In the Estes Sea, a ship’s strength is inseparable from the pearls embedded within it. Every vessel—from a humble cutter to a Titanic Flagship—functions as a living nexus of hull, crew, and elemental core. Pearl slots do not merely store magical energy; they dictate how the ship moves, strikes, and survives. Captains who fail to respect the delicate balance of slots and power quickly find themselves at the bottom of the sea.
Each ship possesses a fixed number of pearl slots, determined by hull size, reinforcement, and craftsmanship. Pearls come in five sizes—Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, and Giant—occupying 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 slots respectively. A ship may fill its slots in any combination that does not exceed its maximum, allowing for near-infinite customization.
Primary Pearls: These define the ship’s elemental signature and core systems. They may be of any size appropriate to the hull.
Secondary Pearls: Smaller or equal-sized pearls supplement primary power, often dedicated to weaponry, propulsion, or defensive wards.
Elemental Affinity: Fire, Frost, Lightning, Acid, and Force pearls interact with ship systems to enhance specific attacks or defenses. Contradictory elements within close proximity may cause surges or hull stress, requiring careful layout.
Pearls bound to the ship’s masts, rudder, or keel channel energy to accelerate or stabilize the vessel.
Titanic Flagships: A single Giant Pearl can imbue a ship with near-supernatural momentum, allowing it to ride storm currents as if alive. Pairing a Giant with two Large Pearls can create elemental gusts from figureheads, giving bursts of speed equivalent to spell effects like wind walk or control water.
Grand Vessels: One Large Pearl in the keel grants swift, precise maneuvering. Medium Pearls can be allocated to sail tension, rudder stabilization, or elemental current manipulation, allowing sudden directional changes in battle.
Common Ships: A Medium Pearl drives the main sails and rudder, while Small pearls adjust minor sail rigging or power emergency bursts. Tiny pearls contribute to rudimentary elemental stabilization.
Example: The “Windbreaker Leviathan,” a legendary Titanic, used a Giant Pearl and four Mediums to navigate Frost Shoals with uncanny precision, surviving storms that sank lesser ships.
Pearls dramatically enhance offensive systems, powering cannons, ballistae, harpoons, and pearl-forged artillery.
Titanic Flagships: With two Giant Pearls and a set of Large or Medium pearls, broadsides can release torrents of elemental fire or frost, comparable to D&D fireball or lightning bolt effects across entire decks. A figurehead bound to a Pearl can discharge area-effect strikes, targeting enemy hulls or boarding parties.
Grand Vessels: Optimal for precision. One Large Pearl can empower cannons with elemental charge, while Medium or Small pearls allow rapid, repeated strikes. Grand Vessels often defeat larger ships by exploiting elemental weaknesses and leveraging superior targeting.
Common Ships: Limited to Medium or Small pearls, weapon augmentation is modest but still effective in skilled hands. Harpoons may gain frost or lightning effects, or sails may generate gusts that propel boarding craft.
Historical anecdote: During the Battle of Ash Tide Strait (742 AR), the Grand Vessel Ironback Galleon survived a Titanic broadside by channeling four Medium Frost Pearls into reinforced hull wards, reducing structural damage to a fraction of what was expected.
Pearls also reinforce hulls, power shields, and elemental wards.
Titanic Flagships: Large and Giant Pearls provide layers of protection, from elemental barriers to reactive armor that channels impact into harmless sparks or shockwaves. Up to four Large Pearls alongside a Giant can stabilize multiple decks simultaneously.
Grand Vessels: Medium and Small pearls reinforce hull seams and critical points, absorbing impacts or dispersing elemental attacks.
Common Ships: Primarily use Medium Pearls for core protection, with Small and Tiny pearls providing localized defense for sails, rigging, and crew quarters.
Crew rituals often accompany defensive setups; meditative chants or synchronized rowing amplify pearl resonance, particularly in Grand Vessels where precise timing can mean the difference between life and death.
Figureheads are more than decoration; they are conduits. A Giant or Large Pearl bound to a figurehead can project elemental effects, manipulate weather in a small radius, or even disrupt enemy magic. Auxiliary systems—cargo stabilization, lantern illumination, boarding aids—benefit from smaller pearls, converting stored energy into subtle but vital advantages.
Example: The Storm Reaver, a Grand Vessel, used a Medium Lightning Pearl in its figurehead to arc electrical strikes at boarding parties, disabling enemy crews without damaging the hull.
Pearl slot distribution is critical to tactical planning:
Titanic Flagships: Favor overwhelming primary power with Giant Pearls, supplementing with Large or Medium pearls for weapons and defenses. Flexibility is limited; losing a single core pearl can be catastrophic.
Grand Vessels: Can optimize for precision strikes, elemental diversity, or speed. Distributed Medium and Small pearls allow adaptive strategies against multiple threats.
Common Ships: Excel at guerrilla tactics, hit-and-run attacks, or boarding, using smaller pearls to boost maneuverability and enhance specific weapons.
Example: In the coordinated raid on the Coral Graveyards (764 AR), a mixed fleet of Titanic, Grand, and Common ships used complementary pearl distributions to maximize elemental synergy. The Titanic’s Giant Pearl blasted a path through reefs, Grand Vessels followed with precise frost and lightning strikes, and Common Ships harassed enemy crews with swift boarding maneuvers.
Pearls of conflicting elements, or too many in a single hull section, may cascade into uncontrolled energy surges. These “pearl overloads” can breach decks, ignite fires, or shatter hulls. Historical records warn: the Shattered Pearl Incident (689 AR) sank three Grand Vessels when combined fire and frost pearls detonated during a storm, leaving the crews lost to the depths.
Captains must balance slot allocation, elemental compatibility, and crew capacity. Even the most reinforced Titanic cannot survive repeated mismanagement of its cores.
Pearls bound to a ship’s sails, rudder, and keel act as more than mere magical engines—they literally shape how the vessel moves through the Estes Sea.
Titanic Flagships: A Giant Pearl in the keel provides immense momentum, allowing the ship to surge forward through storms, currents, and reefs as though carried on elemental wings. When combined with Large or Medium Pearls in the masts, the ship can channel control water–like currents to lift or push itself over obstacles, or generate bursts of wind to gain sudden speed. These propulsion pearls also allow Titanic Flagships to maintain near-impossible course precision during storms, making them almost untouchable by smaller adversaries. Skilled crews can even synchronize rowing with elemental surges to create a rolling wave of kinetic force, using the ship itself as a battering ram.
Grand Vessels: A Large Pearl in the main hull allows for rapid maneuvering and short bursts of extraordinary speed. Medium and Small Pearls may be distributed among sails and rudders to enhance tacking, reduce drag, or generate elemental gusts that complement wind patterns. During the Battle of Frost Shoals (758 AR), the Grand Vessel Silver Gale used two Medium Frost Pearls in tandem with Small Wind Pearls to weave through jagged ice fields, evading pursuit while delivering precision harpoon strikes.
Common Ships: Propulsion is more modest but still effective. A single Medium Pearl can propel the ship at slightly above normal speed, while Small and Tiny Pearls allow minor course adjustments, emergency bursts, or elemental stabilization. A Medium Pearl can simulate effects akin to the haste spell, increasing the speed of the vessel and crew coordination for brief moments, though repeated use risks overheating the hull or exhausting the crew.