Episode IV: DANCE OF THE SHADOW PUPPETS

Sigil has shattered in the Milling

No one could foresee what happened next…

Episode IV

DANCE OF THE SHADOW PUPPETs

Medals in hand, the prisoners of the SPECTRUM are free to explore the width and breadth of the CAT LORD’S PROWL, and beyond in their search for the SPECTRUM and its crew.

The twilight woods of BRUX are alive, and many players have set in motions events with far reaching consequences. Travelers from afar bring tidings, and their missions to this remote corner of the multiverse. 

Meanwhile, groups throughout the multiverse are left reeling by the effects of the ESCHATON, even as some see an opportunity to force their vision of how things should be across all of existence...

In the Cat Lord’s presence, the party resisted the pull of the manacles. Tracking the Exandria Five that had left the cave, they went to meet them on the far side of the valley. Yucca, still a fish in a bottle, used empathic abilities to help convince Alice what needed to be done. Meeting Ayo’s group in the nearby clearing the party attempted to team up with them. As a first step, examining the remains of an earlier explorer… now only bones in an explorer’s clothes, with an odd token around his neck. Meanwhile, Dermot restored Yucca to her normal humanoid form.

Carrying on towards the tunnel, once guarded by Felix, they meet Lionel, a researcher into the life cycles of Petitioners.

When it becomes apparent how clueless the party is about the Beastlands, Lionel gives them a copy of a page from Gaps Moogle’s Lonely Planar Ratings.

Traversing the tunnel the party finds the Spectrum. 44 is given the task of milking the Blue Milk Manatee, while the two parties clamber up on deck to speak to Thimmamma Marrimanu. Thimmamma seems mostly intact, but to become spelljam-worthy again, will need to have a spelljamming helm and Planar Plan. The crew is also missing. Ayo suggests splitting the task, with her party going to Jhankhal to meet the al karak elam, and our heroes searching for these necessary items in Waysign.

After receiving a lesson in overland travel from Ayo and a short rest, the two parties part ways. As our heroes advance to the northeast, they encounter a wild pack of hyenas.

The Score

The Chant

1. The River Oceanus runs between multiple planes including the Beastlands

2. Yggdrasil, the world tree, passes through the Beastlands

3. The Wylders are a conservation group that cooperates with the al karak elam in Jhankhal

4. The majority of the al karak elam venerate the Eagle Lord

5. The Exandria Five are from Xhorhas in Wildemount on Exandria

6. Glasariad is 200 years old but only started spellcasting recently

7. The crew of the Spectrum is still missing

8. The Spectrum lost its helm during the crash

9. To spelljam around the outer planes, a Planar Plan is needed

Treasure

An odd token (held by Ayo)

Episode III: BAUBLES IN THE DEEP

Sigil has shattered in the Milling

No one could foresee what happened next…

Episode III

BAUBLES IN THE DEEP

Proven to be worthy, the prisoners of the SPECTRUM seek assistance from the CAT LORD to retrieve a necklace and gain her favor in order to access to more of the BEASTLANDS.

The EXANDRIA FIVE are also making progress through uncovering the mysteries of the valley, including a bottle with a ship in it and earning the trust of some local elements to the PROWL.

Meanwhile, groups throughout the multiverse are left reeling by the effects of the ESCHATON, even as some see an opportunity to force their vision of how things should be across all of existence...

Camera comes up on party in the Trial of the moon… Yucca bleeding out on the floor. There are 5 normal blue moonstones, and one red one on the altar. Yucca is healed and the stones are examined, when the manacles begin to pull again… however, the party realizes they can resist the pull of the manacles and they do.

Returning to the Cat Lord, the party presents the moonstones and is granted potions of water breathing to help them retrieve the Emerald Eye from the grotto behind the waterfall. They take a (VERY) short rest and then go to the waterfall.

At the grotto, the party encounters Ayo and her crew. A race to the emerald eye is agreed upon. After making arrangements the party enters the waters and advances through the grotto, experiencing strange glowing grasses, dangerous landslides, and a swarm of quippers that kills 44 before being destroyed by the party. Yucca, landing the last blow, falls victim to an effect of the Beastlands, and becomes the destroyed animal.

In the next chamber a massive glowing shark awaited with a magical spear and the Emerald Eye on its side. Cleverly avoiding direct confrontation, the party retrieved both, and while there was hints of a secret on the far side of the chamber, the party decided it was in no shape to face the shark and turned back.

Turning over the Emerald Eye to the Cat Lord, the party received medals indicating the favor of the Cat Lord, that should grant access to all areas of the Prowl.

