Hounds of the Sea

In the adventure, you and your friends (tha' be players later on) take on the roles of legendary privateers, shrewd buccaneers and other kinds of bloodthirsty scallywags. All of whom are tied together by the code and honour amongst pirates. Both code and honour will be betrayed multiple times as the players plot and make mischief for and against each other. One adventure takes approximately one to two hours, including all preparations and planning, such as shuffling the cards, creating characters and making up the premise. The game is playable with just the cards, but you might find the game easier to follow if you use paper to make notes and count the crosses in the Davy Jones Counter. The game is all about having fun. Push your characters into complicated and fun situations. Curse like a scallywag. Cheat fate, act like a legend, and if the inevitable cold grave calls you - go with a bang.

Each player has a character. After creating the characters, you may use the cards and the adventure-o-matic to create a grand, challenging adventure. All scenes start from a plot twist. The twists might be positive, helpful, funny or they might come in the shape of a challenge. Players respond to challenges by using cards from their hand. A player may play as many cards of the same suit as he likes, but the sum of their values must be at least equal to the challenge card’s value in order to beat the challenge. If the character is unable to resolve a challenge with the cards in hand, the situation might call for a betrayal. A challenge from another character’s action can kill a character, if the challenge winning player calls for it. However, challenges between characters do not need to be deadly: a character might try to seduce another or steal his hat.

Pirates never betray each other, or the pirate code, Well... at least if it’s not a matter of life and death ... Or if it’s not about love ... Or if there is no gold in it ... Or… well, you get the picture. A player calls for a betrayal, and asks for a suit. Even if the characters cannot die directly from the challenges, there is a price for failure and betrayal. Sooner or later the cold arms of the grave will welcome all pirates of the sea. There should be 12 empty slots in each character sheet. These slots are used to keep score of the character’s failures and betrayals. Each time the character fails a challenge, two X’s are added to the counter. Each time the character betrays the others, one X is added to the counter.

And each time the character gets one or more X’s - a card is drawn. If the value of the card is equal or less than the number of X’s on the character sheet, the character’s days are numbered and he is doomed.If a character already has 12 X’s on the sheet, he is immediately doomed, when he gets the 13th mark. A doomed character will die in any of the next three scenes. Players should not feel too attached to a doomed character. He might look pale or even ghostly or see omens of his death for he knows that the day is his last.

When and how does the game end? The game should end if • Adventure has reached its conclusion, • You reach agreed time limit (Professional pirates recommend using 2 hour time limit) • Players are too tired (of drinking Rum) to play on.