Ahoy, students! Welcome to your first task as a pirate! Whether you are an experienced ocean traveler, or this is your first time sailing the great blue, you have a lot to learn, and not a lot of time to do it! If you want to get to the coveted treasure that awaits the end of this adventure, you must begin right away!
To be a pirate, you cannot grab your sword and set sail immediately, you have to get your bearings first. That means you need to figure out who exactly pirates are, so that you not only know who you are joining ranks with, but you know who to watch out for on your adventures. Each type of pirate has a different skillset, so learning what that entails can be used to your advantage later!
Muggle Robbers
These types of pirates are known for breaking onto ships and taking everything they have. They have been known to train animals like monkeys and parrots to do some of their stealing as well. Muggle Robbers are greedy, they often scope out the boats from the richest countries around them to get the most booty per raid as possible.
Muggle Treasure Hunters
Muggle Treasure Hunters are known to be a very rash type of pirate. They often believe whatever folklore story they hear first and jump on any ship that claims there is money awaiting them. Often times these pirate types never find their fame and wealth at the end of the treasure map because the adventures they go on often end up being fake or impossible for a Muggle to complete.
Muggle Fighters
These are the most violent type of pirates to set sail. Muggles that join piracy simply to fight others generally do not have a care in the world other than to prove their power and might over these ships. Pirates of this type rarely attack civilian or private ships as those are seen to be too weak and vulnerable, but often go after a country’s navy vessels or other considered “strong” defenses. Out of all of the types of pirates, these traditionally have the shortest lifespan, but the best of them end up with very popularized names that are known throughout the world.
Wizard Pirates
This final set of pirates, are the magical kind. Within wizardry there have been pirate robbers, pirate fighters, but most end up being treasure hunting pirates. While some wizards in the past have found pleasure out of robbing mugglevessels and showing they can beat them completely, most do not find this thrilling as that is not a very impressive act. After all, every other wizard can defeat a muggle ship single handedly.
In addition to what you do as a pirate, you might be called by many different names. You absolutely need to study them because some of them might come as a complement to what you do, or it may be a complete insult depending on who it is coming from and their intentions while saying it. You may have thought you’d only be called a pirate, but check out all of the following names to see what others before you went by!
A Privateer is often considered a “fake pirate” by others on the sea. This is because they were given a special license called a Letter of Marque from a nation’s government to do what they were doing. This meant that they were less likely to get caught and were living behind their nation’s protection, so many “true” pirates looked down on them.
A Corsair is a French seaman or privateer. They were often found sailing in the South Mediterranean Sea and it is rumored that in the olden days, many Beauxbaton’s graduates became Corsairs.
Sea Robbers and Ruthless Robbers are two similar names you might be called if you take up stealing as your main focus of piracy. The main difference between the titles is that Ruthless pirates very rarely left witnesses of their raids, and if there were survivors, it was generally by accident. Arguably the most merciless type of pirates that sailed the seas.
The final alternative name for pirates is to be called a Buccaneer. Buccaneers started in the Caribbean Sea and used the boucan knife as their weapon of choice. This term of being called a Buccaneer sprung up in the 16th century and carried on throughout piracy’s most popular years.
Finally, no matter what type of pirate you may be, there are certain rules that each ship and captain adhere to, and these are called the Pirate Code of Conduct. Codes of Conduct varied according to the captain and crew, but they all consisted of a number of agreements between the captain and crew called articles. Pirates are not governed by any other rules like Naval regulations so they followed these to make sure no one abused their power. The typical Pirate Code of Conduct included articles addressing the following subjects:
Pirate Code of Conduct 1 - Equal Voting Rights!
Pirate Code of Conduct 2 - Fair share of the loot and pirate punishments for those who cheat.
Pirate Code of Conduct 3 - Gambling is banned.
Pirate Code of Conduct 4 - No lights at night - a pirates sleep should not be disturbed.
Pirate Code of Conduct 5 - Each pirate is responsible for the upkeep of their weapons.
Pirate Code of Conduct 6 - No boys or women allowed on board.
Pirate Code of Conduct 7 - Penalty for desertion.
Pirate Code of Conduct 8 - No fighting between pirates on board the ship.
Pirate Code of Conduct 9 - A pension according to the severity of wounds.
Pirate Code of Conduct 10 - Shares of the loot or booty.
Pirate Code of Conduct 11 - Musicians available to play when required!
Make sure to follow the Pirate Code of Conduct at all times no matter what you may be doing throughout the following adventures that you will have in this class!