First off: Sawbones, Moonie, Reeva or Mygg, if you’re reading this, DON’T!
I’m running a pirate-themed homebrew campaign set in a homebrewed place which I’ve plonked down in The Sea of Falling Stars. I call it The Southern Isles, and its rife with piracy. The de facto ‘government’ is The Southern Islands Company, who run the place for profit and starve the population with high taxes and tithes, and who brutally suppress any rebellion. I’ve used every pirate and maritime trope I can think of in planning the plot, creating encounters and filling it with characters.
I figured this will help me add flavour to the world, and could be a good resource for anyone planning a similar campaign, or one shot or whatever.
Edit: I should maybe note I already played quite a bit in this setting and after a long hiatus I am starting it back up for Season 2, so partly this is a way for me to get it all fresh in my head again.
How do your pirates honor their dead?
Burial at sea mostly would e standard, with a ceremony where they take turns speaking about the deceased and moments from their time together. Or they would try to emulate the traditions of the individual’s culture. Pirate crews are made up of all sorts of folk from all sorts of places, so they are a melting pot of different traditions.
What are some famous tall tales, that get drunkenly told by fisherman and sailors in portbars around the islands?
Also what are some of the superstitions that the locals believe in?
These are great questions!
“There’s an island to the North, right? Surrounded by a maze of coral reefsit is. No one has been able to find a path to it, even by rowboat, but folk have been dashed on em even taking it careful like. Sailors swear they saw the foral move! BUT my mate Ron, he said he heard off his mate Jim, that there was this druid on his ship what wildshaped into a pelican, right, and flew over it. Said there was some kind of temple or shrine in the middle of it. But he couldn’t get close. This deafening voice booming in his head, saying he had to pass the test and find the way there! Couldn’t resist the voice he said. Had to donas it says like it was pulling his strings! Now, I reckon, if there’s a test, there’s a prize! I bet it’s treasure!”
There’s rumours of a kraken, of course. But it could just be ships lost to pirates, or sunk in storms, or taken over by the sahuagin…
Speaking of the sahuagin, they have been a lot more active lately, there attacks more frequent and more organised than before.
There’s a rumour that the dread pirate Blackfin has been killing while ships of people just to turn em all the zombies. He’s building an undead armada! He’s friend to none, pirate or civvy!
As for superstitions, they’re sailors, so they are a very superstitious bunch. One of my party killed an albatross, and the crew were going spare at the bad luck. They made him wear it round his neck as penance for the bad juju, and the ship was becalmed for days, drifting with no wind. The players tried all sorts to lift the curse but it was actually an encounter I found on reddit one time, the Sinister Seagull. It takes the wind from a ship’s sails and can mind control the crew. They spotted one of their crew throwing gems to the seagulls and had to have a battle with it. They couldn’t tell which was the evil one son they were blasting every seagull they could see. Ingrave the Sinister Seagull basically every non lethal psychic spell I could find and had fun casting confusion, crown of thorns, power word pain, etc, on the party. They took very little damage and it was a frustrating fight for them, but when they finally exploded the right seagull, they were very releived
Profitable pirate ventures need to be built on rich trade routes so they have big, fat, juicy merchant ships to plunder and pirate.
What competing powers does your pirate area sit between?
What are those powers doing to patrol the waters and stop their trade ships from being plundered?
Whose the most famous pirate hunter in the area? What’s their methods and what’re they doing right now?
Whats the latest ‘big haul’ the pirates have pulled in? What were they rumoured to have found? Similarly whose the last pirate to have been caught or killed? How?
This sounds like tonnes of fun, hope your players enjoy!
The Southern Isles are in the location that The Pirates Isles are in vanilla DnD, I just thought the original name was lame. I have used some of the original lore for some of the islands, but mostly it’s my own stuff. That means the surrounding powers are Sembia, Turmish, These, Aglarond, etc. Yo be honest I’ve not put a lot of research into those. The Isles attract a sorts of folk from all sorts of places.
The Southern Islands Company are a proxy for the Turmish government, and it is them who patrol the islands looking for pirates.
The most famous pirate hunter is probably Commadore Roger Todgeson. He has a long standing enmity with Captain Verse, a pirate captain who has the lofty goal of ousting the Company and starting a pirate republic. Currently he is on his way to Thatch, a town in the Western region, and the place most newcomers to the Isles make landfall The party are also on their way there. Captain Verse feels it is time to try and liberate the town and has asked the party to come to his aid. The Company sense unrest is afoot and have call s Commadore Todgeson to help sure up their forces. The party and their crew, along with Verse and his own crew, will try to take the town before he arrives, and then defend it on e he does.
