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[NJW2000]

Belgrafian Shippery Docks

  You stand on the narrow gangway, your purchase before you, the grinning ship-dealer rummaging in his pocket for the keys.  With a forty-foot long two-masted sailing vessel, freshly painted and ready for the open seas, the six of you brim with anticipation, the joy of ownership, and the rather cheap fish soup they serve on the docks. Ships are pretty expensive, so you'll be eating hard tack for a while.

Ready for a life of adventure, trading with strange empires and cheating primitives, you clubbed together to buy a ship. But that's not all! As well, you placed a Naval Seamen Deposit (unfortunate name that) for your first hold of cargo. The rest, which you will have to pay back, was paid for you in an unusually sensible investment on the part of the Belgrafian banking system, which addmittedly isn't saying much.

You stare at the pround face of Gareth on the prow, fabled coffee grinder of Eastern Belgrafia, and feel a combination of pride, longing, and nausea from too much fish stew.


"I'm sure you're all very eager to get started, but I just need you to sign theses contracts for the Belgrafian High Finance Initiative - no, using the red ink, it's not blood, just traditional... tell me where your collateral (homes, livestock, saleable offspring, all that) can be found in the event of your failure to repay the debt, and lastly, fill out this form..."

He hands over a sheet of documents.

Spoiler: FORM (click to show/hide)

Name:
Brief description and backstory: [Note: you're from Belgrafia]
Position: Captain, Weapons Officer, Quartermaster and Repairman, First Mate, Accountant Navigator, Ship's Cat.
Stats: Captain has to 3 points to put anywhere, other crew have 5, cat has 8.
          Combat: man-to-man fighting
          Seamanship: how good you are at making the ship work,
          Techiness: strange devices etc
          Book-learning: using books, navigating, etc.
          Athletics: Swimming, mad stuntz, etc
          Weirding: how good you are at dealing with magic, weird creatures, odd cultures, intuitive stuff, etc.
          Bluff: can be rolled for any roll with -1 penalty.
Personal Item: you may take just one thing (apart from toothbrushes etc, one useful thing) with you. Because of obscure dock regulations, this thing's name may include no more or less than 17 letters, not including spaces.

Position explanation: when voting on a matter involving all crew/the ship, captain has 3 votes, cat has none, everyone else has one.

Spoiler: what the hell is this? (click to show/hide)

An RTD I will run as long as I feel like (possibly not a huge amount of time, as it's just for keeping me amused in exam season), involving the crew of a trading ship attempting to earn money.

Aesthetic is mostly stupid, vaguely steampunk, but time is roughly 1700s.

Spoiler: map (click to show/hide)

This being a map not made by the cartographer's guild, and thus a hell of a lot cheaper, there aren't actually any names on it. Orange ☼ symbol shows city and population/size. This is by no means everything discovered, but the map ends at the edges.

It should also be noted that, due to inter-dimensional Austerity measures, after a certain point going east will move one backwards in time. The reverse applies to going west.

NB: WHITE IS WATER.
Sorry for not making this clear.

North is colder. South is hotter.

Spoiler: ship (click to show/hide)

2 tradewind sails
2 small Belgrafian Safety Cannons

Deck
Captain's Cabin
4 cabins
Main Deck
Eight multilated Piratical Bureaucrat Bodies
Two Piratical Bureaucrat Ballistae, 6 arrows each
Poop deck
Bow (cannons here)
Hold

Spoiler: hold (click to show/hide)

6 crates hard tack - a curious property of this unappetising but nourishing material is that one can bring oneself to eat just enough to keep oneself alive, but not enough to make any noticeable difference in the quantity of hard tack. For reasons that may be quantum, it is thus demonstrably impossible for someone to eat an entire crate of hard tack alone, and gods know who'd want to.

1000 gold pieces worth of gold
1000 gold pieces worth of peacocks, minus one.

Spoiler: finances (click to show/hide)

You are 1,000 gold pieces in debt. You have 200 gold pieces.

Spoiler: characters (click to show/hide)

I'll try to do a sheet shortly... Not captain, preferably accountant-navigator. Here:

Name: Jackson Greene
Brief description and backstory: From Belgrafia, Jackson Greene dreamed of becoming an Accountant Navigator ever since he was old enough to dream about such things. It’s literally all he’s ever wanted to do, which is why at the age of 12 he ran away to sea. Unfortunately, he forgot to go to school, university, or the specialist Accountant Navigator finishing institutions that are typically necessary before doing so. However, he’s a natural at almost everything he puts his mind to, so perhaps it’ll all be okay?

Jackson Greene is a scruffy 12 year old boy with scuffed knees and hair like a flattened haystack. He borrowed his father’s best suit before running away to sea, so he is very smartly dressed in clothes that are several years too large for him.

Position: Accountant Navigator
Stats:
          Combat: 0
          Seamanship: 0
          Techiness: 0
          Book-learning: 0
          Athletics: 0
          Weirding: 0
          Bluff: 5
Personal Item: Navigator’s Monocle (bonus to Navigating and Not Looking Like You’re An Unqualified 12 Year Old Runaway)

Name:"CandyGal"
Brief description and backstory a strange being perhaps a human? Perhaps some kind of spirit "candygal" is a happy go lucky weirdo who is obsessed with children oddity's and candy she has no family but when asked she says she was raised in a small village where she ran a sweets shop. She is 9ft1 with blond wavy short hair and deep blue eyes she wears:This just the clothes plus a lolipop in her mouth. [Note: you're from Belgrafia]
Position:Quartermaster
Stats: Captain has to 3 points to put anywhere, other crew have 5, cat has 8.
          Combat:0
          Seamanship:0
          Techiness:0
          Book-learning:1
          Athletics:1
          Weirding:3
          Bluff:
Personal Item: Bag of infinte candy ((it just seems to never run out!))

Inventory: A bunch of sturdy crates with the locks broken, bottles, boxes, a menacing length of copper pipe, a collection of yellowing rags, and a cart full of rotten apples.
One suit of superior quality peppermint candy armour

Name: That Bloody Cat
Description: When the captain's grandmother died, she left the captain her cat in her will. The grandmother, however, never mentioned That Bloody Cat's name. The captain promptly dubbed it "That Bloody Cat". Mainly because of its tendency to brutally murder people who got on its nerves, only sparing those protected by the captain.
Position: Ship's Cat
Stats:
Combat: 8
Everything Else: 0
Personal Item: Nothing. It's a Bloody Cat, after all.

Name:Arc Desmond
Brief description and backstory: A Seafarer by passion, Arc spent several years in the merchant marines honing his craft and rising in the ranks. When his grandmother died, leaving him a Ship's Cat, he felt the call to ownership of his very own vessel. A tad eccentric, he banded together with a couple oddities (and perhaps a sensible friend or two?) to purchase this thing.
Stats:
          Seamanship: 2
          Techiness: 1

Personal Item: Sphere of Sky and Sea.
Position explanation: when voting on a matter involving all crew/the ship, captain has 3 votes, cat has none, everyone else has one.

Name: Devan the Seemingly Soulless

Backstory: Devan was notable in his youth for being an aspiring smith with questionable business tactics. Competitors went missing, and Devan sold red blades, apparently "Hardened through use". After being nearly arrested several times (and released due to a lack of evidence), Devan was finally convicted of mass homicide when he was discovered with several personal items belonging to a murder-victim, shortly after the murder was discovered. Devan did not deny any of his acts. He claimed he had felt no emotion when slaughtering them, except satisfaction. As such, he was convicted as a mad-man (more accurately, a psychopath). He was originally to be sentenced to death, but certain money found its way into the hands of powerful individuals, and he was sentenced to a life in jail. Only two months later, Devan was released upon the orders of the head of the guard. The head of the guard later went to Devan's house to collect his "taxes", and never left. Devan shortly after just showed up at the docks, wearing a cloak which concealed a large amount of weapons. He made his way onto the HMS Gareth after genuinely collapsing from the exhaustion of both heat, and carrying several searing hot blades around under a cloak for several days. He was originally to be sent back out, but managed to secure a position as the weapons officer when he displayed his large array of weapons, all with his trademark 'bleeding heart' symbol on them.

