Beyond the Shore: Session 6

This is not my home. How did I get so far from water? 

It must be over that way somewhere. 

I am the color of wine, of tinta. The inside of my powerful 

right claw is saffron-yellow. See, I see it now; I wave it like a 

flag. I am dapper and elegant; I move with great precision, 

cleverly managing all my smaller yellow claws. I believe in the 

oblique, the indirect approach, and I keep my feelings to myself. 

But on this strange, smooth surface I am making too much 

noise. I wasn't meant for this. If I maneuver a bit and keep a 

sharp lookout, I shall find my pool again. Watch out for my right 

claw, all passersby! This place is too hard. The rain has stopped, 

and it is damp, but still not wet enough to please me. 

My eyes are good, though small; my shell is tough and tight. 

In my own pool are many small gray fish. I see right through 

them. Only their large eyes are opaque, and twitch at me. They 

are hard to catch but I, I catch them quickly in my arms and 

eat them up. 

What is that big soft monster, like a yellow cloud, stifling 

and warm? What is it doing? It pats my back. Out, claw. There, 

I have frightened it away. It's sitting down, pretending nothing's 

happened. I'll skirt it. It's still pretending not to see me. Out of 

my way, O monster. I own a pool, all the little fish that swim in it, 

and all the skittering waterbugs that smell like rotten apples. 

Cheer up, O grievous snail. I tap your shell, encouragingly, 

not that you will ever know about it. 

And I want nothing to do with you, either, sulking toad. 

Imagine, at least four times my size and yet so vulnerable... I 

could open your belly with my claw. You glare and bulge, a 

watchdog near my pool; you make a loud and hollow noise. I 

do not care for such stupidity. I admire compression, lightness, 

and agility, all rare in this loose world. 

-- Elizabeth Bishop

________________________________________________________
The Red Sadness sails through the relatively calm waters of the Coral Sea. While the storm of the past two days had left the ship well off Captain Herrera's originally intended course, back to the busier shipping lanes near the Solomans and some potential bounty. In the meantime, all of the new recruits from Moonplum had been excused from their regular work.

Before dawn they were awakened by a stream of foul-mouthed invectives from the ship's master-gunner, Riaris Krine, pulled out of their hammocks, and marched up topside. As the sun began glimmering on the horizon, they found themselves floating in a pair of jolly boats, taking turns rowing to keep up with the big ship (though luckily with a trio of Thaduk's around, most of them were spared the workout).

Riaris stood balanced in the prow of the one boat, her mate Kipper in the other. By their command the two small boats rowed up to flank the Sadness, one on either side. Several ropes with grappling hooks attached are piled near them. "Alright you mong-loving dipstick assjackers! You and you!" she said, pointing to Caddis and Leopold as Rummy and Thaduk took turns with the oars. "Grab the ropes you pribbling pottle-deep tars, be quick!"

She took one of the grapples and demonstrates throwing it to latch onto the rail of the ship, then tied it off to a peg on the side of the jolly-boat. "Catch! Tie! Climb! Simple enough even you filthy motherloving landlubbers should be able to do it! If you fall off, you try again or your big friend will beat you senseless before supper!"

Caddis quickly grabbed a grapnel and easily tossed it up to catch on the ship's rail, then tied it off. "Now climb motherfucker!" came the cry from Riaris. Caddis scampered up the rope. About halfway up he was beaned by an empty rum-bottle, just part of a rain of garbage tossed at him by a couple of sailors in the aftcastle. Caddis held on despite the barrage and was soon back aboard the Sadness.

Leopold did not fair so well. It took him three tries, and much jeering from Master Krine, to catch the rail. Then, when he began to climb, a well-placed coconut from the deck knocked him clean off the rope and into the drink. Eventually, though, he managed to scramble back into the jolly-boat and up the rope to the deck.

Rummy went next, with little trouble, easily dodging the barrage of trash. Leaving only Riaris and Thaduk in the boat.

"Ship oars!" the gunner yelled. Thaduk took up the last grapnel and easily hooked the rail. Before he could start climbing, Riaris tied off the other ropes to his belt, "Haul us up!", she cried. And, sure enough, arm over arm, Thaduk hauled himself up to the deck of the Sadness, pulling the entire weight of the jolly boat up with him, with Riaris perched, balanced on the small boat as well.

The Moonplummers in the other little boat did not fair nearly so well. Henrye, Mace, and the other two Thaduks splashed about, often in the water, with many a missed throw of the grapples and many a face-full of trash. Helpful as ever, Leopold stepped up to the rail and sang out some encouragement for his fellow villagers.

________________________________________________________
As the party stood shouting encouragement to their compatriots, Fishguts made a rare appearance on deck, looking unusually sober, and tapped Caddis on the shoulder. "Cad, Cap'n wants crabs for his dinner tonight."

"Do we have any crab?"

"Course not, that'd be too easy!" FIshguts pointed to a shadow in the crystal-clear water, some hundred yards north of the ship. "You already got the boats out. Take your friends and row out to the reef over there, should be plenty of crabs to catch..."

"It's not that hard to catch crabs," Leopold pointed out, though it was clear he meant the other kind.

Rummy and Thaduk immediately lowered the jolly boat back into the water, and the four friends climbed down. Fishguts tossed them four large baskets and asked them to fill them up. Suddenly, Caddis thought to call back up, whining that they needed spears or harpoons in case the crabs were turtle-sized or otherwise put up a fight. Riaris, smiling, disappeared from the rail, returning moments later to toss three cutlasses down to them. At some additional prodding from Thaduk, Fishguts retrieved the collection of makeshift spears that Thaduk had made.

They began rowing out. Or, rather, Thaduk rowed, Rummy and Caddis stared over the side of the boat into the deep, clear water, pointing out sunken ships and other interesting features, and Leopold stood perched in the prow doing his best George Washington impression. A swift kick from Rummy sent Leopold toppling over the side into the water again. With Thaduk rowing, the jolly boat was well past before he came up, treading water and screaming the orcish word for whipped cream (the most vile-sounding curse word he knew).

The others picked him up and were soon floating over a beautiful coral reef, no more than five feet below the surface in some places. Through the clear water, they could easily spot several crabs skittering over the coral. "Let's make it a game and see who can get crabs the fastest," Caddis suggested.

"I already won that one," relied Leopold. Caddis, Thaduk, and Rummy dove in and started collecting crabs, with Rummy taking a quick lead in the competition. Leopold lounged in the boat, taking off his shirt to let it dry out, and keeping watch for anything bigger than a crab. Sure enough, he soon spotted a pair of creatures, looking like five-foot-long lobsters with their tails of eels, swimming towards them from deeper water. He quickly grabbed one of Thaduk's wooden spears and tossed it at the lobstrosities. While the spears buoyancy kept it from reaching the creatures, it did get their attention and they veered towards the boat.

Thaduk breached the water with a shirt full of crabs just as the two lobstrosities reached the boat. One of the creatures leaped into the boat, grabbing Leopold with both claws. The other latched onto Thaduk's leg. Paddling with his arms and kicking with his one free leg, Thaduk dragged the lobstrosity over to where he could grab the floating spear and dispatched the monster with a single blow. Even in death though, the creature remained fixed to his leg, its death throws only serving to dig the claw in deeper.

Rummy came up and pulled himself into the boat, grabbing a cutlass and swinging wildly at the one on Leopold. Much deeper than the others, Caddis looked up and, seeing the struggle in the boat, fixed the remaining lobstrosity with his evil eye, putting it to sleep. The creature slumped to the side, releasing its grip on Leopold. Caddis pulled himself into the boat and dispatched the beast with his claws, but, in its dying spasms, it again tore into Leopold, knocking him unconscious.

Rummy, ignore the shirt draped on the side of the boat to dry, pulled off Leopold's pants and tried to tie a tourniquet to stop the bleeding with them, but only managed to hurt his friend more. Thaduk swam over and grabbed one of the swords and used it to pry the other creature off of his leg, then dumped its body in the boat with Leopold, giving the bleeding bard even more scratches. Finally Rummy was able to stop the bleeding.

They quickly filled the remaining crab baskets and started to row back with their load of crabs and lobstrisities, which Caddis assured them were a delicacy. On their way back to the ship, Caddis spotted the wreck of an old ship, just past the drop-off of the reef, maybe a hundred feet deep. Curiosity getting the better of him, he left the others behind and swam down to check it out.

The deck was littered with bones and rusted weapons, the remains of the poor sots who died on deck before the ship could sink. There was one cannon that might have been salvageable, if he could find a way to haul it up, but little else of value, so he headed into what he assumed to be the Captain's cabin. Inside he found an old, rotting sea chest. The lock was rusted enough that he could easily break it open. Within were three fine bottles of very old French wine, a pair of finely carved chopsticks, apparently made from animal horn, and three wax-sealed ceramic ewers.

