Session 06 — A Finger on the Map, a Ghost in the Hold

Session Recap

First days at sea aboard The Expedition Ship (Fantom absent — Fenric tagged along in the background). The night stretched to 5 AM as Brebo Goldfang unrolled his land deed and the party haggled over where to plant their future settlement: after shortlisting six candidate sites, two polls, and one confessed GM fraud-vote, they soft-pinned a three-hex area on the Rivalon side of the Veilwood border — river and path access, near the Veilwood main gates, Borderdale and Burton Bywaters — pending Fantom's tiebreak. Brebo pressed his whole finger pad over the area ("I bought this bit") and went to bed. Around the map, backstories finally came out: Ashlyn's family controls the palisade town of Copseweald; Magra retold hers properly (orc fisherman father from Porth Redroot, missing elf-druid mother, a tapestry to give her when found); Silithane is a ~century-old city elf of Nighthaven hunting whoever cursed the Veilwood; Lash was the Venatori's favorite fixer of monster-hunting weapons; the archer Bailey shared his hunter's refugee guilt; and Kain, interrogated and sniffed, would only say "Human, but not a human. None of your business."

The next day belonged to the lower decks. Lash commandeered the ship's forge piece by piece and silvered Silithane's borrowed short sword (the new Silvered Short Sword); Silithane debuted a spider familiar and scouted through its eyes. Kain's thaumaturgic "IDIOTS ASSEMBLE" dragged the party below — where they missed the Flame Queen statue ceremony by two minutes, met Gravis (who, given Kain's binary choice, tearfully embraced being a necromancer — "I love you, Dad"), endured Sir Conolith the Ultra Virgin until Ashlyn spin-kicked him unconscious, and one by one hired on with Jugs, the ship's under-stair drug alchemist. Most importantly: Thalia found Laila — the stowaway is aboard, hiding in the dark corner, hunted daily by spectral ghost assassins sent by a man on the island she means to kill.

