While wintering in Greysmere, the party thief, Pappy Dickens, learned of and in a subtle heist successfully stole Acererak's Libram (Dragon #225) from the treasure room of Fionor the Rude, with the assistance of the party witch, Dusty, and a half-elven cleric/wizard.
Fionor has since discovered he's been robbed and investigated the crime and mistakenly determined that the party witch, Dusty, is entirely to blame for the theft. The party has in the meantime relocated to the City of Greyhawk where everyone is training and preparing for the Champion's Games.
The party also contains a dwarf, Dremnoc, who having recently married Fionor's daughter is now his son-in-law. Fionor believes that Dusty the witch acted alone and his son-in-law is ignorant of the theft.
So Fionor the Rude, former adventurer and headsman of Greysmere, has come to Greyhawk looking for 1) the return of Acererak's Libram (so he can melt it down for its metals)—unfortunately already traded away to the Wizards Guild by the party; 2) some dwarven justice on Dusty the witch who stole from him while a guest of his hospitality.
How do you think Fionor will handle this? He's sometimes described as TN, sometimes as LN. He's an 10th or 12th lvl fighter & retired adventurer. He's famously rude. Something tells me he isn't going to want to go through normal human legal channels.
Fionor knows that the witch's familiar, a centipede, inhabits and can animate a marionette she carries around; he knows that her spell casting is dependent on that familiar. So one strong strategy might be to try to surprise her and gain control of the puppet and use it as leverage to get the spell book back.
Would he ambush the witch in the streets?
Waylay her in her inn?
Hire someone else to kidnap her?
Attempt to enlist his son-in-law when that might blow his chance at surprise? (My hunch is that he'd only involve Dremnoc once the witch has been captured, to keep him from interfering.)
Would he do something else entirely, do you think?
For that matter, what does dwarven justice/vengeance look like her? Would only the death of the thief satisfy him? or perhaps severing her thieving hand? Would dwarves have a concept of monetary compensation or such?
Would he try to resolve this in Greyhawk or smuggle the witch (assuming he can get her) back to Greysmere for a dwarven trial?
While wintering in Greysmere, the party thief, Pappy Dickens, learned of and in a subtle heist successfully stole Acererak's Libram (Dragon #225) from the treasure room of Fionor the Rude, with the assistance of the party witch, Dusty, and a half-elven cleric/wizard...
So Fionor the Rude, former adventurer and headsman of Greysmere, has come to Greyhawk looking for 1) the return of Acererak's Libram (so he can melt it down for its metals)—unfortunately already traded away to the Wizards Guild by the party; 2) some dwarven justice on Dusty the witch who stole from him while a guest of his hospitality.
How do you think Fionor will handle this? ...Something tells me he isn't going to want to go through normal human legal channels...
Would he ambush the witch in the streets?
Waylay her in her inn?
Hire someone else to kidnap her?
Attempt to enlist his son-in-law when that might blow his chance at surprise? (My hunch is that he'd only involve Dremnoc once the witch has been captured, to keep him from interfering.)
Would he do something else entirely, do you think?
For that matter, what does dwarven justice/vengeance look like her? Would only the death of the thief satisfy him? or perhaps severing her thieving hand? Would dwarves have a concept of monetary compensation or such?
Would he try to resolve this in Greyhawk or smuggle the witch (assuming he can get her) back to Greysmere for a dwarven trial?
I'd love to hear any ideas anyone has.
-I get the impression Fionor is on this mission by himself. Why?
I don't know how you necessarily have Fionor's personality in your Greyhawk, but my first concern would be about whether wantonly kidnapping someone could cause serious problems for Greysmere's trade with the Free City. Thus, I think Fionor would want to make sure the problem couldn't easily be traced back to him.
So he'd probably hire someone from the Assassins' Guild to kidnap Dusty, particularly since alignment wouldn't be an issue for him. From there, he could bring her back to Greysmere for some dwarven justice.
As to what that would look like, especially if Dremnoc and the rest of the party follow the kidnappers back to Greysmere, if Fionor was planning to melt down a book for its precious metals* then he'd probably demand compensation for what Dusty stole from him. If the party got any treasure from the Wizards' Guild for the Libram, he'd probably demand it.
If it isn't enough for Fionor's liking, then this would be a great source of new adventure ideas. Maybe the party has to do some quests to compensate him, while forfeiting a large chunk of treasure until the debt is paid. Dremnoc's wife is probably going to be pretty angry at her father and homeland being robbed, which would provide Dremnoc additional motivation to want to go along with what Fionor demands.
I doubt Fionor would want to upset his daughter too much by having her husband's friends be immediately hanged or get their hands hacked off. Besides, why would he do that when he can put them to work and still make the money he'd have gotten from melting down the Libram? Chopping off their hands or their heads would serve as a threat to "motivate" the party to follow his demands.
* Is Acererak's Libram made entirely of gold or platinum? I don't understand how much precious metals you can get from melting down a paper book.
