triple-blind assasination(eka he's dead, but nobody has responsibility for it)

[With a box]

Can a mage guild has a protocol for assasinate political enemy while nobody(include hired gun, approver, Commander of the protocal) has no intension of kill the target?(no memory edit,because they expected have mind affect immunity) in other word, nobody in plan should not have deliberation of murder.

[Flickerdart]

Well, it's pretty easy to have the protocol's creator not know about it - if he's killed or lost after devising the plan, and another person takes over without learning about the protocol, you've got that part covered. He could also create a fusion or body outside body clone that plans the plan and then vanishes (no mention is made of the original receiving the memories of the clone).

I'm not sure what you mean by "approver" but if you mean someone who decides when the act is carried out, then you don't even need this person. Something like a contingency might be set up to trigger upon a certain condition, and nobody needs to approve it triggering.

Making sure that the assassin doesn't know he killed the target on purpose is difficult - unless, of course, the contingency just lobs a spell at the target, killing it instantly.

[With a box]

Well, it's pretty easy to have the protocol's creator not know about it - if he's killed or lost after devising the plan, and another person takes over without learning about the protocol, you've got that part covered. He could also create a fusion or body outside body clone that plans the plan and then vanishes (no mention is made of the original receiving the memories of the clone).

I'm not sure what you mean by "approver" but if you mean someone who decides when the act is carried out, then you don't even need this person. Something like a contingency might be set up to trigger upon a certain condition, and nobody needs to approve it triggering.

Making sure that the assassin doesn't know he killed the target on purpose is difficult - unless, of course, the contingency just lobs a spell at the target, killing it instantly.

If you use contigency on it, then caster of contigency "also" doesn't has intension to kill the target.

[Flickerdart]

If you use contigency on it, then caster of contigency "also" doesn't has intension to kill the target.
Yeah, that's the difficult part.

I suppose you could do something like this:

Be an archmage with contingency SLA. Cast an extended persisted body outside body to summon clones.
Have the clones summon a familiar.
Have the clones cast the contingency "when this guy comes in 10ft range, fireball on self" on the familiar.
The clones cease to exist when the spell duration expires. The familiars are still there and will explode as soon as they walk up to the target; something like attraction can be used to ensure this (perhaps the clones cast a suggestion on a psion convincing him to use attraction without knowing it would make the familiar explode).


Of course, you could just have the clones cast a bunch of explosive runes or other rune/sigil/symbol based magic into a book.

[With a box]

I just realized we can carete ice assassin of ourself and he will scry and die on target and self destruct.
Order: read this and do it. Define TARGET=(name)

[nedz]

Well you could use Imprisonment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/imprisonment.htm) instead of Murder. It's pretty high level and, it does have a counter - which is pretty high level also. Working a protocol around this could be tricky, but you do have a solid deniability about any question of murder. Also Speak with dead/Reincarnation/etc. will fail.

Alternatively you might be able to work the assassination into a move in a game of Xorvintal, but that's quite hard to set up. This would offer protection against any divination though.

Or you could just send to poor fool off on a suicidal quest — those never fail.

[Story]

If all you cared about was avoiding divination, you'd just need Spymaster or Vecna Blooded.

[Uncle Pine]

So no one wants the target dead, but they need to kill him anyway? Without a motif and a patron to pay for the assassination? How does this work? I can't think of any way in which this situation would come up. :smallconfused:
With a bit of context, I guess that a combination of Scry, Major Creation (anti-osmium)/Plane Shift (Far Realm) and contingencies would work.
Or you can create 10 (100?) Ice Assassins of the target.

[With a box]

So no one wants the target dead, but they need to kill him anyway? Without a motif and a patron to pay for the assassination? How does this work? I can't think of any way in which this situation would come up. :smallconfused:


Everybody want him dead, but no intention of murder. They are different.

[Uncle Pine]

Everybody want him dead, but no intention of murder. They are different.

Please define what you mean by "hired gun", "approver", "commander of the protocol" and "deliberation of murder", then. As of now, I assume that the hired gun is the person who kills the target (voluntarily or not), the approver is the supervisor of the hired gun (the one who needs to legitimate his actions), the commander of the protocol is the person who sets the entire operation up and deliberation of murder means having the intent to kill.

[NichG]

Within the halls of the Mage Guild, there is a shadowy nook containing two magical items known as the Urns of Fault. When a particular individual provides a boon to the Guild, their name is written on a stone and dropped into the white urn. When an individual acts against the Guild, their name is written on a stone and dropped into the black urn. A single person cannot drop a stone for the same name twice, lest they be cursed.

When people purchase guild services, the salesperson writes their name on a stone surface and charges the price that is displayed. An individual with a majority of white stones receives a discount, and a person with a majority of black stones receives a markup or is refused service. Sometimes the surface will instruct that a bonus item be provided, or that the ordered item should be replaced with something else. This is also used quite regularly for things like inventory recalls, so its not considered unusual.

