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Cybris75
2014-09-11, 07:26 AM
Dear playground,

I have been our group's DM for the last few sessions and, for practice, have been improvising the whole time. Now, however, my improvisational skills no longer suffice and I must plan some things.

I need some advice about how to handle the next sessions, because I must find stuff for the PC's to do, and I need to have one or two combat encounters but have no idea how to make something fit. We are playing D&D 3.5 in a medieval fantasy world.

My current layout has the PC's having just arrived at the local king's palace, and I want to have some court intrigue, but don't really know how to proceed.

Maybe you have some ideas how to structure the next sessions. Here is the current situation (sorry for the length):

The PCs:
None of the three PCs is from this country. We have a Human Warblade (NG), an Elven Generalist Wizard (N), and a Half-Elven Druid (CN) with a wolf companion. They have arrived in the entourage of a foreign information trader and diplomat, who knows who they are and who is secretly a Binder. He and the PCs work for a secret organisation that values magical knowledge and investigates abnormalities (with elements of the Talamasca, the Men in Black, Stargate Command, and the Illuminati). They have brought a gift for the king, a caged hippogriff.

They are actually just travelling through to the next country, but have been asked to investigate the so-called King's Hero, a superhero-powered figure that the king tries to paint as some kind of people's hero, but who is actually part of the system and mainly battles insurgents, slave uprisings, and the occasional dangerous fauna.

The kingdom:
The kingdom is an isolationist absolutistic monarchy, controlled with a sort of Gestapo and Stasi-style surveillance. Commoners struggle because of high taxes, mediocre farmland, and corruption. Goblins have been enslaved and are used as workers because past wars have made a big dent in the working population.

There are rebel forces popping up everywhere, lead by a charismatic masked leader who can incite whole villages to riot in just a few hours of talking. Travel is dangerous, education is discouraged, and the whole thing is exploited and squeezed bloody in order to support the nobility and the extravagant king's court.

The palace city:
The palace city is a cross between Versailles and Beijing's forbidden city. The thousands of retainers living there practically never leave. The only visitors are high nobility of this country, diplomats from other countries, and practicioners of various arts. Court intrigue is fashionable, and many servants and guards are spying for someone.
The whole area is vast, with gardens, a forest, a menagery, pools, multiple palaces, and packed with all manner of mundane and magical art, luxuries, and frivolities. The area is surrounded by a thirty feet high wall which is built to look like the horizon from the inside, so that the city that supports the court is hidden from view.

The court:
The court consists of the king, his wife, their children, the king's sister, her son, the king's mother, and a big multitude of nobles, state and palace functionaries, servants, artists, craftsmen, workers, courtesans, entertainers, bureaucrats, and guards. Additional extended royal family is around too, when they don't reside in their country estates. There is also a court wizard and a cleric of the Burning Hate (yes, this aspect of Pelor is part of the setting).

The royals and nobles and most other people are exclusively human. The king is a big sponsor of the arts, and especially likes Elven art. The royal family speaks only Elvish.
The king's nephew is actually the above-mentioned "hero" (and a warlock, which explains his super powers of flying, blasting, etc.). The hero's brother is the masked rebel, and is obviously an outlaw living in the wilderness.

Planned events:
These are the story ideas I have in mind.


The PCs will continue travelling in a few days, when the diplomat they accompany has finished his negotiations with the king.
Unfortunately, the hippogriff they brought as a gift has been deemed unworthy for the menagerie, and a hunt is scheduled tomorrow, which will involve flying carpets.
The king and his nephew will meet and discuss the rebellion, and come up with a plan to destroy a few villages in order to set a trap for the rebel leader. I must somehow enable the PCs to eavesdrop on this conversation.
The king's sister must somehow learn of this plan, and will probably commit suicide out of grief about how her two sons (the "hero" and the rebel leader) are mortal enemies. There might be an investigation and a palace lockdown, and I have no idea how to involve the PCs.
I would also like to have some nobles that plot to replace the king, but I have no idea how the PCs tie into this and if it's even relevant. The new king would be as bad as the current one, anyway.
Also, I would like to have a breakout in the Menagery, so I can confront them with some exotic beasts that we usually don't encounter. But I don't know who would release the beasts, and why.



Optimally, I would like the PCs to somehow save the rebel leader and fight the "hero". The N and CN PCs have no particular stakes in the population's freedom, but will take down a bad guy if they can do it without blowing their cover. One animal-loving player has expressed a desire to free the hippogriff.

Do you have any ideas how I should proceed, how I should get them to spy on the king or his nephew, what to do with the suicide and the coup and how to get them to take action when they are surrounded by spies?

Berenger
2014-09-11, 10:10 AM
Also, I would like to have a breakout in the Menagery, so I can confront them with some exotic beasts that we usually don't encounter. But I don't know who would release the beasts, and why.


Twenty years ago while ready How and Why Wonder Books, I stumbled upon an account about a female animal keeper in early modern france that was ripped apart by lions on her wedding day. The contemporary explanation was that the usually tame lions did not recognize her when she was wearing perfume and a wedding dress.