Saltmarsh: Taking the Boat

Okay, so: this went in many ways much better than expected.

At the end of the previous session, the party had taken to boat by virtue of killing off everybody except for the captain (and the bosun, though he was only barely alive). They opened this session with the Chevalier trying -- and failing badly -- to throw the captain overboard, while murderchild did more stabitty-stabs.

(For those who aren't keeping track: murderchild is Raven, an adult halfling masquerading as a human child; the Chevalier is a human bard who came from a life of indolence and luxury despite not having any lands or money himself; Kane is the town undertaker, a human paladin intent on seeing the dead -- and those as need to be dead -- on their way; and Salty Walt is another human bard, a ship's shanty-man who sometimes masquerades as a captain and is haunted by a ghost-fish that only he can see.)

In the course of the fight, the bosun bursts back out of one of the aft cabins and promptly gets stabbed to death; the captain gets badly wounded and finally thrown overboard, where he disappears and presumably drowns; and everybody else is basically okay. There are still four sailors left from the original crew of the Sea Ghost, but they've rowed into the cave and disappeared; even if they turned back immediately, it would be quite a while before they could get to the ship. Still, Kane elects to remain on the deck and keep watch while the others explore the ship.

Almost immediately, they discover a secret compartment holding a shipment of well-made weapons; as they continue, they find a sea-elf who's been held prisoner by the smugglers. Continuing on, they discover... well, everything. The sea elf calls himself Oceanus; he and Salty Walt can converse in Aquan, and he and the chevalier can converse in... something else. Elvish? Probably.

In the main cargo hold they discover more silks and brandy casks, stamped with the royal seal; those are almost certainly stolen, and will need to be sold through the council to avoid the impression of the group being party to smuggling or piracy themselves. Somewhere in here, Kane calls down that the remaining sailors are on their way back to the boat; the group considers ramming their boat with the sea ghost, but realizes that they lack the expertise to do anything more than basic sailing. They can probably get the whole ship back to the docks at Saltmarsh, but maneuvering to hit a small boat in the dark? Not so much that. Instead, they grab oil and rags and use flaming arrows to set the docking boat (and at least one sailor) on fire. The first mate jumps out at the last minute and begins swimming; Oceanus taps the Chevalier on the shoulder and says "Dagger?" in Elvish until somebody hands him one. Then he dives over the side, a lean shape cutting into the water and disappearing; a few moments later, the First Mate abruptly disappears underwater too. Then Oceanus is waving at them from where he's holding the anchor chain, and they haul him up in the process of weighing anchor. ("We should keep him," murderchild decides.)

It turns out that the group isn't entirely alone on the ship: they discover a trio of lizardfolk in one of the forward cabins, engaged in a game of sticks. The Chevalier, an enthusiastic student of games of chance, recognizes this as something the slaves played in his former lover's mansion, and immediately gets himself dealt in; the lizardfolk are speaking a pidgin of common and draconic which the Chevalier can only partly follow, but they're happy to play against him. He tidily wins the first round, and they're impressed.

So while Salty Walt and Kane lower the sails and get the Sea Ghost underway for Saltmarsh, the Chevalier and murderchild have a lovely evening of gambling with the lizardfolk. Oceanus mostly just stands in the door and watches this. It turns out that the lizardfolk had cut a deal with the smugglers, exchanging chunks of electrum for well-crafted weapons and armor; it also turns out that they've recently returned to an abandoned fortress of theirs, only a few miles down the coast from Saltmarsh. Only, they have no plans to attack the town. They were driven out by the "shark-kin", a term which Oceanus identifies as Sahuagin. They're mainly interested in getting the the weapons to their colony, and only mildly concerned that the boat is heading the wrong way for that.

They get close enough to the docks for somebody to row out and tow them ashore, and that's more or less where we ended the game.


Somewhere in the middle of all this, we attempted to play music at each other; this was not the right environment for it, and in any case it turned out that nobody had a suitably metal version of Drunken Sailor on hand, so we wound up substituting Queen's Fat-Bottomed Girls for pirate music instead. Which, y'know, works fairly well.

But in the interest of having these things available:







And hey, as a bonus:

Saltmarsh: A Most Unusual Approach

Note to self: I really need to write these things right after our sessions, instead of trying to remind myself later of what the group did.

So, following their visit to the foppish council-member's party, our group was offered another job by the council. If the haunted house was actually being used by smugglers and the smugglers were receiving shipments of goods, then there must be someone delivering these goods. And unless those people are also removed, they're like to set up shop elsewhere and the smuggling will continue unabated. Would the group be willing to go and abate them?

They would.

