Category: 50 Fathom Adventure Log (Page 2 of 8)

A Great Price to Pay

Characters:

• Kaliferous: Kraken mage
• Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
• Mordecai: Human Air Mage Puritan from Earth
• Daxson: Doreen treasure diver native

Date: 4/8/17

XP: 5

Recap:

The Crew approached Blackbeard’s ship unmolested and as they pulled alongside the massive blackened Man of War they spotted a tall imposing figure standing on the Destroyers railing looking down at them with a smirk, Blackbeard himself.

The Crew requested parley and to discuss a trade to which Blackbeard invited them aboard laughing. As they climbed up they noticed that the ships wood was rotten and infested with insects. They also spotted strange caldrons with bubbling red liquid inside.

On the deck they found themselves face to face with a Legend. Tall, broad with a wild beard and on his hip a gleaming sword. Rodrigo took point and attempted to persuade and trade the Sword of King Amemnus for Mordecai’s powerful Staff of Wane. He attempted to convince Blackbeard that the Staff can tell the future and was a great prize. Unfortunately the ruse failed and Blackbeard simply said “Fine, why trade the Sword when I can just take the Staff myself and kill you?” Fighting then broke out.

While Kal and Rodrigo blasted crew members, Mordecai struggled with Blackbeard in an attempt to lift him off the ship. During the confusion, stealthy Daxon skillfully plucked the sword from Blackbeards belt and jumped overboard. The mages managed to call down destruction and death and distracting the crew successfully for a time. For a long while the Crew bravely fought and held back the hordes of minions and Blackbeard himself. Several solid shots were aimed at Blackbeard who laughed and shrugged them off with not even a scratch, in fact it seems his wounds healed instantly.

However just as the sun set and the moon shone down through the clouds, the Crew saw what Blackbeard and his mates really were- undead monsters. Their illusions of humanity faded and leering zombies remained. Laughing at the confused look on Mordecai’s face Blackbeard himself drove his cutlass into our friends belly greatly wounding him. Blackbeard’s crew and officers gained the momentum and surrounded Kal and Rodrigo forcing them back and away from their wounded friend Mordecai. To make matters worse the Destroyer began pumping the horrible red liquid, Hag’s Breath, onto the deck of the Liberators Wrath brutally dissolving and killing their sailors left behind. Things were dark, but hope rose as well because at this point the Crew realized that Daxson was missing overboard with the Sword!

Blackbeard no longer had the Sword, yet they could not retreat without Mordecai who was unconscious and surrounded by a horde of Blackbeard’s minions. Suddenly a howl rose in the night and a twisted version of Alain, now a fully born vampire lept onto the Destroyer’s deck. He looked at carnage and said in a snarling voice “Go! Save your friend and leave, I will redeem myself and my family..you save Caribdus” Vampire Alain jumped on Blackbeard and began trying to rip him apart. This provided just enough of a gap for the Crew to snatch Mordecai and leap onto their ship.

Luck was not fully on their side, because as they attempted to sail away,  a full blast of Hag’s Breath landed on the Crew wounding some but proving too much for Mordecai. In his weakened state, the acidic Hag’s Breath proved too much for the ever stalwart Mordecai and losing his grip on the world he perished.

Not able to mourn the loss of their friend, the Crew rapidly set sail to flee the Destroyer. As they pulled away Blackbeard gave chase and tossed the head of poor Alain at them, proving that he was even stronger than a Vampire. Over the course of hours the Crew tried to outsail the Destroyer and with some timely fog from the Maiden and excellent piloting by Daxon they managed to elude him in the night!

Just as they were out of that danger, another presented itself. Their friend Mordecai rose into a gristly undead abomination and because attacking the Crew. Being a powerful mage and skilled fighter in life made him an even more powerful thrall for Blackbeard. He quickly summoned a great storm and nearly caused the ship to capsize while his undead version fought and tried to kill his friends. Fortunately, the Crew was successful and managed to dispatch the abomination and put their friend finally at peace. Daxon was able to steer the ship out of the storm, but just barely intact.

