The Witch's Folly

The Sea Dogs of Avalon prefer smaller ships for their piratical endeavors. For one thing, the waters around Avalon are a little shallower than average and as the Castillian Armada learned the hard way, deep-drafted ships have a bad habit of running aground and becoming easy targets. Secondly, their tactics favor small ships capable of slashing in, hitting a target, and maneuvering too quickly for an enemy to get a good shot in. Thirdly, Avalons love an underdog, and as such it just wouldn't be any fun to go lumbering around in war galleons or other such fortresses of the sea.

In this regard, the Witch's Folly is a rather typical example of a Sea Dog vessel. She's a 55' brigantine, a two-masted vessel with a square-rigged mainmast and an aft-rigged mizzenmast. What this means in practical terms is that while she can't sail as close to the wind as a completely fore-and-aft-rigged sloop, she's one heck of a lot more maneuverable against the wind than most anything else. She carries only thirteen cannons, but twelve of them (six to each side) are Eisen-built mid-range artillery pieces and if they were more numerous or heavy it'd do harm to the ship just to fire them. The thirteenth cannon is a smaller long-barreled gun known as 'Smiling Bess', which is built to be picked up by a team of sailors and carried to the bow or the stern of the ship for use as a chaser. 'Bess' doesn't have as much punch as one of the broadside guns, but she has nearly the range.

The officer's quarters (Esteban's, Arthur's, and Berndt's) are in the rear castle, opening onto the main deck. Esteban's cabin also doubles as the wardroom on those occasions when maps need to be spread out and explained. The crew (some forty in all though the ship could carry more if needed) sleep in hammocks down on the gundeck, and the handful of women in the crew have claimed the part closest to the galley as their own territory. They've rigged up blackout curtains to keep from getting spied on, and they enforce their turf with sharp tongues and blunt instruments.

Below the gundeck is the hold, an unfortunately-designed space. To be frank, it's only five feet deep and is mainly accessed by pulling up sections of the gundeck floor. A fair bit of cargo can be stored down there, but it's a pain in the aft to get it in and out. The reason for this strange piece of design is simple - the Folly was designed to be a private yacht, not a trading vessel or a warship. A Vodacce noble commissioned her to enable himself and his wife (or his mistress, but likely not both at the same time) to travel in security and style. The Folly has a very shallow draft, and could likely sail on a duckpond if you could get her onto one. Even more whimsically (though much more practical than its owners thought), the Folly was designed with oarlocks. If the ship becomes becalmed or loses its masts, the crew need merely run out the sweeps to get underway again.

The circumstances of a Vodacce yacht coming under the command of a Highland privateer are simple - Esteban stole her. She was sitting in the harbor of a scenic coastal port in the Bernoulli region of Vodacce when Esteban and his band of escaped Corsair slaves decided that they were tired of walking. They boarded the ship in the dead of night, incapacitated and bound the crew, and where in the process of piling the Vodacce sailors on the dock when the owner's black-veiled wife came out on deck. Seeing the pirates in the process of attacking her ship, she immediately began to reach for the strands of Fate, a gesture that any Thean with half a brain is frightened of. Esteban acted quickly, however, whirling his claymore in a precise arc that slashed the witch's veil in half, sending it fluttering to the deck. The Fate Witch stopped short, stared at the size of the weapon that had just stripped away her traditional garment, and collapsed in a faint. She and her husband were put ashore with the crew, and the renegades were away before the port guards ever knew what had happened.

Those who are told this story would laugh at it, except for a few salient points - the Folly is obviously a Vodacce-built ship even though the extra rigging common to Vodacce ships has been stripped away. Secondly, the figurehead (an embarrassed-looking bare-faced Vodacce woman) is carved in such detail that it does indeed appear to be a specific person. Lastly and most convincingly, though, is the fact that the Folly is under a curse. For the first year of its privateer career, the Folly had terrible luck. Storms came at all the worst times, food spoiled, and the grog would turn into wine (the cheapest, nastiest wine) if not drunk quickly upon being opened. The curse seemed to be eased (but not entirely negated) when the Raven came on board, but recently when she left it returned with a vengeance. Only time will tell if the Raven's return will restore peace to the vessel.

Page by Ron, curse by Signora Cruciana Bescacelli