Shadows of the Compañeros · Adventure One · GM material

Ash on the Ledger

Boca Serena has been repainted for a summit. A ledger has been recopied, a name has vanished, and everyone wants to know what survived San Telmo.

A free, system-neutral website adventure. Continue straight on from The San Telmo Incident, or start here with no prior play. GM-only sections are folded shut until you open them.

Read First

Quick Facts

Players

4–6 players and one GM.

Length

Roughly 4–6 hours: one long session or two shorter ones.

Rules

System-neutral. Use your own system, the optional 2d6 Resolution Bridge, or the Native Rules.

Place and time

Boca Serena on Canula Prime, summer 7202, a few days after San Telmo.

Modes: arrival under scrutiny, political investigation, witness protection, and a first taste of summit bargaining. Combat is possible but rarely the best answer. Prepared scenes are pressures, not a required order.

Table provenance

This adventure was played in the original Mar de Oro campaign, then revised for publication and web play.

New to Mar de Oro?

Boca Serena is the principal city and harbor of Canula Prime. Heller is an autonomous duchy within Valdegracian dominion, and the characters are attached to Captain Huan DeSauros's Hellerite mission. The world is Age of Sail and early industrial: firearms, airships, and new technologies that several powers want to control.

This adventure follows The San Telmo Incident, but you can run it standalone. It is a political investigation: evidence, custody, leverage, and competing authorities matter more than battles.

Want more background? Read the setting introduction or the Player Guide.

Terms you may see

Fortera:
the underlying natural field, or force, that runs through the world.
Éterlumin:
a physical, responsive lifting gas whose hazards are pressure, heat, volatility, resonance, and rupture, not poison.
Source:
a place where Fortera is unusually concentrated or responsive.
Calibration:
the controlled adjustment and testing of equipment against its expected response.

How this adventure plays

  1. 1. Investigate
  2. 2. Gain evidence, testimony, or leverage
  3. 3. Factions react
  4. 4. Pressure changes
  5. 5. Choose what to protect, reveal, concede, or pursue

Then the loop repeats. The scene nodes are not a required sequence: play them in whatever order the characters' choices lead. Clues create options rather than unlocking the next scene. A failed roll changes cost, custody, access, or pressure; it never deletes the route forward.

Ash on the Ledger is system neutral. Use Mar de Oro Native Rules, the 2d6 Resolution Bridge, or a supported conversion.

Players can walk away

The characters are not required to pursue this adventure. If they abandon it, let the factions, clocks, and unattended situation continue according to the fiction, record what changes, and follow what the players choose instead. A clock advances only when its established fictional trigger occurs. See When the Players Walk Away.

What the players know

Share this freely. It is the player-safe pitch.

Player pitch

Days after San Telmo, Boca Serena has been repainted for an international summit. The harbor ledger has been recopied, a name has disappeared from the registry, and officials want to know exactly what survived the estate. You arrive with the DeSauros mission from Heller and must secure your legal position while deciding whom to protect and which version of San Telmo will become official.

Read aloud

Boca Serena receives the delegations under fresh paint and old smoke. The harbor ledger has been recopied so recently that the ink shines. Above the customs house, Valdegracian colors hang motionless in the heat. A clerk smiles, asks for your papers, and places one hand over the line where San Telmo should have been entered.

What the harbor is saying

Crews, workers, families, and brokers expect the summit's emergency authority to mean closer inspection of papers, cargo, berths, and access to work. Nobody agrees on how far it will reach, only that ordinary harbor life will feel it before the delegates finish arguing.

The characters serve with the mission of Captain Huan DeSauros aboard the Aurora Ventus: agents, escorts, negotiators, specialists, or deniable operatives. Heller is a Valdegracian duchy, autonomous within Valdegracian dominion. Its delegation is useful to everyone and trusted by no one. The mission's public brief is trade, safe passage, and influence without provoking Valdegracia.

GM truth: what actually happened

Spoilers for the whole adventure. Open when you are the GM.

