Jan 27, 2025

The party awoke, dressed in the casino appropriate attire provided by their benefactor (this mysterious Shemeshkuh, perhaps?), had a good room-service breakfast, and headed down to the main floor entry area the “Flaming Dragon Bar and Lounge”

Mix of well to-do gamblers (nobles and wealthy merchants) were taking in a show performed by the ghost of a long-dead famous card trick magician, with a table of gnolls heckling the ghost. To the side there appeared to be small museum of retired gambling tables plus a big roulette wheel, and a kitchen where various kinds of mephits prepared meals. The party got a variety of fun drinks from the bar, where the bartender looked like Bojack Horseman’s cousin. The party also saw tuxedo-clad Mezzoloths wandering around, perhaps as bouncers or pit bosses.

A well-meaning but patronizing noble gave the party a casino chip (called a “razorvine”, because it has the image of a razorvine printed onto it) to enjoy the gambling. The party was told they’d get a gift from “the cage”, and a couple barred windows staffed with imps seemed to be “the cage”. The party members each received a small bag holding 10 chips which the imp pulled from some sort of extra-planar space.

Past a well-dressed ogre mage was a nondescript door through which a lot of traffic went back and forth. The imp said the casino was just past Vez, gesturing to the ogre magi. Fulton asked how to get an audition to be a stage performer, and Vez said to talk to Grigsby a satyr and the stage manager.

Through the door and down the hallway was a huge, loud, crowded, brightly lit casino. Imagine any varsity-level casino in Las Vegas, and it was pretty overwhelming. The atrium held a solid-gold statue of an arcanoloth with an illusory fountain spraying out gold coins.

Past the atrium was the casino itself, full of boxy clockwork machines (slot machines) which a night hag celebrating a recent jackpot explained to the party. Mixed in were gaming tables of various sorts (a card game run by a vampire croupier) and a roulette wheel run by a spectator wearing a rigid 20-sided die costume would roll itself on the table. 

The party saw in the distance a huge speciality roulette wheel (an earlier version of which the casino was named after), but there was a line so the party tried to slot machines and gaming tables first. Fulton won 15 chips playing roulette, but the party mostly lost money on the slot machines and other card games though a few players won small gold rings (worth 15gp) and Sandro was zapped with a gout of flame. A githzerai named “Rule of three” always bet three chips and rolled three dice, and a mind-flayer named Ignatius Inkblot was investigating fraud at the casino and recommended the party speak aloud rather than use telepathy because it was easier for the casino to spy on telepathic communications.

The party made it to the roulette wheel which cost 5 chips and could normally only be spun once/day. The party was mostly unlucky and won some small odds and ends (a recently severed mind-flayer tentacle, 50gp, and a tunic that said “I spun Fortune’s Wheel and all I got was this lousy tunic”), but Six got incredibly lucky (and the party sacrificed all their remaining chips to the gods of fortune) and won *actual divinity*. Still TBD what he’s now minor, quasi-deity of. Something like god of dust mites or scheduling conflicts. We’ll see. He has no worshippers and virtually no powers, but he is technically a divine being now.

The party then headed to the Ice Bar, where a yeti poured drinks at a bar made out of sculped, enchanted ice, and a depressed white dragon was resting its head on the bar and flipping a gold piece. On the way, the party passed a large lobster-shaped clockwork machine entirely gilded in gold. Someone recognized it as the legendary Apparatus of Kwalish. Apparently it was winnable as a prize on Fortune’s Wheel.

In the background, a gnome performed illusions with a white weretiger assistant (who didn’t maul anyone during the show) finished his act. The next act was introduced by a stressed-looking satyr (maybe Grigsby?) and was a ghostly performer manifested herself out of a possessed guitar. She played and sang, backed up by a troupe of brass-playing skeletons.

A tiefling archmage was celebrating her birthday at the bar (she was evasive about which birthday) and shared drinks with the party. Her drink turned her halfway into a canary (top half) but it wore off after a few minutes. The party suspected she was an Incantifer, someone who can absorb magic energy from spells and magic items, and use that energy in the place of food, water and sleep. But they’re not entirely still alive and don’t heal naturally from injuries. After some chatting, she wished the party a good night.

The white dragon was grouchy and drunk, and had just gambled away its entire hoard. It had now run up a 100gp bar tab which it couldn’t pay (it had 1gp left to its name). It offered the eternal gratitude of dragonkind if the party would pay its bill. The party didn’t believe that was something the dragon could actually offer, but paid its bill anyway. The dragon finished its drink, gratefully gave the party one of its scales, and slunk to the door.

As we concluded, Fulton was preparing to approach the Satyr about an audition.