The Score

The Chant

1. The Manacles can be resisted

2. Ayo’s crew also completed the trial of the moon

3. The hidden grotto has secret chambers

4. There’s a hidden passage beyond the shark’s lair

Treasure

Moonstones, Medals, A Magic Moon Spear

Episode II: SHADOW OF THE CAT LORD

Sigil has shattered in the Milling

No one could foresee what happened next…

Episode II

SHADOW OF THE CAT LORD

The once-prisoners of THE SPECTRUM are stranded in BRUX, trapped amid dangerous predators by INTERDIMENSIONAL MANACLES, seeking allies and an escape.

The mercurial CAT LORD moved her PROWL to retrieve a hidden necklace but has been unsuccessful thus far. This local ruler will have information useful for those wishing egress from the BEASTLANDS.

Meanwhile, groups throughout the multiverse are left reeling by the effects of the ESCHATON, even as some see an opportunity to force their vision of how things should be across all of existence...

The party convinces Ferrix to move on by spotting his hiding spot. Setting out towards the left side of the shore, the party meets Shaka and gives him fishes…

The strange crew of five seems to have found a bottle with a ship in it… they make their way early to the overlook to the “right”.

Proceeding inland along the river, the party encounters Arturo, who wants to have a real hunt, and Alice, who is ready to play the prey but afraid to die (again).

Meeting Mr. Hopper hear the stream, the party learns some more information about a previous visitor to the valley as well as about some settlements beyond the Prowl. The party elects to visit the Cat Lord

The Cat Lord wants to ensure the party is worthy and asks them to undertake a trial of Shadow.

Discovering murals under a statement “know thyslef”, each party member selects some stones: Yucca takes recklessness, 44 takes two of greed, Aimo takes cowardice, Buttercup takes wrath while eyeing greed, and Duke takes wrath as well. Facing themselves, the party prevails against their shadows.

The Score

The Chant

1. Alice wants to be hunted but is afraid to die

2. Outside of the Prowl, there is a community of Al Kharak Elam to the north called Jhankal; the natives are protectors of the wilds

3. Outside of the Prowl to the northeast is a Signer frontier post called Waysign

4. Ayo’s crew has found a bottle with a ship inside it

5. The Cat Lord moved her prowl to this location in search of a necklace

6. The shadow beast gains its strength from what is inside of you

7. Behind the waterfall is a hidden grotto

8. Arturo wants to experience the hunt again

Treasure

None this time

The Monk and the Tressym

The waves roll gently: in and out. A flapping sound, the feeling of the clammy evening breeze being pushed against you, and the sickly-sweet inner sense of friends being cast on you announce the arrival of Snitches.

A small thud. He’s brought you a present. The wild nature of the plane hones your senses and without looking you can tell it is likely rodentia.

“You don’t need to cast that spell on me you know…”

"It’s habit. Snitches gets scritches?”

The tressym rolls and shows its belly, accepting the rub but then batting at the hand gently with a paw to signal its preferences. “Snitches likes you…”

“I like Snitches too.” A few moments pass…

“Arturo seems hungry… he’s marked Alice, but just watches her… he’s weird… maybe he’d like a fish.”

Snitches senses his spell waning and returns to his feet, stretching and then tensing muscles in preparation to fly.

“You don’t have to go…”

“It’s habit.”

The monk goes to say more, but the tressym has already flapped off into the twilight sky. The friends spell loses its hold, and you can tell you were enchanted. Now familiar with its after-effect, you focus your ki on the void of space and calm the feelings the spell leaves, like the acrid reflux left behind by a delicious feast.

The monk eyes the “trophy.”

This moment, this place. Locked in space and time, repeating again and again. The waves roll gently: in and out.

Episode I: WAKING UP

Sigil has shattered in the Milling

No one could foresee what happened next…

Episode I

WAKING UP

SIGIL has shattered. Somebody cast the SIGIL SPELL causing the Cage to fall apart. The greedy AUTOGNOME TRADE ALLIANCE searches the wreckage for salvage.

Planeswalkers aboard the SPECTRUM arrived to find the ruins and came under attack. Despite defeating the boarding party, impact with the ship and FRAGMENTS OF SIGIL caused the spelljamming ship to lose control and fall through a color pool with survivors washing up on a strange shore.

Meanwhile, groups throughout the multiverse are left reeling, even as some see an opportunity to force their vision of how things should be across all of existence...

Recap

Setting out towards the left side of the shore, the party meets Shaka. Shaka is bored but hungry. The new Cat Lord is still tough for Shaka to figure out, but Ferrix likes her. Ferrix likes the Cat Lord and is looking for medals. Ferrix slaughtered the group and they returned to the beach.

