Fortune's Wheel

And so it begins! The party awakens on metal examining tables in a large stone room. Sheets have been pulled over everyone, and the sheets, table, and mosaicked floor are all spattered with blood. Everyone remembers their childhood and early history, but memories get hazy quickly after that, and no one remembers their recent past nor how they came to be in the room.

A large table at the end of the room has formaldehyde and embalming equipment, and a large pile of everyone’s equipment at the far end. There are other metal tables which appear to hold dead bodies of various races.

A skull floats in the air in front of the party, examining the party with its slate grey lidless eyes. As the party starts to stir, it says “Welcome to being alive, chief! How ya feeling?” in a cheerful, nasal voice. The skull explains its name is Morte, it has no idea how the party got there (it only recently arrived), and that the party is in the Mortuary in the basement of the “Dusters” base in the city of Sigil.

Morte tells the party the Dusters take care of dead bodies in Sigil and don’t appreciate “fleshies” getting into their business, so the party should shake a leg and make themselves scarce. A heavy iron gate leads out of the room, and the party hears occasional moans from beyond it.

Everyone puts on their gear, and Six, a Dhampir Paladin, senses multiple undead, especially to the northeast of the room, and that Morte is undead. The gate squeaks loudly as the party opens it. Morte declines to join the party, explaining that he’s waiting for someone.

The gate opens to a wide hallway that widens a bit to the east but before that has branches going north and south. The party picks the south hallway (Six only sensed one undead this way) which again ends in an iron gate. The party careful opens it as quietly as they can to a large oval room, and avoid disturbing a mortician elbow-deep into the chest of a large, patchwork humanoid creature twitching and writing on an oversized examining table.

After a moment of study, the party decides the humanoid isn’t really conscious and in pain, so they sneak clockwise around the outside of the room and escape through another iron gate on the east side of the creepy room.

The door opens into a large, north-south hallway they’re at the southern end of. A little ways to the north, there’s a wide hallway going west (probably where the party was before) and a narrow hallway going east (with a very heavy iron door, currently open, and red and blue levers on the wall). The hallway also keeps going north.

The party heads to the narrow hallway, and Sandro, the Tortle Monk/Rogue, scouts ahead followed by Solara, the Goliath Light Cleric. The hallway stretches 50-60 feet before opening into another north-south hallway. About halfway down, a zombie wearing a nametag (“Maurice”) walks down the far hallway past the opening and looks at Sandro. It stops, backs up a few feet, and pulls a lever causing both doors to slam shut, then looks through at Sandro and Solara through a heavy glass plate in the door.

Harvey, a Harengon Sorcerer, tries to (we’ll be generous) re-open the doors by pulling down the red lever. Flame gouts into the narrow hallway from small slots along the top and bottom of the hallway. The party tries to pull up the blue lever once the flame starts, but both levers seem to now be locked in place. After a minute, the levers snap back into their original spots and the doors swing open. Small piles of ash mark where Sandro and Solara were, and the party seems an ashy broom and dustpan by the door.

The party, alarmed, heads north to a door at the end of the hallway. It opens into a very cold storage room, with multiple drawers along the walls. The party hears muffled banging and shouts from inside some of the drawers. The first is stuck but Harvey, Six, and Fulton McCracken, Human (?) Dance Bard, working together manage to force it open. Inside is Fruth, a new Duster and mortuary employee (wearing a nametag and smock uniform), shivering badly. He fell asleep on the job during his first day on the job, was accidentally pronounced dead, and put into a storage unit for embalming. Fruth only vaguely remembers how to get out.

The next two drawers hold Sandro Beta, a Tortle Monk (who looks almost, but not quite, exactly like the incinerated Tortle) and Umbra, a Goliath Monk (who looks almost, but not quite, exactly like the Goliath cleric who just burned up). Neither has any memory of the party or how they came to be in storage drawers. They have the same early childhood memories of the prior versions of themselves, but their memories go just slightly farther and a crucial event turns out just slightly differently. They don’t have any memories of their prior self, but they do have an odd feeling that the crucial event could have or maybe did turn out differently than they recall.

Accompanied by Fruth, the party heads back to the narrow hallway and starts heading down it. Maurice sees the party, notes Fruth, and keeps walking rather than going for a lever. Past the iron door, the hallway goes north and south, plus there’s a door opposite the hallway.

Fruth and the party scout both hallways, carefully avoiding doors along the way, and find it forms a loop with a final hallway heading north. Harvey and Fulton, feeling curious, hang back and open the door across from the narrow hallway. Inside is a large rectangular room, dominated by an ornate desk covered with fancy stationary. The walls of the room are covered with bookshelves and cubby holes filled with bound scrolls, and the room itself is littered with crumpled sheets of paper. A human-sized cat’s skull, with large gems in place of eyes and teeth, floats in front of the desk, idly chewing on a fountain pen. Ink stains the skull’s gemstone teeth and jaw.

The skull sees Harvey come in and laments the torment of writer’s block at some length. Harvey and the skull introduce themselves and chat a bit about how fickle the creative process can be. The skull’s name is something long and complicated, and it claims to have been a famous bard in life.

It's trying to write the epitaph for a Doomguard (whatever that is) who drowned the day before in a local bathhouse and it's having a lot of trouble. Harvey tries to help, but the skull is underwhelmed by his suggestions, howls terrifyingly in frustration, and seems to be getting impatient. Fulton suggests composing a song in the Doomguard’s honor, and the skull finds the idea helpful.

As the rest of the party returns to the room, looking for the missing pair, the skull notes its a little surprised to see Harvey up and about since he just died that morning. The endless scrolls along the walls are the death certificates for everyone who has died recently in this part of Sigil. The party gives their names to the skull and it guides everyone to their certificates (Sandro and Umbra have two).

Each certificate has some (accurate seeming) biographical information, date of death (today for everyone), and cause of death (left blank on most, but Sandro and Solara’s second death of the day is listed as “Incineration”). The skull says it's peculiar for the cause of death to be blank (it hasn’t gotten to these yet), but it does happen. The universe is infinite and unknowable in its vast complexity, but it's not perfect. It’s seen mistakes happen. Things falling through the cracks. Glitches in the time-space continuum. But they’re very rare, and it happening to multiple people at the same time is odd. Sandro and Solara’s back-to-back deaths suggested the party members were suffering from such a glitch, and the universe didn’t know what to do with them. It suspected that if party members were to die, the universe would spit out another version of them nearby before long.

Oh, well. Back to work for the skull. It advises avoiding the other Dusters and gives the party directions to the Mortuary’s back door (just up some stairs from the final hallway).

The party pops out the door into a courtyard and takes in Sigil. Its rests on the inside of an open torus, like a bicycle wheel with no inner tube, around the top of an infinitely tall spire in the middle of the True Neutral alignment plane and literally at the center of the multiverse.

The torus is a few miles across and gravity pulls everyone “down”, towards wherever the ground is closest to them. So if you look “up”, you see the spire and then open air, and then the city on the inside of the other side of the ring. Sigil does not rotate around the spire, it just sits, and there is no sun or moon. The air itself provides ambient light which waxes and wanes over a 24 hour cycle.

While distracted by the sights, the party accidentally bumped into a passerby who belligerently yelled at the party. A bariaur (centaur, but half-goat/half-human) named Parius calmed things down and offered to guide the party around Sigil for a nominal fee of 3gp/day. The party agreed and paid her in advance.

As Parius told the party about Sigil’s major sites and attractions, and showed them around, a sensate from the House of Sensation asked the party to help capture the emotion of Serenity. A new satyr street musician across the street was very nervous getting ready to play on their first day. The sensate asked the party to ease his nerves and the capture the result in a palm-sized flat “Sensory Stone”.

Fulton guided the Satyr through his songs and gave him some helpful suggestions, easing their nerves. The emotion was successfully captured and the party gave the stone to the sensate. They gave Fulton an empty Sensory Stone in payment and suggested the party visit the House of Sensation sometime as they headed out.

The party, having little else to do, agreed and followed. The House of Sensation was a warm, spa-like place with a zillion Sensory Stones with various emotions. For 1gp, you could rent a small room and stone of your choice to experience the emotion. Party members picked various emotions and tried them out, and with each experience everyone had a tiny sliver of memory of experiencing that emotion in their prior life, albeit with no context.

Departing the House of Sensation, the party came across three philosophers in front of a crowd whether the gods had merit. One was a nihilist and argued nothing had meaning, one was an optimist and said that since demi-gods existed people should use gods as motivation to strive for the greatness within us all, and one was a realist and said that since gods could die they weren’t eternal and since they had no place in Sigil (the Lady of Pain, ruler of Sigil, barred gods and their direct minions from entering) they were unworthy of consideration. The party agreed with the optimist who said they should visit her organization’s base (I forget what that was, but I’ll note it later).

Leaving the philosophers, the party was accosted by three police officers wearing platemail and with electrified polearms. They demanded the party come with them for “violating the laws of the multiverse”. Parius the bariaur screamed “I can’t go back to jail” and fled. After an honestly halfhearted attempt to talk to police out of it, a fight broke out!

The polearms could restrain players and then steadily zap them with electricity while restrained, and the police were hard to hit. But a Sleep spell from Harvey knocked one out at the start, and after a bloody back and forth struggle. Six slung the unconscious cop over his shoulder and the party fled. As they started running down an alley, a pale tattooed elf wearing a black hood and leather armor got their attention and said “Come with me if you want to live… and find out what’s going on.”

Timeline

Jan 20, 2025

The elf was named Farrow and said their employer wanted to speak with the party. The Harmonium (the police) were after the party and would be back in greater numbers, so Farrow would lead the party through “UnderSigil”, sewers and forgotten tunnels. In hopes of avoiding suspicion, the party dumped the unconscious Harmonium guard in an alley, didn’t take their armor, and Farrow led the party into an abandoned basement with a storm drain. Beneath the drain’s grate was a ladder going down into the sewers.

The walls were stone-like, but the party wasn’t sure if they were actually stone. Farrow knew their way around and led the party through twists and turns, shifting between collapsed basements and sewers and what appeared to be naturally forming caves.

In a large cave, the party came across a large (but not giant) rat lying on its back on a porcelain plate. Its belly was hugely distended and its partially exposed brain glowed with a faint pink light. Farrow said it was a cranium rat, common in UnderSigil. Individually they were mostly harmless, but they were psychically linked with the others of their swarm. Swarms had a gestalt personality, separate from the individual rats, that grew rapidly in power and intelligence with the size of the swarm. The rat looked at the party, and everyone heard a low voice in their heads saying “Do what you must. It doesn’t matter, because we have already won.”

The party discussed what that might mean and inspected the rat carefully. It was surrounded by crumbs and had some pink frosting on its fur. Eventually, the party cajoled the rat into admitting it had come across a cake, abandoned its scouting mission, and ate the entire cake (and thus “won”). The party left the cave and shook their heads at the rat, which cryptically warned the party to “Beware the smell of strawberries”.

Farrow warned the party that many groups claimed space in UnderSigil and he was trying to steer around a particularly violent coterie, but he was now afraid their territory had expanded. They had bizarre beliefs about the multiverse and quickly enraged if contradicted. If the party came across them, stay on good behavior and humor the fanatics until they could escape.

Shortly after, the party came across a large rectangular room, perhaps a sewer exchange, which was wet and perhaps recently flooded. The room was lit with torches and conversation suggested a party was taking place. Four humans dressed like bakers sat at a heavily laden table and were eating a large strawberry cake while drinking tea. “Shit. Its them. Bakers. Be mindful of what you say.”

