Swabbie

Swabbies are NPPs that are hired onto a ship when a crewmember of officer rank or above clicks the "hire jobbers" checkbox, provided there are less than a specific number of yellow-named pirates on the ship (depends on the ship, a sloop is 4). They consistently get "Fine" on duty reports, can't be ordered to gun or navigate, and randomly switch between opponents during the sea battle swordfight, but otherwise behave as normal pirates that can be ordered about. They are Able in every puzzle and consume a small amount of rum.

Swabbies are also called aboard the ship when players leave in the middle of a sea battle. The first swabbie comes aboard when one player departs, subsequent swabbies come aboard for every 3 players leaving. Once the sea battle ends, these swabbies will leave the ship.

In a blockade a ship with swabbies will not control or score flags

See Also

• List of known swabbie adjectives
• List of known swabbie names

Historical Notes

Swabbies were introduced with Alpha release 2003-06-05. Before that, NPPs had to be hired from the islands to sail on a ship. At first, swabbies had to be paid in much the same manner that the NPPs before them had to be paid, but this part was removed with Alpha release 2003-06-30 which also changed the number of swabbies brought aboard vessels.