Caddis gathered up the loot and started swimming back to the boat, messaging Rummy and Thaduk with what he had found. Rummy immediately messaged back that he could see another lobstrisity swimming up behind Caddis from beyond the ship. Caddis swam as fast as he could, but the beast easily closed the distance. Caddis turned and gave it the evil eye, but it shrugged this off and swam on, catching Caddis in both its claws and tearing into his flesh.

Caddis desperately held on to his loot, glaring at the thing again, again with no result. Thaduk dove in, swimming down as fast as he could, ignoring the building pressure in his ears, and hurled one of his spears at the thing, putting all the power he could behind the throw to drive the weapon through the water. The spear struck home with tremendous force, splitting the lobstrosity from its mouth to its tail. They hauled the loot and the remains of the third lobstrosity up to the boat, then returned to the ship.

________________________________________________________
Seeing them return with a pile of succulent claws, most of the crew temporarily abandoned their work to rush to the rail and help the party haul their catch aboard. Somewhere in the chaos, Sandara Quinn managed to heal their wounds and Leopold disappeared, presumably absconded to his bunk with Tilly Bracket (willingly or no).

Caddis slipped down to the galley, carrying the things he took from the sunken ship before they could be confiscated by the ship's officers. He immediately opened one of the wine bottles, pouring a mug for himself and Fishguts. Fishguts used up the rest of the bottle cooking the lobstrosities. He secreted the chopsticks in a pocket, then started examining the ewers. Each showed signs of bas-relief markings, mostly worn away. He grabbed a cooled coal from the stove and some parchment paper from the baking supplied and took rubbings, revealing three names: "Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy", "Captain Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland", and "Commander Frederick Marryat". Presuming them to thus be funerary in nature (and thus not something he wanted to mess with further at the moment), Caddis stashed the urns in his locker.

Thaduk, meanwhile cornered Mr. Plugg, the First Mate, inquiring about his life on the ship, his plans, and other things. Caught in an unusually good mood thanks to the promise of lobster for dinner, Mr. Plugg explained about the battle with an imperial warship in which they lost much of the crew prior to the raid on Moonplum--a battle the pirates won, killing all of the sailors and sending the ship down to Davy Jone's Locker. He talked about life as a pirate and the fact that there really was no such thing as retirement--he couldn't go back to polite society for fear of being hanged, he might one day retire to "The Republic", but the only way he'd save enough money for that would be to become captain of his own ship (a thing he often dreamed of). He hoped that in one of their raids the Sadness might take a nice prize and that Captain Herrera might decide he'd like to be "Admiral Herrera" and let Mr. Plugg captain the new ship. When asked about "The Republic", Mr. Plugg told Thaduk about the Republic of the Bahamas, Though Thaduk had heard about the Empires unofficial war with the pirates of the Republic, he seemed surprised that it was so far away. "Aye, a five month voyage at the least...some of us have not seen a home other than this ship in a long time..."

After the chat, Thaduk and Rummy wandered down below decks where Caddis opened the second bottle of wine. Thaduk pointed out that the crew looked especially lax today, and that he'd probably have to punish quite a few people. So, they began plotting how they might use the unusual dinner as a distraction to help Thaduk once again give the appearance of doing his duty without having to actually beat anyone.

When the bell for Bloody Hour rang, they stopped by the galley to pick up the food. Fishguts passed them a giant platter of crabs, explaining that the logstrosities were destined for the officers, "but I can let you have a taste before the girls come to haul it off". They took the crabs and the evening's rum ration topside where the crew had gathered. Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge pulled nearly a dozen people out of the crowd to stand against the mast for a whipped, including all the four Moonplummers who had been less-than-successful in the morning's boarding exercise.

Unable to fake so many, Thaduk went ahead and whipped all the experienced pirates. Even holding back he shredded their clothes and left large welts over their already scarred backs. When he came to the Moonplummers, Caddis conjured up the sound of one of the crewmen saying "There aren't enough crabs for all of us, I'm eating now!" starting a minor riot near the food.

The distraction lasted only long enough for Thaduk to fake-beat his two uncles, before the officers delivered some ad-hoc beatings and pulled three more sailors up to the mast. Thaduk delivered some (light) lashes to these three, then returned to Mace and Henrye. Caddis this time tried a repeat performance of his Saint Elmo's Fire trick from the other day, which was enough to spare Mace any real discomfort, but not lasting.

Finally, with the officers paying a bit too much attention, Thaduk snapped the whip near Henrye and shouted some orcish curses (something about the proper way to eat crab claws), but did not hit him. At the snap, Henrye instinctively turned his head to glare at Thaduk. Caddis stepped in, "No, hit him right here..." he said, touching Henrye on the back and laying an illusion over him. Caddis stepped back, silently messaging Henrye that he should scream when the whip snapped. Henrye refused to play along, glaring defiantly at the two boys, until Thaduk was finally forced to whip him for real.

After the beatings, the officers, mouths watering, quickly retreated to the captain's quarters for dinner, the crew attacked the pile of crabs, and Caddis, Thaduk, and Rummy slipped off to cause some mayhem. Figuring the unusual meal would be a good and lasting distraction, the three of them headed for the officer's quarters. Caddis and Thaduk took up positions standing watch over the stairs leading up and down, respectively, while Rummy went to work on the lock using an old nail as a pick. Surprisingly it worked...

Pushing the door open a crack, he heard a loud sound, like a spring uncoiling, and suddenly found his arm pinned to the door by a harpoon which had piercing clean through his forearm. He gritted his teeth and stifled a scream. The door was now wide open and he was well and thoroughly stuck, and bleeding profusely. Caddis rushed down to check, the  messaged for Thaduk, who came and broke off the shaft of the harpoon forcing it the rest of the way out of Rummy's arm (to more barely suppressed screaming).

They wrapped up Rummy's arm to staunch the bleeding and discussed how they could cover up the evidence of the forced entry. Of course, there was the bloody harpoon head embedded in the door and the massive pool of blood to deal with. They debated for a bit, then Rummy convinced them to let him look around before they tried to destroy the evidence, since the door was open anyways. Thaduk and Caddis went back to watch as Rummy cased the room.

The officer's quarters were cramped. There were a couple of windows in the rear, a couple of unlit lanterns hanging from the rafters, and two narrow doors, one leading off to either side. Six hammocks were strung up, each with a foot-locker, the same issued to the crewmen, though with better locks. Insufficient locks it seemed.

Rummy easily opened the first chest, easily identifiable as Mr. Pluggs by the presence of the old naval captain's uniform that he had worn during the raid on Moonplum. Inside were heavy-duty manacles, a crossbow, several bolts with heads carved into the shape of screaming human faces rather than typical points, other sundry items, and...a bag...that jingled...a lot. Rummy pocketed the bag of coins and closed the lid.

He then made his way around to the other footlockers. The second took slightly more time to pick, but included a very nice set of lockpicks which made the rest mindlessly easy for him to open. He was surprisingly reserved in his looting, passing over Riaris Krine's fine weapons, the carpenter's excellent tools, various flasks of potions, poisons, and alchemical items that the officers had collected, and even other coinage. In the end all he took was the lockpicks, Mr. Plugg's cash, some bandages from the ship's surgeon's stores, and one very large ruby from the gunner's mate's chest.

While poking around in the carpenter's chest, he found a secret compartment in the lid. Prying this open he found only a plain-looking brown woolen blanket, albeit a very tick, well-woven, and extra-warm looking one. Thinking gods-know-what, he took the blanket and spread it out overtop of the chests and bunks. Then, he lit one of the lanterns and smashed it down onto the blanket, dousing the heavy woolen thing with oil and lighting the whole on fire.

Then Rummy ran out the door and up the stairs...

Beyond the Shore: Session 5

My spirit is a roaring sea,

I'm born to ride the crashing wave

to conquer each challenge anew.

Ready to fight, forever brave

ready to face a foe like you.

Out from the shadows you appear

and steal me from my sheltered home.

The day has come, the day we fear,

now I must face you on my own.

Gavin Aung Tha

_____________________________________________________________
After battling the giant turtle, the ship slows and the crew is set to making repairs to the hull where the turtle rammed it. Caddis fetches a large axe and a crowbar from the galley's collection of unusual tools and dives back into the water to begin harvesting the turtle meat. He makes an ugly job of it, destroying the shell of the ancient creature, wasting half the meat, and leaving a bloody mess in the water. The sight of several jagged dorsal fins breaching the surface of the water prompts him to give up with what he's got. He scrambles back aboard the Sadness and Thaduk and some of the other swabs help him haul a large net, laden with nearly three quarters of a ton of meat up onto the ship before the sharks can make off with it.

As evening approaches, the wind shifts, blowing in from the north and bringing a steady drizzle of rain. Adriana lounges at the rail, shirking her work and Thaduk is forced to snap the whip at her to get her back into the rigging. During bloody hour, Adriana, Crimson Cog, Ratline Rattsberger, and Tam Tate are thrown before the mast and Thaduk is charged to give them six lashes each for shirking.

