Masque of Confusion
Unknown to anyone, a glamorous ball for the Duke of Erezi will turn into a confusing and chaotic bloodbath.
The ball will be fantastic. There will be jongleurs, harlequins, musicians, singers, graceful dancers and fire-eaters, terrifying beasts, boats on the lake, gallons of food and riverfuls of wine, displays of magic and dazzling pyrotechnics.
The Duke of Erezi organised it all to impress the girl to whom he has taken a fancy, the Infanta Maciete de Carogne. She sailed up the river today on her tour of the old provinces of Calanz, and will arrive at his palazzo for the ball later tonight. The Infanta is the most desired and lusted-after woman in the whole Eastern continent, and will be looking particularly resplendent tonight.
The Duke obviously wants high security at the ball: gatecrashers have a nasty habit of turning up and drinking too much. Therefore he has hired the PCs as guards to stop such infringements.
The PCs will have to plan and put into practice the security arrangements for the ball: patrolling the perimeter, drawing glyphs and setting up traps, that sort of thing.
However, unknown to the guards the Duke is secretly intending to kidnap the Infanta.
Unknown to the Duke, his rival suitors are intending to gatecrash the ball and kidnap him.
Unknown to any of these, a politically motivated thief from the Orzi Verci mafia is going to sabotage the fireworks in an attempt to assassinate Tomaso d'Alerco, the head of the rival mafia.
Unknown to him, Tomaso d'Alerco has an inkling of this and has employed assassins who will try to enter the ball surreptitiously over the walls to guard his life.
This gives room for a fun evening of chaos and confusion between guests, guards and gatecrashers. Bear in mind that the PCs must do their best to make sure none of this is noticed by the other guests, because the last thing the Duke wants is a scene...
Not Registered Yet? No problem.
Do you want Strolenati super powers? Registering. That's how you get super powers! These are just a couple powers you receive with more to come as you participate.
- Upvote and give XP to encourage useful comments.
- Work on submissions in private or flag them for assistance.
- Earn XP and gain levels that give you more site abilities (super powers).
- You should register. All your friends are doing it!
? Responses (16)
I'd say I did something similiar, but how is that possible, but I used Mardi Gras as my inspiration and added the extra difficulty of most people wearing masks and costumes instead of being dressed up.
I think it difficult, and fun enough, to do without it being a masked ball.
Excellenet twisting plotlines. Will keep the DM on his toes as well as the players so a challenge all around to keep track of everything that should be going on. Would site down and write a few timelines to keep me straight...and then have the PCs throw them all off anyway.
This is a great scenario. A
GM will need to create a number of descriptive 'bits' before hand. That way the GM can just 'pull them out of his sleeve', and drop them liberally into the game, to reinforce the visual imagry of the scenario and add to the chaos with the deep description.
These descriptive bits are setting and character riffs that the GM should think about. These descriptive bits should be put on 'cue cards' for ease of use.
http://www.openroleplaying.org/tools/tips/search.cgi?t=cue+cards
Examples: The Jonguleers currently have the Contessa Di'Martheen trapped between them as they throw a variety of sharp objects. Her husband to be is screaming in rage, while she resplendent in a red and black harlequeen check inspired dress, is laughing hysterically.
There is a crash around a juggler. He stops and catches all his plates, making a show of counting them. The poor servant who did drop all those plates is currently being abused by a noble, while other servants are trying to clean the plats off the dance floor... where people are still dancing.
etc... etc...etc
I do love the general idea of this and I will use this in one of my future sessions. However, I do think I will have to cut down on the plot lines.
Right now, the whole host of intertwined plot lines is going to be too much for my players.
Realize the players may also be involved in other ways. My players are going to enter the ball as 'just another group of guests'. Let's face it, you do need a huge amount of guests to impres the Infata.
(On the other hand, they could also be the group planning to kidnap the Infata, or the counter-kidnap group or the mafia group that needs to be assasinated or the one that needs to be counter assasinated or ....)
Otherwise, like I said I love it.
This plot is very good. I modified it and used it as a part in a plot of mine that included even more political intrigue. It is one of those plots that stand the test of time well.
I love it.
All it needs is a Shakespearean love triangle, and one of the noblemen exchanging places with his servant so that he can secretly woo his inamorata....
(Laughs evilly)
I suspect that my players would throw things at me...
I say poison everyone attending and them yell out loud. 'It must have been the salmon mousse.'
wow, you serve Salmon Mousse during your sessions? Can I come over?
Weren't you paying attention to the 'poison everyone' part? I doubt that he has much campaign longevity with THAT attitude.
Actually I did have that very incident happen in one of my story lines but it wasn't to kill the group only incapacitate them. I am a very harsh DM but fair. You run amok and step on the wrong toes, and just like in the real world, they step back. Only one person died from that incident and thats because they were stupid. I just put my players into seemingly impossible situations, whether they are smart enough to escape alive is up to them.
5/5 for this wonderful submission.
Brilliant utter chaos. 5.1/5.
Gah! Reading this plot reminds me of an old movie about this bookie for a mobster, who was dating this girl who claimed to be his daughter, but actually wasn't, and so he went to the mobster to ask her hand in marriage, but then the mobster's actual daughter and he were like, "Who are you?" and things went nuts, and then it came out that the not-daughter actually WAS the mobsters daughter, and it all was a huge mess until the movie ended, when things finally came together.
If anyone happens to remember that movie, I'd say it's a good one to watch for how this plot should feel when played out. Nice job ephe!
Edit: I finally remembered the movie. It's Oscar, the 1991 comedy film starring Silvester Stallone. Amazingly halarious movie.
At last an HOH for this.