Using Songs to Inspire an Adventure: The Mariner’s Revenge Song
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So, it’s been almost a year now since I wrote the last “Using Sons to Inspire an Adventure” post, covering Eli the Barrow Boy by the Decemberists. There’s another Decemberists song I used in a campaign more than a year back, when we decided to play Forgotten Realms. One of the players told me he wanted his character background to be inspired by The Mariner’s Revenge Song.
We are two mariners, our ships’ sole survivors in this belly of a whale. Its ribs our ceiling beams, its guts our carpeting. I guess we have some time to kill. You may not remember me. I was a child of three and you, a lad of eighteen. But I remember you, and I will relate to you how our histories interweave. At the time you were a rake and a roustabout, Spending all your money on the whores and hounds. You had a charming air: all cheap and debonair my widowed mother found so sweet And so she took you in, her sheets still warm with him, now filled with filth and foul disease As time wore on you proved a debt-ridden drunken mess Leaving my mother a poor consumptive wretch And then you disappeared, your gambling arrears the only thing you left behind And then the magistrate reclaimed our small estate and my poor mother lost her mind Then one day in spring my dear sweet mother died But before she did I took her hand as she, dying, cried: “Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters Drag him to a hole until he wakes up naked clawing at the ceiling of his grave.” It took me fifteen years to swallow all my tears among the urchins in the street, Until a priory took pity and hired me to keep their vestry nice and neat. But never once in the employ of these holy men did I ever once turn my mind from the thought of revenge One night I overheard the Prior exchanging words with a penitent whaler from the sea. The captain of his ship who matched you toe to tip was known for wanton cruelty. The following day I shipped to sea with a privateer And in the whistle of the wind I could almost hear… “Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters Drag him to a hole until he wakes up naked clawing at the ceiling of his grave There is one thing I must say to you as you sail across the sea: Always, your mother will watch over you as you avenge this wicked deed” And then that fateful night we had you in our sight after twenty months at sea; Your starboard flank abeam, I was getting my muskets clean when came this rumbling from beneath. The ocean shook, the sky went black and the captain quailed, And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale. Don’t know how I survived. The crew all was chewed alive, I must have slipped between his teeth. But, O! What providence! What divine intelligence! That you should survive as well as me. It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear, So lean in close and I will whisper the last words you’ll hear… – As you can see, there’s a lot of opportunities for different background elements in this story. We changed the antagonist in the song to be his father who had abandoned them, but other than that, left the backstory pretty much intact. At the beginning of the campaign, I gave each person a slip of paper that told why it was they were coming to the Elfsong Tavern in Balder’s Gate. This is what I gave him: “Two nights ago at the Blushing Mermaid, nursing a whiskey tallglass, you overheard a whaler at the table next to you exchanging words with an old, disenfranchised cleric of Amaunator. He spoke of the captain of his ship, who matches the description of your father toe to tip. He spoke of a man known for wanton cruelty. This morning, you went down to the docks, signed up with a privateer, packed your bags and headed over to the Elfsong Tavern to hear the spirit’s song one last time… The hunt is nearly over…”
I know, obvious and cheesy, but we really enjoyed seeing where his story went from there. Until next time, keep rolling 20′s!
Wonderful Song! I agree!