Advice on church conspiracy style story ideas

[FrozenLaughs]

Just need some ideas to help flesh out an upcoming session. I have demons that have taken over the higher rankings of the church in an out of the way town in a remote region.

The players previously assisted a fallen paladin in rooting out a demon that had captured and tortured her. It was supposed to be a set up, but the players survived. Now Mother Superior (demon in charge) has declared the paladin "tainted" and gotten her locked up. Now Inquisitors are on the way to judge her (a farce, of course).

Besides busting her out of jail and holding off the Inquisitors, I'm coming up short on activities for the group. Anyone have any good ideas to help?

[Lucy_Valentine]

Do the players know the church is demon controlled? If so, there's going to come a phase when it's up to them to make the running by coming up with a plan to solve the problem.

If not, then the question is how they're going to find out.

Meanwhile, whatever they're doing, if they thwart the demons a second time they'll make themselves targets. The demons might try assassination, character assassination, legal charges, "rewards and recognition" that's actually just a suicide mission, or any kind of distraction.

[Cuup]

Before locking him up, the Demons could have marked the Paladin somehow to make him read as Evil. If anyone in your group can detect Good or Evil, they'll likely do a double-take when they see the Paladin doesn't read as Good, and/or reads as Evil. You could plant some sort of possibility in the PC's heads before this point that the Paladin might not be what he seems.

[Balgin]

I'd suggest that Cardinal Richelieu from The Three Musketeers might be a good source of inspiration. Failing that, churches are known for bureaucracy and red tape. Additionally there are the many ranks of the clergy. Hierarchy is important. Are the pc's talking to the right person? Perhaps they have to get past some puffed up self important petty official first who's determined to make his position on the church worthwhile before allowing them to progress to the individuals that they actually need to speak to. The kind of snub nosed obsequious individual who judges everybody who is not a higher ranking priest than himself. The kind to interrupt people at the door and ask whom they wish to seek and what business they have in this house of god.

Perhaps the pc's could run into an "honest witness" who mistakenly believes the paladin is tainted and happens to be spreading gossip or preaching on a street corner. Some poor misguided individual who needs to be shown the error of their ways (preferably without the use of violence).

Perhaps a young couple are in church making arrangements for their wedding in a few weeks time and the priest the pc's need to speak to is busy dealing with them first (while some petty individual holds them up to waste even more of their valuable time).

The choir could be due to practice that day. In fact, waiting for the choir to practice might help cover the sounds of breaking in if the pc's decide to take a more covert approach to rescuing an ally.

Do you want the campaign to be all about this corrupt organisation at the moment? Perhaps throw in a few unrelated side quests to help keep things diverse. Maybe the Inquisitors are delayed (a flood at the ford, held up by brigands who suggest that the goodly brother's bags seem rather overburdened with worldly goods and that perhaps they should be relieved of such burdens - the better to contemplate spiritual matters). Ironically, if the pc's unwittingly come to the aid of the inquisitors before realising exactly who they've helped out that can give them pause for thought. It could also give them an opportunity to travel with the inquisitors and learn what kind of people they are. Get their point of view on things.

Do the inquisitors know that their organisation is being run by demons? One or more of them could be unwitting pawns in the matter. This could, in turn, lead to some interesting confrontations with the truth further down the line.

[The Glob]

An underground group of "heretics" contact the PCs. They want to help but can they be trusted? These heretics have been "proven" to have committed numerous crimes using the church's name.

The heretics is small, maybe less than 10, consist mainly of commoners so even if they can be trusted, how much can they contribute? They might follow the PCs plan if it is not obviously suicidal.

If they cannot be trusted, they might be a group of commoners thinking they are fighting to "purify" the church but is actually led by a demon. The group is a honey trap to identify problematic elements. This can lead to the PCs being led into a trap if they are newbies or they can turn it around by unmasking and killing off the demon.

Later when they nearly defeat the demons and learn that actually they took over to fight off a devil incusion whose leader is
i) fallen paladin
ii) unknown, they are trying to find out using the honeypot tactic
iii) the town mayor

The fallen paladin may be
i) unaware of the devil incursion
ii) scout for the devils
iii) trying to rally the town against the devils but found demons instead.

So the demons parley to fight off the devils together, after which the demons promise to leave peacefully. Newbies might fall for this. Laugh at them when the chaotic demons start sneak attacking the party near the end of the battle with the devils. Party will have to solve this problem on their own.

For further expansion, the town can either be rendered inhabitable and require adventurers to protect them as they slowly crawl with wagons of their belongings to the next town, or be devastated but remain livable. In the latter case, the party may be required to help defend the town, secure resources or even be mayor.

[Claxon]

This is one of those situations where clever PCs can really find out what they want to know by simply applying a bit of magic liberally.

Accuse individual of being dishonest and tell them you would like to question them, including the use of magic to compel them to tell the truth. If they refuse in such serious circumstance it is a clue (but not confirmation) that something "bad" is going on. If they agree to the questioning including the use of magic, the party cast the spell. Normally their is a will save, though people can choose to fail their saves. You request that the individual purposeful fail their save. You can use detect magic and spellcraft to identify if the application of detect lies (or other similar truth telling spells) worked. If it has not worked, you have fairly good evidence that this person is try to lie/deceive.

After that they just need to ask the right questions to find out whats going on.

[Ectar]

Demonically. Possessed. Paladin.

or fallen paladin, or whatever.

We, the forum community, don't know the make-up and level(s) of your party, so it's a bit harder to say with regards to specifics. A shadow demon is a CR 7 beastie that can do a magic jar 1/day to get the job done.

[FrozenLaughs]

Well the party doesn't know about the demons. They believe the one they killed was an isolated incident. The paladin npc doesn't have her powers currently, and the party is a Ranger, Sorcerer and Barbarian and the group is lvl 7. The Inquisitors are basically the churches hit team who just clean up whatever mess they're told to.

I'm thinking they're likely to break or free the paladin from jail, and if the Inquisitors are formidable enough it may lead into a manhunt scenario with the party trying to avoid them while uncovering the truth.

[Claxon]

I think you're playing the Inquisitors too 1 dimensionally.

Inquisitors root out problems in their church, they're not just a hit squad.

The demon pretending to be head of the church probably wouldn't actually want to call in the Inquisitors because they're going to ask questions. Of both the high priest and prisoner, and at some point stories aren't going to add up.

Sure, you could make the Inquisitors just a hit squad, but it really misrepresents what Inquisitors are and what their function is. Inquisitors of a good church are going to try to find out exactly what happened, especially with a captured prisoner, not just come in swords swinging. At least that's my opinion.

Now, that doesn't mean the demon couldn't have hired someone to pretend to be Inquisitors of the church to "rightfully" "investigate" and "justly" execute the prisoner.

And that could be the whole story hook. Figuring out the "inquisitors" are hired thugs (or maybe disguised demons) and tracing it back to the high priest.

[FrozenLaughs]

Ooooooooo I love that! That's a great idea.

[Claxon]

Glad to help

[SmiloDan]

And you have a great party for investigating. Not enough magic (unless your sorcerer has a "unique" list of spells known) to disrupt a good mystery.

The ranger can track and search for clues, the sorcerer can detect magic, the barbarian can be bad cop, sorcerer might be good cop OR badder cop, depending on the circumstances.

You might be able to squeeze in a trial by combat too.

Maybe even other kinds of trials, like Will vs. Will or Knowledge religion vs. Will or something.

They might have to do a fun presentation or demonstration or experiment in the court room. Maybe put the guilty party in the witness chair and "Matlock" her.

Stuff like that.