Planescape: Turn of Fortune's Wheel Chapter 1 - The Mortuary

WELCOME BACK TO THE MORTUARY

The heroes start the adventure just like the opening to Planescape: Torment - they wake up in Sigil's Mortuary, and are immediately greeted by Morte, the talking skull NPC of the same game. Morte sets the scene for the characters - they are living folks in the Mortuary who aren't Dusters, and they probably want to get out as fast as they can. Here's the things the characters need to learn in this initial scene:

• The characters are in the Mortuary in Sigil. It’s the headquarters of a faction known as the Heralds of Dust, the Morticians of Sigil. They don't take kindly to unlicensed "fleshies" in the Mortuary and the characters should "shake a leg" and get out. 
• The characters likely ended up here because they were dead. Morte has no idea how they are alive now. 
• Morte describes himself as a planar traveler who died young because he didn't have a good head on his shoulders. 
• Morte declines to join the characters, as he is "waiting for someone" (a reference to The Nameless One, the protagonist of Planescape: Torment, who also wakes up in the mortuary with amnesia. 

Morte may be confusing to some players, since he doesn’t know much and isn’t willing to leave the area for unclear reasons. If your players struggle with this, its ok to just tell them this is here more as a callback to the video game than anything integral to the adventure. 

The expectation is that a character or two will die exploring the Mortuary - giving a chance to let the players experience another incarnation of themselves. That said, experienced or cautious players aren’t very likely to die here. A lot of the combats and threats can easily be skipped, and the characters have plenty of reason to do so. I have a few notes in this chapter on increasing the lethality in this chapter. 

Another important tweak is to give the characters more gold while exploring the Mortuary. I went by the adventure, and my players were starved for gold in the next chapter, making it hard to do some of the thngs I wanted them to do. 

There are two ways for the characters to exit - the exits in M10 or climbing out through the delivery chute in M6. 

THE MORTUARY

What follows is an outline of what characters will find in each area of the Mortuary. 

M1: Morgue

• Summary: Introductory scene with Morte
• Rewards: A healer's kit with three uses and the characters' starting equipment.

M2: Autopsy Room

• Summary: A mortician is dissecting a flesh golem. Both attack the characters if they see them.
• Threats: Jex, a Hearlds of Dust Remnant and a flesh golem.
• Rewards: Key to chest in M4 in golem's chest.
• DM’s Notes: I would have the Flesh Golen do max damage on its slam attack. If you do this, make sure a party without magic weapons has a way to effectively damage the golem to reduce the risk this results in a total party wipe.

M3: Possessions Room

• Summary: Storage room for items confiscated from dead. Haunted with two poltergeists who entertain three skeletons with a puppet show. 
• Threats: Two poltergeists and three skeletons who attack if the show is interrupted. 
• Rewards: If a character participates in the show and makes a DC 14 Charisma (Performance) check, the poltergeists give the character a potion of resistance (poison). The room also has three faction uniforms (the Harmonium, Society of Sensation, and the Athar), 30 gp and three trinkets: an old divination card bearing one of the character's likenesses, a tiny music box playing a song that a character remembers from childhood, and a knife the someone remembers their first cousin owning. 

M4: Cold Locker

• Summary: Drawers for dead bodies with surprises inside.
• NPCs: Fruth, a Duster newcomer who accidentally got himself locked in a drawer. Can be freed with DC 15 Strength check.
• Threats: Three of the lockers have zombies who will attack if overly disturbed by the characters.
• Rewards: Inside a locked drawer (DC 18 Dex check using thieves’ tools or the key in M2 to open) is:
• jeweled goblet worth 100 gp
• Heralds of Dust manifesto
• spell scroll of animate dead
• DM’s notes: Fruth is a little bit of a conundrum. In theory he could tell the characters everything they need to know to safely exit the dungeon, but that ruins the fun. I played Fruth as brand new, naïve, lazy (he was napping on the job after all), and desperate for any work he could find. As such, he really can’t tell the characters a lot. He passed through the furnace room but does not know its function. He does know the location of the exit at M10. I'd also add a sack with 50 gp to the treasure here.

M5: Crematorium

• Summary: Two levers control the crematorium - blue (safety) and red (furnace). The blue level has to be engaged in order to pull the red lever. 
• Threats: Maurice the zombie will show up if the characters enter without precautions and roast them unless the characters distract him with a DC 14 charisma (Performance) check.
• DM's Notes: This is probably meant as a heavy-handed way to show the glitch by killing a character. Experienced parties will likely take precautions. Don’t punish them for doing so and try to force the furnace for a cheap kill. 

