Wrecking Crews

Wrecking Crews

Wrecking Crews is the colloquial name for the various groups of pirates, shipwreck survivors, bandits, and madmen that inhabit the Sea of Wrecks.  Most wrecking crews are tied to a single ship or area and will rarely venture outside of their domains.  However there are three primary wrecking crews, The Ironclads, The Inked Mages, and The Dragur, who hold domination over vast swathes of territories and their machinations and influence can be felt all over the Sea of Wrecks.  The information for these groups is as follows:

Ironclads

Ironclads are a wrecking crew that wears heavily modified scavenged diving suits.  They look something like a cross between a set of full plate, a wet suit, and a robot.  While few in number each Ironclad is a juggernaut.  Their suits are heavily armed and armored.  They fight with equally heavily modified spear guns (counts as heavy crossbows/ballista/etc.).  They have modified Jarred Sun tubes that project light out in front of them (essentially a powerful headlight). Many have rebreathers or hookups that allow them to connect to an air pump station, so they can spend extended amounts of time underwater.

Aspirants are unarmored Ironclads.  They are young and often new to the Sea of Wrecks.  They do a lot of menial tasks for the Ironclads, like scraping off barnacles and rust, making minor repairs, and doing much of the work a traditional squire might do for a knight.  They are all armed with spear guns, but much smaller versions.  Each hopes to get their own suit one day.  Each Ironclad typically has 3-4 Aspirants that work underneath them.

Much like their suits, each Ironclad is very individualistic.  Each Ironclad also views their suit as an extension of themselves.  They will never get out of their suit unless they have too.  They move with a slow and deliberate certainty.  They university dislike it when someone tells then what to do.  They do not believe in charity and expect some sort of payment for any action.  They are cocky, but not arrogant.  Each has earned their way into a suit, and each Ironclad respects that.

Ironclads spend most of their time either scrapping wrecks and adding to their suits or hunting squids and sharks.  Their settlements are open, but at  visitors own risk.  They barter for most of their supplies and will take scrap above gold.  They sell squid jerky, fish meat, shark leather, and strange things they find below the surface of the water.

Inked Mages

Inked Mages are a  wrecking crew that is obsessed with tattoos and magic.  Most are either shaved completely bald (including eyebrows) but may have a single ponytail or top knot.  Inked Mages are covered head to toe in magically infused tattoos that serve as their spell books.  As paper fairs very poorly in the Sea of Wrecks they have their spell books tattooed into their skin.  They wear loose fitting armless robes made from dyed scavenged cloth and armor made from shark leather.  Most keep a dagger hidden on them, just in case.

Inked Mages fight almost exclusively with spells and magic items.  They prefer to fight from range and to blast their opponents apart with magic before closing in.  They make wands and staffs out of heavily scrimshawed and inked bones.  They also have ‘scrolls’ – slaves that they have captured and inked spells on to that they drag out into battle.

Acolytes are young Inked Mages that still have significant portions of virgin skin.  They do a lot of the grunt work for the full mages saving up for new spells and new inks.

The Inked Mages think that if they can figure out how it works, they can control La Luz.  They have a bunch of rumors about the lighthouse (superweapon, mind control, teleporter, space beacons, planar gate, etc).  They collect mirrors, lenses and other glass stuff for experimenting with Jarred Suns.  They will also pay for reports into the lighthouse.  They take slaves which they then tattoo with whatever books they can find, they call these slaves 'fleshbooks'.  You dont want to know what a 'fleshscroll' is.  Sometimes they extract the ink from the books that they find before the degrade thanks to the effects of the Sea of Wrecks.

The Dragur

Early in the history of the Sea of Wrecks a fleet of sea raiders, a Viking like people, were caught in a storm and dashed upon the rocks.  A number of the sea raiders lived through the ordeal.  Those that lived envied the dead as one of the sea raider myths was of a place similar to the Sea of Wrecks.  This mythical land was a sort of purgatory where sea raider warriors who die cowardly deaths before landing for a raid go.  This purgatory traps the souls of the warriors, forcing them to reincarnate, unless they are given a proper sea raider funeral; in a boat loaded with treasure that is then burned.

The Dragur are a wrecking crew that consists most of people who believe that they are reincarnated sea raiders, and who are seeking a proper funeral.  The view the Sea of Wrecks as some sort of purgatory something that has denied them a proper death.  They think that they are caught in a preputial state of reincarnation and if they can have a proper Viking funeral then they can finally leave the Sea of Wrecks.  They abduct new arrivals to the Sea of Wrecks, believing them to be reincarnated versions of their fellow Dragur.  They are not shamed, as each Dragur thinks that they themselves have failed a few times on the reincarnation trick.



One 'original' sea raider still exists in the Sea of Wrecks, Ulf the Black.  Ulf was the navigator for the great sea raider fleet that spawned the Dragur.  Ulf is now a ghost, caught in karmatic limbo for his actions while among the living.  Ulf the Black is the reason why the great many sea raider ships ended up being caught into the grasp of the Sea of Wrecks.  Before the fleet meet its fate Ulf had behind the backs of the other sea raiders brokered a deal between himself and the target of their raid.  He promised to lead the fleet into a storm in exchange for his own princedom.  Unfortunately for Ulf his ship was also claimed by the storm.  His ghost now haunts the ruins of his longship.

Ulf despises The Dragur, as they remind him of the sea raiders he betrayed, and the The Dragur are terrified of him because well, he is a screaming Viking ghost.  He was given a down payment on his betrayal; his hold is filled with silver ingots and whale ivory.  He pays handsomely for anyone who brings him the head of a Dragur.