Prepare To Be Boarded

All your gift are belong to us.

Happy holidays, y'scurvy dawgs.

Talk Like a Pirate Day!

A lesson from the master.

Wednesday Wyeth

Standing in for NC Wyeth this week is Howard Pyle, the dean of pirate painters, with a marooned swab contemplating his fate.

Three-fer DVR Alert!

It's a good weekend for pirate movies. Saturday, 22 June, TCM airs Blackbeard the Pirate, with Robert Newton and Linda Darnell. I like Newton's complex portrayal of the infamous buccaneer.

On Sunday, 23 June, TCM shows The Pirate, with Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, and the always entertaining Walter Slezak, and The Crimson Pirate, with Burt Lancaster, Nick Cravat, and Eva Bartok. Both are farces, and I admit I think I've only managed to sit all the way through the former once, but the latter is goofy fun, mostly for Lancaster's and Cravat's stunts.

On Monday, 24 June, TCM changes the theme from pirates to pretenders with The Prisoner of Zenda, the 1953 version with Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, and the wonderfully sinister James Mason, the perfect villain.

Check local listings for times, as always.

Phoning It In Phriday

Getting ready for game-day tomorrow, as Riordan O'Neill and Guillaume Sébastien continue their journey home to Paris from Turin, their exile at an end at last. In the meantime, enjoy a little quiz.

My pirate name is:

Mad William Flint

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
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Graphic Novels Challenge: El Cazador

Let me make something clear right now - I suck at writing reviews.

If you're looking for a discussion of the writers' and artists' body of work and where this fits into their oeuvre, you'll need to look elsewhere - all I'd be doing is parroting someone else's insights. If you're looking for details about the plot and the characters, then you'll be disappointed - I can't stand reviews full of spoilers. I'm not going to waste my time or yours on a lengthy publishing history.

Okay, still with me?

El Cazador is a rare jewel, a pirate comic book that doesn't involve the undead, witchcraft, or mystical relics. The tale is set in 1687, and when I say that, I mean deeply embedded. Snippets of French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch pepper the dialog, reflecting the polyglot pirate crews of Blackjack Tom, Redhand Harry, and Lady Sin, the Spanish noblewoman turned pirate and captain of the eponymous ship, El Cazador (The Hunter). The whole thing is awash in period detail, in both the art and the writing, yet it never loses sight of what it is, a classic high seas cape-and-sword romance. There's mutiny and marooning, fireships and duels, a example of, and a tribute to, the kind of pirate story one might find flowing from the pen of Rafael Sabatini nearly a century ago.

And on top of all that, the artwork is breathtaking. There are a dozen panels at least that I would gladly blow up to poster size, starting with the opening pages featuring a view from the sea floor of fish swimming amidst the wreckage and corpses of an capsized galleon floating above.

El Corazon, written by Chuck Dixon and penciled by Steve Epting, first appeared in 2003 and ran for six issues until the publisher, CrossGen, went belly up the next year, bringing the series, and Lady Sin's quest for revenge against Blackjack Tom, to an abrupt and unwelcome halt. The six issues were collected and published as a graphic novel by Hyperion Paperbacks in 2007, and if my copy is at all representative, they did a pretty crap job of it - my pages are near to falling out as the spine crackles and snaps every time I gently thumb through the book.

It's a real shame this story never found its way to completion - Lady Sin would appear in Sigil in 2011, after Marvel acquired GrossGen's rights, but in a new storyline - but there is a lot of solid inspiration for cape-and-sword campaigns found between the covers of El Cazador.

"But why is all the rum gone?!"

Happy New Year, everyone.

Cinematic Reruns: Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl

Update (31/12/12 1143): Well, curse those rotters at Disney for yanking another video . . .

Yo Ho Ho!

Make merry, ye swabs.

Boarding Action

Flashing Blades' maritime supplement, High Seas, introduces rules for creating characters such as pirates and sailors and their careers, building and crewing ships, and shipboard combat, including boarding actions. The rule for boarding are bloody, in my experience, as the fight begins with each side raked by musket and pont gunfire, followed by a general melee.

Player characters are treated a bit differently, as described on page 21 of High Seas.

In boarding melee, player-characters should not be subjected to the normal brawl and chaos, and should not be counted among those killed by gunfire and melee combat. Player-characters in boarding melee should be forced to fight, using the personal combat rules. Assume that one enemy will engage a player-character in combat every [shipboard combat] turn (once every five normal personal combat turns) if he is not already engaged. In addition, player-characters may attempt to perform Heroic Actions . . .

