Beginning

Everyone knows the story of piracy in the Caribbean. For a period of time from 1660-1730, pirates reigned over an area from the tip of Florida to the coast of Venezuela. Colorful characters like Blackbeard and Henry Morgan plied their trade in ports like Port Royale and Tortuga. Historians can recount tales of famous battles and buried treasure; it’s all in the history books. This is the real documented history of pirates.

But wait a moment, what if this was not the real history of pirates? What if someone told you that everything you knew about piracy in the Caribbean was false? What if Port Royale and Tortuga were not the real home ports of pirates? The true history of pirates and their adventures is much more wicked and wild than ever imagined!

Go find a map of the Gulf of Mexico. Find Hispaniola (that's Haiti for the uninitiated) and follow a line south about 200 miles. What do you see? Nothing! That's what historians want you to see! In this spot, is a much maligned set of islands named the Key islands. It is here in the Key island chain, that the most despicable acts of piracy were committed. In the center of this small island chain, is Isla Cruces (Crosses Island). On this spec of an island is a port called La Grid. It is here that pirates plotted their raids, bedded wenches, and drank copious amounts of rum! History has turned a blind eye to this evil place, no maps or books bear reference to what had happened here... until now.

The island of Isla Cruces seemed designed for the acts of piracy. Thirty miles long and ten miles wide at its widest point, the isle was peaked by small “mountains” in the east and the west. At the center on the south side of the island lay La Grid. Many points of deep water access were littered around the island; this is one of the reasons the pirates found the island so desirable. There were so many caves in the mountains, it can be said the island was akin to a piece of Swiss cheese. The things hidden in those caves were the things of dreams or nightmares.

It is believed the first people on the island were shipwrecked sailors or maybe a cargo of slaves from Africa. Lost to the mists of time, these people only acted as a foothold to the dregs that would later come. When pirates began to arrive and exploit the deep water port, they brought along the normal flotsam and jetsam associated with pirates. Whores, smugglers, thieves, gamblers, escaped convicts, tradesmen, and even clergy called the port town home. The common thread between these groups was the greed shared for pirate gold.

Along with the gold came the many ways to spend it. La Grid was home to more brothels and taverns than the common pirate could easily count. And when a pirate's head became weary, he could choose one of the many dingy inns to rest his head... or the ready supply of opium dens! Commerce was not limited to vice, there was an ample supply of honest tradesmen on the island. For along with the rum comes the need everything else. It seemed whatever you needed could be found in La Grid for a price. So take what you can and leave nothing behind, this is the real story of Piracy in the Caribbean!

Whats this all about??

So whats this new blog about? Well I will tell you! This blog will be a sort of book/journal of a few of us aspiring authors pertaining to Pirates.

You see years ago there was a selection of writers (Lynn Abbey, Poul Anderson, Robert Asprin, John Brunner, Joe Haldeman and Andrew J Offutt ) that gave us a then-unique anthology of stories - unique by the fact that the authors shared their characters with each other. One of the guys in our gaming group was reading the series and after some talk, we sort of decided to do the same thing but with our adventures within the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons World of Greyhawk by TSR. My Brother John, years later posted some of these stories up on a basic web page back when the Internet was rather new. Sadly the stories were lost and our game group was split up due to me moving out to Phoenix Arizona.

A few years later after I arrived in the valley of the Sunstroke, I met up with Rob ( http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/ ) and I started playing 40K with him and a few others. Well we discussed a campaign and I mentioned what I had done earlier with Ad&D and thought it might be fun to do a few stories for 40k in this same way. This is where the Eden War Campaign & blog came from (http://edenwar.blogspot.com/ ).

So that takes us to the other day when my brother called me talking about my blog entry on the Eden War stuff. His interest was rekindled and he remembered our writings from long ago. We both expressed interest in doing something like this again but unfortunately the only gaming he is doing is on World of Warcraft & he is now located out in Georgia. So we hatched an idea about doing this blog and doing something similar to what we had done in the past. But then we needed a setting to decide on, several were kicked around like Western, Pirates, Post Apocalyptic, as well as 40K & Fantasy.

Well we opted for a pirate theme partially because I wrote Legends of the High and also since my brother & I both loved the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland as well as the movies. So my brother wrote up a small introduction for the setting which I will post after this first post. I have invited a couple of friends (Rob & Jerry) as well as my brother John to join us on this little voyage.

The only guidelines are that each author may use any of the other authors characters freely in a story, but can not end there life without the original authors consent, that's about it. So if one person chooses to write about Cursed treasure with Zombie Pirates, that's fine. If another chooses to keep it more based in reality, than that will work as well.

So there you have it, the purpose is to exercise some creative muscle and do a little writing. For me, I plan on using the games of LotHS as inspiration and will document some of the games I play. For my brother, its a way for us to do something together and allow him to write, for my other friends, well that's up to them. Hope you enjoy this little endeavor.

TK