The Antigrol Tide (OOC)

[Jdvn1]

I thought this might be easier to discuss OOC.

After the group reconvenes, they decide where to head next. Will it be to the docks, to check out the captain's body (and perhaps the dead goon pulled from the bay this morning as well)? Should they head to the market to pick up new equipment, or just head straight to the pawn broker, Dietrich? Maybe they'll head somewhere else entirely, like back to the ship, off to rescue enslaved children, or up to the library or that antique dealer's shop on Vine. Wherever they head, though, it probably won't be out of the city, at least not by the gate. The city is under lockdown, and guards are slowly becoming more visible on the streets.

Picking up equipment right now doesn't seem too useful, as we don't have a lot of money to work with. We could try to sell the ship's cargo and make a lot of money that way, but we haven't really discussed at all what to do with the whole sailing aspect of our characters now that the captain is dead.

Did our captain have a boss? Would we know that? (I assume we'd know one way or another)

If we sell the cargo, that's likely to give us a lot of money, particularly from a wealth-by-level point of view. I'd say that a large chunk of the money should go to the captain's family, if we know how to contact them.

I'd like to go visit the captain, see if we can find clues on his body (and, since we'd be at the morgue, check the other dude's body), sell the cargo (and possibly the ship if we decide to go that route), buy what we need, talk to Deidrich, and then save the children.

Then, hopefully with the town's gratitude, we could spend some time doing the more leisurely stuff we wanted to do like go to the library and then find information on the Jenny and the ring at the antique shop.

 

[unleashed]

Well we don't know the captain is dead, it is assumed that the captain is dead...so anything leading from the certainty that the captain is dead is a little premature.

What we do need to do though, as you've said, is go inspect the bodies, talk to Deitrich, and some people do need to do some last minute shopping to finish outfitting themselves (which they couldn't perhaps afford at character creation, but can now).

To cover some of your other thoughts though...
I'm pretty sure the captain is/was his own boss.

The cargo was probably already sold (or mostly so), during the day while we were off in town...seeing as we brought some of it up on deck before heading out for merchants to look at and bargain for. Whether they've pick it up yet is another question, but then we haven't looked into it. So I don't see a surplus of money coming from that avenue, and we may yet need the ship to escape if things go badly (whatever the condition of the captain).

As for the last, that's so far distant in my eyes, it isn't even worth contemplating right now...though by even thinking about it you've doomed us all.

 

[Strahd_Von_Zarovich]

We need to check what happened to the captain and a good starting point will be the morgue, and look for the other dead guy, then pay a visit to Deidrich.
We could always hear the story about the Jenny during lunch break or dinner is the tavern.

We need to check out that Orpheus guy and the story Lissa told Troth.

 

[Mallak]

And we're back up! w00t.

 

[Jdvn1]

I'd like to go visit the captain, see if we can find clues on his body (and, since we'd be at the morgue, check the other dude's body), _{sell the cargo (and possibly the ship if we decide to go that route), EDIT: depending on the situation of the captain and cargo}, buy what we need, talk to Deidrich, and then save the children.

Does that mean we're fine with this order? With, a lunch or dinner break somewhere?

And, I think we need to go to the antique shop to hear about the Jenny, not the tavern. The guy with the ring owned a shop; we already heard the song.

 

[Mallak]

Regarding the captain, the cargo, and the pawn broker:

The captain was an independent merchant and as such, he had no boss. As for family, none of you are aware of a wife or kids, but there might be someone somewhere who cares about Captain Ben and who he also cared about.

It is common practice for the full sale of the cargo to take several days. The most in-demand items would have been sold yesterday with certain official documents changing hands allowing the buyers to hire dock workers to offload the cargo from the ship. The money would be deposited with a local banker. As of this morning, no one had showed up to unload the ship, but that doesn't mean that cargo isn't being offloaded right now. A word of caution: when the captain's death becomes more public, expect scammers and con men, in both official and unofficial capacities, to show up and attempt to relieve the ship of its cargo by one means or another.

The pawn broker's name is Dietrich.

 

[unleashed]

Does that mean we're fine with this order? With, a lunch or dinner break somewhere?

Well I for one don't expect to get all that done in one day, so I imagine we'll squeeze in a few meal breaks, but the order is good until we run into something which changes it.

 

[jkason]

I think selling the cargo is going to be a messy affair, so it's best to get our ducks in a row otherwise--examining body, equipping (like unleashed pointed out, I didn't have the money to give Mag a proper bow during character creation), and / or hitting up Dietrich. As Mallak points out, if the captain's dead, as soon as that's common knowledge we'll have our hands full trying to handle the ship and cargo, which is likely to siginificantly impede our investigation / rescue efforts. So I'd vote for moving cargo down to the bottom of the list until such time as we're forced to deal with it, myself, but otherwise the proposed order sounds good to me.

jason

 

[Jdvn1]

Well I for one don't expect to get all that done in one day, so I imagine we'll squeeze in a few meal breaks, but the order is good until we run into something which changes it.

Yes, well, visiting the body of the captain, buying stuff, and talking to Dietrich might work in one day, depending on if we want to sell the rest of the items on the ship.

Anyway, we should also stop by the bank to claim the money, or at least make sure it's in one of the PC's name... we'd probably want the first mate to claim that it's "company money" and certainly no one can claim more right to the money than us. We also have to go through the paperwork to find if the captain had any records of what was sold to whom, which would also tell us what items haven't been sold, so that we can sell the rest of the cargo. No cargo should leave the ship before we get that worked out.

All that would probably push the Dietrich affair back a day, at least, assuming we do it earlier rather than later.

 

[Jdvn1]

So I'd vote for moving cargo down to the bottom of the list until such time as we're forced to deal with it, myself, but otherwise the proposed order sounds good to me.

A problem comes if/when merchants come to claim their items. Since they paid for everything, they'd demand to have their merchandise as soon as they can hire the men to take it off the boat.

That means sooner rather than later. We should at least go through the paperwork to see if we can figure out what was sold to whom, though we can decide to sell the rest of the cargo later. Though, do you have enough gold to equip yourself as you'd like? Selling the cargo would likely assure you to have enough spending cash.

If we delay dealing with the ship's cargo, we're likely to lose money. If we delay rescue/investigation attempts, I'm not sure what the downside is. Seeing the captain's body is still first priority, I think, since that could potentially give us information for everything else.

EDIT: Also, this is Mallak's call, but since buying items is a fairly mundane activity, and roleplaying it out would likely drag a little more than it has to, he might just allow purchases to be done "off camera," on the way to or back from the morgue. So, you would only post OOC in here to say, "I buy (stuff)."