What is known only to the high-ups of the Guild is that when the number of black urn stones is very large for an individual, the system is designed to instruct the salesperson to provide a version of the item with a deadly curse. The salesperson is not aware of which items are cursed, and the creators simply know that they are making cursed items, not that they will be used for murder. Similarly, because the precise threshold of the black urn death order is not known (nor are the current number of stones), each voter does not know if they are condemning the person to death. The creator of the system themselves knew that, in a very general sense, it would result in some peoples' deaths, but has no specific murderous intent towards specific individuals.

[Heliomance]

I think what's being asked for is a way to kill a specific person without having any possibility of divinations by the target giving a positive answer to the question "is anyone planning to kill me?"

[With a box]

I think what's being asked for is a way to kill a specific person without having any possibility of divinations by the target giving a positive answer to the question "is anyone planning to kill me?"

Well I get this idea from a SCP, witch is a knife that make people cannot have any hostility to its user, and the Foundation killed the first user by "triple blind sniper" (I can't remember actual phrase).

[Bronk]

I favor an idea similar to NichG's... Have a system like that, where good marks and black marks are tallied up somehow. They'd get in there through a combination of dry bureaucracy and/or a panel of uninformed diviners who aren't allowed to ask too many questions about the system.

Then, when a certain amount of black marks (or stones, or whatever) is reached, or a certain more urgent criteria is met somehow, the system automatically sends out soulless golems or automatons to do the dirty work.

Hey, that's how the inevitables work!

[Zirconia]

Well I get this idea from a SCP, witch is a knife that make people cannot have any hostility to its user, and the Foundation killed the first user by "triple blind sniper" (I can't remember actual phrase).

Something that should beat both that and the generic divination "Is someone planning to kill me?" is the below. Assume I am a Wizard, the target of death is King A.

I plan to kill Duke B. I enchant a book with 1000 Explosive Runes (or some other kind of death trap), and insert a sheet of paper in the front, before the runes, with the safe word to deactivate the runes and a note that this is a gift. I arrange with Bob the illiterate Barbarian to wait down the hall, and remove the sheet of paper when Alice walks by with the book. I cast "Modify Memory" to remove the memory of talking to Bob.

I give the book to Alice, and instruct her to give it to Duke B. Then, I change my mind and instruct her to give it to King A. At this point I don't remember any more that I have arranged for it to be deadly, because I've forgotten about Bob, so in theory neither the "nobody can be hostile" dagger or a divination can detect that I plan to kill King A. Neither Bob nor Alice knows that it is deadly either.

Just to be on the safe side against questioning, I can Modify Memory on myself again to remove the memory of even dispatching Alice to King A, and if I used Alter Self neither she nor Bob would know who sent them either.

That is one of the challenges of divinations like "Is anyone planning to kill me?" when you are a well known figure like a ruler. I assume this person is well known, since "everyone" wants him dead. If the definition of "planning to kill me" is too broad, it includes every beggar who is unhappy they are starving in your kingdom, every merchant who doesn't like your new taxes, every passerby splashed with mud from your carriage, every barbarian tribe who wants to invade your kingdom and set themselves up as new rulers, every disgruntled third cousin, etc. If it is too narrow, it misses the wizard with a disciplined enough mind to only think consciously about killing someone else, then "change it" at the last minute.

[Flickerdart]

That is one of the challenges of divinations like "Is anyone planning to kill me?" when you are a well known figure like a ruler. I assume this person is well known, since "everyone" wants him dead. If the definition of "planning to kill me" is too broad, it includes every beggar who is unhappy they are starving in your kingdom, every merchant who doesn't like your new taxes, every passerby splashed with mud from your carriage, every barbarian tribe who wants to invade your kingdom and set themselves up as new rulers, every disgruntled third cousin, etc.
There is a huge difference between hating someone, wanting someone dead, and actually planning on killing them.

[Segev]

Ultimately, if you have a target in mind and set the plan in motion, you are planning to kill somebody. There's really no way to get around this. The SCP tale doesn't work; the desire to kill the person with the SCP knife in question should be impossible as long as he has it. The best you could do is set up a double-blind assassination which you will remove from your ability to prevent for the person who next will have the knife. Because you can be hostile towards a hypothetical future owner of something without being hostile towards its future owner.

("It's fine that Bob is wielding the Rod of Absolute Authority That Can Destroy Worlds. I know I can trust him to never abuse it, to make good decisions, and to only destroy worlds that really need destroying. But that's way too powerful to trust anybody ELSE with, so if Bob ever loses it, we have to make sure NOBODY ELSE can evere get it again.")

The set-up for the double-blind assassination would require something like setting up a ceremony to honor the new owner - something you can guarantee he'll be at - and then having booby trapped it yourself, with the active trigger being performed by somebody who thinks he's doing something else entirely. You would have to ensure that you have no means of alerting anybody to the true nature of this situation, and that the trap remains in place until triggered. This likely involves your suicide, and ingenious planning for the location and the bait for the trap.

[Telonius]

Everybody want him dead, but no intention of murder. They are different.

Oh, that's easy then. Put him in a position where he's sure to attack someone; legitimate self-defense.

[Inevitability]

The SCP tale doesn't work; the desire to kill the person with the SCP knife in question should be impossible as long as he has it.

