Welcome to a detailed guide on castaways.
This will be divided into three categories: Generation (how they randomly generate and possible appearances), Behaviors (how castaways will behave, usually under certain circumstances), and Miscellaneous (any information that won’t fit in the other categories).
Generation:
Castaways may generate with the following armor and accessories: Black Durag (usually on male castaways, unverified if female ones can have them), Undershirt Jacket, Striped Shirt, Sailor Shirt, and Merchant Pants. Shirt armor color variants: Beige, brown, black, grey
Any clothing armor they may have will be replaced by a regular shirt once they land on an island. Durags will not be removed.
Castaways are one of the few NPCs that can generate with blonde hair. Other NPCs include sirens, merchants, and Frostmill’s bandits and smugglers.
Other castaway hair colors: Black, brown, grey
Possible castaway hairs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24, 28, 36, 42, 44, 46, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 71, 75, 80
There are several variations of the castaway raft. It can be long with four horizontal barrels under a plank, five barrels under a plank and another barrel and plank above, or seven(?) barrels arranged in a circle with a plank above.
When generating, they can presumably spawn anywhere in what the game considers open ocean, similar to how ships and lost cargo works. This is why they can spawn close to islands. Castaways can spawn so close, in fact, they can swim straight to your boat if it’s parked at an island and easily get rescued.
Castaway names come from the regular name pool used by NPCs like sailor crew NPCs and merchants.
Castaways will spawn between level 1 and 20. This doesn’t really affect anything for the most part. They can spawn without a level indicator at all, but that might just be level 1.
Castaways can spawn with the regular shirts 1, 2, 4, and 9, but always wear the same pants (1).
Behaviors:
Castaways will signal to any and all passing ships. This includes NPC ships.
Castaways determine whether they can get off based on their distance to the island. When a castaway refuses to get off the boat, try rotating it so they are closer to the island.
You can only pick up a castaway if you have a regular crew member they can overwrite. Deckhands and story NPCs like Morden and Iris cannot be overwritten, and if no slots are available, you cannot pick up the castaway.
On boats, castaways are immune to being attacked, such as by dark sea weather and cannons. They also will not say any dialogue in reaction to anything, unlike regular crew members.
Castaways may get knocked off their rafts by ships, but they can still be rescued.
Rafts will count as collision damage, so be careful when sailing.
Under large or rough waves, castaways may be obscured by the wave mesh. You can check if one is under it though, they will still be rescuable.
If you have the Edward Kenton upgrade quest, start it, and then sail away from Silverhold, castaways on rafts will “aggro” to you and run towards you. This is the only way to aggro a castaway under normal circumstances. They can swim through water and climb your boat like any other NPC and can still be rescued.
Castaways do not count docks as land they can disembark on usually, specifically ones like the Rubica dock where you have to sail very close to get them to disembark. Instead, try sailing to actual land for easier dropoff.
Castaways may get stuck in animations sometimes, such as falling or whirlpool (such as in this post). This is probably because they teleport to your boat before they exit these animations and get stuck doing them.
Saving a castaway as a positive rep awards 300 positive reputation (fame), but rescuing one as a negative rep will neither raise nor lower your reputation (bounty).
Breaking a castaway raft while the NPC is on it kills them. breaking it after they are rescued does nothing. The raft won’t despawn until its timer is up or shortly after the NPC is saved.
Castaways appear to have a despawn timer that counts down regardless of if a player is near or not. This is why they may despawn while you are near them or talking to them.
If two or more castaways spawn near one another, when a ship passes, they will all signal via animation, but only one will usually speak in chat.
Miscellaneous:
Rescuing castaways is one of the many ways you can get on the news.