Into The Orchid Guild Lair -- Part 2

 

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Amok the Goliath Scouting Rogue (they/them)
• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. a Corporate Lawyer of Kas Enterprises,
  a charismatic male Vuman warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• Gaffy the Blue, a female Vedalken Watcher Paladin
• Chumbawamba, the always loyal pet wonder warg
• Nimbat/Nimowl, Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat/owl familiar
• Lucinda the female Twilight Cleric Tortle -- she was hibernating as she was strapped to Chumbawamba's back.  She did not wake up at any point.
• Dormin, Nimrod's trusty shadow spirit
• Princess the Tressym -- a winged cat who rode Amok's shoulder and imparted poisonous scratches on her enemies
  
  

The party is currently at level 6.

Before starting out...

The party finished its long rest in Foxglove's personal quarters.  

Amok studied the busts Amok had picked up in hallway the previous day. 

• Aster: a bird-type/winged they, 
• Magnolia: a human(oid) she, 
• Nettle: an unknown species they, 
• Rose(thorn): a goblinoid? she, 
• Larkspur: a human she, 
• Foxglove: a human he, 
• Camellia: an oni she, 
• Wisteria: an elf she

Today's explorations

The team pursued Foxglove deeper into the Orchid Guild Lair.

The team walked into a large subterranean courtyard from the west that had a well at its center.  The more perceptive party members heard a voice from in the well calling for help.  The wording of the pleadings repeated at an exact interval and had no response to Gaffy's questions.  Nimrod sent Nimbat into the well to investigate while everyone else stayed away at a safe distance.  Nimbat showed Nimrod that the pleadings for help were actually from a spell that was a spell that involved some runes carved deep down on the walls of the well.  Everyone then avoided the well and disregarded the requests for help as they left the courtyard via .

The team met an old goblin janitor named Wen near the central courtyard.  He stated he had no information and no interest in the Orchid Guilds activities.  He was only interested in cleaning the hallways as he had been doing for all the many years of the Orchid Guild's existence.  The team did not molest him.

The team broke through a door while pursuing Foxglove.  Two daffodil monks came out and put up a hard fight.  

    1 dragon hide belt lanyard 

(attunment by monk only)

2 other daffodil lanyards, non-magical

morning glory assassin (she) in the cafeteria.

she had a 10 ft aura of silence around her

sashimi (her, imp)- the cafeteria cook. 

she had a gelatinous cube assistant named cubey

we bought out her contract and hired her 

and the cube

amok fell into a pit of scorpions and venomous snakes. 

dormin and princess killed them

1 viol of wyvern poison found in the armory. 

smells like the curious smell that was on morning glory's weapons

master sushi (her)-- mentioned by sashimi.  not met yet

thistle -- lanyard maker, armor maker.  orc woman.  

we hired her

Into the Orchid Guild Lair -- Part 1

 

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Amok the Goliath Scouting Rogue (they/them)
• Nimrod the Beautiful, a male Vuman warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• Gaffy the Blue, a female Vedalken Watcher Paladin
• Chumbawamba, the always loyal pet wonder warg
• Nimbat/Nimowl, Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat/owl familiar
• Lucinda the female Twilight Cleric Tortle
• Dormin, Nimrod's trusty shadow spirit
• Princess the Tressym -- who rode Amok's shoulder but did not do anything.
  
  

The party is currently at level 6.

Favor Token Policy

Favor Tokens are awarded for: submitting a session summary in the session summary channel in the discord. It does not matter if someone else submitted a summary on the same session. Often times players have different perspectives on what happened. Making insightful narrative connections and exceptional role-playing.

Favor Tokens can be redeemed for magic items in the following ratio: 3 for a common, 6 for an uncommon, and 12 for a rare. 

. 

 Shopping and Repairing

The team restocked on potions.  

• Chumbawumba and Princess received barding.  
• Nimrod paid 2000 gp have some of the shadow cat pelts turned into a displacement cloak for himself.
• Amok paid 600 gold & the baby mimic for a hat of disguise

The Orchid Guild Lair

The team entered the city sewers at the point shown on the map they got from the shadow cat's den. Through their knowledge of the secret orchid-shaped graffiti tokens, the party navigated through the winding tunnels until they reached a dead end, where they were confronted by a wraith that warned them to turn back. Despite the warning, the party engaged the wraith in battle and emerged victorious.

