You're also assuming the pirates are using sail, in the ancient world oars were more common because they were faster for short distances. Indeed the Barbary pirates were still using oars into the 19th Century. This also indicates that pirates are most likely along coasts, hiding among islands and inlets rather than sailing the open seas. Of course there is also the question of how often ships sail out of sight of land in Glorantha. I would imagine Mostali ships do but probably not many others.
Surely any competent pirates will have some magic to enable them to intercept other shipping rapidly. Equally the average merchantman won't have anything beyond the captain's magic so a bunch of PCs on a merchantman is going to be a nasty shock for the pirates.
>>At this point IIRC the Wolf Pirates dominate the Homeward Ocean.
>>They are ruthless, deadly, and motivated by plunder.
>
>"and scavenge the seas in hordes thousands strong", to (mis)quote
>Greg. Presumably the Wolf Pirates either:
>a) don't, actually, dominate the seas
>or
>b) Aren't as ruthless and deadly as Harrek's propagandists like to
>point out
>(since otherwise they would soon wipe out all legitimate merchant
>shipping from the oceans)
>or
>c) They really *are* as powerful and deadly as stated, but the
>situation is highly temporary and grossly unstable. Pretty soon now,
>the trade ships will stop sailing, the Wolf Pirates will run out of
>plunder and start to starve, and Harrek will have to dump them and
>find a new career - preferably somewhere far inland, and nice and
>mountainous with no coastline...
I would think the answer is c). The wolf pirates sack at least one city which implies they were strong enough to do so and possibly having run out of merchant ships to take. A bit later Harrek turns up with his crew in Dragon Pass intent on plundering the Lunars. I don't think anyone has explained what happens to the rest of the pirates. Without Harrek they probably aren't as deadly anyway.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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