Welcome to the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, where piracy is the rule, and plunder and infamy fill the seas of Golarion! In this month’s adventure, “The Wormwood Mutiny,” the PCs find themselves unwilling members of a pirate crew. The adventure assumes that the PCs all were in Port Peril, the capital of the Shackles, and that they fell afoul of a pirate press gang. They wake up the next morning in the hold of the pirate ship Wormwood, where the adventure begins. The campaign traits presented in the Skull & Shackles Player’s Guide (available for free at paizo.com) provide hooks for each PC that describe the circumstances of their capture.
It’s important to manage your players’ expectations for this Adventure Path right from the start. Most importantly, they should all want to play pirates of one stripe or another. The PCs came to Port Peril to become pirates, to earn fortunes, to be adored by men and women, and live lives of fame—or perhaps infamy—at sea. They could be scurvy knaves who would slit a throat without a second’s thought, or they might be dandy swashbucklers with hearts of gold in search of fame and glory on the high seas. Whatever course they choose, piracy should be in their blood. This doesn’t mean the players can’t play good characters, but they should be scoundrels, more interested in plunder and high-seas adventure than heroics and saving the world.
Likewise, you should make sure that your players are ready and willing for the unique challenges this adventure presents. The first part of “The Wormwood Mutiny” takes place aboard the Wormwood, a pirate ship filled to the gunwales with dangerous cutthroats, and the PCs wake up in the ship’s hold as little more than prisoners, with next to no equipment. Played right, this can be a fun way to start an adventuring career, but your players need to be onboard with the assumptions of the adventure.