GMWhat is really going on in Boca Serena

San Telmo was not an isolated industrial accident, and it did not end cleanly. At least one usable remnant left the estate: a physical component, a copied calibration pattern, a pressure record, or the memory of a repeatable pulse. The strongest physical trace is a brass cylinder or calibration case that servants saw carried out of San Telmo.

The Project Custodian, Arturo DeLuca by default, has that remnant or a copy of it and is using it to rebuild a brass device the project calls the Ear. This adventure does not explain what the Ear does. It only establishes that the work exists, that it is moving fast, and that it depends on Emilio Resa.

Resa is under pressure. He is being made to consult, and his reports are dictated. He cannot refuse openly, so he hides contradictions in his own notes and hopes someone careful will read them.

The summit is presented as restoration: proof that Canula Prime is governable and that trade is safe. In private, the custodian is testing buyers. Every delegation that arrives believes it can gain something from what survived San Telmo. The summit is an auction disguised as restoration.

GMNew revelations this adventure introduces

These enter play here for the first time. They are not facts established by San Telmo, and you should not rewrite a finished San Telmo game to include them.

  • Why Resa cooperates. By default the custodian holds his daughter, Elena Resa, and threatens the rest of his family. If your table already freed Elena, use lawful detention, charges against Resa, threats to other relatives, or custody of his research instead. Never kidnap her again just to restore the plot.
  • The partial device. In the default state, DeLuca possesses one partial Ear assembly. The characters learn it exists; they do not need to see it.
  • The custodian never holds everything. Either a protector (usually Montoya) has secured a decisive witness, or someone outside the custodian's office holds an independent copy of the pattern. This stays true even under Official Containment.

Reveal these when the characters earn the evidence or accept a cost, not because a scene arrived.

Before play: continue from San Telmo, or start fresh

10-minute GM prep

  1. Choose the continuity state: import your San Telmo ending, or use Truth Fragmented.
  2. Set Position to 2.
  3. Prepare the three clocks (tracker below, or paper).
  4. Decide who holds each witness and each piece of proof.
  5. Open the Boca Serena and Summit District maps.
  6. Share the Player Packet or print the Player Kit.
  7. Separate the three handouts so you can hand each over when it is found.
  8. Start at Customs unless the table has a stronger reason to open elsewhere. It is the default opening, not a required first scene.

San Telmo does not have one ending. Ask the table three questions: Who is safe now? Who controls the proof? Who controls access to the chamber? Then write down only the five facts San Telmo actually established:

  1. Where Emilio Resa is, and who holds him.
  2. Who controls the proof.
  3. Who controls access to the San Telmo estate.
  4. What the public account of the incident is: the official story people now believe, recorded separately from what actually happened.
  5. Which authority is able to convene the summit.

Do not assign Elena Resa or the Ear to San Telmo after the fact. If they matter, they arrive as new revelations in this adventure.

GMContinue from San Telmo: importer

Pick the row that best matches your ending. If custody was divided, choose each column separately.

