PRINCES AMONG THIEVES } BEHIND THE SCENES + UPDATED
Author: Hello everyone! Welcome to our First Year Anniversary Q&A! To help me answer some of the questions, I brought some special friends along with me...
Kazuma: I’ll have you know I was one hand of cards away of winning a whole chest of treasure and rum off of our Quartermaster before being rudely interrupted...*Kazuma sighs deeply and crosses his arms*
Panthea: Come on Kaz, this might be fun, besides, it’s not like you can argue with our author over it. *Panthea tilted her head meekly, as she tugged lightly on Kazuma’s sleeve*
Kazuma: Oh...well...I guess Pan is right....
Author: Great! Now that that’s settled, let’s begin!
How's life in a pirate ship?
Author: This is a great question, with a fairly long answer lol Most pirates started out as sailors who realized thievery was the quickest and ultimately easiest way to make a living. From here, many people were also made into pirates. During a raid certain people are taken hostage, and forced to join the crew. They came to the conclusion that if you can’t beat them...join them!
Kazuma: Other ways, would be joining a ship that a friend who already living a life of piracy, is part of. This is sort of similar to how I joined the Nightingale when I was a kid. I was adopted by a pirate, and join the crew my father was already on. *Kazuma nods his head, beginning to enjoy himself*
Author: Or in the case of females, if you were tough enough, you’d join by marrying a pirate. This was the case for the infamous Anne Bonny.
Panthea: From what I know in stories, when it comes to what sort of things pirates eat, it depends greatly on circumstance. *Panthea thinks back to the stores she heard as a child* Over time at sea, food supplies would often dwindle. Because they don’t have resources to keep food cool, so if food wasn’t eaten, it would rot or grow mold.
Kazuma: It’s true, so often we eat cured meats and salted vegetables. Sauerkraut and bone soup are also common. Our missionary makes great meals though, so we eat well on board.
Author: If the pirates were smart, they would keep livestock on board. If they had cows or goats, they had access to milk. If they had chickens, they had access to eggs. When pirates raided ports and villages, they would likely steal livestock as well as food. What they could steal from other ships they would also use.
Kazuma: We have goats, and chickens on our ship. We make sure we have stuff to feed them as well. I remember that we even had pigs once.
Author: They also were big drinkers, and so they would steal chests of liquor when they could. Some times they would steal these things because they needed them...and sometimes it was for fun!
Kazuma: ....I can’t deny this....and to be honest I won’t try to *Kaz shrugs with a chuckle* what can I say? I love me ale!
Author: While many pirates originated from poverty, some also came from wealth. However the allure of treasure and adventure was too much to resist.
If you were a captain or a higher ranking crew member, you would have a private sleeping quarters. The rest of the crew would sleep together in one area, usually on hammocks. However hygiene wasn’t particularly good. They didn’t have the means to properly bathe or clean teeth, and most of them were just drunk men who didn’t care whether they smelt bad or not.
There is documentation of men being lowered into the ocean to cool off, but not necessarily to bathe. However in my story, while I wrote my worlds pirate lore to be as close to the accurate life of pirates, this is one thing that is slightly different. There is a very prominent attitude of honour and a sense of gallantry among the culture of the Brotherhood. Honour among thieves taken to a whole new meaning. So with that, is a level of personal attractiveness and cleanliness that would exist in my version of pirates. Of course, this wouldn’t be all pirates. There would still be some that didn’t care about hygiene. But for sure crews of Ambassadors or other famous crews, would have at least basic hygiene.
Panthea: Pass times for pirates is mostly stealing, and while treasures are stolen, it’s mostly items they need to survive, and that they can use to sell and trade.
Author: This is even more prominent in my world, because of the Piranha Isles which’s economy is mostly functioning on trade among pirates and the merchants who will trade with them from other places.
They also are big on partying. Enjoying all the luxuries of life in a day is important to all pirates, since you never know when you’ll get to enjoy them next. So they enjoy drinking, music, and eating food quiet a lot. Human relations are also very important, such as family, friendship and romantic and ual relationships. These bonds are how humans in general survive. But when they aren’t doing all of that, ship up keep is very important. Making sure the ship is clean and functioning properly.
Who has the strongest Navy?
Panthea: There are two particularly strong Navies, Byggðakdalur, and Spenia. However Byggðakdalur is definitely the most prominent and influential. *Panthea stops for a moment, tapping her chin as she contemplates her knowledge of global relations* However my country personally experiences the most antagonism from Spenia. Byggðakdalur likes to trade with us, so we are lucky we don’t have to worry about both countries.
