| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Athreeren |
Posted - 03 Nov 2021 : 13:07:17
The Abbey of Highsong is described in Prayers from the Faithful (and only there, to my knowledge) as a villa that was bought by a priest of Milil to convert it into a place of worship. Opened some time after 1355 DR by the priest Velmos Sonder to house the sacred Round Book of Wythyndle, the abbey seems to have been abandoned after the murder of the priest (and theft of the book). The only clue is that the murderer wrote “Laurel Lord of Song” in the main hall of the Inner Gallery, in the blood of his victim. Since nothing else is known, it can be assumed that Sonder didn't have anything helpful to say when interrogated through Speak With The Dead.
There is however a lot of information about previous owners of the book as well as its properties (which makes sense, since Prayers from the Faithful is a book about religious artefacts).
We have the description of the book: "two shields fastened at a single point about a stack of circular, wire-rimmed vellum pages. The “shields” are thin slabs of apparently unbreakable black stone, covered on their outer surfaces by a bright latticework of interwoven horizontal and vertical strips of gleaming, silvery metal. The “bars” are of random lengths, so that the pattern has gaps here and there—gaps that the Sorlyn have puzzled over for centuries, but from which no meaning has been divined." Despite its shape, it remains upwards regardless of where it's placed. It plays music whenever it's opened. It contains 46 spells, among which 'searing song', 'song of healing' and 'elsewhere chant', three spells whose use by someone who isn't a Sorlyn (priest of Milil) would compel the user to help the next Sorlyn they encounter to fulfil a task. The book tends to spontaneously teleport without error to a random location, even when magically restrained (although the history of the book shows this really doesn't happen often, as it can stay for decades with someone who uses it a lot or not at all). Any attempt to damage the book is returned onto the assailant.
We know Milil himself gave the Round Book to the blind half-elf bard Wythyndle, who kept it until his death in 996 DR. It was in the possession of the Brossfeather family of Waterdeep in 1012 DR until it was stolen, then of Artabranth of Eshpurta in 1018 DR, who kept it until they were killed by the elder red wyrm Maerithryvvin in 1026 DR. It then passed on to the venerable blue dragon Thoklastees of Calimstone. An adventurer named Flester Farcoat found it in the dragon's hoard in 1144 DR a year after the blue dragon's death, and his widow sold the book after his death in 1161 DR to Lord Irlistir of Ulkan, who in turn sold it to the bard Paerestus “Smokebeard” of Tsurlagol, who used it to plagiarise the old songs sung by the book. It disappears in a fire in 1182 DR and reappears a century later, when priests of Milil find it in the bazaar in Calimport on Mirtul 3rd, 1296 DR. The book is then exhibited in various Sorlyn temples, until the holy book is lost in an assault of the current temple by beasts in 1313 DR. It was used by thieves in Amnwater in 1337 DR, then fell into the hands of the warrior Talandusar, who somehow lost it before 1345 DR, the year when it teleported into the city of Neverwinter. There it's found by a travelling merchant, who sells it to the mage Noustlas “Stonecoin” Mnarrath, who eventually decides to destroy the book with a fireball (apparently the mage survived, which raises the question of how much damage is returned onto the assailant when attempting to destroy the book...). The book is then found by a merchant who uses it as a music box for years before selling it in 1355 DR to Obelos “the Only” Braeril, a dealer in magical curios located somewhere along the Way of the Dragon in Cormyr. This is where Velmos Sonder bought the book.
It seems none of the previous owners who were still alive at the time of the murder are really interested in the Round Book. So either the murderer was targetting Sonder (he gathered the money to buy the book and the temple by selling singing stones that mocked famous Waterdhavians, so maybe some of the heroes of those songs resented him enough for that?), or it was something about the location of the temple (the building used to belong to the Tharthyn family), or it was a crime against the Sorlyn cult (as the "lord of song" mention seems to indicate), or somebody else wanted the book for some reason, or it was simply common larceny and the book was just part of the loot.
