Roleplay / The Grand Heist

“....so trust me when I say, none of us can trust each other”

— Hope

''The Grand Heist'' is a 2015/2016 Tabletop RPG campaign GMed by Akitcougar, using the D&D 5e System.

The campaign is primarily set in Yale City, an original High Fantasy Constructed World, with a plot inspired by a variety of works including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana, and Critical Role. The story primarily follows six adventures, as they realize the true secrets of their city.

A sequel, taking place a 100 years after this campaign ended, has begun. The trope page can be found here: The Grand Heist II.

Now has a character sheet—please add character-specific tropes there!

Also has a quotes page—please add any funny quotes there!

This works contains examples of the following tropes:

A-L

• Accidental Public Confession: Jaima mentions that she already knew about the tiefling genocide plot in the middle of a heated argument with the party, assuming they had figured it out earlier based on her lack of surprise at some of Sorensen's comments.

• After Action Patch Up: After running away from the fire in TD, there were a lot of wounds to heal. Psychologically as well as physically
• Aerith and Bob: Aletheia, Failarhen, Aster, Arianella, and the relatively normal Jaima and Hope.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Undead. The drow are rumoured to be this
  • Werewolves too (or at least that's what the party assumes)
• Ambiguous Gender: Vecna, mostly due to conflicting accounts over the years
  • In Theia's confrontation Vecna seems to take a unique appearance for everyone that sees them

• Animate Dead: Hope uses this to great effect in the final battle, using an army of skeletons to kill Malikos.
• Armies Are Evil: The party believes that Yale's military is highly involved in genocide plans against Yale's tieflings.

• A Storm Is Coming: The ominous clouds and lightning strike at the end of session 7 even worry the voice in Hope's head

• Badass Bookworm: Magic is a skill that comes from books and study. Calypso has an enormous library.

• Bag of Holding: Contains a tree, a large moving painting, lots of supplies, and whatever Rhen sticks in it

• Battle Amongst the Flames: The end of the werewolf fight, after Ari's firebolt misses and sets the tavern on fire

• Big Fancy House: The noble's house that was infiltrated by the party
  • Jaima's visit to Ari's house revealed that the Luanzan's also have a nice place
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Inverted. Divine Lightning bolts is striking good people and creating chaos.
• Cast Speciation: Enforced. The DM required each player to choose different classes

• Chekhov's Gun: In session 3, Theia mentions that she has to cancel a date to talk to Rag. In session 6, it turns out that the date was with the daughter of the minor nobleman she was staying with, who kicks her out after she first misses the date and then disappears for three days.

• College AU: Where all the characters are everyday Yale students
  • Jaima is the partying rugby player who drinks a lot. She did ROTC her freshman year and hated it.
  • Ari is a partying sorority legacy student.
  • Hope is a student in the divinity school who helps out at Dwight Hall events a lot and should probably go to Yale Health. Voices in your head are not good for mental health.
  • Aster is the super enthusiastic freshman on the baseball team.
    • He found a stray puppy one day a couple blocks away from Yale and now is trying to hide it from administration and his Froco.
  • Bjorn is Aster's beleaguered team captain who recruited Aster to the team.
• Cultural Posturing: Lamora does this in spades for the drow. To a lesser extent, elves and humans of Yale seem to do this for their own societies.

• A Day in the Limelight: Session 6 was formatted as 6 separate events, each one focusing on a separate character

• Deal with the Devil: Twice in the same session. Vecna offers to make Theia a goddess, but she refuses. Hope, on the other hand, agrees to work for Seth if he'll help her find and protect her friends.

• Deity of Human Origin: Hercules. Significant to Bjorn and Aster. Bjorn tells Aster that he admires Hercules because he made many mortal mistakes and still ascended to godhood
• Dem Bones: The party has killed lots of skellies at this point

• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Jaima attempts to punch the image of Seth. Sadly incorporeal, but she still get the title "God Puncher"

• Divide and Conquer: Theia's promised freedom if Rag gave a speech. This then caused half of Lamora's army to turn on eachother.

• Do You Want to Haggle?: Ari haggles for a room in the inn. Believing that Ari is a rich city girl, the innkeeper gives a very high starting price. Being a rich city girl, Ari accepts it.

