35 KiB
Complete Summary: The Deck of Many Things
Overview
This is a Planescape D&D 5th Edition campaign centered on the Deck of Many Things — not the standard DMG artifact, but a reimagined version that is actually the avatar of Omta, a hidden god who invented randomness itself. The campaign takes PCs from imprisonment in a magical museum, through a small Outlands town dealing with the Deck's fallout, into the depths of a labyrinth guarded by a terrified sleeping god, and ultimately toward the city of Sigil to confront the man whose research threatens the very concept of randomness.
The campaign is designed for players who enjoy investigation, NPC interaction, and moral complexity over combat optimization. It features a cast of "deck-touched" NPCs whose lives have been transformed by drawing cards, a scheme run by a morally grey entrepreneur, and a divine conflict between gods of luck, fate, and chaos.
Part One: Introduction and Campaign Premise
The Deck's Unusual Behavior
The Deck of Many Things normally appears every few hundred years, dispenses chaos briefly, and then vanishes. This time, something is different: hundreds of people have drawn cards, the Deck refuses to disappear, and the economy has been flooded with conjured gems, magic items, and wishes. Reality itself is warping under the strain.
Green's Operation
A man named Green runs a profitable card-drawing operation out of Castle Green in the Outlands town of St. Parnas. He recruits people to draw cards, taking a cut of the proceeds: 25% of gems by weight, and one out of every three wishes must be used on Green's behalf. Green provides honest warnings about the risks and honors his contracts — he's exploitative but not dishonest. His ultimate personal goal is to accumulate enough wishes to become a dragon (and eventually succeeds, transforming into a steel dragon).
The Gods' Concerns
Three deities have stakes in the Deck's activity:
Tymora (goddess of Good Luck) is a young goddess who lacks confidence in her position. The Deck's prolonged presence has led people to believe a more powerful luck deity exists — one who created the Deck — threatening Tymora's divine portfolio. If she loses enough worshippers, she could die. She wants to find the Deck's creator and negotiate, not fight, but she'll protect herself if necessary.
Beshaba (goddess of Bad Luck) is Tymora's sister and lives only to hurt her. She maintains worship through threats and a protection racket. Beshaba sees the Deck situation as bait to lure Tymora into a vulnerable position where Beshaba can kill her. Everything she tells the PCs is a lie.
Omta (the Inventor of Randomness) is the true creator of the Deck. An ancient deity who planted randomness into a predictable universe, then fled to the far cosmos and fell asleep. The Deck is his avatar, sent automatically when randomness is threatened. He's now a greater god but still sees himself as tiny and fragile, terrified of being discovered.
Rennick: The Catalyst
Rennick is a Fraternity of Order employee — a casino regulator by day, a "Theoretical Fortunologist" by passion. He made a breakthrough discovery: he can predict random events (dice rolls, card draws, coin flips). He understands that this ability, if weaponized or spread, would destroy randomness itself. When he made his breakthrough, the Deck appeared to him. Instead of drawing, he studied it, deduced Omta's existence, and realized Omta was asleep.
Rennick's plan: wake Omta up so Omta can fix the threat to randomness. To provoke Omta, Rennick gave the Deck to Green with instructions to create a predictable income stream from it — a deliberate misuse designed to trigger Omta's unconscious defenses. The plan worked: Omta sent the Deck, but Omta himself remains asleep and operating on instinct.
The Card System
In this manifestation, each person draws exactly three cards:
- First card: Choose the best of three good cards (stat boosts, magic items, gems, skills)
- Second card: Choose the least bad of three bad cards (stat penalties, curses, fears)
- Third card: Always the Donjon card for PCs (imprisonment)
There are also nine Story Cards that create "deck-touched" individuals — people profoundly transformed by the Deck. These include cards that grant divine sparks, wishes, animal transformation, compulsive building, permanent sleep, kingship, and more.
