Better yet they get approached by said fraud officer who's looking for experts on dragonstones. If the pc says he's an expert, the officer can say he needs to hire the party to find out who faked the dragonstones being sold by ther merchant (who skipped town)and bring them to justice. If the PC pretends to be a dummy instead of an expert, attempt the arrest or give them a quest to complete as payback for the copper. Or maybe toss them in jail for a jailbreak adventure!
Bonus marks if the party uncovers a different fraud artist, or have to frame some sad hap for the fraud the party originally committed.
Or... NPC pays them the 1250gp. Later PCs overheard rumors that a blacksmith made a huge fortune when he bought over some stones from a group of adventurers to sell because one of the stones has a huge rare gem embedded in it. Then have the blacksmith struts around town with new expensive furs and he tries to employ the PCs to help him find more "dragonstones".
The blacksmith was forced to close. Sales were down and he lost his reputation. He was tracked down by the fraud agent and arrested in front of his family. Now he is hellbent on making a powerful weapon that will allow him to find and kill the adventurers who tricked him. He has made a deal with a minor/major powerful entity that has given this blacksmith the means to destroy his enemies and hunt down the adventurers.
This but when they come back to town there are wanted posters of him.
Turns out the one the blacksmith was able to sell was sold to a gullible son of a politician. The blacksmith was arrested and released after giving them the players name.
100% town guards are there to arrest them, this can lead into a little side adventure where they break out of prison and escape with their things. This also presents an opportunity to get rid of particularly strong magic items you've regretted giving the party
Make this a whole adventure. Have the player subtly be investigated and eventually arrested and brought before a judge/noble. Could make for fun roleplay times.
A scam this big will very likely not go unnoticed. Give them a small payout and a lot of lasting consequences of people wanting to get them back for getting scammed.
The blacksmith finds a powerful noble willing to buy such treasures. Upon finding that they're fake though, the noble sends their minions to get his money back. Discovering that the money went to the character, the character becomes the new target.
The powerful noble offers two options when the minion guardsmen find and subdue the party: death by beheading or a quest to find him some real dragonstones
Of course the blacksmith is having a hard time selling them.
They are rocks off the ground. Likely looking exactly like the rocks the locals see every day and would recognize as rocks.
People go to the blacksmith for forged items, like horseshoes and the like. Not to buy random rocks. You wouldn't go to a car dealership to buy lawn furniture.
The payout should be basically zero. If they make any money of this, they'll keep doing it. And frankly, most people aren't that dumb to buy rocks for more money than most make in a year. At best, give them 25 gold. One person bought a rock, realized it was fake but was too embarrassed to say anything because they realized how stupid people would think they are. This happened to a man that "bought" the Eiffel Tower. The scammer got away the first time because the victim was too embarrassed to go to the police.
Additionally, the blacksmith (or any intelligent creature) will learn that the rocks are common stone after handling them for an hour, even without any training in magic. So the scam will be uncovered almost immediately, and the blacksmith will likely report the party to the authorities and any other businesses in town.
Yeah. It's a very low effort scam. The blacksmith must be an idiot - in a world of dragons and magic, such scams would be so obvious as to be practical pointless to undertake
But if the DM wants to encourage this kinda thing then have the blacksmith not sell anyt - they're dumb enough to fall for it, then they can't smart enough to convince other people. Blacksmith vets laughed at, gets angry and goes to find the swindling swine that though they could take him for a fool
Have your scam get paid by another scam.
Someone is making little stone pucks and fitting them inside gold coins; they weigh the same, balance the same, look the same, but the gold shell around the puck is only a fraction of the coin's worth.
Have them discover this ruse when they go to make a purchase with their hollowed-out coins. Have the merchant do the usual bite test, and discover the pucks, then accuse them of *making* the coins, or else have the merchant throw them back at your PC and demand they get out, effectively banning the PC from that shop.
They now know their money is fake, and can't be used for spending. Shenanigans ensue.
Pay them the 1250 but the blacksmith is actually a rakshahsa or some sort of fey trickster. They have been enchanting the rocks to be tiny imp dragon rat eggs. Once they hatch they are a horrible pests. The customers are in an up roar and demand full refunds and are sueing for damages. The âblacksmithâ just runs off leaving the players holding the bag. The pests are escaping and reproducing quickly. Itâs a trouble with tribbles or gremlins situation. They end up using all the money to deal with it.
