The Sea, The Sea!

An excerpt from the anonymous account of a sailor stationed on the foretop of the merchant vessel Good Intent, describing the events of the year 1840 and subsequent, first published in London in the year 1851.

Often, it seems to me, at the most pivotal moments in our lives, the fates taunt us with strains of music. And so it was on the morning I embarked upon the most significant voyage I took upon that most fated of ships, the Good Intent (a voyage where we would become acquainted with evils devised by unseelie beings and the still greater evils devised by the mortal heart - but more of that later). On that dreary, filthy Glasgow dock, as we made ready the ship, we heard a tune that would haunt me for years afterward - indeed to this very day.

The musicians crowded under a low awning, their faces lowered in shadow beneath their unkempt hats, and they hacked away at their particular instruments - a scratchy violoncello, a wheezing accordion, a decaying miniature specimen of that twanging keyboard instrument that populates the estates of the idle rich - and put forth a song that blended with the howling wind, the creaking timbers of the docked ships, the cries of seagulls in the cold morning air.

And thus, before our fateful voyage began; before I knew the true reason why our reluctant Captain, Mari Cascade, had left her far-off homeland; before I knew what consequences would be brought upon us by the individualism of bold Lus Erebus; before I knew the secret that enigmatic Welkin Caulk hid in the folds of their oversized coat - before all that, I say, the sad song of those musicians on the shore presaged something of the journey to come. The song seemed directly to speak to me, to tell me that I had signed on for a great adventure - a sad adventure, yes, one full of woe and strife, but an adventure nonetheless…

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A 24-page zine of gameplay notes on the first arc of a game of Alas for the Awful Sea by Storybrewers Roleplaying Games. The text is adapted from communal notes taken during play.  

Players: Leo, Emma, Ali
GM: Carrie

You can (and should!) listen to the accompanying album by Bone Heist.

If you enjoyed these characters, the campaign continues in A Fire Alight!