PDA

View Full Version : Avoiding Schmuck Bait [4e, but any]



Zaq
2010-12-05, 01:12 PM
Warning: Some of the links in this post go to TV Tropes.

So, my character might be in a position to soon be sealing some evil in a can (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SealedEvilInACan). (In this context, there's a reason . . .destroying it would actually just send it elsewhere, and this is the only way to control it.) He's going to take it upon himself to write warnings in just about every language there is (he speaks every language in the PHB) to warn people that no, this gate thingy is Bad News, and opening it may or may not cause an undead apocalypse and will not contain nice shiny items.

Now, the reason that my character is the one doing this is that he's, well, let's say he's familiar with tropes. (He's not actually genre savvy, because that would imply that he knows tropes and avoids them. Rather, he knows tropes but thinks they're a good thing.) He's heard countless stories about Sealed Evil in a Can, and while he's thrilled to be part of one, he's also not stupid, and knows that, even if the story says it always happens, you really want to take every precaution you can that the seal is never broken. So, how can he avoid the Schmuck Bait (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchmuckBait) factor? Adventurers (who might stumble upon this place, after all) aren't known for heeding warnings, and while a room full of a whole bunch of stone pillars carved with a lot of different languages repeating the same "THIS PLACE HAS NO GLORY, POWER, OR RICHES, ONLY UNCONTROLLABLE DEATH FOR YOU AND OTHERS" kind of message over and over will deter some people, it won't deter all of them (and may indeed entice some of them). That said, just leaving it unmarked is begging for some hardy explorers to open it in the name of science sweet, sweet XP, which is just plain irresponsible.

So, what can I do to minimize the extent to which this is Schmuck Bait? Leaving it hidden isn't much of an option, and I don't want to make it a big shiny target, but in character, I have to do SOMETHING. Any ideas?

Urpriest
2010-12-05, 01:16 PM
Make it obvious what it is? Perhaps bind some sort of lawful outsider inside a permanent zone of truth, compelled to explain the situation to anybody who shows up.

Also, let the surrounding area know. The legends might (will) get mangled with time, but tracking the legends might give people a better idea of what they're facing.

NotScaryBats
2010-12-05, 01:18 PM
IF its a huge deal for your character, why don't you dedicate yourself as the caretaker of it?
That way, even if adventurers do manage to plumb the depths of your castle / dungeon, you'll be waiting for them to say 'hey, GTFO, this is bad news.'

pffh
2010-12-05, 01:19 PM
Seal the evil and then build a secret treasure room on top of the place it's hidden in and THEN build the normal dungeon with warnings and stuff. The treasure room should only contain one item. A powerful weapon for future adventurers to loot.

Then when the treasure room is found they will probably not find the place under it, because who would suspect a secret place under the secret place, they will loot the world saving magic weapon and no one will be interested in coming there again since everyone knows it's already been looted.

You can combine this with other ideas such as having a fake "can" that the outsider from the guy up top comment can tell people about, spread the knowledge of the sealed evil etc.

Edit: On the other hand I would not spread the knowledge of what is really hidden there. All it takes is one crazy mage/necromancer/demon (orcus even if it is an undead apocalypse) that wants the world destroyed.

Zaq
2010-12-05, 01:27 PM
Make it obvious what it is? Perhaps bind some sort of lawful outsider inside a permanent zone of truth, compelled to explain the situation to anybody who shows up.

Also, let the surrounding area know. The legends might (will) get mangled with time, but tracking the legends might give people a better idea of what they're facing.

Binding outsiders is a lot harder in 4e (are there even rules or spells for it anymore? I don't think we're high enough level to have those kinds of rituals), though it's a good idea. I do like the idea of doing what I can to shape and control the stories as they're being made (very in-character for me), but that still seems risky.


IF its a huge deal for your character, why don't you dedicate yourself as the caretaker of it?
That way, even if adventurers do manage to plumb the depths of your castle / dungeon, you'll be waiting for them to say 'hey, GTFO, this is bad news.'

Aside from the fact that I, the player, am selfish enough to want to keep playing this character, this seal might have to last for hundreds or thousands of years, and my character won't last that long.


Seal the evil and then build a secret treasure room on top of the place it's hidden in and THEN build the normal dungeon with warnings and stuff. The treasure room should only contain one item. A powerful weapon for future adventurers to loot.

Then when the treasure room is found they will probably not find the place under it, because who would suspect a secret place under the secret place, they will loot the world saving magic weapon and no one will be interested in coming there again since everyone knows it's already been looted.

You can combine this with other ideas such as having a fake "can" that the outsider from the guy up top comment can tell people about, spread the knowledge of the sealed evil etc.