The Bakers’ leader, a large heavily made-up woman, stood and warmly welcomed the party to their celebration. Today was the multiverses’ birthday, and the Coterie of Cakes was celebrating. She offered everyone slices of strawberry cake, which the party accepted (paying no mind to the large, furry wings sticking out of the cake as decoration) as they sat at the table.

The Bakers explained cheerfully that the multiverse was an infinitely large multilayer cake, baked goods were the only true currency, and they had been banished from the surface by being overly aggressive in trying to convert people to their ways. With the benefit of hindsight, the Bakers should have been more diplomatic in their approach, letting the beauty of their baking (the cake was genuinely good, with a flavor no one could quite identify) speak for the righteousness of their beliefs. Now they were stuck in the sewers where good ingredients were sometimes hard to come by. Sandro cheerfully traded cooking tips with them but noted the Bakers, while cheerful and enthusiastic, did not seem entirely well.

After chatting for a while and eating cake (Farrow, Fulton, and Mario failed CON saves), the party departed. The sewers leading out of the room were actually warp tunnels, and the party went through one to get around some heavy iron bars on the far end of the room.

A couple hours of sewer navigation later, Fulton, Mario, and especially Farrow (rolled a “1” on the CON save) were rapidly getting sick. They were grumpy and felt ill, and their personalities were shifting slightly, becoming more abrasive and hostile. Also, small lumps were forming on top of their heads and their skin was taking on a reddish hue. They were also taking penalties to CHR.

Fortunately, the tunnel broaden into a large cave (in which the party heard the slap of waves against stone) and Farrow announced they were almost there. Ahead was a local reservoir (it had a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water and provided water for part of Sigil) and in the middle of it was a maintenance tower with stairs going up to Sigil. Their employer’s operation was just past the stairs. Sahuagin often did maintenance work on the reservoirs and sewers, and could be hostile to intruders.

The cave ahead was enormous with a 20’ ceiling, stretched far out of sight, and other than a short strip by the entrance, entirely full of water. A squat tower with an iron door sat in the water, ~80 away from the shore. Farrow said the door would be locked, but they knew how to pick it.

Six walked along the cave’s ceiling and the rest of the party discovered the water became deep very quickly and started swimming. Suddenly, the party noticed something large moving under the dark waters. A pair of Sahuagin surfaced, riding sharks! They yelled “Die polluters!” Fight!

Six cast Compelled Duel on on Sahaugin, forcing it to throw javelins (badly) at him. Meanwhile, Umbra and Mario quickly ran across the water to the tower, stood on a small ledge in front of the door, and began attacking the door to batter it down. Sandro, Fulton, Harvey and Farrow were still on land, attacking with ranged weapons and Fulton kept disabling the Sahaugin (and sharks!) with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and Harvey attacked them with illusions.

The party took some damage, but were able to batter the sharks and their riders. One shark (a mutated shark with 4 stubby legs) went after Farrow and hurt him badly, but he was able to escape. Soon, the monks had the door down but another Sahaugin/shark pair heard the fighting and came to investigate.

With the door down, the people on land swam for safety. Unfortunately, the new shark caught Farrow and killed him before the party was able to finish the shark off. In a shock for everyone involved, Farrow’s head began spasming and within seconds their ears grew into large bat-like wings. With a final wrench, the head separated completely from the body. Farrow’s head was still recognizable as Farrow, but it had grown more demonic. Curled horns grew out of the forehead, the teeth had grown into fangs, and the skin was now red and scaly.

The head locked eyes with Six (who had jumped onto the back of the shark eating Farrow), screamed, and rapidly shifted into a near copy of Six’s face, terrifying him and causing considerable psychic damage. The party, as one, shouted “What the f**k just happened?” “It was a Vargouille”, someone said (I forget who rolled super high on… Religion, I think). “Fiendish creatures spread by a curse-like disease, though I’ve never heard of them doing that face-change thing to look like someone they’re attacking. That’s probably what’s wrong with Fulton and Mario. The Bakers probably all had it, too. If we’d fought them, their heads would have attacked us afterwards.”

Fortunately, the Sahuagin and sharks were mostly dead or sinking as they laughed uncontrollably. The party took a few shots at the flying head, forcing it to flee back down the tunnel (“I guess it’s someone else’s problem now?”), and then fled up the stairway inside the maintenance tower back to the surface of Sigil.

Up the stairs was a shabby maintenance shed full of wheelbarrows and other building supplies, barred from the inside. Since the party was already inside it, they unbarred the door and entered the “Lady’s Quarter” of Sigil. An upscale area, it seemed. Wealthy merchants and nobles walked the streets finely dressed and often with servants in tow.

Across the street was a brightly lit and multicolored sign for a large, ornate building. “Fortune’s Wheel, games of chance and relaxation”, it said. Mario suggested the party find a cure for the Vargouille plague, and the party thought the expensive-looking casino might have medical staff on duty.

As the party staggered in the front door, a concierge met them with a greeting. The party was expected, and received a letter. Someone named “Shemeshkuh” wanted to speak with the party, but was busy for a bit. The letter instructed the concierge to give the party rooms and room service, on the house. Once the party had a chance to rest and freshen up, a gift awaited them at the casino cage.

The party asked if a cleric was available, and Velek the concierge grudgingly agreed medical attention was also covered and summoned a tiefling cleric able to cast Remove Curse. She cured Fulton and Mario, took her leave, and then Velek led the party upstairs to suite-like rooms, seemingly decorated for royal visitors. Each bed had a set of nicely tailored evening-wear for each party member, appropriately sized for everyone (the clothing did not particularly represent everyone’s style preferences. They seem to have simply known everyone’s size, and provided appropriate casino-wear in case party members were lacking it).

The party enjoyed an excellently prepared meal from room service, and had a peaceful night’s sleep recovering from the day. Also, everyone is now level 5.

Timeline

Jan 27, 2025

The party awoke, dressed in the casino appropriate attire provided by their benefactor (this mysterious Shemeshkuh, perhaps?), had a good room-service breakfast, and headed down to the main floor entry area the “Flaming Dragon Bar and Lounge”

Mix of well to-do gamblers (nobles and wealthy merchants) were taking in a show performed by the ghost of a long-dead famous card trick magician, with a table of gnolls heckling the ghost. To the side there appeared to be small museum of retired gambling tables plus a big roulette wheel, and a kitchen where various kinds of mephits prepared meals. The party got a variety of fun drinks from the bar, where the bartender looked like Bojack Horseman’s cousin. The party also saw tuxedo-clad Mezzoloths wandering around, perhaps as bouncers or pit bosses.

A well-meaning but patronizing noble gave the party a casino chip (called a “razorvine”, because it has the image of a razorvine printed onto it) to enjoy the gambling. The party was told they’d get a gift from “the cage”, and a couple barred windows staffed with imps seemed to be “the cage”. The party members each received a small bag holding 10 chips which the imp pulled from some sort of extra-planar space.

Past a well-dressed ogre mage was a nondescript door through which a lot of traffic went back and forth. The imp said the casino was just past Vez, gesturing to the ogre magi. Fulton asked how to get an audition to be a stage performer, and Vez said to talk to Grigsby a satyr and the stage manager.

Through the door and down the hallway was a huge, loud, crowded, brightly lit casino. Imagine any varsity-level casino in Las Vegas, and it was pretty overwhelming. The atrium held a solid-gold statue of an arcanoloth with an illusory fountain spraying out gold coins.

Past the atrium was the casino itself, full of boxy clockwork machines (slot machines) which a night hag celebrating a recent jackpot explained to the party. Mixed in were gaming tables of various sorts (a card game run by a vampire croupier) and a roulette wheel run by a spectator wearing a rigid 20-sided die costume would roll itself on the table.

The party saw in the distance a huge speciality roulette wheel (an earlier version of which the casino was named after), but there was a line so the party tried to slot machines and gaming tables first. Fulton won 15 chips playing roulette, but the party mostly lost money on the slot machines and other card games though a few players won small gold rings (worth 15gp) and Sandro was zapped with a gout of flame. A githzerai named “Rule of three” always bet three chips and rolled three dice, and a mind-flayer named Ignatius Inkblot was investigating fraud at the casino and recommended the party speak aloud rather than use telepathy because it was easier for the casino to spy on telepathic communications.

The party made it to the roulette wheel which cost 5 chips and could normally only be spun once/day. The party was mostly unlucky and won some small odds and ends (a recently severed mind-flayer tentacle, 50gp, and a tunic that said “I spun Fortune’s Wheel and all I got was this lousy tunic”), but Six got incredibly lucky (and the party sacrificed all their remaining chips to the gods of fortune) and won *actual divinity*. Still TBD what he’s now minor, quasi-deity of. Something like god of dust mites or scheduling conflicts. We’ll see. He has no worshippers and virtually no powers, but he is technically a divine being now.

The party then headed to the Ice Bar, where a yeti poured drinks at a bar made out of sculped, enchanted ice, and a depressed white dragon was resting its head on the bar and flipping a gold piece. On the way, the party passed a large lobster-shaped clockwork machine entirely gilded in gold. Someone recognized it as the legendary Apparatus of Kwalish. Apparently it was winnable as a prize on Fortune’s Wheel.

In the background, a gnome performed illusions with a white weretiger assistant (who didn’t maul anyone during the show) finished his act. The next act was introduced by a stressed-looking satyr (maybe Grigsby?) and was a ghostly performer manifested herself out of a possessed guitar. She played and sang, backed up by a troupe of brass-playing skeletons.

A tiefling archmage was celebrating her birthday at the bar (she was evasive about which birthday) and shared drinks with the party. Her drink turned her halfway into a canary (top half) but it wore off after a few minutes. The party suspected she was an Incantifer, someone who can absorb magic energy from spells and magic items, and use that energy in the place of food, water and sleep. But they’re not entirely still alive and don’t heal naturally from injuries. After some chatting, she wished the party a good night.

The white dragon was grouchy and drunk, and had just gambled away its entire hoard. It had now run up a 100gp bar tab which it couldn’t pay (it had 1gp left to its name). It offered the eternal gratitude of dragonkind if the party would pay its bill. The party didn’t believe that was something the dragon could actually offer, but paid its bill anyway. The dragon finished its drink, gratefully gave the party one of its scales, and slunk to the door.

As we concluded, Fulton was preparing to approach the Satyr about an audition.

Timeline

Feb 3, 2025

Fulton, backed up by Sandro as an acrobat, Six and Umbra as back-up dancers, and Mario as their sound guy, set up an impromptu audition with Grigsby who happened to have a few spare minutes. Sandro and Fulton impressed Grigsby who agreed to let them perform with the big star about to perform (who was basically an aging Celine Dion finishing her career out in Vegas) and promised to compensate them with exposure so valuable it’d be hard to quantify. He also tried to convince Fulton and Sandro they had a real potential future in performing, but should probably get away from the rest of the group who were just holding them back.

Grigsby did grudgingly allow the entire group to back-up quasi-Celine as she belted out aging pop ballards, and did a good enough job that he tipped Fulton a casino chip afterwards. As that happened, the casino suddenly became quiet as a portal appeared near the ceiling. Spotlights appeared out of nowhere along with dramatic music and a spiral staircase heading down to the floor. A stylish, jackal-headed humanoid appeared and waved to the crowd amidst rapturous applause. The crowd started chanting “Shemeshkuh! Shemeshkuh!” as it strode purposefully down the stairs while watching the PCs.

