Let's Play Pirate Borg! Part 3: Setting sail
Ho there, rum-infested scoundrels! Let’s continue Byrd, Tim, and Nick’s (and now Blue Jean!) adventure from where we left off. After stealing The Eerie Dog and setting its ghostly prisoners free, the crew sets sail toward their objective. Meanwhile, they scour the ship to see what they find aboard.
Sloops have two cargo slots, so I’m rolling twice.
D12 Mundane cargo
2 = spices or oils (worth 350s)
10 = antiques (worth 2000s!)Do we find rum and provisions (likely): Yes
“Look at all this!” Byrd said, rummaging through crates of tied bags and little bottles. “They smell delicious.”
Nick eyed the ancient pottery scattered about the hold. He picked up an ornate plate with a gold rim and inspected it. He swallowed hard. “Aye, you lot can keep those. I’ll just take these old, chipped dishware and crockery off your hands. I don’t need much.”
“Oh, Nick, you’re such a gentleman. Let me remove your trousers and thank you proper.”
Blue Jean clattered down the stairs into the hold. “Aye, Nick, real noble of you, but we can’t have you hauling all this trash alone. Wouldn’t be right. We’re crewmates, ain’t we, Nathalie?”
“Well, I suppose. But these are all old and ugly. Look fragile, too.” She picked up a bowl that should be worth 200 coins and smashed it against the floor. “See?”
Nick froze, then roared, “What are you doing, you imbecilic witch? That alone was worth more than your damaged brain!”
An awkward silence stretched over the hold.
That’s a fantastic initial booty to divide among the crew already. Minus 200, but still.
Now let’s get sailing. I was gonna hexcrawl at sea, but I decided instead to put the island d6 days away.
D6 = 3 days away
I’m using Solitary Plunder and Captain and Crew for this.
D6 Sea state: 3 = Moderate
2d6 Wind: 4 = Calm. Decrease all max speeds by 1.
DR12 Presence check (+0): 10, 16 = weak hit
This navigation move is meant for hexcrawling. A weak hit moves us one random hex, then our remaining ship speed wherever we want. For this TotM style I’m using, I’ll ask the oracle.
Are there any encounters? No.
The first day goes by without incident. If you remember, Tim is our captain, but he’s a voluntary insomniac who regularly gets possessed by an undead spirit. I’ll ask if he falls asleep each night. If he does, there’s a chance he gets possessed.
Does Tim fall asleep? Yes, and…
He’s been awake for a while and pretty much passes out.
Does he get possessed? Yes.
D66 Sparks: 65 = Explore / Rum / Chaotic
Does Blue Jean notice something strange? Yes.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but the sparks roll has a verb, a noun, and an adjective. You don’t have to interpret them all together. You can just pick one of them and run with it, or roll multiple ones and mix. I’m going with just one roll.
Exhaustion took Tim in a fell swoop. His knees gave and his head knocked against the ship helm, but he instantly sprang upright. He cracked his neck side to side, then a muffled laugh floated through the night air.
Blue Jean heard the thud then the snigger. From the crow’s nest, she watched Tim pluck his pet hermit crab from his shoulder and toss it across the deck, drop his brass anchor, and stride toward the hold with a strange, mechanical gait. “What the brine-drowned hell…?”
Does Blue Jean try to wake up the others? No. She still doesn’t know what’s going on.
She follows Tim to the hold and finds him drinking rum from the barrel. When he looks at her, Jean understands what’s going on.
“No longer the cap’n, eh? A passenger now.”
The spirit used Tim’s face to smile. “And who would you be?”
“I’m Blue Jean.”
“Here to kill me, Blue Jean?”
“The dead don’t need dying, pardon the pun. Tell me what you want.”
The spirit looked bemused. “This is a first. I was expecting more violence.”
“From me?” Jean opened her arms, exposing her ribs.
The spirit put the barrel down. “I wasn’t expecting no skeleton, I’ll you ya that.”
“Bring the barrel. I’ll have to man the ship. Well, skeleton the ship. Let’s talk.”
Tim wakes up the next day with a hangover forged in the devil’s gut, hitting his head like cannon fire. He vomits over the rail and drags himself back to the helm.
Blue Jean resolved the situation, but what happened between her and the spirit is a mystery for now (for me as well, cause I have no idea).
Let’s see how the second day goes.
D6 Sea state: 3 = Moderate
2d6 Wind: 10 = Heavy. Increase all max speeds by 1.
DR12 Presence check (+0): 14, 20 = strong hit!
Nice! The day goes by without incident. Now for the last one.
D6 Sea state: 2 = Calm
2d6 Wind: 3 = Fog. All weapon ranges are reduced to 6 hexes.
DR12 Presence check (+0): 13, 7 = weak hit
Are there any encounters? No.
That’s it, the crew gets to the island. To create it, I’m using the very fun island generator from Down Among the Dead. We drop a 7-dice set on a page. Each die type is a different island aspect, and the value rolled is a local feature.
This is what I got.
Shadow Harbor Island
The weather is usually a torrential downpour.
Features (top to bottom): Small hill, fruit trees, cannibals gathered near a huge pile of bones, hills, coral reef, 3 sirens on an unnatural rock formation, and a freshwater pond.
We came here to raid a Spanish port warehouse, but as you can see, there’s none. I’ll turn the island into a hexmap and randomly determine the port location.
This is what I came up with:
Map created with Tiled + 2-Minute Tabletop assets
We’ll see how it goes next time.
Pirate Borg and its additional contents are available on DTRPG and the Limithron website.
If you want to use those character sheets, get it on Google Sheets (File > Make a copy).