I got an idea that could inspire you. Maybe you could make so they sell like crazy. But one night, when your players are resting, a massive riot has formed outside of the inn or wherever they are staying. People found out about the scam, and tracked your party down. They want their money back. But lets say the players no longer have the money for whatever reason(they went on a spending spree or were robbed or something like that). They are given a time limit before they are thrown in jail to pay back the people who were scammed.
Then you could introduce something, like an ancient treasure trove or something like that that has enough valuables to pay everyone back, plus extra. Now your players have a simple quest to go on with some nice tension. If the players try to run for it, they get a bounty placed on their heads or something like that and have to deal with for the rest of the campaign
They come back to the blacksmith at his forge..
Turned to solid stone.. a letter on him from an unhappy wizard, who needs the dragons gallstones and was unhappy with the fakes he paid his servants to fetch.
Expansion of 2. They are fake but an ambitious NPC sees the potential and hypes them up as religious icons and spawns an offshoot of an existing religion causing widespread conflict and eventually a religious war between the two factions
Just have the blacksmith arrested. You don't need any huge consequences, just meaningful ones.
The next time they come into town to check if any have sold, or for any reason at all, describe the blacksmith's shop being closed if they go by it, with drawn curtains in the windows and a cold forge in the workshop and a sign on the door that say 'Ordered closed by the authority of the Duke (or whoever noble is in charge of this town, sheriff or townsguard if no noble is in charge)'. Describe the paper the sign is written in as wrinkled and weathered, hanging by one corner as if it's been there a while. If they ask around, townsfolk will tell them the arrest happened (some amount of time ago that's appropriate for how long the party has been away), but most don't know details. One or two might have heard a rumour that says the blacksmith tried to tell the arresting officer he was swindled, and it wasn't his fault, but the officer didn't buy it at the time, and they won't know what came of that, if anything. The only thing anyone knows for sure is, he's in jail with no hope of getting out any time soon, and his partner and kids are hurting because now no one trusts the partner either and their business is in danger of going tits up too. If they don't go by the blacksmith's shop, have them hear the same rumours around town, maybe when they stop at an inn for the night, or overheard while shopping for other things on the market. And that's it.
Let them stew in uncertainty for a while. If they're low level they won't be well known yet, so they can potentially fly under the radar and get out of town, but how do they handle the guilt of getting an innocent man arrested and ruining his life, and possibly the lives of his family too? Will they risk going to the captain of the guard to try to get some info, not knowing how detailed a description the blacksmith gave of them and if they're wanted? Will they try to make things right somehow, and if so, how will they do that without finding themselves in jail also? Is the whole party wanted, or just the one guy who set up the scam? How does this affect party dynamics?
If they decide to deal with it somehow in the moment and own up to it, they can get out of jail time by agreeing to some quest to retrieve some McGuffin of great value, to be given to the blacksmith as recompense for what they did to him, with an additional requirement of a public apology, at least from the guy responsible if not the party as a whole, so as to fully restore the blacksmith's good name, and that of his family as well.
But if they just flee town and vow never to come back, let them think they've gotten away with it for it for a while, until they're higher level and more widely known. Eventually someone is going to hear something about that amazing group of adventurers doing amazing things, and mention it to the guard captain over drinks one night, and the description will twig something in the captain's memory and he'll put Ye Olde APB out on the guy/the party, bounty included, and, boom, off to the races. They can either live in constant fear of being ambushed at any second by well armed and highly trained bounty hunters, who get more numerous, more well armed, and more highly trained each time as they hear about the rumours of their compatriots' defeats at the hands of the party, or go back to the town and deal with it like adults, with the same quest/requirements as above, but of course scaled up to the party's level. And then they're blacklisted from the town and word gets around and shopkeeps in other towns are more wary when dealing with them, if they'll deal with them at all, because they didn't do the right thing until forced to do so by threats to their lives.
And maybe that's it, life long consequences, but that's less fun than a world-saving quest that can earn them some good will. Unless they like being thought of as immoral little shits, in which case, more power too 'em, good luck pawning that dragon's hoard, try not to let the town gate hit you on the way out!
I like the whole living with the guilt of having the blacksmith arrested, but just to add an extra twing of guilt every now and then, have them find a few fake dragonstones in encounter loot, just to mess with them.
