(For the holidays, as has kind of become tradition, I played a holiday-themed one-shot with my mom, Stephanie, and my brother. This is a continuation of that game from last year. The story of the Doubley-Doos will continue in 2020.)
After helping save the town of Ambershandy from the machinations of Queen Mab of the Unseelie Court, Janet “the Phantom” Ortholis rediscovered her love of adventure. She, Flora, and Dralvis began traveling the continent again as adventurers for hire, taking on the name “Janet and the Jets.” They traveled all over Ruserval, taking on various odd jobs and helping folks everywhere they could. Roughly a month later, with the end of the year approaching, the party received a summons to the town of Gantshur in the kingdom of Alahalan by Lord Bodil Acton of the Deighton March.
After eleven days of travel, evading bandits, and having a few brushes with goblins who’d fled north from Iounin to escape the recent political upheaval, they saw the walls of Gantshur peeking over the horizon. A crowd had gathered around the town gates, some on ladders hanging pine branches decorated with satin bows, some hanging branches decorated with metal charms in the shape of ravens, quarter moons, and starbursts.
One of the town guards escorted them to Lord Acton’s manor, explaining as he did that the town was preparing to celebrate the end of the year — a festival that would start on the last evening of Ravenikt and lead into the first morning of Correldan. The decorations were symbols of the Raven Queen (the namesake of Ravenikt) and Corellon (the namesake of Correldan) in an attempt to appeal to the two deities and ensure a positive, smooth transition into the new year.
Lord Acton’s manor was out on the edge of town, a large estate on a hill, surrounded by a tall, wrought iron gate emblazoned with the Acton family crest. It took some convincing for Lord Acton’s guards to let them pass, and they remained standoffish, glaring at Dralvis and Flora as they passed. In response, Flora subtly cast Prestidigitation to make it seem like the guards shit their own pants.
The party was greeted on the front steps by Bundry, Lord Acton’s longest serving attendant, an older elf man with white hair and a dark blue coat. As they waited for Bundry to fetch Lord Acton, the air began to shimmer. Three creatures materialized around the party — eyeless, tall and hunched, with long, insect-like arms and legs, and strange, crystalline bodies. In the center of their chests, sand swirled about like dust caught in a whirlwind.
Janet and the Jets, suspecting an attack on Lord Acton, sprung into action. It soon became clear these creatures had control over pockets of time. Dralvis and Janet found themselves slowed to half speed, barely able to keep up with the creatures. When the party eventually bested the creatures, their bodies cracked and shattered like glass, their internal sands scattering into the wind.
As the last creature was slain, Lord Acton arrived, shakened, and requested everyone reconvene in his study. He explained that the recent attempt on King Penorel’s life had everyone on the royal advisement council on high alert. Many of them suspected that Trevindar might be sending spies into Alahalan borders to eliminate more nobles and create instability in the kingdom. Lord Acton believed he was a prime target, and had recently suffered a break-in that he feared was a failed assassination attempt. These crystal creatures attacking only confirmed his worst fears.
Their reward for searching the town and apprehending anyone that they believe might be working against the monarchy or Lord Acton was 1000 gp each — half paid up front, half when the job was completed. The party agreed, and departed to the local tavern, the Cheeky Charmer, to rest up and begin their investigations first thing in the morning.
The next morning, they were awakened by someone puking and pounding on a door down the hall. The smell of baking bread wafted up from the kitchen below. As they came downstairs, someone tunelessly played the piano while the owner greeted them and asked them how they slept. Flora took a seat at the piano and picked out a passable tune that sounded strangely like Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” before they began their investigations.
After asking around the town, they learned that Lord Acton had recently held court for two local farmers, Marston Bothik and Garron Jendak, over a disputed property line. Suspecting the losing party might have developed a vendetta against the marquis, they made their way to Bothik Farm where they saw the dispute in action. Both men were on Marston’s porch, screaming at each other. Marston accused Garron of trying to sabotage his farm; Garron implied Marston was actually just a shitty farmer and would get what’s coming to him, then stormed off in a huff.
As he passed, Flora felt her skin tingle and noticed that Garron’s hand had slipped into his pocket and he’d developed a sudden limp. She confronted him, and after a brief back and forth, Garron withdrew from his pocket a small clock and suggested they head back to town since the festival would be starting soon. Flora suspected this was actually some sort of mind-control device and cast Dispel Magic on it. The spell went off with a loud pop…and then the watch cracked.
Garron flew into a panic. He screamed at Flora, demanding she fix it. He rung his hands and muttered to himself, his eyes wild with terror, and finally admitted that the watch had been enchanted — it had allowed him to time travel. He’d been using to give himself a leg up on some business matters and to settle a few scores, such as just now when he’d gone back in time to steal a family ring from Marston to get back at him. He’d accidentally twisted his ankle while slipping out of the house.
