Events · The Unlicensed Reaches

A signal lamp blinks through the fog off your bow—three long flashes and one short, the Guild distress code. Disabled barges often drift out here, though pirates use the same signal as bait.

A tax collector's toll skiff has set up at this anchorage—a single clerk with an iron strongbox charging six silver to every ship that drops anchor. An armed patrol cutter is due to collect the box at dusk.

A grain barge drifts silently across the lane with open cargo hatches and a cold smokestack. Her Keel still keeps her aloft, but no one answers your hail.

Captain Hesper Vane of the cutter Magpie has been drinking on the pier since noon. "Fifteen silver on a gunnery duel to first surrender!" she calls out, pointing her mug at your ship. "How about you, Captain?"

Captain Vane boards your ship to pay her debt and eyes your gun crews with respect. "My sister captains the Jackdaw—she's a deadlier shot than me, and she owes me money. Care to fight her for double the purse?"

A six-barge Guild convoy crawls up the sky-lane ahead. The last barge has fallen a mile behind with a smoking engine stack, while a single hired escort cutter struggles to guard the whole line.

A Lowborn freighter skipper approaches you on the pier. The Excise has impounded his entire cargo over a clerical error and locked it in the customs warehouse. "Help me break it out tonight for a one-third cut—there's only one watchman and one cutter outside the harbor."

A heavy refinery barge lumbers ahead, her hold glowing bright blue with a full season's haul of raw crystal. Two armed escort cutters fly tight formation on her flanks.

At sundown, one of the two escort cutters peels off toward a coastal fuel depot. The crystal barge and her remaining escort drop anchor behind a rock spire for the night.

Through the driving storm, a harbor beacon shines from a crag where your chart shows only jagged rock. Wreckers have hung a false light to lure ships to their doom—and their boats below will be loaded with plunder.

A gloomwing swarm has roosted across the face of a rich crystal outcrop. The vein beneath them is one of the richest you've ever seen—but a swarm this large rarely roosts without a mate nearby.

Excise patrol ships have blockaded a foundry town over unpaid taxes. A local trade agent intercepts you in a fast skiff. "The townsfolk are starving—down to boiling leather for soup. They'll pay double market price for any provisions you can land, if you can slip past the two Excise cutters."

A wrecked Guild armory ship lies broken across a crystal spire. A salvage sloop is already moored alongside flying a claim flag, though her crew hasn't pried open the armored gun deck yet.

Behind the refinery, a contraband dealer points to a shed with a heavy new padlock. "A whole season's worth of refined dust is locked in there. A bounty hunter crew bought it from me, then robbed me of my payment. Steal it back from them and we'll split it fifty-fifty. Their ship is moored on the roof above."

Painted boundary kites mark the edge of a noble lord's private sky-reserve. Beyond the kites, the air is thick with plump grey sky-geese that have been off-limits to common hunters for a generation.

Lord-Captain Aubrey Thane keeps an open duel challenge nailed to the magehold gate: any ship may fight his frigate a mile off the tower until one vessel surrenders. A masterwork weapon hangs beside the notice in a glass prize case, surrounded by the nameplates of eleven ships he has already defeated.

Thane's steward brings a blank nameplate down to your boarding ramp. "His Lordship asks what ship name should be painted on the gate in your honor. He also asks, in private, whether you would take his young nephew aboard as crew—the boy badly needs real sea experience."

A local noble house has stretched a heavy iron chain across the only mountain pass, with a toll office on the cliffside and an armed cutter guarding the blockade. Their fortress sits a mile further up the valley.

A gilded noble yacht wallows ahead flying inverted pennants—the traditional signal for a vessel in distress. Noble houses pay generously for rescue, though you notice all her gunports are shut and freshly painted.

A wine merchant named Odo Marrow stops you on the dock. Two of his cargo barges sail tonight for the next beacon, and his usual guard ship is in drydock with a split keel. "One day's escort duty. Half pay now, half on arrival. The lane has been mostly quiet."

The clan aerie is holding its combat trials this week. Outsiders may enter one event: a mock battle against a pair of clan warbirds, fought until one side yields. The elders have hung valuable prizes on the trial pole, though few lowland captains dare compete.

A clan elder with grey feathers braided in her hair leads you to the prize pole, where three trophies hang. "A victor claims one reward. Choose wisely."

A skywyrm's nest sits on a high cliff ledge, filled with shed scales that armorers buy for good silver. The mother wyrm is away hunting, though her mate is likely patrolling nearby.

