It is day 14 of month 4, 1042, on Glass Acre, the Free Drift Compact farm station that feeds the havens of the Outer Drift. Raiders have robbed two food barges this month. Both times they knew the hour the barge sailed and the lane it took.
The leak is Maura Dewhurst, who keeps the signal lamp on the Harvest Dock. Every night at 23:00 she flashes the all clear to ships waiting outside the station. For a month she has added a short code at the end. It gives the next barge's sailing hour and lane. She also keeps the dock book, where every sailing is written.
The raiders are the crew of the Pintail, an old hauler under Ned Garside. The crew broke the Drift Charter last year when it began to rob Compact barges. They sell the stolen food to hungry havens at three times the price. Maura's son, Alfie Dewhurst, signed on with them last year. Ned told Maura that Alfie would get a full share if she helped. If she did not, Alfie would be left on a bare rock. Ned pays her 5 Crowns a signal. She keeps every coin in a tin and has spent none of it.
Last night Maura flashed the sailing of the Plenty, which leaves at 10:00 today. The Pintail hides behind a drifting rock four hours out on the lane to the Tangle. Its two skiffs will strike the barge at 14:00.
Tarquin Morrow suspects the seed traders. He has asked the farmers to meet at Grange Hall at 18:00 to put Zelie Marrin off the station. She had nothing to do with the raids.
Tarquin Morrow guards the station with his pirate crew. He wants the leak found. His gunship cannot sail until day 16, because its rune engine is in pieces.
Ursel Brenning, the head grower, wants the food to reach the havens. She will not put anyone off the station without proof.
Zelie Marrin, a seed trader at the Seed Market, wants her name cleared.
Maura Dewhurst (46) keeps the dock lamp. She wants her son home alive and is sick with shame.
Alfie Dewhurst (19) rows a raider skiff for the Pintail. He has never hurt anyone and wants out.
Ned Garside (44) captains the Pintail. He wants food to sell and hates a fair fight.
The player characters are the Bethan crew, a family escort crew on the small courier Bethan. Bronwen Tarrant is the widowed Gorrin skipper, Owain Tarrant is her son, who holds the hatch with a shield, Annika Sorensen is an engine fitter from the Glass Acre workshops who is engaged to Owain and bolts folding rune guns to the rails, and Ewart Tibbs is an old Pellin weather reader who has sailed with the family for thirty years. The player runs one of them. The GM runs the other three as companions. A month ago raiders took a barge the Bethan was escorting, and dock folk whisper that the family sold it out.
Wilf Hobday is the station's bee keeper and Ewart's old friend, Olan Mudge is a lighthouse keeper from Tallis, and Signe Rourke is a skiff pilot who flies escort for the barges. They are NPCs who follow their description.
Stat blocks. Alfie Dewhurst and the raiders use the Grain Raider stat block. Ned Garside uses the Smuggler Skipper stat block. The Pintail's gunner uses the Swivel Gunner stat block, and its deck crew uses the Smuggler Deckhand stat block. All the raiders are men.
The dock, 06:30. On the Harvest Dock, Tarquin Morrow hires escorts for the Plenty at 5 Crowns each, plus 20 Crowns each if the barge gets through. The Plenty has 8 crew and 1 light rune gun. Signe Rourke's skiff and the Bethan are the only escorts he has, and he watches the Tarrants closely after last month. A DC 12 Wisdom (Insight) check shows Tarquin has no proof against Zelie Marrin, only distrust. A DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check, made with Advantage by anyone who has run a signal lamp, spots a new hand lever on the dock lamp's shutters. It is made for fast flashes.
Asking around. At the Long Table, a DC 12 Charisma (Persuasion) check gets the cooks talking. Maura has eaten alone since her son left, and lately she pays in Crowns, which is new. In the Bee Loft, a wide window looks down on the dock lamp. Wilf Hobday taught Alfie to keep bees when he was a boy, and he knows Alfie left with a crew that later broke the Charter. Ewart Tibbs gets him talking without a check. In the lamp hut, the dock book holds every sailing time. A DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check finds both robbed sailings marked with a small dot.
The raid, 14:00. Four hours out on the lane to the Tangle, still in Glass Acre space, two raider skiffs come out from behind a drifting rock. A DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check with a spyglass sees them one round early. Skiff one carries 1 Swivel Gunner and 3 Grain Raiders. Skiff two carries 2 Grain Raiders, one of them Alfie Dewhurst. Use the Ship Combat and Boarding Actions rules. Each skiff has AC 13 and 60 hit points. The Plenty's crew fights in the background by the Crew Fights rules. The raiders want sacks, not lives. Alfie drops his cutlass when he is hurt or when Signe Rourke calls him by name. Owain can hold the Plenty's hatch while its crew gets below.
