So Long story short, I have been Running "Dungeon of the Mad Mage" So spoliers ahead for Dragon Heist and Mad Mage campaigns. Before our last session we played, I talked privately to one of the players and said that last time they were up top in Waterdeep, he was secretly captured by the head of the Crime organization the Zehntarium (I apologize if I misspell anything) Who is Manshoon. Manshoon has access to Simulacrum. So from then on the player that is with this party is basically a clone that has two secret objectives.
1. Observe and report on his party to Manshoon (At this point the party has garnered a certain amount of Fame)
2. Retrieve Manshoon's Left arm that Manshoon lost unharmed from the Dwemorcore of the Mad Mage's Dungeon.
I thought this would be cool and would leave lots of room for Role-playing and the Player was all excited about it.
BUT.......
The first session we introduced this he got himself petrified and the clone disintegrated (due to the spell of him being a clone). The whole party saw him disintegrate and they now know he was a clone using Simulacrum.
Here is the problem... I don't really know where to go from here. because 1. I don't really want them to go after Manshoon right out of the gate. 2. The real PC was captured by Manshoon. Manshoon would just kill him. But that feels unfair to the player.
I need to write myself out of this hole. My only saving grace from this mess is that the Players (with the exception of the one that was captured) Do not know who replaced him, or why.
The easiest solution is probably saying that he escaped from Manshoon's captivity and accidently banged his head on his way out and forgot about everything that happened.
Second easiest way is to just let the party rescue him. He doesn't have to be stuck in some impregnably defended fortress. It's more likely that he is just tied up in some Zehnt safehouse that could easily be tracked down if the party does a bit of investigating. Then all you have to do is let them plan a quick rescue mission and kill some thugs and kenku guards or something.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Simularcrum and Clone are... just cast another 'Clone' spell, or tell them the Crime Organization had a 'Contingency' spell prepared which another (this is just me...) torn off fingernail of the player in question, so if the others got wise, the Criminals would then ditch the Simularcrum, which doesn't have ALL of the players memories, and go with 'Clone' which does. The downside of the Clone is that the duplicate and the player are mortal enemies... although I suppose that could set up an interesting internal party conflict (I'm the REAL player! No! That's the Clone! Let's see them fight to the death!?) The Clone would have memories of the recent actual adventure, whereas the Cloned Player would have been in 'Suspended Animation' or a Soul Jar or some other high end trap.
In other words, the Player you're colluding with can just show up as if nothing had happened, believing that they'd escaped after paying a rival faction ('Capo') within the Guild/Organization a bribe, and signing a magical contract to hand over a choice bit of loot or to accept a 'job with no questions asked' in the future. The rest of the party would have to explain to the player what had happened previously... probably the player should be sort of annoyed: "you didn't suspect anything? It was a COPY of me! It only had like 40-60% of my memories, right? And HOW did I get freakin' petrified before the front line guys!!" You know, sort of typical self-centered Rogue/thief thinking ("So can I have my cut now?" "What? That wasn't even YOU!" "It was my copy. You THOUGHT it was me, therefore you must have given it a cut... Also, it obviously would have pocketed some extra gems and [racial or class] items that didn't dissolve... shouldn't I get those!" "You're just lucky we don't bleed you, hog-tie you, and then stick a red-hot needle in your blood to make sure you're not The Thing! Any why are you missing finger nails?"
Of course, because you've upped the substitute from a Simularcrum to an actual Clone, the player should probably offer to allow the others to do exactly that. The Clone spell is, or used to be, a lot more comprehensive (The Simularcrum needs additional spells I think, including a limited wish, to realistically pass as the player). Also the Clone spell takes or took a while between each phase... meaning it won't start telling the party they've got to go get rid of the real player under some pretext until the campaign is safely concluded or failed.
(Does that help any?)
Best,
YossarianX
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“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe” When the Winds fail you, row.
Manshoon presumably knows that the simulacrum is gone (guessing he can scry) so he might decide that the party is a threat to him (they'll be coming for their friend) and will engineer a trap for them.
Move the captured player to somewhere else, and have it set up as an ambush for the party. Have something go wrong with the suspended animation and the rogue can start escaping from inside - using their stealth / preferred playstyle to ruin the ambush or simply escape the place. Put the guards under orders to keep him alive so he doesn't just get mobbed and killed, as he's the bait. Keep Manshoon away from there, and avoid letting him be identified - he would work through several layers of anonymity to keep his names off the books.
Once the party has recovered their rogue and killed the bad guys, they can continue their merry way without knowing who was behind it. If the boss is particularly evil he can have some poor fool in debt or dying pretend to be him and be killed, in exchange for the financial security & safety of his family. Party thinks they have killed the main bad guy, main bad guy remains anonymous, party can keep going unaware of the continued interest of Manshoon.
