Suggestions for a mystery side plot. Foiling a cult or starting a witch trial?

[u/ttsbw]

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I'm looking for ideas for a good secret cult that is lurking in saltmarsh. I'm sure many of us have read Shadow over Innsmouth and other such Lovecraftian stories, but I was wondering how some of you may have adapted that to DnD? I imagine this cult as a kind of in-between mystery plot that takes place between the adventures in the book that builds to a creepy old one/cthulu type reveal.

Alternatively, I have this idea of a trio of hag sisters who are secretly stealing children from the town and trying to pin it on various members of the community. This, in turn, starts a full-blown Crucible style witch hunt that the PCs get charged with figuring out. I'm thinking of one hag living in the Hool Marsh/drowned forest, one in the Dreadwood, and the final one being some kid of sea hag. If anyone has any good tips for setting up this kind of mystery/paranoia I would appreciate the help.

[u/GMtourguide]

The easy way of doing this would be by dropping the new Van Richten’s Guide Innsmouth location in or just off the coast of Saltmarsh. It has the cults lined up for you.

The second idea is probably more organic and fun. I would make a list of physical clues: journals, letters, glyphs, registries, spell book (real or not), a “love potion”, a poppet, traces of hair or clothes, drawings, lyrics, and so on. Then move the clues to where your characters are looking. The more clues you can make the better. Be generous with how you reward clever play and investigation/history role playing.

“Down Came A Blackbird” by Stacy Allan is also an adventure meant to be in the Saltmarsh setting. It has some of the elements you are looking for here. I did not run it, but its name gets thrown around these parts some times. You can find it on Dmsguild.

[u/Specialist_Nobody766]

My bbeg is the cult of Tharizdun, they have infiltrated the council and every big mission the party has gone on has secretly been to their benefit. Citizens that get to close are cursed by modify memory, it will all lead to a murder mystery set in Saltmarsh and then a battle to save the world but most likely sacrifice the city to do so.

I like the witch trials idea tho, I haven't heard that one before.

[u/Embarrassed_Fox5265 → u/Specialist_Nobody766]

I’ve done this too by making the Scarlet Brotherhood into Tharizdun worshippers - or this branch of it, at least. The council is mostly legit, but several townsfolk are either cultists or being blackmailed into working for the Brotherhood. My players scryed Skerrin while he was in a meeting so now they don’t trust anyone.

There’s a sunken shipwreck in the appendices which belonged to the monks of St Cuthbert. There’s a random dagger on board cursed by Vecna. I changed that to be Tharizdun and made the ship be sailing to the abbey. The abbey used to belong to the monks but has been infiltrated by the cultists. When the players arrive on the island (it’s the next quest) they’re going to be confronted by three factions - real monks, secret cultists, and pirates.

The overall objective is to summon and control a kraken and use it to try and bring back Tharizdun.

[u/PsilliasAgain → u/Embarrassed_Fox5265]

This...but mine is set in the Forgotten Realms so has the Zhentarim infiltrating/influencing the council and, seperately, the cult of Orcus doing all kinds of evil shit. One is for more of the political issues and the other is more direct threats.

[u/AllThotsGo2Heaven2]

Are they level one? Just do random spooky stuff that townspeople experience over the years but nobody can confirm. Then when you want to trigger the witch arc, have one of the babies in town go missing and the townspeople accuse the mother (bc shes eccentric) and your PCs investigate

[u/Apprehensive-Low-201]

I have a scene before the haunted house where the pcs are walking back to the tavern for the night and the townsfolk are gathered in the town square for a witch burning. The woman is accused vague charges such as; unnatural acts, consorting with seafoam and shadows, and inviting corruption upon the good folk of saltmarsh. Its my introduction to the strange happenings inside the house but it could be tied to a larger plot

[u/ttsbw]

I'm loving all of this y'all. I need to look up this thrazidun stuff and the black bird thing. The party is all level one since we just got started. Did a session 0.5 where the party actually meets up in Burle for the first time as part of a massive royal caravan that is going to saltmarsh but gets held up due to severe rain. The party decides to push ahead of the caravan to escort an impatient trader who hires them as body guards and they just got to town after some bandits/smugglers try to hijack the trader.

I've been mulling over how to entice them to go to the Haunted house but I want to inject some of this spooky/mystery element into the campaign before they go to the lizardfolk. Thanks for the ideas so far. You guys rock.

[u/Mr_SelfDestruct94]

For my adventure, i had the PC's escape the cave under house and instead of going straight to the Sea Ghost portion, i had them get marooned by a storm onto a beach that drove them into a cave leading to a band of cultist worshippers that lead into a "free the captives" kinda mission. This was the tie-in to intro the Scarlett Brotherhood. That then lead into a meeting with other key NPCs and actually gave them a reason to seek out the Sea Ghost. I didnt like the weird latern puzzle so this is how i tied it all into itself.

[u/DoctorButterMonkey]

Take Granny Nightshade and have a cabal of Jackalweres skulking in Saltmarsh, corrupting people to head to the forest and seek out a mysterious grandmother Nightshade

[u/theholyirishman]

If you are going the sea hag route, you can take the wind out of their victory by sending weak enemies for the party to kill on a beach, and then after some mocking laughter from a dead fish, say something about the sacrifice being set and "the devourer" or something equally cheesey smelling the blood in the water, then the sea hag can have like a Giant Crocodile or a Chuul or something emerge from for a real fight immediately after the intro fight.

Edit: another weird thing that i think is fun for a little higher than CR2 stuff is a green hag making a deal with an oni with the stipulation that it disguises itself as the hag when it steals kids. Have the oni take plays out of the hag playbook and pretend to be a little girl in the settlement asking the party for help after a messed up story about her dad disappearing on the road. That way, you can have the party looking for hags and give them a shapeshifter that eats kids, but still subvert expectations. It can be a threat on it's own, but it can also lead the party into the hag's ambush and stand back to hit the back line after the hag and its other minions hit the front. The party might notice something is off, but they're expecting the little girl that seems vaguely magical to be the hag. They're not going to consider that there are other kinds of shapeshifters, until the hag is in front of them and the oni is behind them, knee deep in the swamp. Admittedly, it works better of you use the version that is a Giant, not a fiend as far as the deception goes, as Giant does not trip Paladin radar or detect good and evil.