After each session, one player has responsibility for writing up a synopsis of what happened during that session. The responsibility rotates from session to session with everyone taking a turn. Here is the first of the Freeport Campaign (aka Sea of Spheres) journal entry (from Rachel). I generally add my comments here in [italics surrounded by brackets].
After an extended stay in the port town of Windywater, the Maiden’s Tear is finally ready to set sail. With a hold only partially laden with trade cargo, Captain Tiberius “Tibs” Flint, first mate Smutty and crew, including the rather exotic Pta, have also taken on passengers. Three passengers have booked passage to Freeport. There is a young, local man, Zahndethus, whom some of the crew have heard is rumored to be cursed. Allara Shelfer, a young woman, is the second of the passengers and is returning home to her merchant family in Freeport. Her chaperone and guardian, Thomas Dorr, is the last of the passengers and is never far from Allara’s side. The ship will make a few stops in other ports, to take on additional cargo (and possibly other passengers), and then strike out for the open sea and Freeport beyond.
[Thomas was being played a visiting player and was not the most affable character.]
Although Zahndethus was given passage on the Maiden’s Tear, the crew were originally a bit leery of him, going so far as to lock him in his room the first couple of nights because they feared that not only was he cursed, he might actually be a werewolf. Allara did not seem to be leery of Zahndethus at all, much to her chaperone’s chagrin, as she approached Zahndethus and chatted with him for a while. Thomas stayed close to her side while she spoke to Zahndethus, which made Zahndethus a bit more uncomfortable than he might be with any old chaperone, as Thomas wore a necklace with a symbol that was reminiscent of the Order of the Fang. [Thomas attempted to intimidate Zahndethus as he was showing a little too much attention to Ms. Shelfer for Thomas’ liking. Robert, who plays Z, got a critical failure on his Spirit check to resist and so I ruled, drawning on the background of the character, that Thomas had a symbol the looked suspiciously like the Order of the Fang symbol.
Pta raised the eyebrows of a couple of the passengers by cleaning the decks of the Maiden’s Tear with sand, carefully explaining to anyone who asked that sand is much more hygienic for cleaning than water is. When Pta began discussing the benefits of cleaning oneself with sand as well, one of the crew would usually try to distract the inquirer. It was not that the crew did not respect Pta, they described him as a very skilled and effective ship’s nurse, they just said he had a few eccentricities. The crew and Captain Tibs were very respectful and grateful for Pta’s healing.
Allara seemed inclined to chat with anyone willing, but Thomas’ scowling discouraged the crew from engaging in much conversation with her. Captain Tibs invited her to dine with him one evening, and at Thomas’ urging she got Captain Tibs to include Thomas, Pta, Zahndethus, the cook, and the ship’s dog invited as well.
A couple of nights into the Maiden’s Tear’s voyage from Windywater, Captain Tibs ordered Pta to get the longboat ready to head to the shore of Lancashire, as they needed to pick up a passenger.
As the Maiden’s Tear was approaching Lancashire, Tory was in her room at Annabel’s house when Dale came bursting into the room, demanding to know what she had done. Tory said that a man had been hurting a woman and wouldn’t stop when she asked him to, so she had to stop him. Dale said that the man was a cousin of the King’s, and that men were on their way to the house to pick up Tory, so she must get a bag together immediately. Tory hurried, but Dale was still pulling her arm to go as she finished and they heard a banging at the front door. Dale dragged Tory through the back kitchen as one of the other resident children tried to explain to the men at the door that Tory was out with Dale and Annabel. Dale and Tory left the house at the quickest pace Tory had experienced yet, running through the streets to a spot where a crying Annabel waited with a horse. Dale leapt onto the horse, and yanked Tory up as soon as she had given a quick hug and goodbye to Annabel. Dale took off more quickly than Tory thought he was capable of, and when it looked like they were going to be stopped by authorities, Dale guided the horse to sail over the men and keep going until they reached the harbor. They made it to the harbor, but Dale had been shot in their escape. A boy was waiting for Dale and Tory, and gestured to the longboat waiting in the harbor. Dale told Tory she must leave, that the boat was captained by a friend who owed him a favor, and to write when she could. Tory gave him a hug, apologizing for bringing trouble to him and Annabel and thanking him for everything they had done for her, but Dale whispered that she did the right thing, and that there was often a price to pay for doing the right thing, and not always by the person who did it. He told her to always do the right thing, no matter what the cost, before he pushed her away and told her to leave before the authorities got there. Tory hugged the boy and asked him to get Dale help quickly before she boarded the longboat and the crew started rowing away.
