Campaign Journal: Piracy, ho!

Another small night, with work conflicts and other miscellany. 

• Slick - thief
• Orzu - gnome
• Jax - barbarian

Not a worry, let's mess around in Morn Kolduhr and get to know the Sea Dwarves. The Wolverine was undergoing repairs from its run-in with the Chaos ship, so everyone was sitting tight, anyhow.

First of all, they were excited to get to work experimenting with making ruby glass. Orzu, as a "cousin," was enlisted to pick the best rubies from the collection pilfered by the characters. Orzu has no idea what he's doing. That said, he had Jax hold up the selected gems while focusing a light spell through them using Slick's jewelers loupe. Somehow, he was able to discern gem quality via the various kaleidoscope patterns projected onto the walls. 

Well then, he had to oversee the glass casting process, as well. Orzu was dragged off, deeper into the mountain's heart to somewhere near its volcanic core, where the special forges were located. Sweltering in oversized protective gear, he observed the dwarves mixing the rubies with optical sand and melting it down into a 1/3 scale prototype disk. Satisfied with their experiments, the dwarves led the desiccated gnome back to the main city. The PCs inventoried where lenses, either broken or intact, were located to the best of their knowledge along the Barrier strongholds, and how to contact allies to possibly retrieve them for recasting. 

Durkan Dildran, tundra nomad and Slick's current hench, was getting a bit claustrophobic in the subterranean city, and a dwarf, Thorin Duskborn, offered to guide them to one of the city's several cliffside lookouts for a bit of fresh air and sky above their heads. While en route, the dwarf noted that Slick seemed to be of an 'acquisitional' nature, as he'd been poking around during his time in the city. Slick admitted as much, and the dwarf, amused told him not to worry, and that he and his brother had an ongoing challenge of making and picking locks. His brother, of course, being the exiled Urin Duskborn. Slick pulled out the lock gifted to him by Urin, and its craftmanship was immediately recognized by Thorin. In exchange, Thorin gave Slick a very nice set of lockpicks, to aid his middling skills...

The trio watched the sea and sky, and played with the lookout's telescopes. Soon enough, Thorin's ears perked up. "Ship! Sounds like a grain hauler. Bread and ale! Wanna come along?" Dumb question.

The three hurried to the docks and grabbed Jax and Orzu along the way.

Onto a large raiding galley and off!

The ship cruised towards its prey, sails full and rowers pulling. Slick noticed that his hat was flapping and jingling a bit more than one might expect from speeds capable for a galley. Thorin smiled. "C'mon down. You don't think we can row this fast with our stubby arms, do you?" And into the hold they went, to a compartment at the stern of the ship manned (dwarved) by several nervous dwarves in protective gear handling heavy riveted and welded metal spheres that rattled and spat steam. The spheres were placed and replaced in racks, adding whatever compressed forces to mechanisms driving the ship forward. 

Like this, but dwarves

As the merchantman attempted to run, the galley gained on it. Closing, the dwarves were surprised by a pair of catapult stones that crashed across the deck, dismembering a couple of sailors. Well, that wasn't sporting. And this wasn't a mere merchantman. The galley loosed missiles of its own. Orzu clambered to the crow's nest and cast illusory fog around the merchantman's deck, impeding its captain's vision. Durkan grumbled that he hoped for a real fight, since throwing rocks and shooting back and forth wasn't proper combat. Not to worry, we have that accounted for.

Like this, but full of dwarves.

The galley slid up to the merchantman and dropped its corvus, grappling and arresting the ship. The PCs trundled across along with the dwarven marines and closed with mercenary guards on the opposite side. Slick went invisible and zeroed in on the mercenary captain, wounding him severely. The battle went back and forth as the dwarves and PCs pushed across the deck, Durkan getting his honest fight, and Goober shaking a couple of mercenaries to bits. Orzu knocked out a few more with a color spray. 

Finally, the ship surrendered before incurring more loss. The dwarves began offloading common cargo for their own stores (grain, linen, raw materials). The PCs shook down the fading mercenary captain and ship's captain. The captains spit curses that their patrons would hunt the pirates down. Well, they had put up quite a fight for a grain hauler. Orzu slipped into the captain's quarters and liberated the pay chest. He went through the ship's manifest, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Then he thought to himself, what would Slick do in this situation? A bit of poking around under a desk, and he found an additional manifest, containing obviously coded cargo listings.

Below deck they went, measured a couple of bulkheads, and located a secret compartment filled with casks and amphorae. 

Unfortunately not filled with anything potable. Cracking the seals, the PCs found acrid, metallic fluids and body parts, both organic and mechanical. Parts for servant-manikins. Well, we know who the patrons may be...

Resecuring the secret compartment, Slick 'negotiated' with the ship's captain. He could take his losses, or his ship would never reach port. They would let the secret cargo continue. Fair enough. The mercenary captain had unfortunately succumbed to his wounds, so couldn't argue otherwise. 

Back to the galley, withdraw the corvus, and sail back to port as the merchantman limped away. 

DM Notes:

I had the various interactions planned, with hopefully something for each individual player. With a couple of folks out, those plays will wait until we have a full group. I need to re-fill my quiver of possible interactions and complications for the characters' time in Morn Kolduhr. I'll let them take the lead on where to go next in their hunt for material, allies, or general mischief...

Last week was an educational and somewhat abortive attempt at a one-shot with Joe DM'ing. He pared down the adventure, rewrote bits to his own liking, and is running this weekend at ShireCon. The gaming sounds successful so far, and Joe was reportedly in easy reach of both the bar and restroom during his session, so all was good on his front... It's a bit out of my zip code, but perhaps another time. 

Running my own in-person Shadowdark game at the brewery on Sunday night, so getting myself gunned up for that.

Back to the streaming Shadowdark shenanigans this Monday, with Paul's new PC and hazards untold...