You are a crew of "independent traders": a group of adventurers and sailors who sail the Great Ocean of Anarea in your own merchant ship, upgraded with sufficient "defences" to give it the capability of a warship. You hold a merchants' licence from the Merchants' Guild of Kuntax, and a piracy licence from the Thievish Brotherhood of the Skull and Crossbones.
Earlier this year, as you lay at anchor off the port of Tehmor, you were attacked at night by what appeared to be a band of Sahuagin. It was a savage fight, but TIPRE smiled upon you and you killed their leader, who carried some kind of glowing orb. When he died, suddenly all the Sahuagin turned into human thieves. They tried to recover the orb, but you killed several more, and routed the rest.
When you checked out the orb, you discovered it was a Magic Item that enabled its bearer to Shapechange himself and up to 12 members of his party (by touching them using heavy concentration) into the form of any sea creature and to give them Water Breathing and the ability to Communicate with other creatures of their form, provided they remained within a 20 ft radius of the orb. Since then you have been searching for a suitable mission to exploit the power of the orb, which you have called the "Orb of LLYWELLA".
On 5 Weven 2503 Heaven exploded, raining down debris and chaos upon the Ocean. Your ship was damaged, and you put into Fort Venture for repairs and a little trading. As you headed in to the Fort, you noticed some Giant Manta Rays picking over the flotsam from the explosion, taking shiny bits and diving away with them. After you docked, you mentioned this in the bar in the Fort. One of the other captains told you that these could be the legendary Ixitxachitl: a race of Chaotic Clerical philosophers in the form of Giant Manta Rays, who are rumoured to hoard a fabulous treasure in their underwater city in the depths of the Ocean. But nobody has ever managed to find the place, or at least to return to tell the story. Giant Manta Rays are bad enough. Not for nothing are they known as the "Manticores of the Sea". But these ones are Clerics and Elementalists as well!
Maybe this was all an old sailor's tale, but it set you thinking. What if it were true? Wouldn't this be a mission worthy of the power of the Orb of LLYWELLA...?
Each Player may design up to two adventurers and two sailors for your crew, with a maximum of 24 levels between them, split as he or she likes (plus each of the adventurers may have + d100 RUD for the next 2 decimal places of his levels as usual). Two of your four characters may be rolled up on 4d6, the other two on 3d6. Luck may not be used to buy Powers, but will be taken into account by the DM in deciding how much to allow the Character to get away with in specialist / Cultist design and buying obscure Magic Items. You may not roll up cash. Your Characters may have appropriate weapons, armour and basic possessions for free. You also get your ship for free. Plus the whole party has a fund of up to 500,000GP from the crew's savings in its MGK account / available in petty cash. This may be freely spent by mutual agreement of the party upon Potions (from Kazaral), Magic Items (from Nima or assumed to have been previously purchased / acquired) and Demon Pacts (from ABC or assumed to have been previously purchased). The players may collaborate in designing and equipping their ship and Characters, but each Character rolled up for the run must be taken by the person who rolled it as one of his or her adventurers or crew. You should also choose a captain and first officer. Characters may not be Camari or Sahuagin. The DM reserves the right to veto anything he does not consider believable and to verify / adjust amounts spent on Potions, Magic Items and Demon Pacts.
At the end of the 1-off victory will be assessed as follows:
(total value in GP of that Player's Characters' share of the treasure recovered) - (total amount in GP spent on equipping his or her Characters out of the MGK account, including souls sold in Karma, assuming Wealth = 500,000GP / (number of crew)) + (total Experience and Credit in Karma earned or lost during the run by that Player's surviving characters) - (Karma of each of his or her Characters who is killed, excluding Wealth)
The Player with the highest individual victory points total wins (or if it is a negative result, loses the least!).
For the above purposes 1 Karma = 1GP = 1 victory point, except where Wealth is taken into account in calculating Karma. Note that if a Character's soul is sold once and that Character is killed, you must make two deductions for that Character's Karma for individual victory purposes, but only one deduction for his Karma for party victory purposes.
If a Player wishes to purchase items secretly from the other Players otherwise than out of party funds, the DM may allow this at his discretion, subject to the Character's Luck roll and to deducting one times the cost from the party's victory points and two times the cost from that Player's victory points.
The 1-off will be run over a weekend (or longer if required) at a time(s) to be agreed during 2003, once sufficient players have notified me their crew is ready, I've completed sufficient designing and we've painted up sufficient Ixitxachitl!
Any queries to ixitxachitl at anarea.com.
P.R. Wild, 10 November 2002
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