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The Boat

Design and Layout Greg Saunders

Art Tithi Luadthong

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 The Boat
T he river running through the city of Ryville is navigable all the
way to the sea, and originates in a large lake to the west called Lake
Greenbow. The lake was once a significant tourist draw, being picaresque
and close to Ryville. Since the Event, travel along the land is difficult,
but the water remains mainly free of growth, only the areas close to the
shore showing the explosion of greenery in the form of kelp forests that
characterize the post-Event world. The community of the Boat as they
call it dwell on the lake, their vessel anchored off-shore near the center of
the water. A refuge from the dangers and difficulties of the Sea of Leaves,
the Boat is unfortunately manned by a hostile crew who see Drifters as
competition, not potential allies, and who don’t welcome guests.
The Boat

Overview
T he Boat was once a fairly substantial leisure craft, with accommodation
on board for around twenty people to stay overnight and a hold
capable of taking their belongings. When the Event occurred the Boat was
moored in the lake, and escaped any significant damage from the coming
of the trees. The people on the vessel at that time are pretty much the
people on there now, give or take. To them the Boat has become a refuge,
and as at the time of the Event most were travelling with their families
and were thus protected from the Call. Now the Boat is seen by them as a
kind of haven from the post-Event world. But the crew and those that were
originally passengers have to eat, and so scavenging raids into the local
environs and to Ryville are common – an area they see as their turf and
jealously defend from intruders.

Size: Around Twenty

O riginally the vessel held five crew including the captain, the other
fifteen people on board being passengers made up of three families
of four, a couple and a lone traveler. One of the families is no longer
present, having left the boat to make their way back to their home on land,
but the rest remain. The Captain of the Boat, John Logan, is still in charge,
and his crew including the malcontent David Taylor work to maintain the
2 vessel as best they can. The rest perform other jobs, the most common
being to travel into the remains of the city in search of food. Only the
children, two boys and two girls, aren’t expected to leave the Boat. The
vessel does have fuel, and the engines are operational, but at the moment
the captain can’t see any point in moving – the center of the lake offers
safety and security, and gives the community a good deal of time to note
any approach by other craft.

T here are four children on board – Marcy and Jimmy Thomas and
Clair and Miranda Mortimer. These children are a constant cause
of anxiety for the captain and their families. Stuck on the Boat as their
parents are unwilling to take them ashore, the children are bored and
mischievous, and the fishing they are charged with as their main task on
board is approached in a less than halfhearted manner. They prowl about
the Boat, poking around in things that don’t concern them and generally
getting in the crew’s way. The captain is thinking that the children should
be off-ship, but he needs their parents to help gather food and resources to
feed everyone. So far he has put up with the disruption, but it won’t take
much to persuade him that the families just aren’t worth the bother.

The Boat
Location: A Pre-Event
Structure
T he Boat as the name suggests is a fairly large vessel design to cruise
the lake and the river. It is not ocean going, but it was originally
designed to over-night guests in relative comfort. Powered by two large
diesel motors, the crew have so far managed to maintain the engine and
gearing, but they don’t move the Boat as they have no real need and
replacing the fuel would be a concern. The Boat has four large cabins for
the passengers and three smaller ones below for the crew, as well as a large
open sun deck. Since the Event, the community have rigged up tarpaulins
to cover the open area, giving them a working space to cook and live. It
takes about half an hour to row from the Boat to the nearer shore and the
old landing jetty that protrudes into the lake, and all adult members of the
community are adept at the task having made the journey several times.

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 Resources: Hunting/
scavenging
T he people on the Boat live on fishing, the kills they make on shore
and what they can scavenge in the city. The children are the
fishers, charged with gathering the lake’s bounty, something they are less
than moderately successful at. The ‘hunters’ – Jenny Thomas and Helen
Mortimer – row to the shore and then set up hides at the shoreline, giving
them the opportunity to gather animals that stray too close to the water’s
edge. These two then row back to shore to with their kills, often deer.
The rest of the original passengers and crew are tasked with scavenging
what they can in the city. The captain knows that resources are scarce in
Ryville, and so they warn off any other Drifters they encounter and take
great pains to hide the caches of resources that they have uncovered in
their expeditions. They are also relatively heavily armed, having raided a

The Boat
police station in the city, but most of the passengers are unskilled at using
the guns they have though – they use them mainly as a show of force, and
avoid coming to shore if they know rival Drifters or Wild are in the area.
Only Mortimer and Thomas are a decent shot.

Attitude: Hostile
T he people on the Boat are a pretty unwelcoming lot. They know that
their home is as close to a haven in the post-Event world as you can
find – free from the Sea of Leaves, and relatively defensible. They keep a
constant watch on the shoreline, looking for other vessels in the water, and
make sure to keep their activities in the city as hidden as possible. When
they meet strangers they warn them off with threats of violence and are
careful not to reveal where they come from. They rarely accept visitors
onto the Boat, only a couple of Drifters are trusted sufficiently to deliver
news of the outside world to even know that the vessel is inhabited. Sadly
for them they are not great at keeping themselves hidden on the vessel,
and anyone observing the ship for a few hours would note that people are
on board.

