Gloranthan nautical flags

[Brootse]

I'm running a nautical campaign and would like to hear other people's suggestions on what would Gloranthan nautical flags look like? Would the merchant ships fly their own city's flag, or their national flag? I'd need the flags for the Quinpolic League, Seshnela before Nolos left, Holy Country's Navy, Nochet, Rhigos, Esrolia, Heortland and Shadow Plateau. And Jrustelan Vadeli flags.

Quinpolic league could perhaps have five city gates on a blue background. And Holy Country's Navy's flag could be divided to six parts, each with different color. For Shadow Plateau I'm thinking grey or dark blue with Night Rune in the center. Esrolia's flag could be green with a copper colored Ernalda in the center.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Brootse

[Joerg]

Are flags used at all, or are the sails bearing the insignia of their origin? Or shields raised to the masthead?

And is there any strong enough national identity to override an influential merchant prince's house or a guild's insignia? If military units on land aren't uniformed normally, why would ships have a single common item?

 

 

 

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

'm running a nautical campaign and would like to hear other people's suggestions on what would Gloranthan nautical flags look like? Would the merchant ships fly their own city's flag, or their national flag?

Flags seem way too modern.

I think the main differentiator will be the ship's prow and the general ship design.

[dumuzid]

Flags would also be lost on mer people unless they breach for a look at the topside of the ship, and I'd figure signaling to the triolini would be at least as important for Gloranthan ships as the role signal flags play in real world navigation.

How do you proclaim your allegiances to the merfolk?  Painting or carving on the keel or the outer hull?

[Joerg]

7 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

How do you proclaim your allegiances to the merfolk?  Painting or carving on the keel or the outer hull?

Dormal's Opening rites. Probably gives a measure of taste or similar to the hull.

Similar measures for coastal fisherfolk, but those usually cooperate with individual merpeople anyway, at least where there are friendly merfolk. (Not Umathela or Fonrit, I suppose...)

Edited May 10, 2020 by Joerg

[Brootse]

16 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Are flags used at all, or are the sails bearing the insignia of their origin? Or shields raised to the masthead?

And is there any strong enough national identity to override an influential merchant prince's house or a guild's insignia? If military units on land aren't uniformed normally, why would ships have a single common item?

On Earth merchant ships flew flags at least hundreds of years before nationalism existed. The flags were used to signify under whose protection the ships were.

 

8 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Flags seem way too modern.

I think the main differentiator will be the ship's prow and the general ship design.

Romans used naval flags for signalling at least from Augustus' time. And guide has Lunars and Fronelans carrying standards and some people carrying windsocks, so the basic idea behind the flags is already understood.

And it's not like Glorantha isn't already full of anachronisms like warhammers, military flails and parrying daggers.

[Brootse]

11 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Flags would also be lost on mer people unless they breach for a look at the topside of the ship, and I'd figure signaling to the triolini would be at least as important for Gloranthan ships as the role signal flags play in real world navigation.

How do you proclaim your allegiances to the merfolk?  Painting or carving on the keel or the outer hull?

Nice idea!

[Sir_Godspeed]

Less countries or city-states (though I suppose the latter is possible) and more the patron noble house, guild or other organization (including temple or organized cult, if such a thing is applicable), imho.

[Lordabdul]

IMG I would not use flags, except maybe for very well organized/intellectual states or cults (like Issaries, or western nations). For the rest, the style and decoration of the ship should be enough to identify it, although that requires good knowledge. Some ships would be super easy to recognize, like Waertagi ships or Dwarf city-ships, but even a Wolf Pirate is easy to spot given the big wolf head on the prow, and the general mean-looking people on board. The Guide shows a bunch of ship designs for reference (one might note that none of them seem to have flags) on p.466-467.

It feels to me like with the recent reopening the seas, it's probably been just a big mess of various boats and ships doing whatever they want/can for the past few decades. If your Hero Wars has a maritime warfare component, that might be the event that necessitates better identification between factions and, therefore, flags on ships. Otherwise, maybe big ports like Nochet impose that kind of thing to help with administrative upkeep, and it spreads from there, with ships keeping their flags up even when away from Esrolian shores.

Edited May 11, 2020 by lordabdul

[Sir_Godspeed]

Oh, and don't forget that sails themselves can be decorated.

[Snugz]

Art in HQ "Men of the Sea" book has some useful illustrations as inspirations for decorating ships. I'm fond of the Vadeli one.

[soltakss]

Ship Types are as important as flags.

Don't forget that the Opening only happened a generation ago and most people sail in the ships that their ancestors used before the Closing. I can see Gloranthans having a silhouette diagram showing the shapes of ships to they can identify them.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Oh, and don't forget that sails themselves can be decorated.

Yes, that would be important, I think, more so than a flag that can be quickly changed. It is hard to change a sail quickly.

19 hours ago, Brootse said:

For Shadow Plateau I'm thinking grey or dark blue with Night Rune in the center.

For me, Shadow Plateau ships are black with a black flag. You can't have enough black, especially where trolls are concerned.

