jdnd/sections/2-the-museum-of-orethys.md

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:

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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.