The Hunt for Din-Din

 A song put together by Gan and his Chroniclers, sung to a rather familiar folk tune, and celebrating the action of a recent expedition aboard ship (and earning Gan 100 xp per level):

Just sit right back, and hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip.

It started in Cothon-Gadeed,

Aboard the Darkwing ship.

Upon the deck stood Durham tall,

And Telman, sodden drunk.

With garum, wine, and passengers

They made for Baldeshum.

The weather started getting rough,

The galley she was tossed!

If not for the fearless helmsman, Gan,

The Darkwing would be lost!

But the privateer made port on time,

The cargo turned much gold!

Repairs were made, and the crew rejoiced,

The hunt would soon turn bold!

With Bartholomew – a wizard fair,

And Heijo – hands most stained.

With Fa Min, Demitritus, and Lars

A din-din would be slain.

As Darkwing made the southern reef,

The ship, she was attacked.

Her hull was gnawed by giant crabs,

But her keel it would not crack!

Bart unleashed the arcane arts,

He turned some foes to crows.

As Lars jammed spears into their eyes

And squarely up their nose!

Eaters, muagh, and din-din large

Assailed this mighty crew.

But Durham, Telman, and the rest

Prevailed as heroes do!

The Darkwing headed home again,

East to Cothon-Gadeed.

And now she docks beside the Hanse,

All hail her mighty deeds!

Session #101: A Pleasure Cruise with Dindins

With a quick uptake on Telman of Tsipa's suggestion, Durham gathered together a company to venture forth with the Hanseatic hero on the decks of the Darkwing. Their mission? To hunt dindins that were said to be attacking fishermen and pearl divers in the bay to the west, somewhat between Cothon, Ittiyqa, and the island town of Baldashmun.

As part of their organization for this expedition, Telman helped the company select some fine garum and delicate wines destined for Ittiyqa and Baldashmun, to make a little extra cash (and allow the scribes to test the trading system in a certain ruleset again). The company was further surprised to find as they were boarding and stowing their gear that Mai'in Khoresha, Telman's pretty dancing-girl catch, was also boarding with all of her toiletries, and that she would continue to hang on Telman's arms throughout.

• Bartholomew Pettibone (magic-user 9)
  accompanied by Gan ad'Din (fighting-man 7)
• Durham (fighting-man 8)
  accompanied by Lars Ghar-rider (magic-user 5)
• Fa Min (elementalist 3)
  accompanied by Demitrytus (fighting-man 1)
• Heijo (magic-user 6)
• Telman of Tsipa (fighting-man 6)
  accompanied by Mai'in Khoresha (dancing girl)

The group returned ten days later after what they tell as quite a voyage for such a comparatively short trip. After selling their garum in Baldashmun, the ship was caught by a squall just out of port which drove them north several days before the wind finally shifted and allowed them to tack southwest and make Ittiyqa. Offloading the wine there, they continued south to the village of Isfax, where they picked up the fisherwoman Muneera as a kind of guide. This Muneera was able to guide the ship to a length of reefs that is both rich in the large katru shellfish that provide pearls, but also in the deadly-toothed dindins, great bone-armored predator fishes. And lo! A number appeared, the very quarry the company had set out to hunt--yet after a sharp battle, the dindins fled, leaving the party injured and Muneera's body in literal tatters.

Bart made sure to preserve what he could of Muneera, and on their return to Cothon, he was able to revive her with certain rites that he has learned, so that she may eventually return to her village with her life, even if still badly scarred.

Two accounts are available, one in song by Gan ad-Din and the Chroniclers, the other by Bartholomew Pettibone which goes into greater detail.

Bart's charts for the voyage

the Lucre

• 2507 dinars (gp) in net profits from trade goods sold in Baldashmun and Ittiyqa

the Learning

• 2507 from net profits
• 322 xp from x1 mu'agh (300 + hp)
• 162 xp from x1 krua (150 + hp)
• 1073 xp from x5 "boat-eaters" (200 + hp ea.)
• 463 xp from x3 large dindins (800 + hp ea., but halved because the encounter was cut short)
• 300 xp to each character for exploration

the Cut

• 314 dinars each to Bart, Durham, Fa Min, and Heijo
  characters may apportion to retainers as they desire, but the original agreement for cargo was between those four
• 1432 xp each to Bart, Durham, Fa Min, and Heijo
  716 xp each to Gan, Lars, and Demitrytus

As always, players may write up or draw an in-character report or depiction of events during this expedition for 100 xp per level.

The Darkwing

Not quite two months ago, a company of barbarians (with citizen-Sesel in their midst) managed to seize the pirate galley Darkwing from the hidden fortress carved into the living rock of the Ocean's Throat caves. As to the fate of the fort, that will be dealt with in a subsequent post; suffice it to say that Durham of the Ringing Anvil has invested it with renyu of the Wasgo Tribe.

This post however is about the Darkwing and about the cargo that was secured in her hold at the same time:

Registration and Wharfage

As noted by Bartholomew Pettibone when he and his companions captured her, the Darkwing must be registered at a particular harbor in order to take part in any kind of official trade. Though it need not be the harbor of Cothon, that would seem the most convenient, as it is the base of operations of those who now possess the galley.

