>>Men of the Sea really needs a scenario. Maybe anyone who is running >>one for their group could make it available? - as a sort of starter?
> I've been using it in my campaign, but I wouldn't say there's "a
> scenario." If one of my players wants to post the writeup of the
> ongoing sea voyage, it might have some value to show how the book can
> be used, but I think it's pretty specialized to our game.
I'd say publish away - remember the effect Martin Laurie's Gwandor campaign write-ups still have as a sample of play..
> BTW, if there had been a supplement, it would have been entirely
> useless to me, or probably to Jeff, whose game I play in. Useless to
> me since it probably would have been close to Dragon Pass, which my
> game is not. Useless to Jeff because it would have been set in the
> Hero Wars "now," and his game is still almost 10 years from that.
I don't quite think so. There definitely has to be a starter set of generic scenarios much like "Barbarian Adventures" which can be moved from setting to setting.
The good thing about naval adventurers is that in most situations you have a mixture of known background (your ship, parts of a port you may have visited before) and the unknown. You can have friendly ships appear to provide another capsule environment of known territory even in a distant port. Some generic encounters (like e.g. a Maslo catamaran, possibly in some sort of trouble) are possible anywhere your crew is sailing.
Rob Davis
> Anything would be cool. I'd love to write a sea game, maybe as a
> one off scenario, possibly fordemo/ convention play. I was thinking
> of picking up some 'Hornblower' for some ideas of ship stuff.
> Anyone read that stuff and have an opinion?
Apart from the technology issues (IMO the later God Learner navy might have used some Hornblower stuff, and much of the rigging might be found on the smaller Fonritian warsails) and the modern military structure, many of the basic story-lines in Hornblower, Captain Bolitho and their ilk can be used outside of the Napoleonic context (e.g. in SF by Weber's Harrington series and similar developments).
On the whole, a better period to plunder would be the Mediterranian late classical (Byzantine) and Renaissance naval history, or the age of the Vikings and Hanseatic League. And the Spanish-British conflicts in the 16th century Caribbean colonies.
Ancient Mediterranian sailing with the heavy emphasis on ramming attacks (up to the Punic Wars) doesn't quite seem to fit into bluewater sailing, although both in Pasos and coastal Maniria there seems to be some of this going on.
> Does anyone know of any sea-rpg's that I could maybe plunder for
> ideas? Could anyone who has done it post a description of a ship to
> ship extended contest (combat)
I have a couple of favourite sources:
The old FGU cosim "Bireme and Galley" tells you at great detail about exactly the right historical periods in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, with vessel descriptions, tactics and everything.
The "Pilot's Almanach" for Harnworld offers an adaptation of such material to a low fantasy environment, and has some worthwhile information for landlubbers dreaming of naval exploits.
Almost any rpg's Viking settings will have good information and inspiration for dark ages style sailing. My personal favourites are RQ and GURPS. GURPS is bound to have several historical periods with an emphasis on sailing.
Non-rpg-sources with something resembling scenario reports include the voyages of Ottar and Wulfstan in the Anglo-Saxon Orosius manuscript produced at the court of Alfred the Great of Wessex, contemporary Arabian and Spanish reports on visits with the Vikings, the vita of the Irish Saint Brennan for people sailing after Dormal, the Odyssey, and of course Sindbad.
Fantasy novels which deal with sailing are Raymond Feist's "The King's Buccaneer" set in Midkemia, Hugh Cook's "The Warwolf (?) and the Walrus" describing a culture reminding of the Wolf Pirates, and of course Robin Hobb's Lifeship trilogy listed in the Men of the Sea literature list. Sagliari's Sandokan novels deal with piracy in Indonesia, as do a few Jack London stories set in Polynesia. Do read Hemingway's "Old Men and the Sea" if you want to include fishing, and "Moby Dick" for whaling.
Alison Place
> --- Rob <robert_m_davis_at_...> wrote:
>> I was thinking of picking up some 'Hornblower' for >> some ideas of ship stuff. Anyone read that stuff and >> have an opinion?
> I would say that this is a poor resource for Men of
> the Sea. For various reasons (see below), the plots
> don't translate to Glorantha.
Not sure about the plots, but full agreement about the technology. Much of the basic story-lines will be salvagable.
> A large problem with that stuff is going to be the
> fact that 17th-19thC naval combat is primarily
> concerned with cannons. Blasting or threatening your
> opponents with them, shiphandling to avoid broadsides
> from them, staying out of range of more powerful ones,
> etc. One or two catapults are just not the same as a
> multi-gun broadside for damage or effects on tactics.
Neither are sunscopes (mounted on a swivel, too).
Drake's fights against the Spanish fleets in the Caribbean and the Channel might be easier to translate. Naval battles during the Hanseatic League did use cannons, but were rather clumsy in maneuvering and did not yet rely that much on coordinated broadsides.
What can be used from Hornblower et alia are the boarding actions.
> Also, the shiphandling capabilities of a two- or
> three-decker are likely to be rather different from
> the undoubtedly smaller craft that most of the
> Gloranthans are using.
I believe you're underestimating the advances made in shipbuilding between 1500 and 1800. The development of better keels increased the maneuverability of three-deckers enough to compensate for the losses which came with increased size.
> Another problem with the Hornblower model is that the
> culture of the French and Royal Navies, with their
> centralised commands, shipbuilding yards, supply
> systems, ability to impress large numbers of unwilling
> crew, and necessity of staying out to sea for weeks or
> months at a time, would all be alien to any culture in
> Glorantha at this point.
While I agree about command structures, supply systems and staying offshore for extended periods with the Closing still threatening, I have no such problems with shipbuilding yards or the ability to impress large numbers of crew.
Press gangs are basically a form of (usually) government-approved piracy (just like letters of marque) to indenture those elements of the population which frequent basically dubious areas (port quarters). Victims of press gangs who manage to prove that they are already in service to some other authority while still in port have to be let loose.
> Remember that the Closing
> only ended in 1580, as far as most of the seas are
> concerned. That's nowhere near enough time to get
> something as complex and tradition-ridden as the RN
> and its highly-designed ships into the water.
Judging from WW1, it didn't take the air forces very long to develop complex and tradition-ridden structures. Remember that most naval powers were able to draw on traditions and knowledge laying low while the Closing lasted. I'm fairly convinced that many navies carry on with traditions from the Imperial Age, often without knowing why or what for.
> It also
> makes some of the political considerations that
> Hornblower had to take into account irrelevant, too.
That's true. 16th century Caribbean would be closer to the "lots of opportunities" feeling.
> A better model to use would be the Classical period,
> with Persian, Roman, Greek and Egyptian ships fighting
> it out in the Med.
I don't really think so - these cultures had even more tradition and continuous experience than the Royal Navy. While the Pax Romana made the occurrance of naval battles rare between 30BC and 300AD, pirate activity never quite ended, and as soon as migratory groups like the Vandals and Goths hit the Mediterranean, factionalism and opposing navies sprung up again. The rise of the Islam in the 7th century returned the Mediterranean into an area of war which lasted into the 20th century.
> Or perhaps the Chinese use of
> junks. Mostly coastal shipping, smaller ships, lots
> of oarpower, simpler sail designs, plenty of pirates,
> and so on. Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone
> who's written any novels based on any of these periods
> concentrating on a seaman's life. Anyone else know of
> any?
Poul Anderson's trilogy on Harald Hardrada might be just the place you've been looking for, both for Mediterranean and North Sea sailing.
Apart from European contact novels like "Shogun", "Sandokan" or that British merchant in Hong Kong (which I never read), I don't recall much about the Chinese and Japanese seas either. Sindbad remains the best source for the western Indic Ocean.
Thor Heyerdahl offers a 20th century person experiencing (experimental) classical technology of that period and might be a good read just because the reader shares the same background. "Tigris", "Kon-Tiki" and "Ra" have interesting expeditionary diaries.
Bryan Thexton
> Speaking of naval adventures, was the White Sea (or whatever that sea
> north of Peloria is called) affected by the closing too?
Nobody really found out - most White Sea sailing occurs within sight of land or glacier, which bears its own danger. In my personal opinion the White Sea remained free of the Closing, just like other enclosed bodies of water.
> wrote:
>> NOt much ship to ship fun there though. >> Getting on a boat in Sinbad movies seemed more like getting a >> train - you get on -you sail- you get off, then have adventure.
> Well....yes. Even in the stories. The thing about ancient sea-
> faring was that mostly if something happened at sea you died, or if
> you got lucky clung to floating wreckage and drifted onto some island
> eventually.
