jdnd/bigfile/Deck-of-Many-Things.md

Introduction

Backstory

This campaign tells a new story about the Deck of Many Things. The following information is for the DM only!

In this universe, the deck is an enigmatic artifact that appears once every couple of hundred years. It shows up somewhere in the multiverse, it dispenses chaos, and then it vanishes again before anyone has a chance to make sense of it. The stories that have been written about it have been passed down for generations, and they have been distorted in the telling. Because of this distortion, many of the things you have read about the deck turn out not to be true.

Recently, a man named Green came into possession of a deck. Knowing the hazards, Green decided not to draw cards himself. Instead, he advertised for other people who want to draw cards. He allows anyone to draw cards, with the following stipulation: if they draw three wishes, they are expected to make one wish on Green’s behalf. If they draw gems, Green gets a cut.

Green’s scheme has turned out to be very profitable: Green gets an endless stream of wishes and gems, and he pawns off the risks on others. Green is using his wishes to make himself smarter, stronger, and more magically talented. So far, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of stopping.

Green is greedy, but he’s not entirely evil: he truthfully warns his applicants of the danger, and he advises them that drawing cards is too big of a risk. Most people listen to that advice: Green pays them a token sum for their time, and sends them on their way. But even though most leave without drawing, there are a lot of desperate people in the multiverse. Green has been able to find hundreds of applicants to take him up on the offer.

The news of Green’s activities has spread. Historians are worried. In the past, a Deck would show up, a few people would draw cards, and a day or two later, the Deck would disappear again. But this time, hundreds of people have drawn cards, and the Deck is not going away. It has flooded the local economy with a glut of gems. It has created a mountain of magic items. It has granted enough wishes to seriously warp the fabric of reality. How is it possible that one small magic item can wield such power? Why is the Deck not vanishing after a few uses, like it did in the past?

Tymora, the goddess of Good Luck, has been watching this all unfold with consternation. The Deck is obviously a luck-based magic item: it gives out blessings and curses at random. But Tymora did not create the Deck, and she’s sure that Beshaba, her sister goddess of Bad Luck, didn’t create the Deck either. But that’s a problem. The deck is too powerful to have been created by a mortal. But if it was created by a god, then that means that somewhere out there, there might be a god of Luck who is more powerful than Tymora. That possibility has Tymora genuinely frightened that her place in the cosmos is not secure.

Hundreds of desperate travelers are crossing the multiverse, arriving at Green’s castle hoping for a chance to turn their lives around. A handful of them will draw the card Donjon, which casts the victim into an inescapable prison. When a group of these victims find themselves imprisoned together, their quest to escape the Donjon will take them on a path that crosses the multiverse. They will try to help the people whose lives have been impacted by the deck. They may take sides with one of the powers who are fighting over the deck, they may seek to broker a peace. They will challenge Green himself. Finally, they will claim possession of the Deck, and when they do, they will learn why it exists, who created it, and what purpose it serves.

Who Will Enjoy this Campaign

In order to play this campaign successfully, you will need three things:

• You need players who are willing to accept help from NPCs. The

  players will need lots of help. There are many situations where NPCs have special skills without which the PCs have no hope of success. The PCs will absolutely, positively need to build friendly relationships with as many good-aligned NPCs as they can. If they don’t, the PCs will not have the resources they need and will get completely stuck.

• You need players who care about NPCs and their happiness. There

  are lots of NPCs in this campaign who are struggling, suffering, or in danger. You need a group of players who are motivated to protect the NPCs they care about. If your players don’t care about helping NPCs, they will just walk away from most of the quests in this campaign, uninterested.

• You need players who like asking questions. This campaign is

  jam-packed full of mysterious magical artifacts to investigate, strange beings with mysterious motives, and places with inexplicable phenomena. Letting players explore these mysteries is half the fun of this campaign. If the players aren’t interested in solving mysteries, this will all fall flat.

As for combat: there are plenty of foes to fight in this campaign. But, there are likely to be many sessions with no combat at all. If the players want to be engaged in a lot of combat, then this probably isn’t the right module for your group.

The Key Players and their Motives

This campaign revolves around the aspirations of three gods: Omta (the god of the Deck), Tymora, and Beshaba. It also revolves around the actions of two mortals: Rennick, and Green. To run the campaign well, you need to know who these NPCs are, and what their core motives are. Do not reveal any of this to your players! This campaign is in large part a mystery, and all of this must unfold gradually as the players reveal clues. But you, the DM, need to know what’s really happening.

Omta, Inventor of Randomness

Omta is an ancient deity who witnessed the creation of the multiverse. In the beginning, the universe obeyed strict rules, and was 100% predictable. In Omta’s eyes, that made it a little boring. Omta decided that what the universe needed was a little unpredictability to spice it up. So Omta invented the concept of randomness, which is deeply tied to the concept of unpredictability: a random event is an event whose outcome can’t be predicted.

However, Omta knew that the creator god was very possessive and territorial, and that the creator wouldn't want anyone messing with his creation. Omta was tiny compared to the creator, and he knew that the creator could and would crush him like a bug. But Omta felt compelled by his own ideology: he snuck into the multiverse under cover of darkness, planted the tiniest seed of randomness that he could plant, and then fled the scene of the crime. He snuck away to the farthest reaches of the cosmos and hid, hoping that nobody saw him. Long story short, he got away with it. Eventually, he relaxed in his faraway corner, and fell asleep. He has been sleeping in the far reaches of the cosmos ever since.

In his sleep, he unconsciously monitors the multiverse, making sure that randomness is not removed from the multiverse. Whenever he senses a threat, whenever somebody introduces too much predictability, Omta sends his avatar, the Deck of Many Things, to reintroduce as much randomness as possible. That is important: the Deck is not an “artifact” in the usual sense of the word. It is the avatar of a god. That is how it can wield so much power.

Protecting randomness is Omta’s one and only passion. However, because Omta is asleep, his actions are often more instinctual than logical. His response to any threat to randomness is to just add more randomness, using the Deck, but that doesn’t always solve the problem.

When Omta planted the first seed of randomness, he was a tiny, fragile god. He could have been trivially snuffed out by the immense powers that ruled in those days. But randomness spread in the universe, and now almost everything in the multiverse is governed by rolls of the dice. As his idea grew, so did his power. Omta does not know it, but he is now a greater god. Yet he still sees himself as tiny and fragile. He is scared of his own shadow, when he doesn’t need to be.

Tymora, Goddess of Good Luck

Tymora is the goddess of good luck, a kind and generous soul who wants good things to happen to people, and who uses luck magic to ensure that they do.

She is also a very young goddess, and she is not entirely confident of her place in the universe. She perceives the Deck of Many Things as a threat: she thinks that it is an immensely powerful artifact, and that therefore, it must have been created by an immensely powerful god. She is convinced that this other god, whoever he is, is angling to be the new god of luck. Otherwise, why would he be parading around the most powerful luck-based artifact in the universe, apparently showing off the immensity of his power?

She’s not wrong that the threat is real: people really are saying that whoever created the deck is a more impressive luck-god than Tymora. She really is losing respect. That’s lethal for a god.

Tymora doesn’t want to fight. She’s not an violent deity. But she can’t let some other god steal the title of god of luck, leaving Tymora as second best. A goddess has to protect her portfolio, or she dies.

Beshaba, Goddess of Bad Luck

Beshaba is the sister of Tymora. Everybody loves Tymora. Everybody wants to worship Tymora. Tymora is loved, good, and everybody is her friend. Beshaba absolutely despises Tymora. Beshaba’s only real emotions are despair, envy, bitterness, and spite. She lives for one thing, and one thing alone: to hurt Tymora.

Beshaba doesn’t even care about worshippers. Yes, she knows logically that she has to maintain some level of worship, so she does - she threatens people that if they don’t occasionally say a prayer for her, she will cause bad things to happen. Her worship is a giant protection racket. Half her priestesses are slaves, forced to serve under threat of eternal bad luck, and half are crazy. So yes, she maintains a following. But her heart isn’t really in it, because who cares about those idiot mortals anyway? The only thing that matters is hurting Tymora.

Unlike her sister, Beshaba doesn’t see the deck’s creator as a threat. Beshaba is entirely used to living in the shadow of Tymora, a goddess who is more respected than Beshaba, more loved than Beshaba. What difference does it make if she is overshadowed by some other god instead? In fact, so much the better if it’s some other god. At least the new god won’t be the smug self-satisfied little worm that Tymora is.

As for the deck - that could be useful bait. If Beshaba can draw Tymora into her realm in the Abyss, where Beshaba is at her strongest, maybe she can finally kill Tymora after all.

Rennick, Theoretical Fortunologist

Rennick is a member of Sigil’s Fraternity of Order. His day job is as a casino regulator: he visits casinos and makes sure the games work as advertised, no cheating. If the games are fair, the Fraternity of Order will sell the casino a certificate of fair play. If Rennick can’t confirm that the games are honest, or if the casino can’t afford a certificate, then the casino can still operate - it’s a free city - but no certificate. Establishing that the games are fair requires Rennick to have a deep knowledge of probability and statistics.

But regulating casinos is just his day job. His real passion, like most members of the Fraternity, is understanding the laws that govern the universe. Specifically, Rennick is interested in how randomness works. He’s been at it for forty years, and he’s had a breakthrough - he has gained the ability to predict the outcome of random events. Roll a dice, and he can tell you before the dice stops what it’s going to land on.

Omta knows about this breakthrough, and he feels that his entire concept of randomness is being destroyed: a random event is an event whose outcome can’t be predicted. If Rennick can predict random events, then they’re not unpredictable, are they? Which means they’re not really random any more.

Rennick isn’t happy either. When he was working on his method, he was in the mindset of a scientist: pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. But now that he’s figured it out, he regrets it. He feels as if he’s unintentionally invented a weapon of mass destruction, and that it’s only a matter of time until some bad actor learns his technique and uses it for evil ends. Worse yet, he imagines a future in which his technique is common knowledge, and everyone can predict random events. In such a future, everything is predictable - and that would be an incredibly boring universe.

The day he made his breakthrough, Rennick found a small box on his nightstand. It contained cards. He held onto the deck for several months, studying it. The deck never vanished, because it had not achieved its objective: to eliminate the threat to randomness. But Rennick never drew cards. Instead, he studied the deck, and he came to understand who Omta is. He also figured out that Omta is asleep, in a corner of the universe, reacting to events in his sleep.

Rennick believes that if he could just talk to Omta, then he could show Omta how to fix the problem with the universe and make random events truly, completely unpredictable.

But if he wants to talk to Omta, Rennick will have to wake Omta up. But as it turns out, waking Omta up is extremely difficult. Rennick has been trying for some time, and has not succeeded. Rennick has gotten progressively more and more aggressive about trying to agitate Omta, in the hope that if he provokes Omta enough, that will wake him up. Of course, deliberately agitating a god is a dangerous move for a mortal, but Rennick feels as if the fate of the multiverse depends on it, so he’s willing to take the risk.

Rennick’s first attempt to prod Omta out of his sleep was to deliberately misuse the deck. Rennick knows the purpose of the deck is to make the universe less predictable. Rennick hoped that if he could use the deck to create a predictable income stream, that would go against everything the deck stands for, and that would force Omta to wake up to deal with the situation.

Green, Exploiter of the Deck

Green was an entrepreneur running a casino in Sigil, who naturally has had dealings with Rennick, the casino regulator.

One day, Rennick came to Green and offered to just give him a Deck of Many Things. The only thing Rennick asked in return was that Green follow instructions: “Just have other people draw cards. Never draw cards yourself. Take a cut of the gems, and let other people deal with the good and bad things that happen.” That sounded like pure profit to Green, and it fit with his casino-owner mentality, so he accepted.

Green came up with the idea of not just taking a cut of the gems, but also when somebody received three wishes. But that put him in an interesting position - he now had a supply of wishes. So what should he wish for? At first, he wished for the obvious stuff: money, intelligence, health, long life. But he still had an unlimited supply.

He eventually figured out what he really wants: to be a dragon, a big one. He understands that one wish isn’t enough. It will take many.

Character Creation

This is a campaign for newly-created characters of Level 2, and they will probably rise to level 8 or so during the campaign. The campaign is set in the Planescape campaign setting.

The adventure begins in a medium-sized town in the Outlands called Saint Parnas, about 1 day travel spireward of tradegate. The party members do not know each other yet. All of the PCs will see a job posting:

JOB OFFER - EXTREME PAY - EXTREME RISK

One day only, 5000 gp pay minimum. Very substantial risk of death.

Only apply if you're willing to risk it all for the chance at a new life. Apply at Castle Green.

If the PC doesn’t accept the job offer, then they aren’t part of the campaign. You should show this job posting the players before they create characters. Give them these instructions:

Please design a character who absolutely will take this job offer. Your character should have a backstory reason why they’re willing to take an extreme risk. Perhaps they’re in a desperate situation, perhaps their faith assures them they’re be fine, perhaps they’re just extreme gamblers. Regardless, they must take the job offer in order to be part of the campaign.

The players should not be allowed to create flying characters: doing so would bypass some fun quests. It is okay if they learn the fly spell when they get higher level, but they shouldn’t start with that ability.

The Players Draw Cards

In this introductory chapter, the PCs haven’t met each other yet. You should pick a single PC, and roleplay this initial chapter solo while the other players watch. It won’t take long.

The DM must set up some kind of situation where the PC encounters the job posting. The situation could be as simple as “you are walking down the street and you see a sign on a lamppost,” but feel free to improvise something that makes sense for your character’s backstory. The job posting is:

JOB OFFER - EXTREME PAY - EXTREME RISK

One day only, 5000 gp pay minimum. Very substantial risk of death.

Only apply if you're willing to risk it all for the chance at a new life. Apply at Castle Green.

At the castle, the PC discovers a line of people waiting. Apparently, 5000 gp is enough to attract a lot of job applicants, even given the risk of death. The people are mostly not from in-town: they have come from all over for the opportunity. They are an eclectic mix of races.

The PC notices a bunch of hastily-erected booths, with signs that say “Pawn Shop.” The booths are manned by traders from Sigil’s Bazaar, Tradegate, and other places. The reason for the pawn shops is that sometimes, the Deck conjures a magic item. Many people emerge from Green’s castle with magic items they don’t need, they’d rather have money. Hence, an economic opportunity for a pawn shop.

The PC will get in line with the other job applicants, and eventually be led inside to Green’s “office” - a large, very sturdy stone room, with absolutely nothing in the middle, and a desk in one corner with Green seated at it. There are four bodyguards in the room, resting calmly behind blast shields around the periphery of the room. There are scorch marks on the floor and on the blast shields.

The player takes a seat facing Green at his desk. In front of Green is a decorated hardwood box which contains the Deck. On the cover of the box is a logo: a pair of dice in front of a sunburst. Green also has a scale, some small empty cloth bags, and a brush and a dustpan. If the player asks about any of that stuff, Green says, “It will all become clear.”

Green then explains the job: to activate a magic item called a Deck of Many Things. He explains that it’s a magic item that grants a random combination of blessings and curses. At this point, Green then specifically explains his terms and conditions:

If you receive three wishes, you must use one wish for my benefit, as I instruct you. You can use the other two as you wish. If you receive gems, I will take 25% by weight without sorting the gems. If you get any other boon or blessing, such as a magic item, or a castle, or a skill improvement, then it’s entirely yours, I don’t get a cut. If you get no material wealth, I’ll give you 5000 gp out of my own pocket. If you get a bad card - and you probably will get at least one - then I probably won’t be able to help you. If you die, are banished, or are incapacitated, I’ll make sure your possessions get delivered to your next-of-kin.

The PC may ask Green any questions he wants. Green will answer most questions willingly, but he keeps a few things a secret, like where he got the Deck, and he also won’t tell about what he’s using his wishes for. Most anything else, he’s open about. If they ask about the scorch marks on the floor, and the blast shields, Green explains that sometimes, the device summons a monster, and the bodyguards have occasionally had to use fire spells.

Then, Green makes a short speech about how the PC should probably not activate the device. Green has a code of ethics that dictates that he provide fair warning about the risks. He wants his profit-making scheme to continue, but he feels it’s unfair unless the people drawing cards know what they’re getting into. So he is clear about possible risks: mainly, banishment to far-away places, being attacked by monsters, or losing strength or intelligence.

You already told the players at character creation time that they must take Green up on his job offer. If they seem to hesitate now, remind them that if they walk out, then their PC is not part of the campaign.

During all of this, it is very important that you convey the fact that Green is morally grey:

• There’s no question that what he’s doing is exploitative. Many of

  the people who draw cards end up suffering. It is also true that many of the people who draw cards are doing so out of desperation. At some level, Green knows this scheme is not entirely ethical, but his greed overrides his qualms.

• He has a code of ethics that requires that he provide transparent

  disclosure about the risks. He feels that people must choose to draw cards of their own informed consent. He is strict about this.

• Green is diligent about adhering to the terms of any deals he makes.

  For example, if he promises you 5000 gp, and you aren’t physically able to collect the money (say, because you’ve been banished to a donjon), Green won’t just keep the money. Instead, he’ll have it delivered to your next-of-kin. Green will take great lengths to honor his contracts.

Given all that, Green is neither pure good nor pure evil. He is selfish, but he’s not “the Big Bad Evil Guy.” The reason you must convey this to the PCs is that later in the campaign, the PCs will have to appeal to Green’s conscience about certain things. They need to know that negotiating with him is not hopeless - Green does not want the world to burn.

If the PCs confront Green about the exploitativeness of his business venture, Green will openly confess that he has some qualms. He makes the usual libertarian argument that the people who draw cards are choosing to do so, and that Green is not forcing them, and therefore, it must make sense for them given their life situation. In the end, he says, “I know it’s a gray area, but I’ve decided to continue for now.”

When the player is ready, Green gives instructions: take the entire deck out of the box, and walk to the center of the room. Then, toss the entire deck into the air.

The “cards” are ivory tablets, which are completely blank on both sides. When the PC tosses them into the air, they form a ring hovering in the air, spinning around each other. Green tells the PC to touch three of the cards. When the PC touches a card, that card rises above the rest of the ring. After choosing three cards, the unchosen tablets zip back into the wooden box. The three chosen tablets remain hovering in the air, spinning.

The physical description of this deck is different from what you may have read in the DMG. The reason we gave the Deck a strange appearance is to effectively put the players on notice: anything you think you know about the Deck might be wrong.

The next thing that happens is that one of the cards flies forward, and presents itself to the player. An image appears on its surface, and the PC immediately knows what that image means.

At this point, the DM must pull out a small deck of eight good cards. The cards are all beneficial, and they are pre-chosen so as to not unbalance the game. The good cards are listed in the upcoming chapter, Cards of the Deck.

The DM must spread the good cards out in front of the player, face down. The player should pick three at random. The DM should show the 3 selected cards to the player, and then let the player choose the one he likes best.

The card takes effect. The Deck is patient: it waits for the player to finish dealing with the first card. If it’s gems, for example, the gems will go all over the floor. Green will offer the brush, the dustpan, and a small cloth sack to the PC. There is plenty of time to collect and weigh the gems, and give Green his cut, before the next card takes effect.

When the first card is completely done, the second card flies forward. This time, the DM will pull out a small deck of eight bad cards. The cards are all negative, but they are pre-chosen so as to not wreck the player’s character. Again, you will find the bad cards in the upcoming chapter, Cards of the Deck. The player will choose three at random. Then, the player will look at the three, and choose the one he hates the least.

If the bad card is the one that summons the avatar of death, Green asks the player to fight. But if the player starts losing, Green will have one of his bodyguards intervene. This will cause another avatar of death to appear. The bodyguard is more than up to the task of killing two avatars of death. The player gets off scott-free.

After the second card is fully done, the third flies forward. This time, the card says Donjon. The PC instinctively knows what it means: they will be cast into a prison, a dungeon from which there is no escape. Everything fades to black.

Many of the cards that the players will draw are cards that are described in the DM guide. But some of them are brand-new. This is a second clue that anything the players think they know about the Deck might be wrong.

You must now roleplay the same thing with the other players, one at a time. This time, hurry things along. Skip the exterior of the castle, and fast-forward to the part where they’re at Green’s desk. Skip the speeches. Let them ask Green anything they want, and then let them draw cards. Each PC gets one good card, then one bad card, and then Donjon.

Cards of the Deck

This section lists cards that can be drawn from this particular Deck of Many Things. The cards are divided into three groups: Good Cards, Bad Cards, and Story Cards.

The Good Cards and Bad Cards are the lesser cards. These cards have positive or negative effects, but they’re not game-breaking. Some good cards grant reasonable amounts of wealth, some give modest bonuses to character stats or ability scores, some grant new feats that are useful but not overpowered. The bad cards do a little bit of damage to character stats or abilities, they bestow minor curses, or they create enemies that are feasible to defeat. When the PCs draw cards, they will draw one good card and one bad card, semi-randomly.

The Story Cards, on the other hand, are the cards that transform people’s lives. That includes the one story card that all the PCs will draw: Donjon. It also includes a variety of other cards that NPCs will draw. Anybody who draws a story card is “deck-touched,” which means they are deeply impacted by the deck. Deck-touched individuals will suffer from deck side effects. Deck side effects will be discussed later.

The cards of the Deck are not the same as the ones listed in the DM guide. That’s because the Deck doesn’t have a fixed set of cards that it draws from: it makes up new cards periodically, and it changes the rules for existing cards periodically. You cannot assume that what has been true about the Deck in the past will always be true.

The negative effects of the bad cards cannot be canceled easily. Spells like remove curse, restoration, and the like have no effect. A wish spell will usually remove a Deck curse. A god can generally do it as well. It may be possible to remove deck curses through some elaborate quest, at the DM’s discretion.

In this manifestation, the deck always dispenses three cards. The first two are usually, but not always, lesser cards (good or bad). The third card is often a lesser card (good or bad), but it is sometimes a Story Card.

For each card, we list the following:

• Effect: Summary of what happens to you when you draw the card.

• Symbolism: The card can be used as symbolism, to communicate ideas.

• NPCs: Names of some NPCs who will draw that card.

• Detailed effect: Same as effect, but with more information.

IMPORTANT: You may tell the players the symbolism of the two cards that they drew randomly, and the donjon card, but you must not tell them anything about the cards that they didn’t draw! This is essential, because figuring out the symbolism of those cards will be an important quest later in the campaign. Obviously, don’t tell them the names of any NPCs either.

Good Cards

Owl.

Effect: Increase your Int, Wis, or Cha.

Symbolism: Smart, Wise, Charismatic, Owl, Bird, Flight.

NPCs: Asatya (the Astral Sleepwalker)

When you draw this card, Increase your Int, Wis, or Cha by 2, your choice.

Tiger.

Effect: Increase your Str, Dex, or Con.

Symbolism: Strong, Dextrous, Healthy, Tiger, Wild Animal, Hunter.

NPCs: Alyssa Varn (the Squatter)

When you draw this card, Increase your Str, Dex, or Con by 2, your choice.

Knight.

Effect: You receive magical weapon or armor.

Symbolism: Weapon, Armor, Knight, Defender, Protector, Nobility, Quest.

NPCs: Alyssa Varn (the Squatter)

When you draw this card, receive a magical weapon or armor whose value may not exceed 5000 gp. Interpret “weapon” and “armor” loosely: for example, a ring of protection could be considered a kind of armor. Choose, then seek DM approval.

Star.

Effect: You gain a wondrous magical item.

Symbolism: Wondrous Item, Star, Beacon, Guidepost.

NPCs: Sam Link (the Chosen One)

When you draw this card, gain a wondrous magical item whose value may not exceed 5000 gp. Choose, then seek DM approval.

Vizier.

Effect: You can divine hidden knowledge.

Symbolism: Questions, Answers, Divination, Knowledge, Diviner, Scholar, Researcher.

NPCs: Brunna (the Antiquarian)

When you draw this card, gain a new ability: once a month, you can meditate on a question, and gain a truthful answer from the fates. Answers will be one short sentence only. To the DM: if the question would short-circuit the campaign, use your judgement about how cryptic an answer to give.

Key.

Effect: Learn a new useful career.

Symbolism: Career, Skill, Ability, Learn, Teach, Key, Lock, Unlock.

NPCs: Pig (the Ogre King)

When you draw this card, you gain a permanent +5 to all skill rolls related to a single mundane career of your choice. By mundane career, we mean such careers as would be held by zero-level NPCs. That includes such things as carpenter, actor, doctor, gemcutter, shopkeeper, or the like. Careers that require level advancement, such as mercenary, may not be chosen. You only get the +5 when you are doing something specifically relevant to your career. For example, if you choose “carpenter”, you would get +5 to an insight roll to determine how a building was built, but not +5 to all insight rolls. If you chose “gemcutter,” you would get +5 to a persuasion roll to persuade somebody to buy some cut gems, but not +5 to all persuasion rolls.

Gem.

Effect: A shower of gems fall at your feet.

Symbolism: Gems, Money, Gold, Wealthy, Precious, Rare, Beautiful.

NPCs: Borghan (the Caged Beast), Balanestra (the Wish-Keeper)

When you draw this card, a shower of gems fall at your feet. After giving Green his cut, what remains is worth 5,000 gp.

Bad Cards

Euryale.

Effect: Fear of Monsters.

Symbolism: Fear, Paranoia, Anxiety, Panic, Irrational Fear.

NPCs: Rackle (the Punching Bag)

You tend to see terrifying monsters everywhere, and you may be paralyzed with fear when you encounter monsters. In combat, the first time you attack a creepy or alien species (using weapon, spell, or special ability), you must make a WIS saving throw DC 12. If you fail, you are paralyzed with fear and lose your attack action. The next round, you may try again (or do something else). Once you succeed at the saving throw, you are no longer afraid of that species, forever. It is up to the DM to determine what counts as sufficiently creepy or alien.

Idiot.

Effect: Reduce your Int, Wis, or Cha.

Symbolism: Stupid, Unwise, Ugly, Foolish.

NPCs: Brunna (the Antiquarian)

You lose 2 points from either Int, Wis, or Cha, your choice.

Cripple.

Effect: Reduce your Str, Dex, or Con.

Symbolism: Weak, Clumsy, Unhealthy, Cripple, Crippled.

NPCs: Sam Link (the Chosen One)

You lose 2 points from either Str, Dex, or Con, your choice.

Fool.

Effect: You lose an important feat.

Symbolism: Forget, Forgetfulness, Loss, Disappearance.

NPCs: Asatya (the Astral Sleepwalker)

You lose an important feat or skill. Lose a feat or skill that means something to you, but not one that would cripple your character.

Ruin.

Effect: When you touch a precious item, it may be destroyed.

Symbolism: Destruction, Destroyed, Destroyer.

NPCs: Rackle (the Punching Bag)

Each time you hold a item valued at 500 gp or more, roll a D20. On a 1, the item is destroyed. This includes most magic items. If you successfully attune a magic item without destroying it, it is immune from that point forward. Merely touching something doesn’t trigger the effect - you have to actually hold the object. Living things are not affected. The DM may also, at his discretion, decide that certain very special items are immune - especially quest-related MacGuffins. The DM should use this exception rarely.

Skull.

Effect: You summon an avatar of death, and must fight.

Symbolism: Death, Dead, Murderer, Psychopath.

NPCs: Balanestra (the Wish-Keeper)

You summon an avatar of death, and must fight.

Jester.

Effect: Nobody takes you seriously.

Symbolism: Joke, Joker, Laughter, Dismissive.

NPCs: Pig (the Ogre King)

Nobody takes you seriously. You get -5 to persuasion and intimidation. Note: you are not necessarily disliked.

Story Cards

Sun.

Effect: You are granted a divine spark. You have the potential to ascend to godhood.

Symbolism: Divine Ascension, Godhood, God, Goddess, Sun, Light, Bright, Daytime.

NPCs: Sam Link (the chosen one)

You are granted a divine spark. You have the potential to ascend to godhood. You may immediately gain certain divine abilities, such as healing.

Moon.

Effect: You receive three wishes.

Symbolism: Wishes, Desires, Fulfillment, Moon, Moonlight, Nighttime.

NPCs: Balanestra (the Wish-Keeper)

You receive three wishes. Your wishes are interpreted as intended, there is no malign force trying to misinterpret your wishes. Wishes have limited power - DMs discretion - but they’re more powerful than a normal Wish spell. If you wish for more than what is possible, the wish does its best to give you a portion of what you want. For example, if you wish for a trillion gold pieces, the wish will give you 50,000 gp.

Throne.

Effect: You are made king or queen of a small nation or city-state.

Symbolism: King, Leader, Leadership, Rule, Domination, Throne, Chair.

NPCs: Pig (the Ogre King)

You are made king or queen of a small nation or city-state. This card often takes time to complete - for example, you may be surprised to learn that you are the heir to a throne, and that the old king is dying.

Bricklayer.

Effect: The deck builds an impressive structure for you, which you must now live in.

Symbolism: Building, Construction, Creation, Ownership, Possession, Possessive, Home, House.

NPCs: Alyssa Varn (the Squatter), Borghan (the Caged Beast)

The deck builds an impressive structure for you, which you now consider “home.” The structure is something appropriate for you: for example, if you’re a priest, the building might be a temple with a rectory. You feel an overwhelming compulsion to live in your new structure. You aren’t a prisoner, the building is your home, but you can take trips away from home like anyone else. Once per month, you get a WIS save DC 15, and if you succeed, the compulsion to stay in your new structure diminishes and you can move out if you want to. However, you will always feel a certain fondness for the building.

The Void.

Effect: You fall into a sleep from which you cannot awaken.

Symbolism: Sleep, Coma, Unconscious, Emptiness, Silence, Darkness.

NPCs: Asatya (the Astral Sleepwalker)

You immediately fall asleep, and nothing can wake you up. You still need food and water and must be cared for by a nurse. While you sleep, you have dreams in which you can observe other people who also drew cards from the deck.

Beast.

Effect: You are transformed into a beast.

Symbolism: Beast, Wild Animal, Animalistic, Hunger, Reproduction.

NPCs: Borghan (the Caged Beast)

You are transformed into a beast. You become a hybrid of your original race, and an animal species, and you become much larger. You lose the capacity for rational thought, becoming a wild animal. You are driven by powerful animalistic urges.

Donjon.

Effect: You are cast into an apparently inescapable prison.

Symbolism: Prison, Dungeon, Cavern, Bunker.

NPCs: None, but all the PCs draw this card.

You are cast into an apparently inescapable prison. There are endless prisons throughout the multiverse, the Deck picks one for its own incomprehensible reasons.

Comet.

Effect: You gain a new ability to see the past.

Symbolism: The Past, History, Time, Ancient, Comet, Shooting Star.

NPCs: Brunna (the Antiquarian)

You gain a new ability to see the past. When you touch an object or a person, make a DC13 wisdom check to learn something of the history of that object or person. You can only do this once for a given topic. You do not choose what you learn, the DM does.

Rogue.

Effect: You are perceived as a criminal.

Symbolism: Criminal, Crime, Thief, Assassin, Accusation, Sneak, Prowl, Lurk.

NPCs: Rackle (the Punching Bag)

Everywhere you go, you are accused of crimes, often with negligible evidence. You are extremely likely to end up in jail, regardless of whether you’re actually a criminal. Organized crime syndicates will perceive you as a potential recruit. You do not gain any crime-related skills.

Deck Side Effects

Anybody who draws a story card (including the PCs) is deeply affected by the deck. Such people are called deck-touched, they will experience a variety of side effects. This section lists the three most important deck side effects.

Deck Awareness

When a deck-touched individual looks at another deck-touched individual, they immediately know what cards the other person drew, because they see them as illusionary cards hovering over the other person’s head. The effect is mutual: both people can see the other one’s cards. People who aren’t deck-touched can’t see the cards.

Deck Awareness is actually a form of telepathy. The deck-touched individuals are all linked by a common telepathic connection. They are continuously broadcasting their cards to each other.

Deck Immunity

After you have drawn cards from the deck, you are permanently unable to draw from the deck, ever again. The deck has already decided what effects it is going to apply to you. You already received your judgment. It is not going to do anything more to you, no matter what.

One weird consequence of this is that if somebody else draws a card, their card cannot affect you. For example, if I draw a card that conjures a sword, and I try to cut you with it, the sword will pass right through you without cutting you. You also cannot receive any benefit from my weapon: if you try to hold it, your hand will pass through it.

You aren’t immune to indirect effects. For example, if the deck gives me a magic item that can unlock doors, and I unlock a door, then when you try to open that door, it’s unlocked. That’s because my magic item wasn’t really affecting you, it was affecting the door.

Another example of an indirect effect: if a card grants me gems, I can’t hand you those gems. They will pass through your hands. But if and I use those gems to buy a weapon, then I can cut you with that weapon. The deck didn’t create the weapon.

If the deck conjures a weapon for me, and I sell that weapon to a pawnshop, it isn’t my weapon any more. Once ownership passes to a third party, deck immunity no longer applies. From that point forward, the weapon can cut you, and you can buy it and use it. To use this loophole, the item must go through the hands of a third party who didn’t draw cards.

Philosophers debate about whether items created by a deck are illusions, given that they sometimes appear to pass through other people’s hands. If they are illusions, they are exceptionally solid illusions most of the time.

Once you have drawn cards, the deck won’t do anything more to you. Another consequence of the rule is that you can’t be magically charmed by somebody else’s card. For example, if I drew the rogue card, this makes people think I’m a criminal. The card effectively casts an enchantment, not on me, but on all the people who approach me, warping their minds into falsely believing that I’m a criminal.

But because you drew cards from the deck, you are immune to any further effects of the deck. So if you approach me, you are not charmed into thinking I’m a criminal.

Again, the underlying principle of Deck Immunity is that you gain the benefit and the harms of your own cards. Having received those, the deck refuses to do anything else to you. You can gain no benefit or harm from somebody else’s card.

There is one exception to the deck immunity rule: three wishes. If you get three wishes, you can use those wishes to affect other people who drew cards from the deck. It is not known why three wishes override the deck immunity rule.

Deck Dreaming

After drawing cards from the deck, you will experience dreams in which you see through the eyes of other deck-touched individuals. This is actually another manifestation of the telepathic connection that exists between deck-touched people.

In the upcoming chapter, the PCs will be far away from Green and his deck for a while. During this time, Green will continue to let people draw cards from his deck. Many NPCs will draw cards. So, whenever the PCs take a long rest, you should give one PC a dream from the following list. They will be seeing through the eyes of these NPCs who drew cards.

If the PCs don’t take enough long rests to experience all of these, then consider giving two dreams per night on some nights. If the players still haven’t received all the dreams by Chapter two, continue giving them deck dreams until they’ve received all these dreams.

In Chapter two, the PCs will meet all the people on this list. If, as a DM, you’d like to know who these people are, skip ahead to chapter two, and read the section Deck-Touched NPCs. But of course, don’t give your players any spoilers!

Here are the dreams that the PCs experience:

Seeing through Borghan’s Eyes:

You are ravenously hungry, but you’re in an empty corridor, there’s nothing to eat. You run down the corridor, turn, run some more, turn again, and run some more, but there’s nothing but corridors. You see a door, already smashed - you feel like you’ve been here before. You pass through the broken door, and on the other side, there’s more corridors. You’re so hungry, and there’s no food.

Seeing through Sam Link’s Eyes:

You are walking through the streets of St Parnas. You see several buildings with broken windows and minor damage. You see a woman on the ground. You run up to her and ask, “are you hurt?” She says, “my leg.” Looking more closely at her leg, you can see that it’s bent at a weird angle, and there is severe bruising. You put a hand on her leg, and you allow energy to flow. The leg straightens, and the bruising fades. She says, “thank you, cleric.” You say, “I’m not a cleric, but you’re welcome.”

Seeing through Alyssa Varn’s Eyes:

It’s nighttime. You’re standing next to a sturdy stone building, which has a narrow vertical window, like a castle window. You try to squeeze yourself through the window, and you almost make it - you’re an unusually thin woman, and you’re really flexible, a contortionist. A male voice behind you says, “stop it, you’re being absolutely crazy.” You say, “This is my castle!” He says: “It’s not yours, you sold it!” You cram yourself into the window again, and this time, you actually succeed in getting through. The male voice says, “You’re nuts, and I’m done. Goodbye.”

Seeing through Balanestra’s Eyes:

Green, at his desk: “I can’t fight a goddess. What do we do if she attacks?”
Balanestra: “We teleport away, of course.”
Green: “Sure, but she’s a goddess. She can follow us anywhere.”
Balanestra: “She can follow us almost anywhere.”

Green: “Where could I go that she can’t follow… oh, shit. No, no no no no!”

Balanestra: “Trust me.”

Seeing through Pig’s Eyes:

You sitting in the market square. You see that you are not human, you have enormous legs and arms, and huge clawed hands. You are playing the mandolin expertly, and you are telling a sad story about how you became sick, and your bride left you. You are surrounded by a crowd, they laugh at everything you say, even though your story is sad. They keep coming up to you and dropping coins at your feet, and fruit, and meat, and they tell you what a great comedian you are. You don’t understand, but you like the fruit and meat.

Seeing through Brunna’s Eyes:

You are holding a rusty saber, which is resting across your two palms. You say, “This saber was made by a man named Jorrell. It was one of a set of three, one of which was sold to your grandfather.”

Seeing through Asatya’s Eyes:

You are wandering through an orchard. There are a few other people walking along the paths of the garden. You feel confused, your mind is foggy. You notice a weed that needs pulling. You bend over to pull it, but you don’t seem to be able to. In your confusion, you don’t know why you can’t pull the weed.

Seeing through Rackle’s Eyes:

You are lying on a wooden floor, inside a tiny round stone building. Your wrists have been slit, and you’re bleeding out. You are almost unconscious. A woman is in front of you, wearing purplish priest robes. She casts cure wounds (you recognize it using arcana, it’s very easy to identify because you’ve been cured tons of times yourself). Your wounds close up.

The Museum of Orethys

About the Museum

The PCs drew the card Donjon, which imprisons the victim in an apparently inescapable prison. For reasons known only to the deck itself, the deck has chosen a strange prison called the Museum of Orethys.

About a hundred years ago, a powerful Wizard named Orethys took in interest in collecting people. He gathered interesting and strange folk from around the multiverse, and brought them to his hometown, and paid them to be exhibits in the original Museum of Orethys. However, the bigger his collection got, the harder it was to keep his exhibits from quitting, rebelling, or unionizing. Eventually, he got tired of the hassle, and he decided to start over.

By this time, he was a much more powerful wizard, so instead of building the museum in his hometown, he created a demiplane to house his collection. He carefully designed the demiplane to make it perfect for storing people. His exhibits would “live” in the demiplane, but they would be frozen in a living stasis that would make it impossible to rebel or quit. They would always be the same strange, interesting people that they were when they were placed into the museum.

When Orethys found a person worthy to be an exhibit in the Museum, he would take not only the person, but the building they were in, and the patch of land the building was standing on. That way, he wouldn’t just have an interesting person. He’d have a whole diorama, a person in their natural environment.

About sixty years ago, Orethys died: he tried to make an exhibit out of somebody who was tough enough to fight back. Although Orethys is dead, the Museum of Orethys still survives. After his death, the Museum received no new exhibits, and no further guests showed up in the museum: apparently, only Orethys knew how to get there. The exhibits remain in stasis, sixty years later, more or less exactly as they have been the whole time.

The demiplane appears as several hundred islands hovering in an immense cavernous space. Most islands consist of a patch of land, and one building. The patch of land is just big enough to hold the building and its yard. Some islands hold something larger, like a university, or a monastery, or a farm. A few islands have no building, only a geographic feature. Each building contains, on average, 1 or 2 people.

The people in the exhibits are not frozen, motionless. They are allowed to move around and talk in order to make the exhibits more life-like. They go about their daily business as they did in their original lives.

Yet, the people are in both a physical and a mental stasis. They are fundamentally incapable of doing or thinking new things, or changing in any meaningful way. They are trapped living the same day over and over. They cannot remember anything that has happened since they were captured. They still believe themselves to be at home. They have no ability to learn that they are no longer at home - or to learn anything.

The physical stasis means their bodies can’t change, either. If they were injured at the moment when they were captured, then they’re still injured today. If you heal them, they’ll be injured again an hour or two later. If you kill one of them, they’ll reappear on their island back in the same state they were in when they were captured. They won’t remember that you attacked them, because they don’t remember anything that happened after their capture. They are utterly incapable of change as long as they’re in the museum.

The buildings and the islands are also in stasis, incapable of change. If you break a door down, then a few hours later, the door will be back where it was. Even if you burn a whole building down, then if you stop paying attention for a while, the building will be back. If you try to build something on an island, it will remain for a few hours, and then vanish.

If you approach the people, they will react as people do. Many are willing to answer questions. Some are friendly, offering food and water and assistance. A few are scared, and some are hostile. In other words, they’re people, with all the personality variation that implies. However: If you talk to them and leave, and then come back, they will not remember you. They will react exactly the same way as the first time you met them, right down to saying the same phrases.

That doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent: they’re just as smart and creative as they were in life. They tend to be pretty interesting people. These individuals are here because Orethys thought that they were distinctive, and that they ought to be saved. You can talk to them and learn a lot: in fact, that’s what guests of the Museum used to do, back when there were guests.

Exhibits come from everywhere: prime worlds, outer planes, inner planes, you name it. The people are of every imaginable race. Most are either low-level or zero-level: Orethys didn’t attempt to capture powerful people who could fight back.

The people here only interact with other people in the same diorama. They don’t notice other islands, even if those other islands would normally be considered “attention grabbing.” For example, there could be a raging fire on one island, and the people on the next island over from that will be completely uninterested. If you deliberately draw their attention to some other island, they will be surprised that other islands even exist. But then, a mental block will take over, and they will direct their attention back to their own island, quickly forgetting that other islands exist.

The people here can produce material goods, but those goods are transient. For example, if an island contains a baker, he may bake a loaf of bread. But remember, the island is in stasis, and that loaf wasn’t on the island when the island was captured, so it has to vanish. The loaf will cease to exist an hour or two after it is put down.

Despite the absence of any real production, there is no shortage of supplies here. If somebody’s house is put in stasis at a time when its pantry is full, then that pantry will always be full. If you remove the food, then the pantry will return to its full state as soon as you stop paying attention to the pantry. The food you took won’t disappear from your inventory. You can eat it without difficulties. But if you put the food down and then look away, it will only remain on the ground an hour or two, and then vanish.

The people here may talk about the future, but the future never comes. For example, a farmer who is busy tilling the fields in spring may talk about what he’s going to do at harvest-time, in the fall. But on his island, it will be spring forever, and he will be tilling every day, forever.

The floating islands are hovering in a big cavern, whose “walls” are made of mist. The edges of the outermost islands just barely poke into the mist. Nothing will stop you from entering the mist. The mist does not smell of anything, and it doesn’t feel like anything either. If you enter the mist, you find yourself in what seems to be an endless expanse of mist. In the mist, there’s no gravity or wind, and you lose track of time. You also lose track of anyone around you. After being in the mist about 10 minutes, the mist around you will dissipate, and you’ll find yourself back on the island where you first appeared in the demiplane. From anywhere in the cavern, reaching the mist only takes a few minutes (assuming you have a way to cross from island to island). The cavern isn’t that large.

Each island has its own weather. If you’re on an island with clear, sunny weather, then the entire cavern will appear clear and sunny to you. If you’re on an island with a blizzard, then the whole cavern will appear to be in a blizzard to you. The weather on a given island never changes. Each island has the terrain that it had before it was ripped from the multiverse. Some are grassy, some are rocky, some are sandy. Some might be permafrost, or desert, or you name it. It all depends on where they came from.

The passage of time in the Museum feels normal. But the passage of time is not strictly tethered to the passage of time in most other parts of the multiverse. Time here sometimes passes faster than in the multiverse, sometimes slower. The reason for this is that the Museum doesn’t care about the passage of time. Nothing ever happens here, no matter how much time elapses. Nothing ever changes. When time has no meaning in a place, then that place gradually starts untethering itself from time.

Arcane and divine magic work normally here. Gravity and falling damage are normal here. Most of the physical properties of the world here are normal, as they would be on a prime world.

The Museum of Orethys has caretakers. These are aarakocras, they can fly around the cavern easily. Their job, sixty years ago, was mainly to attend to the guests. Orethys used a ‘geas’ spell to force them to keep doing their job forever. As long as they do their jobs, they can otherwise do as they wish. They eat at tavern and restaurant exhibits and they sleep wherever they like. They gain the benefit of the plane’s physical stasis: they can’t age, they can’t stay injured long, and they can’t die. But they can remember what happens from day to day. Now that there are no guests, they really don’t have much work to do. But the geas forces them to patrol the museum.

The Party is United

The PCs have all been imprisoned in the Museum of Orethys. But even though they’re all in the Museum, they haven’t met each other yet. The DM should choose a PC, and run them solo. At this point, it will only be a few minutes until the party is united.

The PC knows that they are standing on a strange floating island. They also know they drew the card Donjon, so they can infer that this must be some kind of prison. But aside from that, they don’t know much about the place. They certainly have no idea it’s a museum, or that they’re supposed to be an exhibit.

The PC should start exploring the museum. As soon as they round a corner, or enter a building, have them spot one of the other PCs.

When the two PCs see each other, they both experience a new special ability: Deck Awareness. When they look at each other, they see cards hovering over each other’s heads: each one knows exactly what cards the other one drew from the deck. They will experience this effect consistently every time they meet somebody who has drawn from the Deck. Let the PCs know they all have Deck Awareness. Do not tell them about the other deck side effects, let them learn about them over time.

A few minutes after the first two player characters get together, they notice another group on another nearby island, staring at them. This is the rest of the PCs. Everyone can start roleplaying together now. The two groups are physically separated by being on two separate islands, but the two islands are only about ten feet apart. They can easily talk to each other. They have to find a way to cross from one island to another. This is not particularly hard: ladders, ropes, and the like work fine. These items can be found nearby. The Jump spell is also useful. One way or another, the party is united.

It’s odd that the players all arrived at the museum at the same time, in roughly the same place. There is nothing on the card Donjon that says that these people should end up in the same prison, yet they did. Although they don’t know this, they did not draw cards on the same day, yet with the help of the Museum’s loose connection to time, they were able to appear in the museum on the same day. The deck isn’t just giving these people cards, it’s tying them to each other, bringing their lives together.

Now that the party is united, the players will want to know where they are and what the heck is going on. To find out, they will need to explore the museum.

Ropes and Ladders

For simplicity, we can describe the museum as consisting of “floors.” A “floor” is a bunch of islands that are all hovering at more or less the same elevation.

Islands on the same floor are separated by gaps about 8 feet wide on average. Some acrobatic characters may be able to jump it without assistance. It is also possible to use the spell jump. Otherwise, a makeshift bridge may be needed. Never leave your PCs stranded. There is always something in the exhibit that will enable one to cross a gap. A rope could be tied to a tree near the edge of an exhibit. There might be a wooden fence that could be repurposed. There’s always something.

To climb from a floor to the floor below, the most obvious method is to use a rope. This will require a rope of about 30 feet, which will have to be tied to a tree or a lamppost and then dangled down over the edge of the exhibit. It is also possible to use the spell feather fall.

The islands are not perfect circles, they are irregular. There are good spots to climb down, and bad spots to climb down. Good spots have something to tie a rope to, and they have a bit of island sticking out below that the players can descend onto. To find a good spot, the players will have to go around the periphery of the island.

You must not let your PCs climb upward yet. We have provided several obstacles to stop them:

• When the players created their characters, they were not permitted

  to create flying characters.

• Most people don’t have the physical strength to throw a rope 30 feet

  upward.

• When throwing upward, you need the rope to catch on something on the

  island above. But of course, you can’t see what’s on the island above you. You’re throwing blind.

• The floor above the PCs consists of one exhibit: The Harpy Eyrie.

  The harpies will deliberately cut ropes, and anyone clinging to a rope is a sitting duck for harpy attacks.

Since the PCs start on the 5th floor, and since they can’t climb upward, they are currently limited to the 5th floor and below. We have provided a map called The Bottom Floors of the Museum, including everything from the 5th floor on down. As you can see from the map, the cavern narrows substantially at the bottom, so there are fewer and fewer islands at each level as you go down. Do not show the map to your players. It is for the DM only. The map includes exhibit names. You can find the corresponding exhibit descriptions in the upcoming chapter, also titled The Bottom Floors of the Museum.

At first, let your players explore randomly. They don’t really have a goal or a destination yet, and they don’t have a map yet, so they really can’t do any better than random exploration. There are lots of strange and interesting things to find in the museum, so they should be entertained by this for a while. As the PCs travel from exhibit to exhibit, refer to the The Bottom Floors of the Museum for instructions on running individual exhibits.

As the players climb downward, they may leave ropes dangling down, to make it possible to get back up. But if they leave a rope somewhere, then the rope only stays for about an hour after you stop paying attention to it. Then, it vanishes. This is because of the stasis effect: the rope is resetting back to its original location. If the rope belongs to a PC, then the rope returns back to the PC’s starting location. If it’s a rope that they obtained from an exhibit, then the rope returns to that exhibit.

If ropes are disappearing, you should have the players make perception checks to notice that one of their ropes is gone. They might freak out, and wonder how they’re ever going to get back up. Let them worry: it’s an interesting part of the puzzle that is the museum.

If the players fall while climbing, then falling damage in the cavern is normal. The average distance between floors about 30 feet. You can easily hurt yourself badly by falling, especially if you fall more than one level. Fortunately, travel in the demiplane is inherently safe: the stasis effect makes it impossible to die permanently.

No Death in the Museum

Everything in the museum is in stasis, and that includes the health of your PCs. If they get injured or die, then the injury or death is impermanent. Their bodies will eventually reset back to the conditions they were in when they first entered the demiplane. If a PC dies, that PC fades out of existence, and reappears at the exact spot where he first entered the demiplane, back by the tavern of the south gate.

That makes the Museum a perfect place for inexperienced D&D players who are still learning the ropes. The stakes are reduced, so new players can learn without fear.

Learning about the Stasis Effect

After exploring three exhibits, the PCs should be well on their way to figuring out that everything and everyone is in stasis. Physical objects revert to their original positions. Enemies killed pop back to life. People say the same things each time you return. There are tons of clues. You should look for many opportunities to show the stasis effects to them.

The Mist at the Edge of the Cavern

At some point, the PCs may try going to the edge of the cavern. Let them try escaping via the mist. Each time they enter the mist, they drift for a few minutes, then the mist clears around them and they find themselves right back at the exact spot where they originally arrived in the demiplane. If they are attentive, they will realize that this is useful: the mist is a shortcut to the 5th floor.

However, the mist is not a way to leave the demiplane. If they want to escape the demiplane, the key to success is this: they need to start asking the inhabitants about ways to escape. They need to ask for help.

If the players fall into the mist, then they take no damage at all, and they reappear at the exact spot where they entered the demiplane. This effect is actually quite useful: it makes it so that it is always possible to get back to the starting location. You can’t ever really be stuck in the museum.

Figuring out How to Escape

At some point, the PCs should start thinking about how they’ll get out of this prison. Realistically, to escape, the PCs need to ask the NPCs for help. If the players don’t think of asking for help, wait until one of them asks you something about escaping. Then, just answer in-character: instead of speaking as the DM, speak as the bartender the PCs are standing next to. Let him say something semi-useful. That should nudge the PCs to start asking around.

If the players tell the residents that they’re trapped in a demiplane, the residents will be skeptical at first, but it’s very easy to convince them: just point out the window at the floating islands. They will be shocked, then agitated, and then a mental block will kick in that forces them to turn away from the sight and reenter the safety of their own exhibit. As soon as they do this, the inhabitant will lose their train of thought, and then they will forget that anything is out of the ordinary.

This makes it difficult to ask the inhabitants about escaping. For example, saying, “we are stuck in a demiplane, how can we get out” will inevitably lead to a freak-out, and they will lose their train of thought again. But if you say, “hypothetically, if somebody were stuck in a demiplane, how would they get out,” you can avoid the freak-out and have a productive conversation.

Many of the residents are quite smart. If you ask them (in general terms) about planar travel, one will eventually make three straightforward suggestions:

1. They might suggest the plane shift spell, as a way to travel out

   of a demiplane.

2. They might suggest the sending spell, as a way to call for help.

3. If you can’t cast these spells yourself, maybe there’s somebody else

   who can.

These three suggestions are sufficiently straightforward that pretty much any knowledgeable person could make them. A bartender might know about these spells because in his life, he had planar travelers come through his tavern. A butler might know about these spells because his boss used to be a planar traveler. Let the players ask around, and make sure that it takes them no more than 2 or 3 tries to find somebody who can make these three suggestions. It’s important to emphasize both spells, because in fact, both spells are part of the solution.

Spoiler: the actual process for escaping is as follows: the PCs will call a friend for help, using the sending spell. It doesn’t matter which friend they contact. It could be a relative, a business partner, a spouse - anything that makes sense given the PC’s background story. The friend is not able to plane shift, but the friend will talk to somebody, who will talk to somebody else, and eventually, they will find somebody powerful who is able to cast plane shift and who is willing to help. Do not tell the PCs that this is the way out. Figuring it out is a substantial part of the puzzle that is the Museum.

However, the PCs do know that sending and plane shift are useful. As they explore the museum, the PCs should constantly be on the lookout for people who can cast sending or plane shift.

Caretakers and their Guidebooks

At times, the PCs may see man-sized flying creatures. These are the museum caretakers, who are all aarakocras. Do not let the PCs interact with the caretakers until “the time is right.” The time is right when the PCs are getting tired of exploring randomly, and they’re starting to feel the urge for a little more direction. Alternately, if the PCs never get tired of exploring randomly, then the time is right when the PCs reach the 3rd floor or below.

At the appropriate time, have two caretakers land in front of the PCs: Keira, and Qurak. They are among the dozen or so caretakers of the Museum. Keira does almost all the talking.

Keira asks: “Who are you? Are you museum guests, or are you part of an exhibit?” The players will give some answer, but of course, they don’t really know anything, and this will become obvious to Keira and Qurak fairly quickly. Of course, the PCs may have all sorts of questions. Keira is happy to answer questions, but first she wants to know who the PCs are. When Keira realizes that the PCs don’t know if they are guests or exhibits, Keira will sigh, she’ll point at one PC, and say, “What’s your full name?”

If the player refuses to give their name, Keira gets frustrated, but Qurak says, “give them time.” Qurak seems to have the ability to calm Keira down. Keira says, “I’m not trying to hurt you. Please, could somebody just give a name?”

If the players persist in refusing to give their names, Keira will say, “Fine, just wander for all I care. When you get tired of that, flag us down.” The two caretakers leave. The players can bring them back by doing something attention-grabbing. Force the PCs to be as inventive as they can in this regard.

If a player gives a full name, the Keira will pull a guidebook from her belt. The guidebook is a magical book that lists all the people in the exhibits, and tells about what’s in the exhibits. It also tells the spatial position of each exhibit.

Keira looks up the PC’s name in the guidebook: “Let’s see… here’s your name in the index. Your exhibit is called The Deck of Many Things. Let me find it in here… Flip, flip, flip… oh… crap.” Qurak says, “What?” Keira says “look.” Then they both peer at the book. Then Keira shows the book to the PCs. The guidebook says:

The Deck of Many Things

Exhibit will be located inside Castle Green. The arrival of Castle Green has been delayed.

Keira says: “You’re supposed to be in your own diorama, but your diorama isn’t even here yet. That explains why you’re wandering around.”

At this point, the players can ask questions. Keira will answer general questions about the museum truthfully. She’ll answer about the nature of the museum, about who created the museum, about why there are no guests, and so forth. If asked, she’ll say there are no portals out. If asked if anyone can cast plane shift or sending, she says she doesn’t know.

If asked why she works for the museum, Keira tells the PCs about the geas. When Orethys needed caretakers, he used a geas spell to force people to serve. The caretakers must do their best to care for the museum, or they will be tortured and eventually killed by the geas.

The geas does not prevent Keira from express her contempt for Orethys himself. The caretakers hate Orethys, they all consider themselves prisoners for eternity in a pointless museum where nothing ever happens and no patrons ever arrive. They have been bored for decades now.

The PCs can ask lots of questions, but what Keira won’t do is describe the contents of specific exhibits. If you ask her about a specific exhibit, she’ll say, “There’s just too many exhibits for me to stand here all day telling you what’s in them. Get a guidebook.” If the players ask what a guidebook is, Keira will flash the guidebook she’s been using. She says the players can get a guidebook from guest services, on the bottom floor.

At some point, Qurak says: “These guys remind me of Diometron. Same deal.” If the PCs follow up on this, Keira says, “he’s another exhibit who won’t stay in his diorama. Spends most days exploring the museum. We can’t get him to stay on his island.” If the PCs are smart, they might realize that Diometron is a potential resource: he is very familiar with the museum.

Now the players have three reasons to want a guidebook: so that they can look up Diometron, to see where Castle Green is, and to find people who might know the spells plane shift or sending.

If the players ask Keira for her guidebook, she says “No, sorry, I need it to do my job.” If they ask her to go down to guest services and get a copy for them, she says, “You guys are trapped here for all eternity with nothing but free time. In a few years, you’ll wish you had something to occupy your time. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor by giving you something to do.”

When the players seem like they’re running out of questions, Qurak says “OK, so what do we do with them?” Keira says, “I guess we just check on them again in a while.” Then she tells the players: “Have fun for now.” The two depart.

The most important result of this visit is that now, the players have a mission: get a guidebook. To get one, they need to descend to the bottom of the cavern, to the “bottom floor,” to guest services.

Repetition in the Museum

Because the NPCs cannot remember the PCs from visit to visit, the PCs will have many repetitive conversations with the NPCs. They will have to introduce themselves every single time. This can get old fast. To make it less tedious, say to your players:

DM: In the museum, it’s often necessary to introduce yourself a second and third time. I’m not going to ask you to roleplay the same conversation over and over. I’m going to take it for granted that when you visit somebody for the second time, that you introduce yourselves the same as you did the previous time. If you want to introduce yourselves differently than the previous time, just tell me what you’re doing different.

There’s another kind of repetition that happens in the museum. The PCs often have to climb from one floating island to another. This involves ropes and ladders. The first time they do this, have them roleplay how they improvise a ladder out of scrap wood and whatever they find lying around the exhibit. Have them make acrobatics checks to make sure they don’t fall, make it exciting. But the third time they need to improvise a ladder, tell them:

DM: By now, you guys have gotten the hang of improvising ladders and finding ropes to get from one exhibit to the next. You’ve crossed two bridges, and you’ve figured out how to do it without falling. It would get boring to keep roleplaying the construction of ladders. From now on, just say to me, “we’re crossing to the next exhibit,” and I’ll take it for granted that you’re finding an improvised ladder and doing whatever it takes. I’ll take it for granted that you can accomplish that without further difficulty.

After they’ve climbed around on islands for a bit, you might hear the PCs say, “we can’t go all the way back to that exhibit, it’s too far away!” Respond like this:

DM: Moving around the museum is pretty time-consuming, what with all the rope-climbing and ladders. But you guys have all the time in the world: you’re trapped here for eternity. So if it takes several hours to climb from one exhibit to another, it’s not really an issue. Just accept that in the museum, moving around takes a few hours, and that’s not a problem. If you want to climb from an exhibit to another exhibit, just say you’re traveling there, and I’ll take it for granted that you make the trek, no problem.

Another thing that can get repetitive is that in the Museum, you can obtain duplicates of objects by entering an exhibit and taking an object, then leaving the exhibit, letting the exhibit reset, then going back into the exhibit and taking the object again. Naturally, this would be a time-consuming process. Tell the PCs:

DM: Yes, obtaining duplicates of items is time-consuming. But once again, you have all the time in the world, you’re stuck here for eternity. So I want you to roleplay the first time you take an item from an exhibit. The second time, just say, “we’re doing the same thing again to get a second one,” and I’ll take it for granted that you can do the same steps again, no problem.

The point is this: the magic of the museum can make certain things time-consuming and repetitive. But that doesn’t mean that the roleplay has to be repetitive.

The Bottom Floors of the Museum

This section lists all the exhibits on the 6th floor and below. That includes guest services, which is on the bottom floor. This section contains all the information you need to run the PCs through the bottom floor exhibits.

If the PCs decide to bypass one of these exhibits, that is fine, with one exception: the Dreaming Ghost. The PCs will need his help to solve problems in later chapters. Make sure the PCs meet the dreaming ghost. If necessary, rearrange and reposition the exhibits so that the PCs stumble upon him.

6th Floor: Harpy Eyrie

From the Guidebook:

The singing voice of the Harpy is magically beautiful, apparently a gift from a perverse elven god. It is quite difficult to listen to the song and enjoy it. If one isn’t getting one’s eyes scratched out by harpy talons, one is getting charmed off the edge of a cliff. It makes for a poor concert-going experience.

Fortunately, the harpies in our exhibit lived not far from a school of martial arts. They rapidly learned that fighting the monks was a mistake, so instead, the harpies would keep their distance and use their song.

This presents an opportunity for you. By donning one of the monk robes in the chest in guest services, you can trick the harpies into singing for you without physically attacking you. That only leaves the risk of getting charmed. That chest also contains a potion to help boost your will-power a little. With these aids, hopefully, you can enjoy the music the way the elven gods intended.

When Orethys captured some harpies to be in his museum, he also captured the cliffs that they live on. This makes for a rather large exhibit. The Harpy island spans the entire width of the cavern. The harpy exhibit is the entirety of the 6th floor of the museum. When the PCs first arrive in the museum, they are on the 5th floor, directly below the harpy exhibit.

When the PCs look upward, they see the harpy island hovering over their heads. They can see some flying creatures swooping out over the edges of the island, but it’s hard to get a good look. They probably won’t know that these are harpies until later.

The harpies serve an important purpose: they prevent upward travel until after the PCs are “ready for it.” To ascend to where the harpies are, the PCs will need some means of levitating or flying. To be able to defeat the harpies in combat, the PCs will need the monk robe and potion described in the blurb. Trying to get past the harpy exhibit without these items is extremely dangerous, as anyone on a rope is a sitting duck. But if you’re wearing the monk’s robe, the harpies won’t come near you - not even if you’re hanging from a rope.

Note: do not read any of the guidebook blurbs to the PCs until the PCs have a guidebook.

5th Floor: Tavern of the South Gate

From the Guidebook:

If you enjoy a good drinking contest, this is the tavern for you!

Be aware: Liver damage is a real possibility.

When the PCs materialize in the museum, they appear next to the Tavern of the South Gate. Therefore, the tavern is the exhibit that they’re most likely to interact with first. Because of that, it is important to roleplay the tavern very carefully.

Bart Wyntell spends his days in the Tavern of the South Gate. He makes his living by betting on drinking contests. He will challenge the PCs to a contest, but he won’t play unless they make a bet of at least 5gp. The “trick” is that he can drink an unlimited amount of liquor. Literally unlimited. We have no idea why this is the case, and he doesn’t know either. Doesn’t matter. He always wins drinking contests.

According to the Guidebook, Bart is the “point of interest” here. But for the PCs, the bartender Kellia Meeks is actually far more helpful. Kellia has been a bartender in the Tavern of the South Gate for quite a long time, and she gets a lot of planar travelers in her tavern. She likes to eavesdrop on stories about planar travel, and she knows all about the spells plane shift and sending. She can’t cast them, but she can advise the players that those are the spells they need if they want to escape from a demiplane.

When the PCs go in the front door, give Kellia’s opening speech: “You walk in, and you see a fairly typical bar. The bartender says: Heh, you guys don’t look like you’re from around here. Sit wherever you want, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

If the players sit down, say this, exactly: “The bartender walks over and says: I’m having a promotion where first-timers get a free drink. Just one drink, just this once. What can I get you?”

It is important to get these two lines just right, for reasons we’ll explain shortly.

If the PCs are in the tavern and there’s a lull in the conversation, Bart comes up to the PCs and says, “You guys want to try a little drinking challenge? I can out-drink anyone. You interested in a bet?” If the PCs play along, have a drinking contest. Partway through the challenge, Bart fumbles an entire flagon of beer on himself. He is soaking wet: that is important. Let the contest play out - by the end of the contest Bart is slurring and staggering, but he never goes down no matter how much alcohol he drinks. For details of the contest, you will have to improvise.

The above are the basics of what happens in the bar. But where it gets interesting is when the PCs leave and come back. If they do, Kellia says her opening speech, in exactly the same words, in exactly the same tone of voice: “Heh, you guys don’t look like you’re from around here. Sit wherever you want, I’ll be with you in a moment.” She continues: “I’m having a promotion where first-timers get a free drink. Just one drink, just this once. What can I get you?”

This behavior should seem extremely odd. The players will be wondering: “does this bartender have a memory problem?” Which of course, she does: she’s in stasis, and her mind has been reset back to the state it was in when the PCs first arrived.

If the PCs had a drinking contest with Bart, have them make a perception roll, DC 8 (that’s so easy that at least one of the PCs should succeed - but making it a roll makes players think it’s important). When they succeed, point out to them: “Bart is no longer soaking wet.” If they talk to him, he is no longer slurring and staggering. His physical condition has been reset to the state it was in when the PCs first arrived.

What we’re trying to do here is expose the PCs to the strangeness of the stasis effect. We should really rub their faces in the fact that these two characters keep getting “reset” every time you leave and return. You should also look for opportunities to reset the bar itself. If the PCs break a chair, they return and the chair is fixed. If they empty a whiskey bottle, they return and the bottle is full. Look for opportunities to point such things out to the PCs.

If the PCs try to discuss this stuff with Kellia or Bart, they are met with disbelief. For example, if they say to Kellia “we were just here a minute ago,” she will say, “Don’t mess with me, I’ve never seen you before. I assure you, I’d notice a bunch of strange characters like you.”

If the PCs ask the bartender where they are - which seems likely, the PCs have just arrived in a demiplane they don’t recognize - then Kellia Meeks says, “You lost? Just go out the front door, turn right, follow gate street for about two blocks, and you’ll be at the south entrance to the city.” This answer is weird. The tavern is on a floating island. There’s a little chunk of cobblestone road out front, but it just leads off the edge of the floating island. Yet the bartender seems to think her tavern is still in a city. She seems to not be aware that anything is out of the ordinary.

If the PCs lead Kellia outside, and show her the floating islands, she says, “That’s weird, that definitely wasn’t like that before. There used to be a city here. I shouldn’t leave Bart alone with the liquor, he’ll drink it all - I need to go back inside.” Then she dashes back inside. She is very uncomfortable looking at anything that’s not on her island - the compulsion to ignore it is strong. She’s just looking for any excuse to look away from the floating islands.

If the PCs follow her back inside, she gives her opening speech again: “Heh, you guys don’t look like you’re from around here. Have a seat anywhere, I’ll be with you in a moment.” That should really drive the players nuts.

This bar is a good environment for the PCs to experiment with the stasis effect. Give them every opportunity.

Aside from just being a good place to learn about the stasis effect, the bar is also a good place to learn about the spells sending and plane shift.

If the PCs talk about the outlands, or being in a demiplane, or any other plane for that matter, Kellia overhears them talking about it, she comes over and asks “Are you guys planar travelers? I get a lot of you guys in here. Are you outsiders?” She is curious about planar travel. She injects herself into the conversation. She is happy to talk about such things. Look for excuses for Kellia to mention plane shift or sending. For example, she might say “How long have you guys been away from home? Doesn’t it get lonely? Do you use magic to talk to your families back home?” That could lead to a point where Kellia suggests casting sending.

It is difficult to discuss escape plans with Kellia. The problem is that she has a mental block against knowing she’s not at home any more. If you show her the floating islands, she gets agitated, runs back inside, and tends to reset. At some point, though, the PCs will get the stabilization iron, which can make it much easier to talk to Kellia (or any NPC). If they stabilize Kellia, she will lose the mental block and will be able to stand outside her tavern, talk about being stuck in a demiplane, and make plans to get home. If the PCs don’t think of stabilizing Kellia, they’ll just have to converse with Kellia without showing her that she’s trapped in a demiplane. It is perfectly possible to do that: just speak to her in generalities, she will be happy to discuss hypotheticals.

The tavern can also be a useful source of mundane supplies. There is a storeroom with plenty of food (the tavern serves dinner at night), and it also contains a bunch of odds and ends that can be used for repairing things around the bar. That includes about 50 feet of rope, which might turn out to be useful. Getting Kellia to part with these items might take some creative deception (or money).

Speaking of money: any coins the PCs spend in the museum will eventually “reset” back to where the PCs first appeared in the museum. If the PCs travel the museum and spend money in some exhibits, and then they return to the tavern of the south gate, they will find their coins scattered on the ground just outside the tavern. In planescape, gold coins are minted by organizations all over the multiverse. Every gold coin has somebody’s face on it, or the holy symbol of a temple, or something to indicate where the coin was minted. When the PCs find their coins on the ground, point out that the coins were minted in the PC’s hometown. These aren’t somebody else’s gold coins: these are the coins that the PCs brought into the museum, and they can be identified as such by the faces on the coins.

Kellia can be a useful source of information and supplies. But even more important than that, she can be an NPC that the players care about. But you should play her in such a way as to make the players like her. When players care about NPCs, it makes them feel invested in the world and what happens to it.

5th Floor: Golden Goats

From the Guidebook:

These goats come from the slopes of Mount Olympus, at an elevation where the cold forces them to grow thick, lustrous coats. But most remarkable is the fact that the divine nature of Mount Olympus has caused these goats to evolve hair made from real Gold. The sight of a tribe of these goats is breathtaking.

Some of our more enterprising guests have attempted to shear the goats. Be warned: goats can be ornery. Also remember: is is physically impossible to remove a piece of an exhibit from the demiplane. If you attempt to plane shift away with a pocket full of pure gold hair, then when you go home, you will find your pocket to be empty. Perhaps shearing the goats is an exercise best left to the imagination.

You can fight the goats to get some hair, but this is largely pointless. The total value of the hair is only about 100 gp. Like almost everything taken from an exhibit, it vanishes after an hour or two, or upon leaving the museum.

There is nothing particularly useful about the golden goat exhibit. But there’s some important information in the blurb: it is physically impossible to remove a piece of an exhibit from the demiplane, even using plane shift. This will be important later.

4th Floor: Library of Dame Kenere

From the Guidebook:

Dame Kenere once possessed one of the finest personal libraries in the multiverse. Now that library is part of the Museum!

Of particular interest are the books that she authored herself. Some people say that there’s nothing safe to eat in the Abyss. That’s mostly true. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. For decades, Dame Kenere has been writing survival books about how to find food in the most hostile environments.

Her manor also contains her butler, who can be a bit of a nuisance. If you tell him you work for Shiny Stone Publishing House, and are there to read her latest manuscript, he’ll leave you alone with her books. Or you can just chop his head off, but if you do, you’ll have to repeat the process every fifteen minutes.

This exhibit consists of Lord Kenere’s manor. The only thing of any real interest inside the manor is the library. The library does indeed contain a large collection of abyssal recipe books. Here’s an example entry:

The Plane of Thorns - on this plane, it is possible to hunt meat, which does provide nutrition. But eating local meat will almost immediately cause a burning rash in the back of the throat, which can only be eased by drinking water. Surprisingly, water found here is safe to drink, and it does provide relief from the burning. But the relief is short-lived, lasting only seconds. Consuming the water continuously to neutralize the itch leads to constant urination, which in turn leads to burning in the nether regions. The key to avoiding this cycle is to learn how to properly neutralize the meat before eating it. Doing so requires a mixture which can be concocted from local flora.”

It is not likely that Dame Kenere’s recipes are of any immediate use to the PCs. The real utility of Dame Kenere’s library is that the PCs can research almost anything here. Of particular relevance is a book called “An Index of the Spells of the Multiverse.” The author of this book wrote down summary descriptions of every spell he could find. The book doesn’t teach you how to cast spells - it’s just a listing of spell names and spell descriptions. In particular, it is possible to look up sending and plane shift.

If they players do look up sending and plane shift, give them the spell descriptions from the players handbook. Tell them that they should read the descriptions very carefully. Tell them that to succeed at escaping the museum, they will need to truly understand the spells they are trying to use. This is actually only half-true. They will have many more opportunities to learn about the limitations of these spells, so it isn’t crucial that they learn now. But they will enjoy the campaign more if they feel like they have a handle on how things work and what’s going on.

There is one problem with accessing Dame Kenere’s library: the butler, Nolan Levant. He opens the door, and asks the PCs what they want. For almost all possible answers, he replies: “I’m sorry gentlemen, Dame Kenere is not interested. Goodbye.” Then he slams the door. Because he is in stasis, he immediately forgets doing this. If the PCs knock again, he will open the door again in the exact same way, and ask the PCs what they want, in exactly the same way. Again, for almost all possible replies, he says “I’m sorry gentlemen, Dame Kenere is not interested. Goodbye.”

There is really only one thing that can get him to take interest: if the PCs claim to be from Shiny Stone Publishing, then Mr. Levant will hesitate for a moment. This is the course of action recommended by the guidebook. But there’s a catch: Mr Levant will take one look at the PCs, and say, “Gentlemen, you give the impression of being mercenaries, not publishers. My apologies if I am mistaken, but I cannot let you in.” Then he slams the door again.

To actually get in the front door, the PCs will have to do all of the following:

• They have to claim to be from Shiny Stone Publishing.

• They have to look like professional publishers, not mercenaries (ie,

  not armed to the teeth).

• They must convince Mr Levant that they have an appointment.

The deception is quite difficult. The PCs may have to hide some of their group members (the ones who can’t look normal), and they may have to “borrow” some clothes from another exhibit. They will also have to choose their words carefully. Fortunately, the PCs can try over and over, because Mr Levant is in stasis and doesn’t remember anything. If the PCs fail to convince him, they can simply alter their approach and try again.

The other approach to dealing with Mr. Levant is to kill him or tie him up. He’s not good at combat - he’s a butler. He fights with a dagger. He doesn’t know how to use defensive stances: he attacks all-out, which means he usually hits, but he leaves himself wide open. If he hits, he does 3HP of damage. He rarely survives long enough for a second attack.

When he dies, which should happen quickly, he will respawn elsewhere in the mansion 15 minutes later. When he sees the PCs in his house, he attacks again. The downside of this approach is that the PCs will probably have to fight Nolan several times, and these repeated fights will slowly chip away 3HP here, and 3HP there. But this is a feasible approach, if it’s your style.

Much later in the campaign, the PCs will be visiting a plane of the abyss. Perhaps they will remember the recipes of Dame Kenere. Dame Kenere herself was not captured into the museum. She continued writing books, and those books can be found in libraries all over the multiverse.

Because Dame Kenere was never captured into the museum, she is still “out there” in the multiverse. That means that when the players finally gain the ability to cast sending, they have the option of trying to contact Dame Kenere. If they do, they will successfully reach her, and she will respond that her mansion disappeared sixty years ago. She is now very elderly, 101 years old. She is no longer able to help in person. However, she says she will contact some powerful friends and that a rescue attempt will be arranged. She says the PCs should sit tight and wait to be contacted again. The upshot is that just like contacting any other friend, contacting Dame Kenere will lead to a rescue party being sent.

4th Floor: Breakneck Chariot

From the Guidebook:

Here’s a fun money-making scheme: build the fastest chariot in existence, then charge people for rides. Now that the chariot is part of my museum, you get to experience the joy and terror of it!

Of course, it’s not really the fastest chariot in existence - that’s just marketing - but it is hellaciously fast. It feels even faster because you feel like you’re definitely going to die.

A ranger named Viggart was traveling through the feywild when he was set upon by a half-dozen quicklings. This turned out to be a mistake on the quicklings’ part. Viggart killed several of them, and the quicklings fled. But Viggart wasn’t satisfied. He hunted the quicklings back to their home base, snuck in, and drugged their wine. When the quicklings were all unconscious, he bound them, threw them in his saddlebags, and carried them home. In this way, he collected two dozen squirming quicklings.

When he got home, Viggart’s wife was furious - she demanded to know exactly what he intended to do with several bags full of angry quicklings. Viggart thought fast, and a money-making scheme was born. Viggart had a friend build a kart and yoke, and the quicklings were bound into servitude, as “horses” for a racing kart. The yoke has four rows of six quicklings: 24 total.

Needless to say, the quicklings are not happy with this state of affairs, but there’s not much they can do about it. Viggart keeps them under control primarily by binding them tightly to the yoke: it is a rigid design that keeps them physically in front of the chariot while still allowing them to move their feet and hands. Viggart can also pull a “choke-rope” which is tied to the quicklings’ necks, to motivate them to cooperate.

At night, the quicklings discuss their escape plans. They have two ideas. First idea: if one of them could just grab a knife from somewhere, they’re sure they could cut their neighbor free from the harness. Then, they could hand the knife to the freed quickling, who could (very quickly) free more. From there, all hell would break loose.

Second idea: if they could get Viggart to fall off the chariot, then they could all just start running. They could be half a mile away (with the chariot) before Viggart could even pick himself up. With no Viggart to pull on the choke-rope, they’re pretty sure they could find a sharp rock or something and cut themselves free.

When the PCs look down at the exhibit, they see a barn. In front of the barn is a packed earth road that snakes around and then comes back to where it started. It also has a branch that leads right off the edge of the exhibit.

The dirt road is a racetrack, and the barn is being used as a parking garage. The barn contains the chariot, the quicklings, Viggart, and a paying passenger named Althune. They are getting ready to go for a ride. Viggart has to do many preparatory steps: Althune must be given a briefing, and then Althune must be strapped to the chariot so that he doesn’t fall off. Viggart doesn’t need straps, he has done this enough times to be able to keep his footing.

All the players see when looking down is the dirt road, the barn, grass, and a scattering of trees. The best place to climb down (a place where a rope can be tied to a tree) leads the players descending to a spot just inside the racetrack. Nothing interesting happens until they are on the exhibit. Suddenly, they hear the quicklings shrieking, a clattering of wood on dirt, and Althune yelling his head off, and they see the entire contraption hurtling down the track. The quicklings are not a blur - they’re encumbered by the kart, so they’re not moving as fast as usual. The PCs can clearly see what’s coming at them.

The quicklings also see the PCs and they immediately recognize that they’re armed. This is the perfect opportunity to grab a dagger and execute their escape plan. The quicklings steer the cart directly toward the PCs - the plan is just to ram the party at speed. You see, the kart is going “fast” from the perspective of a human, but it’s not especially fast to a quickling. The quicklings are sure that as the PCs are bowled over, they will be able to pick up weapons dropped by the PCs.

When the cart goes off-road, Viggart starts yanking on the choke-rope, but the quicklings stubbornly keep going: this is their one and only shot.

The PCs have one melee round to prepare before the kart crashes into the party. If the PC are bunched up, the kart will ram the party as a whole. If they’re spread out, the kart will pick the biggest bunch of PCs and ram that bunch. The kart is 10 feet wide at its widest point (the front of the yoke).

The PCs who are rammed must make a DEX save DC13. Any PC who succeeds is next to the kart, rather than in front of it. The quicklings will reach out and try to grab a weapon from such a PC. They will not attempt to wrestle a weapon out of a PC’s hand: the quicklings are not strong enough to win a tug-of-war. But if the PC has a small sharp weapon (dagger, shortsword, ninja star) that is still in a holster, a quickling will easily grab it. Large weapons are too much for the quicklings - they can’t grab longswords or larger. The quicklings have no interest in bows or other weapons that they can’t use to cut themselves free.

Any PC who fails his DEX save against being rammed is knocked prone and trampled, taking D4 damage. Such a PC is also subjected to the quickling weapon-grab attempt. But they might also drop their weapon, DEX save DC 13, which would give the quicklings an additional opportunity to grab a weapon without a tug-of-war.

Any quickling who has a weapon gets one of the following actions on his turn:

• If the quickling is still tied to the kart, the quickling will cut

  himself free.

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• If the choke-rope is intact, the quickling will cut the choke-rope.

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• Otherwise, the quickling will cut one other quickling free.

Any quickling who is free and who does not have a weapon can try to grab one.

If the plan to grab a weapon fails, the quicklings may at your discretion bring the kart around and try again. But this time, the DEX saves are only DC10, because the PCs know what to expect.

If three or more quicklings get weapons, they’ll immediately try to stab Viggart to death, and will very likely be successful - Viggart doesn’t have his weapons on him.

If the plan to grab a weapon is a total failure, the quicklings will go for plan B: crash the cart into a tree, knocking Viggart off. Then, they’ll try to head for the hills, but they will stop short at the edge of the exhibit. When they realize a chasm prevents them from leaving, they’ll turn around and try to run Viggart over with the kart, as many times as possible.

If Viggart is killed and all the quicklings get free, then the quicklings will begin mocking the PCs for being so slow and stupid. Eventually, they’ll lose interest in this and will grab some rope from the Kart, and escape from the edge of the island.

The quicklings are highly atypical in that they are willing to leave their exhibit. Most museum NPCs have a mental block against leaving their exhibit. The quicklings have that mental block too, but the quicklings were desperate to escape from Viggart long before they were captured into the museum, and escaping from Viggart necessarily means they have to leave Viggart’s island. Their intense desire to escape overrides their mental block against leaving their island. If the quicklings do escape into the museum, they will eventually reset back to being in their own exhibit.

The only thing really useful about this exhibit to the PCs is the supplies it contains. For example, the kart’s “choke-rope” is actually 25 separate lightweight but strong ropes that go to 25 quickling necks. The total amount of rope is 25 x 6 feet = 150 feet of rope. That’s enough rope to descend 5 floors of the museum. Viggart’s shed may also contain a variety of other shed-typical items, at your discretion.

