Archie
Not even my final form
Billions of years ago, asteroids came to the gas giant celestis, carrying water oxygen, carbon dioxide, and most importantly, cobalt. Repelled by the planet's magnetic core, cobalt allowed these asteroids to float, forming islands, and in some cases, continents.
Since the beginning of history, humans have used sailships ladened with cobalt to traverse the stormy skies of our planet. With landmasses that constantly shift, navigation has become the most valuable skill known to man - only the best captains can predict with mathematical accuracy where each of our planets' million floating landmasses will be at any given point in the year.
Improvements in navigation have led to an explosion in trade, but also an explosion in society's evils. Over the course of history, great, conquering empires have risen and fallen. With the invention of gunpowder, their wars have become ever more vicious and disruptive.
Today, the skies are controlled by four warring empires; the rising power of Aeternia, the waning slave empire of Ridolfo, the vast realm of Zhao, and the zealous Talarcid Sultanate. Their colonial conflicts, waged over cobalt and spices, are tearing our world apart. In such chaotic times, otherwise good people turn to ignoble professions, sometimes to make a living, and sometimes to strike back against the man.
The 18th century A.S. (After Sail) has seen an explosion in piracy, which for denizens of remote islands is often the only way to get rich.
---
This RP follows the crew of the Maiden's Revenge in its travels and exploits across the sky. For all of us, it'll be an adventure and a worldbuilding exercise - there are endless islands to visit, quests and plotlines to be found on every one of them, and no fixed course of the RP except to go wherever our imaginations take us.
Expectations:
1. Literacy - At least 2 paragraphs per post
2. Response time - Twice a week is good
I want to make up the lore as we go, but here's some other info relevant to CS's:
1. Technology - 18th century, real life (gunpowder weapons, clockwork, and the like).
2. Magic - Magic at one point existed in this world, but has declined to the point of virtual nonexistence through centuries of persecution by sky empires which saw it as a threat to their power. There are still holdouts (cults and covens on remote islands, court wizards that the rulers of the great powers have, and the Yuan Emperor is rumored to be a dragon), but ordinary people will never come in contact with it. If the plot drags on, we'll have a few low level magical encounters to spice things up.
3. Races - Non-humans at one point existed, but were exterminated for the same reasons, and considerable prejudice exists against their remnants. If you want to play an elven, orcish, etc. character, you can, but bear in mind they'll have to have hidden from mainstream society their entire lives or tried to disguise themselves otherwise.
Misc. Info:
1. Having hosted a few RPs in this setting before (set in later time periods), I like the age of sail because a lot of the combat in this RP will be boarding actions where all of the crew can fight on land, and a lot of the plotlines will be onshore on the islands we visit.
2. Please please please help worldbuild if you can!
3. Aim to start this in ~2 weeks
The cast can be very diverse - there's a lot of reasons why someone could be on a pirate ship. However, all characters have to earn their keep. There won't be random scholars, tourists, etc. that the captain of a ship just lets on board as space is limited.
The cast therefore consists of crew members, stowaways, and paying passengers (there should be a good reason why they're travelling with pirates and can't just "fly commercial" - criminals, persecuted scholars, political exiles being examples).
Fixed crew roles are as follows:
- Captain
- First Mate/XO
- Quartermaster
- Boatswain (in charge of the crew)
- Cabin Boy
- Purser
- Master Carpenter (in charge of the repair crew)
- Navigator
- Surgeon
These roles are in descending order of importance for the RP, since roles 6-9 are very specialized and you may not have much to do.
1. Feel free to express interest in roles in the interest check, but I'll keep apps for the 3 main roles open and decide on a cast a week before the RP starts (to give the people who didn't get the role time to do another app)
2. On ships in the age of sail, people could become part of the crew as young as 10 - there's no age restriction for your characters unless you're applying for the captain, XO, or Purser (who all need to be relatively experienced sailors over 25).
---
Please let me know if you're interested!
Last edited:
