The Castle of Dickuranus has a secret vault with the scroll containing the passphrase required to

penetrate the VAULT. It is tucked away in the forest mountains and has been abandoned since the
Orchazai invasion.

[Once the PCs obtain the scroll they will have the word clues that lead to the CODEX, it specifically says
that the Temple of Lis on the Island of Dravenmire holds the secrets to uncover the information on the
scroll. Somehow the scrolls information is revealed by information at the temple]

Priests of Lis The temple itself has clues on the wall to help with CODEX, but they need access to the
temple. The only way into the sacred inner sanctum is with the blessing of one of the Churches main
and inaccessible leaders. However, The journal also mentions that Priests of Lis can be bargained with if
it involves sacred objects of Lis.

The PCs learn of an auction at an estate that contains a sacred Lis statue.

In order to get into the auction, the PCs must Hijack a carriage and impersonate rich buyers.

Purchase the statue of Lis at all costs, as it is the only means the Priests will give you access to the
temple. The temple is protected by divine magics.

Once they are at the temple with the scroll they will have to decipher the CODEX for the passphrase.

They know that it would be futile to pursue the VAULT without the passphrase.

They know the vault is in a frozen part of the great north.

They know that no one goes there and thats why its so well protected.

Heist:

A heist is a burglary of goods with a moderate amount of security. Analyzing the security and figuring
out its weaknesses is the key to a successful heist. This post will attempt to document the steps you can
take to create your own heist scenarios.

I am going to create a very basic Heist scenario as we go along, just to give this some real-world
application.

I think there are 6 Factors that need to be looked at:

The Prize

The Location
 The Security

The Targets

The Escape

The Payoff

We will also need to discuss Preparation. We will visit that at the end of the 6 Factors.

The Prize

What exactly is being stolen? The type of object will determine every other aspect of the scenario. A
painting is not going to be found in the same location as a artefact. Giving each Prize a history and a
pedigree will go a long way in informing the rest of the details that you are going to have to create.

I'll include some loose categories, to get your mind turning. Customize to your own tastes.

Art: Paintings, statues, tapestries, bronzes, ornamental weapons, armor, or regalia.

Jewelry: Rings, necklaces, brooches, earrings, or any other body ornament. This includes
gemstones without settings.

Money: Coins, ingots, banknotes, scrip, bonds, stocks, or any other meta-value currency.

Rare Objects: Artefacts, magic items, one-off speciality items (like books or letters), or any rare,
unique thing.

Personal Object: This can be anything, from a key, to a code or password, to a keepsake or
official credentials.

Information: Records of things come in many forms, from books and scrolls to magical devices.

Illegal Goods: Drugs, mostly would fall into this category, and poisons, or any illicit, valueable
substance.

Vehicles/Animals: Tricked-out surreys and prize racehorses, to work-a-day carts and family pets.

Weapons/Armor: This also includes ammunition for ranged weapons as well as shields.

Trade Goods: Any commercial commodity, from food to clothes, medicine, alcohol and water, or
any common item.

We'll need to create an example, so this doesn't become too confusing. Ok, so we need a Prize. I
happened to have written 10 categories, so lets roll <clatter> and I rolled a 6. Information. The Prize
needs to be something of high value and with some history.

Lets go with....a Primer of Necromancy.

It's cover is living tissue and has an enslaved chain devil's essence ritually bound to it.

That's got some teeth.

You can see that might immediately answer your next category, Location, and probably fires off all kinds
of ideas about the Security surrounding it and the Targets who are guarding it or own it. Some evil
Temple, maybe, with death traps and alert guards protecting its underground vault. Or maybe some
rich, corrupted nobleman's mansion, in a secret shrine secreted in the walls.

If I had chosen a book of History, perhaps, a contentious one, maybe the last of its kind, full of slander
and political satire towards the old Empire, then you would be thinking of a totally different place, a
library maybe, locked in the vaults, with traps meant to delay and detain.

But the Primer of Necromancy it is. So let's roll with it.

The Location

This is the area where the Prize is located. It will most likely be shaped once the Prize is decided, but
sometimes (like the 10th time you've built a heist) you might want a random location, or at least a
random idea, to spark something interesting in your mind.

