The Crystal Ship - adventure

Dates: early September, 1936

Location: Garberville, California

Player Characters: The Silver Ghost

NPCs: Davidon, Hei Lian, Rena Anders, Paula Price, Anjuli, Kairi, Agali, Yvonne DeVilliers

Synopsis

The Silver Ghost’s new agent, Rena Anders, has gone missing. In searching for her, he discovers a large and elegant house built on a large rock in the middle of the Eel River. Within, he finds not only Rena but half a dozen other women, from many different times in the past and (in one case) the future. They are all victims of the house’s owner, a scientist and inventor named Davidon, who has built a strange vehicle that can travel around the world and throughout time. He has used it to kidnap these women and make the house into his own private harem.

Some of the women are there willingly; others are not. Some seem resigned to their fate; at least one, a Chinese aristocrat named Hei Lian, has sought oblivion through opium. With help from some of the women (including Hei Lian, who is shamed out of her poppy-ridden slumber), the Silver Ghost overpowers Davidon, uses his time machine to return the women to their own homes and times, then destroys the house. The time machine is left in the care of the Shamballans.

Elements of Note

Two NPCs who become fixtures of the Chamber’s world make their first appearances here: the villainous mad scientist Davidon and the aristocratic Hei Lian. This is also the first appearance of the The Crystal Ship - artifact itself.

GM’s Comments

The idea for this adventure came from the classic Doors song. This is one of those adventures which had a lot of resonance throughout the subsequent campaign. Not only have the characters of Davidon and Hei Lian reappeared many times (growing and evolving as they went), but the Crystal Ship time machine has turned up many times as well.

My image of the Crystal Ship owes a lot to the crystalline space capsule in which an infant Kal-El is sent to Earth in the 1978 Superman movie. I’d always wanted to use it somewhere.