Piracy in Aelyria

"Aye, me hearties, there was indeed buried treasure there, I tell ye! With the mettle of the Sea King and a belly full o' gunpowder, Mateo Solis took his crew on one final voyage, leaving the safety of Fortune Cove. They were never heard from again, but I reckon that Solis buried the lot of his loot and offed his hearties. After all, Dead Men Tell No Tales, lads. Surprising it may be, yar, but this practice is not as common as ye might imagine. Nay no never would the likes of most respectable pirates squander their doubloons on the barnacles and sealings that dwell in the sand." -Botin Schenn (Captain Iceheart), "Tavern Talk"

Crime in the Aelyrian Empire manifests itself in a variety of ways, but none has attained the attention of the colorful and unsavory culture of piracy. Piracy is the act of disrupting trade and committing thievery against goods or wealth in transit (pillaging), raiding settlements and looting them for anything of wealth or value (plundering), and partaking in excesses of the flesh, whether it be wenching or ingesting copious quantities of alcoholic drinks collectively known as grog. Though for the longest time, brigands were the primary source of organized, wide-spread crime throughout the Aelyrian Empire, with the decline of law and order following the succession crises of the Third Empire, the High Seas became a haven for cutthroats.

Origins of Piracy
Piracy is perhaps the Second Oldest Profession in the known world, as since the time when people began trading and amassing wealth, there were always thieves eager to steal it. The earliest known cases of organized thievery on the seas can be traced back to the aged Eastern City-States of the Luctine Republic and Hriemalis, though it assuredly took place in other regions of the world before. Because the City of Lux so depended upon trade with its insular colonies, the Senate voted to raise a mighty fleet and appointed an Admiral to command it and hunt down pirates. Other city-states undertook similar measures, and for a while, piracy had been checked, with the safe and traversable seas locked down under military traffic.

Piracy became romanticized following the heroic and legendary exploits of a human called Captain Mateo Solis, and consequently, those scurvy sea dogs soon became known as corsairs, who possessed tremendous courage and honor in combat. In truth, the case of Captain Solis and the crew of the Venerable only accounts for a small portion of legitimate piracy. It has, nonetheless, become more common for a code of ethics among captains to emerge, even though the common pirates are little more than interested in their own gain. Though the Pirate Captains would regularly compete with one another, and there was often open hostility, Captain Solis was largely responsible for creating a long-lasting truce among the ships. The Brethren of the Coast, which witnessed its height for approximately 40 eras, brought about a loose cooperation among the pirates. It is rumored that numerous hidden isles house smuggler dens and pirate coves from which these corsairs operate.

Piratical Practices
Pirates have been known to do as they please, and this often has startling implications for law-abiding populations that might become the victims of a pirate attack. When a pirate ship encounters another vessel that might make a tempting and rewarding target, it often attacks with little or no warning. In most cases, these vessels are either lightly armored seacraft or merchant ships. After a successful attack, the pirate crew will board the vessel and take everyone who submits to be their captive prisoners. Once the ship has been stripped of anything of value, including gold, weapons, gunpowder, and the like, it is then sunk to the ocean floor.

Captives are subject to a life of hard circumstances and harder expectations. Captives are taken back to the island or base of operations for a particular pirate gang, where they are sorted into two classes: wealthy captives and common captives. Wealthy captives are given immediate liberty, permitted to wander the isle provided that they behave. The reason for this is that a randsom is immediately set on these wealthy or important captives. Like the pirates themselves, wealthy captives spend their time frequenting the local taverns, shoppes and gambling halls of the island, adding to their randsom whatever they might spend. Common captives, however, live a life of brutality.

Tossed into stocks where they are held and fed poorly, the overwhelming majority of captives are then pressed into forced labor suiting their skills and abilities. Learned persons can offer their services to pirate leaders in a variety of ways, and in return, they are given some coin that they can spend on the island to improve their conditions. Most women are subject to forced prostitution, to satisfy the primal needs of the pirates themselves, though in these circumstances, they, too, are also paid for services rendered. There is, however, limited social mobility for captives. Those that are resigned to their fate, and serve without provocation or incident can find their opportunities for entering the piracy business open up, particularly as new captains seek out hands for their ships. Captive children, for example, are often raised by crews to be pirates themselves.

Imperial Relations
Obviously, it is illegal to engage in piracy. Furthermore, the Articles of Imperium have most recently been interpreted in a rather harsh light, with the preferred penalty of pirates being a life of hard toil at Terramarique, and in some notorious cases, outright execution. Nonetheless, the Aelyrian Empire has not applied this law uniformly, and there are notable exceptions in place. There are numerous factions of pirates, and, with the exception of the brief period of cooperation of the Brethren of the Coast, regularly compete with one another for wealth, power and fame. From time to time, a faction will "gain the grace of the Emperor", or otherwise, be looked upon favorably by imperial officials. Such pirate captains that receive this distinction are awarded with a highly covetted Letter of Marque.

Letters of Marque officially change the distinction of a seafaring cutthroat to that of a respectable privateer. Imperial warships are instructed not to apprehend or otherwise engage the pirate captain and the crew under the protection of the Letter of Marque, and furthermore, these pirates are often welcome openly in Aelyrian ports. The practice of awarding Letters of Marque dates back to the early naval expeditions of the empire against the foreign powers that she was conquering, and thus, gaining the aid of a pirate vessel might at times tilt the balance of power. Hiring pirates as mercenaries, however, does carry its risks, and as such, the Aelyrian Empire has been wary of associating itself with privateers.

Ordinarily, citizens of the Aelyrian Empire have a right of passage to traverse the lands and seas as they deem fit. Adventurers with their own ships are regularly regarded by their reputations, and as they become active in trade and undertaking mercenary assignments for the various factions of the empire, are recognized as privateers. Yet, often a single adverse action is all that it takes to fall out of favor with imperial forces. Once, a pirate ship abducted a wealthy, yet distant, relative of the Lylles Dynasty. Realizing what they had in their possession, the pirates demanded a high randsom, which was eventually paid. Yet, the empire relentlessly pursued these pirates until High Queen Melody de Lylles herself commanded the warship that oversaw the wholesale slaughter of the pirates responsible for the deed. Imperial officials have long memories, and the Aelyrian Empire fosters and nurtures its grudges with an unmerciful determination.

Buccaneers
On the High Seas, it is customary for persons who are not immediately identified to be regarded with a certain degree of suspicion. On the whole, a nebulous yet all-encapsulating term for individuals on the high seas, especially those that brandish their own weapons and are engaged in privateering expeditions, is that of a buccaneer. The term's origins are rather humorous; in the village of Charisme, a band of outcasts had entered the village and begun to hunt wild boar, which they roasted over open pits called boucans. Had the Aelyrian Empire not forced them from the mainland, and had the buccaneers not attacked local ships, buccaneers might still be best known for their cooking.

Pirate Recruits
Entering the world of piracy is no easy feat, and so it continues to astonish the public at large at how the ranks of pirate ships eventually swell in numbers. Most pirates are, actually, former Navy sailors, mutineers or, most commonly, those pressed into piracy after being captured. Others have the distinction of not holding imperial citizenship, and thus being considered barbarians, are treated only slightly better than slaves. Some might have escaped persecution or extreme poverty, both cases opting for a chance at life as a pirate rather than dying slow and painful deaths from harsh conditions or starvation. Whatever it lacks, piracy at least offers two things: freedom and a vote.

Life on the Pirate Ship
A pirate ship was in many ways the purest of democracies. Pirates inherently distrusted government and anyone with absolute power; therefore they voted on important decisions such as who would be their captain, where they would sail and whom they would or would not attack. Each ship had a set of rules called Articles and breaking those rules resulted in harsh punishments. Because of long bouts of boredom, captains needed fear and respect to keep control of their crews. Considering that the Articles many times forbade fighting and gambling, disputes were settled through duels on the nearest land mass.

While at sea, pirates mainly ate rotten meat and dry stale bread called hardtack. Many pirates ate in the dark, so they would not see the bugs with which their food was infested. In a worse case situation, as if that were possible, pirates resorted to cooking lether and even documented recipes for doing so. Hardships faced while at sea required their periodic release, and pirates partook of various forms of entertainment, often as parts of their job. Pillaging, plundering and wenching were the preferred mainstay of fun-starved pirates. Yet, true paradise opened for pirates when they would return to their home isle, whereupon they could engage in a number of unsavory practices and activities in liberty and relative safety.

Punishment
'Walking the plank' probably comes first to mind when thinking of pirate cruelty. This practice is much more common in pirate fiction and lore than in documented history. Alas, the historically common methods of pirate punishment are no less cruel or unusual. Flogging was a common punishment for lesser transgressions. Before becoming the contemporary plaything we have all come to know and love, the 'cat o' nine tails' was far from a loving toy. It was essentially a handle wrapped in cloth with nine rope strands with knots at the ends. When whipped across the bare back multiple times and with great force, it caused severe pain and left permanent scarring.

Keelhauling is a practice that dates back to the pirates of the Luctine Republic. Offenders or captives were tied up, attached to a rope and dropped of one side of the ship. They were then dragged underneath the ship from one side to the other. If the offender did not drown, his body was dragged along the razor sharp barnacles attached to the ship's hull that guided the ill fated on their journey. Finally, Marooning was a death sentence without directly killing someone. Pirates that committed serious offenses such as stealing from another crewmember or acts of cowardice in battle were abandoned on a small island with nothing more than some fresh water, a gun and some shot. Occasionally, marooned sailors escaped their island, but most times the gun was a solution to starvation and loneliness.

