It's Kofee

Jyushimatsu's Summer Diary Entry - September 9th (x)

My rough translation of it:

Jyushimatsu here. I am writing a picture diary of my summer vacation. Summer is almost over, but it's still hot outside. Karamatsu-niisan gave me water though, so I can do my usual 100 practice swings by the riverside without worry. After coming home, one of my cherished daily routines is listening to everyone's conversations in front of the fan. Ah, right now they're talking about heading to the public bathhouse. The ramen we had on the way home the other day was really delicious, I hope we can all eat it together again.

Props for a Ghosts of Antikythera inspired, puzzle focused, ttrpg one-shot!

And invisible ink!

The Captain, haunted by choices they made to protect their crew (based on AJ Griffon) You made a deal with a ghost many years ago in order to protect your ship and crew as you fought for the Union. The price you had to pay was a favored owed to the ghost, to be redeemed sometime in the future. But the years have passed and he still hasn't return. Just as you were starting to think that it was all a dream, the ghost appeared again, and demanded that you enter the ghost ship. Though you have your doubts, you are worried that he may hurt your crew if you do no obey. And if anything were to happen to your crew, your ship, or your equipment, you would be stranded with no way back to shore.

The Survivor, searching for family lost long ago (Kind of Anna and also a bit of Addison): When you were young, you survived a shipwreck. Too young to really remember the details, but your parent had been the captain of the Antikythera. You had been in your room when it happened, something shook the ship, though you heard no storm. You hid under your bed, frightened by the dark fog that had descended on an otherwise bright and clear day. When you emerged, there was no one on board. No trace of their bodies, all the lifeboats left intact. Alone, with little sailing knowledge, it was only by luck that you managed to hail another vessel. They took you in and selected a prize crew to sail your ship back to port. But in the night, a fog rose up. Though your ship rang it's bell, signaling it was near, as the night went on it suddenly stopped, no longer answering the call. And by the morning it was gone. In the years past, you've struggled, but survived. But you never forgot what happened, and every few years you scrap together coin (or stoaway) to sail back to the sea where you lost your family, in hopes of finding answers. (I let the player name their parents so we have Captain Leah and Nirav)

The Scientist, out to shed light on the mysteries of the world (based on John Herschel): You are a person of science. An astronomer, specifically, though you dabble in many different fields. You believe only what you can see and are proud of your accomplishments, having won awards for your work and discoveries. However, a newspaper article was published recently where an anonymous author going by the pseudonym Anna Graem claimed you had discovered life on the moon. People, to your surprise, believed it! You've been fending off strangers clamoring to get a look through your telescope, all while the other scientists shake their heads at you for even daring to make such a claim with so little proof. You have to clear your name, and have started tackling the realm of myth and magic, disproving the various conspiracies. Next on your list is the fable of the ghost ship. Armed with the knowledge of the mirage known as Fata Morgana, which can make ships appear to float above the horizon line, you are confident you will solve this case. The supernatural can't hurt you once the light of science is shown on it. But… if the rules of nature you've relied on all your life fall apart, how would you react?

And then our Journalist was sick and not able to come, so I gave the Scientist a bit more lore to make up for it.

As you were a few days into your journey, a man you had not seen before offered you a drink of rum. You refused him, as you did not recognize him as crew or passenger on your small vessel. He scoffed at you, and insulted you, saying you are only an observer in your own story, here to document instead of act. Do you begin to doubt yourself, and your place amongst the rest of the party? Or do you set out to prove him wrong, that you have an important part to play?

The Journalist, searching for a sensational story that stretches the truth (based on Rose and Samuel Stratford): You work for a newspaper in New York, writing weekly columns of news. But you've always yearned for something more than the boring reports about the weather. You've slipped in fictional accounts to some of your papers (under the pseudonym Anna Graem), and when you do they always sell well. Recently, you wrote a story using a renowned astronomer's name, where you claimed there was life on the moon. Many believed it to be true, and got promoted, however it seems the astronomer was not too happy about you slandering their name. But the ludicrous story did amazingly. You never expected people to believe it quite as much as they did. You have pushed the boundaries of the unimaginable, and are out searching for an even more sensational story.

