All Things Balanced | An Over the Garden Wall-themed adventure!
“If dreams can’t come true… then why not… pretend?”
You are a ragtag group of fellows on their way to seek (or steal) wisdom from Hendrik the Lamplighter, the mysterious fellow who minds the old orrery. What your character seeks to find from the Lamplighter is a devastating secret… if maybe only to you. On your journey, you will meet strange travelers, pilgrims and lost-lovers, those like yourself who have stumbled into this place quite accidentally and seek only to make their way back. And yet, the only way out is through.
Quest Beats
This one-shot is intended for a group of level-5 characters who are into roleplaying as much as they are combat!
The players have all already met, they are wandering around a corn maze, trying to find a path to the other side, a train station.
The scarecrows get agro if the players try to “cheat” and cut through the corn.
Players must solve mini-challenges presented to them in the maze
At the train station, the players must either pay the toll to get aboard or sneak aboard
Toll is a special golden token (you decide the meaning!)
The train is run by raccoons/wildlife, which important for the story later
The gang meets a number of NPCs, and can hang out in the dining car, their own carriage, or make their way to baggage. This is an opportunity for the players to role-play and generally do their own hijinks.
The train reaches the last stop, and before them is a tavern. Inside, the players must put together a rhetorical mystery to break a curse and solve the way to the Orrery.
Once the curse is broken, the band must journey up the mountain following the tavernfolk’s suggestions.
The party must earn their "wishes" via trial by combat
Hendrik the Lamplighter is an alchemist that designs many fantastical things, is essentially a Djinn modified for this adventure to answer any request with a request of his own: The players must trade something of equal value to what they request. I played Hendrik as a benevolent engineer, someone who doesn't actively want to harm the characters but is bound by the laws of entropy to demand equal payment for what they quest for.
The Maze
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Somewhere lost in the clouded annals of history,
Lies a place that few have seen.
A mysterious place, called The Unknown.
Where long-forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood
You have only recently come together as a traveling group, deciding your common goal was perhaps more useful than your differences, for now. Instructed by a traveling circus troupe, you were pointed to a train station, where steel carriages might take you all the way to the orrery where Hendrik the Lamplighter is said to reside. But perhaps the directions were not so clear, only one of you speaks Bullywug. You are now hopelessly lost in a corn maze. Dead cornstalks rise above your heads, and scarecrows hover nearby, dressed with pumpkin heads and each with a crow on the shoulder.
If the players try to “cheat” and cut through the maze, the scarecrows will agro and try to fight the players. If they spend longer than five turns in the maze, the scarecrows will go agro, and assault the player.
Roll | Event |
|---|---|
1 | The players discover an abandoned pitchfork. |
2 | A long line of strawmen with the heads of pumpkins watch over the path forward. As the player moves past them, their heads turn to regard the player. |
3 | The player discovers an abandoned violin. If played successfully, drawing the bow over the strings will illicit a human-sounding voice that will guide them out of the field. |
4 | Maze shifts |
5 | Small wooden shrine. It’s unclear which deity it’s dedicated to, but small baked goods are moldering around a wooden figure with indistinct characteristics. The players can make an offering. |
6 | An animated skeleton is also stumbling through the cornmaze. For a corny joke, it will lead them out. |
7 | A dark obelisk, humming with dark energy. If the players touch it, it casts “Bane” on the player. |
8 | A murky birdbath. If the player peers in, they can see a copy of themselves, calling to switch places. The players can willingly switch places with the creature in the mirror, but they will have to trade something away to convince it to allow them back into the material plane. |
Train Station
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The train platform is filled with woodland creatures whose hooves knock against the boardwalk planks. The sun is high in the afternoon sky, and a warm breeze rustles all the skirts and fluffy tails of the animals. The attendant is busy exchanging gold coins for tickets, and the two frog policemen are chatting jovially with a fox couple.
Players might try to buy their own ticket, only to find that these gold coins are special.
The players can choose to steal one of these special gold coins.
Stealing a gold coin will require a superior slight-of-hand check.
Their theft will also be recognized as the train goes to leave, and a number of the passengers aren’t allowed to board.
They can also, with some looking around, identify a crew of richly dressed foxes carrying around instruments.
This fox is traveling with a large band: The players can sabotage this band, steal the instruments, and hop aboard. This will require a DC 13 Deception check, and a stealth check.
