Ship Wreck, Heroic, and Adventure
Ship disasters can be mirrored in multiple time periods and while the circumstances of what runs a ship aground will vary on sea or in the dark confines of space, salvaging the remains can be a profitable and dangerous endeavor.
Rumors of a lost treasure abound, but can the heroes survive when the danger is the very treasure they seek to claim?
The Hopefield
Place, Vessel, Dungeon
Luxury, prestige, danger, and fear; These are the tokens that advised the creation of the vessel known as The Hopefield. The ship is a large cargo hauler meant to be impervious to threats of theft or sabotage. It’s captain is a fierce loyalist to the company that owns the vessel, and the crew are all hand selected one by one; their past and backgrounds all dissected to know who is worthy to help the elite ship their most valuable possessions.
it is not the vast cargo bays that makes The Hopefield so profitable and important. It is not it’s speed despite its size. It is the single hold located deep in the heart of the vessel. The steel vault, an advanced creature of it’s time, that is the single most valuable piece on the vessel; a vault built to withstand cannons, the sea, and all the ravenous violence of time itself. Shipping ancient relics, family heirlooms, and other precious tokens costs more than renting the rest of the ship and it’s deep holds but these items will arrive, guaranteed.
So long as the ship reaches its port.
And like all ships built for pride and with the confidence that they will make it, The Hopefield has not. Somewhere deep along the ocean’s trenches it lies barnacled along the depths. Somewhere in the deep black reaches of a dead asteroid field, it lies moored upon crushed rock. The Hopefield awaits discovery. It awaits grave robbers. It awaits it’s holds to be plundered, and the ghosts of the dead to stir it.
Fitting the The Hopefield in
A ship designed to be an icon of wealth and luxury, the vessel was built around a unique and nearly indestructible vault. This storage compartment is constructed to lock upon the ship’s departure and remain locked until two criteria are met. First an extended timer runs for the expected minimum length of the journey. Without breaking the frame of the cargo vault down, the ship’s cargo cannot be accessed while en route. The second criteria depends on if the ship is moored on sea or in space. On the seas this second token is a key belonging to the captain. A simple token but guarded closely. In space, the token is a sample of DNA from the captain. In both periods, the captain must be found to access the high-risk cargo hold.
The Hopefield is a massive ship, regardless of the time period it is lost within. Stressing the size of the vessel is important in conveying the trouble in finding the high value cargo vault. The vessel should be loaded down with various materials to distract the players, but never enough to draw them away from their main objective.
The Deleuran Herilooms
Thing, MacGuffin
Treasures vary from person to person. While gold and jewels and other valuable materials make for pricey rewards for adventurers, sometimes what is valuable can be something so simple and emotionally sincere. The Deleuran Herilooms are such items. The consist of five tokens created long ago by the family forebearer. They’re not much to look at, just simple animal shapes that no one would agree on which creature they are meant to represent and to most of the world they are worthless pieces of carved wood and glass beads.
And they’re followed by a line of endless bodies.
It is said they must always be in the possession of a Deleuran and never touched by those not of the blood. That if those not of the family holds the pieces, that tragedy will befall the place the tokens rest in. Fires, earthquakes, murders, floods, and wrecks; all tragedies follow the tokens. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about them. They are not blessed or marred or cursed. Only that they object to being touched by those who should not dare lay finger upon them.
Fitting the The Deleuran Herilooms in
The tokens represent a silly macguffin to toss at players. They should never appear magical nor emit a sinister aura, but when they are touched directly by a PC or NPC something bad should happen. Light bulbs should pop, straps breaking on gear, a car crash, a door falling off its hinges, etc. The players should become paranoid about touching the wooden pieces directly but don’t overplay it or risk having them just throw them away and never complete their objective.
They can be introduced by having one member of the Deleuran family pay the players to steal a token from another member. If players are breaking into a home, laying these around where they shouldn’t be is also a fun manner of making a thief worried about their life choices.
Captain Wera Orbán
Person
True loyalty is a gift. If a cause or concern is enough to be worthy to risk life and limb over, it is comes at great cost. Captain Wera Orbán believes in this damn company, and if you’re on her crew you better believe in it too. Of all the founders Captain Orbán is the one who has stuck out her neck to get the endeavor going. She’s mastered her role as the leader of a crew, the navigational tools to get the job done, and has learned cut off what dead weight will linger to her vessel if she doesn’t act fast enough.
Captain Wera Orbán has a stocky frame with short cut blond hair and a noticeable tattoo on her neck of the company crest. She wearing a functional uniform built to handle the rigors of ship action, be it on the wind-swept deck at sea or in the hot corridors of a starship. She is rarely dressed for ceremony, and does the minimum prep for a leader to be presentable to her crew before getting to work on her vessel. Her hands are callused, and her skin is marred by various burns earned in her youth from mistakes she learned from. She will always have a tool belt, and a knife on her hip.
So, it is with great trepidation I report that Captain Wera Orbán is lost. Despite our best efforts we cannot find where her ship has run aground nor what has become of her crew. But know that wherever they are if the good captain still lives, she serves this company, protects our interests, and is doing everything she can to be prepared for our rescue efforts. No matter what storm, what pirate, what villain has struck out against her ship she will out last it. She will be waiting for whoever comes for her.
Fitting Captain Wera Orbán In
She is a survivor, a true believer in her company, and is currently ship wrecked. The cause of the wreck isn’t her or her crew’s fault, and they will be doing the best they can to make do until rescue comes. They will take special care to secure the cargo if possible, and if they can’t they’ll make efforts to recover the cargo once they themselves are recovered.
The Captain believes in protecting her company’s interests, and will not stand talk of theft or betrayal. She’ll directly attack players that make any threatening noise towards acting against her company’s interests, and be suspicious of anyone claiming to be a member of her company considering how high of a role she has within it.
Using the Lost Hope
The Whole Block
The Hopefield is lost somewhere in the deep, and the players have been hired by the Deleuran family to retrieve their lost valuables. Or perhaps the players have learned of the Heriloom’s worth to their family, and seek to steal the tokens themselves before the ship goes down. No matter what, getting their hands on the tokens spell trouble, and not just from the curse but from the dedicated Captain determined to protect her cargo.
The players should be heavily incentivized to the value of the haul inside the vault, and how they learn about it will determine if they’re focusing on robbing a derelict or ship at sea. Getting the Captain on their side should be an almost impossible task unless they convince her they work for her company. If so they’ll make a staunch ally. If not, then they’ll have to fight Captain Orbán to the death before they get away with the herilooms.
Guard-a-manger
Iona Stone
J Samuel Diehl
Zendead