Session Twelve - Recap

Session Twelve - Recap

With the jungle drums in the distance, Jax shouted an order: "Okay crew, time to loot and scoot!" The entire crew burst into activity, grabbing whatever they could of value from the small village. Sadie boosts Jax up and he pries the enormous gem free--a single point of plunder itself. The crew takes the unconscious priestess and the other captured women, along with all the goats of the tribe. They rush back to their ship, hearing the shouts of rage from the distance behind when the Mwangi men no doubt reached their sacked and empty village. Their shoreboats managed to cast off just as the enraged islanders approached, weathering a hail of spears and poison darts as they rowed to The Broken Promise.

Pretty much the experience.

On the ship, they searched the priestess and the natives for any further treasures. They found a rat tucked in the priestess' garb, and recognized the glint of intelligent behavior that marked a familiar. They took the rat far from the witch and locked it in a chest below deck. Shivikah and N'danho talked to the captive women, and learned the tale of what had happened. One of the women had become pregnant, an instance of great fear for the village. Babies in the past five years had all been born "wrong" and "bearing the white mark of evil on them". The group yielded little other useful information for the crew, saying only that the ritual was to "cleanse the village".

In the morning, the crew questioned the priestess when she awoke from her unconscious state. They learned that her name was Nu'oao, and they inquired about the sacrifice. The priestess told them that the children of the village were cursed, and that if they were not carefully slain with cold iron in their heart and the proper words spoken, they would erupt into horrible demons ("pepo" in the Mwangi tongue) that in turn attacked the town. The first such incidence was the firstborn son of the Chieftain. The boy was almost six years old, and suddenly one day he got upset and literally exploded in a shower of gore--leaving a horrible demon in his place. The demon's attacks started killing more children, who resulted in demons of their own. The village would have been destroyed had it not been for the brave Chieftain's might and Nu'oao's magical wardings. After that, there were more flare-ups: often when a child would get angry or hurt. Thus, the Chieftain declared that no one could have children any longer.

Nu'oao, Priestess of the island and banisher of demons.

This rule was not always followed, as accidents would happen to even those who used precautions such as only having sex during the moonblood or smearing the highly acidic oils from a "pillpi hoho" on their genitals. The rite that the crew had interrupted was to safely dispose with a tainted child that had been accidentally conceived. As the crew talked with her further, they learned that these tainted children were all who were born five or fewer years ago. The crew inquired about the timing, and whether anything happened at that point. Nu'oao said that the only thing of note was that they moved the tribe: they had once kept their village near the shore, but constant raids from pirates forced them to finally move inward. Shivikah, who was translating, shared that he left out a number of extra-venomous words she used to describe such pirates.

The crew decided to sail around the island to the site of the old village, to try and figure out a reason why this might have happened. They landed and found the tattered and unkempt remains of a village, which was located around a large and very shallow lagoon. Out in the middle of the lagoon they could see part of a large statue protruding from the water. When they inquired with Nu'oao, she said that the statue had been the prior one that her tribe had worshipped. As it was far to heavy to move, they just left it behind when they went inland and raised tribute to a new god: the god of the land. Conferring with each other and Sandara, and using some detect magic spells, the crew immediately sorted out the root of the problem: the neglected and now-fallen idol was likely the source of the curse on the tribe.

A sunken and neglected idol is a dangerous thing. 

The crew called for a block and tackle, as well as some sturdy men. Jax and Scolvus did the calculations, while Shivikah, Turd (Murd), and Jaundiced Jape did the heavy lifting. As they drew the statue upright, Sandara gasped. It was an ancient statue depicting the "mother-of-the-deep" version of the goddess Besmara. Sandara explained the connection between Besmara and the town's troubles to Nu'oao.

And with that, the crew hatched a plan. Jax suggested that they might be able to spin this all in a way that established a safe port for them as well as a place that can produce goods they can bear to the larger cities. They decided to have Sandara teach Nu'oao the real rituals of Besmara, and then to send her as an envoy to the village in the hills. She would explain about the anger of the neglected idol, and say that the disappeared women and livestock were taken for their safety. Under Nu'oao's leadership, they would move the town back to the shore--with the understanding that The Broken Promise would frequent the port and protect it from external raiders. The agreement would be sealed with a feast on the beach, and Captain Sullivan suggested that the village should be named "Besmara's Cradle"--an idea which everyone immediately agreed upon. And so Nu'oao set out to deliver this message to the tribe's menfolk.

