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The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Visual_Inspector8743 on 2025-06-12 20:15:46+00:00.

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The people of the Lantern Berth are fishers and sea people. They are unafraid to sail in open water, unlike the settled societies of the mainland. The red and dreaming sunlight does not get inside them so much - or perhaps they are already full of it and can be lead no further into its strange seemings. They swim naked in the sea year round, and harvest food, strong strands of kelp, and other needful things from the reefs that cover the shallows close by their home. They also hunt the monsters that live in the deeper places, mostly whales, but also serpents and demon-fish. They do this in small boats, by hand, with harpoons, broad-bladed lances, cudgels, and long machetes, and they eat the meat of the titanic corpses that they leave in their wake. The transition into adulthood is linked to the hunting of monsters, although not in any way that is straightforward of measurable to an outsider. When they call you 'friend', it means 'someone who I can trust in the small boat'. This doesn't come easily.

An Islander whaling party will consist of 2d3 small boats, each manned by d3+4 Hunters, a Harpooner, and a Hunter-Captain. 1 in 2 chance that each small boat will include a Youngblood on their first hunt.

Each small boat will have 10 harpoons attached to floats, and 5 lances in the hold. These are communal weapons, taken up by whoever needs them in the moment. It will also have 30 rations, bandages and alcohol, d4 iron grenades, and a 1 in 2 chance of a single dose of antiseptic in a watertight chest.

A Hunter is HD1, unarmored, and armed with a machete and a cudgel. They are all blooded veterans, and take -2 fear damage on the hunt while their Captain lives. All can steer the boat and know their way home, all can use the lance and the harpoon. They can swim twice as fast as a normal human, and hold their breath for twice as long.

A Harpooner is as above, but is 2HD, gets a +2 bonus to hit and damage rolls with a harpoon, and is immune to all fear damage related to the hunt while their Captain lives. Captains are well respected but Harpooners are a mythical archetype on the Lantern Berth, analogous to Errants on the steppe. Their hands are death, red with gore, slayers of monsters.

A Hunter Captain is as above but HD2, armed with a machete, a leather crop (to flog their men if they tire at the oar), a pistol (to shoot mutineers), and a spyglass. They are immune to fear on the hunt. They sight the movements of the behemoth, and direct the actions of the crew. Often, groups of small-boat Captains will elect one of their number to be the Hunter Chief, who coordinates the others and takes legal responsibility for deaths in excess of what is considered usual.

A Youngblood is statted as a hunter, but is not allowed to throw a harpoon or touch a lance, and takes full fear damage. A Youngblood is expected to watch and make themselves useful in the boat. Surviving and following orders calmly, quickly, and competently are their only goals, and vastly more important than skill at arms.

The Hunt

Mechanics

Boats have 25hp and are unarmoured. The speed of the boat is the basic unit of speed during a hunt, and assumes 6 on the oars. Fewer than this and the boat travels at half speed. Fewer than 4 and the boat travels at 1/10th speed. Even a single person rowing is enough to get back home, it will just take a while.

If a boat is destroyed, then all equipment is lost and all people inside are now in the water. Other boats can pick them up - a boat can hold 20 people at maximum, but any more than 10 will make all combat from the boat impossible.

A Monster can be faster or slower than a boat. If they are slower, you automatically keep pace with it during the hunt and can place yourself relative to the monster as you wish. If faster, the monster controls the pace of the encounter, and can disengage and reengage at will. Many will simply disengage if you let them.

If you can get harpoons with floats attached into them, then Monsters will start to take exhaustion. Each harpoon attached this way gives one exhaustion per minute. If a Monster ever has exhaustion greater than its HD, it can no longer move, and lies still on the surface (though it can still make attacks).

Most monsters can dive and breach. If they dive without harpoons attached, you have lost them. If they have harpoons attached, they cannot dive for long than 10-[harpoons] minutes. When they breach they can do so underneath a boat, dealing d10 damage to the boat and themselves, and provoking a roll on the mishap table (see below).

Combat

A harpoon does d6, a lance does d8, a grenade does 2d6.

If a boat is alongside a monster, those inside the boat may attack with lances. If they roll max damage or crit while doing this, the boat that they are in is covered in a single stack of Gore. See the mishap table, below.

