Help with Clues and ideas for city investigation
Hi all, I try to make it short:
- my group was in the capital of the land and intervened the ongoing assassination of the emperor, he rewarded them and gave them some emblems to get access to most places and to be bothered by guards etc.
- their main goal of the campaign is to seek and gather the missing four artifacts from the gods to get the land back into balance.
- the emperor asked them, on their way to another province capital (for the main quest) to gather information about "the spider" who seems to be responsible for the planning of the assassination. He is the contact person of the imprisoned assassins and they only had contact through mail post orders and never met him. It is said, that "the spider" is located in the town on their way
- this town is located next to the river where they arrive with a ship. It is a wood economy city with some nobility ruling it.
Now my need of help:
Regarding my experiences as a DM, I feel lost of filling in the clues/nodes/Points of interest for the players to get informations for this "side quest". Am even unsure if the spider should be obviously in this next city (350km afar) or if he should be kept more secret for later gameplay.
Anyways....can you guys give me some ideas on how to make an open sandbox investigation session in the city? I dont want to railroad them into obvious clues.
Thanks in advance!