A request to help me to sort out a chain of events - Khutef, stay away ;)

[Arkhios]

Premise:
My players (at levels between 3 to 4) are at a point where they are about to go and investigate the sudden sightings of bodies being brought at a local cemetary in large quantities. They'd probably want to investigate where are these bodies coming from and why are there so many of them being seen all of a sudden, while the last time they visited this same cemetary (because of previous adventures), it was practically deserted and silent as... well, a grave.
What my players don't know yet, is that once they arrive at the cemetary, the bodies - which, according to the sightings, should be numerous - are nowhere to be found, and the cemetary is as silent and untouched as ever before.

Dilemma:
I'm planning to continue on a horror theme that was so succesful last time I did it, maybe something to do with ghosts, hauntings, poltergeists, and perhaps something darker trying to entangle them in mysteries of a city district that has laid dead and abandoned for centuries - for what reason, even I don't know for sure (though it has something to do with a magical disaster caused by the local wizards' academy - or so the people around the city say).
What I know, is that I want the trail of these body sightings to lead to the dead district, maybe into an asylum-monastery kind of place in there.

My problem is to provide the players a convincing lead to follow that would put them on the right tracks, leading to the depths of the dead district, all that without them feeling too much being railed.
Also, I would like to hear suggestions of what kind of challenges could there be on their way there.
Finally, I'd like for the players to find some solid evidence that would link the sightings to a person that has been playing games with the group and the local nobility (other than me, obviously :smallbiggrin:)

[Ninja_Prawn]

So, there are bodies going into the cemetery, but when the PCs look, they find it empty. Where are the bodies now? Were they an illusion to begin with? Was it just a lie? Are they hidden? Invisible? Destroyed? Elsewhere? Is the cemetery itself changing between the arrival of the corpses and the players checking? Answering that is kind of essential to working out how this plot arc works.

Also, who is this 'person playing games'? What do they want? What powers do they have?

Anyway. My first though for how to lead the players by the nose is to 1) really drive home how empty the place is. Like, highlight three different things that they might reasonably want to investigate when they arrive, but then make all of them dead ends. 2) make one thing move. Literally one thing. If it's the only thing in the world that's moving, it'll get their attention. My recommendation is a black cat. Perhaps give the impression that the cat has come from elsewhere and does not live in the dead part of the city. 3) when the players approach, it runs away. They will surely chase it

The cat knows something! (http://dresdencodak.com/2013/08/23/dark-science-27/) When it stops running, have it scratch at a mysterious door... looks like the players found the plot after all!

[MBControl]

A clue they could find a are a set of wagon tracks, very deep on the way in, and shallow on the way out, presuming they did in fact dump a bunch of bodies. Allow them to follow the tracks only to find it destroyed on the side of the road, the driver ripped apart (or maybe clinging to life if you need to pass on some info).

You could leave more clues on the wagon. A coat of arms on the the driver's tunic, very specific wounds or tracks from the attacker, a map to the middle of nowhere, what ever you like.

Where I are these bodies coming from? I would like to think if that many people were dying, people would be noticing. What if some body is trying to create an army, a or a new race, kind of like clones but not. The bodies seen are the failed attempts. I'm thinking less clone wars, more Island of Dr Moreau. Maybe a group of vampires is creating them as mindless "juice boxes".

What happened to the bodies? Perhaps a necromancer just happened by, and couldn't believe his luck. Creating a bunch side quests that act as a bit of a Red Herring.

Maybe due to the nature of their unnatural creation, they decompose very rapidly, but desecrate the soil, making making the graveyard a garden of horror.

Maybe they are tributes to Moander, the god of decay, which would explain the unnatural decomposition.

I'm not sure the purpose of the bodies, but have fun with it. Make it unusual and gross. Set the tone.

[Arkhios]

"The Person" is one only known as "The Reverend" which suggests to some sort of priest. He or she has been aspiring to become a power figure within the city and is presumably onto overthrowing the nobility from the power structure, by recently assassinating the head of a once ruling noble house, which still has a fair amount of supporters even though their influence has already declined and been shifted to various factions coveting for their share of power. The players were unwittingly drawn into the "game of thrones", as disposable pawns - being framed for the said assassination and later becoming targets themselves. In doing so, the Reverend made new enemies by underestimating the fledling adventurers, who now seek to uncover the Reverend's identity and motives, and likely end his or her schemes.

The cemetary in question is nearby the aforementioned wizard's academy, so the recent events might be linked to them, or someone affiliated with the academy. The Reverend is behind these events, but only indirectly - and the current idea is that he or she made a floppy mistake the players managed to notice. Unbeknownst to the players and the supposed eyewitnesses, the bodies came from the monastery-asylum, but to everyone's knowledge, it should've been out of business ever since the incident that wiped out all life from the district. It should strike as strange that after so long time having been forgotten someone would suddenly begin to haul the bodies of former inmates and patients from there.

There is one location at the cemetary that is familiar to the players, in which the bodies may have been taken, but the way seems to have been sealed for a while now. I like the idea that someone (the Reverend?) is trying to build an army of undead, for whatever nefarious purposes.

I should think that the players could learn from the undertakers that the crypt was sealed a few weeks earlier, and that the undertakers know of the rumors of bodies, but haven't seen anything related to them themselves, being as puzzled as the players.

While writing this I came up with an idea, that this Reverend person might have once been responsible of overseeing the asylum, and may have left details of his or her past in there, possibly suggesting to his or her real identity.
I think it could make an intriguing twist if the person used to be in fact a member of the same noble house which head was so ruthlessly cut off, having a sort of grudge against his former family and their allies for some reason - and is now on the path of revenge.