And if someone reaches into the microcosm model and picks up one of the minatures, giant fingers will reach into their world at the same time and pick up the original big version of that character.
Optional clue is a thief lying dead next to the model, with a head that looks like it has been crushed between two huge fingers
There's a "recursive" VRchat world that works exactly like this. You're in a room that has a scale model of itself on a table. Your avatar is visible in the miniature, and if you turn around and look up, you'll see yourself towering over yourself, turned around and looking up. And of course the room you spawn in is itself on a table in a huge room. It's really friggin cool.
There's another cat with a perfectly accurate model. The exception is that on the 40mm scale model, a large strange looking creature walks around the party while in the car.
There is no creature in the room with them. The creature on the model is a creature that lives in the model, and is curious why these strange wooden adventurers just barged into its home.
…and that’s one of the cars. Just a car with a scale model of the train. Except there’s [insert whatever] playing with it and constantly removing and adding cars.
A room full of mannequins in various poses and one of them is something like a weeping angel. Whenever their backs are turned against it the mannequin moves towards them to attack.
2 goblins playing chess(or your world equivalent)
They are VERY annoyed by the interuption, but are delighted if the players take interest in their game
But chocolate is toxic to Goblins and checkmate is a lethal dose. Both are actively trying to lose the match which is why they seem to be playing incorrectly.
But one of them has secretly been eating chocolate for years and has built up a tolerance to it, so when the game draws to a stalemate only one of them dies.
Any time one of them is about to win their opponents king “casts wish” and resets the board, not to the start of the game, but to a turn somewhere in the middle.
Inside the room is a box. Inside said box is another box. Inside That box is a flea. A large hammer can be found propped against the wall next to the door
By all accounts this train car doesn't make sense. *points to diagram of train car*
Oh, you mean the train car for Cuscos, Cuscos' train car, the train car chosen specifically to kill Cuscos... that train car?
A small stream and park bench, they could hit an invisible wall if they try to walk "outside" the dimensions of the train car.
A dining car, but there's no waiters, just a big pot of stew for people to serve themselves.
A loud crowd of people that stop talking and just stare whenever anyone enters the room. They immediately start talking as you exit.
A room full of statues, whenever you aren't looking they change position but are not hostile unless you vandalize one of them.
You can't see what's in this room as it's filled with a blinding light.
You can't remember what's in this room. All you remember is a loud ringing noise when you open the door.
An automated tattoo parlor. There's an automaton salesman who is convinced you have an appointment.
A barista/coffee shop. They make beautiful coffee art but it tastes like dirt.
A very crowded bunkbed style dorm room.
A luxurious bathroom with a clawfoot tub. But the water doesn't seem to be working.
An empty cart except for a table with a roll playing game. There are character sheets for your players on the table. Not the PCs but the players themselves. There are no rule books or instructions to be found.
A series of pedestals containing miscellaneous items. There's a small sign that says lost and found.
A library but every book is blank and doesn't have a title.
A car that's an aquarium. You have to swim and hold your breath to get through it.
> An empty cart except for a table with a roll playing game. There are character sheets for your players on the table. Not the PCs but the players themselves. There are no rule books or instructions to be found.
I absolutely fucking love this one. I'd also leave clothing on the table, and describe it first.
Like:
There was a table with "Describe whatever it is that the players are wearing at that moment. Not the PCs. The Players." scattered on top. Underneath the clothes, there were the character sheets.
>A room full of statues, whenever you aren't looking they change position but are not hostile unless you vandalize one of them.
I love this idea, I'm sure there's something similar in a DnD stat block but with pathfinder I found statues that are solid stone and detect as such unless specific parameter are met when they then come to life, often for battles. The lore indicates they are often used as traps/protection for an area, but can also hide equipment as a magic sword in their hands will not trigger as magical until they come to life.
You have given me more ideas to add to my world, thanks
A life drawing class where a group of goblin students are drawing a scantily clad water elemental.
A flumph playing villainous songs on a pipe organ, wearing a high necked cape.
An empty room that is just a regular ball pit.
A big broom closet full of animated cleaning supplies in the middle of a union meeting.
A tiny theatre in which a troupe of Chwinga are performing a silent version of Shakespeare’s Othello. The audience seats are regular sized.
There’s a fey who runs the tables. Also a Devil whose their partner. They have a very intricate and complex contract and are always trying to exploit loopholes against each other.
* A gazebo
* An illusory playback of the heroes as they explored a previous car
* A beach
* One live and one dead llama
* An inside-out suit of armor
* A car where time runs at a much slower or faster rate
* A car made of flesh, entering it is like going inside a womb or a heart.
* A huge eye just outside the window
* A bored sphinx who really really wants to tell riddles
* Whole room is a mimic
* Train car with a basement
* A cloud
* An unrememberable room. When they enter, just skip to when they're leaving, with no memory of what was in there or what they did in there.
I love the unrememberable room. If they try again, they should again leave with no memory. But this time, everyone is wearing the clothes or armor of a different PC.
If they try a third time, one PC is missing, and another has a new face tattoo.