Deck Side Effects
All deck-touched individuals share three side effects:
- Deck Awareness: They see illusionary cards hovering over other deck-touched people, showing what cards they drew. This is actually a telepathic connection broadcasting between all deck-touched individuals.
- Deck Immunity: They cannot draw again, are immune to direct effects of others' cards, and items created by the Deck phase through them (with important exceptions for wishes and items sold to third parties).
- Deck Dreaming: They dream visions through the eyes of other deck-touched people — another manifestation of the telepathic link.
Character Creation and Player Expectations
PCs start at Level 2 and reach approximately Level 8. They must be desperate enough to risk drawing from the Deck, cannot have flight at the start, and must accept Green's job offer. The campaign requires players who accept help from NPCs, care about NPC welfare, enjoy investigation, and are comfortable with many non-combat sessions.
The initial session has each PC solo roleplay accepting Green's job, drawing their good and bad cards, then drawing Donjon as their third card and being imprisoned together — launching the main campaign.
Part Two: The Museum of Orethys
The Prison
The PCs' Donjon cards imprison them in the Museum of Orethys, a demiplane created 100 years ago by an aarakocra wizard named Orethys who collected interesting people as living exhibits. Orethys died 60 years ago fighting one of his own exhibits, but the museum persists.
The museum consists of hundreds of floating islands in a vast cavern, each containing a building or diorama with one or two people. The islands are organized in "floors" at similar elevations, roughly 8 feet apart horizontally and 30 feet between floors. The cavern edges are mist that teleports anyone who enters it back to their starting location on the 5th floor.
Stasis
Everything in the museum is frozen in time. Exhibits repeat the same day endlessly, cannot form new memories, and don't recognize visitors between encounters. Injuries and death are temporary — everything resets after hours or when attention shifts. Items taken from exhibits vanish after 1-2 hours unless continuously held. PCs benefit from this too: death teleports them back to the 5th floor Tavern, fully restored.
This stasis system serves a design purpose: it makes the museum safe for inexperienced players to learn D&D mechanics without permanent consequences.
Key Museum NPCs
Keira and Qurak are aarakocra caretakers bound by geas to patrol the museum forever. They're immortal but deeply bored and resentful of Orethys. Keira is talkative and frustrated; Qurak is calmer. They have a magical guidebook listing all exhibits and will eventually approach the PCs to determine if they're guests or exhibits.
Diometron is a rogue modron — a former duodrone infected with slaad essence who fled incineration orders before being captured by Orethys. He self-promoted to quadrone and invented his own functional wings. Due to his "axiomatic mind" with redundancy systems, he resists the museum's memory-wiping stasis and remembers the PCs between visits. He's cheerful but has damaged self-esteem, believing he should have been incinerated. Critically, he's a 6th-level wizard who can cast sending — the spell needed to call for rescue.
Johann (the Dreaming Ghost) made a fey bargain that lets him explore others' dreams but prevents him from entering the waking world. His physical body is in stasis but his mind roams the multiverse. He can deliver messages through dreams to people who pay attention to dreams (priests, soothsayers, fortune-tellers). He's essential for later chapters and the DM is instructed to ensure the PCs befriend him.
Reggie Drum is a fae-blooded shoemaker who makes enchanted boots, including Boots of Levitation (4000gp) — a quest item needed to ascend the museum. Since PCs can't afford them and Reggie won't accept gems, stealing is necessary and morally acceptable (items respawn in stasis).
Museum Exhibits (Floors 5 through Ground)
The PCs start on the 5th floor near the Tavern of the South Gate, where bartender Kellia Meeks demonstrates stasis mechanics (resets completely between visits) and knows about plane shift and sending spells.
