The Keeper of the Saltlight
Previously…
Previously: reading the bell-founder's tide chart, the party searched the Wracks at low tide, got past the gulls and dug the bell's lost clapper out from under the old figurehead. But back at the Saltlight the bell itself was gone, with wet seaweed on its beam and big webbed footprints leading into the sea toward Cormorant Isle.
Something has carried the tide-bell off to Cormorant Isle, an hour of rowing offshore. Tilly is going after it with or without the party, and the clapper is in the bottom of her boat.
How long do you have?
For the guide: who you meet, rewards and tips
The map
Who’s in this adventure
Brine, the Young Tide-Drake
- Heart Points
- 14
- Guard
- 13
- Attack
- Tail splash +2 (1d4 Heart Points, and knocks a hero flat on the wet rock)
Frightened, not fierce. It stops splashing the moment anyone speaks gently or sings a low, slow note. It cannot be fought to a happy ending, only calmed.
Rewards
- The Saltlight's bell ringing true again, and every boat in the Reach safe on the tide.
- Tilly Brack's friendship, and a standing invitation to ring the bell on the first turn of any tide.
- A sight nobody else in the Reach has seen: two tide-drakes surfacing to listen when the bell rings.
Tips for running this one
- This chapter is about kindness. Brine is the frightened one, not the dangerous one; let the heroes and Tilly be the grown-ups for once.
- Give Tilly the last line. It is her bell, and she has earned it.
- If a younger table is worried about the creature, let the cormorant from the cliffs waddle in beside it, unbothered. Children read that as safe.
Play together, online
Run “The Keeper of the Saltlight” online with friends
Can’t get everyone around the same table? Run it at a live online table instead. You direct the game from your screen; your players open a link on theirs and see the same scene art, the same “you are here” map pin, the same dice, their own character sheets, and a party chat. Free, in the browser, nothing to install.
The whole adventure is already loaded there, scene by scene, so you just step the party through it.
No sign-in, nothing saved. Share the link so the family can roll together.
Nobody needs an account: you start a table on this device in one step, and your players join with the code or invite link you send them.
The adventure, scene by scene
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Scene 1
The Empty Frame
Read this aloud
Morning at the Saltlight, and the space under the roof where the bell should be is just sky. Seaweed drips from the beam. Down on the rocks, footprints as big as dinner plates, webbed like a duck's, lead into the sea. Tilly is already untying her little rowing boat, the clapper rolled in a blanket on the bottom boards. "It's my bell," she says, a bit too loudly. "I'm going to get it back."
What do the heroes try?
Read the tide chart for the calmest hour to row (Clever, Difficulty Number 12): the slack water is in half an hour.
Talk Tilly into waiting for that hour and promise to go with her (Kind, Difficulty Number 12).
Follow the footprints down to the water to learn what made them (Brave, Difficulty Number 12): something big, but the prints wobble, like a creature that is young and tired.
Notes for the guide
What the heroes want: Get ready to cross to Cormorant Isle, together and at the right time.
Tilly is scared and pretending not to be. Whatever the party chooses, they row out together. A hero who notices the wobbly prints has the key idea for the ending: whatever took the bell is young.
Where they are on the map
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Scene 2
An Hour of Rowing
Read this aloud
The Saltlight shrinks behind you and Cormorant Isle grows ahead: a black rock wearing a white coat of seabirds. Halfway across, the water beside the boat goes dark and smooth as something long swims underneath you, slowly, and then is gone. Tilly stops rowing. In a very small voice she says, "It was crying. Did you hear it? It sounded like the bell."
What do the heroes try?
Row hard and steady, everyone together (Brave, Difficulty Number 12).
Use the tide chart to ride the current toward the island (Clever, Difficulty Number 12).
Hum a slow song to keep Tilly calm and the rowing in time (Kind, Difficulty Number 11): the shape under the water follows the song a little way.
Notes for the guide
What the heroes want: Keep the boat steady and reach the island.
Nothing attacks the boat. The shape under the water is Brine, the young tide-drake, and its call really does sound like a bell. Plant that sound now; it is the answer in the climax.
Where they are on the map
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Scene 3
The Cormorant Cliffs
Read this aloud
The near side of the island is a cliff of birds: cormorants drying their wings like little black umbrellas, terns squabbling, puffins peering out of holes. The birds are used to people and hardly move. But they are all looking the same way, around the island, toward the far side.
What do the heroes try?
Follow where the birds are looking, along the ledge (Clever, Difficulty Number 11).
Climb up and over the top of the cliff (Brave, Difficulty Number 13).
Move slowly and quietly so as not to frighten the nesting birds (Kind, Difficulty Number 12): an old cormorant waddles ahead as if showing the way.
Notes for the guide
What the heroes want: Find the way to the far side of the island.
A short, beautiful beat. Let the table describe the birds. No harm comes here.
Where they are on the map
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Scene 4
What Was Nesting on the Far Side
Read this aloud
In a hollow on the far side of the island, ringed with seaweed and driftwood, lies the tide-bell, and curled around it is a sea creature the size of a rowing boat: blue-green, with a frilled head, flippers like wet leaves and big, wet, frightened eyes. It is a young tide-drake. When it sees you it rears up and bellows, and the bellow sounds exactly like a bell that cannot ring.
What do the heroes try?
Speak softly, crouch low and do not reach for the bell (Kind, Difficulty Number 12).
Work out why it wants the bell (Clever, Difficulty Number 13): it has been nudging the silent bell with its nose, trying to make it ring like its mother's call.
Stand firm between the drake and Tilly without hitting back (Brave, Difficulty Number 13): it splashes, then stops when nobody fights it.
Notes for the guide
What the heroes want: Calm the young tide-drake without hurting it.
Brine, the young tide-drake, is lost and lonely. The bell rang at night all week because the tide-wheel had slipped, and Brine swam to the sound thinking it was its mother. When the bell went silent, Brine took it to try to make it sing. It cannot be fought to a happy ending: if a scuffle starts, it splashes (1d4) and backs away until someone speaks gently.
Where they are on the map
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Scene 5
The Bell Rings True
Read this aloud
Tilly unrolls the blanket, lifts out the clapper and looks at you. "If it wants the bell to sing," she says, "let's make it sing." Together you hang the clapper back inside the bell, and Tilly swings it once. BONG. The note rolls out over the sea, round and true. The young tide-drake goes very still. And then, from far out in the deep water, something much bigger answers with a call exactly like it.
What do the heroes try?
Ring the bell in slow, steady strokes so the mother can follow the sound (Clever, Difficulty Number 12).
Encourage Brine to swim out toward the answering call (Kind, Difficulty Number 12): it nudges Tilly goodbye first.
Carry the bell down to the boat and row it home through the swell (Brave, Difficulty Number 12): two great green backs rise beside you and push the boat all the way to the Saltlight.
Notes for the guide
What the heroes want: Ring the bell, reunite Brine with its mother, and bring the bell home to the Saltlight.
There is no losing this beat: every approach ends with mother and young tide-drake together, the bell back in its frame and Tilly resetting the wheel by the tide chart. Close with the bell ringing at the right time for the first time in a week, and the whole Reach hearing it. From now on, when the tide turns, two tide-drakes surface off the point to listen.
Where they are on the map
Show your players this
Tilly's Logbook
In big careful letters, in the Saltlight logbook: "Bell rang true at the turn of the tide. Wheel set by Odran Pell's chart. Clapper back where it belongs. Two tide-drakes off the point, listening. Everybody home safe. Signed, T. Brack, Keeper (and my friends)."
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