Pirate Expert Reacts to Windrose | EXP

[00:00:00]This is Dr. Rebecca Simon, author, historian, and all round expert on pirates and piracy. And I'm your host Dave Jewett and today we are setting sail and surviving on sandy shores as we break down the game Wind Rose.

[00:00:12]>> So, I just want to point out some of the details about the flags here. So, at the top of the mast you can see two flags.

[00:00:16]You can see the black flag which is the Jolly Roger and then they also have a red flag. A red flag is one you did not want to see. It meant no quarter, meaning we are not going to give mercy.

[00:00:26]We will fight we will fight to the death. A black flag meant we will give quarter, meaning we're here to negotiate. We're not here to kill. Give us what we want and we'll let you go.

[00:00:35]Having both up, that's hardcore.

[00:00:38]>> [music] >> There is a longer, deeper, extended edition of this episode over on our Patreon. Link in the description below if you want to check that out. And while you're down there, you'll also find links to all of Rebecca's books and social media pages. Let us know other pieces of pirate pop culture you'd like to see on the show in the future. But now, without further ado, it's over to Rebecca.

[00:01:12]So, this is like the core of of the game, really. You start on a desert island and it's up to the player to do everything from you got nothing. You've got like a broken sword and you're on a beach and you've got to collect resources, make a little camp, use that camp to then get more resources, get a ship and then sort of rebuild your yourself and your and your status and all your items and equipment.

[00:01:38]>> That's fun. Maybe I should start playing games.

[00:01:40]>> So, were there any stories around about pirates of being shipwrecked or stranded on a desert island and either perishing or or thriving and then surviving?

[00:01:49]>> We don't have a lot of records about pirates who have been kind of lost on islands or marooned. There was a man named Philip Ashton who claimed that he'd been captured by pirates and taken hostage and then that they left him on a deserted island for a period of time. He wrote all of this in kind of a memoir after the fact claims he got saved and everything like that. We don't know how much of the story itself is true, but it is a very very very detailed account of what it was to live amongst pirates by a hostage and also just a little bit of his survival. So again, we don't know how much of it really is true, but it's still a very interesting source. There have also been some cases where pirates may have marooned a person onto an island, but again, that was actually really rare. For the most part, pirates would keep hostages on board and then until they got to land somewhere. And then oddly enough, they would either do one of two things to a hostage, either kill a hostage, which again was actually pretty rare, or they would let the hostage go. But that was also pretty rare. Usually what happened is a hostage would end up kind of joining their crew either willingly or unwillingly for their own survival and also because they would be given items whenever pirates were robbing ships and being successful.

[00:03:02]So for the most part when I pirates were going to try to land somewhere on anywhere in the sea, they're going to want to land somewhere on a coast where there's going to be a town where there's going to be resources while also a little hidden away so they can clean their ship. But there were times where pirates may have crash landed onto shore. For example, Charles Vane, that pirate is said that he one of the reasons why he got captured is because his ship crashed onto shore. There were other cases of pirates who were caught and captured because of this as well.

[00:03:32]But in terms of finding themselves in these really really abandoned kind of desert islands, usually you're not going to find pirates in those places because they're too isolated. There aren't enough resources. If they're there, it's usually because of a very very very rare extreme punishment or because of a weather disaster.

[00:03:47]>> Would there ever be any examples of pirates or sailors so they're ashore to a piece of wilderness that they find like hunt or gather sort of raw resources.

[00:03:58]>> There were groups of pirates that actually would go on shore in a lot of these kind of islands usually to find other resources. The buccaneers of the Caribbean in the 1600s, they were the ones really notorious for doing this.

[00:04:09]They would go on shore onto these islands and usually to hunt for boar.

[00:04:13]You know, boar was everywhere all over these islands and they were huge and they were great source of meat, very dangerous to hunt, but a great source of meat and bones and other things that you could use. So, this is quite common.

[00:04:26]Other times, sailors, pirates, buccaneers, they might go onto these islands to find fruits like citrus fruits. They knew that citrus fruits kept them healthy. They did not know that scurvy was a vitamin C deficiency which plagued people at sea, but there was a connection kind of like, "Oh, if we eat these limes, if we eat these lemons, that we won't get sick as much."

[00:04:48]This is why lime actually was fairly common in a lot of the drinks that they would have. It was to help help them stay healthy.

[00:04:58]Pirates for the most part, they wouldn't have really been survivalists like this.

[00:05:01]It would have been really, really, really lucky if they had a member like this amongst their crew. Most pirates, they and you know, of course, had been sailors at one point. Maybe some became pirates without having sailing background, but these people are usually going to be coming from more of an urban, almost working class background.

