The Shadowed Tide

The summit continues in public. The characters have reason to suspect that people are disappearing through protected commercial routes, and a network calling itself the Shadowed Tide has made contact. They do not yet know who is responsible or how far the route reaches.

Share the Player Packet before play. It contains nothing below the GM markers on this page.

This act shifts from the summit table to covert work at the docks. Five operations are optional pressure nodes: the party may pursue any subset, in any order, and none is required. The act ends on a discovery, not a boss encounter.

1. Check the continuity panel above: Position, the four clocks, and who holds each witness and piece of proof.
2. Read the goal and the truth that must surface.
3. Read the five operations and note which ones the party's current contacts make reachable first, without fixing their order.
4. Decide where Resa is held and what pressure is on him, using your earlier records.
5. Print the folded note, or have the handout page open, and keep the Boca Serena map ready.
6. Agree safety tools with the table before play. Keep the GM Quick Reference beside you and the Adventure Record open for the end.

Only actors the act text names. Motives beyond what is written here are open GM choices drawn from your campaign so far.

• The Project Custodian: whoever holds that role in your campaign. The act ties them to bribes, plantation payments, and the pressure on Resa.
• Stroomdijk interests: Henrik Smit and Clara de Vries, whose correspondence may show them directing erasure.
• Hector Valerio: holder of the estate whose correspondence or testimony the Valerio operation seeks.
• Emilio Resa: the person under pressure. Finding that pressure is the exit truth.
• The Valdegracian garrison: may treat a rescue as an armed incident.

Optional pressure nodes, not a sequence. Pursue any, skip any. There is no sixth operation and no finale scene.

The five operations are prepared opportunities, not the boundaries of the adventure. If the characters devise another credible way to protect people or reach the required truth, follow it.

Required truths, not required scenes. The exit truth can emerge through any of these existing outcomes: recovered captives or manifests, Valerio's correspondence or testimony, intercepted correspondence, survivor testimony, Marina's records or knowledge, or information from the Shadowed Tide.

Each operation's leverage column shows what it can yield. Before any piece of evidence is used, ask which person becomes endangered. If a player choice removes a default assumption, use the campaign's When the Expected Route Breaks guidance.

A noisy raid, accusation, or disappearance advances Traffickers Erase the Route: the network moves people before it burns paper. Rescued people are people first. Record who now protects each of them, where they are, and what risk remains, in the Adventure Record's witness custody table. Record surviving testimony and records in proof custody, with who can authenticate them.

• The network burns ledgers and moves captives inland ahead of any raid.
• The Project Custodian tightens the pressure on Resa or moves him to safer custody.
• Marina's position becomes untenable if her assistance to Lukas is exposed.
• The Valdegracian garrison treats a rescue as an armed incident rather than a rescue.
• Once contact is earned, the Shadowed Tide can offer one of the operations as a concrete next step.

Optional pressure moves, not scheduled events. Advance a clock only when its established trigger actually occurs.

At the end of play, fill in the Adventure Record: Position, the four clocks, people rescued and still at risk, surviving testimony and proof, Shadowed Tide status and what was exposed, and the pressure on Resa with any route toward the laboratory. Choose "Save ending and continue" to write it to the campaign save and move the campaign to Act IV.

There is no correct ending. Record what changed.

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

Continue in the campaign reference with Act IV: The Ear.

Keep presentation restrained. Show consequence, absence, and fear rather than suffering, and never describe harm in detail. Agree on lines and veils before play, check in before any scene with captives, and let players redirect at any time. Survivors are never clues.

Resolve the meaningful risk in each operation in your chosen system, and let results change who is safe, what survives, and which clocks have a trigger. For a light default, use the 2d6 Resolution Bridge or the Native Rules; for other systems see System Conversions.