The last pirate to be caught and killed… hm… I’ll say that would be Captain Jack Chaffinch. He was taking a prize out East when he ran into Todgeson’s ship. They fought valiantly but were overwhelmed and when Todgeson arrives at Thatch he’ll hang him up in the Harbour as a warning nitnto resist him. Chaffinch’s ship sails with Todgeson, having been captured. Could they take the ship back ? Apparently he’d managed to take a Theskian treasure galleon before being caught himself. Could be the gold is still in its hold, just waiting for greedy pirates hands to reclaim it!
What are the most important roles in your crews?
What’s the pirate code, their laws and rules?
Do pirates cooperate or compete?
In terms if crew positions, mine might not be the most realistic but are designed to give the players interesting roles and ways to effect things.
The Captain - gives orders, makes in-the-moment tactical decisions
The Quartermaster - in charge of the crew and keeping them fed and watered, in charge of rum rationing as well
Lookout - doesn’t seem like much, but if you put a PC with high perception in that role, you’ll spot stiff better
Cook - has a big effect on the morale of the crew
Shantyman - perfect role for a bard. Also has a big effect on morale and can inspire great feats from the crew with performance checks.
Bosun - in charge of maintaining the ship, when repairs are needed, etc.
There is a pirate code that they are expected to follow. Captain Verse insisted on this when he helped the players take their ship. Its quite long but the big points are:
- All booty must be shared equally, with tge Captain and the officers getting two shares each.
- All major decisions must be decided by vote (such as whether to take a prize, where to burn a ship or take it…). The crew may even vote out their captain if they dislike how the ship is run (although in practice I’d likely just do a good old mutiny).
- No one may steal from another member of the crew, on pain of being marooned, keelhauled, or killed.
- No murdering each other, although fights are tolerated within reason. If they get really bad they must be settled ashore.
- you can’t leave the rew until you’ve at least helped the make a prize.
- No freeloading, everyone pulls their weight
Generally the pirates work together, and if there was a local pirate leader that would be Captain Verse. Some go rogue or shun the pirate code, like the BBEG pirate captain Blackfin, who’s crew are mostly undead and who has no allegiance other than to his Demon Lord, Orcus. Verse has done a great job of uniting at least rhe pirates in the Western regions of the Isles, and hopes to lead an uprising against The Company and start a pirate republic.
Shantyman is a really cool idea.
They used to say that a good shantyman was worth 10 strong men, because he got everyone working in sync so they worked more efficiently, and he motivated them to keep working longer.
Plus I love sea shanties! I actually used to run a regular sea shanty singing night at a local pub!
Are there any sky ships yet? If no, is anyone working on it.
How many moons are there?
What are the constellations named?
Are there 3 headed monkeys?
What sort of weird/odd games do the pirates play for sport? E.G. a loogey hocking competition.
Great conversation going on in this thread. Post it over on !dndhomebrew@lemmy.world as well
I tried to do it, hopefully I did it right!
How do pirate captains manage the health of their crew, particularly in the areas of nutrition and disease?
On a more granular level:
- What are the staple, easily-stored foods, and how are they supplemented with fresh foods?
[Are we talking ship’s biscuit and salt beef with regular landfalls to get fruit and vegetables? Is there magical cold storage so they can have frozen whatever? Do they take vitamin supplements? Do none of these things happen, so long voyages always result in nutritional deficiencies, including scurvy?]
- What level of medical knowledge and expertise are available in your world in general, and on ships in particular?
[Are they even at the level where they know and acknowledge that scurvy is caused by poor diet? Is healing all magic and four-humors pseudo-medicine? Is it difficult to get a competent physician to join a pirate crew, leading to bullet wounds being treated by barbers or dentists?]
- How do pirate captains deal with contagious diseases, and what are the most common shipboard epidemics?
[Is quarantine a thing? …in a confined space? Do they have the germ theory of disease at all, or is the focus on “bad air” and ventilation, or demons, or divine disfavor…? Are they looking at flu, plague, body lice, intestinal parasites, syphilis, all of the above…? Do crew members generally comply with the orders of the captain and/or surgeon, or are you likely to have half the crew sick, and the other half mutinying?]
- How are battle wounds dealt with?
[Related to 2, but you’ll want specific protocols for different kinds of injuries, removal of bullets, shrapnel, or arrows as relevant, suturing techniques or lack thereof, bandage material, disinfectant or lack thereof, pain management—other than liquor—if any, ways of dealing with infection, if you want to go there, and, of course, prosthetics, because, IMO, you can’t have a pirate setting without the option of peg legs and hook hands, and anything else bad you think might happen to characters in battle].
- How much value do captains place on keeping a crew alive, vs just replacing crew members when they die from injuries or disease?