If the PCs leave the exhibit and come back, then naturally, everything will be back in the shed where it all started. One way to avoid having to fight the kart again is to simply time it so that the PCs don’t climb onto the exhibit until the race is done and the kart is reentering the shed. That will give a full 20 minutes before the cycle repeats. Another way to avoid the confrontation is to yell to Viggart “don’t start racing, there’s an obstacle on the track,” or something to that effect.

3rd Floor: Claren’s Tapestries

From the Guidebook:

Take it from me, making magic items is hard. So I always find it amazing when people can craft magic items without even trying.

Claren weaves tapestries, and when she’s done, the tapestries can create remarkable phantasms. Those phantasms can persist in the physical world. Try it out! Surprisingly, the phantasms are more stable than other items taken from exhibits.

Claren Lusk is a weaver who makes tapestries, and she invests a lot of effort into each one. Her tapestries are magical. If you stare at one for several minutes, you will find yourself in a dream-like trance where you think you are “inside” the tapestry. This is just an illusion. You are still actually sitting on a chair in front of the tapestry, staring at the tapestry, but the illusion feels real to you. If two people both stare at the tapestry at the same time, then both people can enter the tapestry-dream at the same time.

When you’re experiencing the illusion, you feel like you’re in a world made of woven fabric. Even though things look like fabric, they work like normal items. For example, a soup bowl that looks like it’s made of fabric can still sit upright on the table and hold soup. The soup itself looks like yarn, but you can eat it and it tastes like soup.

Anything pictured in the tapestry can be explored. For example, if the tapestry shows a cabin, then you can enter the cabin, and there’s normal furniture in the cabin, even though the inside of the cabin wasn’t visible from “outside” the tapestry.

The tapestries all have fringes around the edge. If you are inside a tapestry, and you walk outside the area which is pictured in the tapestry, you find yourself in a “grassy” but otherwise empty field, where the grass is actually tapestry fringes. From there, you can easily walk back to the area pictured in the tapestry.

To exit the illusion, all you have to do is tell the DM that you want to go back to reality. Just wanting it makes it happen. When you exit, anything that you were holding in the illusion is still in your hands. For example, suppose you’re in a tapestry, in a cabin, eating soup, and you decide you want to exit the illusion. You find yourself back on the chair in front of the tapestry, but now you’re holding a fabric bowl of soup. The bowl, which is now in your hands, is an illusion/phantasm. However, everyone in the room can now see it, and they can taste the soup if they want. If you bring a tool out of the tapestry, it is solid enough to actually be used as a tool.

Phantasms stick around for anywhere from 6 hours to 3 days, depending on how emotionally invested you are in them. Mundane household objects typically don’t create emotional investment, so they usually last about 6 hours.

Many of the tapestries contain living animals - squirrels, birds, butterflies, the like. Sometimes a small animal will exit the tapestry with you, depending on the situation. The animal will be drawn to the person who conjured it and will stay nearby. The animal is, for all practical purposes, alive. It will vanish in the same 6 hours to 3 days time frame.

Claren’s tapestries do not contain any people. This is deliberate on Claren’s part. She does not want to know what would happen if she caused a fabric person to exist, she dreads the thought of creating an intelligent person with a 6-hour lifespan.

It is possible to hurt yourself inside a tapestry, but the damage vanishes when you exit.

Claren’s shop is a well-built, well-maintained wooden building. The inside is single large room, which is a gallery. All of the walls are covered in tapestries, and in front of the tapestries are wooden benches. In the middle of the room is a work area consisting of a large loom and work-table covered in yarns and paper sketches. Claren is at the loom, working.

Claren is an aged elven woman. Her demeanor is gracious and warm, but she is also serious about selling tapestries, she wants to make a sale. This is difficult for her - even though the tapestries are amazing, they’re also expensive, and there just aren’t that many people who can afford them. She evaluates the PCs and if they don’t seem like people who can afford magic tapestries, she may get a little impatient.

When the PCs enter, Claren says, “Here to buy tapestries?” If the PCs say yes, she says “Why don’t you try them out - sit on a bench, and just gaze at one for a while. Don’t worry, the effect is safe.” If the PCs conjure a phantasmal object, Claren says “Keep it, it’s yours. It will vanish in a few hours, though.” If the PCs say they’re thinking about buying and they’ll come back later, Claren is fine with that.

Claren has no idea how she does what she does. It just happens. If the PCs discuss something other than tapestries with Claren, she’s an intelligent woman who can discuss a variety of subjects. Feel free to give her a detailed backstory, and an interesting personality.

The following tapestries are present in the gallery, among others:

• A cute log cabin on a hill overlooking a beach, with seagulls.

• A well in a clearing in the woods, with sunlight streaming through

  the trees.

• An apple orchard, with ladders, fruit baskets, a cart, a wooden

  fence, and more.

• Waves crashing on a rocky shore, with a scraggly tree.

• A view of a forest from on top of one of the trees, with

  butterflies.

Claren’s tapestries is here as a catch-all place where PCs can find objects that they need. If there’s some specific object the PCs have been looking for, then you have the option of adding a tapestry to the list, in order to give the PCs the item they want.

In the gallery is an aarakocra named Algion. He is mesmerized, staring at the forest/butterfly tapestry. Tapping him on the shoulder doesn’t wake him up. To get his attention, you have to enter the tapestry with him.

Algion is a medium-wealthy merchant who is in the business of transporting wines. He’s friendly and curious, and he likes nice things. He is a potentially useful NPC because he can fly, which means that he can facilitate travel upward in the museum. Algion can’t carry a PC (not strong enough), but he can carry a rope upward, tie it to a tree, and dangle it down for the PCs to climb up.

If you encourage Algion to come with you, he is initially enthusiastic: it sounds like fun! But as soon as he sees the edge of the exhibit, the mental block kicks in. He freaks out and returns to the building, then his memory resets, forgetting that anything happened. This is utterly unproductive.

However, later in the campaign, the PCs will discover a magic item called the “stabilization iron” which prevents objects from resetting, and a “potion of willpower” that gives a +5 to wisdom saves. The stabilization iron can be used on Algion, this prevents his memory from resetting. He still freaks out at the edge of the exhibit, but when he returns to the building, he says, “That was weird. I felt like I was compelled to turn around, like I was under the effect of a charm spell forcing me to turn around. Let me try again.” Then he goes back to the edge again, and he tries to grit his teeth and overcome the compulsion. But moments later, he turns around again and reenters the building, and he says, “Ugh, that magical compulsion is strong! I don’t know what to do.” At this point, if the PCs think of giving Algion the potion of willpower, then Algion will be able to overcome the magical compulsion.

Once you do both of these things, Algion can join the party. He is surprisingly good at taking the strangeness of the museum in stride. Apparently, Algion is a person who is comfortable with change. Algion is curious about the museum and is happy to explore with the PCs. He is not a combatant, he will not fight.

3rd Floor: Wasted Wino

From the Guidebook:

Take it from me, making magic items is hard. I always find it amazing when people can craft magic items without even trying. But Rixmort is the only person I’ve ever found who can make a magic item in less than a minute.

He’s a bartender, and when he improvises, you never know what the drinks are going to do.

Rixmort is a green slaad bartender. The sign over the front door of his bar says: “The Wasted Wino: a Purveyor of Artisan Cocktails.” The bar used to be in Acheron before it was pulled into the museum. Rixmort can indeed make drinks with magical effects. However, it’s not because he’s an amazing bartender. It’s because he sometimes spits in the drinks. When he does spit in the drinks, some of his chaos essence mixes with the alcohol making a potion.

Rixmort is pretty good at sleight-of-hand, so he usually manages to spit without anyone noticing (Orethys didn’t notice). He only does this when he’s in the mood to be funny, and he doesn’t care at all what his patrons want him to do.

The potions aren’t especially useful magic items, though, for one reason: the ‘identify’ spell identifies the drink as a “potion with a random effect.” That’s all that the identify spell tells you. The reason for this is that the chaos essence that makes them work is constantly shifting and changing, so the potion might be a potion of giant strength one minute, and a potion of water breathing the next minute. You have to roll randomly at the moment the person drinks it.

Rixmort is a terrible bartender. He just mixes ingredients randomly, and the taste is usually disgusting. However, he does always include a lot of alcohol. No matter what you order, he just gives you whatever he feels like giving you. But, in Acheron, most people don’t really care. They’re there for the alcohol, and the entertainment value of seeing the random potion effects.

The bar is usually pretty busy, but in order to capture the bar into the museum, though, Orethys had to clear out the patrons, so in the museum, the bar is empty except for Rixmort.

Rixmort is useless at conversation. No matter what you say to him, he immediately goes off on a tangent, and then goes off on another tangent, ad infinitum. To make matters worse, he uses pronouns in a confusing way. For example, if you say, “which way to the bathroom,” he might say, “You see that hallway, with the paintings of mushrooms? They [mushrooms] go great in kobold stew, you should simmer it a long time. They [kobolds] buy a lot more drinks than you would think for their size.”

If for some irrational reason the PCs decide to fight Rixmort, use the standard green slaad stat block.

Rixmort serves no real purpose in this chapter other than just to entertain the PCs.

3rd Floor: Orb Conclave

From the Guidebook:

One large hovering eyeball, and ten small hovering eyeballs.

Although it doesn’t look like a beholder, I’m pretty sure this thing is beholder-kin, because of its eye rays. If aggravated, it will attack you with death, disintegration, telekinesis, charm, sleep… and an anti-magic cone from the large eye. That combination of rays just screams “beholder.”

The personality, however, is very unlike a normal beholder. I find that it just looks at me, impassively, no matter what I do - unless I touch it or attack it, in which case it rains death. I advise you to leave it alone unless you are prepared to deal with its destructive energies.

I would love to know what this thing is thinking, why it exists, or what its purpose is. But I can’t get any reaction, other than staring and all-out attack.

The orb conclave doesn’t look like a beholder, because its “body” just consists of the eyes. There is no mouth, no skin, no scales, no eyestalks. Just hovering eyes. Each eye looks like a perfect white sphere with an iris and cornea, but nothing else - no optic nerve, no veins, no imperfections.

If an eye is captured and dissected, the inside is just clear jelly, with no retina, no blood vessels, nothing that would suggest that this being has any kind of biology. It is more the abstract impression of an eye, than an actual eye from a living animal.

The orb conclave is hovering calmly above a patch of icy tundra. It is quite cold, but the PCs don’t need protective equipment for a short visit, it’s not that cold. It is rare to find a beholder outside of an extremely well-defended lair, but this entity doesn’t seem to be in any kind of lair, and it isn’t surrounded by defenses. This is very atypical of beholders.

Talking to the orb conclave has no effect - it stares, but it doesn’t respond. Telepathic contact is possible, making it obvious that the entity has a mind, and that it is receiving your message, but it doesn’t respond. Spells like message provoke no reaction other than staring. It will look at visual illusions, making it clear that it can see them, but again, no response.

Doing damage to the orb conclave, or even just physically touching it with your hand, will provoke an all-out attack. Likewise, spells that alter the orb conclave without doing damage, such as a shrinking spell, or a teleport spell, will provoke an attack. Provoking an attack is the only way to get the conclave to move.

Spells that don’t do damage, and which don’t directly affect the orb conclave, may or may not provoke an attack. For example, if you were to cause it to rain, that would not damage it, but it might provoke an attack - but that’s not 100% certain. Or, it might just hover calmly in the rain.

Normally, the smaller eyes hover about three feet of the large central eye, moving in a slow dance around the central eye. But if attacked, the eyes will spread out. They can spread to any distance away from the central eye - they can move around the area as individuals. Spreading out is a tactic to protect against area-of-effect attacks.

Eyes can be destroyed in a fight. Each eye can survive on its own, even if the large central eye is destroyed. If the orb conclave appears to be losing a fight, the eyes will flee, they will all go in different directions in order to make it difficult for the party to catch them all. If any one eye survives, the orb conclave survives. The remaining eyes will regroup, and then they will slowly conjure more eyes at a rate of 1 small eye per day, and then another 5 days for the large central eye, until the orb conclave is fully regenerated.

If the PC provoke a fight, use the standard beholder stat block, with the following alterations:

• The eyes move independently, and can fan out around the room.

  Although the eyes appear independent, they act collectively, like a beholder. They only get one collective initiative roll. Like a beholder, the OC fires three rays per turn. Like a beholder, it chooses its attacks unpredictably.

• Each small eye has 5 hit points. The large eye has 50 hit points.

  The PCs must specify which eye they are attacking. If they destroy an eye, the OC is still alive, but it (obviously) cannot use that eye any more. As long as the OC has at least three eyes remaining, then it will continue to make 3 ray attacks per turn.

• Each small eye has a different color: charm=pink, paralyzing=purple,

  fear=green, slowing=brown, enervation=blue, telekinesis=yellow, sleep=white, petrification=grey, disintegration=red, death=black. This makes it possible for the PCs to announce, “I am attacking the red eye.”

The orb conclave does not hold a grudge. If you attack it, leave, and then return later, it will just stare at you as it stares at everyone. This is not just because of the stasis effect, this is how the OC would act if it were somehow released into the multiverse.

The orb conclave is indeed beholder-kin. It was generated during a strange dream of a particularly odd beholder. At the time of this writing, there is only one orb conclave in the multiverse. So far, nobody has figured out what it is thinking of, why it stares, or why it doesn’t respond.

If the PCs fight the orb conclave, given that the PCs are low-level, it seems likely that the creature will annihilate the PCs almost immediately. If that occurs, the PCs will respawn in the same way that they would for any other death in the museum. The OC is much weaker than a normal beholder, though, in that it is sometimes possible to destroy an eye in a single hit (only 5 HP). If the PCs are smart and target the most dangerous eyes first, they may be victorious.

If the PCs provoke an attack and then attempt to flee, the conclave will not leave its floating island. It is bound by the rule that all museum NPCs refuse to pay attention to things outside their exhibit.

In the unlikely event that the PCs do substantial harm to the orb conclave, the conclave flees, scattering in all directions. In this event, the conclave will leave its exhibit. It doesn’t want to pay attention to things outside its exhibit, but if its life is on the line, it will overcome that hesitation. In this event, the conclave doesn’t need to regenerate in the way that it normally does. Instead, the stasis effect of the museum will respawn the conclave in its original condition in its original location in a matter of an hour or so.

The PCs can learn from this exhibit: they can learn that death in the museum is not permanent, and that they respawn back at the Tavern of the South Gate.

2nd Floor: Dreaming Ghost

From the Guidebook:

A shack with a man asleep on a bed. Nothing much to see… unless you wake him up. Then, there’s even less to see. If you wake him, he vanishes, and he will reappear, asleep, about 15 minutes later.

I cannot figure out what is happening here. I’ve included him in the museum as a curiosity. If you figure out what’s causing this, let me know. - Orethys

Here’s what’s happening here: the sleeper, a man named Johann, enjoyed sleeping and dreaming so much that he made a deal with a powerful fey creature. He would gain the ability to explore other people’s dreams, and affect them. The price he paid, however, is that he lost the ability to enter the waking world, and affect the waking world.

For Johann, being in the museum has been a boon. His physical body is in stasis, he cannot age, and his shack and bed need no maintenance. But his mind is not in stasis - because his mind is not in the museum. It roams the planes, visiting the minds of other dreamers throughout the multiverse. This has worked out to Johann’s liking.

If you wake up Johann, he vanishes. But he knows he has been awakened, and he knows which PC did it. The next time that PC takes a long rest, the PC has a dream:

The sleeping man from the shack is walking toward you - you recognize him. He stops in front of you, and he says, “Did you want something? You tried to wake me up, when I was sleeping in my shack.”

At this point, the PC can have a dream-conversation with Johann.

Johann knows a trick: he can make you have a lucid dream. That way, the PC can have a clearheaded conversation with Johann, and remember it in the morning. The PC can say whatever he wants to Johann, and ask questions. Johann is willing to have a nice chat. Johann explains that his existence is just exploring the dreams of people all over the multiverse. If the PCs ask for specifics, Johann laughs and says, “oh, you know how dreams are. A lot of crazy stuff.”

Johann is potentially quite useful to the PCs. One of the things that the PCs need to do to escape the museum is to call for help, using the spell sending. But there is an alternative to casting sending. You can ask Johann to visit somebody in their dreams. Johann can deliver a message for you. He asks no payment for this, he’s happy to help.

There is a catch, though: most people don’t pay much attention to their dreams. You will need to send the message to somebody who is in the habit of listening to their dreams, otherwise the message won’t be acted on. In general, priests are a good choice in the D&D universe. Gods often communicate with their servants in dreams, so priests try to remember their dreams. Another good choice would be a fortune-teller or soothsayer - they take signs and portents seriously.

After Johann tries to deliver a message, Johann will once again enter the PC’s dreams. He will report on whether or not he was successful on getting a message through. If the recipient was paying attention to their dream, Johann will know. He will tell the PCs that their message got through. But if the recipient was the kind of person who ignores their dreams, Johann will apologize, saying “some people just don’t put much stock in dreams, there’s not much I can do about that.”

The PCs will need Johann’s help not just in the museum, but in later chapters. Make sure that you roleplay Johann in a particularly friendly and outgoing manner. Make sure the PCs get to know him a little. If necessary, make Johann a little nosy - he pops into their dreams whether the PCs call for him or not.

2nd Floor: Reggie’s Boots

From the Guidebook:

Take it from me, making magic items is hard. So I always find it amazing when people can craft magic items without even trying.

Reggie Drum’s family thought he was a normal human child. They were wrong: Reggie’s mother had been deceived by a clever fae, and Reggie was conceived. The wild magic of faerie runs in his blood. Yet, he has the most boring life imaginable. His father was a shoemaker, and Reggie was apprenticed at an early age. He spent his days sitting in a gray room, making shoe after shoe after shoe.

The enchantment of faerie calls to Reggie, but he loves his family, and his sense of duty is strong. So he stays in his shop, and provides for his family. But while he works, his mind drifts. Reggie does not deliberately enchant the boots he makes. He simply allows his hands to craft, while his mind wanders to the fey realms.

Reggie’s workshop is a sturdy building on a cobblestone street. The door has a sign that just says “Boots and shoes, Reasonable prices, Please come in.” Inside is a workshop: a big workbench, piles of leather and catgut, lots of tools in good condition. It’s obvious that Reggie is making good money. Reggie’s bedroom is upstairs. Reggie is standing by a bench, working on a pair of boots.

Reggie is all business. When the PCs walk in, Reggie doesn’t even look up, he just says, “Here for quality shoes, or magical shoes?” If the PCs say “quality,” Reggie says, again without looking up, “rack’s over there, try them on until you find a pair you want.” The rack is full of normal shoes. If the PCs say “magical,” however, Reggie finally looks up. He says, “They’re expensive. You have money?”

All of Reggie’s boots, even the so-called “non magical” ones, have one minor effect: if you’re wearing them, your legs never get tired. You can be on your feet all day. In addition to this one minor effect, Reggie has a few pairs of boots with major effects:

• Boots of Speed. 4000 gp.

• Boots of Elvenkind. 2500 gp.

• Boots of Levitation. 4000 gp.

• Boots of Striding and Springing. 5000 gp.

The boots of levitation can be used to climb upward in the museum. These are important quest items.

The boots are all very expensive - the PCs do not have the money to buy a pair of boots. If one of the PCs drew the Gem card from the deck, they may have gems worth thousands of GP. But if they show the gems to Reggie, he says, “I don’t know anything about appraising gems. I have no idea what those are worth. Go sell them to a jeweler and bring me gold coins. I won’t accept anything other than gold.”

Some PCs might think about raiding other exhibits to get the coin. That is impractical. There are very few exhibits that have a lot of gold pieces. Remember also that items taken from exhibits are transient, and will vanish in an hour or two - and scraping together thousands of GP by finding 50 gp here, 50 gp there would take a very long time. You can stabilize gold coins using the stabilization iron (see the chapter on Magic Items of the Museum), but if you do that, every coin will have a glyph on it. Merchants are always on the lookout for conjured coins that might vanish when the conjuration spell wears off, so they carefully look for warning signs that suggest that a coin might be of magical origins. A glyph is a huge red flag that would make any merchant refuse to accept coins.

Like it or not, if the PCs want the boots, they’ll have to steal them. Of course, it’s not really immoral to steal the boots: they are just going to reappear in the exhibit anyway. Reggie will be completely unaffected by the theft. If necessary, point this out to your players.

The magical boots are not out in the open. Reggie doesn’t want people stealing his boots, and he figures the best way to avoid the problem is if people don’t know where the boots are. They are under some floorboards, under a cabinet. If you pay for some boots, Reggie will ask you to step outside for 5 minutes. Then he will lock the door, retrieve the boots from under the floorboards, unlock the door, and hand the boots to you. If you say you won’t pay without seeing the boots, he says, “Anyone in town will tell you I’m honest. Go ask around, and when you trust me, come back.”

Here are some things the PCs can do:

• There are windows in the shop. It is possible to spy on Reggie. When

  he finishes the boots he’s working on, he stashes them under the floorboards.

• If you can get Reggie to be fatigued, he will go to his bedroom and

  take a nap.

• It is possible to kill Reggie, but he’s a tough opponent.

If the PCs decide to fight Reggie, he’s a fourth-level fighter with a longsword and leather armor. He is wearing “Boots of Kicking and Jumping.” These boots grant two useful abilities:

• As a bonus action, after attacking with his longsword, Reggie can

  also kick with the boots for 1D6 damage. He can kick any target, it does not necessarily need to be the same target he attacked with the longsword. He can do this every melee round.

• As a bonus action, Reggie can take the dodge, disengage, or dash

  action. If he uses this ability, his jump distance is also doubled. After using this ability, Reggie cannot use it again for two melee rounds.

Reggie Drum

Level 4 fighter with longsword, leather armor, wearing magical boots of kicking and jumping.

Armor Class 13

STR 14 (+2) DEX 13 (+1) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 (+0)

Hit Points 40

Speed 30 ft.

Passive Perception 14

Longsword: Action, +6 to hit, reach 5 ft. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage.

Kick (because of boots): Bonus Action, +4 to hit, reach 5 ft. Hit: 4 (1d6 + 1) blunt damage.

Dodge, Disengage, or Dash (because of boots): Bonus Action, two melee rounds cooldown.

To get the boots, the PCs will need to execute an interesting heist. Let them plan anything they want. You will have to improvise the layout of Reggie’s workshop. Note that fighting Reggie doesn’t automatically get you the boots: you’ll still have to find them.

1st Floor: Tiny Men

From the Guidebook:

Most people think sprites are the smallest humanoids. Turns out, that’s not even close. I don’t know what these things are called, but they’re less than two inches tall. (They’re hiding in the rocks.)

The ground on this floating island is very rocky terrain. Cut into some of the bedrock rocks are small caves, with wooden doors. The doors are only about three inches high, and they’re positioned to make them hard to notice. When the PCs first arrive, describe the island as “completely empty, except for dirt and rocks.” Only if the PCs get down on hands and knees and root among the rocks do they notice the doors.

Behind the doors are a miniature cave system containing tiny men. They are a primitive hunter-gatherer society. If you manage to get them out of their holes, and do something about the language barrier, you can talk to them about hunting insects and foraging for seeds. They don’t have much else to say. The tiny men are not important to the main quest.

What makes this island interesting, for the PCs, is its size and its position. Orethys only captured as much land as he needed to fully capture these tiny men and their underground lair - and that’s not much land. So this island is only about ten feet in diameter.

This floating island is positioned about thirty feet below Reggie’s Boots. If you’re on Reggie’s island, you can peer over the edge and see this tiny island below. But actually getting onto this tiny island is a tricky problem. If you dangle a rope down from the edge of the large exhibit, it will not reach the tiny island. It will just hang down into empty space. If you extend the rope too far, it will dangle down into the mist at the edge of the cavern. See the diagram below, showing the large island, this tiny island, and a rope dangling from the large island.

If the rope touches the mist, that’s not a big deal, it is unaffected by the mist. But if a person enters the mist, they will vanish and respawn back at the Tavern of the South Gate. That’s probably not what the PC wanted to do. Swinging the rope is not helpful - the PC hanging from the swinging rope will swing into the mist before they swing onto the tiny island. The most likely solution will involve tying a rope that hangs underneath the large island, like this:

{width="2.307292213473316in" height="2.307292213473316in"}

Actually getting a rope installed like that is tricky. The easiest way to do it is to walk around on the underside of the large exhibit using spider climb. But it is possible to do it without any magic at all. If two people hold the two ends of the rope, and they push the middle of the rope off the edge of the large exhibit, and then the two people walk to opposite sides of the large exhibit, they can get the rope into position.

Another possible issue is that some PCs may not be strong enough to “hand-over-hand” down the rope. In that case, it may be necessary to rig up some sort of harness.

Of course, it may also be possible to invent other solutions entirely. Give the PCs room to be inventive here, and try to respect their solutions, even if those solutions aren’t entirely logical. If the PCs come up with a solution that makes sense to them, then let them have their small triumph. They need to succeed here, so make sure they do succeed.

Bottom Floor: Guest Services

When you enter the front door of guest services, you are in the dining hall. There is a dinner table with seating for eight, and a nicely stocked buffet table. On the rear wall, there is a ten-foot-tall painting of Orethys, who as it turns out, was an aarakocra. In the corners of the room are pedestals with busts of Orethys. He did not have a small opinion of himself.

The fact that Orethys was an aarakocra explains a few things. Aarakocras originate from the elemental plane of air. Any land in the elemental plane of air naturally forms a floating island. When Orethys created this demiplane, it naturally took on several of the characteristics of the plane of air, because that’s what Orethys was familiar with. The fact that he, his guests, and his caretakers were aarakocras explains why he did not provide any mechanism to fly from one island to island: they could already fly.

Around the dining room are other areas. A door leads to a clean restroom. A corridor leads to a row of bed chambers with well-made beds. An open archway leads to Featured Exhibits. All three areas are clearly labeled.

Guest services is in stasis, like everything else in the demiplane. The bathrooms always return to their clean state, the buffet table replenishes itself, and the beds remake themselves. Convenient!

The archway labeled Featured Exhibits leads to a large room. Just inside the archway is a pedestal, with a guidebook on it. Like everything else in the museum, the pedestal is in stasis. If you take away the guidebook, then next time you look, there will be another guidebook on the pedestal. With the help of this magic, you can get as many guidebooks as you want. The guidebook is described in the chapter Magic Items in Guest Services.

Also close to the archway is a second pedestal containing what looks like a tiny branding iron. The stabilization iron can apply a glyph to any object taken from an exhibit. Whereas an object taken from an exhibit will tend to vanish if you stop paying attention to it for an hour or two, an object with a stabilization glyph will last three or four days. The iron is described in Magic Items in Guest Services.

The back of the Featured Exhibits room divides into two showrooms.

One showroom is labeled Monsters of Divine Beauty, which contains readable information about three of the floating islands: The Harpy Eyrie, The Golden Goats of Olympus, and The Medusa’s Visage. All of these exhibits are described in subsequent chapters*.* The walls of the showroom are covered in paintings of the three creatures, and there are three large posters containing the guidebook blurbs for these three islands. There is also a chest containing stuff meant to be used at the harpy exhibit.

The other showroom is Innately Magical Craftspeople, which contains information about Claren’s Tapestries, Reggie’s Boots, and The Wasted Wino. There are paintings of the three craftspeople at work, paintings of their work, and again, three posterboards containing the guidebook blurbs.

Most of those exhibits have already been listed in this chapter, The Bottom Floors of the Museum. The exception is the medusa exhibit, which is listed a little later, in the Escaping the Museum chapter. This book includes an appendix, The Posters in Guest Services, which contains copies of the relevant blurbs. You can easily print out the appendix and hand it to your players.

In the back of the Featured Exhibits room is a locked door that says “caretakers only.” In the event that the players manage to pick the lock, they will find a closet containing a small pedestal. On the pedestal is the Capture Device. The PCs can’t do anything useful with the capture device yet, because it doesn’t work inside the museum, but if they want to examine it, they can. It is described in the upcoming chapter Magic Items in Guest Services.

Because guest services has bed chambers, it is an excellent place for a long rest. If the players do take a long rest, they experience their next deck-related feat: Deck Dreaming.

People who have drawn cards from the deck are all telepathically linked. A deck dream is actually a true vision of what is happening to somebody else who drew cards from the deck, as seen through the eyes of that person. If the players remember the deck dreams they have, this will give them a preview of several of the NPCs they will meet later in the campaign. It will also allow them to have insights into how to handle those NPCs. The deck dreams that the PCs can experience are all listed in the upcoming chapter, The Deck Dreamers. Feel free to skip ahead and look over the options.

Now that the players have a guidebook, the most obvious next step is to go talk to Diometron.

Magic Items in Guest Services

Guest services contains four interesting magic items that the PCs can take.

Item: The Guidebook

The guidebook is a leather-bound magical volume. It is found on a pedestal in guest services. It has several features:

• One page for each exhibit. Every exhibit has a name, such as “The

  Tavern of the South Gate.” Exhibits are sorted alphabetically by name. The page has a blurb about the exhibit, just a paragraph or two.

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• An index of residents. If you know the name of an person, you can

  find the name of the exhibit they’re associated with.

• A Cover with a painting of a compass. The compass is initially

  pointing due north.

• The Cover shows the name of the exhibit you are closest to, along

  with a danger rating. In guest services, the book says “Closest Exhibit: Guest Services. Danger: None”

• A bookmark, attached to a string, attached to the guidebook’s spine.

  The back of the guidebook explains that if you put the bookmark into the page for an exhibit, the compass on the cover will point toward that exhibit.

The guidebook is very useful for finding an exhibit if you know the exhibit name or a person’s name. Unfortunately, it’s not useful for finding exhibits by content. If one of your players says, “I’m just going to read all the exhibits until I find one that has a spellcaster who knows plane shift,” say, “you read for a while, but the blurbs aren’t giving the information you need.” Give them the blurb from The Radiant House as an example. Point out that this exhibit definitely contains a wizard, Dardannon, but the blurb tells you next to nothing about him. There’s no information about whether he can cast sending or plane shift. There’s no mention of what magic items he might have in his house. It doesn’t even say what level of spellcaster he is. The point is: trying to use the blurbs to search for specific things just isn’t working.

The rule for the guidebook is: if you know a person’s name or an exhibit name, the guidebook will help you locate the exhibit, and will also tell you a bit about the exhibit. But if you don’t have a name, it can’t help. Be upfront with the players about that simple rule.

The other thing the guidebook can do is tell you what exhibit you’re standing on. This can be useful, for example, if you find an exhibit that contains a building, and you aren’t sure whether it is wise to enter or not.

Item: The Stabilization Iron

When objects are taken from exhibits, they tend to stick around for about an hour, and then they vanish - in some sense, returning to their exhibit. They never vanish while you’re actively thinking about them or using them - they vanish when your attention turns elsewhere. This is the stasis effect in action.

The stabilization iron looks like a tiny branding iron. Used like a branding iron, it will apply a stabilization glyph to any object taken from an exhibit. This will cause the object to last several days, instead of an hour. The stabilization iron can be found on a pedestal in guest services.

Since both the guidebook and the iron are part of the guest services exhibit, they will both vanish after about an hour unless they are stabilized. This is advisable. To stabilize the stabilization iron itself, you will need two stabilization irons, so that the two can apply glyphs to each other. To get two irons, you have to take one from the pedestal, leave the room, and come back. Let the PCs figure out this little puzzle.

The iron can be used an unlimited number of times per day. It can stabilize any object, animal, or person taken from an exhibit.

Using the iron to stabilize a person who is part of an exhibit will have a surprising effect. NPCs in exhibits tend to forget new things very quickly. That is particularly true when you show them other islands: they have a mental block against thinking about other islands. These limitations make it largely impossible to have a productive conversation about the museum with an NPC. The stabilization glyph eliminates both these limitations. A stabilized NPC can remember everything you tell them for several days, and can observe and think about other islands. They can even travel with the party (if they’re able to climb ropes).

The PCs may try to stabilize themselves. If they do, the stabilization glyph is indeed applied, but there is no effect.

Item: The Capture Device

The Capture Device is used to create new exhibits in the museum. If there were written instructions, which there aren’t, this is what they would say:

Leave the museum, taking the capture device with you. Then, look for an interesting person to add to the museum. Put the capture device in the building with the interesting person. Activate the device, which begins a countdown. Evacuate the building before the countdown expires. When the countdown finishes, the entire building will be captured as an exhibit.

The device is found in guest services, in a locked closet. It can also be given to the PCs by the caretakers.

The Capture Device is a metal cylinder, about three inches in diameter, and two inches tall. The cylinder has two halves, separated by a hairline crack. It radiates magic strongly. The two halves can be rotated relative to each other.

If you activate it by rotating it, it says, “Exhibit capture in five minutes. Evacuate the building.” Then it starts a verbal countdown. At the end of five minutes, it tries to collect an exhibit. If it fails, it says one of the following error messages:

• “Capture failed. Cannot capture inside the museum” - The device

  simply doesn’t work inside the museum. You can’t capture what’s already been captured.

• “Capture failed. Powerful force resists capture” - The person being

  captured gets to make a wisdom saving throw, DC15. If they make the saving throw, then the capture fails. There are other situations where a being or a place might be too powerful to capture.

• “Capture failed. Must be inside a structure” - The device is meant

  to be placed inside a building or similar structure. It will capture the whole building. It can also work inside a fenced-in area. If it’s not inside a structure, the device doesn’t know what area to capture.

• “Capture failed. Exhibit does not contain an exotic person, animal,

  or anomaly” - The exhibit must contain something worthy of the Museum. This is up to the DM’s discretion.

• “Capture failed. Exhibit may contain at most two people” - This

  version of the device can only capture two people, maximum.

If one of these errors occurs, it will be spoken at the end of the countdown, and again when somebody picks up the device. But if everything goes right, there will be a “whoomp,” and the area will get sucked into the Museum, along with its inhabitants. What is left behind is typically a crater.

Of course, if you try to use this device inside the museum, you just keep getting the message “cannot capture inside the museum.”

There is only one Capture Device - it is a rare object in the museum that is not in stasis. When you take it from its pedestal, the pedestal doesn’t refill. Unlike other things found in the museum, you can take it out of the Museum. When it successfully captures a new exhibit, the capture device goes to the Museum along with everything else in the exhibit. Then, the caretakers will put it back on its pedestal, and it will take several months to recharge.

After the party finally escapes from the museum, they will have the capture device with them. If they activate the capture device and then fail to evacuate the building, then in theory, some of the party members could get pulled back into the museum. That would not be fun. Don’t allow this to happen: just make up an excuse. There are several excuses built-in to the device: it can’t capture more than two people (and the party is probably more than two people), and it allows a saving throw (at least one party member can probably succeed at the save). If those excuses don’t work, make up a different excuse.

Item: The Potion of Willpower

In guest services, there is a small chest designed to help you with the harpy exhibit. The chest contains a monk robe and a “potion of willpower.”

Orethys provides the potion as a means to resist the charms of the Harpies. But the potion is actually a general-purpose potion that gives a +5 on wisdom saving throws, for an hour or so. The PCs can successfully use it for anything wisdom-save related.

Escaping the Museum

After exploring the bottom floors of the museum, the PCs will be ready to escape the Museum. The escape process is fairly linear. There’s a lot to do before the PCs can actually leave!

Meeting Diometron

Diometron is a rogue modron. Orethys’ interest in him is purely because rogue modrons are rare. Here is what the guidebook has to say about Diometron:

<WRITE BLURB ABOUT DIOMETRON>

Diometron became a rogue modron when his traveling party encountered a group of slaads. One slaad infected Diometron with slaad reproductive essence. Fortunately for Diometron, modrons are very resistant to elemental chaos. The slaad essence has not been able to take him over. But it’s still in there, trying.

When Diometron was infected, he asked his superiors what to do. They decided that he was too badly damaged to repair, so they instructed him to report for incineration. Diometron did not comply, instead, he fled and went into hiding. He was hiding in a garden shed when Orethys captured him. He now sleeps in the garden shed, but he explores the museum when he is awake.

When Diometron first went rogue, he was a duodrone. Contrary to popular belief, duodrones are not stupid: they just lack independence. If it were not for the slaad essence inside him driving him toward independence and free-thinking, he would have submitted to incineration.

It is well known that most rogue modrons become quadrones. You might wonder how this is possible. It is because modrons come from the factory with the hardware necessary to change their own configuration. When a modron is given a promotion, the modron automatically transforms into the correct shape for their new rank. Most people don’t realize it, but modrons are actually shape-changers: people don’t realize it because modrons only change their shape in response to promotion.

When a modron shape-changes, they always do so with an approved blueprint. Modrons come from the factory with four blueprints preinstalled: monodrone, duodrone, tridrone, and quadrone. To upgrade beyond that point, they must obtain a higher-level blueprint from their superior.

When a modron goes rogue, they already have everything they need to self-promote to quadrone. They cannot promote beyond that point, because they don’t have a blueprint for anything beyond quadrone.

A healthy modron would never, ever consider making up their own blueprint. The results would be utterly unpredictable, and modrons loathe unpredictability. But Diometron is modron corrupted by slaad essence. When he realized he was trapped on a floating island, he started wishing that his quadrone wings were not vestigial. The more he thought about it, the more it occurred to him that it would be a fairly simple modification to the blueprint to make the wings functional. He agonized over whether or not it would be lawful to invent one’s own blueprint. But in the end, he succumbed to temptation. Diometron can now fly around the exhibits.

Diometron is resistant to the stasis effect: unlike all the other museum denizens, he does not forget everything he sees. He explains this as follows: “My memory systems have multiple layers of redundancy to prevent data loss. The museum keeps trying to reset my memory, but my systems keep restoring my memory from backup. This has been going on for seventy years. I am confident that I will not experience data loss.” It is a side effect of the “axiomatic mind” power that all modrons possess.

Diometron knows that he is corrupted by chaos, and it terrifies him. He believes that he is not a force for good in the universe - he believes that he is likely to spread chaos, and that’s the worst thing a being can do. For this reason, he is very glad that he lives in the Museum of Orethys. He knows that everything the museum is in stasis, and therefore, it is not really possible to harm anyone in the museum. Diometron is afraid to interact with anyone who is not in stasis, because he is afraid that he will spread chaos and corruption to them. Periodically, Diometron will say that he “should have reported for incineration.” He has a severely damaged sense of self-esteem.

Diometron’s name is a name that he gave himself. It is a combination of the following words:

• Di, meaning two.

• Metric, meaning measurement systems.

• Tron, meaning a mechanism.

So he views himself as a mechanism with two different, incompatible value systems: one, his original modron value system, and two, the value system of the slaad inside him. He does not think these are separable: like it or not, he is part slaad now. So he must constantly struggle to balance his modron values with his slaad values. In reality, he is far, far more modron than slaad. Probably 90% modron, 10% slaad. He is not overtly chaotic at all. But the slaad influence does enable him to act with some independence from the modron collective.

Diometron is an intensely curious person. He has studied everything there is to study in the museum. He has read every book in Dame Kenere’s library multiple times, and he is proud of what he has learned. He will point out, whenever given the opportunity, that he is an “excellent swordsman,” an “excellent wizard,” an “excellent musician,” an “excellent bartender,” an “excellent weaver,” and everything else under the sun. He proclaims his skill in a matter-of-fact way, but he is quite proud. In reality, he’s good at several of those things, and he overestimates his ability at some of them.

The fact that Diometron brags a little is essential to the plot: Diometron must tell the players, “I am an excellent Wizard.” That way, it will occur to them that maybe he can cast sending.

Diometron is lonely. He talks to everyone in the museum, but of course, nobody can remember him, and that makes him feel disconnected. He does sometimes talk to the caretakers, but there’s a problem: the caretakers are obligated, by geas, to try to keep him in his exhibit. Whenever Diometron talks about what he has been doing, the caretakers are forced to respond, “you shouldn’t be doing that, you should be in your exhibit.” They never give him any encouragement, because they can’t. So it’s not much fun for diometron to talk to the caretakers, and the caretakers don’t enjoy stomping on Diometron’s spirit either. So they don’t talk that often.

Diometron has a strange verbal tic: he doesn’t use contractions. He always says “do not” instead of “don’t,” he always says “I will not” instead of “I won’t.” When he talks, he repeatedly tilts his head from side to side. He says, “I am an excellent speaker of your common tongue.”

Even when Diometron is saying something sad, like “I am corrupted by chaos, I should have been incinerated,” he speaks in a bright, cheery voice. His emotions are not expressed through tone of voice.

If the PCs look for Diometron, the guidebook will guide the PCs to the shed. Diometron may or may not be there (flip a coin.) If not, the PCs can wait around and Diometron will eventually show up. If the PCs ask the caretakers about Diometron, the caretakers will tell the PCs that this is the right way to find him - just wait at his shed.

The shed itself is utterly uninteresting: a completely mundane gardening shed. Diometron sleeps while standing in a corner. He sleeps in his own exhibit as a concession to the caretakers: they wanted him to stay in his exhibit, he wanted to explore the museum, so he compromised and agreed to sleep in his exhibit - at least that way, he’s there some of the time. The caretakers acknowledged that they had no power to force him, so they eventually just shrugged and accepted the deal.

