Perhaps it is the kind of thinking that comes from a sleepless night worrying about how to defend a poorly supported position.... But.... If the 12 True Dragons are not scions of Kas and Yig they may be the true form of the PoM, which would make sense only if you accept my theory that the PoM are the children of Kas and Yig. This would have to mean however that the Valinor that fought in the dragon wars are -ALL- Fallen and actively fighting against the PoM.

Sleepless Nights. Yeah that must be what it is!

I have said on several occasions that we have no idea who Illiir's Dad is...so I'm not 100% against the idea that Kas is somehow "Dad." On the other hand I firmly believe the the PoM is a coalition of Deities with different origin stories. Some of whom may be related, other who are not. I'll be shocked and flummoxed if it turns out Illiir and Yarris have the same "dad" at all. Much less everyone else.

Entertaining your idea for the moment that the 12 Dragons are actually some representation of the 12 members of the PoM I would like to toss out a slightly darker take with twists and turns. The 12 members of the PoM *could* have taken on the form o Dragons to trouble the Celestrial giants. They could also have shown up in "human form" to offer a solution in the form o their valinor. They could then have sacrificed several valinor as pawns to the "Dragons" in order to legitimately create an opportunity to turn the Giants into dwarves because in the long run, that is best for humanity.

Of course that would mean I'm not up late at night, getting lots of sleep and coming around to your theory.

Religious Justice in the Known Lands

As the player of a Nierite (for my Primary, anyway), I have always been fascinated by the way in which the Mother Church of Coryan and its various offshoots handle maintaining religious doctrine and dogma. I myself am agnostic, bordering on atheist (personally, I use the term areligious), so the concept of being a zealot is an interesting challenge to me, which is why I made the choices I did with my Primary. To that end, my thoughts on the matter are based on an outsider's view of religion.

Okay, with that out of the way. . .

We have at least some information about how all six major "Churches" in the Known Lands--The Mother Church of Coryan, the Milandric Orthodox Church, the Church of the Dark Triumvirate, the Church of the Fire Dragon (connected to the Milandric Church now), the Eloran religion, and the Ssethric Varn worship--deal with heretics. We have less information about some of the other 'churches' such as the Yiggites and Myrantians of Abessios, as well as some of the others, but it I will be focusing on these six.

Starting with the older races, we have the Ss'ressen of the known lands. The most direct information we have is for the Black Talons of the Tralian Sulfur Marshes. Like some of the other groups--but unlike the Milandric Church, which will be discussed later--the Black Talons have a very powerful Inquisition Order. These Ssethric Inquisitors are dedicated to the worship of the Fire Dragon, and actively hunt down any Ss'ressen who worship a deity other than the Fire Dragon. This has caused some issues with some of the other Clutches, especially the Ashen Hides who worship the Fire Dragon as an aspect of Nier, which has led to a lot of conflict between the two Clutches. There has also been noticeable conflict between the Ghost Scales and the Black Talons, with the Matriarchy of the Black Talons sending a 'hit squad' down into the sewers of Old Coryan to deal with them.

Due to the Black Talon's view that Yig and, especially, Kassagore is an evil deity. To that end, overt worship of either of these deities is proscribed by the Black Talon's church. I am personally interested to see how the Black Talons view the rest of the Pantheon of Man now that they have been at least partially absorbed by the Milandesian Church, but after only a few years, I doubt that they have changed much. They might be recognized by the powers in Naeraanth, but I doubt they would tolerate any members of their clutch pledging any alliegence to Illiir or Hurrian or any of the others (especially Nier). The only 'god' that they seem at all tolerant of aside from the Fire Dragon is Jeggal Sag: The Ssethric Master of Beasts. Not an established church, per se, the Cult of Jeggel Sag appears to fill a similar role to the Ehtzara in the Hinterlands, with the followers of the Fire Dragon fearing them, but knowing they serve an essential role.

