SoSA the 10th: The High Priest of Quackery

This is post 10 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

There's a charismatic man, call him Humble Pymander, who comes to town claiming to be able to teach people how to access cleric spells like heal, bless, etc., but without needing to be a cleric in thrall to some capricious deity. He's a swindler, of course. However much popularity he garners amongst the rubes, the local clerics may have a thing or two to say about this person cutting in on their territory!

The PCs can encounter Pymander in several ways.  They can "randomly" come upon his revival tent and attend a performance. Or, in a tavern or inn, Pymander may approach the PCs and ask for their services, telling them his life is in danger: "Protect me from those clerics!"

The revival performance is a classic medicine show, with musical entertainments and success-story testimonials punctuating the hard-sell from Pymander himself. The climax occurs when the clients (who have paid dearly for the opportunity) line up and get a special two-handed hand-clasp from Pymander, which supposedly transfers the power to them. From then on, it's claimed, they will have the ability to heal and bless, as well as repel the undead, just like the most powerful clerics of yore.

How does he do it? Pymander once had access to a powerful artifact that gave him the knowledge to create a new alchemical potion. This viscous, clear liquid is an arcane combination of three ingredients:

1. two parts Potion of Extra Healing (for the healing oomph),
2. one part Keoghtom's Ointment (for the power do it via touch), and
3. three parts Potion of Human Control (to transfer the benefits to others).
   

He smears some on the hands of each dupe, which gives them the actual power to heal 1d3 hit points of damage on another person, via another laying on of hands.  However, this power only lasts for about 24 hours.

Pymander also claims that his power transference gives people the power to turn undead. Once per visit to a new town, he takes his star students out to a graveyard late at night to test their new abilities. Of course, he has accomplices dressed up as zombies and wights, who bust their way out of shallow graves, attack, then act appropriately frightened when the rubes "turn" them.

Some events that may spur some interesting PC activities include:

• The PCs will learn about the limited duration of Pymander's transference of healing powers. If Pymander is ever confronted about it, he will claim the person must not have been concentrating hard enough. THEN he will begin preparing to skip town as soon as possible! 
• Pymander has a couple of hulking, 18-strength goons that travel with him for protection. They will be quick to lean on anyone that comes backstage looking for the man in charge. Pymander also hired a few local 1st-level fighters for additional security, but these have low morale.
• Given sufficient advance advertising, clerics of all local denominations will certainly send agents into the audience to investigate what's going on.
• Clerics of some of the more chaotic deities may also sneak around backstage... and attempt to kidnap Pymander to wrest his secrets from him.  This is one reason that he's got the goon squad on high alert.

In reality, Pymander is is a middle-aged high-level thief who owns many different magic items. Some of these items would be found on his person, or in a Bag of Holding that he keeps in a Portable Hole... inside another Portable Hole. On his person he also has a large ornate key made of bone, with an image of a jet-black horse carved into it.

Proclaiming Pymander's secrets to the public is likely NOT to convince his most devoted followers of the truth. They will jump through hoops to legitimize his actions, and they may attack anyone who sullies his exalted name.

SoSA the 9th: The Earl of Mountebank

This is post 9 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

The elevator pitch: The PCs are hired to escort a noble family, who are traveling to a distant kingdom to marry off their son in a big royal wedding. The twist: The nobles are impostors! The caravan is attacked by people who seem to be common brigands, but they're really loyalists, led by the masked son of the real noble family.

Do I even need to include any more?  :-)

Among the impostors are two medium-level thieves (pretending to be the Earl and his adult son), plus one high-level female assassin (pretending to be the Countess, the wife of the Earl), and a few streetwise urchins (pretending to be the other younger royal children). There are also a handful of 1st/2nd level fighters (valets) and zero-level females (attendants to the Countess and children).

