Dreadstorm Castaways

A Sky Pirate Crew looking for Adventure

FFXIV - RP - EU TIMEZONE - FOCUS ON STORY - CRYSTAL DATACENTER

The Hook

Sky Pirates, need we say more? While you’ve no doubt already decided if this is a theme you might be interested in, allow me to elaborate a little on what we have in mind for this particular crew.While our Sky Pirates won’t hesitate to take on another ship if the opportunity presents itself, the Castaways are mostly interested in exploring new skies and finding forgotten treasures from a bygone era. Allag technology is of special interest to them, as it allows the engineering team to modify the Cetea even more. That which they can’t use can be sold on the black market for extravagant prizes.Generally, the crew doesn’t shy away from taking what they want by force, but they aren’t known to be overly cruel or bloodthirsty without cause.Below are some possible hooks you can use, but please don't be afraid to contact us with one of your own.

A Brief History

Long ago, during the Age of Adventure, Captain Cloudwrath and his crew roamed the skies in search of riches and freedom. That all came to an abrupt ending when their ship fell from the sky. Reports were unclear on what caused the crash, and rumours about sabotage spread. Those that were lucky enough to survive found themselves spread out, their ship and home in ruins. Lacking any other choice, they tried to move on. Some joined other crews, others remained grounded.Captain Cloudwrath himself was one of those, perhaps feeling that the weight of so many lost souls was too much to ever fly again. Years went by until the world had all but forgotten the once somewhat infamous crew. But now, change is on the horizon. With the Chief Engineer, once thought dead, now having returned, it didn’t take much to convince Captain Cloudwrath that their place is among the clouds. A new vessel, The Cetea, offers a new chance at their former glory. Now all they need to do is find a skilled crew to brave the skies with them once more.

Meet the crew of the Cetea and learn about the rules they live by.

The Articles

Not even Sky Pirates can go without rules entirely. In fact, Captain Cloudwrath runs a tight ship and values the input of his crew on important decisions. The Cetea’s Articles should give any potential new recruits a good idea on what the Castaways are about and what would be expected of them once they sign their name on the ledger.I. The Cetea herself is to have three full Shares of any Prize, to be used for provisions, repairs, and upgrades. The Captain has a right to Two full Shares, the Quartermaster and Chief Engineer one Share and one Half, The Surgeon, Pilot, Carpenter, Gunner and Boatswain, One Share and One Quarter. Every other Castaway will have one full Share. Concealing parts of a Prize shall result in a marooning of the individual.II. The fund of all payments under the Articles is the sum of what is gotten by the Flight, that is: No prey, no pay. Furthermore, every Castaway has equal title to the fresh provisions, water, and strong liquors, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.III. Upon Engagement with Prey, those Castaways of the fighting inclination shall refrain from the unnecessary killing of civilians. Dead Prey can only give up their Prize once, living Prey may come again with more. Many will opt to cooperate if given the opportunity, Good Quarters will generally be given when Craved. A Castaway shall obey the hierarchy in all respects during and leading up to an Engagement. Any who are found Meddling with Woman or Man, without their Consent, shall suffer present Death.IV. Proper Conduct is maintained at all times on the Cetea. Duties shall be done with the utmost care. There will be no drunkenness during or prior to a shift, especially not when it involves Engagement or a Watch. During off bells Castaways may partake in games, drinking, and other activities, but no gambling for gil is permitted. There will be no abuse against one another, be it from brawling, striking, drawing of weapons or other harassments. Quarrels are to be left on Land, by sword or pistol if need be. Thievery or the destruction of property shall be punished severely. After the bell of ten, the shared sleeping quarters shall be a place of rest. Any social activities shall be done above deck or in the mess.V. Every Castaway has a Vote on matters of importance. When a Vote is called and accepted by the Captain, all involved will be granted time to make their Case. All will abide by the majority.VI. A standard compensation is provided for maimed and mutilated Castaways, assuming no healing is possible or available to mend the hurt.VII. Upon making land, none shall leave the Cetea until she is put to readiness for her next Flight.VIII. Any who is found Guilty of breaking these Articles shall be punished in a manner the Captain and the Vote sees fit. Punishments may include death or marooning for severe Crimes against the Articles.

