I'm trying to incorporate clues into a story. Innocuous moot points at the time with huge significance later on.
What's your favorite example of this in stories you've read?
Obvious examples would be the scent of fresh pipe smoke in a crypt no one has been to in 200 years or the out of place BBEG thief king signature in amongst other signatures on a tax document while the party thinks they need the book to get a tax rebate from a local baron.
How do you add those in to a story successfully without giving away too much?
"When you understand the impossible, it changes to improbable and that means there's a chance!"
~Baroth Quagmire, built an orphanage, grew a castle in his friends home, the home did not survive the birth. Died three times and fought his way out of hell. Only player I've ever seen roll three 1% in a row.
My favourite trick is with food and drink. Ed clearly *loves* inventing new dishes and beverages, and they're easy to pepper into the writing whether it's a story or an adventure and they're purely incidental to anything that's actually happening so aren't distracting. If you want to get more overt, poisons are another good one. There's a ton and they all have different origins and methods that FR fans hungry for references will devour.
Using synonyms to describe something helps. For instance, if everyone knows "this creatures skin is blue"... and every reference says "blue".... call it azure. Sometimes a subtle word change may make people not realize WHAT something is.