Session 18: The Celestial Drake
Airship Over the Cerulean Sea
TONE: Light and fun. Social encounters, gambling, a night rescue
— and a dragon.
Entertainment Aboard
The Celestial Drake is a luxury airship — four decks, a dining
parlor, a games room, a small casino, and the Pineapple Club for those
with the right credentials. The staff are impeccably dressed and
professionally unbothered by the kind of passengers who travel on this
route.
| Activity | Mechanics |
|---|---|
| The casino | 3 rounds of gambling — Insight checks vs. house DC 13. Win: money. Lose: money. Break even: a story about the last person who won big and what happened to them after. |
| The Pineapple Club | DC 14 Persuasion or a notable display to get in. Inside: a Sithean duchess, a retired pirate captain, and a halfling who claims to be the world’s greatest cartographer and is definitely lying about half of it. |
| The swinging chairs (Night Deck) | Acrobatics DC 12 to swing successfully. Failure: embarrassing. Success: a view of the sea at night that is genuinely beautiful. |
Night Deck: The Rescue
While the party is on the Night Deck, they discover three children in
an emergency — a section of railing has given way and two small
passengers are hanging over the edge by a rope, held by a third child
who is losing his grip.
COMBAT: This is a skill challenge, not a combat: 3 successes before 2
failures. Athletics to pull the rope, Acrobatics to reach the dangling
children, Persuasion to keep the child on the railing calm. Failure
consequences: the children fall into a safety net on the deck below —
humiliating rather than fatal, but the crew is very unhappy.
Flint the Pseudodragon
In the chaos, a pseudodragon the size of a large cat emerges from a
cargo crate that has been slightly opened. He has bright copper scales
and a barbed tail he uses to gesture. He looks at one specific party
member with particular interest — whoever seems most chaotic, most lost,
or most in need of a companion — and has decided, apparently
unilaterally, that this is his person. His name is Flint.
DM NOTE: Flint communicates through emotion and limited telepathy
(range 100 feet). He is sarcastic, affectionate, and has a strong
opinion about everything. He is excellent at finding hidden things and
truly terrible at being subtle. He bonds as a familiar or companion to
whichever party member he fixated on.
The Drake stops briefly in Sithean before continuing across the sea
to Neverland. Sithean is cold, industrial, and unwelcoming. Nothing
happens in Sithean. That’s the point.
-
Night Deck rescue: 300 XP
-
Flint choosing a party member: 150 XP
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