The Crew

List of RP characters and NPCs (WIP)

The Cetea

What The Cetea lacks in pomp and size, she makes up for with speed and the many (often experimental) modifications made to her engines and design. She is rumored to be impossible to tilt even in the heaviest of storms, and can house a medium-sized crew quite comfortably.We RP The Cetea in two locations. For the upper deck, we use The Protector in the Sea of Clouds (NW of the Camp Cloudtop Aetheryte) on Balmung. For everything else we use the FC house, located in the Lavender Beds, Ward 7, Plot 12 on Balmung.

A Tour

The Bridge
Where the engine is the heart of the ship, the bridge is its mind. This is where the bridge crew works to pilot and navigate The Cetea through the endless sea of clouds. People are only allowed on the bridge by invitation or duty. A communications officer is in contact with the rest of the ship at all times via linkpearl, with a pneumatic tubes system backup that goes straight to the captain.

On Deck
Special dampeners and other marvels of magitek engineering keep the deck a relatively secure place to be even during travel in high winds or storms. Only the engineers could tell you all the details about their systems, us regular crew just find comfort in knowing we can cloudfish even through the most harshest of winds (unless the lines break - our engineers haven't really had time to sort that particular issue out yet).

Mess Hall
Deep in the belly of the ship, The Cetea's cooks work day and night to keep our bellies filled. Our quartermaster makes sure there is enough fresh food and water in the hull to last us through all but the longest (and most unexpected) voyages, complimented with what we can cloudfish or forage on the numerous sky islands. This is also where you get your daily ration of liquor, so understandably it's most people's favourite part of the ship.

State Room
The state room is a leftover from whoever owned The Cetea before the Dreadstorm Castaways, but its central location in the ship has made it a popular meeting room for crewmembers of all ranks. Only when the senior crew has some fancypants to entertain is the room off limits, but that hardly ever happens.

Engine Room
The beating heart of The Cetea and the pride and joy of her engineering team. I could try and describe the wonders one might see here, but I'm afraid I lack the needed jargon to even begin to describe its wonders. Suffice it to say that without her, we would be going nowhere anytime soon.

Storage/Brig
To some, this is a place of indescribable wonders, to others, the place where all the junk that no one wants to buy finds its final resting place. Aside from the treasure-junk, it also serves the secondary purpose of being the brig. According to ancient but untraceable wisdom, showing trouble-makers what they're missing out on while they cool off in a cell is the perfect way to deter brawling and other uncouth behavior on board a ship.

Captain’s Quarters
The captain's quarters are off-limits without an invitation, even though he's hardly ever in there anyway (he claims there is always some work that needs doing). Only on occasion does the captain lock himself up in that room for suns at a time. Usually when he comes out, there is some new dastardly plan cooked up that will, no doubt, lead to either riches or doom. Often both.

Captain's Ready Room
The Ready Room is where most of the navigational work happens, and personal meetings with the captain are conducted. It is a large, open balcony, kept comfortably by the wonders of engineering. Relatively speaking, of course. Most people still find the room a bit too windy for their liking.

Guest Quarters
On the rare occasion that The Cetea houses guests that are too self-important to sleep on deck, there is a guest room available. On any other occasion, crew members often claim these bunks themselves.

Diagnostics
Part cargo hold, part tinkering room, all-round mysterious. No one truly seems to know what goes on in 'diagnostics'. More than one crew member has wandered off in this room, never to be seen again. Does it even exist?
Cognitive Danger Detected - stay out unless you have no other choice.

