Background

 The Discovery
o In a world where the study of the body is considered heresy, a physician must hone
their arts through the practice of exhumation. Such is the way for the nobleman
turned surgeon Milbar Bracken. Four months ago, Milbar heisted the corpse of a
mage from the grand repository of the magically deceased, and brought it back to his
manor under cloak of darkness.
 The Dust from The Stars
o Upon autopsy, Milbar discovered a fine powder clogging the mage’s veins. The
powder shined hues of blues and purples the likes of which should not exist in the
material plane. Milbar studied the powder. He saw that it replicated in the presence
of blood, which was in no short supply in his chambers. He fed the dust and
observed. After enough feed, the dust came together and crystalized. It was during
investigation that his hand brushed across the crystal’s surface. The primordial voices
of ancient stars shattered his mind as they spoke through the crystal.
 The Guard Gets Involved
o Two months ago, with bodies disappearing from graveyards and family crypts en-
masse, the local constabulary began their investigation. Family crypts were being
desecrated, magical wards being disrupted, and worst of all, undead began
disappearing from the underworld. Since then, a party of wraiths has come to the
city, demanding their dead back. The city wasted no time putting together an elite
unit of their best and brightest to solve this crisis. Our heroes….were not a part of
this squad
 The Boys
o The protagonists of this adventure are not heroic adventurers, dashing rogues, or
cunning knaves. Rather, they come from a different sort: the laziest, most frightful,
least cooperative, and unstable individuals in the city guard. It was these traits that
have landed them in the basement of Milbar Manor.
 The Mission
o Our guards have been told to protect the priceless artifact of Milbar Manor. This was
an honest ruse. The artifact is worthless junk. Instead, they’ve been placed here to
put them out of the way. It has now been two months since our protagonists have
been above-ground, their meals and basic needs all taken care of by the faithful
servant of the house, two weeks since the manor itself began to slip into the realm
of stars, three days since the sun has last shone, and nearly 4 hours since Cudgel said
he was going out to take a piss.

Running the Adventure

 Time-Loop
 o If the players attempt to escape the manor, a purple light rains down from above,
completely blinding them. As their vision slowly returns, they find themselves back
in the third-floor basement, with Cudgel banging on the door once more.
o Their escape led them to walk directly into the realm of the stars. The stardust
seeped into every pore of their bodies, and knocked them out. Each time this occurs,
the lord of the manor has the protagonists dragged back inside, and has the house
reset.
o Each time the players achieve a milestone in their escape, they will move forwards
by one “run”. Each room contains a table detailing what has changed in-between
runs
 Milbar Bracken’s plan
o The primordial star lords want to swallow the entire material plane. Sir Bracken, a
servant to the stardust, enacts their will. He needs to create a perfect conduit of
stardust for his masters to channel their ancient energy. Milbar forces the
protagonists to redo the same events over and over to gradually expose them to
more and more stardust over time. Each run, the dust coalesces into violet crystals
inside their bodies.
 Death and Dying
o Few creatures are capable of being truly killed throughout the majority of this
adventure, including the players. If a player dies, Milbar will stitch them back
together, a little worse for wear, on the next run. The same goes also for any of the
creatures in the manor.
 Ending the Adventure
o As the protagonists escape the manor for the last time, the entire estate blinks out of
the material plane entirely. The surrounding neighborhood is now wracked by the
effects of the stardust, and has been placed in lockdown. Consider ending the
adventure with a fun cliffhanger of the city-guard preparing to attack the party for
attempting to leave.
 Loose Ends
o By the adventure’s end, the protagonists have escaped the manor, but many
questions posed throughout the adventure remain unanswered.
o There’s something special about our protagonists. The voices told Milbar to select
our heroes specifically. What secrets do they hold to make them the envy of the
beasts of the stars?
o A party of undead wraiths has visited the city, intent on returning their lost dead to
the underworld. This should be of particular note if any player characters died and
were resurrected over the adventure.
o The city is being corrupted by the stardust. The local area has been quarantined by
the chief of the guard. What will happen to the city?
 Character Phrases
 o The player characters in this adventure come equipped with three canned phrases
each. These don’t just inform the character’s personality; they’re also used for
gameplay. If a player uses a phrase in-character, they scratch it off their list, and can
now add an extra d20 to any roll or skill-check they want. They have to use this d20
before being able to gain another.
o Plinkett has 3 conspiracies instead of a phrase. The player can make up any
conspiracy they want, and the referee has to rule it as actually being true. Referees
are free to add unintended consequences. Conspiracies can’t damage creatures, and
they cannot perform magical acts (teleportation, materialization, etc)

Characters/Monsters
 Tom
o Str:+1 Dex: 0 Con: 0 Int: 0 Wis: 5 Cha: 0
o Equipment: Great Battleaxe 1d12, 50 Steel Balls
o Old Tom used to be quite the warrior in his day…at least so he’ll tell you, and tell
you…and tell you. Many was the man whose knees locked and toes went numb
while Tom spun a yarn. A fact that the city guard will say old Tom Tumbleweed
exaggerates greatly. His propensity for telling tales, and disinterest in a hard-day’s
work was what landed him this shift.
o Phrases
 “You know, this reminds me of a time when…”
 “Well ain’t this the strangest thing?”
