3.P trinket to entice my players

[Albions_Angel]

Hi there,

I am about to run a 2 shot 3.P game to set up a much longer campaign. And the scenario will send them on a bog standard tomb raid (all be it, a fun one).

Heres the rub. They have a tendency to hear "its a 2 shot" and then give up caring. Great group on a longer campaign. Well, I have talked to them in person and we agreed to try a little harder on this 2 shot as its a set up game. But I also need a trinket that an NPC can show them that will really get a group of level 5 characters to really engage and want to go and find the source.

Its an arabian themed desert setting, but the trinket will come from an egyptian style tomb. It needs to be impressive, but also something not crazy powerful. And it needs to showcase 3.P if possible, because they are all 5e players who are now bored with the system. They have (with one exception) never played any d20 system.

The players are shown this trinket, and its effects demonstrated, by the person hiring them to raid the tomb. They dont get to keep it.

I need that roleplay hook to tie in with the players agreeing to be a little more engaged than usual. Thoughts?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

How about a series of trinkets that all act kinda like the dagger from Prince of Persia: Sands of Time? Give them a series of similar but different powers that all give minor effects on how to affect the world around them. Of course, 'minor' is relative here. AoE slow, haste, time hop, and several other things, with visual effects that are intriguing as you can make them sound. And make sure to play stuff from the soundtracks to the original Three games of the Sands of Time trilogy.

Maybe make them like more active versions of the weapons of legacy. The more interesting uses they find for them, the more powers they get over time and the players themselves actually help determine what their items can do to pending on what they do with them. More imaginative uses actually give them better abilities over time.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Albions_Angel
Its an arabian themed desert setting, but the trinket will come from an egyptian style tomb. It needs to be impressive, but also something not crazy powerful.

A golden scarab would be the most thematic choice, if you wanted something simple and flavorful.

If you wanted something a little darker, you could try a series of mortuary jars, each with a different organ preserved in embalming fluid. The effects of the various organs would be up to you—an embalmed heart could either give a bonus to Con or a penalty to same, while a liver could give a bonus to saves against poison or a penalty, etc.

Or you could let the PCs find a strip of linen, many yards long, which is densely written in a strange language, and which serves as either an impromptu spellbook or a series of incantations, which when spoken could draw any of a thousand awful creatures.

[Albions_Angel]

Cheers guys :)

I should have said (and have now updated) in the first post, the players dont get to keep the trinket. Its shown to them by the antiquer who hires them.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Perhaps the large and stationary item grants superpowers, and they have to keep coming back to the thing to renew their power source. Or maybe the item is smaller but needs to stay at a ley line nexus or something.

But they actually have to go out and find specific reagents to sacrifice to it. Could work especially well if they are monster parts.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

The canopic jars could still be a good hook, imo. Just need to give them more visible, active powers. Fun fact: each of the four heads you often see on those jars were the servants of Horus and presided over forms of death appropriate to the organ they stored.

So the baboon head was associated with the lungs and drowning. You say this is an arabian-inspired setting? How does a jar cause you to drown in a desert? Could make it a Decanter of Endless Water, but that’s a bit dull. Perhaps it creates vacuums. Open it and suddenly every living thing in an area is holding its breath and surrounded by utter silence as sound has nothing to travel through. Close it and everything takes a bit of bludgeoning damage as the air rushes back.

There’s three more of these and only one remains unclaimed, hidden in those ruins. Whoever has all four could undergo a ritual of mummification using them, gaining their powers permanently. So you’ve got two potential antagonist spots there, and if they fail or otherwise lose the jar to one, you now have a ritual for them to stop or a Mummy Lord with some cool extra powers for them to fight!

As for showing off the mechanics, maybe have the jars respond to high skill ranks or come to life when opened, requiring a grapple check to catch and close again as they wander off in search of a master?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Dr_Dinosaur
The canopic jars could still be a good hook, imo. Just need to give them more visible, active powers. Fun fact: each of the four heads you often see on those jars were the servants of Horus and presided over forms of death appropriate to the organ they stored.

So the baboon head was associated with the lungs and drowning. You say this is an arabian-inspired setting? How does a jar cause you to drown in a desert? Could make it a Decanter of Endless Water, but that’s a bit dull. Perhaps it creates vacuums. Open it and suddenly every living thing in an area is holding its breath and surrounded by utter silence as sound has nothing to travel through. Close it and everything takes a bit of bludgeoning damage as the air rushes back.

There’s three more of these and only one remains unclaimed, hidden in those ruins. Whoever has all four could undergo a ritual of mummification using them, gaining their powers permanently. So you’ve got two potential antagonist spots there, and if they fail or otherwise lose the jar to one, you now have a ritual for them to stop or a Mummy Lord with some cool extra powers for them to fight!

As for showing off the mechanics, maybe have the jars respond to high skill ranks or come to life when opened, requiring a grapple check to catch and close again as they wander off in search of a master?

All of this is great. You've got a hook, multiple encounters and a whole potential plotline right here. There's a lot to work with here, and it should be more than enough to draw the players in.

[Bohandas]

How about an ushabti statue that works likea figurine of wondrous power

[tricktroller]

Is the point that more of the trinkets that they see are available on the adventure? Will they get to keep further ones that they find?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you want players to be more engaged with the game because of the trinket, make it something they'll have a vested interest in interacting with often. My superpower idea ensures that they want to protect the item, make regular monster part sacrifices to it, and if it's lost or stolen, they won't be totally screwed when their (temporary) superpowers fade.

