Line #58 Recap/ReturnoftheObraDinn


1	A recap[=/=]{{walkthrough}} of ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn''.
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3	'''WARNING:''' Any text on this entire page past the prologue are '''spoilers!''' As such, anything within the folders below '''will be unmarked''' to avoid redundant spoiler-tags. '''Do not read this page unless you have finished the game or don't care how you finish it.'''
4	----
5	[[foldercontrol]]
6	!Prologue
7	In 1802, the ''Obra Dinn''[[note]]built in 1796, weighing 800 tons, load capacity of 18 feet[[/note]] is declared missing after it fails to meet a rendezvous at the Cape of Great Hope. The undermanned ship, 51 crew + 9 passengers, set off to the Orient a few months ago with the expectation it would be back within two years.
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9	It instead returns in four.
10
11	You, the Chief Inspector of Insurance & Claims of the East India Company's London office, are immediately sent to Falmouth to prepare an assessment with a mysterious package in tow. An oarsman rows you to the seemingly-deserted vessel, grumbling at the late hour. You tell him to bring the package aboard while you examine the main deck. There appears to be no crew on board, the ship untouched except for torn sails, impromptu repairs of the mizzenmast, and a skeleton in front of the captain's cabin. All the hatches and doors leading below and off the deck are locked or shut. The oarsman shouts that the package is too heavy, forcing you to open it on the rowboat.
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13	It contains a book (''Return of the Obra Dinn: A Catalogue of Adventure & Tragedy'') and a pocket watch. The watch, labeled the Memento Mortem, allows someone to relive the exact moment something died when it is opened around any part of their corpse. The preface for ''Return of the Obra Dinn'', written by Henry Evans, claims that his failing health prevented him from using the Mortem to catalog the fates of each crew member and asks you to finish his work while making your assessment. Although you already have the crew manifest and deck plans on hand, all the book provides are hints and chapter headings...
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15	[[folder:I. Loose Cargo]]
16	The first omen for the ''Obra Dinn'' came at a stop in Falmouth after setting sail in London. The ship was receiving cargo under the supervision of Bosun's Mate Charles Miner and seaman Lars Linde. However, the pulley rope carrying some cargo snaps and the loaded pallet crushes seaman '''Samuel Peters'''. For ''most'' of the crewmen present, it is clear that it was an accident...
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18	Unknown to the crew, a '''stowaway''' hiding in one of the barrels dies when it falls over. The stowaway is completely unnoticed and the barrel is loaded into the bosun's store.
19	[[/folder]]
20
21	[[folder:II. A Bitter Cold]]
22	Not long into the voyage, a sudden cold spell sweeps through the ''Obra Dinn''. One night on the crew deck off the coast of Portugal, as the other crewmen sleep and the three Russian crewmen play cards, '''Soloman Syed''' suddenly breaks into a coughing fit. The other Indian seamen, Abraham Akbar and William Wasim, are roused, and Wasim tells Syed to get up and drink something, but Syed dies in his sleep.
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24	Third Mate Martin Perrott, joined by Wasim and Akbar, takes fellow Indian seaman '''Renfred Rajub''' to the surgery, where the surgeon, Henry Evans, and his mate, James Wallace, work. Evans tells Perrott that Rajub and Syed contracted a non-communicable lung disease in the lascar house. Though unable to diagnose it, he rules out consumption. He has also given Rajub a dose of laudanum in the hopes that he will recover, but Rajub ultimately succumbs to his illness.
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26	Shortly, Evans tells Perrott, Akbar, and Wasim to take the bodies over to the carpenter's for wrapping and last rites. Meanwhile, three midshipmen: Thomas Lanke, Peter Milroy, and Charles Hershtik, assist the butcher, Emil O'Farrell, in slaughtering '''a cow''' for its meat. Shortly after O'Farrell cuts the cow's throat, Hershtik gets sick to his stomach and throws up.
