OSR: Horrible Pirate NPC Generator

I really should have written these before the first session but I got distracted. Roll to flavour a crew, invent an enemy, detail an NPC, or come up with ideas on the fly. Here's a fancy PDF.

Carl Dobsky, Ship of Fools

d100	Male Old World Names		1d50	Female Old World Names
1	Gadifer		1	Alice
2	Pierre		2	Johanna
3	Eli		3	Agnes
4	Laurens		4	Agatha
5	Claes		5	Margery
6	Peter		6	Amice
7	Henry		7	Mary
8	Augustin		8	Mariota
9	Brigstock		9	Joan
10	Hans		10	Anastasia
11	Constant		11	Ann
12	Dirk		12	Marianne
13	William		13	Anne
14	Gilbert		14	Peg
15	Ralph		15	Sibilla
16	Gustav		16	Margaret
17	John		17	Elizabeth
18	Huguet		18	Susanna
19	Jan		19	Sara
20	Didrik		20	Nancy
21	Eduardo		21	Letitia
22	Eustace		22	Ingela
23	Francois		23	Wijerd
24	Charles		24	Lucy
25	Luc		25	Maria
26	Daniel		26	Avelina
27	Raymond		27	Sadie
28	Bernard		28	Eustacia
29	Lewis		29	Isolda
30	Gilles		30	Emma
31	Eric		31	Juliana
32	Juan		32	Ellen
33	Manuel		33	Naomi
34	James		34	Charlotte
35	Hugh		35	Alvia
36	Francis		36	Gina
37	Josiah		37	Flora
38	Andre		38	Christine
39	Montigny		39	Fanny
40	Enrique		40	Isabel
41	Christopher		41	Beatrice
42	Simon		42	Sabrina
43	Kristoffer		43	Cecily
44	Hadrian		44	Avice
45	Louis		45	Jacquotte
46	Michael		46	Katherine
47	George		47	Annabel
48	Jacob		48	Rachel
49	Samuel		49	Jeanne
50	Roche		50	Elise
51	Geoggrey
52	Jordan
53	Filips
54	Giles
55	Alexis
56	Phillip
57	Cornelius
58	Pedro
59	Stede
60	Jelles
61	Rene
62	Lawrence
63	Lionel
64	Claude
65	Ingleram
66	Richard
67	Edward
68	Lars
69	Stephen
70	Robert
71	Jerome
72	Yvain
73	Owain
74	Jules
75	Matthew
76	Phillipe
77	Walter
78	Olivier
79	Thomas
80	Edmund
81	Jean
82	Vincenzo
83	Joseph
84	Nicholas
85	Reginald
86	Geoffrey
87	Amyas
88	Roland
89	Adam
90	Arthur
91	Godeke
92	David
93	Bartholemew
94	Paulsgrave
95	Roger
96	Piers
97	Andrew
98	Alan
99	Leigh
100	Renato

1d20	Male Chultan Names		1d20	Female Chultan Names
1	Kwalu		1	Azuli
2	Osaw		2	Katela
3	Mzolu		3	Chuil
4	Losi		4	U'lolo
5	Atuar		5	Naboli
6	Chiwa		6	Isi
7	Vazul		7	Lorit
8	Kunde		8	Zamisi
9	Emporo		9	Dela
10	Ugor		10	Sana
11	Juma		11	Yuta
12	Weshtek		12	Razira
13	Teron		13	Wadizi
14	Mezoar		14	Nyali
15	Dengo		15	Bati
16	Rindawan		16	Tefnek
17	Atumwa		17	Omoyala
18	Olu		18	Mainu
19	Selu		19	Joli
20	Yapa		20	Fipya
1d30	Male Golden Isles Names		1d30	Female Golden Isle Names
1	Nabil		1	Ghunayya
2	Aziz		2	Jamila
3	Mutamin		3	Aziza
4	Rashad		4	Amsha
5	Kamal		5	Nura
6	Fayiz		6	Samia
7	Akbar		7	Fatima
8	Naaman		8	Thuriya
9	Najib		9	Bahija
10	Diyab		10	Julnar
11	Umar		11	Juleidah
12	Ala'i		12	Khadiga
13	Karim		13	Wudei'a
14	Waleed		14	Safana
15	Mahmud		15	Tala
16	Mamoon		16	Badiat
17	Jamil		17	Alia
18	Anwar		18	Tufala
19	Yezeed		19	Setara
20	Yusuf		20	Najiba
21	Hakim		21	Maneria
22	Hatim		22	Wadi'a
23	Aasim		23	Farida
24	Jamal		24	Ibtisam
25	Essafah		25	Khunufseh
26	Djuhah		26	Zobeida
27	Ahmad		27	Halima
28	Kerim		28	Nabila
29	Khalid		29	Latifa
30	Farid		30	Jaheria

Chultan and Golden Isle names are taken from Wizards of the Coast's Tomb of Annihilation and TSR's Arabian Adventures, respectively. I don't want to wade into the mysterious logic behind the names the publisher chose to use. It makes it difficult to include more.

Yoon-Suin names are available here (along with a ton of other very useful tables, including 300 smells!).

1d100	Odour	Appearance	Quirk
1	camel	whip scars	blasphemous
2	wood shavings	long, winding scar	slothful
3	asparagus	lopsided body	religious apostate
4	horse sweat	cross-eyed	miser
5	wet cereal	old burn scars	splotchy birthmark
6	burnt leather	lumpen	pessimistic
7	damp mouldy bread	splayed, wide-nostrilled nose	wrathful
8	burnt pork	youthful, unsmiling face	lustful
9	wet wool	deep-sunk, lidded eyes	can't keep a secret
10	freshly cut grass	crooked back	lisp
11	violets	spindly, knob-jointed limbs	diseased
12	wine	missing limb	some surgical experience
13	ozone	missing fingers	deep, booming voice
14	wet horse	astonishingly old	feverish movements
15	cottage cheese	permanent grimace	free with money
16	eye-wateringly strong (reroll)	long, skeletal fingers	greedy
17	tar	wiry-haired	prone to minor theft
18	compost	one dense eyebrow	comically inept at romance
19	oysters	no chin at all	knows all the old tales
20	goat shit	thunderous flatulence	fears birds
21	rye bread	extraordinary compressed	loves a good feud
22	stale beer	vein-coated neck	bold and decisive
23	rotten vegetables	sweats profusely	escaped castaway
24	dried herbs	almost bald	confident but wrong
25	frying oil	long, greasy beard	afraid of heights
26	fecal sweat	back bent like a hoop	afraid of gunfire
27	peat smoke	facial abscess	rebellious
28	bitter sweat	prominent mole or boil	lazy
29	ice-cold water	sagging lips	quotes holy texts or proverbs
30	goose blood	sheds clouds of dust	skeptical
31	raw sulphur	hideous grin and winking eyes	expert navigator
32	urine	improbably young	devout
33	chalk dust	haggard and hunted	foppish and well dressed
34	rotting fish	extraordinarily crooked nose	restless
35	flour	wild, tangled hair	piercing whistle
36	salt	concave forehead	aloof
37	soggy paper	hook hand	hair-trigger temper
38	rotten fruit	surprisingly young	incompetent
39	acidic sweat	remarkably small head	habitual liar
40	cat hair	bandy-legged	superstitious
41	onions	squat, short body	full of self-loathing
42	garlic	large mouth, like a fish	superb weather sense
43	battery acid	flicking tongue, cracked lips	has a silent partner
44	olives	pig-like nose	adverse to bloodshed
45	pond scum	mismatched arms	stoic
46	butter	dotted with warts	teetotaler
47	dry, well-rubbed leather	dribbles	meek
48	sour milk	slouching	optimistic
49	molten rubber	oddly effeminate or masculine	can swim and dive
50	wet dog	stump-fingered	old military habits
51	mushroom	slow-witted	hopeless
52	mashed earthworms	smiling, open face	chaste
53	dry, very fine dust	stump teeth	expert fist-fighter
54	charcoal	hooked, dribbling nose	can never remember a name
55	soil	ferocious squint	wipes nose constantly
56	hot blood	blind in one eye	loves the smell of gunpowder
57	pine	furious eyes	hissing, raspy voice
58	musk	narrow face	braggart and liar
59	dry straw	blubber lips	eager for battle
60	stale bread	tufts of irregular hair	prideful
61	roses	ragged, patchy facial hair	careless
62	ash	rheumy, raw eyes	once saw a mermaid
63	rotting flowers	long-necked	extraordinary curses
64	sun-baked egg	bafflingly beautiful	excellent singing voice
65	vinegar	mouth-breathing	meticulous
66	mouldy bread	phlegm-spraying cough	terrifying laugh
67	porridge	pale, cracked skin	cowardly
68	metal shavings	one tooth	cannot make eye contact
69	flax dust	prominent, sail-like ears	dislikes uniforms or clothes
70	wood smoke	unusually large head	gambler
71	pickled cabbage	stiff as a board	wobbling walk
72	rotten meat	sunken head and short limbs	spits to ward off evil
73	freshly baked bread	extremely muscular	superb enunciation
74	grease	thin, pale lips	vaguely suggestive comments
75	urine and blood	extraordinarily huge scar	half-asleep
76	skin flakes	small, tightly pursed mouth	brave
77	lavender	sharpened teeth	ignorant
78	wet clay	one gold tooth	lazy to a fault
79	blackberries	slab-faced	wanted in every port
80	sharp raw sewage	irregular, yellow teeth	frantic
81	cedar	bloated stomach	fidgets with anything in hands
82	cloves	waddling gait	knows someone in every port
83	mothballs	little goggling eyes	gluttonous
84	roast chicken	rolling gait	deviant desires
85	old spinach	angry red scars	has a parrot or cat
86	wax	widely set eyes	romantic
87	rotten eggs	potato-shaped nose	drunkard
88	pungent blue cheese	deaf in one ear	stutter
89	damp straw	prominent, angular chin	has circled the world
90	lye	bulbous goiter	surly
91	pus	languid, calm speech	petty
92	wet mortar	peg leg	whistling voice
93	mouse urine	flat, pancake face	served with a famous captain
94	yeast	layers of jewellery	foolishly brave
95	pig shit	carbuncle	ambitious
96	horse shit	loose skin	passive
97	dog shit	twitches and jerks	expert sailor
98	cow shit	speckled with sores	prone to illness
99	ten different kinds of shit	thin like a reed	spectacles for reading
100	no odour	small, tightly pursed mouth	envious

Other useful articles:
Horrible Baron NPC generator, 1d100 Baronial Grievances, Horrible Peasant NPC Generator, 1d100 Peasant Grievances. If you want a more refined sort of person, possibly an admiral or a wealthy hostage, try the Dickensian NPC Generator.

OSR: Coastal Defense Forts and Starcraft

Wait, what?

Let me explain. I've been reading a lot of sailing nonfiction for my pirates game. Again and again in books about Age of Sail warfare, the phrase, "silenced the coastal batteries" appears. If sailing into a port and destroying the defenses was so easy, why were the defenses present at all?

Barbara W. Tuchman has the same complaint in The First Salute.

It was one of the peculiar malfunctions of technology that shore batteries on the islands were generally of inadequate caliber and range to knock out a ship approaching with hostile intent. One is moved to wonder why, if a 10-pounder gun could be mounted on the rolling deck of a sailing vessel, the same or larger could not be mounted on land? The fact is that the blind parsimony of the defense kept the shore batteries usually too few in number to equal in firepower the heavy guns of a ship of the line. When one of these big ships engaged in an exchange with shore batteries, it was more likely to knock out the land guns than vice versa. The guns of Fort Orange, like those of other islands, can still be seen mounted in the courtyard of the fort pointing right down at the harbor. If they could not defend against a landing force, what were they for? Silent, technology has no answer.
-Tuchman, The First Salute

Technology might have no answer, but economics does.

A Very Brief Introduction To Starcraft

Starcraft (and Starcraft II) are real-time strategy video games. 1v1 competitive Starcraft is a bit like chess. There's a simple goal (destroy your opponent's production structures) but no defined way to reach that goal. There's no checkpoints, no hints, no linear progression. Units might have restrictions and abilities, like in chess.

Simple version: Your workers mine minerals. You spend minerals to build units (mobile, deals damage) and structures (immobile, produce units).  One type of structure is a turret (immobile, deals damage).

In high-level competitive play, where optimal plays are determined by microsecond timing and thousands of hours of practice, turrets are relatively rare.

Why?

Resource Trading

You have enough minerals to build either a unit or a turret. With no other information, what  do you build?

The answer is, almost always, the unit.

A turret is immobile. It will protect an area if you are attacked, but if you aren't being attacked it's just sitting there. It's wasted minerals. In a highly competitive game with razor thin margins, wasted minerals, especially in the early stages of the game, are a death sentence.

A unit is mobile. You can use it to acomplish the purpose of the game; get to your opponent and kill their structures. A turret doesn't help  you win games. It just helps you not lose.

And it doesn't even help very much. It might pick off a few units, but if your opponent shows up with a large number of units they can destroy the turret before it gets a chance to fire.

Yet turrets are still built from time to time. Why?

Team Liquid

Preventing Harassment

Most of the time, you want your units to be away from your structures, doing damage and preventing your enemy from gaining control of the map. You want to be investing your minerals in structures (to make more units) and units (to win the game). If your structures are undefended, one unit from your opponent can sneak in, kill your workers, and slow down your flow of minerals. Your opponent, meanwhile, is still gaining minerals and can build more units and structures.

You don't want to keep units back, so you put down a turret near your workers. This prevents casual harassment. One or two units will be picked off before they can deal enough damage to earn back their cost. If your opponent invests in a large number of units and sends them in, sure, the turret won't do much, but that wasn't the point of building it. You want to make it more costly for a small number of units to deal damage. If you're doing a very strange build order, turrets can also keep you alive long enough to get your units out.

Fort Denison, Sydney Harbour. Wikipedia.

Small Coastal Forts

A coastal fort, particularly the ubiquitous Martello tower, is the equivalent to a Starcraft turret.

You don't want a ten gun pirate sloop to roll in and burn your town. A coastal fort with any number of guns makes taking a harbour a significant challenge for a small crew and a small ship. But when a fleet shows up, the coastal fort is mostly useless. It's job is not to protect the harbour. It's job is to make the harbour more difficult to take; too difficult for a casual pirate or a lone ship.

You also want to invest the minimum amount of money in your forts. Most of the time they don't do anything. Given the choice between a ship - capable of blockading port, capturing enemy vessels, carrying letters, diplomats, and cargo, and winning wars - and a stationary fort, simple economics says you invest in ships. Forts were often small and, compared to the ships that took them, undergunned, but that's the point. Until the age of accurate artillery, it's far more sensible to put your cannons on a mobile platform than an immobile one.

Applying This To RPGs

In domain-level games, players want to defend "their stuff." They've got a town, a port, a village, a pile of loot and they don't want anyone else taking it.

Building a fort seems like a logical step, but given their limited resources, it might be easier to anchor a ship in the harbour and use it as a floating fort. It's not ideal - it's far easier to board, steal, or bribe a ship - but it's enormously cheaper. If things go sideways the ship can also run away and fight another day; a fort will just be turned against them.

More Quotes

The fleet having secured the landing and an excellent harbor, a squadron with two brigades was dispatched to the bay of Petite Anse to take up station there, and another squadron to Grande Anse. When Captain Hervey of the Dragon had silenced the battery, Rodney’s marines and seamen attacked and took possession of the fort. “On January 14th I followed with the whole fleet and army,” having again destroyed the enemy’s batteries on shore. After reconnoitering the coast here, he determined with General Monckton to attack Fort Royal on the 16th. And having “very successfully and with little loss silenced the batteries [which seemed to have registered on this occasion a more than ordinary record of uselessness], I landed General Monckton with the greatest part of his forces by sunset; and so the whole army was on shore a little after daylight next morning, without the loss of a man,” with all necessary supplies, and “all ships and transports anchored as much in safety as this coast will admit of.”

-Tuchman, The First Salute

The layman, looking at [Hadrian's wall's] imposing size - it was originally about twenty feet high and ten feet wide , and although no part of it today is as tall as this, it is still an awe-inspiring barrier - may be excused for thinking it was  a defensible castle wall on a gigantic scale. In fact, it was not intended to be a Maginot line. As Viscount Montgomery has pointed out, it was a deterrent rather than a defense, which could never have resisted a well-organized invasion , and indeed wild men from the north overran it and its chain of castles and platoon strongpoints on at least three occasions.

-Fraser, The Steel Bonnets

Tasteless: "There's no cannon. THERE'S NO CANNON! Where's the cannon?"
Artosis: "There is no cannon, you just said it yourself." 

-Casting GSL Season 2 Ro16 Group D, 2014

Book Notes: Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates

Robert C. Ritchie
Harvard University Press, 1986

I went looking for semi-academic book on pirates and ended up here. The book is halfway between academic  history and popular legend. Ritchie writes like he's telling a story. You can feel him leaning forward, relishing the grisly details and reverses of fortune, like the narrator of a ghost story or an old man in a pub.

Captain Kidd's history and adventures aren't the subject of this post. There's a ballad (familiar to some) if you want to get up to speed quickly. There's also a film which, amazingly, contains not a single historical fact beyond Kidd's name and the existence of the sea.

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

Colonial Economies

To the rest off the world the nuances of this evolution [of pirates] mattered little, for all Europeans came to their shores as pirates. The wealthy societies of Asia had very little need of European goods such as heavy wool, olive oil, and minerals. If they wanted Asian commodities, the Portuguese had to either steal them, which in the long run was self-defeating, or pay for them with gold and silver - unthinkable as a permanent policy [under mercantilism].  The solution, developed by the Portuguese and emulated by those who followed them, was to dominate the local or native trade routes. To that end they seized ports such as Goa, Cochin, Hormuz, and Malacca. The trade between these ports,  notably in Indian cloth that was exchanged in Malacca for spices, came under their control or was carried on only after duties were paid to them. The wealth generated by such trade and fees could be used to offset the chronic imbalance of payments in the East. All of the other European powers adopted similar schemes in Asia, the mode odious of which was the opium trade utilized by the English to obtain an income in China.
[...]
[The new colonies] were caught in a system that forced them to trade low-priced agricultural products for high-priced manufactured goods in addition to paying various duties and fees. The consequence for many merchants was an unfavorable balance  of trade  and a chronic lack of hard money. As a result merchants sought any means to make money, and the pirates provided one way of doing so.

To quote Richard G, in his post on the counter-colonial heistcrawl.

Colonialists do exactly this for themselves. Then they interpose themselves in someone else’s production/trading/selling network and pull those other people’s alliances apart to stick themselves in the middle. If you want to counter them, you have to pull their networks apart, find the weaknesses among their alliances, subvert and divert. And you can’t do it (initially at least) with strength, so you have to use planning and wits.

Youtube

A Legendary Fleet

There had existed for a time one fleet capable of intimidating the Portuguese. Under the Yung-Lo emperor of the Ming dynasty the Chinese fleet numbered approximately thirty-eight hundred ships; the most powerful, the treasure ships, reached a length of 442 feet and a width of 180 feet and carried four hundred fifty to five hundred men. The Yung-Lo emperor sent his powerful war fleets on seven different expeditions - to remind the world of China's power, to trade, and to acquire knowledge. The leader of six of these voyages was the famous admiral Cheng-Ho. Durign the first of his voyages (1406-1407) he commanded 317 ships (including 62 treasure ships) and 28,870 men. The fleet ventured into the Indian Ocean and returned through the straight of Malacca, where the local pirates made the costly mistake of challenging Cheng-Ho's authority and power. In revenge he killed five thousand of them and took their leader to China where, after being taught the error of his ways, he was beheaded.... We can only speculate on what would have  happened if the Portuguese had met one of the armadas, for by 1435 the Chinese fleet was rotting at the docks, abandoned by a new emperor who felt no need of contact with the rest of the world.

Zheng He is probably history's second most influential eunuch. Narses still takes the top spot in my book.

Going Legit

Officially sanctioned piracy comprises acts that are clearly piratical under any system of law but those that go unpunished because a particular government finds it convenient to ignore such activities or even secretly sponsor them... In wartime the privateering commission or letter of marque permitted privately financed warships to attack enemy shipping; in peacetime the letter of reprisal recognized that princes did not maintain permanent embassies with one another so that it was impossible to pursue private grievances on a regular basis. Thus a letter of reprisal from a ruler allowed the aggrieved subject to steal from the subjects of the prince whose subjects stole his property in the first place. It was a rather crude way of compensating for losses at sea and illustrates the weak institutional structure of international relations at the time.
[...]
Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury and secretary to Elizabeth and James I, financed his own pirate, Richard Gifford, who managed to get in trouble nearly every time he captured a ship... He even entered into a partnership with Charles Howard, the Earl of Nottingham and the Lord High Admiral... Undaunted by the trouble they had caused, the partners then used two ships of the Royal Navy for piracy, even though they were commissioned as part of a fleet ordered to combat pirates in Ireland. Because the government paid the costs of fitting out the vessels, the profits of the two men were substantial.

Richer Than Midas

In one six week period, [Henry Mainwaring] took Spanish ships and cargoes valued at 500,000 crowns. Such wealth attracted a great deal of attention. The Grand Duke of Savoy allowed Mainwaring to use the port of Villefranche, the Grand Duke of Tuscany wanted him to join his fleet of pirates/privateers, and the Spanish preferred to see him dead. When the Spanish navy tried to seize him at sea, his ships won the battle; so the government fell back on the expedient of offering him 20,000 ducats to find another career. Finally, it was the English government, embarrassed by his success and desirous of peace with Spain, that persuaded him to retire. In 1618, two years after returning to England, he was knighted and went on to have a distinguished career in the Royal Navy.

A Campaign Report

The adventures of my players in the first session might seem a little far-fetched. They broke out of prison, set a town on fire, stole a frigate, and sailed it away with a skeleton crew. Improbable, right? Well...

Robert Dangerfield's voyage began [September 27th, 1684, when he was thirty-two years old], in Point Negril, Jamaica, when a 26-ton barque arrived. It was captained by Jeremy Revelle, who announced that he intended to go on a voyage of "purchase" against the Spanish. Dangerfield and thirty-five others agreed to join him, and off they went. They spotted a ship and chased it into the harour, where they found two pirate ships lead by a Captain Mitchell and a Captain Laurence. Laurence ordered his men (who were no doubt more numerous) to seize Dangerfield and the rest of his shipmates, disarming all of them and throwing a few overboard. The rest were taken ashore briefly, but when two sails appeared on the horizon Laurence relented and asked them to join with him in taking the ships. Weapons and ship restored, Dangerfield and his mate set sail with the rest, only to discover that the ships were carrying the notorious Captain van Horne, with whom Revelle did not want to tangle; so he used the cover of darkness to sneak away.

I'd like to check the original source. "Captain van Horne" could be Nicholas vaan Hoorn, but the legendary van Hoorn apparently died in 1683. Seems like fertile ground for a research paper if anyone's interested in digging the records out of Kew. CO 1/57, fol. 381.

The crew now discussed their next destination. The majority voted in favor of Guinea in Africa, whereas the minority of Revelle and three others favored Campeche bay in Mexico. It was dangerous, even for a captain, to lose an election among pirates. The minority were put ashore on a deserted island ten miles from the Spanish Main with nothing but a canoe and a turtle net. (As harsh as this sounds, the losers were actually well off compared to others who were simply sent off with the shirts on their backs.) The winners, who had now elected Dr. John Graham, a physician, as their captain, turned north to catch the Gulf Stream out of the Caribbean. Just off Point Comfort they stopped two small colonial ships and persuaded three young men to join them. They avoided the port cities and sighted nothing until, northeast of Boston, they captured a French fishing barque and two French shallops. At this point an argument arose between Graham and the master, John Wright. Most of the crew sided with Wright, so Graham and seven others were given the French barque and sent on their way.

