A thieves guild picked a fight with our group and lost. One of the items that came off the leader is a real nice Ruby (10,000 GP) with a demon (or something similar) seemingly trapped inside.
My character is a Wizard and curretnly has possesion of the Ruby "for safe keeping". I've been trying to figure out what is inside the Ruby and if there is a way we (ok, to be honest, I) can benefit from dealing with the demon.
No, I am not necessarly evil, just highly motivated =)
What are my options, from a spell perspective or other means, I can use to gain more details on what's in the gem and, if push comes to shove, maybe trying and convince (or tortue, it's a demon so that's not evil right =) ) this thing into helping us?
At the very least I'd settle for chasing the thing out of the Ruby so we can sell it.
I currently have the gem in a lead lined box and threats of burying it on halloweed ground, dropping it in the deepest part of the ocean or turning it over to a temple to destroy have given me nothing but taunting and feelings whatever is inside "finds me amusing".
I do not like my new pet demon very much.
If you don't know what's inside, don't deal with it. It could be an ancient power, and freeing it could be the last mistake you make on the material plane.
If you don't know what's inside, don't deal with it. It could be an ancient power, and freeing it could be the last mistake you make on the material plane.
It COULD be.
It could also be something that is able to really aid my group in an almost hopeless quest.... for a price.
We have reason to beleive it was working with the head of this theives guild. So, I don't think it's an ancient evil =)
A few very important things to learn first include want kind of demon is it, what powers if any does it have, and can it use any of them while bound in the gem.
After that, one possibility you have if it’s fairly intelligent is that you could agree to “free” it after it correctly answers a certain number of questions then use it for knowledge checks when you need to. Also inform it that you expect it to answer to the best of its knowledge and as intended by the spirit of the question not the literal wording. Make sure it understands that if it is cooperative it will be freed but if it is uncooperative you may be inclined to drop it down a well before it’s questions are used, where it could sit for years before managing to free itself.
As always, be leery of dealing with demons of any kind they will always be looking for opportunity to take advantage of you or try to turn you evil if they can.
When “freed” make sure and banish it back to its home plane so it hopefully won’t cause you any more trouble or free it in an area proofed against plane shifting and teleportation and kill it.
All that is fine and good but the fact of the matter is I am only lvl 7 and not in a position to banish much of anything =) I was just trying to see if someone who has better knowledge of the spell slecltion, etc and point me to the spells I might need.
Does pathfinder have a version of Spiritwrack? (Don't have books easily accessable)
Naw, when dealing with demons I always take what they say at face value. Why would they lie to me!!!! (not my first rodeo)
Do you have a decent Bluff check? If so, it doesn't matter what resides in the gem if you can convince your enemies its something horrific and nasty! You can use it as leverage if you can effectively threaten to unleash it on them and use that against them.
could just be a funny thing your GM uses to screw with your, like that flesh golem we had that suddenly became intelligent and calculated how much we owe him for past services.
but if you expect the GM to actually put something mean into it, use one of those "foresee the future" spells the clerics have, that tells you if it's good or not to handle the thing. If that doesn't help, better hand it over to an angel and hope for a reward.
Perhaps a simple knowledge check or some ingame investigation could give you a clue how the rogue guild got it.
Keep in mind that if say, you agreed to say, 100 questions it could easily take over a year of game time before you used them all. By then perhaps you would be high enough level to banish it. Though this also goes back to what I said first... be sure to learn want kind of demon is it, what powers if any does it have, and can it use any of them while bound in the gem. This may tip you off as to whether or not you can reasonably deal with it at all.
As far as spells go, banishing can be accomplished with dismissal which is only 5th level for a wizard so you'll have that in 2 levels and could buy a scroll if you really needed to.
At 7th level you don't have many option for spells, though if it's not particularly powerful perhaps lesser geas would work.
How about asking a more or less neutral cleric of an appropriate level for help, to find out what you´re dealing with ?
Perhaps a simple knowledge check or some ingame investigation could give you a clue how the rogue guild got it.
This is the first thing in line with the OP's goal that anybody in this thread has yet said.
Scrogz, instead of worrying about whether you have the right spells to release the thing, why don't you start backtracking it to its origin. It's possible there is somebody who knows what this is, or some documentation or ancient writing somewhere. Look for a bard or sage, try to contact the guild to find out if anybody knows where their leader got it. Search his office. Maybe he took notes.