Key Events

• Settlement planning on Brebo's land: Brebo bought a parcel of Orathos and asked the party where his finger should fall. The other adventuring group has already drawn their plan on the shared map — settle a lake in the woods to the north and harry the hostile capital "Robin Hood" style. Context established: Cathalon is the enemy city where the traitor queen Laewendas sits with her bandit kings; the palisade zone in the south is "super safe"; Gwyndinas is the reclamation's settlement-in-progress, with a few months of reclaimed ground behind it. The Reclamation's priority is killing Laewendas, not building the party's town — "if they build you an amazing town and Laewendas takes it, all they've done is build Laewendas a town."
• Map sights: a network of gold markings in the Veilwood converging on a "big golden cave that goes up" — Kain's Religion check (11) says a connected mountain prayer-site temple, entrance visible (the party dubbed it the Temple of Orathos and wants the Ubisoft-tower map reveal from the top); a vine-strangled Divine Tower (Sleeping Beauty jokes); a huge dead tree on an unnamed settlement hex — GM, after peeking at his hidden layer: "as long as you keep the tree happy, it's a really good spot"; Shipwreck Coast ("a lot of free building materials"); Kain repeatedly hunting unnamed settlements to claim ("if it doesn't have a name, it's free for the taking").
• The vote: six shortlisted spots; first poll: #6 (Veilwood main-gates area, by Borderdale) 33%, #2 (two rivers, two mountains, no roads) 27%, #1 and #4 13% each — #4 (deep-Veilwood crossroads) being the GM's own admitted fraud vote ("I'm about to perform voter fraud, boys"). A 4-way runoff narrowed it further; the final ~3-hex pin sits between the two front-runners, biased toward #6. Formal ratification waits on Fantom next week.
• Backstory circle (until 5 AM): Ashlyn was sent by her family for real-world experience, not banished — the Blackwoods control Copseweald behind its palisade on the Veilwood–Rivalon border. Lash did blacksmithing at Gorton nearby and once got lost in the cursed druid's-grove forest between them. Kain hails from Pinwy in Rivalon (pronunciation contested for years). Magra: Sprigglsby, fishing with her orc father from Porth Redroot, shooting the inedible catches with her crossbow; her elf-druid mother was the traveling healer of the villages — Magra needlepoints a tapestry of everything she, Daewynn and their father lived through, to give her mother when they find her.
• Bailey's story: a hunter of hunters from Woodle in Varia (werewolf country — no hunting for two weeks a month); never killed a person; ashamed that his family hid from the refugee crisis to avoid taking anyone in. His math for making amends: trained as one person, if he shoots two enemies he's "a 2-for-1, and if everyone's a 2-for-1, we'll win."
• Silithane's story: spent his childhood in the Veilwood "till I was like 99," a bookish city elf of Nighthaven who watched over trade by the Hellgates. He intends to solve the mystery of who cursed the Veilwood — everyone blames the fae; he doubts it ("why would it be the fae?").
• Lash's story: failed guard (too distracting), failed seamstress (too rough), so they sent her to the armorsmith. She became the specialist who could fix the Venatori's weird monster-hunting gear — bladed hooks on chains, huge swords, ground-braced crossbows firing bolts the size of her arm — and Venatori came from far away for her. They "recruited" her for the expedition with a rope and a cart ("but I knew them, so it was okay"). She misses the mushroom tea parties — the mushroom people gather, drink tea in a circle, and communicate in pitched vibration hums.
• Is Kain human? Magra's Nature check and Lash's point-blank sniffing ("Hi-yah!" — he smells of recently burned firewood and fresh ash) settled nothing, but the table learned Kain can see in the dark ("I've been using fire the whole time" — "Nope"). His features check out human; the GM's verdict: a long list of suspects, "his fingers are too normal to tell." Kain: "Human, but not a human. None of your business."
• Lash details: her severed finger is visibly regrowing — it nubbed forward a millimeter while Bailey watched ("Don't worry, it will grow back," followed by an enormous proud grin); drunk, the ale seeps back out through her amphibian skin ("like an Alcopop"); where moonlight falls on her sleeping skin it glitters blue-white like diamonds.
• Ashlyn's vampire mechanics: at the night circle Ashlyn confirmed she doesn't need to breathe (still has to sleep), filed alongside her hang-from-the-ceiling rest. The table also settled mid-silvering that silver harms vampires ("the one thing that gets them") — so the brand-new Silvered Short Sword became the one blade she keeps well clear of, warning the party not to let it touch her.
• Silithane's familiar: a 10-minute deck ritual produced a sizable spider that perched on his shoulder like a parrot — he dismissed it instantly out of embarrassment and told Bailey "there's a lot of critters on this boat." He later re-summoned it small as a house spider on the deck below (three failed placements teaching him how thick the floors are) and spent the day alternating hour-on/hour-off between conversation and warging through its eyes — Lash eventually learned to tell when nobody was home.
