The crew hangs around Rickety's Squibs for a few days, and get to know the areas, such as it is.
There's not much to speak of besides the docks, with the boathouse beneath and the watchtowers above, besides The Commons.
The Commons is where the crew has been doing their shopping, and it is also where they've been staying, free of charge while their ship is being refitted, in the main house, and receiving their food, also complimentary, if a bit bland.
The taproom is the place that might be of most interest, for it is where you can likely find a number of people to add to your crew, hard up for work as many are around here.
The following terms feature prominently in the plunder and Infamy subsystems, and are called out for ease of reference.
Disrepute: The amount of Infamy the PCs have accrued through successful Infamy checks, which can be spent on impositions. Costs measured in Disrepute are marked with a price.
Infamy Check: A Bluff, Intimidate, or Perform check made to gain Infamy and Disrepute. The DC of this check equals 15 + twice the group’s average character level. Spending plunder grants bonuses on this check.
Impositions: Incredible deeds and outrageous acts that grant the PCs a variety of benefits or impose crippling consequences on their victims. Higher tier impositions become available as PCs reach higher Infamy thresholds.
Infamy Threshold: Ranges measured in Infamy. Upon achieving new Infamy thresholds, additional impositions become available for purchase.
Plunder: An approximation of valuable but non-useful cargo. One point of plunder is worth about 1,000 gp, and takes up 10 tons of cargo capacity, unless otherwise noted.
Infamy: The highest total number of points of Disrepute achieved by making successful Infamy checks, representing the PCs’ total reputation. This number cannot exceed the PCs’ average party level × 4 but rarely, if ever, decreases.
There’s a difference between plunder and the gold pieces in a pirate’s pocket. While gold doubloons and fabulous jewelry can be plunder, pirates are rarely lucky enough to encounter a ship with a hold full of such treasures.
Typically, there are trade goods, foodstuffs, spices, and valuables of a more mundane sort. Such takes can fetch significant prices, but for scallywags more interested in looting than the specifics of what they loot, this system provides a way for parties to track their plunder without getting bogged down by lists of commonplace cargo and their values down to the copper piece.
Aside from streamlining the collection of riches, this system also allows characters to increase their infamy, paying off crew members and spreading their wealth with more appealing dispensations of loot than what was aboard the last merchant ship they robbed.
Winning Plunder (Shorthand version): You gain plunder whenever you capture an enemy ship, raid a stronghold, or find a significant treasure. Plunder is a measure of everything that ship has on it that's saleable, without bogging you down in minutiae like "You obtain: 3 barrels of pickles, 2 tons of high quality lumber, 3 reams of sailcloth, etc. etc. ad nauseam".
Value of Plunder (Shorthand Version): Plunder is valuable for two reasons: It can be sold for gold pieces, and it helps you increase your Infamy (Infamy is further detailed below). In general, 1 point of plunder is worth approximately 1,000 gp, no matter what the cargo is, be it foodstuffs or weaponry (though high amounts of more valuable cargo will obviously translate to more Plunder).
Just because cargo is worth an amount on paper, does not mean you can necessarily sell it for that amount. Selling Plunder takes 1 day per point of Plunder, no matter how much Plunder you may have, and requires an applicable skill check.
The PC trading also must be the same PC to make the skill check to inf luence the trade. The larger the port and the higher the skill check, the better price the PCs can get for their plunder. At smaller ports there’s little chance of getting more than half value for plunder, unless a PC can employ a skill to make a better deal.
At larger ports, the chances of finding a buyer willing to pay a reasonable price for cargo increases, and PCs can still employ skill checks to make even more lucrative bargains. PCs seeking to win a higher price for their plunder can make one of the following skill checks and apply the results to the table below: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or any applicable Profession skill, like Profession (merchant).
A poor result on a skill check can reduce the value of plunder. If the PCs are not satisfied with the price they are offered for their plunder, they need not take it, but a day’s worth of effort is still expended. They can try for a better result the next day.
