Pirate Crew Generator

For all your ugly swabbies, handsome swashbucklers, fabulous amputees, comely lasses, strange wenches, monstrous half-men, and other backgroundian mateys:

Here is a horrible and somewhat NSFW video which I should discourage you from watching but maybe it'll get you into the mood or something.



Given the inevitability - nay, necessity - of my Warmark Skerry players eventually acquiring a ship with which to go sailing and pillaging and adventuring around the campaign world, they're going to need ne'er-do-wells and hirelings with which to crew the darn thing. With the help of a little Gygaxian Democracy (thanks G+ and twitter followers) here's my Pirate Crew Generator.

First things first, a d100 Evocative Pirate Name table:

1. Cutlass Dan
2. Goldilocks
3. Abel Daggers
4. Ernst One-Eye
5. Good Old Karl
6. Glimmer
7. Horse
8. Peg-Leg Pearl
9. Quiet Tom
10. Axethrower Joe
11. Babs Morda
12. Isaac Bucket
13. Worthington Steele
14. L'il Sebastian
15. Ice-Pick Smithy
16. Black Toes Jensen
17. Cookie Crumbles
18. Stede Farouj, handsomest man alive.
19. Her Nibs, aka Lady Bella Hankerton.
20. Split-nose Krank
21. Ishmael Hands
22. Fancy O’Tate
23. Teuthy Terry
24. Aaron the Albatross
25. Red Meg
26. "Not quite as big as Big Dave" Dave
27. Tsing the Raven
28. Abdullah
29. Devil-Knuckles Dan
30. Critical Bill
31. Slicky Joel
32. Bobuelo
33. Fake Shemp
34. Freddy Four Fingers
35. Benjamin Mook
36. Repeat Pete
37. Francois Debonair
38. Grunter
39. Evie Gundark
40. Cameron Kannons
41. the Bottom Feeder
42. Shasta McNasty
43. Edie O'Nyne
44. "Hauling" Oates McDonald
45. Nirvana Nellie
46. Parson Dong
47. Lonesome Smee
48. Gabriel White
49. Hellmo
50. Otis Carn
51. Mack Salmon
52. Squinty McGiggins
53. Hooks Plenty
54. Eagle-Eye Jones
55. Mermaid Todd
56. Admiral Sixton (six-toed ship's cat)
57. Red Rot Rodgers
58. Harrrvey Shivers
59. Speck LowLeg
60. Pelican Smith
61. Lumpy Muscles
62. Sal Shrifty
63. Sailin' guy
64. Scurvy Stuart
65. Cannonball Jones
66. Triplets: Old Pete, Young Pete, Older Pete
67. “Lefty” McRighty
68. Andy British
69. Battlin' Bonnie
70. Cutthroat Carl
71. Dangerous Dave
72. Emily Widow
73. Six-Knot Frank
74. Gingerbeard
75. Half-face Harry
76. Inigo Morte
77. Janey One-Finger
78. Lousy Louie
79. Stabbin' Oswald
80. Hookfoot
81. Patchy
82. Mad Grog
83. Mirg Middlefinger
84. Kharebutu The Drowned
85. Scarred Sar
86. Doubles the Doppleganger
87. Butterknife Bob
88. Frozen Fingers
89. Reeks
90. “Goosepimples” Gobbler
91. Hot Nick Harry
92. Soulless Wallace
93. Ghastly Black
94. Flintlock Nancy
95. The Gouger
96. Penny the Dreadful
97. Dogface Doug
98. Emberbeard Romero
99. Mincemeat
100. “Built like an Outhouse” o’Turner

I figure your average pirate crew is about thirty souls and I don't really see the point in rolling up names for every single one of them (My general theory of random tables is that they're most entertaining as Part of Play on an As Needed basis).

I plan on mostly handwaving through the whole "pull up a desk at the Skull & Flagon and hire yourself a pirate crew" part of the game unless the players really want to get into some detail of the thing and risk bar fights and other shenanigans. An offhand going rate was to charge a gold piece a head to get them on the ship and then figure out some method of charging maintenance and quelling mutinies later on. Rescuing slaves/prisoners or converting dim-witted follower-type bad guy minions seem perfectly reasonable crew-recruiting tools as well, of course.

So basic order of things: PCs buy (or more likely "acquire") a ship, somehow get it back to port, hire a crew, and yo-ho-ho off into the oceanic hexcrawl to fight sea dragons and try to avoid maelstroms.

Then, during play with the PCs captaining their ship (they should probably choose a captain), most of the shipmating and "aye aye, cap'n"ing will be happening in the background until an NPC shipmate moves to the foreground and needs a little more character. Especially if they're being recruited for meatshield duties, as I believe every redshirt deserves a little memorableness before they die for the cause.

If the name alone isn't evocative enough, here's a subtable, with some inspiration/stealing from Dyson Logos' Random Pirate Captain Table.

d20 Weird Pirate Characteristics table

1. tentacle for a finger
2. obscene tattoos, sometimes moving
3. tongue cut out - can only hnnngh and mmmrrrhhh and haaaagaaahh
4. two hooks for hands (still surprisingly deft)
5. thoroughly impressive and elaborately braided topknot
6. suspected of being an unusually articulate zombie (probably of the less-decayed juju variety)
7. strange-colored skin (blue, green, yellow, probably of djinnish or efreetish origin)
8. has a vermin for a pet (1. rat 2. seagull 3. crab 4. flame-lizard 5. starfish 6. pixie with a drinking problem)
9. barnacles instead of hair or beard
10. surprisingly fat and waddlesome
11. is unable to speak without rhyming (and plays a mean accordion)
12. face is covered in bandages (claims a skin sensitivity, no-one knows what they look like)
13. thoroughly pierced with fishbone scrimshaw of all variety
14. keeps a jewel in their eye-socket
15. turns into a skeleton in moonlight (but plays a mean knucklebone)
16. is covered in knives, and only speaks of themself in third person (“Machete don’t text”)
17. has a visible third eye
18. sharpens their teeth and nails, might be ex-cannibal
19. possessed of overwhelmingly stiff-necked Jeeves-like formality
20. former street-fighter, has either (1. Dhalsim-like stretchy limbs 2. Ability to electrify their body like an eel 3. Can breathe fire after drinking rum 4. “hummingbird hands” 5. a mask they never take off 6. just humongously Russian)

Happy buccaneering!