📘 Session 8 – "Ghosts in the Gears"

Music🎶

Images 🖼️

🪐 Campaign Arc

Campaign: Spelljammer – Homebrew Hybrid
Session Title: Fuel Run
Dungeon Master: James/Jamie (Sicareus)
Setting: Damaged Nautiloid → derelict “Falcon” drifting in Wildspace

🧭 Overview

The crew seized control of a battered Illithid nautiloid, burned through a Ring of Animal Speech to power the spelljamming helm, and hopped to a nearby wreck for fresh fuel. Highlights: three-Mind-Flayer wipe, ghostly captain reveal, maiden flight, boarding the Falcon, and an acidic Black-Pudding brawl that etched more armour than egos.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Party Members

Character	Player	Class / Subclass	Race	Notable Actions
Garrick “Rigg” Dalhart	Ben / Elemunk	Rogue (Swashbuckler)	Human	Crit-wrenched the final Mind Flayer; split puddings.
Laydrick Gefinhal	Jared / Galindis	Cleric (Life)	Dwarf	Sacred Flame spam; shield now −1 AC.
High Jinks	Kate / Keitachan	Warlock (GOO)	Tabaxi	Piloted helm; Eldritch-blasted oozes; pocketed magic marble.
Dino Roar (Dynoth Rokos)	Robb / Baconbuff	Artificer 5 / Fighter 2	Githyanki	Tanked pudding crit; scale-mail −1 AC.
Valen Pyre	Justin / Slitzer	Wizard (Evoker)	Human	Fireball double-kill; identified Portal-Sight Spectacles.

📍 Key Locations

Nautiloid Helm Chamber: Ring-shaped throne-room with bound wizard & three Mind Flayers.
Astral Mist Corridor: Brief “runway” used for the first helm jump.
Derelict Falcon: Compact wooden spelljamming schooner—cargo hold full of acid oozes.

📑 Session Highlights

Fireball Opener: Valen’s 8d6 erased two Mind Flayers on round one.
Ghost Captain: Scry-orb triggered Captain Lackspur’s apparition & exposition dump.
Helm Test Flight: Jinks’ drained ring powered a smooth astral hop.
Falcon Boarding: Zero-g approach; Rigg breached cargo hatch.
Pudding Splitter: Oozes divided twice, showering acid across the hold.

📸 Key Scenes

⚔️ Mind-Flayer Skirmish

Engine-Room Boarding & Mind-Flayer Skirmish
Pressing deeper into the nautiloid they captured last session, the party breached a vast, ring-shaped chamber crowned by a gilded spelljamming throne. A wan human wizard lay strapped into the seat, while three wounded Mind Flayers stood guard. Roll20’s fog-of-war briefly scattered everyone’s tokens as the group tried to find their positions.

Valen Pyre won the initiative and hurled a roaring Fireball that vaporised two flayers outright and badly scorched the third. Seizing the opening, Rigg loosed a critical shot from his Bag o’ Nutz sling, while High Jinks and Leydrick poured on punishment with Eldritch Blasts and Sacred Flame.

Reeling but not yet dead, the lone illithid lashed back with a potent Mind Blast, stunning Rigg. Seconds later, another volley of force and radiance dropped the creature for good, freeing the enthroned wizard and clearing the chamber.

👻 Ghost of Captain Lackspur

With the Mind Flayers slain, Valen knelt beside the slack-jawed wizard whose neck still lay twisted at an impossible angle—proof of how brutally the illithids had harvested him. Rifling the corpse, he uncovered a charred spell-book and a fist-sized sapphire scrying orb. The instant Valen’s fingers closed around the gem, the air grew icy and a translucent figure materialised: the spectral likeness of the very wizard at their feet—his head still canted to one side, eyes glowing with mournful blue light.

Introducing himself as Captain Barrien Lackspur, the ghost warned, “Do not drop that orb; it is the anchor to my memory.” He confessed that the gilded throne was a spelljamming helm and that the nautiloid’s engines would run only if fed powerful magic—or living essence. Hull breaches meant the vessel could limp, but not sail far, without fresh “batteries.” He urged the crew to salvage arcane fuel from a nearby derelict he had charted before his death, promising safe coordinates etched in star-sigils only he could reveal through the orb.

