Recruiting your first crew member
The quest chain asks you to recruit one crew mate after you buy a hull. The tavern sits in the port next to the shipwright, and the recruit action costs 250 gold in the session we have on record. The result is not random furniture: you get a named character, a role such as deck hand, and a bonus line such as +0.5 cargo.
Two things are worth doing before you spend:
- Check your hull's crew field first. A raft has almost no crew space, so a recruit bought too early has nowhere to stand.
- Read the bonus, not the rarity colour. A cargo bonus pays on every run. A cosmetic line does not.
What crew actually do in a fight
Crew members fire the ship's cannons. In the recorded session the captain calls out a target and the crew answers with a broadside, which is how a small ship clears a slightly bigger one.
They are not a replacement for steering. Guns fire from the sides, so the ship still has to be turned to bring the target alongside; crew simply keep firing while you do it.
The three limits, and how to tell which one is full
| Limit | Where you see it | What raises it |
|---|---|---|
| Tavern roster | The recruit list in port | Bigger Crew Roster, R$99 for +10 roster slots, advertised as not changing ship space |
| Ship crew | The hull's own crew field, for example 36 on the Ironclad panel | A bigger hull |
| Ashore companion slots | The store's Second and Third Companion passes, R$199 and R$299 | Those passes, up to three |
The store text keeps those three apart, and the passes say so in their own descriptions. What the material does not settle is whether the three caps are fully independent, so if a recruit refuses to join, check all three before buying anything.
Paid recruits, and when they are worth it
The store sells four recruit products: a single recruit at R$29, ten recruits at R$249 with at least one Epic, a guaranteed Legendary at R$449, and a guaranteed Mythic at R$1,999 with a 50% chance of a named legend. A three-pack of Mythic crew costs R$4,999.
Gold recruiting is the cheaper path while you are still climbing hulls, because 250 gold is a couple of chests. The paid route only makes sense once your hull has crew slots you cannot fill by playing, which usually means a late hull rather than a raft.
What is still unknown
Rarity tiers for crew are Epic, Legendary and Mythic according to store text, and players mention named legends above Mythic. How much a single recruit's bonus is worth per hour is not published anywhere we could read, so treat the bonus as a tiebreaker rather than a plan.
If the run itself is what is short, the gold guide covers the 250 gold faster than a recruit screen does, and the ship page explains which hulls actually have the crew slots to fill.