In my last post I mentioned letters of marque and how the royal librarians of ancient Kesteva used them to send adventurers on quests to recover artifacts of interest. I felt then that I should explain them a bit more in a future post, so here it is.
Letters of marque were well known in Kesteva by the time the royal librarians figured out how to use them to their advantage. We know from the historical records pulled through the multidimensional door by the anonymous former newspaper editor who lived in a fog-shrouded Midwestern town that they were in use by the Kestevan military. Their full name was letters of marque and reprisal and in form and function they mirrored the documents by that name used in our own world.
In Kesteva as in our own world, a letter of marque and reprisal gave the bearer the legal right to hunt and attack pirates. From early in its history, ancient Kesteva faced pirate dangers from the Western Sea, and like the governments of our own world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lacked the naval ships to deal with the menace. Letters allowed private shipowners to join the effort and be handsomely rewarded through the capture, looting and sale of enemy vessels.
This went on for a century. Then the royal librarian of Roxen, perhaps in a fit of bureaucratic inspiration, issued a letter on his own authority as a government agent, not for aid in fighting pirates but in seeking out and retrieving the legendary Vessel of Amarantine from a rumored Lost City in the Wild Wood. The area was full of kobolds, which the librarian’s letter treated as a hostile enemy, with the Wild Wood treated much as open waters were treated in the naval letters. He issued the letter to an adventuring company called the Red Scourge. With the letter in hand, the Red Scourge was given permission to travel through the Wild Wood, technically owned by the king, and to loot the Lost City with the express charge to bring the Vessel of Amarantine back to the royal librarian.
The company was not successful. In fact, it disappeared. So did the second expedition, and the third. The fourth expedition, however, reached the fabled city and found the Vessel of Amarantine in a throne room that was caved in and losing to the elements.
The royal librarian of Roxen issued more letters to more companies. Each charged the company with recovering an object. Later letters dispensed with obvious scholarly pursuits and instead amounted to quests for gold and treasure “for historical purposes” such as may be fulfilled by sacks full of ancient gold coins. As more adventuring companies gained success, more royal librarians began issuing writs, and a small industry was born.
What the influx of treasure into Kesteva’s overall economy is a subject for another blog post, but it should be sufficient to say the letters were successful. In Kesteva of the 307 time frame in which we have placed our game, player characters will find no shortage of opportunity through the royal librarians.
Royal Road West probably will offer translated letters of marque in the future (let us know if reproductions or fill-in the-blank letters would be helpful in your game sessions). What do you think? Would you like to see letters of marque offered as gaming aids?