This . . . is intriguing. I wonder if we'd have the budget for it. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

Any other ideas?

mabriss lethe
2010-12-05, 01:36 PM
make a fake. Put all your warnings there.
Label the real one "corn smut (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L0BwBQU_SVc/RoSZuJaCgsI/AAAAAAAAAHY/1ZCK-Rbx8p4/s400/open_can300.jpg)" or something equally disgusting, like "sewage treatment facility"

Urpriest
2010-12-05, 01:40 PM
Binding outsiders is a lot harder in 4e (are there even rules or spells for it anymore? I don't think we're high enough level to have those kinds of rituals), though it's a good idea. I do like the idea of doing what I can to shape and control the stories as they're being made (very in-character for me), but that still seems risky.


Ah yes, I had read the [4e] marker, but had forgotten about it. In a more 4e-friendly context, the outsider would probably need to be an NPC that you convince to help you. Seeking out such a being might be tricky in its own right, but a temple in a large city might have the resources to contact one. Essentially, find a being that is also interested in protecting the place, and ask them to spend time warning people away from it. I vaguely remember a zone of truth-equivalent ritual in 4e, but I might be confusing it with something else.

mucat
2010-12-05, 02:17 PM
IF its a huge deal for your character, why don't you dedicate yourself as the caretaker of it?
That way, even if adventurers do manage to plumb the depths of your castle / dungeon, you'll be waiting for them to say 'hey, GTFO, this is bad news.'
In most stories, the evil sleeps for centuries, sometimes eons, before foolish meddlers awaken it. The problem isn't just warning off foreseeable intrusions for the next couple generations, but trying to keep it sealed forever...even if a vast magitech civilixation of unimaginable power and curiosity arises someday, speaking no language that even exists right now, you want them to fail to find it or to stay away.

(On the other hand, such a civilization might know a way to actually destroy the evil permanently...so you would want them to open it, but only after knowing what's inside and preparing to deal with it.)

Hell of a challenge.

Can you plane shift somewhere and simply give the sealed can to an immortal good outsider -- preferably one who has already shown the wisdom and cleverness to keep the thing safe?

If you need to keep it on your world...well, buried deep underground with permanent antimagic and antiscrying fields is a start. Hundreds of identical-looking sealed cans alongside it, all of which radiate the same magic and/or evil as the real one. Each of the others carries a different disturbing, disgusting, and absolutely unprofitable curse; after opening one or two, anyone, good or evil, will have had enough. Warning spells to tell you and a few trusted associates -- some of whom, if possible, are immortal outsiders -- if anyone starts messing with the place or its defenses. Before you die, pass the role of "contact person" to someone you trust to handle it well.

Possibly devote your life to learning epic magic, or helping the aforementioned trusted associates to do the same; come back and upgrade the defenses as your capabilities grow.

You might eventually arrange to have yourself and/or allies placed in permanent stasis, to awaken only if someone disturbs the prison's defenses. Then you could assess the situation yourself, and reason with / scare off / destroy the intruders as necessary, or steal the can and abscond with it if none of the above are possible.

Some of you in stasis and some as good-aligned undead, if such things exist in your campaign, might be even better. The ones who are awake can wander the world gaining more power, learning of potential threats to their mission, and devising ways to counter these threats. The ones in stasis are an insurance policy, in case the active ones are destroyed. You might rotate roles every century or so, to keep everyone up to date on new discoveries.

sonofzeal
2010-12-05, 02:29 PM
Plain sight. "Schmuck Bait" is usually well-hidden and inaccessible. Mount the bloody thing in the town square, and nobody will touch it. From there you have two options - make its nature clear and rally the city to its defense should it ever need it, or set up some sort of Nystul's Magic Aura trick to make it look like a decorate doodad with absolutely no value to anyone. You're the one building it, so unless you WANT there to be rumours and legends about it, you're in the clear. People don't crack open random statuary on a whim, so as long as its sealed from casual accident you should be good.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-05, 02:39 PM
Work with your DM to design an epic destiny, or pick one of the existing ones, where the capstone is voluntary guardianship of the Can for all eternity? It's not at all immediate, but could make a nice end for the campaign, and in the meantime, follow a previous suggestion.

Tvtyrant
2010-12-05, 03:00 PM
Give it to Demogorgon. Even if he lets it out it will be slogging around the abyss at his beck and call for a while.

To quote modify one of my favorite scenes from the watchmen:
"A burglar BBEG kill the Comedian Demogorgon? Ridiculous."

Randel
2010-12-05, 03:19 PM
chapter 46 of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/46/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality) has some ideas on losing things:

"Plan B," said Harry. "Encase the Dementor in dense metal with a high melting point, probably tungsten, drop it into an active volcano, and hope it ends up inside Earth's mantle. Ah, the whole planet is filled with molten lava under its surface -"

"Yes," said Professor Quirrell. "I know." The Defense Professor was wearing a very odd smile. "I really should have thought of that myself, all things considered. Tell me, Mr. Potter, if you wanted to lose something where no one would ever find it again, where would you put it?"

