Lost to the Locker (8/19/2026)

GM: Nat
Players: Katin, Ezra, Justin, Betty, Joy, Sean
System: Pirate Borg

Our final memories were that of a thunderstorm striking us in the night as we sailed on the Burning Desire. A hurricane lantern smashing against the ship wall and starting a fire. The same lantern smashing against my head and knocking me dead!

Our Pirates

• Robert “Three Sheets” Hown, so good looking others are jealous, killed by lantern and obsessed with the means of his death. Also fascinated by counting things. A Sorcerer. (Sean)
• Pascal, or Paz, who bore a tattoo of their lover Edward on their chest. Compelled to find Edward once more (Katin)
• Dead Eyes, the privateer. Armed to the tooth, who carried with him a map of the Locker. (Ezra)
• Drift, a greedy lout in need of sword to practice his martial skills, capable of sharing his whispers of death with others. (Justin)
• Sarah “Frenzy”, a barnacle (figurative, not literal) who died trapped inside the ship. Sought whatever she could get her hands on. She heard the call of the Ferryman and could summon him. (Betty)
• Miles “The Bride”, a raconteur of great epics, also obsessed with counting. (Joy)

The deathless await

We woke, or perhaps, rose in shallow waters surrounded by nets and detritus, broken flinders and broken bodies. One of out members Sarah still trapped inside the ship as it was crushed against a rock from forces below. She drowned inside the trapped cabin and then rose again to escape it.

We were on the shore of an island with a great arch and jagged reefs.

Bells rung in the distance.

A long boat approached. At the fore was a huge figure in a black cloak. He had one glowing skull, and sick more sculls arranged in a garland around his neck, and six more skulls still stacked on each other and coming form his back. With a long pole, perhaps an oar, perhaps a scythe, he ferried the boat forward carrying eight lost souls as cargo.

Handsome Robert “Three Sheets” turned to his companions. “I think we might be dead.”

Charon, the Ferryman paid us no heed. He brought the boat to the pier and the lost souls departed, walking listlessly through the arch where they disappeared.

Three Sheets entreated the Ferryman for succor. “Great Charon, I count eight souls departed and we are six remaining. One more than the thirteen skulls upon your head. Can you tell us where we are. What is this place? What is this torment?”

He spoke with a deep resonant voice “You have come to the Locker. A place all pirates should know. This is not torment.”

Paz tore open their shirt and showed the tattoo of their lover Edward and asked Charon if he had carried Edward to the Locker as well.

The immortal ferryman thought for a moment, as though trying to recall one ant from the millions of others. “He has not travelled on my boat.”

Three Sheets, who looked at his reflection in the water and saw his beautiful now befitted with a horrible gash form where the lanterned killed him. “Can we go back? Can we return to the land of the living?”

Charon boomed “There is no back. There is only forward” and he pointed to the island ahead.

But Robert Three Sheets knew there was a way, just not one the Ferryman would share.

Charon offered to take us on his long boat to some of the environs within the locker. As we boarded we heard the whispers of past passengers, all awaiting their end. With three strokes of an oar, that might also be a scythe, we made it to land, a small pirate town lit by green lights, surrounded by twisting docks, buildings made of wrecked ships, home of many lost souls, one of them eternally fishing at the end of a pier.

Port Oblivion

As a we approached the aged fisherman barked at Charon “You’re scaring all the fish away, you damned deathless lout!”

Within the port town, we saw several notable establishments:

• Neptune’s Workshop
• The Open Casket, a cracked open galleon that served as public house for drinking, dancing, and sorrows.
• Theater of Lost Minds, made of several ships cobbled together and featuring local entertainment.
• Jörmungandr
• Wings House of Curios, featuring many worthwhile and worthless treasures.

We visited Wings House of Curios first, in search of equipment and information. Paz spotted a brass monkey statue that had certainly been plundered from our ship, the Burning Desire, as Paz could see the tarnished spot on its head where we all rubbed it for good luck. Our silver was worthless here, but perhaps other items could be traded.

Three Sheets gave Madam Wing, the proprietor, a broad smile, and she showed great interest in that smile, in particular his teeth. He had all of them! She showed him a jar of teeth she had been collecting and asked if he would be willing to trade his own!

It just so happened Dead Eyes had a bag of teeth, human and otherwise, that he was willing to part with and for it he was given a compass that seemed to spin listlessly. Perhaps it pointed to where we were right now.

Next we sauntered to the Open Casket, where we saw many last souls dancing, drinking, and drowning their sorrows. At the bar a very foppish skeleton was serving drinks, from grog to the good stuff, it was all free here. The skeleton wore a mangy strap on beard to offer him character, and Paz rightly figured that more hair would be appreciated. They tore a bloody clump of hair form their own scalp and offered it as gift, which was graciously received. Paz gulped down a glass of grog, which was an experience to ingest, and began an inquiry “What happens when you die in the locker?”