Looking for another way, the group turned to the right…. apparently others among the survivors have experienced this loop. Irvan is interested in Galasriad. Galasariad seems to have diffifulty in performing magic. Maggie stacks stones. Nature is intense here.

Meanwhile, Aimo on the beach meets Snitches who wants scritches. Exchanging fish and scritches for information, information is learned about the Cat Lord, Arturo, Alice the Prey, and more… in particular, the Cat Lord is here to find a necklace but none of the cats are getting it for her because none of them want to get wet.

At the top of the hill, the party meets Ayo and Dermot and gains an understanding of the other people that crashed here while seeing the area they landed in.

The Score

The Chant

1. Ferrix is acting on the orders of the Cat Lord

2. The interdimensional shackles fitted to the prisoners prevent escape through space and time

3. A smoking branch or natural gold flakes can act as an arcane power key here

4. It never gets bright here... Brux is the land of perpetual twilight. The other two layers of the Beastlands are perpetual day and night

5. The Cat Lord is jealous of Bast, the cat-goddess of Merratet that lives in Ysgard near the Gates of the Moon

6. Irvan Wastewalker is interested in Glasariad

7. Ayo Jabe used to be a leading hunter of her town

8. Maggie Keeneyes is smarter than she looks

Treasure

Two nuggets of gold, one crystal of galenda, some charcoal, and two whitefish caught on the shore

Session 0: SIGIL SHATTERED

Sigil has shattered in The Milling

No one could foresee what happened next …

Episode 0

SIGIL SHATTERED

The war between FACTIONS has escalated! Battles rage across the streets of SIGIL. Opposing sides vie for control of the SIGIL SPELL.

The LADY OF PAIN is nowhere to be found. Without her guidance the DABUS can only attempt to restore order to corners of this nexus at the center of the multiverse, while interested parties gather from every plane of existence to sway the outcome.

Meanwhile, sensing profit to be made in salvaging the wreckage, the opportunistic AUTOGNOME TRADE ALLIANCE gathers forces to collect what remains from the ashes...

The camera pans down and zooms slowly in on a prisoner transport knitted from an ent’s roots with lemons bobbing in its boughs. Gliding majestically through the astral sea driven by a prisoner-powered etherstatic wheel under the watch of two Giff, flying cows frolic in its wake. In the sterncastle, a flameskull with a scarecrow slung from its tricorn operates an upright crystal, while a patch-eyed beholder sings a shanty and swabs the deck with it’s one remaining eye-stalk. Prisoners line up midships to receive gruel from a two-headed orc after finishing their turn on the wheel.

The party sits around the table meeting one another for the first time. Greenbeard the chef approaches the table and engages the party in conversation, revealing secrets about the crew and letting them know that he wants to get out of there.

The Captain uses his Planar Plan to plot a course and the Spectrum accelerates through the Astral Sea until it reaches Sigil. Or what should have been Sigil. Instead they find what remains, shattered, and the remains being picked over by the vicious Autognome Trade Alliance. The Spectrum is beset by these pillagers and the party engages them in battle. After a hard won battle, the Spectrum is struck! The Autognome vessel crashes into the Spectrum knocking loose its Spelljamming helm crystal, crew and prisoners are flung from the Spelljammer into a dimensional pool…

On the other side they emerge under a vast amount of water. Fortunately Phillipe, the dolphin delighter is there to drag survivors to shore.

You wake...

A few moments pass… You open your eyes. The shackles seem to be missing, and blinking you look out across the shore... in the distance the sun is just on the horizon, the sky a deep red fading to purple and a crescent moon in the sky. The cove has a sandy beach a few miles across. After about 10 yards, the strip of dunes slopes gently upwards and gives way to a field of tall grasses bound on both sides by steep hills coated in large trees. The hills form a tightening valley that closes about a mile inland. To your left, near the center of the beach, a gently flowing stream reminds you of the taste of saltwater on your lips and the thirst in your throat. You also realize, there are others on the beach. What do you do?

There are other prisoners from the Spectrum all along the beach, in various states of injury and consciousness.

Beside you is a corked bottle, there appears to be a piece of paper rolled up inside it.

You become aware that further up the beach, standing at a distance watching the people wash ashore is a medium sized feline.

Opening the corked bottle, the party discover a page of Kylie’s Clues for the Clueless.

