This not-quite-a-mission is suited for hosts of ranks 3-4 or above. It will likely last longer than a classic mission, and can easily be split into two parts if needed. See Be Prepared for things to introduce ahead of time.
No survey map on file for this aerie (missions 8 & 9 print none) — the briefing is in the booklet: Open source p.48
The briefing
Mission briefing & concept p.48
This not-quite-a-mission is suited for hosts of ranks 3-4 or above. It will likely last longer than a classic mission, and can easily be split into two parts if needed. See Be Prepared for things to introduce ahead of time.
It's All Hallow's Eve, and all hosts are looking forward to the traditional ceremony and ball, an opportunity to party (and flirt) with Reception colleagues, eat rich food, and drink more than they should. "You look like the day after Deadman's Ball" is office slang for someone looking hungover or sick. Every year, the bigwigs host a ceremony in front of the Memorial Wall before the costumed party starts with music, laughter, and booze. It's a rare opportunity for employees to let loose and you don't have to ask them twice. The shenanigans that ensue will be material for gossip and jokes for months after.
This year, things may go differently: a murderer is at work at the party. The killer is a colleague possessed by a blood parasite originating from a condemned Research & Development lab on level . If they solve the murders, the bruisers are instructed by the head of Reception themselves to find out what happened.
The ceremony
All bruisers not on duty gather in front of the Memorial Wall for a minute of silence in memory of comrades fallen in the line of corporate duty in the presence of the director of Client Services, Sforza (decisive, muscular warrior). The most recent recruit, the shy kobold thief Lassie, reads the names of everyone dead during the past year. The bigwigs then make their speeches. Sforza's is typically martial, blaming the deaths of colleagues on clients. She knows her staff: her language is simple and full of slang. The speech from the head of Reception depends on who they are. If it's Demosthenes (wily, raucous minotaur), it is loud and crude, but may also include a few snide remarks that could be interpreted as criticism towards upper management for lack of funding. After this solemn moment, all hosts go back to their rooms to get costumed up before gathering in the cantina.
Be prepared
It's best to have some facts in place before running this adventure:
1 ▸ The murderer: A Reception colleague who recently asked questions about level . Set up at least one such conversation with a PC. Use an existing relation if possible, if not use Syrven, an inquisitive rift dwarf tinkerer.
2 ▸ The murdered: For added emotional impact, at least one colleague the PCs know and like should die.
3 ▸ The boss: Ideally, the hosts should have interacted briefly with the head of Reception. Failing that, have the supervisor imply that their boss knows who the PCs are during a brief or debrief. If you haven't yet decided who the head of Reception is, you can use Demosthenes, a wily and raucous minotaur.
4 ▸ The costumes: It's a conversation topic for days before the event. Have the players decide in advance on their costumes for the party, and how much effort their characters put into it.
The party
The large cantina hall and areas are decorated with cheap garlands, black candles, and macabre imagery. The cantina tables are replete with food and (mostly alcoholic) drink. Loud music by Bela the goblin resounds throughout the entire area via magical relays looking like disco balls. Soon, everyone is drinking, laughing, dancing. Some are even kissing in quiet corners.
This is a good time for the characters to interact with their colleagues in any way the players see fit (see the table opposite if you need more NPCs).
d20 colleagues at the party p.49
COLLEAGUES AT THE PARTY
1 ▸ Grashnom the timid, clumsy ogre, in a paladin costume
2 ▸ Bilzibit the cruel imp summoness, in a little girl costume
3 ▸ Slider the suave half-orc ranger, in a Mister Noir costume
4 ▸ Määri the irritable marilith raider, in a goddess Amaltha costume
5 ▸ Ssuno the sneaky serpentman sorcerer in a halfling cook costume
6 ▸ Azkelash the socially inept cephalid psion in a cabaret dancer costume
7 ▸ Frupella the contrarian pixie scout in a Sforza costume
8 ▸ Saltry the romantic succubus fighter in a roper costume
9 ▸ Zoltan the misunderstood vampire knight, in a town crier costume
10 ▸ Eericka the depressed fallen angel assassin, in an angel costume
11 ▸ San'zunni the haughty deep elf druid, in a wood elf costume
12 ▸ Fragonia the motherly bugbear druid, in a spider costume
13 ▸ KR1-T3N the emotional brass automaton soldier, in a maid costume
14 ▸ Bumble the socialite nobbit bard, in a ridiculous imp costume
15 ▸ Tengent the blunt plainswoman barbarian, dressed as an plainswoman from another tribe
16 ▸ Winolia the bubbly but scheming witch, in a high inquisitor costume
17 ▸ Aljizra the tempestuous djinn holy warrior, in an efreeti costume
18 ▸ Grikikulis the angry gnome trap-master in a werewolf costume
19 ▸ Knit and Wit the obnoxious goblin twins, in a (diminutive) centaur costume
20 ▸ Lugin, an incisive kenku magic-user, in a kuo-Toa costume
Interactions p.50
Roll on the list of interactions below during the evening, at least once for each host. When the Δ on the social interaction table is stepped down, roll on (or choose from) the hints of murder table. If you roll hint #4, the bruisers have a chance to confront the murderer (see below).
