D&D Winter Murder Plot [need help]

[NennaMeerkat]

So me and my husband are doing a mostly winter based campaign where his female character (yeah he is playing a female) is helping a Gray Render (who was once a young man) get back to warmer climates and find out the mystery behind him.

I have had this idea to introduce a rather dark matter where children are disappearing in various small farming villages along their way and the individuals in my husband's party along with his character start finding random body parts outside of said towns. Obviously something or someone is murdering and dismembering the children and I don't want it to be "just another demon attack" or some overused generic entity. I want my husband to really be creeped out (or at least his character) with this thing. Possibly have a villain that stalks them if they don't manage to kill or whatever before the end.

So I am wondering if anyone has any ideas of some creepy scenarios or villain type things that I can use. Keep in mind that there is a Gray Render (generic stats for the most part on it) so even though his character isn't overly strong or extraordinary it might need some work to make it a challenge.

EDIT: Forget to mention the level of the party.

The Gray Render himself goes by the book and my husband's character (female ranger) and the one companion with them (a male half elf ranger) are both level 6. Sorry about that.

 

[aco175]

You did not mention a level of the party.

I always liked undead for spooky ideas. Sell your soul to gain power and have mindless minions following you. Otherwise you could have druids or fey types trying to assist the dwindling winter wolf population by steering them to better feeding grounds. They could not know about the rampaged farms or do not care about this small sacrifice to restore the narural order of things. A third idea is that the neighboring lord is looking to take over the area and seeks to gain the locals favor from their lord by riding in and saving the village from the path of the wild grey render and the bloodthirsty band of canabals.

 

[NennaMeerkat]

You did not mention a level of the party.

I always liked undead for spooky ideas. Sell your soul to gain power and have mindless minions following you. Otherwise you could have druids or fey types trying to assist the dwindling winter wolf population by steering them to better feeding grounds. They could not know about the rampaged farms or do not care about this small sacrifice to restore the narural order of things. A third idea is that the neighboring lord is looking to take over the area and seeks to gain the locals favor from their lord by riding in and saving the village from the path of the wild grey render and the bloodthirsty band of canabals.

The Gray Render is a "good guy" and part of the party. I am not sure if you misunderstood or not.

 

[anest1s]

Their mothers are getting possessed by ghosts and kill their own children

 

[aco175]

I got that the grey render is a good guy, but the invading neighboring duke is looking for a scapegoat to pin the blame on so that the locals will side with him in their protection and what better to pin blame on than a grey render loose in the countryside. Maybe the pcs can convince the locals or the real local lord that they mean not harm and are not involved in the murders.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Possibilities:

• A dormant old god of harvest/circle of life is stirring in its fitful sleep, and its dreams are causing townsfolk to unconsciously re-enact the blood sacrifices it used to demand in tribute from its worshippers. They are completely in thrall to this being and have no recollection of their actions. The more sacrifices that occur, the closer the god gets to awakening fully. The beginning of the problem was when two brothers quarreled over a woman they both loved, and one killed the other by braining him with a riverstone...the blood from the killing falling upon the god's unrecognized altar stone, buried in the mud by time and seasonal flood. The murder must be solved; the altar stone cleansed both physically and spiritually.
  
• A gang of half-demon doppelgangers are moving into the area, hoping to establish it as a base of operations for their kind. The killings are being committed by doppelgangers who have assumed human form, because they have discovered that the kids are seeing through their disguises rather quickly. In their haste to kill and replace the adults, the doppelgangers are not taking enough time to accurately mimic their victims well enough to fool the kids...and none of the doppelgangers want to take on child-sized forms.
  
• An old vendetta between two families that rule the area has been revived. Originally, the renewed fighting was done between the adults, but one woman who lost her brother spent all of her hidden savings to hire a wizard to set an Invisible Stalker loose upon the family of her brother's killer. And on the other side, another family released a Barbed Devil to do likewise...

 

[DaveW]

Here's something I did in one campaign;

I had a situation where Dwarves dug too deep (cliche, I know) and broke into the underdark. This was a fairly new dwelling, so the Dwarves broke down all the tunnels in the lower level and abandoned it, leaving behind an enormous defense mechanism that would prevent anything digging through the tunnels from getting to the surface. Unfortunately, a single solitary Drow scout was trapped halfway between her home in the underdark and the surface. A few years later, and a clan of semi-peaceful goblins have taken up residence in the abandoned mine. The Drow has conflicting feelings about them; she is driven to torture and kill them for her own amusement, but at the same time she thrives on their company, steals their food. Her nature and upbringing are constantly battling her desire for company and entertainment; put simply, she's quite mad.

The players were tasked with finding and stopping the Drow. However, she is near impossible to see, able to slip past them with ease. She could, in effect, kill them with ease, but she yearns for entertainment...so she toys with them, and laughs her way down the corridors whenever one of her traps are sprung. Some of the things I was doing genuinely made my players apprehensive, and I think you could use them to make your monster more terrifying.

For example:
- The wizard opened a door without checking it. A bucked of water falls on his head. A nearby goblin tells him that the last time that trick was pulled, the bucket contained acid.
- The fighter went down a dry well on a rope; finding it clear, the rest of the party followed. Once at the bottom, the body of a goblin falls into the well, and they realize that the Drow is at the top. They wait a while, before the fighter chooses to climb the rope; just at the top, she cuts it and he falls back in.

The Drow could have caused them serious harm at any point, but she was more interested in toying with them. Making your players feel vulnerable and helpless, without removing their control of the situation, should help to create an atmosphere of tension.

My players eventually captured her in an old library. Guessing that the only place she could be hiding is on top of a bookshelf, the fighter pushed the bookshelves over in a domino-effect. The Drow has nowhere to hide, and the fighter chose to execute her right there and then. Heh, he got himself covered in Drow blood in the process-meaning he activated the defense mechanism when they tried to leave. Oh me oh my, I do love letting my players walk right into it.

-Dave

 

[CarlZog]

Something has bonded with the gray render. (Perhaps a member of a flock/herd/school of creatures that another render had once bonded to). The parts being found on the road are prizes like a cat bringing mice to its master.

The key to making this more than a nuisance is to posit an intelligent or semi-intelligent being that will grow increasingly annoyed at having its gifts ignored or rejected. Think "Fatal Attraction" with a murderous monster of some sort. This creature will stalk them and increasingly extend it murder spree to anything it thinks the render or the PC show an interest in.