Other notable exhibits include:
- Golden Goats (5th floor) — goats with golden hair worth 100gp that vanishes after hours, demonstrating that exhibit items can't leave the demiplane
- Library of Dame Kenere (4th floor) — contains a spell index describing sending and plane shift; Dame Kenere herself was never captured and is still alive outside
- Breakneck Chariot (4th floor) — enslaved quicklings pulling a racing chariot who try to steal weapons to cut themselves free
- Claren's Tapestries (3rd floor) — magical tapestries that create immersive illusions; contains Algion, an aarakocra who could help with flight if freed from his mental block
- Wasted Wino (3rd floor) — a green slaad bartender whose chaos essence creates random-effect potions
- Orb Conclave (3rd floor) — a beholder-kin of 11 hovering eyes with no body
- Reggie's Boots (2nd floor) — the boot heist
- Tiny Men (1st floor) — primitive 2-inch hunter-gatherers; teaches rope problem-solving
- Guest Services (ground floor) — contains guidebooks, the stabilization iron (extends item duration to 3-4 days), the capture device (creates new exhibits), monk robes and willpower potion (needed for harpies), and sleeping here triggers Deck Dreams
The Harpy Eyrie on the 6th floor blocks upward travel. Harpies attack anyone climbing unless they wear monk robes from Guest Services.
Bonus exhibits include a flumph named Fff-Huss who plays a pipe organ with 40 tentacles, and a mud sauna with a lonely mud elemental who gives good massages and provides healing equivalent to a long rest.
The Medusa Exhibit and Escape
The Medusa exhibit on an upper floor contains a teleportation circle needed for rescue. It's a hall of mirrors with a medusa trapped inside, taking 16 minutes to traverse. The sigil sequence for the circle is at the back of the maze. PCs must coordinate: one enters a safe door while another enters a dangerous door to memorize the sigil while the medusa is far enough away.
Calling for Help
To escape, PCs must:
- Find someone who can cast sending (Diometron)
- Describe a friend convincingly enough for Diometron to target the spell (via Disguise Self, Performance check, Detect Thoughts, or verbal description)
- The message chains up to Tymora through her temple network
- Joycie, a 14th-level Cleric of Tymora, responds requesting the teleportation circle sigil
The Failed Departure
Joycie arrives and casts plane shift using the circle. She and Lada (a 3rd-level halfling Cleric of Tymora who will become a permanent companion) vanish successfully — but the PCs remain. They are part of an exhibit, and exhibit pieces physically cannot leave the demiplane.
Divine Visitations
While waiting for rescue, PCs receive two divine dream visitations:
Selune appears in a grassy field under moonlight. She warns that Tymora is trustworthy and kind but is making a mistake, and the PCs must speak up when they see harm coming. She's bound by an ancient promise and cannot give details. (Backstory: Selune witnessed Omta plant seeds of randomness millennia ago and promised to keep his existence secret.)
Beshaba appears in a mockery of Selune's setting — obsidian shards, roiling clouds, red light. She opens with "Am I not more beautiful than Selune?" and asks the PCs to pretend to work for Tymora while undermining her. Her true goal is to get the Deck, lure Tymora into Beshaba's realm, and kill her sister. Everything she says is a lie.
Castle Green Arrives
The top half of Castle Green materializes in the museum — sliced off, hovering in chunks with no island underneath, nobody present, valuables removed. The Deck room exists but is empty. The guidebook changes the exhibit status to "Out of Order." This creates mystery about what's happening at Castle Green in the real world.
The Trade Agreement
Qurak reveals he has the power to free the PCs with "magic words," but his geas normally prevents it (must act in the museum's best interests). The workaround: a trade. Qurak frees the PCs, and they agree to capture a new exhibit within approximately one month using the capture device from Guest Services. If they fail, the geas will torture Qurak forever (he can't die in the museum).
Qurak's additional price: the PCs must eventually return and dismantle the museum, freeing Keira and Qurak from their eternal servitude.
The PCs are freed, Joycie casts plane shift successfully, and the party materializes in the market square of St. Parnas with Joycie and Lada.
Part Three: The Castle with the Steel Door
Arriving in St. Parnas
St. Parnas is a small, good-aligned town in the Outlands, about a day's journey spireward of Tradegate. It has a strong civic virtue culture influenced by Bytopian values — hard work, diligence, community. The town is quiet, law-abiding, and does not tolerate overt evil.
