I just inherited a campaign from somebody else, and need to get the story moving. Currently, the 8th level party is trying to secure the conviction and execution of a serial killer, but the serial killer's powerful family has been having the witnesses killed. The party Bard, a local city guard detective, is one of the few remaining, and has been a major force in the investigation. It has been decided by the family that not only does she need to die, she needs to die in such a shocking manner that it sends a message to the rest of the city guard not to mess with them. Ever. So, how should the Bard die? I need something that's brutal, shocking, and most of all, it needs to send a message to other guards that the same will happen to them if the investigation continues.
Now, a lot of you are probably angry that I have decided to kill a player character. After all, doesn't that eliminate the player's fun? It does, but I've already talked to the player and gained her permission to kill off her character. The player already knows her character is gong to die, and has approved of it. I just need to figure out a good way to do it. I don't want to just say "she was murdered", I want it to be shocking enough to make the other players go "oh, s~~*, these guys are serious".
Ideas?
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Kill the bard in the same modus operandi than the serial killer.
Let a note from the "real" killer saying that the awesome-detective should have been more respectuous of his art instead of blaming another for his deeds.
Public opinion is shocked, underground world knows what happened and knows this family is full of sickly cunning and ready-to-everything-it-takes bastards.
Really, it depends on your goal -- ideally, you want the character destroyed completely such that they cannot be raised, resurrected or reincarnated -- generally (per the rules), the way to go about that is to either to destroy the body completely, age him until he dies of old age, or turn him into an undead. (Of course, if you're not allowing reincarnation and resurrection, disregard that).
It also depends on the resources the baddies have access to (realistically), and how much of it happens off-camera (since it's a murder and not just a trap), and how quick you want it to be -- a very fast brutal strike can shock people, but the horror sometimes fades whereas something the party investigates (or thinks they might stop).. that can stick in people's memories.
The easiest system, assuming the killer doesn't have an M.O., is mind-blowing gore and violation. Something that makes the Saw franchise look like Scooby-Doo. Of course, this does not fit in with the tone of many games. Also, it can elicit unwanted recommendations for qualified mental health professionals.
Barring that, something big and involving lots of innocent bystanders. Family and friends are ideal, but anyone will do in a pinch. The Bard's home mysteriously burning down, or the "accidental" release of a dangerous monster with just enough evidence to link it to the family, but not enough to convict them of anything. If you want to go dark, wait until the bard is more than 10' from the party, but still close enough to hear a conversation. A beggar child runs up to the bard with a note "about the investigation," and...
Edit: Ooh... I like the idea of turning them undead. Sick, twisted and dark without actually being sick, twisted and dark!
Have the bard disappear. Then, have several packages be delivered to the rest of the party. Inside are body parts with something that belonged to the bard to prove who the parts came from.
Parts used for rituals are not among the delivered.
Or how about making the bard a fall guy, and somehow implicating him to have been the serial killer.
Turning the victim into a mindless undead would be pretty horrific. Also, it would play on the superstitions and religious beliefs of many people - as there's a common belief that those who are turned into undead don't proceed to the afterlife.
If you dead someone, they miss out on their remaining years of life before meeting their god.
If you undead someone, they lose eternity.
I just inherited a campaign from somebody else, and need to get the story moving. Currently, the 8th level party is trying to secure the conviction and execution of a serial killer, but the serial killer's powerful family has been having the witnesses killed. The party Bard, a local city guard detective, is one of the few remaining, and has been a major force in the investigation. It has been decided by the family that not only does she need to die, she needs to die in such a shocking manner that it sends a message to the rest of the city guard not to mess with them. Ever. So, how should the Bard die? I need something that's brutal, shocking, and most of all, it needs to send a message to other guards that the same will happen to them if the investigation continues.
Now, a lot of you are probably angry that I have decided to kill a player character. After all, doesn't that eliminate the player's fun? It does, but I've already talked to the player and gained her permission to kill off her character. The player already knows her character is gong to die, and has approved of it. I just need to figure out a good way to do it. I don't want to just say "she was murdered", I want it to be shocking enough to make the other players go "oh, s~%@, these guys are serious".
Ideas?
Have her disappear. No trace. No evidence of struggle. Nothing.
