Half-Spawned by the most recent 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie and slightly more then half by my need for some ideas before next Friday, I’d like to ask the kick-ass idea-givers of RPG.net for any ideas on strange, and unique pirates of any sort.
The sort of world I have in mind is a rather ‘Low-Tech’, around the golden age of piracy at least, world populate either only or mostly by pirates due to a rather strange mad science mishap but if anyone wants to offer differently, I’d love to hear ideas.
Just to note, don’t limit it to just pirates that could function in a low-tech environment. I already have an idea of space pirates crash-landed and trying to make their way with lower tech levels.
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A while ago I posted a set of campaign proposals... one of them was basically Firefly but with Pirate tropes instead of Western tropes. I'll just use this thread as an excuse to repost it
Pirates of the Galactic Main System: Serenity Inspiration: Firefly, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Master & Commander
Earth could no longer support our numbers we were so many. It was in our time of greatest need that we discovered a possible way out: the Great Storm. The Storm is a large area of extensive and often violent wormhole activity, located just outside the Asteroid Belt. In the Storm lies one stable wormhole, the Galactic Main, and it leads to another system… one with a dozen worlds that could be terra-formed to provide space for expansion, and to provide food and other goods for the billions on Earth. But it didn’t solve all the problems. Hundreds, if not thousands of wormholes of different sizes and varying degrees of stability surround the Main. These wormholes buffet ships around with their fluctuating gravity fields, and mess up all electronics, rendering conventional navigation and propulsion technologies useless. And thus came about the second Age of Sail: ships with glimmering solar sails plying waves of time and space through the Storm. At first everyone who could scrounge together a working ship could head off to the Far Shore. But then the big companies started to take more control, with competition becoming more and more aggressive every year. This resulted in the Corporate War, in which the great corporations of Earth battled to gain a monopoly on the one stable wormhole. The Far Shore Trading Company won in the end, and they’ve ruled the Main with an iron fist ever since. That doesn’t keep daring individuals from running the Storm, smuggling goods and people between Earth and the Far Shore, using semi-stable wormholes. It’s dangerous… sometimes wormholes simply cease to exist, taking any ships in them into oblivion, other times worm holes don’t end up at the predicted end, leaving a ship stranded far from any harbor. Some of the larger “pirate” ships have been starting to attack FSTC ships, hauling in tons of money when successful. And now there are the mysterious black ships, rumored to need no sails to cross the Storm. These Phantoms attack ships seemingly at random leaving only ruined empty hulls in their wake, no dead or wounded victims to be found. Being a pirate might be dangerous, but it’s the only way to escape the oppression of the Mega Corporations. And that’s the life you’ve chosen, or perhaps stumbled into. You’re pirates of the Second Age of Sail, sticking it to the FSTC at any possibility. Goal: Take the fun of Firefly and try to transport it to a new setting, one that replaces the Western trappings with Pirate trappings. I’d like to take a bit of grime and dirt of Master & Commander, a bit of the wackiness and swashbuckling goodness from Pirates of the Caribbean, and put a big dollop of Firefly on top. Let’s make this our setting of fun Sci-Fi adventure.
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Actually, I think I remember that one. It’s very cool, even on the second reading. Or the first, seeing as I don't trust my memory. Heck, I'd love to be able to run this too if I had Firefly on me.
I had a feeling that I couldn't actually use this setting though but I might be able to after all but reading this makes me want to explain myself a little more: The world that the characters are going to be thrown into is rather like a universal Sargasso just for pirates, and maybe ships caught in a raid. But, still, the setting is mutable and any ideas can spark something that will change it.
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Are you worried about versimilitude at all? As in "the 7th Sea problem" where you've got piracy with no justification for it's existence. That's why I tend to prefer alt-history or taking Hollywood license with history rather than making stuff up.
Well, as for loot, I'm either going for pirate-nations eventually coming into being or the few 'Raid-summoned' ships actually getting away and trying to get some form of nation up while hiding from the many pirates. Either way, I think it could be interesting for PCs if I ever am able to just play it as a single setting.
But, as verisimilitude, it's slight ‘Whatever is cool’ in that 'Pirates from Everywhen pulled here by Techno-Magic'. Vaguely like Banestorm but only more chaotic and exciting. And, frankly, when I have the Air Ship Pirates in their vast Zeppelin-carrier raiding werewolf-pirates, the suspension of belief won’t matter.
That being said, thanks for the link. Looks very raidable.
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Then there's the 50 Fathoms solution to the problem: there was this place, and it flooded due to a badass curse. Now there's water and pirates appear from another world, also due to the aforementioned badass curse. So you have pirates because there are pirates.
And pirates are cool.
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Due to strange timewarps around the Bermuda Triangle, Hollow Earth Expedition has a semi-stable pirate nation and assorted rogue crews in among the dinosaurs and Nazis.
To get a lot of Golden-Age pirates into the setting at once, the quake that destroyed Port Royal as it was starting to settle down dropped a large number of pirates, privateers, pirate-hunters and innocent bystanders out of the world.
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Mmmhm. It looks like I messed up, once again. Not that any of these idea are bad, quite the opposite – Nazi pirates riding trained Mosasaur just reeks of badassness. Yet I don’t think I explained myself enough. I’m going to try to do it again.
I already have a basis for a world, although general ideas for it are workable. What I am looking for, however, are pirates to populate this world. I already have a few ideas for this: Sky Pirates working from a zeppelin and repairing it with what they raid from other pirates, Werewolf pirates hunting fresh-food and gold, a few down Space Pirates trying to make their way on stolen ships or on their converted lighter-then-water unobtainium hulls, Aztec pyramid ships with blood sacrifices all day and night, Techno-pirates using all sorts of weird technology.
More sorts of ‘weird’ pirates, like Barbossa or Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean, are the best examples I can give though. Any sort of high-weirdness crewing a ship I wanna hear about.
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Re: [Brainstorming] Pirates
The Gill-Men and their Hydroplanes. With little need for dry space aboard their ships, these amphibious humanoids have incredibly fast sailing ships with complex and beautiful hull designs that often have the crew submerged. They also have hunting packs of sharks.
The Aztec pyramid ships are steam-powered, and they frequently need to use their ships of the victims as fuel...
Are you worried about versimilitude at all? As in "the 7th Sea problem" where you've got piracy with no justification for it's existence. That's why I tend to prefer alt-history or taking Hollywood license with history rather than making stuff up.
Pirates are typically bands of murderers, rapist, and thieves and the only thing setting them apart from bandits on land is the fact that they run around on a ship. Pirates have been around for thousands of years, Pompey the Great made a name for himself destroying pirates, and they're still around today. Justification for pirates? That there are valuables to be taken is justification enough for pirates.
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