Seafaring tales

In the strictest sense of terms, a naval story line is a story which is played out at sea. Dashing buccaneers, mean slavers, toothless salty dogs, and frothing storms come to mind. Coconut palms on white beaches, painted cannibals, and natives with feather crowns and body tattoos. The conqueror walking towards them in the shallow lagoon, bible and glass beads ready. A more or less worthy cause — to dominate the Spanish Main, to profit off the slaves and gold of the far Yucatan or the Gold Coast, or to rescue Helen of Troy.

A naval story line may be a full-scale campaign, a decades long journey of exploration, or simply a matter of getting from one side of the bay to the other. While ships at sea are essentially a matter of transportation, far more can be made from them than, ‘Well, you embark, the voyage takes six weeks, and then you’re in Santa Crux, where do you go?‘

Why a naval story line?

The main purpose of sea travel is getting from one place to another. The purpose of the story line is to prevent this part of the characters’ lives from being a blank space, three months lost because no one bothered to guess at what could possibly happen while they were at sea. Setting up a naval story line is no small affair, though. Particularly not if the characters are meant to stay at sea for months or even years.

You will need to write major story lines — when you get to that port, what will happen there, and where will that take you in turn? A naval approach to fantasy is a great thing. It allows your characters to travel to parts of your game setting where they probably wouldn’t go otherwise. The boat itself, whether Polynesian war canoe or 42 cannon frigate, is another question. But it is the ports, always the ports, that comprise the main areas of interest.

A naval setting opens up for a variety of interconnecting story lines, leading the characters around in pursuit of whatever they’re trying to get their hands on. The master can write a series of independent stories, all starting and ending within the same port — or he can set the characters out on a long journey to conclude just one story line. Either can be quite entertaining, and it’s a convenient way to get to use some of those old ideas you’ve had lying about.

The naval story line also takes the characters deep into the countries visited, whether as explorers or a rescue team looking for those who went before. They may undertake long expeditions into unknown country — and limp back to the ship to lick their wounds and plot their next attempt to find the seen fabled golden cities of El Dorado.

The naval story line allows you to shift between smaller and large plots as you like. It helps you avoid a situation where the characters feel they’ve seen it all — because there are always new coasts to sail to.

Officer and crew relationships

The master needs to make up his mind as to whether the characters constitute the crew, the officers, or the passengers of his ship. This is very important, because it determines their roles in the story line. The situations evolving look very different to officers, passengers and crewmen respectively.

Crewmen are obviously not decision-makers. Politics and state economy are things that happen somewhere else. Their primary concerns are not having too hard a time (and Renaissance seamanship really did take its man), getting paid, and having a good time while in port. Having the characters constitute the crew is a good idea for a one-shot, but it may not be as good for a longer story. The players may find it interesting to see their characters bossed around for a while, but in the long run being bullied by the boatswain will lose its attraction. The approach works very well, though, for characters who need to get out of somewhere fast and unseen.

Officers have control of the ship or at least are free to act pretty much as they please. They may be buccaneers, traders, or even officers of some Royal Navy or other. They should have a fairly free leave to patrol where they will. This is not a bad approach for a long-term adventure. The characters can do more or less what they like, assuming that they agree among themselves.

Passengers are in transit from one place to another. This does not mean that this part of the story is soon over. Ships tend to get lost, captured, or simply undertake very long journeys. The characters will have to get a good relationship going with the officers and crew in order to ascertain their own safety, and not get caught in the in between of a mutiny, a rebellion, a battle, or simply being robbed blind and marooned.

Incidents of Port

Smaller incidents occurring in sea ports generally are any encounter or brief story which can be told within one or two game sessions. These are rarely full-scale adventures. They are part of what provides the feel and taste of the port of call. Sometimes, though, incidents can help spark off a full-fledged adventure which may take longer to solve.

Suggestions for brief stories of that kind might include:

Elves are really kind of rare around here.	The characters, most likely the party’s elf, discover that elves are unknown in this land, and consequently, very valuable. Apart from the harmless attempts made by merchants to buy the elf, or bribe him to stay, they may get into the frying pan when they refuse a nobleman’s bid on the elf. If one of the characters belong to a species unknown in the visited realm, he might find himself the focus of attention of a good deal of unfavorable folks. Being worshiped by the natives is one thing — learning that the god must stay in the village is a different thing. Being abducted and sold into slavery comprises an entire story line in itself.
There was this girl…	Sailors tend to pay visits to a certain kind of establishment which flourish on the darker parts of the harbor area. Various things can come off this. Apart from the more or less lethal diseases that can be attracted by this means, there is the chance of overhearing something you shouldn’t, finding a treasure map, getting into a good brawl, and maybe discovering that the guy you just brained is the Governor’s son, or getting shang-hai’ed to serve on another ship than your own. Every city large enough to have a tavern (they usually build that right after they build the first pier) has hooks like those. You just need to have a few ready-to-go adventures up your sleeve. The characters generally don’t need help finding where the trouble is.
What’s that Indian doing on your deck?	Story lines can spark off from simple misunderstandings due to creed, language or religion. Finding El Dorado is no small problem if your best shot at an interpreter is a Brazilian headhunter who speaks a few syllables of Spanish and likes his food alive and kicking. An authentic example of a misunderstanding occurred on a ship on which my family was sailing. The local Spanish workers showed up in large numbers in Puerto Rico, protesting that the captain hired Jivaro Indians instead of proper Spanish workers. It turned out that the ship’s cook, a huge fellow from Greenland, apparently could pass for a Jivaro, should he want to.

Let’s not get into details about religion and the importance of hiring a native crew with a different faith than that of the officers. Let’s just agree that being unable to provide the proper burial rites and generally stepping on anyone’s religious feet has been the death of many a European exploration crew. The Indian Sepoy Rebellion was ignited by the bullets being greased with ox fat, which, as some will recall, is an offense to the Hindu religion. So be careful!

That’s not really cricket, old chap.

Moving to more recent seafaring history, let’s look at the large passenger vessels sailing between the continents at the beginning and middle of the 20th century. These ships comprised a large number of people stuffed into fairly little space — but not all decks were crowded (though I bet the life boats of the Titanic were in fact very crowded).

The passengers of these ships were divided into two categories — those with cash and those without. The former dined at the captain’s table, had balls and bridge games in the evenings, arranged marriages and passed time in a pleasant, if boring way. The other category comprised those who slept in bunks and passed time as they could best, usually not with great comfort. Needless to say, second class passengers weren’t welcome on the upper decks.

A broad variety of whodunit story lines can be fitted into such a voyage. It meets all the basic requirements. The passengers are separated from civilization for as long as the journey takes. It’s easy to get rid of a body (heave-ho!). There are lots of murder motives — greed, jealousy dramas, wealthy heirs sent overseas to cover up some incident, and so forth. Don’t worry about finding a butler to blame, they’re here — only here, they’re called stewards. Other events would include charity balls, fights and brawls, pick-pockets stealing valuables (and immigration papers and passports!), and the characters running into old acquaintances. Finally, remember naval rites and ceremonies. While hardly a challenge to the characters’ lives, the crossing of the Equator or the rounding of Cape Horn usually calls for some quite interesting festivities.

As you can tell, there are things enough to do at sea. An easy way to find inspiration for more far-fetched story lines goes through your library or the Internet. Find Captain Marryat’s stories and others of the kind. If you want a more realistic approach, look up Herman Melville. Literature is full of good ideas for story lines. Your more literate players will have read ‘Treasure Island’ and possibly ‘Moby Dick’ too — but you can always twist the well known. Long Jane Silver? As for the really far-fetched, look up Jules Verne.

While you’re at it, check for the voyages of Sir Francis Drake and other British pira–oops! patriots. Sometimes reality beats the imagination!