San Telmo endingWho convenesEmilio ResaProofAccess to San TelmoOpening pressure
Official ContainmentDeLuca or another Valdegracian authority, under formal procedure.Official custody or coerced consultation.Valdegracia controls the public account; protected testimony or copied notes survive elsewhere.Sealed. Requires a writ, leverage, or infiltration.Witnesses are watched, documents need legal access, and Heller is treated as useful but disobedient.
Heller ExtractionDeLuca remains, or Calderón convenes to recover jurisdiction.Heller protection, hidden custody, or at large.Heller holds technical notes; Valdegracia keeps an incomplete official record.Valdegracia holds the site; Heller knows one route or procedure.The missing asset is the secret center of the summit. Everyone suspects theft; no one has a full chain of proof.
Albion ExtractionDeLuca or Calderón, calling an emergency summit after a humiliating loss.Hidden by Albion, missing, or escaped.Albion holds copied data; the public record stays Valdegracian and incomplete.Locked down. Albion has measurements or a route, not lawful control.As above, and Valdegracia is looking for someone to blame.
Public RuptureCalderón, a crown commissioner, or the Church, as an emergency inquiry.Hospital, Church, crown, or contested protection.Public but fragmented among rival claimants.Damaged, sealed, or evacuated; openly contested.Delegations arrive with emergency authority, journalists, guards, and incompatible demands.
Truth FragmentedDeLuca, Calderón, or an acting governor.Choose one custodian.Choose one or more holders; no account is complete.Choose separately from Resa and the proof.The party starts with leverage and enemies. No one can act cleanly without bargaining.
The Chamber AnswersEmergency authority follows the previous political result.Survivor and witness, not automatic prisoner.The event distorts the record; testimony and physical traces survive.The site has changed; reaching it needs a new route or permission.The world is one step stranger. In the full campaign, carry forward Source Disequilibrium at 1/10 by default for this outcome. If prior play recorded a different amount, use that recorded total instead. Do not add this default again to imported progress; the separate +2 broken-route consequence still applies only to its own trigger.

Substituting the Project Custodian. Wherever this page says DeLuca controls the project, use whoever San Telmo left in charge: DeLuca, a crown office, Albion's covert command, a Heller black project, or a Church containment team. If DeLuca was removed, do not restore his authority. Let Calderón, Isabella DeLuca, a crown commissioner, or the controlling faction convene.

Standalone start (no San Telmo played)

San Telmo happened three days before the Aurora Ventus reached Canula Prime. Nobody knows the whole story. In plain terms:

  • Arturo DeLuca is still governor, and he convenes the summit.
  • Emilio Resa survived and is being made to consult under emergency authority.
  • Heller, meaning the DeSauros mission, holds copied pressure notes. Albion holds a copied log.
  • Inquisitor Montoya is sheltering one witness.
  • Valdegracia controls the sealed estate.

This is the campaign's Truth Fragmented default. Tell players a short version: "Something went badly wrong at an inland estate. Everyone holds a piece. Nobody holds all of it."

Optional cold open: if the group wants action first, the Aurora Ventus can arrive two days late after sabotage on the voyage, which killed three engineers before play began. That is the campaign's standalone prologue; see the continuity chapter. If the saboteur escaped, start Albion's clock at 2.

Bring the San Telmo crew forward

Continuing tables can keep the same characters. They do not have to become Heller agents. The DeSauros mission can attach them as witnesses, technical advisers, legal escorts, investigators, local guides, medical support, or protected specialists because of what they know from San Telmo.

Greta Valen

Heller engineer

Read the calibration, systems, and repair evidence that officials would rather call routine.

Tomás Aranda

Valdegracian officer

Use command, law, and firearms knowledge to test who has lawful authority over people and proof.

Marisol Venn

Free-port broker

Follow leverage, contacts, and documents through the recopied ledger and summit paperwork.

Ivo Soria

Frontier guide

Read terrain, tracks, and local trust when official records and witness movements disagree.

Sister Ana Cordero

Solarian investigator

Use archives, inquiry, and institutional authority to question altered records and protected testimony.

Dr. Nadia Volenka

Shipboard surgeon

Use medicine, composure, and evidence handling to protect witnesses and preserve what bodies or injuries prove.

Standalone crew: build or choose

Create characters with the Character Builder, or use the Player Guide. The group should cover five functions: authority, evidence and documents, technical knowledge, local access, and medical or protective care. These are functions, not classes, and one character can cover more than one.

Optional shared bonds

  • One of us kept another person's testimony from becoming an official confession.
  • We disagree about whether legal standing or a witness's safety comes first.
  • One of us carries a copy that another promised never to expose without warning.
  • We know which member of the crew stays calm when authorities separate us.
  • At San Telmo, one of us chose who to protect. Another still carries the cost.

For a standalone table, keep the existing Truth Fragmented starting state above.

GM at a glance

Objective

Import San Telmo's result, secure the DeSauros mission and its legal standing, set the opening political position, and learn why the summit was really called.

Must surface

Something usable survived San Telmo. Emilio Resa is under pressure. The summit is an auction disguised as restoration.

Move on when

The characters understand the auction, know a usable remnant survived and Resa is pressured, and can name at least three incompatible interests chasing it.

Three rules for this adventure

  • Required truths, not required scenes. Every truth appears in at least three places.
  • Failure changes who holds a clue, what it costs, or which clock moves. It never removes the route forward.
  • Whichever route the party ignores reaches a faction first. Show that faction's move already underway.

When play stalls

  1. Identify which faction's interest was affected by what the players just did, or ignored.
  2. Make that faction's next logical move.
  3. Advance a clock only if its stated trigger actually occurred.
  4. Put the changed situation back in front of the players.

Pacing: one session or two

Guidance, not a required structure. The 4–6 hour estimate stands either way.

  • One long session: start at Customs; compress or combine one investigation node if needed; bring the Convener's Welcome forward once the party has enough evidence or leverage to make the summit meaningful.
  • Two sessions: let the first session focus on arrival, investigation, and the first meaningful custody or evidence choice; break before summit politics dominate, then open session two with the resulting faction reactions and conference pressure.

Cast at a glance

Play each person by what they want, what they fear, and what they do first.

The DeSauros mission

Captain Huan DeSauros

Chief negotiator, captain of the Aurora Ventus

Wants:
Favorable trade, safe passage, and Hellerite influence without direct Valdegracian retaliation. From the characters: a clear objective, and warning before they create a public crisis.
Fears:
Capture of Heller's sealed authorization or exposure of its hidden naval support.
At the table:
Asks the party for their clear objective, and requires warning before they create a public crisis.

Isabella "Izzy" Ferraro

Trade and logistics adviser

Wants:
Accurate evidence. Numbers, tariffs, routes, insurance, supply.
Fears:
Strategy built on rumor.
At the table:
Asks for accurate, verifiable evidence, and refuses to build strategy on rumor.

Rafael "Rafa" Morales

Legal and diplomatic adviser

Wants:
Custody plans, witness status, and the exact concession the party is willing to make.
Fears:
A procedural trap that costs the delegation its standing.
At the table:
Asks for custody plans, witness status, and the exact concession the party is willing to make.

The powers in Boca Serena

The Project Custodian (Arturo DeLuca)

Governor; default custodian of the project

Wants:
Turn Canula's crisis into permanent personal power.
Fears:
Proof that he coerced Resa or profited from trafficking.
At the table:
Invites the characters to dinner and offers exactly one thing they need.
Note:
If San Telmo removed him, the custodian is whoever now controls the project. Keep the wants and fears; change the face.

The Convener

The authority that called the summit

Wants:
Restore confidence, secure trade, and prove the island is governable.
Fears:
Open evidence that Canula is beyond control.
At the table:
Tests whether the characters can be bought, blamed, divided, or provoked.
Note:
By default this is DeLuca. If another authority convenes (Calderón, a crown commissioner, the Church), that person holds this card and the custodian works around them.

Inquisitor Lorenzo Montoya

Solarian inquisitor

Wants:
Expose corruption, protect Valdegracia from its own abuses, and clear Melenko's name.
Fears:
False certainty and uncontrolled institutional violence.
At the table:
Offers sanctuary in exchange for testimony he can defend.
Note:
He will not claim technical knowledge he does not have.

Emilio Resa

Engineer

Wants:
To stop the work without pretending he has mastered it, and to protect his family.
Fears:
Becoming the sole culprit for a system others funded.
At the table:
Trades technical truth for protection, but only through channels his watchers will not notice.
Note:
His advantage is observation, not mastery.

Admiral Esteban Calderón (optional)

Valdegracian admiral

Wants:
Keep the island from becoming a foreign battlefield.
Fears:
Orders that force him to choose crown loyalty over civilian survival.
At the table:
Places a ship where it can prevent escalation, then asks why the party is making that impossible.
Note:
Use him when he convenes, or when the harbor needs a disciplined, honest obstacle.