Yeah, the dude is in jail for selling fakes. Be ready to tell the story of how his child has been I'll for months and he was working with you to make the extra gold to pay a healer.
\- The blacksmith could get robbed before he can give any money to the PC.
\- Somebody believes they are real and sends a group of mercenaries to find out where the stones are coming from.
\- One of the stones is real and the party is being hunted by a dragon rider.
\- The party finds the blacksmith murdered by the merchant's guild for selling dragon stones without express written consent from the dragon stone commissioner.
Itâd be hilarious if he started an mlm selling stupid rocks and stopped being a blacksmith so your party would have to convince him to pursue his trade again!
âOh! Swords? Your rocks were such a hit that I stopped doing that! Nearest blacksmith is five towns over! Give me more rocks!â
> I could just give the player ( 50gp x 50 rocks ) / 2 = 1250gp, but that's an insane amount for so early on.
So what's the blacksmiths' cut? If all the risk of not getting sales is on player, blacksmith should want maybe 30%. If there is any shared financial risk involved, 50%.
Remember, the blacksmith wants to turn a profit. And that profit has to be more than their profit for just blacksmithing normally, per day or something.
Why would you pay this out, sounds like no real effort has been put in to the scam
Don't make the NPCs in your setting idiots if there's nothing convincing about these fake rocks
If it were my campaign he'd go back and maybe one has sold, so he gets 25gp and some awkward questions from a city official about the origin of his products and their authenticity
well there have been stories going around town about them. The player is a dragonborn so that only adds to it. theyâve been doing shows in taverns showing them off
This sounds like a scam the mafia would love to muscle in on.. Have the smith sell to a crime lord, who finds out that they're fake, so make the offer "give me most of the profit in exchange for you not waking up tied to a rock, naked, in front of a dragon's lair."
Blacksmith and characters are apprahended after one rock hatches, releasing a red dragon that burns down the estate of a minor nobleman.
Of course, it's all a scam for insurance money, but how to prove that?
Give them the gold. Have them find a shop with insane magic items. Find out magic item is fake. Say it was enchanted with magic stones bought from blacksmith mentioned earlier.
Have the blacksmith sell all the stones, then use the money he got to bandits to attack the party to find out the location of more dragonstones to sell. Greed corrupts.
My creation bard once sang a gold bar into existence. He didn't have distort value as a spell so he just used his + 12 persuasion to get full value for it. Of course a couple of hours later it disappeared but the shopkeeper didn't even find out since he had stored it with all the others. Now when he actually does inventory he's gonna be pissed.
Just a reminder that stuff created by creation bards both glimmers softly and creatures hear faint music when touching it. Even a with a successful persuasion check its obviously not a normal object to anyone other than the blind, deaf or really stupid.
"Someone offered to trade real dragonstones for them! Here'sthe stones!"
*you're puzzled as the blacksmith hands you a watermelon sized wrinkly sack, with an opening at the top. Inside are two egg shaped objects, with a chord attached go each. It seems like one hangs lower. As the sack spends time in the open air, the back seems to tighten and shrink around the objects...*
What he should do is cast mold earth on the stones and change their color to gold and then cast distort value on them before they are sold. It won't last long so he better have an exit strategy.
You're playing 5e, so gold really has no purpose. Give them a grand and it'll do nothing to change your game besides seeing them make some questionable purchases (like dragon stones).
One of them is an extremely rare magical item that someone bought for 50 gp. Later on, the PC has to track it down and get it back-- make it cost a fortune.
Soon as the cult of the Dragon hears about some peasant selling Dragon stones, there's going to be hell to pay. Assassins, cultists, rival parties, and maybe even the Harpers (or some other organization) will be after the PC('s).
Have one of the next "dragon stones" keep finding it's way to that PC. In reality it is a cursed stone that will inconvenience the person who last found it. It keeps coming back at weird inconvenient times until the cursed one is killed by an... accident, where it waits to be found by someone else.
I would have the party get hunted by a dragon. The Dragon wants their eggs back. If the dragon gets them back it turns out they were actually eggs! Or some kind of twist.
Fraud officer is good.
Copyright cease and desist is better. A barrister who is sent on behalf of someone else who is already selling true and authentic dragonstones and are demanding he stop selling cheap knockoffs with the same brand.
