A pirate themed, seafaring adventure filled with brigands who aim to swash every buckle and buckle every swash. There's probably at least one Jack Sparrow and maybe that cat-lady from Treasure Planet. All in all, it should be good times.
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Skull and Shackles References
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Maps:
The Wormwood
A1 ~ Foredeck
A2 ~ Poop Deck
A3 ~ Main Deck
A4 ~ Officers' Quaters
A4a ~ Armory
A4b ~ Pepper Longfarthing's Lab
A5 ~ Captain's Cabin
A5a ~ Cabin Girl's Quarters
A5b ~ Captain's Storage
A6 ~ Middle Hold
A7 ~ Quartermaster and Cook's Cabin
A8 ~ Galley
A9 ~ Quartermaster's Store
A10 ~ Lower Hold and Crew Berths
A11 ~ Bilges
Ship Actions:
Each character can normally take two ship actions each day, one during the day and one at night. Characters can also attempt to take up to two additional ship actions during the middle watch in the dead of night (any nighttime ship action marked with an asterisk), but to do so risks being fatigued for the next day.
For ease and speed of play, time between story events will be condensed and I may ask for a weeks worth of daytime and night time activities. There will be mundane days actively roleplayed out for the sake of relationship building between characters, but if we RPed out each day individually, we'd take a year to finish the first chapter of book one!
Daytime Ship Actions Work Diligently Gain a +4 bonus on any one check for a job’s daily task
Influence Make normal checks for a job’s daily task and attempt to influence a single NPC
Sneak Make normal checks for a job’s daily task and briefly explore one area of the ship
Shop Take a –2 penalty on all checks for a job’s daily task and visit the quartermaster’s store
Shirk Take a –2 penalty on all checks for a job’s daily task and take time exploring one area of the ship
Nighttime Ship Actions Sleep Go to bed early and sleep through the night to recover from fatigue
Gamble Play or gamble on a game of chance or pirate entertainment
Entertain Make one Perform check to entertain the crew
Influence* Attempt to influence a single NPC
Sneak* Take time exploring one area of the ship
Steal* Attempt to open a locked door or locker
Shirking, sneaking, and stealing all involve Stealth checks or Sleight of Hand checks (or both) and I will be rolling those. Disable Device checks will be rolled by the player.
Influencing will of course be determined by Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate checks based on what methods your character uses to influence others. These will be rolled by the player with opposed Sense Motive checks rolled by me when needed. Please include who it is you are trying to influence when you roll.
Entertaining the crew is a Perform check of your choice, rolled by the player. Failing a check means you may have to make additional checks the next time you try or be ignored by the crew.
Gambling comes in a few different forms aboard the Wormwood, and each requires a different check.
Arm Wrestling (Strength check) Usually conducted around broken glass and knives
Hog Lob (CMB) Toss the ol' pigskin-covered lead ingot across the deck as far as you can
Heave (Fortitude) Drink a half pint of rum in one swig until there's only one man left standing
Wormwood Captain and Officers:
Captain Barnabas Harrigan
~ The captain of the Wormwood with a vicious temper.
Mr. Plugg
~ First mate and second-in-command to Captain Harrigan with an equally unpleasant demeanor.
Master Scourge
~ Boatswain and master-at-arms of the Wormwood, he acts as Mr. Plugg's right-hand man and is responsible for all discipline.
Ambrose 'Fishguts' Kroop
~ A drunkard with a social streak and the ships resident cook.
Cut-Throat Grok
~ A no-nonsense half-orc woman with a scar across her throat and quartermaster of the Wormwood.
Pepper Longfarthing
~ Sailing master, sorceress, and an old friend of the captain.
Riaris Krine
~ Master gunner and a tough as nails woman.
Habbly Quarne, the 'Stitchman'
~ The ship's carpenter and surgeon.
Kipper
~ Gunner's mate and bootlicker for Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge.
Patch Patchsalt
~ A gnomish lass, boatswain's mate, and sycophant of Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge.
'Caulky' Tarroon
~ The captain's cabin girl.
Owlbear Hartshorn
~ Simpleton and 'pet' of Mr. Plugg.
Wormwood Crew:
Rosie Cusswell
~ A foul mouthed halfling best known for threatening to chop off the hand of anyone who messes with her beloved handaxe.
Crimson 'Cog' Cogward
~ A loner and a brooder whose neck turns crimson when he's angry and seems to like fighting.
Conchobhar Turlach Shortstone
~ A honey-tongued gnome with a ridiculous purple hat and a serial womanizer.
Barefoot Samms Toppin
~ A fisherwoman who never wears shoes.
Giffer Tibs
~ A one eyed gnome.
Jack Scrimshaw
~ A young lad with a knack for scrimshaw.
'Ratline' Rattsberg
~ A rat-faced halfling missing a few too many fingers.
Tilly Bracket
~ A bit of a joker with a drinking problem.
'Badger' Medlar
~ An older half-elf woman with hair shaved into stripes.
Shivkah
~ A tall woman and Mwangi ex-slaver.
Aretta Bansion
~ A harlot with a bad temper and big ears.
Fipps Chumlett
~ Bald, fat, and pushy!
Jaundiced Jape
~ A greedy, humorless, half-orc mute.
Maheem
~ A Rahadoumi with a permanent scowl plastered to his face.
Slippery Syl Lonegan
~ An unhinged woman who may or may not be fleeing murder charges.
Tam 'Narwhal' Tate
~ A dwarven friend of Master Scourge with a big broken nose.
Jakes Magpie
~ A thief caught stealing who got keelhauled.
