‘Scourge Of The High Seas’ Sets Sail Soon
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
Once, I bought a pirate TTRPG book to impress a girl. I was young, in my early 20s to be exact, and she had been coming into the bookstore I worked at. She mentioned she wanted to start playing in a TTRPG game but was really looking for something with pirate themes.
Pirates of the Caribbean movies were kinda hot at the time and she was into them. So I, a barely-can-scrape-two-pennies-together nerd, in an attempt to impress this very chill very kind young woman, spent my food money on a Pirate themed 3.0 3rd-party TTRPG book.
We never once played. She was cool and she came in a lot and we talked a lot and even went out to dinner a time or two, but never got around to rolling dice together. She went one way and I went the other and that was that.
When I come across the book on my shelf I always think it was such a silly thing for young me to do. I don’t exactly know what I thought I was going to accomplish. I was very excited to recruit any and all to join the table back in those days… and I mean… Pirate stuff IS pretty cool.
Speaking of “Pirate stuff,” I work for Outland Games as their Games Director, and some of the team has a really cool pirate project that is coming out soon. It was in the works well before I joined, but I think it has a good chance to make some waves.
Scourge of the High Seas, created by Dustin Dade with art by Shannon Potratz, is a board game for 3-6 players. Having a playtime of 90-120 minutes it’s kinda ideal for those who like a game with substance but don’t want to get caught up in something that is going to take HOURS to finish. It comes with over 200 pieces and included a deck of treasure cards to add some loot-the-room excitement to the gameplay.
The game is played over 5 rounds, where three to six players will navigate their ships to attack merchants, islands, and other enemies in order to gain supplies to sell at the market for coin. Once sold you need to bury your treasure and loot to keep it safe from other prying eyes until the end of the game. The Pirate Captain with the most points at the end of the game is the ultimate winner!
Players search for merchant ships or royal-held islands to plunder for supplies, treasure, and coin. You can then deliver the supplies to nearby markets to sell and increase holdings. But you have to be careful! A Pirate Captain’s fortune is not safe until it’s buried on a hidden island. So if you hold onto too much loot, you may become an easy target for other players to steal from.
The project is currently launching soon on Kickstarter and as I work with Outland on a ton of projects I am sure I will update you more as the project goes live and there is more to talk about.
Until next time… roll the dice.
