D&D 5E CSI: Faerun

[JWO]

I'm putting a mission together for my PCs that sees them investigating the kidnapping of a dwarf merchant who was traveling through the city slums. His sister, who was with him at the time, has hired them to find him and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to run stuff like this.

The background is that the people who kidnapped him are part of a gang called The Ashen League who want to find out the location of the hideout of their rivals who the dwarf is working for in secret. The members of The Ashen League smear themselves in cremation ash (the high up members of the gang are a sort of weird death cult but the lower members are regular gangsters who think they're just smearing themselves in ash as a part of their gang identity - they don't even know where the ash is from).

The head of The Ashen League is an undertaker in town and the gang HQ is in the basement (and the dungeons that lead off it).

So far I've thought of a few clues:
1. The dwarf's sister is going to have smears of ash on her clothes from where the gang members tussled with her.
2. There'll be a scrap of ash stained cloth at the site of the kidnapping. If they clean it, it's a type of cloth used in certain funerary rites.
3. There's a beggar who lives near where the kidnapping took place. He knows they're called The Ashen League but doesn't know where they're based.

If they don't figure it out by the end of the day, they'll be attacked by a group of them, and obviously, if they take one of them alive they should be able to find out where they're based from him.

Does anyone have any advice for running this kind of thing? Can anyone think of any ideas or clues I could drop to make it an interesting mission?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Locals asked about "The Ashen League" make a sign against evil and then clam up.

The PCs notice the smoke rising from the cremation furnace upon entering town.

There are ash-marked footprints in the funeral parlor that mysteriously cut off at one wall (the secret door to the basement).

There is gang sign graffitti done in ash around some buildings or alleyways in seedier parts of town.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I think it would be important to have the PC's have a run-in with some ash smeared goons in the previous adventure, so the players can make the connections themselves. Otherwise it boils down to just dice rolling or gather information checks. IE, roll investigation to see the ash. Players think "ok, peasants are dirty... soooo?". DM then has them make a dice roll to make the connection between a gang the characters might be aware of, but the players are ignorant of. Its more statisfying if both player and character knowledge are similar.

I sometimes run into the same trap, where I forget I know a heck of a lot more about the world, culture and inhabitants than my players, who haven't read hundreds pages of fluff sourcebooks. I once had a puzzle in a game that I considered easy and related to a geographical feature on the area the characters started in. The *players* had spent about 20 hours in the game world, spread over sessions over a few weeks - and a lot of that was time killing monsters and cracking jokes. The *characters* had lived in the world 20-30 years or so.

 

[Voort]

Do the PCs have access to divination spells? Seems like just the job for stuff like Locate Object/Creature.

 

[PnPgamer]

"sir, the suspected fey has escaped the crime scene!"
"it seems..."
*puts on eyes of the eagle*
"...they performed a fae-run!"
YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

[Astrosicebear]

*leaning down a cool human rubs ash between his fingers before standing up and putting on sunglasses.
"Let's find these ash-holes."
YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

 

[neobolts]

Looks like when they tussled with her they were trying to...
/glasses on
...cinder a message.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

You know, that ash on your clothes? It kinda...
*sunglasses
... soots you.

 

[JWO]

What have I started?!

 

[TarionzCousin]

You know, that ash on your clothes? It kinda...
*sunglasses
... soots you.

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!




My advice is to be prepared when the players have no idea, kill all the NPC's, and don't notice any of the clues. Or, they get the wrong idea.

"Funereal rites ash? Let's go talk to the city morgue/cremators/body disposers."