This left the crew with a few days to cool their heels on the shore. They began by watching Sandara's demonstration of the Besmara rituals, painting elaborate murals on the bellies of herself and Portia D'Angelique and submerging them both in the waters. While Sandara knew that both she and Portia were pregnant with Jax's child, the rest of the crew just thought it was more of Sandara's sea-belief peculiarity.

The other events of the first day of shore leave were less auspicious. Jack Scrimshaw shyly presented Sadie the Goat with the carved tusk of her former pet walrus Petunia. On the ship, Portia returned from the ritual and helped Scolvus appraise the massive red gem they had taken from the inland village idol. While the gem was very valuable (a full Plunder point itself), Portia was preoccupied. She asked Scolvus what was between Jax and Sandara. She explained her own recent history, that she had sex with Jax, and believed that she might be pregnant. She ended by asking Scolvus to talk with Jax for her--which left him rather uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Maheem approached Captain Sullivan and attempted to talk about the ship's strategy. He urged caution when casting their lot with the so-called "holy" power of Besmara. While Maheem recognized his bias (having grown up in Rahadoum, where all religion is illegal), he still urged the Captain to not fall into the spell of the "sea-witch".

That night, there was dancing and celebration on the beach. Samms Toppin was dancing closer and closer with Jax, with whom she had flirted a fair amount in the past. Between the rum and the music and the elation of some shore leave on a lovely island, she seemed swept up in the moment--culminating in him joining her in the nearby bushes. And another woman of the crew was added to the list of those Jax had sex with, Meanwhile at the celebration, Murd was a little drunk. He sat down on a log next to Druna, and started talking with her. She talked of her escape from Highhelm and other dwarf things. Murd asked "where's your beard?" to which Druna replied that "not all girl dwarves have beards... though Sadie does. She just shaves." With a laugh, Murd began to warm to Druna despite their past clashes. He talked of a map, and produced a ship-in-a-bottle which he said was a treasure map made by Poxy "Peg" Pearls. He passed out from the drink, and Druna took a look at the map (which depicted a spot that was four islands up of the big Motaku island in the Shackles). She then tucked the bottle into Murd's coat, and went and informed Captain Sullivan that they might speak to Murd about a treasure map.

In the morning, they formed an exploring party to search around the area and see if the village had any valuable resources located near by. As they got deeper into the jungle, Captain Sullivan discovered some Star Mangrove trees which could be harvested and regrown, and might turn a fair profit for export. As they searched, Scolvus tried to talk with Jax about the "Portia and Sandara situation" as he called it, but he had difficulty articulating his point and ended up saying little. He was unable to explain further, as suddenly a mated pair of Dire Apes came crashing down after swinging up via the copious vines in the jungle canopy.

Few creatures are more savage in the jungle than a pair of apes defending their territory.

The one of them tore into Scolvus, its massive thumb finding his eye socket and ripping out his eye with a rending swipe. As Scolvus fainted, Druna shouted advice to the group about territory and ape behavior. The group manages to get Scolvus back on his feet and ease their way backward with heads cowed in a submissive stance. The apes screamed and beat their chests, but didn't follow the group any further.

Back at the ship, they found a temporary eyepatch for Scolvus. Captain Sullivan set to work using his experience as a tailor to sew a nicer one for his Quartermaster. Scolvus, traumatized by the event, hid himself away below decks. Jax noticed this, and talked to Shivikah who spoke with the captured Mwangi women. They explained that Scolvus was in need of "cheering up." One woman, named Ovoala, explained that she was in a bad situation back in the village. Her father was poor, and thus any match she would get would be unfavorable at best or abusive at worst. She agreed to "cheer up" Scolvus if they promised to take her with them when they left the village. It was explained to the other village women, all of whom agreed that Ovoala's prospects were dire in the village. They agreed to cover for her, saying that she was eaten whole by the demon. Jax agreed as well, telling Ovoala that she needed to be "very persuasive" with Scolvus because of his injury. She went to Scolvus' berth below deck, and answered his "who are you?" by taking off her clothes. When he didn't protest to her undressing him, the two climbed into the pile of bedding on the floor and spent the night together.

In the morning, Nu'oao returned to the site of the prior village with the men of the village. The crew returned the goats and the captured women to the tribe, explaining that a few were killed by the demon. A beggarly old tribesman gnashed his teeth and cried when he was told that his daughter Ovoala was slain as well. Sandara and Nu'oao then led an example ritual for the tribe, to show them the new way to worship at their new village. She picked Samms Toppin seemingly at random from the assembled crowd to be her subject--as if Sandara somehow knew that Samms had slept with Jax the night before.

