Pacific Ocean I: Chango Tom & John Shark

7) Chango Tom & John Shark
Chilean Grounds, March 20, 1845

A) A Bull and His Harem
Bright and early on the vernal equinox, Henry Swain calls from the masthead—“There she blows! And blows! Six, no—bloooows! Eight whales! Parmaceti!” With a cry of jubilation, the men realize they’ve stumbled across a pod of sperm whales: a bull, four cows, and three calves. Although Joab is disappointed none of them are his whale, he calls for the boats to be lowered, and the chase is on.

Chango Tom (Bull Whale)

Combat

Attacks per round: 1

Armor: Blubber coating: 10 points against bludgeon attacks; 6 points against slashing attacks; 4 points against bullets, spades, and general piercing attacks; 0 points against harpoons and lances.

Description
The Quiddity has not just discovered any sperm whale—they’ve run across Chango Tom, a particularly ferocious bull named by unsuccessful hunters in the mid-1830s. A Hard Whalecraft or an Extreme Sea Lore roll recognizes his torn flukes and unusually large hump, rusty harpoons projecting from its mass like so many stickpins. Chango Tom is known for being “quick with his flukes,” and while he’s never claimed a human life, his tail has swamped many a boat. A Spot Hidden roll notes a recent wound along his jaw—clearly the aging bull has earned his harem in battle with a younger male!

Sperm Whale (3 Cows)

Combat

Attacks per round: 1

Armor: Blubber coating: 10 points against bludgeon attacks; 6 points against slashing attacks; 4 points against bullets, spades, and general piercing attacks; 0 points against harpoons and lances

Sperm Whale (3 Calves)

Combat

Attacks per round: 1

Armor: Blubber coating: 4 points against bludgeon attacks; 2 points against slashing attacks; 1 points against bullets, spades, and general piercing attacks; 0 points against harpoons and lances.

Notes: Calves do not sound when harpooned, and have very little blubber.

B) The Hunt
As the whaleboats approach the pod, the sails are lowered, the oars are peaked, and paddles are distributed—“Quietly, men, let’s not galley this fine family. Look at that, Dutch! He’s got a couple’a wives, just like you!” The Keeper and players may determine which boats head for which whales, but the calves are spared—“Let ‘em fatten up, we’ll catch ‘em on the way home!”

Managing the Hunt
If the Atlantic whale hunt was a tutorial for the “Whale Hunting” system, this encounter provides the opportunity to remove the training wheels and really test drive the system. Whales may be gallied and chased, and Chango Tom has higher-than-average rolls for his tail attacks. Still, the Keeper should be careful not to overwhelm the players, and fudging a couple of dice rolls is certainly permissible! The goal is to provide a thrilling hunt, not swamp the players with rules or achieve Total Party Massacre. If the player boats strike out, the Keeper should allow NPC boats to capture at least two cows. The Swagger Die goes to the boat that brings in Chango Tom.

C) The Trying-Out
After the boats return with their bounty, the cutting-stage is lowered and Mr. Coffin fires up the trypots. The Keeper should review each step of the process, but the trying-out does not need to be roleplayed in detail. If Chango Tom was killed, the harpoons sticking from its hump may include one from the Eliza, the Celaeno, or the Michael Glavin, depending on the Keeper’s whim. Or perhaps one hails from the Dawn Whistler, Morgan’s old ship? Other “noteworthy” harpoons may include the Charles W. Morgan, the Ladoga, or the General S.

D) Shark Attack
While trying-out the second whale, an incident occurs that adds some drama to the proceedings. The scenario begins with a harpooneer—Dixon or Quakaloo—tying a monkey-rope around his waist and lowering onto the carcass. His goal is to insert the blubber hook into the whale and begin the flensing. (See “Trying-Out a Whale” for details.) A difficult task even in calm waters, the seas are a bit rough today. Even worse, this is the second whale being butchered, so everything is already filthy and greasy, and the waters teem with sharks. Mindless in their hunger, they thrash themselves to the carcass and gobble big chunks of whalemeat.

The sharks are especially ferocious today, a churning mass of teeth and eyes—lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. There are so many of the accursed creatures that two men are required to fend them off. Each is armed with a sharp spade mounted to a long pole. Fastened to the cutting stage by monkey-ropes, the men simply stab the sharks in the face when they get too close. It’s an unpleasant, exhausting job, and needless to say it’s assigned to player characters—Beckett and Redburn are the most likely, but the sharks are so bad another harpooneer might be needed, or even Mr. Coffin. The Keeper should call for a couple-three Fighting rolls, just to create the illusion of player control.