The party tried to question him further, but Garron’s behavior, but the watch began malfunctioning, which drove Garron into a further panic. He kept repeating that he didn’t know what would happen now that the watch had been damaged. They soon found out as a loud ticking sound filled the air, as if coming from a clock hidden behind the clouds. The world blurred and shifted…and Janet and the Jets woke up in their rooms at the Cheeky Charmer.
They heard pounding on door down the hall followed by someone puking. The smell of baking bread wafted up from the kitchens below. As they came downstairs, someone tunelessly played the piano while the owner greeted them and asked them how they slept. Janet realized that the were somehow repeating the same day, and they decided to hurry to Jendak Farm to speak to Garron to work out a plan for how to fix things. However, he wasn’t home. Instead they found a scrap of a note that read, “job to do.”
They tracked footprints back to town and learned by asking around that Garron had stopped by the blacksmith’s shop that morning in a panic, demanding they fix his watch. Since they only knew forging, not tinkering or clockwork mechanics, they weren’t able to help, and Garron fled with a wail, heading toward Acton Manor.
The party pursued him, but that same earth-shaking ticking picked up again. The world shifted and tilted, and when things righted, this time they were 8n the town square at night. The staff of the Cheeky Charmer were playing cheerful music, vendors had set up shops and games, and most of not all of the townsfolk had turned up for the festivities.
The party resumed their search for Garron, who’d set up a booth to sell rye-based beer and bread; however, it was being manned by someone else. They briefly spotted him slinking through the crowd, but Janet and Dralvis lost sight of him. Flora wildshaped into a fly and followed him through the square and behind one of the booths set up for party games. He met a figure in a dark cloak and a masked face. She couldn’t make out the conversation, nor the cloaked figure’s face, but she did see Garron hold the watch out and begin gesturing at it emphatically.
Suddenly, that same sensation of ticking and shifting yet again, and the party woke up in their rooms at the Cheeky Charmer. The smell of baking bread wafted up from the kitchens below. As they came downstairs, someone tunelessly played the piano while the owner greeted them and asked them how they slept.
Determined to get a handle on things before they could get any worse, the party hurried back to the blacksmith’s shop, where Garron was in the middle of begging for help. He panicked when they arrived and pushed past them, fleeing toward Acton Manor. Flora summoned vines from the earth and caught his legs, dragging him back to speak with her. He said he didn’t know how many times he’d repeated the day, and didn’t know what would happen if the looping continued. About that time, his watch sparked and flickered, and more of those crystalline creatures began to materialize. The party was able to interrupt the materialization and ward off the creatures for the time being, but in the confusion, Garron slipped away and raced toward Acton Manor again.
They entered the manor just after Garron, but once inside, they found themselves tumbling through an inky black void. They landed in a heap, surrounded by nothing but swirling darkness, floating in a sea of nothing. Ahead, Lord Acton was bound in arcane chains and attached to a massive hourglass. Every few seconds, as sand drained into the lower chamber, the arcane restraints would spark, seemingly aging Lord Acton before their very eyes.
Levitating over the prone form of Lord Acton was Bundry, dressed in ornate robes and studying a dark, leatherbound tome. He greeted the party and warned them that they’d stumbled into things they couldn’t hope to understand. He’d hoped to avoid eliminating Lord Acton himself, preferring to use Garron as a surrogate, but with the watch damaged, he had to take matters into his own hands. He attacked Dralvis first, shooting a narrow black beam from his fingertip that instantly brought Dralvis to his knees. He managed to stay conscious, but just barely. Janet, enraged, rushed forward and began striking at the old man. Her magical sword struck true, slicing into Bundry’s side and knocking him out of the air. He landed awkwardly, only just keeping on his feet, clutching a massive, bleeding wound.
Bundry, using his tome, began speaking the words of a banishment spell, but Flora was able to disrupt him, lashing at him with her thorn whip and wrapping it around his neck. With a hard tug, the barbs on the vines tore his throat open. With a gasp, he collapsed to the floor, dead. Dralvis and Flora began working to try to release Lord Acton from his arcane bonds as he continued to age with each passing grain of sand.
Their efforts were interrupted by massive crashes in the distance. Rising up from the swirling shadows beyond, a behemoth of a creature, tall and muscular, with a massive hourglass strapped to his back, began to trudge slowly toward the party. With each step, he towered higher and higher and higher, looming impossibly large over them.
Flora was finally able to free Lord Acton, and Dralvis and Janet helped carry him back to Garron, who was cowering far behind them away from the fight. As the gargantuan creature drew closer, the party racked their brains for a solution. Finally, Garron suggested they try to fully destroy the watch. Since damaging caused the issue in the first place, if it was malfunctioning, maybe completely destroying it would fully dispel its effects.