What are the perks of being the Captain's younger brother? (this one is to Kazuma lol)
Kazuma: Well, my brother can be just as much a pain in the as he is a good guy, so things tend to even themselves out in terms of perks *Kaz laughs with a smerk* I get me own quarters which is nice, even though our Captain is making me share it with Panthea. *He lightly side eyes her, biting his lower lip* I don’t mind her being there...but I know my brother did it to try and annoy me. *Kazuma straightens his posture and clears his throat* He also helped train me when we were kids, so I was able to learn first hand from one of the best fighters and thieves on the seas. We also have a strong bond. We might not be blood, but we are brothers threw and threw.
The High Queen is Queen Illia?
Author: Yes she is. Byggðakdalur uses the term High Queen because they are matriarchal and so even when their Queen has a husband who is King, she is the High Queen and therefore has the most power. Certain queens in our world throughout history have refused to get married, because they didn’t want their power to be lost to their husband as king. Queen Elizabeth from the United Kingdom got married, but her husband was never crowned king. He is just known as Prince Philipe.
Oh yeah, and how are Tamaza and Usava like? I think they are the only lands with no descriptions.
Author: Tamaza and Usava are equivalents of ancient Egypt and ancient Carthage respectively. The continent of Romaes and lower Cleotreth are a lot like Africa. If you guys would like, I can add sections for Tamaza and Usava to the World page.
How did you come up with some of the names for the places and the months?
Author: Well first I planned out the first few countries I wanted to make, and I chose their equivalents in the real world. From those as a base point, I started making the world map. It took me about a week, all of Christmas break last year, to complete. Once I had the map constructed, I started placing where my countries would go based on their climates etc.
Some I had names that sort of just donned on me, like Spenia for example. I was playing around with the name Spain and it just sort of happened. A lot of the others I just used a generator called FantasyNameGenerator which has a bunch of different generators, that are fictional ones based off of actual names that would come from a certain country or region. I used those and for a few I altered them slightly and played around with them. You can see that process in my behind the scenes video higher up on this page.
For the months, I researched how our calendar months were named, and I found that most if not all the months are named for/after Greek Gods. Which is why when I created Edonianism, which is based off of Hellenism (the religion of the Greek Gods), I used the names for the gods to create the names of the months. They are spelled and pronounced interestingly I know lol
Author: Okie dokie! Thank you so much to those who submitted their questions, and I hope we answered them well!
Kazuma: Aye! At first I was a little bothered to be interrupted during my Card game with the other crew members. But I actually had some fun!
Panthea: It was really nice meeting you all! I liked getting a chance to get off that darn ship of theirs. *Pan smiles brightly as she waves goodbye*
Kazuma: Darn ship? *Kaz crosses his arms and looks at Panthea questioningly*
Author: oookayyy theennn........Anyways! Thanks so much to everyone, this has been a great year and I am so excited to see what this second year brings for this story^^
THE OTHER HANDMAIDEN:
This plotline was originally in the employment of the Governor’s Daughter. However unlike The Loyal Handmaiden, she didn’t like her employer, and thought she was pretentious. But she was also jealous of her. This only gets worse because when the Governor’s Daughter gets kidnapped, so does she.
THE GODDESS IN HUMAN FORM:
This one was pretty cool, she was raised in a tribe from the Badlands, and grew up her whole life with the knowledge she was a goddess in human form. Or she was oblivious, but knew she was special because of how she was treated. Either way, something happened and a prophecy is what leads her in the direction of the Nightingale.
THE CREW:
They were mostly the same, there was just a few slight differences. This line up was based on a fan art of EXO as pirates. There was the Captain, The Quartermaster, the Gunner, the Healer, the First Mate, the Boatswain, the Priest, the Navigator, the Cook, the Shipwright, and the Pilot. So there were originally twelve pirate plots, and therefore twelve plotlines. But somewhere along the process I felt like it might be hard to handle all those characters, especially because there was already so much worldbuilding and characters on the sides. So I settled on an equal ten and ten. Which meant things had to change. For the Crew, I researched actual roles on pirate ships, and then elaborated on their jobs. The Sailmaster is basically the navigator and pilot, and the Missionary is also the cook. Treasurer is a role held my one of the main officers such as the Quartermaster or First Mate. I also started realizing there were other roles, such as Surgeon (healer) and Carpenter (shipwright), which are the same plot basically just different names.
HOW DID PLOT CHANGES EFFECT THE STORY?:
Not that much. With the crew it was very minimal, and mostly just adjustments. But for the plotlines that is where most of the changes came into play. I had to pick which two plots I was getting rid of. I decided on the Other Handmaiden plot because she was so similar to the Loyal Handmaiden, and I felt like the Loyal Handmaiden was just so much more compelling. When it came to the Goddess, I had a hard time making that cut. But then it dawned on me that I could spread out concepts and plots I was gonna use for over other plotlines, and the descriptions about her were either too spoiler-y or too vague anyway, plus she was also very similar to the Voodoo Witch in a lot of ways. So eventually I found myself settled on 20 main characters, and I am very excited with the applications we’ve got, and the direction this story and their arcs and subplots can take.
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