The Merchant, who can sell navigation gear for a pretty penny (oc, I had five players and this seemed fitting): You are not just any merchant, but a peddler of magical goods. Though many believe these stories false, you have laid eyes on them yourself. A bag, which always had bread and water for a day's journey, thread that darted in and out of the fabric on it's own, a gold ring that duplicates itself. But you also know that holding onto such items for too long brings bad luck. You have seen many in your life perish, or more often, simply vanish, like the premier seller of the occult before you, Nirav. Magic begets magic, and few spirits of this world are friendly. But as long as you are cautious and careful, and pass them along quickly to buyers who all too happy to pay a pretty penny for a piece of the arcane, you can make yourself quite wealthy. One particular buyer has been searching for somekind of naviagtion gear, and has paid hansomly for even the mundane items you've managed to recover. Though, thinking about it, your not sure you've ever learned this man's name, but you always recognzied him by the smell of rum on his breathe.

I didn't include a character based on Margaret, because her mystery would've taken a lot longer to solve than a one-shot.

I used the Vaesen system for this, which is set in 19th century Scandinavia where folkloric creatures are real. None of the PCs have magic, but all of them have the Sight, and are able to perceive the spirits of the world. Here are their classes:

Captain: Officer

Survivor: Vagabond

Scientist: Academic

Journalist: Writer

Merchant: Private Detective

(This is a test version of the rum, but it's the best photo I have of it.) So every time they failed, or time traveled, I would pour out some rum. At each threshold something bad happened.

1: The fog rolls in.

2: The fog covers the ship, blocking the portholes and dimming your light. Even your lanturn seems affected by this unnatural darkness. -1 die on each Investigation test. (Also the Journalist got taken by the fog. I made her an NPC that just followed the Scientist around.)

3: The fog grows cold. It chills you to the bone. Take 1 Physical Condition.

4: A humming song emerges from the cloud and you swear you can see a figure floating within. Despite it's mundane nature, you believe the fog must be sentient. Make a Fear test of 2. On failure, take a Mental Condition.

Puzzle time!

The first puzzle was to enter the Captain's Quarters, which were locked.

Engraved on the side of one of the cannons, was NGC 6164. And in the Crew's Quarters there was morse code. Ringing NGC 6164 in morse code on the ship's bell unlocked the trapdoor to enter the hold. In the lifeboats, they found a puzzle, which put together forms the constellation Ursa Major. In the hold, there were 18 piece of mahogany (toothpicks) that needed to be arranged like the constellation. Doing so brought some magic to life, as blue light surrounded the ship. One of the floorboards loosened, and inside was a key to the Captain's Quarters.

The Captain's Quarters had a bear skull on the wall, a blank journal, and the orrery. Touching the orrery transported them back in time, to an alternate version of the ship.

In the past, they find pieces of a cube. Once put together, the cube finishes a piece of art in the Present. This gives them a bag of money where the copper pieces are triangle shaped, silver a square, and gold a circle. This matched some shapes under the Ship's Bell in the Past that were aligned under the date, so 8 copper, 2 silver, and 5 gold on one side, and 18 copper, 1 silver, 5 gold on the other. These are put into scales in the Past Quartermaster's Quarters to get a key to chest in the Past Captain's Quarters. Inside the chest is a cypher, used to translate runes into letters.

The main puzzle, needed to understand the ghost, starts with the names of cows in the Past. (The map I used had cows. So of course I had to do something with them.) They were named Taurus and Boötes. In the Captain's Quarters they found info on the constellations, including that one of the stars in Boötes is Arcturus, the guardian of the bear, which is the code to get into the feed for the cows in the Present. The feed has two pieces of rope, which had to be tied together to match a knot in the Past. This lowered the flag, a blazing sun on dark blue, not belonging to any nation or country. The anchor is in the water in the Past, and needs to be pulled up by using the capstan, though it is missing the large pieces of wood used rotate it. The mahogany is the key. On the anchor is a whole bunch of runes. Layer the flag over it tells the players which they actually have to decode. The cypher key for this is found in the Present Quartermaster's Quarters, where they needed to input each of their character's Resources, or level of wealth. The character sheets are labeled 1-5 so they had the order to put them in. Inside a drawer was a rune and the letter B. Lining them up on the cypher and decoding the anchor gets them "Mix gunpowder into rum." They do so with the Present Barrels to get a box with a four digit code. The code comes from the number of each color of ropes in the Present. And the order is hidden on the back of a puzzle box they got from arranging the Past Barrels into an order determined by hidden symbols on their character sheets associated with the main ability scores. Inside the puzzle box was matches, that can be used to light a lantern, and on the back of one of the parts was the order of colors. The rope color code unlocked a box which had a map of how to arrange to orrery to travel to a specific date when St. Elmo's fire, an electrical phenomenon that makes the tips of masts glow a blue-purple, appeared. This unlocked the UV lights needed to read invisible ink.

