Castaway Diary, Days 2, 3, 4.

A slightly hectic session as I had to lay out the NPC  personalities (which isn’t that easy when some of them aren’t doing anything) and the party had to balance basic survival tasks that took a long time as well as creating the little camp that’s going to protect them from all the Dysentery Wights that inhabit the island. (Mostly kidding). Survival can’t be taken for granted though and it is going to take a bit of work. But that doesn’t mean the game turns into a non-stop Agricola session, they still get to go off adventuring, which is the part they didn’t quite get to last night. Next time though, oh boy. Adventuring!
 
Roll call of campers on the 3rd night:
  • Floki Blodvin, human ranger; the man with the plans.
  • Victor Glorington, human paladin of Iomedae; the Face of the outfit.
  • Malicia BcCaw, tengu rogue; the rogue cat is kind of out of the bag now…
  • Percy, tengu cleric of Sarenrae; current kill leader.
  • Gelik Aberwhinge, gnome smartass.
  • Aerys Mavato, half-elf moper.
  • Sasha Nevah, human bipolar-disorderer.
  • Ishiro, humanaru!
  • Orny, human warlock; goat whisperer.
  • Rolifson, halfling sorceror; magic fumbler.
  • Uun, human barbarian; the banteriest barbarian in the world.
  • Nobody, tiefling gunslinger; having fired his bullet, now has to wait for pistol whip ability.
  • Jask Derindi, human cleric of Nethys; ex-spy, ex-captive. Knows a lot about dysentery.

As the sun set on the castaway’s first day on the island and those who had defeated the eurypterids feasted on the delicious corpses of their fallen foes, the other washed up members of the Jenivere’s passenger list came to on the beach. Orny awoke not too far from the very groggy Uun, Rolifson and Nobody and immediately looked around for his goat. The goat was happily chewing on some tall dune grasses.
 
"Oh. I, uh, didn't think you'd wake up so soon."

“Oh. I, uh, didn’t think you’d wake up so soon.”

 
Spotting a fire further along the beach, they made their way through the volcanic rocks that dot the shoreline and happened upon the camp of their fellow castaways. Reunited, most importantly with their gear, they gathered around the campsite and tried to get caught up on the days events: Alton Devers is dead, the Jenivere very thoroughly wrecked and so far only one arm of any other crew members has shown up.
 
Floki, having pored over the charts from the Navigation room of the Jenivere figured out that this island must be Smuggler’s Shiv, a notoriously ship-wrecking island in the gulf  that leads to Sargava. 
 
But now everyone who was at dinner with the Captain, minus the captain, is gathered around one fire. They witnessed the ghostly glow of the surf algae as the fire died down. They divided themselves into short watches during the night and kept an eye out – sorry Aerys – for anything dangerous.
 
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Nothing dangerous found them and when the sun rose the next morning, the camp woke and picked at whatever they could find for breakfast. Percy watched in awe as he does every morning, as his goddess, or at least her embodiment,  burst above the horizon in a blaze of colour. That has to be some complicated theology.
 
The mood of the camp was mixed. Aerys was sullen, Ishiro seemed preoccupied, Gelik and Uun traded slurs, Sasha seemed on edge. The plan was for some people to go off and forage, some to set traps and others to build a shelter. There followed two days of mixed success. Specifically, it was about a 20% success 80%failure mix.
 
Several of the party came down with tropical ailments; Floki and Uun developed dysentery, Nobody came down with Sleeping Sickness, and Percy developed Boot Soup.
 
Foraging turned out to be not easy at all and the castaways ended up with a food deficit. Getting water turned out to be not too bad, once they could fill a drawer (taken by Malicia from the Jenivere) with water Percy could purify it.  Food deficit doesn’t mean everyone is on a bit of a diet, this was day one of starving to death for those who didn’t eat enough. 
 
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Building the shelter didn’t turn out to be any easier and the work crew had gathered their frame, but failed to get the damn thing to stand in the grassy foredune that made up their campsite. 
 
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Ishiro, at least, managed to set up snares on the beach in case any more eurypterids or similar scuttlers made their way along the beach. Other than that, not a great day for the campers. Nevertheless, they did manage to work together as several teams and that seemed to have put a bit more heart into their flagging companions.
 
At the end of the third day, they set up watches again, with Malicia and Orny taking the first two watches. While Malicia was peering off into the darkness she heard the faint sound of a chain somewhere in the distance and saw the figure of a man walking slowly along the beach. Waking Orny, the two crept out along the jungle’s edge. Orny wasn’t great at sneaking, while Malicia slipped silently between fronds and vines. Stopping before Orny gave the whole game away, Orny emerged from the green and caught the man’s attention, while Malicia looped around him and hopped soundlessly across the sands to approach the man from the rear. 
 
