The Department of Modron Violations

 This adventure was a side quest from the main campaign and took place directly after this adventure, although this adventure is more-or-less standalone.

The Setup

    One of the characters' parents have been kidnapped by modrons for violating the rules of the cosmic plane of law. After several weeks of research, the party has discovered a way to teleport themselves to where the parents are being held. This place, the Department of Modron Violations, is in the middle of what appears to be an endless field of grandfather clocks, and looks like a single-story brick building, although it also has a basement. Outside the main entrance are two modrons wearing security guard uniforms and standing around a weird grey arch.

The DMV

Key: A dot with a curved arrow one square away represents a door, the arrow indicating the direction the door swings open. If there is a letter "L" inside the curve of the arrow, that door is locked and the party must find the key, pick the lock, or break the door down to get through. The triangles made of lines represent stairs, with matching shapes in the corners of the stairs indicating which stairs connect to each other on the two levels. The stars indicate the items that are found inside the room.

    The Department of Modron Violations, or the DMV for short, is the place on Mechanus, the cosmic plane of law, where spirits of law and mortals that have broken the rules of Mechanus are sent as punishment. Most of the building is devoted to bureaucratic tasks, and there are not many cells due to the low rates of crime on Mechanus. When the party arrives, pretty much all of the staff in the building are in a meeting in the conference room. The only modrons not in the meeting are the receptionist, the injured file jockey, and whatever guards are posted around the building. Only the receptionist is upset about not being at the meeting, everyone else is too busy with their work to care.

Upper Level: Before the party can even get inside the DMV, they must get past the two security guards who stand in front of the door. They operate a grey, plastic arch that looks like a modern metal detector. The arch is magical and will sound and alarm if anyone walks through it while carrying a weapon. The arch is magical and can detect things that are considered weapons. The guards are not particularly strong, but they are able to call for the building to be locked down if the party gets violent with them.

    Once inside, the receptionist will say hello and offer to help the party. They will readily explain why the one player's parents are imprisoned and they will explain that there is a "simple" paperwork process that can be followed to get them out. The issue, however, is that this process could take years and may even fail. The receptionist is, however, upset that they are missing the meeting that the rest of their coworkers at the DMV are attending, and can be convinced to give the party the security and accounting keys from the office out of spite. 

    The meeting room and conference room are full of several dozen modrons who perform various office functions around the DMV. They are entirely entranced by the information being given by their manager, and the manager is too deep into their own speech to notice anyone walking around in the rooms. The workers, entranced as they are, will only respond to loud noises or physical contact, not that the party is aware of this. One of the workers in the conference room has a bright blue folder in front of them that is cold to the touch.

Lower Level: The mail room is very well organized, although the only interesting thing inside of it is a bright red folder on one of the upper shelves. Inside the file room is an injured modron, showing signs of both burns and frostbite, and several massive filing cabinets. The modron will explain that there are three colored folders (red, blue, yellow) that need to be retrieved and put in the matching cabinets. The modron is too injured to do this right now and will give the party 3 magic files that unleash the power of a single spell when opened if they help. The only real complications are finding the files and safely putting them back in the correct cabinets. Opening the blue cabinet unleashes painful amounts of cold that will cause frostbite after a few seconds, red unleashes fountains of fire, and the yellow cabinet shoots out lighting bolts when opened. The spell files that the modron gives as a reward can be either random or player choice, depending on how nice you want to be.

    Inside the vault, in addition to piles of gold, is a powerful magic item known as the Blindfold of Law. When wearing the blindfold, one is blinded and takes psychic damage if they break any laws after putting it on, but they find that they are significantly smarter, wiser, and more perceptive while they wear it. These effects are not readily explained unless someone with prior knowledge of the artifact is there to do the explaining.

    The first cell with several skeletons inside also contains a standard set of polyhedral dice made out of pure diamond. The dice have no special effects but they are worth a lot of money. The cell with the rogue accountant is relatively clean. The accountant was imprisoned for embezzlement, but managed to steal the yellow file on their way in, just to cause some chaos. They want to be free to explore the multiverse, and will trade the yellow file for help in that goal. Crazy Steve does not know how or why he ended up in his cell, but he is also willing to exchange "helpful information" for a bit of food. This helpful information will turn out to be knowledge of the secret escape route hidden behind the wall of the parents' cell.

Running Notes

    There isn't much to say about this one. My group ended up missing a lot of the side content for this adventure and really focused on saving the parents, so I can't really speak to how it all would play out. This was designed to be a low combat dungeon, so the best advice I can give is to have fun with it and let the players know that security is light and hardly anyone is going to care to sound any alarms, given the fact that most staff are mesmerized by their meetings while the players are there.