The rules as written are fine, but in combats involving, say, a pair of galleons with hundreds of crew members, they are slow. In contrast, the rules for military campaign engagements are faster, so I've adapted the engagement rules for shipboard action.

As per the original campaign rules, all characters participating in a boarding party must roll for injury and special events.

. . . All characters must choose their attitude during combat, before the results of each encounter are determined: cowardly, average, or heroic. Chance of injury is rolled on 2D6.

The following modifiers are applied to the 2D6 roll and the results determined from the table below.

Rank:

Master at Arms + 1
Chief Gunner - 1
First Officer - 1
Sailmaster - 2
Ship's Pilot - 3
First Mate - 3
Captain - 3
Fleet Commander - 4
Admiral - 5

Duties:

Sail Crew - 1
Gunnery Crew + 1
Helm Crew - 1
Marines + 2
Officers + 1

Attitude and Results of Engagement modifiers are as per the original rules.

Modified Roll	Result
7 or less	no injury
8	powder burns (1 pt. general damage)
9-10	minor pistol wound (2 pts. damage to a random location)
11	minor hand axe wound (3 pts. damage to a random location)
12-13	minor cutlass wound (4 pts. damage to a random location)
14	minor swivel gun wound (5 pts. damage to a random location)
15-16	serious pistol wound (2 + 1D6 pts. damage to a random location)
17	serious hand axe wound (3 + 1D6 pts. damage to a random location)
18-19	serious cutlass wound (4 + 1D6 pts. damage to a random location)
20-21	serious swivel gun wound (5 + 1D6 pts. damage to a random location)

Each character also rolls for a special event.

Directly after rolling for injury, roll for special events (there is no time to rest or regain Hit Points). The chance for special events is also rolled on 2D6, . . . . There are three special events tables, one for each of the three possible outcomes of the encounter: French Victory, French Defeat, and Draw.

The modifiers for the special events roll are below.

Rank:

Captain - 1
Squadron commander or above - 2

Duties:

Sail Crew - 1
Gunnery Crew + 1
Helm Crew - 3
Marines + 2 Officers - 1

The modifiers for Attitude - Heroic, Average, or Cowardly - taken during the battle are as per the military campaign rules.

Modified Roll	Special Events for Victory
8 or less	No special event
9	Personal Encounter with enemy sailor (character must fight one-on-one at close range with an enemy sailor, rolled up by the Gamemaster)
10	Personal Encounter with enemy marine or trained fighter (character must fight one-on-one at close range with an enemy marine or other trained fighter, rolled up by the Gamemaster)
11-12	Fight to gain control of strategic position (character takes part in a heroic action - cutting sails and rigging, lighting the ship's magazine, or ungrappling, per the rules on pages 21 and 22 of High Seas, plus another roll on the injury table)
13	Personal Encounter with an enemy Officer (character must fight one-on-one, at close range with an enemy Officer, rolled up by the Gamemaster; if reduced to 1/2 of his Hit Points, he may be subdued, taken prisoner, and ransomed back to his side)
14-17	Chance to take enemy flag (this includes a Personal Encounter with a marine, and two more rolls on the injury table)

Modified Roll	Special Events for Draw
9 or less	No special event
10-11	Personal Encounter with enemy sailor (as listed above)
12-13	Personal Encounter with enemy marine or trained fighter (as listed above)
14-17	Personal Encounter with an enemy Officer (as listed above)

Modified Roll	Special Events for Defeat
7 or less	No special event
8-10	Personal Encounter with enemy sailor (as listed above)
11-12	Personal Encounter with enemy marine or trained fighter (as listed above)
13	Surrounded (character must fight his way through an enemy sailor, or be captured)
14	Fight to defend strategic position (character takes part in a desperate defense of the ship's magazine, &c.; this includes a Personal Encounter with an enemy marine or trained fighter, plus another roll on the injury table)
15-17	Chance to regain ship's flag (character attempts to regain the ship's flag; this includes a Personal Encounter with a marine, and two more rolls on the injury table)

Taking a heroic action successfully, capturing the enemy's flag, defending a strategic position, or regaining the ship's flag all qualify for either an extra share or a bonus, as per High Seas, page 22.

(A special thanks to Beedo at Dreams in the Lich House for reminding me to get this done.)

Wednesday Wyeth

Book Faire

It's Book Faire week at my kids' school, and I met my son's class this morning to check out the selection with him - and to keep him from blowing his money on crap toys, the number of which seems to proliferate each year, unfortunately.

