Another thing I started doing by accident mostly is e-mailing stuff to the players while they are at the table. Players: if this is a pain in the arse, let me know and I’ll stop. The preponderance of tablets, smartphones and little laptops at the table make it a relatively easy way to share pictures, maps and above all, SECRET MESSAGES. I’m not going to take time out of the game to compose messages, post-it notes still work really well for that. But if I can prepare something ahead of time that I know one or two of you will discover – boom, enter recipient, send it secretly. Until I get my second monitor set up to show pictures (probably never going to do this) that seems like a good way of showing everyone what X looks like. I mean, I could it on my laptop screen and turn it around, right? But who has time for that?
Anyway, this week the players took the party to explore a bit more of the island.
Exploratory crew:
Uun, Human barbarian, leading the expedition into the island’s upper reaches.
Percy, Tengu cleric, cool as a cucumber.
Malicia, Tengu rogue, doing whatever it is bird women do when it is too hot.
Nobody, Tiefling gunslinger, crafting bullets at a prodigious rate.
Victor, Human paladin, one of those people who looks handsome in hot weather.
Orny, Human witch, nervous-goat wrangler.
Getting up in the morning of their 5th day on the island, the castaways took some time to go over their supplies. Floki had been afflicted by another bout of dysentery and Rolifson declined to join the party. Jask couldn’t be persuaded to come along with them, but warned them of the dangers of the journey anyway.
Meanwhile Victor had been perusing the Captain’s Log found on the Jenivere and read of the increasing instability of Captain Kovack. He had become paranoid about plots amongst his crew, especially by First Mate Devers. He had also become infatuated with the barfing Varisian, Ileana who had caught his eye, presumably on one of the rare occasions that she wasn’t making a dash for the railings. His last entries found him deliberately changing course for Smuggler’s Shiv.
Nobody had been cranking out stone bullets the previous evening and gathered those up. Percy found that the broken chain-shirts taken from the skeletons were not fixable by hand at this time, but totally fixable by orison: so offering up a little prayer he fixed some of those up with Mending. People eagerly put them on and probably said something ironically foreshadowing their imminent heatstroke.
The two struggled to shrug off the poison as it damaged their internal organs. It became harder and harder to resist the effects as kidneys and liver started to shut down. Uun was eventually able to shake his off before his organs shut down entirely and with help (can’t remember who did this, but it was well done) the remaining poison was isolated in Percy and sucked out. Percy had had to keep himself alive with a healing spell. The damage that the snakes had caused lasted a lot longer than the snakes as Orny salvaged what food he could from them. It wasn’t much, but between the various internal parasites the snakes had and the poison glands and the being cut to pieces, I think that was forgivable. Better than nothing. Better than hardtack too.
The party decided to find a winding path down the side of the plateau, shying away from the cliff. By this time the heat of the day had died down as dusk approached. Making a cursory inspection of the gorge floor, they headed east to the lagoon as the sun set.
There they found several items of interest. They found several corpses rolling in the glowing surf’s edge and what looked like a small improvised campsite made of palm fronds propped against a leaning palm. Evidence of a fire was found just outside the shelter, although it was cold and wet now. They found a well made tricorn which they recognised as Captain Kovack’s, and a wet, yellow varisian scarf, snagged on a low branch.
The haul from the corpses on the beach was no more impressive. While Malicia made sure that the bodies were entirely free of golden earrings and coin pouches, the corpses were examined and found to be sailors – mostly recognisable because Victor and Uun had spent so long with them – although they were so bloated from nearly a week in the sea that it was hard to tell exactly. By their clothes, none of them were officers and by their injuries, most of them had been dashed against the sharp reefs that tore the Jenivere apart too. Some clothes were salvageable and so were salvaged as Victor dug a shallow but respectfully appropriate grave. The expedition camped in the makeshift shelter, well most of them did.
In the morning they checked the trails near the lagoon. They found a single, poorly defined trail leading south along which lay a dumb Star Wars joke.
Group inventory:
11.5 days worth of hard tack (one person).
12 days of cooked goat meat (one person).
1 wooden drawer/box.
1 rope bottle-box.
6 CLW
1 CMW
4 Pot. of Lesser Restoration.
1 Pot. of Remove Disease.
1 Pot. of Waterwalking.
1 empty bottle.
1 Ship-in-a-bottle model of the Jenivere.
A block and tackle.
2 50ft lengths of rope.
1 Canvas sheet used as a raingather
4 quarter-sized canvas sheets used as packs
2 short Two handled saws.
Jar of nails. (Malicia took a couple of them)
1 Fishing net â Sasha is using the other one.
A Grappling hook.
1 Bullseye Lantern.
10 jars of Lantern Oil.
5 Belaying pins.
2 Shovels.
1 Hatchets.
1 Boat Hook.
1 Mop.
3 Driftwood clubs.
7 rusty scimitars (Broken).
2 chain shirts.
2 sets of clothes, after the other party members switch out some of their torn vestments.
1 varisian scarf – don’t think anyone claimed that.
8.
In regards to how female Tengu cool themselves, I assure you it is as disgusting as you think.
Praise be unto Saranrae.
Two things:
1 â Did anyone check to see if the stream was freshwater?
2 â If you need a second monitor I have one that would fit nicely on your table top. My asking price is âplease take it.â
1 – Yes they checked an the answer is kinda. Three separate freshwater sources seep into a marsh like fold in the plateau. It becomes a narrow but deep stream only after exiting this swampy area. Those that viewed the water and all the rotting stuff it passed through were not convinced of its potability.
2 – I have a good, flat monitor. What I lack is a proper table upon which to place it as the GM’s Sewing Machine table doesn’t have a sturdy folding leaf.