A Warlock Alone, Island Empire solo game

[J. Alexander]

Questions for the DM

Scott,
Been thinking etc and have come up with some questions about the world etc...

What is the normal size of a ships company? Most eastindiamen which were the largest type of trading vesseles in the napelonic era had a normal crew of around 75 men.........warships of course would have a crew normaly bewteen 225 to 300 depending on the size.

What is the typical size of a pirate crew?

What are the typical size of standing armies etc?
I have been reading a lot of scottish and 10 thru 15 century history and for those eras...5000 to 8000 men were considered to be a typical army size. For large battles, invasions etc, which often took a year or more to plan and execute, 20,000 men was considered to be a huge army..LIkewise a noble who could raise and field anywhere from 1000 to 1500 men was considered to be a major noble with most nobles only being able to raise 100 to 500 men.....

What is the economey like?

What are the staple trade goods, ie those while not turning a huge profit consisently need to be shipped about the empire etc....providing a steady stream of revenue?

What is the laws regarding slavery in the empire?

What is the most common type of coinage? How are large sums of money usually shipped in the empire?

What is the common diet like? Is it full of fish..or heavy on grains etc with little meat and poultry?

And the last question i have is something that i have picked up on but not really put into context until you mentioned what a true treasure i had found in the ship etc.....Based upon wood prices etc...and the amount of wood that consists of the retribution.....i have roughly calucuated her value to be (using page 25 of A magical medevial society - western europe) which values lumber at 400gp per acre.... If that is the reference then it took roughly 200 acres of oak forrest to build a typical frigate and 700 acres to build a East Indiamen merchant ship....that would place a base value of some 80,000 gp. Given the scaricty of wood etc in the campaign if you used a multiper of 2.5 then you come up with a value of 200,000 gp with an east indiaman being worth some 700,000 gp. This does not include the cost of making the ship etc....Perhaps I am wrong but the impression i have from your sdescription of the ship leads me to belive she is made almost entirely of wood thus necessitating her having such a stockpile of lumber on board when she was captured. Am i any where close to the value you envisoined etc? And no i am not gonna sell it i am just needing a better understanding so i can plot and plan

 

[Scotley]

OOC: Damn, my buttermilk is hardly gone and already more questions. Okay, to address your earlier question. Metamagic feats such as still spell require you to use a higher level slot. That doesn't really work for invocations. I suppose you could drop one of your higer ranked invocations in favor of a stilled eldrich blast, but given the small number you get this seems a poor choice. As an option in Unearthed Arcana, metamagic feats can be learned to function 3x a day at the normal level instead of using them an unlimited number of times at a higher slot. I would let you take the feat with the 3x a day limit.

A lot of the information about diet and trade can be found in the notes I gave you on the world. It talks specifically about trade goods. Given a little time I will list some of that here if you'd like.

I would say a crew of 75 for a large trader is a reasonable number for my world. Perhaps a spellcaster or two would be added to the crew, but that's about the only real difference.

Pirate ships are more like warships. They don't normally go to sea for long voyages. They operate from bases like Mermaids Rest and may only go out for a couple of weeks to a month at a time to reduce the amount of food and water needed. They need overwhelming numbers to win the day, especially since they can't aford to lose the ship itself, so most of the fighting is hand to hand rather than using heavy weapons, fire or destructive magic.

As for wood, your 2.5x is about right. However, a lot of the structure of modern ships is metal, which reduces the wood cost, but increased the labor cost. The heavy cannon does not exist so the 12 to 18 inch thick wood of real world ships is also not required. I would say numbers in the range of 150,000 and 500,000 are more in line.

The economy is coming back after the very limited trade and population loss of the plague years. It is a boom time and fortunes are made.

Armies are less important than ships when it comes to power. Huge standing armies are not common. The number of ships, sailors, and marines are much more important.

Slavery was outlawed during the time of the eradicationists and remains illeagle everywhere in the Empire. This is not the case in Bastiander a distant desert land ruled by Gnolls.

Letters of credit have replaced large sums of money though bars are sometimes used when it is necessary. I didn't change from the gold standard in my game. Gold is the coin of choice for trade. However, the average laborer may never have a gold in his pouch. There is a great disparity in the wealthy and the poor.

 

[J. Alexander]

Questions

OCC: Found your notes and info on the various island chain but it was incomplete...if you have a completed version please email it to me....spent time rereading all the info and boy there are tons and tons of usefull insights that came to me.....it had been so long since i had read them that a lot of it was new for me....

As a result of all this reading and the rereading of the threads i have realized that i have lost focus on michaels original goals etc......i fear this may be a danger in this type of play as things move ever so slowly etc.......Michael will devote his resources into building his shipyard and it's warehousing capability......after all the wheelands do not have any major warehousing and Tergere is awful close and makes and ideal distribution point being as it is near three of the major island chain......which leads me to the question What island chain is Tergere associated with or is it outside any of the major chains? It is about 15 days from Cambre (Wheelands) and about 5 days from Axioplois (Sword Arm chain).....what is the third chain?

Next he will start stockpiling cash and the funds necessary to build the ship......etc........


Michaels actions for the next round were posted earlier

 

[Scotley]

Tregere is in the wheelands, it isn't really 15 days from Cambre. You took at rather wild route. It is however near the sword arm as well. That means it is close to one of the major trade route from the inner sea to the rest of the world. I fear my own notes are not complete. Since no one seems to have looked at them on over a year, I've been lax. I guess I better get off my ass do some updates. I'm off to a meeting, but I hope to get a proper post up this evening.

 

[Scotley]

The Forbidden Room

Michael's blast drops another foe, while the ogre finishes off his wounded foe. That leaves just one attacking you and her blow narrowly misses Michael. The dark skinned figure with the fireplace logs has joined the other fellows fighting back against one foe.

OOC: The battle in the hall is now about 4 rounds behind, so there will be a delay while they catch up.

 

[Scotley]

OOC: Okay, we are back up in time. Michaeal is facing one foe while another is attacked by the 'allies' Michael has developed.

The sounds of battle from the hallway seem to be winding down though a strong odor of burned flesh is coming from that direction.

 

[J. Alexander]

Battle in the Forbidden Rooms

Die roll for Michael Storm
1d20+9,7d6+1,1d20+11,2d4+7-> ([1, 9], [4, 4, 4, 3, 1, 5, 3, 1], [14, 11], [4, 2, 7])

Sorry about that forgot to use the correct punciton...been so long...roll totals are
10 to hit michael...24 damage......25 to hit ogier.....13 damage

"Lord Tanis, we almost have the victory here" Michael calls out as he tries to distract the evil undead attacking the unarmed black skin mann. the ogier will attack the remaining singer facing him and michael......

 

[Scotley]

The Forbidden Room

The ogre lays into your foe, but it continues to fight (1d20+4=14). The undead hand brushes Michael just narrowly missing him. The other three seem to be having success against their foe.

OOC: New round.

 

[J. Alexander]

Battle in the Forbidden Rooms

1d20+9-> [17,9] = (26)
7d6+1-> [5,1,1,2,4,6,2,1] = (22)
1d20+11-> [15,11] = (26)
3d4+7-> [4,3,2,7] = (16)

Continuing to assit the unarmed allies Michael unleases an attack against the undead doing 22 points of damage to it....the ogier, stalward guard that he is proving to be, smacks the undead attacking Michael with a crushing 16 points of damage....

OCC: Should the foes go down...Michael will call out "Victory is ours Lord Tanis"

 

[Scotley]

The Victory

That does it for the undead, Michael's blast and a well placed blow from a flaming log drop one. Meanwhile, the ogre finishes off the one besetting Michael.