Welcome, fans of CrIsis to the first inaugural ‘So you want to be in CrIsis,’ crew hiring event.

It’s a beautiful day in Sekti-Abtu where we’ve just finished celebrating Ra Day. CrIsis is here for an as yet undisclosed reason, but unconfirmed reports stated that the Temple of Osiris changed shape recently, and this might be related to their reason for visiting.

They’ve spent a lot of time with the pontiff U’Selekma, and were seen to be eating with him at the main table during the feast.

Shortly after, as all of you know, long time CrIsis veteran Overkill of the dwarven Redbeard clan and newcomer Asher, who is a kobold of all things, headed down to the docks where they announced in loud voices that they were hiring crew to man Rog-tilda, as any true fans of the group know is the name of their yellow-wood ship.

The ship is much the worse for wear having survived the pounding that weather, wave, and sea-serpent has been dishing out upon it for the past few years, but it seems sound enough.

At their call, an unheard of one hundred hopefuls clustered around the group. An initial selection process quickly whittled that down to almost seventy-five when Overkill called for former members of his pirate crew. It would seem that Overkill isn’t the only one who wishes redemption as two comely pirate wenches, namely Annenwen Muffsteel and Wrunella Of Bathscribe, aka Honeysuckle, stepped forward along with a disreputable man who was quickly determined to be a fraud and booted from the competition. The man, not the comely lasses.

With the aid of the two lasses, Overkill and Asher form a panel of judges.

The first step of the process is the individual interviews. Three are eliminated off the bat, as they are wearing prominent tattoos of Taut. By the end of the first day another twenty two are eliminated due to a mixture of personality conflicts and lack of knowledge.

Day Two begins the practical testing. With Overkill at the helm and the three other judges watching, he takes Matilda out on the harbor bay with groups of ten sailors to work the ship. He is able to get a total of two runs done that first day, mostly due to the time that it took to get people organized by color into their initial teams: Black, Green, Blue, and Yellow, with a reserve team of five men with Red armbands, in case of injury.

The Black team was plagued with bad luck from the start. Either due to an over-abundance of less skilled individuals, or just poor group cohesion, they partially swamped two harbour craft and almost collided with the Jasmine Sky, a merchant vessel out of South Winds.

Green team had a much better time of it and made the circuit in a little under an hour. There was a slight issue at the turn point where they ended up dead in the water and unable to get any steerage. They’d pointed Rog-tilda directly into the wind and lost momentum and got hung in the chains. Some quick thinking by the team captain, Jershon Herriman, got them moving again, and they only had the single issue to contend with.

Six people were cut that day, including four from the Black team and two from Green.

Rog-tilda is out on the bay at tide-turn the next morning and there is a good showing by Blue team who completes the turn of the bay in only forty minutes. They avoid the problems that even Green had the day before and proved themselves a capable group of sailors.

Yellow team can’t even get the ship off the dock. One member of the team is brought forward, but the other nine are let go.

At the end of the first round of competition we are left with All five members of the Red team, who have yet to be tried, 1 member from Yellow, 4 Black, 8 Green, and 9 Blue. The remaining twenty seven are shuffled into three teams of nine.

The remaining Yellow, 1 from Black, and 5 from Blue form the new Yellow team. Team captain Jershon Herriman from Green, the only team captain from the initial four teams to make it through, pulls Green again and gained members from team Blue (2), team Black (1), and team Green (3). The remaining 4 Green team members, 2 Blue team members and the last two Black team members form the new Blue team. Two members each from Red team go to Yellow and Green while Blue picks up one.

Jershon Herriman pulls his team into a well oiled machine and they put the best time in on Day Four. The other two teams made respectable showings, but Jershon made sure everything worked well, and proved himself to be an able seaman. There was a significant amount of mixing and matching, but the new Green team was a force to be reckoned with. By the end of the day, all seven members of the Green team were favored to win, with a number of members in team Blue as well.

Team yellow, again, was at the bottom of the pack, the large influx of former Blue team members notwithstanding.

Day Five begins with a trial of fifteen people. Jershon Herriman made it into the mix as did the other six members of Green team. The solitary Yellow team member to make it through the initial fiasco is there as well. The one red team member of team Blue and one of the Green team members were cut, but the remaining seven were part of the new crew being tested.

By the end of the day, only three more people are cut. Jershon, as well as six other members of his original Green team made it through. One member of Red team made it. The solitary Yellow made it through. The two Blue team members from the new Blue team made it, as well as the single remaining Black team member on Blue team.

In the end, out of the hundred hopefuls a team of 14, two from Overkills old crew and 12 others, were chosen to help CrIsis and to pilot the great ship Rog-tilda.

Compilation of notes by Asher.

Image by Rado.