The Curtain

 Tonight, my party went to Ismeri Library, the not-terribly-secretly (at least in my version of Ravnica) Dimir-run library in Precinct Five of the Tenth District. They were looking for information about the mythical Lost District Tartelos, which they need to go to to find the Plagueworks - where the Golgari member of the Phyrexian cult known as the Circle of Yawgmoth is working on creating a plague that will spread Phyrexian corruption across the city. (The Phi Cult has been using a deeply misguided planeswalker to transport glistening oil from New Phyrexia to Ravnica, and her planeswalker spark has reduced the oil's potency, which is why they couldn't just drip some in a canal and wait for the world to fall).

The Izzet Artificer in the party had the idea to simply go to the library and research the issue - scoring massive Intelligence checks, they realized that the library's more esoteric books might shed light on this Atlantis-like location.

Ismeri Library (in my version of the world) is mostly a public library, open 24 hours a day, but while the public part of it is about the size of the New York Public Library, that space only accounts for at most like 20% of what they have there. The rest is hidden away through magical portals and extraplanar spaces.

Thus, when they asked a librarian where to look, they got a little note directing them to the 19th floor. But while they were looking at books, the Golgari Druid in the party noticed that the librarian had written something else in transparent wax on the back of the note. Holding it up to the light, it read "Three Knocks on the Mouse's Tail."

The party looked around the area and found that one wall had an elaborate wood carving with many animals - perhaps this section had once had children's books. Among the carved animals was a little mouse. The Druid knocked on the carved mouse's tail three times and a tiny door opened up beneath.

The Boros Fighter/Paladin dove toward the tiny door (despite being a goblin, they were way too big - or should have been) and immediately shrank down in size to fit through.

The rest of the party followed (though the Selesnya Barbarian, who's a Loxodon, was not happy about becoming so small) and followed a dark tunnel to a little lounge in which a rat, a vole, and a sprite were sitting around at a table having a tea party. The awakened animals were very friendly and offered the tiny children's books at their disposal to the party. However, they seemed to find the rooms beyond a little creepy. While the animals had prim and proper English accents, the sprite sounded like Bobcat Goldthwait, and warned the party about books with teeth beyond.

The party then went into another tunnel that led to a much larger space with a channel running in the middle and a faint smell of dampness. They went right and found a huddled figure - enormous like a giant, though only because the party was still so small. This person, Eva, claimed that she had found a book about corners and the next thing she knew, she was in this odd room. Thinking perhaps her memory had been altered, the Orzhov Cleric cast a 4th level Dispel Magic on her, and she vanished (the players, I think, were convinced that they had maybe dispelled a Banishment or some other spell that had transported her there - in fact, she was an illusion created by the library).

Six and a half feet from the ground (though to them it was much higher, given that they were still shrunk down) there was a water spout - something like a gargoyle on a church roof, though flatter to the wall. The Rakdos Bard, who has a set of Wings of Flying, flew up there and inspected. He got a mental message when looking into the spout "Do Not Proceed," but even with two such messages, he went into the spout, only for a gout of water to come out, sending the entire party (except him, as he made the Dex save to avoid being knocked out of the air) down the channel in the middle of the floor to the other end of this weird little storm drain, getting battered on the stones as they went.

At the end of this drain room, they found a little square space - another seeming dead end. However, the Artificer was approached by a strange, hairless dog-like being with a long proboscis-like tongue. This Hound of Tindalos ran toward one of the four corners of the room and disappeared, its geometry shifting in incomprehensible ways. The party followed it and emerged into a wing of the library once again.

They were the correct size now, but they were standing on the ceiling, with a chandelier hanging up from the floor. Browsing the books here, they found some interesting texts - De Vermis Mysteriis (which identified the lesser-known high house within devakarin society known as House Vermis as one with potential ties to Lost Tartelos) as well as a book of esoteric Orzhov history (relating in part to the Elder Shade that the Orzhov Cleric serves) and a book called Four Corners of the Western Realm, which I've worked into most of my fiction, and which seemed to offer a warlock pact to anyone with the charisma to make one. 

With this information in hand, the party was able to make it through a door that took them to a more conventional part of the library - the upside-down wing they had been in vanishing behind them.

And the library allowed them even to check out these obscure books - though a Nightveil Specter was required to check it out (a sound of rushing wind filled the air, and the lights in the lobby grew dark. A skeletal figure with a scythe suddenly stood where previously there had been a blonde human woman. The specter stamped the books, and in an ominous, echoing tone, said "These are due back Friday.")

The players seemed to really enjoy the session, and the one who plays the Cleric asked me "So, how long have you been holding onto that one, Dan?"

And here, after so much preamble, is the crux of this post.

See, I had not been holding onto this at all. This was all entirely off the cuff, made up as I went along. There were certainly elements I borrowed from things I'd previously come up with along with a bit of Karazhan from World of Warcraft (specifically the Return to Karazhan dungeon). I had no idea the party was going to Ismeri Library when we started the session, and instead thought they might be checking in on an NPC the party had met in their first official adventure who was now living in essentially witness protection, but who knows (or I should say knew) how to get down into Lost District Tartelos. The witness would be found slain by a Necrichor, which the Golgari Druid's surrogate-father kraul death priest (who serves as the Master of Assassins for her family's house) would identify as a weapon used by House Vermis.

But this worked out as an alternate means to find the information. And we had fun.

I immediately copped to the fact that I had made the whole thing up on the spot. But I do wonder a bit about whether that was the right call. I watched a Matt Colville video recently about when to pull back the curtain and allow players to see behind the scenes. And his advice is, generally, don't ever, except when it helps reassure players that you were always playing "by the rules."

Now, I guess the game I run is a little less immersive. There's tons of table talk, which I think is hard to avoid when playing online. But I think that is also just the style of our group. I do sometimes wonder if I'd enjoy the game a bit more if we kept that fourth wall more strictly opaque.

But I guess I also wanted to brag a little - I had come up with what I think the players found to be a very fun session for the night on the spot, and even got the plot to progress a little. So often, it's easy to plan an adventure around some big combat encounter, but that can also sometimes feel a little rote. D&D combat is a ton of fun, but I think existing in a fantasy world should, ideally, involve disorienting bouts of dream logic.

Perhaps I should not be so worried - I mean, the players told me they had fun. My perfectionism is showing - not taking the W because maybe I could have burnished it a little more.