The Glass Expanse + Glass Menagerie

Content Warning: Includes horror elements including body horror, loss of self/identity, and death

Your adventurers braved their way across the vast, inhospitable desert and found themselves at a glass city. It is incredibly difficult to traverse due to every surface reflecting its surroundings. Should the adventurers make their way to the heart of the city they would find themselves at a seemingly impossible palace – one that sprang forth from one piece of glass.

The adventurers will be greeted and rushed inside by curious creatures with humanoid bodies with ornate mirrors where their heads should be. When these creatures face anyone their mirror-faces instead reflect the face of the adventurers who are interacting with them with perfect clarity.

The adventurers are introduced to the King of this Castle – Lord Claritas Duplicitous – who is eager to wine and dine with them. Everything went well until it wasn’t going well. Can the adventurers brave the Glass Menagerie and escape with the requested wish or will they be doomed to join the mirrored halls and walls for eternity?

GM Tools and Tips

The Glass Expanse and Glass Menagerie – the denizens of the Expanse – act as a foil to the nature of the desert. They should always come across as a twisted, warped version of nature, always imitating it but never quite achieving their goals of coming across as alive. This should all have a very Uncanny Valley feel especially as the players make their way into the palace.

The Menagerie itself, especially Lord Claritas Duplicitous, operate by gradually picking up and mimicking the behaviors of living things. This can be best demonstrated by having an NPC or NPCs. After an extended period of time taking on a character’s traits, the Glass Menagerie NPC steals that character’s face and that character’s face becomes a mirror. In games where Sanity is a factor, this can be utilized. Otherwise, this works well as a Curse.

Battle with these NPCs works best when they are actively avoiding combat while trying to steal the faces of their foes. Should a character whose face has been taken become damaged they must then roll to see how badly the mirror is damaged. Should the mirror break that can either be instant death, but also has potential for the character to be transported to a mirrored version of the world beyond the veil (which, of course, allows for them to be saved).

Upon defeating Lord Claritas Duplicitous (whether in combat or by way of finding the fallen star), the Glass Expanse explodes into a fine, glittering powder and gradually disappears towards the sky.

What comes next is up to you as the GM and the table. As always: take care; good luck and godspeed!