After a night of partying in the Maid’s Promise, a popular tavern for sailors of ill repute, our adventurers find themselves in the dark hold of a pirate ship. While the adventurers are getting to know eachother, the Catfolk oracle, Henshu “Jag”, the half elven barbarian Swash “The Buckler”, the enigmatic alchemist Peglegged Singebrows, and the sly halfling rogue Limey Watermellony are roughly greeted by Master Scourge, who takes a disliking to the party immediately, but a particular dislike to the Half-elf.
After they reluctantly follow the master-at-arms to the deck, they learn they are on Barnabas Harrigan’s ship The Wormwood. As new recruits, they are assigned jobs. Hanshu easily completes the first test, which was to climb the rigging, so he is one of the new riggers. Plugg assigns the alchemist to work in the galley with Ambrose “Fishguts” Kroop, the ship’s drunken cook, while Swash and Limey are assigned to swab duty.
During her first shift, Limey shirks her work and attempts to get some of her stuff back from the quartermaster Cut-throat Grok. After annoying Cut-throat who orders her to get back to work, the work day is finished.
On the wormwood, during the setting of the sun is an event known as “The Bloody Hour” where everyone who has failed in their duties is punished. One member of the crew, Jakes Magpie, is dragged up from the bilges, and sentenced to keelhauling for stealing from the quartermaster. The party watches in horror as he is dragged screaming down the side of the ship, and into the water where his screams are abruptly stopped. As the minutes pass on, the party sees a bloody mess of a body come up the other side of the ship. Jakes’ body is cut loose and thrown to the sharks.
That night, the party is taking part in the night’s festivities which include gambling and drinking. A beautiful woman named Sandara Quinn introduces herself to the party and lets them know that she is a friend of theirs, and is also the ship’s healer, who the Oracle wishes to apprentice under. Everyone else heads off to bed.
The next morning, Master Scourge had a surprise waiting for the new recruits, where he sends four crew members down to rough them up. During the fisticuffs between the party and these pirates, Swash enters a rage and rips the arm off one of the pirates, killing him. Two of the remaining three pirates turn to run but are knocked out by the rogue, while the third draws a knife and charges Swash. The barbarian still enraged swings the arm he was holding at the pirate knocking him full force into the bulkhead, killing him.
After the party calms Swash, they discuss what to do about the bodies, since the punishment for murder is keelhauling. As they are discussing, Quinn notices they haven’t made it on deck and Scourge has a satisfied look on his face, so she goes looking for them. As she comes down the stairs into the crew’s quarters she sees the armless body of one of the pirates, and the other dead pirate crumbled against the wall. She listens to their story about what happened and decides to corroborate their story of self defense to Scourge and Plugg.
When the party and Quinn come back onto the deck, Scourge interrogates them, and Swash relates his story. The captain comes out on deck and demands to know why work is not being performed. Scourge attempts to tell the captain what happened but Swash beats him too it and says, “Two of your crew members committed suicide by attacking me, a berserker.” Outraged by this insubordination, Scourge sentences Swash to 8 hours in the sweat box followed by keelhauling at the end of the day.
After surviving the eight hours in the sweat box, Swash is keelhauled, not only surviving it, coming up the other side conscious and proud. Everyone claimed he was blessed by Besmara, the goddess of pirates and sea monsters. That night, Grok challenged Swash to a game of heave, where both parties chug half a pint of rum and the first one to collapse loses. Swash out drinks the half-orc and gains her respect.
Thus ends the first two days on the Wormwood
Skull and Shackles Journals 