18th May 2019.
It's a Saturday afternoon and we're at 'The Sovereigns'. This can only mean 50 Fathoms. Location: Kiera We depart Kiera upon our journey to the Coaker Mountains. As we leave the harbour we notice something strange about a galleon, it appears to be entirely unmanned. The galleon flies the flag of 'The Inquisition'. Using my newly discovered sewing skills, I re-size out acquired uniforms for their new owners. My sewing skills impress the crew. "I also sew." I inform the crew. The journey to the mountains will take on average 20 days, we have been joined by some crew from 'The Revenge'. Pushing on we spy stormy weather ahead and avoid it. We also spy some fishing boats. On the 3rd day we realise that we are being followed. It is the Inquisition galleon and it appears to be bearing down on us at a unnaturally fast speed. As they draw close, their speed drops so dramatically that the ship creates a bow wave. We are forced to stop. 'The Inquisition' wants to search The Delilah for spell casters. After some discussion they are allowed to board The Delilah. Soldiers from the inquisition begin to search all of 'The Delilah'. Captain Shia takes the lead inquisitor in the captain's room to distract him during the search. Little do they know that we have hidden Win in the captain's room. Since we have bought the lead inquisitor here, he will not think to have here searched along with the rest of the boat. It's a strategy that works, the soldiers finish exploring the boat without discovering Win, (Who's not there anyway.). After this, they make their exit and return to their ship. We watch their ship leave, but before it does so. We spot a body being thrown overboard, (I guess they weren't' happy with someone?). Win sense's 'dying magic' coming from the corpse. We continue on with our journey. After some time we see a frigate coming out from Montarno and we arrive there at approximately 1800 hrs. On first impressions Montarno seems like quite a martial settlement and we the largest building we see here is 'The Emperor's Respite'. We dock and disembark. Looking around we see a camp outside the settlement and we see a part of it that looks very 'run down, possibly this is where the slaves are kept. We estimate that there are 150 guards here. A little later we see the slaves, they are thin and malnourished. Captain Shia meets up with Captain Domingo. Then we depart for Coaker Island. Once we arrive Shia finds and convinces the authorities to custody of Domingo's brother. The relevant paperwork is signed and possession of him. As Shia is preparing to to return to The Delilah, Shia is asked to take more prisoners. Shia refuses and explains that she is only here for one prisoner and has no room for more. We make a hasty exit before any suspicion can be raised. We head out to see. It's at this point that Baxter goes a little crazy, perhaps he's been in the sun too much or perhaps he's drunk the seawater? Anyway Attacks Aquius. The fight goes on for a while, Baxter punches Aquius repeatedly and Aquius tries to 'pinch' Baxter. As the fight degenerates, Baxter tries to push Aquius overboard and then hits him with a plank. At this point Win has had enough, intercedes and proceeds to lecture the both of them whilst pushing them apart. Captain Shia comes in at this point, hoping to bet on the fight, but she's too late. Anyway, we plan to sail on until reach the tallest mountain on Coaker Island - this is 2 days sailing away. Our pace is good and it takes a little under 2 days to reach the mountain. It is the highest thing we've ever seen. Captain Shia convinces Aquius to come with us and The Delilah drops us on and will return for us. We will need to avoid Kieran patrols on our climb to the peak.
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4th May 2019.