The skeleton laughed as though it were the simplest thing “Oh, just wait a few minutes and you’ll return just as you were when you first entered”

“And are there any ways to escape, to return to the living?”

This garnered a much more serious response. “The Mist Guard protect the borders and prevent any from escaping.” It seemed he would say more, but not in earshot of others.

We each has the opportunity to consort with our fellow pirate kin and learn what we could of this sunken place beneath the sea.

• Miles The Bride offered silent company to the sulkers and when they got to talking he heard the rumor that among the Mist Guard, on each ship there is a captain, who has a shiny treasure in their mouth.
• Sarah skulked over to the card tables and joined in the gambling. One of them, a cautious cheater, told a story that once upon a time, someone stole Charon’s scythe, which was also his oar, and after than nobody came to Port Oblivion for a month!
• There was a floating lantern in the bar, piloted by a tarantula. Thought Robert would go no where near another murderous lantern, Drift thought he’d see what the spider knew. He asked the furry creature if there was a way out and got a bite on his hand for the effort. Everyone knows spiders can’t talk! Drift began hallucinating that the Open Casket was filled with people from his past life. French and English, dressed in finery, all looking down at him like a lowly creature, shunning him.
• Dead eyes listened to conversations at the bar, but heard nothing of note.
• Paz asked the skeletal bartender for a private meeting. The jovial bartender shouted out “Everyone. I’m closed!” and shut a velvet curtain around himself and Paz. “You need three things to escape this place. A vessel, a portal, and an obol. The latter being a small coin. The only coin with any value in this place.”
• Robert joined the revelers and danced with Euridice De Leon who told him that the real dancing was done at the ball, held every night by Lady Oblivion at the Pellucid Palace. To get an invitation, we should seek out the Lady, who was probably enjoying the eldritch deep one comedy “is that your tentacle?” Lady laOblivion was easily recognized for her watery beauty and her ethereal glow.

Impressing the Lady

We gained entranced to the Theater of Lost Minds, and to our good fortune learned that the Lady was in her box, observing, if not necessarily enjoying the show.

The theater was all dark hardwood and blue velvet. The ticket tacker had smiles at all the wrong angles, but happily gave us six tickets for entry.

Inside the theater was saw the box seat where the Lady and her attendants sat.

On stage we heard the lead call for her brother Theodore to enter. When the actor arrived he bungled his way through the lines and we were all sure that handsome Robert could take his place as his understudy.

Drift filled his minds with whispers of death and then Theodore ran terrified off the stage, Robert snatched his wig and ran on with his understudy. The lead was improvising lines but the time he got on stage and when he arrived, wearing Theodore’s wig, she just kept going “We need to…discover the….the secret.”

“Yes.” Robert agreed. “Our secret destiny” and he revealed the tentacle tattoo on his arm which would eventually be complimented by a giant tentacle prop that would burst from his chest!

The lead was delighted and whispered “oh, you’re actually quite good at this” as the crowd leaned forward in their seats as they had not done in some time!

Meanwhile, Paz lead the rest of our motley crew to the lady’s box, bluffed their way in and told her that we were an acting troupe called the Burning Desire.

When Lady Oblivion inquires about the living world Paz lied and said that actors had risen to the status of nobility, and so, despite appearances, we were among the peerage. The lady was delighted and invited us all, as guests not performers, to her ball this evening!

She handed Paz a piece of coral that would serve as our invitation.

Preparing for the Ball

Sarah and Robert returned to the shop of curios (Madam Wing had closed it after acquiring the teeth, but it was now open again). Madam Wing was devouring a crust of bread and when we arrived she looked up smiling with an array of mismatched teeth and explained “I haven’t been able to do this in years!!”

When we inquired to make further trades with her she kept trying to pawn off souvenir spoons as she had them in abundance. When Robert told her he was looking for an obol, she looked scandalized and claimed she had never heard of such things.

When bribed with a stone tablet inscribed with ancient erotic pictographs however, she offered that the Lady Oblivion is said to possess an obol, but she’ll never give it away, nor would she ever help someone escape the Locker.

Meanwhile, Miles the Bride attempted to make acquaintances with Abraham the fisher. Miles wanted to impress him by catching a meager fish, but caught a ghost marlin instead! The massive fish pulled him from the dock.

Paz jumped on the one boat that was in the doc, despite Abraham’s warning that it belonged to Lady Oblivion, and once on board, their very thoughts set it into motion as ghostly crew began oaring. We all leapt on and went after Miles. We tried throwing a marlinspike (which seemed like it would be just the right tool!), firing a musket, and tangling it in a tent, but in the end, the only thing that worked was Sarah’s scourge, which caught hold of the creature and tethered it to our boat.

In the distance we saw the fog part and another boat appeared, bearing the soldiers of the Mist Guard!