Anyways, major spoilers to my campaign, so if any of my group members are here, do not read!!!
I know this is a long post, but those with the patience to read it and help me out, I'd be indebted.
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My campaign is following, loosely, the novels by Rich Wulf detailing the Day of Mourning and its cause (Heirs of Ash trilogy). No book spoilers here, so don't worry. Like I said, it's based very loosely off the novels. Specifically, I'm using the Legacy as the cause of the disaster in Cyre. The Legacy is a magic item that manipulates magic energy... sort of a magic EMP bomb that takes out magic to nerf armies. Anyways, the Legacy was originally made for Cyre by House Cannith to help them out in the war but was "captured" by Breland and was used, by order of Boarnel, on Cyre to make them give up the war. This was done because Boarnel felt it would be the fastest way to end the war with no bloodshed. Unfortuneately, the Legacy was "corrupted" by a rajah hidden and locked beneath Cyre (who also corrupted Boarnel to use the item) and had the effect to cause the Day of Mourning. The rajah felt the item would break its seals and free it, but it didnt work well enough, so the rajah is still trapped, though he has more "influence" than before. So basically, Breland and its King was responsible for the Day of Mourning.
First off, I've tried searching sites for information on Argonth (the floating fortress of Breland) and have not found much information.
There's not too much information on it, to be honest. There's the little blurb it gets in the ECS, and then a very brief section in Forge of War. Still, it's probably enough to work with to get you started.
Now I want my party to find this out, without me "telling" them. I want them to discover it, through handouts, RPing interactions, whatever. I'm thinking notes/letters that they find is just kind of dumb... who would keep proof of the cause of the greatest genocide in history? It will have a huge "Oh my gods" impact on the party when it's revealed and will be awesome. I'm looking for some help to find a way to have the big reveal.
Ah, now here's the kind of stuff I enjoy - secrets, intrigue, and conspiracy theories!
So you've got The Big Secret from The Last War. Fine. There are the perpetrators of said action, the victims thereof, and perhaps a witness, plus any nutjob "conspiracy theorists" that are trying to piece the puzzle together.
Like any major military action, you've got the order from the people in charge, and then it flows through the chain of command to the boots on the ground who will actually carry out said action. That means there's quite a few people who were involved in what's going on, secret or not. And you know what they say about secrets - three people can keep a secret, so long as two of them are dead.
Even if it's a double-plus MOST SECRET codeword ADAMANT TOMORROW, it's still a massive operation - someone had to gather the initial intelligence. Someone else had to move the various pieces into position. Then there's the people who carried out the final orders. That's a LOT of people. Sure, maybe not everyone was aware of how each little piece connected to every other one. But that's where the clues start coming from. There's foreign intelligence agents, too. Maybe Aundair knew about certain actions, Cyre about others, perhaps even some internal agencies that knew...but without all of the pieces...
Maybe one guy kept a more detailed journal than he should have, even if it was somewhat nonspecific "commander so-and-so ordered us to move The Package to Target Zulul...I don't understand why, but you know what they say...my job isn't to ask those sorts of questions." Perhaps said guy died, and left his wife/daughter/son with the journal.
Maybe there's a "retired" spymaster living in Sharn - and he still trades in information. Perhaps he's got a few interesting stories to tell, too...for the right price (and it might be more information, rather than gold or magic he wants).
Then there's the actual agent that Pushed The Button (or perhaps his partner - someone had to make sure information made it back to the Home Office; one makes The Noble Sacrifice, the other is ordered to run). Boom. He knows it wasn't supposed to go down like that. He's now the only one directly responsible for the death of millions. Yeah, he did it on someone else's orders, but he's the guy who pulled the trigger. He's guilt-wracked, but can't bring himself to turn himself in or commit suicide. Perhaps he still wants justice to be served and wants to pay the price for his crimes. The problem is, he just lacks the fortitude to do it himself. But maybe, if he leaves enough breadcrumbs...
Then you've got the actual people involved in the coverup. People that understand that it was a horrible thing to have happened - but it had to happen. Current, active-duty intelligence agents, loyalists, noblemen, politicians, etc. People who are willing to give up their lives or become scapegoats in order to save the image of the one directly responsible.
