murder-mystery-oneshot/storylines/murder-mystery.md

# The Murder Mystery

## Timeline of Events

### Before the Session
- **Three weeks ago:** The Order sends bound Xarrul into the House of Scales to steal the Severance Nail. The archive's automatic Final Closure cuts the Order's command binding. Xarrul slips home into the Border Ethereal while carrying the power torn loose from that command. The House mistakes the intrusion for a failed assassination and believes the fiend banished and gone; the Order's instruments still show its binding energy and most cultists believe it remains controlled but unreachable.
- **Weeks ago:** Xarrul, now unbound, finds this thin point on the cult's map — a fault already worked thin by the summoners who once denned here — and anchors to it. In the hidden deepest chamber it begins prying open the old, sealed tear from the Ethereal side, night after night, siphoning the summoners' leftover sigils to do it.
- **Weeks ago, below the Inn:** Xarrul begins speaking through the stone to the caged Guest. The Guest recognizes the Order's missing asset from its infiltration work. It identifies the cautious keeper, predicts Mags will break the emergency lockstone in grief, and proposes the useful exit: Xarrul takes a body that can wear any face while the Guest is projected alive into the Astral Plane. Their compact permits Xarrul one death to close the house—Orenn—but forbids it from killing anyone else until the exchange is finished, except in direct defense against binding, banishment, or destruction. The promise does not make Xarrul responsible for violence chosen by others. The Guest secretly intends to recruit outsiders to kill Xarrul during [the Vacancy](the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy), reclaim the empowered body and take the Inn.
- **Days ago:** Orenn's surveillance turns up a district-wide wrongness he reads as an *underworld* problem — deaths that don't add up, the Order stirring. Uneasy, he buys holy water and ward supplies as insurance and writes the contingency letter he tucks in Mags's apron. He never once suspects the sealed rift under his own floor; that case is closed.
- **Tonight, before the party arrives:** Tension between the factions is at a breaking point. Kael has evidence that the Merchant Quarter kill — a guild contract — was done by someone else with ritual marks. He's ready to confront the cultists.

### During the Session

#### Act 1 — The Table (calm)
- The PCs, strangers to each other and to Orenn, share the only free table. Orenn works them personally — business or pleasure, the house rules, the carrot of "references in high places."
- Faction tension is palpable but contained: Kael glaring at the cultists, Thera still as a chapel, the cultists half-arguing over texts.
- Bren mutters in his corner while the factions watch one another across the room.
- Orenn steps down to storage for supplies. His absence is what lets the next beat run unchecked.

#### Act 2 — The Spark

*The trigger.* When the table talk dwindles, Kael can't hold it any longer and confronts Haddon about the Merchant Quarter (Kupecká čtvrť) kill. Play it cold, then let a cultist's laugh be the match:

> **Kael** *(vstane, ještě klidně, ale hlas jako brus):* „Kupecká čtvrť. Před třemi dny. Šlechtic s vyříznutým srdcem — a vaše čmáranice na podlaze. Náš kontrakt. Další uzavření, který jste vykradli. Jednou srdce, podruhý relikvie, potřetí vzpomínky. A pak se něco ve vašich poutech protáhne až do našeho archivu a složí tři naše lidi. Tak kdo vám prodává naše jména?"
>
> **Haddon** *(nezvedne oči od knihy):* „Pletete si mě s někým, příteli. My jsme učenci, ne řezníci." *(pak tišeji, znuděně)* „A jestli někdo prodává, co váš slavný dům nedokáže uhlídat, stěžujte si doma. Ne každá krysa ve vašich řadách nosí náš odznak."
>
> **Kael** *(o krok blíž):* „Ještě jednou řekni 'řady', učenče."
>
> **Rennt** *(opře se, krátký ostrý smích — tohle je ta jiskra):* „Nech ho, Haddone. Koukni na něj — celej se klepe vzteky, protože neuhlídají ani vlastního zrádce. Tihle si myslí, že jim patří celé město. A neuchrání ani jednu jedinou zpečetěnou smrt."
>
> **Sevra** *(tiše, varovně — o půl vteřiny pozdě):* „Kaeli. Dost."
>
> *(Read-aloud)* „Kael neodpoví. Popadne okraj stolu a převrhne ho i s Renntem pozadu na zem. Sklenice tříští o trám. A v tu chvíli se celá místnost — plná lidí, kteří na tenhle výbuch čekali — dá do pohybu."

