II-IX. Ashore at Campeche, Yucatán. Sunday, February 25, 1725 Anno Domini

• The command crew are summoned to the Graceful Dame in the wake of the shark-man attack. As far as Doctor Spenser can tell, this is just a shark even though Mister Davino is insistent that it was a man when he shot it.
• Back at Mister Reade’s hacienda, strange noises wake several members of the crew, with Sir Randel and Captain Hayden investigating first and discovering a group of arsonists trying to burn down the house! A fight ensues, with Sir Randel expertly dropping several of the foes while looking positively awesome as Captain Hayden drops one with a well-placed gunshot. Doctor Spenser enters the fray but it is already basically over at that point.
• Interrogating the survivors reveals that they were hired by “Benito the Fence” which further enrages Mister Reade. He offers to pay for the entire expedition if they can bring Benito to him.
• The following day, while Captain Hayden and Doctor Spenser plot the expedition’s route inland along with Mister Reade’s maps, Sir Randel and Leftenant Rogers seek out Benito … and easily capture him. From him they learn that he was hired by the tall, ugly man (who apparently turned into a shark and is now dead) and a woman that the crew also saw.
• The crew spend several days preparing for the expedition and, on the morning of March 1, Captain Hayden does not wake…

Player Notes:

• Down both Claude (Mel) and Davino’s (Andricus) players. Mel was out due to Herodian’s abrupt passing.
• As before, I’m actively trying to minimize these outlines to avoid writing a novel. This time I have seriously managed to trim it down!
• Nosh’s decision to have Leftenant Rogers remain aboard the ship caught the GM by surprise and forced him to take a brief intermission to recalculate some stuff.
• As we flipped over into March, Captain Hayden had to make a HT check due to Terminally Ill … and critically failed! We thought that he was going to straight up die, but evidently Gigermann had previously adjusted the Basic mechanics for the Terminally Ill Disadvantage to make it a little more “effective” during the campaign. See here for details. As I understand it, Captain Hayden will lose 1 FP and his Chronic Pain is increased from mild to severe.

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