How to send NPC adventurers on wild goose chases?

[Coidzor]

Or otherwise distract them from your evil plans, for that matter.

So I'm in a Way of the Wicked game, and you can even read about our misadventures in Balentyne and Aldencross to some extent here (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502547-Infiltrating-and-toppling-a-fortress-at-low-level/).

Having just fairly thoroughly sacked the fortress and unleashed a horde of bugbears upon the nation of Talingarde, we've been ordered to the backwater city of Farholde. As is apparently a bit of a habit for us, we broke session before actually reaching our destination, so our party is still on the boat and I want to get brainstorming.

I know that the city used to be a hotbed of loyalists to the former, deposed royal house and at some point in the not too distant past was the home of a fairly thriving hidden cult of Asmodeans. Naturally, we want to take advantage of some of that to build up our cult of followers and minions, but it's good to make sure that prying eyes are looking elsewhere before making a big splash or really getting down to business with our real secret mission.

There'll be an allied NPC party of adventurers and mercenaries who are supposed to be running interference for us and there's a chance we'll be able to suborn one of the local Barons who is probably running the city while the other lords are all having fun raising their levies and gallivanting off to gain glory by giving the foul bugbear what for in a jolly good spot of war, but I want to hit the ground running, as it were.

Especially since I can't really recall when we met this party of NPCs, but I seem to recall their leader not liking us and one of them being disappointed that one of us didn't sleep with him. While it might be theoretically possible to mend fences with them, I see a distinct possibility of betrayal, especially since they're not true-believers but are largely in it for the coin rather than the actual fete accompli. So at least some measures independent of that other group would be good as insurance.

In terms of resources, we'll have

1 6th level Gunslinger/Fighter who is a disgraced noble of a branch of a branch of the deposed royals and has a bit more intimate access to knowledge as both a local Taliranean and a noble.
1 6th level Unchained Rogue who is an assassin looking to make contact with her guild's local branch in the city we're coming to which may give us an in with the criminal underworld there
1 6th level Unsworn Shaman Lizardfolk who has been crafting magical gear for the party and has 1 surviving Bugbear Skeleton as well as 2 slaves who were servants at the fortress we sacked (May have to destroy the skeleton and sacrifice the slaves depending upon what kind of place we expect to arrive to in the city)
1 6th level LE Antipaladin who is has trained up 3 baby level 1 Antipaladin disciples and who is immune to disease but can act as a carrier for it and already has Filth Fever and plans to collect a number of other maladies so we can use him as a super Patient 0 at some point.
A fair bit of filthy lucre, though possibly slightly under WBL for a level 6 party, it's still more in coinage than in magical gear.
A crate full of the preserved skeletons of 5 Fighter types of around 4th to 8th level.
Hats of Disguise for each PC, a choker of body alteration(?) that allows for 24 hours of sex change 1/day
A small armory of weapons and armor (mostly longswords, halberds, crossbows, shortbows, chain shirts, breastplates, and heavy steel shields)
A few barrels of mead and the ability to generate a few more a day if need be.


Given enough time, our Shaman is considering retraining to have Craft Construct, and at least the Gunslinger and Unchained Rogue are going to take (Vile) Leadership to have a cult/be a nob and gain position in their assassin's guild respectively when they hit level 7.

Any thoughts about how best to make use of these resources or start to build a cult would be appreciated.

Best case scenario, for going above and beyond accomplishing our mission, we hope to 1. have an expansive cult of Asmodeus in the city that is friendly towards us even if we need to appoint one of the locals leader and can't afford to spare one of us or a cohort to lead it, 2. have enough control of the city and revitalized loyalty to the House of Barca that there's no doubt that the city will rally to our cause when we make our move openly, 3. corrupt or neuter the local Mittran church, and 4. arrange so that the local adventuring population joins us dies or has already departed for more interesting locales.

There's supposed to be barbarians who refuse to integrate with the rest of the kingdom in a great forest which has its border not too far from the city, so there's currently another bonus objective of investigating options with them, and either gaining another army of barbarians or making sure their population of adventuring types is also distracted.


So, what are your favorite techniques, other than the old classic of the Head of Vecna con?

Any particular spells or abilities to keep in mind beyond standard disguise magics and props for various quest hooks or rumors to start? We're currently running it fairly vanilla Pathfinder right now.

