A Mystery One Shot with Branching Paths

For this adventure, I would share something I wrote for a D&D one-shot I wrote for my family. It was my younger brother's birthday, and he had requested a mystery one-shot for his gift, so I set to work. I wanted to write a mystery adventure that wasn't really failable; something that would be exciting no matter how you played it. So I conceived of the idea of writing a branching path narrative, where different clues all led to the same result. The one-shot worked beautifully. 

A few notes about the one-shot: I wrote it for my own use, and my notes are generally pretty spare. I improvise essentially all of my narration and most of my storylines, but for one-shots, I do follow some framework. So the resulting one-shot is enough to guide an experienced DM though without issue, but some novice DMs may find they have to fill in some blanks they didn't anticipate. 

Also, in the one-shot, I had ascertained that all three of my family members were playing female characters, and I wanted a magical condition that would affect many people but not the player characters, so I made it about gender, but you could use any commonality for the thing that decides whether a character is affected by the magical condition, even if it's "adventurers" who are immune. 

I've chosen to not directly post the one-shot here because it is written in branching path style, meaning that writing it out makes it very difficult to read. Instead, I'm uploading a Word document of it, specifically because you can use the navigation pane to read the notes more easily. Look at the steps below to use Word to navigate this one-shot. 

In Word, go to the "View" tab (the right arrow), then check the box next to "Navigation Pane" (the left arrow). This will make the window on the left appear. 

Then click on the arrow of the option that the players choose (the top arrow). It will expand into the other options. Continue to click on the option the have chosen (the bottom arrow), and it will lead you to to the resulting details in each situation. 

To narrate this one-shot, describe the scene by telling the players about all three of the clues available to them at that scene. When they choose one, they progress to the next three clues. What the players choose will guide them, but you will always be headed toward a showdown with Anisha the Merciless, a powerful spellcaster who has put all men in the area (or the group of your choosing) into comas. 

Good luck, and have fun with this one-shot. And thanks for being here for this milestone. That's all for now. Coming soon: a free spell slot tracker, a time loop one-shot, and how to spend downtime in and out of game. Until next time, happy gaming!

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How to Write a Murder Mystery Party (Plus a Sample Murder Mystery One-Shot)

I recently wrote a bit about an event I got to do with students where I teach--I was able to run 3 simultaneous adventures for almost 30 students. One of the 3 adventures was a murder mystery, a format that I have made use of in the past. I especially like the murder mystery format because it opens the door to creative thinking and roleplaying with minimal focus on combat. As I have said before, these are the height of tabletop roleplaying games, something that only these games are truly capable of. So in this guide, I will walk you through the steps required to create a murder mystery. 

I want to start by acknowledging that there are two ways I have run murder mysteries in the past. The first way is to create a series of steps that lead the players from the beginning setup into the solution of the mystery. This is the model that I used for the mystery campaign, where my players had to investigate and confirm reports in order to advance the story. 

Our beginning approach is the same for any adventure: we establish the setting and cast of characters. Here's the outline for this section that I prepared for the D&D event I mentioned earlier: 

All party members have received fancy invitations to a dinner party at a haunted house, the daunting Lennert Manor, hosted by Count Garibaldi Lennert. Minutes into the dinner, all the candles and torches in the manor go out, and when they are relit, Lennert is dead. Thinking quickly, Lennert’s right hand woman, Henrietta Dorner, locks all the exits and asks the party to question the guests and determine the murderer.

Suspects:

·         Pango Duribin, gnome, ringmaster at Duribin Brothers Circus, short-tempered and silly

·         Nia Surasian, elf, librarian at Grand Treebranch Library, solemn and empathetic

·         Prog Drenk, orc, cleric of Gruumsh, quiet and sage

·         Riell Barrel, halfling, diplomat, exciteable and kind

·         Peter Bronzebeard, dwarf, master smith at Bronzebeard Burnishing, irritable and long-winded

This simple setup and list of characters was enough for an entire session's worth of material. The players entered the manor, experienced the murder, and were tasked with solving it in the first half, and the second half saw the players beginning to question people. It's at this point that we need to make sure that one of the special murder mystery considerations is in place: knowing the direction we're headed. 

In order for the mystery to make enough sense to your players to solve, you'll need some consistent description of it that way. This is where deciding the culprit ahead of time becomes crucial. My personal recommendation, though, is this: if the culprit is one of five people in a closed room, they are going to get tripped up under the players' scrutiny. One way to get around this is to go with the approach that I adopted for this mini-campaign: make the culprit someone who isn't immediately obvious. For this game, I decided that a ghost living in the manor was the murderer and that many of the clues found will deal with recognizing supernatural happenings. So this first session is something of a red herring, which I have preached against in the past, but I would argue that this session establishes the setting and stakes while also building a tension in the players as none of their ideas come to fruition as they interview the living suspects. 

Now, originally, my plan for this first session ended this way: 

After the party makes a formal accusation to Dorner, the lights once again fall, and whoever they accused is dead when the lights return.

I decided against using this twist, as my players were nowhere near having a real suspect in mind at this point, and also because the tension was already incredibly high in the party as they struggled to come up with ideas, so there was little need to up the ante. This led us to session 2. Here are my notes:

Dorner locks all of the remaining suspects into individual rooms. She suggests that the party investigate the manor for clues. Primarily, the party needs a murder weapon, but the manor has many secret hiding places that might obscure that weapon. Dorner directs the party to the three nearest rooms to search—the study, the lounge, and the kitchen. (The final puzzle solved reveals the murder weapon.)

·         The Study – Inside the study are walls of books, each shelf arranged by the color of the books’ spines. If a book is removed from each shelf in the order of the color spectrum, one shelf recedes into the floor and reveals a staircase into a small basement chamber. In the chamber is a stone statue with hands clutching where a dagger should be.

·         The Lounge -  Inside the lounge is a series of chairs and sofas as well as a grand piano. If the piano plays every note in order from lowest to highest, the largest sofa sinks into the ground, revealing a passage into a small underground chamber. In the chamber is a small laboratory, complete with an intermediate poison-making kit.

·         The Kitchen – Inside the oversized kitchen are the signs of a feast being prepared of all manner of cuisines. If the apparent ladle in the cauldron of stew is removed, it can be discovered to actually be a deadly steel hammer.

I wanted to provide three different murder weapons to keep the mystery open. Just as in the first step, we kept from giving too much away at once, we do the same here. The discovery of the first murder weapon will excite the party, but the discoveries of the second two will throw them back into frustration. 

You may be asking yourself, "Why do we want the players to be frustrated? Isn't that a bad thing?" Yes and no. It is bad if the players experience the kind of frustration that makes them feel that they can't progress. It is good if the players experience the kind of frustration that makes them want to accomplish the goal even more. This kind of frustration is the same kind of frustration we experience when a character on TV or in a book makes a choice we don't like, but it makes us cling harder to the story to find out how it goes. This is what we're striving for. 

Here are a few telltale signs that can indicate whether it's good or bad frustration your players are dealing with:

Good Frustration: 

• Players immediately considering new plans when theirs fail and not giving up
• Laughing when a plan fails
• Making jokes about potentially bad plans

Bad Frustration:

• Players saying that they don't know what to do, especially with a negative tone
• Making suggestions or taking actions without considering the consequences
• Losing momentum for more than a moment or two

If your players are in good frustration, begin preparing to move them forward with small plot developments when they show signs of having energy that stalls out. If the players are in bad frustration, it's time to course correct. Have some force in the gameworld deliver a new advancement in the story so that the players can pick up steam again. 

I am using a combination of our two methods here: these frustration measurements and adjustments are improvised reactions to the players, not carefully-prepared notes. And that's going to happen. No game can be completely prepared for, so we need a healthy mix of the two approaches. 

Once the players discovered the weapons, they set to trying to match the weapons to suspects. This again resulted in frustration, as they still didn't have any idea of the ghost angle. When things began to slow down for them, I had a spooky moment with cold air and disappearing lights, then had the NPC leader of the story inform the party of the ghosts that haunt the manor. And that led us to day 3:

·     Perception Checks: Players can sense that the manor is colder than it should be, and they continually see fleeting ghostly images at the edges of their vision.

·   Arcana Checks: Players can sense that magical energy exists here, and it appears to be supernatural rather than purely magical.

·   Insight Checks: Players can sense that all living people in the manor are genuinely afraid for their safety.

In the attic, players discover a series of homunculi which animate and attack them. When defeated, these homunculi’s remains include a slate with “In the air of Lennert’s place / We will make living things replaced.” When said aloud, the words on the slate animate and glow with magical energy, opening a rift to a spectral dimension. Inside, the players can see ghostly doubles of the dinner guests.

