A merry tune spills forth from an instrument on the back of a brightly painted wagon. A monkey wearing a cloak covered with buttons turns a handle at the wagon’s rear, sending music into the air from rows of golden whistles. As you watch, a goblin dressed as a ladybug toddles up to you, rattling a tin cup.
The calliope can be heard throughout the carnival and is magically linked to the carnival’s mood. When people are happy, it pipes along merrily, but it plays discordantly when the mood is low. Each of the calliope’s whistles is imbued with magical gusts of wind, allowing it to play without end.
Ernest the monkey turns the handle of a piano roll; the punched holes in the roll of parchment provide the melody. Ernest has the mind of a middle-aged human, the result of a prank involving the organ grinder, his pet monkey, a leprechaun, and a great quantity of brambleberry wine. The organ grinder’s mind was swapped with his monkey’s, but the jest turned to disaster when his body ran off with the monkey’s mind inside, never to be seen again. Ernest uses the baboon stat block, but his Intelligence and Charisma are 10, and he can speak Common. His alignment is neutral good.
Ernest likes to collect buttons from the carnival’s guests to sew onto his cloak. He has a rhyme for requesting them:
Spare a button if you please,
I’ll sew it next to all of these.
I offer nothing in its place,
Besides a smile upon my face.
Marigold (chaotic good), the goblin dressed as a ladybug, collects the proffered buttons in a tin cup and delivers them to Ernest. Marigold is sprightly and often cajoles bystanders into dancing.
On the Story Tracker, jot down the names of characters who give at least one button to Ernest. If one or more of these characters find themselves trapped or captured in Prismeer, they hear the distant whistling of the calliope and can follow the music to safety. Any barriers or obstacles in their way are magically removed. For example, the lock on a cell door might spring open on its own, a guard might fall asleep, or a silent, spectral monkey resembling Ernest might appear and reveal the shortest route to freedom. This is a tool to help the characters out of a tight spot and can be used only once per group.