What sorts of things would be good to subtly manipulate the local bards without being too traceable?

What sorts of things could one do with a small but potentially rotating pool of NPCs who don't really much notable about them beyond their status as part of the city's population?

Any uses of urchins that present themselves, other than the typical use of them as spies and messengers?

If possible, I'd prefer it if we could keep Way of the Wicked discussion in spoilers, but avoid anything that would spoil further along in the AP for us, or at least have it in its own marked sub-spoiler. I'm also very much interested in general discussion outside of spoiler tags.

[Geddy2112]

This is really just general advice, but every time I need somebody off of my back and away while I do something I don't want people to know, I send them on a not so wild goose chase. In my day job, I have a few "minions" or NPC's that I supervise. I have a lot to do at my job, so I pawn off lesser tasks of mine to them when I need to. Say I want to leave early, and I have one task left that they can do. You can bet your boots I will have them do it and skate out of the office.

Certainly your party has things they need done, or things that would be useful to have done that you don't have the time or resources to do. You could use people watching on the events of the bugbear hunt, or talk to the barbarians, or finding a lover for the spurred leader of the other party. If you have money and resources, post a bunch of jobs.

Have the local lawful evil deity worshiping types help with this. Structure and manipulation is the name of the game, and certainly you can keep people on payroll for their silence, but it is best to give them an actual day job. Idle hands are the devil's plaything-heck, it might come down to making a task seem important even if it is just standing out in a cornfield. It has to be realistic enough in pay, scope, and scale to not raise suspicion but be effective.

One of your goals is to control the city-well join with the noble house and put people to work. Run the city like a machine. Your cult that you are founding should help a lot with this. Pull the purse strings to put the other church on hard times-bankroll the intuitions you want worshiped, and starve the ones you don't. It can be indirect, that the church will provide room/board/pay as "charity" to those who help the city(of course, this is how you want it).

Grab up the adventuring crowd by promising swag that is too dangerous for the rabble to take alive, or send them after your enemies(the ones you know are loaded).

[Telok]

Hire some low level thugs to attack the NPCs, make sure that they'll die (Lesser Geas to win, a curse that lowers their constitution if they lose a fight, time delay poison, just lie and say it's a blessing or a combat buff), and let them have a treasure map on them. Not an obvious treasure map. Tell them to off the NPCs and then deliver the map to someone, and make sure that map is in a not-too-hard-to-break code. Naturally the map leads somewhere reasonably far away, reasonably dangerous, and mentions a huge treasure hoard.

From the NPC's point of view they were attacked by hired thugs with a coded map. The natural thing to do is to run off and investigate the map. Just, you know, make sure the thugs can identify you as someone else (preferably someone you want dead and who the NPCs will be happy to kill without asking too many questions) if things go really wrong and one of them survives the attack.

[Coidzor]

One of your goals is to control the city-well join with the noble house and put people to work. Run the city like a machine. Your cult that you are founding should help a lot with this. Pull the purse strings to put the other church on hard times-bankroll the intuitions you want worshiped, and starve the ones you don't. It can be indirect, that the church will provide room/board/pay as "charity" to those who help the city(of course, this is how you want it).

Any particular ideas for good sorts of things to do as public works projects or to employ blocks of people?


Hire some low level thugs to attack the NPCs, make sure that they'll die (Lesser Geas to win, a curse that lowers their constitution if they lose a fight, time delay poison, just lie and say it's a blessing or a combat buff), and let them have a treasure map on them. Not an obvious treasure map. Tell them to off the NPCs and then deliver the map to someone, and make sure that map is in a not-too-hard-to-break code. Naturally the map leads somewhere reasonably far away, reasonably dangerous, and mentions a huge treasure hoard.

From the NPC's point of view they were attacked by hired thugs with a coded map. The natural thing to do is to run off and investigate the map. Just, you know, make sure the thugs can identify you as someone else (preferably someone you want dead and who the NPCs will be happy to kill without asking too many questions) if things go really wrong and one of them survives the attack.

Hmm, might even be able to do two birds with one stone, then, get rivals of the horse we want to back in the criminal underworld to get themselves killed off by adventurers. Thank you. :smallamused: