CULT OF THE CONSUMER ==================== A Level 1-3 Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Adventure Module Published: May 10, 2025 Author: Daniel Conderman Context: Recovered Conderman.Group tabletop adventure in the View Askewniverse Original URL: https://conderman.group/2025/05/the-mall-job/ Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition in the View Askewniverse--a world where convenience stores, malls, and pop-culture catchphrases brim with real magic. Expect coffee-powered healing, cow-suit cultists, and escalators that serve as deadly traps. Your goal is simple: recover the Sacred VHS, survive animated snack machines and cultists, then face the Tray Lord Sentinel. Gather your party, sharpen your one-liners, and roll initiative. AT A GLANCE ----------- Levels: 1-3 Playtime: 2-4 hours XP budget: About 900 XP per character Setting: Abandoned Eden Prairie Mall, food court, escalator maze, and vault Key NPCs: Dante Hicks, Randal Graves, and Jay Big Bad: Cult of the Consumer and the Tray Lord Sentinel The adventure is balanced for three to five players. Its five areas are self-contained encounter zones suitable for exploration, skill challenges, or combat. Enemies use reskinned Fifth Edition stat blocks. Players can sneak, bribe, confuse, or fight their way through. Jay, Silent Bob, Dante, and Randal serve as sources of information; a DM may bring them in as backup, or leave them at the Quick Stop. Let the players get weird. Reward side tangents and stoner logic. Use mall nostalgia: old stores, cracked fountains, and broken kiosks. If they try to burn down the mall, a flight from flaming neon hell is a valid ending. The Sentinel is tough but dumb, and creative distractions can break its combat pattern. MAGIC ITEMS ----------- The Sacred VHS Anyone who watches or attunes to it gains visions of the "lost Askewniverse," granting vague knowledge of other universes or prophecies. It could be sold to a collector, used in rituals, or turned into a found-footage empire. Boom Box of Holding Functions like a Bag of Holding, but only for media. It can play any cassette or VHS stored inside through a magical auxiliary port. Once per day, it plays an anthem that grants allies within 30 feet 1d4 temporary hit points. ADVENTURE INTRODUCTION ---------------------- You only stopped at the Quick Stop for smokes. Randal was holding court behind the counter, bitching about mall-walkers and microwave burritos. "You ever hear of the Eden Prairie Mall? Place is dead. But they say there's a tape in there--some bootleg, deep-cut VHS with scenes that never made it into any of the Askewniverse movies." Dante, without looking up from the register tape, muttered, "Yeah, they worship it. Bunch of freaks in robes down by the food court." Jay perked up, eyes wide. "Swear to God, bro, I saw a cow-suit cultist and this huge robot with trays for hands guarding the thing. Like--boss fight level." Silent Bob just nodded once, dead serious. Possible hooks are Dante's offer of every missing scene, Randal's dare that the party will flee when the escalators shift, or Jay's offer to trade bootlegs for the VHS. Flickering neon overhead barely spells out Eden Prairie Mall. Dust floats in shafts of dying light through the cracked glass doors. The place breathes with the low hum of forgotten machines. Somewhere inside, something waits. You step through. AREA 1: MAIN ENTRANCE AND LOBBY ------------------------------- "Neon signs flicker. Mannequin eyes track your every step. The main doors choke on dust. A service panel hums faintly by a side door." The main doors are locked. A DC 12 Investigation check finds the service entrance. Opening its side panel requires DC 12 Athletics to pry it open or DC 12 Sleight of Hand to hotwire it. Run this as three successful DC 12 checks before one failure. Success means an unnoticed entrance; failure makes the speakers blast cult chants and summons 2d4 Cultist Fanatics. Secret: Behind a fake vending machine is a rusted air vent. A DC 12 Perception check reveals scratches and a broken screw. The crawlspace leads above the food court, allowing a stealthy drop behind the cultists. AREA 2: FOOD COURT GAUNTLET --------------------------- "Tables lie overturned. Fryer fires glow like infernal portals. A cow-suit acolyte jingles near snack kiosks; cultists chant by a portal of flame." The encounter includes two Cultists and one Cow-Suit Acolyte. The cultists surround and chant, receiving +1 on saving throws. The acolyte can force a DC 12 Wisdom save or distract a target. Removing coins triggers Animated Snack Machines. Treat each as Animated Armor with AC 13 and 22 hit points. It hurls sugar packets at a range of 20 feet; a failed DC 13 Dexterity save leaves a target blinded for one round. Secret: A soot-covered maintenance door behind the fryer portals requires a DC 13 Investigation check. It leads through a utility corridor to a one-way security gate above the escalator maze, useful for setting traps or reaching the control panel unseen. AREA 3: ESCALATOR MAZE ---------------------- "Three escalators shift direction at random. One wrong step and you're swept off to god-knows-where." The party needs four successful checks before the escalator