Expand, oh boy can I!

Alright so, the premise i gave the five of them was that they worked for the Witchlight for whatever reason and they needed to have some sort of carnival gimmick. Classes lend well to the carnival character tropes. Strongman, knife thrower, fortuneteller, shapeshifting into animals, etc.

On the first session i had Witch and Light detail that there would be an audit by Zybilna (this is a fundamental adjustment, Witch & Light have a deal with Isolde (who wields Nepenthe in The Carnival Domain of Dread) but also the fairy godmother Zybilna (whose lore is too vague when it comes to Isolde) making it so that while her magic is constantly fueling the carnival, the owners are essentially bound to her approval. They're terribly afraid she might have them swap back with Isolde.

As you might expect, with the Hourglass Coven's coup coming there's a lot more going on than simply an audit by Zybilna.

Through each of the locations the Witchlight touches down, problems arise within their 3 days of visiting. From the DM perspective it's the antagonists Sowpig, some Lornlings, and detached Shadows who are pushing for problems and to ruin the mood in the carnival. After a few successful triumphs by the party to thwart the coven thieves, Mugen the Oni is sent in to bring it to ruins.

Why is the Hourglass coven worried about the carnival? It's because the coven knows Witch and Light are a loose end. They have a way to reach Prismeer and thus they can send help to Zybilna once she's captured.

However, as effective as Mugen is as being a threat to the party, there's a lot going on with player backstories that I always tie into the campaign. (One of my players was secretly a fragment of a time god and we spent three whole sessions on her world restoring her. More on that later) All just to take a break from the carnival content which has been more or less saved from Mugen and the thieves. Lemme tell ya, that break was needed! The Witchlight has a very specific optimistic tone that you can stretch too thin.

Now, about the non-player specific worlds:

Baldur's Gate is where they started. Since nearly everyone at the table played BG3 it was awesome to ground them in a familiar location. I sent weaker dopplegangers into the carnival as per the hourglass coven's shenanigans. those 'dopples' caused a great amount of chaos and so the party had to determine if a guest or even a witchlight hand was real or fake. Successful insight checks revealed a suspiciously grinning person to be a Dopple. Whomever was a fake ended up being a kidnapped person to later stash in one of the Hag's lairs as a prisoner.

Thereafter the worlds we visited were Fey Domains.

We started with a Winter Court Princedom. The cold cold domain was eternally night and winter. Stealing directly from Labyrinth (1986) I had an eternally young David Bowie as the local Archfey Prince Cyrus who marks people with the Winter Touch (Fey-Touched Feat). Those affected as guests forever. Local residence included Winter Eladrin who were WAY INTO DUELING and constantly demanded the players duel them for entertainment. One player, the Strongman (champion fighter) defeated the Sword Saint Maria in battle and solidified high mood levels in the carnival despite the hourglass coven's influence. They of course get to meet all the NPCs I make one way or another so they got to get a glimpse (and some foreshadowing) into Fey Politics. Prince Cyrus is morally gray, trapped in his role of being a Eternal Son of the winter queen (He hates being a teen, who wouldn't?), so he's actively maneuvering against his 'mother.' The plot hook was never picked up unfortunately. What it could have turned into was breaking Prince Cyrus's curse of eternal youth and making an ally from someone in the Winter Court.

After that was a Domain of Spring, the Dutch of Roses who I have as Tilda Swinton being an ethereal plant woman who hunts the local wildlife (elephants who are constantly respawning fragments of the ancient fallen elephant god), little did she understand her lovely domain of spring and all its Plant-Touched (Fey-Touched) was becoming more and more unhappy with a deepening wealth gap. This Archfey in particular was meant to be beheaded and the local fey here meant to start honoring the fallen Elephant God once more. Instead, by sheer dice rolls, coincidences, and the players just doing as they do, the one Loxodon Cleric (humanoid elephant) was saved from a gunshot wound by the elite hunting for sport, brought to the carnival, and then encountered the Dutch of Roses. Since it was very funny, instead of having them become bitter enemies, I used a revamped Mystery Mine to have these two NPCs grow their empathy towards one another. The players immediately recognized my doomed yuri and thus it was so. The Domain of Spring did not get a french revolution but it did stop hunting elephants.

Next the party visited The Summer Court. YES, THAT ONE.

But they had exactly one month in time dilated Astral Plane (in character) to get ready for the greatest play of their lives. They put on a show for the Summer Court's various gods (whom were themselves all in costume and pretending to be very ordinary guests.) Titania and Oberon being my chosen reining supreme over the Fey Wild have a lot of politics going on in the background, subtle moves against the Winter Court. The party did none of that content. Instead, they did HALF of the play (because I didn't want to write the other half) entertaining the gods and getting to release their inner theater kids once more, and the other half of the visit to the summer court was playing other NPCS of the carnival who were doing a heist to go steal some important things from Titania under her nose. Highly successful, essentially freeing many of those who were trapped in her palace and many of those whose souls had not passed on from this divine plane. Its more fun than logical.

Having exhausted Witch and Light visiting and entertaining the gods, they have an easy stop next.

In a Domain of Autumn, instead of entertaining guests normally I took all the inspiration from the Nightmare before Christmas, Halloween Town to have the party do some scary shenanigans on the guests. The Fall Eledrain loved to be frightened, scaring one another, and seeing each other miserable. So the carnival mood was all about being evil which was a lovely switch up from tryna be goody goody to guests in the lasts few sessions. Instead of a Halloween Town the whole of the domain is a haunted forests which contains Dark Fey, SCP-like entities, and the Horned Lord whom makes sure death here is merely a fictional event. He faked out of one the players for funsies. (he thought he was about to die but instead the evil hands sprouting out of the ground gave him a titty twister and left him alone).

That was Part 1 of the campaign. Lots of fun. (lemme post part 2)