Blood Money

====INTRO

Blood Money, the ultimate pirate builder

The action takes place between 1505-1710 AD in an alternate historical earth in which, although fantasy races and monsters exist, knowledge of magic was lost when the library of Alexandria burned down, and no magic has been practiced by anyone in an extremely long time, though natural magic remains present, and nature still regularly (but extremely rarely) forms elementals and golems naturally without any magic-user making them. These natural elementals and golems do not have minds, and simply protect the area they formed in from any intruder. Undead except liches exists. Dragons exist. Sea Monsters exist. Elves Dwarves & Halflings exist. Additionally, fantasy minerals such as mithril and adamant exist. Finally, the Platinum Gold Silver Bronze Copper coinage system is used.

The goal of the game is simple; amass wealth, status, and power on the high seas.

====SHEET

Sheet is as follows. Name, Culture, Sex, Age, Race, Adventuring Class, Skills, and Fluff are to be filled out by players. The remainder the game master issues after reviewing and approving the application.

Name:
Culture: (which great power you are from)
Sex: (male or female)
Age: (a number)
Race: (what fantasy race or human type you are)
Fluff: (up to 3 paragraphs, minimum 1 paragraph, where paragraph is defined as 5 sentences).
Adventuring class: (if any, valid classes are; Fighter, Thief, Rogue, Fighter/Thief, Bard, and Bard/Rogue)
Skills: (choosing 2 from the list)
Current Finances: (a number)
Current Hostilities: (a list of great powers that are hostile towards you, this list starts at none unless your background merits a hostile power)
Current spouse: (if any, getting one enhances some aspects of the game)
Social class: (Poverty, Lower, Middle, Upper, Aristocrat)
Flagship’s Name & Size: (if you have one, if you start out with one you may select a name for it after approval)
Fleet: (number of ships of each size you have, if you have any)
Crew: (number of crew members)
Cannon: (number of cannons of each type you have)
Powder: (a score reflecting how many cannon shots or gun shots you can do)
Guns: (a numbers and types list of muskets flintlocks etc you have)
Melee weapons: (how many and what type swords maces axes etc)
Powder weapons: (how many and what type grenades you have)
Trade Goods: (number and type of trade goods you have, if you have any)
Exotic Goods: (rare and exotic things like flying carpets, ming vases, adamantine jewelry, water from the fountain of youth, etc, a types and numbers list)

====SHIPS

Tiny – Smallest ships, full crew at 12, 8 guns, holds 1&1/2 weeks of supplies
Small – Full crew at 16, 12 guns, holds 2 weeks of supplies
Medium – Full crew at 26, 14 guns, holds 2 months of supplies
Big – Full crew at 38, 18 guns, holds 4 months of supplies
Large – Full crew at 58, 26 guns, holds 7 months of supplies
Huge – Full crew at 72, 34 guns, holds 1 year worth of supplies
Gigantic – Full crew at 88, 42 guns, holds 2 years worth of supplies
Colossal – Full crew at 96, 48 guns, holds 3 years worth of supplies

Importantly, at this time and for the scope of the game, most ships only hold half their guns on each side, so the common practice is a form of attack called broadsiding, in which a ship turns about so that it’s cannons can hit the other ship and fires while roughly side-by-side.

===GUNS

These are the ship cannons, all of these are cannons.

Saker – two 1/4th pound shots or one ½ pound shot

Coulvern – three 1 pound shots at a time or one 4 pound shot

Snubtip – very short range, tremendously damaging grapeshot cannon

LeGrande – three 2&1/2 pound shots or one 6 pound shot

Crane – High accuracy long range artillery cannon, 4&1/3rd pound shot

Hound – Slightly more accurate than a sharpshooter’s musket, shoots a 2 pound ball.

Canolino – shoots a 3 pound peanut-shaped tumbling shot

Dragoneux – ornate dragon designed gun, fires it’s 5 pound shot at 2x normal speed

Gorgon – 8 pound shot or two 3&3/4ths pound shots.

Fulcinero – 12 pound shot, powder-intensive

Pelican – Four 4 pound shots at once, specially designed to shoot four shots at a time

===MUSKETS

These are the muskets.

Rifle – Shoots 1 rifle-ball shot, then needs reloading.

Pistol – Shoots 1 pistol-ball shot before it needs reloading.

Shot gun – Shoots 1 burst of rifle-ball grape shot, then needs reloading.

Sharp rifle – Significantly more expensive rifle musket that is very accurate.

