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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Templetroll" data-source="post: 1235102" data-attributes="member: 2201">I did this by having a murder occur in an inn; it was late and the sheriff was exhausted.  He just locked the inn down and posted guards outside until morning.  The party ended up taking charge inside and investigating thingsnot because they were a party but because they were all strong-willed individuals who were not going to be railroaded or murdered by inaction. One sidelight was an NPC with a withered hand who stayed in his room.  He was not involved in the murder but he was so strange - the wooden door and a table in his room were rotting, the bed was already broken and a pile of refuse used to be a chair.  He was secretive, and so unconcerned with the murders and upset armed people investigating them that the party dealt with him carefully.The crimes were found to have been commited by a skulk; a monster my players had never encountered before.  It had camoflauge abilities but could not escape with its loot while there where guards outside.  It was trying to kill enough people to drive the rest from the place so it had a chance to escape during the confusion.The fellow with the withered hand, called Omi the invalid, had the Hand of Vecna, which caused wood to rot by touch.  The fellow was evil but vastly entertained by hearing of the murders and the possibility of violence breaking out at any time during the night.  He was immune to metal, but cursed to only be able to speak in a whisper.  The players found the whispering to be one of the more frightening aspects of the character, along with his sarcastic humor.It ended with a barbarian having a dalliance with a barmaid and they were attacked.  The girl was injured and the barbarian made so much noise in the very first round as he tried to defend her the rest of the party was attracted.  They stood and watched from the doorway, blocking it unintentionally as the fellow slashed the walls with his axe.  Once the skulk was injured it died quickly and then surprisingly, only one member of the party decided to search the room!  She got all the treasure and spent the next several months of gaming using the treasure to help anyone who needed normal gear.  The other players never even took overt notice of the magic sword the woman suddenly had.It was fun.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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