So, the PCs will soon be raiding a mausoleum of a mad Sith lord who was consumed by greed. (That's why it's a tempting target: His loot's inside.) I want to treat the mausoleum as a dark-side Force vergence (per the rules in Nexus of Power ). That means the PCs will get +1 black pip on any Force-die rolls. But I'm having a hard time coming up with the more flavorful/narrative aspect of the vergence. I don't want to do some kind of "Trial of Avarice" thing; I'd rather something more general and flavorful that effects people inside the mausoleum. Yet I don't want to penalize the PCs entirely for trying to loot the place. Any ideas?

I would try and describe the location, using greedy terminology. Describe how the various things would be oh so useful for Player 1's purposes, and then turn around and say the exact same thing when describing it for Player 2. If you're going for the "slowly infecting their minds with the desire to acquire stuff at any cost", keep doing this kind of thing. Mention to one player, how the stuff the other player has would be useful for them. Perhaps describe to each of them, randomly, that they see something of theirs, on the person of the other player. "Hey! Why do you have my father's blaster rifle?!" Then they see it's not really there after they've confronted the other player by mistake.

I would perhaps do a lot of this via personal messages to the players. Passing them a little note each, so that it's not broadcast to the entire table so quickly.

This will also require a bit of buyin from your players. In my experience, players twig really quickly if you try the "I'm subtly messing with your minds" angle, and then smash their way through due to the meta-gaming information. Perhaps have them make Fear checks when they go into the place, and if they fail the checks, they will be susceptible to the greed effects, though the PC's don't know this. If they pass the checks, they might still feel the hints of greed from the place, but don't necessarily act upon them. That's what I would do anyway, Fear checks are very rare, and a Dark Siders vergence/lair is a perfect place to whip one out, and the side effect would be perfectly in theme, along with any other side effects the failure might inflict.

All the animals in the area could hoard random bits that they find. This could be good foreshadowing.

Another good bit of foreshadowing would be everything looks more valueble while inside the vergence.

Add the Shiney effect to everything.

Or pull a huge pirates of the carabian flare of having item being the varience. actually taking and removing the items is no problem. The only unusual thing is that there are a lot of humanoid creatures that have died here, some much more recent then others.


No matter what the characters will receive increasingly difficult checks for every week that they are away from the place with the treasures they have taken until they fail, and suddenly describe them as unfeeling. Nothing feels valuable but the item(s) they had taken, IF they sold it then they desire that item back so badly and once they have everything back together they feel the desire to return for more. Or perhaps just to lie in it for all eternity.... Or alternatively they start receiving memories that are not theirs that point to other tombs of immense loot. Until their greed kills them.

There would be only three ways for players to be free of the curse, fall to the darkside and embrace their greed as a power and start shipping everything into a ship, with the desire to find more. Die sleeping among the riches or return everything to as it was and bury these ruins forever. Dispelling it might be possible, but should be immeasurably difficult. After all whenever Jedi deal with sith loot, nothing is as it seems. In this particlar place perhaps it's not tough to enter at all, just all that enter end up coming back intoxicated by greed.