M6: Corpse Retrieval

• Summary: Corpse chute where bodies get dumped. Characters can possibly escape here.
• Threats: A black ooze that gets disgorged from a dumped body, and bodies continuing to be dumped out of the chute (10 foot area on initiative 20, DC 14 Dexterity saving throw or 2d6 bludgeoning and prone). 
• Rewards: Escape! DC 15 Strength (athletics) check to climb out the chute and exit to Ragpicker's square.
• DM’s Notes: Have the Black Pudding’s Psuedopod do max bludgeoning damage (9) to increase lethality. You could also have it do max acid damage (32) until it splits, but 41 points of damage is a lot to third level characters. 

M7: Dining Hall

1. Summary: A ghost named Kingsley has prepared each character a poisoned version of their favorite meal.
2. Threats: Eating the meal requires a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or take 21 (6d6) poison damage or half as much on a save.
3. Rewards: Silverware on the table is worth 200 gp. 
4. DM's Notes: Have the ghost tell the characters that someone must like them, as they told the ghost to prepare the character's favorite meals. This is a vague allusion to the main villain of the story. You could also max the poison damage here (36). 

M8: Burial Grove

• Summary: A grove centered on a Gulthias tree with a single white apple tended by dryads.
• Threats: Eating the fruit deals 70 necrotic damage.
• DM's Notes: Emphasize the "characters smell like death" from the dryads. They are also a useful group to push Duster philosophy. Consider making the apple cause immediate death rather than just damage if you want to force a character to glitch. 
• An example speech the Dryads might give:

Welcome, travelers, to the shadows of what you perceive as life. Behold the Gulthias trees, where the veil between life and death is thinnest. As a Dryad of the Heralds of Dust, I see beyond the illusion you call 'life.' Understand that we exist in an afterlife, a mere echo of a reality long faded. What you grasp as life is but the first whisper of death.

 

The Heralds of Dust seek the True Death, a transcendence beyond this multiverse, beyond the illusions that bind us. We embrace the stages of death, shedding the chains of hope and passion that tether our souls to this false existence. We do not fear the undead; instead, we revere them as guides, as they tread the path closer to True Death. In our ranks, the undead serve not as abominations, but as harbingers of the deeper truths. Our Factol Skall, a being of profound knowledge and detachment, leads us in our quest. He, like us, seeks to guide souls toward dignified rest, preparing them for the ultimate transcendence.

 

Do not cling to your fleeting passions and hopes. They are but distractions, keeping you from the profound truth. The true journey lies in embracing the decay, the transformation, and ultimately, the release into True Death. This grove, tended by my hand, is a sanctuary for those who seek to understand the deeper realities of existence, a place where the boundaries of life and death blur and reveal the path to true liberation.

M9:  Records Room

• Summary: A records room where a demilich named Thaeziagnuz (Thay-zee-ag-nooz) with writer's block struggles to eulogize Sigil's dead. 
• Threats: If the characters try to help the demilich and succeed, it will tell them the fastest route to exit the mortuary (right around the corner). It might also point them towards a particular location in Sigil you want the characters to go. If they fail, have the demilich use it's Howl action and say "Try Again."  Another failure leads the demilich to chase the characters out of the room. 
• Rewards: Characters might find copies of their death certificates with the cause of death missing. 
• DM's Notes: Encourage the characters to write a poem about the passed Doomguard. Thaeziagnuz will happily share information about the Doomguard faction: Soldiers who celebrate destruction and decay and that everything eventually falls into ruin. They wear armor made of dead creatures and let their weapons rust. They oversee production and sale of weapons in Sigil. If the characters write a good epitaph, it counts as an automatic success and the demilich is friendly. Any reasonable attempt awards them with advantage; if they just want to make the roll, its straight up. If the characters help the demilich, he also rewards them with 100 gp. 

M10. Hallway

• Summary: Stairs lead to the Hive Ward. 
• DM's Notes: I wouldn't mention the gate to the rest of the Mortuary unless you are comfortable dealing with characters deciding to go that way - perhaps one wants to join the Dustmen? If they do, let them get directed to the entrance of the Mortuary that is more of a funeral home, where initiates are inducted into the faction.