The Location should always make sense to the larger world context, and it should be relatively close to
the characters' present location. No more than 2 or 3 days away would be best. A good heist runs on
timing, and you need to keep the pace and the pressure high, to keep everyone focused and running
hard.

The Location should also have its own history and its own life. The Location is just another NPC (non
player chambers) in the story, and it can be an obstacle in and of itself. Very large, old buildings are hard
to navigate, with rooms and hallways that can branch off into a confusing labyrinth of wood panelling
and tired wallhangings. A jewelry store has its owners living above it, most likely, in a light commercial
district, and any noise created will be heard by many, many neighbors.

Random List (by no means exhaustive):

Personal Residence

Place of Business

Temple

Museum / Gallery

Bank / Vault

Castle / Fort

Sewers / Catacombs

Tower

Military Compound

Monster Enclave
Let's put our Primer of Necromancy inside a Personal Residence. Some rich noble who spent a fortune to
dabble in the Dark Arts. The residence is large, let's say 3 stories, 2 above ground and 1 below. Perhaps
20 rooms in total.

Location matters. It will give you the answers to your next category, Security.

The Security

Security is the second most important aspect of the heist set-up. How you structure your security spells
the difference between a fun, challenging adventure, and a boring, stifling one.

Security needs to be designed the same way you would design a series of traps in a dungeon - by looking
at the physical space and imagining people walking around in the space. Are there places where the
security/traps can't be bypassed, creating areas where no one can go? If there are chokepoints, do the
denizens have the ability to bypass the security, and if they do, how does it work? These can range from
keys, to passwords, to combinations, to magic items, to spellcasting, to all or any combination of the
above.

The security needs to be built logically, so that there is consistency in what the party faces, and so what
they are seeing makes sense, and can be used to help them move around and interact with things - if
they see a guard open a door with a key, and then go and knock the guard out and use his key, then the
key should work, it should't magically fuck the party over because they were clever (I've seen that
wayyyy too often over the years).

Security can come in 3 forms, at least to my mind.

1. Personnel. This would be the guards, and by guards I mean anything that is guarding the
location, regardless of class or race, including animals.

2. Physical. Locked doors, bars, gates, traps, or whatever.

3. Magical. Warded areas are vast and varied in their creative possibilities. I have always ruled, as a
DM, that if there is a spell in the book, then I can pair that with Contingency and Permanency to
create really interesting, and sometimes difficult, traps.

The simplest magical protection is the Alarm spell. It lasts for 8 hours, is customizable, and has 2 alarm
types - silent (in the casters mind) and audible (60', for 10 seconds). Refreshed 3 times a day, its the
ultimate watchdog. But it is surpressed fairly easily with Dispel Magic, and the audible ones at least can
be countered with Silence.

Spells that detain or teleport intruders are great in theory, but sometimes they will just wreck the heist,
and there are plenty of ways for the characters to wreck it themselves, so you don't need any help.
That's not to say I don't still use them, because I love to teleport the unwary, the foolish, and the greedy,
but you should refrain from doing this too much, and keep in mind how much fun/not fun it is to split
the party for your DM-style.

Ok, so let's set up the Security for our Personal Residence.

All doors and windows are physically locked.

 The exterior doors are Alarmed (and these Alarms are refreshed so that they are active during
the night hours only)

2 armed guards patrol the grounds during the night. They are 3rd level fighters, armed with
sword and hand-crossbows, and they carry whistles to alert one another during a crisis. Any
whistle-blasts will also call 2-4 security personnel from the nearby estates (who work together
to keep everyone safe).

The Primer is kept inside a locked safe inside the Master Bedroom. The safe is a combination
lock, and its code is known only to the Primary Target (more on Targets in the next section). It is
also warded with a Glyph of Electricity, which has a contingency that will trigger a silent Alarm
that is keyed to alert the security personnel and the Primary Target. The Glyph can be
deactivated with a keyword that is only known to the Primary Target.

The Targets

Targets are the people who own the object that is being stolen (Primary Targets), are connected to the
Location (Secondary Targets), or have some personal relationship to the Primary Target (Tertiary
Targets).

Because the Targets are often the only ones who have primary knowledge about the Prize, The Location
and the Security, they will be the ones who need to be either interrogated or neutralized (killed,
captured, or incapacitated). These aspects will be dealt with in the Preperation step.