Point is, this is probably a MacGuffin, and in sticking it in your pocket and looking for a purely mechanical means of prying it open, you may be overlooking a story means of coaxing it open.
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[RANT]
...No, I am not necessarly evil, just highly motivated =)...
I stopped reading after this line, so forgive me if I come off as harsh.
Your Character is EVIL. period.
Evil does not mean "enjoys murdering and eating babies". That's the definition of Vile, which is another way of saying "super-evil".
Evil - casual, everyday evil - is pretty much exactly the above: "I know that doing this will probably result is any number of horrible things, but I stand to make a lot of money, and I won't actually be doing any of those horrible things, so it's not like this is actually wrong".
It's crappy fail-logic like this that makes playing Paladins so freaking difficult in most parties.
[/RANT]
Anyway OP, if you are looking for a way to make some money off of this thing in a way that doesn't involve accidentally unleashing a 10hd demon that will terrorize the local populace, I'd suggest finding a nearby church of Saerenrae or Cadean Caylan or one of the other more-or-less reasonable good-aligned gods and convince them to straight-up buy the ruby from you, demon and all. Figure out what it'll cost to get rid of the thing properly, subtract that from the market price of the ruby, and divide by two - that's the amount of coins you want them to put in your pocket.
EDIT: the "divide by two" is there for a lot of reasons:
1) to help sell the idea to the church (which will have to call in experts and coordinate the actual expenditure of resources and so on, all of which costs "background-setting-money" (as opposed to "adventuring money"))
2) To keep your involvement to a minimum. If you try asking for the whole net worth, they'll likely want you to provide "security". They'll also ask around, find out about the rest of your party, and ask them to assist with the ritual (which means you have to split the gold with them now)
3) To sell your GM on the idea. He handed you a big shiny box of trouble, and this solution gets rid of it simply and quietly. Maybe he's upset that you are trying to dump the trouble this way, or maybe he didn't mean to give this to you at all and wants to remove it cleanly; either way, asking for less makes it more likely he'll go for it.
At 7th level, you are pretty much stuck with trying to find a higher level cleric or wizard to help you.
Many GM's would make it difficult to find one that would be willing to help without demanding you turn it over now: either because it is evil and must be constrained or they want it for themselves.
So who has your group saved that you can trust?
Well Bob.... I actualy might be evil but I always figure what really matters more is the action. I am actually not jumping to conclusions about what dealing with this gem may or may not do and/or cause to happen.
You are assuming I would be willing to feed it to children or something along those lines. Not the case at all. My intention is to work a deal where "The price for me sending you back home is XXXX".
Suppose I am on a quest to "save the world from complete and destruction" and one of the foes we face it beyond our power. Bascialy, the world is going to be destroyed unless we can oversome this foe. If the only way I can overcome this foe is by using this demon then I will do it in a California minute, even if it means trading my soul this demon and condeming myself the an eternity of torment. That sound evil to you? Sacraficing my sould to save millions of people? You telling me a paladin would hesitate to make a deal like that? I think not. I must be a paladin!!!!
Heh, what I am hearing in the responses is about what I figured. Basically, I am way to low to be messing with this thing. Too bad my charcter is convinced he knows everything about everything (22 Int Wizard with a +2 band of intellect) and would never consider the idea he is not smaart enough to deal with this (8 wisdom).
I know the Gm added this just to mess with me. This should prove interesting.
I sure need a spirit wrack spell =)
"So who has your group saved that you can trust?"
Well, that's a tricky question you see.....
There is one more thing to keep in mind: this may not be a demon in a gem. It might be, for example, just a scrying item that's locked in to one particular target - which would certainly explain why the thing's laughed at your threats. Sure, lock the gem in a chest at the bottom of the sea. Whatever. It can go pick it up later if it decides it cares.
It could also be just a well-done illusion that the thieves' guild leader used as a prop to support some good bluff checks.
I have been able to determine the Ruby itself is not magical but rather all of the magic radiates from whatever is inside the Ruby. I don't know if it's a demon, devil or whatever at this point.
When we killed the leader of the guild he "broke apart with red light streaming from the cracks in his body" and he yelled, over and over again "This is not what you had promised".
From there is was not a huge leap to put 2 and 2 together.
As for living members.... not that we can find. They were wererats as well as theives and some people in my group were VERY motived to conduct a complete purge. I don't think I can find anyone who would know much about it.
