Taking a ship

As you raid on The Fever Sea, you will take vessels – then you will have to make several decisions about both the crew and the vessel.

Plunder you can sell in any settlement, however, the smaller the settlement, the less you get for the plunder. You can only sell ships, or find Ransom Brokers in a city or metropolis.

• Bloodcove (Small City) is an independent city state, with its capital built into, and around, the roots and trunks of one of the gargantuan mangrove trees that are found only along the Mwangi coast. Bloodcove was founded by some of the greatest pirate captains of the Shackles when they realised that they were getting too old for the pirating lifestyle. They saw legitimate trade as the easiest way to keep their coffers full and their lives easy, and founded Bloodcove many miles south of the more rough and tumble of the Shackles. Kroop says that it is an Aspis Consortium Stronghold.
• Senghor (Metropolis) The city relies on ocean trade, as the nearby Kaava Lands make all land routes dangerous. It is a conduit for a significant amount of the trade from Sargava to Avistan; trading directly with Sargava risks annoying Cheliax, and the more indirect route through Senghor makes it easier to circumvent the Shackles Pirates. The Senghor navy boasts several dozen ships, and ensures that no piracy takes place within their territorial waters. However, they are indifferent to what goes on elsewhere in the Fever Sea, making Senghor a popular destination for those who are deemed to be pirates everywhere else. However, this pragmatism does not extend to the slave trade. Slave ships are not allowed to visit Senghor.

• Release the ship. You might just decide to take the cargo, and any other plunder, and then release it to go on its own way. If you have nothing against the owners, and the crew haven’t fought that hard, you might just release it to go on its way. That might, eventually, get you a reputation as being a ‘fair’ pirate ship (so long as you fly an identifiable flag) and ships might surrender to you more easily, knowing that you will treat them reasonably. It is the least printable way of all.
• Sell the Ship. If you can crew(*) the captured ship, you can sail it to a ‘pirate friendly’ city and sell it. That normally gets you half the base value of the ship in GP (5,000gp for a sailing ship) although if it is badly damaged you will get less than that.
• Keep the ship 1. If you think the ship is better than the vessel that you have, you can keep it and sell your own vessel. In this case, you probably want to ‘squib’ it. If you have taken the vessel from another pirate, or (perhaps) the Chelish Navy – you certainly don’t want them to know that you still have it. That would make some encounters very difficult indeed. The same is true for any vessel, especially if you intend to visit non-pirate ports. Sooner or later, the ship will be recognised – and you will be charged with piracy on the high seas. Again, you will need to have a second crew(*), and reliable officers, to stop the crew taking over
• Keep the ship 2. You might choose to split your crew(*) and run a second vessel. However, this generally means that a PC (or senior NPC) is leaving your crew and setting up on their own. Sure, you can call on their help, occasionally. However, this needs to be for something significant such as large land-based raids, or to challenge a fleet of vessels. The vessel still needs squibbing, but that expense falls to the PC/NPC who leaves. This might be a suitable way to ‘retire’ Kaleb, at some point.
• Sink the Ship. It might be that the ship is badly damaged, or that you can’t crew it or even that it belongs to someone that you don’t like – but you could just leave the ship drifting or you could sink it. That might give you a problem with the crew and officers though. Do you recruit them, release them in an open boat and give them a chance for survival, maroon them on a deserted island, leave them aboard the abandoned ship, kill them or take them prisoner for release or ransom in a port? Remember that captured officers and crew might try to take over your ship, and that crewmen who are pressed into service won’t work efficiently and will do a runner as soon as they can.

(*) You don’t need a full crew to sail a vessel. However, you do need a full crew to sail at normal speed or to fight a vessel. A ship with a reduced crew is a sitting duck – you can’t outrun other vessels and you are very vulnerable if you are boarded.

Again, you have a number of ways to treat the people aboard a captured vessel. You will certainly find officers and crew, but you may also find passengers or slaves. How you treat them, is up to you.

Passengers and officers both have links to wealthy people, so are eligible for ransom.

• Release. You can release a ships’ officers to go about their business. If you release the ship, after taking their cargo and other plunder, you probably need to release the officers to. Or, at least, the majority of the officers so that there is someone who can command the ship for the rest of its voyage. Just because you choose to release some officers, doesn’t mean that you must release all of the officers. There in no reason why you couldn’t execute the captain, ransom the rest of the senior officers and let the ship sail on under its junior officers.
• Ransom. It is common practice that passengers & officers are ransomed, rather than killed or recruited, as most are connected with wealth, either through their families or their employer. Standard ransom is 50gp per PC class level. Or rather, that is what you receive from the Ransom Broker who will negotiate the deal on your behalf. Ransom brokers are available in most ‘pirate friendly’ towns or cities. There is nothing to stop you taking their personal equipment before you ransom them.
• Execution. You might choose to execute some of a ship’s officers. What happens if you capture an enemy ship and find that the captain is a devil worshipping Chelaxian, with an imp familiar, who sails as a slave trader? Or a necromancer passenger, with number of undead servants in their quarters? Do you let them go to continue their trade, or do you hang them from the yard arm? Or perhaps you make them walk the plank? But that might be less certain, who knows what happens when a ‘dead’ body slides beneath the waves?

The crew of a ship don’t have the same connections as their officers. Most are commoners or experts, although many have a level of warrior, while a very few have levels as fighters – but they don’t have wealthy contacts. There is no point trying to hold them for ransom, and in some cases it might even cost you time or money to deal with the crew. None of these options are exclusive. You could choose to recruit from a crew, abandon some on a dessert island, sell one into slavery and then release the rest.

• Release. If you release a ship you need to release the crew as well, or else the ship won’t reach its destination, although that doesn’t stop you from trying to recruit from the crew. If the ship is sinking or abandoned, you could take crewmen with you and drop them off in a town or village, maroon them on a deserted island or release them in an open boat. In some cases, the decision might rest on how much the crew have annoyed you. Nor need you apply the same solution to all of the crew.
• Recruit. You have to get crew from somewhere, and the happier the recruits are about it, the better your crew will be. Recruiting means that new crew members volunteer for service, rather than being forced into service. If you pressgang them into joining your crew, they might stir up dissent and mutiny amongst your crew. There is so much precedent …
• Slavery. You could sell the crew, or part of it, into slavery. Slap them in irons and take them to the nearest slave market, and they will count as extra plunder. However, you might choose to try recruiting first, just to bolster your crew.
• Execution. You could, of course, choose to kill any crew who don’t join you, or who kick up a fuss. That is certainly the cheapest way to do things, and the least effort. Let’s face it, you might have a long trip ahead of you …

• Freedom. Slaves could be slave rowers, personal slaves or just packed into the main hold as cargo - you never know before you take the vessel. Many slaves just want to be freed, so that they can try and re-join their families. Some, particularly slave rowers, might make good recruits to the crew, although you will rarely recruit more than a few of them. Slave cargoes might hold a few NPcs who are ‘interesting’, and potentially recruitable, although many will be scared, cowed or broken. In most cases, released slaves are of no benefit to you at all.
• Equally, if you take slaves to a town or city to release them - it is best to make sure that the town doesn’t have a slave market. Released slaves don’t have an income or trade – and unless you support them, they are liable to finish up on the slaver’s auction block again.
• Sale. Some pirates treat slaves as plunder, take them to the nearest city and sell them to a slave trader. Just make sure that the town you choose has a slave market and isn’t opposed to the slave trade.
• Execution. You could, of course, choose to kill any slaves who don’t join you, or who kick up a fuss. That is certainly the cheapest way to do things, and the least effort. Let’s face it, you might have a long trip ahead of you …