The Assassins' Guild is a really interesting idea, particularly because trade with Greyhawk is a pretty big deal for Greysmere. I hadn't thought of them performing kidnappings before, but that does make sense. (Does anyone think the Assassins' Guild wouldn't do kidnappings?)
Question: How many days do you think Fionor would require to figure out how to contact the Guild after arriving in Greyhawk City? Presumably some of the dwarves in Burrow Hill came from Greysmere, and might have information on this, but I'm not sure how easy or how well known among citizens contacting the Assassins Guild would be.
That way Fionor can basically wait outside of the City's wall at a inn or such, and have Dusty delivered to him for subsequent transport (via wagons and some kind of shackles to prevent spell casting) to Greysmere and trial. I found on some website or another a dwarven legal cod where the fine for theft was 8x the original value, to which I'd probably add on the value of hiring the Assassins Guild.
Dragon 224 describes the Tome thus:
This smallish book measures precisely
12” long, 9” wide, and 2” thick. The covers
and spine are meticulously cut sheets
black adamantite, held together with a
series of small, interlocking hinges which
run the entire length of the spine’s long
edges. Acererak’s personal symbol, an
encircled capital "A" entwined with serpents,
is stamped into the center of the
front cover and inlaid with mithril.
Another strip of black adamantite is
connected to the inner surface of the
spine, to which are attached 12 rings of
the same metal. The Libram.s pages, each
a carefully fashioned sheet of mithril,
stamped with perfectly symmetrical
runes and glyphs, are held in place by
these rings.
and later:
So it was until CY 585, the Year of
Peace. In a meeting of the senior members
of Greyhawk City’s Guild of
Wizardry, Jallarzi Sallivarian informed
those present that, while magically disguised,
she overheard an aged dwarf
give an exact description of the Libram to
a group of his fellows. Through her
eavesdropping, she also learned that the
tome was being held in one of the three
dwarven enclaves in and around the
northern Abbor-Alz, either Dumadan,
Greysmere, or Karakast. How the dwarves
came to possess Acererak.s Libram is a
mystery, but this is unimportant in light
of what the dwarves intend to do with it.
If Jallarzi’s information is correct, the
dwarves plan to dismantle the Libram
and use its valuable metals to construct
more “useful” items like tools and
weapons. The Wizards’ Guild plans to
recover the book before the dwarves
destroy it, but to date, they have yet to
learn which enclave has it; the dwarves
are not talking.
(I've played Fionor as one of those hearty a-holes who think all of their own insults and rudeness are hilarious, where he's constantly insulting you with a smile and a laugh to see if you get angry, which makes you weaker than him. I previously played out a dinner scene where the party had to endure all this in exchange for the hospitality of Greysmere over the winter.)
I just remembered that the head of the Assassins Guild (Vesper) hates dwarves and probably wouldn't take the job. . . .
What year is your campaign currently in? If Turin Deathstalker is still in charge, I doubt he'd have an issue with it.
Since he's apparently not, I'm still not sure that this is something that Vesper Lafanel would have to sign off on. The CEO doesn't need to sign off on every single assignment that his company takes in real life, and for me it wouldn't be something that would get him worked up enough to interfere on. If his people can relieve some of those greedy rock-kissers of their coinage, so much the better.
If you decide Vesper would have a problem with it, then Fionor might decide to use a human middleman to make the deal for him. Some of the dwarves who live in Burrow Hill, particularly those with connections in Greyhawk's underworld, could likely tell him what he needs to know and find some suitable humans.
As for how long it takes Fionor to learn this, he might even know some of these things before he ever arrives in Greyhawk, since as a ruler he could have his own sources of information from ambassadors, spies, etc. in other communities.
I imagine most Greyhawkers knowing about and fearing the Assassin's Guild, but IIRC The Adventure Begins states that most people just consider it a shadowy force that they don't know much about. Most people don't know how to actually contract an assassin, but if you make discreet inquiries in the right places (the River and Thieves' Quarters are obvious choices) then you might find people asking questions right back to you. If your answers indicate you might be a viable client, then you just might be put in touch with someone who can help you.
A battered wife who's angry at her husband's abuse and adultery might vent her frustrations to her friends but not know what to do about it. Soon, she has people in the taverns she frequents mentioning this in conversation with her. They're skilled at reading others, and they might either dismiss the woman if she's just blowing off steam or subtly suggest they know someone who could help her if they realize she'd actually be willing to go through with having him killed.
And people bantering in a tavern is circumstantial evidence, at best.
Current plan is for Ramman Damian (mentioned but not detailed in CoG: FFF) to sleep-poison the party during dinner and then use a staff of travel to teleport the hopefully unconscious witch and himself outside the city walls to the cemetery, where a hidden wagon awaits, along with Fionor and the gang, that will transport the witch bound and shackled to Greysmere for a trial.
But there will be a few days delay before departure as Fionor wants to do anything he can to recover Acererak's Libram. That may give the rest of the party time for a rescue attempt . . .
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