Once aboard, the players will be directed to the dining car, where they will be made to sing. (They’ll need to pass a series of group performance checks or be tossed out).
The train is carrying a number of passengers with items to help the players on their journey. I highly recommend giving each of these characters two nuggets of info they can share to help the players on their journey!
Character | Goal |
|---|---|
Willa Jean, young doe | Running away from finishing school to join the circus |
Goodwife Wilwood | Getting a breath of fresh air from the countryside for her health. |
Gorsebloom | Harengon on his way to seek out a business associate that’s gone missing with all the money from his inheritance |
Horace the Hedgehog | Professor on sabbatical |
Train breaks down in the middle of the woods, all the animals aboard the train simply jump off and head home. (They are animals, this is their "stop" lol)
Players can try to bribe the conductor to take them further, but the racoon refuses, indicating the broken engine. Instead the racoon will direct them to a path winding its way through the woods.
(Optional) Beset on All Sides
As the players are walking through the woods, the sun seems to go down strangely fast, but it is only the trees growing taller. Their branches seem to lean farther and farther down, trying to tangle the players.
If your players are moving too quickly, simply slow them down with minor combat with animated trees or a tree blight.
The Inn at the Crossroads
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The Inn glows in the afternoon light, a sign over the door only a set of crossed keys. Inside, the bustle of conversation stops as the newcomers swing in the door. A barmaid approaches the party, and begins to sing a welcome song.
“Oh come in, weary traveler, come rest from the rain,
I've a song for your sorrow and a toast for your pain.
Pay no mind to the shadows that dance on the wall—
They've got tales of their own, but they’re kept safe in this hall.”
Here is the blacksmith who speaks without sound,
Here is the gambler not long to stick around,
Here is the fiddler who vanished one eve,
She still plays at midnight, heart on her sleeve…
So bring up your chair, bring up your song,
Sing us a tale of where you’ve come from Whereto do you go from this tavern hall Wherefrom do you run, do you know at all???
Emergency stanzas for the DM:
(Rules) If you seek out an answer, don’t whisper or speak—
Let it dance on a melody, crooked and meek.
For plainspoken words are too heavy to fly…
But a question in song? Well, that might
catch my eye.
(warning) Now a traveler has scoffed, with his boots full of pride,
And they asked me a question with no tune to guide.
The fire’s gone out and the crowd gave groan,
And the words that he spoke turned to cinders and bone.
In order for the player’s questions to go anywhere, they’ll need to be phrased as a song that includes the whole group.
Here, the players will need to work together to put together a musical number that tells the tale of their journey so far, and where they’re going.
The group must pass a DC 15 group performance check to be given directions to the orrery, where Henrik resides.
If you seek old Hendrik’s flame,
Up the mountain, don’t call his name—
Where the winter wind winds and wends,
And the starlight shines through a darkly lens,
There he tends the lantern’s light,
In the heart of endless night.
Follow the old path if you dare,
But clumsy travelers have to beware,
The rider’s closer than he seems,
that close to the end of the lane.
The Orrery
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Before you rises an ancient Victorian-style observatory, complete with classrooms attached on the side, vines creeping up the façade, seemingly long-abandoned by the academy that built it. Nothing moves here, high in the hills, and you all feel the bite of winter in the wind that rattles the dead leaves.
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Inside, winding shelves of a library support a large orrery, a perfect replica of the world as you know it. A few of the arms of the orrery are empty, merely holding a flat disk where something might be, and in the middle is a huge globe lantern representing the sun. It glows with an eerie, ethereal light.
The players will be confronted by a shield guardian, who demands all those worthy of Hendrik's presence must pass a trial by combat.
For added flavor, the orrery spheres will start to rotate throughout combat. The large platform has a movement speed of 10ft, while the small platform has a movement speed of 30 ft.
Once the shield guardian is defeated, Hendrik will appear out of the central sphere.
I played Hendrik as kind-of a harried Gandalf if he worked at the DMV, but you can play him in a number of ways! I encouraged players, instead of bargaining for a big-ticket item like a lost soul or a divine flame, to instead bargain for smaller tools to *get* them to the thing they want most, and therefore the cost would be lower. For my group, this turned the final "sacrifice" moment into one of contemplation and conversation, which my group found much funnier and also more meaningful.
Suggested Ending:
Do a little scene with each of the players of what their lives look like now that they've left the wood. What reality did they escape to, what is now missing/returned, what is their character now focused on?
