pirate
Corpsewake Cove
Concept: “There is no nest of scurvy rats as foul or felonious as the pirates of Corpsewake Cove!”
Content: A self-contained, sandbox-style swashbuckling adventure from inciting incident to bloody climax
Writing: Text-heavy but clean, clear, and effective on all levels; includes lots of description as well as stat blocks, tables, and other mechanical components
Art/design: Balances out the verbal elements with lots of vivid, nautically themed designs
Usability: A fair amount of content and moving parts to manage, but nothing a seasoned and conscientious GM can’t handle
Endless Sea Raider
Concept: “Predator of the Endless Sea”
Content: A piratical player-character class
Writing: All the standard features with some inspired class-specific items/companions
Art/design: Graphics convey the grim bleakness of the Endless Sea with some appropriate splashes of Mörk Borgy color
Usability: Nicely blocked out for easy reference
Pirate Borg
6 contributors
Content: A standalone game for nautical scvm. A complete ruleset with 8 classes, naval combat rules, 18 vessels, over 80 monsters & NPCs, suitably scvrvy equipment, and a substantial introductory sandbox adventure.
Writing: A rich grog blending history, fantasy, and horror. As doomed as the Dying Lands... but with more drowning and animated skeletons.
Art/design: Crisp richly colored and strongly contoured illustrations, lovingly textured maps, and full-color spreads.
Usability: Larger, slightly crunchier, but with ample built-in references and tools bookended for ease of reference.
Seven Hells and a Dead Paradise
Content: Seven hells, a lost paradise, a tormented class, body parts, and a dread king’s crypt.
Writing: The history and cosmos of dead gods conveyed in 13 spreads worth of tables and dungeon.
Art/design: Excellent use of public domain imagery as inspiration for the various locals. Tortured sketches of divine punishment.
Usability: Enough material here to flesh out many settings. With an index to use them piecemeal or whole.
The Deluge
Content: A flood of aquatic content.
Writing: A collection of flotsam and jetsam. Sometimes humorous, often abysmal.
Art/design: A minimalist layout with woodblock prints alongside modern renditions of fish-folk.
Usability: Fluid but with the occasional bit of detritus. Available in storm-tossed gray or eye-numbing yellow.
The Ice Pirates of Penn-Tayn
What The Hell Is A Fish Blade
Content: d10 radical interpretations of “FishBlade”.
Writing: Pushes the concept of “FishBlade” overboard.
Art/design: A collection of appropriate public domain prints adrift amidst a loose trifold layout.
Usability: Available as aged parchment or print-friendly black and white.