HeySeuss

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Man, I'm turning into a jack of all trades.

That's what you get when you make a literate dragonborn-
Not miffed, just laughing. I don't mind covering multiple roles, it's quite fun, and reminds me of a time not too long past.

@DocRock

He's our maester.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

I get the dusty job of sitting in a room keeping stock. Someone has to ration out that grog. Might even do a science lesson for the more inclined crew members. Like why Rum exists, and why in turn it gets watered down.

So yeah, record keeper it is, once I make the change, we good, or is there anything else I need to change?

@DocRock

Charting and spyglassing too. Perhaps as a lookout?

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

If everyone is okay with Arkitekt's character starting as quartermaster, that's fine. It is a voted position on a pirate vessel, so someone can run against her. I can also be convinced to go with a captain submission, but it needs to be convincing for me.

Let the drama begin. :)

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Name: Drako Jones
Species: Dragonborn(Bronze)
Faction: Pirates
Synopsis of Character: A Dragonborn from a destroyed world, whose love of knowledge and loner nature as an interstellar archeologist attracted the wrong attention. Has a good heart, and kindness in his eyes.
Synopsis of Role: Fluent in multiple languages, proficient with navigator tools, map making, exploration, and magical item analysis and creation. Knowledge in both practical and random information, Drako is a skilled writer, having kept multiple journals of his adventures, and has knowledge of various world customs, and is a good translator when the need arises. He's a bad cook though. Has a pesky habit of going left whenever the choice of left or right is presented, which can cause problems, but he also seeks the secret to immortality, though for what reasons are unknown.
Relation to Ship/Crew: Navigator/Record Keeper

Don't have a good picture, but hope this works. I can make changes as needed. Did my best to adapt the Artificer Class and Archeologist background to the setting. Feedback would be very welcome.

@DocRock

I think the only issue here is that Hour Error has a navigator character role already locked in. Can you guys talk out where the role intersection/division might be to prevent overlap or create a dynamic of Helmsman/Navigator/Cartographer or something of that nature? As an Artificer/Archaeologist, it seems like his wheelhouse would have to do with the collecting of information (and potential sale of such) including the creation of charts/maps and log information. Could easily be the person tasked with inventorying and mapping.

Just a thought.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Folks, I have updated our character stubs to reflect the need to determine what their job is aboard the ship.

For off-ship characters, we can use this as a description of their relationship with the crew -- adversary or ally.

Name:
Species:
Faction: (Pirates, nation, or other.)
Synopsis of Character: (Two sentences max on who the character is.)
Synopsis of Role: (A couple sentences on the character's abilities/skills/possessions/agenda and why they are relevant in this world.)
Relation to Ship/Crew: Example: Gunner, Bosun, Navigator, etc. If an NPC, 'adversary' 'neutral' and 'ally' are the best descriptors.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Character Stubs

Name: Ghal the Randomcase
Species: Near to a Human, but definitely not quite a human.
Faction: Pirates
Synopsis of Character: Ghal the Randomcase can't even remember his whole name, just the piece of it he calls himself by and considers that a miracle. When the mutiny against Lord Korzbubathul broke out, he was kept bolted down to a chair and was force-possessed by spirits introduced to him. Why? See below, but he's had a struggle remembering who he is, and slips away under pressure.
Synopsis of Role: Ghal's a twofold prodigy; able to pull in prodigious amounts of magical power...and to host a number of spirits, bound to him by a variety of unknown rituals that Lord Korzbubathul undertook, that are able to use that magical potential in various ways. The downside? He's like if they made a person out of a Deck of Many Things or Wand of Wonder. When the ole blood gets flowing, he doesn't have any real control over who takes the driver's seat.
Relation to Ship/Crew: The ship's wild card/battlemage.

Name: Waldo
Species: Baby Cat Sí? Full Grown Chesire Cat? No idea.
Faction: Other(worldly entity)
Synopsis of Character: A black beast with green eyes and a pair of horns. Most of the time, he functions as a particularly playful cat, despite the strange, somewhat protruding fangs and rather bearlike claws. It's hard to tell what the cat's actual size is, as it seems to shift constantly.
Synopsis of Role: Well, that's the huge question, innit? He makes nary a sound and has the knack of showing up in rooms where there is only one entrance and that's being watched. No one has any idea how Waldo moves about, just that he does. He seems ungainly, but then he manages to get the drop on everything in the place.
Relation to Ship/Crew: The ship's cat.

