Out at the Fair(e)

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# A Day at the Fair(e)
In the outskirts of Waterdeep, a faire has popped up, with all the faire essentials - carnival games, prizes, and Merlin's Mystical Mirror Maze of Magic (MMMMoM), which is promising an extraordinary prize for any group of adventurers that can find their way out of it. However, the prize is still unclaimed, and adventurers have gone missing at a rapid rate. But your party is different...right?

## Background / Setup
Your party has heard of a legendary prize being offered to any party that can make it through MMMMoM. They have also heard rumblings of parties going missing, but most attribute it to the inherent danger of being adventurers. The faire doesn't seem dangerous, and in fact attracts tons of families each day, all of which return safely to their homes each night.

After paying a hefty entrance fee that allows free access to the attractions, your party sees a long line stretching out from the maze's entrance. Luckily, a FastGnome greets them, saying that he will be waiting in the line for them, and they can go to explore the faire instead. The gnome will let them know when their party is called (which is whenever the DM decides is a good time).

## Festival Games
### Overview
It is not expected for the party to play all, or even most of these carnival games. These are merely here as possibilities for your party to explore and for your players to get comfortable with their characters, skill checks, and roleplaying. If players are hesitant about choosing an activity, a pushy carnival worker can call them over to specific stands.

For each win the party receives, they win a prize! Each tent is lined with stuffed toy adventurers, each one different from the next. For each toy that the party brings with them to the MMMMoM, they will receive one hint if needed.

### Strength Contest
<div class='descriptive'>
  "Step right up!" yells a stocky dwarf, leaning her whole weight against a hammer as tall as her. "Swing the hammer, ding the bell, win a prize!" She stands in front of a life-sized wooden portrait of an ogre, a panel at its feet, and a bell on its temple.
 </div>

This harker may tease and playfully antagonize party members she perceives as strong into competing. If pushed, she will pick up the hammer easily, and ring the bell once.

Players that choose to compete in the strength contest roll a strength skill check. If players want to roll a different check, ask them to detail the action their character is taking, and then decide the check (most likely acrobatics).

| Total  | Result |
|:---:|:-----------:|
|  1  | The hammer doesn't budge from the ground |
|  2-9  | The ball only goes halfway up to the bell |
|  10-15  |  The ball goes 75% up to the bell|
|  16-18  | The ball grazes the bell - prize! |
|  19-20  | The bell rings loudly - prize! |
|  21+  | The bell breaks from ringing so hard - prize! |

### Ring Toss
<div class='descriptive'>
A moody teenager leans against the side of the tent, twirling one of the small wooden rings on his finger. "Are you gonna give it a try?" he says, jabbing his thumb at the table full of empty wine bottles. "Should be pretty easy, but no one's gotten all the rings on there yet."
 </div>
Players that choose to play ring toss roll a sleight of hand skill check by default. If players ask to take a closer look before they throw, they can roll a perception or investigation skill check first. A 12+ allows them to add a d4 to their sleight of hand check.

| Total  | Result |
|:---:|:-----------:|
|  1  | No rings land on bottles |
|  2-9  | 1 or 2 ring lands |
|  10-15  |  3 rings land|
|  16-18  | 4 rings land - prize! |
|  19+  | 5 rings land - prize! |

This harker is easier than the others to persuade into changing a loss into a win (persuasion skill check of a 10+).

### Ale Drinking Contest
<div class='descriptive'>
You can smell the contest before you see it. The heavy smell of alcohol wafts towards you, as you approach the cheering crowd surrounding a red-faced dwarf and an even redder-faced hobgoblin, both chugging pitchers of ale.
 </div>
 
Multiple players can join in a single round of the ale drinking contest. Each player rolls a constitution check to see how well they do. Players that choose to cheat must succeed on a 13+ sleight of hand (or other appropriate) check. They can then roll their constitution check with advantage. Players that are caught cheating must roll with disadvantage instead, as one of the referees stands over them the entire time, supervising.

The player with the highest check (>15) wins the competition! If no players roll higher than a 15, then the hobgoblin (or another NPC of your choice) from before wins.

\pagebreak

### Blind Boxes
<div class='descriptive'>
"Test your luck, take what you win home!" a kobold shouts, gesturing at four plain wooden boxes on a dais. "A magical item can be yours, today!"
 </div>
 
Inside one of the four identical boxes is indeed a magical item - Heward's Handy Spice Pouch! The other boxes just contain normal bags of spices. An arcana check of a 10+ or an investigation check of a 15+ is sufficient to choose the correct box. If the player chooses randomly, roll 1d4 to see if they guessed correctly.

> ##### Heward's Handy Spice Pouch (XGE)
> This belt pouch appears empty and has 10 charges. While holding the pouch, you can use an action to expend 1 of its charges, speak the name of any nonmagical food seasoning (such as salt, pepper, saffron, or cilantro), and remove a pinch of the desired seasoning from the pouch. A pinch is enough to season a single meal. The pouch regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn.