When Diometron first sees the PCs, he is terrified (because he is afraid he’ll spread chaos), but he is also fascinated - these are the first new people he’s seen in decades. Then he notices something that is very important to him: He says, “I have sensors that can detect the presence of elemental chaos. The level of chaos in your bodies is elevated. You are corrupted by chaos. I am also corrupted by chaos.” Suddenly, he feels a strange kinship for the PCs. He is also less afraid of corrupting them, because they are already corrupted.

Of course, the chaos that Diometron detects is a side effect of using the Deck of Many Things. The deck is one of the most powerful chaos artifacts in the multiverse, and it leaches elemental chaos into everything it touches.

Diometron loves to talk. He is happy to explain anything that the PCs care to ask him.

If the PCs suggest that Diometron could escape the museum with them, Diometron will balk. Diometron is terrified of the idea of spreading his chaos outside the museum. If the PCs are persuasive enough, they may be able to move Diometron to warm up to the idea.

Diometron is relevant to the PCs for two reasons:

• He is a 6th level wizard who can cast sending.

• Other than the caretakers, he is the only NPC in the museum who can

  remember the PCs.

But aside from that, Diometron is designed to be a likeable NPC. He is friendly, he is cheerful, and he is enthusiastically helpful. Furthermore, he has some qualities that should tug at their heartstrings a little bit. It is intended that the PCs should relatively quickly develop a friendship for Diometron. This is important to the plot: later in the campaign, the PCs will be given the opportunity to dismantle the entire museum. If the PCs care about the NPCs in the museum, if they have emotional investment in their well-being, then freeing the NPCs from the museum will be a goal that feels important to them.

Sending a Distress Call

The PCs will want to contact a friend outside the museum, to ask for help escaping the museum. The most likely way to do that is to ask Diometron to cast sending.

If the PCs ask Diometron to cast sending, he points out there’s a catch: “In order to cast sending, I have to be familiar with the recipient. All my colleagues used to be modrons, but I cannot safely contact them, because they want to incinerate me. There is nobody outside the museum that I can contact, because I lack familiarity with everyone outside the museum.”

The PCs can work around this in several different ways:

• The PCs could try to tell Diometron about a friend outside the

  museum. For it to work, the PCs must do at least two or three of the following:

  • Use Disguise Self to make themselves look like the friend.

  • Make a good performance roll to act like the friend.

  • Use the Encode Thoughts cantrip to give Diometron a thought of

    the friend.

  • Ask Diometron to cast Detect Thoughts, then visualize the

    friend.

  • Use telepathy to communicate an impression of the friend.

  • Give a detailed, compelling verbal description of the friend.

  • There may be other ways.

• The PCs could ask Diometron to contact Dame Kenere. Diometron has

  read all her books, and has seen her portrait many times. That is familiar enough.

• The PCs could ask Johann, the Dreaming Ghost, instead of asking

  Diometron. Johann can enter the dreams of people all over the multiverse, and Johann, being inside the PCs’ dream, can easily see who the PC is thinking of. The only catch is that Johann can only talk to people in their dreams. If the friend is somebody who pays attention to dreams (priests usually do, and so do mystics), great. If not, there is a chance they might ignore their dream.

Once the PCs figure all this out, they send the message. The actual content of the message isn’t that important. “We’re trapped in a big weird cavern, we can’t get out” is sufficient. It also isn’t especially important who they send the message to: we can just assume that whomever they contact will eventually pass the message on to the right person.

One person the PCs could try to contact is Green. If they try, Green says, “We’ve been trying to find somebody who can plane shift to where you are, with no luck. Now that you’re in verbal contact, maybe there’s new options. I’m going to talk to my diviner, just hold tight.” Green and his diviner end up passing the message on to the right person, and the rescue is underway.

One challenge here is that the players did very little roleplaying outside the museum, so they may not be able to think of anybody to send the distress call to. So during character creation, when you ask your players to create background stories, make sure they include at least one living friend in their background story. That way, they’ll have somebody to send to.

Regardless of the details of how they do it, the players will eventually get a message out.

When the players send their distress call, the message gets passed from person to person. As a DM, it will be on you to invent a chain by which the message ends up in Tymora’s ear. Maybe the PC sent a distress call to his wife, and the wife talked to her priest, and that priest talked to another priest, who happened to be a priest of Tymora. It doesn’t matter what the exact sequence of communication was, it’s only important that somehow, the PC’s distress call reaches Tymora.

Shortly after sending the distress call, the PCs get a sending from somebody they don’t know:

“Hi! I’m Joycie, I can probably get you out. I need you to try to find a teleportation circle. If you find one, use sending to send me the sigil sequence - that’s the series of arcane runes that surround the circle. As soon as I get that sigil sequence, I’ll be there. Also, give thanks to Tymora!”

The message is from Joycie, a powerful priestess of Tymora who can cast plane shift. She will be the one to eventually get the players out of the museum. So next, a brief digression, about why Tymora is getting involved.

What Tymora Wants

Tymora is very upset about the Deck. She feels like the god who created the deck is trying to steal the portfolios of Good Luck and Bad Luck. The PCs will soon meet some priestesses of Tymora, and the priestesses will be direct about Tymora’s problem. Here is how they will explain it:

Let me ask you something: Who do you think created the Deck? Most people would assume that it was Tymora and Beshaba. After all, the most powerful luck-dispensing magic item in the universe would surely have been created by the gods of luck, wouldn’t it? But as it turns out, Tymora and Beshaba didn’t create the deck. So who did?

We know it wasn’t created by a mortal, because it’s just way too powerful. Think about it: it’s been conjuring dozens of magic items, it’s granted tons of wishes. No magic item created by a mortal could do that. So it has to have been created by a god, and a powerful one at that. But which one? We don’t know.

But people are starting to say that there’s a “new” god of luck in town. People are saying, “If you want good luck, go to Tymora. But if you really need good luck desperately, go to the Deck of Many Things.” People are saying that whoever created the deck is a more powerful luck god than Tymora. She’s losing a lot of respect in the eyes of the population.

Funny thing is, Tymora’s a young goddess, only a few thousand years old, we think the deck is much older. Ancient records mention it a long, long time ago. Yet despite that, this hasn’t ever been a problem before.

In the past, the deck used to appear once every hundred years or so. It would turn somebody’s life upside down, and then it would vanish, not to be heard from again for another hundred years. It never stuck around longer than two or three days. People tried to put it into vaults, they tried to guard it, but nonetheless always disappeared after just a few days. By the time the news got out to the public that the deck had made an appearance, it was already gone. So the public never had a chance to actually see the deck, and there was always a lot of skepticism about whether it even existed at all or whether it was just a bedtime story. People used to hear about it, and then realize it was already gone, and they would forget about it just as quickly.

But this time, the Deck has been sticking around. Green’s been running his little draw-cards business for several months now. We have no idea why the deck isn’t vanishing this time, but it’s not. So this time, it’s really entered into the public imagination in a way that it never has before, and that’s what’s threatening to Tymora - public perceptions are essential to a goddess keeping her worshippers, and being perceived as “the second-best goddess of luck” would be deadly to her.

Now, as for me, as a priestess of Tymora, I actually don’t care who’s more powerful. I trust Tymora. She isn’t just a goddess of luck, she’s also a kind and caring goddess and I just think it’s best for the universe if she’s the goddess of luck, as opposed to some cold and amoral god who just likes randomness. So that’s why I’m sticking with Tymora to the end. But other people might not see it that way.

So now Tymora finds herself in the position where she has to defend her turf. She’s not an aggressive goddess at all, she doesn’t want to start a war. But she can’t let another god position himself as the most powerful god of luck. If you’re a god, protecting your portfolio is mandatory - if you don’t, you’ll fade out of existence.

So now Tymora wants to try to negotiate with this other god. That’s where you guys come in. Tymora can see lines of telepathic connection radiating out from you - she can see that you’re connected to some of the other people who drew cards from the deck. She also thinks you might be connected to the god who created the deck. She hopes she can trace those lines of force to find the other god. But to do that, she needs you to strengthen your telepathic connection to the god who made the Deck.

We also want to buy the Deck from Green. Tymora doesn’t want to take it by force, that wouldn’t be right. So she isn’t going to appear in her full glory in front of Green, that would be a show of force, and Green might interpret it as a threat. She doesn’t want to do that. So she wants to send a low-level ambassador instead. She thinks you guys would make great ambassadors, because you already know Green. We also think you can escort one of our priestesses to Green.

Of course, you won’t be able to remember this whole monologue. Just remember these bullet points:

• About the Conflict between Tymora and the God who made the Deck:

  • Tymora didn’t create the deck.

  • People are saying the deck’s creator is the “new” god of luck.

  • Tymora isn’t going to allow some other god to take over her job!

• About Tymora and the Deck:

  • Tymora is a young goddess. The deck is much, much older.

  • In the past, Tymora never had a conflict with the deck, because

    it never stuck around.

  • This time, the deck has been doing its thing for months and not

    disappearing.

• About Tymora and the Telepathic Channels:

  • Tymora can sense a “channel” connecting the PCs to the god who

    created the deck.

  • Tymora wants to track the channel to find that god, but the

    connection is too weak.

  • Tymora wants the PCs to strengthen that connection by

    interacting with the deck some more.

• About Tymora and Green:

  • Tymora wants to buy the deck from Green.

  • She thinks the PCs will make good negotiators, because they know

    Green.

Tymora’s desire to help the PCs is, to a degree, self-serving - she’s helping because she needs something in return. But Tymora is still a good goddess, and she isn’t going to do anything to hurt the PCs. She really is going to rescue them from being imprisoned in the Museum, and she’s not being unreasonable in asking for help with her problem.

The Teleportation Circle and the Medusa

Joycie needs the PCs to find a teleportation circle. There is only one teleportation circle in the museum, in the medusa exhibit. From the Guidebook:

The face of a Medusa is amazingly beautiful, in a strange and otherworldly way. Some people say it is a blessing from the gods, other say it was her beauty that led to her being cursed. Sadly, few ever get to see her face and tell the tale.

Fortunately, you can look at a Medusa in a mirror without getting petrified. The traditional approach is to shine your shield to a mirror-like finish, then walk up to her backward while looking at her in your shield. If the arrows in your back make you question the wisdom of the traditional approach, do not worry: your friend Orethys is here!

I built a hall of mirrors, and I teleported a Medusa into the back of it. You can enter the front. I have timed it: it takes her 16 minutes to get to the front of the mirror-labyrinth. That gives you about 14 minutes to enjoy her beauty and 2 minutes to flee the exhibit. Of course, I could have just given you a potion of protection against petrification, but where would be the fun in that? This is so much more entertaining.

By the way, some people say that if a Medusa sees her own reflection, she will be petrified. I can assure you that is not the case. The reflection of a Medusa is safe, for you and for her as well.

The sigil sequence for the teleportation circle is, in rune-script, “put medusa here.” Most PCs probably can’t read rune-script, but Diometron can: he learned it from a book in Dame Kenere’s library.

Creating this exhibit was a multi-step process. Here is how Orethys did it:

• Step 1. Build a hall of mirrors.

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• Step 2. Put a teleportation circle in the back of the hall.

• Step 3. Give the sigil sequence to a friend.

• Step 4. The friend teleports a medusa into the circle.

• Step 5. The instant the medusa arrives, Orethys captures the hall

  into the museum.

The outside of the exhibit is a rectangular stone building - a sturdy bunker designed to keep the medusa contained. The inside of the building is a mirror maze. The building has about a dozen steel doors around the outside of it. Each steel door has a sturdy deadbolt that can only be operated from outside the maze. The medusa cannot get out unless the PCs open a door. One of the doors is marked, “use this door,” and another is marked, “do not use this door!”

The PCs might wonder why there are so many doors. Here’s why: Orethys didn’t know which path the medusa would take inside the maze. Rather than try to guess, he accounted for every possibility: he built entry doors all over the maze. Then, he waited until the medusa was in the museum, and he observed her. She always follows the exact same path, because she is in stasis. Because she always follows the exact same path, there is a door that she reaches first, a door she reaches second, and so forth, until the one door she reaches last. Orethys made a note of which door she reaches last, and marked it “use this door.”

There is also a door right by the teleportation circle where the medusa is initially standing. That door is marked, “do not use this door!”

There are several ways that the PCs can find out that the medusa exhibit contains a teleportation circle. One is to enter the medusa exhibit. As soon as you’re in the exhibit, the circle is quite visible, reflected in the mirrors.

Another way to find out is to look carefully at the pictures of the medusa exhibit on the wall in guest services. When the PCs are in guest services, if they do the museum in the usual order, then they aren’t specifically looking for a teleportation circle at that time. So of course they won’t consciously notice it.

Later, when the PCs learn they need a teleportation circle, let them make an easy insight roll. When they inevitably succeed, tell them “you’re sure you’ve seen some kind of magic circle in the museum… you’re just not 100% sure where.” Let them enjoy a little hunt. If they go back to guest services and check the pictures, they automatically spot it.

To get the sigil sequence of the teleportation circle, you will have to get the medusa out of the way. One way to get her out of the way is to kill her. That’s pretty hard for low-level characters. But it’s not actually necessary. Instead, you can have one party member enter the maze through the “safe” door. Then, the party member waits until the medusa is about halfway between the back and the front. The party member signals a friend, who enters the “unsafe” door, and memorizes the sigil sequence of the teleportation circle. Then both people get the heck out. They can then relay the sigil sequence to the rescue party, warning the rescue party that they will have to tangle with a medusa. The rescue party is high-level, they are not worried about a medusa.

If the PCs ask whether they can figure out the layout of the exhibit from the pictures in guest services, just say, “yes, easily,” and hand them the map of the medusa exhibit.

The PCs can safely study the door mechanism. It takes the medusa at least two minutes to reach any door other than the one she starts at. So the PCs have time to open a door, examine the mechanism, and close and lock the door before anything bad happens. There is not much to see: ordinary hinges, and an ordinary deadbolt, very sturdy. The door frame has a metal flange to make it impossible for the medusa to poke a thieves tool between the door jamb and the door. It is designed to be only openable from the outside.

When the PCs are inside the maze, they can easily see the medusa moving around in the mirrors. It’s impossible to tell where she is - the reflections of reflections are just too disorienting - but it’s easy to tell how close she is, because the largest reflection in the mirror will keep getting larger as she gets closer.

It is possible that a character might have some means of sensing the medusa other than sight. If so, that’s a nice victory for that character.

Some players may try to reason with the medusa. Bear in mind that the medusa was attacked by a wizard who teleported her into a mirror maze. Because she is in stasis, she thinks this just happened five minutes ago. She is and always will be both panicked and angry. But if you’re persuasive enough, it is possible.

The Priestesses Arrive

When the players get the sigil sequence from the teleportation circle, and send it to Joycie, Joycie immediate uses plane shift to come to the teleportation circle, and she brings her friend and coworker, Lada. If the medusa is in there, Joycie is more than tough enough to handle the medusa.

Joycie is a powerful lv 14 Cleric of Tymora, she works at Tymora’s primary temple in Brightwater. Her life is very busy: when a lower-level priest needs help with something particularly difficult, they often go to Joycie. This month, Joycie is on plane shift duty - she’s pretty much spending the whole month ferrying people around the multiverse. She will get the PCs out of the demiplane, but that’s as much help as she can offer. She’s an essential worker at the temple in Brightwater, and she can’t be spared for long.

Lada is only a lv 3 cleric, but she’s Tymora’s best theoretical fortunologist. She has a huge passion for research into how magical luck spells work. Another favorite topic of hers is the Deck of Many Things, though she’s never been able to research one except through dusty tomes. Tymora specifically asked Lada to spend time with the players: Tymora knows that Lada will investigate the Deck with great enthusiasm.

Both Joycie and Lada are genuinely good allies for the players to know. They are trustworthy and smart and will do their best to help in any situation. This is not just because Tymora assigned them this task, it’s also because they’re just plain good people.

Joycie is bubbly and friendly, she has a happy-go-lucky attitude. She assumes things are going to go great, and she’s usually right - after all, serving Lady Luck has its benefits. She likes to flirt with cute guys, but she’s not actually looking for a date, she’s just playing. She’s also quite busy, she can’t stick around long. Joycie appears human, but quite tall: 7 feet tall, and her forehead is prominent. She’s one-eighth hill giant.

Lada is very shy and awkward, but once she finally feels comfortable around you, she becomes quite warm. She is very passionate about her research. She thinks that magical luck is much more strange and powerful than it appears to be. She has devised dozens of experiments to test what magical luck spells are capable of doing. She knows exactly how they impact probability and statistics. Lada is a youngish halfling, with a mop of wild curly hair.

Joycie won’t stick around long, but Lada will. Lada’s serves several purposes: first, it’s important for the players to have friendly NPCs that they care about, so that they feel invested in the world and so that they feel like the world is worth protecting and saving. Second, Lada raises weird questions that the players can think about and even research during the course of the campaign. This will make the world more mysterious and interesting for them. Finally, Lada can be a channel through which the DM occasionally gives hints to the players.

In combat, let the players take turns controlling Lada. She strongly prefers to spend her combat actions healing, blessing, and buffing. She rarely deals damage directly. If the PCs try to push her around and tell her to get on the front lines, she refuses. If the PCs mistreat her in any significant way, she will leave the party, with Tymora’s blessing: Tymora won’t subject her priestesses to abuse, Tymora will find another way to research the deck. Lada is always one level lower than the rest of the PCs, and she is only ever in a support role.

When the two priestesses appear in the teleportation circle, they introduce themselves. Lada is quiet and withdrawn because of her shyness, but she’s secretly in awe of the PCs because they have had contact with the Deck. Joycie is her outgoing bubbly self.

Joycie presents the players with Tymora’s request: “I need to be honest. We are here to rescue you, but we’re not just here to rescue you - we were hoping for your help with something.” She gives the explanation in the previous chapter, What Tymora Wants.

The plot of the entire campaign revolves around the PCs joining into the service of Tymora. They must accept the job. If the PCs refuse, do whatever you have to do to convince them. The best way to do this is to make an impassioned but reasoned argument. For example, Joycie could say, “Tymora is a genuinely good goddess, and she needs help. If Tymora were to lose her position as the goddess of Luck, I can’t imagine what terrible echoes that would have for the universe. And don’t forget, she went out of her way to help you when you were in trouble. If you do agree, you’ll have the gratitude of our priesthood for the rest of your lives. Please, we really do need your help.”

A Failed Departure

When the PCs are ready to leave the Museum, Joycie instructs everyone to form a circle. She takes out a tuning fork for the Outlands, and casts plane shift. Joycie and Lada vanish, but the PCs are still in the museum. A few minutes later, the PCs get a sending from Joycie: “What happened? Are you still in the museum? I’m going to take a long rest, we’ll come try again in the morning.”

Here’s what went wrong: as explained in the Golden Goats blurb, it is physically impossible to remove a piece of an exhibit from the demiplane, even using plane shift. The PCs are part of an exhibit. They will have to buy their freedom in order to leave.

Two Divine Visitations

While waiting for the two priestesses to return, the PCs will receive visitations from two goddesses.

Selune

The PCs are sitting around doing not much, waiting for Joycie to return. Suddenly, the scene shifts: they are in a grassy field, surrounded by hills, at night. The moon is absolutely enormous in the sky, and everything is bathed in silvery moonlight. A female figure descends from the sky, wearing a long flowing dress. She settles on the grass in front of the PCs. It is Selune. She says:

Tymora is one of my best friends, and she is as trustworthy and kind as a goddess can be. But she is making a mistake. I encourage you to work with her, but just be aware: there will come a point in time when you have to tell her to stop what she’s doing.

Here is what I ask of you: keep your eyes open. Use your brains. If you see her do something that you think is going to cause harm, you must speak up. Tell her, or tell her priestesses. Do not be overawed by her divine presence. You speaking up at an appropriate moment may be all that stands between her and disaster.

The PCs can then talk to Selune. They will probably ask “What kind of mistake is she making? What do you know about this situation? Give us details.” Selune responds:

A long, long time ago, I made a promise to keep a secret. I am bound by that promise: I could not break it if I wanted to. Because of that promise, I cannot give you any more details than I already have. I am relying on you to figure out what it is that I cannot say. I have seen you in the museum: you are clever, and you are good at figuring things out. I trust that you will discover what you need to before it is too late.

So here’s the backstory that you can’t tell to your players: when the universe was young, Omta planted the seeds of randomness, knowing full well that the creator of the universe would not be happy about what Omta had done. After planting that seed, Omta fled and hid, hoping that nobody saw what he did. However, somebody did see: Selune. Selune tracked Omta back to his hiding place, and asked: “what did you do, and why?” After hearing Omta’s explanation, Selune decided it was for the best: the universe really would be better with some randomness. She promised to Omta that she would not reveal what he had done. She promised that she would let his existence and his hiding place remain a secret. Selune has kept his secret for millenia.

So now, Omta is still in hiding, and now Tymora is trying to track down Omta to his hiding place, in order to challenge him for the portfolio of Luck. Selune thinks this is a mistake: she thinks there is no real conflict between Omta and Tymora, and she thinks a war between them would be a disaster. She approached Tymora and advised Tymora to leave the Deck alone. However, because of her promise to Omta, she couldn’t give any further explanation to Tymora. Tymora trusts Selune, but she’s not willing to simply do what Selune tells her to do with no explanation. Tymora, exasperated at Selune’s unwillingness to explain her reasoning, told Selune that she will persist until somebody gives her a clear, logical reason why she shouldn’t.

When the PCs speak to Selune, let her be soft-spoken and very warm. She doesn’t stick around long. She gives her warning, answers a question or two, then says goodbye. The scene shifts back to the museum.

Beshaba

Beshaba’s visitation comes immediately after Selune’s, and it deliberately mocks Selune’s visitation. Once again, the scene shifts, and the players are in “the same” field, surrounded by “the same” rolling hills. But this time, the ground they’re sitting on is sharp obsidian shards, and the sky is filled with roiling black clouds, with shafts of red light breaking through. This is what Beshaba’s home plane in the Abyss looks like. Again, a female figure descends from the sky, wearing the same long flowing dress. Beshaba sits on the ground in the same pose as Selune. She says,

“Am I not more beautiful than Selune?”

Let the PCs hem and haw awkwardly for a minute, then have Beshaba give her speech:

Tymora is my sister, and as arrogant as a goddess can be. I am here to tell you that she is making a mistake. She is trying to find the god who made the deck, so that she can challenge him for the portfolio of luck. This will inevitably lead to war between gods.

When two gods war, usually, both gods survive. But that’s not true for the mortals involved. Very likely, thousands of priests and innocents will die in a war between gods. And if one of the gods does die, that will cause untold upheavals in the multiverse, with thousands more innocents dying.

Of course, I’m not really being altruistic here. I just don’t want to get dragged into a war between gods. I figure if this other god attacks Tymora, he’s going to attack me too. I don’t know how powerful this other god is, or what he can do to me. That’s not a risk I want to take. I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie.

So here’s what I want from you: pretend to work for Tymora. But when the time comes for her to actually obtain the deck, I want you to undermine her. For example, if she asks you to negotiate for the deck, negotiate badly. If she looks like she’s going to take the deck by force, talk her out of it. Do what you have to do to stop her.

This is 100% lies.

Beshaba’s rationale, “preventing war,” is obviously out-of-character. Beshaba would love it if some other god were to fight Tymora. She would love it if thousands of innocents were to die in a war between gods. She would relish all that. She’s also not really afraid of being attacked by this other god.

The reason for the lying is that Beshaba has a plan. Gods are most powerful in their own realm. Beshaba intends to use the Deck to lure Tymora into her realm, where Beshaba is at her most powerful, and where Tymora is at her least powerful, so that Beshaba can kill Tymora. To do that, she needs to make sure that Tymora doesn’t get the deck first. That’s Beshaba’s goal: get the Deck before Tymora does, so she can use it as bait. All those reasonable-sounding explanations are just lies designed to sell the PCs on the whole endeavor.

The PCs may ask, “If you want to stop us from getting the Deck, why not just give us tons of bad luck?” Beshaba responds matter-of-factly:

Certainly, I could throw annoying obstacles in your way. I could also just kill you. But that wouldn’t stop Tymora. She would just find other people to carry out her mission. You’re much more valuable to me alive: you have Tymora’s ear, and you can convince her of things.

Again, Beshaba only answers questions for a minute, and then she ends the visitation.

The Arrival of Castle Green

After the two visitations, the PCs have to wait the night. In the middle of the night, they’re awakened by the caretakers Keira and Qurak, who say, “Castle Green is arriving. Want to come see it?” If the PCs ask “How do you know it’s coming,” they say, “the guidebook alerted us!” The guidebook used to say:

Exhibit will be located inside Castle Green. The arrival of Castle Green has been delayed.

But now it says:

Exhibit will be located inside Castle Green. Castle Green will be arriving soon.

The PCs may be hesitant to visit their own exhibit, for fear of getting trapped in their exhibit. Obviously, the PCs do not want to spend eternity in a diorama. So Keira and Qurak might have to convince the PCs. They make the following arguments:

• We can’t actually imprison you in your diorama. We have no power to

  do that. That’s why Diometron wanders the museum.

• You don’t actually have to go inside. You can stand on the next

  island over, and just look. You could send in Diometron to investigate for you, if you want.

If the PCs aren’t interested even after Keira encourages them, don’t force them. It’s not essential.

If the PCs do travel to the appropriate location, they find a clearing in the cavern where the new floating island is going to be. The clearing is filled with thin white mist. Keira explains that’s what it looks like when an exhibit is arriving.

After staring at the appropriate spot for 15 minutes or so, the top half of Castle Green appears, including everything from about waist level on up. The top half of the castle has been sliced off of the bottom half, and the bottom half was left behind. The main tower is completely unattached to anything. The chunks of Castle Green sink a few feet, then start bobbing in space: this is now the first “floating island” without any island. The pieces of Castle Green are hovering in space, levitated by the same force that keeps the floating islands floating. There are no people in the debris.

When Keira sees this happen, she just sighs and says, “Great. Well, that’s a shitshow.” Qurak says, “Screw this, I’m getting lunch.”

If the players check, there’s very little in the wreckage. There is nobody in there. Everything of value has been taken. The big room where the PCs drew cards from the deck is there, hovering at a crooked angle, with the desk flopped over on its side, and the desk accessories scattered around the room. The Deck is not present.

This event is here purely to make the players wonder what the heck is going on at Castle Green.

If the players look at the guidebook under “The Deck of Many Things,” the text now says: “Exhibit is Out of Order.”

The Final Departure

Joycie and Lada return to the museum, via the teleportation circle. They ask the PCs why the plane shift failed. Eventually, the group will ask Keira and Qurak about it. Keira explains: “You’re part of an exhibit. You’re the property of the museum. You can’t take any part of an exhibit out of the museum, even with plane shift. It’s just impossible.”

But then Qurak, who has been mostly silent for the entire time the PCs have been in the museum, steps forward. He says, “It’s not entirely impossible. We can grant permission.” He explains the following bullet points:

• Qurak has the power to set the PCs free, by saying some “magic

  words.”

• However, Keira and Qurak are compelled, by geas, to do what’s in the

  best interests of the museum. Orethys would not approve of giving away an exhibit, no matter how bad the exhibit. Orethys never gave anything away. So the geas prevents Qurak from releasing the PCs.

• Qurak has an idea for a workaround: he could trade the PCs exhibit

  for a better exhibit. That would be in the best interests of the museum, and therefore, would be allowed under the geas.

• The actual procedure would be this: Qurak sets the PCs free, and the

  PCs agree to capture a new, better exhibit within a month or so, using the capture device.

• There’s a catch: if the PCs fail to follow through and capture an

  exhibit, the geas punishes Qurak by torturing him. Actually, geas will eventually kill him, but since he’s in the museum, he can’t die, so it will just keep torturing him forever.

• Qurak is willing to accept this risk, in exchange for a promise: the

  PCs will try to dismantle the museum, and set Qurak and Keira free. Qurak will take this risk because he is desperate for freedom.

If the PCs object on the grounds that they can’t morally put another person in the museum, Qurak makes these arguments:

• You could capture somebody who’s a danger to others, somebody who

  genuinely deserves to be in a prison.

• It doesn’t necessarily have to be an exhibit with a person in it. It

  could just be an interesting place or object.

• If you’re serious about dismantling the museum, putting somebody

  into the museum is just a temporary situation.

If the players agree, and accept the capture device, Qurak gives them a tutorial on using the capture device. Then, he says the magic incantation: “By the will of Orethys, you are free to go.”

Now the PCs can leave the museum, using plane shift. They cannot bring any exhibit NPCs (including Diometron) with them, because other NPCs have not been granted permission to leave the museum. When the PCs are ready, Joycie plane shifts, and the PCs materialize in the market square of St. Parnas, with Joycie and Lada.

Bonus Exhibits

This section is here if you just need a few more random exhibits.

Exhibit: The Organ Player

From the Guidebook:

Fff-huss is the most spectacular organ player I’ve ever listened to.

He has about 40 tentacles, they all move independently - and they’re fast! A normal pipe organ will malfunction if you try to press more than about 15 keys at the same time - there just isn’t enough airflow to power that many pipes. So they built a custom set of 4 independent bellows in order to make it possible for Fff-Huss to play his music.

It really is something to hear. Mind you, that’s not to say that it’s good. But it is impressive.

The venue is a wealthy playhouse with a pipe organ. Most days, it’s used for normal theatrical productions. But on Thursday, the day when the playhouse was captured into the museum, Fff-Huss gets to play his music. On this particular day, he had no audience at all - the locals know about Fff-huss, and they are not interested in paying for cacophony. Fff-huss, by the way, is a flumph.

When the PCs enter the exhibit, Fff-huss is napping in a round bed. When he hears the PCs enter, he drifts over to them and points at them. Then he points at chairs. He wants them to sit down.

By the way, Fff-huss cannot speak any verbal language, since he has no mouth. He also seems to be unable to understand spoken speech, though he can understand telepathic speech if one of the party members can do that. Usually, he communicates by pointing and gesturing.

If the PCs sit down, Fff-huss starts his pipe organ music. It is very, very fast, he plays “chords” of 30 or 40 notes at a time, and it seems to be mostly arhythmic. It has some patterns but they’re hard to make sense of. It sounds vaguely like music, for some definition of “music.” It is mostly not enjoyable, though it can be intellectually interesting to try to figure out what he’s trying to accomplish.

After the show is over, Fff-huss will go get a bowl which contains a few silver coins. He will show the bowl to the PCs, one at a time, and he will hold up three tentacles. He wants three silver coins per person. If the PCs pay, Fff-huss is satisfied and he goes to take a nap. If the PCs leave without paying, Fff-huss turns red and hisses, but he doesn’t do anything else.

Exhibit: The Mud Sauna

From the Guidebook:

This is the best mud-bath you’ve ever had. I highly recommend it. So relaxing.

Your aching muscles will thank you.

The exhibit is a cave in the side of a rocky slope. The rocks are black pumice, suggesting that this slope is volcanic. The cave is about 20 feet wide and 30 feet deep, beyond which point it narrows to just a crack. A steady trickle of muddy water is flowing from the crack, it flows through the mud, out of the cave, and it forms a small stream that runs to the edge of the exhibit and vanishes. The water is very warm, like a hot tub - a natural hot spring. The inside of the cave is entirely coated in squishy, warm mud.

Soaking in the mud are two mud monsters. No, wait, they’re not mud-monsters: they’re just people who are covered head to toe in mud. One is Bartleby, a human, the other, Imbrex, is a half-celestial. They are both here to enjoy the mud bath. Feel free to give them any personalities you wish.

There is one other inhabitant in the cave: a mud elemental. He is not initially visible, as he is down in the mud pit. The elemental has been trapped in this cave for some time, and he longs for the company of other mud elementals. But there are no other mud elementals here. He is lonely.

If the PCs don’t get in the mud, the mud elemental will emerge. He will try to cover the PCs in mud, in order to make them look like mud elementals. This makes the mud elemental feel a little less lonely. The PCs will probably recoil, but Bartleby and Imbrex will say, “don’t worry, he’s harmless.” If the PCs still don’t let themselves be covered in mud, the elemental will sadly slink back into the mud pit. If they do allow it, the elemental will cuddle up to them. He is warm to the touch. After a while, the elemental will try to lead the PCs into the mud pit.

The mud pit is extremely warm, soft, and relaxing. The elemental will massage your muscles, because he wants you to stay and he knows that people like being massaged. He has become quite good at it.

Staying in the mud for 30 minutes is equivalent to a long rest. However, since you’re not actually asleep, you don’t have any dreams. If the PCs have gotten injured - say, by falling off a rope - tell them that all the bruising is gone.

When the PCs decide it is time to leave, it is possible to rinse most of the mud off in the small stream outside the cave. If the PCs do this, the mud elemental will poke his head out of the mud and watch for a short while, and will then slink back into the mud.

The Castle with the Steel Door

Chapter Summary

Omta is extremely conflicted about the PCs. On one hand, they are deck-touched, which means they have a certain bond with Omta. On the other hand, the PCs have agreed to work with Tymora, and Omta is terrified of Tymora. So in this chapter, Omta erects barriers that prevent the PCs from getting too close to the Deck, but he also makes overtures to communicate with the PCs. He will lower the barriers when he is confident that the PCs understand his point of view. This chapter is all about building trust.

When the PCs arrive back at the remains of Castle Green, all that remains is the basement. Omta has created two lines of defense: first, he has turned the basement into a complicated labyrinth where movement is only feasible with Omta’s permission. Second, he has walled off the Deck behind an impenetrable steel door.

When the PCs enter the labyrinth, they find it confusing and impossible to get anywhere. But they also feel a presence in the back of their minds, trying to communicate with them. This is Omta’s first attempt at communication, using the telepathic bond they share. At this stage, all the PCs have to do is make an effort, trying to talk to Omta. It doesn’t matter how they try to communicate, or how successful they are, as long as they make an effort. Once the PCs show that they care about establishing contact, Omta will start helping the PCs to navigate the labyrinth: he will take them where they want to go, if they just say where they want to go.

Once the PCs can navigate the labyrinth, they will start finding Green’s employees scattered about the labyrinth. An important side quest is helping Green’s employees get out of the labyrinth, one by one. It can be quite gratifying to get everybody out safe and sound - with the sole exception of Green and his bodyguards, who are trapped behind the steel door.

Eventually, the PCs will reach the steel door. By this time, Omta will be dissatisfied with his efforts at communication so far. The telepathic bond is allowing him to send vague impressions and emotions, but it’s bad at sending detailed information. So Omta comes up with Plan B: if telepathic communication isn’t working, then we can try writing! He conjures six parchment scrolls, and drops them at the PCs feet. Then, he adds six pigeonholes to the door. After the PCs decipher a scroll, they can put the deciphered scroll into a pigeonhole. When all six scrolls are deciphered, the door will open.

The scrolls contain a strange form of writing: each scroll contains several cards from the deck, arranged in little groups. The Deck is using cards as a form of symbolism. Each card has a symbolic meaning. The PCs have collectively drawn many cards. They automatically know the symbolic meanings of any cards that they have drawn. But there are also many cards on the scrolls that the PCs didn’t draw, and they may have no idea what those cards mean.

To learn the symbolic meanings of those cards, the PCs will have to talk to NPCs who drew those particular cards. This becomes the main quest of this chapter: tracking down NPCs who drew particular cards. Unfortunately, talking to those NPCs is not always easy. For example, one of these NPCs has been transformed into a rampaging beast. Another has been put into a coma. Figuring out how to get useful information from NPCs who have been drastically warped by the deck can be a difficult challenge.

Talking to those NPCs, the PCs will discover that many of them are in crisis. The Deck has turned their lives upside down, for good or for bad. Many of them need help. The PCs have the opportunity here to build relationships that will end up paying off in later chapters, when these NPCs may become powerful allies with deck-granted powers.

When the PCs finally know the symbolic meanings of all the cards, they will be able to decipher all the scrolls. This allows them to open the door, which leads to Omta’s hiding place. The PCs can then have a true conversation with Omta for the first time. When the conversation is over, the PCs are returned to Castle Green. There is no longer a steel barrier preventing access to Green and the Deck. The PCs can go talk to Green, and can negotiate to buy the Deck.

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.

The Deck-Touched NPCs

Throughout the town, the PCs will find deck-touched NPCs: people who drew cards from the deck. Some of these will show up early in this chapter, others are hard to find and will not be found until the PCs search for them. We are putting this list here, early in the chapter description, because these NPCs will make appearances throughout the chapter. Finding and speaking to them will become an important goal for the PCs.

When the PCs do start searching for the deck-touched NPCs, the most reliable way to get a lead is to pay attention to Deck Dreams. Each dream comes from a different deck-touched NPC. The dreams contain all kinds of clues about who these people are and where to find them.

Pig: The Ogre King

The Ogre King is an ogre named Pig.

Pig is not a standard Ogre: he is a Ysgard Ogre. The giantish races that live in Ysgard tend to be much larger than the giants in other parts of the multiverse, and Pig is no exception. He stands a full 10 feet tall. A stat block for Pig will be given later.

Pig used to be the leader of his tribe, and for good reason. He was very strong, even by the standards of a Ysgard Ogre, and among ogres, being the strongest makes you the leader. A few years ago, Pig contracted a wasting disease which left him physically weak (STR: 13). He became the target of derision and mockery by the other ogres, his mate rejected him, and he became the laughing stock of his tribe. Desperate, he left his home.

Somebody suggested to Pig that he might find a cure if he drew from the Deck. This was terrible advice. If any of the PCs asks a real medical professional about Pig and his condition, the professional will immediately be able to identify the disease that he suffered from, Wasting Rot, and they will know the standard treatment: Greater Restoration. Of course, Greater Restoration is very expensive, but it’s the right treatment. Drawing cards from the Deck, on the other hand, was extremely unlikely to result in a cure. Pig was not intelligent enough to realize that. He drew these cards:

• Key: Pig gained great skill as a musician.

• Jester: Nobody takes Pig seriously.

• Throne: Pig is going to become the king of a nation.

That an ogre should be a musician is quite odd. At some point, Pig picked up a mandolin from a merchant booth and started playing it, skillfully. The merchant, rather taken by this turn of events, decided to give him the mandolin as a gift. Pig has learned to use this as a source of income: he plays the mandolin (quite beautifully) in the market square, and people give him food.

The Jester card is particularly humiliating for Pig. He used to be the object of mockery among ogres. Now he can’t even scare humans.

The Throne card says that Pig will be the king of a nation. Nobody has the first clue how that could possibly be the case. It just seems utterly implausible that a feeble ogre, that nobody takes seriously, could be a king. Pig certainly isn’t a king: he’s a homeless musician who panhandles for food. If you ask Pig about the throne card, Pig says, “Throne card say me king! That’s dumb. Pig not king, Pig weakling. Weakling can’t be king.”

The monster manual says that Ogres are evil. But for the purpose of this campaign, we’re taking the view that Ogres are actually too close to animal intelligence to be really “evil.” Instead, we view them as dangerous predatory animals. Ogres have simple desires: food and mates. Like most apex predators, they respect the biggest, strongest individual. Their approach to problem solving boils down to fight or flight. Because Ogres are such apex predators, it’s usually fight.

If you encounter an apex predator like a lion, and it is well-fed and has no reason to feel threatened by you, then it will often just ignore you. Ogres are the same. Ogres form bonds with other Ogres, and they can be protective of their mates. If you treat an Ogre well, they can learn to trust you.

Pig is not that hard to get along with. Like most animals, he prefers an easy meal, and he has lots of access to easy meals: the people of St Parnas are providing him with food. Because of this, Pig has no urge to eat the PCs. Also, Pig knows that he is physically very weak, because of the Wasting Rot, so he instinctively knows he needs to be submissive, even to humans.

Pig is very unhappy. He’s still physically weak - the deck didn’t change that - and now everyone laughs at him. The only bright spot in his life right now is that he enjoys playing the mandolin. When he speaks, it is in a melancholy, depressed tone.

The PC have the following dream, as seen through Pig’s eyes:

You sitting in the market square. You see that you are not human, you have enormous legs and arms, and huge clawed hands. You are playing the mandolin expertly, and you are telling a sad story about how you became sick, and your bride left you. You are surrounded by a crowd, they laugh at everything you say, even though your story is sad. They keep coming up to you and dropping coins at your feet, and fruit, and meat, and they tell you what a great comedian you are. You don’t understand, but you like the fruit and meat.

Because Pig hangs out in the market square, which is the hub of St Parnas, Pig is probably the first other deck-touched individual the PCs will meet. This will probably be the first time their Deck Awareness power allows them to see three cards over an NPC’s head. Pig says “You have cards on your head! Me too.” This confirms to them that they’re members of a community who are all experiencing some of the same things.

