MCC - Purple Pit of the Mole Men (Area 1-3)

Area 1-3 Elevator

The metal slab on the right of the shroom filled area is an elevator door that.

Set into the wall is a slab of polished metal with a seam down the middle filled with something black. To the right there is a small jewel set into the wall that glows with a dim whitish light. The slab is roughly 6 feet wide and 8 tall and seems fully untouched by the aeons. 

The door can be opened by pressing the glowing jewel in the wall, which turns the jewel green and produced a "ding" before the doors slide apart. Alternately they can be forced with a DC 18 Strength check. A rover can make a DC 5 check using their Artifact Doors check bonus.

The slabs of metal part opening into a dark shaft nearly 10 feet on a side. Below the shaft descends some hundred feet and looking down you can see a shimmer of water from which a strange blue glow emanates. Dangling from the darkness above a pair of metal ropes descend some 6 feet before terminating abruptly, clearly you can only descend so far before you need to provide your own rope, or simply drop into the pool below. 

A DC 8 Strength of Agility check is needed to jump out and grab the metal ropes. Climbing down (or up) them requires another DC 8 Strength of Agility check. Dropping the last 40 feet into the water deals 1d3 damage, falling from higher up requires a DC 10 reflex save; if made the damage is 1d8, if failed the damage is 3d6.

The pool of water below is highly radioactive and immersion in the water forces a DC 15 Fortitude save for half damage against 1d8 radiation damage.

The water is strangely warm, almost hot and immediately your skin feels hot and tingles. You can see that this shaft has deposited into a larger cavern, either natural, or eroded over time. There is the remains of one wall of the square shaft with a pair of sliding metal doors at the water level. They appear to be your own exit.

The characters will want to exit the pool as quickly as possible. Every minute spent in the water forces another DC 15 save for half against 1d8 radiation damage. Forcing the lower doors open requires a DC 8 Strength check.

Exits to:

• Area 1-2 Shrooms and Screamers/Main Office
• Area 2-1 Pump Control

MCC - Purple Pit of the Mole Men (Area 1-2)

Area 1-2 Shrooms and Screamers/Main Office

Having gained access from the entrance the players can proceed into the mushroom infested area they saw through  the hard air door.

The next area is infested with a multitude of mushrooms both large and small. All glow with a strange blue-purple bioluminescence, but in some spots where the mushrooms are especially dense a green glow can be seen as well. The area is some 30 feet wide and perhaps twenty deep. The depth appears to be false however, as there is an obvious makeshift barricade blocking you from the deeper portions of the room. To the left there is a large slab of shiny metal set into the wall with a glowing gem set into the wall beside it. 

The green glowing spotys are actually dormant screamers (MCC pg 196), 1 per character (HP 6/13/14/18/14/14) that will "wake" and attack if they are at all disturbed (usually by investigating the green glow). These are some of the dead ancients who once staffed this facility, corralled here by the mole men and then barricaded in.

Healers or other characters may want to investigate the mushrooms. There are 1d3 varieties and the judge should allow a luck check to see if any of them have restorative properties. If failed they are either safe but otherwise unremarkable, or potentially poisonous (or possibly all 3 ...).

The metal slab on the right is an elevator door that leads to Area 1-3. The door can be opened by pressing the glowing jewel in the wall, a Dc 18 Strength check, or a DC 5 Rover check.

Inspecting the barricade reveals it to be made of stacked up office furniture.

The barricade is roughly 7 feet high and appears to be constructed primarily of large sections of a metal and hide wall. These sections are square metal with some kind of strange fuzzy hide stretched across the middle. Among these sections of wall you can also see old chairs and strange metal boxes. 

If the characters seek to deconstruct the wall ask them where along its length they want to do this (on the right there is a door hidden within the barricade to Area 1-7) and tell them that it is not difficult but will take time and may make noise. Beyond the barricade is a larger space that is scattered with debris and leads to areas 1-4, 1-5, and 1-6.

Beyond the barrier you see a larger space. Clutter about are large piles of debris and old furniture. On the left there are two openings in the wall that clearly lead into other spaces. At the back of this long space is a wall of entirely hard air beyond which a room containing machinery and controls with blinking lights. Through that room you can see a large window into a larger space from which the pervasive purple glow emanates.

Exits to:

• Area 1-1 Entrance 
• Area 1-3 Elevator
• Area 1-4 The Break Room
• Area 1-5 Restrooms
• Area 1-6 Main Control Room
• Area 1-7 Stairs

MCC - Purple Pit of the Mole Men (Area 1-1)

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:

• Area 1-2