Riptide Episode 1: Starting From Zero

> *"Campaign starts. The trio finds themselves in a dark, storage room. Jay failed to throw a barrel, Chip disguised himself in the crowd, and Gillion gave a large speech with birds around him. Did they just start a revolution?"*
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## Starting From Zero

### Characters

Chip, Gillion Tidestrider, Jay Ferin, Marshall John, Pretzel, Apple

## Summary

Nearly a decade after the disappearance of the Black Rose Pirates, the story starts anew in the small town of Zero, Canella. There, a perhaps familiar bastard, a fiery girlboss, and an undersea champion blow up a weapons tower for the current Navy occupying the city. Through several misfit shenanigans, a couple explosive barrels, and a few disguises, the crew must escape the island aboard their ship, the Big Chipper.

## Episode Events

The campaign starts with three faces huddled together, crouching around the small, bright light of a match in a dark, storage room in the circular building, in the town of Zero, Canella Island. The three main characters initial appearances are revealed:

* Jay Ferin - (21) is a young, human ranger played by Condi. She has long, orange-ish, red hair and blue eyes. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail in the back, but some of her hair still goes down around her shoulders. There is a pin on her hair that shows an eagle flying through an orange and blue sky. She wears a navy blue jacket with white fuzz, a white, ruffed undershirt underneath it and vanilla colored cotton pants laced down at the sides with a belt pouch around her waist.

* Gillion Tidestrider- (22) is a triton paladin from the Undersea played by Slimecicle. He has a facial structure looking pretty much human as a sort of fish guy. He is a blue-green skinned man, with luscious, shoulder length, wavy, green hair that gets lighter as it goes down. His eyes are of the oceanic, blue color. His ear has a fin-like appearance that are protruded and spiked back. There are wavy marks on his face and around his limbs. His most defining feature are the blue coral and shells growing up and out from under his hair that looks almost crown like. He has a moist body and wears baggier, dark blue cloth and pants with green patterns. He is adorned with chest-plating that looks almost like bronze pieces of carapace. He doesn't have any shoes on and the only thing around his waist is a rope tied to a small globe with water inside, which houses a pink frogtopus named Pretzel.

* Chip- (19) is a human rogue played by Bizly. He has brown hair that parts in the middle and brown eyes. He wears white, puffy shirt, half-tucked into his gray pants with suspenders going up over his shoulder, as well as boots. His pants has dark gray and light gray strips going down vertically that is torn a little bit at the bottom.

The crew are attempting to steal from the weapon's tower of a Navy base, currently occupying the island. Following Chip's plan, Jay searches for things to take along with her (and takes simply just a pistol), while Gillion struggles to grab a barrel.
The three attempt to escape the weapons room, which had been set to explode by Chip, whom had dropped the, previously mentioned, lit match onto a trail of gunpowder and dynamite. Before they are able to fully escape, however, the trio is first confronted by a tall and burly Naval officer who, by the name tag attached to his uniform, is named Marshall John. Chip manages to distract John to look the other way as he runs past, Jay attempts to kick him in the leg to stun the officer (emphasis on attempt), whilst Gillion reasons with John to join the trio. Jay is quick to drag Gillion away, but his speech on choosing for oneself their destiny impacts John greatly.

The three run through the rest of the building, Chip notably taking an assortment of random items from various officers as a minor inconvenience, before bursting out of the Naval Base with explosions behind them. Gillion casts Fog Cloud, shielding the group in an 20 foot radius of mist as they continue to run through the streets of Zero.

After many twists and turns, both on the street and on the rooftops, the group manages to get to Chip's ship, The Big Chipper, parked at one of the docks in the town; though not before Gillion makes another speech to the citizens of Zero proclaiming their duty to protect their independence and fight back against the Navy. Covered in a flock of birds that perch on his shoulders and the coral sitting on his head, the marketplace is moved by his words following a disguised Chip's shout of agreement, and a riot breaks out against the Navy officers.

As the trio attempt to get their boat moving, along the docks two Navy officers appeared to escaped from the riot, an unnamed soldier and Marshall John. To the group's surprise, however, Marshall John throws his previous teammate into the waters below. He then rips off the red and white Navy uniform and uses a metal club to fend off the oncoming Navy officers rushing towards the docks, effectively buying the crew enough time to leave.

Thanks to this distraction, the crew manage to leave the island and begin to set sail across the sea.

They appear to have gained a new friend, Apple, a blue bird who has not left Gillion's side since his speech in the market place.Gillion then attempts to eat gunpowder, after Chip convinces him that birds eat gunpowder. Chip and Jay teach Gillion how to do a kegstand.

As the crew continues to sail for the next few days, the episode ends with Chip and Gill fishing and Jay noticing, far off into the distance, the waves beginning to swirl.

## Transcription

A Google Doc of this episode's transcription is available here.

This was created by pistolwaltz and their transcription team on Discord.

## Trivia

* The start of this campaign takes place about a decade post Black-Rose One-shot.
* When casting Fog Cloud, Gillon makes a callback to "Fog Frogs", an animal Finn canonized in the Black-Rose One-shot.

## Art References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/alocasiasea/status/1501298843861671939?s=20&t=0nCrWmdEyqyxlj4j25nFHg