Monday, October 13, 2025

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.

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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 ...