The return to the house in time for the dark of the moon, which the council judges as most likely for another delivery, and check the house over to be sure that it remains unoccupied. It does, and they manage not to get themselves into any further trouble by, say, falling through rotten floors or fighting with whatever is in its burrow in the garden out back. They even think to post someone in the upstairs room where the window seems to have been opened, so they have an easy time spotting the blinking light coming from a dark ship far out on the waters. It's a code -- a series of long and short flashes, repeated at intervals.

They attempt to respond by using their bulls-eye lantern to signal back, and of course completely mangle the code since they really don't have a guide for it.

Still, after some discussion they decide that the thing to do is to take the boat from the sea cave and get out to the ship.

...Which they do, but first they set the house on fire. No, no, I don't really know why either.

So they row out of the cave, curving around so as not to be silhouetted by the giant fucking fire rising on the shore behind them, with the paladin doing the actually rowing and the chevalier exhorting him to put his back into it. After a considerable time -- and, I believe, a sharp punch to the chevalier's face, delivered by the paladin -- they reach the boat and manage to talk their way on board by pretending that the chevalier is a prisoner they're planning to ransom; they blame him for the fire in the house, and he helpfully muddies the waters by rushing over to the captain, discreetly casting Charm, and offering to pay him a considerable sum if they'll only turn him loose.

And then the violence begins. I can't remember exactly what sets it off - if the Bosun tried to grab the "little girl", or if someone recognized the paladin as the town gravedigger and realized he couldn't possibly be a smuggler, or if murderchild just got bored and started throwing knives at people. However it went down, the bosun escaped into the ship with like 2 hp left and a couple of knives still sticking out of his back, and the chevalier (actually a human bard) basically tackled the captain to the deck "to protect him" and kept him there while the other took out the rest of the crew. The deck mage managed to tag the paladin with Force Lightning -- erm, it's Witch Bolt in DnD -- but Salty Walt (also a human bard) took him out with an old sea shanty in the form of Dissonant Whispers, then followed him up to the poop deck and finished him off. Murderchild continued doing what she does best -- popping out of cover, throwing knives at people, and hiding again -- while Kane the Undertaker (human paladin) swung his bladed shovel around and took out several of the sailors.

By the time the battle ended, the entire crew of the Sea Ghost was dead, except for:
-The captain, who was unharmed.
-The bosun, who was very badly harmed.
-A group of four sailors including the mate, who were in a rowboat and well on their way to the sea cave below the burning house. Even if they get the cave and immediately turn back -- and they'll probably look around, first -- it's going to take them at least half an hour to get back to the ship.

First order of business tonight will probably be to decide what to do with the captain and to hunt down the bosun. After that, well... I know what I would do, but this is the group that set fire to the haunted house, so who knows? Anything seems possible, as long as there's looting and murder involved.

Saltmarsh: The Noble's Party

So last week's game (which, in retrospect, we probably shouldn't have done in person) opened with a quick recap of previous events. The halfling (still convincingly disguised as a child) decided to head back upstairs, awaken Venred the would-be saboteur, and ask him about who hired him. He protested that he couldn't say, so she cut off one of his fingers and it turned out that he could say. (I'm having some doubts about this whole "Chaotic Good" designation, though...) He gave her a name -- the name of one of the nobles on the Saltmarsh town council -- and she killed him, thus thoroughly spoiling my plans to have him show up and poison the Chevalier's cognac later on.

The group loaded the smuggled goods into the bag of holding that they'd acquired from one of the house's denizens (which is probably more than its capacity, but I firmly believe that every group should have a bag of holding so that I don't have to track things like that) and brought it back to town.

Their explanation was a bit muddled, with Salty Walt insisting that the house was haunted and the other three insisting that it really wasn't except for the skeletons, maybe. But they did at least manage to explain that they'd killed all the smugglers. The young noble who hired them was quite pleased, and was even willing to continue to put them up in one of his guest houses (so that his fellow noble, the Chevalier, didn't have to sleep somewhere... unsuitable). The halfling asked about the other noble, the one who'd hired Venred, and their host explained that this council member was one of the richest people in town, and liked to throw parties at least once a week; and of course he could obtain invitations for them.

This gave them their introduction to that councilman, who is... charming, but just a little bit sleazy and almost certain;y involved with the local smugglers. Raven (the halfling) and Salty Walt (human bard) circulated and talked to people, while Kane (the town gravedigger and the group's paladin) circulated to talk to people about paying up on their burial fees. During their ciculation, they met the head of the local woodworking guild, who occasionally has jobs for people willing to venture into dangerous areas to collect special woods, and an emissary from another country in the far north, who is interested in locating a particular apparatus designed by the mage Kwalish. Despite the halfling's eagerness, they didn't find any immediate jobs. (The Chevalier spent the party engaged in conversation and diversions with various of the upper echelons of Saltmarsh's social structure.) They also met the woman who leads the traditionalist faction of Saltmarsh's council.