There was another full paragraph I ended up cutting entirely. It proposed a system in which each dinner guest's double could be asked two questions, and would answer one with a truth and the other with a lie. I realized, though, that while this puzzle would work well with adults who had the system explained to them, it would not be as smooth with middle schoolers who had to intuit the rules of the system. So I scrapped it in favor of a simpler rule that I could illustrate to the players more easily. Anything that a living being did in the ghost realm would cause the identical action to happen back in the living realm and vice versa, but a task performed in the human realm by a human would not be repeated in the ghost realm. This allowed me to begin planting clues about how the murder weapons had to have been moved by ghosts, for instance. Such improvisations can be necessary, so be ready. 

This step also marked the first combat of the mini-campaign. In a murder mystery, the emphasis is, as I said above, on roleplaying and creative thinking. To that end, I made an encounter that required strategic thinking, puzzle solving (via arming the party with weapons that could actually harm ghosts), and advancing the story. I tried to avoid any purely combat-based challenges because that wasn't what my players signed up for. Do this when you can--remember your audience. 

This leads us into the second half of the adventure. Here are the notes for what I believed at the time would be the final session:

The party is allowed to question the remaining dinner party guests. Once they feel they are ready for an accusation, everyone waits for their claim. Once the players accuse the correct person, they transform into ghostly form, and the party must battle the ghosts. When the final ghosts have been dealt with, a massive spectral version of the manor separates from the physical object, and the ghosts leave with it. The dinner guests thank the party for their help and send them on their way with new titles and privileges.

This spare entry allowed me to bring a dramatic end to the mini-campaign. Once the players successfully recognized that the ghost haunting the manor was the murderer, it was a sprint to the end. They defeated the ghosts, and I ordinarily would have simply called that the end after granting them rewards--but as part of the event, I had to fill another day. So I extended it by adding a final component in which the players became lost in the space between the living realm and the ghost realm and which ended up transferring them back in time to before the murder--the suddenly living host granted them ownership of the building where they fought the final battle. The puzzle of setting things right in each realm became the denouement, which I felt was a nicer ending than the "you did the job, here's the pay" kind of ending that so many tabletop stories become. 

Of course, it is possible to improvise even more than this. I've explained that some parts of a murder mystery require planning for consistency--such as what the twist of the case is, like the ghostly murderer. Others require flexibility--such a pacing a session to capitalize on good frustration and avoid bad frustration. A purely written murder mystery would never be satisfying to an average group of players, whereas a purely improvised murder mystery would likely lack some of the structural consistency that planning could provide. The trick here is to walk the line between the two. 

When writing your own murder mystery, remember to consider player abilities. If a character has "True Resurrection" as a spell, the murder won't stay a murder for long. If the murder needs to happen in obscurity, make sure that it's actually blocked from all the players' view (darkvision complicates many "in the dark" moments like these). If a character has an obscenely high score for something like Investigation or Insight, it could really throw off your ability to convey story at your own pace. Be careful with these possibilities, as they can turn a campaign into a one-shot under the right conditions. (I'm reminded of the time I built a deadly combat-based rogue and single-handedly killed the end boss of the campaign and his henchmen in my introduction session--my DM had to completely rewrite the campaign after I destroyed the end boss, who doubled as our main quest giver. Things like this happen in tabletop games more often than anyone would really like.) 

A few other final considerations for developing a murder mystery: pay closer attention to table talk than you normally do. You need to know what your players are planning, and you need to know right away. Responding to normal D&D can be easy enough--providing NPCs with simple things to say is one thing. But you need to be manipulating the setting and plot in your head in real time, so not having your fullest attention means that something is likely to go wrong. Additionally, do not feel attached to your outline. Adapting to player suggestions, successes, and failures is more important in a roleplaying- and creativity-based challenge than in a combat-based challenge, so be ready to adopt the players' ideas when it works well for your story. Finally, don't forget that the thrill of playing a murder mystery is not the same as the thrill of defeating a big bad. The excitement comes from advancing through the story based on your players' wits, and that's not something we're all used to running. My advice is to make sure that as the story progresses, you try to surprise even yourself. I didn't see the ghost realm/living realm distinction coming when I was preparing, but it became the key mechanic in solving the case. Remember so long as the theories your players suggest make sense, they are valid solutions to your mystery. 

That's all for now. Next time: a guide to politics in my homebrew setting, a guide for creating 5E characters quickly and easily, and why D&D serves as a stepping stone to other tabletop game experiences. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Mystery Campaign Session Notes 20: Epilogue

Last time on the mystery campaign, the party worked to bring the business of the city guard in Yamseth to a close. This time, we brought a few final ideas to their conclusion and wrapped up the story as a whole. The epilogue nature of the last few sessions really changed the tone of the story, and it all made way for a final note from the DM to wrap it all up. 

We picked up from the moment they had left off: the vote about the fate of Horace Barnes and Tajana at the guard headquarters. Ais searched the headquarters, looking for incriminating documents; she found a variety of paperwork confirming that Riviel Jassimir had financial say over guard decisions and policies, as well as the fact that Barnes made decisions on behalf of Jassimir. Ais also found a locked drawer, but was unable to open it. (I didn't have plans for anything inside, but I was surprised when the party didn't try harder to open it.) 

Content with things at the guard headquarters, the party returned to their healing center. They dealt with a customer there--a woman named Della Eckman--whose neck pain had been constant after an attack many years prior. Beor administered a healing potion, which set her right. With their customer dealt with, they discussed the future of the business with Josephine Glass, their remaining healer. She had concerns about the moral fiber of the party given what Dirk St. Patrick had told her, but she agreed to keep working with the business. 

With the final bricks laid in discovering the mystery of Hildy's death, the party checked in once more with her father, Davil. They explained that Hildy had been, in a roundabout way, a victim of Rivil Jassimir, who had also been deal with conclusively. Davil was still in pain over the loss of his daughter, but he seemed somewhat relieved that justice had been made, especially when Jassimir could have so easily evaded that justice. 

All that was left to attend to for the players was saying goodbye. Together, the party made their way from the mountain town of Yamseth through the forested steppes surrounding it, down into the lowlands, and finally to a small hilly town called Solitude--Montana's old home. The party found Montana's old home and saw his wife, a woman named Brandy. Montana and Brandy spoke for a while about Montana's past deeds. Brandy expressed that she wished he had tried to let the town and herself trust him instead of running away for years, and Montana explained that it had all been too much to lose his son, his surrogate son, and his ability to be with the remaining people he loved, and still have to face what he had done. In the end, Brandy urged Montana to try to stay in Solitude, starting over with her and remaking his life into something good. He seemed so inclined. 

To begin again in earnest, Montana sought out the father of the boy his son had killed, a man called Jessup. He found Jessup an absolute mess, high on hard drugs and unwilling or unable to communicate. The two discussed their pasts and their losses in a tense several moments. In the end, Jessup forgave Montana, and Montana asked for his support in asking the town for forgiveness; Jessup agreed. 

To communicate his condolences and regrets, Montana played an epic show. He explained his life over the last ten years through song, and by the end, most people in the town forgave him. The remaining portion who still had grief planned for Montana were defused through Jessup's passionate cry for peace; if he could forgive Montana, the rest could too. 

Montana returned to Brandy and asked about whether they could have a life again. Brandy replied that they could, but that they would need to start over. Perhaps Montana could get a room at the local inn for a while and Brandy and he could go on a few dates to see where things might go? With hope between the two of them, Montana seent Ais and Beor back to Yamseth with the gift of a kalimba each for them. And as the campaign's final moments faded away, Ais and Beor made their way back towards the forested steppes of Yamseth, each adventurer playing the kalimba, their songs simple and free. 

You may notice that I scrapped the plan of having Riviel Jassimir come back. I had liked the idea, but the party was so content to deal with the elements of the story they wanted to continue (and never mentioned Jassimir again), so I just let it go. They beat her once, and that's enough. I like the simply happy ending we got instead, so that's that. 

I like to end my campaigns with epilogues--little profiles on each NPC and some big effects that come out of the player character actions. I find this can be a big reward to the players, who get to reflect back on the entire campaign and get both laughs and meaningful moments out of looking back at it all. So the remainder of this article will be that epilogue. Read on for the full story of what happens after the story proper ends. 

