Captain Orrin Grieve, the Drowned Compass

Level 6 Human Fighter (Battle Master)

Available with DM subscription

STR

18 (+4)

DEX

12 (+1)

CON

14 (+2)

INT

8 (-1)

WIS

CHA

15 (+2)

Defense

Armor Class 18 (Breastplate (14) + Dex (2) + Shield (2))

Hit Points 50 (10 + (5 × 8) +2)

Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.

Proficiencies & Skills

Saving Throws Strength, Constitution

Skills Survival +3, Athletics +7, Deception +5, Perception +3, Persuasion +5, Intimidation +5

Features

The Drowned Compass (Custom Villain Feature)

Custom Level 6

1/encounter, Bonus Action

Orrin knows the smoking strait's safe channels and the fog's moods. Once per encounter he may Disengage or Hide as a Bonus Action and, while aboard the Widow's Due or within heavy fog, he is treated as one size larger for shove and grapple contests. If reduced below half his hit points, he cuts lines, drops rigging (DC 13 Dexterity save, 2d6 bludgeoning, restrained) and flees into the fog.

The Chained Priest (Custom Villain Feature)

Custom Level 6

1/Long Rest

Orrin consults the Ash Chorus priest chained in his hold. Once per day, before a fight, he may roll one Wisdom (Insight) or Charisma (Deception) check with advantage, or reroll a failed saving throw against being frightened or charmed.

Combat Superiority (Battle Master)

Fighter (Battle Master) Level 3

4 Superiority Dice (d8)

Knows four maneuvers: Menacing Attack (frighten on hit, extra 1d8 damage, DC 14 Wisdom save), Trip Attack (knock prone, DC 14 save), Precision Attack (add die to an attack roll), and Evasive Footwork (add die to AC while moving).

Weapon Mastery (Scimitar: Nick, Handaxe: Vex)

Fighter Level 1

Orrin can use the Nick mastery property with his scimitar (make an additional attack as part of the Attack action) and the Vex property with his handaxe (next attack against the vexed target has advantage).

Feat: Alert

Feats Level 4

Orrin adds his Proficiency Bonus to Initiative rolls and can swap Initiative with a willing ally after rolls are made. He is never surprised while conscious.

Fighting Style: Dueling

Fighter Level 1

While wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, Orrin gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.

Sailor's Training

Sailor background Level 1

Proficiency with navigator's tools and vehicles (water). Advantage on ability checks to climb rigging and ropes.

Tactical Mind

Fighter Level 2

Expend Superiority Die

When an ally fails an ability check, Orrin can expend one Superiority Die to add it to their roll.

Extra Attack (2)

Fighter Level 5

Orrin attacks twice (or three times with Nick) when taking the Attack action.

Action Surge

Fighter Level 2

1/Short Rest

Take one additional action on his turn (not a Magic action).

Feat: Ability Score Improvement

Feats Level 4

Applied at level 4 to raise Strength to 18.

Second Wind

Fighter Level 1

2/Short Rest, Bonus Action

Regain 1d10 + 6 hit points.

Behind the character

Character Information

Captain Orrin Grieve, the Drowned Compass, is a broad, sun-cooked privateer in his late thirties with a black beard braided in tarred cord, a notched left ear, and a grin that arrives a half-second before his intentions do. He wears a salt-stained captain's coat of faded navy blue over a scarred breastplate, a wide-brimmed hat pinned with a drowned-compass brooch whose needle spins uselessly, and a bone-handled scimitar he has never once sheathed clean.

He is loud, funny, and generous with other people's money; he calls everyone 'friend' and means it right up until the moment he does not, which is usually the moment the fog thickens or the odds turn.

Underneath the performance is a man who lost thirty-one sailors to the fog wall nine years ago and came back with nothing but a reputation and a theory about whose fault it was. He has decided the fault was Carl's, and he has built a life on that decision: a fast ship, a crew of forty cutthroats, a stolen chart, and a letter of marque from a kingdom that no longer exists.

