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Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game: Kings, Nations, and Gods releases this summer. To celebrate the book’s release, we’re counting down to launch day with free new RPG content every Friday! From now until launch, you’ll be able to download new careers, equipment, monsters, and more on Full Metal Fridays. Each month will have a theme uniting its releases and conclude with an event using the month’s content that Game Masters can feature in their games. For the first month of Full Metal Fridays we are diving into a subject near and dear to our hearts, the sea.

Check back every Full Metal Friday for new Iron Kingdoms RPG content!

Installment 1, Week 4:

saIlOR take WaRnInG

Heavy sheets of rain lash against the crew on deck, who are working at a desperate pace to pull down the sails before gale-force winds rip the cloth to tatters. The ship pitches underfoot as waves toss the small vessel about like a child’s toy, and large swells break over the gunwale, swamping the deck with ankle-deep seawater. A crewman shouts a warning and points off the starboard side just as a sleek, black-hulled ship plows over the crest of the nearest wave. The dark ship strikes with an earsplitting sound, burying its prow into your boat. Horned warrior women leap onto the deck, shrieking as they cut down the crew.

For the Game masterThe Satyxis of the blackship Hellkite are notorious for rapid strikes. The ship is outfitted with a corroded iron naval ram and barbed boarding planks, allowing the crew to forgo the need to come alongside and grapple an enemy ship. Hellkite simply rams into prey at top speed, imbedding its prow into the target, and drops its planks to allow a bloodthirsty tide of trained Satyxis to rush onto the pinned ship’s deck. This happens so quickly the captain of the boarded vessel begins to comprehend the situation only when he is face-to-face with Meara Brinebight, captain of the Hellkite.

sailor take warning

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Like all blackships, Hellkite commands its own weather. Because it can summon up storms to swirl around the ship, it is never without enough wind to fill the sails. The only warning an enemy crew has that the Hellkite is about to attack is a sudden foul turn in the weather, marked by dark storm clouds and rough white-flecked waves.

Meara takes great pleasure in striking ships struggling in one of her ship’s storms. While the ships of other nations pull down their sails to avoid snapping their masts in the powerful winds, Meara flies a blue-black spinnaker to harness the storm wind generated by the blackship, trusting in the strength of her ship and the skill of her crew to endure the peril of the storm. Attacking from within this cloak of storms the Hellkite is protected, shielded from the sight of enemy gun crews by heaving waves, sheets of rain, and gale-force winds.

Hellkite’s crew are a cruel and bloodthirsty lot. Wielding pistols, cutlasses, harpoon guns, and lacerators, they take pleasure in carving a path through a ship’s defenders, covering the deck with foam made of blood mixed with seawater.

sailor take WarninGHero-Level Combat Encounter

Encounter Points: 57

Adversaries: Satyxis Raiders (8), Black Ogrun Boarders (2), Captain Meara Brinebight

Additional Factors: Rough Seas, Rogue Waves, Allied Crew

Description: This encounter takes place on the seas anywhere along the Broken Coast. The player characters might be onboard a ship as extra security to guard valuable cargo, traveling as passengers, or (if they are part of a naval adventuring company) simply going about their day-to-day business. Regardless of their reasons for being aboard, the outcome is the same: using the cover of a heavy storm, the Hellkite rams the ship and secures boarding planks its crew uses to swarm onto deck. In the confusion of those first few moments, Captain Brinebight shoots down the captain of the player characters’ ship if he is an NPC, leaving the player characters to direct any defensive efforts.

Special Rules/Tactics: This encounter takes place on the deck of a small single-mast ship and uses the Rough Seas and Massive Waves rules available in last week’s Full Metal Fridays release. The deck is represented by an 18˝ wide by 36˝ long area. Water barrels and rigging points on deck create cover and grant opportunities to gain elevation.

Lacerator

Horns

PoW P+s

PoW P+s

4 10

3 9

This weapon has Reach.

Attacks from lacerators ignore ARM bonuses from bucklers and shields.

On a critical hit, the character hit is knocked down.

When a lacerator damages a bonded steamjack, the steamjack’s controller suffers 1 damage point.

On a critical hit, the character hit is knocked down.

Hand cannon rnG aoe PoW

12 — 12

aBIlItIesskIlls (stat alReady Included)

Climbing 5, Command 6, Intimidation 8, Jump 8, Rope Use 6, Sailing 8, Swimming 8

Battle Plan: Captain’s Orders – This character can spend 1 feat point to use Battle Plan: Captain’s Orders. Using a battle plan is a quick action. For one round, friendly Hellkite raiders that follow the character’s orders roll an extra die for attack rolls and discard the lowest result.

