"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!

"On the Account": The Hunter or the Prey? (Session 1.4)

Santo Domingo, January 1651: The crew of the Fortune's Folly return to the Lopez plantation after their midnight struggle against the unquiet dead...

At the plantation, Affonso has in the meantime coordinated a salvage and stripping operation, and three large groups of freed slaves are busily preparing to leave as the pirates guide their wagon up to the great house:

• the hardliners, who have been gathering weapons while waiting to see if the pirates kept their word to investigate their missing family members, are preparing to disperse into the forests in their ones and twos
• the maroons led by Affonso, who have salvaged farming implements and trade goods and who are preparing to relocate to a hidden mountain sanctuary, and 
• the prospective pirates, who wish to join the crew of the Fortune's Folly and seek their fortunes at sea

As the new recruits unload the haul of Turkish treasure and begin to carry it down the forest trails to the beach, Oman and Carmen are taken aside by Affonso, who expresses the hope that they will all see each other once again soon and gives them an important piece of information: the secret route to the Place of the White Tree, where the maroons intend to found their hidden settlement. Meanwhile, Eve takes possession of a particularly fine scimitar from the treasure pile.

Upon reaching the beach just before dawn, the pirates are surprised to see most of their fellow crew hiding in the dunes rather than working on refloating the Folly. Old Jemmy explains that a ship's bell was heard in the early hours of the morning, and a flash of light spotted; they fear that there is a ship out in the darkness waiting for first light to attack them. Only Zandoz and his fellows are still on the ship trying to get it unstuck.

Joe, swathed all around in bloody bandages, is able to rally the beach party back to their tasks using some choice words, and with the added musclepower of the new recruits the Folly is pulling out of the cove just as dawn breaks. The ship is revealed to be the Aquila, a single-masted vessel flying no flag. The Folly hoists Spanish colors, hoping to seem innocuous, and while the mystery ship does the same it does not alter its posture to a more peaceful one. The Folly turns east and attempts to flee; the Aquila follows under full sail. The chase is on!

The two vessels chase each other for most of the day, while the pirates work hard to shake off their pursuers. However, Red Knife - despite his best efforts - is not able to outclass the Aquila's helmsman and sailing master, who are clearly seasoned sailors and who are steadily closing the gap between the vessels. 

Meanwhile, based on meticulous long-range observation from the crow's nest, Guillaume and Carmen are able to deduce that the Aquila  is lightly crewed, counting on its cannons to beat the Folly in a straight fight. This inspires Red Knife and Joe to propose a risky strategem: break line-of-sight with the Aquila, pull into a sheltered cove, and spill the wind from the sails until their pursuer catches up - then surge out of the cove into boarding range before the Aquila can use her guns. The plan works, and the crew of the Folly pour over the Aquila's gunwales before the Spanish gun crews can fire their broadside.

The fight that follows is short and decisive. The crew of the Aquila deploy a swivel gun to deadly effect, but Carmen leaps from concealment to kill its crew before they can fire a second salvo. The more experienced Spanish sailors begin to break the momentum of the pirate assault through superior formation and discipline, but Red Knife keeps up a fusillade of musket fire which helps the Folly's crew bring their greater numbers to bear. Soon, the crew of the Aquila - which is revealed to be a guarda costa ship, or private ship hired to perform coast guard duties - are forced to surrender. The crew of the Folly have taken their first prize, including the Aquila's small cargo of confiscated cacao!

A brief meeting of officers is held in the wake of the battle. The Spaniards are permitted to escape ashore, and Zandoz is given command of the Folly and its crew of fresh recruits, while the characters and all the experienced pirates move to command the Aquila. In doing so, the characters hope to contain Zandoz's obvious ambitions to be captain - they have given him a crew that is primarily loyal to them, and they have split him off from the four or five members of the crew who he might have counted on for support. Thus divided, the company set off towards St. Martin and the adventures that await them there...

On to Session 5!

"On the Account": The Sweet Embrace of Death (Session 1.3)

Santo Domingo, January 1651: The crew of the Fortune's Folly have won the battle for the Lopez plantation. As flames rise all around, they now attempt to win the peace...

With the plantation owners and hired hands disarmed and kept under guard, the pirates return their attention to plundering the great house for weapons. Guillaume is able to convince some of the farmhands to brave the flames to bring out their armory, but they are blocked from entering the house by a fearful group of freed slaves - until Guillaume is able to enlist the help of Affonso, the plantation's blacksmith and the leader of the freed slaves.