Clan hunters are driving a massive storm-ray along the edge of a thunderhead using horn blasts and signal kites. Their hunt-captain hails you: "A ship your size can block its escape! Help us corner the beast, and we'll split the meat and crystal!"

A massive cargo kite is being towed toward the clan aeries by a single aging warbird. Three pirate sloops flying black sails are closing in from three sides to hijack the shipment.

You spot a calm, sheltered cove with a freshwater spring running down the rock—the best anchorage for a day's flight. However, there are fresh mooring scratches on the stone and the smell of extinguished campfires.

This coghold has been forced to buy crystal from a single Guild convoy at inflated prices for years. The factory steward pulls you aside: "Undercut the Guild's price by ten percent and I'll buy four crystal right now in cash. Fair warning: the convoy keeps bounty hunters on retainer to punish anyone who breaks their monopoly."

A gutted workshop barge lies wrecked on a ridge. Floating in the still air around her are six clockwork sentries, completely wound down and silent. Inside the barge, the tool lockers are still locked.

The Compact has suspended a massive brass tollgate across the sky lane, guarded by an armed clockwork sentry. Dropping an official token into the slot swings the barrier arms open. Nearby, a tinker on a raft is selling counterfeit tokens at a steep discount.

Regulator Pim Sprocket has built an automated clockwork cutter that she claims can defeat any crewed timber vessel in the sky. She has posted an open challenge at the factory gate, putting her finest invention up as the prize.

A Compact survey ship drifts dead in the lane, her lamps out and frost coating her rails despite the warm air. Something inside her hull is still ticking loudly. Compact survey ships carry precision instruments worth a small fortune.

A smuggler broker with silver-stained fingernails needs two contraband crates slipped past a bounty hunter blockade tonight. "Triple the standard rate, paid on delivery. The hunters know my last three runners by name, but they don't know your ship."

A syndicate of bounty hunters operates an impound yard here, holding seized ships and cargo behind a heavy chain boom. Free Captain Maud Tarrow points out her confiscated cargo stacked on the dock. "Help me raid the dock to steal my goods back, and we'll split the haul. Watch out for that black guard ship."

With the guard ship crippled, the entire impound yard lies unguarded while the bounty hunters ashore scramble to reach their boats. Tarrow has her crates back, and motions toward the rest of the seized goods on the dock.

A small skiff drifts across the sky lane with a lone figure aboard, waving a shirt tied to an oar. Behind the skiff sits a massive, suspiciously still cloudbank.

In the port tavern, a bounty hunter slaps a wanted warrant on the table and buys the room a round. The warrant is for Corwin Hale—captain of the cutter moored beside yours, who once lent you a spare mast spar. The hunter's partner is already blocking the tavern door.

A dead crystal leviathan hangs wedged between two rock spires, its valuable crystal hide only half-stripped. However, a ravenous swarm of gloomwings blankets the carcass.

Once a season, the Crown Admiralty invites a private vessel to fight a mock duel against a royal frigate for a silver purse and an arsenal cannon. The event is meant to show off Navy superiority, and the registration clerk barely glances up when you approach.

An Admiralty intelligence captain in a plain coat meets you outside the arsenal gate after your victory. "Well fought. Naval intelligence can use a capable ship that looks like an ordinary freighter. Run an off-the-books errand for us, or take your prize and pretend we never spoke."

The high clouds above the capital peak are a restricted Crown reserve where private harvesting is strictly forbidden. The air up here is rich with ley-dew that condenses into raw crystal on cold sails, and Navy patrols sweep the area every hour.

The cargo from your last delivery sits locked in the Excise customs warehouse under a red seizure seal. Your buyer swears his signature on the confiscation order was forged, and offers to pay handsomely if you recover the crates—though an Excise frigate and her armed shore party are guarding the dock.

The recovered crates sit in your hold, still bearing the Crown's red customs seals. Your original buyer is waiting at the next port with your promised fee—or you can break the seals and keep the valuable cargo to sell on the black market.

A royal courier kite has crashed in the storm ahead, its emergency beacon flashing Admiralty distress codes. The Crown pays a reward for recovered dispatch cases—and black-market brokers pay even more. Another ship on the horizon is already turning toward the beacon.

The Royal Mint's armored pay-barge is making its monthly circuit of the summit garrisons, carrying freshly minted silver for a thousand soldiers. Each night she anchors at a different mooring, where half her naval escort goes ashore to collect their own wages first.