Beor  - In the days following the end of the campaign, Beor took a direct hand in the fate of the city. Initially, Beor used his funds and social leverage to advance the workers' rights in the city. A united front from members of the Above was eventually defeated by Beor with help from a coalition of prominent members of the Below. In the later days, when it became clear that Yamseth was bound for a different future, Beor turned to a quiet life, teaching young children how to defend themselves. By the end of his second decade in the city, the community had pitched in together to buy a statue of Beor on a bench near his home where people knew they could find him and ask for help. 

Montana - After forging a way to rebuild back home in solitude, Montana initially struggled with a life of the simple things. When shows down at the local tavern grew lackluster, and Fharlanghn's call made the roads begin to sing, Montana truly struggled. It was a fight between Montana's truest self and what he wanted the most. In the end, Brandy made the choice for him. She had been able to pretend when alone that Montana wanted to be there more than he wanted to be out on the road, but not with his constantly wandering gaze. But Montana would not lose her again. He challenged her to join him on the road. She found that she loved the thrills and journeys of the road, and they together see to it that travelers on Evanoch's roads are safe. 

Ais - While Beor was the face of the revolution, Ais was its backbone. Horace Barnes' paperwork was investigated thoroughly by Ais, making public the extensive spending of public funds on paying mercenaries to intimidate unions and the the creation of buffer funds to keep vulnerable members of the the Above in the Above. Following the revolution, her shop became something of an outpost for revolutionary intellectuals, though on an inconspicuous scale. Public knowledge that a tiefling was involved in ending the chaos storms leads to improved race relations. 

Horace Barnes - Horace became the scapegoat of the revolution. His duplicitous accounting for the city and his complicity with Above rule made him a prime target for symbolic justice. Barnes was suspended in a cage over boiling water for days until a half-elven man killed Barnes with a spell. 

Baldwin Weams - The bartender found himself part of a contingent of the revolution, serving as a squad leader for a number of missions. Following the revolution, he founded a collective restaurant and expanded the reach of collectivist thought.

Darla Oakfort - This helpful guard who had identified Tajana to begin with grew frustrated with the guard efforts just in time to become a major leader of the revolution. The "Oakfort Brigade" of her most trusted operatives became known as the greatest allies to striking workers in the city. 

Cat burglar - She who witnessed the initial crime watched in fascination as the city began to bring itself down. She began to burglarize targeted wealthy individuals, but became interested in funding the revolution via her spoils. She became a silent benefactor of the revolution, pushing it towards the wealthiest in the city. 

Derek the Dandelion - Derek continued to grow in his new alleyway, taller and taller until he became the size of an adult human. A group of rambunctious children used a pocketknife to hack Derek down at the stem one day, and Derek was dismayed to lose his place in the city. But as he fell, his seeds spread into the air, and Derek's children spread everywhere across and around Yamseth. His many progeny have taken it upon themselves to speak humanoid language and form a massive network of eyes and ears on the criminal problems of the city. 

Davil Analeth - Davil completed the public housing project ahead of schedule and with a finer degree of quality than anticipated. He was at first frustrated by the slow speed of building, but was instantly won over when he saw the faces of the families that moved in. He took the payment from the party and leveraged it to buy cheap property and build more housing. Within a year, he had constructed over a dozen housing compounds, enough to house over a hundred and fifty of Yamseth's poor. He dedicated all of his work to his daughter Hildy, and her name is carved into a hidden place in each home. 

Tajana - Nearly swept under the rug in the chaotic days of the revolution, Tajana remained in a cell for most of the beginning of the uprising. She managed to stage a stealthy escape after three months in the cell and made it the streets of Yamseth. But she had nearly made it to the city gates when a random gang swept her up and left her in a bloody pile. She was ignored by citizens of Yamseth and succumbed to her wounds, alone, some time just before midnight. In her heart was a song she wished to one day play on a lute. 

George Turnbuckle - Suddenly the owner of the largest construction company in Yamseth, George was still in a deep depression. Unsure of what to do with his wealth and himself, he made his company publicly owned and retired. Turnbuckle Lumber and Construction lowered its prices and reoriented towards building structures for common use, and Turnbuckle himself opened a home for the blind, deaf, and mute, catering to a chronically underserved community. 

Dirk St. Patrick - Unfazed by the chaos of Yamseth, St. Patrick set out to solve the greatest mystery of all. He traveled to an alternate dimension to meet his brother, Nick Valentine, and together, the two solved all the mysteries of the wasteland. Dirk would never be believed when he relayed stories of his time in Yamseth. 

Lyssbetonk Cogswagon - Given a new lease on life after dying, she dedicated her life to actually developing her inventions for good. With months of gradual attempts, Lyssbetonk managed to leave her home and resume a standard life outside, where she made deals to mass produce inventions like the Weather Controller and the Automatic Plower to multiply the effects of farming in the countryside, leading to an overall increase in the quality of life. She enjoys an occasional walk at night through the local cemetery, where she visits the grave of her old friend Hildy Analeth. 

Aaron Brown - After butting heads with the party, Brown turned his attention to silently opposing them. Brown enlisted a small group of mercenaries to become guards and oppose the party's actions from within, but their presence proved inadequate to oppose the revolutionary spirit of the city. Brown grew frustrated with the change in the city and moved to New Dalton for a better fit for his home.

Dulk Sart - The stablehand who winessed Tajana's flight and who hid out in Beor's cabin for his safety returned to Yamseth and was fixated on improving public safety to avoid what happened to him. He organized a movement of common laborers who lobbied for greater rights and protections, and soon, Yamseth's laborers were as safe as anyone else. 

Isha Blackchain - In the upheaval of releasing and adding prisoners in the revolution, Blackchain was released. He immediately went to a bar, got into a fight with a half-elf, and was mortally wounded by the half-elf's self-defense. Blackchain died in the street alone. 

Clover Loom - Oblivious at first to the effects of the revolution, she tried to stay above it all by staying inside of her tower. But as the revolution reached her door, she began to trade away goods and money for another day unbothered by the masses. Within weeks, Loom had given away her tower, now the collective home of dozens of gnomes and halflings. Loom herself fled the city for fear of her life, escaping the fate that other less generous members of the Above faced (public executions of the Above were common for a short while). 

Quarsa Fielt - Invigorated by matching skills with Beor, Fielt opened a public space for people to learn basic self-defense skills. Later, she would combine forces with Beor on his own self-defense center, and the two would make various neighborhoods and establishments an unsafe place for someone looking for a brawl. 

Tane Stonehauler - Dissatisfied with the conditions at the failing Loom Healing Center, Stonehauler created his own fledgling business, "Tane's Healing," which catered mostly to common work injuries. He would also expand his business to a team of healers, and they were able to be repurposed as emergency healers during the bloodier days of the revolution. 

Sally Cloudworth - The magic item vendor and bookseller realigned her library's contents, focusing instead on political philosophy and histories of peoples' movement. Soon, she would be giving her books and items away in exchange for food in order to make it easier to spread the ideas. She would become a target of remaining forces from the Above and would die in a skirmish in the final weeks of the revolution. 

Sippikup Magee - The corporate spy would quickly find his services in high demand, then suddenly no demand at all, as the Above grew defensive and then desperate. Magee tried to take advantage of the situation, causing a rift between him and his previous clientele--the result was that Magee was effectively blacklisted. Without consistent work, he relocated to the elven capital of Mishara where espionage remains lucrative. 

Carl Sjunior - Carl opened his own tavern, "Sjunior's," with a discount for anyone who could show evidence of an address in the Below. "Sjunior's" became a go-to center for collectivist action. Carl himself became something of a folk hero for singlehandedly stopping a robbery at the next-door general store, known henceforth as "Carl Sbad." 
 

Edgar Hillerman - The mind-controlled member of the Above grew more and more resentful of the spell which robbed him of his agency. He poured money into a spell-creating process to reverse the effects of mind control, but the effect only resulted in restoring the memories of what he had said and done under the spell's effect. This caused him great misery, and he leapt from his tower to his death days after the spell's debut. 

Lort Drenk and Riell Destin - These two partygoers at Loom's became swept up in the revolution; Drenk dispersed all his money to avoid being caught up in the revolution, while Destin tried to insulate herself from the changes. Drenk was unable to convince average Yamsethians that his support was real; Destin could not purchase a way to safety. As a result, both members of the Above were made examples of by revolutionaries, executed publicly. 

Nyrill Gennellon - Nyrill got paid for his work at the Misty Morning Healing Boutique, bought a bunch of booze, and got drunk. Very drunk. 

Marietta Pushman - This street food restauranteur turned the open space near Misty Morning Healing Boutique into one of the most popular urban spaces in Yamseth. When faced by demands to make the business represent collectivist concerns, she expanded the business to include a meal service which does not compromise on taste. Marietta's Munchies made rabbit nuggets an unofficial dish of Yamseth. 

