Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Planescape: Turn of Fortune's Wheel, Chapter 3 Overview

Chapter 3: Fortune Favors the Bold

Valek, a tiefling commoner, greets the characters and gives them a letter from Shemeska indicating she is providing accommodation for each of them.

·        Valek shows them to their rooms where they can tidy up a bit. Valek offers to shine shoes, tour the facility, and answer any questions the characters have, though most pointed ones he will defer to Shemeska.

·        If asked about Shemeska, he will happily surrender that she is an Arcanaloth information broker with influence across the planes.

·        Valek tells the characters they have ample time to get a full night’s rest before exploring the casino.

·        Additionally, Valek should insinuate Shemeska will help them with their current situation, but the characters will need to kill time until she is available.

Vecna Impersonator


Casino Map  

·        Summary: Reception bar with a ghost stage magician performing and a few patrons. There is also a stairway to hotel rooms accessible via portal key.

·        NPCs:

o    An Oni bouncer named Viz. He has no time for nonsense but welcomes the characters at Shemeska’s instruction.

o    Brayson, and equinal guardinal, minds the bar. He is taciturn but content to serve the characters.

o    Five steam mephit cooks prepare meals for guests in the kitchen. They are a mischievous lot who don’t take kindly to intruders.

·        Summary: Cages to trade gold for razorvines. A welcome gift awaits each character.

·        NPCs: The imp behind the counter wears gaudy makeup and a visor. They are very friendly and welcoming to the characters, and encourage them to use their chips, and to go speak with Viz in the bar.

·        Rewards: Each character gets a satin gift bag with 10 razorvines. Additional razorvines can be purchased for 10 gp each.

·        DM’s notes: The pit cage worker might remind players that the star attraction (Fortune’s Wheel, area F7) costs 5 razorvines to play, so players should keep that in mind as they play the other games.

·        Summary: Entrance to casino with statue of Shemeska.

·        Secrets:

o    DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation) to identify that the coins in the fountain are illusionary.

o    Detect Magic or DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to determine the room is filled with Divination magic, and the statue is likely a scrying device.

·        Summary: Characters can play a slot machine made from a repurposed Modron.

·        NPCs: A night hag named Putrice just hit it big on slots and is happy to explain how they work to the characters.  

·        Rewards: Rewards if characters get:

o    2 out of 3 numbers the same on 3d6;

o    3 out of 3 numbers the same on 3d6 (a jackpot);

o    A roll of 2, 4, and 6 lead to dancing duodrones and a reroll on the next 3d6 roll.

·        Summary: Characters can play any of two different table casino style games. A mezzoloth pit boss watches over the games. The ante to play is 1 gold – the player that wins gets the pot.

·        Dead Hand’s Dice

o    Each player can roll as many d6s as possible.

o    Everyone rolls at once.

o    The highest result without rolling a 1 wins.

·        Olidammara’s Bounty

o    Place as many chips as desired on a number 1-20.

o    Dealer is a d20 shaped spectator that rolls itself on table.

o    Roll 1d20 – if a player has a bet on the number rolled, they win five times the bet.

·        Summary: Display of the Apparatus of Kwalish, the big-ticket prize from spinning the fortune wheel in F7. Joyriders get bounced by mezzoloths in 3 rounds.

·        Summary: Location of namesake game of the casino consisting of three concentric wheels that get spun.

·        Spinning Fortune’s Wheel

o    Costs 5 razorvines to play.

o    Player rolls a d10 and consults outer wheel results. If the character rolls a 10, roll 1d10 again.

o    Consult middle wheel table for a prize. If the character rolls another 10, roll 1d10 again.

o    Finally, consult inner wheel table for a final prize.  

o    Consult the table in the adventure for prizes.

·        Summary: A casino lounge with a sulking white dragon.

·        NPCs:

o    Phiwi, a yeti bartender who makes the drink called the Abominable Yes Please.

o    Winter’s Bite, a young white dragon, gambled away its whole hoard except one gold coin. Worse, he has a 100 gp bar debt!

o    If the characters don’t pay the bar debt, they will have to deal with a raging white dragon when he snaps over his losses better.

 

·        Summary: A casino stage with three performers.

·        NPCs:

o    Bimdom Baffletrick: Gnomish illusionist with a weretiger named Felix.

o    Estrella, silver haired elf singer.

o    Cecila Tlapaya, ghost singer from San Citlan with a backing 10 brass piece skeletal band.

