D8. Holding Cells
Rising from the soggy earth is a sturdy wooden hut with an open doorway on one side of it. At the back of the hut are two holding cells. Thick mangrove roots serve as bars, with a small round door closing off each cell. The floor of one cell is covered with several inches of stinking water. The other cell holds a figure in rags slumped against the back wall.
This hut is round, 12 feet in diameter, with a conical thatched roof that rises 18 feet from the floor at its apex. Prisoners of the Soggy Court are held here while they await trial by combat in area D9. Characters brought here as prisoners are thrown into the north cell. The guards depart after locking up the characters.
A character can use an action to try to break into or out of a cell, tearing through its root walls with a successful DC 17 Strength (Athletics) check. A cell door’s lock can be picked in 1 minute with a successful DC 12 Dexterity check, provided the character making the check has thieves’ tools.
Prisoner. The prisoner in the south cell is an unarmed bullywug knight named Morgort, the Knight of Warts. She was one of Sir Talavar’s accomplices along with Wigglewog, and she now awaits justice. She has no regrets about helping the faerie dragon, and she regards Bavlorna as a bitter enemy. Additional roleplaying notes can be found in the bio for Morgort.
Morgort introduces herself to the characters with a knightly bow once the guards are gone. She is dressed in the ragged and stained remnants of an orange surcoat that bears the sigil of a great helm fashioned to resemble a frog’s head.
In conversation, she asks the characters why they were apprehended and reveals the following information:
Morgort is an accomplished balloon pilot. She and her friend, Wigglewog, helped the honorable Sir Talavar escape. To delay their pursuers long enough for Wigglewog and Sir Talavar to steal a balloon, she was forced to stay behind and got captured as a result.
It’s likely that she will be battling one of the characters in trial by combat (see area D9 for details).
Bavlorna is a recluse who rarely leaves her cottage. She enjoys making foul bargains with visitors.
If the characters share the news that Wigglewog died helping Sir Talavar, Morgort grows sullen. If the characters need to get out of Downfall in a hurry, Morgort suggests that they steal the balloon in area D2 and use it to fly to safety. (The balloon can also deliver the characters safely to Thither if that’s where they want to go, as discussed at the end of this chapter.) She follows the party’s lead otherwise and tries her best to be helpful. Once she realizes the characters have important things to do, she tries not to embroil them in bullywug politics. In any situation, she tries to act with honor and civility.
D9. Proving Grounds
A mangrove tree stands in the middle of a patch of heavily churned mud, where rusting and rotting bits of armor and weapons are scattered. Two lengths of chain are anchored to opposite sides of the tree trunk, each with an iron shackle on the end.
Justice in the Soggy Court is carried out using trials by combat. Prisoners fight for their freedom here, as do those who want to challenge the monarch for the right to rule.
The grounds are 20 feet in diameter. Combatants are shackled by one wrist or ankle to a 10-foot length of chain attached to the tree. Each chain has AC 19, 11 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. Using an action, a creature can pull a chain free of the tree with a successful DC 17 Strength (Athletics) check.
Combat Rules. A trial by combat is a procedure by which wrongs can be redressed in the Soggy Court. It can also be invoked as a vote of no confidence in the current monarch. A trial always has two combatants: the accused and the accuser, or surrogates representing them. Once they are shackled, the combatants fight until one is dead, and justice is thereby served.
Development. One hour after the characters are imprisoned in area D9, four armed bullywugs (neutral) come to get them and Morgort. The guards instruct the characters to choose a champion from among them to represent the group in the trial. The guards nominate someone if the characters don’t choose a champion. The champion and Morgort are each chained to the tree and given a club. The rest of the characters are kept at the edge of the proving grounds, held at spearpoint to prevent them from interfering.
King Gullop XIX presides over the trial, instructing the combatants to fight for their innocence. Morgort pretends to be slain after any successful attack made against her, putting on quite a performance as she drops to the mud. The characters’ champion is declared victorious, and the characters are decreed to be innocent.
The characters might try to fight their way out of the situation or make a break for it. If they succeed, bullywugs who oppose the king advise the characters to take refuge with Illig, Baron of Muckstump, who lives across the lake (see area D16). Illig is Gullop’s greatest political rival.