The day was won and prize obtained, but at a great price. The Crew is now short two friends and the hardest battle yet is facing them. Do they have the will to succeed? Onward to take down the Hags!

Kaliferous Log:

Admiral,

There is a chance that this will be my last written report.  We have obtained the final piece necessary to defeat the hags, King Amemnus’ Sword.  As I write this, we make way to face the evil which has proven so resilient.  I expect our captain will be using the whistle you gave him soon and we will be united reunited.  I am looking forward to seeing my people again.  Even in what may be my final hours.

Given the events we face, I feel it appropriate to make a personal confession.  Since our our costly attempt to stop the hags, my days and my heart have been filled with a darkness.  One I believe you saw in me when you sent me out.  My soul was so filled with hate and rage there was room for nothing else.  Things have changed.  I have changed.  In the beginning, I was skeptical of my new crew.  They were mostly outsiders.  Not truly connected to our world or it’s troubles.  As I watched them, listened to them, sailed with them, fought with them, and dined with them I was reminded of a former life.  A former me.  They share a bond with each other I had all but forgotten possible after seeing my crew killed during that fatal battle with the hags.  Their concern for our world is genuine.  Born out of hope and love.  These can be seen in how they persevere and endure through great trails.  How they mourn deeply over the loss of even a single crew member.  How each hardship makes them more determined and more connected than before.  They have changed me.  Or maybe reminded me of who I once was.

Now this crew stands at the precipice of Carbdus’ salvation and I stand as one of them.  As a new man who has rediscovered hope.

There is much more to report.  I will do so when we meet.

Kaliferous, Archmage of the Kraken Fleet

The Shiani and Hunting Blackbeard

Characters:

• Kaliferous: Kraken mage
• Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
• Mordecai: Human Air Mage Puritan from Earth
• Tomas De Orinjo Human Fire Mage from Earth
• Daxson: Doreen treasure diver native

Date: 3/18/17

XP: 2

Recap:

Still grieving the loss of their friend, the Crew decided to bring Crow’s body to Maroa and allow the Atani to perform an appropriate funeral. Not only were their spirits weakened, everyone needed some downtime.

They arrived at Maroa and were let into the beautiful tree city without any delay. Their effort in saving the Elder Tree was not forgotten. However the the Atani people were dismayed to find their Shiani and hero deceased. Elderwind song was stricken but quickly prepared to perform Crows last task: The Melding with the Heartwood.

Windsong brought the Crew, Crows body, and the leaders of the city deep within the heart of the Great Tree and inside the cavern that held the Heartwood. Inside, the Crew was amazed to see it fully healed and radiating with power. Where these was once corruption, was healthy wood now  pulsing with beautiful green light.

The Heartwood rapidly grew a pedestal and Crows body was placed on its surface. Windson then lead the ceremony and spoke for Crow, of his life and bravery. The Crew then followed- regaling his heroism, quirks and stories of their adventures with him.

The seedpod Crow carried with him, now pulsed with Crows Shiani energy and had, since his death, sprouted into a seedling. Elder Windsong took a beautifully carved wooden dagger and cut into Crows body to expose his heart. He then placed the seedling and pod into the wound and stepped back.

Suddenly, enormous amounts of energy pulsed from the Elder Tree and flowed into Crows body. The seedling rapidly grew and within moments was a fully grown young Carroway tree. Crows body was lost in the tangle of roots as the tree rapidly grew. The entire Grove seemed to be both saddened and energized when their new friend joined them. A new Elder Tree was now growing and would soon join the interconnected network to make a new forest one day.

After several days the Crew decided it was time to find Blackbeard and end this part of their adventure. However before they left and old friend Tomas De Orinjo had finally caught up with them and asked to be part of the Crew. He was welcomed aboard and the Crew sailed south to find Blackbeard.

Rumons said Blackbeard was west of Perck and the Crew whether by luck or divine guidance managed to find Blackbeard’s ship, The Destroyer, without any delay. Sailing straight for the giant vessel the flag of parley flying high, they hoped for the best.

