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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7016464" data-attributes="member: 20323">[MENTION=34915]magnusmalkus[/MENTION] Great background for your villain!I have a few ideas for incremental clues you might provide the PCs about the Judge's true nature...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Haunted Mirror. One of the court aides - a disreputable drunk and brown-noser - swears the Judge's mirror is haunted. Indeed, echoes of the circumstances of the Judge's death (drinking poison to become lich?) are vaguely visible in the frosted glass at night if one studies the mirror closely...or possibly it might require the casting of detect magic. This could easily be misinterpreted as signs of the Judge's impending death, and he might even spin it as an excuse to hunt down an enemy/rival on trumped up charges of "planned murder of a representative of the state."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bring out your Dead. A gaoler or crematorium worker at the city dungeons has noticed fewer intakes (criminals) arriving than normal. This in turn has diminished the supply of ash (yes, human ash) that is used on certain ceremonial agricultural fields. He's been receiving anonymous payments to keep his mouth shut, but one night in a pique of curiosity followed the cloaked figure and beheld the visage of a wight. Terrified, he doesn't know what's going on, and is stuck between the pressures of the situation at the dungeon/crematorium and the demands of the life/death/fecundity clergy.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Disproportionate to the Crime. Despite everyone going along with the Judge's sentencing of a blacksmith who falsified the hard metal content in his blades, costing several city guards their lives, the blacksmith's intrepid daughter is convinced the death sentence is unduly harsh and that the judge has an ulterior motive. In fact, the blacksmith descends from a lineage that crafted the stopper on the lich's phylactery (or some other hook of your choosing), and even thought the blacksmith doesn't know the Judge's true nature, the Judge wants to eliminate all evidence. In turn, the weakening of the ores the blacksmith uses may be caused by some other plot of the Judge/Lich...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Disgruntled Adventurers (This one depends on the society's view of necromancy). At a tavern, several grumpy adventurers claim about being charged a steep fine (including several choice magic items) by the Judge's office for attacking a zombie that turned out to be a courier for the Courts. According to the court record, the zombie was used to deliver an ultimatum to bandits hiding in the ghoul-infested graveyards (much too dangerous for a lowly magistrate!). However, the party cleric swears up and down that she felt something intelligent and full of malice watching her through the zombie's eyes...of course, they have no proof.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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