The tribe then exchanged gifts and arranged the rebuilding of the village as a small port with the crew. The Chieftain presented Captain Sullivan with a masterwork beaded shirt as a gift of thanks for rescuing his tribe and returning their ability to have children. The Captain also buys a tourmaline ring set in coral to use in his pirate wedding ceremony at Tidewater Rock. Seven young Mwangi men  and three Mwangi women agreed to join the crew as well. Many tales were told,with the story of the titanic crab and Sandara's lost arm, and the tale of the hugely bloated grindylow they called The Whale impressing the villagers the most (a gain of two Infamy over two days of celebration). Finally the crew decided to depart, as they planned on returning to Tidewater Rock for the Captain's wedding--confident that they were now renowned enough to be an agreeable match for Lady Smythee. As they sailed to the Rock, Scolvus talked with Jax again: this time about Ovoala's actions. He gets little from Jax, but Shivikah proves more helpful. Shivikah explains that Ovoala had limited options, and that Scolvus can certainly tell her that her sexual servitude is unneeded.

A return to the fort at Tidewater Rock, with hopes that they can finally seal the luck that was promised to them so long ago. 

The seas grew rough as they skirted the southern ends of the Shackles toward their destination, and both Portia and Samms were spied throwing up over the side of the gunwhale. They blamed different things (Portia the goat meat from the beach, and Samms the high quantity of rum from the night before), but it was odd as neither has been so sick before--and no one else in the crew showed signs of illness. In other news, Druna informed the crew that Murd was no longer on punishment and didn't have to be called "Turd" any longer--though no doubt a few of the crew might still use that nickname.

Finally after a week of sail, they returned to Tidewater Rock. Again, Jax was taken as a hostage to ensure good relations between island and crew. Jax found that the cell was much more nicely appointed, and there were two glasses and some fine brandy waiting there. Meanwhile, the Captain met with Lady Smythee in the great hall above. The Captain attempted to be quite charming, producing the tourmaline ring and being caring for the good Lady. She in turn seemed flattered that he wasn't treating it as simply a match of convenience. This became more evident when she presented him with a very handsome bridegroom gift: a magical "Farglass" telescope, that could "hear" what was seen once a day if the words "Bert's blessing" were uttered (a clairaudience effect). The evening was spent at a fine dinner, though it was marked with one bit of bad news: the goatherd of the island, Mardu, was attacked and injured by some sahuagin a day prior. The evening ended and pleasantries were exchanged, as the crew went back to their boat for the night. Jax, in the cell, expected Lady Smythee to arrive, but she did not. He sat with a shrug and drank brandy by himself instead.

In the morning, the wedding ceremony was planned to be held at the shoreline--the bride and groom would be barefoot in the water in pirate tradition. Jax was freed from the cell, and all assembled to wish well Captain Sullivan and Lady Smythee. In the milling about prior to the ceremony, Jax took moment to inquire with Lady Smythee and her aid Royster McCleagh about whether Sandara Quinn could convalesce at Tidewater Rock with them while she was expecting a child (a son to be named Halliard, or Hal for short). They seemed inclined to this, and the matter would be settled after the wedding--which Sandara was officiating.

Captain Sullivan and Lady Smythee wore their best clothes and were decked out for the wedding, standing under an arched trellis with their bare feet submerged in water. Sandara had run the ceremony, uniting them in the fashion of a true Pirate Wedding. Just as she reached the point where she said "Speak now for forever hold your peace," there was an eruption of splashing in the nearby water. An ambush party of Sahuagin attacked the crew and the wedding party. Lady Smythee was injured, and Captain Sullivan jumped to her defense. He taunted the strange fishmen to attack him rather than her. The crew quickly finished off the sahuagin, but were rattled by the attack. As they wiped the blood from their weapons and sleeves they wondered if this "red wedding" was a bad omen. But in any case, the bond was sealed and the crew of The Broken Promise had indeed "cracked the Rock" (earning them another point of Infamy).

A Red Wedding, but not The Red Wedding thank goodness.

