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Out of interest, what happened to the original crew of the Wormwood in your campaigns, after the end of Book 1?
The AP really only gives names, race, alignment and a short physical description for the "lesser" pirates on the Wormwood, but my PCs expressed much greater interest in some of them than they do in, say, Sandara. Rattsberger seems like the current favourite. They're about to meet the Man's Promise and the crew'll split up somewhat, but I want to keep some of their closest friends with them, but I am not sure on whether or not it's worth it having them around forever.
What happened to them in your campaigns? Did some of them end up to be major characters? Did you level any of them up to stay relevant?
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We kept almost everyone who was put on the Man's Promise. The less amicable members were dealt with (in true murderhobo tradition).
That being said, our GM is sadistic and keeps throwing the harder challenges at us, so we've lost a lot of the originals. Thankfully Conchobar, Sandra, and Fishguts are still around.
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Before our campaign started, I went ahead and used the little blurb for each crewman and made them all from scratch using a 10 point buy so that they were all more unique individuals for my players to interact with.
Some they grew to love, some they outright hated. But they were all different as a result. Some still had only NPC classes, some PC classes and some a mix. This made the players also gravitate towards certain NPCs when they were looking for certain abilities.
Now at the end of Book 1, the players decided the fates of their enemies...
Plugg was tarred and feathered then chained to the mast and Owlbear used him as a punching bag.
Scourge was keelhauled.
Aretta and Jape died in the mutiny.
Norwhal and Fipps were given a dagger each and a rowboat and marooned on Bonewrack Island. The players failed to mention any of the threats.
The vast majority of the crew had been won over by the players while on the Wormwood (due to the Sea Singer bard being super effective with Diplomacy rolls and the Swashbuckler having moments of outrageous daring do and insane heroics, they were able to sway virtually everyone they sought out in one way or another), and as such I had to add 4 pirates from the Man's Promise crew to join the "Plug/Scourge" faction.
As for their allies, I believe only Badger died during the mutiny. They rescued Sandara and Ratline (though he now has a peg leg to go with his missing fingers).
Now it will depend on what style of pirates they plan to be when determining which NPCs will stay on with them and which will head their own way.
Whoa whoa whoa. We never said we gave them a rowboat. We gave them a dagger, and marooned them. We kept the rowboat. Why waste a perfectly good rowboat?
And while some members of the party 'failed to mention' the threats, others deliberately withheld that information. The Swashbuckler wanted to spare them, but I (the aforementioned Sea Singer and new Captain) wanted them dead. That's why I suggested marooning them on the island in the first place.
Though I really want to emphasize (for any other GMs reading this) that what Fomsie did of expanding on the crew, giving them more personality and uniqueness, really did change how we (the party) viewed them. Instead of just having a one line description, any member of our party could tell you a great deal about who the crew is, what they're like, what they enjoy, what annoys them, how they get along and basically talk about them as real people. It makes me even consider them when thinking about what I'm going to do as Captain of the ship. It really has deepened the entire groups enjoyment of the game, and helps a heap with the roleplaying and immersion. I know a lot of people have said the first book drags, but because of the way the crew was fleshed out we all had a blast interacting with them, and never had a moment when it seemed dull at all.
On the subject of fleshing out the crew more I used a lot of ideas from this thread. I also tried to add a hook for interaction with a different NPC on each of the days that did not already have an event tied to them in book 1. Results were good as it gave a chance the players something to work with other than, "I talk to one of THE OTHER people that keeps glaring at me."
I ended up just moving the entire old wormwood crew (minus officers) to the Man's Promise as it just made more sense to me to do it that way and there was a good mix of hostile, indifferent and friendly/helpful NPCs already throughout.
Narwal Tate died on day 19 in the bilges. I ran a modified version of this since running it as written is pretty much all but guaranteed to kill a PC.
Owlbear pummeled the party hunter when they fought and the crew never even considered trying to befriend him after that. Killed by Rosie during the mutiny.
Barefoot Samms fell from the rigging on day 20 and died.
Fipps, Sly and Jape were all killed and gutted on the main deck during the mutiny against Scourge and Plugg.
Aretta surrendered after Plugg and the three others above fell, telling the crew that she was at the secret meeting Plugg held on day one aboard the Man's Promise and knows what he was planning. The crew begrudgingly accepted this surrender mostly due to being shorthanded on manpower.
Maheem was killed and partially eaten by the lacedons in Riptide Cove.
Sandara was rescued after being knocked out by the lacedons in Riptide Cove. Luckily she also avoided contracting ghoul fever.
Sivikah, Crimson Cog and Badger Medlar were all killed in the background by the fellow NPC mutineers.
Jack "Scrimshaw", Rosie Cusswell, Conchobar Shortstone, Tilly Brackett, Giffer Tibbs, Ambrose Kroop and Ratline Rattsberger were all made either helpful or friendly throughout the adventure and mutinied with the crew.
Plugg was killed on the main deck of the Man's Promise.
Scourge ended up fleeing from the main deck during the mutiny and ended up being burned to death in the galley by alchemists fire, cursing the PCs as he went.
