The Dee Sanction: St Mary's City

The Dee Sanction: St Mary's City is a role-playing game series set in 17th Century Mid-Atlantic America (but with the ability to range to other locales). One way to think of it is as a “counter-colonial investigative gothic”:

• counter-colonial because although the events take place on a frontier, we will be avoiding and/or skewering problematic tropes about savagery, “progress”, civilization etc. rather than playing into them 

• investigative because the core conceit of the story - the A-plot, if you will - focuses on a group of people seeking to investigate, understand, and if necessary neutralize threats to humanity

• gothic because the overall tone and narrative structure of our play will tilt towards on the macabre, the melodramatic, and the baroque, even if there are individual moments of humor, swashbuckling, and triumph

The characters are a diverse group of people brought together by the mysterious Mr. Garland to serve as agents of... well, who can say? When the Dee Sanction was founded in 1564, it served England by royal mandate; but now it is 1645, and England and its king are at war. Nevertheless, supernatural events do not pause for politics, and someone must still rise to investigate these and act to contain or neutralize them.

The characters have been tasked with re-establishing the defunct Sanction cell in St. Mary's City, Maryland. Of the last cell's demise, nothing is currently known.

• The reestablished cell's jurisdiction will run from the northern borders of Maryland, where it meets the Dutch and Swedish territories north of the Chesapeake Bay, to the southernmost borders of Virginia.

• Mr. Garland will provide equipment and passage across the Atlantic, and dispatch human and financial resources when necessary and when possible, but the characters must largely see to their own resourcefulness to fund their operations.

• At the best of times, the Dee Sanction's relationship with the mundane forces of law and order has been spotty and unpredictable. Therefore, the new cell is chartered to cultivate relationships, as its members deem necessary, with useful local figures regardless of origin, ideology or nationality. Beyond these partnerships and any help that can be had from a sister cell in Massachusetts Bay, the cell is on its own in the Americas.

This is the "starting state of play" after our prelude session. Along the way we’ll grow our story considerably; we'll uncover plots, fight terrible beasts and worse people, find and spend riches, and perhaps even make right some wrongs; in sum, we’ll craft a story of our own as an irreproducible act of narrative alchemy that could only have come from this combination of people at this time. As the Host of this game, it’s my job to create a world and fill it with secrets and challenges; as the players, what becomes of that world is up to you and the actions of the characters you create over the next few months.

Here are some resources for you, going forward:

• What is Roleplaying (a work-in-progress essay)
• How to Create Your Character
• A link to Paul Baldowski's The Dee Sanction, the game on which I based this campaign

"On the Account": Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, Part 2 (Session 2.3)

Saint-Barthlemy, February 1651: On board their ships, three dozen pirates prepare to storm the Le Carenage in a daring night raid...

Programming note: As an experiment, we ran this game using the simplified World of Blades ruleset by Duamn Figueroa, which is itself based on the fantastic Blades in the Dark RPG by John Harper. Resources for both games can be found at and around https://bladesinthedark.com/fan-creations.

After some private discussion among the officers, Eve, Joe, and Guillaume identify three goals in the fight to come. First and most importantly: Hisene must fall. Without this, freeing the slaves (the second goal) will just be a temporary fix; furthermore, it is almost without doubt that the corsairs' main treasure (the third goal) is being stored in Hisene's quarters. But the capsized brigantine (the Rose) that serves as Hisene's headquarters is surrounded by a hundred meters of brightly lit beach, and six guard towers with cannons, and these two layers of security will have to be attended to before it is safe to approach Hisene in force.

The Rose (cutaway view)

Accordingly, the following decision is reached:

• First, Joe will take a small party of pirates out to the island watchtower in the bay. This tower gives the best view of the beach and has the quickest means of sounding the alarm (a zipline directly to the beach next to the Rose). After the guards in this watchtower are neutralized, three groups will stealthily strike the five smaller watchtowers along the fence.
• Second, Guillaume and Eve will enter the Rose by pretending that they are there to gamble with the corsair officers. While inside the vessel, they will set a firebomb as a distraction, and make contact with the Carib slaves so that they know to flee the vessel when the attack starts.
• Third, a large group of pirates will row ashore with weapons concealed in their boat, mingling with the Spanish mercenaries on the beach while waiting for a signal to strike.

The plan gets off to a rocky start when the island strike team is surprised by a guard and a shot is fired; Joe is wounded in the fight. Luckily, this provokes only a limited response on the beach as one corsair is sent out on a rowboat to investigate. Following Joe's instructions, the redoubtable Jerome is on hand to snipe the new arrival with a crossbow just as he discovers the bodies of his colleagues.

In the ship, Eve fascinates the guards on duty by her command of an obscure card game played in the pirate havens of the Barbary Coast. This leaves Guillaume free to plant his firebomb, make contact with the slaves, and - after multiple appeals and a display of his "miraculous" healing powers - get them ready to flee when the assault begins.

