PDA

View Full Version : DM Help Encounters/Events in a huge slaver city



Balor01
2014-09-20, 04:25 PM
As planned for next campaign, PCs will spend some time in Free Cities - huge city ports, ruled by magocracy, that thrive on ore excavation and export, production of magical items, production of constructs and undead workers and - slavery. Generally, these cities are LE.

I do not want to spam my PCs with a ton of encounters, but I'd like to have them meet a few events (totally does not need to be combat) that reflect the nature of such cities.

You got anything for me, playground?

thanks :)

kieza
2014-09-20, 04:42 PM
As planned for next campaign, PCs will spend some time in Free Cities - huge city ports, ruled by magocracy, that thrive on ore excavation and export, production of magical items, production of constructs and undead workers and - slavery. Generally, these cities are LE.

I do not want to spam my PCs with a ton of encounters, but I'd like to have them meet a few events (totally does not need to be combat) that reflect the nature of such cities.

You got anything for me, playground?

thanks :)

A gigantic street protest by the League for Representative Names, who object to calling slaver societies "Free."

Balor01
2014-09-20, 05:28 PM
A gigantic street protest by the League for Representative Names, who object to calling slaver societies "Free."
:D I love cities being called Free.

Kitten Champion
2014-09-20, 05:35 PM
What's the likelihood of the players deciding to poke the hornets' nest anyways and attempting to cut a bloody swath through the slavers? Because that could easily spiral into something ugly.

Assuming they're going to avoid that...

A slaver attempts to kidnap a party member -- or in that vein -- the inn they're staying at is crooked, attempts to poison the party and sell them.

Slave dealers attempt to sell someone to the party, thus now an ethical decision is required. Assuming they actually buy or otherwise free the slave you can further increase the stakes by adding a sibling/spouse/child/parent of the slave that he/she also wants them to purchase but the dealers aren't interested in selling -- so they can negotiate or maybe do some favour for the slaver in exchange if not free them forcefully. Perhaps this all will result in a new NPC joining them, and further plot points.

Undead worker run amok, typical zombie movie antic ensue. After dealing with the onslaught they're approached to investigate the situation. Perhaps a foreign power is responsible, leading to larger geopolitical issues.

An important figure from the mageocracy is murdered, the whole city is put under martial law. The party runs into the assassin who was, overall, noble in his/her motivation and the mage was an evil person with a laundry list of terrible deeds. The party is given the ethical choice of whether or not to help his/her escape, simply do nothing and allow him/her to hide for the time being, or collect the reward for his/her capture -- all having lasting ramifications.

Townopolis
2014-09-21, 12:02 AM
If the party has a mage:

Said mage is required to apply for and receive a license to practice magic within city limits, think Athkatla if you've played BG2. If the mage is caught casting spells without a license, hell could follow. Licenses are expensive, and pretty much a way for the magocracy to identify and suppress challengers.
Someone asks if the mage can animate his slaves--he spent a lot of money on them, and they're already dead.
A powerful caster, perhaps even one in power, attempts to capture and enslave the party mage to be used in a magic item sweatshop.

Mastikator
2014-09-21, 12:43 AM
Maybe some kind of a parade with a team of necromancers being carried on thrones by a legion of zombies and crowds cheering them on.

Maybe someone trying to buy the PCs body when they die, sort of like "when you die, we get your body, you get money now".

Balor01
2014-09-21, 12:54 PM
Nice ideas, much apprecaited. I do not have anything too aggressive in mind - like kidnapping. Just something that screams LE and they pass it. Then we see if they stick their noses in.

Mastikator
2014-09-22, 11:02 AM
How about public (and legal) mass sacrifice of unwilling subjects?

Fire Lord Pi
2014-09-22, 07:23 PM
This one seems almost too obvious.

But you said LE and something they might stick their noses in, so:

A couple of slavedrivers/guards/person-who-has-the-authority-to-do-this is beating a helpless slave. Do they help him? Does a fight ensue?

Also, for something large-scale a salve uprsing could be amazing.

tomandtish
2014-09-22, 11:34 PM
In a LE society, rules abound and money talks. Debt slavery will certainly be a thing.

Have them stay at an inn. owner of the inn has a family working for him (Father, Mother, Daughter). Mother spills something on a rich customer, ruining his expensive outfit. Customenr demands the family pay him cost of the outfit. When they can't, he orders city guards also present in the end to take them into custody and sent to his estate as debt slaves until they work off what they owe him.

Any information check will show that thy will never be able to pay off the debt as their food and clothing expenses are added to the debt. A check will also show that this is perfectly legal under the laws of the city, and it would be assault on a guard if they intervene with violence. If you are feeling particularly cruel, you can have the customer refuse to accept party money to cover the debt.

Note that there was no trial. The noble's word was considered sufficient (commoners and foreigners do not get the same respect) and the guard imposed sentence immediately. Trials only happen if it is noble against noble.

