Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Second Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Fearless was the ship, sails billowing as the cut through the black waves, and fearless were her crew on deck and above it, such that any sailor who would see them might think them filled with the same madness as the storm, fey lights fell upon her deck, stern and aft like onto the pale lanterns of Ikomi, though they lead not into death but life. All around you the night was black as pitch and the roll of thunder drowned out the call of desperate horns, heard now only faintly as ship sought ship and what the flash of lighting revealed was more dreadful even, ships pulled apart and smashed back together as the wind swirled now from the north, now out of the northeast and now out of the east entire, like a mad beast about its pray. The Marcella would not be snared, for its oars moved with the strength of many strong backs and its sails by eldritch power, alas that your allies could not say the same that night.

Helpless as the prow of the ship you watch two of the king's ships smash into each other, as though the storm too glee in showing it in full at the last, the sound of grinding hulls and the shouts of desperate sailors carry on the fierce wind as cold rain mingles with pummeling hail. Somewhere Inge is praying, not for an end to the storm, for that is as far out of her power as it is yours, but for healing as ropes are cast out, not all of them unloosed by mortal hands, but you only dare come so close least the wrecks tangle the Marcella too in their watery grave.

How many you save you cannot say, handfuls, perhaps a dozen or two at most, though you know each of the Anwa ships have as many as two score crew and warriors aboard. Ripper moves among the desperate sailors trying to herd them towards he ropes, but in their panic they seem to have taken it for some kind of attack and so more than one man ends up swimming away from safety to their doom. Amid the chaos lighting lashes out again, this time not branching across the sky but setting alight the mast of another longship...

"The King's ship, that's the king's ship!" Tom calls out, his voice ragged from the shouting and exertion

Though the galley starts to turn it can only move wit ponderous slowness so as not to strike either of the other ships you were in the midst of aiding. Others in the fleet had already rushed to their king's aid though, you hope, you pray that it will be enough.

Suddenly for all strange things the high hunting call of an falcon splits the night and you recognize Ohun rising above the embattled ship as lightning continues to arc all around it like the very wrath of god.

"Stay back! This is not your place! This is not your world! Back to the depths whence you came!" you hear him call out, but the storm does not break and only grows fiercer, then without warning one of the Torag longships turns madly and strikes the royal ship midway along its hull with a great crash of breaking wood.

"What in the devil!" you almost to not recognize your own voice among the din, but somehow Esha can hear you, or at the very least she guesses your mind. "Someone or something got their hooks into that helmsman and now they are using it."

Indeed by the flashing lights you see Torag sailors trying to pin one of their number down... but it is much too late for the king's ship as hail and lightning continue to fall.

The night is filled with desperate daring as ships surge to bring aboard those fallen into the sea, tattered sails and splintered wood against the sea ad sky in fury, but with every sailor pulled from the sea hope fades a little. By the dawn when the storm is spent it is clear to all aboard the Marcella dna soon to be all aboard the scattered fleet King Ansefu Osane of Lirman is lost at sea, together with much of the crew of his ship.

A weary Ohun lands on deck changing at once from eagle to man, swaying on his feet, his beard is tangled and eyes red with more than the salt spray. "They took him... they took him..."

It occurs to you then that the young king had been raised by Ohun and not just advised, for him it must be as though he had lost a son. Yet the demands of war make no allowances for grief. "How many ships are lost?" you ask softly, he had been the most aloft all morning.

"Eight, it might have been more, but the storm was bent on killing the king it seemed, a working as mighty as it was wicked. If the neverborn had enslaved sorcerers than they are spent for many days hence." There is little hope in the words.

No matter that it had cost your foe to do this they had timed the blow well and now a fleet without a king gathers, either to rally or to slink back east defeated.

Results of the storm:

• Three ships confirmed sunk
• Five ships missing
• Ten ships in need to light repairs
• King Ansefu of Lirman lost at sea

What tack do you take at the meeting of the lords?

[] Throw your support behind whichever of them seems most likely to keep the fleet together

[] Proclaim that since this was likely the malice of the enemy a holy man should lead the fleet, Ohun was regent for many years after all

[] Try to claim control yourself, the captains might not trust each other with overall command, but as a foreigner you have no stake in their affairs and only in making an end of the daemons and their puppets

[] Write in

OOC: This is what it looks like when you roll low, low and then a crit fail at the end.Still as said above the actual fleet is not that damaged if it can keep together and whoever did this cannot have done it without significant cost. Not yet edited.