Fantasy The Black Tontine

[Grey]

Long ago, when the Empire was at its zenith and the seas were a tamed thing, the Crown was challenged by a fleet of pirates; disaffected governors, thief-kings, and traitorous commodores who dared deny Her Majesty's law.


And so the Royal Navy descended upon them like the wrath of the gods, scattering their forces and breaking the will of their leadership - all but thirteen captains, each a deadly cutthroat and corsair in their own right.


Reeling, the captains were seduced by a crazed prophet who spoke of a voice from the deep and a treasure that could fuel a war for freedom. They traveled to a barren rock at the very edge of the world, and there made a compact.


 

Now, after a century or more of decline, madness, and heresies, the Empire crumbles - sickness and blight spreads through her cities, and men are made into monsters, and the release of death is denied every last one.


Terrible things rise from the depths and the very ocean seems bent on mankind's doom. Some brave soul must heed the call others are too craven to hear; defeat the Thirteen Captains of the Black Tontine or the demons they have become, before the Deep consumes us all.


You a Deadman; a bearer of the curse, another walking corpse out in the Abyssian Reach.  But you are still close enough to human, still lucid enough to remember that you come from...


1. Albion, home of the greatest empire to rule the seas.


2. Gaules, bastion of reason and sorcery.


3. Unterland, made strong by shrewd traders and skilled engineers.


4. Carto, The Elder Brother whose colonies are wealthy and strong.


5. Hispalis, The Younger Brother, whose devotion to the Aurous Church is a source of pride.


6. The Sublime State, a venerable theocracy crumbling as the world moves on.


Voting & Discussion Thread:

 

[Grey]

You remember... the fierce pride and revolutionary zeal, and the triumph of reason over superstition, and...


1. ...born into a noble Silverblood lineage, you remember your fine education and finer attire high above the ignorant masses.


2. ...the back-alleys and secluded balconies where you spilled blood for the masters as an Academy Ward, for the promise of sorcerous instruction.


3. ...the narrow streets and sprawling hinterlands, where Dullbloods like you toiled as farmers or served as watchmen.


4. ...the sewers and abandoned buildings, the terror and the silence of places a Pauper might be welcome.

 

[Grey]

Yes.  The weight of the ensorcelled steel in your hand, the simple spells that silenced your steps.  The lives... taken...


Not a Silverblood student, promised the deepest mysteries of the arcane sciences, but a catspaw with those great spells dangled over your head like a lure.


Your senses finally resolve and you feel the cold water around you and the punishing sun above.  And a rope around your left arm - you're not sure how you came to be tangled in the ropes of this barge, somewhere far from any land; only the blue-gray water stretching to the horizon.


The stench of death is everywhere, and looking up you can see limbs dangling limply over the edge of the barge's bed a few feet above you. Faint sounds of motion and unintelligible moans.


A corpse barge, cast off from Albion's barbaric shores.


You are unarmed, but you use a minor cutting cantrip to conjure a razor of sorcerous energy and cut yourself free.


1. Climb onto the barge


2. Swim away from the barge


3. Write in

 

[Grey]

You crawl up onto the barge, forced to grip an emaciated and fumbling arm for purchase as you near the edge of the deck, such as it is.


The bodies are five deep and the stench is impossible to describe; seabirds cry raucously in a horde overhead and the buzzing of flies is almost defeaning.  The Deadmen moan and grasp mindlessly, skin flayed from faces, empty eyesockets.  The Deep is evident in the writing mutations of their flesh, the coral-like growths that bind them together.  Trapped here eternally, a crew of the damned who are part of their ship.


From here, you can see the barge had been blocking your view of an island to the east.  A ship rocks gently in the bay and plumes of chimney smoke rise from a worn but habitable-looking settlement peppered with tropical trees. 


As you look, one of the Deadmen manages to haul herself from the mass; her flesh tears away from the coral and bones, thin blood and saltwater pouring from her wounds.  Her left hand is overgrown with vivid yellow and purples spines like an anemone and she howls, raising that growth like a weapon.


Weapons protrude from the dead on this ship within easy reach.


1. A short spear of the kind favoured by Abyssian Reach islanders.


2. An officer's sabre of Albion make.


3. A jagged shortsword that looks familiar.


Vote Thread

 

[Grey]

The jagged dirk is familiar to your hand, lightweight and sharp with serrations...


  -and you dragged it across his throat leaving a wound only a miracle could heal-


...humming with a faint enchantment to defy the salt air.


It won't last; the hungry sea wears away at rustwards eventually, and will not be denied.


The shrieking Deadman lumbers towards you, dripping on the undead below who gnash and flail, impeding her little but drinking up the spilled blood. 


SEE DISCUSSION

 

[Grey]

No discipline, no restraint - it's a simple matter for you to thrust the blade in through an eyesocket with a disconcerting crunch, and kick the Deadman away again, watching them tumble over the side.  You feel a brief rush of vitality that eases your aching limbs and quiets a headache so persistant you'd almost forgotten it. 


Despite the lack of sails, this barge has a mast, and it seems to you n strange wind whips about the salt-encrusted wood when the Deadman dies.  It almost looks like a grisly altar, surrounded by corpses, coral growths creeping up the base. You feel compelled to touch it, but cannot say where the impulse originates. Something about the awful mass is almost comforting.


1. Dive off and head for the land.


2. Touch the mast.


3. Search for any means to control this vessel, if ever such a thing existed.


4. Try to recall a simple spell.


5. Write in. 

 

[Grey]

You approach the crude shrine of calcified flesh, sea-salt, and eldritch coral that clusters 'round the base of the rotting mast. You reach out to touch it - and feel a curious pull inside you as an ill wind blows, and a ghostly sail unfurls.


You are bound to this place, now, in some way you do not understand. The spectral sail billows silently in the thick, still air.


1. Dive off and head for the land.


2. Search for any means to control this vessel, if ever such a thing existed.


3. Try to recall a simple spell.


4. Write in. 

 

[Grey]

You decide now to search for some kind of wheel or tiller. 


It takes some cutting and pushing to move the writhing, snapping corpses away from a handle on the aft that gives you some measure of control over this vessel, but the ill wind that moves the sail doesn't seem borne of this world, and you cannot shake the sense some malign intellect guides it.


Still, you can attempt to travel now.


To tell the truth, you never actually went to sea before you died.


1. Head for the island


2. Go west


3. Go east


4. Go north (past the island)


5. Go south