Reader kgy121 recently asked a… number of questions. I can answer a couple of them for you now!
“Is the Captain the captain of ALL the pirates in the town, or are there factions?
Is the princess the commander in chief for the Navy and such?”
First of all, there are various pirate crews operating in Idenau, and while they tend to have preferred bases, they do a lot of traveling around the coasts and outlying islands to pursue the activity of shipping. So their movement and location is fluid, as well as their allegiances; sometimes they act as rivals and other times they team up. There are certainly several pirate bands hanging around town right now; the pirates at Shiver (the bar) who didn’t attack Skärva and company were from other crews, for instance.
Formally, the royal family is in charge of all military operations in Idenau, including the Navy. This includes the princess as she is an adult, although the King and Queen (yes, they exist!) would override even her if they wished. However, as Idenau is at peace (except for the villainous uprisings from within, which are easily enough squelched by the Hero), these powers are rarely relevant.
Between even the royal family and our dear Commodore is, of course, the Admiral. Remember from our history lesson that the Admiral is the highest-ranking officer in the Navy. Again, because Idenau is at peace, the Navy’s role these days is mainly to defend shipping from pirates. This rarely requires sweeping strategic decisions, and the Admiral (also a flish, of course) is mainly a figurehead and spends most of his time relaxing at court. The commodores stationed in various harbor towns and fortresses along the coast get the dirty work done and report to him. As for the vice admiral – the position is no longer extant. After the War, no one was eager to fill the position due to the rumors and suspicion surrounding it.
Got any more questions about the Navy? Idenian pirates? Pirates in general? Heave to, me hearties!
Ooh, I have been wanting to know this since about halfway through the arc. SO, I have a question: What lies outside of Idenau? Are there any other continents? Complete with evil overlords?
Of course. There are other lands with their own cultures, creatures, rules and rulers. They are many and varied. Maybe we’ll touch on some a little bit in the future, but this is primarily Idenau’s story
By virtue of being a continent, our kingdom has traditionally been pretty isolated, culture and language-wise. However, there is trade with other lands.
Follow-up question!
If a theoretical evil overlord from another continent succeeded in taking over their own land, and then started expanding toward Idenau, would Skærva stop the guy from muscling in on his territory or just let Blank take care of the guy for him?
That’s an interesting question. I imagine some sort of begrudging team-up might occur, as with Bowser and the heroes in Super Mario RPG or Super Paper Mario. But that is just amusing speculation – I can’t say!
OK. Follow up questions!
How often do Lurkin, humans, flish, demons go pirate?
If Commodore is directly below Admiral, how many of them are in service?
Is the Admiral still the old Vice Admiral?
How long do each of the species live?
Does Magic use affect length of life?
Can we get more baby pictures?
Well, pirates are a diverse group and they are made up of any species that wishes – except for flish, usually. While there are one or two all-flish pirate bands operating currently, they usually aren’t found in mixed crews because of the prevalence of salamandrians who generally distrust and dislike them. And demons in general do not like the sea; being surrounded by open sky and water is the opposite of their traditional element of fire and environment of caves. However, they do enjoy causing chaos, and their mastery over fire can be an extremely useful (if somewhat dangerous) addition to a pirate crew, so there have been some demon pirates.
There are quite a few, as each Naval base has a Commodore, so about a dozen or so spread out over the coast.
Nah, the War was long enough ago that that guy is long dead.
Most species live what we would recognize to be pretty normal human-length life spans. This is considered to be a kindness of the gods. Demons are one exception; although they mature at about the same rate as humans, they can live to be hundreds of years old. (Imagine Davis being around that long to annoy Ecta!)
Well, not really. Perhaps you could use magic to extend your lifespan, but I don’t think that would work, since magic comes from within your body anyway. The same way a healer can’t perform a major act of healing on themselves. Not sure on this one though; sounds like a Victor question!
I’d love to.
So the Navy is kinda independent, that is interesting. Do they also recruit their own people or is that assigned to the government? What are the normal crew sizes and what size of ships and armament do they have?
The royals are involved with appointing the higher officers, but after that it’s down to the officers themselves to find recruits. Mostly it’s been flish since the war. Fancy that! There are actually some humans and Lurkins in the Navy though, they’re just less common.
They have some man-o-wars… er… men-o-war? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-of-war That’s the kind of ship the Commodore had, it’s his pride and joy, although he was totally prepared to go down with it. They’re big ol’ things and usually there’s only one per Naval outpost. The Navy also employs a lot of schooners (the kind of ship Skarva hijacked and that the pirates have). They can hold less guns but are faster and more maneuverable. More maneuverable still are sloops – imagine a schooner but without a raised area for a cabin, just a flat deck. More aerodynamic. However the Navy doesn’t use these for battle so much as for transport; they’re mainly used by fishers and some pirates.
Seafaring technology is very confusing, especially since naval terms have changed a lot since the age of sail (in our world) and ship names refer to different types than they used to, and don’t even ask me to try and comprehend sail schemes and rigging terms, oh boy. I’d like to understand this all better some day though.
If Skærva had stolen a sloop, and used his acceleration method, would he have invented magic-powered flight? If the thing is aerodynamic and light enough, it stands to reason!
Wait that’s how he gets to the sky temple when that inevitably shows up isn’t it.
constantly sdtherw! Captcha speaks to me again!
Well, ya learn something new every day.
It is a good thing you put that link there, otherwise I would have thought you were saying that they were on a giant cnidarian.
Well, the F-4 Phantom could fly, kgy, so that might just work.
Has any Skarva type figure (organized evil ruler that does schemes) ever work with or ask for help from/hire pirates or is skarva 4th a common case of disliking having anything to do with pirates?
The First may have found it advantageous but I can’t really speak to that right now. I doubt the Third had anything against them really, but probably didn’t see much use in working with them – they weren’t really relevant to how he ran things, not to mention he likes things to be businesslike and reliable and pirates don’t really fit that definition. Our boy the 4th just enjoys being uppity and has a bit (understatement of the year) of a superiority complex about his lordly villainhood.
And as for other villains? I’m sure it’s happened, even despite pirates’ general attitude of disdain for authority. Like I’ve said before, Idenau is full of stories and we’re just discovering them as we go along, too
Theory time! Was the First a pirate? It really seems like it….
If the gods punished piracy so severely, wouldn’t everybody in this chapter be shark men?
It is a good theory though. I’ll not quash it!