The Old Lands - Session 11 - 6/16/2025

🪨 Session 11 – “The Stormbreaker Sets Sail”

Date: 5/19/2025
Location: The seas surrounding Somnuria, Kartotem, Mount Vaelthrax, Drowsbridge, the Glass Coast
Session Theme: Personal Legacies & Trauma, Growing Alliances, Prophecy & Bad Omens

📜 Session Recap

The Stormbreaker sliced through black waters like a blade dragged across parchment soaked in ink and prophecy. After the seismic fallout of Kartotem’s liberation and the fall of Varrik, the party turned their sights to the mysteries of the East—toward the Glass Coast and the ruins of two forgotten cities. But between them and their next divine entanglement lay a ship filled with sinners, saints, and sea-hymns… and the slow unraveling of self.

⚓ The Storm Breaker and Its Crew of Heretics

The Storm Breaker isn’t just a ship—it’s a floating shrine to karmic entropy. Every soul aboard carries their own hymn of sin and strange redemption. There’s Gianni “No-Shoes” Feretti, who refuses boots so he can “feel the sins of the deck,” and Salvatore “Meatball” Russo, a bonesetter cook who applies poultices with prayer beads and a meat tenderizer. Babyblade Mancuso, Big Wheels Castellano, Hexy V Romano—all operatives in shadow and devotion, singing Ainheria chants as they haul rigging and polish ballistae.

Even Uncle Dino, a demented exorcist who sleeps in the cargo net, seems haunted by premonitions. When he whispers Ainheria hymns backward, the wind dies.

Among them, the party finds strange comfort.

The eccentric crew of the Stormbreaker

⚓ Stormbreaker Crew – Black Church Manifest

Name	Role	Notes
Gianni “No-Shoes” Feretti	First Mate	Gruff ex-smuggler with a karmic debt obsession. Never wears boots—claims he “needs to feel the sins of the deck.”
Angelina “Babyblade” Mancuso	Boatswain	Wild-eyed woman with a jagged dagger always on her hip. Good with knots, better with throat-slits. Claims to have “cleansed” 43 sinners personally.
Nicky Vellone	Navigator	Part-time astrologer, part-time conspiracy theorist. Paints maps in blood, insists the constellations whisper to him.
Salvatore “Meatball” Russo	Ship's Cook & Bonesetter	Sweats constantly. Makes incredible voidfish stew. Applies medical aid with a meat tenderizer and prayer beads.
Tina “Two-Times” De Luca	Quartermaster	Always repeats herself. Smart with supplies and even smarter with blackmail. Keeps secret ledgers encoded with Ainheria hymns.
Lorenzo “The Lint” Basile	Crow's Nest Watch	Small, wiry, high as hell on spore powder. Once saw a dragon and wrote it a love poem. Only sleeps in sails.
Carmella Grimaldi	Sigilist & Shrinekepper	Keeps a portable altar to Ansil in her hammock. Secretly dates a revenant in the hold. Known to chant when angry.
Franco “Big Wheels” Castellano	Helmsman	Drives the Stormbreaker like it’s a chariot of the gods. Ripped, shirtless, greasy hair. Wears a rosary chain of teeth.
Mikey “Pipes” Mancini	Deckhand / War-chanter	Muscles, veins, and a voice like gravel. Leads the ship’s hymns with aggressive vibrato. Constantly flexing.
Vanessa “Hexy V” Romano	Artillery Lead	Handles the ballistae and alchemical charges. Swears constantly. Wears false nails made of voidglass and is banned from prayer time.

🪶 Optional Additions:

Pasquale “Rattail” Moretti – Replacement deckhand, suspiciously good at not being seen, possibly owes Bast the Untethered 6 favors and one life.

“Uncle Dino” Bellamo – Elderly exorcist with dementia and uncanny knowledge of ancient ship spirits. Sleeps in the cargo net, mutters Ainheria hymns backward.

The Stormbreaker and its crew embody a beautifully grim mosaic of redemption, fanaticism, and chaos, tied together by Black Church mysticism and nautical fatalism. Here are some of the central themes:

1. Karmic Burden & Redemption

Many crew members carry the weight of sins, debts, or past lives. Their roles aren’t just functional—they’re spiritual penance:

• Gianni “No-Shoes” Feretti feels sins physically through the deck.

• Angelina “Babyblade” seeks karmic purification through violence.

• Carmella Grimaldi sleeps beside a portable altar.