Other delegations (Albion, Stroomdijk, Luminore) can appear at the welcome as faces in the room. Their full cast lives in the Power Players chapter; you do not need it to run this adventure.

Locations at a glance

Boca Serena is the official city and principal harbor. Porto Sombra is its older dock district, the sailors' name for the place, and its political underbelly. Officials say Boca Serena when they want the city to sound governable. Workers, smugglers, and old families say Porto Sombra when they mean the place beneath the flags.

LocationPublic ownerQuiet ownerUseful witnessWrong move
Customs house and harbor ledgerCustoms serviceWhoever ordered the recopyingThe clerk who recopied the ledger, or the night clerk keeping a private tally.Seizing the ledger in public and losing legal standing.
Rusty AnchorA licensed tavern keeperDock gangs and information brokersA server who recognizes the wrong uniform.Starting a fight before learning who is watching.
Harbor ChapelSolarian missionMontoya's contacts and a Heller drop routeA novice who copied a sealed note.Treating sanctuary as ownership.
Convener's ResidenceConvener's administrationThe host household; Isabella DeLuca's network if DeLuca remainsA servant who remembers who entered through the garden.Assuming guests are the only people listening.
Conference HallValdegracian protocol officeDelegation clerks and security chiefsThe copyist who sees every revision.Making an accusation without protecting the clerk.
The Aurora Ventus at berthThe DeSauros missionAnyone with an inspection writThe crew member who stowed the San Telmo material.Leaving the ship unwatched during the welcome.

Keep San Telmo itself off-stage unless the table's ending opened it. It is a sealed legal exhibit here, not a place to revisit.

Reference

Player Materials

These public, player-safe pages contain only evidence the characters can inspect. Each opens as a clean handout with its own print control. Keep the GM clue interpretations on this page to yourself.

Recopied Harbor Ledger

A customs copy with a scraped line and an unmatched transfer reference.

Open player handout

Resa's Pressure Notes

Three terse technical entries, presented without interpretation.

Open player handout

Altered Registry / Summit Notice

An arrival notice with one witness or specialist removed from the circulated copy.

Open player handout
For players · spoiler-safePlayer PacketEditable crew tables for questions, evidence, witnesses, delegations, and debts, plus all three handouts and both printable maps. Share this link with your players.
Print full player kit

Boca Serena Reference Maps

These focused views preserve the printed boundaries and keys from Maps 1 and 2 of the campaign plate. Use them as play references, not as a reason to invent street detail beyond the labels shown.

Primary map

Boca Serena: Arrival Quarter

Map 1, Boca Serena Arrival Quarter, including its complete numbered key

Locations used in Ash on the Ledger

  • 2 Customs House
  • 4 Harbormaster's Office
  • 8 Montoya's Chapel
  • 9 Evidence Berth
  • Outer Docks
  • Bonded Warehouses
  • Delegation Inn
  • North Gate Road
  • Patrol Post

Secondary reference

Summit District

Use for the Convener's Welcome and conference play.

Map 2, the Summit District Conference Quarter, including its complete numbered key
View full campaign map platePrintable player maps

Clue web: the first contradiction

The required truth: something usable survived San Telmo, and Emilio Resa is under pressure. Place it in three reachable places. Any one route is enough to move on; two let the characters prove it.

GMRoute 1: the customs copy

Where: Customs at Boca Serena, the recopied harbor ledger, or the night clerk's private tally.

What it shows: The original entry for goods leaving San Telmo listed a sealed case under official transfer. The recopied ledger omits it. The clerk's tally still has it.

If the approach fails: the clerk is frightened into silence and the tally moves to the custodian's office. The characters still see the gap in the recopied page, but proving it now costs a Position or a favor from Izzy's contacts, and Project Custodian Completes the Ear advances by 1.

GMRoute 2: Resa's pressure notes

Where: the Heller copy the delegation already carries, Montoya's protected witness, or a consultation report circulating at the welcome.