Then have her reappear in various pieces all across the city in the homes of the city guard.
It says the following:
~We know where you live.
~We can get you at any time.
~And no one will ever know your fate.
No need for spectacle. The fear of the unknown is much more dramatic.
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Okay, so you have a few requirements for this to work within the story.
- The bard needs to be recognizable, so nothing to the face.
- The death needs to be brutal, if not cruel and unusual.
- It needs to send a message.
Depending on the resources of the family, here are a few ideas.
Nothing is Sacred
Borrowing from Hitchcock, who showed us that horror can happen in those places we hold sacred and dear, have her killed in her own home. This sends the message that no where is safe and that anyone can be killed anywhere. If there were guards posted in her home, you could have them never notice she was dead until morning or be killed along side her. Either way shows that the killer is far better then those guards, but the first option is much better.
As for the type of murder, poison just wont do, and hacking her into pieces is excessive. Find some middle ground. You could possibly have her hanging in plain view of the front door, her clothing ripped apart, her body covered in cuts and bruises. On further examination it would be clear she didn't die from the hanging, but from a stab wound to her side just under the armpit. The excessive amount of blood all over her torn up home would also be a haunting sight.
Another Body in the River
The bard goes missing for a couple days, her friends frantic to find her. Then her body is found on the shore of the river, bloated and naked. It appears as if the killer didn't even bother to try and add weights to her, which means he wanted the body to surface. Animals had already started on her, but it is clear enough after examination that it is her. This way sends the message that she was only worth casting away, another body for animals to feast on. The naked manner of the body shows the killer had time and holds little sacred. Due to the bloating, cuts and puncture marks might not be apparent so have the throat slit from ear to ear. Witnesses would only place her walking alone for whatever reason she would do so. No one would come forward about seeing her being attacked or about seeing someone dumping a body.
The Freak Accident
Possibly the most disturbing way if you think about it long enough, but also the one with the least amount of evidence to follow. Have her be killed by some freak accident. A cart runs her over, a wall collapses onto her, the street caves in and she not only falls to her death but is impaled by a protruding spike and is crushed by falling debris. Make is horrible and unfortunate. To most it would be accident, an unfortunate twist of fate. However, not everything is as it seems, and if some investigation is done there are some strange facts about it all. Having the rope that snaped and dropped the ton of bricks radiate faint magic (when it was never magic to begin with,) or allowing someone to make an K:Engineering check to see that the collapsed hole isn't a sink hole but a dug out one are great clues. The biggest clue could be on the body, and would be a literal message. Either in the form of an arcane mark, a paper in the mouth, or delicate burns across the back, suddenly finding a message that wasn't there before the accident has big freaky points.
No matter what you do, make sure the Bard cannot be raised. Use the spell magic jar to trap the soul (I think I am right on that...) and when someone tries to raise the Bard back to life, or even use Speak to Dead, they will find their efforts are in vain. This will send the message that when the family kills someone, they kill them for good.
Something completely memorable is this old tried and true fright tactic...
I just had an idea. Somebody mentioned mindless undead. I could use that.
The Bard's mother, father, and 6 year old daughter disappear first. The Bard goes off on a panicked search for her family, and finally goes home to see if a ransom demand or some other clue as to who took them has been left. Guess what she finds, and what happens next.
Ah, but how do I connect the serial killer's family to that to send the message?
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Ok this is an awful idea...
First they need to get the bard. Use whatever method you think is best.
Be careful. The other PCs might get the idea that they're next, there's no stopping it, so they might as well go out in a blaze of glory/carnage.
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I just had an idea. Somebody mentioned mindless undead. I could use that.
The Bard's mother, father, and 6 year old daughter disappear first. The Bard goes off on a panicked search for her family, and finally goes home to see if a ransom demand or some other clue as to who took them has been left. Guess what she finds, and what happens next.
Ah, but how do I connect the serial killer's family to that to send the message?
Hmm, here's an idea... have the undead of her family in pristine condition, almost life-like, and leave them with orders to through routines that mocked their lives when they were living. Then perhaps leave them with some magic mouth spells that greet the bard eerily when they see her and rush to greet her/hug him/her. And then they could whisper some cryptic message and veiled threat to her alluding to the family (via the magic mouth spell put on the dead relatives).