Polly Bridgerman - The head of the Yamseth College of Magic became haunted by the notion of mind control spells being used in the city for any purpose, so she set to developing a permanent counterspell. With this spell, she managed to remove a handful of people from Riviel Jassimir's magic grasp, making Jassimir's return substantially more difficult. 

Josephine Glass - The healer employed by Misty Morning Healing Boutique used her position there to expand the use of healing potions for common ailments. With her promotion of the healing options, which she created a few alterations for, the potions soon began selling as a cure-all in great demand. Under her care, the healing potions became a key ingredient of collectivist success. 

Nicole Fyrra and Grat Sharn - These former employees of Misty Morning Healing Boutique tried in the early days of the revolution to discredit Beor, Montana, and Ais due to their pasts, but the momentum of the revolution was too great for them. Fyrra decided to join up with the revolutionaries rather than continue on, and Sharn was killed as part of a counter-revolutionary attack on the city's food provisions. 

Peyton Copperminer - The painter of Misty Morning Healing Boutique was outraged by the revelation of the guards' control by Riviel Jassimir and began to paint an enormous mural on the base of Jassimir's tower. The mural depicts Jassimir riding an angry dragon which is spraying fire, ice, wind, and electricity, all over a collection of poor people trying to hide. 

Seven Fifteen - This corporate spy found himself in hot water when members of the Above turned on him following reports that he had worked closely with Beor, Montana, and Ais. He fled for the gnomish capital of Vestry, but was killed by a roving band of bandits just outside Yamseth. 

Tunder - The chaos dragon flew away from Yamseth and over the sea. He flew for days at a time and eventually landed on an icy, mountainous land which swarmed with magical creatures and dragons much like himself. His chaos attacks here interacted with the chaos of the natural landscape, created order across the land. He was truly happy, and thanked the stars every night for his freedom. 

Dolly Bronzebane - This prominent young guard advocated for a new way forward for the Yamseth city guard. The guards' contract would be tendered by the citizens, and the new Yamseth would be patrolled by people pledged to the common good. Bronzebane became close friends with Carl Sjunior, and together the two managed to create a new culture in Yamseth which honored the average person. It was Bronzebane's order that called for the repurposing or demolition of every tower in the city; the bricks of demolished towers became used for new civic buildings, especially town halls where the matters of community governance were tended to. 

Izzunech - Ais' demon was trapped inside an amulet, suspended in a solid block of amber, and left harmlessly on a coffee table. Ais would occasionally place pictures of things Izzunech would enjoy on top of the amber, such as a sketch of sliced bodies atop a craggy mountain, and an audible but heavily muted scream would emanate from the amulet deep within the amber. Ais saw to it that following her own death, Izzunech would be transferred to somewhere he could never escape, in perpetuity. Izzunech became a shell of himself, barely able to so much as protest after hundreds of years in isolation. 

Riviel Jassimir - After surviving the fall from her tower, Jassimir lay in wait. For days, she waited for the ideal moment to strike back against those who had taken her city from her. Days after her disappearance, she disguised herself as an elderly woman and made her way to the center of town. As luck would have it, Seven Fifteen collided with her as she walked, and the disruption of her magic disguise caused several nearby revolutionaries to notice her. Without realizing her identity, the revolutionaries began to chastise her, and she snapped at them, beginning a conflict that ended in a burst of magical energy that left Jassimir and most of the revolutionaries dead. It would be weeks before anyone made the connection to Jassimir. Thus, her grip on the city ended as unceremoniously as it began, and Yamseth entered a new chapter of its life. 

Mystery Campaign Session Notes 19: Arbitration

Last time in the mystery campaign, the party solved the mystery, defeating Riviel Jassimir and overturning her hold on the city of Yamseth. They developed goals for changing the city and tending to their affairs in epilogue sessions. This time, they begin work on those goals and discover that there may be opposition yet. 

After leaving Jassimir Tower, the party headed to the Briscoe Inn for drinks and food. Ais explained over the meal the history of her possession by Izzunech, a tale of Ais' curiosity saddling her with a terrible curse. Beor explained that he planned to remain in the city and unite Yamseth's workers and seize the means of production from those in the Above. Looking to extend their celebrations, the party opted to leave for another bar. 

They headed a ways across town to a bar called The Xenolith and ordered drinks which were very nearly but not quite Spanish coffees. There was a half-elven band playing intense music that relied on dueling lutes, heavy drums, and sharp flute; the bar was filled with people dancing. When it grew intense enough for a mosh pit to form, Beor joined in. Afterwards, the whole party tried orcish tequila, which made everyone quite drunk. [At least, it did about half an hour later when I realized that Beor's alcohol immunity from the first day of the campaign was removed when Tunder blessed him and removed his lycanthropy. We initially played it with Beor sober, but retconning it later was actually more fun in its own way.] Because everyone was so drunk (especially Ais), the bartender made a moss and nettle tea, which sobered Ais considerably. 

In a more quiet moment, Montana stepped outside of the bar to seek a plant and speak to it. He spotted a tall and strong dandelion plant and spoke to it; it was Derek the Dandelion from the first investigation of the campaign. The two of them chatted and bade each other well, and Derek revealed that Jassimir had used a spell to fly towards the end of her fall and hadn't died--in fact, she had terrorized a neighborhood from the air. Montana returned to the bar and conveyed this information to the party. He also took a moment to obtain a hatchet, enchant it, and tell the bartender he had found his "next musical ax" (acts). It was high D&D: puns with elaborate setups. Still at the bar, Beor and Ais tried a spicy pepper honey gin, which Beor bought a bottle of as a gift for Ais since she had liked it so much. 

It was about this point that one of the players--I won't say who--asked to fast forward through the rest of the partying. They were so eager to jump to the meaty work of finding the end of this story that the celebration had worn thin. And so we all agreed that the partying continued on in this fashion, with the drinking of exotic alcohols and having of good times, and moved on to the following morning. You should make sure that your players know that they can request to move on as long as they party agrees on it. 

In the morning, Beor rose early and made coffee, then left for the market. He returned and made a grand breakfast for everyone, with bacon, eggs, potatoes, and pastries. As the others rose, they ate and drank coffee and began to plan. Once they had a sense of their day, they set out for the market. They returned to the tanner, who presented Montana with his new leather guitar case and Beor with his new hammer holster, on which she engraved "Perseverance" in dwarven. They also returned to the jewleler's, where they picked up and dispensed Beor's gifts. Ais was pleased with her ahornments and contracted the jeweler to suspend Izzunech's amulet in a block of amber. 

They headed next for the guard headquarters and sought out the Chief of Police, Horace Barnes. Barnes unabashedly supported the status quo, claiming that any redistribution of wealth was strictly against the city's moral fiber and that everyone should be entitled to their own work. A debate between Barnes and Beor went on for some time, discussing the ethics and realities of government. They agreed about essentially nothing. Even with direct imploring, Barnes was unwilling to advocate for or even allow change. 

The party changed tactics. They called over a collection of guards and asked them who among them supported jailing Barnes and overthrowing the city's government--the guards voted by a majority that Barnes would be detained and that the government would be restructured. With that matter aside, Barnes was placed in a cell. 

One of the guards (a dwarf named Dolly Bronzebane) raised issue with the way the party was planning on dealing with Tajana. The party planned to honor their word and let her go, but Bronzebane believed that so many murders could not be forgiven. At the party's direction, she gathered the guards and arranged another vote. After the votes were in, it was decided that both Barnes and Tajana would remain in holding cells until a fitting consequence could be designed for each one.

That's where we left things due to time and because the business at the guard headquarters had largely come to a close. I'll acknowledge right off that last time I talked about Jassimir being dead, and now she's alive. I changed my mind. The party didn't get to kill Jassimir; Tunder dropped her off the ledge. I felt like the battle was anticlimactic, and I wanted to give the party another chance to actually get her themselves. Not to mention, a powerful wizard who can improvise spells can figure out plenty of ways to survive a fall, and one of Jassimir's status more than qualifies her for that. I'm much more satisfied with her alive for now, especially given the reaction it got from my players ("oh no" was the general consensus). 

So with the first epilogue session done, there is a great deal of change a-brewing. If the party tries the same tactic they used with the guards on other parts of the population, things could be rapidly changing throughout the city. It's all in the players' hands to determine what happens next. 

Next time in the mystery campaign, the party will consider how to create long-term solutions for Yamseth. The players will decide almost everything. Until next time, happy gaming! 

