The Quarrelling Muses
The Quarrelling Muses, by Yvris Burke
Eustache le Sueur - The Muses (1652-1655)
Quarrelling Muses
You’re walking through a dark forest when you hear the
sound of raised voices ahead. As you draw closer you
can tell that one speaks in a low monotone of barely
contained fury, while the other is singing in an
impressive soprano.
The singing stops and you hear the discordant twang
of snapping harp strings just as the trees part and to
reveal a verdant forest glade lit with the sweet, golden
light of a setting sun, though it’s still mid afternoon.
Across a meadow of long grasses and wild flowers you
see the source of the racket. Here are two minor
goddesses, each twelve feet tall and glowing with divine
radiance. They’re dressed in flowing silks and flower
crowns, and their is hair curled and twisted gracefully
up from their long necks. One wears a cool blue gown
and the other an impassioned scarlet. The goddess in
blue is sitting on a felled log, her arms and legs crossed
and her face taught with wrath. The other in red is
kneeling in the grass, similarly annoyed, tending to her
broken harp.
“I ought to burn your best library for that,” says the
goddess in scarlet. “I still might, just you wait and see.”
“They keep plays in libraries," retorts the goddess in
blue. “Sheet music, too. Though it’d be just like you to
burn your own symphonies to spite your sister.”
Page 1 | Quarrelling Goddesses, Dilemma
The Players' Dilemma
If the player characters try to leave unnoticed, the
goddess in scarlet (a muse of art) calls to them for aid.
If they run, have her chase them, pleading and saying
she only requires a moment of their time.
If they give in the muse of art will escort them back to
the glade and introduce her sister, a muse of history.
She’ll explain that they’ve revived an old quarrel, one
they’ve had many times over the course of humanoid
history, and they’d like your help in resolving it. They’d
like you to tell them which of them is of greater use to
the humanoid races. Does art or history provide the
greater benefit?
If the player characters try to leave without
answering they’ll get lost in the forest and end up back
in the glade over and over while the goddesses become
increasingly impatient.
If the player characters answer that art is of greater
benefit, the muse of history will attack them. The muse
of art will watch and laugh unless her sister is badly
hurt, when she’ll threaten to join the fight unless the
players leave immediately. If they run the goddesses
won’t follow. The player characters will have advantage
on Charisma skill checks and saving throws for the rest
of the day.
If the player characters answer that history is of
greater benefit, the muse of art will attack them. The
muse of history will watch and laugh unless her sister is
badly hurt, when she’ll threaten to join the fight unless
the players leave immediately. If they run the
goddesses won’t follow. The player characters will have
advantage on Intelligence skill checks and saving throws
for the rest of the day.
If the player characters come up with a third option
like, say, medicine or agriculture, the goddesses will
begin to fight about whose domain this belongs in.
Whichever goddess rolls higher initiative with use her
chain lightning spell on the other, hitting the player
characters nearby as well. After this attack the players
can run and the goddesses won’t follow.
If the player characters answer that one is
strengthened by the other, that art reflects the time in
which it’s made in a way that brings greater
understanding, and that history informs and deepens
art, the sisters will curl their lips in disgust at... contd.
The Quarrelling Muses, by Yvris Burke
The Players' Dilemma contd.
... their mortal hubris. They’ll be banished from the
magical glade by force, landing with a thump on the
forrest floor and taking 4d6 force damage.

After they leave the glade they won’t be able to find

it again.

Page 2 | Dilemma contd., Muse Stats