It's You or Me

The Shadow ghost ship has terrorized the east coast line of the map for the entirety of the campaign. In true player fashion, the more the DM pressed the hook the more we avoided it, but this session we were undermanned and didn't have any big brained ideas so Morgan was like "fuck it, we ball." She was determined to settle this thing once and for all.

She'd been linked to the ship through a magic ring for ages now and it was driving her mad. She had to get some resolution before her brain esploded. Namor and Vee rounded out the party, with some henchmen. Ok, so how do you convince the ship to fuck off or join the team or ... whatever?

It was a sentient thing, with a violent and impulsive nature evidently. She was gonna have to wrangle it. If the boat was some kinda evil entity maybe it'd require a blood sacrifice? High level sacrifices are the most impactful so we spent the first bit of the session in the slaver capital of the west, Monmurg, tracking down a suitable captive. The dice went our way and we got a lead.

A far eastern foreigner (east on the map, not weeb) named Lord Alphonse had lost his throne to an evil cult tied to the Sirlios time-dilation issue and been sold into slavery, where he'd been passed around due to lack of ransom funds. We contracted with a local syndicate of bicyclists led by Lance Solo to recover him and we'd buy his freedom. After a tense exchange, we got our man and confirmed that he was indeed of royal blood in line for a throne. Just a very distant throne.

See, my plan here was not to sacrifice this guy. It was really a contingency since we didn't know the true nature of the ship. I wanted to make an ally of him, help him get his throne back, and enjoy all the adventure that that might entail. But if the ship wanted blood, well, it'd get ole Alphonse's first.

Morgan's ring allowed her to contact The Shadow so we set a rendezvous and made our way there on my ship The Trident so as not to risk the party's main resources should this thing go tits up. It was a real possibility that we'd simply vanish at sea, eaten like so many others by the uber magical powerful sentient ghost ship of doom.

We made contact near dusk, the now familiar mists that cloak The Shadow roiling on the horizon. It had a series of HR interview questions for Morgan as a preliminary to get closer, which she passed. It was heavily insinuated by the DM that failure at any step was very bad. I played the good first mate and kept the crew rowing. Once we closed, we were invited on board to "be judged." Gulp. We stepped on deck and nothing much was happening. I shrugged and grabbed the wheel but this weren't my story point and I was nearly killed by the animated rigging of the ship. Morgan latched on and continued her interview.

After some back and forth and passed saving throws, she was able to come to some kind of agreement or symbiotic relationship or... something... with the ship, gaining control of it and the vast treasure it held in its hold including a few captives that were great helps in organizing every thing. We dry docked it on the beach while I rowed The Trident back to town to get some craftsmen and the rest of the party. The shipwrights overhauled the horrible condition of the ship, restoring and upgrading it with fine woods, lacquers, and anything else Morgan wanted cuz she dumped a ton of gold into it.

I don't really know what happens next, but I'm certain The Shadow won't be plaguing this coast for much longer. I expect we'll sail our fleet north along the coast, maybe even to Greyhawk itself, before setting sights on Lord Alphonse's native Sunndi.

Bloodfall 29

Tadg the druid led a group into Freya's Fist, including Ormr with Augnir the golden spear in hand. The goal appeared to be filling in blank spots on the party's map, which they did with some success. Pius the cleric suggested some effort be made to clear the "mushroom room" prior to setting out, but the plan was apparently to go around it by way of a side passage. That didn't really pan out.

Some zombies were dispatched, revealing a weird necromantic black magicky cache of fetishes with some treasure and a journal of lunatic scribblings, but not before a fresh PC immolated himself with a fumbled oil flask throw. Then came a couple ogres that the party surprised and easily defeated, capturing Owen the Ogre in the process. Owen was easily convinced to aid the party instead of die and doped around in front. He warned them of "bad men" in one area that they avoided.

A long hallway with invisibly concealed traps at the end could have been disastrous, but a useless Norse cleric cast Find Traps and revealed like 4 or 5 separate traps clustered together. An attempt was made to talk the druid through the traps a la Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment. He failed and was nearly killed in a chain reaction of death. They scooped up some discovered treasure and realized they were trapped by a sliding wall, one of the many traps triggered in the chain reaction.

It took them a while but they eventually released the pressure plate causing the door to slide shut and escaped. Loaded down with heavy treasure they duck waddled their way towards the exit, right into a waiting ambush near a portcullis. The men lying in wait called out to the party and Floki the MU immediately responded by casting Sleep. Initiative rolls went out, Owen in the front soaked the crossbow fire, and magic won the day. Floki Wizard Locked the portcullis shut and the party fled for the exit.

I rolled how long it would take the remaining men to wake their partners, think through their options, and lay another ambush near the exit. Then counted the party's reduced movement speed and distance to the same exit. It was a near thing but without any other encounters to slow them the group made their way out with pursuit on their heels, loading their horses, killing Owen (who didn't see that coming?), and fleeing for Bloodfall.

Grading:

Floki: Excellent. Good use of spells, interest in weirdo magic stuff.
Pius: Excellent. Good use of spells. 
Ormr: Excellent. Front line, bold.
Tadg: Excellent. Good use of spells, caller
Drunan: Set himself on fire with a fumbled oil flask. RIP.

We had a lot of chatter about working with and then killing the ogre and what that meant for a Lawful and/or Good PC. Ormr actually took the action on the execution. Be careful cooperating with Evil (Good) and/or making and breaking deals (Lawful). It was borderline and I'm generally a pushover. Don't be surprised if a repeat event gets a harsher response.

Combat
Total XP:	680
Cuts:	8
PC:	170.00