The first one to make it will be assigned as a rigger-nonqual. When I tell you to, you will all go up the rigging to the crow's nest 60' up as quickly as you can. It is my job to make sure that all the positions we need are manned, and right now we are low on trained talent. He looks down at the PCs and other impressed captives and smiles unpleasantly. This, as you'll learn, is Mister Plugg, the Wormwood’s first mate. Plugg! If you’d be so kind as to make pirates out of these landlubbers, it’ll save me having to put them in the sweatbox for a year and a day before I make pies out of ’em.”Īt the end of his speech, the captain walks away, leaving behind the man with the cat-o’-nine-tails. There’ll be a keelhaulin’ for anyone caught killin’ anyone. Even with you new recruits, we’re still short-handed, and I aim to keep what crew I have. Follow that rule and we’ll all get along fine. That’s Captain Barnabas Harrigan to you, not that you’ll ever need to address me. Once the fresh meat is situated on deck, the captain addresses the crew: “Glad you could join us at last! Welcome to the Wormwood! My thanks for ‘volunteering’ to join my crew.' (crew laughter) 'I’m Barnabas Harrigan. A dozen or so other pirates, clearly existing members of the crew, stand about on the deck or in the ship’s rigging. The other is a younger, balding man with a long black ponytail, wearing a long coat and carrying a well-used cat-o’-nine-tails.Īt this point, you each (individually, as you don't know each other), see that you are in quite a group of new recruits - several other people share your predicament, set apart by their relative cleanliness and their apparent unease with their newfound situation. One of them is a broad, muscular Garundi man with a shaven head, a long beard bound with gold rings, and an eye patch-clearly the captain. Figures cluster around the ship’s mainmast, looking up at the higher deck on the stern, where two figures stand. Port Peril and the mainland of the Shackles are just an ochre haze many miles astern. Irstan: You still have your trusty picks with you in a little sewn in pocket at the back inside top of your breeches!It’s quickly apparent that they (you) are on a sizable ship in the middle of the ocean, far from any land. You all discover that all of your weapons and equipment are all gone.ĭo any of you refuse, even momentarily? It should be immediately clear to you that if you don't cooperate, you will be quickly overpowered. “Still abed with the sun over the yardarm? On your feet, ye filthy swabs! Get up on deck and report for duty before Cap’n Harrigan flays your flesh into sausage skins and has Fishguts fry ye up for breakfast!” Now, you have a riot of discordant sensations - a pounding headache, the sickly taste of cheap wine in your mouth, and the feeling of the room swaying, as if you were still drunk.īefore any of you can do more than sit up, however, several pairs of heavy footsteps enter the dark room, and the harsh light of a lantern painfully spears your eyes as a half dozen men or so stand before you.Īn expression that might be mistaken for pain but which is clearly an attempt at a smile bruises the lead man's face as he cracks the whip in his hand and screams at the lot of you. But while he isn't lucky he is determined and mad enough even to test unknown concoctions on himself when other test subjects are lacking.Įach of you remembers the night before - the ringing laughter of a wild night, the heady joy of excess, the scents of rich stewed meat and perfume lingering in your nostrils.īut that was a fleeting memory of what your night even sure was the day prior. He wasn't lucky enough to be born that way and being run out of Daggermark by assassins in retaliation for one of his poisons being used on the wrong target has left him so far unable to become rich by the sweat of his brow just yet. If he were born wealthy he'd like nothing more than to be by himself most days learning about long dead empires or some new reaction of two new reagents and the particular application of magic on them. Chaotic elements tend to make him grumpy. He likes to plan things out and doesn't like nonsense that disrupts his plans. He's made peace with that dichotomy a number of years back. He's not proud of that end but he is proud of his skill, regardless. He's a craftsman who knows that his craft will almost certainly be used to kill people.

He's got a long smooth tail and deep yellow eyes that betray a fierce intelligence that's somewhat unusual for someone of his obvious strength and stature.ĭrack is not the kindest of men, nor one particularly trusting. Drack is tall and sturdily built with bright, poisonous coloration on his scales the universal sign in the animal kingdom of something poisonous and that should be avoided.

Wormwood mutiny pdf free