Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

Herald of the Shadow

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The Stardrinker had been cutting through calm waters since dawn, its sails full, its crew settled into the rhythmic work of the voyage. The sea, gentle and predictable, stretched in all directions, kissed by warm sunlight. It was the kind of evening that made even the most seasoned sailors feel at ease – until the winds shifted. Captain Cali adjusted her course and watched the few gulls flying above them take off in the direction they last saw land. Calling out to her crew and the party who had been helping out on deck she got them to keep a look out for trouble.

Captain Cali noticed it moments before the party did as her fingers tightening around the helm as a breath of colder air curled across the deck. The golden hues of the midday sun dimmed unnaturally, as if swallowed by something unseen. To the east, an ink-black smear darkened the horizon, creeping toward them as the clouds spread outwards like ink in water.

The crew, unaware of their captain’s tension, continued their duties but started to notice the storm. They were heading south and with some luck they would avoid the storm entirely. But luck was not on their side and despite them exchanging good-natured complaints about the incoming storm. ‘A squall?’ The second mate, Roth, scowled at the distant clouds. ‘Nothing unusual.’ Yet Cali remained silent, her gaze fixed beyond the approaching weather, beyond the shimmer of rain and the chromatic hues that the fading sun sent their way signalling the guarantee of rain with the storm to come.

Yet it wasn’t until her eyes glanced back towards the storm that her breath caught, a party member calling out to her at the same time as they both reached the same conclusion. There was a ship sailing out of the storm at a great speed towards them.

At first, it was just another silhouette against the dying light – no visible sails, no visible crew, a vessel drifting in the waves as though the ship itself was fleeing the storm. Cali exhaled sharply, stepping back from the wheel, fists clenched at her sides. It was likely propelled by the winds and seeking to escape from what they had suffered through. The sails were in fact there but a tattered mess and were dark as if fire hate ripped through them. The ship looked like it was in rough condition but somehow still sailing – whoever was still on board would likely be in just as bad shape and needing help, that is if there was anyone on board.

‘It’s here,’ she muttered, though no one had asked. When Roth appeared at her side they had a brief discussion where Cali could be seen visibly denying a request.

The party caught wind of her hesitation – Cali had shown no fear against the pirate ambush the previous day, nor had she faltered in the face of storms. But this? This sight had unsettled her and that gave them cause to be unsettled. As the dark ship drifted nearby, Cali having ordered their sails to be taken in but ready to be let loose in an instant they watched and hailed the other ship to see if there were any survivors.

The second mate, Roth, and several crew members peered over the rail and up at the larger ship, their initial curiosity melting into unease. The Stardrinker had been holding course, yet somehow, impossibly, the phantom vessel had drifted directly into their path out of the clouds that had now caught them, but there was no storm just a endless shadow as the clouds above blocked the sun. Despite them calling out to the crew that was on the ship it appeared as though the ship had made it here without sails or crew.

The bilge rat reported in and gave an update of what she had spied from the top of the mast. The dark ship had its hull and deck was blackened, not just by time, but with a sickly shade of decay, as though charred by fire that had never burned away. Ragged remnants of sails fluttered despite the stillness of the air. Its deck, deserted, was lined with skeletal rigging, coiled and waiting like the limbs of sleeping beasts.

And then, it happened.

The clouds above had caused them to light the lanterns around the deck to ensure that they had sufficient light to continue working. However slowly the lanterns dimmed, the flames flickering from a wind that none of them felt and it was as if the light was being drowned out by something stranger.

‘Turn us aside,’ Cali ordered, her voice taut with something close to dread.

Roth hesitated. ‘Captain—’

‘There is no crew,’ Cali interrupted. ‘No signs of distress. We move on.’

But sailors were creatures of superstition, and hesitation wormed its way through the crew. Some murmured about the unwritten laws of the sea and the good folk that braved the waters. The laws about answering the call of stranded vessels and for what happened to souls that were left to go mad on a ship devoid of sails or aid. Others whispered old tales of ghost ships, and the stories that surrounded them how there was a tale of a ship just like this that used to appear before calamity.

And the party? Their choice did not matter. The Stardrinker continued forward – whether by argument, by the demands of its second mate, or by the sheer will of the sea itself.

As they neared The Shadow, something shifted. The ship was no longer adrift – it was as if it watched them, waiting for aid or something else.

Then, from deep within its hull, a sound echoed – a groaning, ancient voice of wood and rigging stretching unnaturally. The ropes tightened. The shadows beneath its deck crawled.

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