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Trace_Coburn
Learned Scribe
New Zealand
137 Posts |
 Posted - 17 Apr 2006 : 14:48:40
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This is a slightly off-kilter idea that occurred to me while I was re-reading the write-up of the Sable Drake I saved off of the WotC website. For the most part, security concerns for seagoing merchantmen are handled by individual shipping companies and/or captains - arming vessels with siege weapons and hiring wizards, that sort of thing; mainly, it boils down to each shipping concern/captain doing whatever they can afford and hoping for the best. Sometimes, you find proactive pirate-hunter vessels, like Deudermont's Sea Sprite in Passage to Dawn. But even the efforts of Sea Sprite and similar individual vessels aren't going to really bite into the pirate scourge as a whole.
Has anyone ever encountered or run a PC or NPC-run operation which essentially provided navy-style convoy-escorts-for-hire? I don't know if piracy is truly bad enough in canon to merit such a notion, but the formation of even semi-formal convoys would do much to discourage such predations... and with the right vessel, the right armament and a couple of solid kills under their belt, it could well turn into a booming business....
(I know, I know - even really big city-states like Waterdeep don't have the naval clout to do much more than protect their own port. But after reading the Stormwrack excerpt describing a typical attack by the brig Sable Drake, I have this image stuck in my head of an eight-strong convoy of merchantmen being shepherded by three or four (N)PC-commanded brigs armed with smokepowder cannon... and the brigs driving off or killing a couple of over-eager pirates.  Expensive? Certainly. But then again, a little luck in the right place(s) can do a lot - if the PCs capture a pirate vessel and decide to use it to go into business for themselves instead of selling it and sinking the cash into more magical gear, well now....  )
Such a scenario/campaign need not be confined merely to ocean-going combat, for that matter. After all, many pirates can only function if they've got someone to fence their purloined cargoes and/or the ships they seize, and tracking down/shutting down such 'honest businessmen' could make for all manner of exploits, both violent and RP-driven....
/me bimbles away and leaves the hungry, carnivourous plot-bunny in his wake, waiting to attack any who read this scroll....
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D&D collection: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual I, Complete Arcane, Arms & Equipment Guide.
FR sourcebook collection: Dragons of Faerūn, Faiths & Pantheons, FRCS, Lords of Darkness, Monsters of Faerūn, Player's Guide to Faerūn, Power of Faerūn, Races of Faerūn, Silver Marches.
I just got back into this, okay? Give me time (or better yet money) - I'll catch up soon enough.  |
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Fletcher
Learned Scribe
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 17 Apr 2006 : 18:03:21
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I didn't run the game, but I was in one where a team of 2 Wizards, a bard and a fighter took the fight to the pirates. We were extremely profitable, since we captured the ships rather than sink them. Selling them at various ports made for a huge profit.
Four years and twelve ships captured we were loving life and living large...until the powers that be set us up to capture a pirate vessel and sell it, only to have legal papers hidden in a secret compartment in the first mates quarters, showing the vessel to be protected by the Sembian flag.
Our bard, the captain, was hung a week after the one hour joke of a trial. One of the mages, our first mate, was poisoned before he was hung. The other mage and my character the fighter served long terms of enforced labor (ten years) before retiring quietly in Highmoon.
An inglorious end to a glorious career...It was fun while it lasted though.
The moral of this tale is don't slow the trickle of money into greedy merchants hands for long. GIGOMO (Get In Get Out Move On.) |
Run faster! The Kobolds are catching up! |
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BlackAce
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
358 Posts |
Posted - 17 Apr 2006 : 18:33:34
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For a while I ran a small group who played as Sword Coast Corsair's, with Letters of the Marque from The Lords of Waterdeep to smack down any Northmen, Nelanther or Luskanite who hoisted a black ensign, (but oddly exempted Skullport).
It wasn't quite the full time professional set up of Seasprite, more of an armed merchantman that, with the Letters, had enough authority to take as prizes anything that looked remotely piratical.
I drew out a chart of the sword coast and plotted sea lanes, hotspots of Sahuagin and pirate activity and then drew up some sea based random encounter tables and weather charts. I think half the fun they had was in navigating and plotting out a course based on realistic nautical navigation.
You know a campaign is going well when one of your players is grumbling that their aren't enough nautical feats in 3rd edition.
Some of the discussion on the Realms List regarding Cormyr's Blue Dragons might also prove interesting, though I don't have a log of it myself. |
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Jamallo Kreen
Master of Realmslore
USA
1537 Posts |
Posted - 18 Apr 2006 : 03:31:52
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quote:
Originally posted by Trace_Coburn
(snip)
Has anyone ever encountered or run a PC or NPC-run operation which essentially provided navy-style convoy-escorts-for-hire? I don't know if piracy is truly bad enough in canon to merit such a notion, but the formation of even semi-formal convoys would do much to discourage such predations... and with the right vessel, the right armament and a couple of solid kills under their belt, it could well turn into a booming business....
(snip)
I intend to have the mercenary company which employs the PCs in my campaign go aquatic at some point, becuse the trading company which employs the mercenary company has a caravel which has been fitted with a figurehead which was created with the specific purpose of obliterating pirates -- living or dead. (The ship is called The Laughing Chimera. Just use your imagination as to what the figurehead can do! ) It's just a matter of (game) time before the principals of the company realize that there is more money to be made hiring out The Laughing Chimera as an escort ship than there is to be made in using it solely as an independent trader.
I welcome discussion on this topic so that I can stea ... ahem ... borrow ideas to enrich that part of my campaign.
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I have a mouth, but I am in a library and must not scream.
Feed the poor and stroke your ego, too: http://www.freerice.com/index.php.
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Thauramarth
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
729 Posts |
Posted - 18 Apr 2006 : 13:17:50
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I remember that FR15 - Gold and Glory listed a seafaring mercenary outfit called the Krakens (or [someone]'s Krakens). I have no access to the file, but I think that the unit operates on the Sword Coast. It's available as a free download from WotC's website:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/2/fr_downloads/tsr9373.zip |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 18 Apr 2006 : 17:10:55
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quote:
Originally posted by Thauramarth
I remember that FR15 - Gold and Glory listed a seafaring mercenary outfit called the Krakens (or [someone]'s Krakens). I have no access to the file, but I think that the unit operates on the Sword Coast. It's available as a free download from WotC's website:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/2/fr_downloads/tsr9373.zip
Zahara's Krakens. They're on page 32 of that book. They have 5 ships, one of which has a spelljamming helm, and operate on the Sword Coast. |
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Seafaring mercenaries
