Low Level Political Quests

[Galazgru]

I just started a new campaign and the players and I are interested in running a roleplaying centered game and I have designed a fleshed out campaign world with a lot of political intrigue and maneuvering. We are having a first real session in the next week and I want to have some quests in mind in case right off the bat they want to explore the starting city and begin looking into the politics rather than venturing forth and performing heroic deeds. My stumbling block is that the players are only level 2 and I don't want them untangling the whole web too early so I need some really low level quests that will still start them down the right paths.

Background:
The starting city is called Dalhurst its a large city with a population of roughly 20,000 (19,000 are humans). The city is fairly advanced industrially by traditional D&D standards; renaissance era technologies. There is a huge emphasis on industry and art in the city and guilds are paramount; if you aren't in a trade guild, you aren't getting any work. The campaign world as a whole is low magic and arcane caster are particularly distrusted within the city. Major exports include wool, silk, and dairy. Major exports are mostly metals and gems since the city in the grasslands. The city has one vassal called Larkinge. Additionally, Dalhurst is the center of an alliance of like-minded city-states called the Ormshire Pact.

Politics:
Dalhurst is ruled by a King, King Renout Greatash. The King commands the city's army and is in charge of diplomacy but he doesn't make laws or really enact any true change (essentially the same duties and powers as the US president). The King has an adviser Iestyn of Breezy Hill who acts as intermediary between the king and the Counsel of Eight and who also coaches the king in this diplomatic talks and writes his speeches. The city also has the Council of Eight which is made up eight democratically elected guild member leaders, 5 from the major guilds and 3 from the minor guilds (ala the Signori of Florence). Members serves terms of half a year, make the actual laws in the city and represent the wills of the common people (but mostly just their fellow guild members).

Motivations:
King Renout Greatash: Renout wants to conquer the nearby dwarven stronghold of Vir Darihm. As Dalhurst's technology advances, their need for metals increases but the dwarves are not eager traders and they have been increasing their surface activity and agriculture of late so they are slowing their imports. To secure a steady flow of raw material, Renout wants to seize the city and subjugate its peoples. Vir Darihm is a metropolis of over 30,000 dwarves and has a substantial, well trained, well armed standing army. To realize his vision, Renout needs to drum up support throughout the whole of the Ormshire Pact and call all the armies to his banner. This would lead to widespread war across the continent and create a multitude of problems in the world.

Iestyn of Breezy Hill: Iestyn is secretly a sorcerer and part of a secret society of arcane casters who seek to overthrow a number of cities within the Ormshire Pact and free arcane casters across the continent from oppression. Iestyn has been influencing the actions of the king for some time with and without magical assistance. Many members of his society also hold powerful political positions, they are getting close to striking but if they act too soon, it is extremely likely that their coup d'etat will fail (after thousands die in a magical onslaught of course). An overthrow of this global magnitude would affect a massive percentage of the world population and have huge effects on society, for better or worse.

Walter Heartthorn: Walter is the guildmaster of the Wool Merchants and is currently sitting on the Council of Eight. He has dreams of creating a dynasty akin to the historical Medici of Florence. He has many sons in various guilds throughout Dalhurst and some that he sent to neighboring cities to rise through the ranks of their guilds. Walter is hoping to corner many of the economic markets and use that to leverage himself and his family members into powerful political positions. Nepotism and corruption run rampant in Walter's world and he is ruthless when dealing with competitor's. His position on the Council, though influential, is short lived and not enough of his family is in similar positions to spring into action just yet. If Walter's plan was to come to fruition, organized crime and corruption would run wild with Dalhurst and only the Heartthorn's would truly benefit.

That's about it, very long post I realize. Again, I need low level quests that the PCs can explore but not gain so much knowledge that they put the pieces together at level 2. Thank you for the help.

[Gildedragon]

Problem solvers:
Bridge problems between different guilds. X is having trouble with Y because Z will not unblock certain shipments...

