F.12 Ships and Gunpowder

In general, Rise avoids the use of guns and gunpowder. Those inventions do not fit into the traditional fantasy setting that Rise is built on, which emphasizes swords and bows and magic. For similar reasons, the ranged weapons of ships can be defined entirely with non-gunpowder weaponry common in the ancient world. These would include ballistas, catapults, scorpions, and similar siege weaponry.

However, narrative tropes for ships and naval campaigns often have a more technology-heavy basis, with cannons and full broadsides. These stories tend to draw inspiration from the Age of Sail and Golden Age of Piracy rather than medieval folklore. It can feel intuitively plausible to have cannons used as ship weaponry even when guns are never used by individuals.

The default names for ship weapons assume that gunpowder is not being used. If technology has advanced to the point that gunpowder weapons are possible, you can assume that hull reinforcement has also increased at the same rate. All the GM has to do for ship vs ship combat is change the name of the weapons to match their preferred technology level. More advanced weaponry is more generally effective against non-ship targets, however. If you use gunpowder-based ship weapons, they deal double damage against non-ship targets.