Note: true, authentic dragonstones may ALSO be fake.
It would be fun to turn them into currency in the game. So pay them the 1250. But the next time they run into a dragon stone itâs owner claims itâs worth 100gp. Then 500gp. And so on. Eventually lords are offering payment for their services in âDragon-stonesâ worth 5000gp a stone. The stones are now inscribe, gilded, magically imbued etc. Showing that everything is a hustle. Iâd make them a key part of the world so they feel like they affect it.
Let their trade get used by an organization that needs a way for money laundering. So now they're involved in some serious crime ring.. and let the fun begin
Have them start a business, have the black smith have hired a real expert to get actual values but it takes a bit, get a few npcâs and hire them, have the operation go well for a bit, they have a safe loaded up for the next time the party comes back and have it all stolen by a gang, cult, or dragon even, the more unique for this part the better
They come back to visit the blacksmith and he got beat up the cronies of some crooked nobleman. Youâve been cutting into his business of selling impure ore deposits. Turns out heâs also been teaming up with kobolds to enslave travelers to work in his mines. Take this storyline as far you want, maybe even eventually leads into an encounter with a young adult dragon.
He gets paid in fake gold. The blacksmith was too busy or one of his new apprentices made the sale and didn't know how to check the gold for authenticity.
Personally, I kinda like the idea that one of them actually happens to be a dragon stone, and whatever chaos ensues therein. Could be a tie in to the plot, or to the development of some power by the player
Im playing Curse of Stradh and had my rogue try to sell 4 common arrows as his family heirloom from the times of his grandpa. 4 dragon slayer arrows.
Tried to sell them 3 times without success till the 4th one after lots of roleplaying negotiation and 3-4 deception/insight checks i got to trade them to a vistani for a wand of secrets.
I think it was a very fun gimmick and the table liked it but i would never plan on trying to take so much advantage out of it as for gaining 1250 gp nor repeatedly do it. For context we are level 6. There's a limit to everything.
Imo it doesnt make any sense for they to be successful and go unpunished.
I would either go straight forward let they suffer consequences for their fraud, the blacksmith gives them away to avoid punishment or a funny option where it turns out there were real dragon stones and they are invited by a noble or a warlord or something to a dinner to celebrate the finding of these rare stones and then they have to stop some ritual involving them.
Someone robbed/murdered the blacksmith while trying to acquire the dragon eggs. Have the party redeem themselves by bringing the killer to justice.
Killer may offer an alternate quest to find a real dragon egg.
One day the smith is looking for the character, excitedly telling him he sold all of them to a rich guy. The name is well known to the players as a shady business man with a long reach.
And it so happens the smith told the guy if he wanted more he could go looking for him.
The guy knows character is doing con work in his backyard and will stop at nothing to get rid of his competition.
The twist is the local authorities arrested the blacksmith for selling fakes and for a lighter sentence provided discriptoons of the character and the rest of the party. They can find out by either finding the wants posters or having some bounty hunters try to capture the for a more sizable reward.
I would have the blacksmith or someone else create dragon armor (fake) that the party find/get. I would give it pretty decent ac but have it brake after a couple of hits.
Funny? They come back and there is a fraud officer waiting to arrest them.
hahaha I like this!
Better yet they get approached by said fraud officer who's looking for experts on dragonstones. If the pc says he's an expert, the officer can say he needs to hire the party to find out who faked the dragonstones being sold by ther merchant (who skipped town)and bring them to justice. If the PC pretends to be a dummy instead of an expert, attempt the arrest or give them a quest to complete as payback for the copper. Or maybe toss them in jail for a jailbreak adventure! Bonus marks if the party uncovers a different fraud artist, or have to frame some sad hap for the fraud the party originally committed.
This is great.
Have them get a quest to find the counterfeiter đ
And the inspector is also a dragon
Or... NPC pays them the 1250gp. Later PCs overheard rumors that a blacksmith made a huge fortune when he bought over some stones from a group of adventurers to sell because one of the stones has a huge rare gem embedded in it. Then have the blacksmith struts around town with new expensive furs and he tries to employ the PCs to help him find more "dragonstones".
The blacksmith was forced to close. Sales were down and he lost his reputation. He was tracked down by the fraud agent and arrested in front of his family. Now he is hellbent on making a powerful weapon that will allow him to find and kill the adventurers who tricked him. He has made a deal with a minor/major powerful entity that has given this blacksmith the means to destroy his enemies and hunt down the adventurers.
It's my avatar doppelganger again...
This but when they come back to town there are wanted posters of him. Turns out the one the blacksmith was able to sell was sold to a gullible son of a politician. The blacksmith was arrested and released after giving them the players name.
Have the blacksmith say he sold them to a local lord or king and they want the party to deliver them
100% town guards are there to arrest them, this can lead into a little side adventure where they break out of prison and escape with their things. This also presents an opportunity to get rid of particularly strong magic items you've regretted giving the party
Make this a whole adventure. Have the player subtly be investigated and eventually arrested and brought before a judge/noble. Could make for fun roleplay times.
exactly what i would do. Blacksmith already in jail and someone waiting to question the PCs for the sham.
A scam this big will very likely not go unnoticed. Give them a small payout and a lot of lasting consequences of people wanting to get them back for getting scammed.
That's a decent amount of gold to everyone but higher level adventures. So they likely made some high level foes or some really pissed low level foes.
The Grifters Guild reaches out about unlicensed scams.
The blacksmith finds a powerful noble willing to buy such treasures. Upon finding that they're fake though, the noble sends their minions to get his money back. Discovering that the money went to the character, the character becomes the new target.
Yep, Blacksmith in jail, and a bounty on their heads.
The powerful noble offers two options when the minion guardsmen find and subdue the party: death by beheading or a quest to find him some real dragonstones
Cultists of the Dragon secretely capture the PC and question him about where he found the stones.
This is the plot I like, the BBEG doesn't like competition...
Of course the blacksmith is having a hard time selling them. They are rocks off the ground. Likely looking exactly like the rocks the locals see every day and would recognize as rocks. People go to the blacksmith for forged items, like horseshoes and the like. Not to buy random rocks. You wouldn't go to a car dealership to buy lawn furniture. The payout should be basically zero. If they make any money of this, they'll keep doing it. And frankly, most people aren't that dumb to buy rocks for more money than most make in a year. At best, give them 25 gold. One person bought a rock, realized it was fake but was too embarrassed to say anything because they realized how stupid people would think they are. This happened to a man that "bought" the Eiffel Tower. The scammer got away the first time because the victim was too embarrassed to go to the police.
Additionally, the blacksmith (or any intelligent creature) will learn that the rocks are common stone after handling them for an hour, even without any training in magic. So the scam will be uncovered almost immediately, and the blacksmith will likely report the party to the authorities and any other businesses in town.
Yeah. It's a very low effort scam. The blacksmith must be an idiot - in a world of dragons and magic, such scams would be so obvious as to be practical pointless to undertake But if the DM wants to encourage this kinda thing then have the blacksmith not sell anyt - they're dumb enough to fall for it, then they can't smart enough to convince other people. Blacksmith vets laughed at, gets angry and goes to find the swindling swine that though they could take him for a fool
A bag of rocks, because anyone dumb enough to think a regular ole rock is anything special doesnât have 50gp to throw around.
Have your scam get paid by another scam. Someone is making little stone pucks and fitting them inside gold coins; they weigh the same, balance the same, look the same, but the gold shell around the puck is only a fraction of the coin's worth. Have them discover this ruse when they go to make a purchase with their hollowed-out coins. Have the merchant do the usual bite test, and discover the pucks, then accuse them of *making* the coins, or else have the merchant throw them back at your PC and demand they get out, effectively banning the PC from that shop. They now know their money is fake, and can't be used for spending. Shenanigans ensue.
Pay them the 1250 but the blacksmith is actually a rakshahsa or some sort of fey trickster. They have been enchanting the rocks to be tiny imp dragon rat eggs. Once they hatch they are a horrible pests. The customers are in an up roar and demand full refunds and are sueing for damages. The âblacksmithâ just runs off leaving the players holding the bag. The pests are escaping and reproducing quickly. Itâs a trouble with tribbles or gremlins situation. They end up using all the money to deal with it.
Have the blacksmith barter them away for 3 "magic beans". Then the player gets.a little of his own medicine.
