I decided to use an element from a PC's backstory as a pivotal element in the adventure, but I'm not sure how or when to do the reveal. I'd love some thoughts from other DMs.
The backstory written by the player included the following:
The PC impulsively stole a pair of "ordinary" shoes years ago when they saw them on display at a fancy ball, and stuck in their pack and forgot about. (In game there has been pretty much no mention of the shoes, but the PC is still carrying them around.)
As DM, I decided to take this hook and do the following:
These "ordinary" shoes are actually a very powerful magic conductor/battery that channel and amplify the weave, but this magic has been hidden by a very powerful spell (similar to Nystul's Magic Aura): they appears as an ordinary pair of shoes but are in fact a very powerful magical piece of crystal.
Thus far in the adventure the party knows the following:
There is a powerful spell book that a very bad guy has in his possession and which acts as a sort of battery for arcane power.
That spell book contains rituals to make a weird type of undead and cause other mayhem.
The spell book has a history going back 150 years and is responsible for some mayhem back then too.
A blue dragon has recently arrived in the region from far away and set up a lair in a mountain range.
The blue dragon's minions have been aggressively searching the area for something, but the party doesn't know what they are looking for.
The PC with the shoes knows that the blue dragon is from the same area they came from.
What the party doesn't know:
The "shoes" in the PC's pack are a powerful magic crystal hidden by a spell.
The ritual "spell book" is another powerful magic crystal also hidden by that spell.
The dragon originally had the shoes and knows what they really are. They were stolen from his hoard and then fenced and eventually wound up on display at the fancy ball where the PC stole them.
The blue dragon has come to the area because he has done research and thinks he knows where the shoes/crystal came from originally, and it is this region. He suspects that the shoes/crystal may be guiding the possessor (the PC in question) to this region. The blue dragon wants them back!
The things I'd love help with if anyone has any ideas:
How to reveal that the shoes are actually a powerful magic crystal.
How to reveal that the spell book with evil rituals is also actually a powerful magic crystal.
How to reveal that the dragon is looking for the shoes specifically.
My ideas so far:
When the PC with the shoes in her pack gets close to the spell book a kind of sympathetic vibration/arcane energy will cause powerful arcane effects. Maybe even dispel the magic keeping both things hidden from detection. The PC (a Hexblade warlock) would have powerful arcane energy coursing through them. I have already done this in small ways when the PC was near something that had been created by a ritual in the book.
Same as #1. When the PC gets close to the spell book, both items are revealed for what they are.
Not so sure about this one. The dragon is the big boss causing problems in the region, but if the party learns that the dragon is searching for an item one of them is carrying, could that make them decide to leave the region altogether?
Thank you to anyone who has any ideas or discussion about all this.
You've got a problem, in that the shoes are essentially undetectable and there's no way to figure out they're magical without a DM plot reveal. There's also the problem that the PC might readily give them away. I'd say to try to use that to lure them in.
Some general ideas to slowly work this in:
Have it be known that people/minions are searching for fancy shoes in the region, but don't initially reveal why. A disguised Oni posing as a merchant, paying outlandish prices (using the dragon's wealth) for the finest shoes in the land.
Ensure that someone finds the shoes. Maybe a tavern keeper cleans the room, rifles the bag and steals the shoes to sell
The PCs can discover this, interrupt the sale. Why are they after the shoes? Hmmm...
The shoes need to be revealed by something or other that the PCs come into contact with. Maybe they begin exerting some kind of energy when close to something else.
The Shoes/Crystal can have some form of sentience, maybe communicating with the PC if they put them on. They can reveal story elements in dreams.
The Oni attacks and tries to steal the shoes, highlighting their importance
Not sure I'm keen on the spellbook idea - it sounded cool as a book (I love an evil book) but less so as a crystal. Why disguise a crystal as something equally arcane? What's the purpose of that reveal?
Has the party entered any antimagic fields with the magic crystal in their possession? If not, you could have a dungeon or castle with one that suppresses the magical disguises, revealing the crystal for what it is.
Alternatively, your idea about the crystals resonating with each-other impeding their magical disguises in an attempt to be reunited could work well.