Joycie departs to return to her temple duties. Lada stays with the party as a permanent support NPC — always one level behind the PCs, focused on healing and buffing, refusing front-line combat. Players rotate controlling her in combat.
A chaos storm has recently devastated the area — a magical phenomenon caused by Omta's panic when the PCs agreed to help Tymora locate him. Objects teleported 20-30 feet randomly. Castle Green's top half was teleported into the Museum of Orethys (explaining what the PCs saw earlier), with secondary damage throughout town. Many civilians are injured.
The market square is flooded with magic items due to Deck activity. Merchants are selling Deck-conjured items and shipping unsold stock to Tradegate. A detailed magic item list provides shopping opportunities for the party.
Key St. Parnas Locations
The Unnamed Inn — primary lodging, 2gp/night for a party of four.
The Orchard — encircles the entire town, containing every type of fruit and nut tree. Part of a 200-year-old peace treaty with local druids. Contains Asatya's spirit (she drew the Void card and her invisible spirit now wanders among the apple trees, visible only as three hovering cards via Deck Awareness).
Old Watchtowers — five abandoned stone cylinders. Tower 4 contains Rackle and his caretaker Clarissa. Tower 1 contains a carved wooden statue of Ilmater with a message for Rackle.
The White Ward — hospital run by priests of good-aligned gods. Contains Asatya's unconscious body.
Mayor Elar Mossbrow — a firbolg who doesn't fit in his own manor (lives in a pagoda in the backyard). Free-thinking for a firbolg, believes "commerce binds people together." Unhappy with Green for disrupting the town, plans to kick him out once Green is free from the castle basement.
Combat Encounters
A collapsed lizardman temple releases two dangerous reptiles:
Mirage Serpent (CR 4) — fights with two illusory duplicates, uses psychic lash and can shuffle positions to confuse attackers.
Modified Basilisk (CR 4) — eight-legged lizard with two independently-pivoting eyes that can paralyze and eventually petrify creatures. Takes minimum 3 turns to petrify; breaking line of sight frees victims immediately.
After this encounter, Sam Link (the Chosen One, who drew the Sun card) arrives to heal the injured, giving PCs a way to find him.
The Deck-Touched NPCs
Eight NPCs have drawn Story Cards and are scattered throughout St. Parnas. Each has a Deck Dream associated with them and can teach the PCs the symbolic meanings of their cards — knowledge essential for later puzzles.
Pig (the Ogre King) — A 10-foot Ysgard ogre who contracted Wasting Rot (reducing his STR to 13). Drew Key (musical talent — plays mandolin beautifully), Jester (everyone laughs at everything he says, even when sad), and Throne (prophecy of kingship). He's melancholic, speaks in third person, has the intelligence of a toddler. Grateful to PCs because they're immune to his Jester card and don't laugh at him. Found in the market square playing mandolin for food. Curing his disease requires Greater Restoration only available in larger cities.
Borghan (the Caged Beast) — Drew Gem (paid his debts), Beast (transformed into an oversized grizzly bear with animal intelligence), and Bricklayer (built a labyrinth under Castle Green with magical compulsion to stay). He's starving to death but can't leave. CR 6, 200 HP. Will attack on sight unless cleverly approached with large amounts of food. Communication requires Speak with Animals or similar magic.
Sam Link (the Chosen One) — An elf who drew Star (ring of feather falling), Cripple (chronic back pain), and Sun (divine spark with healing powers and a path to godhood). Philosophical and earnest, he demands deep engagement with existential questions. Will trade card knowledge for thoughtful answers to his four questions about purpose and destiny.
Alyssa Varn (the Squatter) — A tiefling gambler who drew Tiger (extreme limberness), Knight (staff of withering, sold), and Bricklayer (built Castle Green, which she sold to Green under duress). The Bricklayer card instilled overwhelming compulsion to live in the castle. She keeps sneaking back in, setting non-lethal traps, and living in a hidden room in the basement. Escaping the compulsion requires a WIS save DC 15 (her WIS is 8), but PCs can stack bonuses to help her.
Balanestra (the Wish-Keeper) — An aasimar who drew Gem (unneeded wealth), Skull (fought avatar of death), and Moon (three wishes). Used wishes to become skilled at manipulation/intrigue and to gain magical scrying ability. Kept her third wish as emergency insurance and became Green's advisor. She's clever, manipulative, and loving her exciting new life. Currently trapped with Green behind Omta's steel door.
Brunna (the Antiquarian) — A dwarf who drew Vizier (monthly question to the fates), Comet (psychometric visions of objects' pasts), and Idiot (-2 charisma, now acts like a know-it-all). Former music merchant, now an antiquarian using her Comet power. Needs business advice from PCs. Can provide clues about any item the DM wants to reveal.
Asatya (the Sleepwalker) — Drew Owl (great intelligence), Fool (forgot how to cook), and Void (permanent sleep). Her body is in hospice, unresponsive. Her spirit wanders the orchard in a confused, foggy state — visible only as hovering cards. Communication requires Johann the Dreaming Ghost as intermediary. Johann desperately wants to meet another permanently sleeping person and demands PCs help him reach Asatya in exchange for his message-delivery services.
Rackle (the Punching Bag) — Drew Euryale (terrified of monsters, sees demons everywhere), Ruin (items he touches crumble to dust), and Rogue (everyone perceives him as a fraudster). Three terrible cards on top of a pre-existing medical condition causing constant pain. Can't get a job, can't steal, can't touch anything valuable. Living in an abandoned watchtower, starving, suicidal. Clarissa, a priestess of Beshaba assigned to keep Rackle alive as a "saint of misfortune," has been preventing his suicide attempts and buying goodberries to keep him fed. Lada warns that priests of Beshaba are "never here to help."
Castle Green: Structure and Defenses
Castle Green's ground floor was destroyed by the chaos storm — only the basement and the labyrinth beneath it remain.
Omta's Portal System: Red-line portals placed by Omta as a defensive measure turn the basement into an apparent maze. All basement hallway portals lead into the labyrinth; labyrinth portals shift constantly under Omta's control. This creates the appearance that the basement is broken into 8 isolated chunks within the labyrinth, and intruders get trapped wandering in circles.
Bypassing Portals: The chaos storm teleported stone blocks out of walls, leaving gaps. Small creatures can fit through; medium creatures need enlarge/reduce magic. These holes bypass the portals entirely.
Navigating with Omta: PCs must first reassure the telepathic presence (Omta is fearful and operating on dream logic). Then they can ask Omta verbally for navigation help — he'll rearrange portals to guide them. Room-type requests work ("take me to the kitchen"), as do profession-based and card-based queries. But requests related to Green, the Deck, the Laundry, or the Lounge trigger intense fear and refusal.
Rennick
The PCs first meet Rennick on the ruined ground floor of Castle Green. He's a Fraternity of Order casino regulator and business associate of Green's. He's open about his work but clams up about the Deck and his ability to predict random events. He encourages the PCs to descend and rescue Green's trapped employees.
Exploring the Basement
The PCs explore the basement section by section, rescuing trapped employees:
Sparring Room / Armory / Cells: Gate guards Bran (talkative dwarf) and Inya (quiet tiefling) provide a complete inventory of missing people. The cells include one with a shattered bar and coarse brown fur (Borghan's former cell). Alyssa has set a piano wire trap in the armory with a note: "Get the &^$ out of my castle!"
Kitchen / Pantry / Dining: The kitchen has been taken over by fungus-farming giant ants. 10 workers and 4 soldiers are present. Soldiers form a barrier but won't attack unless PCs push through. Offering food rations earns their trust. Cook Zimmi (gnome) is locked in the pantry, scared but unharmed.