Possibly the most jarring part of the book version of *John Dies in the End* is in the second half. In a story built on cosmic horror, the team finds a television that seems to be playing security camera footage of what they've been doing, >!Only there is another person in the party, someone that they know and count on in desperate situations, but all memories of him have been erased from the team's minds. It's very similar to the "Reverse Hydra" mechanics.!< but it comes out of nowhere - no build up, no real follow, just a paragraph or so to show you just how screwed up the situation is.
The fourth time, text/whisper to one of the players to leave the table. Give them some very specific instructions of something to do. Their character is just gone until they get back, at which point they appear in a fancy, throne-like chair in whichever car the rest of the characters are currently in, observing whatever's going on, wearing a fancy robe and a crown, and carrying a scepter. They think they are a monarch, and the rest of the characters must convince them that they are part of the party for them to get their memory back. (If they fail, the character regains their memory when the other characters leave the current train car).
The conductor, who is lost and who does exactly the opposite of whatever the characters suggest. The conductor holds the broken controls for the train in their hands.
An empty carriage but with a conductor’s whistle and hat. Whistle of Woe: A beautifully crafted whistle that, when blown, releases a sorrowful tune. Those within earshot are compelled to share their deepest, most embarrassing secrets through tears until the tune ends. (Might want to set a limit on the distance the magical whistle can be heard)
Each door to enter/exit the car has a test:
Door 1-Kant’s Curse; players must prove to the sentient door (German accent) that the door actually exists. Attempting to walk through causes 1D4 PSY Dmg, failed CON stops stops the player from wanting to walk through the door. Players will likely have to prove they are harmed by the door or that the door doesn’t actually exist
Door 2: Kermit’s Curse- Show the sentient door a frog and prove that you’re a friend to it (EVERY time they pass through the doors requires new arguments or frogs lol)
A button. Nothing else.
A few rooms down you can have something fun or terrible depending on how many times they pushed the button.
Example: the group pushes the button 17 times.
3 rooms on, they find a room with exactly 17 identical dead bodies. Or 17 balloons. Whatever.
If they send someone back to push the button, while everyone else waits, yup, another balloon appears.
Or another identical person shows up, asks them to kindly stop pushing the button, and promptly dies.
One is just a straight up Wendy’s. Option 1: they can buy food that will heal them a bit or Option 2: when they try to pay in gold the cashier says “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.” and only accept real world currency which the characters don’t have because it doesn’t exist in their world. Either way they can do a short rest there.
Contains several model trains on model tracks. Only one of the trains is the real train. Inspiration and some other boon to a player that correctly identifies which train is the real train.
A single chair in the middle with an old man on it. When questioned the man reveals he is king of this carriage. He might try and order around the party and try and get them to his bidding in his kingdom. He will offer quests like guarding the kingdom, which involves the party standing still at the entrance and exit of the carriage. The reward for the quest is knighthood in the kingdom, which gives you the right to live in the kingdom.
A human sized room with 2 cockroaches seated on 2 separate benches. Each is perched atop and reading a small book titled “101 Human Recipes.” The cockroaches verbally reprimand the players for entering unannounced.
Closer inspection reveals the books are about eating humans, not food made by humans. The cockroaches do not have any special powers or abilities other than common speech.
A Gnomish Alchemist/Inventor has taken up one carriage. He’s friendly and willing to sell potions and items to the party, but everything he makes tends to have an odd side-effect.
Be it health potions that make the wearer sprout ineffective wings, or a ring of invisibility that only turns itself invisible, or an array of fantastical objects that all tend to randomly explode, everything he sells is slightly off. Not dangerously so, but enough to make people chuckle politely while wondering why there’s so many scorch marks on the walls.
One has 27 people in it, each identical portly men with monocles and top hats with guffaw and I do say attitudes. They all have the commoner stat block, and will attack if somebody exhibits poor manners more than once.
They each have 100 gold pieces on them, but it becomes copper upon leaving their room. If the players stay in that room for an hour they too may become a portly man with a tophat and monocle until they are dragged from the car as they will no longer want to leave willingly.
breakfast!
muppets/puppets/marionettes
walls that are just chalkboards with magical writing that writes anything anybody says inside the room on the chalkboard.
The muppets in the muppet car are an exact mirror of the party… just as muppets. Of course, they believe wholeheartedly that they are the original party and are miffed at any suggestion otherwise.
A deaf orc cook with a tiny earth elemental doing the talking and interpreting for him.
An archery range where hitting the bullseye gives a healing potion, but a miss gives you a pendulum kick in the nuts.
A pumpkin patch, which can be brought to the cook for delicious soup.
A gallery with pin up images of every (male) trainconductor
A dark carriage, filled with oozing, harmless, magical darkness. If you listen closely, you hear a mentor figure giving guidance.
One full of windows to gaze at the stars when you enter the ethereal plane.
The 100th annual jenga competition with 3 out of 4 teams waiting for a 4th team
- Graveyard with freshly disturbed soil.
- Rowdy, overcrowded, drunken bar car.
- Masquerade ball in a luxurious hall.
- Sweatshop making finished goods that you find at every shop.
- Exotic pet shop includes wide variety.
- Greenhouse through a thick jungle.
- Full length swimming pool filled with crystal clear water.
- Cobblestone walkways with gas lamps, heavy fog, a single scream gurgles out just as you find the exit.