[Fun fact: the British navy—and other Western navies—used to deliberately overcrowd ships at the start of the voyage because they knew a large portion of the crew would die, and they wanted to retain enough sailors to make it home. Quite possibly the death rate would have been lower without the initial overcrowding, and it definitely would have been lower if they had invested in medical care rather than extra recruits. I suspect pirates were, historically, as bad or worse in this respect. The extent to which captains in your world see crew members as replaceable vs repairable will be demonstrated by your answers to the preceding questions, or, if you’d rather go the other way, might help you decide on the answers].
…all of which probably makes it sound like I hate maritime dramas, which is totally false, lol, I love them, I just have a really morbid imagination.
Ooh you’re challenging me here!
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We’re talking ship’s biscuit/hard tack and salted meat for the most part. If they want to up morale they might buy spices or other dried ingredients. And yes, savvy quartermaster would also buy fresh fruit/veg regularly to supplement this. You’ve made me realise that the party hasn’t done this yet, so unless they stock up on fruit at the next port, they’ll start getting scurvy amongst the crew. Magical refrigeration would be possible, but expensive and rare.
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Yes it would be tricky to find a competent ship’s doctor who was willing to join a pirate crew. Magical healing may be more realistic, most would not help with scurvy. Experienced sailors would know about the need for regular fruit/veg.
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Contagious disease is definitely a thing that could happen, and the cause could be natural infections or germs, or just as easily a curse, demons, divine intervention. I don’t think there would he much knowledge of germ theory per se, but even during the plague people know to quarantine the sick. It would be hard aboard a ship and the crew may resist it though, yes.
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Battle wounds could be treated either wit mh magic or the use of surgery or regular medicine. Infections are a problem and they are most likely to simply lop off the offending limb, resulting in wooden legs and hooks for hands, etc. Because I agree those are absolutely necessary.
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Interesting question. I’d say it largely depends on tge Captain. Generally conditions aboard a pirate ship are much better than sailing in a navy, or for the Southern Islands Company (and i think this is largely historically accurate). They are better paid and more highly valued. And they have a say in how the ship is run. There had to be some incentive to join tgenoirates rather than the navy). That said, there are some more ruthless pirate captains who treat their crews worse and see them as more expendable. Its up to the party how they run their ship, but if they mistreat the crew too badly, they may have to deal with a mutiny.
Very thorough! I like your framework of needing to provide an incentive to join the pirates rather than the navy. That’s exactly the kind of organizing principle I find useful with world building.
Fresh vegetables have vitamin C, too, so you could give them credit for that. If the actual party gets scurvy, and you want to make it a plot point, I recommend you make their most recent battle wounds reopen. That’s a real potential symptom of scurvy, and is likely to confuse them. Technically, it wouldn’t be the first symptom, iirc, but it’s easy to communicate in the context of a campaign, and scarier than bleeding gums, though I think the root cause is the same. (Something about connective tissue breaking down).
I mean, depending how vicious you want to be, lol, I am the kind of person who weaponizes realism in fiction or games. I think a little unexpected horror helps people focus on the story.
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Traditionally, pirates elected the captain and bosun. They would recall people in these positions if they didn’t like the decisions that were made. Does your crew do this?
How is the loot shared? How are routes decided?
Yep, the pirate captain that helped them take their ship do so on the condition that they implement some version of The Pirate Code. All major decisions are decided by vote, with each crewman also getting a vote. In practice I would rarely have the crew vote against the party, just cos that’s no fun. But morale has been getting low, and if they don’t address it, they may decide they want a new Captain and try for a vote, giving the players a crisis to deal with.
Loot is also shared out equally, except the captain/officers get two shares. The players decided that they all collectively share the position of captain, while also having other roles. So they all get twice what the crew gets. I believe this is pretty accurate historically.
I just let the players decide the route though, I’ll only get the crew to protest if they haven’t taken a prize for a while, or if I think the crew would have an issue with the specific destination they choose. One of the players has the role of navigator so she does a check to see if she does a good job of that. If she doesn’t, I roll on my encounter table and something gets in their way, slows them down, or attacks.
Does anything live at the bottom of the sea?
Is it easy to go between islands?
Which group of pirates are the most fun to sail with?
If the whole world ld is pirates, how do they grow lumber? Who makes the ships? What kind of socioeconomic status would a shipwrighthave? Is there eine on every ship?
What kinds of stuff are under the water? How do people get fresh drinking water?
I now see you play in the sea of fallen stars. Make sure to read up on the lore of the pirate isle. There is also a book titled sea of fallen stars detailing all islands and underwater stuff. I think it’s for 2e
Didn’t see what the classes/abilities were of the players but depending on those, would the Dinosaur polymorph/wild shape options be available?
We have a death cleric, a transmutation wizard, a bard and a fighter. So it won’t come up, but I’m allowing most things, I want the vibe of the campaign to be fun and chaotic and it’s worked well so far
How do pirates force other ships to stop? I always struggle with ship-to-ship combat in DnD. Obviously, we don’t want to give them easy access to cannons as that would lead to the question: Why aren’t cannons used elsewhere? But at the same time, the ancient form of naval warfare of ramming, arrows, and boarding has its own challenges. Mostly that it doesn’t translate well to the game mechanics.
First, the actual interesting part would be the outmaneuvering and positioning of ships. Something that just doesn’t work with DnD rules so it has to be simplified or even handwaved. But also that ship crews are rather big. So every fight has a ton of low-level fighters involved and would just take forever without being interesting.
With merchant ships, you can kinda solve it by having a few higher-level fighters, and the rest surrender once they are dead. So you just have a regular DnD experience but with warships, you would have a crew that easily could go into the hundreds.
So the question is:
Are mages on ships just way more common and do they take over the role of cannons?
Do ships just have lower crew requirements than real-life ships would have?I have cannons in the setting, just cos I wanted the players to be able to use them, cos fun! I’ve developed a way of doing ship-to-ship combat that has been working quite well.
I balance the encounter with a manageable number of enemies to match the party, and maybe one or two named NPCs. They battle it out while the two crews fight around them. The crews go in with a set strength rating that translates to a modifier. At the start if each round, both crews roll a d20 and the loser takes one away from their modifier. I determines the starting mod for the players by assessing morale if the crew, how well fed and we’ll armed they are, etc. I use the results to add flavour to the battle. So it’s like the party are fighting some of the crew, but I’m simulating a larger battle around them. If their crew is losing, the PC cam use their actions to affect the larger battle and swing it back in their favour.
Each turn, each ship can move its movement speed and fire cannons/ballet’s on either side. The players can use their actions to do these things or, if they have enough crew left, they can give orders to have them do it.
Makes are still very useful aboard ships cos they can do stuff like create a gust of wind for a burst of speed, or create a fog cloud for visual cover. Also fireballs!
If you can, it might be worth looking into the old games workshop game “Battlefleet Gothic”. While it’s spaceships in space, a lot of the rules and ideas could easily be remapped onto sea battles. Some of the rules would actually make MORE sense for a sea navy rather than a space navy. It could help for things like getting caught in a multi fleet battle, without getting bogged down too much.
Cool setting! I hope you have a blast!
Is there a pirate booty that most crews are secretly looking for? Any tunours to set them on the right/wrong path?
What is the signature drink of the isles?
Are there any safe havens where they can take a rest from the government and its goonies?
What is their main export/import, as this will drive new people to the isles, and might bring some news or opportunities.
There are tales of buried treasure, maps with a marked ‘X’, etc. But currently there is a greater prize which some of the crews and functions are frantically searching for. One particularly viscous and evil pirate captains, a sharkman necromancer named Blackfin who, along with the Southern Islands Company itself, is one of the BBEGs of the campaign. He is in the employ of the demon Lord Orcus.
You see, a great hero stole the Wand of Orcus, and then was lost while passing through the Isles. Blackfin has been promised great power if he retrieves it for his master, so he is raising an undead army to find it. He’s also made an alliance with the sahuagin, a local population of aquatic arseholes.
Signature dru k would of course be rum! Particularly spiced run, sometimes mixed with ginger beer and lime (which is a real cocktail called a Dark & Stormy)
Sade havens… there’s the idland of Oresk, on which is the hidden treetop hideout of thw pirate queen Anne Bonny. She’s beautiful and ferocious, and most of her crew are in love with her. There’s also Tortuga, a town built onto the back of a great Zaratan (giant turtle). The zaratan makes them powerful, so the SIC have not been able to bully them into economic submissions like other places. The players managed to convince the council that runs Tortuga to ally with the pirates when it comes time to topple The Company.
Exports are exotic food and spices, and gold from a mine on one if the islands. But the placement of the Southern Isles makes them a hub for trade. It is by far the quickest route for many neighbouring nations, it takes a long time to sail around them. So many still take their chances with the pirates.
People come to the isles to disappear, or in the hopes of adventure and fortune on the high seas.
Sounds like fun. I’ll have a go at some questions.
How do they get the profit? If the local population are starved and downtrodden, the stolen pirate goods have to go somewhere else. Is there some black market organisation they’re linked to which gives them the funding to run the place like their personal kingdom?
Is it oppressed in the sense that collaborators are treated well while the rest just try to survive? Or like a population of slaves and a couple slave drivers to keep them in line? How does the local community run? What are they able to do to make a living and what are they there to do? There has to be something there to be exploited in the first place.
Is the government an actual pirate crew that owns the joint or just a group that lets piratss come in and do business? What sort of security do they use? Personal army? Mercenaries?