WarKitty
2014-09-23, 12:12 AM
There's also the simple reality that they'll see slaves around the streets. For tone-setting I find smaller things work best. A servant spills one of the PC's drinks; the master apologizes and promises to beat him. A NPC offers the services of various slaves for whatever the PC's want. A former slave, crippled in an accident, is begging on the street for money. As well-armed folk, they're offered work recovering escaped slaves. A noble child is chastised by her caretaker for attempting to talk to a slave. That sort of thing.

Balor01
2014-09-23, 06:23 AM
There's also the simple reality that they'll see slaves around the streets. For tone-setting I find smaller things work best. A servant spills one of the PC's drinks; the master apologizes and promises to beat him. A NPC offers the services of various slaves for whatever the PC's want. A former slave, crippled in an accident, is begging on the street for money. As well-armed folk, they're offered work recovering escaped slaves. A noble child is chastised by her caretaker for attempting to talk to a slave. That sort of thing.
Best stuff so far. Exactly what I wanted. Not to say other ideas are bad.

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-09-23, 07:57 AM
A noble child is chastised by her caretaker for attempting to talk to a slave.
Or worse, the child tries to talk to the slave, and the slave is beaten just for being there.

With people walking past paying no attention whatsoever.

An obvious one is that the party draws the attention of a slaver, who thinks at least one of them would be perfect for a certain customer.

With a magocracy, it's possible that there could be control devices, which would allow bodyguard-slaves to be armed, but completely unable to act against their masters.

Nobot
2014-09-23, 09:32 AM
You give them some moral challenges in minor non-combat encounters.


What does the city do with slaves that can't work; too old, too sick; too weak? Probably not something nice, considering the alignment. Confront them with this in a non-combat situation (where they can't actually try to save these doomed slaves) and see how they respond.
Have some slave trader in need offer your players a hefty sum to bring a few slaves from location A to B. Make the sum big enough to be really tempting and make the slave trader a nice guy (who works for a superior and 'is just doing his job') who really needs their help or he'll get in trouble (maybe even face punishment). How do they respond?

Tragak
2014-09-23, 09:36 AM
What does the city do with slaves that can't work; too old, too sick; too weak? Probably not something nice, considering the alignment. Butcher shop?

Balor01
2014-09-24, 05:53 AM
Butcher shop?
Necromancers guild of course. Owner gets a small refund and can re-buy a skeleton version of his former servant.

daremetoidareyo
2014-10-07, 03:53 PM
Slavers are trying to pass laws against using the mindless undead as household and farmhand slaves! They bribe and squeal to the magistrates and attempt to get all sorts of laws passed to simply ban magic in town altogether. They say all kinds of things about how having zombies plow the fields will kill the economy. Then the super secret mage society decides to hire the PCs to either 1.) kill the real politically savvy slavers in order to protect the study of magic or 2.) free so many slaves and skirt them out of the country so that the city is left with no alternative but to turn to the undead.

The mages are mostly good and neutral, and see having the undead take care of mindless tasks as a way to get the country to focus on education so that this country can keep up with the neighboring dwarves/gnomish technocracy that is rolling out all kinds of amazing consumer goods: Cheap well water systems & aquaculture, personal flying machines for the rich, even masterwork illusion boxes that record the last 30 seconds of sound and replays it with accompanying dazzling swirls.

veti
2014-10-07, 05:17 PM
A gigantic street protest by the League for Representative Names, who object to calling slaver societies "Free."

A "free city" is simply a city that doesn't pay tribute to any particular external authority, such as a lord or king of a wider area. It doesn't imply anything about the social structure within the city.

On-topic: you haven't mentioned what sort of slaves these are. Are they like plantation slaves in the early USA - basically, a substitute for agricultural machinery? Or are they a sort of domestic convenience, more like ancient Roman or Greek slaves? The former case is easier to portray as "clearly evil", as nobody treats or sees the slaves as human at all, they're pretty much literally treated like machinery. Classical-civilisation slaves are seen as "human, but inferior" - basically, they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and them's the breaks. Unlucky slaves may still be beaten, raped and even killed (by their owners) without repercussions, but luckier ones would be treated almost like members of their owners' household.

I wouldn't suggest anything too dramatic, just the daily reality of life. A slave auction in progress, with the reactions of the buyers as a particularly attractive slave is put up. A slave being beaten (for added drama value, by another slave).

Dasgovernator
2014-10-07, 05:50 PM
Are we talking more Lawful or Evil Slavery? As in, does the slavery exist as a form of indentured servitude legally entered into by both parties, or is it more "round 'em up and ship 'em out" slavery?

Have the party encounter a young woman running from a group of guards. If the party talks to them, the guy with the guards claims that she's a slave of his that's trying to escape, while the woman claims that he just fancies her and wants her as a slave despite the fact that she is legally free. Who's lying and what the actual authorities do about it can be played either way depending on how the party reacts.

Also, have a mage "encouraging" people to sign themselves into slavery for next to nothing by using enchantment magic. If you want to force an encounter, have the mage try it on a party member (especially anyone with a high STR), repeatedly, until they either fail a will save or do something about it.