Fill out my boat! 1st arc big bad

[Nishant]

So my rather.... interesting game of work friends are slowly but surely progressing through the main arc of my campaign, and are going to be up against their first big bad in a few sessions, assuming they don't get distracted. The party is as such;

A CN valor bard
A NG Moon Druid
A CG Lore Bard
A TN Land Druid (Underdark)
And finally, A CE assassin rogue

The party has been looking for clues and leads to find the group of bandits who killed the Valor bard's family. After a few months, they reached a port town and heard of a 'pleasure boat' that has been recently docked, attracting wealthy folk and nobles. After a great gather information roll, the team has learned that the captain and some of the crew have questionable histories, and that the ship was also in the area when several raids and robberies occured, including the attack at the Valor Bard's town.

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So, what I have so far is as such;

Taking some notes from SKT, I plan to make the crew of the pleasure boat cultists and worshipers of an ancient Kraken. The vessel serves several purposes;

.A casino on the main deck helps keep a front and raise coin from nobleman and traders alike. This also allows for connections to be established between the captain and said clients.
.A hidden level between the main deck and lower deck stows away black market goods, drug, and slaves for more unsavory types, dealing with unsavory guilds for information and alliances. The slaves are kept quiet by the captain's right hand, who repeatedly has calm emotions and charms placed on them. Some are made into sleeper agents by more powerful mages in the Order to be shipped off elsewhere.
The lower dock is fairly normal, with storage and oar ports to row the boat forward.
.The captain, and some of the crew, have received the 'Blessing of the Sea', making them similar to weresharks (Think the skinwalkers in pathfinder.)

So, what should I do to make this area memorable? I want it to leave hooks to the Kraken worship to pull back to it later if they decide to follow the trail, but I also don't want to be /too/ railroad-y. It should be noted that if they pursue it, they won't fight the Kraken for a /long/ time. They're only level four at the moment.

[ES Curse]

Perhaps the "Blessing of the Sea" comes from the Kraken's cult in some way or another? Adding a weakness to this curse (werewolves have silver, maybe weresharks are weak to something?) also creates a tell-tale sign for a later encounter, and lets the party play around with alternative combat tactics when they know what they're dealing with.

[Nishant]

The idea is that it comes from the Kraken, yeah. The issue is figuring out what that would make them weak to. I'm not giving them damage resistances out of it, outside the captain, who I'm giving a couple barbarian levels. Any ideas?

[JAL_1138]

Weakness to exploding compressed-air tanks. :P

Or, being serious, silver is a good weakness for a were-anything. It's one of the first things most players will try, because of the connection between silver and werewolves, and it's the standard weakness* for any other weremonster in the monster manual too.

Stone and/or wooden weapons could be an interesting thematic weakness, to represent that they've lost their connection to the land to such a degree that the land harms them.

*Technically not a vulnerability, in terms of extra damage; it's just that they're immune to nonsilvered mundane weapons

[Nishant]

hm... keeping the sea theme, perhaps a special kind of coral? Pull in merfolk later?

[Callin]

Any good pirate needs a map and a mark. Give them a pendent that has the Kraken engraved on one side and map pieces on the other. A DC 15 Int check to piece them together to make the proper map. If they make a DC 10 Int, but fail, they get close but a false reading that is a trap set up by the Cult incase things happen.

Edit- the group can make this check only once to keep them from just rerolling over each other to beat the DC. Sort of like a group strealth check but for Int.