General Information

We aim for plot-focused RP in a small, close-knit, cohesive group looking to develop characters and enjoy adventure-centric roleplay as a crew of Sky Pirates. This theme allows for a lot of diversity in both setting and focus, as it gives us a lot of freedom to discover new things in both the sky and on land.We want every character in the group to matter, instead of simply following the story of a DM we want their personal stories and goals to drive the plot. We’d ideally end up with a small group of people who consider each other RP partners, which means our recruitment process might be a little different than what you may be used to from a FC or Discord Community.Recruitment will be slow, with a focus on writing characters into the narrative and making sure everyone is on the same page instead of numbers.Each new character will get an introduction story (some examples can be found below) that has been brainstormed between you and the event organizers. It’s very important to us that it feels more like a PnP group of friends (like with Dungeons & Dragons) than an assortment of strangers who may or may not have similar interests and styles RP-wise, and we hope by taking the time to work on a story together like this, your character will feel like a legitimately important part of the group right from the start. It doesn’t end there, of course. While you don’t have to spoil every motivation your character has, we will hopefully work together on many stories that could help them grow afterwards as well.Examples:
- Tired of their greedy Captain, your character heard about a new crew and as soon as they get a chance, they offer their services to the Castaways. Did they really reach the end of their former contract though, or might their former crew be on the hunt for a supposed ‘traitor’?- The Castaways have boarded a small vessel of slavers, having no scruples about stealing everything that isn’t bolted to the ship they roamed through it from deck to hull. In one of the cells, they find your character gagged and bound. They could be persuaded to free the prisoner, and perhaps they like the freedom of the skies more than the call from home.- Upon investigating a derelict Allag outpost on an island in the sky, the Castaways find that they aren’t the first people who have come here in recent times. Your character was already there, and while they might have the expertise, the Castaways have numbers on their side. Might it be more beneficial to work together, and see where this leads them?- Your character is a highly skilled specialist, looking for a new adventure. The Sky Pirate life sounds like just the thing for them, and after spending some time in one of the sky ports where these people frequent, they’ve decided to apply for a spot on the Castaway crew. Or vice versa, the Castaways have need of someone with your character’s skillset, and might have heard about them and decided to pay them a visit with an offer they can hopefully not refuse.This introduction storyline serves as a testrun for both you and the current Castaways, to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves and feels like this RP is for them.Your character will hopefully sign up as a New Blood Castaway after, but if it turns out our styles don’t match well, the theme doesn’t work for you (and we can’t brainstorm around that), or your circumstances don’t allow you to dedicate yourself to regular RP with us, we can amicably part ways or your character can be an Associate that occasionally joins in without being a permanent part of the crew.

RP Style

We are heavy paragraph RPers that blend speech with descriptions and emotes, differentiation between them via speech marks. While the occasional one-liner can help move things along, we generally take a bit of time to reply with detail, and rapid-fire one-liners (either as speech or from the automated emote messages) don’t fit well with that style.We try to follow the lore as best we understand it, but also encourage people to reasonably fill in the many gaps SE has left us with interesting world building and head canon. Since no one outside of SE has the final authority on lore and how far it can bend before it breaks, we always stress to leave enough room for other player’s stories and to not go overboard with it.As an example: if we find some sort of Allag lab with interesting information, we will always RP it with room for other interpretations. Perhaps this particular lab was unique, and doesn’t represent other Allag technology, or perhaps our researchers might have mistranslated or misinterpreted something. The important thing is that our world building and head canons are never treated as gospel, and others have just as much right to their interpretations and stories as we do.Some things will work better with our theme than others. We don’t want a very unlikely character concept to constantly distract attention away from everyone else's story. We’ve written down some examples here, but as with all things RP it’s often more important how something is RPd than what is RPd, so feel free to ask if you’re not sure.

