Pirate Borg - The Quest to activate The Heart of the Sea

 

Over the October long weekend, I managed to get to play a lot of games. The rest of the family were away and that left me free to game. With MOAB over that weekend, much rest and gaming was had.

Added to this the fact that the lads were finally able to come over that Sunday afternoon and we played a marathon 7.5hr roleplaying session. Fortunately, none of us had to work on Monday. Below are some highlights from the session.

The other wonderful thing was that I got to play my character and one of the other lads was the GM this game. My class was The Zealot. And I chose to be a Priest of the One True God. Seemed funny to me to be a Haunted Soul Skeleton Pirate and yet also a Priest. Hey everyone, including pirates, needs salvation, right?

I put my predicament down to having drunk too much alter wine in life (and occasionally helping myself to the church coffers) as being why I find myself needing redemption. Anyway, I digress.

The first combat saw us make landfall on a beach full of bones. As we headed up the sand, we were quickly surrounded by the fast-forming accursed things.

This should have been an easy fight. But we kept rolling very badly and the Skeletons incredibly well. I think I must have missed eight rolls to hit in a row. I put that down to my lack of martial training and these "misses" really being me parrying my foes attacks. A few of the guys suffered Fumbles and ended up in a very bad way. And we quickly burnt through all our Luck Dice.

(NOTE: If you don't know what Luck Dice are, they aren't a Pirate Borg mechanic. Look up DM Scotty's Luck Dice. I highly recommend using this, or a modified version of this system like we do.)

After finally vanquishing the foe, we strode on to an abandoned Fort at the base of a ravine. There we were confronted by a series of riddles. This was the first of three key challenges we had to overcome this adventure. 

Once the riddles were solved, we passed on through the ravine behind the fort and were promptly assaulted by drowned zombies. Great! That was another fun fight where a few of us were grabbed and dragged towards an ice-cold stream that ran along the ravine. Icy death awaited there. However, fending off the zombies, we finally liberated our captured comrades and escaped to complete the second challenge of three that we had to accomplish.

The ravine however led to a Labyrinth which we negotiated without too many setbacks. From there we arrived at a castle that rested in a giant cavern and set about our final challenge.

This final challenge saw us face off against four very nasty crabs and The Guardian. This was supposed to be the fight of all fights for the evening. However, after all the adversity from the previous fights, we slaughtered to crabs in short order, much to the surprise of the GM.

But the real part of this last challenge was to take down The Guardian. This dude was a total pain. Lots of hit points and a real pain dealer. We eventually settled on a strategy where I fell back and prayed for healing for the other lads while they remained up close and personal with The Guardian. This worked well and after much near death we finally brought down the hated foe.

With that, this first adventure came to an end, and we had successfully recovered the McGuffins we needed for the next quest. But that is for a future post.

Pirate Borg Adventure - The Jolly Roger and Friends (part 2)

 The Jolly Roger and Friends - part 2

The scenario breakdown for last weekend's Pirate Borg game can be found here. But I kicked the lads off by having them on their longboat hunting down their long-lost ship, the SS Stinky. Now resplendent in their Blessed Coats (a score from their last gaming session), as they sailed to the main island, they noticed that they were ringed by a series of tentacles that were fast closing in on them.

One tentacle was shot and blown away before reaching their boat, but the other seven soon closed in. With one tentacle on each lad (excluding Cythis) three were able to grab onto the boat and attempt each round to pull the thing under.

To the lad's credit, they were able to make fast work of the tentacles grabbing at them despite one of the lads almost being dragged into the sea. That would have been interesting as, being Skeletons, they wouldn't drown but they couldn't swim either.

Once the individual threats were dealt with, they focused on the tentacles pulling the boat down. With little time left before water poured over the side, they dispatched the remaining tentacles and luckily escaped.

From there they were able to close on the island and finally, with Cythis preternatural guidance, find their lost ship at anchor in a lagoon.

Incredibly they were able to sneak up on the ship and the smaller Jolly Roger next to it without anyone noticing. An amazing feat given that it was broad daylight. Dropping off their Buccaneer sniper on the sand bank, the rest of the team made for the stern of the Stinky where they found boarding ropes already in place.

