Memorable Moments in Bad Decision Guild History: "Curses -- How Did That Did Not Work?!!"

 

Nimbat touches the mechanical dragon slayer to enable the delivery of Nimrod's Bestow Curse

Nimrod and Nimbat smugly arranged for the whole team to approach the mysterious bone pile invisibly.  Nimrod hung back where he thought he could safely deliver a crippling blow to whatever would emerge from said pile.  

Then the giant dragon slaying construct sprang forth.  As pre-planned, Nimbat touched the creature from behind as Nimrod uttered his debilitating Kas Enterprise epithet.  Surely this creature would not be one of the lucky 10% to escape a curse of this strength, Nimrod hoped.

To Nimrod's shock and utter exasperation, the creature completely did not care about the curse.  Instead Nimrod's cursing focused all the construct's initial destructive efforts on Nimrod.

As the creature mechanically clanked toward him with sea urchin-like locomotion, Nimrod rolled his eyes and threw up his arms as he could barely believe what he was seeing.  Nimrod finally responded, "You cannot fight me here!  Because I am now over there."  as he teleported to the other side of the chamber -- hoping to be well out of reach of its many weapons.  

And that was the first time Nimrod tried to use his newest eldritch invocation: Bestow Curse.

Casino of Repeated Undeath

 

This Week's Team Members

• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. 
• a Corporate Lawyer (i.e. fixer and aspiring consigliere) of Kas Enterprises, 
• a charismatic male Variant Human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• a proud graduate of Kas Enterprise's evil law school.  He has a doctorate specializing in Evil Law because he was thoroughly indoctrinated in spite of some Fey influences in his earlier life

• Nimbat: Nimrod's bat familiar and confidant
• Nimwit #1: Nimrod's primary unseen servant. Nimwit fetches things and such. Nimrod tries to resummon Nimwit every hour as opportunity allows.
• Dormin: Nimrod's shadow, whom Nimrod can summon for 10 minutes once per day using the Wand of Shadows
• Jax the Dhampir Investigative Rogue, a proud graduate of Murder School

• Devora: the she/her Gem Dragonborn student intern swords bard
• Hootie Hoo: Devora's owl familiar
• Chumbawumba: the team's trusty female Dire Wolf
  
  
• Gaffy: a War Forged protector paladin

This Week's Adventure: Casino of Repeated Undeath

The team followed the wisps of acrid carcinogenic tobacco smoke into the dark cave's entry chamber from the court yard. All but Devora and the familiars were protected by an invisibility spell Nimrod had cast. Devora had cast her own invisibility spell.

In the dimly lit chamber, an eerie sight awaited them. Undead zombies and ogres, their faces eternally frozen in grimaces of death, moved with a strange synchrony. These soul-less wasted creatures shuffled aimlessly around the chamber, their emaciated forms clutching cheap cigarettes, the glowing embers dangling ominously from their cold, lifeless fingers.

For a moment, the undead broke their deathly ballet and converged on a peculiar sight in the far corner of the chamber—a slot machine?. With mechanical precision, they pulled the lever and watched as the reels spun, a discordant symphony of clinking chains and gears echoing through the chamber. Then, as quickly as they had gathered, the undead dispersed and resumed their monotonous activities.

Nimrod and his invisible companions exchanged puzzled glances. It was clear that something unnatural was at play in this chamber, something that defied the laws of both the living and the dead. With their invisibility spells still in effect, the party surmised they had freedom to explore and if a fight broke out they would have the element of surprise on their side. But what other mysteries awaited them in this dark, foreboding cave?

Travelling to the Dragon Cave

 

This Week's Team Members

• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. 
• a Corporate Lawyer (i.e. fixer and aspiring consigliere) of Kas Enterprises, 
• a charismatic male Variant Human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• a proud graduate of Kas Enterprise's evil law school.  He has a doctorate specializing in Evil Law because he was thoroughly indoctrinated in spite of some Fey influences in his earlier life

• Nimbat: Nimrod's bat familiar and confidant
• introducing the Nimwits: Nimrod's unseen servants, near tireless  doers of nearly mindless repetitive tasks.  They help Nimbat operate the spectral stage coach
• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
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• Jax the Dhampir Investigative Rogue, a proud graduate of Murder School

• Devora: the she/her Gem Dragonborn student intern swords bard
• Hootie Hoo: Devora's owl familiar

Scenes from this week's adventure

Murdering the Big Frog-Man Good Samaritan

Fighting the Flame Skull and 3 deadly construct guards at the entrance to the dragon lair

