Campaign Summary

Murder on the High Seas is a historic fantasy using D&D 5th edition rules. It is set on Earth in the year 1690, but in an alternate timeline where magic exists, many of the world’s myths are real, and the gods walk among humanity. On a rainy April day, the infamous privateer captain Scarlette Jane arrived in Port Cayonne, Tortuga, and hastily assembled a crew to sail into the Phantom Sea on a suicide mission to steal an artifact from the goddess Circe herself.

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Note Taking Methodologies

Timeline

• Each day has a summary of major news and rumors. These may or may not actually be pertinent to the campaign, but they can inform us about what’s going on in the wider world.
• To keep the timeline organized, this is the order of operations to decide which article links an event to the timeline:
  • Major events are linked to the timeline from the session summary.
  • Quest-specific events are linked to the timeline from the quest article.
  • Events prior to the start of the campaign are linked from that event’s relevant article.

Characters

• “Non Player Characters” includes a fairly exhaustive list of historical characters that have or are very likely to have played a role in the player characters’ histories in addition to NPCs created for the campaign that are considered minor characters.
• “Player Characters” is used for player characters, but it also includes NPCs that can be considered major characters at the moment. This was done to help make those important NPCs easier to find.
• Icons
  • A skull indicates a character is confirmed dead. The parenthesis is the year they died.
  • A question mark indicates a character is presumed dead. The parenthesis is the year presumed lost.
  • Handcuffs indicate a character is imprisoned. The parenthesis is the location they are imprisoned at.

Lore

• Ships is a list of ships either used in the campaign or relevant to the history behind the campaign
  • They are organized as much as possible by nation loyalty and the area they operate in
  • Icons
    • Ships with a boat icon are still in service
    • Ships with a water icon are confirmed to have been sunk
    • Ships with a question mark are presumed lost but unconfirmed

Loot

• This section only contains unique magical effects or what looks like major quest items

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Change Log

2025-11-08

• Introducing a shift to updating player character pages based on “arcs”.
  • Updating character articles is the most time consuming part of keeping our notes, so they’ll be updated when major chapters of the story are done rather than after every session.
  • NPCs, quests, etc. will still be updated per session.
  • The first six sessions were designated the “Phantom Sea arc”.
• Timeline
  • Added entries for April 29 and April 30, 1690
• Lore
  • Added 1690-04: April, 1690 to gazetteers
• Characters
  • Updated David of Castile with the Phantom Sea arc
  • Updated Circe with #006 notes
  • Updated Poseidon (aka Percy) with #006 notes
• Locations
  • Updated Circe’s Island with #006 notes
  • Updated Phantom Sea with Phantom Sea arc
• Quests
  • Updated and completed Calypso’s Heart with #006 notes
  • Merged “The Night Wind Mysteries” into other quests

2025-11-05

• Characters
  • Updated Chester Dunsmoore based on #006 and writings
  • Updated Corlissandro de Villanueva based on #006 and writings

2025-11-03

• Corrected an error in #006 The Labyrinth, pt 2‘s event timeline
• Lore
  • Added 004 A Brief Respite to Writings
• Characters
  • Updated Alethea Argyros based on #006 notes and writings
  • Updated Ceiran “Torch” O’Niell based on #006 notes and writings

2025-11-02

• Added #006 The Labyrinth, pt 2 session notes
• Lore
  • Added 002 The First Words to Writings
  • Added 001 Scarlette and Sabine Down Time to Writings

2025-11-01

• Characters
  • Updated Corlissandro de Villanueva based on #005 notes
  • Updated David of Castile based on #005 notes
  • Updated Herman “Gestra” Gerber based on #005 notes
  • Updated Sabine “Blackthorn” Varnier based on #005 notes
  • Updated Scarlette Jane based on #005 notes and writings

2025-10-28

• Characters
  • Updated Chester Dunsmoore based on #005 notes

2025-10-26

• Characters
  • Revised Jean-Pierre Reynaud for consistency

2025-10-25

• Characters
  • Moved Circe and Poseidon (aka Percy) to NPCs list
    • We left them behind last session and sailed away from their island, I’m sure we will never see them again
• Lore
  • For Writings, I started tagging which characters are in a scene by putting their names in the subtitle (if their names weren’t already in the title)
  • Revamped the Writing page itself to be a timeline with summaries of all the stories written
  • Added 000 Alethea Gets Burned - 13 years old to Writings
  • Added 000 The Escape Attempt - 17 years old to Writings
  • Added 000 Aftermath of the Escape Attempt - 17 years old to Writings