Thaduk bellows some vile things in Orcish (a recipe for plum pudding) and snaps the whip, but hesitates to strike a blow, glancing meaningfully at the first mate. Caddis catches the hint and messages that he should wait. Suddenly, a voice very much like the captain's calls for Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge from the front of the ship. As soon as the first mate and bosun walk away, Caddis gives the go ahead and Thaduk commences with the beatings. While none of the crew are actually struck by the whip, Caddis's illusions leave the appearance of some very convincing weals and welts along their backs.

Dinner is a hearty affair, with Fishguts making a thick, meaty turtle stew. After dinner, most of the crew withdraws below-decks as the rain starts to pick up. Mr. Plugg shows up fifteen minutes later to announce that Adriana, Leopold, Ratline, and Tate are all needed to stand storm watch and would be working a full night-shift. The four of them reporting to the deck and make their way up into the rigging. It is cold, wet work, and the storm intensifies through the night, but Leopold's cheerful tunes keep everyone awake and in relatively high spirits.

Belowdecks, Caddis and Thaduk see that Henrye has claimed a hammock as far away from the other Moonplummers as possible and is currently having a quiet chat with a Frog in a foppish, purple hat. They walk over and try to patch things up with him, Thaduk even going so far as to return Henrye's helmet, but have another pile of accusations (of varying degrees of accuracy) thrown in their faces, including: conspiring with the pirates in the raid on Moonplum, blowing up Joshua's ship, taking Henrye and the others prisoner, being chummy with their supposed captors, and even killing Joshua Duncaster. It becomes clear that he is completely unwilling to listen to their explanations. Thaduk finally tries to guide Henrye over to the other Moonplummers to talk, only to be shoved back and knocked down by the old soldier, accompanied by Henrye's vow to find a way off this ship and see them brought to justice for their crimes.

Giving up on making up with their old friend, for tonight at least, Thaduk and Caddis return, exhausted, to their hammocks and go to bed, leaving Thaduk Smith on watch.

After a night of heavy wind and rain, the storm hits the Red Sadness full force. An hour before dawn the bosun rings the bell and signals "all hands on deck". The ship is tossed about on the high seas and Caddis and Thaduk are both overcome with sea-sickness as soon as they rise from their hammocks, which, strange as they are to sleep in, at least absorb some of the rocking of the ship. Heaving even before they reach the main deck, Caddis is pulled into the galley by Fishguts and pushed into the cook's bunch with a bucket. "Stay there," the old cook says, "I'll take up the morning biscuit..."

Thaduk comes out on deck, only to projectile vomit a stream of half-digested turtle meat across the deck. He clings to the rail, emptying his stomach as the rest of the crew scramble into the rigging or lash themselves to the deck to help guide the ship through the storm. The sails are taken in, and the sailing master calls two other crewmen to help her hold the wheel against the waves pounding the ship's rudder. Adriana and Leopold, well into their third consecutive shift, scramble around the rigging, trying along with everyone else to keep the ship from foundering.

Thaduk, still sick, decides to head below-decks. Just as he turns to head back, the ship rolls. The ship deck lurches as the ship rocks violently to one side, sliding down the face of a large swell, only to roll back in the other direction as is drops into the trough and starts up the side of the next. Thaduk, already unsteady on his feet, is sent sliding all the way across the deck and only barely manages to grab the rail before going overboard.

Finally Thaduk manages to pull himself along the rail and make it to the stairs down to the hold. He is stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Turning he see's Master Scourge, but, on seeing Thaduk's face, the bosun just shakes his head and motions for Thaduk to get below.

The storm rages on, but the crew keeps it together long into day and on into the second night. Finally, deep into what must be her fourtieth consecutive hour in the rigging, Adriana sees a break in the clouds and the dim light of dawn. The ship turns towards the light, hoping to break free of the storm, only to plow headlong into an oncoming swell. A wall of water washes across the deck and the ship pitches up, climbing the wave at nearly a fourty-five degree angle. Adriana, Sandara Quinn, Tilly Bracket, and Jaundiced Japes all fall from the rigging and are swept overboard.

Adriana kicks and fails, her head breaking the water to gasp for air, only to be shoved back under by another wave. Aboard the sadness, Leopold scrambled down the rigging, screaming "Men overboard!" and tossing a rope out towards Adriana. Hearing the cry, faint over the roaring wind, Thaduk and Caddis rush back up topside,  managing to keep their balance this time despite their sickness and the sharply pitching deck. Leopold points out Adriana and begins singing a dark chanty to dispel their sea-sickness.

Thaduk ties a rope off to the rail and dives into the water, swimming out towards Japes, the nearest of the four crewmen swept overboard. As Thaduk swims back with Japes, Leopold and Caddis brace themselves against the gunwale as Adriana grabs the rope. The two strain, but are unable to haul her in. Finally Caddis manages to get enough slack to tie the rope off to the rail, allowing Adriana to climb up on her own.

Caddis then looks out and spots Sandara and Tilly. Sandara seemed to be swimming well, holding her shipmate above the water, but the two of them were quickly being swept away from the ship by the waves. Leopold tied off another rope, then he and Caddis leapt into the water together, swimming as hard as they could for the girls. Luckily the rope, being the standard 1000-ft. lengths used aboard ships, easily reached the girls. Caddis stripped off his trousers and made them into a flotation device, and draped them around Tilly's neck. With the rope, the floating pants, and three strong swimmers, everyone was soon safely back aboard the Sadness.

Less than an hour after everyone was back aboard, the Red Sadness reached the edge of the storm and relatively clear skies. Caddis had some difficulty recovering his pants from Tilly, until Leopold suggested that she could have his pants. Leopold sang yet another song to dispel the crew's fatigue from nearly two days of rough work, then he and Tilly disappeared into the hold, with a suggestion from Leopold that maybe they could use those ropes for something more pleasant. Fishguts came up on deck with a double serving of ship's biscuits, and Master Scourge announced that everyone would be given leave to rest until the noon bell.

Everyone collapsed into their bunks, only to awakened by the bell only four hours later. Leopold woke to find himself naked and hog-tied, wrists to ankles. He, once-again, tumbled out of his bunk to land face-first on the floor, to much laughter from the rest of the crew. He called for Caddis to help him, but Thaduk, laughing, blocked the way and prevented anyone from untying the poor bard.

A few poorly chosen words on Leopold's part, directed at the big orc, soon had Thaduk carrying the naked, hog-tied Leopold up on deck, where he was hung from the bowsprit. Leopold wept and apologized and pleaded for his life, as everyone on board laughed uproariously. Finally Thaduk took him down, cut him loose, and yelled at the rest of the crew to get to work. Leopold wandered down below to find TIlly standing by his bunk, holding his clothes for him. He muttered a sarcastic "thanks," and then ran up on deck before the first mate could yell at him for shirking his work.

On deck, Caddis and Leopold overheard the Captain talking with Mr. Plugg, Riaris Krine, and Peppery Longfarthing. Apparently the storm had blown the ship way off course, nearly one-hundred and sixty leagues farther south and east than the captain wished to be, far overshooting their target, the shipping lanes between the Soloman islands and New Caledonia. Leopold walked up and tried to offer his services as a navigator, only to be backhanded by the captain, sending Leopold toppling over the rail from the aftcastle down to the main deck, where he hit, hard, and passed out.

Sandara healed Leopold enough to help him stand and ushered him down to his bunk with a reminder of Captain Herrera's rule number 1: "don’t speak to me". Caddis kept listening for a bit longer to find that the captain and officers were not at all worried about where they were, but rather at the lost time. The captain was anxious to get back into occupied waters and find a prize. To that end, he ordered Master Krine to round up the new recruits tomorrow and start straining them for boarding actions.

Getting to work, Thaduk looked about the deck for anyone not working their hardest. On a whim, he singled out Crimson Cogward, the only swab among those punished during the bloody hour before the storm hit. Thaduk snapped the whip at the sailor, yelling something about wine in orcish. It was clear that Cog was trying his hardest not to snap back at the big and dangerous orc. His neck flushed bright red with mixed anger and embarrassment, the veins on his head bulged, and as he went to work scrubbing, he bit through his lip, sending a trickle of night-black blood running down his chin. Channeling his rage into his work, Cog scrubbed so hard that splinters flew.

A few hours later, Leopold woke up. Once again he was naked in his hammock, but this time Tilly was lying beside him. Trying not to wake her, and quietly apologizing to her that "there were more one kind of crabs on this ship", he went up on deck. Only to find that he had forgotten to dress, and it was less than an hour before dinner. As the crew burst out laughing at him, again, he ran down and got dressed, then returned to finish the last thirty minutes or so of his shift.

