(Calling all Rat Bastards! It's CRUNCH time!) Adventure ideas on the Lightening Rail

[reveal]

I'm actually starting my campaign on the Rail heading towards Sharn. None of the PCs know each other and are all going to meet a mutual friend. During the trip, I'm assuming some PCs will want to walk about the train. When there is just one, possibly two, PC in their shared compartment, the PC will make a Listen check to see if they hear what sounds like thumping coming from the roof. Suddenly, the glass breaks in as a warforged comes in to kill them. Eventually, the assassin will get back out and onto the roof. The PCs will follow and, right before he throws himself off of the train and kills himself, he will say "Say hello to [mutual friend] for me."

Combines all the elements of mystery (who is this guy and how does he know [friend]?), surprise (he comes through the freaking window!) and suspense (we need to get to Sharn NOW!).

 

[Lordnightshade]

Now the ideas are flowing, the PCs are going to board the Train at Sterngate, which guards Brelish boarder from humanoid incursions from Darguun. So on the train with the PC’s is an Orcish Ambassador on his way to Wroat to visit the King of Breland. Their trip to Starilaskur would give the PCs time to get acquainted with all the NPCs and make friends/enemies etc… Then on the rout from Starilaskur to Wroat (a much longer journey) The Ambassador is murdered. His retainers and subjects are in an uproar and it is immediately thought that this murder is the result of bigotry or some such thing. This could greatly worsen tensions between Darguun and Breland if the murder is not solved quickly. The finger would of course be pointed at the PCs who would have had nothing to do with the murder and they would be provided with motivation to solve it to clear their names…

 

[rkanodia]

I don't know the movie either, but here's a short list of clues for one potential murder scenario.

- The door has been arcane locked. Opening it will take some effort.
- Inside the room, the victim is right up against the door, in a pool of their own blood, arm oustretched as though they had been pounding the door just before they died. A trail of blood leading from a spot by the window indicates that the victim didn't die instantly, and crawled to the door. Those clues should be fairly obvious (DC 5 to pick up on them); an Int check (DC 15) or some skill check (don't have the book handy, not sure exactly how the mechanics work) should let the character realize this implies a wounding weapon was used and the victim was left to bleed to death.
- No one heard any noises from the room, or the pounding on the door. According to the RAW, the aura of the silence field has likely dissipated before anyone arrives, but I think a good detective game should either increase the duration of auras, or perhaps allow spellcraft, knowledge: arcana, and/or search to somehow detect those lingering effects.
- The victim has wounds on their arms and hands as well as their torso, indicating that they were aware of the attempt before a fatal blow was dealt and tried to defend themselves. This suggests (though doesn't prove) that the assailant was someone unfamiliar to the victim, and that the assailant is not one specialized in stealth/disguise kind of stuff.
- The victim's pockets have been rifled through - perhaps the killer stayed around to watch the victim die after all? In any case, there's a set of footprints in the blood that are much smaller than the victim's.

Whew! Hope that's useful as a reference or at least as inspiration. Love these Eberron threads!

 

[rkanodia]

What you might want to institute is a sort of class system of passage on the trian -- perhaps far cheaper tickets are available for people willing to travel in what amounts to boxcars. They would have to pack their own food, and not have access to the more posh parts of the train.

I believe Keith Baker suggested as much in a thread on the WotC boards. You could have the full-price tickets give you your own room, with 1-3 other people. For 1/10th the price (1 cp/mile), you can get an ordinary seat with a luggage rack, as on a typical commuter train. For 1/10th of that (1 cp/10 miles), you get in the boxcars. Personally, I'd have a 'lounge car' (with food and drink for paying customers) that's accessible to all of the passengers. The elite probably have their own dining car at the front of the train, but some are (or pretend to be) more populist and/or appreciate the atmosphere of the common car, or perhaps just find it amusing (in a patronizing way) to rub elbows with the little people every now and then.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Well, the gimmick to Murder on the Orient Express is

Spoiler

everyone is the murderer.

