A need for red herrings (or: I overdid it) *RotRL spoilers*


Rise of the Runelords

Liberty's Edge

I started the first session of the Path today, and one of my PCs started a relationship with Aldern. While they suspect nothing is wrong, she's a pretty obvious target for the Lust messages.

How do I prevent the players from figuring it out the second they get the first note?


Throw in messages from other obsessive admirers, likely with some other PC

There is an encounter in burnt offerings involving the lumberer's daughter trying to flirt with one of the PC's, so maybe you could put that to good use. Incidentally, she is the sister of the woman who was murdered at the mill. The father is extremely controlling of his daughters and hostile towards their partners so you could make him into a red herring suspect for the murder as well.

Also, your PC will be in for a horrible surprise. D: Just wait til she finds out about Iesha.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

She knows that he had a wife, but thinks she caught pneumonia and died.

Our rogue is in a relationship with Shayless, so they know each other.

Liberty's Edge

What are some ways I could utilize that?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Perhaps Aldern is present when the PC finds one of the messages, and is clearly upset. Make the letters seem like they're from a distant admirer and full of longing, to make him even less likely.

Alternatively, perhaps Aldern has feelings for someone else as well, making him even more conflicted and mad. The rogue, even.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

That's wonderful, KC.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Here's an interesting idea that just came to me: since Aldern has three personalities, you could have a different personality start sending messages to another pc in a different hand and style of writing. Thus, you can play up the messages as seeming to come from different people (and kind of are, technically), but are coming from the same source.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

And this kind of stuff is why I ask the community. Thank the both of you.

Liberty's Edge

Would this require more murders, though? In order for it to get the point across of the personalities of each of them?


going back to my first idea about involving shayless as a red herring:

I'm looking again at the text, and realized that the letters are not personally delivered to the PC targeted by Aldern's obsession, but are simply found on the bodies. Thus, it can be made ambiguous as to who the letters are for.

If two of your PC's are in a relationship/object of admiration, then you have two possible recipients.

Since Shayless is a woman, by removing or replacing the title 'your lordship' you can make the letters gender ambiguous.

You can have Shayless acting a little weird, which, in reality would simply be a post-traumatic stress reaction to her sister being killed, but could be mistaken for a sign that she is behind the murders.

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

You can never have too many red herrings! Until they choke the river. And then that promotes overfishing. Which causes ecological devastation.

I'm overthinking this.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Perhaps (since I'm printing out all the notes) I could use different fonts for each person/message?


Yes absolutely!

Also I encourage you to carefully examine the text (not just skinsaw murders but burnt offerings and the sandpoint article as well) in search of possible ideas.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Alright. Here's to a good murder mystery!

(Raises glass of Barq's)

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

The process of murder for Aldern Foxglove (as assisted by Anius the Talewise and Kobold Cleaver)

1. The Skinsaw Man chooses the target and the ground, and prepares.

2. When the target is vulnerable, The Hurter comes out to play, killing until all but the target(s) are dead and writes letters onto any innocents.

3. The Skinsaw Man writes his note.

4. His Lordship, in a desperate cry for help, writes letters to his love, seeking, if not redemption, then death.

In this psychology, The Hurter and His Lordship represent the two parts of Aldern: Hurter his rage, Lordship the lovable, if moody, fop. The Skinsaw Man is what's left when those two are subtracted and ghoulish hunger is added: a desperate, violent mind seeking a purpose.

I shall post back with how it all turned out soon.


I like where you're going with this c:

Another suggestion I have is that maybe Lordship Aldern is trying to get his 'lover' to join him in redemption/death?

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah. I'm thinking he'll propose to her after Burnt Offerings, then maybe he'll "Take Ill" after the first murder and supposedly go to his home in Magnimar. (In truth he's ghoulifying)

And then reflecting the shifts in his combat tactics (so if The Hurter takes over, he'll fight QI, if TSS takes over, he takes on the Warpriest, and if HL takes over, he tries to bite/ghoulify Helen)

Liberty's Edge

Thoughts?


This makes sense to me! I think you're on a roll

This little detour is very much in the spirit of the skinsaw murders and I very much love what you're doing with it c:

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

And I almost forgot: In cutting out the slips, I gave them a bit more personality.

SSM's are shapeless, representing the mental "plug in the gap" he is.

TH's are jagged (a pain in the tush to cut), to represent his violence (and because he hopes someone'll hurt themselves on it.)