On the other side of the Kraldjur Morass, we have the Varn. These creatures are similar in concept to the Elemental Lords in that they are not so much 'gods' in the same class as Illiir or Yig or Belisarda, but are simply extremely powerful demi-gods from another plane of existence. These creatures remind me of the Myrantian pantheon (especially Tzitzet) in that they seem to represent chaos and destruction above all else. In terms of how the followers of the Varn deal with 'heretics', their actions are dictated by the needs of the Gods: the Varn need souls to die for them. Apparently, according to the Ssethregore book, the Varn need the souls of their worshippers to die for them to open up the portal to allow them to fully manifest upon Arcanis, which means that the Ssethrics (under the rule of the Naga of Pit/House Kahss) need to spread the word of the Varn as much as possible. They need a good harvest of souls, and to that end they make extensive use of their own groups of Ssethric Inquisitors and the 'Holy Warriors' of the Chaoshammers of Zedok to expunge other religions from the Empire and beyond.

Mostly opposite to the Ssethrics, we have the Elorii. Unlike the Ssethrics (and most of the humans), the Elorii almost seem to be passive aggressive about their religion. I cannot think of a single instance of Elorii actively hunting down heretics using a group similar to an inquisitor or other religious order, rather relying on magic and the fury of their people to 'keep them in line.' A good example of this was found in the adventure called "A Pebble Upon Still Waters": If an Elorii who even wears the symbology of another deity, let alone one who actively worships another God, earned a divine curse upon them when trying to enter one of the Belisardan Temples. A lot of this probably stems from the Elorii either directly remembering their Gods through their genetic/spirit memory (as represented by Visions of Lives Past (ta)), or at least knowing those who might actually have MET their Gods in person.

The one exception to this unitarian worship of Belisarda that is allowed is with the Elements. The Elorii seem fine with people who worship the elements so long as they also pay homage to Belisarda, a point which makes sense given their heritage. However, by the look of things, the Belisardans view the Elementalists with something similar to almost patronizing pity. However, Ardelia (the Prophetess) did state that one day the Elemental Lords would one day rise again, so even the most skeptical Elorii has to keep an eye out for this.

Moving into the Human Lands, we have much information on the three churches of the Pantheon of Man which were born from the forces of the First Emperor of Coryan. There was a bit of information given about the Khitani Church (the name presently escapes me, but it starts with K), but as that information was lost with the last forums, I shall generally avoid talking about it.

Starting out, we have the Mother Church of Coryan. This body has long maintained a well organized Inquisition which was very busy dealing with the Infernal Cults from the Time of Terror and proscribed worship of the Pantheon. For the first few hundred years of the Empire, this duty fell squarely upon the shoulders of the Nierites of Coryan, with Nier being the Master of Dogma among the Gods. They were the main driving force of the Inquisition, with Legions such as Legion of Vigilence and the Legion of the Cleansing Flame being the core of the Inquisitions muscles. This, alas, changed following the attempted assassination of Emperor Marellius val’Assante’, the worship of Nier became illegal in Coryan (except in the furthest reaches of the wastes of Canceri), and the Inquisition needed a new patron. Into this void came the Illiirite and Sarish, who have maintained the Inquisition for the subsequent 700-odd years. It is these two groups which have molded the Inquisition into its present form.

Despite the re-inclusion of Nier in the Mother Church, they do not appear to have been allowed back into their past roles as the keepers of the Mother Churches doctrine. This is seen in the almost exclusion of Nier (again, viewed as the Zealot and the Defender of the Faith) among the ranks of the Inquisition. The only exception to this rule is found in the Order of the Holy Judges of Nier. This Holy Order (for centuries based out of Canceri and supporting the Dark Triumvirate due to the marginalization of Nier) actively hunt out worshippers of other churches who attempt to sway the Children of Illiir into apostacy and heresy. As Henry has never stated that the Inquisition uses the Judges, I am assuming that they are acting independently of one another. There may be Holy Judges in the Inquisition, but the Orders themselves are probably not actively aligned. This brings up some interesting plot ideas where the Nierites and the Illiirite Inquisitors. . . disagree.

