Revealing details about Your Lordship. GM-only thread.

[bigrig107]

At the mill in book 2, there are several clues as to the nature of the murderer.
Is it necessary to reveal that much about him so early?
I have a feeling my especially game-clever PCs will discover it's a ghoul/ghast as soon as they find the "unnatural stench".
Can I just leave them out?

[Rycross]

I was a bit concerned about this one too, as one of my PCs it the only one involved in any kind of romance (despite my better attempts at getting another PC interested or getting the PC interested in someone else as well) so having your lordship point out his obsession in the first note is only going to eliminate any of the guesswork or red herrings in the mystery, and I really want to try and build up the suspense for an unexpected reveal. As to bigrig's issue what I might suggest is to let the PC's cleverly deduce that it is a ghoul/ghast, but remember that these creatures are usually at the thrall of a much more powerful will. Give them some red herrings like the Sandpoint Academy's headmaster is rumored to have some sort of goblin farm or diabolical laboratory in his basement, the truth of which is that it's just a glorified trophy room, or perhaps the PC's notice that the proprietor of The Curious Goblin bookstore has been acting shifty lately and closing his doors earlier and earlier, the truth: the latest volume of the ongoing adventures of Zoltar, King of the Jungle has just come in and he doesn't want to lose face in front of all his scholarly peers for reading pulp fiction about half-naked men in exotic locales (even though secretly they're all reading it too). Bear in mind also that the whole point of finding clues is to lead to the next one and ultimately to the identity of your killer. Figuring out that it's an undead beastie in the initial set up still gives you a great deal to play with, they establish the what, but not really the where, when, why, how, or, most importantly the who that is committing the murders and when the next victim falls.

[Kalshane]

There's been discussion in another thread about giving the PCs another red herring by setting up an antagonistic noble during book 1.

Titus Scarnetti is a good candidate for this.

You could also use Lonjinku Kaijitsu by having him come at cross-purposes with the PCs beyond the confrontation at the Rusty Dragon (perhaps a meeting between the PCs and the town council following the Swallowtail Festival). Even though he's supposed to die in Book 1, you can either leave him alive (I know one DM stated that he had the PCs find him encased up to the neck in glass and seriously injured, but still alive in his game), or you could drop false hints that he's returned as some form of undead, if the you're convinced the PCs will suspect a ghast right off the bat.

[Tangent101]

Even though my party's cleric IMMEDIATELY glommed to the fact it's a ghast (and rolled damn high on her Religion check), they still entertained notions that the Scarnettis were involved (and even now still suspect them even as they prepare to find the cultists that Xanesha is using). Knowing that it's a ghast won't change a thing because most people don't equate ghouls and their ilk as all that intelligent.

[Kalshane]

That's also true. Parties may come to the immediate conclusion that a ghast is involved. But they're unlikely to survey the murder scene and immediately know that who that ghast is, especially since as far as they know, that person is still alive and well, nor would they know why he chose the victims he had.

[Flamehawke]

Having played in this my group had tons of theories as to who did this. They thought it was the father at first, then that it was the partner who was skimming books, and the local mobsters. Really with all the villains in town and the fact we had not a single person with ranks of religion we did not discover it was an undead.

Part of that is when asked if we should have such a knowledge or profession we were told by the guy running it another night that we don't need any healing at all as the enemies are easy and healing items were so plentiful and undead were practically non-existent.

[Misroi]

This is a very useful thread: I'm getting close to the end of Burnt Offerings, and I need to start leading into Skinsaw Murders. I think the main weakness of that adventure is that genre savvy players will remember the true villain's introduction and lean towards him a little faster than I would like. That means there needs to be a more obvious red herring to dangle in front of them, be it Ven Vinder, Titus Scarnetti, Jubrayl Vhiski or someone else. I think the most important thing to do is to set up multiple people who could be Your Lordship, and conveniently give all of these people no alibi during the time of the initial murders. The most entertaining part of a murder mystery is solving it, arriving at the truth behind the killing, and that's not really possible when you only have one real suspect.

Possible Motives for People:

Ven Vinder: He's probably already antagonistic towards the party, due to the events of The Shopkeeper's Daughter. He's probably the weakest of the possible victims, but the reasons he's currently in custody are still a good reason why he could be Your Lordship - he's got a temper, and he's blind to the reputations his daughters have acquired, and he just might be violent enough in those rages to do what he did.

Titus Scarnetti: Assuming the Mayor is supporting the Heroes of Sandpoint, that's reason enough for the Scarnetti family to be antagonistic towards them. As the face of the Scarnetti, Titus is first in line to tie them to any unfortunate events that occur due to the PCs' actions. The dead father in the Monster in the Closet encounter? Yeah, if the PCs had done their jobs (or, better yet, let the guards do theirs), then maybe he would still be alive. Have him take an interest in whoever Aldern is focused upon - but have it be a dark reflection of that. Aldern is lusting after the beautiful female PC? Then Titus sees that as well, but berates her as an setting a bad example for how the women in town should act. Aldern's idolizing one of the party warriors? Then Titus targets him as a troublemaker, focusing upon the negative character traits while downplaying the positives. He should have one or two bristling encounters with the party before the Murders start taking place, just to give another good possibility on who Your Lordship could be.

Jubrayl Vhiski: He's the crime lord in Sandpoint, so he's definitely a good candidate. If the party haven't had any encounters with him, you'll need to introduce him first. That shouldn't be too hard - have one of the PCs break up a mugging going on by one or two of Jubrayl's Sczarni enforcers. They say that they're not working for anyone, but the sheriff can say that he's arrested these guys before. He knows they're Sczarni, and that they hang out at the Fatman's Feedbag, but all trails go cold from there. If they make too much trouble for them, then have Jubrayl send a message to them to stop sticking their noses into places that they don't belong, or he will cut them off. Then the murders start...