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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 5066300" data-attributes="member: 2795">Our Quid Novi? newsletter is emailed to subscribers every second Sunday in the wee hours of the morning. One of Quid Novi's regular features is a Five-Room One-Shot, a paragraph outline of a short adventure you can use with just about fantasy RPG. What follows is the most recently published Five-Room One-Shot:Shelter from the StormThis issue's Five-Room One-Shot presents a short murder mystery. To set up the adventure, it is important that the PCs already be on the trail of a killer. The terrain doesn't matter much, but it should be someplace to far away from civilization to prevent quick trips to town. There also needs to be an abandoned tower-like structure. I think a windmill would work great. Since this is a murder mystery, the rooms are really more like events. The setting for these events has a certain amount of flexibility. As with any murder mystery, we need to establish our cast of characters. The Heroes: These are the PCs. The Killer: Capturing this NPC starts as the PCs' objective. Make him appropriately despicable. Attach a reward to his head. Make him wanted dead or alive. Since he's operating alone against the PCs, make sure he's enough of threat that the players will be cautious, but ultimately he shouldn't prove too much of a challenge. He's not the main point of the story. The Killer is really a red herring. The Sideshow Freaks: Holed up in the abandoned windmill are sideshow freaks. Their wagon broke down on their way from Point A to Point B. They saw the storm brewing and decided to spend the night in relative comfort rather than attempting to repair the wagon in the rain, wind, and lightning. The sideshow freaks include the Fat Lady, the Thin Man, the Strong Man, and the Flipper Boy. The Fat Lady and Thin Man are sort of like the mother and father of this strange family. The Strong Man secretly loves the Fat Lady and hates the Thin Man. Flipper Boy is mute and deformed. His arms and legs are stunted, appearing more like a seal's flippers than human limbs. He is about eight years old, and he loves the Fat Lady and the Thin Man as if they were his actual parents. Flipper Boy tries to be fond of the Strong Man, but he is afraid of him. We also need a setting. In this case, it is just after sundown near the road between Points A and B. The abandoned windmill can be seen. The broken down wagon has been pulled to the side of the road. The moon and stars cannot be seen behind the thick, roiling storm clouds overhead. Lightning flashes. Thunder booms. A cold rain starts to fall. A fire's light can be seen flickering within the windmill.Room One: Anyone Home?Since the PCs have tracked the Killer this far, and there is light in the windmill, it doesn't seem unreasonable that the PCs will investigate. The Killer is hiding in the windmill, but not on the ground floor with the Sideshow Freaks. He's upstairs. The Sideshow Freaks aren't really a threat to the PCs. They're not secretly wizards or any such thing. They're just entertainers. Of course, the Strong Man needs to be very strong indeed. Assuming they're not mistreated, the Sideshow Freaks welcome the PCs to share their fire, food, and wine. They're polite and curious. What brings adventurers to an abandoned windmill on a night like this? If the PCs tell the Sideshow Freaks about their mission (and why wouldn't they warn these travelers about the Killer loose in the vicinity), the Thin Man remarks that he saw someone lurking in the trees (scrub, rocks, whatever) not too far from the windmill. They hello'd him, but he ran off. During the interplay between the PCs and the Sideshow Freaks, slip a player a note. On the note, mention that the player's character notices that the Strong Man looks displeased by displays of affection between the Fat Lady and the Thin Man. For example, the Fat Lady strokes the Thin Man's hand, and the Strong Man glowers a bit. If the PC brings this up, the Sideshow Freaks laugh and defend each other. Appropriate skill checks may reveal that the Strong Man is less than sincere when insisting that he doesn't have a problem.Room Two: Chasing Wild GeeseThe PCs head out into the storm to search for the Killer in the direction indicated by the Thin Man. Play up the weather: the driving rain, the howling wind, the crashing of the thunder, the sudden bursts of light from the lightning. Give any characters with nature skills a chance to do their thing. Emphasize that the weather makes tracking difficult, but don't let the players lose hope. Right when they think they've lost the trail, a PC discovers a clue: a bit of cloth snagged on a branch, a dropped personal item, et cetera. Gradually the trail leads the PCs in a wide circle right back to the windmill.Room Three: Murder Most Foul, Part OneWhile the PCs are gone, the Thin Man hears the Killer moving upstairs. He tells the Fat Lady to hide with Flipper Boy. He and the Strong Man arm themselves with clubs and go investigate. The Killer moves higher up into the windmill and evades detection. It's during this time that the Strong Man sees his opportunity. He chokes the Thin Man to death, wraps a length of rope around his crushed neck, and hauls him up toward the second floor's rafters. He then clubs himself in the head and stumbles back to the Fat Lady, arriving at the same time the PCs return. The Strong Man's story is that he and the Thin Man went to investigate noises. The Thin Man was jumped and the Strong Man was clubbed. Dazed, he staggered back to the Fat Lady and Flipper Boy. Since this rough sequence of events is basically the truth, he is pretty convincing. What's more, the PCs might not have time for fact checking. After all, the Thin Man is missing and the Killer is on the loose. The PCs head upstairs and find the Thin Man's corpse. They also find the Killer trying to get out of the windmill by exiting a second floor window. Run the fight as normal. The PCs either capture or kill the Killer. After the fight, hand two other players two more notes. On one note, say that the player's character notices that the Thin Man's neck has been crushed. Not only would this require great strength, but it's also not the Killer's modus operandi. On the other note, say the player's character notices that the rope suspending the Thin Man from the floor was tied off close to the ceiling. The Killer would have to stand on a chair to reach this height. With the three clues provided, the players have what they need to figure out who really murdered the Thin Man.Room Four: Murder Most Foul, Part TwoIf the players still haven't figured it out, the Flipper Boy offers a final clue. He gets a PC's attention and draws a figure in the dirt of the floor. The figure is two circles connected by a straight line: O--O, a child's representation of a barbell. Even if the PCs still don't get it, the Strong Man does when he sees the picture. Once he knows he's been figured out, the Strong Man justifies his action. He's a better man than the Thin Man. No one could love the Fat Lady as much as he does. He did what he did out of love. Whether the Strong Man goes down without a fight is up to you.Room Five: After the StormThe Fat Lady is heartbroken but strong. She's still got Flipper Boy to take care of, after all. She asks the PCs to help her ensure that the Thin Man receives a proper burial. If the Strong Man died, she insists on the same for him. At least once upon a time, they were friends, and it's the least she can do. The PCs might be able to help fix the wagon and accompany the Fat Lady and Flipper Boy down the road. Of course, there's also that reward to collect for capturing the Killer.</blockquote>

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