Captain Denholm
The ship Siren belonged to the most feared pirate in Aurin
Ulrika Denholm. She was very famous during her time and became a legend after her death. No one could catch her, and many tried. Especially the people she stole from. No one knows when she died. They just have a guess because the ship disappeared that year and they never saw her again. But they know that she founded the organization
Havets Gåtor. And owned
Kapten Denholms Kompass which has become an artifact that many pirates wants. But no one's been able to find it. Because no one knows where her ship sunk. Or if it even sunk. But that have not stopped people from trying to find her compass over the years.
How she got the ship
Ulrika won the ship three days before she left
Giazia . The place where she grew up. She won the ship during a bet in
Flameport. In those months when no one is allowed to steal anything from any other pirate, sailor, traveler or merchant. But if you won something, you won it fair and square.
Ulrika won a majestic ship in dark red wood, gold paint on the sides and fine figureheads at the front of the ship at the stern from a noble man. He didn't know how to play the game and thought that he could win over the young woman. He bet his ship and she bet the first thing she ever stole a very uncommon dagger. But she won after five games and the noble man lost his ship.
The young woman was very surprised by the size of the ship and how grand and majestic it looked. She has never stirred a ship that big before and had a little trouble steering the ship. The former crew of the ship saw her trying to steer the ship and did a deal with her. She will be the captain and they will be working for her if she helps them steal something that was important to them. Most of the people from the former crew joined her even if it meant making their celebration at
Flameport short. But what they did not expect was that Ulrika was a better thief than them. And much smarter than any of them.
How the ship got its name
Ulrika changed the name of the ship to Siren when she got her crew. She did not want to keep the name
Redwood. The ship is called Siren because it looks like any other majestic ship. It looks like it belongs to a royal family or nobility which it did before Ulrika won the ship. So, people usually get shocked when they find out it is owned by pirates. Just like sirens lure unaware sailors underwater. They don't realize the danger until it is too late.
The history of the ship
Before the ship landed in the hands of Ulrika Denholm it belonged to a nobleman. That man was a spoiled only son of a very famous noble house. The Redwoods. It was built to be a ship where nobility could party and let loose. The nobleman did not build the ship to handle battle, quick escapes or store more than what he needed to party. It was built to look majestic, beautiful and grand. Because of that the ship was not fast and needed to take safe ruts when travelling. And the crew had to relay on Guardians from the Magical Council, when they traveled to protect them from pirates and thieves. Which is kind of ironic when you think about how the nobleman lost his ship.
The upgrades of the ship
The ship's been through a lot of attacks because of all the escapes they had to do because of their line of work. The ship has been through many storms, and it have also needed to be repainted, repairing the sails more than one time and sometimes they had to fix new windows because of lightnings and cannonballs. Ulrika has therefore over the years added improvements to the ship. And hired
Melends to her crew.
With melends in her crew, it meant the ship could go faster, it could handle storms better and not risk the danger of having the ship on fire when lightning struck. But she also improved the ship itself by adding a type of plants liquid - a well-kept secret she kept to herself - on the outside of the ship. Because of that the paint lasted longer, the water didn’t tare the ship as much and it made it easier to sail through the waves. She even put in more cannons and placed one in the back behind the steering wheel. She even tried connecting the ship to her compass to see if it could teleport the ship just like her. Unfortunately, it didn’t work liked she hoped. The compass couldn’t handle something that big and so many people, so it only transported them a few meters in front of them and broke one of the masts of the ship. After that she never tried again.
She also upgraded the ship with hidden places where she could hide goods, something the crew stole or herself if the patrols or Guardians searched the ship behind secret entrance and rooms. She even made sure the crew had a long enough table to play their games and doubled the space for their necessities and wine. Especially for the wine. And she built a place for a healer onboard where a healer could heal any of her crew members if they got sick, so they didn't have to travel to the elf countries or stop by a city or village to heal every time someone got hurt.
Ulrika even took in more beams in the ship to help to strengthen the structure of the ship. She made the sails easy to roll up and pull out. Kind of like a blind. This made it easier to hoist up the sails when they needed it or hoist them down if they needed to escape. She also repainted the ship's colors into navy blue and silver but kept some of the gold.
But the update she is most proud of herself is that she rebuilt all the nice rooms that the nobleman had into weapons rooms, training rooms, dormitories and turned the ballroom in the ship into her crew's playing room. She expanded the captain's hut and made a secret room. A room that only the healer on the ship knew about but no one else. She let the healer know where the place was in case, she had to check on her if Ulrika had been injured. That room is her favorite place in the whole ship. It is a private small library filled with her own favorite finds. Things she stole, bought, traded for or won. She also has her own storage room with wine and usually stands there studying maps. Or plan her next action for the crew. And which routes are the best choices for their travels.
The ship was never built or made to be a ship on the battlefield. But more like a luxurious ship for nobilities to have fun and celebrate on. And it was built more to be beautiful and majestic ship than to be able to escape the law. So, Ulrika really needed to find new ways to make the ship work to her will and taste. But the ship has always had a strong structure and been able to withstand storms. Nevertheless, it needed to be updated in order to really cope with the journeys that Ulrika and her crew subjected the ship to. A lot of people have tried to steal the ship or win it from Ulrika over the years. Because it was the best camouflage a pirate could ask for. It didn’t look like a ship that belong to pirates and could easily travel undetected by the law. But she's always ended up winning. And everyone who bet against her has always regretted it in the end.
Ulrika has also built a kind of protection for those who use the cannons using
Ongru metal. She managed to pay
Ekes to help her with her ideas for the ship. And she paid them well. She also paid them to make her secret rooms in the ship and expand it. After every time her ship suffered an injury or had to be upgraded, she has gone back to them for help. And the dwarves like to try to figure out how to make her crazy ideas work. Like her secret traps, rooms and protection all around the ship.
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Author's Notes
(The linked articles are in Swedish because I wrote all my summer camp articles in Swedish. The word melend or melends means magician. And is the word for magicians or members of the Magic Council's Guardians in the universal language of Aurin that everyone speaks. And the other species call magicians and guardians almost exclusively melend or melends in their own language as well. They usually refuse to call them by any other name. Ekes means dwarf in their own language).