At bloody hour, Leopold and Tilly found themselves tied to the mast. Once again Thaduk and Caddis conspired to distract the officers so that Thaduk would not have to actually beat the miscreants. Caddis created a great explosion of light and noise near the front of the ship, sending everyone except him, Thaduk, and the accused running to see what it was. While they were away, Thaduk immediately began ranting and snapping the whip, accompanied by piteous wailing from Leopold. When the crew returned, Leopold made a great show of writhing on the ground in agony, to many a chuckle and derogatory comment from the crew regarding his fortitude.

After the bloody hour, Caddis served up some soup (which was barely edible), and the crew took their first moments of real relaxation in three days. Adriana, wandering about, found Henrye Allingham in the fo'castle, talking to (or rather at) Aretta, a big-boned woman who determinedly ignored him, keeping her nose in a book the entire time. Henrye was speaking, not too subtly, about mutiny and trying to take over the ship.

He shut up when he heard Adriana approaching, and she tried once again to reason with him. He informed her that her father had sent word to Port Montague as soon as it became clear that she had been kidnapped and that a rescue was surely on the way. While unable to convince him of the necessity of playing along with the pirates for fear of keelhauling, she at least got him to concede that "you must not be in on Caddis's and Thaduk's plot". "Don't worry," he said, playing the rescuer, "I'll find a way to get us out of here."

After he left, the other woman looked up from her book, "Be careful with that one," she said, "he's an idiot."

Beyond the Shore: Session 4

I found 

Life above 

The cannons of bliss 

Firing In the dark 

We broke 

Love below 

Untimely cliches 

So we could leave a mark 

These eyes 

Built the gun 

Now who is the man 

Trying to speak the truth 

I found life above 

The cannons of bliss 

I will remember you 

-- Andrew Creigh Currie

______________________________________________________________
It was the evening after the attack on Moonplum. Henrye Allingham, still a little disoriented from being drugged with taggit and taking a sap to the back of the head, gathered up his weapons and armor. Five of Moonplum's young men and women--Caddis Duncaster, Jessica Duncaster, Thaduk the Smith, Adriana Harlowe, daughter of Lord Harlowe, and Thaduk, the son of his old friend and mentor--had apparently been taken by the pirates, along with all of that year's wine harvest. Joshua Duncaster, the father of two of the missing youths, was preparing his small fishing trawler to go after the ship and rescue their townsfolk.

The little fishing ship, a two-masted lugsailed rig, set out with six aboard. Henrye and Joshua, Thaduk the Sot, who, while a complete drunkard, had lost his nephew and cousin, and Mace Dunlop, Leopold Burton, and Ukug "Rummy" Rummm, all good men to have in a fight. They didn't have a plan, but they could think of that on the way.

Two days later, they spotted the ship on the horizon. They had sailed hard and they were gaining on it. Of course, they still had no plan, and most of them were more than a little drunk, since Thaduk the Sot had filled the little ship's entire food stores with nothing buy grog and last-year's wine. Leopold and Rummy, the best sailors in Moonplum, had taken over manning the sails and rudder, leaving Henrye to brood about what they was going to do against a ship full of seasoned pirates.

He was at a complete loss, and, try as he might, could not keep the look of desolation from his face.

Then he heard the cry from Rummy, "They're coming about! They've seen us!"

Henrye sighed, he knew they were doomed.

______________________________________________________________
It was early in the morning of their third day aboard the Red Sadness. Caddis had just finished handing out the morning biscuits to the crew when the cry came from the crow's nest.

"Lugger off the starboard stern!"

"Just a fishing boat," Mr. Plugg said, peering through his spyglass, "steady as she goes Master Longfarthing."

But, an hour later the call went up again. "She's still there!"

"Following us? What range?" Mr. Plugg called up.

"Two knots and holding!"

"Runner, call Captain Herrera..."

"I heard, Mr. Plugg!" yelled Captain Herrera coming out of his cabin. "Peppery, bring us about. Riaris, run out the long nine. Master Scourge, round up the new recruits, time to give them some target practice."

Caddis, Adriana, and Thaduk soon found themselves huddled around a long-barreled cannon in the bow of the ship. Riaris Krine, the ship's master gunner, walked them through the complicated process of cleaning and prepping the big gun, loading the heavy nine-pound rounds, and aiming the thing.

Caddis was handed control first, and, siting in the long gun, quickly recognized the rig of his father's fishing boat. Of course, there was not much he could do with the entire crew watching. He took aim and fired. Luckily it was a long-distance shot, and he had no clue what he was doing. The cannon-ball splashed into the water a good 50 yards from the target ship.

______________________________________________________________
Far from the mark as it was, the cannon-ball splashed down much too close to the little fishing trawler for comfort.

"They're shooting at us!" Leopold called. "We must sail in a serpentine pattern to evade their shots!"

"No!" Rummy called back, "That will give them more time to shoot at us. We should charge them full speed so they have fewer chances to sink us." Even as he talked, the half-orc looked around the little ship for a flotation device, sure that they'd have to abandon it sooner rather than later.

As the young men shouted, Henrye was still lost in his miserable funk, thinking about how he had doomed not only the five already taken by the pirates, but also these five who had volunteered to come with him. He was the worst leader ever.

The others aboard were no more help to the two youths piloting the boat. Mace was a good fighter, but didn't know the first thing about sailing, Thaduk the Sot was, true to form, passed out drunk, and Joshua Duncaster had been panicking since they first caught sight of the big three-masted pirate ship.

Leopold grabbed hold of the rudder and turned the little trawler just as a second shot splashed into the water, right where they had been a moment ago.

______________________________________________________________
Back on the ship, Caddis and Thaduk did everything they could to not shoot the Moonplum fishing boat, without looking like they were deliberately sabotaging themselves. Finally, when their ruses became a little too obvious, and their chances of missing a little too low, Caddis stared Riaris Krine in the eyes and charmed her...

The tough gunner smiled at Caddis, stepped up to the cannon, and said, with a little too much silk in her voice, "Let me show you how it's done." And then proceeded to blow a large hole in the stern of the fishing boat. "There, not so hard." She then put her hands on Caddis' waist, guided him back to the cannon, and helped him aim, her hot breath tickling the back of his neck as she whispered instructions.

Caddis aimed, touched off the fuse, and...

BOOM!

Blew the main mast right off the little boat.

His dad's fishing boat stopped dead in the water and began to list to one side, taking on water from the hole in her stern. Caddis watched in horror as his dad, his old friend Leopold and Rummy, and the other villagers abandoned the little ship and began swimming for their lives.

"Make way, Master Longfarthing!" Captain Herrera yelled. "Bring us alongside the wreck. Master Scourge, round up the men and prepare for some fishing, we could use a few more hands!"

The Red Sadness slowed and pulled alongside the little ship from Moonplum. Thaduk, Caddis, and the gunner's mate, Kipper, dove in to fish out the half-dozen woebegone villagers. Once aboard, the villagers were stripped of their gear, save their clothes and Leopold's oddly frightening longsword (which none of the superstitious pirates were willing to touch). Captain Herrera then gave his usual speech thanking them for volunteering, telling them not to talk to him, and threatening some keel-hauling if they stepped out of line before retreating to his cabin.

Once the captain left, Mr. Plugg stepped in, recruiting Leopold and Rummy as new riggers and immediately sending them up into the upper rigging to hoist the mainsail that had been lowered to slow the ship. Henrye, Joshua, Mace, and Thaduk the Sot were all assigned to the swabs, and Master Scourge decided that, given the new hands, the ship needed a thorough scrubbing, top to bottom. Mops and brushes were handed out, buckets were filled with sea-water mixed with oil-soap, and all fifteen swabs went to work.

After less than a minute of scrubbing, Thaduk stood up, dropped his brush and glared at a gnome wearing an eye-patch, pointing at his section of the deck and growling. The gnome wet himself, but immediately went to work scrubbing Thaduk's section. Spotting Thaduk standing there issuing orders, Scourge walked up, glared at him for a minute, then smiled and handed him a whip. "Looks like I've had you doing the wrong work..."

Thaduk took the whip gingerly, then gave it a test-snap and nodded. Smiling and clapping Thaduk on the back, Master Scourge kicked the gnome, pulled him to his feet, and pushed him up against the main-mast, indicating that Thaduk should beat him. Thaduk hesitated a moment, then snapped the whip in the air with such force that it echoed across the entire deck like a thunderclap. Every swab on deck looked at him standing all chummy with the bosun, eyes wide, then immediately turned and began scrubbing with all their might. The happy bosun clapped Thaduk on the back again and extolled him to "Keep those lazy swabs working..." then wandered off.

Thaduk began bellowing in orcish, which sounded like horrible cursing even though he was just stating a recipe for whipped cream, and cracking the whip (in the air rather than at anyone). He yelled and cracked loud enough that even Leopold and Rummy, now working the top-gallants, were inspired to work diligently. The gnome, amazed that he had not been beaten unconscious, worked harder than anyone.

