My players are inching towards earning a Deeds point for destroying four magical artifacts. The artifacts are the relics of (and the means of propagating) a body-swapping dynasty, and although they’re very useful, but if they fall into the wrong hands, things will be bad. The only method for destroying them they’re aware of is Dallin’s blood (and it will require a quantity that will leave him badly injured). They’re torn about it, and they seem to have settled on destroying them “later”.
a) Should I tell them that destroying them is worth a Deeds point? I haven’t yet. Telling them seems consistent with BW’s openness, though it does also seem like a big neon sign telling them what I expect them to do.
b) There are four artifacts, and they may well destroy them over a period of time. When to give the Deeds? When the last one is destroyed? The problem is that two of them are most useful to the players (magic sword, weather-controlling sceptre) and two most useful to Bedarkon (soul-eviction and soul-binding). Destroying the ones the liche cares but keeping the other two would take the sting out of the loss for the players. (One option is to have the artifacts live and die together… that would solve it neatly. Destroy one and they all start to go.)
Where are they storing these artifacts until they can destroy them? Seems like that location would be ripe for some kind of event – not necessarily action by the people who are specifically after the artifacts, but even just something like a fire or flood which might put their safety and ‘containment’ at risk…
They’re carrying them - they’re quite portable. The largest is a sword, which Siggar carries; next largest is a gold sceptre that Dallin lugs, wrapped in a sack. Then there’s a circlet and a medallion. The players have been pursued all over the vale.
Sure, but:
a) it’s spread out amongst the party, so one artifact destroyed? One PC gets 1 Deeds point. Figuring out who should get it and in what order might be some interesting strategy for players.
b) They will have pissed off a lot of supernatural things and have no artifacts to protect themselves with, or to be “hold hostage” as a bargaining chip… I bet those Deeds will get used just trying to stay alive
Otherwise, you could give EVERYONE a single point when the last artifact is used, which is functionally equivalent (how many players do you have?) but doesn’t give the early temptation to start offing artifacts.
1st Artifact destroyed: 1 Deed to one of you.
2nd Artifact destroyed: 1 Deed to one of you.
All Artifacts destroyed: 1 Deed to BOTH of you.
Though it’s generous, if there’s only two of them being chased by liches and magical uber fuckers, they’ll probably need it. Once the baddies figure out that the heroes have a means of destroying artifacts, they should just GO ALL OUT.
It’ll especially be fun because destroying it using the PC’s blood means he’s got injuries to deal with on top of the onslaught of trouble.
How about this: tell them, make it clear. They want to “do it later”. OK, valid intent. So, put the pressure on. Introduce a new third party intent on taking these artifacts away. The first attempt to do so is weak, fails. But toss in some hints that they’ll be back with reinforcements. Can the PCs afford to put off destroying the artifacts much longer? They might lose them before they have a chance to destroy them. Say they wait. The second attempt to steal them has backup. Tough fight. If the PCs win, toss in some hints that the third attempt will be backed by a small army. And so on. Puts the pressure of time on them.
The artifacts were created by a herald angel of the goddess Tuona as a gift to keep her son (the liche) alive to assuage her grief at his mortality, so that doesn’t really fit - but I do love Corruption.
So far the group hasn’t really interacted with any real sorcery (other than the liche’s). So, it could be that all Sorcery comes with corruption (the dynasty would be able to abandon their deformed bodies from time to time). Either that or it’s a consequence of the non-Gifted using Sorcery. Muhaha.