During the Rushlight tournament, my annoying rogue player managed to pickpocket King Irovetti and steal his rod - on day 2 of the tourney.
Does Irovetti have resources to track that down? The rod has been stashed in a bag of holding, does that have repercussions to your answer?
With the adventure as written, this really wouldn't be a problem, but
... I'm only at the Blood for Blood book. I ran Rushlight now so that it wouldn't seem so suspicious when it was run later. Irovetti isn't ready to launch his war yet and the PCs kingdom isn't ready for war either.
I suppose I could let the PC get away with it and have Irovetti somehow get the idea that Drelev stole it, thus prompting his attack on them.
> Explain that magic can trace it, since it is clearly a powerful item.
> Explain that he will want it back... Badly!
> Explain that this might cause a lot of trouble for everyone
> ...
> Send Assassin after player with the bag/rod. Doesn't matter if it's the rogue, that dude forfeits his life.
> Make the rogue dead/very bad for causing this.
High level divination spells (the sort available to the ruler of a nation, for example) tend to put this sort of shennanigans back in their box very quickly, in my games.
Just knowing that there's a cleric out there with a Commune makes people rethink 'perfect crimes' quite a bit. Magic's good that way.
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During the Rushlight tournament, my annoying rogue player managed to pickpocket King Irovetti and steal his rod - on day 2 of the tourney.
Does Irovetti have resources to track that down? The rod has been stashed in a bag of holding, does that have repercussions to your answer?
With the adventure as written, this really wouldn't be a problem, but** spoiler omitted **
First off, hes a king and this is his most prized possession, so honestly, no way he doesnt have this glyphed and warded out the wazoo, as well as probably contigency-ed to stop this. However, if the rogue was successful or you had not considered warding it, here is my take on where things stand.
Irovetti has the resources of an ENTIRE KINGDOM at his beck and call. Your rogue took his most prized possession, a Numerian artifact of great power, and the source of his current position. There is no way he will rest until he gets it back. I would personally say he would move heaven and earth and spend his kingdoms entire BP budget until he got it back.
That is a LOT of oomph. If his kingdom has 100bp thats 400,000 GP he is spending to recover this item. I am pretty sure you can buy the resources of an arch mage with that much dough.
To be fair to your player, I would have a third party agent contact the rogue and ask for its return (being willing to pay a little something as compensation). If the rogue agreed, I would have regular assassins come after him after the exchange and just simply kill him so he could be rezzed (or at least attempt to).
If the rogue didnt return it or played games, I would have like a 16th level wizard scry and fry with somethng like baleful polymorph, pocket the little frog he becomes, and teleport back to Irovetti. Game over and he turns the rogue over to his royal torturer. Have the rogue roll up another character and then have the party find the rogue hanging in the torturer's chambers when they get to that point in book 5. Pickpocketing Irovetti is a really dumb idea.
TL;DR- Lesson is, don't screw with a hot tempered, non-good king.
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Congratulations to the rogue are in order as Pitax now has just cause for war.
Combine this with some very high-cost interdimensional hit-beasts tasked to retrieve that rod... I suggest using a CR 22 squad of 4 advanced denizens of leng wizard (diviner) 9 / arcane trickster 9 (individual CR 18).
^____^
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That is a LOT of oomph. If his kingdom has 100bp thats 400,000 GP he is spending to recover this item. I am pretty sure you can buy the resources of an arch mage with that much dough.
+1 :)
Prepare to meet the Poisoners from Daggermark ;)
To be honest ... is this really that bad?
You WANT your players to go to war with Irovetti. They don't know that yet, but you do. Now instead of Irovetti being all "lol i kill u" you can have him start a righteous crusade over common thieves wearing finery stealing a mighty treasure. This isn't 'not supposed to happen.' This is an excellent thing to have happen, because it's pushing the story where you want it to go, and even better, it's happening in a way that makes the players be in control~ of it. Rather, think of the upcoming game sessions as having a good start, and just requiring a little massage into your desired goal.
You could even retroactively 'change Irovetti's character' because of this. Maybe he was a peace-loving faux-artiste, but once he launches into war proper he gets a taste for it, and the PCs become responsible for the birth of a warlord, further tying them into the narrative. Even better if you play it up like he could have been an ally against other enemies.
Has the rod been identified as the tournament prize yet? Did Irovetti say 'I'm runing a tournament -- the prize is a magical Rod of X -- this is the rod right here', *wave wave wave*?
Have they identified the rod yet? Or have you just given them the schools of magic?
I do understand the rod is a very powerful item as written, and you may not want to give it to the PCs just yet -- I don't recall the numbers, but I suspect that it's rather expensive. So if they haven't actually identified it yet, it might 'turn out to be just about anything'.
Considering you're running the tourney now, then if it wasn't reasonable for the PCs to have it in the first place, then I assume that you announced a different prize, which gives you wiggle room as long as they don't already know what they have.
