Murder on the First Express

(A system-agnostic module for tabletop role-playing games.)

Your party has heard many rumors about a newly invented means of transportation, which travels at such immense speed as to make crossing an entire continent possible within a week. A short while ago, you received invitations from a mysterious benefactor (someone relevant to your party members’ backstories?) to ride one of these new “trains”, and your group jumped at the chance. Their amazement is cut short, however, when the train passes through a tunnel. It lurches to the side, you hear the sound of shattered glass, and when the sun’s light returns, one of the passengers lies on the ground, dead. The police at your destination are so catastrophically bad at their jobs that they haven’t made a correct arrest in fifty years, so you need to find out who really did it or one of your own might have to answer for the crime.

Characters

Your party members aren’t alone on the train. There are several other people who got on the train somehow, and they’re all equally suspicious.

Dr. Breen

The murder victim. Breen was a vicious monopolist, in charge of Dr. Breen’s Private Reserve, the only water company for miles after he priced all of his competitors out of business. He’s made more enemies than friends, and he’d be at the top of anyone’s “Most Likely to Get Murdered On A Train’s Maiden Voyage” list.

In conversation, Breen is dismissive and rude.

Dr. Breen attempted to poison Snow with his second hip flask to keep him quiet, but accidentally drank from the other flask after Snow switched them. The highly concentrated cholera killed Breen within a matter of seconds.

It doesn’t come up in the story, but after he died, his consciousness was transferred into an earthworm.

John Snow

Snow is the local doctor and a strong proponent of germ theory. He spends his time researching the transmission and prevention of cholera, and believes that he has found a link. He was invited by the same benefactor as you

John Snow has discovered that Dr. Breen’s water is carrying cholera, and is in the process of convincing the press to run his story.

Gordon Freeman

Gordon is an anti-industrialist, with a history of sabotaging factory equipment, including at Dr. Breen’s water processing plants. Dr. Breen isn’t bothered much by this, since he’s generally ineffective and having an enemy helps distract the public from his monopoly.

We have nothing to lose but our chains and our security deposit!

Gordon is a short-term amnesiac. He has forgotten Breen’s face, and will not realize who he is unless the players tell him. When he’s told, he says he totally would have done it, and becomes convinced that he is the murderer, despite not being armed at the time of death. If told that someone is Breen, he will start making plans to kill them, but will usually forget these plans before completing them.

Steel Wool

Steel Wool is a police officer. He carries a gun, but is unaware of this fact due to being deaf in one ear, and will deny having a gun when questioned. When he swears, he subconsciously fires his gun to censor himself. If the players initiate combat, he will attack using melee, either unarmed or using the gun as an improvised bludgeoning weapon.

Dr. Breen deserved it. He laundered.

Whoever the killer is, has dark hair!

Carrie Nation

Carrie Nation is a radical prohibitionist with an axe. She doesn’t have a ticket, but the conductor is too scared to ask her for one in case she can smell the beer he had last night. She also has a parrot, which has no historical basis.

SQUAWK! BEER! Her parrot can smell alcohol.

Locations

Sleeper Cars

Each of the passengers has a room in one of the sleeper cars, and you can inspect their rooms to learn about them and their backstory.

After the murder, Snow will lock himself in his room and refuse to answer anything more than basic questions. He believes he is guilty, since he switched the flasks, but if you can get him to open up, he will tell you what he knows, and can identify the deadly concentrated cholera.

If you inspect Gordon’s room, you will find a crowbar covered in dried blood and a hit-list. There are hundreds of entries, each with a slightly different misspelling or rearrangement of Breen’s name. Some of the entries have completion dates. If you tell him that the person who died is Breen, he will mark off a random name from his list as soon as he can.

Livingroom Car

A recreation of a contemporary livingroom, this car has several seats, a glass coffee table, a chandelier, and a fireplace. The body is here. It’s bruised and bleeding, but it’s impossible to tell at a glance which wounds are from the table or the chandelier and which are from a potential murder weapon.

Cafeteria Car

The lunch lady staffing the cafeteria wasn’t there at the time of the murder, so she couldn’t have done it. She’ll tell you what she’s seen, and give you an extra chicken nugget if it looks like you’re having a bad day.

Encounters

Roleplay warmup

In the livingroom car

Everyone except the conductor and the lunch lady are in the room, making casual conversation. Each member of the party will decide who they would like to speak to until the story progreses.

Breen is sitting in an armchair, deeply immersed in reading the newspaper. If the party attempts to talk to him, he will shoo them away and ignore further attempts at conversation. Player characters know who Breen is, and you can tell them public knowledge about his backstory.

Snow doesn’t drink, so the flask on his side remains unopened. He is sitting opposite the table from Breen. If your party speaks with Snow, he will give vague overviews of his research into Cholera, but will not go into depth, since the players are laypeople.

Carrie Nation is pacing behind Breen, ominously sharpening her axe. If the players talk to her, she will want to discuss prohibition, and will be very disapproving if the players have had any alcohol recently (ask them before starting the conversation; she can tell).

If the players speak to the parrot, choose a random character; the parrot will tell the party that they did it. Nothing has happened yet.

Officer Steel Wool is standing in the corner, with his gun pointed toward the ceiling and his finger on the trigger. If your party has a spellcaster, Steel Wool will hassle them for their potionmaking license. He will also mention that he’s on the train to observe Carrie Nation, under suspicion of vandalism.

Gordon Freeman is standing in the corner, glancing eagerly at the other people in the car. If the party talks to Gordon, he will hand each of the players a pamphlet about Breen’s company and its perceived crimes against him specifically.

Describe these events in between player conversations.

