 |
| The most "Machodor Sessions" image ever created |
Introduction
Following up on information gathered from Firenewt slavers in the previous session, the adventurers assembled a team and returned to the Pizza Slice of Doom for the first time in over a year. When they were last there, they had defeated the Lovecraftian horrors that had taken it over. Who, or what, would they find on their return? (Another restocking exercise for my favourite dungeon.)
Timekeeping
This session began on April 9th 2026, with the player characters adventuring all day and returning to Minas Mandalf. Downtime for these characters begins on the 10th.
Player Characters Present
Sheamus (Level 9 Irish Fighter Lord from Brovenloft, rider of the Rocket Cycle and wielder of the Drewblade) with henchmen McScales (Lizardman F7), Colin Farel (F2), Sinead O'Connor (C2)Steelvein (Level 7 Fighter, Henchman of Giuseppe, mutant) with henchman Rhoikos (M6) Connor Lugh (Dual class bard hopeful Fighter Level 5 Thief Level 1, strummer of Fochlucan Bandore)
Downtime
Session Report
Encounter #1: Clopper Dapnab
Highlights: Lizardman leader Clopper Dapnab was overwhelmed to see McScales with the party. He lowered his Hawkman weapon and looked them over. It seems that in his absence Sheamus's henchman had developed quite a reputation as the "lucky hatchling" among the remaining Lizardmen.
Clopper explained the situation in the quadrant of the crashed Sky City known as the Pizza Slice of Doom. All of this was done in the Lizardman language, so what it actually sounded like was this:
"Oie! OIE! Yousa hair! Yousa actually... meesa been tinken yousa was a story, but yousa REAL! Da lucky hatchling. Longo time, yesa? Berry longo time."
But I will spare readers a full session report rendered in this fashion, "Meesa nice DM".
At the start of the session I recapped the background of this place for Connor's player. The Pizza Slice of Doom is the name given by the locals to a part of the crashed sky city, which was once run by King Vultan and his Hawkmen, with Lizardmen as slaves. Then the Old Ones took over and enslaved the remaining Hawkmen and Lizardmen. Then heroes from Machodor killed the Old Ones, incidentally freeing the Lizardmen, who were happy to take over the place and began to live in peace, even bearing new young. Clopper then went on to bemoan the invasion by Purple Worms from deep below, which rampaged around inside the structure. In doing so, some of them were exposed to the gloopy-goopy stuff, the same radioactive waste that Slippery Pete was exposed to that made him shrink down to halfling size. However, the effect of this material on the worms was dramatically different: three worms in particular became much more powerful, and have made their home on the middle level of the part of the PSoD the Lizardmen were living on. This resulted in the 1,000 or so Lizardmen being split into groups: 300 or so with Clopper, unable to reach the 600 or so, including women and young, in the lower level, and leaving perhaps 100 Lizardmen somewhere in the middle level, if they were in fact still alive there.
Right before the worms made themselves known, however, Firenewts had used their tunnels into the PSoD from the lava tube below to invade and capture Lizardman slaves.
From all this the heroes realised that if they could take care of the problem of the mutant worms, they would not only help a potential ally faction in the Lizardmen, something that appealed to Sheamus in particular, but they might also find another way into the lava tube.
Clopper was beside himself: "... Yousa sayen yousa gonna fight dem. All tree of dem. If yousa serious, and yousa LOOKIN serious, meesa show you da way."
He roughly sketched out the layout, accessible from the drain in the area the adventurers had taken canoes down in past sessions. The giant worms were territorial and did not work together; each had a different name among the Lizardmen: Da Crusher, known to bring the roof down on its prey; Da Bleeder, known for creating wounds that keep bleeding, and also for pretending to be dead; and Da Gaper, unpredictable, fond of lying in wait to attack from below, and possessed of something else Clopper could not rightly explain.
The party made day way their way down to the lower level and found that the water there had long since receded; they were able to walk along the bottom of what had once been a river. Once again there was reminiscing, this time about the session Gurt was swallowed by a Purple Worm.
 |
| At last they found the new area, an entire ecosystem. |
Though it was clear that the main passage was the most likely location to encounter a worm, the party hugged the wall and peered down the smaller side passages as they passed. Right near the second side passage they heard ahead of them a strange sound, like a tree falling over slowly into soft wet soil. Instead of continuing toward the sound, they went down the side passage, finding that it terminated in a collapse after 60 feet. However, right beside the blockage was a door, so they set Connor to work on it. No sooner had the thief eased the door open with a soft whoosh than he saw the room ahead: no bigger than a broom closet, and filled with debris and vegetation almost to the threshold. Then some of the vegetation moved!
Combat #1: 2 Shambling Mounds
Rounds: 7 and a surprise segment
Result: Party win
Highlights: The party had no ranger this week, and were surprised on two occasions. Make of that what you will. This time it was going to cost them. It could have cost them Connor, but at the last second, after I had rolled and hit him twice as it happened, I remembered to check his Dexterity. Sure enough, it was high enough to negate the segment of surprise. In fact, everyone nearby but Sheamus had a Dexterity bonus, so the attack had to fall on him. He managed to avoid being hit twice, which was very important, as being hit twice by a Shambling Mound would take him out of the fight completely. The first full round of combat followed, and the trio of Sheamus, McScales, and Steelvein, all with three attacks every two rounds, smashed into the mound of moving vegetation as Connor scrambled out of the front rank to the back of the group. He was just in time to see the other mound of vegetation shambling down the corridor towards them; they were trapped between the two.
The creatures were incredibly hardy, translating to AC 0 and half damage from melee weapons. The front three had been confident, but another monster on their rear spelled trouble. Connor weathered the initial round, only being hit once. Sheamus's new henchmen Colin and Sinead jumped to help. The cleric readied a cure light wounds spell for the next round, but the monsters won initiative (they won five out of the seven rounds) and she was hit twice and swallowed up by the creature, dead. Round four the same thing happened to Connor, but unlike Sinead he still had some hit points left and was fighting for breath on the inside of the monster.
By the start of round five the front rank had killed the first of the two creatures: Rhoikos was actually the MVP here with a constant stream of magic missiles, against which the Shambling Mound had no special resistance. But now Steelvein's mutation kicked in; he had to stop fighting and eat something. This was the first time it had happened since acquiring a Sword of Dancing, so incredibly he could stop for a break and still have the sword fight on for him.
This was just as well, as Sheamus was next to be swallowed whole by the same Shambling Mound that had killed Sinead and was currently killed Connor; causing me to wonder if there is some sort of limit to how many people can be eaten by one in the same battle.
Rhoikos declared he was going to cast invisibility on himself next round.
Round seven started, and the party won initiative, crucial, since it wasn't a multi-attack round; Connor was going to die if the creature survived it, and Sheamus was not looking much better either. McScales saved the day with his spear, and the party breathed a collective sigh of relief that the toll had not been worse than a single casualty, sad as it was for Sheamus's new henchmen to fall so soon.
It wasn't a total loss, however, as poking around inside the vegetable matter in the room turned up some shiny jewellery, and a timely detect magic from Rhoikos turned up a potion and a ring. But they were battered; there was no way they could continue and take on the mutated Purple Worms, and so they retreated to where Clopper waited, explaining to him what had happened and how they would need to try again in the future.
"Da mutant purple worms issa still down dere. Deysa not goen anywhere. Yousa comen back right? Yousa just... yousa bringen more people next time, okeyday?"
Those words rang in their ears all the way back to Minas Mandalf.
Session Statistics:
Combats: 1
Rooms mapped: 3
Combat rounds: 7
Losses: Sinead
