Any expedition at sea, whether for trade, war, or exploration, is spent mostly on the ship itself. Relatively little time, if any, is spent in foreign lands, so it is natural that the ships themselves become the setting for many sea-based adventures. A particular expedition might be undertaken for trade, war, piracy, or exploration, but regardless of purpose, all ships must be prepared to defend themselves if attacked on the open sea or in unknown lands.
Crews and captains often welcome adventurers for the added strength and protection they pro-vide in times of trouble.
Trade: Trade is the principle interest of any sea-going society, and most vessels at sea are involved in trade. The majority of ship owners, however, do not personally accompany their vessels. Instead, ship owners hire others to command their ships and make trades in their places. Competent adventurers may find oppor-tunities to command such commercial voyages, plying the seas in an effort to generate more wealth both for themselves and for their bene-factors.
Perhaps more natural to many adventurers is a job as a soldier or guard on a merchant ship.
Any ship must be prepared to defend itself in case of attack, and none must be more wary than trading ships. The richest vessels on the sea are the greatest prizes for pirates. The sol-diers on a ship have a job much like the guards of land caravans, though they may also be expected to help with the running of the ship, depending on their abilities. Adventurers who are interested in such work—particularly those who are also skilled as sailors—can find rewarding employment throughout the trading seasons.
War: Though not as plentiful as trading ships, warships offer a little more opportunity for adventure. For a nation at peace, the main function of the navy is to patrol the seas and
protect the society’s mercantile interests. Such patrols are similar to duty in a land garrison—
the soldiers man the ship and watch for enemy activity. In peaceful, civilized waters these patrols become routine. However, with the activity of undersea creatures and the threat of barbarian raids or pirate attack, a simple patrol in uncertain waters can become an adventure of its own.
For a nation at war, its navy becomes far more active—and grows considerably with the com-mandeering of merchant and private ships for the war effort. For naval vessels at war, there are endless tasks to be accomplished, including simple attacks on enemy merchant and war-ships, establishing or attempting to bypass a blockade, continuing patrols in a more hostile environment, or any other special mission that might become necessary.
Whether during peace or war, the threat of pirates always exists. To answer this threat, ships may be sent to hunt down and defeat par-ticular pirate vessels. Given the skill of pirate crews and the cunning of their captains, this can be a difficult task to accomplish.
Of course, there are threats other than pirates. A military ship might be tasked to deal with any significant threat facing the society. Summoned elementals, dragons, sea serpents, or outposts of evil undersea races are just a few of the dan-gers that adventurers might be asked to dis-patch.
Piracy: Piracy has always been associated with adventure on the sea, and a campaign might focus on the role of pirates themselves. Pirates are independent adventurers who hunt other ships, particularly merchant vessels, for their wealth. Pirates might also seek wealth on land—on islands or within rich port cities. Not all pirates are evil. Like bandits on land, pirates may seek their fortunes at the expense of an evil regime and use their skills to fight against those in power for the greater good.
Similar to the pirates are the privateers.
Privateers, while still private citizens, receive commissions from a sovereign nation to per-form their acts of capture and plunder. Thus, adventurers asked to combat threats or enemies on behalf of their nation are acting as priva-teers. Those adventurers set out on expeditions to capture enemy vessels or otherwise
neutral-CHAPTER TWO: Seafaring campaigns
54
CHAPTER TWO: Seafaring campaigns
ize threats and are free to claim whatever trea-sures their opponents possessed.
Exploration: Ships may also sail for purposes of exploration. Explorers seek new ports for trade or new routes to cities that are otherwise difficult to reach. Such mercantile expeditions are similar to trading voyages, but greater dan-gers must be faced. An explorer cannot know what threats might arise, and many times is not even certain how to reach the destination.
Nevertheless, great wealth can be amassed through mercantile exploration by daring and victorious captains.
Missions of exploration may also be undertak-en not for trade, but to discover new lands for conquest, settlement, or exploitation. The wealth of civilized lands has already been claimed and fought over by the nations of that land, while new lands may be blessed with untold riches untouched and undiscovered by anyone. Such is the hope of these explorers, who seek out the completely unknown and hope to return with fame, wealth, and glory.
The explorer who brings news of an untouched, untamed wilderness may be granted rights to that land, to settle and tax in the name of his king or queen.
While they are rare, some explorers seek only the knowledge of what lies over the horizon.
Cartographers and scholars are always interest-ed in knowlinterest-edge of new lands and new people and are sometimes given to pursuing that knowledge across the unknown sea. Such an explorer must find a wealthy patron to provide a ship, or possess this wealth himself. These expeditions of pure exploration offer an oppor-tunity for adventure unfettered by the tempta-tions of wealth and land. They offer the oppor-tunity to seek what is new simply for the excitement of being there and experiencing it.
Of course, even a scholarly voyage requires some protection, and the lure of the unknown can be an irresistible draw for true adventurers.
Weather
The weather is extremely important to seago-ing vessels. Wind, rain, and clouds determine their environment. Depending on these factors, a vessel might have a swift, easy journey or it might spend months lost at sea. More than just travel time, these factors can incite mutiny.
Captains have lost ships due to bad weather and uncertainty—not just to the ocean, but to angry or frightened crews.
55
Wind speed directly determines the speed of the ship, and too much wind can break masts, tear sails, and blow water onto the deck. High winds also cause rough seas, which can toss the largest ships around like toys. In the midst of such a chaotic environment, the crew must work harder than ever to prevent the ship from being blown over, sent off-course, or damaged beyond repair. For most ships’ crews, the goal is simply to survive a heavy storm with the ship intact. Afterwards, they must determine their position again and try to find the way to their destination.
Rain and fog both limit vision, and may make it difficult for seamen to locate dangers to the ship such as reefs, sand bars, or rocks in the water.
Limited vision also makes it difficult to find another vessel or to spot a safe port or island.
Civilized lands build lighthouses to help ships find their way to port and avoid hazards in the sea, but in many places the ship’s crew are on their own. No one likes to approach an unknown coast in the fog. Too many times, a watery grave awaits those unaware of the hazards.
Cloud cover, while not serious unless a storm comes, can blanket the sky in gray and white.
Unable to see the stars, any ship out of sight of land may lose its way. Reliable navigational instruments are rare and pilots must guide themselves by the stars. When clouds or storms hide the stars, even the best pilots can lose their way. Once the clouds have passed, the ship’s course must be confirmed. When ships stray, days, weeks, or months may be lost. Ships
ration out their supplies and try to leave as much room for cargo as possible. A delayed voyage can run the ship out of food or water before a safe port is reached, and a hungry crew can be more dangerous than the worst storm.
Rules for resolving the effects of weather on sea travel and combat are presented in Chapter 6 (see page 170).
Hazards
The animal hazards of the sea are numerous, and aquatic races with malevolent intelli-gence can be a significant hazard of their own. These dangers, however, can be fought and defeated.
The environmental hazards of the sea must be detected, avoided, or simply endured. Perhaps the most dangerous of the undersea environ-mental conditions is the temperature and pres-sure of the water itself. Those dangers are well known and constant, but there are other, more rare dangers in the seas. There are other haz-ards that can appear suddenly and for which there are no defenses but vigilance.
Icebergs: Where glaciers or ice sheets meet the sea, the movement of the ice can push the edge into water that is deeper than the thickness of the ice. As this happens, portions of the ice break off and form icebergs. When they form, icebergs are enormous, with a height of up to 500 feet above the surface of the water. The majority of the iceberg, however, remains underwater. Surface currents push icebergs fur-ther from the poles and glaciers that form them, and they can float thousands of miles away from their origin, reaching well into temperate regions.
Icebergs are a hazard on the sea for two princi-ple reasons. First, the mass of ice beneath the surface can puncture a ship beneath the water-line and cause it to sink. Even when moving slowly, the sheer mass of an iceberg imparts it with a great deal of force in such a collision. A maneuverable ship, however, should be able to avoid icebergs as they approach. Use the ram-ming rules (see page 166) to resolve collisions with icebergs. Treat typical icebergs as Colossal, stationary objects.
CHAPTER TWO: Seafaring campaigns
56
CHAPTER TWO: Seafaring campaigns Second, icebergs can cause a hazard to aquatic
races. While most sea creatures can easily avoid the slow-moving icebergs, an undersea settlement must be abandoned at the approach of an iceberg, unless some means of deflecting or destroying it can be found. Not only can the mass of the ice destroy the structures of an aquatic settlement, but the ice also cools the surrounding water. Just as with currents, changes in the temperature of the surrounding water can pose a serious threat to marine life, and intelligent races are no exception.
Waterspouts: A waterspout is simply a torna-do that forms over a large body of water. The powerful winds of the funnel pick up water from the surface of the sea, and waterspouts appear as huge inverted cones of swirling water rising into the sky. The mass of the water col-lected slows the winds and prevents the funnel from lifting off of the surface and jumping as tornadoes do on land. Despite the slower winds and more predictable movement, however, waterspouts still present a significant danger.
Normal storms and rough seas can threaten to break the masts of a ship, tear sails, or even flip a vessel over and sink it. The heavy storm that accompanies a waterspout can damage the stur-diest ships, and the high winds and extremely low pressure of the waterspout itself can destroy them outright. If a ship collides with a waterspout, its sails and masts take 6d6 points of damage, and Strength checks against these structures’ Break DCs are made as described in the ship combat rules (see page 160). The dan-gers posed by waterspouts do not extend far beneath the surface of the sea where the winds cannot reach.
Whirlpools: A whirlpool is a body of water spinning in a circular motion. They have a cen-tral depressed area and sometimes a vortical cavity in the center. This cavity draws sur-rounding floating objects toward the center and underwater. Whirlpools are caused by the meeting of opposing currents or tides, by the force of wind on the water, or by undersea cur-rents running into offshore rocks.
Most whirlpools are simply giant swirls of water. Sailing ships can be becalmed in such a whirlpool and held in the center by the force of the water, or they might be swept against rocky coastlines. Oared vessels may be able to over-come the force of the current, but whirlpools can still be a significant hazard. Whirlpools
with a vortical cavity can become quite violent and the suction produced by the swirling water can drag down even the largest ships.
Whirlpools of either type pose no threat to undersea life, though they can inhibit the movement of marine creatures.
A ship that comes into contact with a non-vor-tical whirlpool at least as large as the ship moves in a random direction for 1d4 rounds unless the crew makes a successful Profession (sailor) check (DC 15 + 2 for every size cate-gory larger the whirlpool is than the ship).
If a vortical whirlpool’s size category at least equals the size category of a creature or ship that comes into contact with it, the creature or ship may be sucked in and submerged.
Creatures must make Swim checks (DC 20) or be sucked in and thrust under the surface. The creature is pulled 1d6 x 10 feet below the sur-face, plus 10 feet for every size category of the whirlpool above Medium-size. The effects of pressure, temperature, and drowning are resolved normally. The crew of a ship must make a Profession (sailor) check (DC 15 + 2 for every size category larger the whirlpool is than the ship) or the ship sinks.