Skulls & Plunder: The Wormwood Mutiny

The first session of the Skulls & Plunder campaign will be taking place this Sunday, August 30th, at Uncle's in Redmond Town Center. As this is a long module in a short time-frame, I am providing the introduction here in advance.
For those who might be playing the entire Skull & Shackles Adventure path, be warned! There are spoilers below the break

A Pirate's Life fer Me!

The upcoming Skulls & Plunder campaign will use two novel systems as part of the sanctioned content: Plunder, and Infamy.

In the original Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, these two concepts were introduced in the Wormwood Mutiny book, in the section called The Life of a Pirate. The sanctioned content uses these concepts in a slightly different manner.

Plunder is an abstract concept of around $1000 gp worth of otherwise useless trade goods. It does not replace the gold piece system, but some rewards in the scenarios are issued in terms of plunder. If the subject comes up, it's good to know:

Plunder: An approximation of valuable but non-useful cargo. One point of plunder is worth about 1,000 gp, and takes up 10 tons of cargo capacity, unless otherwise noted. 

BTW, your average pirate ship probably has a capacity of about 150 tons. Which leads to another point - you won't need to know that! By which I mean, since we are only playing the sanctioned content, there is no ship to ship combat, and no cargo management. I don't think I missed anything.

Now Infamy (and its younger cousin, Disrepute) is a reputation system much like Fame and Prestige in PFS. A LOT like Fame and Prestige in PFS. In the Skull & Shackles AP, you acquired Infamy by coming to port, buying everybody drinks, and bragging about your adventures. This gave you and your ship Infamy, which you could spend as Disrepute on amazing actions (like diving your pirate ship like a submarine!)

In the sanctioned content, both the Infamy you get and the things you can spend Disrepute on are defined on your Chronicle Sheet. This is true for all the Skull & Shackles books, and for the three Plunder & Peril chapters. It is also something that needs to be tracked, much like, well, Fame and Prestige.

Some additional comments. As I said above, there is no ship-to-ship combat, although there could easily be boarding parties. Moreover, the vast majority of encounters take place on land somewhere. However, there are many encounters that involve being in or under the water, so I recommend you familiarize yourself with the underwater rules on pages 432-433 of the Core rulebook.

The Champions of the Spire!

Our Emerald Spire PFS campaign, which began back in October of 2014, finished last night with the decisive defeat of the mysterious mastermind inhabiting The Emerald Root. The regular team, most of whom have been in since the Tower Ruins, finished off the epic campaign (well, at least the sanctioned parts of it) at G&G in Redmond.
From left to right:

• Michael P. aka Emerlyn Sarenthi, Cleric 6/ Evangelist 7 "oh, I'll just turn into a bird"
• Joshua D. aka Franklin Wilhegin Draigen, Brawler 13. The Dance Instructor with the Afro. "Wanna dance lesson?"
• Joshua J. aka Arahan Faldro, Paladin 13 "Franklin, how much of your damage do I take?"
• Duncan D. aka The Grim MacKay. Me. The GM. "Damn witches!"
• Mark T. aka Chalwinder Tuttle, Esq., Bard 2/ Rogue 4/ Inquisitor 7. "31. I'm first"
• Marcus M. aka Snaedis, damn Witch 13, "Nope, no save"
• Mark L. aka Etari the Slayer, eh, Slayer 13, "let's see... that's 146 damage on the first shot..."

Congratulations to everyone, and thanks for being such a great table!

What our team learned last night:
** Warning! Spoilers below the jump **

The Emerald Spire - Level 16 : The Emerald Root

The Grande Finale : August 5th

Next Wednesday will present the penultimate chapter of the Emerald Spire campaign, as our intrepid party of Pathfinders descend to their final confrontation with the Unknown Entity at the root of the Emerald Spire.

This campaign, which began in October of 2014, draws to its conclusion in this, the Final Chapter. Will the team survive? What final mysteries await?

Coming Soon

For Season 7, I'll be running a Shackles campaign based on a mash-up between the Skull & Shackles adventure path, the Plunder & Peril sanctioned module, and assorted modules or scenarios to fill in the gaps.
Part of the reason I think Adventure Paths are hard to keep up in PFS is because the level ranges associated with the sanctioned content leave big gaps that the players have to fill in between the AP sessions. This almost never happens, which explains why I have so many first-module AP Chronicles and no second ones. I hope to offset this with a carefully planned set of inter-connected adventures that takes a character from 3rd level to 13th level, accounting for all levels in between. I haven't quite worked out all the kinks yet, but I'm close.
Of course, I am waiting until after I have finished the Season Six Campaign, the Emerald Spire. The last session of the Spire is scheduled for August 5th. The first S&P module, the Wormwood Mutiny, will take place on August 30th, the MOD (module) day at Uncles. Then once a month on MOD day - with perhaps some adjustments around the November and December holidays.
More to follow...