In what will probably end up becoming my favorite change of book 1 I left Aaron Ivy alive on Bonewrack Isle, though still slowly dying of ghoul fever. He has thrown his lot in with the PCs and has sworn to them his cutlass for "a year and a day" in exchange for getting him of Bonewrack Isle and finding a way to cure his ghoul fever.
Three of the four PCs also managed on contract ghoul fever while on Bonewrack Isle and one is currently being afflicted by a Bilge-Rot (a homebrew disease).
Counting the PCs the remaining crew totals 14 members, a vote was taken to decide the new captain and after a tie the two potential captains agreed on a coin toss to decide who it would be.
i pretty much did the same as formsie, but i gave most of them class levels and pimped up the mutiny encounters to balance.
i also changed some crewmembers and made a brand new statblock for cog, who now has one level of oracle of some unspecified dark tapestry horror. badger became a male, and maheem became CN instead of LN. finally, ratline, giffer tibbs and tilly brackett were replaced by lai wong (a kitsune in hiding), aakiji (a tengu with a penchant for languages) and gavion (a quite out-of-place wizard).
i also wrote a small background for each of them. the result was that the ship felt very much alive during part one, and my players had a lot of fun even when die rolls were not involved. they also made an excellent job of finding each npc's soft spot and working their way through a careful choice of diplomacy, intimidate and bluff.
meet the characters: regulus wintrish (CN tiefling alchemist with a past in the chelish navy), "gill" (LN undine monk not really fond of talking), asha coldfeet (CN female dwarf who intimidated narwhal into submission early on), arianne (NG aasimar oracle and pretty much the sweetest person on the ship) and finally "kermit the frog" (CG grippli gunslinger who kept on critting every single boss npc, but went near death when they battled swamp frogs in bonewrack).
since fipps and aretta were the only hostile npcs after the man's promise battle, i had to add a bunch of buys with class levels to make up. even so, the players went up with a good battle plan and everything went smooth. they chose to mount the mutiny before bonewrack and i let them do it.
aretta died a spectacular death after her head was blasted to tiny bits by a bomnb critical hit, which also opened a nice hole in the forecastle.
fipps and other 2 npc's were taken prisoners, along with scourge.
sy lonegan was not really won over, she didn't take part in the mutiny save on the very end, when she backstabbed one remaining npc who had the undine cornered in the cargo hold. obviously she did it only out of convenience.
plugg had a chance to escape, but was sadly oneshotted by a critical musket hit by the grippli (after he missed two times in a row for a total of four rounds).
after bonewrack, one of the rahadoumi npcs was recruited, scourge was hanged by sy lonegan and the rest were marooned on bonewrack.
all in all, i could have done a better job of pimping up the encounter, but the npc die rolls weren't in favour either.
after that they had fun self-organizing rescue operations for sandara quinn and badger. both survived, though badger now has a peg leg. once again the grippli scored one single hit and it was a critical against the grindylow queen which nearly resulted in a one-shot-one-kill during the first surprise round of the encounter.
finally there was a kingsmoot where the tiefling triumphed over the grippli and the dwarf (the tengu npc withdrew). afterwards, sy lonegan was offered the position of torturer and executioner and was definitely won over.
i intend to keep on the "custom npc" thing through part 2. in the beginning i nearly became schizophrenical managing all those npcs but i got used to it, plus the players love the atmosphere.
so far they managed to recruit a fugitive from geb (who turns out to be the ghoul of a former lastwall paladin) and a halfling cartograph/treasure hunter (the archaeologist archetype is perfect for him) in rickety squibs before we had to put the whole campaign on hold due to the dwarf player staying in japan for 9 months and the tiefling player going to portugal for 6 months.
i'm now working on a naga village (since they were mounting an expedition upstream from rickety when they last played, despite rickey's objections) and an encounter in boali. plus i already have plans for enough npcs to crew 2-3 ships.
i also plan on reworking some encounters to raise the CR.
Our party won over all the winnable crew. When we were sent with Plugg and the prize ship, Plugg and company did not survive the mutiny. Since it occurred in the middle of the night, most were sleeping. Cevah was just above the door, and had just killed Plugg or Scourge (don't recall which) in sight of the other occupant of the cabin, Owlbear Hartshorn. When he entered the doorway, thinking about attacking, I whispered loudly from above "If you want to live, go back to sleep". He immediately turned around and went back to bed.
Later, I picked up Leadership, and he is one of my 2nd level followers. I play the fancy dressed merchant, with him as my bodyguard. Part of my strategy of being considered less dangerous than the others of the party. I also run an information network, and hire lots of bards to tell our version of stories. Basically, a behind the scenes king of guy. Now, at 12th level, it is a bit harder, but I think I am succeeding, based on some in-character remarks from assorted NPCs. I do have a bit of a rep as fearless in the face of giant monsters, since some of the tales mention how I dealt the killing blow on some. GM has indicated I qualify for the Chevalier PrC's "special" prerequisite. I might try that, but might not.
