CoD 1: Session 02: Encountering the Captain

 Pre-scene Notes 

-

Scene setup/conflict: 

Party went back to the dinning room to find Stella before going up the stairs to confront pirates/find a way to escape

No altered/interrupted scene

Scene:

Having not found Stella in the dinning room, and not on the stern balcony either, they decided to go up the circular stairs.

Mythic agreed they would look at the balcony but Filli failed the search as Stella hid behind her Major Illusion spell. I’d also stationed her there if she needed to jump ship with Water Walk/Breathing. She already cast an Arcane Eye up on the deck / to follow the party so she knows what’s going on (eg she’s just using them as her scouts)

They heard the Captain in his quarters, but the door was locked so they could not get in. The Captain thought he had heard something and when the party thought they would slip away unnoticed, Zar stepped on a stray nail and yelps, then tumbled down the stairs. The party looked at him in dismay, as Zar succeeded in his self-proclaimed unluckiest half-orc title. 

The map inherently had a set of stairs going right up to a captain’s quarters right on top of the dinning room. I’d tried to make it obsolete reasonably but multiple dice gods disagreed.

The Captain, being more of an insightful and diplomatic type than his other sailors, invited the party into his quarters for some of the finest rum he had left. All three knew (with a >15 insight check) the Captain just wanted to settle them and more than likely going to drug them or do something to subdue them. Both Filli and Yankovic considered the best way was to either take Captain hostage or stealthily incapacitate him. However, they would barely have one chance, as all of them had cumbersome armour on in a tight ship. 

This was when I rolled for initiative. I rolled a Stealth check, with all of them failing. However, as they rolled surprising high for initiative (2x nat20s + a high) I made the story telling as they still had a surprise round. Whether they would kill the captain, Mythic rolled an extreme no. As a GM, I would tell them despite their best intention is to try and knock him out, even if they succeed in the surprise, the blow will inevitably kill. Same if they struck him down in battle. 

Filli had his shield in one hand and his tinker’s tool’s precision hammer in the other. He drew a circular rune symbol in front of him, a blue glow of arcane magic and suspended in the air. He snatched a balled up Net from his backpack into the centre of the finished rune and with a strike of the hammer, sent the Net through the Catapult spell towards the Captain in a ball of force. The expected hit and spread of the Net to capture the Captain did not happen. Instead, the Captain miraculously used his precious rum as a substitute of the spell’s target, but its backlash knocked him into a candle. In the weird chain of events, the open flame fell into the liqueur cabinet and its high proof liqueur lit up in flames! Filli jumped at the turn of events and backed away from the sudden heat in the room, knocking a chair in front of the door out to the main deck as a flimsy blockage out of caution for reinforcements. 

A lot happened in the first round of combat for the campaign. In DND terms, basically Filli as an artificer used the level 1 Catapult spell, using a Net item as a medium. In my ruling, if the spell hit, the Net would cause the Constrained condition on the Captain. The dice god however made the spell a Nat1 miss. I therefore asked Mythic on whether the spell hits something else, and it was an exceptional yes. Looking at where the Captain was on the map and talk of alcohol from before, I went with the fire idea as it escalated the stakes and urgency. The last item interaction free action on knocking over the chair was just because I ruled it took an action to move objects if it required a skill check, but it was something else a PC can do in a turn as level1 characters did not really have bonus actions. I had written it out to both show how spells were cast in this world, mandatory for novelization later without reliance on the DND combat system, but to reflect contrasts between the PCs for later in battle style and skills. 

Zar’s longsword landed as he moved past the Captain to retrieve Filli’s net, showing his non-paladin and frugal nature.

In stark contrast and for solo play, the above is also one turn, and if not that important, does not need much recorded. 

Weird Elf thought he could still avoid alerting the whole ship if he incapacitated the Captain here, but his Inflict Wound spell missed. As the Captain was trying to flail away from the flames. Seeing something that looked like water, Weird Elf knocked it over to try and dowse the flames, but actually it’s more high proof alcohol and the flames expanded!

This was the result of a Mythic roll when I would think the PC would still want to capture and not kill the Captain. The dice god obviously insist the Captain is a dead man walking. 

The Captain finally shouted for reinforcements. Recognising there were no way the could remain passengers on the ship after this fiasco even if the crew were not going to eat them as rations, the party sought any means to flee. 

At this point, like a normal DND game asking a GM, I thought of most logical ideas to escape or any aids the PC mig have, and asked Mythic a question on whether it existed, then rolled to inform an answer, rolling more questions until a possible solution developed. Also I rolled initiative now for everyone on the ship to get to the Captain’s room. The enemies were initially spaced out in different decks and distances from the room, giving the party a chance to fight them off in waves instead of all at once. On Stella, she rolled initiative too, but instead used Arcane Eye to see what was happening in the Captain’s quarters and decided to move back to her own cabin to hide and climb out the window if she had to. 

Filli recalled life boats at the lower deck, and said it was probably the best to make a run for those. Weird Elf asked, having had naval combat with the church, they would get blown out of the water and therefore had to soak the gunpowder stores first. Zar yelled there had been  enough fog for the past days, let’s just take the chance and go.

There was no time to speak more and Filli pushed a desk up against the captain quarter’s main doors in an attempt to hinder the reinforcements, but he was too weak, and instead said there was no time and went down stairs. Funny enough, he caught the fleeing Stella before she made it back to her room. He shouted for her to come with them as it was not safe, and the ship was on fire.

This was certainly an unexpected occurrence and I rolled CHA checks, Stella having failed her badly against Filli’s persuasion. I did not think it was that bad to have her follow the party, but there was no way she would help in their fights. I had her cast mage armour on her turn would do nothing but avoid combat. 

“Here’s a noble one indeed,” Stella commented, taking a liking to the boy as she had not spoken a single word with him up to now, but he still genuinely cared for her safety.  “Very well, lead the way little one.” 

This was just before one of the pirates burst into the room, the chair previously put in the way useless (after a simple athletics check, which did not need an action as Filli also did not succeed in using one). Seeing his Captain surrounded, but more importantly, the place aflame, he screamed for help in dowsing the spreading fire. Thanked to this for the party, the pirate who came in next did a 180 and went back out to the deck to try and pull some water from overboard to fight the fire. As the other pirate had not seen inside the  captain’s quarters apart from those two pirates, other reinforcement meeting the second pirate just assumed a fire was going and instead of rushing to the Captain’s quarters, prioritise instead getting water on the main deck 

This was from two rolls on Mythic again, which confirmed this stroke of luck for the party! Basically thanks to this, all the crew moved up to the top deck to get water, leaving the bottom deck empty and unguarded! Due to the way the map was, none of the enemies would past where the party and Stella were heading.

Zar seeing they would get outnumbered eventually, stilled his heart and with a slash of the longsword, he struck at the Captain, who went flying through into the flaming balcony, spreading more flames about them. (Captain failed a strength check, so did not go off into the water, but my house rule for a Nat20 finish was a more unique death description) Zar ran for the stairs, leaving his back open for the first pirate that entered the room as he was in the way. The pirate took the opportunity attack and dealt a deep gash in Zar’s back with the scimitar, Zar’s inexperience showing blatantly to Yankovic. Yankovic followed after Zar’s turned back down the stairs, but held a hand out to the pirate in the way, casting Inflict Wound and oneshoted him, understanding with the commotion outside they were not discovered yet. He could hear just outside the door a Scout saying to form a line the pass the bucket into the Captain’s quarter, and had to hightail it quick before the crew discovered the Captain’s body. 

At this point however, with the commotion and the head start for the party, and Yankovic having killed the last witness pirate, the party were able to get to the lifeboat without obstacles. As Zar stated, and as the crew were more preoccupied at putting out a fire instead of finding stray passengers, the lifeboat was left blobbing in the obscuring fog as the ship, Blue Horizon, sailed away. 

I was going to make a rule that if someone was to move within 5ft of a body, the crew would pursue the party instead. However, realising that would make little difference, I just ended combat here in lieu of progressing actually with the main story. This made the first combat encounter actually really easy, which was not the intention. This led me to think I should set up a harder one for next time... 

Scene close-out:

• Chaos factor up to 7
• As they’d killed both the Captain and one pirate without witnesses, it was possible some of the crew may mistaken the dead crew killed the Captain instead of the passengers. Can be good/bad if the Blue Horizon also reaches the island, therefore retained the crew as a collective in Mythic’s Character List.
• +party thread: close all main threads but +stranded in ocean
• +character thread: Yankovic suspicious of Zar being an actual Paladin

Post-scene Notes

Thanks again for reading. As this is still early days, any feedback and shares would be appreciated. Hope you’ve enjoyed this post.