Beneath the Missing Sea Episode 3

 

Crabcakes

Episode 3, where the party finally got around to exploring the missing sea, made a new friend, and then sold him for stew.

Played September 1, 2023

The Party for Episode 3

• CaptainSabatini playing Esgorman
• Igneous playing Fiske
• mtb playing Manqoba

The usual crew started their day in Coiner's Shelf, an ideal place to wake up only in that it was where they went to sleep. They had bold ambitions for the day: to finally hit the dirt, or sand rather, and start exploring the seabed of the post-Drain Andrussian Sea. But first, they had some things to take care of:

• They quickly informed Hemmingway that they would continue to retain his services to carry their luggage. He had been reliable thus far and he was happy to continue taking their coin.
• Secondly, they had the hook they'd found a few days before. They tracked down Dagweyn to Merchant's Alley, who was ecstatic to have his treasured boathook returned and let them know he'd put in a good word with the local provisioners. 
• Third, they went looking for some additional muscle. They tracked down two potential hires: Albert de Manc, an impoverished hedge knight in rusty plate armor and wielding a scythe; and Thelma Fineore, a tough-looking dwarf with a viscous temperament and a pickaxe. Fiske felt strongly towards the knight and they welcomed him to the group.
• Finally, they ran into Garvym, the hideously scarred alchemist. Yet his scar was gone. He told them that it was solely because of the miraculous properties of his patented Sea Vitae, which not only healed wounds but fought off Sea Rot, and was quick to offer them some. They declined but he was quick to follow up with the reason for his visit: his potion business depends on resources harvested from the sea and he had a list of fauna he could use, dead or alive: an anglergoblin shaman, an Andrussian albatross, a merfolk, and a giant hermit crab. He'd pay for them all, of course, but more than that he'd welcome them into his operation, which included the people currently extracting whatever they could from the leviathan. The party told him that they'd keep their eyes open.

And then it was time to head out. After some deliberation, they decided to follow the cliff face north and east around the edge of the Andrussian basin. Expecting the worst down there, they soon found themselves instead in a field of coral arches, glowing in a rainbow of soft colors, all very beautiful, and without a hostile creature in sight. They camped the night among them.

The next day they came across a chasm, a gash in the earth that must have once been among the lowest parts of the basin despite being so close to the boundary. Peering into it they saw open water, perhaps the only remaining in the region. They also spotted a cave on the side of the cliff. Fiske had a grappling hook so they decided to rappel down to it, leaving Hemmingway along above.

Inside the cave, they found more water, including a vast deep pool with fish living in it, which Manqoba noted as a good sign if they ever were able to restore the missing water to the sea. He brought out a fishing line and set about to supplement their provisions while Esgorman picked up a souvenir from a fault exposure that revealed several ammonite fossils.

Fiske, who'd been itching to bring his magic to bear on their obstacles, offered to perform some magic dubbed Ghost Pains to induce the fish to seek out the hook. He waved his hands about and chanted mystic words like he had done many times before but something went awry and the spell instead drained him of his magic Now bereft of magic, it was then that they heard the chattering at the entrance of the cave.

The chasm was randomly rolled but funnily enough the actual hexcrawl map shows a ravine in that hex. The module has numbered locations but it also has tables for generating content in the unnumbered hexes and this just happened to match. A strange coincidence.

 Art by Fiske's player Igneous

Thinking quickly, the noisy knight and the clumsy legionnaire stayed back with the torch while Fiske and Manqoba snuck forward to scout. Once again expecting trouble, they instead found a small group of anglergoblins heading over to check out those very fossils that Esgorman had been working on. The party, not desiring a fight and lacking magic to boot, decided to sneak out and leave the anglergoblins to their archaeology.

I rolled "anglergoblins looking at fossils" and for their mien "unobservant". While Albert in his rusty plate armor makes a racket everywhere he goes and Esgorman is no church mouse himself, every random element went their way such that even if they had failed the group stealth check (at least half must succeed per BSH) they still might have merely clued in the goblins that something was up, not who or where they were.

Back atop the cliff they camped the night and made plans for the next day. Morning arrived as cold and drizzly as every other day and they decided to head southwest towards a rocky rise in the seabed. It was scaled uneventfully. At the top, they found the shell of what must once held the world's largest hermit crab but also tracks from where it clearly crawled away. With only a small handcart to assist they instead looked outward.

To the north, they could see the cliff that formed the basin, and east of them they could spy a break in the cliff face where a dark beach met the sandy floor. East they could see large shells of probably more hermit crabs. Far to the south massive flocks of birds choked the sky. Southwest they could just barely spot a party of folk traveling across the dunes. And finally, to the west, they could see only the massive wave-like ergs between them and where Coiner's Shelf lay beyond the range of their vision.

At this natural crossroads, they decided that crab could further supplement their dwindling supply of rations, and their wallet too if they could manage to bring one back. They crept across the dunes towards a shell distant from any others and with a trailer clearly showing it had been moving. Quietly they surrounded it, but instead of battle Fiske once again pulled out his Ghost Pains magic in an attempt to induce the crab to follow them.

The text of the spell reads: Ghost pains: The victim feels like they have lost something very important and believe the caster can give it back. In both this and the previous case fishing, Igneous had narrowed in on precisely what the spell does. It's not a generic "charm person: you're my friend now" spell. It simply convinces the target that the caster has something they want. And since all they wanted the hermit crab to do was follow them, I figured that this is laser focused on what the spell best does.

In my excitement to see where this was going, I don't think I had Fiske roll nor did I check the monster to save, which per the rules of the two books doesn't really exist anyway. But it had rolled "bored" for its mien so I figured that this creature, who per module had above average wits (1, above the default of 0) and was described as "exceptionally cunning" might just go along with these small fools on a lark. I'll need to make sure that this spell, used twice already in this session alone, doesn't become the overpowered too-easy first choice for every encounter.

Part of the reason I didn't have him roll is I like to practice just-in-time resolution. You don't roll to see if something works immediately, you roll when it is tested, which usually means when it would cause the most trouble: For example, you don't roll to go into stealth; you roll after you've snuck forward and now might be caught.

With their new hermit crab obediently following along, they journeyed back to the north to the break in the cliff they'd spotted. Along the way, they deliberated on naming the crab, which Fiske eventually dubbed "Crabcakes". Later they came across a field of old statues of merfolk in various poses. More interesting than the statues themselves were the gems they had for eyes. Esgorman got out his knife and set to work. Pocketing a handful, they continued on to the cliff face.

The shingle beach at its base sloped up steeply to a clearing upon which were several wood structures holding what could be seen even at this distance to be caged. Everyone decided that this would be better approached another day.

Running low on rations, they decided that it was time to head home with their crab in tow. They approached the great gash in the earth from the west and as they neared a voice called out to them. A single lost citizen of Brost named Nathaniel had struck out on his own but was now very lost, very hungry, and very scared of the anglergoblins. But mostly very hungry. Doing some calculations with their rations, they decided to make a stop at their fishing hole from before to restock enough to get back to town.

Roll for some rations, but low rolls also provoke an encounter as normal. Simple as.

The trip back through the coral arches was uneventful save that Esgorman tripped over a small anchor that Fiske could tell clearly vibrated with mystic energy. They resolved to go check with the arcanists upon getting back to town.

Which they did shortly thereafter. They tearfully handed off Crabcakes to Garvym, knowing that they had trouble enough feeding themselves, never mind a canoe-sized hermit crab. They hunted around for someone to sell the gems to, met a merchant named Robert Oldwine, the former harbormaster, who was willing to pay extra for interesting treasure with a story, and so they were happy to part with the gems pried from the faces of the merfolk statues for a bonus.

Wow that was lucky, they got gems from the eyes of merfolk statues and they happened upon a merchant that wasspecifically looking for interesting treasure. They had asked for a gem merchant and a scan of the list turned up nothing. I had them roll and they found Oldwine. It was only as I read the entirety of his entry that I realized that this was actually the guy they had been looking for.

The entry also metioned that Oldwine organizes trips for delvers to places where he thinks they will find the wreckage of old ships. That's cool, I'll just use the "old ship wreckage" table for what they find there...there isn't one. Cool, something else to add to the find/make list. Not to mention that the hexes are unnumbered so I won't be able to roll one randomly.

Finally, they sought out the arcanists. A wizard named Magda told them that the anchors had to do with the Sea Speaker Marienn, according to his former apprentice Dalbran, who was skulking around in town somewhere. Neither Dalbran nor Magda knew what the anchors did but she was happy to pay for the anchor anyway.

Their first day was a resounding success, they turned in for the night and started looking for a place around town to stash stuff so they don't have to drag everything they own around the entire region.

Statistics

Days Passed: 18

Hexes explored: 5
Foes vanquished: 1 feral dog, 1 anglergoblin, 1 anglergoblin shaman, the power of friendship?
Treasure obtained: 570 previously + 160 for Crabcakes + 300 for the gems + 71 for the anchor = 1101
Money spent on hirelings: 90 previously + 70 for Hemmingway + 140 for Albert de Manc = 300 coins
Questionable meals consumed: 48

Fishing trips: 2

Tragic deaths: 1

Map

The map after 18 days

Episode 3 Notes

It was their first day of true hexcrawling and they engaged with exactly zero prepared content, which was an exciting first for a GM who normally runs modules. The dice delivered several strange results, including near back-to-back critical fail and success on the use of the same spell.

The dice gods delivered some interesting results today. In one session, Fiske used the same spell and rolled both critical success and critical failure. For the latter, he rolled to merely lose his magic until sunrise. But there are no rules for the former, so I just made it last for the duration of their trip. Otherwise, the plan was to check to see if the spell held each hex passed to add tension to the trip back. I also happened to roll for an ammonite-studded cave and anglergoblins peering at fossils, and incredible coincidence.

The cave map was one of many generated from here: https://watabou.itch.io/cave-generator

It isn't strictly necessary for a one-off environment but it can help me describe the place to the players if I have something to refer to. The itself text provides encounters and treasures for the cave but not a layout.

The biggest issue so far has been the scattered nature of the text. However, I've finally gotten Bluebeam to work on my computer so I've begun putting together a GM's screen for the game. Hopefully, that'll cut down on the page flipping.