Phantom of The Opera Sidequest? (HELP!)

[Rebecca-47]

I recently started my first campaign, and one of my players is a big Phantom of The Opera fan. I'd really love to have a little sidequest based on the concept for her. I don't want to steal the story wholesale, but the image of a devious bard casting "shatter" on the chandelier to make a distraction before absconding to the catacombs is just...too tempting.

In the original story there's also a lot of red herrings about whether the phantom is real or not and trying to pin the murders on other members of staff, but I want this mission to only take up a couple sessions. Do you fine folks have any advice you could give a new DM who struggles with pacing? Where can I start? What shall I include and what shall I change?
My three players would be around level six at the time.


P.S., I also really love Maskerade by Terry Pratchett, which is a Phantom parody. If you've read it, we can steal from that too!

[Misterwhisper]

If you ever saw the mid 90s take on it with Robert Englund you could use that.

The phantom sold his soul to be gifted with music but it came with a curse on his body and soul.

”They shall all love your work, but no one shall ever love you.”

Was a main premise.

Play the Phantom as a warlock who sold his soul for music.

Fiend or Great Old One could work a duke of hell like Murmur would be perfect

[Rebecca-47]

If you ever saw the mid 90s take on it with Robert Englund you could use that.

The phantom sold his soul to be gifted with music but it came with a curse on his body and soul.

”They shall all love your work, but no one shall ever love you.”

Was a main premise.

Play the Phantom as a warlock who sold his soul for music.

Fiend or Great Old One could work a duke of hell like Murmur would be perfect

I haven't seen that one, but I hear it's very much like Faust, the Opera that the company is performing! I certainly like that idea.
How could I stretch the threat though, I wonder?

Perhaps they could start at the "Maskerade" scene. The party was invited to this grand dinner without knowing about the previous goings-on...or maybe were specifically sent there to investigate incognito.

[Rebecca-47]

Sorry to double post, I just know there have been threads on this topic in the past and I'm positive that we can dig up more here!

However the quest starts, I know it would evolve eventually into a kidnapping the brings them into the catacombs or sub-city...

[Unoriginal]

Well, put on pragmatic terms, the Phantom is an assassin and a terrorist who uses his skills as an engineer and stage magician, and the fact he knows the layout of an important building better than anyone else to stalk/kidnap a woman, harm, kill and blackmail people into obeying his whims (as well as letting him live in luxury if still isolated), then act as if people being terrible to him because he was born looking like a skeleton made his crimes justified.


In other words, he's like a grimmer version of a Scooby-Doo villain.

You could have the PCs be hired to handle a ghost haunting an Opera building, with the twist that there is an actual ghost: a vengeful victim of the Phantom-expy.

Specter vs Phantom.