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Who Was Blackbeard? Pirate Borg World Building
I’ve bit the bullet and and I’ve agreed to run a couple of one shots for Pirate Borg. One’s for my regular group, and the other is a group of people I met in a local online community. This is all well and good, but it got me thinking more about Pirate Borg lore.
By JimmiWazEre
Avast, ye scurvy opinionated tabletop gaming chap
TL;DR:
Blackbeard’s career lasted barely two years, but in that time he captured a slave ship, blockaded Charleston, outplayed governors, accepted a royal pardon, and died in a last stand at Ocracoke.
Introduction
I’ve bitten the bullet and and I’ve agreed to run a couple of one shots for Pirate Borg. One’s for my regular group, and the other is a group of people I met in a local online community. This is all well and good, but it got me thinking more about Pirate Borg lore.
Not a problem, when it comes to thinking about things - pirates are definitely up there for me as hot property.
So in this post I’m going to cover the known real history of Blackbeard, complete with some reasonable assumptions. Next time, I’ll take that timeline and append my Pirate Borg nonsense to it so you can see how this all fits in with the Dark Caribbean setting.
Enjoy.
The Real History of Blackbeard
Surprisingly, there’s not actually much known about the life of Blackbeard, and much of his early life is genuinely unknown, whilst that which is well documented only covers his brief but legendary career during the golden age of piracy.
Early, And Somewhat Sketchy ‘Facts’
Real Name
The first question we have to ask is who actually was this dude? Well, based on surviving legal documents, maritime reports, and inter-colony correspondences; Blackbeard’s actual name was Edward Thatch. Or maybe Edward Teach. (Or maybe Barry).
Hang on Jimmi, we’ve only just started - why are we uncertain already? Well chum, because we don’t actually have any recorded signature from Blackbeard, and all the records are from some third party writing about him, and he didn’t exactly go around the place signing up for membership cards and leaving a nice first hand paper trail for us. Rather, he’d have introduced himself verbally. Probably whilst on the deck of a ship on a windy day with some juicily broad South Western British accent, delivered to people who were far too terrified to be paying too much attention to detail.
Under those circumstances it’d be easy for someone to mishear his name. Not to mention that the common sailors he’d have been talking to were unlikely to speak English fluently, or be literate. And then even, the semi literate ones who did hear his name correctly, and could understand him - there’s every chance that they wrote his name out phonetically, and spelled it wrong, or that the reporting Clerks did so later on after hearing weeks old verbal accounts.
And it gets even more unreliable, I’m afraid. Typically Pirates don’t give away their real names because they didn’t want to bring trouble for Mummy and Daddy Blackbeard back at home. So both Thatch and Teach - it’s entirely possible that Blackbeard used them both as aliases, and maybe his real name was Barry. But - I don’t like that. It’s a dead end. So to sound informed, I’ll just acknowledge that it’s a possibility, and then move forward with the historical best guesses. ‘Blackbeard’ was already his alias, and it was cooler than a penguin’s arse - he didn’t need any more.
Place of Birth
In a 1724 book called “A General History of the Pyrates” is published by someone calling themselves ‘Captain Charles Johnson’. Alas, this was a pen name, and the real author’s name is again, hotly debated. Anyway, the book profiles various 18th century pirates, including Blackbeard, and it names him as being from the major Atlantic port town of Bristol, UK. If we skip forwards to today, historians have found records of the surname “Thatch” appearing in British parish records around 1680. “Teach” is nowhere to be seen.
This all fits: the name, and a link to a maritime location. Then the date; circa 1680 puts him around his thirties and forties which is reasonable. I’m happy so far.
Pre-Piracy Career
This part is almost entirely speculative. You see, Blackbeard was renowned as a skilled pirate. That’s a command of sailing, of combat, and psychological intimidation. It therefore makes sense that he picked these skills up somewhere in advance of his piracy career, and the most obvious place to do so would have been through operating as a Caribbean privateer in the era 1701 - 1714.
Privateers were seamen operating with the explicit written permission of the state to do pirate things, as long as they were only acting against the state’s enemies. At this time, that was the Spanish and the French as a result of the War of Spanish Succession.
Interestingly though, we’ve got two ingredients for our next piece of educated speculation. The first: Blackbeard was a skilled pirate - as above, and the second: “Edward Thatch/Teach” is not mentioned in any records as being a captain on any privateering expedition. If he was a captain, he absolutely would have been mentioned because these are official letters of marque.
Logically then, if we accept that he indeed gained his seamanship experience as a privateer sometime between 1701 and 1714 - that then likely places him as mid-tier crew. Senior enough to get command and tactical experience, but not senior enough for anyone to write his name down.
It’s Piracy Time!
Mentorship under Benjamin Hornigold
In 1716, A General History of Pyrates places Blackbeard in the ex-British port town of Nassau, New Providence (our first real solid historical record of Mr. B.Beard actually). There he serves under the legendary pirate captain; Benjamin Hornigold who obviously sees enough in him to eventually bequeath him command of a small sloop by the start of 1717.
The name of the sloop is lost to history, and Blackbeard’s role as captain here is still subordinate to Hornigold, whom you might consider to be a pirate admiral at this stage. However, the partnership was fruitful and they captured ships off Cuba, Hispaniola, and the Bahamas trade routes.
Given he was in command of a sloop, we can deduce that Blackbeard’s role in these escapades was to utilise the speed of his vessel for intercepting lightly armed ships and taking shock-style boarding actions rather than trading broadside cannon fire. An active raider, if you like - rather than a commanding overseer.
Glorious Piratey Independence
By mid 1717 however, Hornigold is starting to lose the confidence of his crew. You see, Hornigold would describe himself as a British patriot, and as such, refused to engage against British vessels. His crew though, they were distinctly less picky and eager to crack on, and this friction was starting to show. In fact Hornigold’s waning authority might have been a key factor in Blackbeard’s bold move that came next. In November 1717 Blackbeard (still in his sloop, but probably with additional ships in tow) intercepted a large French slave ship off the coast of Martinique called La Concorde.
Now, La Concorde was chonky my dudes. ‘Baby got back’. 200+ tons of it in fact, and built for Atlantic crossings. Indeed, on this occasion it was at the tail end of such a voyage and was carrying West African slaves to Martinique. It was heavily crewed, but was by no means a ship kitted out for war.
According to French reports, the crew was already weakened by dysentery and fever and were probably very much looking forward to making port soon. That’s when Blackbeard took chase. With his nimbler sloop he was able to close the distance rapidly.
There ensued a brief engagement which involved limited cannon fire and musket volleys. La Concorde was not heavily armed at all, and the reports indicate that the French Captain, Pierre Dosset surrendered quickly, which is a testament to Blackbeard’s famously intimidating tactics.
The Queen Anne’s Revenge
Alrighty - now we’re cooking! Blackbeard claimed La Concorde for himself, and fitted it out with forty cannon to make it one of the beefiest pirate ships of the era. This thing was a major escalation in power projection for him, and enabled him to take on larger merchant vessels.
He chose to rename La Concorde to Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), and as is sadly typical by now - we don’t have concrete proof as to why. Though we can infer it; Queen Anne was the British Monarch from 1702 - 1714, and her reign ending coincided with the end of privateering work which was something of a sore spot for many pirates, as it fundamentally took their jobs away and forced them into true crime. It’s likely that the name ‘Queen Anne’s Revenge’ was both a nostalgic nod to those privateering years and likely an ‘up yours’ to King George the 1st, the first British monarch from the controversial house of Hanover.
Needless to say, we’ve entered the period now where Blackbeard is gaining fame and fortune, using his pirate armada to terrorise the Caribbean seas. Tactically speaking, Blackbeard wasn’t known to be gratuitously murderous, but rather he carefully cultivated an image and reputation of terror. Preferring his prey to voluntarily give up without a fight out of sheer terror, than to put himself at unnecessary risk. Having a massive ship that everyone’s scared of certainly helps in that regard!
Peak Piracy
The Charleston Blockade
On 22nd May 1718 Blackbeard pulls off his most daring move to date. Aware that there’s no navy presence in the vicinity, Blackbeard takes the QAR alongside 3 other ships and probably more than 200 men, and parks them outside the harbour at Charleston, South Carolina. Over the next week he proceeds to capture around 10 vessels, and stop all incoming and outgoing traffic. The ships he caught were stripped of all valuables, including prominent passengers such as members of the provincial council, and well connected colonists.
He then issues a demand to Governor Robert Johnson. Not for gold, not for crew, weapons, or more ships. No, Blackbeard demands a chest of medical supplies. You see the Caribbean in the 18th century was a hotbed of disease, and nowhere more so than the tight confines of a boat - dysentery, syphilis, fever, all manner of tropical diseases and Blackbeard is not immune to this.
Unfortunately for Johnson, he’s got no real choice but to comply - the blockade is causing severe economic damage and political embarrassment. Isolated, and with the British Navy stretched too thin, he’s in no position to address the situation militarily. Consequently, the demands are met and the chest is dispatched. Blackbeard disburdens them of their valuables, then releases the last of his hostages and peacefully sails away having metaphorically pulled Johnson’s pants down, and blown a raspberry at him for all to see.
The End Times
The King’s Pardon
Not long after Charleston, in June 1718 at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina - Blackbeard heads to shore to careen his ships. Unfortunately, or maybe intentionally, he manages to run both QAR and one of his support sloops called The Adventure aground against a sandbar.
The incident is fatal to QAR, the main sail is cracked, and many timbers are shattered. In response, he transfers all valuables onto a smaller vessel and leaves the scene - abandoning both the wreckage and a large proportion of his crew behind.
There is some debate about whether this was intentional. Whilst blockading Charleston, Blackbeard learns that the British have dispatched a fleet of man-o-war led by Woodes Rogers to deal with the pirate problem in the Caribbean, and not only does the QAR draw unwanted attention, it’s no match for the might of the British Navy. In addition to this, evidence suggests that the QAR was severely damaged prior to the grounding, and in combination with having a massive crew to upkeep and share spoils with, Blackbeard may have decided it was best to kill two birds with one stone and simply abandon them.
Whatever the cause of the grounding, not long after and having heard that the King’s Pardon was being offered to all pirates who surrendered before the 5th September 1718, Blackbeard and his collaborator Stede Bonnet decide that this is probably a good time to bow out. Of course, Bonnet is sent first alone to North Carolina’s Governor Charles Eden, so that Blackbeard can be satisfied that the offer is genuine!
Indeed it is, and both pirates take the King’s Pardon and vow to end their piratical ways. And Blackbeard does, for a couple of months at least. He settled in a town called Bath, and generally plodded around the place for July and August, before Governor Eden presented Blackbeard with a letter of marque granting him the right to take up privateering again in his remaining sloop; Adventure. Shortly after that, temptation must have proved too great as Blackbeard is right back at it.
Death At Ocracoke
The Governor of Virginia is a fellow called Alexander Spotswood, and he is most dischuffed that Governor Eden has granted Blackbeard his pardon, believing that the freebooter is taking liberties. Indeed, this dischuffedness is further compounded when he learns that Blackbeard has moored up off Ocracoke island, North Carolina and taken to partying with well known pirates such as Charles Vane with absolute impunity.