Grappling Great Griffon Eggs, Part 2: Floating Kobolds and Bad Decisions Makers

 

This Week's Team Members

• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. 
• a Corporate Lawyer (i.e. fixer and aspiring consigliere) of Kas Enterprises, 
• a charismatic male Variant Human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• a proud graduate of Kas Enterprise's evil law school

• Nimbat: Nimrod's bat familiar and confidant
• introducing the Nimwits: Nimrod's unseen servants, near tireless  doers of nearly mindless repetitive tasks.  They help Nimbat operate the spectral stage coach
• Fennix: a very shy, small sized fire druid who is smitten with Nimrod-- even though Nimrod rarely acknowledges Fennix's existence.  Fennix is hairless and his whole body is badly scarred because he burned to death in a forest fire prior to joining the Bad Decisions Guild.  But somehow he continues to "live". His obsession with Nimrod grows stronger daily.  (Perhaps Nimrod is the reason Fennix has not yet surrendered to Death.)
• Sparky the wild fire spirit: Fennix often summons this dog like fire elemental to assist him in his adventures 
• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
• Faelin Amok the Rogue
• Jax the Dhampir Investigative Rogue, a proud graduate of Murder School

• Devora: the she/her Gem Dragonborn student intern swords bard

This is the conclusion of the third adventure at level 8.  The team reached level 9 at the end of this session.

Today's Episode: Floating Kobolds and Bad Decision Makers

As Nimrod's plume of flying flew himself and Fennix at the sluggish rate of 30 feet per turn away from the griffon nest, Fennix maintained concentration on his summoned owls, which continued attempting to distract and harass the griffons.  Meanwhile Nimrod's concentrated on keeping himself, Fennix, and Devora invisible.

Devora and Jax were also trying to get away from the griffon nest.  Jax jumped into the portable hole with the eggs and Devora held the bag to give it the invisibility afforded to her by Nimrod's spell.  

The kobold airship was heading straight toward the northern end of the broken bridge.  It's celebratory crew was merrily playing its bagpipes and kazoo's in anticipation of harvesting many griffon eggs.  But they were also suspicious enough to be fully ready for fighting as the unnatural presence of Fennix's giant owls and the griffon's attacks against various bushes and patches of grass as well as the owls made the kobolds wonder if they were interrupting a competitor's egg heist.

When Jax and Devora placed an egg on a terrace south of the nest to distract a troublesome griffon long enough for them to make an escape, the Kobolds saw this and correctly deduced they had found competitors to kill.  The airship's six kobold crew put away its cymbals, drums, bagpipes, and kazoos to fully man its ballistae and cannon.

Devora reacted quickly by flying Jax directly to the north end of the broken bridge.  This put them directly in front of the airship as the kobolds were targeting their ship's weapons on the nearest griffons, which were attacking the airship's control surfaces.  Then Jax hurled her lightning javelin at the airship.  The javelin's impact and it's lightning bolt immediately electrocuted the entire crew and visibly damaged the ship as well.

Nimrod was very desirous of capturing this airship for Kas Enterprises as a trophy.  He put Fennix on the ground and then used his wand of shadows to teleport to the airship's stern, hoping to master the ship's controls before it crashed into the sea cliff or was torn apart by enraged griffons.  When he arrived he could not figure out the ships controls.  

Fortunately Devora flew Jax to the box of the ship.   Jax was able to discharge the powerful bow cannon into the sea cliffs as the ship was about to crash into them.  This slowed the ship and blew away enough of the cliff to create enough extra distance between the bow and the cliff's jagged rocks to allow for a few more seconds to master the ship.

Fennix also boarded the ship after wild shaping into a seagull and flying past the sole surviving griffon attacker of the ship to the ship's midsection.  He immediately spotted a map tacked to the ship's inner bulwark.  The map charted the Kobold ship's entire planned path -- a grand irregular circle starting at "The Caves", then winding through the desert to a land marked with a large (red?, ancient?) dragon, then coming to these cliffs for eggs.  Another named realm lay beyond the dragon.

The team took the badly damaged air ship to the apothecary.  He bought it for a pittance.  He also provided many potions. 

The apothecary provided a special item for Amok: heward's handy spice pouch.

This belt pouch appears empty and has 10 charges. While holding the pouch, you can use an action to expend 1 of its charges, speak the name of any nonmagical food seasoning (such as salt, pepper, saffron, or cilantro), and remove a pinch of the desired seasoning from the pouch. A pinch is enough to season a single meal. The pouch regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn.

