Adding some more ships. Since the series I’m drawing from is primarily focused on the Royal Navy, expect a lot of British ships
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Ships
HMS Polycrest
Faction: England
Rarity: UC
Type: Ship
Point Value: 8
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 2
Base Move: S
Cannons: 5L, 4S
Ability: L-Range cannons cannot hit this ship
Bellone
Faction: France
Rarity: C
Type: Ship
Point Value: 11
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 3
Base Move: L+S
Cannons: 3S, 3S
Ability: Schooner. If this ship wins a boarding party, she may take as much treasure from the enemy ship as she can carry.
HMS Leopard
Faction: England
Rarity: UC
Type: Ship
Points Value: 13
Number of Masts: 4
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: L
Cannons: 4S, 2L, 2L, 4S
Ability: If this ship has a captain crew, she gets +1 to her cannon rolls.
HMS Lively
Faction: England
Rarity: C
Type: Ship
Points Value: 10
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space:3
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3S, 3S, 3S
Ability: Schooner This ship may dock at an enemy Home Island and load one treasure. If able, she must leave on your next turn.
Marengo
Faction: France
Rarity: R
Type: Ship
Points Value: 18
Number of Masts: 5
Cargo Space: 3
Base Move: L
Cannons: 3S, 2S, 2L, 2S, 3S
Ability: Once at the beginning of each of your turns, roll a d6. On a result of 6, one ship in your fleet may be given two actions this turn.
HMS Boadicea
Faction: England
Rarity: C
Type: Ship
Points Value: 10
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space:2
Base Move: L
Cannons: 3S, 3L, 3L
Ability: Forts cannot hit this ship.
HMS Worcester
Faction: England
Rarity: R
Type: Ship
Points Value: 10
Number of Masts: 5
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: L
Cannons: 4S, 3S, 3S, 3S, 4S
Ability: Eliminate one of this ship’s mast if she rolls a 1 on any cannon roll
HMS Surprise
Faction: England
Rarity: UC
Type: Ship
Points Value: 14
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space: 3
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3S, 2L, 3S
Ability: When this ship hit another ship, you choose which mast is eliminated.
Link: Captain Jack Aubrey, Dr. Stephen Maturin
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Crew
Captain Jack Aubrey
Faction: England
Rarity: R
Type: Crew
Points Value: 6
Ability: Loyal: England. Hostile: France. Captain. Before you give this ship an action, roll a d6. On a result of a 5 or 6, this ship may be given the same action twice.
Link: Dr. Stephen Maturin, HMS Surprise
Dr. Stephen Maturin
Faction: England
Rarity: R
Type: Crew
Points Value: 5
Ability: Explorer When another face up crew on this ship would be eliminated, turn it face down instead.
Link: Captain Jack Aubrey, HMS Surprise
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Points costs for this are probably going to be all over the board and mainly speculation, but at the very least I can give some explanation.
I tried to make the Polychrest “bad” because in the books she is very bad- handles poorly, leaky, has a weird design meant to compensate for a rocket weapon that never got off the drawing board. Her only claim to fame is running around beneath some French batteries and getting pummeled long enough for the heroes to steal a French ship and escape. I’d compare her to the Dark Fox from DJC, but Dark Fox has some speed while Polychrest does not. This being said, her point cost could be lower and I couldn’t really find a special ability that fit her (I thought of Forts cannot hit this ship, but they clearly did hit the Polychrest after she ran aground).
Bellone plays a minor role in book 2 of the Aubrey-Maturin series as a French Privateer that briefly captures the two on their way back to England before being overtaken by a British squadron. Gold Capture would probably fit the narrative better, but I thought it would drive the point cost way higher than a 2 master should probably be at, so I chose the hoarding gold ability instead.
Lively gets the HI Raider ability based on her brief role in Book 3 when she is used to launch a raid on a French base to rescue Stephen from French torturers. Other than that she’s not a particularly remarkable frigate in the series.
Leopard is based off the historical HMS Leopard (the ship that caused the Leopard-Chesapeake Incident for those familiar with their history). Both historically and in the series she was getting long in the tooth and no longer fit for the line of battle, earning her the nickname “horrible old Leopard” in the latter. Still, she has some merit in there, so crewed right she is an average ship for her class.
Marengo is the leading ship of a French squadron in the third book, a big 74-gun ship of the line comparable some of the other 5-mast ships in game. The heroes fight her in the much smaller Surprise and only manage to win when an Indiaman flanks the Marengo and chases her off. I gave her the Admiral ability because it felt fitting for a ship in command of a squadron of other ships to be able to direct them properly even from afar.
HMS Boadicea was in charge of a squadron tasked with taking Mauritius from the French in Book 4. While she doesn’t engage any shore batteries, I figured if the plot is about taking an island, the ship in-game might as well have an ability to reflect that (based off the Boston from PotRV)
HMS Worcester is another 74-gun ship of the line, but she was built at bottom dollar by a corrupt and dishonest shipyard. She ends up nearly breaking apart in a storm and limps back to port for scrapping- since Pirates doesn’t have weather conditions outside of events, having Worcester risk shooting herself to pieces felt somewhat fitting.
Finally, there’s Surprise and our two leads. Surprise is basically the poster child of the series- an aging but still effective frigate that is beloved by her captain and crew and has proven herself time and again against tall odds. She has a decent battery of guns and a good string of luck, so I wanted to reflect that in her design and how she plays with the crew. Jack Aubrey himself is the quintessential British captain- loyal to the Crown and a charismatic leader of men, though sometimes dense and terrible with money and remaining faithful to his wife. Stephen Maturin is also an expert in his trade, being a trained physician and naturalist rather than just someone who’s handy with a saw, and the two have a very close friendship that seems them through a decade and a half’s worth of adventures (pretty much every English ship I’ve listed here they served on at some point in the series). They’re linked to Surprise since, again, that’s the ship they’ve spent the most time on and it’s the most well remembered ship in the books.
Edited for adjusted points