Legend of the Skintaker

Summary

In the years following the cataclysm, slowly the development of ships resumed. A few trading vessels would make their way northwards from Simmsmout towards the Celestial City. Out of every ship that would set sail, approximately one out of every 20 vessels would go missing.
Some stories of trade fleets told tall tales of all the night sailing lights of one of the other vessels suddenly blinking out all at once, and the ships coms going completely dark. And once the sun resumed its daytime brightness, the vessel would be completely missing.
Over time rumors began, tales of sailors seeing a ship made out of writhing skeletons, their bodies interlocked and connected to each other to form the shape of an ancient galleon, and operated by a crew of undead sailors. This ship was said to dive down underwater like some sort of whale when spotted, disappearing below the waves.
Then a name emerged. Some drunk sailor down by the plague docks told a story of how his ship was torn to pieces by a ship of living skeletons and how only he survived. As he jumped off his ship, clinging to a piece of flotsam, he saw a skeleton with a beard of blue flame, and eyes of ruby wearing a cloak that looked like it was stitched together from the faces of dead men. The Skintaker.
The Empire has commissioned warships to protect their vessels, but an occasional trade vessel still goes missing. Their crew never to be seen again. No official records exist of a spotting of the legendary pirate vessel, and it exists only in hearsay and myth amongst the sailing crew. Some merchants have taken to sacrificing animals by throwing them overboard as they move up the coast towards the Celestial City in an attempt to appease the Skintaker.