Steamboat, Secrets and Stew

After breaking camp we then proceeded to head North along the river gorge. As night begins to fall, Rimo hears a mechanical whistle in the distance, which he points out the rest of the party. As the whistle sound gets closer a paddle wheeled riverboat comes around the bend in the river behind the party. Rimo waves at the approaching riverboat and the whistle toots as it starts to slow down. The closer it gets the easier it becomes to read the big letters along the side of the riverboat. Daimonion shouts at the riverboat asking if they can provide some help. The whistle responds, as does a crewman on the deck.

The riverboat then comes to a stop, and the crewman who shouted back ducks in a doorway. Rimo and Dera then begin to tie a rope to a nearby tree to help the party climb down the gorge and on to the riverboat. From inside the riverboat a crewman dressed as an officer shouts back up to the party, and discusses the terms of payment for passage on the riverboat. At first the party asks if they could work for passage but the officer says he already has enough workers for the riverboat. Sik then tosses a gold-coin down to the officer, who then asks for 50 more. Sik agrees to 50 gold-coins, and then mentions to the party that they owe her 7 gold-coins each. With that the party then climbs down the rope to the riverboat.

The captain then comes out to greet us, and introduces himself as Nathan Timothy, and after that he has his first officer show us to our quarters. The quarters consist of two rooms with three bunk beds in each. The rooms are across a short hallway from each other on the second deck of the riverboat, so we had to go down some steps to get to them.

A short little debate breaks out as to who gets to sleep in which room with whom. Tallorn with Rimo's help takes one of the bunks and promptly falls asleep; Sik and Daimonion also manage to scrounge up bunk space to get some sleep. Rimo and Dario decide to take watch at the doors just in case. Rimo's watch goes by uneventfully and wakes Daimonion to take his turn at watch.

Morning comes around after an uneventful night, and Rimo and Daimonion go up topside to look for some food to eat. When they get to the deck they notice that they are no longer sailing in a gorge, but sailing along the river through some plains. During the time Tallorn is left alone, Dario searches him for anything of value, but comes up with nothing.

Finding nothing topside to eat, Rimo and Daimonion head downstairs to the third deck, and pick up Sik and Dario on the way. Once at the kitchen Rimo gets a bowl of stew for himself and another for Tallorn. Dario, Daimonion and Sik also get a bowl of stew and chow down on it. Dera on the other hand decides to stay in her room and eat some of her own rations.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully and so Sik, Tallorn and Daimonion go to bed. In the middle of the night Sik gets up and heads down to the kitchen. Meanwhile both Tallorn and Daimonion have a sinister nightmare.

Both dream that they are sitting at the head of a long banquet table, with a big feast going on. Non-descript people are all around pulling food off the table and eating with great fervor and noise. As they look closer at the food on the table they notice that there is something wrong with the main course. Upon closer inspection they see that the main course is actually a living human being.

This same dream is what had caused Sik to awaken in the middle of the night.

Rimo and Dario, who were on watch, spend the time discussing things about themselves and the goings on. During the discussion Rimo shows Dario his dagger, which Dario asks to take a closer look at. Dario looks over the dagger closely and can only say that it has to be a very expensive dagger. After handing the dagger back to Rimo, he decides to head off to bed. In the night Dario has the feast dream as well.

In the morning Daimonion and Sik realize they both had the same dream, and chat about it for a bit. Dario wakes up in the middle of this conversation and mentions he had the same dream as well. Sik then decides that the cook might know what is going on, and heads down to the kitchen.

Rimo heads topside and asks a crewman about how long until they reach their destination. The crewman just briefly looks at Rimo, and then says nothing and carries on with what his was doing. Rimo then goes back down to the rooms, where Dera asks Rimo for some first aid. Rimo attempts to help Dera, but isn't able to help much with her, nor is he able to aid Dario much either.

Rimo decides its time to get some sleep, and Tallorn says he will keep an eye out for trouble. As Tallorn watches, Rimo suddenly awakens in fright from his slumber. It turns out Rimo had the same feast dream. After some discussion the two cannot figure out what the dream means. Daimonion who walks by happens to catch part of the discussion and joins in saying he had the same dream. The three discuss the dream as night begins to fall.

Dario decides he is going to wander about the riverboat for lack of anything better to do. Dario heads down to the lower deck where the kitchen is and starts to open the doors to the other rooms there. Behind one of the doors he finds a cold room, with meat hanging from the ceiling. Looking closer he suddenly notices that they are human corpses hanging from the meat hooks. Slowly he walks backwards out of the room and shuts the door. In another room he finds a chest that has a nice and pretty scarab amulet that he keeps, for himself.

Rimo and Tallorn decide to go topside to take care of the call of nature. As the two walk towards the stairs Sik, decides to follow closely behind. But as the two get to the top of the steps they suddenly stop, which causes Sik to almost walk right into the two of them. The three see a silhouetted figure against the night sky, that looks almost like a human, but almost like a wolf at the same time. As quietly as possible Rimo and Tallorn creep down the steps. Sik stays there and hides in the shadows to prevent being seen. As they quietly walk to their room they happen across Dario, and whisper that they saw something topside. The group wakes up Daimonion and tell her that the ship has a werewolf onboard. Since Dera and Sik are not in the room with them, they decide to let Dario go out quietly and gather the two of them and bring them into the room where they can all protect each other.

When Dario gets to the other room he only finds Dera, whom he convinces to join the rest of the group in the other room. Despite not finding Sik the group decides to block the door to prevent anything from entering. Rimo grimaces a bit at the barricading of the door because he still hasn't relieved himself, and it is starting to bother him.

With the one group barricaded in the room, Sik wanders back downstairs, and heads into the other room where she falls asleep. As the group discusses what to do, and what is going, Dario mentions he didn't find anything downstairs in his wanderings. Not even more stew, which he was searching for in the first place. With that the group spends the night barricaded in the room.

The following day Sik and Dario decide to go down below for food. Dario manages to finds a potato, which he tries to cook over a fire. Sik quickly stops Dario from actually lighting the fire. As Sik puts out the fire she tells Dario that they are poisonous. After a brief debate about whether potatoes are poisonous or not, the two decide to go ask the cook. The cook doesn't help much and only mentions that he cooks stew, and the potatoes are in the stew. When the cook tries to offer the two some stew, they back out and decide to eat the potato raw.

Tallorn and Rimo go topside to take care of nature's call. Quickly the two take care of their business, and go back to their room, to tend to their wounds.

After their dinner of raw potato, Sik and Dario head back to the rooms, and discuss the previous night. Upon returning to the room, Dario tells the rest of the group that the stew is the best thing to eat around, because raw potatoes taste really bad.

Sik then wanders up to the deck and tries to talk with the captain. She doesn't manage to get a crewman to show her to the captain. Failing that, Sik decides to find the captain's cabin and talk to him there. With Dario's help Sik begins knocking on doors in the hopes of finding the captain. After nothing comes of that the two decide to go back to the room and get some sleep.

Dera, Rimo and Tallorn decide to get something to eat and head down to the kitchen and get some stew. Daimonion declines to join the group for stew. After the stew, Rimo decides to supplement his meal with some fish, and manages to get a net from one of the crewmen. Rimo then heads to the front of the boat and casts the net in, despite Tallorn telling him it is not a good idea. Rimo spends the rest of the day trying unsuccessfully to catch anything while Tallorn makes sure Rimo, isn't dragged over the front of the boat.

As night falls Sik gets up and tries again to talk to the captain. Again she doesn't manage to get anywhere. Tallorn and Rimo head back to them room and crash on the bunks, while Dera also decides to call it a night. Daimonion stays up to guard the door. As Dera, Rimo and Tallorn they all have a more vivid version of the previous nights dream.

Late into the night Dario shows up after wandering around, and takes the watch from Daimonion, letting him get some sleep. Sik failing to get to talk to the captain wanders back to her room and goes to sleep. Rimo wakes up, and takes Dario's spot at the door. Dario mentions he will be shortly after he steps out to use the bathroom.

While Dario makes his way up the hallway to the steps, he spots a dark figure walking behind him heading to the stairs also. Dario presses himself up against the wall and hides in the shadows. As the figure walks past Dario, it transforms from a human into a big wolf. Dario stays in the shadows long enough for the creature to walk up the steps and catch his breath.

Before he can move on, Sik stumbles across him. Since Sik hasn't been able to get a hold of the captain, she convinces Dario to help her search for him and his room. The two begin to search through the rooms. After searching a few rooms and finding nothing, Dario opens a door to a room and gets knocked out by some gas. Sik drags Dario's body from the room after the gas dissipates. After pulling Dario from the room, Sik wanders back into the room and finding nothing, goes back out and tends to Dario.

In the morning Dario wakes up to find Sik tending to him. The rest of the group also wake up and go over to Sik and Dario's room to see how they are. Dario explains how the gas knocked him out. The group tries to figure out what to do, and as they talk things over they find a note on the door of the room they came out of. The note states that they need to get their gear together, as the journey is over. The group goes topside to find the riverboat pulling along a small set of docks.

As the group waits for the boat to make dock, Tallorn rubs the red stubble on his head and mumbles about having to shave. Rimo pulls out his dagger and twirls it around a bit. Dera notices the dagger and tries to discern what it is. All that Dera has is able to learn is that it is made of silver. Rimo quickly hides the dagger, when Dera tells him about it being made of silver.

The captain comes topside and gives his goodbyes. Sik talks to the captain, who mentions that the two of them should be stealthier in their nighttime wanderings. He then wraps his arms around Dario and mentions how lucky the group is. Only a few catch a quick glimpse of the sudden change in the captain's hand from human to wolf and back. Dario manages to catch the sight, and gets spooked by it.

The captain then waves to the group and the group waves back as they disembark the riverboat. We then all head in land to the town of Mortigny.

• Steamboat, Secrets and Stew GM Notes
• The Ravenloft Campaign home page
• The RPGuild home page