Spotswood decides to take matters into his own hands, and personally finances two sloops (Jane and Ranger) lead by Lieutenant Robert Maynard to bring Blackbeard to justice. They find him anchored on the inner side of Ocracoke, only 25 men carousing aboard the Adventure and decide to remain hidden, waiting until morning when they could take advantage of the pirates inevitable hungover state, and better navigate the shallows in the daylight.
At daybreak on 22nd November 1718, Maynard struck! Not for nought though was Blackbeard the most reputed pirate of his time, and after a devastating broadside from the Adventure, Maynard had lost a third of his forces.
Now, in poker there’s a phrase “You have to play the hand you’re dealt” and Maynard did this brilliantly here. He orders his remaining men to split, a handful remain with him up top and the remainder hide below deck to give Blackbeard the impression that there’s few remaining. The pirate takes the bait! He boards the Jane and engages against Maynard’s visible crew in hand to hand combat. At this time, the hidden crew below deck burst forwards and surround Blackbeard’s men, and a bloody battle ensues.
It is reported that Blackbeard took 20 cuts from bladed weapons, and 5 wounds from small arms fire before he eventually fell. Maybe he felt that he needed to make sure then, as Maynard decapitated his corpse and cast Blackbeard’s headless body into the sea. The head was then strung up on display as he made sail back to Virginia where it then found a new home atop a pike at Chesapeake Bay to act as a warning to other pirates.
Sometime later it was removed, and history has forgotten where it ended up.
Blackbeard Timeline
circa 1680 | Born in Bristol as Edward Thatch
circa 1701-1714 | Suspected Caribbean privateering
Late 1716 | First recorded piracy as mentee under Benjamin Hornigold
Nov 1717 | Captures La Concorde and renames her Queen Anne’s Revenge
1717 - 1718 | Generally kicks ass and takes names
May 1718 | Blockade at Charleston
Jun 1718 | Loses Queen Anne’s Revenge running aground at Beaufort inlet
Mid 1718 | Accepts Kings Pardon from Governor Eden
Jul - Aug 1718 | Plans return to piracy
Nov 1718 | Slain at Ocracoke Island by Robert Maynard
Conclusion
What a dude! It’s amazing how he became the world’s most famous pirate, even to this day whilst only really operating for about two years. If any of you are history buffs, feel free to comment below anything you think that I’ve missed or got wrong. I promise I’ll read them all.
Also whilst I’ve got you, I want to apologise for the delay in posts at the minute. My laptop broke in January and I’m battling the retailer to accept responsibility for it, so I’m sharing a PC with Mrs. WazEre. Additionally, I’ve managed to pick up a nasty disease which has knocked me out a bit. But all’s being well, I’m hoping to compliment this piece soon with my own fiction regarding how I’m baking Blackbeard into my Pirate Borg world building.
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials - it really helps me out and costs you nothing! If you’re super into it and want to make sure you catch more of my content, subscribe to my free monthly Mailer of Many Things newsletter - it really makes a huge difference, and helps me keep this thing running! If you’ve still got some time to kill, Perhaps I can persuade you to click through below to another one of my other posts?
Catch you laters, alligators.
I Went To The National Maritime Museum in London to View The Pirate Exhibition!
Pirates have cemented their place in human culture quite firmly, with hundreds of entries ranging from books, films, tabletop games and computer games.
By JimmiWazEre
The fiercest opinionated tabletop gaming chap to sail the seven seas
TL;DR:
I visited London’s National Maritime Museum to see the pirate exhibition, and I brought a bunch of pictures and piratey facts for my readers to enjoy.
Introduction
Now then, it was my birthday the other day so at my request (because I’m on such a Pirate facination at the minute, eagerly awaiting beginning my first Pirate Borg campaign!), Mrs. WazEre packed me up and took me down to London to visit the Pirate exhibition on at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.
Firstly, Bristol - sort yourself out! You’re the home of Blackbeard the pirate and yet you’re telling me you don’t have a dedicated pirate or Blackbeard museum? That’d be like Nottinghamshire not having a Robin Hood museum. This was, ofcourse, my first port of call when I was planning places to go, and I was bitterly disappointed by Bristol’s utter failure!
Additionally, I investigated Cornwall, there’s museums and ships and cool things the more South West you go, but the transport networks to Cornwall is basically a joke, I’d be looking at half a day’s worth of expensive travel no matter how I sliced it, which is firmly out of the question - travelling sucks.
So, all ranting aside, London it was! A mere two hours on the train and we got to stay overnight at my brother in law’s house. (Thanks Phil!).
The exhibition was pretty general I’d say, and I’d have liked to to go into deeper focus on fewer elements, eras, or personalities. Instead it covered a broad range covering cultural impact, piracy in the ‘West Indies’, off Africa and China, and eras from the 1600s right up to the modern day. A pretty cool overview.
It’s photo time!
Ha, this is like when you go on holiday and then you show all your mates in the office your holiday photos. I sincerely hope that you find it more interesting than I would in that situation!
Pirates influence on Culture
Pirates have cemented their place in human culture quite firmly, with hundreds of entries ranging from books, films, tabletop games and computer games. Below, we have my childhood favourite game; The Secret of Monkey Island by Lucas Arts in 1990, Sid Miers Pirates! by Micropose in 1987, and a diorama based upon R L Stevenson’s Treasure Island 1883
Model Ships
There were a range of masted vessels on display from across the eras, ranging from single masted ‘sloop style’ ships, to multi-masted, square rigging. There was even a model of the Flying Dutchman - the legendary Ghost Ship allegedly captained by Davy Jones himself according to the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Artefacts - Weapons and Tools
I enjoyed seeing the different weapons and tools that have been preserved. These were all kept in glass cases to protect them from the Cheeto’d fingered masses, which caused a bit of reflection on the photos. Apologies for that! From left to right:
A display of 18th-century pirate and naval weapons, including flintlock pistols, muskets, cutlasses, powder horns, and a blunderbuss. Quite the brutal mix of naval standard issue and stolen arms that sailors and sea rogues were armed with during the Golden Age of Piracy.
A 17th-century flintlock pistol made of iron, brass, and wood. It’s the same kind of weapon Robert Louis Stevenson immortalised in Treasure Island.
A display of 19th-century naval and colonial weapons, including an ornate officer’s sword, boarding pikes, a harpoon, and a ship’s gun
A mid-18th-century mariner’s compass, made by Johnathan Eade around 1750
Artefacts - Documentation
These are pretty cool, from top left to bottom right as follows:
Charles Price’s 1730 “Chart of Hispaniola with the Windward Passage” captures the Caribbean at the exact moment piracy was being stamped out. This was the same sea lane once haunted by Blackbeard now redrawn for the navy captains sent to hunt his kind.
A watercolor of H.M. Brig Columbine (Commander John Dalrymple Hay) shows the ship during the Second Opium War (1856–60), likely off the Chinese coast.
A British royal decree intended to combat the surge of piracy and privateering in the Americas, likely dating from around 1687–1688 (James II’s reign).
Another watercolor from the same artist shows H.M. Steam Sloop Fury (Commander Jas. Wilcox) attacking piratical junks off Shapoo (Zhapu), China, on Oct 20, 1848.
The third edition of A General History of the Pyrates first published in 1724 by “Captain Charles Johnson” — widely believed to be a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe — is the book that defined the modern pirate myth, turning real figures like Blackbeard, Mary Read, and Anne Bonny into enduring legends of the Golden Age of Piracy.
This 1725 Dublin edition of A General History of the Pyrates features the first known printed image of Blackbeard — the fearsome portrait that cemented his legend as the archetypal pirate, blending fact and fiction in the book that shaped how the world still imagines piracy today.
Piratey Paintings
Not gonna lie, I think these were my favourite bits. I’m particularly fond of the Bombardment of Algiers. That one was massive too, like about 2x1 meters or near abouts. Anyway - some details, from top left to bottom right:
Dominic Serres, The Capture of Geriah, February 1756 (painted 1771).
Willem van de Velde the Younger, Spanish Men-of-War Engaging Barbary Corsairs (c.1675–1680)
George Chambers Senior, The Bombardment of Algiers, 27 August 1816 (1836). A sweeping portrayal of the Anglo-Dutch fleet’s assault on Algiers, capturing the decisive moment when maritime power was wielded to end Christian slavery in the Barbary ports.
William Lionel Wyllie, Davy Jones’s Locker (1890). An underwater vision of a shipwreck reclaimed by the sea.
Sir Thomas Lawrence, Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth (c. 1797). Pellew was the hero of the Bombardment of Algiers, painted by Britain’s foremost portraitist at the height of his fame.
Richard Paton, View of Port Royal, Jamaica (c. 1758). Seascape of Britain’s Caribbean stronghold, painted by one of the Royal Navy’s favoured artists during an era when Port Royal had transformed from pirate haven to imperial naval base.
Conclusion
So there we go. I hope you found this interesting, and if you’d like to visit the exhibition, I believe it’s running until 4th January 2026!
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials - it really helps me out and costs you nothing! If you’re super into it and want to make sure you catch more of my content, subscribe to my free monthly Mailer of Many Things newsletter - it really makes a huge difference, and helps me keep this thing running!
Catch you laters, alligators.
Yo-Ho-Ho-Ho and a Collection of Off-Brand Pirates
As you know, I like pirates, pirates are cool - and I have a Pirate Borg game that I'm building up to running. Well, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that it might be fun to grab some pirate LEGO sets, and maybe even find a use for them in game?
By JimmiWazEre
Opinionated tabletop gaming chap who’s been exceptionally busy this month.
TL;DR:
LEGO sets are pricey and out of print, but LEGO-compatible pirate ships from AliExpress scratched my itch for Pirate Borg minis at a fraction of the cost. The legality’s murky, the quality’s decent, and they’re undeniably cool.
Disclaimer:
This post discusses unlicensed, third-party brick sets purchased on AliExpress. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise, or endorse this product.
Consequently, no affiliate links or monitisation is present on this post as it just don't feel right.
Who’s a Pretty Boy Then?
Alrighty then, apologies for not keeping up with my usual output, I've been burning the candle at both ends this month by dedicating all my free time to helping out a mate.
I'm so tired that it's not exactly left me with enough beans to be creative, and I know that my commitment to the blog this month has suffered because of it.
So, bearing that in mind, today's post is gonna be a quick one, but hopefully you'll agree it's cool and worthwhile.
As you know, I like pirates, pirates are cool - and I have a Pirate Borg game that I'm building up to running. Well, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that it might be fun to grab some pirate LEGO sets, and maybe even find a use for them in game?
Well, three problems there straight away. LEGO don't do their pirate line currently, even if they did it'd be crazy expensive, and consequently the 2nd hand market is more expensive than many of these sets were new.
Take this one for example - the Renegade Runner is close to my heart because I had it as a kid. Sure, it was easily the worst ship available at the time but at about £30 (approx £65 adjusting for inflation - wowzers!) in 1993 it's probably less than what my mum could afford for a Christmas present, so I'm grateful.
Well today that same ship is going secondhand without a box for over £100 on eBay. Madness! Boxed and sealed, you're looking at north of £600. Not a cats chance in hell that I'm paying that, no way.
So what's a boy to do? Well, a boy could dip his toe in the murky shark infested waters of AliExpress, and this boy is glad he did, because this boy picked up several not-lego pirate ships for a fraction of the cost. Check these little badgers out:
Shiver me timbers, indeed.
