Crew & skills

Crew growth#

Skills grow with use, up to cap (knack for a knack's own skill, tinker for Tinkering). Each new level brings a choice of N small perks: pick one on the victory panel, or later on the crew sheet. A fighter's Melee perks are mostly boarding tactics, and on a ship with a Prison a Melee level also offers Take Them Alive. Crew also grow traits from what they live through: beat out six fires (Fire-hardened), put down five boarders on your own deck (Boarder-bane), live through a sinking (Unsinkable), or come back up from a delve (Delver).

What each skill does#

The captain#

The ship's mage starts the voyage as her captain (unless the captain you chose is a clan outcast, a gnome exile or a wild caster fugitive, who take the first crewmate's place, or the ship carries no mage). The captain never dies. Struck down in a battle, a landfall or an event (and with no Vitality Chamber aboard), they are gravely injured instead: they drop to 0 HP and leave the decks, out of fights and landfalls, but stay on the crew list (their tooltip says how to heal them). A surgeon in any city (its Tavern & inn or Services tab) treats them for silver, and they are back on the ship. If nobody else is left standing, the voyage ends.

The Vitality Chamber#

A room that needs no Flow. With one aboard, nobody who falls is lost: a crewmate who dies (the captain too) is held in the chamber at 0 HP instead, off the decks and out of fights and landfalls, and wakes at 10% health at the next town or outpost. Each level wakes them sooner: after 3 passages at level 2, 2 at level 3, 1 at level 4. At level 5 they also wake in battle, back aboard in the chamber, 25 s after falling. Boarders standing in the chamber hold the waking back.

It spares the captain the surgeon's fee: a captain the chamber holds wakes with the others, and one already gravely injured is carried into a chamber built later. A ship that goes down takes everyone the chamber holds with her, and it does nothing on a Hardcore voyage or at Brand mark 15. It cannot be torn out while it holds anyone.

Skill

Crew proficiencies (Helm, Drive, Wards, Gunnery, Repair, Melee, Casting, Tinkering). Skills level up through use and grant a perk at each new level. Skills go up to level 2 (3 in the skill a knack belongs to). A construct stops at 1. Anyone's Tinkering can reach 3. What each one does is listed under its own name.

Role

A crewmate's job class: Deckhand (+repair), Rigger (+evasion/wind immunity), Gunner (+reload speed), Marine (+HP/boarding), Duelist (+parry), Surgeon (+healing), Quartermaster (-food use, -10% shop prices). Tinkers can build devices at a Tinker's Bench (found in roughly 1 out of 7 hiring halls).

Knack

A hidden special talent in a specific skill that unlocks after the crewmate practices that job.

Captain

Your player character. If reduced to 0 HP, the captain is gravely injured and out of action until treated by a port surgeon (or revived by a Vitality Chamber).

Beastborn

Clan people with animal traits: Vulpine (fox), Ursine (bear), Avian (hawk), Lupine (wolf), Emberkin, Otterkin, or Chiropteran (bat). Each species has unique passive and active abilities (Trace < Blooded < Deep).

Lowborn

Working-class crew from the Charter's lower class. Few Lowborn mages ever see the Academy: most discovered and learnt their magic on their own. Unlocks Lowborn choices in events, but Charter ports inspect your ship starting at Heat 2 instead of Heat 3 (Heat is your wanted level, shown by the flame icon in the top bar; carrying contraband or casting unlicensed magic raises Heat).