Brainstorm a Locked Room Murder Mystery with me

[ThurlRavenscrof]

My group's characters are currently dealing with themes of coping with loss and battling a fall into depression or a revenge cycle. I am trying to design a small plot arc to let them confront these feelings head on.

Next week, they plan to go to the nearest city to recover/shop/perform at a tavern. I want to incorporate an Impossible Murder trope where in the middle of the bard's performance, one of the patrons suddenly and inexplicably dies and everyone is locked in the tavern until the murder is solved.

My current best idea is that the victim is secretly a revenant who dies by turning to ash when their time to get revenge just happens to run out during the performance. This plays into the popular Delayed Death trope and also highlights the futility of mindless revenge.

What Im looking for is
1. A better idea than my revenant one or
2. Ways to improve my idea thematically or practically (like that perhaps their time didnt run out but the revenant's target died in a random accident during the bards performance) or
3. Ideas to further develop my idea (like maybe theres a patron who bought the revenant a drink so now it seems like that individual poisoned the revenant and is a suspect)

Thanks in advance!

[Sigreid]

Just something to consider, is anyone in the party of the "I can't leave? I'd like to see you stop me!" mentality? I ask because I often am.

[ThurlRavenscrof]

Nah they love this sort of dramatic stuff. I personally would dimension door right out of there like you but they enjoy the storytelling and emotional fulfillment aspect of RPGs.

[Laserlight]

Depending on your group and what spells they prepare, Zone of Truth can screw over your plans.

And of course "Locked Room" and "Misty Step" don't go together.

I'd have to wonder what a revenant was doing in a tavern in the first place.

[ThurlRavenscrof]

They are only second level.

Well its not literally a locked room - thats just the name of the trope. Unless you mean that the party would peace out of there. I dont railroad players so if they want to leave they can certainly break out even as level 2 but they arent really that type of group so I dont expect that to happen. They really like storytelling and breaking out of a tavern during a murder mystery isnt a very fun story to tell compared to solving an "impossible" murder. (For this group at least)

Thats an interesting point about the revenant. How do have your revenants avoid arousing suspision from not eating or drinking while traveling? Where do they enter their trances?

[Sigreid]

Just re-read. So this is really a red herring idea? The murder victim wasn't actually murdered, but just happened to run out of time?

[ThurlRavenscrof]

Thats accurate Sigreid.

Here (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeDelayedDeath) is the trope explained if I did a poor job explaining it myself. I just put it on an "epic fantasy" level by upping it from a practically dead already situation to a literally dead already situation.

[Sigreid]

Ah, I get it.

[Slybluedemon]

1) You need some stereotypes among the crowd!

You should have someone who gives off the vibe that he is the murderer, everyone thinks he is the murderer but he isn't

you need to have a hand full of people with real motives to harm the victim.

2) even though i like the revenant idea i would not use it. I would not feel bad if someone who was already dead, died again.

The victim should just be some poor smuck harmed in the course of duty.

I would love to play a murder mystery and I hoped I helped just a little.

3) give multiple potential ways to get murdered.

That means the victim drank some wine from one of the people that wanted him dead, he also owed the local thieves guild money and they were at the performance also, There is also evidence of blunt trama to the victum.