You see, LEGO lost their brick patent a few years back, meaning that anyone could make LEGO compatible bricks and sell them to the public. So they did. The end? Not quite. LEGO didn't lose their trademark, and they retain control of copyrighted builds and things like their mini figures.
So now there's a murky bit, some of these kits look very much like their LEGO counterparts, and I suspect they're either just different enough to not infringe copyright, or that where they appear very similar to older LEGO sets, they fall into grey areas of copyright law depending on jurisdiction. Hence manufacturers selling on AliExpress which is based in China. That's something to consider before you get too excited anyway.
And whilst we're at it, here's another thing to think about: Are there quality defects? The answer is 'Yes', but from the sets I have, I've only experienced very minor ones such as the occasional very tight fitting brick, miss-print in the instructions, or brick bags labelled with the wrong number... Nothing someone with two or more braincells can't work around, and certainly nothing that isn't compensated for by the exceptionally low price.
So, all that said and done, I now have some cool pirate sets, and I reckon that if I 3d print some of these LEGO compatible round bases, I can effectively have LEGO compatible pirate minis ready for Pirate Borg.
And yes, I'm aware I usually advocate against using minis in TTRPGs... But COME ON, they're so cool!!!
Conclusion
Thanks for sticking with me on this one, what do you think about using LEGO or similar in TTRPGs? Crazy idea or genius?
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials - it really helps me out and costs you nothing! If you’re super into it and want to make sure you catch more of my content, subscribe to my free monthly Mailer of Many Things newsletter - it really makes a huge difference, and helps me keep this thing running!
Catch you laters, alligators.
The Seven Elements of West Marches Play
The West Marches is a style of TTRPG gameplay designed by Ben Robbins, and written up in 2007 on his Ars Ludi blog. The idea was that Robbins was burnt out as a GM, and bored of that mid campaign settlement where the players have lost some degree of enthusiasm for the ‘plot’ and are pretty much just going through the motions of turning up and rolling dice, then going home again. Rinsing and repeating each week.
By JimmiWazEre
Opinionated tabletop gaming chap
TL;DR:
West Marches campaigns hand more responsibility to the players: no scripted plot, no encounter balance, and strict timekeeping. The GM builds a world of rumours, dangers, and discoveries, while the players organise sessions, keep records, and decide where to explore.
Introduction
Ahoy there. Apologies if I’m a little late with this post, and if the writing’s a little more concise than normal. I’ve got the dreaded COVID lurgy and thinking straight is a bit of a mission right now :D
Today’s post is inspired by two things. Firstly, Critical Role season 4, and the perhaps clumsy(?) mention that it will be in West Marches style, and secondly, that maybe the West Marches style will suit my upcoming Pirate Borg campaign. We’ll see, but these are my thoughts so far.
Why Do A West March Style Game?
The West Marches is a style of TTRPG gameplay designed by Ben Robbins, and written up in 2007 on his Ars Ludi blog. The idea was that Robbins was burnt out as a GM, and bored of that mid campaign settlement where the players have lost some degree of enthusiasm for the ‘plot’ and are pretty much just going through the motions of turning up and rolling dice, then going home again. Rinsing and repeating each week.
Robbins wanted more, so based on his interpretation of the original 1970s playstyle, he coined/rediscovered/invented/reimagined a new/old style of play; the West Marches. The goals were threefold:
More player engagement, players who actually cared about the game world and wanted to discover it.
Less GM burnout from things like manufacturing and forcing complicated arching plots, or weaving in player backstories all while having to constantly juggle the pressure of not accidentally killing the players and cutting their stories short.
Fairer distribution of meta game responsibilities so that things like arranging dates and times of play, and sharing things like after session reports and maps was a responsibility for the players rather than the GM.
Robbins had more players than table space, and he wanted to find a way to allow them all to share the same instance of the game world.
The Key Principles of West Marches
1) No Predefined Macro Level Plot
West Marches games are unapologetically sandbox in style. That means that the GM has absolutely zero responsibility for attempting to craft a narrative story with character arcs.
Instead, the story of the game is told in retrospect and is crafted by the player’s choices, and the judgements of the dice.
None of this is to say that that the GM’s world shouldn’t have a history though - craft a world to your heart’s content - just don’t craft a series of future events designed to happen at designated points in the upcoming campaign. For example, you may have a big bad evil guy, but you must not have plans to bring him out on the final session. If and when he arrives in the game will be driven by the players actions.
2) Exploration and Discovery Focus
There is a huge emphasis upon the exploration pillar - that is; the means by which exploration is handled, and the player’s desire to discover the secrets of the world and plunder its loot. How you handle the mechanics of travel is up to you, but the key is moving the players into the wilderness.
In order to motivate players to the leave their home base, Robbins suggested making it a safe haven for rest and shopping, but not a place where adventure can be had or knowledge can be attained. In fact, the world is often built so that the further you travel from base, the greater the dangers and the greater the reward.
Taking a slightly different route, I’m going to experiment with having all of the home base elements of the game happen away from the game table to be managed entirely between games, so that the actual sessions start and end with leaving and arriving back at home base.
3) No Encounter Balance
The GM should pay no heed towards trying to keep the player characters alive in the face of their poor choices. It is this perceived deadliness which drives the players to advance in the game and find ways to meet their own goals. When a band of player characters return back to base in failure, they return with a greater understanding of the challenges that lie ahead so that they might try again, better prepared next time.
Besides, I find that as with most things in life, all the juice is in the journey rather than the destination. That is, the striving toward success, not the actual succeeding.
To be blunt - this means, yes, player characters will die. Probably frequently. When they do, roll up a new one. This means that in turn, that adventuring groups will contain characters of different levels, and that’s OK too. When games are engineered this way, the focus of game play becomes less about your stats and abilities on a character sheet, and more about your abilities as a player to effectively and creatively solve problems. That’s a feature, not a bug.
