Pirates of Mystara Interactive Map

The Five Shires

Humans ( and other races) call them “halflings”, and tend not take the little folk too seriously. They look like children, so they get treated like children – distrusted, underestimated, or plain ignored.

But there’s much more to the Hin (as the halflings call themselves) than petty thievery and childish pranks. They are a tough, mature people, proud of their legacy  of centuries of survival in the face of indifference and outright persecution from other races.

The only crime in the Shires the hin turn a blind eye to is smuggling of goods in and out of Shires in excess of the amounts approved by the Sheriffs.

The Sheriffs want to keep the prices of the finite resources of the Shires high in the Known World outside by rationing exports such as gems, gold, and precious metals mined in the Black Spires. The Sheriffs also fear that a gold rush or similar influx of undesirables seeking to grab what they can of the riches of the Shires will occur if the world around ever learns of the true plenty of the Shires.

Individual hin usual find such imported goods as silks, exotic fruits, perfume, and strong drink to be overpriced and in far too skimpy supply. The Shires are a small, out of the way market considered unimportant by most human merchants except as a source of plentiful foodstuffs, so the hin trade for and bring in their own supplies usually by means of halfling pirates. The pirates act as freebooters who are largely ignored by the Sheriffs to go between merchants in Darokin and Ierendi, Since the rise of the Black Baron, the illicit trade with Karameikos has dwindled considerably. Smuggling is widespread and persistent among hin and is centred in the port of Tothmeer.

NAVY

The Shires has a small but vigilant navy. If there were no Hin pirates, the navy would be too small to maintain the halfling claim to the Shirecoast  waters. The Hin navy is  far too small to wage any aggressive naval warfare against any other nation, but as a defensive force, given the stormy, rock-studded waters and the Hin Pirates, it is adequate. Naval ports are Shireton itself, Shireton Port, Thantabbar, Tothmeer, and Rollstone Keep.

Commanded by experienced captains and crews loyal to the Sheriffs, the Hin navy consists of 2 war galleys, 4 very old large galleys, 2 small galleys, and 12 small sailing ships. Another dozen or so old battered sailing ships can be commandeered or hauled out of beached retirement in wartime, but no new ships are presently being built.

The war galleys are equipped with rams and modern, top of the line artillery. They are the Hinwrath and the Pride of the Shires, and they are usually at port: one in Thantabbar and one in Tothmeer, sailing only in response to clear threats.

The old large galleys are clumsy and lack hull armour but is compensated by loading them with cannons. They are The Tempest, The Shiresword, The Hin Storm and The Steel Wind.
The small galleys are the Barracuda and the Swordfish.

The small sailing ships are The Sea Lion, The Shire Dragon, The Hin Trident, The Deep Serpent, The Black Shark, The Dagger Octopus, The Scorpion Crab, The Toth Arrow, The Shireton Sword, The Shireshield, the Wave Striker and The Flame Sword.

Hin navy ships are known for their fearless seamanship in storms and their devastation artillery, but the navy as a whole is laughably small in both ship size and numbers.

Navy Size

Total ships: 20
Waship: 2
Galleys: 6
Sailing Ships: 12

PIRATES

PIRATE LORD:  Mungo Ship Shearer

Halflings may be known to the folk of other lands as cute little child-like creatures, but to seafarers and coastal dwellers in the western Grand Duchy and the Empire of Thyatis, in particular, they have a darker reputation.

Halflings are cheerfully reckless sailors. The more evil or angry Hin, those who seek revenge, or those on yallara (Hin word for wanderlust) who simply love the sea and crave adventure, become pirates. Halflings are bold pirates, daring pirates and widely feared pirates.

Halflings reserve their special bloodlust and aggressive feelings for their meetings with Thyatian vessels because of the long ago seizure of halfling lands, ports, ang halfling ships in them by the Empire of Thyatis.

Vessels of other nations have good reason to fear the pirates of the Shirecoast. Unless a ship is approaching  halfling waters is crewed by halflings or closely escorted by ships of the Navy of the Shires, it will be narrowly inspected, probably several times, by tiny, swiftly racing, battered and tattered pirate boats.

Most hin pirates are halflings of 2^nd to 6^th level. They are always armed with slings and carry 20 or so sling stones. These are carried in a cloth bag so they can easily let go if their owner ends up in the water. Such a bag also does 1d4 bludgeoning damage being used as a black jack like weapon at close quarters. Most hin pirates also bear 1-3 daggers which they are adept at throwing, and a curved cutlass.

All types of weapons a halfling can use will also be found throughout a typical pirate crew, including flintlock pistols. Most pirates are adept at ramming, sailing in rough seas and rocky waters, and leaping from rail or rigging safely onto another ship. Many Hin pirates ships carry rickety homemade catapults to hurl rocks, rubbish, or even dead orc corpses on to the decks of ships they engage.