OOC Considerations

We work on the concept of respect and consent. If something makes someone uncomfortable, we need to talk about it. Since we want to operate more like a group of RP partners than a traditional FC or Discord, we need everyone to chip in and take initiative.Don't be afraid to brainstorm and share story concepts or RP prompts of your own, and organize things outside of the Main Story Event times if you can.While we like world building and filling in the gaps, we stick to the established lore to the best of our ability. Please try and keep your character true to the lore - there is plenty of wriggle room in the areas where we haven't been given any information without having to go against the lore we do have.Last but not least, don’t post explicit, sexual, overly graphical, or controversial things in our Discord. It is purely there to help facilitate RP and to keep in touch. Everyone in the Castaways must be 18+, both IC and OOC. Please keep ERP private between consenting IC & OOC adults.

Events

Our events might differ a bit from what most people are used to in FFXIV RP in that we aim to emulate the style of a PnP game in how we deal with long-term plots. This means that some events may leave off and be picked up over multiple sessions.Our set times for these story-driven sessions is every other Saturday in the odd weeks, from 21:00 - 24:00 CE(S)T. That is the Central European timezone.We consider this our Main Story, and ask people to commit to these time as best as their IRL allows.On top of that, all our events are done in a story-telling style, as if someone from the crew is telling the story to a group of people later on. We call this person the Narrator, and they may or may not always be super-reliable. Some crew-members are known for their tendency to spin taller tales than others. If you spot an inconsistency, you’re even allowed to interject! If it seems a little confusing, don’t worry. It’ll fall into place once you see it in-game.In between our sessions we encourage people to RP the day-to-day on the ship, or have their own one-off plots, and have a small FC house on Balmung that serves as the lower decks of the Cetea to facilitate this kind of roleplay.The Main Story won’t have happened until after a chapter is finished (the Narrator will let you know) to prevent confusion in the RP in-between.Sidenote: we work on a biweekly schedule because we have other characters, hobbies, and commitments that take up our time. Because of this, depending on how much time you yourself have to RP, the Castaways might work best for alt characters.

Join the Dreadstorm Castaways!

Still here? Good!
You’ve made it all the way down here, and we hope you like what you’ve read so far. If you’re interested in joining us as either a dedicated crewmember or Associate, we ask that you follow these steps:
- Fill in this questionnaire. It should give us an idea on what kind of character concept you’re bringing in, and gives us means to contact you.
- We will contact you via Discord, so please make sure you type in the right Discord name in the questionnaire. There we will answer any questions you might have, and maybe ask for clarification about your character.
- If we all want to move forward, we will then invite you to our Discord and brainstorm in a private channel about how your character might get introduced to the crew.
- We RP out your character’s introduction in-game.Assuming we all enjoyed ourselves, you will then be invited to stay as either a crew member or Associate. We have a CWLS and Discord, and a FC that is optional to join.

Character concepts

Below are some examples of character concepts that we’ve split into 3 groups based on how well we think they might fit with the Castaways and our RP style. These are, of course, just examples meant to give you an idea.Concepts that work well
Honestly, there are too many examples to list here. Basically any character that might reasonably be part of a Sky Pirate crew like the Castaways can work, if not as crew than as a patron or associate. For us, the most important thing is that we work well together as a group.Concepts with caveats
These characters have an unusual thing about them that is quite central to their character. When looking to play something like that in our group, we ask that you ask yourself these questions:
a.) How does the unusual thing enhance your roleplay concept?
b.) Can you achieve that concept without that unusual aspect?
c.) How does it enhance the roleplay of those you interact with?Examples are:
- Any half-something character (these are extremely rare in the lore and game)
- Any character from a restricted class/job (like White Mages or Dragoons)
- Purely evil/jerk characters (both they and the rest of the group need a reason to keep them around)
- Beast tribe charactersConcepts that do not work with our theme
These characters or character traits won’t work at all with our theme because we feel they are either so unique and/or improbable that they distract from other people’s stories and characters, bend the lore to the point of breaking, or have a different RP focus. No exceptions will be made.
- Any MSQ character, including the WoL
- Otherworldly beings in humanoid disguise (Ascians, Voidsend, Dragons, Youkai,, etc.)
- Characters from other Shards/dimensions/worlds
- Characters from other franchises or other FF installments
- Porn/ERP-focused characters
- Child characters

Meetup on the Derelict