A Decent Sized Ship

[losloris]

Need some direction on boats. I know very little of boats.

My party has the Uzrivoy which, aside from other things, is a magical ship that is described as your general Galley. Just used d&d wiki on galley and get a vessel that has 250 people on it.

Is that big? How big is the ship in Pirates of the Carribean, and, what type of ship is that? I'm thinking that ship has about 50 people on it. Am I close?

We can describe the Uzrivoy anyway we want. I'm thinking a large projectile on the front, two mediums on the back angles that can swivel a little, two light trebuchets(?) On each side, crew of 30 to 50. A decent hold for stores. We are on something like the Mediterranean, so stores for what, 30 days, 50 days(?).

What type of boat did I just describe?

I like and my party enjoys these types of little details. We have now returned to places we visited two years ago and everyone has active vibrant notes.

Your help is appreciated

Losloris

[Ravenheart87]

There are other resources you can use, besides rpg sourcebooks and sites. Galley was an existing ship type, so why not check out what they were like? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley

[bighara]

Wow. A lot to unpack there. Let's stick with the short answer.

Galleys, as the linked Wikipedia article show, were mainly rowing ships. They worked in the ancient Mediterranean because of A) Slave rowers, and B) Relatively little rough weather. Galleys don't handle a lot of chop well.

If you want more of a sailing ship. Take a look at viking longships or chinese junks for pre-gunpowder ships designs.

Truth is, galleys were about the only ships that ever widely used things like catapults. Masted sailing ships have too much rigging to get in the way. But this is a game, not history!

[Raven_Crowking]

Crawl! #11 is worth getting if your game is taking a nautical turn.

http://dcctreasures.blogspot.ca/2016/08 ... ne-11.html

[bighara]

Looks like some fun stuff in the 'zine.

I've made a bit of a study regarding things like ship design and sea travel for RPGs over the years. It's more complicated than you might think. One of the big factors is that if you are in a world where cannon or gunpowder was never invented or ever became a popular weapon of war, then sailing ships would be radically different than you imagine for things like a piratical campaign. Hull design, deck plans, and crew sizes all revolved around the fact that you had guns and how many you carried. In movies like "Master and Commander" the reason that the ships like HMS Surprise carried over 100 men wasn't to simply handle the sails, etc. It was to have three watches (shifts) of crew and enough man to man the guns AND the sails, etc. when battle broke out.

Before cannon, most of naval warfare revolved around ramming other ships or missiles like ballistae hurling rocks or greek fire at very close ranges as a prelude to boarding actions. Broadsides, and long-range gunnery was essentially nonexistent. In fact, the main benefit of the galley was that rowers could maneuver you independent of the wind.