Root Cellar / Wine Cellar / Storage: The root cellar has been emptied by ants, with tunnels in the tilled ground. The wine cellar has another Alyssa trap (bucket of urine on the door). The furniture storage contains Alyssa Varn's hidden living space behind bookshelves — sleeping bag, nightstand, clothes — with a secret passage she carved through the wall leading to the bodyguards' quarters.
Bodyguard Bedrooms: Four bedrooms for Green's bodyguards (Mikhail, Harkon, Siduri, Etienne), each personalized. Etienne's room contains an unsent letter revealing that Asatya drew the Void card (now comatose) and Borghan drew the Beast card (now a grizzly bear). Alyssa may trap PCs alone in single-exit rooms by jamming doorstops and nailing doors shut.
Staff Barracks: The women's barracks has been taken over as an ant egg incubator. Here the PCs find Penny, a teenage tiefling who has already begun learning rudimentary ant-language despite only a few days of exposure. She's exceptionally gifted at languages. She can help with basic ant communication and will later be crucial for deciphering Omta's scroll puzzles.
Lounge / Green's Quarters / Edric's Office: Omta keeps PCs away from this area initially. Steward Edric (bariaur) manages paperwork and won't leave without his lockbox. A vault contains 3500gp in Deck-conjured gems and 500gp in gold. Stealing earns disapproval from all employees. A trapdoor leads down to the labyrinth. The hallway to the east is packed with soldier ants guarding the door to Green's bedroom (now the ant queen's lair). The hallway to the north contains a steel barrier — behind it, Green and his four bodyguards are sealed in the latrine/laundry/cistern area with the Deck.
The Ant Colony
The chaos storm destroyed the intelligent giant ants' anthill. The Ant Queen, who is strategic and can cast Comprehend Languages, is claiming Castle Green as compensation. The ants are not hostile — they're fungus farmers, not predators — but they're moving in by force. Workers are small-dog-sized and task-focused; soldiers are large-dog-sized and tactically smart; the Queen is small-horse-sized with broad intelligence.
Communication requires Tongues for full dialogue, or Comprehend Languages for one-way understanding. The Queen is creative enough to suggest hand signals. Penny's emerging ant-language skills help bridge the gap.
Ants navigate by scent and are largely unaffected by Omta's shifting portals. PCs can follow ant trails to reach new areas. The ants are willing to cooperate — they could help deal with Borghan or dig bypass holes if PCs establish communication.
Communicating with Omta: The Scroll Puzzle
Once PCs have explored extensively (met at least two employees, interacted with ants, encountered Borghan and Alyssa), Omta attempts detailed telepathic communication. He fails — his alien reasoning doesn't translate through telepathy, and only emotions come through (fear, anxiety, frustration, determination).
After repeated failures, Omta has an insight: he materializes parchment scrolls using card symbols from the Deck as a written language. Omta fled before mortals invented language and never learned sentences. He only knows symbol-based communication from pre-mortal gods. Cards are grouped by association, not in subject-verb-object order. Each card has multiple symbolic meanings, and PCs who drew a card instinctively know all its meanings. To learn meanings of unfamiliar cards, PCs must find the NPCs who drew them.
The First Scroll means: "I want the four of you to ask me questions." It shows four Donjon cards (the PCs), Omta's holy symbol (dice with sunburst), and the Vizier card (asking questions). Omta takes PCs to the basement landing and won't navigate further until they decipher it.
Omta will answer three specific questions:
-
"Why are you afraid?" — Answer: "I'm afraid because Tymora intends to kill me!" (Omta is overly fearful due to past trauma. Tymora is angry but not actually a murderer.)
-
"What is your goal?" — Answer: "I have to save the universe from Rennick, before he ruins everything!" (Omta sees Rennick as a knowledgeable but reckless fool who will destroy randomness.)
-
"Who are you?" — Omta responds with FOUR scrolls telling his life story:
- Scroll 4 (oldest): A possessive creator god built a wondrous but predictable universe. Omta was wise and knew how to fix it. He secretly taught the universe randomness.