Let's list our targets

Balthazar Kerm (Primary Target): Human, male, 45, noble. Balthazar is a dilettante, who
inherited into his family's merchant business. His net worth is upwards of 100,000 coins. He has
few friends, who find him amusing, but dull. He has never married, and has no lovers, but
occassionaly disguises himself to visit one of the city's many brothels. He has no vices, and
seems to be a rather boring person. In reality, he craves power and has a bloodlust that he is
barely able to contain. On some of his brothel trips, he has let this murderous rage overtake
him, and killed the prostitute hired to service him. These murders have been quietly covered up
by Balthazar himself, who has paid hefty bribes to a man named Simon Fench, a mid-level Guild
rogue under the protection of the 29th Street Jump (moderately powerful Rogues Guild).

Gyush Gizek (Secondary Target): Head of Security for Balthazar's estate. Dwarven, male, 261. Ex-
soldier. Only drinks on his nights off (Tuesday and Thursday) and occassionally gambles to
excess a a local tavern. He suffers fools lightly, and would not normally work for a man like
Balthazar, but the nobleman pays him triple a normal wage (which has highly raised his
suspicions about him) and Gyush needs the money for his retirement, which is rapidly
approaching. On cold nights, he limps.

Hector Yukult (Secondary Target): Watchman at Balthazar's estate. Human, male. 31. Ex-soldier.
Hector does not drink and does not gamble, but does have a quite severe addiction to
amphetamines, and spends nearly all his pay on the speed. He has been able to keep this from
Gyush, but will not be able to much longer, and has even taken to extorting a local
excommunicated cleric of the Deity of Love (whom he is blackmailing to keep the cleric's raging
 bestiality a secret). Hector has a large family that he does not talk to anymore and has several
lovers who share his addiction.

Uly Minsch (Tertiary Target): One of Balthazar's friends. A noblewoman of some means, who
shares Balthazar's interest in opera, and the two are often seen together at the theatre. Uly puts
up with dull Balthazar because she secretly wants him to marry her, so she can poison him (as
she has done with 3 former husbands) and inherit his wealth. She is a plain woman, however,
and Balthazar has no romantic interest in her.

You can create as many targets as you want of course, and they should all have some connection to the
Primary Target, the Location or the Security.

The Escape

This is the final important consideration. How will the burglar escape with the Prize?

The best heists should have several Escape options. Best is stealthy, worst is bloody and noisy, but all
should be viable and all should have several challenges along the way. There should be multiple ways to
overcome these challenges, and Diplomacy, Skills and Combat should be the primary means, but don't
underestimate the ingenuity of the characters!

Let's set some escape options for Balthazar's Residence.

The Roof: The best option, as the private residences in the area are very close together, and the
rogue can flee across the rooftops to a pre-planned point/rendezvous.

The Basement: Connects to the sewers. A good option, but without extensive planning and
recon of the sewer system itself, this could be very dangerous.

The Front Door: The least desired option, this is the "run and gun" exit, very loud, very messy,
and very dangerous.

The Payoff

The Payoff is when the Prize is either sold/traded to some third party, or when the burglar is able to
make use of the Prize. Sometimes the heist was purely for personal gain, and the Prize will be kept.

A Fence is a person who will purchase the Prize for coin or some other form of currency (gemstones,
magic items, spellbooks, etc..), and has a reputation for discretion. The Fence will never give the full
value of the Prize to the rogue, and usually won't pay more than 50% of its "real-world" value.

In the case of a heist that was contracted, the Payoff comes when the rogue delivers the goods to his
employer. The chance of betrayal (on both sides) is always a consideration, so caution should be taken
to ensure that the rogue can make the Payoff work for him while keeping his life.

Preparation

A heist works best when the Rogue has done their homework and has spent time watching the Targets,
the Location and the Security to learn as much as they can about the factors involved. A prepared Rogue
is a cunning Rogue. Sometimes the Rogue will need to put a lot of preparation in place and these can
take the form of:
 Bribes for information about the Target, Location, Security, or even the Prize itself.

Disguises

Forged documents (security passes, invitations, identification or other important papers)

Escape vehicles/mounts

Hired personnel (or simply allies) to distract, contain, or neutralize any roadblocks during the
Escape phase.

