“We sighted Mt Nomad again today, still afloat but listing, her dark glass flanks scored and pitted from the cannon-fire in our previous encounter. This will be the last battle. The monster has harrowed the seas too long.”

Every time you take your ship out, you’ll meet pirates, monsters, ill-tempered customs officers, many of them interchangeable. This is the meat and drink of any game of perilous exploration: random encounters, enemies who form part of the texture of the world.

But you’ll encounter some enemies more than once. You might be commissioned to hunt them, or you might happen across them. You’ll fight them to a standstill, or they’ll submerge to escape – with the scars of their encounter with you, to match your scars.

This is a really good fit for the story engine we’re reusing from Fallen London. The  engine will track that first meeting, the choices you made and their consequence, and the next time you see them they can have changed and grown.  Perhaps they’ll just be a persistent threat: perhaps they’ll become your obsession. You may risk everything to track them down and end them, and gain your final reward. They, of course, may feel the same way about you.

(As a historically accurate game, Sunless Sea will feature giant enemy crabs.)