Before they can go on either of the adventures, they need to enter Red Jack’s. Some sage or oracle may give them the gambling house riddle, telling them that if anyone knows the answer (or can put them on the road to finding it), it will be Red Jack.
“Before Druid and Christian there were other tribes, and before these tribes dimly remembered are the elder races. In Sin City there is a gambling house that was when the world began. In a lost alley there is a door behind a door and within it a deck of cards and fortune’s wheel. Upon the deck are forgotten gods; upon the wheel the world rests. The door is guarded by a riddle, and the riddle is this:”
Come, Master Red-Jack, where are you creeping?
“To the halls of the ivory pillars I’m leaping.”
Oh, shall you return, noble red-cloak, again?
“My bones may return, yet my flesh shall remain.”
You may use a vision:
The sun sets in the East, and the forest thins. You are dropped inside the walls of a cramped and bustling city. The river runs beneath a bridge filled with carriages and carts; barges load and unload their wares in the port.
Inside the city you find yourself in a cramped alley, a mist covering your vision, but you count the doors to your left: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. You do not knock at the seventh door; you open it and walk inside. A roulette wheel spins, and you pray that it continues spinning. A deck of cards lies on the table, face down, dedicated to gods you do not know.
Or they might happen upon it as part of a murder mystery. Red Jack is a serial killer.
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