Specialized tools, weapons, poisons, or spells.

The Preparation phase can be played out over as individual sessions, where each aspect is prepared and
can be "ticked off the list" before moving to the next phase. GTA V did this really well. Each heist had
around 4 sub-missions that needed to be completed before the heist could be unlocked. These ranged
from stealing vehicles for the getaway, to securing information.

I hope this encourages you to create some fun, interesting Heists for your games!

Some films to spark your imagination:

1. Heist (my favorite)

2. The Sting

3. Ocean's 11 (original or remake, both are good)

4. Heat

5. The Italian Job (Original)

I think it'd be interesting to build a small mechanic for heist building, but in-game, much like the
mechanic in GTA V. I always applauded that game for that side of it and I think it could work in a DnD
setting.

You would have to scope out the place and the better you did on your scouting the more
information/bonuses you would get. Then you would have to use your money and the promise of
money to get a team together, pay off the right people, get the gear and the getaway all planned out.

I'd like to go into it more but I'm starting to get a bit tipsy.

To share/jack something from Mike Krahulik over at Penny Arcade, I present: The Vault of Winter

The Prize

The party has been approached by a young woman in need of some assistance. She needs them to break
into Winter's Lair and obtain the Enscriptor Malefica, a log of all evil a person does in their life. Amass
enough of an account and your name is sold to a demon, presumably one who will collect on past dues.
The Location

Winter's Lair is an enigma in the realms of man. It is said it lies at the heart of all blizzards, difficult to
find outside of the 25th day of the 12th month. Though finding it can be made easier if you have a map
(a snowglobe from the lair). Winter's Lair itself is a large, fortified keep made of a silvery stone that
doesn't seem to freeze, despite the raging snowstorm around it. The keep is inhabited by the elves (or
equivalent) and guards who run the daily operations, most of whom do not take kindly to outsiders.

The Security

As previously mentioned, the guards do not take kindly to outsiders. They take the form of paindeer,
large, bipedal reindeer melee fighters who taste delicious when cooked into jerky.

The Targets

Lord Winter is an enigma to most, he catalogues the good and the bad of all mortal beings, though it is
unclear what his endgame is. While it is not common to see him in a combat role, it is known he has
access to a great reservoir of cold and ice related magics, as well as a cloak that makes him all but
impervious to traditional combat methods.

The Escape

Breaking into Winter's Lair is one thing, breaking out is something else entirely. The best option is to
escape through the busy workshop, where hundreds of elf slaves create thingamajigs, trinkets, and relics
for mortals.

The Payoff

Well for one, you can blackmail pretty much anyone. For another, it certainly looks like one of your allies
has been in the book a lot recently... like a lot a lot. Like, Jim, what the fuck did you do?

Heist:

A heist is a burglary of goods with a moderate amount of security. Analyzing the security and
figuring out its weaknesses is the key to a successful heist. This post will attempt to
document the steps you can take to create your own heist scenarios.

I am going to create a very basic Heist scenario as we go along, just to give this some real-
world application.

I think there are 7 Factors that need to be looked at:

The Preparation
 The Prize

The Location

The Security

The Targets

The Escape

The Payoff

The Prize

What exactly is being stolen? The type of object will determine every other aspect of the
scenario. A painting is not going to be found in the same location as a artefact. Giving each
Prize a history and a pedigree will go a long way in informing the rest of the details that you
are going to have to create.

I'll include some loose categories, to get your mind turning. Customize to your own tastes.

Art: Paintings, statues, tapestries, bronzes, ornamental weapons, armor, or regalia.

Jewelry: Rings, necklaces, brooches, earrings, or any other body ornament. This
includes gemstones without settings.

Money: Coins, ingots, banknotes, scrip, bonds, stocks, or any other meta-value
currency.

Rare Objects: Artefacts, magic items, one-off speciality items (like books or letters), or
any rare, unique thing.

Personal Object: This can be anything, from a key, to a code or password, to a

keepsake or official credentials.

Information: Records of things come in many forms, from books and scrolls to magical
devices.

Illegal Goods: Drugs, mostly would fall into this category, and poisons, or any illicit,
valueable substance.

Vehicles/Animals: Tricked-out surreys and prize racehorses, to work-a-day carts and

family pets.