- Scroll 3: Omta fled and hid in the farthest void, terrified.
- Scroll 2: Selune found him anyway. She agreed to keep his existence, his hiding place, and his deeds secret. (This connects to Selune's earlier warning: "A long time ago, I promised to keep a secret.")
- Scroll 1: Explains the current situation.
Puzzle-solving mechanics: Correct interpretations make scroll portions glow brighter and generate enthusiasm from Omta. Incorrect ones cause confusion. Twenty-questions guessing annoys Omta, who may close the telepathic link for hours. NPCs like Lada and Penny provide calibrated hints.
The Steel Door
Once PCs have the scrolls, the steel barrier transforms: three hinges appear (making it a door), six pigeonholes appear, and a brass plaque reads "Vizier, Key" (Knowledge is the key).
To unlock the door:
- Ask all three questions (obtain all six answer scrolls)
- Decipher all six scrolls correctly
- Insert each correctly deciphered scroll into a pigeonhole
- When all six are in place, the door opens
Meeting Omta
The PCs cross the threshold into an extradimensional void where they meet Omta directly. With a strengthened telepathic connection, they can now understand card-language effortlessly.
Omta reveals his nature: "I am unpredictability without chaos... I harnessed chaos, chained it, and turned it into randomness."
He makes two requests:
- Stop Rennick, who has devised a way to predict random events, threatening randomness itself.
- Don't give the Deck to Tymora — she will use it to find and kill him.
Omta explains he sent the Deck to stop Rennick, and it cannot vanish until its goal is accomplished. He is bound by his own philosophy: "I did act directly, I sent the Deck... The Deck might kill Rennick, or imprison him, or stop him in any one of a number of other ways. That is as direct as I can be. Anything else would not be random."
Negotiating with Green
After the steel door vanishes, Green and his entourage emerge from the laundry room. Lada offers to buy the Deck on Tymora's behalf for five wishes from the goddess. Green seriously considers the offer.
Tymora's Arrival and the Betrayal
When Lada prays to report, Tymora appears in person. Green immediately activates a contingency spell and teleports away with the Deck and his entourage to Beshaba's realm — the one place Tymora cannot easily follow.
Tymora reveals her backup plan: she used the PCs to strengthen their telepathic link to Omta, allowing her to trace it directly to him. The PCs realize they've unintentionally betrayed Omta — the "Oh Shit" moment Selune warned them about.
Averting Disaster
Following Selune's advice, the PCs speak up and convince Tymora not to pursue Omta. They argue: Omta means no harm, isn't deliberately stealing worshippers, will leave when Rennick is dealt with, is terrified of Tymora, and serves a legitimate purpose protecting universal randomness.
Tymora, genuinely relieved to avoid divine conflict, agrees to pause her pursuit and tasks the PCs with finding Rennick in Sigil.
Divine Boons
Tymora's Boon (party chooses one):
- Option 1: "Lucky" feat for all PCs (advantage 3x/day on any roll)
- Option 2: Free all prisoners from the Museum of Orethys (sent to Tymora's domain for rehabilitation)
Selune's Boon: All party members gain "Selune's Light" cantrip (8-hour duration moonlight, brighter than normal light).
The PCs can now understand card-language permanently (telepathic enhancement from meeting Omta).
Part Four: A Warning from Chronepsis
The Detour
As the PCs travel through the Outlands toward a portal to Sigil, their campsite mysteriously moves overnight. They find themselves trapped, repeatedly passing the same clearing until they enter the realm of Chronepsis, the Dragon God of Time and Fate.
Chronepsis never speaks to anyone — mortal or god — and acts only in subtle, indirect ways. He appears as an ancient ash-grey dragon, bony and skeletal. He will instantly erase from existence anyone who bothers or attacks him. His realm contains a ruined ancient city and an underground Mausoleum filled with tens of thousands of intangible hourglasses — one for each living dragon, showing their remaining natural lifespan.
