Session 2: Letters of Marque

General Summary

I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a two thirds majority in the case of more… --Dennis

As mentioned at the end of the previous session, the repairs to the ship will take a week, which gives the crew time to do a few things at Port Shurius. First, BN Sue buys into the owner’s group. BN hails from Lagor’s World, and has decided to leave the local scene because it has grown a little too hot for him. Apparently, he beat up (or killed?) the wrong person, and has decided a change of scenery is needed. The group plans to recruit additional sailors to man the ship. They will need a total of 20 crew + 2 per ballista = 26, round up to 30 to have a couple of extras. There are 7 PCs + 4 remaining crew + Lenny = 12, so you need to recruit 18 crew members. To do so, the party needs to make some decisions about how the ship is run. The party debates how to present the ship’s circumstances to the crew, but ultimately decides that Hunter will be named as the captain for recruiting purposes, but the ship will be collectively run by the owners (the party). All those who choose to do so will rotate serving as the Officer of the Watch, and will have the Conn (and tactical decision making) for a given time period. (Only BN Sue opts out of this rotation for now). Apparently, there is a tricorn involved. The owners agree to pay fair wages to the sailors they recruit, along with a share of any prizes, to instill loyalty, and to help recruit professional, steadfast sailors (as opposed to less trustworthy semi-pirates). For planning purposes, the ship’s costs run roughly:

Supplies work out to 1 GP per day per crew for basics
The standard fee for sailors is 50 GP per month..
So, assuming Lenny and the former animals want to be paid, that is 23 X 50 GP per month pay, plus 23 x 30 x 1 GP for food, or 1,150 GP for crew pay + 690 GP for food = 1840 GP per month to maintain the crew. (Major supplies, repairs, etc. extra). So, round to ~2kGP/month to include minor additional supplies.

The recruiting is successful, and they manage to find a relatively seasoned crew (Average boating skill of d8). Hunter is pleased to recruit a few Kzinti sailors among the lot. While they are recruiting, the crew will also work on:

Zayre will focus on deciphering the notes and map in Hobart’s workshop, to try to figure out what he was looking for.
Others will take Merquat’s suggestion, and meet with representatives of the Pragmatic Order of Thought to seek Letters of Marque.
The party decides not to seek out work with the Imperial Elven Navy (With the recent discovery of the threat of the Witchlight Marauder from the Scro, the Imperial Elven Navy has been recruiting ships and adventuring parties to help them neutralize this threat.)
The party also decides to not pursue more mundane, low paying work. (There are plenty of jobs available ferrying food and other supplies to some of the areas on Lagor’s World that were disrupted more seriously by the famine and wars that occurred late in T’Laan’s rule.)

Zayre’s search of Hobart’s lab: the Hive

Searching this room is time-consuming; there is much to see, and the contents are arranged in no order. The room contains scores of scrolls and books, mostly in indecipherable (for now at least) languages. One of these is a parchment version of the map located in the secret room on the main deck. After much deciphering, you discover the following facts:

Hobart's destination is some kind of rogue, wandering asteroid that has been sighted in many different spheres over a period of several hundred years. The rock is referred to as "the Hive" in most of the texts that mention it.
The Hive is home to some kind of creature called the Ravager that leaves its lair to destroy inhabited worlds.
The Hive also contains devices called "Queen's Eyes" that give their wielder great power.
From the notes that Hobart has left, it seems obvious that he is after the Queen's Eyes.

Among the papers is a scroll with a rough sketch of the Hive that shows a crack in its surface marked with an X, that appears to be some sort of “back door" that Hobart was planning to use to enter the Hive. The Eye symbol you saw on the ceiling of the secret room on the main deck appears to denote the Hive, not the space it is traveling through. (That is, your interpretation is that the Hive is a Beholder relic or ancient stronghold, not that it is currently traveling through Beholder space). The maps give no information about the sphere the Hive is currently in, other than the positions of a few planets as landmarks. As best as can be deciphered from the map, the Hive appears to wander through the phlogiston, into spheres, and back out. You find charts to indicate how to reach the current, unnamed sphere the asteroid is in, and a rough projection of its position and trajectory. Best you can tell, it will be in its current sphere for several months before entering the Phlogiston again (at which point your current map will become useless). The longer you wait, the harder it will become to find the Hive in its current sphere (as it travels), but you don’t necessarily need to investigate it immediately. However, if you take another, long job, you will probably lose the opportunity to investigate the Hive. The party debates whether to pursue the Hive, and ultimately decides to seek local work (via the Letters of Marque), get familiar with the crew and ship, build up their spelljamming expertise, and decide later whether to seek out the Hive.