After electing Joseph Anderson the new captain, they set off for Guinea. On the way they stopped at the Cape Verde Islands where they raided three towns, kidnapped as many people as they could (their preference was for priests, who always brought a good price), and ransomed them for supplies and money. They also picked up a consort, a pink that had left Newfoundland with a mixed French-English crew captained by Thomas Scuder. Anderson's crew decided to abandon their decrepit ship and join their new companions, so they burned their ship and went aboard the pink, where Anderson took over as Captain, with Wright as master. At Gambia they paid a call to the governor of an English factory, or trading post, who informed them that a 250-ton fourteen-cannon French ship was nearby. Undeterred by the superiority of their target, they set out immediately to capture it. After a three-day search they found their prey and attacked. The issue was settled when they boarded the ship and overwhelmed the French, who were put on a ship's boat and shoved out into the Atlantic. Anderson's crew now had a much larger ship loaded with ivory, brandy, claret, canary wine, arms and ammunition, trade goods, and eighteen slaves. They returned to Gambia, gave the now-unwanted pink to the governor, sold him the slaves and some other goods, and set out in the newly named Resolution. After leaving Gambia again, Dangerfield and his companions followed the coast to Accra, stopping now and then to buy supplies and gold. Along this coast they fell in with a slaver, a Captain Strong, who commanded a sixty-ton ship from London and agreed to accompany them. Leaving Accra, they sailed straight south to the Portuguese island of Principe, where the governor rather ill-advisedly refused to let them have food and water. The pirates immediately captured the town, held it for ransom, burned a Portuguese ship, and got their food and water.

Their next stop was the River Gabon, where they met a Captain Williamson of London with an eight-man crew and a thirty-ton ship. While they cleared and refitted the Resolution, he went upriver to trade, partially on their behalf. Later, leaving the Gabon behind, they coasted on and off Cape Lopez looking for prey, before deciding to turn north again to the Cape Verde Islands. Yet another quarrel occurred, this time between Captain Anderson and Wright the master. Wright won, so Anderson with four others took their shares of the loot and joined Captain Strong in the consort. The remainder of the crew decided to go back to the Americas. At the Portuguese island of Anaboa they asked for water; when it was refused, the pirates attacked. The townspeople bravely burned their town, leaving only the church untouched before they retreated. If they thought the pirates would not desecrate the church, they were wrong; it promptly went up in smoke. After filling the Resolution's water casks, Wright set out to cross the Atlantic. As chance would have it, his path crossed that of a 250-ton Dutch ship. At this point the pirates' luck left them: they failed miserably when they tried to capture the Dutch ship. The Dutch sailed away and the Resolution set a course for the Carolinas. This area, notably Charleston, usually welcomed pirates, so they considered it a safe haven. They arrived in bad weather, and while struggling to get into Saint Helena Sound, the Resolution struck a sandbar and was wrecked. Eight of the forty-four pirates and seven of the fourteen slaves on board drowned. While recovering from this ordeal in the home of a local Indian family, Dangerfield and eleven others were arrested and put in jail.

Here's a map of Dangerfield's route. Outbound in red, return in blue.
Base map is Wikipedia's.

Run Up The Flag

Some Age of Sail logic puzzles. 

Problem #1
You're an English merchant ship. You spot another ship closing with you. You can't see if they are flying a flag. What flag do you fly?

You fly an English flag:

• If the other ship is English, they might leave you alone or offer news and assistance. Best case scenario.
• If the other ship is English, but in the Royal Navy, they can legally take up to half your crew to replace losses. They'll pick your best sailors. You'll have trouble making port.
• If the other ship is French, Spanish, or Dutch, then you are potentially a legal prize and can be boarded, looted, and possibly sunk. Are you at war? The situation might have changed in the last few months.
• If the other ship is a marauding pirate, ditto.

However,  you also have a store of false flags and false papers. You could pretend to be a French, Spanish, or Dutch ship.

You fly a French flag: If the other ship is French, they might leave you alone or offer news and assistance, otherwise, you're a legal prize. Etc.

What flag do you fly?

Problem #2
As above, except before you run up any flags, the pursuing ship runs up a French flag. They could also be using a false flag. Does this affect your decision?

Historical Example:

Relief for Kidd finally appeared in the form of the Rupparell, a large "Moorish" ship, but not Ghafur's long-awaited merchantman. Flying French colours, the Adventure Galley approached, playing cat and mouse with the Rupparell's captain. The victim was actually a Dutch-owned vessel with a mixed crew of Dutch and local "lascards," or sailors, who carried on a limited trade in drugs, cloth, sugar, and coral. After firing a few shots to convince the victim to stop, Kidd waited for her captain to come aboard, hoping that his accustomed ruse of wearing French flags would work. When Captain Michael Dickers came into the great cabin, he was confronted by one of the French pirates from Johanna, a Monsieur le Roy, playing at captain. In hopes of saving his ship Dickers presented a French pass; as soon as he did, Kidd cried: "By God I have catched you? You are a free prize." Dickers had fallen victim to the old stratagem: Kidd could claim to be acting legally because his commission allowed him to seize French ships, while his men finally got their big prize. His ship gone, Dickers and two of his men joined the pirates.

Howard Pyle

Payout for Injuries

I didn't include payouts on the pirate Death and Dismemberment Table, but I really should.

The loss of an eye, leg, or arm brought 600 pieces of eight in compensation; loss of a finger or toe, only 100. The heirs of a dead man collected £20, even if there was no "purchase" from the voyage. All of these obligations had to be met before the general division of booty occurred. Such obligations were taken quite seriously. At least one group  of pirates compensated their wounded, only to discover they had nothing left.

Vocabulary

While he was preparing the Adventure Galley and collecting his crew, Kidd earned a reputation for his "rodomandations", or extravagant and arrogant boasts.

Rodomontade, from Rodomonte the Orlando poems. Different meaning but same process as "Flanderize".

A greater prize was Captain Parker who, because he knew the coast well, was forced remain aboard the Adventure Galley as a pilot; one of his Portuguese sailors was retained as a "linguistor" or translator.

Crew Composition

Kidd did record the names of all who sailed with him. Of the 152 men it is possible to identify a few by occupation; 21 were mariners, 3 were carpenters, and others had assorted occupations such as surgeon, cook, laborer, joiner, cordwainer, gunsmith, jeweler, and baker.... The ethnic composition of the crew was overwhelmingly English. Family names are not always a sure guide to nationality, but they indicate slightly more than a hundred men as having English backgrounds. The next largest group was the twenty-five Dutchmen, with the rest made up of seven Scots, two Frenchmen, two Welshmen, and one African.

