Sailing Vessels in Atlantica

A Player's Guide to Sailing Vessels

Real Ships

As a player, you may think of great sailing ships of the Age of Sail in Earth's history as great hulled ships with decks filled with cannon, firing broadsides at one another much like the movies.  Ships like that did exist on earth, but most trade ships carried far fewer guns, both because they were expensive and because they were quite heavy.  It is also true that the elements of transatlantic sailing ships were present in ships already in the early medieval era, it was advances in rigging and hull construction that truly made the crossings of the Atlantic safer and faster.  In short, though they had the same technological elements, the ships used by Christopher Columbus to make the first transatlantic voyage were very different from the ones that finished the Age of Sail.  The hulls of the later ships being more "knife-like" through the water, and better rigged so that they had to carry fewer crew.

Ships in Atlantica

Ships in Atlantica are designed differently than ships from earth for several reasons.  First, cannon are expensive!  Gunpowder is not used the same way that it is on earth.  When a wizard can cast flame magic, gunpowder has a whole new meaning both in its usefulness in attacking, and in how easy it is to defend from magical fire. Making cannon does not have the same weight of economic urgency and hence infrastructure than the equivalent time period in earth's history.  Why make a cannon when you can hire a wizard.  Especially if that same wizard can fill your sails with wind, and weighs far less, not just in his own weight but in the weight that your ship has to bear structurally.  Floors that support cannon have to be thick!

Ships in Atlantica are more concerned with fire (from magic) and protecting and best utilizing magic users, than with cannon.  They have their uses on board a ship but are far fewer, and the gunpowder is treated differently.  If a ship can afford to have them, there will be few of them and mixed with ballista or other light ship born versions of medieval siege weapons.  One advantage cannon have over both wizards and siege weapons is range, however.  This makes cannon a concern and keeps them from being relegated to a "dwarven curiosity."
An experience magic user does take up room, however.  The more experienced they are, the more pay and luxuries they expect.  Some of this is resolved by having the captain be the magic user, but larger ships may have several mages, each with his own needs.  Catering to them may require more crew in the form of stewards and apprentices, more room in cabins and laboratories, and more expense in wages and spell components.
Finally, ships of earth didn't go "to the bottom" from combat as often as they do in Atlantica.  While it did happen on earth, it was more common that cannon pounded the ships into submission, which were captured, refitted and turned back against the enemy.  In Atlantica ship sinkings are more common, again from magic and fire than on earth.  Wood does float, regardless of what the movies try to say.

"Of course we never found the Peregrine.  We did find her crew though.  We brought them aboard, the poor bastards singed, and worn out from trying to keep her afloat.  The Aquitanians had caught her, and a lucky shot had killer thier wizard then set her ablaze.  After that it was only a matter of time before the weight of her cargo took her to the bottom.  They watched her burn from the whale boats. Watched her go down.  Thier home and livelihood gone so swiftly.  I wouldn't trade places with them.  Like I said, the poor bastards."
~Darren Hinjack, Bosun of the Whitecap Whip