To maintain the interest of the Scenario, it is not recommended that the Players read the following contents, particularly the next lines, because they contain information that may be the framework for several Scenarii of a coming Campaign…

A map of the Yellow Lizard's Island - the proposed location for the setting of that story - is available to help getting a notion of the different visited places and their relative positions.

« Facts » and rumours regarding Poerava and Pedro Delgado

It's already been five years since the Governor, her father, secretely (well that's the kind of secret all know about anyway) bought, from one of the rare merchants passing by here, a young slave girl, of quite a mysterious origin and one year younger as his daughter, so that she be her play mate - which she became. That merchant sold her as coming from the remote and mythical Island of the Captain Lamarck and called Poerava, a name that the Governor maintained in usage. People of the island, who do not need much to talk a lot about anything (what's there to be done else?!), say that the guy was a swindler and that the girl would actually come from Cuba; the nickname which almost everybody gave her, « Da Cubanita », tells it way enough, without meaning any evil though and so they call her when she comes « down town » for some purchase. Some more poisonous tongues spread the idea that Poerava would be one o'many a child the Governor would have left behind him during his Pirate career – More often in Harbours than on a Deck, they further say… – but that, in her case, the merchant would have been clever and served by chance well enough to devise a way to blackmail him and get a nice amount for the price of his silence… His Ghost may one day rest in peace! If people would know! Reality is completely something else but, that, even Pedro Delgado the Merchant did not know anything of it… Also that which is so remarkable, aye! so remarkable that nobody notices it indeed, is that Poerava managed to speak the Curry-Bean Criole without any accent while she wouldn't have told a word of it as she arrived – All that, by the way, is not too consistent with the idea that she would be a Cubanita… No better would she have talked the tongue of the Curry-Beans, of which she now knows a bit more than some broken sentences, and try to guess how! Actually, there is here no big mystery, she is indeed a very clever girl, moreover nimble, with a good nerve and we'll be able to state it rather quickly through the coming story…

Whatsoever, Pedro Delgado managed to sell her for such a high price that the Governor even had to include his (now old) Ship in the payment: the Vessel was anchored in the wild part of the island, right in the middle of the Convict's Creek, at the foot of the active Furnace of the Octopus, of which the approach is particularly difficult, be it by sea or ground way… And delivery was not included in the price, that would be a bit too much on top!

Actually, very indelicately, the merchant had devised the plan to kidnap Poerava to take her on the Governor's Ship and go elsewhere to sell her gain. To do so, he first went on inspection of the Ship's condition and he tried to understand the working of its strange (Voodoo) propulsion system, located in its « kitchen ». (Rather a sort of « kitchen-corner » as we may have the opportunity to see…)

Having failed to convince the Sorceress of the Swamps to give him an appropriate Voodoo recipe and ingredients, but nonetheless being persevering, Pedro Delgado attempted then to form a Crew with some villagers and inhabitants of the harbour, among the least recommendable ones, in order to kidnap Poerava on the eve of his leave.

However, the Yellow Lizard's island is very tiny a place and its inhabitants are not so many. So, in a way or another, those preparation steps were soon a discussion topic and that came probably even directly from one of Delgado's tentative recruitees or over through a regular customer of a bar where one of them would have come to « liquefy » the amount paid in advance for the operation… One night then, stating that he was doubled, yet still early enough to react, Pedro Delgado decided to play everything on a last card and he flew alone to the swamps, hunted by a group of eight guys lead by Gomez Garcia, the Steward (and Bursar and Quartermaster) of the Governor and the boss of the lightly armoured team which does the police on the island until today.

Once upon a time…

The Governor of the Yellow Lizard's Island, Juan-Ernesto Barbisurte, has got a really cute daughter, aged fourteen, named Elorria, rather of the « good girl » type who plays with her puppets or spend her time sewing in her father's house; but she also likes to have fun in the mansion's park and walk through the plantations. She cannot, however, do it as often as she would like because his father jealously takes care that she remains protected from the look of others and the sun, to maintain the whiteness of her complexion and the gold of her hair spotless…

Doesn't it sound like too much of a fairy tale, you think, don't you? Well, that all too right and we're not here for that! The Great Z… turns us mad if we are! Pirates! Piracy! Aye, that is what we're here for! So let us start right now for the way until there will not be that simple…

What is less or even not known at all…

Pedro Delgado's Ghost

As Pedro Delgado went on to the depths of the swamp, the hunt after him was stopped, with the consequence that the following is only guessed, freely invented or completely unknown, despite several attempts during the following days: Pedro Delgado was never found again neither dead nor alive. Only one thing is sure, the Ship of the Governor never left her port, which is deemed to be the last for sure for it she is and was always said to be haunted…

Actually, Pedro Delgado went to the hut of the Voodoo Sorceress, entered and threatened her to obtain the recipe and ingredients to start the Voodoo propulsion system of the Governor's Ship. In the belief that the men were still after him in the night, he even came to threaten her to death with a fire weapon and discovered (only) at that point that she was blind (Check however that Character's Sheet in the Characters' Section…); so he took his decision and flew, not without stealing some objects which seemed important to him and maybe also in the completely delirious hope that he would manage to make a suitable Voodoo soup by rying any imaginable combination.

And in so doing did he bad if you would believe me: a curse of the Sorceress or the wrong usage of the stolen products, who knows?! At any rate, he quickly met his fate on the Governor's Ship and soon came back under the form of a particularly bad-tempered Ghost totally attached to the Ship! His only way to be break out, but he is not clearly aware of it and could anyway not do it by himself now, would be to give back the Sorceress a brass locket in the shape of the head of a sort of horse (actually a Zebra…) which he stole her. He is now bound to it and he unfortunately let it fall into the deep waters of the Convict's Creek while trying to swim to the Ship on the fatal night. (The launch had mysteriously lost its anchoring point and had been pushed to a beach deep in the back of the creek, which Pedro Delgado, in panic and in the night, could not see.)

Honestly speaking, giving back the Sorceress the locket could be a solution but she would not set the Suzon free from her curse for such a petty thing! She would barely let Pedro Delgado finally join the Inferno or, who knows, with some luck, Elyseum… But we'll come back to that and it is largely enough for now.

One o'many secrets of Poerava

If we may, we would like to add here an item of no importance now but which could have a great one in the future? The little Poerava is for sure not Cuban at all, even if her features could be Curry-Bean at first glance. The really is from the Island of the Captain Lamarck but she isn't born of natives of that island either. She herself knows nothing about it but she had been named Misato and she is, indeed, the last of a direct line stemming from Hitomi Hinokibayashi, of whom it is said in the chronicles that she would have had no child… Hinokibayashi, a name which she doesn't know but which would move more than one – of terror as well as of greed – in the Navel of the World, despite her young age, and which would make her a high-valued target for many criminals and governments… The only sign which one could identify on her is a locket which she always bears around the neck, made of silver covered by a thin layer of gold, but which has no signification in that part of the Known World.

(Check the drawing of Poerava's Locket on her Character's Sheet in the section dedicated to Characters for Campaigns: it is actually the sign of the double happiness as it is often worn on Nip'On and that one is indeed the one of Hitomi Hinokibayashi, transmitted in motherly line through the successive unions…)

With all that, what we wrote, you probably start guessing where are the main lines of our story, Friend Game Master, don't you?! Let us now describe the set up for the day, in the wait for the memorable saga to be woven…

Starting here, whom can play our friends the Players?

They can be of many a different type and to help make a choice some ready-to-play Characters are proposed on this site as already mentioned. The Characters of that Scenario are quite young and have not much experience. They are in their teens, let's say between thirteen and seventeen, which is slightly too young to apply the parameters of the Character's Creation straight, so that you should refer to the Section regarding the effects of age to adapt, from the Chapter Experience and Fame.

On the other hand, for the sake of likelyhood (Is likelyhood a necessary evil?!) or at any rate to make the start of the Scenario easier, it is important that the Characters can swim or are very good friends with another who can. The reason behind is that the starter of the Scenario, oups! the machination of Poerava is precisely targetted at finding people of the island who can swim, something quite uncommon as we will soon see…

That point being covered, the choice of being a slave, a Curry-Bean or a Criole, that is absolutely no issue, as long as they do not want to play:

  • The Governor,
  • Nor his daughter,
  • Nor the Prow's figure of the Suzon (nor her Stern's…),
  • Nor a coconut tree, nor an anteater of the island's forests… nor, for the sake of goodness, a pig!

There is no objection that one or the other wants to play a parrot, it may always be useful in a Pirate Crew and it is also possible to develop an interesting background without telling the Player. By the way, Ernesto is Poerava's parrot and two parrots in a (future?!) Pirate Crew, that may well be much a do!! (…about something?)

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