Looking for a mystery...

[Orryn Emrys]

My PCs are now involved in the social strata of the high and mighty, dealing with political developments and such. As such, I take great joy in suddenly plunging them into annoying situations from which they must extract themselves diplomatically. About half of these scenarios have the added bonus of having some link to a major plot point suddenly develop in a place the PCs would never have expected to find it.

Intrigue I'm good at. What I'm looking for now are ideas for a mystery. I would like to implement a scenario which requires more than a sharp sword and quick wits, but a little ingenuity as well... a whodunit, perhaps, or a circumstance under which the PCs must clear their names. Something that requires investigation.... Alas, I am no good at coming up with such a plot. I mean, it's easy to instigate a scenario in which such-and-such a person has been murdered or an important item has been stolen, but I'm not sure how to lay out the mystery elements.

Any ideas? Any kind of mystery ideas are welcome. I am running an ARCANA EVOLVED campaign in a home-brew world, so some ideas may need some tweaking... but the principles seem like they should be quite translatable for most any scenario. I would appreciate your input, O Brethren of the Boards.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Go back to the origional "modern mystery"

Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe (Predates the Sherlock Holmes stories)

 

[Xombie Master]

I find with mystery plots that it's too easy to over think every angle, and seem convoluted. I keep it simple, with a few major avenues of investigation and a couple of red herrings (players sure do love to pursue every hook you toss their way don't they!) Usually I start with a specific location and then work from there.

Here's an example of how I brainstorm a mystery:
There's a room in a seedy tavern, full of blood, and obvious signs of foul play. The only problem is a lack of apparent victum(s). The players would have to first discover what the mystery is before they can solve it.

* The blood could be from a victum who is dead or alive.
* There's enough blood, maybe there are multiple victims.
* Maybe the victim was mugged and dropped a container of blood he was procuring for a local wizard.
* If some of the blood didn't even come from a victim. Perhaps it was to be used as a spell component, and the courier was attacked. If so, where's the courier.
* A local store deals in odd spell components, maybe they could help. Problem is they are wary of investigators, due to the semi-illegal nature of their business.
* A local farmer has recently been finding his cows killed and drained of some of their blood. This is actually unrelated, as a flock of stirges is behind the attacks.
* Perhaps the blood comes from a rare creature only found on another plane. Perhaps the planeswalker's guild can point them in the right direction. Imagine a red herring that takes the player's to another plane. Or maybe this puts them on the right track, but there are multiple possible planar destinations.
* The courier is still alive and has already returned to the plane to retrieve more blood.
* During the investigation, the player's discover the Evil nature of the spell the blood is used for. Does the courier know or care. Do they stop the courier or let him lead them to the bigger villain, risking demon summoning.

If you can sift through my thoughts there's a mystery there somewhere.