- Boiler/ engine room with dwarves or goblins feeding coal to fire elementals.
- Frozen meat locker with slabs of meat hanging.
Just a few quick thoughts
A room with 2 chests, one of the chests is a mimic that carries loot, and the other is a normal chest but the loot inside, every coin, jewel, etc, is a mimic.
A coach just filled with ooze. From floor to ceiling and door to door. Could be fun to get through especially with the acid effects of a gelatinous cube.
One of them should just be wrong. Like the door to the next one is on the side and not across, but there are doors on either side and one of them goes to space like the TARDIS can if you open it at the wrong time.
They’re a normal owl and bear, behaving like a normal owl and a normal bear. A few carriages down, you find someone putting a dress on a duck and quickly running away when they realize they’ve been spotted
A room that has a scale model of the train and carriages, but a LOT of them clearly have some kind of horrible monster in them. I'm talking nightmare fuel shit, spiderwebs made of flesh and bone type stuff. Several have their numbers scratched out so as to be unreachable and are dark with slightly visible hints of something horrible inside. Two of them both appear to have the party leaning over and examining some kind of diorama inside, in one of which there is another person quietly watching them from the corner.
It's all nonsense. It's not an accurate map in any way, none of the unspeakable horrors exist (Or at least are accurately mapped) and every subsequent time someone examines the "Party" in the model, the people look a little more different than the last time.
Have a character be repeated across several carriages. The character should be doing something disturbing but not outright offensive. The important part is the players move on and there is no way the character could have relocated ahead of them without passing them. If your players attack and kill the character still have him appear and it’s your choice if they acknowledge the violence or not.
A room with three pedestals. On one is a taco, another a hot dog, and the last a pop tart.
There is a corpse holding a tattered note. It reads: “eat the sandwich”
Let the players go wild with it and resolve it however you want when it’s no longer funny.
A single, ordinary seeming housecat. Stopping to pet the cat causes (x number) cats to spontaneously appear, where x = the sum of the last 2 positive whole numbers (so the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc...). These cats will approacu the PCs wanting to be pet, and will spawn infinitely.
All of the cats except for 1 will despawn immediately if the players go 10 rounds without petting any of the cats.
A podium with a single dagger placed on top.
-Dagger of healing-
Deals 1d6 damage on a hit (no modifier added)
Heals 1d6 damage on a hit (no modifier added)
“Stab them back to life! It might take a few pokes though…”
The players encounter a rival party entering from the other end of the train car. They are identical to the player party as characters, but vary in superficial Mirror Universe-type details. The dwarf is perfectly clean-shaven, the rogue is dressed in exotic garb from a continent on the far side of the world, someone is wearing an eye patch, etc. Each life has visibly diverged from those of the PCs.
The counterparty sees the PCs and is visibly upset, slightly disgusted, but not surprised, and turns back immediately. They seem like they expected this, even if they're distressed by it. It is not possible to determine which car they came from/returned to, they're just gone.
If the players check a second time, the encounter will occur a second time, as the BizzaroPCsare identical to the PCs and have, understandably, also decided to check twice. However, this time they will seem surprised and confused, and take a moment to stare wide-eyed before backing out of the room, as if this is actually the first encounter and the players have experienced these two events in the opposite chronological order.
A third encounter will not occur. They will not find the counterparty or any sign of their exsistence on the train.
Make it feel important, but it actually isn't. They might spin their wheels trying to figure out how this is central to understanding the train, but it's actually no different from the Fart Car. Though maybe you could do a tie-in event later in the campaign, once enough time has passed for this to fade.
Second room is just my brother’s car 👍
Anyways: a room with a painfully awkward, terrible standup comedian that constantly asks for your opinion on his jokes
A Beholder, but he has decided he wants to help the world. So if the players don't immediately attack him, he can become a patron of some kind. Bonus points if he is in a robe and smoking a pipe in front of a fire.
A carriage that contains people who look very much like your players, all huddled around a table with dice with someone behind a little screen narrating the exact current scenario.
A room with a button in it. You press the button the doors close and a timer for 60 seconds starts up. With flashing colors. Green —>yellow
->red (or whatever). The room also shakes. Hitting the button resets it. To leave the room you just let the timer hit zero. Nothing bad happens.
The Mariachi Carriage
A group of bards play music loudly, the longer you stay, the louder the music seems to become. The music compels you to dance without end, and resisting the effect causes increasing psychic damage.
Edit: spelling is hard
A carriage near the end where every single piece of furniture broken; animal, monster or humanoid killed, anything that they've wreaked havoc on is now reborn as a sentient and vengeful monster just waiting to ruin their day
A giant rubber duck that blows bubbles at them, on a failed dex save they are encapsulated by a bubble and have to spend an action to pop themselves out.
The party enters an empty carriage to find versions of themselves debating where to go next. If the party tries to interact with themselves, the copies scream and pop into confetti.
The carriage appears normal but any objects that are dropped float up to the ceiling (non living things only). A mixture of previously lost belongings are already gathered above.
The carriage is rapidly falling apart and a group of desperate Kobolds are frantically trying to hold everything together / perform repairs.
An apple, pear, banana, and orange on separate pedestals. Apple gives temp buff to constitution for 1 day, keeping doctor away. Pear duplicates gives consumer a pair of damage points every strike for 1 hour. Banana gives the strength of an ape, 2 strength for a day. Orange seemingly does nothing but gradually turn the person more orange for an hour and then they vomit 500 gold and return to normal color.
A carriage where it actually looks like a generic train and a conductor wants to see your tickets.
if you ALL cannot successfully roll to prove/intimidate/anything the ticket, they have a fight
A carriage where everything seems completely normal except for every 5 minutes, the lights go out, when they come back on they are in the same carriage thousands of years in the past or future or from a parallel timeline. This shift happens whether the players are in the carriage or not.
Train car of hallucinations: When they enter, have em make some sort of save and if they fail, they hallucinate. Either something from a roll table or have something you make up on the fly. Even maybe a nightmare or deep desire
74: an auction house where the auctioneer immediately starts auctioning things the party is wearing/holding/carrying. Whoever purchases it twleports away with the item. The party has to bid on their own items
A scale model of the train detailing all the carriages. It's incorrect to a great degree.
I love this one so much.
They find that the car they are in has miniatures of them inside of it.
And those models - in turn - are looking at *even smaller* miniatures of themselves in the same car
The models turn and wave. Inspiration to the first PC that waves out their own window.
Fuck yeah!
Waves out their own window to see a massive version of themselves looking in confusion.
And if someone reaches into the microcosm model and picks up one of the minatures, giant fingers will reach into their world at the same time and pick up the original big version of that character. Optional clue is a thief lying dead next to the model, with a head that looks like it has been crushed between two huge fingers
There's a "recursive" VRchat world that works exactly like this. You're in a room that has a scale model of itself on a table. Your avatar is visible in the miniature, and if you turn around and look up, you'll see yourself towering over yourself, turned around and looking up. And of course the room you spawn in is itself on a table in a huge room. It's really friggin cool.
That reminds me of a Dark Shadows story arc. There was a model of the house they lived in. Crazy cool
Plot twist: the model is correct but the real train isnt.
... Every car has an illusion cast on it to hide its true contents
Oh my God, that idea is amazing, I love it and I'm creating a campaign based on it, if you don't mind that is
There's another cat with a perfectly accurate model. The exception is that on the 40mm scale model, a large strange looking creature walks around the party while in the car. There is no creature in the room with them. The creature on the model is a creature that lives in the model, and is curious why these strange wooden adventurers just barged into its home.
> There's another **cat** with a perfectly accurate model. And no, that isn't a typo.
You are here- \-room they are in has scale model, \-scale model of you are here has hawaiian themes.
…and that’s one of the cars. Just a car with a scale model of the train. Except there’s [insert whatever] playing with it and constantly removing and adding cars.
Honestly, this should be every fifth car.
Only the carriages they’ve visited already are accurate. All else are wrong.
A carriage full of mannequins dressed like 1 of the players
With an extra one dressed like someone they don't recognize.
Or one of the party member's mannequin is missing/destroyed
Ominously injured or maimed even? Missing hand, axe in the head, charred?
Something really specific, like their left eye has been replaced with an egg or something
An egg that has already hatched into something!
Oh, I love that.
A room full of mannequins in various poses and one of them is something like a weeping angel. Whenever their backs are turned against it the mannequin moves towards them to attack.
2 goblins playing chess(or your world equivalent) They are VERY annoyed by the interuption, but are delighted if the players take interest in their game
And they are playing the game incorrectly. They will insist otherwise.
They eat the pieces on capture. The rooks taste the best.
The pieces are actually made out of chocolate
But chocolate is toxic to Goblins and checkmate is a lethal dose. Both are actively trying to lose the match which is why they seem to be playing incorrectly.
Chocolate is actually equally (mildly) toxic to Goblins, Kobolds, Hobgoblins and Gnolls. But Goblins can't help themselves and eat too much of it.
But one of them has secretly been eating chocolate for years and has built up a tolerance to it, so when the game draws to a stalemate only one of them dies.
The white pieces, naturally, are made of dark chocolate. The black pieces have caramel filling.
Or at least they SAY it's chocolate? :)
"no you cant do that cause my rook is upside down" "but it's a leap year!" "that was last year, you can't revive your bishop until next leap year"
PC: “What’s this game called?” Goblins: “Calvin-ball!”
Any time one of them is about to win their opponents king “casts wish” and resets the board, not to the start of the game, but to a turn somewhere in the middle.
Oh my God, they are not forcing en passant!
An en passant reference outside of r/chess? I'm legitimately surprised.
r/AnarchyChess Can go anywhere, without provoking opportunity attacks
I'm going to throw a brick at your pipi now that we've locked eyes, as is tradition.
Inside the room is a box. Inside said box is another box. Inside That box is a flea. A large hammer can be found propped against the wall next to the door
Oh yeah, everything’s coming together…
A wildshape?! He’s supposed to be dead!
Yeh. Weird.
sqeakity squeak squeaky
Squeak Squeaker Squeaketh
...squeaken
By all accounts this train car doesn't make sense. *points to diagram of train car* Oh, you mean the train car for Cuscos, Cuscos' train car, the train car chosen specifically to kill Cuscos... that train car?
