Salt and Seadogs - Kingdoms of Kalamar

[twofalls]

This question is best suited for the Kenzerco boards however they are down for the weekend so I will post it here hoping there are some Kalamar Guru's who frequent these boards.

I run a Kingdoms of Kalamar game, and am currently running a bastardized version of the Coin of Power adventure module series. The party has acquired (though good role-playing and some RW politics) both the Hyperion (a Cog) and the pirates vessel Dragon Breath (a modified Knarr). One of my players has given me a copy of the book in the title of the thread called Salt and Sea Dogs which describes the Pirates of the bay area.

Chapter 9 describes the incredible level of organization of pirates of the Reanaaria Bay dominated by an ancient wizard. This organization includes intelligence in all the port cities and towns, as well as fortified market towns on the small isles of the bay itself that provide markets and shipyard facilities to the pirates. The book claims over 150 pirate ships, which is just a huge number of vessels involved in high seas robbery in one region. Now sea trade is the lifeline of the bay, and one of the largest cities of Tellene is Zoa which is situated not far from the isles that many of these fortified pirate ports are established upon. Zoa is absolutely dependant upon sea trade for its very existence. My suspension of logic is being extremely challenged here. What has kept Zoa from massing a naval flotilla and army, assaulting and reducing these pirate Havens to rubble and ruin? There are a few other free cities in the bay who are less powerful than Zoa and have less of a naval presence, however if over 150 pirate captains can be maintained by the trade in the bay that means there must be at least a couple thousand ships doing business there annually. Looking at the map I see that there are 8 large ports across the entirety of the Reanaaria Bay region, as well as likely numerous small ports in towns not worth mentioning on the world map. Am I wrong or is this math not adding up?

I'm a bit of an armchair historian, but my area of studies do not include 16th and 17th century pirate activities that as I understand were limited mostly to Privateering during European wars and the escapades of a few notables in the Cuban/Haitian islands vs the Spanish gold trade. Do any Kalamaran guru's here have something to chime in on here, or anyone else for that matter?

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Chapter 9 describes the incredible level of organization of pirates of the Reanaaria Bay dominated by an ancient wizard. This organization includes intelligence in all the port cities and towns, as well as fortified market towns on the small isles of the bay itself that provide markets and shipyard facilities to the pirates. The book claims over 150 pirate ships, which is just a huge number of vessels involved in high seas robbery in one region.

Well, there are a number of ways I can approach this, so I'll just run through them as they occur to me. If I miss something, let me know.

First, not every vessel will be at sea at once. Only about 75 will be actively pirating. Also, this is a very large region. It's over 1100 miles from one end of the bay to the other, and the bay is over 100 miles wide or more, depending on where you're at. So there's lots of space.

Keep in mind too that this is not the 16th and 17th centuries. These are mostly small medieval ships, not great cannon-armed galleons. Adventuring is a main motive for piracy. Think of them more like bandits that travel by ship, rather than privateers out to wreck enemy ships and take their gold for a queen back home. Lots of enthusiam, but not as much skill. The pirates of the Straits of Svimohzia are much more vicious.

 

[NewJeffCT]

what you can also say is that a good percentage of those 150 ships are likely ones that hug the coast & only have a small amount of pirates on them - they may put into shore at night, steal into a small town & make off with their goods that way.

A ship with 10-15 pirates is different than the traditional pirate ship image of scores of men swinging on rope across to another ship while cannons are blazing back & forth and dozens of men are engaged in duels with their cutlasses & rapiers...

 

[baakyocalder]

Piracy in Reanaarria Bay-some 16th and 17th century material for use

The big difference in piracy in Reanaaria Bay and in the 16th and 17th century Caribbean is technology. 16th and 17th century ships could sail for months at a time without resupplying and could carry many men. Larger pirate ships were more packed than the merchant ship, as they carried enough crew to overpower any merchant vessel (even one with a few marines protecting the cargo).

Another thing to keep in mind with piracy is that small islands, channels, and other aquatic terrain features are good spots for pirates to hide. Many small repairs could be made on a small godforsaken island in the 16th and 17th century, and they didnt' have any D&D-style wizards then! Major ports are neccessary for large repairs, but remember that unless the citizens of non-pirate islands in Reanarria Bay know a ship is a pirate ship, the pirates can use their harbor and dock facilities.

Furthermore, most of the nations in Reanaaria Bay are at war with each other and as a major outlet of trade, the ships of other nations which are engaged in hostilities travel to Reanaaria Bay. Pirates can pose as privateers quite easily-in fact in the Carribean many a privateer turned pirate once his government declared peace. Then, a few months or years later, if the privateer turned pirate hadn't been caught, the new letters of marquee from the constant war between the European powers meant he was back to privateering.