With a few armfuls of muskets and gunpowder thus retrieved, Affonso and the pirates discuss what to do next. As things currently stand, the freed slaves have formed into three factions:

• One group, composed mostly of noncombatants and the infirm, wishes to flee the plantation together and found a secret camp in the deserted interior
• One group wishes to arm themselves, seize control of the plantation, and prepare to fight off any Spanish forces who attempt to return them to slavery, and
• One group with no long-term plans as such, but an immediate and intense interest in exacting revenge on the plantation owners and hired hands

Representatives from each faction give a short speech to the crowd of freed slaves, and Affonso invites the pirates to also have their say. Joe speaks for the crew of the Folly, and chooses a cautious and somewhat noncommittal approach: send as many freed slaves as wish to leave the island off to sea on the Folly, and have those who wish to stay keep the Europeans alive as hostages or free them to deflect the wrath of the neighboring planters.

Joe's measured approach calms the passions of many in the crowd, but the fate of the overseers remains a sticking point: will no-one make them pay for the sufferings they have inflicted?

To break the deadlock, Affonso proposes a solution which which he thinks will appease the most hot-headed of the hardliners. Seven days ago, the plantation owner's young son Miguel returned to the plantation after one of his customary sketching trips into the countryside, rounded up ten slaves and one of the overseers, and disappeared off with them into the hills. If the fate of these missing members of Affonso's group can be discerned, he believes that the consensus among the freed slaves will tilt towards Joe's plan. 

After some deliberation the pirates agree. They are introduced to João and Tshilobu, two members of the hardliner group who have family members among the missing people, and who will guide them to Miguel's ostensible destination: the deserted de Flores plantation, eight miles away. Tshilobu is a hunter who knows the region well; João was the plantation's "cutter," standing ready to strike off the hands of slaves who got them caught in the cane crushers, and Affonso believes that retrieving the abductees will help to reintegrate him into the community.

A few last minute preparations and discoveries are then made:

• A horse-drawn wagon is prepared for the trip. The colonial militia will likely arrive just after dawn, so there is no time to walk to the de Flores plantation; at the same time, there are not enough horses for all the pirates. The wagon should get them there and back by dawn.
• Asking after the specific slaves that were taken, Red Knife and Tshilobu discover some patterns: one of the abductees, Maria, was a skilled traditional healer and spirit medium, while the other nine were the most economically unproductive among the slaves - the old, the sick, and victims of industrial accidents mostly involving the plantation's sugar crushing rollers.
• According to his manservant Batubenga, Miguel returned to the plantation from from his last sketching trip with a large sack containing a bulky object. The sack is found, and is the object revealed to be a heavy, discolored silver tureen of Turkish manufacture. 

With a bad feeling about the last two pieces of information, the pirates and their guides set off in the dark for the de Flores plantation, which sits atop a steep hill to the north. Scouting reveals the layout of its buildings as follows:

The would-be rescuers creep up to the ruined plantation under the cover of the low scudding clouds into which the top of the hill protrudes, and begin to explore:

1. The entire plantation bears a cloying, sweet smell - as if sugar sap is currently being processed, even through the de Flores family are said to have fled around twenty years ago
2. A thrown torch reveals nothing at the bottom of the dark, silent quarry just below the plantation
3. The large, three-story stone hacienda is abandoned and shows signs of having been partially and hurriedly packed up. In the main bedroom, Eve finds a pair of ornamental Turkish scimitars suggests a link to Miguel's looted coffee urn
4. As Red Knife leads the group out of the hacienda, he is fired on from a garita by a sniper with a powerful rifle! The group takes cover at the base of the staircase leading  up to the garita, where Tshilobu saves Joe from stepping onto tripwire linked to a musket on the stairs. The two of them attempt without success to talk down their attacker - Victorio, the Spanish overseer who accompanied Miguel, who is raving about "hungry ghosts" somewhere above them. Victorio finally tries to kill them with a grenado that instead fatally collapses the tower around him.
5. Investigating the church, João and Guillaume find two of the missing slaves, including João's mother Pungu. She tells them that Miguel is in the crypt below, that he has been there all week, and that every night he has been taking one of the slaves away from their camp in the nearby warehouse in chains. That person is never seen again.
6. Pungu blames Maria, missing the spirit medium, for providing Miguel with forbidden knowledge regarding the appeasement of evil spirits
7. In the partly-collapsed warehouse, Maria is found frozen within a partially-completed veve, reaching for her fallen cornmeal pouch. Red Knife tosses the pouch closer to her, and she completes the veve before falling into a trance and addressing them in a deep male voice as "Papa Legba".
8. According to Maria/Papa Legba, the boy Miguel has called up the "hungry ghosts" by bringing his greed for wealth onto the deserted plantation. This greed has brought together a blood curse of the slaves who died here, and an incantation of revenge associated with Turkish plunder held as trophies by the de Flores family, to create a legion of vengeful specters. 
9. Legba wishes to prevent harm to his "horse", Maria, and so will tell the pirates what they need to do to break the connection before more blood is spilled: they must ceremonially reassemble the shattered bodies of the long-dead slaves and thereby break the conjoined curse. He tells them that what they seek can be found in the giant sugar-sap cauldron in the cookhouse at the plantation's highest point.

As Guillaume and the others approach the giant copper cauldron in the deserted cookhouse, a roiling tide of syrupy-smelling white fog spills from it, mixing with the low cloud to severely limit their vision. At the same time, shadowy figures spring from all around them to attack with rending bony claws.

Red Knife, João, and Joe enter into desperate close-quarters battle with the figures, receiving multiple wounds but also striking down a handful of the figures. Tshilobu readies his ammunition bag as an improvised grenado, but is unable to get the others to gather together so that he can throw it safely. Guillaume springs up to the cauldron and, blind in the heavy fog, reaches down into it instead to find that it is filled with hundreds of finger bones. He scoops these into his medical bag even as Red Knife is struck a terrible blow and Joe, trying to free himself from a claw, wounds himself deeply with his own axe.

Luckily for the pirates, it is at this moment that João determines the attackers' weakness: although their bodies seem insubstantial, or at least hard to hit in the blinding fog, their ever-grasping hands are solid and vulnerable. The pirates use this information to protect themselves as they carry their stricken friends with them to the gravesites of the plantation's slave village. There, Maria/Legba awaits near a freshly dug grave; when Guillaume pours the fingerbones into it, the fog momentarily thickens to complete opacity and then lifts. The grave is filled with earth, the shadowy figures are nowhere to be seen, and Maria lies nearby in a deep sleep.

A few hours later, the pirates' wagon returns to the Lopez plantation. On it are the rescued (and now freed) slaves; young Miguel, bruised and bound in chains; Red Knife and Joe, deeply wounded and leaking blood into their bandages; and, under a rough tarpaulin looted from the de Flores warehouse, a substantial haul of Turkish silver. What next for the crew of the Fortune's Folly? Only time will tell...

On to Session 4!

"On the Account": Bring me that Horizon (Session 1.2)

Tortuga, January 1651:The Fortune's Folly has taken on new hands, and the sails are set to depart on the first tide. The day begins...

Twenty pirates have crowded into the aft hold of the Folly. There, in his tiny captain's cabin, Brimstone Jack is gasping out a secret. Among the pirates, six stand out:

• Eve, the Quartermistress of the Folly (played by Melanie)
• "Red Knife" Abrameu, a youthful Spanish noble laboring under a mysterious curse (Gerald)
• Guillaume, ship's doctor and political idealist (Elin)
• Joe Malone, a mutineer and would-be boatswain (Padraic)
• Oman, a young runaway dressed in boy's clothes (Amanda), and
• Carmen, a disguised spy fleeing enemy agents (Jacquie)

Other crew members of note include:

• Jerome, sailor, lately of the French navy
• Jean, the gigantic cook
• Old Jemmy, English master carpenter, recently hired
• Zandoz de la Rosa, leader of a Spanish faction among the crew, recently crew of the Dagger

His speech made less painful by some of Guillaume's anesthetic preparations, Brimstone Jack reveals what he knows: the island of St Martin will soon be sold by the French Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique. It's new owner is Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta:

Brimstone Jack has found out - he does not say how - that a substantial amount of ceremonial silver is being sent from the knights' stronghold across the Atlantic to St Martin. The silver is being carried by a fast but lightly-armed Genoese ship, L'Estrella, which will be arriving in the Caribbean at the end of the month. If L'Estrella can be taken before she reaches St Martin, it will be enough to change the lives of the entire crew of the Folly, perhaps up to the point of buying and fitting a much bigger ship for more ambitious adventures.

The crew retire to discuss Brimstone Jack's revelations, pausing momentarily to elect Joe as the new boatswain. Zandoz de la Rosa runs against him, but Joe's cool intimidation and his past as a mutineer carry the vote.

As the rest of the hands return to their tasks aboard the ship, Joe and the others continue to discuss the hunt for L'Estrella. Of primary concern is the Folly's shortage of firepower, even relative to a smaller ship. After considering raiding fortresses in Puerto Rico and San Domingo for weapons, the crew instead decide to beach the ship along the northern coast of the Spanish section of Hispaniola, and raid a sugar plantation instead.

The plan hits an initial hump when Oman and Red Knife find themselves unable to bring the Folly in close to the shore, and instead get stuck on a sandbar. Most of the crew stay behind to work on getting the ship loose, while Red Knife, Joe, Guillaume, Carmen, Eve and Oman travel inland towards a nearby plantation.

At the plantation, some reconnaissance reveals several points of interest:

1. A fortified great house, presumably the location of any lootable goods
2. A dormitory building, occupied by the farmhands and free laborers
3. Two slave lodges, each guarded by a pair of armed sentries
4. A large warehouse partially filled with cane bundles and processed sugar

The pirates' initial, stealthy approach is ruined by a surprised rat. Joe fires a pistol and mortally wounds a sentry; a brief firefight follows. Oman shoots a second sentry, Joe kills a third and is wounded in the ribs for his trouble, and Eve leaps from the darkness to skewer the fourth and last sentry.

In the lodges, Oman and Carmen try with little success to free the slaves. In the mens' lodge, a heavy chain running through hoops set in the stone floor serves as the anchoring point for each group of four men, and is held in place by a monstrous padlock; in the womens' lodge, the occupants are unchained but the door itself is sturdy and hard to unlock.

As the pirates continue to struggle with these locks, the gunfire outside has raised the alarm, and return fire is beginning to rattle out from the dormitory as the farmhands respond to the raid. It is only a matter if time until the outnumbered raiders are surrounded or driven back with nothing. Three acts of reckless daring, and one of cynical self-preservation, resolve the situation:

1. Red Knife scoops up several muskets and keeps up a one-man assault on the farmhands, using stealth and speed to make himself seem like several attackers
2. Carmen, improvising the dress of a plantation laborer running for safety, and utilizing a cloud of smoke created by Guillaume with a stinkpot, infiltrates the dormitory and returns with a heavy blacksmith's hammer capable of smashing the slaves' chains
3. Oman rallies the slaves with the aid of their leader, sending a party of ten men to brave the gunfire and assist Joe in tearing the great house's armored shutters open enough to permit him to throw in a firebomb
4. Eve, faced with a choice between drawing gunfire away from the freed slaves, or keeping herself safe, selects the latter

As the great house begins to burn freely, a flag of surrender is extended by its occupants and the shooting dies down, but dozens of freed slaves lie dead as collateral damage and the disarmed plantation staff are soon the focus of a general desire for revenge. Their fate is now in the hands of the crew of the Fortune's Folly...

On to Session 3!

"For a Fistful of Terces"

This one-shot was played using the Dying Earth Roleplaying Game, published by Pelgrane Press.

On the eastern shore of the great Lake Yb, two stagecoach routes tentatively touch, like embarrassed lovers; one destined for the parochial lands of the South and one for the heady and cosmopolitan Scaum Valley to the North. The lakeside town of Gaurian serves as the terminus for both routes. A band of southern ne'er-do-wells have been journeying along the coach road towards Gaurian for weeks, defrauding short-hop passengers and verbally tormenting the driver to pass the time, but they have now reached the end of both the line and the coachman's charity. Nothing short of good solid gold will do for the next leg of their trip, and the northward coach to Azenomei will not so much as turn a wheel without a minimum of ten terces in the coachman's wallet. Can the scoundrels join forces to preserve their northward momentum?

Dramatis Personae

Gyric, a purveyor of patent medicines (Paul)
Conry, a filthy but sunny-faced rustic (Gerald)
Unrass, a musclebound bellatrix (Amanda)

