Hostage Situations part one - Rescues
November 30th, 2010
Hello everyone, and welcome to another great edition of Grave Plots, where we bring you new and exciting plot hooks and adventure ideas. This week I would like to focus a little bit on hostage situations as adventures. Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of potential in hostage situation adventures and restricted time and space in my article, I can’t talk about the issue as much as I would like, and will have to cover the topic in only sharply limited detail. With that in mind, let’s get started.
To begin with, there are three main types of hostage situation style adventures: the rescue, the negotiation, and the capture. This week I would like to focus on the rescue; so without further ado, let’s have a look.
The Rescue
The first main type of hostage situation, the rescue is perhaps the most heroic form of hostage situation, and basically consists of three groups: the hostage takers, the hostage(s), and the rescuers. The most common way to run these kinds of adventures is to have the antagonist kidnap some sympathetic victims and then allow the PCs to bust in and rescue them, as you will see in following example. For an interesting change of pace, let PCs be the hostage takers, setting up plans to deal with any kind of approaching breach. The key to a good rescue is having particularly nasty oppositions. Pirates, evil mages, or unscrupulous mercenaries will easily fit the bill, and the meaner, filthier and baser the better. These ruffians will be most effective if they are taking advantage of someone the PCs are likely to sympathize with; including women and children is a good idea, since almost everyone finds them to be sympathetic characters.
Be sure your hostage takers have some kind of motive for why they’re taking hostages, typically an action reserved as a last resort for the desperate (or the first choice of the stupid). If your bad guys have thought through their actions, then when your PCs are making plans it will make things more difficult and more interesting. And as an added bonus, if the bad guys feel more real, it will make them that much more contemptible, and when your PCs triumph over them it will be that much sweeter. What follows is a pretty basic example of what I’m talking about.
Piracy at the Silver Moon
The Silver Moon Tavern is the crown jewel of the port of Lockden, a bright spot in the dismal slums and semi-abandoned warehouses that make up the once-great port of call. The food is good, the drink is cheap and the atmosphere is friendly. In addition to being the only decent inn in Lockden, the tavern serves as a community center for the population of the city and as a hub of information for folks adventuring in the area. The local lord, a man named Bruier, is even considering allotting desperately needed additional funds to Lockden, cleaning up the streets, hiring guards, and restoring the town back to a proper port city, all based on the success of the tavern. The Moon’s great success and relative stability is almost entirely dependent on a group of river traders who make it a point to stop in Lockden about twice a month; without these traders the Moon couldn’t hope to stay in business more than month or two and would soon become just another of the rotted wooden buildings with peeling paint, playing host to squatters or being used as a cache for river smugglers to store their wares in.
After receiving news that Bruier is planning to restore Lockden, a group of smugglers calling themselves Locke’s Band (named for the nearly mythical founder of Lockden), who operate out of Lockden and therefore stand to lose a lot if restoration goes through, have concocted a plan to ruin the Moon’s business and thus suspend the restoration efforts. Locke’s Band has spent the last week making secret preparations for their plan, and just last night they put it into motion. Just after the midday meal all 14 members of the band burst into the Silver Moon, armed to the teeth, and seized control of the tavern, taking John and Sarah the tavern’s owners as well as all three of the tavern maids hostage. Moving them to the back room, they began in their own cocky fashion to explain how this was supposed to work. The plan was a simple yet insidious one: the smugglers would pose as rowdy patrons keeping the regulars away, and when the river traders, due to arrive any day now, show up for their regular stop and come into the tavern, the owners are to give the signal so their companions can appear from the kitchens and attempt to assassinate the traders. The Leader of Locke’s Band, a man named Zeles, has made it explicitly clear that if anyone acts out of the ordinary the Band will kill them all. Unfortunately for the Band, as they broke into the Silver Moon one of the lagging patrons, a mage called Xiaos, cast a few spells and invisibly witnessed the entire event. Fearing for the future of his favorite watering hole, Xiaos sent out a magical message seeking help from a group of fellow adventurers that owe him a favor…
The PCs receive a magically transmitted message from an old contact of theirs, Xiaos, a mage who helped them in a previous adventure. Xiaos wants to meet the PCs in an abandoned warehouse in the port town of Lockden to discuss a potentially sensitive situation. Once the PCs arrive in Lockden, Xiaos sends them another magical message attempting to hurry them. When they arrive at the warehouse Xiaos explains that he needs the PCs’ help with a hostage situation, and begins to explain about Locke’s Band and their plans. Xiaos thinks that he can create a suitable veil to disguise them as the river traders in order to draw the would-be killers into the open and then defeat them wholesale. His one concern is that if the fight seems to be going too much in their favor, one of the brigands might decide to hurt one of the hostages; sadly he has no idea how to solve the problem and looks expectantly to the PCs. Once the PCs figure out how to approach the situation, it’s time to put their plan into motion; success should be measured by saving the Silver Moons staff and their business.
Once the mission has been successfully completed the PCs are properly rewarded: Xiaos says he’s square with them, and is in fact willing to help them out should they ever need a favor from him. John and Sarah are extremely grateful and are willing to let the PCs eat free for life at the Silver Moon. Should the PCs ask about the restoration project, John and Sarah can introduce the PCs to Lord Bruier, who may have some more work for them if they’re interested in the restoration project.
Well, that’s it for another Grave Plots. Be sure to join me next week for some tales of ice and snow, and for the week after when we discuss negotiations in detail. As always, if you have any ideas for a Grave Plots you want to see in the future, be sure to write in and tell us about it. Until then, I would like to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors