Third Session Notes

Dave emailed to say he'd have to miss this session. Dan got to bed early the night before, called at about 12:30 to say he was running a bit late but would be there, then fell back asleep until 5.

On the evening of September 8, 1933, Damon and Julia planned to go to sleep early on board the SS Gabrielle.

Julian: This probably means that Damon plans to go to sleep early but winds up doing last minute work instead.

Alicia decided to have a ladies' night out with Erica.

At about 10 pm, Damon and Julia were woken by noise and shouts of "Fire!" They raced above to see that the dock warehouse for the expedition was on fire, there were three guys unconscious or dead just inside the warehouse, and there was a crane suspending gallons of fuel above the ship, with the flames rising ever higher.

Starkweather called for someone to help him with the winch to hoist the fuel to safety. Damon said he'd handle that and told Starkweather to organize the skeleton crew and generally do what Starkweather does best. Starkweather saw the logic in that, and once he had things under control, or thought he did, grabbed one of the hoses to spray the containers of gasoline with. Julia went to help him, as the hose was too unweildy for one person. Alas, it proved too unweildy for the two of them.

Damon grabbed a sailor and they went to work on the winch, getting two shots. Despite three amazingly bad rolls -- I rolled a 99 for the crewman's first try, somehow managing to get injured doing this -- they did manage to swing the gasoline to safety, I think into the hatch or at least on deck, away from the fire.

Alicia saw the flames as she and Erica staggered back towards the ship, and she spotted a man with a gasoline can running away. She ran after him, screaming for help, saying, "There's a man with a gasoline can!"

Damon ran off the ship to help her, as Starkweather and Julia dodged an out of control hose, and the crew cast off so that the ship would be further off in the water, away from the burning dockside.

Starkweather and Julia continued to dodge the hose as Damon and Alicia chased the man with the gasoline can, cornering him, and getting into a fight with a lot of swinging. I believe Alicia tripped the man, via grappling, but he punched her. However, Damon kicked him, Julian rolling a critical success followed by maximum damage on the dice.

Julia got a couple of sailors to round up the hose.

Starkweather: If it hadn't been for your incompetence, we would have had the hose!

Stiles: If it hadn't been for me, you would have been washed overboard!

Starkweather drew breath to rail, then, looking behind her, said, "That bitch," referring to his rival and Julia's, Acacia Lexington, whose ship was sailing out then and there, a day earlier than Lexington had announced.

Damon was the hero of the hour, having captured the arsonist.

Pamela: The papers don't mention Alicia?

Me: Does she want them to mention her?

Pamela: Ah... no. Father would worry.

The saboteur, Jerry Polk, had been offered money by a red-headed man who called himself Doyle. He was supposed to set fire to the warehouses of both the Lexington and the Starkweather-Moore expeditions. Of course, the Lexington had set sail just before he set fire to the SME warehouse. Folks were getting more and more dubious about Lexington.

The S. S. Gabrielle was supposed to sail on September 10, but it did not sail until Tuesday, September 11, as even Starkweather had to admit that things like, oh, the tents, really did have to be replaced.

Damon won Starkweather's respect, as had Alicia, who was clearly not afraid to get down and dirty protecting the expedition. The rivalry / romance between Starkweather and Julia Stiles was clearly more of a rivalry at this point.

Julia and Alicia were already scheduled to dine with the officers and the expedition heads, as they were ladies. Starkweather invited Damon to do so as well. Damon said that he should take at least some meals with everyone else in the crew's mess, and Starkweather saw the sense in that. Damon's ideally positioned to get and pass on information from both sides.

People arranged to teach various classes, and I said that we'd work out some kind of formula of how many points folks could split on whatever skills they beefed up on. I'll give a list. I assured folks that Ballroom Dancing points did not have to come from the same pool. Julian says that I should penalize folks for not taking it when the shuggoths attack, as they have passed up the opportunity to take Dances With Shuggoths.

As the ship approached the Gabrielle, the GM read the textual descriptions and showed the maps.

As the ship approached the equator, Damon and Alicia noticed the crew acting a bit strangely. Well, more strangely, as the crew already seemd to think that the expedition was jinxed. Alicia went to Julia and told her about the crew, but Julia told her not to worry about it, making Alicia wonder if she could trust Julia.

Julian speculated that this might have something to do with the ship reaching a significant land, or, well, ocean point, and I figured that if Julian had figured it out, then Damon probably noticed that the blackboard showing the ship's daily progress now showed that it was nearing the equator. This may not have calmed Alicia down, but it did calm Pamela.

The ship stopped to let Davey Jones on board. Mr. Jones bore a striking resemblence to one of the ship's officers in frightful seaman costume. He told the captain to prepare for King Neptune's visit the following day, and he delivered summonses to all those who had not previously been south of the equator. This included Damon, who was charged with Working While Sober; Alicia, who was charged with Being Prettier than the Mermaids; and St. John, who was charged with Being British (in his player's absence). Julia and Erica had both been south of the equator before, as had Starkweather and Moore.

The next day, King Neptune and his court boarded the ship, looking strikingly like officers and sailors in seaman and seawoman costumes. Alicia was relieved that she was indeed prettier than the mermaids, under the circumstances!