 “Right-o, forwards boys”
 Gum
o Str +2 Dex -2 Con+1 Int:-2 Wis: -2 Cha:+1
o Weapons: Handaxe 1d6, Full plate/mail (never takes off)
o Gum’s a good lad. Give him a stick and he’ll entertain himself for hours. Give him
direct military orders and he’ll…he’ll probably go find a stick. The guard has
plenty uses for a man nearly seven feet tall and wide as an oak, but his fear of
the dark, fear of candles, fear of the monsters he swears live in his socks, and
well…it’s no wonder the guard found a nice dark corner for Gum to keep safe.
o Phrases
 “It’s standing right behind me, isn’t it?”
 “Come on lads…don’t make me go in first”
 “You think we could keep him as a pet?”
 Bumbadil
o Str: -1, Dex: +2, Con: 0, Wis + 2 Cha: - 3
o Equipment: Two daggers (1d4), 10’ Metal Chain
 o To all frank and honest citizenry, nobleman, beggars, and reasonable folk the
world over, there’s one choice word to describe Bumbadil: Arsehole. If all the
devils in the world pissed fire on an anthill - the tiny, impotent rage of a thousand
ants drowning in piss wouldn’t even be opening act to the belligerence of the
scornful creature known as Bumabdil. There isn’t much question to why he found
his post here.
o Phrases:
 “I’ll put one blade in your eye and one in your pecker ya bastard!”
 “Try that again and I’ll turn your guts into knife salad”
 “Call me short, call me short one more time”
 Plinket
o Str +1, Dex +1, Con +0 , Int+1, Wis + 2, Cha -1
o Equipment: Shortsword 1d6, Lantern
o The most generous thing a man might say about Plinket is that they hardly know
him at all. To anyone who’s been forced to share a conversation with the man
however, they would call him simply, a nut. Dear Plinket, carries with him at all
times, a written list of 342 shadowy plots and conspiracies. From the moon men
that steal our dreams, to the gnomes that disguise themselves as unruly children
Plinket has an unnatural answer to every natural phenomenon.
 Cudgel
o Fourth member of the guard. Currently on piss-break
o Named after his favorite weapon, which he calls Martha (a cudgel)
o His bucket helmet has been shoved down on his head, covering most of his face.
Beneath, his eyes have turned into violet crystals
 Milbar Bracken
o Scientist, master of trade, purveyor of…eccentric artistry, there are few in the city
who wouldn’t wish to trade places with sir Bracken. He’s an eccentric though. If
he walked into a room, you’d be mistaken for thinking he was a servant
 Wulger
o Faithful servant of Milbar Bracken. An elderly man, he’s assisted Milbar for
decades. He, better than anyone else, knows the tragedy of the man once known
as Milbar Bracken

Locations
 3rd Floor
o Trophy Room
 Description
 The deepest, dustiest hall of the manor. A matted and stained red
carpet has been laid down the center of the hall. Torchlight
 bounces dimly on dry stone walls, and a grand staircase leads up
to the 2nd floor.
 The low-down on Cudgel
 LV 1, AC 8, Att Bash ‘em in the head (+0 1d4)
 Cudgel, affectionately named after his favorite tool in the world,
went to take a piss hours ago. As he relieved himself in the
communal chamber-pot, a gust of stardust blew from the grate
above. Crystals grew in his eyes, and he wandered the hall blind,
tracking stardust along the floor. He now wants to implant crystals
in the remaining guards. He is otherwise completely mindless
 Random Table
 What’s on the pedestal?
 1: Dogs Playing Poker 2: Pet rock named Roger 3: A lizard in a glass
container 4: The dagger of end-times (2” long replica)
st
 1 run
 Roll Table. Cudgel pounds on the door and attacks on sight
nd
 2 Run
 Roll Table. Cudgel breaks the door down. Thick fur covers his
whole body. Crude stitches bind his wounds from first encounter
 3rd Run
 Roll Table. Cudgel has transformed completely into an ape-
creature. He bows his head atop the stairs at the party
 2nd Floor
o Main Hall
 Description
 A simple staging room. The 2nd floor’s primary purpose used to be
storage. Many of the needs of the estate have been thrown out
into the hall. Building supplies, art pieces, food, curtains, books,
and more are stacked along the walls.
 The hidden room
 Two bookshelves stand in the South-East corner of the room. One
holds books on art and science, the other, practically empty. The
empty shelf can be pushed aside to reveal the hidden pickling
room.