Name: Pick the Gunner
Species: Half-Orc, Half-Something Else
Faction: Pirates
Synopsis of Character: A broad-shouldered, mean piece of work with scars from the lash on his back. He refers to himself as a "tusker" and has snakes for hair. People don't look him in the eye much out of superstition, though he's tried. Side effect? Speaks with a lisp. Knifed a bastard for mocking it.
Synopsis of Role: He's an experienced sailor and a top gunner's mate, able to make sense of just about any form of crewed weaponry and with an eye for the softspot on the enemy. Good with an axe or a hammer, he's fine on a boarding party as well. That's just as well, since gun crews tend to go on those. Note: Theme song - "Papa was a Rollin Stone."
Relation to Ship/Crew: Gunner, perhaps a Gunner's mate depending on who is elected Quartermaster or Captain.

Lore Stubs

Name: Quattryn the Black Comet (or fine, "Star")
Type: Location - Capitol of the Space Pirate Republic.
Synopsis of Role: A floating tropical island, often mistaken for a comet. The waters on the outer edges of it become icy, but it warms considerably as you come close to the shore. Quattryn is constantly traveling, leaving a trail of water vapor and the occasional swindler floating in its wake. It is a large, ramshackle port city with no rhyme, reason, or government beyond mutually assured destruction and common cause in the threat of external enemies. It's home now.

Name: The Celestial Plane (Space)
Type: Location
Synopsis of Role: The space between planets and stars. More like a plane filled with floating islands, mythic beasts borne on the stellar winds and so forth than actual space as we know it. It is a place of spirits and magic and strange wonders. Gravity is inconsistent, atmosphere happens in odd places, but the ships that ply these byways between the spheres, the worlds, still need to bring their own to have it steadily.

Name: Myscel (Power Storage)
Type: Ship Technology
Synopsis of Role: "Myscel" covers a variety of different means of storing magical energy to fuel the ships that ply the Celestial Plane between moons, stations, islands, planets and any other bodies within it. Magicel types vary from the organic to the crystalline or metallic and anything in between, sometimes encompassing hybrids of such materials

Name: Mystill (Power Collector)
Type: Ship Technology
Synopsis of Role: Mystills cover a variety of devices intended to collect magical energy from different materials; typically this involves distilling matter for magical energy. Some Mystills are geared to distill energy from magically empowered minerals, but more ruthless species or individuals may well have one that distills energy from the life force of beings, including sentient ones - either by grinding them up in sacrifice or attaching them to a device that forces them to constantly generate energy of some sort (imagine a ship hold full of people on hamster wheels). While attempts have been made to create a device that draws power directly from magic itself, these have all been disastrous due to the all-consuming nature of raw magic.

Name: The Void Scream
Type: Sloop of War
Description:

The Void Scream was Lord Korzbubathul's vessel, a Sloop of War, which is to say under 20 main guns and built more for speed and maneuverability thank main line combat. The Void Scream looks as if it might have once been built with wood that was then transfigured by mages into something else more durable. While the ship only technically qualifies as a fourteen gun ship, it has a high degree of firepower and versatility in those weapons that makes the classification system rather amorphous. No one actually cares, in all practicality, what the dwarves say about what is what anyhow.

Like most Celestial Ships, it has a certain reserve of power that must be husbanded as it maneuvers in battle, as the myscels hold only so much energy. While the Void Scream has a renewable, and seemingly endless, supply of energy, the power source goes to the cels, which then power other systems of the ship, which include air, the ability to repair and operate any other powered systems, and certain weapons is limited by cel storage. The Void Scream's system takes time to recharge. As it stands, the system is not much more efficient than the typical used on other ships, though there is room to upgrade.

Naval combat, therefore, is often the case of calculating initial maneuvers to obtain a certain position and then only changing course with a forced movement which uses up way more power than moving on inertia. If it's not axial rotation or rudder steering, it takes up more power, but is sometimes a necessary emergency maneuver to avoid destruction. (Note, this is not space, and physics is certainly not my strong suit.)

The ship itself hums with power through cables carefully wound into the bulkheads, and is highly stylized with art and scenes from mythology. The crew quarters are plain but comfortable. Lord Korzbubathul's chambers have not been properly cleaned and are starting to reek of whatever the thing secreted before being mutinied against.

Like most Celestial Ships, the Helm system is more of a yoke that the navigator puts on, a full body array supplemented by levers, pedals and a control stick.

There is a prow of a flaming bird that flares with flame at random times because it's cool.

Weight: 1,100 Tons
Length: 199 ft (61 m)
Beam: 43 ft (13 m) (maximum)
Draft: 21 ft (6.4 m)

Propulsion:

A system of dorsal, ventral, port and starboard sails and rudders connected to the helm by a variety of cables, supplemented by an elemental forced thrust system.

Power System:

Not a traditional mystil. This thing is a huge glowing sphere in the hold, encased in some sort of glass. While the cables to it can be replaced and reattached, attempts to breach the housing have been disastrous, as have attempts to actually touch the force contained within. Most importantly, and in contravention of known ship power technology, this thing does not 'feed' upon some sort of matter to replenish the myscels.

Armament:
(ammunition dependent weaponry is flexible in terms of ammo types - invent!)

6 x 4.2 inch (30-pounder) cannon.
4 × 75 mm explosive rocket launchers. These are close range ambush-volley weapons, and count as main guns due to their role -- to blow holes in ships. (broadside)
1 x charge dispenser (smoke/blind/explosive/incendiary)(stern)
1 × flak gun (six round magazine, slow reload)(stern)
1 x double barrelled 32-pounder long rifle (bow chase)
1 × flame lance (the phoenix's head shoots freakin' fire out of its eyes) (bow chase)
6 x gatling guns (swivel/deck, upper and lower)
4 x dragons breath (flamer) (swivel/deck, upper and lower)

Synopsis of Role: Hero Ship!

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Before I do try and submit a sheet, would a dragonborn artificer esque character be welcome?

Asking incase I can adapt a DnD character of mine to the setting. Instead of ground based Dragon Indiana Jones, it'd be a space archeologist on the ship's crew. I dunno, I'm open to ideas.

@DocRock

Sounds alright to me.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

I will post a character sheet tonight after work. I'll just add it here as to not take up any more room in OOC.. Also, Black Sails was great so...

@Arkitekt

Awesome. And yeah, I always wanted to do an airship/steampunk gig with a Pirate Republic, but the idea of just going whole hog 'space' but in a weird sort of 'magic in space' blending of sci-fi and fantasy and steampunk hit me on a wave and I decided to ride it.

But I've been watching Black Sails pretty religiously, like an episode a day. The shipboard politics is particularly interesting as a dynamic, which is why I want the characters voting. Sometimes you get outvoted and have to make it work anyway, you know?

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Hello; good to see people that say, "I already have a character in mind!" That means we need to get an OOC up. Sheet system is not intensive because I don't believe in long ass sheets anymore.

RP is here.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Guidelines

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• Discord Chat!
• I want only a couple things over in character sheets - a name, a species, and a couple sentences of where they came from, what they do and how they relate and another piece on abilities and powers. Yeah, because we need to be writing posts, not character sheets, and this way we can quickly -add- essential characters. The stub system allows for the addition of NPC's.
• GM retains the option to veto species types.
• Please use one sheet for all stubs, character and lore.

Character Stubs

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The whole point of this system is to quickly introduce a character's name, faction, species and a quick summary of who they are in order to get them into the plotline quickly. We're doing away with large sheets as an experiment. You can even write this stuff -after- you make the first post. Also, this is a great way to do up NPC's and locations of note.

Name:
Species:
Faction: (Pirates, nation, or other.)
Synopsis of Character: (Two sentences max on who the character is.)
Synopsis of Role: (A couple sentences on the character's abilities/skills/possessions/agenda and why they are relevant in this world.)
Relation to Ship/Crew: Example: Gunner, Bosun, Navigator, etc. If an NPC, 'adversary' 'neutral' and 'ally' are the best descriptors.

Lore Stubs

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The whole point of this system is to quickly introduce a location or faction. This allows you to quickly create a reference item for the lore. We will work on a way to organize all this as we move along, but please add this to your character stubs.

Name:
Type: (Location, affiliation type such as "ship" or "religious cult" "mercenary company" or "nation.")
Synopsis of Role: (One sentence, keep it moving. Ex. A cult that worships change as the great power of the universe and never wears the same hairstyle twice (in a month) anyway.)