RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block Vanguard: MURDER MYSTERY! Clever Talk Thread Name

You should spend less time playing fantasy baseball.

Heh.

Oh, I forgot you guys wanted to post. Go ahead and do it, no problem.

Thank you.

Beautiful ending, Mxy. I am wiping off tears from my face right now.

Nice work, Mxy. Very nice.

Thanks guys.

You were right Euro, this story rocked my socks
Well done all.

Thanks. I just remembered I was gonna post all the clues from every murder scene that nobody caught, but never got around to it...

DO IT!

hi jeremy

Mxy, post those damn clues!

FIRST MURDER: Ethel Sigfried

FIRST POST:
1. Emma Sigfried’s name was supposed to be a subtle clue to the RSR connection, but I fucked up. I meant ETHEL, because Ethel Graham was the RSR’s benefactor and Jarvis “Mr. Kaleidoscope” Zigg’s love interest. Sigfried was Zigg’s real name, but none of you could know that. When they married, Jarvis left his stage name behind. After that, Ethel became a family name. The result was supposed to be Ethel Sigfried, but I got the name mixed.
2. The smashed skull and lengthy cracks on the ceramic were a clue that the murder weapon was a big heavy hammer. This, along with the words “BANG BANG” on the wall, were a clue to the rock songs connection, to anyone who knew the Beatles song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” from Abbey Road: “Bang bang, Maxwell’s silver hammer came down on her head / Bang bang, Maxwell’s silver hammer made sure she was dead.”
3. “On the floor near her lay a thick leather wallet, closed by a small button. A long stain of blood started on the floor, continued over the upper face of the wallet, and ended back on the floor.” The blood means the wallet wasn’t even touched after the murder, so the mobile for the murder wasn’t money. I think everyone assumed that, but no one said it.
4. “Now her brains and shattered skull, along with a pool of her own dark blood “; “…what was so unusual was the writing on the wall: the words "BANG BANG", written with bright red blood in thin large letters.” Emma’s blood was dark, obvious given the context, but the blood on the wall was bright red. Red blood, from my poor knowledge, comes from small wounds, but Emma’s body was “unharmed and fully clothed”, meaning there were no other wounds. This is a small clue that the killer used his own blood to write on the wall, and the fact that letters were “large”, meaning he lost a lot of blood, was a clue to his healing factor (which made Link Fox a suspect).

SECOND POST:
5. Ziggy Stardust’s symbol, a clue to the next murder.
6. The killer hammer is found in this post, because Pro’s theory that a super strong metahuman could have smashed Emma’s head made too much sense and I didn’t want you to go in a different direction.

SECOND MURDER: Rick Cavalli

THIRD POST:
7. Once again, the name is a clue: Cavalli is a descendant of Edoardo Cavalli, member of the RSR.
8. “The first thing Jake notices is that the man's hands are a mess of broken bones and open flesh.” This, and the fact that Cavalli was attacked outside a bar, were clues to the rock connection, to anyone who knew Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust song: “Just a beer light to guide us / So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hand.”

FOURTH POST:
9. The Q from Queen’s logo, a clue to the next murder and the rock connection.

FIFTH POST:
10. No clues here, I was just improvising the killer’s entrance and exit to the first murder scene, since I didn't really give that much thought before. At first I wanted to have him jump out the balcony (I was gonna leave a blood stain on the sidewalk below), a clue to his invulnerability, but I scrapped that when I decided to have the team find the hammer.

THIRD MURDER: Jack Merlin

SIXTH POST:
11. Jack Merlin himself was a member of the RSR, as Little Jack, so this was the most obvious clue to the RSR connection.

SEVENTH POST:
12. The shot to the head, considering the Queen symbol left in the last murder scene, was a clue to the rock connection. Do I need to post Bohemian Rhapsody’s lyrics?
13. The wound suggests the shot was fired at close range. This, and the fact that the murder happened in Merlin’s room, a place he was very restrictive about, are clues that the killer was someone Merlin knew and trusted. This should point to Link Fox, Merlin’s childhood friend and the only other RSR surviving member (not counting Mason Templar, since TTT deleted him from continuity).

EIGHTH POST:
14. The “close friend” theory is confirmed here.
15. The D from The Doors’ logo.

I think the biggest problems with the Murder Myster was that: While I listen to Bowie, the Beatles, and the Doors, I don't know their whole catalog. I have to seperate what I as a writer know from what my and other people's characters know being firmly placed within the bounds of the universe we write in.

