the murder nerds

The final level of the Thirsty Pastimes. Now the party is surfing the void.

General Features

As with the previous level, a bit of imagination is required above the map. This level is based on limbo, or the infinite staircase, or Super Mario Galaxy. Each room is it’s own island, floating in the void. ‘Gravity’ doesn’t necessarily point in the same direction on each one, so the corridors between rooms twist and loop as they go. As before: describe away! Have corrdiors do a loop-the-loop, have distant rooms be above their heads, have parrallel corrdiors be inverted so that one is the celing to the other, go mad. Someone walking will always stay attached to the floor, but jumping between levels is a dangerous business.

• Environment: endless void, rooms scattered throughout 3d space, no walls or ceiling, gravity is strange and arbitrary (rooms at 90 and 180 to each other), floating bits of debris and creatures ‘swimming’ in zero g
  • jumping from one room to another very bad idea – need to touch floor for gravity to take hold at that level
• Lighting: mostly dark, although dim illumination from other rooms and floating light sources
• Creatures: githyanki, modrons, slaadi, hags, mimics
  • sleeping party could be assaulted by slaadi group (who can ‘swim’ through the air)
• Traps: none.

Map

Details

As before, each number refers to a room on the map. The party start at room 5.

1. Hag’s Workshop
   • Depending on the result in room 9 this appears as either:
     • Three pretty female bakers, in their kitchen, standing around an aga. Worktops are covered in cakes, biscuits, etc.
     • Three hags, standing around a cauldron. The floor is littered with bones and bits of rotting meat. Some of it recognisably human (or elf, dwarf, etc).
   • Hags will try to entice party into eating their ‘cakes’. Anyone who does must make a saving throw or fall unconcious. If most of party is unconcious the hags will attack the rest, and try to drive them away. Hags will then try to dump unconscious characters in pot and boil under tender.
   • Even if party regonise them as hags, they still try to bargin with or trick the group. They will try to lead them to their ‘house’ (room 9).
   • Hags will fight until only 1 remains, who will then retreat to her house (area 9)
2. Intellect devourer
   • 4ft wooden chest, covered in chains, inside a cage, surrounded by spikes. All three are locked. Cage and chest also trapped.
   • Inside chest is a cute little brain with legs and little forked tongue.
   • Will try to get into the head of whoever is closest.
   • Also in the chest is a random magic item, a +2 ranged weapon, and an amulet of spells (+1 spells per day).
3. Modron Base
   • 12 monodrones (spheres) tidying, 8 duodrones (flat rectangles) building, 4 tridrones (d4) defending and a quadrone (cube) supervising (3000xp to anyone who recognises that as a centred square number).
   • They seem to have half-built some kind of circular iris structure.
   • Only the quadrone will talk to the party – they’re building a portal to take them home but they’re missing some parts. Willing to transport party to next level if they help.
   • They need a power gem, which has been stolen by some women (area 9).
4. Mimic room
   • Seems like a nice library/smoking room. Bookcases, leather chairs, coffee table, desk, even a chandelier (suspended from nothing)
   • Everything is a mimic. Everything. Door, chairs, bookcases, individual books, everything.
   • Wait until party get in and start interacting with the room before attacking.
   • Treat as 9 medium mimics (3x chairs, coffee table, desk, 2x bookcases, door, chandelier) with 2 swarms of tiny book mimics (treat as swarm of insects) (7000xp for the lot).
   • Once fighting has finished, make all survivors make a saving throw. Lowest roll falls into mouth in the floor. The floor itself is a mimic! (treat as giant mimic – 3xHP and damage of 2d8+5). Oh, and killing the room you’re standing in might be a mistake…
5. Entrance landing
   • Rectangular platform, door and then corridor/staircase leading away from it.
   • Spend some time describing the scene, and how the corridor/staircase you can see twists and turns in 3D such that the platforms you can see don’t all seem to have ‘gravity’ in the same direction as this one.
   • Is that a ship in the distance? And over there looks like a planet…?
6. Treasure Room
   • Three weapons lie on plinths in a semicircle.
   • In the focus of the circle, on the raised dias is a sphynx. To get a weapon you must choose a mental or physical challenge. Mental = riddle, physical = do something cool (juggle, do a handstand, double-jointed, etc).
   • Answer a riddle, get a weapon. Get it wrong, die horribly.
     1. Vine Whip (+3 whip that does extra 2d6 poison damage)
     2. Bubble beam (+3 quarterstaff that does extra 2d8 ice damage)
     3. Fire Fang (+3 shortsword that does extra 3d6 fire damage)

