OK, so my brilliant plan of doing a Halloween one-shot Ghostbusters adventure miserably collapsed into a mini campaign given that my roleplaying group tend to become dysfunctional when it comes to acting like a cohesive team. They say there is no 'I' in Team. However, you can make the word 'me' from it and that's exactly how my players like to run their characters. Ah, adventures would work perfectly if it wasn't for those pesky players :)
Anyway, here is part 2 of my one-shot Ghostbusters Halloween adventure using my home d20 rules system. A bit of a warning, this is going to end up as a three- or four-part adventure. I just know it.
All miniatures are from Crooked Dice and the Ghostbusters boardgame for Ghostbusters and Vigo. Reaper Miniatures for the frogs, sacrificial victim, stone arches and the Cthulhu statue. Cthulhu Death May Die boardgame for the Cultists. The cave tiles are all home-made using DM Scotty's excellent YouTube channel on home making D&D terrain as a guide.
The Ghostbusters were called in because some sort of barrier was preventing the second response teams and police from reaching the researchers encampment up near the top of the mountain. The secondary teams were worried for their comrades as the storm had battered the mountainside all night, abating to fine weather only by the morning.
The Ghostbusters overcame the psychic barrier to reach the encampment only to find four bodies and evidence that further up the alpine valley was a cave where the archaeologists had been undertaking their research. The bodies, one was a research assistant and the other three were the first responders, suddenly animated and attached the Ghostbusters who quickly dispatched them with their proton packs. As they began to explore the ruined encampment another freakish and unseasonable snowstorm began to descend upon them. Not wanting to end up like the others, they bolted for the cave entrance further up the valley.
Trapped now inside the cave, they began to explore and soon came upon some huge toads.
The fight saw them eventually take the mutants out. But not before two of the players were knocked to the ground and had their feet swallowed before they could escape. Another player ended up getting swallowed whole but manged to blast the beastie as it gulped him down, killing it outright and then, covered in slime, having to crawl his way back out of the belly of the beast. Yuck!
Upon each toad's death they released a small sprite that the Ghostbusters had to capture before it could escape. They didn't know what that was all about (i.e. as to why the sprites were running), but they were soon to find the reason for such strange behaviour. Little known to the Ghostbusters, these were watchers making sure that the alarm would be sounded if an intruder appeared.
In dealing with the toads and their associated sprites, one of the players "rolled a ghost" when rolling his Luck Dice. This saw three giant centipedes emerge from the tunnel and attack the Ghostbusters. However, the poor creatures were no match for the discharge from a proton pack.
After about a ten-minute wonder through the cave tunnels the Ghostbusters eventually emerged out into a large chamber where the distant murmur of chanting could be heard. "Vigo... Vigo... Vigo..."
Ahead, dimly like by sconces on the far cave walls and partly obscured by the giant mushroom forest, they could see the source of the chanting. Turned out that one of the two archaeological teams was actually a bunch of cultists who were trying call Vigo the Carpathia back from the spirit world. Now there's a nod to Ghostbusters II right there for you.
Four of the cultists were girlies with guns. The menfolk were doing some kind of Mexican Wave around the Cthulhu statue and the dude in purple (obviously their leader as he was wearing purple) had a young lady college student from the other archaeological team bound and drugged on a sacrificial alter. It didn't look like this was a formal lecture going on here. Mind you, it's been many years since I did my degree, and we never did this kind of evil in science. We just mutated Drosophila flies. Can't speak for the Archaeological Department though.
Naturally, this didn't look kosher and so the Ghostbusters began sneaking their way through the mushroom forest with an eye to taking out the Shela's with the guns first (Shela's is Ozzy slang for a woman, just in case you didn't know).
Sally, the lady Ghostbuster, got it into her head to cut her way into one of the larger mushrooms to hide within. She then managed to dislodge it and sneak forward as a large mushroom. The others just moved as quietly as they could from one mushroom clump to the next. They made some noise, but the roof of the cavern was fairly unstable to dropped rubble every now and again and so the Cultists remained none the wiser as the sound of their chanting rose ever louder.
A timed shot by all the Ghostbusters (with the help of rolling additional Ghost Dice, i.e. Luck Dice, another nod to DM Scotty) and all the female cultists went up in flames as proton bolts hit them. That saw three of the Mexican Wave cultists turn towards the Ghostbusters and advance on them with knives drawn. Then, to everyone's surprise, all three stabbed themselves in the heart killing themselves outright. This only released their cursed spirits who then attached the Ghostbusters. Nasty trick there.
Much madness then ensued as I issued a warning to the players that they had 4 rounds until the Leader Cultist would sacrifice the young woman. As the Ghostbusters tried to subdue and wrangle the spectres assaulting them, the pressure was on to take out the head cultist. Meanwhile the spell was taking effect as the mystic gateway began to glow and fog filled the portal.
Whilst the lads were trying to wrangle the spectres Sally, the lady Ghostbuster, managed to get a shot off at the head cultists. I warned the player that the shot would be at Disadvantage given that there was the Cthulhu statue and the alter with the girl on it directly in the way and that they were elevated on the raised part of the cavern chamber, if the player missed, the girl would be hit. The player elected to fire a proton bolt (3d6 damage) knowing the difficulty and consequences of the shot.
The player failed.
As such, Sally hit the girl and fried her instantly. Not only did she kill the poor college student, but she inadvertently completed the summoning ritual.
She then charged the cultists but ended up getting the worst of it and was slashed to within 4 hit points and ended up with a broken arm. Critical hits will do that sort of thing to you in my games. So, with a broken arm, she wasn't able to use her proton wand and was stunned for three rounds. Things looked very bleak for her about then.
Fortunately, the lads finished wrangling their spectres and rounded on the cultist leader, frying him in plasma and burning him to ash.
I was then that an old familiar face stepped forth through the mist of the portal and announced himself to the Ghostbusters.
"I am Vigo the Carpathia, Vigo the Sorcerer, Vigo the Evil, scourge of Moldavia. You will bow before me or die!"
The lads lit him up. But just at the moment of impact from their plasma streams, Vigo leapt into the air and summersaulted fully across the chamber to where the Ghostbusters had first entered.
"You petty mortals think you can stop Vigo the Cruel? Fools!"
And with that, Vigo rose his hands to the cavern ceiling and began to bring the chamber down in a wave of falling rock that surged towards the players. They grabbed their stricken female colleague and bolted for the still active portal, diving through it.
Thus ended the second part of the adventure. Where did they go? What befell them? Only the next part of the adventure will tell.
