Rotting Journal

Item

Image
Description	This is a journal recovered from a strange ship… or hallucination of a ship… off the shores of the Slags.
Class	Usable (Quest)
Requires	6 Base Perception
Use	You open the rotting old book. Its pages are covered with characters that vaguely suggest writing, as if an illiterate child had drawn a book without understanding the squiggles' purpose. Periodically, childish but violent sketches provide you the vague outline of a story. [Receive one of the following paragraphs:] This particular journal illustrates a sailing ship getting caught in a mysterious fog bank. Crew members disappear and supplies run lower. The last drawing in the book shows stick figures of sailors fighting over the few remaining crates of supplies. (Reread: Learn 2-3? of: Dirty Trick, Leaping Dodge, Longarm, Parry, Swordplay) OR This journal has drawings of the ship making landfall on a rocky island in the middle of a dead, oily sea. A man from the island wearing a skull mask is allowed on the ship for reasons that aren't at all clear. (Reread: Learn 1-2? of: Leaping Dodge, Parry, Longarm) OR The drawings in this one show the man in the skull mask directing the sailors. They throw huge piles of treasure overboard along with their forks and spoons. Afterwards, they have a party among the remaining treasure, all of which has been painstakingly colored gold. (Reread: Learn 1-2 of: Evil Eye, Hex, Leaping Dodge) OR The sketches in this journal show five crew members begging the man in the skull mask for something. The man hands a gourd around to each of them, which is eventually filled with five dots. Then the crew members are let off the boat at the same island the masked man originally boarded from. (Reread: Learn 2-3? of: Dirty Trick, Hex , Evil Eye, Parry, Swordplay) OR This journal shows a struggle between someone who looks like the navigator of the ship and the man in a skull mask. With the drawing style it's epic, almost cartoonish. In the end, the navigator is sealed under a trap door near the front of the ship. (Reread: Learn 3-4? of: Dirty Trick, Evil Eye, Hex, Leaping Dodge, Longarm, Parry, Swordplay)
Effects	Reading the entire story opens up the Trapped Navigator encounter on the ghost ship

Sources

Drops from spectral sailor
Choice encounter for ancient treasure chests while on the Ghost Ship, if a golden key is in your inventory and you choose to open it.

Notes

consumed on use
Continuing to read journals after you've read the entire story allows you to learn certain techniques, depending on the section you reread. The following message appears: "Rereading it, you pay a bit more attention to the surprisingly detailed fight scenes and pick up some new ideas."

Uses

This item is not a component for any kind of crafting.

paper mache (x2), paper mache (x3), thin shiv (x1)

.10 Curiosities