The Score:

The Chant:

1. Sigil is pronounced with a hard G, that’s how you can spot the clueless

2. Greenbeard was once a planeswalking cutter until he took an arrow to the knee

3. Peggy lost her eyestalks to her long-lost lover, a medusa

4. There’s something wrong with Captain Vancouver

5. Autognomes are vicious scavengers and have formed a trade alliance

Treasure:

Sturdy Scroll Tube

Wonderous item, common

This ornate scroll case is etched with arcane symbology. Scrolls inside this case are immune to damage and are protected from the elements, as long as the scroll case remains closed and intact. The scroll case itself has immunity to all forms of damage, except force damage and thunder damage

Potion of Healing x2

Potion, common

You regain 2d4+2 hit points when you drink this potion. Whatever its potency, the potion’s red liquid glimmers when agitated.

Master Angler’s Tackle

Wondrous item, common

This is a set of well-worn but finely crafted fishing gear.  You have advantage on any Wisdom (Survival) checks made to catch fish or other seafood when using it.

If you ever roll a 1 on your check while using the tackle, roll again. If the second roll is a 20, you still fail to catch anything edible, but you pull up something interesting or valuable—a bottle with a note in it, a fragment of an ancient tablet carved in ancient script, a mermaid in need of help, or similar. The GM decides what you pull up and its value, if it has one.

Hudson’s Keepsake

Keepsake, attunement

The gear seems to be engraved with strange symbols that change as they fall across its surface

Cantrip: Shocking hands, 1st level: Magnify gravity, 3rd level: Lightning bolt

Shattered Sigil: The Pitch

SIGIL HAS SHATTERED IN “THE MILLING”
NO ONE COULD FORESEE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT…

Genre & themes: Planar exploration, the “ridiculous,” philosophy and ethical issues

Truths & changes: With Sigil shattered, the multiverse is out of balance

Challenges & conflicts: As the old order passes, various groups vie to put their vision for the new order… what sides you choose to join or disrupt is up to you.

Some session zero notes:

• Experience points: XP will be earned by making discoveries, not milestone or kills.

• Character creation resources: You may use unofficial sources published by major 3rd party content creators (i.e. has been through a thorough playtesting cycle) with permission. Note: This does come with a risk that if it is found to be broken in some way you may need to change something in the future.

• Safety Tools

  • Lines and veils. “You can play Kirk but we’ll keep explicit sexual scenes off camera.” While violence necessarily will be on camera, “cruelty” such as torture, harm to children/tame animals will be off camera. Please privately message me if you have others and I’ll share the complete list anonymously.

  • Potentially disturbing themes: Suspense and possible horror. Bad guys will be bad. Character death.

• “Safe words”

  • If things are making you uncomfortable, say: “Pause please”

  • I’m open to ideas for dealing with unacceptable plot lines. Use “What if instead…”

  • If I’m ranting, remind me: “The stakes are low”

• Some rule clarifications:

  • Xanathar’s Tools proficiencies. Check out this section for some neat ideas.

  • No hero dice or inspiration every session. That was part of Eberron.

  • Inspiration. Inspiration can be given and shared. Inspiration grants advantage. Want to try “MVP gets inspiration.”

  • About One D&D. (○) Unarmed strike. (☓) d20 Tests/Inspiration.

• More clarification…

  • Open rolls please.

  • Please track your hit points, gold, consumables, slots, features and spell components*. If there are areas of your character sheet that you aren’t sure about, please feel free to ask and we’ll look at it together. (Planescape has special rules for spell components that we’ll discover as we play)

  • You can choose to use encumbrance, point buy instead of the standard array, and hit die rolls when leveling.

• There are three rules about PvP.

• Supplemental Reading: ALL of Appendix B and Appendix C of the PHB are “spoiler free” Planescape content. Chapter 2 of the DMG is almost entirely spoiler-filled Planescape content so please avoid if you like surprises. I will be drawing heavily on various adventure books and adopting them as well, especially adventures on DNDBEYOND.

• For players interested in running sessions as a DM:

  • We will have a worskshop in Novemberish. The session budget (XP, Treasure). Templates.

  • Xanathar’s Shared Campaigns/Adventurer’s League rules will not be used.

The shape of D&D Campaigns is a yam.

Let’s remember what it is to be Tier 1 again. A wide multiverse awaits powerful heroes, but you need to get through the basic training first. Local issues need someone to deal with them (someone needs to clear out the cellar of rats) and you must learn to do, not try.

Tier 1 according to the Player’s Handbook

Tier 1 according to the Dungeon Master’s Guide

So with those things in mind… let’s go create a character.

Inspirational sources:

Guardians of the Galaxy, Oceans 11, Terry Pratchet, Plato, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Augustine, Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin, Hobbes, Hunger Games, Red Dwarf, Indiana Jones, Scooby-do, Star Trek (original series), Doctor Who