Our Mother, the Sea: Play Report 01

I began writing “Our Mother, the Sea” (my upcoming maritime hexcrawl) a little over two years ago now, and playing it with a group shortly after that. For the past year, the game has been on pause. I had grown deeply unhappy with the ruleset, and, a year later, I continued to be. So we have decided to start again, stripping back the ruleset to its barest bones and creating it vernacularly, instead.

Our first session focused mainly on setting the scene, creating characters, stocking the ship, and catching up with each other. This play report will cover the morning our crew first sets out to sea.

The dawn was cold as steel the day the letters arrived. They came aboard a battleship, guarded by guns of the empire, in the hands of a portly, comfortable bank representative.

Mr. John, of the Imperial Bank of Emeria, delivered each notice personally. One-by-one he kindly informed them the bank was calling in its debts. Those who could not pay by the end of the month would pay instead in sweat aboard the oil rig to the south.

The town of Moody Bay had seen better days, but it has rarely seen worse ones.

That night, five of its residents met in the overstuffed pub and determined to change their fate. They pooled together what pennies they could spare to purchase a humble, patchworked fishing trawler with a whittled sparrow on its prow, in hopes of finding their fortune at sea. They were…

• Peddle Nippard, a 59-year-old diver. He owes 300 steel pennies, and has no one to support but himself.
• Henrietta “Henry” Kelly, a 53-year-old mechanic. She owes 900 steel pennies, and supports her aging parents.
• Matilda Matchim, a 30-year-old skipper. She owes 700 steel pennies, and supports her sick twin.
• Francis Osmond, a 94-year-old watchman. He owes 800 steel pennies, and supports his widowed sister-in-law.
• Henry Dawe, a 23-year-old whaler. He owes 200 steel pennies, and supports his younger brother, both of them orphaned.

The morning the crew set out to sea, the mist that ever hangs over Moody Bay was sparse. The wind was kind. The clouds above held no threat of rain. As loved ones gathered to say their goodbyes, they dared not say aloud that the weather promised good fortune, but it was written in their faces.

If the weather was not enough, the local prophet, known as Crab, scuttled up to them to offer his own blessing. One-by-one they approached the shaggy man and spat in a clamshell filled with afterbirth. He placed it in the claws of a host of tiny crabs, who carried it into the tide.

Then the Sparrow set out with its virgin crew to sail on seas unknown. Let us pray its fortune holds.

In the last few minutes of our session, the crew chose their stations and reviewed the few rules we're using, so we could begin sailing properly next session. 

Beyond what is to be expected in a game of this nature — such as rules for travel speed, cargo, and provisions — the main rule of note I’ve chosen to include is one to measure each crew member’s working capacity, called “labour-power” or “LP”.

Each character has 6 LP per day (one point for each watch). Each point is the equivalent of the amount of work a single person can complete during a watch at a leisurely pace. Players can assign LP to tasks as they see fit, allowing them to work harder for shorter periods of time, or slow enough to take a nap in the middle. As they suffer, their LP is reduced, with a chance of death at 0 LP.

At the moment, they have no work to do but busywork, attending to different stations onboard the ship to keep tabs on their equipment, cargo, and the sea beyond. Soon enough they will have their hands full.