How are the impostors pulling this off? They intercepted some written communications that were being carried back and forth between the real Earl and another noble family from 100 miles away. (For convenience, let's call the Earl's family the Montagues and the other family the Capulets, okay?) The Montagues were in the final stages of arranging a marriage for their spoiled eldest son. Once the band of thieves started reading these messages, they hatched a plan to get themselves in on the action. They began tossing out the real messages and sending two separate sets of fake messages:

• The Capulets began receiving messages from the faux-Montagues that kept up the excitement about the wedding, but contained a desire to move up the date to something sooner -- and to hold the wedding at the Capulet's castle.
• The Montagues began receiving messages from the faux-Capulets that contained nothing but delays, delays, delays...

Thus, the impostors are traveling overland to Castle Capulet for the big nuptials. Their plan is to purloin whatever they can the first night they're safely bedded down in the guest quarters of the castle -- including the lavish wedding gifts. They thought they could use a little extra muscle (and pomp) and thus hired the PC party to escort them. The real Montagues, on the other hand, just recently got wind of this and are moving to stop the impostors.

The following set of events outlines one possible way this adventure could play out:

1. The real Montagues and their men begin attacking the caravan on the main road. It starts out with sniper-type attacks (bows, slings, thrown knives, bolos) but if that doesn't work they escalate to frontal attack.
2. The PCs may suggest leaving the main road for safety and cover. There are some other paths through the dense forest, but they would take longer to traverse -- and the impostors don't want to miss the big day! Prepare a map that gives players meaningful choices and tradeoffs.
3. At some point, the raiders kidnap one of the PCs (or otherwise separate him/her from the rest) and tell that one PC their story. The PC learns that they're led by the real "spoiled" son, who in reality isn't so spoiled! But the raiders decide the PC has now been away for too long, and the other PCs (and the impostor Montagues) must be led to assume that the PC was killed. Do they leave behind bloody clothes or a valued item?
4. Willingly or not, the captured PC has now been included into the raiding party. Now they resume their ambushes with renewed vigor. How can the PC warn his/her friends without tipping off the impostors?

Even if the PCs stay together, there will be clues that things are not as they seem. Each night, one of the thieves or urchins will attempt to steal something from the PCs. Use whatever system you have for "perception" to figure out if they get away with it, or if the PCs start to notice missing items.

If one of the PCs decides to ride on ahead to Castle Capulet for reconnaissance, they will hear some gossip about the Montagues that conveys information contrary to what they've seen from the impostors. The "son" is playing his part as a spoiled prig, but anyone who's met the real son wouldn't refer to him that way. The "Earl" is playing it very straight and proper, but the PC may hear about the real Earl's flatulence problem that everyone knows about....

See Welsh Piper's random guide to royal houses for generating additional familial flavor and intrigue.

SoSA the 8th: Who's the Yahoo?

This is post 8 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

The Lost World: Houyhnhnms versus Vogoraks.  (What? You don't know what Vogoraks are?  Read on... read on...)

Once the PCs get far away from civilization, they encounter a beautiful waterfall in a lonely mountain pass region that looks like humans have never set foot in before. Someone notices that the waterfalls are glinting more brightly than one would usually expect -- like there's something bright behind the falls.

Of course it's an entrance into a lost world. Depending on the size, feel free to place D&D's anachronistic dinosaurs here (or freakify them a bit), but the true masters of the land are intelligent, civilized horses. The glinting light is their city, which is just over the horizon, maybe an hour's walk away from the waterfalls. Whether or not the horses call themselves Houyhnhnms depends on whether or not the players have read Swift's Gulliver's Travels!

The horses wear clothing, speak the PCs' common tongue fluently, and have all the accoutrements of civilization that are standard in the human world that the PCs come from. There are horse fighters, clerics, magic-users, and thieves, as well as "normal" horses, NPC sages, specialists, and so on. Horse blacksmiths are needed to make horseshoes, of course! :-) Don't forget the rare "demi-horses" (unicorns, pegasi, hippogriffs) on the fringes of society that remind the PCs of elves, dwarfs, etc.

When a small group of Houyhnhnms first encounters the PCs, they will first try to talk with the PCs' horses (if they bring mounts past the waterfalls) to see what's up with the strange two-legged creatures they have captured. They'll be shocked when they figure out that these visiting horses cannot speak. They will be doubly shocked to see who's in charge -- and then triply shocked to see humans wearing clothes and having the ability to speak! The PCs will hear murmurs such as "Oh, my... these creatures do not look like any Yahoos that I've ever seen." and "They look incomplete, somehow, but I cannot put my hooves on exactly how."

If there are horse fighters or soldiers among the first ones to encounter the PCs, they will attempt to arrest the humans and haul them back to the city. Houyhnhnm fighters of levels 1-2 attack as "medium" warhorses (1-6/1-6/1-3 hoof/hoof/bite), at levels 3-5 they attack as "heavy" warhorses (1-8/1-8-1/3 hoof/hoof/bite), and at level 6 they gain an extra attack every other round. If wearing a unicorn-spiked helmet they can charge as a unicorn for 2-24 hp of head-butting damage. Some of the most experienced fighters will have magic +1 horseshoes.

If the PCs are arrested, the authorities will take their time to mull over what to do with these odd creatures. The longer the PCs stay in the area, the more likely they will hear about the threat of attack by the fierce beasts known as Yahoos, who have been raiding the outskirts of their "civilized" lands and are coming ever closer to their peaceful city. The Houyhnhnms are divided about how to deal with these creatures. Some don't want to wait for the Yahoos to invade, and they advocate searching out their dens and exterminating them. Some are beginning to plan new defenses to the city. Others just want to be left alone and deny there is a threat at all.

However, on the morning of the second full day the PCs are in the Houyhnhnm city, the attack comes. A semi-organized band of 170 Yahoos comes down out of the hills to the north of the city and begins to plow through the city.

Readers of Swift will think the Yahoos are just primitive, caveman-type humans. Sorry, nope. Meet the Vogorak:

Click to enlarge.

Not nice guys, for sure. They also have the factor of surprise on their side.

On the other side of the ledger, the full population of the Houyhnhnm city is 1500. Of that, 600 are young foals, ponies, and the elderly. That leaves 450 adult stallions and 450 adult mares to defend the place. The females and non-fighter males fight as wild horses (single 1-3 hp attack). The local militia is comprised of 80 fighters, with a range of levels between 1 and 6. There are 10 horse magic-users throughout the city (though half of them will flee), and there are 50 horse clerics (of whom only 10 will flee). It doesn't look good.

Nobody knows why the Vogoraks are attacking, by the way. Maybe they need to expand their territory for food. Maybe they just can't stand the whinnying of horses.... Nobody speaks their language.

Anyway, if the relations between the Houyhnhnms and the PCs hasn't been too bad, they will beg for the PCs to help them defend their home, and will promise untold riches if they succeed in aiding them to repel the invaders. (Even though they do have gold, the PCs may be disappointed to find that any magic items they will give as gifts will work only for equine operators...)

If you don't have a good way to do skirmish-level mass combat, try Zzarchov's system, or Talysman's system, or Chris' Birthright-inspired system. See also this entry in an old online book of RPG plots. There's lots of food for thought, along with examples, in a series of relevant posts by Alexis.

Full disclosure: The Vogorak is not my own personal creation. The above sheet was created by one of my high-school compatriots from an epic 1980s AD&D campaign of yore. Let's call my friend War Machine. I'm reasonably sure that Mr. Machine has left behind all interest in tabletop RPGs and probably no longer even has the original sheet (the above was scanned from an old photocopy). What I am 100% sure of, however, is that he would be delighted -- though, possibly, slightly embarrassed -- if his old creation was found useful by some modern-day OSR grognards. I'm no lawyer, though, so if you like it, re-skin it. :-)

SoSA the 7th: It's Torture in Here!

This is post 7 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

Someone gets arrested and thrown into the local city prison/oubliette. Maybe it's one of the PCs. Maybe it's our old friend Rosa Patrina, who was falsely accused of stealing, and it may happen that the local authorities may not believe the PCs when they spin a silly-sounding tale of sentient thieves tools...

No matter who has been locked up, the other PCs hear that nasty, mind-f*** torture is the rule of the day in there, so they're motivated to get him or her out by whatever means necessary!

What should they do? The PCs should be allowed to brainstorm to their hearts' content, but at least some of the following movie and TV tropes should come to mind...

