What kind of clues should the bad guy leave?

[Sindeloke]

I have my players investigating a bunch of mysterious dimensional rifts that have been tearing open around the city they live in. The rifts are a byproduct of reckless casting by your typical mad mage type, experimenting with powers that cannot and should not be controlled, all fairly boilerplate. Whenever she uses her magic, there's a chance one will form nearby within a short period of time, so sometimes she triggers them just by (illegally) casting as she goes about her day, and sometimes it's a result of intentional experiments where she tries to better understand the power she's messing with.

My question is, what sort of trail can she leave behind, that would help them find her? So far, I've got the fact that she's an unusual species for the city, so if they ask around they can probably figure out that a woman of [species] was nearby right before most of the events. I also planned to have her steal some books on ancient magic from the university, and they could start to figure out what she's doing from investigating that. The first one seems like an Investigate, and the second one maybe a Search to turn up a dropped stolen book at the scene?

But I don't want it to turn into a "pass this Investigate check or the game stalls out" issue. I read an article a million years ago that suggested you should leave three clues in any situation and assume your players will only find one, which seems really reasonable to me, but means I need three times as many clues as they'll need, and so far I only even have two total, neither of which get them anywhere near her lair.

(I realize this isn't a great system for this sort of thing, and probably the sort of plot that should be written by someone who has ever read a mystery novel in her life and has any idea how they work, but we're too deep in it to back out now.)

[OldTrees1]

Clue 1: Mysterious dimensional rifts have been forming
Clue 1.1: Where / when have these rifts been forming? The players might try to infer who would be going to all those places.
Red Herring 1.1: This exotic species was seen at several of the site. This is easy for the players to discount it as an NPC's xenophobia. I would not count this as a clue. However you can develop it below (see #2)
Clue 1.2: How have the rifts been forming? Keeping an eye out for these rifts, or investigating them afterwards might indicate they are created rather than spontaneous.
Clue 1.3:

Assume the players ignore everything about the rifts. Why might they bump into this person?
Is the stranger's unusual species something the players might find interesting?
Clue 2: There are rumors of an unusual person.
Clue 2.1 Some cast various suspicions due to "weird & strange = at fault".
Clue 2.2 Others are more curious due to "weird & strange = knows things".

Clue 3: Books have been stolen from the university
Clue 3.0: What are the books about? (this might not help so it does not count towards the 3)
Clue 3.1: Who has access?

Clue 4: Lairs are interesting. What happens as they pass by the lair during their normal activities?


In conclusion, you have good clues. You just need more of them. One way to think of more is to pretend the players ignore the existing clues.

[KorvinStarmast]

1. Fewments. Those are fine clues.
2. Residue/residual material that are side effects of what the BBEG has been doing.
3. Traces of conjuration magic, traces of elemental material, traces of weird stuff that leaks into the prime from the Void, or from the Far Beyond ...
4. Tentacles. You can't go wrong with a few left over tentacles.

[Temperjoke]

Couple things to think about:

1. Leftover or forgotten spell components. If the players are investigating these rifts, they wouldn't necessarily know it's a result of intentional spell casting, but if there are spell components left in an area where the rift is/was, that makes it more likely, and a potential path of investigation.

2. Witnesses, humanoid and non-humanoid. I don't know if the party has the capability, but looking for witnesses can be a source of investigation paths. Even unlikely witnesses, like a bird or a rat can provide leads. "A blue big person" for example might provide a clue to lead to other witnesses who saw someone like that pass by. Or some other specific feature that would set them apart from others. Hell, if they killed someone for their magic, if they didn't remove the remains, Speak with the Dead can be a big lead.

3. Tailor your clues to your players specialties. I wouldn't give it a roll, at least for the initial tidbit, but a basic fact. For example, if one of the players is a wizard, you could say "<Wizard> You notice a familiar smell in the air." Then if they decide to pursue that smell, give them a roll to try and remember what it is, and depending on how good they roll, give them information.

[Joe the Rat]

Byproducts of casting is always an option. Evocation has a tendency to leave distinctive marks on the environment. Conjured beasts can be witnessed, or leave their own, er, markings. By extension, witnesses seeing magic prior/alongside rifts is another angle. detect magic(al residue) can be angled as well.

If your mad mage is working towards something, then what they are working towards (stolen books and materials, specific markings or alterations to locations to facilitate a city-sized spellform) can be a clue chain in and of itself.

[Devils_Advocate]

Here's a common factor in plots like this:

In order for the mystery to be solved by the protagonists, it needs to not be solved first by someone else. Hence, professional lawkeepers and investigators generally only solve mysteries in stories in which they are the protagonists; and even then, it's usually a private eye or loose cannon maverick officer or pair of partners cracking the case without much help. Most police are ineffectual at best if not active obstacles to progress.

The issue is that if there's a trail of evidence that's not hard to follow, and lots of people have motive to find the culprit, then why wouldn't someone else wind up figuring things out before the main characters if anything (e.g. false leads) slows them down? Could be that all other investigators are incompetent or unlucky, but we can do better.

1. Maybe the main characters are aware of evidence that a routine investigation would be unlikely to uncover, due to a character's background or special ability, or just because they're in the right place at the right time. The danger here is that they'll decide to do the responsible thing and contact law enforcement with this evidence, negating their advantage.

2. Maybe officials are too busy scrambling to cover up what's happening in order to prevent mass panic and/or to keep themselves from looking bad. This is one of the reasons that they're sometimes more of an impediment than helpful.

3. Maybe there's a mole in the department sabotaging the investigation. If the villain is sufficiently audacious and manipulative, maybe the lead investigator is secretly the villain!

4. Maybe everyone who gets to close to uncovering the truth winds up meeting an unfortunate end. Or being replaced by an imposter or having their memories altered, if the villain is powerful and subtle enough. In this case, what makes the protagonists important is probably that they can't be dealt with so easily.

Any number of the above can be used in combination. Point is, others investigating the same thing (who might not even be any official party) can be allies and antagonists to main characters in a mystery, and interactions with them can move the story forward in various ways. They can be sources of clues, obstacles to the protagonists, and more!

[Oramac]

Another good method to figure out clues to leave is to first figure out the path the BBEG has to take.

- What is the ultimate goal
-- What steps are required for that goal to be achieved?
--- At each step, what are a couple clues that could be left?

You'll probably want there to be several steps, which leads to many clues being left as well. And since each step should be fairly specific ("Find XYX reagent" or "Cast ABC spell during the full moon"), then the clues left behind should almost create themselves.

[DeadMech]

A person going off to odd places to experiment with magic is probably taking things with them. More if the process takes time. And if a rift opens up they might be tempted to pack up and leave without having the time to have gotten everything.

Depending on the nature of the spellcasting there might be components left behind that can be int checked with nature, arcana or religion. They have to have been gathered or bought from someplace.

A plant might only grow in wetlands leading to the party searching and asking around near a particular part of the nearby river.

A particular material has to be produced to refined by some profession in town.

Maybe particular animals or materials are associated with particular deities and beliefs.

Perhaps they left some half eaten food behind or the sack or wrapping used to transport it with some left over on it. Certain foods might come from particular shops or professions. Maybe it's favored by certain subcultures in the city or races.

Nature calls and you have to take care of it. Someone of an unusual race probably has an unusual diet and maybe digestive tract. The books don't say harengon leave pellets and let alone what kenku or Loxodon do. That might be a survival check.

Hair, or some similar cast off body part might get left behind and could be matched to a person.

Insight might be useful investigating a scene. Perhaps the person took a great deal of effort to drag a log or stone over and cleaned it up so they'd have someplace clean to sit. Maybe it's facing the way they came because they are paranoid. Maybe it's facing towards whatever the most scenic vista is at the location or there are signs they put down their meal and sat down looking that way. Maybe they collected some flowers on the way and plucked off the petals. Allow the party to find out something about the personality of the person they are chasing.

Maybe they injured themselves in their rush to escape and some blood left behind can be used with a medicine check to tell what part of their body they injured so they can look for people with fresh injuries to that location.

[Anymage]

How long are you planning to have this go for? Basically is it meant to be the whole of a mystery, or a sub-mystery that pops up under several other adventures? Because if you want to stretch this out, you have a few angles to come at this from;

-People are most likely to do things around where they are. Your bad guy will have reason to head around the city and will learn not to do risky magic in her own back yard if anything blows up around her, but you're likely to see a concentration of early portals around where she's staying and/or anywhere she's researching. If her magic requires lab work, the area around her lab will have noticeably more portals.

-A distinctive newcomer to town wants to get her hands on exotic reagents and/or forbidden lore. That's not a skill check, that's any character with academic or underworld ties deciding to ask their contacts. Similarly, the above point is just a character with a background among the downtrodden.

-Presumably someone working with dimensional magic that will tear open rifts might also want to control creatures from the other side of those rifts and have them do her bidding. As these creatures are also alien to the city, they can be tracked/tailed (depending on what applicable skills a PC can leverage) back to at least the right general area.

- Some mundane item popular in whatever area she's staying might be dropped. Sherlock Holmes being able to place someone from the mud on their shoe is a bit much unless someone has expertise in Investigation, but a matchbook from a local tavern or some similar nicknack might be forgotten at some place she was messing about.

- Law enforcement need not be inept. They can be understaffed/overworked or simply not have all the information the PCs have access to. If the PCs have any contacts who might legitimately have connections the local guard, you can pass on key information through that grapevine even if the PCs are rolling cold on their own rolls to gather information.

