A Pirate's Life for Me

Start with a small ship and a cargo hold to fill. Carry freight between eleven kingdoms, trade for profit, take dangerous contracts, upgrade your vessel, and build a fleet as an ordinary captain's career grows into something far larger than anyone expected.

About This Game

You are not a legendary pirate. Not yet.

You begin A Pirate's Life for Me as the captain of a modest Restorian cutter, earning your living one voyage at a time. Take freight contracts, carry valuable cargo between distant ports, watch regional markets, fulfill purchase orders, and decide which opportunities are worth the risk of putting your ship and fortune to sea.

Grain may be desperately needed in one kingdom and plentiful in another. Medicine can become invaluable when conflict reaches a trade route. Timber, spices, gunpowder, and other cargo can turn an ordinary voyage into a profitable opportunity—or a very tempting target.

Your first concern is simple:

Make a living, keep your ship afloat, bring the cargo home.

But the waters between the Eleven Kingdoms are becoming increasingly dangerous.

Merchant vessels disappear. Trade routes are raided. Ships sail beneath stolen colors. Old kingdoms begin blaming one another for attacks they may not have committed. And again and again, one name emerges from the rumors:

Lord Blackthorn.

What begins as a captain's career carrying cargo across the sea can eventually pull you into a conspiracy threatening every kingdom on the map.

Build a Life at Sea

Choose where to sail and what kind of captain you want to become.

Accept freight contracts from merchants and kingdoms. Buy cargo where supplies are plentiful and carry it somewhere more valuable. Fulfill purchase orders. Take special assignments. Escort important shipments. Hunt bounties when you need something more dangerous—or ignore respectable work entirely when piracy starts looking more profitable.

Prices, supply, demand, and opportunities vary between ports. Information you learn about distant markets can become outdated while you are away, forcing you to decide whether an old price is still worth sailing halfway across the world to pursue.

Some cargo belongs to you.

Some belongs to your employer.

And sometimes the difference becomes very important when cannon fire starts crossing the deck.

Command Your Own Ship

Every voyage puts you directly in command of your flagship.

Sail across open water, approach distant ports, navigate dangerous weather, maneuver against hostile vessels, and unleash cannon fire and broadsides when diplomacy or speed are no longer enough.

Upgrade from a small cutter into larger and more capable ships. Strengthen your hull, improve your weapons, expand your cargo capacity, and eventually sail alongside a fleet of escort vessels.

At close camera range, step onto the deck yourself, move between cannon stations, and manually operate your ship while your crew continues handling the voyage.

When the journey is quiet, head below deck and pass the time with shipboard card games while your crew keeps you on course.

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Trade Across Eleven Kingdoms

Your career takes you through the waters of:

• Restoria

• Nitawee

• Okutala

• Chimawu

• Tahawni

• Kamonyi

• Ardea

• Bellatoria

• Valensium

• Marcellia

• Rhodes

Each region offers different ports, opportunities, dangers, markets, contracts, and political tensions.

A peaceful commercial route today may become contested waters tomorrow.

A kingdom that desperately needs supplies may pay handsomely for a captain willing to make the journey.

A profitable route may attract pirates.

A war may make ordinary cargo suddenly priceless.

And the decisions you make while chasing profit can gradually change how the kingdoms see you.

Take Contracts, Or Trade for Yourself

Not every voyage needs to begin with a royal decree.

Carry employer-owned freight for a guaranteed payment, or risk your own gold purchasing cargo and searching for a better market.

Complete deliveries.

Accept purchase orders.

Carry urgent supplies.

Escort merchants.

Recover missing cargo.

Transport goods through dangerous waters.

Take royal work.

Accept bounties.

Smuggle questionable freight.

Or simply follow the money.

The sea does not care why you sailed, only whether you make it back.

Plan the Voyage

Before leaving port, decide what the journey is worth.

Choose your destination, load cargo, acquire provisions, select officers, prepare your flagship, and determine whether escort ships should accompany you.

Recruit specialists such as:

• Royal Navigator

• Master Gunner

• Ship's Carpenter

• Fleet Quartermaster

• Crown Diplomat

• Harbor Smuggler

A safer voyage costs resources.

A more ambitious voyage can produce greater rewards.

And every crate occupying your hold is something you may have to defend before reaching port.

Weather the Journey

The sea itself changes around you.

Clear skies can give way to rain, heavy weather, and sudden squalls. Rougher seas reduce visibility and transform an ordinary voyage into something far more dangerous when hostile sails appear through the storm.

Not every journey ends in battle.

But every journey carries uncertainty.

Face Pirates, Privateers, and Rival Captains

Trade has made the seas wealthy.

That has also made them dangerous.

Pirates patrol lucrative routes. Privateers serve rival kingdoms. Smugglers exploit political borders. Naval commanders enforce blockades. Persistent captains build reputations of their own and may appear repeatedly throughout your career.

Take their bounties.

Avoid them.

Fight them.

Profit from the chaos they create.

Or become the sort of captain merchants learn to fear themselves.

Among them is Captain Red Jack, one of the first names a new Restorian captain learns to recognize.

He will not be the last.

Watch a Larger Conflict Unfold

The campaign develops across 52 in game weeks.

Between your voyages, the Eleven Kingdoms continue acting without you.

Trade routes change.

Regional danger rises and falls.

Kingdom relationships shift.

New contracts appear.

Captains move.

Rumors spread.

And Lord Blackthorn's influence quietly grows.

At first, Blackthorn is little more than a name connected to suspicious attacks and contradictory reports.

The deeper you travel and the more work you undertake, the more evidence begins to suggest that the disorder at sea is not accidental.

Someone is profiting from turning the kingdoms against one another.

Eventually, making your next delivery may no longer be the most important thing waiting beyond the horizon.

Shape Your Reputation

You do not have to become a hero.

Work with the crowns and earn their trust.

Build a reputation as a reliable independent captain.

Trade wherever profit takes you.

Deal with smugglers.

Raid hostile shipping.

Hunt notorious captains.

Build relationships across the kingdoms.

Or abandon respectability altogether.

Your career determines which opportunities become available and what kind of captain the world believes you to be.

Build Your Fleet

Gold earned at sea can become something permanent.

Upgrade your flagship.

Purchase larger vessels.

Improve weapons and defenses.

Expand cargo capacity.

Recruit officers.

Maintain escorts.

Repair damaged ships.

Choose the colors your fleet sails beneath.

What begins as one small Restorian cutter can eventually become a fleet capable of carrying fortunes—or changing the outcome of a war.

Discover More Than Trade Routes

There is more hidden between the kingdoms than ports and cargo.

Search shipwrecks.

Investigate abandoned sites.

Follow rumors.

Recover lost treasures.

Discover strange relics.

Encounter legendary creatures and stories that sailors insist are true.

Collect cards representing the ships, captains, monsters, relics, and legends of the world and use them in Legends of the Deep, one of several games played aboard ship during long voyages.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you bring back to port will not be something you intended to find.

Decide What Kind of Captain You Become

Eventually, the growing conflict surrounding Lord Blackthorn can no longer be ignored.

By then, you may be far removed from the unknown captain who once sailed out of Restoria carrying another man's cargo.

You may become a trusted protector of the kingdoms.

A feared pirate commanding an outlaw fleet.

Or an independent captain wealthy and powerful enough to answer to no crown at all.

The journey begins with a ship, a delivery, and an open sea.

Where it ends depends on the captain.

Carry the cargo. Build your fortune. Command your fleet. Choose your own life at sea.