Brainstorming a creative challenge

[roguerouge]

I'm looking for help designing a "Creative Challenge" side quest. It's for a single PC who follows Desna, especially due to her dominion over luck.

Essentially, I want to design an NPC who's a Doom Magnet. He's a carrier for bad luck. Every where he goes, random bad luck befalls him and those who come into contact with him. The PC challenge is to "fix" his bad luck.

What are some examples of this fellow's bad luck?
What might happen to those around him?
What's causing this bad luck?
How can the PC fix it?

(I can have the PC witness several events over a period of time or hear about past events, so no worries on staying in a short time span.)

Thanks for any brainstorming you can help me with...

[Jodah]

So, you want to make the PC the Buttmonkey? AKA the Rincewind?

My advice is to read Discworld, particularly Interesting Times, The Last Continent, Sourcery, and The Color Of Magic/The Light Fantastic.

[roguerouge]

Jodah wrote:

So, you want to make the PC the Buttmonkey? AKA the Rincewind?

My advice is to read Discworld, particularly Interesting Times, The Last Continent, Sourcery, and The Color Of Magic/The Light Fantastic.

No... the idea is for a cleric with a luck domain to "cure" someone of their bad luck.

As for the second bit, I've not read those four novels. Perhaps you could give me some info?

[primemover003]

Essentially this is a Curse that needs lifting, but it's not something a standard remove curse can take care of. Gods must be appeased, devils pacts fulfilled, a ghost's thirst for vengence slaked. The Cleric must drag mr. unlucky along with them on a pilgrimage to a remote shrine and do something or other.

[Charles Evans 25]

Roguerogue:
You could apply optional rules (such as the chance of dropping weapons on a 1, of hitting someone else in melee combat with a missile weapon if you were aiming at someone else but missed them) from the DMG, etc, but only for the player character suffering from the 'bad luck' - ie whenever something goes wrong for them, it goes really badly wrong. I would recommend that you okay such a thing with your players first, however, since applying to just the one PC (and none of the NPCs or monsters) it may be a little too harsh for your style of game.

[Nervous Jester]

roguerouge wrote:

What's causing this bad luck?

The NPC is a simple baker, and he has been cursed by a priest of Asmodeus in the city.

Why?

The priest is a cleric/wizard with an imp familiar. One day his imp got caught in one of the rare imp/pseudodragon battles, and was actually killed. The priest had never really worried about or even considered these "battles" a nuisance as he didn't believe a pseudodragon could actually harm an imp. Now, he paid more attention and when it happened again, he realized the pseudodragons in Korvosa had no difficulities harming the imps in town. He found the body of one such creature killed by the imps and discovered that its teeth, claws, and stinger all had a faint silvery sheen to them.

It took spells, money, and influence to track down the answer, and his pride and anger were inflamed even more to discover it was all due to nothing more than a simple common... baker?

Yes, Daviro is a baker, and he loves his craft. His desserts bely a plain appearance with an amazing taste. A friend once told him that if could just spice up the appearance a bit, it would attract more people to his bakery. One night Daviro had a dream about some bakers gilding their products with gold foil; he wanted to do the same, but when he searched his pouch, he had only silver and not enough money to buy the gold foil. The next day, Daviro asked an alchemist if something similar to gold foil could be done with silver. He came up with a glimmering edible silver foil based off the formula for... alchemical silver.

That's where the pseudodragons come in. Daviro has one that visits regularly. In exchange for a cookie, tart, or muffin from each batch, the little dragon insures that Daviro's shop is free from any vermin such as rats.

Over time, when eaten, Daviro's silvery foil becomes absorbed by the body, and is especially concentrated in the bones and teeth... and stingers of pseudodragons. His psuedodragon friend discovered this when ambushed by an imp escaped from the Acadamae. He made the connection and began sharing Daviro's treats with all the other dragons in the city.

Daviros is now in his early forties and came up with his new style of treat 20 years ago. Every pseudodragon in Korvosa has a bit of silver in them now, and any new arrivals stay out of the fights until they have been "treated" as they call it.

Daviro's Shimmering Treats and Breads is a successful bakery in Korvosa, and the owner is liked by many and hated by none... apparently. When the bad luck hits, he takes what occurs to him in stride, but when it starts affecting those around him. He leaves until he can find the answer. Perhaps he seeks the PC for help himself or maybe one of his friends (or family if desired to work that in).

To fix it requires finding the cause.

The priest of Asmodeus didn't want anything directly traceable back to him, so he got a cursed item of Calistria (the vengence of misfortune) which he left as an unlabeled birthday gift for the baker. The curse is already done, but the item's origin can be traced (perhaps the symbol of Calistria on it). Depending on how hard you want to make it perhaps the priest insulted (or tricked by a contract) the purchaser who now wants revenge of their own, or maybe getting the information is harder.

Either way, perhaps the way to break the curse is to get the person who wished it (the priest) to take the item back (which perhaps reverses the curse onto him... Calistria's revenge as it were).

Tricking him is one way to get him to take it back. Hide the item in something; perhaps Daviro can be asked to bake it into a loaf of bread or a cake (with the PC helping to counter the various unlucky things that will occur while baking).

Thing is, the PC may never find out why the priest did it, or how Daviro has had such a big impact on Korvosa. Lucky thing for the city and the pseudodragons that he came up with the idea he did after that dream he had. Hmm, lucky dream that; I wonder if... nah! ;)

Heck, you could even add a feat like "Daviro's Devotee" for residents of Korvosa that makes their unarmed attacks count as silver. No wonder the imps are cautious in this city.

[Charles Evans 25]

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Roguerogue:

You could apply optional rules (such as the chance of dropping weapons on a 1, of hitting someone else in melee combat with a missile weapon if you were aiming at someone else but missed them) from the DMG, etc, but only for the player character suffering from the 'bad luck' - ie whenever something goes wrong for them, it goes really badly wrong. I would recommend that you okay such a thing with your players first, however, since applying to just the one PC (and none of the NPCs or monsters) it may be a little too harsh for your style of game.

Sorry. Misread the opening post, and that it is an NPC suffering this bad luck. Please treat my previous post as the off topic nonsense and speculation to which that fact duly reduces it.