May the 4th and there are no Star Wars references in sight! It's a Saturday afternoon, so this this means it's time for 50 Fathoms to continue at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. Location: Victoria. We now have the bare bones of a plan to get on to Coaker Island and need to acquire the military uniforms to do so. Captain Shia decides that we should travel to Kiera and find a 'house of disrepute' that is frequented by Kieran soldiers, disguise ourselves as 'staff' and steal the uniforms from the clients. Captain Shia appears to like this plan a bit too much and I'm now quite suspicious. Captain Shia decides that Win, Baxter and herself will disguise themselves as prostitutes to acquire the uniforms. Luckily I'm out of the running! We travel to Kiera, during the trip we spy a prominent building beneath the waves. We see some glinting emanating from the structure and come to a stop. After some work we calculate that the building is 21 yards down below the waves. Mongrel swims down to the building and then soon returns with his haul. He has returned with some coin and a sculpture. After this we go on our way. Later on we spot a distant ship that appears to be bearing in our direction. We press harder. The following day we pass another ship heading on a different heading. We slow enough to pass some information between the two, but none of it is of significance. During the night we spot the 1st ship again. However, without further incident we manage to reach the port of Kiera. The harbour is busy, there are many boats ahead. Frigates, galleons, junks, galleys etc. The port of Kiera appears to composed of flooded tall buildings. The top tier of buildings are black and gilded with gold! The tallest building appears to be surrounded with a glow? Before the flood, there used to be 9 tiers of building here. Because our boat, 'The Delilah' is so small, we are able 'jump' the queue into one of the smaller docks. As we come in, we can see how overpopulated Kiera is. Once we've tied up, the harbour master approaches and recommends some venues: The Dragon Inn The Whale Inn The Clean Kehanna And stay away from other establishments. Anyway, it's time to put the captain's plan into action. Shia flirts with the harbour master in order to elicit some information from him. But it turns out he's not a soldier so Shia loses interest. Shia, Win and Baxter head to the 4th tier looking for 'work'. The 3 of them are recruited into a brothel called 'The Black Canary' and 'put to work'. Shia & Win get Kieran soldiers as 'clients', meanwhile Win gets somebody from The East India Trading Company. Shia's client: Shia tells her client to undress and ties him up, promising him something 'special'. Shia then disappears with his clothes. Win's client: He is clearly someone important from The East India Trading Company, he has charts and Win sees he has a signet ring of some kind and there is residue of wax on it. Win plies him with alcohol until he falls unconscious and then steals all his stuff. But before she leaves Win leaves a note for him saying. 'I'm sorry, you seem like a really sweet guy. I promise to return your ring'. Only Win, only Win would rip someone off and leave them a note. Baxter's client: When I asked Baxter about his client and how he got his uniform. He refused to make eye contact, made his excuses and rapidly left. Later on I discovered that Baxter was seen entering his room and saying. "Whatever happens, no more is said.". He was also seen leaving his room at the same time as his client. They fleetingly glanced at each other before going their separate ways without a word... Part one of the plan is a success. 27th April 2019
It's a Saturday and we're at 'The Sovereigns' for session 8 of 50 Fathoms. Location: The Teeth. Upon returning to 'The Delilah' after out meeting with Tressa we spot a glow emanating from the flooded city below. The waters clear and we can now see the wreck of the Carcanus. We know that a prize awaits us aboard the wreck, thanks to Tressa. Backstab attempts to swim down, but it's too deep. So we decide to send Mongrel. Mongrel rapidly returns and informs us that a pack of sharks surrounds and circles the wreck. We taunt a shark to the surface and attack it. this causes a bloody churn in the water, but does not clear the waters like we hoped. So, instead, we concoct a cunning plan... We know that the sails are of value, we cannot reach them. So Win uses here magic to convince a shark to help us. The shark cannot get the sail, so we instruct it to bring the entire mast to us. The shark returns to us holding the mast in its massive jaw like a dog holding a stick! We lash the mast to our ship and detach the sails. The sails are leathery and turn out to be made of sharkskin! We attach the sails and depart. The sails enhance our handling. We press on and make good time as we 'cut through' Torath Ka. During this leg of the journey we spot a lot sea creatures and crocodiles close to the surface. We hear 'things' knock and scrape against the hull of The Delilah as we progress. We then leave Torath Ka behind and after a few more days, we arrive at 'Victoria'. As we enter the port we see that British flags (of a sort) fly everywhere. After docking and disembarking we enter the settlement and discover a statue of 'Angus McBryde' in an empty fountain. Curiously, at the feet of the statue are small figures of what appear to be Egyptians. Searching around we find Captain Domingo's ship and approach, the captain is not aboard. So we decide to go and have a meal and after an hour Captain Domingo joins us. We spend the night discussing our next steps in rescuing Domingo's brother from Coaker Island. It turns out that Coaker Island is basically one big penal colony where the prisoners are used to mine precious iron ore. Coaker Island has 500 guards and 1 guard per 30 prisoners. So that's a lot of prisoners. During our discussion, we decide our best course of action is to acquire Kieran Imperial uniforms and infiltrate the island. 23rd March 2019.
It's Saturday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns' and we're ready to start session 7 of 50 Fathoms. Location: Bubbly Bay, Torath Ka (Really need to stop letting Win name things.) We have acquired the elemental fire we require and we're on to our next object: Finding 'Tressa The Red'. This means travelling to 'The Teeth' whatever that is? Our journey to The Teeth is uneventful, but as we approach we observed something very unusual from over the horizon. Ahead is a giant waterspout and on the giant water spout was a castle! Our skiff draws closer and we spot 'The Gullett', a river that leads into The Teeth. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme here.. We try to signal to the castle on the spout - to no avail. We then decide to enter The Gullet. Cautiously we enter, it is tricky to navigate. As we are progressing, we spot a wrecked boats here. One of the wrecks has a perfect and unblemished figurehead. Our curiosity is piqued and we investigate. We discover the figurehead has some sort of magical nature to it, so we take it and attach it to 'The Delilah'. Then we push on until we have safely passed through The Gullet. We are now inside the spout. We attempt to communicate with the castle, once again to no avail. But we must have got the attention of someone as a parrot comes out and descends down to us. The parrot speaks to us and tries to dissuade us from entering the castle, we ignore the parrot. Win decides to use her elemental magic to protect herself from water so she can try and 'climb' the water spout. It's a successful strategy and Win reaches the base of the castle and secures a rope there. We climb up and once again the parrot approaches us again and tries to dissuade us again. We ignore the parrot again. Entering the castle we find ourselves in a large rectangular room (even though the castle is round from the outside). We also notice there are windows (even though there are no windows from the outside). In the room we see a large map of Caribdus, we also observe a lot of books here as well. The parrot reappears and finally introduces himself as Califax. Califax tells us that we must prove ourselves to Tressa in 4 trials before we can meet her. We surmise that the 4 trials are related to the 4 elements. We think that we are in the 3rd trial and this is the 'earth' trial. Navigating The Gullet was the 1st trial, the 'water' trial. Ascending the giant water spout was the 2nd trial, the 'air' trial. So now we have this trial to complete. After scrutinizing the room and the map, we discover that part of the map is wrong. It is not showing part of the land correctly, this is related to earth. So we press down on the part of the map is wrong - and a door opens! Success. So we leave the room, enter a corridor - hopefully to the 4th and final trial. Further down the corridor, we find it is entirely filled with fire! Looks like this is the 'fire' trial. Looking closer we see tiles on the floor. There are 3 sets of tiles, each set of tiles consists of 4 tiles. 12 tiles in total, all depicting creatures of some sort. Examining the tiles, we see that each of the 3 sets of tiles contains a depiction of a creature associated with fire. These are; a salamander, a devil and a dragon. We step on these tiles and pass through safely and we're on to the next corridor. We find the corridor ahead inexplicably filled with water from floor to ceiling. I guess this must be the water trial and navigating The Gullet was not! We pass through the water by swimming through it! It's hard going, but eventually we pass through it and continue on. We continue to follow the corridor and find ourselves in a living room! Then we spot a stunning red-headed woman with golden. She congratulates us on completing the trials and asks how she can help us. We explain that we are investigating the slow flooding of Caribdus. Tressa explains that the flood is caused by a 'leak' from 'Earth' into Caribdus and is mostly likely occurring at a place called 'Devil's Cross' and was caused by 'The Sea Hags'. In order to stop this we must summon The Sea Hags. To do this we must pour water from another world on to Ograpor (Devil's Cross). When Hags appear we will need to defeat their fleet of ships. This will require a fleet of our own. For the water, we are told that we could search shipwrecks from other worlds. We could also use 'The Tears of Lys'. We are also told to seek out 'Tomas Drago' on Grey Island in relation to this, he is a privateer. Tressa also tells us that she seeks 'Carroway' fruit. We agree to gather whatever fruit we can to aid her. Tressa also tells us about the Kraken ship 'Carcanus', a wreck which has magic sails which may of use to us. After this we return to The Delilah, after exiting the room, we found ourselves back on our boat. 10th March 2019 The 10th of March was a Sunday and our 50 Fathoms session clashed with some pesky half marathon or something that shut off a load of roads in Woking and made life hard for Ares and Mark trying to get to 'The Sovereigns'. So after a bit of a delay we kicked off session 6. Location: Base of a volcano, Torath Ka. Our objective is to secure some elemental fire from somewhere within the volcano! We begin our ascent and encounter a large monkey-type creature (I think we encountered something similar when we were shipwrecked a while back). The monkey attacked us with a rock and then fled! We press onwards and upwards! Soon we discover a cave and explore, find a tunnel within. Entering we find the floor to be quite peculiar and ascertain that the tunnel is a 'lava tube'; a natural occurrence in a volcano that allows it to vent lava during volcanic activity. Does this mean that the tube will lead to a source of volcanic activity? Hopefully so. The volcano is not particularly active right now, so it's safe to proceed through the tunnel? I guess so? Right? Continuing along, we come across another peculiarity. A perfectly rectangular room! Obviously this is something artificial and piques our curiosity. Inside the room is a table with 8 chairs, the chair at the head of the table is elaborately decorated. Obviously the seat of someone important? We wonder who would use this room, or why they would put such a room in a volcano? Unable to find any answers we leave the room behind and continue along the tunnel. Soon we arrive at a pool of lava, things are looking good. But then, strange fiery lizard things emerge from the lava and attack! We realise that these are 'salamanders'. At battle ensues and we defeat them. We are then left staring at the lava lake, pondering on how we are to gather and carry some of the lava. It then occurs to us that the salamanders that attacked us were brandishing swords - swords that could resist the terrific heat of the volcano. We collect some of these swords. We search along the edge of the lava lake and we come across the salamander's camp. Searching the camp we find a container. If it's like the swords, it'll be resistant to the heat. We fill the container with lava and it holds!. We begin our return journey.
As we head back along the lava tube we pass the rectangular room again. Passing by we notice something has changed in the room. One of the chairs around the table had been overturned when we first came across the room. Now it's upright... Anyway we press on and as we leave the tunnels and we feel relieved, strangely relieved? Before we depart, we name the volcano 'Mount Sal'. The return journey will take 4 days. For the first day we descended the volcano. During the night we spot glinting, upon investigating we find another diamond, this time polished and estimate its value to be 5,000 pieces o' eight! The next day passes without incident, we are now well and truly back in the jungle as we descend further. On the morning of the 3rd day we wake up sweating. The temperature has risen dramatically. The day's travel is hellish as waves of heat punishes us. Those of us more attuned to life in the seas suffer the most. Otherwise the day is uneventful. Perhaps anything that might wish us harm has wisely decided to sit the day out resting in the shade. On the next we day we continue our descent. Mercifully the heat has subsided. By the day's end we have arrived back at the cliffs. One final descent down the cliff path and we are back at the Delilah! 