Over my time on Massive, I always find myself creating a naval oriented character, whether that's a Captain, Admiral, or just a sailyboy. Yet there's always been a lack of true depth. Characters may be a Captain, or Admiral, but often that's just a proficiency with limited-to-no roleplay impact. The best example I've seen of incorporation in roleplay is the current Brass Moors, headed by @festiveCorvid that targets generating contracts and progression impact. But I thought, what if there could be something even greater? What if we made our own system?
The Maelstrom is a coalition of pirates, sailors, and other like-minded individuals. It serves a system for advancement and development, with ranks, building and improving your own ship, and improving your equipment and crew (including a small number of NPCs, and spreadsheet-oriented points system). As this system is my own creation, not all activities will be through-and-through lore compliant, but it will be lore adjacent and the vast majority should be canon.
In practice, the core focus of the Maelstrom is measurable character advancement through everyday roleplay. All recruitment will be handled in-character, and while there will be NPC placeholder Captains to aid in the system build-out, eventually this will be entirely player-run. For the time being, we'll avoid looking for our own hub, using the locations around Crookback primarily to host our roleplay.
From an OOC standpoint, the Maelstrom strives to build and grow the scene for naval characters in a symbiotic manner with other in-place organizations and crews. I'll be reaching out to a few groups that I know have crews in place, but please feel free to contact me if you have or are planning one of your own.
Today marks the official release of the Maelstrom. With this comes the structural content - the characters, ships, and ranks of the organization. This allows us to start front-loading recruitment roleplay so that the load is more manageable on our content releases.
At its core, the Maelstrom is based around Captain-led flags. They cultivate an internal competition where everyone involved competes for doubloons, the name for our points system. Each Captain serves at the helm of their capital ship with a unique bonus to a certain aspect of the system. There will always be a minimum of 3 flags, but we have no maximum. The list of current capital ships and their Captains are as follows:
- The Phoenix, captained by Valentino Sangiovese. Serving under the Admiral's flag is a great way to ensure quick advancement, resulting in a +1 bonus doubloon per week for each flag member.
- The Man-of-War, captained by Ruzia. This Ovirran is rigorous with her flag's combat training, giving them a +5 boost to all combat skills for Maelstrom events. Her motto is, "When you sock 'em, make 'em stay socked."
- The Heron, captained by Hector Karvelas. This upstanding Etosian merchant's flag always seems to find a way to come up with more doubloons. The Heron allows players to make an offering of doubloons on a weekly basis which may provide a hefty return on investment, or perhaps none at all.
https://discord.gg/t9S3T9S (or feel free to message me at Azas#8462)
When you join a flag of the Maelstrom, you always will start at the rank of sailor. Each flag will of course have their Captain, followed by their second-in-command, the Quartermaster. With the introduction of ship battles will also come a variety of classes to choose, which is also why there are no intermediate ranks between sailor and quartermaster. All flags of the Maelstrom are headed by the Admiral, currently Valentino Sangiovese. As Admiral is more of a DM role, it isn't currently up for grabs (however, he can still lose his position as Captain).
This is a good time to touch on the mutiny mechanic. We're starting with mostly NPC Captains, with ships already constructed. While it will be a route to use doubloons towards building your own ship and crew, I plan on phasing out all the NPC Captains as our numbers grow. For now, the best steps you can take towards that are active recruitment towards your flag (this will result in promotion to Quartermaster, and earning doubloons for recruitment). Recruitment is handled specifically by recruiters, so feel free to reach out if you're interested in becoming one
A frequently asked question is what is the role of proficiency-based ships in the Maelstrom? Due to the structure of our progression system, all capital ships are built and improved via doubloons, and don't translate from proficiency ships. However, your vessel is still recognized as canon within the system, and while you may be titled as a sailor, that doesn't mean you can't be Captain of your own ship. Deeper in the future, we expect to incorporate proficiency ships into a large-scale battle system once our numbers grow.
Releases will be packaged according to the timeline:
- Initial release (released!): Starter characters, ships, and ranks. Discord is up and running
- Earning Doubloons (released! See second post): how to earn the Maelstrom's currency on a weekly basis. Included with this release will be a shortlist of recurring events for Maelstrom characters to participate in and earn doubloons
- Spending Doubloons (Thursday, April 16th): what you really want to know - what can you get? This release will give the details on acquiring your own ship, improving both your ship and crew's equipment, among others. Please PM with ideas or requests ASAP to be included
- Ship Battles (Thursday, April 23rd): a comprehensive ship dueling system where Captains and their flags will do battle on the high seas, through both naval combat and close combat should boarding occur.
Disclaimer:
This is effectively an open beta. There will be changes and developments as we go. I ask for your feedback and patience so that we can craft this into its best version.
Hope to see you around the bay!
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