4) Players Are Incentivised to Write Up Session Reports
Players should be encouraged to keep up all the between-game book keeping as much as possible, and make it publicly available on some kind of digital sharing and communication platform. Discord seems like a solid choice. This is meant to simulate the natural flow of stories and rumours that would happen when an adventuring party got back and hit the local tavern, and it’s a crucial shared resource for everyone. It plays a huge part in helping the players decide what they want to do next, especially when some players miss a couple of sessions and might not otherwise know what’s going on.
Be warned though, the GM should never be tempted to correct the player’s imperfect interpretation of the world, be that maps they have created and updated, or reflections upon a session’s activity. Nor should you correct your world to match their version - let the players discover for themselves where mistakes were made and correct them as the course of the adventure unfolds.
All that said, I think it’s very likely that players will need to be highly incentivised to do this, as most are used to being passive consumers of content - and now we’re effectively saying that we expect them to complete homework. I’ll experiment with using meta currency, or even XP as incentives until I find something that works.
5) Activity Driven by Rumours and Clues
As GM, you’re predesigning the world with care. Each location in the game’s world should be keyed and intentionally formed, and each should contain clues pointing to another location that ensures the players are never without tantalising options for future adventures.
Equally, I’ll also be using the between-session time to post rumours to the campaign discord which reflect what the players might have heard in the local tavern. There’s no pressure on the players to pursue these rumours and not all of them will even be true, but they will serve to stop the players from ever being short of options.
6) Player Responsibility To Arrange Sessions
This is a big one. Based off all the information players have received both in game, from rumours and from write ups, the players arrange between themselves where they want to go to next. If you’re operating with more than ones table’s worth of players then some will miss out on a particular adventure, and if they’re eager, they’ll set up a rival party to maybe head out to the same location to try to get the loot first.
Either way, when a group of players have come together to agree what they want to do next, and when and where they want to do it (they need to make sure the GM is also available and has enough notice to prepare) then they simply book the time in on the Discord server, or wherever you’re tracking your campaign, and provide details of the in-game date that the expedition is going to set off.
7) Strict Timekeeping Must be Kept
Firstly, before I get into it, your GM life will be made so much easier if you enforce an in-game rule that all adventuring parties must end their session at home base. If this involves having to come up with suitably punishing rules about ‘rolling to return home’ then so be it - it’s worth it for the headaches it saves. Let me explain why:
This is probably the biggest complication with running West Marches style games. As GM, you have to manage the passage of in-game time really carefully and accurately. If you do have multiple groups then the main headache will be in keeping track of branching timelines when a group departs, and then folding those timelines back into the main branch when the adventurers return back to base. All this has to be done in way that avoids creating any in-game ‘crossing of the streams‘.
For example; lets say you have two groups. If group A departs on the 1st day of your in-game calendar for location Z, and then they return on day 4, that represents a branch. The implication of this; is that later on in real time, group B cannot arrange a session where they depart on day 2 for location Z also. Why not? Because it would create a conflict - group A did not meet group B at location Z during the period of days 1-4, therefore group B cannot have gone there.
It would however be fine for group B to set off to location Y on day 2 and return on day 5. This doesn’t cause a conflict. They could also set off for location Z on day 5, but they’d be arriving at a place that’s already been visited.
At some point, your play groups should intermingle and form new groups. In these cases it is important to resolve any calendar differences between the different characters. Following our examples, for some PCs it is day 5, and for others it’s day 4. In these situations, we use downtime for the players on day 4 to fast travel them forwards to day 5. Alternatively, we fast travel everyone to whatever agreed day the next expedition happens on.
For me, this ‘downtime’ is the opportunity for players to shop, train, heal, carouse, careen their ships - whatever seems reasonable.
You’re gonna need a digital calendar to track this so that everyone knows what’s going on.
Additional Considerations
Consider Giving the Players A Basic Map
Not essential, but you might want to consider giving the players a starting map. Not a hex map, mind - nothing gamefied. Just a basic outline of the land, something that they can fill in as they go.
Multiple Groups or One Group
You can do this with only one table’s worth of players, that certainly simplifies the timekeeping, but it does mean that you’d be missing out on a key component of West Marches play - inter-player competition, and a sense of urgency to be the first to discover somewhere and get the loot.
That’s a big deal and one of this methods key draws.
Emergent Gameplay Vs Prep One Session at a Time
This isn’t an either/or situation. You should prep what you can for a given session once you’ve been informed of the players intent, but as with any style of TTRPG GMing, you should also have all the tools you need to hand to help you improvise emergent play when things take a turn for the unexpected.
Tools of the Trade
Just a quick list of some essential tools… Well, I think think they’re gonna be essential:
A private discord server, fully set up with different chat rooms for different purposes such as arranging sessions or sharing reports.
Maybe something like Obsidian Portal so that players can share their understanding of the world in a structured way.
Both an in-game calendar for planned expeditions, and a real world one for plotting game session on!
It’s all gone wrong!
There are a few pitfalls to watch out for I reckon, the key things to watch out for are:
Players forming cliques and never mixing with other players. You should make rules to force players to mix it up every once in a while.
Social barriers - such as players being bold enough to put themselves forward to actually arrange a session, rather than hoping someone else will do it, or players being too passive to bother with the after session write ups.
As GM, if you do need to break the rule about returning to base in the same session, you need to be really careful about how you handle it and the implications that this has on the timeline for everyone else.
Conclusion
My next move is gonna be to put this article in front of my play group and see if they’re interested. Maybe you can use it in the same way? If you’re interested in running West Marches style games, feel free to direct your players over this way to test the waters.