*(The laugh is real, but if you want to preserve the "was the brawl engineered?" clue, Xarrul layers a true, corrosive whisper only Kael hears under it: „Haddon vybral toho šlechtice. Zeptej se ho.” See [red herrings](#red-herrings-deliberate).)*

- **The brawl lasts 3–5 rounds. Non-lethal — the rules hold.** Fists, bottles, furniture, and shove/gust/thunderclap *throws* that fling PCs around (use them to pull the party in and to position them for the reveal). NPCs keep their lethal kits holstered; save the assassins' real danger for the finale. If a PC would drop, they're knocked out at 1 HP, not killed. (See the [Brawl Toolkit](#the-brawl-toolkit).)
- **The blackout.** A few rounds in, pressed in the scrum, **Rennt casts Thunderwave** — a legitimate knockback move that also snuffs every candle at once. The room goes black. It looks damning for the cult (they blacked out the room the instant Orenn died) — and they're innocent of the murder. Perfect misdirection.
- **The murder, under cover of the dark.** Orenn, back from storage, wades in to quell the brawl and takes a knock (a bottle, a chair) — so he's already bruised and bleeding, alive. Xarrul spends the one Stored Incursion it charged during the previous night: it manifests behind the bar for three rounds, brands Orenn, freezes him with Visions of Spite, and lands the killing Multiattack before the charge drags it back Ethereal. The mundane knock is a **decoy wound** (see the crime scene).
- **Only witness:** Bren. He saw a shape reach through the air behind the bar. Skein forces him to stay silent. (Kael also saw Bren go rigid, staring at the bar rather than the fight.)
- **Mags brings order.** She storms from the kitchen, cleaver up, and quiets the room with her voice. She relights the candles with a ward-focus — and behind her is Orenn's body. What follows — the forced heal, the forced **Revivify** with the diamond from her own necklace (both failing), the shattered ward-crystal that seals the tavern until midnight, and the ultimatum — is scripted in **[Mags — Act 2: The Reveal](../npc/mags.md#act-2--the-reveal-dm)**.
- Both factions immediately blame each other. Mags, for show, blames the strangers (see her two-layer accusation in the same section).

> **DM — the murder is the plan, not the start of the mystery.** Xarrul didn't kill Orenn for spite or merely to frame anyone. It killed him to make **Mags seal the house.** The lockstone trades the internal planar barrier for an exterior cage: Xarrul crosses fully into the Material interior and regains Ethereal Jaunt, but nobody can leave on any plane until midnight. The Guest identified *Orenn* as the calm keeper whose death would make grieving Mags follow protocol, and Orenn became the compact's single permitted victim. The whole "who killed the barkeep" question is the fiend's smokescreen: the deeper answers are what the lockdown admitted, what must happen at midnight, and who downstairs helped choose the victim.

#### The Brawl Toolkit

Don't restat the room. Hand any NPC these non-lethal moves and narrate fast. All damage is bludgeoning and non-lethal — a PC reduced to 0 is unconscious (treat as 1 HP), never dying.

- **Haymaker.** +4 to hit, 1d4+2 bludgeoning; target briefly off-balance.
- **Bottle / crockery.** Thrown 10 ft or swung: 1d6 bludgeoning, DC 12 DEX save for half. Shatters into difficult terrain.
- **Chair / stool.** 1d6+2 bludgeoning plus a Shove (STR save DC 13 or knocked 5 ft / prone). The classic "flying chair" that drags a PC into the fray.
- **Shove / grapple.** STR (Athletics) contest — move them, prone them, pin them to the bar.
- **Table-flip.** Kael's opener: instant cover, a ramp of difficult terrain, and a body or two knocked back.
- **Signature casts (non-lethal-flavored):**
  - **Rennt — Thunderwave** (the blackout, on cue a few rounds in): 2d8 thunder, DC 13 CON for half, pushed 10 ft; snuffs the candles.
  - **A cultist / Essek — *gust of wind* effect:** no damage, just throws people, papers, and flame.
  - **A blade — disarming shove or a flung tankard:** reposition, don't wound.

