Using the Seafarers’ Guild in Your Game

The Seafarers’ Guild with its specialized magics and abilities can take many forms, depending on the system you’re using it with. While there are as many ways to represent the Seafarers as there are GMs, below are some suggestions based on individual systems.

D&D 3.5/Pathfinder

Probably the best way to render the seafarers’ Guild in d20 terms is to make it a prestige class. Seafarers would be arcane casters with minimal magical abilities (probably not gaining higher than 3^rd level spells.) and shapeshifting would be one ability they gain as they increase levels. While not every Seafarer is a shapeshifter or is magically inclined, there is something to be said for making the PCs (who are supposed to be extraordinary) a member of that privileged minority.

Ars Magica

While it would be up to individual storyguides to determine how well Seafarers would fit into their version of Mythic Europe (or any other setting they run using the system), one way of handling them would be to make the Guild a group of hedge wizards with strong Aquam abilities and make shapeshifting a Virtue or modify the ability and use the “Skinchanger” Virtue.

Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

Very little adaptation would be required to add the Guild to an ADRPG game. Those PCs could purchase the Shapeshifting power and Power Words or Sorcery if they also choose to have magical abilities. The Guild itself would simply be background, unless you wished to make it an Artifact under the control of one of the characters, where it would be Horde, Shadow-wide, or Ubiquitous, depending on how wide-spread you want the Guild to be.

Classic World of Darkness

The Guild itself would be represented as Allies (for guild member characters) or Contacts (for characters with strong guild connections who aren’t actually members). The shapeshifting ability could be handled a variety of different ways, depending on which set of mechanics you’re using. In Vampire, for example, you could make it a variation on the Vicissitude Discipline; in Mage it would be Life Sphere magick (in which case you could introduce the Seafarers as a new Tradition or use them as a type of hedge wizard)

These are just examples and suggestions, of course. Feel free to implement the Guild any way that works for your game.

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