>One of my PCs is the king of a small-ish nation >His wife the queen is expecting a child >They haven't had a formal party since their wedding (even that was small and rushed) due to now-imminent threats of war >Queen's sister wants to have a baby shower to cheer them up
I thought about just mentioning this happen offscreen, but the PCs are into the idea and want to feature it in-game and in-character. There's always "the enemy nation's assassins attack during the party," but that's obvious and cliched. How can I make this fresh?
Have the assassins switch the baby for another baby and when s/he grows up. s/he tried to kill you.
Aaron Barnes
Have it be a pleasant event where nothing untoward happen?
Luke Wright
The PCs go on a quest to enter the dungeon, kill, the orcs, rescue the princess, kill the dragon, and take the treasure.
Parker Phillips
This. Nothing fucks up players more than messing with conservation of detail.
Gavin Gutierrez
>How can I make this fresh?
Make another baby with the queen's sister.
Ethan Bennett
Turn it into a political opportunity to hamstring their opponents, defuse a war, or what have you. No combat necessary.
Dylan Garcia
Realm have fairies? Have a bunch show up bearing gifts to make their case for Fairy Godmotherhood.
Andrew White
Absolutely.
It's just a baby shower and then everyone is nervous as fuck. And nothing happens. And nervousness increases as nothing happens.
Then when they come home have a bomb in their house or such.
Jaxon Foster
>Diplomats from the warring country show off >No way they should even know about this event >Offer a "gift" with disturbing or threatening implications
Congratulations, the players now have something to investigate.
Asher Lewis
Interesting, but the queen's only three months along.
I didn't mean for it to sound like I wanted violence, I just want the event to be more than just the PCs socializing and me describing the guests for three hours.
Kayden Jenkins
Have the enemy leader and entourage roll up, but only to pay their respects and give gifts to the Queen.
Jaxson Bell
Enemy nation sends an envoy with a gift. The gift is totally innocent but the PCs don't know that.
Also, nobles use the opportunity to try and get favors.
Somebody gets REALLY drunk.
There are lots of good social plot hooks, mate.
Enemy leader makes some slightly inappropriate comments towards her but not blatant enough to start shit right there at the party.
Ryder Garcia
Fae or other magical creatures show up and drag the party, along with the pregnant queen, on a safari adventure with countless strange and dangerous animals for them to hunt. It's just a harmless gift to celebrate the baby despite everything seeming to be lethal.
James Torres
This. Make sure to have them roll lots of spot and listen type checks and then tell them they don't notice anything out of the ordinary.
Or roll them behind the screen, and if they fail, have them "see" false treats, conjured by their paranoia.
Mason Gutierrez
As the user earlier said, send in three powerful fae each wanting to be the Godmother and not taking a no for an answer.
Joseph Jenkins
In that case make it a point that some important relative of the queen is late, then have a guy stumble in in the middle of the party to inform everyone that they've been kidnapped by brigands/orcs/prates.
Just for fun, have these bastards ride out to fight them with the party because these lawless bastards have also been giving enemy nation trouble. Use it as an opportunity to flesh out enemy leader and their lieutenants and show how strong they are.
That makes baby-switching harder, but not impossible.
Zachary Johnson
the queen is a succusbus. The child is CE.
Aiden Adams
Three witches turn up, as it custom, to offer the baby their blessings and to act as godmothers.
A 4th witch turns up with whom they have had a falling out. She wasn't invited but turned up anyway.
You now have to navigate the treacherous waters of royal society amongst;
A bunch of self-serving aristocrats who all have at least one licensed assassin on the payroll.
Monks, priest, nuns and other men and women of the cloth most of which are from different sects and dislike each other, the aristos and especially the witches.
And the witches who are proud, powerful and can fuck you and everyone in the room up. They hate the priest's, the aristos and don't much like each other. They tolerate the royals because someone has to be on top of the social heap.
And then there is the left over witch who is pissed she didn't get an invite. Not for any political reason so much as because she likes the free food at the party. She is grumpy, old but very powerful.
Primary stats for this will be Charisma, Wisdom and Intelligence.
Play it right and the kingdom will be held together with political marriages, religious tolerance and magical blessings.
Play it wrong and you will be on the brink of civil war, religious upheaval and magical fallout.
Hudson Torres
>And then there is the left over witch who is pissed she didn't get an invite. Not for any political reason so much as because she likes the free food at the party. She is grumpy, old but very powerful. Take Mammon from K6BD and mix in some Nanny Ogg?
Ethan Rivera
The Jester spiked the punch with psychadelics.
Jose Phillips
>By royal decree the baby shower will now be an event where babies are made
Also, maybe set up events for a future character like a stranger or someone they helped in the past comes and gifts the child with something or one of the PCs.
Xavier King
Sister is in league with the enemy and uses their resources to attempt to kidnap the king because she's in love with him and the enemy says she can have him and rule when they win the war.
Isaac Roberts
>Enemy nation sends an envoy with a gift. The gift is totally innocent but the PCs don't know that.
I really like this idea. Bonus points if the gifts actually do appear dangerous or malicious but are really harmless.
Levi Wright
Based on my experience with PCs, that is totally unnecessary and will make it too hard for them.
Ryder Martin
I was actually just going of the etiquette section in Nanny Ogg's cook book.
Xavier Parker
This is cute. You could expand this to nobility from various lands/races offering guardianship contracts/potential marriage alliances?
Carson Collins
Just have the baby shower. No assassins, no magical portents. Just a baby shower. Your players will either love the low tension role-playing and feel a bit of peace (hopefully capitalized on by its contrast to the war and strife), or they'll be paranoid out of their minds the whole time waiting for the other shoe to drop, and something will happen organically.
Joseph Taylor
>Enemy nation sends an envoy with a gift. OP here. I like it, but I'm trying to conserve the narrative, because I also want an appearance by a third (ostensibly neutral) nation's envoy to cause drama. I'd really like to do both.
Oh yeah, this group is perfectly capable of imagining their own dangers and inventing their own windmills to tilt at.
John Walker
And now it's my magic realm.
Grayson Ward
Former lover of wife comes and there is a duel by some stupid law?
Angel Bennett
>the former lover is a woman
Ayden Nguyen
>the duel is sexual in nature
Andrew Lee
Plot twist - there are several plots going on (as in assassinate king/queen/baby/nobleX/nobleY and so on) but they all end up interfering with each other. Everything goes peacefully as long as PCs keep their interference to the bare minimum.
The more they engage themselves into the situation, the fuckier it gets.
If you want something lower level of fucky, you can make it so that the King once made a deal and the payment on his first born, now the devil/fae/ifrit/whatever comes to claim his rightful payment.
Gabriel Allen
>whoever can pleasure the queen more gets to marry her We full magical realm now boys
