Plot Summary
Adventure starts in the town of Bayview (or any reasonably sized seaside town). There have been some recent reports of werewolf attacks near the town. Characters may have been hired to investigate or they may be arriving in town on board another ship, or overland.
About a year ago, Shaughna the Selkie was captured by pirates, The captain of the pirate ship stole Shaughna’s seal skin and hid it in a secret location in his cabin. The same night the pirates attacked another ship that had a family of werewolves on board. The captain of the pirate ship was killed, and many other pirates were killed or injured fighting the werewolves. Shaughna escaped overboard and made her way to the outskirts of the town of Bayview to the Sleeping Seal Inn, where she has been working for the last year. She was not able to recover her seal skin before escaping. It remains on board the pirate ship, although none of the surviving pirates know that it is hidden on board, or know where the secret compartment in the captain’s quarters is.
The surviving pirates carefully watched their injured crewmates, any of them that appeared to be turning into werewolves the next night were thrown overboard. Several of them managed to make it to shore and have now wandered into the vicinity of Bayview as well. They have not yet developed the control needed to master the shapechanging and have attacked several people in the vicinity of the town over the last three months.
The next full moon is approaching and the townsfolk have enlisted the services of a Werewolf hunter to help track down the attackers. (This could be a PC or an NPC)
The hunter has amulet (or sword) which detects shapeshifters. A major part
of the plot will be the misidentification of Shaughna as a being a werewolf.
This will likely have already occurred if the Werewolf hunter is an NPC.
There are several factors that lead to the misidentification.
The amulet does not distinguish between different types of shape shifters.
Because werewolves are being looked for, anyone that the amulet identifies
will immediately be suspected as being a werewolf.
A few people in town know the story of how Shaughna simply showed up naked
and shivering at the Sleeping Seal Inn at dawn after the night of a full moon.
Either by tracking Shaughna or by talking to some of the townsfolk, particularly
any of the young men that have been besotted by Shaughna, the P.C.’s
will discover that Shaugna always seems to be missing when the moon is full.
Shaughna does disappear during the nights that the moon is full, she meets other selkies that come to the beaches those nights to dance and frolick. To add to the suspicion, anyone successfully following her will see her removing her clothing and carefully hiding it once she has left the town proper and before she goes to the beach to meet the other selkies. To complicate the plot, it would be good to have the players lose track of Shaughna before she meets the other selkies. This event will take place late in the first half of the adventure and can be adjusted as needed.
Being a selkie, Shaughna in her human form is very beautiful and almost irresistible
to normal humans (see page xx for details). As a result, several of the men
in town have become enamored with her. This can be played up for some fairly
humorous encounters.
Early in the adventure, Shaughna should fall for one of the Player Characters,
inciting jealousy among NPC’s (and possibly other PC’s) who have
been charmed by Shaughna. However, most of the competitors for her affection
will have skills/connections/items that could be very useful in the overall
goal of retrieving her Seal Skin. A further complication will be that some
of the NPC’s, if they discover Shaughna’s true nature will want
to keep the seal skin themselves and use it to control Shaughna.
The adventure breaks into two major but related parts. One is tracking down
and dealing with the Werewolves, the second is recovering Shaughna’s
seal skin. As part of the second half of the adventure, the characters will
need to locate the pirates, get on board the ship and find the hidden compartment
where the seal skin is hidden. This will be made much easier if the PC’s
are clever enough and skilled enough to capture rather than kill one or more
of the werewolves.
The best plan would likely be to locate the Pirates base, wait until the ship
is docked, then sneak on board and try and locate the Seal Skin. Another, more
dangerous, option would be to attack the pirate ship while it is under sail
and try and capture it. Or possibly sneak on board somehow while it is sailing.
Of course this plan requires another ship. The pirate’s base is on an
island, four or five days travel by ship. It is also possible to travel overland
to a point where a smaller boat, a small sailboat or perhaps a rowboat, can
be used to cross over to the island.
There is another ship in port, possibly the one the characters arrived on.
The crew of this ship has captured a Mermaid. The party could rescue the mermaid
and acquire help from her later to track down the pirates. To add a complication.
However, if the party plans to take on the pirate ship at sea, this ship is
the only one in port of a suitable size to find/fight pirates. The party would
have to convince the ship crew to do this. Perhaps the crew has been previously
attacked by the pirates? It may even be the same ship that the werewolves were
on a year ago.
Party members would need to be careful and clever to be able to rescue the
mermaid and still be able to keep ship crew as allies.
NPC's
Necromancer/ Weather Wizard – working in bar as well, in disguise,
bounty on him as he messed up on a contract, instead just bringing rain to
a particular
area, accidentally summoned a great storm and nearly destroyed the town.
He is fairly young, posing as a barkeep and is enamoured by Shaughna. He could
be fairly helpful in battling the pirates, but if he finds out she is a selkie,
he is the sort that would want to retrieve the seal skin for himself and
use
it to get control over Shaughna.
Randel (thief) – From a larger city, sent to set up a protection racket in Bayview. He should be getting protection money from owners of Sleeping Seal, but gets repeatedly charmed by Shaughna.
The Sleeping Seal is owned by Laural and Patrick Vargus
The Sleeping Seal is the better Inn in town, it is actually located slightly
outside of town, on the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.
Another Inn in town is the Drunken Dolphin, located closer to the docks.
(This adventure was inspired by an adventure that I ran for my gaming group
that made use of material in Citybook II - Port o' Call by Flying Buffalo
Inc.)