The party listened, half-awed and half-unnerved, as the captain’s ghostly form flickered—bound to the orb, desperate to see his ship fly once more.

🚀 First Helm Jump

Needing power for the damaged helm, High Jinks reluctantly surrendered her cherished Ring of Animal Speech, slotting the silver band into the throne’s crystal socket. The metal hissed, drained of every enchantment in a heartbeat, and the deck lights flickered to life. Guided by Captain Lackspur’s disembodied voice, Jinks eased herself into the gilded seat; golden filaments laced across her forearms, and sudden vertigo told the crew they were no longer tethered to gravity.

At her mental command the nautiloid lurched forward, cutting a silent path through silver astral vapour. Stars bent and streaked outside shattered viewport panes, while below-decks rigging groaned from residual hull breaches. Within minutes the mists thinned, revealing a lonely wooden schooner adrift near a jagged asteroid cluster—the derelict Falcon the captain had promised. The jump had cost a single spent ring and several frayed nerves, but the ship now drifted, inertialess, on minimal thrust, poised for its first true salvage run.

🛳️ Falcon Boarding

Guided by the ghost-captain’s coordinates, the nautiloid glided alongside the derelict wooden schooner the charts called the Falcon. With inertial thrusters at a whisper, the party crossed the gap by jumping across. Rigg planted a boarding spike and levered open a warped cargo hatch, the stale air inside reeking of bilge and ozone. Lantern-light revealed splintered crates, acid-etched timbers and a faint, wet slither echoing in the darkness.

The crew fanned out: Dino and his Steel Defender securing a perimeter while Valen swept the hold with Detect Magic. Moments later two glossy shapes oozed from cracked barrels—Black Puddings, their surfaces fizzing with corrosive acid. The boarding action had become an ambush, and the fight for fresh helm fuel began in earnest on the Falcon’s rotting deck.

☣️ Acidic Hold Brawl

The moment the Falcon’s hold lights flared, two inky Black Puddings slithered from shattered barrels, their surfaces sizzling with hungry acid. Laydrick reacted first, calling down Sacred Flame that seared away globs of ooze but only made the creatures hiss louder. One pudding lashed a pseudopod across Dino’s chest—an 18-point acid strike that would have melted through his scale mail had he not snapped off an Absorb Elements reaction. Even so, the armour’s plates warped, dropping its protection by a notch.

As the oozes advanced, High Jinks and Valen filled the hold with a storm of Eldritch Blasts and force bolts, driving one pudding to split in two quivering halves. Corrosive spray pitted Laydrick’s shield, but he stood firm, while Rigg darted in, bashing one half to jelly with his oversized wrench. The Steel Defender pinned the final fragment long enough for Rigg to land a coup-de-grâce, the metallic thud echoed by a sizzling quiet as acid pooled and cooled.

When the stench finally cleared, the party stood singed but unbeaten—gear scarred, nerves frayed—and the hold lay strewn with 3 intact magic infused-items and the promise of much-needed helm fuel.

🔍 Ongoing Threads & Plot Hooks

Helm Repairs: Patch the hull or risk a catastrophic breach.
Identify the Marble & Compass: Mystery items could be key—or cursed.
Lackspur’s Derelict Lead: Follow the ghost’s coordinates for bigger salvage.

🎁 Loot & Discoveries

Item	Finder	Description / Status
Portal-Sight Spectacles (Magical)	Valen	Reveal destination of any planar portal.
Iridescent Marble	High Jinks	Magically active – needs Identify .
Starmetal Compass	Party	Need Identify ; reacts to wild-magic.
Spell-Book & Scry-Orb	Valen / Jinks	Weeks to decipher; orb fragile.

🚨 Cliff-hanger – Drifting in the Dark

Corpses stowed, doors barred; helm on minimal thrust.
Long rest begins amid the quiet hiss of hull leaks.
Next: chart Lackspur’s coordinates—or be hunted first.