Sharp pistol – significantly more expensive pistol musket that is very accurate.

Lanceur – A rifle that shoots a harpoon point instead of a shot ball, considered barbaric but still commonly used.

Needle – A rifle that shoots a sword-point instead of a shot ball, considered a barbaric thing of the past, but still commonly used.

Shredder – Another barbaric gun, this one fires a short-range grapeshot cloud of caltrop shaped projectiles and is designed to do such, so seldom suffers blow-up-in-hand failures.

Scorchier – A pistol that releases a short range cloud of fire each shot and must be reloaded after firing one fire burst.

Donderbuss – Short range specialty pistol that fires a burst of pistol-ball grapeshot. It is designed to fire grapeshot, so it seldom suffers the tragic ‘blow up in your hand’ that grapeshot nat-1s result in.

Harpooniero – A gun resembling a shot gun, but it fires a single large spear point. Mostly used for whale hunting.

Bombardi – A shot & powder bazooka that fires a 1&1/4th pound shot.

Shark – A shot & powder bazooka that is designed to fire rifle-ball grapeshot.

9 rolls out of 10, the Shredder, Donderbuss, and Shot Gun get an inherent +1 if they roll a nat 1, so they very seldom roll a nat-1 explode-in-hand result. Significant damage to the structure of the gun, wielder error while operating, or manufacturing error while constructing (flawed to begin with) may negate this.

====GRENADES

Safely using these, storing these and safely, correctly making them doesn’t -require- the Grenadier skill, but having the skill makes these tasks much easier.

Powder Bag – similar to a flash bang

Vinyardino - named because the bag looks like its full of grapes, similar to a ballistic grenade

Olivetio – named because the bag looks like it’s full of olives, similar to a ballistic grenade

Pinatino (pinyateenoh) – named because the material used to make it is similar to a pinata’s material, similar to a generic grenade
Pincushion – named because it contains blades and fragments of blades, similar to a pineapple grenade, contained in a bag.

Heapsetter – named because it contains fragments of low-melt-point metal that turns into scalding blobs of fluid metal, contained in a weak soda-can sized tin can with fuse.

Bombastique – source of the word “bomb”, similar to a multi-grenade charge pack, large metal can with fuse

Fatlock – Contains lard, dung, sap, and sometimes grease, with black powder and very tiny splinters of lighter-wood mixed in. Similar to a napalm grenade and contained in a sardine-can sized tin can with fuse.

====SKILLS

Skills Characters can have, each character choosing 2.

Management – Conserves and elongates all supplies.

Leadership – Born Leader, enhances all leadership actions.

Maps – Enhances reading maps, making maps, updating maps, and map usage generally. It also helps with projecting a course on a map, and reconstructing a broken map.

Mate – Rank of First, Second, or Third Mate, all training minions and pay grade etc as such.

Celestial Navigation – The Art of navigating solely by looking at stars at night.

Gunnery – Much safer use of grapeshot, cannon use safer, faster, and more reliable.

Grenadier – Enhances the use, production, and storage of all types of grenades.

Medicine – Generally covers salves for burns and STDs, cleaning and shutting injuries, performing amputations, the “clapping” treatment for syphilis, bone setting, and ointments for rashes and STDs.

Elixirs – Covers using Syrup, rum, moonshine, liquor, or liqueurs as a component in medicinal drinks, and covers knowing what medicines to mix, choosing 1 type of beverage to be the base for your medicines.

Distilling – Covers making syrup, rum, moonshine, liquor, or liqueurs, choosing one.

Musketry – Covers the use of rifle muskets, pistol muskets, and shotgun muskets. Also covers cleaning maintaining loading and
repairing them. Less than 1% of native great powers populations have this skill.

Emergency Repair – Enhances quick-fixing a ship’s holes and sail’s tears.

Piloting – Enhances how fast, accurate, and responsive a ship is.

Thief – Additional dice used while searching ships and cities for valuables, if your adventuring class is thief you have this in addition to the 2 skills chosen at start.

Suavity – Enhances charm charisma diplomacy recruiting and dialog actions.

Weaponry – Enhances fighting with Axes, Clubs, Maces, Daggers, Spears, and Swords.

Dueling – Knowledge of the art of formal dueling, either with sword or with gun.

Whaling – Knowledge of how to pursue, defeat, and process whales, enhances fighting with or avoiding sea monsters as well.

Military – A character who has this has a rank in the military of at least 1 great power, with all due privileges, training, minions if any, command structure and pay grade.

Linguist – Speak 1 additional language.

Range – Use of non-gun ranged weapons such as longbows shortbows and crossbows.

Disguise – Enhances moving about without being identified.

Lore – Knowledge of a subject, choosing 1; The Sea, Pirates, Sea Monsters, Sea Battles, Gambling Customs, Sea Shanties, The New World, The Old World.

Trade – Earn more money and trade more easily.

Craft – Industry specific training such as barrel making, glass making, blacksmith, candle-making, etc.

Dealing – Earn more money and buy / sell contraband more easily.

Ship-seller – Earn more money and buy / sell ships more easily.

Magnate – Earn more money and buy / sell high-dollar goods and services more easily.

Slave-Trade – Enhances managing slave transactions, slave ships, and dealing with slaves generally.

Gaming – Enhances games of chance such as Bo’sun (blackjack), Fleet (similar to hearts), Hurricane (dice game similar to craps), and

Mates (similar to spades). Covers knowledge of 1 of these games as well, choosing one. Bo’sun, Fleet, and Hurricane are money betting games.

High stakes gaming – Enhances games of chance such as Bo’sun, Fleet, Hurricane, and Mates, but additionally enhances playing Sloop (similar to whist), Port of call (similar to Fan Tan), and Admirals (similar to Baccarat).  Sloop, Port of Call, and Admirals are high stakes games with money betting. Covers knowledge of Sloop, Port of Call, and Admirals as well, choosing one.

Small Boat Combat – Additional dice used when operating the smaller types of ships in combat.

Large Boat Combat – Additional dice used when operating the larger types of ships in combat.

Boarding – Enhances taking ships by boarding them in force.

Long Row – Row for more hours per day if you are rowing a boat.

Gaoling – Enhances holding prisoners.

Siege – Enhances besieging cities.

Native Customs – Knowledge of native population customs. Native characters have this for free.

Old Hand – A character with this skill has spent a majority of their life in one function or another on one or more ships, this skill enhances all sea and ship related actions, but a character who has it is not less than 8 years older than average.

Interrogating – Enhances attempts to extract information by coercive force and questioning.

Musician – Enhances playing music on an instrument and covers maintaining said instrument. Being able to hear skilled music daily decreases a crew’s tendency towards unhappiness and mutiny.

Scams – The art of scamming people of their monies, it covers street level scams like 3 card monte, Find the Penny (3 cups+1 penny), and low level smoke and mirrors street magician trickery.

Chicanery – Enhances convincing a target to do something, talking your way out of a difficult situation, and avoiding difficulties when telling bad news.

Jongleur – You are a trained clown (tumbling, musical instrument, lite-comedy singing) and juggler.

Trapezeur – You are a trained acrobat and aerial tumbler on the trapeze swing. Moving about in rigging is effortless unless you are in active combat or in a sea-storm, though it is 25% easier in active combat and 50% easier in a sea-storm if you have this skill.

Armorer – Enhances making, repairing, maintaining, and refurbishing all armor pieces that are made of metals the character who has this understands.

Attunement – The stars gods and other things were mostly right when you were born, and you were born with 2 levels of mage class. This skill is -very- uncommon, so uncommon that -very- few characters who apply with this will be approved.

Fine-tuned – The stars gods and other things were -exactly- right when you were born, and you were born with 10 levels of mage class. A single character with this skill will be approved per every chapter, and a new one will not (ever) be approved until a previous character with this skill is gone.

Tomboy – Only females have this skill and it is fairly uncommon, but basically it is the skill of pretending a female character (the user) is a male, and doing this -very- convincingly. A skillful tomboy does it so well that no one, not even other women, can tell.

Savagery – This skill makes the user never make morale, spirit-break, or unhappiness checks when they are forced to do or chose to do savage and horrible deeds.

High Ropes – Suffer no height or vertigo penalties, ever. (unless you’re a manlet).

Aristocracy – Enhances high class social etiquette, gives a knowledge of procedure during meetings with aristocrats, enhances many things to do with being noble-born or interacting with nobility.

Life Boat – Enhances being the acting captain of a life boat, and helping the life boat get safely away from a wreck or battle, as well as helping it reach land.

Recovery – Enhances extracting treasure or other objects from a ship wreck by simple dive & retrieve.

Assassin – Enhances all assassination-related actions, but also makes it significantly more difficult for enemy assassins to kill you.

Bard – You have the dramaturgical and musicianship skills of a bard, a small amount of lore knowledge, and the adventuring class bard. If your adventuring class is bard, you have this, and choose 2 additional skills.

======HISTORY

The Chapters of History each have different great powers involved, and players may be from any of the great powers mentioned in a history chapter. Additionally, there are 4 trade routes that come into being. Finally, “Default outcomes” are outcomes that happen only if players choose to start in a chapter after chapter 1.

The trade routes
The Treasure Lane – Used by many of the great powers to transport tax revenue and treasures from their colonial holdings homeward. Tax ships have warship escorts, and they don’t use a roll to determine this, they simply always have warship escorts at a certain ratio. 1506 onward.
The Bloody Triangle – Used mostly to transport rum, slaves, and syrups. Slave ships nearly always have mercenary guard escorts. Syrup is the most expensive good on this trade route, as it is a key component, most usually the base fluid, for nearly all medicines in existence. 1512 onward.
The Comestibles Circuit – Used mostly to transport sugar, spices, and sweet liqueurs. Sugar and Spices are some of the most valuable things in the world, ships carrying even a little of either definitely have warship escorts. 1513 onward.
The Cannonball Run – so called because all three of it’s stops are more-pirates-than-penzance sea dog central. Steady trade in coca-leaf, moonshine, and black powder (powder only, no gun sales). Merchants that frequent the cannonball run are often as bad as pirates are, if they aren’t pirates outright. 1515 onward.

=====HISTORY PT2

Chapter 1: 1515-1560 AD, The Spanish invasion
Great Powers: Spain, Portugal, France, England, Aztec Empire, Inca Empire, Creek Tribal Union, Carib tribal Union
Default outcome: Aztec, Inca, Carib and Creek great powers give good resistance for years, but eventually falter and are definitely totally vanquished as powers by 1559 AD. Native hostility towards the foreign great powers continues for a very long time afterward, and sudden native attacks are a fact of life.

Chapter 2: 1560-1599 AD, The butcher shop
Great powers: Spain, Portugal, France, England, Denmark, Italy
Default outcome: Spain and Portugal form an early military alliance, but are ousted from nearly all the islands and forced to retreat to coastal citadel castle-cities. Italians mainly serve as mercenaries, and don’t do any colonizing. Denmark controls a few flyspeck islands, as does france while England is mainly involved in northern mainland settlement.

Chapter 3: 1600-1620 AD, Land Ho!
Great Powers: English Colonial Union, France, Denmark, Portugal, Spanish Colonial Union, Netherlands
Default outcome: A hierarchy of power formed with france and Netherlands near the bottom mostly controlling flyspeck islands, Denmark ousted entirely, Portugal and SCU in open war, and Netherlands and ECU forming strong trade links. ECU faces extreme hardship, but ultimately holds out and survives.

Chapter 4: 1621-1650 AD, Buried Treasure
Great powers: SCU, ECU, Italy, French colonial union, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium
Default outcome: FCU has settled into a steady-state of controlling a large number of tiny islands, as has Netherlands, with Belgium and Italy scoring small victories against SCU and gaining a toe-hold on the mainland. ECU is a rising power, and is an ally of Italy against spain.

Chapter 5: 1651-1710 AD, Death Throes
Great Powers: SCU, ECU, FCU, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy
The End of Piracy: In 1681, the great powers all begin to gradually lower the number of Letters of Marque issued until they eventually hit 0 letters issued in 1700. Additionally, all the great powers create official pirate-hunting fleets in 1695 and piracy becomes very difficult, then later essentially impossible, as all the great powers sign an anti-piracy treaty called the Grand Colonial Treaty of 1709.

===SEA MONSTERS

Note: The 2 elementals which simply attack once/twice and then are gone, do give those who survive their encounters EXP points.

Kraken – on average 240-250 feet long squid with paddle tentacles
Giant Octopus – on average 180-210 feet long octopus, some are poisonous
Tidal Wave elemental – Mindless water elemental controlling a tidal wave, it only attacks once, with instant-wreck, then it is gone and combat is resolved.
Hurricane Elemental – another mindless elemental, this one controls a hurricane and attacks with instant-wreck, but attacks twice instead of once, after which it is gone and combat is resolved.
Leviathan – on average 190-220 feet long whale
Tremendous Lobster – 30 to 50 feet long
Tremendous Manta – 60 to 80 feet long
Gigantic Starfish – 40 to 70 feet long
Gigantic Octopus – 80 to 100 feet long
Sea Beast – enormous angler fish encountered only rarely and only at night
Sea Hag – enormous hagfish encountered only rarely and only at night
Gigantic Gulper – 70 to 90 feet long eel with a sixteen feet long mouth.
Sea Demon – 50 to 80 feet long meat eating shark
Gigantic Conch – On average 7 to 9 tons, slow moving shell-bearing and mostly mindless
Tremendous Crab – On average 10 to 12 tons, slow moving but aggressive.
Tremendous Clam – a clam roughly the size of a 1 story 4 room house, it does produce a pearl

===MONSTERS PT 2; UNDEAD

Skeleton Crew – A mortally wounded ship, magically afloat and crewed by skeletons
Ghost Ship – A mortally wounded ship, composed entirely of nether-plasm and moving w/o crew.
Wild Vampire – A vampire that is so old or so dehumanized that they no longer talk or express thoughts or personality.
Civil Vampire – A vampire capable of behaving as a mortal would behave, and having thoughts and feelings.
Spectral Ship – A mortally wounded ship, magically afloat and crewed by ghastly specters
Storm Wraith – A ghost pulling weightless shipwrecks, they ring a ship’s bell and recite the names of crew members who are soon to die. They don’t engage in combat, vanishing if weapons are drawn.
Shipwreck Specter – Very similar to the Storm Wraith, but they call the names of the observing ship’s crew, and usually attack soon after.
Satan’s Lanterns – Tiny balls of nether-plasm that give off a great amount of light, alone they seem to be lantern light, together they seem to be light-house light. They hover over deadly rocks shoals and hidden obstacles, and never move from their specific area, additionally, they do not engage in combat, dissipating to reform again the next night if weapons are drawn around them.
Wreck Ghouls – Underwater zombie like creatures that swim out of shipwrecks at night to attack ships they can find within a radius, or, to engage in evil upon land if they are near islands.
Sacrifice Ghoul – Mortal sacrifice victim who was killed by an officiant who flubbed a dice-roll in the attempt, they butcher victims in psychotic perversions of the rituals that were done to them, then tear their victims apart and devour them.
Marooned Wight – The only type of wight that is native to the climate the game takes place in, a very rare undead who consumes levels like a normal wight, but never leaves the remote usually uninhabited island it was marooned by a mutinous crew on. Marooned Wights never reproduce more wights and never truly die, always reforming within 1 week.

===MONSTERS PT 3; LANDLUBBERS

Ogre – brutish barely intelligent on average 12-15 feet tall hairy scaly creatures
Cyclops – Huge one-eyed one horned giants.
Troll – Gorilla like creatures covered in scales and horns instead of hair. Appearance resembles Harlequin Ictheosis.
Dragon – 30-60 feet long fire breathing reptiles, some fly, some don’t. Additionally a few live in water, but are poisonous instead of fire breathing.
Wyrm – 80-100 feet long poisonous dragon that has neither limbs nor wings.
Gigantic Serpent – 90-130 feet long anaconda like constrictor snake
Gigantic Ape – 25-50 feet long ape.
Tremendous Lemur – 18-25 feet long lemur.
Tremendous Dragon – Same as a dragon, but 90-110 feet long.
Fearsome Wyrm – Same as a wyrm, but 90-115 feet long.
Giant – Brutish cannibals who range from 12 to 15 feet tall.
Hellhound – Fire breathing jackal.
Hellcat – Poison breathing jaguar.
Werejaguar – Similar to a werewolf in crinos state, but a half-jaguar half-humanoid creature instead of half-wolf.
Weremonkey – Also similar to a werewolf in crinos state, but half monkey and with levels in thief.
Satyr – 16 to 18 feet tall half-goat half humanoid creatures, both male and female are violent brutal rapists.
Tremendous Spider – Huge tarantula.
Gigantic Spider – Huge wandering spider.
Wyvern – Feathered dragon with a serpents tail, wings, and 3 heads, but no limbs.
Chimera – Lion’s body, Goat’s head, Wolf’s head, Dragon’s head, scorpion’s tail.
Komodo – A 29 to 55 feet long komodo dragon. Uncommon and usually deep inland.
Harpy – Eagle with the head of a charming lady, capable of speech and roughly as smart as a teenage girl. Cannibalistic meat eater with fangs.
Stygian – An evil tempered monstrous humanoid that resembles a pale gray old woman. She is incredibly strong, fast, and difficult to injure, as well as being a child stealing cannibal.