Pig’s jester card warps the perceptions of the townsfolk, making them think that Pig is funny. But because the PCs drew their own cards, they have a special power: Deck Immunity, which means they are immune to the effects of other people’s cards. So Pig’s jester card cannot warp their perceptions. They see Pig as he as: a frustrated, sad, stressed-out Ogre.

At some point, Pig notices that the PCs aren’t laughing at everything he says. “Why you not laugh! Everyone laugh! Why no laugh?” Pig is extremely grateful to have somebody, anybody, who isn’t laughing at him. This immediately ingratiates him to the PCs.

Of course, Pig also has Deck Awareness. If Pig sees the jester card above any of the PCs’ heads, Pig immediate commiserates: “You got bad card! Everyone laugh at you! Pig got bad card!” This makes him feel even more connected to the PCs. If he sees the key card, he asks, “You get music too?”

If the PCs ask questions, Pig will willingly answer, but remember, Pig has an INT of 6. He cannot answer any difficult or abstract questions. Mentally, he’s the equivalent of a toddler. Pig doesn’t know how to use his inside voice: he yells more or less all the time.

Asking Pig about Key:

If you ask Pig about the Key card, he says “Key teach me music! I can do it now! Watch! (He plays). Now music is job, I work here, play music.” So Pig has actually mentioned several concepts: teaching, skills, careers. This is the essence of the key card, and it should be enough. The PCs won’t be able to get much more out of him than that.

There’s one thing that’s confusing about Pig’s explanation: it might sound as if the deck gave him a mandolin: it didn’t. Pig was given the mandolin by a merchant named Brunna, who we will tell you about later. What the deck did is give Pig the necessary skill.

Asking Pig about Jester:

Pig says, “Card make everyone laugh. Pig not like it. You not laugh. Pig like you.” He really can’t say anymore. Fortunately, none of Omta’s scrolls contain the jester card.

Asking Pig about Throne:

Pig says: “I was big, strong, king of my tribe! Now not king, weak. Card say I be king again. I don’t understand. Biggest strongest ogre is king! Pig not biggest, not strongest, so not king.”

There’s a subtle distinction embedded in this explanation. When Omta uses the throne card as symbolism, it doesn’t mean a king who rules by authority, or by respect. It means someone who rules by raw power, by being the biggest and toughest. Pig accurately captures that intention when he says “Biggest strongest is king!” Pig, with his INT of 6, is not great at explanations, but he really does grasp the meaning of the throne card.

Helping Pig:

Pig suffered from Wasting Rot, which caused his muscles to atrophy. He now has STR 13, which is pathetic for an Ogre. Before the disease, he was by far the strongest, toughest Ogre in his tribe - he was the King of his tribe. The disease has already run its course, there is no need to get rid of the bacterium. What’s needed is to undo the damage: what Pig needs now is greater restoration. That spell will cause his muscles to return, gradually, over a few weeks. There is nobody in town who can cast Greater Restoration. The medics in town say, “you will need to go to a large city.” If the PCs want to cure Pig, this is something they can do in Chapter 3, which takes place in a larger city.

Making an ally of Pig can be a big boon for the party. Pig is a heck of a tank, if he is healed, then he can help the PCs in some big combats later in the campaign.

However, there is a downside to restoring Pig: if the PCs do this, they will have an oversized Ogre who is capable of killing a person with a single blow, who has a short attention span and the intelligence of a toddler. Disaster could result. If the PCs are going to restore Pig, they need to have a plan to make sure that Pig is properly supervised. If they don’t think of this, Lada mentions it.

Healing Pig’s muscles goes a long way toward making him happy. But fixing the jester card would really make things complete. Fixing that will take a Wish or the intervention of a god.

Borghan: The Caged Beast

The caged beast was once a human man named Borghan. He drew cards from the deck because of his debts. He drew these cards:

• Gem: Borghan received a shower of gems. His debts are paid.

• Beast: Borghan has been transformed into an oversized Grizzly bear

  with a few humanoid characteristics.

• Bricklayer: The deck has built a labyrinth for Borghan to inhabit,

  under Castle Green.

Borghan looks like a werebear, but he does not have the curse of lycanthropy, and he is not a shapechanger. He is permanently in half-man half-bear form. He has animal intelligence and operates mostly on animal instinct.

Green wasn’t sure what to do with Borghan, so he temporarily put Borghan in a holding cell. A few hours later, Borghan bashed open the cell by sheer strength, and quickly found his way to the labyrinth to which he was attracted by the compulsion of the Bricklayer card.

There is no food in the labyrinth, Borghan hasn’t eaten in days. But he can’t overcome the bricklayer card’s magical compulsion to stay in the labyrinth. He is the “Caged Beast” because he is imprisoned in the Labyrinth by his own compulsion. With animal intelligence, he is not smart enough to reason his way out of the situation. If something doesn’t change soon, he will starve to death in the labyrinth.

The PCs experience the following dream, as seen through Borghan’s eyes:

You are ravenously hungry, but you’re in an empty corridor, there’s nothing to eat. You run down the corridor, turn, run some more, turn again, and run some more, but there’s nothing but corridors. You see a door, already smashed - you feel like you’ve been here before. You pass through the broken door, and on the other side, there’s more corridors. You’re so hungry, and there’s no food.

When the PCs are exploring under Castle Green, they will stumble into Borghan’s labyrinth. They should immediately recognize the labyrinth from Borghan’s deck dream. If they think back on the deck dream, they will remember that in the dream, they were ravenously hungry.

Wandering through the labyrinth will eventually cause the PCs to encounter Borghan. Borghan is ravenously hungry. When he sees the PCs, he sees food. He will attack with the intention of eating a PC.

The PCs, for their part, will see a werebear-like creature, with three cards hovering over its head, one of which is “Beast.” They should be able to figure out that this is a person who has been transformed into a beast by the Deck.

Very likely, the PCs will have to fight Borghan, unless they are very clever and prepared. If the PCs reduce Borghan to 0 HP, he doesn’t immediately die. Instead, like a PC, he gets death saves. If Borghan is down, and the PCs cast cure wounds or the like, then Borghan’s life is spared. In that case, Borghan will become submissive, even though he is intensely hungry: he knows he has been beaten.

But even though he’s submissive, he’s still starving to death, and he can’t think about anything other than food. To enable Borghan to think about anything other than food, the PCs must sate his hunger. Borghan will not think of anything else other than eating until he is fed. To feed him requires a lot of food. A few rations from the PCs’s backpack isn’t even going to make a dent. A whole pig or sheep would do it. If the PCs manage to sate his appetite, he actually becomes reasonably cooperative.

Once Borghan has eaten, the next step is to cast Speak with Animals, or something else along those lines. Telepathy might work. If there’s a druid in the party, they can probably do it. If the PCs don’t have any way to speak to animals, remember this: the marketplace in St Parnas is experiencing a glut of magic items because of the Deck. If the PCs look for a useful magic item, make sure they find one - maybe even let them rent it. Alternately, the PCs may be able to recruit an NPC helper who can cast Speak with Animals. There are lots of helpful people in St Parnas.

Once the PCs have some sort of communication channel opened up, the PCs can try to learn about the cards that Borghan drew.

Asking Borghan about Gem:

It isn’t that hard to guess the meanings of the Gem card, so it probably isn’t necessary to ask Borghan. If the PCs want to ask Borghan, then coaxing this information out of him can be tricky. Probably the best way is just to show him some gems. His first reaction, “Gems Beautiful! Sparkly,” covers the concept of beauty. His second reaction relates to the fact that he drew cards because of his debts. He says, “I wanted gems before. I don’t remember why.” The PCs can probably figure out that he needed money, and that gems represent money.

Asking Borghan about Bricklayer:

The PCs can easily guess that the Bricklayer card means “building things.” They don’t need Borghan’s help to figure that out. What they won’t be able to easily guess is that the bricklayer card also instills a compulsion to be possessive and territorial about the structure that was built. So therefore, bricklayer can also mean “possessive” and “territorial.”

Borghan cannot explain abstract concepts, with his animal intelligence. If the PCs ask him an abstract question like “what are the non-obvious meanings of the bricklayer card,” Borghan will just stare blankly. But if they ask a simpler, more concrete question like, “what did the deck build you,” he says “Labyrinth is for me. My territory!” If the PCs ask any other question about the labyrinth, Borghan gets agitated: “My territory! My territory! You only allowed because you feed me! My territory! Mine! Not yours! Mine!”

This reaction is very similar to what Alyssa Varn says about “her” castle. Perhaps the PCs will put two and two together - both the people who drew the bricklayer card are being very territorial and possessive. If the card instills possessiveness and territoriality in everyone who draws it, then perhaps the symbolic meanings of the card include possessiveness and territoriality.

Helping Borghan:

Borghan is trapped in a maze with no food. He will starve to death. There are quite a few ways that the PCs could theoretically help him.

The simplest thing they can do is hire somebody to feed him for a month or two. Over time, the compulsion of the bricklayer card will start to wear off, and Borghan will be able to go out into the woods and hunt for himself. Turning Borghan back to a human is probably not feasible: it would take a Wish or an act of a god. Another temporary solution for Borghan is to capture him into the Museum of Orethys. This will effectively put him on ice until later, which will keep him from starving for now. It may also be possible to find magic items that make Borghan a little more capable of coping with his situation. For example, a headband of intellect would bring back his intelligence, which would make it possible for him to figure out that he needs to leave the labyrinth temporarily in order to hunt.

Borghan

Large Monstrosity, Unaligned

Armor Class 12 (natural armor)
Hit Points 200 (16d10 + 112)
Speed 40 ft.

STR 21 (+5)  DEX 10 (+0)  CON 24 (+7) INT 7 (–2)  WIS 16 (+3)  CHA 9 (–1)

Saving Throws Con +10, Wis +6
Skills Perception +6
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16
Languages understands Common and Sylvan, but cannot speak
Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +3

Keen Smell.
Borghan has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.

Multiattack: Borghan makes two claw attacks and one bite attack.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 3) piercing damage.

Rage and Hunger (3/Day). Borghan lets out a blood-curdling roar and enters a state of primal fury. It immediately ends any of the following conditions on itself: charmed, frightened, paralyzed, stunned, and any effect causing it to be incapacitated or unconscious without reducing it to 0 HP. Until the end of its next turn, it has advantage on all attack rolls and cannot be charmed or frightened.

Sam Link: The Chosen One

The chosen one is a elven man named Sam Link. One day, he felt compelled to take a few hours off work. He wandered until he arrived at castle Green. When he got there, he drew cards from the deck. He would not be able to tell you exactly why he did this. He drew these cards:

• Star: Sam has been given a ring of feather falling.

• Cripple: Sam has developed serious lower-back pain.

• Sun: Sam has been granted a divine spark. He is now on the path to

  godhood.

Sam knows he now has a divine spark, and Sam is the sort of person who believes that there’s a reason for everything that happens in the universe. Therefore, he believes he was chosen for some purpose. However, he has no idea what that purpose might be. He does know that his new power can be used for healing, though he suspects there’s more to it than that. He’s not sure what to do now that he is “chosen,” but he figures if he was given the gift of healing, he should use it, so now he’s out on the streets healing people.

He also doesn’t know what to do with his ring of feather falling. He considered pawning it, but once again, he thinks there’s a reason for everything, so he decided he better keep the ring. He is wearing it around town, fully expecting to be thrown off a tower or something.

The PCs experience the following dream, as seen through Sam’s eyes:

You are walking through the streets of St Parnas. You see several buildings with broken windows and minor damage. You see a woman on the ground. You run up to her and ask, “are you hurt?” She says, “my leg.” Looking more closely at her leg, you can see that it’s bent at a weird angle, and there is severe bruising. You put a hand on her leg, and you allow energy to flow. The leg straightens, and the bruising fades. She says, “thank you, cleric.” You say, “I’m not a cleric, but you’re welcome.”

The town of St. Parnas, where this chapter takes place, has experienced a “chaos storm” (we’ll explain that later). There are broken windows and injured people everywhere. In the immediate aftermath, Sam was walking around, healing everybody he could. He does not randomly encounter the PCs.

By the time the PCs learn about Sam’s existence, the worst of the chaos storm is already over. At this point, Sam is searching around town looking for anyone who still needs help. Nobody knows where Sam is, because he’s moving around too much. The best way to find Sam is to go somewhere where there are injured people.

One place where you can find injured people is after the basilisk fight, later in this chapter. When the PCs arrive, several civilians have already been petrified by the basilisk. The civilians will remain petrified for 24 hours while the effect wears off. The PCs will fight and probably kill the basilisk, then they’ll have to figure out what to do with the petrified civilians. One of those civilians is severely injured: her hand broke off at the wrist after she turned to stone. When she turns back to flesh, she will bleed out rapidly.

Sam hears about this injured petrified person, and he goes to help. He will sit with her for a long time while he waits for her to turn back to flesh, so that he can heal her as soon as she does. This effectively locks Sam in one location for quite some time (you, as DM, can decide how long).

The PCs can learn about Sam’s location in any one of several ways: by talking to the mayor, by talking to the guards, or by having a deck dream. If they go to the location right away, Sam is still there with the petrified woman.

While they sit there, Sam is willing to have a conversation with them, on one condition: Sam will answer the PC’s questions, but only if the PCs agree to answer Sam’s questions. He will trade question for question: Sam asks one, then the PCs ask one, then Sam, then the PCs, back and forth like that. That’s his condition. If the PC’s question is about one of the cards, Sam will do his honest best to provide detailed information about that one card - but only that one card. Before we get to Sam’s questions, here is what Sam has to say about the cards:

Asking Sam about Star:

Sam tells the PCs that the star card is what gave him the ring of feather falling. He says it always conjures a wondrous magic item. He then explains that therefore, the card can mean wondrous magic item. He also says it can just mean wonderful non-magical item, or even a wonderful place, or the emotion of wonderment.

Asking Sam about Cripple:

Sam will tell them: “The cripple card gave me serious lower-back pain.” Sam explains that it can mean any kind of infirmity: lack of strength, lack of dexterity, lack of health, or the like. It can mean just a physical flaw in general. If you wanted to say that a teapot is broken, you would again use the cripple card to represent the state of being physically broken.

Asking Sam about Sun:

Sam tells the PCs that the Sun card is the one that gave him a divine spark. He explains that therefore, the Sun card can mean divine ascension, or the state of being a god or goddess, or any variant of that - it can mean divinity, divine, godlike, etc.

*Helping Sam:

*Sam agrees to answer the PCs questions, if in exchange the PCs agree to answer Sam’s questions. As it turns out, all of Sam’s questions are existential questions about the purpose and meaning of life. He absolutely insists that he won’t accept brief, thoughtless answers. He wants insights!

Sam is the kind of person who believes strongly that the gods have a plan, and that there must be a reason for his divine ascension. But he is utterly baffled as to what the reason might be, or what he’s supposed to do about it. Here are his four questions, in the order he asks them:

• Q1: Why do you think I was chosen for divine ascension? Why me?

• Q2: What is the proper way I should be using the gift I’ve been

  given?

• Q3: How can I ascend further up the ladder toward godhood? What

  should I do?

• Q4: What the heck is this ring of feather falling for?

In response to Sam’s questions, the PCs are likely to have a philosophical discussion. The PCs can tell Sam their theories for why Sam was given a spark, and they may have their own philosophies about what Sam ought to be doing with his gift. Sam will take these theories into serious consideration, but he won’t make any hard-and-fast decisions just yet.

There are no “right” answers to Sam’s questions, but there are wrong answers: any answer that is glib, or that doesn’t seriously grapple with the difficult issues, is a wrong answer. If he gets a glib answer, Sam will refuse to move on to his turn until the PCs really tackle the question.

In truth, the best way to help Sam is to get him to stop obsessing so much. He is so fixated on trying to solve the puzzle of why he was chosen, what he’s supposed to do, and the like, that he’s making himself crazy. He needs to slow down and just let things unfold naturally.

In my version of this campaign, the PCs put Sam in a situation where he met a fun and playful woman. That gave him something else to do other than obsess about his role in the universe.

Alyssa Varn: The Squatter

The squatter is a tiefling woman named Alyssa Varn. She is a gambler, and she was deeply in debt. She was one of the first people that drew cards from the Deck. She drew these cards:

• Tiger: She gained a lot of limberness, she is now basically a

  contortionist.

• Knight: She received a staff of withering.

• Bricklayer: The Deck built her a castle.

Alyssa quickly sold the staff, she is not a combatant and has no use for a weapon. That paid off half her gambling debts. However, she did not want to sell the castle: the bricklayer card instilled a strong compulsion to live in the castle. Her husband told her that if she didn’t sell the castle and pay off her debts, he would divorce her. Under pressure, she sold the castle to Green, and it became Castle Green.

Alyssa resents being forced to sell, her compulsion to live in the castle is overwhelming. She has convinced herself that a contract “made under duress” (the threat of divorce) is invalid, and so therefore, the sale is invalid, and the castle is still hers. So she keeps sneaking back in.

The PCs have the following dream, as seen through Alyssa’s eyes:

It’s nighttime. You’re standing next to a sturdy stone building, which has a narrow vertical window, like a castle window. You try to squeeze yourself through the window, and you almost make it - you’re an unusually thin woman, and you’re really flexible, a contortionist. A male voice behind you says, “stop it, you’re being absolutely crazy.” You say, “This is my castle!” He says: “It’s not yours, you sold it!” You cram yourself into the window again, and this time, you actually succeed in getting through. The male voice says, “You’re nuts, and I’m done. Goodbye.”

Alyssa is currently living in the basement of castle Green. The castle came furnished with lots of furniture. Green moved a lot of that furniture into a storage room in the basement. Alyssa took some of the bookcases in the storage room and improvised a small hidden “room” (with bookcase walls) hidden behind a giant pile of furniture.

Green has a lawsuit pending against Alyssa in the courts of St Parnas, he’s trying to have her committed to a mental institution. However, the Mayor is slow-rolling it, mainly as retaliation for the fact that Green and the Deck are upsetting the calm of what was once a safe little small town. So, for now at least, Green is on his own. From time to time, Green’s guards catch Alyssa. But Green isn’t cruel: he knows that Alyssa is just a sad crazy woman, and that her craziness is in part Green’s fault, so he can’t bring himself to physically harm her. So he just kicks her out of the castle for the umpteenth time, and he hopes the courts will take action soon.

Unfortunately for Green, that means that for now, Alyssa can pretty much harass Green with impunity. Alyssa is a zero-level NPC, so she cannot take on Green and his guards directly. She knows that if she gets too close to the guards, she’s going to get kicked out again. So instead, she harasses Green mainly using traps.

None of Alyssa’s traps are deadly - at least, not intentionally. She is annoying and even dangerous, but not a murderer. She often will lurk in the shadows, watching her own traps. The PCs encounter the following traps set by Alyssa:

• In the Armory, a tripwire. See the subsequent section on the Armory

  for more information.

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• In any room, she puts a bucket of yellow liquid on top of an open

  door. Dexterity save DC 12 to dodge it. You can determine the in-game effects, if any.

• In the event that one or two characters separate from the party, and

  end up in a room, Alyssa jams a triangular wedge into the door, then she nails the door shut. It’s not specified what is required to get the door back open, but make it a not-too-difficult project that takes up 15 minutes of game time. Do not do this if all the party members are in the room, and don’t do it if the party members in the room are strong enough to simply force their way out. Make it interesting, wait until a few party members who don’t have the strength to break out can be trapped.

Her traps usually come with a written note: “Get out of my castle,” or “Serves you right, trespassing in my castle!”

While the PCs are exploring the castle, they never find Alyssa: she’s too good at hiding after months of experience. But they may find her sleeping quarters. If they look in the storage room with the furniture, they may notice that most of the room is covered in thick dust, but there’s a path through the dust (perception DC 13). To follow the path you have to be very small, or a contortionist, or ideally both. It leads to Alyssa’s hidden room, which contains a matress and some personal effects. There’s nothing interesting in the personal effects, but the size of the garments reveals that Alyssa is very small. Inside the hidden room is a stone wall with one of the stones carved out. If you’re small, you can squeeze through.

The tiny passage through the wall emerges in Mikhail’s bedroom, into the back of his wardrobe. She has loosened part of the back of the wardrobe, she can take it off quickly, pass through the passage and into the wardrobe, then out the doors of the wardrobe.

Alyssa wants her castle back. However, she has been trying for months, and now the upper half of the castle is gone. She is losing hope. When the PCs finally rescue all of Green’s employees from the labyrinth - not counting Green and his entourage - they will have achieved Alyssa’s goal for her: get rid of Green and his employees. However, by this time, the castle is being invaded by giant ants. This causes her to lose even more hope.

The next time the PCs visit the labyrinth after rescuing all of Green’s employees, they find Alyssa just sitting on a sofa in the lounge, watching the ants glumly. The PCs can see her cards using deck awareness. She looks up and says:

“Hey, you guys drew cards, didn’t you. I’ve seen that effect on Borghan and Balanestra (pointing at the cards over everyone’s heads). Wait, are you the ones I wedged in such-and-such room?”

If the PCs ask why she’s not in hiding any more, she says:

“For a long time, I was fighting to get Green out of my castle, my home. Well, Green and his employees are finally leaving, but the top half of the castle is gone, and now the ants are moving in. It’s just getting more and more clear that I’m never getting my castle back. I’m on the brink of giving up. That’s why I’m sitting here just taking one last look at what remains of my home.”

If the PCs complain about the shit that Alyssa has been doing to them, she says:

“Sorry about the traps. I was just getting more and more angry that more and more people were in my castle, and I sort of overreacted. I guess everything I did was pointless. Sorry I took it out on you guys.”

If the PCs say anything to suggest that maybe Alyssa is being irrational trying to live in a castle that she doesn’t need, when she has a perfectly good house in town, especially given that she sold the castle, she completely transforms into a crazed person:

“This is my home! My territory! It’s mine, the deck built it for ME! Don’t be telling me it’s not mine, this is my territory, and I’m going to protect it! Get the fuck out of my house!”

Then, she starts screaming at the PCs and kicking and hitting (no damage). She won’t calm down for about a half hour. This transformation is magical: it’s the effect of the bricklayer card. The card instills a powerful compulsion to live in the space, to make it your own. Notice that Alyssa used the word “territory” twice. That’s a word that people mostly use in reference to animals who mark their territory - that’s intentional. The bricklayer card is strongly tied in to the concept of animalistic territorial possession.

If the PCs leave and come back, Alyssa says:

“Sorry about that tantrum. I don’t know what got into me. Every time somebody tells me to leave, I just turn into that crazy woman. I can’t control it.”

People who draw the bricklayer card have to make a Wisdom saving throw, DC 15 in order to escape from the compulsion to live in the building. If they fail, they get to try again once per month. Alyssa’s wisdom is only 8. She has failed the saving throw multiple times.

To help Alyssa, what the PCs really need to do is:

1. They need to figure out that Alyssa is under a magical compulsion.

2. They must help her to escape from that compulsion.

Once they figure out that that’s their goal, interrupt and say, “As your DM, this is how we’re going to roleplay this. Alyssa gets one wisdom saving throw to escape from the compulsion. Do what you can to prepare her, then roll the saving throw for her. You get one and only one chance.”

There are actually lots of things the PCs can do to prepare Alyssa:

• Any spell that helps with wisdom saving throws is a good idea,

  including bless, beacon of hope, or resistance. However, it will be very difficult talking Alyssa into letting some strangers cast spells on her.

• If the PCs can very delicately help Alyssa to understand that she’s

  under a magical compulsion, that will help a lot. Nobody likes to be magically controlled. +4 to save.

• If the PCs (somehow) offer Alyssa a really nice alternative home, +4

  to save.

• I said that they get only once chance, but I lied: if they offer

  Alyssa an inspiration point, they can get a second roll.

• PCs are inventive. Let them be creative here.

Regardless of whether they succeed at helping her, she will talk to the PCs and answer their questions willingly, when she’s in a calm mood.

When it comes to answering questions about the cards, Alyssa (being a low-wisdom individual) is not that insightful. She tells the PCs the basics, but she may leave out details:

Asking Alyssa about Tiger:

FILL ME IN

Balanestra: The Wish-Keeper

The wish-keeper is an aasimar woman named Balanestra. She is a wealthy woman who drew cards because she was profoundly dissatisfied with her life, feeling that it was mundane and boring. She was desperate to have a more exciting life, even if that meant great risk. She drew these cards:

• Gem: She received gems, which she didn’t need at all, being quite

  wealthy.

• Skull: She had to fight an avatar of death. The bodyguards mostly

  did it for her.

• Moon: She was granted three wishes.

She wished for the following:

• Wish 1: To be highly skilled at plotting, manipulation, and

  intrigue: Wish Fully Granted.

• Wish 2: To gain the ability to magically scry on anyone: Wish Mostly

  Granted.

The second wish gave Balanestra the ability to look into mirrors and see the people she’s thinking about. She can do this three times per day, for 15 minutes. However, her target gets a saving throw, WIS DC 20. All gods can resist, as can a few powerful people.

Having made two wishes, Balanestra was supposed to make her third wish on Green’s behalf. Instead, she said to Green, “There are powerful people all over the multiverse who are scheming to take that Deck away from you. Now that I have these new talents, you should hire me to be your advisor. I can keep you one step ahead of those guys.” Green agreed, but then Balanestra named her conditions: “My price for working for you is this: I get to keep my third wish.” Green hesitated, but decided to accept the offer.

Balanestra didn’t make a third wish. Instead, she decided to hold onto her third wish for a rainy day. She thinks of it as the ultimate emergency get-out-of-jail-free card.

There is an old trope that says that if you get three wishes, you’ll somehow end up miserable. Balanestra is the proof that that’s just moralizing nonsense. She’s loving her new life, she’s ecstatic.

The PC has the following dream, as seen through Balanestra’s eyes:

Green, at his desk: “I can’t fight a goddess. What do we do if she attacks?”
Balanestra: “We teleport away, of course.”
Green: “Sure, but she’s a goddess. She can follow us anywhere.”
Balanestra: “She can follow us almost anywhere.”

Green: “Where could I go that she can’t follow… oh, shit. No, no no no no!”

Balanestra: “Trust me.”

Balanestra is with Green, in the basement of the castle, on the other side of Omta’s steel door. Therefore, it is not possible to get help from Balanestra. Fortunately, for every card that Balanestra drew, there is no need to seek help from her:

• Gem: The gem card has many complicated meanings. If none of the

  PCs drew the gem card, they are likely to need help. Fortunately, they can ask Borghan (the Caged Beast) instead.

• Skull: In Omta’s scrolls, he uses the skull card several times. In

  one case, it means “wants to kill me,” in another case it means “would kill me.” If none of the PCs drew the skull card, they will have to guess the meaning, but skull=killing is a pretty easy guess.

• Moon: Lada tells you that the card grants three wishes, and that

  hasn’t changed. The symbolic meaning of the card is wishes, granted wishes, desires, or fulfilled desires. The PCs will have to guess that, based on what the card does.

The PCs will meet Balanestra, very briefly, at the end of Chapter 2, after they get through the steel door. She will become an important figure later in the campaign.

Brunna: The Antiquarian

The Antiquarian is a Dwarven woman named Brunna. She used to make a living selling musical instruments. She was quite successful, and lived a comfortable life. But she wasn’t happy - he was bored and full of malaise. However, the comfort of her life made it hard to change. She knew she needed a push, and she thought the deck might give her that push. She drew these cards:

• Vizier: she can now ask the fates a question, once a month.

• Comet: she can hold an item in her hands and know its past.

• Idiot: she lost 2 points from charisma. She now looks down her

  nose at people, purses her lips, and speaks in a know-it-all manner.

She has gained two abilities that both allow her to learn about the past. The comet ability lets her hold an item in her hands and know something about its past. If that isn’t enough, she can ask the fates a question once a month, because of the vizier card.

Meanwhile, her musical instrument business went bad. The charisma loss made it much harder to land a sale. In the week after she drew cards, she sold half as many musical instruments as normal. She realized that a salesperson needs charisma, and she just didn’t have it any more.

She sold the music business, and went into a new line of work: antiquarian. She figured that coming across as a know-it-all was expected from an antiquarian, and the comet card made it pretty easy to learn the history of the items she handled. So antiquarian was a natural choice. She’s actually enjoying the new job, it’s different, a real change of pace.

The PCs have the following dream about Brunna:

You are holding a rusty saber, which is resting across your two palms. You say, “This saber was made by a dwarven man named Jorrell. It was one of a set of three, one of which was sold to your grandfather.”

Brunna is now running a consulting firm in the building that used to be her music shop. The building is not far from the St. Parnas market square. The front of the building has the faded outline of a lute on the brickwork, where the previous sign used to be. In its place is in a new sign that says “historical research: antique objects investigated.” Brunna sits in a comfortable chair, with a little coffee table in front, and a few other chairs across.

As Brunna has settled into her new job, she is starting to really like it. She thinks it’s kind of fun explaining various facts about history to people - she enjoys storytelling. Also, since she doesn’t actually know history until she handles an item in her hands, when she tells a story, she’s learning it herself at the same time as she tells it to her customer. So she’s enjoying the feeling that her knowledge is expanding all the time.

The idiot card caused her to act like a know-it-all and look down her nose at people. She knows that people now perceive her as a know-it-all, but she can’t understand why: this is the negative effect of the idiot card, she can’t understand her own lack of charisma. Still, she feels that it’s an acceptable sacrifice for the new job, which she thinks is a great new direction for her life.

She has not used the Vizier power yet. She is excited to try it for the first time, but she knows she can only use it once a month, so she’s saving it for a special occasion. Maybe something the PCs ask her will inspire her to ask her first question of the gods.

If the PCs want to ask Brunna about the cards, they will have to pay her 5 gp consulting fee.

Asking Brunna about Vizier:

Brunna explains that the Vizier card gave her the ability to ask one question per month, and have it answered by the gods. She says the card can mean, literally, a vizier or seer, or a scholar, or researcher, or scientist. It can also mean the act of asking questions, or any other form of investigation. It can also just mean “knowledge,” especially secret knowledge or hidden knowledge.

Asking Brunna about Comet:

Brunna explains that the comet card allows her to hold an object in her hands and learn its history. The meaning of the card is generally just “time,” but it also encompasses all kinds of things related to time, like “the past,” “the future,” or “waiting.” It can also be a reference to knowledge of the past or the future, ie, history and prophecy.

Asking Brunna about Idiot:

Brunna explains that the idiot card somehow made her less charismatic. She says the card can refer to lack of intelligence, lack of social skill, lack of wisdom, or any other sort of mental incapacity. It can also mean “making a mistake” or “a bad decision.” The card can also mean, literally, an idiot. It can also mean somebody who is intelligent but with some kind of mental handicap - for example, a smart person with an alcohol addiction.

Handing a Scroll to Brunna:

If the PCs hand Brunna one of Omta’s scrolls, she holds it in her hand, and she says she knows something important about its history. But she says: “I’m willing to tell you what I know, but in exchange, you have to help me with something. I help you with a difficult puzzle, you help me with a difficult puzzle.” If the PCs agree, then this is what she has to say about the scroll:

Well, this scroll itself doesn’t have much history, it’s only a few days old. But the communication method that is being used in this scroll is very, very old. This goes back before written history.

Language as we know it was invented by mortals. So how did the gods communicate before the gods created mortals, and mortals invented language? Well, gods can easily conjure little illusions, little images. So that’s what they did. They showed each other little pictures. There was no standard set of symbols. Each god would make up whatever images made sense to them. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of miscommunication. That’s why this form of communication died out when language as we know it was invented. The gods learned how to speak from mortals, and they stopped using these images.

Helping Brunna:

Brunna has a problem: she doesn’t have enough customers. She’s not making enough money, the business isn’t profitable. Apparently, there just aren’t enough people who need their family heirlooms read. She asks the PCs for ways to improve her business.

Brunna’s core problem is that she is suffering from a failure of imagination. Her comet power can be used for so much more than just investigating heirlooms. What the PCs really need to do is work with Brunna to brainstorm alternative ways to use her power. Here are some options:

• Crime Investigation: She can hold a murder weapon in her hands,

  and tell you who used it.

• Private Investigation: She can hold some underwear in her hands,

  and she can tell you who slept with your spouse.

• Industrial Espionage: She can hold your competitor’s product in

  her hands, and tell you how it was manufactured.

• Art Authentication: She can hold a piece of art in her hands, and

  tell you if it is the original or a forgery.

• Archaeology: She can hold a relic of a past civilization, and tell

  you something about that civilization.

• General Espionage: She can hold objects stolen from diplomats or

  politicians, and possibly learn their secrets.

If Brunna branches out and advertises all of these services, she will have much more business than before.

If the PCs help her brainstorm at least four new ideas for how to use her power, then she will be grateful and she will perceive the PCs as friends. She still charges 5 gp per item investigated, though. A consultant has to eat, you know.

Using Brunna as a Resource:

Brunna is a valuable investigative resource. Once the players figure out that Brunna can do all kinds of useful research, they will probably visit her fairly frequently. That’s actually a good thing.

Do not let Brunna short-circuit major questlines. If there’s some information that you don’t want her to reveal, then don’t reveal it. Instead, reveal something else, like this:

PC: Can this sword kill the bad guy?
Brunna: Here, give it to me. Hmmm. I can see that this sword was made by a Dwarven man named Jorell, who works in Moradin’s keep.

PC: Yeah, but can it kill the bad guy?

Brunna: No idea.

As the DM, you decide what Brunna knows, and what she doesn’t. If you don’t want her to have the answer to a question, then she doesn’t have the answer to that question. She always knows something about an item, but not necessarily what the PCs want her to know.

The real value of Brunna is that you can use her to feed the PCs exactly the clues that you want to feed them. Try to encourage the PCs to visit Brunna regularly, by letting Brunna reveal little tidbits of useful information here and there (without major spoilers.) Then, if the players ever seem like they’re stuck, and they’re not making progress solving the major puzzles of this chapter, then you can feed them a big clue through Brunna.

If the PCs get in the habit of visiting Brunna frequently, and it starts to get repetitive, then just start abbreviating the interaction:

PC: We go ask Brunna about whether the sword can kill the bad guy.

DM: OK, you go visit Brunna. She reveals that the sword was made by a man named Jorell at Moradin’s keep. You learn nothing else. She charges you 5 gp.

That way, it only eats up a few seconds of table-time.

Asatya: The Sleepwalker

The Sleepwalker is a woman named Asatya, who used to be a gardener in the orchards. She’s getting older and her hands are getting arthritic. She didn’t think she could do her job much longer, and she felt she needed a new direction in life. She drew these cards:

• Owl: She gained a great deal of intelligence, she is much smarter

  than before.

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• Fool: She no longer knows how to cook, which turns out not to

  matter very much.

• Void: She fell into a deep sleep, from which she cannot awaken.

Asatya is now a patient at the local hospice. Her body is being well-tended by the nurses there. She is completely unable to sense any stimuli or react in any way.

While she sleeps, her spirit is sleepwalking around the city gardens. Like a sleepwalker, she can see the real physical world - the garden she’s walking around in. Like a sleepwalker, her thought processes are delirious and confused. But unlike a normal sleepwalker, she has left her body behind, and she sleepwalks through the world in the form of a spirit.

Asatya’s strange state is a reflection of Omta’s own experience. Omta is also asleep, and Omta also sleepwalks through the multiverse.

The PCs have the following dream about Asatya:

You are wandering through a manicured garden. There are a few other people walking along the paths of the garden. You feel confused, your mind is foggy. You notice a weed that needs pulling. You bend over to pull it, but you don’t seem to be able to. In your confusion, you don’t know why you can’t pull the weed.

If the PCs visit Asatya’s body at the hospice, they will find that she is breathing deeply, as if in a restful sleep. She is completely unresponsive to any stimuli. Any attempt to contact her magically or telepathically will yield the impression that there’s nobody in there.

One of the most surprising things about Asatya’s body is: Deck Awareness doesn’t work on her, there are not three cards hovering over her head! The reason is that the cards aren’t hovering over Asatya’s body. They’re hovering over her spirit, and her spirit is somewhere else: in the orchard.

If the PCs ask the nurses, the nurses can tell the PCs a little bit about Asatya’s background, including, crucially, that she was a gardener in the orchard. This may trigger the PCs to remember the deck dream about a woman wandering the orchard, and trying to pick weeds.

The PCs may contact Johann, the dreaming ghost from the Museum of Orethys, and ask him to enter Asatya’s dreams. When Johann reports back, he says:

Are you sure she’s in bed? Because as far as I can tell, she’s sleepwalking. She’s walking around in an orchard. I can tell that it’s a real, physical orchard in the real world, not a garden she’s imagining in her head. Dreams are always fuzzy and mutable, but this garden is real-looking. That’s why I’m very sure she’s sleepwalking.

I tried to talk to her, but I have a problem with sleepwalkers. When a sleepwalker opens her eyes, she gains the ability to see the physical world, but she loses the ability to see her imaginary dream world. Unfortunately, her imaginary dream world includes me, Johann. So whereas a normal dreamer can see me and hear me, a sleepwalker can’t, because they’re seeing and hearing the physical world instead. So I couldn’t talk to her. I can never talk to sleepwalkers.

If the PCs search the orchard, they eventually find three cards just moving around, apparently hovering over an invisible ghost. The PCs cannot see or hear Asatya, but because the PCs can see the cards, they can tell where Asatya’s ghost is standing, and which direction she is facing. Using see invisible will reveal Asatya’s vague outline, which can be used to confirm that, yep, it’s the same woman from the hospice.

Here is one way that it is possible to ask Asatya a question: Tell Johann to enter Asatya’s dreams, and tell him to listen to anything she says. Then, go to the gardens and stand directly in front of Asatya. Face her, and ask her a question. Asatya will see and hear the PC, so she will answer the question. The PC won’t hear the answer, because Asatya is invisible and inaudible to the PC. But Johann can hear the answer, and pass it to the PCs.

If the PCs ask Asatya a question in this manner, she gives answers that are dreamy and drifty, but still basically correct.

Asking Asatya about Owl:

She says, “I remember his eyes, the wisdom in his eyes. He is so smart.” The essential concepts here are intelligence and wisdom.

Asking Asatya about Fool:

She says, “He forgot his job… he forgot his name… then he disappeared.” The essential concepts here are forgetting and disappearance.

Asking Asatya about Void:

She says, “An empty place… empty mind… so dark, so quiet.” The essential concepts here are emptiness, darkness, and silence.

Helping Asatya:

After Johann helps get information from Asatya, he tells the PCs that Asatya is the only other person he knows who is permanently asleep. He desperately wants to meet her, but he can’t talk to her, because she can’t see him. He is very frustrated.

Up until this point, Johann has been super-helpful and has done basically anything the PCs asked of him, at no charge. Johann points this out, and says, “I’ve been helping you. Now you help me. You’re a resourceful bunch. Figure it out, I want to talk to this woman.”

Making this happen is shockingly easy: just tell Asatya to close her eyes. If you do that, she stops seeing the physical world, which makes her able to see her own internal dreamworld - which means she can see Johann. The minute you do this, the three cards disappear: her spirit is no longer in the orchard, it’s somewhere else, with Johann.

Another way to get Asatya’s ghost to focus inward is to cast “sleep” on her. This will cause her to enter a more normal dream-sleep, in which Johann can talk to her. You can cast sleep on her spirit or on her body, either way works.

This is a difficult puzzle. If the players come up with another way to get Asatya to focus inward, allow it, even if it only makes partial sense. You need this to work, because the PCs will need Johann’s help later.

Johann knows a trick: he can make you have a lucid dream. As soon as Asatya starts talking to Johann, he uses his method to help her clear the cobwebs. She is still asleep, but she can now focus her mind and get a better grasp on her situation. Plus, she has a knowledgeable soul there who knows all about being trapped in dreams. She is no longer alone, she is no longer foggy-headed, and she has somebody who can show her the ropes.

Rackle: The Punching Bag

The punching bag is a man named Rackle. He developed a medical condition that caused him constant pain. Healers were unable to improve the situation. In desperation, he decided to draw cards:

• Euryale: He is now terrified of monsters.

• Ruin: Items he touches are likely to crumble to dust.

• Rogue: People think he’s a fraudster and a con man, without

  evidence.

It’s very unlikely to draw three terrible cards from the deck, but Rackle managed to do it. His life was bad, and now it’s exponentially worse.

After drawing cards, Rackle tried to find someplace to stay, but everywhere he went, he was ostracised as a fraud and a con man, because of the rogue card. Lacking any place to stay, he wandered around outside the city and eventually came across an old abandoned watchtower.

The watchtower is one of a set of five posts that were built around St Parnas 150 years ago, and abandoned about 80 years ago. They are three stories tall, and consist of little more than a tall staircase with landings and a platform on top. The stone parts of the building are in good condition, but the wood parts are suffering from water damage from lack of maintenance.

Rackle is living on the middle floor, which is basically just a landing between the stairs that lead up, and the stairs that lead down. There’s just enough space to lie down.

Everywhere Rackle goes, he is sure that he is surrounded by demons lurking in the shadows. This is the effect of the euryale card. He has stolen a bag of salt and he makes salt protection circles on the ground wherever he goes, to prevent the demons from getting to him. Of course, there are no demons. But that doesn’t stop Rackle being terrified, all the time.