24th February The day after Gameblast 2019, phew! We began on our skiff in 'Bubbly Bay' (should never have let Win name the bay). The black sand beach is composed of eroded volcanic rock. Talking of Win, she used her gliding talent to land on the beach, immediately nearly half a dozen giant crab-things emerged from the black sands and attacked! We managed to defeat the them without too much trouble, we restocked our food supplies with crab meat. Then after disembarking on to the black beach, we saw that it backed on to a sheer cliff face. We found a hidden path that rises up and along the cliff face. Day 1 We followed the ascending path, it was slow work and took 6 hours, eventually we arrived at a plateau. We spent the night in a 'depression'. However, during the hours of darkness, swarms of flying things (we later learned are called razorbills) attack us. We struggled with the swarms for a while, but in the end they were driven away. Day 2 We continue our journey to the volcano. Pushing on throughout day 2 we entered a jungle. The heat was sweltering and encountered more swarms - this time swarms of mosquitoes that mercilessly bit at us. Later in the day, Backstab Baxter stumbled across a diamond! Later on in the day we discovered a 2nd diamond. It seems something weird about the volcanic region can produce diamonds as a byproduct. Day 3 We continued inland through the jungle. During the day, we heard voices ahead through the jungle. Cautiously we searched ahead. We spotted a band of shaggy red-men passing through along a jungle trail. We stayed back and they did not spot us and moved on. We decided that it was best to avoid red-man, let them go on their own way and did not take the trail and continued through the jungle. Later on in the day we spotted a second band of red-men; they were close to a river. We stopped and observed them. They appeared to be performing a ritual that eventually involved sacrificing a red-man into the river. We surmised that there was something in the river that the red-men were making a sacrifice to. We decided to be very cautious very cautious around that river. Once again we thought it good to avoid the red-men and pressed onwards towards the volcano. By the end of the day, we were at what we considered the base of the volcano. 9th February.
Session 04 of 50 Fathoms begins us in 'Shark Bay'. We plan on heading to 'Bluth's Crown and on the last day in port we notice some people watching 'The Delilah'. Our trip to Bluth's Crown is quick and uneventful. As we approach the area we spot 4 large rocks rising above the waves, at the far end of the beach we also see 4 towers surrounded by smaller buildings. Win informed us that the 4 rocks and the 4 towers each had a elemental rune carved into it. Furthermore, our skiff behaved quite strangely when we drew close to the 4 rocks. We docked and were approached by some elemental wizards. They explained that there elemental towers were damaged and needed repairing. We smelt a profit and agreed to help; our reward is a 1,000 pieces of eight. This will involve collecting elemental objects from their respective areas. We must travel to a volcano to get fire, the deepest sea to get water etc. We begin preparations for our journey and some of go hunting. During this time another ship arrives at the dock. The captain seems to know the people here. He introduces himself as Capitan Domingo and asks us to help rescue his brother who is a prisoner of the Kieran Empire. We smell a profit and agree to help. In exchange for our help, Domingo gives us his sword 'Spada del Vampiro'! This second quest is quite convenient as it take us into the Kieran Empire; where one of the elements awaits us and past Torath-Ka where another awaits us. We depart in a little convoy with the other ship. As we sail along we spot another ship that appears to be going on the same heading as us. Or perhaps it's following us. Soon Capitan Domingo and us go our separate ways. He will sail around the north of Torath-Ka and we will go round the south (in a longer journey) to collect our elemental stuff. we agree to meet in a town called 'Victoria'. We make very good time around the south of Torath-Ka and notice that the pursing ship is no longer in sight. Perhaps we have outdistanced it, or perhaps it follows the capitan. Making our way along the southern coastline of Torath-Ka we eventually spy a unpopulated bay close to where we need to go inland. As we prepare to disembark, since it is a undiscovered place: Win decides to name is Bubbly Bay! Saturday 2nd February.
