The published campaign runs in four acts, from a steamboat ambush to a coup under a lunar eclipse. The table has followed the spine faithfully in shape while bending it in detail — allying where the module left the choice open, killing a mentor the module always meant to kill, and wandering off the main road for a crown the module buried as a side-quest. Here the two are set side by side.
Act One · Setup — played across Nights 1–8
As written: The party escorts Osman Hamdi Bey from the Trojan dig to Istanbul aboard the Ejder-i Derya; the boat is attacked for his journal, and Osman finds a spell has blocked two weeks of his memory. He sets the party after the journal and introduces them to Ahra and the Janissary Remnants, who trade favors for the tracking. Ahra's last favor: quell the undead at the ruins of St. Benoit (the Vlad Tepes vampire dungeon). The party attends the crowning of Abd-ul Mejid I, and at the Kandil Festival the Ghost of March makes his first appearance — bombing the festival and assassinating crime-lord Mosolite Nazif to install the Council of the Ninth Life.
As played: The dig-site opening (The Mystery at Thymbra Farm, The Serpentine Gate), Osman's household (Guests of Osman Hamdi Bey), the descent past the Albasti into the Undercity, the casino and cemetery errands, and the twin set-piece of the coronation and the Ghost's reveal at the Festival of Candles. The St. Benoit dungeon and the destruction of Vlad Tepes (freeing Radu) ran across Nights 7–8.
Act Two · The Undercity & the Two Sides — played across Nights 9–14
As written: The party descends after the journal, confronts the Ghost's lieutenants Eleni and Mervhan, then the Ghost himself, who sends them on alliance-building errands. The Palace recruits them in parallel: an off-books audience with Mejid, then guarding the peace talks as the rebel Kavalan Pasha comes to negotiate. In the Yedikule dungeon, Kavalan's agents try to kill the Grand Vizier. At a debate in Osman's manor — the Moment of Truth — the party must choose Mejid or the Ghost. Then the Second Crescent: the Ghost hands over the journal freely, but the rejected faction reaches Osman's manor first, kills him, and uses his corpse to extract the journal's secret. The race to Mira begins.
As played: A Certain Meeting and the recovery of the ciphered journal; the Spectral Hippodrome; meeting the assassin; the defense of Yedikule; and in The Shades and the Sword the party found the manor looted and Osman dead, read his posthumous letter, claimed the Sword of Yakub Agha — and chose the Ghost of March.
Act Three · The Endgame Setup — in progress, Nights 15–18
As written: The Den of Snakes — only the Shahmeran beneath the city can decrypt Osman's journal. The House Lying in Dreams — race back to the Troy dig to find Mira, greeted by the sentient house. The Grand Negotiation — the party sets a table for the city's power-brokers to plan the endgame and settle the succession. To Kidnap a Shahzadah — swap the chosen heir for a doppelganger inside the palace. The Third Crescent and The Eyes of Suleiman — dismantle the Ghost's enemies and assault the Tower of Justice to sever Mejid from the Harem by removing Bergüzar (or, guided by her visions, propose another way).
As played: The party reached the Shahmeran under the Basilica Cistern and struck her bargain — breaking two of four chains, decrypting the journal, and learning of Mira. They are now sailing to the farm near the dig (The Road to Mira — the module's House Lying in Dreams, imminent). Still ahead: the Grand Negotiation, the Shahzadah swap, and the Eyes of Suleiman.
Two table-specific detours inside Act Three:
- The false Shahmeran. Before reaching the real serpent, the party freed and killed a green-dressed illusion-witch — "all risk, no reward," never the true prisoner. The real Shahmeran is the chained twelve-foot serpent-woman behind the sealed door.
- The Crown of Sargon. A side-quest seeded through the cats and the Blue Rider — "below the Maiden Tower" — grew into a two-night detour (the trial-tower and the dragon Yutba) that remade Sidra into a djinn-master warlock. It sits outside the main spine but now feeds directly into it.
Act Four · The Lunar Eclipse — unplayed
As written, three branching finales:
- No Loose Ends — if Ahra was never won over, the party clears the Janissary hideout, then is ambushed leaving it by palace guards and Aziz Sefa.
- Regicide — if the party finishes the Ghost's plan, they assault the palace during the eclipse, led by Ahra, Hano the Widow, or the Ghost himself — a cataclysmic finale on innocence, realpolitik, and humility.
- Confronting the Ghosts of Past — if the party turns to Mejid, they fight off the Ghost's desperate last assault; Ahra and Alemdar make their final stand in the Janissary Hearth.
All three end the same way: the eclipse breaks into a crescent, and the city — and the party — are changed. Given the table's standing alliance with the Ghost, the live path runs toward the Janissary-clearance ambush and a last confrontation with Alemdar, unless the mediation with Ahra (or a late change of heart) rewrites it. The Eyes-of-Suleiman step is where Bergüzar's visions let the party propose sparing her instead of removing her — the campaign's real moral hinge.
Sources
Module spine from city-of-crescent/campaign/campaign-overview.lore and the act-1…4 arc/lore files (prep twin: synopsis_of_the_story.html). Play record from Nights 1–18 and the "Resolved" log in plot_threads.html.