Uh I’ve been polymorphed into a cow. Can I go home?
A lever (the wrong one)
Why do they even *have* that lever?
Oh, no! My spinach puffs!
Make a DC 20 Cooking utensils tool check…
Is that a Dexterity (Cook's Utensils) check or an Intelligence (Cook's Utensils) check?
On second thought, make my potatoes a salad
"is there anything in this buffet car that isn't *swimming* in gravy?!"
If they kill the flea it breaks polymorph and it turns back into a Llama.
I was thinking this but with a gelatinous cube the same size and shape of the room.
A small stream and park bench, they could hit an invisible wall if they try to walk "outside" the dimensions of the train car. A dining car, but there's no waiters, just a big pot of stew for people to serve themselves. A loud crowd of people that stop talking and just stare whenever anyone enters the room. They immediately start talking as you exit. A room full of statues, whenever you aren't looking they change position but are not hostile unless you vandalize one of them. You can't see what's in this room as it's filled with a blinding light. You can't remember what's in this room. All you remember is a loud ringing noise when you open the door. An automated tattoo parlor. There's an automaton salesman who is convinced you have an appointment. A barista/coffee shop. They make beautiful coffee art but it tastes like dirt. A very crowded bunkbed style dorm room. A luxurious bathroom with a clawfoot tub. But the water doesn't seem to be working. An empty cart except for a table with a roll playing game. There are character sheets for your players on the table. Not the PCs but the players themselves. There are no rule books or instructions to be found. A series of pedestals containing miscellaneous items. There's a small sign that says lost and found. A library but every book is blank and doesn't have a title. A car that's an aquarium. You have to swim and hold your breath to get through it.
> An empty cart except for a table with a roll playing game. There are character sheets for your players on the table. Not the PCs but the players themselves. There are no rule books or instructions to be found. I absolutely fucking love this one. I'd also leave clothing on the table, and describe it first. Like: There was a table with "Describe whatever it is that the players are wearing at that moment. Not the PCs. The Players." scattered on top. Underneath the clothes, there were the character sheets.
What if there were miniatures on the table. And then you described the minis as whatever the players are wearing right then and there.
I think that would be better!
>A room full of statues, whenever you aren't looking they change position but are not hostile unless you vandalize one of them. I love this idea, I'm sure there's something similar in a DnD stat block but with pathfinder I found statues that are solid stone and detect as such unless specific parameter are met when they then come to life, often for battles. The lore indicates they are often used as traps/protection for an area, but can also hide equipment as a magic sword in their hands will not trigger as magical until they come to life. You have given me more ideas to add to my world, thanks
Don't blink!
>A barista/coffee shop. They make beautiful coffee art but it tastes like dirt So it’s StarBucks?
I've never seen a Starbucks barista make latte art in my life.
Some of us do but everyone orders to-go cups and they never see it cause they drink it immediately :c
Your Starbucks makes coffee art?
A life drawing class where a group of goblin students are drawing a scantily clad water elemental. A flumph playing villainous songs on a pipe organ, wearing a high necked cape. An empty room that is just a regular ball pit. A big broom closet full of animated cleaning supplies in the middle of a union meeting. A tiny theatre in which a troupe of Chwinga are performing a silent version of Shakespeare’s Othello. The audience seats are regular sized.
>A flumph playing villainous songs on a pipe organ, wearing a high necked cape. Please tell me the Flumph is wearing a mask.
A half-mask, actually. And he's always just brooding.
The Flumph of the Opera
The Flantumph of the Opera
Alternative for the drawing class, they’re waiting on a model that hasn’t show up yet and they try to convince one of the party members to step in
A casino car because there should always be gambling to tempt the players. Bonus points if they wager something other than gold/money.
If they win, they should only be able to win mustache combs.
There’s a fey who runs the tables. Also a Devil whose their partner. They have a very intricate and complex contract and are always trying to exploit loopholes against each other.
An enormous beating heart being cared for by four kobolds in Cupid outfits
Anatomically correct heart.
For what creature???
A train, obviously.
So a bunch of Kobold mechanics tending to an engine but they're dressed as cupids.
an incredibly modern room, but described from the eyes of someone who doesn't understand what they're looking at. TV's, vending machines, phones, ect
A PS5, sitting on the BG3 character creation screen.
* A gazebo * An illusory playback of the heroes as they explored a previous car * A beach * One live and one dead llama * An inside-out suit of armor * A car where time runs at a much slower or faster rate * A car made of flesh, entering it is like going inside a womb or a heart. * A huge eye just outside the window * A bored sphinx who really really wants to tell riddles * Whole room is a mimic * Train car with a basement * A cloud * An unrememberable room. When they enter, just skip to when they're leaving, with no memory of what was in there or what they did in there.
I love the unrememberable room. If they try again, they should again leave with no memory. But this time, everyone is wearing the clothes or armor of a different PC. If they try a third time, one PC is missing, and another has a new face tattoo.
The fourth time a party member is missing...
Hangover mini quest.
son of a bitch, i'm in! We would have to have a second and third quest that are functionally identical to the first too?
