Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
Right. I was wondering how they were going to get out of this.
GW
GW
Dead Man's Chest -- Spooky Pirate Fun -- COMPLETE! Nov 3/06
trilobite
Explorer
This is very eerie. In my S&B's game the players were running from some zombies on the top floor of Monsignor Domino’s house. Suddenly they found there escape route blocked so they decided to jump from the second story window. The zombies in their effort to chase the intruders followed. Instead of jumping out the the window the zombies more or less dived head first. It was fun describing the pulped zombie brains splattering everywhere as they hit the ground.
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
barsoomcore said:
"Le Roi Dans Le Jeune?"
I speak French...
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
...then you can see where this is going...
...and that's not good...
And with your name, you SHOULD speak French.
Hellspont: Lieutenant Davis' fate shall be revealed, never fear. And how was it getting swum by Byron?
...and that's not good...
And with your name, you SHOULD speak French.
Hellspont: Lieutenant Davis' fate shall be revealed, never fear. And how was it getting swum by Byron?
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
Barsoomcore, are you basing this off of any publsihed adventures? I seem to recall a thread where you were talking about getting ready to run this campaign, and I thought there was a Dungeon adventure at the center of it (though no doubt highly modified). Reason I ask is that I'm looking at some sea-based adventures for my group, and I may pay homage to this story hour... (or steal liberally, depending on your POV.)
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Ana tried very hard to avoid shouting, but she was so surprised that a little yelp did escape her, much to Dras's disapproval.
They sat in the bow of the rowboat while Black and Quinn took the oars and Lieutenant Davis, who'd avoided the ghouls last night through the simple expedient of hiding in a tree, handled the tiller. Dras had received a nasty cut during the battle, and Ana was tending the youth's wound.
Her impression had been that Dras was a shy young man, unwilling to take his shirt off in front of a lady. That turned out to be not quite the case. Under the mulatto's shirt, once Ana had forcibly yanked it open, a broad swathe of white bandage encased the lad's upper torso. At first Ana thought her friend had been hurt more seriously than she'd thought.
But when Dras jerked the shirt back up, glancing fearfully down the rest of the boat to see if the others had noticed, her eyes returning to Ana, imploring her to say nothing, the island girl realised the truth.
And yelped just a little.
Dras was no lad.
Momentarily at a complete loss, Ana sat back and stared at the young woman in front of her.
Dras scowled and held up her arm where the creature's claws had scored an angry cut.
"Keep staring at me like that, girl, and Quinn'll get jealous."
Quinn grunted.
"What? What's that? What's going on back there?"
Dras chuckled.
"Just making a little time with your girl, sailor."
Ana smacked Dras lightly.
"I'm not his girl."
The two women shared a grin as Quinn broke into voluble protests at the mere suggestion that he entertained romantic notions towards Ana.
*****
Elizabeth Mallory was dead. Her hidey-hole had flooded in the night and there was nothing anyone could do. They'd fished her body out as well as the three chests (the zombi still down there did not attack Quinn as he was wearing one of the amulets this time), and left the chests on the pier for Bobo the pirate monkey.
They had, of course, stuffed their pockets with gold coins and gems before rushing to the other side of the island, untying the rowboat and making for the visible coast of Barbuda even before their old ship the Ascot Marine was hull-down on the horizon.
*****
Dras and Ana leapt out of the rowboat into the shallow surf and dragged in time with Quinn and Black's final heave on the oars, pulling the little wooden craft up onto the sand.
Barbuda was not a sight to stir the heart. The northern spit of the island, where they'd landed, was a wind-blown stretch of sand pocked here and there with stringy bushes whose dry stems rattled ceaselessly. Helping Davis along, the little party clambered over the ridge of wind-packed sand and descended towards a broad lagoon teeming with seabirds and tall grasses. Further on, they could see scrub-covered headlands rising a couple of hundred feet above the sea, with steep cliffs on the eastern shore and tapering down to forested lowlands.
There was no sign of civilization.
They found a length of driftwood that could serve Davis as a crutch and made their cautious way along the edge of the lagoon.
"Dras, lad, you have those papers we snatched from Senor Domino's desk?"
Ana watched curiously as Dras responded without any sign of discomfort at being addressed as "lad". The slender mulatto fished in a sack and pulled out the sheets of paper in question. She sorted them up and peered at the spidery letters.
"It's a journal. Located first wreck and made initial dives... Looks like he was exploring wrecks around Barbuda. Here. January, 1699 -- The skull. I have it, I have it before me now. It hungers for gros-bon-anges. I must provide some. Lel-Za-Bol hungers. August, 1699 -- It works. They serve me now. They are mine. The Lords are six -- there must be five more skulls. I will find them. I must. October, 1699 -- Portugues. He found them in Campeche. Not all, no, for Lel-Za-Bol lay here within the Hispaniola. Find out how many Portugues took from Campeche -- where were the others?"