Maybe one of these guys has hired out some assassins to track down each and every person involved in some of the key phases leading up to The Big Bang. And the assassins get assassinated, too. So people start dying mysteriously. Nobody can directly tie them all together, and it's likely that there's nothing in the official record about their activities during the war. That is, until other, mostly-unrelated bits of information start coming together.
Enter the crackpot conspiracy theorist. Maybe he's an old war buddy of one of the PCs. Maybe he hired them out for some other job. He's got lots of kooky ideas (not just this one). But he drops a bunch of these semirandom clues into the PC's laps (potentially right before he gets himself assassinated/kidnapped/imprisoned for Knowing Too Much).
In my campaign, (notionally titled "A Conspiracy of Shadows") a lot of these elements have come into play.
For instance, I ever-so-briefly introduced a gnomish hack reporter (very occasionally published in the Korranberg Chronicle), named Balfour Kerwindle, as one of the other passengers sharing the PC's room on the lightning rail coach as a bit of "color." He had a few normal things to say in conversation, and a few really kooky things ("Kaius the III is actually an undead vampire, and he's a high priest in a secret cabal of the Silver Flame, and is providing magical arms to the Sons of Thaliost!"). I plan on bringing him back in sometime later - especially once we get back into investigating the core conspiracy.
The PCs have actually dealt with two information brokers, not that they explicitly know it yet; their former boss was one of them. We started the game with a kidnapping/assassination attempt on their boss, by one of his old rivals trying to settle an old Last War score. ...And the guy they THOUGHT was their boss, was actually a changeling disguised as their boss, fulfilling an old favor.
My plan is to, for other unnamed reasons here to spare you guys more reading, have the party assault Argonth and find the "proof" there, which will lead to the climax of the campaign. I'm sure there are no "official" maps of Argonth, but anyone used it before and have some hints on what to do with it to keep the flavor of Eberron?
If you've not read Forge of War, you may want to pick it up. There's a sister ship to Argonth, that's explicitly described as being quasi-secret, doing mysterious things all the time. And it may or may not be under the control of a splinter faction.
I'd treat the assault as being something rather like an assault on a battleship or submarine (Hunt for Red October, perhaps?). The PCs have to Mission Impossible themselves aboard, sneak around a crew consisting of hundreds of trained military personnel, get themselves into the most secret depths of the ship...and then get themselves back out!
If you're really stuck for ideas, there's also a neat entry in FoW about how one of the other Argonth-class ships was lost to the Darguun during the War.
Hear it. Read it. See it. (Tasting and smelling almost always playing such a small role as to not be worth mentioning) If you feel reading it isn't right for your chronicle that leaves hearing it which CloudDivider excellently covered and seeing it. Which brings us to an often overlooked means of conveying information, surprisingly enough: magic.
Divination magic specifically can make keeping secrets really pesky. And especially those people/things that don't follow any specific "rules" like Flamewind or Sora Tereza.
Who knows what sort of subtle machinations that Rajah might have at it's disposal to set the PCs on the right track to starting the Last War back up?
Who knows what damning evidence may be found in "holocron-like" magic stones recorded by top Phiarlan Scryers or Cannith researchers building a new weapon... probably lost within the Mournland of course.
What if powerful PC types got close enough to someone like Boranel to read his thoughts? (getting past the mindblank and other protections is no easy task but possible for PCs)
You could run this whole story just in the Mournland without a single living soul ever talking to the PCs. A minor discovery at a Cannith outpost could lead the PCs to a weapon they slowly realize could be the cause of the Mourning. Magical research on anti-magic effects/zons. Test projects on creating nation sized magical effects. Dead test subjects... perfectly preserved(just like the victims of the Mourning).... Culminating in the discovery of said weapon....Surrounded by a crack team of dead Brelish troops one of whom is slumped over the weapon having clearly been operating it. Perhaps on the body lies a coded message with a royal seal... Which leaves things open? Damning evidence? Huge frame-up? The PCs must investigate further. How high does it go? Boranel himself? Should they tell anyone? The repercussions could be devastating.
Anyways why not have the weapon be in Argonth? Or the other super secret mobile fortress. The weapon in Brelish hands seems like good proof. Or some other proof could have been secreted INTO a warforged who now serves on Argonth. Or perhaps the few people left alive with the knowledge have wiped it from their minds via magic most by choice and some by force. One of them is the commander of Argonth. With some McGuffin magic spell the PCs may restore his memories and that(him being a paladin if I remember correctly) may compel him to speak out.
