The Ramshackle

The armada of the dead and damned that sails on the blackest tides

Structure

None know the true organizational structure of The Ramshackle, as only the Dead and the Damned crew its ships - it is a fleet that is the enemy of all living creatures and all sane things, and few have encountered it and lived to tell the tale, to say nothing of infiltrating it to learn its inner rankings. What is assumed is that the Ramshackle operates loosely on a military hierarchy, but with the benefit of having its members linked telepathically in an undead hive mind - the tactics of The Ramshackle when it is engaged in battle consistently show reaction times and battle tactics that operate on knowledge that only one ship has - it operates and reacts at superhuman speeds, far faster than any living navy, and its tactics are suicidal and terrifying as only those of the dead, who are supernaturally resilient, can be.
It is organized only by the size of the groups it has been encountered in - these are listed below from biggest to smallest.

• Armada - A theoretical ranking reserved for a group consisting of every ship in The Ramshackle gathered in one location. Has never been observed, but would include all flagships and ships currently in service to the Ramshackle.
• Battle Cluster - An enormous, titanic group of ships that typically numbers upwards of 100+ ships, with multiple Flagships in attendance. This size has only been seen once in Zheng-Kitaran history, when The Ramshackle made a concentrated assault on The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet by assaulting its capital, Bushūbunáo, The Salvaged Supercarrier, en masse.
• Fleet - A large fleet of several dozen ships lead by a single Flagship which commands the rest. Not commonly encountered by single sailing ships, and usually is found assaulting larger merchant navies or parts of The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet.
• Picket - The smallest group, typically consisting of anywhere between one to a dozen small to medium size ships, with maybe one large non-flagship leading it. The most commonly encountered groups by those who sail the high seas.

From what has been gathered so far, The Ramshackle is loosely organized into fleets that sail beneath the banner of at least one central "Flagship" that acts as command and control for that local section of the larger armada - destroying this Flagship will scramble the fleet that it is operating, and send them into disarray for a time until it reforms or another one can be dredged up from the deep. These Flagships typically take the form of ancient and incredibly powerful warships of the past, who sunk out at sea and were at some point dredged up by the unholy power of The Ramshackle - these ships are thusly typically the biggest, strongest, and most well-armed in the battle cluster, and easily spottable - though the hardest to destroy.

The Flagships that have been spotted in past encounters with the Armada and documented are listed below, and a short bit of information about them if any is known.