Moving on with those who actively keep the faith, we have the Church of the Dark Triumvirate. Even moreso than any other (known) human nation, the Theocracy of Canceri maintains its faith in Sarish, Nier, and Neroth with an iron fist and fear approaching that of the Varn worshippers of Ssethregore. Throughout the nation there are informants actively spying on the people of that nation (such as the Excisists who spy on the Akali priests), but none are as fear-inspiring as the Order of Adjureres. This group, with each team being made up of a Sarishan, a Nerothian, and a Nierite, these hit squads ensure that the will of the Dark Apostate of Canceri is maintained. Anyone attempting to oppose the will of the Dark Triumvirate disappears or is very publically excised to prevent 'heresy' from spreading.

The last Human church in the Known Lands is the Milandesian Orthodoxy. This group, unlike the other two Human churches, does not seem to have an overt inquisitional order. Instead, they seem to rely more on rhetoric instead of overt force to maintain discipline among their followers, relying on the Milandesian. . . sense of superiority, for lack of a more appropriate term, to keep people in line. A good example of this can be scene with the treatment of the "Dark Gods" of Neroth, Sarish, and Nier. Official word from the Cathedral of the Pantheon of Naeraanth stated that these Gods (while necessary), were not to be supplicated because they were unpredictable and tended to lead people into evil. If you needed proof, they would point to the 'vile Cancerse' and the 'decadent Coryani.' Since the Milandesians demand their independence from these other powers, simply saying "It's bad because that bitch Elandre' in Coryan supports it, and if you support it you are a Coryani sympathizer" seems to be enough to get people into bed with the Milandric Orthodox Church. How the inclusion of the Fire Dragon and Sarish (even though he was TECHNICALLY already part of the Church) into the Orthodox Church might be stressing this view somewhat, especially with the Black Talon's more aggressive stance about heretics, but the extent of this has yet to be seen.

Okay. A few thoughts.

1) the Khitani Church runs off a document called the Kalindrul. We know very little about it except that the Kalindrul does not recognize Anshar as a member of the PoM. It's not clear to me if, in the Khitani world view, Anshar has been entirely airbrushed out of history or if something happened where Anshar was later kicked out of the PoM. Also an interesting question is whether or not this view is a unique grudge of the Sleeping Emperor or is shared by the other Valinor/PoM.

I suspect Khitan does not have a formal Inquisition...much like Bastion didn't appear to have a formal Inquisition. Its hard to set yourself up as the holders of dogma when there's a big winged guy just offstage that anyone (in theory anyway) can consult with.

2) I don't think the Myrantians have an Inquisition because its my understanding that Tzihet and company don't care who else gets worshipped as long as the human sacrifices to them flow. In this sense the Myrantian church looks the most like my understanding of the real world Ancient Roman civic religion which basically existed to placate the gods but was mostly silent on what we think of today as the core of the religious experience: how to live a good life and/or go to heaven.

3) I myself do not equate the Myrantean gods with the Varn. Ultimately, if they don't eat you, I think you can have an intelligent conversation with the Varn, and their goals make logical sense. I don't think that's true of tzihet. I think if you go to see Tzihet you just go mad. What does tzihet want? Beyond blood and sacrifices I am not sure Tzihet wants anything a mortal could understand.

4) the temple of Nier always gets its self exalted and punished in alternating cycles...for the same reason .... they don't compromise with political expediency. Given time I expect to see more integration with the coryani church.

The addition of Anshar to the PoM may postdate the Khitani version. There are some very... irregular details about Anshar ('lost from records and found/readded to the pantheon', ssethric aspect to her vals, gate access) that the Khitani might never have heard of her except through contact with the Coryani Empire etc.

The Khitani left the First Imperium 2,000 years after the end of the Gods War at the end of the Imperium, and there is evidence that Anshar was around during the First Imperium such as the Citadel of Anshar and the four Ansharan Gates in the First City.

So, after a conversation with Amanda about a possible new character/rebuild of her character, I was reminded about this thought that I had floating through my mind. I will warn: Most of this is me trying to force 'real life' on a fictional universe, but hopefully it is a reasonable informed crow-barring of such things into the world of Arcanis. . .

Naval Technology of the Known Lands:

One area of Arcanis that is very little-explored within the adventures is naval tactics, design, and generally naval-related stories. There is a very good reason for this: You CANNOT represent naval combat and life at sea appropriately with a random bunch of Heroes. For the most part, Heroes lack all appropriate skills for ship handling, most 'random encounters' would be little more than Seamanship Action Skill Rolls, combat would be pretty 'generic' within the bounds of some of the combats in the campaign, and unless the Heroes were the captain of the ship they would have almost no authority over their destinies while aboard ship (being little more than passengers). As I have been informed on many occasions by various people, this does not make for fun mods for most people, so they do not often get made.

