Help unpaint me out of this corner?

[Atarax]

Backstory: My group was sent by the local thieves guild on a side quest to take out a band of highwaymen working for their rivals. They tracked the bandits down into their hideout in a cave and incinerated them (in a slightly horrifying display of the power of their new spell, fireball). They find a scepter of ancient make in the bandits' hoard. It's obviously magical. When I planned this out, I figured they'd need to take it back to the city to have some research done on it (thereby giving me time to plan out what info they would learn about it). Unfortunately for me, I hadn't remembered that the party's wizard had a scroll of identify on him. So he casts it, and I tell him everything. It came out really good too. Like I had been 100% ready to answer this question. I tell him that the scepter was used by the last king of the nearby ruined city of Varadinum to seal the city's treasure in a hidden vault before the empire rolled in and took over. The empire never finds it because the vault can only be revealed by the scepter which by that time had been taken far from the city.

The ruins of Varadinum are currently inhabited by a beholder and his minions. There is also a crew of a secret society of necromancers there looking for something. I'm thinking of also having a faction of neutral or Monstrous creatures/people who can be influenced to cooperate with the pcs.

Now...I need the players to find the vault after having explored the ruined city. and puzzle it open with the scepter (Indiana Jones style). I need them to find part of an ancient magical device there which will be part of the campaign arc. My problem is that I said "the city's treasure" would be in the vault. I can't let them have an entire city's treasure!!! Just the artifact.

Any ideas?

[aberratio ictus]

Simple - the treasure is there, but it is worthless.

Maybe they were an advanced enough civilization to use paper money - but without the kingdom, it`s just paper.
Maybe they were using a type of metal for their coins that was rare in their kingdom, but which is abundant in the Empire. Maybe it rusted.
Something like that.

My advice would be to put at least some valuables in the vault, so that your players aren`t too disappointed.

[Calen]

Maybe a large part of the treasure is now worthless. Rust monsters ate all the armor. They were a nation that pioneered the use of bank-notes which are no longer accepted. A rift in the earth has opened swallowing large amounts of treasure. A dragon found and took some of it to its hoard. The nation was in serious debt and did not have large amounts of money when it was conquered (wars are expensive).

All that said give the players something in the vault besides the artifact. But give ideas of what happened to the rest of the treasure so that it feels like it makes sense in the world and you just aren't "cheating" them.

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Alternate Idea

Give them all the treasure...and then use it against them. How are they going to transport it? How are they going to avoid it being stolen? How are they going to spend these unusual coins that no one trusts?

[Knaight]

Maybe it just wasn't that rich of a city to begin with - the population was relatively small, a lot of their wealth is tied up in things like buildings, etc.

[LibraryOgre]

Really dark answer: It's filled with the skeletons of children... and this artifact.

[Rogozhin]

Simple - the treasure is there, but it is worthless.

Love this!

Remember the old folks song "One Tin Soldier"? It's about two rival peoples, one of whom guards a great treasure. The folks without the treasure attack the other and a terribly bloody war ensues, which they eventually win. When they finally uncover the rock... "peace on earth was all it said".


That or its just horribly horribly cursed.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I'd be kind of tempted to turn this into a thing in and of itself. So they open the vault and it's filled with tens of thousands of pounds of gold bullion. What do they even do with it?

They could probably carry a few hundred pounds back and make a tidy profit. Or they get overcome with greed and spend a bunch of time trying to engineer sleds and find horses to pull them or whatever and then you have free reign to ambush them with every bandit in the region. Or they leave most of it there and plan on coming back later, naturally they can't reseal the vault again because they don't know how, and when they get back they find the rest of it gone.

If you don't want to derail everything into "How do we deal with all this gold?!" though then other people have covered how to make it worthless to them already. Really though, having (literal) tons of cumbersome treasure isn't all fun and games. There's all sorts of interesting problems that can arise because of that.