I agree with sanvael about disguising a crystal as a book seems less than practical. If you've already introduced the book though, you could incorporate the crystal into the cover, so there are two crystals, but only one of them is technically disguised, since the other is incorporated into another powerful magic item.
Yes, I have already introduced the book. The party was trying to track down the powerful shadow weave magic that created a cursed magic item long ago that had put a strong curse on a party member. I'd already decided that the shoes were a disguised crystal, and so came up with the idea that the book used to curse the item long ago was also a disguised crystal.
I like your idea that only the cover is the magically disguised crystal. In fact, I've already established that the book is a real book in some way:
They found an NPC who had been in possession of the book for over 100 years, and someone had recently taken it from them, but the NPC had been able to tear out a few pages of the book before it was taken from them. These pages, I decided, had enough residual shadow weave magic in them (due to being part of the book for a long time) that they were able to hyper-power a remove curse spell and lift the curse on the party member.
My idea with the book being a crystal is that the spells in the book needed the immediate presence of a shadow weave crystal in order to power the spells. So the creators used a crystal as the book itself, so when the spells were cast they would always be in the presence of the crystal. But I agree that it is feeling a bit convoluted at this point.
I tend towards over-complication, to the point where my players often can't really figure out what is going on with NPCs or magic items of the villains. Which I know is a problem. I realize that it is typically a lot of fun to just have a clear goal (slay the dragon/stop the ritual/infiltrate the cult/etc.) and the party moves towards it. Of course there are often complications to that goal that must be addressed, but the party/players need to have a sense of what is going on to know where to go and what to do.
My problem is that I overthink these things and have triple twists built in so the players have a vague sense that something is going on with the villains, but don't feel like they know enough to have a clear goal. I've been getting better with this, and trying to keep clear goals on the table, or at least make it clearer what the villains are doing so the party/players can decide what they want to do about it.
The shoes need to be revealed by something or other that the PCs come into contact with. Maybe they begin exerting some kind of energy when close to something else.
Yes, this was my idea with the crystal/spell book (which I know you are not a fan of): when the PC with the shoes gets close to the spell book, there is some resonance that causes the PC's magic to be super-powered or arcan energy arcs between the items. Perhaps even that the two items are revealed as what they are, even if only temporarily.
It could also be funny to have a blue dragon just rock and say " WHERE ARE MY SHOES!!!".
Its actually not a big deal if they give the books away, they can just steal them back. If the blue dragon and the bad guy arena't aligned then it creates a sort of race for the treasure which sounds great.
My worry at this point is that they will capture the villain with his spell book (like next session), and they already have the shoes (but don't know they are powerful/magical) so the party would then have both items and the dragon would have none. So there wouldn't be a race to find them.I could have the villain slip away again, but he has done that so many times I think it is getting old for the players.
This party is not a party of heroes, but a band of misfits who all have selfish motivations. I'm not sure they would stick around to deal with the dragon, but might use the new powerful magic they have acquired to GTFO. Which, fine, but I did have a whole dragon finale anticipated.
I could have the two powerful magic items seem like they should work together but they can't figure out how. Maybe the dragon himself has the answer in his own research into the origin of the shoes? Is it "fair" to have them just not be able to figure out how to get the two crystal parts to work together?
There is also a very valuable treasure that they know the exact location of but which they haven't been able to get back to. So the dragon could claim that, maybe even in front of them, and fly it back to his lair/horde. That may be enough motivation to get them to pursue the dragon.
You could have the dragon get the book after killing the villain who had the book, then they'd have to fight the dragon to get the book. You could preface that with a revelation with the party finding a scroll of speak with dead a session or two before, so they could interrogate the previous book-owner's corpse, and learn the exposition you need them to have before the dragon fight.
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You've got a problem, in that the shoes are essentially undetectable and there's no way to figure out they're magical without a DM plot reveal. There's also the problem that the PC might readily give them away. I'd say to try to use that to lure them in.
Some general ideas to slowly work this in:
Not sure I'm keen on the spellbook idea - it sounded cool as a book (I love an evil book) but less so as a crystal. Why disguise a crystal as something equally arcane? What's the purpose of that reveal?
