Nobilis: The Mysterious Death of Abigail Ng

Abigail Ng, Saintess of Tea

While Nobilis started with a desperate battle to save Vancouver from Toyzilla, and Toyland from the machinations of the sinister Damian Bogsworth, this is really just another day in the lives of our enNobled heroes. No, the actual story began with the discovery of the murder of Abigail Ng, the Saintess of Tea, one of the Powers of Kirin, the Koi Goddess, who died in some abandoned warehouse near the ports of Vancouver.

I often find mysteries pose a problem to GMs not used to running them.  The most common failing, especially with a murder mystery, is the one-solution-one-clue problem.  That is, the GM has one solution for the mystery in mind and all of his clues either point to that solution, or they point to red-herrings ("the master of the house is dead, the butler did it, three clues point to him, one clue points to the wife, solve the mystery!") but he runs into a problem in that if he gives you the three real clues, you'll figure it out in 15 minutes, and if he only gives you the wrong clue, you'll go off-track.  So he fights with you and you have to hassle to get the real clues.

My solution is to create a sufficiently interesting plot that I can give clue after clue to the players and they'll find themselves unraveling this vast and complex mystery ("Yes, you discover that the clue towards the wife was a red-herring and that the butler did it, but he breaks down during the interview and says that 'they' will kill his family and then kills himself.  Digging further, you uncover that the mafia had blackmailed him into doing it, and that they still have his daughter.  But why would the mafia do it... wait, they have ties with the master's wife?  Huh, maybe she did do it after all!").

The Estate of Tea

I'm deliberately trying to invoke the themes of the film noir (hence the beautiful dead woman right at the start of my game), and the classic hardboiled story is a ball of yarn mystery: The players find a clue that directs them to the next scene, where they find a clue, which directs them to the next scene, and so on, like winding up a ball of yard.  Gumshoe, Robin Law's mystery RPG, calls this (and I could be wrong, as it's been awhile since I dug around in the terminology) the spine of the mystery: the straight through, minimal line necessary to solve the mystery.  But you can elaborate on the sides, and I intend to.

Which brings us to the next part of my preferred form of mystery design: Have enough interesting stuff going on the sides that while you might have red-herrings, they too point to something interesting.  The classic example in film noir is the revelation of corruption within institutions.  The hardboiled detective realizes some evidence has been suppressed, and then begins to suspect the cops.  After pinning one down, he realizes that they're not trying to cover up a crime, but their own ineptness and corruption (perhaps one of the cops was sleeping with the victim).  This should eventually, somehow, tie into the core story (the cops are in the pocket of the same guy who arranged for the hit, or police corruption is one of the things that contributed to the tragic misunderstanding that lead to her death, etc).  So you can afford to let your players go on crazy goose chases running after red-herrings without making them think they wasted their time.

As a rule, I try to include clues to everything in my first scene.  You have the obvious, first "ball of yarn" clue, or even a few, that can all be followed up, but some of the clues might not make sense in the first moments, but as you travel farther along the ball of yarn, the players will be able to look back and say "Oh, of course, that's why this or that!"  But that means you need to have the whole mystery worked out in advance.  Which I have.  And outlining that once more for myself is the point of this post.

The Mystery

This part is spoiler free.

When the players discovered Abigail Ng, she lay on the floor of the abandoned warehouse.  The pertinent clues to her death and killer were as follows:

Yukimura Yuji

• Jenny Cho recognizes her.  They went to school together, where they share a journalism class.  She knows Abigail is a British exchange student, voraciously curious, that she had a friend from out of town, and that she had a boyfriend that nobody had ever met.  Abigail had given her something to hold onto, but Jenny can't remember what it was anymore.
• Abigail has a locket at her throat that contains a picture of Yukimura Yuji, the world's greatest barista.
• Abigail's wallet contains two dollars, a well-loved photo of herself, Yukimura Yuji and another girl, but the other girl's face has been scratched out, and a pair of Aquapunk tickets.
• She's wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, which have been broken.
• Close investigation of Abigail's body fails to yield a cause of death, as there doesn't seem to be one.
• Abigail's finger seems to be pointing, but the players could not determine what she was pointing at.  She seems to be pointing at nothing.
• Scattered around her body are:
• Broken mirror shards
• A revolver bullet with Abigail's name on it, the sort of bullet fired from a Colt revolver, but it has been set into the casting of a rifle round, that typically used by a sniper.
• Lots of papers.  Some contain unreadable text, the word "Vermifex," some seem to be files for a government program called "RELICS", a bit of paper with a grain of sand taped to it with the words "They knew," "the Dragon has it in his hoard" and "The Empress still lives" and "She's coming" written on it.

The Battle

Cameron Delacroix

Their investigation is interrupted by a mouse, the prophet Thomas, who bears the Dark Tidings of Cameron Delacroix, which also bring the Excrucian Cameron Delacroix himself.  He declares that such is the fate of all who oppose him in the Excrucian war, and commands all to depart, lest they wish to join her in death, and he draws his Abhorrent weapon, One True Love or the Windflower Blade.

Whereupon he is interrupted by Meon, Desecration's Smile and one of Lord Entropy's three prime Powers, who declares that Cameron has "killed her!"  He will demand to have "the Witness" (meaning Jenny Cho) and demands that everyone attack Cameron, to prove their loyalty to the war.

Meon, Power of Desecration

Meon deploys his Ogres and Nimblejacks, and Cameron calls upon the powers of the Void to summon up his own monstrosities, and everyone fights.

Both Cameron and Meon seem intent on destroying the crime scene.  Under the guise of battling one another and the players, Cameron covertly damages Abigail's corpse and glasses, while Meon "accidentally" ruins the papers that have been scattered around her.

The Truth

Here there be spoilers