Really.

Spoiler

Basically, everyone on the train has a reason to want the victim dead, and conspire together to cover for each other, and each person delivers a stab wound, leading to seemingly illogical analysis of the wounds - some wounds deep, some shallow, some from the left hand, some from the right, etc.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Well, the gimmick to Murder on the Orient Express is

Yeah, but I wouldn't pull that on my PCs -- they'd see it coming a mile away.

I find I get a little frustrated with the way mystery plots and detective stories are laid out for adventures in a setting like Eberron. For it to be really, really good, the mystery should be one that could ONLY take place in Eberron -- it somehow depends on one of the many things that are specific to Eberron. So a murder of an ambassador on a train isn't quite enough.

Also, murder mysteries in a world with spells like Raise Dead and Speak with the Dead seem a bit silly. I mean, even if the victim didn't see her assailant, if you can just raise her from the dead, what's the big deal? Murder mysteries, and stories that center around them draw their power from the idea that murder is permanent -- but in Eberron and D&D at large that is not the case.

Now, if someone went to great lengths to make sure that a victim could not be raised, and their spirit could not be contacted (and what are the lengths they would have to go to for THAT), then MAYBE the murder mystery is interesting, but really it's just the stalling that happens between the discovery of the impending battle with the big bad assassin/wizard, and that big final battle.

On top of that, a mystery needs to be the sort of thing that would still require detective work in a world where clerics can pick up the spiritual phone and talk to the almighty (almighties?) and find out what went down. But if you completely disable divinations, you're unbalancing characters.

So. A really good Eberron mystery adventure needs:
1. To be based on some sort of specifics that tie it in a substantial way to the setting.
2. To involve a crime significant enough to warrant PC attention in a world with Raise Dead spells. (so, if it's murder, it needs to be somehow permanent murder . . .)
3. To allow characters with divination spells to discover some clues, but not solve the crime outright.
4. Some hook that makes it key that the PCs solve the mystery, probably on a timeline (to create a sense of urgency)

So, sitting here looking at that, I'm suddenly drawn to the Three Musketeers as a source of inspiration.

Spitballing: the PCs are traveling on the train between two cities. A Noblewoman is on the train, and has a liason with a lover -- perhaps a house Phiarlan entertainer. This tryst, if it were made public, would be come an embarrassment for the lady if it is revealed when they arrive at their destination. The Entertainer -- a master of disguise -- is actually there to try to cause the scandal for some reason, and he steals a signature item from the lady -- (think diamond studs from 3M).

The lady, discovering the loss, needs to recover the item before th train arrives, but does not dare reveal the way the item was stolen, so she finds the PCs and asks for their help, but does not tell them about the affair. She simply tells them that the item was stolen from her, and that she needs them to discretely recover it before the train arrives.

The thief, of course, a changeling and very good at what he does, has the item in a warded location, and has taken on another identity on the train. The PCs can't very well search the entire train while remaining discrete. So they will have to do some detective work.

All that remains is to sort out the clues that the Thief would have left behind -- including some red herrings and dead ends -- and you have yourself a mystery.

Does it meet my own criteria . . only sorta. It uses details from the setting, it's not about murder so it slips past the problems with murder mysteries in this setting, and the time limit (solve it before the train arrives at it's destination) creates the sense of urgency. So it's okay, but there isn't quite enough at state -- perhaps the noblewoman is on her way to be married, and she can still screw it all up if her tryst is revealed . . . I dunno . . .

-rg

 

[rkanodia]

Eberron isn't supposed to be big on raise dead and similar magic. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this:

-Eberron tends to be lower-level than other campaigns; there just aren't a whole lot of people who can run around raising people.
-There cultural taboos about messing with life and death in most regions.
-The services of clerics are not availible to the general public at any price, only devout members of the same faith.
-House Jorasco is the only institution that offers raising services (via altar of ressurection, and they will charge a bare minimum of 10,600 gp for it (10k for the material component, +600 gp for the services of a greater dragonmarked House member, with a surcharge probably added for the expense of building/maintaining the altar)
-There's a limited window of time for raising the dead, because souls that lose their memories to Dolurrh can only be brought back by wish or miracle. Even a character with a +10 Will save has more than half a chance to be lost after just three days.

