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View Full Version : Looking for some advice on hiding artifacts for the party to find...



Ignatius
2010-10-22, 01:09 AM
Spoilered the long post in case you dont want to read it, but having all the lead-up will probably help make more sense.

And again, if this starts making sense to any of my players (Yes, that includes you Acog)... move along, there is nothing to see here!

A party of 5 adventurers got together randomly (and a 6th was added along the way) at the end of a civil war and all stayed at the same inn. A former general in the losing side of the war participated in and won a drinking game at the bar. There was a certain noble there who had been watching him and who now approached him asking for him and his party to escort her to her estate as she was nobility on the losing side of the war and feared for her life. The party agreed and after sobering up that night they escorted her to her estate the next day. A small party of 'soldiers' tried to intercept here but the party took care of them. They were then asked to deliver a message across the country to a cousin letting him know that all was well over here...

The party travelled and was followed by a long time friend of the new king who always managed to know where they were going and what they were doing (helped out in part by the party telling everyone what they were doing and where they were going!)

The message that they delivered turned out to be a request to the cousin to assinate the king so that they former royal family could be returned to the throne. The party decided that they would help and so began a series of meetings with friendly nobles to discover a way to assinate the king. (All party members were Level 2 by now)

The party decided that the elf should dress up as a girl and be a duke's +1 to the coronation where he could let the others all slip in to accomplish their plans... unfortunately the kings long time friend caught up to them a little early and managed to kidnap the elf... so on to plan B!

The party travels to the capital for the coronation and is surprised by the jubilee hanging about to start to celebrate the triumphant rise of the new king. Hangee number one is their elf friend.

Long story short, they rescued their elf friend, but the party wizard got arrested in the process. But since the Elf knows where the palace prison is they are able to get in and rescue the wizard as well.

By this time, the duke that was assisting them discovered that the king was a doppleganger and that the real king was in the prison. This was confirmed by the wizard who saw the real king get murdered in the prison. The duke told them to seek out an old dwarf who would start them on the path to find the lost book of five truths which could be used to establish a new kingdom now that the current dynasty has fallen. He told them this and then promptly got eaten by one of the fake kings resident mind flayers.

The party (now, thanks to the mind flayers, four members lighter) journeyed north to the mountains (along the way they picked up some new friends when their boat was attacked) and found the dwarf. He told them of Sigil where there was a library they could go that might have very old scrolls on where they book of five truths may have been dispersed.

So from there they ran into a rust monster, a harpy, a dealth cult performing a ritual, a long lost friend of one of the PC's, a greedy NPC, some sewer rats and the Lady of Pain and eventually found themselves on the library planet...

Deep in the library they found some scrolls that explain that the book of five truths was rended and scattered over the five planes of existance (normal, feywild, shadowfell, astral sea and elemental chaos)

They also learned that the books were hidden in plain sight so that if they needed to be used again they could be found and bound.

So... now that the party knows that there is a section in each plane and that the section is hidden in plain sight, where in each plane would you hide a section from a very powerful book in such a way that it is in plain sight but not used for note paper?

PopcornMage
2010-10-22, 06:53 AM
Well, are they literal books, or are they capable of being stored in different ways?

One could be a scroll for example, another a stone tablet like the Rosetta Stone, or some other non-book book.

panaikhan
2010-10-22, 07:25 AM
Sigil had some novel ways of storing information - a classic was the Mirmir, literally an animated skull that became a talking 'book'.
Other 'books' can include memory crystals, tattooed old men, programmed illusions... the list can be quite extensive.