Overall, it wasn't the best game I've ever run; but it ended with their young noble host offering them a follow-up job. After all, if smugglers were taking shipments at the haunted house, someone must be bringing them the shipments. Would the group be willing to go back and try to intercept whatever smuggler's ship is making those deliveries? They most definitely would.

So that's what we'll be doing this week. Except, we'll be doing it online via Discord, assuming that Discord can handle the traffic. If not, maybe I'll try another service.

Brief DnD Recap: The Haunted House

Right, so:

Last week the group essentially finished exploring the haunted house. They've arguably got a bit more to do, but they've defeated the house's, um, inhabitants and learned most of its secrets -- including the fact that they lovely and charming half-elf who was sexing up the Chevalier was actually planted there to sabotage them. They left him unconscious in one of the upstairs rooms, after he made the mistake of saying he loved the Chevalier, who was immediately no longer interested.

At this point, they have a bit of treasure (including some rare books, albeit not in the best of shape) and will need to figure out how to get it back to town if that's what they want to do. Otherwise, they could simply head back and make trouble in Saltmarsh until the next opportunity comes up.

And yeah, I meant to write this out earlier and in more detail (including a list of treasure, which I might come back and add later) but, eh, c'est la guerre.

Saltmarsh 002: Near-Death Experiences

So, after finishing their big fight with the boss-and-minions for this adventure, the group retired back outside join their carriage driver, Remy Mertin, who was willing to stay and camp overnight but not to enter the house. Remy was cooking his dinner over a fire when they returned, and while the others ate from their rations the noble gave Remy cooking advice and then ate his meal. Then they settled in to get some sleep -- though they did, at least, decide to set a guard. The Chevalier took first watch, for at least a solid ten minutes before he fell asleep beside the fire. Raven, the little girl/halfling, woke herself up for the middle watch... which was a good thing, as about halfway through she noticed movement from the direction of the house.

Two dark figures had come into the yard and were looking at the campfire -- at a distance, but still easily visible. "Get the others," said one, as Raven snuck back to camp.

There were four when they approached the camp, a number which forced Raven to awaken her father and Kane the Undertaker. A brief battle ensued, which ended with the party victorious and even mostly unscathed. Salty Walt had slept through most of it, only awaking near the end to help give chase to the last two as they fled. The carriage-driver Remy, on the other hand, was huddled down beside the last remaining coals of the cookfire, having seen actual battle for the first time in his life.

Concluding that the haunted house contained no further enemies, the group sent Remy back up the road a little ways to camp somewhere safer and return during daylight. They then trooped back inside, looking for proper beds to sleep in. Deciding that the ground floor was no use for that, they trooped up to the second floor, found an empty bedroom, got distracted by something shiny, and then very nearly got themselves completely wiped out when swarms of spiders attacked them. Concluding that they'd killed everything in this room, at least, they elected to throw down some bedrolls and sleep there.

In the morning, partly but not fully rested, they explored the rest of that wing of the second floor, discovering some interesting clues -- and a bound prisoner in his underclothes, who'd been knocked out, tied up, and left in that room for a day and a night. The prisoner was a rather handsome half-elf named Venred Kindleaf, an adventurer who'd stopped in the house for shelter on his way to Saltmarsh. The Chevalier de Lorraine, who'd previously been entertaining lascivious thoughts about Remy the coachman, now turned a lustful eye towards Vennie, and went all the way back down to the basement to fetch him clothing from the corpses there.

With Vennie (dubiously) dressed, the group proceeded to explore the rest of the second floor. Or they would have, if a section of balcony hadn't given way and dropped the paladin all the way to the first floor. "We'll have to jump across," cried the halfling/seven-year-old Raven, and proceeded to completely fail her skill check and come crashing down on top of the slightly-stunned paladin.

"This is not so difficult, sirrahs," announced the Chevalier, and leapt across to the far side of opening with surprising ease.

"I can do this!" announced Salty Walt, and promptly leapt to a point halfway across before plummeting down atop the paladin as well. Raven dodged out of the way onto Kane's head; Kane dodged... well, no, actually he didn't.

"I should try again!" cried Raven, and took off across the entry hall and back up the stairs.

"Come, you handsome devil!" called the Chevalier, with a saucy wink at Vennie. "I'll catch you!"

The half-elf took a running jump and landed gracefully -- so gracefully, in fact, that he ended up in the Chevalier's arms, with one arm around his neck and their lips temptingly close together. Raven, meanwhile, came racing back down the balcony and jumped across again... or, well, actually she missed and fell back down on top of the paladin again. C'est la guerre.