What we Encountered

• Gaurian, a town on the verge of winter, redolent with the smells of mud and charcoal smoke
• Eel traps, a clue towards the town's main source of protein
• Master Quondam, a rude merchant who really should be more careful with his moneypouch
• The Passionate Penguin, a family establishment turned to bawdy song-hall
• "The Captain's Wife had Forty Daughters", a longshoremen's ditty of interminable length and exceptional smuttiness 
• Master and Mistress Klatsch, long-faced operators of the Penguin, desirous only of some quiet
• Grandmother Klatsch, enjoying a second youth in the company of two dozen burly maritime men
• "The Curse of the Eel", a strangely coherent pastiche of local lore invented by our heroes to disperse said revelers
• Eel pie, served up in giant steaming slabs by the grateful Master and Mistress Klatsch
• Rumors of an alchemist paying well for those who would row out into the lake to perform some task (not heeded by the heroes)
• Rumors that the town magistrate was the wealthiest man in the area (heeded very keenly by the heroes)
• Magistrate Kyphorrhinos, a roly-poly and easily distracted sorcerer who hired the heroes and then immediately had them arrested
• Four graybearded town guards, past their prime but nonetheless skilled at pursuing revenge
• A rumor concerning a fugitive being held in the town's small jail, soon to be released for lack of evidence
• An incarcerated pirate, who was more than he seemed
• An incarcerated ogre, who was also more than he seemed
• A happy conclusion to the night's events, which saw our heroes able to cover the cost of their onward journeys towards the Scaum Valley

Scoundrels of Mars Prequels

To lay the groundwork for a regular planetary romance campaign, a la Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series, we played a couple of interconnected one-shots fleshing out our version of Barsoom and teaching ourselves Modiphius' Momentum LITE system.

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Session 1: In the Shadow of Mars 

Raleigh, North Carolina: January 8, 1886. Amidst the many tensions of the post-Reconstruction South, a delegation from Howard University has journeyed to Raleigh to hold a joint stargazing event with interested students there. Mars seems to sweep low in the sky as the young astronomers' telescope rises to meet it...

Dramatis Personae

Howard U:
Peter Conroy - Law student and ardent student leader
Cabot Hope - Law student and member of the Back to Africa movement
Simeon Washington - Theology student, military veteran, brother of Laura

Shaw U:
Laura Washington - Artist, spiritualist, sister of Simeon
Sarah Wylie - Medical student and aspiring scientist

What we encountered

• Shattered sheets of strange green glass, left over from an enormous telescope lens set in the roof of a colossal building. When shards of it were exposed to sunlight, small floating motes of energy seem to spawn and float around within the audience. By concentrating the motes into smaller and smaller shards of glass, the heroes created lanterns with which to explore the rest of the building
• Hordes of skeletons, showing that an ancient battle took place here between four- and six-limbed Martians
• Spike-faced, scurrying, scavenging creatures, ranging in size from a small dog to a rat. These creatures swarmed the heroes attempting to devour them, and effectively prevented them from exploring some parts of the ruin
• A blue-toned copse of plants, reminiscent of Earth bamboo but possessed of a rudimentary intelligence, razor-edged leaves, and a hunger for meat
• A luminous sword, with a blade made of a similar green glass-like material to what they had found earlier.
• A pool composed of dust so fine that it acted like thick mud, with a host of curious tentacular automata living within it
• Gifts brought to the surface by the automata, which included a heady fungus wine, an elegant ear cuff, and an ornate rifle
• An gigantic, red-eyed, tentacular automaton which roared and threw chunks of rubble at the heroes when it could not reach them
• Upon exiting through the roof of the building, an enormous floating object crossing the face of the two moons above and throwing the heroes into shadow...

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Session 2: Swords against Slavery

Treachery! The last heir of an ancient royal bloodline has been kidnapped by the infamous mercenary, Ras Koban. Even now, the kidnappers' flotilla makes for the outlaw city of Kul Thaar and its dreaded Flesh Bazaars. A rag-tag group of retainers and hirelings gives desperate pursuit; can they reach their prize before it is too late?

Dramatis Personae

Martians:
Ptor Suhn, the Red Blade
Gēn Many-Faced, assassin and spy
Nooma, a Green martian of the Kulian Delta
Dren Dulak, Beastmaster of Venus

Earthborn:
Cabot Hope
Simeon Washington

What we encountered

• Ras Kobaan's fleet: the Panthan's Farewell, an enormous battleship; the Banth of Thuria, a rocket-boosted troop transport, four destroyers, and twelve two-person fliers
• Tam'lu, the loyal pilot of the heroes' ship, the Challenger
• Crystal communicators, handy devices which allow ships to communicate but only within line-of-sight
• Nyan'gau, a race of hyena-headed warriors with a taste for mercenarism
• The tent city of Tian Heen, partly destroyed by Ras Koban's attack
• The dust falls of Arandain, within which the heroes captured two enemy fliers
• The fallen metropolis of Kul Vanaar, once built astride a broad river but now collapsed into itself
• White apes and mutated Green Martian raiders, defenders of the ruins of Kul Vanaar
• Chett, a sympathetic white ape tamed by Dren's beastmastery
• An enormous, climactic battle as the enemy fleet pulled into the docks of Kul Thaar, in which the drop bays of the Banth of Thuria were prematurely opened to drop most of the Nyangau shock troops to their deaths in the poppy fields below, and in which Ras Koban was revealed to be an illusionary double of himself.

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Session 3: Blood Sapphires

In the pirate city of Kul Thaar, business is business; and today, a pirate crew is in town looking to do some business with a small gladiatorial troupe. Experienced gladiators make good fighters, and the pirates have brought a box of sapphires large enough to buy out several contracts. Can supply be successfully brought into contact with demand to enable this mutually beneficial trade? Some claw-assisted thieves have a different plan...

Dramatis Personae

Pirates:
Shay Cloudstealer, captain of the Good Ship Crux
Baria Nyxx, first mate and skilled negotiator

Gladiators:
Sorka, self-appointed manager of the "Kings of Kul Thaar" gladiatorial troupe
Gamran Hukk, hulking spearman and companion to Sorka

What we encountered

• Calot sleds: in the crowded streets of Kul Thaar, zippy sleds pulled by the muscular Martian calot are the best way to get around. Touts dispatch the sleds to the passengers' desired destination by letting the calots sniff a tassel keyed to that place in the city
• Flitts: street vendors sell this crunchy, deep-fried flying insect from bubbling oil cauldrons throughout Kul Thaar. Locals all carry a metal skewer on their belt, which they hand to the vendor so that five or six flits can be spiked onto it before it is handed back.
• Study groups: well-to-do groups of Red Martian youth from the big cities, accompanied by hulking bodyguards and robed tutors, all headed upland to study rock formations in the Kulian Peaks
• A doomsayer warning all who approach that the twin moons of Barsoom will soon crash into its surface and initiate "a Great Scourging!"
• The Strainers, a religious cult whose members wear baggy yellow dervish pants, and whose doctrines focus on performing public service both in this world and the next
• Kul Thaar has fewer children than a regular Martian city, but what children are born to the outlaws who live here have formed enormous street gangs. One, the "Cool Cings of Cul Thaar" (sic) is friendly to the heroes; another (the "C Urchins") is not.
• A distant famine, which has provoked an influx of refugees to the city
• A heavily guarded cart transporting a dormant White Martian in an ancient stasis tube
• The Red Queen, a discreet tea and opium shop within which the meeting is to take place. The hookahs here are elaborate and allow multiple types and flavors to be smoked at once
• A tense negotiation, in which the pirates settled for a few less gladiators than they had wanted in exchange for a substantial discount on the asking price
• A gang of acrobatic thieves, who used a telescoping metal claw to steal the box of sapphires upon which the heroes' trade rested
• A tent city, in which itinerant entertainers and performers have set up a range of obstacles and through which the heroes chased the thieves
• The Hall of Chains, an accurately titled building (given its decor) which also serves as the administrative center for Kul Thaar's gladiatorial industry
• A pitched street battle between rival street gangs, the heroes, the thieves, and... 
• The mighty Ukh-thor the Violent - a heavily-armored axeman and apparent patron of the jewel thieves  

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Session 4: From Beneath, They Devour

In the deepest sub-levels of Kul Thaar, a band of Swordbrother mercenaries is escorting a shipment intended for the outlaw scientist, Gral the Grim. In the shadows nearby, a platoon of vigilante Bluecloaks waits in ambush. Today will revel to them all a a new danger lurking beneath the City of Thieves...

Dramatis Personae

Swordbrothers:
Belshazzar, master of insult and swordplay
Camman Ull, whirlwind fighter
Dario of Kal, stealthy backstabber
Dror Gallant, wrecking ball

Bluecloaks:
Nal of Tian Heen, Bluecloak officer and wielder of an Obedience Beam
Kal Karlon, chain-swinging bodyguard to Nal
Inet Ithali, precise fighter