At the same time as the card-playing guards notice the flames down below, Joe's strike teams have seized the last of the watchtowers and, turning the tower cannons around to face the mercenaries, unleash a devastating barrage of grapeshot over their bonfires and tents. At the same moment, the crew members on the beach whip out their concealed weapons and attack the survivors.

The plan goes flawlessly, and the pirates soon have control of the beach, but Hisene's corsairs have bunkered up and refuse to surrender along with the surviving Spaniards. Joe and Eve lead a storming party into the hold of the ship, sustaining heavy casualties but finally gaining control of all but one area: the captain's cabin, into which Hisene has barricaded himself.

Attempts at diplomacy and intimidation fail despite Joe executing two captives outside of Hisene's door. However, the three remaining hostages reveal an important piece of information: just before dawn, they are expecting a corsair warship to arrive, captained by Japheti (Hisene's second in command). The ship has been in the area for two days, staying just below the horizon; Hisene's plan had been to betray his Spanish partners and establish an all-corsair stronghold at Le Carenage.

This new information lends urgency to the pirates' attempts to deal with Hisene before dawn. They finally settle on blasting the door in with an improvised black powder charges. Miraculously, Joe is able to set the charge with just enough power to breech the reinforced bulkhead, but not so much powder that it destroys the plunder-rich room beyond. Within the room waits Hisene, with a sword in one hand and an ornate golden incense burner dangling from a chain in the other - this, the pirates have been told, contains a djinn that makes Hisene immune to bullets.

Joe, Eve, and Hisene fight amidst the dense clouds of incense, with Eve sustaining a deep wound to her sword-arm before Joe is able to plant his cutlass deep in back of the tyrant of Le Carenage. As Hisene falls and the pirates rush in to seize his hoard, Guillaume carefully picks up the cooling incense burner. What mysteries might it hold?

"On the Account": Kingmaker, Kingbreaker Part 1 (Session 2.2)

Saint-Barthlemy, February 1651: In a jungle clearing on the south side of the island, a haze of gunpowder smoke finally clears...

Taking stock of their enemies, the pirates find that Shaytan and twelve of his highland clansmen lie dead, ten are badly wounded, and five are unwounded. This last group includes Shaytan's lieutenant, Pen, who wears blue feathers in a pair of pieced cheeks.

As the warriors begin to retreat, Samedi calls out an offer to negotiate further regarding Shaytan's plan to expel Hisene's men from Le Carenage, and sets up a midnight meeting with the lieutenant. At the same time, Guillaume and Joe plan to return to the beach, gain support from the other pirates, and hopefully attack Hisene from both sides at once. The next day is spent in frantic diplomacy and clandestine meetings as the two sets of negotiators make imperfect progress:

• Guillaume and Joe are able to convince around half of the pirates that storming Le Carenage would gain them a decent treasure, but fail to gain an outright majority of the crew. They are forced to sweeten the deal by promising some of the as-yet-unspent plunder taken from the Estrella to key crewmembers as bribes. But one dilemma remains: take the risky but profitable course of storming the beach and fighting hand-to-hand for whatever riches are hidden inside the mercenaries' stronghold, or stay in the bay, forget the treasure, and just let the Folly and Estrella's cannons do the talking?
• Meanwhile, Guillaume notices five new faces among Hisene's men, and becomes convinced that Japheti, the surgeon and second-in-command at Le Carenage, is concealing some secret about these men.
• Samedi is able to convince Shaytan's lieutenant that they are not enemies, but the negotiations for a joint attack on Hisene founder on Pen's demand that the pirates help the highlanders continue to use the lowlanders as slaves even after the island is liberated. This is necessary, claims Pen, to realize Shaytan's dream of a stone fort to keep future invaders at bay.
• Amongst all this Red Knife bids farewell to his fellow pirates, buys a simple sea canoe from one of Teiha's brothers, and sails off to the West in search of his sister.

A great many proposals and counter-proposals later, with it almost seeming that the pirates will have to just leave Saint-Barthelemy for the time being and return later when they have more options available to them, a cunning compromise is reached: Pen and his inner circle of warriors will be offered places in the crew of the Fortune's Folly, thereby giving them a chance to continue stockpiling heavy weapons and trade goods without having to sell the lowlanders as slaves to do it. The pirates will still attack Hisene - albeit from only one direction instead of two - but the highlanders will fight with them, and even if the attack fails, Hisene will no longer be able to count on the highlanders to capture slaves for him.

As events slowly move towards an epic confrontation on the beach, Samedi learns that Nzuzi considers the Folly and her dead captain to have been the subject of a demonic curse, physically manifested in the form of a small green snake. She claims to have captured the demon in a coconut shell and bound it by inking a Bible verse (Acts 19:13 - Te ato por el Jesús que Pablo proclama) into the container; claiming to want nothing more to do with such an unclean thing, she entrusts it to Samedi and asks him to see to its destruction, or at least its removal from the island. Samedi now wears the strange vessel on his person while considering where to find a priest of sufficient power to proceed with such a task.