[Dellis]

Idea: "the city's treasure" IS just the artifact. Maybe it was so important to the city, it was thought of by all inhabitants as the city's true treasure. If you had asked any inhabitant of the city before the fall what was the city's treasure, he'd answer "the artifact" without thinking a second on it.

Not knowing what the artifact does I can't be more specific, but you can justify its importance for the city and/or the citizens in various ways: examples, it had historical significance, it was tied to a well-beloved figure (the founder of the city), its powers made it invaluable to the citizens...

[LibraryOgre]

Ooooh! Ancient, mostly-dead god, and the artifact!

[Rockphed]

So, essentially, you are trying to figure out how to give some adventurers access to a vault that probably contains a few things that are valuable without having to give them an empire's riches? Simple! Give them the crown jewels of the empire. The last king sealed the vault with his scepter before going off to war and nobody knew how to open it when he and his army got eaten by a dragon on the way back. The scepter has been floating around, slowly drifting back to Varadinum, for the last 100 years.

As to what the crown jewels are, it will be a crown or two, some necklaces, and the imperial ceremonial robes.

[Pauly]

The city's treasure, not treasury, is what you said right?

That opens the scope for:-
- Ceremonial items with limited gold value but huge sentimental value.
- Historical items of value to the city, for example the magic weapons of the city's founders and great heroes.
- Something like the Mona Lisa, a treasure so famous and valuable it is effectively worthless to a normal party. i.e. they don't have the contacts to sell it and if anyone finds out they have it they become the target of every thieves guild on not just this world but the next 7 planes.
- The written records indicating the last king had spent almost all of it on defending the city and a big IOU.
- Books and assorted histories (library of Alexandria scenario). Maybe a few magic scroll equivalents.
- Some kind of genie, or equivalent, that is bound to the city. i.e. a non portable resource who will help them in future adventuring, or a quest giver who gives them a quest to free him/her from the magic binding.

[Cernor]

If gold is as rare and valuable as it is IRL (A long shot, I know...) then most of the empire's wealth might be in goods and services rather than bullion. Sure, there'd be a small fortune in gold and jewels, but the majority of the wealth could be in deeds and land claims: instead of 100,000 gold coins, add a claim to a mine (now infested by monsters) or a favour owed by an allied empire (I.O.U. One thousand troops for one month). Not to mention granaries, paintings, and other things which would crumble to dust once the party finds it.

[OldTrees1]

Now...I need the players to find the vault after having explored the ruined city. and puzzle it open with the scepter (Indiana Jones style). I need them to find part of an ancient magical device there which will be part of the campaign arc. My problem is that I said "the city's treasure" would be in the vault. I can't let them have an entire city's treasure!!! Just the artifact.

Any ideas?

Please detail why they can't get that much coinage. This will help calibrate answers.


Accessing the treasure is noisy and the modern denizens of the city can overwhelm the party. So the party has a timed escape from the city carrying as much wealth as they can. After they escape, the rest of the wealth is picked clean by the modern denizens of the city.

[Broutchev]

Undeground ultra-fertile lands capable of sustaining the entire empire in crops with a lot less of the workforce... is a treasure on it's own.

For an empire's point of view a treasure can be a lot different than from the PC's POW.

[Fri]

The city's treasure...

Is knowledge

I had a kinda similar story once. It's a modern post-apocalyptic setting, and there's this forgotten vault where a pre-apocalyptic country is said to store necessary preparation to conquer the post apocalypse. People basically thought it's some old weapons of mass destructions, but it turned out to be knowledge, books and records and such needed for the post apocalypse.

[Atarax]

Please detail why they can't get that much coinage. This will help calibrate answers.

They're only 6th level. They already possess enough wealth for their level. I think if I gave them a small city's treasure, I'd be unbalancing the game.