• Conk a few guards on the head, steal their uniforms, and infiltrate the place in disguise?
• Get themselves arrested, while somehow smuggling in a bag of holding with their weapons in it?
• After gathering information about the movements of the guards (via either surveillance or bribing/charming a guard), go in at night ninja-style and take advantage of weak spots?
• Dress up as lawyers, judges, or chaplains and demand to see the prisoner?

Black Dougal has many additional fun ideas here. Marcus Salo has also collected a bunch of more modern-day options for jailbreaks in a game called, well, Jail Break. Don't forget to read JB's musings about how far to go when roleplaying torture.  The rest of this post gives some simple tools for fleshing out the jail scenario...

THE PLACE ITSELF:

The layout should be easy to map out schematically, since most of it consists of long rows full of cells, punctuated the occasional guard room, torture chamber, kitchen, and so on. A simple "ball-and-stick" type map (like diagrams of molecules) may be all that you need to keep things straight.

RANDOM GUARD GENERATOR:

"You come upon a guard." What kind? Roll 1d10 for rank/class:

1-3: Newbie: level 0 "normal man" (1d4 hp), with short sword.
4-7: Regular grunt: level 1 fighter (1d10 hp), with short sword and dagger.
8-9: Sergeant of the guard: level 2 fighter (2d10 hp), with long sword and dagger.
10: Warden's special elite guard: level 3 fighter (3d10 hp) or level 4 thief or assassin (4d6 hp), with a more creative weapon choice. :-)

Then roll d10 for build (and adjust ability scores accordingly, if needed):

1-3: average
4-5: short
6: stocky
7: fat
8: tall & thin
9-10: huge freakin' hulk.

And roll another d10 for the guard's overall sympathy to prisoners:

1: Hates all prisoners, but won't deign to abuse them ("I'm better than them.")
2-4: Hates all prisoners, and takes every opportunity for sadism towards them.
5-7: Completely neutral; just here for a paycheck.
8-9: Somewhat sympathetic; will help a prisoner out if he won't get caught.
10: Johnny Cash; will help a prisoner whenever and however he can.

WHAT'S THAT RANDOM GUARD DOING RIGHT NOW?

Roll one more d10... 

1: Standing at post.
2: On regular walking patrol.
3: Chatting with his friend.
4: Bringing food/water to prisoners.
5: Going to get a prisoner for torture.
6: Bringing back a prisoner from torture.
7: Bringing in a new prisoner.
8: Slapping around a prisoner.
9: Gambling with buddies.
10: Waiting for accomplice in contraband trade.

WHO OR WHAT IS IN THAT CELL?

Roll a d20 this time:

1-9: It's empty.
10: New prisoner; a commoner who still has hope of release.
11: New prisoner; a royal who has no idea why they're here.
12: Town drunk; in and out 3 times a week.
13: War prisoner; captured battlefield enemy or spy.
14: Dead body of prisoner that nobody has discovered yet.
15: Long-term prisoner; exercises a lot.
16: Long-term prisoner; homicidal to anyone who comes near.
17: Long-term prisoner; catatonic (or other randomized insanity) due to torture.
18: Long-term prisoner; weasel-like snitch who knows the dirt on everyone.
19: Random monster being kept here because nobody know what else to do with it, and someone ordered it not be killed.
20: Noncorporeal spirit of a deceased prisoner.

WAIT... WHAT?  A SPIRIT?

Entry 20 above was included because I wanted to give my own take on why there are different varieties of non-bodily undead. Well, that and because encountering a ghost in an already scream-filled oubliette is going to make for one memorable session!

Feel free to use the standard stats and powers for the creatures with the following names, but I think the alignments and origin scenarios may make more sense than what's in, say, the 1st edition Monster Manual...

