Table Card — The Quay & the Crossing
Session i · everything mid-scene, nothing else · full write-up here
At a Glance
- Strong start
- Counting-house, midday. Dohr, the good arak, the fee already counted into a cloth. Read the pitch below.
- The one thing
- Every PC gets a watch scene. That is what session i is for.
- Curtain
- Dawn — the Surety sighted. Do not start the boarding. Session ii opens at the rail.
Run Order
| ~Time | Scene | What happens · what matters |
|---|---|---|
| 45m | The Offer | 250 gp, box home seal unbroken + Petrel charter + salvage rights (waiver pre-drafted). Haggle ceiling 300 gp for promised discretion. She will NOT discuss opening the box — half a degree cooler each try. DC 14 Insight: she grieves the crew, but every question is about the box, none about the ship. |
| 45m | The Wharf (menu) | Mirei (a drink → pearler's account drop) · letter-writer (asking about “the clerk” — Senna's feeler, play as texture) · harbourmaster's board (LOST: Ledgerwake, Brightcopper, Surety — all calm nights) · provisions & goodbyes. |
| 15m | The Crossing | Brame's rules: holds station, never alongside after dark, never boards. Spits over the side for Jatu, no comment. Texture: phosphorescence, the Teeth to starboard. |
| 60–75m | The Watch Bill | 3 watches × 2 PCs — rig the pairings. One prompt each: letter home · professional eye (let them be right) · faith beat (DC 12 Religion: “water that is owed”) · Haxami's watch (true story, names filed off) · Brame's watch (“taking on calm nights now, that's not hunger, that's—”). |
| opt. | Night-Boarders | Second watch, wet clicking: 3× Reef-Scuttler over the rail (≈600 XP adj., Easy–Medium). Latch and drag prey overboard; two felled → survivor flees. Rail = half cover climbing. Brame fights with a boathook. |
| 10m | The Sighting | Dawn read-aloud below → curtain. Boats ready, nobody aboard. |
Numbers
| Check / value | When |
|---|---|
| DC 14 Wisdom (Insight) | Dohr's tell — box, never ship |
| DC 12 Intelligence (Religion) | faith beat — names the attentive water |
| 250 gp → 300 gp | Dohr's fee → discretion ceiling |
| Reef-Scuttler ×3 | AC 12 · HP 22 · +3 Bite 1d4+1 / +3 Claws 1d4+1 · Latch: grapple on claw hit, escape DC 11 · Blood Frenzy: adv. vs the wounded · full block |
NPCs — one line each
- Iselle Dohr — House Sai factor · warm, brisk, transactional · wants the box back quietly · tell: line items, never crews · page.
- Old Brame — Petrel skipper, paid double · “I ferry the living.” · superstitious tithe to Jatu.
- Mirei — pearler who sighted her · frightened, won't go past the Teeth for any money · a bought drink opens her.
- The letter-writer — ordinary dockside scribe · paid to ask about newcomers, oddly specific about “the clerk” · deniable to the last.
Read-Alouds — in order
1 · The pitch (Dohr, the offer)
“Nine nights ago I lit a lamp for that crew, and I meant it. But grief is grief and paper is paper, and there is a box in her master's cabin with my seal on it that I would very much like back before the salvage court learns my dead ship is out there sailing herself. I'll charter your passage, I'll pay in Saian weight, and I'll ask only this: whatever you find aboard her — the box comes home unopened.”
2 · Dawn (the sighting — then curtain)
The light comes up grey and finds her for you. She sits the swell a mile off — masts standing, sails hanging in grey rags that lift and settle like breathing. No lights. No hail. No gulls: they wheel high over her and will not come down. Old Brame works his jaw, spits over the side, and says the only thing anyone says for a while: “That's her trim all wrong. Ship rides like that when she's holding something heavy low down. Or —” he doesn't finish. The Surety waits for you to come and find out.
Valves — running long / short
- Long? Cut Night-Boarders without a second thought; fold the harbourmaster's board into the offer scene.
- Short? Deal the fight, stretch every watch prompt, multiply wharf scenes (a rope-seller who knew the bosun; a child selling “charms against the taking”).
- Drops tonight: the pearler's account · the letter-writer's questions — both optional, both from the Lore Locker.