• Breen takes two flasks from his belt, and places them on the side table between himself and Snow. He offers one to Snow, who politely declines.
• Breen takes a long drink from his flask, and quickly replaces the cap. Carrie’s parrot sniffs the air in his direction.
• While a player is speaking, Steel Wool fires his gun apparently unprompted, startling everyone in the car. The narrator should clap or otherwise make a loud noise to LARP this. A handful of colorful papers fall from a hole in Gordon’s bag (call them pamphlets, if they have spoken already).
• Snow notices that Breen’s flask is running low, and nudges his over, since he’s not using it.
• Breen takes a long drink, and coughs. He places the flask on the table in front of him.
• Gordon offers a pamphlet to Breen, who doesn’t respond (He’s dead). Undeterred, he shoves the pamphlet into Breen’s front pocket.
• Suddenly..! (advance to the next scene)

Inciting Incident

The train enters a tunnel, and lurches to the side, throwing you off balance. Someone shouts “What the $?!@”, and you hear a gunshot, followed by a cacophony of shattering crystal and wrenching metal. When the light returns, you see, between the glittering wreckage of a fallen chandelier and the fractured remains of a glass table, the mangled body of Dr. Breen, doubled over and damp with fresh blood. Beside his head lie fragments of his ceramic flask.

Frantically, you look around the room. You see Steel Wool, holding a smoking gun, and Carrie Nation, brandishing her axe defensively. John Snow is shrinking back from the sight of the corpse and the blood sprayed all over him, and flees to his room. Gordon remains in the corner, frozen in shock. Players can choose to investigate the room, speak with the others, or retire for the night. The others won’t be very coherent, after what just happened in front of them.

• On the floor…
  • The glittering remains of the furniture blanket the area between the seats and the fireplace.
  • Around the fragments of ceramic from Breen’s flask, a puddle of clear liquid is mixing with fresh blood.
    • If the players ask the parrot to smell the liquid, it will screech “NOT BEER! WEIRD! NOT BEER!”.
  • Behind the couch, you can see dusty footprints left behind by Carrie’s boots.
  • Anywhere Gordon was standing when he was startled or moved quickly, there is a trail of pamphlets that fell from the hole in his bag. If the players ask, there are no pamphlets leading to Breen’s seat.
• On the ceiling…
  • There are bullet holes clustered above where Wool was seated, with one outlier where the chandelier once hung.
• The chairs…
  • On the front of the chairs, there’s a spattering of blood staining the upholstery. The chair Snow sat in is much cleaner, since his body blocked much of the spray.
  • On the table between the chairs is one of Breen’s hip flasks. If the players open the flask and leave the cap off for more than a few seconds, Carrie’s parrot will smell it and screech, “BEER! BEER! I SMELL BEER!”.
• The body…
  • You steel your will and look at the corpse. Breen’s limbs are twisted in ways they shouldn’t be, and his face is set in the same stern expression from before.

The following morning

After the panic, you and the other passengers were tossing and turning for most of the night. You awake when the morning light filters through your window, having slept only three or four hours. Some of the others are already awake, and their rooms are unlocked.

• Carrie’s room
  • A sheath for Carrie’s axe, and a cage for her parrot.
  • A draft for Carrie’s anti-alcohol manifesto on the desk.
• Wool’s room
  • A police uniform with several medals. One of them is embossed with the phrase “One of the marksmen of all time”, with “Best” crudely inked underneath.
• Breen’s room
  • Mostly empty, apart from a briefcase on his bed. Inside the briefcase, there is a set of glassware and candles, for chemistry.
• Freeman’s room
  • The closet is conspicuously empty. You suppose you’ve only ever seen him in the one outfit.
  • On the bedside table, there is a notebook. Inside, you find a list of hundreds of copies of Breen’s name, each one with a different combination of honorifics and misspellings. Some of the names are crossed out, with dates written next to them.
• Snow’s room
  • Snow’s bloodied clothes are still on the floor in the corner.
  • On the desk, there is a loosely bound stack of papers filled with maps, graphs, and other scientific diagrams that you don’t understand. In one of the passages of text, you spot the name of Dr. Breen’s company, Breen’s Private Reserve, mixed in among long words you don’t recognize.
• The cafeteria car
  • The lunch lady is old and wise, and might be able to nudge the players in the right direction if they ask her for help. She can’t tell players any new information, but she can give them hints about where to look next.
  • Carrie is sad that Breen died, but admits that she’s offended that he was drinking alcohol right under her nose.
  • Snow is very jumpy and doesn’t want to answer any questions, but is otherwise polite.
    • If players can convince Snow that he’s probably not going to be found guilty, he will be willing to help them and tell his side of the story.
      • He’s discovered that Breen’s water contains cholera, and was trying to get the information out to the press. Breen must have found out about this, so Snow was cautious of his offered drink.
      • He never thought Breen would try to kill him, though, and has been overwhelmed with guilt because he believes he broke his Hippocratic oath.
    • Snow will be satisfied if the players determine that Breen’s flask didn’t contain beer, or if they’re certain that someone else did it.
  • Gordon has forgotten about the incident, and will try to give the players another pamphlet. If he is reminded, he will be convinced that he is guilty and try to turn himself in.
  • Wool will be generally helpful, providing his expertise on anything the players ask. If the players ask about something policing-related, roll a D6 and give them a wrong answer if you rolled a 1. If the question is not policing-related, give a wrong answer if you rolled a 4 or lower. Wool will always andwer confidently, even if his answer is wrong.
• The Livingroom
  • Mercifully, someone has taken a curtain from the windows and covered the corpse.
  • Otherwise, the room is untouched. Players can inspect the same things as before.
  • They can also ask Carrie’s parrot or Steel Wool for help investigating the scene.
  • If players have convinced Snow to open up, he can inspect the clear liquid to find the cause of death: concentrated cholera.

Map