As for ports, I am not certain how many vessels each handles at once, but a city of 50,000 like Zoa could certainly handle many ships. If you keep in mind that the water-based trade in Reanaaria Bay is year-round, it's not hard to imagine thousands of ships to plunder.

There are many books on pirates and the Carribean in the 16th and 17th century. A good overview of the Carribean in that period can be found in GURPS Swashbucklers . Time-Life did a series on ships and one of those volumes is on pirates. The complex political and economic situation is covered well for the English West Indies in Richard S. Dunn's classic monograph Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713. There will also be more on the Carribean in Alan Taylor's American Colonies ; though neither Dunn nor Taylor cover piracy in great detail other important social aspects of the period (particularly the slave trade and Carribean economies) are covered which makes them quite useful. You can find other books quite easily-with that Pirates of the Carribean movie getting a sequal, I'm sure a lot of pirate books are back in print.

Mark Plemmons' idea to look at the pirates as seafaring bandits is probably best-the Carribean pirates were nowhere near so organized as the Reanaaria Bay pirates but much of the Reanaaria Bay organization is at the top. The pirate captain just has to give a cut to the pirate lords and sail when he sails.

Hopefully this helps out. While we are at that, can we get a reworking of pirate vessels in Salt and Sea Dogs so sloops are faster than heavily-laden galleons?

 

[diaglo]

don't forget the US history on fighting pirates... the marine hymn comes to mind... shores of tripoli...

 

[alanajoli]

I could be wrong in this, but Zoa never struck me as a place that was particularly lawful in its own designation. Certainly it depends on sea trade, but it could be that the merchants are nearly as piratical as the actual pirates...

 

[Friend of the Dork]

This question is best suited for the Kenzerco boards however they are down for the weekend so I will post it here hoping there are some Kalamar Guru's who frequent these boards.

I run a Kingdoms of Kalamar game, and am currently running a bastardized version of the Coin of Power adventure module series. The party has acquired (though good role-playing and some RW politics) both the Hyperion (a Cog) and the pirates vessel Dragon Breath (a modified Knarr). One of my players has given me a copy of the book in the title of the thread called Salt and Sea Dogs which describes the Pirates of the bay area.

Chapter 9 describes the incredible level of organization of pirates of the Reanaaria Bay dominated by an ancient wizard. This organization includes intelligence in all the port cities and towns, as well as fortified market towns on the small isles of the bay itself that provide markets and shipyard facilities to the pirates. The book claims over 150 pirate ships, which is just a huge number of vessels involved in high seas robbery in one region. Now sea trade is the lifeline of the bay, and one of the largest cities of Tellene is Zoa which is situated not far from the isles that many of these fortified pirate ports are established upon. Zoa is absolutely dependant upon sea trade for its very existence. My suspension of logic is being extremely challenged here. What has kept Zoa from massing a naval flotilla and army, assaulting and reducing these pirate Havens to rubble and ruin? There are a few other free cities in the bay who are less powerful than Zoa and have less of a naval presence, however if over 150 pirate captains can be maintained by the trade in the bay that means there must be at least a couple thousand ships doing business there annually. Looking at the map I see that there are 8 large ports across the entirety of the Reanaaria Bay region, as well as likely numerous small ports in towns not worth mentioning on the world map. Am I wrong or is this math not adding up?

I'm a bit of an armchair historian, but my area of studies do not include 16th and 17th century pirate activities that as I understand were limited mostly to Privateering during European wars and the escapades of a few notables in the Cuban/Haitian islands vs the Spanish gold trade. Do any Kalamaran guru's here have something to chime in on here, or anyone else for that matter?

I actually think you're on to something, and I also think these numbers must be a bit exaggerated. Pirates are fun and in fantasy games they tend to be overpowered, overrepresented or the like. In fact this is a common falacy in RPGs in general that there can be almost more bandits around than there are people to steal from.

Especially the part about the great pirate fleet with their king and everything was quite overdone I think, it would be like almost a nation in their own right which means piracy suddenly digs into the coffers of the pirate lords themselves. No one is as adamant at preventing forbidden "unlicensed" thievery as a Thieves Guild, almost like RL Mafia could "police" minor criminal activities that may affect their bottom line.

The problem with such a nation is that it becomes a target in their own right from other more established nations, and that they suddenly have obligations and responsibility towards the people they govern.


As for the part about the CoP ships: I played the scenarios as well and I don't think it is intended for the ships to fall into the hands of their players. As you probably know, if a ship encounters an enemy ship and defeats it, the prize money will usually be divided between the crew and captain, not adventureus passangers that happen to board and defeat the opposition single-handedly.

Ships are incredible expensive and allowing them for PCs means a significant reward, especially at low levels (and IIRC the adventure part one is 1st-3rd level).