There's a table, but copying that would be a pain, so here's the gist of it: The smallest town will only buy your s~!$ for 10% of its value by default, but you can increase it to 20% with a successful skill check (Starting at DC 10, going up by 5 for every 5% after the normal value, for all but the largest towns which go up by 10 for every 10%, but can be pushed to give you MORE than the base value). Every step up in town size will buy 10% more of your stuff by default and can be pushed up another 10% for smaller towns, 20% for medium sized towns, or even 40% for large cities. The largest city size (Metropolis) will buy 100% of your Plunder by default, and can be pushed to 140% with a check.
Some pirates only do what they do for the promise of wealth, being little more than brigands of the waves. Others do it for the reputation, fearsomeness, and power that comes with numbering among the most notorious scallywags on the seas. That’s where Infamy comes in. Numerous times over the course of their careers, the PCs—as members of a single pirate crew—will have the opportunity to recount their victories, boast of the treasures they’ve won, and spread tales of their outrages. All of this has the potential to win the PCs Infamy, but that alone isn’t the goal.
At the most basic level, infamous pirates have the potential to press- gang unfortunates into their crews, get repairs to their ships in nearly any port, and win discounts from merchants they’d prefer not to rob. As a crew becomes more and more infamous, however, its legend stretches across the seas, allowing it to garner support from other pirate lords, win more favorable vessels, and even rally whole pirate armadas under its flag. This system allows characters to track how their legend is growing over the course of the campaign, along with providing them tangible rewards for building appropriately piratical reputations.
Infamy and Disrepute Scores: In a method similar to the tracking system for Fame and Prestige Points detailed in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Pathfinder Society Field Guide, a party has two related scores, Infamy and Disrepute. Infamy tracks how many points of Infamy the crew has gained over its career—think of this as the sum of all the outlandish stories and rumors about the PCs being told throughout the Shackles. Infamy rarely, if ever, decreases, and reaching certain Infamy thresholds provides useful benefits and allows others to be purchased using points of Disrepute. Infamy is limited by actual skill, however, and a group’s Infamy score can never be more than 4 × the PCs’ average party level.
Disrepute is a spendable resource—a group’s actual ability to cash in on its reputation. This currency is used to purchase impositions, deeds others might not want to do for the group, but that they perform either to curry the group’s favor or to avoid its disfavor.
This score will likely fluctuate over the course of a pirate crew’s career and can go as high as the group’s Infamy (but never higher), and at times might even drop to zero. This isn’t something to worry about, though, as a low Disrepute score has no bearing on a crew’s overall reputation—on the contrary, it merely means they’re making use of the benefits their status has won them. However, it does represent that even the PCs’ legend can only take them so far, and if a group’s Disrepute drops lower than the Disrepute price of a benefit, the crew must spend time building its Disrepute back up before it can purchase that benefit.
Winning Infamy and Disrepute: A few things are required to gain Infamy: an audience, a deed to tell about, and a flair for storytelling. Proof of the group’s deed in the form of plunder doesn’t hurt either.
To gain Infamy, the PCs must moor their ship at a port for 1 full day, and the PC determined by the group to be its main storyteller must spend this time on shore carousing and boasting of infamous deeds. This PC must make either a Bluff, Intimidate, or Perform check to gauge the effectiveness of her recounting or embellishing. The DC of this check is equal to 15 + twice the group’s average party level (APL), and the check is referred to as an Infamy check. If the character succeeds at this check, the group’s Infamy and Disrepute both increase by +1 (so long as neither score is already at its maximum amount). If the result exceeds the DC by +5, the group’s Infamy and Disrepute increase by +2; if the result exceeds the DC by +10, both scores increase by +3. The most a party’s Infamy and Disrepute scores can ever increase as a result of a single Infamy check is by 3 points. If the PC fails the Infamy check, there is no change in her group’s Infamy score and the day has been wasted.
