Post by Bolo on Oct 16, 2016 19:40:59 GMT -5
The party's passage on the Mary Ann has been paid for by Corrin's uncle, James Portobello-Ladbroke, with the understanding that the adventurers will explore and exploit some land on the Castanho that Uncle Jim won in a card game: 01a Land Grant.pdf (149.04 KB).
Captain Mendez is the master and owner of the Mary Ann. As well as the captain, his 12 sailors, and the party, there are three other passengers: Mrs. Evans, whose husband recently became assistant manager of the Castanho branch of First Colonial Bank and Trust; Harrison, a newly hired clerk for the Vivaldi Brothers mining company; and Williams, a middle-aged Vivaldi Brothers mining engineer, returning from home leave, who sips continually from his silver hip flask.
A storm begins to rage. Just a few days before landfall is expected, sahuagin attack the ship. They are killed, but so are four of the sailors. Captain Mendez is knocked unconscious, but Mrs. Evans tends to him in his cabin and he soon recovers.
Storm damage and the sahuagin's sabotage of the rudder and rigging make the ship uncontrollable. It can only run before the wind, taking on water through a leak in the hold.
When the crew spots land, the captain insists that the passengers take the tender and head for safety. Harrison, who has experience with small boats, volunteers to come back for the crew after landing the others on shore. The tender is wrecked on a rocky beach. No one is hurt, but the tender is destroyed, so no return to the ship is possible. The party can only watch as the Mary Ann's surviving mast is hit by lightning and the waterlogged ship drifts slowly around a headland and out of sight.
After some searching the party finds a way up from the beach to the clifftop. Through the driving rain, Kern has seen a flickering light several miles to the north, so the party heads in that direction along a clifftop path.
It soon arrives at a village. The villagers are distinctively scarified and tattooed and speak an unfamiliar language. They offer the party food and drink, and the party gives some rations in return. Mrs. Evans heals a wounded child, receiving a shell necklace as an expression of the village's gratitude. Hadarai has the idea of drawing in the mud with a stick. The villagers sketch another village, connected to this one by a trail through the forest.
The party travels to the second village, which appears abandoned. Three zombies, marked with the same scarification and tattoos, are concealed in two of the huts. The party defeats them fairly easily and disposes of their remains in the forest. It is evening, so the party spends the night here.
In the morning, the adventurers continue eastward on the forest trail. They bypass a side trail strung with the webs of a large spider and proceed to a clearing ringed with boulders. The ranger finds recent human tracks leading south into the forest. Some of the humans who passed this way appear to have been carrying something heavy. The party follows the tracks and comes to another clearing.
Here there is a building with smoke rising from a hole in its roof. As the party approaches to investigate, it hears words spoken from inside, beyond the beaded curtain that hangs in the entrance. Corrin falls to the ground, magically asleep. Four men with hide armor and stone axes rush from the building and attack. A vigorous battle ensues, soon joined by the bushes flanking the entrance, which come to life and slash at the party with their branches. The axemen and the animated bushes are soon slain, and Hadarai fells their shaman leader with a Sleep spell. He is soon bound with rope and gagged with his own sarong. Inside the building, the party finds a trap door concealed under a mat and rescues an indigenous man who has been held captive in an underground chamber.
After Kern and Bernie sample the hallucinogenic berries of the animated bushes, the party decides to escort the rescued captive back to the clifftop village. The adventurers debate whether to kill the captured shaman but decide just to deliver him to the villagers. While attempting to interrogate the shaman, however, someone has unwisely removed his gag for a few moments, and he has spoken words that summon the giant wolf spiders that guard the paths to his house. They surprise the party in the forest, but they are easily killed.
The villagers are thrilled that their clansman is alive and that the hated shaman has been defeated. They beat the shaman to death with clubs and throw his corpse over the cliff into the sea. They present each member of the party with a shell necklace like the one given to Mrs. Evans. The party spends the night here.
