#RPGaDay2024 for 16 August: Quick to learn . . . or not

Today's prompt: Quick to learn

Honestly, I got nothin'.

So let's go to the alternative topic generator. For the 16th, the alternative topic is Dungeon, and I roll an eight: Present an idea for a Random Encounter.

Dungeon. Random encounter. Okay then.

First, I need a random encounter, so I'll go to the tables in the back of Flashing Blades. One of the dungeons - and yes, there are more than one - in my campaign is located in the basement of the hôtel de ville - city hall. I roll a 5; the encounter is with a Lawyer and a possible Patron. The offered patronage is a 7: "The Patron wishes to have a message taken to someone in a dangerous position (a prisoner in the Bastille, perhaps, or a soldier on the front)." Perfect.

Next, what's the story of this encounter? I grab a handful of Rory's Story Cubes - since this patronage is about delivering a message, I grab the Voyages collection for inspiration and roll the following: Amoeba, Spectacles, Puzzle Piece, Map, and Domed City. Oh, this could be good.

A procureur - procurator, a legal professional like a solicitor - named M. Bondurant approaches the adventurers with a proposition: he needs a prisoner in the dungeon to look (Spectacles) at a document and confirm whether it's genuine or not. If it is, the procureur believes the document will be exculpatory when presented to the magistrate, but the gaolers will not let him see his client, by order of the consuls - aldermen. If the adventurers can get the document to the prisoner to confirm its provenance - bribing the guards is trivially easy - Bondurant will be very grateful; a small satchel of louis d'or and free legal advice will be offered for their trouble. If asked why he cannot see his client, Bondurant will claim that one of the consuls holds a petty grudge against the procureur from a previous case.

The aforementioned document is a key to a map (Map) in Bondurant's possession. The key is written in a code (Puzzle) that only the prisoner, a renegado - corsair, or pirate - named D'Enfer can decipher. The map is to a city in Barbary (Domed City) where a great jewel stolen by D'Enfer is hidden and it's Bondurant's intention to retrieve it; he also intends to double-cross D'Enfer and leave him to his fate at the hands of the consuls.

Somewhere in here is a disease (Amoeba) - in the dungeon? in the corsair city? - that presents a threat to the adventurers, or D'Enfer, or Bondurant, or everyone. Will D'Enfer share the contents of the key with the adventurers? Will the renegado attempt to double-cross Bondurant by enlisting the adventurers to recover the jewel? Will the adventurers try to put one over on both the procureur and the corsair?