Harry considered this question. "I suppose I shouldn't ask what you've found that needs losing -"

"Quite," said Professor Quirrell, as Harry had expected; and then, "Perhaps you will be told when you are older," which Harry hadn't.

"Well," said Harry, "besides trying to get it into the molten core of the planet, you could bury it in solid rock a kilometer underground in a randomly selected location - maybe teleport it in, if there's some way to do that blindly, or drill a hole and repair the hole afterward; the important thing would be not to leave any traces leading there, so it's just an anonymous cubic meter somewhere in the Earth's crust. You could drop it into the Mariana Trench, that's the deepest depth of ocean on the planet - or just pick some random other ocean trench, to make it less obvious. If you could make it bouyant and invisible, then you could throw it into the stratosphere. Or ideally you would launch it into space, with a cloak against detection, and a randomly fluctuating acceleration factor that would take it out of the Solar System. And afterward, of course, you'd Obliviate yourself, so even you didn't know exactly where it was."

Depending on how big the can is you could probably use Immovable Rods to suspend it somewhere. Make it invisible and you could put it at any random elevated position in the air or underwater. Heh, an invisible can located ten miles above the surface of the middle of the ocean should be enough to keep most people from finding it.

Though if being underground provides greater protection against scrying then digging a hole in a random part of the globe (safely away from any faultlines or subterranean natural resources), burying it a mile or two down, and then filling up and hiding the hole would be a good bet.

If you think that later heroes might have to know about it and deal with it then keep records of how to defeat the evil if it should happen to appear but do not provide any directions on how to find the can (unless you are sure that knowledge would be of benefit to anyone who would have to face the thing later or could actually kill it). Maybe have directions to the hidden spot but have some safety system in place to destroy the directions if it falls in the wrong hands.

Ideally, the can itself will be located in some place nobody would be able to access or find by accident and would be even then near impossible even if they had good directions to it. The knowledge you leave behind would particularly be on how to trap the evil should it escape or how to detect if it escaped from the prison in the first place.

Godskook
2010-12-05, 03:21 PM
Plain sight. "Schmuck Bait" is usually well-hidden and inaccessible. Mount the bloody thing in the town square, and nobody will touch it. From there you have two options - make its nature clear and rally the city to its defense should it ever need it, or set up some sort of Nystul's Magic Aura trick to make it look like a decorate doodad with absolutely no value to anyone. You're the one building it, so unless you WANT there to be rumours and legends about it, you're in the clear. People don't crack open random statuary on a whim, so as long as its sealed from casual accident you should be good.

Until someone finds a triangle with "courage" marked on it, and begins a quest to find all hidden things in statues.

Randel
2010-12-05, 04:06 PM
Plain sight. "Schmuck Bait" is usually well-hidden and inaccessible. Mount the bloody thing in the town square, and nobody will touch it. From there you have two options - make its nature clear and rally the city to its defense should it ever need it, or set up some sort of Nystul's Magic Aura trick to make it look like a decorate doodad with absolutely no value to anyone. You're the one building it, so unless you WANT there to be rumours and legends about it, you're in the clear. People don't crack open random statuary on a whim, so as long as its sealed from casual accident you should be good.

Or in 200 years someone comes along and tears it down to put their own nifty statue there of their new benevolent ruler... or to build a strip mall. Plus, if you place your artifact of doom right in the middle of a populated area then expect alot more casualties if the thing escapes or more opportunities for someone to stumble across it accidentally.

RandomLunatic
2010-12-05, 06:26 PM
There is always the Discworld approach.

"Do not open the gate. Not even to see what happens."

dsmiles
2010-12-05, 06:32 PM
This:Douglas Adams has his character Ford Prefect describe Somebody Else's Problem in Life, the Universe and Everything, the third book in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series:

An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem.... The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.

The technology involved in making something properly invisible is so mind-bogglingly complex that 999,999,999 times out of a billion it's simpler just to take the thing away and hide it....... The "Somebody Else's Problem field" is much simpler, more effective, and "can be run for over a hundred years on a 9Volt battery."

This is because it relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.

In this case, the Starship Bistromath ("a small upended Italian bistro" with "guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches") has been hidden from the crowd watching a Cricket match at Lord's by an SEP field. People may see it, but they take absolutely no notice of it.

The book says that the SEP field is derived from Bistromathics and in particular the concept of an imaginary number called a "recipriversexcluson" whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. Modern science has been slow to investigate this further, though Professor John Wettlaufer (of Yale University) has apparently observed that it is very important for physicists working outside the mainstream "to have a genuine interest in learning about someone else's problem". However, he admitted that "not many people want to do this".

