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Message: <blockquote data-quote="roguerouge" data-source="post: 5257459" data-attributes="member: 13855">Clues:• Why’s the Battle Axe on the Warpath? A diplomacy check on the Ingenue, Impressario, or Drunk discovers that she’s upset with the Impressario over casting the PC and having a love scene between the Ingenue and the Avuncular Drunk, who were once lovers.• Search for bottles: A Search 20 of the entire theater turns up way too many bottles for even the Avuncular Drunk to have hidden them himself.• Motive: That the replacements are all Method actors can be discovered by asking them the right questions or gathering information about this issue directly. Nobody volunteers the acting philosophy because they regard it as irrelevant unless directly asked.• The Avuncular Drunk Knows: He was trying to advise the Ingenue to drop the Method Actor, whom he suspected of unchivalrously using her. A Listen check catches the end of a blow-up argument between himself and the Method Actor.• Cops/Physical Evidence: On 2nd murder scene, Search 25 sees a scuff mark from a shoe not of the Child Impersonator’s size and identifies it as significant because it is roughly of the same age of the scene by the amount of dust there.• Cops/Physical Evidence: On 2nd murder leads the cop to test ropes similar to those from the first murder with fraying and with knife. Concludes after a day the rope was cut with a very sharp knife. Immediately fixates on following up the Fight master’s bad side of town connection, then on the Ingenue.• Cops/Physical Evidence: The coroner discovers a pin-prick hole at the cartoid artery in the Avuncular Drunk’s neck while preparing his body for cremation. This is inconsistent with a fall and points to murder after the fall left the man helpless.• Cops/Physical Evidence: The coroner notes at the scene of the crime that the strangulation marks come from a human man with below average strength, wielding a rope from behind.• Cops/Physical Evidence: The coroner notes at the scene of the crime that this body is that of a halfling, not a human boy.• Cops/Physical Evidence: The cop finds a broken piece of string near the axe that killed the Box Office Gossip, which was how the axe fell.• Search: The Lech spies on women in their dressing room. Search to find hidden passage or holes in walls.• Search: The Lech has sketches of various female actresses and extras in various states of undress. Very definitely potential blackmail material.• Search: the Avuncular Drunk has a large collection of past stage weapons in his dressing room.The Ingenue’s Sex Life:• Diplomacy among the main cast reveals rumors of her casting couch session with the Impressario to escape the extras, her rejection of the Lech, her October-May affair with the Avuncular Drunk and resulting blow-ups with the Battle Axe, and her current affair with the Method Actor. • A Gather Info check among the stage-hands finds the above plus that she’s been seen canoodling with a handsome extra behind the Method Actor’s back. o A Gather Info check among the musicians finds none of those rumors but instead that Gorsky believes she’ll never be a star. • A Gather Info check among the extras finds the current affair and that she’s a believer in the Method. She isn’t, but they believe she is because she tells the men she’s sleeping with what they want to hear.Presence of a Curse: • Tristan and Isolde has a reputation of being haunted by ill-fortune. (Bardic Knowledge) • A GI check 10 reveals ghost tales and speculation that it’s the composer, a neglected extra, or the spirit of an anguished Ingenue seduced and abandoned. Told in a manner of kidding around, theatrically, or to scare the Noobs and extras. • A Diplomacy 15 of the gossip or the drunk leads to the knowledge of a ghost. Every 5 by which this succeeds, reveals an extra clue: never someone with good reviews, death by a panicked flight through the theater, death by accident (a falling axe), or a visiting performer who died of stage fright before her first performance. There’s also more than a few reports on backstage drama in EVERY performance. • A Search check 20 of the archives of the good temple reveals all such information, given enough time.Finances: • The Swan Street Slicer is dragging down sales. (Gather Info 10 results in idle conversation with box office gossip.) Success here gives +2 circumstance bonus to uncovering financial difficulties. • The theater and the Impressario are in financial difficulties. (This can be uncovered with a Gather Information 15 check in the right underworld circles, a GI 25 elsewhere, a Search check on the reviews and news coverage, or with a Sense Motive DC 26.) The money troubles motivate his unusual casting of the PC against vocal type and his PR use of her heroism.• The Box Office Gossip is skimming lightly off the top, which prevents her from coming forward later. Can be uncovered by catching her in the act, after hours, or by a search through the financial records of the theater by a professional.The Child Impersonator is on the scene for every discovery of the murders. • “That’s No Boy!”: Seeing through the disguise requires a Spot 22. Clues to real identity include Perform +0 skill (although he is a good actor) and he has to re-roll his Disguise +12 when around cards at a -2 modifier due to his addiciton to gambling. This is how the Method Actor knows his real identity. • The Cabin Girl: The PC has the good luck to talk to an understudy or a girl about town, Rajya, who knows the real Timothy on sight, as he belonged to an Easterners rival group of kids until recently. “He used to pull her hair and throw rocks, but otherwise he was kinda nice. You know. [Nods]” If pressed, she gives a story that starts in the middle, rockets right to the beginning, then off-handedly mentions the end.The Fight Master: Under diplomacy, will admit that he dislikes the Lech (lack of manliness), the Bore (lack of charisma in his fighting), and works in the bad part of town (Knowledge: Local).• Who was last seen with the missing dulled weapon?Divination Spells:• Speak with Dead is easy. The victims don't know much about the murderer: the Aging Battle Axe was due to a trap, the push from behind for the Avuncular Drunk, the falling axe was a remote controlled trap for the Gossip, the strangulation from behind of the Lech… The spell does reveal the Lech’s blackmail scheme, the blackmailing (only) of the Impressario by the Method Actor, and that he was waiting for some lovin’.• The method actor will probably be immune to Detect Thoughts most of the time. It only detects surface thoughts, and he can use his acting training to "get into character" in a way that moves any thoughts of guilt away from the forefront of his mind. His training means that he can use his Disguise/Performance check instead of his Will save.• Zone of Truth might be foiled through half-truths or refusals to answer or appeals to their physical relationship.• The theater itself detects as evil while the ghost remains. The Method Actor, the Lech, the Child Impersonator, and the Ingenue all read as low-powered, selfish evil.• Charm person makes someone friendly, not suicidal. The Method Actor won’t give himself up because of this spell.</blockquote>

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