Plus, getting monster abilities depending on the parts sacrificed as offerings gives the players fun stuff to play around with, which naturally get more powerful as they level up and kill stronger monsters. Heck, you could use totemist soulmelds, as they're already nicely balanced. For instance, sacrifice a phase spider's silk, you get a bound phase spider cloak filled with essentia for a week, and the player gets to choose how it's bound. Feel free to come up with new and interesting soulmelds for monsters not in MoI. Also, fluff them differently so it feels like new (and awesome) superpowers.

[the_david]

This is your setup, for as far as I understand it:
NPC shows the party a magical trinket, tells them he's looking for something similar in a tomb and pays them to go fetch it for him. The party gets to keep neither trinket, but they'll probably get payed and they may get to keep other loot.

To me, that doesn't sound like a great plot hook. There's this biochemical thing that your brain does when you achieve something. It's used in videogames to keep you playing. Videogame designers use it to get you hooked on a game. (Gaining a level, treasure, etc.) That's what you're going for, but instead you're doing the opposite. It's going to be hard to rectify that, but I'll give it a try anyway.

The trinkets are plot tickets. The NPC has one, there's one more in the tomb and an unknown number all across the desert. Each one is magical, but together they are more magical than the individual parts. The NPC may or may not tell this to the party, or he could just keep it a secret until he gets the second part.
There's a problem with this. If the party decides to collect the plot tickets they'll have to get 2 of them from their (former) boss. One way to circumvent this is buy just killing the NPC by the evil organization that is also trying to get the plot tickets. Having multiple groups going after the plot tickets is usually a good idea. (The party and 2 others.)

One more suggestion. If you want to play a full campaign, don't tell your players you want to play a 2 shot. Players will come up with characters that "peak" at the level you suggested and they might not even be interested in, or have the time to play a full campaign.

Lastly, I love the idea of the canopic jars. I might even have to steal this idea for a campaign. I'd at least put a curse on each jar that activates if it's broken or opened. If you collect all the jars you can bring the mummy back to life/unlife. Something like that, I don't know.

[Albions_Angel]

Ive apparently done a poor job of explaining.

These players, good friends of mine, and generally 5th ed players, have asked me to run a pathfinder game in the not to distant future (we are currently playing Divinity Original Sin 2 which we play once a week. When that is done, the pathfinder game will take up the same slot).

In an unrelated happenstance, I will be going on holiday with them for a week in a couple of weeks time. We do this every year, and play board games, warhammer, and usually a 2 shot scenario. Because the switch from 5e to pathfinder is a little subtle, and because I havnt run with them before, I suggested a 2 shot, set in the same world, but several months before the campaign and with different characters. This allows them to try things, get a feel for levelling (they will be level 5. They are fine with many play options from 5th, but unfamilier with pathfinder levelling. I though this would be a good tool in understanding the character sheets, skills, feats, etc, and has proved successful already for those that have built their chars), get a feel for my world, and not have to worry about making build mistakes.

The little setup bit of text I gave them indicated that they are materially wealthy, but have fallen on hard times. Debts, a family death, a failed trade or job, or simply a lust for more; I dont mind. Whatever the reason, they have accepted an invitation from an old acquaintance of theirs, an antiquer of ill repute. They have run jobs for him before, on their own, or in pairs, but now he is getting together a party, for the first time, and he seems very excited.

A trinket, or small collection of trinkets, have surfaced near a giant ant nest. The antiquer believes they are connected with an ancient Marru king of supposedly insurmountable wealth. He wants the party to go and recover the loot in the tomb. To encourage them, he shows them the trinkets, and what they can do. He will say that they can split the find, or they can receive payment if they dont want any of it. Under the table. The trading of magical items is tokenly illegal from non sanctioned establishments and there will be a social encounter towards the end of the scenario involving customs officers, which will introduce social mechanics. An unassuming, and already planned, item in the tomb will also set up the BBEG for the future campaign.

So off of that, these are temporary characters that will become NPCs later on in the main campaign. The antiquer will be unwilling to hand over the device, but I am willing to bend on that if I can work it into the tomb dynamics? If thats the case, it cant make things trivial for a party of unoptimized level 5s (so far, a brawler, a gunslinger, a magus, either a cleric or a summoner, and 2 unknowns). I can adjust the campaign to their power level. And ultimately I dont need them to be hugely enamoured by the trinket, so long as they can roleplay that they are. But if I can make them go "wow" that would be nice. I really want to sell pathfinder and 3.5 to them.

[tricktroller]

Ok the easiest way I can see to do this is with powered/depowered items. THe trinket the antiquer has is a depowered version of the trinket thats hould do something fantastic! The trick of it is, is that the items all do that powered or depowered. The powered up items will have other smaller effects. So for instance the depowered version could cast an 8th level fireball or caste displacement or some other third- 4th levels pell effect. The powered versions would do the same but also do smaller tasks like cast unseen servant, mage hand, tenser's floating disk, etc.

They would not know this of course and so would be ravenous to possibly get their hands on a powered up version of the item. When they get one, if they get one; it will still do the thing that made their eyes bulge, but then it won't be game breaking later.

The idea is centered around the group being told they can keep any of the trinkets they find after the first, the first powered version would go to the antiquer. Then they will madly dash out in hopes of finding one for every party member. Feel free to give them two or three or hell enough for the whole party. (Each one could have a different spell of 3rd-4th level but the minor powers could be the same)

The fluff for the trinkets would be that nobles of that era had them commissioned as a symbol of status but also so theyw ouldn't have to worry about betrayal from slaves, and they wouldn't have to lift a hand to do anything. Trinket = enough power to awe the peasant scum, and make life lazier and easier.

Hell you could even have a SUPER VERSION that was the king's own personal one that is currently depowered and use that as a plot hook for a future game. Gotta get the super egg mcguffin powered up.