Pirate Democracy

Disobedience, mutiny, and riot were subject to corporal punishment to be agreed upon by the captain and a majority of the crew.
[...]
Men had to be allowed to fight enough to get the anger out of their systems, but not long enough to endanger life or limb. They would be asked to make up and forget their quarrel, and then separated as far as possible. If two opponents refused to reconcile, they were often put ashore at the first landfall to fight a duel to the death.
[...]
Laws and hierarchy did not exist on board ship or in the pirate settlements. The rules were informal and agreed upon by a democratic system that gave the men a voice in their affairs. Life in these egalitarian surroundings was attractive to a good many men who were willing to suffer its hardships in order to enjoy the good times that outdid any others they had experienced. Samuel Burgess returned to Madagascar to live after having been a pirate, slaver, merchant captain, privateer, and condemned man. The island simply offered him more freedom than any other place.

For some of the men their new freedom extended to sexual relations. European societies denounced homosexuality and treated it harshly. The Royal Navy periodically conducted savage antibuggery campaigns to repress homosexual practices among men who might be confined at sea for years. On shipboard or in the renegade settlements, pirate could more openly engage in homosexual alliances. Louis Le Golif complained of the prevalence of homosexuality on the island of Tortuga, where he had to fight two duels to keep his most ardent suitors at bay. Some men bought "pretty boys" as companions, some had consorts; Culliford, for instance, had a "great consort", John Swann, who lived with him.

Shares

Cowardice meant loss of a share, as did drunkenness during an attack. The determination of "drunkenness" involved drawing a fine line, for the technique of dulling ear by way of the bottle is as old as warfare. The Royal Navy routinely issued rum before a battle. If the drinking got out of hand, however, an attack might fail. On one occasion a group  of pirates took three days to capture a  ship because there were never enough sober men available.
Rum. Improves the Morale stat of the crew or gives a bonus to Saves vs. Fear, but generally penalizes complex tactics. In some groups, the player may drink a shot of rum to simulate the effects on their judgement.
[...]
[Landsmen] signed on along with the sailors, but were obliged to serve with the promise of only a fraction of a share until they proved themselves. 
[...]

Many men admitted to acquiring fortunes, the greater part of which were won at play. Gerrad van Horn, a New Yorker, won 1,300 pieces of eight on a single roll of the dice and reportedly returned home with £3,000, while another man did the same to the tune of 3,400 pieces of eight... Other losers could be dangerous. When Raveneau de Lussan, a lucky gambler, crossed Nicaragua on his way back to the Caribbean in 1683 he carried 30,000 pieces of eight. The losers among his companions resented his luck and went ahead of  him, the better to ambush and rob him. Informed of their plan, de Lussan divided his fortune among his friends so that he would not lose everything. They all managed to escape the thieves and then de Lussan only had to worry about getting the money back from his friends.
[...]
John Eldridge, who made it as far as the Delaware River before being captured, carried 1,600 pieces of eight, 249 pieces of silver plate, 20 Arab gold coins, 1 gold box, 200 broken pieces of coin, 2 pounds of amber beads, 10 pieces of muslin, 1 piece of flowered satin, 30 pounds of spices, 1 African boy, and various oddiments.
[...]
Contrast these sums with the wages that Samuel Burgess' crew received for their voyage to Madagascar. The common seamen made less than £2 New York money per month; the doctor, £2.10 plus 1 slave and 12 pennies for every slave who arrived in New York; the first mate, £3.10 per month plus a slave; and the second mate and the boatswain, each £2.8 per month.

A good estimate (PDF warning) puts the value of a slave at ~£50 in the 1700s. See the fact sheet for more details.

John Cleveley the Elder

The Might of the British Navy

By 1675 the navy was strong enough to sent an expedition to North Africa, two ships to Jamaica, two to Newfoundland, and one to Barbados... By 1685, twenty-five ships were in pay and thus were manned and available for service; six were off North Africa, there was one each at Barbados, the Leeward Islands, Virginia, Newfoundland, and two at Jamaica. Besides these ships on station, the navy was reaching far beyond its normal range. One ship had been dispatched to the west coast of Africa and another sent to cruise in the Indian Ocean. 

[...]

Tedious patrol duties in the colonies managed to bring out the worst in some captains. Many of them assigned to the West Indies could not overlook the opportunities for profiting from the slave trade, where merchants were happy to have them involved because of the buccaneers. At one point during Queen Anne's War all of the Royal Navy ships in the West Indies were carrying slaves to the Spanish colonies. On occasion they embezzled goods from ships they stopped, whether or not they had sufficient cause to stop the ships in the first place.

Leaking Prisons

Once the unquestioned master of his own ship, Kidd now found himself confined to the small stone prison in Boston. It was a jail that regularly leaked prisoners. [Governor] Bellomont had fired the jailer who allowed Joseph Bradish to escape, and prevented another attempt when someone nearly succeeded in slipping James Kelly a 5 1/2 -foot crowbar. To make sure Kidd stayed put, Bellomont gave the sheriff a substantial raise.

Final Notes

I really enjoyed the book. I don't think there's an ebook available, but if you can find a hard copy it's worth reading. Some of the more recent scholarship on Captain Kidd isn't included, obviously, but it's a very nice general overview of the end of the age of piracy.

I wanted to make sure my campaign had plenty of opportunities for false flags, missed translations, and madcap international schemes. I'm excited to see if the players can manage one tenth the things pirates got up to in real life.

OSR: Pirates of the Merabaha, Session 1

On a warm night in April a warehouse burned down in King's Bay. The arsonists - for it was surely arson - were rounded up and placed in a cell in the Governor's Fortress, to await a swift trial and probable execution.

The suspects (in order of suspicion):

Nyali Utugelu, a Chultan shopkeeper whose small and dubiously legal business on the island of Splinterpoint had been blown into the sea by a hurricane. She'd come to Rat Leg Island and King's Bay to seek her fortune. Dispirited and angry at the local prosperous merchants, she'd turned to drinking and raving in disreputable taverns. She'd been seen near the site of the fire. While being taken into custody, she'd broken the nose of a guard and bit the ear off another.

Gunter von Steenberger, a dockworker originally from the Ranstead League. Gifted with enormous strength but little ambition, Gunter had drifted from port to port. Always able to find work, he chafed under orders and frequently lost his temper. He'd been seen laughing and jeering near the site of the fire, drunk as a lord, and holding a lit torch.