[00:05:19]So, you know, it's kind of like more of a bunch of city kids on a ship rather than having a lot of farmers or a lot of people from the wilderness come on. Um those people are not going to be very attracted to going to sea. It's usually people who are more working class, worked on the coast, and had a lot of exposure to that. But, they will know how to fix things up on their ship. Most likely what they're going to do is try to find as many materials from the ship as they can and at least try to rebuild part of it or at least to see if they can repair something or maybe one of the other boats ships are very huge. Ships are very sturdy. They're not going to smash into tons of pieces um and for the most part, unless it's like a hurricane, an extreme storm. That is very very unlikely. Usually what they're going to do is they will crash onto land, get stuck on land, and get damaged or sink. So, generally what you're going to try to do is repair the ship. That's the big goal.

[00:06:13]>> So, this is the first ship you get. I've I mean, calling it a ship might be >> [laughter] >> a bit kind, but >> Yeah, I'm not even sure what you would call something really small like that. I was There's so so so many names for every type of sailing vessel that it's impossible for me to keep track.

[00:06:32]>> Yeah, the only thing that I found it useful for was to go away from shore and pick up all of this.

[00:06:37]>> There will definitely be people in the comments who'd be annoyed at me for not knowing the exact name of the ship right away.

[00:06:41]>> [laughter] >> Well, this is the the second ship you find. As you mentioned earlier, you find a mostly intact shipwreck and you gather enough resources, enough wood, you get your actual first vessel, the ketch.

[00:06:53]>> That's what we're going to want. We're going to want a ship that we can go on to, see what resources are available to help ourselves.

[00:07:01]Maybe see if people can help you, if you're lucky.

[00:07:03]>> All this crew you have to rescue and they'll you know, rejoin you and So, every everything really everything you have, every resource, every every ship, every crewmate you have to sort of earn in the game.

[00:07:15]>> This ship is a little bit of a smaller ship, but it's actually probably pretty close to reality of what the vast majority of pirates would sail. We often think of pirates sailing in these massively huge ships and that was more the exception rather than the rule.

[00:07:27]We've heard about it so much because that's what's being written about. It's not as fun to write about like a small ship that pirates are sailing. But, pirates usually sail these smaller ones because they were able to maneuver them really well amongst like different islands and lots of like difficult coastlines. You can't really do that in a very large ship because, you know, they're just hefty to wield. But, these smaller ships you can do that. They're also, in a lot of ways, they can be a lot faster cuz they're lighter weight and they're going to usually use these ships to go after merchant ships or even fishing ships, depending on where they are.

[00:07:58]They're not going after massive massive ships because they usually aren't going to have the resources or the manpower to be able to do that. But, a small ship like this, as long as they can get close to a merchant ship and be able to board and steal the goods after waving their pirate flag, then they're going to be able to sail away pretty quick and go into like these little coast and inlets and craggy areas pretty pretty quickly.

[00:08:19]>> Was it common at all to decorate your ship? Like here, I've got a selection of different colored sails and you can paint the hull.

[00:08:26]>> Yeah, it was. So, people like to have their ships be identifiable in a lot of ways.

[00:08:31]So, they would decorate their ship if they could. Different colored hulls.

[00:08:34]You'd have to be a little careful though because you had to have flags that you could identify your ship with. You can see it at the very top of the ship there, there's a flag and it's small, but it looks like the Jolly Roger to me.

[00:08:45]Generally, every ship had to sail with a flag of where their country was, what their country of origin was, to identify themselves. So, not too uncommon. Pirate ships though probably wouldn't want to decorate themselves that much because then they'd be easy to find.

[00:08:57]>> So, this is the second ship you get classified as a brig, so a bit bigger, tougher, more guns.

[00:09:03]>> Yeah, that's a nice one. That'd be a pretty powerful pirate is going to have a brig. You're going to need a large crew to man it. Someone like Stede Bonnet would have had a brig.

[00:09:12]Maybe something a little bigger.

[00:09:13]Blackbeard probably initially had a brig before he got La Concorde.

[00:09:17]Real big win for him. Sam Bellamy, when he got the Whydah, huge win. That was the largest slave ship to ever exist at that point in history, but he only had it for like 2 weeks before he sank. But, these big on the brigs, these nice estate rooms, definitely were there.

[00:09:30]They'd be for like the captain, lieutenant, or quartermaster to kind of keep track of where they're going, the maps, the logs, inventories.

[00:09:37]>> So, this is when I was I was really impressed with the scale, especially like the height of the masts. You you you read about the size of these ships and how tall these masts were, and it's it's it's crazy.

[00:09:48]>> You're going to want really high masts like that to go faster, but also, you know, just really shows the power of a ship.

