She lights up a candle for hope to be found
Captive and blind by the darkness around
Firm as a mountain, she never will mourn
Timeless, she waits for the break of dawn
-The Maiden’s Hymn

On the northeastern coasts, just below the frozen wastes of Nordica, a small town named Maiden’s Watch operates a small, but successful, port.

The town is named for a statue found on a rocky outcropping of a mountain overlooking the town and abutting the sea. The statue is of an amazingly-lifelike maiden carrying a candle, and legend holds that it was once a woman who refused to accept that she’d been widowed.

For many years after her husband, a sailor, failed to return home, every night she would walk up to the outcropping and light a candle so that he might find his way home.

She did this until she died, and the gods took pity upon her. They rewarded her vigilance by turning her into a statue, and now every night after the sun sets and the stars come out, the stony candle held in the statue’s hands ignites into a brilliant light visible for miles around.

The Maiden herself has become a symbol of fidelity, dedication and love, and the statue also serves as a tourist attraction. It stands in the center of a ring of dirt, serving as a clear demarcation against the grass. Anyone or anything which crosses this threshold simply disappears, which has certainly saved the statue from vandalism over the many years, but also has stymied any attempts to study it.

Encounters at Maiden’s Watch

One night, the statue fails to light, causing chaos among the sailors depending on it to find their way to the harbor safely. The PCs are hired to investigate what’s happened and restore the maiden’s light.

The PCs need a star to activate some ancient machinery, and surmise that the maiden’s candle is a star itself. They must find a way to retrieve the candle, never mind dealing with the townsfolk who won’t be happy if they find out what the PCs are doing.

The Maiden’s Hymn stolen (though slightly changed) from Kamelot’s A Sailorman’s Hymn

Ma Bartley herself is a grizzled pirate on the wrong side of 50. She’s racked up a reputation as the meanest pirate to sail the seas, seemingly intent on proving that she’s stronger and more ruthless than any man. Amusingly, when old sailors speak of her, they always mention that “she pisses standin’ up” as if to explain how macho she is.

Were that the whole story, Ma Bartley could probably be written off as an interesting, though perhaps forgettable, pirate. However, there is more to her story than meets the eye. You see, Ma Bartley’s real name is Willem Kent, and she is actually a he.

Kent was an able swordsman and an excellent navigator, but never seemed to have much luck crafting a reputation. Then one day he struck upon an idea: he needed a gimmick to really stick out. Thus, he first donned a dress and makeup, shaved himself clean, and Ma Bartley was born.

In recent years, Kent’s memory has started failing him, leading to some compromising situations. In particular, he once forgot to shave and his (former) first mate commented. Kent killed the man where he stood, and no one else said a thing, not really surprised that Ma was able to grow a few whiskers. The event rattled Kent, though, and he fears what would happen to him if anyone discovered his secret.

To that end, he’s been searching for a magical means to help him maintain his identity. He’s discovered the existence of a belt fabled to change its bearer’s gender, and now he combs the seas searching for it.

Encounters with Ma Bartley

Always on the lookout for a new lead, Ma Bartley’s now focusing on capturing and interrogating people rather than shooting first and pillaging later. She still pillages, and usually kills anyone she captures who doesn’t have a lead, but if the PCs could talk their way through things she’d be amenable to hiring them to find it.

Perhaps the PCs have half a map, which she recognizes, and she has the other half. The location, though, is too far in-land where she’d be killed on sight, so she needs someone to go and get it for her. She would, of course, never explain what the belt does nor why she wants it, which could lead to some amusing mishaps if the players try to double cross her.

Twenty three years later, an enterprising dwarf by the name of Harvuun Gordbeck heard about the station and arranged to buy it for a fraction of what was spent in its construction. Not a scholar of any variety, Gordbeck had a new purpose in mind for the research station: a luxury resort. He rechristened it The Blue. Amusingly, the dwarf has never set foot in The Blue due to his fear of water.

It was open for roughly eight months when something happened. Gordbeck shut the place down and never told anyone why. Only recently was The Blue re-opened.

