We started off with AP-2 this weekend and I decided to stock up Rickety's quite a bit to account for its continued existence :
Population : 400+ ( mostly workers, but some guards with heavy siege engines to assure pirates actually paying up and not slaughter everyone after having their ship finished ), There are also some outlying farms ( plantations )for local foodstuff and breeding for the oxen doing the heavy labour. Which also means, some hinterland, where in case of attack, people can flee too, out of reach of a quick coastal attack.
Some more building like a brig (prison) for unruly guests, some forges for copper sheating and fittings used on drydocked ships, and a crane for actually setting masts ! And of course a lumberyard, to restock yards and planking
All of the later proved rather much fun, when the wasps attacked with a fun running battle through the shipyard, and I added in some extra sidetrecks on location for the characters to get some attachment to Rickety's and later, test new crew and the "old acquaintance" they'd met.
The larger population also permitted some recruiting of potential co-pirates from the "scum" left off there, since otherwise the PCs would be stuck with very few people to actually crew the vessel. nevermind my group actually needing to introduce a new PC
Anyone have any more bright ideas for Rickety's ?
And is there any good (aka official) information for Bloodcove besides what is published in "River into Darkness" ?
sounds good but woudn't it have caused problems with the drought..oxen famished, plantations withering etc.
Not that it matters of course, main thing is your'e having fun I do like the extra buildings though, gives the place more of a reason to be there.
As for Bloodcove, there is a 2 page write up in Heart of the Jungle. Map is rubbish so use the one form River of Drakness as i did. Al lot of the places are still not fleshed out so it gives you a lot of room to embelish as you see fir
sounds good but woudn't it have caused problems with the drought..oxen famished, plantations withering etc.
Not that it matters of course, main thing is your'e having fun I do like the extra buildings though, gives the place more of a reason to be there.
Drought is a temporary problem. Yeah , people might complain about maize or the harvest drying (I actually had them haggle over provisions on this ), but actually, the real drought might well be further upland, with the river drying out, and "things" flocking downstream. Food is scarce and any sort of law is...negotiable.
Anyway "droughts, in warm tropical waters and close to the coastline are somehow odd. Just channeling Indonesia here.Personally, I find the concept of a "hidden" ( not so much) shipyard all out on a lonely beach... picturesque, for sure. Which means, everybody and his grandmother might have good reason to plunder it for immediate gain and eliminating witnesses. People like Harrigan or any number of pirates from AP-3.
Pirates and all, no honour among them..
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We are very close to completing book 1 - mutiny went down last night and they are heading into Riptide Cove to rescue Sandara and Rosie. I too thought upon reading it that Rickety's needed some substantial beefing up, not only to justify it's continued existence, but because it has been well over a month, almost two since this crew set into any port. They are desperately in need of supplies, recruiting new crew, and a break from the sea. A place with room for a bit of entertainment and find some volunteers seems crucial at this point.
I picture Rickety's significantly different than ya'll I think: it's more of a glorified hideout than any source of civilization. It needs to keep a low profile to do what he does, so being a point-of-pleasure or a restocking-point kind of defeats the purpose. If Rickety Squibs was in a city - it'd be underground, acessable only from a loose-stone in a gutter, and with the lanterns burning low to not attraction attention. Any entertainment and/or supplies that are there should be coincidental - this is a place of business. It should be a very Viking setting with the PCs bringing more liveliness to the location than the otherway around. Note that one the next stops for the PCs is probably more fresh water - which is even in low supply at Rickety's.
Do you expect to go to your car body repair shop to get hookers and beer? If so, please tell me where!
All that said - I do think that I am going to work in a small pirate-accepting settlement into one of their stops during book 2 (with full understanding that they don't have the standing, yet, to travel to Port Peril). It might be one of the 'reasons' they have to go travelling through the shackles rather than just pillaging randomly. Maybe Kroop knows a guy at lil-pirateville that has some ideas about cracking the rock...
Rickety Squibs - in our campaign - is a "free run" drydock and place of hauling over ships. Plus accidentally meeting traders who might buy any plunder....
"Squibbing" does not really work on wooden ships( and I would love to find out where the authors got that fun idea... Frederick Forsyth ? ), and with the crew being pirates, aka "ship-snatchers", meeting Harrigan in another ship one day is really only one capture away. My players are hidebound for getting a brig anyway
As for bars and brothels - your call, but having a pirate crew come ashore and doing nothing (!) for a couple of days, landlocked, without much "work" is an invitation for wholesale slaughter, from mere assault to rape, plunder and pillaging. I'd rate any such enterprises under "self-preservation"...
"your wife looks really beautiful..."
"She is 52 years and a stout Iomedean, and your dear sir will keep your filthy hands off her.."
"So she knows the ropes, right ? Knows how to unwind and where to pull them levers, Savvy ?"
.....
My greater point: why would traders come to Rickety's? Or more: why would YOU want to have your ship renamed and overhauled at Rickety's knowing that there is a stream of regular traders there?
The historical (and/or realistic) concept of squibbing - I'm going to claim ignorance on this as an entire historical process and deal with it as it appears in the story. Part of the point of squibbing is that it is done in secrecy (this is especially true as a plot point with the arrival of the other captain). That isn't to say that there aren't some very light amenities at Rickety's, but they should be enough to 'get the job done' more than be Disney Land. IE: any courtisans are likely also workers (and probably double as bar/commons maids), only a small selection of liquor (rum and ale mostly, with wine being reserved for christening?), and the crew's accomidations are probably no more than 2-3 dorms with bunks, etc. I'd imagine that the shipwrights at Rickety's are there on a rotating basis - their in-and-out is probably all that really drives trade. That, and Rickety acquiring loot/items/etc as part of payment. One ship per week doesn't seem to be a significan't selling point - especially since if someone just took a ship and needs it reworked, there's a high likely hood that they have all that was on that ship. The 'market' at Rickety's just doesn't seem to be there.
Personally, I am going to play off of the relatively baron landscape to emphasise the trust that does exist in the pirate culture (to help counter their first month of rebelliousness on the Wurmwood and Man's Promise). Rickety rewarding the PCs for saving a drowning employee and other acts of generosity can go to help show that pirating in the Shackles doesn't have to be as ruthless as their induction on the Wurmwood makes it seem.
My greater point: why would traders come to Rickety's? Or more: why would YOU want to have your ship renamed and overhauled at Rickety's knowing that there is a stream of regular traders there?
How many drydocks in the area, and places to have ship repairs (major repairs, like a lower mast) done for you ? Places with a forge for metalwork ? Places where you could get copper sheating for the hull and have it fitted ? Repair a rudder ?
Which are not in a major town/tradeport where a pirate's enemies are many ?
And traders : Anchor out in the Bay, out of sight of the docks. Provisions shipped between vessels by longboat or going side by side, hauling stuff over in nets. Works well for a Rickety's as written. And three or four traders ( a small cartel, basically smugglers/fences) is all that is needed.
Selling amenities to Rickety's who will charge major amount of money for reselling. Going home with illicit wares grabbed at the place
"Squibbing" : Sailing ships are build around three key features : the keel, the frames (giving the hull its shape) and the masts, which are rested on the keel. You can't change those, without completely rebuilding the ship from the core up. Basically, building the ship anew - which takes months, if not years. And changing any of these would massively change the funtional concept of your vessel. Shipbuilding engineers would be a must.
I do understand the concept of squibbing - just not in any real historical context outside of very superficial changes (think the sloppy sailing, name/signage change and lower yardarm in Master and Commander).
As described in the text of the AP - squibbing just changes the lines of the ship in a significant enough manner. If the squibbing is done in a public setting, then the squibbing is useless. Regardless of the actual changes done to the boat - it needs to be done in a secluded place to have any real effect.
I think that if you really want to make Rickety's a larger port of call, then you need to avoid the concept of squibbing all together and just make it a place for repairs, etc. But then you're diminishing the importance of getting the free captaincy in the next book. "hey, if we can just steal from a free captain, flaunt it, and get away with it, why would we need to go through the whole ordeal of being trusted by other pirates?" That PCs are supposed to be avoiding pirate civilization and laying low after dissing a major pirate (but at the same time come to find hints that there are lots of people that dislike Harrigan as well).
We can go in a circle on this, and ultimately it's your campaign - but I do strongly feel that the very secretive/secluded nature of Rickety's is essential to make much of the story work. You're trading a minor unacceptability of engineering (the squibbing) with many other story inconsistencies.
Ahoy!
I'm desperately waiting for Amazon to ship me my first two books of Skull & Shackles, having just discovered them, so it took me awhile to understand this squibbing.
There should be historical context to squibbing. I remember a couple of times in Patrick O'Brian's fantastic Master & Commander series that they changed the look of a ship... unfortunately not specific enough to quote when and where. I think they changed the height and rake (angle from perpendicular) of one or more of the masts. They also changed the rigging, i.e. the lengths of the yards and spreaders for the shrouds, which change the angles of the stays.
I don't think it needs to be too secretive unless the dock "knows" the original ship. It should take a very high Profession (sailor) check to recognize a specific ship after some cosmetic changes (paint equivalent & wood work) and squibbing, because you would have to recognize the hull. Plus, that check would be nigh impossible at a distance.
my two cents
cheers
Ahoy!