Grenades have 'sea fuses' prepared back on the shore - these are mechanical and temperamental, and a grenade will be a dud 1 in 3 times. Grenades sink about 1m beneath the water before they explode and deal damage to everything within 10ft, including boats (but not people above the water if they detonate below the waterline).

Combat with sea monsters is not a precise affair. Monsters add HD/10 rounded up to their to-hit rolls, instead of their HD.

Mishaps

While in combat with Monsters, various occurrences (mostly monster attacks) will will require you to roll on the Mishap table. You get +1 for each stack of Gore in the boat, and -2 for each member of the crew doing nothing but ensuring things are tidied away and shipshape (someone doing this cannot engage in combat). If there are more than 10 people in the boat, this shipkeeping becomes impossible.

Roll a d20 and consult the table below. Randomise which sailors are affected.

• 1-5: A close thing, but no serious damage, for now.
• 6-7: A sailor looses their footing and knocks themselves senseless. They take d2 damage and are knocked into the sea.
• 8-9: A free rope catches at pulls taught across the top of the boat. d3 sailors take d2 damage and are knocked into the sea.
• 10-11: A solid impact; something tears off. The boat takes d6 damage.
• 12-13: The boat rocks and water rushes across the shallow deck. d6 sailors are washed overboard, but take no damage.
• 14-15: A terrible, crunching blow to the timbers. Water starts to leak in, before being quickly plugged with tar and rags. The boat takes d12 damage.
• 16: A sailor slips onto a lance and cuts themselves badly. They take d6 damage.
• 17: A sailor is caught in a taught rope and pulled onto the point of a harpoon. They take d10 damage.
• 18: Someone kicks the sea chest by accident, and sets off the sea-fuse of one of the grenades. All grenades explode simultaneously, but only deal 1d6 damage each instead of 2d6, due to being locked in an iron box. All other items in the chest are ruined, and the boat takes on 1 Gore per person killed in the explosion.
• 19: The boat flips like a coin and takes d6 damage. All sailors are washed into the sea.
• 20: The Boat is gashed and useless, and no longer seaworthy. It starts sinking rapidly. The boat is destroyed, and all sailors are now in the sea.
• 21+: As 20, but d6 sailors additionally take d8 damage as the boat comes apart in sharp splinters, lashing ropes, and tangled steel debris.

Weather

No captain of any experience would willingly put engage in a hunt in bad weather, but occasionally needs must. Each turn, roll a dice: in squalls, this is a d12, in storms a d8, in hurricanes, a d4. Every time you roll a 1, roll on the mishap table. Storms give all rolls on the Mishap table a flat +1; Hurricanes give you a flat +2.

Monsters

When a monster is spied from the Lantern Berth a crew is assembled to hunt it. Monsters do not frighten the islanders; a hunt is a cause for celebration; this is how youths transition into adulthood.

Roll a d10 for your monster:

• 1: An Abomination.
• 2-3: A lesser monster: even chances of an Elder Shark, Giant Squid, or Emperor Jelly.
• 4-6: A Whale.
• 7: A pod of d6 Whales.
• 8: A hunting pair of Assassin Whales.
• 9: An Island Serpent.
• 10: A Monster Fish.

Abomination

An odd mass of flesh and cartilage, not obviously alive, and lacking internal organs. Abominations wash up on the shore now and then, drifting out of the open ocean to the west. They are a bad omen, and are often diseased and purifying, home to millions of parasites, and uneaten by scavengers and other sea life. This is less a hunt and more a duty or garbage disposal. Abominations are usually harpooned from afar, towed into shore, dragged to furnaces, and incinerated.

HD15, unarmoured, no attacks, cannot move, mindless. If you attack one at close quarters you have a 1 in 2 chance of being exposed to a random disease, and are additionally attacked by hundreds of wriggling, worm-like parasites: save DEX or take d6 damage, and 1 damage per turn until you or someone else can spend an entire turn clearing them off you.

Elder Shark

Sharks are common in the waters around the isle, and reef divers swim with lightweight spears to ward them off. An Elder Shark is very large and quite intelligent (for a shark), and many of them have grown to hate humans. They are still among the...

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