Because of his Rogue card, he can’t get an honest job - nobody trusts him. Rackle tried stealing to make a living, but he discovered that anything valuable he stole would often crumble to dust, the effect of the Ruin card. So now he survives by stealing low-value items - bits of food, mostly.

His medical condition persists: he is still in pain, an aching pain all over his body, with no obvious source or cause.

Rackle’s absurd levels of misfortune have attracted the attention of Beshaba, goddess of misfortune. She didn’t cause his bad luck: it just happened on its own. But now that it has, Beshaba considers Rackle to be a “saint of misfortune.” Beshaba is therefore protecting Rackle - she has assigned a priestess named Clarissa to watch over him.

Clarissa is a strange woman. She is a human in her mid-fifties. She used to be a sadist, that is what drew her to Beshaba. But in Beshaba’s service, she witnessed such vast and terrible misfortunes that her own efforts began to feel insignificant. No matter how hard she tried to make people suffer, life did worse — arbitrarily, effortlessly. She kept upping her game, but the universe always outdid her.

Eventually, she gave up on torturing people and turned instead to studying the torments life produced without her help. At first, her goal was to learn more about how to inflict pain. But over time, her study grew more abstract, and more philosophical. Age crept in. She suffered some things herself. She still studies suffering, but she’s not sure why any more. Some days she feels tired. And though she’d never admit it, she’s begun to care for a few individuals, against her better judgement.

Because of this, Beshaba has given Clarissa the responsibility of keeping Rackle alive. Clarissa camps near the ruined watchtower where Rackle lives, and watches from a distance. She does not interfere with his suffering — that would defeat the purpose — but she steps in if something threatens his life.

That turns out to be harder than expected. After a month of isolation, pain, and fear, Rackle tried to take his own life. Clarissa found him bleeding out and cast Cure Wounds just in time. It wasn't the last time. Eventually, Rackle realized he couldn’t die by the blade — so he stopped eating. Clarissa tried to force-feed him and nearly choked him to death in the process. She hasn’t tried again.

Desperate, she turned to the druids of Silvanus, buying goodberries, which are small enough not to cause choking. But the druids have been growing suspicious, and they keep asking what she’s doing. She lies, because “I’m keeping a man alive so he can suffer” isn’t a truth that sells well. The druids are beginning to see through the lies.

The PCs have the following dream, seen through Rackle’s eyes:

You are lying on a wooden floor, in a round stone room about 10 feet across. You are motionless, staring straight up at the ceiling, which contains some holes where the wood has rotted. In your peripheral vision, you can see a set of stairs leading upward. You can also see a woman in her fifties, in purple robes, kneeling beside you. You feel weak, lightheaded, and your vision is blurry. You fade out of consciousness.

Finding Rackle is a challenge: all you really have to go on is the dream, which tells you that he’s in a round stone room, about 10 feet across, with a staircase in it. A fairly easy insight roll (DC10) reveals that he’s inside a round stone tower. If you ask the Mayor, he has the insight that it’s probably one of the watchtowers: he says “Homeless people camp in those all the time.” There’s no easy way to know which one is the right one, so the PCs will probably have to make the rounds searching them one by one.

Information about the contents of the five watchtowers can be found in the upcoming section, “Life in St Parnas: The Old Watchtowers.”

When the PCs finally find Rackle, he is in pretty much the same condition described in the dream above: passed out on the floor of his tower, with Clarissa ministering to him. Clarissa has recently given him her last goodberry, the druids won’t sell her any more.

When the PCs come near Rackle, the rogue card will attempt to warp their perceptions to make them think that Rackle is a con-man, but the PCs have deck immunity: they cannot be affected by Rackle’s rogue card. So they see Rackle as he is. Clarissa is also immune, Beshaba needs her to be clear-eyed in order to do her job properly.

Clarissa knows who the PCs are, because she has been told by Beshaba. However, she does not reveal this. She will speak to the PCs and will present herself as a friendly cleric who’s just trying to help. She says, truthfully, “Hi, I’m Clarissa. This man is starving to death. I’ve tried using cure spells, but they don’t help against starvation. I don’t have any way to feed him, it’s not safe to just cram food in his mouth, he would almost certainly choke. Can you guys do anything to help?”

If the PCs interrogate Clarissa, she decides that there is not much point in lying to the PCs. She admits that she is a priestess of Beshaba, and that she has been sent to protect Rackle because Rackle is a saint of misfortune. She omits the part about keeping him alive to keep him suffering, though. If the PCs don’t ask Clarissa who she is, Lada figures it out anyway - as a priestess of Tymora, Lada can sense the influence of Beshaba.

While talking to Clarissa, Lada gets a grim, tense look on her face and keeps her mouth shut. Later, when out of Clarissa’s earshot, Lada says, “That was a priestess of Beshaba. I don’t know what she’s up to, but I guarantee she’s up to no good. I don’t care what she says, priests of Beshaba are never here to help.”

If the PCs attack Clarissa, have everybody roll initiative. On her first turn, Clarissa casts hypnotic pattern, spell save DC 16. But then, on her second turn, she says, “You know what, I can’t do it. I don’t do this any more.” She puts her hands in the air, and stops fighting. If the PCs keep attacking, they kill her easily.

The PCs have two strong incentives to help Rackle: one, it would be morally evil to let him die, and two, they need to ask Rackle questions. There are several good-aligned temples in town that provide medical care, for 100 gp per day. If Rackle gets proper medical care, he will regain consciousness in two days. Clarissa doesn’t interfere, she’s out of options for keeping Rackle alive and she’s willing to accept help, even if doing so could reduce Rackle’s suffering.

When Rackle wakes up, he is utterly terrified: there’s no ring of salt on the ground! The demons are going to take his soul! He won’t do anything but freak out until somebody puts down a protective ring of salt. The PCs can get salt inexpensively at a nearby shop.

Life in St Parnas

This chapter will take place in two primary locales: inside Castle Green, and in and around St. Parnas.

This section lists some of the interesting things you’ll find in St. Parnas.

A Summary of St Parnas

Saint Parnas is a small town in the Outlands. It sits about a day’s journey spireward of Tradegate. It is a law-abiding, good-aligned town. Given its proximity to Tradegate (and therefore Bytopia), the predominant moral code in town is that a good person is a person who works hard, is diligent, and who contributes to his community. People look out for each other, and people have a strong sense of civic virtue.

St Parnas has a definite small-town feel. The kinds of amenities you find in big cities aren’t available here. If you want to hire a high-level wizard or cleric, you’re out of luck. There are a number of one-room churches and temples to various good-aligned gods, but there aren’t any big, showy temples. Much of the employment is small-town employment: mainly farmwork and small craft workshops. Most of the people of St Parnas prefer the quiet small town lifestyle, and are glad that they aren’t in a big city.

Overt evil is not tolerated here. You will not find any temples to evil gods. Of course, people are people, and everyone is flawed, even in a good place like this. You will certainly find people who are selfish, or greedy, or lazy. You might even find a few truly dark individuals hiding in the shadows. But for the most part, this genuinely is a town full of decent, reasonable people.

It’s the kind of town where if the PCs are not overtly destructive, they’ll get along just fine.

Where to Sleep in St. Parnas

The first thing the PCs will probably look for in town is someplace to sleep. They can find lodging at an inn called “The Unnamed Inn.” Lodging for a party of 4 is 2 gp per night, it includes two rooms and meals for everyone.

The unnamed inn has a common room where people can relax, eat food prepared by the innkeeper, and occasionally, listen to music. It is not really a “tavern.” Yes, you can get a drink, but service is mainly intended for people staying at the inn. There are eight bedrooms upstairs. When the PCs arrive, there are a handful of randos staying at the inn (feel free to invent some).

There is one other inn in town: the Named Inn, in the nicer part of town. Depending on how scruffy the party looks, they may not be welcome.

Another option is that there are some unoccupied grassy fields on the outskirts of town. If they want to, the PCs can set up tents, and nobody will bother them.

The Legend of St Parnas

If anyone asks where the name “Saint Parnas” comes from, any local can tell them this story.

About 200 years ago, a party of settlers came from the Tradegate area, looking for someplace to build farmsteads. They found a lovely clearing where the town of St Parnas now sits, and they started to build. Unfortunately, the entire area was inhabited by a clan of druids who viewed the area as theirs. The druids despised the fact that the settlers were cutting down trees, tearing up nature, and domesticating the area.

Gradually, tensions between the settlers and the druids escalated, and it seemed like battle might be inevitable. Into this fray came a man named Zell Parnas, a man with a silver tongue and a decent heart. Somehow, Parnas managed to negotiate an agreement between the settlers and the druids.

The step that finally got the druids to back down was choosing a modest radius beyond which the city would never expand. The settlers would be allowed to do as they pleased inside the boundary, but they would leave nature untrammeled outside the circle. The boundary would be marked by an orchard that completely encircles the town. This is a huge orchard, and building it would be expensive, Mr. Parnas financed the planting out of his own pocket. The druids and the townsfolk are both allowed to pick fruits from the orchard.

Because of the boundary, the village never grew beyond “small town” status. About a hundred years after his death, Zell Parnas was declared a saint, and the town was renamed after him.

The Mayor, Elar Mossbrow

When the PCs start to gain some notoriety in town, the mayor may introduce himself. You should not introduce the mayor until the PCs have been in town a while.

The Mayor is a firbolg named Elar Mossbrow. It is unusual for a town mostly populated by medium-sized people to have a giantish mayor, but Elar is highly worthy of respect, and when he ran for election, he won easily.

Most firbolg think that money is evil, so it is strange for a firbolg to be mayor of a human town. Humans use money for everything. The reason for this is that Elar Mossbrow is a bit of a free-thinker among firbolg, he eventually concluded that commerce is not a force for evil, he concluded that commerce binds people together. He uses the expression, “the bridge to the next village is the merchant’s cart.” Because this view is in conflict with normal firbolg culture, Mossbrow decided to move close to tradegate, where the view that commerce is an affirmative good is the norm.

The town has a manor for the mayor, which contains a residential quarter and also offices. Mayor Mossbrow doesn’t fit inside the manor. He can squeeze through the doorways and, crouching, shuffle down the hallways if he has to, but it’s very awkward. The only time he goes inside is when he needs to get some papers from the filing cabinets. Instead, he built a pagoda in the back yard of the manor, which is where he lives now. It is open air, but has a roof. He jokes: “I’m the mayor, and I don’t fit in the mayor’s office. Heavy is the head that wears the crown!”

Mayor Mossbrow is not happy with Green. He says, “St Parnas used to be a quiet little town, and I liked it that way. Now we’ve got randos from all over the multiverse overrunning the place. And now a chaos storm! I wish this was all over.” After the chaos storm, the Mayor decided it was time to kick Green out of town. However, Green is trapped in the basement of the castle, so the Mayor hasn’t been able to tell him yet.

At some point, the PCs may help the town guards contain a threat. If so, Mayor Mossbrow becomes their friend. He will help them with town records and other things like that.

Sometimes, Mayor Mossbrow likes to clear his mind by going out to the orchard and doing maintenance work. He says it’s a good way to get back to the basics.

The Orchard

The town is surrounded by an orchard. The orchard contains every imaginable type of fruit or nut. Many of the trees are picked over (the townsfolk and the druids use them regularly), but there’s still a bit of ripe fruit for the taking. Anyone is allowed to pick fruit, which is why the orchard is usually pretty picked over.

Asatya is a woman who drew the “void” card from the deck. As a result, her spirit was banished from her body. Her spirit now wanders the orchard. At some point, the PCs will have a deck dream about Asatya, and they will see her standing among apple trees. That is a dead giveaway that she’s in the orchard.

To find Asatya, the PCs should search the orchard for apple trees. That narrows it down: only a small percentage of the orchard is dedicated to apples. From there, it’s just a questions of brute-force search. If you look hard enough, you will find three cards hovering over an invisible person.

More information about Asatya can be found in the preceding section, “Asatya: The Sleepwalker.”

The Old Watchtowers

The easiest way to learn about the watchtowers is to ask one of the locals about the deck dream with Rackle. “A small round tower” is pretty much all it takes to get the locals to mention the watchtowers. Alternately, if you’re exploring the orchard, you’ll stumble on a watchtower.

Just inside the orchard are five old watchtowers, evenly spaced around the town. Each one is a cylinder of stone about 10 feet in diameter. Inside the cylinder is a spiral staircase that goes up the entire tower. The staircase has four landings: the ground floor, the lower landing, the upper landing, and the roof. The interior landings are only there for safety. The point of the staircase is to get to the roof, which is where a watchman would stand and survey the countryside.

The towers were built about 90 years ago by an overzealous mayor who thought this was necessary for some reason. They were abandoned 60 years ago, when that mayor retired, because everyone realized there was nothing to watch for. Without maintenance, the stone outer structure is still in good condition, but the wooden parts are starting to rot.

The towers are often used by homeless people and drifters as temporary shelter. Many of them contain graffiti, and junk discarded by drifters. Here are the specific contents of the towers. Note that “tower 1” is not in any particular location. It’s just whichever tower the PCs explore first.

Tower 1: Religious Icon. The roof has an abandoned campsite - the cold remains of a burnt-out fire and a pile of garbage. If the PCs are searching for Rackle, then the campsite contains a crudely carved wooden statue of Ilmater. Ilmater instructed one of his worshippers to carve it and leave it here. It is intended as a simple message, meaning basically, “I am Ilmater, don’t forget I exist.” Rackle will need Ilmater’s help.

Tower 2: Bats. On the upper landing is a swarm of aggressive bats. They remain motionless until a PC pokes his head into the upper landing, then they attack.

Swarm Combat

• Initial swarm size: 100 bats

• Every round, every PC must roll two saves:

  • DEX save DC 13 → on fail, take 10% of bats remaining as damage

  • CON save DC 13 → on fail, take 10% of bats remaining as damage

• AOE spells kill ⅓ as many bats as damage dealt, e.g., 30 damage → 10

  bats dead

• Single-target melee attacks kill 1–2 bats max (unless very clever)

• AOE spells kill multiple bats. Typically, about ⅓ as many bats as

  damage dealt, eg, 30 damage means 10 bats dead. However, you must make a judgement call for each spell: would this particular spell be more or less effective? That is up to you as a DM.

• When swarm is reduced to 30 bats, it disperses.

Bat Movement Rules:

• Bats move as a single swarm — they prefer to stay clustered around

  the party

• If a PC moves away from the group, they can exit the swarm and avoid

  damage

• If all PCs leave the tower, the bats follow outside

• If the party splits, the bats stay with the larger group

Player Movement Rules:

• Moving while inside the swarm = difficult terrain

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• Climbing stairs while in the swarm: DEX save DC 12 or Prone.

• Stairwell is narrow: single file, if somebody is prone, stairs

  blocked.

Tower 3: Collapsed. This entire tower has been knocked over by an enormous falling tree. The stone blocks are strewn where the tower fell, and weeds are grown up among them.

Tower 4: Rackle and Clarissa. This tower contains Rackle, one of the deck-touched NPCs, and the priestess of Beshaba who is protecting him. See the section “Rackle: The Punching Bag” for more information about him.

Tower 5: Empty. Aside from graffiti and garbage, there is nothing here.

The White Ward

The white ward is the hospital. It is a joint project between some priests of several good-aligned gods, and also some non-magical doctors. It was originally called the white ward because the building is covered in white stucco, and also, because the doctors wear white. Eventually, the name stuck and they just went with it.

<FINISH ME>

Asatya’s unconscious body is here. It will probably be necessary to bring Rackle here.

Magic Items for Sale

A small town like St Parnas would normally not have any magic items for sale. However, because the deck has been conjuring items left and right, it is possible to find magic items in town. The selection is extremely random. Here are the items:

Envenomed Shortsword — 3,500 gp

• Three times per day, target takes D8 poison in addition to normal

  damage

• No save. If resistant to poison, no damage.

Javelin of Lightning — 3,000 gp

• Once per day, becomes a bolt of lightning when thrown

• Deals 4d6 lightning damage in a line

Headband of Warning — 3,500 gp

• Advantage on initiative

• Can’t be surprised while worn

• Wearing any other hat, helmet, or headgear will prevent this item

  from working.

Cloak of Protection — 4,000 gp

• +1 bonus to AC

• +1 bonus to saving throws

Decanter of Endless Water — 2,200 gp

• Pours out an unlimited supply of fresh water

Key of Curious Locks — 3,000 gp

• Casts Knock once per day

• Can tell you exactly why a door isn’t opening (e.g., rusted, barred,

  etc.)

• Warns about trapped doors (only trapped doors, not traps in general)

Navigator’s Compass — 2,800 gp

• Can point toward any landmark. A “landmark” is any point of interest

  that is known to the locals, and that has been there for at least 5 years. “Joanne’s Restaurant” is a valid landmark, for example, as would be “The Nearest Temple of Lathander.”

Lens of Far Seeing — 3,000 gp

• See clearly up to 1 mile, even through mist or light foliage

• Once per long rest, cast Clairvoyance (sight only)

Pouch of the Burrowing Familiar — 3,000 gp

• Contains a badger familiar

• Can be summoned for up to 1 hour

• Burrows through dirt or loose stone at 10 ft speed

• Follows simple commands

• Does not fight

Ring of Hopping — 3,500 gp

• Three times per long rest, cast Jump

• Once per long rest, cast Misty Step

Lantern of the Firefly — 3,000 gp

• Endless Light: At will, sheds dim green light in a 100-foot radius

• Once per long rest, cast Faerie Fire (DC 15) as a bonus action

Staff of the Potent Caster — 7,500 gp

• Functions as a quarterstaff and a spellcasting focus

• Grants +1 to spell save DC

Wand of Silent Casting — 5,500 gp

• Functions as a spellcasting focus

• Allows you to cast any spell with verbal components using only

  somatic components

The Collapsed Lizardman Temple

The collapsed temple is a combat event that you can bring out whenever you think your PCs might be in the mood for a little smashy-smashy.

In the poorer part of town, a small group of lizardmen built a temple to their god, Semuanya. The temple is ramshackle (for a temple). It was a wooden building two stories tall. On the second story, the lizards had an unauthorized menagerie containing dangerous reptiles. The reptiles were smuggled into town, nobody knows they’re there except the lizardmen.

A few days after the chaos storm, the building collapsed, and two reptiles escaped: a basilisk, and a mirage serpent. The two beasts are now wreaking havoc throughout the poor quarter.

The PCs are walking somewhere (anywhere) when they see two guards running toward the poor quarter. If they’re curious, they can follow. The will soon find some petrified people. Then, they will find the two guards from earlier firing crossbows at the mirage serpent. The guards are not very skilled: this town is too safe and nothing ever happens here, and the guards have gotten complacent. They have not been training as much as they should.

The mirage serpent is an electric blue snake which is capable of projecting illusionary images of two additional snakes. The challenge in fighting it is knowing which snake is the real snake. Shooting at an illusory snake is just a waste of an action. When the PCs join the fight, roll initiative. The turn order will include the PCs, the two guards, the real snake, and the two illusory snakes.

Mirage Serpent

Large Monstrosity, Unaligned

Challenge: 4 (1,100 XP)

AC: 14

HP: 68 (8d10 + 24)

Speed: 30 ft., climb 10 ft., swim 30 ft.

STR: 16 (+3) DEX: 14 (+2) CON: 16 (+3) INT: 4 (-3) WIS: 12 (+1) CHA: 6 (-2)

Saves: DEX +4, WIS +3

Skills: Stealth +6, Perception +3

Resistances: Psychic

Immunities: Charmed

Senses: Blindsight 10 ft., Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 13

The serpent always fights alongside two illusory duplicates. The DM will declare that the PCs are fighting 3 serpents, and will not reveal that there is actually only 1 serpent and 2 illusions. The DM must place three serpents on the battlefield. They should be scattered about: for example, one might be in a tree, another on a roof, and another on the street. The DM must roll initiative for each of the three serpents, so there will be three entries for serpents in the turn order.

The DM must keep track of which serpent is real. If a PC hits the real serpent with an attack, it takes damage. If a PC hits an illusory serpent with an attack, the attack passes right through the illusion, obviously not causing damage. The illusory duplicates cannot be damaged, and are difficult to dispel (use your judgement).

When it is a serpent’s turn, regardless of whether that serpent is illusory or real, the serpent can choose one of two actions:

Psychic Lash. Ranged Spell Attack: +5 to hit, range 15 ft., one creature per lash. Hit: 6 (1d10 + 1) psychic damage. When an illusory serpent uses mirage lash, the attack is actually coming from the real serpent, but the illusory serpent rears up in order to give the impression that the attack is coming from the illusion.

Shuffle. All three serpents (the real and the two illusions) all teleport up to 15 feet to new visible locations. The DM reassigns which token is real, in secret. The illusions update their appearance to match the appearance of the real serpent, including any wounds the real serpent has taken.

The serpent is tactical about choosing psychic lash vs shuffle. The more it shuffles, the less damage it does (because if it is shuffling, is isn’t lashing). So it only shuffles when it notices that the PCs are focusing all damage on the real serpent.

After beating the mirage serpent, the PCs will hear screaming coming from elsewhere. If they hunt around a bit, they can find the basilisk and the one remaining non-petrified guard who is fighting it.

This basilisk is thematically similar to the basilisk in the monster manual, but the rules are completely different. The PCs can quickly identify this as some subtype of basilisk by the fact that it has four legs on each side: lizard with eight legs is a dead giveaway for “basilisk.”

Basilisk (Modified)

Medium Monstrosity, Unaligned

Challenge: 4 (1,100 XP)

AC: 16

HP: 65

Speed: 30 ft., climb 20 ft.

STR: 18 (+4) DEX: 10 (+0) CON: 16 (+3) INT: 2 (-4) WIS: 12 (+1) CHA: 7 (-2)

Saves: CON +5, WIS +3

Skills: Perception +3

Resistances: Poison

Immunities: Poisoned

Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., Tremorsense 10 ft., Passive Perception 13

Bite (action). Melee attack, +5 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 2D6 + 10 piercing damage.

Lock On (reaction, one per eye per turn).

The basilisk has two independently-pivoting eyes, like a chameleon. Each eye can “lock on” to a single target creature, paralyzing that creature.

Lock-on is a reaction: when a creature is about to take its turn in the initiative turn order, and the basilisk sees this, the basilisk can use a reaction by aiming one of its two eyes at the creature. The creature must make a DC 15 constitution saving throw. If the save succeeds, the basilisk fails to establish a lock. The creature may continue taking its turn in the normal manner.

If the creature fails the saving throw, the basilisk has locked its gaze onto to the creature. The creature is instantly paralyzed, and it loses its action. From that point forward, the creature remains paralyzed as long as the basilisk keeps its eye locked on. The creature cannot move at all, and it cannot take any actions that require any kind of movement, including moving one’s mouth. Though paralyzed, the creature is still aware. On the creature’s next turn, will need to resist petrification, by making another CON save DC 15. It takes a minimum of three turns for a creature to be petrified:

Turn 1: Creature attempts an action, and the basilisk reacts by locking on.

Turn 2: The creature attempts to resist petrification and fails, getting dangerously close.

Turn 3: The creature attempts to resist petrification and fails again, and turns to stone.

If the creature succeeds at the save against petrification (turn 2 or turn 3), the creature is not freed: the creature is still paralyzed, and the basilisk is still locked on. The creature just didn’t get any closer to turning to stone, which means that the process of petrification will take longer. A paralyzed creature cannot free itself, unless it has pure mental actions such as a spell with no material, somatic, or verbal components. To free the paralyzed creature, the companions can do anything that breaks the basilisk’s gaze. That would include:

• Blocking the line of sight with smoke, darkness, a wall of fire, or

  any other opaque obstacle.

• Grappling the basilisk and forcing it to turn its head (strength vs

  strength).

• Draping a cloak over the basilisk’s head (counts as a net, with -2

  to hit because it’s not weighted).

• Interposing your body between the basilisk and its target, if your

  body is large enough.

• Using spells like “compelled duel” that force the basilisk to look

  at something else.

• Anything that incapacitates the basilisk, like hypnotic pattern.

• Draping a cloak over the targeted creature’s face (no to-hit roll

  needed).

• There are undoubtedly other ways. Allow your PCs to be inventive.

If anything breaks the basilisk’s gaze, the paralysis immediately dissipates, and the basilisk’s gaze is no longer locked-on. There is no recovery period, the creature can act as soon as its initiative turn order comes up. This is the key to beating the basilisk: just keep interrupting its gaze, over and over.

The basilisk has two independently-pivoting eyes. DM must keep track of who each eye is locked on to. Each eye that isn’t already locked-on can use the “lock on” reaction once per turn. The DM must keep track of which eye has used its reaction.

Interestingly, if a creature doesn’t take an action, then the basilisk can’t react. The basilisk’s vision is motion-sensitive, if you stand perfectly still, the basilisk can’t lock on to you!

If a creature is petrified, it goes unconscious. It remains a statue for about 48 hours, after which it turns back to flesh.

After the PCs defeat the basilisk, they will probably look around and see several petrified commoners. Other commoners are already sending for medical help. The PCs do not have to babysit the statues.

Shortly after the reptile attacks, Sam Link hears about the chaos, and comes running to help. This is one way the PCs can connect with Sam Link: if they realize that Sam Link is searching for injured people, they might be smart enough to just wait for him here.

One of the petrified commoners has had a hand broken off. When they turn back to flesh, 48 hours later, they will bleed out very, very fast. Sam Link can’t heal the person while they’re stone, so Sam waits with the statue. His plan is to use his power, fast, as soon as they turn to flesh. The statue is surrounded by Sam and by family members, who are keeping careful watch for any sign the body is turning back to flesh.

Because Sam is trapped in one place for 48 hours, and because the Mayor and the guards all know about this and can tell the PCs where Sam is, this gives the PCs additional opportunities to track him down.

Castle Green

The PCs will spend a lot of chapter 2 exploring Castle Green. Before we get to the details of what’s in the castle, we’re going to give you some general information about what the castle is like, and why it is the way it is.

How Castle Green Came to Exist

When Green was first starting out, he didn’t have a Castle. He searched for people who might be interested in drawing cards from the Deck, then he brought them out into an empty field to have them draw cards. One day, one of these people - Alyssa Varn - drew the Bricklayer card. Where once there was an empty field, suddenly there was a small castle — technically, a “keep” for a knight. Alyssa sold the Castle to Green.

The keep consisted of a ground floor, a single basement level, and a small tower.

The basement contained most of the functional rooms, including a barracks for the staff, a kitchen and dining room, an armory and sparring room, holding cells, a lounge, a laundry and latrine, a wine cellar and a root cellar. Here is a map of the basement:

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The ground floor included a nice dining room for guests, a small ballroom, an a few general purpose rooms. The tower contained an observation room and a general-purpose room. Since the ground floor and tower are gone, we have not provided a map.

Green and his employees used the castle for some time before the next event: Borghan also drew the Bricklayer card, and it built the labyrinth, underneath the basement. A trapdoor manifested in the basement lounge: the trapdoor drops down into the Labyrinth. There is no map of the labyrinth, it’s a confusing mess of passages, and nobody has bothered trying to map it.

Both the castle and the labyrinth were created by magic. But neither one is inherently magical. The castle is a normal castle. The labyrinth is confusing, but it’s not a magic labyrinth.

The walls of the basement are entirely made of stone blocks. The walls of the labyrinth are covered by decorative wooden paneling, with decorative moulding, as one might see in a victorian library. By looking at the walls, you can easily tell whether you’re in the basement or the labyrinth.

The Upstairs is Gone

In the chaos storm, the entire top half of the castle (ground floor and up) was ripped away. Everything from about knee-level on up is gone.

The floors of the ground floor are still intact, as are the bottom two feet of the walls. Walking around the ground floor of castle green is a lot like walking around a floorplan of a castle. There’s very little left to see on the ground floor. There is, however, a set of stairs leading down into the basement. The stairs leading to the basement are entirely intact.

The Portals that Subdivide the Castle

As a defensive measure against Tymora’s agents, Omta has placed several portals designed to make it difficult to move around the basement. The portals all lead into the labyrinth. Look at the map: wherever you see a red line crossing a hallway, that is a portal to the labyrinth. When a PC stands in a hallway, looking at such a portal, the PC will see the hall up to the portal, and the labyrinth beyond the portal. When the PC walks through the portal, they end up in the labyrinth.

Sometimes, when you’re in the labyrinth, if Omta wants you to, you’ll emerge from one of these portals and end up back in the basement.

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Now, let’s talk about how the PCs will perceive the portals. Imagine that a PC is standing in the hallway just northwest of Mikhail’s bedroom. (Look at the map above, lower-right corner). If the PC looks north, they will see the door to Etienne’s bedroom. Beyond that, there’s a red line crossing the hall: a portal to the labyrinth. When the PC looks through the portal, they see the labyrinth.

So that means if the PC is standing outside Mikhail’s bedroom, the PC can’t see the door to the furniture storage room. The furniture room is north of the portal, and therefore, line of sight is blocked by the portal. Likewise, if the PC walks north, they can’t reach the furniture storage room. They will walk through the portal first, and end up in the labyrinth.

So from the perspective of a PC standing outside Mikhail’s bedroom, it looks like they’re standing in an L-shaped piece of corridor, both ends of which are connected to the labyrinth. It creates the appearance that these small sections of hallway are physically inside the labyrinth. It looks, for all the world, as if the basement has been broken into pieces, and the pieces randomly inserted into the labyrinth.

Note that on the map, we have drawn red lines not just where the portals are in the hallways, but we’ve actually drawn red lines around eight “chunks” of the castle. The PCs will perceive the castle as being made up of these eight chunks. To move from one chunk to another, they will have to pass through the labyrinth.

The portals in the basement are in fixed locations, indicated on the map by red lines. The portals in the labyrinth, however, are in ever-shifting locations. The portals are being moved around regularly by Omta. Some of the portals in the labyrinth lead to other portals in the labyrinth. Some of the portals in the labyrinth lead back to the portals in the basement. All of the portals in the basement lead to the labyrinth.

Navigating the Portals

When the PCs first enter the labyrinth, they will get stuck in there. They just move in circles: tunnel after tunnel. None of the passages lead anywhere. Omta is just portaling the PCs around the labyrinth to keep them confused. He figures: if I keep the agents of Tymora in the labyrinth, they can’t hurt me.

In the backs of their minds, the PCs can feel the “presence in the Labyrinth,” Omta, because of their telepathic bond. They can feel his anxiety and fear. They can try communicating with this presence, and they quickly realize that the presence is listening, paying attention, because it reacts when they say things.

To get unstuck, the PCs have to do two things:

Step 1: Reassure Omta

When the PCs sense the presence in the labyrinth, and his fear, they need to say something reassuring, such as “We are not here to hurt you. We just want to talk.” If the PCs say some things like this, then Omta will calm down a little. The PCs can feel the anxiety level drop a little.

Step 2. Ask for Navigation Assistance

The following only works after the PCs have reassured Omta: to get around the basement, the PCs can simply ask Omta for assistance in navigating the labyrinth. Just speak out loud, and say something along the lines of, “Hey, could you guide us to the Kitchen?” Then, start walking, in any direction. Omta will rearrange the portals in order to bring the PCs to the kitchen area. Note that the PCs won’t end up exactly in the kitchen: they’ll end up at the closest basement portal, in the correct basement region to go to the kitchen.

It’s odd that Omta is putting up portals to confuse the PCs, but then he’s also helping the PCs to navigate the portals. Omta is asleep, and he’s using dream logic, and his emotions are conflicted. He wants Tymora to stay away, but he also wants a relationship with the PCs. So his left hand doesn’t know what his right hand is doing.

So for now, Omta is both hindering and helping. Whether he can actually bring you to any particular place depends on a number of factors:

• In general, if you ask for a room type, like “take me to the

  Kitchen,” or “take me to the Armory,” that works. Omta understands what a kitchen or an armory is.

• If you say “take me to the bedroom,” that’s ambiguous, because there

  are a dozen bedrooms in the castle. In this case, Omta will take you to the bedroom farthest away from the Deck.

• If you ask for a specific employee, eg, “take me to Zimmi,” that

  usually elicits no response, because Omta doesn’t know most human names. However, Omta does know the name “Green.”

• If the PCs ask for an employee by profession, that is more likely to

  work. “Take me to the wizard’s bedroom” will get you to Etienne’s bedroom.

• If you ask for “take me to the woman who drew the bricklayer card,”

  that does work. When Omta looks at humans, he is more likely to remember their cards than their names.

• If the PCs ask for something broad, like “Food”, Omta will do a

  reasonable job of complying: in response to that query, he would take the PCs to the kitchen. The DM may have to be creative interpreting such queries.

• If you ask to be taken to Green (who has the Deck), or to the

  Laundry (which contains the Deck), or to the Lounge (which is close to the Deck), then Omta will project an intense emotion of fear, and will not take you anywhere.

Under no circumstances must you allow the PCs to reach the lounge area or the laundry area until certain trigger events take place.

Bypassing the Portals

On the map, there are several red dots, positioned on top of walls. These represent holes in the walls. During the chaos storm, several of the stone blocks teleported out of their normal positions in the walls, and ended up scattered around the castle: as the PCs walk around, they will occasionally find these stone blocks. A small person like a gnome or halfling can fit through the hole, but a medium-sized person cannot fit. The PCs could use spells like enlarge/reduce to get the whole party through a hole.

Interestingly, holes in the wall circumvent the portals. It is possible to move from one region to another through a hole in the wall, without getting portaled into the labyrinth. Currently, there is only one hole that crosses a red line. But the PCs could conceivably dig more.

If you use holes to move around the castle, the castle appears much more mundane than if you try to walk around the halls. The halls have portals in them, and the portals make everything confusing. But the holes in the walls have no portals, so you just move around the castle in the normal way.

However, if the PCs try to dig a hole into the laundry area, a steel barrier will materialize in the hole, looking much like the main steel barrier in the hall that leads into the laundry area. Omta really doesn’t want anyone crossing into the laundry until Omta is ready.

Green’s Trapped Employees

Several of Green’s employees are trapped in the basement. They are not in immediate danger, but most of them don’t have access to food and water, so they do need to be rescued from the castle relatively soon.

When the chaos storm hit, Green yelled “evacuate the castle!” Everyone upstairs evacuated, however, nobody emerged from the basement, presumably because the basement had been turned into a confusing magical labyrinth. Green cares about his employees, he wasn’t about to just let them rot in the basement. So he and his bodyguards went down in the basement to round up the employees and get them out. Balanestra went with them, because she is loving the life of adventure. They vanished into the basement, and didn’t come back.

They didn’t come back because Omta portaled them to the laundry room region, and then trapped them inside by building a giant steel door. The laundry room region now contains Green, his bodyguards, and Balanestra - and the Deck. They are annoyed and concerned about being trapped, but are otherwise unharmed. One of the bodyguards, Harkon, is a cleric who can conjure food and water.

The gate guards, Bran and Inya, watched as Green and his bodyguards went into the basement. Bran and Inya are much lower-level than Green and the bodyguards, so they assumed that they weren’t needed. But when Green and the bodyguards didn’t emerge, Bran and Inya also went down into the basement, in the hopes of rescuing the others. They too got trapped - they’re in the sparring room region.

Here is an inventory of all of Green’s employees who are stuck behind the steel door:

• Green.

• Mikhail, Male Half-Orc, Fighter LV8. Natural peacemaker.

• Etienne Vireaux, Male Tiefling, Diviner LV8. Tries to help people.

• Siduri, Female High Elf, Duelist LV8. Reserved. Graceful movement.

• Harkon, Male Dwarf, Cleric of Helm LV8.

• Balanestra, Female Aasimar, deck-touched.

Here is an inventory of all of Green’s employees who are trapped in the Basement:

• Bran, Gate Guard. Male Dwarf. Overly talkative, but helpful.

• Inya, Gate Guard. Female Tiefling. Has learned to let Bran talk.

• Zimmi, Cook. Female Gnome. Loud and a little pushy.

• Edric, Steward and Bookkeeper. Male Bariaur. All business.

• Penny, Helper. Teen Female Tiefling. Super smart, skill with

  languages.

Here are the ones that are not in the basement: they are at the Inn in St. Parnas:

• Wim, Janitor. Male Kobold. Avoids eye contact.

• Tommel, Gardener. Male Earth Genasi. Aloof.

Green and his bodyguards are trapped by the big steel barrier. The others are not physically trapped: they can leave the areas that they’re in, and go out into the labyrinth. But when they do, they get lost, wander around for a while, and end up back in the areas where they started. All of them have tried leaving, and none of them have gotten anywhere.

To rescue the employees, the PCs will have to find them one by one. The following section, “List of Basement Areas,” lists every region in the basement, including which of Green’s employees are trapped in that area.

The reason that Green’s employees are stuck is because they didn’t draw cards from the deck. Therefore, they lack the telepathic connection to Omta which makes it possible for the PCs to communicate with Omta. The PCs are navigating the labyrinth by asking Omta for what they need. Green’s employees don’t have that option.

Ants are Taking the Castle by Force

The castle was built very close to an anthill containing intelligent giant ants.

Prior to the chaos storm, the ants were a minor nuisance at the castle. Occasionally, a worker would enter the castle via the root cellar, take some food from a storage room, and leave. Stealing is not actually sanctioned by the ant queen, but some workers aren’t that bright. Green’s employees view the ants as a relatively insignificant issue - pretty much how you would feel if your kitchen had ants.

However, the chaos storm has upended the situation. The chaos storm has severely damaged the complex series of tunnels in their anthill, it’s caving in all over the place. The ant queen is angry, and she is intent on being compensated for the damage: you castle idiots destroyed our anthill, so we’re taking over yours! The ants are moving into the castle.

These ants are not, by nature, hostile creatures. Construction, maintenance, farming: those are the things they normally care about. The ants attitude toward other ants is “be a productive member of the community.” Their attitude toward non-ants is “live and let live.” By that, we mean that if you are not an ant, they won’t go out of their way to help you, but they won’t do anything to hurt you either. They will most likely just walk right past you, too busy to talk. Overall, they are somewhere between true neutral (to outsiders), and lawful good (to each other). However, the queen is angry about the destruction of her home. Even so, she is not bloodthirsty. She intends to take the castle by force, but she is willing to let the humans go away without bloodshed as long as the humans are willing to depart.

The ants can tell that the PCs don’t live in the castle, and that they’re not the ones responsible for the chaos. They know that when a person lives in a house for a long time, the odors rub off on each other: the house begins to smell like the person, and the person begins to smell like the house. Because of this, they can tell that the PCs don’t live in the castle. The queen’s anger is toward the people in the castle who caused the chaos storm, not toward the PCs. Because of this, the ants will generally pass the PCs without aggression.

Ants do not perceive mammals or other animals as prey. The ants are fungus farmers, they eat a fungus that they grow on a substrate of rotting organic matter.

There are three types of ants: workers, soldiers, and the queen. Workers are about the size of a small dog, soldiers are about the size of a large dog, and the queen is the size of a small horse.

The ants are intelligent, and can communicate, but they do not speak verbal languages: they communicate by waving their antennae. You will need some tricks if you want to talk to them. Here are some potentially relevant spells:

• Tongues: This will allow full communication.

• Comprehend Languages: This will allow you to understand everything

  they say. However, it won’t enable them to understand you.

• Speak with Animals: Doesn’t work. They’re too intelligent to count

  as animals.

The queen is smart enough to be creative about communication. For example, if you cast comprehend languages, she will say, “That spell doesn’t enable me to understand you, so I’ll ask you questions, and you can raise your right hand for yes, and left hand for no.” The workers and soldiers are not bright enough to come up with tricks like that, but if the PCs suggest things like that, the workers and soldiers are smart enough to play along.

Worker and soldier mentality is extremely task-focused, and very specialized. For example, the workers will give sophisticated explanations of the steps necessary to cultivate food fungus, they can go on at length about the antibiotic properties of the plants they use to prevent biological contamination. But the workers only understand the basics about things unrelated to their job. For example, if you ask them what happened to their anthill: “Things were moving everywhere, including the walls. It seemed like magic. It’s all crumbling.” No deeper insight. Soldiers are extremely knowledgeable about tactics. In combat, they don’t just attack mindlessly: they use their special abilities and the environment to get the best advantage they can get. But they really have very little to say about anything that doesn’t involve defense or security.

Only the queen is smart enough to speak broadly on a range of topics. She can cast a few spells, too. One of those is comprehend languages. She can hear and understand what the PCs are saying, even if the PCs have no way to translate. However, she can’t talk to the PCs without assistance. She can, however, communicate if the PCs suggest things such as “raise your right antenna for yes, raise your left antenna for no.”

The ants have surprisingly little trouble moving around the castle. They are just as subject to the portals as anyone else, but they navigate almost entirely by odor chemicals. For example, if they’re looking for the queen, they sniff the air for the scent of the queen, and they walk toward the scent. When the portals move, the scents move, and so they can easily follow the scents even if the portals have moved. They do have to go through the portals, but they’re just not as confused as a human would be.

