Game Day 04/20/2013.
After delivering a special dinner treat for Captain Harrigan, the day to day grid is back in full swing. You continue to make friends and enemies among the crew.
Finally after 2 weeks into your service aboard ship, you get ordered to report to Riasris Krine, Master Gunner, for boarding training. Krine’s skin is darkened from countless days on deck under the sun, and her nose has the appearance of having been broken several times over. One of her legs has been replaced with a wooden peg leg, the result of a wayward catapult shot that took off her leg below the knee. She may be the most vile-tongued wench the PCs have ever met, and her language makes Rosie Cusswell sound like a nun. Krine orders the jolly boat on the main deck to be launched at dawn for the day’s work. She takes two of you out at a time to instruct you in using grapples. The exercise consists of you in the jolly boat throwing grapples onto the Wormwood from 40 feet away, tying the rope off, and then boarding the Wormwood by climbing along the rope. To make it interesting, however, Krine has instructed four random crew members to hurl objects at the boarding characters in an attempt to knock them off, simulating a real attack. Gallen and Katarina make it on board, the rest not so much.
Following the boarding class, Plugg and Scourge start assigning you the worst of the duties they can in your area hoping that you fail. The only one that gets away from their wrath is the Cook’s Mate.
One day Gallen is pulled from rigger duties to duty in the bilges. On his way to his work he is stopped by Plugg and Scourge and searched for weapons. All Gallen’s weapons are taken and he continues on to his duties along with 2 of Plugg/Scourges’ lackeys. While working away in the bilge, Gallen sees that the two have hidden daggers on them. The two lackeys finally make their move to kill Gallen but he sees them first and gets both of them knocked out. Quinn appears in the hatchway and offers to help tie up the two naked in their hammocks. She gives a quick healing touch to Gallen and then disappears.
Finally after almost three weeks, you get to be pirates as the lookout spots a merchant vessel. Captain Harrigan orders pursuit. After almost a day of pursuit you catch the Man’s Promise, a Rahadoumi merchant vessel. As the Wormwood closes to within half a mile of the Man’s Promise, Riaris Krine summons you to the Wormwood’s poop deck to give you your task for the upcoming battle. She give you the following orders, “_The ship’s wheel is on the aft deck, just below the sterncastle. You’re going to grapple over, kill the guards on the sterncastle, take the wheel, and guard the ship’s boats. Kill anyone who tries to get away on one of the boats. Don’t move from the wheel until the fighting’s done, or you’ll have to answer to me. Oh yeah, as we get close, it’s going to get foggy. Just stick to what I told you to do._” She puts Gallen in charge of the boarding party and tells you to pick two other crew to go with you. Right before the ships meet Kroop and Johan, under orders from the Captain, slaughter several of the pigs that are on board and use them as chum to attract sharks.
The boarding begins. You manage to capture the wheel as you are instructed. You also manage to foil an ambush attempt on Captain Harrigan. After taking procession of the wheel, you have to repel attempts by some of the Rahadoumi crew to escape via one of the jolly boats. An officer and several crew try and escape. Most of the crew, with the officer, are killed. Katarina offers them a chance to surrender and they do. Katarina coup de graces the officer but is then bull rushed into the water by the remaining crewmember. She is later rescued from the water.
You receive a nice slice of the pie from the capture of the Man’s Promise. Gallan for foiling the attack attempt receives several extras gifts, including Plugg and Scourges’’ growing hatred. The celebration last the rest of the day on into the following day too. The Captain does remark that it would have been nice to capture more officers because they are worth a nice ransom.
Captain Harrigan assigns the task of taking the Man’s Promise back to Port Peril to Plugg and Scourge. He gives them the job of picking out a skeleton crew, including you. You can guess that about half the crew are Plugg/Scourge lackeys. Mr. Plugg and his first mate Master Scourge gather the crew together to inform them that although this is a new ship, the rules are the same, though discipline on the Man’s Promise will be a good deal harsher than on the lackadaisical Wormwood— all crimes are now punishable with the cat instead of the whip. All of the crew keep the same jobs they had before on the Wormwood, but they will have to work a good deal harder, as the crew is smaller. Master Scourge ensures that the PCs continue to have the worst jobs. As night falls, the sails of the Wormwood disappear over the horizon. Mr. Plugg does not believe in crew entertainment or rum rations, and anyone caught above decks after dusk without leave gets six lashes with the cat. The very first night out, you and few of the crew are left in the crews quarters as not so subtlety Plugg and Scourge are having a meeting with their lackeys that they bought over with them.
The night of the second day, rumors begin to spread among the friendly crew that Mr. Plugg might decide to claim the Man’s Promise for himself and establish himself as a pirate captain in his own right. These rumors become more certain when a Kroop deduces that the ship has changed course and is heading east toward Bloodcove, a notorious port on the edges of the Mwangi Expanse. Kroop suggests to that he knows where the Man’s Promise might be heading—to a seedy, isolated dry dock on the Slithering Coast west of Bloodcove called Rickety’s Squibs. For a price, old Rickety Hake completely refits ships into “squibs,” providing new identities by changing ships’ lines, silhouettes, and general appearance to be unrecognizable to their former owners or anyone else familiar with them.
On the 4th day on Man’s Promise, a storm hits. The wind blows with incredible force, driving the Man’s Promise far off course. The ship is tossed about on the high seas, and all hands are called on deck to work, including the cook’s mate. All of the crew is required in the rigging. Toward dawn, as the sky begins to brighten almost imperceptibly, the storm redoubles its ferocity, and dark shapes loom out of the sea all around the ship—small islets and coral reefs that dot this area. At the end of the storm six grindylows are discovered aboard ship and attack you as they try and make their escape.
As the storm begins to abate, the Man’s Promise hits the coral reefs surrounding Bonewrack Isle and runs aground. As the sun rises and the tide goes out, the members of the crew slowly come to terms with their predicament. The Man’s Promise is holed in the main hold on the starboard side near the ship’s water barrel. Although the ship is not in immediate danger of sinking, she’ll eventually sink unless repairs are made, even if the bilge pumps are operated 24 hours a day. Mr. Plugg immediately instructs several of the crew to begin dismantling the ship’s deck to repair the vessel.
Early in the morning, Mr. Plugg calls the roll of the crew, and two of the ship’s sailors are discovered to be missing. One of the missing crew members is Sandara Quinn; the other is Rosie Cusswell. A quick search the ship for clues finds signs of where the grindylows clambered aboard, as well as Sandara’s holy symbol of Besmara on the deck, dropped when she was captured by the grindylows. Mr. Plugg is dismissive of the two pirates’ fate, declaring that they were washed overboard during the storm. It is suggested that the grindylows were responsible and there should be a rescue mission, Plugg immediately forbids it, claiming that it is better to lose a few expendable scum and get the ship to Port Peril than to risk crossing Captain Harrigan.
At the same time, the crew discovers that the ship’s water barrel burst when the vessel ran aground and is now empty. Mr. Plugg orders you to take the ship’s cutter and a couple of empty barrels and find fresh water and supplies on the nearby island. Plugg refuses to consume any magically created food or water, fearing it might be poisoned. He tells the PCs that the repairs will take a day and a half, and that the ship will sail at the first high tide thereafter. That gives you roughly 48 hours to get to the island, find supplies, and return, or the ship will leave without you.