Infamy and Disrepute Tracker

Infamy Score: 11
Disrepute: 11

Port Infamy list:
Rickety's Squibbs: 2
Bloodcove: 1 (favored port)
Besmara's Cradle: 2

Session Eleven - Recap

Session Eleven - Recap

The ship left Bloodcove in the morning, sailing back West further from the shore hoping to prey on the more cowardly merchant vessels that preferred to bank on a wide berth and extensive provisions rather than cutting closer to land. They spied one target in the distance after a week, but it was a Chelish merchant marine and the Captain and crew judged that they best let that one pass. They got further and further out, cutting North and West until they were even with the outermost "tip" of the Shackles, though still five days at sea from that point.

As the sun set that night, they caught a sudden glimpse of a ship's profile against the setting sun. It looked like a whaler that sat heavy in the water. With thoughts of plundering blubber and bone, the crew of The Broken Promise turned their heading to pursue. Yet as the sun sank under the horizon, they lost sight of the quarry. That left a bad feeling in Jax particularly, which deepened when he realized the whaler had been sailing against the wind when it was spotted.

The crew grew more discouraged as the next day was heavy with fog, starting shortly after noon. It thickened to the point where they were simply adrift, unable to sail effectively. The crew roamed the deck impatiently, hoping for a break and ability to sail safely. As night fell,they heard the clanking of a rusty ship's bell. The crew ran to the gunwhale and were shocked to see the hulk of a huge whaler loom out of the darkness above them. The boards were pitted and rotten, and they spied the ship's nameplate on the bow: Deathknell. Then as suddenly as it appeared, the ship was gone.

Panic spread through the crew that night and morning, fueled by the name on the ship. Crimson Cogward shared the definitive version of the tale; The Deathknell was supposedly a haunted whaler, crewed by the undead and lead by the ruthless and undying Captain Whalebone Plik. The ship is said to sail the seas to feast on pirate crews, stalking its prey for two days prior to attacking in order to instill fear in their prey. With dull menace in his voice, Cogward said "the fear makes the flesh taste better".

Whalebone Plik, the cursed whaler captain, was said to relentlessly pursue a massive bullhead whale to the point that his crew was ravenous from lack of rations--Plik refused to abandon the pursuit to refresh his stocks. The whale finally turned on them, sinking the ship and killing all the starving men. 

Anticipating the legends to be true, and expecting an attack at sundown, the crew of The Broken Promise prepared themselves for battle. Captain Gilbert hoped that perhaps the crew was simply hungry and that Captain Plik might be placated with a claim of "we got him" and a gesture to the whale skull mounted on their aft (actually Scolvus' strange scroll).

That dusk, with a fine spread laid out on the deck of The Broken Promise, the crew waited in anticipation. As expected, the massive whaler suddenly emerged from the water, and a crew of strange zombies cast boarding grapples. Whalebone Plik himself stood at the helm of The Deathknell, manically clanging the ship's bell and throwing a harpoon which magically returned to his hands after striking targets. As the zombies boarded the ship, the crew had a flicker of hope they would sit and dine. As one of them sank its fangs into the shoulder of a crewman they realized that this would be a fight. Scolvus launched a blast of lightning using his whale skull, burning down a number of the attackers. Sadie attempted to order her newly trained Walrus companion (Petunia) to attack, but the beast refused to engage the spoiling corpses at first.

Captain Gilbert decided to use a silence spell on the deck of The Deathknell, stopping Plik from the incessant clanging that seemed to drive the zombies forward. This sent the undead captain into a rage. He flew forward, his body half incorporeal, and savagely pursued Captain Sullivan. Gilbert was "luckily" knocked out of the way of Captain Plik's ghostly strikes by Petunia who slid through the grease of one of Scolvus' grease spells. Instead, Captain Plik latched his ghostly hand onto Pluck's chest, seeming to squeeze the life out of the bird. At the last moment, Druna was able to bull rush Pluck to safety before the air was drawn entirely from its lungs. Meanwhile, Captain Sullivan cast a curative spell and touched the undead Captain--the positive healing energy inflicting destruction on the unliving form, turning Plik into a pile of ashes and a dropped harpoon.

Jax swung over to the deck of The Deathknell, hoping to find plunder. Instead he found a hold stacked with dead bodies. They all remained lifeless, tho each had the look of the undead crew that had assaulted their ship. Jax turned and pried the ship's bell free from it's post where Plik had been ringing it. He also ran to the front of the ship and wrenched loose the rotten and pitted nameplate of the ship (earning the crew 2 Infamy points).