The team resolved to head toward the land of the dragon upon learning the Golden Orchid Society's lawyers rule land beyond.

Grappling Great Griffon Eggs, Part 1

 

This Week's Team Members

• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. 
• a Corporate Lawyer (i.e. fixer and aspiring consigliere) of Kas Enterprises, 
• a charismatic male Variant Human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• a proud graduate of Kas Enterprise's evil law school

• Nimbat: Nimrod's bat familiar and confidant
• introducing the Nimwits: Nimrod's unseen servants, near tireless  doers of nearly mindless repetitive tasks
• Fennix: a very shy, small sized fire druid who is smitten with Nimrod-- even though Nimrod rarely acknowledges Fennix's existence.  Fennix is hairless and his whole body is badly scarred because he burned to death in a forest fire prior to joining the Bad Decisions Guild.  But somehow he continues to "live". His obsession with Nimrod grows stronger daily.  (Perhaps Nimrod is the reason Fennix has not yet surrendered to Death.)
• Sparky the wild fire spirit: Fennix often summons this dog like fire elemental to assist him in his adventures 
• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
• Faelin Amok the Rogue

This is the start of the third adventure at level 8.

Grappling Great Griffon Eggs

The team hastily travelled generally west from Brookfield via spectral stagecoach on the advice of the old villager who advised them to visit his potion making coastal cousin.  They travelled day and night at the magically upgraded speed of ten to 13 miles per hour.

They met the potion making cousin at his coastal village.  He looked (and sounded?) exactly like his cousin back in Brookfield.  Nimrod and likely everyone else thought this was inexplicable with stated facts.  He thought maybe the apothecary and the old farmer were identical twins who got separated at birth rather than cousins.  But no one brought this up.  All the same, he resolved to discretely investigate this uncanny similarity as opportunity allowed.

The potion smith said he would give the team potions if they stole griffon eggs from the nearby griffon colony.  He specifically mentioned he could make a strength potion from Nimrod's vial of terrasque blood.  But he might also have been able to make additional potions from other monster parts the team could offer.  The team took up the potioneer's offer.  Nimrod and Fennix thought their magic would make this a quick and easy task.  Nimrod would provide invisibility for 3 out of 4 party members and Fennix would provide 8 giant owls to distract the griffons.  The owls would transport the team as well, though Nimrod would use his plume of flying instead.  Stealthy Amok would steal the eggs and dexterous Silvermist would assist while invisible.  What could go wrong?

Then the potion maker mentioned 1) the Kobold raiders who also harvest griffon eggs using an air ship equipped with artillery and 2) the dragon who sometimes roams the area.  Everyone laughed off those potential complications.  Why would the kobolds and dragon show up today of all days?  Besides, three out of 4 team members would be invisible.  Odds were great this would be a quick and easy win for the Bad Decisions Guild (and their underwriters at Kas Enterprises).

The plan was working at first.  Fennix's owls easily transported the team across a deep gorge to the cliff top griffon colony.  Nimrod's invisibility provided needed stealth for the team to approach the main griffon nest.  The owls were able to distract and draw away four out of six of the griffons.  

But two dominant mating griffons remained stubbornly close to the nest.  The dominant female would not leave it at all. The dominant male would only stray a few yards away from its egg clutch.

Nimrod did some yelling and bush whacking to deceive the dominant male into attacking a large bush away from the nest.  Meanwhile Fennix used his owls to keep the other griffons away from the nest -- an increasingly difficult task since some slower and weaker owls had succumbed to the griffons and the griffons were beginning to fly back to the nest.

But only Amok and Silvermist could deal with the dominant female.   They tried stealing the eggs without alerting or harming the dominant female.  Unfortunately, it detected and attacked Amok.  ?Amok killed it with Amok's magic frying pan?  Fennix's grief over this unintended death taxed his concentration on his control of his giant owls.

The other griffons returned as Amok and Silvermist were climbing out of the nest with the eggs in Amok's bag of holding.  One of the griffons spotted Amok and inflicted vicious wounds.  Fennix's owls were in hot pursuit of these griffons.  But the griffons were faster than the owls.

This is when the kobolds arrived with a blaring cacophony of bagpipes and kazoos.  Maybe they would provide the distraction the team needed to escape the griffons without sacrificing their invisibility.

Maybe the team would even be able to seize control of the airship.

