First off: Sawbones, Moonie, Reeva or Mygg, if you’re reading this, DON’T!
I’m running a pirate-themed homebrew campaign set in a homebrewed place which I’ve plonked down in The Sea of Falling Stars. I call it The Southern Isles, and its rife with piracy. The de facto ‘government’ is The Southern Islands Company, who run the place for profit and starve the population with high taxes and tithes, and who brutally suppress any rebellion. I’ve used every pirate and maritime trope I can think of in planning the plot, creating encounters and filling it with characters.
I figured this will help me add flavour to the world, and could be a good resource for anyone planning a similar campaign, or one shot or whatever.
Edit: I should maybe note I already played quite a bit in this setting and after a long hiatus I am starting it back up for Season 2, so partly this is a way for me to get it all fresh in my head again.
Profitable pirate ventures need to be built on rich trade routes so they have big, fat, juicy merchant ships to plunder and pirate.
What competing powers does your pirate area sit between?
What are those powers doing to patrol the waters and stop their trade ships from being plundered?
Whose the most famous pirate hunter in the area? What’s their methods and what’re they doing right now?
Whats the latest ‘big haul’ the pirates have pulled in? What were they rumoured to have found? Similarly whose the last pirate to have been caught or killed? How?
This sounds like tonnes of fun, hope your players enjoy!
The Southern Isles are in the location that The Pirates Isles are in vanilla DnD, I just thought the original name was lame. I have used some of the original lore for some of the islands, but mostly it’s my own stuff. That means the surrounding powers are Sembia, Turmish, These, Aglarond, etc. Yo be honest I’ve not put a lot of research into those. The Isles attract a sorts of folk from all sorts of places.
The Southern Islands Company are a proxy for the Turmish government, and it is them who patrol the islands looking for pirates.
The most famous pirate hunter is probably Commadore Roger Todgeson. He has a long standing enmity with Captain Verse, a pirate captain who has the lofty goal of ousting the Company and starting a pirate republic. Currently he is on his way to Thatch, a town in the Western region, and the place most newcomers to the Isles make landfall The party are also on their way there. Captain Verse feels it is time to try and liberate the town and has asked the party to come to his aid. The Company sense unrest is afoot and have call s Commadore Todgeson to help sure up their forces. The party and their crew, along with Verse and his own crew, will try to take the town before he arrives, and then defend it on e he does.
The last pirate to be caught and killed… hm… I’ll say that would be Captain Jack Chaffinch. He was taking a prize out East when he ran into Todgeson’s ship. They fought valiantly but were overwhelmed and when Todgeson arrives at Thatch he’ll hang him up in the Harbour as a warning nitnto resist him. Chaffinch’s ship sails with Todgeson, having been captured. Could they take the ship back ? Apparently he’d managed to take a Theskian treasure galleon before being caught himself. Could be the gold is still in its hold, just waiting for greedy pirates hands to reclaim it!