Skullport Tales: Actual Play 8 – “Bazaar of the Bizarre”

Continuing from last session, the party runs out the back of the Silk Scabbard into an alley, where they find a gang of duergar and their pet monitor lizard beating up a kobold merchant. The party beats the gang fairly easily, and heads to the Cartways black market following a clue to find a person named “Radu” who might know the location of the mysterious thief Ilyana.

Entering the cavern reserved for the marketplace, they see a large black tent with magic lights floating around it, with more bright lights coming from inside. A short, stout, balding human merchant beckons to them offering fantastic bargains, wondrous treasures at low, low prices. Everyone fails a Will save except Ahmatti, the halfling oracle, who goes inside anyway to keep an eye on the party.

Crowbar is drawn to a shiny, magical axe, which he picked up and tests ut by cleaving bowling balls in half. Umrae’aun wanders the aisles and peruses the tables, but is conflicted about what she’s looking for and what she really wants. Dagordroth sees a part in a curtain to the back, the glimpse of an attractive female face, and hand poking out, finger crooked and signaling for him to come back. Ahmatti finds hanging cages filled with assorted animals, including wolverines, who coo at her like tribbles. She also finds a silver wire basket filled with bags on holding, in all sizes, colors, and materials, only 1 g.p. each. She tests one but stuffing Crowbar’s splintered bowling balls into it; it works!

Dagordroth get tangled in the curtain and can’t get loose. Umrae’aun laughs at him, until he collapses on the ground smoldering; she runs to he aid. Ahmatti is now convinced this place isn’t what it seems and turns to run out of the tent but is blindsided by the merchant, who is now sporting foot-long claws. Things are seen for what they are — mostly junk, enchanted to give off magic auras and project illusions. The merchant is some kind of shapeshifter (a faceless stalker, actually); the curtain at the back is a grey ooze. The party battles the two monsters, and manages to get out of the tent as it is collapsing. The tent rolls up into a ball, shrinks to a single point of light, and winks out of existence.

The bag of holding Ahmatti acquired in the tent is now just a burlap potato sack, although one that radiates magic. Crowbar’s enchanted axe is a broom. However, a shoddily constructed wooden crate is left behind. Inside are various items of reasonable quality, but most only give off an aura to appear magical. There are a few “real’ magic items in the bunch, however. The crate itself, while poorly made, is larger on the inside than on the outside.

Notes
I really, really wanted to do an homage to my favorite Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser story, “Bazaar of the Bizarre”. I tried to legitimately get them to go inside the tent, but also made the Will save for the compulsion to go inside pretty high. I made the saving throw for the illusions impossibly high, which may have been an unfair bit of railroading but was required for the story. Everyone got out alive, and they were amply rewarded.

I knew that I needed two monsters, one for the merchant and one for the back wall. I look at the list of monster listed for the appropriate challenge rating, and picked ones that suits. I made the original story’s wall into a curtain, really a grey ooze hanging in a sheet off a mounted curtain rod. I picked a shapeshifter, rather than the original story’s animated statue/golem. With the lighting, the ooze could be mistaken for a curtain without use of illusion. A shapeshifter further thwarted any possible attempts to dispel illusions. What you saw was actually what you saw.

I stuck it in here because if fit into a location they were headed to as part of the larger story; it was a sidebar, but not one that took them out of their way. It also gave me a chance to equip the party with some magic items that will hopefully benefit them as they get deeper into the main plotline, and compensate for some abilities the party lacks.