The Glyphstone
2020-07-20, 11:58 PM
For an upcoming session in my campaign, I'm planning to drop my group into the lap of a classic murder-mystery. I just need a little help filling in the final details.
The backdrop is a party/dinner being held at the mansion estates of a noble the group is allied with, somewhat isolated. The victim, who I'll call Lord Boddy, is found mysteriously dead, with obvious signs of foul play, and the PCs - as relatively neutral parties - are asked to investigate. The gimmick/reveal underlying the plot is that all four of the potential suspects are, in fact, technically guilty - all hated Lord Boddy for different reasons, and set up their own attempted murder plots. My problem is that I only know who three of the 'killers' are:
-Lord Tremaine is a professional big-game hunter, with a special knack for computers. He has a grudge against Boddy for being the man his ex-wife had an affair with and eventually left him for. He tried to kill Boddy by reprogramming one of the mansion's security robots to misidentify Boddy as an intruder.
-Lady Shade is a former black marketeer and smuggling kingpin, an expert in poisons. She's destitute after a semi-illegal partnership venture with Lord Boddy went sour and he sold her out to the authorities to protect himself. She tried to kill Boddy by lacing the contents of his private liquor cabinet with hallucinogenic poison.
-Lady Steel is a retired military officer, highly knowledgeable in firearms. During her duty period she was deployed to protect a territory owned by Boddy, but bad intel dropped her and her troops into unexpected combat with heavy casualties that she blames Boddy for. She tried to kill Boddy by sabotaging his personal heirloom pistol to explosively misfire when he tried to use it.
-???
I need one more character sketch, to fill out the final 'killer' in a way that fits with the other three - a motive to want him dead based on prior interactions, and a means of doing so that would be indirect enough to not be obviously involved. It should be fully mundane as well, not based in any paranormal or supernatural abilities.
The backdrop is a party/dinner being held at the mansion estates of a noble the group is allied with, somewhat isolated. The victim, who I'll call Lord Boddy, is found mysteriously dead, with obvious signs of foul play, and the PCs - as relatively neutral parties - are asked to investigate. The gimmick/reveal underlying the plot is that all four of the potential suspects are, in fact, technically guilty - all hated Lord Boddy for different reasons, and set up their own attempted murder plots. My problem is that I only know who three of the 'killers' are:
-Lord Tremaine is a professional big-game hunter, with a special knack for computers. He has a grudge against Boddy for being the man his ex-wife had an affair with and eventually left him for. He tried to kill Boddy by reprogramming one of the mansion's security robots to misidentify Boddy as an intruder.
-Lady Shade is a former black marketeer and smuggling kingpin, an expert in poisons. She's destitute after a semi-illegal partnership venture with Lord Boddy went sour and he sold her out to the authorities to protect himself. She tried to kill Boddy by lacing the contents of his private liquor cabinet with hallucinogenic poison.
-Lady Steel is a retired military officer, highly knowledgeable in firearms. During her duty period she was deployed to protect a territory owned by Boddy, but bad intel dropped her and her troops into unexpected combat with heavy casualties that she blames Boddy for. She tried to kill Boddy by sabotaging his personal heirloom pistol to explosively misfire when he tried to use it.
-???
I need one more character sketch, to fill out the final 'killer' in a way that fits with the other three - a motive to want him dead based on prior interactions, and a means of doing so that would be indirect enough to not be obviously involved. It should be fully mundane as well, not based in any paranormal or supernatural abilities.