Occasionally, deeds of exceptional daring or depravity might win a party increases to its Disrepute. This sort of discretionary bonus to Disrepute is noted in the context of an adventure or determined by the GM.
Infamy and Disrepute per Port: No matter how impressionable (or drunk) the crowd, no one wants to hear the same tales and boasts over and over again. Thus, a group can only gain a maximum of 5 points of Infamy and Disrepute from any particular port. However, this amount esets every time a group reaches a new Infamy threshold. Thus, once a group gains 5 points of Infamy and Disrepute in Quent, it can gain no further points of Infamy from that port until it reaches the next Infamy threshold, though the crew can travel to another port and gain more Infamy by boasting to a new audience.
Plunder and Infamy: Plunder can modify a PC’s attempt to gain Infamy in two ways. Before making an Infamy check for the day, the party can choose to spend plunder to inf luence the result—any tale is more believable when it comes from someone throwing around her wealth and buying drinks for the listeners. Every point of plunder expended adds a +2 bonus to the character’s skill check to earn Infamy. The party can choose to spend as much plunder as it wants to inf luence this check—even the most leaden-tongued pirate might win fabulous renown by spending enough booty.
Additionally, if a PC fails an Infamy check, the party can choose to spend 3 points of plunder to immediately reroll the check. The party may only make one reroll attempt per day, and spend the plunder even if the second attempt fails—some people just aren’t impressed no matter how much loot you throw at them.
Spending Disrepute: A group’s Disrepute can be spent to buy beneficial effects called impositions, though some impositions might only be available in certain places— such as at port—or might have additional costs—like forcing a prisoner to walk the plank. Spending Disrepute to purchase an imposition requires 1 full day unless otherwise noted. When Disrepute is spent, the group’s Disrepute score decreases by the price of the imposition, but its Infamy (and, thus, the group’s Infamy threshold) remains the same. The prices of impositions and the Infamy threshold required to make those impositions available are detailed below.
Read over these, they're important.
Your current Infamy is 2, your current Plunder is 0 and your current Disrepute is 0. I have listed all of these values at the bottom of the Party Fund page.
You gain access to your first Impositions at Infamy 10. This port counts as a port you can use for that purpose as well.
On your second day in town, the heat beats down oppressively. The river moves sluggishly, and the far banks of the river running down from the jungle to the sea are little more than cracked mud with a trickle of water flowing down the center.
You'd been hearing rumors about the drought that had hit the Slithering Coast for the past month, but today is your first time experiencing the effects first hand.
The entire island feels like an oven, even the jungle trees that usually shade and keep the Commons cool wilting and slightly browned by the heat and dryness.
Some of Rickety's off duty workers spot you as you go about your business.
"Hey, mon, you want ta come play some ninepins wit' us? We got some good shade in da boathouse today, and it's a good way to kill some time in dis heat." says one of them, a cheerful looking dark skinned man carrying a number of cues.
While in town, Slickjaw also crafts a Handy Haversack (-1000).
Are any of the following items available?
- Potion of Invisibility
- Potion of Alchemical Allocation
Also, Slickjaw agrees to play ninepins, if Jrahk feels up to it.
Slickjaw also seeks out local wizards to see if he can acquire spells from them.
Unfortunately, the only spellcaster Slickjaw is able to find is a Druid, a friendly old woman named Chandra Bristlewick, self proclaimed Steward of this patch of jungle.
You arrive at the boathouse just as the guys are pulling up a keg of beer they've been cooling in the estuary and tapping it.
The billiards table has been set up as far into the shade as they can get it, and the pins are on the table.
"Alright, who wants ta play da first round? I'm puttin' 5 silva on da table says I'm da firs' one ta get to 2 hunnid points."
Jrahk shrugs and decides to join in.
The worker cracks his knuckles and picks up a cue.
Jrahk grabs a cue, readies it, and tries for a good shot.
While watching Jrahk make his shot, Slickjaw says "Bloody hell, it's hot in here."