That said, we do have some information about how people on Eastern Onara deal with travel over water. Alas, a lot of adventures dealing with this were written by a wide variety of people, not all of whom gave a consistent view of how ship design works or the historical analoges which have been established in Arcanis fluff. In some adventures, you are manning a Roman-style Galley appropriate for the Punic Wars, and other times you are aboard a schooner appropriate for the 18th Century Golden Age of Pirates. A good chunk of this comes from the fairly desperate components of cultures and even other campaigns and books which found their way into Arcanis Canon. For example: The Pirate Isles were brought almost wholesale over from the Green Ronin Freeport book, which painted a picture similar to places such as Tortuga or the other European ports in the Caribbean, which is somewhat incongruous with late-Roman Empire, early Holy Roman Empire setting of most of the rest of Onara.

But, for better or worse, this IS Arcanis canon, so let us try to sort out at least commonalities between these technologies and designs for the major naval powers.

The first thing that we can see is that there really are no TRUE naval powers among the Known Lands. The largest canon navies belong to Milandir, Entaris, Altheria, and the Coryani Empire, with all of them maintaining at least some warships to protect their commerce. Technically Ymandragore also fits into "naval powers" as well, but their ships are in a class of their own for many reasons, so they will not be discussed in relation to the other powers.

The second major point to think about for most Known Lands powers is that there really isn't much need for a large navy as a major military force. Aside from Ymandragore (and debateably Entaris), all the nations of the Known Lands are land powers, with most of the military actions being done using land forces. If all your enemies are building armies and not navies, there is less imperative for you to build a navy, instead focusing your attention towards armies yourself to counter your enemies. A good example of this was the Roman navy in the later-Empire period where Rome held almost complete domination over the Mediterranean Sea. During the Punic Wars and into the days of Augustus Caeser, there were foreign powers around the Mediterranean Sea, which lead to the creation of a strong Roman Navy, but once these powers were conquered, the only real role of the late-period Roman navy was commerce protection and anti-piracy, leading to a steady build-down and demotion of the navy from importance to the Roman military machine. In the Known Lands, the only TRUE naval threat is Pirates and Harvesters, which typically would mean that the navies would generally stagnate.

That said, we can make a few assumptions as to the needs of the various vessels of the Known Lands and their designs based on the operational realities of their ships. As stated above, almost all the powers of the Known Lands are continental land powers, with no real trade being done across wide, deep bodies of water. As far as we know, there is no trade between the 'known' nations and any far-off nations such as whatever powers may exist on the Southern Continent (such as the remains of the original Myrantian Empire or other such powers) or any group to the East of what we have seen on the maps. This means that all sea traffic would travel in what is essentially coastal waters rather than over deep ocean. This means that all ships being used by the known powers would make use of littoral ships, which are typically less 'weatherly' than the kinds of tallships that were common among European powers during their age of colonization. After all, if you are never more than a few dozen miles from shore, and the shelter that entails, why go to the expense of building a ship that would need to survive in a squall in the middle of the ocean? Galleys could be useful in this regard, but the necessity to include oars and oarsmen would cut into cargo tonnage, so merchant ships would take a more galleon-type (similar to the Spanish treasure ships of the colonial ear).

This means that the ships being designed would reflect this necessity because there would be no real NEED to advance more than this. They would build merchant vessels to carry maximum weight of cargo instead of dedicating tonnage and crew to more powerful sailplans, weaponary, heavier timbers that can resist weather and damage, etc. Similarly, warships will be designed to be fast in all conditions and tend to be far lighter in tonnage than the big lumbering merchant vessels. After all, warships have to 1) Catch other warships, 2) run down slower merchant vessls (ie: commerce warfare or piracy), 3) be able to maneuver to do the most damage to their enemies. Big battleships are designed to fight other big battleships, and if there are not big battleships, then there is no need for them.

