Need Help With A Second-Level "Prequel" Scenario

[Palanan]

I could use suggestions for a brief introductory scenario, preferably city-based, that would bring together a team of second-level characters. My plan is for them to level up at the end of the scenario, gain some local acclaim, and be in position to start the campaign proper as a third-level party.

I'd like to avoid standard city clichés like wererats or sewer monsters, and especially no cultists; something involving political factions would be more appropriate, although I'm open to all sorts of ideas. Recommendations for modules or mini-adventures are very welcome, ...but I'm hoping you folks might have a few notions of your own.

:smalltongue:

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[IronFist]

A murder mistery could work. It's specially good for 2nd level, because they might not have access to all the spells they need, so finding someone to cast the spells for them is a challenge in itself.

[Palanan]

Thanks for the suggestion, I appreciate it. I've run murder mysteries before, and it takes a lot of effort to work out the clues, timing, alibis, etc. (Which the PCs blow right by, but still.)

Any ideas on what would be a good outline for a city-based murder plot? Not just a random mugging, but something to do with factions and power struggles, something to draw the PCs into the fray. What's a nice, sinister plot look like?

[Gnome Alone]

City councilman secretly misappropriating funds from the treasury to finance wererat cultists?

Bonus points if it's the sanitation comissioner trying to scam more funding for the sewers.

[Palanan]

You forgot, wererat cultists with pet sewer monsters.

:smalltongue:



Seriously...in a large, established city, as this one will be, there should already be some kind of local gendarmes to handle run-of-the-mill cases. What would be slightly out of the ordinary, possibly grotesque, but still modest enough that a second-level party could handle it?

[Jurai]

What? No were-Sewer Monster cultists with rat robots?

My idea: Have a riot, and have the party put a stop to it. Depending on your party composition, it may even hold true to the old adage: One riot, one ranger, one cleric, one wizard, and one rogue.

[Roguenewb]

There's always the classic frame job. The inn-keeper is murdered by his jealous mistress, and she frames the PCs. The guard doesn't help because they are convinced the Players did it. Helps introduce the city laws (always helpful to know), as well as important guardsman. Remember the 3 clues method. For any piece of information you want to give to the party, make sure you have three clues:

1.)The mistress did it.
-The night before, while the players are getting ready to sleep, they hear the innkeeper arguing with his wife, "How could you sleep with that crazy mage! She's dangerous, she threatened me once!".
-A bunch of extra cuts were made, clearly after the character was dead (DC 13 heal check). This suggests extreme passion over the killing. Anyone they ask remarks that 'ole Kendra is about passionate as they come, but they don't wanna discuss her more than that.
-A deranged sounding "you will be mine, even in death" love note was left in his pocket
2.)Kendra lives in the Petals.
-Everyone the night before jokes about how often the innkeeper goes out to the petals.
-there are boot prints with filth slime on the ground around his body (survival/know local DC 14), and that comes from the petals.
-the guard believes one of the players fled to the petals after the murder, eyewitnesses says thats what a cloaked figure leaving the inn did last night.

The players go to the petals, someone who's been courting kendra roughs them up, an EL 2 fighter and his friend, and EL 2 rogue. They get into her house and investigate, and proof she's responsible. She arrives, drops her big bag and fights, she escapes at the end.

3.)Kendra framed the players.
-the murder weapon was a weapon favored among adventurers, but not actually used by any of the players.
-Kendra's bag includes a love note from a guardsman who says "he'll do anything for her. Even let her get away with murder, no matter what strangers it hurts." the note is new.
-Kendra's cellar has the corpses of 4 more missing people, all who went missing in ways similiar to the attack on the innkeeper, in fact, the bag has his corpse in it! The old lovers reanimate as zombies and fight the players.

Make each clue, and each element of the clue an encounter worth of experience, that's about 2800 xp total, if you use a lvl 4 wizard for kendra. So they can afford to miss some experience in order to still level.

Now, while you're free to use that adventure, you don't have to. Its just an example of how to lay out mysteries so that the players don't get overly lost.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Roguenewb
*frame job example*

Thanks for the advice and suggestions there. A frame job is one possibility--or rather, a good potential outcome.

In fact, I would love to set it up so that, once the PCs solve the murder, it actually plays out like this:


Originally Posted by Fax Celestis
...but the bad guys get the credit. The bad guys get the benefits from the people who were helped, the Hero Discount at the local store, the Key to the City.

What does the party get? Run out of the store for being seen as guttersnipes and thieves. Spit on in the street for being framed for the orphanage fire. Blamed for the murder of one of the bad guys, whose death has lionized them as a martyr.

Now, this wouldn't be the view of everyone in the city, or the PCs wouldn't be called back for the encounter that begins the larger campaign. Any citizens actually helped by the PCs would remember them tolerably well, though they might be quiet about it; and one or two highly placed officials, discreet and farsighted, would be keeping the PCs in mind for later use.

But for the murder/frame job itself, I need something...slightly exotic here, at least by everyday cityfolk standards. Something a street constable would slowly, slowly back away from, but which a small ragtag band might, just might be able to handle.

So, what's a good low-level creature to throw into the mix?

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