I’m going to get a selection of riddles from the internet, I might even throw in some maths and logic puzzles. You could drop these for some in-character challenges if you prefer.

7. Captain D-Mo’s Dock
   • Hunk of rock, overlaid with planks of wood and other bits of crap, leading to ship(!)
   • Ship looks like sea ship, but has little flippers along its hull, that idly catch the breeze.
   • Ahoy! Defective Modron (known as Captain D-Mo to his crew) is aboard the ship, overseeing the repair work of his githyanki crew.
   • He speaks like a computer speaking like a pirate. And he’s more than willing to attack the crew and use them as slaves if they look at him funny. 8x githyanki knights, but armed with cutlasses.
   • If they’re polite and ask about the other modrons, he tells them he needs a power gem to power his ship. If the party bring him one he’ll sail them out of this level.
8. Githyanki vs Slaad fight
   • Group of 5x gith knights vs mixture of slaad colours.
   • Can help one side or neither.
     • If neither, gith will take heavy losses, but eventually beat the slaad off, some of who will hop off the platform and swim away into the void. Gith will be pissed, but won’t start a fight (because injured) and will slope off to area 7.
     • If they help gith: they are very grateful and suggest they speak to Cap’n.
   • If they help slaad: toadys accept help, and then turn on party and attack them.
   • Dead giths each have +1 cutlasses, and +1 half plate. Slaad have potions of healing.

9. Little House on the Planet
   • This appears to be a minature planet (not that minature, probably 120 feet in diameter), with it’s own tiny sun and moon.
   • Sitting on the planet is a witches cabin, which the surviving hag from area 1 will retreat into.
   • When the party get within 30 feet of the cabin, it comes to life! It grows two spindly legs and arms and is able to run around and attack the party (use the stats for a stone golem or something). The hag will also lob spells when she can.
   • Under the floorboards of the hut is a power gem (as needed by D-Mo and the other Modrons) which brings the hut to life. Removing it stops the hut’s attacks.
10. Crossroad of Despair/Delight
    • When they see this from a distance, it’s fuzzy and indistinct. As if they can’t quite focus on it properly. When they get there, have everyone make a saving throw
    • If most fail: room appears to be made of sweets and rainbows! There’s a little gingerbread fence around the outside, gummy bears standing around, coconut mushrooms growing out of the ground, etc The path leading north looks like a glass rainbow, and the teletubbies music is playing.
    • If most pass: room appears to be made out of flesh and bones. There is a fence of bones around the outside, hideous stitched-together lumps of flesh decorating the place and a skull-lined path leads north.
11. EXTRA at point ‘s’ on map: Ramming Speed!
    • Githyanki pirate ship (or if already met, random chunk of debris) smash through corridor. Anyone on S, or each square either side, must make saving throw or be cast away from corridor and will drift endlessly.
    • Corridor is now broken – may split the party.

…The End?

So there’s two options for this adventure to end, each with it’s own twist:

• The party step through the Modron portal and arrive at the winners ceremony.
  • However, only one person can truly win the competition… and so they must fight to death, until only one remains.
• The party sail off with B-Mo, living a life of piracy across the multiverse.
  • However, during their adventures they accidentally awaken an eldritch horror from between the planes, which devours all of existence.

They’re both quite rubbish and badly thought through, but I don’t honestly expect to get this far in a one-off 4 hour session.

Next week(?) I’ll finish the Thirsty Pastimes series which a look back at how it all actually went, and what I’d do differently in the future.