A Players Portrait
Your players enter a new city, marveling at its high rise buildings and clean, well paved streets. They enter the entertainment district, full of bright lights and enticing sounds. A play on every corner and magicians litre the streets. They are on there way to the town hall to meet with the mayor when their pet,mascot,npc friends yelps in surprise. They all turn to see what has caught the attention of their new favourite ally. They all turn to notice a portrait shop displaying 4 (insert number of players here) paintings. these paintings are life like portraits of the players in the exact clothing they are wearing today.
Structure
Exposition
The plot begins as the characters wake up from a long rest, they do not don their usual amour or wizarding robe, today is a casual dress day. You let the audience know what they are wearing along with how their hair is done and any extra embellishments to their outfit they may have. If at any point the main characters get into a fight or a scuffle, or their cape is snagged on a nail, it's important to note that so that it can be replicated in the portrait. The portrait must be exact copies of the players the moment they look at them.
Conflict
The players will immediately become paranoid and demand to know how and when the portraits were made. They will no doubt question the shop keeper who may r may reconize the players as the ones who posed for the paintings in the first place.
Ideas include:
Doppelgangers
Mystical psychics who can see into the future.
An evil or suspicious shopkeeper who uses this technique in order to sell more paintings.
Are moments of the players memory missing? Did the pose for the paintings and simply forget?
Was it the players future selves and the paintings were sent back in time.
This side plots can be as long or as small as possible, if its just a sneaky portrait painter than it could enlighted a shopping or beach episode. If its something you want to span multiple sessions then the doppelgangers could continue to impersonate the characters getting them into more and more trouble.
Rising Action
If someone else posed for the portraits looking exactly as the players did, why, when and how are the first questions asked. The players will need to chase down these imitators and questions their motives. Interrogations and tracking will need to take place to find these imposters. It may be a sinister plot from the BBEG to mess with the characters head.
Resolution
If done right the resolution should be with the death of the dopplegangers. Typically they should be exact copies of the players so if there is battle between them then they should have the same powers and abilities as them also. The battle should always be close as they have all the same strengths and weaknesses as they do.
Components
Goals
To find out how and why exact portraits of them have appeared in a shop inside a city they have never entered.
Hooks
Questioning how these paintings have happened without their knowledge.
Backdrops
Locations
The design of the portrait will heavily depend on the type of paintings they sell. Oil paintings will have the shelves feeling slick and a smell of oil in the air.
Chalk paintings will have the shelves inside the shop be covered with a thing layer of chalk with the painter having blackened hands and smudges over his outfit.
A simple pencil sketch would have multiple pencils around the room with pencil shavings littering the floor and the artist would be very precious of his equipment.
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