[3.PF] Mass Murder?

[Adisson]

So, the main arc of the campaign that I'm currently planning focuses on the leader of the human kingdom going super paranoid crazy and killing off an entire (albeit small) race of people (the race that was charged with being the human royalty's bodyguards/personal knights), with few (<250) escaping, those mostly being children. This sparks a war, as the race was seen by most nations as being a neutral party put in place for the humans' sake, them being weaklings and all.

The problem is, though, that I can't figure out a way for him to actually pull this off. I mean, these folks were pretty much trained since birth to be badass. I've figured out how the folks that escaped did so, but the actual HOW of him killing off everyone else...

I figure there was probably around 5000 people that were lost, and the city they lived in contained around 85K total population, them included.

Any help?

Thanks.

[Lord_Gareth]

Locate City bomb and just suck up the collateral to his own people?

[Coidzor]

Ye standard poisoning of the leadership at a special party and bringing in a mass shooting gallery of crossbowmen/archers to pincushion 'em while the exits are cut off by heavily armored shock troops.

Once the leadership is destroyed, a combination of bounties on the heads of the treasonous scum attracting adventurers eager for coin and systematic efforts to scatter them when they try to congregate and good tactics in hunting them down and fighting them... Like, say, using weaklings as spotters primarily unless there are enough massed to take them down by basically mobbing them, while spell casters and higher leveled types are held in reserve to group up and lay the smack down on the isolated individuals that they hunt down/bait out.

For bonus points, have an actual/staged assassination attempt be foiled by one of them who gets the actual blame and the axe quickly, call the meeting of the leadership of them to figure out what happened and work to quell any unrest, spin the resultant massacre as a revelation of the deeply rooted treasonous plot to take over the kingdom which thankfully failed but now the conspirators have to be hunted down in order to be brought to justice.

[Adisson]

Ye standard poisoning of the leadership at a special party and bringing in a mass shooting gallery of crossbowmen/archers to pincushion 'em while the exits are cut off by heavily armored shock troops.

Once the leadership is destroyed, a combination of bounties on the heads of the treasonous scum attracting adventurers eager for coin and systematic efforts to scatter them when they try to congregate and good tactics in hunting them down and fighting them... Like, say, using weaklings as spotters primarily unless there are enough massed to take them down by basically mobbing them, while spell casters and higher leveled types are held in reserve to group up and lay the smack down on the isolated individuals that they hunt down/bait out.

That might work. He also recently built a new capitol, so maybe he built it in such a way that anyone trying to get out in a hurry could be easily captured and killed, like how some college campuses that were built post Vietnam riots were built to control rioting.

[Shademan]

you do it the hero-way! you invite them to your great hall for a grand feast, get them good and drunk (and since people leave their weapons by the door) and unarmed.
Then your men who didnt drink) pull out the hidden daggers and shortswords and massacres them

[Logalmier]

you do it the hero-way! you invite them to your great hall for a grand feast, get them good and drunk (and since people leave their weapons by the door) and unarmed.
Then your men who didnt drink) pull out the hidden daggers and shortswords and massacres them

Why not just poison the food?

[Coidzor]

Why not just poison the food?

Well, if they fighting types, Fort is their good save, so a backup for the ones that fail their save is probably necessary.

Unless you can bluff the situation or be affected by the same poison and survive (buffing with antitoxin, spells) in order to put the survivors' suspicions off of you and possibly get them to hunt down one of their own that was invited but conspicuously didn't show, with the trail to finding him leading to a thoroughly trapped building/mine that is triggered to collapse and rocks fall everyone dies them when they head after the stooge (who, for good measure you'd already assassinated and either illusorily replaced or...)

[Cerlis]

Since it would be hard to fit 5000 people into one building.... I'd say Druids have a spell that turns acorns into grenades that i think automatically detonate after so many minutes/hours per caster level. It would be simple in a med-high magic campaign for a ruler to get a mage to make a simular version of this.

Its simple. they pass out special amulets of recognition to all of these people. Real fine work. So presumably all of them are wearing it or have it on their person. Then during a ceramony (or not if you want it more on the downlow and discovered through espianoge) he makes a grandiose speech about the future of his people, the future of the country and a time for change and a culling of the past. Just as the people are starting to raise their eyebrows in confusion as to what weird things he is saying he finally says something like "Let our past be forgotten in the fires of hell" and thats when the amulets start glowing red, redder and brighter. If you want to make it horrific instead of exploding they just heat up until the person burns to death screaming

Naturally many children wherent given them for various reasons (People who knew about the plan, or just not enough) as well as any undocumented members of the race. Others simply left em at home or whatnot , not interested in the king's blessing. and naturally this would cause alot of collateral damage. Buildings (where people left their amulet or someone didnt attend) would catch fire, people standing next to these people would be fried.

So plenty of survivors for this reason or that, but most of them where killed off dramatically and in public. Just work out the details of if you want him to take credit, or pin it on someone or what.

[Adisson]

Since it would be hard to fit 5000 people into one building.... I'd say Druids have a spell that turns acorns into grenades that i think automatically detonate after so many minutes/hours per caster level. It would be simple in a med-high magic campaign for a ruler to get a mage to make a simular version of this.

Its simple. they pass out special amulets of recognition to all of these people. Real fine work. So presumably all of them are wearing it or have it on their person. Then during a ceramony (or not if you want it more on the downlow and discovered through espianoge) he makes a grandiose speech about the future of his people, the future of the country and a time for change and a culling of the past. Just as the people are starting to raise their eyebrows in confusion as to what weird things he is saying he finally says something like "Let our past be forgotten in the fires of hell" and thats when the amulets start glowing red, redder and brighter. If you want to make it horrific instead of exploding they just heat up until the person burns to death screaming

Naturally many children wherent given them for various reasons (People who knew about the plan, or just not enough) as well as any undocumented members of the race. Others simply left em at home or whatnot , not interested in the king's blessing. and naturally this would cause alot of collateral damage. Buildings (where people left their amulet or someone didnt attend) would catch fire, people standing next to these people would be fried.

So plenty of survivors for this reason or that, but most of them where killed off dramatically and in public. Just work out the details of if you want him to take credit, or pin it on someone or what.

This is what I was looking for! Because it would be easy to have it cause minimal collateral, especially if teams were on call to put out fires on that day. Thanks! :D

[grarrrg]

The problem is, though, that I can't figure out a way for him to actually pull this off. I mean, these folks were pretty much trained since birth to be badass. I've figured out how the folks that escaped did so, but the actual HOW of him killing off everyone else...

I figure there was probably around 5000 people that were lost, and the city they lived in contained around 85K total population, them included.

A Wizard did it.

No, wait, hear me out!
You said "leader of the human kingdom", so basically, the King. Kings are powerful with lots of resources. Maybe he paid the court mages to research a race-specific 'plague' spell.
Make it so that either
A: the mages didn't quite know what they were researching/casting (mage1 does this, mage2 does that, mage3 does something else, etc...)
B: the King proclaims 'witchcraft' evil or somesuch, and had his mages put to death, bonus points if the mages "did it on their own, with no royal authority"