Read or paraphrase the following to the party:

Your hope of salvation has been fading of late. It has been three days since your longboat was cast out from your ship, the Mnemosyne, and so far you have seen not a single clue suggesting you are near to land, or any other vessels. Your haste to board the longboat meant you did so without food, and your limited water rations ran out late yesterday; a fact the beating hot sun has made you all to aware of. The only slight mercy has been that the sea itself has remained quite calm.

This morning's rising sun greeted you along with a creeping mist, which you at first thought to be a mercy on account of it keeping you cool and shielded from sunburn, however as the mist lingered you began to realize that it has reduced your visibility to nearly zero, and made spotting land or other ships (or having them spot you) highly unlikely.

The mist lingered throughout the day, and as evening came around the air began to cool dramatically. The ocean has calmed completely, with its surface as flat and still as a mirror and dead silence around. The air, usually fresh and clear suddenly smells stale and although you know yourself to be surrounded by a vast ocean, you can't help but feel compressed into a tiny space.

You can't be sure of the time, but you guess somewhere around midnight, you see an eery dim light through the misty haze, and as you row towards it you start to see the shape of a large, three-masted galleon take form, it's figurehead to your left, its rear cabin to your right and its crows nest somewhere above concealed by the mists. You find yourself approaching the cargo netting hanging over the side and the writing on the side of the ship says "The Erebus".

If the characters call out, nobody will answer. They can climb the cargo netting on to the ship if they choose (see 'Main Deck' below).

If the characters are spooked by the silence of the vessel and choose to leave (at this or any point in the adventure) they will row through the mists but ultimately return to the vessel, no matter how many times they try. After some time they should; get the message that the only way out, is through.

Main Deck

The main deck of the vessel is mostly abandoned and clear, except for two ghastly scenes:

1. At the mainmast is a body of a Dwarven man, his stomach has been cut open and he is lying in a pile of his own internal organs, with his intestines looped around the mainmast four times and, at the end, attached to the mainmast by a large rusty nail. At some point earlier, he was compelled to cut open his own stomach, pull out his intestines, nail them to the mainmast and then run laps of it until he died.
2. A headless body of a male humanoid lies slumped in front of a small cannon, with pieces of its destroyed head splattered along the deck railing, in his left hand is an unlit torch. Earlier, he was compelled to load the cannon, place his head in front of the breech, and use a torch to light the wick, with the cannonball subsequently completely destroying his head.

Also on the main deck is the anchor (and capstan), an door to the captain's cabin and officer's quarters, and stairs that lead down to the gun deck and lower decks.

The players will likely want to search for survivors, or food and water. Once they start exploring the ship, proceed to chapter 2.