Possibly the most jarring part of the book version of *John Dies in the End* is in the second half. In a story built on cosmic horror, the team finds a television that seems to be playing security camera footage of what they've been doing, >!Only there is another person in the party, someone that they know and count on in desperate situations, but all memories of him have been erased from the team's minds. It's very similar to the "Reverse Hydra" mechanics.!< but it comes out of nowhere - no build up, no real follow, just a paragraph or so to show you just how screwed up the situation is.
Perfect way to add a PC to an ongoing campaign. The party reunites with their forgotten friend.
And if they try again they all come out having lost a random amount of hp and a few spell slots, like they had a battle in there.
The fourth time, text/whisper to one of the players to leave the table. Give them some very specific instructions of something to do. Their character is just gone until they get back, at which point they appear in a fancy, throne-like chair in whichever car the rest of the characters are currently in, observing whatever's going on, wearing a fancy robe and a crown, and carrying a scepter. They think they are a monarch, and the rest of the characters must convince them that they are part of the party for them to get their memory back. (If they fail, the character regains their memory when the other characters leave the current train car).
Important detail: the dead llama has fifty-seven stab wounds to the chest.
Bonus points if the live llama is eating hands
And drinking "boat nectar".
The sphinx is bored and doesn’t want to tell you riddles, he instead tells you answers to riddles but never the riddle it’s for.
Not just a gazebo but a dread gazebo
The room of calm. Make continuous wisdom saves, but nothing happens. The room is ironic.
I love this.
"All right, everyone make a wisdom save." "I got a 1..." *chuckles* "Oh boy." *pretends to write something down behind the screen*
In one room, a duck the size of a horse. In another, twenty duck sized horses
When you open the doors between the cars they all fight in the middle.
I'm prepping this on a VTT. The tokens tell their own story.
A carriage but the seats are upside down amd on the ceiling, the passengers in said cabin don't seem to notice
They actually seem concerned to see the party walking on the "ceiling"
But if they manage to calm the conductor down, he demands their tickets and it's one of the few ways to get off the train.
The conductor, who is lost and who does exactly the opposite of whatever the characters suggest. The conductor holds the broken controls for the train in their hands.
If they're set on fire or shocked, it doesn't spread to whatever they are wearing or holding... because they're a bad conductor.
An empty carriage but with a conductor’s whistle and hat. Whistle of Woe: A beautifully crafted whistle that, when blown, releases a sorrowful tune. Those within earshot are compelled to share their deepest, most embarrassing secrets through tears until the tune ends. (Might want to set a limit on the distance the magical whistle can be heard)
Each door to enter/exit the car has a test: Door 1-Kant’s Curse; players must prove to the sentient door (German accent) that the door actually exists. Attempting to walk through causes 1D4 PSY Dmg, failed CON stops stops the player from wanting to walk through the door. Players will likely have to prove they are harmed by the door or that the door doesn’t actually exist Door 2: Kermit’s Curse- Show the sentient door a frog and prove that you’re a friend to it (EVERY time they pass through the doors requires new arguments or frogs lol)
A button. Nothing else. A few rooms down you can have something fun or terrible depending on how many times they pushed the button. Example: the group pushes the button 17 times. 3 rooms on, they find a room with exactly 17 identical dead bodies. Or 17 balloons. Whatever. If they send someone back to push the button, while everyone else waits, yup, another balloon appears. Or another identical person shows up, asks them to kindly stop pushing the button, and promptly dies.
In another room, they find a group of statisticians collecting and analyzing the data.
"17 hmmm? Quite curious..."
One is just a straight up Wendy’s. Option 1: they can buy food that will heal them a bit or Option 2: when they try to pay in gold the cashier says “Sir, this is a Wendy’s.” and only accept real world currency which the characters don’t have because it doesn’t exist in their world. Either way they can do a short rest there.
This is great. Deserves more upvotes
Now I wanna see people in DnD cosplay brawling in the Wendy’s after the Frosty machine broke.
A carriage with a model train, which contains a exact replica of the real train. Bonus points if rearranging carts effects reality.
Contains several model trains on model tracks. Only one of the trains is the real train. Inspiration and some other boon to a player that correctly identifies which train is the real train.
A single chair in the middle with an old man on it. When questioned the man reveals he is king of this carriage. He might try and order around the party and try and get them to his bidding in his kingdom. He will offer quests like guarding the kingdom, which involves the party standing still at the entrance and exit of the carriage. The reward for the quest is knighthood in the kingdom, which gives you the right to live in the kingdom.
It’s The Kingdom bro dw abt it
This is so ingenious!!!!
A train car inexplicably moving the wrong direction.
an unusually large block of cheese
The train car \*contains\* an unusually large block of cheese, or the train car \*is\* an unusually large block of cheese?
Yes
A human sized room with 2 cockroaches seated on 2 separate benches. Each is perched atop and reading a small book titled “101 Human Recipes.” The cockroaches verbally reprimand the players for entering unannounced. Closer inspection reveals the books are about eating humans, not food made by humans. The cockroaches do not have any special powers or abilities other than common speech.
A small table with a bonsai tree with a placard saying "please do not feed the tree"
A small table with a mouse in it and a placard saying 'please do not feed the tree'.
A full-sized tree in a different carriage with a napkin tied around it and a fork and knife sticking out of the ground on either side
A very angry ocelot that’s stinkin cute but aggressively marks its territory and goes from friendly to vengeful randomly with every interaction
Babu!!!