On to Session 2.3!

"On the Account": Shaytan's Plan (Session 2.1)

The Atlantic Ocean, February 1651: Three battle-worn ships rock in the current, lashed together with ropes and grapnels. As blood drips from their decks, predators begin to gather in the waters around them...

With the final cutlass blow dealt and the last Genoese sailor herded into a group on the deck of the Estrella, the pirates plan their next move. Of specific concern to all are three things: how to deal with the wounded on both sides, how to divide the spoils of battle, and how to deal with Zandoz's continued politicking and clear ambitions to be captain. The matter is made pressing by Joe's discovery of Brimstone Jack, dead in his cabin. There is no time to waste! Holding a quick council of war in the hold of the Folly, the pirates act boldly, but with mixed results:

• Guillaume summons incredible reserves of endurance and medical skill to tend to the wounded among the pirates, and is able to save all but one of the casualties. The sole fatality is Jaap, the cannon master, whose wounds were too grievous to treat.
• Red Knife does what he can to tend to the wounded Genoese, but with no training as a surgeon he is not able to save any of the wounded. By the time Guillaume can move from treating the pirates to their captives, all fifteen of the worst injured Genoese have died or deteriorated beyond the point of no return.
• Using Old Jemmy as a cat's-paw, Joe preempts Zandoz's incipient call for an election by proposing an election of his own, speaking in favor of Zandoz for captain, and then subtly allowing Guillaume, Carmen and Red Knife to advance Eve as an even more attractive candidate. Through a mixture of fair means and shady ones (including bribing key members of the crew), Eve wins in a landslide and Zandoz is soon separated from the crew and sent away on board the Aquila with the remaining wounded pirates. 

Only thirty crew now remain on board the Fortune's Folly and the Estrella, which turn their bows westwards and away from the open ocean. Their destination is Le Carenage, about which Red Knife has been having a series of mysterious and disquieting dreams involving a ritual mask studded with emeralds. Along the way they happen across two castaways bobbing helplessly in a row boat, and Red Knife and Carmen are surprised to recognize one of them: it is none other than their old comrade-at-arms, Scotch Pete! He is accompanied by Samedi, an escaped slave from San Domingue. The two men gratefully accept rescue, telling a tall tale of a mutiny aboard their previous vessel which had been on a mission to the northern shore of Angilla to search for a missing mail packet.

Putting in at Le Carenage a few days later, the pirates find it much quieter: they are the only vessel anchored there. As Eve gets down to negotiating with Hisene to sell off the plunder from the Estrella, and the crew amuse themselves on the beach by telling tall tales of what they will do with their riches, the officers - along with Scotch Pete and Samedi - begin to do some research about the interior of St-Barthelemy and the possible whereabouts of the emerald mask. In service of this goal, they buy the freedom of Teiha, one of Hisene's Carib slaves, who is willing to serve as their guide. 

With Samedi acting as an interpreter, Teiha is also able to explain some aspects of the island's power structures to them. In addition to Hisene's mercenaries, there are two factions among the Carib inhabitants of St-Barthelemy.

• One faction is led by a warlord who the mercenaries call "Shaytan"; it is he who provides fresh slaves to the mercenaries in exchange for trade goods and the occasional firearm. Shaytan's base of operations is a half-built Spanish outpost at the top of a mountain gorge in the interior, where Teiha has indeed seen a mask like the one in Red Knife's dream. Shaytan's stated plan is to accumulate enough armament to drive Hisene and his men from the island, but from what they can gather he is still years from achieving this.
• The second faction is more numerous than the first, but leaderless and unskilled in violence. They are split between a dozen or so small (and hidden) coastal fishing lodges. According to Teiha, the runaway herbalist from the Fortune's Folly - Nzuzi - now lives among the Carib in one of these lodges.

With Scotch Pete, Carmen and Joe in favor of a frontal assault on Shaytan's fortress, and Red Knife, Guillaume and Samedi in favor of drawing the coast dwellers into some kind of alliance, Teiha is given a tie-breaking vote - and so, thanks to some linguistic finesse from Samedi in explaining the vote to her, the pirates are soon stomping and cutting through the jungly mountainside towards Teiha's family's lodge some few hours march away. There they are greeted by Nzuzi and a few villagers, and set about discussing their options.

Hours pass as the discussion seesaws back and forth between discretion and daring. Without drawing any attention to themselves, Scotch Pete and Joe decide to break the deadlock and bring matters to a head. The first the others learn of this is when the two men stride back into the lodge and toss down a bloodied sack containing nothing other than Red Knife's emerald mask! But by the sound of the war cries and gunshots in the jungle beyond the village, they seem to have brought every one of Shaytan's warriors with them...

Hastily, the pirates scatter around the clearing and prepare to meet the assault of over two dozen Carib warriors. Scotch Pete, Joe, and Red Knife decide to put their backs to the small river and face the first wave of attackers out in the open, while Guillaume uses his stinkpots to wreath the clearing in dense smoke, Carmen hides in the jungle planning to ambush the stragglers in the approaching force, and Samedi takes up a sniper's position on the roof of the lodge.

Battle is soon joined, and although grievous wounds are inflicted on both sides, the pirates' superior armament and solid defensive positions begin to push the battle in their favor. Red Knife throws a brace of grenadoes at his own feet and then dives into the river to escape the blast, cutting three attackers to pieces in a few heartbeats; Scotch Pete, similarly, is soon surrounded by a half-moon of downed warriors as his two blades form an impenetrable palisade of death. Carmen spots Shaytan himself floating down the river using a log as cover, and is able to ambush the ambusher; the great warlord is soon sinking out of sight as the green river water clouds to black with his blood. 

Things are going less well for Joe, Guillaume and Samedi , who are all are being pressed back by the attackers. Guillaume has been badly wounded in the face; Joe in the leg. However, the death of Shaytan and a plea for a momentary truce by Samedi bears unexpected fruit, and the two sides draw back from one another. 

Grasping the mask as the surviving warriors retreat, Red Knife experiences the unshakeable conviction that this artifact can be used to lift his family's curse; as to the fate of the island, and the pirates' vague notion that Hisene and his men should face some reckoning for the evil that they have brought to St-Barthelemy, these matters will have to be addressed another day.

On to Session 2.2!

"On the Account": El Humo hace Fuego (Session 0.1 - Prequel 1)

Santiago de Cuba, New Years' Eve 1650: as festivities and fireworks light up Cuba's second city on this night of revelry, all seems to be merriment and laughter. But through the revelers moves a single figure with more serious matters on her mind...

Carmen, a red-haired freelance spy who has been operating out of Santiago de Cuba for several months, is heading to the docks to receive a new assignment. She makes her way to a three-story tobacco warehouse with a makeshift tavern in the back. This is El Curatores de Humo, a well known site for those seeking to have meetings where privacy is of primary concern. There, she makes contact with Mercedes Delgado, her employer. Mercedes has a mission for Carmen, but she has also hired some outlaws from Havana to serve as her backup. We meet:

• Oman, a fugitive whose slight figure allows her to pass as a boy
• "Red Knife" Abrameu, a youthful Spanish adventurer loaded down with weapons
• Ilva, a resourceful castaway whose heavy cape conceals a trained monkey, and
• Scotch Pete, a burly mercenary with a taste for sweet wine and games of dexterity

Mercedes sketches the mission out to Carmen in the following terms: a visiting priest is staying at the enormous Castillo de San Pedro della Roca just outside town.

At midnight, he will be rowed out to a troopship at anchor in the bay to perform a mass for the soldiers on board. During the hour that he is away, Carmen and her team must enter his lodgings - a tent pitched on one of the castle terraces - and steal any correspondence bearing the seal of a local noble: Guzman Mendoza Diaz, the Conde de Fideo. To expedite matters, a servant is standing by to open a side gate of the fortress for them at exactly midnight. The correspondence is to be returned to Mercedes at the tobacco warehouse, at which time all will be paid for their efforts.

As it is still early in the evening, the adventurers split up to learn more about the mission while they still have time.

• Carmen flirts with Carlos, an off-duty soldier at the bar, learning that the priest is no simple friar but an official of the Holy Inquisition based in Cartagena; furthermore, that his tent is heavily guarded both by musketeers from the fort, and soldiers of the Inquisition. The soldier offers to tell more if Carmen will accompany him to his rented room, but with the aid of Scotch Pete and Oman she is able to extricate herself.
• Red Knife hooks an expensive handkerchief to his belt to serve as bait for a pickpocket. When he catches one - a fruit-seller's son called Alvaro - he interrogates him regarding the Conde de Fideo. He learns that the Conde is a hidalgo - a nobleman in title only, with no lands or wealth to speak of - but an ambitious and crafty one, nicknamed "the Snake" (ofidio) on account of his inquisitive and deadly reputation. The Conde has apparently been paying good money to all who will sell him information on heretics - Jews, Protestants, and witches - for several months.
• Ilva finds a religious procession waiting to bear a holy relic through the festive streets, and plays marbles with a cheeky altar boy called Filipo to find out more about the inquisitor, including his name - Fray Porfirio Cruz del Campo - and the fact that he recently drained the Mass supplies from Filipo's church and had them rowed out to his troopship. She also learns that the Conde added religious supplies from his own home to this shipment, such as an old family communion chalice. Perhaps he is attempting to win favor with the Inquisitor?