• GHOSTS can be of any alignment; they had major unfinished business when they died. [POLTERGEISTS are just mischievous ghosts.]
• WRAITHS were either neutral or evil when alive, and they seethed with such envy and jealousy for others that it continues beyond the grave as a ravenous envy of the warmth of the living.  [BANSHEES are variants of wraiths that use mainly sound to attack/scare the living, rather than their horrific appearance.]
• SPECTRES were pure evil humans, and their hatred for good was rewarded/cursed (by some evil deity, devil, or demon) in the form of immortal yearnings to attack good living beings.  [SHADOWS are the weakest spectres.]

That's all for now. As with many other of my SoSA entries, I hope it enables many possible "sandbox" adventures and outcomes.

FYI: twin media inspirations: (1) the episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender called "The Boiling Rock," and (2) the workings of the guild of torturers in Gene Wolfe's New Sun books.

SoSA the 6th: We Only Eat the Ones We Love

This is post 6 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

This is another one that's not so much a single linear "adventure," but instead more like an ongoing situation that can develop in many different ways, depending on the DM's interests and the players' actions.

The short intro: A family of of rakshasas has taken over the big gambling hall in a town. They quietly killed and replaced some of the employees, but they keep the original owner (Norris the Tall) alive but under psychic control, to handle the business. They originally planned to have a huge feast of all the customers of this popular establishment, but that would have closed the place down and they'd be on the run again. They learned that it's best to keep the place running and profitable, since that ensures a steady stream of patrons... a fraction of whom come in down on their luck and alone, who won't be missed once they lose their money....

About the rakshasas: Although many of us have loving, nostalgic feelings for the stereotypical image of Tony the Tiger in Hef's robe, I'm thinking more of the traditional Indian folklore that gives us guys like these...

The alpha-male rakshasa in the gambling hall is named Narasimha, and he disguises himself most of the time as Norris' faithful manservant, who also works as a jester in the gambling hall. His four wives, Tara, Madha, Vidra, and Dhali, are disguised as serving wenches and maids who work throughout the place. The owner, Norris, is no saint even when free of the rakshasa mind control; he always looks for ways to get away with cheating the patrons and rigging the games. In recent days, he's been having some horrible dreams about ugly creatures that want to eat him... might he be getting to the point of making a saving throw against the psychic control?

As stated above, the rakshasas are discriminating regarding the patrons that they choose to haul away and devour. They've learned to ask nonchalant questions to figure out which solitary patrons wouldn't be missed if they disappeared.

In an extended campaign, the gambling hall itself can serve as a setting for PC carousing for many sessions before the players start to figure things out. RPG PCs tend to travel in groups and not be too mopey, so to the rakshasas they're merely fodder for money via the rigged games. I haven't worked out any detail for the layout of the place itself, but I found a wonderfully detailed RPG gambling hall online called the Gold Goblin. (Two floors above-ground, and two below -- all laid out and keyed. Very nice!)

The games themselves? Ah, you know about Appendix F of the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, right? See also some other cool ideas by Michael Curtis. There were also some simple dice games in the Church of the Big Gamble from the old module L1, The Secret of Bone Hill. I've also been fascinated with Terry Pratchett's idea of a cursed 7-sided die, which nonetheless appears cubical to the unwitting rube who uses it. For those who may not be looking to simulate the actual gambling, have a look at my more abstract idea for contests of skill.

DMs looking to start off this setting with a more specific "adventure hook" can have the PCs be approached by a distraught family who is looking for their missing breadwinner.  The dude was drunk and depressed one night when he went into the gambling hall, and blathered on about how nobody really cares about him, how nobody will miss him when he's gone, and so on. This was music to the rakshasas' ears! But it turns out his family did miss him, and they want to hire the PCs to investigate what happened to him. Other NPCs can provide clues about where he wandered that night, which will point them to the gambling hall.

(The genesis for this idea was the first ever episode of The Wild Wild West, "Night of the Inferno," guest-starring Victor Buono [Batman's King Tut!] disguised as the servant of a decoy villain.)

SoSA the 5th: Amonk Time

This is post 5 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

As with quite a few others, this one has just a sketchy bit of plot to allow me to present something else: a "re-skinning" of a time-worn character class. (Thus, it works best if the PCs have not yet encountered anyone of the AD&D monk class... and if they're in a generally medieval version of our own Earth...)

