[RPG] Creating a city made of illusion that won’t be quickly figured out

city-designdnd-5emagicworld-building

We are playing DnD5e in custom world. This is going to be my first time as DM. Currently I'm trying to get my first adventure together. My idea was to trap my players in the city, which is just an illusion made by Very Evil Necromancer. Just on the very end the players are going to dispel the illusion, and see what they have done.

There is however a problem. First, saying "ok, throw for perception" just when entering the city is going to raise suspiciousness among players, which I do not want. Not even speaking that one can throw 20, and see through illusion at the very start. Also, Detect Magic is going to show them a presence of it.

In PHB, Detect Magic is low-level spell, which is sure to be picked up by at least one player. It shows not only if something is magical or not, but also what school of magic it has. So, "I cast detect magic on this wall. What do I know? – It is magical, magic is of illusion school – There is something hidden there! Lets dig it out".

I do not have my own Dungeon Masters Guide, as I had to lend it to someone, and I can not check, if there is any rule, specified in any official material, that could hide the presence of illusion or any similiar magic. Of course, I could just handwave it away "You were way too weak to see through this" but I want to keep away from such techniques, as I find them unfair.

Is there anything in rules, including drafts from Wizards, that would allow me to create this city without fear that players will find out prematurely? Some kind of detection jammer? The players are quite experienced, and oldest of them was already playing when I was trying to figure out the connection between sounds and letters. Characters are low-level however, not higher than 4 levels. There is bard and warlock, and one more character of unknown class by now.

What I exactly want to achieve: the city was destroyed by an army of undead creatures. The buildings are partially destroyed, but more-or-less in the same shape, so walls are where they were – no need to care about character falling through walls. All green pastures are now ash. Five holy temples of some non-good deities are however immune to magic of evil necromancer, and Necromancer wants them out of the way. To achieve this, he covers the city in illusion, so coming-by heroes are convinced, they were given a quest to save virgins from evil cultists. This includes undead shopkeepers, bartenders, and so on. Necromancer himself is way too powerful to deal with, and this is beginning of long campaign, which will ultimately lead to alliance with said necromancer against The Greater Evil From Beyond.

Best Answer

First of all: Welcome to DMing! It can be super fun and rewarding, and I hope you enjoy it.

One of the things that most DMs learn when they're playing a game that works like 5e is that you don't always have to follow the rules. If it would improve your game, you can totally rewrite or ignore parts of the rules. This is usually referred to as Rule 0, and it can help you out a lot here.

It sound like you have 3 goals:

  • Initially, trick your players into thinking that the city is functional.
  • Allow your players to figure out, over time, that the city isn't actually functional.
  • Set up your Big Bad Evil Person as a powerful spellcaster.

It's totally allowable to say that the Big Bad Evil Person has access to some kind of powerful illusory ritual that lets him cover the city, and helps you with these goals. The way that I'd run it is this:

The Big Bad Evil Person knows the ancient ritual, Illusory City. This ritual is more powerful than most spells, and takes lots of time and special materials to perform. It covers a mostly-intact city with an illusion that makes it seem like it's whole, as long as the buildings are mostly standing. Any designated creatures in the city when the spell is cast are also covered in this illusion, and will look like average citizens of their size. For example, a zombie could look like a bartender, but wouldn't gain the ability to speak or tend bar, but a vampire would no longer look deathly. A Detect Magic spell cast within the city will detect a vague aura of illusion magic, but won't reveal that everything in the city is covered in an illusion. This applies to any Detect effect in the area; a Paladin using Divine Sense would detect that there's undead in the area, but wouldn't be able to pinpoint the number of sources, or their location.

This is still just an illusion, so anyone touching an object, creature, or building affected can make an Intelligence (Investigation) check (DC 20) to figure out that it has an illusion on it, but this doesn't dispel the illusion, or let the character see through it.

This spell description aids the first goal by making it non-trivial to figure out that the city is an illusion. If they cast Detect Magic, they get valuable information; namely that something super weird is going on. :) It serves the second by allowing several ways to discover the illusion: touching something an a check, or interacting with a non-intelligent undead "citizen". You could also maybe let the characters smell the rotting corpses, without telling them exactly where the smell comes from. This description also serves the third goal, because it's a kind of magic clearly out of the scope of what the players can do.

By using a homebrew spell like this, with clearly defined rules and ways to interact with it, you can make up something that fits your design goals while avoiding handwaving away the player's abilities.

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