How to Reveal Shapeshifting Villains?

[Hadrian the Builder]

How do I get my players clued-in and suspicious that the current ephemeral bad guys might be a Rhakshasa who just let them "win" to advance a nefarious plot? And how do I get them suspecting they are being manipulated?

I need some creative ways to start indicating and detecting that the party has been fooled again without detracing from the wily cunning of this type of villain.

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I'm running an Eberron Game where the major villains are Rakshasas. One is the final epic battle baddie that ends the campaign (The Shadow in the Flame/Bel Shalor). One is the epic tier bad guy (The Wyrmbreaker, his exarch), and one is the Paragon Tier threat, a Fang of Khyber.

But what I'm really after is this: I want to start having the Rhakshasas directly "mess with" the party, but I don't want to do a cheesy shapeshift-to- true-form-laugh-and-run every time. Nor can I allow the party to try to take on a threat they are not ready for...

The heroic tier is coming to a close without the players directly interacting with any of the major villains (as far as they know). I have some ideas for information I can feed them that will suggest that some of their Heroic tier villains were agents of the Rakshasas.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Didn't Mark have a Shapeshifter thread on a few days ago?

And how do I get them suspecting they are being manipulated

I think deliberately (from a DM point of view) creating inconsistencies is a good way. For example, the shapeshifter might assume the role of someone else. But he has actually incomplete information about this one. For example, the person might have an "alibi" for something the shapeshifter did in his shape. Even if the alibi is only weak, like "I was with my girlfriend at the time", it can help. Maybe someone the shapeshifter had imprisoned escapes. Or the shapeshifter performed some action after the original person must have been dead.

A shapeshifter might also have given the PCs (or one of their allies) false information, either due to not knowing or because he deliberately mislead them. If the supposed source of information can convince the PC that they couldn't have gotten the information from him, the PCs know something is amiss. If he can't convince them, they might choose to follow him, and depending on the shapeshifters knowledge of their plans, he might accidentally reveal himself.

The important thing is probably to not play the BBEG as all-knowing in this case. Sometimes it might even be that he could have had the information he needed to avoid detection - but he was too arrogant to consider it relevant
If he is infallible and all-knowing, the only hope for the PCs would be a lucky die roll to beat his Bluff/Deception/Disguise check. It's more fun if they actually connect the dots and this leads to a discovery. (Even if they have the wrong suspicions. For example, they might think the informant gave them wrong information because he is in league with someone else. Following him in hiding they might spot the shapeshifter, or they hear of a sighting of their informant in a place where they knew he was not at that time.)

That's at least basically what I am trying to do in my own campaign.

 

[Umbran]

Here's a tip - actually have the villains roll their disguise and bluff checks (or equivalent, depending on the critter and edition). There is a tendency for the DM to just assume that the powers work, due to high bonuses. But eventually they do screw up, and that will lead to inconsistencies or odd details that don't quite add up.

Another tip - when the PCs do interact with the disguised villain, make sure that the villain's concerns are accurately represented.

For example - Rakshasa in 3e are particularly vulnerable to Good and Piercing damage, right? Well, then if the Rakshasa is shapeshifted into the form of the Duke, when the characters are in audience with the fake, the "duke" will insist that nobody brings bows or crossbows into his presence, while the real duke won't.

So, as an extension - if the Rakshasa are shapeshifting to disguise themselves as NPCs, make sure the party also meets the real NPCs, so they have points of comparison.

If the shapeshifted villain isn't disguising as someone else, but is only disguising their true nature, there's another thing you can use - unexplained knowledge. Have the PCs meet the villain in two different shapes, people who are unconnected, but somehow both know things that only one of them should know - "How did this barmaid know I liked pea soup? I've never eaten here before!"

 

[davethegame]

This actually came up in our Eberron game last night- while a Rakshasa can disguise their hands, they might not be used to holding objects with their hands reversed, and so might look a bit clumsy while holding weapons.