HL's are crisp and smooth. Formality exists, after all.

Liberty's Edge

Thank you.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I love it! :D

Liberty's Edge

Hooray!


also, suggestion for raising suspicion levels on Shayless:

Since murder victims are chosen for their greed, perhaps Harker had been increasingly greedy as of late, embezzling money as described on page 12 (of the original edition). Harker's involvement in scams have worried Katrine as of late, which in turn affects Shayless since she is her sister. This would cause Shayless (and her family) to behave a little differently shortly before the murders, possibly implicating Ven or Shayless.

(also do you record your game? o: )

Liberty's Edge

Er...what does record mean?

And I have shared my "Genius" with the community :P


filming the sessions, or audio recording them, whichever works best. people do that for their campaigns especially if they're memorable. they can be shared privately between players or released to the public. you of course dont have to do it if you don't want to.

edit: or even taking notes on what happens during the sessions. that can be recording too.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

It started today, I was gonna do a campaign journal starting tomorrow, to be honest.

And while I'd love to do audio/video, we're a pretty immature group.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm going a bit darker with it


captain yesterday wrote:
I'm going a bit darker with it

This is gold.

Scratch everything, lucky7, we found the answer to your prayers!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

To be fair i didn't really get past the beginning stages, also i'm using one of the two characters i actually did make in Mummy's Mask:-)

We've never actually done RotRL, we made the characters (the are older siblings of our Jade Regent party, the order is a bit convoluted as you can see)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Here's what I did: Run the Chopper's Isle adventure, introduce them to Das Korvut and his troubled emotional state.Ideally the character that is the object of Foxglove's obsession should be central in comforting Das and making sure he gets the help he needs. After the group bring him the body of his dead son, make Das fall in love with the character that is also Aldern's Lust obsession and build Das up to be a red herring for book 2.
Granted, I had it easy with one of my players playing a Calistriae cleric working in the Pixie's Kitten, but I think Korvut is a very good choice for a red herring

Liberty's Edge

Alrighty!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You could simply not use the Lust angle and instead have him envious of a rival in the pc group or wrathful toward one or more pc's that are coming between him and his new love.

I might also observe this is not really a murder mystery. It's certainly mysterious but whatever red herrings you might introduce, they should pretty rapidly fade once things get going in earnest. This is more "find the lair of the vampire" and much less, "the butler did it in the study with the candelabra."

It doesn't take remarkable skill levels to determine undead were involved with the Harker killing.

The sanatorium houses a necromancer and the sole survivor of the first killings has ghoul fever.

When Maester Grump stumbles into town blathering about walking scarecrows eating the dogs and the party is beset by ghouls on the way to the Hambley farm, all the mystery should be gone.


The fact that ghouls are behind the killing isn't much of a surprise, but that Aldern is behind the killing and is a ghoul could very well be played that way until they reach the manor, and in fact his presence in Burnt Offerings sets up the twist.

It would be interesting to mislead the players to believe poor Aldern too was beset by the ghouls.

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Alright. What happened was:

-Aldern was there for the receiving of the first letters, and (saying he was ill) left for Magnimar.

-They investigated the scene and the barn (as well as interrogating Thorn), and met with Aldern, learning that he suffered from ghoul fever. He hid the extent of his sickness (he had already died and was in the process of losing his hair/growing fangs) and "Left for Magnimar".

-I did all three at the Asylum. Then, at the farm, they got just one note from The Skinsaw Man (they surmised he was the leader).

-They found Aldern, and addressed him as Your Lordship (believing that the others were bullying him into following them). He went through all three (Lordship to Hurter to Skinsaw) during the combat, until the Mask came into play. They then realized who it was, and mourned his passing.

A thank you to all who contributed, everyone had a wonderful time.


Sounds like you ran a fantastic game. Good job c:

Liberty's Edge

Do I get a cookie?


Absolutely not. ;)

*slides you a cookie under the table anyway*

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

(Whispers) Hooray...(/whisper)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Other Red Herrings usually involve Lord Gregan from Wayfinder 7, Lord Scarnetti, you might even make a case for Gaven Deverin (the brewmaster) depending on which circumstances you use...I like Das Korvut as one. Though I'm not sure how the lordship thing would play out. Maybe if his family tree included disgraced nobles from Korvosa....

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Rise of the Runelords / A need for red herrings (or: I overdid it) *RotRL spoilers* All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Rise of the Runelords