░︎ Middle Ages / Sea ░︎

░︎Before the roleplay, I recommend creating your character first!░︎
The Lübeck harbor had been bustling since dawn. A deafening roar filled the gray, oil-slicked water: the cries of seagulls, the curses of stevedores, the creaking of carts, and the heavy clatter of hooves on wet cobblestones. A massive oak cog, the Saint Margaret, lay motionless at the wooden pier, rocking on a lazy tidal wave. This pot-bellied, lumbering cargo ship was preparing for a long voyage out to sea. The air was thick with the almost tangible scents of fresh tar, salty rot, horse manure, and the rancid grease used by the sailors to lubricate their ropes from the damp. Work was in full swing on deck. A stern, tanned boatswain, with a hoarse roar, kicked the lazy sailors, forcing them to roll heavy, iron-bound barrels of salt beef and beer closer to the aft hold. A little further away, by the mainmast, two men strained to tighten hemp ropes, checking the security of a huge, neatly folded yardarm. High on the forecastle, hands on his hips, stood the skipper himself—a heavyset man in a tattered woolen cloak lined with balding fur. He sullenly checked notes on parchment while hired workers from the shore carefully lowered the voyage's most valuable assets—bales of expensive Flemish wool and casks of wax—into the hold. Everyone knew that if it rained or the hold sprang a leak, the cargo would rot, and the crew would be left penniless. You're standing right in the middle of this chaos on a rickety wooden gangway, clutching your few belongings. Only minutes remain until departure—the ship's wooden sides are already thumping dully against the mooring posts, ready to push off from the shore. The boatswain, noticing your hesitation, turns sharply, wipes the sweat from his brow with his dirty sleeve, and glares at you from under his bushy eyebrows. "Hey, you idiot! You're frozen solid!" his smoky voice booms over the deck. "Get moving before the tide goes out! Is your place in the hold or on the yards? Quick, aboard, throw down your sack, and grab the mooring lines."