• The Lust and Damnation - Ancient flagship of the legendary Pirate Bloody Bart, better known as The Butcher of Byracles Bay. Was once one of The Ramshackle's most notoriously lethal Flagships due to the horribly lethal "Bloodsmoke" it could unleash over the oceanic battlefield to drain the living of vitality, but vanished several centuries ago of its own accord and has not been seen with The Ramshackle since.
• The Sovereign - The oldest, most venerable, and most ancient Flagship still in active service to The Ramshackle. By all accounts, it cannot be permanently sunken and is notoriously hard to sink in general - it will sustain itself with necromantic energy and seawater until it has sustained such cataclysmic damage that 90% of its original wooden form has been replaced with seawater and necromantic power. It is believed to date all the way back to before the Advent of The Spirit Kings, nearly 5000 years ago - so information on it is scarce. Despite its age, its weapons are mostly conventional for the current era, aside from one - it is equipped with a highly advanced plow on its front made of ancient and unknown technology, that can cleave a fully metallic ship in half with a single solid hit to the sides. It is by far the most supernaturally nimble, quick, and maneuverable out of all The Ramshackle's Flagships - capable of movements no normal ship could pull off.
• The H.H.V Grammaton - A ship of wholly unknown make believed to be several thousand years old - it is made of solid metal with pulsing conduits of liquid mana across its enormous hull, and wields no conventional weaponry. All of its weapons are terrifying arcane invocations that wreak havoc on a colossal scale - focusing around manipulation of oceanic currents, water temperature, acidity, and countless other terrors. It also has a weapon of unknown lethality tentatively classified as an "Informational Superweapon" - it has only been witnessed in firing once, during the legendary battle between The Ramshackle's Battle Cluster Alpha and the Bushūbunáo, The Salvaged Supercarrier, that lead to a calamity that nearly wiped the Supercarrier from memory, history, and existence down to its very last atom had a countermeasure not been developed thanks to a flaw in the weapon's design. Has also been witnessed levitating out of the water and flying for extremely limited periods, but the ship is almost never deployed at the head of a fleet for unknown reasons.
• The Vûlufron - A powerful ship built and created by the Dwarves as their first foray into oceanic mastery nearly two thousand years ago. A behemoth constructed and made of mostly stone that floats through unknown mechanical means, it primarily attacks with old-fashioned catapults and trebuchets, though one long-range magical device onboard is capable of generating localized earthquakes onboard enemy ships nearby. The means of its sinking are unknown, as the Dwarves have historically refused to give information on it. Has sustained heavy damage in previous encounters, but has yet to be sunk.
• The Jīn-shi-rhodan - An ancient Shaoshuan warship once said to be the personal flagship of the Buddha Nakshatra in the days of yore - a splendid warship made of wood and adorned with gold and platinum, with banners of Qiweave that still hang, tattered, on its prow and sides. Since it was lost with all hands barring Nakshatra himself, including its two sister ships, the three have formed a single "Flagship" unit. Each ship has unknown means that let it take in and amplify Ki energy from monks, allowing the ship to unleash massive-scale pulse attacks and other ki abilities. Has a limited ability to repair itself.
• The Thunder and Fury - An old ship that once belonged to the notorious pirate Hurricane Hylira. Though it just a normal, although enormous warship made of wood and boards, it has retained the properties granted to its while it was in active service that allow it to alter and generate weather patterns in extremely rapid timeframes - typically creating enormous fog banks, hurricanes, or the like as it rides into battle.
• The Kingcaller's Bane - The legendary flagship of the privateer turned Elemental Saint, Yasuyo the Kaiju-Caller. Though Yasuyo himself was killed by The Ramshackle and saved by his Elemental Patron to become a saint, his ship and crew were not so lucky, and were pressed into service in the dreaded Ramshackle. This ship, feared for its ability to mend allied ships as well as its ability to enleash enormously long bolts of elemental power out of its long-guns, has also retained the device which gave Saint Yasuyo his power and fame - a device of his own creation dubbed "The Spindlehammer" which once called an Elder Kraken that had pledged itself to Yasuyo's service. With the fall of The Kingcaller's Bane to the forces of The Ramshackle, the Elder Kraken bound to The Spindlehammer was pressed into grisly undeath and made a servant of the Dread Armada.
• ???? - The most mysterious Flagship in all the Ramshackle, this ship is unique in that it is a true "Ghost Ship" - in the sense it is completely and wholly intangible. It appears at extremely erratic intervals at the heads of Ramshackle Fleets, and can wink in and out of existence freely - crewed by ghostly apparations that, when others get close enough to hear and see them, scream and beg for freedom, sometimes wearing the faces that fellow sailors recognize as they seem to operate the ship wholly unwillingly. Its weapons can affect reality with startling ease, and it delights in approaching and boarding other ships to steal its crew and press them into eternal service. It has no recognizable form nor name, and has yet to be identified.

Additionally, the Ramshackle, during its long history, has possessed several Flagships that have since been sunk or left service since they were first sighted - while they are not believed to be capable of being returned to service if they are sunk, exceptions like The Sovereign who are seemingly unsinkable make others nervous of the notion of these ships returning to service. The below list is most likely not exhaustive, as flagships sunk before the dawn of codified history books or that were sunk during turbulent times devoid of accurate records have made it hard to record sunken flagships with accuracy.

