C Series Masterpost

Introducing the C Series, a trilogy of linked dungeons. A monster infestation beneath a sanitarium leads adventurers on a quest across the planet, and beyond.

 

C Series Music Post

For C1 I mostly used the Barony soundscape, falling back on Machinarium for the safe areas of the Fazenda. C2 was a grab bag. C3 happened the way it did because I wanted to use the space theme from Metal Slug 3, and the rest fell into place after that.

C Series Session 6: The Clay Moon

Roddy Applecreek the Mad Bomber, Delgal Haberkorn the Hundred Handed Mage and Al Hafiz the Preserver went out into the Fazenda gardens to retrieve the Threshers for an expedition through the second portal, into the heart of the alien base. They found La Mal wrestling with a huge pile of lianas and yellow trumpet flowers, while Condition Killer shouted pointers. He explained that the success of the expedition against the Gnolls on the previous day convinced the Grain Cult to loan the team a Mound. It didn't have a name, but they called it Phosgene because it smelled like hay. Al Hafiz collected his ax wielding henchman Eric the Barbarian, but Grit was dead and Gowonry was nowhere to be found.

 

A team of masons and carpenters came out of the portal in the Gnomish mines, carrying trowels, saws and other tools. One of them handed Al Hafiz a business card, bearing the epigram

 

Stone is not too hard

Nor mud too soft

 

and an address in the Marble Cliffs. Condition Killer explained that he hired these people to do some work in the tomb, to make it easier to get into the portal and stop desert beasts from nesting there.

On the other side of the first portal, the entrances leading out from the tomb to Hogman's Plain were all bricked up. The workers added a ladder going up and down the central shaft, surrounded by a wooden cage to stop the user from falling off. The party mounted the ladder to the third floor, waited for Phosgene the Mound to catch up, and went through the other portal - the one that led to the alien base.

 

C Series Session 5: Cerebro Cerebro Cerebro

Grenthrum and Roddy took Colette, Condition Killer and La Mal back through the portal to the tomb at Hogman's Plain. Colette wanted to wipe out the Gnolls on the first floor and find the bones of her friends for a Holy Mountain burial. The Threshers wanted severed Gnoll heads as proof of work, to advance their position in the Grain Cult. Grenthrum and Roddy wanted money.

The Threshers cleared the portal. The adventurers followed them through.

C Series Session 4: Cerebro Cerebro Cerebro

 

Doctor Pleroma hired two mercenaries to assist the Mad Bomber Roddy Applecreek and the Hundred Hand Wizard Delgal Haberkorn in their exploration of the tomb on the other side of the portal. They needed warriors, so warriors is what he brought: the Cleric Condition Killer and the Fighter La Mal, Threshers from the Grain Cult. He took care of procurement and payment as thanks for the adventurers heeding his wishes and not hiring any of the patients.

Condition Killer explained that the adventurers were welcome to any treasure they found, but they needed to turn over any monster corpses to him and his colleague for dismemberment. Receipts like ears and heads could be claimed for bounty, while other parts could be sold as magical reagents. Roddy filled them and Delgal in on what waited for them on the other side of the portal: Intellect Devourers, Gnolls, alien super-science and maybe even another portal.

As frontline fighters, the Threshers went through the portal first. After a moment on the other side, Condition Killer came back through to give the all clear. The adventurers followed him through into the tomb.

C Series Session 3: Cerebro Cerebro Cerebro

 

Grenthrum the Dwarf needed help exploring the dungeon. Roddy was dead, Jack was in physical therapy and nobody else was around to go through the portal with him. He went looking for some Thouls to hire, starting in the chapel of the Leper Heart. The room was deserted, but a trail of ash and slime led from the empty bucket to the Fazenda kitchen.

In the kitchen, a pair of Mutants shouted and threw salt at a dark red blob, which crawled up on the table and devoured a plate of empanadas. The blob gurgled a greeting to Grenthrum in Roddy's voice. The power of Leper Heart had resurrected his ashes. With a slime and three henchmen backing him up, Grenthrum thought he had a chance.

Downstairs in the defunct Gnomish mines, the mage Delgal Haberkorn fussed over the portal while Doctor Pleroma stood guard, ready to dissolve anything that came through. Grenthrum asked if he could hire any of the doctor's patients and was rebuffed. The Thouls were obsessed with maintaining combat readiness in case their creator Rope Trick ever came back for them. They needed to learn how to be something other than living weapons and dungeon exploration would only reverse that process.

Delgal gave the all clear. Roddy, Delgal, Eric, Gowonry and Grit stepped through the portal into the unknown.

 

C Series Session 2: The Caverns of Contemplation

One day after breaching the first line of Gnomish defenses, four adventurers descended into the Caverns of Contemplation for a second try.

• Grenthrum Doorknocker, Dwarven Monster Hunter
  
• Jack Fatherd, Coureur des bois
  
• Roddy Applecreek, Mad bomber
  
• Shahid, Adjudicator
  

They left their hirelings Gowonry, Grit and Barb Eric behind, and managed to convince the two Thouls to stay out of the fight for now. They'd be more valuable protecting the entrance than trying to squeeze into Gnome scale tunnels.

 

The cavern floor below the entry shaft looked suspicious and Roddy realized that the Gnomes had cast an illusion on it. He dropped a rock on a rope and triggered the flashbang runes and chromatic orb trap. The illusion blocked the light from the flash and Roddy was too far away to be hit by the orb, but the bang undoubtedly alerted every Gnome in the mine. The group debated what to do, and elected to forge ahead anyway.

C Series Session 1: The Caverns of Contemplation

Frans Post

 

Fazenda Sanitarium, a lakeside estate in the sweltering Rubberlands below the Marble Cliffs. Formerly the estate of a Don who staunchly supported the Old King, currently a hospital run by the healing Church of Leper Heart. On the patio, a mutant with fleshy lobster claws pours cold anise liquor mixed with sweet, citrusy tonic for eight adventurers:

• Al-Hafiz, Self-Sacrificing Preserver, and his three henchmen
• Eric the Hired Barbarian
• Gowonry and Grit the Mutoids
• Grenthrum Doorknocker, Dwarven Monster Hunter
  
• Jack Fatherd, Coureur des bois
  
• Roddy Applecreek, Mad bomber
  
• Wakefield, Burglar and Confidence Trickster

The sentient green slime Doctor Pleroma explained the mission with such precise diction that his Common took on an accent of its own.

There’s a monster underneath my hospital. It opened a hole in the ballroom and when one of my patients went inside it killed him. There was a loud sound and a flash of light from the hole and he was burned. We lifted the body out with a hook. Go down there and kill whoever did it. All of them. Your pay is 5,000 silver pieces plus any treasure you find. Except the red stones, those belong to the Heart. Don’t take any of the patients with you, even if they ask.