The Jolly Roger and Other Pirate Flags
The Jolly Roger is the skull-and-crossbones on a black flag used traditionally by pirates to identify their vessels. There are a few popular beliefs behind the true origins of the name 'Jolly Roger'. One thought is that, because of its images of death, it referred to the Phondran term 'Old Roger', aka Jalat, the God of Death. Another popular belief is that it came from the Charismean jolie rouge, or 'pretty red', because early pirate flags were blood red, not black. Regardless of the circumstances, the Jolly Roger was an invaluable way of maintaining tranquility among pirates, especially when the Brethren of the Coast compact was in full force.

Often times, extended excursions on the sea would leave ships and their crews subject to a variety of illnesses. When a plague had struck a ship in such fashion, a yellow flag was raised along the mizzenmast to warn off contact. More often than not, however, this tactic was shrewdly used by pirate ships to avoid encounters with imperial forces or other hostile privateers. In some cases, privateers with Letters of Marque might try and fly a special flag identifying themselves - usually a flag of the Aelyrian Empire. If captured, however, both the flag and the Letters of Marque did little to save them; privateers were not recognized as prisoners of war by foreign powers, and they were regularly executed as public enemies.

Booty
People became pirates because of the avenue towards wealth acquisition. The spoils of plundering and pillaging were considerable, and the egalitarian philosophy driving the chaotic pirates meant that pirate plunder was divided equally between crewmembers, with a double or triple share of the booty granted to captains and other important positions. However, pirates who lost limbs were paid compensation for their injuries. Of course, this bonus pay had a severe downside, since there was usually no easy avenue towards medical treatment while on the run from the law. At least, if something cost an arm and a leg, it was reimbursed.

Gunpowder
Throughout Aelyria, gunpowder has limited uses in practical warfare. Given the expensive nature of manufacturing muskets, virtually all muskets are flintlocks. Flintlocks only offer one shot before needing to be reloaded, and the reloading process often took a considerable amount of time - precious minutes that might mean the difference between life or death in battle. It was often the practice of wealthy pirate captains to purchase multiple flintlocks, since exdtra flintlocks meant extra close-quarter shots. What's more, because the sea is wet and flintlocks use gunpowder, they bought spare flintlocks in case of misfires.

Cannons form the basis of the offensive weaponry available to upscale pirate ships. Frequently referred to as "guns", cannons require at least two or three pirates to load, and one skilled gunner to fire. Because weaponry of this sort often requires precious training that is not always available to all pirates, most pirate ships engage enemy vessels at close quarters engaging in an offensive manuver called preening. Striking the enemy hull with the brunt of the forefront of the ship, pirates would then cross-over and engage in combat with whatever resistance they might encounter. Due to its inexpensive nature and common availability, most pirates fought with cutlasses, though there has been considerable variety of the make up of crews in recent eras.

Scurvy
Scurvy is a genuine disease caused by the severe deprivation of citrus. The absence of fresh fruits and vegetables caused scurvy to ravage many a pirate ship. Aelyrian sailors were known to have taken limes on cruises with them to avert this tragic ailment, hence the term 'limeys'. Without proper medicines, magic or treatments, the odds were quite against them. Common symptoms of scurvy included massive hemorrhaging under the skin, gums turning purple, puffy and painful, and the experiencing of severe pain in the limbs.

Female Pirates
While not nearly as common as male pirates, there have been a decent number of female cutthroats sailing the seas, some of whom have become extremely powerful, commanding tens of thousands of men and women and challenging imperial authorities and their mercenaries. Though female captains enjoy pillaging and plundering like the rest of their pirate brethren, they prefer to engage in beautification activities rather than whole-sale debauchery. Even so, female captains love the grog and the wild lifestyle available to them and regularly engage in mind-numbing insanity during their shore leave, while on duty reflecting extreme ferocity in combat and remarkable wit of purpose.

Unlike female captives, who are forced into prostitution and humiliation, female pirates enjoy the same rights as their male counterparts and constitute a significant segment of the pirate population. Like the equal gender laws enforced in the Aelyrian Empire, pirates on the whole maintain firm regard for equal opportunity of the sexes, even if, because the profession is dominated by men, women are most often disadvantaged if they become victims of these acts.

Future of Piracy
Given the collapse of most imperial institutions after the disappearance of Emperor Valerian Constantius, and the decline of the authority of the Third Empire, piracy has once again been on the rise. It was rumored that, aside from amassing tremendous wealth, the most notable accomplishment of the famed Captain Solis, whose honor and glorious fame earned him a knighting in absentia, was the establishment of Fortune Cove, a wealthy pirate city paradise on the high seas. If this isle truly does exist, then few have ever revealed its location for its capture would be the object of much celebration by imperial officials. Even so, the emergence of other pirate isles and new pirate factions, some of which are more benign than others, have led to the Imperial Navy to begin to take vigilant action to protect the coastlines and shores of the Aelyrian Empire.