Infamy and Awe
As the rotting hulk of a once might leviathan breaks through the mist and smashes into the dock, its maw locked in a hideous hungry grin and its dead eyes frozen forward, one can forgive the stories that tend to follow. Across the Abyss and in
Dūbavum in particular, tales the raiders are spoken in hushed tones.
"They are devils from the deepest reach of the Abyss" or "the corpses of the dead, infested by malevolent fish out for revenge for all the nets and fishing lines" are popular myths that revolve around the raiders, particularly among those who have never actually suffered a raid. In theatre and plays, the pirates are played up as inhuman creatures of blasphemous intent and temperament.
The popular image of a Raider in theater plays
The raiders encourage this belief. They beat drums and light fires behind the hollow eyes of the leviathan, blowing horns that echo in the caverns. The more terrified their victims, the more likely they are to simply hand their goods over without a fight and despite their depiction in myth, such a bloodless resolution is very much what the raiders would prefer.
An actual raider of Śaba
The Captive Poor
Some captives have no relatives or friends capable (or willing) of paying the ransom required to see them freed. These unfortunate souls languish in the prison-hold until such a time that the Raiders see there is little reason to keep them and are usually just dumped on the first shore the pirates come across.
Joining the Crew
The raiders do not all spend their entire life on the ship. Many go ashore in smaller crafts and spread out to a number of villages and settlements to enjoy the benefits their plunder or resupply their comrades. It is during trips like these when fresh raiders are brought back to the ships. There is no one method sanctioned by the crew with which to draw new members, but is left to the crews discretion if they run into someone they think has what it takes.
There is one rule: the recruit must come of their own accord, without compromise. This has less to do with empathy and more to do with fear of treachery from coerced, unwilling crew seeking escape.
Hi! The first quote is not using the [quote]...[/quote] bbcode. And I think that the sentence "There is no set period for then a junior can ascend to join the crew at full" should be "There is no set period for when a junior can ascend to join the crew at full" instead. That being said, it's a cool article! A crew that uses a corpse of a dead monster instead of a ship? Hell, yeah! I don't understand that "I've never seen a fish use a crossbow before" sentence, although the image of Nemo shooting a crossbow is quite interesting. It has everything I wanted to know about them. Structure, history, social perception, and even how to join the crew! Maybe expanding on the History section would make it more complete, but it's not a big deal. Great article, see you around!
Whoops, fixed the missing BBCode and the when/then! Thanks for catching it! <3 I'll look into tightening up the first quote. See what I can think of for the history bit! :D Thanks for reading!! <3
Creator of Araea, Megacorpolis, and many others.