Corsair Captain Ilse Brandt accuses you of stealing a prize ship she had already claimed. Under the Free Captains' Articles, disputes between captains are settled by a ship-to-ship duel a league outside port until one surrenders, with the loser paying for the winner's repairs. The whole harbor is placing bets.

The Crown has established a fortified customs station across the main sky lane into the Free Muster: an Excise cutter, a floating toll hulk, and a noble house frigate waiting on call nearby. Free Captains have been talking for a month about someone finally tearing it down.

A Guild trade convoy has arrived at the Free Muster under a temporary flag of truce, selling bolts and provisions at fixed Guild rates. The local port merchants are furious, and one offers to back you with silver if you moor alongside the convoy and undercut their prices from your deck.

An abandoned Crown supply ship drifts outside the Free Muster with her lifeboats gone and her cargo hold still full. Curiously, no local pirate has claimed her—and in these waters, an untouched prize is almost certainly a baited trap.

An overcrowded river barge carrying wild casters and their families is trying to reach sanctuary at the Free Muster. Her captain offers all the coin they have if you'll escort them through the final stretch of sky, where bounty hunters patrol in pairs.

Three beacon lamps burn inside a bank of dead Hush weather where no magic should survive: a Crown crystal tender lies becalmed with her fuel tanks full. Dark, unlit hulls are drifting through the grey fog around her.

A Crown ward-frigate hangs dead in the sky, her protective wards unraveled and her crew lost to the Hush. However, her armored magazine doors are still padlocked from the outside—and warships of her class carry the Admiralty's finest cannons.

A frontline army surgeon is desperate to buy mana flasks at any price. However, the Breakwater's own naval picket has closed the lane to civilian ships. "The brass would rather let my wounded die by the book than let a freelancer through," she says. "Deliver two flasks to the forward post and I'll pay triple."

A Surveyor's ward-beacon stands dark atop a rock spire; when lit, its light holds the Hush back from this entire sector. An elite Hollow warship is moored at its base, siphoning away the last of its mana.

Campfires burn atop an anchorage rock where a few dozen shipwreck survivors have gathered alongside an armed raider sloop. They wave you in to trade—though on the Hushfront, some crews go over to the Hollow and lure passing ships in to seize their hulls.

A signal kite rises above the storm clouds on a mile-long tether, flashing a distress mirror—a ship is trapped down in the squall calling for aid, though it could just as easily be a pirate lure.

A Free Captains' brig pulls alongside with her gunports open. Under the rebel Articles, her crew must hold a deck vote before attacking—and her captain invites you to make your case first.

A gray bounty-hunting cutter circles a dense cloud bank. Her captain hails you: an unlicensed wild mender is hiding inside the cloud with a price on her head. If you help flush her out, she'll split the bounty.

On a tiny floating rock sits a cottage, a goat, and an old woman shelling peas. Runaway wild casters travel from across the Reaches to train with her—she teaches magical Control for free.

An Undertow skiff signals you with a double-shuttered lantern. The grease-stained engineer at her tiller calls across: "We're building a secret haven out here, Captain—we need fuel crystal and skilled hands."

An unregistered coastal sloop packed with twelve runaway citizens is fleeing a bounty cutter. Condemned to the Lowborn rolls as indentured workers for debt, they have been running for three hundred miles.

An unmarked gig pulls alongside, carrying a sharp-eyed agent in a plain coat. "There is a hidden rebel refuge nearby with lantern-lit rope bridges," he says. "The Crown will pay handsomely for its coordinates."

A battered corsair sloop, holed and trailing smoke from an earlier battle, raises a white flag of surrender as you close in. Her captain shouts across: "Take our cargo, just spare my crew!"

A patched corsair sloop drops out of the clouds—the very crew you spared earlier. Seeing a Crown bounty cutter shadowing your wake, the pirate captain salutes you and swings her guns toward your pursuer!

A small boat drifts by with a shaken, half-drunk captain at the tiller. "Three white ships!" she gasps before you can even hail. "Pale lanterns in the fog—and their Admiral shapes the living hull-wood with her bare hands!"

A scorched rock spire rises ahead, its ledges littered with bleached bones. Coiled on the summit is a massive skywyrm, dozing with one eye half-open.

Three green signal flares rise from a cloud bank—the smugglers' code for a cargo drop. A contraband sloop glides out and waves you alongside, mistaking your hull for their buyer.

A raft of lashed-together hulls flies a white banner marked with a red hand: an outlaw hospital serving refugees beyond Charter law. Today its decks are packed with wounded survivors from a bounty-hunter raid.

