AT A GLANCE:
The Pirate Isles in the Sea of Fallen Stars are a large collection of rocky spurs jutting out of the water some 100 miles off the coast of Sembia.
The majority have no name, while the
larger islands are remembered as
pirate-dens and havens to scavengers.
Not all the inhabitants of these islands
make their living directly or indirectly
from pirating, but the majority do.

ELMINSTER'S NOTES: Due east of the
southernmost capes of the isle of Presper
lie the Pirate Isles; the westernmost
and largest of these is Earthspur,
"the Dragonisle." Since men first sailed
the Inner Sea there have been settlements
in this labyrinth of islands and
rocks and men living here have always
fished and raided. Raiding, at its height,
reached nearby islands such as Presper
and the proud cities of the Sembian
coast, as well as Procampur and Tsurlagol.

The Pirate Isles are strategically
placed to command all shipping moving
to and from the Dragon Reach and
Westgate from all other areas on the
Inner Sea. The isles are largely uncharted
(except by pirates) and corsair vessels
lurk among them.

The Pirates have not been strong
enough to openly defy and stand
against, or even attack, the ports of
Sembia for nearly two hundred winters.
The Dragonisle itself is fortified,
and has two secure harbors, defended
by castles that boast rare and wondrous
bombards brought long ago from
Thay and the utter South, and three
secure anchorages in addition to these
harbors. Nowhere else can raiders
stand and fight, nor call their own.

The first great pirate leader was
Immurk, sometime called "the Invincible,"
for he was never defeated, and
died of heartburst in his sixty-seventh
year. No navies stood against him in
those days, and though he created the
want of war-vessels, he also prevented
their being built, by means of daring
raids and a wide-spread, secretive network
of informers ashore. Immurk is
remembered as a shrewd old fox, not
above fostering conflict in the coastal
lands betwixt rival kingdoms to empty
royal coffers and cause more ships to
sail, while giving their owner the less to
protect them with.

Immurk's successors were less able
men. The Pirates of these lands have
never had a formal ruler or succession,
so that the strongest would brawl his
way into dominance, and hold his position
by ruthless butchery, threats, and
bribes. Immurk's heirs were reckless,
roaring fighters, cunning in their ways,
but not the level-headed tactician
Immurk had been. And so, inevitably,
pirate atrocities grew and pirate prudence
waned, and at last the rising
Inner Sea kingdoms--Cormyr, Sembia,
Impiltur, and the Vilhon Reach, in
particular--united on the seas against
the pirates, to form grand fleets of vessels.

The leader of the pirates at that time
was one Urdogen "the Red," "he of the
blood-colored tresses and beard," a hotheaded
bear of a man. Urdogen sailed
forth to crush the fleets approaching
the Dragonisle, only to be caught in the
closing jaws of a trap, as ships swarmed
out of every nearby port to assail his
raiders on all sides. Urdogen was never
found after the week-long battle, and
no man claimed to have slain him, but
his vessel, the Raging Tears, was never
seen again, and is believed by most to
have run on rocks while slipping away
during the night and thereby sunk. The
battle dragged on for a week because
many pirate ships slipped into the heart
of the maze of isles to escape after the
initial, disastrous battle, and had to be
slowly, doggedly tracked down and
slaughtered by the pursuing ships of
the coastal lands.

The pirates were not eradicated, but
it was many years before the Dragonisle
was again openly held against all
sailing by, and men spoke again of
pirates in the same breath as bad
storms of ill luck and misadventure. It
now appears that one Methlas, a merchant
of Marsember, quietly gathered
together a small corsair fleet of cautious,
skulking sailors and around them
built up a web of false vessel names,
fake cargoes, and "deck cargo losses,"
and has used these small, steady thefts
to provision and outfit war-vessels, and
hid these vessels in the Dragonisle's
concealed southern harbor.

Methlas was murdered by his lieutenant,
Thevren, ere the fleet was complete.
Thevren was impatient for booty,
and promptly launched raids on Selgaunt
and Saerloon. The raids were a
surprise, and successful, for Thevren
was astute enough to destroy or seize
any war-vessels in the two harbors. In
the meantime, strife had flared up
ashore, and no fleet was mustered from
all the lands to strike down the pirates
as Urdogen had been struck down. So
the pirates survived and increased their
power. Thevren could not enjoy his victory,
for he was poisoned by his current
lady-fair, Thilana.

Thilana was far more prudent than
her former amour. She revived
Immurk's system of informers, using
her former female colleagues ashore,
and paying well. The pirates again faded
from common view, striking only
when there was bloodier fare going on
elsewhere, and no attention to be
spared for a few lost vessels. Thilana
spent as much time ashore as on the
seas, working intrigues. In turn she was
strangled by another woman, Laershala
of the Emerald Eyes, who was a bolder
raider than Thilana, but still wise
enough to keep the pirates low in profile.

