The Characters
Doctor Pendleton Torst, a sinister surgeon and anatomist
Dalton Thayer, an explorer who collects rare specimens
Countess Catarina Redmoore, a young and mysterious widow
Riverboat Horrors
The characters were all travelers aboard the Dawnskimmer, a paddle steamer heading upriver to the town of Lachryma.(1) Traveling with them was Reverend Emmanuel Sartoris, a priest of the Church of Saintly Blood, his young castrati acolyte Sebastian, and a Polnezna violinist named Euphram. The group was lounging in the ship's common room when a sailor hurriedly burst in and whispered something to Captain Laurent, who departed the room in haste. Although the ship's paddle was still churning through the water, it was evident that the Dawnskimmer was no longer moving forward.
A strange fog was also now pouring in from the river, filling the cabin. The group began to see shadowy forms in the room with them, and they could hear the two newcomers speaking to each other; they spoke of being pursued and of trying to evade their captors. The man and the woman who were speaking emerged from the fog, seeking succor. Just as Doctor Torst was about to hide them in a storage closet, another figure emerged from the mists--a man wearing a crow-like mask and wielding a cat o' nine tails. He whipped the man and woman, commanding them to attack!
Although obviously reluctant to do so, the pair flew at Catarina and Dalton while the whip-wielder attacked Pendleton. Reverend Sartoris and Sebastian fell to their knees, babbling out prayers, while Euphram hid in a corner of the room. Dalton acted quickly, plunging his sword into the chest of the man and then turning his attentions to the masked figure--whose throat he slit with a dagger. Neither bled; each simply faded away into the mist, leaving the woman the only one standing.
Now that the masked figure was "slain," the woman was free of its control. Questioned about what was going on, she explained that her village had been attacked by raiders from a ship called The Vulturis and that the raiders took her and many others as slaves. As the ship sailed away from the coast, a woman taken as a captive produced a strange book and claimed that if others joined her in prayer to a strange entity, they would be spared from a life of slavery. Some of the captives, desperate to avoid a wretched fate, joined the woman in entreaty an otherworldly being for aid. A storm suddenly came up, wrecking The Vulturis and sending it to the bottom of the sea. At this point, the woman realized that she had drowned that day and was effectively a revenant, at which point she too began to fade away as the fog receded.
The group noticed that an unusual spiral pattern had formed in the condensation on the cabin's windows. Catarina recognized the symbol as belonging to a book of occult lore. Reverend Sartoris was also openly staring at the sigil, studying it. The Dawnskimmer lurched forward, now free of whatever had held it in place during the encounter. Reverend Sartoris took the events he had just witnessed as a a sign from the heavens, he believed that he and Pendleton, Catarina, and Dalton had been brought together to pursue a divine plan.(2) He offered to pay for the group's stay at an inn called The Vinter's Rest and hoped that they would meet with him at the local church to discuss a matter he believed concerned them all.
Diving Down to Fathom's Reach
At the church the next day, Reverend Sartoris explained why he thought their fates were all linked: he believed that the party was destined to retrieve a book called the Song of the Nightsea for him. The cover of the Song of the Nightsea was emblazoned with the same symbol that was left on the windows of The Dawnskimmer. The reverend believed that obtaining the book was the key to fully converting a group of "savages" he had been trying to draw into the light of the "true religion." These "savages" were degenerate fishfolk who lived within a secret undersea city called Fathom's Reach.(3)
In return for finding the book for him, Reverend Sartoris offered them each a lot of money. When that failed to get them all onboard with "the divine plan," he slid each of them an envelope containing a letter that detailed the leverage he had over each of them: he knew about Pendleton's anatomic experiments that might not be above board, he knew about the circumstances under which Dalton had obtained some of his specimens, and he knew something about the death of the Countess's husband.(4) They now agreed to act as his agents, but it is safe to say that they now viewed the reverend as a sinister character. Blackmail will do that.(5)
After leaving the church, the three split up. Pendleton had a hunch to follow up on at Lachryma's library; he discovered that prior to the slave ship sinking the Church had been investigating cult activity in the village.(6) Countess Catarina returned to the inn to knit; she fell asleep and dreamed of plunging into the depths of the ocean, where she came face to face with a being who had the upper half of a beautiful woman, and a mass of writhing tentacles as her lower half.(7) Dalton went in search of a drink and found himself encountering a mysterious veiled woman who introduced herself as Belle Silvra. She broached the idea that the group she represented would be a better recipient for the Song of the Nightsea than the Church and gave him tickets that would admit the group to a meeting to discuss that matter further, if they were interested.
They were interested, as it turned out. Although The Sick Rose (8), the tavern they had been directed to, was absolutely bog-standard, they spotted a fop giving a ticket (identical to the ones they had) to an employee who then ushered them down the stairs into a clandestine basement. They followed suit. In the basement of The Sick Rose, they found an orgiastic den of sin and vice.(9)
They also found Belle Silvra waiting for them; she offered them double what the reverend was willing to pay if they were to deliver the book to her instead. She made it clear that she was a representative of a cult known as the Children of the Nightsea; she believed that they could use the book to pry the town from the grip of the corrupt church.(10) The group didn't make her any promises, though they noted she wasn't blackmailing them to get what she wanted. They left it open-ended: they set up a time and place for the hand off if they could figure out a way to get her the Song of the Nightsea.
In the morning, they met Reverend Sartoris, Sebastian, and four church soldiers at the Dawnskimmer, which set sail for the spot where the group could dive down to the undersea city of Fathom's Reach. Countess Catarina was adamant that Sebastian join them on the expedition.(11) Outfitted with diving suits, waterproof lanterns, and air tanks created by church artificers, they reached Fathom's Reach in the depths--it was a city of black, greasy looking stone.
