D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Dragonboat Festival of Silent Hulls

# Investigation# Intrigue# Urban

The annual Dragonboat Festival in the port city of Azuremere has been plagued by a series of sabotaged vessels, their hulls drilled from below the waterline. As the festival's climax—the Great Race—approaches, tensions simmer between the city's profit-driven Merchant's Guild and the native Riverfolk who revere the river as a living god. Players are drawn into a web of sabotage, ancient pacts, and a desperate struggle for a city's soul, where every choice has bloody consequences.

Chronicle Prelude

The bustling, decorated harbor of Azuremere. Colorful dragonboat banners flutter between guildhalls and taverns. The air smells of roasting fish, incense, and the underlying tension of fear as festival-goers whisper about the latest sunken boat.

Environmental Traits

The Azuremere River itself is becoming hostile. Sabotaged boats, drowned festival-goers, and a growing dread suggest the river is rejecting the city's expansion. The ultimate goal is to determine the true cause of the sinkings and decide the city's fate before the Great Race becomes a massacre.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Guild Master Vela
A sharp-featured woman in her fifties, dressed in immaculate, dark blue silks bearing the Guild's anchor-and-coin emblem. Her eyes are cold and calculating, and she wears a heavy chain of office.
Elder Theron
An elderly Riverfolk man with skin like tanned leather and long, grey-streaked hair woven with river reeds. He carries a staff of driftwood and moves with a weary but deliberate grace.
Watch Captain Maren
A woman in her thirties with a tired, cynical expression and the perpetually slumped shoulders of someone who has seen too many dockside brawls. Her City Watch uniform is practical but worn.
Foreman Kael
A middle-aged man with calloused hands and a perpetually worried frown. He wears the rough-spun clothes of a dockyard overseer, stained with tar and salt.
Scout Liam
A young Riverfolk man with sharp, watchful eyes and nimble fingers. He wears practical leathers and has a longbow slung over his shoulder. He seems conflicted, stealing glances towards the distant, well-lit guild halls.
Aqualon, Spirit of the River
A colossal, serpentine being made of churning water, glowing algae, and ancient, petrified wood. Its eyes are swirling vortices of bioluminescent plankton. Its form is both beautiful and terrifying, radiating an aura of deep, primal anger.
Engineer Elena
A young woman with ink-stained fingers and intense, focused eyes. She wears a practical leather apron over her Guild engineer's tunic, and her hair is tied back in a messy bun.
Grod
A massive, bald man with a heavy jaw and knuckles scarred from brawls. He wears studded leather armor emblazoned with the Guild's insignia and carries a heavy cudgel.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Scorched Harvest: A Tale of Smoke and Loyalty

The Smuggler's Oath and the Envelope of Seals