After having discussed this with Mr. Lopez some time ago when trying to write one of the afore-mentioned naval stories, he let me know that the Coryani and Milandesian Navies (the largest of the major Human powers) typically use galley-style warships for the majority of their warships. These warships would use either square sails or possibly a lanteen rig, depending on their needs. Ultimately, for a galley-type warship the sail is simply a cruising form of propulsion, with their 'fighting' locomotion being provided by banks of oars. This is because 1) Sails are vulnerable to enemy fire, and 2) oars let them maneuver without having to rely on the wind. This means, while a ship requiring a sail would need to tack into the wind, making huge course changes to ensure that the wind is hitting the sails from the right direction to give them motion in the direction of the wind, a galley can simply row directly into the wind, cutting off the tacking ship.

In terms of armament, galleys are not the ‘typical’ sail warship most people think about when thinking about sail warships. Because of the banks of oars, galleys can only carry a fairly light cannon load on their broadsides, mostly due to the fact that to support the rowing deck(s), the ship cannot afford the tonnage of having heavily reinforced gundecks without completely tipping over (in ships, you want weight lower to prevent the ship from tipping over). Instead, Arcanis galleys would use Battle Mages, ballistae (large crossbows), and ramming/boarding tactics to deal with other ships in the ‘land battle at sea’ paradigm of naval warfare. However, we know that the galleys of Milandir (at least) utilize cannons as armament, which means that they are almost certainly either light (placed in broadsides, mostly for anti-personnel fire) or mounted in the castles. These structures are in the bow and stern (front and back) of the ship, and typically consist of fairly thick timbers which are built up to make it difficult for boarders to come over after ramming the front and rear of the ship. These weapons in the forecastle and aftercastle are called ‘chase’ weapons and would be used against targets that the galley is intending to ram and board to ‘soften them up’, or to use in the ‘fire across the bow’ tactics to get ships to heave too for boarding.

Another major naval power is the Republic of Altheria, and (like so many other things) have been described as using far more technologically advanced weapons than the other powers. In the invasion of Entaris (the Plexan Armada), the fleet was escorted by a fleet of a hundred “Altheran Galleons,” and assuming that this was meant to be descriptive, it means that the Republic of Altheria (or, at least the Province of Altheria under Coryan) produced gun-armed warships along the galleon style. These ships would mount large banks of cannon along a gundeck (or multiple decks) and are designed to pound ships into splinters rather than kill the crew like a galley would do. These ships are absolutely deadly to any other ship which happens to enter its broadside arcs, but unlike galleys are completely dependent on the winds to maneuver. As such, if a Galley can pen in a galleon, it will rip it apart, but first the galley has to get close enough to board.

But if cannons are such a powerful weapon, why don’t all nations use Galleons? Well, one has to remember that the chemical composition we know as gunpowder does not exist in Arcanis. The only equivalent that is allowed in the universe is Blastpowder, an alchemical formula that is monopolized by the Church of Althares and the Republic of Altheria. Without a locally-produced alternative to Blastpowder, all other nations of Onara are utterly dependent on the Altherans and their “Second Gift” in order to utilize these powerful weapons, significantly restricting the utility for anyone other than the Altherans.

Moving away from human nations, the other major naval power (or, at least that of the ‘good guy nations’) is Entaris. Unlike the Human nations, the Elorii cannot make use of Blastpowder weapons in their fleets (especially after the war). Without this, they are forced to make due with far more traditional galley-style naval warfare. However, we have a reference to Elorii warships being the small, fast raider-type vessels (with technology as it is, probably lanteen or even schooner rigged) that have been the dominant class of pirate craft throughout the age of sail. They are fast, sturdy vessels which have been described as being “long and slender.” I assume this is in relation to the stubbier merchant vessels which would be used for cargo carrying, as if you make a ship too long and thin, you will not be able to maneuver it in combat particularly well. After all, too narrow prevents you from being able to hold the wind in your sails without flipping the ship over, and too long makes it slow to steer. As such, from the description of the craft and the references I’ve been able to find, they would fall closer in line to the Mediterranean sailing frigates from the medieval period of history—that being a smaller class of warship smaller than a Galleass with both oars and sails—though with a nonstandard (from our history, anyway) weapons mix.

Unlike the human warships, the Elorii make extensive use of their Berotars: Arcane shipmasters who not only can command the wind and waves to move their ships at their will, but also call up the legions of the depths to fight for them. Add in the Elorii propensity towards elemental warfare (ie: Elemental Bolts), and they would probably use their magics where a human crew would use cannons. That said, despite what I’ve seen of Elorii in the campaign, I doubt that the majority of their people are arcanely gifted, and therefore the supply of Berotar on a ship would be fairly limited. Without the arcane (or, in some cases, divine) magics to support them, they would have to rely on boarding tactics and possibly even ramming to eliminate enemy vessels. The ramming becomes slightly more problematic if it is more of a frigate-type ship, as frigates are more heavily focused towards sailing than rowing, so lining up for a ramming attack becomes far more problematic. Additionally, ships built for speed cannot have heavy castles on its bow and stern, meaning the ship itself is also probably far more prone and vulnerable to a Coryani galley than the galley would be to it (assuming it gets past all that Elder Magic).

There are two other ‘naval powers’ existing in the Known Lands: Ymandragore, and the Pirate Isles. The Ymandrake fleet seems to consist of a number of foreign craft (galleys, galleons, etc) bearing black sails to proclaim their allegiance (though still being common enough to enter port), and the dreaded Black Ships. These ships are completely products of the Sorcerer-King’s (and his minions’) arcane might, being hewn from the black rock of the island itself. These vessels are said to use summoned infernals as rowers, meaning that they follow a more typical galley-style structure, though with even more magical effects being used than even the dreaded Berotar ships of Entaris. The only picture of an actual Ymandrake fleet we have, however, is found in Eldest Sons (the D20 supplement by PCI), which clearly shows the Black Fleet being more galleon-style tall ships. Alas, I would assume that this was more artistic liscence than a ‘realistic’ view of the ships that have been portrayed in other sources, as such designs almost certainly would not be built to make use of rowers. It is possible they are of a Galleass type of ship (about halfway between a Galley and a more recognizable ‘tall ship’ like, say, the USS Constitution), though there is nothing to clearly state this.

The Pirate Isles, alas, are even more problematical in many ways. In real life, almost NO pirates would have ever used the large ships such as the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Instead, they would operate small vessels closer to a corvette or even a small schooner as those vessels would contain enough firepower and crew to overpower any merchant vessel, and enough speed to outrun a warship that they could not hope to fight. It does not pay for a pirate to attack enemy warships, so they would all run. However, there are several references to the forces of Freeport and the other Pirate Isles making use of these cinematically large tallships, which even the larger nations of Onara cannot hope to afford at Altheran Blastpowder prices. As such, I would assume that any such fleet would be retconned (I would hope) down to a more reasonable size, but that is ultimately up to PCI. Without the need to kowtow to the Green Ronin establishment, this should be easier to do than when such supplements found their way into Arcanis cannon.

... ah sshhiiiippssssss.....

So I feel I should front load this by noting that in real life it turns out I've been sailing boats since I was 5, have spent seven summers teaching sailing, and have spent time volunteering on the Pilgrim of Newport and the Tole Mour ... a pair of Tall Ships. I love boats. And sailing. And as they say a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

And Cody is correct that as a rule ships to ship combat sucks in most RPG supplements because 1) The skills and rules that make a land based "skirmish" game work well do little to make a sea based combat game where the most important tactical element should be the relative positioning of the ships rather than PC choices. (for the record the Birthright setting in 2E of D&D is so far my favorite).

There have been relatively few important Naval battles in the history of Onara that we have been privileged to read about. In my opinion the only two that really count are the failed invasion of Seremas by Coryan and the success of the Milandesians against Ymandragore in the Gulf of Yarris. Both serve (again in my opinion) to highlight what Coryan and Milandir want out of their navies.

Coryan's navy essentially serves to transport troops. The legions are a land power. What I think Coryan wants is the ability to move legions. In the event of combat ramming ... or more likely boarding ... are the maneuvers of choice. But that's secondary IMO to making an amphibious assault. With these goals, big sailing vessels are essentially superfluous - and perform poorly in close to shore.