This could be a part in a long string of personal attacks on the bard's sanity, gaslighting him/her essentially, hopefully ending in the bard's death by his/her own hands, suicide. That way, the bard may not want to come back from the dead (so raise dead/resurrection fails) and his/her competency as a witness/investigator is thrown into question. Also, the killers won't have to sully their hands with actually killing her since it's the bard who's taken his/her own life.
One of the most shocking death scenes I have ever seen on film or anywhre else was in the movie Cache: the protagonist visits a man at home and talks to him, suddenly the man takes a knife, slits his throat and with a soundless gush of blood he falls to the floor like a wet sack and lies dead.
The suddenness of the whole scene and the lack of drama and gore was shocking enought. Nobody excepted this in a perfectly harmless moment and environment. I thought it was more brutal and shocking than the goriest splattermovies.
I think it would be an idea to work with a compulsion effect. To let the bard kill himself, in a situation totally unfitting for such a moment.
Oh, here's another idea, combined with the compulsion and the "suicide": Some harmless scene, family dinner or something like that, the bard takes a scrap of paper, writes something on it, and then kills himself. On the paper is the message the villains want to get across. You just need the right compulsion effect and a good idea to trap the bard's soul or prevent resurrection in another way.
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Maybe taking a page from Hitchcok's book. Have the murder happen off screen. One of the draw backs of doing something gory is that the shock value wears off, and you have to do something more extreme to get a reaction.
Have the deed done off screen. Perhaps don't even bother figuring out a how. Just present them with the corps of the bard, dead unmarked, with an almost peaceful expression on her face..... then let the players imaginations fill in the details that can be much more interesting. You can let them try and figure it out, and see where their imaginations lead them....that might be allot of fun.
Once a long time ago while running a game in my dorm room, i had left a dragon magazine on my bead that was a "ravenloft" special. The party crossed a misty lonely moor, found a lonely single towered keep, with a lord who welcomed the party in.
Then someone thought i had put them in raveloft because of the Dungeon magazine i left on the bed.
They kept trying to see if the lord was a vampire, using mirrors, putting garlic in food.....all sorts of things. Of course he wasn't he was simply a human noble of neutral alignment....
Well it only served to make the players more paranoid...someone mentioned that old and powerful vampires could over come their vunerabilites to garlic etc.....and I didn't have to do a thing. They got themselves all worked up....it was allot of fun.
You could try something like that.
I hope this helps.
To borrow from the 2ed Complete Book of Elves, give the bad guys a ring of regeneration and have the body of the bard dismembered and spread to the 72 corners of the city... once every year.
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Be careful. The other PCs might get the idea that they're next, there's no stopping it, so they might as well go out in a blaze of glory/carnage.
I would agree with this. The player of the bard may have bought off on his death, but you have no such commitment from the others. Were this to happen in a game that I was playing, the serial killer, his family, his friends and his pets would all be fair game.
At that point, you have sidetracked the campaign into a massive fight for vengeance by the suriviving characters.
Be careful. The other PCs might get the idea that they're next, there's no stopping it, so they might as well go out in a blaze of glory/carnage.I would agree with this. The player of the bard may have bought off on his death, but you have no such commitment from the others. Were this to happen in a game that I was playing, the serial killer, his family, his friends and his pets would all be fair game.
At that point, you have sidetracked the campaign into a massive fight for vengeance by the surviving characters.
... it may be that that is the point.
liven up the campaign and also challenge the characters adherence to alignment. (can the lawful good characters continue to seek legal justice in a corrupt situation. or will they be motivated to take justice into their own hands?)
on a side note... your in a magical world... can no one imagine a sufficiently magical death?
So the bard disappears for a few hours. as the party is looking for her... say shortly after entering a popular pub and asking a few questions. the bard charges in holding her stomach and trying to speak but unable to do so because tackle maggots or a fire elemental or plague rats or some other nastiness were summoned into her stomach cavity by a particularly nasty spell and as the players watch the worms/rats/elemental bores/eats/burns its way out with sufficient screams of pain and suffering. as the party stands over the body of their slain friend some one outside screams out some kind of warning like "DEATH COMES TO ALL WHO CHALLENGE THE FAMILY" and the sound of a cart or people running away.
maybe followed by a great chase.