Shemeshkuh (played by old friend Jack Carpenter!) joined the party at the bar and introduced itself as an Arcanoloth (a powerful and important Yugoloth) who owns the casino and is also active as an information broker. One of its accountants, a modron, flipped out and ran away recently. As a manifestation of absolute Lawful Neutral, it shouldn’t even be capable of that. And if happened *exactly* when the players died mysteriously, so Shemeskuh thinks the two might be related. The yugoloth wants the modron back (it has sensitive business information) and if they players retrieve it (its believed to be in the Outlands somewhere, the plane of True Neutral) Shemeshkuh will help the players find out what exactly is going on with this glitch that gave them amnesia.

After some negotiating, the party agreed to help in return for 200gp in casino chips and 100gp in money for expenses, each. Shemeskuh also gave the party a portal key (looks like a golden casino chip) that if the party takes it into a nearby doorway, a portal to Outlands will form. Also, Shemeskuh will continue giving the party free rooms until the job is done (probably just one more night). The party had another drink, gambled away most of their newfound wealth, and then called it a night during which the party noticed every room was its own demiplane.

The next day, the party headed back to Fortune’s Wheel and won nothing of consequence (maybe another mind flayer tentacle) before bumping into Ingnatius Inkblot, the mindflayer investigator from the other day. Ingnatius asked if the party had noticed anyone disappearing or anything funny going on near Fortune’s Wheel. The party had not, but did notice a door next to the wheel. Maybe it’ll be important later. Fulton offered everyone the use of his Sensation Stone.

The party finished off their casino chips at the gaming tables and slot machines. Harvey ended up 5gp and Umbra won a pair of Dimensional Shackles but that was pretty much it. I don’t think anyone converted their 100gp spending money into chips, though Mario did immediately convert his chips into gp and has the full 300gp still.

The party had one last drink for the road, and headed out to use the portkey. A portal did indeed form in the Outlands, and we remembered that Six found a Portal Compass in the Mausoleum, maybe? So, the party always knows how to get back to the portal to Sigil.

The party was in the middle of an ancient ruin made from black marble, in the middle of a desert full of deep blue sand. The area was surprisingly small, just a few miles across, with towering trees bordering on one side and tall mountains on the other. A set of *enormous*, deeply set footprints crossed the sand nearby. The party followed the tracks toward the mountains, eventually coming upon the tower in a small copse of flattened trees, surrounded by odd fallen pillars, right next to the mountains.

Investigating the tower, the party discovered the ground floor was a large library full of books on the multiverse and obscure theories on it along with many reading areas and meditation nooks. There was a crystal sarcophagus with a long dead githzerai scholar inside. Its eyes had been replaced with bronze ones and if you talked about a subject, the eyes would look at where that subject could be found in the library. Also, one of the candles in a meditation nook pinged as magic, so it was gathered and will be examined later.

Sandro scouted up a large, spiral staircase quietly. He found a pair of armored tieflings quietly discussing betraying someone named Thlaarshk. The party headed up the stairs and Six greeted them. After a bit of unsuccessful small talk, the tieflings attacked! To be resolved next time.

Timeline

Feb 10, 2025

Fight! The tieflings were strong, skillful warriors, knocking party members (mostly Six) to the ground with shield bashes and then stabbing them with their spears. Umbra, Botticelli, and Mario attempted to stun and knock prone the warriors with mixed results, Six (when he was on his feet) smited them, Fulton shot arrows and inspired everyone with his dance, and Harvey experimented with new spells like Witchbolt.

The tieflings hit the party hard right off the bat, but the party recovered and wore them down. After a couple rounds, the tide began turning and one of the tieflings yelled up the ladder asking for help. Shortly after, the party noticed the ladder begin jostling a bit, as though something was climbing.

After the first tiefling went down (and Umbra nearly did), a pair of Mezzoloths with tridents stormed down the ladder and joined the fray, teleporting around the battlefield. The remaining tiefling, very low on health, shouted for help to Thlaarshk. A deep voice from behind one of the closed doors responded “Fine, fine. Just a second.” Fulton attempted to jam the door shut with a crowbar and also tried to hold it shut.

A powerful form forced the door open, sending Fulton tumbling. It was a huge Nycaloth with a giant battle axe! Fulton luckily incapacitated it with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter as it cheerfully joked about eating the party.

The remaining tiefling fell, along with one of the Mezzoloths. The remaining one pulled out its big guns and cast Cloudkill, knocking down half of the already battered party. Only Six, Harvey and Mario remained standing and the Nycaloth shrugged off the laughter. Uh oh.

It was hard to hit the remaining Mezzoloth, but Six’s smites were able to break its concentration on the Cloudkill before it finished off the unconscious characters (who all did very well on their death saves and stabilized on their own) but then he went down as well. Mario tried tanking both the Nycaloth and the Mezzoloth at the same time, but it was well above his plumber training. He went down too, but the Mezzoloth was on its last legs. Harvey finally finished off the remaining Mezzoloth and wounded the Nycaloth, then fled through a door into a supply closet.

The Nycaloth ignored the fleeing rabbit, deeming him a non-threat, and began coup de grace’ing the party members and preparing them for dinner. Harvey used his turns to pop out of the closet, cast a spell, and pop back in. But as long as the Nycaloth made its saves it ignored him. Finally, after finishing off 2-3 party members, Thlaarshk failed its save against a Sleep spell and was halted for a round. Unfortunately, it made the follow-up save and decided it had had enough of Harvey. It burst down the closet door and hacked him to bits, then finished killing the party. TPK!

A minute or two later, alternate versions of the entire party suddenly reappeared around Harvey’s body in the now very cramped supply closet. It was the original Solara and Sandro who died in the Mortuary cremation hallway, plus new versions of everyone else. No one knew how they got there, with Solara and Sandro’s last memories being dying in the hallway, though everyone had a vague memory of hunting for a modron named RO4M. Solara and Sandro also vaguely thought that Shemeshkuh seemed familiar somehow.

The newly formed and revitalized party burst through the closet door and dispatched the wounded and confused Nycaloth which had just started snacking on the still-warm bodies of the last party. Victory!

Exploring the level, the party discovered a bunch of bedrooms, along with a study full of notes and maps of the planes. Additionally, a strange humanoid skull apparently made out of colored glass and various metals rested on the desk. The party took it, just in case.

Exploring up the ladder, the party found a terrified gnome wizard named Ferd’no apparently hiding from the Yugoloths. He thanked the party for saving him and asked if the monsters were all dead. He accompanied the party for a bit, but once he knew the coast was clear, he fled down the ladder and out of the tower.

The room Ferd’no was hiding in had a strange crude humanoid statue leaning over a round stone table. The party examined it but found no secret doors or any way to activate it. The ladder up was blocked with a bolted hatch, which the party opened. On the top floor was a small pillar in the middle of the room with a large gemstone mounted on top. Sitting peacefully in the corner was an elderly githzerai woman.

The party chatted with her a bit (I forget her name) and in very meditative, Zen-like fashion she thanked the party for saving the tower. It was an ancient githzerai outpost for meditation and research, though she had only been its custodian for the last couple centuries. “The Castellan”, whatever that was, was the tower’s “heart” somehow.

She led the party down to the crude statue, implied to the party that the hiding gnome wizard had actually been a shape-changed incubus (it was trying, successfully, to escape being slain by the party), and spoke a command word in Gith to the statue. The statue animated, waved its hands over the table, and a detailed map of the Outlands appeared.

After some discussion, she mentioned a modron having visited a while back intent on rejoining its branch of the Great Modron March. It had a mimir (a humanoid skull-shaped recording device) it was using to find its branch of The March. The modron found what it was looking for and departed months ago, but left the mimir (apparently the skull the party was carrying). The mimir had been damaged in the Yugoloth attack and wasn’t working.

A couple members of the party with good Arcana scores worked together and successfully repaired the skull, only to find the damage had knocked out its memories of several of the gate-towns. To retrieve where the modron ultimately went, the party needed to visit seven of the gate towns, bring the skull to within 20’ or so of each gate, and then spend a few minutes describing in detail the gate and the area immediately around it.

The Outlands are the plane of True Neutral and infinitely large, but they’re also a disc with the Spire in the middle, and the outer edge studded with a succession of towns. Each town is built around a permanent gate portal leading to an outer plane, and each town takes on some of the personality of the town to which its connected. Rarely, if a town’s personality becomes too much like the outer plane to which its connected, it will “fall” into that plane and become part of Carceri or the Beastlands or whatever its connected to, and a new town will gradually be built in the Outlands.

The missing seven towns were:

Automata (leads to Mechanus, the plane of Lawful Neutral and where the Great Modron March stats)
Curst (leads to Carceri, the prison plane between Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil)
Excelsior (leads to Mount Celestia aka the Seven Heavens, the plane of Lawful Good)
Faunel (leads to The Beastlands, the Happy Hunting Grounds between Neutral Good and Chaotic Good)
Glorium (leads to Ysgard, between the planes of Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral)
Rigus (leads to the infinite battle plane of Archeron, between Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral)
Sylvania (leads to the Olympian Plane of Arboria, sometimes called Olympus, the plane of Chaotic Good).

Following the modron’s trail through the seven gate towns seemed like the next step, so the party began discussing which town to visit first. The Githzerai woman noted that since she and the tower (which was called Iedcaru) owed the party for freeing them from the Yugoloths, the least they could do was give the party a ride. Plus, she was an expert on the planes and had visited each town more than once, so she could probably give them some advice.

She spoke another command word to the Castellan, and the tower also rocked heavily for several seconds while the party felt crushed to the floor. The odd, apparently collapsed pillars around the outside of the tower had actually been its legs. The tower had just now *stood up*. It was a walking tower.

“Where do you want to go first?” she asked.

Timeline

Feb 17, 2025

The party opted to start with Sylvania and the marching tower Iedcaru started heading in that direction. The Githzerai scholar explained the tower moved at exactly 12 mph, no faster or slower, but the distance between places in Outland often shifted. It might take a few weeks to reach an apparently distant location and then a decade to go somewhere seemingly closer. As with the outer planes, time sometimes had a mind of its own.

In good news, she explained, since marching towers were often used by bandits or as weapons of war, they were unlikely to be attacked en route. Plus, the legs were ~50’ long and 12 mph (a 5 minute mile), was pretty fast. If they were going to be attacked, it would probably happen when they stopped and attacks while marching were extremely rare.

As if on cue, there was suddenly a loud crunching sound and the tower sagged and seemed to struggle slightly, as if something large and heavy had just landed on it. The party sprinted up the stairs to the lighthouse floor and looked out the windows, to see a large, pearl-colored dragon wrapped around the top of the tower, looking back in the windows at them.

“Pleasure to see you again, old friends!” the dragon bellowed. “Its been centuries, has it not?” The dragon chuckled at the party’s confusion. “Sorry, sorry, it has been centuries for *me*, but you haven’t met me yet at this point, have you? Well, then. I can’t tell you anything without changing things, but how do I… Ah, yes, I see.” The dragon produced a small metal amulet from a pouch by one of its wings and handed it to the party. “Please give this to the one who ‘Sees in silver’. Alright?” It then flew away, chuckling at the party’s questions of “Wait, what?”

After a few weeks of increasingly monotonous travel, the party arrived at Sylvania, an elven town woven into the surrounding forest. A large party seemed to be underway. The tower stopped and the party headed into the town, looking for the gate.

Elves, dryads, pixes and other creatures were in the midst of a town-wide party, though the party occasionally heard a loud thunder-like crash. A satyr, who the party somehow knew was possessed by a spirit named Danai, one of the rulers of the town, greeted the party and asked them their business in Sylvania. The party said they’d come for the party, and Danai welcomed them but asked a favor.