Now, either way, it makes sense that Irovetti would have invested heavy security into the item. If you imagine a similar tournament in the real world that's held in an area notorious for thieves and highwaymen, there's no way that the macguffin would simply be sitting in the coordinator's pocket. Further, you can expect Irovetti to take increasingly extreme measures to recover the item based on how valuable it is.
First off, it would likely have been Arcane Marked as a preemptive measure.
An obvious first attempt by security would be a Locate Object spell. Locate object doesn't give much in the way of limitations other than distance, but I suspect it would fail because spell effects usually don't cross planes if they don't specify otherwise.
An Instant Summons spell would attempt to recall it to Irovetti or one of his agents. If the item has been 'claimed' by another creature the spell would fail -- but the agent would then be aware of who claimed the item, as well as its general location.
My recommendation is let the Rogue be awarded -- reasonably. Sleight of Hand doesn't just exist when the DM gives you the thumbs-up to roll the die and move the plot along. It makes sense that Irovetti would take measures to recover 'the item', and perhaps send people along to (feebly?) punish the characters for what they've done, but it kinda sucks as a player for the GM to say "You weren't supposed to take that, so bam, here's assassins you can't survive"; and in-character, Irovetti would do better to maneuver his resources into declaring war on the kingdom than stirring personal conflict with the PCs.
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Which rod?
In any case, while he has hundreds of k in resources, he won't use that much to reacquire a 60k item. He is smart enough that his first plan should be something cheap with a reasonable chance of success and little chance of backfiring.
First up a divination to see who has it, but he won't let just anyone know he's been robbed. He'll use personal spells and scrolls before going to a cleric for commune - always an info leak. He'd probably use expendable assassins that don't know who they work for - mortals so there's no debt if they die. If it fails he can bide his time until he can use it as excuse for war.
I'd make the initial assassination event hard enough that the party may all die unless they flee or use up most of their resources. E.g. assassins equal to party size + 1, each with tough CR.
Good Question. I assumed we were talking about the Numerian rod Irovetti personally wields, not the prize for the Rushlight Tournament. IMO stealing either is incredibly stupid.
If you take the tournament prize, potentially you have insulted the honor of ever nation participating in the tourney and they might all want to participate in your chatisement.
If it is his personal rod, it is a unique Numerian artifact that he paid for with his mother's blood and used to forge Pitax. Also, knowing its powers and what it could do in the hands of a king, I think he would not want it to be wielded by anyone else as well. Being a clever thinker, I doubt Irovetti would go to war before he made sure he secured the artifact, so it couldn't be used against him and people would not find out he actually ever had it.
Not sure either one is less of a big deal as far as the bad news for the PC's kingdom.
Locate Object and Instant Summons are good ideas, thanks, but..
Irovetti does not have a access to a wizard, by the adventure as written. Nobody to cast Locate Object or Instant Summons. He has Scrying himself, I guess he may start there.
There's probably one in town. Going to take him a while to get that organized I guess.
Considering this rod if what got him him start, I see him being quite angry and spending lots of resources to get it back.
Locate Object and Instant Summons are good ideas, thanks, but..
** spoiler omitted **
He has a city, and a kingdom. There's entire merchant houses, noble families. There are wizards. Just because they're not statted to fight doesn't mean they're not "there". One of the advantages tabletops have over video games is situations like this where the GM can take into account reasonable stuff that exists outside the prepared material.
When your players need a spell they don't have access to, they learn it and/or simply hire an NPC caster to cast it for them.
Pitax may not be as big a kingdom as the PCs' when the time arises, but it's still a kingdom and he's the king. Not a tiny one either. He probably knows who CAN cast those spells, and he probably has the ability to access funds if necessary.
Further, if he's using the same system then he also has a similar ruling cabinet. He has a magister; he has a marshal; he has a spymaster. He should know people who are masters in their own respective fields, such as magic, security, crime, the markets, and tracking.
I can't see a king of his echelon being stymied by a bag of holding.
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it kinda sucks as a player for the GM to say "You weren't supposed to take that, so bam, here's assassins you can't survive";
That was good advice and got me thinking. I decided to provide the player with an out, show the power of Irovetti so he could realize the trouble he's in, and give him time to somehow return/lose the rod so he wouldn't feel that wrath:
[spoiler]I decided that Irovetti had a long running problem with Ilori, the thieves guild leader. The King immediately assumed it was her and went after her rather than suspecting anyone else.
The King immediately scryed and learned it was in a bag of holding (mistake on my part, you can't scry an item). The party learned of this so they know the King has access to relatively high level magic. The also saw fires buring in Pitax as Irovetti laid waste to the part of town the thieves control.
After three days, the thieves were wiped out, but no rod. Ilori escaped and I can use her how I like at this point. /spoiler]
This, of course, made no difference to the player and he ended up framing the Drelevs for the theft. The King found the rod in the lake where the player left it and the Drelevs were hauled off to the castle dungeon.
Nice fix, though the rogue now has (innocent?) blood on his hands..
Bad bad rogue xp
King works out where it went. Players can ransom it back, or war.
Excellent.