NoteSurface meaningHidden message
"Pressure stable at twelve."The vessel is within transport tolerance.The gauge never reads twelve in the chamber. The report was dictated.
"No eastern response observed."The device is isolated from outside fields.Every real test warmed the eastern brass rail.
"Named subject absent."No unauthorized person entered the laboratory.The named person is present, and Resa wants investigators to ask why the report names them.

You do not need to explain the eastern rail. Its meaning belongs to later acts. What matters now: the work continues, and Resa is signaling under duress.

If the approach fails: the characters misread one note or show it to the wrong person. Albion Covert Command Identifies the Asset advances by 1, and the next reading has to come from Resa or Montoya directly.

GMRoute 3: the servant who saw the case

Where: a servant at the Convener's Residence, a worker sheltered at the Harbor Chapel, or the witness whose name vanished from the registry.

What they remember: a brass cylinder, or a fitted calibration case, carried out of San Telmo under guard and taken toward the governor's household rather than the customs store.

If the approach fails: the witness is moved before the characters return. They still learn the direction the case went and who signed the movement, but the witness is now in someone else's custody and becomes a prize in the next act.

The three routes disagree on whether the remnant was destroyed, transferred, stolen, or placed in official custody. Let that disagreement stand. It is the point.

Scene nodes

Four pressures and one optional node. Run them in any order, combine them, or skip them. Start wherever the players look first. Most tables open at customs.

Customs at Boca Serena

Visible problem
The delegation's papers are delayed and the ship is inspected.
Hidden pressure (GM)
An official wants to know what evidence or samples survived San Telmo, and reports what the characters protect.
Useful outcome
Identify the watcher, preserve a hidden asset, or gain lawful passage. Route 1 is here.
If skipped
The inspection happens while the characters are elsewhere. Something aboard is catalogued, and the custodian learns what Heller carried.

The Wrong Name

Visible problem
A crew or witness name has vanished from the registry.
Hidden pressure (GM)
The missing person is being moved before the summit opens.
Useful outcome
Reach the witness first, or learn who ordered the alteration. Route 3 often starts here.
If skipped
The witness reaches Montoya's sanctuary or the custodian's custody on their own path. The characters hear which one at the welcome.

Montoya's Harbor Chapel

Visible problem
Montoya requests a private meeting under sacred form.
Hidden pressure (GM)
He wants the truth about Melenko and the Project Custodian, but will not risk an unsupported accusation.
Useful outcome
Sanctuary, an inquiry channel, or a dangerous obligation. Montoya's witness can carry Route 2 or Route 3.
If skipped
Montoya pursues the inquiry alone. He either protects his witness more tightly or loses them, and his offer returns later at a higher price.

The Convener's Welcome

Visible problem
The Convener hosts a formal dinner or reception for the arriving delegations.
Hidden pressure (GM)
Every course tests whether the characters can be bought, blamed, divided, or provoked by the authority behind the summit.
Useful outcome
Read the delegations, meet the custodian's single offer, and choose which private approach to pursue. This is where the auction shows itself.
If skipped
The welcome cannot be fully skipped; the summit opens with or without the characters. If they miss it, Huan attends alone and returns with one offer and one insult, and Negotiations Collapse advances by 1.

Optional: the damaged ship and the physical evidence

Visible problem
The Aurora Ventus (or whichever vessel carried the San Telmo material) is berthed, damaged, and under watch.
Hidden pressure (GM)
Physical evidence aboard is the only piece of proof no official copy can overwrite.
Useful outcome
Preserve the evidence, move it somewhere safe, or discover that someone has already tampered with it.
If skipped
The evidence survives but has been handled. Its chain of custody is now contestable in Act II.

Hard choice

Before sundown

A frightened witness asks for protection before sundown. Protecting them creates legal friction and delays the delegation. Following the clerk may reveal who is rewriting the story. Inspecting the damaged ship may preserve physical evidence. Whichever route the party ignores reaches a faction first.