And that was where we stopped.

I'm still not sure this was the best campaign for this group, but what the hell. It's a pre-built world that requires minimal prep-time from me. And I think they'll get through it, in their own idiosyncratic way. So... onward! Let the dice fall where they may!

Saltmarsh 001: A rogue, two bards, and a paladin walk into a bar...

We had our first Saltmarsh game (and got the Tuesday night group back together for the first time in weeks) back on Tuesday. It went... really well, all things considered.

What things, you ask? Well, first of all, this is a group of players that tends to go off in its own direction. The characters are not always going to focus on what's best for the group or what's best for the mission. Which is fun, as long as you're ready for it. It means the characters are pulling the story along. It also means that the story is likely to depart from whatever you were expecting.

An example? Well, okay: our heroes have been hired to investigate a reputedly-haunted house a few miles outside of town. An ordinary group would have approached cautiously, perhaps made a thorough search of the area. With this group, well... the noble just strode up to the door, banged on it with his cane, and demanded to know if there were any ghosts inside. His newly-self-appointed daughter, who acts like a seven-year-old human girl but is actually a halfling in her twenties, used her mind-speaking power to pretend to be a ghost and answer him. Also? As far as the rest of the party is concerned, they've brought a seven-year-old to the dangerously haunted house -- or at least allowed her to tag along. They were a bit startled when she turned out to be an extremely competent murderchild, but they weren't concerned in the way that another party might have been.

And they got surprisingly far into the house with this approach. An ordinary group might have done some exploring, perhaps found some clues to the history of the house, and eventually uncovered its secrets. This group essentially walked straight into the middle of everything, managed to survive the fights they found themselves in, and are well into the secret areas at the end of the first gaming session.

The group consists of:

Raven, a halfling rogue masquerading as a human child; she has selected the Chevalier to be her human father for this role. Also, as the group discovered later, a gleeful and effective killer.

The Chevalier de Lorraine, a noble human bard who comes from the highest society but has no money of his own; when his lover cast him aside, he took the first ship available and wound up in Saltmarsh; he was crying into his cognac there when Raven found him. ("Are you my daddy?" she asked. He poured her a glass of the cognac and shared his tragic tale.)

Kane, a human paladin and the town's mortician; he feels responsible for making sure that the dead stay in their graves. A brooding, stoic sort, he came to join the others when a fellow in the bar announced that his master wished to hire people willing to explore a haunted house. He carries funeral dressings with him, and will prepare bodies with the proper rites after he kills them. Fights with a sharpened shovel.

Salty Walt Collins, a human shantyman (bard) haunted by ghostly fish that only he can see; he came along in the hope that exploring the house might give him some insight into the spirit that haunts him.

So next week I need to tell the group what they found after their big fight; I also need to work out a better way to take notes during the session. But on the whole, it came together pretty well and I think everybody had a good time -- and that's what you want out of a game.

DnD: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

So... our Dungeonmaster for the Tuesday night game decided that he needed a break in 2020. This is completely understandable; running a game requires a fair amount of work (and energy) and he's been running this one for us for... a couple of years now? I've been involved in it since at least 2018. So he's taking a break, but he's willing to have us meet at his house if someone will step up and do the planning and run the games.

And since nobody else did, well: it's me. I'm doing it. I'm moving us from 3.5 to 5e, because it's simpler, and I'll be running this out of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign (ditto). I briefly considered running a campaign of my own design (Den of Thieves) in which the characters would spend most of their time on the wrong side of the law in a dark and decadent island city, but when I polled the group I got one definite vote for Den of Thieves, one not-very-definite vote, and two firm votes for Saltmarsh. So, Saltmarsh it is.

This pleases my sense of nostalgia: I owned two of the three original AD&D modules and probably still have them around somewhere. And in reading through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh sourcebook for 5th Edition, I'm pleased to see that they've kept a lot of the original adventures and expanded on the setting enough to make it usable for an entire campaign. I'm almost sorry that I didn't start the kids' D&D adventures with this sourcebook instead of Roslof Keep, though that wasn't really possible; Saltmarsh hadn't been published yet when we started playing.

On the plus side, the next time that the group decides that they want to adventure somewhere outside of Roslof Keep, I can always send 'em down to Saltmarsh.

But, yeah: new campaign, and I'm running it. Only one of the players has reported in with a finished character, and there's at least a possibility that the group will be composed entirely of bards, and I still have to figure out how they met and how they ended up in the coastal town of Saltmarsh, but... I guess we're going to sort that out by tomorrow night. Or on tomorrow night.

One way or another, we'll get it done.