Undeterred, the party continued through the narrow passages until they arrived at a chamber where scalding steam pipes blocked their path. Undeterred by the danger, the brave adventurers pushed through the pipes, taking some damage along the way. Nimrod, in a desperate attempt to avoid permanent injury, assumed his Dreadful form.

Amok, with his keen eyesight, noticed statuettes on the walls of the passages and collected them. Further exploration led the party to a shelf with three keys, each bearing its own unique sigil: a flower-shaped foxglove, a bird-shaped eagle, and a wolf spider.

With the keys in hand, the party proceeded to a chamber containing two statues that, at first, appeared innocuous. However, the statues suddenly drew their swords and attacked Amok, Lucinda, and Gaffy, who were alone in the room at the time. Nimrod and Chumbawamba had not yet arrived.

The statues proved impervious to spells and even Dormin's spirit form was unable to affect them. However, the quick thinking of Amok and Gaffy, who used his sword and frying pan respectively, proved effective in destroying the statues. With their enemies vanquished, the fellowship pressed on, eager to uncover the mysteries that lay ahead.

The Oni

The adventurers continued on through many tunnels and secret doors. Eventually they came upon a finely decorated chamber where they found a large cloaked figure kneeling between two incense braziers. The figure was revealed to be a powerful oni, a type of giant with an imposing presence.

Upon their entry, the oni demanded that each member of the party identify themselves. Each party member did this in turn, with Amok still retaining his disguise as a tall elf. Nimrod identified himself as a corporate lawyer who was looking for acquisition opportunities on behalf of his client, Kas Enterprises. In a desperate attempt to avoid combat with this formidable and dignified foe, the party attempted to negotiate with the oni. After some persuasion, the oni revealed itself to be an enforcer of the Guild of Orchids, an organization of great power and respect within the city. However, the oni also made it clear that it had no involvement in the recent museum murders that had taken place. Instead, it mentioned a person named Camellia as the one responsible for these Orchid activities that would involve the museum.

Despite the oni's hospitable demeanor, Gaffy and the oni engaged in duel. The oni fought fiercely but quickly fell to the might of Gaffy's sword, perhaps with some help from Amok. Interestingly, the oni did not use any of its inherent magical abilities during the fight, despite its fearsome reputation and capabilities.

Amok, with his keen eye for detail, harvested many of the oni's body parts, along with its armor and glaive. Amok carefully placed these items into his trusty bag of holding. With the battle won and the oni no longer a threat, the fellowship of adventurers continued on their perilous journey, eager to uncover the truth behind the museum murders and put a stop to those responsible.

Daffodil and the Ivy Sisters

The intrepid band of bad decision makers traversed numerous passages and secret doors until they arrived at a spacious chamber where they encountered four Ivy sisters led by a monk named Daffodil, and their supervisor, Foxglove. The chamber's centerpiece was a large pool of churning water with an iron grate covering it. Foxglove, upon sighting the party, said to Daffodil, "I trust you and your trainees to handle this yourself. If you fail, you will receive a poor performance review." Daffodil responded, "We will handle this, sir." And Foxglove departed from the east entrance of the chamber, firmly sealing it behind him.

The room after the fight.

Nimrod bellowed, "This is a corporate takeover! All of you turn in your name tags and prepare to be fired!" The Ivy sisters and Daffodil, instead of reacting to Nimrod's words with fear, promptly ran at the party and began attacking. Daffodil, alongside an Ivy, attacked Amok as Amok was crossing the grate, fiercely declaring, "This is not a name tag. It is a lanyard, and I am in charge here!" Nimrod, who was positioned next to the entrance, hit Daffodil with a repelling eldritch blast that knocked her into the deep, churning water. The second repelling blast sent another Ivy to her doom. Meanwhile, Amok continued his journey across the grate towards Foxglove's exit.

Lucinda vanquished one of the Ivys and joined Amok in his pursuit. Chumbawamba, the group's loyal pet wonder warg, ran across the grate but fell into the water at the pool's east end. Dormin also fell into the water at the south end of the grate but continued to cross the pool underwater toward the Ivy sisters.

Daffodil, who was trapped underwater, managed to ascend from the depths of the pool and caught up with Amok at Foxglove's exit. Gaffy joined the fray, and all three fought, with two Ivy sisters also attacking Gaffy. Nimrod and Dormin mainly targeted the two surviving Ivy sisters but failed to kill them quickly enough to prevent Amok and Gaffy from receiving grievous nearly fatal wounds from Daffodils flurries of fist blows. Thankfully, Lucinda was near enough to Gaffy to cast a healing spell to sustain him.

Gaffy finally slew the remaining Ivy and Daffodil, sarcastically remarking, "My mistake, I see now you had a lanyard rather than a name badge. But you still have no future here." Lucinda, upon seeing this, opened Foxglove's exit by flipping the switch at the center of the island in the pool.

Friday, February 3, 2023 Shadow Cat Den -- Part 2

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Faelin Amok the Scouting Rogue
• Nimrod the Vuman, a male warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• Gaffy the Blue, a female Vedalken Watcher Paladin
• Chumbawamba, the always loyal pet wonder warg
• Nimbat/Nimowl, Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat/owl familiar
• Dormin, Nimrod's trusty shadow spirit
• with occasional appearances by Lucinda the female Twilight Cleric Tortle.  This week she was who mostly sleeping within her shell while strapped onto Chumbawamba.  (Maybe she was having an allergic reaction to fungal zombie spores or shadow cat dander.)
  
  

The party is currently at level 5.

The team reached level 6 at the conclusion of this session. 

 

Notes from this session

1st encounter 

6 standard zombies

One was black knight zombie.  He kept coming back after being chopped apart.

       Amok found a periapt of wound closure from the corpses.  It went to Gaffy

2nd encounter

2 shadow cats ==> get 1.5 hides due to radiant damage on one cat

some shadow cat jerky made for/by lucinia.  

other shadow cat meat offered to any surviving ravens

Team slept in the raven's area. All but chumbawamba, nimowl, and amok were in Lucinia's tiny hut.  There were spooky sounds of an animal dying during the night.  But no encounters.  The team found a slaughtered partially devoured fox in the morning.

3rd encounter

alpha cats and 4 standard zombies

  nimowl killed while assisting gaffy

  nimrod avenged nimowl

4th encounter

cave fisher in cave at entrance

Gaffy and Amok got a tressym (flying cat) by kissing cave frog they saw in a pool further in the cave.

It is a small winged cat named Princess

Princess

We need to train it before it will help us.

• A tressym is a mischievous winged cat as big as a house cat, with a wingspan of 3 feet.
• Thought to be the results of wizardly experimentation on house cats, tressym are intelligent and have been known to form strong friendships with humanoids, particularly rangers and wizards. Tressym get along well with others of their kind, but they rarely lair or hunt together. They peacefully ignore bats, faerie dragons, and the like, but they hate stirges and evil flying monsters such as manticores. They also enjoy teasing dogs.
• Tressym feed on small rodents, birds, and insects, stalking and pouncing on prey much as normal cats to, but with the added advantage of flight. Tressym don't, however, attack nestlings or despoil eggs.
• Tressym mate with others of their kind, but they don't mate for life. A tressym can also mate with a normal cat, through only one out of every ten of their offspring will be a tressym; the others will be normal cats.
• Tressym have good memories, particularly when it comes to danger. For example, a tressym that sees a human use a wand of lightning bolts remembers the danger of "sticks of wood held by humans" for the rest of its life. A lucky, healthy tressym can live to be 20 years old.
• With the DM's permission, a person who casts the find familiar spell can choose to conjure a tressym instead of a normal cat.
• Traits
• Detect Invisibility. Within 60 feet of the tressym, magical invisibility fails to conceal anything from the tressym's sight.
• Keen Smell. The tressym has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
• Poison Sense. A tressym can detect whether a substance is poisonous by taste, touch, or smell.

5th encounter

final shadow cat

7 gems, each worth 250 gp

A corpse among the trearsure wore a simple cloak with an orchid symbol.

Within the cloak there was a map with a note saying "come here for your initiation"

The cloak wearer appeared to have been a half elf.

We can make 2 cloaks of displacement from our many cat pelts.

Shadow Cat Den -- Part 1

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Faelin Amok the Rogue
• Lucinia the Twilight Cleric Tortle
• Nimrod the Vuman, a warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• Gaffy the Blue, a Vedalken Watcher Paladin
• Chumbawamba, the always loyal pet wonder warg
• Nimbat, Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat familiar
• Dormin, Nimrod's trusty shadow spirit
  
  

The party is currently at level 5. 

The Mission

Our band of intrepid bad deciders is journeying overland through woods and fens from the dwarven forge back to the library to resume their pursuit of the Orange Orchid Society.  Prior to the events described here, residents of the area had warned them this is a dangerous road section where recently many travelers had disappeared.  Consequently, our adventurers are on alert for anything.

Part 1: "There are snakes, Gaffy -- lots of giant nasty bloated snakes."

The party came upon a gurgling, easily fordable stream.  The more perceptive party members noticed a rustling of the bushes in a small oxbow on the other side of the stream.  Amok crossed the stream to investigate as nearly everyone else observed from the stream's safe side.  Nimbat flew above Amok to provide Nimrod an aerial view of Amok's explorations.

On the other side of the stream Amok found around five collections of giant snakes.  Every snake was contentedly sleeping on the warm sand, lazily basking under the baking sun and happily digesting the meals in their distended tummies. Their stomachs were so bloated, Amok and Nimrod separately wondered if these snakes were responsible for all of the missing travelers.

Amok decided killing the snakes was necessary for the public welfare.  So he set a brush fire that to burn them to death, hopefully engulfing them all in flame before they could wake up.  But all the snakes awoke as Amok ignited the first snake batch.  Then with amazing ferocity the snakes attacked the entire party -- even the people hiding many yards away across the stream.  This showed these were formidable snakes.  They were acting like they had learned from prior experience exactly how to respond.

Gaffy immediately charged across the stream into the center of snake beach.  Lucinia mounted Chumbawamba to bring the decanter of endless mud to Amok or Gaffy for use as a fire extinguisher.  But some of the surprisingly agile bloated serpents upset these plans by attacking Chumbawamba and Lucinia before they could enter the stream.  Some of the snakes injected their venom into Chumbawamba, causing her considerable pain as she tore them apart.

Nimrod was atop a nearby hillock where he fired off eldritch blasts at the snakes across the stream.  The snakes were amazingly tough.  The snakes thought not at all about self-preservation as they ruthlessly attacked the party without heeding their losses or the proximity of the ever-growing fire.

At one point only three groups of snakes were still alive.  But they every snake was swarming all over Gaffy's body.  Nimrod was afraid to aim his eldritch blasts so perilously close to Gaffy.  So instead, Nimrod viciously mocked them with "You will taste like chicken after we kill you".  While not being very damaging, this cutting remark seemed to partially demotivate the snakes.  Apparently, the eaters were sensitive about being the eaten.  Gaffy followed up with, "You made business deals with mongooses" as he unleashed a searing divine radiance upon all his slithery assailants.

In the end, the last surviving snake collective unfurled from Gaffy and fled eastward toward the undergrowth.  Amok gave chase and extirpated the snakes.

Amok dissected many of the snakes after the fight.  He found their last meals included a hind leg of a large black cat.  But the stomach contents could not explain the disappearances of recent travelers here.

The team made a one-hour meal of the snakes.  They did indeed taste like chicken.

Part 2: To Shout or Not to Shout, What Is the Question?

Our bad decision makers followed the trail north until they came upon a de-fleshed humanoid skull sitting upright in a little shrine on the trail side.  Nimrod the rune master studied the skull for ten minutes.  Then Nimrod relayed to the group that this was the skull of Baraxis.  The runes said the skull would grant one wish if they shouted it to the sky.  The group deliberated about whether this was a trap.  

Nimrod to the group: 

"To shout, or not to shout, that is the question: 

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of hastily considered unmuted wishes,
Or to just ignore this portent and move on?"

 Her holiness Lucinia opined:

"Devoutly must we wish. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life."

Amok the cunning and ever safety conscious weighed in:

"With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Gaffy the holy warrior philosopher concluded:

"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action."

Thus, being hopelessly undecided for now, our truly bad decision makers collectively sighed, shrugged, and walked away.  Perhaps they will return after other episodes have wizened them.

Part 3: The Murder of the Over-Crow

The merry band followed the trail a short distance north until they came upon a clearing surrounded by tall trees.  Many of these trees were filled with increasingly animated swarms of cawing crows.  The air was filled with a horrifying cacophony of increasingly hostile cawing from all directions around the party as the crow's overhead increasingly darkened the sky and land with their forms and shadows.

