Skellie

Islands with skellies appear dark.

Skellies or skellingtons are non-player 'pirates' that are found in the oceans. They can be found on an island in a group, or on the black ship:

Island Skellies

Skellies can be found on an island in a group of 3 to 50, and may be challenged to swordfight brawls. If they win, the skellies take one item from each challenger's personal inventory, and may be challenged again. Once defeated, the skellies pay each of the victors an evenly divided amount of PoE, distribute all the items they had stolen from other pirates while at that island, and then leave to haunt another random isle.

Finding Skellies

If skellies are present on an island, it will be cursed with darkness until they are defeated. Therefore, it is easy to tell when they're present.

A "Defeat the Skellies" mission may also appear on any notice board, if you have all of the following:

• a puzzle standing of Renowned and an experience level of Narrow in swordfighting
• at least 100 PoE on hand with which to enter the skellie battle
• an item in your booty panel that the skellies can take from you if you lose the battle against them
• a Parlor badge (on doubloon oceans)

Ocean Masters do not give out the location of skellies.

Starting the match

To join the fray, click on a skellie and select "Join the fray".

You will see something like this after choosing to join the fray, so you can find out what you will lose. (In this image, a pair o' boots.)

To enter the fray, pirates must pay 100 PoE to the skellies, and be holding at least one tradeable item. Portraits, familiars, deeds, trinkets, the backsword, and the savvy hat are safe from the skellies, and can not be stolen. When a pirate chooses to join the fray, a confirmation box will appear reading, "I'll be havin' 100 pieces of eight and yer <item> if ye lose."

The number of pirates may not be larger than the number of skellies, as they like "fair" fights.

The fight starts once half of the people in the fray vote to start the fight.

Fighting Skellies

The fight with the skellies is a lot like the brawls at the inn and swordfighting against brigands, except that they're tougher than most brigands.

Winning

If the pirates beat the skellies, they will collect equal shares of all PoE and items lost to the skellies in previous fights. Skellies also have a base total of 1,000 PoE each, which is distributed in addition to previous wagers. Items are distributed randomly, so one pirate may end up with ten bid tickets and another pirate may win ten swords.

Pirates who survive the brawl (are not eliminated) receive a skull; a trinket which may be held in a portrait.

Losing

If the skellies win, a random item is stolen from each pirate in the fray. A cautious pirate will not carry extremely valuable loose items when fighting skellies. Bid tickets may be left on ships or in shops. Valuable clothes and spare swords, etc. can be held by pirates that are not participating in the fray, or they can be placed in the appropriate storage units (wardrobes, sword racks, mug shelves).

Historical Notes

Skellies used to take any valid item, regardless of its worth. This led many players to trick the skellies into taking unfilled bid tickets for one unit of an item at one PoE and similarly worthless items. When this was changed to take only valuable items, a confirmation box was introduced to verify that the pirate was willing to risk the loss of the item.

Originally, skellies appeared in small groups of three to five. Beating these skellies would win, in addition to all the items lost to them, one article of clothing and a sword. In very early days, it was the only way to get swords other than the starting foil.

There was a time when skellies only showed up at islands with old treasure chests labelled "Monsters!". All of the chests were located on islands far from civilization - namely, Durian Island, Eclipse Island, Flow, Ostreum Island, and Vernal Equinox. Prior to that, skellies would appear next to old treasure chests on every island in the Diamond Archipelago except Alpha Island. Now, skellies may show up at any island.

Black Ship

One-hundred skellies will appear on a black ship as punishment for attacking too easy a ship.

See black ship for more information.

Player Skellies

In 2003 and 2004, around Halloween, the Ringers released special updates that transformed player characters into skellies or zombies. In 2005 the players all became zombies, and only the NPPs became a mix of zombies and skellies.

References

Several of the skellies' lines of dialogue reference the movie The Princess Bride, including:

• "Ye seem like a decent fellow. I hate to kill ye!"
• "There's something you should know. I am not left handed!"

External/Other Links

• Commonly discussed ideas from Game Design