[00:09:55]>> If you want an even deeper dive into Windrows, then check out the extended edition over on our Patreon, link in the description below. Over there, you can, of course, find the director's cut of this episode, but also over 90 extended director's cut episodes from a variety of experts and even more Patreon exclusive content and EXP Discord access. Becoming an EXP patron helps to support the channel and allows us to make cool content like this. But whether you join the Patreon or watch along here on YouTube, want to say thank you for watching, thank you for being part of this journey, and now we'll get back to the video.

[00:10:27]>> We're outward bound for Mobile Town with a heave >> You can't have a game like this without some uh without some shanties either.

[00:10:37]I'm I'm really glad they included those.

[00:10:39]>> Exactly. Yeah, there would have been some shanties sung. I think usually around this time, in the early 1700s, a lot of songs were more chants still, but many of them did have very common popular tunes that you could easily put any lyrics to, and that's how these songs would move and spread and people get to know them. So, it was a really good way to pass the time. So, I just want to point out some of the details about the flags here. So, the top of the mast, you can see two flags. You can see the black flag, which is the Jolly Roger, which has the skull and crossbones. You can also see it on like the larger middle mast there in the front as well, kind of a Jolly Roger-esque figure. And then they also have a red flag. What's interesting is that yes, pirates did have what we called the Jolly Roger, and this is the flag with the traditional skull and crossbones or the the skull and cross cutlasses that we find to be very familiar. Uh the pirate Jack Rackham is actually who came up with the image of the skull and cross cutlasses that has become really, really iconic for pirate ships. Pirates usually their flags were probably something to help identify who they were, maybe like a self-portrait.

[00:11:39]So, for example, Bartholomew Roberts, his flag was a self-portrait of himself.

[00:11:43]That way people kind of knew who they were. And what pirates would do is they would sail under a false flag, basically deliberately misidentifying themselves.

[00:11:50]You know, usually hailing for distress, someone would get pretty close to them, and then when the person was too close to actually sail away, that's when they show up the Jolly Roger. And so, people know, "Oh god, we're about to get attacked by pirates." So, the red flag that's pictured there, this actually went out of fashion by the 1700s, but it used to be that pirates sailed with two flags, a black flag and a red flag. A red flag is one you did not want to see.

[00:12:12]It meant no quarter, meaning we are not going to give mercy, we will fight, we will fight to the death, it will be death if you don't do what we want you to do. You did not want to see a red flag. A black flag meant we will give quarter, meaning we're here to negotiate, we're not here to kill. Give us what we want and we'll let you go.

[00:12:29]So, if you're going to get attacked, you're hoping it would be a black flag.

[00:12:31]Having both up, that's hardcore. But, yeah, so that the pirate flags were really important for them to be able to identify themselves, but also so that way people knew they were coming.

[00:12:41]Pirates depended on intimidation. They again, they wanted to get what they wanted and they wanted to go really quickly. So, the idea is we'll scare them into submission, let them know immediately who they're dealing with, and then we'll sail off.

[00:12:54]>> So, this is uh the biggest ship, the frigate.

[00:13:00]>> Yeah, a frigate, you had it made. You had loads of cannons on the ship or guns, as they were referred to. That's actually how you measured a ship was by how many guns they had. Frigates would have dozens of guns, like 50, 60, you know, maybe I've even seen one as large as like 80. That's very unusual, but if a pirate was able to get a frigate, that meant they were super powerful, but it was difficult to be able to get that.

[00:13:21]>> But, would a ship of that size be able to sort of stand its own on its own against multiple attackers as well.

[00:13:28]>> Yes, it would. So, a ship of the size, you know, you can easily be fighting several ships at once, especially if it's like a bunch of merchant ships or even if it's a bunch of like other warships or maybe coast guards, that sort of thing. You'd be able to This is These are the ships are going to be getting engaging in battle. You know, the major sea battles that we're thinking of, they were it was with frigates, maybe with with brigs. You know, they're a bit smaller, but they will also have those as well. But, a frigate, those are the ones you're thinking of when you're getting into like these massive sea battles.

[00:14:05]>> Yes, we've seen the ships idling or at sea now. We'll see them in action starting off again with the smallest one. Um, one of the one of the strategies a player might employ is to use those front guns with chain shot to slow them down and then get a broadside in.

[00:14:20]>> That I think would make sense. I don't exactly know all fighting tactics, but that was the big thing. They wanted to be able to slow down the other ship.

[00:14:29]They don't want to sink the other ship and they're just losing out. Um, and they also want to make sure that they're not going to be damaged much either. So, neither ship really wants to damage the other one. Well, no, the other ship's going to want to damage the pirate ship as much as they can, but the pirate ship isn't really going to want to damage the other ship cuz then they're going to lose out.

[00:14:45]>> The The majority of ships you'll be fighting in in wind rows is is Blackbeard's ships.

