D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Bay of Chitin and Lees

# Wilderness# Dark Fantasy# Nautical# Economic# Intrigue

The once-thriving port of Crab Bay is dying, choked not by war but by waste. The monstrous Snap-Crabs, driven into a frenzy by the potent yeast runoff from the Highmark Brewery, have formed a living, chitinous blockade around the bay's only deep-water channel. Starvation looms. The fishermen and refugees of the Shoreward Compact blame the Brewery's reckless dumping, while the desperate Brewers' Guild argues the runoff is a necessary, even beneficial, byproduct of their life-saving grain alcohol production, and that the crabs are just a 'natural' hazard that must be endured. Players arrive in the besieged, stinking settlement, caught between two sides with no clean hands, forced to navigate a literal and moral quagmire to break the blockade or condemn the bay to ruin.

Chronicle Prelude

The players arrive at the makeshift settlement of 'The Stink,' built on the rickety docks and shanties of Crab Bay. The air is thick with the smell of sour yeast, rotting fish, and desperation. The bay itself is a frothy, yellowish mess, with the massive shadows of Snap-Crabs moving just below the surface. The only ships are trapped in harbor, their hulls scraped raw. The Shoreward Compact's leader, Captain Maera, and the Brewers' Guild's foreman, Barrelmaster Hask, can be found arguing in the central square.

Environmental Traits

The regional crisis is the ecological and economic collapse of Crab Bay. The Snap-Crab blockade has severed trade and fishing, leading to starvation. The yeast runoff is not only agitating the crabs but also poisoning the water table and making the bay's fish unsafe to eat. The ultimate goal is to resolve the blockade, but doing so requires confronting the source of the pollution and the political will to stop it.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Captain Maera
A weathered woman in her 50s with sea-bleached hair tied in a practical knot, calloused hands, and a determined, sun-weathered face. She wears a thick wool coat over scale armor and carries a harpoon-like spear.
Barrelmaster Hask
A stout, powerfully built man in a brewer's leather apron, with a meticulously groomed beard and a perpetually stern expression. His Guild insignia is polished to a high shine.
Tide-Sage Lyra
A gaunt half-elf woman with pale, sea-green eyes and long, tangled dark hair adorned with shells and tiny, preserved sea creatures. She wears layered robes of rotting silk and kelp.
Brood-Tender Krix
An enormous Snap-Crab, its chitinous shell fused with pulsating, yeast-like growths. Multiple stalked eyes swivel independently, and its forelimbs end in complex, manipulator-like pincers. It moves with an unsettling, intelligent deliberation.
Engineer Otto
A nervous, skinny man with soot on his face and ink-stained fingers, wearing a Guild engineer's leather apron over stained work clothes. He constantly wrings his hands and avoids eye contact.
Crab Queen Gurgle
A colossal, ancient Snap-Crab matriarch, her shell a landscape of barnacles, coral, and thick, bubbling yeast growths. Her massive claws could crush stone, and a constant, low gurgle emanates from within her carapace, like a boiling cauldron. She is less a creature and more a force of nature.
Old Man Wills
A frail, weather-beaten fisherman with milky, distant eyes and a perpetual mumble. He wears tattered, salt-stiffened clothes and clutches a driftwood cane.
Enforcer Brask
A hulking mercenary in plate armor dented from countless brawls, with a shaved head and a prominent scar across his cheek. He wears the Brewers' Guild badge like a threat and carries a heavy, spiked mace.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

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