Also, I’ve never done West Marches before - if you have any advice or comments, please chuck it down below the line, I’ll be grateful of anything you can share!
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials - it really helps me out and costs you nothing! If you’re super into it and want to make sure you catch more of my content, subscribe to my free monthly Mailer of Many Things newsletter - it really makes a huge difference, and helps me keep this thing running!
Catch you laters, alligators.
What Makes ‘Ravaged by Storms’ a Standout Pirate Borg Sandbox?
When Golem Productions reached out to invite me to showcase their adventure, I was happy to answer the call.
By JimmiWazEre
Opinionated tabletop gaming chap
TL:DR:
A storm-wracked sandbox, a furious feathered serpent, and a doomsday clock. Ravaged by Storms is Golem Productions’ newest Pirate Borg adventure — a 72-page mini-campaign where factions clash, hurricanes brew, and the Blight Revenant stirs. I really like it, it’s packed with GM tools like a Storm Generator and Ruin tables, but my first look also spotted a couple of quirks. Here’s what stood out to me.
Disclaimer
Similar to last week’s initial exploration of Emergent, I can’t call this a review. I’ve not played it yet you see, coupled with the fact that I’ve only been sent a WIP copy with some missing images etc and haven’t seen the final version.
As ever, I’ve not received a financial incentive to write nice things, but I am a backer of the Ravaged by Storms Kickstarter. When Golem Productions reached out to invite me to showcase their adventure, I was happy to answer the call. As part of this, I fed back a few suggested improvements to Golem Productions, and as such you’ll find me credited in the book :)
The upshot is that despite that very minor minor conflict of interest, you’re gonna be reading my honest first thoughts on an adventure which is mostly finished, and that I quite clearly can’t wait to get my hands on the finished product!
Oh, and whilst I’m disclaiming, this post contains minor spoilers covering the opening setup of the adventure. Cool? Swinging, lets get started.
What is Ravaged By Storms?
OK so, off the back of successful releases ‘The Way of the Worm’ and ‘The Scarlet Coral Kingdom’, brother - sister duo Alexander Jatscha-Zelt and Sabrina Jatscha (Golem Productions) have got yet another Pirate Borg adventure on the stove. ‘Ravaged by Storms’ (RbS), is currently in a live Kickstarter (well, live until 11th September 2025 anyway) and the campaign has already hit a fantastic 426 backers with over £15,000 pledged so far.
Jatscha-Zelt describes RbS as a “72-page mythic sandbox adventure module designed for Pirate Borg… rules-light, art-heavy, and fiercely OSR.“ and he’s pretty much nailed it.
For those unfamiliar with the idea; since it’s a sandbox adventure there’s no middle or end plotted out for you to awkwardly steer your players towards. What happens is totally in their hands. Player. Agency. My dudes.
There is however, a beginning:
In The Beginning, There Was A… (Minor Spoiler Alert, players skip to the next section!)
A millennia or so ago Mesoans settled in an archipelago in the Bahamas of the Dark Caribbean called the Death Wind Islands. With the help of their Coatl allies (serpentine demigods of wind and storm) they go on to build a glorious city housing all their wealth and knowledge.
Hundreds of years later, those Mesoan chaps are long gone - but their crumbling kingdom remains guarded by the last Coatl; Tzoketuapacatl (bless you!). It’s lucky he does too, because during a siege on the city an undead warrior was touched by a local Great Old One’s juicy venom and transformed into (our BBEG) the Blight Revenant, and this chap is hell bent on claiming the Whisperwind Conch.
If the Revenant ever manages to nab it from the city, the result could be extinction-level toxic hurricanes:
Fortunately, Tzoketuapacatl intervenes. Sealing the city, Revenant, and the Conch behind layers of impenetrable magical raging storm prisons. This is seemingly a cunning, nay, foolproof plan with but. One. Small. Flaw…
You see, it all slowly unravels if anyone gets into the city through the back door and yoinks a second magical McGuffin; the Wind Bone Key.
And, well, ‘sugarpuffs!’ Wouldn’t you just know it!? Flash forward to the Golden Age of Piracy and some swashbuckling scurvy dog has only gone and unwittingly done exactly that! Now there’s a six day timer ticking until the Blight Revenant gets his boney hands on the Conch, and to really stick the boot in - Tzoketuapacatl (who is understandably pretty dischuffed with this turn of events!) is going on a bit of a rampage against all the local factions trying to find the Wind Bone key and is tearing everything up in his path.
Unto this scene, enter stage left; our heroes.
Come on, that sounds pretty Saturday morning swashbuckling, right? I’m in.
What’s it trying to Do?
Be A Complete Mini Campaign
RbS is built to run as a 5-10 session adventure. Whilst you could probably run it straight out of the book, I would always recommend familiarising yourself with the content that you need to run an expected session, and making some notes prior to sitting down at the table.
It has a defined opening, a ticking doomsday clock, and enough locations, NPCs, and encounters to sustain a whole arc without having to do much more work than flesh out some of the things given to you should the players actions necessitate it.
Encourage Sandbox Play
There’s no fixed middle or end.
Instead, the module gives you procedures for faction activity, travel, and naval encounters so the world keeps moving around the PCs. The story isn’t pre-written and can only be understood as something that happened at your table in the past-tense, rather than something that the GM dictates will happen.
That’s really key to understanding how to use RbS: The players choose what to pursue, who to side with, and how to spend their six days before everything goes all Sharknado. The module does have a handful of potential ways the campaign might play out listed at the end, but the purpose here isn’t to say ‘pick one’, rather ‘this is just an inspirational small range of the limitless possible outcomes’.
Be Modular
After all that though, if a Sandbox campaign really isn’t your thing, well the module is also pretty damn modular to be honest. You could easily reach inside and tear out the stuff you like, such as the Lifeless City, or Drownmaids Rest to use as one shot adventures, and then adjust the player agency to taste.