Leadership: Dictatorship
J ohn Logan is the captain of the Boat, and has been in charge of the
vessel for fourteen years. He very much see it as his ship, and if you
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 want to stay on board you have to obey his rules. He runs the Boat like
an ocean-going ship – the crew know their duties and their place, and the
operation runs like clockwork. The passengers are another story. Most
know that they have to pull their weight to stay on the Boat, and are happy
enough to do what Logan says (after all they can see that the Boat is well
run). Only one of the passengers, Tom Schmitt, rebels against his orders
and deliberately annoys the captain. So far he’s doing enough to stay on
board, but how long that will last is anyone’s guess.

Bizarre Practices Involve: The

Lake
T he captain treats the lake like a living thing, and affords it great
respect. When he’s been drinking, he makes the crew and passengers
The Boat

perform a ‘ceremony of thanks’ to the waters, which often involves

throwing useful items over board as a offering to the waters. This greatly
annoys the passengers, who have to run the risks of the forest to gather
these resources in the first place. The crew go along with the captain, after
all, he is the captain, but the rest on board worry that Logan’s drinking and
unusual behavior is getting worse, not better. Most of these ‘ceremonies’
happen at night when the children are asleep, and some of the parents feel
that they have got quite out of hand with a lot of shouting and singing.

Noted Individuals
T he captain, John Logan, used to command a military vessel, and
secretly yearns for that kind of command. He says he served his
duty and stepped down, but in reality it was his drinking that lost him that
post. Finding a commercial captaincy gave him a living, but didn’t give him
back his decency. A broken man, Logan’s air of command and composure
is nothing but a façade. He has a store of alcohol locked up in his cabin,
but he is well aware that a restock is unlikely, so he’s cut back to a few
monumental drinking sessions spaced out by long and painful periods of
abstinence. He does run a good ship though. Tall and proud, with a jutting
jaw and distinguished iron grey hair, he still bears an air of command.

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M ost of the crew are happy with their lot, getting on with what the
captain says pretty much as they always have. Only David Taylor
baulks against the captain. He keeps himself to himself, but deep down
feels that he could do a lot better job of running the Boat than Logan does.
Unassuming and somewhat bland, Taylor is the chief engineer, and so far
he’s managed to keep the engines in working order. He dreams of starting
the Boat up and making their way down river toward the sea, as surely the
Sea of Leaves must have a boundary?

T om Schmitt is the only passenger that open speaks up against the

captain. The lone passenger when the Event occurred, Schmitt feels
deep down that he’s an outsider. Most of the others on boar see him as
a blow hard however, and give little credence to what he says. Even the
captain manages to ignore him with magnanimity.

J enny Thomas and Helen Mortimer, the hunters, are well-liked on

board. Hard working and helpful, they rub along well with the crew
and even with the captain when he’s in one of his moods. In reality though
Jenny Thomas has had enough of the rules and regulations of the Boat,
and fears that the confined space is not helping her children. She’s hoping

The Boat
that when the time is right she can persuade the crew and passengers that
the captain has gone too far, and replace him with a more relaxed routine
on board, especially in regards to interactions with other Drifters of the
Sea of Leaves. She hasn’t spoken to Mortimer about this despite their time
spend in isolation together on-shore – Mortimer is quiet in the extreme,
and Thomas senses that the older woman is fighting her own personal
demons.

Adventure Hook: Dark Waters

T he captain thinks that he is keeping the lake ‘on their side’ with his
bizarre ceremonies and offerings, but in reality, he’s just stirring
things up. There is something in the lake, in the water, that has noticed
the Boat and the people on it. Now, in the dark of the night, this presence
is calling those on the vessel to drop over the side and into the welcoming
embrace of the depths. The most susceptible minds are the children. Two
nights ago Jenny Thomas only just stopped her daughter from dropping
over the side, and now she has a premonition that something is going to
happen to her family. She’s told the captain, but that did no good. Now
she’s thinking she needs some outside help to get her family away from
the lake, and next time she’s on shore she plans to slip away and find
some. Meanwhile, the presence is getting frustrated and is stepping up its
activities…

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 Adventure Hook: The Raid
T he Boat has come to the attention of Joan Clarke, a Drifter, and
her gang. The vessel is quite obvious out on the lake, and those on
board don’t do a good job of keeping themselves hidden. Clarke and her
crew are desperate to find somewhere safe – the Call has been pulling at
them strongly recently, and they are terrified that the forest is going to
swallow them up. So two weeks ago after locating a rowing boat close to
the shore, she send two of her best men to investigate. They were chased
off by gunfire, those on board not even willing to hear what her people
had to say. So she realizes that she is going to have to do things the hard
way. Her team have been around the lake, gathering whatever boats they
can find and patching them up, and now plan to a raid to claim the Boat
for themselves. They aren’t really concerned with those already on board
– they are desperate, and they haven’t seen the children who fish on the
other side of the vessel from the Drifter’s main camp. Clarke is planning
The Boat

a nighttime raid, and it looks like things could be about to get very ugly
indeed.

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