How to locate supernatural evil?

[Balor01]

I have in mind really fun campaign where PCs are inquisitors of a type who go around a world killing zombies/werewolves/vampires/saving jailbaits, etc.

I as a DM have just one problem. Say there is a werewolf in this town. He kills regularly and local police starts an investigation. How do our "inquisitors" know this is an exceptional phenomenon and not just another serial killer?
Also, say, there are vampires living in this community. They are smart and kill only outside this town or worse - they are travelling merchants and find their victims on their way over the continent.
And finally, say there is an evil cult. They want to sacrifice this kid and summon a demon. All fine and well, but how the heck do PCs find out about this?

They need some sort of a dowsing device or - something.

Any good ideas are much appreciated.

[Scarey Nerd]

Would your PCs be averse to one of them having some kind of "ability", almost like a spidey sense that tells them when something is off? Perhaps their mind overlaps ever so slightly with the ethereal realm, so they are getting two perspectives of the world at once.

[Balor01]

Yeah i thought of that, but I find an idea of a "seer who gives quests" highly unattractive. None of the PCs is suppose to be a telepath or "etheral-plane-seeing-guy".

I will do so only if I do not get some better ideas.

[Scarey Nerd]

Hmm, in that case, any vague ideas of what you want? Are you thinking of an item, or a spell, or a race, or something else?

[Vemynal]

I have in mind really fun campaign where PCs are inquisitors of a type who go around a world killing zombies/werewolves/vampires/saving jailbaits, etc.

I as a DM have just one problem. Say there is a werewolf in this town. He kills regularly and local police starts an investigation. How do our "inquisitors" know this is an exceptional phenomenon and not just another serial killer?
Also, say, there are vampires living in this community. They are smart and kill only outside this town or worse - they are travelling merchants and find their victims on their way over the continent.
And finally, say there is an evil cult. They want to sacrifice this kid and summon a demon. All fine and well, but how the heck do PCs find out about this?

They need some sort of a dowsing device or - something.

Any good ideas are much appreciated.

werewolf- the fact that the people were apparently murdered by an animal when the bodies are studied. Perhaps after awhile you could have a small child who hid and saw 'some sort of beast on two legs'. Keep dropping hints till ur pc's figure out what they need to be looking for clues for

The vampires is the tricky one in my mind as they arn't likely to leave loose ends. But heres an idea: Vampires generally have vampire spawn and even have "Thralls" to take care of them during the day. Perhaps the vampire was witnessed as having no reflection, or could not cross a stream of water or some such. Perhaps a Vampire spawn was caught feeding or a Thrall was seen abducting a child? This could lead to a heavier investigation.

As for the cult- easiest imo. A cult implies members, multiple members (I'd say at least 10 but could be up to thousands if this is some world spanning underground organization). Point is, they have members. One of the members could have been picked up for something else and have confessed about the cult. Perhaps the disappearance of children causes a stir and some elderly individual remembers this happening before. You can go lots of directions here.

[Accersitus]

It really depends on how you want to run the game.
The way I see it, part of the fun in that kind of campaign is
unraveling all the small clues something is wrong. Giving the
characters enough knowledge about the evils in the land, but having
them use this knowledge to understand how the evil cult/creatures
operate. Catching/killing them after that can be quite rewarding for the players.
Balancing the smart evils with the more brutish evils could give the game a
nice balance, and remember all intelligent creatures make mistakes.

If the characters are part of a group or familiar with various evils,
I would write a small "Beastiary" for each character detailing what that
character knows about different evil creatures/cults. Don't make it too extensive,
but enough so they have some little known knowledge that even the evils
might not really know about. If some characters are less academic, they
could have more practical knowledge while others had the more obscure
theoretical knowledge.
A simple example would be if one of the characters knew that the
preparations for the demonic sacrifice caused all water within one mile
to have a slight taste of iron because of the magical energies involved.
This shouldn't be really obvious, but if they hear someone is missing,
they could test it if they think about it. (Also remember that there could
be other causes too, like the water being stored in a metal container :D )

If you plan on using some form of magic/device to have them notice
supernaturals/magic in the area, make sure it isn't too powerful, and
think about how it could be circumvented. If you give them this, I think the
campaign would be more action oriented, but that might be what you want.

[Coidzor]

loose lips sink ships and the more cultists there are, the more likely they're going to slip up in some way that causes word to get out along certain channels even if they aren't public ones.

Gather information, underworld contacts, the occasional scry.