He wants the Thirteenth's power because a man who cannot be a king of the sea will settle for being a god of an island, and he keeps a chained Ash Chorus priest in his hold to advise him on how to steal one.

He is at his most dangerous aboard the Widow's Due, where he knows every line, cleat and channel, and at his most honest in the fog, where he does not joke. He is a fighter and a schemer, a host and a hostage-taker, and the finest sailor in the northern water — which is the only compliment he has ever accepted without laughing.

Before the adventure

Character Background

Orrin Grieve was born in the Tarred Keel's back room in the Lordinium dry docks, the son of a caulkers' widow and a privateer who never came back from the ice. He went to sea at eleven, commanded his first prize at twenty-six, and lost everything at twenty-nine, when he took a crew of thirty-two north past Harrowgate chasing a rumour of an island behind the fog.

The crossing should have cost one life. The fog takes one from every ship. But at the basalt arch the Warden asked for a name, and Orrin — who had already spent the voyage quietly deciding that his share of the prize was worth more than anyone else's — gave a false one. The fog took thirty-one sailors instead of one. Orrin came home on a raft with three men, a broken compass, and a story in which the fog simply took his crew and Carl's bad chart was to blame.

He has spent nine years making the story true. He robbed Guild warehouses and called it privateering. He bought the Widow's Due from a Guild factor named Hessa Vane at a price so low it still bothers him. He captured an Ash Chorus priest off a grey-sailed courier off Gullclaw Cay and chained him in the hold, not for ransom but for advice — because the priest, alone of everyone Orrin has ever met, could tell him what the fog actually is.

He stole a fresh copy of Carl's chart from a Salt Crown drunk and began shadowing the new expedition the day it signed its first crew, letting Carl's people clear the burning strait and the fog wall ahead of him, planning to take the Sea-Devil's Due, the codex, and the glory at the moment of maximum exhaustion.

He is not stupid and he is not mad. He knows the priest whispers to someone. He knows the letter of marque is rot. He knows Miri Salt is alive on the strand with a broken arm and his name in her mouth. He proceeds anyway, because the alternative — that he is a coward who traded thirty-one lives for a share — is the one truth he has never once told anyone, and he will take a god's power before he takes that one to his grave.

At table he is a hard fight for four level 8 characters when met on his own deck with a boarding crew, and a much softer one in the open. He fights with a screen of cutthroats, drops rigging on anyone who climbs, and flees into the fog the moment the odds turn. He can be killed, bought, or humiliated and left alive — and each ending changes the epilogue differently.

Threads to follow

Unresolved Plots

The Chorus priest's predecessor — the ordinator who trained him — vanished from Harrowgate three years ago and is rumoured to be on the island already, serving Maelis directly. If found, he can confirm or destroy everything the chained priest has told Orrin.
Six survivors of Orrin's first crew remain at large under false names. Two are accounted for in the Widow's Ledger quest; four are not, and at least one has been petitioning Archivist Venn for sanctuary in exchange for testimony about the fog wall.
The flaw in Orrin's stolen copy of Carl's chart has never been explained. Either Carl's original is wrong, the copyist introduced the error, or someone altered Orrin's copy deliberately — and only the original chart, which Carl carries, can settle it.
The Widow's Due's original owner, a Guild factor named Hessa Vane — a cousin of Maelis — sold the ship to Orrin at a suspiciously low price the week after his first crew died. She has never explained why, and she keeps a chandler's shop in Harrowgate where grey-robed buyers are known to call.
Orrin's notched left ear was cut off by a Chorus assassin in Gullclaw Cay two years ago, when he tried to sell the Chorus a heretic codex he had already sold to someone else. The assassin is still alive, still employed, and still keeps a tally of Orrin's movements — for the Chorus, for the Guild, or for whoever pays next.

Beneath the surface

Secrets

Orrin gave the fog warden a false name at his first crossing to avoid paying the price himself; the fog took thirty-one sailors instead of one, and he has built his entire identity on hiding that fact.
The chained priest has been sending coded reports on Orrin's movements and plans to the Ash Chorus through couriers in every port the Widow's Due visits, and Orrin does not know.
Orrin's letter of marque remains technically valid under an old succession clause that Crown clerk Corbin Slate has discovered — a fact that could make Orrin a legal privateer of Lordinium, or hang him if it is exposed and revoked instead.

