“They say cursed souls cling to the Pearl Heart like barnacles to a hull, waiting for the one brave or foolish enough to set them free.”
Storyline
Long before the Pale Prow became the infamous ghost ship, Captain Ineca Sufocan served Keoland as a privateer during Azure’s Tide, the long war against the Sea Princes a century ago.
On one of his early victories, Ineca recovered a remarkable treasure, a flawless pearl in the shape of a heart. Believing it merely a beautiful keepsake, he gifted it to his beloved as a pledge of marriage once the war was done. Neither realized the pendant was a magical pearl heart, an artifact whispered to shield the wearer from harm.
As Ineca’s reputation grew, so did the Sea Princes’ hatred of him. Determined to end his campaign, they seized his lover and offered a single ultimatum: abandon the Pale Prow and his privateer ways, or she would die.
Ineca refused.
In a desperate raid on Port Monmurg, he and his crew fought to reach her, but the Sea Princes murdered her before his eyes. In the battle that followed, Ineca fell, his crew slaughtered, and the Pale Prow sank beneath the waves.
Her dying words were a final plea:
“Find me… rescue me…”
And the enchanted pearl heart heard her.
Her blood soaked into the pearl and awakened it.
Her soul was drawn into the heart, imprisoned in its luminous core.
Ineca and his crew were dragged back into unlife; revenants, vampires, and cursed spirits bound to the Pale Prow.
None may rest until her soul is freed.
This is the Pale Prow’s great curse:
They are undead not for power, but because the heart will not let them rest.
For a century they have hunted the Heart of Pearl across the Azure Sea and Javan Bay, seeking to reclaim it and release Ineca’s beloved from her torment and in doing so, finally free themselves.
Basics
Starting Location: Crabber's Cove
Levels: Any
Adventure Hooks
Xolec’s Bargain
A whispering voice calls from beneath Crabber’s Cove. Xolec, a vampire sealed away for a century, offers the characters valuable secrets about a hidden brotherhood operating in Saltmarsh, but only if they free him. He admits he came seeking the Pearl Heart, yet refuses to reveal why, warning: “If the truth were known, none of us would leave this place alive.”
The Pale Prow’s Ultimatum
The Pale Prow emerges from an unnatural fog and halts the party’s ship.
Captain Ineca Sufocan offers a grim bargain:
“Find the Pearl Heart, and you may live.”
He gives no explanation, only tattoos each character with ghost-ink he can scry upon.
If the party falters or abandons the search, Ineca’s undead crew will hunt them relentlessly.
Captain Xendros’s Lead
Xendros of the Faithful Quartermasters summons the party:
“A rumor speaks of a vampire hidden in a coastal crypt, one who knows of a powerful artifact.”
She believes the creature possesses information about a legendary relic and will pay for proof or knowledge. She does not know the vampire’s name… only that it predates the town’s oldest records.
Keledek’s Curiosity
Keledek has uncovered references in his library to a vampire once active in Saltmarsh, obsessed with a mythic relic called the Pearl Heart, said to offer supernatural protection to the living.
He tasks the characters with finding this vampire, believing it still exists somewhere near town.
In exchange for reliable information about the Heart, he offers arcane rewards.