Jaundiced Jape, catching on to what Thaduk was yelling, ran down below decks and told Caddis that the bosun demanded whipped cream with his dinner. Caddis shrugged and obliged, milking the goats and whipping up the cream. Of course, with Fishguts out cold again, he had made fish stew for dinner and had no idea what the cream would be used for.

Once it was clear that everyone was working as hard as they could, Scourge wandered back over to Thaduk with many a hearty clap on the back and told him he could the rest of the afternoon off. Thaduk wandered down to the bilges, of his own free will, and spent the afternoon beating about the corners, looking for, but failing to find, something to hit. Finally he went up to the galley and helped Caddis assemble the evening meal, grabbing the bowl of whipped cream and the barrel of rum and hauling them topside when the evening bell rang.

For the first time, probably in weeks, there were no beatings handed out during the Bloody Hour...everyone having worked diligently for once. Instead, Master Scourge used the Bloody Hour to announce that he was promoting Thaduk to Bosun's Mate in charge of discipline and that the terrifyingly strong orc would be handing out any future beatings. As the officers withdrew, Caddis caught the gaze of Mr. Plugg, the first mate, and implanted the idea that Caddis, as the brains behind Thaduk's brawn, might indeed make a good captain...

Thaduk then joined Caddis in rationing out the evening meal. He made a point of personally serving all of the swabs their rum, topped with whipped cream. Those swabs that understood Orcish were amazed to understand that Thaduk's angry bellowing had not been the threat of more violence for failing to work, but a promise of rewards, however minor, for working hard.

Once dinner was served and most of the officers had withdrawn to dine with the captain, the typical evening festivities began to kick off. At the far end of the ship, drinking games started, a pair of the crew struck up an almost passable song on a fiddle and a concertina, and a couple even danced along. Leopold tried to strike up a song to entertain the crew, but was drowned out by a sudden raucous chorus from the orcs aboard the ship (all three Thaduks, Jaundiced Japes, Samms Toppin, and Grok) lead by Rummy.

As the dueling songs continued, Henrye Allingham stalked up to Thaduk, a look of simultaneous bemusement and barely controlled rage on his face. He spluttered for a minute, clearly having trouble ordering his thoughts, then screamed at Thaduk, asking him how he could be so friendly with pirates that had kidnapped him only a couple days earlier, how he had so quickly stooped to beating and terrifying people and accepting promotions and honors from criminals, and accusing him of betraying Moonplum and being in league with the pirates from the beginning.

Thaduk offered Henrye another mug of rum and whipped cream (a "White Orc" as he called it).

Henrye slapped it out of his hand.

Thaduk, calm rational fellow that he is, responded with a quick uppercut to Henrye's jaw which sent him flying over the rail of the ship to splash into the sea. Henrye's shiny helmet landed against the rail and Thaduk casually picked it up and planted it on his own head.

After a couple seconds, Henrye's head broke the water, but he was clearly having trouble swimming. His arms flailed wildly. His head disappeared and reappeared under the waves several times, each longer than the previous. Finally Rummy helped Caddis tie a rope around his waste and Caddis dove over the rail, pulling Henrye back to the surface just before he drowned. Once Rummy had hauled them both back onto the ship, Thaduk knelt down and offered Henrye yet another mug of rum. The stubborn soldier swung weakly at it, whether to knock it away or accept is hard to say, then passed out.

The drama dealt with, Thaduk felt a tentative tap on his shoulder as Tilly Bracket (the ships resident cougar) asked if she could have another White Orc. Thaduk server her a drink, then her gaze fell on Leopold. She slinked her way over to the bard, wrapped an arm around his waist, and asked if he wanted to dance. Clearly not getting the memo, Leopold guided her over to where the jam session was happening near the focastle and spun her through a couple of steps, before she grabbed his ass and said "That's not what I meant". The two of them then quickly disappeared down to the bunks in the lower hold.

Once they were gone, Thaduk overturned some empty barrels and tried to get the non-dancing, non-playing crewmembers to join him in a drum circle. Failing that, he led the new Moonplum recruits down to the lower decks and helped them sort out bunks near to his so he could stand watch over them, and they all turned in for the night.

______________________________________________________________
Leopold awoke with a start, unused to the ship's morning routine and the clanging of the bell. He promptly fell, face (and other things) first out of the hammock he had been lying in. Wincing in pain, he rubbed at his face and found his hand somehow only made it wet and stickier. Opening his eyes, he found that his hand, and, indeed, the entire front of his torso, has been covered in whipped cream.

The rest of the crew were streaming up on deck, pausing only briefly to smirk or giggle as they passed Leopold. He groaned and reach for his clothes, which lay scattered on the floor around the hammock, just out of reach. Once dressed, he caught up with Caddis, Thaduk, and Rummy just as they were climbing the stairs out of the middle hold.

A greasy hand shot out of the galley and grabbed Caddis, "Biscuits boy!" said a rough and slightly slurred voice. "Those cut-throats will beat you senseless if you forget their breakfast again!" Caddis took the proffered tray and hurriedly rejoined his friends as they ran on deck. Caddis passed out the hard ships biscuits to all the crew, then Master Scourge and Mr. Plugg bellowed out the days assignments. Once again Leopold and Rummy found themselves working the topsails, while Thaduk set about his new job: wandering about the deck, snapping his whip at the swabs, and bellowing in unspeakable things in his harsh orcish tongue. This time, Rummy told Leopold, he was apparently yelling something about how much better plum wine tasted than rum...

As the climbed into the rigging, Leopold tried to start up a chanty to help assuage the hangovers, fatigue, and/or nausea (all of the above more likely than not) that plagued so many of the crew. Unfortunately, Rummy's loud voice once again broke in over the bard's, drowning him out with a song that was soon taken up by the other riggers.

Caddis, meanwhile, took the tray back down to the kitchen where Fishguts pressed a harpoon into his hand. "Need some turtles for tonight's soup," he said simply. Caddis smiled, figuring that this should be easy, him being the son of a fisherman and all. Sadly, on his first sight of a shell passing beneath the boat, he cast...but forgot to keep hold of the line. Not only did he miss the turtle, but he lost the bloody harpoon beneath the waves.

Undaunted, Caddis grabbed another spear and dove into the water. It is a convenient thing for a fisherman to be able to breath water. Caddis dove after the stray harpoon, then started looking around for another turtle. Of course, when he saw one, it was not the one he was looking for, but rather a gargantuan monstrosity of a sea turtle, nearly 13 feet long, weighing more than two tons, and charging him with mouth wide.

Caddis swam as fast as he could back to the ship and was half-way up a rope when the turtle caught up to him. The giant turtle slammed into the side of the ship with sufficient force that the entire ship rocked to one side, sending crewmen sliding across the deck. The crew scrambled to right the ship, Riaris Krine ran for the armory, and Leopold and Rummy scrambled down from the rigging to help their friend.

Thaduk, seeing the turtle pass under the ship to the opposite side, grabbed one of the sharpened spar spears he had made the other evening and leaped onto the thing's back, stabbing into the gap in its shell by the neck. The turtle winced away from the blow and rolled, submerging Thaduk, then dove. Thaduk stabbed it again in the neck, causing the enraged giant to wing-over and swim back towards the ship at ramming speed.

On the ship, Leopold quickly healed Caddis. Krine ran out of the armory and began handing out heavy crossbows to those crewmen not busy righting the ship. Rummy grabbed one and fired, but it glanced harmlessly off the beast's shell. Caddis and Leopold grabbed crossbows and joined him at the rail. As they took aim, a word from Peppery Longfarthing, Thaduk's tri-corn hat wearing nemesis, caused the loaded bolts to burst into flame.

The turtle picked up speed as it neared the ship. Not wanting to be flatted against the keel, Thaduk leaped free of the turtle's back and swam for the front ship. The turtle slammed into the ship with the force of large cannon and the sound of splintering wood, tipping it almost halfway over. A wave washed over the deck, sweeping Joshua Duncaster and Rosie Cusswell overboard.

As the turtle appeared on the far side, Caddis and company fired. While the enchanted bolts somehow remained flaming as they passed into the water, the deflection of the water prevented any of them from connecting. The turtle turned for another pass at the boat and the crew began to truly panic, sure that another shot like that on the keel would sink them.

Finally the Captain shouted an order and Peppery Longfarthing stepped up to the rail and unleashed a lightning bolt into the water. The turtle rolled over and bobbed to the surface, its momentum carrying it to bump gently against the side of the ship. Thaduk was badly shocked, but still breathing, but Joshua and Rosie were both fried.

