Key Our Cars

I had an idea for a ‘delve’.  It would be a small’ish diversion from a mainline plotline, possibly used to influence a urban plotline but primarily to add a bit of Scooby Doo and the Gang to a campaign where the players figure out a crime.

As you might have guessed from the post title it involves a kidnapping (girlnapping?) and I’d actually planned it out before the title came to me.  The original working title was Every Father’s Nightmare.  Although Taken the movie is decent, plot holes not withstanding.

A very basic outline is thus -

A very pretty woman of casual (or not so casual) acquaintance of the party disappears.  No one has seen her for a couple of days.  She might be the pretty barmaid at the tavern they frequent, or the sister of a friend or the strangely attractive fruit vendor on the corner they get their apples from.

So it comes to their attention that she’s missing.  They’re asked to see what happened to her by someone or by their own noticing that she’s gone.

This will lead them to either a Skill Challenge or a Role Play segment (whatever works best for the group mentality) where they investigate leads and track down who saw her last and all that.

They’ll uncover a rash of missing pretty girls and this should lead them to a clue, perhaps a mound of rags in an alley saw something, a tattoo perhaps or a distinctive knife or embroidered patch.

This will lead them penultimately to a gang of thugs that hire themselves out to the highest bidder.  This will involve two encounters, one with a band of these thugs in the streets at night.  This fight will result in the party learning where the gang hangs out, this could be due to capturing one of them and making him talk, following a wounded one to the lair by blood trail, or the DM’s final desperate ploy, the venerable note found on the body.

The gang encounter will take place in and around a warehouse complex, lots of nooks and crannies to add waves of minons from, things to hide behind and hinder combat, perches for artillery to shoot from.  The NPC’s could range from members of the gang to watch-creatures they have.  The fight as envisioned would move from the fairly open warehouse floors to offices on the second floor and then to the rooftops as the leaders flee for their lives.

Capture information (whether from notes or interrogation) will reveal that the gang was procurring pretty women at the bequest of a upscale slaver.  Perhaps a minor noble or influential merchant or something like that that is trying to move up by providing entertainment for others.

This BBEG encounter would take place at the guarded and secured manor house of the BBEG where the current crop of girls is being held.  This should involve sneaking and peaking more than rush the front gate style play, the size of the forces at the manor should strongly encourage that.

The BBEG forces could involve all the above as well as more supernatural elements or perhaps shared resources with another lord or merchant that will result in the party making some powerful enemies that could be recurring plot threads.

Anyway this is rough outline, thought it might spark some ideas for anyone who visits.

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