• The Lust and Damnation - Ancient flagship of the legendary Pirate Bloody Bart, better known as The Butcher of Byracles Bay. Was once one of The Ramshackle's most notoriously lethal Flagships due to the horribly lethal "Bloodsmoke" it could unleash over the oceanic battlefield to drain the living of vitality, but vanished several centuries ago of its own accord and has not been seen with The Ramshackle since.
• The Gunvaldarinn - A powerful ship that was once the pride of the Jugeum Union, constructed to be the biggest warship to sail the seas of the frozen north - it was and remains the only ship constructed of the legendary Dire White Oak Trees native exclusively to the lands of the Myrkese on the isle of Myrkheim. Built of this legendary wood, it was said to have such natural resilience and power in its planks that full sized iron cannonballs of the Iron Empire would simply bounce off its wooden hull with minimal damage, to say nothing of fire, arrows, and normal hazards. As Dire White Oaks are known to carry some slight innate resistance to arcane energies, for good reason was it referred to by its Viking Creators as Asynskjǫld, or 'Godshield'. Thought unsinkable, it was initially brought down off the shores of The Glacial Drift by a cabal of Kitsune Witches and Warlocks who used the fell power of the Yokai realm to have the seas itself flood and drown the unsinkable behemoth as it came to smash their homes and lands. Returned to service intact by The Ramshackle, The Gunvaldarinn was sunk a final time by The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet during the final stages of The Battle of the Aurora Sea, where it was holed stem to stern by the radiant sunlit power of Father Ferrolis, acting in defense of the Bushūbunáo, Capital of the Migrant Fleet.
• The Wulfitz - Little is known about how the Ramshackle acquired this strange vessel - even its original name is unknown, and its name 'Wulfitz' was said to have originated when it attacked a Dwarven merchant convoy as it traveled the high seas, whereupon the Admiral overseeing the convoy saw it and cried out 'By Baoshan, the Seawolf has come!" - and the old dwarven terms for 'sea and wolf' were misunderstood and bastardized into its current title. Wholly unique in all the Ramshackle, the Wulfitz was known to be crewed by an entirely living, and wholly human crew who swore allegience to the Ramshackle for reasons unknown. Despite its plain appearance, the Wulfitz was one of the most feared ships in all the Ramshackle for its apparent, singular ability that allowed it to do no less than see the future - predicting and outmaneuvering its enemies minutes before they had put plans into motion. Its captain and crew were seemingly omniscient, and could not be surprised - and combined with an incredible arsenal of time-delay catapults, floating mines, and powerful cannons of the Iron Empire, and the fact its attacks were dropped into the ocean hours before the battles it were in took place, detonating and crushing its enemies apart in perfect synchronicity like a beautiful symphony, and it was little wonder it was feared so much. Though how it was originally sunk remains unknown, it was sunk for a final time during The Battle of the Aurora Sea, where, in the midst of the chaos, it executed a perfect ambush against the Bushūbunáo, Capital of the Migrant Fleet, unleashing a cavalcade of inferno mines that melted entire sections of its hull that, while effective, were also detonated prematurely and caused the destruction of the Wulfitz itself, outwitted as they were by the Migrant Fleet's High Admiral who charged into the mines to take down the terrifying Flagship.

Culture

The culture of The Ramshackle is wholly unknown, as it has proven hostile to all who encounter it.

Public Agenda

The public agenda of The Ramshackle seems to be nothing less than the total destruction of all life - though it seems especially obsessed with The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet, whom it seems to ambush and attack first and foremost to the exclusion of all other targets. It can be considered The Migrant Fleet's main enemy.
It appears with little regularity or commonality, and is a constant, omnipresent threat to all who sail the high seas - though running into smaller groups of The Ramshackle is more common than running into an entire Fleet or Battle Cluster.

Assets

The assets of the Ramshackle can be considered to be infinite - each Sailor who dies or drowns at sea and is not given a proper burial or funeral is bound to eventually return into its service, and as such most all sailors, be they pirates or not, make efforts to not toss bodies wantonly into the sea wholly intact, or at least will pray for them if it cannot be avoided, to ease the spirits of the dead.
Similarly, each ship that sinks at sea and is left to rot for extended periods runs the risk of being resurrected and pressed back into the service of The Ramshackle in its dread fleets, crewed by the dead in its eternal quest to kill. This has, in large part, driven The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet and other oceanic cultures to dedicate so much effort to its oceanic salvage operations - each ship pulled up from the deep and returned to service is one denied eventually to ranks of The Ramshackle.

History

The history of the Ramshackle is unknown, and it has simply been around for as long as any can remember - it has harrassed sailors and pirates alike ever since the first sailing vessels were sunk at sea. However, in recent years, with sailing, piracy, and life at sea becoming more common, The Ramshackle has been growing stronger and more powerful in response to this.

The Dead. The Dying. The Ramshackle.

Drown the living,
Raise the bulkheads,
Greet the dying,
Welcome the dead

— Slow-spoken and repeated chant heard on the winds by those who encounter The Ramshackle

Founding Date

Unknown - said to have formed when the first sailors died at sea

Type

Military, Navy Fleet

Alternative Names

The Dread Armada, The Fleet of the Forgotten

Demonym

Ramshackled

Related Reading

Sworn enemies

The Ramshackle

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The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet

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Though The Ramshackle seeks the destruction of all on The Seas equally, they tend to target The Migrant Fleet first and foremost, and are their most common and most plentiful enemies.