Thoruk I like your idea, but why would Manshoon not kill him as the OP said?
Because villains are dumb sometimes and PC's get the benefit of plot armor when it comes to the DM trying to solve a problem on this scale. Maybe he just plans on keeping the PC around as a sort of trade for something from another villain or maybe as bait for the party in some other crazy scheme.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Thoruk I like your idea, but why would Manshoon not kill him as the OP said?
Manshoon wants to get the party off his back. If he kills the rogue, then the party might seek revenge. If he stages his own death in the eyes of the party using some poor fool with a debt, and releases the rogue to the party (sans memories of him) then the party is no longer worrying about him, and he continues to get to try and manipulate them from afar. The original plan failed, and he needs a new one, but he needs to be a mysterious figure in the background for it to work, not the guy who killed their friend. Perhaps, once he gets his arm back & the like, he will try to persuade them to join him. Maybe he'll even help them along their way (have some strangers give them directions, or they find a rockfall that's killed an ambush ahead of them, and so on) which he then claims to have orchestrated, and now regards them as in his debt.
If he kills the rogue, he will never be anything but an enemy to them. Crime lords work by making people indebted to them - spare the rogue, assist with their quest, then demand payment for these services whilst surrounded by an army of thugs.
I also think Guild leaders don't kill without necessity, especially Rogues.
The other party members really shouldn't casually interfere with the business of their friends Evil Guild! lol. Um... this sort of reminds me of the Forgotten Realm Series "the Halflings Gem"... If the party swears revenge against one Thieves Guild, or goes on a rampage, they're going to get marked and not only cause problems down the road for their friend, but also have to worry about Assassins (a la The Halflings Gem). Adventurers are basically grave robbers, and migrant laborers... Organized Crime usually has swaths of the 'Law' on it's side...
IDK. How do you usually convince Paladins and LG characters NOT to go on rampages against a relatively harmless Criminal underground? lol.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe” When the Winds fail you, row.
A agent secretly working for Manshoon but claiming to work for the lords alliance or who ever could "free" the pc. Telling him about the arm, and asking the pc to get it for "Lord alliance." If he does then you could have Manshoon step in, or more realistically have the guy say thanks and off he goes, even give the pc a reward.
So Long story short, I have been Running "Dungeon of the Mad Mage" So spoliers ahead for Dragon Heist and Mad Mage campaigns. Before our last session we played, I talked privately to one of the players and said that last time they were up top in Waterdeep, he was secretly captured by the head of the Crime organization the Zehntarium (I apologize if I misspell anything) Who is Manshoon. Manshoon has access to Simulacrum. So from then on the player that is with this party is basically a clone that has two secret objectives.
1. Observe and report on his party to Manshoon (At this point the party has garnered a certain amount of Fame)
2. Retrieve Manshoon's Left arm that Manshoon lost unharmed from the Dwemorcore of the Mad Mage's Dungeon.
I thought this would be cool and would leave lots of room for Role-playing and the Player was all excited about it.
BUT.......
The first session we introduced this he got himself petrified and the clone disintegrated (due to the spell of him being a clone). The whole party saw him disintegrate and they now know he was a clone using Simulacrum.
Here is the problem... I don't really know where to go from here. because 1. I don't really want them to go after Manshoon right out of the gate. 2. The real PC was captured by Manshoon. Manshoon would just kill him. But that feels unfair to the player.
I need to write myself out of this hole. My only saving grace from this mess is that the Players (with the exception of the one that was captured) Do not know who replaced him, or why.
Any ideas?????
The easiest solution is probably saying that he escaped from Manshoon's captivity and accidently banged his head on his way out and forgot about everything that happened.
Second easiest way is to just let the party rescue him. He doesn't have to be stuck in some impregnably defended fortress. It's more likely that he is just tied up in some Zehnt safehouse that could easily be tracked down if the party does a bit of investigating. Then all you have to do is let them plan a quick rescue mission and kill some thugs and kenku guards or something.
Simularcrum and Clone are... just cast another 'Clone' spell, or tell them the Crime Organization had a 'Contingency' spell prepared which another (this is just me...) torn off fingernail of the player in question, so if the others got wise, the Criminals would then ditch the Simularcrum, which doesn't have ALL of the players memories, and go with 'Clone' which does. The downside of the Clone is that the duplicate and the player are mortal enemies... although I suppose that could set up an interesting internal party conflict (I'm the REAL player! No! That's the Clone! Let's see them fight to the death!?) The Clone would have memories of the recent actual adventure, whereas the Cloned Player would have been in 'Suspended Animation' or a Soul Jar or some other high end trap.
In other words, the Player you're colluding with can just show up as if nothing had happened, believing that they'd escaped after paying a rival faction ('Capo') within the Guild/Organization a bribe, and signing a magical contract to hand over a choice bit of loot or to accept a 'job with no questions asked' in the future. The rest of the party would have to explain to the player what had happened previously... probably the player should be sort of annoyed: "you didn't suspect anything? It was a COPY of me! It only had like 40-60% of my memories, right? And HOW did I get freakin' petrified before the front line guys!!" You know, sort of typical self-centered Rogue/thief thinking ("So can I have my cut now?" "What? That wasn't even YOU!" "It was my copy. You THOUGHT it was me, therefore you must have given it a cut... Also, it obviously would have pocketed some extra gems and [racial or class] items that didn't dissolve... shouldn't I get those!" "You're just lucky we don't bleed you, hog-tie you, and then stick a red-hot needle in your blood to make sure you're not The Thing! Any why are you missing finger nails?"
Of course, because you've upped the substitute from a Simularcrum to an actual Clone, the player should probably offer to allow the others to do exactly that. The Clone spell is, or used to be, a lot more comprehensive (The Simularcrum needs additional spells I think, including a limited wish, to realistically pass as the player). Also the Clone spell takes or took a while between each phase... meaning it won't start telling the party they've got to go get rid of the real player under some pretext until the campaign is safely concluded or failed.
(Does that help any?)
Best,
YossarianX
“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe”
When the Winds fail you, row.
Manshoon presumably knows that the simulacrum is gone (guessing he can scry) so he might decide that the party is a threat to him (they'll be coming for their friend) and will engineer a trap for them.
Move the captured player to somewhere else, and have it set up as an ambush for the party. Have something go wrong with the suspended animation and the rogue can start escaping from inside - using their stealth / preferred playstyle to ruin the ambush or simply escape the place. Put the guards under orders to keep him alive so he doesn't just get mobbed and killed, as he's the bait. Keep Manshoon away from there, and avoid letting him be identified - he would work through several layers of anonymity to keep his names off the books.
Once the party has recovered their rogue and killed the bad guys, they can continue their merry way without knowing who was behind it. If the boss is particularly evil he can have some poor fool in debt or dying pretend to be him and be killed, in exchange for the financial security & safety of his family. Party thinks they have killed the main bad guy, main bad guy remains anonymous, party can keep going unaware of the continued interest of Manshoon.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Thoruk I like your idea, but why would Manshoon not kill him as the OP said?
1 shot dungeon master
Because villains are dumb sometimes and PC's get the benefit of plot armor when it comes to the DM trying to solve a problem on this scale. Maybe he just plans on keeping the PC around as a sort of trade for something from another villain or maybe as bait for the party in some other crazy scheme.
Manshoon wants to get the party off his back. If he kills the rogue, then the party might seek revenge. If he stages his own death in the eyes of the party using some poor fool with a debt, and releases the rogue to the party (sans memories of him) then the party is no longer worrying about him, and he continues to get to try and manipulate them from afar. The original plan failed, and he needs a new one, but he needs to be a mysterious figure in the background for it to work, not the guy who killed their friend. Perhaps, once he gets his arm back & the like, he will try to persuade them to join him. Maybe he'll even help them along their way (have some strangers give them directions, or they find a rockfall that's killed an ambush ahead of them, and so on) which he then claims to have orchestrated, and now regards them as in his debt.
If he kills the rogue, he will never be anything but an enemy to them. Crime lords work by making people indebted to them - spare the rogue, assist with their quest, then demand payment for these services whilst surrounded by an army of thugs.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I also think Guild leaders don't kill without necessity, especially Rogues.
The other party members really shouldn't casually interfere with the business of their friends Evil Guild! lol. Um... this sort of reminds me of the Forgotten Realm Series "the Halflings Gem"... If the party swears revenge against one Thieves Guild, or goes on a rampage, they're going to get marked and not only cause problems down the road for their friend, but also have to worry about Assassins (a la The Halflings Gem). Adventurers are basically grave robbers, and migrant laborers... Organized Crime usually has swaths of the 'Law' on it's side...
IDK. How do you usually convince Paladins and LG characters NOT to go on rampages against a relatively harmless Criminal underground? lol.
“Desitutus ventis, remos adhibe”
When the Winds fail you, row.
You have a sit-down with the player beforehand and ask them not to treat their character as a lawful stupid entity.
A agent secretly working for Manshoon but claiming to work for the lords alliance or who ever could "free" the pc. Telling him about the arm, and asking the pc to get it for "Lord alliance." If he does then you could have Manshoon step in, or more realistically have the guy say thanks and off he goes, even give the pc a reward.
Thanks for the help! I got some ideas to push this forward. You guys are awsome!