Taken together, I think these make murder mysteries quite plausible in Eberron. In order to be raised, the victim will have to have friends who will locate their corpse, transport them to a major city (for altar of ressurection) or a headquarters of their faith (for raise dead), and raise thousands of gp in very short order. I'd say that most people who aren't at least level 10, or baron-level nobles, can pretty much expect to stay dead, and even a king won't have too much confidence in his chances of making it back from the afterlife unless his body is quickly found - and that's assuming he wants to be raised, which many people in Eberron prefer not to.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Rkan -

All very good points. Still, in a world where the axiom "dead men tell no tales" is not always true, murder does not have quite the same weight for me as it does in ours. But, I have to admit, you've clearly read more deeply in the setting than I have . . .

-rg

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Lightning Rail racing against an Airship. (First to deliver the cargo wins)

"Stow aways" ride the Lightning Rail, without paying and without getting caught. (or reverse: manhunt, players have to catch those who try to ride without paying.)

 

[Radiating Gnome]

-There cultural taboos about messing with life and death in most regions.
-The services of clerics are not availible to the general public at any price, only devout members of the same faith.
-House Jorasco is the only institution that offers raising services (via altar of ressurection, and they will charge a bare minimum of 10,600 gp for it (10k for the material component, +600 gp for the services of a greater dragonmarked House member, with a surcharge probably added for the expense of building/maintaining the altar)
-There's a limited window of time for raising the dead, because souls that lose their memories to Dolurrh can only be brought back by wish or miracle. Even a character with a +10 Will save has more than half a chance to be lost after just three days.

I've been looking at my ECS, and I'm not finding the details you're citing here -- at least, not all of them. House Jorasco is clearly described as the sole public source of healing, and healing magic of most kinds, much less raise dead, is out of the finacial reach of most people. But I can't find the passages that refer to souls losing their memories to Dolurrh, and I haven't seen anything mentioning cultural taboos, continent-wide (or nearly so) against messing with life and death. I mean, the planar description of Dolurrh describes the risks to visitors, but surely the souls of the dead are not visitors to Dolurrh. Has there been a post or an article I've missed that applied this to the souls of the dead as well as the those nutty enough to go visit the plane of the dead?

As for the cultural taboos, that seems to cut against a lot of what I see generally in the setting -- a setting where deathless are the honored leaders of elven society, where one of the four remaining human kingdoms rests it's power and propserity on necromancy . . . it seems like messing around with the dead is something that happens more frequently in this setting than in typical D&D, and the morals of it are far murkier than in typical D&D.(Nevermind this is a setting where a race of creatures has been created by mortals -- isn't that messing with life and death?)

As for the expense of being raised from the dead . . . I've always imagined a sort of Car Wars Gold Doc style life insurance policy taken out by the wealthy. After all the cost of material components for a raise dead is pretty prohibitive. Certainly some entrepenurial young gnomes will hit on the idea that they can sell untimely death insurance -- complete with occupation based actuarial tables, etc -- and as long as the customer keeps up his monthly payments the company will guarantee to provide the material component for the spell. It's the same principle as car insurance today -- the number of us who get through a year without a can accident far exceeds the number of us who do get into accidents -- so the company can pay for the car repairs (less deductables, etc) without losing money overall. This would probably be a join venture between house Sivis and House Jorasco.

Of course, having the component is only part of the problem, but it's the expensive one. But I could see such an insurance company having a small staff of healers capable of Raise Dead on staff in the major cities.

Anyway, I've drifted very far afield . . . My main question was for sources on the cultural taboos, and on the fate of the souls of the dead that you mentioned -- I am missing something, I'm sure, and I would just like to get the text right in my head.

-rg