Laeros and the Mystery
The PCs meet Laeros, a young adult gold dragon in dragonborn form (golden skin). A philosopher studying fate and dragons, he meditates in Chronepsis's realm for inspiration. He witnessed a steel dragon's hourglass jump forward unnaturally — artificial magical aging that should be impossible. This mystery has consumed him.
Chronepsis orchestrated the meeting:
- He placed Green's hourglass where Laeros would witness the unnatural aging
- He trapped the PCs in his realm to force them to meet Laeros
- Through conversation, they must realize: someone is using the Deck to magically age a dragon — Green, who used wishes to transform into a steel dragon and then age himself for more power
The Warning
Green has violated dragon code: dragons must earn their years naturally, and the dragon gods have decreed that magical aging of dragons is forbidden. Chronepsis is particularly annoyed. The PCs must warn Green to stop using wishes to age himself, or face consequences from the dragon gods.
When they understand their mission, a weight lifts and they're free to leave. The warning can be delivered via sending. Green responds: "Understood. Thanks for the warning."
Sylvania
After leaving Chronepsis's realm, the PCs reach Sylvania — a party town wedged between giant trees, like Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street. Arborea's mood-altering properties leak through: restaurants are dangerous (WIS save DC 18 or overindulge, gaining exhaustion and spending 5X intended gold).
The portal to Sigil is accessed through the flea market's scrap metal dealer (10gp each). He creates steel wire bracelets ("rings of steel have affinity for Sigil, which is like a ring of steel") and leads them through his tent — a one-way portal to the Bazaar in Sigil.
Part Five: Setup for Sigil
The campaign manuscript ends with the party's arrival in Sigil. The remaining plot threads:
- Find Rennick in Sigil — he's in hiding from Crow (an Incantifer hunting him) and the Xaositects (who see his prediction ability as a threat to chaos)
- Deal with Rennick's discovery — his ability to predict random events threatens randomness itself
- The Deck remains in Green's possession, hidden in Beshaba's realm
- Beshaba is still scheming to kill Tymora
- The Museum of Orethys still holds Diometron, Johann, and all other exhibits — the PCs owe Qurak a new exhibit (capture device) and promised to eventually dismantle the museum
- Green has been warned about dragon aging but still has the Deck and his card-drawing operation
The campaign is designed to reach approximately Level 8 and centers on investigation, NPC relationships, and moral complexity rather than dungeon-crawling combat.
Appendix: Card Symbolism Reference
Each card has symbolic meanings used in Omta's scroll-language:
| Card | Meanings |
|---|---|
| Key | Teaching, skills, careers |
| Jester | Making people laugh, not being taken seriously |
| Throne | Ruling by raw power, biggest/strongest |
| Gem | Beauty, sparkly things, wealth, money, precious |
| Bricklayer | Building, possessiveness, territoriality |
| Beast | Transformation into animal |
| Star | Wondrous magic items, wonder, wonderful things/places |
| Cripple | Infirmity, physical flaws, being broken |
| Sun | Divine ascension, divinity, godlike (also: "god" when combined with other symbols) |
| Tiger | Limberness, contortionist abilities |
| Knight | Receiving a weapon, defender |
| Skull | Killing, death, wanting to kill |
| Moon | Wishes, granted wishes, desires, fulfilled desires |
| Vizier | Seer, scholar, researcher, asking questions, investigation, secret knowledge |
| Comet | Time, past, future, waiting, history, prophecy |
| Idiot | Lack of intelligence/wisdom/social skill, mistakes, bad decisions |
| Owl | Intelligence, wisdom |
| Fool | Forgetting, disappearance |
| Void | Emptiness, darkness, silence, far reaches |
| Euryale | Fear of monsters |
| Ruin | Items crumbling, decay, destroyer |
| Rogue | Being perceived as fraudster/con man, sneaky |
| Donjon | Imprisonment (represents the PCs in scroll-language) |