Law of the Sea

The Law of the Sea is not a formal legal code, but rather a set of informal practices and conventions that have evolved amongst the sailors of the West to govern their conflicts. Not all powers follow the Law, though most pay heed to at least some of its conventions.

A Sailor is a Treasure

Experienced sailors are invaluable on the vast Western seas: the elements and dangers of the ocean claim lives even aboard vessels which do not see combat, and good sailors mean the difference between a vessel reaching home and being lost. Thus, by convention in the West, the lives of sailors are greatly respected even amongst sworn enemies.

This is not to say that the powers of the West will not kill or seize sailors: fighting is fierce during boarding actions and naval bombardments, and press-ganging is common. But as a general rule, Western powers and captains understand that sailors are to receive punishment that is corporal not capital, and that once an enemy captain and officers have been put to death the sailors will be offered quarter and used to crew the prize that was once their vessel, or conscripted into the ranks of the victor. Sailors are also expected to reciprocate with respect for the chain of command aboardships, respecting their new masters and not seeking to sabotage or escape whether they have been taken from a sinking ship or knocked with a sap and press-ganged from a quayside tavern... the punishments for violations are harsh, but such is seen as more than appropriate by most captains and sailors of the West.

This convention is generally disregarded by those vessels and islands who adhere to the cult of Siakal, as the Shark God demands blood and plenty of it. It is also disregarded by the Lintha.

A Ship Flies the Pennant of Home

The seas are filled with many vessels, hailing from different lands with different alliances and hostilities. With distance making it difficult to communicate between ships by shouting, it falls to flag and lantern signals to exchange messages. By convention, it is held that a ship ought fly the pennant of its home port, so others might know its identity.

The pennants used can vary widely, from the simple yellow pennant of The Guild to the white flag with black skull and crossed bones of the Skullstone Archipelago, to the series of pennants displayed by the vessels of the Scarlet Empire to indicate Realm, House fleet, and the various docking and transport licenses purchased from the Thousand Scales. Even pirates and privateers fly pennants to mark their status, simple black pennants. The convention holds that these banners must be flown before a pirate launches an attack, but it is common practice that it rise only at the very last moment before that occurs, a fact which is loathed by merchant captains but hardly seen as a violation of the convention.

The Realm is particularly devoted to this convention, with its naval vessels boarding and fining Realm shipping for not flying correct pennants, and occasionally pushing those requirements onto neutral vessels. Certain piratical gangs such as Branch Kaizoku, on the other hand, tend to show little respect for the convention, flying their coat-shaped calico pennants rarely and often carrying a variety of banners so they might raise a fitting one before entering a foreign port. This has advantages, but comes at a cost: many islands consider such fraudulent banners to be illegal, and the Scarlet Empire considers it a capital crime, perpetrating captains put to death if multiple banners are found in their holds. The convention is also disregarded by the Lintha.

A Woman Aboard is a Voyage Cursed

Amongst the islands of the Western Oceans, there are found many lands whose societies and rulers hold that the place of women is on land, tending to crops and offspring while men deal with all matters of the sea. Even in lands where these gender roles are not strictly upheld, many are still resistant to women making up part of the crews of ships at sea. While the history and foundations of such discrimination are surely complex, one factor is the common saying that ‘A woman aboard is a voyage cursed’, expressing belief that the presence of women on sea voyages will invariably lead to disaster.

This convention is not without supports... that the Storm Mothers visit rough seas on ships with women aboard is no mere tale, and there are certainly stories of crews on long journeys set at each others’ throats from jealousy over the attentions of a female passenger which have a grain of truth. But there are also tales of women sailing openly or travelling disguised as men with their ships not felled by bad luck.

Regardless, across most of the West from the Coral Archipelago to Wavecrest to Murak women are barred from putting to sea, and often even their presence as passengers is looked at askance, with many captains who carry them refusing to allow them above-deck during a voyage. Amongst the most strict to uphold the convention are the Tya, for they hold that any person is free to dail, and women who wish to do so must simply give up their womanhood as is proper.

The ships of the Realm ignore this convention, with their resistance varying from diplomatic to condemnation. The Imperial Navy, for its part, is amongst the most vocal in condemning it as uncivilized barbarism... this results in eternal headaches for Foreign Office diplomats seeking to smooth relations with local leaders, but amongst the ratings of the Navy can be found no small number of women sailors to whom the draw of the seas was greater than attachment to family and home. The convention is also disregarded by the Lintha.

A Ship has Freedom of the Open Seas

The borders of kingdoms and empires on land vary widely: some are exact, lined with wall or marker stone placed with geomantic precision, others are loose border regions where one is uncertain when one passes from one barony to another. In the vast waters of the west, however, one sees the extremes on both ends of the boundary spectrum. On the one hand, the shores of an island are a clear marker of territory, the shore a clear boundary. On the other, the shifting waters beyond mean even essence flows can change their course, leaving little solid upon which to draw a border. Added to this, while the winds and currents of the oceans can be plotted in a general sense, their use is vital for all who seek to travel the vast distances of the West.

A common convention throughout the West is that no power exerts direct control over the trade winds and currents (even when they pass through internal channels and great rivers), another that the laws (and customs duties) of island states apply only within mortal sight of their shores. As the movements of Essence behind sight fade and move with distance, this is generally accepted as being one league (slightly over six thousand yards). A few islands make claims based on the greater distance witnessed from the tops of their mountains or other points where the essence of Air is less disrupted by that of Earth or Water, allowing vision to extend further, but these tend to be taken only as seriously as the naval strength which backs them. More commonly, many island states make a point of raising their banners on smaller islets and rocks in the vicinity to extend the reach of their laws on pilots and tariffs. It is not, however, without cost: merchants sailing the seas also expect the powers claiming the waters to protect them from piracy.

Together these conventions as to the limits of state authority are called the Freedom of the Seas, though across the West there is significant dispute over exact meaning and application: The laws of the Realm do not acknowledge any limit on the authority of the Scarlet Empress or Her Imperial Navy, but in practice Imperial vessels maintain respect for the convention. On the other side of the coin, the Coral Archipelago holds the limit as official law, but its vessels seem to ignore it at every opportunity, their privateers uncaring of the local laws broken when plundering off island shores. The convention is also disregarded by the Lintha.

A Free Port For Peace and Welcome

Closely associated with the tradition of Freedom of the Seas is the convention of a Free Port, a port which offers up safe harbour and supply to all ships no matter their flag. Alongside this universal welcome comes the expectation that those ships and sailors who dock at a Free Port will restrain their conflicts until they pass from the harbour.

This convention is largely respected across the West, though there are additional conventions surrounding it. Even famed pirate vessels are able to enter such Ports, but are expected to make a show of pretending to be different ships with different captains, and even the Imperial Navy refrains from immediately assaulting vessels which accept this pantomime, though they can expect to be followed as they leave.

The exception to this rule concerns those beings of a monstrous nature: the Lintha are rarely welcomed even at Free Ports, though they have been known to negotiate docking arrangements with individual Ports on occasion, and the Imperial Navy & Wyld Hunt will not refrain from attacking Anathema even in a Free Port. Neither of these strikes the average sailor of the West as a violation of the convention, but as the Solar Exalted make themselves known in the West in numbers greater than they have in millennia, perhaps this attitude may change…