With midnight drawing near, the adventurers hire a coach to take them up to the fortress. They consider bypassing the possibly-dangerous interior of the fortress by coming in at the sea entrance, but the presence of sentries and many light sources seems to suggest that this would be even more risky. Accordingly, they stick to Mercedes' plan, meeting her assistant at a side door and slipping in unnoticed.

The interior of the fortress proves to be nearly deserted, with almost everyone having been granted leave to go into the town for the New Years Eve festivities. Proceeding cautiously and using Ilva's monkey as a scout, they surprise two porters carrying wine and a tray of roast chicken; Scotch Pete uses a barrel that he is carrying as a part of his disguise as a deliveryman to knock one of them unconscious, while Red Knife is able to subdue the other one by beating him senseless with a heavy wooden serving tray. The porters are stripped of their uniforms and locked in a storeroom, and the adventurers proceed with Carmen and Red Knife wearing the uniforms as disguises.

The next complication involves crossing the fortress' inner courtyard, where a clerk is conducting an inventory of one of the enormous supply vaults. The clerk is blocking their progress, but Red Knife and Carmen are able to successfully distract him with questions about who to deliver the roast chicken to, while Ilva, Pete and Oman slip by behind him.

The adventurers are almost to the long stairs leading down to the terrace on which the priest's tent is pitched, but a locked door with two guards behind it now blocks their path. A plan is hatched; Carmen and Red Knife will gain entrance by telling the guards that they have brought food and wine for them, the guards will be given drugged chicken to lull them into a doze, and then the rest of the group will rush the door to overpower the guards.

However, two things go wrong: first, the guards pointedly close the door once Red Knife and Carmen have been let in, making a rush from the corridor outside somewhat more risky; and second, it seems that either these men have a strange tolerance to intoxicants, or Carmen's opium supplier has been letting quality slip of late. Either way, things move to Plan B: on a prearranged signal ("¡Feliz año nuevo!", shouted by Red Knife) the door is kicked open and Oman fires a crossbow while the guards suddenly fight themselves under attack with concealed knives. In a few heartbeats both guards lie dead - stabbed and shot through the gaps in their heavy armor. Once again, the adventurers loot their fallen foes for disguises, hide the bodies (down a pit toilet this time), and proceed towards their final goal.

On the terrace below, the inquisitor's tent stands revealed, as do ten armed guards standing in stiff parade-ground attention in two parallel rows in front of it: five musketeers from the castle garrison, and five soldiers of the Inquisition. A frontal attack seems unthinkably risky, the area is too well-lit to consider stealth, and although Ilva's monkey could probably get in and out undetected, how would it know which papers to steal? Suddenly, Scotch Pete has a flash of insight: what if the small and limber Oman, with Ilva's monkey clasped to her chest, was hidden in an empty wine barrel which was then "delivered" to the inside of the tent?

In a few minutes, the plan is in motion. Ilva overcomes some initial skepticism from the captain of the musketeers by insisting that the wine, although not scheduled, is a personal gift from the Conde to the inquisitor, and although they are closely watched while they manhandle the barrel into the tent they are allowed to do so without further objections. A few minutes later, Oman emerges, silently locates two leather folios bearing the Conde's seal on the writing desk nearby, and then relocates their contents to a watertight bottle held by the monkey. The monkey sneaks back to Ilva, and once it has arrived safely Oman steels herself, slips out under the front of the tent, and dives into the inky waters of the bay without being noticed.

Reuniting on the coast some way away, the adventurers examine their haul. The papers from the first folio, which was labeled “El enemigo interno” (The Enemy Within), contain a list of 300 names and locations. Possibly these are the heretics that the hidalgo Conde has been investigating? The contents of the other folio, labeled "El Gallo contra el León" (The Rooster against the Lion), are more inscrutable: maps of a faraway coastline, lists of English and French names, and a roster of ships. Deciding that knowing more about the materials they have stolen for Mercedes would be a useful thing, Red Knife and Carmen memorize as many of the listed names from the first folio as they can, while Oman memorizes the maps and Scotch Pete copies the various lists and names from the second. Ilva, in the meantime, takes specific note of one name on the first folio lists and carefully memorizes its associated details before sitting alone with her thoughts...

Back at El Curatores de Humo, Mercedes exchanges the stolen papers for payment. Hearing that two soldiers were killed in the course of the mission, she suggests that the adventurers may wish to leave town for a while. People say that Tortuga is nice at this time of year...

On to Session 1.1!

"On the Account": The End of the Chase (Session 1.6 - Season Finale)

Philipsburg, Saint Marten, January 1651: Joe, Guillaume and Red Knife prepare to depart the city with their new arsenal. In exchange for a promise of indebtedness from Guillaume, Captain van Breda has loaned them the Teringlijer, a swift vessel from her own squadron, to serve as a temporary escort.

An unremarkable day's sailing brings the three pirates and their cannons to a long, shallow beach on the western side of Saint-Barthelemy. There, as the sun begins to set, they find the Folly and a French merchant ship called L'Apostre (out of Marseilles) at anchor, and the encamped crew of Swedish privateer called the Wandervalke (out of Bremerhaven) lounging under their tents within a heavily fortified beachfront compound. This is Le Carenage.

The compound itself is run by Hisene, a Barbary corsair, and about twenty Spanish and North African mercenaries. Once sailors in their own right, the corsair crew now grows rich charging passing ships for careening and resupply services on their way into or out of the Caribbean. However, a cruel side to the operation soon reveals itself: the actual work is all done by Carib slaves, who work under the lash and the gun and who are chained in the upside-down carcass of a beached ship at night.

Some cautious inquiries reveal that the corsairs at Le Carenage exist in a permanent state of war with the island's inhabitants, and that both sides take pains to kill any stragglers they find in contested territory, but that some degree of trade also takes place - tools and supplies for slaves and fresh food from the interior. While gambling with the Swedish officers, Eve also discovers that the mountainous interior of the island is rumored to hold lost riches, but that dozens of parties of treasure-seekers have died searching for it. Their names now adorn a giant map of the island which is pinned above the bar in Hisene's stronghold.

As if the piles of skulls surrounding the map were not eerie enough, the pirates are also caught up in concerns of their own. Hearing that Brimstone Jack has been indisposed, Guillaume is paddled out to his sickbed on board the Folly. There he finds a shrunken, unconscious invalid bearing no signs of the apparent recuperation that had apparently characterized the captain on their trip from Hispaniola.

Nzuzi, the herbalist who had been treating Brimstone Jack, is nowhere to be found; according to the crew, she fled into the interior of the island soon after their arrival, shouting about sorcery and curses. Examining the captain and questioning Lolo, the cabin boy, Guillaume soon finds a snakebite on Jack's neck; he also find strange scribbles on the back of a map and rough sculptures of a woman's face made in candlewax. The scribbles refer to Oman; the sculpture is of Carmen. Mysteries upon mysteries...

The fog of strangeness surrounding Brimstone Jack is dispelled in the morning along with Zanzdoz's return to Le Carenage. He and the bulk of the new recruits have been out practicing boarding actions, and everyone now shows a keen enthusiasm for the hunt for the Estrella. The coconut wine comes out, a section of beach is cleared so it can be used as a rough blackboard, and the planning commences. The pirates make the following decisions:

• The company's arsenal of fifteen light cannon and the two heavy demi-cannon need to be split between the Folly and the Aquila. Each ship can only handle, at most, ten light and one heavy cannon. Given that Jaap, the new master gunner, is the most skilled artillerist in the crew, he is placed on the Aquila with ten guns and a demi-cannon. The Folly will take the remaining five light and one heavy cannon.
• The sixty available crew are similarly split - 35 to the Aquila, 25 to the Folly.
• Eve and Carmen will captain the Aquila; Joe, Guillaume and Red Knife will stay on the Folly along with Zandoz.
• The Folly and Aquila will operate in a dispersed formation, to maximize their chances of spotting their prey at the possible cost of not being able to attack at the same time.

After weighing the possibility of a quick assassination of Hissene, to end the tyranny at Le Carenage, the pirates elect to save that for another day and set out into the rising sun to lay in wait for the Estrella.

1. The First Engagement

After three days of false alarms and high excitement, the Estrella is sighted - speeding West towards Saint-Martin under full sail. The two pirate crews are caught unprepared, badly positioned to swing around and give chase, and the Estrella punches through the gap between them. Red Knife conceives a desperate plan, spinning the Folly's demi-cannon on its axis to fire a powerful and unbalancing blast: this shove to the ships center of gravity proves to be just enough to allow the Folly to catch the wind and fill its sails. On board the Aquila, Eve and Carmen replicate Red Knife's trick, and as the sun begins to set ahead of them the two pirate vessels begin - albeit slowly and sloppily - their pursuit.

2. The Second Engagement

By sunrise on the next day, the Estrella's zigzag course has successfully thrown the Folly off its trail, but on board the Aquila, Carmen's sharp eyes have kept them close on the Estrella's stern. Then, when their quarry begins to tack around an island while throwing ballast overboard, it is Eve whose maritime experience leads her and Carmen to perceive a trap: concealed within the flotsam are five Maltese sailors clutching waterproof satchels containing firebombs. The Aquila successfully avoids the trap and signals to the Folly, and the two ships finally begin to bear down on the Estrella.