As for the "liked" NPCs, they all stayed with us, but some fell to assorted battles. The only one of note to leave is Rosie Cusswell. Due to Chellish action, the party was captured. Rosie helped us escape, but was separated. We next encountered her as a captain of her own ship under a friendly Pirate Lord.
Two others were promoted to PCs as replacement characters when a PC died. One of those was killed also. This AP is a killer at low levels. :-)
I don't think anyone else even thinks about the other original NPCs anymore. With multiple ships now, they have dispersed to the party members they are most compatible with. Our party is pretty scattered on the alignment map.
/cevah
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Let's see if I can remember. We just finished book one. Some characters had very little impact on the players but others well... The lessers first.
Aretta Bansion - Killed in the fight with the Man's Promise.
Jack Scrimshaw - Killed in the fight with the Man's Promise.
Jaundiced Jape - Killed in the fight with the Man's Promise.
Badger - Killed in the fight with the Man's Promise.
Tam Tate - Killed in the fight in the bilges.
Giffer Tibbs - Developed a hatred bordering on mania for the crew due to two botched diplomacy rolls in a row. After the mutiny she was the only hostile pirate to survive. They allowed her to rejoin the crew only to have her die in the first boarding action afterward.
Chumlett - Absolutely despised by the players for various good reasons. Killed by Jakes Magpie during mutiny.
Slippery Syl - Syl, is the only member of Mister Plugg's comrades to survive and the second most hated member of the crew. She escaped to Bonewrack Island.
Kroop - Still in the kitchens, getting sober.
Riggers
Rosie Cusswell - Leader of the Nemo's main rigger squad 'Cusswell's Spiders'
Shortstone - Happy to remain on the rigging squad to continue flirting constantly with Rosie.
Barefoot - The swashbucklers first major flirting target before moving on to Sandara. Still on the crew's rigger squad.
Maheem - One of the players big diplomacy victories. Still on the rigger squad.
Ratline - Made very little impression on the players happy to remain quiet and still on the rigger squad.
Swabs
Sandara - Chaplain / Leader of the Swabs. The absolute apple of the swashbuckler / Captain's eye she is also the smartassed foil to every clever quip he makes. Hates the Pilot / Cleric of Gozreh for nearly convincing the players to leave her to die in Riptide Cove.
Shivikah - Good friends with the Cook's Mate, the spellslinger, before her untimely demise.
Tilly - The monk's best 'friend'and drinking buddy. He is immensely protective of her... for some reason thinks she is a man.
Seige Engines
Cog - The Master at Arms. Bonded with the Duergar Barbarian early on through arm wrestling matches and talking about killing things.
Owlbear - Set free and friendly with the crew Owlbear spends most of his time helping to load ballista.
Jakes Magpie - My favorite NPC, Jakes was saved from certain death after his low damage keelhauling. Feeling he was robbed of his fate by the players he developed a deep seeded hatred for them. No attempts to change his mood with diplomacy succeeded.
When Sandara was kidnapped Jakes was the crew member that was taken with her. When they saved her Jakes begged for his life and pledged his eternal service, which they grudgingly accepted.
My PCS played it smart and managed to get nearly everyone on their side while killing everyone involved in the Shanghai of the crew. Now they're mentioned on occasion. Like Shivika, who they won over when the alchemist beat her in an arm wrestling match and was with them fighting crabs, guards his ship/lab with enthusiasm. When Harrigan turns up in the regatta, I expect Tam Narwhal Tate and fishguts to become relevant again. Sandra actually is their primary healer
All winnable crew gotten. As the party got more ships they got promoted to Captain. I tried to get my group to build a fleet early that way. So book 5 does not hit them so hard. Only person left from starting crew was fishguts by the time we finished book 6. Even made friends with pepper from how they saw it and invited her to a party in book 4. Thus in a round about way leading them to skip all fleet battles.....
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At this point my players have kept most of their allies from the original crew with them along the way.
They have also added a few "named" crew along the way.
Of the ones who survived the mutiny on their side, only two have died so far, Tilly Brackett and Owlbear were both killed while they fought a Chelish ship.
Sandara Quinn left the ship to set out on her own (As my group has a Cleric of Gozreh and a Shaman Witch Doctor), though has remained an ally.
Right now the remaining NPCs on their ship are:
"Fishguts", still the cook.
Shivkah leads boarding parties after the players gave her a magical great axe they acquired.
Jack Scrimshaw is the cabin boy.
"Ratline" lost his leg to the Grindylows and as such dedicated his advancement feats to siege weapons to be the chief gunner.
Giffer is still around but seems to be a casualty in waiting.
"Cog" is as dour as ever, though the players did recruit a Tengu archer who is also a Pharasmin, so at least he has a friend.
"Slippery" Syl is still a deranged psychopathic killer... but she is also the First Mate's wife. Good times.
The remaining NPCs have been given command of the player's second ship (Among their conquests was the Hu Hazhong from the "Ships of the Inner Sea" book, and they decided to keep it as a transport and to have a vessel available around Tidewater Rock).
Maheem captains the second ship.
Barefoot Sams is the first mate
Conchobar and Rosie Cusswell are also aboard.
The grandson from Tidewater Rock has also been added to their ship as a Cabin Boy.