As Essek's gust scatters the cultist table, Haddon's restricted research folio opens and its loose extracts scatter with the ordinary notes. Xarrul's entire pre-lockdown manifestation is spent killing Orenn. In the first minute after Mags breaks the crystal—while everyone watches the failed Revivify and her ultimatum—Xarrul uses its restored Ethereal Jaunt to manifest briefly, steal the two extracts, and retreat. See [Haddon's Missing Research Folio](order-of-mending.md#haddons-missing-research-folio). Afterward, Haddon repeatedly searches the debris while pretending to organize his ordinary notes.

Roll initiative only if your table wants dice; otherwise run it as a narrated montage with a decision point or two, and cut it off with the Thunderwave.

---

## The Crime Scene

### Orenn's Body
- **Position:** On his back behind the bar. He fell backward.
- **Expression:** Surprise. Not fear, not pain.
- **The Brand:** A black mark on his chest, hand-shaped, visible through his shirt. The shirt is not burned — the damage is beneath the skin.
- **A mundane knock (decoy).** He's bruised and bleeding from a blow he took wading into the brawl — a split scalp, a cracked rib from a bottle or chair. It *looks* like the brawl killed him. It didn't (DC 14 Medicine): the injury is survivable; the fatal damage is internal, and it has no external wound to explain it.
- **No killing blow.** Beyond the decoy knock, nothing — he was not stabbed, run through, or poisoned. The brand did all the real work.
- **Time of death:** During the brawl, in the blackout. Within the last 10 minutes.

### Examination DCs

| Check | DC | Result |
|-------|-----|--------|
| Medicine 10 | Easy | He's dead. There's a brawl knock (bruising, a scalp cut) — but the killing damage is massive internal trauma to the heart, with no external wound to explain it. |
| Medicine 14 | Medium | The damage radiates *outward* from the heart, as if something ignited inside him. Not natural, not any poison known to the examiner. |
| Arcana 12 | Easy | The brand radiates faint necrotic energy. This is magical damage. |
| Arcana 15 | Medium | Fiendish signature. The necrotic energy pattern is consistent with fiend-origin abilities, not mortal spellcasting. No one at the cultist table could have done this. |
| Arcana 18 | Hard | The brand contains a fragment of a true name — like a fingerprint. With additional research (Orenn's bestiary, Haddon's texts), this can identify the specific type of fiend. |
| Investigation 13 | Medium | No signs of struggle. Nothing knocked over behind the bar. Whatever killed him, he didn't see it coming. |
| Investigation 16 | Hard | Faint scratches on the floor behind the bar — not footprints, but *claw marks*. They appear and disappear, as if something was only partially present. (These are from Xarrul's partial manifestation.) |
| Detect Magic | — | The brand registers as necrotic/fiendish. A faint trail of the same energy leads downward — toward the cellar. It fades after 30 minutes. |
| See Invisibility | — | If cast immediately: a faint, smoky distortion near the cellar stairs, already retreating. Xarrul is leaving the scene. |

---

## Clues — The Ambiguous Trail

The clues are designed to point at both factions while the truth (the fiend) hides behind both.

