Untethered Desires

A mystery adventure in which a cast of NPCs take on roles at random, creating a mystery as the players learn more.

A bajillion years ago the crystal ball [AI core/cell phone/Macguffin] of a powerful evil wizard [technomancer/executive/king] was buried with them, a legendary artifact of their reign concealed in a tomb of its maker. Some years after a tomb raider stole it and, unable to fence it, put it up in their attic. On their unexpected death it moldered, until being sold at a garage sale a few days or weeks ago.

In the possession of an average person the crystal ball acts like a monkey's paw: it grants tremendous power, but at a terrible price. Some fragment of the wizard's intellect remains in the object, like a failed phylactery. While in possession of the orb, the orb also possesses the user. During their sleep the crystal ball pilots the owner's body without their knowledge to work on a ritual of resurrection for its dead master.

This adventure is kicked off with a mysterious death. The death is soon revealed to be a murder, and the list of suspects is short.

The Victim: Yamalia the Morose, a local magistrate and well-connected figure in the Church. Competent, secretive, dead.

The Assistant: Milania Rouge, a young accountant that's been in service to The Victim for some time. Ambitious, studious, awkward.

The Guardian: Verul Heavy-Boot, a retired guard and now head of The Victim's security detail. Alcoholic, blunt, touchy.

The Foreigner: Dapin Suliman, a merchant-politician from a trading partner across the sea, here to visit The Victim. Sly, charming, greedy.

The Agitator: Afari the Painted, a shop-owner and representative of other locals that were in open disagreement with The Victim's plans to convert a massive apartment complex into a prison in their neighborhood. Satisfied, sharp-tongued, common.

The Criminal: Lightfinger Lew, a local small-time criminal that was selling wares from a sack outside of The Victim's offices all day and may have been there at the time of the murder. Nervous, disrespectful, desperate.

These figures were the only ones nearby without alibis, and each had one or more motives to want The Victim dead or disabled. The Guardian, for example, was an alcoholic with a troubled past and dishonorable dismissal from the town guard. Perhaps they had a confrontation over drinking habits, or the Guardian was in deep to a bookie, or something similar.

When the adventure begins the players will have a chance to speak with each suspect either at the scene of the murder or shortly after. They will then have a chance to look for clues, then return to one or more of the suspects.

The initial conversation will reveal some details of each of the suspects, including indications of their keywords - their motives, in other words.

Searching for clues will reveal physical clues that point toward one or more of the motives, typically eliminating one suspect or heightening suspicion for one or more of them. These might be things like a missing log-book or journal (which might point toward The Assistant, The Foreigner, or The Agitator, who would be interested in The Victim's trade routes and accounts), or a missing coffer (pointing toward The Guardian or The Criminal, who might have debts or want to cover the true motive for the murder), or similar. Other clues might be a vague letter professing love or denying it, a forged or falsified building permit for the new prison, a letter of recommendation for a competitor to The Assistant or a relative of The Guardian, a journal indicating a spy network connected to the city's government, a series of receipts for bail bonds paid to get The Criminal out of jail, and the like.

In the search of the suspects' homes and workplaces, similar clues will come up from the other side: letters of love again, books of bets and debts, a few items clearly stolen from The Victim, threatening or strange notes from someone close - either signed or not, letters to and from foreign politicians, plans of the new prison and/or The Victim's offices, etc.

When searching PCs will make skill checks to find these clues. The key here is that the searches are always successful: if the check failed, there was nothing there to search for. These checks should also be made secret by the GM. Whenever the PCs make a successful check, the GM provides a clue that points toward one or more suspects.

The PCs will likely eventually go back to the suspects for further questions, and then may go back to a new location to search for more clues, and then back to the suspects, and etc. Any time this happens something new should be revealed, with the PCs pursuing a specific area or suspect until they either a) discover new information: a motive, a weapon, or etc., or b) are able to clear the suspect or disprove their involvement.

When PCs make a check to prod and poke a suspect and they fail, indicating that they don't learn anything, they instead learn something that absolves them: the motive was off-base (e.g., "of course I had gambling debts, but that's why I married rich," or "yes I was writing to a foreign banker, he's my uncle," or something like that), or they have a new alibi, or etc.

Once the players have had at least one visit to the suspects and one trip to find clues, one of their suspects (someone that has not been cleared yet), is disabled, attacked, or murdered! But why!?

Assuming that the first conversation eliminates one possibility, that the clues eliminate another, that the murder eliminates a third, that leaves two suspects. Once the possible suspects are down to two the first success the PCs get when speaking to them or researching them should reveal the murder. Whoever they were interrogating was the killer, and whatever clue they were researching was the method, and etc.

Whether this becomes a Holmesian monologue on how it happened or a sudden chase scene is up to the PCs and the tone of the confrontation, but the murder mystery is solved.

The foundation of the thing, of course, is back to the crystal ball. The crystal ball was the ultimate 'villain,' slowly twisting the murderer's mind until they killed The Victim. What happens to the artifact and how it played into the murder specifically is up for grabs. Perhaps one of the clues was a receipt showing that The Victim had purchased it, but no matching receipt showing the sale, and the final clue was the crystal ball uncovered at the murderer's home or hidey-hole, or perhaps it was the first clue and the investigation was centered around detecting who had been sleepwalking, or etc.