Leopold and Rummy ran below with the ship's carpenters to asses the damage. Caddis, meanwhile, leaped into the water. He confirmed that his father's heart had stopped from the shock. Unable to do much about that, he and Thaduk tied the dead turtle off to the ship's stern. It would slow the ship down, but at two tons, there was enough meat on the turtle to feed the crew for a month, presuming they didn't get sick of the taste of turtle and the sharks didn't devour the leftovers before they could be harvested. Caddis also collected a large supply of fish that were floating to the surface, stunned by the sudden electrification of the water only moments ago. Suddenly, Caddis caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see Rosie's body gone, and his father treading water, looking for all the world as if nothing had happened.

"Are you okay?" Caddis asked.

"Never felt better...but, why am I floating in the ocean?"

Caddis gathered up the fish, then helped his dad climb back aboard the ship. As soon as Joshua stood up, there was a gasp from the crew and everyone began to back away from the rail with much touching of collars. "Oh no..." was all Caddis managed to say before Sandara Quinn stepped forward, tipped her hat, and unleashed a blast of white-hot light in Joshua's direction.

And thus was Caddis' dad reduced to a pile of ash.

The Exodus: Session 20

Had a couple of weeks off from this game due to medical issues...
I apologize if it is even less coherent than the usual incoherence...

Cards:  Drowned River Thunderbird
        Chaos
        Plague among the Warblers
       
We surface out of a long-used-up mine shaft into the city
    Followed by hordes of frightened dwarven women and children
    Vadim flashes some House Surrin markers to some merchants
        We head towards the north gate (out and west)
    There is a Riot and a political gang-fight...
        Reds (fight the EC) vs. Blacks (open the gates and surrender)
    Breaks Like Wind scrys the Exarch's discussions...
        They realize they'd been conned hard-core...
            They begin mobilizing the golems to pursue us...
       
    Khadagan charges out of the caves into a pile of Reds...
        Pitches them into a slimy beast-trough with a big timber...
            Then whirlwinds as they close in...
    Khut finds a granary and decides to loot it...
        He swings up to the second floor...
        From his vantage he spots some female Pasht assassins on the roof...
        Ithunn starts giving him advice on how to hit on cats
            "Be confident, chicks love that..."
            But, with his deepest love talking to him he goes catatonic
    Ellen-Dear runs in and starts leading the dwarf refugees into the granary
        Squee organizes them to grab hay-bales...
            Loading them onto wagons...
                and the kids building forts out of the hay-bales...
    Ithunn stealths up and leaps over to chat with Pasht...
    Breaks Like Wind (still stoned) comes running in behind...
        Is stuffed unceremoniously into a wagon...
    THEN Sorqutani sets fire to the granary...
        Ado illusions up a horde of EC troops in the city...
            the riot stands in stunned silence...
    AND we kick open the doors of the granary and roll out of there...
   
THEN...

WE SPLIT THE PARTY
Ithun, Barruk, Ado, Ellen-Dear, and Khadagan lead the dworcs out of town

Khut, Sorq, Breaks, Vadim, Squee, and Iron-Dear head to the mercantile quarter
    Squee chews out the guard lieutenant and demands they open the gates...
        Khut makes the House Surrin markers appear in her back pocket...
            AND she flashes them...
        "What do we care what House Surrin says, the city is about to fall..."
        "We're going to run and save everyone we can...you should come along"
    They double-march lead us to the warehouses...
        We debate what to loot first...
        THEN a big palanquin hauled by flesh golems shows up...
            The Golems put the palanquin down and charge...
                Khut shoots the curtains off the palanquin...
                Sorq blasts flame at the golems...and lights them up...
                    One swings wildly at her, to no avail...
                    One starts sniffing around for Iron-Dear...but sucks...
                    the other two maul Vadim...
                        knock him through a window...into a burning building...
                Iron-Dear lights another one up...
            Khut rails the necromancer...
                the palanquin goes up in a gout of shadow and flame...
            Sorq and Iron-Dear light up the others...
            Breaks spots the invisible necromancer...
                and duels him mano-a-magical-mano...
                    countering his spells and blasting his ass...
            Vadim pulls out his reflective shield and sword...
                and stalks up to the necromancer...and misses...
                    the necromancer blasts him...
                        AND it bounces back and he kills himself...
            Squee drops a cloud of daggers on one...
                Khut blows the rune off and kills it very-very-dead...
            Sorq burns one down to its component atoms...
            Iron-Dear cuts the rune off the third burning golem...
            Vadim thorn-whips the last one into a burning building...
                Which collapses on him...
                    The golem stands up...
                        AND gets shot in the rune by Khut...
        We steal the beasts...
        Khut and Iron-Dear smash and grab the mages' guild...
            each comes out with two big bags of shinies...
                Cloak of Elvenkind
                Wand of the Warmage

We run for the gates...
    with 10 Blood War-beasts, pulling wagons...full of food!
        AND Khut is riding a ???
            AND makes himself scarce...
    We reach the north gate to kind Ithunn playing soccer with a golem's head...
        The rest of the golem hangs from the portculis, upside down, headless...
            AND everyone else playing pinata with it...
                AND Khadagan is now wielding a portculis...
        Apparently they told the Northern Gond that they would hold the gate...
            and sent the Northern Gond to the square to get reinforcements...
                AND the gonds in the square take control of the city...

AND we head out, booking it for the salt flats...
    Malik lead the way in the vanguard...
    Nohai scouts circle us....
    Blood warbeasts and holy mountain beasts in the center...
    The Gray Lady and the maggot-folk follow near the center...
        The core forming a tight academic community...
            Trying to assemble a portable replica of the golemworks...
    The warblers are sick...their eggs shells are brittle...
        Khadagan moves in and starts nursing them back to health...with vigor...
   
AS WE TRAVEL...
    Breaks dedicates himself to the mirrors...
        Watching for threats from the Fade...
            Which are clearly bleeding into reality through a nasty hole...
    Squee runs for Hulagu, finding supplies, apportioning rations...
        Helping the refugees get acclimated to life in the Ordu...
    Ithunn starts a witch-hunt for possible assassins...
        Finds some funny-dressed steppefolk and joins them for dinner...
            Vadim almost hits on them...
                Apparently he bathes in mares-milk...
            Iron-Dear points out their yellow eyes...totally NOT steppefolk...
        AND Ithunn and the Pasht start some kung-fu cat-fighting...
            Khut, lurking, is terribly turned-on...
            The rest of the cats fall asleep by the fire...
                The Catgirl leader introduces herself as Mrin of the Mountain...
        AND Squee appears out of nowhere "It's a kitty!"
    Vadim works with Broketooth and Gormak to mount fireworks on spears...
        Giving some anti-archer capability to our infantry...
    We all go talk to the Gray Lady to tell her about the skystone...
        Vadim tries to hook her up with Ellen-Dear...
        Khut, scorched, offers to smuggle her in to see the skystone...
            Vadim "Why are you on her side, she can't even breed!"
            Ellen-Dear "Oh, she can breed!"
        Khut explains the encounter in the skystone...asks to see her library...
            Also, he looks very very burned...
                And his yurt starts skittering away...
                    He runs back to catch it...or what he his in there...
        Ado asks about invoking Ohrmazd Bay...
            She suggests talking to the Malik Magi...
        Khadagan chats with her about herbalism...
            He offers her some black lotus...she accelerates the potato harvest...
    Ellen-Dear starts discussing golem-craft with the Dworcs...
    Barruk and Gan'baatar starts breaking the Malik up into squads of 25...
        Training them in group-combat (non-Champion) tactics...
            With Gan'baatar training them to incorporate Holy Mountain Beasts...
        Which makes Hoargrim Whiteman really happy...
            He nicknames them "The Iron Gorgons"...
                Because Malik on Blood Warbeasts charging as a unit is awesome...
    Iron-Dear takes some time getting to know the caravan...
        Then goes scouting with the Nohai...
            Whoever is out there is exremely good...but she has their number...
            As the rocks change to salt-flats...
                There is _something_ out there...
                    And its not just heat-shimmer...That ground is moving...
    Ado removes all adornments...cakes himself in mud and dust...
        Sits outside the camp with a broken warbler egg...
            And entreats the Lord of Light and Life (Ohrmazd Bay)...
                Going so far as to mortify himself with a cursed arrow...
                "Against evil from outside and to secure victory in war"
        The desert heat bakes down...
            All he can see is the searing white light...
                As he passes out...
                    He realizes he can see a patch of blackness against the sand...
                    Then realizes that he is looking at something pure white...
                    And the sand is made black...
                He has caught the attention of a spirit of pure white light...
   
