Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 13:37:43 GMT -5
The plot kind, not the kind ye wear when Davy Jones takes yer hand, landlubber!
1) Cargo is going missing from ships in nearby harbors- initially, the theory is that gangs are ransacking the ships while they're docked (despite the area's low levels of criminal activity), but later reports confirm that cargo is vanishing while the ships are at sea. You've even got a salty old sailor who swears he saw people rise out of the water and climb aboard the ships.
2) The classic- a sea monster has been sighted. The possibilities are almost infinite.
3) Or maybe it's not a mysterious sea creature, but a ship- a ghost ship, a ragged old galleon sighted sailing off the coast, even though the sails are in tatters and there's no crew in site. Perhaps a sea monster turns out to be a mystery ship- that "kraken" is really a wondrous clockwork submarine with brass tentacles.
4) Shark attacks suddenly skyrocket on the beaches near your town, and a full on mass panic is nigh. Shark hunts are starting despite conservationist warnings, and it looks like one the nasty reputation of nature's most unfairly maligned animals might not be so unwarranted...except, there's no evidence that sharks are actually causing it. People are showing up dead or wounded with big bites taken out of them, but the bite patterns are too haphazard and irregular to match any known species. There haven't even been any shark sightings near the beach. And when the survivors are interviewed, once they press past the panic, they admit they never really saw what bit them.
5) You work for an institute of oceanographic studies, or some other scientific organization that studies the sea. As much as you love your work, the money's drying up even as the seas need an advocate more than ever. And then you realize, hey, you've got a small fleet of vehicles, you regularly transport large loads of cargo, you know how to sail and you know all the routes...and you know there are some people who would pay a lot to move something from point a to point b without customs knowing about it (it's Breaking Bad but ON A BOAT).
6) One of your town's most beloved local legends concerns a hook-handed ghost pirate. So when corpses start showing up, and terrified survivors claim that a "hook-handed man" attacked them, he's the first suspect, even though no one has ever reported being attacked by "Cap'n Joe" before. Has something pushed the old specter over the edge, or is there another hook-handed horror in town? And if the captain is real, does he want to clear his name?
7) A few years back, you heard one of those feel-good pieces about some genius startup nerd who was going to change the world. This one built some revolutionary new diving suit in her garbage, or something. It all blew over, of course. No one saw much of her afterwards, either. But then a sailor claims that after being thrown overboard during a storm he was rescued by a "fishman" wearing "strange armor". But the issue of this seafaring vigilante becomes a bit more complicated when a boat full of would-be poachers is found, its occupants all left for dead with harpoons through their chests.
1) Cargo is going missing from ships in nearby harbors- initially, the theory is that gangs are ransacking the ships while they're docked (despite the area's low levels of criminal activity), but later reports confirm that cargo is vanishing while the ships are at sea. You've even got a salty old sailor who swears he saw people rise out of the water and climb aboard the ships.
2) The classic- a sea monster has been sighted. The possibilities are almost infinite.
3) Or maybe it's not a mysterious sea creature, but a ship- a ghost ship, a ragged old galleon sighted sailing off the coast, even though the sails are in tatters and there's no crew in site. Perhaps a sea monster turns out to be a mystery ship- that "kraken" is really a wondrous clockwork submarine with brass tentacles.
4) Shark attacks suddenly skyrocket on the beaches near your town, and a full on mass panic is nigh. Shark hunts are starting despite conservationist warnings, and it looks like one the nasty reputation of nature's most unfairly maligned animals might not be so unwarranted...except, there's no evidence that sharks are actually causing it. People are showing up dead or wounded with big bites taken out of them, but the bite patterns are too haphazard and irregular to match any known species. There haven't even been any shark sightings near the beach. And when the survivors are interviewed, once they press past the panic, they admit they never really saw what bit them.
5) You work for an institute of oceanographic studies, or some other scientific organization that studies the sea. As much as you love your work, the money's drying up even as the seas need an advocate more than ever. And then you realize, hey, you've got a small fleet of vehicles, you regularly transport large loads of cargo, you know how to sail and you know all the routes...and you know there are some people who would pay a lot to move something from point a to point b without customs knowing about it (it's Breaking Bad but ON A BOAT).
6) One of your town's most beloved local legends concerns a hook-handed ghost pirate. So when corpses start showing up, and terrified survivors claim that a "hook-handed man" attacked them, he's the first suspect, even though no one has ever reported being attacked by "Cap'n Joe" before. Has something pushed the old specter over the edge, or is there another hook-handed horror in town? And if the captain is real, does he want to clear his name?
7) A few years back, you heard one of those feel-good pieces about some genius startup nerd who was going to change the world. This one built some revolutionary new diving suit in her garbage, or something. It all blew over, of course. No one saw much of her afterwards, either. But then a sailor claims that after being thrown overboard during a storm he was rescued by a "fishman" wearing "strange armor". But the issue of this seafaring vigilante becomes a bit more complicated when a boat full of would-be poachers is found, its occupants all left for dead with harpoons through their chests.