Wanna help plan a heist?

[WriterKitty she/her]

Not a real one. Fictional. Put away your lock picks.
 
So here's the deal: I'm writing a book that involves a fantasy heist (a heist in a fantasy setting, that is, not stealing people's fantasies...). Right now, I have the structure of the book worked out, most of the characters, and much of the setting -- everything except the heist itself. I know what's generally going to happen in terms of what will / won't go wrong, the kinds of obstacles they're going to face, and how it's all going to work out in the end. What I don't have are specific obstacles, or not enough of them. That's where you (hopefully) come in.
 
So: anyone interested in a brainstorming session? I'm new to the forums, and this seems like it might be a fun way to get to know some people here.
 
The situation is this (spoiler tagging because this wound up really long):

 

Our stalwart conniving heroes thieves are trying to get into a bank (specifically the safety deposit boxes), whence to steal all the shiny loot. This is, however, a setting with magic, meaning the bank's defenses go beyond simple locks and guards. What I've decided so far is that the bank itself is made in two parts: a lightly-guarded building that allows patrons access to their vaults, and a separate building where the vaults' contents are stored. Each deposit box key actually opens a unique portal from the main bank to the individual patron's equivalent storage space in the (much more heavily defended) separate building. Our thieves are headed for loot storage, not the bank itself. Once in there, they plan to crack open the various deposit boxes and dump the contents into their own deposit box, with a conspirator on the outside waiting to retrieve "their" goods from the bank itself.

 

I already know that the only way into the vaults is through a separate portal -- one the thieves have already managed to hijack. So they can get into the building. I've also decided that there will be golems patrolling the vaults, but no actual people (though the golems are more than enough muscle -figuratively speaking - to be a challenge). The vaults are also being remotely viewed and monitored by clairvoyants, but I'm planning on having them use illusions to disguise themselves as guard-golems, so that safeguard is potentially taken care of. There's also definitely going to be some kind of furious beastie patrolling the place, but they brought a bruiser specifically for that purpose.

 

Now, fair warning, my magic system is nowhere near Sanderson levels right now. I pretty much have "sympathetic magic" something something "binding" something something profit. My basic notion is that this is a setting in which any two objects can be bound together through magic, such that one item takes on attributes of the other. For example, my setting is going to have gun-equivalents that consist of a covered tube that, when triggered, releases a piece of stone or metal that has been bound to the spirit of a hawk (stone that will then fly forward and attack the first thing in its way). Right now, any kind of magic or item that fits into that premise is fair game; I'll be refining things as I go once I have an idea of what types of items / effects I'm going to be working with. I know for sure that glamours / illusions are possible, even to the point of being tangible. Obviously, portals can be made between two places. Beyond that, I have some ideas and notions, but I'm still open to shifting things around to accommodate a really cool idea.

 

More general info:

Expanding on the setting some, this is a world with several sentient, non-human races. The biggest ones are titans (metal /stone -based lifeforms, like giants or more intelligent golems), wealdlings (think carnivorous dryads), the ven (sort of fae, humanoid illusionists), goblins (pretty much what it says on the tin), and non-corporeal creatures called sprigs. Notably, in their immature form, sprigs are intelligent, but have no real free-will/self-direction, and can be bound into service (potentially in use as magi-tec style computers and similar). All magic works by binding things together, either to enhance one object or to create a hybrid of the two.

 

Examples: there are shapeshifters in this setting that get their ability from binding themselves to an animal. (Literally grafting in a part of the animal's skin as part of their own.) On a more mundane level, pretty much any substance/item can be bound to stone or metal to increase its strength and durability (so you might see houses built of paper or glass). The only hard-coded limits (so far) is that you can only bind two things at a time (so no making a swiss-army knife of enchantments by lobbing a bunch of things together all at once), and one of the things (or creatures) you are binding will wind up destroyed in the process. Not a problem when you're working with rocks and bits of wood, but as you can imagine, binding living creatures has a whole host of problems- practical, ethical, and legal.

 

Each species goes about binding things in different ways, and certain races will have an easier time working with certain materials (titans can do crazy things with stone; wealdlings can do all sort of things with trees and wood, you get the idea). In general, though, the bindings should work about the same way. Also, once bound, there is no way of reverting an object or creature to its previous state.