All right, here’s a more complete response.
1) Learn what you can about the creatures type, powers, etc.
Use bluff and sense motive or let another character do the talking for you that is more capable. Whoever is doing the talking should take careful note as to whether or not the creature seems to be bluffing when they respond to your threats. Perhaps it just wants you to think it’s tough.
Charm monster and suggestion may be able to make it more willing to talk and give you information depending on what the creature is.
Prepare some questions and have a cleric use speak with dead on the leader to find out information on the ruby, creature within, how he acquired it, and possibly even the nature of the binding if he knows.
Then have the cleric use augury to determine if attempting to deal with the it is worth it in the long run.
Finally, if you think it’s worth doing, have the cleric then use the divination spell to help you determine the best course of action for how to deal with it or what kind of deal to make.
2) Compel the creature to deal.
If it’s weak a lesser geas may allow you to get information or compel it service.
Once again careful use of charm monster and suggestion may also be useful in acquiring it’s services depending on what the creature is.
At your level those are about the only real options I see at least as far as spell casting goes.
If that doesn’t work you could consider negotiating a deal for its release if that important to it (sense motive) or, if not, ask it what it does want and decide if you are willing to deal.
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At 7th level your options are very limited but you can buy scrolls if you really want to. I wouldn’t recommend it but if you have to, or are simply determined to play your character as being overconfident, scrolls may be needed to provide the options you are seeking. Some potentially useful ones that you might want to look up on the prd and consider are:
Dismissal (5th), Planar binding, lesser (5th), Planar binding(6th), Legend lore (6th), Geas (6th), Banishment (7th), Planeshift (7th), and Scrying, greater (7th)
I’ll stop there since even using 7th level spells will likely be difficult and may waste resources. Note most of these assume it’s an entity from another plane which may or may not be the case.
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In the OP you ask what your options are by spells and other means. One thing that might help answering that question is knowing your parties composition. For example, I mention several cleric spells above but have no idea if your party has a cleric. If not I’m assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that you can get them cast from you at a temple somewhere. Also, what materials do you have access to? Pathfinder only? 3.x? etc.
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Hopefully some of this advice is useful.
I've been trying to figure out what is inside the Ruby and if there is a way we (ok, to be honest, I) can benefit from dealing with the demon.
Identify, Legend Lore, Vision, Divination, Commune, Contact Other Plane, hire a sage, research in a mystical/sacred library, search out an Oracle or Seer and ask for a seeing, seek out a temple of a god of prophecy, ask for aid.
Oh and if all else fails and you just want to get rid of it consider taking it to a large temple of a good god and offering to give it to them in return for the value of the gem. You might be able to get the gems value in gold without having to deal with the gem itself at all.
Find out its alignment and back track. Items containing bound outsiders tend to have an aura. If its of order and evil then hey you've got yourself a bound devil. If its of chaos and evil, much more likely by guild leader's cry, then you've got a bound demon.
Now you say you want to deal with it, not for psycho evil purposes just the regular I'd like to enhance my own little corner of the world type. With dm's permission you've got an excellent opening into the diabloist or demoniac prestige classes. Well you've got a problem. If its a devil then you can probably deal with it and make some trades for power, but don't be surprised if the deal is a little more than you wanted.
If its a demon then I would do my best to give it to a clerical order that would appreciate the gesture. A demon has no inclination to carry out its own part of the deal unless it amounts for more overall power for the demon in question. Now you've established that you don't possess much power and that is all that a demon is going to respect. So you're stuck trying to compel a demon to help you out. If its a weak little dretch it isn't worth your time and effort and if its anything bigger you're painting a glowing target on your back even if you succeed.
Either way you've got a call to make. No matter what as long as you hold onto to it and decide to not destroy it you are risking your soul/body/alignment depending on what you've got in that little shiny. This is not due to absolute rule of alignment so much as that as long as you've got it you've got a little vicious outsider plotting against you.
Best of luck
Yeah, I'll add detect evil/good/law/chaos, spellcraft, knowledge arcana, appraise, knowledge history, knowledge planes to the list.
Then see if you can scry, clairvoyance, or plane shift into the gem. (maybe not the last unless you're really confident)
It's probably best to release the demon. After all he'll be grateful to you and probably will reward you with some amazing powers. In the end the people around you don't matter enough to justify not releasing the demon within the crystal.