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Mystery Campaign Session Notes 18: Vindication

Last time on the mystery campaign, the party interrogated Tajana, killed Portia, and began an uprising against Riviel Jassimir. This time, they face off against Jassimir and decide the fate of the city. All that and more in this session of the mystery campaign. 

Picking up where they left off, the party decided to capitalize on the chaos caused by their revolt gambit and met Riviel Jassimir head on. Approaching her tower, Ais cast a glyph spell which was intended to discern the way one would access Jassimir's tower's second floor, and she saw a magical vision of a mechanical button inside a locket of Heironeous around Jassimir's neck. With the knowledge of how to ascend to the tower's upper floor, the party hastened in the direction of the tower. On the way, Montana magically communicated with Dirk St. Patrick, directing the sleuth to meet the party near Jassimir Tower to talk. 

The party met with Dirk at an elven restaurant within walking distance of Jassimir Tower. Montana supplied some information about Jassimir, trying to get Dirk to join the party and take down Jassimir. Before Dirk could definitively say yes or no, Izzunech overpowered Ais, controlling her and forcing her to stab Dirk in the hand with a steak knife. Dirk announced he would be only able to help in small ways given the advances already made by the party, and that he was reticent to throw in his lot with a stab-happy demon. 

Just as the party broached the topic of how they would make it into Jassimir's tower, a courier arrived and delivered a large golden key, conveying Jassimir's invitation to the party to join her at her tower. Once the party had arrived, she greeted them and cut straight to the chase. She knew that they knew of her deeds, and she wanted to be done with the game of it all. She opened her locket, pressed the button, revealed a moving staircase that descended from the ceiling, and led the party into the upper floor. 

Upstairs was dark and drafty. The party noticed that one side of the tower was open to the city and the open air high above it all. Jassimir took a long, sharp prodding tool from the wall and thrust it repeatedly into the darkness. But the party each had darkvision, and they were all able to see that Jassimir's strikes into the darkness were actually connecting with tender spots on the body of a dragon with multicolored and translucent scales. When she prodded the dragon, it screamed in pain and released chaos bolts down into the city. 

The party jumped into action--technically the third combat of the entire campaign, but the first true fight. Beor spoke with the dragon and ascertained that the chains holding him were magical in nature and that they were enchanted to keep him imprisoned. Ais used a glyph spell to remove the magical effect from the chains on the dragon, and Montana made a grand show of turning on Ais and Beor to fight with Jassimir. Jassimir, bolstered by Montana's assistance, reapplied the magic strengthening the chains on the dragon. Ais immediately countered this, though, both removing the magic from the chains and destroying them via rust and corrosion. 

Still under the banner of fighting with Jassimir rather than against her, Montana cast "Dominate Person," playing on a technicality that allowed him to deny Jassimir a bonus to her resistance to the effect. Under the effects of the spell, Jassimir was magically forced to turn over control of her finances to people around down (liquidating financial groups she formed, dividing up her business among her competitors, and attributing her other assets to the poor of the city). 

With binding paperwork turning her empire into support for the city, the party turned Jassimir over the the dragon she had spent centuries torturing. The dragon introduced himself as Tunder before taking Jassimir gently in his teeth and dropping her from the open side of the tower, the highest point in the city. Tunder turned to the party, asking them if he could reward them for their help in freeing him. At their requests, Tunder healed Beor of his lycanthropy (a chaos-driven effect) and exorcised Ais of Izzunech (a chaos-defined being). Montana requested a flute for his labors, and Tunder created a flute imbued with chaos--the instrument randomly plays a note which is unexpected but still pleasing to the ear. Content with his rewards, Tunder flew off over the city in search of starting his old life over again. 

With the bulk of their justice served, the party decided to rest and regroup. They headed to the Briscoe Inn to decompress, get food and drinks from their trust barkeep friend Carl, and get a taste of some normalcy after a long while of chaotic work. On the walk over, Beor admired the night sky's stars and moon for the first time in years. 

This session's ending was a challenge for me. I'll admit that when the party killed Jassimir (or rather, helped Tunder kill Jassimir), I was at a loss as to what to do. I genuinely forgot that the party was still standing in a room with a chaos dragon they had just freed--I was surprised when they reminded me that they wanted to talk with him. I planned things up to the moment that the players defeated Jassimir and nothing beyond; I really wasn't sure how to tie things up. 

Fortunately, my players have plenty of ideas about what to do. They've spoken of completing the revolution, restructuring the guards, and going further with their business. Now that the mystery is resolved and they're working to satisfy their own narrative concerns, almost anything is on the table for epilogues. We've agreed to spend at least one more session playing through how it all gets wrapped up, and I am pretty excited to see where it all goes. I will admit that I didn't get the reaction I was hoping for with the dragon reveal, but that's okay. It's more important that my players are blown away by each other's actions than mine. 

So although the mystery is solved, the story continues. Next time, the party will pick up the pieces, build a better Yamseth, and decide the future of each character. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Mystery Campaign Session Notes 17: Revolution

Last time in the mystery campaign, the party found Lyssbetonk Cogswagon dead in her lab, captured the mercenary Tajana, and raised Cogswagon from the dead. This time, the party interrogates Tajana, and things take a dramatic turn. All that and more on this review of the mystery campaign.

When we picked up this time for the players pushing toward the resolution of this mystery, the party was just arriving at the guard headquarters, intent on interrogating Tajana and getting answers for their long-standing questions and suspicions. One of the first lines of questioning was about Tajana's connection to the original murder victim Hildy Analeth. From inside her cage, Tajana admitted that she killed Hildy because she had been ordered to eliminate any witnesses to the break-in at Cogswagon's lab. Under continued questioning, Tajana admitted to a total of 23 murders including Hildy's and Cogswagon's and supplied some details on who had ordered each death. 

With the murder of Hildy solved and the murderer in custody, Portia recognized that the party had done their due diligence and were no longer under any obligation to continue their work. But the party carried on, asking more and more questions of both Tajana and Portia. Much to Portia's discomfort, Tajana said that Riviel Jassimir was behind much of the violence in the city going back years. 

Under some pressure from the party, Portia privately explained something of a history of intentionally overlooked crimes. She said that Jassimir had been squashing labor movements and competitors with deadly force for years, and that her position as the benefactor of the guards largely insulated her from any consequences for her actions. The party pledged themselves to bringing Jassimir to justice, and Portia offered her own support--she planned to operate outside of the guard in order to help the party bring Jassimir to justice. 

Back in the main area of the guard headquarters, Tajana knocked over her cage and caused a commotion, attracting about 40 guards along with the party and Portia. At Portia's suggestion, the party decided to interview Tajana in this public way before all the guards to send a message about Jassimir and the true loyalties of the guards. Ais administered a thorough line of questions to Tajana, trying to get to the bottom of what Jassimir was really up to and how she could be counteracted. 

In a dramatic moment, it was revealed that Portia was an agent of Jassimir's. Ais slapped Portia in the face to mark her betrayal, which knocked her to the floor, and Beor upped the ante by swinging his hammer at Portia's head. Beor's blow struck heavily, crushing Portia's head and killing her. Thinking quickly, the party addressed the collected guards, trying to help them see things the party's way and start a revolution against Jassimir. It worked to an extent--the guards split into camps, some loyal to the guard cause and Jassimir, and others loyal to the party's revolutionary cause. In the end, the party's appeals convinced most of the guards, and only a few left the guard headquarters questioning the party.

Suddenly, Izzunech possessed Ais once more. He spoke of the excitement of Portia's death and praised Beor for his violence. After a lengthy exchange between Montana, Beor, and Izzunech, Ais passed out completely. When she rose again, after Izzunech's longest possession yet, the party was struck by the gravity of the situation. Beor held the final rites for Portia, blessing her into the next life. Montana took advantage of Tajana's unconsciousness after the commotion to steal her ocarina after earlier making her promise to learn two new instruments as part of her penance for her life of crime. 

That's where we left off for the session. Because the players managed to complete the crime-solving element of the story, I rewarded them with a level up, which brings them to level 10. In the few remaining sessions, they will be able to use their advanced abilities to strike back at Jassimir, possibly with their plans for revolution. It will be a dramatic end to a dramatic campaign, though of course, at this point, the pacing of the final chapter is entirely up to the party. They may choose to confront Jassimir directly or wage a more indirect war on her. Whatever they choose, it is sure to be at least as dramatic as the campaign that has preceded it. 

That's all for now. Next time on the mystery campaign, the players will engage in their struggle against Riviel Jassimir and try to create justice for the city of Yamseth. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Mystery Campaign Session Notes 16: The Nature of Life and Chaos

Last time on the mystery campaign, the party shopped, escaped a burning building, and scried the assassin Tajana. We ended on something of a cliffhanger, and this time, the party focuses on the endgame and face off against Tajana. 