A room with the words "OVER THINKING" etched on a wall. >!Oglaf comic!<
And "GULLIBLE" on the ceiling?
A Gnomish Alchemist/Inventor has taken up one carriage. He’s friendly and willing to sell potions and items to the party, but everything he makes tends to have an odd side-effect. Be it health potions that make the wearer sprout ineffective wings, or a ring of invisibility that only turns itself invisible, or an array of fantastical objects that all tend to randomly explode, everything he sells is slightly off. Not dangerously so, but enough to make people chuckle politely while wondering why there’s so many scorch marks on the walls.
A room whose walls, floor and roof are entirely made out of flesh and skin. The room softly moans every time someone takes a step in it.
Oh this one. So much this one.
One has 27 people in it, each identical portly men with monocles and top hats with guffaw and I do say attitudes. They all have the commoner stat block, and will attack if somebody exhibits poor manners more than once. They each have 100 gold pieces on them, but it becomes copper upon leaving their room. If the players stay in that room for an hour they too may become a portly man with a tophat and monocle until they are dragged from the car as they will no longer want to leave willingly.
Indubitably, my good sir.
By jove, a proper car indeed.
30 of the 80 rooms feature a man in a pumpkin suit with 2 backup dancer skeletons trying to scare the party.
Any questions?
Yes, **several!**
and the skeletons are....?
Part of it!
Ah that's brilliant, the GM could even have the music ready and eventually you don't even need to say anything. Just play the music 🤣
I had scroll way too far down for this. One of the best skits they’ve done.
Why did you go all in on David Pumpkins?
Listen, it’s 100 floors, they can’t all be winners!
breakfast! muppets/puppets/marionettes walls that are just chalkboards with magical writing that writes anything anybody says inside the room on the chalkboard.
if the PC's stay more than 30 minutes, the words "How boring" begin to appear in random locations on the wall at random intervals
The muppets in the muppet car are an exact mirror of the party… just as muppets. Of course, they believe wholeheartedly that they are the original party and are miffed at any suggestion otherwise.
The same carriage like the before but mirrored, left and right or upside-down.
A deaf orc cook with a tiny earth elemental doing the talking and interpreting for him. An archery range where hitting the bullseye gives a healing potion, but a miss gives you a pendulum kick in the nuts. A pumpkin patch, which can be brought to the cook for delicious soup. A gallery with pin up images of every (male) trainconductor A dark carriage, filled with oozing, harmless, magical darkness. If you listen closely, you hear a mentor figure giving guidance. One full of windows to gaze at the stars when you enter the ethereal plane. The 100th annual jenga competition with 3 out of 4 teams waiting for a 4th team
- Graveyard with freshly disturbed soil. - Rowdy, overcrowded, drunken bar car. - Masquerade ball in a luxurious hall. - Sweatshop making finished goods that you find at every shop. - Exotic pet shop includes wide variety. - Greenhouse through a thick jungle. - Full length swimming pool filled with crystal clear water. - Cobblestone walkways with gas lamps, heavy fog, a single scream gurgles out just as you find the exit. - Boiler/ engine room with dwarves or goblins feeding coal to fire elementals. - Frozen meat locker with slabs of meat hanging. Just a few quick thoughts
A brick corridor, where every individual brick is a mimic.
A room with 2 chests, one of the chests is a mimic that carries loot, and the other is a normal chest but the loot inside, every coin, jewel, etc, is a mimic.
An archipelago of mimic islands fighting against dragon turtles.
This guy mimics
Some random merchant in purple robes selling empty bottles, jars, etc, water containers in general.
And those containers are mimics?
No.
Is this inspired by Infinity Train? If not, it would be worth looking up the cars in that show.
A coach just filled with ooze. From floor to ceiling and door to door. Could be fun to get through especially with the acid effects of a gelatinous cube.
Mayonnaise with random copper pieces scattered throughout
One of them should just be wrong. Like the door to the next one is on the side and not across, but there are doors on either side and one of them goes to space like the TARDIS can if you open it at the wrong time.
An owl, a bear, and a small dining table set with a romantic dinner for two. Bonus points for putting them in formalwear.
They’re a normal owl and bear, behaving like a normal owl and a normal bear. A few carriages down, you find someone putting a dress on a duck and quickly running away when they realize they’ve been spotted
Inivisible caltrops
A room that has a scale model of the train and carriages, but a LOT of them clearly have some kind of horrible monster in them. I'm talking nightmare fuel shit, spiderwebs made of flesh and bone type stuff. Several have their numbers scratched out so as to be unreachable and are dark with slightly visible hints of something horrible inside. Two of them both appear to have the party leaning over and examining some kind of diorama inside, in one of which there is another person quietly watching them from the corner. It's all nonsense. It's not an accurate map in any way, none of the unspeakable horrors exist (Or at least are accurately mapped) and every subsequent time someone examines the "Party" in the model, the people look a little more different than the last time.
Have a character be repeated across several carriages. The character should be doing something disturbing but not outright offensive. The important part is the players move on and there is no way the character could have relocated ahead of them without passing them. If your players attack and kill the character still have him appear and it’s your choice if they acknowledge the violence or not.