Garron set the watch on the ground, giving it one last lingering touch before Flora spread her hands and began channeling the energy of death and rot from nature, funneling into the watch’s gleaming surface. Slowly, the watch began to age. It’s gleam dulled. It’s brass case tarnished. Finally, it fell apart with a clatter and crumbled to dust. As it did so, the party felt themselves jerked back into the void, hurtling through empty blackness once again just as the massive hourglass creature drew near.
They tumbled down…down…down…down…and finally…the party woke up in their rooms at the Cheeky Charmer. The smell of baking bread wafted up from the kitchens below. As they came downstairs, someone tunelessly played the piano. The owner gave them a smile and asked if they’d enjoyed the Year’s End festival. It appeared that nobody had any memory of anything, except Janet and the Jets.
Since things seemed to have resolved, they made their way over to Lord Acton’s to conclude their business with him and try to get their payment. When they arrived, Garron greeted them at the door, wearing a nice, dark blue coat and linen pants. With a smile and a wink, he said they must have come to report the findings of their investigation to Lord Acton. He escorted them to the study and fetched the marquis. The party struggled to explain what had transpired the previous day…days? The more they spoke, the more confused and concerned the marquis looked. It was clear that the marquis didn’t remember any of the events that had transpired either.
Garron stepped in to assist, explaining that the party had uncovered a drifter that had made his way into town — a madman named Bundry who had decided he was called to kill the marquis. Garron claimed that the party was able to track down the man and confront him (using some intel Garron had uncovered, of course), but in the ensuing struggle to capture him, Bundry fell into the river and drowned. Lord Acton expressed disappointment that he would be unable to look his assailant in the eye, but said he was pleased with the party’s performance. He complained that he’d awakened disoriented and with a terrible headache, so he retired to his chambers and left repayment to Garron.
Once Lord Acton exited, Garron explained that while he was tumbling through the void, he saw an opportunity to tweak things a bit to better suit his preferences. As far as anyone else was concerned now, there was never any Bundry. Garron has been a loyal servant of Lord Acton’s for years, and had never owned a rye farm at all. He added with a wink that he believed they were owed 1000 gp each. Dralvis started to correct him that they’d already been paid 500 gp, but Garron insisted he must be confused and offered another wink.
With events mostly restored, the watch destroyed, and a hefty sum of gold in their pockets, the party departed Gantshur in search of their next adventure, wherever and whenever that might be.
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This did not go how I planned in the slightest.
I wanted to do another game with my family for Christmas because we had so much fun last year. However, I didn’t want to do another Christmas game. For one thing, I didn’t want them to jump ahead a whole year. For another, I didn’t want to feel like I was repeating myself.
In our regular game, time was becoming an issue. Players were confused about what season it was, how long they’d been traveling, how much time had passed since previous events, etc. It was starting to get complicated. Going back to Opal Town only exasperated those questions. So I did what any healthy person would do: developed a system of determining time and distance traveled along the surface of my fictional world, then researched alternative to the Gregorian calendar so that I could create something that corresponded with the cultures of my world. That was still fresh in my mind, and with the new year approaching, I realized that would work great for a holiday-themed game.
Honestly, it was actually modeled on Groundhog Day. Once they arrived in the town, I planned for them to ask around searching for any signs of grudges against Lord Acton. After following up on a few leads, they’d attend the festival, at which point explosives planted in the memory barrels would explode, killing everyone and causing the first repetition. With that, they’d have a new mystery: how to stop the time loop. For added motivation, with each repetition things would get just a bit worse — characters that had been arguing would start fighting. Fights would become nastier and more vicious. Music would become more somber and sinister.
Arriving in town went great. I homebrewed some monsters I called chrono-demons using a blend of the Gith monks and ghosts, but reflavored everything to involve time manipulation. It got everyone intrigued and eager to take on Lord Acton’s job. However, it took them so long to get ready to play due to other holiday related stuff that we ended up breaking for a few days there. When we came back to play, everybody was tired from the holidays, and no one seemed interested in engaging with the mystery. They were having trouble knowing what to ask, knowing who to speak to, and after a few dead ends, they were really frustrated.
I did a lot of prep for this adventure, essentially populating a whole town and creating a lot of interpersonal drama and rumors. Each character had a connection to another character in some way. I was going for a “Castle Rock during Needful Things” vibe, hoping that basically anyone could be a suspect. However what I should have done in addition was:
1) Make sure that more of these character motivations involved a conflict with Lord Acton. The idea was to make characters point to other characters so that the players could follow a chain of events and hearsay, but a lot of those chains didn’t relate to the job they were hired to do. That was a stupid decision, and honestly inexplicable.