• Bedtime: Ashlyn carried the face-planted Lash to Brebo's hammock (little legs swimming like a lifted dog), then slept hanging from the ceiling like a bat; Kain took a spare giant Ashwalker bed below decks, declining drugs from the parrot-snorting rat ("all the cool kids are doing it... as well as Mia"); the party got a half-night, 5–11 AM, waking on the 3rd of mid-spring of the "Crown's Wake" journey — the mainland gone from the horizon, 2½ weeks of sailing left.
• Kain and Fire Eyes: a man below decks set his own eyes on fire and now can't see ("I was queuing for the bathroom"). Kain held his hand, led him to the Firebrand priests — who were horrified to learn the Flame Queen didn't choose it for him — and handled the bathroom logistics ("he holds your thing, you hold his thing").
• The silvering: Lash offered her silver ingot for one weapon everyone could use — Silithane's borrowed short sword (Fenric's old copper one) won the simple-weapon logic. Tilda could only offer a welding blowtorch, so Lash found the ship's forge and its deaf old keeper ("I'm not a blacksmith, I'm a tactician" — ears wrecked by a lifetime of unprotected hammering; Lash's Medicine 17 mostly taught her to buy ear protection), then disassembled his smelter panel by panel and rebuilt it at her corner workstation, extractor ducting and all. Eight hours later: a serviceable Silvered Short Sword, rebalanced for Silithane's height, with one dead-pixel speck of unfused silver only she will ever notice ("I wish I'd just done 5% better").
• "IDIOTS ASSEMBLE": Kain's thaumaturgy boomed through the ship; Thalia, Magra and Ashlyn followed him to the lowest deck under Vegas rules ("what happens in the cool side of the ship stays in the cool side of the ship"). The twin priests at the Holy Chamber doors: the next "awesome super fire ceremony" showing is in 7 hours 58 minutes — they'd missed one by two minutes. Consolation: a drawer full of orange lozenges (Thalia and Magra partook).
• Gravis is aboard with his coffins. Kain relayed meeting his proud father in The Urina and offered the binary — dad proud + necromancer, or dad ashamed + not. Gravis: "I have chosen... Oh no, I am." He hugged Kain, crying through the mask: "I love you, Dad." Kain: "I'm proud of you too, Gravis. You've embraced your true identity."
• The spirit-cager: a striking dark elf in reinforced noble finery (ashen-white hair, bloodshot red eyes, a great big greatsword across the back) kneels smiling at apparently-empty cages — he's caging the spirits lost at sea as the ship catches them. Kain negotiated his cages out of Gravis's coffin space via square footage; the drow ran the numbers and conceded he was using 17.4% more room.
• Sir Conolith the Ultra Virgin: found in a deliberately darkened corner studying a map of Orathos and two globes — full filigreed plate, a bardiche, and a chastity cage. His thesis: a god of fire and a demigod of justice exist, so why not a god of chastity? He's checked Varia; now he'll check Orathos, then make pamphlets. Kain and Magra each took 1 psychic damage from prolonged exposure to the proselytizing; when Thalia fled his corner and the pursuing Potato Man, Ashlyn (rolled 19) spin-kicked Sir Conolith out cold for four hours and left-hooked the Potato Man down for good measure.
• Laila found. Thalia's Perception (15) caught legs that vanished: someone hiding in the dark corner, using the Ultra Virgin and the Potato Man as human deterrents. Laila — grey skin matted with camouflage makeup, pinkish eyes — whisper-coached Thalia's hiding until she was effectively invisible, then lit a candle to demonstrate her problem: a wailing spectral ghost assassin (mask, hood, twin daggers) burst through the hull, hunted the light, and left; the spirit-cagers sprinted over with an open cage seconds too late ("that looked like a big one"). Her story: killing the assassins only buys a day before they return, so she hides; the man who did this to her is on the island — probably the Veilwood ("fucked-up science in the backwoods energy") — and she will kill him to see if it stops. "If it doesn't, I think I'm gonna kill myself." Thalia is the first person she's spoken to in weeks; she offered the party's idiot services and the in-progress silver sword. Laila's idea: test it on one of the caged ghosts. She introduced herself with a practiced handshake — "It's the one thing I could do."
• The drug operation: the alchemist Jugs cooks under the stairs behind sight-blocking crates, screened by the Potato Man. Thalia refused to deliver "Parrow" — so Jugs rebranded on the spot: "It is Rat, yeah. Every post is Rat." One by one the party signed on (see Loot); Silithane's arrival prompted "do you want a job?" before introductions. Lash wandered up loudly asking "Oh, are you guys making drugs over here?" and an Ashwalker had to be deceived (Ashlyn, 13: "No, just peeling potatoes").
• Lash's inspection: to get below without Kain, Lash declared "Don't mind us, officers, we are just going to inspect the fire people" — persuasion with advantage off Fenric's double thumbs-up — then actually inspected them, discreetly fixing one Ashwalker's misaligned buttons ("I was hoping nobody would notice." "Back in line, Jeremy.").
• Session closed ~2 PM on the 3rd: half the party gainfully employed by a drug dealer, Thalia mid-deliveries, Lash dragging the first iron pot upstairs to mend, and the ghost-sword test left dangling.

Combat & Encounters

• No true combat. Ashlyn's two one-shot knockouts: a 19-to-hit spinning head kick on Sir Conolith (out 4 hours, head bounced off the map table on the way down) and a left hook that dropped the Potato Man "like a sack of spuds."
• The ghost assassin: spectral, masked, hooded, twin daggers — burst through the ship's hull intangibly, searched, and flew out the far side. Not fought; per Laila, killing them only stops them for a day.

NPCs & Factions

• Laila — confirmed stowaway; hiding in the lower deck's dark corner until landfall; hunted daily by ghost assassins; target: an unnamed man on the island, probably in the Veilwood. First friendly contact: Thalia.
• Bailey — the Session 5 card-circle archer, fleshed out: hunter from Woodle, Varia; refugee-crisis guilt; "2-for-1" combat math; noticed Lash's regrowing finger.
• Gravis — the masked coffin-shipper, now aboard and a self-accepted necromancer; calls Kain "Dad." His coffin corner neighbors the spirit cages.
• The spirit-cager — unnamed dark elf ("Have you heard of the dark elves?") in reinforced finery with a greatsword, caging spirits lost at sea; concedes arguments to arithmetic.
• Sir Conolith — "the Ultra Virgin": chastity-caged knight with a bardiche, hunting evidence of a theorized god of chastity in Orathos. Listening to him deals psychic damage.
• Jugs — the ship's under-stair drug alchemist (parrot, rebranded "Rat"); now employs most of the party; pays "50% above minimum wage" when haggled.
• The Potato Man — Jugs's human scarecrow; peels potatoes and, on request, his own nails; knocked out by Ashlyn.
• Fire Eyes — set his own eyes ablaze and went blind; adopted by Kain for bathroom runs; cited by all as why you don't set your eyes on fire.
• The deaf forge-keeper — the ship's forge's old occupant; self-described "tactician"; lifetime of unprotected hammering; lent Lash his smelter via nods and smoke breaks.
• The twin priests of the Holy Chambers — run ceremony "showings" roughly every 8 hours; keepers of the lozenge drawer.
• The parrot-snorting rat — middle-deck-cannon-adjacent drug enthusiast; the Flame Queen priestess "helps cook the spoon"; failed to peer-pressure Kain.
• Thalia's delivery list — Laku (rendered "Laos"), Eleanor, the parrot rat, a decoy package to the perpetually "sleeping" spy, and Philip, "the guy washing his face 24/7."
• Brebo Goldfang — pointed the famous finger at his land, then bed at 5 AM.
• Tilda — "the cute mouse" next door; offered her mini blowtorch and watched the smelter heist approvingly.
• Firebrand Church / Ashwalkers — guard the lowest deck, sense who doesn't embrace the Flame Queen, and accept "official inspections" with a straight face.
• Venatori — Lash's backstory employer: monster-hunter gear, smuggled silver ("I don't know if they're allowed silver weapons — the leader of the country is a vampire"), and rope-and-cart recruitment methods.

Locations

• The Expedition Ship — explored downward: the ship's forge aft of the great pillar; the lowest deck's coffins, spirit cages, piano-composer, broken-furniture graveyard, the darkened map corner, and Jugs's still under the stairs. Weather: spotty rain, the captain constantly correcting course; books cascading off the priests' shelves at every big tilt.
• Rivalon — the landing province mapped in earnest: Cathalon (enemy capital, Laewendas and her bandit kings), the southern palisade safe zone, Gwyndinas rising, and a country of lakes, rivers, bridges and claimable unnamed settlements. Kain's Pinwy, Magra's Sprigglsby.
• Veilwood — the border the party will settle against: main gates near Borderdale, the golden mountain prayer-site, Nighthaven and its Hellgates trade, Copseweald behind its palisade, Gorton, mushroom-people tea circles, and nightly werewolf season.
• Copseweald — new note: the Blackwood family's palisade town on the Veilwood–Rivalon border.
• Nighthaven — new note: Veilwood's capital; Silithane's home city ("He's seen a skyscraper").
• Cathalon — new note: Rivalon's capital under the usurper.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• Silvered Short Sword — Fenric's old copper-ish short sword, now silvered and rebalanced (green/uncommon, +95 gp value) — carried by Silithane.
• Ship jobs with Jugs (20-day run): Kain — cauldron-heater, 3 gp/day + one ceremony day off (negotiated by pointing Burning Hands at the product and threatening to burn the vampire); Ashlyn — guard, 5 gp/day ("I'll punch anyone who comes close" — "Sold"); Magra — potato peeler, 2 gp/day (her own money, thank you); Silithane — vial-mender (a box of 10–20 smashed-vial jigsaws); Thalia — local deliveries at 4 silver/package (2 gp collected for the first five); Lash — pot repairs, 5 gp for two holed iron pots, materials reimbursed against receipts (iron runs ~1 silver/lb).
• Orange lozenges ×2 — Thalia and Magra, from the priests' drawer. "Your throat feels smoother than ever."
• 1 psychic damage each — Kain and Magra, from unshielded exposure to Sir Conolith (optional matching character flaw offered).