Weapons/Armor: This also includes ammunition for ranged weapons as well as

shields.
 Trade Goods: Any commercial commodity, from food to clothes, medicine, alcohol
and water, or any common item.

We'll need to create an example, so this doesn't become too confusing. Ok, so we need a
Prize. I happened to have written 10 categories, so lets roll <clatter> and I rolled a 6.
Information. The Prize needs to be something of high value and with some history.

Lets go with....a Primer of Necromancy.

It's cover is living tissue and has an enslaved chain devil's essence ritually bound to it.

That's got some teeth.

You can see that might immediately answer your next category, Location, and probably fires
off all kinds of ideas about the Security surrounding it and the Targets who are guarding it or
own it. Some evil Temple, maybe, with death traps and alert guards protecting its
underground vault. Or maybe some rich, corrupted nobleman's mansion, in a secret shrine
secreted in the walls.

If I had chosen a book of History, perhaps, a contentious one, maybe the last of its kind, full
of slander and political satire towards the old Empire, then you would be thinking of a totally
different place, a library maybe, locked in the vaults, with traps meant to delay and detain.

But the Primer of Necromancy it is. So let's roll with it.

The Location

This is the area where the Prize is located. It will most likely be shaped once the Prize is
decided, but sometimes (like the 10th time you've built a heist) you might want a random
location, or at least a random idea, to spark something interesting in your mind.

The Location should always make sense to the larger world context, and it should be
relatively close to the characters' present location. No more than 2 or 3 days away would be
best. A good heist runs on timing, and you need to keep the pace and the pressure high, to
keep everyone focused and running hard.

The Location should also have its own history and its own life. The Location is just another
NPC (non player chambers) in the story, and it can be an obstacle in and of itself. Very large,
old buildings are hard to navigate, with rooms and hallways that can branch off into a
confusing labyrinth of wood panelling and tired wallhangings. A jewelry store has its owners
living above it, most likely, in a light commercial district, and any noise created will be heard
by many, many neighbors.

Random List (by no means exhaustive):

Personal Residence

Place of Business
 Temple

Museum / Gallery

Bank / Vault

Castle / Fort

Sewers / Catacombs

Tower

Military Compound

Monster Enclave

Let's put our Primer of Necromancy inside a Personal Residence. Some rich noble who spent
a fortune to dabble in the Dark Arts. The residence is large, let's say 3 stories, 2 above ground
and 1 below. Perhaps 20 rooms in total.

Location matters. It will give you the answers to your next category, Security.

The Security

Security is the second most important aspect of the heist set-up. How you structure your
security spells the difference between a fun, challenging adventure, and a boring, stifling one.

Security needs to be designed the same way you would design a series of traps in a dungeon
- by looking at the physical space and imagining people walking around in the space. Are
there places where the security/traps can't be bypassed, creating areas where no one can go?
If there are chokepoints, do the denizens have the ability to bypass the security, and if they
do, how does it work? These can range from keys, to passwords, to combinations, to magic
items, to spellcasting, to all or any combination of the above.

The security needs to be built logically, so that there is consistency in what the party faces,
and so what they are seeing makes sense, and can be used to help them move around and
interact with things - if they see a guard open a door with a key, and then go and knock the
guard out and use his key, then the key should work, it should't magically fuck the party over
because they were clever (I've seen that wayyyy too often over the years).

Security can come in 3 forms, at least to my mind.

4. Personnel. This would be the guards, and by guards I mean anything that is guarding
the location, regardless of class or race, including animals.

5. Physical. Locked doors, bars, gates, traps, or whatever.

6. Magical. Warded areas are vast and varied in their creative possibilities. I have always
ruled, as a DM, that if there is a spell in the book, then I can pair that with
 Contingency and Permanency to create really interesting, and sometimes difficult,
traps.

The simplest magical protection is the Alarm spell. It lasts for 8 hours, is customizable, and
has 2 alarm types - silent (in the casters mind) and audible (60', for 10 seconds). Refreshed 3
times a day, its the ultimate watchdog. But it is surpressed fairly easily with Dispel Magic, and
the audible ones at least can be countered with Silence.

