User:Kierra214/featured article contest/Skellies
Test your mettle and swordfighting prowess against the scourge of the oceans: the skellies. Bringing eternal darkness with them, skellies (also called skeletons) are non-player characters that randomly appear on islands in groups of 3 to 50. Once they appear, they can be challenged to a daring swordfighting brawl. When challenged, the skellies will take 100 PoE and a random item from the player. Aside from pet rats, familiars, backswords, and savvy hats, skellies can take any unequipped clothing, pets, swords, bludgeons, mugs, bid tickets, charts, potions, or furniture from a pirate’s booty panel. The skellies will only accept challenges until the number of pirates in the brawl equals the number of skellies. The melee can be started at any time when over half the players vote to start. If the skellies win, they stay on the island to be challenged again. If the players win, the skellies leave the island. All the bets from the previous rounds are distributed evenly to the players, and each player gets an additional 1000 PoE. Every pirate that survives the melee will also get a skull trinket, inscribed with their name which can be held in portraits. In rare instances, a random pirate will receive a skeleton bone bludgeon.
The easiest way to find skellies is to take the Defeat the Skellies mission from the notice board. Seeing this mission when the skellies are out requires an experience of Narrow and puzzle standing of Renowned in swordfighting, an item to be wagered, and 100 PoE.
Skellies also act as swabbies for the brigand king Barnabas the Pale, and 150 of them crew the Black Ship, El Pollo Diablo.