Also, skill checks don't necessarily need to turn up nothing on a failure. If simple failure causes the story to stall, say that a success gives more complete information and/or a failure means you need to go about things the hard way. (E.G: having to bribe a shady type if your social check doesn't let you get it for free.) If "nothing happens" causes a pointless stall, it's worth asking how some drawback happening might be better for the plot.

[Mastikator]

Objects from other planes of existence that slipped through as the rifts appeared. Like hellforged weapons, or clockwork trinkets, or celestial holy water flood from mount celestia. The bigger the spell the bigger the rift the bigger the object.

Also creatures.

You could also use the wild magic table for inspiration, perhaps proximity/interaction to a place or object triggers a wild magic surge. (probably reroll on the fireball lol)

[loki_ragnarock]

What kind of clues should have something to do with the specifics of the scene and the character, I should think.
Example:
Was she at a cafe, get in an argument with the waitstaff because she disliked her tea, then cast prestidigitation to make it more to her liking and triggered a rift?

There's a couple of things you can insert into that to flesh it out to use as clues.

Was she at a cafe...
Is this a cafe she goes to regularly, or was it a one off in an unrelated caper? If she is a regular, why? Does she live nearby? Is it near the university she works at? Does it carry a specific type of tea that she likes? Does she have a connection to the owner? Is it the way she keeps a dead lover alive in her mind? If she isn't a regular, why was she there that day? Was it adjacent to something she was observing as part of her larger plan and served as a good cover? Was she unable to go to her regular place because it had been shut down due to rift related shenanigans?

...get into an argument with the waitstaff because she disliked her tea...
Why did she dislike her tea? Is there a specific type that she drinks, in a specific preparation, that might be unusual or difficult to accommodate? If she's a regular, did the shop run out of that specific tea and try to give her a close substitute? If she's not, did they simply prepare it wrongly?

There's a bunch of character decisions, a bunch of details, you have to nail down when things get detail oriented. Me, I'd not make her a regular, instead having her going because her regular place is closed due to rift shenanigans. This will create a pattern that the PCs can stumble upon; two rifts at two cafes, surely that's anomalous, and when you get similar information from witnesses at both places it'll solidify that pattern. Especially when she's been careful to cover her tracks in other, more intentional instances, taking tea is the type of relaxed position where details might emerge. I'd also make her very picky about tea, only take a very specific variety with a very specific preparation; that's an identifier, too.

So in addition to looking for traces of spell components, magical residue, and general racial profiling, introducing very specific, trackable quirks gives you an angle to supply information. And probably the more compelling angle; she's smart enough for magic, so she's probably smart enough to cover the tracks of the obviously magical and wear a hooded cloak/cast disguise self when on the prowl. But being able to get her because you serve tea to your top suspects and simply listen carefully to their orders?
The slip ups. The slip ups should seem small, but snowball into identifying information.

So where is she slipping up? And who is she, really? When sifting through details for clues, what details are there to be found?

[Sindeloke]

Hey, thanks, guys, lots of really good stuff here!

To address some of the questions/suggestions:

The plot is supposed to take them from about 1-5. I hadn't really budgeted for how much of that would be the actual mystery of finding her and how much would be dismantling her base and defeating her (or even if any of it would be sidequests?). Now that I think about it, I realize her operation will probably continue to grow while they search, which could cause more clues.

Her ultimate goal is to attain what she believes is her birthright, on behalf of her people but also especially herself: the power to manipulate magic on a base level, directly reshaping the Weave itself, like her ancestors. She can't actually succeed, for various reasons, but she can do a lot of damage trying. Unfortunately the "how" is pretty vague still. There aren't any ruins left for her to poke around in and I'm not really sure what "magical experiments" is actually going to look like.

The party's patron is a mysterious noble with some complicated political problems that I'm saving for the next leg of the story. I could definitely plant more seeds for that now by putting the patron at odds with the local lord (who controls the cops) over the Rift issue.

The wizard's ancestors did a lot of slavery and magical manipulation of their servants, so while I hadn't planned to give her any charm/domination, it would certainly be reasonable for her to learn it in her research. And could be helpful for kidnapping wizards from the university, if she decided that was useful.

She escaped her home nation about two hours before she was supposed to be arrested for being a mad scientist. Most people from that country are at least a bit "we're better than everyone else" but she takes it to an extreme, so she definitely misses the beer and the street food and the weather and the not living among ~lesser people~. She could fake a local accent in conversation but she'd have to be paying attention.

[TMac9000]

What I've found useful is, for each of my antagonists, to write up answers to the questions Who, What, When, Where, Why, How. That sounds obvious, but what I've seen is that the answers to What, Where, and How often point to what might be left behind for the players to pick up on.