• Eternal English: Subverted. Much to Theia's frustration. The Undercommon used and one Theia speaks is slightly different
  • Lamora remarked that Theia's pronunciation was "worse than a child's"
• Everyone Is Bi: Half the party. The other half hasn't made mention of romance either way
  • Although in spite of the trope names, this may actually fall somewhere between this trope and Cast Full of Gay. Half of the party is bi, and their sexualities seem to be a non-issue, but it's unclear whether bisexuality is the norm in this world or whether it's just common among the party.
• Failed a Spot Check: Despite studying the Arcane, Theia and Ari both have a hard time identifying magical artifacts

• Fantastic Racism: Everyone hated the drow who also hated everyone else
  • Tieflings are confined to the slums of the city. There seems to be a plan to fix this problem, but not in a good way
  • Absent within the party. Despite being a Tiefling, Hope receives no prejudice from the other members.
  • Hopes claims that this was the main reason she was harshly punished by the church with no evidence.

• The Guards Must Be Crazy: There are some thick guards in Yale City.
  • In an interesting surge of competency, the guards remember that Caemian doesn't have any half-elf children at the gate
• Great Offscreen War: Quite a few. Between the drow and Yale founders, between Yale and other nations, between the followers of Dol Arrah and dragonborn

• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Played Straight. Nobody in the party wears something that covers their face.
  • Using a dragon scale, Aster makes a helmet which he proudly shows Bjorn

• Killer Game Master: Played for Laughs. DM laughs maniacally and uncontrollably, with their complete lack of a poker face when talking about upcoming plot points
  • Averted, however, in that the DM has also said that they don't want to kill the PCs.
    • Psychological trauma is not off the table, however.

• Land of One City: Yale is an independent city-state, as are many of the surrounding cities.
• Last of Her Kind: High Priestess Lamora, a drow cleric, seems to be one of the few drow left
• Leaking Can of Evil: The Orb of Vecna doesn't seem good. It tries to make Theia and Rhen hold onto it.
  • It corrupts Theia into diving the labyrinth and talking with Vecna

M-Z

• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Jaima's commanding officer, Sorensen, offers one to the party after he caught them breaking in
• Oblivious to Love: Many characters:
  • Aster has no idea what a date is. His confusion is made worse when...
  • Rhen describes dates as drinking wine together and talking,
  • Hope has taken a vow of celibacy and avoids Ari and Theia's gossiping.
• Offered the Crown: Tris is chosen to be the next king, because there is no legitimate heir, and it is plausible that she could be a bastard.

• Our Gods Are Different
  • Vecna is not an ascended mortal wizard/lich missing his left hand and left eye. They are a gender ambiguous god of lies and secrets that seems to have existed as long as other gods. The eye hand symbolism is still there
  • Dol Arrah is missing her siblings Dol Dorn and The Mockery, and is given a much larger role as leader of the gods.
  • Tiamat and Bahamut have new relations to Dol Arrah, as well as a different history together, involving the history of dragon cities

• Police Are Useless: Theia's complaint that Sorensen and others don't seem to do anything to fix the city's bigger threats
• Post-Climax Confrontation: At the coronation, after Lamora's forces are defeated, Theia confronts Caemian, her father.

• Race-Name Basis: Pops up time to time, especially with NPCs who don't know and/or don't care about the PCs' names. Notably, Theia is annoyed that, during their first interaction, Sorensen mostly calls her "Half-elf".

• Rhen's item switching,
• Theia's insistence on her being the tallest member of the party and her inability to identify magical items
• Aster's desire to ride things

• See Rhen's Hide Armour of Hiding

• Underestimating Badassery: Rag sends the party into the Labyrinth in an attempt to kill them. Instead, it results in a Curb-Stomp Battle against a displacer beast and the party retrieving the Orb of Vecna while taking rather little damage.

• Vision Quest: Theia goes on one of these. Mixed with Psychological Torment Zone .
  • Hope's first confrontation with Seth also has strong elements of this. In the DM notes, one is written for each character, although none of the other characters had reason to undergo theirs.

• Your Heart's Desire: Vecna tries to tempt Theia with power, fame, money, and eventually immortality. None of these seem to work on her
• You Said You Would Let Me Go: Theia promises Rag freedom. Hope ensures he's actually arrested. He escapes on his own.

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Wait. Where did Aster go?

Last Major Edit: 5/11