Another thing the ants can do is form a long line of ants. When they do this, forming a trail of ants through the labyrinth, Omta seems hesitant to break the line by moving a portal. He prefers to move portals when nobody is watching, and the ants are forming a continuous line of “watchers.” In effect, the line of ants becomes an island of stability in the labyrinth. You can get to new places by walking alongside a trail of ants.

The ants could break through stone walls, but it would be a very slow process of tedious grinding. They haven’t done this yet. Instead, they prefer to enter through existing openings. The best entrance to the castle (for the ants) is the root cellar, which has an earthen floor. The floor of the root cellar is full of ant-sized holes, and the wooden door of the root cellar has an soldier-ant-sized hole chewed through it. The queen did not go through the hole in the door: the queen is smart enough to know how to open human doors.

The ants have selected Green’s bedroom as the queen’s new chambers. They have a large number of soldiers on both sides of the bedroom door, blocking all access. You can enter the lounge, but no further. The queen is their most valued asset, and they protect her aggressively. They are incidentally blocking access to Edric’s bedroom as well, but that’s only because the door happens to be in the same hallway as Green’s bedroom.

The ants have selected Tommel, Bran, and Wim’s bedroom as the new brood chamber. The room is full of eggs. Again, there are soldiers on both ends of the hallway, because this is a high-value area.

The ants have selected the Kitchen as the new fungus farm. The workers are swarming in there, moving rotting organic matter into the kitchen. There are a handful of soldiers in the kitchen, but they’re not blocking access to the kitchen: the fungus farm isn’t a high-value asset. They’re just there to protect the workers.

Here are some hallway encounters:

• Two soldier ants come down the hall, followed by a group of workers.

  The workers are carrying rotting plant material. The soldiers approach, and move to one side of the hallway. They then look at you, and wait to see what you do. (If the PCs move to the other side of the hallway, the ants will simply walk past).

• A long line of worker ants carrying eggs come down the hallway. They

  stop, and start waving their antennae around. Then they turn around, and head back in the opposite direction.

• A group of six soldiers and four workers come down the hall. Two

  soldiers are injured (they have been in a fight with Borghan). The workers are helping the injured soldiers. They see you, and pause. Then the four healthy soldiers approach. They close their mandibles, and use them to shove you into a corner. Then, they pass.

Feel free to improvise more.

The ants are not central to the PCs’ quest. They are there to let the PCs know that the world is alive, and there are people everywhere who have their own agendas and their own issues.

Although the ants are not central to the PCs quest, they can theoretically be helpful to the PCs. For example, if the PCs figure out how to talk to the queen, they may be able to arrange some sort of cooperative expedition to deal with Borghan (the queen would be very happy to have Borghan under control.) The PCs may also be able to work with the ants to dig holes in the walls, to make it easier to navigate the castle.

<TODO: Add stat blocks for the Ants>

Sections of Castle Green

The following is a list of the areas in Castle Green, in the order that the PCs are likely to encounter them. Each section describes what’s in that section, and what encounters the PCs will likely have there.

The Ground Floor

When the PCs first arrive at the castle, they can see that everything above knee level is gone. All that’s left of the ground floor is the floor itself, the bottom few stones of the walls, and the stairs that lead to the basement.

Rennick is here. This might be a good time to reread Rennick’s description in the introductory chapter. This is the first time that the PCs will meet Rennick. He is standing at the top of the basement stairs, shouting, “Is anybody down there?”

The PCs will probably ask Rennick about who he is. Rennick volunteers he’s a business associate of Green’s. If the PCs probe further, here are the facts that Rennick is open about and will easily divulge with even the slightest prompting:

• Rennick volunteers that he is a member of the Fraternity of Order.

  He points out the fact that he’s wearing their logo on his lapel.

• If asked, Rennick is happy to explain the Fraternity of Order, the

  fact that they make most of the laws in the city of Sigil, and that their real passion is learning the laws that govern the universe.

• If asked how he knows Green, Rennick says he’s a casino regulator

  from the City of Sigil, and Green was a casino owner there.

• If asked, he is happy to explain how casino regulation in Sigil

  works - about how the Fraternity will sell “certificates of fair play” to any casino that they can verify is legit. Rennick explains that he manages a team of statisticians and undercover investigators to make sure the casino is legit before he is willing to sell a certificate.

• Rennick loves to talk about his passion, luck research. It doesn’t

  take much to get him started: for example, if Lada introduces herself as a luck researcher, Rennick is excited to meet another luck researcher. He volunteers that casino regulation is only his day job. He explains his real passion is studying how luck, randomness, and chance work.

• If the PCs get Rennick to talk about his research, he will

  eventually volunteer that he’s discovered a way to predict the outcomes of random events, like a die roll.

Eventually, Rennick starts to feel like he’s said too much, and he starts to clam up. He realizes he shouldn’t be talking about his ability to predict random events. He also realizes he shouldn’t be talking about his relationship to the deck. He starts to be much more circumspect. Here is what he absolutely won’t tell the PCs:

• He won’t divulge that he has anything to do with the Deck. If asked,

  he just says, “I prefer not to say.” However, the fact that he suddenly clammed up is a dead giveaway that he does have something to do with the Deck.

• He won’t say why he’s here. He came to St Parnas to ask Green

  whether or not he’s noticed anything weird happening with the deck. However, because he arrived during the chaos storm, he already has his answer, a definitive yes, a chaos storm is definitely weird. He won’t talk about this.

In the light of the fact that there has been a chaos storm, and that it appeared to be centered on the castle, Rennick is worried about the safety of Green and his employees. He’s worried that there might be people trapped in the basement. He is right about that.

He says that earlier, he went to the bottom of the stairs. He says that at the bottom of the stairs are a bunch of weird labyrinth passages. He says that when he saw the labyrinth passages, he NOPED out of there: he says he isn’t an adventurer, he doesn’t want to get lost in a potentially dangerous dungeon. But he’s hoping somebody will go in. He encourages the PCs to try to help Green and Green’s employees.

So now the PCs have two reasons to descend the stairs:

• To find Green so that they can negotiate to purchase the Deck.

• To help Green’s employees escape from the labyrinth.

The Basement Landing

When the PCs come down the stairs from outside, they find themselves at the bottom of the stairs, in the basement landing. There’s nothing in the landing but a few potted plants. There are three hallways leading in three different directions - north, west, and east. All three contain portals, so looking down any of these hallways, you see a few feet of stone wall, and then the hallway continues onward as wood-paneled labyrinth walls. The appearance is surprising:

<IMAGE HERE>

When the PCs look at the transition, have them make an insight roll: the transition from stone to wood doesn’t look man-made, it looks like the artifact of a magical phenomenon of some sort.

Walking down any of the halls leads the PCs into the labyrinth.

The Labyrinth

The labyrinth itself is a maze of passages, with the walls covered with decorative wooden paneling (a lot like a Victorian library). The passages don’t go anywhere except to more passages.

As the PCs walk around the labyrinth, they will unknowingly be passing through portals that lead to other places in the labyrinth. The portals in the labyrinth shift around randomly. As a result, it is impossible to map the labyrinth. The effective layout is constantly changing.

The PCs will probably try strategies like marking the walls with arrows that point back toward the entrance. If they do, they will discover that the labyrinth seems to be shifting: they find their own arrows, but they’re now pointing in scattered directions, even pointing at each other. The labyrinth itself isn’t shifting, the portals are, but that has the effect of connecting hallways that weren’t connected before, and the labyrinth certainly appears to have shifted.

When the PCs stop for a bit, let them know that they are feeling a faint sense of anxiety and dread. Have them make WIS DC15 checks to realize: it’s not their own anxiety/dread: the sensation is coming from outside, from somebody else. Of course, the sensation is coming from Omta, but when you talk to your PCs about where the emotions are coming from, call it “the presence in the labyrinth.”

To get unstuck, the PCs need to first reassure Omta, and then ask him for help with navigation. See the previous section, “Navigating the Portals,” for detailed instructions about what is necessary. Once they do those things, Omta will probably take the PCs to the next basement area.

The PCs may find interesting things in the hallways of the labyrinth. Space out the following encounters semi-randomly, throwing in a random encounter whenever things seem a little slow.

• The PCs find scraps of Borghan’s fur scraped off on some of the

  labyrinth woodwork.

• They find a single stone block from one of the castle walls. This

  just teleported out of a wall randomly during the chaos storm, leaving a hole in the wall.

• They encounter ants (see the previous section on ants).

• With a difficult perception roll, they see an anomaly caused by a

  portal. Show them the image below. The anomaly is hard to see, but it is there. The reason for the seam in the following image is that there is a portal stitching together two labyrinth hallways:

{width="2.932292213473316in" height="3.9265748031496064in"}

In the labyrinth, it is possible to encounter Borghan himself. This should not happen until after the PCs have figured out how to move around. Give them a chance to get their bearings before encountering a foe. For information on how to run the Borghan encounter, refer to the previous section, “Borghan: The Caged Beast.”

The Sparring Room, Armory, and Cells

When Omta finally allows the PCs to leave the labyrinth tunnels, this is where he takes them if they don’t ask for any place in particular. In this location, you can find three holding cells. Across from the cells are the sparring room and the armory.

All the cell doors have small windows that let you see inside. All three rooms are empty. All three rooms are held shut by bars across the doors, which are easily removed from the outside of the cell. Two of the cells are dusty and clearly have not been used recently. The third has had an occupant who managed to shatter the bar that held the door shut. The bar is in splinters on the floor, and the occupant is gone. A search of the smashed cell reveals bits of coarse brown fur. Of course, don’t tell your players this, but the occupant was Borghan, the “Caged Beast.” Borghan has been wandering the labyrinth for about a week.

The armory is full of weapon racks that are empty. This room is to equip an army, and Green doesn’t have an army, so this room is unneeded. Alyssa Varn has strung a piece of piano wire across the doorframe at shin-level. The wire has been there for quite some time, nobody tripped on it because nobody goes into the Armory. The wire is not connected to a mechanism: it’s just there to trip and slash shins. First person to enter the room must make a perception check DC 15 to spot the wire in time. Failing that, take 6HP damage, dex save DC 15 for half. Stuck to the wall inside the room, next to where the tripwire is anchored, is a tiny note: “Get the &^$ out of my castle! - AV”

The sparring room is actively used by Green and his guards. It is currently occupied by the two gate guards, Bran and Inya, who are stuck here. They are glad that somebody has come to get them out of here. They can explain the basic story of how Green and some of his employees ended up in the basement-labyrinth. They can also give an accurate inventory of who’s in the basement, though they don’t know exactly where these individuals are in the basement.

It is important that Bran and Inya provide a complete list of all the missing people. That gives the PCs a checklist to follow. Trying to locate everyone on the checklist is the main mechanism by which the PCs will find the rest of the areas in the basement.

If asked about people who drew cards, Bran says, “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I mostly don’t know. Green doesn’t tell us what cards people drew - privacy, you know? But, I guess I can tell you about Borghan and Alyssa, I know about them.”

This is what they have to say about Borghan and Alyssa:

• They know that the castle came into existence when Alyssa Varn drew

  “bricklayer.” They know Alyssa sold the castle to Green, and they know that Alyssa has “seller’s remorse” and that she’s causing no end of grief for the castle inhabitants.

• They know that the labyrinth came into existence when Borghan drew

  “bricklayer.” They know the labyrinth was originally a separate place, but it got all tangled up in the castle basement when the chaos storm hit. They also know that Borghan is in the form of a Grizzly bear, wandering the labyrinth.

Aside from the basic facts above, they don’t know anything else about Alyssa or Borghan. They can’t tell you what other cards those two drew.

Bran and Inya can also tell the PCs the following tidbit: Green used to own a Casino in Sigil, and Bran and Inya were guards at the casino. For this whole deck of many things venture, Green mostly hired people who used to work for his casino. Bran and Inya both agree that Green is a decent boss.

When the PCs try to leave the sparring room area, have them make a perception roll, DC15. If any PC succeeds, they notice a hole in the wall that leads into the armory. There is nothing interesting on the other side of the hole. It is just a hole that randomly appeared in the wall during the chaos storm.

To get Bran and Inya out of the labyrinth, the PCs need to ask the presence in the labyrinth to take them to the exit of Castle Green.

The Kitchen, Pantry, and Dining Area

To get to the kitchen, the PCs pretty much have to ask for it specifically. The most likely reason that they would do so is to find Zimmi, the cook, who they know about because of Bran’s inventory of Green’s employees.

The dining room is a longish room containing dining tables and chairs. There are far more seats than are necessary for Green and his entourage. It is obvious that only the dining tables closest to the kitchen have been used recently. The walls are decorated with some colorful scenes of the outlands. This sort of decorative art is inexpensive in the St Parnas market square. There are also some potted plants. Despite the decorations, the room still looks a little sparse.

The only really interesting thing in the dining room is that the wall that separates the dining room from the hallway is missing a stone block. This is easily visible: no perception roll necessary. If you’re small, or very flexible, you can squeeze through. This is not at all useful, but it does hint at the fact that there may be other similar passages throughout the castle.

Across the hall from the dining room is the kitchen. The kitchen has been taken over by ants. They have covered the entire floor with a spongy bed of rotting plant matter (leaves, wood chips, etc). These are fungus-farming ants, and this is their new fungus farm.

Inside the kitchen, there are 10 worker ants and 4 soldier ants. When the PCs open the door to the kitchen, the soldiers immediately cluster around the door and form a barrier. They do not attack.

This is a good opportunity to get a close look at the ants. Tell the PCs that the soldiers are considerably larger than the workers. The workers have mandibles that act like pliers: the tips are flat and can grab onto things. The soldiers, on the other hand, have mandibles that are sharp.

If the PCs stand and watch for a minute, they will see that the workers are crushing up bits of food from the kitchen and are kneading it into the organic matter on the floor. The ants know that human food makes a good substrate for growing fungus, so they’re taking advantage of the kitchen’s supplies.

The PCs can hear a voice: “Help! Get me out of here!” The voice is obviously coming from the pantry, which is a walk-in closet in the back of the kitchen. The situation is that the cook, Zimmi, has locked herself in the pantry because she is scared of the ants. She shoved a doorstop under the door to keep the ants from coming in. The ants, for their part, don’t seem particularly concerned with Zimmi. They are leaving the pantry alone: Zimmi is scared, but her life is not actually in any danger.

If the PCs try to enter the room, a soldier will close his mandibles so that the points are touching each other, then he will use the “flat of the blade” of his mandibles to push the PC back toward the door. This action is clearly designed not to cause damage, but to send a message: you’re not invited.

One way to earn the trust of the ants is to offer them food rations. If the PCs do this, a worker ant will scoot right past the soldiers, accept the rations, and begin kneading the food into the floor. The soldiers, seeing this, will get out of the way. As long as the PCs are handing food to the workers, the soldiers will let them move around the room. However, the soldiers will stay close to the PCs, encircling them.

If the PCs shout to Zimmi, “it’s okay, unlock the door, don’t worry, these ants aren’t aggressive,” Zimmi will open the door. Zimmi is a gnome wearing a chef’s apron. If Zimmi sees that the PCs are standing in the kitchen unharmed, she will emerge. From there, the PCs can escort her out of the kitchen without difficulty, and from there, she can be led out of the labyrinth and to safety.

The Root Cellar, Wine Cellar, and Furniture Storage

The most likely way to reach this area is if the PCs ask Omta about Alyssa Varn, the woman who drew the bricklayer card. This is the area where she lives.

The root cellar is a room with an earthen floor. Depending on their backgrounds, the PCs may know what this is: the soil floor creates a humid environment, which keeps turnips, parsnips, and other root vegetables from desiccating.

The root cellar has been emptied out of any vegetables: the ants took it all. The ground looks like it has been tilled, and there are multiple ant-sized tunnels coming up out of the soil. This is clearly how the ants have been getting into the basement. The door to the root cellar has a soldier-ant sized hole in the bottom of it. It looks like they chewed their way through.

The door to the wine cellar is open a few inches. Alyssa Varn has set up a booby trap: she put a bucket of her urine on top of the door. The PCs must make a perception roll DC15 to spot it before opening the door. If one of the PCs has a keen sense of smell, they may be able to smell it instead. If somebody pushes open the door without spotting the bucket, they have to make a DEX save DC15 to dodge it. If they fail, the PC is nauseated. The PC will have disadvantage on rolls until they can clean themselves. The bucket has words written on it: “This is my Castle! Get the $%& Out!”

Inside the wine cellar there are several racks of wine. Most of it is just table wine, but there are a five bottles of the good stuff. The ants seem to have left this room alone. There is nothing else of interest here.

The furniture storage room is jam-packed full of unused furniture. When the castle was conjured, it was fully furnished, but the furniture wasn’t to Green’s liking, so Green got some better furniture. The cheap stuff has been shoved into this room. The furniture is piled to the ceiling. There is a thick layer of dust.

Hidden in the back of the furniture is Alyssa Varn’s hideout. She has arranged some bookshelves to make a little room within the big room. Inside her little bookshelf-room is a sleeping bag, a nightstand with a candle, and two changes of clothing. It is easy to tell from looking at the clothing that Alyssa is a very petite woman, and quite thin. There is nothing to indicate the identity of the person who is sleeping here, but if the PCs have spoken to Bran and Inya, they can probably guess. Alyssa is not here.

To find the hideout is challenging. The PCs must first ask some questions along the lines of, “is there anything hidden in the furniture,” or “does anything look like it’s been disturbed?” If they ask something like that, have them make a perception roll, DC15. If they succeed, they notice an area under a table that has less dust. This is the path that Alyssa takes to get from the door to her hideout. The dust-free path leads under a table, through a very narrow gap between a whole bunch of dressers, and from there snakes around until it finally reaches the hideout. To get through you either have to be small, or you have to move the furniture (which is not difficult).

Inside of Alyssa’s hideout is another missing block in a wall. Alyssa has concealed this passage by leaning the nightstand up against it. To see it, you have to move the nightstand. The opening looks different than the one in the dining room: in the dining room, the block was cleanly extracted, and the mortar is still there. This one looks like the mortar was carved away painstakingly with a sharp tool. To pass through the opening, you have to be small.

On the other side of the opening is Etienne’s wardrobe - Etienne is one of Green’s bodyguards. Alyssa has cut a hole in the back of the wardrobe so she can sneak into it. Again, to pass through the hole, you have to be small.

This hole in the wall is one of the very few ways that it is possible to move from one castle region to a different region without passing through the labyrinth. The portals to the labyrinth are all in the hallways. But if you go through holes in the walls, you bypass all that.

The Bedrooms of the Bodyguards

The most likely way the PCs will reach this area is through the hole in Alyssa Varn’s hiding place.

This region contains the bedrooms of all four of Green’s personal bodyguards. Each one has his or her own bedroom, and each one has personalized their space. From looking at the clothing in the wardrobes, you can pretty easily tell which clothes are male or female, and which ones are for humans, half-orcs, or dwarves. If the PCs have a good memory, they may be able to identify which room belongs to which bodyguard, but it’s not important that they be able to do so.

None of the bodyguards are actually present in the bedrooms, the only person present is Alyssa Varn, who is lurking.

Mikhail’s Room: Mikhail is a male half-orc fighter. Bedroom contains a wardrobe, a bed, a shelving unit full of decorative tea sets, and a reading desk with some books about Sigil politics and factions.

Harkon’s Room: Harkon is a male dwarf cleric of Helm. Bedroom contains a wardrobe, a bed, a shrine to Helm, and a writing desk.

Siduri’s Room: Siduri is a female high elf duelist. Bedroom contains a wardrobe, a bed, a nightstand, and a collection of ornate curvy swords on the wall. On the nightstand is a collection of books containing diagrams of fencing maneuvers.

Etienne’s Room: Etienne is a male tiefling diviner. Bedroom contains a wardrobe, a bed, a writing desk, and a number of books mainly about hunting mushrooms in the outlands. The desk has an unsent letter.

Etienne’s unsent letter is as follows:

Dear Magert,

I hope you’re doing well! As for me, I’m doing fine. Living in St. Parnas is quite a change from Sigil: there’s not much of an art scene, and the restaurant options are limited. I’m looking forward to returning when this is all over.

I’m writing to ask your opinions about two people who drew cards from the deck. One is named Asatya. She drew the “void” card, and she immediately fell into a coma. My divinations tell me there’s nobody in there - she’s not “locked in,” she’s just gone. The doctors at the local hospital don’t have a clue what to do.

The other is a man named Borghan. He drew the “beast” card, which turned him into an oversized grizzly bear. I can talk to him using “speak with animals,” he’s fully animal intelligence now.

Deck curses don’t respond to simple spells like “restoration.” I’m looking for powerful artifacts or individuals, anywhere in the planes, that might help these two. Are you aware of anything that might help?

Your dear friend, Etienne

Alyssa Varn has a trap that she is waiting to spring if some of the weaker party members find themselves in a room with only one exit: she will jam a doorstop under the door, then she will nail the door shut. Getting out should be a 10 to 15 minute project, involving finding some way to get the nails out.

If the PCs enter Mikhail’s bedroom via the hole in the wall of the furniture storage area, this may result in an opportunity for Alyssa to pull her little stunt. She won’t try to trap the PCs in Mikhail’s bedroom, because that bedroom has two exits (the door, and the hole). Instead, she will wait until a few of the weaker party members are alone in a room with only one door.

This hallway is a perfect place for a line of worker ants to suddenly show up, walking through carrying eggs. They ignore the PCs.

The Barracks of the Castle Staff

TODO: How do people reach the barracks?

There are two barracks: one for the men, one for the women.

The men’s barracks do not contain anything of any great interest. The men who live here are Tommel, Wim, and Bran. Nobody is present in the barracks. Feel free to invent personal effects for these men.

The women’s barracks, on the other hand, has been completely taken over by ants: they are turning it into an incubator for their eggs.

There are many worker and soldier ants present. The worker ants are busily creating safe little earth pockets for the eggs, and installing the eggs inside them. The soldier ants are insistent that the PCs cannot come inside: they will push back any PCs who try to enter.

However, there’s a female teenage tiefling here: Penny. She’s helping the ants move the eggs around. The ants already trust her. Like Green’s other employees, she hasn’t figured out how to get out of the labyrinth, but she is completely safe, the ants have been providing her with food and water. When the soldier ants try to repel the PCs, Penny raises her arms above her head and wiggles them around in a manner similar to how the ants move their antennae. In response to this, the ants make a path for the PCs to approach Penny.

Penny has already learned the rudiments of ant-language, even though she’s only been with the ants a few days. This is a clue that Penny is exceptional at language learning: she is good at helping out with any task that involves deciphering messages or languages. If asked about this, Penny downplays it: “Oh, I’ve only learned a few words. I’m basically at the ‘where is the bathroom’ stage of learning their language.” Despite this modesty, she is indeed very good at languages. She can translate, but it is true that she only knows a few words. She can translate very basic things like “people not dangerous,” but anything more complex is impossible.

When Penny sees the PCs, she is cheerful and friendly. If the PCs say they’ve come to rescue Green’s employees, Penny is grateful: she likes the ants, but she’s tired of being stuck in the basement. She comes with the PCs willingly. She is a useful resource for deciphering the scrolls.

The Lounge, and Green and Edric’s Quarters

The lounge contains Omta’s steel door. Because of that, Omta deliberately keeps the PCs away from this area until Omta has a little time to get used to the PCs. This is therefore the last area that the PCs will find by traversing the labyrinth.

This area contains two large sofas, several comfy chairs, and a few reading tables. All this furniture has been upended during the chaos storm, and much of it is in a pile in the southeast corner of the room. The pile is hiding something important: there is a hole in the wall to Edric’s room. Like the other holes in the wall, it consists of one missing stone block. To get through, you have to be small in size.

Edric is here. Edric is the bariaur steward of the castle. A “steward” is responsible for paperwork: he keeps track of the books, he’s responsible for ordering deliveries of food, he guards the moneybox, and the like.

To the east of the lounge is a short segment of hallway which is jam-packed with soldier ants. They are guarding the door to Green’s bedroom. Green’s bedroom is the largest bedroom in the basement, the ant queen has taken it as her lair. There is nothing interesting in Green’s bedroom other than the ant queen.

Directly across from Green’s bedroom is Edric’s bedroom and office. Edric’s office contains unremarkable items such as a wardrobe, a bed, and a writing table. It also contains the vault, which contains a lockbox with 3500 in gems (conjured by the Deck), 500 gp in gold, and a bunch of ledgers and records which are important to Edric but which serve no purpose for anyone else. Getting into Edric’s office is difficult because the soldier ants won’t let anyone come into the hallway with the doorway. However, it is also possible to enter Edric’s office through the hole in the wall in the lounge. The vault is basically a closet with a solid wooden door with a mundane padlock (lockpick DC 15). It can also be opened (slowly) by bashing. The lockbox is inside, with its own lock (lockpick DC 13).

Edric isn’t willing to leave the lounge until he has the lockbox. Once he has it, he’s glad to get out of the basement.

If the PCs steal the gems, Edric will be angry. He will make an impassioned plea: “When you drew from the Deck, we dealt with you fairly. We paid you the gold you were owed, and when you went to a Donjon, we didn’t just keep your money, we made sure it went to your next-of-kin. We were fair to you. Are you really going to steal from us?” Doing this will earn the disapproval of all of Green’s employees. The PCs will get no cooperation on anything if the PCs treat Edric this way.

The lounge floor has a trapdoor that leads down into the labyrinth. This is not a portal, it’s a plain old trapdoor, the labyrinth actually is physically underneath the basement. The trapdoor has been here ever since the labyrinth was conjured.

If the PCs enter Edric’s bedroom via the hole, then emerge via the door, they will pop right out in front of the door to Green’s bedroom - the queen’s chamber. This will annoy the ants, and they will very aggressively push the PCs back into Edric’s bedroom. Then, they will form a line barring passage through Edric’s door. The PCs will have to exit via the hole.

The soldier ants in the lounge are very strict - whereas the soldiers in other parts of the castle are assertive, but rarely aggressive, these ones will fight if the PCs push their way into that hallway. They are quite serious about defending the queen. The only way to get past them is with Penny’s help: she can ask for permission to see the queen, and the queen will grant limited access (just one PC, plus Penny). For information about what the queen says, see the section on the ants.

To the north of the lounge is a hallway that in more normal times led to the latrine, the laundry room, and the cistern. When Green and his bodyguards entered the basement to rescue Green’s employees, Green was carrying the Deck. Omta portaled this group to the laundry room, then sealed them in by conjuring a big steel barrier in this hallway. Of course, Omta isn’t really trying to trap these people: he really only cares about protecting the deck. The people are collateral damage. Of course, the group tried to escape, but Omta thwarted them.

When the PCs first arrive in the lounge, they see the steel barrier in this hallway. Later, this barrier will turn into a steel door. See the upcoming section, “The Steel Barrier becomes a Steel Door.”

The Latrine, Cistern, and Laundry

This area of the castle is inaccessible, because of the steel barrier. We include it for completeness.

The cistern is a big tank where rainwater from the roof is collected. It is the castle’s supply of fresh water.

The latrine is basically a room with some watertight boxes that you can use to relieve yourself. When the castle was functioning normally, Zim (the janitor) would take those boxes outside and dump them in the woods. Now that the area is sealed, the boxes haven’t been emptied in some time, and the odor is seeping into the surrounding areas.

The laundry room is an area containing some big steel tubs which are used for both laundry and bathing. There is a large hearth with a pot that can be used to heat water. There is a rack full of towels, and a few tables for folding laundry. This is where Green and his bodyguards are staying now that they are trapped.

Communicating with Omta

When the PCs first enter the castle, they sense anxiety and dread (via their telepathic link with Omta). Later, a PC will say something out loud, and Omta will hear what the PC said and will have an emotional reaction. For example, if the PC says, “let’s go find the deck,” the PCs will sense a sudden uptick in the fear and anxiety coming from the presence in the labyrinth. If the PC says something like, “we’re not here to hurt you,” the emotion might change from anxiety to cautious relief.

Initially, that’s the extent of the communication: the PCs say things, the presence in the labyrinth (Omta) reacts with emotions. The fact that the emotions make sense - the fact that they’re logical reactions to the things that the PCs say - that tells the players that the presence in the labyrinth actually is listening and paying attention.

The players will eventually realize that they can talk directly to Omta, asking for things out loud. As long as those things aren’t a threat to Omta, Omta will cooperate. For example, if they say, “we need to find the cook,” Omta will rearrange the portals so that the PCs soon wander into the kitchen.

This low-level communication should persist for quite a while. Let the PCs explore the castle until they’ve accomplished quite a few things. Make sure they’ve met at least two of the employees, and make sure they’ve had a few interactions with ants. Ideally, they should have had an interaction with Borghan and an interaction with Alyssa Varn as well.

After the PCs have been in the castle a while, Omta decides to communicate with them in a more detailed way. Omta reaches out to the PCs telepathically, and tries to send them an actual message.

Failed Telepathic Messages

The PCs experience a strange phenomenon. Say to your players, “you feel the presence in the labyrinth trying to send a message to you. You receive the following: surprise, then shock, then fear, then determination, then more surprise, then a feeling of being trapped.” Then, a minute later, tell them: “You sense frustration.”

What’s happening here is that Omta is trying to send a message through the telepathic link, but it’s not working. Omta’s way of reasoning is so alien that it’s just not coming through: all the PCs are receiving are the emotions associated with the story that Omta is trying to tell, but they’re not receiving any of the concrete details. Omta can tell that the PCs aren’t getting it, so he’s frustrated that his attempts at communication aren’t getting through.

Omta will sporadically repeat these attempts, always to no avail. If the players don’t figure it out, let them roll an insight roll to figure out: the “presence in the labyrinth” is trying to communicate with you, but it’s not really working.

Tell them that although they can’t figure out what the presence is trying to say, they do sense two very clear patterns:

• The emotions they’re receiving contain an awful lot of fear,

  anxiety, and dread. Of course, this is because Omta is terrified of Tymora.

• The sequences of emotions always end in frustration. Of course, this

  is because Omta is aggravated about his inability to communicate with the PCs.

Make sure that Omta repeats this at least three times.

Omta Decides to try Writing

After several failed attempts at telepathic communication, Omta comes up with a new idea: maybe I can talk to them in writing!

This is what the PCs experience: they once again receive a sequence of emotions, followed once again by frustration… and more frustration… and then suddenly, inspiration! Insight! Moments later, a piece of parchment materializes in thin air in front of one of the PCs. The scroll contains images of cards from the deck.

The fact that the scroll is made up of symbols from the Deck is a dead giveaway that the PCs are talking to the deck itself. Let’s take a moment to explain why Omta is communicating using images from the deck.

Tens of thousands of years ago, Omta fled to a far corner of the multiverse and has been hiding there ever since. He went into hiding before mortals existed, and before mortals invented language. Because of this, Omta has no idea what a “sentence” is. Back in those days, the gods communicated with symbols, but those symbols were not arranged into sentences. Instead, symbols were displayed in groups, associated with each other but without any subject, verb, object relationship. This is the only way Omta knows how to talk. He never learned how to speak a language.

Omta likes to use cards from the deck as his preferred symbols. He thinks the cards represent all the most important ideas, so in his mind, they make the perfect communication symbols. Each card has multiple meanings. For example, the gem card can mean “gems.” But it can also mean “money”, or “wealth”, or even “precious.” It can also mean “beautiful”, or even “sparkly.” Earlier in this book, the chapter Cards of the Deck lists the symbolic meanings of the cards.

Any PC who drew a card from the deck knows, instinctively, the symbolic meanings of that particular card. For example, if one of the PCs drew the gem card, then that PC will know that the gem card has all the meanings listed above. Of course, every PC drew three cards, so by working together and sharing information, the PCs will be able to decipher many of the symbols used by Omta.

But what about cards that the PCs didn’t draw? Nobody in the party drew the Sun card, for instance. If the PCs want to know what the symbolic meanings of the Sun card are, they will have to ask somebody who drew the sun card.

Omta Says: “Ask Me Questions, Mortals.”

The first piece of parchment that Omta gives to the PCs looks like this:

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It means: “I want the four of you to ask me questions.”

The cluster on the left represents the PCs: four people who drew the Donjon card. The cluster on the right represents Omta: it contains his holy symbol, a pair of dice with a sunburst. The PCs recognize the symbol of the dice with the sunburst as the symbol that was on the box of the Deck. The middle symbol is the Vizier card. If the PCs ask Lada about the Vizier card, she says, “in the past, it used to grant mortals the ability to ask questions of the gods.” As it turns out, that’s still what it does.

Omta wants the PCs to ask him questions. He thinks that if the PCs start by asking the right questions, then communicating with them will be easier.

When the PCs try to interpret the scroll, they will probably say all kinds of things that are incorrect. When the PCs say something incorrect, they sense mild confusion from Omta via the telepathic link. This is their clue that they’re on the wrong track.

When they say something correct, part of the scroll becomes brighter, bolder, more colorful. For example, if somebody says, “I think this cluster on the left represents the four of us,” then the PCs sense excitement from Omta, and the cluster on the left becomes bolder, brighter, clearer. This is the PCs clue that they’re on the right track. But the fact that only the cluster on the left became bolder tells them that they haven’t deciphered the whole scroll, only the part on the left.

If the PCs get stuck, which is likely, they may get frustrated. In that case, Lada says, “I think part of the problem is that we don’t know what this vizier symbol really means. Do we know anybody who drew the vizier card? Maybe they would know.” That’s the key to understanding all of Omta’s messages: go find the people who drew the cards.

If you go find the people who drew the cards, in general, those people will know what the cards mean. However, some of those people are very difficult to talk to. For example, Borghan is in the form of a bear, which makes it extremely difficult to get any kind of useful information out of him.

Fortunately, there is a woman who drew the Vizier card: Brunna the Antiquarian. She is not hard to talk to, and she is very helpful in interpreting the messages.

Now that Omta has given the PCs this message, he refuses to help with navigation any more until the PCs figure out what his message means. He takes the PCs to the basement landing, and won’t bring them anywhere else. If the PCs reenter the labyrinth, Omta will just bring them back to the basement landing.

Of course, if the PCs do figure out that they’re supposed to ask questions, they’ll probably try asking all sorts of questions. But only three questions will elicit a response:

• Why are you afraid?

• What is your goal?

• Who are you?

These questions don’t have to be phrased exactly like that. For example, instead of asking “What is your goal,” the PCs could equivalently ask, “What are you trying to accomplish,” “Why is the deck here,” or anything along those lines.

Asking any question other than the three questions above will result in no reaction. Omta won’t answer arbitrary questions, he has specific things he wants to convey.

Sometimes, the PCs get focused on their own goals, and they start asking questions like, “how can we get to where the deck is.” Omta reacts to these questions with annoyance. If the PCs get stuck asking questions about their own goals, Lada eventually gives them a hint: “We should ask him about his agenda, not about how he can help us with ours.”

If one the PCs ask one of the three key questions, Omta conjures another scroll: the answer to the question. As soon as the PCs ask one of the three questions, Omta will permit the PCs to traverse the basement again.

Asking: “Why are you Afraid?”

Omta conjures this scroll if the PCs ask the question, “Why are you afraid:”

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The meaning of this scroll is: “I’m afraid because Tymora intends to kill me!”

The cluster on the left represents Omta. It contains Omta’s holy symbol, the Sun card, and Euryale. In this context, the Sun card means “god,” Omta is just letting the PCs know that he’s a god. The Euryale card means “fear,” it represents the fact that Omta is afraid.

The cluster on the right represents Tymora. Again the Sun card means “god,” because Tymora is a god. The gem card is there because Tymora’s holy symbol is a coin, Gem is the closest thing in the deck to “coin.” The skull card conjures an “avatar of death” that immediately tries to kill you. In this context, it means “a dangerous killer.”

In reality, Omta is overly fearful. This is because in Omta’s past, his formative experiences involved another god who was much more aggressive and dangerous than Tymora. Now he expects all gods to be dangerous and aggressive. Fear and anxiety are not always rational: Omta is scared.

In fairness, to Omta, Tymora is no murderer, but she is very angry, and she won’t rule out the possibility of a fight. So Omta really is in some danger.

Asking: “What is Your Goal?”

Omta conjures this scroll if the PCs ask the question, “what do you want,” or equivalently, “why are you here,” or “why is the deck sticking around:”

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The meaning of this scroll is: “I have to save the universe from Rennick, before he ruins everything!”

In this scroll, the upper-left cluster represents Omta. It contains his holy symbol, and also the knight card, which means “defender,” in this case, the defender of the universe.

The cluster on the right represents Rennick. It contains the Vizier card, meaning (in this case) a seer or a scholar: Rennick is a researcher. It also contains the Idiot card - Omta thinks that Rennick, for all his knowledge, is a careless idiot. Finally, it contains the “ruin” card, meaning that Rennick is going to destroy everything.

The bottom cluster represents the entire universe. Omta frequently uses the combination “Star-Gem” to represent the universe. Star means “wondrous thing,” and gem means “beautiful thing.” Omta thinks the universe is a wonderful, beautiful thing. But identifying that star-gem is a reference to the universe is quite difficult. However, many of the scrolls contain the star-gem combo. Other scrolls provide clues that star-gem might be the universe.

Of course, the ruin card in the bottom cluster means that Omta is afraid that the universe is going to be ruined.

Asking: “Who Are You?”

Asking somebody who they are is a very open-ended question. When Omta gets this question, he decides to tell his whole life story, in the form of four scrolls. To make this clear to the players, Lada should say this explicitly: “Four scrolls? Is this his entire life story?”

When you look at the four scrolls, you’ll notice that the scrolls have page numbers: the comet cards. But the page numbering is backward from what you might expect. The comet symbol represents time, usually the past. So one comet means “a long time ago,” but four comets means “a long, long, long, long time ago.”

Here are the four scrolls, in chronological order:

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Omta is trying to tell the following story:

“A god created the universe. He was the original bricklayer, he was the king of the gods. But he was a beast, and he was possessive and controlling. The universe he created was a wondrous item, it was beautiful, but it was flawed. It was too predictable, too boring. I was wise, and I knew how to fix the universe. But I knew the creator was possessive and wouldn’t want me to touch his creation. So I snuck into the universe, making sure the creator didn’t see me, and I taught the universe how to use randomness.”

That’s a lot to interpret from just a few symbols! Let me walk you though how the symbols on the scroll tell that story.

The cluster on the right represents the creator god. It contains the Sun card, meaning “god.” It contains the bricklayer card, which of course means creator or builder, but it also implies possessive and controlling. The throne card means “king,” but it also implies that he rules by sheer might. The creator is the king of the gods because he is the most powerful god.

The cluster on the right is the best starting point. Since it contains the king of the gods, the bricklayer, it strongly suggests that this story is a creation myth. And if this is a myth about the creation of the universe, well then it follows that the universe must be here on the scroll somewhere.

Getting your players to realize this is a creation myth can be tricky, so be attentive for when somebody says something about creation of the universe. As soon as they do, give them positive feedback in the form of the entire scroll getting a little bolder. Letting them know this is a creation myth is essential to them deciphering this.

The cluster in the center represents the universe. It uses the star-gem combo, which the Deck frequently uses to indicate the universe. Star means “wondrous item,” gem means “beautiful item.” This is the best Omta can do to summarize the universe.

The cluster also contains the cripple card, meaning sick or unhealthy. But it’s not immediately obvious how the universe was sick or unhealthy until you think about it logically: this is the Deck we’re talking to. Its whole agenda is randomness. If the deck doesn’t like the universe, it must be because the universe lacks randomness.

The cluster on the left means Omta. It contains his holy symbol, and the owl card, meaning “wise.” Omta thinks he’s wise, because he thinks he knows how to cure the universe. The key card means “teaching a skill.” Omta is teaching the universe how to be random. The rogue card means, “being sneaky.” In this case, it represents the fact that Omta knew the creator wouldn’t want anyone messing with his stuff, so Omta knew he had to sneak into the universe and not get caught.

You will have to give your players many hints. The most valuable hint they can receive is feedback: if they say something that’s on the wrong track, they receive annoyance from Omta. If they say something that’s on the right track, parts of the scroll light up to show what they got right.

Here is the second part of the story:

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This part of the story is simple:

“I fled the scene of the crime. I hid in the farthest reaches of the void! I was terrified.”

Omta knew that the creator god was controlling and possessive, and that he wouldn’t want anybody messing with his creation. So after altering the universe, Omta fled the scene of the crime and hid. He was terrified that the creator would find out what he did, and kill him.

In this scroll, there is one cluster, containing Omta’s holy symbol. Omta is all alone. The dungeon card here means imprisonment or isolation, in this case, self-imposed. The void card means literally, “in the farthest reaches of the void.” The rogue card means, “still being sneaky.” And the Euryale card means, “terrified.”