Feat Points – This character starts each encounter with 1 feat point. She is allocated 1 feat point at the start of each of her turns. She can only have up to 1 feat point at a time.

Gang – When making a melee attack targeting an enemy in melee range of another friendly character, this character gains +1 to melee attack and melee damage rolls. When making a melee attack targeting an enemy in melee range of another friendly character with this ability, these bonuses are increased to +2.

Ram – When this character hits an enemy with her horns, the enemy is knocked down and can be pushed 1˝ directly away from this character. If the enemy is pushed, this character can immediately advance directly toward the pushed enemy up to the distance that the character was moved.

Specialization [Lacerator] – This character ignores penalties while fighting with a lacerator (included above).

Command ranGe 6Base size smallenCounter Points 9

SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM

WillPoWER iniTiATivE DETEcT SnEAk

INTE

LLECT

AGILITY

PHYSIQ

U

E

1 2

34

65

sailor take warning

3

cutLass PoW P+s

4 13

If this weapon damages a target with an equal or smaller base, immediately after the attack is resolved the damaged character can be pushed any distance directly toward the character armed with the harpoon.

Harpoon gun rnG aoe PoW

10 — 12

aBilities: Huge Stature – An ogrun can wield a weapon in one hand that usually requires two hands to wield but suffers –2 on attack rolls with that weapon.

Reel In – After pushing a model with the harpoon gun, black ogrun can make one normal melee attack against the model pushed. After resolving this melee attack, the black ogrun can make additional melee attacks during its combat action.

Terror – Black Ogrun cause Terror [12].

Vitality 9Base size medIumenCounter Points 8

SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM

WillPoWER iniTiATivE DETEcT SnEAk

aBilitiesskIlls (stat alReady Included)

Climbing 6, Intimidation 7, Rope Use 6, Sailing 6, Swimming 7

Gang – When making a melee attack targeting an enemy in melee range of another friendly character, this character gains +1 to melee attack and melee damage rolls. When making a melee attack targeting an enemy in melee range of another friendly character with this ability, these bonuses are increased to +2.

Vitality 6Base size smallenCounter Points 4

SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM

WillPoWER iniTiATivE DETEcT SnEAk

Lacerator

Horns

PoW P+s

PoW P+s

4 10

3 9

This weapon has Reach.

Attacks from lacerators ignore ARM bonuses from bucklers and shields.

On a critical hit, the character hit is knocked down.

When a lacerator damages a bonded steamjack, the steamjack’s controller suffers 1 damage point.

On a critical hit, the character hit is knocked down.

Use a mix of five human thugs and human thieves, with a Sailing skill of 1 (Core Rules, pp. 344–345), to represent the crew of the player characters’ ship. They will fight to defend themselves but will not act otherwise until given direction. A character can attempt a Command skill roll against a target number of 12 to direct the crew’s defensive efforts. If he fails, nothing happens. If he succeeds, the friendly crew will attack targets the chosen by the rolling character’s controller.

The encounter begins when the Hellkite’s crew jumps onto the deck of the ship. Place all of the adversaries on one of the long sides of the PCs’ ship within 1˝ of the starboard edge. The friendly crew is placed randomly across the deck. When combat starts, the Hellkite’s Ogrun fire an opening salvo with their harpoon guns, followed by the Satyxis closing with the nearest targets to engage them with lacerators.

Once two or more of her crew are killed, Captain Brinebight identifies the PCs as the most significant threat on deck, instructs her crew to attack them directly, and moves to engage the closest PC in melee. If over half of her crew dies in the combat, Captain Brinebight uses Captain’s Orders and orders a withdrawal back to her ship. If she is allowed to reach the starboard edge, she returns to the Hellkite and orders a full broadside into the PC’s vessel, causing Fire Down Below. Copyright 2001–2013 Privateer Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privateer

Press®, Iron Kingdoms, Immoren, Full Metal Fantasy, warjack, warcaster, warbeast, and all associated logos are trademarks of Privateer Press, Inc. Permission is hereby granted to make photocopies for personal, non-commercial use only.

ROOm tO maneuveRThe deck size of the PCs’ ship can vary depending on the size of your player group and the amount of gaming space you have available. The beam (or width) of the ship is intended to give the characters a bit of breathing room to move around, and the overall length is meant to give the area a generally “ship-like” shape while still fitting into a reasonable area on the table. If you have the space to increase the length of the ship, by all means do so. Many steamships are four to six times as long as they are wide.