• Uncle Dino Bellamo mutters hymns backward—tied to forgotten karmic rituals.

This ties to the Black Church’s core philosophy: karmic balance through shadow, silence, and sacrifice.

2. Faith Manifested as Madness

Spiritual devotion often crosses into madness or obsession:

• Nicky Vellone paints star charts in blood.

• Lorenzo “The Lint” is high on spores and serenades dragons.

• Franco “Big Wheels” drives like he’s racing gods, wearing a tooth-rosary.

• Uncle Dino’s exorcisms may be real—or the ramblings of a dying mind.

Their madness is a spiritual dialect—half prayer, half psychosis.

3. Ritual & Repetition

The crew repeats phrases, hymns, or actions with sacred intensity:

• Tina “Two-Times” repeats herself as a feature, not a bug.

• Mikey “Pipes” leads aggressive hymnals, his muscles echoing faith.

• Vanessa “Hexy V” curses like liturgy, her false nails symbols of broken ritual.

These tics and habits suggest a ship run as a moving cathedral, more sacred war-barge than simple vessel.

4. Underdogs on the Edge

Most crew members are marginalized, deranged, or damned—the kind who wouldn't be welcome on any other ship. But aboard the Stormbreaker, their brokenness is power.

• Many have unclear pasts (like Rattail Moretti) or literal curses.

• Others maintain power through sheer eccentricity, like Salvatore “Meatball” and his culinary prayer beads.

It’s a found family of cosmic misfits, bonded by divine blood and brine.

5. Weaponized Spirituality

Their jobs double as rites:

• Healing with a meat tenderizer.

• Navigating via star-whispers.

• Ballistae fired with prayer-time venom.

• Shanties doubling as Ainheria invocations.

On the Stormbreaker, faith is artillery, ritual is survival, and madness is strategy.

💬 Cards on the Table – Intimate Reflections

Aboard ship, time softens. One night, the party draws from a deck of dream cards—each prompting confessions that strip away bravado and reveal long-buried truths:

• Grim, usually the party’s stone wall, opens up about his sister—how she fled when their family needed her, leaving him to care for their broken mother. He admits he doesn't believe he could be a good parent. The damage his father did runs too deep.

• Oberyn reveals that while his technical birthplace is Stormvale, it was Dumbledof, not blood, who made him a man. Taken in as a broken child, he became a knight under the mountain sage. His dream? To one day return, not as a lost son, but a benefactor who lifts others as he was lifted.

• Stevia, reflecting on her first gig as a bard, tells of scrubbing floors and performing in taverns that smelled of ale and failure. She learned humility and the value of listening. When asked about parenting, she chuckles—her fans are her children now. She teaches them about life and life lessons through songs . She also is not afraid to teach by experience, such as "how not to overdose on mushrooms."

• Oberyn, when asked if he’d accept his heart’s desire if it were offered by a supernatural force, doesn’t hesitate: yes. The moment hangs in the air. The DM calls for a Wisdom save. Unknown to the party, nearby Lizardfolk are watching them via a scrying spell.

🐊 Scrambles, the Dream-Eater

Scrambles is more than a pet—he’s becoming a totem. A glass-bodied gator with mirrored scales and a mind of alien instinct, he consumes chlorophyll, minerals… and dreams.

Grim bonds most deeply with him, learning a gesture that calms the beast: a firm grip at the base of the tail renders him inert. When fed dreams—true dreams—Scrambles grows. His glow deepens. His stares linger longer.

The crew murmurs. What kind of creature is growing in the party’s wake?

🐍 A Pact in Scales – The Lizardfolk and the Obsidian Egg

Their voyage halts as 250 Lizardfolk rise from the sea, encircling the ship in a silent siege. At their head stands Xahl Yztto, a priestess of serpentine calm from the Hissmar Dominion. Oberyn, blade in hand, speaks to her in Abyssal and proves who he is. This confirms to the priestess that Oberyn is the prophet in her dreams.

She offers them an obsidian egg—sealed, humming, unwanted. Their task: deliver it to the Glass Coast.

Oberyn accepts. The consequences are immediate: anxiety, illness, disassociation. The egg is no mere object—it feeds on proximity and inflicts cost for distance. The priestess smiles when he falters. “It won’t leave you,” she says. “You’ll ssssssssssssssssssee.”

When Oberyn took it, it didn’t just weigh on him physically. It struck his spirit. He experienced acute anxiety, irrational attachment, and even a cardiac event when separated from it. The priestess assured him it would never truly leave his possession. The party called to Tim Patty’s bastion to research the egg further.

