jdnd/sections/03-The Museum of Orethys - The Bottom Floors of the Museum.md

## 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.

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.

### ![](media/image2.png){width="2.3387674978127735in" height="2.3387674978127735in"}

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:

![](media/image1.png){width="2.307292213473316in"
height="2.307292213473316in"}

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

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

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

### Bottom Floor: Guest Services

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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