Liam is a tall and distinguished elf, dressed up with nice clothes made with the best materials he could gather from all around the world. He wanders the lands and doesn't sleep in the same place twice. He always travels with his squeaky old cart, where he keeps all his belongings and cloaks to sell, and even though it's pretty small he somehow sleeps in it.
When you come close he doesn't try to conceal the magic cloak that he is wearing in which you can see the night sky full of stars. In fact he is pretty proud of it and is wearing it with the elegance that you would only expect from an elf. Now that you have met him it's your lucky day, it's probably the only time you'll see him. Maybe it's a good time to purchase a nice cloak for the winter.
The Cart
He opens up the cart and you can see all kinds of cloaks, some of them made with exotic materials that you have never seen before. Under a stack of other regular cloaks you can see one that catches your eye. It has a weird purple gloss that is hard to identify. Then with a deep voice that does not match his appearance he says:
Oh! I see you have a very good taste for cloaks. That's the Runa silk, imported from lands very far away and it has very magical powers. I'm sure you could make a very good use of it. But I'm sorry, the price is very, very high and you could not pay it, not in a million years," He starts smiling a little bit. "Nevertheless I have a very exciting challenge for whoever thinks is worthy of the Runa Silk. If you succeed, I'll craft you a Runa Cloak for a fraction of the price. What do you say?
The Challenge
If the group accepts the challenge, Liam casts a spell around them that shrinks everyone into a fraction of their size and immediately teleports them inside his cart. While still dizzy you can see that the floor is covered by a giant fabric and you are surrounded by big cloths, threads, scissors and needles. It looks like you are indeed on his tailoring table inside the cart. Everyone is placed in a circle but soon you notice that there are two of every one of your other partners, you can also see yourself in front of you. Everyone is nicely dressed and wearing a beautiful cloak. You hear Liam's voice inside your head: "Good luck!" There should be two tokens for each player character, three if the group is very small.
How to play
These rules are only a guide, they may be changed at your own discretion. This mechanics allows to play against your own clones but still not know which one is real even if all players are in the same room or online voice chat. It will create a lot of confusion for everyone, which is intended, so be prepared.
The encounter starts out of combat and there is a clone of each character, but the player doesn’t know which one of their tokens is the real one.
At the start of their turn the player chooses a token to play with and acts normally, at the end of the turn the Master will play with the other token.
Clones will act like the original character and will use their abilities and stats, but they may be weaker than the original characters. If so, the Master should hide their damage rolls. We would advise against a TPK because of a clone hitting a fat fireball.
The cloak can not be unequiped but it can be destroyed. If the wearer was a clone it will be transformed into a mannequin.
Characters are allowed to inspect others at close range, a hard Investigation check is necessary to know if someone is the clone. The token who checked knows if it’s the clone but the rest may not know if that’s true.
The Master should give hints to the players so they can figure out the truth.
Combat against Liam is not intended but possible.
Note: it may take a while for the players to discover the first clone, but after the first character is revealed it becomes much easier and faster. Don’t hesitate to give hints at the beginning, you’ll have plenty of room to make things harder..
The Reward
It's up to you to determine if the damage is permanent or if it all was just an illusion.
If the adventurers are killed or exit the challenge in any other way, they fail.
If all clones are defeated they win and the group will be teleported outside.
In either case they won’t keep any item picked while inside the cart.
Liam will then tailor a cloak out of the Runa Silk. Players must choose which size the cloak should be, only characters the same size as the cloak can wear it and make it work.
Liam puts on his glasses and starts taking some measurements and notes of you. Then he works the fabric for a couple of minutes and the beautiful Runa Cloak is made. The excess silk floats into the air and burns like paper.
You now have a Runa Cloak. You can cast the spell Disguise Self for one hour once a day (even if you are not a spellcaster). The effect ends if the cloak is removed or if a big part of it is destroyed.
The Wandering merchant is inspired by Liam, who gave us permission to develop this adventure using his persona, definitely go check him out! He has pretty cool content on his Instagram.