[Balor01]

@Scarey Nerd
Actually, so far I got an idea that newspaper "Monster Gazette" is published every week and readers send their reports of ghouls and monsters. Some turn out to be funny, some plain idiocy and some turn out to be a bunch of monsters with a decent CR and good story behind. (I hope)

[Scarey Nerd]

@Scarey Nerd
Actually, so far I got an idea that newspaper "Monster Gazette" is published every week and readers send their reports of ghouls and monsters. Some turn out to be funny, some plain idiocy and some turn out to be a bunch of monsters with a decent CR and good story behind. (I hope)

That's a very good idea. I would suggest that it also mentions monsters far too strong for the PCs, so that they understand that they can't save everyone, which is an important thing to remember in a Halloween game.

[Frozen_Feet]

All of these ideas can be approached from the same angle. Just think of them as detective stories:

Something weird is happening in location X. Cattle is disappearing, homeless people have vanished from the streets, someone who was buried last week was seen walking around in plain sight, people are suspicious of what exactly a wealthy, reclusive baron does in his manor etc.. Ordinary police have no concrete evidence or suspects, but wild rumours abound among the townsfolk that something strange is going on. Church is called to investigate whether something supernatural is taking place (it doesn't always have to).

This is how it worked in real life - alleged miracle happened, priests were sent to see it for themselves and put it to the test.

You don't need any special justification or information for inquisition to be involved, they're getting involved because it's their god-damn job!

Repeat after me:

If there's something strange
in the neighborhood
Who you gonna call?

[Scarey Nerd]

Repeat after me:

If there's something strange
in the neighborhood
Who you gonna call?

Ghostbusters!

[Coidzor]

Come to think of it, doesn't Eberron have some treatment of investigations ala Inquisitives (as in, people who wish they were the Holmes)?

[The_Admiral]

This reminds me of supernatural

[Starbuck_II]

Ghostbusters!

No, Ghostchasers.

[Scarey Nerd]

No, Ghostchasers.

How silly of me

[Dr.Epic]

Detect evil. Paladins get it for free at level one and have unlimited use of it.

[Scarey Nerd]

Detect evil. Paladins get it for free at level one and have unlimited use of it.

I had a Paladin in my party for 3 years. How did I not think of this?

However, how would you fit that in without making a party member a Paladin from necessity? You could have an NPC with Detect Evil, but that gives the same problem as the ethereal mind NPC.

[Psyren]

Detect evil. Paladins get it for free at level one and have unlimited use of it.

There's a lot of problems with this approach:

1) The corpse of a werewolf victim won't detect as being any more evil than the corpse of a regular wolf's victim, so it is useless at the crime scene.

2) It's also useless while interrogating the townsfolk - a lycanthrope's alignment only changes when he/she transforms, so you could have a perfectly good (or neutral) townie who only actually becomes evil while murdering.

3) It's a cone-shaped emanation, so the Paladin pretty much has to be within 60 feet of the monster AND looking in its direction to pick up on it, while it's transformed. Meanwhile, the monster has both super-hearing and super-smell to steer clear of its hunters.

4) Since lycanthropes are neither undead nor outsiders, the baddie will have to be pretty high-level to register higher than "faint" on the paladin's detect-o-meter.

I think broader divinations might be in order; Augury or Scrying (using some werewolf hair) for instance.

[Starbuck_II]

There's a lot of problems with this approach:

1) The corpse of a werewolf victim won't detect as being any more evil than the corpse of a regular wolf's victim, so it is useless at the crime scene.

Actually, auras leave evidence of being there.
How faint is the question:
An evil aura lingers after its original source dissipates (in the case of a spell) or is destroyed (in the case of a creature or magic item).

[Emmerask]

Actually, auras leave evidence of being there.
How faint is the question:
An evil aura lingers after its original source dissipates (in the case of a spell) or is destroyed (in the case of a creature or magic item).

With anything but an overwhelming or strong aura you are still pretty much out of luck except if you are at the "crime-scene" within minutes

Original Strength Duration of Lingering Aura
Faint 1d6 rounds
Moderate 1d6 minutes
Strong 1d6×10 minutes
Overwhelming 1d6 days

[Psyren]

Actually, auras leave evidence of being there.
How faint is the question:
An evil aura lingers after its original source dissipates (in the case of a spell) or is destroyed (in the case of a creature or magic item).

Even without the short time limit Emmerask mentioned, it's not clear whether that "residue" refers to the corpse of the werewolf itself, or whether it could feasibly extend to its victims.

Now, if you arrive at the werewolf's prey within rounds of it vanishing then you might have a shot, but even then you're better off just Speak With Dead-ing the poor mangled sod.

[Fayd]

Well, werewolf induced wounds are different than wolf induced wounds. It's an angle thing. That, and wolves tend to be pack hunters, whereas werewolves work alone, (from what I've seen).

Vampires are easy enough: an exsanguinated corpse or two and people will tend to guess the right thing. A twist could be that the corpses aren't produced by the REAL vampire, but rather its (rather clumsy) spawn.

A banshee or other ethereal killer might also be fun for an investigative team.