil, conniving entity with an unlimited budget and many wizards on their side :P
Feel free to be as devious as possible ;) Feedback is welcome.
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1. Call the monk and the paladin up to my room at the inn where we stay. Get the paladin to cast detect evil and I cast detect magic. We look at the room. The paladin can then leave.
2. Cast see invisibility. Look at the room.
3. Along with the monk (who has the highest Perception score), Take 20 on Perception checks to search the room. The room is 16 squares so at 2 min each it should take 32 minutes to search the whole room. See invisibility will still be on. The DC to notice hidden divination sensors: 20 + spell level, so 29 max.
4. Thank the monk, and he leaves. My character closes and locks the door.
5. I stuff a bunch of blankets and sheets around the bottom of the door to stop physical things from walking in.
6. Cast nondetection on myself.
7. Cast alarm on the room with an audible warning, so people can hear it outside.
8. Take 5ft of chopped rope and cast rope trick. Take all my supplies and climb inside the rope dimension. As it is an extradimensional space, this should give me a bonus against any scry or hopefully other divination spells they might use.
9. Once inside the rope trick, cast detect magic and check for auras. Hopefully none other than my own spell.
10. Using a pearl of power, cast a second alarm spell inside the rope dimension. This time it is a mental alarm. That should cover intruders to the internal pocket space.
11. Cast fog cloud to hide what's going on inside the space anyway. This blocks all forms of vision (including darkvision, and should foil 'true seeing') beyond 5 ft. Should still be enough to let me use my lights/candles and do my scribing :)
12. Use my hat of disguise to make myself look different. Who knows, may help against spells that go by description or are foiled by illusion.
13. Cast detect magic again and search for auras. Should only take 6 rounds to check every direction. Check to make sure they're the same as when I came in + my own spells. If not investigate/abort.
14. S.O.P. is then to pause briefly every 2d6 minutes of game time and cast detect magic again. Check the auras. This only takes 30 seconds every time.
15. Begin writing my spells! :D
* I write secret page into a book and then cast secret page on the spell itself to hide it.
* Repeat with other spells I want to put hide
* I'm going to try to use Linguistics to make the spell writing different than my other spellbook (not sure if this is possible; still working out details with the DM)
* Also use Linguistics to make the cover/fake/visible handwriting of the book look different than my own.
* I then have S.O.P. to cast 'magic aura' on this book every morning so it detects as non-magical. Stuff it in a handy haversack with a bunch of other books and hope nobody notices.
Spells needed:
alarm
alarm
see invisibility
rope trick
fog cloud
nondetection
Can you think of any other precautions?
I would probably cast nondetection on the book also.
I think your Dwarfa Sutra is the best part of your plan. But only if it really is the Dwarfa Sutra. If it's a blank book with secret pages then people get suspicious when the look through it. If it's full of dwarf porn then they either look at the porn or they look at you funny. The presence of porn is enough to convince most people that you're just hiding some dwarf-lust rather than anything important.
Prepare to be teased tho. And end up with the hairy prostitutes. ;-{D>
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Don't you need to cast invisibility and possibly non-detection on the dangling rope too? Hmm, perhaps have one or more ropes permanently tied to the ceiling anyway as misdirection - you can always point to the appropriate picture in the book if questioned about it ;-)
You want to make sure there are no pictures in the room or in the book or on any of your coins etc - that have likenesses of actual people - particularly society mages. Or the APG Enter Image Spell might be used as a random check on you.
Also make sure you choose a common book or someone could locate object on it or be tempted to steal it. Though if it is a common book you probably couldn't object if it was swapped with an identical book during a routine sweep... So you need to have a lot of common books to hide it amongst.
Make sure you only have common objects in your room and equipment - particularly scribing equipment. Any unusual object is a potential locate object target - so have two of any of them for misdirection. There is the possibility of them scrying on a unique object you have and if it does not show up making them suspicious and instigating a snap search. Hmmm, consider scribing naked and with absolute minimum equipment. Actually scribing naked with that book is a cover story in its own right :-O
Scribe something else embarrassing in one of the books, and hide it not quite as well, so that can be discovered as the big secret rather than the actual secret.
Ideally you want a programmed image and/or lifelike dummy of yourself in the room so your absence is harder to notice.
You want to hide the use of the specialist scribing material - isn't this controlled and audited by the mages? Not sure how you do this.
You need to keep all animals including vermin out of the room - who knows what form a familiar or other agent might take.
I'd be VERY careful with the casting of all those abjurations and other spells for two reasons:
1) Wizard spies looking for magic probably walk around with detect magic up all the time (it is an at will cantrip). Any of them coming within 60 feet of your heavily magic'd room is going to take notice.
2) Multiple abjurations that are in place for a long period of time become visible.
Abjurations are protective spells. They create physical or magical barriers, negate magical or physical abilities, harm trespassers, or even banish the subject of the spell to another plane of existence.
If one abjuration spell is active within 10 feet of another for 24 hours or more, the magical fields interfere with each other and create barely visible energy fluctuations. The DC to find such spells with the Perception skill drops by 4.
If an abjuration creates a barrier that keeps certain types of creatures at bay, that barrier cannot be used to push away those creatures. If you force the barrier against such a creature, you feel a discernible pressure against the barrier. If you continue to apply pressure, you end the spell.
Hey,
Great ideas everyone! :) Thanks for the feedback.
EWHM - good call on wizards talking with powerful outer-planar beings. *Hopefully* my tiny activity isn't enough to warrant that kind of attention, but I guess we'll see :P I (and the party) have started working on alliances with other powerful groups in the city, so we'll see where that goes.
'Nondetection' says "If cast on a creature, nondetection wards the creature's gear as well as the creature itself", so hopefully that means one casting will do it?
Nebulous_Mistress - Thanks for the feedback on the fake book contents. I was thinking that might be overdoing it with "Dwarfa Sutra" and that I should pick a more generic book, but this might work out well for hiding things. I guess we'll see ;)
I should have mentioned - the inn we are staying at is a large building made entirely of stone. The walls are a least a foot thick, and the doors are made of solid iron. Plus I am on the 3rd floor. So hopefully that covers me from most detection spells such as 'detect magic'. As for 'locate object' - does that spell work across planes? The description doesn't say. If it doesn't work across planes then hopefully hiding this book in a 'handy haversack' will prevent that spell. If it does work I may be in trouble if they discover the book exists.
Good call on 'enter image'. We are playing only with core Pathfinder spells/SRD, so hopefully I won't have to worry about the DM sneaking this on me. But I might start filing down my coins just in case ;) That might make a good roleplaying hook too. Or it might make people more suspicious. hm. And I will start picking up 2 of each of my equipment ;)
ZomB - good call on the fake 'embarassing secret'. I will give this some thought.
Ravingdork - thanks, I had never thought of the abjuration fields! :P Hopefully my DM won't either ;) But I think since the only abjurations I have to worry about are 'nondetection' and 'alarm', hopefully it will be fine. 1) They're inside the rope dimension, disappearing after each time. 2) I'm not keeping these up for 24 hours, so hopefully the fields won't interfere.
>>Spell Mastery
Right! I will consider this for my next feat level, as I get further into the Lodge :P
Thanks everyone!
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Where are you getting your ink? You could look into importing it from outside the city, asking (trustworthy) agents to procure it, or building up your Craft skills to make ink yourself from materials that mages won't recognise. Otherwise, the guild potentially just has to question your supplier to find out how many levels of spells you've scribed or even (if the GM is feeling particularly evil) use Spellcraft or Knowledge (arcana) to find what schools and levels such spell ink would suit.
I agree with the idea of concealing the spellbook as, or inside, something other than a book, if you can.
Magic aura might assist with hiding some of your various protections, though note the limited target. edit: The upper-storey room with a decent thickness of stone walls should help block detect spells.
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If it doesn't work across planes then hopefully hiding this book in a 'handy haversack' will prevent that spell.
Note that you cannot use/open a handy haversack inside a rope trick.
SRD: "Extradimensional Spaces
A number of spells and magic items utilize extradimensional spaces, such as rope trick, a bag of holding, a handy haversack, and a portable hole. These spells and magic items create a tiny pocket space that does not exist in any dimension. Such items do not function, however, inside another extradimensional space. If placed inside such a space, they cease to function until removed from the extradimensional space. "
The rope trick is not permanent, but just for the writing process it seems. The haversack is for carrying the thing around. It'll only be "in the open" between moving out of the rope trick and being put into the haversack.
The question I have is what about memorizing spells from it, and what happens when people catch wind that you are using these spells? They don't need the smoking gun to convict every time you know...
Oh, also... I couldn't help by read that list of steps and think, by the 13th or 14th step or so, that this was the most complicated way to get some "alone time" on the can... or tell an off colour joke (I imagine Stewie Griffin preparing to tell his joke in an episode of Family Guy).