Having this abbey just being there, it would be fair for my players to want to solve the mystery, which would require me coming up with a solution first. Since the abbey is located Northwest of Nashkel, my first intuition was that this book was an easy way into Candlekeep (since this is in the days of the "new tome of no less than 10,000 gp in value" rule), but even though I can't find a rule that theft and murder would disqualify one from entering the citadel (after all, murderhoboing seems to be the main way of acquiring books in this world), I think the Avowed would frown at the gruesome murder of one of theirs. Also, the book wouldn't be considered lost if it had been given to Candlekeep. So if I can't find anything else, I intend to go with someone needing to access Candlekeep and agreeing to get that book no matter what for someone in the area willing to give the murderer a book of equivalent value, one that would let them give acceptable answers to the Gatewarden (for the person who ordered the crime, I was thinking of a relative of Halindar Droun, the bard from Beregost who wrote the ballad "Tears Never Cease" in the Year of the Marching Moon, 1330 DR, as mentioned in Elminster: The Making of a Mage). But I am open to better suggestions, as I can't help but think that I'm missing something, and maybe there's a way to figure out from the text who the killer is.
In particular, I am not finding much about "Laurel Lord of Song", except for the Order of the Gilt Laurel, which is a society of historical fiction authors devoted to Oghma, and thus an unlikely suspect for desecrating a temple to Milil. It could also be a reference to Apollo, but the Olympian Pantheon doesn't seem to be very interested in the Realms. So thanks for any new information that could help provide a satisfying answer to this mystery! |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| TBeholder |
Posted - 14 Nov 2021 : 22:59:01
As to the question in the subject: IMHO the very concept of "fair mystery" an antithesis to the Realms.
It implies lack of "unknown unknowns" and isolation of "known unknowns", i.e. it's much like a controlled experiment.
In the Realms presence of "unknown unknowns" and "known unknowns" impossible to isolate is extremely pervasive. There are entire categories of them present in abundance as prominent features of the setting: worldly powers known as far reaching behind-the-scene, extremely autonomous agents of such powers, secret societies, magical arms races, wizards (of, ahem, wildly varied degrees of sanity) acting in unpredictable ways, non-corporeal entities, magical environment phenomena, old portals to and from gods-knows-where... and yes - ever watching and meddling gods (whose activities make this semi-clandestine mess deeper due to much greater scope and capabilities).
The chaos of shifting interference patterns and distortion where a can of worms (or ten) is always nearby, and it's millennia too late to fix its lid. Which is the opposite of a laboratory environment with nice little closed systems. Any mystery to be investigated exists in conditions moved not in "neat and idealized" direction from real-world investigation, but far to the opposite of that.
Thus, to have a "fair mystery" you could set something up, but it would be contrived and/or reduced to such a small sub-sample it doesn't need Realms or common adventuring parties. As in, a small village with no hedge wizards, anything of interest to anyone with serious power, etc (and even then, only tentatively, since of course backwaters are yet another niche in clandestine activity exactly because no one competent or relevant to a given interest is likely to watch then and there).
Then characters would have to ignore either large chunks of the world they live in, or the setup. Because "it was fair mystery" can only work as an anti-twist, if there's always a lingering suspicion that the culprit is one of hundreds of oddballs and loose cannons rolling around, while some pieces of evidence weakly point toward possibilities like a Red Wizard in a fit of paranoia, doppleganger working for illithids, drow spy trying to provoke a war between Shadow Thieves and Eldreth Veluuthra, etc. Dragging a red herring across the tracks is one thing, expecting a poor dog to track with great finesse through warehouses full of red herring in a port that loaded and unloaded red herring for decades is another. |
| Athreeren |
Posted - 08 Nov 2021 : 13:32:02
@Wooly Rupert: I had assumed that Milil had made the book because of the geas, but I think you’re completely right: the Round Book has been in the possession of many priests of Milil, and none has figured out the meaning of those bars, which makes me think Milil did not intend them to solve that puzzle. The geas was probably added on top of the other magical properties (although the fact that it is only related to those three spells, spells that are so clearly musical, makes me think those pages are actually from Milil). This does not mean that the motive for the murder was necessarily related to those bars, but it is certainly one lead to consider! I also agree that the murderer is very likely a bard. Thanks for those suggestions!
