No Time for the Wicked – Trapped on the Cyre 1313 is a time-loop puzzle adventure by Ryan Loos for a 3rd level party.

The Cyre 1313, also known as the Mourning Rail, is definitely an interesting little world all of its own, mentioned briefly in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. The last train to leave the city of Metrol in Eberron, it was unfortunately just too late due to the meddling of a mysterious VIP passenger – the delay meant that, as the train pulled out of the station, loaded with desperate people trying to escape the coming calamity, the Mourning caught up with it – obliterating everyone onboard. Instead of that being the end however, darker powers took notice of the tragedy, and turned the Cyre 1313 into a Domain of Dread, a nightmarish dimension of its own in Ravenloft.

Due to the nature of the Domains of Dread, you can run this adventure from a variety of different settings – as long as trains of some kind exist. Eberron might provide a lot more background and context, since it’s the origin of the rail, but you can slot it into a lot of different places. As for the story itself: The passengers of the train (and this includes the players, as soon as they board) are trapped in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over. Only the players (and some other “outsider” NPCs) are aware of this, and they must try to find a way to break the loop and escape – but of course, it’s not so easy, as there is a powerful entity that opposes them: the Darklord of this domain.

The adventure is structured more like a puzzle or mystery than anything else. There is combat, yes, but it’s not the main draw, and in fact some encounters are meant to be unwinnable – but giving information to the players on how they can continue with their next attempt, since death isn’t the end, and can actually be a relatively common occurrence. The structure of the time loop is also something the antagonist exploits to their advantage when things might look bad for them, so be prepared to reset several times. However, it is suggested – and I agree wholeheartedly with the authors’ suggestion – that once a loop is completed, players can repeat their actions in that loop without needing to go through the whole thing again, it’s just assumed they can just follow the same “path”. So if you finish a combat encounter, or get an NPC to trust you, you don’t have to re-do it next loop.

The players can find out some information through talking with NPCs, but not enough to escape the loop just with that – they’ll have to explore, both the train and the loop itself, and identify important events that they need to intervene in – or let them play out to observe the consequences, letting them play around in the sandbox a bit as well. Here I’d also like to add that there’s maps for all 13 carriages in the train, all of them with plenty of details.

Overall, I’d call the adventure very interesting but perhaps a bit tricky – mysteries and puzzles always are, trying to keep them intriguing without giving away the “solution”, but also keeping the players from getting frustrated and bored. In this case, the time loop makes things a bit more complicated, but it also helps with the aforementioned problem, letting players try things out without “locking” themselves out of the solution. Still, there are some consequences for just running around murdering everyone or doing such silly things, as the Darklord also knows this is a time loop and remembers everything. Another benefit is also that you can stop at almost any point, if the players are getting tired or mentally stuck, and then just start over in a new loop next session.

Anyway, because I’ve rambled enough – check out No Time for the Wicked – Trapped on the Cyre 1313 for a unique spin on mystery in Ravenloft.

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