The Crimson Fleet

Better get you below deck again, landlubber. The sea is angry with us and it will get ugly soon.

— Omoria, elvish deckhand within the Crimson Fleet

The Crimson Fleet is the single largest cooperating group of individual ships on all of Focis. Primarily manned by the Uthelidaín, the elves descendant from the eleventh Prince of the Dawn, the Crimson Fleet sails the seas of Focis in search of adventure.
While they firmly believe that the most important part of any life is the journey, it does not keep the ships from sinkin or the sailors from starving. As a result, the Crimson Fleet specialises in transporting anything to anywhere as long as the money is right.

Harbor at Sunset by Follower of Claude Lorra

Powerful allies, but even more powerful enemies

The armada of the Crimson Sails, as they are sometimes also called, commands a tremendous reputation, despite its disorganised structure. On board the ships under the elf prince Uthelin sail the most experienced helmsmen and -women supported by crews of hardened sailors that would give their lives to be on the sea. In a direct contest, one would be wise not to bet against them.
What gives them their real power though, are two factors that work in tandem. First, the ships are not bound to any location, making it difficult to confront them when they do not wish the confrontation themselves. They are experts in losing pursuers and know the tides and currents better than most. Second, while a single ship may be a problem one can deal with, the ships can also band together should someone force them to. And to face the entire armada is a daunting task. Some poor fools have stumbled to deck at the ringing of the alarm bell to see the waves covered and covered by red sails that reach until the horizon.

Bloody Sails

The Crimson Fleet is easily identifiable by their eponymous choice of colour in their sails. The fabric is stained using madder, a dye derived from plant material, but the origin of their signature sails are far more grim.
During the second sinking of Uthelin, their flagship "The Dawn" was separated from the fleet by a strong storm. To make matters worse, they were pursued by an armada of merpeople they had angered by trespassing over claimed waters. When the Dawn was cast away from the rest of the fleet, she was swarmed by the merpeople and pulled further and further out. At last they reached a reef where the ship ran aground, breaking its hull in several places.
The sinking was sped up by the merpeople, who threw anchors across board and pulled the ship downwards. When the water began creeping up to the sailors, the Merpeople attacked viciously, and despite slaying many assailants, the crew was dragged under and their blood stained red the water. Only a small group which had gathered around Uthelin survived on some driftwood, repelling attack after attack. When the rest of the fleet found them after the storm had ended, only three including the captain were left, but seventeen were laid dead on the raft, wrapped in the stained sail of the ship. To this day, the sailors honor the loss of the Dawn and all ships including the new flagship "The Dawns Mother" dye their sails in remembrance.

The three most dangerous jobs

Aurora Borealis by Frederic Edwin Church

While each sailor and each ships crew will tell you of different adventures, there are those jobs that were so legendary or that went so close on the knifes edge, that all Uthelidaín can tell of them:

• The Circumsailing of the World.
  This journey is one that exists in many versions, because it has been attempted many times (sometimes successfully). In all stories of this kind, the ship of fleet in question needs to have sailed from a starting point all the way around the world, arriving at their starting location from a different angle. Due to the toroid (donut) shape of the planet, this includes the stipulation that one has to go to both the inner and outer world and has to at least reach the halfway point from the starting location when traveling along the equator.
  The reason this journey is so dangerous is that the southern pole ring has many dangerous currents, which drag and toss any ship that sails them outward, while the northern pole ring is mostly solid land with the few passes by water being hotbeds of piracy, controlling nations or sea beasts.

• Seven Dragon Eggs
  This legendary story talks of a set of three ships which were tasked with delivering seven dragon eggs from one continent to another. What the passengers who booked the voyage failed to mention were the facts that the eggs were stolen and being pursued by several angered dragon pairs, and that the eggs were close to hatching. The only reason not all three ships burned to the ground were copious use of seawater and the constant vigil of the crows nests.
• The Passage through the Maestrom
  Once, the Dawns Mother is said to have been swallowed by a whirlpool that formed right underneath it. According to the crew, they were spat out in a strange subterranean sea, where they had to fight of sporous mushroom beings and eyeless, carnivorous nymphs. At last they emerged by reversing the waterfall in the cave below Dorralia, where they emerged in the back of the cave harbor.