What will Blackbeard do? Will he shoot him on sight? Find out next time!

The Prince and the Crow’s Last Flight

Characters:

• Kaliferous: Kraken mage
• Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
• Mordecai: Human Air Mage Puritan from Earth
• Crow/Kadian: Atani guardian of the Great Tree

Date: 1/14/17 and 2/4/17

XP: 5 total

Recap:

Part One-

After their pivotal role in the Battle for Baltimus and true to their words Duckworth and Enrico provided valuable information on the possible location of Prince Alain- Tulago.

The Crew struck out immediately and on route discovered a gruesome sight. They found a nearly burnt out ship with the crew hacked to pieces with only a single survivor. This poor fellow was missing his hands, ears and fed his nose. He told the Crew of a pirate ship that attacked them and their “red eyed captain” who butchered his mates did this to him. The description of the evil captain matched James Lowe, the same survivor the Crew rescued at sea over a year previous…and worse yet he was headed towards Tulago. (see “Fun at Brigandy Bay” and “Adventures of Stumpy Pete, Part 1”)

Commandeering the damaged ship and with Crow at the helm, the small fleet arrived at Tulago at night only to find it swarming with seven pirate ships and their crew. While the Liberator’s Wrath hung back, Crow sailed directly to port only realizing his danger too late and was forced beached his vessel in order to escape into the jungle.

Now split, Crow fled into the jungle while the rest of the Crew decided stealth was the better choice. Both parties eventually met up, but along the way fought, killed and questioned several Pirate search parties and did some preliminary scouting of the town. They found Tulago infested with pirates and most of the civilians escaped and living in jungle. They also discovered the true name of the pirate captain: Edward Lowe a notoriously vicious pirate from Earth.

Part Two-

Formulating a plan, the Crew snuck into town pretending to be pirates and managed to locate the  safe house where Alain was being held without being caught. Father Rodrigo caused a distraction with the guards while Mordecai and Kal snuck inside the building. There they found several Ghouls and two powerful vampires garding the Prince. Using the power of Faith the Crew was able to drive away the vampires only to find a badly drained and wounded Alain. He told them that Lowe had frantically given his father’s sword to Blackbeard a few days ago in an attempt to keep him from attacking and that the vampires have been feeding and trying to turn him.

Meanwhile, Crow mingled with the drunken pirates and set up carefully hidden chair explosives scattered throughout the center of the festivities. He then took flight and set up a distraction by sabotaging three of the pirate ships causing their magazines to explode. While at the same time setting off the chair explosives. This caused havoc in the town and killing many many pirates.

Unfortunately seeing the ships explode the rest of the Crew, having recovered Alain, ran to the docks only to find himself pinned between the water and a very angry and, much more numerous than they anticipated, mass of pirates. Mordecai cleverly cast flight allowing the Crew to escape but not without taking some damage.

Crow seeing that the pirates were not wiped out and Lowe still alive, bravely flew to face him one on one while while his mates ran to catch up. Crow attempted to use explosives to catch Low unaware, but Lowe proved too wily and Crow got unfortunately got caught in his own blast, wounding him. Edward Lowe then spun and deftly fired two magical pistols point-blank at Crow making him fall out of the air unconscious. To his friends horror, he then proceed to “Clip the little birdies wings” savaging Crows wings and killing him in brutal revenge for bombing his pirate crew. Thus the last flight of Crow ended, but his sacrifice would not be in vain.

While Lowe was preoccupied with his gruesome task, the Crew caught him square in the back killing him instantly. To their great dismay they discovered their friends body and a strange black staff that Lowe had held. Mordecai  was instantly drawn to the staff and he found himself bound to its magical energies. This staff was self aware and very powerful, a twin to the one his cousin Solomon Kane used to fight evil back on Earth.

The Crew escaped to their ship without the sword and missing a good friend and unsure where to turn next.

Will this break the spirit of the Crew? Or will they keep fighting to the bitter end?

