Hey gang.
I’m running a campaign where the players are looking for eight magical items, once owned by eight powerful mages representing the eight schools of magic.
Right now – through the power of Plot™ – they’re looking for those items for an influential but shadowy collector. They’re supposed to deliver the first batch of three items together. When that happens they’ll find out that they were inadvertently helping a criminal collector. A representative of a historical society will tell them that these artifacts belong in a museum.
And here’s my problem: I want them to have these magical items, which of course have cool powers. And I don’t know how to do that.
My plan right now is, that the museum isn’t interested in the actual powers, they just want to display the items for their historical relevance. So they’ll magically pull these items apart into two identical ones, where one retains the power and the other the history of the item (scratches/wear and tear).
I am not completely satisfied with that idea, because it seems far-fetched and I’d like to hear your ideas, if you have any, on how to resolve this.
Thank you and a thousand dm’ly kisses to you all.
For safety reasons, a magical museum might well want to avoid putting actual items on display, especially since Illusion magic makes it trivial to create simulated substitutes crowds can safely interact with. This also keeps security budgets manageable, since even a magical museum probably doesn’t have the kind of money to protect the arcane equivalent of a small nuclear arsenal.
So the museum researchers might be happy keeping items on indefinite loan, as long as they know the borrower and have guaranteed access when they need it. This way the mage owning the item is responsible for keeping it safe, and arcane historians–who definitely didn’t spend all those years in magic academy just to play guard–don’t have to.
As a bonus, this method gives the party a quirky but knowledgeable NPC contact who can give them clues or set up sidequests whenever you need.
That’s great, maybe they’ll display illusory copies. Thank you!
When the party, the evil collector, and the museum rep are all together - there’s a minor scuffle and then a fire “accidentally” gets started.
It can be as simple as someone tripping while holding a candle, and the candle landing on some drapes or carpets.
As DM, if you’re good at what you do, you can play it up so the players think it actually WAS an accident that they need to deal with.
The collector will, naturally, start freaking out over their collection. And in their rage, the collector might blame and attack the museum rep (even if there’s no way the rep could be at fault).
The players will then have many options:
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They put out the fire. If that happens, the collector may be so pleased the bulk of their collection is safe, they’ll tell the players to hang onto the items… For now. And at what price?
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They run away as quickly as they can, saving the museum rep and escaping with the items. They talk, and the rep learns of their quest. The rep sees it as noble and just, and he allows them to borrow the artifacts until their mission is complete.
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In the chaos of the fire, they attack the collector, with the goal of taking as many of his other magic items as they can carry. They eventually succeed and escape… but they make a powerful enemy that day.
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Through no direct action of the players, the museum rep dies. The collector sees it as an opportunity to escape all blame, so he “allows” the party to escape with the artifacts… Only to immediately notify the watch of the murder and arson. Now, in addition to their quest, the party has a price on its head. And the watch wants to recover the items to give back to their “rightful” owner, the collector.
There are lots of creative ways to deal with the players, whether or not they take any of the obvious courses.
All you need is an easily-explained-in-game “accidental” fire. :)
I like getting the group into some sort of dilemma, but your enthusiasm for fire is a little unsettling :D
Fire is simply an easy thing to unexpectedly happen.
Buildings are filled with flammable things. In a fantasy world, candles and lanterns are often the most common forms of lighting.
A long time ago, I ran a game in which the PCs unintentionally burned down an entire village because they were careless and unlucky.
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I’m skipping the other comments because I don’t want them to affect my thought process.
Your idea makes sense. Lots of IRL museums will put a replica on display, for reasons like value and risk of theft, risk of damage to the item even through regular light and air, or just because it’s being restored or used for research at the moment.
I don’t think they’d be able to create two items out of it, though. That’s basically just cloning an item, though without the magic in the clone. That’s not really something that is done.
I don’t think a museum would be happy with an original artifact walking around. They’d want the original on hand for preservation and future research. Adventurers tend to lose, break, or sell things.
But you want the party to have the magic item, so I think you need to find a reason for them to change their minds and refuse to give up the item. You said it’s a criminal collector, but I don’t think garden-variety theft, smuggling, etc. makes it worth denying them, especially if they pay well for it. Can you make the collector evil somehow? Or at least make the artifacts useful for doing good, and putting them in a museum would mean people go hungry or something?
I didn’t want the items to end up with the somewhat evil collector anyways. As far as I know my players, they’ll side with the museum, even if it means less money – one of them is a librarian/protector of knowledge kinda cleric.
You bring up similar points to the other commenters regarding the safety of displaying originals. That’s definitely something I’ll argue with.
Right now I’m thinking they’ll transfer the magic to something my group can use, use the original (now inert) items for preservation/research and display illusory copies.
Thank you for taking the time to answer so thoroughly!
one of them is a librarian/protector of knowledge kinda cleric.
Is he/could he be associated with the museum somehow? Maybe if his Cleric (order? temple? organization?) is a major sponsor of the museum or something similar they might trust him with those items for that reason with the caveat that he brings them back for scheduled viewings or some sort of thing like that?
I like the idea, but they actually have a very detailed backstory and connecting them to the museum would be somewhat unbelievable.
They were the very bookish librarian of a very small and remote monastery where they grew up and only left because they ran out of reading material.
I’ll definitely stick a mental pin in your idea though, maybe we’ll find a reason for that connection.
Let them attune to them and then donate the items, and it still works at a distance.
Later, they will lose an ability when it’s stolen and attuned to someone else. Side quest!
That’s interesting, but some of those items need to be physically interacted with. But it’s a nice concept to keep in mind. Thanks!
Maybe the museum has the power to create a duplicate in exchange for the original. The original has value for research and display, and the duplicate has use for adventurers.
Yeah, that’s basically what I meant with the “pulling apart”. Your explanation makes more sense though, so thank you!
Maybe having the powerful magic items in the museum makes them a target, and the place gets attacked, and the players have to save it. As a reward and safeguard against future attacks, the museum researches a way to transfer the enchantment to a similar item? Sword for sword, gloves for gloves.
That goes in the direction of my “pulling apart” thingy where you’d replicate the item I to a magic one for use and an inert one for display.
I like the idea of just transferring the enchantments into similar items that my players themselves can design. Thank you!
You could add additional Plot™ where after the items are collected there is something revealed that requires those 8 items that the museum is More interested in but is dangerous. As an offer for that item (which may not hold any actual magic but holds major historical value) they offer those 8 magic items to the adventurers as a payment from the museum to undertake the (dangerous?) quest.
You could easily make that historical item a representation of all 8 items as a way to satisfy the museums desire for those items as well.
The con to all this is that it would add one additional quest line to the story and might interfere with other Plot™ plans you have
Interesting proposal, unfortunately getting all the items is basically the campaign, so they’ll get one every few sessions, not all at once.
