Not quite sure how to title this. Basically, my players have been requesting a murder mystery, which I've written before. I had a cool idea for a twist villain, but I'm not exactly sure how I would pull it off, so I thought I'd ask for some help.
The gist of it is, after talking to a bunch of suspects and piecing together information, the party meets a character who they eventually learn is a changeling. Let's say their name is Max (haven't decided on a name yet). Their primary persona is a very pretty, very charismatic person who leads a group of peasants. The city is ruled by a trio of merchant families who compete with each other and trade power back and forth, but it comes at the cost of their workers. Max's group wants workers' rights, basically, as well as a say in the government. To this end, they orchestrated the murder of the patriarch of one of the families, tried to frame the second family, and are trying to put the third, weakest merchant family in power so they'll be easier to topple.
My idea was having Max commit the murder personally, but using a skin they never used before and will never use again. That means there can be a witness, but there will be no one in the city matching the description of what they saw. I want the party to be able to figure it out and pin it on Max without using physical evidence. However, I'm not exactly sure how I would clue them in to the fact that Max is a changeling AND the fact that they did it without openly alluding to it.
Basically, I need ideas on how to be subtle and guide the players toward this info without making it so subtle they miss it. Ideas? Please and thank you!
Assuming you want the clues discovered via mundane means, there are way.
The changling could have left tracks, or damaged something of theirs that get left at the killing site (think special gem from a ring). Or maybe the changling has a certain phrase they are know for, so unusual that once the PCs hear the killer said the same thing, it points them to it.
Or, what if the victim survived long enough to leave an cryptic clue.
I don't know much on changlings, but I'm sure there is something you can do to point to one.
Maybe max gets away with it. After no one catches Max, they realize this whole political assassination thing works really well and is much easier than actually winning over hearts and minds. So Max does it again and again. But, too clever by half, Max never targets anyone in their own coalition. Which eventually points things their way. This has the side benefit of adding a ticking clock, where they want to stop the killer before they strike again. Or, they sympathize with Max and kind of let it happen.
If Max wants the head of the second family framed, why don't they just use their face? Then the party can find out that that guy's left-handed and the murderer was right handed and Max always gets confused because they copy people mirror-style, or something like that.
Generally adding a changeling is always going to make a murder mystery an order of magnitude more difficult. The old maxim from Sherlock Holmes goes: once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But of course, in D&D, you can't eliminate the impossible. So unless Max has a tattoo that the witness saw and that stays the same from form to form, or something like that, you're going to have to tell them that changelings are one of the infinite possibilities.
You could have the city watch arrest one of the PCs, because a witness saw them commit one of the murders.
That should make it quite obvious that some kind of impostor is involved while also giving the party a good reason to pursue the killer and causing some tension, since the punishment for murder is usually severe.
You can either have a friendly NPC volunteer to vouch for the PC so the guards allow them to leave and investigate, but make sure the guards have some kind of divination magic or similar to locate the PC.
Or you could allow the party to be split. The imprisoned PC can get to know other criminals. Maybe even an important member of the local thieves guild who is already planning a break out. So while most of the players investigate within the law, the other PC gets a chance to escape and investigate in the criminal underworld.
1) Motive. Have the players be able to figure out who might benefit from the patriarch's murder to narrow down the list of suspects.
2) Tactics. Have the murderer pick locks, sneak past the guards, carefully execute the murder with one blow... but somehow be completely careless and be seen by lots of witnesses. As if he didn't mind being seen.
3) ...other physical evidence besides appearance. Evidence of skills, what sort of stuff he's able to do, that the players could match to Max's skills. Maybe the murderer clearly knows how to climb walls but has no idea how to ride a horse and hates dogs (and all this is visible because he's doing lots of stuff in the open, relying on his disguise to protect him).
4) Maybe the killer cased the place beforehand? So there could be witnesses saying that every day at a particular time, a *different*-looking man came and watched the scene. Whereas other info would let the players know that Max would always be nowhere to be found at that time.
5) Back to motive - if the players can somehow find out who the next target is, they can set a trap. For example, if you have the assassin kill the head of the family, then the first heir in line, the players might guess that they need to protect the next heir in line after that.
Overall, solving a murder with a changeling is going to be hard. Have a lot of backup clues in mind getting more and more obvious, and riff off of what the players try.
Also, did Max plan the murder with anyone else? As the leader of the group, surely they'd have at least one other member behind them to help plan and execute it. Maybe when that accomplice sees the players investigating they lose their nerve and try to come clean, but then surprise surprise, Max gets wind and the informant is dead when the players arrive to meet them.
But wait, the whole town just witnessed the informant try to assassinate one of the other nobles *after* the players found his body... something doesn't fit...
Thank you, everyone, for the ideas! This is why I needed help. I hadn't even considered having Max impersonate one of the PCs/other known NPCs, lol. Seems obvious in hindsight! I love that, so that's probably what I'll use. Someone who's been cleared of suspicion is seen committing a second murder, except they have a solid alibi. That opens up the idea of a shapeshifter/changeling, as well as giving the players another mystery to work on.
Thank you again!
