Piracy
How is the topic of piracy viewed by different societies in your world?
Piracy is a relatively new genre of thievery in Maydon. Until recent years high seas travel and trade was difficult and dangerous at best. With the calming of the Eternal Storm the adventurous and desperate have taken to ships in droves. While most do so as part of legitimate trade businesses some have found that the work of theft feels much less arduous than simple sailing, and offers much more potential profit for their time. With booming trade routes appearing so too have bandits taken to the ocean and turned their sights on heavily laden but under crewed vessels ripe for the picking.
Humanity is, naturally, at the forefront of the naval explosion sweeping the world. In the first year after the Eternal Storm fell calm the ever entrepreneurial citizens of Clovet were the first to set sail beyond the safe shores of Pacet. In the early days many were sure the Storm would return as suddenly as it dissipated and many wrote these sailors off as madmen. But when they returned later that year rich from trade with the dwarves of Go'Rim and the Elves of Fiwan, speaking of wonders and even of strange lizard men it ignited a passion for exploration that swept the world. Many traders in the past 30 years have been humans of Tegrim. Amfasen sees the sea as new territory to be conquered and has ,by far, the largest fleet of warships in the world. Between them they form the most staunch opposition to would be pirates. Pirates caught by Amfasen naval ships are tried in port and summarily executed. This is seen as preferable by most pirates to the Tegrim merchants who save as many outlaws as they can from a victorious engagement and then keelhaul one or two a day for the rest of the journey. A pirate captain unlucky enough to be caught by Tegrim vessels is flayed and nailed to the prow. No pirate has yet proved brave enough to attack a ship bearing such a grisly figurehead.
Dwarven views on piracy are complicated to say the least. As Go'Rim is essentially an island kingdom the Dwarves must by needs oppose open piracy, The dangers to their trade ties keep them from complete apathy. However, many dwarves are individually ambivalent about the rise of ship born highwaymen, they don't see why it concerns them deep in their cavernous cities. Add to this the dwarven dislike of leaving the solid stone for a rolling ship deck and you will find very few dwarven vessels hunting rouge pirates. There are of course some exceptions. The newly christened Saltbeards are a growing population of dwarves who seem to prefer the sea. These dwarves are generally ostracized by their brethren but are too valuable to completely exile. As such a growing number of dwarvish ships can be found running up and down the Golden Straits and even occasionally to Amfasen or Fiwan. The Saltbeards are officially traders but as they are also dwarves they tend to run very heavily armed. As such they are very rarely targets for pirates and have in fact been accused of performing their own raids on merchant vessels from other nations. While this is staunchly denied by the Lord of Go'Rim he also refuses to enact any true laws against piracy either.
While the elves of Fiwan present themselves to the world as above the pettiness of other mortals their exile has in fact put them in a very desperate position. Overcrowding and bickering threatens the elven society with almost inevitable collapse. To assuage this the Council has decided (unanimously, an almost unheard of vote) to encourage they younger and more hot headed elves to spend much of their time abroad. Traditions millenia old are bent or ignored to allow many elves to leave home and serve in crews under other races or on ships of their own exploring and trading for desperately needed supplies. What is left unsaid but is heavily implied is that any goods returned to the Council will be accepted without question of their origin and should there be conflict with other races that too can be justified for the greater good of the elves. Essentially the elven fleet is full of privateers and flat out brigands who raid and thieve up and down the coasts of Rycel and southern Pacet. While some will take care to hide their ears and sail nondescript vessels of human or gnomish design some of the most unruly sail proudly under blood red flags of war in ancient elven tradition and are known to attack on sight leaving no survivors. While Fiwan is nominally very strict on piracy within their waters all the races know that to sail near to the sacred isle is to invite death.
Orks are new to the worlds of politics and world relations and their navy is almost nonexistent leading their views on piracy to be a bit basic. If they feel that you are a good target they will attack. Afterwards they will either claim that you were engaging in piracy or will deny responsibility for the "rogue" orkish marauders. Neither terminology is a great comfort to their victims and the other nations of the world view the waters near the new orkish nations with a mixture of trepidation and greed. Piracy abounds in these waters and where laws are lax there are many opportunities for profit.