In the morning, the villagers indicate with gestures that there are more people like the party somewhere to the east. With two villagers as guides, the party sets out again along the same forest trail. By mid-afternoon it has passed the area previously explored and comes to a creek. As it fords the creek, blood hawks swoop down from the trees and attack. They do some damage but are soon dead. Kern plucks them and saves their feathers, as the guides watch approvingly. The guides shake their heads in regret at the charred feathers of a hawk that Hadarai brought down with a fire bolt.
As night falls, the party comes to another village, this one situated on the shore of a lake. The guides speak with the villagers, who seem impressed with the party's shell necklaces. West gives an impromptu performance on his harmonica, joined by Bernie on his flute and a villager on a drum.
After resting in the village overnight, the party sets out from shore in four canoes, paddled by men from the lake village at no charge. The canoes travel upstream for several hours and come to a place where there is a smell of woodsmoke and where columns of smoke are visible in the distance. The boatmen drop their passengers on the eastern bank of the river and indicate that they should walk inland. Kern gives the boatmen the feathers of one blood hawk. They receive the tip appreciatively.
Inland, the party comes to a logging area where the forest is being clear-cut. A foreman who speaks broken Common states that there is a town a few miles to the east. The party sets out in that direction, accompanying an ox wagon carrying a load of logs.
The burned terrain gives way to regrown bushes and ferns, which give way to cultivated land, including a sugarcane plantation. Visible in the distance north of the wagon trail is a ruined stone structure, which the wagoner says is an old temple, very dangerous. The adventurers almost take a detour to explore it, but Mrs. Evans, Harrison, and Williams seem dismayed that they are about to be abandoned -- especially Mrs. Evans, who is such a fan of West and his music. West suggests that it might be diplomatic to escort the three civilians the rest of the way and the other adventurers reluctantly agree. They can always come back to explore the temple, if indeed that is what it is.
At about 3pm on the third day after the shipwreck, the party arrives at the town of New Kingston. At the gate through the stockade, a guard briefly interrogates the newcomers and makes a note of their names, but he loses interest when they deny having anything taxable to declare, such as diamonds.
Mrs. Evans takes her leave and heads for the local branch of First Colonial Bank and Trust. Harrison and Williams take theirs and head for the local offices of Vivaldi Brothers. The adventurers settle in at the Three Trees Inn, a comfortable establishment run by an elf named Aeolus Silverleaf. Corrin arranges to send a letter to Uncle Jim to report his arrival.
Captain Mendez is the master and owner of the Mary Ann. As well as the captain, his 12 sailors, and the party, there are three other passengers: Mrs. Evans, whose husband recently became assistant manager of the Castanho branch of First Colonial Bank and Trust; Harrison, a newly hired clerk for the Vivaldi Brothers mining company; and Williams, a middle-aged Vivaldi Brothers mining engineer, returning from home leave, who sips continually from his silver hip flask.
A storm begins to rage. Just a few days before landfall is expected, sahuagin attack the ship. They are killed, but so are four of the sailors. Captain Mendez is knocked unconscious, but Mrs. Evans tends to him in his cabin and he soon recovers.
Storm damage and the sahuagin's sabotage of the rudder and rigging make the ship uncontrollable. It can only run before the wind, taking on water through a leak in the hold.
When the crew spots land, the captain insists that the passengers take the tender and head for safety. Harrison, who has experience with small boats, volunteers to come back for the crew after landing the others on shore. The tender is wrecked on a rocky beach. No one is hurt, but the tender is destroyed, so no return to the ship is possible. The party can only watch as the Mary Ann's surviving mast is hit by lightning and the waterlogged ship drifts slowly around a headland and out of sight.
After some searching the party finds a way up from the beach to the clifftop. Through the driving rain, Kern has seen a flickering light several miles to the north, so the party heads in that direction along a clifftop path.
It soon arrives at a village. The villagers are distinctively scarified and tattooed and speak an unfamiliar language. They offer the party food and drink, and the party gives some rations in return. Mrs. Evans heals a wounded child, receiving a shell necklace as an expression of the village's gratitude. Hadarai has the idea of drawing in the mud with a stick. The villagers sketch another village, connected to this one by a trail through the forest.
The party travels to the second village, which appears abandoned. Three zombies, marked with the same scarification and tattoos, are concealed in two of the huts. The party defeats them fairly easily and disposes of their remains in the forest. It is evening, so the party spends the night here.