I'm desperately waiting for Amazon to ship me my first two books of Skull & Shackles, having just discovered them, so it took me awhile to understand this squibbing.
There should be historical context to squibbing. I remember a couple of times in Patrick O'Brian's fantastic Master & Commander series that they changed the look of a ship... unfortunately not specific enough to quote when and where. I think they changed the height and rake (angle from perpendicular) of one or more of the masts. They also changed the rigging, i.e. the lengths of the yards and spreaders for the shrouds, which change the angles of the stays.
I don't think it needs to be too secretive unless the dock "knows" the original ship. It should take a very high Profession (sailor) check to recognize a specific ship after some cosmetic changes (paint equivalent & wood work) and squibbing, because you would have to recognize the hull. Plus, that check would be nigh impossible at a distance.
my two cents
cheers
Noone ever changed the heights of any mast in O'Brians books. And a mast's rake - yeah, just tilting the mast backwards (or forward, if you want to) does not alter the silhouette - the rake is only a few degrees anyway, and you need a light mast... There also is a trick to "simulate mast by stringing up a hawser to the gaff, simulating a fake mizzen.
They also repaint "HMS Sophie" several times to make her look like a "neutral" brig they encounter, and there is some cloth and blacked out windows shenannigans in the "Master and Commander" movie, but none of that is permanent. Books to read for this would be "Master and Commander" and I think in "Surgeon's Mate". Or any biography of Thomas Cochrane, on whom the exploits are based.
And napoleonic mariners could actually judge where and when a ship was build just by judging the fluting of the hull, line of the bows and similar features ( French, Dutch, Spanish etc..).
There actually was some "squibbing" in a slightly similar way described in RL history. In the 20th century, e.g. that of German auxillary cruisers during WW-I, but those had prepared extra smokestacks to take up and down (non functional), metal sheets to temporarily alter the silhouette and cranes that could be repositioned to make the ship look like another vessel of roughly similar shape, and those Cruisers were chosen because they looked similar to neutral vessels in the first place. And none of the stuff was either functional (like a sail ships load-bearing mast), nor permanent. Paint shapes could shorten the silhouette, but that is a pretty modern concept, and works best in bad light at medium distances. And against submarines.
Altering a ship's hull = means replacing up to 120 solid wood frames, of bent and precisely cut 4"+ oak or other hardwood which stretch all the way to the maindeck and above. Tempered wood. Tearing out wooden bolts and nails, and several inches of hull. Rather like altering a man's silhouette, by tearing out his ribs (and backbone) and replacing them. Only harder^^ Or like passing off a Boeing 737 as an Airbus 321.
Recognition : Positioning and length of masts, plus location to each other and placement of sails. Hull upper shape is usually very distinctive too - how far does the fore- and sterncastle jut up and sideways, galleries, proportions, placement of hatches (and gunports), placement of lanterns, size of the head/beak.
...
But then you're diminishing the importance of getting the free captaincy in the next book. "hey, if we can just steal from a free captain, flaunt it, and get away with it, why would we need to go through the whole ordeal of being trusted by other pirates?" That PCs are supposed to be avoiding pirate civilization and laying low after dissing a major pirate (but at the same time come to find hints that there are lots of people that dislike Harrigan as well).
I am unsure why picking a new ship of one's own and going for a free capitancy "on our own" is... hmm much different then waltzing about in the Man's Promise ?
And why precisely would the plot be to avoid "pirate civilisation", since the PCs are supposed to build up Infamy and Disrepute in pirate ports.... by being brave and dashing and ruthless or by "cracking the Rock" etc.
Methinks, the PCs are very much supposed to show off, in public and as wildly as possible.... And they might need an initial, if limited in overall opportunity base to get recruits, sell some plunder and listen for some rumours to act upon.
Hmm. My memory isn't great but sometimes google-fu compensates.
Noone ever changed the heights of any mast in O'Brians books.
It was the HMS Surprise
Hmm. My memory isn't great but sometimes google-fu compensates.
Noone ever changed the heights of any mast in O'Brians books.It was the HMS Surprise
Correct, they did ( off screen ).
And well, done in drydock, during a lengthy refit, by a masting hulk and to restore her original french sailing plan( AFAIK). The Royal Navy had downsized the masts initially, just as they had her re-classed ( french corvette to sixth-rate, than fifth-rate ship -which was when she actually gained the fifth rate mast - of the line) and changed her armaments.So.. basically it's the restoration of an original condition in a confused Royal Navy way ? Nevermind one will need a 60'+ mainmast lathed and turned into shape in a watermill.
And in fact, it made the HMS Surprise more distinctive.
Overall, my group just swapped ships yesternight, and are now based in the Chelian Cutter "Ferryman's Grave" ex-"Volsfang". I guess, for now. The "Mans Promise" is up for sale.