As the longboat rowed off, the authorities arrived and took custody of Dale, who tried to distract them so they wouldn’t shoot at the departing boat. They got a few shots off, which missed, before the crew doused the lights and they made it to the Maiden’s Tear. Captain Tibs had the crew whisk Tory off to his cabin, where he came shortly afterward to talk to her. After asking Tory a couple of questions about her relationship to Dale and why she had to flee Lancashire, he told her that she was welcome to stay on the Maiden’s Tear as long as she liked, that he still owed Dale a favor even after providing an escape for Tory.
[I wanted to try and bring the characters together in some fashion that seemed to fit their backgrounds. This basically recreated the events that led to Tory’s departure (fleeing) her home.]
Captain Tibs asked one of the crew to take Tory to Allara’s cabin, that they would be roommates until arriving in Freeport. Allara was excited at the prospect of having a roommate, but Thomas was a bit less excited and insisted that Tory give him her sword and dagger if she was going to share a room with Allara. Tory declined to give in to his demand, and after he spoke with Captain Tibs, Thomas reluctantly dropped it.
A couple weeks after Tory boarded the Maiden’s Tear, Captain Tibs and the crew spotted some smoking wreckage in the distance. Pta and Thomas went with some of the crew in the longboat to check out the remains. It looked like the ship had exploded, and there were several dead bodies floating in the wreckage. They found two survivors, one of whom was unconscious. The other was conscious, and the conscientious crew members shackled him in case he was a crafty pirate who faked an explosion to gain access to the Maiden’s Tear.
When they made it back to the Maiden’s Tear, the conscious survivor was taken to Captain Tibs, who determined that Gilliam could be unshackled and remain on the ship. Gilliam had apparently been part of the crew on a ship whose captain was not interested in looking for survivors of the wreck, so Gilliam and a few of his fellow crew members who insisted upon checking for survivors were dumped by their captain.
[Again…trying to incorporate the character backgrounds. This brought Gilliam into play in a fashion fitting his background events. The unconscious body was going to be Jimmy, the last of the PCs, but Todd, who was going to play Jimmy, had to miss the first session. Unfortunately, he has had to bow out of the game due to real life stuff. Most of us have been gaming with Todd for years and we’re going to miss having him at the table. Todd and I started gaming together back in 1992 so I will particularly miss having him play.]
That night, Allara and Gilliam were both unable to sleep and were up on the forecastle deck when the Maiden’s Tear was attacked by over a dozen bloated zombie pirates and their severed arms. At Allara’s scream, Zahndethus, Pta, Thomas, Tory, Captain Tibs, Smutty, and the other crew awakened and emerged from their rooms to find the zombie pirates. Just when it seemed like the ship’s crew and passengers were making some headway against the pirates and their arms, more pirates would come onto the ship. When it seemed like most of the pirates had been taken care of, however, one of the hands that Zahndethus had effectively warded off with fire dropped down to the lower level of the Maiden’s Tear where the powder kegs were kept, and the ship exploded, sending Zahndethus, Pta, Allara, Thomas, Tory, and Gilliam flying into the water. Luckily the longboat was thrown into the water as well, and Gilliam helped the others make it to the longboat. The unconscious survivor of the wreckage where Gilliam was found was also thrown clear and happened to be floating on a door, which the group decided to pull behind the somewhat crowded longboat. Although most of the survivors of the Maiden’s Tear are not experienced sailors, they know that it is unlikely they will be able to make it to Freeport in a longboat, so they were relieved to learn that Gilliam was familiar with the shipping lanes and could guide the boat to follow them, where they will hopefully be picked up by another ship.
I don’t think any reader of this site could possibly imagine the impact that this inaugural session had on us players without seeing the three-foot-long, two-foot-high cardstock full-color three-masted sailing vessel model that Tim trotted out–see the photos posted further down the page!