The Old Brewery - The Mushroom Caverns

THE OLD BREWERY - AREA 25.


25. Mushroom Caverns - Beyond the door to the Pit (Area 24) is a series of natural caverns that were used in to grown beer brewing fungus in massive quantities during the Brewery's heyday. Many of the strains still predominate, providing a rich jungle-like garden of food for the hundreds of grunkies that live in the darkness. The mushrooms come in a variety of colors and shapes, but the most common are brewing mushrooms, 2' to 6' tall yellowish brown species with peaked caps and a nutty flavor. Ceilings in the caverns are from 6' to 12' tall and the walls a smooth stone, wet with condensation and slick with fungus. The air is misty with poor visibility as spores and blind cave insects are stirred up with every step. Almost all the fungus within the cave is non-toxic, though a careful and knowledgeable searcher will find both poisonous and hallucinogenic fungus within the cavern. The entire cavern smells intensely of mushrooms and damp, though not unpleasantly.

Drusilla and Huxley explore the Mushroom Cavern

The whole area is overrun with innumerable albino grunkies, including several grunkie overlords, and each turn or 30' of travel a random encounter (roll on table below) is appropriate. Grunkies that are not slain or driven off will add their numbers to the next encounter. If five overlords are slain treat any overlord encounter as a roll of 1, as the grunkie population will be busy devouring the bodies of the dead overlords. New overlords will appear within a week as the grunkies undergo metamorphosis.

D8	Roll every 30' travelled or every turn resting – this place swarms with grunkies.
1	Flight – Spooked by something all grunkies trailing the PCs dash off into mushrooms leaving a few moments of disconcerting silence.	5	Grunkie Swarm – The PCs come across a swarm of agitated grunkies. 2D10 grunkies will leap to the attack without warning.
2	Curious Grunkie – A single grunkie beings following the PC miming their actions, isn't he cute? Add +1 the next roll if the grunkie is allowed to follow the PCs.	6	Frenzy – What did we do? All grunkies trailing the PCs, plus 1D4 more, leap to attack with furious hissing screams. When they're whipped into a frenzy like this they have a moral of 11.
3	Grunkie Pack – 1D6+1 grunkies have become interested in the PCs. They aren't especially hostile, they'll just sand back hissing and baring teeth while following the party	7	Overlord – With a deep whistling hiss a grunkie overlord pushes himself out of the mushrooms and begins an aggressive display. He'll follow the PCs with his retinue of 2D8 grunkies.
4	Grunkie Pack – A larger pack of 2D4+2 grunkies resent the PCs presence and will attack if they outnumber the party.	8	Overlord – An enraged overlord charges the PCs along with his gibbering retinue of 2D8 grunkies, he is intent on driving them from his turf.

25 a. - The Pool. A pool, murky with rotted fungus. It slopes gently from its mushroom shrouded Eastern shore to a depth of 12'. Beyond a narrow underwater passage a stone wall stops the pool and rises 2' to a open ledge. The pool is home to a 300lb, 7' armored albino lungfish that was once a mascot of the brewery. It is in the water 80% of the time, but can live on land for over a day crawling slowly on its flippers. The fish  preys on grunkies around and in the pool, and grunkies will not come within 10' of the pool except to get water. The lungfish's thickly scaled hide is quite valuable, as its rare albino coloring make it especially accepting of enchantment. It could be sold for around 600GP to a tanner, and a suit of leather, studded leather or scale mail can be made out of the hide with an enchantment of up to + 2, if manufactured by the right sage (at a cost of 1,000 – 5,000 GP). The fish will not give chase to prey beyond 10' of the pool.

Giant Plated Albino Lungfish AC 5, HD 5 (26 HP), #AT 1 (-1 hit on land) bite, 2D4+2, MV 10'('40 swim) Save F2, ML 11. attacks from concealment (+2 to initiative/surprise roll).

Any player sifting through the mud at the bottom of the pool will find corroded coins 40% of the time. Three hours of diving and mucking about will net a total of 3D100 CP, 4D20 SP, 2D8 EP, 1D12 GP and 1D12 PP. These coins were tossed into the pool for luck by brewery workers in better days. In the alcove beyond the pool is a cache of old weaponry packed in fungus covered crates and dating from the decline of the brewery when the original owner's youngest son fancied himself an insurrectionist. It includes: A case of 34 (missing 2) glass firebombs (treat as flasks of oil, but with no risk of explosion or need for flame – they explode on contact), eight rusted shortswords, eight rotted suits of black leather armor including facemasks, two all brass heavy repeating crossbows (they need new strings and a bit of care but are worth 150GP each and can fire two shots per round at -1 to hit if the bowman is braced and unmoving The clips hold eight bolts each and take 2 rounds to reload), and a rusted out (worth 300GP to the Fist) heavy machine gun with a case of rotted ammunition that will explode for 1D20 points of damage to anyone in the room if exposed to fire or jostled (players jumping into the pool will take no damage if they save vs. breath weapons and ½ damage otherwise.) The cache also contains one magical shotgun shell, tucked into the belt of one of the suits of armor. The shell is made of an advanced golden alloy, that will fire normally, but explode as a 6^th level fireball upon impact.