The spoils of looting a city

[Golden Ladybug]

Okay, so in the campaign I'm currently running (the first couple of sessions managed to get written up in the journal down in my sig, but I'm lazy and haven't updated it for a loooooong time), my party teleported into Fairhaven after getting ripped apart by an intelligently played Kython Impaler.

They found it full of corpses, and the nearly dead. The city had been wiped out by a virulent disease. Admittedly, this was the parties fault, even if they don't know it yet. The population of Warforged that lived in the city was seemingly the only survivors, and based on a large warning sign painted on a canvas sign hung from the outside of the city's main gate, quit the city a few days before the party arrived.

They took the opportunity to loot as much as they could find, as any respectable adventurer would. Herein lies the problem; I'm having trouble distributing what amounts to the easily filched assets of a major trade city.

The party was quick to leave the city after they arrived, spending less than a day within its walls. With only one member of the party able to walk around the city without fear of infection, the rest of them stayed inside the Bag of Holding, which they messed around with earlier to be able to breath inside of it.

Now, do you fine Playgrounders have any suggestions of how to fill the very large haul everyone managed to earn, completely accidentally? Due to some previously mentioned caveats as to how magic items shops work, anything with a price tag of over 2000gp/relatively obscure/unreasonably specific is off the table (anything else would have to be commissioned). They didn't touch any of the banks, not wanting to deal with the hassle of cracking the vault doors open. Other than that, however, I'm just wandering what to do with this. I don't want to give them a lump sum of ~250,000gp or something similar, because that makes it far too easy, nor do I want to just give them their wishlist of magic items.

Would trade goods or artwork be a good call for this? Not immediately convertable into magic items or cash, but relatively easy to transport and worth a rather large amount. Generic Minor Wondrous Items and low level wands might work, but I'm wary of gifting these guys with too much in the way of magical power. Smaller sums of cash is probably going to be a necessity, of course, but I want to keep them small.

So yeah, anyone have any advice for such a situation?

[Malroth]

Merchant districts would have 1/2-1/4 charged Wands of utility spells craftsmen would want cast not anything on the list of wants for dungeon crawling murder hobos. some random unlabeled potions, Art objects, Books, Furniture, Crafting supplies, Raw goods like cloth/lumber/bricks, lots of semi-precious metals/stones that aren't worth much unless sold in bulk (and require opening up the bag of holding to the infected air if they want to take bulk quantaties). Much of the wealth of the city will be in the form of perishable goods like dried foods, fish, wines, cheeses. Nobles residences would have masterwork clothing (probably infected) items that enhance disguise/bluff/sense motive/diplomacy and small stashes of gold or precious gems and maybe some minor magic weaponry likely weaker than what the party has.

[Golden Ladybug]

Thanks very much for the suggestions; particularly since I hadn't given much thought to perishable items at all, but they would be an interesting addition to this situation :smallamused:

[elonin]

The better question might be how much stuff could the warfarged carry? Also, most of the choicest loot would have hidden.

[Slipperychicken]

Looters (especially the Warforged) could have gotten there before the PCs, and taken most of the good stuff.

They could also be harassed by whatever it was that killed all those people, preventing them from looting.

[falloutimperial]

You should definitely check out the tables for a dragon's hoard in draconomicon. It can get some very specific, but still offer valuable loot. Maybe your adventurers will keep some of the loot for flavor, hang a painting in the Bag of Holding, perhaps.

[Golden Ladybug]

The better question might be how much stuff could the warfarged carry? Also, most of the choicest loot would have hidden.

This wasn't too much of a problem; opening the bag of holding didn't expose them to the disease, and most of the loot was dumped in there. The rest of the party stayed well away from it in the extra-dimensional space, which I thought was a show of good thinking on there part. That they didn't check to see if the disease was airborne before doing so on the other hand...

And I'm of the same mind. My current approximation for what they picked up isn't the most worthwhile loot. They found a few of the hiding places things of more value might've been, but decided against trying to get to them, in case the Arcane Congress decided to cleanse the city with arcane fire any time soon.


Looters (especially the Warforged) could have gotten there before the PCs, and taken most of the good stuff.

They could also be harassed by whatever it was that killed all those people, preventing them from looting.