I don't think gore is the way to go. Consider this instead. The bard is hit with trap the soul. The party gets hold of a clue, planted of course, that the gem is held at a certain location. The party gets their GRAR on and massacrate all the monsters set there to receive them. They find a large enough gem to hold the soul... But it is empty. Lacking a wish spell, the heroes have a nulled body, one that will never be restored.
This does not have to require very high level magic. Scrolls work well for this. The message is subtle and tailored to the adventurers, and it shows, without proving anything, that the villains are ready to spend quite a lot to achieve their goals.
Instead of killing the bard to death, have her fight to the pain. Have her duel a NPC fighter of several levels higher, with all sorts of crit feats. Pluck out her tongue, her eyes and nose, her fingers and toes, but not her ears! She must hear the wail of the children that see her as she shambles in pain through the town.... Pretty much what Wesley threatened old 6 fingers with.
Or lock her in her home with the hungry undead of what used to be her family. Ward her home with a sound bubble or what have you so no one hears what happened.
Instead of killing the bard to death, have her fight to the pain. Have her duel a NPC fighter of several levels higher, with all sorts of crit feats. Pluck out her tongue, her eyes and nose, her fingers and toes, but not her ears! She must hear the wail of the children that see her as she shambles in pain through the town.... Pretty much what Wesley threatened old 6 fingers with.
Or lock her in her home with the hungry undead of what used to be her family. Ward her home with a sound bubble or what have you so no one hears what happened.
SmiloDan I am disappoint.
Wesley challenged Prince Humperdinck to the duel to the pain, not Count Rugen (the six-fingered man).
A creature brought back to life with quieting needles inside him is immediately struck with pain and must make a DC 25 Fortitude save each round to avoid being nauseated from the pain and suffering 1d6 points of Constitution damage. A successful Fortitude save negates the nauseated condition and reduces the Constitution damage to 1. Removing quieting needles from a dead body takes 1d6+6 rounds (and a DC 20 Heal check if the process is to leave the body in a condition where raise dead is still viable). Removing quieting needles from a freshly restored living body causes 2d6 points of damage per round the procedure continues, with a successful DC 25 Heal check reducing damage caused that round to 2.
The use of quieting needles is relatively uncommon, meant as much to punish enemies for attempting to raise dead allies and force them to waste the resources on such expensive magic as well as to cause the restored creature agonizing pain—using quieting needles is an evil act that is as illegal as murder in most civilized regions.
But really up the concept. Maybe a variant on Fire trap. They raise the body only for the victim to die a horrible death again, this time incinerating the body.
Let them get the killer convicted and all that, have them enjoy just a little bit of peace knowing they stopped that monster and such. Then have the bard vanish, And after a couple hours give the PCs a cryptic / disturbing warning. Anything from a note to the zombie of one of the bards friends attacking them.
Eventually they'll check the bards house, and have the inside be completely destroyed by magic, Like charred to ash. With what's left of the bard in the middle of the room. After letting the shock from it set in a little, have the Bodak that was their former friend stand up ^^
<----Evil
Be careful. The other PCs might get the idea that they're next and there's no stopping it, so they might as well go out in a blaze of glory/carnage.
^^ This. You don't want to get the players to storm the mansion belonging to the real killer's family and killing them one by one in fear of the Red Mantis suddenly pouncing them to death after the initial warning. Few are the things worse than an overly paranoid party.
Also, I think having the Bard being handed over to the local Kuthites (clerics of Zon-Kuthon) and getting slowly tortured to death by them would be fittingly horrid as a warning. Then, maybe have a specialized crystal ball of some sort given by a stranger (an agent of that family) to the players, and the magic item replays the gruesome scene for them as well as leaving the warning message by the family itself. There's no telling if they'll trap the Bard's soul just to torture her even more...
head on a stick in the marketplace in the middle of the day, perhaps next to his families. Or perhaps infront of the guardhouse, that should make it clear that noone is safe, and if it is well described will get at least a barbarian frantic.
Also look that the family got his soul trapped, maybe make it a quest to release the soul, but then he probably doesn't want to be resurrected as his death has been avenged and he either lost his mind over the massacer of his family or he has found eternal peace with the souls of his family.