Free Merchant Marines of the Sea of Fallen Stars
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Winterhawk99
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Free Merchant Marines of the Sea of Fallen Stars

Post by Winterhawk99 »

I created a Merchant marine navy for a book I'm working on. Came out pretty good. So if anyone would like to use this for their pw and add to the basic outline you are welcome to use it.

The Free Merchant Marines of the Sea of Fallen Stars

1. General Make up: The FMM was started some 750-800 years ago along the sea of fallen stars as merchant vessels banning together to form a navy/union to support each other over the various threats and life on the open see for merchant ships.
They have become a full force navy over the years with their own traditions, uniforms, ranks and set of laws. Though they are not a fighting navy. They haul Freight all across the inner sea and have recently expanded to the sword coast. They are for the most part no non-sense merchants with set percentage standards of profit and shares from their cargo transports.
They often sail together with small ships being outriders and scouts for the larger ships. They have no heavy weapons. If you were so say to Lauriella how about putting some ballista and catapult on your new ship she would look at you dead in the eye and say how much cargo weight is this going to cost me and how is it going to cut the ships profits.
They do defend themselves with crossbows, bows, clubs and other personal weapons. Most officers have some magical ability to help defend their ships. Mages, clerics, bards, and even thieves can often be found in the ranks of the officer’s class.
They report to their fleet headquarters in the city of Velprintalar in Aglarond. All shipments are scanned for compliance with fleet regulations and make sure that everyone is paid appropriate shares. If there is a complaint they will check.
Most officers own and maintain their own vessels. The reason for the organization is mutual protection of each other, a standardization of profit margins, and a neutrality among the various nations along the inner sea (again a mutual protection); Not be subservient to any one country or organization which would endanger their neutrality and trade deals with other countries. They have their own flag and blazon it is Azure an Anchor Argent surrounded by seven stars. (For those that can’t understand heraldry (A white anchor surrounded by stars of the same color/metal on a blue field))

2. Religions: There are a lot of religions among the FMM. Waukeen is of course a prominent one. Also, Selune, Tymora, Ra, Mystra and Umberlee(all of them tribute to Umberlee whether good or evil. Not because they worship her but to prevent her from throwing a storm at them). Of the few elves that join the organization Deep Sashelas, and Sehanine Moonbow are prominent.

3. General alignments: The FMM is generally a lawful organization. They are merchants traveling in often times dangerous waters. They have a hard life and need to be disciplined if they are to survive 30 years on the sea. but the rewards of a good pension at the end of the road keep them moving across the waters from port to port. The biggest percentage is Lawful Nuetral. With about 15 percent of the purely lawful alighments being good and about 5 percent being evil. There are also a good number of different alighments with lawful tendencies like Lauriella. She is NG with lawful tendencies. A pure chaotic is rare among officers though there are quite a few pure chaotics among them men who usually don’t last more than a few years on ship.

4. There are 4 ranks of seaman and 6 ranks of officers in the FFM each having their own uniforms
1. Seamen
a) Trainee: uniform good white sailors’ clothes for working with three blue stripes on the cuffs.
b) Seaman: uniform good blue sailors’ clothes
c) 2nd Mate: uniform good blue sailors’ clothes with a white Shirt underneath open at the upper chest
d) 1rst Mate: uniform Good blue sailors’ clothes with a white shirt underneath and a high collar with white filigree sewn into it and the cuffs.

2. Officers
a) 2nd ensign black cavalry boots, blue pants, white shirt/or chain padding with a blue waterproof overcoat. A blue cavalier’s hat with black feathers and a copper ships wheel feather pin.
b) Ensign 1rst class: Same except Their blue cavalier’s hat has White feathers and a bronze ships wheel feather pin.
c) Lieutenant: Lieutenants being the police and inner guard force have a white lining in their overcoat, so they are known for that they are. They have a black cavalier’s hat with Red feathers to mark them as the captain’s strong arm on big galleons and frigates, and a silver ships wheel feather pin.
d) Captain: Captains are the same as Lieutenants but have a gold feathers in their cavalier’s hat and a golden ships wheel feather pin, and their inner shirt is a dark gold color.
e) Commander: Commanders wear a black overcoat with a white inside lining. Their hat is black but have Red and gold feathers with a gold feather pin.
f) Admirals (there are never more than 12) have black overcoats with and inner golden lining. Their shirts are also gold/yellow. They have filigree sewn into their overcoat cuffs and where a black hat with multicolored feathers and a mithral feather pin.

Among the officers there are set standards to which an officer may command a ship. Ensigns can only command Catalina sized ships. Basically, practice ships used for pleasure and cannot hold any serious cargo.
Lieutenants can command cargo sloops small schooners with no more than a load capacity of 50 ton. Most do not command their own ships but for the more independent ones that want to take a risk of small profits over time to acquire a larger ship the allowance is afforded. Lauriella was one of these Lieutenants and took 15 years to make load capacity to be promotable to captain.
Captains may command almost any ship they can afford to make but with a limited load capacity of 100 tons. Most own and command their own vessels by this time but are not yet ready to run the truly big frigates and galleons.
There are few ships with over a 100 ton load capacity but there are some and that is the territory of only the Commanders and Admirals. They command the biggest vessels in the FMM.

The FMM keeps its neutrality to other countries through strict rules for all its members not to get involved in any faction upon the land. They negotiate contracts for all countries and all large ports that touch the Sea of fallen stars. Each ship has papers and most captains have several citizen papers along those countries. That is the major perk of members. When any command staff (Captain and above) is without a ship they are expected to meet with whatever diplomats of the country they are in to keep the fleets affairs in order and contracts in good standing until they may build a new one and ply their trade again.

They also regularly make contracts with other countries merchant fleets. In most of these contracts the smaller vessels in a country take their wares to major ports for a 10-12% profit margin sell them to fleet where fleet takes them to a major port in another countries where the goods are rare making another 10-12% gain. The fleet feels this service is beneficial to both the small sloop and schooner owners from other fleets and benefits them in the long haul. They rarely go to smaller ports other than the lieutenants that run sloops or small schooners. These are the hot shots of the fleet that take the risk of going to smaller ports to gain bigger profits and more reward for themselves and crew but it’s always a risk and sometimes they bleed for it.

Tactics: The fleet tends to work on having faster ships than others while trying to still keep a large cargo capacity. They would rather run and outmaneuver another vessel than challenge them head on. Since they do not carry weapons. Many mages and sorcerers in the fleet have flying familiars so they can scout out in the waters to see any ships in the area. If they see something, they don’t like they will turn the ship away from the other before the other sees them. Lauriella is a champion at this game being her familiar is a very quick fruit bat and can travel some distance. If faced with an unavoidable challenge from a pirate ship, privateer or country that is currently against them the men will pick up range weapons and any casters will have a few AOE spells to throw at the other ship when it comes in range. They most likely not fight hand to hand of the other ship boards them.
Rather they will give up and surrender to be ransomed to fleet. Which happens on occasion. Fleet after paying ransom takes it out of the ships retirement fund.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: Free Merchant Marines of the Sea of Fallen Stars

Post by Winterhawk99 »

I can add to this if anyone wants me too add something specific. Thanks. winterhawk
CTP team member
http://www.harvestmoonconsortium.com
Chief cook and bottle washer for Harvest Moon

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