Pirate Borg Factions - Blackbeard And The Scourge
By JimmiWazEre
Opinionated tabletop gaming chap
TL;DR:
An ancient Abyss awakens the drowned dead of the Caribbean. Blackbeard rises with his will intact, commands the Scourge, and sets out to break the English, control the ASH trade, and crown himself king of the Dark Caribbean.
Introduction
Ahoy. Did you catch my post the other week about the real history of Blackbeard? I said that I’d follow up with how I’ve built upon that real history to bake Blackbeard into the fantasy lore of Pirate Borg’s Dark Caribbean setting.
Well, this is gonna be just that, so buckle down your flintlocks and secure your cutlasses. Let’s goooo.
In The Beginning
I can’t jump straight to Blackbeard without first setting the stage. Much of my lore builds directly on the official History of the Dark Caribbean from the Pirate Borg Core Rules (p.25), with my campaign beginning in “Chapter 5,” where “Blackbeard, a sorcerer, returns from the grave with an army of the dead.”
But before those events and before the timeline in the book even begins, there are a few crucial pieces of history to establish.
Pre-History
Deep beneath the Caribbean Sea lies a cosmic scar. Gods only know how long it had been there or from whence it came. It’s a rift in reality that opens into an Abyssal existence beyond mortal comprehension. Madness made geography.
In ages long forgotten, proto-Mesoan peoples encountered this rift. In attempting to understand the madness and magic emanating from it, many souls lost their sanity. Those who studied and survived came to recognise the malign intent of the forces within.
Using rituals uncovered in their desperate search for meaning, they sealed the rift and constructed an aquatic city upon it — a living capstone over the wound. That city would become Atlantis, deep in the heart of what is today known as the Bermuda Triangle.
In time, the ancient Atlantean people fractured. The splitting branch, known as the Doradians, abandoned their watery city and journeyed to the mainland Yucatán, seeking distance from the source of their horrific dreams. There, their advanced culture endured in an altered form focused around a golden city.
Recently
Against the backdrop of the Greater Antilles War (The Caribbean theatre of the War of Spanish Succession 1701 - 1714), Cultists of the Wretched (disciples of the entity that dwells within the Abyss) dispatch an agent to the jungles of the Yucatán.
Among the ruins of the ancient Doradian culture, that agent became The Sunken One, and completed a ritual to relocate the Abyssal gateway - wrenching it free from the restraining powers of Atlantis and transferring the wound to the oceanic region South of Jamaica.
The Abyss was no longer sealed. The resulting upheaval shattered the region, releasing unnatural magics in its wake. Port Royal was destroyed in the resulting earthquake.
Unintended Consequences
The Sunken One did not foresee what would follow: The Abyss is not a wound that can be exposed without consequence. When torn free from the ancient restraints of Atlantis, its corruption bled outward into the sea and to the sky alike, and the ocean began to remember its dead.
Sailors lost to storm and cannon, slaves thrown overboard, mutineers sunk in chains, entire crews swallowed by hurricane. The Caribbean now returns them all. These risen corpses became known as The Scourge, they aren’t clever or strategic, merely repeating the last violent patterns of their lives: boarding, burning, hunting, killing. They are driven by a rage which they cannot put words to.
But the Abyss does not act within boundaries. It did not take long for the corruption to reach the waters off Ocracoke Island. There, in the shallows where his body had been cast aside, one Edward Teach rose again.
Drawn by instinct deeper than memory, the corpse made its way toward Chesapeake Bay to reclaim what had been severed from it. When Blackbeard stood whole once more, something happened. Unlike the rest of the Scourge, he retained his will.
Whether this was design, accident, or selection, none can say. But the mindless dead began to gather to him. Ships crewed by the drowned altered course. The Queen Anne’s Revenge, more terrible than ever, returned. Silent decks turned toward his black flag.
The Scourge had found a king, Blackbeard found his armada, and the Caribbean found its Harbinger.
The Scourge As A Faction
I follow the Cairn 2nd ed school of thought for how to run sandbox factions. See this video by LowKeyTTRPG for more information about how that mechanically works.
If we look at Blackbeard’s real history it stands to reason that he’d be motivated by revenge, and a lust for power and reputation. With that in mind I’ve got three goals for the scourge under Blackbeard:
Break The English in the Caribbean
Humiliate and cripple the English authority at sea.
Resources
Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Undead crews and ghost ships.
Fear and reputation.
Notable impacts as goals completed
Major English ports fall into chaos (martial law, burned docks, naval retreat).
English Naval presence reduces.
Obstacles
Royal Navy patrols.
Pirate captains unwilling to fight England directly.
English spies inside pirate ports.
Control the ASH trade
Weaponise ASH as leverage and corruption tool.
Resources
Unending ASH Reserves.
Contact with Governor Claude Barlette.
Smuggler Networks from his old life.
Notable impacts as goals completed
ASH price doubles.
Obstacles
Pirates!
Crown himself king of the Dark Caribbean
Resources
Undead Crews.
Fear & Reputation.
Abyssal Necromancy.
Notable impacts as goals completed
Nassau-style pirate councils dissolve or are slaughtered.
Pirate captains must swear loyalty or be hunted.
Obstacles
Charismatic rival captains.
Internal dissent from living allies.
Conclusion
Let me know in the comments if you want me to do a real history and lore for any of the other factions!
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Catch you laters, alligators.
Drawn by instinct deeper than memory, the corpse made its way toward Chesapeake Bay to reclaim what had been severed from it. When Blackbeard stood whole once more, something happened. Unlike the rest of the Scourge, he retained his will.