Letters of Marque

Merquat the Arcane has a vested interest in your success, and so offers to arrange a meeting with acquaintances of his from the Pragmatic Order of Thought. As the veteran spacefarers will know, the Pragmatic Order of Thought, known derogatorily as the "Pots" by their detractors, is a loose organization of generally well-intentioned individuals founded on the ideas that all people deserve liberty of thought and freedom, that slavery is an abomination, and that travel and trade should be unrestricted. (They are somewhere between a fraternal order, a military brotherhood, and an armed chamber of commerce). The Pots have recently set up a chapter house here in Port Shurius, drawn by the reopening of Greatspace (along with so many others). They have offered their services to Governor Grane to help keep the tradelanes open, by helping recruit ships to pursue the pirates plaguing Greatspace and the nearby Flow. These pirates include the Grey Sword, based in Aegis asteroid belt, a handful of Scro/Goblinoid ships that harass shipping in the outer sphere, especially near the elves of Hecht, and several others. With Grane’s backing, the Pots have a few letters of marque to bestow, which will authorize the wielders to pursue pirates in Greatspace, for a substantial reward. Merquat says that the Arcane and the Pots are on somewhat friendly terms, since their goals are aligned (keeping trade and movement free), and Merquat would be willing to broker an introduction. While the Skyrunner is a formidable ship, and so a good candidate as a privateer, it would be up to the party to convince the Pots they are a good bet for the letters. Merquat also points out that successful pirate hunting will help the group gain a reputation, which could make more lucrative contracts easier to obtain later. The appointment is at the Rockrat, a filthy dive of a bar by the docks, where apparently the Pots apparently want the party to see the kind of scum they will be pursuing. After leaving their weapons with the very large ogre bouncer, Grinder, and eyeing the piratical group at another table (who they later learn is Captain Cain and his crew from the hammership Rampage), they sit down to talk with the Pots representatives.

The foppish, earnest, somewhat grandiose pair (Frazier and Niles) welcomes the group, and ask and answer many questions. “If you know anything about the Pragmatic Order of Thought,” the older man says, “you will know that one of our central precepts is that travel and trade should be unrestricted. Only through this freedom will we see the universe develop in the unfettered, unbounded way in which we think it must. Unfortunately, this freedom which we see as so essential is being infringed.” The younger man interrupts abruptly, “By them,” he snarls, gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb toward where Cain and his crew were sitting. “The pirates.” “My brother is correct,” Frazier agrees calmly. “While we cannot yet prove Cain is a pirate, we believe that the pirates who hunt wildspace are the greatest single obstacle to free and efficient trade between the shells. We believe it is our responsibility and our privilege to do our small part to solve this problem. Thus we come to our proposition.” Frazier places a leather dispatch case on the table before you. “In here I have letters of marque,” he tells you, “officially notarized by my superior in the Order and by Governor Grane himself. Do you know what letters of marque are?” Again the younger man jumps in. “They are official permission to make war on all pirates,” he tells you. “Your right to engage them and to deal with them as you will is unchallenged.” “Also,” Frazier adds, “these letters also entitle you to quite a substantial bounty whenever you bring in one of these wolves of wildspace . . . either dead or alive. You may also, of course, keep whatever you can take from these reavers. I would ask you to accept these letters . . . ” The party accepts, but asks to be provided a list of other ships that have been authorized with letters of marque, to avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings. The party also confirms the letters are good for one year from today, and that they should seek out the chapter house of the Pragmatic Order of Thought here in Port Shurius for their bounties. Frazier hands you two sheets of paper, each covered with fine calligraphy and bearing two elaborate seals: one of the Order and one of Governor Grane himself. “These are your letters,” he tells you. “Two copies, in case you wish to commission another ship to assist you--or take a prize that you need to include in your authorization temporarily. It is important to stress one thing. These letters entitle you to war on vessels in wildspace or in the Flow near Greatspace. They do not authorize attacks or assassination attempts against anyone when they are not on a vessel underway. Thus, you could not have killed the pirate Cain in the tavern and expected to be covered under letters of marque." Other events in port

Zayre communes in the Temple of Zeus, and is answered by a disheveled angel who calls himself Morty. Zayre asks many questions of Morty about the gods and the Phlogiston, which Morty avoids answering. He does tell Zayre that a mad wizard by the name of Zolnar once created a miniature crystal sphere in the Phlogiston to allow planar access, including contact with the gods. Zolnar’s home is a rogue asteroid, circling the Great Whirlpool in the Flow (which lies along the route from Pirtelspace to Darkspace).
Merquat mentions he has an interest in information about The Spelljammer, and would pay well for it. The Spelljammer is the mightiest ship of space overshadowing even majestic elven armadas and hulking dwarven citadels, larger than many groundling cities. It moves at speeds seemingly impossible for so huge a vessel, yet it maneuvers with the grace of ships one-tenth its size. It is overgrown with legends and the memories of a thousand races, and in its wake are the lives of entire planets. It is the great ship Spelljammer. The Queen of Wildspace. The Holy Grail of the Phlogiston. Spelljammer with a Capital ‘S.'

Eventually, with supplies to last several weeks and a new crew, the Skyrunner lifts off from Port Shurius. The owners plan to sail to Hecht (about a 19 day journey) to ask the elves there for the latest news on the goblinoid pirates. The owners do their best to make the Skyrunn look like a merchant ship, in the hopes of luring a pirate attack--including covering two of the three ballistae, and attempting to make the sails look more lubberly.