Iron-Dear comes back into the camp...
    with a tattered bedraggled warbler...cradling a dead baby...
        and they both say "LOOK UP!"
AND it's the biggest thunderbird we've ever seen...
    Khut quick-shoots it and pushes it away from the herds...
    Sorqutani calls on the fire mother and blasts it with a witch bolt...
        drawing its attention...
            It dives and grabs Khut...
        The thing...was clearly a thunderbird...at one point...
            But has black feathers and stiched-shut eyes like an EC Warbler...
    Khut stabs it in the foot...It drops him...
        And he is snagged out of the air by a Juvenile Thunderbird...
            HIS NEW FRIEND
    Ithunn leaps 60 feet into the air...
        grabs Khut's ankles...gets flipped towards the bird...
            grabs a wing and wrenches, causing it to lose serious altitude...
                and proceeds to beat it out of the sky with her tusks...
        WHERE Vadim ropes it with a steel cable...and lashes him to a wagon...
    Barruk leaps on an exploding outhouse...
        Onto the head of the blackcrow-thunderbird...
            And SMITES it...and SMITES it again...with the sound of rolling thunder...
    Ellen-Dear fires an acid arrow strait in its teeth...
        Melting the bindings holding its mouth and eyes shut...
            And its eyes are completely black lifeless pools...
    Khadagan leaps in with the claws...and tears its lungs off...
        And Squee viciously mocks it...
    Breaks tells everyone not to kill it...
        Then looks more carefully...
            points out that it is not undead...just soul-less...
                Decides that its not a thunderbird...
                    Touches its forehead...and kills it...

Khut flies back to his yurt and tucks in his little friend (Littlewing)...
    Then walks back to the downed Fade-Bird, cuts off a chunk, and chows down...
Ellen-Dear starts researching turning it into a Golem...
Hundreds of Dust marks the bird as unclean to keep the nohai off...
    AND she and Khadagan return to their tent to get it on...
   
We have a long chat about whether or not to head into the salt flats...

We head north into the salt-flats to meet the Fade-turned Old Empirers...
    Everyone vanishes [Nat-20 Stealth plus Pass without Trade]...
        Ripclaws (and Littlewing) circling silently overhead...
    Except Barruk...who walks alone through the desert...
            Bearing the standard of the West†
                † golden pole topped with a double-headed ripclaw...
    We come upon a crater...
        In which there is a black Gith...with shining black teeth...
            Emanating a miasma of darkness...bearing a sword of liquid starlight...
    Barruk plants the standard and faces him...alone?
        The Gith greets him in clipped, cultured, High Malik...
        Barruk makes...confused...complicated introductions...
            He introduces himself as "The Fifth Blade of Shan-yu"
                Well known as the general who won the greatest, most mismatched battles of all of military history. Beating armies of 200K with an army of only 30K. Burried another alive. More than 2000 years ago.
            Apparently he is digging up the burried army...
                The ground around him is swarming with salt-zombies...
                And there are a lot more just on the other side in the fade...
        Vadim stands up out of the sand...covered in fur...and asks...
            "Do you breed?"
                Nope...they are "Faded"...they are gone...
                    But their memory can still impact this world...
        Squee appears and asks "Can I have a tooth?!"
        Khut presents the Sulde of the Altan Ordu...
            Which apparently hurts his brain...an empty place in his mind...
    We negotiate...and offer them the city of Ahura Mazda in exchange for their salt
        The Gray Lady (who came with us)...switches to old imperial...
            And asks for the opportunity to discuss philosophy with them...
                Offering the knowledge of an ancient kingdom
                To trade for knowledge "that your folk alone possessed"
            Vadim - "I'm glad I hit the shit-house and not the library last night"
        Squee, convinced the Gith cannot see or hear her, scrambled up him...
            Trying to steal a tooth...
                Iron-Dear tries to grab her...fails...
                Breaks cuts a mirror off the top of his hat and presents it to her...
                    She refuses...
                Iron-Dear tries to put her to sleep...fails...
            She climbs him, trying as hard as she can to extract his teeth...
                But it just doesn't work...
            She bangs on his head...and he doesn't even notice...
            THEN she steals his sword...or tries...
                She touches it...grips it for a moment...
                    But knows that if she unsheathed it...she would have no future...
                        The sword apparently severs you from the Verge...
            And she goes back to desperately trying to pry a tooth out...

    AND We've offered them a city...

An Alternate History of World Religion

When contemplating the idea of running a Pathfinder game set, loosely, in the real world in an early-modern setting, I quickly came up against the issue of how to handle divine spellcasting. One of the cool things about Clerics in Pathfinder is the wide range of domains available to them and the myriad combinations of abilities those provide. While I could have hand-waived it and allowed "Christian" clerics access to any spells they wished, or made up complex tables of which domains were allowed to which religions, I decided instead to re-think how the existence of clerics and magic might have alternately shaped history...

Because, seriously, there are people casting spells...

Disclaimer, I do speak about real-world religions here, but this is all meant as setting for a Fantasy Earth. You are free to get offended if you wish. You are free to read into this some real insight about those religions if you see such. Just don't think that this in any way reflects my own belief system...

___________________________________________________________
The Church of Cultural Appropriation

One religion has dominated the entire history of the western world (no, not the "Abrahamic faiths")... I'm talking about Cultural Appropriation.

The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans -- all of these shared a tendency, not to enforce their religion on others, but rather to adopt the gods of their neighbors, their trade partners, and even their conquered enemies as their own. Not only did these ancient cultures have vast pantheons of gods, both major and minor, but each god had numerous aspects, numerous names, both local and foreign. Saint Paul is famously quoted in his address to the philosophers of the Areopagus (the Hill of Mars) in Athens: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you..."

With the rise of Christianity, this tendency to adopt and incorporate foreign gods did not go away. The Catholic Church especially (which literally means "All Embracing"), after it became the official state religion of Rome, in its efforts to "convert" various pagan sects did not deny them the right to pray to their gods, but instead rebranded them as Saints and incorporated them into the orthodoxy: Saint Brigid, Saint Ador Ormazd ("Ahura Mazda") in Syriac churches, and many others. Eventually reforms happened and the adopted saints of the Christian church were cast out (or quietly downgraded) to make room for a stricter form of monotheism, but, even then, the Apostoles are spoken of with reverence and the "One God" is referred to as a triune-being.

The same is true in the East as well. Mongolian shamanism manages to simultaneously embrace, not only those spirits unique to the Mongolian culture, but also the worship of the Buddha and Ahura Mazda (the god of Zoroastrianism). Traditional Han Chinese folk religion incorporates the teachings of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, alongside thousands of gods, spirits, national deities, cultural heroes, and ancestor spirits.

Imagine then, a world where the servants of the gods can cast spells. Where clerics are real, and the spheres and domains of the gods are made manifest through mortal servants...

"Your god is a false god!"

"Really? I don't think so. Because Bob over there just prayed to Dionysius and made food out of thin air..."

"Oh...well shit. Well, at least let me introduce you to this new god of mine whom you might not already be praying to..."

Imagine Moshe standing before Pharaoh, performing miracles. Even in the official narrative, Pharaoh's "sorcerers" can match the first few of these, but in this world it does not stop there. Or Elijah's contest against the Baalites to see who could call down fire to light an altar....but they both succeed. If spells are real, and the spokesman for each god can perform wondrous acts, and cultural appropriation is the norm, there is no place for monotheism to take a foothold.

In the world of Beyond the Sea, the gods are many, and the gods have power, just not much of it. Classic D&D lore (s.p. the Forgotten Realms) suggests that a god's power is tied to the number and fervor of their worship. If clerical magic is the norm, and pantheism is the norm, and cultural appropriation is the norm, then no one god will ever gain sufficient focused worship to elevate himself above the others. If a 'One God' is never able to establish a strict monotheocracy, how would he amass the power necessary to be 'One'?

Imagine now, a world where the Israelites were never freed from Egypt, but never really enslaved either...they, and their god, were simply assimilated into the Egyptian culture and religion. A long line of prophets served the God of Israel, but other prophets performed equally flashy miracles in the name of their gods--Thoth, Ahura Mazda, Pan, Baldr, the Jade Emperor, et. al.  Later, a prophet calling himself The Christ rose up in the land of Palestine under Roman occupation, and even his revolutionary teachings were assimilated by the Greek philosophers, becoming just another demi-god in a very long line of such after his death.

To make things harder for would-be monotheists, there is the tendency for so many of everyone's ancestors to come back and stick around for an extra-long time. Stories of eternal rewards or eternal punishments have little meat to them when your great-great-great-grandmother who died at sea is still around two centuries later managing the family and dispensing wisdom.

In the world of Beyond the Sea, civilizations have risen and fallen in pretty much the same way as in our world, but monotheism just never took off. The great empire of Rome fell, but the ideals of the "All Embracing (Catholic) Church" and its worship of the innumerable gods, demi-gods, saints, lares, jumped-up rulers, prophets, demons, ancestral spirits, and celestial bureaucrats lived on, and the altars to "The Unknown Gods" stand in every town.

___________________________________________________________
There Can be Only One:

For each of the many, many, many gods of the world of Beyond the Sea there is but one cleric (each). They may have a great many worshipers, lay and ordained, but at any given time, only one truly devout prophet bears the torch of the god and wields his/her/its divine might in the world. There was, after all, only one living Oracle of Apollo at Delphi at a time and only ever one prophet in Israel at a given time (though in both of these cases, there was usually a student or apprentice ready to take their place).

