Fourteenth Session (11 page pdf), “Booty in Riddleport” – Naval combat! The PCs’ pirate ship takes on a Chelish navy vessel. They escape, and take a nice plump merchant ship as a prize, and make their way back to Riddleport. The next couple weeks are a blur of loot, booze, hookers, drugs, and recreational violence.
It wouldn’t be a pirate outing without some naval combat. The Chelaxian ship from Session Summary 3, the Raptor (Captain Vix Charlo, commanding), appeared as the PCs’ ship, the Wandering Dagger, was leaving the sacked Staufendorf Island. Wogan immediately had the brilliant idea of loosing their new eversmoking bottle on the stern, which combined with clever maneuvering kept them almost unharmed by the navy ship’s chase gun. It was back and forth – the Raptor nearly overtook them before they got up to speed, but then they got a lead, but then the Chelish nearly caught up, but in the end they escaped without a full battle. And that darn Thalios Dondrel made his Will save.
I won’t post my naval rules here yet because I submitted them for the Fire As She Bears competition from Lou Agresta and Sinister Adventures, but they’ll be OGL so you’ll get your paws on them one way or another soon enough. Hint, I combined my already field-tested OGL cannon rules, chase rules, and mass combat rules (along with a bunch of new stuff) to put it together.
Then they get to be predator, not prey, when they take a merchant ship. The PCs were initally concerned about the ten gun-ports on the thing, but Captain Clap just roared, “I said, RUN OUT THE GUNS!!!!” Turns out the gunports were fake and he knew about it. Being a pirate isn’t all about kicking ass; living long is about being wily is the lesson to take away.
Then back to Riddleport and a taste of the rock star lifestyle that pirates flush with loot enjoy there! The PCs entertained themselves for the rest of their session, with such stirring quotes as “Hey let’s go double up on a tiefling hooker,” “I can milk anything with nipples,” and “Now we’ll rip off the local drug suppliers and go into the narcotics business!” I don’t know, I think I might should change their alignments from Lawful Good, what do you think?
By the way, here’s where an iPhone with Google access is bad ass. The PCs say, “We want to go kidnap some spiders! What can we get that’ll keep spiders off us?” Rather than say “No!” or “Uh, anti-spider herbs?” I did a quick search and BAM! Hedge apples! (aka horse apples, aka osage-oranges.) I know some people have given up on the roots of D&D as a vector to research weird information, but not me baby!
Geek Related 