The Golden Kiiv - Sunken Ship

Okay, was unsure if this is the right spot (hoping ) though the way it ended up I'm unsure exactly what it is ... I am nearly finished with this and figured I could get it up incase someone had the time to look over it ... I will be out of school all next week and plan on getting this and any edits for my hound finished this weekend ... Not sure if the format is correct, but was unsure where it belonged at first so it might be a bit crazy ... Eh, here it is ...

The Golden Kiiv

There are many questions that can be asked about The Golden Kiiv, captained by one Korash Blackwater. The main question asked is about fabled gold. Did this ship sink with a hull full of stolen treasure or is it just a pile of rotting wood? Many are led to believe that this sunken ship is filled with horde of many lifetimes while others believe that the ship itself was made of gold. More than a hundred years has passes since this famous pirate ship fell off the map, signaling the end of a golden age for one lucky crew. Still, new stories and speculations about the whereabouts and contents of this famed ship travel up and down the north-western coast of Southern Sarvonia.

Many have set out in search of this great wealth, believing that they would simply find the sunken ship and live out the remainder of their lives in comfort. Unfortunately, nothing is ever as simple as it seems or many wish it would be. Most of those that have gone looking for this vessel have returned empty handed after months of searching while others didn't even make it back to port. No one among the living knows the location of this sunken craft since the entire crew went down with their ship. Those that have attempted to find this ship had sailed out to sea, not knowing where the ship was bound or the general location of the wreck.

The only evidence that leads many to believe that the ship crashed was an old sea-chest that was blown back Quentron where the Kiiv had last docked. Villagers found the ship's logs within the locked chest and that is where the myths started. The harbormasters of the town kept the logs in his office for a time, attempting to find out as much as he could from the information kept within. The myths of the treasure started as simple entries about successful captures of merchant ships. When flipping through the most recent large, leather bound book, the harbormaster discovered this entry:

15th Day of Changing Winds
This morning our lookout spotted the Sea Rover, a large merchant craft. The crew was overjoyed for this was the first craft we had spotted in nearly a month and they were nearly dying of boredom. It was a wonderful sight to see and the rowdy jeering and clanking of weapons was music to my ears. We tailed her for a few bells, allowing her to think she was a bit faster than the Kiiv, but it seemed she knew the truth and the black flag that flew from our mast. I could only stand there on the foredeck and grin.

It was about midday when we came up beside her, throwing across our grappling lines and boarding the vessel. I held back the men long enough to listen to the terms of surrender, but allowing the crew to live is always out of the question. It just isn't my way. Beside, my crew was looking for some sport and I wasn't about to tell them no. In less than ten minutes my crew had swept over the ship, killing the thirty men that earned their living aboard the Rover.

We were pleased to find that they had already sold their cargo and had apparently been heading home after a long trading voyage. Mostly empty barrels and crates for food supplies were strapped down in the hull. My men found a half a dozen barrels of fresh water and a few with food. Our food and water stores are fine, but it doesn't hurt to have extra. The men moved the supplies over to our ship while I searched the cabins with the first mate. It didn't take long to find the Captain's earning from his recent voyage. Once we had taken all the valuables from the ship we cut her loose and sent her to the bottom of the sea. My men cheered as we kept sailing, watching as a lit arrow caught the rigging of the Rover and the ship was quickly consumed by flames. All in all it was a good day.

Total: 3000 sans and a couple gems (400 sans worth).

There were many accounts of confrontations with ships, but those vessels didn't have any notions that they might be spared by a crew of pirates. At the end of each of these retellings of an attack on a merchant vessel, Blackwater would mark the total amount of coin they had acquired from the vessel. Without taking into account the coin spent on provisions and in the harbor, it is estimated that the Kiiv had attained enough gold to last a man several lifetimes of comfort. An exact number was never revealed.

About a year after the ship's logs were recovered the mysteriously vanished from the harbormaster's office. It was logged one a foggy night, possibly an exact year after the day that the chest was brought ashore by a storm that the books disappeared in the night. The next day the harbormaster found the books missing, but no sign of someone having searched through his office. Since then the logs haven’t been and no rumor of the location of them as reached them. Luckily, the harbormaster had torn some of the more important pages out of the books and had them copied by a scribe then cataloged in the harbor files. To this day the mystery of the missing ship's logs and missing ship has yet to be solved.

Name: Was the ship a messenger of the death goddess or just some clever scare tactics? Many debates have started among those that have attempted to reveal the secrets of this ship on this subject. While a passage that was taken from the ship's logs answer this question, several still believe that there is a deeper meaning behind the naming of this pirate ship. Blackwater funded the building of the Kiiv and was her captain from its first days in the water until they both meet their end.