If the gods draw their power from worship, and all worship is diluted by the pantheist tendencies of the All-Embracing Church and the sheer multitude of gods known to every would-be worshiper, then the power of the gods is scarce. Even with scarce power at their disposal, the gods must show their power in the mortal world, or else risk vanishing entirely. Thus, each god, has but one servant able to cast spells, and even these, most devout of servants, are likely to pray to other gods when the situation would call for it.


Clerics, Druids, Inquisitors, and similar classes always worship their own single, specific god. Indeed, no god grants spells to more than a single faithful servant (none is so powerful as to do more). These priestly characters may be of any alignment, and may choose any domains they wish--even alignment domains opposed to their own (there may be a god of good men who have evil thoughts for example). Those that gain proficiency with a "deity's weapon of choice" may choose any single martial weapon of their choice. Players are encouraged to make up the details of their chosen god.

Beyond the Shore: Session 3

Three times now

when I have sought solace in solitude

over the headland on the rocky shore

I have displaced my insistent inner voice

with a simple quest:

"I will find a starfish".

And each time I have done this,

gingerly rockhopping away from it all

towards the kelp-caressed wavelets

I have found one

under the first stone I turn over.

But no matter how diligently

I continue the search

I have never found a second...

-- Alan McClure

____________________________________________________________

Tired and  quite drunk, the party retired to the lower hold, where hammocks had been set aside for them as the new crew members. A couple of growls and glares from Thaduk Jr. was enough to convince some of the other crew to shift about, allowing all of the conscripts from Moonplum to bunk next to each other. Once the sleeping arrangements were sorted out, the two Thaduk's agreed to take turns standing watch against any possible treachery.

Before turning in, Caddis, still very very buzzed from his heavy round of drinking with Fishguts, decided to head down to the bilges to look around. Sifting through the dark, rank water, Caddis found a very well-made hatchet. He also caught the attention of a very large and curious bilge-rat, which took a bite out of his thigh. Caddis quickly put the rat to sleep with his hypnotic stare, then decapitated it with the axe.

On his way back up to the crew quarters, Caddis ran into 'X', the ship's old, one-eyed, tomcat. The cat was clearly more interested in Caddis than rat-catching, and followed him halfway back to the bunks before turning and scurrying off elsewhere. Ignoring the cat, Caddis made his way up to the galley and stashed the axe amidst the other tools in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, as Caddis was down in the bilges, Thaduk heard an ear-piercing scream coming from the forward end of the main hold, which was cut off as suddenly as it had begun. Poking his head up the stairs, he spotted a body lying on a table near the larboard bulkhead, surrounded by a growing pool of blood. Hearing an odd, rhythmic thumping, Thaduk stayed down and watched as a peg-legged figure walked back from the galley, a blood-soaked saw in one hand.

As the figure got closer to the body, Thaduk recognized Habbly Quarne, the ship's stitchman. Reaching the body on the able, Habbly quickly went to work stitching up the bloody stump of an arm, which Thaduk now recognized as belonging to the old woman he had arm-wrestled half to death only an hour before, and affixing some kind of wooden cup to the end of her wrist.

Finally, well past midnight, the party turned in, only to be woken much too early by the sound of the morning bell and the rest of the hands rushing up on deck. As they made their way, bleary eyed and tired, to the steps out of the middle hold, they found their way blocked by a jaundiced orc and three other crewmen.

"In a hurry?" the orc asked, shoving Caddis backwards. Caddis responded by stepping into the galley, dipping a bowl in a barrel of grog, and handing it to Thaduk Jr.

Thaduk took a swig (great breakfast), glared at the orc and said, "I'm coming up." He then rushed the orc, and, with one punch, sent him flying up the stairs to crash-land on sprawled on the main deck in a tangled heap with his friends.

As he started back up the stairs, Fishguts shoved a platter of biscuits into Caddis's hands and told him to pass out breakfast to the crew. Reaching the top, Caddis stared in the sprawled orc's eyes. Somehow the idea crossed the orc's mind that "anyone who can hang with Thaduk without getting plastered is probably captain material".

With the crack of a whip, the bosun, Mr. Scourge, ordered Caddis to simply put the tray down and let the crew help themselves. He then announced that both parties--Thaduk, Caddis, and Adriana, as well as the four men Thaduk had just trounced--would be spending the day in the bilges as punishment for fighting on deck, saying that young Jack had spotted some over-large rats getting into their grain stores the day before, and telling them not to come out until whatever was down there was dead.

After grabbing their biscuits, the seven of them trekked back down the way they'd come towards the bilges. Caddis stopped off in the galley and grabbed the axe he'd found the night before, as well as a pair of cleavers for his friends. Hearing what was up, Fishguts slapped him on the back and quipped, "if you find a big one, bring it up and we'll have it for supper..."

Up on deck, the sun was alright bright and hot, despite the early hour, turning the bilges into a sauna. While the darkness of the bilges was no problem for most of the group that went down, the heat and the stench quickly got to Caddis, Adriana, and most of the sailors that went with them. The grumbling from the orc, Jaundiced Japes they called him, and the other three was quickly silenced by Thaduk's threats and they all got to looking for the rats.

Soon enough, they found a half-dozen rats, each the size of a small dog, easily 8 pounds of more a piece. The rats lunged at them out of the dark corners of the bilges, scoring bites on several of the party. A quick scan with Caddis' evil-eye knocked four of them unconscious, easy pickings for the other sailors to finish off. The fifth was cut in two by Adriana and the last was crushed to a pulp by Thaduk.

The fight with the rats was over almost before it started, then Caddis felt something go past his leg under the water. Everyone started poking in the water, then, suddenly Caddis was grabbed and pulled under. Luckily this was not really a problem for him, given his ability to breath water.

Thaduk reached into the murky depths, felt Caddis' boot, and yanked. He pulled up Caddis, as well as the massive five-foot diameter starfish that was latched onto him. Thaduk held up the tangled mess and Adriana and the others began trying to cut the thing off of Caddis, but dealt more damage to their friend than the beast. Finally Caddis went limp and the starfish began slapping at Thaduk with a couple of loose appendages. Thaduk responded by squeezing harder, finally getting the beast to relinquish their friend and turn its attention entirely on him.

Once Caddis was free, Thaduk swung the giant starfish around like a rag, slamming it into one of the spars which framed the lower part of the ship. There was a great splintering sound as both the beam, and the hard mesodermal skeleton of the beast cracked. Japes and the other sailors, seeing the damage to the ship, panicked and climbed out of the bilges as fast as they could. Fipps Chumlett, who was among them was nice enough to grab Cad's skinny ass and haul him out (more for fear of Thaduk's ire than any real desire to save Caddis).

Enraged by the beating, the starfish wriggled free of Thaduk's grip and wrapped itself completely around him, biting at his midsection. Adriana hammered on the thing's back with her cleaver, this time being careful not to hit her engulfed comrade. Thaduk struggled, arms pinned, but finally managed to get his knife out of his belt and stab it into the creatures mouth, finally killing it.

Thaduk shouldered the dead creature and hauled it up on deck, tossing it down in front of Mr. Scourge. He then flopped down next to where they had laid Caddis' unconscious body. Adriana stayed behind to continue searching the bilges for anything potentially useful, and any more rats to dispose of. Mr. Scourge, for once, left them to relax and turned to whipping the other crew members into shape.

After a moment. Sandara Quinn, who was scrubbing the decks, worked her way over near Cad and Thad and healed them both with a burst of positive energy. Revived, The two made their way down to the galley, hauling the starfish for Fishguts. The cook and his mate then set to work boiling the monstrous echinoderm. Taking turns trying to season the olive-green mush that passed for starfish meat, with Fishguts narrowly saving Caddis from making it completely inedible.

Thaduk excused himself and headed to the lower hold where Adriana was just beginning to haul up the collection of weapons and gear she'd found discarded in the darkness of the bilges. The two of them stashed what they'd found in the footlockers that had been provided for them, then fetched up some scrab lumber which Thaduk spent the rest of the afternoon whittling into a couple of semi-usable spears.

After serving a dinner of nutmeg-laden giant starfish, Thaduk and Caddis, exhausted after a sleep-deprived night and the exertions of combat in the steamy bilges, retired to their bunks and went to sleep early. Adriana meanwhile, joined the crew on deck and challenged a dozen of them to a game of "Heave" (which involved taking turns drinking half-pints of rum in a single swig). She soon drank the entire ship under the table, thanks to her complete immunity to the effects of alcohol. Finally she retired to her bunk with an large pile of winnings and (assuming any of them remember it in the morning) the ire of the crew.

Next time: The Curse of the Killer Hangovers!