### Catch the Mud Mephit
<div class='descriptive'> 
In a fenced-in circle, screaming children run and try to catch a similarly screaming mud mephit, which seems to be enjoying itself greatly. A sign nearby reads "Catch the Mephit, Win a Prize!", underneath which a shakier hand has scrawled "(not ~~lib~~ ~~liebl~~ fault for grzed nees)"
</div>

The mud mephit is small, quick, and (obviously) covered in mud. Players can roll a variety of different checks (animal handling, dexterity, etc.) to try and catch it. A check of 13+ should be enough to catch the mephit. However, if a player attempts to injure or attack the mephit, the mephit will drop to the ground, begin crying, and attempt to garner sympathy from the crowd. It is just a carnival game, after all.

\columnbreak

### Laughing Contest
<div class='descriptive'>
A large firbolg sits on a wooden stool in front of a stage, as one by one, participants step in front of him and do whatever they can, telling jokes, pulling faces, making general fools of themselves, in order to make him laugh. 
</div>

This contest is another opportunity for players to get creative. Impressive ideas or real-life performances should result in advantage on whatever skill check is decided on. Any check resulting in a 17+ will have the firbolg giving a polite chuckle, and the player winning.

However, an insight or perception check of a 17+ will reveal that the firbolg is wearing a ring that provides a personal bubble of Silence. An attempt to call greater attention to this will result in a faire worker escorting the party out of the area with a complimentary prize.

\pagebreak

## The Maze
Finally, the party has been called to MMMMoM for their shot at the prize. The assistant at the door verifies that each prize is legitimate, and then lets the party in without checking for weapons or magic items. They inform the party that, to use a clue, they simply have to give up one of their dolls, and shout, and then they will receive a clue (from the DM).

### Part One: The Walls

<div class='descriptive'>
The assistant waves you through a door into a dark, musty room. As the door seals shut behind you, the light from the door does not fade, instead continuing to glow brighter and brighter as it reveals your surroundings- mirrors, mirrors, and nothing but mirrors. 
 </div>

Immediately after entering the maze, the party finds themselves in a room, with all four walls (including the one where they came in) made of unbreakable mirror. There are some skeletons in the corner of the room, implying that explorers have starved to death here. However, a quick investigation check will show that these skeletons are just for decoration.

The mirrors do not react to any weapon attack, damaging spell or other force. A small plaque on one of the walls reads:
<div class='descriptive'>
*Violence has no effect on me/
As I only copy what I see/
And what I've seen is what I've known/
And thus why I must be alone.*
 </div>

The players can escape by gently touching and leaning into the walls in order to move through the mirror, or through any other ingenious solution they come up with.

### Part Two: The Party
<div class='descriptive'> 
Every step, every sound you make, seems to be echoing back to you, louder and louder. Small shapes in the distance take on familiar forms as you near them - and they near you. 
</div>
The next room the party steps into is a very large room, both long and wide, with only one open door on the other side. As the party reorients themselves, they see mirrored versions of themselves doing the same on the opposite end of the room. The mirror party will match everything the party does, in essence blocking them from continuing down the path. This includes attacks, spells, and words. The only difference is that the mirror party seems to be made of some sort of stuffing. Further investigation will reveal that inside the false adventurers is crushed glass.

If players do try to attack the mirror party, damage is mirrored to the players. The players can succeed by either rotating around the mirrored party to get to the door, or coming up with another great plan.

### Part Three: The Wizard

<div class='descriptive'>
Once your eyes adjust to the dim light of the room. the first thing you notice are the enormous mounds of adventurer dolls, this one missing an eye, that one missing an arm. In the midst of these mounds, a young man in a ratty facsimile of a wizard's robe grasps an adventurer's wrist as her body twists and morphs and shrinks - into a doll.
</div>
The players enter a room with mountains of adventurer dolls of all race and class, and in different states of wear and tear. In fact, the dolls here look much worse than the dolls that are on display throughout the faire.

Also in the room is a man in badly fitting business clothes, muttering to himself and in the midst of transforming a random adventurer into a doll, Merlin himself. If pushed, he will reveal that his name is MerIin (with a capital i instead of an l), and he is not, in fact the great wizard Merlin. Merlin will attempt to restrain the party, but a FastGnome runs in, saying that the Waterdeep health inspector has arrived. Merlin will then run away, animating the dolls to deal with the party.

The dolls act as a swarm of rats, and there are 4 of them (for a party of 4 Lv 1 players). Depending on the players and time remaining for the session, this combat encounter can be run as a real combat encounter with an action economy, or by simply rolling attack rolls and spell rolls.

One doll, a "mirrored" version of Merlin, is hiding amongst the swarms, which seem to be protecting him. Players must successfully detect which swarm he is in, and then make additional checks to separate him from the swarm. If a swarm is defeated with the doll in it, it will attempt to run into another, active swarm, in order to hide. Once it is defeated, the dolls will slowly begin to return back to their original forms (if they have not been too badly mangled).

## The End 
After the Merlin doll is defeated, a door opens back out to the faire. There, players see a crowd of angry de-dollified adventurers surrounding the "real" Merlin, with an unimpressed health inspector. Unsurprisingly, Merlin doesn't have a magical prize for the party. Maybe the real prize was the friendships we made along the way... or a nice chunk of change from the faire's profits.