 

Not sure if that clarifies or muddies the situation, but there it is.

 

 

 

What I'm looking for, if anyone's interested, is ideas for traps, obstacles, and defenses that this bank might use. You don't have to have the slightest clue how someone might get past these defenses; that's my job. The goal is to make life as difficult as possible for our would-be thieves. Because being a writer sometimes means being evil... *cackling*

 

*Edited to add a bit more detail on the setting.

Edited July 14, 2015 by WriterKitty

[Sir Jerric he/him]

My first thought on your environment: guard-golems + no people + separate building = no need for non-toxic breathable air.

 

Also, a potential aid for the brainstorming process: throwing the polar opposite of what characters are prepared to handle is good storytelling. How can each member start on a task they should be ready for only to find a trap / obstacle that isn't in their capacity?

[Paranoid King he/him]

And hey, why not make it so that the vaults can only be opened by something with the strength of a golem. At least one of the golems would need to be left alive, and then somehow made to obey orders from a different source.

[king of nowhere]

diifficult to have many ideas when one doesn't know  well your world and magic system.

but let's see how I would go about protecting a bank with those resources. for once, if there was only one portal to access the bank, i'd have it guarded. from both inside and outside. if not by humans, at least by creatures capable of raising an alarm. if illusions are easy to come by, i'd look for something to counteract them. could be other magic, or more mundane means like smoke. aside from that, seems pretty well guarded to me, at least for a regular bank. I'd actually put most of my defensive resources into making sure the portal cannot be hijacked, but if that already happened, then that part of the defence has clearly failed already..

[WriterKitty she/her]

Good ideas all around! I will say to Sir Jerric that, given that there's a (living) beastie also patrolling the vaults, there will need to be some form of air supply... but that doesn't mean it can't be somehow toxic/ hard for non-beasties to breathe in. Adds a level of complication. Also liking the idea of having the vaults be connected to the golems themselves... possibly not needing golem strength (golems aren't the only super-strong beings in this setting), but perhaps some sort of an in-built key?

 

Feel free to ask for specifics about the setting / magic system. Some of it's pretty nebulous right now (and some of it will doubtless get changed to accommodate nifty ideas), but just having to explain it will be helpful in straightening out my own thoughts.

 

Thanks, everyone! Keep it coming! 

 

 

Oh, and I added some more setting info in the original post. Not sure if it will be helpful, but as I said, feel free to ask about magic, etc. If I don't have an answer yet, I can make one up. 

Edited July 14, 2015 by WriterKitty

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Maybe it's half-submerged in water. Enough to breathe air in, if you're tall enough. Or completely submerged if the golems can still work.

[WriterKitty she/her]

Thinking that water would bring too many of its own problems -- after all, then you have to safeguard any valuables from getting wet. Probably a lot easier in this setting than in the real world, but still probably more effort than the bank would go to. Still, I very much like the idea of making the environment somehow toxic to the thieves. Or perhaps there are multiple sections to get through before reaching the main vaults, and some of them are submerged? That has definite possibilities...

 

This is fun. It's getting me to think about the problem in different ways, which is what I was hoping for. Thanks! 

[Seonid he/him]

A lot of this comes down to worldbuilding (of course, for me, everything comes down to worldbuilding ).

So, some questions to ask: how prevalent is magic? It sounds like it's very prominent, but how much access does the average Joe have to it?

This will determine a lot of things. If everyone and their dog has magic, then the safeguards that the bank has in place can't be the type that a little simple magic from anyone could break through. This, in turn, men's that our intrepid adventurers must have access to significant resources (not to mention ingenuity) to be successful, because all of the simple tricks won't work.

Next question: what are the limits if the magic? That is, what can it not do? Is it a power limit - I can't make my paper unreasonably strong, no matter what I bind it to - or are there limits to how much can be done at once - if I bind more than x things together in a day, then I run the risk of exhaustion out death (risking death is always good in an action novel), or are there other, perhaps more esoteric limits? This can help give more guidelines as to what could be done to defend and also to defeat the defenses.

[Delightful]

Are your characters all the same species? Can their different uses of magic work together, or will some cancel out others, do they know and plan for this, does it cause arguments and/or allow them to combine magics and be even more awesome? Do they all trust each other?

[Young Bard he/him]

Which would you describe it as most like

 

1) MacGyver

2) Ocean's Eleven

3) Mistborn: The Final Empire

 

(In other words, are you focusing on ingenuity or action as the focus of your plot?)

 

If it's action, then put in all manner of ghastly nightmares to put in the way.

If it's ingenuity, however, then think of more impossible puzzle type conondrums.

 

Example: Wall which will only move with the correct golem-ID implanted in them. All golems are evil, so no cheating and getting a helper. If you kill the golem, the ID self-destructs. If the ID is exposed to open air, it self-destructs. They can't be knocked unconscious. It's difficult to remove the ID, as it is buried underneath stone skin.

 

Solution: Bond golem with Play-Doh (or high fantasy equivalent) to make the golem malleable, and collect ID from inside. To keep it from reaching open air, you leave a tiny amount of Play-Doh around it.

 

Obviously, you'd use something more inventive and outside the box than what I invented on the fly, but you get the point I'm trying to make.

 

Actually, one suggestion as I was writing that. Say you bond stone and paper. Why not have a Feruchemy "balance" like system? While the paper takes on the properties of stone, the stone takes on the consistency of paper.

 

How does the magic decide what properties to transfer across. With the paper-stone example, why would it only change strength, and not color, flammable-ness, malleability, etc.

[WriterKitty she/her]

Awesome questions! Already loving this forum...    I'll try to go through everything I have hammered down about my magic; part of this is going to be thinking as I type, so bear with me.

 

Once again putting this behind spoiler tags, because loooong.

Okay, so let's start with limits: once something has been bound / enchanted, any further magical interference will disrupt the previous enchantment. So you can bind a crate with a feather to reduce its weight without reducing its strength (for example), but if you later decide to glamour it a sweet shade of purple, the previous feather binding will go poof, and it'll revert to its previous weight. This also brings up the possibility of essentially having enchantment "switches" - enchantments that are designed to be dispelled as needed. (Right now. I'm imagining things like having metal that's been bound with something more malleable like clay so that you can shape it as needed, then dispell the enchantment to have return to normal and keep its shape.)

 

This is going to be a very magic-rich setting, so the bank would definitely be guarding against that sort of thing. Right now, I'm thinking a sort of "auto-enchanter" will be set up somewhere along the way -- something that add an innocuous enchantment to any object that passes through it, dispelling any enchantments on items the party brings with. As far as the average Joe goes, most people can't actually work magic; it's something that takes a lot of skill and training to do. However, enchanted items (particularly items that have just been enhanced to be stronger, more durable, lighter, etc.) will be fairly ubiquitous. I'm thinking that "active use" items (like, for example, a magic fire starter) will have to be recharged occasionally, either to reinforce the enchantment, or to outright replace it if its something that relies on dispelling the enchantment to get an effect (like the malleable metal I mentioned). My general idea for this setting is that its a more-or-less modern society in which magic and enchantments have taken the place of electricity and materials science / engineering.

 

Humans are definitely not the only species around. I added a bit about my non-humans in the original post (there's a second spoiler tag now with some general info). Each species uses the same kind of magic, but they all go about binding in different ways. I actually haven't decided how human binding is going to work yet, but wealdlings (carnivorous tree folk) carve runes into the two items they're binding, then burn / destroy the item they're using for its effect to "activate" the enchantment. Titans (rock /metal giants) mostly work, as you might guess, with stone and metal, and they use sound / resonant frequencies to change how rock and stone behave; they're the only ones that can do this without having to destroy something else to get an effect. Humans, titans, and wealdlings are the three "maker" races; their type of binding creates / improves physical objects.

 

Goblin magic is directed toward making them stronger / more resilient than they would otherwise be. There are also shapeshifters in my setting that get their abilities by binding themselves to an animal. However, because they themselves are effectively "enchanted," neither goblins nor shapeshifters can use other kinds of magic. Something that been enchanted by someone else is probably safe, but I'm imagining that even using an enchanted object is going to cause its binding to slowly degrade.

 

Sprigs are similarly unable to use magic items, but for a different reason: they don't have corporeal bodies. They're essentially creatures of wind (and yes, I have to work very hard not to think of them as spren, even though they work differently  ) Sprigs can't bind anything, but they can be bound -- at least in their immature form. Sprigs start out essentially as non-free-willed A.I.; they can eventually develop a will and personality of their own, but if they do, they also open themselves up to the possibility of death / destruction.

 

There are two more species, and they both use binding very differently from everyone else. The Yoki are born incredibly frail -- prone to illness, injury, and physical collapse. However, they don't exactly die; when their physical bodies finally give out (which usually happens pretty quickly), they continue on in a sort of wraith form. They can't bind objects the way the other races do, but they kind bind themselves to, well, pretty much anything. This means they can manipulate solid objects, even making themselves new bodies to inhabit. However, they're even more destructive to other people's enchantments than goblins and shapeshifters.

 

Last race (I promise!) is the Ven. They're the only race that works with glamours, which work like regular bindings, except that they're binding something to an idea, rather than an actual object. This is purely cosmetic, however; you can make something look twice its size with glamour, but if you go to touch it, your hand will pass right through. Probably. I may build in some exceptions to that.

 

YoungBard: Great distinction between action / ingenuity! Now that I'm thinking about it, my book should definitely trend toward the impossible conundrum / problem solving end of the spectrum. (As far as what it resembles, I've been thinking of the book as "Ocean's Eleven meets fairy tales meets Scott Lynch," but I'm thinking there's going to be some elements of Maguyver, especially toward the end.) Also, I now have to find a way to incorporate magic Play-Doh...

 

As far as binding goes, one of the items being bound gets destroyed in the process, leaving behind the enchanted item. As far as what properties transfer over, that's something that gets directed by the enchanter (and is why not everyone can actual work magic -- takes a lot of focus and training to get the effects you were hoping for).

 

Whew! That took longer than I expected. Hopefully that answers most of the questions, though; if not, feel free to ask away! I'm at work for most of the day, but I'll be back to check on this tonight. And thanks to everyone who's been posting! Whether it's ideas or questions, this has all been really helpful. 

Edited July 16, 2015 by WriterKitty

[king of nowhere]

another important question: how difficult it is to set up a magic transferance? can it be done on the fly, or it does require hours/days of preparatory work in a specialized lab?

because in the first case, then any enchantment ccan easily be destroyed by someone making another enchantment on top of it. that would make it fairly easy to deactivate any such protection. in the opposite case, the thieves  cannot just make the dontainers malleable by putting an enchantment over it once they are in.

also, is there a way to shield a object so it will resist further enchantments?

[WriterKitty she/her]

If you know what you're doing and are familiar with the enchantment in question, it's possible to bind something without major preparation. But it's a highly specialized skill set -- enchantment breakers would be about as common and have as easy a time of it as our-world computer hackers (so naturally, the team has one.  ) As far as making something resist re-enchanting, I'm figuring that there are materials that are more and less receptive to binding -- so if you successfully enchant something that is difficult to enchant in the first place, anyone trying to re-enchant that thing is going to have at least as hard a time of it. Now that you're bringing it up, though, I'm going to have to make it such that there's some kind of in-built resistance in enchanted items that makes it harder to re-enchant.

 

 

Now I'm figuring there's going to be some kind of air-generating or purifying effect going on in the vaults that relies on a very delicate piece of binding -- the sort of thing that would get dispelled by any other magic use in the area. It could work as an in-effect anti-magic field: try to bind anything, or dispel any other enchantments, and suddenly your air supply just died. 

 

Things are starting to come together...

[Tyson]

So from your explanation:

 

The actual bank contains nothing of value. It is just a series of safe desposit boxes/private rooms which contain portals to the actual vaults where items are kept. All you need to activate this portal is the correct key and I guess some form of identification to satifsy the clerks. 

 

One of your theives has secured his own vault, where he will keep his personal items of value, but infact this is just a ruse, the theives will actually use this portal as a way into the protected vaults?

 

One method that could be considered, is like you have already mentioned, an anti-magic field throughout the vaults, or have Golem ultra-sensitive to magic. If any of the thieves in the group use a spell, the golem come running like a blood crazed pack of wolves. This opens up an interesting scenario where the theives cannot rely upon magic to solve all their needs, which in turn doesn't mean you have to add as many limitations.

Lets also presume that the bank has never been robbed before. It's the most secure magical bank in the world. The theives know that there will be obstacles and traps, but they have know idea what they will be.




So this is the plan:

Team one: Infiltration - This team consists of atheltes and roughnecks. The type of people who would go toe to toe with Golems. They enter through Vault 601.Let's say their goal is Vault 1, the most secure room in the bank. To get to this vault, they must traverse through five levels and numerous corridors, filled with obstacles that they know nothing about. This is impossilbe.

Instead, they have identified several vaults of safehavens. For example: Vaults 549, 480, 317, 206, 152, 50. They must make it to these Vaults intact and communicate with team two who will provide magical support.

Team two: Support - This team is smaller, perhaps two or three people and consists of magic users and others who wouldn't be able to use their skills inside the Vaults. There job is to support the infilration team from the outisde world. They are posing/kidnapping/blackmailing powerful individuals to gain access to the above Vaults (549, 480, 317, 206, 152, 50) in a specific time frame. This allows them to meet up with the inside team and provide pieces of magic to help them get past obstacles.

This provides two different types of heist scenarios. You have the action and the intelligence, and you can throw in curve balls that make team one think on their feet (lets say that they are unable to reach Vault 206, instead they have to carry on) and team two get involved in action if one of their carefully planned kidnap attempts go wrong (maybe they aranged to have the portal in Vault 50 secure at 11:45pm, but the Lord who owns that Vault escapes at 11:30pm, they have 15minutes to catch him and bring him back to the bank without arousing suspicion, intime to meet with team one).

 

Spoilered for length.

 

If you can't be bothered reading, here's a summary:

 

Problem: Magic isn't a viable option inside the bank.

Solution: Split the theives into two teams. One inside the bank (fighters), one operating in the city (magicians). Both working toward the same goal.

[WriterKitty she/her]

Actually, you got things a bit backwards: the thieves aren't going in through the bank, the bank is their exit route. The main team is breaking into the vaults by hijacking the portal in, bypassing the various safeguards, and then dumping all the loot into their vault -- at which point, their accomplice on the outside will simply empty out "their" vault before anyone can realize the heist has occurred. Or that's the plan, anyway. Side note, I am definitely going with the anti-magic field (in effect); you're right about it being a good limit on what magic can do for them (given the high magic setting). I also love the idea of the two-team thieving crew... unfortunately my cast isn't quite that big. 

 

That said, if I'm ever planning a heist for real, I, uh, might drop you a line.   In fact, having looked at your plan, it kind of seems like my thieves are doing things the hard way... Then again, I'm not sure they could get away with "examining their vault" for long enough to pull this off without arousing suspicion.

 

Although, this does bring up something I've got to say: I, um, think I might be done. Not with the book planning as a whole, but going over things with you guys has helped me come up with a pretty fearsome set of obstacles. I even have ways for my thieves to get past most of them. (Still working on how they bust into the vaults themselves...) I'd say my bank is now pretty darn well defended.

 

I want to thank everybody who posted; you got me past a serious writing wall. And I definitely have more I want to hash out with you all -- my magic system still feels sort of shaky, for one. I guess I'll put it to you: should I keep asking questions / advice in this thread, or start up a new topic? Or are you all sick of this setting already? Also, when I finally get this monster written, would people be interested in reading it? It's a long way off, but I was thinking of putting the book up a few chapters at a time, see what people think.

 

Anyway, thanks again!

[Tyson]

Ok I get you now.

 

Good luck, sounds like an entertaining read.

[Adamir he/him]

Another suggestion - a black market for 'sentient bindings'. Allow me to put it this way. Someone with a specific skill set/attribute is kidnapped, then killed for a Binding. The result is that a certain object grants them that person's characteristics, whether it be memories, skills, physical strength, etc, a sort of Hemalurgic Feruchemy.

 

The team would buy a Golem's Binding made by both a Titan and a Ven. The Ven gives a small stone the appearance of a Golem when it is pulled out, so as to fool magical safeguards, while the Titan gives the illusion physical form, allowing it to function as a normal Golem for a brief amount of time.

[WriterKitty she/her]

Adamir: OooOOOoooh.... I'd known that there would be people who sort of... ignored the restrictions on binding sentients, but your idea makes all kinds of sense. In fact, my main character is going to be using just such an item... but I hadn't thought about having a whole underground trade in that sort of thing. Still, it makes sense. Sort of the magical equivalent of a fake identities and illegal weapons trade rolled into one. The Ven and the Titan would have to be enchanting the item at the same time, some how, and it would probably be crazy difficult to pull off, but hey -- that would just drive the price up for the people manufacturing these things.

[Ookla the Absent]

Trap that binds the victim to a piece of wood, destroying the person, then burns the wood, eliminating the evidence. Or, binds to a stone in the wall, or a coin, or anything like that.

Lethal and almost certainly illegal, but highly effective and hard to track, if used and disposed of properly.

[WriterKitty she/her]

I think you'd be more likely to wind up with a Pinocchio-esque wooden person than you would be to wind up with somebody trapped in a block of wood. And a bank, however discreet, would have plenty of lethal ways to dispatch intruders without resorting to something that risky -- for them.

 

Then again, the idea of a malevolent binding trap in some rich, paranoid guy's house? The mystical equivalent of a shotgun trap? I could see that happening. Binding someone to stone to slow them down, perhaps. It would take a master enchanter with way too much time on their hands to pull off, but not impossible, I'd say.

[Ookla the Absent]

Also, a question I had involving your "gun-equivalents":

What practical gain would they get from storing them in a tube? I understand where you are coming from, but it seems much more effective to me to just have a bag of marbles that you flick at someone at high velocity. If you have a reason, I'll take it, but it seems kind of obvious for them to look like that.

Also, is the bullet bound to a hawk, or a spirit? Because you could go through a lot of birds to stock one group.

 

Other ideas: Have a purely non-magical trap just to confuse them

Have a trap that binds the floor stones to torches on the wall, extinguishing light and making a very hot surface

[WriterKitty she/her]

I suppose it wouldn't necessarily have to be a tube, but these things would work by attacking the first thing they "saw"- meaning if you didn't keep them isolated from one another, they'd just destroy each other. I was picturing the tube as serving the same purpose as a hawk's hood: something to keep the shot from attacking prematurely. Keep in mind, these things don't just fly straight forward at high velocity like a conventional bullet, they actively attack the first thing in front of them. I think a design on the order of a conventional revolver would actually work fairly well. Also, magic guns. Kinda liking the aesthetic.

 

The bullets are each bound to a single bird, which dies in the process. Yeah, there's going to be a cottage industry of raising animals for the sacrificial slaughter in this setting. Also figuring that the magi-guns (I promise to come up with a better name for them) will be relatively rare. Just one more way of dispatching opponents in a setting with oodles of them. If nothing else, they have the disadvantage of non-intelligent ammo: if you point your hawk-shot at the enemy, and one of your allies moves in front of them at the wrong moment, your buddy will indeed get savaged by a magic bullet.

 

Liking the idea of the non-magic trap. I've decided to incorporate some purely mundane defenses -- a plain old, people- guarded security checkpoint, for one -- but I should think about some simple defenses, too. After all, just because you have golems and monsters to guard your stuff, that's no reason not to also lay a few bear traps.

 

(Oh, and your idea for a trap would be interesting, but one of the things in a binding gets destroyed in the process. Which could just mean that you have a trap where the floor gets super hot and the torches explode...)

[Ookla the Absent]

I suppose it wouldn't necessarily have to be a tube, but these things would work by attacking the first thing they "saw"- meaning if you didn't keep them isolated from one another, they'd just destroy each other. I was picturing the tube as serving the same purpose as a hawk's hood: something to keep the shot from attacking prematurely. Keep in mind, these things don't just fly straight forward at high velocity like a conventional bullet, they actively attack the first thing in front of them. I think a design on the order of a conventional revolver would actually work fairly well. Also, magic guns. Kinda liking the aesthetic.

OK, I can live with that.

 

(Oh, and your idea for a trap would be interesting, but one of the things in a binding gets destroyed in the process. Which could just mean that you have a trap where the floor gets super hot and the torches explode...)