The others looked uneasily at each other. Ana recalled the dark vision she'd had after first seeing the skull.
"I think Lel-Za-Bol is a mainlander god or legend or something."
Black nodded.
"The Lords. Could that refer to those Lords of Hell-Baba or whatever that savage was going on about?"
"Ah Balam. Xibalba. Yes."
Quinn, nodding, added: "And Portuges must be Bartholmew Portuges. He escaped from Campeche, remember? The dagoes were going to hang him. Drowned off Cuba, I heard."
"Made it to Jamaica, I heard."
Dras looked up from her notes as the group came to halt in front of a tremendously skinny black man with a towering pillar of curly hair and a mostly-toothless grin. He spoke with a strong French accent.
"Jamaica. Hello."
Black, after a pause, spoke for the group.
"Hello. Can we help you?"
"No. I help you. Stay away from the house. Come with me. Secret place. Your friends are waiting."
"Our friends?"
"The monkey, he put them here."
"I wish that didn't make sense."
They travelled on in silence a little further, following the black man across the lagoon, seabirds shrieking overhead. Dras leafed through more notes. Quinn watched.
"Where'd you learn to read?"
Dras answered without looking up.
"My uncle. My father's brother. Taught me how to fight, too. Port Royal."
Something in the paper caught her eye and the dark-skinned woman stiffened.
"Listen to this. Domino got a letter from... somebody named Fawn, saying that Bartholomew Portuges bought a ship in Aruba from a guy named Van Meertens and paid for it with a crystal skull."
Black's mind moved quickly.
"Can't be this one. The other note said this one was already in the wreck. So we've got one here and if there's another on Aruba that's two. Four more."
Quinn frowned.
"Are we going after these things? Sorcerers and zombis and heathen gods and who knows what else?"
"Oh, yes, I think so." Nodding, Black turned to Dras. "What did the journal say about the skull, lad? Something about it hungers for gross bone oranges?"
"Gros-bon-anges. The skull hungers for gros-bon-anges."
"What are those, exactly?"
"Souls."
"Ah."
Seabirds continued to shriek.
They sat in the bow of the rowboat while Black and Quinn took the oars and Lieutenant Davis, who'd avoided the ghouls last night through the simple expedient of hiding in a tree, handled the tiller. Dras had received a nasty cut during the battle, and Ana was tending the youth's wound.
Her impression had been that Dras was a shy young man, unwilling to take his shirt off in front of a lady. That turned out to be not quite the case. Under the mulatto's shirt, once Ana had forcibly yanked it open, a broad swathe of white bandage encased the lad's upper torso. At first Ana thought her friend had been hurt more seriously than she'd thought.
But when Dras jerked the shirt back up, glancing fearfully down the rest of the boat to see if the others had noticed, her eyes returning to Ana, imploring her to say nothing, the island girl realised the truth.
And yelped just a little.
Dras was no lad.
Momentarily at a complete loss, Ana sat back and stared at the young woman in front of her.
Dras scowled and held up her arm where the creature's claws had scored an angry cut.
"Keep staring at me like that, girl, and Quinn'll get jealous."
Quinn grunted.
"What? What's that? What's going on back there?"
Dras chuckled.
"Just making a little time with your girl, sailor."
Ana smacked Dras lightly.
"I'm not his girl."
The two women shared a grin as Quinn broke into voluble protests at the mere suggestion that he entertained romantic notions towards Ana.
*****
Elizabeth Mallory was dead. Her hidey-hole had flooded in the night and there was nothing anyone could do. They'd fished her body out as well as the three chests (the zombi still down there did not attack Quinn as he was wearing one of the amulets this time), and left the chests on the pier for Bobo the pirate monkey.
They had, of course, stuffed their pockets with gold coins and gems before rushing to the other side of the island, untying the rowboat and making for the visible coast of Barbuda even before their old ship the Ascot Marine was hull-down on the horizon.
*****
Dras and Ana leapt out of the rowboat into the shallow surf and dragged in time with Quinn and Black's final heave on the oars, pulling the little wooden craft up onto the sand.
Barbuda was not a sight to stir the heart. The northern spit of the island, where they'd landed, was a wind-blown stretch of sand pocked here and there with stringy bushes whose dry stems rattled ceaselessly. Helping Davis along, the little party clambered over the ridge of wind-packed sand and descended towards a broad lagoon teeming with seabirds and tall grasses. Further on, they could see scrub-covered headlands rising a couple of hundred feet above the sea, with steep cliffs on the eastern shore and tapering down to forested lowlands.