The PCs are walking in the town, and they bump into a grimy hobo, who begins to paw at them and mutter some unintelligible things. He calls one of the PCs the "Grand Master of Arrows," and he asks how he can avoid the "Master of Prudence." He's clearly out of his mind, but after a moment or two, he moves such that a silvery pendant becomes visible; it's around his neck on a similarly silvered chain. The one pictured here is all I could find on Google; in the game it's probably a simple image of a man shot through with arrows. Sages or other learned folks will recognize it as the symbolism of Saint Sebastian the martyr.

If the PCs choose to attempt further communication with the hobo, they find that he can say his own name (Brother Jude), but he doesn't know much else about himself or where he belongs. He's relatively young (early 30s) and wouldn't look too bad if he were cleaned up and deloused. He wears a filthy brown robe tied up with a rope belt that looks like it's been steeped in mud.

The backstory is that Brother Jude was a Monk of the Order of Saint Sebastian, a secretive group within the Church that combats the forces of heresy and diabolism as do the militant orders of Paladins, but more on the down-low... They are, for all practical purposes, exactly like 1st edition AD&D monks, but their level titles are different. They wear nondescript brown robes with rope belts dyed in various colors to denote their rank:

St. Sebastian is the patron saint of boxers, wrestlers, and martial artists. His famous "first death" by arrows has been depicted for centuries, and his second death by clubbing was also memorialized by the Church. But then the Order tells a different story: he was given the gift of catalepsy, which was passed down to all future 6th level monks, and thus his followers dug up his body and found him only feigning death. Sebastian survived to found a secret and holy order that would fight evil surreptitiously, just as the Paladins confront it head-on. His final third death took place when his first and best pupil challenged him to a duel for the Grand Mastership, and the Lord took him up bodily to heaven, since all good fighters must know when to eventually yield to destiny.

(Modern initiates of this much-debased Order include M. Corleone and T. Durden.)

Back to game-time:  A few weeks ago, Brother Jude had completed his 9th level tasks and was readying himself for the challenges of 10th level.  (If his dirty rope belt is cleaned, it is revealed to be of a shining white color, with threads of gold.) He entered into solemn combat with the existing 10th level Master of Prudence, Brother Cyrus, and then something strange happened: after maybe 30 seconds of initial feints and blows, Jude collapsed in a heap. He was unconscious for several days. Eventually, he stumbled away from the Order's infirmary when nobody was looking and has been wandering, semiconscious, for more than a week.

Unknown to anyone in the Order is the fact that Brother Cyrus was born with psionic abilities. He reached his current rank by careful and judicious use of this power in combat; too much would arise suspicion. But Brother Jude was known to be the best fighter of his generation, and he was about to reach a level where he would be taught to resist mental attacks. So Cyrus took the chance to do two things: (1) he feebleminded Jude with a standard psionic attack, and (2) he used a heretofore unknown psionic mode to induce constant pain in Jude -- specifically, he feels continual splitting headaches that even invade his sleep. A standard clerical "healing" spell may fix the feeblemindedness, but the pain seems to have no cure.  Only the death of Cyrus will stop it.

Will the PCs want to infiltrate the super-secret society of the monks?  Will the current Grand Master of Arrows believe anyone who accuses one of their elite brethren of such a heinous crime? DMs wishing to follow up on this scenario will want to plan out the rudimentary details of their headquarters -- which to outsiders will look just like any other monastery -- and think of a few interesting character quirks for the Grand Master.

...

Ah, I write all of the above, and then discover there's nothing new under the sun... See also an alternate fighting friar, a S&W cudgeling brother (with other reskinning ideas in the comments), or how about a handy handsman? Google will give you dozens more, I'm sure. :-)

SoSA the 4th: In Soviet Union, Lock Picks You

This is post 4 out of 25 in the Cygnus Series of a September of Short Adventures.

This one picks up where the last one left off. It works best if there is at least one PC thief or rogue (whether it's run as a separate class or not) in the party.