As suddenly as it came, the fog lifted as The Deathknell sank rapidly under the waves. The crew rested the night and bandaged their wounds, having lost three deckhands to the attack with many others injured (the losses were three green pressed hands from their latest trip to Bloodcove). The next morning they sailed for the nearest island in the South Shackles, Scolvus, unnerved by the ship's bell, recognized it had a magical aura. He studied it the following day, and realized it was enchanted with something similar to a magic jar spell. With a gasp, Scolvus realized it was a phylactery, and that Whalebone Plik was likely to reform and re-awaken if the bell were not destroyed. Bringing it to the deck, Galfire smashed the bell with his Tiberolith greatclub and ended the threat of Whalebone Plik for good.

Sailing for three more days, the crew reached the Southwestern Shackles islands. Soon they saw smoke rising in the sky from the center of a small island. Looked to be cooking fires from a moderate-sized village up in the jungle. Druna transformed herself into a bird and flew to investigate. She found a small village there in the jungle. Notably, in the center of the village was an enormous idol with a fist-sized red gem embedded in its chest. Reporting this to the crew, they began to plot an attack. N'danho taught the crew the word for "surrender" in Mwangi, and the sailors landed with a plan to surround and attack the village to take crew for their ship.

The massive idol, a strange demonic-looking figure, which dominated the center of the village. 

Arriving at the town, the crew found that only the women of the village were present. They were gathered in the center of the town around the idol, performing some sort of ritual. Leading the ceremony was a priestess of some sort, her necklace adorned with feathers and gems. As they watched with horror, the priestess was handed a small baby. She drew forth a cold iron dagger from an alcove in the idol, and in a split second uttered some words and plunged the dagger into the chest of the tiny child. She continued chanting, and at this the crew lost the plan of waiting for the rest of their sailors and instead attacked the murderess.

Captain Gilbert cast a silence spell again, and the priestess looked in horror as she tried to intone words of magical power while holding the child--but the words went unspoken due to the magical interference. Jax began sapping women to knock them unconscious, while Captain Gilbert ran up and attacked the priestess herself. She seemed shocked, silently shouting something at Gilbert while pointing at the baby. He looked down and saw that it was indeed dead with the dagger right in its heart. As the battle ensued, more and more Mwangi tribeswomen were taken with nonlethal force.

Then the silence spell stopped, and everyone recognized the words that the priestess was shouting. Even though they didn't speak the Mwangi dialect, they knew enough to know that she was yelling "No! Oh no!" over and over. There was a strange burning smoke rising from the form of the slain infant in her arms. With a gasp, she threw it at the feet of Captain Gilbert. With a boiling rush, the baby seemed to almost "open". From inside crawled something enormous, so massive and dreadful to not be believed it came from the tiny form. Scolvus quickly recognized it as a Nabasu Demon, a great bat-like being from the Abyss.

Awww, isn't it a cute little baby? Goochie goochie goo. 

The beast suddenly screeched an unholy scream, causing everyone to shudder as if their souls were being torn from them. Two of the village women died instantly from the attack. Then more horribly, one of them started to lurch upward with her body animated with necromantic energy. The crew rushed into battle with the demon and its newly raised ghoul, managing to interrupt it as it tried to summon a second demon. Petunia the Walrus rushed up and managed to gore the demon badly. However, the demon turned its necromantic energy on the great beast, using an enervation spell to slay the walrus outright.

The demon's Abyss-hardened skin left it nearly immune to the strikes of the crew's weapons, but Scolvus' barrage of magic missiles managed to wound the creature. It turned its attacks to him, flinging objects at him with telekinesis magic. While Scolvus protected himself as best he could with castings of mirror image, the rest of the crew started to find their marks, with Captain Sullivan managing to land two critical strikes on the beast and Jax's sneak attacks inflicting pain as well. Finally they overwhelm the creature with small strikes, unable to get past its damage resistance (not realizing that the cold iron dagger in the baby's breast was exactly what they needed to strike true).

As the crew panted and bandaged their wounds after the fight, they looked at their plunder. Most immediately a number of Mwangi women lay unconscious or were held by their crew--including the priestess. It was at the point when they started wondering about where the men were that they got their answer: the sounds of drums in the distance. They looked and saw a column of the Mwangi menfolk, garbed for war and likely returning from some ritual in the mountains, snaking back down toward the village. They had to decide quickly whether they would stay and fight, or flee with their captives. And all the while the sound of the jungle drums grew closer.

And it sure wasn't the dulcet tones of the Morton Gould Orchestra...

Infamy and Disrepute Tracker

Infamy Score: 8
Disrepute: 8

Port Infamy list:
Rickety's Squibbs: 2
Bloodcove: 1