Come on down and chum some of this shit…
All at once, a particularly violent wave rocks the Quiddity. The two shark-pokers and the lowered harpooneer must make Dodge rolls to avoid slipping. Fortunately they’re connected to the cutting stage with monkey-ropes, but that won’t stop John Shark from removing a limb while a sailor’s left dangling!

Great White Shark

Combat

Attacks per round: 2
Fighting attacks: Biting, thrashing, and slashing with its fins.
Bite and Hold (mnvr): A shark may bite and hold on to its victim, inflicting automatic damage on following rounds until it can be dislodged by an opposed STR roll.

Combat: Man vs. Shark

Each character who fails his Dodge roll must fend off a shark for 1D4+1 rounds while his mates pull him to safety. If all three characters make successful rolls, the Keeper should dunk the one with the lowest Luck score, but reduce the exposure to 1D3 rounds. A failed Dodge roll may be pushed, but a second failure brings an automatic 5 rounds of dangling. These brief but furious rounds of action are managed differently than normal combat. There’s no way an unarmed character can seriously damage a shark, and the sharks are biting in a blind frenzy. The goal here is to repel the shark until being rescued from danger. Each round has the same two-phase mechanic:

Phase 1: Repel the Shark
The suspended character makes an unopposed Fighting (Brawl) roll to repel the shark. This takes the form of kicking and punching, inflicting 1D3 damage plus the character’s damage bonus. The attack must penetrate the shark’s 5-point armor to be effective. Even delivering 1 HP of damage deflects the shark’s attack that round. An Extreme success inflicts maximum damage and automatically deflects the shark. If the character deflected the shark, the next round begins. Otherwise, move on to Phase 2.

Phase 2: Shark Attacks!
If the character’s attack was ineffective, the shark attacks by opposing its Fighting roll against the character’s Dodge roll. If the shark is successful, it delivers a bite for 2D3 damage. (Because the shark is biting out of the water, its damage bonus is negated.) If the shark achieves an Extreme success on its attack, it delivers the “bite and hold” maneuver. This causes 2D6 damage, and continues to inflict 1D6 damage each round until broken. A “held” character may not be pulled to safety until the shark has successfully been injured!

Assisting the Characters
Starting at the beginning of Round 3, two people on deck may throw harpoons at individual sharks. (There’s no time to retrieve firearms.) It requires a Hard Fighting (Harpoon) roll to strike a shark. Harpoons may be thrown at the rate of one throw every three rounds.

Ending Combat
Combat ends when the required rounds have elapsed and the character is pulled to safety. If combat is going poorly for the character—he’s successfully “bit and held,” for example—a merciful Keeper may deliberately “roll” low damage until someone strikes the shark with a harpoon.

E) The Mariner’s Revenge
As soon as the suspended characters are brought to safety, the sailors take revenge on “John Shark.” Mattashunama successfully harpoons the offending shark, and the thrashing creature is hauled to deck with great effort. Gaffs are slashed into its body and it’s dragged to the trypots, where its mouth is forced open with cargo hooks. With a wicked grin, Whipple hands the (most) afflicted player character a bucket—“John Shark is hungry! Why don’t you give ‘im a little drink?” Mattashunama pours boiling whale oil into the bucket. If the player character is unwilling to “do the honors,” Whipple grunts in disgust and grabs the fuming bucket himself.

The shark writhes in agony as boiling oil is poured down its gullet. Steam hisses from its mouth, and the smell of fried fish saturates the air. The sailors laugh and taunt the beast, their iron hooks keeping it pinioned to deck. It takes another minute for the beast to die—“Tough son of a bitch, this one!”—maybe assisted by another helping of oil, or a few swift chops from a spade. Appearing out of nowhere with a butcher’s knife, Natty Weeks severs its fins and carves out a few choice steaks. The carcass is dumped into the sea, where it’s quickly consumed by its erstwhile dinner companions.

White Leviathan, Chapter 3—Pacific Ocean I
[Back to Encounter 6, The Chilean Grounds | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to Encounter 8, Walpurgis Nacht]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 9 October 2022
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]