@SaMoCon: I want to try to have a very detailed sandbox, with little plot to railroad the players but many hooks to let them go on any adventure they wish. I also want to create more connections between the storylines so that they get second chances at plots they missed the first time, but I won’t force them to do much. In the case of the Abbey of Highsong, I don’t even expect them to solve the murder themselves even if they decide to look into it, but rather having the same approach as in a Harry Potter book, where the protagonist encounters and ignores all the clues, until he bumps into the bad guy who helpfully explains his plan (but I’d be glad to be surprised by my players!). I don’t think it would be satisfying for my players to have the solution come a posteriori, be it from random tables or using their guesses, so I want to know everything that they might encounter anywhere in the area and the reason for it, even though I don’t expect most of it to come up. Will this approach to RPG fail? Definitely. But I’m curious about in what way it will fail. Of course, if they become really invested in the mystery but can’t find any clue to solve it, I might have something happen to help them.
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| sleyvas |
Posted - 05 Nov 2021 : 22:22:37
quote:
Originally posted by SaMoCon
quote:
Originally posted by Athreeren
... it would be fair for my players to want to solve the mystery, which would require me coming up with a solution first...
Why would you need a solution? The only purpose you would have for doing so is to shoehorn this little bit of lore into an already existing story script you have created for your players to follow. If your players are interested in delving into things on their own then planning a story resolution before play evolves is gonna' hamstring both you and them especially when it comes to murder mysteries that require both a need to imagine creatively and limited scope of knowledge based upon investigation & observation. I've witnessed more than enough games sputter into the "not fun" zone because of missed rolls, misinterpreted clues, chewing on the scenery/finding ancillary NPCs more interesting than the plot-critical NPCs, or the players "not getting it" for what is happening. Worse, if this starts happening then the DM is sorely tempted to lead the players by-the-nose and start dictating actions to force the game back on the script.
I suggest an alternative - the players unknowingly write the solution themselves. This is a modification of a game principle I lifted from Fantasy Flight Game's murder-mystery board game "Android" where the players aren't trying to find the culprit - they are each framing a dubious NPC for the crime. That framing is the key to making a detective-mystery rpg scenario that will simultaneously and seamlessly work for everyone from the most hardcore, note-taking simulationist to the hack-n-slash gamist. All that is necessary from the DM is gossip about, clues pointing to, and conflicting goals from the fleshed out NPCs. A group of people have an amazing knack to come up with sometimes outlandish narratives that explain the "why" and "how" a crime has been committed with just a few leads. From the Dm's perspective, the players have framed an NPC for the crime with limited evidence and leaps of logic; however, from the players' perspective they have gathered together clues and solved a crime story with a real sense of accomplishment.
The advantages of this approach are many. - In whatever way the players choose to go about their investigation through to their conclusion is the correct way to resolving the story which allows the DM to have his own fun just facilitating this end up to even "dead-ending" the players current path of investigation to see what the players find interesting to go back over now that they have to dismiss their prior "trail of clues" (I really thought that the Butler was guilty but now that I think about it he earlier said that the widow would have long evening walks with the victim's brother. Yeah, we all thought they were having a tryst since they gave each other an alibi. What if they were conspirators together?).
- Bad rolls will not knock the players out of the narrative. There are no longer critical clues that if missed will make the story impossible to complete without DM "fudging" to make things work. Typical D&D characters are not constructed for detective stories and PCs with limited skill sets are unfairly punished by having poor chances to succeed when ransacking a room for evidence, identifying arcane clues for how they relate to the investigation (poison/secret door gear/unbalanced fiscal records/etc.), and detecting deception during dialog.
- Good rolls are rewarded as are character builds that emphasize certain usable skills that can identify potential poisons, lethal engineering shenanigans, tricks of deception, or the hallmarks of obfuscation. Difficult to find clues that may be missed by lesser skilled PCs should be peppered into the scenario that may lead the investigating players to decide that more than one culprit may be involved, a conspiracy is afoot, or even that a master criminal is attempting to frame someone else for the crime!