Decisions & Open Threads

• The settlement area is soft-pinned: ~3 hexes on the Rivalon side of the Veilwood border (river, path, main-gates access; near Borderdale/Burton Bywaters). Formal vote waits on Fantom; Brebo still needs to clarify which hexes his finger meant. Whether the party helps the Reclamation kill Laewendas en route is undecided.
• Test the Silvered Short Sword on a caged ghost — Thalia's request, relayed to Lash (immediately distracted); Silithane holds the sword but was never told. If it works, it's Laila's lifeline.
• Laila's hunt: an unnamed man on the island — probably Veilwood — created her ghost-assassin curse. She'll kill him first; Thalia volunteered the idiots.
• The fire ceremony shows roughly every 8 hours in the Holy Chambers; Kain's negotiated day off is earmarked for it. He has still never used his "+6 idiots" entry clearance — and Silithane, now working ten feet from the guarded doors, has made zero progress on Figueroa's 10-gold spy job.
• Kain's nature is now an open party investigation: sees in the dark, smells of ash, "Human, but not a human."
• The golden mountain temple in the Veilwood is flagged as a destination ("We could see so many things from the top") — something already lives in it.
• Gravis, necromancer (out and proud), is aboard with coffins full of something; the dark elf is filling cages with sea-spirits beside him. Downtime plans for the remaining ~17 days are homework for next session.

Memorable Moments

• The GM cheerfully announcing "I'm about to perform voter fraud, boys" — then later confessing he was the lone vote for option 4 ("I have to run it").
• "Suck it, England" scrawled on the campaign map — undeletable because of hidden GM layers beneath it.
• Bailey's recruitment pitch for himself: "I shot 2 guys, so I was like a 2-for-1, and if everyone's a 2-for-1, we'll win."
• The Kain inquisition: Lash climbing him to sniff ("Hi-yah!"), Magra checking for "the barest split or fork in his skull," and the GM's deadpan inventory of his non-human features: "a pair of shoes, some trousers, a bag of firewood."
• Lash's millimeter of regrown finger, and the huge proud grin that followed.
• "The only retcon is that Thalia has been 20% translucent the whole time."
• Gravis, sobbing through the mask into Kain's shoulder: "I love you, Dad."
• The drow spirit-cager re-running the numbers mid-argument: "Ah, I see the error now. I'm using 17.4% more space than he is."
• "How could you see my penis cage?" — and the doctrine that followed: "For if you can see the nudity, you become the nudity. Absolute darkness is the only preservation."
• Thalia, cornered between an ultra virgin and a potato peeler, bursting from cover: "I'm a whore, go away!" — "She was a squirrel." Kain later: "You're a whore." Thalia: "Oh yeah, yeah, I am."
• The Potato Man's sales pitch: "Watch me, I can peel my own nails off!"
• Jugs's instant rebrand when Thalia refused to courier parrot: "It's not Parrow anymore... It is Rat. Every post is Rat."
• Kain's wage negotiation: holding Burning Hands under the boiling cauldron — "I repeat, are you sure I'm fired?"
• Laila making Thalia invisible with whispered hiding lessons, then giving the handshake she's practiced her entire life — "It's the one thing I could do."
• "Are you guys making drugs over here?" — Lash, at full volume, within earshot of an Ashwalker.
• Spiders hear through their legs — ruled at the table, with Silithane lamenting "it was one of those shaving-leg days" for lip-reading with 8 eyes.