resets: * Acrobatics DC 13 * Perception DC 13 * Arcana DC 13 * Strength DC 12 Success reaches the basement stairs. On failure, the party is swept to a random level and faces 1d4 Animated Mannequins. Use the stat block below. Secret: A flickering panel marked "EMG ACCESS" opens with a DC 15 Engineering or Dexterity check. It reveals a fire-ladder shaft that bypasses the stairwell and ends outside the vault door. On a natural 1 or 2, the attempt causes falling damage. AREA 4: BASEMENT STAIRWELL -------------------------- "Concrete walls stained with grease. A heavy steel door bears a faded Mooby's logo. The vault lies beyond." The overhead light is dim and the steps are slippery. A failed DC 10 Dexterity save causes a fall. Secret: A janitor's closet midway down contains a mop bucket and warped floor tile. A DC 14 check pries it open, revealing a parallel elevator shaft. If powered--perhaps with rerouted snack-kiosk energy--its rickety freight lift enters the Vault Chamber through the rear wall. AREA 5: VAULT CHAMBER --------------------- "The door swings open to reveal polished concrete and a single pedestal. Atop it rests a battered VHS labeled 'Sacred.' A hulking figure looms: the Tray Lord Sentinel." The Sentinel opens with Soda Tsunami, then charges with its Tray-Axe. A DC 14 Investigation check reads the keypad runes, while DC 14 with Thieves' Tools disables the lock. Failure sounds an alarm and summons 1d4 Cultists and a Cow-Suit Acolyte. Secret: Moving the pedestal requires DC 18 Strength or a clever bypass. It reveals a one-way conveyor tunnel formerly used for Mooby's mascot deliveries. It passes through defunct mascot-suit storage and returns to a sealed room behind the lobby's Employees Only door. CONCLUSION ---------- "As the last echoes of that cowbell chant fade, you stand before the shattered pedestal, Sacred VHS in hand. The mall's fluorescent lights flicker one final time and then stabilize, bathing the abandoned kiosks in a steady glow. Dust motes dance like confetti as you slide the tape from its battered case. "You press Play on the nearest dusty VCR and the screen sputters to life. At first it's just static--but then you see it: Dante's half-smile as he slams open the Quick Stop door, Randal's incredulous glare as he piles carts into a gladiatorial arena, Jay's triumphant catchphrase echoing through a ritual circle. Every lost Askewniverse moment, every outtake and hidden gag, spills across the screen in glorious black-and-white. "The film ends on Silent Bob's silent shrug--then the image glitches one last time and a single frame lingers: a map scribbled in marker, scrawled with words you recognize from Dante's old locker. It points to someplace new. Somewhere even weirder. You've beaten the Cult of the Consumer, but the next reel is already waiting." If the party gets the tape, do they watch it, sell it, or found a new religion? If they fail, the mall doors close and a new cult forms in their name. Either way, the mall always resets. Like a rerun. Next shift's coming. STAT BLOCKS ----------- Cultist Fanatic (modified) AC 12; HP 22 (5d8) Multiattack: Two scimitar slashes, +4 to hit, 1d6+2 damage. Chant (Recharge 5-6): Self and allies within 10 feet gain +1 to all saving throws for one minute. Cow-Suit Acolyte As Cultist Fanatic, but AC 13. Jingle Distraction: Target must make a DC 12 Wisdom save or be incapacitated with laughter until the end of its next turn. Animated Snack Machine AC 13; HP 22 Slam: Melee, +3 to hit, 1d8+1 bludgeoning damage. Sugar Packet Volley: Range 20 feet; DC 13 Dexterity save or blinded for one round. Animated Mannequin AC 13; HP 9 (2d6+2) Mage Hand Slam: Melee, +4 to hit, 1d4+2 bludgeoning damage. Momentum Push (Recharge 5-6): Pushes target 10 feet on a hit. Tray Lord Sentinel AC 18; HP 60 (8d10+16) Soda Tsunami (Recharge 5-6): 30-foot line; DC 13 Dexterity save or 2d6 acid damage and knocked prone. Tray-Axe: Melee, +4 to hit, 1d12+2 bludgeoning damage. XP AND TREASURE --------------- Cultist Fanatics (2d4): 100 XP per character Food Court Patrol and Animated Machine: 150 XP per character Animated Mannequins (1d4): 200 XP per character Tray Lord Sentinel: 450 XP per character Total: 900 XP per character Roll 1d6 for treasure: 1. 2d6 x 10 gp in vending-machine change 2. Minor trinkets worth 14 sp each 3. Vintage Askewniverse pin worth 50 gp 4. Strange consumer-god icon worth 75 gp 5. Boom Box of Holding 6. Two Potions of Healing DM NOTES -------- Keep skill challenges brisk: one roll per player, and resolve success or failure in a sentence or two. If momentum flags, lower the DC or grant a reroll. Use short sounds--shifting metal, a distant chant, a fryer hissing-- and pause to let the players fill the silence. Keep encounters mobile by moving patrols toward detours or triggering hazards such as leaks and alarms. Randal, Dante, and Jay can whisper or radio hints at tense moments. Make the escalators grind and spark. Build on clever ideas with "Yes, and..." and answer wild detours with "Why not?" After ten minutes of real time, a power surge, alarm, or wave of cultists can put the beat back on the clock. Keep it tight, keep it tense, and let the Askewniverse's absurdity shine through every clang and chant.