A passage from the very first entry in the ship' log reveals the reasons behind the naming. That part was torn from the books and kept, but part of the entry was lost before it reached the hands of the townsfolk. Here is what was saved:

5th Day of Falling Leaf
On this day twenty years ago I was brought into this world. So on this day in this year I brought my boat out to sea. There is a deep bond between the man and the sea and an even deeper one between man and ship. On this day I watched as her name was painted on her hull in a deep silver paint: The Golden Kiiv.

Years ago I had heard a tale of the Kiivosh, a mythical creature of the sea and the air, and the supposed messenger of the death goddess. This creature fascinated me and I roamed the sea for two year, searching for tales or signs of this creature. When I had finally pirated enough gold to build my own ship I knew what she would be. In the original telling of this beast, it was described as a rainbow colored serpent with wings, swimming through the water as easily as flying through the air.

When I went to see my boat for the first time today I marveled at the work of the carpenter than carved my figurehead. This man had capture the creature like I had seen it in my head, the long, slender body with wide, wings like canvas flapping in the wind. It was complete with a triangle shaped head, softened at the corners, with its mouth opened wide in a snarl, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Almost everything was prefect, but while the Kiivosh was rainbow colored in the tellings, mine was golden. It was the most beautiful ship to sail the …

While this passage showed Blackwater's fascination with this creature, others believe the whole thing to be a message. Some even go so far as to believe that Blackwater was enchanted by the goddess and she used The Golden Kiiv to show a darker side of her. Those that believe this are often shunned for their ideas are thought to be ridiculous. All thought of a deeper meaning behind the naming of the ship are not dismissed though. Some think that it is an impossible coincidence that Captain Korash killed every man and ship he came across with a vessel named after a creature of Queprur.

Location: No one living knows the exact location of this ship and some argue that even the dead might not hold this information. Four weeks after the Kiiv had docked in Quentron the ship's log books returned in a lock sea chest. A rough storm had blown them into port, but unfortunately there were an unusual amount of dangerous storms that winter and they couldn't figure out the direction the chest had come from.

To 'rub salt in the wound', the last entry in the Captain's logs was on the day that they had left port. There was no mention or hint as to where they would be going next in any of the pervious entries. Another of many different beliefs is that the ship never went down, but instead the Kiiv is now haunting other waters. One man even went so far as to claim that Blackwater went off to die, taking his crew and his ship to the bottom of the sea with him. One of these many tales could be true or the Kiiv could be anywhere within a week and a half or more of the port town, rotting upon some unknown rocks. Here is the last recorded information from the ship from the harbor logs (the document was damaged by a young scribe years later so Kiiv's entry was one of the few readable entries):

Quentron Harbor Records - 9th Day of Dead Tree
The Golden Kiiv … Dock: Sunblaze / Depart: 10th Day of Dead Tree

Use: The Golden Kiiv was a pirate ship from the first day it felt the cool, salt water against its hull until the day of its supposed demise a hundred years ago. As far is it is know, none have lived to tell about the golden ship. The only record that is known was taken from the Captain's logs while they were in the hand of the harbormaster of Quentron. Ships that were believed to have gone missing in different parts of the continent turned up on a rather long list that came from the books.

Captain Blackwater seemed to take great joy in killing the crews of each ship he encountered and then sending them to the bottom of the sea. In each of his log books he kept a few pages at the back where he would list each ship he sunk and most times, the number of men in the crew. Here is an example of one such list:

Year 1551 a.S.
Tide Flyer … twenty-seven men. (1000 sans and goods)
The Bolt … thirty-two men. (Goods and provisions)
Kraken … twenty-three men. (700 sans)
Sea Rover … thirty men. (3400 sans and provisions)
The Coast-hugger … fifteen men. (Goods)
Chivalry … twenty-five men. (Goods and provisions)
Sea Serpent … twenty-five men. (300 sans and goods)
The Eliza … thirty-four men. (3000 sans)

The year stated in the list above was a rather slow year for the Kiiv. Blackwater knew the waters of the eastern coast of Southern Sarvonia better than most since he grew up on a ship in those waters. He knew the normal trading routes the east and noted in more than one entry in his log that he would wait in port and follow a merchant ship out. Most years he would come across one, if not two ships a month and could spend the winters ashore. In the later years of the Kiiv's life Blackwater grew bored with the east coast and sailed around Cape Strata and spent the rest of his life haunting The Darksea.

Description: To Be Added

History: To Be Added?