There was no sign of civilization.
They found a length of driftwood that could serve Davis as a crutch and made their cautious way along the edge of the lagoon.
"Dras, lad, you have those papers we snatched from Senor Domino's desk?"
Ana watched curiously as Dras responded without any sign of discomfort at being addressed as "lad". The slender mulatto fished in a sack and pulled out the sheets of paper in question. She sorted them up and peered at the spidery letters.
"It's a journal. Located first wreck and made initial dives... Looks like he was exploring wrecks around Barbuda. Here. January, 1699 -- The skull. I have it, I have it before me now. It hungers for gros-bon-anges. I must provide some. Lel-Za-Bol hungers. August, 1699 -- It works. They serve me now. They are mine. The Lords are six -- there must be five more skulls. I will find them. I must. October, 1699 -- Portugues. He found them in Campeche. Not all, no, for Lel-Za-Bol lay here within the Hispaniola. Find out how many Portugues took from Campeche -- where were the others?"
The others looked uneasily at each other. Ana recalled the dark vision she'd had after first seeing the skull.
"I think Lel-Za-Bol is a mainlander god or legend or something."
Black nodded.
"The Lords. Could that refer to those Lords of Hell-Baba or whatever that savage was going on about?"
"Ah Balam. Xibalba. Yes."
Quinn, nodding, added: "And Portuges must be Bartholmew Portuges. He escaped from Campeche, remember? The dagoes were going to hang him. Drowned off Cuba, I heard."
"Made it to Jamaica, I heard."
Dras looked up from her notes as the group came to halt in front of a tremendously skinny black man with a towering pillar of curly hair and a mostly-toothless grin. He spoke with a strong French accent.
"Jamaica. Hello."
Black, after a pause, spoke for the group.
"Hello. Can we help you?"
"No. I help you. Stay away from the house. Come with me. Secret place. Your friends are waiting."
"Our friends?"
"The monkey, he put them here."
"I wish that didn't make sense."
They travelled on in silence a little further, following the black man across the lagoon, seabirds shrieking overhead. Dras leafed through more notes. Quinn watched.
"Where'd you learn to read?"
Dras answered without looking up.
"My uncle. My father's brother. Taught me how to fight, too. Port Royal."
Something in the paper caught her eye and the dark-skinned woman stiffened.
"Listen to this. Domino got a letter from... somebody named Fawn, saying that Bartholomew Portuges bought a ship in Aruba from a guy named Van Meertens and paid for it with a crystal skull."
Black's mind moved quickly.
"Can't be this one. The other note said this one was already in the wreck. So we've got one here and if there's another on Aruba that's two. Four more."
Quinn frowned.
"Are we going after these things? Sorcerers and zombis and heathen gods and who knows what else?"
"Oh, yes, I think so." Nodding, Black turned to Dras. "What did the journal say about the skull, lad? Something about it hungers for gross bone oranges?"
"Gros-bon-anges. The skull hungers for gros-bon-anges."
"What are those, exactly?"
"Souls."
"Ah."
Seabirds continued to shriek.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
KC: The whole "Firewatch Island" bit comes from a Dungeon adventure called "Tammeraut's Fate". Bobo the monkey and Horse (and the story of their missing treasure) come from a free PDF adventure offered by Green Ronin for Skull & Bones. The whole to-do with the crystal skulls comes from trilobite, a clever clog often seen round these boards.
The rest is cobbled together from Skull & Bones, Call of Cthulhu, Horatio Hornblower, and very large amounts of online research to gather up names and places and stuff. That was almost as much fun as running the game itself. Dras' player also put in huge amounts of voodoo research and that was tons of help, and Black's player is quite the amateur historian on the period which was also fun.
Unfortunately (as you'll see next episode) he's also much, much better than I am at naval combat simulation. These guys clobber their enemies in ship-to-ship action, I'm embarrassed to say.
Now off you go and take the Sunshine Band with you.
The rest is cobbled together from Skull & Bones, Call of Cthulhu, Horatio Hornblower, and very large amounts of online research to gather up names and places and stuff. That was almost as much fun as running the game itself. Dras' player also put in huge amounts of voodoo research and that was tons of help, and Black's player is quite the amateur historian on the period which was also fun.
Unfortunately (as you'll see next episode) he's also much, much better than I am at naval combat simulation. These guys clobber their enemies in ship-to-ship action, I'm embarrassed to say.
Now off you go and take the Sunshine Band with you.
