Our Mother, the Sea: Captain's Log 02

This is a recap of a solo playtest session for the upcoming hexcrawl, Our Mother, the Sea.

In the previous session, the crew of the Grey Heron became lost, beached themselves, split up, and reunited in the town of Port Elmer. They made plans to set out the following the day for the wreckage of a freighter said to carry a great number of firearms. 

The current crew of the Grey Heron is as follows: 

• Samuel Moody, a former lighthouse keeper. 58 years old.
• Emerson Moody, a former zoologist. 59 years old.
• Father Albie, a missionary. 10 years old.
• Abraham Browne, a hermetic antiquarian. 94 years old.
• Francis Harding, a marooned roughneck. 19 years old.

DAY 04

Weather: Thick Fog / Visibility: 96 yds / Temperature: 1-5°C

Early that morning, the Grey Heron leaves port, heading back the same way it arrived two days prior.

She is not alone, and the crew is glad of it – another trawler follows just within sight. The two ships keep one another company until 1600, when the other is swallowed by the fog.

When the Grey Heron reaches her destination at 2000, the crew hauls up a mighty catch, smiling all the while. Their smiles quickly scatter.

Every catch is fetid and mouldering, covered in a milky slime.

The crew silently makes to put it all back from whence it came, when Abraham cries out, noticing a thorny bone amidst the rotting flesh. The antiquarian tells the crew the bone is beyond value.

None are in a hurry to fish it out, save for Francis. Eager to prove himself, he pulls it free with his bare hands, unaware of the congealed clump of milk-slime hanging just above his head.

Abraham pushes the young man out of the way as the slime pours from the net. He tells Francis to drop the bone. None should handle it without gloves until the milk-slime has been washed away.

At 2100, the crew spots the wreck of the Mary-anne. They load a good store of firearms and other supplies from one ship to the other.

When the work is done, Francis pulls off his gloves. He screams. Chunks of grey flesh come off with the rubber. His hands beneath are blackened and rotten. Father Albie wraps the flesh in bandages, while playing healing heavenly frequencies on his radio.

Abraham tells no one of the patch of grey flesh he finds on his leg. None would wish to hear of another old man with a limp.

The crew ends the day with 11 days of food, 11 days of water, and 25 gallons of fuel.

DAY 05

Weather: Overcast / Visibility: Clear / Temperature: 1-5°C

Glory be to God, the fog is lifted. The crew wastes no time in heading up north once more.

At 0800, they come across two anchored fishing trawlers, bobbing in the waves. The larger one makes for the Grey Heron. Across its armored hull is written in plain black letters: Smog.

[Encounters are rolled every 1d20 hours, which means they can occur after the crew reaches the shore. In this case, the encounter was a fishing trawler, which I chose to come across the Smog instead.] 

The Smog looms over the Grey Heron. A man standing at the forward end of the deck introduces himself as Rodney Hayward. Not one of the crew recognizes him from the bar two nights ago.

Rodney informs the crew that he is employed by the Port Elmer’s Glue Company. He noticed their ship trawling company waters and is prepared to ignore the trespass, as long as he can check the Grey Heron’s hold for restricted species. At this moment, a stocky man walks out of the cabin, bearing a machine gun.

Perhaps yesterday, the crew of the Grey Heron may have balked at such a sight. Yet now they have two machine guns of their own, and dozens more guns besides.

Francis, who has been studying the other trawler, asks, “What happened to the crew on that ship over yonder?”

Glances are exchanged. Rodney nods. The stocky man raises his muzzle and opens fire.

Emerson drops like a sack of potatoes. In return, six gunshots ring out, and the stocky man falls – Father Albie’s revolver smokes with holy purpose. A rifleman emerges from the Smog’s cabin, immediately cut down from a spray of Samuel’s bullets.

The Grey Heron breaks to make her escape with harrowing speed. The Smog moves to cut her off, balking at the last moment. It turns to follow in her wake.

The ships race northward for a moment, gaining speed. Then the Grey Heron swerves. It rams clean into the Smog’s side, doing little damage to the layers of strong steel, but knocking the helmsman and Rodney off-balance, though not before Rodney puts a bullet in Samuel’s gut.

The Smog reels as the Grey Heron pulls away.

Seeing only him and the preacher boy remain standing, Abraham takes his hands off the wheel, picks up his rifle off the floor, and fires a shot between the eyes of the helmsman of the Smog.

Rodney panics, rushing up to the wheelhouse to take control of the ship. He reaches it too late. The Grey Heron, and the barrel of Abraham’s rifle, stares him down.

He quickly surrenders, confessing his true scheme. He had overheard the crew of the Grey Heron speak about the load of firearms on the wreck, and planned to seize them and sell them to the local garrison himself. In the night, another trawler came this way, and in the fog they mistook it for the Heron.

Rodney finishes by saying, with all the pride he can manage, that all he did, he did for the good of Port Elmer. Abraham tells him, “We’re not from Port Elmer.”

While Abraham speaks to the former captain of the Smog, Father Albie tends his crewmates’ wounds as best he can, and quickly gets them standing once more.

As Francis stands, holding the side of the ship for support, he spots a flock of terns playing in the wind a few miles northwest. It dawns on him how quiet the seas have been this morning.

A pale branch of tendrils slowly rises from the sea. The birds do not flee as it approaches. They do not struggle as it pulls them beneath the waves.

Seeing this, Samuel unceremoniously tosses Rodney overboard, ignoring his screams and pleas.

The crew splits with great haste, with Samuel helming the Smog and Abraham helming the Grey Heron, heading north with all the speed they can manage.

An hour later, the echoes of screaming and splashing behind them abruptly ceases. Behind the ships lie naught but empty waves.

When the crew pulls into Port Elmer at 1800, they spare no time to rest, bringing the crates of firearms directly to the head of the local garrison. The young Capt. Freddie Shaw thanks them for their service with grateful words and 1000 steel pennies. However, until The City sends more men to wield them, he says, they will be of little use.

Capt. Shaw sweats a little as he asks if the crew wishes to join the effort to liberate Fort Albert. They refuse, and hurry out the door.

A strict watch is kept that night. None sleep easy as the watchmen keep their eyes peeled and guns ready for men in company uniforms.

The crew ends the day with 12 days of food, 10 days of water, and 20 gallons of fuel.