Session 1 Summary

'''30th Day of the Southern Spring, 1412'''

A king tide is falling and a strong current flows from the Vargal river, making access by ships into the Venac harbour near impossible. On the floating Inn, nestled out in the mud islands of the delta, itinerants wait out the conditions for a more suitable time to enter the city. The aimlessness is interrupted when the Mariner’s Guild’s current sentry at the Inn, Lt Llewellyn, rouses the room with the announcement that a powerful magical warship – the Storgellan – has been spotted trying to enter the harbour.

The Storgellan was the pride of the fleet the Daric navy, the warlike nation to Venac’s south. Several months ago it had been captured by pirates and a large bounty placed upon its return. The need to recapture it became even greater when those pirates sailed it to Zienne, the continent declared by the dragons to be completely off limit to humanoids. It had been recaptured by the navy of the Mann Islands on its return journey, and the crew imprisoned, however one of them managed to escape, in the process releasing a number of petty criminals who the navy were currently transporting. With this ill prepared crew the ship once again fled, and this time towards to mainland of Xian-Tau.

Llewellyn’s motivation to recapture the ship was thus great – not only would doing so bring with it the favour of the Darian navy, but also, The Masters (dragons) may be angry if they saw Venac ‘contaminated’ by people who’d violated their rules by setting foot on Zienne. As he was alone, aside from his assistant, mercenary wizard Tristan Swan, he asked for volunteers from the inn’s patrons to be deputised, saying he’d take no share of the bounty if they could assist him bringing the ship under control.

Three bystanders bravely agreed to help; Lucian James Ardynvale (Lucy) – a surgeon keen on experimentation, returning home from Daric for his father’s funeral, Yngvild Howlfrost – a poet from the frozen reaches of Tethos looking for inspiration in a strange land and Winko, a guy with a weird accent who wore a mug around his neck. The five brave enforcers of the law set off to intercet the boat, with Llewellyn using a potion of flight to sneak onto the back of the boat and drop a rope that would allow his new compatriots to board. Whilst they were outnumbered, the ship’s crew were very unprepared, they had no weapons aside from lumps of wood and appeared to be haggard from a hard journey, sailing an undercrewed ship.

The battle was tough, Llewellyn, Tristan and Yngvild were all bought down at times, but the talents at healing of both Winko and Lucy bought all three back to their feet. Also, one of the ship’s crew decided the interlopers were the side to fight on and joined them on their side. Eventually, all the ship’s crew were killed or had thrown themselves into the sea, aside from two captives, including the captain.

Uncontrolled, the ship ran aground on a mud bank and at the moment it did, something seemed to stir in the hold. Crates that had contained ore taken from Zienne were smashed open from the inside as the ore animated and scrambled desperately to get off the ship. Once the hold was opened the animate chunks of rock and earth flung themselves overboard and disappeared into the mud. Lucy was worried an invasive species may have been introduced to Zien-Tau but no one else seemed to care.

The captive captain said he was just a pirate, hired by hot-headed adventurers to steal a ship capable of travelling to Zienne, for reasons the adventurers never revealed. The crew member who turned on his mates, a gnomish bard named Montvat, revealed he was part of the rebellion against The Masters, and knew Tristan’s grandmother, who was thought to be dead but he claimed had only faked her death.

The Captain tried to buy his freedom by giving away the location of a hidden treasure map. The party noted the location but didn’t free him. Eventually the Mariner’s guild arrived and took the prisoners into custody, the party are expecting a big reward at a ceremony presided over by the Darian ambassador.