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.