See full backstory: https://dicehaven.com/50-fathoms-character-crow/

Crow’s Teen Years and life aboard the Liberator’s Wrath

• Over the year’s Crow does his duty In the crow’s nest and aspires to be first mate, then captain.
• Father Rodrigo gives crow a bible and he learns to read.
• He then starts secretly dabbling in blood magic
• He later returns to his homeland with Liam, Father Rod and with the help of his friends is purged of the blood magic and becomes a Shanti the nature warrior of his people.
• Fighting by the side of the crew they have many adventures.
• He sails all over Carribdus and sees almost all the lands, truly falling in love with his world and waiting to save all from the flood.
• Later, he Frees Kal from the Great Whales prison (returning to where he was held as a baby), Mordeki saves Crow that day, sees his friend and second mentor Captain Liam loses his life.
• He sees the great ship of the Kraken, helps secure the weapon that may help defeat the sea hags.
• Meets the Courtesans of Baltamus and throws a mighty party for his family the crew.

Crow’s Last Day- Death at 18 years of age

Something in his stomach was not right, he somehow feared this place.  Was it the massive number of pirates that we faced, was it these African slaves, like his first family, being poorly treated by the Pirates.  Something did not set right to Crow and he was nervous and tentative in his decision making.  He felt a dark foreboding even before they entered village, but they MUST find the sword that may one day save Caribdus.   

Then finally in his last day, he is the acting captain (the role he aspired to) and orders the attack on the Pirates to secure the sword that may one day kill the hags.

In this day, he and the crew sneak into the village in pirate uniforms.   Crow will fight bravely on his last day.  But regret fills his heart, for to give us a chance to secure the sword and save Caribdus, he makes a tough choice to kill some innocents (the very slaves of his own beginning).  

As he lights the secret hidden gunpowder he quotes the book he used to learn to read John 3:15 “That whosoever believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life..”  Crow wishing in his heart that a greater power will sort out the innocents he will destroy with this act.  A tear running down his face as he explodes bombs by the fire and kills some 60 + pirates and a few innocents. 

Then Crow transforms into his carroway screecher form, races to the docs and proceeds to destroy 3 of the 7 ships in the harbor through stealth, transformative magic and guile.

Next as he heads towards a forth ship he sees is friends surrounded and fighting on the beach.  Crow feeling that loyalty for his crew abandons his personal attempt sink the pirate fleet and races ashore.

When he arrives, the crew flees with Mordeki’s flight spell to a safer local on the island, but catches a glimpse of the pirate leader.

Crow decides to take the last cask of gunpowder and fly over to attempt to quickly end this fight, some over 300 pirates, not 150 like once thought are swarming the area.  Something must be done to cut the head from the snake.  In addition, as Father Rod, Mordecai and Cal had freed the noble prisoner, we still weren’t sure if this Pirate captain has the sword or traded it to Blackbeard and to save Carribus we had to know, our lives are worth saving this world.

Crow transforms into carroway flys over, transforms flat on the roof into his normal form, lights the gunpower on a 12 second fuse.  He creeps to the edge, somehow in the fire and chaos, he locks eyes with the Pirate Captain.  The captain seeing the wick of the gunpowder backs away and fires his flintlock at crow to no avail.   Crow leaps from the building, buoyed by the fire and hot burning flames below, he gains altitude and closes on the pirate leader.

Crow has 6 seconds left before it will explode and he must reach this evil man.  Then crow realizing he has the advantage, must wait to see how the captain reacts.  The captain fires twice, one deflecting off Captain Liam’s sword hit (what luck) and the second bullet sinks into crows arm.  In that moment at crow then launches himself forward gliding above the pirate, he must throw the explosive, and in that moment loses his grip on the bomb.  It falls short of the pirate and explodes.  Crow it caught in the blast and pulls his legs up to avoid the explosive…

Next the pirate had the advantage moved up and shot twice into crow at point blank range, Crow fell to the ground bleeding out of his brain.  Surely damaged in some permanent way as he hits the ground with a crunch..