Milandir's navy essentially serves to keep Ymandragore (and Coryan?) away from its shores. "Because even if we don't like arcane casters, as Milandesians we hate kidnappers and slavers more." Protecting the shores means dominating the Gulf of Yarris. Again, big sail ships aren't necessary for this task ... and given that your opponents may be able to manipulate the weather there is good reason to distrust over reliance on sails. If I was a Milandesian Admiral I'd use grape shot in the cannons to try and clear the top decks of the back ships of unarmored foes (ie casters) rather than try to damage the stone hulls. Not sure if that is actually true or not.

Altheria is an interesting case since they do have big sailing vessels. I suspect that this is left over from the time they were the "flying" nation, but I could be wrong. They do ship blast powder, so being efficient traders is also a good reason for the children of the God of Knowledge to have advanced sailing vessels. Being able to disappear into the blue is also a good defensive strategy. Regardless they have the best "deep water" vessels of any playable location. I would assume that they do long distance trade and aren't limited to sailing close to shore. Altheria might even send vessels directly to Khitan for trade. Where and with whom Altheria might be quietly sending ships to could be a very interesting question for a future module.

Pirate Isles: I don't loose sleep about what kinds of vessels are being used in the pirate Isles ... because whatever the art looks like in various books, in reality most battle mats or game maps just aren't big enough to depict a really big clipper ship. And every skipper should have something a little bit different from everyone else. Of course when talking about your pirate ship in a high stakes game of poker you're going to exaggerate a lot too ... Most of the better ship designs or mats that I've seen put them in the 80ish ft long category. That's cool enough for a pirate ship. Once again the Pirates need something with enough cargo space to carry loot, enough speed to catch a merchantman, and enough "oomph" to discourage resistance (tactically from targets or strategically when considered collectively by Censure and the mainland). For these demands sailing vessels make a lot of sense.

In relation to Pirate ships, I should remind that Pirates almost never carry loot themselves, instead relying on capturing a prize and simply using THAT ship to carry cargo. After all, anyone who has spent any time on a boat knows that transferring anything more than a single person can comfortably carry is a NIGHTMARE at sea. This is especially true where pirates are concerned because they may not have time to loot a ship before someone else comes, the winds change, etc.

As such, real life pirate ships in the 18th century tended to be small sloop sized vessels with disproportionately large crews meant for boarding and acting as a prize crew for the captured ship. Pirates almost never simply sank ships as that word be literally burning money unless you were a privateer who would get paid by ships sank. Hell, modern pirate ships in the Indian ocean are little more than 30' fishing boats with big engines to run down cargo ships!

As these little essays have shown, I like realism where I can get it, so things like having two neighbouring nations having a 2,000 year (real world) technology gap for such things tends to stick in my craw somewhat

Addendum: sorry for all the spelling mistakes. phone typing sucks.

As I understand it this not really true. There were several different phases to the "golden age of piracy." Earlier under commanders like Morgan, many vessels acted together along mostly national lines and were essentially irregulars under the crown with an eye for Spanish plunder ... they could and did go after hardened targets if the loot was rich enough. They did did take over an enemy vessels. Later phases had captains that were more or less on their own. More freedom, but a lot less total power ... and Spanish gold had significantly reduced. Most of these pirates were more like highwaymen and they wanted merchantmen to simply surrender without fighting. So they would take what they could hold in their modest sized ships, maybe impress some sailors if they needed more hands or a specialist, and then the merchantmen would go on their way. Taking a ship, burning it to waterline etc are all strong disincentives for merchantmen to surrender...usually that didn't happen unless a merchantman resisted strongly.

There were exception. The historical Blackbeard is almost unrecognizable under the accumulation of legend. But part of why we still speak of him is because he broke the conventions of his time ... Blackbeard had a habit of dumping everything he couldn't take himself, he terrorized the weak Carolina colonies , and of course fought like devil himself in combat.

The free port of old was loosely based on the earlier version with some rough order imposed and a rallying point around which otherwise disparate captains would gather. Magra has always struck me much more like the later periods where its every ship for itself. How the pirate isles will sort out remains to be seen in this campaign.