He then pulls a canteen from his jacket and downs a dexterity mutagen calmly.
Slickjaw pulls up a chair to stand on for when his turn comes.
Jamay Camee Crayz: 2 points
Jrahk: 10 points
Slick: 12 points
"Hey, you guys are good at dis."
He takes his next shot. However, immediately after he does, there's a commotion by the waterside. A man and a woman were pulling out another keg of beer, when suddenly the rope jerked, HARD. The man is pulled into the water as the woman screams in pain, hands dripping blood from where the rope burned her as it slipped through her fingers.
The man screams and thrashes in the water, and it's obvious he's not alone.
"Help! Help!" he screams, and the other men rush over to see if they can fish him out somehow.
"Jrahk! With me!"
Slickjaw pulls his magic dagger out and dives in after the man.
Jrahk follows, diving in after Slickjaw.
The two dive in.
In the water, they see a beautifully scaled snake, with a face much like a human. It swims around the human, a crazed look in its eyes.
After seeing it, Slickjaw briefly surfaces and downs a touch of the sea extract, saying "Scaled snake, human-like face! Anyone know what it is and how to kill it?"
Slickjaw pops up to the surface and asks his question.
Hake, drawn by the commotion, answers.
"Sounds like a water naga. We got an agreement with them's that live around here, been operatin' pretty amicable like for the past few years. This 'un musta been drove out when the water dried up. Careful, they're not naturally evil like some things but they're sure dangerous when they wanna be."
The naga, as if to prove him right, shudders and begins to glow and 6 identical nagas spring from the water, circling around it.
Slickjaw grabs the man and swims him to where he can be reached by the people.
Jrahk swims up the the closest naga and takes a bite.
Ace, taking an afternoon nap, awakens due to the commotion,
seeing his friends in the water with some serpert like creature.
"Hey, let me in on the fun."
Slick
Naga
Jrahk
Ace
Jrahk swims up and bites at the naga. He grins as he clearly hits the thing....but the grin disappears as the naga disappears, his fangs grabbing nothing but air. There are now 5 naga swimming around in the same place, and on closer inspection they are all moving identically to each other, just in different spots.
Ace runs over to the edge of the water and hops in.
Slickjaw darts in and taps the man on the shoulder, jolting him from his horror at the creature that had just tried to kill him. He shakes his head to clear it and then shrugs off Slick's help, giving him a smile and a wave as he swims off toward the dock.
You can faintly hear his voice as he crawls out a moment later.
"I thought that thing was going to eat me before they caught its attention! Those guys are amazing!"
All 5 naga look at Jrahk, and then go into a frenzy, biting him on the shoulder and then slapping him hard with its tail about the head.
Slickjaw swims around the naga and shanks it from its flank.
Jrahk screams louder than he should be able to underwater as he swipes and chomps at the nagas.
yeah, added my whacking to the post
Jrahk slashes mightily with his Falchion, but misses entirely. His fangs connect, however...sadly with another illusory naga, destroying it in the process.
I hate magic.
No, I mean the illusion thing. You spellcasters and spell-like-abilitycasters have taken all the fun out of fighting.
Ace, sensing that only a good spell will get them all, blows out a fiery bellow of fire.
Ace shoots out a blast of steam from his hands that envelops the naga.
The naga screeches in pain, but all of the images still seem to be intact.
23 to hit, 8 damage (2 without sneak attack)
Slick stabs mightily at the naga, who writhes in pain...before shattering into a million pieces and disappearing.
There are only 3 naga now.
They all turn to look at Ace, who is the only one to harm it so far.
It opens its mouth and four pinpoints of light build in it, firing at Ace with unerring accuracy.
For when Slickjaw's turn comes around...
Slickjaw does his best to flank the naga and stab it again, lashing out at two of the images after drawing an extra dagger.
Jrahk keeps doing the thing he always does.
Jrahk takes no more ill effects from poison...for now.
Jrahk shatters another image. Only two naga remain.