Ethersea — Prologue II: The Cost of Opportunity

Synopsis
Forgotten relics from the past are unearthed and put to use as the shoreside community continues plotting their undersea departure.

Join us as we build our next campaign while playing The Quiet Year, a brilliant mapmaking game designed and written by Avery Alder.

The map and notes for this episode can be viewed here.

Summary
As Spring in the Shoreside Community comes to a close, the ore gatherers assert themselves as the dominant social group within the community, carefully maintaining membership into their ranks.

A charismatic young girl convinces a group of her Delmar compatriots to strike out on a project of their own, stealing materials from those set aside to build the shipyard to instead repair the broken-down bathysphere that washed up on the shore previously. An oceanographer from the Southern Archipelago named Finneas Cawl arrives to the community, having heard word of their existence and goals and eager to help. He begins mapping the ocean floor around the Shoreside Community to assist in the planning efforts. Once the repairs on the bathysphere are complete, the charismatic young girl and her comrades present it to the council, expecting praise. However, as they stole materials to repair the bathysphere, the council reprimands them and sentences them to community service sorting through the trash being spewed from the trash hole. Finneas Cawl begins to use the repaired bathysphere in his mapping efforts, speeding up his work.

The impassable cave is discovered to be the skull of a vestige named Coda, and the magical ore scattered around the beach is discovered to be the remnants of Coda’s body. Coda was the subject of an Einarr fairy tale that told of their exploits killing other Vestiges before being tricked by a little girl into falling off the edge of the Plateau and shattering on the rocks below. The presence of Coda’s skull and the ore, renamed Codite, proves the fairy tale to be history rather than legend.

The shipyard is finished and named the Cradle by the community.

A discussion arises surrounding the Crystal Ascendence, a joint embassy/connection from the Einarr Plateau to Hominine. The Ascendence is constructed using engineering techniques lost to modern knowledge, and thus contains technology that could be useful if stolen or studied, but also presents the only way up to the Einarr Plateau, and thus the only way to get up there and possibly search for resources.

A species of fish is discovered in the magical freshwater spring. Small and extremely short-lived, they are named filler fish due to their ability to breed so quickly they can fill any vessel they’re placed into within 48 hours. Construction of filler fish farms begin, aiming to discover a way to safely bring this endlessly renewable food source down to the underwater city.

Community members on the outskirts of the settlement intercept a convoy of wagon-tanks from the Delmar Republic. They reveal themselves to be the last Delmar expedition, aiming to trade one last time with the Shoreside Community before the Delmar enact their survival plan — sealing themselves permanently into a subterranean city they have constructed inside a mountain range.

The Einarr spirits begin to communicate with the members of the community, manipulating the gloves of suits of armour into a recognisable sign language. In response to this, a conglomeration of minds from all four of the nations begin working to try and create constructs for the Einarr to inhabit.

Finneas Cawl’s expeditions are stopped momentarily by the untimely death of Mint Clackelroy, an old sailor who fell into the ocean and was eaten by Blink Sharks. Nevertheless, his mapping efforts are successful, and he determines that the suspiciously calm patch of sea is both high in oxygen and low in prestige salts, making it an ideal location from which to stage their city building efforts.

A school is set up for the local children, who mostly spend their days scavenging in the rock pools and domesticating a new-found species of horseshoe crab dogs. The school also aims to help build a collective culture within the community, erasing the lines drawn between the disparate groups.

Inspired by Finneas Cawl’s efforts, a group of engineers begins studying the Crystal Ascendence to try and blue-sky engineer a way to combine it’s technology with that of the bathysphere to develop a safe way to get down to the construction site underwater.

The episode ends with the community waking up one morning to discover a group of the Codite gatherers have disappeared, taking tools, construction materials, and the bathysphere with them. A note left behind reveals they are calling themselves the Vanguard and, annoyed by the lack of progress towards actually constructing the city, they have departed early to stake their claim and be the first ones to establish a community underwater. They are not expected to survive til Fall.

Featured Locations

 * The Ethersea
 * The Einarr Plateau