Then the group spied a strange unique crow in a tree on the far side of the clearing.  It had a pink fleshy brain-like mass atop its head.  The other crows seemed to be paying it deference.  Upon realizing our group could see it, this over-crow willed its scores of subjects to dive attack the party.

The crow swarms managed to hit Amok first.  Then Chumbawamba was hit.  The hits were reinforced by a magical effect that caused Amok and Chumbawamba to think they were crows after they failed their wisdom saving throws.  They were forced to ineffectually caw rather than fight until they passed their wisdom saving throws.

Lucinia targeted the over-crow with a moonbeam.  The injured over-crow responded by flying to a tree 30 feet west of Nimrod.  Nimrod teleported next to the over-crow up in its tree and attempted to grapple it.  Unfortunately, Nimrod was unable to grapple the over-crow before Lucinia's moonbeam killed it.  Nimrod was unable to revive it using 'spare the dying'.  Nimrod was very disappointed when the swarms of ordinary crows continued attacking even after the over-crow was dead.  Furthermore, Nimrod was disappointed that he was unable to befriend the over-crow to gain knowledge of the challenges remaining in the area.

With the over-crow dead Nimrod started eldritch blasting the crow swarms that were attacking Gaffy and Chumbawamba.  It was a shame the party had to destroy all the crows.

After the battle the team learned crows also taste like chicken.

Part 4: Stray Shadow Cats

The team crossed the creek from west to east again.  Suddenly 2 big black shadow cats jumped out of the tall grass at Amok and Nimrod.  One of them had a natural blur effect happening that made it hard to target.  

Nimrod turned himself and Amok invisible and they retreated across the creek. Gaffy and Lucinia, stalwart in their bravery, immediately engaged the beasts in battle. And from across the stream, Nimrod cast repelling bolts of pain upon the blurry cat as Amok fired crossbow bolts with deadly accuracy.

In the end, the shadow cats were felled, and the company emerged unscathed, save for a few scratches. Amok, skilled in the art of skinning, did take the pelts of the beasts, saying they could be fashioned into coats of blur.

The company knew that the shadow cats did hunt in prides of four to six, and so they prepared themselves for the next encounter. The road ahead was treacherous, but they were determined to face it with courage and strength.

Part 5: Fun(gus) on a Sunny Afternoon

The team ventured east and came upon a strangely rotted orc corpse.  It had 2000 gp and a battle axe.  The axe had the name "gworthaxe" carved into it.

The team ventured further up a ravine.  Gaffy was in the lead followed by Amok when they entered a weird mushroom patch.  Two fungal zombies rose up out of the tall red hued toad stools.  Nimrod shouted, "watch out for the fungus amongus".  But he was too late to help anyone evade the spore cone a zombie spewed at the group -- though Amok was able to uncannily dodge much of the damage.

Yet Nimrod, unfaltering, did unleash his hellish rebuke upon his assailant, "You dare to attack a servant of Kas, thou spawn of decay? The wrath of my patron shall smite thee, and the fires of the nether shall consume thee!" And with a mighty roar, much of the zombie's flesh was consumed by flame.

The team fought the two zombies, with Gaffy staying in close melee contact among the shrooms as the others used ranged attacks.  Nimrod's repelling blasts helped push these monsters back into their mushroom fairy circles.  But some members of the party took heavy damage when the first zombie to die exploded.

At the end, Nimrod could see Gaffy was close to death.  He readied himself and Nimbat to cast Spare the Dying upon Gaffy should Gaffy go down.  So when Gaffy did go down as foreseen, Nimbat selflessly dived in to stabilize Gaffy.  Unfortunately, the zombie struck down Nimbat as soon as Nimbat had completed its good deed.  Then the zombie exploded as Lucinia and Amok inflicted lethal damage upon it.  Lucinia then restored some health to Gaffy using a healing lotion.

Nimrod's pact magic slots were completely depleted at the end of that fight.  Though he was normally youthfully beautiful and energetic, his exhaustion left his hair white and ghostly.  His stature was now drooped over and his features had become gaunt and more angular.  He felt a strange aversion to the hot sun overhead, his canine teeth were strangely sharp, and he had a craving for salty beverages.  Though he took little damage, he requested the group take a rest.   He also hoped he might summon forth his faithful Nimbat once again.