by Jamaica Rose
The last player with any dice is the winner and wins the pot of coins.
Strategy Tips: Remember, this is a game where you can LIE. You can make a bid on a number even if you don’t have ANY dice with that number. You need to bluff and make the other players believe that you are telling the truth.
You might be a little careful at first about challenging. It’s better to watch the other players to get an idea of what kind of players they are and see how many times they bluff.
Cheating: Do you think a TRUE pirate would play honestly? The fun of cheating is to do it rather obviously, then see who is paying attention and calls you out for it. Then, as two pirates would, you can get into a loud argument and use some of your best insults against each other (see the Pirate Insult Kit for help here).
Cap’n Michael says:
If the opponent yer playing against is bigger’n you, cheatin’ may not be such a good idea. Remember you can only run so far on a ship!
Pastimes for Scurvy Dogs
Rolling the Bones
Dice have been found in Egyptian tombs and in many of the ancient cultures. They were used to make major and minor decisions (“The die is cast”). People believed the gods controlled the outcome. Rolling dice was a method to find out what the gods wanted people to do. “Lady Luck” was a goddess. Her name was Fortuna, the daughter of Jupiter. Many a gambler has prayed to her for luck.
Originally, dice were made out of bone or ivory. They often used the knucklebones from animals. Even today, tossing the dice is called “rolling the bones.”
Dice were tossed straight out of the hands or from a special dice box. As a pirate, you might use your drinking mug as a shaker cup for playing dice games. With a few dice in his pouch, a pirate was always ready for a quick game with others.
Here are some ways to make your own pirate dice.
Nice Dice
You will need:
Oven bake clay or polymer clay (clay that will not dry out when exposed to air. To harden it, you bake it in your oven at a low temperature. The surface can be painted and decorated. It comes in many colors.)
Dinner knife or some other tool with a flat edge
Dull pencil or ballpoint pen
Permanent black marker
Sand paper (optional)
If you are making dice for Liars Dice, you might want to make dice in sets of five, with each set a different color of clay (you can mix two colors of clay to get a third color).
First, soften and warm up the clay by rolling it around in your hand for a few minutes. Roll the piece of clay into a long snake shape.
To make one set of five dice, use the dinner knife to cut off five equal-sized lumps of clay. If the lumps are not exactly the same size, that will be okay. Cover your unused clay with plastic wrap or put it in plastic bags to keep it clean.
Roll each lump into a ball shape. Don’t worry if it is not a perfect ball. Hold the clay ball between your thumb and index finger and squeeze a little to flatten two sides. Rotate a little and flatten the next two sides. Rotate one more time and flatten the last two sides.
Use a pointed object like a dull pencil or ballpoint pen to make the holes for the pips (dots). Push it in about 1/8 inch deep for each dot. Remember, opposite numbers on a die should add up to seven. So the 1 and 6 should be opposites, 2 and 5 are opposites, and 3 and 4 are opposites.
When your dice are shaped right, put them on a cookie sheet covered in foil, or in a flat, glass baking dish. Follow the baking instructions on the clay package to bake the dice (roughly 15–20 minutes at 250 to 275 degrees).
Let the dice cool completely when done baking before you handle them. When cool, use a permanent marker to darken the inside of the hole of each of the pips.
Variation: On the face of the die with one pip, use the permanent marker to draw a skull and crossbones.
Test Your Dice: Your dice won’t be perfectly balanced, but you can fix any that are too far out of balance. Roll each of your dice 100 times. Keep a tally of how many times each side comes up. Out of 100 times, each number should come up 14–18 times. If one number comes up a lot more than that, that die is probably out of balance and won’t be fair for play. Using sandpaper, you can sand down the opposite side to the number that comes up most, to take away a little weight from it. Then roll another 100 times and see if the division of numbers is more evenly balanced.
Or if you want to cheat (as we are sure some pirates did), take note of which dice favor certain numbers and don’t sand them down. You can even make some of these unbalanced dice on purpose.
Not So Nice Dice
At times, you might want to play a trick on your shipmates and have a little fun and a good laugh. See how long it is before your friends catch on. Here are some ways to make trick dice.
Follow the instructions above, but when you are marking the dots, on one side, instead of putting the two numbers that add up to 7, repeat one of the numbers. (Example: Instead of marking opposite sides as 1 and 6, make the two sides 6 and 6.) Then the number that is repeated will show up twice as often when you roll that die. For Liar’s Dice, don’t make all five dice in the set this way. That would be too obvious. Just make one or two dice this way.
When making your clay dice, push some round steel ball bearings into the clay on one side. That side will be heavier and tend to land more on that side. The opposite number to that side will then show more when the dice are rolled.
Cheese Dice
The food aboard ships was often not very good. Cheese was one of the common provisions. The type of cheese they used started out hard, and after weeks and months at sea, it got harder and drier. Instead of eating it, some sailors carved buttons and dice out of it!
For fun, you could try carving some dice out of a chunk of Edam (best) or cheddar cheese you left out to dry for several days.
Musket Ball Dice
Colonial troops in the 1700s were not allowed to gamble or carry dice (it led to quarrels over cheating, the same reason why many pirate crews banned gambling aboard ship). The soldiers did carry extra musket balls stored in a leather shot pouch.
Resourceful soldiers made crude dice from round musket balls using a hammer. They carefully flattened the sides of the balls into a cube shape. They made the pips (dots) using a nail.
They kept their dice in the shot pouch with the other musket balls, out of sight from the sergeant. But when he wasn’t looking, the dice could come out for a quick game.
Beware: Musket balls were made of lead, and lead is TOXIC (poisonous). If you want to try making your own musket ball dice, you must get musket balls that are made from nontoxic materials.
Ship, Captain, and Crew
Popular in taverns of port cities or aboard seagoing vessels, Ship, Captain, and Crew is one of the favorite dice games of sailors.
Rules
Number of players: 2 or more players (3–6 is best)
Equipment: 5 six-sided dice; plenty of coins (or beans) to bet with.
Betting: Each player places a coin (or bean) in the pot.
Object: To get the highest score.
First player: Everyone rolls one die. The person with the highest number gets the first turn. The next turn goes to the person to their left.
Play: First, everyone makes their bet by placing the amount agreed upon in the pot. Players each take a turn throwing the dice. During each turn, the player gets five throws of the dice. They roll and try to put to one side a 6 (the ship), a 5 (the captain), and 4 (the first mate). The numbers must be placed aside in descending order. You must get the ship (6) first so you have someplace for the men. Then you can’t have a crew without a captain, so you must get the 5 next. The crew must have a first mate, to bring them the captain’s orders, so the 4 comes next. (Example: if the first throw contains a 6 and 4, but not a 5, only the 6 is put aside and the rest of the dice, including the 4, are rolled again.)
If a player fails to throw the 6, 5, and 4 after their five throws, then their ship sinks, and they get no score.<
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Once a player has a ship with a captain and first mate (6, 5, 4), then the remaining two dice are the crew. Add the numbers of the two remaining “crew” dice to get your score. If you have not used up all five rolls, you may choose to roll the “crew” again until you have made five rolls in trying for a higher score. However, even if the score is lower, you are stuck with the last roll. A 2 is the lowest possible score while 12 is the highest score.
Keep a total of each player’s scores. The player with the highest score after 10 rounds (or less if this is too long) takes the pot. If there is a tie, the tied players go for a final play-off round.
Pastimes for Scurvy Dogs
Makin’ Yer Own Sweat-Cloth Game
You will need:
1 piece of plain cotton cloth (no printed designs), at least 24 x 24 inches (bigger is better)
1 piece of colored chalk
Ruler or straightedge
Wide permanent marker (black or red is best)
Sewing pins
Needle
Thread (can match cloth or be a contrasting color)
The cloth you use for your “board” should be plain, without any designs. You need a blank “canvas” to start with.
Use the chalk with your straightedge to make a rectangle about 21 inches wide by 14 inches high. Divide the two 21-inch lines into three approximately equal sections of about 7 inches each (you can eyeball it or use the ruler) with little “tic” marks. On the two 14-inch lines, draw a tic mark to divide the line into two equal segments. Now, connect these points with the same point on the opposite line. You should end up with six boxes, about 7 x 7 inches each. There will be three boxes in the upper box and three boxes in the lower row. (See the illustration below.) Once you have your lines measured and laid out in chalk, go over them with the permanent marker.
Starting with the left box of the upper row, with your marker, draw a large dot in the middle of the box (about the size of a penny). In the second box in the row, draw two dots, near opposite corners. In the third box, draw three dots in a row diagonally. The first box of the bottom row gets four dots (one near each corner). Five dots are placed in the middle box of the bottom row (four corners plus one in the middle). Six dots (two rows of three) are drawn in the last box.
To keep the edges of the cloth from unraveling, hem up the edges. Fold one edge of the cloth under by 1/4 inch. Then fold it under again and pin it in place. Do this for all four edges of the cloth.
With a length of knotted thread on your needle, start at one end of the corner under cloth; make stitches about 1/4 inch apart, up and down, until you reach the other corner. Then turn the corner and continue making stitches until you go around all four sides of the rectangle. Tie off the thread and you are done. Sailors (and pirates) knew how to sew very well, so make the stitches as neat and as even as you can.
Now you are ready to wear your sweat-cloth. Fold your cloth in half diagonally, taking one corner and bringing it across to the opposite. This will form a triangle. Roll up the longest side a little, and then wrap it around your neck. Keep a couple of dice in your pocket. Then, when the bos’un or the mate aren’t looking, or when your friends come over, you can whip off your game board and play a few rounds of sweat-cloth.
A Game You Keep Around Your Neck
This is a game of three dice and lady luck.
Rules
Number of players: 2 or more
Equipment: 3 six-sided dice; a playing area marked with six squares (three on top, three on bottom), each marked like one of the 1–6 faces of a dice cube; coins (or beans) to bet with.
Object: To get the most winnings!
Dealer: Each person rolls one die. The player with the highest number will be the first dealer.
Betting: Players place their bets on the squares marked with 1–6 dots. More than one person can put a bet on the same number.
Play: The dealer rolls all three dice.
Players are paid as follows:
If a player’s number comes up on one die, they are paid the amount of their bet.
If a player’s number comes up on two dice, they are paid twice the amount of their bet.
If a player’s number comes up on all three dice, the lucky dog is paid three times what he bet.
The dealer claims all losin’ bets.
For the next round, the position of dealer rotates to the next player to the left (clockwise). Then the players bet again, and so on.
NOTE: Sweat Cloth is also known as “Crown and Anchor.” For this version of the game, it is played with special dice. Instead of 1–6 dots, they have the four suits found in cards (hearts, clubs, spades, diamonds), plus a black anchor and a red crown.
This game got its name because sailors used to draw or paint the playing area on their bandannas. They could get up a quick game when the mate wasn’t looking. Then when the mate came near, they could quickly wrap up the “board” around their neck and pocket the dice with no one the wiser. Talk about bein’ sneaky!
’Ello, Beastie
Mermaids: Ladies of the Seas
Aye, there’s been many a sailor who’s claimed to have seen a mermaid sitting on the rocks or heard her lovely singing off in the distance. Beautiful as they are, they are not something any sensible sailor would want to fool with. Read on, and we’ll tell you why in these tales of the mermaid...
Mermaids are one of the oldest myths of humanity. The first tales about mermaids came from ancient Greek myths. The Greek poet Homer wrote about sirens in his epic tale The Odyssey. He made no mention of them being half fish, but it is believed his sirens were actually mermaids. The sirens in this great story sat on rocks, singing beautiful mesmerizing songs that lured men to their deaths.
Mermaids represent the beauty, mystery, danger, and romance of the seas. Almost every seafaring culture has developed mermaid tales. There are many, many variations in the mermaid folklore, but almost all of them describe the mermaid in the same way. She is a beautiful young girl, naked from the waist up, with long blond or green hair, very pale skin, and blue or sea green eyes, and her bottom half is that of a fish, complete with a fin and a spreading tail.
Romance and love were the basis of many of the legends. Mermaids were attracted to handsome men and wanted them for their husbands. In some of the tales, they preferred human men because mermen were not handsome. They were ugly, gross creatures with green teeth. In other tales, mermaids had no souls but could get one by marrying a man.
To have a human as a husband, she would have to lure him into the sea, where he would either join her in her undersea home or drown. In the tales, sailors heard these beautiful, haunting melodies drifting across the waves and sailed toward the wonderful music. As they sailed closer, they saw a mermaid sitting on rocks by the edge of the sea. She was playing a lyre and singing. Entranced by her songs, they sailed closer and closer until they crashed on the rocks. Sometimes, the sudden appearance of the ship startled the mermaid and she dove beneath the waves and disappeared. Thus, the sailors escaped their doom.
Mermaids captured landsmen in the same way. They would sit on rocks, just offshore. When the unlucky landsman came by, he was hypnotized by the mermaid’s music and walked right out into the sea.
The tales say mermaids are very vain. They love to brush their long hair and look at themselves in a mirror. Many stories say they are holding a brush or comb and a mirror. These items often had magical powers, and if you stole one of them, you would have power over the mermaid.
It wasn’t just mermaids who were attracted to men. Sometimes men were attracted to mermaids. If a man wanted to marry a mermaid but didn’t want to live with her beneath the sea, then he had to capture her. If he succeeded, she would agree to stay on shore and become his wife, but only if she was allowed to return at certain times to the sea. In other tales, a mermaid would be kept as a wife only if he managed to steal one of her magical possessions such as her comb, brush, or mirror, and keep it hidden from her. He would need to hide it we
ll, because no matter how long they were married, if she ever found it, the mermaid always returned to the sea, leaving a grieving husband and children behind.
Encounters between men and mermaids could be extremely dangerous. If a mermaid was attracted to a sailor and he rejected her, she could call up a storm or tidal wave to destroy the man who scorned her. Or she could lure his ship and cause it to crash on the rocks. If you were unkind to a mermaid, tried to take advantage of her, or, even worse, tried to harm her, her wrath could be terrible. Mermaids were said to have the power to call up storms, floods, and even tidal waves. A mermaid’s vengeance could include not only you but your entire family as well! Her vengeance could even extend to your entire village or town. Sometimes whole coasts were destroyed after a mermaid had been insulted or misused.
On the other hand, being kind to a mermaid could be very rewarding. They had powers that could help seamen or destroy them. If a mermaid liked you, she might warn you of coming storms, lead you to a good place to find fish, or even save you from drowning. Being kind to a mermaid would bring good things, even good fortune. One legend has it that boats built by a particular boat builder would never sink because in the past one of the boat builder’s relatives was kind to a mermaid and she granted his wish that none of the boats built by him or any of his descendants would ever sink.
Cap’n Michael says:
“What a wondrous thing that would be! Unsinkable boats backed by a mermaid’s seal of approval! I think it’s time that Cap’n Michael made friends with a mermaid!”
There are many superstitions about mermaids. If a mermaid were seen while the ship was at sea, it usually meant that the ship and its crew were doomed to sink. However, if the mermaid showed no interest in the ship or swam away, this would be a good sign.