Guildsman being blackmailed by crime syndicate. Overt use of force might expose Guildsman's dealings with another gang, so explicitly asks for the bodycount to be kept low... Instead the PCs will have to beat up some thugs and diplomatize with the 'low guilds'. Extra interesting points if the Guildsman is not an expert but a magewright. he's been being forced to make magical arrows... if his magic is discovered he will be excominicated from the guild and maybe tried as a criminal.

Mundane artificer (Devices: Ravenloft, Legacy of Blood) has had blueprints stolen by a member of the Arcane Conspiracy (or by a proxy for the Conspiracy). They find technological advances to be extremely detrimental to their long term goals, as it would put magic item creation in non-magical hands.

PCs are conscripted to act as lawyers for a criminal. As outsiders their arguments will not be biased by their relationship to the accused. Crime: magic tampering of foodstuffs. Investigate, talk to people, make an argument to save a man for the crime of being an innate caster.

Youngest (and perhaps favored) son of a low Council of 8er is rumored to have an affair with one of the King's (male) generals. Councilor cannot go to any of the standard means of solving this sort of problem because acting to solve it gives it validity. Characters are tasked to fix the problem somehow. Note that "problem" can be limited to just the rumors. Though the councilor might not object to some deaths

[Tibbit Tamer]

Perhaps a Lower tier Merchant is having a problem with theft in his shop. He has been asking the Merchant's Guild he is a part of for assistance, and the PCs get involved. After searching for clues, and going to the lower end sections of the city, the PCs face of against some thieves. As it turns out the thieve problem is quite large, larger than they had first thought, maybe even a full blown Thieve's Guild. Maybe the Thieve Guild has secret ties to other Guilds, such as the higher ups in the Guilds or even the Council are getting a cut from the Thieves guilds by having the thieves rob their own members.

Perhaps there is a racism problem against any Dwarves in Dalhurst due to their strenuous relationship with Vir Darihm. Dwarves in the city are not welcome in restaurants and bars across the city and any establishment they own is getting vandalized and targeted by individuals. A Dwarven bar owner asks the PCs for assistance in finding and stopping the thugs responsible for damage to his bar.

[Cyrion]

You could use a variation of the diamond necklace quest from the Three Musketeers:

Richelieu wanted to embarrass the queen, so he had two studs from a diamond necklace (she had idiotically given to a lover) stolen, and then convinced the king to give a costume ball and specifically request that the queen wear that necklace. Enter the musketeers who retrieved the necklace and had duplicate studs made. The queen was saved, and Richelieu, being the consummate gentleman, ended up presenting the queen with the two stolen studs as a gift.

This can easily be a low level quest because the players are acting as agents a couple of times removed from the real powers playing the game, but their actions still have consequences.

[Galazgru]

Perhaps there is a racism problem against any Dwarves in Dalhurst due to their strenuous relationship with Vir Darihm. Dwarves in the city are not welcome in restaurants and bars across the city and any establishment they own is getting vandalized and targeted by individuals. A Dwarven bar owner asks the PCs for assistance in finding and stopping the thugs responsible for damage to his bar.

This is a good idea, however, last time I ran a campaign with racial undertones the whole thing went up in smoke and the main storyline got lost as the PCs went from city to city inciting race riots and killing every non-elf they could find. Not sure I want a repeat of that.

[jiriku]

If you want politics, go big, just go big in ways that don't involve the NPCs and plots you want to save for later. For example, you've got trade guilds and rival nobles just everywhere in this city. Get the players involved as agents working for some and against others. They can trigger the downfall of the rope-maker's guild or engineer the rise of an aspiring glassblower to the head of his guild. They can assassinate or politic or earn favors or receive rewards. Make it big. Ignore the fact that they're level 2 and treat them like big shots. They'll probably meet some relatives and pawns of your Big Three NPCs, but no one will breathe a word to them about invasions or revolutions or dynasties... not yet. When you're ready, their major successes will make it natural that the Big Three would take notice of them and they'd start to get drawn into world-spanning plots.