The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

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other ships are sent out. Whole clans of pirates have
grown up here without ever seeing land in their lives.
Powerful magic makes sure that it stays stable and afloat.
The ship is self-sustaining; it carries livestock and the
crew are able to keep sea beasts at bay by dropping live
animals into the water. The pirates prey on the shipping
that either avoids the Xoth Sarandi gates or is not served
by them.
Non-Player Character Group: The Sea
Harriers
The Sea Harriers are the worst pirate threat of the
central oceans. They strike without warning, using fast,
manoeuvrable short-range craft. Nobody is certain how
the Harriers are able to provision themselves, since they
operate miles away from any known island base, but
the current favoured theory is that they utilise a form of
magic similar to that which the elves of Xoth Sarandi
use to create the sea-portals, only this magic forms
temporary ‘travel gates’. Harrier vessels are often
sighted while there is mist on the sea, and some have
taken this as evidence that the travel gates create a mist,
presumably because of the magical disruption to the
water’s surface.
The Sea Harriers are very different from the pirates of
the Shard. The latter group is merely a rag-tag mob of
cutthroats, mostly escaped convicts, runaway slaves or
military deserters who band together temporarily in the
hope of profit. The Sea Harriers have a family structure
based around clans. Each ship is the property of one
clan and is the responsibility of one family within that
clan. The mother is always in command of the ship; the
father directs the fighting; the sons and daughters see
to the crewing. The remainder of the crew is made up
of other clan members, ‘borrowed’ for raiding purposes
according to an arcane honour system.
The head of all the clans is the amma hadrak or Salt
Mother, who rules from an unknown location somewhere
in the mid-Incarnadine.
Character: Sea Harriers are lawful evil; they see the
ocean as their territory and their raids as taxation. They
think of themselves as princes and their families as
royalty. They despise mere marauders and pillagers
and have even been known to help those who were
under attack from them.
Sea Harriers have a dialect of their own, a mutated
version of Thieves’ Cant. Their own word for
themselves is pelori, which simply means the family.
Non-Harriers, especially land dwellers, are referred to
as grubbesh, literally translated as ‘steppers in dung’.
So long as a ship yields up its cargo without a fight, the
Harriers let it go. They always offer it the chance to
do this and even ensure that the ship’s crew is left with
enough food and water to reach a safe port. Fighting
back throws away any chance of peaceful escape,
though even then the Harriers discriminate between a
ship’s crew and its passengers and do not put everyone
to the sword just because the captain was foolish enough
to fight.
The Harriers have great respect for wit and bravery.
They spared Captain Samuel Spright when they finally
caught him after he had led them on a merry chase for
more than three days around a reef-infested island;
they similarly showed mercy to the adventurer Lundin
Ironfoot, who made them laugh with his deadpan
humour even while they were tying the noose around his
neck. They do not tolerate insults against their breeding
or their claims to nobility. The fastest way to raise a Sea
Harrier’s displeasure is to show him disrespect.
Appearance: A Sea Harrier always dresses in the
finest garb available to him, so long as it is practical to
fight in. The Harriers adore flamboyant clothing and
jewellery. They think of themselves as the nobles of
the sea, so they dress like aristocrats. They adore velvet
hats, silk cummerbunds, fur-lined cloaks, baggy shirts,
satin gowns and fencing garb of fine soft leather, with
high bucket-top boots and suede waistcoats.
Falchions are the preferred weapons of the beefier
Harriers, with the more lithe ones preferring rapiers,
usually with a dagger in the off-hand. Men either shave
their heads completely, sometimes leaving a pigtail,
or wear their hair long. Women dye theirs in the most
unnatural colours they can find. Blue, purple and pink
are especially prized.
Before this adventure takes place, the Player Characters
should have had at least one brush with the Sea Harriers.
The Coastal Encounters table on page 32 gives some
possible events. Alternatively, the Player Characters
could come across a Harrier raid in progress and have
to defend the beleaguered ship.
Ships: All Sea Harrier ships that have been sighted thus
far are pinnaces or sloops at the largest, requiring no
more than 20 or 30 people to crew them. In contempt
of the usual naming traditions, the Harriers give their
ships outlandish names, usually of between four and
ten words. Harrier ships that have been sighted to date
include the Sudden Attack of Woeful Melancholy, the
Memorable Exploding Appendix Crisis, the Butterfly
Lands Delicately on a Fallen Cherry Blossom and the
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8