Hours pass, and the pirates use every trick they can think of to close the gap. On Joe's order, the Folly's gunports are flashed open to cause the Estrella to tack away from an anticipated broadside and thereby lose some speed; soon afterwards, Guillaume and Red Knife are able to use the Folly's navigational charts to find a channel with a faster current than the one their quarry is using. On the Aquila, Eve and Carmen order Jaap to keep up a steady long-range fire with the demi-cannon, boxing the Estrella in and limiting its maneuverability. Inch by inch, yard by yard, the gap closes - and then, with a mighty roar, the Folly rams the Estrella at her stern and Joe leads a roaring charge of pirates over the gunwales onto the Genoan's ship's deck.

Little, Benerson. The Sea Rover's Practice:
Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730
(USA: Potomac Books, 2007)

The pirates' initial sally goes well. Red Knife's sharp eyes have allowed them to steer clear of the heavily-trapped bow of the ship, as well as to not be caught up by the Knights' wily ruse: they have dressed the lightly armed sailors in their own black cloaks, and are counting on the booby traps and this misdirection to lead the boarding party into a death trap of gunpowder and steel. Instead, it is the pirates who dominate the fight, pushing the sailors to surrender almost immediately and engaging the heavily armed and armored Knights on much more even terms.

But even at this moment of triumph, the hand of despair is never far away. From the Aquila, a terrible concussive explosion rings out: the demi-cannon, with which Eve and Carmen had intended to provide covering fire, has exploded - killing and injuring more than a dozen of the crew. And on the deck of the Estrella, a hulking Knight-Sergeant meets Joe in sword-to-axe combat and, with one terrible blow, severs the Irishman's right arm at the bicep. The Estrella strikes its colors, but it has been a bloody day for the jolly pirate company that left Le Carenage less than a week ago.

Taking stock of their winnings, the pirates find the stash of ceremonial Crusader silver they had been expecting, as well as multiple crates and chests full of assorted fineries: the new governor's personal effects. Up on deck, Carmen has managed to stop the last Knight standing from throwing a stash of strange old swords and blacksmithing tools overboard, and these are duly added to the haul of plunder. Lastly, and in the furthest corner of the captain's cabin, the looters find - carefully wrapped in wool and oilcloth - a fine oil painting in the Dutch style. This may be the most valuable item on board the Estrella, if only a buyer of means can be found for it:

On to Session 2.1!

"On the Account": Gunpowder and Rouge (Session 1.5)

The Leeward Isles, January 1651: The Aquila and the Fortune's Folly have been at sea for three hard weeks, but their destination is on the horizon. The Folly raises a signal flag, the two ships draw alongside one another, and the officers convene...

Brimstone Jack, who is finally able to stand after almost a month of convalescence, cuts directly to the chase: to keep their arrival in the seas around St. Martin as quiet as possible, the company must temporarily split up. He will take the ships, the cacao, and the bulk of the officers and crews to Saint-Barthélemy, where the Folly and the Aquila can be careened and otherwise made ready for battle. Meanwhile, three volunteers must proceed either to the nearby Dutch settlement at Philipsburg, or to the French colonial capital at Basse-Terre on St. Kitts, to trade the Turkish treasure for more cannons and if at all possible, the services of a master gunner for the battle to come.

Joe, Guillaume and Red Knife volunteer, select St. Philipsburg as their destination, and are put to sea in the Folly's launch. A day's sailing across the open sea brings them to the town's bustling harbor just as the fishing fleet is returning, and they slip into the bay without drawing any attention.

St. Philipsburg is a grimy, hard-working town filled with salt dredgers and merchants from across the Low Countries, and guarded by three stone forts looking down from above. Over glasses of jenever in a wharfside tavern, the three pirates hatch their plan: before investigating the town's cannon foundry, they will try to convert the Turkish treasure into coin at an advantageous rate by selling the items to a collector. A coin tossed to Hendrik, the potboy, results in a lead: a visiting French Jesuit, Frère Robert, is a well-traveled expert on antiquities. Perhaps he would be interested in taking a look?

The pirates track down the priest, who is found engaged in congenial dinnertime debate as a guest at the house of St. Philipsburg's town minister. Although he is not interested in purchasing the treasure himself, he is able to increase its value by assaying certain significant items, which will help them get a better trade for it should they try to turn it into cannons in the future.

The evening is passed in tale-telling and genever-drinking under Dominee Barendse's roof, and Frère Robert sends his new friends on their way the next morning with an open invitation to join him at the island monastery he is journeying towards: Santa Marta de las Islas, just north of San Juan.

At the cannon-foundry, Guillaume converses with the bewigged and highly efficient proprietor, Mijnheer Jans Oppendijk, who takes their order for ten light cannon and also offers to cast them two heavy demi-cannons to use as chaser guns - if they can get hold of the bronze it would take to do so.

Oppendijk's last shipment of bronze was brought in by a Dutch privateer which is still in the harbor, and following this trail brings the pirates to the great cabin of the heavily customized sea-galleon Vurenschijter, where they meet the scientifically-knowledgeable and red-blooded Kaptein Hillegont van Breda.

