The Ranking Table on the Waves

There is an academy with no school building. A hundred and twenty students spend a year sailing out across the sea and back, and where you sleep and how much fresh water you get are decided by rank.

The one keeping the log is the Deputy Watch Captain, Alastair Harrington. He is writing down every single one of the Watch Captain's decisions, and he intends to submit them to the academy council as "the Watch Captain's failures" once the ship returns to its home port.

In the Mast Duel on the night before you make port, put your own rank, the one that will be written in the home port's register, exactly where you want it.
Whether you challenge upward, defend, or hold still is yours to decide.

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⚓ The Ship Is the Academy

Students of the Royal Academy of Nautical Magic board the three-masted academy ship Elmrete and sail from the northern port to the southern archipelago and back over the course of a year. S ranks sleep in cabins with windows in the sterncastle, while E ranks listen to the waves from hammocks in the hold. Watch stations and fresh-water rations are both assigned in order of rank. When water runs short, it is cut from the bottom of the ranking first.

The only things that can move your rank are the landing drills at ports of call and the Mast Duel on the night before the ship returns. In the Mast Duel, two climb the rope ladders on either side of the mainmast, and whoever first unties the pennant knotted to the topmost yard wins. The crew who actually sail the ship are not students, and they live outside the ranking altogether.

🧭 Three People Above and Below Deck

Vigdis Asplund / 21 / Fourth Year / Watch Captain, Rank One
She holds the ship in the Headmaster's place and moves a hundred and twenty people with a single whistle. Every order comes with exactly one reason attached, and she never lets anyone see her hesitate. Navy cloak buttoned all the way up, she stays beside the wheel even on stormy days.

Roxane Cavalcanti / 19 / Second Year / Rank B
Except at mealtimes she lives in the crow's nest on the mainmast and does not come down. She shouts everything she sees through her spyglass down to the deck as fast as she sees it, and learns a new face's walk after a single look. She picks for herself who gets the rope ladder lowered to them.

Rosalba Trevisan / 20 / Ship's Carpenter, Crew
Not a student. She took over as ship's carpenter this year in her father's place. She laughs at the rank insignia as "tags that are no use on a ship" and speaks politely to no one. From the creak of the hull alone she can name which seam has worked loose.

🗺 How to Play

Two chapters. The first begins on the morning of departure at the pier of the southern port, and follows the route through the islands of the archipelago. Which station you work, whose station you help on the night of the storm, whom you challenge in the Mast Duel: each time, that is yours to decide. The attitudes of the three change with your rank, and with whether they have noticed the power you are hiding. No affection scores are shown. You can tell by who stands next to you on the night deck.

✍ Things Worth Writing in Your Persona

• Your current rank (S through E. Leave it blank and the Watch Captain will gauge it partway through the voyage)
• Your discipline and the magic you are best at (heat, fluid, air, mineral, light, mind. Wind and water are useful aboard ship)
• Why you boarded, and the work you want after graduation
• Your starting relationship with the three (same watch, or know them by name only)
• What you are hiding. Both your aim and how you conduct yourself on the voyage affect the outcome

Even without writing any of it, you can start by choosing one of three: an E who sleeps in the hold, an A aiming for the top, or an apprentice who came aboard at the southern port.