Imran Goldmaker, a sometime merchant, sometime pirate from the Golden Isles, had lost both his ship and his fortune months ago. His ventures on Rat Leg Island hadn't turned a profit; his grasp of Wexlish left a great deal to be desired. He'd sold the warehouse manager "high-grade timber" which, the manager claimed, turned out to be soaked in flammable oils and full of rot and voids. It was possible he'd set the fire to cover his tracks.

Beatrix, a Tarraconese carpenter and engineer, or so she claimed. She had tried to purchase lumber on credit from the warehouse for a building project and was, according to the warehouse's manager, less than pleased when she was rejected. Small, shortsighted, and nervous, Beatrix was an unlikely suspect, but it was possible she'd set the fire.

Geoffroy Thoorens

Wexlish justice was unlikely to be kind. As the four suspects sat in the same cell, waiting for dawn, a prisoner in an adjacent cell tried to get their attention.

"Oy! What are you in for?," a reedy voice said in Tarraconese.
"Burning down a warehouse." Nyali replied. After a pause, she said, "Allegedly."
"Right. Well, I'm in for piracy."
"That's nice."
"They'll hang me tomorrow."
Nyali nodded. "Sounds about right. Governor Whitefriar does like to hang people."

There was another long pause as the prisoner, clearly flummoxed by the Chultan's stoic answers, tried to think of something else to say.

"Me name is Cameron Jones. I sailed with Handsome John," the unseen figure said. "You know of Handsome John?"
Nyali didn't, but Imran and Gunter both did. Handsome John was a legendary pirate. He'd died three times. His face was so horrible it'd kill old men and babies just to look at him. They said he'd taken a slaver ship and tossed one slave over the side every watch, just to watch the sharks feed.

They also said he was rich.

"I know where he buried his haul," the figure said, "from his last trip to the Golden Isles. It'd a foul shame if I took that knowledge to my grave." By now, Beatrix, Imran, and Nyali were all close to the bars, listening for every word. "Seeing as how I'm fettered, would you inclined to escape this place before your trial and - let's be honest - most likely execution, it would be in our mutual interests if I was to escape with you."

"How exactly are we supposed to break out of here?" Beatrix complained. "There are guards and the warden has the keys. Assuming we escape, what then?"
"We hit a few taverns, find a small crew of trusted souls, steal a small but nimble ship, put to sea, and sail for the Isla de Caracol before dawn," Cameron Jones answered smoothly.

Beatrix translated the plan into Wexlish for Gunter's benefit. The giant dockworker grunted in assent. Using all her wiles, Beatrix managed to lure the lone Wexlish guard close to the bars on his next patrol. Gunter grabbed for the guard's chest and missed. Nyali and Imran grabbed the guard's legs and pulled, painfully slamming his most tender area against the bars. A few quick strikes from Gunter's slab-like fists reduced the guard to a blubbering mess.

While Nyali fashioned a lock-shattering explosive from the guard's pistol charges, Gunter, in apparent boredom, simply bent back the bars to the cell. The other three prisoners watched in awe as the iron flaked and creaked. The gap was just large enough for Nyali, Imran, and Beatrix to squeeze through. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, Gunter remained trapped.

After a few misadventures, a bit of stealth, and surprising strong-arm tactic from the mild-mannered Beatrix, the party retrieved the warden's keys, several uniforms, a small stack of pistols, a few swords, and small purse of gold, and a mostly full bottle of brandy. They rescued Gunter and freed Cameron Jones, who turned out to be an old Tarraconese sailor with a scraggly beard and rags, and escaped the prison.

Murat Gül

The town of King's Bay was quiet. A few taverns were still open, but their customers were either asleep, stupefied with drink, or engaged in other business. The five escaped prisoners found a quiet corner in the Bishop's Arms, bought drinks, and began discussing their plan.

Languages: Wexlish, Tarraconese, Chultan,

"We need to steal a ship," Cameron Jones whispered. "Now, there be some small cutter in the harbour, mostly used by merchants. I say we creep down, see how well they are guarded, and sail out with the tide. When the sun rises, it'll bring an east wind with it, and we'll be out of the harbour before the Cimmeria can fire on us."
"What's the Cimmeria?" Nyali asked.
Cameron Jones gestured out the window. "The naval frigate in the bay, defending the harbour. Twenty-four guns, a full compliment of Marines. Not something we want to fight."
"Could we steal it?" Nyali said, peering out the window at the distant lights of the frigate.
"N...no! Are you mad!?" the old pirate hissed. "Even at anchor there are probably eighty men aboard, watchful for mutineers and pirates sneaking aboard."
"What did he say?" Gunter asked.
"He says we can't steal the frigate because there are too many men aboard it," Beatrix hastily translated.
The square-jawed dockworker thought about this for a few moments. "What if we could get the crew off the ship?"
"How?"
"Set the town on fire. Send an order to the ship; all men ashore," Gunter said carefully, marshaling his thoughts. "Row out and take her."
"Gunter has a plan to take the Cimmeria," Beatrix informed the group. "Can anyone forge orders from the governor?"
"What? Maybe. Why?" Nyali asked, leaning back and frowning.
"If we set the town on fire and order the sailors off the Cimmeria, we can board and take her."
"Fucking fuckbiscuits," Nyali cursed in Chutan, impressed at her comrade's daring.

"You're all mad," Cameron Jones said, wide-eyed and worried. "Even if we take her we couldn't sail her. She's a frigate! Sixth rate! Crew of, oh, two hundred at least!"
"But she could be sailed with a skeleton crew," Imran said. "I have done it. Not an easy voyage, not a wise one, but it could be done."
"Right. How many to sail her?" Nyali pressed.
Cameron Jones stared at his four rescuers for a moment, then replied. "Ten. If we had ten good, experienced sailors, and if the weather held, and if we encountered no other ship on the journey, we might be able to do it."