Piracy is a relatively new genre of thievery in Maydon. Until recent years high seas travel and trade was difficult and dangerous at best. With the calming of the Eternal Storm the adventurous and desperate have taken to ships in droves. While most do so as part of legitimate trade businesses some have found that the work of theft feels much less arduous than simple sailing, and offers much more potential profit for their time. With booming trade routes appearing so too have bandits taken to the ocean and turned their sights on heavily laden but under crewed vessels ripe for the picking.
Humanity is, naturally, at the forefront of the naval explosion sweeping the world. In the first year after the Eternal Storm fell calm the ever entrepreneurial citizens of Clovet were the first to set sail beyond the safe shores of Pacet. In the early days many were sure the Storm would return as suddenly as it dissipated and many wrote these sailors off as madmen. But when they returned later that year rich from trade with the dwarves of Go'Rim and the Elves of Fiwan, speaking of wonders and even of strange lizard men it ignited a passion for exploration that swept the world. Many traders in the past 30 years have been humans of Tegrim. Amfasen sees the sea as new territory to be conquered and has ,by far, the largest fleet of warships in the world. Between them they form the most staunch opposition to would be pirates. Pirates caught by Amfasen naval ships are tried in port and summarily executed. This is seen as preferable by most pirates to the Tegrim merchants who save as many outlaws as they can from a victorious engagement and then keelhaul one or two a day for the rest of the journey. A pirate captain unlucky enough to be caught by Tegrim vessels is flayed and nailed to the prow. No pirate has yet proved brave enough to attack a ship bearing such a grisly figurehead.
Dwarven views on piracy are complicated to say the least. As Go'Rim is essentially an island kingdom the Dwarves must by needs oppose open piracy, The dangers to their trade ties keep them from complete apathy. However, many dwarves are individually ambivalent about the rise of ship born highwaymen, they don't see why it concerns them deep in their cavernous cities. Add to this the dwarven dislike of leaving the solid stone for a rolling ship deck and you will find very few dwarven vessels hunting rouge pirates. There are of course some exceptions. The newly christened Saltbeards are a growing population of dwarves who seem to prefer the sea. These dwarves are generally ostracized by their brethren but are too valuable to completely exile. As such a growing number of dwarvish ships can be found running up and down the Golden Straits and even occasionally to Amfasen or Fiwan. The Saltbeards are officially traders but as they are also dwarves they tend to run very heavily armed. As such they are very rarely targets for pirates and have in fact been accused of performing their own raids on merchant vessels from other nations. While this is staunchly denied by the Lord of Go'Rim he also refuses to enact any true laws against piracy either.
While the elves of Fiwan present themselves to the world as above the pettiness of other mortals their exile has in fact put them in a very desperate position. Overcrowding and bickering threatens the elven society with almost inevitable collapse. To assuage this the Council has decided (unanimously, an almost unheard of vote) to encourage they younger and more hot headed elves to spend much of their time abroad. Traditions millenia old are bent or ignored to allow many elves to leave home and serve in crews under other races or on ships of their own exploring and trading for desperately needed supplies. What is left unsaid but is heavily implied is that any goods returned to the Council will be accepted without question of their origin and should there be conflict with other races that too can be justified for the greater good of the elves. Essentially the elven fleet is full of privateers and flat out brigands who raid and thieve up and down the coasts of Rycel and southern Pacet. While some will take care to hide their ears and sail nondescript vessels of human or gnomish design some of the most unruly sail proudly under blood red flags of war in ancient elven tradition and are known to attack on sight leaving no survivors. While Fiwan is nominally very strict on piracy within their waters all the races know that to sail near to the sacred isle is to invite death.
Orks are new to the worlds of politics and world relations and their navy is almost nonexistent leading their views on piracy to be a bit basic. If they feel that you are a good target they will attack. Afterwards they will either claim that you were engaging in piracy or will deny responsibility for the "rogue" orkish marauders. Neither terminology is a great comfort to their victims and the other nations of the world view the waters near the new orkish nations with a mixture of trepidation and greed. Piracy abounds in these waters and where laws are lax there are many opportunities for profit.