2) Lord Acton should have had more information about his assassin. I gave them a very “needle in a haystack” quest. “Go, see if maybe there’s an assassin, and if you find someone, bring them in.” But what if there wasn’t? What if it had just been a robbery? In a city full of hundreds of people, what are they looking for? Where do they start? Do they drag in everyone that says a bad thing about Lord Acton or the king? If given them a physical description, or mentioned a unique cloak, or had a piece of fabric from the scene, or if the guards had heard the assassin say something — anything — it would have given them more to work with and a better place to start.
3) Provide the players with a list of businesses and important locations in the town. I don’t know what I was thinking here, but of course the players wouldn’t know where to go — the town doesn’t really exist except in my head. I figured they’d know to ask about places that are in basically every fantasy town — general stores, blacksmith shops, apothecaries, etc. That was an assumption that I shouldn’t have made, and on top of that, it was poor planning not letting them know exactly what resources were available for tracking down leads.
After their only lead dead-ended, they were getting pretty frustrated, so I started lightly pushing them to Marston Bothik’s farm so they could witness the fight between Garron and Marston. Garron was always meant to have the watch. He was meant to either lose it at some point or the players were meant to find it, and that’s what would cause the time loop. Garron, however, was also only meant to be useful idiot, doing jobs for Bundry in order to keep his magical, time-altering watch.
The whole game was planned as a mystery so they’d figure out in order: Garron had the watch, the watch was what was causing the time loop, Bundry gave Garron the watch, and finally that Bundry got the watch because he was secretly a warlock who’d made a deal with something really bad. But getting them there, as it turned out, was going to be much harder than I’d expected.
Then something amazing happened. I was playing Garron as smug and menacing, and I had him pull out the watch to draw the players’ attention to it so they’d remember it later. I had him tell them to run along before they missed the festival to establish what time of day it was and to make him seem like a prick. Instead, Stephanie read too much into the situation and assumed I was about to try to mind control them. So she cast Dispel Magic.
Here’s the thing with Dispel Magic: if the spell you’re trying to end is higher than 3rd level, you have to either upcast the spell or roll an ability check with a DC of 10 + the level of the spell. The spell level for an object that can reverse and rewrite time with unlimited uses…would be way higher than a 9th level spell. That’s god-like. But her decision gave me a much better opportunity to kick off the fun time shenanigans without needing to fill all of that in game time until midnight. So, I bent the rules and let her cast it, breaking the watch. And then the fun began.
I wanted to do the morning wake-up loop a couple times because it was fun and was the whole inception of the adventure anyway, but now I had the license to mess with time even further. So I had the watch take them forward and backward in that same 24 hour period at my whim and based on how things were playing out. Suddenly, rather than a open-ended and frustratingly vague mystery, they had a specific goal: “find Garron and stop the time loop.”
Each time the day reset and they had to interact with an NPC again, it was so much fun to play through the confusion of meeting them for the “first time.” Steph had a really fun exchange with the blacksmith. At one point, she said, “You don’t sell weapons here,” and the blacksmith responded, “Well, I mean…I can make them if someone needs them. It just depends on the demand.” On her second visit, she made another comment about there being no weapons and when I as the blacksmith responded with the same comment as before, she said it along with me. It gave us all a good chuckle.
I’d intended for Garron to become a non-issue once the party realized Bundry was behind everything. Garron originally didn’t know who gave him the watch — it was meant to be a bit like Hagrid getting the dragon in Sorcerer’s Stone. But since they never got around to uncovering Bundry’s secretive dealings, I decided Garron actually knew who gave him the watch all along, and in his panic to fix things, he was outing Bundry as his secret magical benefactor.
The bit with Lord Acton being chained to the hourglass was also a bit of improv. Bundry’s original goal was to have Lord Acton killed because of some cruel things he’d done to Bundry and his family many years ago, but since the assassination plot fizzled, I decided Bundry was actually trying to sacrifice Lord Acton to his patron (intentionally left vague because Reasons).
This left me with the question of what to do with Garron. He’d become more important to the story than I’d intended, so he couldn’t just fade into the background. Thinking through the logistics of the watch more, I figured he must have had a lot of experience navigating the time stream. Afterall, who knows how many times he’d used the watch before this? So as he was sent tumbling through the time stream, it made sense that he’d figure out a way to adjust events in his favor. Plus, it felt like a kind of justice that Bundry, after messing with dark, time-altering powers, would retroactively cease to exist.
Although it took basically shattering my planned adventure on the ground and rummaging through the pieces, we had a really good time. I feel bad about how rocky things started, but I’ve learned a lot of good lessons about planning and running games that intricate, especially for newer players.
I’m excited for things to come in 2020 — the Doubley-Doos are reaching some really interesting points in their adventure that could drastically alter my little fantasy world. I look forward to seeing how they choose to play things.
‘Til next time!
Whirling Nerdish 