Given the generally primitive nature of the explorers' vessels, there was little else that could be done heroically. Ok, so Beowulf swam across the Kattegat, St. Brennan used a coracle to cross over to the Western Islands, and Orlanth rode a turtle to Luathela. Maybe they had to fight off some nasty attack of the seas, but at best you get an extended contest resisting a natural force.
You can always create a racing scenario where you and one or several opponents need to make best speed. Trouble is, once you flounder, you're probably out of it.
You can do a Captain Ahab - see the RQ product "Strangers in Pavis" for the Gloranthan version.
After all the thefts of Gloranthan names, maybe it's time to steal back from Star Trek. Now we only need to translate "energy being" into "deity" or "sentient wave", and we can borrow from the usual list of Star Trek encounters. Who is going to write up the Gloranthan equivalent for "Trouble with Tribbles"?
Another good source for things to do are computer games, if only as backdrop for the player action. Think "Port Royal", "Anno 160X" or even Science Fiction "naval" games like "Homeworld", "X-Beyond the Frontier", "Wing Commander" or "Freelancer" with the setting rewritten to fantasy (like fighter pilots running Kareeshtan Warsails, Waertagi Fastships or similar attack vessels (or aerial or aquatic steeds) instead, re-fitting at some more or less mobile base like a (captured ?) Waertagi Cityship or a floating isle).
(When I first had read through all of Men of the Seas, I thought "finally a good game system for space operas"...)
> Remember that most ships didn't sail far from sight of
> land and most put into land for sleeping. There were exceptions, but
> not that many--Vikings being a notable one. The result is that even
> pirates were mostly about lurking in bays and rushing out when a ship
> was sighted.
During the Hanseatic League, several pirates (most notably Claus Stoertebeker) specialized on "hiding below the horizon". A bit difficult in Glorantha, but shades and banks of mist conjured by magicians can do the same. Other than lurking, a pirate only has a chance to capture a ship if he has a known interception course.
> For more major ship to ship combat it seems to usually have been some
> variant of galleys ramming each other (greek style), or else people
> roping ships together to make a fighting platform so that they could
> fight much like they did on land (what the vikings normally did).
I think that boarding actions (or striking the flag just the moment before boarding commenced) were the most common form of naval combat scenarios.
> If you look back at the classics, the Odyssey or Jason and the
> Argonauts, almost all of their adventures, like those of Sinbad, were
> on land. In fiction I've seen a few books with long stretches on
> ships of that sort of technology, but for at sea adventures it pretty
> much comes down to:
> - dealing with a storm
> - daring a long stretch out of land and hoping your reckoning is
> right to get you to land before you run out of water.
> - navigating past deadly reefs (sirens optional)
> - trying to out sail a force that you cannot hope to defeat
> - trying to fend off a swarming by canoe/small boat using pirates
> (when near land)
> - being overtaken by a faster ship of pirates/enemies and fighting a
> vicous bording action as they try to conquer your ship.
> - coming to something mystical and magical and either just being
> impressed by it (background color), or having the heroes placate
> powers of the sea (being taken down to the palace of the lord of the
> sea, etc).
You forgot
- keeping the beaten hull together after one of the aforementioned actions
- surviving a period of calm/contrary currents dealing with malnutrition,
disease etc.
- return from being lost after a storm/tidal wave/fleeing from an enemy
into the unknown/magical transportation
- harvesting a sunken treasure - rescuing another ship suffering from any of the above - hunting down a specific enemy (try going after Harrek in 1621-1624) - delivering a vital message or cargo just in time, against various obstacles - transporting an academic explorer or diplomatic envoy and keeping himalive and amused
or exotic missions like the HMS Bounty (get a specific plant and bring it to the colonies, alive and well) or Leif Eriksson (carry a group of settlers overseas into a promised land, and unlike the Vinland colony retain enough naval contact to keep it alive).
> I'm not saying there are not other possible adventures--in fact in
> Rosemary Kirstein's "The Lost Steersman" there is an interesting bit
> where a type of snail is thick in the water at one point and boars
> into anything it can, so is starting to put holes into the ship....
This reminds me of how Hornblower (IIRC, could as well have been Bolitho or another character from that period) lost his first prize commando when the cargo of rice got wet and burst the hull...
> But there is generally not a lot of variety in the at sea adventures
> I've seen set in that level of sailing sophistication.
There's always the "now you're sailing the heroplane" equivalent to spaceships entering new dimensions.
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