Δ12 interactions
1 ▸ The employee of the month butters up Sforza and the head of Reception by disparaging the player characters' team.
2 ▸ A very hungry colleague berates the Maintenance staff bringing in trays of food for not being quick enough.
3 ▸ A colleague jumps on a table and starts a highly charged speech about working conditions and the need for a union. If the bigwigs notice, Termination will be notified.
4 ▸ A conga line starts, colleagues dancing and shouting wildly to the music in a long serpentine chain.
5 ▸ A colleague chats a player character up, hoping for intimacy.
6 ▸ Two colleagues fight over the designs of their costumes and ask a player character to arbitrate.
7 ▸ A colleague is emotionally wrecked by the ceremony in memory of fallen comrades and weeps on a character's shoulder.
8 ▸ A drunk colleague starts spilling rumors (or secrets) about a player character.
9 ▸ A PC drinks a cup of spiked punch. : 1. They think they're flying, 2. They think they're dead, 3. Everyone looks like a client, 4. They mistake everyone for someone else.
10 ▸ A drunk character barfs on Sforza's boots... Check CON to avoid another round on Sforza's costume (Imperator Gorogos, a famous conqueror of ancient times).
11 ▸ Andemiel from the Crystal Flute crashes the party dressed as a goblin warlock to check out Bela's music. When Bela sees her, he launches into one of his complex (and undanceable) compositions.
12 ▸ A player character stumbles upon the beginnings of a sex orgy, and is dragged in to join.
Hints of murder
1 ▸ A colleague bumps into a player character, staggering and visibly drunk. A bit later, the PC realizes they are covered with blood. Decide if the drunk colleague was the murderer or someone who tripped over a murder victim and kept going without noticing.
2 ▸ A colleague emerges from a side corridor screaming and blabbering about fangs and claws. The murderer missed their chance.
3 ▸ A player character finds a colleague, dead and partially devoured, in a dark corner or unused briefing room.
4 ▸ One or more characters stumble upon the murderer slashing at a screaming colleague.
The possessed murderer p.50
This colleague is actually dead, intellect devoured by the blood parasite they freed in the R&D lab of level . Their face is twisted in a horrendous grin and their hands (or other appendages) are deformed into nasty claws. They are covered in blood, particularly around the mouth from the vitals of all the evening's victims. If needed, remind the players of their interaction with this colleague about level .
BLOOD PARASITE. HD 5 (27 hp), ARM –, ATT claws (x2), SP mimicry, hide in a crowd, immune to magical attacks and mental effects, ML Δ10.
- Death and possession: If the parasite manages to bring a PC down to 0 hp and that character fails their CON roll, not only do they die, but the parasite takes possession of their body. Use the above stats with 14 hp. If the murderer falls down to 0 hp, the possessed body falls to the floor, broken, and a purple, shadowy mist emerges from the body. It hovers for a few seconds, then disappears through the floor. In its disincarnated form, the parasite is immune to most damage.
- Reinforcements: Every turn, one colleague shows up to help, armed with a broken bottle or a salad fork. Start with any PCs occupied elsewhere, then add an NPC of your choice per turn – no need for stats, just roll Δ4 damage to the murderer the first turn, stepping up the die for each new combatant. When the die steps down, describe an NPC getting killed or knocked out.
The not-quite-a-mission p.51
If the characters were involved in taking down the murderer, possibly saving one or more colleagues, the bigwigs congratulate them and reward them with a little job (shame that overtime isn't in host contracts).