Others:
Sorka, Green Martian gladiator, allied with the Bluecloaks

What we encountered

• Most  Kul Thaarians are not born within the city's walls, but rather arrive from elsewhere seeking advancement and wealth
• For the city's poorer inhabitants, the best housing is restricted to those willing to join with others to fight for space. The most violent and feared Squat Gangs have the best places to live, but you need to defeat an existing member to get onto their lists
• Prostitution in the city is run by sex workers' collectives, who contract out fighters to punish transgressions against the profession (such as the use of slaves)
• Railboots are a new craze among the urban youth of Kul Thaar. A few areas of the city have been renovated as railboot parks full of challenging obstacles. Urchin gangs can often be found here engaging in boisterous rivalry
• Kul Thaar has a large market for archaeological esoteries such as the White Martian sarcophagus, but you need to have special contacts to access it
• Together with his partner Mar Zann, the Swordbrother known as Belshazzar has a side business selling tasty lichen cakes
• Tchorl, a violent thief who has a history with Dror, has found employment with the Swordbrothers
• Eyra, the flame of Dario's heart. A ruthless, plain-faced veteran Swordsister
• Makk, a musclebound goon and a hazard to his teammates
• Kul Thaarian technology includes crude automata who pull carts as well as baroque "auto-scrolls" that serve as personal record keeping devices
• Bluecloaks are a vigilante police force, operating in secret lest the powerful criminal factions stamp them out. Their members wear reversible clothing, and reveal themselves by "flying the blue" while shouting out "Bluecloaks! Stand to!"
• Sub-level 12 of Kul Thaar was once far below the city's waterfront, and serviced submersible vessels. Now, it is a dank tunnel gallery lit only by luminous patches of moss. It is where you live if you value privacy and space above all else
• Gral the Grim's minions have an approximately humanoid form, but under their robes they are revealed to be horrid patchwork creatures composed of a rubbery pink gel. They attack without fear or aversion to harm
• Gral is served by ancient automata, three of which were found in his lair. They only attack in self defense, using brute force and chemical projectors that gush fire. They are constrained from harming one another
• Grail's lair was situated above an apparently enormous reservoir of the same pink slime
• Although the scientist himself fled before he could be confronted, the Bluecloaks found ample evidence of his immoral activities, specifically the vivisection of the brains of living creatures 
• At the center of Gral's lab, an enormous ten-legged spider of unknown species and origin was found suspended in a vat

"On The Account": Tortuga Refit (Session 1.1)

Tortuga, 1651:

Beneath the watchful guns of a French fortress, a pirate sloop named the Fortune's Folly enters the harbor at sunset, battle-damaged and barely crewed. The desperate hands aboard know a great secret that might bring them substantial wealth - but first they must refit their ship for the adventure ahead. The night begins... 

Our five hearty pirates paddle ashore in the ship's longboat, leaving the mortally wounded Captain "Brimstone Jack" McCall and a few other sailors to guard their battered ship. We meet:

• Eve, the Quartermistress of the Folly (played by Melanie)
• Jean, the Folly's enormous cook (Gerald)
• Jerome, lately of the French navy, now a sailor aboard the Folly (Matt)
• Guillaume, well-provisioned doctor of the Folly and all-round man of science (Elin)
• Nebuchadnezzar, the Folly's gallant bo'sun (Padraic), and
• his little dog Jack

Bonfires, small tents, and palm-leaf shelters dot the beach, each with a few beachcombers or old salts a-playing at cards or quietly passing around a bottle of wine. Beyond the beach, at the base of the island's lone rocky hill, lies the bustling town of Tortuga, from which the sounds of music and laughter drift softly down. To their left, a torn fragment of ship's sail serves as an awning for a oceanside bar at which pig on the spit is being served in rough wooden bowls; to the right, the silhouettes of tall ships against the gathering dusk indicate the location of the town's wharf.

Taking stock of their funds (one lonely pouch full of Spanish pieces-of-eight), the pirates find that they have the following goals:

1. To sign on more crew. The Folly can carry up to 60 sailors.
2. To buy more (or heavier) guns. The Folly has just two three-pound cannon left; it can carry 10.
3. To refresh the ship's magazine (more powder and shot for the men and guns)
4. To resupply the ship's naval stores (pitch, rope, tar, etc.), as well as her stocks of food, water, and other provisions
5. To repair, or sign on a master carpenter to repair, the Folly's damaged hull

Following their noses up the beach, the pirates are soon being served heaping slices of spit-roasted pig by Boubacar, the owner of the oceanside bar. They are asking Boubacar for some advice when they notice a tattooed fellow diner, who has just overheard their story, leaving the bar in a sudden and suspicious hurry. They learn that the man's name is Israel Gomes, and that he is bo'sun of a 24-gun brig called the Dagger which has been sitting idle in port for two weeks. Jerome, Nebuchadnezzar and little Jack head off to see where he's headed; the others finish their hot pig slices and head on up to town.

Tortuga town has a festive air, with a well-lit main square surrounded by old colonial Spanish buildings. The largest, the old governors' mansion, has become Los Dos Pilares, a bath- and pleasure-house with gambling tables on offer. The second largest is a covered market, from which dozens of merchants cater to a mix of townsfolk and the quartermasters of various visiting ships. The large building, an old mission church, is quiet except for a small throng of begging children circulating between the crowds on the square and one of the church outbuildings.

With their single pouch of pieces-of-eight nowhere near sufficient to refit the Folly, the pirates split up to pursue various "fundraising opportunities."

• Jerome notices a more successful subset of begging children who have the front of the gambling house staked out and report to three armed thugs in an alleyway on one of its sides. He considers assaulting the men, but elects to wait until they have collected more money
• Eve enters the gambling house, and begins playing (and winning) at some of the smaller tables in order to work her way up to more lucrative fields
• Guillaume goes to the covered market to talk to the town's apothecary, Sister Constance, from whom he learns that there are a dozen sick sailors in the church's lazaretto. These men, the sister claims, would be available for service if only she could refresh her supply of a specific healing herb

Meantime, down at the wharf, Jerome and Nebuchadnezzar have not only found the Dagger, but also the Resolute (a freshly repainted 20-gun brig from whose deck the soft sound of African drums and the smell of cooking soup can be perceived) and the Maid of Copenhagen, a heavily laden merchant ship. There are also a dozen other smaller ships, a mix of pirates and traders.

Jerome investigates the Maid, discovering that she is in fact much more heavily armed than she might seem, before he and Nebuchadnezzar walk onto the Dagger for a parlay. There, they are greeted with friendliness but also some caution by a small party of the crew, who speak a strange dialect of Spanish and seem to lead unusually moderate lives for pirates. Mentioning that they have met Israel leads the crewmen to ask Jerome and Nebuchadnezzar whether they are here to sign on to the crew; it seems that the Dagger is looking for more hands on deck!

Israel soon arrives and explains that the Dagger is in fact seeking more officers, not just sailors, to serve as the prize crew for a ship they intend to take. He is reluctant to tell them more unless they sign the ship's articles and join the crew, but offers to allow a few sailors from the Dagger to transfer to the Folly if they do so - a trade of two officers for up to a dozen hands. Nebuchadnezzar accepts Israel's offer; Jerome does not. As Jerome goes off to find the others, Nebuchadnezzar discovers that the Dagger's intended prey is in fact the Maid of Copenhagen: they have been waiting in port for her to arrive. He reveals what he knows about her hidden weaponry, thereby advancing his reputation as a trustworthy new member of the crew.

As Eve continues to increase her winnings and work her way to bigger and bigger tables (and perhaps even to the select table of Madame Deliah, the owner), Jean and Jerome re-unite and sneak out after a merchant who is leaving Los Dos Pilares; he has his winnings, and they have larceny on their minds! Unfortunately for the pirates, they bungle their ambush, and not only does their quarry escape but both Jean and Jerome are wounded in the brief exchange of pistol fire that takes place. Luckily Guilliame is on hand to patch the requisite holes, if only his limping patients will accompany him into the countryside in pursuit of Sister Constance's missing herbs...

Guillaume has already learned from Pepe, a curandero who supplies the herbs to Constance, that the grove where Pepe harvests the leaves has been occupied by an evil rival - "the Jumbee man".  Pepe claims that this man is not only an evil magician but also a servant of Satan himself. Guillaume, Jean and Jerome pad cautiously into the misty grove, where Jerome captures the Jumbee man despite the various terrifying phantoms that he seems able to project at them using a feather-trimmed fetish. Then, while trimming the medicinal leaves, Guillaume sees a small green snake and imagines that he hears a voice promising great rewards if he shoots Jerome - is this Satan, the Jumbee man's master? Or just more phantasms?

Guillaume fails to give in to temptation, and the matter remains a mystery as the party returns to Sister Constance's lazaretto. There, between Guillaume's own skills and the power of the leaves (which are used to make a broth), the Folly soon has twelve new crewmen.

In Los Dos Pilares, Eve finally reaches the point of no return: she is head to head with Franz Schoenmacher, a suspicious merchant. Four pouches of gold lie on the table between them. By a hair, Eve has the better hand, and leaves Los Dos Pilares with her winnings despite Schoenmacher's dire threats that "she has not heard the last of this." Turning to the covered market, she allocates her winnings to buying new stocks of powder, shot and naval stores, as well as hiring a few more sailors and a master carpenter. With her cannon complement unaltered, the Folly is now nonetheless well crewed and capable of seizing other ships if only she can grapple them. New adventures await on the seas of the Caribbean!

On to Session 2!