Interesting one today. Some fire, some fighting, and wait until you see the climax. And then the ending – woof. Fair warning, though, if you are playing or are planning to play through Ghosts of Saltmarsh, there’s a spoiler in this one for what I would call a pretty awesome surprise during an encounter. Consider yourself alerted, and let’s get to it.
We began by meeting the merchant whose butler we met last week, and he explained that, though formerly quite powerful, he had fallen on some bad luck due to a missing ship. That ship, disappeared during a storm several months before, was recently spotted about five days away. The merchant explained that there was an important chest on board that was worth a lot of gold to him, and if we retrieved it, he’d reward us handsomely. Fancying that reward, we agreed to take the job and set out immediately.
A couple of days into the journey, Cassius was on deck assisting Biggs and Wedge with the watch during the night when the dynamic duo smelled smoke. Further investigation revealed the cargo hold to be on fire. We tried desperately to put it out, but it was only after Leonardo spotted a glowing red crystal spouting flame, which he damaged before I grabbed, ran upstairs and threw into the ocean, that we were able to get it under control. By then, it had ravaged the ship, leaving us severely but not irreparably damaged.
Evidently, this was an act of sabotage – how else would the gem get aboard? We investigated the ship and the crew, but found no other acts of sabotage, nor any suspicion towards any of our men. The only other people that were on board the ship recently were some of the merchant’s men, who came aboard briefly before we left the town. So we have suspects at least, once we return.
A couple of days later, we finally spotted the ship we were seeking. Sailing close to it, we took a rowboat over to the derelict and listless ship and climbed aboard. Having a pair of our crewmen keep the boat close but not too close, we began our search for the chest in the captain’s cabin.
Within, we found an altar to Lolth, the remains of several bloody sacrifices, and a bunch of spiders. We fought the spider/spider creature/spider swarms combo off, then continued on to the other cabin on the same deck, where pretty much the same thing happened there. After the two fights, we were showing our wear and tear, so we returned to our own ship for a short rest before proceeding.
The next deck down was full of cobwebs. We crept through, checking room after room, when we were attacked again by spiders swarming out of almost every crack in the area. It could have been a party-ending fight, except Cass pulled off a Hypnotic Pattern that stunned almost every one of the creepy crawlies and let us exterminate them with extreme prejudice and without taking too much damage.
In another room on the same deck, we found a quartet of creepy, round creatures with big eyes and vertical mouths for stomachs or something (they were gross). But we killed them pretty easily as well, with Leonardo and I blocking the doorway and wiping them out one at a time. Unfortunately, I fluffed the advantage roll I had to find anything of interest in the room, so there was likely something in there that we’ll never get (since we cannot go back for it now, as you’ll soon see).
Finally, we reached a room where I had earlier heard chanting to Lolth from through the door. We decided not to try it at that earlier point, which in hindsight was a really good idea, since it was right before the massive swarm attacked us and could easily have turned that into a TPK. But now that the rest of the rooms were emptied, I opened the door to reveal an orc shaman doing shaman stuff. He sized us up and told us he had claimed the ship, but I politely (read: not politely) explained it wasn’t his to claim before stabbing him in the balls.
Well, almost. A few things happened in between. First, I fired an arrow at him but missed, then hid behind the mast (which ran right through the centre of the ship to the cargo hold below). Then, a giant, fey spider appeared behind us and bit Cass so hard he fell unconscious while being paralysed from its poison. Leonardo attacked the spider, then the shaman attacked Leonardo. Then it was my turn, and though the shaman was standing right next to me, he didn’t spot me, which gave me advantage on my attack. That’s when I stabbed him in the balls.
I rolled well for my sneak attack (because of course I would for a hit like that) and it really screwed the shaman up. He ran away, the spider missed an attack against Leo and then disappeared, and then I chased the shaman down and stabbed him in the balls again, finishing him off. I then ran back and hid behind the mast again, the spider reappeared, Leo hit it, and then I shot it dead. As far as boss battles go, aside from Cass going down, it went really well.
But we weren’t finished. As I looted the shaman’s room, Leo carried the unconscious and paralysed Cass back up on deck. We figured we should get him back to our ship and fixed up before heading into the cargo hold, since who knew what could be down there? As we were loading him onto our boat, though, the derelict ship was suddenly attacked by a mass of tentacles that began to reach out of the water and engulf it.
