Valeros leans on the bulwark and gazes down into the frothing waters. Merisiel places her slim hand on his shoulder.

“We are a long way from the Lost Coast, my friend,” she says, “You should try and forget her.”

Valeros smiles, tight-lipped. Merisiel joins him at the rail and together they gaze out across the waves. The ship sways slightly as it glides through the shoals and the archipelago of the Shackles islands seems to float on the horizon.

Merisiel glances sideways at her companion.

“Seoni was always going to go her own way,” she says.

“I know,” sighs Valeros, “I just… I thought I could be what she needed. Someone to rely on.”

“She was a barbarian sorceress,” says Merisiel, “and there was otherworldly blood in her. I do not think she knew what she wanted, or will ever.”

Valeros straightens up.

“You are right,” he says, “I should put the past behind me. Let us instead look ahead to the future, and the adventure and riches we have in store.”

Merisiel smiles and claps him on the back.

There is a sudden cry from high in the rigging.

“A sail, a sail! Bearing upon us from the nor-east!”

Valeros and Merisiel dash across the deck to see the approaching vessel. The lookout holds the spyglass to his good eye.

“They are raising their colours!” he cries, “It is the Skull! They are pirates!”

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The new Pathfinder Adventure Card Game set, Skull & Shackles, arrived this weekend. This set has pirates!

It is another Base Set containing all you need to play, and is the start of a whole new set of adventures. There will be 6 add-on adventure packs, just like in the original Rise of the Runelords set.

There is a new group of heroes, with some returning from the first set, and you get to sail your ship around ‘The Shackles’, the islands of the Pirate King, and fight buccaneers, swashbucklers and sea-creatures.

The rules are the same, only with the addition of rules for ships, so it should be easy enough to get started.

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When you first open the box, it does suffer from ’empty-box’ syndrome. There is an awful lot of space with only a few packs of shrink-wrapped cards floating about in it.

All this extra space is actually a huge bonus as they have given us enough space for all the add-on adventures and I will of course be getting these.

So what do you get in the base set?

There is a rulebook, the usual D&D funny-shaped dice, hundreds of cards and also the first add-on adventure pack.

This add-on pack adds another five scenarios to the five that are included in the introductory adventure, so you get ten different adventures in total, which is loads.

The seven characters are Valeros the fighter, Merisiel the Rogue, Alahazra the Oracle, Jirelle the Swashbuckler, Lem the Bard, Lirianne the Gunslinger (yes, there are flintlock pistols in this world) and Seltyiel the Magus.

Valeros, Merisiel and Lem are slightly different versions of those in the original game. All the others are new.

• Alahazra sees into the future by looking at the top of the location decks.
• Jirelle is super-lucky and can reroll dice (like Mandy Reroll).
• Seltyiel can both fight with a sword and cast a spell at the same time.
• Lirianne can keep her pistols fully loaded and can shoot at enemies at another location.

They all look like fun to play.

The dice that come with the game aren’t great, so we will use our pretty Chessex dice we have had for years.

Gab is going to join in, so the next step is to try out the introductory adventure and see how we get on!