Van Breda bats aside offers to buy her remaining bronze with a job offer: she needs someone briefly kidnapped and brought to her ship so that she can interrogate them. Following the interrogation, they are to be returned safely to where they were taken. She cannot use her own crew for this task, as the subject is also Dutch and it would show her in a bad light were anything to go wrong. In exchange for this service, she will hand over the bronze that the three pirates need for their demi-cannons. Joe and Guillaume's enthusiasm for doing van Breda this "favor" wins Red Knife over and they accept, promising to return at sunset for more details.

In the mean time, the matter of a master gunner still needs to be attended to. Dropping some of their treasure into the apron pocket of Paulus, Hendrik the pot-boy's father, gets them a few bottles of his most expensive jenever and his assistance for the day. Paulus introduces them to a stonemason called Hiram, who offers to see if any of the bored cannoneers up in the forts above might prefer a more adventurous life at sea. With the help of one of Oppendijk's apprentices the pirates arrange for a damaged cannon to be hauled over to the inn, and using the cannon as a testing tool they are able to identify the most qualified applicant. This is Jaap de Ruyter, a somewhat lazy but highly competent middle-aged artillerist who gladly accepts their offer to join the company.

With light cannons purchased and a master gunner signed on to direct their use, only one thing remains: the kidnapping job. The target is identified as Paulus Henriksen, the navigator of the a Dutch man-o-war anchored further out in the bay. Van Breda wishes to ask him some technical questions about a timing device she is working on, but he has refused to see her - thus necessitating, in her eyes, the business at hand.

A row-boat with muffled oars has been made available, and with Guillaume providing the seamanship and Joe providing the stealth, the little vessel is soon drawn in under the Vergulde Zon's stern. Although Guillaume is disconcerted by a familiar violin tune that he hears echoing out from the open cabin windows above them, and Joe is concerned by the conscious absence of lanterns at the ship's aft railing, but these misgivings are pushed aside as they clamber silently up the hull and draw themselves up to the cabin's windowsill.

Within, a scene of surprising opulence is visible. Silks, velvets and cloth-o'-gold have been draped around the cabin, an enormous pile of fresh fruit spills from a woven basket on a table on the far side, and a veiled woman seated by the door plays a violin. In the center of the cabin, a masked and wigged figure wearing a Dutch naval officer's uniform stands at ease while a second masked figure with long blonde hair and a silk shift kneels at his feet to employ an ornate boot-polishing kit.

Led by the ever-impulsive Joe, the pirates leap into the room to seize their prey, but things go wrong quickly; Joe fumbles his attempt to knock the standing figure's saber away, while Guillaume is forced to employ his sedative kit to prevent the violin player fleeing out of the cabin. Red Knife and Joe have just managed to wrestle the officer to the deck and unmask him when the boot polisher stands, snatches a double-barreled pistol from a nearby bench, and fires both barrels at Red Knife's head!

As everyone's hearing returns, Red Knife is bleeding from two hair's-breadth bullet grazes to his scalp and ear, Joe is using his axe to hold the unmasked "naval officer" - in fact, just a slim boy of around 14 - hostage, and the boot polisher has removed their mask and blonde wig to reveal a droopy white mustache and bald scalp: this, not the boy dressed as an officer, is the pirates' real target.

Hendrikssen's gun is empty, but two shots have been already been fired and boots can be heard in the passageway outside. What will the pirates do - stand or run? 

While Guillaume slams the cabin door shut, Joe gives Hendrikssen an ultimatum: call off the approaching marines, or he will use his axe on the hostage. A wrench of the axe handle brings a trickle of blood to the boy's throat and lends weight to the threat, and Hendrikssen shouts through the bulkhead that the shots were an accidental discharge and that everything is fine. The marines are heard dispersing, and after Guillaume's sedatives are once more employed (on Hendrikssen) this time, the pirates are soon rowing away with the boy bound and gagged in the cabin and Hendriksen and the violin-player - a slave called Fabienne - in tow.

Back at the Vurenschijter, Hendrikssen - who has revealed a deep antipathy for both women and pirates as the source of his reluctance to meet with van Breda - is handed over for a brief interrogation. A half hour later, he is paddled back across the dark waters of the bay and returned to his ship. A tense moment passes when the pirates are spotted making their retreat and are forced to abandon the rowboat amidst a hail of musket fire from the Vergulde Zon's sentries, but the absence of a boat is no impediment to these sons of the sea and all are soon reunited on the deck of Kaptein van Breda's ship. The bars of bronze change hands, Mijnheer Oppendilk's apprentices begin work on casting the Folly and Aquila's new 36-pound chaser guns, and the pirates arrange for a hired vessel to take them, their new master gunner, and his new hardware north to Saint-Barthélemy to rendezvous with Brimstone Jack and make ready for the arrival of L'Estrella in the waters of the Caribbean...

On to Session 6!