More inadvisable Dungeons & Dragons adventure premises, murder mystery edition:
The victim: a series of humans killed by strangulation. All of them were alone at the time of death, often with no obvious way for the culprit to get in or out undetected. The only link between the victims is that they were all wearing a specific style of hat at the time of death. The culprit: a local hatmaker is manipulating an angry ghost to eliminate annoying customers. The ghost seeks revenge for its own murder, but it can’t really tell humans apart; in order to give the ghost new target, the hatmaker sells them a replica of the murderer’s extremely distinctive hat.
The victim: a famous bard, whose head exploded at the height of their most recent (and final) performance. They’d been known to incorporate dangerous magic into their shows, so most believe it was a terrible accident, but their partner suspects foul play. The culprit: the bard’s lyre is a sapient magical item. Having worked itself into a jealous rage over the bard’s recent decision to diversify their talents and practice with other instruments, it hit them with its signature thunder attack at point-blank range, counting on the bard’s reputation for foolish showmanship to obscure the truth.
The victim: a merchant stands accused of using illegal magic in a bar fight, resulting in the death of their opponent and a serious fire that caused several injuries. The merchant displays no magical ability and insists they have no idea why their opponent caught fire. The culprit: the merchant did kill their opponent, but it was with a knife. The corpse ignited due to a defensive enchantment gone awry; the opponent was an adventurer recently returned from a successful campaign against the Ice-Demons of Formos, and had neglected to deactivate their defences before going drinking.
The victim: several prominent citizens have been found dead in their beds, all on the same morning. The cause of death is impossible to determine, as all of the bodies exhibit varying states of advanced decomposition, in spite of having been seen alive the previous day. The culprit: an evil necromancer has been killing people and replacing them with undead thralls with the illusion of life cast over them. An unlikely indisposition prevented them from renewing the enchantment on schedule; in truth, most of the victims have been dead for months.
The victim: the court wizard’s corpse is found lying in the palace’s halls, naked and soaking wet. There are no signs of foul play and no obvious cause of death. The culprit: nobody. The “corpse” is actually the wizard’s backup clone. One of the housekeepers accidentally decanted it, panicked and attempted to dispose of it, then ditched it in the hall and ran away when they heard somebody approaching. The wizard is really just away from the palace on an unannounced extraplanar jaunt, and will probably be pretty annoyed about the clone when they get back!
(Image description: a screenshot of a reply from Tumblr user @squornshellous-beta. The reply reads: “Make sure you bring your best interrogator to talk to the instrument in #2, because it’s an excellent… it’s a very good… a… it’s deceitful. It practices falsehood.“)
