We’re going to post up the rest of Brandt’s Landing over the next few days so that it can be used as an entirety, and not just with individual bits ripped out to be used as individual encounters in other locations. Those who remember Chaos Landing know this place has seven neighborhoods and we’ve gone through Wrenwrick Crik already, so now we’re at Winter Harbour.
Winter Harbour is a cluster of docks and warehouses built from sturdy timbers and atop solid rockrete foundations by the river. The Harbour does trade primarily with Grey Harbour, but also takes in smugglers from the Enclave and Imberkavitas further up river. Just past the warehouses are the cramped apartments of the dock workers, packed into twisting, narrow, muddy streets. Dock Street, a single paved broadway, runs from the docks themselves to Oldtown, but it’s lined by warehouses and a PDF precinct. All of the apartments are reached through byways and alleys. Winter Harbour lies on either side of the narrow strait dividing Oldtown from Fireside Downs and borders with both of them, containing the bridge that connects the two islands. It also has a very narrow connection with Red Row on the northeast.
Winter Harbour Smuggling Den
Discovery TN: -10
Lead: Dock Nineteen isn’t used by anyone. It gets used, ships pull in and depart, but no one ever seems to actually be the one using it. None of the captains have ever docked there or spoken to someone who has. The Arbites perform random customs inspection on ships on this dock just like any other and haven’t found anything, but they don’t inspect the entire ship’s cargo, just what comes through the dock. Maybe the mysterious captain of Dock Nineteen has other means of getting illicit goods from his ship into town (or vice-versa).
Investigation: If there’s an Arbites character in the party, he can walk right into their headquarters over in Oldtown and examine records to identify that one captain in particular is the only one who ever uses Dock Nineteen, Percival Scadder. If there’s a PDF or IG in the party, he can wave the party through the guards on the dock. Failing that, the PDF will let the party in on a Challenging(+0) Charm test or Difficult(-10) Intimidate test, and the Arbites on a Difficult(-10) Charm test or a Hard(-20) Intimidate test. The characters could also try to sneak by, testing their Stealth opposed to the PDF Awareness, or just kill the two guards. Unless the kills are so swift that the PDF have no time to radio in for help, this will result in a chimera full of PDF arriving in about ten minutes.
Once aboard, it’s a Challenging(+0) Awareness test to sweep the ship for stolen goods and discover the large amount of illegal armaments being kept in the hold. This will also require a Stealth test opposed to the crew’s Awareness, the crew being a set of four standard thugs as well as their captain, a smuggler. If they’ve boarded the ship non-stealthily they can speak to the captain, who will reveal his purpose on a Hard(-20) Interrogate check and will let the characters poke around the ship on a Difficult(-10) Charm test, in the latter case provided that the characters can give him some kind of good reason. Doesn’t have to be brilliant or anything, but it does have to be more than just “we roll dice at him until he lets us look around.” Maybe pretend they’re doing a routine sweep and just want to be seen going into the hold, and don’t even really plan to do much searching while they’re down there, just not and say they did. Something. The difficulty of the Interrogation tests to find the smuggled weapons decreases to Challenging(+0) if the party has already attacked and defeated the captain and his crew. If the party is not working with the PDF or Arbites, the two PDF guards will take the captain’s side when they hear the battle begin. If the fight is going against them, they’ll call for backup, bringing in that PDF chimera.
Confrontation: The weapons being stored in the hold are largely autoguns and shotguns. Two of the crewmembers are armed with shotguns and two with autoguns, although they are stored inconveniently beneath their raincoats to keep them hidden and require a full-round action to retrieve. The smuggler just has the standard stub automatic, although he will pick up a shotgun or autogun if one of his crew goes down while wielding one or if the battle takes place in the hold with the smuggled weapons available.
The mission is complete when the smuggler is defeated and is worth one point of Influence, or 1d5 if the smuggler is recruited. If recruited or successfully interrogated (difficulties given above) about other smugglers in the city, he can give the s the location of the East Vale smuggling den and, if at least one of the spook dens (Red Row, Fireside Den, or East Vale) has already been cleared, he can also give the location of the Oldtown smuggling den.
Winter Harbour Witch
Discovery TN: +10
Lead: Sailors have gone missing in Winter Harbour more frequently than usual. One or two disappearances a month is normal, it’s right next to Fireside Downs and there’s a lot of violent criminals, not to mention your occasional deserter. But lately three or four will go missing a week, and one of them turned up ripped apart by something not human.
Investigation: The sailors’ corpses are available for examination at the Oldtown morgue. A Hard(-20) Forbidden Lore(Mutants) check will reveal that the attacks have been committed by Pelagers, and that blood in the water should draw them out. Pelagers are abhumans, not animals, so they don’t have to respond to the instinctive desire to eat anything that bleeds, but these ones in particular are clearly not shy about it. A Difficult(-10) Awareness check while searching the river itself will turn up the pelagers swimming beneath. A Challenging(+0) Inquiry check will lead the characters to a friend of spook witch who lives just across the stream from Winter Harbour, in Fireside Downs. This friend knows the spook witch spends a lot of time by the river and is involved in lots of shady activity. She’ll reveal the exact location of the spook witch if the s succeed on a Challenging(+0) Interrogation check.
Confrontation: The pelagers are friends with a telekinesis spook witch, and they meet in a warehouse on the docks that was abandoned when it was discovered that the river flooded its banks annually, and the warehouse’s contents would be swept away every spring. The pelagers may also be fought in the river where they hunt fish and, not infrequently, humans. There are three pelagers plus the spook witch, and the mission is complete for one point of Influence when all three pelagers are captured or killed.
The spook witch is in way over her head and can be interrogated as an Ordinary(+10) Interrogation test, whereupon she will give the location of a random Fireside Downs spook den and her friend the East Vale witch. The pelagers can be interrogated into revealing the existence of the mutant enclave to the east.
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