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View Full Version : A quest from the city council. Ideas?



Midnightmouse3
2015-01-09, 03:33 PM
The jewellers in the city don't like new competition - how do the heroes get a license to sell their gems... I imagine the city council has a problem they need solving. But I cannot think of a problem, I want it to be in the morally grey area. Since the the city council has ties to the mafia of my fantasy world. Not straight up killing, or breaking someones legs. But more than just helping an old lady with her groceries.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-09, 04:55 PM
Good old fashioned bribery. To sell gems, you either sell to the Jewelers at a modest mark-up...Or you get faced with permit after permit after permit. Could also be the issue that...Most people don't buy gems. They buy Jewelry. And the Jeweller's guild is the only buyer in town, so sell to them, or sell to no one.

Social ostracization if your Mafia has plenty of social skills would be interesting. Play by the rules, you get invited to all the best parties. You get some form of advancement if you have a pretty young daughter or a charming young son willing to marry into the movers and shakers. You get nominated for positions and when the city needs a job done, they come to you. Rich people come to you for jobs as well. People recognize you in the streets, you have some fame in the city.

Don't play by the rules? You get forced into selling in the less good districts where the guards just cannot keep a good eye on things. The rich don't want to buy from you, which would kill a jewler/gem seller. You have to buy expensive permits with no 'sponsor' willing to take care of things for you. You're seen as a shoddy craftsperson at best. Your goods get inspected A LOT. And in older times, it would be easy to slip in some glass or paste stones to mimic real ones in amongst a real shipment, either intentionally or by accident. If you get caught, your reputation is down the drain.

Haldir
2015-01-10, 12:34 PM
Jewels are a high-value market, sure enough. But there's a market out there more valuable than that. Think food, intoxicants, medicine. Any one of these things is going to be a much more lucrative business if it can be exploited properly.

So maybe the Council would be willing trade the monopoly on jewelry for the PC's help in cutting down on some of the competition in one of these other areas.

GloatingSwine
2015-01-10, 12:49 PM
How tight is the collusion between the various jewellers?

Would one of them like to put one over by getting some off-the-books stock, for a, ahem, modest finder's fee?

Kol Korran
2015-01-10, 01:33 PM
Try to look for Shadowrun adventure concepts. They deal all with this kind of stuff!

Some ideas that might be fun:
1) Make some sort of other mercantile organization to "understand" that they need to leave. This could maybe be some law enforcement agency (Maybe sent by the monarch of the land to ensure things go ok in the city). Maybe an adventurer's guild, maybe some sort of a new temple, who seem resistant to "normal persuasion".

2) A bit similar, but more time specific: Break up some sort of an agreement between two parties- either two different factions are coming together (Which is not good for a third party), or maybe stop a wedding, meant to cement a relationship between two families?

3) Find and arrest a certain thief/ vigilante/ outlaw that is messing one of the organizations businesses. This fellow can be a Robin Hood type, or he could also be somewhat of a crook, but part of what he does is good.

4) Deliver a package: A sealed, protected, tightly secured package. (Works with parties without access to too much power). On the way different peopel try to get the package, either by force, or negotiation. Which will the party choose?

I hope these might work. Good luck anyway!