 

·        Summary: Nothics look for cheaters through surveillance statues in the casino.

·        Dm’s Notes: Nothics can look through statues in F1b (Dragon Bar), F3 (Shemeska statue) and F7 (player’s seat on Fortune’s Wheel). They can direct mezzoloths to intercept unwanted or unruly guests.

 

·        Summary: Private meeting rooms. Three hound archons play dice in one of the rooms.

 

·        Summary: Portal to the more exclusive part of the casino the characters will enter in a later part of the adventure.

Events

This scene is really silly, and I don't think it's a great fit for the flavor of a Planescape campaign I would like to run...but dnd is silly, and a lot of players will like it. Know your group if you want to run this scene. Leaving it out is perfectly fine. 

Three Vecna impersonators – actually dopplegangers – walk the floor doing Vecna impressions (just use Elvis impressions). Including “Give a Lich a Hand.” While one distracts the characters, another tries to pick pocket them. Characters can detect the pickpocket with a DC 16 Wisdom (perception) check. They attack if they outnumber the nearby characters, or scatter if not. You can do a skill challenge to chase them down and apprehend them.

Some impersonator sayings:

·    You ain’t nothing but a demilich, casting all the time

·    Don’t be cruel…to a heart that’s black

·    Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me become deceased.

And some song lyrics:

To the tune of All Shook Up

Oh, well, a-curse my soul, but what's wrong with me?
I'm lichin’ like a man on a hangman’s noose
My friends say I'm stinkin’ like a corpse
I'm a lich

I'm all shook up
Mm-mm, yeah, yeah, yeah

To the tune of Suspicious Minds

I’m caught in a trap
Phy Lac ter y
Because I wanted to live forever baby

Why Can’t I see
What the Dark Lords Doing to me 
When I believe every word he’s saying

He wont let me live forever
With a suspicious Mind
And we cant build our army of the dead
With suspicious minds

If the characters didn’t pay Winter’s Bite’s tab, he goes berserk and attacks the current performer. If the characters don’t intervene mezzoloths eventually do. A DC 14 Charisma (Persuasion or Intimidation) check gets him to stand down. If the characters make Winter’s Bite stand down, I would have the mezzoloths reward them with 1 razorvine each.

Read the box text. Shemeska asks them how the casino has been. Then asks them about their plight. If the characters find a misplaced modron named R04M, she will investigate their pasts. The modron was last seen in the outlands. It’s ok to distrust her because she distrusts them, she s a fiend after all. She offers them each 300 gp to sweeten the pot.

  

at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Planescape: Turn of Fortune's Wheel Chapter 2, Part 2 - Scenes in Sigil

Scenes in Sigil

Scene 1 happens as soon as the characters leave the mortuary. Give the players the provided “Experiencing Sigil” handout and show them the map of Sigil to get their bearings. This guide summarizes the scenes in the published adventure and adds several others for locales in Sigil the characters may want to visit. When you are ready to end this chapter, run the Harmonium Officers scene – you can easily tag it onto the characters turning in their Experiencing Sigil card.

After characters bump into irate tiefling, bariaur named Parisa appears and gives characters a tourist guide and offers to show them around. Parisa is a bariaur wanderer that is a tout (city guide) who is happy to show the characters around Sigil for a modest fee (3 gp per day). She also hands them a flyer for experiencing Sigil produced by the Society of Sensation.

Parisa the tout

Liora Vespera, a Society of Sensation Muse, wants to record a new sensation in her sensory stone. Roll on the table to determine the sensation. If the characters are successful, she will give them their own sensory stone. Liora is young and energetic with a high-pitched voice. She is excited to work with the adventurers and is happy to tell them all about the philosophies of her faction. Later, if the characters turn in their Sigil tourism card, Liora will be the one who takes it and asks the characters about their experiences.

Three faction members are debating their positions, and characters must arbitrate their argument.

The first, a stern-faced Athar null, raises their voice with conviction, "The so-called gods are nothing but illusions! Look to the dead husks in the Astral Sea! They are unworthy of our devotion, mere pretenders to power!"

Nearby, a Bleak Cabal void soother, draped in somber attire, responds with a disinterested tone, "You're right about the gods, but your passion is misplaced. Everything, including this very debate, is meaningless. We exist in a cruel, indifferent multiverse."

Contrasting the others, an animated Mind’s Eye matter smith interjects enthusiastically, "You both lack vision! The gods are not only real but are an example of what we can achieve. Each of us holds the potential to ascend, to forge ourselves into something greater!"

