Recommended for 3-5 players of levels 7-10.

Setup: Captain Vip Hillsburrow, a halfling merchant, who trades in exotic vegetables needs guards to help him transport a rare cargo of honey bananas and red carrots. There’s been rumors of pirates in the area and Hillsburrow doesn’t want to take any chances. His ship is called The Nine Lives and when the party gets aboard the reason for the name is pretty obvious. Captain Vip likes cats. He has about a dozen or so lounging on the deck and even more below. He claims they are lucky and certainly they help keep rats from eating his cargo. The merchant vessel has a handful of other mercenary guards and a couple of passengers. Feel free to populate them as you see fit.

Stage 1: Shiver me Timbers

The first few days of the journey are uneventful. The seas are calm. The wind is blowing in a good direction. Dolphins have taken to swimming alongside the ship and surfing in its wake. Captain Vip is encouraged. The crew is in high spirits. However, one afternoon the lookout calls for rough weather and sure enough there’s a storm on the horizon. You can hear the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Captain Vip is not daunted. A little rain never hurt anyone but he recommends the passengers and the guards go below deck. Players with a passive perception of 14 or better will notice that the dolphins are no longer swimming along the ship. Those who go below deck will notice that the cats have their fur heckled and are unusually jumpy. They hiss and spit at everyone.

Rain begins to patter against the ship. Players on the deck looking out into the storm may make a perception check DC 15. On a success, the player spots a shape out on the ocean that flickers with a flash of lightning and then vanishes. Inside the ship, the cats all go into hiding. A player may make an animal handling check DC 12 to know that the cats are terrified and not from the weather. If a player can speak with animals, the cats will all tell them that something evil is coming but they don’t know what it is. The sky darkens even more and the sun sets as the storm picks up intensity.

Stage 2. Batten Down the Hatches

Players who are on deck and alert will not be surprised when a mysterious ship emerges alongside “The Nine Lives.” It’s a galleon and you can hear the shouts of men through the storm. Even in the rain, the players will see that the other ship’s rigging is torn and weathered and that large holes gape in the wood. The ship is covered in slime and trailing seaweed as if it was dredged from the bottom of the ocean. With a battle cry, a crew of ghostly warriors flies from the other vessel to land on on the deck of the Nine Lives. Seeing the ghosts, the sailors and the other mercenaries flee below.

There are three ghost crew plus one for each player. The ghosts will attempt to capture the players first with nets and if that fails they will try to kill them with swords. At the beginning of each round, each player must make a Dexterity save DC 12 or the swaying of the ship in the storm will cause them to fall prone. The main deck is slick with water and should be treated as rough terrain. The ghosts hover and are not bothered by the storm.

Captured or Killed: If the players are killed, their ghosts are captured and dragged to ship’s heart to feed the ghost ship. Game over. If the players are captured, they and the rest of the crew will be dragged to the hold on the Red Rose and placed in cages. The players will be stripped of their equipment and weapons, which will be stored in the crew’s quarters. Captain Dafeer’s will make his appearance and taunt them. He will begin dragging the mercenaries then the crew and last but not least the passengers to the hold to feed to his ship. Players can attempt to break loose during this time. A strength check DC 18 will break the rusty bars but then the players must face the ghosts unarmed until they can reacquire their gear.

Repel the Invaders: If the players manage to defeat all of the ghosts that attack, silence settles over the ship. Captain Vip will come back on deck and thank the players. The storm’s fury seems to have abated a little but there’s still a steady rain. The ghost ship remains silently floating alongside The Nine Lives and Captain Vip can’t shake them. It’s as if they are tied together. He curses. If the players don’t board The Red Rose on their own, Captain Vip will ask the players to try and see if they can somehow get the ghostly ship off of them.

Stage 3: Walk the Plank

Battle on The Nine Lives: If the players refuse to board The Red Rose then the ships will remain tethered together throughout the night. Just before dawn, another group of ghosts will attack this time lead by Captain Dafeers himself. There will be three ghost crew plus two for each player. There will be no capturing this time, Captain Dafeers will order his crew to kill. Again the storm picks up fury and each round the players must make a Dexterity save DC 14 or be thrown prone by the bouncing ship. The main deck remains rough terrain. If defeated, the players are fed to the ghost ship. On successfully repelling the Captain and his crew, the sun will begin to peek over the horizon and the ghost ship will slowly fade into nothing.

Battle on The Red Rose: Use The Red Rose map to follow the player’s progress across the ghost ship. Once Captain Dafeer’s is defeated, the players may loot the ship. Once the players return to The Nine Lives, the storm breaks and sunlight begins to pierce the clouds. The ghost ship slowly vanishes until only the memory remains. If the players took the model ship, they now have the cursed ghost ship model. See ghost ship description. If the players left it, Captain Vip will find the model ship sitting in his cargo hold when he unloads at his next destination. The players might seem a sailor hand it to him on the docks after they have disembarked. There is no way to destroy the ship and ditching it in another plane of existence or hiding it in a bag of holding will only cause the model to reappear randomly somewhere nearby.