Any non-Warforged looters who'd rocked up in the city are probably dead, because it would be pretty hard to not touch anyone in the city. The warforged who'd lived in the city mostly took their own belongings, and any outstanding pay from their employers

I am rather disapointed that I didn't take the opportunity to have them fight a Disease Elemental or something, though :smallbiggrin:


You should definitely check out the tables for a dragon's hoard in draconomicon. It can get some very specific, but still offer valuable loot. Maybe your adventurers will keep some of the loot for flavor, hang a painting in the Bag of Holding, perhaps.

That's a great idea, and I wish I'd thought of it. I'll keep it in mind for next time.

However, I don't think they're going to be keeping much for flavour purposes. About half of my players accosted me on Skype last night to get the buying and selling of the things I'd finalised as part of the loot over and done with.

This ended with one character dead and the rest of them as wanted criminals.

Yeah.

[Slipperychicken]

Any non-Warforged looters who'd rocked up in the city are probably dead, because it would be pretty hard to not touch anyone in the city. The warforged who'd lived in the city mostly took their own belongings, and any outstanding pay from their employers


Wouldn't disease-immune characters like 3rd level Paladins still be hanging around to chase off looters?

[Golden Ladybug]

Normally that would be the case, but along with Fairhaven being wiped out, there are some rather pressing matters going on throughout Eberron in my campaign. Aberrations are bleeding through into the Prime Materium, Disease is rampant throughout Aundair and Breland, the Eldeen Reaches are currently on fire and Thrane is in the middle of a civil war.

And yes, most of this is a result of my players.

This campaign snowballed rather quickly, now that I think about it :smallconfused:

[Doorhandle]

Normally that would be the case, but along with Fairhaven being wiped out, there are some rather pressing matters going on throughout Eberron in my campaign. Aberrations are bleeding through into the Prime Materium, Disease is rampant throughout Aundair and Breland, the Eldeen Reaches are currently on fire and Thrane is in the middle of a civil war.

And yes, most of this is a result of my players.

This campaign snowballed rather quickly, now that I think about it :smallconfused:


I am rather disapointed that I didn't take the opportunity to have them fight a Disease Elemental or something, though
*ENCOUNTER FUEL*

Sounds like my kind of campagin.
:smallbiggrin:

[Elvenoutrider]

Find a way to hint to the pcs that the refugees made off with most of the loot. If the pcs want to continue looting there is a vault that the warforged were unable to break into. Unfortunately to get to this vault the pcs will have to fight off the insane remnant of the town guards, a squad of paladins trying to prevent exactly what the pcs are doing, a group of warforged who refused to abandon their home and are trying to stop anyone from looting, and of course rival bands of adventurers. This gives you enough encounters for a dungeon crawl in addition to traps in the vault. You can now completely control the loot given to the pcs, and after they break into this vault they should be able to leave the city satisfied.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Also don't forget that this kind of massive, horrific loss of life is exactly the kind of thing that gives rise to large quantities of undead according to fluff. Some undead are known to have..... attachment...... to what were their prized possessions in life.

[Golden Ladybug]

Find a way to hint to the pcs that the refugees made off with most of the loot. If the pcs want to continue looting there is a vault that the warforged were unable to break into. Unfortunately to get to this vault the pcs will have to fight off the insane remnant of the town guards, a squad of paladins trying to prevent exactly what the pcs are doing, a group of warforged who refused to abandon their home and are trying to stop anyone from looting, and of course rival bands of adventurers. This gives you enough encounters for a dungeon crawl in addition to traps in the vault. You can now completely control the loot given to the pcs, and after they break into this vault they should be able to leave the city satisfied.

Sounds like a pretty cool idea; I'll save it for the next time a city is destroyed irreparably in one of my campaigns (touch wood...). Sadly, they've already done their looting and moved on, too squared of orbital bombardment by wizards to risk sticking around.


Also don't forget that this kind of massive, horrific loss of life is exactly the kind of thing that gives rise to large quantities of undead according to fluff. Some undead are known to have..... attachment...... to what were their prized possessions in life.

I like the way you think :smallamused:

I've been using a lot of Corporeal Undead lately, most notably the Vampire, Mr Gaunt who just recently killed a party member (and the amount of grief I've gotten from the player because of it...). That just means I have an excuse to use Ghosts, and I love Ghosts.