Forsaken Navy

# Everen's Interpretation

The **Forsaken Navy** is a major branch of the greater Forsaken military forces. While a relatively recently established navy, it ranks as one of the most powerful in the world due to the ability of the Forsaken to raise and revive dead ships with infernal and necromantic energies. The great battlegrounds of Baradin Bay and the northern coast of Lordaeron are rich with fallen ships from many periods, and as a result, the Forsaken Navy lacks any sense of uniformity or regularity outside of a handful of newly-built ships. Ancient, pre-gunpowder warships sail alongside some of the greatest and most advanced ships of the golden age of Kul'tiran sail, giving a great advantage in numbers.

## History

The Forsaken navy's history as an institution dates to the establishment of Sylvanas Windrunner's proto-Forsaken revolt. Prior to that point, it had existed only as an element of the greater Undead Scourge - a mostly marginalized branch used primarily to ferry forces across distances too far to simply walk. A side effect of this marginalization was an increased number of 'weak' ghouls and zombies, consisting of those who hesitated or were otherwise undesirable during the great purge of the living. When the Lich King's grip began to weaken, these undesirable elements were among the first Scourge to break free of the control of their master. When word reached them of the uprising on land, the majority joined the nascent Forsaken - though some notably instead chose an independent path, often as pirates or merchantmen.

## Ship Types

### Recovered Hulks

The core and backbone of the Forsaken Navy is composed of recovered and salvaged wrecks, raised using a combination of magic and crude technologies and made seaworthy once again with patchwork repair and infernal reinforcement. Such ships are often in very poor condition when raised, as the timbers have become waterlogged and prone to rot in the air, worm-eaten, and splintered - but, through the infernal magic employed by Forsaken naval warlocks, these ships sail nonetheless at remarkable speed for their condition and are surprisingly durable in battle. While rarely a match individually for the ships of the living, the Forsaken's fleet of hulks has a great and significant advantage: numbers.

Like the Scourge before it, the Forsaken navy relies on raw numbers to swamp the enemy with greater numbers of inferior ships. This is an attractive proposition due to the nature of marine combat - few sailors actually perish from wounds that can kill a Forsaken, meaning that when a ship is lost, Forsaken crews are generally able to swim or walk tirelessly back to the fleet and rejoin it. Further reinforcing the validity of the tactic are the truly vast shipyards at the Forsaken's disposal, with most ships lost over the last millennia (and rarely older) being found in relatively accessible waters and in such condition that they can be converted into recovered warhulks. While raising and reinforcing ships is a lengthy proposition - usually taking around a year - the Forsaken are nonetheless able to outproduce conventional shipyards significantly, as they do not need to let timbers season, forests regrow, or laboriously build their craft.

Consequently, the Forsaken fleet is estimated to outnumber the Navy of Stormwind nearly three to one in raw numbers. Direct comparison is a more difficult question, as the sheer variety of salvaged ships has created not only the world's largest, but most piecemeal, navy. Elven destroyers, ancient Gilnean war-galleys, and Azerothian barques are all common sights in the Forsaken fleet; even a handful of Dwarven, Ogre, and Kaldorei ships can be found in the fleet.

Given this lack of uniformity, the Forsaken navy has had great difficulty establishing a rigid system of classification akin to those in use by Kul Tiras, Azeroth, pre-fall Lordaeron, and Theramore. The closest such classification is used only by the bureaucracy of the Undercity for the purpose of determining how many warlocks to recruit to the naval magic corps, but is listed here as a preliminary means of comparison.

#### Hulks

The largest ships of the Forsaken fleet are referred to as 'hulks'. These ships are usually assumed to be comparable to modern third, second and first rates but this assumption is, as with most recovered ship categories, flawed.

* **Skeletal Hulks:** Skeletal hulks are drawn primarily from the largest wrecks, but only those that have sustained serious damage - the name referring initially to ships specifically missing much of their planking, and having been more broadly applied since. To qualify as a skeletal hulk, a ship must need serious repair and infernal reinforcement, requiring a sizeable number of warlocks and magi - at least forty. Such ships almost always correspond to first-rates and their equivalents in other navies, or earlier ships of equivalent size, e.g. galleons. Several Orcish dreadnoughts from the Second War are listed among the skeletal hulks, despite being markedly larger and requiring even higher magical contingents. Prominent skeletal hulks include the *Abyssal Terror* and the *Wrath of Sylvanas**.*
* **Corpus Hulks:** Deriving from the same early root as the skeletal hulk terminology, corpus hulks are those large ships that require lower infernal reinforcement due to a relative minimum of damage. Such ships are relatively rare in the Forsaken navy; most such ships sank with significant damage, and it is usually ships that capsized in poor weather or were holed without the notice of the crew that make up the corpus hulks. Due to their size and relative integrity compared to skeletal hulks, they are prize postings in the Forsaken fleet.
* **Light Hulks:** A more recent categorization than the skeletal and corpus hulks, light hulks are ships requiring only twenty-five to thirty sorcerors aboard to keep afloat. Such ships tend to be drawn from the less-damaged examples of upper-end ships of the line or from heavily damaged frigates, carracks and galleasses. Like the corpus hulks, the less-damaged light hulks are prized postings due to their relative strength when compared with frigate-equivalent (or earlier designs) lumped into the same logistical category.

