Help with a weird adventure idea.

[GoldenDuck]

Okay, first some context, though I'll try and keep it brief. In our last session, a sequence of events occurred that basically derailed the entire campaign and has made planning for the next session incredibly difficult. To cut a long story short, the session ended with two of the PCs being thrown in prison by the head of an order of holy knights, with little to no hope of escape and another PC, upon losing two of their friends, deciding to leave the party and essentially retire the character, at least for a little while. This left just one character, a Fallen Aasimar Devotion Paladin (who was a member of the previously mentioned order of holy knights) as the last active PC. After discussing our options for moving forward with the group, we all decided that we wanted to continue following the previous plot and have new characters join the Paladin on the quest that the party had previously been on when what happened, happened.

The quest was to track down and destroy a mysterious and evil cult that was controlled by a group of incredibly powerful, seemingly immortal beings, including; an aberration in the form of a witch who steals people’s eyes, a mass of warrior spirit unable to move on from an ancient unresolved war and bound together by magic, a lich who went mad while studying the outer planes and took on the traits of a beholder/death tyrant, an ooze that can transform into basically anything, including multiple people and even entire towns, an imp that can enter and take control of peoples dreams and a corrupted fey that warps and distorts nature wherever it goes and brings grave misfortune to those it meets. The party had been researching these being, trying to find out their weaknesses and the means to kill them, since all of them have some form of immortality and can only be killed under specific conditions. During their last adventure, the party had learnt about a witch/hag who lives deep in a dark and twisted forest, who may be able to provide them with the information they seek, albeit for a heavy price, and had set off to go and find her.

With all this in mind, I asked my players to make their new characters with a link either directly with the Paladin PC or with the cult, so that I could easily work them into the main story and give all the PCs a common goal/enemy to team up against. The new PCs consist of an Elvish Bladesinger Wizard from the same holy order as the Paladin PC who wants to be their squire, a Half-Orc Barbarian Bounty Hunter searching for an old friend who was either taken by or joined the cult and a Goliath Ranger Bounty Hunter whose partner was cursed by the cult, turning them into a beast who now acts as the Ranger's animal companion.

And I think that's all of the important/relevant context, let's move on.

So, I wanted to start off this new stage of the campaign with a short, mostly self-contained adventure that ties into the main story and introduces all the characters while giving them a good reason to party up. The idea I came up with for this adventure is pretty weird, but I'll try and explain it as best I can. The Paladin PC, continuing his quest, heads for the haunted forest alone, heading first to a small town on its outskirts to rest and spend the night. The other PCs also wind up in this town for their own reasons, the Wizard actually seeking out the Paladin to try and lend them aid and ask to become their apprentice and the two bounty hunter PCs trying to find the Paladin who they've heard from their various contacts is trying to take down the same cult that they are after. When the PCs approach the town, they find the surrounding area is filled with a dense magical fog and the sound of a bell can be heard ringing constantly. When they enter the town, they find it in ruins and filled with corpses and strange insect-like creatures (Core-spawn from the Explorer's Guide to Wildmount) that attack on site. The creatures attack in waves and the PCs will quickly find themselves overrun, but as things are starting to get bad, everything freezes but the ringing of the bell, there is a blinding flash of light and when it fades, the PCs find themselves in the middle of the town, in the early morning, all signs of destruction gone and all the townspeople alive and normal. If the PCs ask around, they will learn that none of the townsfolk have any idea of what happened, nor do they suspect that anything is wrong, they don't even notice the still constant ringing of the bell.

From here, the party will likely start to investigate the town to try and find out what's going on, likely discovering in the process that they cannot leave the town as the mists around it are magical, turning them around if they try to leave as well as blocking communication and teleportation magic outside of the town. If the players take till nightfall investigating, they'll witness the townspeople start to violently transform into the bug-monsters they had fought before and start slaughtering each other and destroying the town. The party will have to survive by either fighting, running or barricading themselves somewhere, until midnight, at which point everything freezes, there is another flash of light and the party once again finds themselves in the middle of the town in the early morning with everything back to the way it was. At this point the players should realize that they're in some sort of time loop.

So, that's the basis of the adventure, the party investigate the town during the day and then have to survive at night until everything resets to the next day, with each reset bringing them closer to solving the mystery of the town. The mystery itself isn't too convoluted but there are two sides to it. First of all there is the people turning into bug-monsters, which the party will learn is being caused by one of the cult members (specifically the corrupted fey I mentioned before) who has been basically corrupting/poisoning the water supply with the goal of wiping out the town to find a powerful artifact that's being hidden there. The cultist isn't responsible for the time loop but has become aware of it, creating the mist surrounding the town to keep everyone trapped inside. The person causing the time loop is actually the guardian of the artifact that the cultist is looking for, a relic of an ancient dead god from time immemorial, that can control time itself, albeit within certain limits. The guardian used the artifact to start the time loop in a last-ditch effort to keep themselves and the artifact safe, but quickly found themselves trapped. To keep the cultist at a stalemate, the guardian linked the artifact to the clock tower so that time would reset when the clock struck 12, so that even if they died, the loop would continue, and the cultist would remain trapped. They then fortified themselves in the crypts beneath the church, but not before enchanting the bell to ring indefinitely, in the hopes that someone would hear and come their aid.

To solve the mystery and escape the town, the party must find the guardian, learn the truth of what is happening, figure out how the cultist is corrupting the townspeople and either find a way to stop it or just let the townspeople be corrupted (it's not really necessary to save them to complete the adventure), defeat the cultist and then stop time resetting by disabling or destroying the clock tower. It'll likely take several resets to achieve all of this, but once they figure out what needs to be done it shouldn't be hard. After all is said and done, the guardian will give the artifact to the party to keep it safe and the party will be allowed to leave the town and continue on their quest.