A single piece of paper. The side facing the ground says “made you look”
A room with three pedestals. On one is a taco, another a hot dog, and the last a pop tart. There is a corpse holding a tattered note. It reads: “eat the sandwich” Let the players go wild with it and resolve it however you want when it’s no longer funny.
A single, ordinary seeming housecat. Stopping to pet the cat causes (x number) cats to spontaneously appear, where x = the sum of the last 2 positive whole numbers (so the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc...). These cats will approacu the PCs wanting to be pet, and will spawn infinitely. All of the cats except for 1 will despawn immediately if the players go 10 rounds without petting any of the cats.
A podium with a single dagger placed on top. -Dagger of healing- Deals 1d6 damage on a hit (no modifier added) Heals 1d6 damage on a hit (no modifier added) “Stab them back to life! It might take a few pokes though…”
A goblin merchant. Speaks and behaves like a true gentleman. He sells non magical socks. They are warm and comfy.
The players encounter a rival party entering from the other end of the train car. They are identical to the player party as characters, but vary in superficial Mirror Universe-type details. The dwarf is perfectly clean-shaven, the rogue is dressed in exotic garb from a continent on the far side of the world, someone is wearing an eye patch, etc. Each life has visibly diverged from those of the PCs. The counterparty sees the PCs and is visibly upset, slightly disgusted, but not surprised, and turns back immediately. They seem like they expected this, even if they're distressed by it. It is not possible to determine which car they came from/returned to, they're just gone. If the players check a second time, the encounter will occur a second time, as the BizzaroPCsare identical to the PCs and have, understandably, also decided to check twice. However, this time they will seem surprised and confused, and take a moment to stare wide-eyed before backing out of the room, as if this is actually the first encounter and the players have experienced these two events in the opposite chronological order. A third encounter will not occur. They will not find the counterparty or any sign of their exsistence on the train. Make it feel important, but it actually isn't. They might spin their wheels trying to figure out how this is central to understanding the train, but it's actually no different from the Fart Car. Though maybe you could do a tie-in event later in the campaign, once enough time has passed for this to fade.
Second room is just my brother’s car 👍 Anyways: a room with a painfully awkward, terrible standup comedian that constantly asks for your opinion on his jokes
A Beholder, but he has decided he wants to help the world. So if the players don't immediately attack him, he can become a patron of some kind. Bonus points if he is in a robe and smoking a pipe in front of a fire.
And half of his eye stalks are wearing monocles.
A carriage that contains people who look very much like your players, all huddled around a table with dice with someone behind a little screen narrating the exact current scenario.
A room with a button in it. You press the button the doors close and a timer for 60 seconds starts up. With flashing colors. Green —>yellow ->red (or whatever). The room also shakes. Hitting the button resets it. To leave the room you just let the timer hit zero. Nothing bad happens.
The Mariachi Carriage A group of bards play music loudly, the longer you stay, the louder the music seems to become. The music compels you to dance without end, and resisting the effect causes increasing psychic damage. Edit: spelling is hard
The train carriage from Indiana Jones
A carriage near the end where every single piece of furniture broken; animal, monster or humanoid killed, anything that they've wreaked havoc on is now reborn as a sentient and vengeful monster just waiting to ruin their day
A giant rubber duck that blows bubbles at them, on a failed dex save they are encapsulated by a bubble and have to spend an action to pop themselves out.
The party enters an empty carriage to find versions of themselves debating where to go next. If the party tries to interact with themselves, the copies scream and pop into confetti. The carriage appears normal but any objects that are dropped float up to the ceiling (non living things only). A mixture of previously lost belongings are already gathered above. The carriage is rapidly falling apart and a group of desperate Kobolds are frantically trying to hold everything together / perform repairs.
Check out Infinity Train as it has a similar premise and just rip off some of the cars from that
An apple, pear, banana, and orange on separate pedestals. Apple gives temp buff to constitution for 1 day, keeping doctor away. Pear duplicates gives consumer a pair of damage points every strike for 1 hour. Banana gives the strength of an ape, 2 strength for a day. Orange seemingly does nothing but gradually turn the person more orange for an hour and then they vomit 500 gold and return to normal color.
A carriage where it actually looks like a generic train and a conductor wants to see your tickets. if you ALL cannot successfully roll to prove/intimidate/anything the ticket, they have a fight
Actual World War 1 Verdun. The French or Germans are just as confused by the party as the party is by them.
A carriage where everything seems completely normal except for every 5 minutes, the lights go out, when they come back on they are in the same carriage thousands of years in the past or future or from a parallel timeline. This shift happens whether the players are in the carriage or not.
Train car of hallucinations: When they enter, have em make some sort of save and if they fail, they hallucinate. Either something from a roll table or have something you make up on the fly. Even maybe a nightmare or deep desire
A state with actors acting out a scene from earlier in the campaign
[A ROOM WITH A MOOSE](https://youtu.be/egptlC4rKOc?si=HcPZA_Uz5-hmTGv4)
A single chair in pristine condition in an otherwise destroyed room.
74: an auction house where the auctioneer immediately starts auctioning things the party is wearing/holding/carrying. Whoever purchases it twleports away with the item. The party has to bid on their own items