The snowy weather delayed 2 players, but did not deter us on this Saturday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns'. Our 50 Fathoms session kicked off a little late, but play was resumed in Brigandy Bay. We did some investigating and discovered that the person to talk to about the abnormal amount of rain flooding the already flooded Caribdus as 'Tressa The Red'. We also encountered a young woman called 'Annie Mason' trapped in a life of unsavoury work in a house of disrepute. Annie had spotted us and offered us 300 pieces o' eight to help her escape her life. We, being fine upstanding individuals decided it was a good deal. After some distraction, misdirection and fighting we fled Brigandy Bay with Annie aboard Delilah. We made good time to 'Shark Bay', another lawless settlement. The Shark Bay harbour is a strip of docks and warehouses close to the sea, whilst the main settlement sits on a high precipice well above the docks below. We entered town with an eye to make some money. Using the money we earned from Annie I haggled a bargain price on some goods that were loaded on to the Delilah and would fetch a healthy profit elsewhere 'Backstab' Baxter went gambling and incredibly; struck it lucky and came back with his pockets filled with coins. After this we struck out of Shark Bay looking for new opportunities. 20th January - belated post!
Sunday morning and we headed over to 'The Sovereigns' in Woking for the 2nd session of Matt's 50 Fathoms game. We concluded our battle with the shaggy red men and the giant monkey. Then we freed the remaining crew from their predicament. Unfortunately only 5 of them survived the ordeal. Anyway, we scavenged as much as we could and made the skiff we had found as seaworthy as possible and set off away from this island. There were 9 of us in total, but the skiff only berths 8, so we had to convert a hold into living quarters. We also named our skiff 'Delilah'. Why, why why, Delilah? I don't know (Sorry couldn't resist.) We decided to head to 'Brigandy Bay' a lawless sounding place on a journey that would take about 10 days. On route we encountered some flotsam and decided to investigate. The flotsam was spread quite widely and our searching revealed a crab-man stuck to the destroyed hull of a ship. After rescuing him, he explained that the ship he was travelling aboard was destroyed by a giant shark! He also explained to us that his ship was larger than out skiff. We hastily went on our way. As we journeyed on, the crab-man told us of his research: Caribdus was flooded by 50 fathoms of raincaused by the curse of 3 witches over a decade ago that casued most of the land to become submerged. The crab-man's observations have told him that the water level is slowly but steadily still rising. He has calculated that in 3-4 years, that all remaining land will be under water. We with news we arrive at Brigandy Bay and as the name suggests we find it to be place with no governing authority. we set about to do some trading and decide on our next course of action. The new gaming year kicked off on the 5th January. 50 Fathoms - Session 01Saturday afternoon at 'The Sovereigns' pub in Woking was the venue for the 1st session of Matt's 50 Fathoms Savage Worlds campaign. We started with character creation and another addition to the Fluke family: Jacob Fluke, the even less successful relative of the Flukes. Bankrupt and on run from the wrong kind of creditors, Jacob fled a ship at night in a rowing into fog bank and emerged in the world of Caribdus. Shipwrecked on an island with some companions, we encountered the bestial worshippers of a strange monkey god who they like to appease with bloody sacrifices. We now have to fend off the giant monkey thing they have summoned. Savage Worlds: Often described as 'rules-medium', the Savage Worlds rules have been around for about 15 years and are designed to give some depth to mechanics, but to also lessen the burden on the GM. 50 Fathoms: This is a Savage Worlds campaign setting, a bit of a cross 'Pirates of the Caribbean' meats D&D! Set in the fantastical flooded world Caribdus, it blends swashbuckling, fantasy and the supernatural. Cthulhu Hack - Session 01The 5th of January was a good day of gaming: Since, a few hours after playing 50 Fathoms, I went over to Matakishi's place.
The evening continued with the 2nd of Matakishi's Cthulhu Hack adventures - 'The Flame from Space'. Our wayward characters were drawn into the mysterious events surrounding a meteor strike and the strange goings on in small village that lead to a shocking discovery. Our encounters involved strange flame entities and a visit to a strange place. It was all to much for Alan, his alpha-male yuppie bravado was all spent and the spent the latter part of the adventure hiding in a fire engine. Black Hack: Written by David Black, this is a lite RPG that has a old-school look to it, but don't be fooled. The game sneakily contains some very modern game design to it. Cthulhu Hack: This is Paul Baldowski's err hack of The Black Hack and contains several tweaks to make the rules fit the genre more. |
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