#### Hounds

Usually smaller ships than the Hulks, the Hound categorization is so-named for the doctrinal role of frigates and similar ships in other navies - to harass enemy shipping, operate in small packs, and as the advance of full-fledged fleets. Like the Hulk categorization, many Hounds do not fall properly into this assumed category, which is further divided into Hellhound and Light-Hound bureaucratic categories based on the ship's needs. Several almost-perfect second-rate ships from the Kul Tiran and Gilnean navies are classified as hellhounds rather than as hulks due to their low need for infernal and sorcerous reinforcement, while a number of even smaller ships of heavily damaged status are listed as hellhounds on the Great Register.

#### Corpora

The smallest-by-complement designation of the fleet, the Corpora (sometimes confused with the Corpus Hulks; deriving from the same Titanic roots) are the body and bulk of the Forsaken Navy. Light ships requiring a heavy warlock presence or medium ships requiring only a handful, *corpora* ships are difficult to generalize due to their wide-ranging variety. Many are small sloops-of-war or brigs, while some are fully ship-rigged intact frigates or ancient Elven destroyers. Command of a *corpora* is usually given less experienced captains or those on the outs with the Forsaken bureaucracy, as they are the least likely ships to see heavy action and are usually relegated to screening actions, transport, and merchant harassment.

### Original Designs

The Forsaken navy incorporates a handful of new ship designs as well as its powerful fleet of resurrected warships. These ships are almost universally steam-powered and iron-plated warships, built in part for the Northrend conflict but also to address the severe deficit of modern ships available among the recoverable wrecks. While the raw numbers of the recovered fleet help to counteract the relative weakness of each raised ship, the Forsaken navy is embarking on a modernization campaign to address significant weaknesses in the fleet and to provide better capacity for technologies which the bulk of the recovered ships predate, e.g. aircraft launch, submarine capacities, and steam power.

#### *Banshee*-class Cruiser

The most recent design of the Forsaken navy, the *Banshee-*class is a relatively small ship built to fulfill the needs for a long-range independent scout and commerce raider. Equipped with both Goblin-influenced screw propellors and a pair of masts, it is a swift ship for its size thanks to its long, thin profile, with a deep enough draught to retain decent stability in rough seas. While unable to go toe-to-toe with most ironclads, the design proved its capabilities during the Horde Civil War, where the only extant ship of the class - the eponymous *Banshee* - succesfully intercepted and destroyed a number of Orcish frigates attempting to break the blockade of Bloodfist Bay.

#### *Abyss*-class Submarine Raider

First conceived of shortly before the Great Cataclysm of 623KY (prompted by reports of an Alliance build-up of submersibles), the *Abyss*-class was little more than a conceptual footnote that the Forsaken navy had determined held no value until the counter-invasion of Gilneas. With a single Alliance submarine able to devastate the Forsaken fleet guarding Keel Harbour and deliver a sizeable contingent of troops, the proof of the continuing utility of submarine operations became undeniable and construction of the first *Abyss-*class submarine raider began. *Abyss-*class ships are intended to, as with the *Banshee*-class, operate against enemy shipping lines but also to function in a hunter-killer capacity against hostile submarines and submersibles. They are able to undertake deeper dives and longer underwater operations than analogous Goblin submarines as their crews do not require food or air, and accordingly, a greater part of the submarine may be devoted to fuel storage and pressure rating.

## Office of Naval Warfare

The bureaucratic body responsible for overseeing the Forsaken Navy was formed early in the Second Antebellum Period as part of Sylvanas Windrunner's governmental reforms. Focused on the esoteric and unique needs of the Forsaken fleet - in particular the logistical requirements of a naval service that requires no food or sleep - and dedicated to both the expansion of the fleet through conventional and unconventional means, and to the development of new strategies to accomodate the unique qualities of the fleet's patchwork nature, the Office has become a tangled web of bureaucrats, former aristocrats, and rejects from other departments of Her Majesty's newly organized government.

### Department of Infernal Maintenance

One of the most distinctive subdivisions of the Office is the Department of Infernal Maintenance, tasked with organizing and training the Forsaken's naval warlocks and sorcerors for their specialized role at sea. The Department is headed up by the renegade Forsaken lich, Raz the Moist, whose phylactery is rumoured to have been incorporated into the *Wrath of Sylvanas*'s figurehead. It has attracted censure from the magi of Dalaran and was nearly disbanded during the Fourth War due to its explicit dealing with demons, which the Kor'kron Guard disapproved of and, with the reign of Garrosh Hellscream, sought to increasingly limit and control the department.

The Department's notoriety in part stems from its willingness to accept taxes in the form of souls, for the use of its warlocks at sea to strengthen their wardings and enhance the fighting capabilities of the Forsaken war-fleet. Capture by ships staffed by Department warlocks is a particularly feared fate for many pirates who, lacking the protections of Alliance or Horde affiliation, may safely be drained dry and their empty husks cast aside, their souls stored long-term in crystalline form for later usage.

### Department of Enumeration

The smallest - but among the most influential - department of the Office is the Department of Enumeration. Tasked with maintaining the Great Register of the Forsaken Fleet, the Enumerators are based out of the northern port of Tirisfal Forest. In a small office on the docks, no more than thirty Forsaken - to a man, former accountants and census-men of the Kingdom - maintain the Great Register and its subsidiary listings, carefully documenting the exact number of ships in the fleet, their crews, and most importantly, their sorcerous complement and soul supplies. While miniscule compared to the other departments, the Enumerators are given final determinative power (save for the executive authority of the Monarch or her Majordomo) to approve or deny ship-retrieval operations based on the number of available naval warlocks and sorcerors and to regulate the traffick in the Office's soul supplies. These two factors combine to make the literally legless accountant High Executor Owen Pollington a pivotal figure in the Forsaken Navy.