Alfie talks. Taken alive, Alfie Dewhurst gives up the Pintail's hiding rock, its crew of 7 and the lamp code after a DC 10 Charisma (Persuasion) check, or at once if promised that his mother will come to no harm. He begs the crew not to tell Tarquin about her.
The lamp hut. Faced with Alfie's story or the code, Maura Dewhurst breaks down after a DC 12 Charisma (Persuasion) check. She hands over the tin with 40 Crowns in it. Without Alfie, anyone can work out the code from the dock book with a DC 14 Intelligence check using Navigator Tools.
Grange Hall, 18:00. At Grange Hall, Tarquin Morrow speaks against Zelie Marrin, and Ursel Brenning runs the meeting. Proof of the lamp code clears Zelie at once. Without proof, a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check gets the farmers to wait three days. If Maura is named in public, Tarquin wants her put off the station. A DC 14 Charisma (Persuasion) check makes him accept that she was forced. Ursel then gives her work in the Wheat Dome.
The false signal, 23:00. Whoever holds the dock lamp at 23:00 can send the raiders a false sailing. Then the crew chooses where and when the skiffs wait. They can set a trap there with Signe's skiff and a few of Tarquin's pirates aboard a barge. The Bethan or Signe's skiff can also fly straight to the Pintail's rock in 4 hours.
The Pintail. Behind the drifting rock, the Pintail holds Ned Garside, 1 Swivel Gunner, 3 Grain Raiders and 2 Smuggler Deckhands, plus any raiders who fled the raid. Its hold has 60 sacks of grain and 20 barrels of fish from the first two barges, worth about 120 Crowns. Ned gives up below a quarter of his hit points or when his helm is taken, and offers 50 Crowns to be let go. Under the Drift Charter, Charter breakers are judged by the Open Council on Tallis.
Encounter math (four level 4 characters, Low 1,000, Moderate 1,500, High 2,000). The raid is 1 Swivel Gunner and 5 Grain Raiders, 1,450 XP, Moderate (budget 1,500). The Pintail is 1 Smuggler Skipper, 1 Swivel Gunner, 3 Grain Raiders and 2 Smuggler Deckhands, 1,550 XP, Moderate (budget 1,500). Each raider who fled to the Pintail adds 200 XP, so two of them push it to High (budget 2,000). In that case the deckhands give up first.
Day 14, 14:00. Raiders take 40 sacks of grain from the Plenty. One barge hand has a broken arm.
Day 14, 18:00. Grange Hall votes 60 to 52 to put Zelie Marrin off the station.
Day 14, 23:00. Maura flashes the next sailing, the barge Thrift on day 17 at 08:00.
Day 15. Zelie Marrin leaves on a seed trader's skiff.
Day 17, 12:00. The Thrift is robbed, and one of its crew is killed.
Day 20. Tarquin's gunship sails at last and finds nothing. Two havens get half their food this month.
Good. The leak is stopped without shaming Maura in public, Alfie comes home, the Pintail is taken or driven off, the stolen food comes back and Zelie Marrin is cleared.
Mixed. The barges are safe, but Maura is put off the station, or Ned Garside escapes with the Pintail and the food.
Bad. Zelie Marrin is put off the station, the Plenty is robbed, or Alfie dies in the fight.
Ursel Brenning pays 30 Crowns each for proof of the leak and 20 Crowns more each if the stolen food comes back.
Tarquin Morrow pays the 20-Crown escort bonus each if the Plenty gets through. He offers steady escort runs. Use the Freighter Escort to the Tangle job file, with a note that the run starts at the Harvest Dock and Tarquin pays 300 Marks each.
Ned Garside's cabin holds a Rune Visor, 3 Signal Flares and 25 Crowns.
Zelie Marrin becomes a contact who sells rare seed at cost and knows traders on far worlds.
Heroic Inspiration for bringing Alfie home alive or for clearing Zelie in front of the whole hall.
The black grit. Zelie Marrin now trusts the crew. She shows them the black grit she found at the bottom of her bean seed crate. The seed came from a ship found drifting near the Dark Rim, and it may explain the grey blight in the Blight Dome.
Judgement on Tallis. If Ned Garside is taken, the Open Council on Tallis must judge him. Someone has to carry him there, and Olan Mudge's lighthouse is on the same world.
The buyers. Ned sold the stolen food to a haven quartermaster who asked no questions. That haven is short of food again, and its people go hungry unless someone sells to it fairly.