ZEITGEIST NPC Rings (Spoilers)

[Veril]

I assumed that all rings are a part of a ritual magic and share the same spell.

Your ring is bound to you as part of a ritual when it is made for you and inscribed with 3 words of OBS. One of the things about the rings is that they only work for you. The core of the ritual probably needs redoing every year, but that maintains the rings.

When you are wearing your ring you can see the inscription of the 3 letters of other rings through the body of the ring, if you can physically see their ring.

As for checking out the ring someone is wearing. Think of it as cruising a bar making sure that person you are trying to pick up doesn't have a wedding ring on. It might be noticed that you check out rings on people when you meet them, but probably not. I leave it up to the DM to decide what DC's are appropriate and what excuses are used if noticed.

 

[arkwright]

For my own game, I recently came up with how I'll run the rings/Ob geases.

• Ob Geas
  • Ob agents of sufficient level are given a geas from Kasvarina, either directly or through the ghost council after the ghost council vets the agent.
  • Geas prevents agents from, knowingly or unknowingly, discussing top-secret information with non-agents or agents from another cell. Also prevents conventional mindreading.
  • Cell leaders can petition for ghost council permission to communicate with another cell/get a permanent waiver by dreaming about the topic.
• Ob ring code
  • Each authorised Ob agent receives a ring.
  • A ringbearer can mentally activate their ring to burn with a heatless flame, visible only to other ringbearers.
  • Each ring is enchanted to block divinations. Can be circumvented by knowing the triumvirate password.

This should satisfy the requirements of:

• Have a security system in place to keep back important plot spoilers from players
• Have a system the PCs can theoretically exploit to impersonate an Ob officer
• Have a system which allows interrogated/recruited Ob agents to talk a little about their job (just not top-secret information).

 

[Jedrik]

I don't thing the intention of the rings is to identify an unknown member but instead to legitemize yourself in front of another member.
Like: You have been told by your Ob boss to go to, lets say, Caius show him your ring and tell him, blablabla.

 

[arkwright]

Right, but let's say your Caius and you get arrested and you know there's someone in the RHC who can help you (Saxby), what do you do?

Or in Book 4 when Bree in Beaumont is looking for Caius/ringbearers.

 

[Jedrik]

Right, but let's say your Caius and you get arrested and you know there's someone in the RHC who can help you (Saxby), what do you do?

Or in Book 4 when Bree in Beaumont is looking for Caius/ringbearers.

There are a few possibilities:
1. Caius knows about Saxby, but Saxby doesn't know about Caius. In this case he gives his ring to a guard and asks to show it to Saxby and to get a meeting in privat.
2. They both don't know each other. Nothing will happen. That's the consequence if you compartmentalize your organization. The leaders accept this risk for the improved safety. Later, Caius boss will tell McBannin to tell Saxby to let him go.

 

[Jedrik]

Right, but let's say your Caius and you get arrested and you know there's someone in the RHC who can help you (Saxby), what do you do?

Or in Book 4 when Bree in Beaumont is looking for Caius/ringbearers.

 

[Jedrik]

And Bree would have gotten an description and meeting point from Caius. Maybe he told her about his own ring, mabye not. Why should he? Caius hired her for his personal protection. Not for Ob business.

Just checked the book. She also doesn't identify the other ob members. She knows wherr to go in Cherage and is introduced to them there.

 

[arkwright]

Mmm, you could be right. Perhaps the intention is that higher ring-levels personally organise everything, and using the inscription is just the PCs improvising with what they have available.

I would say that with the Ob's usual success rate, there'd definitely be officers improvising with their inscriptions to get help following some disaster.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

The Ob seems to be set up as a classical cell structure organisation. No one should be able to automatically identify people in the cell above them and should only know some of the people below. Contacting another cell at the same level involves passing a message up the chain and then getting orders passed down,
The ob has the advantage here that the top level cell can use magic to scry on lower level cells and pass on orders if the structure is compromised , which means individuals in lower levels cells can know less. Makes the structure harder to roll up than real cell organsiations and also implememnts a rigid hierachy for Nic to pass orders through , while looking more equal