In the final moments of the previous session, Ais had cast "Invisibility" on the party in order to aid their unseen travel through the city. The group returned to Ais' house and planned. In particular, the party was pondering questions about how to face off against the incriminated Riviel Jassimir, and whether there was much hope that their interference would be a positive for the city. Would the end of the chaos storms even be a good thing, for instance? And what were they to do about Tajana coming to kill them?They decided to take these questions up with Portia, and headed for the guard headquarters. 

On the way, a chaos storm struck. Montana evaded the bolt of chaotic energy, but Ais and Beor were struck, resulting in Ais' being instantly hogtied and Beor's saturation with magical power, allowing him to cast 2nd-level spells at will. The party completed the journey to the guard headquarters and began speaking with Portia. The group took a fairly hostile tone with Portia, who seemed to balance sympathy for the party with a limitation on how much she could help them. The heart of the disagreement was about how poor the organization of the guards is, and all agreed that things could be better, though the disagreement continued. Portia offered city guards to defend the group, but they turned this down to protect the city guard. 

The party changed the subject and requested a courier. Portia sent for one, and the courier agreed to take the diamond from the party and deliver it to Lyssbetonk Cogswagon. Meanwhile, Beor demanded that the linking spell that connected the party be magically deactivated, wanting to speak with Chief of Police Horace Barnes; Porita sheepishly revealed that the spell had been ineffective for a while--it only lasts three days. This caused some frustration in the party, but Portia tried to deflect that they could more safely and strategically face Tajana without the link. 

The courier returned to the guard headquarters, saying that she could not deliver the diamond because Cogswagon would not open the door. Fearing for the worst, the party rushed to Cogswagon's lab and discovered Tajana disassembling the Weather Controller. Thinking fast, the party unleashed a series of spells that magically bound her, at which point Beor shattered her arm and the Undoer with his hammer. Montana then used "Polymorph" to turn Tajana into a slug and deposit her in a jar. Meanwhile, Ais found Cogswagon killed in her bed, her throat slit and her eyes lifeless. 

Beor transformed into a large hound and delivered Tajana to the guard headquarters, where she was placed in a high security cell. Back at the lab, Ais reassembled the Weather Controller save for the diamond and began to work on fixing up with Antigravity Boots. Beor returned, and Montana began to cast "Raise Dead" on Cogswagon. While Montana worked through the ceremony, Ais added the diamond to the Weather Controller, completing it, and switched it on to the setting to prevent chaos storms. Moments later, however, the storms struck again, the party each able to narrowly avoid its effects. 

Montana completed the "Raise Dead" spell on Cogswagon, who was disoriented. She was not sure how she felt it, but suspected she had died, but could not remember it. The party explained that Tajana had killed her, going into fairly grisly detail. Cogswagon was extremely vulnerable, and it was a rather emotional moment for all involved. She was surprisingly focused on learning the details of the Weather Controller's first run, and she said that the failure to work clearly indicates that the chaos storms are not weather at all. She went to rest, and the party said they would check in with her again soon. They turned to go to the guard headquarters again to interrogate Tajana, which is where we ended for the night.

This was a bit of a departure for this campaign. Where I began with some notes guiding sessions and recently transitioned into more reactive planning, this session represented a complete reliance on improvisation. That's more or less where my sweet spot for DMing is, but I have been wary of acting against my own best interests when it comes to long-term planned story events--a mystery just relies on more structure than improvisation is really geared towards. But we're in the endgame now. The remaining reveals are in place and I won't get in their way, so now it's just down to the players to see their agendas through and end this story as they see fit. I envision between 2 and 3 session more before the wrap-up, but of course, that remains to be seen. 

I also want to note for a second that I completely forgot that "Raise Dead" existed. I had Tajana kill Cogswagon and thought that would be a tragic way to reveal Cogswagon was innocent after all and get some emotional energy flowing. But Montana almost immediately resolved that problem with minimal complications. When we were done for the night, the players remarked on how Tajana's ease of being captured was surprising, and I was still hung up on how Cogswagon was alive again. Specifically, they said that I seemed quite alright with Tajana being captured--and in a way, I was. She's not the BBEG, and they planned well and then executed the plan well when facing off against her. They earned their victory, so I had no problem allowing for it. I mention these two things together because both were cases where playing along like nothing was disrupted really helped, and it even earned compliments from the players, which is always a great feeling. 

Next time on the mystery campaign, the party will interrogate Tajana and try to learn more about the mysterious Riviel Jassimir. They seem to have finally gotten the upper hand--what will they do with that power? Until next time, happy gaming!

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Mystery Campaign Session Notes 15: Shopping and Arson

Last time in the mystery campaign, the party hit the market and investigated Seven Fifteen, a corporate espionage agent. They planned to check into the abandoned shack in the marketplace that was associated with the mercenary Tajana. This time, they hit the market again and investigate the shack. Read on for the full account of the fifteenth session of the mystery campaign. 

After rising at Ais' house in the morning, the party made plans for the day and headed over to Cogswagon's lab to check in. Cogswagon took them inside and showed them the newest fruit of her labors: the repaired Biometric Scanner. After a demonstration of its capacities, which include indicating whether someone is lying, Izzunech took over Ais. Montana covered for Ais, pretending that she hadn't had enough coffee that morning, and Cogswagon bought it. Then Cogswagon explained that she had witnessed a chaos storm terrorize a few people in the market and turned her attention to rebuilding her Weather Controller to turn the storms off. She asked that the party fetch her a diamond for the machine in order to complete it. Montana balked at this, countering that Cogswagon should just go to the market herself. Something of an argument unfolded: Cogswagon said her agoraphobia kept her from going outside, Montana believed she could conquer it if she tried, and Beor wanted Montana to accept that Cogswagon couldn't go outside. In the end, Beor carried Montana to the door. 

Back outside and on the way to the market, Montana began to play a sultry song. (Out of game, he said that he wanted to be playing "Careless Whisper" by George Michael.) Because of an exceptional roll, he played so well that a random person in the crowd was overcome and kissed a nearby unsuspecting stranger. The stranger slapped the man, and Beor wound up and punched the man unconscious. The crowd dispersed when the song ended, and the crowd showered the party with coins. 

They headed back to the leatherworker and commissioned a few custom items: Beor had a hammer holster made, and Montana bought a guitar case. The process involved the hiring of a spellcaster who used shaping spells to create stand-in items of wood and stone for the guitar and hammer respectively so that the party could keep their items. 

Then it was off to Cuff Jewelers, a small jewelry store near the market. Inside, they bought a proper diamond for Cogswagon's Weather Controller--one cut for transmitting energy. Beor also asked to see a number of other items, among which were a beautiful statue of Ehlonna made from precious gems. Beor commissioned a custom holy symbol of Ehlonna, a gold-and-silver guitar pick in the shape of Fharlanghn's symbol for Montana, and an elaborate series of gold-and-ruby chains and clasps as decorations for Ais' horns (ahornments, if you will). 

The party left the shop, headed for the abandoned shack, and a chaos storm struck. Beor was suddenly unable to recall any information from before the strike, including his name and where he was. For nine minutes, Montana and Ais tried to explain to Beor who he was and how they know each other, peppering in untrue details about how close they are as a group; Montana even claimed that both he and Beor were named Beor, which caused ample confusion. A few memories came back to Beor slowly, and then all at once, quite overwhelming him. After a moment of recovery, Beor was ready to carry one. 

The group arrived at the abandoned shack and found a heavy padlock on the only door in. Beor smashed the lock, and they went inside to find a small room empty except for a few empty shelves. After some searching, Montana found a seam in the flooring which was connected to a wire which fed through a pully system and lifted half the floor to reveal a staircase leading down to a larger room. Inside that room, the party found a recently-used bedroll, six scroll cases, and a box of candles. Inside the scroll cases were spell scrolls (Chain Lightning, Mall Healing Word, Geas), maps of mining operations in the mountains nearby, blackmail dossiers on four members of the Above, and a pair of letters between George Turnbuckle and Hildy Analeth. Beor turned into a hunting dog and used his sense of smell to confirm that Tajana had slept here. Montana took a few stray hairs. Soon, they noticed that smoke was pouring into the room--the house above was on fire. If they stayed there, they would suffocate as all the oxygen burned. Using Ais' resistance to fire damage, they managed to lift the floor, magically open the locked door, and rush outside to safety. 

