Town Out to Capture/Kill Adventurers

[Draco_Lord]

So I have an idea for a Village. This village wants to capture and then sell various adventures tourists and people who travel through it. Basically the premises they are overtax have very little money and a mysterious figure has come to offer the money in return for any people they are willing to supply. This house into a bigger overarching thing where there is an evil wizard necromancer who basically wants a lot of bodies to experiment on.

Now the party's level 1 and I am debating the best way to go about this. Most logical way seems to be poison just knock the Players out but that also seems rather unfair. Involves the town sort of getting more aggressive and attacking them.

There’s also an idea of having a “demon” around the town. A story that town makes up to attract adventurous so that they can then be captured. They would stage some sort of demon attack encourage the adventurers to head off into the woods to find it only to attack them themselves, as a group of approximately 20 or 40 villagers they do stand a fair chance against a low level party. Firstly I can with the party to succeed find out what the villages are doing and then try to you track down the necromancer.

I just want some ideas on how to go about this fairly as opposed to just slipping poison in their drinks as they sit in the tavern and that hasn't passed out because it seems boring.

I should also mention this is in pathfinder.

[BowStreetRunner]

First, if there is a rumor being used to lure adventurers it should probably be something that is likely to have a small amount of treasure/XP reward but isn't too hard to defeat. You don't want to scare off low-level adventurers. You also don't want to draw high-level ones that the town can't defeat. So if you are going to go with 'demon' try to be more specific and name something weak.

Next, you can always give the PCs some hints that something is wrong before they end up poisoned. Maybe the townsfolk just finished poisoning some other travelers and haven't had a chance to clear the bodies away before they PCs arrive. So they end up concocting a story to cover it up. This allows the PCs to make a bunch of Perception and Sense Motive checks that might help them figure out what is going on.

The more opportunities the PCs have to identify the threat before drinking the poison the better. But even if they get all the way up to drinking without figuring it out, you can at least try to arrange it so that one PC drinks before all the others - leaving the rest to deal with combat only one party member short-handed.

[Draco_Lord]

There is one detail I did forget to mention. This is the first session. So... the party hasn't exactly met each other.

I have an elf rouge, half elf slayer, goblin feral gnash, kobold oracle, and a tiefling white haired witch. (I have a bad habit of letting my players choose more variety of races). So... I figured putting them in a situation with a common enemy attacking them would work well to bring them together, and maybe set up a desire to see the other die. Or just become a proper party.

2 of them (slayer and witch) have things against a certain demon (well evil outsider) so they would be interested in looking into this, and being vague might keep them more interested (back stories, they have some more powerful enemies in there), the goblin is pretty much a wild animal, and is going to stumble into it. The kobold is... something, they are going to just get caught up in this. And the Elf doesn't have a back story yet... so... no idea what they are going to do.

I do like the idea of them needing to cover part of it up, though. That can work, the ring leader is the tavern barkeep/mayor (Same guy, small town) so having one of the rooms locked up holding other adventurers works well. Maybe even the basement having lots of chains and stuff, holding cells until they can call for the bodies to be claimed.


They also don't need to succeed. Them getting caught wouldn't be so bad, they would be taken to be experimented on, but chances are would escape before they have any real damage. And honestly, if one of them dies, it would be kind of interesting, since I'd bring them back as an intelligent undead, which might be fun, them looking for a way to break that.
I just don't want to be boring/unfair about the whole thing.

[BowStreetRunner]

There is one detail I did forget to mention. This is the first session. So... the party hasn't exactly met each other.

Oooh! Even better. :smallbiggrin:

Here is what I would do then. START the campaign with the players already chained up in a storeroom waiting to be picked up. They each remember stopping for a drink...then it gets foggy.

Give them a few minutes to try to sort it out themselves. The room is not a real dungeon or jail, so their things are all on a table nearby. There are no guards - the townsfolk are busy elsewhere. If any of the players had items hidden on their persons (actually written on the character sheet) these have not been found. There are a few other victims with them - maybe a travelling merchant and a couple of teamsters. You can use these to give the players additional information as needed.

If the players don't figure a way out right away you have the tavernkeep and a serving girl bring in another unconscious victim. The party can try to interact with them. The serving girl actually dislikes this entire arrangement but is too intimidated by the rest of the townsfolk to stand up to them. The tavernkeep is just a greedy S.O.B. Now it becomes a social encounter, giving the PCs a chance to use social interaction to get free.

If they still don't manage to get out at that point, evening will come along and the town will start to shut down. One of the stable hands will get stuck with the duty of watching the prisoners overnight. Once the tavernkeep locks up the stable hand will sneak out and steal some liquor, then bring it back and get drunk. He turns into a belligerent drunk, antagonizing the PCs. At some point he will decide he has had enough lip from whichever PC talks back the most. He will unchain that PC and toss him a club while he picks up another for himself. He will then tell the PC he is going to show him a thing or two and proceed to attack the PC. Hopefully this time the PCs can manage their escape. If it starts to look bad have one of the NPC victims trip the stable hand during the fight.

[Draco_Lord]

That is a pretty cool set up, not sure if I want to start with them right there though, kind of do like the idea of them getting caught. But... maybe that is for the best, I'll have to think about it.

[Rainshine]

The idea of having some sort of quest being offered from the town is a good one, I think. Maybe the townspeople seem overeager to have the party there -- the deals are just a little too good. Maybe blood splatters around, to make the people have to make bluff checks against the party, to give them a chance to figure out something is up. Perception to notice things out of place, etc. Appraise to realize that the deals are absurd. If that doesn't get them poking around asking questions, the town throws a big feast the night before, insisting that they must honor the noble heroes. Of course, there are special dishes/cups just for them. More perception, knowledge nature, etc checks to notice something is amiss. And if everything fails, and they all eat together, then sure, they wake up bound and tied on a cart?