Another set of excellent rolls saw them board their ship whilst the Buccaneer scurried up a tree to take aim at the unwanted boarders. After a short parley, Captain Hook decided he had had enough and called on Mr Smeg to drop the sack he was carrying. This was a Bag of Bones that contained ten or so Skeleton Pirates. With Hook's vampiric powers in play, the Skeletons quickly took shape and rushed our intrepid lads. Angelica, seeing this, dived for the Captain's Cabin and quickly locked herself safely away. The actual crew of the Stinky (i.e. its alcoholic Skeleton Crew) quickly dived overboard and onto the longboat where Cythis was waiting. This took them all out of the fight and left the lads to face the music.

With a crack, one of the Skeleton Pirates was felled by a shot from the Buccaneer over in the trees. The rat crew (The Bilge Rats), Hook and Smeg realised they were in a difficult position and did their best to hide behind the enormous rotting fish head that was the Stinky's figurehead. As the rats fired off their pistols, shot peppered the trunk of the tree where the Buccaneer was staged but it didn't break the tree trunk. Meanwhile, the Skeleton Pirates attacked the other lads on the aft deck of the ship.

The lads expected to make short work of the Skeleton Pirates, but no sooner was one felled, then after a round it returned, thanks to the vampiric abilities of Hook.

As the pressure was on, the Buccaneer decided to dive down into the sea, get back onto the beach and quickly make for the cliffs where he would have a much better sight of the deck. Thus, he would be able to ply his trade with impunity. But when he dived into the water he came almost face to snout with an enormous crocodilian creature. Fortunately, the Buccaneer was the less shocked of the two and hightailed it out of the water.

As the battle raged on the ship, suddenly the voice of Hook could be heard bellowing out to everyone to stop fighting. Everyone froze. Hook called out, "Do you hear that?" Bewildered everyone just stood there. One of the lads however passed a Wisdom roll and spoke. "Is that a ticking clock I hear?"

Sudden panic ensued as Hook went into meltdown and begged Mr Smeg to save him. The Bilge Rats scrambled overboard for The Jolly Roger. Mr Smeg picked up Hook and dumped him over the side onto the Jolly Roger before jumping down there himself. The Buccaneer bolted for the cliffs and the Skeleton Pirates re-engaged the lads on the aft deck.

With Hook, Smeg and The Bilge Rats hightailing it out of there on The Jolly Roger, the Crocodilian Monster lost interest in the SS Stinky and headed after the submersible. Without Hooks powers reforming the Skeleton Pirates, eventually the lads were able to overcome their foe and regain control of their ship.

With the SS Stinky back under their control, the lads then addressed Miss Fairweather, who refused to come out of the cabin. Eventually, they had to concede taking her on as a temporary passenger and dropping her off where she wished. But she did tell them of some nice treasure that was supposed to be in the caves behind them. Setting a guard, the lads set off to find the treasure and, after some ghostly shenanigans, did manage to score some nice loot.

Now they have their ship, they can go anywhere. I'll be handing the reigns over to one of the other lads to Game Master the next adventure. So, I need to get my own Player Miniature painted up for the next game.

Pirate Borg Adventure - The Jolly Roger and Friends (part 1)

 The Jolly Roger and Friends - part 1

This post is going to take a slight deviation from my 15mm Space Orc Surfer Dudes to showcase our recent Pirate Borg adventure over the weekend. For today's post I'll show off the scenario. In the next post I'll cover what happened.

The lads will start off in their longboat heading for a large island with Cythis (pronounced Sy'thiss), their strange fishermen compatriot who rescued them from the Abyss. Cythis is convinced he has found his lost love, his "Angel". And where she is, the lads ship must surely be as she found their ship abandoned and commandeered it in order to escape the Abyss.

The lad's ship, the SS Stinky (named due to the overly large rotting fish-head used as the ships figurehead) is located in a small tidal lagoon on the main island in this adventure area. Behind the ship are sea caves and cliffs rising to above deck height.

In that lagoon, next to the SS Stinky, is an oddly half submerged vessel called The Jolly Roger.

As the players approach, they will be able to discern that their ship has a rather large contingent of very little people on board facing down Angelica Fairweather, the lady who "stole" their ship (she insists that she "found it").

The crew of the Jolly Roger comprise the Bilge Rats (actual large rats!) led by non-other than the notorious Vampire, Captain James T Hook. Hook's side-kick thrall is none other than the infamous Mr Smeg. The lads know Hook as he serves the same Pirate King that they do and is a competitor who wishes to grab the gem the lads found in the Abyss for himself. That gem is The Heart of the Sea.

Angelica faces off against this group with no help from the Stinky's crew as they are all drunkards (impressive for Skeletons!). As the lad's approach, they will overhear a parlay occurring where Hook is pressuring Angelica to hand over the Heart of the Sea. She counters that she doesn't have it. Hook doesn't believe here and is getting more and more impatient.

If the lads are sneaky enough, they may be able to come around to the aft of the Stinky and use the ropes hanging from there to climb aboard unhindered.

There are also ropes from the Stinky down to the Jolly Roger, but climbing those will put them right in the thick of things immediately.

Alternatively, they can make use of the sandspit to reach the cliffs and climb to where they can gain a good sniping position or even jump down onto the Stinky's deck.

How they resolve this is up to them. If a fight breaks out, the Stinky's crew will vacate overboard and Angelica will make for the Captain's cabin, locking herself inside.

Sooo how did they do? Stay tuned!

Skeleton Crew for Pirate Borg

 

Q: What's a pirate ship without a crew? Adrift.

OK, dad jokes aside. I needed a crew for my Pirate Borg rpg group. And these guys fit the bill. Most are from Reaper Miniatures, but the two zombie style crewmembers are from the Rum & Bones boardgame. Here they are as they come off the production line. All that's needed now is to finish basing them.

Captain Hooq and Mr Smeg - Pirate Borg villains

 

No relation to Captain Hook and Mr Smee

What's a game without villains for the protagonists to protag against? Meet Captain Hooq and Mr Smeg. Not to be confused with their more famous cousins, Captain Hook and Mr Smee.

These gents will be the next villains for The Lads to encounter. Ostensibly, both Hooq and The Lads work for the same Pirate Boss, but there is no honour among thieves, right? So Hooq will make a good foil for my rpg players.

You may notice that both Capt. Hooq and Mr Smeg don't exactly look like they are in the best of health. That's because Hooq is a vampire and Mr Smeg is Hooq's loyal underling. Something halfway between a Thrall and a junior vampire. I'm not quite sure which yet. Hooq is the quintessential English gentlemen and Mr Smeg is Hook's valet and boson for The Jolly Roger. The Jolly Roger itself is crewed by the Bilge Rats, a small group of actual rat men who are small Skaven.

The figures come from Sally 4th's range of miniatures. I'm thinking of getting a Peter Pan and cutting the miniature's head off and attaching it to Hooq's belt. That would add to the villainous and cruel nature of Hooq contrasting against his outward gentlemanly demeanour. Have to think more about that idea. But it seems suitably bloody for a Pirate Borg game.

The Lads - A Pirate Borg miniature upgrade

 

The lads have been having fun with the excellent Pirate Borg (using our d20 lite version of Pirate Borg) and they are now Level 3. So, it seemed fitting to upgrade their miniature avatars to reflect their newfound confidence and their growing abilities.

Searching around the web, I found Black Scorpion Miniatures and their excellent line of Cutlass pirate miniatures. I purchased them for such a time as this, and it was now time to break them out and paint them up. I asked each of the lads what their favourite colour was, and this became the colour of the coats that each miniature has been painted with. I also wrote their names under the base of each model. Just in case we get confused.

So, for our next rpg session, the lads will have a new set of miniatures to wonder the lands and seas of Pirate Borg.

The Jolly Roger for Pirate Borg

 

I have mentioned in the past that my role-playing group has been up to shenanigans lately using the excellent Pirate Borg (D20 OSR/Mork Borg) system, and I can't highly recommend it enough. Seriously, it is excellent.

The lads have been searching for their missing ship, and it hit upon me that for the next adventure they would encounter a very famous Captain that was hunting them for a certain Gem of the Sea that they now possess. So that Pirate Captain would need a ship, and I decided that I would make that ship The Jolly Roger.

Previously I had purchased a Bambu Lab A1 filament printer. I had some teething problems with it doing layer line skipping and it took me a while to work out that I had incorrectly replaced a panel I had removed when lubricating the rails, and that this was the source of my woes. Problem solved I set about looking for a suitable model for the good 'ol Roger. In my travels I found one of the first submarine designs ever produced. In an epiphany, I had found my Jolly Roger!

But who would crew such a bizarre beast of the seas? Of course, who else but a bunch of bilge rats. With that, the bones of the next adventure began to take formal shape.

This model comes from the Bambu Studios creation hub and is a full submarine. So, I needed to cut the bottom off in Bambu Studios software and print it out as it will be sitting on the surface of the water when the lads encounter it. I used a 0.4mm nozzle and so nothing flash in the settings and it worked fine.

As it is a small model (approx. 18cm) compared to the pirate ship I already have (you can see that each of the small squares on my cutting board are 1cm), it could only hold a small crew onboard. Thus, the idea of The Bilge Rats as its crew began to make logical sense. A bunch of Skaven-like like rat pirates. Given also that the Captain won't be a rat, it makes sense that they serve under his leadership with some resentment. Hence some of the graffiti visible on the 'Roger.

And so, with that The Jolly Roger prepares to set sail. All I need to do is paint the Captain, First Mate, and the Bilge Rats crew. And a whole bunch of other things before we have out next game. No rest for the wicked, hey?

Pirate Borg returns for the new year

The lads finally got together for the new year to venture once more into the Dark Caribbean for Pirate Borg. In the previous gaming session, the lads finally eradicated the feral goblin threat to Port Nelson in brutal but efficient manner.

As we kicked off the new year's adventures, the lads finished taking stock of the booty they had discovered. The Captain had found the shrunken head of Lucky Jack in one of the goblin's tents. Jack was known to the Captain, the two having served together on a pirate ship some years before the PC's awoke as skeletal Haunted Souls. Jack had headed off on some wild goose chase regarding a mysterious treasure map and some buried treasure.

The Captain had thought the man mad. But it turned out that the treasure was real. Jack had found it, and clearly the feral goblins had found Jack. Lucky Jacks treasure had been placed as an offering to the feral goblin's idol. Now that treasure was the PC's to have. The Captain rolled a 99 on the d100 Buried Treasure table. That nabbed them a wooden box with 24 stacks of 20 gold coins (500s each) and 6 loaded flintlocks.

As they argued over how best to drag that lot back to Port Nelson, suddenly the idol was thrown to the ground and a giant roar bellowed from the gathering darkness. The lads looked up in shock to see the following...

Out of the darkness charged a Giant Freaking Zombie Gorilla Abomination, or GFZGA for short [side note, this miniature is from Zombicide].

I expected the lads to run off into the gathering darkness like frightened girls, but they chose to stand and fight like the men they once were. And fight they did. The battle lasted ages and the lads barely survived. They were aided by the fickleness of my dice, that rolled many '1's, whilst they themselves were blessed with many a critical hit. Eventually they brought the beast down. Only for it to fall on top of one of the PC's. As they struggled to pull him out from the beasty, the darn thing reanimated and it was on again for a second round. This time, they finally properly killed it, and it promptly fell back on top of the same hapless PC as before.

So, it was now dark, the night sky illuminated by brilliant starlight but the land around them was pitch black. Climbing a tree, one of the PC's spotted a fiery glow off in the distance. Thinking it to be Port Nelson, they stumbled through the night, lost their way, climb a tree, reoriented themselves, and headed off again. Eventually they crested a stream embankment to enter another clearing. This time they found that they were in a village where the only solid structure still standing, and not on fire, was the Church at the opposite end of the clearing.

Movement caught their attention and they noticed slow moving villages heading towards them. The shuffling and moaning soon gave away that these were not well individuals, and the group found themselves about to be surrounded by Zombies. The Captain and one of the lads ran for the church and just manages to avoid the grasping hands to make it inside the building. One of the lads climbed a tree and began doing what he does best, blowing the bejesus out of one zombie after another. But there were many of them and the lads were hard pressed to suppress the threat. One of the lads chose again to stand his ground and took off his back Bianca (his beloved ship anchor) and started swinging away. He managed to crush as few heads as the others fired shot after shot, hoping to hit the zombies in the head.

Run Captain, ruuuun!

The zombie threat finally removed, the lads gathered in the church. It was still night, and the only illumination within was from prayer candles over in one corner of the building. It was then that the lads noticed the priest, nine young ladies and their cadre of children, for all the noise of the battle had drowned out any other noises within. Some hasty talk managed to convince the priest that, although they were no saints, they were certainly not a threat to the survivors gathered there. By the morning, the survivors had come to realise that, by God's providence, these strange protectors were sent to save them.

The priest told the lads that a black mist had descended on the village and soon many of the villagers became ill and suddenly violent and horrific to behold. This was only two nights before and the survivors had gathered in the church hoping for a chance to escape. That chance had now come. The lads dutifully escorted the survivors back to Port Nelson where the "civilised" pirate Orc's were then convinced by the Captain that having more people around would help Port Nelson to not just survive but perhaps become a solid little trading hub. A bunch of humans running around wasn't much to their liking, but they were finally in agreeance that the Captain was right.

And so, our game came to a close for the evening and the PC's began to think of how, once more, they might possibly find their lost ship.