- Players are empowered through their own agency to not only provide the script of the story but also to have the conclusion lead them into a direction in which they have interest. This is an inborn bias of people that they project what they already have in mind onto the problem or the solution at hand. This means that the solution will "feel right" to the players without them having to "get it" since the end was actually created by the players. The players are also free from DM interference prompted by off-script actions & behaviors as they explore the scenario's environment.
- The amount of effort the players put in is equal to the reward they get out of it. The players do not know that their failures and slip-ups during play have no negative consequences to resolving the case so they do experience anxiety and self-recrimination that transitions into heightened positive feelings when the successful "J'accuse" moment is delivered at the table. What's more is that those failures are now part of the players' success story.
- Rewards for the story should also be commensurate to the effort put in by the players in piecing together their picture of the crime. The number of clues found, the difficulty of obtaining each clue, the intensity of conflicted interrogations, the length of the clue chain strung together to create the crime narrative, the level of difficulty overcome to pin the crime on a or several NPCs, and the resolution that the players saw fit to mete out or influence should all have reward values that tally together that is easy to determine for the DM and will also be correct for the players regardless of whether or not the scenario is part of a balanced game.
But that's just my suggestion.
Or in short... will they have fun chasing an idea, even if they don't find a solution (even if one doesn't actually exist)? Sometimes the fun is in the chase, not the solving. Sometimes the chase leads to a better idea. That being said, I've also been on the other side of this coin with DM's who are totally unprepared and "winging it" for everything. It's a tough nut to crack, and I've teetered on both sides of this argument. |
| SaMoCon |
Posted - 05 Nov 2021 : 03:09:34
quote:
Originally posted by Athreeren
... it would be fair for my players to want to solve the mystery, which would require me coming up with a solution first...
Why would you need a solution? The only purpose you would have for doing so is to shoehorn this little bit of lore into an already existing story script you have created for your players to follow. If your players are interested in delving into things on their own then planning a story resolution before play evolves is gonna' hamstring both you and them especially when it comes to murder mysteries that require both a need to imagine creatively and limited scope of knowledge based upon investigation & observation. I've witnessed more than enough games sputter into the "not fun" zone because of missed rolls, misinterpreted clues, chewing on the scenery/finding ancillary NPCs more interesting than the plot-critical NPCs, or the players "not getting it" for what is happening. Worse, if this starts happening then the DM is sorely tempted to lead the players by-the-nose and start dictating actions to force the game back on the script.
I suggest an alternative - the players unknowingly write the solution themselves. This is a modification of a game principle I lifted from Fantasy Flight Game's murder-mystery board game "Android" where the players aren't trying to find the culprit - they are each framing a dubious NPC for the crime. That framing is the key to making a detective-mystery rpg scenario that will simultaneously and seamlessly work for everyone from the most hardcore, note-taking simulationist to the hack-n-slash gamist. All that is necessary from the DM is gossip about, clues pointing to, and conflicting goals from the fleshed out NPCs. A group of people have an amazing knack to come up with sometimes outlandish narratives that explain the "why" and "how" a crime has been committed with just a few leads. From the Dm's perspective, the players have framed an NPC for the crime with limited evidence and leaps of logic; however, from the players' perspective they have gathered together clues and solved a crime story with a real sense of accomplishment.
The advantages of this approach are many. - In whatever way the players choose to go about their investigation through to their conclusion is the correct way to resolving the story which allows the DM to have his own fun just facilitating this end up to even "dead-ending" the players current path of investigation to see what the players find interesting to go back over now that they have to dismiss their prior "trail of clues" (I really thought that the Butler was guilty but now that I think about it he earlier said that the widow would have long evening walks with the victim's brother. Yeah, we all thought they were having a tryst since they gave each other an alibi. What if they were conspirators together?).
- Bad rolls will not knock the players out of the narrative. There are no longer critical clues that if missed will make the story impossible to complete without DM "fudging" to make things work. Typical D&D characters are not constructed for detective stories and PCs with limited skill sets are unfairly punished by having poor chances to succeed when ransacking a room for evidence, identifying arcane clues for how they relate to the investigation (poison/secret door gear/unbalanced fiscal records/etc.), and detecting deception during dialog.