In the morning, the adventurers continue eastward on the forest trail. They bypass a side trail strung with the webs of a large spider and proceed to a clearing ringed with boulders. The ranger finds recent human tracks leading south into the forest. Some of the humans who passed this way appear to have been carrying something heavy. The party follows the tracks and comes to another clearing.
Here there is a building with smoke rising from a hole in its roof. As the party approaches to investigate, it hears words spoken from inside, beyond the beaded curtain that hangs in the entrance. Corrin falls to the ground, magically asleep. Four men with hide armor and stone axes rush from the building and attack. A vigorous battle ensues, soon joined by the bushes flanking the entrance, which come to life and slash at the party with their branches. The axemen and the animated bushes are soon slain, and Hadarai fells their shaman leader with a Sleep spell. He is soon bound with rope and gagged with his own sarong. Inside the building, the party finds a trap door concealed under a mat and rescues an indigenous man who has been held captive in an underground chamber.
After Kern and Bernie sample the hallucinogenic berries of the animated bushes, the party decides to escort the rescued captive back to the clifftop village. The adventurers debate whether to kill the captured shaman but decide just to deliver him to the villagers. While attempting to interrogate the shaman, however, someone has unwisely removed his gag for a few moments, and he has spoken words that summon the giant wolf spiders that guard the paths to his house. They surprise the party in the forest, but they are easily killed.
The villagers are thrilled that their clansman is alive and that the hated shaman has been defeated. They beat the shaman to death with clubs and throw his corpse over the cliff into the sea. They present each member of the party with a shell necklace like the one given to Mrs. Evans. The party spends the night here.
In the morning, the villagers indicate with gestures that there are more people like the party somewhere to the east. With two villagers as guides, the party sets out again along the same forest trail. By mid-afternoon it has passed the area previously explored and comes to a creek. As it fords the creek, blood hawks swoop down from the trees and attack. They do some damage but are soon dead. Kern plucks them and saves their feathers, as the guides watch approvingly. The guides shake their heads in regret at the charred feathers of a hawk that Hadarai brought down with a fire bolt.
As night falls, the party comes to another village, this one situated on the shore of a lake. The guides speak with the villagers, who seem impressed with the party's shell necklaces. West gives an impromptu performance on his harmonica, joined by Bernie on his flute and a villager on a drum.
After resting in the village overnight, the party sets out from shore in four canoes, paddled by men from the lake village at no charge. The canoes travel upstream for several hours and come to a place where there is a smell of woodsmoke and where columns of smoke are visible in the distance. The boatmen drop their passengers on the eastern bank of the river and indicate that they should walk inland. Kern gives the boatmen the feathers of one blood hawk. They receive the tip appreciatively.
Inland, the party comes to a logging area where the forest is being clear-cut. A foreman who speaks broken Common states that there is a town a few miles to the east. The party sets out in that direction, accompanying an ox wagon carrying a load of logs.
The burned terrain gives way to regrown bushes and ferns, which give way to cultivated land, including a sugarcane plantation. Visible in the distance north of the wagon trail is a ruined stone structure, which the wagoner says is an old temple, very dangerous. The adventurers almost take a detour to explore it, but Mrs. Evans, Harrison, and Williams seem dismayed that they are about to be abandoned -- especially Mrs. Evans, who is such a fan of West and his music. West suggests that it might be diplomatic to escort the three civilians the rest of the way and the other adventurers reluctantly agree. They can always come back to explore the temple, if indeed that is what it is.
At about 3pm on the third day after the shipwreck, the party arrives at the town of New Kingston. At the gate through the stockade, a guard briefly interrogates the newcomers and makes a note of their names, but he loses interest when they deny having anything taxable to declare, such as diamonds.
Mrs. Evans takes her leave and heads for the local branch of First Colonial Bank and Trust. Harrison and Williams take theirs and head for the local offices of Vivaldi Brothers. The adventurers settle in at the Three Trees Inn, a comfortable establishment run by an elf named Aeolus Silverleaf. Corrin arranges to send a letter to Uncle Jim to report his arrival.