Printable guide sheet: The Bell in the Drowned Chapel

Read this to your players to start

The Saltlight's tide-bell rang at the wrong times all week, then fell silent, and two boats have already been caught by the tide. Tilly Brack, the nine-year-old keeper, needs the old bell-founder's tide chart to set it right, and it is in the Drowned Chapel, which can only be walked into at low tide.

Scenes (all session lengths — scene’s tag shows the shortest length it appears in)

1. Scene 1: The Bell That Rang Wrong from Quick Quest on

   Wind off the sea, gulls crying, and a white tower on the point with a great bronze bell hanging under its roof. A girl in an oilskin coat far too big for her is standing on the steps with her arms folded, glaring at it. "It rang at midnight on Tuesday, when the tide was nowhere near turning. It rang twice at breakfast. And since yesterday it won't ring at all." She looks at you. "I'm Tilly. I keep the Saltlight. Two boats got caught on the flats this week, and it's my bell. Are you going to help or not?"

   Goal: Find out what has gone wrong with the tide-bell and agree how to help Tilly. — Climb up and look at the bell and its tide-wheel yourself (Clever, Difficulty Number 12): the wheel that tells it when to ring has slipped its marks. / Ask Tilly to tell the whole story from the start (Kind, Difficulty Number 11): she has been keeping it together all week and is glad someone asked. / Go straight down to the harbour and ask the stuck boat crews what they heard (Brave, Difficulty Number 12).

   Any approach reaches the same answer: the tide-wheel slipped in a storm, and only the bell-founder's own tide chart can reset it. Tilly knows where that chart was kept: in the bell loft of the Drowned Chapel, before the sea came in. Let Tilly be bossy and brave, and let her be nine. She is the heart of this campaign.

2. Scene 2: The Low-Tide Road from Short Session on

   The sea has walked out a long way, leaving shining wet sand ribbed like a giant's fingerprints. A line of old stone posts marks the road to the Drowned Chapel, its little tower leaning out of the sand ahead with seaweed hanging off it like green hair. Tilly checks a battered tide-table. "We've got until the water reaches the third post. Then we run."

   Goal: Cross the flats to the chapel quickly and safely. — Follow the stone posts exactly, testing each step (Clever, Difficulty Number 11). / Take the shortcut across the soft sand to save time (Brave, Difficulty Number 13): it saves time, but a hero who misses sinks to the knees and needs pulling out. / Let Tilly lead: she has walked this road with her gran a hundred times, and she likes being trusted.

   Set the clock here. Put three tokens or coins on the table: one is removed at the end of each beat inside the chapel, and when the last is gone the water is at the door. It is pressure, not punishment: nobody drowns, they just have to leave.

3. Scene 3: In Through the Front Door from One-Sitting Session on

   You walk into a chapel through its own front door, the way nobody ever does at high tide. The floor is sand. The pews are crusted with shells, and little fish are stranded in a puddle down the aisle. Somewhere above you, a bell rope sways in the draught, wet and green. Tilly whispers, "Gran said the bell up there still rings at high tide. You can hear it from a boat."

   Goal: Find the way up to the bell loft before the water comes back. — Follow the bell rope up to see where it goes (Clever, Difficulty Number 12): the loft stairs are behind the rope, under a curtain of weed. / Climb the rope itself (Brave, Difficulty Number 13): slippery, quick and very exciting. / Rescue the stranded fish from the puddle first (Kind, no roll): a kind hero who carries them out to a pool spots the stairs on the way back.

   Every approach finds the stairs. The fish are a gift for kind tables, not a test; reward them with an easy discovery rather than a roll.

4. Scene 4: Old Clatter in the Font from Full Session on

   Beside the stairs stands the chapel's stone font, full of seawater, and in it sits the biggest crab you have ever seen: a hermit crab wearing an old copper bucket as a shell. Hanging from a hook just above the font is a ring of keys, and the crab is watching it, and you, with both eye-stalks. Clack. Clack. It does not want company.

   Goal: Get the loft key from above the font without upsetting Old Clatter. — Offer it something shiny, or a roomier shell from the beach (Kind, Difficulty Number 12): it swaps happily and shuffles aside. / Distract it with a dangling string or a splash on the far side (Clever, Difficulty Number 12) while someone grabs the keys. / Shoo it off firmly (Brave, Difficulty Number 13), or fight it if the table wants a scuffle: Old Clatter backs away after losing half its Heart Points.

   Old Clatter is grumpy, not dangerous. Note how the party treated it: Tilly asks after "that crab" in Chapter 2 and is pleased if it got a new shell.

5. Scene 5: The Chart in the Bell Loft from Quick Quest on

   The bell loft is dry, dusty and full of gull feathers, and a small green bell hangs in the middle like a sleeping bat. On the wall is a long wooden box with a name burned into the lid: ODRAN PELL, BELL-FOUNDER. Inside, rolled in oilcloth, is a chart covered in curving lines and tiny bells. Then you hear it below: the sea, coming back in through the front door. Tilly grabs your sleeve. "Third post. We have to go now."

   Goal: Take the tide chart and get everyone out of the chapel before the water rises. — Race back down the stairs and out along the posts (Brave, Difficulty Number 13). / Ring the little chapel bell: Tilly knows a boat-crew always rows over when it rings at the wrong time, and a friendly fishing boat comes to the window (Clever, Difficulty Number 12). / Read the chart quickly: it shows a high sandbank behind the chapel that stays dry, and the party can wait there until the boat comes (Clever, Difficulty Number 13).

   However they leave, the party gets out wet but safe, with the chart. Back at the Saltlight, Tilly unrolls it on the floor and finds Odran Pell's note (the handout). That note ends the chapter: the tide-wheel can be reset, but the bell will never ring true without its clapper, and the storm has carried the clapper away.

Player handout — show this to your table

The Chapel's Tide Chart

Curving lines in brown ink, a little bell drawn at every turn of the tide. In the corner, in neat old handwriting: "To whoever keeps my bell after me. If the wheel slips, set it by this chart. If the clapper is ever lost, look where the ebb leaves things: the Wracks, under the lady who looks out to sea. A bell is only a bell until somebody makes it ring true. O. Pell."

Monster stat blocks

Rewards

• The Chapel's Tide Chart (the handout below), carried into Chapter 2.
• Tilly Brack as a friend and guide for the rest of the campaign.
• A ride home on a friendly fishing boat, and hot fish soup at the Saltlight.

Tips for running this one

• Tilly is nine and in charge, and she knows it. Let her give orders, let the heroes follow some of them, and let her be scared once, quietly, near the end.
• The tide clock (three tokens) is the chapter's tension. Take a token away out loud at the end of each chapel beat; children love watching the clock run down.
• This is the gentlest chapter of the three. It sets up the campaign and the friendship; Chapter 3 is the big one.