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Not quite sure how to title this. Basically, my players have been requesting a murder mystery, which I've written before. I had a cool idea for a twist villain, but I'm not exactly sure how I would pull it off, so I thought I'd ask for some help.
The gist of it is, after talking to a bunch of suspects and piecing together information, the party meets a character who they eventually learn is a changeling. Let's say their name is Max (haven't decided on a name yet). Their primary persona is a very pretty, very charismatic person who leads a group of peasants. The city is ruled by a trio of merchant families who compete with each other and trade power back and forth, but it comes at the cost of their workers. Max's group wants workers' rights, basically, as well as a say in the government. To this end, they orchestrated the murder of the patriarch of one of the families, tried to frame the second family, and are trying to put the third, weakest merchant family in power so they'll be easier to topple.
My idea was having Max commit the murder personally, but using a skin they never used before and will never use again. That means there can be a witness, but there will be no one in the city matching the description of what they saw. I want the party to be able to figure it out and pin it on Max without using physical evidence. However, I'm not exactly sure how I would clue them in to the fact that Max is a changeling AND the fact that they did it without openly alluding to it.
Basically, I need ideas on how to be subtle and guide the players toward this info without making it so subtle they miss it. Ideas? Please and thank you!
Assuming you want the clues discovered via mundane means, there are way.
The changling could have left tracks, or damaged something of theirs that get left at the killing site (think special gem from a ring). Or maybe the changling has a certain phrase they are know for, so unusual that once the PCs hear the killer said the same thing, it points them to it.
Or, what if the victim survived long enough to leave an cryptic clue.
I don't know much on changlings, but I'm sure there is something you can do to point to one.
Maybe max gets away with it. After no one catches Max, they realize this whole political assassination thing works really well and is much easier than actually winning over hearts and minds. So Max does it again and again. But, too clever by half, Max never targets anyone in their own coalition. Which eventually points things their way.
This has the side benefit of adding a ticking clock, where they want to stop the killer before they strike again. Or, they sympathize with Max and kind of let it happen.
If Max wants the head of the second family framed, why don't they just use their face? Then the party can find out that that guy's left-handed and the murderer was right handed and Max always gets confused because they copy people mirror-style, or something like that.
Generally adding a changeling is always going to make a murder mystery an order of magnitude more difficult. The old maxim from Sherlock Holmes goes: once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But of course, in D&D, you can't eliminate the impossible. So unless Max has a tattoo that the witness saw and that stays the same from form to form, or something like that, you're going to have to tell them that changelings are one of the infinite possibilities.
You could have the city watch arrest one of the PCs, because a witness saw them commit one of the murders.
That should make it quite obvious that some kind of impostor is involved while also giving the party a good reason to pursue the killer and causing some tension, since the punishment for murder is usually severe.
You can either have a friendly NPC volunteer to vouch for the PC so the guards allow them to leave and investigate, but make sure the guards have some kind of divination magic or similar to locate the PC.
Or you could allow the party to be split. The imprisoned PC can get to know other criminals. Maybe even an important member of the local thieves guild who is already planning a break out. So while most of the players investigate within the law, the other PC gets a chance to escape and investigate in the criminal underworld.
Possible clues to leave:
1) Motive. Have the players be able to figure out who might benefit from the patriarch's murder to narrow down the list of suspects.
2) Tactics. Have the murderer pick locks, sneak past the guards, carefully execute the murder with one blow... but somehow be completely careless and be seen by lots of witnesses. As if he didn't mind being seen.
3) ...other physical evidence besides appearance. Evidence of skills, what sort of stuff he's able to do, that the players could match to Max's skills. Maybe the murderer clearly knows how to climb walls but has no idea how to ride a horse and hates dogs (and all this is visible because he's doing lots of stuff in the open, relying on his disguise to protect him).
4) Maybe the killer cased the place beforehand? So there could be witnesses saying that every day at a particular time, a *different*-looking man came and watched the scene. Whereas other info would let the players know that Max would always be nowhere to be found at that time.
5) Back to motive - if the players can somehow find out who the next target is, they can set a trap. For example, if you have the assassin kill the head of the family, then the first heir in line, the players might guess that they need to protect the next heir in line after that.
Overall, solving a murder with a changeling is going to be hard. Have a lot of backup clues in mind getting more and more obvious, and riff off of what the players try.
Also, did Max plan the murder with anyone else? As the leader of the group, surely they'd have at least one other member behind them to help plan and execute it. Maybe when that accomplice sees the players investigating they lose their nerve and try to come clean, but then surprise surprise, Max gets wind and the informant is dead when the players arrive to meet them.
But wait, the whole town just witnessed the informant try to assassinate one of the other nobles *after* the players found his body... something doesn't fit...
Thank you, everyone, for the ideas! This is why I needed help. I hadn't even considered having Max impersonate one of the PCs/other known NPCs, lol. Seems obvious in hindsight! I love that, so that's probably what I'll use. Someone who's been cleared of suspicion is seen committing a second murder, except they have a solid alibi. That opens up the idea of a shapeshifter/changeling, as well as giving the players another mystery to work on.
Thank you again!