POSTS NINE THROUGH TWELVE:
16. No clues here, just clearing up stuff and putting the teams together to move the story forward. I shouldn’t put the 16 there, really, because in the end that will make it look like I left more clues than I really did. Oh, well.
17. No relation to this story, but in post 10 we see the return of my body jumping character, Nobody. Graviton comments that the Strikeforce’s shape-shifter, Chamaleon, used to be much more consistent with his personas not so long ago. Guess what happened to him? He was “possessed” by Nobody, an obvious schizophrenic (remember he assumes the personality of everyone he jumps into), who finally found the perfect body for himself.

13TH POST:
18. The fact that all the blood forming the letters in the first murder scene comes from a meta is confirmed here, meaning the killer is a metahuman with healing powers.

FOURTH MURDER: Will Chamberlain and family

14th POST:
19. Again, the name is a clue: John Chamberlain was also the name of The Magnetic Man from the RSR.
20. The fact that Joan and Susie Evans, Chamberlain’s second wife and stepdaughter, were spared by the killer means he’s only interested in the descendants of the Rogues and the Rogues themselves. This links to one of the reasons behind the murders: the Mandelovian legend (posted by Gri… I mean, The Left Hand at the end of the solo of the same name) that the RSR would return one day to free the country.

15th POST
21. The P from Pink Floyd.
22. Several clues linking this murder to The Door’s “The End”: The murder happened overnight: “The killer awoke before dawn“; the detective says he used cheap boots: “He put his boots on”; he used one of the African masks hanged on the wall (see next post): “He chose a face from the ancient gallery”; he killed the girl first: “He walked into the room where his sister lived, and then he…”; he killed the boy second: “He paid a little visit to his brother”; he went into the master bedroom and killed the father then: And he came to a door / And he looked inside / “Father?” “Yes, son?” / “I want to kill you”; and finally raped the mother last: ”Mother? I want to…”

16th POST:
23. The mother says to Phil: “His face was demonic, but... strangely familiar.... His eyes were big and white and he had a dreadful white smile full of pointy teeth... the face was mostly red and blue…” The dog with blood on his mouth Phil later found was tearing apart something made out of painted wood. This is because the killer was wearing one of the African masks when he raped the woman, and dropped it when the dog bit him.

16th POST:
24. No clues here. Really, I’m just padding up the clue number.

DANNY’S POST:
25. I forgot to mention something in my post with Phil, so I asked Danny to include it in his post. When Adem asks Phil to describe the mental image of the killer he got from the woman, Phil says she couldn’t remember the color of his hair, so it was just a white void. It wasn’t a white void, silly, it was white hair. Like Link Fox’s.

FIFTH MURDER (well, attempted murder): Grimm

17th POST (with additions by Grimm):
26. The cane placed in the alley to attract Grimm into the building that falls on him is obviously the one previously owned by Mr. Grimm from the RSR, by the skull shaped ornament and the reaction it has when Grimm picks it up.

18th POST (with additions by Grimm)
27. The J from John Lennon’s signature logo.
28. “Careful with that Axe, Grimm”: a reference to the song inspiring this murder attempt, Pink Floyd’s “Careful with that Axe, Eugene”.

SIXTH (attempted) MURDER: Grissom Montag

POSTS 19 AND 20:
29. Montag, another RSR family name. Notice how cleverly I’ve disguised the fact that I can’t remember Grissom’s grampa’s name.
30. As the killer threatens to shoot Grissom if he moves from the empty rooftop he’s standing on, he says “First you must learn how to smile when you kill”, a line from Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” that is preceded in that song by “There’s room at the top, they’re telling you still”.

That appears to be it... The following posts are the teams putting the pieces together, tracking down Link, and then fighting his "brother".

To clear up the story: The RSR's Worm lost a hand during their final battle with Agent Beta (as seen in the RSR's only story thread), and since they were fighting over a literal Hell hole, the hand fell down there. When it grew a body, as all of Worm's missing body parts did, the resulting duplicate of Worm found itself in Hell and had to survive there. Add to this the fact that the hand was severed by Nigel Montag's mysterious sword, so the supernatural wound the new Worm grew out of made him different from the other duplicates.

In the following years Worm's evil twim tormented him by killing his teammates whenever he joined a team of other metahumans. For decades Worm stayed away from adventuring because of this, but after hearing about Vanguard he came up with a way to be in one of those teams without calling his clone's attention: he used his new identity of Link Fox, a relaxed millionaire, to offer to fund the newly founded Europe team with the condition of tagging along with them for their adventures.

Given the nature of his powers it would have been easy to conceal them. Even if he couldn't directly use his abilities to help them, he could at least get a taste of adventure after so many decades. Unfortunately for him, his secret came out during their first mission, so he immediately quit the team to avoid endangering his new friends.

But his clone found out about it anyway, and started planning his revenge. During this time, Mandelovia was overtaken by The Left Hand. Quickly during this period, an old legend about the Rogues coming back to free Mandelovia again started spreading among the oppressed people. The Left Hand, just to be on the safe side, put out a contract to kill the descendants of the Rogues to prevent the prophecy from coming true. Link's clone heard about his contract and decided it was the perfect opportunity to take his revenge on Link, so he accepted it and started the murders.

As part of his revenge plan, Link's clone used the rock n' roll motif during the murders, along with his likeness to Link and their common abilities, to make it look like the Vanguardian was the killer. I regret not having the opportunity to stress Link's predilection for rock music (I always planned for "Link Fox" to be the name of his rock band from the 70's), because I think that weakens the story. Also, the Mandelovian connection is too convenient (especially the part about how to kill Link's clone), so I wish I had the chance to explain the origin of the legend, or at least follow up the consequences of The Left Hand hiring an assassin to kill members of Vanguard (I thought this would come up whenever we faced The Left Hand, but that never happened).

Other weaknesses of the story are that it relies too heavily on previous knowledge (of continuity and rock bands), so there's a big chance a lot of people got completely lost in some parts. But, all in all, it was a fun experience and I think the story turned out quite readable, especially for something experimental like this. I'd like to thank everyone who contributed, including Phil for lending us his character, and especially Grimm for helping me shape the idea all those times we talked about it in AIM and bringing back Grimm just for this.

Heh, I read a post where you not only mention Nigel's name, but also clarify that he goes back several generations away from just "grandfather", but I left the post unedited to annoy you.

Yes, it was a great experiment AnD a great story.

Maybe, if it instead of rock trivia, you would have used DC superhero trivia, I guess we all would have been able to come up with explanation for the clues.











But really there is no one interested anymore in a round robin?

Asks around if there are others interested... if we found at least one or two other posters we could try to post a new story... something less complicated that the last two years of Vanguard stories, and slightly serious than JLR material...

I keep saying, I'm game for writing if there's something I can more easily get back into...

My idea would be to start a story set in the Universe of Vanguard, "one year later", where all the previous ongoing plots that affect the main continuity (mainly the occupation of Manhattan and the discrimination laws toward metahumans) have been resolved "off-screen".

I left Vanguard before the last story, so I have not the "rights" to say it will be about the Vanguard team...

I say just to have our respective characters to band together... if there are enough actual Vanguard member, it will be about Vanguard*, if not, we could come up with a different name... I don't think right now it's important...

What it is important is to care about the story and the characters, avoiding to delve into past continuity so not to repeat the mistakes of the past...




*or if the last Vanguard members posters allow us to use the name

You're assuming we don't plan on dealing with the occupation of Manhattan or the anti-meta laws. Manhattan is being dealt with right now, and the anti-meta laws are not something minor that can be resolved offscreen. No offense, Euro, but you've shown once or twice before that you tend to get a little too eager to resolve stuff quickly. Ending stories in one post is one thing. Wrapping two major ongoing plot elements as an aside is something else entirely. You'll be hard-pressed to get all the Vanguard posters to jump in.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find any Vanguard posters to jump in on anything. You, and damn near all of us, haven't posted in going on three or four months now. You've lost your right to bitch about anyone's attempt at reviving the forum.

It's been started. I think everyone was waiting on me to wrap up the whole Priestess angle. Or did Doc do something since then? I don't really recall...

Read this. That's Pro starting his "lost" idea... and the rest of us attempting to go along for the ride.

Ohhhh... I thought it was gonna be set in the present.

I remember at the time that was posted I read the beginning but lost track pretty fast... I'm gonna try catching up now and see if I join in.

It's been pretty fun... and I know at least one of your characters is in there.

I must find somewhere to play again!