One of the PCs' friends, whom here we'll assume is a female fortune teller named Rosa Patrina, was accused of a heinous crime, and the PCs had to rush back to town to see what they could do to help. When they get there, they learn that she was accused of stealing the toolkit of a local high-end tinker, who also makes jewelry. The messenger may have miscommunicated her sentence: no, she won't be executed at dusk today -- it's "merely" that they'll have to chop her hands off for stealing.

If the PCs get to talk with Rosa, she will honestly protest her innocence. She had never seen those tools before they wound up in her bag in the marketplace. And what would a gypsy fortune teller need with such strange little hooks and picks, all lined up in that folded leather pouch, anyway?  Upon hearing about the "hooks and picks," any PC thieves may realize what she's really talking about:

The toolkit in question is a very special set of Thieves Tools, The Hands of Reynard. There are 7 shiny blue metallic tools that can be used as standard thieves tools, but they each have other magical powers that roguish, sneaky scoundrels may find helpful:

• The Skeleton Key: a key with teeth and notches that move when pressed with the fingers, but remain fixed when put into a lock. If held, it conveys a magical bonus to lockpicking (whether or not it's actually being used in the lock).
• The Tongue of Silence: an L-shaped tongue wrench, used to hold picked lock pins in place while another tool probes. If held, it conveys a magical bonus to moving silently.
• The Skyhooks: two hook-shaped picks. If held in each hand, they can be used to magically climb sheer walls.
• The Cutpurse: a short lock pick with a sharp diamond-shaped head (virtually a scalpel). If held on one's person, it conveys a magical bonus to picking pockets.
• The Serpent's Rake: a snake-headed rake tool used to pick locks. If held, it conveys a magical bonus to hiding in shadows.
• The Backsaw: a short, pointed hand-saw. Acts as a dagger with a magical bonus for backstabbing.

The magnitude of the bonuses should be worked out by the enterprising DM. The brown leather case that holds the tools has the Latin phrase "SICUT FUR IN NOCTE" stitched on its surface, and is otherwise unmagical.

In addition, the tools are partly sentient. Their power over the person who holds them depends on how many tools in the set are together:

• One tool by itself has its own magical bonus to thieving, but no other power.
• Two tools together start planting a mild desire in the holder to find more of the tools.
• Three of them exert the equivalent of a charm person spell on the holder, which for a brief time will impel him or her to do what can be done to find the other tools. Also, three or more tools together can begin to blink themselves over short distances so they can deposit themselves onto the person of someone who can help them.
• Four of them exert the equivalent of a suggestion spell, which more strongly impels the holder to find the other tools.
• Five of them combine the above suggestion spell with a sporadic ability to locate object (only for the other tools).
• Six of the tools inflict the equivalent of a geas on the holder, whom is now urged very strongly to find the seventh tool to complete the set.

Once all seven are brought together, the person holding them has to save vs. spells or else be totally possessed by the spirit of Reynard of Mercer, a master thief from a generation ago who was cursed by a wizard (when, of course, he was caught trying to steal from the wizard's lair), and his spirit split into pieces and imprisoned in these tools. If brought back to life in a new body, Reynard will attempt to pick up the pieces of his old life, but find that just about everyone he knew is now dead or old and infirm. He may resume his thieving career as well.

The tools chose Rosa because she is a bit of a swindler, and because she knows the PCs (among whom is a talented thief who may just be the "host" with the best chance of reassembling the full set and bringing Reynard back to life). There were 3 tools in the pouch when they blinked into Rosa's bag: the Cutpurse, the Tongue of Silence, and the Serpent's Rake. They were taken from her by the constables before she could be properly influenced by them.

A little digging by the PCs should reveal that the local tinker, who owned the tools before they blinked away to Rosa, is himself a 4th level thief. (His side-business of jewelry "making" is actually a fencing operation.) His high constitution made him particularly resistant to the persuasive effects of the set of 3 tools, so they began looking elsewhere.

The story of the Hands of Reynard may already be known to the PC thief; otherwise there may be a local sage, knowledgeable bartender, or other NPC who can tell them about these artifacts (if given their description). Of course, if the PC thief ends up with the tools, it may be a while before its effects begin to influence his or her behavior....

Apologies for the punny title.