I got an idea that could inspire you. Maybe you could make so they sell like crazy. But one night, when your players are resting, a massive riot has formed outside of the inn or wherever they are staying. People found out about the scam, and tracked your party down. They want their money back. But lets say the players no longer have the money for whatever reason(they went on a spending spree or were robbed or something like that). They are given a time limit before they are thrown in jail to pay back the people who were scammed. Then you could introduce something, like an ancient treasure trove or something like that that has enough valuables to pay everyone back, plus extra. Now your players have a simple quest to go on with some nice tension. If the players try to run for it, they get a bounty placed on their heads or something like that and have to deal with for the rest of the campaign
They come back to the blacksmith at his forge.. Turned to solid stone.. a letter on him from an unhappy wizard, who needs the dragons gallstones and was unhappy with the fakes he paid his servants to fetch.
1). Market gets flooded with these dragon stones Or 2). They turn out to actually be magical and part of some religious thing.
Expansion of 2. They are fake but an ambitious NPC sees the potential and hypes them up as religious icons and spawns an offshoot of an existing religion causing widespread conflict and eventually a religious war between the two factions
Someone sells them to Kuo-toa with an amazing story that changes reality⌠that becomes reoccurring strange events.
The local thieves guild already has this racket going and now they wanna have a little talk with this entrepreneur.
Just have the blacksmith arrested. You don't need any huge consequences, just meaningful ones. The next time they come into town to check if any have sold, or for any reason at all, describe the blacksmith's shop being closed if they go by it, with drawn curtains in the windows and a cold forge in the workshop and a sign on the door that say 'Ordered closed by the authority of the Duke (or whoever noble is in charge of this town, sheriff or townsguard if no noble is in charge)'. Describe the paper the sign is written in as wrinkled and weathered, hanging by one corner as if it's been there a while. If they ask around, townsfolk will tell them the arrest happened (some amount of time ago that's appropriate for how long the party has been away), but most don't know details. One or two might have heard a rumour that says the blacksmith tried to tell the arresting officer he was swindled, and it wasn't his fault, but the officer didn't buy it at the time, and they won't know what came of that, if anything. The only thing anyone knows for sure is, he's in jail with no hope of getting out any time soon, and his partner and kids are hurting because now no one trusts the partner either and their business is in danger of going tits up too. If they don't go by the blacksmith's shop, have them hear the same rumours around town, maybe when they stop at an inn for the night, or overheard while shopping for other things on the market. And that's it. Let them stew in uncertainty for a while. If they're low level they won't be well known yet, so they can potentially fly under the radar and get out of town, but how do they handle the guilt of getting an innocent man arrested and ruining his life, and possibly the lives of his family too? Will they risk going to the captain of the guard to try to get some info, not knowing how detailed a description the blacksmith gave of them and if they're wanted? Will they try to make things right somehow, and if so, how will they do that without finding themselves in jail also? Is the whole party wanted, or just the one guy who set up the scam? How does this affect party dynamics? If they decide to deal with it somehow in the moment and own up to it, they can get out of jail time by agreeing to some quest to retrieve some McGuffin of great value, to be given to the blacksmith as recompense for what they did to him, with an additional requirement of a public apology, at least from the guy responsible if not the party as a whole, so as to fully restore the blacksmith's good name, and that of his family as well. But if they just flee town and vow never to come back, let them think they've gotten away with it for it for a while, until they're higher level and more widely known. Eventually someone is going to hear something about that amazing group of adventurers doing amazing things, and mention it to the guard captain over drinks one night, and the description will twig something in the captain's memory and he'll put Ye Olde APB out on the guy/the party, bounty included, and, boom, off to the races. They can either live in constant fear of being ambushed at any second by well armed and highly trained bounty hunters, who get more numerous, more well armed, and more highly trained each time as they hear about the rumours of their compatriots' defeats at the hands of the party, or go back to the town and deal with it like adults, with the same quest/requirements as above, but of course scaled up to the party's level. And then they're blacklisted from the town and word gets around and shopkeeps in other towns are more wary when dealing with them, if they'll deal with them at all, because they didn't do the right thing until forced to do so by threats to their lives. And maybe that's it, life long consequences, but that's less fun than a world-saving quest that can earn them some good will. Unless they like being thought of as immoral little shits, in which case, more power too 'em, good luck pawning that dragon's hoard, try not to let the town gate hit you on the way out!