There is no right answer. If the characters find a way to do two, honor it and charge the cost in time, Position, or exposure.

At the Table

Clocks & State

In plain language

Position is the DeSauros delegation's political standing. It starts at 2, with a maximum of 6. The delegation gains 1 for protecting a witness without losing legal standing.

Clocks are pressures that move on their own, whatever the characters do. Advance a clock when one of its listed triggers happens, not merely because time has passed.

Three campaign clocks matter in this adventure. They start empty unless your San Telmo ending or the prologue says otherwise. Advance a clock when its trigger happens in the fiction, and show the result as something already underway.

Table tracker · saved only in this browser

Project Custodian Completes the Ear
0 / 8
Albion Covert Command Identifies the Asset
0 / 6
Negotiations Collapse
0 / 8
DeSauros Position
Starts at 2. Maximum 6.
2 / 6

Nothing leaves your device. Clearing browser data clears the tracker.

ClockSegmentsAdvance in this adventure whenWhen full
Project Custodian Completes the Ear8The characters delay, Resa is isolated, technical records are recovered by the custodian, or he gains outside expertise.The device can transmit. The custodian schedules a demonstration, seizure, or sale.
Albion Covert Command Identifies the Asset6The characters display San Telmo evidence, use Heller signals, or expose an Albion operative.Albion's covert command begins armed extraction. In the campaign, this starts the Wolf in the Clouds crisis early.
Negotiations Collapse8A public accusation fails, violence reaches the summit, or a delegation is humiliated. An accusation at arrival costs the delegation its standing.The summit becomes a blockade, seizure, or armed standoff.

Position, in one paragraph

Position is the DeSauros delegation's bargaining weight. It starts at 2 and cannot exceed 6. In this adventure, award 1 Position if the party protects a witness without losing the delegation's legal standing. Spend 1 Position to demand an enforceable concession, protect a named person, secure passage or custody, or force a delay. At 0, Huan can still negotiate, but every success requires a concession or a debt.

Consequence guidance and failure states

Name the consequence first, then let the players choose. Nothing here ends the adventure.

If the characters…Then…
accuse anyone publicly on arrivalNegotiations Collapse +1. Rafa spends the evening repairing standing; the accused faction treats Heller as hostile.
lose the witnessThe witness is now in Montoya's or the custodian's hands. They are a named person to recover in Act II, not a lost clue.
are caught searching official recordsRafa can argue it down to a formal complaint for 1 Position. Otherwise the delegation's papers are restricted and every later route costs more.
reveal the Heller copy of Resa's notesAlbion Covert Command Identifies the Asset +1, and the custodian knows Heller has read them.
take too longProject Custodian Completes the Ear +1 per wasted day. Resa grows more isolated and harder to reach.
start a fightCalderón's marines or the garrison arrive first. The delegation survives, but its legal position is now the story.
miss every routeMontoya or Izzy brings the contradiction to them at a price: an obligation, a debt, or a clock advance. The adventure continues.

At the Table

End State & Carry Forward

The adventure ends when the characters understand the summit is an auction disguised as restoration, know that a usable remnant survived San Telmo and Resa is under pressure, and can name at least three incompatible interests chasing it, or otherwise understand that several factions are after the same asset. There is no correct ending. Some examples:

The protected witness

The witness is safe aboard the Aurora Ventus or in Montoya's chapel. Position rose. The custodian now knows Heller is an obstacle, and the characters hold testimony nobody can quietly remove.

The clerk's trail

The characters followed the ledger and know who ordered the recopying. The witness went into custody, but the characters can prove the record was rewritten.

The quiet copy

Nothing is public. The characters hold two routes of proof and have told no one. Albion is still guessing; the custodian is still building.

The early rupture

An accusation went public at the welcome. Negotiations Collapse is high, delegations are guarded, and every faction now expects Heller to act.

Montoya's debt

Montoya shelters a witness and shares Resa's contradiction. The characters owe him testimony he can defend, and he will call it in.

