Something I want to try is writing session reports of how some of my games go. I probably won’t be consistent here, and this first one is starting at Session 49 of my Voidrunner’s Codex game, but I figured it would be a fun writing exercise, and I get to boast about my players and their fantastic problem solving skills at the height of danger.
Since we are jumping in Session 49, a bit of background from the last few sessions is probably needed for a little context.
The voidrunners had been spending several sessions now on a massive space station operated largely by space pirates, and have been integrating themselves mostly as a means to get upgrades to their capital ship and gather information.
Over the course of their time there, they found that the main antagonist faction, the Imperium, had infiltrated the ship and had implanted a xenid hive in an old, abandoned deck of the ship. The xenids began spreading throughout the ship, killing indiscriminately and tearing apart everything they could see. The last few sessions involved them gathering data, equipment, and tools to help deal with the xenid queen at the center of the hive, killing the Imperium magistrate in charge of this operation, and traveling through the infested space station to the central location of the hive.
In this old, abandoned deck they fought off some xenids upon entry by throwing incendiary grenades down a hatch to lure out the xenids one by one. Jumping into the main part of the deck, they located some space pirates that had hid themselves in an old storage closet, and convinced the pirates to help them take down the xenid queen. They chose not to learn their names. A short trip later, and they reached the hive.
We are now caught up to this session.
The hive itself was set in a massive, abandoned sports arena that the pirates had once used to set off some steam before this part of the ship fell into disuse over the last few decades. The large, open area had about two dozen xenid eggs spread throughout, and the queen was attached to the ceiling on her massive egg sac. Every round, 1d4 xenid larvae popped out of the eggs (basically weak horde minions), and she’d use her legendary actions to summon xenid stranglers (think intellect devourers but their method of instant drop-to-zero is more akin to Alien).
The xenid queen herself had a 15 ft. reach with her tail attack, which could do quite a bit of damage, and she could grapple and restrain a target if she hit them twice with her 10 ft. reach claw attacks. She had a pretty high 210 hp health pool, and gained 20 temporary hit points at the start of her turn while connected to her egg sac.
Invictus-3, the android engineer of the party, brought his two remaining drones that hadn’t been destroyed on their journey down, a shield drone and a healing drone, which both proved pivotal in keeping Rust T, their demolitions expert’s health high enough to survive the onslaught of attacks as he ran around with his massive rocket hammer and grenades to clear up the horde and deal big damage to the queen itself.
Vido, the naato sniper spy of the party, and their newest member after their houseki trooper was killed by a powerful psionic Imperium magistrate, kept the xenid strangler count low by picking them off when he could. Invictus-3 kept up fire damage on high-priority targets, which was important because xenids lost 2 AC and had disadvantage on attacks and dexterity saving throws until the end of their next turn when they took fire damage.
Zenobia, the psion of the party who specializes in healing and support, but can also dish out big damage with psionic blasts. She helped clear out a lot of xenid eggs before focusing on the queen, who got disconnected from her egg sac when she was finally bloodied.
When they had defeated the Imperium magistrate in a prior session, Zenobia had attained a way to psionically disconnect her from her hive. However, to do so required the xenid queen to be bloodied. With 9 hit points left, and barely dodging a bite attack that was guaranteed to cause her to make death saves, Zenobia succeeded in her check to bring down the xenid queen, and end the infestation that had plagued the station.
Within minutes, emergency messages were sent to their personal communicator devices from the panicked surviving pirates who weren’t sure what was going on as the xenids fell, disconnected from the hive. Zenobia took a selfie with the body of the xenid queen to send on blast to the pirates of the ship, and immediately got the equivalent of a restricted call from what is presumed to be the head pirate of the station, demanding an audience and an explanation.
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