If the characters side with a faction (or argue for another) they get invited to that faction’s headquarters.

This bar is drab, with a counter made of rusted metal. In the center of the taproom is a smoldering corpse of a man. Clientele from all over the multiverse rub elbows here. A group of Mind Flayers converse quietly in a corner, several giff drink up in the middle of the bar, and a hound-like humanoid talks to a horned, winged woman at the bar. The gruff man behind the bar shouts “I’m Barkis, welcome to the Smoldering Corpse. Can I get you some bub?”

If the characters are amicable and don’t cause trouble, Barkis offers them a job as a bouncer for the night in exchange for a chance to pick out a piece of collateral he has taken from debtors over the years.

If the characters accept, at some point during the night one of the drunken giff starts trying to pick a fight with a mind flayer. Barkis asks you to intervene before he must clean up giff brains.

At the end of the night so long as the giff doesn’t do too much damage to the bar, the characters can look through the collateral and find one +1 weapon of the party’s choice.

Scene: Fell’s Tatoos

Fell is a dabus that somehow fell out of favor with the Lady of Pain yet was allowed to open a magic tattoo shop. Fell no longer floats above the ground like his kin, but still speaks in rebuses that he can float to client’s skins in the form of tattoos. These magic tattoos can be from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything: common (60 gp), uncommon (600 gp) or rare (6,000 gp).

Fell is a follower of the supposed god of portals, Aoskar. He knows the locations of many portals in Sigil, and will part with that information for gold or other portal location information that is new to him. 

Scene: The Great Bazaar

The Great Bazaar has anything a character might want from the Player’s Handbook, and more exotic items if you wish. You can roll on the bazaar shops table to generate random shops the characters might encounter, or use the shop detailed here.

Kroopah’s Magnificent Goods and Pastries is a combination goods and pastry shop. Kroopah is a  boisterous human with a thick accent and unclear background who has had his shop in the market as long as anyone can remember. While his shop sales many mundane goods, his pastries are renowned throughout the multiverse for the great taste and magical properties. He has such delicacies as the Longhorn of Healing (a potion of healing), a Raspberry Scone of Animal Friendship (potion of animal friendship), or a cheddar jalapeno biscuit of fire breath (potion of fire breath). He sales his pastries for 50 gp each, but they only keep their potency for one week

If the characters and friendly and respectful toward Kroopah, he may ask them to perform a task for them, like go submit a tax form in the Clerk’s Ward, which primarily consists of standing in line all day. In exchange, Kroopah will give the characters a pastry of their choosing.

At some point while the characters shop in the Great Bazaar, A Transcendent Order instinct named Reavus will approach a martial looking member of the party and challenge him to a duel of martial prowess – first to three strikes wins. If the character gets at least two strikes on Reavus he will invite him to the Great Gymnasium to train. If he does not, Reavus will treat him with disdain and encourage him to spend more time training.

Scene: Turning in Your Card/Harmonium Officers

When the characters head to the society of sensation to turn in their completed card, they find Liora from “Sensory Experience” running the booth. She asks the characters to describe their experiences, hanging on ever detail. Once the characters are done, she presents them with a greater potion of healing as a reward. Unfortunately, as soon as this happens, read the box text from the “Harmonium Officers” section of the adventure. The characters can fight, flee or surrender to the Harmonium. Regardless of what they do, Farrow shows up soon after disguised as a Harmonium officer. If the characters were captured, Farrow pulls rank to get them released to him. He reveals he works for someone who would like to help the characters and can take them to safety if they follow him through Sigil to Fortune’s Wheel. If the characters distrust them, he’ll rely on what he has done for the characters.

Undersigil

After entering Undersigil, the characters encounter a rat that has gorged on cake. If the characters leave the rat alone, he warns them to “Beware the scent of strawberry.”

The characters run into a group of Cakers in Undersigil. They invite the characters to have cake. Unfortunately, it’s a vargouille cake. A character can identify this with a DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check.  The cakers have already partook and will die and turn into vargouilles soon – characters can identify this with a DC 14 Wisdom (Insight or Medicine) check. The cakers invite the characters to partake -if they refuse the cakers attack. As each dies its head separates from its body and turns into a vargouille reflection. If a character eats cake, they will die and turn into a vargouille reflection in 1d4 hours. If defeated, the leader of the cakers, Gertrube, has a portal compass.

at No comments:
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)