"Then we're settled. You recruit the sailors. I'll forge orders with Beatrix's help. I'll set the fires on the west end of town. Imran will set the fires in the east. Gunter will find us three longboats." As everyone stared blankly, Nyali continued. "When the fires begin, Beatrix will row out to the Cimmeria and deliver the forged orders. Gunter, Cameron Jones, and anyone else we can recruit will take the second longboat once the Marines have disembarked and board the Cimmeria. Imran and I will be along as soon as we can."
"That's... a mad bastard of a plan," Cameron Jones said appreciatively. "You done this sort of thing before?"
"No," Nyali replied. "Well, except for the arson." She paused. "Allegedly."

Claude-Joseph Vernet

An hour later, disguised as a male guard from the prison, Beatrix nervously waited at the docks, flicking her eyes from one edge of King's Bay to the other, watching for the first flames to rise over the rooftops. She didn't have to wait long. With more enthusiasm than skill, and more fear than enthusiasm, she rowed frantically to the Cimmeria.

Behind her, King's Bay was in flames. Nyali had wisely stuck to the back streets, tossing torches into stables, woodpiles, and kitchens. Imran had taken a more direct approach. He'd broken windows, tipped over stoves, smashed lanterns, and generally attracted a lot of attention in the form of a small mob. Luckily, after a short chase, he'd run into Nyali, who managed to frighten the mob away with her blunderbuss.


Meanwhile, aboard the Cimmeria, Beatrix was bluffing for her life. The officer of the watch had accepted and read her forged letter. As sailors milled about and longboats were lowered into the water, Beatrix stood and sweated as the officer, lips pressed together, inspected the letter a second, then a third time. Just as he seemed to find a fault, Beatrix interrupted with a gift of brandy. Imran had topped up the stolen bottle with an infusion he swore would put the officers to sleep. Now trapped in the officer's mess serving small glasses of foul-smelling brandy, Beatrix could only hope her comrades arrived before her luck ran out.

On shore, Gunter had watched boat after boat of sailors stream into the burning city. Cameron Jones had managed to find four people crazy enough to join in the ventures. Gunter could only hope that some of the Wexlish sailors decided to join the crew. Together, the boarding party rowed out to the Cimmeria, approaching by a long route to avoid suspicion. Gunter climbed up the side and leapt onto the deck, two pistols at the ready. He immediately discharged both into the back of a first lieutenant and roared, "We're taking the ship, lads! Anyone disagree?" The four sailors on deck looked at the glowering dockhand, looked over their shoulders at Cameron Jones and the rest of the scruffy pirates climbing up the side, and surrendered.

Hearing a crash from the quarter galley, Gunter sprinted towards the stern of the ship. He kicked open the door and found Beatrix locked in a life-or-death struggle with the ship's sailing master. Gunter quickly dispatched the officer, helped the apologetic Beatrix to her feet, put a cloth on her bleeding scalp wound, and wandered back onto the deck.

A few minutes later, Imran and Nyali arrived in the last longboat. They assisted in raising the anchor, with Gunter doing, by anyone's estimate, the work of five men. When the ship was aweigh, Gunter suggested clearing the lower decks.

"As your Captain," Cameron Jones said, waiting for a challenger and finding none, "I'll lead. Pistols at the ready." The newly appointed Captain, Imran, and Gunter went below and found the ship eerily deserted. They'd expected at least a few sailors belowdecks, but they found nothing until they reached the lower hold. They heard a faint click. Cameron Jones held up a hand and paused.

"Bunker!" he shouted, as musket shots raked through the deck. A shot caught Gunter in the leg and swept him prone, bleeding and swearing. Imran was unharmed; he later found a perfect Imran-shaped outline in the far wall. The Golden Isle sailor dove for cover while Gunter crawled behind a table. Their newly elected captain, Cameron Jones, lay unconcious on the floor. They weren't sure if he was dead but, as another volley of shots swept the deck, they weren't about to find out.

Nyali sprinted belowdecks at the sound of gunfire. She reached Imran and hid behind an overturned table. "Is this table thick enough to shield us?" she asked.
"I hope so," the merchant replied. "Want to push up and see if we can return fire?"
"Let's go," Nyali whispered, and the pair shouldered the table into place. They could hear the bunker's occupants readying another volley. From a safe spot, Gunter was hollering for their surrender.

"Heave!" Nyali shouted, and the two pirate pushed the table up the deck. Another volley of musket fire smashed into them, sending splinters into the air. The table held. "Heave!" Nyali shouted again. The bunker's occupants hastily reloaded. Someone inside made a mistake. When they readied a second volley, someone's musket misfired and detonated. The bunker was filled shrapnel and smoke.

Brandishing her blunderbuss, Nyali ran up to the bunker, poked the ungainly weapon inside, and fired blind. More screams filled the air.

While Nyali dragged two badly wounded Wexlish sailors from the bunker, Imran checked on Gunter's wound. "Just a graze, thank God," the merchant said, peeling back the blood-soaked rags.
"Can't fucking understand you," Gunter complained.
Imran rolled his eyes, pointed at Gunter's leg, and nodded while smiling like a caricature.

Next, the crew checked on their new Captain. A musket ball had caught him just under the heart. He was probably dead before he hit the deck and he'd taken the location of Handsome John's treasure - if he ever knew it - with him. The thought was sobering.

With King's Bay burning behind them, and in a disgraceful and slovenly way, the Cimmeria slipped out of the bay with the tide.

Red line indicates the projected route of the Cimmeria.

Playtest Notes

The GLOG pirate hack I threw together works fairly well.

• Nyali is an Artillerist. Decent stats, save for an Int and Wis of 7.
• Gunter is a Brawler with 18 (!) strength. That's off 3d6 unmodified. Sure, his Int is 7 too, but when any melee attack deals +3 damage you don't need to be smart.
• Imran is a Duelist. Very average stats.
• Beatrix is a Smooth Talker. Her player wanted to run a Weather Witch, but she's got the worst stats I've ever seen someone roll. Her highest stat is an 11 in Int and Charisma. She's got a Strength and Con of 5, a Dex of 8, and an Int of 9. She's also got 1 HP. Everyone agrees; either Beatrix is going to die next session or she'll outlive everyone else.

I didn't expect the players to go for the frigate or to come up with a competent plan to steal it. 2 members of the group are old hands at this kind of bullshit and have been in many of my games before. I expect great things from them.

In case anyone things their adventures was little far-fetched, I'll be posting excerpts from "Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates" soon enough.