What haunts them

Fears

Standing before the fog wall again and hearing the Warden say his true name aloud — proof that the fog always knew, and always chose to let him live.
Dying on land. Orrin has convinced himself that the sea will judge him honestly and the earth will not, and he will not sleep ashore if he can avoid it.
Becoming the priest in the hold — chained, consulted, and used by something that talks to him politely and never means him well.

What drives them

Aspirations

To be a king of the sea — literally, with a crown, a strait that burns on his command, and every harbour captain in the realm answering his hail.
To have the fog give back his first crew, or at least to hear their names spoken by something that was there when they died.
To own a ship so fast and so feared that no port, no Guild, and no god can make him leave it.

Personal quest · 1

The Priest in the Hold

Orrin's chained Ash Chorus priest has begun answering questions he never asked, whispering through the deck boards at night. The priest claims the Thirteenth will offer Orrin exactly what he wants — dominion over the strait — but only if Orrin delivers the expedition's crew alive. Orrin must decide whether to keep consulting the thing he captured as a bargaining chip or cut its chain and throw it overboard. Uncovering the priest's true name and rank within the Chorus reveals why Maelis Vane has not yet sent assassins for him.

Current Stage

Interrogate the chained priest about the Chorus's plans for the Widow's Due and learn that the cult considers Orrin an asset, not an enemy.

Choice

Feed the priest information about the party's movements

The Chorus begins treating Orrin as a partner, and Maelis sends him a sealed offer.

Alternative

Starve the priest into silence

The whispers stop, but the crew grows uneasy about the hold, and two sailors desert at the next port.

Mechanical Rewards

New ability: Voice of the Hold — once per day, Orrin may ask the freed or bound priest one question and receive a truthful answer about the Chorus, the fog, or the Thirteenth's bargains
Permanent +1 to Charisma saving throws against divine compulsion

Narrative Rewards

Orrin learns the Thirteenth's true nature: it cannot end death, only feed on it — knowledge that changes how he values his bargain with it

Personal quest · 2

The Widow's Ledger

Orrin's first crew did not all die in the fog. Seven survived the crossing, deserted at the strait, and have been hiding under false names in northern ports ever since. One of them, a former quartermaster named Dace, now works the Harrowgate quay. Orrin wants them found — partly to silence the men who saw him order the fog-wall crossing that killed thirty-one sailors, partly because Dace kept the original of the chart Orrin stole from Carl, and the copy has a flaw only the original reveals.

Current Stage

Identify Dace among the Harrowgate dockworkers and recover the original chart without alerting Captain Kane's harbour watch.

Choice

Buy the chart with a share of the Widow's Due's prize money

Dace takes the coin and a warning: the fog remembers Orrin's name, and so do the other six.

Alternative

Take the chart by force and silence Dace

The other six survivors scatter deeper inland, and one of them reaches the party with the truth about Orrin's first voyage.

Mechanical Rewards

The corrected chart of the smoking strait (advantage on navigation, knowledge of a hidden channel)
Optional: two port informants and crew expansion

Narrative Rewards

The full truth of what happened at the fog wall on Orrin's first crossing — and proof that the fog took his crew because he gave it a false name

Personal quest · 3

The Letter of Marque

The kingdom that issued Orrin's letter of marque fell in a civil war nine years ago — the same year his first crew died. A Crown clerk named Corbin Slate has discovered the letter is still technically valid under an old succession clause, which would make Orrin a licensed privateer of Lordinium rather than a pirate, and give him the right to claim the Sea-Devil's Due as lawful prize if he can prove Carl's expedition is unsanctioned. Slate wants something in return: Orrin's testimony about what the first expedition's sealed orders contained.

Current Stage

Meet Slate at the Tarred Keel and negotiate the terms of legitimization.

Choice

Testify about the King's sealed orders

Orrin confirms the King knew the blood price was part of the bargain, handing Slate a weapon against the Crown itself — and Orrin a legal claim on any prize he takes.

Alternative

Refuse and threaten Slate

Slate backs down but files the clause anyway; Orrin remains a pirate in the eyes of the Crown, and Slate becomes a quiet enemy who will testify against him at any trial.

Mechanical Rewards

Renewed letter of marque (legal immunity in Crown ports) OR 300 gp and expedition goodwill
Optional: command of a second ship and doubled boarding forces

Narrative Rewards

Confirmation that King Soleiman signed the first expedition's orders knowing the blood price — leverage that can shake the Crown itself

Major Decision

Context

At the fog wall on his first crossing, Orrin gave the Warden a false name to avoid paying the price himself. The fog took thirty-one sailors instead of one. He has told the story ever since as though the fog simply took his crew.

Choice Made

When Orrin next stands before the fog wall — or when a survivor confronts him with the truth — he must decide whether to confess the lie or double down.

Impact

Confessing: Orrin's guilt becomes a weapon he can aim at the fog itself; he gains advantage on all Charisma checks against Cassian and the fog's agents, and the fog's shades will not attack him first. Doubling down: Orrin's deception hardens into doctrine; he gains permanent advantage on Deception checks but can never again pass a fog gate by giving a name — the fog will always take two from his crews.

Major Decision

Context

The chained Chorus priest has told Orrin that the Thirteenth will make him an offer at the Heart: a drop of blood, freely given, in exchange for dominion over the burning sea. The priest has also let slip — perhaps deliberately — that the last man who took such an offer became the fog's warden, standing on the arch for thirty years.

Choice Made

When the Thirteenth's offer comes, Orrin must accept it, refuse it, or demand better terms.

Impact

Accepting: Orrin gains the Drowned Ascendant feature — he can walk on burning water unharmed, command fog as lightly obscured terrain within 60 feet, and once per day breathe smoke as air — but he is now bound to the Thirteenth and cannot harm it or its Chorus. Refusing: Orrin keeps his freedom and gains the Thirteenth's permanent enmity; the fog hunts the Widow's Due wherever she sails, and every fog-wall crossing costs him a crew member.

Demanding better: the Thirteenth, which never lies and always keeps its word exactly, agrees to a written compact — Orrin gains a lesser version of the power (fog-sight and smoke-walking only) but owes the god one unspecified favour, to be called in at the worst possible moment.

Major Decision

Context

Miri Salt, the cabin hand Orrin left ashore on the strand with a broken arm, is alive — and she knows his plans, his channels, and the fact that he abandoned her to the twisted forest rather than risk a slow rescue.

Choice Made

When Orrin learns Miri is with the party, he must decide whether to retrieve her, silence her, or cut her loose entirely.

Impact

Retrieving her: Miri's knowledge of the island doubles Orrin's scouting effectiveness — he gains advantage on all Survival and Perception checks on Borealis and a map of the strand's creature patterns — but his crew sees him rescue a liability, and morale shifts: his men begin testing whether the captain will spend their lives for his conscience. Silencing her: Orrin keeps his secrets and gains permanent advantage on Stealth checks (no one left who knows his methods), but if the party learns of the order, his crew's loyalty fractures — one in four of his cutthroats will desert or mutiny at a critical moment.

Cutting her loose: Orrin formally frees Miri and pays her a share; she becomes a wildcard who may aid either side, and Orrin gains nothing mechanical — but his crew's loyalty hardens into something like devotion, granting the Widow's Due's boarding crew advantage on morale-based saving throws.

Transformative Moment

Trigger

The truth of the false name surfaces

Transformation

Orrin's loud generosity curdles or clarifies: either he becomes a captain trying to buy back a debt in blood, or a man who has decided guilt is for other people.

Mechanical Changes

Alignment drift

Confession path pulls him toward Neutral; doubling down cements Neutral evil

The choice determines whether his villainy is a wound or a creed.

