MUSINGS:Help for planning a heist in an imperial warship.
So, it’s the first session for my players’ cult. In our game, Tycheros is split by a civil war, while the hive is helping an aggressive Tycherosi tribe to conquer the others, since Tycheros is full of black lotus and they want to import it.
Other tycherosi came years ago to ask for help to the governor of doskvol, but their plea is unheard: it’s years they’re waiting for an answer.
My players are a cult worshipping some leviathan-related mysterious god, but they’ don’t know a lot about it: it’s mostly visions and stuff like that.
While setting up the first heist, they told me there is an imperial warship with a Tycherosi Vip: the member of one of tycheros believed-to-be lost families, coming here to talk with the governor.
This person has a set of sabres that they think to be fit to be consacrated to their god.
Now: how can i set up some ideas for an heist in an imperial warship, without making the army seem unpreparated against such things, but giving my players good chance to success?
Which kind of really important info does the Tycherosi VIP has?
I assume that an imperial warship would be a very high tier heist. I’d plant seeds in the gathering info phase about how over the top security is, but then give hints about gaps in security while in port and while the VIP is in the city. Since it is covert, the security detail would be small when sneaking him from the ship to palace. The VIP (or others near him) May also have some vices to attend to while in the city.
New crew versus an imperial warship sounds pretty hopeless. Isolating the VIP sounds like the only reasonable route to success (anything else would probably face them off with 100 or so Imperial guards).
As for important info.. knowledge of a secret deal between nobles and/or high ranking military. The location of a saber matched to the one in question, it’s polar opposite in terms of ghost energy. A route (one way or two?) directly to U’duasha, and a lead on an artifact there.
I’m with Mark Cleveland Massengale and Eric Brunsell here, that security on the ship itself should be awful high with slim chances for a tier 0 crew to get even close. Maybe the VIP has to leave the ship because the meeting on ship is just not stylish enough for the representive of the empire. Or he brought something (occult) with him (saber?) which some expert from some academy has to examine to prove that it’s the real thing. Maybe he can only do this at a specific place in the city with specific ghost-field attribute?
The good thing is that there’s always another faction which has interests, too and maybe they want to steal “it” as well and now the crew can steal it from another faction which is not tier 4…, maybe? I think this is a good complication, too.