Baroness Witherwill Followjoy, the 18th lvl gnome favored soul of Baervan Wildwanderer was so moved by the beauty of Sheyanna Flaxenstrand while on an interplanar excursion that she converted to her worship.
I decided that Baervan was going to retaliate with a prank.
While in the presence of her sovereign, the Marchioness of Sterich, in company of all the Barons of the land, a public gift from Baroness Witherwill--a magical necklace--suddenly began to pop pop Pop POP into enormous kernels that quickly filled the whole chamber . . . and then exploded in a hurricane of tree sap that left everyone else except the Marchioness untouched. The Marchioness was left covered and dripping in maple syrup, unharmed but humiliated and enraged.
She ordered Baroness Witherwill to surrender. Witherwill cried, "My old god is playing a prank!" and used a miracle to escape.
The Marchioness then turned to the party wizard (19th lvl) and scout (18th lvl), also Baronesses, and known companions of Witherwill, and ordered them to kneel on their allegiance. She then informed them that one of them would be charged with returning Witherwill to istivin for trial, while the other would remain her guest (i.e. prisoner) here.
The wizard cast teleport, tapped the scout, and they both disappeared.
Baroness Witherwill has since returned and surrendered, demanding a speedy trial. She will probably be charged with high treason, as the necklace sap-storm is a kind of attack on the Marchioness, and will probably get off scot-free as she burned another miracle to make herself incredibly persuasive at her upcoming trial.
The wizard, though, is still at large, and I'm a little unclear what crime she should be charged with: what crime is simple disobedience? sedition? There's no indication or evidence she was in cahoots on the necklace, but she did disobey a direct command.
Would the scout be charged with conspiracy to commit sedition? Basically, she just got tapped by the teleporting wizard.
All of these characters are Baronesses. The wrinkle in this situation is that all of the nobles of Sterich know that these three are incredibly powerful compared to everyone else. The Marchioness is particularly wary of them for this reason, as she knows they have the capability to overthrow the entire government if they wanted. She feels herself to be in an impossible situation--not wanting powerful enemies, but having been disobeyed and humiliated in front of her vassals.
I suppose it depends how vindictive you want the Marchioness to be. She could declare the lands of the two fugitives forfeit and offer a bounty for their death / arrest. That should make the PCs' lives interesting.
On the other hand, if the gnome is persuasive at her trial then maybe the Marchioness will let things slide this once.
Of course, there's always the old trope of sending the PCs on a quest. "To prove your loyalty you need to go to x and kill y." That sort of thing. A bit tired admittedly but a hook is hook.
The two things I keep coming back around to are these:
What does a sovereign do with a vassal so powerful that only her personal code of ethics keeps her from overthrowing the government and ruling the country?
And what exactly is the crime for disobeying a sovereign? When I looked up historical trials for high treason they were always conspiracies to rebel against or murder a king? Not just some noble saying No. Is that just considered sedition?
Strictly speaking, the Marchioness could, in the military sense, charge them with "failure to obey a lawful order" or perhaps desertion if nobles are required to be excused before leaving their liege's presence. Maybe "failing to defend the sovereign" in time of attack would also be a charge that the Marchioness could use. Desertion potentially comes with a death penalty, while failing to obey may not be as potent. Failure to defend the sovereign may also be a hard one to quantify. At the end of the day, since the Marchioness controls the machinery of state, she can charge them with whatever she wants to, as long as she can make it stick. Of course, making charges stick to 18th level characters is a different question...
All of these characters are Baronesses. The wrinkle in this situation is that all of the nobles of Sterich know that these three are incredibly powerful compared to everyone else. The Marchioness is particularly wary of them for this reason, as she knows they have the capability to overthrow the entire government if they wanted. She feels herself to be in an impossible situation--not wanting powerful enemies, but having been disobeyed and humiliated in front of her vassals.
What should the Marchioness do in this situation?
Revision to previous post (I reread the last couple of paragraphs of the original post):
Instead of looking for the proper charge and the rights and wrongs of the situation, the above is the real meat of the issue. The Machiavellian course of action for the Marchioness to follow is to amorally purge the three from Sterich. This might not even be an evil act, as these three are not bound by the laws and norms of the state (as shown by their behavior), and are a destabilizing influence that needs to be stopped for the greatest possible good. So, how to go about doing this effectively?
I recommend the DM read either Robert Conquest's The Great Terror or Stalin: Breaker of Nations or Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin to get an idea of how a political purge is best executed. The underlying principle is to keep your opponents divided, and to use one group of future victims to eliminate the current victims. So, when Witherwill has her (show)trial, maybe a condition is that she joins the manhunt to bring in her fellows as a demonstration of her loyalty. Nothing says the trial has to be fair... all the persuasiveness in the world is useless if the jury already has determined the verdict for reasons beyond the evidence. The added benefit of this is that a miracle is burned under one concept (a fair trial) but is wasted as the trial was never fair and was intended as a means of controlling Witherwill.
If Witherwill is successful in bringing her friends to justice, she will likely be reviled by those who value trust and loyalty, undermining her position at court and in life. If she fails, or tanks the mission, than she is clearly a traitor to be proscribed, and more importantly, her subordinates and dependents can be attacked in her stead. The same goes for the other two adventurers. Even a successfull Witherwill is now weaker, as she is isolated and can be removed more easily and subtly.
A smart politician may not have the "adventurer" power that is measured in levels, but may have other means of striking at the high-level character. They probably cannot defend everything they value simultaneously, and may find their reputations suffer as they resist the state. Since this whole chain of events starts out with a magical assault on the Marchioness (a little judicious propaganda will make that a fact as far as anyone cares), a popular revolt outside of other discontents will almost be impossible to initiate... and would that even be a good act?
Thanks, Tarelton, that's a very thoughtful reply. I think I shall use several of your ideas, including forgiving Witherwill's indiscretion on condition of bringing her companions to justice. I also like the idea of charging the wizard with desertion, and perhaps dumping her in a magic-proof cell should she surrender.
The Marchioness is LN so the disorder this party brings with it matters more to her than the good or evil of her actions (despite her recent political conversion to Ulaa, in order to solidify the loyalty of the Sterich dwarves to her), and I think her goal has to be to purge these adventurers from the Realm, hopefully without engendering a civil war (the party is much more beloved of the common people than she is).
If the players are overly popular, the Marchioness may focus more of her energy on undermining their popularity and deligitimizing them than necessarily fighting or arresting them.
An update: Witherwill had her trial and was acquitted, as per your suggestion. She didn't even have to persuade the others to surrender, because the wizard and scout decided to turn themselves in (the lawful wizard was feeling bad about her disobedience). The Marchioness forgave the scout in exchange for her humility and apology, and then promptly imprisoned the wizard in an anti-magic cell.
So we're on hiatus for a few weeks while I figure out how to handle this: the first PC to reach 20th level in my campaign is imprisoned beneath Krelont Keep. I'm not sure the Marchioness is in any hurry to even hold a trial, given how the first one went (we used the verbal duel rules from Ultimate Intrigue).
The political situation is difficult, though, because the Marchioness has gone to a lot of trouble lately to show favor to the dwarven faction in Sterich (she made a public conversion to Ulaa, for instance); Zebean the wizard was recently adopted into the dwarven clans by Prince Redmond Dumple and has many allies among the dwarven people. They will certainly intervene in Zebean's favor.
But, on the other hand, the Marchioness is pretty spooked by the vast power of this group of adventurers, so I'm not sure just yet what she'll do.
"Mine is an evil laugh", says the Marchioness. Things appear to be proceeding to her plan. She can use the release of the wizard to gain concessions from the dwarves, who may not push their new ally too hard on matter. In turn she may also require concessions from the wizard in the form of political IOUs... she collects from both parties now for the long term. All for doing what she might have done anyway... every politician's dream scenario.
Now to the scout. The scout is in hock already, as she was not imprisoned, but can be under a cloud by implication. Since each of your PCs is a baroness and, I assume a landholder of some form there are endless opportunities for mischief. Perhaps she appoints a sheriff loyal to herself to monitor each of their estates, while in turn appointing them sheriffs over the estates of other potential troublemakers. The wizard owe her loyal service for release, the scout for not being in jail in the first place, and Witherwell for just making a mess of things.
For added fun, the nobles she has them monitor are corrupt (and she knows it). It is up to the characters to either uncover and resolve this corruption subtly or fail at it in such a way as their failure further impugns their reputation or maybe lands them in jail as accessories. Also, the Marchioness will probably begin to try to divide the characters in subtle ways... how can she make their interests conflict somehow...?
Even if the characters are successful in solving the corruption problems, the also gain a reputation as snitches/informers/hacks for the Marchioness among the rest of the nobility, who doubtless all have secrets they would prefer remained that way. In fact, following this path, the characters could inadvertently become her secret police force. A common tactic of dictators was to recruit small minorities with no powerbase as their secret police and bodyguards (Imperial German Bodyguard, Varangian Guard, Chinese Eunuchs, Khadaffi's all female guard corps) who had no power base of their own. The Marchioness might erode the heroes' base enough over time that they are dependent upon her politically.
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