A boisterous hazing took place, although the crew wisely did not try to shave Alicia's hair. The entire thing was far less brutal than an actual hazing for navy men during the 1940s, judging from a site that Chaz emailed me. Then again, as Julian noted, the expedition was paying customers.

Once everyone had been initiated into the ways of the sea and gotten their certificate of being shellbacks from King Neptune, a party broke out. This lasted until one of the crew staggered above decks, reporting a horrid stench from below.

This turned out to be ammonia. About a quarter of the ship's food had been rendered inedible and had to be thrown overside. The captain tried to convince Starkweather to turn back and restock at Panama, but Starkweather refused, unwilling to let his rival, Acacia Lexington, gain even more distance on him. The ship continued to head for Australia, and folks prepared to eat a lot of pemmican.

Alicia and Damon examined the area where the damage occurred, spotting signs of corrosive acid, which meant deliberate sabotage. I forget exactly when they went to Professor Moore, as a lot was happening, but no one wanted to keep important information from either Moore or Captain Vrendenburg.

A couple of days later, terrible sounds came from the hold where the dogs were. Everyone (i.e., all the PCs, the dog handlers, and a few of the crew) came running to see what was going on.

The dogs had been tethered so that they could roam a bit, while still being kept out of range of each other. Some of the dogs had managed to break free of their tethers and were attacking other dogs. It was clear that there were a half a dozen dogs that had to be put down.

Alicia, Julia, and Damon agreed that the dog handlers should not have to shoot the dogs, and that, while they might hate whoever did the shooting just then, after a few days, they would be awfully glad to have had someone else do it. Julia got her shotgun. She fired seven times, for four clean kills, one kill that took two shots, and a final clean kill.

The bizarre thing is that this is not only the way the shooting goes in the scenario is an NPC does it, but also the way it went in at least one other group's run. Clearly, this is how the scene was meant to play out.

Two more dogs were very ill. The expedition's Dr. Greene was sent for. He confirmed that the two dogs had to be killed as well, and discovered that they had been poisoned. The pemmican consumed by the dogs had strychnine, enough to kill the dogs -- or to kill humans.

The poison could not have been introduced at the factory, which meant that either the damage had been done while the ship was in New York City, or there was a saboteur on board.

Damon, Alicia, and Julia started going through the ship, looking for signs of sabotage and any indication of a saboteur. Damon checked all of the planes and engines, and I think Julian specified a couple of other things that logically fell within Damon's purview.

As I recall, I had Julian make an Engineering roll and a Spot Hidden roll. He failed the Spot Hidden and made the Engineering roll.

I had Josh make two rolls for Julia as well, and again, the Spot Hidden roll failed, but the one covered by the other stat -- Polar Survival? Anyone remember? -- succeeded.

Pamela made Alicia's spot hidden roll.

Thus, the PCs found most, though not quite all, of the sabotage, including the problems with the radios and the oxygen cylinders. As Alicia and Damon had checked most of the equipment when the ship was loaded, they were quite sure that the saboteur was still on board.

They also found a bomb that had not yet been set to go off.

Damon, Julia, and Alicia made a list of suspects, narrowing it down to six people who would have had access to the food areas. The list started with the name of the man who had reported the foul smell.

At this point, the PCs turned the information over to Captain Vrendenburg, which was sensible. A couple of days later, the crew chased stewart Adam Henning down a corridor where Our Heroes just happened to be walking. They effectively blocked his escape.

Henning explained that Starkweather had been responsible for his brother's death on an earlier expedition. Starkweather has like a 1% chance of remembering the brother, but he actually did remember. As far as he was concerned, it was regrettable that the man had died, but not his fault.

Henning's sabotage was designed to embarrass Starkweather and wreck the expedition, but not to kill any people. He had deliberately poisoned only the dogs. The bomb would have gone off when most of the expedition and crew were off the ship, and the remainder would probably have been able to evacuate safely. This did not make anyone much happier with him, particularly not the dog handlers.

The Gabrielle landed in Melbourne on October 12, and handed Henning over to the authorities. He was oddly smug and cheerful, all things considered.

Moore handed out lists of items that needed replacing and locations. For a wonder, this stage went mostly smoothly. (The adventure as published adds a couple of wrinkles that, following Chaz's advice, I cut. As he said, they depended on a little too much idiocy.)

Getting the 24,000 pounds of food was a bit of a challenge, but Starkweather had radioed ahead, and he worked crowds very well, so that folks were eager to help, selling what they had at their best prices to the lovely Alicia.

Pemmican was another wrinkle. The peach cannery in town was willing to let the expedition use its facilities, but had neither any idea of what pemmican was nor any desire to do the labor.

Alicia: Do you suppose we could get the ship's crew to do it?

Damon: I don't think so.

So, folks from the expedition had to do it, almost certainly including Alicia, and almost certainly not including Damon, who had to look after generators and the like.

Still, things were going far more smoothly than they had in New York. The saboteur captured, the supplies restocked, the Gabrielle sailed south from Melbourne on October 18, 1933.