The basic premise of the campaign that I'm DM'ing is the PCs are trusted allies of the baroness of a large city whose husband was killed 8 months earlier. Said baroness brought in eight allies to basically help her get justice/vengeance and make sure her son stays alive to take control of the city. (If it matters, we've got two PCs -- a 10th-level inquisitor and 10th-level rogue/fighter/assassin.)
At any rate, one of the various NPCs they've encountered is a gentleman who arrived in the city two years earlier, claiming to be a distant relative of the baron (he was on the hunting trip in which the baron was killed and the PCs have not ruled him out as being a participant in the assassination). He was basically shunted to the side by the baron, and has spent the past two years living the life of the idle rich, mostly far beyond his means. At his last party, he announced his intentions to gather an army and take control of the (unclaimed) land to the south, presenting it as a gift to the baron's son who would then become king when he reached the age of majority, as opposed to simply a baron. (The PCs are unsure if he means to use this army for its stated purpose or to try to install himself as a king or what.)
Now the PCs are off to investigate his back story. Which means I need to come up with details. : )
It's a city-based campaign, so we've been city-bound for all but one adventure and dealing with a lot of mysteries, so I'd actually like something more of fairly straight-forward dungeon crawl (I'm thinking hags and/or a medusa in a swampy setting might make a fun scenario that our group hasn't encountered, though certainly am not married to said idea).
I'm thinking something along the lines of the cousin was an upstanding member of the family until he traveled to Xxxxxx (i.e. the swamp where I'm in the mood to throw a good dungeon crawl) and something happened there (or perhaps he simply never returned home at all and they thought he was dead...).
Alternatively, the cousin could turn out to actually be the cousin's best friend, doing his best to live the cousin's life after the friend did something that cost the real cousin his life. (And of course he couldn't actually do that in the city where they came from as everyone knows he's not the cousin.)
+1 cousin's best friend this sounds the deeps and allows variant in power from the rest of the family
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I'm assuming that the cousin is the distant relative of the Baron in question?
How about the idea that shortly before he died, the Baron found out about some lost artifact/power/prophecy/inscription/mystical-location that exists within the swamp, something that could have either been a great boon to his kingdom or else potentially righted an ancient wrong done by his family. (Or both!) While on the hunting trip, he takes the cousin into his confidence on the matter, and shortly afterward winds up dead.
You get two options from this:
1) The cousin felt that the knowledge of this hidden treasure/power was enough to kill the Baron over (so that he could claim it for himself, possibly gaining the kingdom in the process). Either he has already learned the forbidden knowledge and is using it to amass and organize his new army, or else he is sending agents after the knowledge/artifact while he raises the army so that he'll be ready to go when it arrives. The PCs race into the swamp against the Cousin's agents in order to find what was hidden there and learn how to defeat the cousin's scheme
OR
2) The cousin was NOT responsible for the Baron's death, but knows that it was related to the secret in the swamp, and now he's secretly trying to find a way to use that secret to avenge the Baron's death. Maybe he knows who DID kill the baron, and he doesn't want to show his hand yet for fear of dire consequences. An additional complication: he has already learned the secret knowledge or power and is preparing to use it, but once the PCs get into the swamp they will learn that he's done something wrong, and that in attempting to use the power he will unwittingly cause some disaster or other.
The PCs can learn about the "Secret of the Swamp" either in investigating the Cousin's background or else from papers or evidence left behind by the Baron. In either case, they can get clues and knowledge as to the cousin's true intentions during their investigation of the swamp, by obtaining information as to his involvement with the secret.
Hope that made sense - it kind of came out in a rush.
My first thought would be that the cousin is the Baron. The artifact he was after, or it's guardians, caused some kind of forced resurrection.