I this age of lockdowns and “The Great Pause” I thought I would post a series of Ghost Archipelago House Rules up for discussion. These are ways that I am thinking about changing the rules to suit my desires. One of the great things about Frostgrave is that many of us altered the rules and instead of being chastised for those actions Joseph McCullough and the Osprey Crew encouraged them. I hope that this becomes a means of starting like conversations on how we want to make GA ours…
Crewmen:
As the Heritor gains fame and his/her exploits throughout the islands become wider known he can hire more specialists. At 3rd level he can hire 5 specialists, at 6 he can hire 6, and at 9 he can hire 7, and finally, at 12 he can hire the full 8… A warband can never have more than 8 specialists.
Hiring new specialists while at sea is difficult at best however, but as the Heritor travels the isles, she often comes across lost, wounded or stranded crew members of warbands that have met with unfortunate fates. Therefore, all warband specialists can only be hired at random and a Heritor must roll randomly to see what specialists can be hired upon the death of a warband member. Note: most upstanding Heritors would not dismiss a crew member as this would mean certain death for him or her. Their value as loyal seamen should remain extreme. This random hiring can be circumnavigated by paying the 200 gc and returning to the mainland as normal. Hiring Natives is still possible, but they may leave the warband as described in the rules. If desired, standard crewman can always replace a dead crew member at any time.
Note: any randomly determined specialist still ahs to be hired at the mentioned rate. A Heritor can decide to include all or none of the specialist mention in the supplements prior to rolling randomly.
Why: I have made this change as I like to have all my warband members come alive and have individual value. Naming each specialist also increases in-game tension as one certainly does not want to lose a named crew member. I also like the challenge it brings to have to paint more warband members and that is more easily done for me with a bit of roleplaying. I get to figure out how that person looks and how he/she works with the other crew members. Further, forcing a random roll causes a bit of shopping as I look for a miniature that will fill that role. Shopping imho is part of our hobby and thus having my rules give me a built-in chance at doing that allows more out of game fun. With that said, the randomness creates the illusion that the Heritor is finding stranded members of other warbands or individuals that have braved the Ghost Archipelago on their own. Regardless, this allows for more story telling in my wargame and that brings me no small amount of joy.
