The Wake of the Brawny Witch

By Stephen Smith
Mister Smith Design
OSE
Levels 2-4

Exaggerated tales of the mammoth ship have spread like wildfire. But now, the truth is undeniable. The wreckage looms—larger than any ship has the right to be. A virtual leviathan of wood and steel, even in its half submerged condition. Its origin is a mystery—but no matter where it came from, it’s here now and ripe for picking. A colossal siren’s call for those brave or foolish enough to salvage its secrets—before it is lost to the waves forever.

This forty page adventure details a shipwreck and its environs, with about sixty locations in all. Layout and formatting are admirable, and as a standard dungeon it would be ok. It tries the faction thing but that doesn’t come off well, nor does the fantastical nature, from the use of plain language?

This thing start out great. IN the local seafaring bar there’s an old cristy dude telling others of the shipwreck he just saw. A HUGE ship, at least three times the size of a normal large ship, washed up and broken on a nearby atoll. A CURSED stol I tell ye’s! This is about a column of read-aloud, in italics, but it’s also fantastic. It reeks of crusty sea dude and bar folk. There are some nice in voice rumors to go with this. This is the old The Wizard is Dead We Better Get To The Tower First To Loot It thing. There’s a nice little bit about getting to the wreck, handled in about five bullet points. Perfect to spur a DM on with ideas for running this portion. It’s augmented by a decent little NPC description for four or so of the townies that you might majorly interact with to guide you, buy a bat, etc. “Speaks in a low rasp, never removes his salt-crusted

oilskin coat. Grizzled loudmouth cuss when drunk. Claims salvage rights (unjustified).” Just enough there to get things going for the DM, and thus the party. The old salt who claims salvage right, the young dude obsessed with the wreck, the widow in possession of a boat to rent who bargains shrewdly. The town doesn’t go on and on, in fact there’s nothing to it except that read-aloud, the NPC decisions, rumors, and five little bullet points with some ideas for the DM to run this section. Fucking focused man!

We move on to the atoll, with five locations and again a few general notes in bullet form for getting aboard the ship and the island. Perfect. There’s also a small section of sea caves on the atoll, with another ten or so locations, and then the GIANT ship, broken up, also, with about forty more. The caves and ship do NOT get these little notes, to the detriment of these sections, although there is a good little “what you see”section, bodies hanging from yardarms and the like. 

The descriopns of the rooms are inconsistent. In one play we get “The chamber is dim and musty, with several old stacked crates and barrels. Faded scrawlings mark the containers. A mob of aged, pus-swollen cadavers are scattered around the area—along with one body that looks freshly torn apart (the curious pirate).” Nice summary, pus-swollen cadavers is always a good sign in a room description. Nicely evocative. And then in another place “Broken shelves held the shattered jars and bottles now decorating the floor. An alembic, soggy parchment, and other alchemical tools rest on a wooden desk.”  A little more facts based and less interesting in the word choice. Some of the descriptions mention who is in the room and some do not, just listing below the description something like “5 pirates.” This is maddening, the inconsistent nature. Some are terse and easy to follow and some go to great lengths to describe the trivia of the room. There is, after the text description, a nice little bullet point list of special/interesting things/facts/DM notes, which provides a nice summary for the DM. 

And then, the factions. This was a pirate ship, magic thing happened, ship got big. So we’re dealing with things on a larger than normal scale, 2-3 times or so, but that never really comes across in the text. The ship has a few monsters in it, and the helmsman is hiding out in it in fear of being hung by the crew because of the accident. But, more importantly, there gnoll pirates are now in charge and have the human pirates locked away below decks. A group of pirates were also taken away during a raid by deep ones (being now hidden away in the sea caves), except these are good guy deep ones, who are trying to save the pirates and atone for the sins of their relatives. Except they are alien minded deep ones, the pirates are scared and the caves are dangerous. 

And NONE of this really comes through in the text. Oh, you get essentially what I just told you in not many more words than I just used. But the encounter descriptions, the set ups, the guiding text, it’s just not present anywhere. And, there is NOTHING here that makes anyone seem like a pirate. Or even a seafarer, other than like two of the townfolk. They don’t act like them, they are not described like them. There’s just nothing in the way of specificity in looks or actions that there. “Pirate”. Great. It’s just maddening. The ship is complex, with hatches and the like, but that is downplayed as well. 

I like the set up here. The townfolks are great, the consequences are fucking great. Rescue the pirates? They tear up the town in celebration. “Tension is in the air. Stalls stand half-empty. Merchants are wary. A woman sobs quietly beside an overturned cart. Blood darkens the cobblestones. “They are out of control, some- thing needs to be done!” There are five or so of these and they provide excellent springboards for some consequences. The core of this, though, feels weak. Maybe because it really is just looting? But, then, why play up the factions if they don’t really exist, or do anything, if I can even call “this is a faction” playing up a faction. Didn’t need a lot here, but those five bullets for the town and atoll really worked wonders, The caves, ship, and factions could have used those also. Maybe that, instead of the pages dedicated to nine mens morris?

This is $6 at DriveThru. The review is fifteen pages. You can see from it how one might get excited. But then the ship, which is where the preview lets off, is where things are going downhill fast. Hinted at, I think, by the sea caves

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/541667/the-wake-of-the-brawny-witch?1892600