The concept is similar to the Perception filter used in Doctor Who; when something is under a perception filter, people do not consciously register what they are looking at.

In the TV series Misfits, the main character of Simon possesses the power of invisibility; however, when this power was temporarily 'inverted' after he took drugs, it resulted in people noticing him rather than his usual habit of fading into the background, suggesting that he is not invisible in the sense of bending light but that he instead is able to stop people consciously registering his presence.

Zaq
2010-12-05, 07:42 PM
The problem with a lot of these solutions is that the Can, in this case, is a big stone (artifact) gate, which isn't going to be easy to move. (It can be destroyed, but as said, doing that will do very bad things.) Whatever I do pretty much has to be done on location.

That said, I adore the idea of the SEP field. I doubt it'd fly at the table, but if it worked, it would be perfect.

blackjack217
2010-12-05, 07:50 PM
An build a city atop it with an order of paladins sworn to defend it who when they die become ghost martyrs?

ZeroNumerous
2010-12-05, 07:59 PM
The problem with a lot of these solutions is that the Can, in this case, is a big stone (artifact) gate, which isn't going to be easy to move.

You could still encase it in concrete. Just pour concrete into the entire dungeon it's located in then leave and go get a concussion. Never tell anyone, forget it yourself and everyone will live.

dsmiles
2010-12-05, 08:00 PM
The problem with a lot of these solutions is that the Can, in this case, is a big stone (artifact) gate, which isn't going to be easy to move. (It can be destroyed, but as said, doing that will do very bad things.) Whatever I do pretty much has to be done on location.

That said, I adore the idea of the SEP field. I doubt it'd fly at the table, but if it worked, it would be perfect.

The SEP Field is a psionic power I homebrewed after I read Life, the Universe, and Everything. It's like invisibility for psions. IIRC, it went something like this:
Somebody Else's Problem Field
Telepathy [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Telepath 3
Display: Mental
Manifesting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Duration: 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: Special
Power Resistance: No
Power Points: 5
The S.E.P. Field makes you less noticeable to other intelligent creatures. Anyone wishing to notice you must make a Will save to do so. Creatures with less than 5 Intelligence (but not those without Intelligence scores) take an additional -4 penalty to this saving throw. Creatures with no intelligence score automatically perceive the character. Creatures failing their saving throw do not perceive the character, and if moving towards the space occupied by the character will automatically move around him/her. If there is not enough space to move around the character, the creature receives a second saving throw with a +4 bonus to the roll.
Augment
You can augment this power in the following way:
1. If you spend 2 additional power points, the saving throw DC is increased by +1.

Hal
2010-12-05, 08:20 PM
I don't recall: What is the general disposition of dragons these days? If you can find Lawful Good dragons, you could always ask if they would be the gate's guardians. After all, dragons are both very powerful and long-lived. If you could earn such a debt from a clan of dragons (an excellet quest from your GM), that would be a good start.

Alternatively, you could always found some order to protect it. At least then you won't have to worry about static defenses some mindless adventurers could bypass.

dsmiles
2010-12-05, 08:23 PM
I don't recall: What is the general disposition of dragons these days? If you can find Lawful Good dragons, you could always ask if they would be the gate's guardians. After all, dragons are both very powerful and long-lived. If you could earn such a debt from a clan of dragons (an excellet quest from your GM), that would be a good start.

Alternatively, you could always found some order to protect it. At least then you won't have to worry about static defenses some mindless adventurers could bypass.

IIRC, dragons are now all "unaligned." There are a lot of us that still use the traditional alignment scheme for dragons. Metallic = Good, Chromatic = Evil, and Gemstone = Unaligned.

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-05, 08:33 PM
Build a vast public building. Something really important, but preferably not religious or so on. Something that could ingrain itself in the fabric of society in such a way as to become unthinkable to ever remove it.

If possible, something as huge and lasting as a Pyramid.
Seal your Sealed-Evil-In-A-Can at the very bottom of the foundations, in a good huge block of concrete. (If the Romans could manage concrete, so can you.)

Start several myths that as long as the structure survives the city will prosper. A nice, obviously fake urban legend that will be taken to heart by the common people.

If you have to, put the gate itself in a good metal case and encase that in your warnings as well as putting them on the gate, but you don't want any suggestion of them leaking out, because Warnings in many languages sounds like such an inviting double-bluff. Classic Schmuck Bait.

No, simply burying it under an entire pyramid at the center of a bustling minor city seems the best way to go about it. The Can should be out of the way, an after-thought. It should be hard even to get near it, and even if someone decided to, they should have a physically massive amount of effort to go through just to unearth it. Being a minor city, it should escape a lot of attention just from that.