Harrowed Halls

Savage Worlds Pirates of the Spanish Main Episode IV

Ben as the GM: a wacky engineer who goes on and on about gorse and heather.
Evil Mike as Buck U Charlie: dual knife wielding maniac.
Owen as Nicholas Hawksworth: a lover, not a fighter.
Mike Byrd as Thomas Longshot: a branded former pirate who sleeps with his musket.
Steve (me) as Duncan Crain: a schizophrenic who makes poor decisions and great dice rolls.
Steve (also me) as Desmond Crain: the imaginary brother of Duncan.

When we left our band of…uh, heroes…they had finally made it away from rainy England and had set foot in sunny Port Royal, Jamaica. Under the employ of Elizabeth Grey, or DeVray depending upon who you ask, they were hunting the remnants of the crew of a lost treasure ship. But before that could begin in earnest, we had some booty to sell. So we headed of the merchant headquarters of Jos A. Banks. Buck wandered off muttering about getting a job while we haggled over prices. Most importantly I got a shiny new blunderbuss to replace the one lost in the ocean.

Soon after, at the request of Lady Grey, Nicholas was off to attain an audience for Ms. Grey with Sir Jacob Hamilton. Sir Hamilton was one of the crew we were looking for. He had done well for himself over the last 20 years becoming the Tax Inspector for the King here in Port Royal. Alas, even Nicholas’ social skills and guile could not get pass Hamilton’s administrative aide, Scott Bratley. So we would have to use other means to speak with Hamilton privately.

It was late that night when we realized that Buck had never returned. We hit the bars looking for information and drinking ginger beer and shandies. Nicholas found a willing barmaid and was not seen again for the rest of the night. The rest discovered that Buck had been abducted by the men at Jos A. Banks. It was up to Thomas, Duncan, and Desmond to rescue Buck from torture, dismemberment, and possible death. First though, we enjoyed another shandy.

The three of us cased the warehouse where Buck was mostly likely being held. After a skirmish with the outer guards, and opening a few locks we were inside. Desmond stayed outside watching our backs. Once inside, Thomas and Duncan had a lengthy discussion on the proper way to surprise the guards inside the warehouse. Those same guards soon barged into our hiding place as were making so much noise that we alerted them to our presence. We played a game called “let’s see how much damage Thomas can take”–apparently a lot. The guards then died for their intrusion.

Meanwhile, back in Buck’s cell, he was formulating his own escape plan. Using a cunning ruse his two jailers opened the jail door. In one sudden movement, he smashed a chair over one and raced through the door, knocking the other man unconscious with a chair leg.

We met up with Buck and searched the warehouse for some knives. Before we left, we set the warehouse on fire (Buck’s vengeance) and then stole a boat and made our getaway. We hid the boat at a small costal settlement not too far from Port Royal. We met back up with Nicholas the next morning. Nicholas had a successful night of pumping the barmaid for information.

We discovered that Sir Hamilton can usually be found at the fencing academy, so we put on our best clothes and headed posing as prospective swordsmen wishing to join. We met a slightly inebriated Mr. Rook. Who, although doubting our social class, readily proposed a duel with Buck. Buck accepted…after a short pause and some rule clarifications. Once the duel began, Mr. Rock showed no signs of being intoxicated. Buck tried several maneuvers. They all failed. Then, as luck would have it, Buck got the joker as his action card. He took full advantage of it and scored first blood on Mr. Rook. Buck won the duel and all of us who bet on Buck, quadrupled our money!

We then got into a drinking contest with Mr Rook. After three bennies and one critical failure, only one of us was still standing, unsteadily, at the end. Fortunately this person remembered to ask about Sir Hamilton’s whereabouts. We found that Sir Hamilton was attending a festival currently going on at Antigua. So it’s off to Antigua on our new ship…that Nicholas (our new captain) doesn’t know we have.

Chaos Steve