Lycanthrope mystery scenario?

[lingshu8]

I'm working on an adventure right now in which the PCs are hired to track down the wild animal responsible for a series of killings on the outskirts of town. They gradually realize that the killer is in fact a lycanthrope (e.g. they find animal tracks that turn into human footprints, shredded clothes from the transformation, etc). The scenario then becomes a kind of (serial) murder mystery where the lycanthrope NPC must be identified and stopped before s/he strikes again.

I was wondering if anyone knows of a published (or unpublished) adventure (any system) with a similar scenario that I could, er... borrow from. Even serial killer adventure without the lycanthrope angle might be useful.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jonesy]

From Wizards: D&D Adventure: Bad Moon Waning

The RPG Archive is a good source for all sorts of adventures:
Family Secrets
The Lost Temple of Pelor
Sins of the Father

Dungeon #129 had a pretty good murder mystery adventure (5th level 3.5E Eberron) called Murder in Oakbridge. (No lycanthropes, though).

Also:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/95165-murder-mystery-adventures.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...-murder-mystery-urban-setting-help-ideas.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/70369-designing-murder-mystery.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...-help-looking-good-murder-mystery-module.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/91897-running-murder-mystery-adventure.html

 

[invokethehojo]

my favorite kinds of campaigns to write/run are mysteries. Something I have learned from experience is that you can't write a mystery campaign like you would a movie/book/story. As soon as tracks turn into footprints or they find shredded clothes the players will figure out your mystery and all the other clues will be boring to them. If you don't really want this to be hard to figure out, or your players are not familiar with lycanthrope lore whatsoever, then that is fine. It sounds like you may want to focus more on the "who is the lycanthrope" rather than "what is doing this" mystery, if so my advice is likely irrelevant.

However, if you want the what to be as big a mystery as who you have to mess with the players heads. Think up a somewhat complex situation without thinking of the players at all. Maybe this lycanthrope murders some victims in human form with a regular weapon, maybe it kills some in animal form, and maybe when in animal form it has a pack of regular wolves it leads. With multiple different things going on the clues will tend to contradict each other, which will keep the players guessing, and then their thoughts will start to spin in weirder directions then yours and you mystery will stay alive. Just think through the details of your situation and the mystery will write itself.

For instance: the players begin to suspect a werewolf, then they find a murder victim killed with a knife, and when they attack a large wolf silver doesn't do anything special to it (one of the pack members). Now they aren't sure what to think.

 

[hopeless]

Hmm...

So you actually want it to be the work of a lycanthrope?

You could keep it as is and make them think its the work of a lycanthrope or you could throw in a few twists in the tale like for example its actually the work of someone who wants people to think just that perhaps even so they can get the locals on the side of his/her cult who want to use the murders to promote their faith and keep them afraid of whats going on out there in return for keeping their control over the settlement.

Now lets assume there IS a lycanthrope out there BUT rather than being the killer he/she was an intended victim and killed their attacker(s) and is currently lying low hoping to avoid being identified.

The cult arranges for the PCs to head after a suitable cats paw whilst they're trying to find the killer of their friend(s) since they believe there are no lycanthropes in the settlement but the PCs own investigation thanks in part to the misinformation believes there ARE.

Of course they're going to use silver to identify the killer and this leads to a tragedy as a child whose burnt by the silver is killed whether by the cult of the PCs you decide but the child is far too young to have been responsible for the killing so they either go looking for his/her family or even try to find out if the kid had been bitten by anything recently.

The truth is that the child was born out of wedlock with a local girl who was driven from town by the family of her child's father who had the child fostered to hide their shame.

The girl however grief stricken at the loss of her child isn't interested in revenge or wasn't until her child is killed... so you have a phoney series of lycanthrope murders that results in the death of an innocent and THEN the lycanthrope starts killing people and most likely her target will be the PCs as well a any members of the cult depending on who was involved when the child died.

No probably better to keep it simple!

 

[Salcor]

Well is you adventure fantasy or modern? If it is modern, you could look at Nocturm by FFG a D20 Call of Cthulhu Campaign. The first adventure deals with werewolves (among other things.) There is also some of the old 12 to Midnight D20 Modern Adventures that might fit into this schema.

Salcor