[Pirates of Drinax] Admiral Darokyn's backstory?

[Pyromancer]

Possible spoilers for "Honour among Thieves"!

In "Honour among Thieves", we are introduced to Admiral Darokyn, a former Imperial Navy Officer that turned rogue and took a flotilla of ships with him to lead a pirate's life. How did he manage to do that? Convincing dozens of officers and hundreds of crewmen and -women to betray their oath and follow him into the unknown, and then pulling it off without someone snitching on him, that's a spectacular feat. How did he do that?

Ok, the "pulling it off" part can be explained by the Imperial Intelligence allowing him to succeed and secretly removing obstacles from his way. But the convincing part?

My rough idea for a backstory: Darokyn always was very popular with his crews, bordering on a cult of personality around him. Then there was an incident where he disobeyed a direct order from above and endangered his own ship to save the lives of many of his men, and partly succeeded, although causing lots of property damage. In jail awaiting his court-martial, he was contacted by Imperial Intelligence and offered the option to "go rogue" and serve the Imperium as a spy, instead of spending many years in prison. When he agreed, the covert Imperial Intelligence members in his crews brought up the idea of a prison break, and officers loyal to Darokyn did the planning and execution.

Does that make sense?

 

[Baldo]

Try the political backstory. Deneb sector is a mess of political (and worse... ) infighting, Darokyn could be an exiled noble from Inar or Vincennes, defeated in war but still popular with his supporters, as you said. This also explains why Imperial Intelligence trusts him (noble rank DOES count in the Third Imperium).

 

[Pyromancer]

Since "Pirates of Drinax" is a little bit over the top, I want Darokyn's underlings to give emotive testimonies of a dramatic event when the player characters confront them about their loyalty to a pirate.

 

[Old School]

I see Darokyn as an extremely charasmatic leader who due to some incident or disillusionment led his followers, mostly mid lelvel officers with their own small ship commands, to leave the Imperium. Most of the rank and file crew didn’t know the plan until they were already outside Imperial space snd out of contact. Presented with a fait accompli, many of the crew, who were already to Darokyn, swore continuing loyalty to the Admiral. Those who didn’t were put in low berths at gunpoint. Maybe Darokyn arranged for them to get back to the Navy. Maybe he didn’t.

 

[Pyromancer]

When one of the PCs asks one of Darokyn's officers (and it is possible that my players will agree to take one of them as liaison officer on board of the Harrier and therefore spend a lot of time with her) why they followed him, I want a little bit more than "Oh, he's really charismatic."
I want something like: "Back in '96, during the Acorn Cloud crisis, when those terrorists attacked, he got the order to pull back, and leave four ships behind to die. Instead, he risked his ship and his own life, barged in, rammed the space station and bought enough time for the others to retreat as well. With minimum losses, too. 6 dead, a dozen wounded, instead of 60 dead. And he saved the ships, too. He should have gotten a f***g medal for this. But one of the dead was an ensign on his own ship, daughter of a baron, third cousin of the duke. So they arrested him, charged him with treason because he disobeyed a direct order. They wanted to execute him for this.
I was on one of the ships he saved. When they asked me if I would participate in his prison break, I didn't need a second to decide. We freed him, and fled beyond the border. That's the story."

Only, I want a story that actually makes sense.

 

[Old School]

That works. Build a story based on who he is. And don’t worry too much about it making sense.

 

[paltrysum]

Great ideas, guys. Never thought too deeply about it myself, but I love playing Admiral Darrokyn. So much confidence. He believes he is the "duke" of Theev and the other pirate lords fear him mightily.

 

[Pyromancer]

I have a lot to criticize about the "Pirates of Drinax" campaign, but so far, playing any of the NPCs has been great fun.

 

[RogerMc]

He doesn't really need to be an Admiral - the Trojan Reach is a small ship setting where a small flotilla of close escorts can be a significant force.

So quite a junior officer if he managed to lead a mutiny on a single Gazelle class close escort and ended up on Theev would soon be significant player and soon be called 'the admiral'.

After all your PCs are supposed to become dominant figures starting off with just a 300-ton ship so Darokyn doesn't need much more.

As for his continued relationship with the imperial navy the mutiny may of course have been fake and he an intelligence officer all along - or alternatively he is working for a pardon and a return to the Imperium.

 

[Pyromancer]

He doesn't really need to be an Admiral - the Trojan Reach is a small ship setting where a small flotilla of close escorts can be a significant force.

So quite a junior officer if he managed to lead a mutiny on a single Gazelle class close escort and ended up on Theev would soon be significant player and soon be called 'the admiral'.

That's my assumption, too. In the Imperium, Darokyn probably only was a young captain in command of a few small ships. But even back then he was nicknamed "the admiral" because of his charisma and leadership skills.

 

[Old School]

Thats a good point I hadn’t considered. Admiral is likely the title he gave to himself, not the one he earned in his Naval Career.

So, is he a criminal who just happens to be working both sides by coordinating with Naval Intelligence; or was his whole defection a sham, and he and his officers are actually loyal to the Imperium? If the latter, what’s the goal / end game to this 30 year con?

 

[Old School]

One of the challenges of the campaign is that related info is scattered all over the place.

From Book 2:

Admiral Darokyn
Infamous pirate captain; formerly an Imperial officer, he was found to be involved in a smuggling ring. He fled the naval base at Tobia with several other members of this ring, and set himself up as a pirate. The Imperium has not, to date, placed a bounty on his head; the Duke of Tobia said that the matter was one to be resolved by the Imperial Navy and they would punish their own traitors.

Elsewhere in book 2 he’s said to have 50 ships. In Book 1 he has 30.

I’m thinking he’s not so much in cahoots with Naval Intelligence as he is with the Duke of Tobia’s intelligence service. Perhaps the Duke uses Darokyn to pick on PRQ and GeDeCo’s trade fleets to the benefit of the Tobia Commerce Guild, which he is rumored to favor. The Duke was also involved in the same smuggling ring as Darokyn, perhaps even its sponsor. Darokyn knows this and has proof (or at least claims to) of the Duke’s involvement. So the Duke protects and uses Darokyn, but Darokyn is at the same time a threat to the Duke. their relationship is both symbiotic and poisonous at the same time.

Partlially explains the continued existence of Theeve, although that is still a majpr plot hole. Of course, Theeve is a GeDeCo creation, so between GeDeCo’s power base and the Duke’s interference, the Navy is completely hamstrung when it comes to Theeve. So GeDeCo and the Duke are also somewhat in partnership. GeDeCo knows that Darokyn is attacking their ships, but they don’t know that it is at the Duke’s bidding. If Darokyn causes more trouble than he is worth, however, GeDeCo can eliminate him.

How’s that for a stream of consciousness conspiracy? Who are the good guys again?

 

[Pyromancer]

Thanks for that find! That's one of the things I criticize about the campaign: The information management is awful. But in this case, it doesn't matter. A fled smuggler is to profane for my tastes anyway.

 

[Old School]

If I’m trying to flesh something out completely, I always do a word search of the pdf files for books 1 and 2 to be sure I’ve got all the info at hand first.

 

[Condottiere]

Navies tend to hunt down mutineers, if only as an objective lesson to the others.

 

[Pyromancer]

Navies tend to hunt down mutineers, if only as an objective lesson to the others.

Well. We know for sure that they didn't do that in the case of Admiral Darokyn, because Admiral Darokyn is alive and kicking in the campaign. We can even make and educated guess why they didn't.