BARRIER PEAKS EXPEDITION: Session 4 – Displacer Beasts and Death Pods

Rested, the party set about cautiously exploring the nigh-endless metal hallways. They wanted to avoid both the vegepygmies and the police robots, who’d surely not be so restrained a second time.

Previously:

What We’re Playing

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

During this adventure walkthrough / playthrough, I use primarily the original module, with some extras lifted from Goodman Games fantastic Original Adventures Reincarnated hardcover.

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Gorgeous hardcover Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to The Barrier Peaks at Amazon

NEW! Quests from The Infinite Staircase adapts Expedition (and other classic adventures) into 5e (Amazon)

VTT Maps are by Jon Pintar. He’s kindly extended permission for me to use them in the game and session posts. (Link)

Covering ground

Emerging from their hidey-hole, the party probed rooms, mostly empty.

To make the empties more interesting, I’ve been using the Treasure List in the back of the Gamma World 1st edition rule book. It’s chock full of various tech items, often inscrutable. Some the party hang onto, others were discarded. But all give the feeling of being in alien surroundings.

Interesting, but mysterious rooms – like the room filled with yellow cylinders above – the group sometimes noted for further investigation later… and continued onwards.

Displacement

The party found another of those “poop chutes” the party has taken to calling them.

They also disturbed a nest of Displacer Beasts!

The felines leaped into the fight.

I haven’t ran these monsters in a long time. In AD&D, they have tentacles that hit for 2d4, a solid AC, decent HP, good saves, and opponents hit them at -2 due to their shifted location.

In D&D 5e Displacer Beasts have a mediocre AC, and lots of hit points. Their displacement forces their opponent to attack at Disadvantage. Sounds great, but in actual play their AC is low enough that PCs hit them anyway. However, their HP keeps them in the fight for a while, and 5e tentacles hit hard.

The party took some solid hits, but dispatched the beasts. They found a brown card in the nest. And saw this chute had moving grab-handles.

But they continued exploring the first level.

Electrical Disturbance

The party saw an electrical disturbance down the west hallway. We joked about a T-1000 lurking nearby. They went north instead.

Death Pods

Numerous couches and chairs are arranged about the room creating intimate conversation spaces. Several colorful lumps resembling half-deflated puffball fungus are also present, each measuring 3 feet in diameter. Several smashed boxes the size of a human are arranged against the north wall, their exteriors once covered in garish colors but now stained black by soot. Along the east wall are six curious oval-shaped spheres. Once stark white, their exteriors are now dirtied and scratched. A seam is visible around the middle of each sphere and a short flight of stairs leads up to the side of each of the weird orbs.

This is one of the additional encounter rooms added in the Goodman Games hardcover. It was a pretty dull room in the original S3, so some color here is a welcome improvement.

The players nervously joked about “suicide pods”. Only Tagren had the courage to try one out.

Sitting in the pod and placing the helmet on one’s head causes the wearer to be plunged into a VR environment video game that mimics reality in nearly all respects. (See sidebar.) As soon as the helmet is put on, a black field with a glowing green alien lettering is visible. There is a short pause, then the alien characters change to a single glyph as if counting down.

At the presumed countdown, Tagren ripped off the helmet, and the party departed.

The VR game is Against the Venomous Warlord. It is a literal metagame, a game-inside-a-game. Looks like an interesting mini-adventure, but this dungeon is so extensive, I’m not sorry the players noped out.