Steampunk | Games Tools Whispers World
Current: Petals & Fangs
Privateers

The crew of the free ship Ch’Aska / Kasirga / Our Lady Tapana / Gaoth are drawn into international intrigue while on a normal bounty hunting job. Who is their mysterious target? Why has she deserted The Crown? These privateers investigate while the surrounding territories are on the verge of war.

This game ran a few sessions before being cut short by the pandemic. Its initial notes are preserved below.

Intro

You all start in Kalish, a high mountain pass trading town in the southern end of the Himalayas. While it is technically reachable on foot, the approach is treacherous even in good weather and downright deadly in storms or wintery weather. Primarily accessed by airship, the town has become a trade haven for the black market. Having no practical reinforcement the local constabulary are on the take and the authority they wield is mostly cosmetic.

You are the crew of the free airship ________ (pick a name), registered out of ________ (pick an origin power + city). Your captain ________ (choose one among you, or an NPC if you must) has recently chosen to accept a writ of bounty for a Crown defector that has fled to this area. Upon reaching the port your ship was impounded for a “routine and random customs inspection”. The port authority staff referred you to a civic building nearby in town where ranking officers with authority to lift the hold could be found.

On your way there you are ambushed by masked attackers. One of you (_______) has been shot in the gut and needs medical attention soon, but is lucid and can mostly move under their own power. Two more of you have sustained lighter wounds and are bleeding. The rest have cosmetic scrapes and scratches but are otherwise unharmed. In the firefight you’re sure you hit at least 2 of your attackers in the distance. The one that shot your friend in the gut was close-in and ______ (one of you) subdued them, optionally taking them hostage (_y_ / _n_). You kicked in a door next to you and have taken shelter in a dry goods warehouse while bullets rain in from all around.

Some direct constraints that are perhaps suggested by the narrative, but made explicit:

Mad Libs answers:

The Ship

Features:

They have multiple registrations from different empires so they can simultaneously carry diverse letters of marque.

Crew:

Superstitious luck charms:

Questions:

Spoken languages:

The Port

Other ships at port:

One of these likely transported Birdal Nurhan there. Which one?

Story highlights

Leads:

The cursed peak is called Duàn fēng (“broken peak”).

Idea: have one of the hirelings set off a grenade in the small hallway, mortally wounding the merchant (or outright killing him) and injuring the three down there. Throw Khiri’s character into one of the pools, scratching her hand on the coral.

Diyarum city (big border city)

Home fleet ships (2 at Diyarum):

Away fleet ships

Captain Esel of the Zafer Aynasi.

Name of the eastern empire: Zǎochén dìguó (it means “empire of morning”). Their symbol is the morning glory flower.

Todos:

Hauriant - the keeper of this lighthouse - human skulled squid in a tank on mechanical legs.

Arcane Automatons

The Great Library of Ardakan

The ground floor of the Great Library houses the public collection, a sprawling and airy grid of shelves covering all manor of topics across most common languages. There are a scattering of benches, but the flow is designed mostly around perusal and checking out books. Lines for the clerk desks are often long, though wandering archivists try to offset some of the burden by helping guide patrons around the collection.

Once you are seen as a regular, or purchase your way in for a lofty sum, you gain access to the main collection on the next two floors, accessed via a grand stairwell near the public entrance. To signify your standing, the library issues you an arcane signet (worn however you wish). During open hours (7am-8pm daily), as long as you have the signet on your person, you simply walk past the clerk desk on the second floor. After hours, the signet serves to unlock the small side door, giving access to the clerk stairs.

The main collection is around double the physical space of the public collection, but likely houses four to five times as many books, along with a small curio museum. The shelves are much closer together and more densely packed. Instead of large open areas accommodating the public crowds, the main collection’s non-book space is primarily small private reading rooms tucked around the outer edges. This is important, because it is forbidden to remove these books from the library. Many tomes in the main collection are the final extant copies, so great care is taken to keep them in good condition.

Edwin’s field guide of northern rock pool species, vol III.

You discover this unassuming tome through the assistance of a clerk, who notes:

These things you ask about are… at the edges of the world. Any works we may have directly about them would not be in any of our larger collections. However, I know of some books that touch on the coral, at least. I’d start with […edwins…].

The Ignition

A small cask sized flawless carnelian gem polished to sea glass by centuries of tides. The Ignition is covered in intricate run work spanning across the arcane and reef blood magic. Underneath the glyphs the surface roils in convective currants like the surface of the sun in miniature. Each end bears a connection skull, one human, and other shark. The Ignition is a radiator for the solar assault on the reef, drawing heat energy away from the front line.

A talented arcanist / artificer / engineer may notice on close inspection that the runework of the skulls is specifically tailored to being an energy “hook up” and linking into an existing circuit.-