[00:14:50]>> Blackbeard did have a fleet. He was a very powerful pirate, very influential pirate, and he was very successful as a pirate. Supposedly, he captured like 40 ships in a period of 2 days. That may have been exaggerated. I don't see how he possibly could have, but I think what that tells us though is just how prolific he was. Everyone knew who he was, everyone knew that if he was there going to attack, you wanted to surrender. Even though Blackbeard himself actually never killed anyone until his very final battle and he commanded his pirates to not, you know, not to kill anybody. They just wanted to get in and out and take their goods. And Blackbeard wanted notoriety. He wanted survivors to tell stories about him.

[00:15:28]>> This this game's version of Blackbeard is dabbling with strange undead magic, so >> [laughter] >> it's it's a departure. Well, it's such in in this game's fiction that a bunch of sort of other pirate groups have have banding together against him because he's become so powerful and and continues to want to grow that power.

[00:15:45]So, one one thing I was curious about, obviously the game has a day-night cycle, but how would they go about fighting other ships or even chasing them at night? Would they simply just rely on a clear clear evening to maintain vision or would it be much trickier?

[00:15:58]>> It would be really tricky. You know, you very much depend on the weather point.

[00:16:01]You don't want to be cloudy, you want to have good moonlight, you want to have good starlight. You know, you're going to have your lanterns. So, lanterns are what's going to be able to help you actually spot another another ship in the distance because you'll see the spectrum of light. You know, you need to have them in order to be able to see.

[00:16:15]You have your lookout who can see the long distances, but it's tricky at night. You know, you don't want to get attacked at night because it's hard to see. A lot of people are sleeping. Yes, you have your night crew, but it's much smaller than your day crew. It's dangerous. It's a good time to do a surprise attack, but you have to be very very precise and very sure that you're going to be able to do this. You have to quietly get close. You have to you're probably putting out a lot of your lanterns, but that's dangerous at the same time because you need to be able to see things on your own ship. But it was at night good surprise tactic? Not optimal. Also at night, a lot of fog comes up on the water, you know, the air is cool down, the water is cold, so fog is going to kind of rise and that's also going to make things very very difficult.

[00:17:03]So, I like the detail here of the way he's loading his gun right there. So, the reason why for the most part pirates fought with cutlasses, which are shorter, more curved swords. Those are really good for kind of close combat because, you you if it's curved, you're going to cause a lot more damage. Also, ships are going to be crowded, they're going to be compact, you know, it's just unwieldy to have a full-length sword.

[00:17:24]So, that's why cutlasses were a lot more popular along with knives, daggers, that sort of thing. And then, of course, pistols. Pistols people did have, but the problem with a pistol is that you only had one shot at a time, and then you'd have to reload. So, you know, you're getting your pistol, you fire it, and then you're going to have to put in your gunpowder, you're going to pack in your gunpowder, put in the bullet, pack down the bullet, and and you you know, light it and fire it. That takes time.

[00:17:47]You have to be able to do all this within seconds in order to actually be successful. And when people are running around with a cutlass, you know, those seconds could be life or death. While yes, people did have pistols, they're actually very careful in terms of when and where to use them. So, you can see that's what this guy's doing. It's not a pistol he's holding, but he's having to do the same process here. He's having to load the gun, he's having to pack it all down, and it's taking him several seconds between doing that and being able to fire. In the meantime, people are firing on him. It's very life and death. gunpowder is, you know, it's not very stable. You know, it can explode, if it gets wet, it's useless. So, pistols are complicated. So, it's better for people to use a cutlass, even though in a in a way, that's of course obviously very dangerous to have people to fight with it.

[00:18:30]People could are all around you, you can get stabbed all over the place, but that can happen if you have a pistol and you're unable to load it. So, but that's very, very good detail about the complications of fighting.

[00:18:45]>> It wouldn't be a pirate game without the ability to get a little buried treasure.

[00:18:50]>> Oh, boy.

[00:18:52]One of my favorite topics.

[00:18:53]>> But did did pirates even bury treasure?

[00:18:55]>> So, burying treasure is kind of one of the biggest myths about pirates. It's also like the most popular. Um, we love this idea of pirates getting so many goods, you know, treasures we would call it, you know, jewels, coins, silver, gold, that sort of thing. That was actually quite rare for pirates to get.

[00:19:10]It was a really awesome bonus if a ship had a lot of cash and a lot of jewels.

[00:19:15]This is why like the Spanish treasure fleet when it sank in 1715 off the coast of Florida, they were full of gold and silver bullion coming from their, you know, Central and South American colonies and it all spills up to the coast of Florida and so you had pirates and people and other sailors flocking to the area cuz they could get it. Those types of items were usually on very powerful ships like that so they're hard to get. In fact, back then, treasure just meant valuable and what was valuable? Food, things you could sell, you know, things like alcohol, textiles, spices, medicines and then yes, sometimes a lot of jewels and valuables.

[00:19:46]But pirates didn't bury it, they didn't leave it in other places. They went to shore, they went to shore to spend it and then when they ran out of money, they would go back to pirating. The idea of buried treasure for the most part comes from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. That's because that's kind of the whole plot of the story.

[00:20:01]They have a map, X marks the spot, an X on the map showing where it's going to be to get like this infamous idea of treasure. There is an idea that the pirate captain William Kidd buried treasure off the coast of New York on a place called Gardiner's Island. He didn't bury anything. What he would have done is he would have offloaded his goods and told the person there, "Please hide it. Keep it safe." This is what pirates might do if they were being really pursued and they felt they could go back and they had someone loyal to them. They would probably maybe offload a lot of their goods saying, you know, "Please keep this safe until we come back." But again, they're not burying treasure, it's with a trusted person.

[00:20:38]Pirates did this. Henry Avery did this, Captain Kidd did this actually when he was in the Caribbean when he realized he was being pursued for piracy. He unloaded a lot of his goods. He also traded ships, he got a new ship that that would be less obvious. And so again, that's what pirates would do, but they're not going to hide it and in a spot for them to go back to and dig back up because it's very likely they wouldn't be able to do that. So they wouldn't be able to actually get back to the place. So the absolute closest we have is them giving stuff to a a really trusted person. Anyways, burying treasure is great for fiction. It's great for a game. Uh in reality, did not happen.

[00:21:21]>> Now we get to the fashion pirate fashion segment of the of the video. So, you can get a lot of different outfits in the game.

[00:21:28]>> Uh shorts you wouldn't see people wearing. You want to be able to protect your legs completely. You know, your clothes is going to you're going to get damaged either through battle or just through general wear and tear. And so, that will happen. But generally, you want your body to be protected as much as possible. But having identifying clothing is really important. You know, a lot of people, you know, pirates, they wore as fancy clothes as possible to really show off what they were able to steal.

[00:21:52]In fact, Jack Rackham, that pirate was known as Calico Jack Rackham. And that's facetious, and it's because he only wore the best material clothing to really kind of show off his uh power and prestige that way. Also, you know, all sailors, not just pirates, you know, the clothing they wore, what um accessories they had, it was a way of them kind of showing their identity. It was really important. In the film Pirates of the Caribbean, you know, Jack Sparrow is so so obsessed making sure he always had his effects, his hat, his swords, his other accessories, because this is part of a of a sailor's identity. And I'm saying sailors instead of pirates because, you know, not all sailors were pirates, but all but all pirates were sailors. So, this guy, he's a successful pirate. You know, nice hat, the feather.

[00:22:34]Captains would wear that. Again, it was kind of show their ranking. They wore the best clothing. You often see pirates looking like they're wearing leather of some sort. Now, leather is very good at sea because it's really hearty, and it won't get damaged as well. But, it's also not practical because of just the sheer heat you're under. You can get heatstroke wearing this. So, if they're going to be wearing leather and everything like that, it's going to be temporary to show off a rank and to show off power. Or if you're doing really hard work, like leather boots, that will help you if you're like climbing the mast for instance. But most of the people who had leather boots were going to be people who are higher ranking. In fact, most people who worked on ships on the deck were barefoot. This is because of like natural, you know, your feet sweat. That gives you traction. So he's dressed quite nicely, neat clothing. He's got a satchel that's going to have his personal belongings on him. You know, he's got his dagger there strapped to his belt. And again, these weapons belonged to the pirates. They did not share their weapons. Weapons were very much personal. And this goes back to the ancient world, you know, ancient Greek and Roman tombs of soldiers have weapons cuz they were part of their identity.

[00:23:36]Yeah, the better the clothing, the higher your rank. This outfit is probably pretty typical of a higher ranking pirate. You know, it doesn't look like it's leather, but it's still pretty pretty sturdy material. But to me, that looks a little bit more palatable in the hot, humid heat.

[00:23:51]>> And clean as well. I imagine if you're a higher rank, it's easy to keep your kit clean.

[00:23:55]>> It is because yeah, you're not going to be doing hard labor. Uh you're going to be indoors. You're going to be kind of looking over the with the logistics and making sure everything was running smoothly. You're not going to be damaging your clothes because you want to be looking that way, not just to people you thought you might be hunting, but also to your crew. You see, he's got two satchels there. So one um he's got a horn of gunpowder, it looks like.

[00:24:18]Satchel probably with more gunpowder or more items to help with his weapons, maybe some more personal items as well.

[00:24:24]He's got several daggers, cutlasses. He um or I don't see a cutlass. Oh, all right, no, he's holding a cutlass. Um pistol.

[00:24:32]Yeah, he's prepped.

[00:24:45]>> For melee weapons, they had rapiers, cutlasses. Uh the game features two-handed longswords, halberds. Have you Have you come across any examples of a pirate using something like a a long sword or a halberd or something. We expect pirates to have something like a a rapier or a cutlass, but were the wider weapons used?

[00:25:08]>> You know, oddly enough in my in my own research, whenever you know, people were reporting about pirates having swords or cutlasses, I never saw anything more descriptive than sword or cutlass. Sword was like a blanket term. So, it is very likely that you know, it's likely that a lot of pirates would use those. A lot of weapons like that were very standard for maritime fighting and fighting in general. If they had a military background, they might have those weapons with them. I haven't seen a lot in my own research of those specific weapons. Now, that does not mean they did not exist. I know other historians who have studied weaponry and everything like that. You know, they have mentioned like they might have these specific weapons on ships, but they were less a lot less common because they could just be a bit more unwieldy and a little less practical for you know, close-up fighting. It was very important to keep your weapons in top shape.

[00:26:00]It was one of the big rules of on the pirate articles, which we might call the pirate code, to keep your weapons in top shape. You know, make sure that your swords, your cutlasses, they didn't get any rust on them. You kept them clean.

[00:26:10]You kept your guns clean. You kept the gunpowder dry because again, it's life or death. You know, if you got a rusty cutlass, that's going to break and you will die.

[00:26:17]>> Would it be the the ship's quartermaster that would keep an eye on that stuff?

[00:26:21]>> Ship's quartermaster usually kept an eye on a lot of those things. Yeah, the quartermaster was the one who was in charge of a lot of the inventory, making sure, you know, checking the stores, checking the goods, making sure that um anything stolen was still accounted for.

[00:26:33]And yes, also making sure that weapons were in good condition. It would also be the gunner, the person who was in charge of the of the cannons. You know, they're the ones who are really in charge of making sure that cannonballs and the cannons are fully functioning and the gunpowder is ready, the gunpowder is dry. A lot of that work could also be kind of outsourced by, you know, as I would call it, by the quartermaster.

[00:26:59]Now, Tortuga was a pirate haven for the most part with uh French pirates uh who were fighting against the Spanish during the 1600s. You know, the French were trying to establish some of their own colonies in the West Indies, but had a lot more challenges. They were focused more on Canada. So, they had fewer resources going into the West Indies.

[00:27:16]And at the time in the 1600s, the Spanish was actually the most powerful entity within the Caribbean. And so, they were trying to take over as many islands as possible. And so, the French pirates were actually buccaneers who lived on Tortuga. You know, buccaneers were ones that did a lot of hunting on land. They were known for smoking meat.

[00:27:33]So, that's kind of where the term comes from, the French term boucanier. The French were fighting against the Spanish during the 1600s. And ultimately, the Spanish would pretty much like defeat the French population there. And then the population is really going to scatter kind of towards like the late 1600s. And by the 1700s, that's This is where people are going to do the Bahamas, to the city of Nassau on the island of Providence. That's where pirates really hung out in like the 1700s.

[00:27:57]Although, oddly enough, you know, Tortuga is, you know, because it was an island, it was a very small island, but the whole island was this buccaneer sanctuary in the 1600s, which is why it's actually kind of like a pretty good place in a game, in a movie like Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. That's where he's recruiting. You know, he goes to Tortuga. And that's because, again, Nassau was a city on one single island in the Bahamas where pirates congregated in the 1710s. But Tortuga was an entire island of a pirate and criminal population uh during the 1600s. That's kind of why it's become pretty iconic you know, in terms of like pirate sanctuary, pirate populations in pop culture.

[00:28:37]>> Wait, in this case, Tortuga is the the place that you you go to hire people.

[00:28:41]So, this this character I'm hiring to bring back to my to to to colony that I'm starting and giving her a job and it's where other sort of emissaries from the the other pirate groups are and you can trade with those and and and talk about business and what Blackbeard's up to and then how to beat it. Though the biggest building is the tavern, of course. But the the main departure is that Tortuga and in in Wind Rose is like cursed. There's parts of it that are locked off that there's this sort of undead haze that people are watching over because the the undead are attacking and they're trying to hold off these these hordes of of undead attackers to to keep Tortuga running, really. So that's why you see a sort of ghostly mist over the islands which which is uh I've not seen Tortuga featured in that sort of way in any in any fiction before. It's, you know, it's it's a hub but it's also got this extra sort of ethereal myth element to it.

[00:29:32]>> And I could just kind of see why, you know, a lot of these hubs were pirates, you know, people were frightened of them. You know, they're like all these criminal places, you know, Jamaica for example in the 1600s when Port Royal was really a place where pirates congregated and also other criminals. It was known as the Sodom of the Sea. People were kind of frightened of a lot of those places. And yes, Tortuga was a huge recruiting place, you know, a lot of pirates would go to these types of places to try to recruit people for their crew because these are going to be people who won't have opportunities otherwise, you know, maybe criminals.

