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Chapter 4 - Session 11

The Kraken's Intervention

Events and Actions

Still holding the six captive crewmen from "The Bull"—the wounded Captain De Torres and his five sailors, tied, searched, and gagged on deck since the previous night's fight—the party's first move was to get them out of earshot, hauling them below into the cramped crawl spaces under the fore and aft decks rather than the main hold, so they couldn't overhear the escape plan being hashed out above. With that done, the party spent the early morning hammering out a cover story before anyone came to investigate: they would run up a plague flag, claim disease had broken out aboard, signal the same by semaphore, and volunteer as little detail as possible if hailed. Getting the undermanned ship moving proved its own struggle—with only a handful of the party competent at sailing, Mani rallied everyone he could spare into a scratch crew, and between fumbled rigging and a leadership-fuelled push they managed to raise the main sails and haul up the anchor while Cosimo layered illusions over the ship to hide the change from anyone watching. Before they could finish, a boat crewed by soldiers from "The Caliper," led by a Corporal Vasquez, set off to investigate. Mani, posing as a lieutenant, met them at the rail and spun a story of a grounded ship, secret orders, and a doomed rescue mission, inventing the name "Lieutenant Trollmer" on the spot when pressed. When Vasquez demanded to see the captain, Noddy—disguised by illusion to look like the wounded Captain De Torres—staggered out feigning delirium and convinced the corporal to let them sail off to quarantine among a cluster of islands to the southeast, buying the party's escape.

With the boarding party gone, Werner searched the captain's cabin and returned with a chart of the region, one of roughly fifty aboard, marked with dead-reckoning position notes and a scatter of unexplained "K" marks attributed to a surveyor named Colchester; tellingly, every one of the fifty charts covered only the route between the port and the ice crossing, as though the ships that sailed it were never meant to go anywhere else. With the ship's boat under tow, Mani rode in it alongside Beck—armed, watchful, and keeping him apart from the rest of the pressed crew—and spent the better part of an hour building rapport, learning of the crew's grim history and the fleet's makeup while offering in return a claimed family history of smuggling goods between north and south. Meanwhile the others debated their heading—weighing an unknown southern route, a westward course toward rumoured pirates, and a known river delta to the north—before settling on the delta as their first stop in search of water and shelter. Riu split his attention between Captain De Torres, still unconscious in his cabin, and the badly weakened man freed from the gibbet the previous session, dribbling watered rum into him a little at a time in hopes of reviving him. Beck and the rest of the pressed crew were eventually won over with rum, coin, and a plain explanation of the situation, and set to work sailing in earnest.

An hour into their escape, with the Northern fleet's masts just dipping below the horizon, Noddy's seagull familiar Pocket spotted a two-masted ship raising sail behind them and closing fast. To gain speed, the party cut loose the boat they had been towing. Cosimo tried a string of illusions to throw the pursuit off—a shrinking decoy ship left adrift, then a shifting cloak thrown over "The Bull" itself—but the pursuing ship adjusted course to follow regardless, its wake no obstacle to whatever was tracking them, suggesting the tricks weren't working. Sent ahead for a closer look, Pocket confirmed it as the cutter "The Caliper," and reported a priestess of the Divinity of Two on its bow, in garb matching one glimpsed on the pier before the party fled port, gripping a staff in both hands—leading the party to suspect they were being magically tracked. Realizing they could not outrun their pursuer, they turned to fight, planning to close the distance and board.

As the ships charged one another, "The Caliper" fired its bow chasers, using chain shot that tore through "The Bull's" forward sail and yardarm; Noddy, already invisible and stripped down in preparation for his planned leap onto the enemy ship, was left dangling unseen from the wreckage of the rigging rather than pitched into the sea. The two freed Islanders were armed and warned that capture meant a return to slavery, while the crew's meagre arsenal of muskets, pistols, and swivel guns was distributed and mounted, and Mani—having just carved the names "Fate" and "Destiny" into his own pistols—took up a rifle. His first shot at the priestess went so wide it cost him the weapon; grabbing another, he fired again as the range closed, only for her magic to turn the ball aside and leave her with a graze. Cosimo readied a stun cloud he could summon anew each round to sweep the enemy's deck once the ships closed, planning to time it with grenades lobbed below, and then conjured a grand illusion of "Handsome Gulliver Gold," glowing and radiant, to leap aboard the enemy ship's bowsprit and denounce its crew as heretics—"You are heathens who challenge my avatar," he thundered, "turn back and repent your ways, lest you be bogged down and clouded in the stench of your own sin." As Noddy prepared to leap onto the enemy's mainmast to shatter it with sorcery, a scream of terror tore from the enemy's deck, followed by a tremendous cracking sound: a colossal kraken erupted from the sea between the two vessels, bringing the confrontation to a chaotic halt.

NPCs & Creatures

  • Beck: A captured sailor from "The Bull" and spokesman for its five pressed crew, who provided the party with intelligence on the Northern fleet and its operations. He told Mani he was a former northern whaler pressed into service after a criminal conviction, describing a brutal overland crossing hauling supply sleds across the ice—the same fate that put Captain De Torres aboard "The Bull." Riding under guard in the ship's boat as it was towed, he warmed further to Mani over an hour of conversation, remarking that the party "present themselves like pirates" and hearing in turn a claimed family history of smuggling between north and south.
  • Corporal Vasquez: An officer sent by boat from "The Caliper" to investigate "The Bull" shortly after the party seized it. He was talked out of boarding by Mani's fabricated orders, issued in the name of a "Lieutenant Trollmer," and Noddy's convincing impersonation of the wounded Captain De Torres.
  • Captain De Torres: The captured captain of "The Bull," who remains unconscious throughout the session. Noddy successfully impersonated him, disguised by illusion, to deceive the boarding party from "The Caliper."
  • The Man from the Gibbet: The badly weakened prisoner freed from the gibbet the previous session, still unconscious and unable to speak. Riu fed him watered rum through the day, hoping he might be well enough to rouse by the next.
  • Captain Colchester: The captain of the pursuing cutter, "The Caliper," identified as a mapper and surveyor.
  • Pocket: Noddy's seagull familiar, sent far out ahead to scout the pursuing ship, confirming it as "The Caliper" and reporting its crew, guns, and the priestess standing in its bow before the two ships came within unaided sight of each other.
  • Priestess of the Divinity of Two: A powerful, unnamed cleric seen on the bow of "The Caliper," gripping a staff in both hands, her garb matching a priestess glimpsed at the pier before the party fled port. She appeared to be tracking the party and was capable of deflecting projectiles.
  • The Two Freed Islanders: The pair rescued from slavery the previous session, including Tamiti; both were armed and warned that capture would mean a return to bondage as the party prepared for battle.
  • Handsome Gulliver Gold: Cosimo's illusory champion, conjured glowing and radiant to leap aboard "The Caliper" and denounce its crew as heretics before the fight was interrupted.
  • Kraken: A massive sea monster that surfaced between the two ships, interrupting their battle.

Locations

  • The Sea off the Isle of Sands: The entire session took place on the open ocean, as the party fled north from the Northern fleet under a plague flag, pursued by "The Caliper" toward a river delta they hoped would offer fresh water and shelter.

Conflicts

  • A tense bluff aboard "The Bull" when a boat from "The Caliper," led by Corporal Vasquez, arrived to investigate, resolved through Mani's fabricated orders and Noddy's disguised impersonation of Captain De Torres.
  • A naval chase between the party's seventeen souls aboard "The Bull" and the faster, more heavily crewed Northern cutter "The Caliper," reckoned at some forty sailors and marines, which closed the distance despite Cosimo's illusions.
  • "The Caliper" opened fire, disabling "The Bull's" forward rigging with chain shot.
  • The session ended on a cliffhanger as a three-way conflict between the two ships and a kraken was about to begin.

Learnings and Discussions

  • Having heard the six captive crewmen mutter and argue as they were subdued, Mani and Werner placed their accents as distinctly northern—specifically the cadence of men raised aboard whaling ships, not merely northern sailors in general.
  • The crew of "The Bull," including its unconscious captain, De Torres, are disaffected conscripts, making them potential allies.
  • The party gathered significant intelligence on the Northern fleet from Beck. A major supply route runs from the Isle of Sands north through The Shatters to an "ice crossing," escorted by the brig "The First Light," the sloop "The Fortnum" (captained by Herod), two unnamed frigates, and their pursuer, the cutter "The Caliper" (captained by Colchester, a mapper and surveyor). Beck also warned of pirates—remnants of the losing side of the war—operating to the west, the reason the fleet always sailed escorted, and mentioned a strong presence of the Church of the Two in the port town, including public lists of accused heretics.
  • One of the roughly fifty charts found in the captain's cabin showed the region in detail, marked with dead-reckoning position notes and several unexplained locations marked "K" and attributed to Colchester; their purpose remained unclear, though the party noted that all fifty charts covered only the route between the port and the ice crossing, suggesting the crews who sailed it were deliberately kept ignorant of the surrounding waters.
  • Weighing an unknown southern route against a westward course toward rumoured pirates and a known river delta to the north, the party chose to head north, reasoning it offered their best chance of finding fresh water—a tally of their stores showed roughly two weeks of food at normal consumption but barely a week of water at the same rate, with rationing able to stretch each further but leaving water as the true constraint on how far they could go.
  • The party concluded that the priestess was likely using magic to track them, rendering their illusions ineffective for concealment even after multiple attempts to throw off pursuit.

Items Gained

  • A detailed chart of the region, taken from the captain's cabin, marked with dead-reckoning notes and the unexplained "K" notations attributed to Colchester.
  • The ship's small armory: three muskets, three pistols, a blunderbuss, and two swivel guns—one already mounted, one they'd brought aboard themselves—along with powder and shot, all distributed and readied ahead of the fight.
  • An inventory of supplies aboard "The Bull"—salt pork, ship's biscuit, rice, sailcloth, and rum and fresh water in hogsheads—amounting to roughly two weeks of food but barely a week of water at normal consumption for seventeen souls.

Items Lost

  • The ship's boat, under tow since the party fled port, was cut loose to gain speed during the chase.
  • "The Bull's" forward sail and yardarm were destroyed by enemy cannon fire.