Outside the burning shack was a crowd. People grew animated when it was revealed that people had been inside the burning building. A few good Samaritans came to help, but the party was fine. Nyril was also in the crowd. He was relieved the party was fine, but disappointed to tell them that two of the business' healers had quit. A private investigator named Dirk St. Patrick had shown up at the business and told the employees that Montana had killed his son, Beor had killed his wife, and Ais was possessed by a demon. Two healers had quit in disgust, but Nyril didn't believe St. Patrick, so he had stayed. The party doubled down, insisting that the stories were lies and resolving to seek out the healers to set things right. 

Montana then used the hair from Tajana to scry her. He witnessed her riding an elevator up to a tower, where she met with Riviel Jassimir. Tajana explained that her cover was burned and she was leaving town, but Jassimir insisted that they still had unfinished business. Tajana argued again and again that no amount of money would convince her to stay, but she changed her mind when Jassimir produced two bulging bags of platinum pieces and threatened Tajana with some unspoken secret. When Tajana accepted the bags, Jassimir told her to "stop them" before she left town. Then Tajana entered the elevator back down, and Montana's scrying ended as she walked out into the city. 

The party felt ready to take Tajana on but was unsure of how to follow her. Ais placed a hand on her compatriots, cast "Invisibility," and we decided to pick up from there next time. Sorry for the cliffhanger! Sometimes, you just have to call it. 

A quick note about Dirk St. Patrick's return this session: I'm not really a "mean DM" at all. I'd rather give interesting problems to my players to see how they solve them than stump the players. But after the jokes about how toothless Dirk St. Patrick had become, my mind started going. "Okay, so he can't reveal their secrets to each other. And he knows how much they love their business. Why not have him strike at the employees?" Now, the party will have to work with the employees who quit or find replacements, which creates its own story angles. It also makes Dirk a threat again--what if he spreads word of that and the disguises to the Above? Before now, Dirk was a way to put pressure on the party dynamic. But since the party is completely integrated now, Dirk can be repurposed to threaten their interests in new ways, which also creates new story angles. I personally like the idea of the party losing a lot of their support from the people they've met as they approach the final chapter, which would increase the drama of facing off against the final boss even more. We'll see. 

That's all for now. Next time in the mystery campaign, the players will hatch plans to deal with Tajana. I certainly don't know what is going to come next, and I think the players don't either. So you'll just have to tune in next time to find out how it all plays out. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Mystery Campaign Session Notes 14: The Same Road

Last time in the mystery campaign, the party interrogated George Turnbuckle about his hiring the turbanned figure; met, chased, and lost the turbanned figure, Tajana, due to her use of Lyssbetonk Cogswagon's Undoer; and shared their deepest secrets with one another. This time, they set out to begin investigating the several options before them and get closer to understanding the big picture. Read on for the full session notes. 

We picked up in the interrogation room, which Beor had just smashed up in a rage. They left the guard headquarters quietly and headed to the Yamseth Market, but first, a chaos storm struck, and Beor didn't manage to evade the bolt. His next two rolls were changed to a natural 20 and a natural 1. They made it the rest of the way to the market, where they purchased a collection of new outfits for their alternate identities. When we were shopping, I had my players roll an Investigation check, and used that number to represent how effectively they would find what they were looking for precisely. All three players rolled over 20, so I told them they could find everything that they wanted and asked them to describe it. We spent several minutes going over what each new outfit would be, what color schemes they would use, and the reasons we wanted specific looks. From a storytelling perspective, it did not accomplish much, but the players seemed to really enjoy taking a moment to do some roleplaying and character building for the alternate identities. I think that any situation with a big market should allow for a wide array of options, so an Investigation check should work most of the time, unless you're looking for a very, very specific item. 

Then the party went to a hair salon. Beor got a haircut and a beard trim, and he also bought a trio of tonics and oils to apply to his hair. Ais bought some wax to shine her horns. Impressed by the quality of the service they received, Beor offered to provide less expensive housing for her business, but she declined because the marketplace real estate brings in more customers than the area of town where the Misty Morning Healing Boutique is. Beor's natural 20 roll was spent stealthily slipping the hair stylist a gold piece as a tip. His natural 1 roll was spent trying to find a leatherworker, but Ais was able to steer the party in the right direction. Beor spoke to a leather craftswoman about a hammer holster, but because he didn't have his hammer with him, the party resolved to come back, especially since Montana was interested in getting a new guitar case as well. 

Interested in finding the mysterious Seven Fifteen, corporate espionage agent to the Above, the party headed for the tavern called The World Map. Inside, amid sectioned rooms plastered with maps, they found a mustachioed gnome at the bar. They asked if he knew Seven Fifteen, and the gnome replied that he would refer them to Seven Fifteen for a gold piece. Once they had paid, he explained that he was Seven Fifteen and was testing their intentions. The party uneasily negotiated for information from the gnome. Initially, Seven Fifteen demanded 54 gold pieces for the five names of his employers (1 gold each for the first four and 50 gold for the last name). But with a promise of a secret of their own, the party managed to get Seven Fifteen to agree to trade all his names for the party's secret and 5 gold. The party revealed their secret: George Turnbuckle had been having an affair with his assistant Hildy, who was pregnant with his child when a mercenary under his employ killed her. Seven Fifteen tried to hide how surprised he was by this, but Beor could see that he was quite overwhelmed by the news. In accordance with their agreement, he revealed the names of his employers: Birt Wizzoom, Oscar Pliell, Norbert Corbell, Chester Higgins, and Riviel Jassimir. The first name on the list--Birt Wizzoom--is a person of interest already, as he is the best known connection to Tajana. Pliell, Corbell, and Higgins could all become more important if the story leans that way, but the sweet spot is really the last, expensive name. Seven Fifteen shared that he has been working for Riviel Jassimir for 12 years, carrying out sabotage against her competitors, investigating potential business partners, and otherwise keeping Seven Fifteen from being able to learn anything about her. He added that he suspected she was a powerful magic user and that only half of her tower seems accessible. Seizing on this last piece of information, the party offered to pay Seven Fifteen to find an answer for what was going on in Jassimir Tower, but he refused on the grounds that he couldn't promise results and that he wanted to stay as clear of Jassimir as possible. Their exchange of information complete, the party headed back to Ais' house to unload for the night. 

At Ais' place, a discussion of the proper strategy in investigating the case turned into an in-character argument. I specify that it was in-character, as the players essentially agree, but are roleplaying characters who have different thoughts. Ais mostly stood back and watched, occasionally noting that she wasn't sure what the disagreement was, while Beor and Montana argued over how to approach the fact that there is a murderer and someone who hired that murderer to deal with. At its basics, Beor's argument was that because this crime stretched into the Above and seems to deal with its most wealthy individual, that the core issue is larger than just Hildy's death. If the wealthy can indiscriminately take life from the poor, shouldn't the whole system be addressed? In Beor's opinion, the case ends when people from the Above cannot control those from the Below. But Montana made a similar argument to what he argued when the two previously disagreed about where the case ends (whether or not catching the person who hired the murderer was their responsibility): he said that finding the person responsible for the murder was what they were tasked with, and that it was in many ways unrealistic to think that the party would be able to effect change in such a broad way. Montana was not prepared to accept the task of fixing the Above because he did not think the party could realistically do anything about it. In the end, they agreed that they will investigate the case beyond what is the bare requirement, but to make decisions as a team when they arise in the near future. 

It's worth noting that this in-character argument took about 30 minutes. During that time, I did not speak. I try to treat the time that the players spend at Ais' house as DM-free time. Whenever they're here, they're doing their most concentrated roleplaying. It's a place to process and reassess and interact with each other rather than NPCs. So even though I was just sitting there, rolling my dice over and over, looking for matched rolls, it was good, important time in the game. 

Before going to bed, Montana offered up a prayer for wisdom to his god, Fharlanghn. Whenever my players pray, I have them roll a d100. If the number strikes me as being special for some reason--double digits (33, 88), an athlete's jersey number (I always honor 36s because I was obsessed with Jerome Bettis as a wee kid), or just a number that gives you a good feeling (89s are good rolls in my game because I was born in 1989). Montana rolled a 77. As a double, I wanted to honor it, but I wasn't sure exactly what to give Montana guidance on. So in light of the argument, I put my take on the issue into Fharlanghn's parlance: "Two paths to different destinations that use the same road still use the same road," popped into Montana's head. I intended this as a reminder that the party is all in agreement that they're going to solve the crime; arguing about the destination while they're all together on the road doesn't change the fact that they're all working together still. 