 The door to the staircase is..
 1 Locked, 2 bricked over, 3 warped into the star-realm, leaving
behind faint cosmic purple outline, 4 barred with dumped
experiments from other side
 Run 1
 Door is normal. Trail of stardust leads to Guard Quarters (Area 4)
 Run 2
  Roll table. Bookshelf to Pickling Room (Area 5) pushed aside.
 Run 3
 Roll table.
o Guard Quarters
 Description
 For two months, five men have slept, dressed, argued, and
relieved themselves in this tiny stone room. Four damp straw cots
line the ground. A thoroughly used chamber pot rests along the
east wall. A vent above the pot gently wafts stardust from
Bracken’s Quarters (Area 9)
 The Satyrs
 LV 1, AC 8, Att Give ‘em the horns (+1 1d4)
 A giant pile of stardust has fallen into the chamber pot. As the
lowliest of Bracken’s experiments, it was they who were sent to
retrieve it. None want to put their hand in the pot. They will attack
if provoked. They will provide information if stardust is retrieved
and returned to them.
 Run 1
 Roll Table. 1d4 hooved satyrs clash their horns against each other
 Run 2
 Roll Table. The false manor lord broke through the grates to get to
Wulber, the manor’s servant. Any remaining rabbit men are frozen
in crystalline statues of stardust
 Run 3
 If 4 was never rolled, assume a 4 from table.
 Any remaining crystalline rabbit-men have shattered, producing
1d20 multicolor rabbits. They will attack any creatures with
stardust on them
o The chamber pot is…
 1: Almost empty, a coin is at the bottom 2: Spilled over the ground, 3: Full
to the brim 4: Bubbling & in danger of exploding (1d4 shrapnel)
o Wulber’s Quarters
 Description
 The quarters for the head servant are modest at best. Wood floors
bend up where the boards meet. Damp wallpaper peels from the
walls.
 The lord’s servant
 As a man of kindness and honor, it was Wulber who stuck by his
lord when the other servants fled the manor, and he who helped
stow away the stolen dead in barrels for his lord. Now, after all the
 horrors he’s seen, the servant hides in his quarters, haunted by
not just his crimes, but the discarded husk of the manor lord who
hunts him down. He is helpful, but his brain overrun with crystals
that control his thoughts. He can only answer basic questions.
 Wulber’s fate is…
 1: Stuffed in a pickling barrel, 2-3: Consumed by False Manor Lord,
4: Crushed by the boulder from the flesh pit
 Run 1
 False Manor Lord accosts Wulber. Flees to 2nd floor if attacked.
 Run 2
 Journal on Desk. All characters have 2 in 4 chance of being
illiterate and cannot read:
 “Lord Milbar simply hasn’t been the same these past weeks. It seems as
with the sun, his sanity has simply blotted itself out. He asks me to do
things. Things I do not like to do. Things with what’s in those barrels. I
fear some day the guards below will smell the vinegar and start looking
around. If I could sleep through the stench, I’d only meet dreams of
what’s inside those barrels“
 Run 3
 Roll Table
o Pickling Room
 Description
 Once a storage room for food supplies, now holds grave-robbed
corpses from the surrounding city. A deep acrid smell of vinegar
wafts from wooden barrels stamped “pickles” along the south
wall. Eyes burn and water up. Walls are noticeably wet, and burn
to the naked touch.
 Pickle Barrels
 The barrels all contain deeply preserved and rubbery dead bodies.
Any normal creature that touches the pickling liquid with bare skin
will have extremities instantly pickle and be made useless until the
next run, where said limbs will be crudely replaced with
replacements.
 What’s sticking out of the barrels…
 1: Pickled wizard finger with ring of levitation (breaks after use), 2:
Pickaxes, shovels, & candles, 3: Deed to a far-away property, 4:
Bodies that look identical to the players
 Run 1
 Roll Table
 Run 2
 Roll Table.
  Run 3
 Assume 4 was rolled on Table. East wall broken, revealing tunnel
to Flesh Pit (Room 7)
o Flesh Pit
 Description
 The true depths of Bracken’s thievery are only displayed in the
dome walled pit where he drops his failed experiments. Hundreds
of pitiable undead are dropped 20 feet from Milbar’s Laboratory
(Area 11). Stacked up on top of each other, they’ve formed a
carpet of sorts. A channel runs behind the Pickling Room (Area 5),
but is full of undead. Only the smallest of creatures can fit. The
channel is also blocked by a giant fallen stone.