If the characters are proclaimed innocent, they earn their freedom. Each is given the worthless honorific of “True Friend of Gullop XIX” and permission to use the king’s palace (area D11) as a place to rest. Morgort’s seemingly lifeless body is dumped into Murky Lake, whereupon she swims to area D2 and steals the swamp gas balloon there.
D10. Trinket, Bauble, and Charm’s
A big black balloon floats over the lake, tugging at its moorings. Beneath it hangs a basket made of black wicker and wood, which serves as a merchant’s stall. A large pane of gray glass is drawn closed across an opening above the counter. A sign mounted above the window reads, “Wondrous Wares & Fair Fares!”
The balloon is not made of fabric, but rather appears to be a roiling, dark rain cloud that has been contained somehow with lines and netting.
Two darklings named Trinket and Bauble look after the balloon and lurk inside the cramped merchant’s stall, which is open for business. Their boss, Charm, is a darkling elder who is presently visiting Bavlorna Blightstraw in her cottage.
Charm travels around Prismeer in her “rain cloud balloon” while posing as a merchant. She is actually a burglar working for Bavlorna’s sister, Endelyn Moongrave. Charm has come to Downfall to steal treasure from under Bavlorna’s nose. Trinket and Bauble guard the stall while Charm sees to the real business of carrying out her heist (described later in the chapter).
Trinket and Bauble greet their customers with plenty of sass. Since their business is a front, they don’t care whether they sell anything or not.
Wondrous Wares. A sign hanging below the counter lists the following items for sale:
AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY:
Very good thimble (fingertip not included)
Mug of Bumble Beer (has a nice sting to it)
Duskmallow pie (with decorative bite marks)
Bundle of dry wood (great for starting fires)
Ink portraits (if we have to look at you, so should you)
Moonlight monocle (no more fumbling in the dark)
Most of the items for sale are nonmagical goods of little or no value, the exception being the moonlight monocle, which is a magic eyepiece that Charm acquired some time ago. It has the same properties as goggles of night.
Unicorn Horn. If the Story Tracker indicates that the unicorn horn is here, it is among the items available for purchase. If the characters seem interested in conducting a transaction, Trinket produces the unicorn horn and says, “Very hard to come by, unicorn horns, and one never knows when one might come in handy. This one recently found its way into my possession.”
Payment. The darklings make one of the following demands as compensation for any single item the characters desire:
Trinket demands the color from the buyer’s eyes. If the buyer agrees to the trade, Trinket produces a small marble that drains the color from the buyer’s eyes when she utters the phrase, “Hue be mine.” Robbed of their color, the buyer’s irises turn transparent. Destroying the marble restores the buyer’s eye color to normal.
Bauble demands the rhythm in the buyer’s step. If the buyer agrees to the trade, Bauble produces an articulated wooden marionette and makes it dance on the countertop while repeatedly uttering, “One, two, three. One, two, three.” Deprived of this rhythm, the buyer loses all talent for dancing. Destroying the marionette restores the buyer’s dancing ability, but Bauble won’t give up the marionette without a fight.
Rain Cloud Balloon. If the characters steal this balloon, it delivers them to area M16 of Motherhorn (see chapter 4) unless they have a trained pilot who can fly it elsewhere. The balloon harnesses the energy of a rain cloud to stay aloft. To use the balloon, the harnessed cloud must be charged with electrical energy. This can be accomplished by dealing more than 20 lightning damage to the cloud from a single source, or by surrounding it with electrically charged storm clouds for at least 10 minutes. Once charged, the balloon can stay airborne for 8 hours, moving at up to 8 miles per hour. If the balloon loses its charge while aloft, it plummets to the ground.
The vessel has two separate parts: the wooden basket that doubles as the merchant’s stall, and the balloon, which includes the rain cloud plus the net and lines that hold it in place and attach it to the basket. Each part has its own statistics:
Basket. The basket, which can hold up to 750 pounds, has AC 13, 27 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage.
Balloon. The balloon has AC 11, 50 hit points, and immunity to lightning, poison, psychic, and thunder damage. If the balloon drops to 0 hit points, the cloud dissipates, and the vehicle loses the ability to fly.
Repairing 1 hit point of damage to the basket requires 1 day and appropriate supplies, which can be salvaged from area D4 or taken from area B3. The balloon can’t be repaired, but as long as it has at least 1 hit point, it regains all lost hit points when it is fully recharged.