He picked out a book on baseball's greatest hitters, and another on snakes - complete with 3D glasses - and finally, You Wouldn't Want To be a Ninja Warrior! a book I pointed him toward knowing his love of Ninjago.

I'd never heard of the You Wouldn't Want to Be . . . series before, but in addition to the book on ninja warriors, I also purchased two other titles, You Wouldn't Want to Be a Samurai! and - this will surprise no one - You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pirate's Prisoner!

Pirate's Prisoner describes the fate of a Spanish treasure ship captain captured by pirates in 1716. The book opens with a description of the treasure and supplies aboard the captain's galleon, a map of the Caribbean, and a description of sailing in convoy for protection. After the ship is separated from the convoy, English pirates swoop in aboard a fast-moving sloop and capture the galleon. What follows describes the trials and tribulations inflicted on the Spanish captain as the pirates attempt to learn more about the treasure fleet's course. In the process the book covers everything from how ship's crews manage their food and water to the rules of piracy to what the various crew members on a ship are called and what they do - and it also describes, in clear-eyed detail, different tortures inflicted by the pirates on their prisoners, including flogging, keelhauling, and more, as well as the fate of the pirates once they are captured and brought to justice.

I'm impressed by this book for a couple of reasons. First, I like that it doesn't attempt to talk down to kids. The darkly comic illustrations manage to present the gravity of the Spanish captain's situation - and the reality of pirates' treatment of prisoners - without devolving into grotesque horror. Second, it's a remarkable resource on life at sea in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

For gamers who want run or play in a historical roleplaying game campaign, children's books, particularly the study guides found in teachers' supplies stores, offer a great alternative to academic history texts or even popular history books. They present details of daily life in ways that many history books written for adult audiences don't; if you want to know the material culture of a medieval knight, or a Renaissance painter, or a wagon train scout, you could do far worse than finding a children's book on the Crusades or Michelangelo or Westward Expansion. Better still, they tend to be much more extensively illustrated than history written for adults. In short, children's books often have exactly the sorts of details which gamers want for running a historical campaign.

Cinematic: Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides

Cinematic: The Black Swan

Wednesday Wyeth

"Flint was cap'n; I was quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me — out of college and all — Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts' men, that was, and corned of changing names to their ships — Royal Fortune and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let her stay, I says. So it was with the Cassandra, as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after England took the Viceroy of the Indies; so it was with the old Walrus, Flint's old ship, as I've seen a-muck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold."

Now that's how you talk like a pirate!

Write Like a Pirate Day

T'morrow vve celebrayte thayt Moft Ancient and Revyr'd reval, Talke Lyke a Pyrate Day, butt todaye lett uf tayke a mom. too contemplayt ye manner, ftyl, &c bye whych ye moft lern'd Pyratef expreff thymfelfs bye vvaye of ye VVryttin VVerd.

Fome goode advife for thows moft Intrepyd Ryfereef who lycke to creayte propf fuch af lettyrf or othr. fimylr Documyntf af handowts for thyr playerf.

Qvod erat demonftrandum.

Cinematic: Cutthroat Island

A Dark Sail on the Horizon: Addendum

My Mediterranean-flavored derivation of the High Seas random maritime encounters table for Flashing Blades uses the phrase "nearest sea power" for several encounters.

Here's a guide to the "nearest sea power" in the Mediterranean of the early 17th century.

Location	Nearest Sea Power
Alboran Sea	Spain (1-5), Algiers (Barbary state) (6)
Baeleric Sea (includes Gulf of Lion)	Spain (1-4), Barbary states (5), France (6)
Ligurian Sea	France (1), Savoy (2-3), Genoa (4-6)
Tyrrhenian Sea	Tuscany (1-2), Papal States (3), Spain (Naples) (4-6)
Adriatic Sea	Venice (1-4), Ottoman Empire (5), Ragusa (6)
Ionian Sea	Spain (Naples) (1-2), Venice (3-4), Ottoman Empire (5), Knights of Saint John (Malta) (6)
Aegean Sea	Ottoman Empire (1-6)
Sea of Crete	Ottoman Empire (1-3) Venice (4-6)
Libyan Sea (includes Gulf of Sidra)	Barbary states (1-2), Ottoman Empire (3-5), Knights of Saint John (6)
Levantine Sea	Ottoman Empire (1-6)

The Libyan Sea stretches along the coast of North Africa from Tunisia to Egypt; the Levantine Sea is the far eastern extent of the Mediterranean Sea from a line running roughly from Rhodes to Alexandria.

A Dark Sail on the Horizon

High Seas, the piracy supplement to Flashing Blades, includes a random encounter table most applicable to the waters of the West Indies and Europe; however, it's poorly suited to the maritime activity of the Mediterranean. Accordingly, I made my own.

Encounters at Sea - Mediterranean

Roll (d6, d6)	Encountered Ship(s)
11	A lightly armed French merchant tartane (Corsair)
12	A lightly armed patrol ship (Small Galley) belonging to the nearest sea power
13	A heavily armed Spanish Galleon
14	A heavily armed Pirate/Privateer Corsair
15	A lightly armed Barbary Small Warship
16	A heavily armed English defenceable ship (merchant Small Warship)
21	A Dutch convoy of two lightly armed Merchantmen and two heavily armed Small Warships
22	Two heavily armed Spanish Galleons
23	Two lightly armed Sallee Rover Corsairs
24	A heavily armed Knights of Saint John greatship (Large Warship)
25	A heavily armed Spanish Merchantman
26	A heavily armed Large Warship belonging to the nearest sea power searching for Pirates/Privateers
31	A lightly armed English pinnace (Corsair)
32	A heavily armed Ragusan argosy (Galleon)
33	A small Spanish fleet (1D6 Large Galleys plus a lightly armed Merchantmen)
34	A heavily armed Venetian Merchantman
35	A heavily armed Barbary Pirate (Small Warship)
36	Two lightly armed pinnaces (Corsairs) belonging to the nearest sea power
41	A heavily armed Ottoman Merchantman
42	A small French fleet (1D6+1 lightly armed Small Galleys)
43	Two lightly armed Genoese Merchantmen
44	A heavily armed Barbary Pirate Corsair (1-3)/Small Galley(4-6)
45	A lightly armed French Merchantman
46	A lightly armed Dutch Merchantman
51	A small Barbary fleet (1D6+1 Small Warships)
52	A heavily armed Venetian Large Galley
53	Two heavily armed patrol ships (Small Galleys) belonging to the nearest sea power
54	A lightly armed Greek tartana (Corsair)
55	A heavily armed Spanish or Ottoman Large Galley
56	An English convoy of two heavily armed defenceable ships (merchant Small Warships) escorted by two heavily armed Large Warships
61	A Barbary Fleet (2D6 heavily armed Small Warships)
62	An English Fleet (1D6 merchant Small Warships and 1D6 Large Warships)
63	Sallee Rovers Pirate Fleet (2D6 heavily armed Corsairs)
64	Spanish or Ottoman Galley Fleet (2D6 heavily armed Large Galleys)
65	A heavily armed Dutch Galleon
66	Spanish or Ottoman Treasure Fleet (1D6 heavily armed Galleons escorted by 1D6 heavily armed Large Warships)

Notes -

• "Knights" refers to the galleys and roundships of the Knights of Saint John (Malta) (1-4) or Knights of San Stefano (Tuscany) (5-6)
• English and Ragusan ships always have reinforced hulls (+ 5 Hull Hit Points)
• Dutch ships always have reinforced masts and superior quality sail canvas and ropes (+5 Rigging Hit Points) and are close-hauled and fitted with superior rudders (+ 1 Handling)
• Spanish ships always carry the maximum number of marines possible
• "Spanish" include Neapolitan ships
• "Pirate/Privateer" encounters consist of European pirates (1-3), perhaps wold-be renegadoes on their way to join the Barbary corsairs, or privateers (4-6) employed by one of the Mediterranean sea powers (1-4) or the Knights of Saint John (5-6)
• Ottoman Warships and Galleons carry the maximum number of cannons royal allowed
• "Barbary" referes to the corsair fleets of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli
• "Sallee Rovers" referes to the pirate fleet of the Republic of Salé along the cost of modern Morocco
• Greek ships may be Ottoman (1-3) or Venetian (4-6)
• "Spanish or Ottoman" is a special case - if the encounter takes place west of Sicily, the encountered ships are Spanish, and if the encounter takes place east of Sicily, the encountered ships are Ottoman
• "Treasure Fleet" refers to either Spanish ships carrying specie to Genoa or Naples or Ottoman ships carrying tribute from Alexandria to Constantinople

Cosplay Pirate Lass

Sorry, guys, but this just ain't happenin' in our campaign, so don't ask.