[3.5] Help me devise or select a thiefy item for specific story purposes

[OttoVonBigby]

So I want PC swashbuckler to find a noteworthy item (hereafter "the Macguffin") under his bed in an inn. PC rogue would know he found it and they may well compete to decide who gets to keep it. The tricky part is that the item's not just lost, but stolen; the room's (NPC) previous occupant is its thief, who we'll call Phil. Also, a city watch lieutenant is going to get involved (somehow) in trying to find its rightful owner, or failing that, to at least keep it out of the hands of the swashbuckler, the rogue, or Phil--who for all his skill is really obviously shifty and nervous.

How I'd like this to all go down is that Phil returns, confronts the innkeeper and in his panic/anger reveals the Macguffin's nature to him; the innkeeper guesses Phil stole the Macguffin and reports Phil's confrontation and the PCs' identities to the city watch. Phil then finds the PCs and (somehow) wrests the Macguffin from the swashbuckler, who'd take it personally and want to pursue. Ideally, by this point, the Lt. is there and they'll engage in a chase that might extend into a days-long manhunt.

If that all seems like a house of DM cards, well, yeah. :smallsmile: I plan to have some Phil Cronies prepared to intervene in the chase or in key pre- or post-chase moments.

Caveats:
- The Macguffin needs to be powerful enough to be worth some trouble for all involved, but not so powerful that Phil would never logically forget it, nor that it's worth killing over to any but the most deranged person. (How deranged is Phil? Haven't decided yet.)
- I want the Lt. to initially seem to be on the PCs' side, then betray them somehow. Possibly including arrest(s). Not sure yet how to pull that off, but this means that...
- The Macguffin probably can't be obviously & directly applicable only to illegal activities, or else he'd never plausibly ally with them. I may give the Macguffin a misleadingly wholesome name to help here.

Background:
- The locale is a large port city with a significant criminal underworld. It allows conventional-looking weapons (not including polearms or crossbows) to be carried openly--no peacebonding even.
- The PCs have no previous record in this city, but they will both "seem" suspicious. Only the rogue has anything remotely resembling local "character references" should the need arise.
- These are all pretty low-level characters, though Phil is going to be very good at Sleight of Hand and similar stuff, at the expense of fighting ability and CHA.
- I've developed nothing about the rightful owner so far. I have no strong feelings one way or the other about whether he/she gets the Macguffin back, though it might be convenient and dramatic if he/she showed up at the climax to reclaim his/her property.

So all that said: I have no clue what the Macguffin should be... that's mainly what I need some ideas on. I considered the spiralburst bottle from BoVD...but then I thought of Chekov's gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekov%27s_gun) and figured that when (not if) the thing is opened or shattered, the results are too grisly for what's supposed to be kind of a light-hearted/tense story hook. It's wrong thematically too; the Macguffin should be something that "scoundrels" would find useful. All the other books I've checked have underwhelmed me.

Another idea I had, but not from anything I saw in a book, was some kind of "x-ray lens" (need better name) that penetrates any depth of solid matter it's placed up against, through to the first open space in its eyeline. Great for casing some joints, and plausibly useful for non-thief endeavors--but too powerful?

Tonally, I'm kind of shooting for something akin to the movie Sneakers, which suggests a "skeleton key"-type item for the Macguffin, but that's way too powerful and too obviously larcenous.

Thanks in advance for any ideas! I'm gonna go rewatch Sneakers right now.

[rockdeworld]

Keep in mind that a Macguffin serves literally no other purpose than to advance the story - no one, whether PC or villain can use it as it is. From your description it sounds like you want a piece of loot instead.

Also, I don't know if "Phil forgets it" makes sense. If it's stolen, then the only way it could be insignificant enough for Phil to forget it would be if he had (a) a bunch of the same item already, and they're worthless, in which case he wouldn't come back for it; or (b) no idea what the item was until he left and found out somewhere else. For that purpose, the item could be obscure, rather than worthless. Another option is (c) that Phil simply stashed it in this room for safekeeping, only the innkeeper let the room to the PCs because he knew he could get double from them what Phil was paying him (and did). Then you can say the thief's plan fell apart simply because of a commoner's greed.

A "piece of the ancient whatever" could work due for obscurity, depending on whether or not you want eldritch contraptions in your campaign.

I also like the idea of a portrait of a famous person, eg. the king's ancestor, drawn by an exceptional artist (who should be dead, and therefore the art can be worth a lot of money). Rescuing it would then give the PCs an excuse to meet (possibly local) nobility, and prove themselves in that person's eyes.

If you want to fit all your criteria, something like a chunk of Fool's Gold would do the trick. The thief took it because he was in a hurry and just grabbed whatever was shiny, then left it because he realized it was worthless, then came back for it because it actually turns out the owner values the rock for an unrelated reason (eg. their mentor/long lost lover/dead father gave it to them) and has enough money to post a sizable reward, say 500gp.