Laershala's reign was not as sturdy as
her predecessor's, and since her death
in battle with a Cormyrian Freesail, no
one person has truly commanded the
pirates. Instead, various captains ally
into factions behind an able leader;
these factions war and intrigue much
like the great courts of the South, uniting
only against naval attacks against
Earthspur the Dragonisle.

In the Year of the Prince, some of
these pirate leaders are known to be:

Teldar of the Kissing Maiden, who
flies a yellow pennant with three black
stars on it, and is an older, capable veteran
supported by the majority of the
pirates, but supported with little spirit
or lasting loyalty.

Vurgrom, a fat, brawling giant of a
man who styles himself "the Mighty"
and commands a strong fellowship
among the young.

Crammar, a soft-spoken, dispassionate
master of intrigue in Immurk?s tradition,
but widely thought a fop, and in
any case not a fighter, hence having little
popular support.

Azla, a very young woman, whose
age has already set many pirate captains
against her. Azla is a "witch of a
fighter" but has not yet had any opportunity
to demonstrate any ability at
intrigue, administration of a fleet or
creation of an intricate plan.
There are at least two hundred active
pirate vessels (and probably as many
more hulls, perhaps as many as six hundred),
hidden in the Pirate Isles and
around the coasts of the Sea of Fallen
Stars.

GAME INFORMATION: The ships of the
pirate fleet vary with the ships found in
the Inner Sea, and include Sembian
warships, converted Impilturian merchants,
and biremes and triremes from
Chondath and Chessenta. The latter
galleys function quite well in the relatively
calm waters of the Inner Sea,
crewed by slaves taken from previous
raids.

Armament of these ships depends on
the ship and owner, but generally runs
as follows:

    Small Galleys and Merchants: 1-2 ballistae
    Large Galleys and Merchants 2-6 ballistae and a catapult
    Warships 4-8 ballistae, 1-2 catapults, and sometimes (25% chance) of a trebuchet

Only galleys may engage in ramming
tactics, and only galleys are equipped
with rams.

Pirate crews are double that for normal
ships, as pirates tend to carry less
bulk goods than merchant ships. Some
pirates make use of companies of
archers, aquatic beasts, and spellcasters,
and it is a standard procedure
that any archers on a ship should make
an apparent spell-caster their first target.
As a result, half-elven, elven, and
other racial spellcasters that may wear
armor are valued in the pirate fleets for
making less of an obvious, vulnerable
target.

"The Dragonisle" proper can hold a
hundred and sixty to a hundred and
seventy vessels within its fortified harbors;
both harbors have chains, stone
underwater "breakrocks," and ramships
to prevent unauthorized entry.
Their entrances are further protected
by thick-walled forts. It northern harbor's fort
is built into a cliff along the
western side of the narrow harbor
entrance, while the southern harbor?s
fort is set square at the mouth of the
harbor. Each of these forts have a battery
of mystic Thayian bombards. The
effects of these protections are:

    * The chains, when raised, prevent
    all ships from passing across them.
    The links of these chains are as
    thick as a man across, and made of
    cast iron and plated with lead.

    * "Breakrocks" are artificial reefs set
    up in the harbor just below the
    waterline. Ships striking a breakrock
    are treated as being rammed
    by their own type of ship. Regular
    visitors of the ports are instructed
    how to sail by the harbormaster to
    avoid running aground.

    * Ramships are light galleys crewed
    by ten men (usually slaves or prisoners)
    with 2 hull points, and made
    of substandard materials. Their
    purpose is to engage and ram enemy
    ships in the harbor. In desperate
    circumstance, they are loaded
    with combustibles and set aflame.

    * The Thayian bombards are mystical
    devices which fire a screaming
    blue death upon enemy ships. Each
    fortress has four of these cast-iron
    monsters, which have a minimum
    range of 120 yards and a maximum
    range of 480 yards. They fire huge
    hollow stone balls filled with fluid
    sold by the Wizards of Thay that,
    placed in the bombard, ignites and
    carries the flaming stone ball to its
    target, inflicting 5-30 points fire
    damage, 2-12 points hull damage,
    and setting all flammables stuck
    ablaze. These bombards are wonders
    of this age, but are hampered
    by their size (each is larger than a
    manor-house in Waterdeep), their
    required fluid (which the Thayians
    part with at a dear price), and a
    lack of accuracy, for while the
    bombard may fire once every two
    turns, it only has a 1 in 10 chance of
    hitting its target.

Pirate signals and verbal codes
change constantly; here are a few old
passwords gleaned from various
sources: "Obold," "Immurk Way," and
"Holt-Ho!" Failure to use the correct
password when called upon will often
result in the death of the user.