An extremely dangerous and thoroughly infamous warlord was captured and imprisoned at the end of the Last War, awaiting sentencing for countless war crimes. This prisoner recently escaped, and has gone on a seemingly random killing spree in and around Sharn. The party have been recruited to find and kill him. They've been told that he's too dangerous and slippery to risk trying to take alive, and are under strict orders to kill him on sight.
After a long search, following the trail of victims and an anonymous tip-off, the party finally catch up with the fugitive. However his death seems considerably easier than expected - his heart just doesn't seem to be in the fight, it's as if he's lost the will to live (although it's clear he'd prefer to die than be captured again). His body also reveals signs of extensive torture, presumably from his time in captivity.
Investigating the scene of the fight also reveals evidence which strongly suggests that the former warlord had been in hiding, and that it would have been literally impossible for him to have committed many of the killings without powerful magic - but there is no evidence of him having any magic or magical items at all, and it's clear that he would have rather escaped than fight, had he had the chance.
The party are publically congratulated on a job well done, and their concerns are brushed under the carpet. But it becomes obvious that there is some sort of conspiracy going on.
The scenes of the killings reveal hints that the victims weren't quite all they seemed - hints can be dropped earlier on, but the oddities become more apparent once the players are thinking in terms of conspiracies. Trying to speak to the dead victims meets with no success...although the attempt does help explain why each victim bore a (Keeper's) dagger wound across their throat (I'm assuming this would prevent "Speak with Dead" - if not, it'll have to be some special item, perhaps a unique weapon).
One victim was a housewife, who at first glance appeared to have been beaten before being executed - or had she instead put up a lengthy fight before allowing herself to be killed? Her time of death was shortly before her husband and daughter were due home from the market. Was she trying to save her husband and daughter? How did she know the killer wouldn't kill them as well...unless she also knew the killer.
Another victim was a baker, whose home had been burned to the ground. But the killer hadn't tried to cover up any of the other killings, so why this one? Closer examination of the ruins reveals the extensive use of powerful magic in a pattern that suggests a two-way magical battle. The baker fought back with powerful magic of his own.
Then there was the scribe whose hands bore the calluses of a swordsman, the silk merchant who lived in a dangerous neighbourhood (but all the gangs strangely avoided him), and so on.
Further investigation of the victims proves difficult - there are no official records of any of them prior to the end of the Last War. With sufficiently high-placed contacts, the players discover that at least a couple of the victims had worked for an extremely powerful organisation in Breland, an organisation which was shut down at the end of the Last War. The implication is of course that perhaps all of the victims had worked for this organisation.
Nobody knows what this organisation did, or who ran it, only that it was answerable to King Boranel himself and nobody else, and that its budget was effectively unlimited. Shortly after the organisation shut down, its headquarters (which was practically a fortress) was completely gutted in a fire (later blamed on Droaam mercenaries). All of its records were also destroyed in the fire.
The leads seem to have dried up, and you could even insert another small adventure in here, to make the PCs think they've learned all they can.
A couple of weeks later, a failed assassination attempt leaves one of Breland's most powerful politicians hospitalised and nearly dead. Ideally the PCs should be at the scene of the attempted assassination, so that they can thwart it and have a good reason to be involved in what seems to be an unrelated crime.
The assassins appear to be cheaply hired street thugs - and indeed that's exactly what they are. They break under questioning, and admit that they were hired to kill the politician if their employer didn't contact them before a certain date to call it off. The thugs are able to describe their employer, noting certain extremely distinctive features. Those features match those of a man who had been stabbed during a tavern brawl; although the authorities hadn't connected it to the earlier killings (and thus the players had never been informed), it happened at around the same time as the others, and with the same weapon (a Keeper's dagger).
The tavern-brawl victim was apparently a renowned drunkard and compulsive gambler, a self-acclaimed "war veteran" - although he would never say which company he served with, leading many to believe that he had actually been a deserter. He was well known for his conspiracy theories about what had "really" happened during the Last War, and had claimed on a number of occasions that he knew who and what had caused the Mourning (although when asked to elaborate, he would wink knowingly and respond that the secret was his investment for the future, and not one he cared to share); everyone would have a good laugh, and it became something of an in-joke among the regulars. In the days leading up to his death, a number of debt collectors had started threatening him, and he'd sworn that he could repay them within the week. Two days later he was dead, and the general assumption was that the debt collectors had grown tired of his excuses.