Description: Devan wears a small suit of lightly protective armor. He refuses to admit how boiling hot it is under the suit. Devan is a psychopath, and has no moral values as such. He takes whatever route offers the most advantage to him, even if it might some-day be betrayal or mutiny. Despite how impressive the armor appears, it offers little physical protection, as the copper blend it is crafted out of melts like butter to a sword. When he takes the armor off, he usually wears a cloak. This also makes him very, very hot. On the most torturous of days, he has been seen wearing light, traditional clothing. He still makes heat-related comments about it. He stands at average height, with chest-nut brown hair. His eyes are a dark shade of blue. When he makes eye contact with a person, he locks his eyes to theirs until they look away. He is of decent physical build, having been a blacksmith in the past. His skin, while constantly turning a light shade of red due to sun burn, is rather tan, both due to the hot fire in his old blacksmithing shop and the sun over the port.

Position: Weapons Officer
Stats:
          Combat: 1
          Seamanship: 1
          Techiness: 2
          Book-learning: 1
          Athletics: 0
          Weirding: 0
          Bluff: Haha, 0

Personal Item: Repeating Cannon - This rather bulky hand-held cannon takes a lot of strength to carry. Peculiarly, it seems to fire six cannonballs in quick succession. However, reloading is so insanely complex that it cannot be done in combat, and requires a high roll to do correctly.

Inventory: Plenty of scrap metal, see above, and a massive flat stone usable as an anvil, thirty gold coins, six shoddily made crossbows, 25 quivers shoddily made bolts (dozen to a quiver), ten medium quality cutlasses, three fine cutlasses, and four suits of medium armour, some diagrams and notes from the schematics journal.

Name: Octavius Wickfield
Backstory: The son of an author and tutor, Octavius took interest in the marvels of engineering and technology at an early age, constantly scorching his face and pinching his fingers trying to create machines and gadgets that he could call his own. The enigma of cogs and steam fascinated him, leading him to try to take up the mantle of an inventor as he grew. However, growing more and more frustrated and demoralized each day, unable to make a practical invention he could call his own, he was pushed to look across the seas, wondering what lay beyond his home that would inspire or enable him to create something wonderful. As he got rid of nearly all of his possessions before heading out, he glimpsed a man heaving a large, brown tome into an alley. Glossing over the tome, and astounded at its contents, he bought it with him, and walking to the docks, not looking back even once.

Description: Covered in burns and bruises, haphazardly bound with gauze, with an odd looking brown jacket, poorly reinforced with metal surrounding the ribs and chest. Pants with the bottoms poorly stitched together, looking as if they've been torn a thousand times over, kept up by a toolbelt. A pair of workman's boots, hardy and well worn. A pair of bronze goggles, one lens cracked from what appears to be blunt impact. And a pair of leather gloves, scorched, hard, yet still somewhat wearable.
Position: First Mate
Stats:
          Techiness: 3
          Weirding: 2
Schematics Journal - A massive book, filled with assorted signatures, schematics, phenomena, and incantations. It's somewhat tough to tell theoretical, impractical nonsense and superstition from practical instructions related to engineering, technology, and the unknown.

Inventory: Scrap metal and piping, glass bottles, halfbricks, Five shoddily made cutlasses, some more basic tools and scrap metal etc

[lawastooshort]

I'll try to do a sheet shortly... Not captain, preferably accountant-navigator. Here:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name: Jackson Greene
Brief description and backstory: From Belgrafia, Jackson Greene dreamed of becoming an Accountant Navigator ever since he was old enough to dream about such things. It’s literally all he’s ever wanted to do, which is why at the age of 12 he ran away to sea. Unfortunately, he forgot to go to school, university, or the specialist Accountant Navigator finishing institutions that are typically necessary before doing so. However, he’s a natural at almost everything he puts his mind to, so perhaps it’ll all be okay?

Jackson Greene is a scruffy 12 year old boy with scuffed knees and hair like a flattened haystack. He borrowed his father’s best suit before running away to sea, so he is very smartly dressed in clothes that are several years too large for him.

Position: Accountant Navigator
Stats:
          Combat: 0
          Seamanship: 0
          Techiness: 0
          Book-learning: 0
          Athletics: 0
          Weirding: 0
          Bluff: 5
Personal Item: Navigator’s Monocle (bonus to Navigating and Not Looking Like You’re An Unqualified 12 Year Old Runaway)

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name:"CandyGal"
Brief description and backstory a strange being perhaps a human? Perhaps some kind of spirit "candygal" is a happy go lucky weirdo who is obsessed with children oddity's and candy she has no family but when asked she says she was raised in a small village where she ran a sweets shop. She is 9ft1 with blond wavy short hair and deep blue eyes she wears:This just the clothes plus a lolipop in her mouth. [Note: you're from Belgrafia]
Position:Quartermaster
Stats: Captain has to 3 points to put anywhere, other crew have 5, cat has 8.
          Combat:0
          Seamanship:0
          Techiness:0
          Book-learning:1
          Athletics:1
          Weirding:3
          Bluff:
Personal Item: Bag of infinte candy ((it just seems to never run out!))


 

[FallacyofUrist]

Spoiler: The Bloody Cat (click to show/hide)

Name: That Bloody Cat
Description: When the captain's grandmother died, she left the captain her cat in her will. The grandmother, however, never mentioned That Bloody Cat's name. The captain promptly dubbed it "That Bloody Cat". Mainly because of its tendency to brutally murder people who got on its nerves, only sparing those protected by the captain.
Position: Ship's Cat
Stats:
Combat: 8
Everything Else: 0
Personal Item: Nothing. It's a Bloody Cat, after all.

[NJW2000]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name:"CandyGal"
Brief description and backstory a strange being perhaps a human? Perhaps some kind of spirit "candygal" is a happy go lucky weirdo who is obsessed with children oddity's and candy she has no family but when asked she says she was raised in a small village where she ran a sweets shop. She is 9ft1 with blond wavy short hair and deep blue eyes she wears:This just the clothes plus a lolipop in her mouth. [Note: you're from Belgrafia]
Position:Quartermaster
Stats: Captain has to 3 points to put anywhere, other crew have 5, cat has 8.
          Combat:0
          Seamanship:0
          Techiness:0
          Book-learning:1
          Athletics:1
          Weirding:3
          Bluff:
Personal Item: Bag of infinte candy ((it just seems to never run out!))


 

Not how one spells "infinite". Would "endless" be acceptable?

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name:"CandyGal"
Brief description and backstory a strange being perhaps a human? Perhaps some kind of spirit "candygal" is a happy go lucky weirdo who is obsessed with children oddity's and candy she has no family but when asked she says she was raised in a small village where she ran a sweets shop. She is 9ft1 with blond wavy short hair and deep blue eyes she wears:This just the clothes plus a lolipop in her mouth. [Note: you're from Belgrafia]
Position:Quartermaster
Stats: Captain has to 3 points to put anywhere, other crew have 5, cat has 8.
          Combat:0
          Seamanship:0
          Techiness:0
          Book-learning:1
          Athletics:1
          Weirding:3
          Bluff:
Personal Item: Bag of infinte candy ((it just seems to never run out!))


