Player handout : Pirates of the Eversea

Overview

The Eversea is a vast expanse of open space, littered with literally hundreds of thousands of little islands of earth floating effortlessly in the darkness. Most are sunless rocks about the size of a house, but occasionally one is large or magical enough to sponsor its own light. There is no need for air, it seems to be everywhere, and gravity almost always points down towards Profundum. Almost. Far too often strangers and enemies are made to walk the plank and find themselves eventually falling sideways in invisible currents of gravity and air to land in foreboding, and forbidden places.

The largest of the floating islands are the five continents, and the largest of those is claimed by the Sultancy. Legend tells that a thousand years ago every single island was visited and claimed by the ancient Tris, but no-one has heard of what happened to them in all that time.

To be fair, not all natives of the Eversea are pirates, and there is next to no sea in the Eversea.

Government

A pirate captain is the law on their own boat and makes all rules, fair and fowl, according to whim and circumstance. Often each pirate vessel will swears fealty to a pirate lord, who usually holds an island or two as a base of power, and can command other captains on their own vessel (as long as they have more soldiers and a bigger boat to back it up with). Only occasionally does a pirate gain enough land and ships to be called a great pirate lord, and only while they are alive - their holding tends to be divided up among heirs who must earn dominance on their own. There are seven great pirate lords at this time, of all kinds of races and genders. This changes every few years, as even immortal pirate lords (such as undead) are eventually brought down by the constant competition among them.

Once every hundred generations or so a particularly powerful pirate lord holds such influence over all the other pirate lords though cunning and persuasion as to be effectively an emperor. Twice in their history the pirate armada has taken sail to the terror of all. Usually, though, there is no strict alliance between factions and the largest unit of government is the boat they are sailing on. There is no honour among thieves.

Cressellia however, the largest city, is a neutral meeting ground for the pirates, and no one pirate lord risks claiming it as their own.



Char Blackthroat – Human. Rogue (polite, cunning, evil) gluttony

Lady Gwendelain – elven arcane trickster (beautiful fem fatales) envy

Hok – orc raider (wanton destroyer) greed

Barrum Stealhammer – dwarven rogue (tyrant) sloth

Sly – Halfling assassin (pragmatic) lust

Ming Wun Fu – githzeri monk (very evil.) wrath

Man Luck – gnome bard (comic relief, but wise, lucky, and kinda helpful. Generally treated as ‘harmless’ by other pirate lords who grudgingly appreciate his cunning and levelling influence.) pride

Geography

Pirates are actually very few in number, but several small towns of scum and villainy do exist. They live scattered on the (hundred) thousand floating islands of the Eversea. Some are no more that a building or two, hoping to go unnoticed and hidden far from trade routs.



Points of interest:

Scholars generally agree that the thousands islands of the Eversea were once a single world, blown apart by some enormous force and swept into this tiny pocket plane. While history records the Eversea was like this prior to the Tris, most blame the Tris anyway.

The whole area, for convenience, is divided into the great outer circle, and the much much smaller inner circle where the vast majority of the population live. The outer circle is essentially blank, except for some points of legend such hidden thrones of the Gods. The outer circle objects follow very erratic orbits, some none at all.

The thousand islands (actually hundreds of thousands, with countless millions of tiny rocks, chunks of dirt, and specks of dust) of the inner circle slowly rotate around the maelstrom, shepherded by the five great continents in a counter clockwise direction.

The maelstrom is an enormous storm of Everwinds at the base of the Eversea, spinning upwards. Some say to ride the maelstrom is to escape the pocket plane forever, if the trip doesn’t kill you.

The outer circle from above;





And from the side;



+ve and –ve planes lie on the north and south sides of the great circle respectively. Celestium (heaven) and Profundum (hell) are at the top and bottom, with a great ring of Aboretum (neutal) right in the middle. Needless to say, most of the space is considered profoundly empty. It is an eight year journey in the fastest skyships ever imagined to cross the Eversea, most ships aren’t 1/100th as fast.

The outer circle can be extremely difficult to navigate, using only the tiny specks of light from the inner circle the only obvious features. Special compasses for detecting Celestium, Arboretum, Profundum, the energy planes and Malestrom also exist, but are excruciatingly rare.





Top down map of the inner circle, including five governing continents, is displayed below;



Water is rare, except for the magically sustained ocean ring (not fit for drinking), and the beautiful by dangerous water continent Oceania where the abolyths currently hold rule. Getting a drink can be extremely dangerous, most mariners never return, and water is at times at a great expense. The demons of Accursed love fire, Iceland undead life on a land made of metal, and the Beastmen enjoy a forested land filled with dinosaurs.

Three month journey from side to side.

Military

Again, almost everyone, but a unified force is highly unlikely.

Daily life

With no strict time determined by sunlight, pirates live life to the schedule set by their captain and look out warily all the time. Families tend to live on the islands in towns or settle on the continents if they can break away from the tyranny of their pirate overlords. There is honest work on the islands, or dishonest work on the Everbreeze as the pirates take to plunder and searching for lost treasures (usually of the Tris) among the islands. They usually avoid the well organised and powerful Sultancy, and the other well defended governing continents.

Pirates believe themselves to be, mostly, descendants from ancient pirates who fled to the realm to escape persecution millennia ago, and then forgot how to get back. Some of them trace their bloodlines back to the Tris, but they are very very rare. Just as rare are adventurous and foolhardy souls who have left one of the governing continents to attempt a life out on the Everbreeze.

Religion

While not typically religious, deities of thieving or chance are common. A few honest but of necessity poor shrines do exist to benevolent deities in the hope of redeeming the people.

Crime and punishment

Whatever the person in charge decides is a crime, basically. It’s chaotic neutral at best.

Cultural oddities

• Pirates are very interested in gold, and can be persuaded quite easily by its lure.

• Pirates are also swayed by good speeches, expert dancing, and other charismatic performances.

• Above all, the pirates value skill – running on rope, balancing, tumbling, juggling etc, and are very impressed by feats of dexterity.

• Most of them are in debt to someone for something.

• Most pirates aren’t savage, allowing those plundered to live. Savage pirates are usually hunted down by alliances of other pirates, ironically.

• Also ironically, pirates value keeping ones word. Sadly, they don’t think anyone can actually keep up that high ideal and lie and betray each other quite often.