27	[[/folder]]
28
29	[[folder:III. Murder]]
30	Among the nine passengers of the ''Obra Dinn'' are two Formosan[[note]] modern-day Taiwan[[/note]] royals, It-Beng Sia and Bun-Lan Lim, and their guards, Hok-Seng Lau and Chioh Tan, who are taking a mysterious chest with them. As the ship passes by the Canary islands, the immoral Second Mate Edward Nichols slips into the cargo hold and knocks out Lau, who is responsible for guarding the chest. Inside, Nichols finds a brilliant seashell, but just as he's about to take it, an Italian passenger named '''Nunzio Pasqua''' wanders into the cargo hold and unwittingly catches him in the act. His theft thwarted, Nichols kills Pasqua to cover up his crimes and frames Lau for the murder.
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32	Some time later, Captain Robert Witterel announces that '''Lau''' is guilty by self-confession for the murder and sentences him to death by firing line (It is implied that Li Hong, a Chinese topman in cahoots with Nichols, has intentionally mistranslated Lau's pleas and description of the incident into a self-confession). Lim protests the execution, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Edward Spratt, the ship's artist, sketches the execution.
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34	Sometime after the execution, Nichols assembles a group of mutineers, consisting of of Alarcus Nikishin, Aleksei Toporov, Li Hong, Patrick O'Hagan, and his steward Samuel Galligan. They steal the chest and abduct Sia and Lim. In the course of this escape, some crewmen attempted to stop the mutineers, but have been easily subdued. '''Timothy Butement''', a Scottish topman, also confronts the mutineers, but he quickly gets gunned down by Nichols.
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:IV. The Calling]]
38	Out on the open sea, Nichols leads his mutineers on an expedition to the Canary Islands. Sia and Lim worry about the chest falling into the ocean and drawing in monsters, and Hong voices confusion about the conversation. However, a group of hostile mermaids attacks the lifeboats, starting by spearing '''Hong''' in the chest. As Nichols cowers uselessly in his boat, nearly everyone else dies at the hands of the mermaids, with '''O'Hagan''' getting speared in the neck, '''Toporov''' and '''Nikishin''' getting pulled overboard, and '''Lim''' having her face clawed.
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40	In the midst of the fight, Galligan sees Nichols cowering in his boat and calls him out on this. In the meantime, Sia uses the spear that impaled Hong to break free from his bonds. He takes a knife at the bottom of the boat and stabs '''Galligan''' in the neck. '''Sia''' later takes the shell and places it in the chest, creating beams of light that stun the mermaids, but the action burns his arm to the bone and costs him his life.
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42	Nichols, the sole survivor, disposes of the mutineers' bodies and hauls the unconscious mermaids onto the boats. He eventually catches sight of the Obra Dinn heading his way and hails it. While some crewmen call for the lifeboats to be recovered, Tan, at this point the only surviving Formosan, shoots '''Nichols''' dead.
43	[[/folder]]
44
45	[[folder:V. Unholy Captives]]
46	While the captured mermaids and the bodies of Nichols, Lim, and Sia are hauled onboard, Hamadou Diom restrains Tan for interrogation. With Huang Li, a Chinese topman, acting as an interpreter, Captain Witterel interrogates Tan about the death of Nichols, the mermaids, the chest, and the Formosans. Tan says that the shell in the chest must be protected, lest everyone onboard dies, but before he could say anything else, a mermaid randomly shoots spikes at the crew; one of them hits both '''Tan''' and '''Diom''', killing them.
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48	The mermaids, even as they are hauled down to the lazarette on a net stretcher, prove dangerous. One of them slaps '''Thomas Sefton''', the cook, with its tail after he closes in to look at a shell. This causes the crewmen carrying the stretcher: Nathan Peters, John Naples, Akbar, and Wasim, to lose their balance and fall down a flight of stairs; '''Wasim''''s fall in particular was fatal, as he is struck on the back of his neck by one of the heavily-loaded stretcher's carrying-poles as he hit a barrel face first.
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50	As the mermaids are hastily secured in the lazarette, Naples is tasked with guarding the door. Fillip Dahl, the steward of Captain Witterel, attacks '''Naples''', cutting off his leg. As he bleeds to death while treated by Evans, Captain Witterel summons bosun Alfred Klestil and his "Frenchman", bosun's mate Charles Miner, to discipline him Dahl for acting out. Dahl attempts to warn them that the mermaids are cursed and urges that they be thrown back into the sea, but he is hauled into the lazarette and shackled to the floor for his trouble.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:VI. Soldiers of the Sea]]
54	With a third of the people dead, the ship turns around and heads back to England. As the ship comes about, however, a storm approaches, and Leonid Volkov, a Russian topman, orders his fellow topmen to work the sails quickly. As '''Li''' works in the rigging, he gets fatally struck by lightning. At the same time, two mysterious humanoid crab creatures mounted on giant crabs climb aboard the ship and attack. They spear topman '''Nicholas Botterill''' on the main deck, spike carpenter's mate '''Marcus Gibbs''', and decapitate surgeon's mate '''James Wallace''' and topman '''Jie Zhang''' on the orlop deck. '''Hershtik''' manages to kill a crab rider by throwing a lantern at it, but he burns to death along with it. After the carnage, Evans tries to remove a spiked '''O'Farrell''' from the wall, who ends up dying of blood loss.
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56	The second crab rider invades the orlop deck and is headed to the lazarette. Miner attempts to shoot it, but he accidentally hits the ships steward, '''Zungi Sathi''', who, unknown to everyone, crawled to the port walk after being spiked earlier. The crew pursues the crab rider to the cargo deck, and '''Winston Smith''', the ship's carpenter, shoots down the other crab rider with a hand cannon as it spears him to death.
57	[[/folder]]
58
59	[[folder:VII. The Doom]]
60	Having survived the crab rider attack, three crewmen: seamen Alexander Booth, Nathan Peters, and purser Dunkan [=McKay=] decide to escape in one of the lifeboats. When seaman '''Lars Linde''' asks to join the group, Peters refuses and clubs Linde to death for killing his brother Samuel, despite Linde and Booth's protests that the death was accidental.
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62	West of Madeira, a Kraken attacks the ship, causing the deaths of fifteen further crewmen (and one passenger): artist '''Edward Spratt''', who was crushed by the Kraken as he was using the ships head at the bow; '''Akbar''', who was crushed by the Kraken's tentacle and a cannon; seaman '''George Shirley''', who was pulled or shot out of the porthole into the waiting tentacles of the Kraken; Austrian gunner '''Christian Wolff''', who was blown to smithereens by a point-blank shot from the cannon that Akbar lit; Third Mate's steward '''Roderick Andersen''' who warned Perrott of a loose cannon and got crushed by it; '''Milroy''', who was caught in an explosion while fighting the Kraken; topman '''Omid Gul''', who fell overboard; and topman '''Maba''', who was torn in half. Meanwhile, '''Peters''', '''[=McKay=]''', and '''Booth''' all fell overboard and drowned when the Kraken flung their lifeboat into the air; the captain's wife, passenger '''Abigail Hoscut Witterel''', who stepped outside to look for her husband, was crushed by falling rigging; helmsman '''Finley Dalton''' and topman '''Wei Lee''' were pulled into the sea and drowned, '''Miner''' was torn apart and bosun Alfred Klestil has his arm torn off. The attack leaves a skeleton crew.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:VIII. Bargain]]
66	''Note: Part of this takes place before and during Part VII: The Doom.''
67
68	Inside the lazarette, '''Dahl''' breaks free from his handcuffs. He opens the chest and pulls out the shell from it, but he burns off his arm and dies, finding it full of an unknown substance that resembles quicksilver.
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70	During the Kraken attack, Captain Witterel deduces that the '''mermaids''' are responsible, so he enters the lazarette and kills off two of them in the hopes that they call off the attack. Whether he takes two shells and throws them overboard for the last remaining mermaid calling off the attack, the attack stops, and the storm subsides.
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72	Later, '''Perrott''' and stewards Paul Moss and Davey James enter the lazarette, finding the third shell in Dahl's hands. Perrott is spiked before he can assure the mermaid that he has come to set it free. Mortally wounded, he orders the stewards to give the mermaid the shell, throw it overboard, and lock the door to the lazarette as they leave. He also asks the mermaid to see the Obra Dinn home.