Stretched between two floating rocks, a wild shaper is holding a makeshift stone bridge together with her bare hands while fleeing refugees scramble across. Her nose is bleeding from the strain—and a bounty cutter's gray sail is closing in fast.

A herd of mountain goats is crossing a high rope bridge between two crags, herded by a rough iron golem. At the far end, a wild quickener waves her shepherd's crook and hails you to trade.

A bounty cutter lies anchored in a quiet lane, her hull painted with wanted portraits and reward prices. Her captain hails you: she needs a partner to help take down a dangerous Free Captain worth a hundred silver.

A line of glowing wisps bobs in the twilight ahead of your bow, hovering patiently as if waiting to lead your ship somewhere.

Black smoke rises from the rocks where the Lantern Haven stood before you sold its coordinates. A Crown frigate is sailing away from the ruins, and the survivors clinging to the wreckage below recognize your ship.

Hidden inside a cloudbank, a rickety barge reeking of burnt sugar is boiling illicit crystal dust out of refinery slag. The silver-stained crew waves you alongside to buy straight from the vats.

A hollow stone spire rises from the clouds, its dark windows teeming with thousands of roosting gloomwings. Old smuggler chalk-marks at the base point to a hidden cache inside.

the port holds its black market after dark under shuttered lanterns. The stalls openly sell goods banned by the Charter: unlicensed devices, wild spellbooks, and forged ship papers.

After you flash the secret lantern signal, the hidden refuge at the port lowers a bridge for your crew. Families cross rope walkways overhead while a wild caster on a porch teaches three novices how to steady their magic.

The Free Captains of the port gather in a noisy feast-hall where the rebel Articles are painted across the ceiling beams. Tonight the crews are holding an arm-wrestling tournament and a fleet council vote.

A bounty-hunting cutter lies smashed on a rocky ridge, her gray sails shredded. Inside the captain's cabin sits a bound folder of active arrest warrants and an iron strongbox chained to the deck.

A crowded refugee barge lies stranded on a barren floating rock, her Keel enchantment burned out. The exhausted survivors have been camped under her hull for eleven days waiting for rescue.

A smuggler's sloop lies wrecked in a rocky gully with her hatches open and her main hold already looted. Still, experienced smugglers never keep their best cargo in the main hold.

A black squall batters your ship with blinding rain. Ahead through the downpour, a cluster of lanterns shines steadily on a crag—either a sheltered harbor or a wreckers' trap meant to lure ships onto the rocks.

A ring of stone spires shelters a pocket of dead-calm air. A solitary shaper lives here among chairs molded from living rock, offering a safe anchorage to any passing crew.

Two rival Free Captain crews are shouting threats across a rich crystal outcrop, each claiming first rights under the Articles. Neither crew has started mining—both have their guns aimed at each other.

Rotted rope ladders hang from a cave mouth on the underside of a floating crag. Three faded chalk symbols are drawn beside the entrance: a fox, a lantern, and a crossed-out crown.

Inside the cavern, the tunnel splits into multiple branches marked with chalk symbols—one with a lantern, another with a crossed-out crown.

Inside the hoard chamber sit crates of banned spellbooks, a heavy strongbox, and the skeleton of an old Free Captain sitting in a chair with the rebel Articles folded in her lap.

A rebel refuge carved into a split rock was torched by bounty hunters a week ago. Woodsmoke still hangs in the air, and the last standing wall is covered in the chalked names of the missing.

Beneath the ash in the lowest chamber, you uncover a concealed cellar hatch—and hear faint knocking from below. Fresh hobnailed bootprints in the soot warn that bounty hunters are still prowling nearby.

Nine starving refugees huddle inside the cellar while an exhausted wild shaper holds up the cracked stone ceiling with her bare hands. Behind you, heavy boots echo down the tunnel—the bounty hunters have returned!

A wall of the Hush has swallowed this rock refuge. Every lamp is dead, and at the long mess table the inhabitants sit frozen and silver-skinned before cold bowls of soup.

Deep inside the dead weather, a Free Captains' sloop drifts with dark lanterns and a spinning compass. Blinded by the gray fog, her crew calls out for help, unable to see your ship.

A bounty cutter hangs becalmed in the dead weather, her Keel-glow nearly extinguished and her crew freezing. Her captain hails you in desperation—she was hunting your ship before the Hush trapped her.

Inside the gray waste, a single beacon still burns atop a floating rock. An old lighthouse keeper sits beside it, feeding it crystal chips one by one to keep the last light in the Reaches alive.