And this is where we called it for the night. This session marked a bit of a departure for this campaign. Where in the previous six chapters, I would prepare a series of clues that lead to one point, I am of the opinion that now that we're in the final stretch of the story, it's time to mix things up. Instead, I prepare lots of small bits of information everywhere they're going to look. The players are on to Jassimir, but they only have any of that information because I took their plans for investigation and and included some arrows pointing in her direction. And even though there are three more chapters after this, I'm not worried that the suspense is gone. The next three chapters each have big reveals that will shake things up, and investigating Jassimir won't be as easy as anything they've done so far. 

That's all for this time. Next time on the mystery campaign, the party will investigate the abandoned shack in the marketplace deeded to Tajana and talk to Birt Wizzoom about how to reach Tajana. Until next time, happy gaming!

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Mystery Campaign Notes Session 13: Turnbuckle

Last time in the mystery campaign, the party attended to their various business interests and asked Hildy's father Davil for access to Hildy's journals. They had resolved at the end of last session to go and interrogate George Turnbuckle about the rumor that he had hired the turbanned figure for some purpose. This session turned out to be very special, for reasons you will see in the description. Read on for the summary and some insights about how the storytelling unfolded (and from all of us playing together). 

The session picked up where we had left off--with the party at their healing center, preparing to go to Turnbuckle Tower. They started on their way and were approached by a courier. Polly Bridgerman, head of the magic college, sent along word of glyphs, an alternate form of magic that allows spellcasters to create customized effects. I had created this system ten years ago for Listen Check, and I have been wanting to use it again since then. I trust this group of players to do some wild things with it, and they're all already magic users, so it was a great fit. And sure enough (spoiler alert), we had a glyph spell cast later this session. The party looked over these notes for a moment as they continued on their way. They passed by Riviel Jassimir, once again out handing supplies and food to the poor of the city, and chose to pass by without addressing her. 

They arrived at Turnbuckle Tower and were immediately concerned to find a key already in the door to the elevator. Cautiously, they took it upstairs and met a young half-elf named Hiero, who identified himself as Turnbuckle's new assistant. He also disclosed that Turnbuckle was forlorn and broken--a shadow of his former self. In an effort to impress Hiero and gain his confidence, Beor healed Hiero, who was shocked. Removing his shoe, he thanked Beor for having regrown his missing toe. Overcome by the situation, he advised the party to go to Turnbuckle. 

The party entered Turnbuckle's office, a small stone room with paintings of landscapes with architecture, and found him drunk and disheveled. He absently answered some questions and was evasive about others. He eventually admitted when pressed that he had a romantic relationship with Hildy over the last two years, and insisted it was consensual. He also admitted that he had hired a mercenary named Tajana to surveille multiple members of the Above and one member of the Below. Ais managed to read parts of a business plan, and Turnbuckle corroborated this by disclosing that he was working on a new construction company in collaboration with Riviel Jassimir's masonry company; with his lumber and her stone, they could corner the market on construction. 

There was a knock on the door. Ais opened it slightly and saw a woman wearing heeled boots, a black cloak, and a purple turban. After a short discussion, the party decided to open the door and let her in. There was a tense exchange, fairly brief: the party urged her to give herself up and account for the murder. Tajana confessed to the murder but refused to cooperate, declaring her intention to instead leave without further interaction. With that, she dashed away. 

The party began to fire spells at her. Ais cast a glyph spell to restrict Tajana's movements, but Tajana rolled exceptionally well on this and all of her saves in this encounter. Montana grabbed Beor and used "Dimension Door" to teleport to right in front of the elevator Tajana was running for. She manuevered toward the button for the elevator, and then the party jumped into action. Several more controlling and restricting spells were cast, all of which were evaded by exceptional rolls for Tajana. Beor entered rage and grappled Tajana; she allowed herself to be grappled, then pressed a button on a device on her wrist and moved backward in time, out of Beor's grip and into the elevator while the party was stuck motionless in frozen time. In a last ditch effort, Montana attempted to teleport into the elevator as it descended. I allowed this at high difficulty because (1) teleporting into a moving object is significantly harder than teleporting to a stable point, and (2) by this point, I wanted Tajana to get away so I can use her in a later, more momentous situation. I ruled that if Montana could roll an 18 Insight check to judge the timing of the spell, he would succeed; he rolled a 16 and ended up just above the elevator car. He used "Knock" to open the lock on the hatch door, succeeded on his second Strength check to lift the heavy hatch, and saw that Tajana had already disappeared into the city. 

We moved on at this point but later came back to the issue that the distance restriction on the party should have been triggered by Montana's teleportation. When the elevator reached the bottom of the tower, all of them should have been unconscious. Only Hiero would be able to immediately help, and why would he think to move their bodies altogether? I decided that going back through fifteen minutes of story to punish the players and create obstacles with not payoff wasn't worth it. Looking back, I wish I had asked my players if everyone was okay with that and made it more of a discussion. I'll do that next time. 

The party returned to Turnbuckle and questioned him further. Ultimately, they decided that Turnbuckle needed to be brought to Portia at the guard headquarters for the purpose of making a statement. Before they left, Ais was sure to take the business documents from Turnbuckle's house for further investigation. They descended the tower and began to make their way to Portia. On the way, they were encountered by Davil. He handed over Hildy's journal and had a sad, distant look in his eye. He said that they would find the information they were looking for in the journal. 

The final page of Hildy's journal. 

Suddenly, a chaos storm struck. All three party members were affected, the first time that has happened in this campaign. Montana gained a photographic memory for three days, all the liquids on Beor's person were turned into fine elven wine, and for six seconds, Ais turned into a potted plant. After a moment of recovering from the shock of the chaos effects, they continued on and arrived at the guard headquarters. 

Portia listened intently to the party's updates--how they had learned of Turnbuckle's hiring of a mercenary, of that mercenary's confession, and of the need to get Turnbuckle's knowledge put to use. She took Turnbuckle off to another room to get everything he could tell her. Having finished the journal and away from Turnbuckle, Montana shared that Hildy had been pregnant. [Montana's player emitted a pained groan when he read that part of the journal; it was nice to know that my hope for an emotionally impactful detail worked as intended.] But the mention of pregnancy caused Beor to erupt in rage, smashing the table and chairs in the room into bits. Montana managed to calm Beor a bit, and in an effort to bond the party together, Montana shared the story of how he had, for heartbreaking reasons, killed his own son. In response, Beor shared that in an early episode of being transformed into a bear, he had killed his own pregnant wife. Meanwhile, Izzunech--Ais' demon--possessed her and insulted Montana and Beor for sharing emotionally. Beor stabbed Ais with the demon-harming humanoid-healing dagger, and Izzunech shrugged off the damage. Shortly afterward, the possession ended, and Ais gradually returned to herself. 

This is where we ended for the night. It was pretty momentous stuff--I actually revealed all of the information I had planned for the next chapter as well, and quite a lot for the players to process. I ended the session by asking the party to tell me what their suspicions are and what their next plan of attack was so I could prepare. This strategy sounds like it could remove some of the intrigue--if the GM doesn't have a grand plan, where is it all going? But I think of it like this: I'm telling my players that the most important thing in the story is what they want to do. I get to find ways to complicate and reward their ideas instead of making them follow my logic. If you're curious, here's what they said they would look to next, in no order of priority: 

• Talk to the mysterious person known as Seven Fifteen at the tavern The World Map--they know about Tajana
• Investigate the strange abandoned shack in the city marketplace--they are told it is where Tajana asks for dead drops and first meetings
• Look in to more information about Riviel Jassimir--the party learned that she is the city's richest person and want to do some digging
• Talk to Lyssbetonk Cogswagon again for updates and more questions
• Find leads into the world of corporate espionage
• Ask distillery owner Birt Wizzoom about corporate espionage and Tajana--both of whom he knows about

One thing that bears pointing out about this session is that both Montana's and Beor's players voluntarily shared their secrets, which means no one in the party gains any further rewards for completing chapters (aside from the story milestone level ups). At the beginning of this campaign, I was genuinely worried that the players would want the rewards so badly that they just wouldn't personally engage, but just the opposite turned out to be true. It was more satisfying for the players to tell their own stories and engage with each other than to become more powerful in the game. I ruled that because their heart-to-heart happened after they completed the chapter's ending, they were granted a final reward, which was a more considerable one than before: a choice of either +1 Charisma or +1 Dexterity saving throws, which are what we use to avoid chaos storms. 

I'm very pleased with this session. We advanced the plot considerably, we effectively changed from a single-track story to a branching story, and the players all drove the story individually for a while. That balance is hard to find, and I'm just so grateful for my excellent players. Next time in the mystery campaign, the players will turn their attention to corporate espionage and finding Tajana. Until then, happy gaming!

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