Clarifications: This would've been a mostly indepent city-state (modeled on Mycenae) (because cyclopean walls). As the (pretty much reskinned Roman) empire encroached on the city, the last in the original line of kings hid the city's most valuable treasures and the artifact in a magically concealed and locked subterranean vault. When the city fell soon after, the new imperial rulers never found the hidden vault. Then it was forgotten altogether. This all happened six centuries ago. A cataclysm and plague happened four centuries ago.

The artifact is one of eight crystals lost by a much more ancient and magically advanced civilization. When placed at an intersection of ley lines, the proper technology/rituals will allow the crystal to project the natural magic from the ley lines up to a small, crystalline moon/satellite. The magical energy is then refracted back down to the crystal itself. Alone, the crystal can dramatically boost the magic of those wielding its power. If multiple crystals are activated, the crystal moon can basically become a death ray. It's what ended the ancient civilization that originally discovered all this.

[RazorChain]

The city spent all it's valuables on the war with the empire. Wars are expensive

[Atarax]

The city's treasure...

Is knowledge

I had a kinda similar story once. It's a modern post-apocalyptic setting, and there's this forgotten vault where a pre-apocalyptic country is said to store necessary preparation to conquer the post apocalypse. People basically thought it's some old weapons of mass destructions, but it turned out to be knowledge, books and records and such needed for the post apocalypse.

Not far off at all! My artifact is a WMD, but not many people remember what it is and almost no one remembers how to use it. The necromancers searching the city are part of a secret society possessing vague knowledge of ancient secrets like this. They may have collected others like it already. So the knowledge turns out to be the real treasure after all.

[Pex]

The artifact is the "treasure". It was the city's most prized possession so the Vault was built specifically to hold it; hence the extra security with the magical staff being the only way to get in.

Doesn't hurt to have other valuables in the Vault in coins and maybe other magic items, but it's not like just because you said "treasure" it must mean millions gp worth of stuff.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

- Ceremonial items with limited gold value but huge sentimental value.
- Historical items of value to the city, for example the magic weapons of the city's founders and great heroes.
- Something like the Mona Lisa, a treasure so famous and valuable it is effectively worthless to a normal party. i.e. they don't have the contacts to sell it and if anyone finds out they have it they become the target of every thieves guild on not just this world but the next 7 planes.

Honestly OP, THIS is what you want to do.

In addition, have some sort of creature and/or the Beholder have dug into the vault from underground and stole most of the treasure for other schemes, leaving only a little bit behind for the players to steal. Or have some sort of big f!&^-off monster set up to kill intruders that the PCs can't possibly defeat...but can most certainly outrun if they just grab a sackfull of coin and book it.

[Bohandas]

*nobody can figure out how to use this stuff
*these items are out of charges
*the overwhelming aura of the artifact has corrupted enchantments of the other magic items, making them function unreliably at best
*coins are made of a metal that while rare is not a common commodity and difficult to trade
*a single enormous pillar of gold (or other precious metal) that won't fit out the door or into any standard extradimensional transport item and, needless to say, is too heavy to teleport
*portals into auxillary chambers have collapsed
*most/many items are in a Living Vault impervious to any weapons or magic available to the PCs at their current level

[PersonMan]

They're only 6th level. They already possess enough wealth for their level. I think if I gave them a small city's treasure, I'd be unbalancing the game.

Are the PCs able to buy magic items and such with gold?

If not, you could give them large sums of money with the (implicit or explicit) understanding that this will basically be used to pay for room and board, various luxuries, taxes, any random expenses (stuff like "you need an outfit that costs Y or more to not be out of place in the party you're infiltrating") - basically turn it into an asset the party can use to make their lives a bit easier, rather than using it all in a short time frame.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

What about things like rare and exotic wines that have long since gone sour, once fine silks and tapestries that have rotted or been used by generations of mice for nests, or you could have treasure vaults that have either completely collapsed, burying the treasure under several thousand tons of rock or dropping it into the depths of the earth, or were looted centuries ago and so on.

[Herobizkit]

Vampire princess/heir.

Yeah, I've recently been playing Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC.

[GungHo]

A giant box of water chips... incredibly useful during the last game, but useless right now.

The city's treasure...

Is knowledge

Unfortunately, these people are incredibly stupid, and it's just coloring books. And they didn't even stay within the lines.

[shadow_archmagi]

They're only 6th level. They already possess enough wealth for their level. I think if I gave them a small city's treasure, I'd be unbalancing the game.

Suggestion: Unbalance the game. Give them a million gold. See what each of them does with a couple hundred thousand. It'll be fun! If you get to the point where you're saying "Okay so my PCs built a battle fortress on top of a dragon and have been solving problems with airstrikes" then it sounds like everyone is having fun and you're generating cool stories, so you're doing D&D successfully. Don't be so concerned with making your game be exactly average.

I'd much rather have the problem of "What kind of challenges can I throw at my players now that they command Castle Dragonback?" than the problem of "My players are sad because I told them I'd give them lots of money and then it wasn't lots of money"


---
EDIT: I decided to use ACKS to crunch some numbers about how much gold should be in the vault of a small city anyway. (Note: ACKS prices and 5e prices line up pretty well.) Depending on how you measure it, anything from 20k to 100k would be reasonable. That's, what, the gold-equivalent of one or two neat magic items for every PC? That makes it a pretty good day, but hardly game-breaking.

[Stealth Marmot]

Backstory: My group was sent by the local thieves guild on a side quest to take out a band of highwaymen working for their rivals. They tracked the bandits down into their hideout in a cave and incinerated them (in a slightly horrifying display of the power of their new spell, fireball). They find a scepter of ancient make in the bandits' hoard. It's obviously magical. When I planned this out, I figured they'd need to take it back to the city to have some research done on it (thereby giving me time to plan out what info they would learn about it). Unfortunately for me, I hadn't remembered that the party's wizard had a scroll of identify on him. So he casts it, and I tell him everything. It came out really good too. Like I had been 100% ready to answer this question. I tell him that the scepter was used by the last king of the nearby ruined city of Varadinum to seal the city's treasure in a hidden vault before the empire rolled in and took over. The empire never finds it because the vault can only be revealed by the scepter which by that time had been taken far from the city.

The ruins of Varadinum are currently inhabited by a beholder and his minions. There is also a crew of a secret society of necromancers there looking for something. I'm thinking of also having a faction of neutral or Monstrous creatures/people who can be influenced to cooperate with the pcs.

Now...I need the players to find the vault after having explored the ruined city. and puzzle it open with the scepter (Indiana Jones style). I need them to find part of an ancient magical device there which will be part of the campaign arc. My problem is that I said "the city's treasure" would be in the vault. I can't let them have an entire city's treasure!!! Just the artifact.

Any ideas?

Have them find the skeleton of a dead thief with a bound paper journal that has an entry "Have to remember..."

At that point figure out a bunch of clues to a bunch of different places the treasure has been cached. You see this thief pulled off the HEIST of the (last) century, and he hid the treasure in a few different areas to hedge his bets, but he was betrayed at the last minute by his comrades who didn't know that only he knew how to get to the right spots to retrieve the treasures.

And for the love of Odin, DON'T MAKE YOUR LEVEL 6 CREW FACE A BEHOLDER!

[Anderlith]

Just like in Indiana Jones or The Mummy, have the Vault self sestruct or seal itsslf forever type situation, where they leave with only a few sacks of treasure. Or the treasure is esoteric & not gold

[Koo Rehtorb]

The treasure is a mirror. Because they were the real treasure all along.

[Segev]

I'm going to chime in with the "use it as a plot hook" crowd. Don't stiff them; the loot can be a challenge in and of itself, just to transport. And they have to defend it.

Moreover, you can place art objects and other cultural icons which hint at your overarching plot. The artifact, perhaps, isn't the only relevant item in that vault, but the others are clues and keys to deeper understanding of what's at stake.