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74	Later still, Moss finds Evans attempting to enter the lazarette when the key to it has been disposed of. Evans, counting on the East India Company using the Memento Mortem to investigate the ship should it ever make it back to port, ties his pet '''monkey''' to a rope, sends it through the bars, reluctantly shoots it, and retrieves its paw before leaving.
75	[[/folder]]
76
77	[[folder: IX. Escape]]
78	The ''Obra Dinn'' is north of Madeira. Fourth Mate John Davies and Gunner's Mate Olus Wiater help the dying '''Klestil''' to a chair in the gun deck. Davies tells him that his "Frenchman" was torn apart and that the Kraken went away with the storm, thanks to the Captain. Klestil, as he dies of blood loss, rasps "A curse like that does not lift for nothing".
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80	Shortly after, Wiater, expressing doubts about Captain Witterel's trustworthiness, broaches the subject of mutiny with Davies, planning to take over the ship and sell the "wretched fish" and shells. Lanke, the only surviving midshipman at this point, overhears the conversation and panics, alerting the crewmen of mutiny; Wiater gives chase and stabs Lanke in the back.
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82	Meanwhile on the main deck, Evans, James, Moss, and passengers Emily Jackson and Miss Jane Bird attempt to leave the ship on the last remaining boat. However, Volkov catches the group and attacks, getting into a sword fight with Moss. Despite the intervention of Captain Witterel, First Mate William Hoscut, seaman Henry Brennan, and topman Lewis Walker, Volkov stabs '''Moss''', killing him. He proceeds to try to attack the others, but Jackson quickly guns '''Volkov''' down.
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84	Unaware of the shot fired on the main deck, Davies ties to stop Wiater from finishing off the mortally wounded Lanke, reaching for Wiater's gun. During the scuffle, the gun blows off '''Wiater''''s face, and the dust-up catches the attention of Hoscut, who rushes to aid Lanke, as Brennan clubs '''Davies''', wrongly believing that he meant to kill Wiater.
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86	As Hoscut tends to the dying '''Lanke''', Walker throws Volkov's body overboard. The boat carrying '''Jackson''', '''Bird''', '''James''', and Evans departs, and Captain Witterel slumps over, defeated and exhausted.
87	[[/folder]]
88
89	[[folder:X. The End]]
90	After an indeterminate amount of time has elapsed, Hoscut, Brennan, and Walker all turn on Captain Witterel and attempt to extort the shells from him, but he says he threw them overboard. Unconvinced, the mutineers attack, and Captain Witterel is forced to kill them all in self-defense; he shoots down '''Hoscut''', cuts '''Brennan''''s throat, and clubs '''Walker''' in the head.
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92	After a moment of contemplation and overcome with grief, '''Captain Witterel''' sits beside his wife's body, lamenting the death of Hoscut. He asks for her forgiveness before shooting himself.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Epilogue]]
96	''Note: The package only arrives if '''all''' of your fates are correct.''
97
98	A storm begins to brew deep into your investigation. The oarsman makes it clear that you should definitively finish your business because no one will be taking you back to the ''Obra Dinn'' once you get on the boat. You make the final call and leave the ghost ship behind to be sunk by the storm.
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100	One week later, you are sent a preliminary assessment based on your recorded findings that, pending your signature, will verify all of the death certificates. The crew's estates, pensions, and other expenses are fined or awarded based on your records and the legal standard of the time (the crown seizes Captain Witterel's estate due to his suicide, Second Mate Nichols receives the most fines to his estate if you are truthful, Third Mate Perrott's estate receives the highest reward, criminal charges and causes for merit and demerit are listed as you wrote them...). You keep the Memento Mortem and send ''Return of the Obra Dinn'' back to Henry, as promised.
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102	One year later, Evans dies in Africa due to an illness, and Bird sends you a letter about how Evans felt about your performance. Regardless of the letter, she requests that you don't write back.
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104	Should you manage to solve all available fates, Bird sends the letter along with a package containing ''Return of the Obra Dinn'', the monkey's paw, and a small note from Henry declaring that it is your tale now; the Bargain chapter is still unfinished.
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106	You investigate the lazarette and fill out the remaining two fates, and you keep the ''Return of the Obra Dinn'', placing it on your shelf.
107	[[/folder]]

Context Recap / ReturnoftheObraDinn