Episode 3: the sea wyvern's wake
The characters begin their journey to the Isle of Dread; the lost city of Tamoachan and a monstrous sargasso are featured highlights.
Part 1
The party learned of the voyage to the Isle of Dread and agreed to come along. Lavinia held a party for the voyagers where the party met many of the passengers and crew.
NPCs:
Avner Meravanchi: A dashing fellow who loves the ladies. He seems brave enough, yet when there's trouble he's suddenly not around. His family is co-sponsoring the journey to the Isle of Dread.
Amella Venkalie: Able sea-man who captain's the Sea Wyvern when the party is off
Father Feres: Priest of Hieroneous, maybe...
Skald: Sinister looking fellow, carries a longbow.
Urol Forol: Gnome and guide. He is the only person who has actually been to the Isle of Dread.
Lirith: Tomboy who seems to recognize Xander, and spends a lot of time with him.
Tavey Nesk: Cabin boy.
At departure time, Avner showed up a half hour late. He brought his horse, Thunderstrike, with him. Unfortunately, Thunderstrike and his feed take up 10 tons of storage space.
At little late but none the worse for wear, the Sea Wyvern set off on her journey. The first night, Lavinia invited the party to dine with her on the Blue Nixie. The ships were loosely tied together to allow travel between. At the conclusion, when returning to the Sea Wyvern, the transport device snapped, leaving Stephan in the water. Meanwhile, a water mephit suddenly appeared and started to attack hapless passengers. The perpetrator was quickly tracked down: a stow-away Rowan Kellani!
Part 2
The ships stopped to resupply in Fort Blackwell. A few days later, Father Feres fell ill. A blue egg had been implanted in his belly, but Kindle and Kaylee were able to get it out and destroy it. Father Feres then came clean, that he was not a priest and that it was a cover created for him to be able to leave Sasserine. In exchange for the covered, he had made a delivery to the Shrine of Hieroneous, which was likely a front for some other group, cultists of some kind perhaps. His real name is Conrad, and he was very thankful to the PCs for saving his life, and threw himself upon their mercy to spare him.
Nine days later, the ships came to a river to refill. Just after, they had an encounter with a Flotsom Ooze, which nearly took Kaylee's life! Finally, they reached Tamoachan, where Lavinia had promised Urol a chance to explore the ruins.
The city had already been picked over by looters, however, Urol had come across a map to a relatively unexplored region. He mentioned the basilisk he had heard about, but he had 'plenty' of doses of stone to flesh salve. The group dispatched a basilisk as well as its unfortunate neighbor, a gibbering mouther. Then they found a room where the presence of living beings caused a wall of fire to spring up and slowly move across the room. This trap was avoided, and the party followed a naturally formed cave to what looked to be a wall of iron. Upon breaking through the wall of iron, they were attacked from behind by a will-o-the-wisp. At last, the started searching the second chamber, this time without the fire trap, and were attacked by a human sized bat creature. Defeated, they found some treasure in a sarcophagus and pocketed it before Urol could object.
Part 3
After getting out of the temple, Urol complained a little about leaving but he had gotten plenty of good findings. The group resumed the journey of the ship.
The first encounter was the blockade of the Scarlet brotherhood. The group used the air to make sure that they only encountered one ship rather than two. That ship they outran and outgunned.
Then the group made their way to Fort Greenrock, the 2nd resupply point. However, Fort Greenrock appeared to have been decimated by lizardfolk. No one was left alive and there were no supplies to be found. The ships moved on.
Then they stopped to resupply the water at a river. A few passengers took the opportunity to go for a swim, however, a 7-headed hydra attacked from the depths. The group quickly dispatched it, but not before a couple daring do-gooders jumped on its back.
Part 4
This first stop in this episode was at the final resupply point of Renkue. Though the Sea Wyvern had enough stores to make it to the Isle of Dread, ten more tons of food would give plenty of breathing room for the journey. However, the deal almost went south when Avner, voyage sponsor, tried to purchase a young woman from her parents. Kaylee was able to smooth the cultural misunderstanding over and Avner went back to the ship to pout. Meanwhile, Conrad decided that with a price on his head and crazy cultists out there he could be happy just staying here with these villagers, descendants of the Olmans.Following the stop, the crew successfully navigated the Pearl Current, only getting off course briefly. Then the ship passed an untamed island known as Ruja but determined that there was no need to stop there (and the rocs didn't seem to want a visit). Then a storm struck and separated the Blue Nixie from the Sea Wyvern, but the crew continued on course hoping to reunite before reaching the colony. Alas a mysterious fog arose that night and in the morning, the Sea Wyvern was trapped in a strange Sargasso!
The ship was trapped, and the Sargasso stretched for a mile in the shortest directions and miles in other directions. The party quickly went out to investigate another ship also trapped near the Sea Wyvern. She was called the Rage and was covered in green slime and seaweed. There the party fought off some assassin vines to claim a journal from someone on the Rage. The journal spoke of strange creatures attacking and killing shipmates. The journal pointed to a heart of the Sargasso, further in, so the party set off to find it. The came to the wreck of the Thunderer, though this ship was even more coated in green slime. Inside the ship lurked several vine horrors, the seaweed monsters which had haunted the crew of the Rage. In the very bottom of the ship, the Mother of All waited, calling her children to protect her. It looked back for the party as the Mother teleported above, trapping the party below. However, they bravely (or perhaps desperately) fought an uphill battle to defeat her. She died, and the Sargasso itself unraveled over the course of minutes. The party used their token to summon a boat to their aid and met the Sea Wyvern midway to picking them up.
The Sea Wyvern resumed course, only to be struck by a second and worse storm. This time the ship ran aground on a reef. A monster who called the ship home did a further number on the hull of the ship. The captain dislodged the ship, however, it was still sinking. A desperate attempt to repair the ship was underway and meanwhile the long boats were being prepared. Then the ship went down suddenly. How many survived is uncertain.
Treasure:
Rowan:
- Scroll: Summon Nature's Ally III
- +1 Leather Armor
- +1 Buckler
- +1 Rapier
- Boots of elvenkind
Flotsom Ooze:
- Ring of mindshielding
- Gauntlets of ogre power
Hydra:
- +1 chainmail
- Cloak of the manta ray (green)
Tamoachan Ruins:
- Marble Statuette, reclining humanoid, head turned, legs drawn up 78gp
- Small silver pyramid
- +1 dagger
- Ivory fan 180gp
- Platinum bracelet 230gp
- 124gp
- Strand of prayer beads: bead of blessing, bead of healing
- Golden bat idol 2500, unknown magical key
Sargasso:
- Journal of a monk, Anhelm. Details his journey visiting Isles of Axuxal and inhabitants near southern Amedio jungle
- 1200gp, 462pp
- 4 scrimshaw carvings each depicting a season @250 if cleaned
- 4 golden goblets @100gp
- Silver candelabrum 350gp
- Barnacle covered shield depicting sharks devouring men, +1 animated tower shield
- Scroll: hold monster
- Scroll: waves of fatigue
- Scroll: permanency