The Quay & the Crossing
Session i · the hire, the harbour, and a night at sea
At a Glance
- Where
- Onda — Dohr's counting-house and the east quay — then the lugger Petrel, outbound past the Teeth
- When
- Hired at midday; sail on the evening tide; the crossing runs through the night
- Who
- Factor Iselle Dohr; the wharf; Old Brame and the Petrel; three Reef-Scuttlers, if you want them
- Purpose
- Set the table — the job's terms, the town's mood, and a solo beat for every PC before anything has claws
- Curtain
- Dawn. The Surety on the swell, and no one aboard the Petrel says anything for a while
The Offer
Open in the counting-house above the east quay — ledgers, the good arak, and Factor Iselle Dohr with the fee already counted into a cloth. Give her the pitch from the run-sheet, and let her answer questions the way she answers everything: warmly, precisely, and one clause short of the whole truth.
- The terms. 250 gp on delivery of the sealed strongbox from the master's cabin — seal unbroken — plus charter of the Petrel and salvage rights to anything aboard that isn't logged Sai cargo. She'll produce the salvage waiver on the spot; it's already drafted.
- What she'll say, if asked. The box holds ship's papers and House correspondence — true, as far as it goes. Why the hurry? “Because a floating ship is a salvage-court question, and a salvage court is twelve strangers reading my mail.” Also true.
- What shows through. A DC 14 Wisdom (Insight) check, or just patient conversation: she grieves the crew — that part is real — but every question she asks is about the box, and none is about the ship. She never once asks what the party thinks emptied her.
- Haggling. She'll go to 300 gp for a promise of discretion delivered with a straight face, and she'll remember whether it was kept. She will not discuss opening the box under any framing, and gets half a degree cooler each time it's tried.
The Wharf
Give them the afternoon in Onda before the evening tide — gear, questions, goodbyes. The quay is subdued: three crews lost in five weeks, and the talk has stopped being about weather. Scenes to deal as the table wants them:
- The pearler. Mirei, who sighted the Surety, drinks alone now and doesn't want the story spreading with her name on it. Bought a drink, she gives the pearler's account (Lore Locker): the ship sat wrong — low and steady, “like something had her by the keel.” She won't go back out past the Teeth for any money. Ask her why and she looks at the water and doesn't answer.
- The letter-writer. A dockside scribe — folding table, good ink, entirely ordinary — has lately been paid to ask casual questions about newcomers, and today that means the party. Names, trades, and one oddly specific interest in “the clerk.” This is the letter-writer's questions drop: Senna's first feeler, aimed at Haxami, deniable to the last. Play it as texture; do not explain it. (See Haxami's half of Act I.)
- The harbourmaster's board. Three names chalked under LOST: Ledgerwake, Brightcopper, Surety. Dates. A reward posted for “cause, proven.” Anyone who reads closely notes all three went down on calm nights — the board says so, primly, like it's embarrassed.
- Provisions & goodbyes. Whatever the table wants — this is the last easy shopping and the last warm room for three days. Let it breathe.
The Crossing
The Petrel is a working lugger with patched sails and a skipper called Old Brame — paid double, asking nothing, and absolutely firm on one point: he'll stand off the derelict and hold station, but he will not lay alongside her after dark, and he will not step aboard her at any hour. “I ferry the living. What you do with the other kind is your trade.”
The crossing takes the night. This is the session's heart, and it runs on the Watch Bill below. Sprinkle as desired: phosphorescence in the wake, a distant shape that might be a whale, the Teeth passing to starboard like knuckles. If anyone asks Brame about the reef, he spits over the side first — an old sailor's tithe to Jatu, made without comment.
The Watch Bill — solo beats
Brame posts night watches in pairs. Rig the pairings — this is the machinery for giving each PC a scene. Three watches, two PCs each (double someone up at a 4-top, or stand a watch with Brame). For each watch, deal one prompt and let it run as long as it's alive:
- The letter home. A PC is caught writing one — or conspicuously not writing one. Who's it to? What can't they say?
- The professional eye. A sailor, soldier, or tradesperson PC notices something real about the Petrel, about Brame, or about how thin Dohr's story is when you say it out loud over black water. Let them be right.
- The faith beat. A spiritually-inclined PC feels the water get attentive around the second watch — nothing happens, and that's the unsettling part. A DC 12 Intelligence (Religion) check names the feeling: this is water that is owed something.
- Haxami's watch. Whoever stands watch with Haxami gets the closest thing to candour he sells: a true story with the names filed off. He steers every question about his past into a question about yours, and he is good at it. (His player knows why. The table will, eventually. See the acts.)
- Brame's watch. Standing with the skipper earns his version of the five weeks: “Reef's always taken a hull now and again. Storm-nights. Its due, and you don't grudge it. But it's taking on calm nights now, and that's not hunger, that's — ” and he stops himself, and won't be restarted.
Night-Boarders — optional · Easy–Medium, ≈600 XP adj.
If the table wants dice tonight — or the watches need a jolt — the second watch hears wet clicking on the hull, and three Reef-Scuttlers come over the rail: carapaced, crab-like, trailing weed. They're a long way from the reef, and a Scuttler this far out means something has the reef's creatures ranging — a fact worth a shiver in retrospect.
- Terrain. A crowded working deck at night — rigging, hatches, one swinging lantern. Treat the rail as half cover for anything climbing it.
- Tactics. They latch (grapple) and try to drag prey over the side. Two felled and the survivor goes over the rail unprompted. Brame fights like a man defending his livelihood, with a boathook.
- Block. Run them straight off the Reef-Scuttler block below (Sahuagin reskin, CR 1/2).
Reef-Scuttler
Reskin of the Sahuagin (MM) · Medium humanoid, unaligned · one house tweak
Blood Frenzy. The scuttler has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn't have all its hit points. (Reflavor: the feeding frenzy as blood hits the water.)
Limited Amphibiousness. Can breathe air and water, but must be submerged at least once every 4 hours to avoid suffocating.
Shark Telepathy. Can magically command any shark within 120 ft using limited telepathy. (Reflavor: the reef's shared instinct — command lesser reef-things instead.)
Actions
Multiattack. The scuttler makes two attacks: one with its Bite and one with its Claws.
Bite. Melee attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 3 (1d4 + 1) piercing damage.
Claws. Melee attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 3 (1d4 + 1) slashing damage. House tweak — Latch: on a hit, a Medium or smaller target is grappled (escape DC 11) as the scuttler hooks on.
The Sighting
Curtain. End the session here — boats ready, nobody aboard her yet. Resist the urge to start the boarding with ten minutes left; session ii opens at the rail.
Pacing — the three-hour shape
- Roughly: the offer ~45 min · the wharf ~45 min · the crossing and watches ~60–75 min · the sighting ~10 min.
- Running long? Cut the Night-Boarders without a second thought; fold the harbourmaster's board into the offer scene.
- Running short? Deal the fight, stretch every watch prompt, and let the wharf scenes multiply — a rope-seller who knew the Surety's bosun, a child selling “charms against the taking.”
- The one thing: every PC gets a watch scene. That's what session i is for.