The six callings
Every calling reads the same sea differently, and every one of them profits from another. Start with Cargo; the others make sense once you have moved freight.
Cargo The margin reader
Read margins, run routes, build the empire.
The board at every port lists charters: a load, a destination, a price. The same cards for everyone, drawn from the port and the day.
You plan each run — Fastest, Cheapest or Safest — and the receipt shows fuel, canal tolls, port fees, tariff at the destination, the tribute risk of the waters you cross.
Relief cargo to a port in trouble pays in Elo as well as money. Ballast legs cost you; a full hold both ways is the craft.
Recommended first calling: nothing in the game is hidden from a cargo captain, and every other calling makes sense once you have moved freight.
Tanker The market watcher
Refuel and help, define price.
Ports burn fuel; you carry it. Consignment runs pay by the tonne and the distance, and a port running dry posts emergency runs that pay more and count for more.
Where you deliver, the stock rises and prices fall — every tanker moves the market she sells into.
Maydays for fuel are yours to answer: a ship out of bunker pays whoever reaches her first.
Fishing The sea reader
Read the living sea, fish or hunt.
Real grounds, real species, real seasons. Every trip depletes the ground a little; every fleet fishing it together depletes it a lot, and it grows back on its own clock.
Restocking a ground pays in Elo; farming pens pays steady and small; fishing a protected ground quietly pays well until a Warden boards you.
The compass remembers: a fleet that leaves the sea richer is trusted, and trust opens the best grounds.
Shepherd The insurer
Every wolf on the chart is a paycheck.
Patrol shifts over a hot zone pay by the hour and cool the zone for everyone under you. Escort tenders — a share of a cargo captain’s gross — pay when the ship you covered lands.
When a pirate finds an escorted ship, your combat rating decides who wins. Win and the danger money is yours; lose and you refund part of the fee.
Maydays of every kind are yours to answer.
Pirate The traffic reader
Everyone reads the map to avoid trouble, or you.
Toll stations over the high seas tax whatever passes: a shift pays by the hour and warms the zone, which brings the Shepherds.
Prey cards are other captains’ ships within reach — their orders decide whether they pay the tribute or refuse; a refusal you win is a boarding, a refusal you lose is a forfeit you pay.
Rookies are untouchable, relief cargo is untouchable, company mates are untouchable. Infamy is your rating, read upside down.
A letter of marque turns the same work lawful against one nation’s enemies.
Cruise The composer
Everyone else moves cargo. You move everyone else.
Compose an itinerary of calls, sail it, and be rated on satisfaction: novelty, weather, whether tribute was paid on the way.
Three ready-made trips get you started; the composer is the calling. Repeating the same calls bores the guests.
Evacuation charters, when a port is in trouble, pay the most Elo in the game.