- Good rolls are rewarded as are character builds that emphasize certain usable skills that can identify potential poisons, lethal engineering shenanigans, tricks of deception, or the hallmarks of obfuscation. Difficult to find clues that may be missed by lesser skilled PCs should be peppered into the scenario that may lead the investigating players to decide that more than one culprit may be involved, a conspiracy is afoot, or even that a master criminal is attempting to frame someone else for the crime!
- Players are empowered through their own agency to not only provide the script of the story but also to have the conclusion lead them into a direction in which they have interest. This is an inborn bias of people that they project what they already have in mind onto the problem or the solution at hand. This means that the solution will "feel right" to the players without them having to "get it" since the end was actually created by the players. The players are also free from DM interference prompted by off-script actions & behaviors as they explore the scenario's environment.
- The amount of effort the players put in is equal to the reward they get out of it. The players do not know that their failures and slip-ups during play have no negative consequences to resolving the case so they do experience anxiety and self-recrimination that transitions into heightened positive feelings when the successful "J'accuse" moment is delivered at the table. What's more is that those failures are now part of the players' success story.
- Rewards for the story should also be commensurate to the effort put in by the players in piecing together their picture of the crime. The number of clues found, the difficulty of obtaining each clue, the intensity of conflicted interrogations, the length of the clue chain strung together to create the crime narrative, the level of difficulty overcome to pin the crime on a or several NPCs, and the resolution that the players saw fit to mete out or influence should all have reward values that tally together that is easy to determine for the DM and will also be correct for the players regardless of whether or not the scenario is part of a balanced game.
But that's just my suggestion. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 03 Nov 2021 : 15:07:47
quote:
Originally posted by Athreeren
The “shields” are thin slabs of apparently unbreakable black stone, covered on their outer surfaces by a bright latticework of interwoven horizontal and vertical strips of gleaming, silvery metal. The “bars” are of random lengths, so that the pattern has gaps here and there—gaps that the Sorlyn have puzzled over for centuries, but from which no meaning has been divined."
I think this is the hook, right there.
Reading the full description, nothing says that Milil himself created the book -- only that he gave it to Wythyndle. I'd suggest that the book was made centuries before, eventually made its way into Milil's hands, and he brought it back to the mortal realms for a specific reason.
Further, I'd tweak one thing: the description says that the tune played when the book is opened is "apparently random" -- maybe there's a pattern that no one has noticed. Or maybe no one has realized that a particular tune comes up every seventh time the book opens... The other six tunes are random, but number seven is always "The Nightingale of Laurelyl" or something (Milil favors nightingales; I made up Laurelyl).
Laurelyl could be a now-vanished city (or an area within a vanished city) that once housed a temple to Milil. The city is long gone, but references to it can be found here and there, often mis-naming it as Laurel.
The bars on the cover -- and maybe something about another of the "random" songs -- are clues necessary to find and access some treasure, sacred to Milil, that still lies in the ruins of the temple. Maybe the bars are some sort of map; that song "The Nightingale of Laurelyl" leads people to the temple, the bars are a map of the hidden complex holding the MacGuffin, and maybe one or more of the songs are either clues or ways to bypass the traps (which would mean someone would have to find these ancient tunes and their original lyrics/full composition).
The murderer is someone who managed to figure out at least part of this... Maybe a former faithful of Milil who has fallen to evil and for some reason blames Milil for his/her fall. This person knows enough to know the book is the key, but not enough to find the treasure on their own -- so the blood-written message was a hint to aim other informed parties in the direction of Laurelyl, so our baddie can follow and kill them at the appropriate time.
Maybe the baddie is an evil bard, but no one knows they're evil... So this bard could be friendly to the PCs, aim them in the right direction, maybe even accompany them and drop helpful hints here and there -- whilst planning on betraying and murdering them, when the time is right.
(Maybe this baddie is some unique undead. Slaying bards lets him appear to be alive, for a time, though this fades after a few months. He's seeking this treasure as a way to return to life. Maybe his undeath was caused by a failed bit for immortality; he was an arrogant git like Finder Wyvernspur but went a different route. When he failed, he turned against Milil for not hooking him up with what he thinks he so clearly deserved) |
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