Session 1 Summary

**30th**
Day of the Southern Spring, 1412

A king tide is falling and a strong current
flows from the Vargal river, making access by ships into the Venac harbour near
impossible. On the floating Inn, nestled out in the mud islands of the delta, itinerants
wait out the conditions for a more suitable time to enter the city. The
aimlessness is interrupted when the Mariner’s Guild’s current sentry at the
Inn, Lt Llewellyn, rouses the room with the announcement that a powerful
magical warship – the Storgellan – has been spotted trying to enter the
harbour.

The Storgellan was the pride of the fleet
the Daric navy, the warlike nation to Venac’s south. Several months ago it had
been captured by pirates and a large bounty placed upon its return. The need to
recapture it became even greater when those pirates sailed it to Zienne, the
continent declared by the dragons to be completely off limit to humanoids. It
had been recaptured by the navy of the Mann Islands on its return journey, and
the crew imprisoned, however one of them managed to escape, in the process releasing
a number of petty criminals who the navy were currently transporting. With this
ill prepared crew the ship once again fled, and this time towards to mainland
of Xian-Tau.

Llewellyn’s motivation to recapture the
ship was thus great – not only would doing so bring with it the favour of the
Darian navy, but also, The Masters (dragons) may be angry if they saw Venac ‘contaminated’
by people who’d violated their rules by setting foot on Zienne. As he was
alone, aside from his assistant, mercenary wizard Tristan Swan, he asked for
volunteers from the inn’s patrons to be deputised, saying he’d take no share of
the bounty if they could assist him bringing the ship under control.

Three bystanders bravely agreed to help;
Lucian James Ardynvale (Lucy) – a surgeon keen on experimentation, returning home
from Daric for his father’s funeral, Yngvild Howlfrost – a poet from the frozen
reaches of Tethos looking for inspiration in a strange land and Winko, a guy
with a weird accent who wore a mug around his neck. The five brave enforcers of
the law set off to intercet the boat, with Llewellyn using a potion of flight to
sneak onto the back of the boat and drop a rope that would allow his new compatriots
to board. Whilst they were outnumbered, the ship’s crew were very unprepared,
they had no weapons aside from lumps of wood and appeared to be haggard from a
hard journey, sailing an undercrewed ship.

The battle was tough, Llewellyn, Tristan
and Yngvild were all bought down at times, but the talents at healing of both
Winko and Lucy bought all three back to their feet. Also, one of the ship’s
crew decided the interlopers were the side to fight on and joined them on their
side. Eventually, all the ship’s crew were killed or had thrown themselves into
the sea, aside from two captives, including the captain.

Uncontrolled, the ship ran aground on a mud
bank and at the moment it did, something seemed to stir in the hold. Crates
that had contained ore taken from Zienne were smashed open from the inside as
the ore animated and scrambled desperately to get off the ship. Once the hold
was opened the animate chunks of rock and earth flung themselves overboard and disappeared
into the mud. Lucy was worried an invasive species may have been introduced to
Zien-Tau but no one else seemed to care.

The captive captain said he was just a pirate,
hired by hot-headed adventurers to steal a ship capable of travelling to
Zienne, for reasons the adventurers never revealed. The crew member who turned
on his mates, a gnomish bard named Montvat, revealed he was part of the
rebellion against The Masters, and knew Tristan’s grandmother, who was thought
to be dead but he claimed had only faked her death.

The Captain tried to buy his freedom by
giving away the location of a hidden treasure map. The party noted the location
but didn’t free him. Eventually the Mariner’s guild arrived and took the
prisoners into custody, the party are expecting a big reward at a ceremony presided
over by the Darian ambassador.