I-III. Kingston, Jamaica. Thursday, January 4, 1725 Anno Domini

• It is hours from dawn. The crew have just apprehended one of the attempted saboteurs and it sounds like Sir Randel’s rival, Maurice Boissonade, is dealing with the same kind of attempts. After some quick discussion, the crew decide to take the saboteur to shore and turn him over to the watch; Sir Randel, Rogers Davino, and a few strong men will do this while Hayden prepares the Dame for departure.
• While informing the Watch of what took place, Sir Randel also, on the spur of the moment, tells them that he fears the La Dame Blanche may have been successfully seized by these saboteurs and pirates; they will need aid at once! The Watch, excited at the possibility of pirates, rushes to assist and will, Sir Randel hopes, significantly slow down his rival’s departure.
• The Graceful Dame departs with the dawn, destination: Île-à-Vache, well aware that the La Dame Blanch is preparing (though they have certainly been significantly delayed by the swarming Watch responding to word of pirates), as is a cutter Rogers knows to be the Rumjack.
• The first day out is eventful: Claude is lightly injured (thanks to Red’s screwup) during the course of his duties and refuses to disrobe in public, much to everyone’s amusement. Artegal convinces him to do so below-decks wherein it is revealed that Claude is actually Claudia; Spenser cares little about this, instead attending to his medical duties and offering some suggestions regarding better bindings that she is wearing upon her chest.
• The second day is less eventful, though once more, Red (being a landsman) screws up; this time, he is insistent that it because of Faustus, the black cat that came aboard the ship with Artegal, who he is convinced is “out to get him” and is a witch. Artegal counters this, by arguing instead that it is more likely that the cat has been sent here by faerie’s who are keeping an eye on him. This makes things worse.
• On the third day, they arrive at Île-à-Vache after several uneventful hours of sailing, though Hayden leads a class in navigation for those who wish to learn of it. By late noon, they have set anchor in Ferret Bay.
• The command crew go ashore, along with Mr. Bold and Red, intent on finding the next spot; leaving Isaac behind with the boat, they hike several miles inland toward the stone house … only to encounter a black man emerging from it. Additional men of African heritage leap out, all armed, and a tense stand-off ensues that Sir Randel manages to assuage with his easy smiles and quick words. It is eventually agreed that the crew will provide some food for the badly malnourished escaped slaves/former marooned sailor types while Sir Randel enters the house for a few moments.
• Sir Randel promptly heads to the fireplace, finds the slot that the coin enters, and places the doubloon into it. There is a click and one of the bricks falls out, revealing a brass compass-thing. He takes it and is about to replace the brick when a flight of whimsy causes him to scratch his initials
• Outside, the crew hear a gunshot and, upon looking in the direction of the ship, observe sails on the horizon. It is the cutter, Rumjack…

Player Notes:

• Loki ended up dropping the game for personal reasons so Claude has become a NPC. Ironically, her Secret (she’s actually a girl) was set to trigger this session, so Giger just had it go ahead anyway.
• We spent a lot of time at the beginning of the game taking care of administrative stuff, so we did not get to the adventure proper until after the midpoint break. When we did, some of our previous assumptions – we had to depart with the tide which was around midday or so – were shot, so we immediately reshuffled our plans and set sail at first opportunity.
• The sea travel stuff was certainly interesting, but I believe we’re going to have to find a way smooth that out since we wouldn’t want to make those rolls every single day of a voyage.
• We definitely misused Artegal’s Serendipity to get the ship cat aboard, but it seemed fine.
• Something I’m going to have to mention in-game is that Giger uses some of the nautical terms without thinking, presuming that we also know what he means. A case in point is the ship that shows up at the end; he referred to it as a cutter and it was not until maybe two days later when I chatted with him in real life that I learned we are massively, massively outgunned. I heard cutter and thought “Oh. That must mean it’s a really small ship, maybe our size or a little smaller?”

See the Daniverse Blog for the GM’s post-game debrief.