jdnd/sections/02-The Museum of Orethys - Preamble.md

The Museum of Orethys

About the Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Party is United

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ropes and Ladders

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

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

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

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

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

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

  to create flying characters.

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

  upward.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Death in the Museum

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

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

Learning about the Stasis Effect

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

The Mist at the Edge of the Cavern

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

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

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

Figuring out How to Escape

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

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

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

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

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

   of a demiplane.

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

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

   who can.

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

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

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

Caretakers and their Guidebooks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Deck of Many Things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Repetition in the Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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