All things rogue here.
I'm going to run a criminal and intrigue-centered game in not-"Age of Enlightenment" setting, and I need some roguish inspirations. Not street rat, thug or highwayman rogues. Something more noble, cloak & dagger, "libertine"-like.
Any media is weclome, including your rogue/bard stories.
Need more information.
League of Assasination or Arsene Lupin?
What tone are you going for.
Let's see, cloak and dagger-like. Dashing, beautiful, the kind who would sneak into the vault and reset the traps for the guards' convenience?
Revenge for a lost lover is always a fun motive, especially with a few drops of evil necromancer villain mixed in.
For extra disguise, why not try a little old widow who walks around with a list that assassinates those involved in her lover's death? Nobody ever suspects granny.
>Eat your vegetables dear, if you don't, you'll lose your tongue.
>The guards work hard too. Make sure to clean up once you rob them.
Kek, is there a story behind that last example?
Sadly, no. Granny's my backup for when my current character bites the dust or retires.
Helps keep the game moving if someone dies mid-session; we don't get to meet up as often as we used to - time is precious.
Evil Granny is probably going to go the merchant route if I end up playing her. Shark all the money, lawfully a la Kraft Lawrence. Set up business deals with people on the list, ensure the guild covers your ass because you're that damn good at securing profits and privileges for them. Panic when rival guilds start eyeing you funny.
I pray she oneday gets used.
>Group finds out about human trafficing in the city.
>Track down the group.
>Kill all the slavers.
>Steal the victims.
>Nurse them back to health.
>Those that want to stay become prostitutes or run the legers for the guild.
>Once installed one as the queen of a country before we "assassinated" her to out the conspirators and start a war.
>Then used that war to install ourselves in the evil king's guard.
>Killed the king.
>We all got 100 gold for the trouble.
>Killed the employer and took his family's fortune, using one of the girls to pose as an illigitimate heir.
>The rest of the girls then lived in the palace with her.
It was a strange game.
All I'm seeing is women being women... strange indeed.
I mean, they went along with it all far too easily.
Fuck man i just got off my age of wonders binge.
I don't recall ever successfully playing a rogue. A few scoundrels maybe but never a proper rogue.
Gonna vomit up my "sneaks" char art for ya instead.
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Again, women being women. Even as NPC's in a game they manipulate you to do terrible things to your fellow men for money and shit. That Evil King could have just been an misunderstood bro, and you're only hearing about him through the eyes and mouths of those snakes!
No, we were hired to kill the king anyway, we just got side-tracked with looking after all the girls.
We assumed most of them would die since the GM is normally really into killing off every character.
I swear he watches Macbeth and wanks at the end.
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Ah, a man after my own, everyone needs to die, not needlessly mind you.
The group of guards you helped saved a village from orcs from are going to show up as vollentiers to fight by your side when you storm the BBEG's citadel of grimderp and they're gonna die for you. (Almost) Every character should die!
Anyway, are you so sure user? Are you sure they didn't egg you on to do it instead of finding a better way about it?
Now that you mention it, the Queen ruse was their idea.
Holy shit the person that contracted us to kill the king in the first place was a woman.
Did we waltz right into her plans?
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Postin' this just for you.
Of course you did! Even in a game, the NPC women are conspiring and manipulating NPC men and Male PC's who fall under their feminine whiles either through their beauty, their sob story, etc...
And they work with Female PC through that unspoken mental bond women have. It's fucking spooky.
OP here.
Stealing this!
This is also nice.
Need more harlequin rogue girls!
I'm planning to keep overall atmosphere as stylish, romantic and dashing, but also introduce darker antiheroic themes. Recently, I've played elven campaign in Age of Wonders 3, and this is pretty much the thing I want.
>Good alignment
>Sending courtesans to neutral courts
>Oppressing city population to keep them from revolt
>Using potent poison in skirmishes
>Backstabbing on battlefield
>Encourage sadistic rush in your troops
>Killing loyal officers your house sent for you, thinking you've betrayed them
>Filling the city with explosives, so it would go KABOOM if taken by enemy (well, that one IS evil)
>I'm planning to keep overall atmosphere as stylish, romantic and dashing, but also introduce darker antiheroic themes.
People have a tendancy to fellate this fucker, but he was more or less the origional gentleman theif. Read Maurice Leblanc's works of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar.
Looking up folk heroes like Robin Hood and that Goemon dude from Japan should give you some idea for what can be expected from light-hearted but still kinda dark stories.
Especially the Lupin books, Coffin Island is a spectacularly mecarbe affair.
The Count of Montechristo is also another one to use. Just because I think it'd be a nice addition, The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, while not rougeish does provide some idea for what your rogues can get upto.
Oh boy. I made a Noble thief in a Birthright setting. He's slowly becmoing a sith lord. Using his rogue talents he's convinced the ruling lord that he's a worth a place in his council. He uses his thief back ground to steal mass quantities from rival nobilities and ruining their financial status and driving them to chaos. He then tells the Lord of his land about it and he sends his army to conquer it, slowly building his lords power.
At the same time using the funds from his grand hiests to build a secret legion of thieves and street thugs that all work for him. His network is spanned across the Lords kingdom and only causes mild problems to their respective towns.
Eventually he's planning on framing the Lords armies for a mass series of killings in a major rival's town and forcing them to war. This rival once enslaved Rogue Bosses family and the hardship of war and the weakening of his forces is what he wants to then use his crime legions to rule both lands in a reign of crime and corruption.
We did a setting where our rogues worked together as a team, and worked directly for the church.
We'd steal 'holy' artifacts and relics from (x), and return them to the church vault.
Lots of intrigue, traps, and break in's.
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