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<blockquote data-quote="green slime" data-source="post: 5330099" data-attributes="member: 1325">I'm not seeing a problem here...Next step, is to decide exactly how you want the Zhentarim to react. Being such a large, evil organisation, it is perfectly reasonable several factions of the organisation to deduce that some other faction wanted Marcus dead, and did the deed. Every large organisation has various factions, of varying power. To them, it doesn't really matter who really killed Marcus, it matters more who you can actually pin the blame on, and how you can utilize the death of Marcus to gain a foot-up, organisationally.Instead, large parts of the organisation will be expending resources to keep themselves blameless. If someone even suspects a fellow faction-member of participating, they'll in all likelihood try to obfuscate any investigation. Therefore, no one is really willing to investigate thoroughly, unless there is a very strong political desire to do so, and then the &quot;investigation&quot; focuses on finding an appropriate scapegoat faster, one that preferably doesn't reflect badly on your own faction. Instead, various factions will find some mutual enemy to blame, to the extent of planting evidence.So for instance, the master-at-arms, will not want reveled that Marcus' bodyguard was asleep, because then that reflects badly on him. Instead, the master-at-arms tries to blame the Cavalry Master, because of a personal insult 10 years ago. The Master Alchemist will not want an investigation to reveal that he replaced all the lead-lining in the walls with putty, and sold the lead to a passing Thay caravan for thousands of gp, sponsoring his latest experiments. The Master Alchemist, aware of the master-at-arms dislike for the Cavalry master, makes some sly hints, and suddenly, the Cavalry master is arrested, and then mysteriously commits &quot;suicide&quot; by smashing his head on a wooden spoon while awaiting &quot;interrogation&quot;.Case closed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="green slime, post: 5330099, member: 1325"] I'm not seeing a problem here... Next step, is to decide exactly how you want the Zhentarim to react. Being such a large, evil organisation, it is perfectly reasonable several factions of the organisation to deduce that some other faction wanted Marcus dead, and did the deed. Every large organisation has various factions, of varying power. To them, it doesn't really matter who really killed Marcus, it matters more who you can actually pin the blame on, and how you can utilize the death of Marcus to gain a foot-up, organisationally. Instead, large parts of the organisation will be expending resources to keep themselves blameless. If someone even suspects a fellow faction-member of participating, they'll in all likelihood try to obfuscate any investigation. Therefore, no one is really willing to investigate thoroughly, unless there is a very strong political desire to do so, and then the "investigation" focuses on finding an appropriate scapegoat faster, one that preferably doesn't reflect badly on your own faction. Instead, various factions will find some mutual enemy to blame, to the extent of planting evidence. So for instance, the master-at-arms, will not want reveled that Marcus' bodyguard was asleep, because then that reflects badly on him. Instead, the master-at-arms tries to blame the Cavalry Master, because of a personal insult 10 years ago. The Master Alchemist will not want an investigation to reveal that he replaced all the lead-lining in the walls with putty, and sold the lead to a passing Thay caravan for thousands of gp, sponsoring his latest experiments. The Master Alchemist, aware of the master-at-arms dislike for the Cavalry master, makes some sly hints, and suddenly, the Cavalry master is arrested, and then mysteriously commits "suicide" by smashing his head on a wooden spoon while awaiting "interrogation". Case closed. [/QUOTE]

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