 

Not how one spells "infinite". Would "endless" be acceptable?

Yes

[lawastooshort]

How do the stats/points work?

Say, if I put 5 points into Bluff, would I get +4 to all rolls?


also, I edited a sheet into my post above.

[NJW2000]

No, its more Like a level of skill, better results From same rolls.

[Ozarck]

Name:Arc Desmond
Brief description and backstory: A Seafarer by passion, Arc spent several years in the merchant marines honing his craft and rising in the ranks. When his grandmother died, leaving him a Ship's Cat, he felt the call to ownership of his very own vessel. A tad eccentric, he banded together with a couple oddities (and perhaps a sensible friend or two?) to purchase this thing.
Stats:
          Seamanship: 2
          Techiness: 1

Personal Item: Sphere of Sky and Sea.
Position explanation: when voting on a matter involving all crew/the ship, captain has 3 votes, cat has none, everyone else has one.

[NJW2000]

All accepted so far. 

[Coolrune206]

Name: Devan the Seemingly Soulless

Backstory: Devan was notable in his youth for being an aspiring smith with questionable business tactics. Competitors went missing, and Devan sold red blades, apparently "Hardened through use". After being nearly arrested several times (and released due to a lack of evidence), Devan was finally convicted of mass homicide when he was discovered with several personal items belonging to a murder-victim, shortly after the murder was discovered. Devan did not deny any of his acts. He claimed he had felt no emotion when slaughtering them, except satisfaction. As such, he was convicted as a mad-man (more accurately, a psychopath). He was originally to be sentenced to death, but certain money found its way into the hands of powerful individuals, and he was sentenced to a life in jail. Only two months later, Devan was released upon the orders of the head of the guard. The head of the guard later went to Devan's house to collect his "taxes", and never left. Devan shortly after just showed up at the docks, wearing a cloak which concealed a large amount of weapons. He made his way onto the HMS Gareth after genuinely collapsing from the exhaustion of both heat, and carrying several searing hot blades around under a cloak for several days. He was originally to be sent back out, but managed to secure a position as the weapons officer when he displayed his large array of weapons, all with his trademark 'bleeding heart' symbol on them.

Description: Devan wears a small suit of lightly protective armor. He refuses to admit how boiling hot it is under the suit. Devan is a psychopath, and has no moral values as such. He takes whatever route offers the most advantage to him, even if it might some-day be betrayal or mutiny. Despite how impressive the armor appears, it offers little physical protection, as the copper blend it is crafted out of melts like butter to a sword. When he takes the armor off, he usually wears a cloak. This also makes him very, very hot. On the most torturous of days, he has been seen wearing light, traditional clothing. He still makes heat-related comments about it. He stands at average height, with chest-nut brown hair. His eyes are a dark shade of blue. When he makes eye contact with a person, he locks his eyes to theirs until they look away. He is of decent physical build, having been a blacksmith in the past. His skin, while constantly turning a light shade of red due to sun burn, is rather tan, both due to the hot fire in his old blacksmithing shop and the sun over the port.

Position: Weapons Officer
Stats:
          Combat: 1
          Seamanship: 1
          Techiness: 2
          Book-learning: 1
          Athletics: 0
          Weirding: 0
          Bluff: Haha, 0

Personal Item: Repeating Cannon - This rather bulky hand-held cannon takes a lot of strength to carry. Peculiarly, it seems to fire six cannonballs in quick succession. However, reloading is so insanely complex that it cannot be done in combat, and requires a high roll to do correctly.

Position explanation: One vote it is

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Does Devan like candy?
Who among the crew likes candy!

[Ozarck]

There's always at least one who just has to play a sociopathic psychopath. Every game.

Which orange circle on the map up there are we starting in, and shall we wait for a sixth before getting a list of possible cargoes?

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Fun fact candygal is gonna love our navigator she loves children after all.
Does your character like candy?

[Atian the Elephantman God]

What does the first mate do?