What Stands Out To Me?
The Timer
The six day timer is doing two things, firstly, it’s setting expectations that this isn’t going to be a terribly long campaign arc (5-10 sessions), in fact this campaign is going to be perfect for my Pirate Borg campaign as a keyed location to drop in, and that’s how I’d suggest you use it too.
Secondly though, the timer is infusing the adventure with a sense of urgency which is something I find to be critical in keeping the players moving forwards and not getting bogged down trying to fulfil that ‘videogamey’ habit of exploring all paths and getting every achievement… and then consequently robbing the experience of all it’s tension.
The Roaming Coatl
Tzoketuapacatl is a cool monster, no doubt about it. But he serves a meta-function as a chaos generator and a GM safeguard.
I was thinking about this, we’re all human, and even in sandboxes GMs sometimes drift into predicting how things might play out. Once you start imagining outcomes, you risk steering players toward them. The Coatl prevents that.
By rolling for his actions and storms, and including information on how all the keyed locations change in his aftermath, the board state constantly shifts in unpredictable ways. It keeps the GM honest, preserves agency, and if you make the players feel it; I can imagine it injecting fresh tension each new game day.
The fact that Golem Productions has included this meta layer of thinking about how their module should be ran, and how they can make it easy for you to stick to sandbox principles really impressed me.
Sandbox Toolkit
OK, so yeah - the Coatl is very specific to RbS. But there are other gameplay tools that you can add to your broader Pirate Borg arsenal, and that makes it extra valuable:
There’s a Storm Generator that provides you with both descriptive prompts, but also translates these into specific player challenges, and suggests potential consequences for failure. Really useful for making weather more than simple flavour.
A Ruins Generator that lets you roll up some convincing locations for crawling, in case players take a left turn and find themselves somewhere that looks like it could use a dungeon.
Six new rituals from the ‘Squallbinding’ school to give extra magical options for PCs, all focused around the movement of air; wind, speaking, breathing etc.
Faction Play
Every group on the islands has its own agenda: there’s the pirate group; the Phantoms fracturing under Marceau, the West India Company scheming for control, the Bright Maiden’s mercurial ghost crew, the Coatl’s wrath, Peacatatl, and the Blight Revenant.
They’re all written to act and react alongside the PCs, with different motivations which creates shifting alliances and betrayals, again adding to the richness and variety of the campaign’s path at your table.
Nostalgia
It would simply be remiss of me not to mention that the art and descriptions are fantastic throughout. I really appreciated that elements of it grabbed me right in the childhood and transported me directly back to Monkey Island, meeting “Herman Toothrot” and tinkering about with monkeys and suspicious statues. Great stuff!
Potential Friction Points
Terminology Consistency
I especially like how the module uses a similar concise framework to my preferred method when it comes to giving area descriptions, however one of the things I fed back on relates to the consistency of the terminology in these areas. I should stress, mine was a preview copy with final changes yet to be made, but I noticed instances where I was uncertain if more than one distinct noun or proper name for a given element was simply artistic flair, or an indication that there were multiple similar elements.
For example, are “Maritime Beast,” “bone cage,” and “skeletal remains.” all referring to the same giant desiccated animal corpse on the beach, or are there three?
It’s fine to do this for many people, but for me personally it made reading comprehension just that little bit more of a challenge. Having to reread lines, over analysing, self doubt, that question - ‘have I missed something from elsewhere that explains this?’.
I’ll be happy to see this resolved in the final product, with the addition of the last few area maps which will clear this up nicely :)
Intentional Vagueness
Since this is a concise OSR adventure, there’s not pages and pages of lore a la WOTC. That’s not to say lore is absent, but rather that RbS is concise and gives you the minimum to make sure the GM is in control of the important facts. This means you’ll have to improvise if more detail is required.
This is going to work absolutely fine for me as all the main details have been covered and I just need to add some flesh to the bones here and there, but if you’re not comfortable with improvisation then it could be a sticking point for you, and it’s worth knowing, going in.
Navigation
There’s quite a lot of page flipping to be had in RbS, mainly in relation to how one of the broad cast of NPS relates to another regarding factional interplay. The nice thing is that you are specifically told where to flip to though, and you’re not just left to vaguely cast about looking for the relevant section.
I think I would have preferred to see some kind of nodal diagram showing all the different cast members, who they are connected to and how. That could have been up front on a single page and would have meant that I’m not regularly having to flip to elsewhere to get the full picture explained to me.
As it currently stands, this is probably the main reason why I said earlier that the module does still require you to read through and make notes, to make sure that you’re in total command of all the relevant information.
Do You Want To Know More?
Looks like Ravaged by Storms has made a bit of a splash, which is really nice to see.
Over at Thaumavoria, Dave has a nice interview up with Golem Productions, discussing RbS and various design choices.
And Rascal News even has a guest piece up discussing the Kickstarter!
There’s also an interview up on Youtube with Mom’s Open Table and the Kickstarter trailer offers a nice tease:
Conclusion
Obviously, it’s clear that I really like the look of Ravaged By Storms. I think it’s going to be an excellent option for inserting into my wider PB campaign. On top of that, you know I’m going to be lifting those GM tools straight out and putting them to use more broadly.
How about you though? Do you think it looks interesting? What would you like to see form a module like this? Answers in the comments below as always :)
Oh, before I forget - If you want to get in on the kickstarter, head over to the campaign in time for the final push before September 11th and grab yourself a slice of the action.
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials - it really helps me out and costs you nothing! If you’re super into it and want to make sure you catch more of my content, subscribe to my free monthly Mailer of Many Things newsletter - it really makes a huge difference, and helps me keep this thing running!
Catch you laters, alligators.