### Clues Pointing at the Cultists
| Clue | Location | DC | What It Suggests |
|------|----------|----|-----------------|
| Fiendish damage signature | Orenn's body | Arcana 15 | The cultists deal with fiends and dark magic |
| Binding circle page | Kicked under table, post-brawl | Arcana 14 | A cultist book about binding fiends — were they summoning something? |
| Planar diagram on cultist table | Cultist table | Investigation 12 | They're mapping planar weaknesses — including the tavern |
| Summoning inventory | Haddon's ciphered journal | Intelligence 18 | The Order acquired the components for a fiend-binding ritual |
| Cultist pin in private room | Under bench, private room | Perception 13 | Cultists have been using the tavern for secret meetings |

### Clues Pointing at the Assassins
| Clue | Location | DC | What It Suggests |
|------|----------|----|-----------------|
| The brawl timing | Witnessed | — | The brawl (started by Kael) provided perfect cover for the murder |
| Assassin code violation | Conversation with Kael | — | If the guild is willing to brawl in neutral ground, are they willing to kill? |
| Dace's helpfulness | Social observation | Insight 16 | Dace is too eager to help — steering investigation toward cultists |
| Contract dispute motive | Both factions | — | The guild has a financial motive — Orenn's neutral ground protects the cultists too |
| Mole evidence | Kael, Haddon's journal | — | Someone in the guild is selling kills — how deep does the corruption go? |

### Clues Pointing at the Truth (The Fiend)
| Clue | Location | DC | What It Reveals |
|------|----------|----|----------------|
| Claw marks behind bar | Bar floor | Investigation 16 | Something partially manifested here |
| Bren's testimony | Bren (agitated state) | Persuasion/patience | "A hand that wasn't a hand, reaching through the thin place" |
| Siphoned foundation sigils | Cellar foundation | Arcana 13–15 | Something ethereal has been feeding on the summoners' old work here — points *down* |
| Mirror sighting | Orenn's silver mirror catches Skein or Xarrul in its reflection | — | An invisible or Ethereal creature is physically present in the reflected space |
| Ethereal trail (timed) | Behind bar → upper cellar | Detect Magic within 30 min | The killer went *down*; the residue follows the ward-lines toward the concealed Deep Cellar and the tear |
| Partial manifestation scratches | Private room table | Investigation 14 + Arcana 16 | Someone mapped the wards to *break* them |
| Orenn's preparations | Storage compartment, bedroom | Investigation 15+ | Orenn feared something not-human was moving — and hedged |
| Orenn's letter | Mags's apron | — | "If something happens to me in the bar, it came from between." |
| Conversation stain | Guest's cell, seen Ethereally | Arcana or Insight 15 | Xarrul repeatedly visited the prisoner to speak, not attack; the Guest knows more about the murder than its locked-cell alibi suggests |

---

## Investigation Flow

### Early Phase (First 30 minutes)
Players will likely:
- Examine the body → learn it's magical/fiendish damage
- Question both factions → get conflicting accusations
- Talk to eyewitnesses → nobody saw anything (they were brawling, and the room was black)

**Expected result:** Confusion. Both sides have motive. The evidence is contradictory.

### Mid Phase (30–60 minutes)
As players dig deeper:
- Bren becomes agitated if questioned about the murder → partial truths emerge
- Haddon's journal and the private room connect Dace to the Order through physical evidence
- The cellar and back rooms reveal Orenn's preparations → fiendish angle opens up
- Orenn's mirror reveals Skein beside Bren or catches Xarrul nearby → an Ethereal explanation emerges

**Expected result:** The fiend theory starts competing with the faction theories. Players have a choice of which thread to pull.

### Late Phase (60+ minutes)
If players pursue the fiend angle:
- The siphoned sigils and the failing seal below confirm long-term ethereal interference
- Orenn's mirror can reveal Xarrul or Skein whenever either appears within its reflection
- Orenn's letter and bestiary confirm he feared something not-human was moving — though he never knew it was under his own floor
- Essek (if gotten alone) reveals the summoning

**Expected result:** Players understand what happened. Now they have to decide what to do about it.

---

## Red Herrings (Deliberate)

These are Xarrul's work — the fiend actively planted or encouraged these:

1. **Xarrul engineered the brawl.** Kael's confrontation with Haddon was real and his anger genuine — but the *laugh* that tipped him over (Rennt's) was amplified in his ears by Xarrul (Voice Thief), which layered a statement only Kael heard beneath it: „Haddon vybral toho šlechtice. Zeptej se ho.” This is true—Haddon selected the victim—but phrased to detonate Kael's existing suspicion. Rennt laughed but never spoke those words. The brawl gave Xarrul its cover without requiring Xarrul to make a false claim.

