WANTED: Dark Secrets

[BlackMoria]

A series of murders has come to light and has tongues wagging in every inn. Investigators are trying to determine who or what is responsible.

The secret is that two noble houses are engaged in a war started by a recent major transgression. House 'A' youngest daughter was raped by a young rake from House 'B'. House 'A' seeks justice but House 'B' is too well connected with individuals in the justice system. Instead, the two Houses are engaged in a clandestine proxy war using hired muscle and assassins which attack the other side's assets, hirelings, etc. The war is heating up and unless investigators get to bottom of what is going on, there will be future bodies found in alleys.

 

[EricNoah]

Awesome thread.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I'm grinning from ear to ear. I shouldn't be cos you people are sick!!!! Love without bounds and a devil's agreement that actually brings good. I love morale grey areas. That's where the most fun is. Oh and I have a lost Quarter: Muddy Bottom, a shanty town on the other side of the river mouth from the main city. So this will fit right in.

Plus a vendetta between noble houses. I like a good vendetta. And I've got one noble PC who is aiming to be a "swordsman of great reknown" so he'll want to be involved.

Seriously, these are fantastic ideas. Thanks, my players will love them.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

I'm grinning from ear to ear. I shouldn't be cos you people are sick!!!! Love without bounds and a devil's agreement that actually brings good. I love morale grey areas. That's where the most fun is. Oh and I have a lost Quarter: Muddy Bottom, a shanty town on the other side of the river mouth from the main city. So this will fit right in.

These sorts of cities often do; my original model was the Maze & Downwind from Sanctuary.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Not familiar with Maze & Downwind. Are they RPG or literature?

 

[Rechan]

A landlord/merchant has been taxing his tenants into the poor house (which he also owns). This greed and gluttony at eating away at others has turned him into a ghoul. Something he is vastly trying to conceal. But the hunger...

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Not familiar with Maze & Downwind. Are they RPG or literature?

They're districts of Sanctuary, described in literature as "the most dangerous city in fantasy" and as an RPG in the Thieves' World books.

 

[EricNoah]

Not familiar with Maze & Downwind. Are they RPG or literature?

Sanctuary is the setting of the Thieves' World books; there is at least one RPG treatment as well.

 

[Rechan]

You might want to check out Paizo's GameMastery module Gallery of Evil. It takes place in the Ivory District (Which was detailed recently on their blog). The story is about a mad painter who's been sending boobytrapped paintings with monsters to the homes of nobles houses, and the monsters emerge from them and do monster things. Just a side note.

 

[Rechan]

Children in the poor district are being hounded by imps, that come at night and drain a little of their blood. The imps use suggestion on the parents so they won't believe the child's stories/ignore the kid's screams. The imps are under the command of a man who is the last of an order, using the blood to keep a powerful ghost bound to its grave. The children in this neighborhood are cursed, and it is their blood that keeps the ghost bound; if the binder is stopped, the ghost will unleash its wasting curse on the children. The man's forefathers of the Order were geased to never ask for help, and so their descendants have always been doing the dark work of binding the ghost.

A modification to the ghoul idea above: several merchants/nobles have also become ghouls, and they have formed a "dinner club".

Absent thought: the Binder class from Tome of Magic. It might make an intriguing fit for this world, as it might be trafficing with spirits out there.