The invisible ink could be used to read the Captain's Journal:

"Log of Capatin Leah, Searcher ship: Antikythera

January 1st, 1874, 100 miles off the coast of the Empire of Brazil. 25 degrees south, 43 degrees west, weather foggy

Wards are holding. Don't drink any liquor it gives you. It's able to track you through it. Lucas lit it on fire, and that stopped it for a while, though it cost his life as well. Selling the treasure as soon as we reach port, cursed thing. But it cost too much already, I won't bail out now. Treasure's in a lead box. That might hide it for a while, but we still have several weeks left in our journey. I'd be a fool to think our cover will last that long.

It's not like any ghost I've seen before. It's not tied to one location or has a body that need burying. Fire hurts it, maybe we just need more? But Lucas' flame filled the whole cave where we found it. Perhaps multiple, smaller flames? I've heard that's a way to kill spirits, by tricking them into passing through three fire."

This is the info they need to permanently banish Kal. I also used the name Lucas, because one player has expressed interest in listening to Pulp and I couldn't spoil who dies for them. The rest of the puzzles are extra bonuses in the final fight.

The lantern is acquired from the Figurehead in the Past (who looks a lot like a younger Survivor) and can be lit with the matches. There was also a compass with symbol next to each direction, which matched symbols on the bottom of the lantern. They turned the Helm to each direction in order, and got a cypher key. This was used to decode an invisible ink set of runes found in the Past Lifeboat, which read "How to make bomb." And rewarded them with a Handmade Grenade they could use in the final fight.

In the Present Crow's Nest, they found broken lanterns and a shrine to St. Elmo. Each had a symbol on the bottom of it, which was hidden on their character sheets in invisible ink. (This was my favorite part, seeing them realize it was right in front of them all along.) This revealed a hidden chamber in one of the figures of St. Elmo, that told them how to trigger protection wards on the ship, by letting it sink deep enough. Right before the final fight, they rammed a canon into the side of the ship to make a hole, triggering the wards before it could sink entirely, and the magic lifted the boat out of the water as well as negated some damage Kal would do to them.

On the Figurehead in the Present, a bear's tooth necklace could be found, that matched one the Survivor owns. (Addison has one line about bears, and I ran with it.) Putting the necklace into the skull in the Present Captain's Quarter's made the jaw open, revealing a Pistol. And on the item card, in invisible ink was info about silver bullets, which do extra damage to spirits.

Finally, the canons in the past have symbols of the zodiac, which matched buttons found on the Present Porthole. Pressing them in order got them a way to turn the helm, which had a card that read "My breathe to you." In invisible ink, the Y of My became a rune, and the U was underlines, making another cypher key. This decodes some runes on the Present Anchor that say "The ordinance of brightness to you." This gave them The Radiance, and negated the darkness that would penalize their accuracy in the fight.

Combat in Vaesen is fast and deadly, as PCs basically only have 3 hp. And I'm also new to this system and still figuring out how the monster stat blocks work.

The Survivor went down pretty quickly, but in doing so started a major fire with the grenade, and unlocked the silver bullets. The Captain became Terrified at some point, and could no longer strategize, but by just shooting widely, they did a lot of damage. The Scientist set a walking stick on fire and threw it at Kal, while the Merchant started more fires. Eventually they were able to destroy Kal, and the fog dispersed, letting the Ellen Austin find them.

My GM guide of how all the puzzles flow together.

@paperstarry for the top left, @kofeedoggo for the top right, @starry-skiez for bottom left, and @alien-til-i-stage for bottom right

@apple8ees for top left, siphri on artfight for top right, @billfrancois for bottom left, and circus of seraphim for bottom right

current batch of artfight attacks :3

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