Suddenly we were faced with a ticking clock. Do we risk the tentacles and possibly getting stuck on the sinking ship in order to retrieve the chest, or bail, consign it to the inky depths, and face the consequences (and earn no money)?
So, with only slight hesitation, I jumped straight back on board, with Leo following while our two crew on the boat gave Cass an antitoxin and a potion of healing to get him back on his feet. Unfortunately, this plan backfired immediately, as Leo was hit by a tentacle which nearly knocked him unconscious and Cass failed to climb back on board, fell into the water, and was hit by a tentacle that did knock him unconscious. Being close to dead, Leo returned to the boat and fished Cass out of the water, making sure to stabilise him. That left me, a 2.5 foot tall hare, alone to find and retrieve a chest we had been forewarned as being ‘heavy and cumbersome’.
Because I’m fast, I managed to dodge the tentacles and get down to the cargo hold to find the chest. Because of its size, I lost thirty feet of my forty-foot movement speed while carrying it, which, combined with the rocking ship counting as difficult terrain, meant I was moving five feet per move action. Luckily, as a Rogue, I can double Dash, meaning I was moving a whole fifteen(!) feet per round.
Unluckily, I entered the cargo hold through a hatch in its roof, which did not include a ladder or stairs, so I had no way of carrying the chest out. Even more unluckily, by the time I reached the floor directly below it, I was almost fully submerged in steadily rising water. My time was quickly running out.
Luckily, I am a hare, and I can jump. Still dodging the tentacles which had punched in through the hull, I tied a rope to the chest before climbing atop it and jumping out of the hold. My first attempt to lift the chest out failed, because I am a small and not strong hare, but after wrapping the rope around the same part of the mast I was hiding behind earlier, I was able to lift it out.
Picking the chest back up – rope, importantly, still attached – I began carrying it towards the stairs leading up to the main deck. I was still dodging tentacles, and the water was lapping at my heels the whole way, but I eventually managed to emerge onto the main deck by the time the ship was almost submerged.
As soon as I appeared, Leo had the rowboat brought closer to the ship. I dropped the chest, but grabbed the rope, and ran straight for the side. Launching myself from the rail, I leapt to the boat (easily, because again, I’m a hare, and I can jump). As soon as I was aboard, Leo and I pulled the chest to us as we quickly rowed away and left the ship to its fate.
Upon later reflection, that whole sequence was incredibly risky for me. To put things in perspective, I dodged about ten tentacles, the ones that hit Cass and Leo did about 6 or 7 damage each, and with only 12 hit points left, a couple of hits could easily have knocked me unconscious deep with a sinking, tentacle-engulfed ship. So, pretty risky.
We managed to get back on board and sail away without further trouble, with our ship’s doctor healing Cass back to consciousness as well. After he learned of my full exploits on board the sinking ship, Cass decided to write a song about it. Despite rolling terribly for the rest of the session, his ballad about ‘Kraken Jack’ came courtesy of a natural 20 Performance roll, so it’s a pretty darn good one.
But we still weren’t done. We began sailing back to the town, but two days into the return journey something very strange happened. We all began seeing some weird stuff, including talking seagulls that turned into hands, the mast partially melting and then turning into a snake, and other stuff I’m not even going to begin going into. Regardless, this strange experience ended with everything going black before we all woke up, wet, still on board the ship which was now on a river in a strange, grey landscape. I fired an arrow into the nearest bank, determining that we weren’t in an illusion any more, but aside from the suspicion that we just drowned, we had no idea what was going on. We could hear sounds of battle downriver, in the direction we were heading, so that might give us some clues, but before getting any closer we ended the session.
So, a lot to unpack there. My rush through the ship was one of the most exciting and tense sequences I’ve ever played through in D&D, not to mention the preceding fights, which were solid and fulfilling without ever feeling easy (except maybe those stomach-mouth things). Plus, stabbing a dude in the balls is always fun, especially when you can add sneak attack to it. But now we are greyville, and who knows where that is or how we’ll get back? I guess we’ll find out next week.