Editing LeviathanTempest:ChapterFive (section)

==== Ghost Ships====

Those sailors and Leviathans who spend their lives at sea will hear stories of the rare few ships who sail on with tattered decks and patchwork sales run by a literal skeleton crew. These are ghost ships, forever doomed to sail the salty seas until they can fulfil their ancient charter.

Ghost Ships can cause an interesting dilemma to a storyteller for they have no special relationship to the Tribe. It's only through coincidence that the Tribe's attraction to the sea and coastal communities can cause the two to interact. Tying a Ghost Ship to the themes of an ongoing chronicle as anything more than a speed bump while swimming the ocean can be hard, but sometimes this disconnect can be an advantage. When the ongoing story has become mired in politics or self pity, a brief interlude of fun light-hearted silliness brought to you by the rum swilling, timber shivering ghost of Captain Blackbeard can be just the thing.


A Ghost Ship is an Anchor to a large amount of ghosts. Like all Anchors it can be destroyed or resolved. Typically a Ghost Ship originally set sail with a goal, weather that goal was piracy, war, or trade. Ships that lack such a goal rarely have a large amount of ghosts with the same unresolved business to create a shared Anchor. And it is the shared anchor that lets the crew combine their talents, much as they did in life, to run a powerful Ghost Ship and unlock Numina such as Fortify Anchor. That's not to say it must be the only Anchor on board. The crew might be Anchored to the ship itself while a passenger is anchored to something in his cabin.

As a Ghost Ship ages general wear and tear or the occasional bout of combat will gradually destroy it's Structure. The crew can use the Fortify Anchor Numina to replace lost points of Structure with Corpus. However if the ship looses it's last point of structure it no longer functions as an Anchor and is destroyed. A Ghost Ship which is mostly Corpus may have only a few, or only one, treasured pieces of the actual structure remaining.

For simplicity the Storyteller may wish to assign the ship a Power, Finesse, Resistance and Essence value rather than giving attributes to the crew members. Since each ghost serving as crew can store Essence a large Ghost Sip often has a lot of Essence.

If Ghost Ship contained weapons carries then it can still use them. If the weapons are still in good repair with supplies of ammunition then they function as normal. Otherwise they can be recreated out of Corpus with the Fortify Anchor Numina and fired with a point of essence for ammunition. The Essence cost of a full broadside can be huge, but such ships typically have a large ghostly crew and therefore the ability to store large amounts of Essence.

=====New Numina=====

'''Anchor Mastery'''

A Ghost with Anchor Mastery may interact with their anchor as though they were still solid. All crew on a Ghost Ship have it and use it to sail the ship. No Essence or roll is required for Anchor Mastery. 

'''Fortify Anchor'''

Every Ghost would like the ability to repair their Anchors but the fact is that only when many Ghosts share the same Anchor and combine their powers can they unlock this potent ability. To repair an Anchor a ghost rolls extended Power + Finesse check. The target is twice the amount of structure to be repaired.

Dramatic Failure: The ghosts attempts to repair the Anchor causes even more damage, a point of structure and essence are lost.

Failure: The Ghost makes no progress.

Success: The Ghost makes progress on repairing the Anchor. It takes two successes and a Dot of Essence to replace a point of Structure with Corpus but only a point of Essence to repair a point of Corpus. This essence can be regained by reducing the Anchors maximum Corpus by one.

Exceptional Success: No extra benefit. 

'''Twist Anchor'''

As more ghosts are linked to the same Anchor it becomes saturated with deathly energies. Becoming mailable and pilable in the ghosts will. A Ghost can roll Power + Finesse as an Instant action to warp their shared Anchor. A purely cosmetic change like blood dripping down the walls requires one Success. A moderate change like increasenig Durability by a point requires three Successes. A significant change, like turning a door into a wall requires five Successes. A ghost cannot create recognisable messages (without Ghost Sign) or affect anything not directly part of the Anchor. Twist Anchor may be used to Grapple.

'''Call Fog''' 

Ghost Ships are often reported travelling within a thick fog, this Numina is responsible. By focusing their combined power in an extended Power + Finesse roll on the waters through which they sail the crew can cause it to release a thick fog. To hide, to hunt, or in the case of more self aware ghosts just because they think it's kinda neat. Call Fog can be used as a teamwork action, up to the Primary Actor's Finesse members of the same crew can join in.

Cost: 5 Essence.

Dramatic Failure: The water recedes from the ship, for the next hour it will appear float high in the water, regular people won't notice but any experienced sailor will have little trouble knowing something isn't right. For Ghost Ships which are more structure than corpus this can cause a serious hazard to staying afloat: -1 on Drive checks per 5 points of Structure. There is a maximum of -5 but with 30 or more structure the Captain must Succeed on a Drive roll every five minuets or capsize.

Failure: Nothing happens.

Success: A thick fog surrounds the ship. This fog has a radius equal to the ships Size in meters and lasts for one hour per dot of Power. Perception checks for the living are at -Power, but no worse than -5.

Exceptional Success: Treat power as one point higher, maximum of 5.

'''Press Gang'''

Attrition can wear down the crew of a Ghost Ship as much as anywhere else. From ghosts destroyed in combat, caught at one of their other Anchors and exorcised or just worn down by time until useless to the ship, after a while there might be a need to give someone the King's Shilling. To Press someone requires that they are physically on-board the Ghost Ship and restrained. The Ghost rolls an Extended Power + Finesse vs Resolve + Composure. If the Ghost gets Willpower Successes before the mortal gains Power + Resistance Successes then upon death the mortal will find himself Anchored to the ship. This Numina does not last long, so most crews who use this Numina will kill the Mortal immediately.

Because the Anchor is in a sense artificial, then assuming no other Anchors destroying the ship will free Pressed Ghosts rather than trap them in the Underworld. It is also worth noting that if the mortal agrees to join the crew then the Numina succeeds without rolling.