jdnd/sections/09-The Castle with the Steel Door - The Market Square of St Parnas.md

## The Market Square of St Parnas


The PCs manage to leave the Museum of Orethys, with Joycie’s help. The
entire group plane shifts back to the outlands. They arrive in the
market square in the center of St. Parnas. The market square is full of
shops and stalls with various vendors. You can buy most anything in the
market square, or near it.

### Damage from the Chaos Storm

The first things the PCs notice when they reach the market square is
that there is merchandise scattered all over the ground, and merchants
are busy picking up the mess. The merchants will explain that items were
teleporting around. The merchants have given the phenomenon a name:
they’re calling it a “chaos storm.” The epicenter of the chaos storm
was, of course, Castle Green.

The PCs will not learn the cause of the storm for some time. However,
the DM should know the secret. When Tymora observed a spiritual link
between the PCs and the other deck-touched individuals, she speculated
that a link might also exist to the creator of the deck. She was not
wrong: Omta knows that the PCs can in fact lead Tymora to Omta. When the
PCs agreed to help Tymora with this, Omta had a panic attack.

His panic manifested as objects teleporting around randomly. The biggest
object that got teleported was the top half of Castle Green, it got
teleported all the way into the Museum of Orethys. If this seems like an
odd coincidence, it is… but Gods and Fate are like that.

Lots of medium-sized objects also teleported, chunks of masonry, wagons,
you name it. Most of these items moved 20 to 30 feet in a random
direction. Some of these movements caused real harm: when a wagon
teleports 20 feet in the air, it can really hurt somebody when it comes
crashing down. When a structural support beam of a building teleports
somewhere else, it’s not good for the building. There are many injured
people.

The damage is most severe at Castle Green itself. But the parts of town
that are close to Castle Green also got hit. Places that are farther
away mostly avoided any serious damage, but they did experience a lot of
small-object movement: wine bottles, notebooks, and the like got
scattered. There is quite a mess. In the market square, which is far
enough from Castle Green, there is minimal real damage.

Much of what happens in this chapter will be dealing with the damage and
aftermath of the chaos storm.

### Joycie Says Goodbye, Lada Stays

Shortly after arriving at the market square, Joycie says that she was
glad to have met the PCs, but she now needs to go back to her job at the
temple in Brightwater. She’s very high-level, which means her time is in
very high demand. The temple was only able to spare her for a short
time.

Lada explains that she would like to stay with the party, if they’ll
allow it. Tymora wants her to study the deck, and they both agree that
sticking with the PCs is the best way to do it.

Assuming the PCs allow Lada into the group, let the players take turns
running Lada’s character. Lada will never fight, but she will do support
activities like casting *cure* and *bless* spells. Be strict about that:
the players cannot put Lada on the front line: she is scared of combat,
and she will panic if she is targeted. Lada is always one level beneath
the PCs. The reason she’s so low-level is that she doesn’t aspire to be
a combatant: she’s a scientist, she spends her days in the lab, not on
the road.

### Magic Items in the Market Square

The PCs will notice that there are several merchants selling magic
items. That is not typical of St. Parnas, this is only a medium-sized
town. On a normal day, there would be no more than a handful of magic
items for sale in the entire city (not counting potions, which are
fairly common). But today, there are multiple merchants displaying quite
a few items. Naturally, that’s because the deck has been conjuring lots
of items, and many of them get put up for sale. The merchants try
selling them in St. Parnas first, and then if they don’t sell in St.
Parnas, they ship them to Tradegate where there’s a broader clientele.

If any PC didn’t receive anything of material value from the Deck, then
Green owes them 5000 gp. When the PCs were cast into the *donjon*, Green
assumed they would never be heard from again, so he gave the money to
the PC’s family or friends. When the players created characters, they
were instructed to invent at least one friend. If the PC talks to their
friend, the friend will have the money (unless the friend has issues.)
So again, they will have enough money to buy one serious magic item.

So none of the PCs will feel left out - everyone will have about enough
money for one serious magic item, unless they already received a magic
item directly from the deck.

When the PCs created characters, they were expected to have a reason to
draw cards from the deck. Some of the players may have given their
characters backstories that they needed to pay a debt, or to rescue a
family member. In that case, a PC may have used up their money. This may
make the player feel left out. Try to avoid that situation. For example,
if the PC used their money to rescue a family member, perhaps the family
member in their gratitude raised money to pay the PC back. Try to find
an excuse to make sure that every player still has the money they won
from the deck.

### The Ogre in the Market Square

In the corner of the market square is huge Ogre, just standing there
holding a mandolin. His name is Pig, and he is deck-touched: the PCs can
see cards over his head. A detailed description of Pig is given in the
upcoming section, “Pig: The Ogre King.” The Deck gave Pig the ability to
play the mandolin - just before the chaos storm, Pig was playing music
for a small crowd. When the chaos storm hit, Pig stopped playing and the
crowd scattered. Pig is now just standing there looking perplexed. Pig
has an INT of 6, so when he’s perplexed, he stays perplexed for quite a
while.

If the PCs approach Pig, then Pig is not that hard to have a
conversation with. Refer to Pig’s character bio to know how to play Pig.
At this time, Pig is not willing to leave the market square. Pig will
tell the PCs anything they want to know, but remember that Pig has an
INT of 6, so he can’t tell them anything that isn’t straightforward and
obvious.