Spells that detain or teleport intruders are great in theory, but sometimes they will just wreck
the heist, and there are plenty of ways for the characters to wreck it themselves, so you don't
need any help. That's not to say I don't still use them, because I love to teleport the unwary,
the foolish, and the greedy, but you should refrain from doing this too much, and keep in
mind how much fun/not fun it is to split the party for your DM-style.

Ok, so let's set up the Security for our Personal Residence.

All doors and windows are physically locked.

The exterior doors are Alarmed (and these Alarms are refreshed so that they are active
during the night hours only)

2 armed guards patrol the grounds during the night. They are 3rd level fighters,
armed with sword and hand-crossbows, and they carry whistles to alert one another
during a crisis. Any whistle-blasts will also call 2-4 security personnel from the nearby
estates (who work together to keep everyone safe).

The Primer is kept inside a locked safe inside the Master Bedroom. The safe is a
combination lock, and its code is known only to the Primary Target (more on Targets
in the next section). It is also warded with a Glyph of Electricity, which has a
contingency that will trigger a silent Alarm that is keyed to alert the security personnel
and the Primary Target. The Glyph can be deactivated with a keyword that is only
known to the Primary Target.

The Targets

Targets are the people who own the object that is being stolen (Primary Targets), are
connected to the Location (Secondary Targets), or have some personal relationship to the
Primary Target (Tertiary Targets).

Because the Targets are often the only ones who have primary knowledge about the Prize,
The Location and the Security, they will be the ones who need to be either interrogated or
neutralized (killed, captured, or incapacitated). These aspects will be dealt with in the
Preperation step.

Let's list our targets

 Balthazar Kerm (Primary Target): Human, male, 45, noble. Balthazar is a dilettante,
who inherited into his family's merchant business. His net worth is upwards of 100,000
coins. He has few friends, who find him amusing, but dull. He has never married, and
has no lovers, but occassionaly disguises himself to visit one of the city's many
brothels. He has no vices, and seems to be a rather boring person. In reality, he craves
power and has a bloodlust that he is barely able to contain. On some of his brothel
trips, he has let this murderous rage overtake him, and killed the prostitute hired to
service him. These murders have been quietly covered up by Balthazar himself, who
has paid hefty bribes to a man named Simon Fench, a mid-level Guild rogue under the
protection of the 29th Street Jump (moderately powerful Rogues Guild).

Gyush Gizek (Secondary Target): Head of Security for Balthazar's estate. Dwarven,
male, 261. Ex-soldier. Only drinks on his nights off (Tuesday and Thursday) and
occassionally gambles to excess a a local tavern. He suffers fools lightly, and would
not normally work for a man like Balthazar, but the nobleman pays him triple a normal
wage (which has highly raised his suspicions about him) and Gyush needs the money
for his retirement, which is rapidly approaching. On cold nights, he limps.

Hector Yukult (Secondary Target): Watchman at Balthazar's estate. Human, male. 31.
Ex-soldier. Hector does not drink and does not gamble, but does have a quite severe
addiction to amphetamines, and spends nearly all his pay on the speed. He has been
able to keep this from Gyush, but will not be able to much longer, and has even taken
to extorting a local excommunicated cleric of the Deity of Love (whom he is
blackmailing to keep the cleric's raging bestiality a secret). Hector has a large family
that he does not talk to anymore and has several lovers who share his addiction.

Uly Minsch (Tertiary Target): One of Balthazar's friends. A noblewoman of some

means, who shares Balthazar's interest in opera, and the two are often seen together
at the theatre. Uly puts up with dull Balthazar because she secretly wants him to marry
her, so she can poison him (as she has done with 3 former husbands) and inherit his
wealth. She is a plain woman, however, and Balthazar has no romantic interest in her.

You can create as many targets as you want of course, and they should all have some
connection to the Primary Target, the Location or the Security.

The Escape

This is the final important consideration. How will the burglar escape with the Prize?

The best heists should have several Escape options. Best is stealthy, worst is bloody and noisy,
but all should be viable and all should have several challenges along the way. There should
be multiple ways to overcome these challenges, and Diplomacy, Skills and Combat should be
the primary means, but don't underestimate the ingenuity of the characters!

Let's set some escape options for Balthazar's Residence.

 The Roof: The best option, as the private residences in the area are very close
together, and the rogue can flee across the rooftops to a pre-planned
point/rendezvous.

The Basement: Connects to the sewers. A good option, but without extensive planning
and recon of the sewer system itself, this could be very dangerous.

The Front Door: The least desired option, this is the "run and gun" exit, very loud, very
messy, and very dangerous.

The Payoff

The Payoff is when the Prize is either sold/traded to some third party, or when the burglar is
able to make use of the Prize. Sometimes the heist was purely for personal gain, and the Prize
will be kept.

A Fence is a person who will purchase the Prize for coin or some other form of currency
(gemstones, magic items, spellbooks, etc..), and has a reputation for discretion. The Fence will
never give the full value of the Prize to the rogue, and usually won't pay more than 50% of its
"real-world" value.

In the case of a heist that was contracted, the Payoff comes when the rogue delivers the
goods to his employer. The chance of betrayal (on both sides) is always a consideration, so
caution should be taken to ensure that the rogue can make the Payoff work for him while
keeping his life.

Preparation

A heist works best when the Rogue has done their homework and has spent time watching
the Targets, the Location and the Security to learn as much as they can about the factors
involved. A prepared Rogue is a cunning Rogue. Sometimes the Rogue will need to put a lot
of preparation in place and these can take the form of:

Bribes for information about the Target, Location, Security, or even the Prize itself.

Disguises

Forged documents (security passes, invitations, identification or other important

papers)

Escape vehicles/mounts

Hired personnel (or simply allies) to distract, contain, or neutralize any roadblocks
during the Escape phase.

Specialized tools, weapons, poisons, or spells.

The Preparation phase can be played out over as individual sessions, where each aspect is
prepared and can be "ticked off the list" before moving to the next phase. GTA V did this
really well. Each heist had around 4 sub-missions that needed to be completed before the
heist could be unlocked. These ranged from stealing vehicles for the getaway, to securing
information.

I hope this encourages you to create some fun, interesting Heists for your games!

Some films to spark your imagination:

6. Heist (my favorite)

7. The Sting

8. Ocean's 11 (original or remake, both are good)

9. Heat

10. The Italian Job (Original)

I think it'd be interesting to build a small mechanic for heist building, but in-game, much like
the mechanic in GTA V. I always applauded that game for that side of it and I think it could
work in a DnD setting.

You would have to scope out the place and the better you did on your scouting the more
information/bonuses you would get. Then you would have to use your money and the
promise of money to get a team together, pay off the right people, get the gear and the
getaway all planned out.

I'd like to go into it more but I'm starting to get a bit tipsy.

To share/jack something from Mike Krahulik over at Penny Arcade, I present: The Vault of
Winter

The Prize

The party has been approached by a young woman in need of some assistance. She needs
them to break into Winter's Lair and obtain the Enscriptor Malefica, a log of all evil a person
does in their life. Amass enough of an account and your name is sold to a demon,
presumably one who will collect on past dues.

The Location
Winter's Lair is an enigma in the realms of man. It is said it lies at the heart of all blizzards,
difficult to find outside of the 25th day of the 12th month. Though finding it can be made
easier if you have a map (a snowglobe from the lair). Winter's Lair itself is a large, fortified
keep made of a silvery stone that doesn't seem to freeze, despite the raging snowstorm
around it. The keep is inhabited by the elves (or equivalent) and guards who run the daily
operations, most of whom do not take kindly to outsiders.

The Security

As previously mentioned, the guards do not take kindly to outsiders. They take the form of
paindeer, large, bipedal reindeer melee fighters who taste delicious when cooked into jerky.

The Targets

Lord Winter is an enigma to most, he catalogues the good and the bad of all mortal beings,
though it is unclear what his endgame is. While it is not common to see him in a combat role,
it is known he has access to a great reservoir of cold and ice related magics, as well as a cloak
that makes him all but impervious to traditional combat methods.

The Escape

Breaking into Winter's Lair is one thing, breaking out is something else entirely. The best
option is to escape through the busy workshop, where hundreds of elf slaves create
thingamajigs, trinkets, and relics for mortals.

The Payoff

Well for one, you can blackmail pretty much anyone. For another, it certainly looks like one of
your allies has been in the book a lot recently... like a lot a lot. Like, Jim, what the fuck did you
do?