turn 1

(Kurt, you're not in here yet, let me know if you want me to work you in...)


Turn 1:

The three of you embarked on a ship from the sprawling port city of Monticello, on the coast of the Northern Empire. The ship was headed far to the south, to the island kingdoms that border the empire. Your ship was a middle-sized trading vessel, carrying cloth and household goods for trade, and a few passengers as well. The three of you met playing dice aboard ship to kill time: Twix Goodhearte, Gepetto Twist, and crew member Heflam Madringo. The game, in which two of you slowly lost all your money to Twist, became a pleasant nightly excuse to get acquainted, drink cheap wine to excess, and complain about the captain.

Suddenly, two weeks from port and a week from your destination, somewhere near the empire's sea borders, a storm. The passengers huddle below as the crew, Heflam included, fights a losing battle with the weather. As the howling of the wind in the rigging climbs relentlessly in pitch and volume, it is temporarily drowned out by a roar like an earthquake. Something far, far bigger than ship rises next to it like a mountain in the dark, and picks it right up out of the sea.
The three of you are lucky enough to fall out of the ship as it disappears upwards into the howling night.
The weather lifts and you are washed ashore on a beach, exhausted but unhurt, the only survivors. All you have is your torn-up clothing. You make your way to a stream running to the beach and drink your fill.

It's morning. The three of you are on a beach of golden sand. It's early, but already hot. The beach stretches out straight north and south to either horizon, bordered by palm trees, and then a thick forest of all sorts of trees you don't recognize.
In the middle distance, to the east straight inland through the forest, you can see distant structures of some kind through the haze, maybe buildings. There is an overgrown path leading that way.

To the north, up the beach maybe a mile, something is glinting and sparkling in the sun.

What do you do?


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A reminder of your characters:

Wilson: While he would like to be known as Ravage Deathbringer: Eater of Souls, Twix Goodehearte has always been referred to by his schoolmates as "twig". He is what bards often refer to as a "callow youth". A human boy, Twix has just endured his sixteenth birthday, which involved his siblings stuffing him into a sack and throwing him onto the ship that has just crashed upon these mysterious shores. When he was found, he feared he would be thrown overboard, but the other passengers merely laughed at him.

His great uncle was a wizard of some renown, at least in his village. Twix has always wanted to follow in his great uncle's footsteps and has desperately held onto the belief that magic "skips a few generations". While he managed to steal a third rate spell book from a traveler once, he only managed a basic light spell. Animals are very fond of him and often follow him around everywhere. Just before the ship foundered, he had been drinking from a bottle of rum he snuck out of the galley and inventing ritual spells, using oddments that had been lying around in the storeroom.



DAG: Geppetto Twist just seems to be able to make things work. He always has.
As a boy he would be able to make a wind up toy walk further then any other child was able to coax motion out of the machine. It wasn't until he picked up his first recorder that this knack for things translated into something that his dismissive Coldland father actually took interest in. Geppetto's olive skinned mother from the tropics supported everything he did or said, which amounted to the same thing as his father's dismissiveness but was a whole lot nicer to be around.
Geppetto could play almost any instrument you placed in his hands as well as he could manipulate machinery. His musicianship could buy him admittance to almost anywhere.
It was just this ability that allowed him to start his "big travel" at the age of 19, which was cut short by his ship running aground here.



Schirme': Heflam Madringo, Sailor, Male, Human