It consists of seven domes connected by tunnels. The top of most of the domes is made of crysteel, a magically-treated metal which is as transparent as glass. Each dome also has a “lifeboat,” really just a mini bathysphere. In case of an emergency, several people could crawl into them, seal them, release the locks, and they would float up to the surface. Each lifeboat fits five people comfortably, though perhaps as many as ten or twelve could cram in there.

Dome 1, the foyer, is the least changed since the station became the Blue. It consists primarily of a large airlock near the top and a powerful winch. A bathysphere, usually allowed to float freely on the surface, is attached to the foyer by the winch.

Dome 2, the lounge, has been converted into a reception area where new guests can be orientated and also a place to hang out and watch the ocean life. The magical lights around dome 2 are especially bright, and the water around it is regularly chummed to encourage lots of ocean life to congregate around it, especially sharks.

Domes 3 and 4 have been converted into guest quarters. Dome 3, the larger of the two, has twelve suites while dome 4 has eight. Each of the suites is lavishly decorated. The lights above domes 3 and 4 are designed to dim at night so that the guests can sleep more easily and keep an idea of the passage of time. During the night, each of the rooms is flooded with just the barest hints of a blue glow.

Dome 5, the smallest dome after the foyer, has been repurposed into the dining room. Like the lounge, the waters above dome 5 are chummed to encourage wildlife.

Dome 6 serves as a combination of servants’ quarters and kitchen. The employees sleep in cramped quarters; ten small rooms with triple bunk beds, allowing for up to 30 people to be stationed there. There are rarely more than twenty to twenty-five, though.

Finally, there is dome 7, called the “black” dome because it is not lit up like the others. The employees of the blue are under strict orders by Gordbeck never to enter dome 7, nor to allow the guests to. It is the most isolated of all the domes, and the only entrance is door in the back of the employee quarters which has been welded shut.

Rumors abound of what is in dome 7. Some say it’s a drilling platform which Gordbeck wasn’t able to turn into a tourist trap, some say it was sealed when he bought it and even he doesn’t know what’s in there. Some even believe that dome 7 is directly responsible for the station originally being decommissioned as well as for Gordbeck shutting The Blue down before.

Travel to and from The Blue is achieved by boat. Gordbeck has a deal with a shipping company which passes near it once a week; they’ll stop at the bathysphere, load it with supplies and passengers, and signal for it to be pulled down. An iron ring around the tether is clipped to the bottom of the bathysphere. By unclipping it, the rink sinks down and when it hits dome 1 an operator down there starts the winch to pull it down. They then wait until the bathysphere resurfaces and take back anyone or anything which is sent back up. The trip down takes about forty five minutes, while the trip back up only about fifteen.

Encounters at The Blue

The Blue just begs to be used as an excuse to isolate the players with something nasty. You can only leave once a week, after all, and no one knows what’s in dome 7. It may be something mundane… but it’s probably anything but. After construction, the place really doesn’t cost that much to maintain… so why did the researchers really abandon it?

Alternatively, the PCs could be asked to go down to The Blue when something goes wrong. Maybe the bathysphere never resurfaced last time, and it’s been three days since anyone’s heard anything from it. The PCs would need to find a way down there, find a way in, and find out what happened and how to fix it… or how to rescue everyone.

Stranger still, the very next day the same thing happens. An albatross lands on the deck of the ship, walks around a bit, and dies. Any experienced medics can ascertain that the birds seem to have died of natural causes (i.e. old age). A few hours later, yet another albatross makes the boat its final resting place.

They start becoming more and more frequent until there are literally hundreds of dead birds littering the ship and dozens more arriving every hour. It is at its heaviest two days after the first bird appeared… After that it slowly winds down and they see the last albatross about five days into the ordeal.

Interpretations: I rather like the idea that this is a completely random event, with no real tie to anything (except, perhaps, fate; the albatross was chosen quite intentionally in that regard). Of course, there’s nothing stopping there from being some sort of magical effect, or perhaps a magnetic disturbance affecting the birds’ senses.

Adaptations: You could make the encounter quite different by changing the birds and/or what happens when they reach the ship. Maybe doves arrive (perhaps even doves carrying olive branches!) and stay on the ship a few days before leaving; crows or ravens could send a more ominous message to players who wouldn’t understand the significance of the albatross (if you don’t, read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner).