By Asher Densmore-Lynn and Maurice Lane
Yar! The world be slidin' towards the bottom o' Davy
Jones' locker, but not quickly enough, me hearties!
They should have known. The Seraphim Council and the Demon Princes, that is: after all,
Yves and Kronos are metaphorical canaries to each other. It's obvious in retrospect that whatever
managed to affect the one would soon affect the other. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, no?
Well, for a given value of 'wonderful'.
Dissonance
Servitors of the Dread Pirate Kronos may not
knowingly bring a person to his Destiny, nor knowingly deny him from reaching
his Fate.
Unlike the Ninja, the new organization of Kronos'
Servitors is fairly straightforward.
All Pirates of Kronos must belong to one of the numerous Companies that
have sprung up recently: admittedly, this would probably have been done anyway,
but Dread Pirate Kronos runs a tight fleet.
Each Company is run by at least a Bosun (see below): his or her word is
law, and disobedience is swiftly punished.
This is mitigated by the fact that the head of a Company can be
challenged for the leadership at any time that the Company is not actually
engaged in open combat with the Host: furthermore, Companies are surprisingly
egalitarian in day to day affairs.
Leaders of Companies have to keep a sharp eye out for challengers, and
they rarely are able to continuously dominate everyone under their command. Leading the mob in the direction that it
wants to go is usually not a bad idea.
If a particular Pirate wishes to advance in rank,
but doesn't want to do it by killing the leader of his or her Company - stop
staring; many Pirates of Fate are smart enough to see the benefits of the
subtle approach, not to mention a healthy fear of killing somebody who might
have a hidden patron - there is another alternative: attracting the favorable
attention of a Company run by someone of higher rank than their current
leader. There is no particular stigma
involved in this: it's shaping up to be an extremely common practice, and you
never know when you might be doing it yourself. Needless to say, some Pirates will find it more difficult than
others to integrate themselves into a new Company. Nobody cares about that, either.
Theoretically, the leader of every Company reports
to a higher-ranking Pirate in another Company, and so on, and so on, and so on,
until you get to the Pirate Admirals and their Fleets, all of whom are formally
allied with each other and subservient to the Dread Pirate Kronos. This effectively means that all Companies
are allied with each other as well, thus making conflict impossible. Theory aside, in practice this wouldn't hold
true for humans; guess how true it holds for demons. Intrigue is the order of the day, not to mention the odd ambush
out of sight. The Fleet Admirals
carefully overlook armed conflict, provided that things don't get out of hand:
it keeps entities on their toes, bleeds off excess enthusiasm (and sometimes
enthusiasts) and is apparently good for morale, oddly enough. All of this isn't to say that two Companies can't
get along - but they never really trust each other. You never know when a comrade from an allied Company is going to
slap you on the back... and leave behind a knife.
In other words, things really haven't changed all
that much for Servitors of Fate.
All Servitors of Fate have three Band Attunements;
their canonical ones, Pirate (see below), and special Band-specific special Pirate
Attunements. The latter two cost 5 points each and must be taken at character
conception.
The demon has learned secret pirate skills for
working in stormy seas and other poor conditions - he may act while hanging on
to a rope, pole, ledge, et cetera without penalty, roll, or question, and he
may continue to do so until lethal force (or the equivalent) is applied to
remove him from his handhold. Additionally, the Symphony does not find strife
between Pirates and Ninjas to be an exceptional occurrence; no combat that is exclusively
between Pirate and Ninja will cause Disturbance. Essence expenditure, songs,
direct and indirect property damage, nothing.
Balseraph (Restricted)
Pirates are bluff, good-natured men - no, not
really, but they lie like champions about it. Pirate Balseraphs have a +3 to
their resonance rolls as long as they speak in a debased, primitive accent.
Djinn
For 2 Essence, a Pirate Stalker who bears the Jolly
Roger (of any reasonable size or larger) cannot be affected by resonances and
attunements for one hour - save for the flag, which may be affected normally;
destruction of the flag ends the effect and inflicts one note of Dissonance on
the Djinn.
Calabite
Pirate Calabim may, for 4 Essence, give a hearty
laugh and shake off any single blow that dealt non-Celestial damage - it
connected, but did no damage. If the blow had any secondary effects, those
apply.
Habbalite (Restricted)
These 'angels' are some of the scurviest sea-dogs
that ever made a man walk the plank; actually, no, but they add their Ethereal
Forces to any roll (including resonance use) to inflict fear on others, so they
get that reputation anyway.
Pirate Tempters add their Corporeal Forces to all
reaction and Seduction rolls. This
bonus is further doubled when dealing with Servitors of Lust and
Theft...
A Pirate Shedite automatically succeeds on any
attempt to possess someone who is drunk (roll anyway for the CD and
Interventions). They also can possess
skeletons, as well as corpses where the cause of death was drowning.
These are the smooth Pirates: the ones that
appear on bad romance novel covers, giving off an undeserved air of tarnished
nobility. Anyone who is Charmed by a
Pirate Taker is affected for CD hours, not minutes.
The Dread Pirate Kronos still supports all of his
old Attunements, with a few more added on...
This is the secret language of the Pirates. Well, not precisely secret: they aren't shy
about speaking it in front of others, but it doesn't really matter: only
another speaker of Arrrr can understand the bizarre turns of phrase and obscure
sayings that make up the "language". This is handled in play by the player (who absolutely must
roleplay it out) spouting off some suitable gibberish while handing the GM (or
another player with the Arrr Attunement) a note with the actual message
inscribed thereon. Note that the other
players are perfectly within their rights to appropriately punish the overuse
of this Attunement...
This is a metaphysical tag used by Pirates of Kronos
(cost: 1 Essence) to identify those who have been successfully subjected to
Dark Destiny; it is visible to any other Pirate. An Intelligence roll at -2 will give details on what kind of Fate
is involved: legend has it that the Black Spot gets darker as its holder gets
closer to his or her Fate. If not
renewed, the Spot fades after a week.
This Attunement, of course, sends other celestials
to Limbo. The celestial can resist with
a Will roll: if failed, he or she will be banished for (CD hours). Vessels will not be destroyed by use of this
Attunement. It also costs 8 Essence to
perform.
A Pirate with this Attunement may hide any inanimate
object anywhere, making it undetectable to corporeal senses. Those with Symphonic Awareness will be able
to perceive it on a Perception roll.
However, should the Pirate make sure of the hiding of his treasure by
killing a sentient creature at the hiding spot, said roll will be at a minus
equal to the victim's total Forces (the maximum minus is -7). This minus fades at the rate of one point
per month.
A Pirate with this Attunement active will appear to
be missing a major limb or organ (leg, arm, eye, etc): however, this will have
no effect on any rolls (including reaction rolls, oddly enough). The Pirate may activate, end and/or alter
the apparent disfigurement with a Will -2 roll.
Wi' A Curse...
This Attunement allows the Pirate to pursue his or
her vengeance beyond the grave... well, Trauma. The Pirate must be dying and must make a Will roll; the
victim must be within 5 feet and must fail a Will roll. If these four things happen, then once per
day the victim is at a minus equal to (the CD of the original failed Will Roll)
for any one roll. The effects last
until the Pirate is out of Trauma... or dies the True Death.
The Dread Pirate Kronos has created a lot of
Distinctions: however, most of them are strictly administrative. Seaman, Bosun, Ensign and Lieutenant give no
benefits, per se... but Kronos will also give the Pirate a Rite at the same
time that he gives the promotion. Those
that advance over the bodies of their former officers will likewise receive
official recognition of their improved rank by being given a new Rite. Unless of course they don't, in which
case they usually don't last very long anyway.
Functionally equivalent to Kronos' canonical Knight
of the Winged Chariot Distinction.
Functionally equivalent to Kronos' canonical Captain
of the Infernal Hourglass Distinction.
Functionally equivalent to Kronos' canonical Baron
of the Book of Days Distinction: all Pirate Commodores since the changeover
have been given knowledge of a century infamous for piracy.
The Admirals of the Fleet are those with the Dread
Pirate Kronos' Higher Distinctions.
They are further split into two groups; Admirals of the Yellow (No
Words) and Admirals of the Red (Word-Bound).
Pirates in the first group get considerably less respect than Pirates in
the second one. Needless to say, those
without Words who get this far do their damnedest to get one, usually without
success.
Relations
Mostly unchanged from canon. Asmodeus is thinking of
veering towards Neutral; he's absolutely sure those two are playing some sort
of Game, and he can't figure out what. Kobal would be delighted to try to find
some category worse than Hostile; his Servitors have been absolutely paralyzed
by the spectacle of the Pirate Prince. They can't top pirates and everything
else just plays in their favor.
Every Archangel: "Good God, it's
contagious." "Heave to and prepare to be boarded!"
Andrealphus, Asmodeus, Baal, Beleth, Belial, Nybbas,
"KOBAL!!!!!"
Haagenti, Lilith, Malphas, Saminga, Valefor:
"VAPULA!!!!!"
Kobal, Vapula: "What? You think that I was responsible for this?"
Now that the Pirate attunement has been unveiled,
Fate and Destiny's short-term plans have become fairly obvious. Yves and Kronos
apparently feel the need to more... directly... influence the actions of their
counterpart in the Corporeal; now they may do so freely. Their motivations are less comprehensible,
but it doesn't take a long leap to see what's coming (one word, four syllables,
rhymes with Farmageddon).
Asher adds:
I've got an image in my head that I can't shake off,
and it's a male, 22 or so, with a bright Destiny and a grim Fate. He walks out
of a room, closes the door behind him, and at once a furious melee
erupts between Ninjas and Pirates. Ninjas leaping through the air, Pirates
swinging down from ropes that weren't there a second ago, ninja stars and
sub-machine guns -
And then the door bursts open and the guy looks
around wild-eyed... and everyone's exactly as he left them, quietly discussing
whatever it is they were talking about.
Kronos supports all of his canonical Rites, plus:
: Say "Arrrr" at a
thematically-appropriate juncture. (+1 Essence if more than three Pirates say
it at the same time.)
: Conquer a sea-going vessel. (Conquering a
sea-going Vessel does count, but tends to anger Jordi.)
: Steal or bury one cubic foot of currency.
: Die by hanging.
As per the canonical Kronos.
The major change from Prince Kronos to Dread Pirate
Kronos is that the latter seems to be genuinely enjoying his life now.
Upon reflection, I really don't think that there's
anything more to add. If the above
sentence doesn't scare your players, nothing will.