An Empyrean name Kopoha, a not-yet grown child of the gods, immature yet very powerful, was trying to get into an invite-only party hosted by the Elven god of Nature. She wasn’t on the guest list, and it was an issue. If the party could keep her out of trouble, Danai would get the party into the party afterwards.

The party talked the 18’ tall, immensely powerful proto-deity into joining a dryad dance performance instead and managed to avoid her crushing any dryads accidentally. Then a pixie brewfest beckoned and the party got into a drinking contest with her (which she won pretty easily). Finally, the party played bocce using skeleton skulls against retired god of the dead Jergal and minions. The Empyrean lost badly, overthrowing the mark failing to rein in her enormous strength, but the party cajoled her into losing gracefully.

Along the way, she shared that growing up with the expectation of becoming a god was a lot of pressure. She felt like she had to be great at everything all the time, and her sister was better than her at a lot of the things she valued, making it even harder. Finally, the combination of permanence and uncertainty was weighing on her. Because when you became a god, you were immortal. Your portfolio, barring something weird, was yours forever. She loved sailing and was great at it, but she hated seafood. If she became a god of the sea, she’d be around seafood *forever*.

Four, being the minor-est of minor gods himself, gave her some perspective. It was possible to be the god of extremely minor things and *still be a god* so there was no need to have her expectations so high. Plus, the powers-that-be wouldn’t really pick something she was bad at, or didn’t like, and make her the god of that. Feeling a little better, she decided to go have a talk with her sister and headed north from Sylvania.

Danai found the party, expressed their appreciation, and got them into the party. Rillifane Rallathil, elven god of nature, was tending bar at a gigantic rave in a huge tent and made everyone by far the best cocktail they’d ever had. Everyone’s drink not only tasted amazing but also brought out the best aspects of the person who drank it, and everyone received a +1 to a stat of their choice (can go over 20).

The next morning, the party woke up in the tent feeling only slightly hungover. They found Danai, and asked where the gate was having not seen it at all the day before. Apparently the gate is in the forest outside of town but drifts around. It was north of town the day before but was now east, in an old well. Danai took the party there, and someone… (Botticelli, maybe? I forget.) described the gate and Sylvania to the mimir in positive, glowing terms.

Back to the tower, and onto the next town over, Faunel. Faunel was mostly inhabited by awakened animals of various sorts, and was mostly in shambles, having recently fallen into The Beastlands. Where the party expected Faunel to be was merely a half-dozen huts, a neutral trade-ground between the feuding animal groups contending over how the new Faunel would be run.

Harvey got a large sack of root vegetables (which was most of what the tower had left for food) to trade to the animals. Razzak, very slow-speaking three-toed sloth (that gimmick got old fast) cheerfully traded various sorts of smoked meat and other food for the root vegetables, and explained the animals were split into four groups. The herbivores, the carnivores, and the flyers were the three main groups, and then a small splinter faction where here in the middle trying to keep things from breaking into open conflict. The party decided to meet with the leader of the herbivores, and Razzak provided directions to their base a few miles away.

The terrain was wild and variable even for the Outlands. Whereas Sylvania was surrounded by thick arboreal forests for dozens of miles in every direction, the land around Faunel changed constantly. It’d be swamp for a mile or two, then a desert for a mile, then icy tundra for a couple miles, then pine forest, etc.

While going through a forested area, the party saw a pack of six gnolls eating a large bird on the path ahead. First battle using entirely 5.24 rules and stat blocks! Fight!

The gnolls had whips and javelins made of bone, and occasionally drove each other in savage frenzies giving them extra attacks. Solara cast spirit guardians and ran very quickly around the outside of the pack hitting lots of gnolls, Harvey zapped the gnolls with spells, Four tanked, and Botticelli skirmished from the trees. In response, the gnolls rolled lots of natural 20s. Both sides whittled each other down and everyone was in tatters by the end.

Fortunately for the party, because none of them were actually dead yet and the rules said the gnolls would break and run when four of them died. It could easily have still gone either way at that point. The remaining gnolls fled, and the party gathered everyone together, mended their wounds, and took a short rest as we finished the session.

Timeline

Feb 24, 2025

The party rested, then continued to visit the Herbivores and chatted with their leader, a powerful looking elephant. She said the dead goat (turns out it was a goat, not a bird, the gnolls were eating) was an esteemed historian of their group. The Carnivores had recently attacked and she’d personally defeated their leader so he might be out for revenge. If the party found the goat’s killer, she’d give them a symbol of her group’s power: a figurine of wondrous power (serpentine owl).

So, the party headed out to visit the carnivores (a few miles away), passing through groups of wolves and hyenas on the way to Fang Rock where the sabertooth tigers live. Ebonclaw, leader of the carnivores (looking a little banged up), was a little stand-off-ish to the party at first. He noted it was lucky for the party they’d just hunted and eaten a pack of yak and it was a big deal that they “Take meat when it was needed”, but didn’t kill things for sport. He believed the best future of Faunel was one where each individual was able to become the strongest, best versions of themselves.

He said his folks didn’t kill the goat, and didn’t like the gnolls because they hunted for sport. All of which the party just instantly believed, which was the right call because it turned out to be true, but was still kind of funny. He didn’t know where the gnolls’ camp was, but the Fliers knew where everything was so maybe ask them.

The party then hiked to Fliers’ camp in a big forest a few miles away. All the nests and houses were way up in the high branches 40-50’ up in the air. The party talked to a passing hawk (I forget how, though many of the birds spoke Common) and found out the leader was a few miles away in the petrified forest talking to the flying lizards and pterodactyls.

So the party hiked to the petrified forest, arriving just before sunset. The leader, a huge albatross, knew where the gnoll camp was, and the party didn’t even bother asking if he was involved in the goat’s death, they were just ready to kill some gnolls. The leader said the gnolls weren’t a threat to his folks, so he didn’t care about them. But the party gave him a vial of holy water and talked him into telling them. He said it was fine to spend the night there, most larger animals did not come into the Fliers’ territory so it was probably safe, but he didn’t really care.

After a safe long rest, the party hiked to the gnoll camp and found the gnolls! Fight! Mick Mangehide and his Four Gnolls (a fine name for a bad) fought the party and they did some damage (nearly knocking down Hunter Mario), but the battle wasn’t nearly as close as the last time the party tangled with some gnolls.

However, the final gnoll opened up a large covered cage releasing a panicked triceratops! It immediately charged the first person it saw, Solara, and rolled a crit, nearly one-shotting the light cleric. But Harvey managed to put it to sleep, and after finishing off the gnolls the party hid in the cage and waited for the triceratops to wake up and wander away. In the camp, the party found a lot of old meat, a long magical snakeskin that worked as a Rope of Entanglement and 1000gp.

The party returned to the Herbivores who expressed their gratitude and gave the party the serpentine owl. Then the party returned to Greenbriar Village, the trading camp they started at, because apparently the Gate was close to it. In the village, Razzak the friend sloth from before greeted the party. He was sad to hear of the goat’s death but was happy the party had killed the raiding gnolls. He gave the party a feather and claw adored bracelet that worked as a very decorative +1 ring of protection.

The gate was half a mile away in the woods, by the ruins of what remained of the prior Faunel. A large pond stood in the middle of some small vine-covered ruins, and a 20’ stone statue of a humanoid with glowing eyes appeared to stand guard. As the party approached, the statue stood up and asked the party what their business was in Faunel. The party said they were looking for the gate, and the guardian said it was in the pond. At the bottom of the pond was a large glowing circle that was apparently the gate.

Botticelli took the mimir, got it close enough to the gate, and described the gate and its environs in… ugh. I don’t have my notes and can’t remember exactly how he said it. Impressionist-pointillism? No, that was how Harvey described the first gate. Shoot, I can’t remember.

The party then headed back to the tower, leveled up and decided to head to Glorium next.

Matt's Notes

After resting up, the party searched the bodies of the gnolls and slain ibex. The ibex was wearing a necklace of some sort which gave us the impression that it might actually be an awakened animal. We took the necklace and continued on to herbivore territory.

Upon arriving we met with the leader, an elephant named ???. She told a group called the Wicked Hunt had been hunting animals indiscriminately and asked us to find and confront them. She suggested we talk to Parvaz, the leader of the carnivores, to track down the Hunt. When we showed her the necklace taken from the slain ibex she recognized it immediately and told us he had been a skilled storyteller and valued member of the community.

We hiked into carnivore territory which was centered on a sharp mountain peak called Razortooth Rock. Parvaz seemed unconcerned about the killings as they were mostly focused on the herbivores. His philosophy was "When you're hungry, meat is meat." He suggested we speak to the leader of the flying animals, a giant eagle named ???

Upon arriving at the flyers' territory, we learned the leader was away at a meeting with some other animals. We followed their directions and eventually found the eagle and caught his attention.

The eagle also seemed unconcerned about the Wicked Hunt but was able to direct us toward their camp. He also gave clear directions to find the portal. It was located in a pool near a ruin guarded by a gigantic statue with glowing eyes.

The party spent the night (long rest) and headed out in the morning. We found the camp in the early afternoon. We faced off against a group of gnolls and defeated them without difficulty. They also had a caged triceratops which was loosed mid-battle and trampled Umbra. The party hid in the cage and the triceratops eventually charged off into the woods.

We returned to the herbivores to report our success. The leader gifted us with a magical statuette that could turn into an animal. We returned the ibex's necklace to their next of kin, then headed back to the central area. We met back up with Razzak, the three-toed sloth. As a reward for dealing with the Wicked Hunt he gifted the party a ring of protection +1.

Next we found the portal and described it to the mimir. We also spoke with the statue, who claimed to be a guardian of the portal.

Misson complete! We decided to visit Glorium next. The party levels up to 7th level.

Timeline

March 3, 2025

The party proceeds to Glorium!

On the way, a tiny Time Dragon named Renee flies into the tower, closely followed by a witch on a red broom. She follows the dragon into the tower and demands to take him back. Four, recalling the party's unusual ability to reincarnate, offers to trade himself as a slave for the dragon. The witch agrees and leaves with Four trapped in an iron bottle. Four will look for an opportunity to off himself and return as someone else.

Renee describes being captured by the witch and escaping, eventually finding the tower.

Renee thinks the party looks "weird", as it relates to the time stream.

After a new days, Nine, a Firbolg Barbarian with a glaive. He quickly joins the party.

The party arrives at Glorium. We quickly meet a frost giant blacksmith named Magnus who sells Mario some armor and Fulton a magical map that reveals everything major within the surrounding 5 miles. We ask Magnus about the gate and he tells us we must complete a goat milking challenge first. Nine speaks with the goat to let her know what's coming. That gives him advantage on his Animal Handling checks! Nine loses the first round but wins the next two to win the challenge! Magnus points to the gate in the middle of a storm-filled lake. He recommends we hire Bkol Steelbane to take us out to the portal. The ship, The Courier, is shaped like a giant raven.

Fulton suggests a competition, so Bkol challenges him to a sea-urchin eating contest. Fulton, a sea elf, handily wins the competition, Bkol's respect, and free passage to the gate on The Courier.

The party sails into the storm. As we approach the gate, the ship is attacked by two whirlworms! Fight! The party takes some damage but prevails with the help of Renee's breath weapon. Fulton describes the gate to the mimir, then Steelbane quickly returns to the docks. He finds the town leader and lets he know about the unusual work attack. He's concerned that the town across the lake, Grakenok, might be in danger. The leader rallies the crowd to defend the town against future attacks. She asks if we'd like to help.

Two townspeople step forward. One is a masked woman with spiky armor and a huge sword named Citri. She flies off on a flying carpet. Another volunteer is humanoid with a horse head. Tull Frostmane is his name. He gallops down toward the harbor and hops in his own small boat. We want to help too, so we return to the Courier and begin rowing back across toward Grakenok.

On the way we encounter a child named Kai on a sinking boat. Fulton and Mario compete to see who can rescue him first. Mario drags the kid back to the Courier. We evade a worm and continue to Grakenok, which is under attack by a behemoth whirlyworm! Citri and Frostmane are already in battle. The party leaps into action!

Working together the party defeats the giant work. Fulton does the most damage and is the hero of the battle. He is awarded a foot-long tooth from the worm as a prize. He also earns a Cloak of Protection.

Nine is awarded a +1 Glaive.

Harvey is awarded a +1 weapon of his choice for (the party) saving Kai.

The party is given 3 magical feathers. They are 3 anchor tokens. Freeze a ship in place for 24 hours.

The party chooses to visit Curst next.

Timeline

March 10, 2025

Next stop, Curst!

The tower is marching along toward Curst. Outside we hear a lot of good-natured shouting. A group of decoratively painted lizardfolk are clustered around their leader, who is lifting a huge rock over his head to much applause. They shout for us to stop and ask for a ride to Semuana's Bog. The leader's name is Sesspech.

The party confers and ultimately agrees. To pass the time, Harvey suggests a jumping contest. The party wins! Then Sesspech suggests a liazardfolk trivia content. We lose. Sandro offers to swap recipes.

Zaythir chimes in to mention the time dragon's domain, the Mausoleum of Chronepsis, is nearby. Renee is in no hurry and says she'd prefer to skip the stop and continue adventuring with us instead.

Arriving at the swamp, the lizardmen invite us to stay a while. During the visit we meet their head cleric, a massive lizardman named Kh'halmech. Sandro asks him for his thoughts on our reincarnation situation. He explains that sometimes people reincarnate in the place where there are "supposed" to be. Then he pauses and says, "But wait... your souls are not intact. Do you mind if I kill one of you to test a theory?" Botticelli volunteers and is subsequently beheaded. Within minutes, a new Botticelli appears.

The cleric observes that each of us has a fractional soul, really only a sliver. Perhaps that is somehow pulling you back. If you can find where the rest of your souls are located, perhaps you can gather your souls again.

More competitions! Nine and Fulton defeat Kh'halmech in weightlifting. Fulton defeats Kh'halmech in intimidation. Kh'halmech defeats us all in climbing. Fulton matches Kh'halmech while discussion lizardman religious dogma. The lizardman god, Semuana, appears, then flexes and congratulates us on performance in the competitions. He presents us all a trophy: a small lizardman skull, out of which flowers are blooming. It works as an Alchemy Jug. It can produce clear springwater, but can't create anything with calories.

We arrive at the outskirts of Curst. It's in a desert-like area of low foothills. The town smells of rusted metal and is surrounded by a substantial wall of metal. Zaythir says we should not get too close and sets us down a good bit outside the wall.

The guards at the wall are humanoid elephants which Harvey recognizes as Maelephants. They are 10-12 feet tall, armored, wield huge glaives, and have metal spikes attached to their trunks. They wave us through the gate without comment. As we pass through we notice all the locks are on the outsides of the gates - they are made to keep people in rather than out.

Nine attempts to walk back out the gate but is stopped and turned back by the guards. Harvey points out wyverns circling overhead to prevent escape by flying.

Inside the city most of the population is human. There is a great deal of suspicion among the population. There are a few Demodans walking among the population. We notice one carrying a thrashing human heading toward the center of town. Harvey asks what the human did. "He welched on a deal." What kind of deal? "Talk to the warden." The human claims to be innocent and is terrified of being tossed into the gate to Carceri. Since we're looking for the gate we decide to follow. We arrive at the gate in the center of town. The mimir chimes and its eyes flicker as we approach.

Fulton describes the gate to the mimir.

Fulton suggests we find a pub. We find one near the Barred Gate. The bartender is a surly, scarred half-orc. We all order Curst-distilled whiskey in metal glasses. It tastes terrible. Silas almost made us make CON saves.

Fulton chats up the bartender. We learn the town is mostly run by Baron Villigus Bazengar. The bartender says that if we're looking to leave we shouldn't have entered the city in the first place. Harvey attempts a charm, which the bartender ignores.

Fulton pulls out his magic map. A scarred human sees the map and approaches. "That's quite a map you've got there. If you want to leave Curst you need the right friends." He introduces himself as Valder. He's wearing black platemail and a tattered cloak. "Would you like to join my son and I for some tea?" He leads us to a shack close to the town dump. Once inside he calls for Felek, his son. The younger man has almost translucent skin. Valder brews the tea and passes it around. He makes his offer: "If you take my son out of Curst I'll show you the way out. I can't leave with him."

Valder was a "mercy killer" assassin. He decided to quit the organization, which is forbidden. He was being hunted by the other killers so he decided to hide out in Curst, knowing his pursuers would not follow. He can't leave because he assumes he is still being hunted.

Valder leads us to the junkyard and tells us the tunnel is behind the dragon's right eye. Nine looks around and is sure we're being watched and followed.

Boticelli scouts ahead to find the tunnel entrance. He can hear a bubbling or humming noise coming from the deeper part of the noxious sludge pool which surrounds the dragon's head (statue). The tunnel entrance is in the same area. Boticelli climbs some nearby garbage and leaps over to the dragon's head. After the confirming the location of the tunnel, the rest of the party jumps over the sludge and climbs into the tunnel.

The tunnel goes a short way and dead-ends in a room with a puddle of sludge. The arch with the portal is nowhere to be found. While searching for a path out, Harvey's detect magic spell identifies a buried magic amulet. He digs it out to identify later. Mario casts "speaks with animals" and a nearby rat reveals the path out leads through the slime.

Boticelli goes first since he can hold his breath for a full hour. He learns the undersludge tunnel is 40 feet long. Fulton and Mario follow. As Fulton emerges from the sludge, two armored creatures come down the tunnel and stop. We suspect they are "mercy killers". Felek comes through the tunnel next. The armored creatures recognize him and ask if he found his dad. Felek lies but it's obvious to everyone. The creatures say we are free to go but Felek is coming with them.

The rest of the party arrives and battle commences!

The fight is going poorly. Harvey casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter and both creatures fail their saves. We take the opportunity to flee down the tunnel while they're laughing. We run through the portal and sprint for the walking tower, eventually making our escape. Level up!

We identify the amulet as a Liar's Amulet. Once per day it can make a mind reader believe one false thing when reading the wearer's mind.

Timeline

March 17, 2025

The party freed the rogue Mercykiller’s son from the prison town of Curst and headed for Rigus (between Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil). Along the way, they passed through Semuanya’s Bog (lair of the Lizardpeople god of fitness and survival) where Harvey spotted a familiar looking copse of marsh trees. After some work, he was able to harvest 9 doses of a hallucinogenic poison from them.

The tower marched for weeks through a wide range of terrain, including a dead-looking area dominated by active volcanoes criss-crossed by recent lava flows. Eventually they reached Rigus, a heavily fortified city with multiple defensive walls built around a small hill in an otherwise dusty, desolate plain.

When a couple miles out from the town, a human in rust-red platemail flew out to halt the party. Corporal Shu demanded the party “Halt your weapon of war and retreat out of sight of Rigus’s tallest tower, or we will destroy you with martial force!” The party convinced the Corporal they were not attacking the city, set down the tower and disembarked, and the tower retreated back a few miles.

The party was tired and covered in dust when they reached the long line of visitors stretching from Rigus’s single gate. Caravans carrying food and weapons were inspected and all visitors questioned, some being brusquely taken away apparently for more intensive questioning.

After over an hour of waiting, the party reached the front and were questioned about their reasons for visiting Rigus (giving answers ranging from tourism to joining the Rigus army in order to kill people. They liked that last answer), whether they were willing to join the army of Rigus to support a cause greater than any one individual, and if they had a weapon of interplanar destruction to declare. They liked Harvey’s homicide-friendly answers and were suspicious of Nine’s undisclosed divinity, but they eventually let the party through the gate. Everyone was given a grey pin to wear at all times. If the party was found without their pins, they would be immediately ejected from the city.

Once past the gate, the party saw the city wasn’t *entirely* military. Children played in the streets and there were a few shops and ordinary homes, but they were mostly squeezed between enormous defensive fortifications and weapons of war. The city had 7 defensive walls and a fortress in the center, with single gates placed on alternating sides, to make siege of the city as difficult as possible. The walls didn’t look particularly battle-scarred, but a soldier informed the party they were assaulted almost daily.

The party found out the gate was in the middle of the city, so they headed that way. It took a couple hours and over a mile of winding back and forth to get to the middle of the city. As they approached, they noticed that the fortifications on the outer few walls faced outward, but the fortifications on the inner three walls all faced *inward*.

The “fortress” in the center of the city at the top of the hill was actually a fortified wall around a central courtyard with a shining, new steel hatch on the ground in the center. The inside of *this* wall looked freshly repaired with battle damage peeking through here and there, and the hatch appeared to have been replaced recently. As the party watched, the hatch opened and a platoon of soldiers climbed up a ladder and out of the ground, while another platoon climbed down to replace them and the hatch was re-closed.

Apparently the gate was down through the hatch, and the forces of Acheron assaulted their positions regularly. “Slaties” (recent visitors with gray badges) weren’t allowed close to the gate. The assaults had grown much more aggressive in recent weeks, with eerily efficient timing (consistently hitting right at shift changes, or when maintenance crews were working right in front of the gate and vulnerable, and the defenders were growing frustrated. The guards suggested the players find Major Kalak if they were interested in signing on as mercenaries.

Major Kalak’s tent was nearby but took a while to find because the tents were all identical. She initially dismissed the party but eventually decided they could be useful. She feared a spy was somehow passing info to the forces of Acheron on when to attack, and she’d reward the party if they investigated. The party agreed and she took them to the courtyard.

A guard opened the hatch and everyone climbed down a long ladder to a large cave in the middle of the hill upon which the city was built. Inside the cave was the gate, ringed by barricades and 200 Rigus soldiers. The area was littered with broken weapons and debris and the troops were preparing for an attack. Half the troops were led by a cheerful, charming Cambion who chatted with the party at length, and the rest by a dour, professional human woman who barely acknowledged the party before moving on to preparations.

As the party started investigating the gate area, the gate lit up and three huge metal missiles (the size of pick-up trucks) fired into the massed soldiers of Rigus causing a ton of damage and injuring the party. Dozens of screaming human, hobgoblin and goblin berserkers screamed as they charged through the gate! Fight!

The party only had to contend with a few of the berserkers, leaving the rest for the soldiers, and defeated them right in front of the gate fairly quickly. The party noticed they kept getting hit by stray crossbow bolts and the berserkers didn’t appear to be using crossbows. Eventually, Harvey looked around and noticed the human sergeant had a crossbow and while she was “fighting” a berserker, it appeared to be more “stage fighting” with dramatic sweeping swings aimed directly into the other person’s shield or aimed away from the other person entirely.

Shortly after, the gate blazed to life again and three two-headed giants charged through the portal, one wearing metal plates for armor and had a helmet. The party engaged the Ettins and when the armored leader was significantly wounded, it called “You must help me now” apparently to the human sergeant?

She sighed and waved the berserker off, directing him to attack the soldier behind her. She then concentrated for a moment and shifted into a large grey frog-like humanoid and entered the battle on the side of the Ettins!

Timeline

March 31, 2025

The grey frog-like humanoid advanced on the party and cast Cloudkill, doing quite a bit of damage to the party. Most of the party focused on downing the ettins while Harvey poisoned his blowgun with the psychedelic tree poison he’d gathered in the bog a while back and hit the gray frog-monster (it's a slaad. I’m just going to say it's a slaad). One might think a frog-like embodiment of pure chaos would be resistant to poison and/or confusion effects, but one would be wrong. Also, damage doesn’t give a fresh save.

The party managed to whittle down the ettins while the slaad wandered around in a daze the whole time. Mario got knocked down at least twice, but Six made a surprise appearance as the universe glitched him into existence twice (Hi, Kristie!) and kept healing Mario back up.

The bad guys were finally defeated, and Major Kalak appreciated the party’s help in finding the spy and thwarting the assault. The party was able to attune the mimir to the gate, Six described the gate, using a more matter-of-fact descriptive style than the bard had traditionally done.

Major Kalak also brought the party to the officers’ arming tent and gave everyone a reward (200g each, I think?) plus an item. Everyone had the choice of +1 armor or shield, a cloak of protection, or planar restraints (the handcuffs that prevent dimensional travel, I forget the name). Most folks took the cloak (which stacks with a ring of protection), but a couple folks may have taken armor. The party then left Rigus with slightly more approval from the guards than they entered, albeit still “slaties” and essentially civilians.

The party decided Automata should be last, so Excelsior, Lawful Good location of the portal to the Seven Heavens was next. The trip took several weeks but was mostly uneventful. Along the way, Harvey kept an eye out for possible new sources of poison and while going through a rocky desert halfway there saw scorpion tracks.

The tower was halted and Nine and Harvey disembarked to track the scorpions to their lair and hopefully harvest some venom. They saw a mix of small and disturbingly large tracks, and upon finding the lair a bunch of scorpions burrowed up through the sand and attacked! Harvey and Nine vs 2 giant scorpions and some packs of regular sized scorpions. In bad news, the scorpions rolled well on initiative and Harvey was surprised. The two made a start on whittling down the bugs, but several stings and mixed luck on saving throws later, Harvey went down. Nine, trying to deny the scorpions their feast, grabbed Harvey and successfully bounded away from the fight while Harvey managed to stabilize rather than bleed out during the escape. Whew! Fortunately, everyone was fully healed by the time they reached Excelsior.

Excelsior seemed like a much bigger town than most of the others they’d visited. Giant crystal towers soared into the sky, surrounded by idyllic shops and gardens with clouds and pleasant smells tastefully drifting by. Sort of like if Disney designed the business center of a city.

The party parked the tower on the outskirts of the city and were immediately greeted by a lantern archon which offered directions to notable landmarks. The party received efficient directions to the gate, which was atop a tall tower reached by a vast flight of stairs. The archon warned that anyone of corrupt intent or impurity would find the ascent “harrowing”.

As the party started climbing the stairs they discovered their non-Lawful Good thoughts physically weighed on them, making it difficult to climb the stairs. Everyone had to make multiple saving throws, the difficulty based on how far their alignment was from LG. None of the DCs were very high, but the party rolled badly and accumulated a bunch of stacks of exhaustion. Harvey actually hit 5 stacks and collapsed unconscious. A pair of guardian celestials flew over, picked him up, and set him in a garden to nap.

At the top of the stairs was a large meditation area full of contemplative residents of Excelsior and the swirling gate. Six described the gate to the mimir in straightforward terms, and a dog-headed celestial began chatting with the party. They guessed the party were adventurers and asked for help.

The hound guardinal was a member of the city guard, and citizens had been going missing. They had a suspect in custody, an elderly retired tiefling named Sincerity who had recently moved to Excelsior and had been in the vicinity of a few of the victims shortly before they disappeared. But, she maintained her innocence and the investigators had no direct evidence.

There wasn’t a lot of crime in a city devoted to LG, and the investigators were tightly restricted in what they were allowed to do. While the hound certainly condemned any rule-breaking, it did note that the party would not be as tightly encumbered. Since Sincerity was currently in custody the party might have a freer hand. The hound offered to bring the party either to where Sincerity was being held or to her home, but then the hound anticipated being called away on other business for a few hours. The house offered to compensate the party for their time during the investigation.

The party, still suffering from exhaustion, asked about magical healing to fix it and the hound was non-committal. As the party considered their options, the session ended.

Timeline

April 7, 2025

Varrel the dog granted the party relief from one level of exhaustion before sending us off to work. The party decides to visit Sincerity's house and poke around before joining her interrogation. They arrive at the house to find the door locked. Finding a balcony around back, Mario climbed up to the 12th floor to let himself in. One the balcony he discovers cages containing an assortment of Sun Flies. Mario opened the door to let the rest of the party inside.

Nine recalls that Sun Flies venom can vary based on different conditions the creatures are in.

Missing Persons

Adorae	Dragonborn	last seen: her home
Changle	Gnome	Alley near the Godstrand
Irruwabi	Human	Temple of Sunweaver
Wobeke	Human	His home
Yoi	Tiefling	the forum

Nine opens the sunfly cage and Harvey successfully milked one of venom. The fly then wrests the vial of venom out of Harvey's hands (despite having a strength of 2) and flies off. Mario cast Hunter's Mark on the fly and followed the fly. The rest of the party followed behind, encountering the neighbors in the hallway on the way. They learned that Sincerity generally keeps to herself and helps out at the orphanage in her spare time.

Mario followed the fly out of town and into a wooded area. The fly flew into a mossy wagon with pillbug wheels, emerging shortly after without the vial. Mario knocked on the door, which was answered by an extremely old and ugly man. He stood in the doorway intentionally blocking the view into the wagon's interior. Mario mentioned that he was investigating the recent disappearances. The old man attacked! Roll for initiative!

The fight went badly. Mario got in one good hit with his hammer, then got magically frightened so much that he dropped to zero hit points. Solara arrived and continued the fight. The party eventually defeats the man and his swarms of summoned snakes. Turns out he was a male Hag.

Inside the wagon the party found the vial of venom sitting on top of a chest. Inside they found six glass vials full of red misty gas (5) and one empty. Nine opens one and, on Solara's advice, poured it out. The gas coalesced into the missing Dragonborn! She then asked how she could serve Nine. He asked for a footrub.

The party returned with Adorae and the remaining flasks. Adorae testified that Sincerity was the one who trapped her in the flask. Sincerity admitted the crime and claimed she was working with the hag, Uncle Longteeth, who had promised to fund the orphanage in exchange for six captured souls. In addition to 400 GP each the party is given a brooch of shielding and a lantern of revealing.

Timeline

April 14, 2025

The party approaches Automata, a city of gears and perfect order. Our paperwork expert confirms that we need the appropriate form filled out correctly before waiting in line. We get wait in line for notarization (6 hours) to get the paperwork, then wait 5 more hours to receive the paperwork. The party decides to return to the tower to spend 3 days filling out the halfling-sized stack of papers.

Six, furious after 30+ hours of waiting in line, marches toward the gate, ignoring the modrons guarding it. He is promptly killed by a variety of modron guards. Harvey, who hung back to watch, is identified as a troublemaker and killed as well.

While filling out forms the party is visited by a githzerai names Aristhemus who offers to get us into the city faster if we do him a small favor. An outlaw name Beltha recently stole a logbook for the train that runs through the gate. If we bring her in we'll be granted fast-track access to the gate. Beltha is a githzeri with a tattoo around her eye of a shattered gear. She was last seen in an area under the town called the Inverse.

The party heads to the nearest bar and quickly identifies a dwarf named Zanek with a broken gear tattoo. Harvey comments on the ink and the dwarf says he's a member of the Hands of Havoc. Beltha is their leader... but we need to "prove ourselves" before he'll introduce us to her. Harvey shows off with a sorcerous burst and he's impressed. The dwarf descends through a manhole into the Inverse. Boticelli follows along stealthily.

He returns to the party and leads them down - then up - into the Inverse. A steampipe-lined set of tunnels lead to the lair of the Hands of Havoc.

Harvey persuades the Zanek (who opened the door to the hideout) that another member sent us down.

The party discovers that Beltha has the logbook we're looking for and will sell it to us for 750gp. We make the buy and head back to the surface. The track down Aristhemus at the Ministry of Order and return the book in exchange for the passes to the gate and 500gp. He throws in a fine copper watch as a bonus.

Boticelli describes the gate to the mimir, which processes for a minute, then gives a short speech about the last modron migration. We learn that RO4M participated in the march, ending in a rilmani settlement at the base of the spire. It was "looking for it's people". We decide to head there next.

On the way we drop off Renee at the Mausoleum, who thanks us profusely and gives us one of her scales. A massive ancient time dragon flys by to thank us and say it will be there for us when needed.

Two weeks later we reach the rilmani settlement, Dentratus. Two guards turn us away, but a third named Ascetelis approaches with a list including all of our names. He is also looking for RO4M and offers to escort us in our search.

Inside we find a rilmani and persuade it to tell us that he saw RO4M in an area called the Cave of Rust.

Entering the cave Harvey notices many faint modron tracks. We find a modron track leading up a path that follows the wall.

Timeline

April 28, 2025

We rejoin the party in the Desert of Rust.

We climb through the tunnels, first passing a corroded statue of a giant three-eyed horse, then on to a large creature breathing loudly in the darkness. It's a giant that looks like a human mixed with a toad. He's staring up at a ceiling and surrounded by tiny figurines staring up at him. He's a god but he's forgotten which one. He's looking for worshippers. Six offers some worship but it doesn't seem to be enough. We continue forward through the tunnel.

Next we encounter as 200 foot chasm with a narrow wire bridge crossing over it. The bridge proves dangerous to Ascetelis (our guide), who falls off (Harvey turns her into a canary), and Harvey himself, who falls off (but teleports back up) and is then hit by a falling stalactite (a piercer named Kirgaz the Unerring Avalanch) (a crit!) who taunts him before disappearing.

In the next chamber we are summmoned into a crack in the wall from which a foul stench emanates. A voice promises to tell us how to unmark Harvey from the piercer who has targeted him. Six climbs up. The creature, which calls itself The Scholar, tells Six that all portals are part of a great god, Aosakar, thought long-dead, punished by some unspeakable force, and existing in unending agony.

This knowledge helps Six to understand that killing others actually helps to free Aosokar and is therefore a good thing. He vows to kill when given the opportunity. Six can also cast Eyebite once per long rest, and he has advantage on Persuasion checks against evil outsiders. Finally, his eyes are now terrifying and evil.

The Scholar reveals that the modron we seek is in a cavern above. The party climbs up and soon finds itself in a very dark web-filled cavern. Two giant spiders attack from the darkness. The party prevails with minimal fuss (other than the downing of Harvey).

We cut RO4M free from a cocoon and tell him we're heading back to Fortune's Wheel. He freaks out and claims the Fox-Fiend (Temuscah) is holding modrons hostage and in messing with things and causing the glitching, which is clearly happening to us too. RO4M also found a platinum chip during his escape.

What will our heros do next??

Timeline

May 5, 2025

Before we can continue, Ascetelis betrays the party! She casts silence then begins to attack. She rolls really poorly and we take her down without difficulty.

Before leaving we stop by to speak with The Scholar. He doesn't have any specific information about Sheshkuh, but he speculates that by disrupting the Modron March, he could unbalance the multiverse in a way he could profit from.

We return to Sigil and enter Fortune's Wheel. Everyone takes another spin of the wheel with Boticelli winning a Luckstone! Everyone else gets bogus prizes.

The party passes through an unremarkable door, down a hallway, and through a portal to find the hub for the platinum rooms where the high-rollers gamble. The concierge, Amber Atwert, tells us about the gambling rooms. We decide to visit the Supertemporal Arena, where god-level entities battle it out.

We visit the Arena and witness two galaxy-sized entities battling it out. None of us feel completely to make an informed bet on such a conflict, so we return to the hub.

In the hub, Harvey asks how get more chips. Amber tells us we can earn another chip with an interesting and useful story. We tell two stories and earn two more coins.

The party enters Dungeonland and places a bet on a party of adventurers fighting a Dragon Turtle. The bet pays off and we win 2 more coins. Thor, also gambling, congratulates the party on their victory. Mario attempts to lift Thor's hammer but doesn't make the 3 nat 20's he'd need to succeed.

High on victory, the party visits Fiends' Ante where demons and devils play cards for the right to invade worlds. Boticelli takes a seat at the table with Solara assisting from the shadows. Boticelli wins the pot and the party gains 2 additional coins!

Flush with capital, the party decides to visit the Arena. Harvey, Six, and Boticelli enter the room and place their bets. Six and Harvey win, but during the course of the battle all three age 60 years in 6 rounds. Six is the only survivor. He collects the gear from his fallen comrades and exits. Atwert accuses Six of cheating because he won three times in a row and calls in the guards, who demand the party surrender. We're not having any of it. Fight!

Timeline

May 12, 2025

The party just barely defeats Shmeshkah's personal bodyguards. We prepare for confrontation, but instead she offers to return our souls if we do her another favor - portal to the realm of a beholder god (missed the name) and get rid of the flood of modrons passing through. We agree and get our souls back, instantly leveling up to 17. Plus we get 4 rare items, 2 very rare, or 1 legendary.

We travel through the portal into Gzemid's realm. We are soon attacked by a tentacle from a giant beholder but successfully drive it off. We climb down to the cave floor where an endless stream of modrons is marching along. We head "upstream" and shortly encounter a large demon skull that asks us to carry it back to the Nine Hells. He tells us to go find the "maw" where we can request escape from the realm.

Party

Party members and their variations.

Party

Dil (Six, Four, etc) (Matt)

Backstory

Dil is a rich and powerful man, a minor noble with a hand in all of the organized crime activity in Atur. While fiendishly intelligent and devilishly handsome, Dil inherited a whole host of genetic weaknesses that have proven impossible to cure, even for the city’s most talented clerics. Frustrated with the relentless degeneration of his failing body, Dil decided to put his vast resources to work nding a permanent solution to his ill health. After much consultation with his court wizard, Magnus, Dil settled on a bold strategy: transfer his mind into a new healthy and long-lived — preferably immortal — body.

After many failed attempts, Magnus perfected a process for transferring a copy of Dil’s mind into a corpse. Over the course of several months they created six copies of varying races, including a Dhampir, a Warforged, a Reborn, a High Elf, a Dwarf, and a Firbolg. Each copy was fitted with an amulet emblazoned with their creation number which suppresses the memories of their true identity. The copies were then placed under a powerful Geas spell compelling them to hide, protect, and never remove the amulet, and to trust Dil and only tell him the truth. The copies were then each told that they are an honored guest suering from a memory disorder who must remain on the property until a cure can be prepared. Each copy was told their real name was unknown so they would be referred to by the number printed on the amulet they wore until their memory returned.

During their time on the property, each copy was introduced to Dil’s favorite foods, activities, and pleasures. Dil then discretely interviewed the copy to determine if they were enjoying these pleasures in the way Dil himself would. After gathering this data, each copy was placed into magical suspension until Dil made a nal decision on his new body. After much consideration, Dil choose Six, his copy in the Dhampir body. (decision point!) He woke the copy from stasis and informed him that the cure for his condition was close at hand and would be applied in a few days time.

However, unbeknownst to Magnus, a year prior Dil had learned of a powerful magical item with the power to extend life indefinitely, called the Ring of Winter, lost somewhere in the jungles of Chult. He had dispatched a skilled treasure hunter to recover the ring but had lost all contact and assumed the mission was a failure. The day before switching places with his chosen copy, the treasure hunter appeared on Dil’s doorstep and handed over the ring in exchange for a small fortune in gold. As he left, the hunter warned Dil that the ring bestowed powers beyond immortality. He seemed to be greatly relieved to no longer have the frost-covered ring in his possession.

Dil eagerly slipped the ring onto his finger and was amazed at the flood of power that washed over him. His stiff knees became supple again; his aching back felt strong again; the headache that had plagued him for the last three years faded away like a wisp of smoke. The ring was ice cold but within an hour he became used to the chill, as if it were a comforting reminder of his newfound strength. When Magus noticed the ring with its unmelting rime of frost, he used a discrete Identify spell to confirm his suspicions. The ring was known among the Archmage community for its curse that drove its wearer to destructive fits of rage.

Magus suggested that Dil remove the ring so it could be examined. Dil refused. When Magus insisted, Dil excused himself with a smile, found the captain of his personal guard, and ordered him and his men to destroy the wizard at once. The ensuing battle left much of Dil’s vast estate in ruins. Dil himself now commanded extensive new ice-based powers, and Magnus had an arsenal of powerful magic at his disposal. During the chaos, Six slipped away and ed into the city, eventually making his way across the continent to start a new life. He was eventually taken in by a temple, swore an oath, and became a Paladin.

Character Variations

Six	Dhampir	Oath of Vengeance Paladin	Lawful Neutral	Ring of Jumping
Four	Warforged	Champion Fighter

Party

Harvey (Fang)

Backstory

Harvey and Groppal were out foraging for herbs and exploring one of the stream gullies that flows into the oasis lake east of Timbuktu. Groppal, a budding Grung ranger was leading the way along the small stream that had carved out the gully. They followed the curve of the gully as it turned northward. Suddenly, there was a great rush of sound. Both Groppal and Harvey hopped up the steep bank, desperately trying to avoid the rushing floodwaters that they assumed were cascading down the gully. After a couple of minutes with no extra water visible in the stream, they slid down and continued their trek towards the cacophonous sound.

They found a roiling torrent of water rushing down a thin forested valley that ran roughly parallel to the gully they had been following. A small streamlet broke away from the tumultuous flume of white water. They were intrigued and delved deeper into this “hidden valley”. The foliage of the trees and bushes was thicker, blotting out the sky. They continued upstream and uphill, picking some of the odd pinkish berries growing on vines in the rockwall.

Groppel reached out over the water rushing dozens of feet below them to pluck some orange grapelike fruit from a vine crossing from the opposite wall a large bird flushed out of the foliage. The sudden blur of movement and shrieking caws startled the young explorers. Harvey spooked and leaped away from the bird, managing to clutch onto a tree limb. Groppel did not recover as well from his startled leap, crashing down the slope to dangle just above the rapids.

As Harvey caught his breath, he looked around, searching for the brightly plumed bird. He spotted the bright iridescent colors of the bird, caught in a large spider web on the other side of the river. Over the roaring water, he heard a feminine voice calling, “Help me before the spider attacks!”.

Harvey Prime

Harvey looked down to survey his perch above the river and saw his comrade clutching to the slimy rocks below. He could see Groppel slid a few inches further toward the roiling rapids and could barely hear the intent plea, “Harvey, I’m slipping.” He looked back over toward the ‘bird’ caught in the web. There was no spider in sight and something seemed a bit off about the webbing. Sliding down the gnarled trunk of the tree, Harvey reached a crotch in the tree that would afford him some leverage and pulled out the rope from his small pack. He tied off one end of the rope and tossed the other end down to Groppel, who leaned out and made a desperate hop to grab the dangling rope. Groppel climbed up the rope and the two explorers carefully shinnied along a branch back to the rocky bank.

Harvey climbed up the bank far enough to get a clear look at the far side and the spider web. Instead of a bird with bright plumage, there stood an elegant, tall elf woman in a diaphanous, feathery dress. She scowled with derision at Harvey. “You chose that slimy pollywog over me?” she screeched. She launch darts of energy at the rocks they were standing on, causing the boulders to start sliding into the river. Harvey and Groppel hopped to a slightly more substantial perch just before the ground gave way. “Run away little vermin.” She cackled dismissively, then whispered to the trees around them. Harvey and Groppel raced back to the cleft in the rockwall where the streamlet veered away from the river, branches and weeds grasping at their clothing the entire time.

When they reached a familiar clearing, they collapsed in amid the shafts of bright sunlight. Through gasps of gulped air, Groppel swore in awe, “I think we crossed in the FeyWild back there. Who was that woman?”
“Someone I hope to never meet again,” replied Harvey.

Harvey Omega

Harvey looked down to survey his perch above the river and saw his comrade clutching to the slimy rocks below. Groppel was clutching a boulder with the sticky pads on his hands and feet. He looked back over toward the ‘bird’ caught in the web. For a moment, it looked like a beautiful woman where a feathery dress caught in the massive web. Blinking the weird vision away, he caught movement along the edge of the web out of the corner of his eye. He glanced back down toward Groppel. Over the roaring of the water, he could barely hear Groppel shouting up to him. It sounded like a garbled, “Harvey, I’m fine.”
Harvey crawled over to the trunk of the tree, slid around the gnarled trunk and shinnied out onto a limb extending toward the far bank. He got as far out as he could and then leaped for the rocky embankment. Scrambling up from the edge, he could see the woman clearly as she called to him, “Help me and I will reward you.” He ran over to the web, slicing furiously at the web with his small hatchet. A spider the size of grapefruit rushed from a cleft in the rock to protect its web. Harvey planted the hatchet firmly into its body, splattering ichor across the rock.

“My hero”, the woman’s voice gently caressed. “Join me in a victory feast.” She laid out a small picnic of orange grapes, pinkish berries, and scones. As Harvey sat down to enjoy the offered food, he heard a loud splash from rocks below.
Harvey returned to Timbuktu alone after spending a wonderful afternoon with the mysterious woman. Returning home, his mother scolded him for being gone for three days and nights. He had no answers for Groppels family about where his friend had disappeared. As time went on, Harvey became more distant from his old friends. Harvey spent days and even weeks at a time exploring the valley with the roiling waters, often meeting up with the mysterious elven woman to talk and delve into Fey magic. The increasingly short periods of time he spent in Timbuktu found him wandering amid different areas of the city, seldom visiting the same places twice. Stories began to get back to his home neighborhood about a Harengon that ensorcelled and took advantage of people for his own gain.

Party

Sandro Botticelli (Michael)

Alpha

Tortle Monk/Rogue

Beta

Tortle Monk

Sandro

Party

Solara (Glenn)

Solara

Goliath Light Cleric

Umbra

Goliath Monk

Party

Fulton McCracken (John)

Human Dance Bard

Party

Mario (Chris)

Super Mario RPG is LG.

Mario the Hunter is TN.

Dr Mario is LG.

Mario Sunshine is NG.

Party

Party Loot

Sigil

Sensory Stone.

Sylvania

Periapt of Wound Closure. Given as a gift from Kopoha to Four.

Faunal

Rope of Entanglement. Enchanted snake skin.

Ring of Protection +1. Quest reward from Razzak.

Figurine of Wondrous Power, Serpentine Owl. Quest reward from leader of herbivores.

Tower

Talisman of the Sphere. Given to us by a dragon to give the "one who sees silver". That was a witch who arrives chasing Renee, a juvenile time dragon. We traded away Four instead, so the party keeps the talisman.

Glorium

A foot-long tooth from the worm as a prize (Fulton).

Cloak of Protection. (Fulton)

+1 Glaive. (Nine)

+1 Scimitar (Harvey)

3 magical feathers. They are 3 anchor tokens. Freeze a ship in place for 24 hours.

Semuana's Bog

Alchemy Jug in the form of a lizardman skull filled with blooming flowers. It can produce springwater, but cannot produce anything with calories (mayo, beer, wine).

Curst

Liar's Amulet. Once per day it can make a mind reader believe one false thing when reading the wearer's mind.

Excelsior

brooch of shielding and a lantern of revealing.

Quests

Recover RO4M, the Modron Accountant

Fortune's Wheel Casino

Shemeshkuh joined the party at the bar and introduced itself as an Arcanoloth (a powerful and important Yugoloth) who owns the casino and is also active as an information broker. One of its accountants, a modron named RO4M, flipped out and ran away recently. As a manifestation of absolute Lawful Neutral, it shouldn’t even be capable of that. And if happened *exactly* when the players died mysteriously, so Shemeskuh thinks the two might be related. The yugoloth wants the modron back (it has sensitive business information) and if they players retrieve it (its believed to be in the Outlands somewhere, the plane of True Neutral) Shemeshkuh will help the players find out what exactly is going on with this glitch that gave them amnesia.

Research Tower

After some discussion, the Githzeri Scholar mentioned a modron having visited a while back intent on rejoining its branch of the Great Modron March. It had a mimir (a humanoid skull-shaped recording device) it was using to find its branch of The March. The modron found what it was looking for and departed months ago, but left the mimir (apparently the skull the party was carrying). The mimir had been damaged in the Yugoloth attack and wasn’t working.

The missing seven towns were:

Automata (leads to Mechanus, the plane of Lawful Neutral and where the Great Modron March stats)
Curst (leads to Carceri, the prison plane between Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil)
Excelsior (leads to Mount Celestia aka the Seven Heavens, the plane of Lawful Good)
Faunel (leads to The Beastlands, the Happy Hunting Grounds between Neutral Good and Chaotic Good)
Glorium (leads to Ysgard, between the planes of Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral)
Rigus (leads to the infinite battle plane of Archeron, between Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral)
Sylvania (leads to the Olympian Plane of Arboria, sometimes called Olympus, the plane of Chaotic Good).

Sylvania

Apparently the gate is in the forest outside of town but drifts around. It was north of town the day before but was now east, in an old well. Danai took the party there, and someone… (Botticelli, maybe? I forget.) described the gate and Sylvania to the mimir in positive, glowing terms.

Quests

Amulet Delivery

NPCs

Significant non-player characters.

NPCs

Morte

A floating skull that works in the basement of the Mortuary of the Dusters base in Sigil. Morte was our first contact upon waking at the beginning of the campaign. He advised us to leave before being discovered by the Dusters.

NPCs

Parius

A bariaur (centaur, but half-goat/half-human). First contact in Sigil. Parius offered to show us the sights of Sigil for a nominal fee of 3 gp per day.

NPCs

Lady of Pain

Ruler of the city of Sigil. She has god-like powers but does not appear to be god. In fact, she has banned the entry of all gods and their minions from Sigil upon pain of death.

NPCs

Farrow

Elf. Send by ... to collect the party and bring them to Fortune's Wheel.

NPCs

Shemeshkuh

Owner of the Fortune's Wheel casino.

Skillfully played by Jack Carpenter

The casino suddenly became quiet as a portal appeared near the ceiling. Spotlights appeared out of nowhere along with dramatic music and a spiral staircase heading down to the floor. A stylish, jackal-headed humanoid appeared and waved to the crowd amidst rapturous applause. The crowd started chanting “Shemeshkuh! Shemeshkuh!” as it strode purposefully down the stairs while watching the PCs.

Shemeshkuh joined the party at the bar and introduced itself as an Arcanoloth (a powerful and important Yugoloth) who owns the casino and is also active as an information broker. One of its accountants, a modron, flipped out and ran away recently. As a manifestation of absolute Lawful Neutral, it shouldn’t even be capable of that. And if happened *exactly* when the players died mysteriously, so Shemeskuh thinks the two might be related. The yugoloth wants the modron back (it has sensitive business information) and if they players retrieve it (its believed to be in the Outlands somewhere, the plane of True Neutral) Shemeshkuh will help the players find out what exactly is going on with this glitch that gave them amnesia.

NPCs

Velek

Concierge at Fortune's Wheel.

NPCs

Vez

An Ogre Magi who controls access to the casino floor at Fortune's Wheel

NPCs

Grigsby

A satyr and stage manager at Fortune's Wheel.

NPCs

Ignatius Inkblot

A mind flayer investigating fraud at Fortune's Wheel.

Ingnatius asked if the party had noticed anyone disappearing or anything funny going on near Fortune’s Wheel. The party had not, but did notice a door next to the wheel. Maybe it’ll be important later.

NPCs

Unnamed White Dragon

NPCs

Thlaarshk

A Nycaloth leading a party of tieflings and a pair of Mezzoloths. They had set up camp in the Research Tower. The party was ultimately TPK's by the group, but the backup team appeared and defeated him as he was devouring the corpses of the old team.

NPCs

RO4M

The modron accountant sought by Shemeshkuh.

NPCs

Zaythir

The scholar in charge of the Research Tower.

Sitting peacefully in the corner was an elderly githzerai woman. She introduces herself as Zaythir.

The party chatted with her a bit and in very meditative, Zen-like fashion she thanked the party for saving the tower. It was an ancient githzerai outpost for meditation and research, though she had only been its custodian for the last couple centuries. “The Castellan”, whatever that was, was the tower’s “heart” somehow.

NPCs

Rillifane Rallathil

The elven god of nature was tending bar at a gigantic rave in a huge tent in Sylvania and made everyone by far the best cocktail they’d ever had. Everyone’s drink not only tasted amazing but also brought out the best aspects of the person who drank it, and everyone received a +1 to a stat of their choice (can go over 20).

NPCs

Kopoha

Empyrean, a not-yet grown child of the gods.

She shared that growing up with the expectation of becoming a god was a lot of pressure. She felt like she had to be great at everything all the time, and her sister was better than her at a lot of the things she valued, making it even harder. Finally, the combination of permanence and uncertainty was weighing on her. Because when you became a god, you were immortal. Your portfolio, barring something weird, was yours forever. She loved sailing and was great at it, but she hated seafood. If she became a god of the sea, she’d be around seafood *forever*.

We persuaded her that she didn't have to be the best to be an effective God, just do her best.

NPCs

Renee

A wyrmling Time Dragon who joined the party after escaping a witch on a red broomstick.

Organizations

Dusters

The Dusters take care of dead bodies in Sigil. They are undead and don't appreciate "fleshies" getting involved in their business.

Organizations

Harmonium

The police force of Sigil. Members wear red platemail and wield electrified polearms with a grabbing attachment.

Organizations

Bakers

"The Bakers explained cheerfully that the multiverse was an infinitely large multilayer cake, baked goods were the only true currency, and they had been banished from the surface by being overly aggressive in trying to convert people to their ways. With the benefit of hindsight, the Bakers should have been more diplomatic in their approach, letting the beauty of their baking (the cake was genuinely good, with a flavor no one could quite identify) speak for the righteousness of their beliefs. Now they were stuck in the sewers where good ingredients were sometimes hard to come by."

Locations

Fortune's Wheel Casino

The atrium held a solid-gold statue of an arcanoloth with an illusory fountain spraying out gold coins.

Locations

Sigil

Sigil rests on the inside of an open torus, like a bicycle wheel with no inner tube, around the top of an infinitely tall spire in the middle of the True Neutral alignment plane and literally at the center of the multiverse.

Locations

House of Sensation

The House of Sensation is a warm, spa-like place with a zillion Sensory Stones with various emotions. For 1gp, you can rent a small room and stone of your choice to experience the emotion. Party members picked various emotions and tried them out, and with each experience everyone had a tiny sliver of memory of experiencing that emotion in their prior life, albeit with no context.

Locations

UnderSigil

A maze of sewers and tunnels beneath the city of Sigil.

Locations

Outlands

Locations

Iedcaru (Marching Tower)

Ground Floor

The tower had been abandoned and later taken over by tiefling bandits.

Upper Levels

Marching

Since marching towers were often used by bandits or as weapons of war, they were unlikely to be attacked en route. Plus, the legs were ~50’ long and 12 mph (a 5 minute mile), was pretty fast. If they were going to be attacked, it would probably happen when they stopped and attacks while marching were extremely rare.

Locations

Sylvania

A gate-town in the Outlands. It's gate leads to the Olympian Plane of Arboria, sometimes called Olympus, the plane of Chaotic Good.

Sylvania was an elven town woven into the surrounding forest. A large party seemed to be underway. The tower stopped and the party headed into the town, looking for the gate.

Locations

Faunel

Faunel was mostly inhabited by awakened animals of various sorts, and was mostly in shambles, having recently fallen into The Beastlands. Where the party expected Faunel to be was merely a half-dozen huts, a neutral trade-ground between the feuding animal groups contending over how the new Faunel would be run.

Locations

Glorium

Locations

Curst

A gate town to Carceri, a prison plane. The town is prisonlike in that it's easy to get it but harder to get back out. The town is surrounded by a huge wall of rusty metal woven through with razorvines. The air is acrid.

Creatures

Vargouille

“Fiendish creatures spread by a curse-like disease, though I’ve never heard of them doing that face-change thing to look like someone they’re attacking. That’s probably what’s wrong with Fulton and Mario. The Bakers probably all had it, too. If we’d fought them, their heads would have attacked us afterwards.”

Creatures

Cranium Rat

Individually they are mostly harmless, but they are psychically linked with the others of their swarm. Swarms have a gestalt personality, separate from the individual rats, that grows rapidly in power and intelligence with the size of the swarm.

Creatures

Incantifer

A type of wizard with the ability to absorb magic energy from spells and magic items, and use that energy in the place of food, water and sleep. But they’re not entirely still alive and don’t heal naturally from injuries. The party met one at the Ice Bar at Fortune's Wheel. She said she was celebrating her birthday.

Creatures

Time Dragon

Blue skinned. Breath causes things to rapidly age and decay.

Items

Meaningful items encountered in the campaign

Items

Razorvine

Tokens used for gambling in Fortune's Wheel Casino. Each chip is emblazoned with an image of razorvine, a dangerous vine that grows in UnderSigil. Tokens can be bought or sold for 20gp.

Items

Portal Key

Shemeskuh also gave the party a portal key (looks like a golden casino chip) that if the party takes it into a nearby doorway, a portal to Outlands will form.

Items

Sensory Stone

A magical stone used to store and later retrieve a sensation or emotion.

Items

Mimir

A strange humanoid skull apparently made out of colored glass and various metals.

After some discussion, the githzeri scholar mentioned a modron having visited a while back intent on rejoining its branch of the Great Modron March. It had a mimir (a humanoid skull-shaped recording device) it was using to find its branch of The March. The modron found what it was looking for and departed months ago, but left the mimir (apparently the skull the party was carrying). The mimir had been damaged in the Yugoloth attack and wasn’t working.