Purge of the Manticore Mill Murderers

 

This Week's Team Members

• Chumbawamba the loyal warg and team mascot
• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. 
• a Corporate Lawyer (i.e. fixer and aspiring consigliere) of Kas Enterprises, 
• a charismatic male Variant Human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• a proud graduate of Kas Enterprise's evil law school

• Devora --she/her,  Valor Bard and Student Intern spending time adventuring between course work at a Strixhaven-like university
• Pugh -- a sometimes very big, green skinned pole arm wielding rune knight.  Is Pugh a Warforged?
• Hootie Hoo -- Devora's owl familiar
• Nimbat: Nimrod's bat familiar and confidant
• introducing the Nimwits: Nimrod's unseen servants, near tireless  doers of nearly mindless repetitive tasks
• Fennix: a very shy, small sized fire druid who is smitten with Nimrod-- even though Nimrod rarely acknowledges Fennix's existence.  Fennix is hairless and his whole body is badly scarred because he burned to death in a forest fire prior to joining the Bad Decisions Guild.  But somehow he continues to "live". His obsession with Nimrod grows stronger daily.  (Perhaps Nimrod is the reason Fennix has not yet surrendered to Death.)
• Sparky the wild fire spirit: Fennix often summons this dog like fire elemental to assist him in his adventures 
• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
• Faelin Amok the Rogue

This is the second adventure at level 8.

This week's episode: Purge of the Manticore Mill Murderers

Nimrod's Baroque Spectral Stagecoach speeding at the thrilling pace of 10 mph through the moonless Summer night

The team travelled in two groups after leaving Maureen Trask.  The group in this episode was persuaded to travel in luxurious style in a magical spectral stagecoach Nimrod had summoned by casting the phantom steed ritual for 50 minutes followed by the unseen servant and floating disk rituals. This provided an ornate covered carriage drawn by impossibly swift spectral riding horses.  Nimbat helped the unseen servant coachmen handle the reins of the horses in the night so that the stagecoach stayed  on the primitive dirt road.

Our adventurers were travelling on the old  road through the desert west of Djelibeybi because of rumors of murders and mayhem along this road.  They thought these crimes may be related to the Golden Orchid Society.

Around midnight in their nocturnal journey the stagecoach came upon a aged farmer as he was hurriedly shambling from his privy to his boarded up farm house on the other side of this strangely grassy stretch of the road.  As the coach stopped abruptly next to the farmer, Devora called out to him "Kind sir, we come to investigate tales of many recent wicked murders along this road.  Can you tell us where to start?"

The  crusty farmer snarled, "You whipper snappers get off my lawn!  If you want trouble, go ten miles down the proper road to the ruins of the old mill."

Nimrod immediately barked at Nimbat and the two unseen servant coachmen, "You Nimwits!, Get us off this man's lawn and back onto the road. "

Nimbat and the unseen coachmen furiously maneuvered the coach at maximum speed in a circle around the now startled geezer.  The phantom steeds screamed as the coach's steely wheels threw dust and sod into the air surrounding the now coughing oldster.   

Fennix's guilt about the damaged lawn compelled him to "reassure" the farmer by lighting dancing red flames in the ruts left in the lawn by the coach.   The flames formed a tapestry bearing the words "WE WILL BE BACK!" in air above the ruts.  Fennix intended this to help the farmer know he had new protectors who would stand by his side (and fix his lawn).  But the flames actually terrified the farmer, particularly since they were five feet tall and had him surrounded.

The coach quickly left the intimidated farmer shaking his arthritic crutch at the coach's quickly receding sanguine tail lights and briefly flaming wheel rims.

Nimbat's Status Report to Kas Enterprises Management

Your Excellency,

Last week Nimrod and his colleagues of the Bad Decisions Guild subdued a mega-terrasque that had been summoned by the delightfully evil wizard Maureen Trask (MT).  Even though Nimrod did attempt to recruit Maureen Trask as a consultant for our organization, I must convey to you that Nimrod et. al. utterly failed to show initiative when they had an opportunity to seize control of the terrasque before they witnessed MT put it into an extended multi-decade sleep using a unique magic item they had fetched for MT.

I wish to inform you of the timidity Nimrod displayed in front of MT while MT made denigrating remarks about our lord and eternal master, Kas.  His behavior should tempt you to investigate whether Nimrod is considering breaching his contractual commitments of eternal fealty to Kas Enterprises.  

Your always faithful informant,

^^ Nimbat ^^