A Feast of Fools

3-4 hours 3-6 players

The Best Party You'll Never Forget

Millhaven's annual Fool's Festival is everything a celebration should be -- music, masks, carnival games, and enough festival wine to float a ship. The beloved Festival Master, Cassius Thorne, has spent thirty years perfecting this night. His welcome toast brings the crowd to their feet. The acrobats dazzle. The wine flows freely.

Then something catches your eye. A child laughing in a monotone loop. A puppet dancing with no strings. A faint taste of copper in the wine.

Someone has laced the festival wine with Puppeteer's Draught. When the bell tower strikes midnight, every person who drank will lose their will and dance to someone else's tune. Forever.

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A Villain Who Breaks Your Heart

The culprit isn't hiding in the shadows. He's standing on the festival stage, tears streaming down his face, watching his town dance one last time.

Cassius Thorne is dying. An incurable disease is dissolving him from the inside. He has weeks left. And the festival -- his festival, his life's work, his gift to Millhaven -- will die with him. Unless he makes it last forever.

He's not a villain. He's a dying man who loves his town too much to let go. And your players must decide how to stop him -- or whether to stop him at all.

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Four Endings That Hit Different

• Talk him down. Convince Thorne his legacy is the joy he created, not control. He releases the spell and dies on stage as the crowd gives him a standing ovation.
• Break the spell by force. Destroy the enchantment focus. The town is saved. Thorne dies broken and confused. The festival is cancelled next year.
• Administer the cure. The spell never fully takes hold. Thorne removes his crown, sets it on the stage, and walks into the dark.
• One last waltz. Let him have three minutes. One perfect dance. Then the music stops.

Every ending is earned. None are easy. All of them will stay with your table long after the dice are put away.

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Built for Busy GMs

Everything a DM needs is on the page when they need it. NPC quick cards in every scene. Decision trees for common player actions. Read-aloud text you can speak naturally. A 30-minute prep guide that gets you table-ready fast. The 3-Second Rule: find what to read (1 second), who's in the scene (2 seconds), what DC to use (3 seconds).

A Feast of Fools is a 3-4 hour oneshot for levels 3-5 that takes your table from carnival joy to creeping horror to an emotional climax that earns every moment. Run it at your next session. Your players will talk about the Festival Master for years.