How might I polish an investigation quest involving a dune hag?

[MonkeySage]

I pretty much suck at investigation quests... writing them anyway, but they tend to be my favorite kind. So I've got this plot idea involving a dune hag. The party has just recently dealt with a sort of goblin problem(they were attacking and kidnapping merchant caravans and travellers in broad daylight), and now the previously untrusting imperial soldiers have decided to give them a mission: investigate the disappearances of men in this little hamlet, which have been escalating over the past week.

[hymer]

How can we help you?

[Glimbur]

The PC's need clues in order to find the thing. You can also consider how useful Track will be, and what kinds of clues they can get that enable Divination magic to help. I would suggest coming up with a bunch of ideas and deciding mid-game which of them are valid. If the PC's are stumped, throw a hint at them (possibly a corpse-shaped hint). If you come up with only one path that will lead to the hag, they have to find that path. If you have many clue bread-crumbs, they can find a couple of them in whatever order and still succeed.

Try looking at it from the Dune Hag's point of view. What abilities does she have? How does she select victims? Are there ever witnesses? Survivors?

Answering those questions lets you, for example, decide if it makes sense to have the town drunk telling everyone who will listen about a dark shadow he saw stalking the streets. Or an out-of-town merchant refusing to take a particular road because his companion was seized by a horrible monster. Or the town is utterly baffled, they have arranged night-time patrols, and there is/isn't a pattern to which area people disappear from.

Tell us about the party. Do they have a wizard? Three barbarians and a cleric?

[MonkeySage]

Mostly just needing ideas; any ideas could help really, since i'm learning as I go... Thing is the last investigation quest I'd set up was too simple; they get rumors from the merchants, the lie their way into the lord's house to speak with him, and in no time at all they had a pretty good idea it was goblins attacking the merchants.
Mostly I'd like to make this a little more difficult... I know that dune hags can disguise themselves, and intended to make use of that to complicate things for them. Maybe she has killed one of the women living in this hamlet and has since been posing as the victim...

Edit: They've so far had one clue along the road that something funny has been happening; the corpse of a man being eaten by scorpions.

7 people: A bard, a wizard, a rogue, a cleric(kordian), 2 rangers, and a druid.

[hymer]

Glimbur had some good things to say. Let me add some thoughts:
Unless the players complained it was too easy, I'd suggest not upping the difficulty by much - or maybe at all. If what you want is to maintain the mystery, have it be possible to track the villain('s minions) without knowing precisely what they are. Then you can spring the reveal on them once they find the right place.
To add mystery, have some slightly contradictory clues. Witness reports not aligning so well, tracks for the rangers that don't add up, etc. Just try to make sure the PCs don't get stuck, which is far worse than the problem being solved too easily.

[MonkeySage]

I've got a few clues now: a miner who saw a large shadow a while back(she can't remember when); a few spots of dried blood on stone leading out of town, while the foot prints were probably eroded away by wind; the bartender remembers seeing a pretty middle aged human woman walking away with a couple different men over the past few nights; hearsay that a local widow has been more of a shut in lately.

The hag typically stays in her house during the day, frequents the tavern in late evenings(posing as a beautiful woman), and has a cave guarded by two ogres, where she lures her prey.

Few additional details about my campaign: The soldiers are only just barely concerned about the hag. They aren't there to protect the people, but rather to keep an eye on the local lord, who was a fierce supporter of the previous emperor.

[MonkeySage]

I went ahead and ran the scenario with my party, and the results were not what I expected, though they were hilarious...

It was not difficult for them to find the hag, but what did happen was that the Cleric of Kord(Level 2) decided it would be a good idea to sleep with the hag(he was drunk and she was disguised, and he failed his save when she kissed him). Next thing he knows, he wakes up unarmed and unarmored in her lair, completely vulnerable. Meanwhile his party is investigating the hag and looking for him; when they finally find him, they're unprepared.. The bard walks up and successfully facinates the two ogres and the hag, just long enough to rescue the cleric and flee the cave. They are currently planning their next move... as soon as the cleric dons his armor.

The party has 6 level 2 characters and 1 level 1 character, and the cleric is the tank of the party.

[hymer]

Put him up for an honourary Darwin award. I'm glad you all had fun. :smallsmile: