Casting Shadows

This seed is being planted for Leagues of Adventure. Aimed at scientists and inventors, it touches on ideas of competition, jealousy, and social obligation… with just a hint of brutal murder.

My Saturday Seeds also reappear on Ancient Scroll on random Saturdays~

The seed

The seed involves a series of robberies and killings happening near the club which the characters frequent to keep in touch with colleagues, and attend League meetings. Suspicion will fall on a fellow member… or perhaps one of the characters.

Planting the seed

The seed can be best planted at a quiet point set aside as ‘downtime’ in the lives of the characters when they are heavily involved in invention and fund-raising. Being in town and attending League meetings, they are able to hear of the crimes by various means and opt to interrupt their work to involve themselves, or wait for further escalation of the problem.

The Details

The police are baffled how the crimes are being committed, but suspect that the perpetrator has access to sophisticated equipment. Evidence suggests that the criminal has access to great force, able to cut or punch through steel. He also has access to blueprints or a means of seeing through solid walls as he has been able to locate very cleverly hidden safes with little difficulty. He is able to enter and leave the sites of his crimes with no trace of his movements except a few reports from neighbors of a brilliant flash of light.

The current theory is… nothing.

The final and most baffling piece of evidence is that at each scene, there are impressions left in the rugs of the burglarized rooms of two long, narrow bars or runners, not unlike those of a sleigh. If it were a sleigh, it would be capable of seating 4 people or holding a significant amount of cargo.

The last two robberies have escalated to murder as members of the household were at home unexpectedly. The last was a League member and associate of the characters.

Suspicion of a snake in their midst has infected the League, but worse… the police will be coming to investigate. Thoroughly.

Not all the inventions undertaken by the League are suitable for public awareness, or finished enough to prevent proprietary information from falling into the hands of competitors. Paranoia, precaution, and prevarication being to infect the League just as accusations begin to spread in innuendo and inference.

What’s going on

A lot of things could be going on from a disgraced former member out to undo the League and a specific set of people within it, but I feel that thread works best as a red herring. Instead, this could be the introduction of a new and clever villain whose disregard for people empowers him to act without boundaries, killing friends for their baubles, and cleverly framing strangers to cover it up.

Using a Vibrational Location Translator (a simple frame on wide runners which uses stored energy in a clockwork device to shift the frame slightly out of sync with physical solidity and cause it to shift several meters to one side at the same time) the villain is able to penetrate the most secure homes with ease, steal his treasures and depart. At his disposal is a clockwork and steam-powered servant of immense strength. Together, no safe is capable of resisting intrusion long.

The villain, well-placed and respected in society but utterly immoral, has intimate knowledge of the homes and people he has been robbing and has targeted them specifically for their treasures. He has maneuvered himself into a position beyond suspicion with his victims, and taken pains to ensure there are motives aplenty to implicate League members.

He sees no reason that he cannot get away with this.

Enjoy~