A halfling pirate crew will often include a scattering of humans, for the ranks of the halfling pirates are a refuge for outlaws and shady characters of all the coastal lands. A pirate crew will also have at least one beautiful human or elven maiden. Sometimes these “ladies” are captives taken at sea, and sometimes they are prisoners rescued from the Black Eagle Barony or other captors. Some have come to join the pirates at an early age themselves. Whatever her origin, every self-respecting him pirate crew will have its “lady”.

The pirates do not molest or mistreat their ladies; any pirate who does is immediately invited to swim to shore even if shore is two days hard sailing away. They revere them and shower them with riches and attention, such as massages, perfumed baths, and careful hairstyling. The “Lady” of a crew is sort of a mascot; even if a bloodthirsty bladeswinger herself, she will slowly come to realise that the object of every halfling pirate crew is to find here a faithful mate with whom she can be happy, and set her up in a wealth somewhere along the coast.

A Halfling crew usually presents a most comical appearance. Their plundered finery rarely fits and is rarely worn properly. A hairy, bearded, fat male halfling may appear at the rail clad in the silk face-veil and coin-adorned brassiere of an Ylari dancer with a finely-embroidered noble’s vest from Thyatis. He may have a hat tied on with silk ribbons and beneath it the finest diaphanous white silk gown available in the Grand Duchy, all worn over leather shorts and high sea-boots, both studded with rusting and battered armour plates.

Many pirates bedeck themselves with so many gems and pieces of hanging or pinned on jewelry that they jangle and chime with every step. Others use captured make up to paint their faces in wild patterns or draw scary deaths heads or gruesome disease like symptoms on themselves. Hin dislike tattoos but trye to duplicate their efforts with such make up. In a word, Hin pirates are fun.

Most halfling pirate ships are small old battered sail ships. Pirates seizing a good ship (hin pirates prefer to board and plunder, not ram and burn other vessels) will often give their old, leaking hulk to the crew they defeated to try to nurse back to land.

There are 120 or so seaworthy pirate ships, with about a quarter of those constantly active. The most famous active pirate  crews are those headed by Red Rory Hackskull, “the halfling as tall as a dwarf,” who sails out of Muldair’s Rock and has a secret refuge elsewhere.

The legendary she pirate Loberlinn, now a Higher Master, was the most successful pirate of the last twenty winters; not only him still speak of her. Before Loberlinn, the pirate Black Adder Swiftbrand was famous, but he perished with all his crew when Thyatian ships armed with fire hurling catapults boxed him in and set his ship afire, although his blazing ship rammed and sank or set afire three others before it finally floundered.

Before Swiftbrand there as Jenkin Firebeard and the Nightstriker, Bross Lotsotricks Hillhallow. Many are exciting stories of bloody battles, daring raids, and long chases across the seas that the hin pirates of now-gone days have left behind in taverns of all the coastal lands. They’ve left lots of treasure; lost, hidden and never reclaimed when they sailed away and met death, or just forgotten at some stopover. Human adventurers hoping to find quick riches sometimes risk a quick run to explore this or that remote rock off The Shirecoast looking for buried treasure. And some have found it. Most searchers simply don’t return; the storms, treacherous shoals, and the pirates, see to that.

A typical halfling pirate crew will be 30-40 strong with perhaps 2-5 of their number non-hin (almost all of these will be human males). Magic users and clerics are rare on the seas although clerics willing to heal wounded pirates in return for rich offerings can be found at most of the ports that the pirates take refuge in.

Halfling ships are always crammed with casks of beer and drinking water and lots of  food so that they can stay at sea for long runs. Contraband must often be stored on deck to take its chances in heavy seas.

The use of fire-pots and fire-darks, as well as darts that carry fine cord to establish a line that pirates can swarm across to another ship, are fairly common. But most halfling pirates still depend on nimble sailing, savage sword work, and accurate slinging to carry the day.

Most pirate crews take five or size prizes a year and may raid a Thyatian harbour or put ashore in the Black Eagle Barony for a little brigand0work once a summer as well.

The sheriffs of the Shires simply pretend that there are no halfling pirates. The Navy of the Shores protects some legitimate vessels against attacks in waters claimed by the Shires. All pirate vessels are assumed to be crewed by desperate or evil foreigners under the  sway of dastardly Karameikan raiders serving Baron Von Hendriks, or lawless renegade Ierendi sailors. Vessels crewed by hin must be legitimate shippers of one sort or another, not pirates.

The Sheriffs know better, of course, but the existence of the hin pirates keep the Shires secure against naval attack or marine blockade or dominance by a rival nation, so the Sheriffs turn a blind eye to hin piracy. There are no laws against piracy.

If the evil growing in Shireton Port continues unchecked, or him pirates begin to raid halfling ships or ports in the Shires, this easygoing policy may well have to change.

The Navy of the Shires will not support pirate vessels in attacks on foreign ships, but it often attacks unauthorized “foreign raiders” who happen to be in hot pursuit of a halfling pirate vessel that tried to bite off more than it could chew, or rescues hin from a foundering pirate ship or shipwreck.

Hin pirates are not strong enough to threaten nearby Kingdoms, but do hamper merchant captains. Halfling pirates, in short, are no laughing matter, unless you’re a halfing pirate.