Has the party entered any antimagic fields with the magic crystal in their possession? If not, you could have a dungeon or castle with one that suppresses the magical disguises, revealing the crystal for what it is.
Alternatively, your idea about the crystals resonating with each-other impeding their magical disguises in an attempt to be reunited could work well.
I agree with sanvael about disguising a crystal as a book seems less than practical. If you've already introduced the book though, you could incorporate the crystal into the cover, so there are two crystals, but only one of them is technically disguised, since the other is incorporated into another powerful magic item.
Thank you for the advice.
Yes, I have already introduced the book. The party was trying to track down the powerful shadow weave magic that created a cursed magic item long ago that had put a strong curse on a party member. I'd already decided that the shoes were a disguised crystal, and so came up with the idea that the book used to curse the item long ago was also a disguised crystal.
I like your idea that only the cover is the magically disguised crystal. In fact, I've already established that the book is a real book in some way:
They found an NPC who had been in possession of the book for over 100 years, and someone had recently taken it from them, but the NPC had been able to tear out a few pages of the book before it was taken from them. These pages, I decided, had enough residual shadow weave magic in them (due to being part of the book for a long time) that they were able to hyper-power a remove curse spell and lift the curse on the party member.
My idea with the book being a crystal is that the spells in the book needed the immediate presence of a shadow weave crystal in order to power the spells. So the creators used a crystal as the book itself, so when the spells were cast they would always be in the presence of the crystal. But I agree that it is feeling a bit convoluted at this point.
I tend towards over-complication, to the point where my players often can't really figure out what is going on with NPCs or magic items of the villains. Which I know is a problem. I realize that it is typically a lot of fun to just have a clear goal (slay the dragon/stop the ritual/infiltrate the cult/etc.) and the party moves towards it. Of course there are often complications to that goal that must be addressed, but the party/players need to have a sense of what is going on to know where to go and what to do.
My problem is that I overthink these things and have triple twists built in so the players have a vague sense that something is going on with the villains, but don't feel like they know enough to have a clear goal. I've been getting better with this, and trying to keep clear goals on the table, or at least make it clearer what the villains are doing so the party/players can decide what they want to do about it.
Yes, thank you! These are all good ideas. I especially like the idea of an Oni hired by the dragon.
Yes, this was my idea with the crystal/spell book (which I know you are not a fan of): when the PC with the shoes gets close to the spell book, there is some resonance that causes the PC's magic to be super-powered or arcan energy arcs between the items. Perhaps even that the two items are revealed as what they are, even if only temporarily.
An artifact isn't detectable as normal magic (unless the rules are different in 5E).
Are the two items part of the same artifact? Because they are both needed, in order to work their power.
It could also be funny to have a blue dragon just rock and say " WHERE ARE MY SHOES!!!".
Its actually not a big deal if they give the books away, they can just steal them back. If the blue dragon and the bad guy arena't aligned then it creates a sort of race for the treasure which sounds great.
Thank you!
My worry at this point is that they will capture the villain with his spell book (like next session), and they already have the shoes (but don't know they are powerful/magical) so the party would then have both items and the dragon would have none. So there wouldn't be a race to find them.I could have the villain slip away again, but he has done that so many times I think it is getting old for the players.
This party is not a party of heroes, but a band of misfits who all have selfish motivations. I'm not sure they would stick around to deal with the dragon, but might use the new powerful magic they have acquired to GTFO. Which, fine, but I did have a whole dragon finale anticipated.
I could have the two powerful magic items seem like they should work together but they can't figure out how. Maybe the dragon himself has the answer in his own research into the origin of the shoes? Is it "fair" to have them just not be able to figure out how to get the two crystal parts to work together?
There is also a very valuable treasure that they know the exact location of but which they haven't been able to get back to. So the dragon could claim that, maybe even in front of them, and fly it back to his lair/horde. That may be enough motivation to get them to pursue the dragon.
You could have the dragon get the book after killing the villain who had the book, then they'd have to fight the dragon to get the book. You could preface that with a revelation with the party finding a scroll of speak with dead a session or two before, so they could interrogate the previous book-owner's corpse, and learn the exposition you need them to have before the dragon fight.