[00:29:59]And then of course other pirates may be looking for work trying to get a new crew and yes, they would go to taverns.

[00:30:03]Taverns were the place where negotiations took place, where deals took place, where recruiting took place, where news was passed around, you know, where people you know, met up with each other, you know, the tavern was the social hub of these kinds of places. And yes, even after the Spanish and the French were no longer really fighting with each other and even after Nassau did become like the pirate haven, you're still going to have some of these types of people in places like Tortuga.

[00:30:27]Smaller islands that just don't have as much authority, you know, by the Royal Navy or the Admiralty maybe as other places like Jamaica for instance that was, you know, a major you know, port hub, a major trading hub.

[00:30:40]So they're were still there's probably still a significant population of these kinds of people on Tortuga going into the 1700s, but Nassau is the city that we know about because that's where like the vast majority began congregating in the 1710s.

[00:30:58]These are kind of the undead that pirates are fighting, kind of mythological part of the game. And mythology very much was present in maritime culture among sailors and ships, and a lot of it had to do with the fear of drowning. And so, you kind of had a lot of this mythology and superstitions to try to warn sailors away from actually going into the water.

[00:31:17]So, this is where we have the idea of like sirens and mermaids, and these were creatures in the ocean that would sing and use these songs, use their voices to kind of hypnotize sailors and then lead them into the water and then drown them.

[00:31:30]So, that was like a huge warning here.

[00:31:33]There was also kind of a lot of superstition at nighttime. You know, you can't see things at night. Nighttime is the time where ghosts are going to arrive. You see a lot There have been reports of people seeing what was referred to as a ghost ship, a ship that is sailing the waters that actually does not exist. And likely this happens This is probably hallucinations at night or even hallucinations during the day where you're isolated for a very long time, haze on the water. Sometimes your brain is going to play tricks on you to try to trick you into thinking that there's other people around, you know, we're not meant to be isolated creatures. The idea of the ghost ship became quite prominent here.

[00:32:07]People would refer to as Davy Jones's locker, that was kind of the sort of the term that people gave to the deep ocean.

[00:32:14]You know, when people are drowned, they're being sent to Davy Jones's locker. I actually did see that phrase in a newspaper, as a sailor saying that someone got dragged into Davy Jones's locker. So, for me as a historian, I was pretty excited to see that actually in a valid source. I'm not sure where the term kind of came from. None of us are really that sure where the term came from.

[00:32:34]So, there's a lot of different theories, you know, coming out of the maritime world. Kind of these mythological creatures that were meant to kill people at sea. You know, those are superstitions people told to each other.

[00:32:44]Whether or not they actually believed it, unlikely, but still you have superstitions. You don't want to tempt that anyways, just in case.

[00:32:53]>> So, it's interesting then that the the name they've chosen for the one of the undead mythical enemies is the drowned with this connection to the fear of the sea and and drowning at sea.

[00:33:03]>> Yeah, that would absolutely make sense because the drowned are probably going to want to get revenge for being drowned by dragging other people into the water.

[00:33:10]The idea of people trying to lure you to your death goes back to the ancient world. I'm actually reading The Odyssey right now in prep for the film and Odysseus has to have his ears stuffed with wax and literally tied to the mast of his ship to prevent sirens from trying to lure him into the water. So, these could be figures here of the undead coming out of the water to try to get revenge, drag him down into the water.

[00:33:35]>> So, the the last piece is the other big part of the game is that players have the freedom to build their own outposts out of different materials and those materials will change depending on, you know, how established you are from wicker and wood and and basic like leaves and thatch to, you know, actual houses. So, I thought I'd I'd let you comment on what you what you what you thought of my pirate outposts, if you thought they were piraty enough. Uh I've added a I've added a few. I spent some time building them on the desert islands.

[00:34:06]>> So, yeah, this is this is pretty good for what structures would look like.

[00:34:10]Building them out of local materials is pretty key because, you know, local plants and materials they're meant to withstand the weather and the rain from this. So, you're going to thatch them really tightly. It'll keep out the rain, keep out some of the sun and the heat perhaps. You're using whatever you can find locally here for the structures.

[00:34:27]And a detail I noticed is that they're slightly raised from the ground. So, yeah, really smart to do that in case there's some flooding coming in that would help protect the homes from being flooded. So, you can see that they're probably made from a lot of the chopped down trees, leaves from those trees, which are very waterproof. So, yeah, and these structures can be made pretty quickly. So, if they're raised, you'll be able to have a floor and a foundation. If they're not raised, you're likely just going to have a bare open floor.

