Backstory #

There is a man known as Baron Montichello. The resemblance between him and the mythical Don Quixote is less “venn diagram”, and more “circle”.
Anyway, unlike Don Quixote, he actually ran into one of the mythical entities from time forgotten, and agreed to help bring back “the good days”. You know, the ones that aren’t actually good for anyone but the entity in question and maybe one of its ultra-loyal followers. What can I say: he’s spending so much time in his head, he can’t see the beauty of the modern era.

Anyway, one of the things he does for this entity is propaganda campaigns. After all, one of the most valuable things for these entities is their reputation. He hosts festivals at the solstices and equinoxes – the one that is relevant for this adventure takes place on the autumn equinox – and provides free food, booze, and entertainment for small children.
For the autumn equinox, this festival takes the form of a parade hosted by a group of animatronics, who do certain skits along the way. These skits are meant to spread the idea that this beautiful, elegant entity is capable of wiping the floor with that crass, crude one – it was a close fight last time, so this idea could be the edge this entity needs to win in the next (inevitable, assuming its plans come to fruition) confrontation¹.

There is a play called King of the City of Wine, which has not been performed in living memory – which, given how my campaign includes elves and other super long lived races, is very long indeed. A local community theater group has found this play, translated it, and seek to bring it to a generation that has long forgotten it. In fact, this is such a momentuous occasion that they wish to have their opening night (and night where the local news is going to record it for VCR²) take place under the same stars mentioned in the play.

Naturally, this lines up with the autumn solstice.

What is the Baddie’s Plot? #

Now, the Baron isn’t completely disinterested in the play: only its timing. Thus, he figures the best way to force everyone to go to his thing is minor sabotage. Make the actors think the theater’s haunted, fuck up the lights, lock the doors, that sort of thing. That way, once the solstice passes, he can stop the sabotage and maybe go watch the play himself. In fact, he has the perfect minion to go sneak around the theater at night!

It’s a bright orange, very loyal muppet. We’ll call her Pinnochio.

Anyway, all he had to do to give her a way in was to promise the theater manager an answer to his blackmail problem in exchange for a pair of keys, wait a few days, and she was good to go. Due to the theater’s long history (and many props left behind from past performances), nobody actually realizes she isn’t just one of the props she keeps moving around to hide her trail. Add on some messages written in fake blood on the mirrors and some clever sabotage of the cameras, and she’s convinced half the crew this is some manner of haunting. Of course, it’s the other half that led to the complication which brought the investigators in.

See, the janitor³ managed to convince the theater owner that the noises he was hearing at night were just a little off, and that they should hire someone to watch the theater at night to make sure this isn’t just some vandal playing a practical joke. Unfortunately for everyone involved, he was too good at his job to be shaken by Pinnocho, and too bad at it to avoid getting murdered by the parade animatronics she’s keeping around as muscle. His corpse is currently in a dumpster in the back alley, which Pinnochio is actively trying to prevent anyone from having reason to open. As he got murdered on his first night on the job, basically everyone thinks he intentionally skipped town for some reason or another.