Setting Sail on a Silent Sea

General Summary

“I need to find my grandfather.”

Meeting at the Noirlan pier at the break of dawn, the party meets and begins preparations to raise sail and get the expedition underway. Everyone besides Captain Thorpe is surprised to see Jayne bring a young companion, Adelle Mirodar, aboard ship for the journey. She meekly explains that she’s coming on the expedition to investigate the whereabouts of her grandfather, Manfred Klinnsman, whom she believes has been lost in the Forbidden Zone.

“I always bring my horse on sea voyages.”

The party is introduced to Herschel Dupree, a haughty Noirlan gentlemen and representative of the Noirlan Assurance Company. He makes a scene about being permitted to bring his horse and servants on the voyage and eventually relents and agrees to leave the horse (but keep the servants) only after Edmond Andrew shames him with a sarcastic demonstration of wit.

“Saboteurs…”

Edmond, the only able sea hand among the PCs to join the crew begins inspecting the rigging and notices some dangerously poor knot work. After bringing his concerns to Captain Thorpe’s attention, the Captain mutters about sabotage and posts Jayne and Everest as wharf sentries.

“There is fire where you are going…”

Preparations are briefly delayed with the arrival of three religious leaders: Father Joe of the Universal Church, Brother Herbert of the Devotion of the Deep Ones, and Father Pete of the Church of the Exploding Eye. Each priest gives every crewman a brief blessing. During Brother Herbert’s blessing he also gives every PC a strange necklace made of hair cord wound with bones, teeth, and shells. Captain Thorpe stresses to everyone that receiving the blessings and wearing the ward charm are mandatory for all crew. All comply, though William Benjamin refuses to let Brother Herbert loosen his scarf to put the charm under it.

“Don’t you realize who I am?”

The voyage finally gets underway and Herschel Dupree is soon making trouble again. When the number of bunks on board the Hawke comes up short, Dupree is incensed at the notion that he’ll have to share a room with any of the common crew members. Matthias is eager to please, however, and defuses the situation by agreeing to sleep in the galley.

“I already thawed out the duck…”

The SS Hawke soon makes an unscheduled rendezvous with the SS Arcadia, the personal vessel of Lady Orphea Chastain. After the ships are chained together for boarding, Orphea introduces herself and reveals that she is the party’s true employer and the mastermind of the Eldorado Expedition. She invites the party to come aboard the Arcadia and, during dinner in her wardroom, she explains more about herself, her family, and her motivations for undertaking the expedition. While her concern for improving the community of Noirlan seems sincere, the party gets the impression she’s very concerned about some undisclosed threat. As an apology for her secrecy, Orphea promises to double the PCs’ guaranteed profit from the mission from 500 to 1000 gp. Beyond the guaranteed pay, the take from the Eldorado treasure horde is to be divided evenly among all crew members.
Edmond takes this opportunity to ask about Herschel Dupree’s involvement in the voyage. Apparently Dupree has no claim to any of the Eldorado treasure. Explaining his actual financial stake in the expedition, Dupree declares that, while the mission is Orphea’s, the money to fund it comes from his family’s bank. In fact everything from the ship, to provisions, to the crew’s wages is all being paid for through credit issued by the Noirlan Assurance Company. In order to secure this loan, Orphea has agreed to sell the Duprees her family’s claim to the lucrative plantations of the Zone Coast. Once the western trade route is restored, the old Chastain claim should return a fortune in profit on Dupree’s investment in the Eldorado Expedition.
It is clear that Orphea is sacrificing much to make this mission happen. When Edmond asks to be cut in on the Chastain/Dupree land deal, Dupree says he’s always open to side offers and hints that his family will need men of ambition and talent to help administer the recovered territories once the expedition has reached a successful conclusion.

“Sinking five feet definitely doesn’t count as moving ten.”

On the fifth day of the voyage, while Jayne and Estelle are being hosted by Orphea on the Arcadia, the Hawke party encounters a pyramidal structure rising out of the middle of the sea. Captain Thorpe instructs Edmond and Marsala to muster the landing party into rowboats and investigate.
After maneuvering closer to the object, the party explores the structure and realizes it’s a tower made of steel and blue-green glass. Cole climbs the superstructure inside the outer panels of the pyramid and discovers scratch and claw marks on the support girders. He also finds markings on some of the beams: one identifying an address, “Austin Texas,” the other reading, “Frost Bank Building.” Lastly, Cole sees a pillar of smoke rising from the western horizon.
Meanwhile, Edmond notices that the tower extends beyond sight into the sea’s depths and is entirely flooded with sea water. Everest does his own investigation and finds an old flexible metal rod that appears to be a Precursor relic. Neither of them notice a humanoid shape lurking in the waters below.
When Cole dives into the water from the top of the tower, he is attacked from under the water line by a monstrous assailant. The attacker is medium sized and appears to be part fish, part man, with two legs, fins, gills, and glossy dark green scales covering his entire body. Cole eventually breaks free after Matthias and William dive in to help drive his assailant away.
During the struggle, however, the fish-man sounded a loud call under the water. As the party scrambles back to ship in their rowboats, Cole can still hear the beast’s terrible warbling cry echoing in his ears. With no opportunity to delight in his fortunate escape he turns to the party and simply says the plain truth: “There are more coming.”

Rewards Granted

Experience awards not disbursed at this time

Character(s) interacted with

Adelle Mirodar (Jayne’s companion)
Captain Zachary Thorpe
Lilith Johnson (First Mate)
Herschel Dupree (insurance banker)
Hershel’s two servants: Bob and Rob
Orphea Chastain
Freeman Skinner (Quartermaster)
Thaddeus “Tad” Tillerson (Bosun)
Jaun Silva (Master Carpenter)

The Forbidden City of the Phoenix: Chapter I

January 15^th to 20^th in the year 1000 PCE

Player Characters:

William Benjamin
Edmond Andrew
Cole
Matthias “Math” Mannheim
Everest Bell
Marsala
Jayne

Report Date

12 Mar 2018

Primary Location

The Silent Sea

Secondary Location

Noirlan

Campaign Info

Setting:

The North American Campaign

Next Adventure:

Sargasso Rising