Ship of Horrors

The Ship of Horrors is a Dread Possibility and an unconnectional mistway. Conventional mistways take the form of paths through the Mists, but variants have been occasionally documented. The Ship of Horrors is one such example. Rather than existing at a fixed location, it operates through an existing sailing ship. By means unknown, this vessel becomes subject to the mistway’s control, gaining the ability to Mist-travel between seas.

As it navigates the Mists, the affected vessel takes on the kelp-draped and rotting veneer of a wreck dredged from the deep, and the name on its bow is supplanted by that of the “Ship of Horrors” in letters of dripping blood. The craft can still be piloted normally between Mist-journeys, but its course through the Mists is at the Mistway’s sole behest, not that of its captain or crew.

It is uncertain how a ship is singled out for this dubious honour. The one constant is that the afflicted vessel must be traversing the body of water where the previous ship broke its link to the mistway, and that its captain must have made at least three Powers checks while in command of the vessel. The Ship of Horrors has "recruited" many vessels to its service over the years, their captains ranging from penitent merchant-seamen to murderous pirates driven by bloodlust. So long as the vessel remains bound to the mistway its captain is physically unable to leave the ship, and its crew (including new recruits) are incapable of moving more than 500 yards from it. The ship appears and functions normally when it is not Mist-traveling and may sail freely between ports-of-call, or even traverse other mistways.

How a vessel or its crew can be freed from the mistway’s grip is obscure knowledge at best. If destroyed through battle, accidentally, or deliberately, the ship re-assembles itself at dawn. Crew from the Ship of Horrors remain dead if killed, but if the captain dies, the corpse disperses into mist and re-forms (alive) at the ship’s wheel. Possible means of breaking the link include running aground on the sands of Har’Akir via the Jackal's Ruse, snaring the vessel in the weeds of Saragoss, or making amends for whatever offenses left both ship and captain susceptible in the first place.

The Endurance served as the Ship of Horror between 734 BC and 737 BC during which time the Ship of Horror served principally to connect the Sea of Nebligtode with the Sea of Sorrows and the seas of outlander worlds.

Reference

Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer, p. 173.