At that moment, Mordecai, Father Rod and Kal come around the side of the building.  They start to engage the Pirate Captain.  The vengeful captain lifts Crow up as his lifeblood pours out and cuts off his wing in retribution for crew killing over 60 of his crew and destroying 3 of his ships..   The light of the Shani, flows out of crow’s body, as Mordecai  rushes up and swiftly slays the Pirate Captain.  

Crow’s spirit flows out of his body, looking down and smiles.   We know the sword is with Black beard, we have saved the young Noble.  We are one step closer to saving Carribdus, my life had meaning.  I will miss my crew.  I go now to merge with the Carroway tree my spirt will give back and enrich my people….

A tear flows down his cheek as he sees his family for the last time……

Prelude to War and Battle for Baltimus

Characters:

• Kaliferous: Kraken mage
• Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
• Daxson: Doreen treasure diver native
• Mordecai: Human Air Mage Puritan from Earth

Date: 11/6/16 and 12/17/16

XP: 5 total

Recap:

The Crew having rested at Azy Kay struck out to find Admiral Duckworth.

While the Admiral didn’t know directly any info regarding the Sword, he thought his spy in Marsales, Enrico de Toledo might. The Crew found Enrico being held captive by thugs and rescued him and his wife. They also discovered that an attack on Baltimus by the Spanish Trading Guild was imminent! The Guild was tired of the ongoing hostilities and decided to end it while they had the upper hand. Enrico had blown his cover and both he and the Crew rushed to tell Duckworth the news. Unfortunately they had to fight their way out of Marsales harbor but make it safely nonetheless. Duckworth immediately set preparations to defend the city and gather ships.

Meanwhile the Crew delivered the chronometer measurements to Daxson’s friend Joshua Goldstein who was very happy for the info. Unfortunately someone was watching his shop and attempted to kill Joshua and steal the prototype and Daxons device. Fortunately they took the wrong piece and did not deal Joshua a mortal wound(with the help of Father Rod). Daxson and Crew were able to track the attacker and discovered Fletcher’s old first mate who blamed Daxon for his near death in the Flotsam sea. Fletcher still held a grudge and might be trouble in the future..

Side mission resolved, the Crew set sail with Duckworth to head off the attacking force. Meeting them in open sea the Admiral and his Fleet waged war for days, causing great loss for the Guild. The Crew of the Liberators Wrath fought bravely and won many decisive victories. They sunk ship, blasted sailors and ultimately turned the tide of the battle. This forced Spanish Guild was forced to retreat with a huge loss of both ships and life.

The Battle was won by the East India Trading Company, but at what cost? Has the balance of power shifted? And why were a group of Kieran Cutters observing the battle from afar?

Onward to find the Sword!

Pirating or Privateering?

Characters:

• Kaliferous: Kraken mage
• Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
• Daxson: Doreen treasure diver native

Date: 9-24-16

XP: 2 total

Recap:

Saddened but victorious, the Crew sailed off to rest and recoup. The information they sought about the Sword was unanswered so they set sail for Azy Cay to let the Crew rest and seek information. Along the way the ran across a Spanish Trading Guide merchant vessel. Thinking it would earn them favor from the British East India Company they prepared to do some privateering.

The ship fought harder than the Crew expected and hidden along the shore she had a friend watching their back. Both ships engaged the Liberators Wrath,   who rapidly showed the power of their mages and the prowess of a seasoned crew. They boarded and took out nearly 30 sailors and both merchant ships were forced to surrender. The damage to both ships were minimal but the the loss of sailors posed a problem. They force some captured sailors to sail the newly acquired vessels and set sail for Brigandy bay. In an act of kindness they let the sailors go at Brigandy bay but kept the merchant captains and their ships as bounty for the BEIC and Admiral Duckworth.

Safely arriving at Azy Cay the Crew spent the time relaxing and meet with Azy and the now Captain Annie Mason. Most particularly Daxon got a dinner date with Annie but drinks and food all around helped sooth the loss of Tressa. The Crew is now invigorated for the next chapter of their adventures.