Investigation of the politician reveals that he's one of Boranel's closest friends and most trusted advisors, and performed a number of unspecified services for the King during the Last War. The precise nature of those services is unknown, but he is believed to have been heavily involved in military research. After the war, the politician sat in judgement on a number of war criminals, and was in charge of the sentencing for the warlord who "escaped" (way back at the start).
If the party continue investigating the politician, they receive an anonymous warning to mind their own business. If they ignore it, an assassin comes after them - the real assassin, armed with a Keeper's dagger and a selection of choice magical items. This should be a very challenging fight, and the assassin should use every dirty trick in the book.
If the assassin is killed, when his body is handed in it turns out that he was a high ranking and decorated military officer. The players will find themselves accused of murdering him, with numerous witnesses coming forward to give a fabricated story about the players following the off-duty officer as he left a tavern.
If the assassin is captured and handed in, the same as above, except that now the party are accused of kidnapping him for a ransom, then changing their minds and giving themselves up.
If the assassin is tortured, charmed, has his mind read, etc, the truth will start to come out in dribs and drabs. How much you tell the players would obviously depend on whether you want them to learn the whole truth, or just enough hints to let them work it out for themselves. The full story goes like this:
The assassin used to be one of the top agents for "Fog of War", a secret organisation which developed, stole and tested military technology for Breland during the Last War. During an expedition to Xen'drik they discovered the prototype for an Eldritch machine which appeared to be some sort of deadly weapon. They tested it on Cyre, but hadn't realised just how devastating it would be. The machine was also destroyed in the process, presumably because of a flaw in the construction.
After the Last War they decided to shut down the organisation and destroy all evidence of the work they'd done. If the other nations discovered that Breland had been behind the Mourning, the consequences would be dire in the extreme. That Breland was willing to use such a weapon, but currently lacked the capability to repeat the performance, would surely invite a combined attack from the other three nations.
So the truth was burned and buried, and the agents given new identities of their choice - most were sick of the fighting at this point anyway, and craved the chance of a "normal" life.
Then about a month ago, the former commander of Fog of War (the politician) contacted the assassin. He told him that a former agent was blackmailing him with the threat of exposure - and that if the threat was carried out, all former members of the organisation would be exposed, their lives and careers ruined. Including the assassin, who had now made a fine career for himself, and had no intention of losing it all.
Although the former members didn't know each others new identities, the politician had maintained a full list of names and addresses. However he couldn't work out who was responsible for the blackmail attempt, and didn't have enough time to launch a proper investigation. There was therefore only one way to be sure that the blackmailer was stopped; all former agents had to be terminated.
The warlord was sneaked out of imprisonment to serve as a scapegoat, and held in a secure location until needed, and then the assassin started working his way through the list of agents. The agents knew him (thus the strange crime scene with the "housewife"), but he also knew them, and was able to prepare himself appropriately for each confrontation.
What hadn't been counted on, of course, was that the blackmailer had made provisions for the possibility that the politician might have him killed; he'd hired some cheap killers of his own as a payback policy (sadly he couldn't afford anything better, but fortunately the thugs were also too stupid to realise just how highly-placed their target was). The blackmailer didn't care about being identified, because the operation would be called off unless he was already dead.
Once the last agent was dead, the party were tipped off to the warlord's location, and "justice" was served. The warlord was dead and therefore unable to defend himself, and the blackmailer (whoever he or she was) would never again cause any problems. Only the players, by poking around into past history, remained as a threat.
And of course they are still a threat...hopefully the players will realise that, should the politician even suspect that they know the truth, their lives (in Breland at least) are over - and even if the assassin mysteriously vanishes, the politician is going to start getting very suspicious (the only reason the assassin agreed to kill the agents was so that he could keep his high position, huge salary, big house, etc).
One way or another, the players are going to have to dispose of the politician, and if they don't want to be the ones responsible for restarting the war then they'll have to do it in secret - fighting the politician in his own element.