2. **A cultist component pouch** was left near the bar. Xarrul moves it from the scattered table in the first minute after the lockdown begins, when Ethereal Jaunt has returned; its Stored Incursion was fully consumed by Orenn's three-round murder. The pouch contains ritual chalk and dried blood. DC 17 Investigation reveals deliberate placement—the blood is old and doesn't match the murder.

3. **Dace's dagger** under a barstool near Orenn's body. It fell during the brawl — genuinely accidental, not planted by Xarrul — but it's a nasty red herring in its own right: a quality piece with a Scales-guild hilt *and* ritual sigils etched down the blade, so it reads as both an assassin's sidearm and a cultist ritual knife. It's still coated in **Essence of Ether** (a PC who handles it roughly makes a DC 13 CON save or drops unconscious for 1 minute). Its proximity to the body implicates *both* factions and, for anyone who digs, points at Dace himself — the blade's sigils match the second cultist pin hidden in his boot (DC 14 Investigation of his person). A productive dead-end: it cracks open the traitor, not the murder.

---

## Resolution Paths

The murder can resolve in several ways. None of them are clean.

### Path A: The Fiend Is Found and Destroyed
Players identify Xarrul, cover both planes and reduce it to 0 HP in the Ethereal Plane (see [The Reckoning](the-reckoning.md#scenario-c-ethereal-destruction)). The Brand of Spite fades from Orenn's body and Nessa wakes as the stolen vitality recoils. The truth is known. But:
- The cultists summoned the fiend → they're complicit
- The assassins freed the fiend → they're complicit
- Everyone is guilty. No one is the murderer.

### Path B: The Fiend Is Bound
Players discover the truth and capture Xarrul before it can complete the Vacancy. They either return it to the Order through Haddon's ritual or seal it neutrally with the binding circle, restored sigils and iron bell. Nessa remains suspended because the invested vitality does not recoil, but her connection survives. The immediate murderer is contained; who owns its chains determines whether this is justice or merely restored exploitation.

### Path C: The Factions Are Blamed
Players don't find the fiend. One or both factions are blamed for the murder. This leads to violence — the assassins and cultists fight for real. Mags tries to stop it but she's one woman. Several people die. The fiend watches from the Ethereal Plane, satisfied.

### Path D: The Party Does Nothing
No one enters the cellar or interrupts the escalating accusations. The compact keeps Xarrul from killing again, but it does not protect the factions from one another; the room remains divided and close to lethal violence. Before midnight Xarrul opens Cell One and positions the willing Guest at the Old Work. When the shell lapses, it completes the three-round Vacancy and strands the Guest in the Astral Plane. If nobody witnessed the transfer, Xarrul takes an innocuous face and leaves with the released patrons. If witnesses can identify or bind its new body, the expired compact no longer protects them from Xarrul and it removes them. See [Natural Progression](natural-progression.md#passive-default-nobody-enters-the-cellar).

### Path E: Negotiated Peace
Players reveal enough truth to make both factions realize they've been played by a third party (the fiend). Temporary alliance. Joint confrontation. This is the hardest to achieve and the most satisfying — it requires players to have engaged with both faction subplots deeply enough to broker trust between groups that hate each other.

### Path F: The Vacancy
Players free the Guest and accept its offer to expose Xarrul during the body transfer at the tear in the Old Work. For three rounds the killer, its accomplice and the empty vessel are separate targets. Destroying Xarrul avenges Orenn but pours its power into the Guest who helped choose him; allowing the exchange frees the murderer in changeling flesh and strands the Guest bodiless in the Astral Plane. An empowered Guest later lures Mags below and takes her place. See [The Vacancy](the-reckoning.md#scenario-g-the-vacancy).