Sforza wants to help eliminate the threat to the security of Dungeon, Inc. that is that possessing creature. She promises backup as the team follows the trail down. Even if they do not mention floor , someone else around will recognize the murderer and mention it to her. She hands the PCs a single Δ8 health potion she's got on her. PCs may take any equipment they own with them, and other concerned hosts will contribute to those who own nothing. Roll once on the weapons table for PCs who don't own their weapons.
What if they steered away from trouble? You know your players best. If being the team conveniently tasked to follow the blood parasite would feel like a railroad to them, let them be and prep another mission for next session. Of course, the employee of the month's team is the one that saves the day.
Wandering experiments p.52
Two experimental subjects were freed from their time-stop containers when the possessed murderer smashed them. Roll encounter Δ8 when the characters enter a new room. On a 1–3, they encounter:
1. The slime golem, a laboratory creation, green and translucid with a vaguely humanoid but highly adaptable shape. Over the decades of its confinement, it developed a form of consciousness, but knows nothing about the world. Can speak the words: prof, good, no!, beware! and will either attempt communication or flee (unless attacked).
SLIME GOLEM. HD 6 (29 hp), ARM –, ATT acid hug , SP slimy (disadvantage to damage against it), vulnerable to fire (advantage to damage, disadvantage to Morale rolls), stick to surfaces, change shape, ML Δ6
2. The bone-gobbler, a magical bone creature that grows by absorbing bones from its victims. Starved and weak, yet still dangerous. In its initial form, it's only two human femurs, a few dwarf ribs, and an orc forearm fused together.
BONE-GOBBLER. HD 4 (24 hp), ARM --, ATT 2 x bony bash , SP growth: acquires half the HD and max hit points of a killed victim, ML –
3. INES (Illusory Non-sentient Emergency System), the semi-intelligent illusion of a curvaceous hobgoblin receptionist, tasked with advising staff and visitors in case of fires, containment breaches, or office berserker rage. She can answer basic questions, and her advice is equally basic: move towards the exit, stay low, don't make any noise, etc.
Epilogue p.53
If the hosts manage to lock the blood parasite in its cylinder, they are commended by Sforza and owed a favor from both Reception and Supervision. She may call on them for difficult missions and other matters. If they have not destroyed the bone-gobbler or the slime golem, they will roam the Dungeon and, in time, become a larger problem. The three-headed ogre and destructor are recovered, secretly studied, and may end up as denizens or even new Reception hires. The hosts may hang on to papers of a highly political nature. If other hosts find out that the current Vice-Overseer for Strategy once tried to get rid of their whole workforce, it will lead to discontent and may spark the first strike in Dungeon, Inc.'s history. It's up to the players to decide how they will choose to use these papers (or not).
Keyed rooms (8)
A. The Hub p.51
The landing of has four doors. Three of them point south and one north. The south side is well lit by oil lanterns.
→ Doors. The southern doors lead to client aeries (roll for names on p.25) via the usual secret passages. The north door is walled up, with a sign: DO NOT ENTER! DANGER!
→ Walled up. Enough stones are loose for a human to crawl through; fresh footprints in the rubble (the murderer going in and out). A dusty smell emanates from the door.
→ Smell. Chalk, old cement, dust. The wall has been there for a long time.
B. Fake offices p.51
No light. A semi-circular room with an old sign hanging from the ceiling. Long, curved wooden tables and decrepit chairs and a high counter against the back wall. The whole room gives off bigwig office vibes.
→ No light. Empty chandeliers hang from the ceiling.
→ Old sign. "COLLABORATIVE SPACE" in faded letters.
→ Counter. High, rusted metal chairs. Various papers and a register, all long rotten and illegible.
→ Back wall. A panel at the back is obviously misaligned: a secret passage. Chalky footprints on the floor, same as outside.
C. Main corridor p.51
The floor and walls of this corridor are tiled. Ahead, the corridor widens into a large room. There are two doors on either side of the corridor.
Note: Areas C to G are magically illuminated by a pale blue light (no identifiable source).
→ Room. From the corridor, large silhouettes can be distinguished. Leads to D.
→ Doors.
- To E: Locked. Plaque: "Head of Research & Development: Professor Mandelgrok".
- To F: Broken down. Plaque: "Research Laboratories – Authorized Personnel Only".
D. Showroom p.51
This large oblong room features eight stone pedestals, five of them with large bronze statues on top.
