Music and mirth radiate from this park. The heady scents of flowers, mead, and berry pie waft through the air. Stilt-walkers pluck fruit from trees; musicians drum, pipe, and strum; and everywhere there is singing, dancing, and an inordinate amount of custard.
The Feasting Orchard bustles all through the night with the activity of storytellers, musicians, and acrobats. The feasting tables are lined with merrymakers, and dances spring up at the drop of a hat.
This contest runs repeatedly throughout the evening and costs 1 ticket punch to enter. The contest table is piled high with small, glazed cupcakes, each filled with a dollop of berry custard. The goal is simple: eat as many cupcakes as you can within 60 seconds.
A contestant can swallow a cupcake in about 3 seconds and safely eat as many cupcakes as 3 + its Constitution modifier; for each additional cake eaten, the contestant must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or take 1d8 custard damage. Subtract custard damage from the contestant’s hit points as normal. Any contestant reduced to 0 hit points by custard damage is unable to continue, loses the contest, and has custard splattered all over them. At the end of the contest, all contestants regain the hit points they lost from taking custard damage.
Treasure. The prize for winning the contest is a cupcake that functions like a potion of invisibility. The whole cupcake must be eaten to gain its benefit.
This gnome bard (“Tumblestrum” to her friends) is in the Feasting Orchard when the characters first arrive. She sits on a swing that hangs from the branch of a pear tree, plucking the strings on her lute while eyeing the characters. If the characters happen to mention their free tickets, she reveals that she was the one who paid for them. When pressed for more information, she cryptically assures the characters that they’re exactly where and when they’re supposed to be but says no more.
As the night progresses, Tumblestrum can reappear to provide hints about what the group needs to do; she can even guide the characters to Prismeer if all of their plans fall through (see “Tumblestrum’s Intervention” in the “Timed Events” section later in the chapter). If she is threatened, she disappears in a flashy yet harmless pyrotechnic display. No stat block for Tumblestrum is necessary, since she won’t harm or hinder the characters and can’t be seriously harmed by them. Her thoughts are likewise hidden, since no magic can read them.
Tumblestrum is meant to be an enigma to the player characters. In truth, she is a savvy planar traveler who has visited and entertained folks on countless worlds. In some corners of the multiverse, she is what’s known as a Planeswalker—a fiercely independent and extremely powerful entity not to be trifled with. Tumblestrum disapproves of the Hourglass Coven’s cruelty and aims to deliver some much-needed comeuppance. The gnome sees the characters as agents of change who can undo some of the damage caused by the coven, and she suspects that if they do so, the characters will be on their way to becoming heroes worthy of epic ballads.