Re: Letters From the Front
A friend and I decided to make a go of DM-ing for the first time; we cobbled together a low-fantasy Caribbean campaign, set at the dawn of the Golden Age of Piracy, running on 5e. We started short two players, so for the first session the party consisted of Hidalgo, a Spanish Half-elf Bladesinger, Iris, a Taino Firbolg Druid, and Mateo, a Spanish Half-elf Bard. Check out the spoiler for a (lengthy) recounting of the action.
Spoiler Alert!
The party awoke aboard the good ship Chickenhawk, bound for the Spanish capital port of Puerto de Plata. After brief introductions, the Chickenhawk was waylaid, not by pirates, but by a Spanish galleon. The Spanish captain declared that he was pressing able-bodied passengers into service, as his own ship had recently suffered casualties of a raid by "demons," and needed more people to crew the ship in advance of its important mission.
Hidalgo and Mateo went willingly enough (for wildly different reasons), but Iris was reluctant. The Spanish captain wasn't about to take no for an answer, and things might have come to blows had Mateo not soothed the captain and Hidalgo come up with a facade of "indentured servitude" for the 8-foot tall 300-pound Firbolg. Soon enough, the party was aboard the galleon, and on their way to the capital.
En route, the captain became smitten with Mateo, and was easily convinced to show the bard a prisoner taken during the demon raid. In a reinforced cell below decks, the bard saw a hulking, humanoid shape curled up in the shadows. It was too dark to make anything out, but the shape and foul smell combined with a solid History check let the bard know that this creature, which had led the “demons” in battle and incurred the full wrath of the Spaniard captain, was an outlying member of the Giant family.
Once they docked in Puerto de Plata, the party accompanied the captain to the viceroy’s palace for a mission briefing and to aid in the interrogation of certain native prisoners. The viceroy explained that valuable sugar plantations on the island of Cuhaya have experienced raids by “outlaw peasants” over the past month, and that the crew of the galleon (including the players) are tasked with putting down this insurrection. To that end, the players would interrogate an old prisoner in the palace dungeons, one of the only living natives of the island.
In the dungeons, the players encountered the prisoner, an old Taino man whose entire body was covered in unreadable black tattoos, with a large cross-shaped brand on his chest. The Spanish captain began a rough, but unproductive conversation with the man. Iris and Hidalgo tried other languages, and it quickly became clear that, although the old man could understand Old Aztec, he couldn’t speak it. Conveniently, none of the other Spaniards in the room could speak it.
By this point, the players weren’t at all sympathetic to the Spaniards, and very much concerned with the plight of the natives, and especially interested in their magic. Iris and Hidalgo convinced the old man that they were on his side, prompting the prisoner to press one of the markings on his arm, which wriggled. Lo and behold, he began speaking perfect Old Aztec.
The Taino prisoner told Iris and Hidalgo that, contrary to Spanish belief, there are still Taino people on the island Cuhaya, hiding out in the highlands. He implored the players to keep his people safe from the wrath of the Spaniards. Iris and Hidalgo agreed, and asked where on the island they might find the Taino. The old man responded, “Seek Huracán’s Finger.”
At this point, the Spaniard captain was growing impatient with a conversation he couldn’t understand, and demanded answers. Hidalgo convinced him that the old man had provided the location of a good hiding place in the mountains, where the peasants could be safe from both the vicious mountain fauna, and the eyes of Spanish patrols. Before departing, Iris asked the prisoner how he could possibly know if any more of his people were still alive, given that he hadn’t been to the island in almost 40 years. He replied “I hear them. They whisper to me.”
On that unnerving note, the players left the dungeon, but not before another prisoner, a bearded Caucasian man in a head covering, gave them a knowing wink. Soon enough, the players were back aboard the galleon and sailing west on their way to Cuhaya. They slept above-decks, under a cloudless sky.
In the wee hours of the morning, the players woke to the sound of screaming. The captive Giant’s minions had come back for their leader, and broken him out of his cell. It was at this point that the party discovered that the captive was a very angry Sea Troll with an axe to grind with the captain of the galleon, and that the “demons” were in fact sea goblins, or grindylows, half a dozen of which were swarming about the deck.
In a moment, the captain and two of his sailors were above-decks, fighting the troll and grindylows. The players, at the other end of the ship, were ready to fight, but very much unwilling to reveal their magic to the superstitious Spanish. As such, Iris’s first move was to cast Fog Cloud on the middle of the ship, completely obscuring the party from everyone aboard the ship except for a single grindylow.
At the other end of the ship, the two Spanish sailors were quickly tripped up and killed by the troll and grindylows. To make matters worse, the wind was rapidly picking up. The captain fought tooth and nail against the troll, but didn’t make much of an impact. The bard Mateo hit the troll with Dissonant Whispers, keeping it from even thinking about the players.
As the wind began to howl, the players fended off attacks from grindylows emerging from the fog. Iris wild shaped into a giant spider, climbing the mast and rigging while restraining grindylows with webs. Hidalgo began his blade song, killing two grindylows before two more climbed over the side of the ship and tripped him with their tentacles. One stabbed him, taking him below half his hit point total, but he managed to evade their strikes as he disengaged and killed his attackers.
By now, the grindylows at the stern had tripped the Spanish captain, and the troll had thrown him over the side of the galleon by his ankle. Just above the howling wind, the players heard the captain scream about something horrible in the water.
Instead of going after the party, the troll jumped after the captain, and disappeared along with him into the dark water. Abandoned by their leader, the remaining grindylows fled over the side of the ship. The players didn’t have any time to celebrate their victory, as the howling wind had developed into a full-blown storm. After some quick work to reef the sails, the players hunkered down with the other sailors below decks.
In the hold, listening to the waves beat against the sides of the ship, each player prayed to their god, and, as if their prayers had been heard, the storm intensified. Knowing that there was nothing more they could do, the players decided to wait out the storm.
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