→ Bronze statues. 6' tall, they represent the experiments the laboratory was working on. There are plaques on each pedestal:
- Slime Golem: a humanoid shape that looks somewhat fluid, with asymmetrical elongated limbs.
- Blood Parasite: a menacing vapor floating around the head of a dwarf with a manic expression.
- Bone-Gobbler: a jumble of assembled bones in a vaguely humanoid shape.
- Three-Headed Ogre: a large humanoid with a club, three heads, and pointy teeth.
- Destructor: a mechanical automaton with arms that end in scythe blades.
E. Office p.52
A small room with a wall-wide blackboard, a desk, a table, and four chairs. Everything is dilapidated but of decent quality and make.
→ Blackboard. Faintly legible notes and formulas on the board. Anyone with magical training recognizes the equations of magic research.
→ Desk. A pen box with rusted nibs. The top drawer has a secret compartment (opens by lifting the desk table when all drawers are open). It holds a binder with handwritten notes.
→ Handwritten notes. Detail experiments of the research lab. The first piece of paper is a mission letter. The following facts can be gathered with a read through:
- The lab was set up in secret some 75 years ago.
- Several prototype creatures were tested, but things started to get out of control.
- At least one researcher died.
- The lab was finally closed, considered to be a failure.
- Some entries:
- Dr. Marallia is no more. We have been forced to destroy her carnal envelope to free the blood parasite that possessed her.
- This morning I noticed the bone-gobbler's cylinder was cracked. I don't know if it's the doing of the subject itself or of another one of our creations…
- For a few hours, we lost the slime golem. Its protomorphism is likely more developed than we thought, but escaping us for so long seems to require some degree of intelligence. When we captured it, I swear it was trying to talk. To do: request budget to experiment further.
→ Mission letter.
Dear Professor,
I asked you to join our team as head of Research because Dungeon, Inc. suffers from chronically high costs due to the necessary and expensive use of Reception hosts. Those have a limited lifetime and cost a considerable sum in salaries. Our idea is to diverge our budget towards less costly and longer-lasting solutions. We expect your experience with magical creatures and thaumaturgical theory to produce a set of new "superhosts" that would be dangerous to clients, entirely under our control, and without remuneration requirements.
The means and live resources at your disposal should enable you to accomplish this mission. You should however understand that this novel initiative could be misunderstood by existing personnel and should therefore be kept quiet until it's proven effective. No work or mention of the work should take place outside of this laboratory.
I am confident we will achieve grand things together, and am looking forward to your weekly reports.
Aacarcerax,
Director of Innovation,
Dungeon, Incorporated.
F. Dissection lab p.52
Accessed via a tiled corridor and an unmarked door. Two large tables occupy the right-hand side of the room. A work bench is set on the left-hand wall, with tools laid upon it.
→ Tables. Dusty and scratched; traces of dried blood and viscera from long ago.
→ Tools. Saws, scalpels, metallic strings, tubes, and other surgical tools, all rusted beyond use except one shiny scalpel (magical, slices through anything, ignoring any form of protection for damage).
G. Creature cells Blood parasite p.53
A tiled corridor leads to five doors with plaques naming the relevant creatures. All doors are open; each room contains an 8'-tall glass and brass cylinder.
→ Cylinders:
- The bone-gobbler and slime golem cylinders are empty; the glass casings have been smashed from the outside (by the possessed murderer).
- The three-headed ogre and destructor cylinders still contain said creatures, looking similar to their statues in D.
- The blood parasite cylinder's lid is open; languid greenish vapors float out of it. The blood parasite is inside, but invisible amongst the vapors. If the characters seal the cylinder again, the parasite is trapped. The smell of fresh blood immediately draws it out (from a recent wound, for example...). Check WIS to avoid possession (success means immunity from further attempts). The victim immediately grows claws and attacks the nearest living being with no regard for its own safety. The victim can try to regain control each round by checking WIS again but must roll a Resisting Possession Δ6 for each attempt. If the die fizzles, the character's soul is consumed and the possession is permanent.
If the possessed character is killed, the parasite returns to the cylinder. Destroying it would require powerful ritual magic and expensive components.
H. Fodder larder p.53
A series of small cells with various animal and humanoid skeletons once destined to feed the experiments.
THIS FILE IS THE PROPERTY OF DUNGEON, INC. ANY LOSS, THEFT OR DAMAGE WILL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED.