As I've mentioned in a few posts, I ran a second demo for WFRP, involving regularly generated PCs and a RE Howard-inspired adventure involving a Slann laboratory, arcane transmuting device, and mutinous pirates. The party is heavy on the roleplaying and very fractious - a pair of Dwarfs (a fighter and a grumbly, scholarly type), an unhinged, conspiracy-theorist Bright wizard, a priestess of Shallya, and an estranged Waywatcher.

After the first adventure, the characters have found themselves with an armload of transmuted gold and back on the ship (a small caravel; a lateen-rigged analogue of Columbus' Nina). They sided with the ship's First Mate after a sixth "new recruit" killed the captain , and escaped the damaged laboratory with the remainder of the crew (as the island was pulled into the Realm of Chaos). This island is just south of the Arabyan peninsula, at the northern edge of the Southlands. It is just out of sight of land.

I've established a theme of teasing the supernatural, or having creepy, supernatural settings, but with antagonists that are very, firmly, mundane. Keeping that in mind, a few adventure seeds I'm working on fleshing out (story and mechanics-wise):

- Sailing challenges; the characters are not sailors, but signed up on the ship for various (mostly inebriated) reasons. Considering about half of the two-dozen strong crew died during the mutiny and escaping the Slann lab, so I'd like a few challenges that involve sailing; perhaps with other challenges laid on top.

- Dark Elf raiders; I'd like to build a few-session story arc involving the sighting and subsequent escape from a Druchii raider ship. The challenge here: figuring out *how* a half-crewed caravel escapes from a Druchii raiding ship. I'm not sure how to make this believable without the characters having to fight them… or surviving in the first place.

- Forced to shore. Perhaps a result of the above, or maybe a lack of supplies, the characters have to attempt overland travel. There is an Empire colony at the northernmost end of the Southlands' jungles; this may be a goal for them to get to, whether on foot or with the ship.

Any thoughts on how to flesh these out? In particular, I'd like to structure the whole story arc as the characters trying to survive long enough to get back to civilization, ideally with the gold they have, and pursued by *something* (likely a crew of Dark Elves trying to hunt them down). I'm stuck on how they can be aware of the Dark Elves, but have a reasonable chance of escaping them, without skewing into too much Deus Ex Machina. I'd like to keep it relatively mundane otherwise, with natural hazards, madness, and being the new guys in a skeleton crew of cuthroat pirates the primary challenges.

Have you ever seen The Pirates of Darkwater? The setting's not quite as grim as Warhammer, but it was pretty dark for a 90's cartoon. If you haven't, the heroes are on a small ship - I don't know sailing stuff too well, it was a single mast with single triangular main sail. They're being pursued by this evil pirate, who had a monster huge ship; Black Ark size. It could open a big maw on the front and swallow up smaller ships. If you can find it, there's probably a lot of material there you could use for ideas.

One time the main characters escaped the pirates by sailing into an island which was riddled with tunnels. The tunnels were too small for the huge pirate ship, so the pirates had to send out skiffs. I imagine the Dark Elves would do the same, which might be more manageable. Of course, the island was inhabited by a very isolationist group, in WH maybe a group of Elves that are content to stay on their lost island with nobody bothering them. If the PCs can manage to negotiate some kind of agreement with the inhabitants, they can escape out of the other side of the island with enough of a lead on the Dark Elves to get to the next port, or whatever.

Something that could be a sailing challenge or a way to escape the Dark Elves is an encounter with a ghost ship. Either an empty ship that the PCs could use as a distraction - maybe a fire ship to send back at the Dark Elves, or maybe as an ethereal ship that materialized for some reason. It transports them away from the Dark Elves, but to some kind Bermuda triangle place that they have to escape from.

I guess that might be too out there if you want natural hazards. So, I guess one last thing - in Warhammer sea creatures are natural hazards, so that might be something they have to deal with. And again, maybe they can somehow turn this around to there advantage and lead the Dark Elves into the sea creature in order to escape.

For some ideas, I would heartily recommend the film "Aquirre: the Wrath of God".

It's a bit artsy, but it has quite the atmosphere.

It's about a river expedition in the rainforests of south America. A group of Conquistadors, along with a priest and a few slaves (as well as the main character's daughter), go searching for Eldorado.

It was heavily inspired by the novel "Heart of Darkness", and it inspired "Apocalypse Now".

It is a tale of madness, for sure. No supernatural things, and it's pretty gritty.

Wiki:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre,_the_Wrath_of_God

Trailer (kind of corny, but you get the gist of it):

www.youtube.com/watch

Great ideas guys, thanks.

I do remember The Pirates of Dark Water; that could easily have a treasure trove of ideas. Honestly, I like all of the Dark Elf escaping ideas too; perhaps my best bet is to set up an open-ended region with a number of escape methods and tools, and leave it up to the PCs how they implement them (or fail to).

I'll also check out Aguirre and I'm reminded I could re-read Heart of Darkness.

Again, thanks.