Then, this happened:

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This is the story Omta is trying to tell:

“I was trying to be sneaky, but Selune found me out. She saw what I did, then she found me in the void. I’m such an idiot! I should have been more careful! Fortunately, Selune was wise. She agreed to keep silent: she would not tell anyone what I did, or where I was hiding, or even that I exist.”

Let’s go over that one symbol at a time. The cluster on the right is Omta. Rogue means he’s still trying to be sneaky. Euryale means he’s still terrified of getting caught. But Idiot means he’s failed: he’s been caught.

The cluster on the left is Selune. Sun-Moon means “goddess of the moon,” ie, Selune. Owl means “wise.” Void, in this case, means “silent.”

Notice that Omta is calling Selune “wise.” That strongly suggests that Selune “did the right thing” in the eyes of Omta. And obviously, “doing the right thing” would be not revealing Omta to the creator, not getting him killed. And obviously, Omta is not dead, so obviously, she didn’t turn him in.

Understanding the void card in Selune’s cluster is difficult. When somebody lists off the meanings of the void card, one of them is “Silence.” Try to give them the feedback that silence is the right interpretation here. But what does that mean, Silence?

To really understand, Lada needs to remind the players of the vision with Selune. In that vision, Selune said: “A long, long time ago, I promised to keep a secret.” Selune was specifically referring to the incident in this scroll! She promised Omta that she would not reveal his existence to the creator. That’s why, when the PCs talked to Selune in that vision, she couldn’t say any more - if she revealed Omta’s existence, that would be breaking the promise. So the void card, in this context, means “keeping silent - keeping a secret.”

Again, you will need to provide lots of hints and feedback.

Here is the final page of the story:

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Learning the Meanings of the Cards

In order to decipher Omta’s scrolls, the PCs will need to know the symbolic meanings of all the cards. Many of the cards have some obvious meanings, and some non-obvious meanings. For example, the Key card can literally mean, “A Key.” That’s completely obvious. It can also mean, “To Lock,” or “To Unlock.” That’s not as obvious, but it’s still pretty easy to guess. But because the Key card can grant a skill, the Key card can also mean “A Skill.” That’s non-obvious, and to learn that, you may have to talk to somebody who drew the Key card. They will know all the meanings.

Anyone who draws a card from the deck gains a magical awareness of what that particular card means. Since each PC drew three cards, each PC knows the exact meanings of three of the cards. By pooling their knowledge, the PCs can figure out the meanings of quite a few of the cards. However, there are still quite a few cards that the PCs will not have drawn. To find out those meanings, the PCs will have to seek out NPCs who drew those particular cards.

Another thing the PCs can do to learn the meanings of the cards is to ask Lada. Lada is a researcher into Luck, and the Deck is one of her most favorite research topics. However, all of her knowledge comes from historical records. That’s a problem, because Omta constantly changes up the cards and their meanings. Lada’s knowledge is just plain out-of-date. If the PCs ask Lada the meaning of a card, you should read the description of the card from the DM’s guide! If the card isn’t in the DM’s guide, then Lada says she’s never heard of the card before.

Lada is crystal clear about the fact that her knowledge is not trustworthy. She explains that her knowledge might be out-of-date, and she explains that some of the historical records she’s using might be entirely made up by liars. She says that her information is potentially useful, but that it should be taken with a big grain of salt. In fact, the descriptions in the DM’s guide do match the ones in this module for some of the cards, but most cards have at least some differences.

Help your Players Decipher the Scrolls

You will have to help the PCs decipher the scrolls. You will need to give them lots of hints.

The scrolls contain symbols which have many meanings. Because of this, interpreting a scroll is an incredibly open-ended puzzle. That’s fun, but there’s a downside: it means that it’s very easy for the PCs to go off on a tangents with wild misinterpretations.

The first step to keeping your players on track is to repeatedly remind them: talk to the NPCs who drew the cards. You need to impress this on your players: it’s fun to try to guess what the cards represent, but until you talk to the people who drew the cards, you’re just guessing.

For example, some player might convince himself that he just knows that the Sun card must mean fire and flame and destruction. It absolutely doesn’t mean that at all. If the PCs spend hours trying to make sense of a scroll, starting with the assumption that “Sun” means fire and flame and destruction, they’re going to go down a rabbit hole.

When the PCs do this, you can try to bring them back down to earth in two ways: one, you can have NPCs speak up. Lada might say, “I am not sure that’s what the Sun card means. That doesn’t seem consistent with the historic effects of the Sun card, it didn’t burn or destroy anything. Maybe we should go talk to somebody who drew the Sun card.”

You can also have Omta react, via the telepathic link. When the PC says, “this card means fire and flame,” have Omta react with mild annoyance.

Another thing you will have to do is provide positive feedback. When the PCs are talking about the scrolls, they will say lots of things that are wrong, and occasionally, something that is right. When they say something right, they should get positive reinforcement. Omta should react with enthusiasm via the telepathic link, and the relevant portion of the scroll should become brighter, bolder. Of course, there’s a risk of giving too much away this way, so use your judgement about how much you reveal, and how accurate the PCs need to be before they get positive feedback.

During the deciphering of the scrolls, the PCs are likely to do some twenty-questions style guessing. For example, when deciphering the scroll “what are you afraid of,” the PCs might just start listing everyone they can think of: “Are you afraid of Rennick? Of Green? Of Beshaba? Of Tymora?” That last one is right, but not because the PCs had any insight. That’s not really how we want this puzzle to be solved. It’s up to you how to react to this. If the players do this just a little, you might have the Tymora section of the scroll light up anyway. If the players do it too much, Omta gets annoyed and closes the telepathic connection for an hour or two. The PCs can sense that he’s not listening right now, and that guessing was just annoying him.

If the PCs do solve a portion of a scroll through a wild guess, have the relevant section of the scroll become bolder, but only barely. For example, if somebody makes a wild guess that the cluster on the right of the “what are you afraid of” scroll represents Tymora, have that cluster get a little bolder, but the three cards inside do not illuminate. Explain that to fully illuminate the cluster, the PCs will have to decipher the specific meanings of each piece of the cluster.

The last thing you can do to help the players is to have NPCs give hints. You should use your judgement about how many hints you want to give: enough to get the players to make progress, but not so many that it feels easy. You will definitely need to give some, though.

There are several NPCs who can provide hints, chief among them: Lada and Penny. Lada is insightful about the deck because she’s researched it her whole life. Penny is insightful because she just has a natural affinity for languages.

You, the DM, can use Penny to give the PCs exactly the amount of hinting that they need, and no more. When the PCs show the scrolls to Penny, Penny should stare at them and make some basic observations (like, “So you guys drew three of these cards, but two of them are unknowns.”) Then, after a few basic observations, have her say something seriously insightful.

From that point forward, dish out the insightful observations at a pace that works for your PCs. If they need more help, give them more observations. If they seem to be getting it on their own, give them fewer.

Penny really enjoys studying the scrolls: she really likes foreign languages! She’s always bright and perky, but when she’s working on the scrolls she’s especially happy. She says: “This is fun! If you get any more of these scrolls, please show them to me. Oh, and if you learn the meanings of any more cards, please let me know.”

Here is a list of things the two NPCs could say:

Observation:

How many cards are there in the deck? Roughly 20, we think? Think about it, if you’re writing in a language that has only 20 words, then every word is going to have to have lots of meanings.

**Observation:
**Look, I know a lot about languages, but that doesn’t mean that I can tell you the meaning of a symbol without any context. Of course, some meanings are obvious. The gem card can obviously mean, “a gem.” But does it also mean wealth in general? Can it mean “money?” Probably, but I won’t know for sure until we talk to somebody who actually knows.

Observation:

I hear you guys trying to solve these scrolls, without first leaning the meaning of the cards. For example, this scroll has a Sun card on it, and you haven’t spoken to anyone who drew the Sun card. So I think it’s too early to try to solve the scroll. I wouldn’t try solving a scroll, until you know the meanings of all the cards on it. You could make yourselves crazy.

**Observation:
**Penny: Imagine you’re expressing ideas with drawings. If you wanted to say “candle,” what would you draw?

PC: A candle.
Penny: Ok, now let’s say you wanted to say, “candlelight.” What would you draw?

PC: Uh, I guess a candle with rays of light coming from the flame?

Penny: OK, now let’s say you wanted to say, “wax.” What would you draw?

PC: Uh, I guess a candle with some wax pooling?

Penny: If you looked at somebody else’s drawing of a candle, would you be entirely sure which concept the artist was trying to communicate? I guess my point is, if you see a symbol, don’t be so sure that you have the right meaning. Every image, like candle, could have many possible meanings.

**Observation:
**I see that this scroll has a cluster containing “star, gem, ruin.” That one contains a cluster containing “star, gem, cripple.” That one contains “star, gem, tiger.” I feel like these all represent the same thing - in this one, star-gem is sick, in this one, star-gem is healthy, and in that one, star-gem is in danger of being ruined. So whatever star-gem is, I bet it’s the same in all these scrolls.

Observation:

Using picture-based languages, it’s really hard to express abstract concepts. If I wanted to express the concept of “love,” I might draw a puppy, because I really love puppies. But that’s subjective. Somebody else might use a puppy to represent the idea of “delicious.” I think that to really fully decipher these scrolls, you’re going to have to get to know this being a little. You’re going to have to learn what concepts he associates to what images.

**Observation:
**The common tongue is written left-to-right, in the order subject, verb, object. But remember that not all languages use that order. Some languages don’t have any order. My point is: just because something is on the left side of the scroll, don’t assume it’s the subject. It might not be consistent.

Observation:

It’s easy to get fixated on a meaning for a card. In this first scroll, the vizier card means “asking questions.” But I think if we’re not careful, we’ll assume it means the same thing in the next scroll too. It might not. Don’t accidentally get locked in to a single meaning just because it worked for you once.

**Observation:
**I notice that on this scroll, the Ruin card appears twice. I bet one of them is for the person who’s doing the ruining, and the other is for the thing that’s being ruined.

Observation:

Never forget about the literal interpretation. In some places, the sun card might mean, literally, “the sun.” In some places, the vizier card might mean literally, “a vizier (a seer).” In some places, the gem card might mean literally, “gems.”

**Observation:
**The ogre Pig drew the throne card. But if you go ask him what the throne card means, he probably doesn’t have the necessary intelligence to verbalize all the possible interpretations. My point is: if you’re asking somebody about a card, keep in mind who you’re talking to, and bear in mind that they may not want or be able to tell you everything there is to know.

**Observation:
**If I wanted to represent the concept of werewolf, I might choose “moon” and “beast.” But if you saw “moon” and “beast” together, would you think of a werewolf? Maybe, but you might think of an owl instead. I guess what I’m saying is, be open to the possibility that there might be another interpretation.

The Steel Barrier Becomes a Steel Door

The lounge area contains the steel barrier that separates the lounge from the laundry area. Initially, the steel barrier is just a barrier. But once the PCs receive the scrolls, it physically changes: three hinges appear, transforming it from a barrier into a door. Six pigeonholes appear in the surface. A brass plaque appears, bearing the symbols: Vizier, Key.

The meaning of the inscription Vizier, Key is: “Knowledge is the Key to opening this door.” More specifically, Omta won’t let you through the door until you’ve read all six scrolls. He isn’t going to let the PCs approach the Deck until they have heard Omta’s side of the story.

It’s completely obvious that to unlock the door, you have to put something into the holes. The PCs may try jamming random objects into the holes. If they do, the objects just pop back out. If the PCs keep that up too long, they start to sense frustration from Omta. However, nothing bad happens.

If the PCs try inserting a scroll into a pigeonhole, they will notice that it fits perfectly. Unlike other random items inserted into the pigeonholes, the scrolls slide back out much more slowly, making it obvious that the players are getting closer. If none of the players figure it out, Lada will tell them what they have to do: “Maybe we’re supposed to read the scrolls before inserting them in the door.”

To unlock the door, the PCs must ask all three of the key questions in order to obtain all six scrolls. Then, they must decipher all six of the scrolls. Once a scroll is properly deciphered, it can be inserted into the door, triggering the sound of mechanical tumblers. The scroll will remain in the pigeonhole. When all six scrolls are deciphered and in their pigeonholes, the door opens, and the PCs can finally meet and talk to Omta directly.

The Conclusion of the Chapter

Meeting Omta

When the steel door opens, it reveals an extradimensional space, a black emptiness. Within the space, the PCs observe a very vague humanoid form

• just a blurry outline. The form is resting on the vague outline of a bed. It is very obviously asleep. This is Omta.

The black emptiness is the part of the void where Omta hides. The PCs can walk out into this emptiness, and approach Omta. They’re not walking “on” anything, there’s nothing there. But they can move around nonetheless. Lada cannot cross the threshold - only the PCs.

As soon as the PCs cross the threshold of the door, they immediately sense that their telepathic connection with Omta has gotten a lot stronger. Tell them that they find it much easier to sense what Omta is feeling and thinking.

As soon as the PCs approach, Omta speaks. Cards cards appear over his body, in groups, just like on the scrolls. He is again communicating. However, this time, the PCs have no trouble understanding what he’s trying to say. They don’t need to “decipher” the cards - they just understand. This is because of the much stronger telepathic link. Tell your players that from this point forward, the PCs will never have difficulty making sense of card-language again.

In card-speak, Omta introduces himself:

I am the roll of the dice, the turn of the cards. I am unpredictability without chaos. I am the Deck, and the Deck is me - it is my avatar. It wants what I want. What I want, is for the universe to remain unpredictable and unknowable. I want to preserve the surprise and wonder.

The situation is dire, and I need help. You are the only ones who have made any real effort to understand me. So I will ask you for your help.”

Omta wants two things from the PCs:

1. Rennick cannot be allowed to destroy randomness itself. Help me stop

   him.

2. Don’t give my avatar, the Deck, to Tymora. She will use it to kill

   me.

At this point, the PCs can ask anything they want to Omta. Before answering anything, Omta demands: “Promise you won’t betray me to Tymora. I don’t want to die.” Assuming the PCs agree, Omta will answer any questions the PCs have to the best of his ability.

If the PCs ask why Omta is trying to take away Tymora’s worshippers, Omta replies: “I have no interest in worshippers. I don’t need them. It is true that some of her former worshippers are directing worship towards me now. This is something they have done of their own initiative, and I find it odd and confusing.”

If the PCs ask what Omta means by “I am unpredictability without chaos,” Omta explains: “If you roll a die, it could come up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. It is random. But the die will not turn into a mouse and walk away, because it is not made of Limbo’s pure chaos. Pure chaos reduces the universe to nonsense. I harnessed chaos, chained it, and turned it into randomness. Randomness adds unpredictability without destroying meaning.”

If the PCs explain that the Deck’s presence and the Deck’s power are what is attracting worshippers, Omta will say, “I sent the Deck to stop Rennick. By its own rules, the Deck cannot vanish until its goal is accomplished. If you want the Deck to go away, help me stop Rennick.”

If the PCs ask what Rennick has done, Omta explains that Rennick has devised a way to predict the outcome of random events, and that if random events can be predicted, then they’re not random at all. Omta wants this technology gone. If the PCs suggest killing Rennick, Omta is fine with that.

If the PCs ask why Omta hasn’t taken a more direct approach, like just killing Rennick, Omta seems puzzled. He says, “I did act directly, I sent the Deck, and the Deck is me. The Deck might kill Rennick, or imprison him, or stop him in any one of a number of other ways. That is as direct as I can be. Anything else would not be random.” Omta is tied up by his own ideology.

Assuming the PCs ask a lot of questions (which they should), the conversation with Omta should clear up just about everything about what’s really been going on. The only puzzle piece that’s still missing is Rennick’s perspective: the PCs still don’t know exactly what Rennick has done, or why.

At the end of the conversation, Omta again pleads that the PCs not to lead Tymora to his doorstep. He is clearly terrified of Tymora.

When the conversation with Omta is over, the PCs must exit the void through the steel door. As soon as they do, the steel door vanishes.

Negotiating with Green

After the steel door vanishes, all that remains is the hallway to the laundry room. A moment later, the bodyguard Mikhail sticks his head around the corner and then shouts, “HEY! The Barrier is GONE!” Within moments, Green and his entire entourage is there in the hall.

Green asks, “Are my employees safe? Where is Penny? Where are Tommel and Zim?” He won’t talk about anything else until he is reassured that everyone who works for him has been delivered to safety. If there’s anybody who hasn’t been saved, then Green will immediately ignore the PCs and go searching for the missing employees.

When Green’s employees are safe, Green profusely thanks the PCs for helping. He gladly offers them a cash reward. Green will answer any question, but he doesn’t have any new information: he’s been trapped in the laundry room ever since the chaos storm, along with his entourage. They tried everything to get out, but the barrier was impenetrable.

At this point, Lada does the job she was sent to do. She makes Green the following offer:

“Excuse me sir, I am here as a representative of Tymora. I have been authorized to make you an offer for the Deck. If you sell it to Tymora, Tymora will grant you five wishes. Bear in mind, that’s five wishes from a trustworthy goddess who will do her best to make sure you get exactly what you truly desire.”

Balanestra, Greens’ advisor, immediately weighs in:

“Boss, I know we’ve been trying all this time to hold on to the Deck, but that’s a damn good offer. The Deck has been getting more and more chaotic, and if you try to extract five more wishes from the Deck, who knows what could happen. This could be a much safer way to get wishes. I think you should very seriously consider it.”

Green says:

“Huh. I’m pretty surprised. I thought Tymora was going to try to take the deck by force. Instead, she sends a representative to buy it fair and square. I guess I misjudged her. Let me think about it for a minute.”

Then, Green insists that people leave him alone for a bit, while he ponders. This creates a window where the PCs can talk to each other, and to Lada.

At this point, the PCs have a problem. It looks like Lada might soon be successful at buying the Deck for Tymora. Remember, Lada wasn’t there in Omta’s void-space, and she didn’t hear Omta say:

“Don’t give my avatar, the Deck, to Tymora. She will use it to kill me.”

Lada doesn’t know that the Deck is sentient, and that it doesn’t want to be given to Tymora. So it’s up to the PCs to deal with this situation.

At this point, the PCs have to negotiate with Lada. Let the PCs do their best to talk Lada out of buying the Deck. But, in the end, Lada has explicit instructions from Tymora, and Lada is a loyal priestess. She is not going to disrespect her patron. She says:

“I cannot oppose my goddess, but we can talk to her. She has always been reasonable. Maybe if we talk to her, we can come up with a plan that works for everyone.”

This is such a reasonable request that the PCs are almost certain to agree. Lada says, “I am going to pray now.” She bows her head, and softly speaks: “My mistress, negotiation for the Deck has had a complication…” <THUNDERCLAP> Lada doesn’t get any farther with her prayer. Tymora appears, in person, in the room. Green shouts “oh shit,” and vanishes, along with the Deck, his bodyguards, and Balanestra.

If the players are on the ball, they may remember Balanestra’s deck dream:

Green, at his desk: “I can’t fight a goddess. What do we do if she attacks?”
Balanestra: “We teleport away, of course.”
Green: “Sure, but she’s a goddess. She can follow us anywhere.”
Balanestra: “She can follow us almost anywhere.”

Green: “Where could I go that she can’t follow… oh, shit. No, no no no no!”

When Green and his entourage teleport away, Tymora looks around, and says, “I see. They were afraid I would attack, and they prepared a contingency some time ago. They cast a spell so that if I got too close, they would all automatically teleport away to my sister’s realm.”

Tymora then says, “No matter. I don’t need the Deck any more. I wanted the Deck because I thought it might help me to find the God who created it. But I had a backup plan. I asked you to strengthen your telepathic link to this God, so that I could trace the telepathic link. You did exactly that. Instead of using the Deck to find him, I can use your telepathic link, which I can see clear as day. I will now go and challenge him.”

This should be an “Oh Shit” moment for the PCs. They promised not to betray Omta to Tymora, and they already have, unintentionally. This moment is the moment that Selune warned the PCs about:

“Tymora is one of my best friends, and she is as trustworthy and kind as a goddess can be. But she is making a mistake. I encourage you to work with her, but just be aware: there will come a point in time when you have to tell her to stop what she’s doing.

Here is what I ask of you: keep your eyes open. Use your brains. If you see her do something that you think is going to cause harm, you must speak up. Tell her, or tell her priestesses. Do not be overawed by her divine presence. You speaking up at an appropriate moment may be all that stands between her and disaster.”

The PCs must ask Tymora not to pursue Omta. They should be making these arguments:

• Omta means you no harm.

• He is not deliberately taking your worshippers.

• He will go away as soon as Rennick is dealt with.

• He is absolutely terrified of you.

• His purpose is legitimate: he is trying to protect the universe.

• Selune, your friend, specifically asked us to tell you not to do

  this.

In truth, Tymora is somewhat relieved. She isn’t warlike, she didn’t really want a fight, and now she has an alternative path:

“I will pause my pursuit of this God. If this God will go away when Rennick is dealt with, then we need to deal with this Rennick. I would like you to find him, question him, and do what is necessary. He is in the city of Sigil.”

Assuming the PCs agree, Tymora offers a boon:

“I wish to thank all of you, you have served me honorably. You did the things I asked you to do. You protected my young priestess, Lada. You also helped to preserve peace. I believe you deserve a boon. As a party, I would like to to make a collective request - one boon for all.”

One boon that the PCs might ask for is a boon of luck - after all, this is a goddess of luck. If the PCs ask for this, they all get the “lucky” feat, which grants advantage 3x day on almost any die roll.

Another boon they may ask for is the destruction of the Museum of Orethys. If the PCs ask for it, Tymora says she does not have the power to destroy the Museum itself, but she says she can free everyone inside. She snaps her fingers, and then she says, “The prisoners have been sent to my domain. My priests will help them to find new homes.”

If the PCs ask why she can’t destroy the museum itself, Tymora explains: “The Museum represents an ideology: that ordinary people exist for the amusement of rich and powerful men. That ideology has many followers, it has power. So therefore, the Museum has power. It is empty now, but it will fill again.”

Selune also has a boon for the PCs: all members of the party can now cast the “Selune’s Light” cantrip. This differs from a regular light cantrip in that it lasts 8 hours, is a little brighter, and looks like moonlight.

A Warning from Chronepsis

The PCs have been tasked with finding Rennick, who is in Sigil. There is no portal to Sigil in St Parnas, so the PCs have to leave town - probably, they’ll walk toward Tradegate, which does have a portal to Sigil. There are other places in the Outlands that also have portals to Sigil: it doesn’t matter where the PCs decide to go, what matters is that they will be traveling through the Outlands.

The Outlands are a strange place. The farther one gets from civilization, the more “unmoored” and “unrealistic” the landscape becomes. At one point, the PCs walk past a section of forest which is covered in cobblestone: not just the road, but also the forest floor, and some of the tree branches. If the PCs are traveling with somebody who is native to the Outlands, then this person remarks: “We’re standing in the middle of nowhere. But this land doesn’t want to be nowhere, it wants to be somewhere. The land is dreaming of all the different kinds of places it could be. Tomorrow, it will look different.”

Eventually, the PCs will have to build a campsite and bed down for the night. During the night, the entire campsite moves. This sometimes happens in the Outlands: patches of land shift from one place to another, or even, to another plane of existence. Sometimes, it’s random, but in this case, it’s not: a god, Chronepsis, wants the PCs to pay a visit. So Chronepsis moved their campsite close to his realm.

Chronepsis is the Dragon God of Time and Fate, and he is an enigmatic god. He literally never talks to anyone, mortal or god. He does occasionally leave his realm, but it’s rare. When he acts, it’s always subtly, and nobody is ever entirely sure whether or not he acted at all. This is the case here: Chronepsis did move the campsite, but he isn’t giving the PCs any clues that it was him, and he will never do anything to confirm or deny it. As a DM, you must treat Chronepsis as a permanent enigma. Divination spells that try to determine a being’s purpose or intent simply don’t work on Chronepsis. The PCs can make educated guesses: they can be 90% sure that Chronepsis did something, based on the evidence, but they should never receive any unambiguous confirmation.

The PCs don’t notice the movement of the campsite until they wake up. The campsite and the immediate environment look completely unchanged, which is why nobody sounded the alarm during the night. But when the light comes up, it is possible to see that the spire used to be on that side of the campsite, but now it’s over there. Furthermore, Moradin’s Keep (a mountain range) looks a lot closer. A survival roll is enough for the PCs to figure out what happened: the campsite has moved across the outlands. They’re still on the “good” side of the great wheel, but they’re a lot closer to chaos now.

The players discover that there’s still a road running past the campsite. The road used to connect St. Parnas to Tradegate, but now it probably goes somewhere else. The PCs aren’t entirely sure where it goes, but their best estimate is that if they travel rimward, they’ll end up near Sylvania or Faunel. Tell them that both of those cities probably contain gates to Sigil.

Wherever the PCs decide to go, as they walk down the road, they pass beside a huge clearing in the woods, large enough to hold a city - but there’s no city inside, just some old ruins. If the PCs ignore it and keep walking, they eventually see it again, and again, and again. Meanwhile, they never actually get anywhere. No matter how long they walk, the spire seems just as far away, and the scenery starts to feel like it’s repeating, and they keep on seeing the clearing.

The Realm of Chronepsis

The clearing is actually the realm of Chronepsis. His realm consists of a ruined city above ground, and an underground system of passages and chambers, known as the “Mausoleum.” Chronepsis himself is in his Mausoleum.

If the PCs enter the realm and then try to leave, they end up back on the road, and they again find themselves walking past the clearing over and over. Again, they get nowhere. They cannot really leave yet.

The ruined city contains only the foundations of buildings. The walls have all fallen. Almost all the buildings are made of white stone blocks that have been eroded by the millenia. The blocks used to be sharp and square, but rain, wind, and time have rounded the corners and sandblasted any surface details away. It is obvious to anyone that this city was abandoned millenia ago. The scale of the buildings is considerably larger than normal human buildings: the doorways are large enough for a creature of large size.

Weather in the city is always cool and dry, and surprisingly, the PCs can see the Sun! This is unusual for the outlands, which doesn’t normally have a sun. This is because this city is an echo of a far away time, a far away place, a place that did have a sun. There is plant life here, mostly scrub vegetation and grasses. Small animals like birds, squirrels, and the like are plentiful. If you wish, you may place wildlife here, to give the PCs a random encounter.

Throughout the realm of Chronepsis, there are tens of thousands of hourglasses. Most are down inside the Mausoleum, but the players will encounter a hundred or so while traveling the ruined city. The hourglasses appear to be made of glass, but with decorative trim made out of miniature dragon hide with little tiny scales. The miniature dragon hide trim comes in various colors - for every color of dragon, there are hourglasses of that color. Attempting to touch an hourglass reveals that they’re intangible illusions. The players probably don’t know this yet, but each hourglass represents the lifespan of an actual, living dragon.

There are no hourglasses near the periphery of the ruined city. The PCs will have to walk inward into the city for a good 10-15 minutes before they see their first hourglass. It is hovering a few inches above the ruins of a stone wall, a few feet from the ground. Let the PCs examine it, but they can’t touch it. If they cast identify, they can learn what it is: the countdown of the life of a dragon. If the PCs get close to the center of the ruined city, they will start to see more hourglasses.

Close to the center of the ruined city, the PCs encounter a dragonborn with golden skin, named Laeros. Laeros is actually an young adult gold dragon who travels in the form of a dragonborn. Laeros is a philosopher who is trying to understand how dragons are bound by fate. He isn’t a worshiper of Chronepsis, but he has found that he has more insights about fate when he’s in Chronepsis’ realm. He doesn’t know if this is a magical effect, or maybe it’s just an inspirational place. Either way, he’s happy sitting in the ruined city. He says the city is pretty, the weather is cool and pleasant; and it’s conducive to meditation.

Laeros is quite surprised to see the PCs, the first thing he says is: “Are you dragons?” If the PCs say, “obviously, we’re not dragons,” Laeros laughs and says, “Most dragons take other forms when they travel.” If the PCs ask, “why do dragons take other forms,” Laeros holds up his hands and says, “Hands. Hands are very useful. Dragon claws just aren’t made for delicate work. Writing, for example: much easier with hands.”

Laeros asks: “So, what are non-dragons doing here, in the realm of a dragon god?”

Of course, the players only know that they were pressured into coming here by the clearing that kept chasing them. Laeros considers this to be an interesting mystery. He explains that the PCs are in the realm of Chronepsis. He says that hardly anyone ever comes to the realm, and that it’s particularly odd for a bunch of non-dragons to show up.

He says: “I assume that if you’re here, it’s because Chronepsis probably wants you here. But why would he want you here? There’s not much to do here. He’s definitely not going to talk to you, he literally never talks to anyone. I really have no idea why he would bring you here. There’s… just nothing here, except old stone blocks, some old sculptures, hourglasses, and Chronepsis himself. And Chronepsis definitely won’t interact with you.”

Exploration of the Mausoleum

The players may decide to explore the realm, to see if they can figure out what they’re supposed to do here. Laeros says, “Exploring seems like a good idea, you might figure something out. I must warn you though: if you see Chronepsis, don’t try to get his attention: if you bother him, he will cause you to cease to exist. However, you can look around safely, he does not object to people walking around the city and the mausoleum. He doesn’t even mind people walking around his chamber, as long as you’re quiet. Be respectful and silent, and you should be fine.”

In the city, the PCs have pretty much already seen everything: ruined foundations, scrub vegetation, the occasional hourglass, and little else. In the very center, however, is the mausoleum.

The mausoleum consists of a small above-ground building of white stone, containing a stairway down, and an underground complex. The small above-ground building is the only building that still stands in the entire city. The doors are wide open. The building is featureless white stone. There may have been decorations once, but they have been sandblasted away by the aeons.

When the PCs descend into the mausoleum, they see corridors stretching in all directions. It looks like a museum: the floors and walls are done in marble, and there are magical lights at regular intervals. There are sculptures throughout the place - this artwork represents the lives of the dragons who used to live in the city. Many are in the form of dragonborn, but some are in full dragon form. They are doing all the things that people do: working, resting, eating, making art, and spending time together. The artwork is unmarred by erosion or time. Examining the art reveals little.

The walls also contain niches that contain hundred of hourglasses each. These niches are in every room and passage. The passages go in many directions, and eventually one will find the chamber of Chronepsis. He is here, resting in his chamber. He is an absolutely ancient dragon, with ash-grey scales. He is bony and undernourished, so much so that he initially appears to be skeletal, but a closer inspection reveals he still has flesh, just not much of it. He is resting on a dais with a raised pedestal for his head. He does not bother to look at the PCs when they enter. His eyes stare into the distance.

The chamber with Chronepsis contains an immense number of hourglasses, and more art. There is nothing else to discover here. In the long run, the exploration reveals little. There is nothing much to be done inside the mausoleum. Chronepsis will not react to the PCs unless a PC gets aggressive or destructive, in which case that PC stops existing: roll up a new character.

Talking to Laeros about the Deck

A player might mention the Deck of Many Things to Laeros. When they do, Laeros perks up, and says, “Everyone’s been talking about the Deck. It’s big news all over the multiverse. People think it’s some kind of portent of big changes. There’s also a rumor that some adventurers who drew cards from the deck are working with Tymora to find the deck… and I see you have a priestess of Tymora with you. Are you the guys from the rumor?

If they agree that they are, then Laeros says, “Well that’s exciting! You guys are famous, and I got to meet you! Good story for the kids.”

Laeros is intellectually curious, and will ask a variety of questions about the Deck. But in the long run, he doesn’t have any immediate insight about things.

Asking Laeros about Hourglasses

The players may ask Laeros about the hourglasses. Laeros explains: “Each hourglass represents the lifespan of an actual, living dragon. There’s an hourglass for every dragon in existence. The color of the hourglass matches the color of the dragon.”

“By the way, the sand only tells you how much time remains in the dragon’s natural lifespan. But if a dragon gets killed before it has a chance to grow old, then it dies while a lot of sand still remains. So the sand isn’t a prediction of when the dragon will die. It only indicates how old the dragon is.”

He says, “I tried to find my own hourglass, but in the end, I couldn’t figure out which one was mine. Obviously, I’m a gold dragon, so my hourglass is going to be gold. I’m a young adult, so I would expect the sand in my hourglass to be about one-third used up. So I can rule out 99% of the hourglasses based on color and sand-quantity, but that still leaves dozens of hourglasses that could be mine. I just don’t know how to narrow it down further.”

Why are the PCs Really Here?

Here is the real reason the PCs are here, in the realm of Chronepsis:

Green is a dragon. He didn’t start out that way: he was originally human. He used wishes to transform himself, bit-by-bit, into a dragon. Of course, he still takes the form of a human most of the time. One wish wasn’t powerful enough to turn him all the way into a dragon, so he divided the process into multiple steps. Each wish made him a little more dragon-like, until finally, he used a wish that made him a true Dragon - a steel dragon. Once he became a dragon, his hourglass appeared in the realm of Chronepsis.

Green was a 35-year old man, so when he became a dragon, he became a 35-year old dragon. That’s a very young, small dragon. Green wasn’t satisfied with that, he wanted to be more powerful. So he used a wish to age himself. That wish added some years, but not as many as Green expected. He plans to use more wishes to add more years.

If a dragon makes a wish to be older, that dragon is breaking a strict dragon code of conduct. Aging oneself artificially is not allowed. In fact, normally, it’s not even possible: the dragon gods have limited mortal magic so that it cannot be used to age a dragon. But the Deck isn’t mortal magic, the deck is a god in its own right. It has the power to make Green older, but the dragon gods resist, which is why the wish didn’t age Green by very much. Chronepsis, the dragon god of time, is particularly annoyed.

So Chronepsis has a message for Green: Do not use any more wishes to age yourself! If you do, there will be consequences.

However, Chronepsis cannot deliver this message. By his own rules, he cannot speak to anyone, and he cannot act in any overt way. He must be so subtle that nobody knows for sure if he acted at all. So here is his plan:

First, Chronepsis arranged for Green’s hourglass to be directly in front of Laeros, and made sure Laeros was watching when Green aged himself. Laeros saw the sand in Green’s hourglass jump ahead. Laeros knows that this kind of sand movement represents artificial aging, and he knows that this should be impossible. He has been pondering it ever since.

Second, Chronepsis brought the PCs into his realm, forcing them to meet Laeros. Now Chronepsis is just waiting for Laeros and the PCs to exchange information. He knows that eventually, if the two parties talk enough, they will figure out what they need to do.

When the PCs understand their mission, then they will be released from the realm. But they’ll have to figure it out, with Laeros’s help.

Solving the Mystery

When the PCs have finished exploring the realm, Laeros eventually brings the subject back to: “So why did Chronepsis bring you here? You’ve already explored everything. You’ve already looked at the hourglasses. You’ve already looked at the sculptures. There’s nothing left to do.” Then, in a joking tone, he says, “Well, other than talk to me.”

Hopefully, one of the players will say, “hey, maybe we are supposed to talk to you about something.”

Give the players a little time to suggest this. When they do, Laeros exclaims “Of course! We must have important information for each other!” If none of the players suggests this, Laeros suggests it.

Laeros says, “OK. Let’s just tell each other what we’ve been doing. I’ll start. I’m supposed to be here writing a book, but honestly, I’ve mostly spent the last month pondering a mystery - a weird hourglass.”

He goes on to tell about how he was just relaxing one day, and staring absent-mindedly at the hourglass which was in front of him, when all of a sudden, the sand in the hourglass jumped ahead. He says:

“If the sand jumps ahead, it means a dragon suddenly got older. Some kind of premature aging. But that shouldn’t be possible.

You see, when dragons age, they get more powerful. So if you’re a dragon, magically aging yourself would be a cheap shortcut to power. Because of that, the dragon gods have decreed that dragons aren’t allowed to magically age themselves - dragons have to earn their years.

For example, there are undead who can cause premature aging. If an undead like that attacks a dragon, the dragon might get sick, but it won’t get older. Getting older isn’t allowed.

So how is it possible that I saw an hourglass jump ahead? Doesn’t make sense. But I’m sure I saw it. It would have to be some very powerful magic. I’m pretty sure only a god could do it.

So I’ve been wondering about that ever since. I just keep thinking about it.

If the PCs ask what color the hourglass was: Steel.

“Steel dragons? They fit in very well with human culture. They often take the form of humans and live in human cities. It’s common for them to form relationships with humans. They are often interested in art and culture. Of course, they’re individuals - don’t assume they’re all the same.”

If the PCs ask how old the dragon was, based on the amount of sand: Before the aging, juvenile. After the aging, young adult.

So after explaining all this, Laeros says: “OK, somehow, this must all fit in with what you’ve been doing. There must be some sort of connection.” Of course, the connection is this: the hourglass that Laeros saw was Green’s hourglass, and the magical aging was caused by the Deck.

It is up to the PCs to figure out at least this much: the Deck has been used to magically age a dragon. Just let them sweat it out until they figure it out.

When they say this to Laeros, Laeros says:

“Well, if somebody’s using the Deck to age a dragon, somebody needs to tell them to stop. Otherwise, they’re going to really piss off the dragon gods.”

As soon as Laeros says this, the PCs feel a weight lift, and they instinctively understand that they’re free to leave the realm. They have the message they’re supposed to deliver.

Of course, Green is in Beshaba’s realm at this point. The PCs can’t talk to him directly, but they could possibly use the sending spell. If they do, Green will respond “Understood. Thanks for the warning.”

If the players don’t deliver the message right away, they will hopefully remember it later, when they see Green try to use the Deck to age himself again.

To Sylvania, and then Sigil

After solving the mystery and leaving the realm of Chronepsis, the PCs have no trouble following the road, which eventually leads to Sylvania. We are providing a simplified version of Sylvania, mainly because the PCs won’t be here long. They’re really just entering the town to use the portal to Sigil. If you want to replace this version of Sylvania with a more complex version, you can. You can even set some of your own adventures here.

As the PCs travel down the road toward Sylvania, the trees start getting bigger and bigger, until eventually around evening the road is snaking around the bases of absolutely enormous trees.

The road leads underneath a living wood archway. At the top of the archway, a hand-carved sign says, “Welcome to Sylvania.” At the side of the arch, a bored attendant looks up from the book he’s reading and says, “Please state your business.” If the PCs say, “Here to find a portal to Sigil,” the attendant puts a tally mark on a notepad, and says, “OK, move along,” while pointing toward the city. Then he goes right back to his book.

A few minutes later, the road becomes main street Sylvania. On both sides of the road are establishments built against or into the giant trees. The establishments are mainly restaurants, bars, music venues, dance clubs, theaters, and the like. Imagine bourbon street New Orleans on mardi gras, but wedged between giant trees.

If the PCs stop for dinner at a restaurant, they have to make difficult WIS save DC18 (use the party average) or else they start having a great time talking and socializing. They stay at the restaurant way too long, eat way too much, drink a lot of wine, and don’t leave until midnight. They spend 5X as much money as they intended. They wake the next day with an exhaustion level. This is the mood-altering properties of Arborea leaching through into Sylvania.

If they ask an innkeeper about a room, rooms are available. If they ask the innkeeper about a portal to Sigil, the innkeeper says: “To get to Sigil, you need to talk to the scrap metal dealer in the flea market. They open at 8 in the morning.”

The next day, the PCs wake, and the character of the city has completely changed. People are working hard, it’s bustling. The people know that if they want to party at night, they have to get their work done during the day, and they’re pushing themselves so that they can celebrate again. This is life in Sylvania.

The flea market contains some permanent buildings, some large tents, some people who just have tables by the side of the walkway. The scrap dealer has a big round tent. Inside, there are bins with metal classified by type: tin, copper, iron, steel, and alloys. The bins are full of all kinds of metal junk, bought and sold by the pound.

If you ask the merchant about the portal to Sigil, he says, “OK, I’ll take you there. 10gp each.” He collects the money. Then, he says “First, I have to do this.” He reaches into the steel bin, and pulls out a roll of steel wire. He makes a loop out of wire - an impromptu bracelet. He says “This ring of steel has an affinity for the city of Sigil, because the city of Sigil is like a ring of steel. Here, put this on.” He hands the bracelet to a PC, and then makes one for each PC. When everyone has a bracelet (except him), he says, “OK, time to go.” He ushers everybody out of the tent. When the PCs step out of the tent, they’re back in the flea market. But then they realize: it’s not the same flea market. It’s bigger — much bigger! Looking behind them, they see there’s no tent. They just traveled through a one-way portal.

Welcome to the Bazaar, in Sigil.

The Barrens of Doom and Despair

• Travel through The Barrens of Despair

  • Travel to Sigil

  • Portal to the Domain of Bane

  • Travel to Kuralyek’s Lair

• Kuralyek’s Lair

  • Present: Green, Kuralyek, R39-Delta

  • Discussions with everyone

  • Kobolds draw cards

  • Chaos strikes again, Emergency Exit

  • Kuralyek makes a grab for the deck

  • Green strikes at Kuralyek, Kuralyek summons Beshaba

  • Tymora appears to counter Beshaba

  • Multi-way battle with deck exchanging hands

  • One of these people gets deck: Tymora, R39-Delta, Kuralyek,

    Beshaba, or Players