Stormborn
Explorer
- a London occult scholar comes to the new world seeking the Fountain of Youth (or some similarly powerful artifact) and falls in with a pirate captain who aids him in exchange for the promise the treasure holds. The PCs can wind up on the same ship or on a rivals. How far this goes can be up to the themes of your game. If you want to down play the magical aspect then the scholar is simply wrong (either because its not real or because he has misinterpreted the clues) or if magically minded eventually the search leads to islands in very strange seas (pocket diminsion?)
- again only if you are wanting some strange events: a modern-ish (say even WW2) ship appears in the Bermuda Triangle and a pirate ship catches sight of it in a storm. He tells many tall tales about it while drunk in port and now a race is on to find the Magical Metal Ship; or maybe someone already has and is using machine guns to raid and plunder.
- The ship the PCs have joined is only nominally a pirate, although most of the crew is unaware of this. Instead it is a privateer owned by one of the great powers of Europe, and on board is a spy from a rival nation who reports on the captain's activities with orders to destroy or take the ship if neccesary. The captain picks rich treasure ships to attack, but he is really after important documents that he can send back home to his superiors. The PCs might be brought into the confidence of either the spy or the captain, neither, or both.
- A freed slave tells the captain of a fantastic island off the coast of Africa, but is he telling the truth or is he only angling to get revenge on those who sold him off in the first place while making a break for home.
- The PCs arrive in port to discover a bounty has been placed on their heads, but for a cirme they didn't commit. The prize is enough that even former allies cant be trusted, but when an old enemy comes forward claiming to be the victim of the same circumstances the PCs are forced to make hard choices. Meanwhile the coniving govenor of the island and the real villains want to make sure the PCs are captured as quickly as possible.
-A pirate nation is forming on a tiny island and is begining to transition from a simple haven to a real home for many outlaws, former slaves, and exiles. The crown, of course, cannot let that happen. What will the PCs do when put in the middle of the coming war?
- again only if you are wanting some strange events: a modern-ish (say even WW2) ship appears in the Bermuda Triangle and a pirate ship catches sight of it in a storm. He tells many tall tales about it while drunk in port and now a race is on to find the Magical Metal Ship; or maybe someone already has and is using machine guns to raid and plunder.
- The ship the PCs have joined is only nominally a pirate, although most of the crew is unaware of this. Instead it is a privateer owned by one of the great powers of Europe, and on board is a spy from a rival nation who reports on the captain's activities with orders to destroy or take the ship if neccesary. The captain picks rich treasure ships to attack, but he is really after important documents that he can send back home to his superiors. The PCs might be brought into the confidence of either the spy or the captain, neither, or both.
- A freed slave tells the captain of a fantastic island off the coast of Africa, but is he telling the truth or is he only angling to get revenge on those who sold him off in the first place while making a break for home.
- The PCs arrive in port to discover a bounty has been placed on their heads, but for a cirme they didn't commit. The prize is enough that even former allies cant be trusted, but when an old enemy comes forward claiming to be the victim of the same circumstances the PCs are forced to make hard choices. Meanwhile the coniving govenor of the island and the real villains want to make sure the PCs are captured as quickly as possible.
-A pirate nation is forming on a tiny island and is begining to transition from a simple haven to a real home for many outlaws, former slaves, and exiles. The crown, of course, cannot let that happen. What will the PCs do when put in the middle of the coming war?