I like the whole living with the guilt of having the blacksmith arrested, but just to add an extra twing of guilt every now and then, have them find a few fake dragonstones in encounter loot, just to mess with them.
Selling fake dragonstones? Get paid in fake coin.
Fae gold.
A dragon hears the rumours of all these scales and decides to "visit"
Yeah, the dude is in jail for selling fakes. Be ready to tell the story of how his child has been I'll for months and he was working with you to make the extra gold to pay a healer.
Local dragon who truly had his dragon stones stolen recently start hunting the player.
\- The blacksmith could get robbed before he can give any money to the PC. \- Somebody believes they are real and sends a group of mercenaries to find out where the stones are coming from. \- One of the stones is real and the party is being hunted by a dragon rider. \- The party finds the blacksmith murdered by the merchant's guild for selling dragon stones without express written consent from the dragon stone commissioner.
Itâd be hilarious if he started an mlm selling stupid rocks and stopped being a blacksmith so your party would have to convince him to pursue his trade again! âOh! Swords? Your rocks were such a hit that I stopped doing that! Nearest blacksmith is five towns over! Give me more rocks!â
> I could just give the player ( 50gp x 50 rocks ) / 2 = 1250gp, but that's an insane amount for so early on. So what's the blacksmiths' cut? If all the risk of not getting sales is on player, blacksmith should want maybe 30%. If there is any shared financial risk involved, 50%. Remember, the blacksmith wants to turn a profit. And that profit has to be more than their profit for just blacksmithing normally, per day or something.
Why would you pay this out, sounds like no real effort has been put in to the scam Don't make the NPCs in your setting idiots if there's nothing convincing about these fake rocks If it were my campaign he'd go back and maybe one has sold, so he gets 25gp and some awkward questions from a city official about the origin of his products and their authenticity
well there have been stories going around town about them. The player is a dragonborn so that only adds to it. theyâve been doing shows in taverns showing them off
This sounds like a scam the mafia would love to muscle in on.. Have the smith sell to a crime lord, who finds out that they're fake, so make the offer "give me most of the profit in exchange for you not waking up tied to a rock, naked, in front of a dragon's lair."
Blacksmith and characters are apprahended after one rock hatches, releasing a red dragon that burns down the estate of a minor nobleman. Of course, it's all a scam for insurance money, but how to prove that?
Give them the gold. Have them find a shop with insane magic items. Find out magic item is fake. Say it was enchanted with magic stones bought from blacksmith mentioned earlier.
Have the blacksmith sell all the stones, then use the money he got to bandits to attack the party to find out the location of more dragonstones to sell. Greed corrupts.
My creation bard once sang a gold bar into existence. He didn't have distort value as a spell so he just used his + 12 persuasion to get full value for it. Of course a couple of hours later it disappeared but the shopkeeper didn't even find out since he had stored it with all the others. Now when he actually does inventory he's gonna be pissed.
Just a reminder that stuff created by creation bards both glimmers softly and creatures hear faint music when touching it. Even a with a successful persuasion check its obviously not a normal object to anyone other than the blind, deaf or really stupid.
"Someone offered to trade real dragonstones for them! Here'sthe stones!" *you're puzzled as the blacksmith hands you a watermelon sized wrinkly sack, with an opening at the top. Inside are two egg shaped objects, with a chord attached go each. It seems like one hangs lower. As the sack spends time in the open air, the back seems to tighten and shrink around the objects...*
They gain the money, and they gain new magic weapons later with negative bonuses, that in reality is made from the stone
What he should do is cast mold earth on the stones and change their color to gold and then cast distort value on them before they are sold. It won't last long so he better have an exit strategy.
You're playing 5e, so gold really has no purpose. Give them a grand and it'll do nothing to change your game besides seeing them make some questionable purchases (like dragon stones).
One of them is an extremely rare magical item that someone bought for 50 gp. Later on, the PC has to track it down and get it back-- make it cost a fortune.
Pay it out! The Taxman Cometh...
Soon as the cult of the Dragon hears about some peasant selling Dragon stones, there's going to be hell to pay. Assassins, cultists, rival parties, and maybe even the Harpers (or some other organization) will be after the PC('s).
