Home for the Holideath

We’ve been talking MCC on RAW for several months now so I figured I’d actually review an MCC adventure! Since its the holiday season, I decided that there’s no better adventure to review than Home for the Holideath! Written by Julian Bernick, this adventure was released as the 2018 holiday module. I was fortunate enough to experience this as a player some years ago and Julian was the judge! It was a great time, though the constaints of online gaming meant we didn’t get to fully explore the full adventure in our 4-hour time slot.

Premise: For generations, two tribes have exchanged gifts at a given time each winter to renew the bonds of their peoples. But now their present have been stolen! The Seekers are sent on an urgent mission to recapture the gifts before their ancient treaty is undone. To do this, they will have to venture to a place of bloodcurdling horrors, mysterious symbols, wondrous artifacts and twisted technologies. And once inside this ancient place of splendors, they’ll face the greatest challenge of all: returning home alive!

Alrighty folks! If you’re a player, send this over to your judge! If you continue reading then you will be spoiled and quite possibly end up on the naughty list.

The judge is left to decide how to provide the hook to the PCs. The module doesn’t describe much beyond the “XMAS temple”, a.k.a. an old department store. Therein, the PCs will quickly meet Miss Marjorie. If questioned, she will reveal that she took the villages’ presents and that they will be safely stored until the proper time has come. She is the head-security bot but is likely to treat the PCs like errant children. If they behave (read: no violence against “employees” or taking “presents”) then she’s as kind as can be. If your PCs misbehave (read: act as PCs always do) then she’ll scold them, spank them, or throw them in the transporter to be sent home. Be warned! The transporter is not functioning properly and you really don’t want that to happen. You’ll have to make an artifact check and the results can be nasty!

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The department store itself has 4 levels. The first floor has many different merchandise stations with various artifacts (what wonderful presents). These artifacts are can be disastrous if the PCs have poor luck with their Artifact checks, but they can find product catalogues to help them make these checks at +1d. Other threats may come from the Random Encounter table, smart wrapping paper (a rather unique kind of mimic, really), feral elves, the sting bear, or the “wood-god elves”. When I played this adventure we spent a huge amount of time on this level, as the different components I’ve mentioned can absolutely collide and cause a very complex situation.

The basement level is comprised of a single room: Miss Marjorie’s Lair. This is where those product catalogues are located, as well as several other goodies. The most helpful of which is a security key that allows access to all areas of the department store.

The second floor has much of the same general features, such as spooky holiday music and florescent lighting, but differs greatly in its contents. It contains Khadro the Snow-man, a mutant who is eternally surrounded by a 10’ radius snow storm. The adventure mentions that he preys on the feral elves for food, but I wish a little more was given to him for roleplaying purposes. Still he can be a very interesting character for the PCs to meet. We also have the Toymaker, who’s a strange robot who turns feral elves into grotesque nutcrackers, aka the “wood-gods”. There’s more threats to detail, but all-in-all this level has a few too many monsters to fight, in my own opinion. The lethality level is somewhat balanced by the presence of the “Immortalizer”, a strange artifact that can bring a recently deceased corpse back to life.

On level three, you have the true villain of the adventure: the XMAS AI who sent Miss Majorie to steal the presents! All of the stolen presents are located underneath its ornamented branches. It addresses any who enter this floor, informing them that XMAS has not come and that they must immediately leave or be destroyed. So roll initiative, gang! The XMAS Tree has 3d20 each round and can fling a bunch of deadly ornament at the PCs. The PCs can battle the tree directly, but if they use the control console, they can make an Artifact check to deactivate the tree. However, this is a tough check and any PCs will likely need to burn a lot of Luck to do this.

After combat, the PCs can take the presents and walk out, but they might be able to use the transporter tube or even the flying sleigh! However, if the XMAS AI is not destroyed, it may one day awaken and cause this horrible event to reoccur like a straight to VHS sequel!

Summary

If you’re running an MCC campaign, this is the choice adventure to run whenever in the month of December. It’s a zany adventure with lots of cool artifacts and neat creatures to fight. Despite being a 3 story department building, the adventure also provides multiple ways to explore the building (escalator, air vents, transporter, elevator). So while I do think there’s a few too many monster fights, it has a good mix of combat, roleplaying, and traps. Clever play can also reduce the number of combats. So while I do think Julian Bernick’s more recent adventure writing for Dying Earth is more elegantly executed, this adventure definitely warrants playing. Hope you all have a wonderful XMAS season. Just make sure to avoid the explosive ornaments!

Have you played this one? Or maybe you even homebrewed your own MCC holiday adventure! Tell us about it in the comments!

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