To register a ship in Cothon costs 75 dinars (gp), which is an annual fee (and so would not need to be paid again until next year (month depending on when exactly the fee is paid).

Furthermore, holding a ship in the harbor costs wharfage fees, assessed per foot of ship's length. In Cothon, wharfage costs 7 dirhams (sp) per foot of shiplength per day, which for the Darkwing, on the lighter side at 60 feet, would cost 420 dirhams, i.e. 42 dinars, per day.

Fortunately regarding wharfage, however, the party decided to dock the Darkwing at the quays of the Kantor Kabljauhof, and they are happy to waive the normal wharfage fees for six months in gratitude for help in seizing the pirate ship--and the Ocean's Throat fort as well! Which is to say, at the beginning of April next year the Darkwing will be assessed normal wharfage fees per day, so long as she remains docked there; and Cothon will assess the same, if she chooses to dock in the public harbor.

The Cargo

Meanwhile, seized at the same time as the galley was her cargo of pirated goods, which came with her into Cothon, to be offloaded and inventoried there. In this case--again, seeking to win goodwill from the company and from Durham particularly--the Kantor agreed to hold the cargo in their warehouses without fee, while someone from the adventuring-company looked through registrations, cargo manifests, and lading histories to attempt to find the former owners of the various goods, presumably so that they could be returned.

(The "bonding fees" that the Kantor is waiving would amount to 1% of the declared dinar-value of the goods being stored per month)

Sesel, Voice of the Survivors, asked his friend Gan (no relation to Gan ad-Din) to assist in this task, and this is what Gan was able to discover:

• the case of fine ivory was identified as being imported by the Banu Hanbal, a merchant-house
• the two cords of tiu wood was likewise being imported by Banu al Saddiyas, one of the greater houses
• half of the ingots of common metal--20 altogether--were being exported to the city of Ittiyqa (another in the Ten Cities League) by the Banu Baraqi (commonly called Barcidae)
• the 5 "ingots" of chlen-hide were being exported by the Guild of Alchemists (associated with the tavern Cothon-Under-Star), also to Ittiyqa
• and the 3 crates of weapons were being imported by the Banu al Dawr--possibly to replace those lost by their servitors on expeditions into "the Facility"?

The rest of the cargo was perhaps moving to and from ports other than Cothon, and no relevant records seem to exist here to point out where or to whom they might belong. Given that this is the case, with the permission of the harbormaster and the city's market-officers, is agreed that the party can dispose of the remaining goods as if they were the party's own. If within the next year, someone comes forward with a reasonable claim that they really were the original owners--something that can be shown in court--then the party must surrender to them the goods, or half of any money they got from the sale (though this last eventuality is highly unlikely at this point).

To sell the cargo in the market will require hiring the Guild of Longshoremen to transport it, and then a fee paid to the assessors of the market on behalf of the Souffets. The remaining cargo (12 bundles of furs, 20 bags of textiles, 20 ingots of common metals, 10 barrels of ale, 40 sacks of hops, 15 barrels of fish) would require an unlading fee of 42 dirhams (3 dirhams per "tun" ... the Scribes admit to fudging on the precise amount of "tunnage" here). Then to sell it, the fee paid to the assessors (the "hawking fee") would be 9% of the total value of the goods (the idea being that you declare the value of the goods at the price you bought them--or lower?--and then negotiate for higher sale prices). Altogether, as inventoried by Gan, the value would be 4450 dinars if everything were to be sold, which would be assessed a hawking fee of 401 dinars.

These fees would all change assessment according to just what was taken to market by the company--if anything--and that is up to their discretion.

Assuming that the company elects to sell something in the market, it will require someone to use their downtime for the week essentially to find the right buyer--with the goods divided according to their nature, and requiring a roll per "type" (i.e. fish and beer could be sold together as "foodstuffs", the furs could be sold as a lot, &c.).

Of course, the cargo doesn't have to be sold. It could be disposed of in other ways--supplies for the Wasgo, metals used by the workshops at the Ringing Anvil or Crag Keep, &c. &c. It's up to the company to decide how to proceed.

A note--future cargos will probably be handled a bit differently, especially on their breakdown into lots and goods, but I worked this cargo up before getting The Pilot's Almanac (from Columbia Games). The hawking, lading/unlading, and bonding fees will all remain, however.

And What's Next??

If registered, the Darkwing could be used by her owners as a source of income--cargos could be bought to fill her holds, destined for nearby ports, and thus to ply the trade routes to Nous, Ittiyqa, or elsewhere. They would only need to hire a crew, a captain, and a pilot (or some one of them could captain the ship himself or herself), and then spend downtime securing a cargo--and off she would sail, hopefully to bring in a reasonable income!

Otherwise, she would also make a fine platform to adventure to parts distant from Cothon--to the Denyan Isles, for instance, or west following the codices of Hamdi the Voyager!

Or if strapped for cash, they could sell the ship--she would certainly fetch a price exceeding 30,000 dinars, which is nothing to laugh at ... though the Scribes suspect somehow that this will not be the final decision.

Ultimately, it's up to the company to decide just what to do with their prize ...