The fact that it works in the story proves it does work. The knife only prevents murderous actions to a certain number of steps, past that you can command people to kill the wielder for you, as long as those people don't know what they are doing.

[Segev]

The fact that it works in the story proves it does work. The knife only prevents murderous actions to a certain number of steps, past that you can command people to kill the wielder for you, as long as those people don't know what they are doing.

I haven't read the SCP story; I was running off of what was said. If it prevente, as stated, "anybody" from having "any bad feelings" towards the holder, then nobody should be able to DESIRE to kill that holder enough to arrange the situation.

If it only prevents people "nearby" or who are directly going to act, then a simple double-blind would work. "Triple-blind" is hard to even define, let alone execute meaningfully.

[OldTrees1]

Yes. However it would be a might bit uncontrolled.

The killer needs to be competent enough to kill but duped into thinking their actions are non lethal.
The programmer needs to have misjudged the equation protocol AI's value system they are writing.
The approver merely needs to enter data into the equation protocol without knowing the equation's purpose.

The approver blindly feeds data into the equation. Technically this could be automated.
The equation decides to execute or not. If it decides to execute it passes along instructions for "non-lethal" measures to the killer instead of actual non-lethal measures.
The killer executes the "non-lethal" measures and is surprised when their mark dies.

The first victim would probably have been the programmer if tropes are to be followed.

[NichG]

I think for something like this, you have to set it up before the situation where you need it. So you don't say 'crap, I need to kill someone who I can't want to kill' - its too late, and you already can't have that thought.

But if you say ahead of time 'I'm going to need to kill someone in the future, so lets set up the way now' then you have full freedom to think whatever you need when you set it up, and then you have to mask the trigger in a way that you yourself aren't aware of as a hostile action, but which is still something you would only normally do if you'd be okay with the person at the other end of it dying.

For instance, if you tell someone that its something that can be used to save their life (which it does by killing everyone around them in a huge radius but leaving them unscathed), then they could trigger that when the SCP knife-wielder was threatening them, without knowing that what they were doing was a hostile or even unkind action to the knife-wielder.

[Story]

I haven't read the SCP story; I was running off of what was said. If it prevente, as stated, "anybody" from having "any bad feelings" towards the holder, then nobody should be able to DESIRE to kill that holder enough to arrange the situation.


The actual SCP isn't quite so powerful as that. But even an item that prevents bad feelings against the holder isn't that hard to work around.

The key is that you're only prevented from being hostile to the current holder of the item. There is nothing preventing you from being hostile to a hypothetical future wielder or people who wield such a thing in general independent of any particular instance. So you just have to develop a plan in advance that can be put into action completely passively once someone new grabs the item.

[atemu1234]

All I can think of is Mind Raping a person to kill them on sight and not remember it, and then Modify Memory-ing oneself. Otherwise... good luck.

[Telonius]

I'd think a simple Mind Blank would get around the "no bad feelings towards" effect, unless it's specifically written to overcome the spell. A sword that removes bad feelings sounds an awful lot like "a device" that would "detect, influence, or read emotions or thoughts."

[jiriku]

Really, it's a devious intellectual exercise, but I'm with Telonius here. Mind blank and done. If the sole purpose is to elude divinations that would warn the target, mind blank can easily be maintained 24/7.

[ace rooster]

How do automota fit into this? For example, if I program an automota to "protect my interests", and it realises that the only way to do this is assasinate one of my enemies then is anybody aware?

They are the limit case, and can reasonably be dismissed as being 'responsible' if they made some sort of decision, but what about less intelligent traps? Does an auto targeting crossbow trap intend to murder, if targeting and understanding a command not to fire are the extent of it's programming? What about a pit trap? At what point does a mechanism become responable?


There is an Asimov short story in I Robot which is relevant, that deals with why weakening the first law by removing the inaction clause is very bad. The idea is that a robot can knowingly put someone in danger provided it is sure that it can get them out of it again. For example, if you are driving you can have your car pointed directly at a pedestrian safe in the knowledge that you can turn away before you hit them. We do this pretty much every corner. Removing the inaction clause means that a robot can say "You know what, I'm not going to remove that human from harms way" even though it put them in it. Does the intention not to save someone flag up as intent to murder?

Would getting an adventurer to lead the target through a trap that can be disarmed, but at the last moment the adventurer decides on inaction, work?

Finally would Dwarf fortress level health and safety policy count as an assasination attempt?

[Flickerdart]

How do automota fit into this? For example, if I program an automota to "protect my interests", and it realises that the only way to do this is assasinate one of my enemies then is anybody aware?
A mindless creature will never understand what "protect my interests" means. And any divination worth its salt will detect a mindless being's hostile intent as well as anyone's.

[OldTrees1]

A mindless creature will never understand what "protect my interests" means. And any divination worth its salt will detect a mindless being's hostile intent as well as anyone's.

1) Non sentient AI with a objective equation that tries to optimize your interests*.

*Things that you are expected to approve of given a growing database on your preferences.

2) Such a non sentient AI does not have "intent" as we sentient beings would use the term.