Oh, and beware the Neutral Rogue with a Stealth DC of 30+. ;)
Scribing the spells into the books is/will be no more problematic than reading the spells to memorize them in the morning.
The best bet, IMHO, is to have your copy of the Dwarfa Sutra, go into your room with it, don't bother with all the searches and so forth, but just crawl under the blankets of the bed with an everburning torch and the book, and every once in a while let out a moan of pleasure. Barring someone invisible with a ring of X-ray vision, or some really amazing scrying that can somehow see between layers of blankets, most people will assume that the wizard is under the covers doing what one would expect with the Dwarfa Sutra.
Bonus feature: Have the secret page and the regular dummy page be almost identical except that in the dummy pages, the naked dwarves are tattooed with pornographic verse that can only be read with a jeweler's loupe. In the secret page, the verse is replaced with the spells.
I somehow doubt that anyone would be able to get their scrying to not only look beneath the covers but zoom in that carefully.
The other thing to remember is that nothing is foolproof, but what you're looking to do is make it so that it's not cost effective for the mage's guild to ferret out your contraband.
I had a half-oge wizard / fighter in a game once who had developed his own code for inscribing his spells. They looked like sketches. (Craft - Drawing 6 total). The group thought he was nuts and the other wizard in the group WAS paranoid but never figured out the spellbook.
Granted, he wasn't much of a wizard with the Int penalty giving him a total of 13, but he was fun to play.
He enjoyed giving wedgies to wizards who thought they were better than he was due to knowing all those big words.
...hide some spells in a book no one would ever look at ("The Dwarfa Sutra"?)Thing is; I would look at that.
I bet you would ;-P
Since you're going to act paranoid anyway, let it be obvious that you are paranoid. Establish that you are absolutely terrified of losing your spellbook.
Then start scribing backup copies. Not full books, but subsets...
-This book has all of my personal spells
-This book has all of my elemental spells
-This book has all of my divinations spells (etc, etc.)
Make sure the categories overlap. Then scribe your 'hidden' spells into the book, overlaying them with category appropriate spells via Secret Page.
There are a number of advantages:
-Everyone *knows* you're obsessed with copying your spells, so it's not unusual that you buy a lot of spell ink, and it becomes pretty boring to spy on you all day as you scribe Comprehend Languages into 3 different books.
-Who's going to look for hidden spells in a spellbook? They're right there in the open. It just doesn't seem like a particularly secretive place.
-If someone casts detect magic on the book, there is a magic aura. No shock there, if you are known to be paranoid about your spellbooks, it can be reasonably presumed you'd protect them as best you could.
-You end up with multiple backups of your spellbook.
In the long run, it could get expensive, but it shouldn't bankrupt you before you get to the level where you can use various spells to create a lead-lined chamber that you can teleport into to scribe in peace.
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1) Do you have a familiar? Does it have fur? Spend a few skill points your next level on Craft (Tattoo), shave your familiar, tattoo a few spells on your familiar's skin. When the hair regrows, you'll have your little spellbook with you at all times.
2) Take improved familiar and build a Homunculus. As a construct, the little thing can swallow a few parchments and carry around your copied spells in secret in its stomach, regurgitating them when you need them.
Use a cook book. Hide the formulas in recipes. Take a few ranks in craft cooking...Erasmus's spell book. Great recipe for apple turnovers, only two spells one for heating apple turnovers and one for summoning squirrels. Erasmus was a strange man.
Paranoid is fine but if you're too sneaky you attract more attention than not. Submit spells of a mundane nature [protection low offense stuff] and then hide the a big one and a small one. If you hide every thing you will get caught. So minimize the chances of being caught with something important.
Bake apple turnovers. Study the inside of your clothes. Turn in a few scrolls "you found" to the proper authorities. Look like you belong and fewer people will question you.
People in power are still people. Bribes and favors can do more than hiding. Black mail is also a good tactic. It doesn't have to be true to be believed. Leave "evidence" and hint at a miss deed.
You will get caught so set up the catch. Have a minor spell be "found" in your posession. Then ask to work off the offense and offer a "cache" of illegal spells. Petty magic hunter looks good and leaves you alone for a little while. A liitle troble is easier to handle than a lot.
Any way good luck and have fun.
Oh, remember "If you can't win make them sorry they started the fight." Mr. Fishy
...hide some spells in a book no one would ever look at ("The Dwarfa Sutra"?)Thing is; I would look at that.I bet you would ;-PSuggest it to Sarah, for a dA art trade.
She likes your stuff.
Thanks, maybe I will... ;)