Welcome to the first a in series of weekly posts detailing my Mutant Crawl Classics adventure Purple Pit of the Mole Men. Each week I will provide an area of the map in complete detail and by the end of this series you will have a full adventure ready to be run. This adventure is based on Harley Stroh's The Sinister Secret of Whiterock, and I consider this an adaptation of the adventure to the MCC rules set. You can navigate using the links provided in this post or via the page in the header bar above. This is designed with 4-6 level 1 characters in mind, if you are running this with higher level characters increase hit dice and enemy numbers accordingly.
Area 1-1 Entrance
The player characters can find this location while exploring or head directly to it if they were witness to the landslide that revealed this entrance after untold years buried.
You stand amid the rocks and earth of a recent landslide looking up at the shorn off earth above. A strange site greets your eyes; a wall of artificial stone of the ancients juts partway out from the rocks and fresh earth. A small ledge of similar material leaves a place where one could stand were they to climb the loose slope. A portion of the wall seems to be the strange "hard air" of the ancient ones, and may provide access to this newly uncovered ancient ruin.
Climbing up to the ledge can be done with a DC 7 agility check. No check will be needed if there is a rope other aide. Atop the ledge the following additional detail can be seen.
Standing on the ledge you see that this structure's exposed wall is perhaps 15 feet across and ten feet high. Set into this wall is a section of "hard air" roughly 6 feet long and 7 feet high, which is grimy with age and dirt. Through the dirty "hard air" a strange purple glow can barely be made out within the ruin. Set into the wall on the left is a black square with a triangular depression.
The "hard air" is a sliding glass door which serves as entry into this ruin. A rover can attempt to open the door with a DC 10 check to bypass Artifact Doors and Security Systems. The glass/hard air can be smashed with 10 points of damage, or it can be forced open with a DC 15 Strength check (or a combined strength of 25). The wall to the right of the door is cracked and with an hour of effort the broken stone can be pulled down enough to squeeze through.
Once inside the characters will find a room 15 feet long and 10 feet deep.
Inside you found a small chamber 15 feet long and 10 feet deep. Directly ahead is an opening barred by another "hard air" barrier, beyond which the purple glow is more obviously visible. To the left is a small wall, half the height of a man, and to the right an area of the room contains 4 upright pillars.
On the left is the security area. Behind the console is the corpse of an ancient one. Time has deteriorated the bones such than any disruption will crumble them to dust. The body has a security comm badge that will open all doors in the facility, and a gauzer pistol with 7 rounds.
The control unit is mostly broken, but a DC 15 Intelligence check can repair it enough to allow the door to activate and open into Area 1-2. A result of DC 20 will also reactivate the 4 decon-pillars in the room which will purge radioactive material from any who walk within the area they outline. The only effect of which would be to inactivate any materials useful for Glowburning.
If the characters do not fix the console they can open the inner glass door in the same way as the outer door (DC 10 check from a Rover, DC 15 Str check, 10 points of damage, or a combined 25 Str). Alternately if the Comm Badge is activated it will automatically open the door for the possessing character.
If the characters peer through the inner door into Area 1-2 they will see a larger area festooned with glowing mushrooms in various shades of purples, blues, and reds, as well as a number of areas where a different green-yellow glow leaks from between the mushrooms.
Exits to:
