Recap: Blackbeard’s Cargo (Cat Pirates Episode 1)

Scenario: Blackbeard’s Cargo.

Down on their luck and desperately in need of a score, the crew of the Two Shakes ship overhear a goblin pirate boasting about a valuable box that the notorious Captain Blackbeard has on their ship. Once delivered, the promised reward is a map to a legendary lost human city where the streets are said to be paved with gold. Lacking any other options, the group decide to steal the box and deliver it themselves.

System: Swords & Swagger V0.5

Date & Time: Sunday 22nd June 2025. Approx 3.5 hours including rules expo & 20 minute break

The world:

The Cats vs Spiders world, where the war between the cats and the giant spiders has been ongoing for a thousand years, until the recently declared truce. The players are all cat pirates.

Characters:

All members of the “Two Shakes” crew, a ship stolen by Meowtoya.

Akkon Noir – an elementalist with a fear of heights

Carevonio Meowtoya – a fighter who talks too much

Figaro – a rogue/magician who is easily distracted by the ladies

Avasha Umbryl – a thief

Summary: 

Starting in the Lazy Mermaid Tavern in the Free Port of Claw Haven, the players heard about a valuable box from a drunk goblin pirate that was sitting in the cargo hold of the notorious pirate ship the Night’s Dark Terror. Janky Joe (the goblin) was all to eager to show off his ship’s latest acquisition, mostly because he is a fan of cats. His captain, the legendary Captain Blackbeard was on business in town, and due to return in an hour or so…

A rival adventuring group (comprising of an drunk and boastful orc barbarian, a morose dwarf magician and a sneaky elven thief) overheard the drunk goblin and tried to get to the box first. This lead to an entertaining couple of moments around the tavern. First the players pinned a thrown jug on the dwarf magician, almost provoking a bar brawl. Then, outside the tavern, they alerted a town guard patrol that the orc barbarian didn’t have his papers. Which was because Avasha had stolen them from him moments earlier. This just left the players with the elf thief to deal with. She was already ahead of them, the town gaurd and a ship with some crew still on board to contend with.

Leaving the orc and the dwarf to their woes, the group got onto the Night’s Dark Terror with a bit of handwaving from the still drunk Joe.

Split into two groups, Akkon and Carevonio searched the for the map to the island where the box needed to be delivered. Figaro and Avasha headed for the cargo hold, as Janky Joe started to get suspicious that his new friends may not have the best of intentions…

Inevitably things went south and the goblins on the ship realised that they had some would be thieves on board. The ships golems and a bunch of pirates turned on the players. Teaming up against the goblins with the elf thief, the cats found themselves trapped and surrounded. It was only through some creative use of magic (and turning the crew of a nearby ship against the goblin pirates) that they managed to get the box off the Night’s Dark Terror and onto their own ship, to sail away into the fog filled night…

Lylith, the elven thief, joined the crew, as did Janky Joe, realising that he was for it if Captain Blackbeard found out he was responsible for the loss of the box.

Conclusion

Having gained both the map and the box (which in fact was a large crate, not a “little box” as Janky Joe had stated), the cats now seem to be onto a sure thing as soon as they can deliver it.

Except there is a terrible smell coming from the box.

And a voice from inside whispering “Release me!”

Memorable moments

The players rapidly worked out that the best way to tackle this was to turn NPCs against each other at every opportunity. Avasha taunting the orc barbarian as he was getting arrested by waving his pickpocketed papers at him got a laugh and ended with the image of half an hour later the occasional cat town guard flying up into the air above the rooftops as the street brawl continued…

GM Notes

The tavern set up was a lot of fun as it introduced various factions and pirate types (goblins, cats, lizardmen), lightly sketching the world lore.

The middle section of the scenario, intended as a chase across the rooftops, can probably be cut simply by moving the tavern closer to the Night’s Dark Terror.

A slightly rushed conclusion on account of the venue closing at 4PM prompt, which led to me possibly handwaving the ending slightly. (I actually still can’t remember how they got the box off the ship, and suspect I may have allowed it in order to get to the end of the game on time)

An alternative ending (which I for some reason only realised later) would see the players opening the box on the ship and getting whatever is inside to help them fight their way off it…

Overall, a solid intro one shot. Perhaps a bit of a railroady (?) scenario, but having a clear goal and letting the players focus on figuring out how to achieve it (rather than milling around wondering what to do) is no bad thing sometimes.