Re: Pirates - Was: Places: Dragon Rock Map

From: "George "Loki" Williams" <chaos93@?????????.net>
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Places: Dragon Rock Map


> As to the EIN, etc., perhaps they are looking for the pirates but the
> scoundrels keep evading them in the labyrinth of Garden. Sometimes a ship or
> two will be taken, but overall they continue to evade the authorities. Some
> could even be operating under letters of marque issued by one group to prey
> on another....

Don't forget that the elves are no longer the powerful force that they pretend they still
are. In Realmspace alone, they have a deserted base orbiting Kapri. If they hadn't been
decimated in the First Unhuman War, they probably would have enough power to take back
this base...

..and Spiral...

..and all the other places they have been pushed out of.

By the way, people who act under letters of marque are not pirates. They are privateers.
They do act the same in many ways, but are technically a different thing as they both have
a different goal in mind. A pirate attacks ships for money, but a privateer could be at
least partially motivated by the prospect of wearing down the economy of an enemy nation.
Allowing privateers to keep the money they loot, makes the task self financing as they can
then build more ships and become a bigger threat to your enemies. This sort of logic seems
a bit cold and evil today, but at the time of the privateers, nobody had thought of
creating navies like we have today.

The most famous privateer I know was Sir Francis Drake. His actions delayed the Spanish
attempts to invade England, and when they finally did invade he helped to defeat their
fleet. Those are not the sort of things that a typical pirate would do. In later years
Drake may well have been a high ranking member of a special forces organisation like the
Royal Marines, the Commandos or the Special Boat Service.

I'm sure that there was the odd privateer that ran amok and didn't carry out the desires
of whoever gave them a letter of marque, however, doing this would be cutting yourself off
from society. Your letter of marque would be cancelled and you would become an outlaw.

However, I think that the role of privateer would be a good one to offer to players (even
good players). You could pick a certain planet like Spiral, where the good population has
been enslaved, and authorise players to attack all slave ships, supply ships and defence
ships operated from or to the planet. The letter would require the players to work with
local resistance and anyone helping to get the planet ready for liberation.

As the players would effectively be mercenaries, they would *possibly* be looked down on
by some members of organisations like the Company of the Chalice or the Pragmatic Order of
Thought, but I'm sure that they would accept their help.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/