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

*slaps forehead*
Geez...I really should have thought of this. I can do some easy retrofitting by helping the players to uncover new information that contradicts earlier revelations.

My paragon tier bad guy has been out of the world (petrified ) for 10,000 years, and only revived in the last 6 months, so it makes perfect sense that even with great skills, he simply would not know enough to really cover all the facts.

So, I can start exposing my players to the holes the disguises as they start wrapping up with the heroic tier bad guys and discovering that some of them have alibis. That will help suggest that the villain has been directly involved for awhile now.

And I can start to foreshadow with rumors of powerful people acting strangely or contradicting themselves, suddenly spending alot of money, etc...

When it comes to a fight, the shapeshifter can have already switched back...leaving a built-in escape plan. Willing agents can say things like "so-and-so left me here to deal with you." And unwilling agents can be a little confused...

vielen dank!

 

[ExploderWizard]

*slaps forehead*
Geez...I really should have thought of this. I can do some easy retrofitting by helping the players to uncover new information that contradicts earlier revelations.

My paragon tier bad guy has been out of the world (petrified ) for 10,000 years, and only revived in the last 6 months, so it makes perfect sense that even with great skills, he simply would not know enough to really cover all the facts.

So, I can start exposing my players to the holes the disguises as they start wrapping up with the heroic tier bad guys and discovering that some of them have alibis. That will help suggest that the villain has been directly involved for awhile now.

And I can start to foreshadow with rumors of powerful people acting strangely or contradicting themselves, suddenly spending alot of money, etc...

When it comes to a fight, the shapeshifter can have already switched back...leaving a built-in escape plan. Willing agents can say things like "so-and-so left me here to deal with you." And unwilling agents can be a little confused...

vielen dank!

For this guy, if he gets to speak much his speech patterns will be extremely archaic unless language is very stagnant in the area.

 

[Umbran]

For this guy, if he gets to speak much his speech patterns will be extremely archaic unless language is very stagnant in the area.

10,000 years is a bit more than "archaic". In human terms that's longer than we've had written langauge! 10,000 years ago, the last ice age was ending. We were just figuring out agriculture, were still using stone tools, and so on. Nothing even remotely akin to our modern languages existed.

So, we probably want to posit this baddie's got some semi-magical way to learn languages (and that's okay, he's basically an evil spirit, right?)

More properly, though, he can be repeatedly surprised by inventions - this wheel thing, for example, probably keeps surprising him. Human use of metal tools and/or magic at all might be a new thing to him.

Of course, he's terribly old and terribly clever, so this won't stop him. But it will allow for him to be occasionally surprised, and to slip up due to erroneous assumptions and expectations.

Makes for great insults, though. "Good to see your species has finally gotten past grunting and hand gestures. You'll make better slaves this way...."

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

Being a rhaksasa, I'm assuming he's solved the problem with comprehend languages. Since I'm playing in eberron, I'm not too concenred about timeline of technological devvelopment for humanity...but the ubiquitousness of humans (instead of orcs and goblins, when he was trapped) could lead to some great comments about breeding like flies.

 

[Umbran]

Being a rhaksasa, I'm assuming he's solved the problem with comprehend languages.

Ooh! Ooh! Here's another opportunity! In 3e, comprehend languages has a limited duration. What happens to him when it runs out?

Okay, fine, let's say he's used Permanency on it. It still requires you to touch the creature you're trying to comprehend! Even if you rule that he has to touch someone who knows the language, and can then understand everyone within earshot, that still means he needs to be in physical contact with someone at all times that he's trying to comprehend!

Now, that's something you can use as a hint

Hm. Comprehend languages doesn't allow you to speak, only to understand...

(No, I'm not trying to knock you down here - I'm trying to help you create a villain with quirks the PCs can eventually pick up on. Quirky villains are fun!)

 

[wolff96]

I used a murder mystery once. They talked to a bunch of people, let them disperse to their rooms while they investigated, then when the players went to confront the "real" killer...

Oops! Body number 2! And judging by the stench, he's been here a couple of days. So who did we interrogate...?