• Characters
  • Updated Alethea Argyros based on writings and #005 notes
  • Updated Ceiran “Torch” O’Niell based on #005 notes

2025-10-24

• Added #005 The Labyrinth to session notes
• Lore
  • Added 002 A Quiet Moment to writings

2025-10-19

• Characters
  • Updated Corlissandro de Villanueva based on writings and #004 notes
  • Updated Chester Dunsmoore based on #004 notes (again)
  • Updated Circe based on #004 notes (again)
  • Updated David of Castile based on #004 notes
  • Updated Herman “Gestra” Gerber based on #004 notes
  • Updated Poseidon (aka Percy) based on writings and #004 notes (again)
  • Updated Scarlette Jane based on writings and #004 notes
• Locations
  • Updated Circe’s Island based on #004 notes
• Quests
  • Updated Calypso’s Heart based on #004 notes
  • Updated The Night Wind Mysteries based on #004 notes

2025-10-18

• Timeline
  • Added April 28, 1690
• Characters
  • Updated Alethea Argyros based on writings and #004 notes
  • Updated Ceiran “Torch” O’Niell based on writings and #004 notes

2025-10-12

• Lore
  • Added 003 That Which Keeps Us Going to Writings
  • Added 000 Alethea Meets Santiago - 11 Years Old to Writings
• Characters
  • Updated Alethea Argyros based on writings and Session #004 notes

2025-09-24

• Characters
  • Updated Chester Dunsmoore with new background notes and to reflect Session #004
  • Updated Poseidon (aka Percy) to reflect Session #004
  • Added Circe

2025-09-17

• Lore
  • Added #004 Circe’s Island, pt 2 to Session Notes
  • Added 000 Ceiran and Alethea First Meet to Writings
  • Added 000 Sabine and Scarlette Meet to Writings
  • Added 000 The Fateful Deal - Scarlette and Percy to Writings

2025-09-07

• Lore
  • Added Aboleths to Beastiary
  • Renamed all writings to match new scheme to keep it better organized
    • Every writing will have the session number it came after prepended to the title.
    • Writings that happened before the campaign will start with 000
    • Added 002 Gestra and Corlis After the Aboleth Battle to the Writings section
• Characters
  • Updated Sabine “Blackthorn” Varnier to reflect new notes

2025-09-04

• Quests
  • Updated Calypso’s Heart to reflect Session 003 notes
  • Updated The Night Wind Mysteries to reflect Session 003 notes
  • Added Rune Carver’s Markings to the quest log
  • Added Unidentified Beings to the quest log
• Timeline
  • Added several dates to the timeline based on Quest events

2025-09-02

• Characters
  • Updated David of Castile to reflect Session 001-003 notes
  • Updated Herman “Gestra” Gerber to reflect writings and Session 001-003 notes
  • Updated Percy to reflect Session 001-003 notes
  • Updated Sabine to reflect Session 001-003 notes
  • Updated Scarlette Jane to reflect session notes and writings
• Locations
  • Added Circe’s Island

2025-09-01

• Added #003 Circe’s Island to Session Notes
• Added Phantom Sea Downtime to Writings
• Added After Battle Talks to Writings
• Updated Session Notes to be a running log of the sessions with a one sentence, high level summary of each one.
• Added gazetteer entries for April 26, 1690 and April 27, 1690
• Updated Night Wind to reflect the events of the first three sessions
• Renamed the “Unidentified Hellinistic Deity” to Unidentified Being: “Tragedienne”
  • Now that we have at least three unidentified beings running amok in our campaign so far, I’m just going to start giving them code names to keep them separate
• Updated Alethea Argyros to reflect Session #003 notes
• Updated Ceiran “Torch” O’Niell to reflect Session #001-003 notes
• Updated Chester Dunsmoore to reflect Session #002-003 notes
• Updated Corlissandro de Villanueva to reflect Session #003 notes
• Added Unidentified Being: “Rune Carver” to Characters
• Added Unidentified Being: “Love Song” to Characters

2025-08-24

• Updated quest Calypso’s Heart to reflect Session #002 notes.
• Added writing Alethea’s First Naval Battle and Training to Lore.
• Added gazetteer entry for April 17, 1690; April 16, 1690; and April 15, 1690.
• Updated Alethea Argyros to reflect writings and Session #002 notes.
• Updated Corlissandro de Villanueva to reflect writings and Session #002 notes
• Updated Herman “Gestra” Gerber to reflect writings and Session #002 notes