🛕 Kartotem – The 100,000 Gold Gamble

The party returns to Kartotem. But it is Oberyn, not Samson, who stands before the elders now—arguing for a future of ambition. Samson’s independence from this decision was critical both for the integrity of his rule and Oberyn’s legacy. Oberyn would have to win over not only those who were older and wiser than him, but also a rival who recently joined the council.

His proposal: rebuild the city, buy a plantation, raise an army. The elders demand repayment—unless, that is, he delivers a Godseye, or another artifact powerful enough to grant their people hope.

It’s not charity. It’s trust—earned through blood and promise. The council agrees. Oberyn’s first true political victory is sealed with gold and conditional faith.

🧭 Mount Vaelthrax – Report to the Church

At the volcano-cloister of Mount Vaelthrax, the party delivers their report to Malar:

• Alliance secured with Stormveil’s goliaths

• Scrambles is not just a beast but an aberration…and one that could be trained.

• A potential Black Church foothold emerging in Drowsbridge they wish to pursue.

Malar listens. Approves. But the Church moves slowly, and the egg whispers quickly. The party also kept their experiences with the Lizardfolk and their egg to themselves.

🍂 Drowsbridge – Reunion at the Edge of Winter

In Drowsbridge, Stevia seeks to reconcile with her sister, Tilly Buckingham Nicks, who has significant personal history and tension with her. Here are the key background details:

• Tilly was previously in the Black Church

• She was in a relationship with someone condemned by the Black Church as a heretic and executed

• Stevia was absent and unsupportive during this difficult time.

• Tilly subsequently left the Black Church and has harbored resentment towards Stevia.

• Tilly took note that Stevia never returned when their mother died, when she found love again, and she also missed Tilly’s recent second marriage.

• Tilly became a famous adventurer and protector of Drowsbridge, especially as the cult rose in prominence.

• Tilly was nominated an alder woman for Drowsbridge after the death of Tarrow Quin and was running for mayor.

Tilly Buckingham-Nicks, stands in their father’s plate and cuts Stevia down with words sharper than steel: “You never came home. Not when Mom died. Not when the love of my life died. Not when I found love again. Not when I remarried. You never returned when it actually mattered.”

But Stevia doesn’t argue. She brings wine. A traditional halfling turnip pie. And when that doesn’t work, she offers willow weed and psychedelic mushrooms—“to atone for her sins.” More importantly, Stevia listens and never makes excuses for her past behavior. With a Persuasion roll of 26, she reached her sister’s heart.

Tilly softens. They share memories. They laugh. They weep.

More than a sister, Tilly becomes a political ally, introducing Stevia to elders and anchoring a potential Black Church alliance in a cult-threatened town. Tilly was able to forgive Stevia and the Black Church, but refused to rejoin the Black Church. Stevia pledged the Black Church’s support regardless, and first helped her sister by planting evidence it was Tilly who slayed Tarrow Quin and saved the town. Tilly’s popularity would rise astronomically and she’d easily win the mayorship. Though she would never be a member of the Black Church, Tilly pledged her allegiance to it so long as the Church remained important to Stevia.

🌊 Toward the Glass Coast

The session ends with sails raised and visions trembling. The Glass Coast awaits: a shoreline of two dead cities, twin ruins of a divine age. The obsidian egg hums. Scrambles watches. And each of them feels the pull of something ancient and awful waiting beneath the waves.

🔍 Discoveries & Developments

• Scrambles consumes dreams, understands communication, and may be tied to godlike or aberrant ancestry.

• The Obsidian Egg is an object of parasitic power, possibly bonded to Oberyn’s soul.

• Tilly Buckingham-Nicks becomes a key Black Church contact in Drowsbridge, bridging politics and family.

• Kartotem now owes Oberyn 100,000 gold or absolution through divine discovery.

• Dream Cards serve as metaphysical divination or scrying tools—potentially watched by external forces.

🗣 Quotes from the Session

“Could I see myself as a parent? No. I'm worried that as much as I hate the man, I think I have a little bit too much of my father in me. I could never do to a son what my father did to me.” — Grim

“If a god offered it to me, yes. I’d take it. I’d take it every time. If there's a way that I can ultimately get to my goal, I would be remiss if I didn't take it” — Oberyn

“You never came back—not even when they buried her.” — Tilly

“My fans are like my kids. I teach them how to party, how not to die on shrooms, and to pay their tab.” — Stevia