So yeah, that's my idea. It's pretty weird and wild but I think it could be fun. That being said, I've never run something like this before and I'm seriously doubting whether or not it’s a good idea. With that in mind, I could really use some feedback on this. Does it look like I'm doing anything seriously wrong? Is the concept okay? Does it make sense? Is there anything I could be doing better? Anything you would add or change or just outright remove? Seriously, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Lupine]

Concept looks good. Plot looks good. Make sure that you have twice the clues you think you need, and that no clue is absolutely required to progress.

Make sure to decide on how the time loop works BEFORE the characters enter it. Some things to consider, though this is NOT an exhaustive list
if someone dies in it, do they revive at the next reset, or do they stay dead?
Are XP gains and treasures found by the players reverted? I recommend that neither are reverted, because players will already have a hard time feeling like they can actually alter things.
If they stay dead, how will you introduce new characters if/when a character dies?
How are the characters a part of the time loop? From your initial description, it sounds like objects in the town reset, so the characters cannot leave notes for themselves. This means they probably need to be free from the time loop, and but you are free to decide if their belongings are free as well. If their items reset, feel free to have a health potion "reverse" itself.
Does time progress outside the town, or is the area literally shifted back against its own time line?

and so on

This sounds really fun. I suggest that you make sure that despite the time loop, the players can cause changes, and that the town reacts to them. (Ie, if they have something they didn't bring in, when the town resets, that item is now seen as "stolen" even if it was bought in the previous cycle.)

[GoldenDuck]

Concept looks good. Plot looks good. Make sure that you have twice the clues you think you need, and that no clue is absolutely required to progress.

Make sure to decide on how the time loop works BEFORE the characters enter it. Some things to consider, though this is NOT an exhaustive list
if someone dies in it, do they revive at the next reset, or do they stay dead?
Are XP gains and treasures found by the players reverted? I recommend that neither are reverted, because players will already have a hard time feeling like they can actually alter things.
If they stay dead, how will you introduce new characters if/when a character dies?
How are the characters a part of the time loop? From your initial description, it sounds like objects in the town reset, so the characters cannot leave notes for themselves. This means they probably need to be free from the time loop, and but you are free to decide if their belongings are free as well. If their items reset, feel free to have a health potion "reverse" itself.
Does time progress outside the town, or is the area literally shifted back against its own time line?

and so on

This sounds really fun. I suggest that you make sure that despite the time loop, the players can cause changes, and that the town reacts to them. (Ie, if they have something they didn't bring in, when the town resets, that item is now seen as "stolen" even if it was bought in the previous cycle.)

I've got quite a lot of clues in place and I've designed the adventure so that it can be approached from multiple different angles, so no one clue is essential to solve the mystery. Most of the clues just involve talking to the townspeople and learning about the strange goings on in the town, such as the eccentric guardian arriving and locking himself in the church and the weird creature that has been sited in the nearby forest. There are also some more subtle clues, such as the townspeople not noticing or paying attention to either the clock tower or the church, despite them being the largest, most important structures of the town. In addition, the party has the chance of noticing that not all of the townspeople turn into bug monsters when nigh falls. For example, the town drunks are uneffected since they drink alcohol instead of the water which has been infected, and any travellers from outside the town would have likely brought their own waterskins with them. Even if the players miss these hints, when they eventually find the guardian, they'll give the party pretty much all of the infomation they need and point them in the right for the investigation to proceed.

The way I currently have the time loop working is that the townspeople aren't aware of the time loop and don't remember anything that has happened in previous loops, either because they were in the town when the time loop started or because they effectively die before the loop resets, I haven't decided on which but probably the former. Since the party entered the time loop after it started and/or survive until time resets, they are less effected by the time loop and thus are able to retain their memories of previous loops. The parties injuries or conditions are also carried over into the next loop, so if they die they remain dead but are still stuck in the loop. The PCs have some means of revival in case a character does die, but if, for whatever reason, they can't be revived, they'll either have to wait until the other PCs escape the time loop and find a way to bring them back or, if that's either unfeasible or would take to long, I'll have them roll a new temporary character who was already in the town when the loop started and had hid/locked themselves away to survive.

We do milestone levelling, so XP gains isn't an issue, although if we were doing XP levelling, I'd allow XP gained during a loop to carry over. Items on the other hand will be reset to their origional positions when the loop resets, with the exception of any magic item that a PC attunes to, just cause I think that will be a bit easier to manage and makes more sense. The PCs can always just find/steal the item again in the next loop since they'd know where the item is and/or how to steal it. This could even be a challenge in and of itself, with the party having to collect any items that they need as quickly and efficiently as possible before they reach the point of no return, like they have to speed run their actions from previous loops to stop the bad guy in time. Items that are on the PC's person when they enter the town are, like the PCs themselves, free from the time loop, so they don't reverse or return to the party when the loop resets.

In regard to how the time loop works with the flow of time outside of the town, I haven't really figured that party out yet. Currently, I'm running with the idea the area is actually being shifted backwards in time, so time outside of the are doesn't progress until the loop ends. From an outside perspective, only the events of the final loop actually occure and then time continues as normal, you wouldn't remember any of the previous loops as time would have reset until the loop finally, inevitably ends, unless they would have entered the area, in which case they'd become trapped in the time loop just like the party.