Transformative Moment

Trigger

The Thirteenth's bargain is struck or refused

Transformation

Orrin stops being a rival treasure hunter and becomes either a god's vessel-in-waiting or the one mortal in the north the fog itself wants dead.

Mechanical Changes

Feature gain or loss

Drowned Ascendant powers gained, or permanent fog-hunted condition with escalating crew losses

The bargain is the pivot of his arc: godhood, exile, or debt.

Ally

Bram Kettle, boatswain of the Widow's Due

Relationship Loyal first officer and co-conspirator

Influence 3/10

Loyalty 18/10

Shared History

Bram was the second man to sign onto Orrin's first voyage nine years ago, and one of only three who survived the fog wall — because Orrin grabbed him by the collar and hauled him into the rigging when the fog came down to feed. Bram has never asked what Orrin said to the Warden that cost thirty-one lives instead of one, and Orrin has never told him. Since then Bram has been Orrin's knife-hand on every prize, every smuggling run, and every negotiation with the Guild's factors; it was Bram who suggested chaining the Chorus priest in the hold instead of ransoming him, and Bram who keeps the crew's pay ledger honest when Orrin's generosity with other people's money would sink them.

Bram's loyalty is not blind: he has watched Orrin abandon Miri Salt on the strand, and he has said nothing — but he has started keeping his own count of the captain's debts, written in chalk on the inside of his cabin door. If the count reaches ten, Bram has told his brother in Harrowgate, he will take the crew and the marque and leave Orrin on whatever beach is nearest. He is currently at seven.

Potential Breaking Points

If Orrin sacrifices crew to the fog a second time
If Bram's chalk count reaches ten

Enemy

Carl of the Seven Seas

Threat Level 4/10

Conflict Type Rivalry and grievance

Personal Stakes

Nine years ago Carl's chart was the reason Orrin's first crew sailed north at all — Orrin bought a copy of the torn map in the Salt Crown from a sailor who had signed Carl's second voyage, and the flawed chart put the Widow's Due into the fog wall's worst current. Orrin has convinced himself, in the way men do, that Carl knew the chart was bad and sold it anyway, and that every death at the fog wall is Carl's sin before it is his own.

The grievance has curdled into something worse than hatred: ambition. Orrin does not merely want to ruin Carl; he wants to take Carl's ship, Carl's glory, and Carl's discovery, and stand where Carl stood as though the intervening nine years — the fog, the drowned crew, the chained priest, the reputation — had never happened. He has stolen a fresh copy of Carl's chart and means to reach the Heart of Borealis first.

Carl, for his part, has heard the rumours about the Widow's Due shadowing his expedition and does not yet know that the man shadowing him is the survivor of a crew his own bad chart helped kill.

Possible Resolutions

Orrin can be bought off with treasure and a share
Orrin can be killed and his crew scattered
Orrin can be humiliated and left alive as a recurring nuisance

Faction

The Ash Chorus

Standing 2/10

Influence

The Chorus does not trust Orrin and has not decided whether he is a tool or an obstacle. He is useful: he has a ship that can cross the smoking strait, a stolen chart, and no loyalty to the Crown. He is dangerous: he wants the Thirteenth's power for himself, which the Chorus considers a category error — a mortal asking to hold a god's hunger in his hands. The priest Orrin chained in his hold was a mid-rank ordinator, and the Chorus has not moved against Orrin for taking him because the priest has been sending coded reports through Chorus couriers in every port the Widow's Due visits.

Maelis Vane knows everything Orrin tells the priest and nothing Orrin tells no one. She has offered him, through intermediaries, a place in the Chorus's plan — deliver the expedition's crew alive to the Ninth Terrace and the god will grant him the sea. Orrin has not refused, because refusing costs nothing yet, and he has not accepted, because he has read enough of the priest's muttered theology to suspect that the god's promises are kept exactly and no more. The Chorus, meanwhile, has standing orders to kill Orrin the moment he becomes more useful dead than afloat.

Obligations

Unspecified: the priest's coded reports continue until the chain is cut or the ledger burned

Benefits

Chorus cells will not currently attack the Widow's Due
Access to Chorus safehouses in northern ports

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