[M Helsdon]

Colored banners and pennants will probably be common. It is likely that instead of flags, sails will be painted or dyed to bear the symbol of their home port.

[Brootse]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

Ship Types are as important as flags.

Don't forget that the Opening only happened a generation ago and most people sail in the ships that their ancestors used before the Closing. I can see Gloranthans having a silhouette diagram showing the shapes of ships to they can identify them.

Yes, that would be important, I think, more so than a flag that can be quickly changed. It is hard to change a sail quickly.

For me, Shadow Plateau ships are black with a black flag. You can't have enough black, especially where trolls are concerned.

Sounds good, I think that I might go with all black flags for them.

 

7 hours ago, Snugz said:

Art in HQ "Men of the Sea" book has some useful illustrations as inspirations for decorating ships. I'm fond of the Vadeli one.

Could you post the Vadeli one?

[Snugz]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

Sounds good, I think that I might go with all black flags for them.

 

Could you post the Vadeli one?

p15 pic; I also noted on a quick breeze through that yes, some ships are shown with pennants/flags. Like here. (and p43,69)

But not fancy flags. More decoration of sails (far more visible from a distance on those big sails), and prows/rams, like others have said.

[Snugz]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

Sounds good, I think that I might go with all black flags for them.

 

Could you post the Vadeli one?

(if doing a nautical campaign I highly recommend at least getting pdf of that Men of the Sea book-- lots of nuggets of inspiration. Some Quinpolic League info not seen elsewhere.)

[Brootse]

1 hour ago, Snugz said:

p15 pic; I also noted on a quick breeze through that yes, some ships are shown with pennants/flags. Like here. (and p43,69)

But not fancy flags. More decoration of sails (far more visible from a distance on those big sails), and prows/rams, like others have said.

Nice!

Yeah, the decorated prows have played an important part in the campaign. The first ship that the characters captured was a large roundship carrying grain from Esrolia that featured a Grain Goddess on the prow, which was burned with torches to be unrecognizable. After the work was done, someone realized that it resembled a scorched manatee, so she was renamed to the Black Manatee. The first ship that the group built didn't have a wolf at the prow like most wolf pirate ships, but instead a fish, and she is called the Black Perch.

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

Yeah, the decorated prows have played an important part in the campaign. The first ship that the characters captured was a large roundship carrying grain from Esrolia that featured a Grain Goddess on the prow, which was burned with torches to be unrecognizable.

The ship's spirit will be deeply offended... At some point she will have her revenge, probably by splitting a seam in the next heavy seas.

[Brootse]

1 minute ago, M Helsdon said:

The ship's spirit will be deeply offended... At some point she will have her revenge, probably by splitting a seam in the next heavy seas.

The campaign started in RQ3 days before official rules for Wyters. But I had made some house rules for the Wolf Pirate "wyters" that were mentioned somewhere. And the original ship had had such a small crew originally, that it wouldn't even have had a Wyter in the current rules.

[M Helsdon]

12 minutes ago, Brootse said:

The campaign started in RQ3 days before official rules for Wyters. But I had made some house rules for the Wolf Pirate "wyters" that were mentioned somewhere. And the original ship had had such a small crew originally, that it wouldn't even have had a Wyter in the current rules.

Everything in Glorantha can have a spirit. It may be small and weak, but offending it still has consequences...

[Brootse]

9 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Everything in Glorantha can have a spirit. It may be small and weak, but offending it still has consequences...

In Glorantha that may be true, but in RuneQuest the community needs 50 persons to have a Wyter. Of course it's easy to houserule smaller Wyters.

e: Bestiary p. 165 has a table for random spirits. The smallest Wyter matches the spirit on line five, so if you want smaller Wyters just use one of the smaller spirits in the table.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Brootse

[M Helsdon]

6 minutes ago, Brootse said:

In Glorantha that may be true, but in RuneQuest the community needs 50 persons to have a Wyter. Of course it's easy to houserule smaller Wyters.

e: Bestiary p. 165 has a table for random spirits. The smallest Wyter matches the spirit on line five, so if you want smaller Wyters just use one of the smaller spirits in the table.

A ship spirit need not be a wyter... It's a foolish sailor who doesn't make a small offering to their ship spirit... Defacing a ship's figurehead will have consequences. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

15 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

A ship spirit need not be a wyter... It's a foolish sailor who doesn't make a small offering to their ship spirit... Defacing a ship's figurehead will have consequences. 

Unless of course it doesn't. 

I don't really see the point in retroactively criticising someone for how their campaign played out. 

Maybe the spirit took a liking to them or whatever. It's creative storytelling. Stuff happens.

[Brootse]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Unless of course it doesn't. 

I don't really see the point in retroactively criticising someone for how their campaign played out. 

Maybe the spirit took a liking to them or whatever. It's creative storytelling. Stuff happens.

The Black Manatee got a wolf skin nailed on the prow decoration and the wolf's spirit enchanted in it. Later the wolf skin was moved to the Black Perch.

[M Helsdon]

13 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I don't really see the point in retroactively criticising someone for how their campaign played out. 

No retrospective criticism intended.