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| source: RPGGeek.com |
Ship and Role determination is usually done as a group, but since I'm doing this on my own as an exercise I'll just trust my own judgement and any advice the designers provide.
First, a ship. The designers recommend starting small, with a sloop, fluyt., or barque. The sloop is lighter (6 hull points as opposed to 10) but faster (6 sail points as opposed to 4) and carries less crew (max 2 points vs 3) than the fluyt, with the same base firepower (3). The barque is larger and slower (10 hull, 5 sail) than the sloop, but carries more crew (5) and guns (also 5). The sloop also has capacity for only 3 modifications (including a cargo hull), as opposed to 7 for the fluyt and 8 for the barque. But I like the speed of the sloop; it's a good smuggling boat and can get in and out of trouble quickly. The low hull and crew ratings are a bit worrisome--the first number represents the ship's structural hit points, the second its capacity to take personnel losses--but piracy is a dangerous game and
For my two modifications I foresee some tough decisions. I can upgrade the Hull with Shallow Draft or Smuggler's Compartments, I can boost our Sail rating with cotton (+1) or silk (+2) sails, I can add chaser guns or carronades to build up its firepower, or I can add hammocks to raise the ship's Crew rating. Shallow Draft is the only one that can't be added later, so that's going on the list to help us evade customs frigates and other large predators by cutting through shoals. That leaves one more. I see this crew starting out as smugglers and then drifting into piracy, so starting out with extra guns is kind of unnecessary--as is extra crew. The secret compartments are very tempting, but so is the extra sail. We're going all-in on smuggling: Smuggler's Compartments it is, better sails can wait.
Ship still needs a name; I'll get back to that after we've built our crew member and deal with both at once. The first thing we need to know about our character is their role in the ship's crew. All the options are positions of relative authority; ordinary Able Mariners are apparently all NPCs or abstracted as Crew points. Suggested Roles include Captain, Quartermaster, Pilot, Bosun (or Boatswain if you're inclined to be fancy about it), Master Gunner, and Ship's Doctor. I'm ready for another Big Bruiser, and the Bosun's qualifications include being loud, strong, and fighty, so sign me up. The associated Trait is Discipline, which provides advantage on Tests to get orders obeyed by the crew as well as Tests to gauge the crew's morale.
Now I choose two more Traits to customize our Bosun. There are lots of melee-related options as well as ones relating to size and strength; again it's going to be a tough pair of choices. Large grants a hit point bonus (+2) as well as an increased reach (Near with Light Melee weapons and Far with Heavy Melee Weapons, that's a one-zone boost), for the sake of variety I'll take that over Strong's advantage on Strength tests. And then there's Barfighter, which grants proficiency with improvised weapons and (in lieu of a Mastery option) adds an extra Action if you're wielding one. (Alas, belaying pins and boathooks do not seem to count as improvised weapons; I'll need some other heavy blunt instrument to serve my beatdown purposes.)
We've just covered Weapon Group and Mastered Weapon above, so let us proceed to Background. How did we become this large, loud, felonious person? I assume the largeness occurred naturally, with perhaps some help from a bountiful diet. A well-nurtured foundling, perhaps. Raised in a religious orphanage. Treated kindly until one fateful day, one bad decision, and then expelled from the Garden shortly before he was due to age out. Ran away to sea, fell in with a smuggling gang that put his size and strength to work, first for loading and unloading and eventually, as he earned respect, as the sailors' offcial foreman.
Does that arc lend it self to a particular Belief? Our dude may have some trust issues or deep-seated guilt about the incident that got him kicked out of the orphanage (I imagine it as a romantic but not-overtly-sexual entanglement with one of the novices). Whatever you give of yourself, keep your heart close may suggest storylines I wouldn't really want to play out, but for our purposes here it will be fine.
Jean-Marie "Longhand" Bernard, formerly of Martinique, scoots around the Caribbean with the officers and crew of the sloop Rossignol ("nightingale"), evading customs duties to deliver minor luxuries and contraband around the turn-of-the-18th-century Caribbean. He has a reputation as a hard and brooding man but a reliable comrade, a doughty fighter and a melancholy drunk.
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