Set Sail for Disaster (Clean Version 2024)

The Backstory

Your players have been invited on a pleasure cruise by Captain Michael Von Ammon. The guest list includes a number of the Captain’s friends, family members, and business associates, as well as the crew of the Captain’s sixty-foot yacht, the Elizabeth May. Everyone is expecting an evening cruise replete with dinner, drinks, and dancing – they aren’t expecting foul weather, the murder of someone on board, or a sudden shipwreck on a deserted island in the uncharted Caribbean.

Murder!

This mystery is divided into two primary segments. During the first portion of the evening, Act One, the events take place on the Elizabeth May, Captain Von Ammon’s ship, a sixty-foot pleasure cruiser manned by the Captain, the Ship’s Engineer (played by the Host/Hostess), and a handful of wait staff. As the evening progresses, a tropical storm rolls in, casting a somewhat ominous pall over the festivities. As the hour grows late, lightning strikes the ship, the lights go out in the cabin, and the partygoers hear a scream and a thud. When the players light candles they will find that someone has taken advantage of the momentary darkness to kill another person on the ship. The mystery is afoot!

The Perfect Crime?

Unfortunately, the partygoers will have no immediate opportunity to determine the identity of the killer; the ship has been struck by lightning, blowing most of the mechanical systems. Worse yet, she is taking on water, and the storm is intensifying. Amidst the crash of the waves and the roar of thunder there can be heard a rending shriek as the hull splinters. The partygoers are tossed about and lose consciousness.

Solving the Mystery

Act Two opens with the characters regaining consciousness on the shore of a small island, amid the wreckage of the ship. Miraculously, everyone has survived (except, of course, the victim, whose body has been lost at sea). It looks like there is enough left of the ship to put together a makeshift raft, and there are enough resources on the island to feed the group for quite a while ‘but everyone is nervous at the knowledge that there is undoubtedly a murderer in their midst. Now the players must work together to collect sufficient food and water, build an escape boat from the wreckage of the Elizabeth May and try to identify the murderer!