Re: Pirates - Was: Places: Dragon Rock Map

From: "Danton May" <coyotedkm@?????.com>
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Pirates - Was: Places: Dragon Rock Map


> > 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 a descendant of his!

Hey, that's cool!

> And the Marines are the
> modern version of Drakes.  Our Marines (the USMC) were
> created during the revolutionary war and they were
> based upon the British Royal Marines. The Royal
> Marines evolved from the drakes during the Hundred
> Year war between England and France.  The British
> Royal Marines and our revolutionary era marines were
> basically ship-bound boarding troops.  The navy got
> close, threw out the grappling ropes and dropped
> planks between the ships, then the marines took over
> and ran across the planks, taking the other ship!
> Thus our name, "Marine."  Semper Fi!

>From my understanding, on a ship like a galleon the marines would have been stationed at
one end of the ship and would have also had responsibility for the guns in their area. I
don't know how this could be played out on a spelljammer. Maybe on a ship with 3 weapons
the marines could crew one.

Perhaps a squidship privateer could have 25 regular crew and 20 marines. 12 of the regular
crew would be required to fully man the ship leaving you with 13 regulars to defend the
ship while the marines stormed the other ship.

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/