After entering through a decompression chamber, they were escorted by fishfolk guards, their flesh like pale underbellies, to see their leader--a corpulent fishman wearing religious vestments and a pompous miter. After convincing him that they were emissaries from Reverend Sartoris, and that putting the Song of the Nightsea into the reverend's hands would bring his people closer to a full conversion to the Saintly Blood faith, he gave them directions to find the book's location: the sunken wreck of The Vulturis.(12)
The Sunken Slave Ship
The group found the broken bow of The Vulturis crashed on the ledge of an undersea trench. The entered the wreck through a hole staved in the side of the ship. Inside, they found the skeletal remains of the villagers who were taken as slaves and their captors, as well as two tunnels leading down into the trench shelf. In a somewhat cowardly play, they sent Sebastian down one of the tunnels to scout ahead. They waited for his return. And waited. And waited.(13)
Eventually, they went after him. The end of the tunnel culminated in what looked like, at least from afar, as a curtain of fabric that waved in the current. As they got closer, they realized in horror what the "curtain" really was: it was comprised of a number of corpses wearing diving suits exactly like theirs.(14) They also found that the corpses had ahold of Sebastian and had apparently torn his diving helmet off--the youth had drowned in their grasp. Dalton kicked the corpses out of the way so they could explore further.
In another chamber of this undersea catacomb they discovered a tunnel leading down--there was something pink and glowing at the bottom of it. Countess Catarina dove down and had the eerie experience of her dream being replicated: as she approached the glowing object, it began to rush up to meet her. It was, in fact, an icon of the tentacled woman from her dream!(15) Catarina brought the icon back up to her waiting friends.
When they examined the icon, they saw that it had dark stains around its mouth. At this point, they made a momentous decision: they retrieved Sebastian's corpse, slit his wrist, and fed the icon his blood--which flowed into its mouth as if being drawn in.(16) The icon transformed into flesh--the entity that the woman on The Vulturis had directed the desperate to pray to had been awoken once more!
The "goddess of the sea" regarded the group as saviors, in some twisted sense, and offered to reward them.(17) At their behest, she retrieved the Song of the Nightsea and put it into their possession. She agreed with them that it was better to give the book over to Belle Silvra, especially as she knew that Reverend Sartoris planned to kill them and take the book for himself.(18) As a further courtesy, the "goddess" destroyed The Dawnskimmer, drowning all aboard, and commanded the waves to bring the group safely to the surface and then to shore.(19)
As the stepped onto the beach, they found that the Song of the Nightsea was completely dry and undamaged, despite being undersea for hundreds of years. The book was traded to Belle Silva, and the group all went their separate ways. For now, at least.(20)
Notes & "Director's Commentary"
(1) - It's funny how anything you happen upon can be the seed of an entire adventure. Just prior to writing this one I had watched a video about a paddle steamer that mysteriously disappeared.
(2) - Reverend Sartoris really believed this was an act of providence that brought them together because, despite his fastidious appearance and friendliness, he was a fanatical monomaniac.
(3) - The fishfolk in Fathom's Reach are the descendants of the villagers who were taken as slaves and joined the woman on The Vulturis in prayer for rescue. "Rescue" took the form of calling out to a supernatural entity using the Song of the Nightsea and being transformed into fishfolk as the ship sank.
(4) - I had the character concepts in hand before I had even considered that Reverend Sartoris would blackmail them. It just so happened that the character concepts they gave me each had a fantastically dark secret that could lead to manipulation.
(5) - Of course, this continues the trend in Krevborna games where the Church and its agents are just the fucking worst.
(6) - The woman who had the Song of the Nightsea in the ship was the leader of the cult that was under investigation.
(7) - I improvised this dream sequence on the spot; luckily, it paid off later in the adventure.
(8) - Yes, that's a Blake reference.
(9) - Mattie surprised me by perceiving the joke I inserted here: the basement of The Sick Rose is literally "sub rosa."
(10) - In fact, she plans on using the book to call upon the entity it describes to wage war against the Church.
(11) - I couldn't figure out why Catarina's player wanted Sebastian along for the ride so badly, but later she said she planned on using him as leverage if Reverend Sartoris tried to double cross them. It makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, the reverend would gladly sacrifice anyone to get what he wants.
(12) - Reverend Sartoris arranged for them to meet with "the fish pope" to make it seem like he was on the up-and-up concerning converting them to the faith. In fact, he knows where the book is already, but wants the group to think they are the first to be sent after it. Also, meeting with the fishfolk showed that they were split on whether the Church was better than the old faith they used to have.
(13) - I love that they sent that kid to his death with no prompting from me.
(14) - I watch a lot of Youtube videos about cave diving disasters, and the worst ones are the incidents where someone dies in an underwater cave and then a bunch more people die trying to retrieve the body--making a human blockage in a tunnel. That's the idea I borrowed here.
(15) - In a perfect bit of synchronicity, Catarina's player volunteered to go down that tunnel, which exactly fit the dream sequence I had improvised earlier. Couldn't have planned it better!
(16) - The dried blood around the icon's mouth was only going to be evident if they specifically inspected it--and they did! Didn't foresee them feeding Sebastian to it, of course, but that was delightfully twisted.
(17) - Whatever she is, she's definitely not a real "goddess."
(18) - The reverend believed that removing the book from proximity to Fathom's Reach would mean it could no longer influence the fishfolk who hadn't embraced the Church of the Saintly Blood.
(19) - There was one survivor of The Dawnskimmer's wreck: Pendleton spotted Captain Laurent in the town as he left it. What's going on there??
(20) - If the characters revisit Lachryma, they will find it greatly changed: churchmen murdered and left as warnings, the Children of the Nightsea pulling the strings, brazen visits from the fishfolk, an otherworldly entity exerting its influence...