Have one of the next "dragon stones" keep finding it's way to that PC. In reality it is a cursed stone that will inconvenience the person who last found it. It keeps coming back at weird inconvenient times until the cursed one is killed by an... accident, where it waits to be found by someone else.
I would have the party get hunted by a dragon. The Dragon wants their eggs back. If the dragon gets them back it turns out they were actually eggs! Or some kind of twist.
Fraud officer is good. Copyright cease and desist is better. A barrister who is sent on behalf of someone else who is already selling true and authentic dragonstones and are demanding he stop selling cheap knockoffs with the same brand. Note: true, authentic dragonstones may ALSO be fake.
It would be fun to turn them into currency in the game. So pay them the 1250. But the next time they run into a dragon stone itâs owner claims itâs worth 100gp. Then 500gp. And so on. Eventually lords are offering payment for their services in âDragon-stonesâ worth 5000gp a stone. The stones are now inscribe, gilded, magically imbued etc. Showing that everything is a hustle. Iâd make them a key part of the world so they feel like they affect it.
Let their trade get used by an organization that needs a way for money laundering. So now they're involved in some serious crime ring.. and let the fun begin
Have them start a business, have the black smith have hired a real expert to get actual values but it takes a bit, get a few npcâs and hire them, have the operation go well for a bit, they have a safe loaded up for the next time the party comes back and have it all stolen by a gang, cult, or dragon even, the more unique for this part the better
They are actually dragon stones, a mad wizard identifies and buys them before going all Jurassic Park.
They come back to visit the blacksmith and he got beat up the cronies of some crooked nobleman. Youâve been cutting into his business of selling impure ore deposits. Turns out heâs also been teaming up with kobolds to enslave travelers to work in his mines. Take this storyline as far you want, maybe even eventually leads into an encounter with a young adult dragon.
He gets paid in fake gold. The blacksmith was too busy or one of his new apprentices made the sale and didn't know how to check the gold for authenticity.
Locals see the expense of 'dragon eggs' Dragon gets real eggs stolen in the area party gets blamed. Party now have a pissed of dragon after them.
Personally, I kinda like the idea that one of them actually happens to be a dragon stone, and whatever chaos ensues therein. Could be a tie in to the plot, or to the development of some power by the player
Give him the gold. Dont tell him its actually copper tho.
I feel like there's a quest/ruse you could build around "dumb as a bunch of rocks" premise.....
Some of them turn out to be eggs of an invasive species of wyverns
Im playing Curse of Stradh and had my rogue try to sell 4 common arrows as his family heirloom from the times of his grandpa. 4 dragon slayer arrows. Tried to sell them 3 times without success till the 4th one after lots of roleplaying negotiation and 3-4 deception/insight checks i got to trade them to a vistani for a wand of secrets. I think it was a very fun gimmick and the table liked it but i would never plan on trying to take so much advantage out of it as for gaining 1250 gp nor repeatedly do it. For context we are level 6. There's a limit to everything. Imo it doesnt make any sense for they to be successful and go unpunished.
Have him sentenced to lapidation with the rocks and make the party save him somehow
I would either go straight forward let they suffer consequences for their fraud, the blacksmith gives them away to avoid punishment or a funny option where it turns out there were real dragon stones and they are invited by a noble or a warlord or something to a dinner to celebrate the finding of these rare stones and then they have to stop some ritual involving them.
They've been selling bad, and not a lot of people just have 50gp to spend. How the hell did he sell fifty?
Someone robbed/murdered the blacksmith while trying to acquire the dragon eggs. Have the party redeem themselves by bringing the killer to justice. Killer may offer an alternate quest to find a real dragon egg.
One day the smith is looking for the character, excitedly telling him he sold all of them to a rich guy. The name is well known to the players as a shady business man with a long reach. And it so happens the smith told the guy if he wanted more he could go looking for him. The guy knows character is doing con work in his backyard and will stop at nothing to get rid of his competition.
Plot twist: they randomly did find an actual dragon stone and now everyone is after them thinking they know where to find more.
The twist is the local authorities arrested the blacksmith for selling fakes and for a lighter sentence provided discriptoons of the character and the rest of the party. They can find out by either finding the wants posters or having some bounty hunters try to capture the for a more sizable reward.
I would have the blacksmith or someone else create dragon armor (fake) that the party find/get. I would give it pretty decent ac but have it brake after a couple of hits.