Before you stop, record: current clock values, Position, where the witness is, who holds each route of proof, and which private offer the characters chose to pursue.

Revisit the Character Question. Did the character’s answer change?

For the GM · carry forwardAdventure RecordAn editable, printable record of clocks, Position, custody, offers, and faction changes. Export it as plain text to carry into Adventure Two.

Continuing Shadows of the Compañeros

Ash on the Ledger is complete on its own. If your table wants more, the next act is Masks at the Table: formal negotiations where every discovery becomes leverage. Carry forward your clocks, Position, and the custody of every witness and copy. Nothing here requires you to continue.

Act II: Masks at the Table

The campaign chapter that picks up where this adventure ends. Contains campaign spoilers.

The full campaign reference

Shadows of the Compañeros in full: eight acts, factions, clocks, and handouts. Contains spoilers for the whole campaign.

Table safety

Content: colonial authority and exploitation, coercion, family members held as leverage, disappearance and custody of witnesses, industrial injury, and religious and political pressure. Agree lines and veils before play. The threat to Resa's family can stay entirely off-screen; it works as pressure without being shown. Let any player pause or redirect a scene without explanation.

Running it in any system

  • Resolve talk, search, and persuasion with whatever your system uses for social and investigative tests. A clean success keeps Position; a mixed result gets the goal with a debt, exposure, or a clock advance.
  • Never gate a required truth behind one roll. Rolls decide cost, custody, and speed, not whether the clue exists.
  • Fights here are short and costly. Treat guards and marines as a legal consequence first and an obstacle second.

Rules at the table

  1. Establish intent.
  2. Name the risk.
  3. Roll only when uncertainty matters.
  4. Success grants information, Position, time, authority, access, or protection.
  5. Failure moves the world. It never deletes an essential clue.
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For the GM only · contains spoilersPrintable GM Quick ReferenceA dedicated one to two page sheet: before play, clue routes, scene nodes, clocks, Position, consequences, and the end-of-session record.

Ash on the Ledger · GM only

GM Quick Reference

Before play
After play

Before play

  • Choose safety limits.
  • Import San Telmo or use Truth Fragmented.
  • Set Position to 2.
  • Preserve inherited Ear, Albion Awareness, and Negotiations progress. Ear 0/8, Albion 0/6, Negotiations 0/8 is only the fresh baseline with no prior progress. If the prologue saboteur escaped, carry its +2 Albion Awareness into the opening once; for a fresh clock this is 2/6. Do not add it again if already recorded.
  • Decide witness custody and proof holders.

Objective

Secure the DeSauros mission. Surface that something usable survived San Telmo. Establish that Resa is under pressure. Understand the summit is an auction disguised as restoration.

Three clue routes

  1. Customs copy.
  2. Resa's pressure notes.
  3. Witness or servant memory of the brass case.

Scene nodes

Customs · Wrong Name · Harbor Chapel · Convener's Welcome · optional ship evidence. Use any order.

Clock triggers

Ear 8: delay, Resa isolated, records recovered, or outside expertise gained.

Albion 6: San Telmo evidence displayed, Heller signals used, or an operative exposed.

Negotiations 8: failed public accusation, summit violence, or delegation humiliation.

Position

Starts 2, maximum 6. Gain 1 for protecting a witness without losing legal standing. Spend it for enforceable concessions, protection, passage, custody, or delay.

Hard choice

Before sundown: protect the witness, follow the clerk, or preserve ship evidence. An ignored route reaches a faction first.

Move on when

The party understands the auction, knows a usable remnant survived and Resa is pressured, and identifies at least three incompatible interests pursuing it.

End-of-session record

Clocks · Position · witness custody · proof holders · private offer pursued · faction that gained most · faction ignored.

Five-line session review

  1. Which faction gained most?
  2. Which faction was ignored, and what did it do?
  3. Which clock became visible?
  4. What clue, witness, or document changed hands?
  5. What choice will matter next even if every roll succeeded?