Be ready to post once a day! The idea is that you will all be interacting with each other, the NPCs, and with your environment. There should be something for you to post about each day, even if you're an onlooker to a current development. You can all help each other out be making posts open ended and giving characters room to interact with you!
Now this is by no means a daily limit. If you have the time, feel free to post more often to engage in roleplay with your fellow players. The only time I ask for you to limit your "extra" posts is during combat. Only post relevant, important actions and speech while characters are engaged in combat. Try to get all your free actions (such as speech) out on your turn rather than through out the round if at all possible!
Post Formatting:
While I don't mind what person you are posting in (first, third, seventh, idc!), there are some posting conventions I'd like you to stick to. Rather than explain them, I will demonstrate:
The mighty GM Besmara looks about at her salty crew with a sneer as they putter about the deck. "Look alive, gents! This ain't no pleasure cruise! Put your backs into it," she bellows for all to hear. "Or it'll be three lashings at the hand of the first mate!"
At her threat, the crew hastily doubled their efforts. Good, She thought to herself. Now they got some spring to their step! I'd like to know if I should have made an intimidate check?
Okay, so as you can see, actions are done with standard text, speech is bold with quotation marks surrounding it, self-thoughts are in italics, and the relevant ooc question is in ooc tags! Easy-peasy!
Vital Statistics:
I'm going to steal this right from GM Damo.
Put your vital stats, expended charges and active conditions in your forum tag line. It really helps for those situations when a GM needs to make a roll for the whole party (eg. everyone makes a reflex save). That means I can easily do the rolls, resolve all the effects and move the game along in a single post.
How to Post Vital Stats
When you edit the profile for your alias, anything that appears these fields will appear on your tagline in posts on a PbP thread (in this order):
1. Gender
2. Race
3. Classes/Levels
All you need to do is put your vital stats in these three fields and you are good to go.
For this campaign, post your vital stats using this template! Please add a space at the start of both the race and classes/levels lines; it's very important for clarity!
Race:
| HP: 13/13| AC: 12 (12 Tch, 10 Ff) | CMB: +1, CMD: 13 | F: +1, R: +2, W: +4 | Init: +2 | Perc: +1, SM: +1
Classes/levels:
| Speed 30ft | Elemental Ray: 7/7 | Spells: 1st 5/5| Active conditions: None
Gender:
CG Male Half-Orc(taldan) Sorcerer(arcane) 2
or [ url=http://website.com/image.jpg]CG Male Half-Orc(taldan)[/url ] Sorcerer(arcane) 2 if you have an image you'd like to link with your character!
Rolling:
There are several types of rolls that I will be doing on your behalf in order to keep the game moving at a decent pace and to keep certain things secret from players. These rolls include things like Initiative, Perception, Sense Motive, Disguise, some Saves and occasionally other things as I deem fit. Other rolls, such as Bluff, Diplomacy, etc. will all be rolled by you when you are planning to use them. RP out your rolls!
There are no critical success skill checks.
My GM rolls will be posted in a spoiler labeled "GM" and it's expected that you won't look in there! Yes, I could just preview the rolls and never post them, but I prefer to be able to look back on previous actions. I trust that my players will respect the PBP version of a DM screen and not poke around behind it.
Combat:
Combat will be introduced by me and will include the Initiative order that I will have rolled in that same post. Battle maps will be used to track where your character is at any given time during the combat (although I haven't picked what method I'll be using at this exact point in time while I write this). In this initial combat post, I will also list the relevant Knowledge skills to learn about the creatures you are combating. In your first post, please make the appropriate Knowledge roll, then list five points you'd like to learn about the creature in order of priority and put in ooc tags (eg. Weakness, special attack, creature subtype, supernatural ability, special movements).
Adapted from GM Brew.
I expect you will post out of initiative order. It makes sense seeing as some of us may live in different parts of the world or have varying availability. When I resolve a combat round, I will list everyone's actions in order of initiative and try to logically resolve the intent of the action if something changes. For example, if you post an attack against target one and target one is taken out before your turn, I'll assume that you would then attack target two. I will always do my best to action in best logical way and not place any character in further danger unless the action specifically says to do so.
The basic tactics of your character will be something we discuss together for those times where I have to make action decisions on your behalf. These basics will then be tacked on to your character's profile, much like how tactics are often a part of a bestiary entry. For example, a healing character may have a tactic that states that if an ally dips below 50% hp, their character would prioritize healing that ally with a wand of cure light wounds. This way, when I resolve a combat round where the healer posted first but the tank took a huge crit before the healer's turn in Initiative, I know that the healer would likely forgo her stated action in favor of using her wand on the tank. This is especially important for characters who can take immediate actions!
I won't make character actions for you until the next morning after your turn, or potentially that night before I go to bed depending on when your turn was supposed to be. I'd like to get combat done with some amount of speed! If the party can get two posts out a day during combat, that would be ideal, but not mandatory.
Crafting:
We will be using the alternate crafting system from Making Crafting Work. It has no bearing on magical crafting, but will make things like crafting armor, arrows, alchemical items, etc much more viable and practical. There's no need to buy the PDF (although it's 99 cents and very good if you plan on GMing anything), I'll be helping guide this practical approach to crafting.
GM Expectations:
I will do my absolute best to finish what I'm starting here. That said, this is a full AP and situations may change depending on how long this takes. If that happens, I will still do my best not to abandon you. Instead, I'll work with you all to re-evaluate the pace of the game and other way we can keep it alive and going.
I will accept feedback without being an ass hat. Unless I'm cranky.
I will leave the sandbox open as much as I can while maintaining the general direction of the AP. I will use every tool available to help your characters figure out their next step so we aren't left in a state of limbo and can push the story forward.