Orny drew closer and saw that this was a magical negro. I mean, he was a black guy who showed up unexpectedly, and he worshipped Nethys god of magic if his black and white robe was anything to go by. Orny has an affinity with Nethys to some degree (right?) so might have felt bad about what happened next. The warlock introduced himself and the stranger introduced himself as Jask Derindi. Jask wanted to know who else had survived the wreck, in particular asking if Captain Kovack had survived, I believe he also asked to be released from the manacles that bound his hands but didn’t have time for much else as Malicia knocked him out cold from behind.
 
Dragging him back to the camp and tying him up. They finished out their respective watches, before the last watch saw another uneventful sunrise. The hour after sunrise was a bit more eventful as everyone noticed the tied-up black guy that was in the middle of their camp.
 
So, now you've seen all six fellow passengers: Aerys, Gelik, Sasha, Ishiro, Jask, the as yet missing Ileana.

So, now you’ve seen all six fellow passengers: Aerys, Gelik, Sasha, Ishiro, Jask, the as yet missing Ileana.

Sasha, as she does, suggested that he was probably the poisoner. She and Orny had argued over whether the food they ate at dinner was poisoned – Orny thought not, Sasha thought that it could have been a two part poison, with neither ingredient individually harmful, but the combination poisonous. She appears to know quite a bit about that. Anyway, she thought there must be some pretty good reason for him being kept in the brig and she was vocally not in favour of releasing him, especially when Gelik chimed in with some of the more gruesome rumours that the Jenivere’s crew had thought up. So they asked Jask why he had been manacled and locked up. He told them all about how he ended up there…
 
Jask worked for the Sargavan government. The government became aware that someone was selling state secrets to the pirates of the Shackles. Technically the two entities are allies, but it is a badly balanced partnership, with the piratocratic (there’s a proper word for this, I just can’t remember what it is) regime sucking Sargava dry. Someone in the Sargavan bureaucracy was helping the Captains do this by selling them information. Jask was sent to the Shackles to assist with the effort to track down the mole. Too late he discovered that the mole was one of his superiors and was set up as the traitor himself. He fled the Shackles and went on the run, ending up in Cheliax. Despite the Chelish animosity towards both Sargava and the Shackles, Sargava apparently managed to arrange his capture and extradition back to stand trial for espionage, treason, etc. He was on his way, in less salubrious accommodations than everyone else, when the bottom was torn out of the Jenivere and he was dumped into the ocean.
 
Victor believed him, so he released him from his shackles with the keys taken from the Captain’s desk. 
 
After that, things actually started going pretty great. Uun and Floki were still laid low by the dysentery, but Jask gave them a chalky plant gum to eat that would ease some of the dreadful diarrhea. He scoured out Percy’s feet and gave Nobody a stimulant that would alleviate symptoms of the sleeping sickness.
 
The foragers, Sasha, Orny, Rolifson and Percy hit a patch of abundant fruits and nuts and carried back enough to feed everyone with some left over. 
 
Mailicia, Victor, Gelik, Aerys and Ishiro were finally able to get the hut erected, solving their problem of being unable to raise one large hut by creating two smaller ones. Up off the ground, away from the sand fleas, walled with palm fronds to keep the worst of the insects and spiders out, it was a far more pleasant place to sleep.
 
Finally victorious over their environment, spirits around the evening campfire were buoyed. Ishiro confided in Floki that he had not always been a fisherman and that during his last employment he became interested in treasure maps. Knowing now that the island was known as Smuggler’s Shiv, he produced a small hand drawn map that showed the island and several landmarks, including a nice traditional red X. Ishiro had heard that this was where a famed pirate had buried his treasure, believing that the dangers of the island would keep the hoard safe.
 
Similarly, Jask and Orny chatted about the island. One of the half dozen pirate-collaborating Sargavan ships that were part of the mole’s operation was lost in the bay, reputedly sliced apart on the coral reefs that surround the Shiv. If so, then the papers the captain was carrying on the Brine Demon may exculpate Jask in the eyes of the Sargavan government, something that interests him very, very much.
 

Companion Quests! Thanks Bioware! One of these gets us laid with a space alien, right?

 
That night, as they dreamt of the next days planned excursion into the jungle,  their camp was attacked by skeletons. Rising out of the ghostly surf, the boney assailants made a rush for the camp , but were bottlenecked by the rocks. The camp’s inhabitants were woken and not being encumbered by the need to don heavy armour leapt into action.
 
Orny, as he pointed out, isn’t that great against things that don’t sleep, but that slack was picked up by Percy, who is totally great against things that don’t sleep or breathe or photosynthesize. Or whatever it is fungus does. The undead, that’s who Percy is great against and he channeled some midnight sunshine down upon the skeletons as Victor, Malicia and Uun held the clattering scimitar-wavers off at one gap and Floki, Nobody and Orny fought back others who made their way to the camp. Percy positioned himself where he could spread the love of Sarenrae to the most skeletons and channeled twice, taking down a few and then all the remaining skeletons.
 
They looted the rusty and tattered chain shirts and scimitars and tossed the bones in the fire… reverently, as the skeletons would have wanted.
 
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In the morning, they were polite enough to return Jask’s gear, including the leather armour that  Victor had put on. The little mask of Nethys and the nice dagger went with him too.
 
Floki wanted to lead an expedition into the jungle to see if the river marked on his sea chart was a more suitable place to get water and maybe move the camp. Ishiro warned against going in a small party, so eventually Ishiro, Jask, Gelik, Aerys and Sasha agreed to stay in camp while everyone else went off into the island’s rugged interior.
 
The expedition took stock of their pile of as yet unclaimed gear and took some time to identify their potion stock. They discovered that the bottle of brandy had gone AWOL and when they asked who had taken it, Aerys gave them back the empty bottle. So now they have a water bottle, yay! But no brandy, booo!
 
Gearing up while the sun still hovered above the sea, they got ready to set out into the noisy green of the unexplored island. 
 
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7 Comments on “Castaway Diary, Days 2, 3, 4.

  1. Orny does have an affinity for Nethys, but I’m not really sure how that kind of thing shakes out for a Witch theology-wise. I figured magical self-starters like witches must have some reverence for Nethys. How into the hierarchy of her clerical types a witch would be, I would think that wouldn’t be a big thing.

    Orny definitely wants to be buddies with Jask.

  2. Nethys seems like a good fit for neutral witches; the mysteries of magic, the wax and wane, a time to reap and a time to sow and what not. Nethys isn’t chaotic, just complex enough to be very mysterious in his motives.

  3. I’m trying to decide what to do with your group inventory. If I have it online, Rolland can’t easily manage it – not without the magic that Matt will one day let loose upon the website – in fact, nobody can easily manage it at the table.

    A piece of paper that lists what you have might be the best solution. The only other way I can think is to have a piece of paper that I have that I modify based on who says they want what.

    That said, it is no hassle for me to keep this list and post it, so that you know what you have. If you can think of a low effort way of keeping track of the gear, go for it. People have already taken from this list, but since we weren’t writing that down… I have no idea who has what yet.

    A bundle of the Captain’s keys.
    A multitude of sea charts.
    The Captain’s Log.
    21 days worth of hard tack (one person). (You used three)
    1 wooden drawer/box.
    1 rope bottle-box.
    6 CLW
    1 CMW
    4 Pot. of Lesser Restoration.
    1 Pot. of Remove Disease.
    1 Pot. of Waterwalking.
    1 empty bottle.
    1 Ship-in-a-bottle model of the Jenivere.
    A block and tackle.
    3 50ft lengths of rope.
    2 Canvas sheets – 1 used as a raingather.
    1 Small mallet and chisel.
    2 short Two handled saws.
    Jar of nails.
    1 Fishing net – Sasha is using the other one.
    A Grappling hook.
    2 Bullseye Lanterns.
    12 jars of Lantern Oil.
    6 Belaying pins.
    1 Marlinspike.
    2 Shovels.
    2 Hatchets.
    2 Machetes.
    1 Boat Hook.
    1 Mop.
    3 Driftwood clubs.
    7 rusty scimitars (Broken).
    7 rusty chainmail shirts (Broken.)
    1 set of Masterwork manacles.

  4. I meant to write down that list prior to last weeks session but go caught up in work and parenting. I’m out this week but will have it in my notebook by the next time I show up. For the record Floki took the sea charts, one length of 50′ rope, a machete and a broken chain shirt. I also have “satchel” written down which I think I got off the dead coxswain.

  5. For this week, I’ll print out the list and bring it. I’ll mark off who took what and send out the revised list after tonight’s session.

    Victor is taking the following: Captains keys (mainly for the manacle key), the captain’s log, a bullseye lantern, 2 jars of lantern oil, a broken chain shirt, the manacles (in case we need to take an evil-doer into custody to await trial when we get back to civilization).

    I’m assuming as a group we’re taking: All the hard tack, all the potions, the empty bottle, the grappling hook, a canvas sheet used as a bag to carry all this stuff.

  6. Group inventory:
    11.5 days worth of hard tack (one person).
    1 wooden drawer/box.
    1 rope bottle-box.
    6 CLW
    1 CMW
    4 Pot. of Lesser Restoration.
    1 Pot. of Remove Disease.
    1 Pot. of Waterwalking.
    1 empty bottle.
    1 Ship-in-a-bottle model of the Jenivere.
    A block and tackle.
    2 50ft lengths of rope.
    1 Canvas sheet used as a raingather
    4 quarter-sized canvas sheets used as packs
    2 short Two handled saws.
    Jar of nails. (Malicia took a couple of them)
    1 Fishing net – Sasha is using the other one.
    A Grappling hook.
    1 Bullseye Lantern.
    10 jars of Lantern Oil.
    5 Belaying pins.
    2 Shovels.
    1 Hatchets.
    1 Boat Hook.
    1 Mop.
    3 Driftwood clubs.
    7 rusty scimitars (Broken).
    2 fixed chainmail shirts.
    Indeterminate amount of goat meat.

  7. I’ll put this in the new post, with some notes.

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