[00:34:51]>> And now after I've been playing for a while, I've got a few more resources.

[00:34:54]Maybe I'm Maybe I'll build myself a nicer house, somewhere that's a bit more aesthetically pleasing.

[00:35:00]>> Yeah.

[00:35:00]So, getting yourself a little bit of furniture, that is luxury. That's luxury, having like a bed, a table, chairs, even in standard homes, like on land in cities, you know, it was at the time, like actually having furniture, that was luxury. They probably used supplies to kind of double as furniture, like maybe a barrel, you know, you could use that as a table. Um a chest, I saw a chest in front of the bed, that could double as a few different things and also holding supplies. You know, these open-air structures, again, also pretty popular. You're going to want that to get the natural breeze to come through.

[00:35:30]They could also withstand a storm, probably, because you know, the wind is going to just go right through it.

[00:35:35]Again, this is kind of built over the water with structures. So, it's kind of risky to do, but this is kind of where maybe a lookout would be. Fire's burning, you know, if you if you want to be found and spotted, a bonfire is pretty good. But again, you're going to want to have that so that way you can cook food, also light at night, maybe um and also protection from predators, like boars, which often frequented these types of islands.

[00:35:58]>> So, hey, you see me speeding through the the construction of my final little town. I'm I'm so proud of it. I think it's nice, especially the tavern. I put a lot of a lot of work into the tavern.

[00:36:08]>> Taverns are going to be the most well-built place, you know, because they're going to have the money for it.

[00:36:12]And also, you want it to be really solid structure. So, they're going to take more time. You can see stone walls there. That'll help keep it protected.

[00:36:19]And you're going to have like really good like wooden roofs, logs, and that sort of thing. Um that's going to help keep it really, really sturdy. And it's very large. It's much larger than the other structures cuz you want there to be room for tables and chairs and a lot of people to congregate. You also need to have space to be able to sell, you know, sell alcohol. You're not going to be really drinking beer here. You're going to be drinking rum, which is distilled from sugar, the number one product sold throughout Caribbean. So, ship is approaching here, you know, there's a pier that's been built out.

[00:36:47]You need piers to help more ship, and that's where people are going to be waiting to keep the records to help tie the ship to the dock. That way it can stay there safely. And then people are going to come or go into the conference, you know, maybe an inn if there's one available. Um a lot of people would actually go and sleep on their ship. They'd stay on their ship the whole time, but they would go onto shore to go to the taverns, go replenish their food, you know, as you see vendors selling their goods here, which did happen, you know, with tropical fruits and that sort of thing. Crabs and fish, turtles, you know, you got to have your turtles if you're going to go into a tavern to pay for ladies' company.

[00:37:23]>> There's there's so many mechanics in the game that allow you to be self-sufficient, so even to the point of you making your own gunpowder. So, you do still spend a good amount of time at your outposts. So, the game incentivizes you to build up something that has all of these systems in place that has, you know, tanneries, has a a galley for the the cook is is working at. And I mean, the tavern was just for fun, really.

[00:37:47]>> See, glass windows, that is very wealthy to have stained glass windows like that.

[00:37:51]That would have to be imported. You're not going to find it on an island, so this would be a very wealthy tavern. So, that someone who would run a tavern like this is probably someone who had very wealthy connections and probably actually did work with pirates who brought in goods that were difficult to trade otherwise and that they could sell for high prices.

[00:38:08]>> This is my house. This is the house that I built for >> nice house.

[00:38:12]>> for my player character.

[00:38:13]>> Nice. Well deserved after all the hard work you put into the game.

[00:38:17]>> I thought so.

[00:38:18]>> Yeah, the more items you have, glass windows, books, that sort of stuff, that really shows your wealth, power, and success. Whether you're a pirate or whether you happen to be like a wealthy merchant working with pirates. Picture of a cat, love it. Cats were actually pretty popular on ships. They ate rats.

[00:38:33]They provided companionship. We always love our pets.

[00:38:36]>> [laughter] >> It's fun to just just build up your little your little outpost. It's it's it's always very satisfying games like this to make somewhere like like go out and go to the seas and engage in combat and come back and do the sort of cozy building. It's it's always really fun.

[00:38:56]Thank you all for watching. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos featuring Dr. Rebecca Simon. As always, a huge shout out to all of our wonderful supporters over on the EXP Patreon without whom we simply couldn't make this content. So, we really appreciate you. Let us know what other piratey productions you'd like us to break down in the future, but until next time, thank you again for watching and I'll see you very soon.

[00:39:21]>> Give me some time to blow the man down.

[00:39:25]Blow the man down, bullies. Blow the man down.

[00:39:32]Heave ho, blow the man down.

[00:39:34]Blow him right over to Liverpool town.

[00:39:39]Give me some time to blow the man down.