Two gnomes sell the party an absurdly huge and perfectly cut ruby - clearly magical. Upon sealing the deal (because of course you would), they bugger off in haste and soon you learn that two other formidable entities wish for the ruby and will stop at nothing to achieve it: one is a sorcerer of great power and questionable ethics, the other an unkillable beast of cold and darkness and loneliness.
What will your current party do with the gem?
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Probably try to figure out what it does and why it's so desirable first.
Try to befriend the lonely beast.
Sell it to the sorcerer, if he doesn't bite we kill him.
Wait for both to show up, then throw it to the beast. After that, all we need to do is run and hope we make good Will saves.
Thieve it
>Create illusions of the same ruby
>With a bit of sleight of hand you pocket the real ruby
>"You want it? Go get it."
>Throw one of the fakes away
>Back away slowly then leg it
Give it to the goodly gods for safe keeping, while we struggle to defeat these foes!
Trade it to the sorcerer in return for some magical equipment, if he tries anything funny fight him.
Follow his trail back to wherever he takes it and wait for the beast and him to fight. When they do try and steal the stone while they are busy fighting. Turn it in to a big scam to get money from kings afterwords and deal with the sorcerer as appropriate.
Tell the sorcerer we will happily give it to him against a small reward, but we're affraid that the creature might kill us in return.
We will give him the gem once the creature is dead.
After the terrible fight that ensue, if the survivor is injured enough, finish him.
Else, just abandon the stupid rock.
That doesn't look 'perfectly cut' to me, but okay. We'd probably just flip it to the sorcerer and then point the beast in the right direction if the sorc decides to fuck us.
>Sorcerer
>Questionable Ethics
Beast I understandably would not 100% trust, but if I have to choose between them, it's very easy considering the other option. I would perhaps even invite the beast to help me kill the sorcerer fucker.
>What will your current party do with the gem?
Sell it to the Sorcerer at an equal or greater value than what we purchased it from the gnomes and hope he kills the "unkillable beast of cold and dark loneliness" for us.
Maybe send the Druid to go and tell the "unkillable beast of cold and dark loneliness" that the Sorcerer now has the ruby if he doesn't go and confront the beast itself at a rate we're comfortable with.
sell it duh
Donate it to my church.
I hate my church too
Put it in my Bag of Devouring to feed my Patron.
Either they're strong enough to kill a GOO and free me from my pact or they become dinner for it and I get more goodies from it for sending it tasty things.
Which one is more likely to tell me why the fuck they want the ruby?
In this scenario, it's more likely that the beast is the rightful owner of the gem.
Send a video to both the sorcerer and the beast of the entire party taking turns shitting and pissing on the stone.
So you're saying that two of our current party members want it?
Eat the crystal to gain its powers and effectively become the crystal
Now you get a cool sorcerer to do shit for you and an unkillable beast of cold and darkness and loneliness that has a good 50% chance of being female.
See if I can fit it in my ass.
Buy it, ignore everything, forget about it 10 mins later, get killed by one of the angry parties, blame me
Cast Clarify Gem.
Use the gem as a reagent to cast a spell that destroy reagents, because that's how I roll.
Sell it to someone else.
>Inb4 it's the same kind of ruby that Belongs on the Ruby Rod and one is a Sorceror who's figured out the secrets of Ovatorium and is in the ready of making an ENTIRE fucking new Fiendish species independent of the 9 hells, and he'll use it to craft his own knockoff Ruby Rod, with a Warlock'/Acolyte of the Skin's assistance to channel Infernal energies to "promote" his dormant species he's artificially grafted to a choice number of hosts for Ovatorium
The other reeks of fucking Shograthot, Tharizduin's Avatar/Herald, split off from the Mad god before Imprisonment in his Demiplane prison, seeing as in 4e Asmodeus was Tharizduuin's jailer, It might imply his power is enough to let Mr "Literally shed his divinity and became a Great Old One after succeeding in a parallel universe which is none other than Voidharrow because the Alignment system and all related cosmic forces to alignment were kill and thus able to allow the Ammoral nihlistic purity of the Lovecratian standard conditions to thrive once more, indicated through a hidden context in Elder Evils, Lords of madness, and various other D&D works till that point as part of a meta-level butthurt feud the Devs have had since 1e."
So yeah, Race against a being so Powerrful it can literally find 1% of fiendish blood in you to turn you into a tiefling, or a Sorceror who could unleashed an untamed race of horrors that are spliced with all aspects of the lower planes.
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Sell it to the highest bidder.
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bidding war?
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>Get the sorcerer to make a copy of the ruby so everyone can have one
>go smoke blunts with snufkin and the snork maiden