 False Manor Lord
 LV 4, AC 14, Att: Dissolve Their Bones (+4 1d6)
 Lord Bracken discarded his human flesh when it no longer suited
him. This empty husk slithered away and now stalks the halls of
Milbar Manor. He can only be consistently found in his home in
the Flesh Pits. The false lord croaks in agony every minute it is
separated from its body, and will attempt to find a new one from
many different places. The lord keeps pieces of his deformed,
proto-human skeleton in his quarters. They are all wildly unstable
when combined with stardust, and can react violently. If given a
body, the Manor Lord regains a piece of consciousness and will
assist the party. Bodies only need have some affinity for stardust.
 What did I just step on…
 1: A pair of indestructible rubbery eyeballs 2: Jaw biting down on
a potion of invisibility 3: Wand of instant combustion (1d10 to all
in 20’) 4: Hand wielding a grappling hook
 Run 1
 Roll Table
 Run 2
 Roll Table
 Run 3
 Roll Table
st
 1 Floor
o Dining Hall
 Description
 Dozens of friends and strangers of Milbar Bracken once met in this
hall. Massive plates of food sat uneaten on the grand table. The
grand windows have been covered over by layers of bricks. The
 grand double doors to the north lie still. Two lit sconces flank the
door.
 The abraxas
 A tiny little hairless creature, he gorges himself on the niceties of a
medieval lord who no longer cares for his material possessions.
Will become hostile if you attempt to barter or take his riches.
 Where is the missing sconce…
 1 Flesh Pits, 2-3 False Exterior (Held by the centaur), 4 In
Wulbren’s hand
 Run 1
 The door is unlocked. Abraxas attacks on sight, assuming players
are stealing treasure.
 Run 2
 Roll Table. Abraxas offers help in exchange for treasure. The door
has rotated upside-down. No force will open it. One sconce burns
purple, other is missing. On escape, blinded players hear Bracken
mutter to himself as he drags them away. “The chief of the guard
was right. Your affinity is truly something special”
 Run 3
 Doors are gone. No sign of them remains
o Bracken’s Quarters
 Description
 The master bedroom of the manor used to be quite luxurious until
Bracken brought his obsession to sleep with him. Now, crystalline
undergrowth crunches under the foot. Dull purple light constantly
throbs from the crystals. Blankets, clothes, and other items are
strewn about the room.
 What does that crunch mean…
 1: Alerting anyone nearby 2: New holes in your boots 3: Tick tick…
boom (1d4 all in room) 4: Hoard of wasps (1d4 each round until
cleared out)
 Run 1
 Roll Table. Bracken’s Limbs: Explode (1 damage each, or 1d6 all
together)
 Run 2
 Roll Table. Bracken’s Body: Wraps around nearest humanoid (+ 2
Strength for 15 minutes before withering)
 Run 3
 Roll Table. Bracken’s Skull: Deactivates never-ending hall (Area 11)
o The never-ending hall
 Description
 This long hall ends in a single door to Bracken’s laboratory. He
grew tired of his experiments incessantly bother him. He used the
dimension altering powers of the primordials to curse the hallway
into stretching infinitely underfoot. Only a spell inscribed by the
primordials onto the back of his skull deactivates the curse.
 The Painters
 Lv 3, AC 14, ATT Paint Them…Red (+2 1d8)
 Two bear-men work to plaster over the wall to the lord’s quarters.
They won’t speak to the players unless they break through the
plaster by coming in from Bracken’s Quarters (Area 9), and will
instead attack them.
 The painters…
 1: Have just completed their work, 2: Are taking a break and
willing to talk, 3: Fist-Fighting over a disagreement, 4: Being
swallowed by the False Lord
 Run 1
 Roll Table.
 Run 2
 Roll Table.
 Run 3
 The door has been broken off its hinges by crystal growth. If
present, the bear-men argue about what to do.
o Bracken’s Laboratory
 Description
 The house of surgery is the most sacred area of Milbar Manor.
None have dared go inside except for Bracken himself. The walls
are stained with dried blood. A giant whirling purple vortex makes
the room appear as if its ceiling extends infinitely into the sky.
Pickled and half-reanimated bodies litter the floor. Bracken moves
from table to table, operating on a patient each time as he goes.
His patients can be either random citizens, or creatures that the
players have killed along their journey. A hatch lies in the center of
the room that leads to the Flesh Pits (Area 6)
 Milbar Bracken
 LV 9, AC 15, Shatter Them (+6 1d12)
 The lord of the house has cast his flesh, transforming fully to the
form of a 10-foot-tall spider. Little remains of the man that once
was, except for his broken and fractured mind. He can speak, but
only barely. He won’t attempt to outright kill the players at first.
He will try to knock them out and leave them in the flesh pits
 instead. If presented with his human shell, all his statistics are
halved.
 Escape
 If Milbar is re-united with his frame, or killed, the vortex he’s kept
in check will become unstable. Bracken cast an illusion on the wall
of his laboratory over the only true exit from the manor. The
illusion comes undone as the vortex begins to swallow everything
in the room. The party has 5 minutes to escape or be sucked into
the portal.