Deep in the Candy Cane Forest, with Christmas fast approaching, a party of adventurers awaited the arrival of Santa Claus. They were: Kevin McCallister, a dwarven cleric obsessed with Santa; Holly Goodcheer, The Fist of Christmas, a festive monk who spoke like an old Jewish grandmother from New Jersey but who could overwhelm any enemy with a flurry of blows from her cold iron nutcracker nun-chucks; Missile Toebreaker, a half orc druid who loved fire; Candycane McClane, a tough-as-nails halfling barbarian who could punch well above his weight class; and Roger Dudley, aka "The Gingerbread Man", a dashing rogue who wore his heart on his sleeve.
When Santa arrived, he explained the dire situation. Krampus had begun stealing any children he could get his hands on, naughty or nice. He had become a liability and needed to be stopped. Santa explained that the Holiday Spirit Accords of 943 prohibited him or his helpers from entering Krampus' lair, but with a knowing wink he suggested that the adventurers could certainly seek out Krampus and bind him in chains, if they wanted. He also, conveniently, dropped a set of magical chains that someone could use to bind Krampus once he was knocked unconscious. After explaining that Krampus had taken up residence in Mount Krumpet, Santa gave them the name of a dwarf who could tell them more: Nunavut Octavius, an old prospector who was washed up on the Island of Recalled Toys.
With that, Santa set the party on their way. They traveled via ice floe (as everyone seems to do in the Arctic Ocean) to the island and were greeted by a plushie owlbear with pink polka-dots, who showed them around the ramshackle town. They saw strange toys walking those gingerbread streets: dolls with too many arms, rolling toys with square wheels, toy knights wearing wizard hats, Elmos that refused to be tickled, and other such rejected playthings. They asked the owlbear what was wrong with him, and he just grumbled a disparaging remark about Inspector #27.
He showed them to The Windup, the only bar on the island, which Nunavut Octavius was known to frequent. The dwarf, nursing a misprinted commemorative lead mug full of winter ale, told them that he had once prospected Mount Krumpet and found that it was full of caves and tunnels. He said there were two entrances he knew of, one to the south near the village of Whomburg, and one to the north, guarded by an abominable snowman. He warned them to avoid Whomburg, which, he said, was full of Gruunsch worshippers. While he told them about Gruunsch, the green orcish deity that was said to have stolen Christmas, Kevin tried to order several plates of roast beast and a gallon of mulled wine. The bartender - a tin monkey with a wind-up key in his forehead - would only move for a few seconds each wind, so Missile got behind the counter and continuously cranked the barkeep while it fixed Kevin's hearty repast.
As they prepared to head out, Nunavut told them once more to avoid Whomburg and go the northern route. He told them that his brother, Northwest Territories Lucinius, had been killed by an abominable snowman, and he asked the party if they could bring back his pickaxe. The party, however, had already decided to head for Whomburg. They crossed the strait and followed the road down south until they were overlooking the halfling town. Then the party had an idea. An awful idea. Based on what they had learned of the Gruunsch from Nunavut, they decided to dress the half orc Missile Toebreaker up as a devotee of Gruunsch and ride into town. Roger got out his disguise kit and dressed Missile up in an I Heart Gruunsch T-shirt with some Gruunsch-grunge flannel and ripped jeans, and stuck some antlers on his head.
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| Sadly, the T-shirt was two sizes too small. |
Once in town, the party is easily able to bluff the guards into thinking that they are Gruunschites. They go to the Temple of Gruunsch to find out more about what's going on. The high priest is impressed with their apparent devotion. During their talk, he mentions something called The Pit. The party asks about it, and he explains that it is a sacred space where the decadent trappings of Christmas are sacrificed to the Gruunsch. In olden times, he hints, they sacrificed children there as well. The party wants to know where it is, but the high priest explains that before they can be initiated into the holy rites, they have to prove themselves. He suggests they investigate the Loum-Whom household, for that family is suspected of being Santa-worshippers.
They go to the Loum-Whom house and, despite Missile's Gruunschy appearance, Roger and Kevin are able to convince them that they are working for Santa. The Loum-Whoms explain how Burgermeister Whattaburger outlawed Christmas and brought the Gruunsch cult to power. Moved by their devotion to Christmas, the party heads out into the town square and loudly declares that the reign of the Gruunsch is over! Kevin stone shapes the statue of Gruunsch into a statue of Santa Claus, and all the Whomburgers file out of their houses, joining hands and singing carols. It looks like Whomburg is finally free of that green menace, until the high priest of Gruunsch and his two acolytes come out of their temple, brandishing weapons.
As the acolytes begin singing an old Gruunschite battle-hymn, Roger opens fire, peppering them with arrows, and Kevin follows that up with a flame strike. The high priest retaliates with a barrage of freezing icicle lances. Candycane McClane climbs up onto the statue of Santa, hoping to use his instant bridge to cross into the Burgermeister's house, but then Missile uses his druidic powers to turn into a huge red mammoth, so Candycane takes the opportunity to jump onto the mammoth's back and throw javelins. Missile the mammoth makes a much more comfortable ride for Candycane than Candycane did as Missile's sled earlier.
Holly Goodcheer runs headlong at the gaggle of priests and levels one of the acolytes with a flurry of blows. As the mammoth bears down on them, the high priest summons a trio of perchten in front of it as a delaying action. Missile lashes out with his trunk, tusks, and heavy feet, pummeling one into the ground. Roger, meanwhile, climbs up Missile's matted leg fur and starts shooting from mammoth-back down at the little perchten, and Candycane slides down the trunk Legolas-style and cuts one of the other perchten down.
The remaining acolyte gives the high priest the power of ten Gruunsches, plus two, which he uses to smite Holly , his wicked warhammer crackling with deadly energies. Then Kevin runs up and casts slay living on the high priest, gently stroking his cheek and saying, "You had so much potential." The high priest collapses and the remaining acolyte cries, "Praise be! The Gruunsch has taken him back to his workshop!" Then Holly finishes the acolyte off with a punch to the back of the head.
They go into the temple and Roger, with a bit of searching, discovers the secret Pit. It is an icy cave full of cast-off detritus of Christmases past and a collection of frozen halfling children. They determine that they can do nothing for the children yet, and begin searching for a way out. Kevin discovers a slab of ice blocking a passageway and tries to bust through, but it turns out to be a gelatinous ice cube which swiftly engulfs him in its chilling body. Missile casts flame blade and makes lightsaber noises as he slashes at the ooze. Kevin swims out of the cube as the others pelt it with missiles. Holly, not wanting to punch the freezing slime, chucks a flask of alchemist's fire at it, but it just sinks harmlessly into its soft flesh. Then Candycane chucks a javelin into the beast, striking the flask with a natural 20 and causing a fiery explosion inside the ooze. It engulfs Kevin again and sucks up Holly too, but Missile cuts through the creature with his fiery blade, casing it to discorporate into a sizzling pile of goop.
At this point, Missile returns to the surface to help the Whomburgers while the rest of the party venture deeper into the mountains. They wind their way up a narrow tunnel until they reach a wooden door. Roger discovers a series of runes around the door frame. He tries to scrape them away to negate the magic effects, but accidentally triggers a spray of magical frost which he and Holly nimbly evade. Once through the door they see two potential paths - a door to the left and a passageway to the right. They choose the passageway, following it until they reach a set of double doors. The pull them open to reveal a pair of perchten and a strange eight-legged blue lizard standing guard over a room full of disturbingly realistic ice sculptures of frightened children. Before anyone else can react, Roger slams the doors shut and Candycane uses his instant bridge to barricade them in.
The party runs back to the other door and tries to open it, but it is stuck, so Kevin pries it open with his crowbar. Inside they see four perchten guarding a door on the other side. Between them and the perchten is an expanse of flat ground, but 40 feet above dangles a delicate nest of icy shards which threaten to fall at the slightest provocation. Halfway across the room, a frozen percht corpse skewered with half a dozen three-foot icicles testifies to the danger of the room. Roger lays down covering fire as Candycane slides into the room and uses the dead percht as cover. Holly charges headlong at the toughest looking percht, a burly bruiser clutching a two-handed club studded with silver bells. Her punch fails to connect, but the percht champion retaliates with a mighty blow to Holly's head. The resulting critical hit stuns Holly and gives her a concussion. With her new Intelligence score of 2, Holly spends much of the rest of the fight drooling and humming atonal Christmas carols.
The percht shaman retaliates against Roger by shooting magic icicles at him, but he can never seem to hit, while Roger has made the shaman his own personal pincushion. Kevin casts command and forces another percht to walk across the room to him, but Kevin's hopes for the creature's icicle-studded death are thwarted when the icicles nearly fall on Candycane instead. Frustrated, he pushes the percht down and loudly curses, causing another icicle to fall, perfectly skewering the prone percht. The percht champion, meanwhile, trips the stunned and concussed Holly and charges across the room to smack Roger and Kevin around. As the final remaining percht on the other side of the room tries to shoot at the ceiling to knock icicles onto Candycane, McClane lays into the champion with his axe. The battle shakes the room, causing more and more icicles to fall and make the floor almost impassible, but finally the percht champion falls. As the party descends on the last percht, he throws up his hands in surrender.
"Tell us where Krampus is and maybe we'll let you go," threatens Candycane McClane, his bare halfling feet bleeding from all the shattered ice he had to walk across.
"Krampus is just in the next chamber," the percht squeals. "I think he's alone! Please don't kill me!"
"What will you do if we let you go?"
"Um... I've always kind of wanted to be a dentist!" he admits.
"Alright, leave this place now and go open up a dentist practice in Whomburg," says Candycane. "If you step out of line just once, though, we'll know."
Holly, however, hasn't understood most of the conversation and doesn't trust the percht. She whacks the minion with her cold iron nutcracker, killing him on the spot.
"Aww, I wanted to see him become a dentist!" Candycane complains as they prepare for whatever lies beyond the next door. As it turns out, what lay beyond that door was three more doors.
Kevin invokes Santa's blessing on the party, and they divide up between the doors, kicking them down simultaneously. Krampus stands in the room beyond, his shaggy form taking up the open cave mouth, backlit by the glimmering northern lights. Tongue lolling wildly, he lets out a terrible battle cry. Roger dashes in first, trying to draw the creature's attention while the others position themselves. Krampus lays into Roger with his swinging chains, battering the poor rogue. Then Candycane and Holly rush in, encircling the mighty holiday beast. Candycane's greataxe bites into Krampus over and over, but Holly can hardly land a punch. Sensing easy prey, Krampus grabs onto Holly with his long, prehensile tongue. But Candycane swings mightily and severs Krampus' iconic tongue, leaving a bloody stump to waggle madly in his frothing mouth. Enraged, Krampus lays into the others, shaking off many of Kevin's spells and smashing Holly, Roger, and Candycane with his chains and stout birch rod. He deals out a lot of damage, threatening to lay some of the party low. But Roger manages to position himself for a flank and his keen shortsword stabs into Krampus' back over and over, leaving bleeding wounds. Kevin was able to cast dimensional anchor at Krampus, keeping him from teleporting out of danger, and his prayer to Santa was able to protect his allies from several of Krampus' attacks. Holly, meanwhile, had the chains but didn't remember how she was supposed to use them, so she just sort of tossed them at Krampus. Krampus, seeing the chains, began to focus all of his attentions on Holly, letting Candycane's axe and Roger's shortsword stick him in the back over and over.
Finally recovering herself, Holly let loose with a flurry of blows from her nutcracker, doubling Krampus over with a blow to his gut, then crushing Krampus' neck and twisting until it snapped (translation: Holly rolled two natural twenties in a row). As the magical chains animated and bound Krampus' dead body to the wall, Kevin flew into a panic. "Oh shit, Santa's gonna be pissed! He wanted us to chain Krampus, not kill him!"
Candycane was unperturbed, and tried to cut off Krampus' head as a trophy.
Then Santa arrived on his sleigh. "Ho Ho HoOLY SHIT! You killed Krampus!" After he collected himself, Santa assured them, "Christmas won't let him die, but maybe this experience will give him something to think about while he's chained here for the next few decades."
The party showed Santa the frozen children and he unfroze them with his magical holly staff. They all piled into his sleigh and Santa took the halfling kids back to Whomburg. All the Whoms down in Whomburg were joining hands and singing when they arrived. Little Cindy Loum-Whom was there with her snegurochka friend. Roger recognized her as the beautiful maiden they had seen earlier outside of town, and he tried to profess his love for her, but Candycane got the same idea. As the two climbed over each other to reach the beautiful snegurochka, she vanished in a startled snow flurry just as before.
Once the halfling children were restored to their families and they all sang a few more rounds of carols, everyone piled back into Santa's sleigh to take the rest of the kids home. “Off we go!” cries Santa, giving the reins a final shake. “Time to take you heroes home. Be sure to check under your trees for some extra special presents this year! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!”
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Man, that was a fun session. Well, two sessions - I still can't seem to manage making an adventure that only takes one session to complete. No matter how much I prepare, the players always manage to surprise me. Dressing the half orc up like Gruunsch really altered how the Whomburg encounter played out, for instance. I hope that I'll be able to start recording some of these sessions as podcasts in the near future. If you'd like that too, you can help make it a reality by supporting me on patreon! I've just transitioned my patreon to a monthly pledge system, and as a special bonus I'm giving all of my patrons access to the rewards from all pledge levels for this month only! They'll be getting a new Monster Monday every week, a chance to vote on the final monster of the month, and a monthly Playtest Packet full of all the Open Game Content I'll have made over the course of the month. So check it out!
Running through this adventure also let me notice a number of mistakes I'd made, which I have since corrected. If you haven't downloaded the adventure yet, get it here!
-your grunge d20 despot
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