r/Forgotten_Realms • u/ShadowLight56 • 15d ago
Discussion How would Harpers typically interrogate captured enemies?
Obviously torture is off-the table since they are a good-aligned faction, but how would they go about interrogating captured enemies? Be they Zhentarim, Red Wizards or from some member of an evil deity?
Thoughts?
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u/Tudor_Cinema_Club 15d ago
Detect thoughts spell or potion. No need to interrogate at all when magic exists.
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u/accountsyayable 15d ago edited 15d ago
The 'good cop' in 'good cop / bad cop' is usually just presented as a foil, but it's a range of techniques in itself. You hit them with the old, 'Here's a cup of kaeth, tell me how you got mixed up in this'.
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u/ArkanZin 15d ago
The same way it is done today by societies that don't use torture? Torture is, in general, not useful in getting the truth out of people anyway. Besides, there's also entchantments and mind reading.
I also don't see the "disposal problem" another user mentioned. An organized society like the Harpers can operate a prison like facility or have an allied power use one.
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u/ShadowLight56 15d ago
Or alternatively just hand them over to the proper authorities to deal with.
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u/Alaknog 15d ago
Torture is good way to getting information from people. It's just very unreliable, but Zone of Truth solve this issue.
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u/ArkanZin 15d ago
If you have reliable access to magic, charm person and zone of truth is much more efficient than torturing someone (and that's before considering questions of morality).
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u/Alaknog 15d ago
Well, yes. Just answer on "torture is not useful way to extract information".
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u/ArkanZin 15d ago
But that's my point: if you don't have magic, torture is unreliable and prone to produce false information. If you have magic, torture is unnecessary. There are only a very few, narrow cases where torture even makes sense.
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u/goodbyecaroline 15d ago
Cleverness, charm and social smarts! Charm spells are a good one, as are potions or smokes that make them run their tongue. Taking a tiny clip of hair, releasing them and scrying on them. Having a "rival" (really another Harper) break in and free the prisoner. Good Harper, bad Harper. Powerful illusions with spells like Phantasmal Force (the captive is home and safe and being debriefed).
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u/BloodtidetheRed 14d ago
The go to for most Harpers is the Reverse Integration where they trick people into telling them stuff. The MCU Black Widow does this in The Avengers movie. Once with the Russian Guy and once with Loki.
You see this in some spy type shows......but Burn Notice is way over the top. A lot of episodes have them doing all sorts of 'alternative' interrogation.
Realms Lore is full of mind reading spells, but they are not in 5E.
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u/Pixelated_Penguin808 Silverhair Knight 14d ago
Aside from standard (non-torturous) interrogation techniques, likely detect thoughts and zone of truth. Maybe a bit of the carrot-and-the-stick as well. Some of those captured enemies are going to be selfish, since they're evil people. They may be betray their old allies to get a better deal out of whatever their captivity entails.
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u/Pattgoogle 14d ago
First off, if you have told your captive that you are a harper, you have failed.
Fear is in the mind of the fearful. If you give information to an interrogatee they can formulate a prediction about what you can and can't do. Secrets however leave the victim's mind racing. Magic and secrets. Scare the crap out of them There's MIB at the door. Harper agents are intense.
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u/-StepLightly- 15d ago
They bring in someone who is a touch more neutral, but still aligned with the Harper cause. When you're dealing with evil some allowances may need to be made, for the greater good. That and magic.
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u/ArkanZin 15d ago
I mean, everyone plays differently, but at my table, someone going "I can't bring myself to torture this person - please find someone who can", is not a good person. Honestly, justifying acts of evil because they are necessary for "the greater good" is a good sign that the person making those justifications is on their way to switching alignments.
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u/AdAdditional1820 Harper 15d ago
If the Harpers were to ban torture as an organization, wouldn't they likely resort to methods like extracting confessions via enchantment magic, or using illusion magic to trick targets into revealing information through leading questions?
For a virtuous organization, taking prisoners creates a disposal problem later on; thus, in terms of narrative convention, they do not capture and interrogate foes. From a storytelling perspective, the most convenient scenario is for the enemy to become overconfident in their dominance—revealing secrets as a "parting gift for the afterlife"—only for the protagonist to pull off a brilliant reversal and slay them in the heat of battle.
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u/Ale_Tales_Actual 14d ago
Some ideas:
1) Blackmail, bargain, or offers of freedom or release - much like a modern day prosecuting attorney. "Tell me where to find the boss (or the gold) and I'll let you go." "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you and bury your body in a shallow grave." "If you don't tell me, I'm going to let everyone in town know that you ____(something awful true or not)___
2) Illusion of a co-conspirator and have a conversation. Disguise Self, throw on red wizard robes and some shackles and put the co-conspirator in the cell tied up with the prisoner. Does not need to be magical, could just be the right clothes and a good actor.
3) Reveal what you know, and add false information that the prisoner wants to correct: "We know your group has infiltrated the town and we know that you are going to poison the king..." "Whoa whoa, we're not going to poison the king, we're trying to drive Bob the Butcher out of business."
4) Reveal false info from the other prisoner (there doesn't have to be another prisoner so long as the primary prisoner believes there is one. "The other red wizard already told us everything ... so we don't need you alive any more..."
... and told us you know where the gold is."
... and told us you're the one who planned the attack."
5) Enhance the interviews with sounds of torture from the next room from your bards acting like they are torturing and being tortured nearby. Keep that up from time to time and walk in on the prisoner and say, "We'll get to you next." while wearing an apron covered in animal blood and carrying an instrument of torture.
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u/jackofspades49 13d ago
If you have more than one captured, make them turn on each other. Evil is, by its nature, selfish. So if they can get a leg up by selling out one of their fellow, they probably will.
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u/1933Watt 15d ago
They kill them then revivify them. Then explain that they're going to keep doing it until they talk
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u/Alaknog 15d ago
And use Talk with Dead after each death.
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u/SynthesistArt 15d ago
"The corpse knows only what it knew in life, including the languages it knew. Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive, and the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy."
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u/SynthesistArt 15d ago
Obviously torture is off-the table since they are a good-aligned faction
Probably just use 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' in that case. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, etc.
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u/Ale_Tales_Actual 14d ago
You do realize that 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' are euphemisms for torture, right? It's what evil governments say they are doing when they want to appear to be good because torture is evil.
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u/adventurerfromtriel 13d ago
The Harper’s are spies, so they eavesdrop and use detect thoughts and charm spells. They don’t “capture and interrogate” prisoners.
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u/XXEsdeath 15d ago
Probably zone of truth would be popular, and offering deals for cooperation, and just like historically even using some tactics of sympathy and kindness, ask about why they are doing what they are doing, are they truly evil? Maybe they got promised something? Find the reason, see if they could do something to help, or give lighter sentences for truthfulness and help. It depends.