Secret Life of the Assassin
A double life as a city guard and a master assassin may prove the most difficult of all when a PC is asked to solve a murder he committed.
By day Nicco is a city guardsman valued as much for his agility and strength as his astounding ability to solve crimes. By night he works for La Mace d’Ars (mafia-like organisation) paying off an old debt, as their chief assassin. He doesn't relish his second lifestyle, but does it out of fear of his powerful mafia creditors. When one of his missions goes badly wrong and he mistakenly kills an innocent family this double life backfires on him and he is asked to solve his own crime.
The innocent family in question is that of Franco di Minisco, a very influential merchant in the city’s upper echelons. He makes it clear to the special investigation branch of the city guard (the PCs) that he will not be satisfied until the killer is found. He has so much sway that he could easily get them sacked (or even hung, if it’s a particularly sadistic campaign world) for inefficiency if they failed to solve the crime.
The other city guards (PCs) suspect nothing and he must lead them off his trail while the GM places tantalising clues pointing to his guilt. Even when the other PCs find out, will they really grass him up, will they be forced to arrest someone they know to be innocent, or will they simply admit defeat and risk losing their jobs?
There are many ways out of this situation, foremost being to find someone with a grudge against Franco di Minisco and get them to murder him (I’m not saying these ways are morally scrupulous, just possible). Or the PCs could elope from the city, which would have the unfortunate consequence of making them look guilty.
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? Responses (7)
I think I would use this as a first adventure type thing. Pick one of my players that I can trust to pull it off, and give him the history of Nicco and let him play the part. Moral dilemma of telling his friends (in character and out of character), keeping it from them, lie, throw them off the trail, hide some evidence.
Everybody will know something is going on, or do they, but will they figure it out? A good one where any conversations about the game would be in characters since 'Nicco' has to keep up his story and the others don't have a clue to what is going on exactly. Sounds like a lot of fun.
I realy like the idea and all, however, I am afraid it is next to impossible to create the situation for this event to occur.
Even though there is a lot of players who like to stick around a certain city or point in a campaign world, many also like to travel. If I look at the characters I like to play, they would never make good guardspeople, not even special brigade guardspeople.
Also I feel that you put the PC who is playing Nicco in a impossible situation. He either gets hanged for killing the people or he gets hanged for not finding the killer... (or he can flee the city)
Personaly I would set this up with Nicco being a NPC, that way, I would be much easier to pull of I feel.
I agree. Nicco should be in the NPC section. Perhaps when you do you can link the two posts together.
Well, in response to Ylorea...
If your characters want to move around, then this is a fine story to begin with...assuming they don't give up their man or accuse an innocent, they will most likely sneak away. This could lead to a good fugitive background to link them together.
Or, just have the man get them fired. Then they are free to seek employment that will take them out of the city.
Oddly enough I have a player who is portraying an assassin at night and a student by day. He has joined a guild that could easily ask him to do jobs and help the local militia. This fits well, but I agree that it is a very situational plot and has to be worked real hard into a setting.
This sounds like a good scenerio for a LARP!
Great way to start a campaign.
murder mysteries are always fun.