Corsairs Session 4: At the Mountains of Coastone

Hearing that the Dancing Crester had left port a couple of hours earlier, our crew loads up and with a good sailing roll, start to the north towards the marked mine and hopefully where the Alderil Empire's ship is heading. A few hours into the journey and our man Sleve just manages to catch sight of the larger ship far ahead. From her post in the crows nest, the newest companion Sieag MacGill'Oig barely sees them. Sailing nonchalantly as possible our crew pursues the ship flying much lower than the other ship. At one point the captain of the Crester, feeling something on the wind perhaps, turns to starboard, but another good sailing roll and the Fools Errand is apparently not seen and the larger ships returns to her former bearing. Below the ships the terrain turns more mountainous and the winds start getting more turbulent between the cooling air and the mountains spilling air through the valleys and peaks. The occasional mountain road is visible below, with a few small towns and hunters huts.

Getting to early dusk, the larger ship furls her sails and docks into a sky pier hanging off the mountain. The Fools Errand moves to a higher altitude and watch as barrels and crates are off-loaded, a tall woman in black apparently giving the orders.

Deciding that a closer observation is needed, and with a really good draft for sailing, our two nomad climb nimbly down the the swaying rope ladder to spy upon the mine entrance, the ship sailing back off around the peak and out of sight of the mine. 

Young Sineag and Sleve watch a couple of hours, seeing mine carts leave the mine and their loads transferred to the ship. Too far away to see enough detail, the quarried ore does seem lighter than it should. A good portion of the ships crew is helping move and load the ore on board the large ship.

Seeing that there is not much more to be seen, Sleve signals to the ship with a flat of his blade, somehow managing to convey a tune with the knife flashing. With not quite as good a sailing roll from our Dwarf, young Sineag does succeed in climbing the twisting rope ladder, but loses here change purse in the process. Sleve managed an almost miraculous catch and snags the purse from the air,  returning the coins to the little grass runner. 

Back on board, the decide that they will go to dock at the Dwarf mine, perhaps an hour's flight from where they are. Staying aloft near mountains at night is not, in the captain's opinion, a good choice to having a ship stay intact. Flying in, they are greeted by other Ironbound from the Anvil Aerie, and food and drinks are exchanged. The mining chief has heard of secret tunnels that may connect the old repellium mine to various other mines. A female Dwarf's grandfather mined and knows a bit about the tunnels and draws a map of what she believes will aid our crew to getting into the no longer deserted repellium mines from a different direction.  They retire for the night, a restful night for Ylerva, to reset in a sound Dwarf bed under the earth, Sleve and Sineag comfortable wherever they are, and Ordo pulling two beds together to get some restless sleep.

While this session seemed to go okay, it was not quite as exciting as the previous session. A few key discoveries were made: the old repellium mine is being used, the Alderil Empire ship at least is beingused, and that ship has twice the gun decks of the Fools Errand so our group is being cautious, much to the Captain's delight. Looks like there may be a bit of a mine exploration after all, though no treasures or goblins. However - there very well could be dragonettes or other small creatures that live in the mountains. Or even some not so small. But I'll have to see why a creature would be living in there as this is steam punk, not fantasy, and creatures don't just live in caverns waiting for adventurers to feed their bellies!

One thing that came up and is not addressed in the rules are height rules. Corsairs is not a tactical game, so ship combat and pursuit is fairly abstract, designed to let you play a swashbuckling sort of game (which we've only had one such swashing, so need to add more!). We just allowed that watching for a smaller ship flying below you was less likely to be seen as you are not looking below as much for ships. And they were way out yonder. The other captain almost saw them at one point, but despite good observation skills, and also due to the good sailing roll on the ship, he dismissed things as just something in his eye or a flying animal. I did read the pursuit rules, and while I think they will work when they are in active pursuit, following a flying ship and trying not to be seen is more complicated (and brings up the similarities to the whole Traveller ships are giant heat sources and can't hide in space). We winged it and it worked well enough. 

And my son & I are rewatching the Avatar so we can watch Korra (I like to start at the beginning, and even though we've seen the show a few years ago, it was a few years ago and we don't recall all the specifics). Regardless, I now want to bring in flying lemurs and 10 ton six legged flying bison. I've a feeling the Cahill Grasslands may be a good place for flying bison, but lemurs do seem more forest or jungles. May be some of the forests surrounding the mountains will have flying lemurs.