Circus Pulpus Episode 2 - Rum Runners on the High Seas

[Rebar]

I am rusty in my gaming, so could use some inspiration.

 

I've got a long-game - a loose idea of where the campaign will go (mostly down the Eastern Coast into S. America, stopping at towns to perform and solve mysteries). I'm looking for some eps that just get them into some action, and I'll pepper it with clues and plot-threads.

 

Episode Zero "Escape from New York" (the get-to-know-your-hero ep) had our heroes and their Phantasmagorical Flotilla docked at Battery Park, New York, where they were the hub of a circus festival. They received a mysterious note from a PC's circus-owner grandfather/patron, urging them to make haste for <MacGuffinTown**> down the coast where he will meet them as soon as possible. 

 

Before they can finish stowing their gear and securing all the animals (up to an including an elephant), they were set upon by a gang of tommy-gun-wielding thugs. They were forced to abandon any remaining crates (that haven't been shot up) and get underway as the thugs riddle the hull with bullets (once the gangsters saw they weren't getting their quarry (the Captain, who had the telegraph)), they chased them off the doc, shooting over their heads at the steamer (haven't figured out why yet) One thing our heroes did get away with though was one of the thugs as prisoner.

 

So now they are under steam, low on (wood) fuel, full of holes, taking on water, under-provisioned and under-crewed. And they're about to cross the rum line during the heyday of prohibition.

 

 

I figure Ep One "Pirates on the High Seas" must have them encounter a rum runner, 12 miles off the American Coast (where they lie outside the border, waiting for speed boats from shore to exchange goods by dark of night). 

 

I'm trying to figure out how to have a good adventure encountering another large boat (and maybe some speed boats). Obvious one is the heroes are pinned down in the sites of a machine-gun, boarded, over-powered and locked in a locker below-decks. They have to escape and some other stuff.

 

loose ends:

- hull holed, taking on water, low on fuel, supplies

- missing supplies

- missing (wounded?) circus animals (not yet sure they have any big cats, but they do have a horse, an elephant and the obligatory mischievous squirrel monkey)

- a prisoner (which they have not interrogated yet)

- why they wanted the Captain

- what about the note (if they discover it) the gangsters wanted

 

 

**MacGuffinTown will be some town down the coast, maybe Cape May NJ, where Episode 2 will surely take place. Any really interesting or mysterious things happen on the East Coast in the 30's? Hydro dams, fuel deposits, Fountain of Youth FL, legends, etc.

[Rebar]

Hm. 38 pairs of eyes on this, but no responses?

 

Is it intractable question? Or merely TL;DR?

[Burrito Boy]

The captain is a reformed rum runner who was partners with the rum runner the PCs are going to encounter. The gangsters that attacked the boat want to get into the bootlegging business themselves but they don't have the proper knowledge. So they attempted to kidnap the captain in order to force him to reveal his suppliers, fences, and shipping routes. And if he wouldn't talk, they were going to use him to blackmail his partner, threatening to kill the captain if the partner wouldn't tell them what they want to know. Now that their kidnapping attempt has failed, they're trying another plan. When the speed boats meet the supply ship, they'll be crewed by the gangsters rather than the regular bootleggers.

[Rebar]

Some good ideas in there, thanks.

 

I'm thinking more in terms of actual tactics. i.e. the part that picks up where you left off.

 

Hard to pace a episode on a landscape only 15 hexes long.

[Cancer]

A trained dog act can be pretty compact. And you can do some vaudeville acts with a good parrot. Might have a falcon, too, if their show is always on the ship (so the substantial airspace a falcon needs is available). And all those can contribute to mayhem.

 

The reason they want the note is the site. They expect to capture the prize at that site ... they know what the goody is, but they don't know where.

 

Small arms fire probably wouldn't do more than slow leak to the hull, but it might have messed up the controls, in particular the steering linkage. So you have power, but until you are in open water you have trouble using it.

 

The show boat might be foreign flag (UK, out of Bermuda) and do evening out-and-back to international waters, where they can take on booze from the rum runner (with whom they have a lgitimate contract to provide them with booze when they are out of US territory) and sell it to the audience on board for a few hours before heading back inshore. That is likely to make for a larger vessel than you originally intended, since you would need space for 200-300 drinkers/paying guests in addition to the theatre and its people and stuff.