The Lucritania

This adventure was a bit of a non-starter all in all. One of the players, John, was playing a worshipper of St. Urox. Being a new player to Glorantha he concentrated, admirably so, on the main aspects of his character - killing chaos. So he asked me if he ould do just that - kill chaos, any chaos. So, his High priest found some chaos (a simple enough task) and paid a pittance to the other members of the party to aid him. The characters were Lucas Bemurok (St. Uroxi), Daran Rawson, Deola Rawson (Lord Caste), Hugh Rawson (Forest Mage), Fellidra, Boanna Rawson (apprentice shaman) and a Humakti whose name, I believe, was Zara (no surname given...) played by Rob Brown. All of the other charatcers should be given by clicking here.

Ships in Sea Season are sometimes plagued by Felster inhabitants and disasters such as Lorica Wraiths, Sea Serpents, Waterspouts and... worse. Most ships around the Felster are blessed by Priests of Tanier or Doskior and are protected from the worst of the dangers. However, the Otkorioni church disdains the use of such pagan magics, relying instead on their own Saints for protection. One of the old terrors of the lake was a ghost ship called the Lucritania, however the blessings of the River Gods and Pagan Gods would usually mean you did not meet it as you went across the Felster. Without such blessings the ship has become a problem. Since 1616ST when pagan was outlawed ships have met the Lucritania from time to time. This year, however, the meetings have been more and more common and, as it is Sea Season 1622 ST, the amount of ships travelling the Felster have increased in number, and the occurrence of Lucritania attacks have also increased.

The PC's were asked to sort this problem out. One lead they were given was that merchandise from a vessel sunk by the Ghost ship had surfaced in the hands of a merchant in Cilknave, a town just outside of Valantia. They were given four days to investigate the merchant and return in time to accompany a ship called "The Storm Chariot" across the Felster, protecting it from the Lucritania.

The PC's didn't get anywhere in Cilknave. The merchant, Myle Deokirk, claimed complete innocence. He was a gems dealer, lots of people come in and out of Cilknave selling gems, he didn't know a thing. The PC's suspected otherwise, but even after a little rooting around they didn't find out much more. When Lucas began to get aggressive (lowering the lock bar on the inside of the shop door and advancing upon the bronze grating the merchant was hiding behind) Deola talked him out of attacking the merchant (and his crossbow armed henchman) in case they caused more problems for themselves (an illness the party seemed to suffer from : )

With no leads found in Cilknave they escorted the vessel. The first day passed uneventfully as they passed through Tinaros and headed towards Tortun to drop off their cargo. However, one evening a spirit known as the Underdeep Spirit attacked. It is a malevolent creature that appears out of spite to curse land-dwellers. It's curse was the Underdeep curse, which prevented characters from increasing their skills until it was removed. Vicious indeed, I intended to get one or two PCs so that the party would be forced to go on an interesting HeroQuest I had for them to get rid of it. However, the creature was immune to damage from non-magical sources, and it took quite a while for the party to figure this out. By quite a while, I mean a long time. When the spirit was driven off everyone other than Fellidra and Hugh were so cursed. Kevin complained loudly, "But I only looked at it..." which was true enough as he got cursed before he could do anything about it (oh well, a GM faux pas : )

The characters encountered the next day a boat floating in the middle of the lake. On board, with nothing but a plate and a cooking knife, was a young, good looking woman. She called for help and said she was "Queen Kaleelia of the Yellow Palace". She claimed to have been imprisoned by her subjects and cursed to remain on the mundane plane. She offered gifts and rewards to those who would try to aid her. However, whenever anyone tried to take her from off of the boat, sharks leapt out of the water, reaching amazing heights, to attack the characters aiding her. Daran lost a leg when he went out on a boat to rescue her and leapt aboard, fortunately the woman dragged him aboard her boat. Now the PCs had to rescue both the trickster and their comrade. So Fellidra gave it a go, and lost her leg as well. As a shapeshifter she merely changed into a human with two legs, but until it regrows she is a few points of SIZ shorter than she once was. Eventually, with a rope and a bit of inventive uses of the Fly spell they pulled the woman and Daran aboard. She did, indeed, give them gifts. She was very, very vague on the details of who she was, how she got there and what the Yellow Palace was. After staying on board for a short while she leapt off the side and changed into an eel before swimming off. The PCs were suspicious, rightly so, for when they investigated their gifts they found them to be quite, quite useless. I took the ideas from off of the Net and the Digest, they were things like an arrow that, when fired, stays exactly where it is (but the bow has a range of 100m), or a spoonsharp 7 matrix (which as I pointed out is quite useful if the only weapon you have is a set of cutlery). The PCs decided she was a Trickster and had lied to them all along. Which is quite true, although I'll keep the full story to myself for now as she will appear in a future adventure.

On the return journey from Tortun they encountered the Lucritania. Mist rolled in, and from the fog came a rickety, half destroyed ship. It crashed into the side of the Storm Chariot. The PCs instantly boarded it, to discover not undead on board but the top deck had nine quite alive monks armed with staves. The monks presence was never explained to the PCs. The engagement was quite funny, the PCs were getting slaughtered, the staves were being wielded at about 100% attack and parry, whenever you special with a staff under my house rules you get a free attack and the staves had a Boost Damage cast upon them. The warriors began to fall like flies. However, in quite a remarkable move by Fellidra, she shapechanged three into slugs, and Hugh changed one into a tree (an odd addition to the deck of a ghost ship, but there you go...). With the numbers reduced, the characters laid in but found themselves greatly depleted from their battle with the monks, who carried no identifying marks.

They began to search the ship, understanding that it would eventually disappear and they didn't want to be onboard lest they go to where Ghost Ships go when they are not plaguing mortal men. The hatch into the cargo hold was bad enough, the opened it and lowered someone down on rope. The person was then struck by some form of tentacle from the darkness and their legs and abdomen fell paralysed. They were pulled back up quickly but were of little use from then on. The other hatch opened up into a galley of some form, however as they entered a magical wind picked up, a hollering and howling noise that chilled them to their bone. To get from one side of the room to the other was hard work, but the PCs managed it. Opening the doors on the other side they glimpsed a Walktapus, a few undead, a Bagogi and a few mishappen forms, decided that killing chaos wasn't all it was cracked up to be, closed the door and decided to do a runner. As they did so the ship began to leave (I had closely monitored how long they had spent on board and they had only half an hour or so before the ship departed). Most of the PCs quickly got to the other ship. However, in the mad rush to move the paralysed character to the other vessel it began to look as if a few characters would be trapped. Most just leapt to safety, but the Humakti fell into the water (his jump roll was not very good to begin with and after armour penalties it was awful). Fellidra quickly changed into an octopus and tried to rescue him, and while he once even managed to break the surface of the waters, he didn't manage to catch hold of the lowered rope and sank once again, deeper and deeper, until he died.

All in all it was a failure. Their leads in Cilknave failed. They didn't find out anything about the monks. They didn't even bother facing the chaos (something the High Priest was not at all happy about when he found out from Lucas) and a few limbs were lost, a few curses gained. However, the characters later vowed to return (see here), so I won't divulge the details yet. And of course, there was the Trickster, whose presence will return in the near future...

I also apologise if the details are a bit sketchy, this adventure was run about four months ago and I now have only a vague recollection of events and players...