Session 14 – Ocean Voyage

[avisarr]

Session 14 – Ocean Voyage

Day 13 - The Oxalai Convert
Crew member sees Ugida praying or doing something with floating holy stones. Becomes enthralled in religious discussion. "Oxalai watches over this voyage". Ugida, the myrian priest, starts to convert the crew to his primitive religion, one by one.

You see a sail on the horizon. With the spy glass, Callister sees that it is some kind of a two masted sloop. No colors. No flags. Name Plate is the Rancid Hound. This ship was reported missing from Ormekian Shipping Company last year. Most likely, it was taken over by a mutiny and has turned pirate. Strange that it would be out this far. It alters its course to avoid contact. It's faster than the 3 ships. Sails away south and west. Most likely, it saw imperial ships and didn't want to mess with you.

Day 14 - The First Island
Tiny uncharted island and hidden rocky shoals. Shallow bottom. The ships decide to search for fresh water on the island. All three ships are in need of fresh water. The clerics are creating water, but they are just barely getting by day to day. Also, they only have 2 clerics. Ugida and the one on the Titan. They are creating water for 180 people. (The other cleric is 8th level). Minimum one gallon per person per day.

[While on this island, they discovered a shallow grave. They dug up the corpse of a male, but a strange race which no of them is familiar with. It had been wrapped mummy style. It's hands had been folded over its chest in a peaceful repose. Clutched in one hand over its heart, was a small iron amulet/holy symbol. Ugida summoned his shadowy apparition and asked divination questions. I asked a bunch of yes/no questions. From this, they learned that the person in the grave was "originally from the east, recently from the west" which led them to believe that he was from Aggradar. It was the current crew of the Rancid Hound who had buried him here. He had died in a sword fight. The iron symbol he clutched in his hand was the holy symbol of "Chodoth" and that Chodoth was "Triana's favorite saint". Also, Chodoth is a Chaddamarian saint. That's all they learned. Everything else is a mystery.]

Day 15 - The Voyage Mascot
Callister orders a crow released. Third crow. Six left. It flies west. Back to Ithria.

Religious passion spreads among the crew regarding Oxalai. The sailors adopt Oxalai as the mascot/guardian spirit for the voyage. One of them paints Oxalai on the main sail. Callister should allow this as this is exactly the kind of thing that will keep morale up. Any symbol of good luck on a voyage will help keep the crew's spirits up.

Day 16 - The Other Morphian
Beth gets another hint of morphian emanations. This time she tracks it down and finds one man. Possible morphian interaction. Role playing.
[In actuality, she tracked the emanations to the aft hold in the belly of the ship. She then asks the Captain to allow her to move her stuff down to this section of the hold. She says it is because she wants a private place to conduct her research and study. This is surprisingly uncharacteristic of Beth. Normally, she would be open with the other players about this. Also, she normally would jump at the chance to do a little one on one role playing with a mysterious NPC. I've noticed some subtle changes in Beth over the last year, but that's another story. Anyway, Callister allows it but gripes and complains at having to shuffle the cargo around below deck to accommodate her.

Eventually, the other morphian goes down to the hold and makes contact with her. He introduces himself as Hesrek. He is a member of a small independent covert group of morphians operating in the area of Rukemia. There are several morphian groups operating in the world, hidden from the public. His small group is composed of talented, high level morphians who believe that peaceful coexistance with solids is impossible. However, they don't want war. They simply want to make sure that no morphian suffers due to the ignorance and fear of the solids. When this group heard about the appearance of a map that showed the final resting place of the Jaidor Talisman, they were very interested, to say the least. When they heard that the Empire was sending a small group of ships to retrieve it, they sent one of their best spies on board. To keep an eye on the mission and to keep an eye on Beth.

His group has a very talented morphian wizard working for them. His name is Vyrall (Ve-RAL). This wizard has spent his life studying the work of Jaidor and has come to a startling conclusion. According to history, the Talisman is linked to the morphians in life and in death. If the Talisman is destroyed, all morphians die. This is common knowledge. Everyone knows this. It is this very reason that the morphians did not destroy the talisman centuries ago. They could not destroy it therefore they hid it on another continent. However, Vyrall believes that the destruction of the morphian race bit is just a myth built upon a function of the device. He believes that if the talisman is destroyed, it will release a pulse of energy that will sweep over the land and kill all morphians. However, this pulse has a limited range. Vyrall believes that the "blast radius" will be only a hundred miles or so. It's a blast radius felt only by the morphians. This is Vyrall's theory based on his research. Of course, there is no way to test it. The only way to know for sure is to actually destroy the Talisman and see how many morphians drop dead. If any at all. So very little is known about the Talisman.

Hesrek was given a small enchanted amulet by Vyrall. Vyrall believes that the amulet will shield Hesrek from the "pulse" of energy. Hesrek's mission is to accompany the players group. If they succeed in recovering the Talisman, he is to steal it and destroy it. It's almost a suicide mission. There is no way to know if Vyrall is correct in his assumptions. There is no way to know what the blast radius of the pulse is. There is no way to know if the amulet will shield him.

Hesrek and Beth have already started collaborating together. All morphians are brothers and sisters, in a way. They have shared with each other what they know. I foresee some fun conflicts down the road when they actually get the Talisman. Will Beth betray her group and help Hesrek destroy the Talisman? Will she betray her people and fight Hesrek for the Talisman and then give it back to the Empire?

Hesrek's group also put a spy on the Duthelm group of ships. However, the Black Sorcerer on board is very high level and very talented. He has already found and the morphian spy. The sorcerer is monitoring the morphian and will intercept any communication (even the morphian EM spectrum communication). Hesrek doesn't know that yet. Now that he has befriended Beth, he no longer needs to hide. And he no longer needs to maintain "radio silence". He and Beth can start communicating with the morphian on the Duthelm fleet with long range EM waves. I can't remember exactly what the distance is, but I think they might be able to do it. Anyway, if they do communicate with the other morphian, the black sorcerer will intercept it and Duthelm will know everything the players are doing. They already have various spells for scrying on the players, but eavesdropping on morphian radio communications will help a lot.]

Day 17 - Clear Skies
Clear skies. No encounters.

Day 18 - The Crate
Third Wind comes across floating debris. Late afternoon. Single barrel. Made of wood, but an unfamiliar type of lumber. Has a single word stenciled on the front. In a strange script language. It is sealed with some kind of pungent wax-like substance. Looks like it's air tight. A liquid sloshes inside. No other debris found.

[This is a single barrel of ale from Aggradar. It's one piece of wreckage from a much larger debris field. It's a barrel full of Sybrenese Ale. The word stenciled on the front is "Ich-Iya" which is the brand name of the ale].