Context
Castaways are a very common event to encounter in Arcane Odyssey - you are almost guaranteed to meet them on your playthrough at least once. But here’s the thing - they all act similarly.
The same manner of “yo im here rescue me”, the same manner of “Can you bring us closer to the land, I don’t wanna swim” (in the meanwhile our ship is literally hugging the damn island) (Oh, and not mentioning the fact they also swim to our ship earlier when we rescue them)
They are literally the same!
And uh, there’s a lot of potential for them to become more miscellaneous - therefore even more useful to escort and/or interact to.
Proposal
And thus, let’s begin.
Types of castaways
If it isn’t obvious already, it’s allowing different types of castaways to spawn - each one of them has different clothing, different manners and stuff.
I’ll be doing examples off Bronze Sea since it’s currently the most developed sea in AO with a lot of different islands and factions.
First off, Castaways will appear as different civilians of different countries - from Redwake to Ravenna.
They will appear usually not that far from their home land - meaning that encountering a Castaway which is stranded far away from the home island is quite rare (Though, still possible!)
You may ask - will that just make them actually force you to bring them to their home?
Well, no.
In this idea, these castaways will still ask you to just bring them to a civilizated island - in return, they will give you a small reward (like always). However, if you bring them to their homeland, they will give a much higher reward - and if it’s a castaway of a faction (Like Grand Navy or Assasin Syndicate) will even give you higher fame reward, depending on what faction castaway did you rescue. You aren’t forced to bring them to their island - but doing so will reward you a little greater than normally.
Also, since Vetex is planning to make the NPCs more active - Castaways will also be there! They will be able to randomly appear in the towns you have sent them to or in their home towns (If you rescued a castaway and sent them to other islands but not their home, if randomly they decided to go back to their island - it will take approximately an hour of gameplay for them to start spawning, since obviously, they will take time to go back to their home.)
These castaways, like they promised to us - will spread news to others, making you look better in the eyes of other civilians. This will passively increase your fame - but by small amounts. Being in their sight will also most likely make them react - and even sometimes giving you some items! (like food…)
With enough time passed by, if you have a castaway saved in a specific island, most of it’s shops will have a discount for you - allowing to buy items at a lower price. This includes enchanting and and upgrading, but not auction shop.
Oh, also, if you’re a criminal - escorting a castaways will reduce your negative fame, forcing you to plunder them to increase it. Yeah.
Enough of talking about specific civilians - now let’s talk about other types.
Grand Navy castaways will also randomly appear in the sea - but now, it doesn’t matter how far away they are from their base, it’s just that they are rare to encounter unlike usual castaways.
Grand Navy castaways can appear in different ranks - from marines to higher ones.
Grand Navy castaways are much more valuable (
), making them give you much more rewards for escorting them - and also making the Grand Navy thanking you!
Like with the normal islands - after enough time the Grand Navy island will have a discount for you - allowing to repair ships for a cheaper price and etc…
The saved grand navy NPCs will be rare to encounter on the island - they will instead appear on a gravy ship doing its job - and it will be greeting you when close enough. If the Grand Navy character you saved is the captain of the ship - being attacked near it will trigger the ship to attack the agressor, helping you.
Being a criminal while getting close to Grand Navy castaways will make them react more agressively - threatening you and taking up a more defensive state.
Saving them will greatly reduce your negative fame, but plundering them (Which will trigger them to attack you, goodluck fighting Amelia v2) will increase your bounty and notoriety. Plundering will also not give you their items - you need to actually defeat them to get the rewards (and they will instead be full, not 33%, sometimes even giving an accessory).
Plundering, attacking, defeating a Gravy castaway nearby a non-syndicate (AS) island will automatically make you a more wanted target for Grand Navy - it will send forces to you as a revenge.
Assasin Syndicate castaways are similar. However, no matter who are you - A hero or a criminal, they will be threatening you. Escorting them will increase your bounty. Defeating (but not plundering) AS castaway will increase your positive fame.
They also require you to send them to either an AS base, or a non-civilized island, such as Tidecliff Isle.
While escorting them, you can also send them to a Grand Navy island instead of other options - which will automatically increase your positive fame but fall in the eyes of the “escorted”.
The saved Assasin Syndicate NPC, if escorted to AS base, will tell other assasins about you, making you a less wanted target - thus, after enough saved NPCs allowing you to go into Syndicate’s base without getting attacked right away. This will however not affect, for example, Blackwater Grotto criminals, since they are not a part of the syndicate.
Now, onto my favourite:
Pirate Castaways.
Those will have 2 different types - you will be able to tell which one by the dialogue.
The 1st type will tell you to bring them to their ship (and a name of it), since after a storm or some kind of disaster they got swept away off the ship.
Those castaways will also have a pirate ship going around them somewhere nearby, searching.
Going without the pirate castaway will make the ship act normally - like any type of a pirate ship!
But if you have a saved pirate on board - he will tell the ship to not attack, since they are on board. The ship will stop, allowing you to dock onto it and give the castaway. At the cost of reducing your positive fame, you get A TON of things, from drachmae to accessories! Like Grand Navy ship, however, not getting limited to the ship captain, it will help you if nearby in any case.
2nd type of pirate castaways will tell you to rescue them on any type of non civilized island, since they lost their ship.
Like with AS castaways, you can “rescue” them by sending the NPC to Grand Navy.
Or, you could send them to a non-civilized island, get some rewards, and then being able to visit the saved pirate on this same island for funsies.
Clan islands mechanic
Like with normal castaways, you can enslave-- I meant get a work for the saved NPCs - and they will work for you!
If you rescue a faction castaway (Gravy or AS) OR a Pirate castaway, they will most likely not be a shop castaway - they will rather rest in the barrack or any other infantry structures and actually help you to fight if the island is getting attacked! You can even customize those castaways for their own moveset, and if they have magic, their own spells!
For this, however, there should be another structure in the shops section, which will need another civilian castaway. This structure will allow you to customize your soldiers on the island, set up their spawn location (they will automatically aggro onto other players or NPCs if they are in their line of sight) and even set up if they will purchase ships to go around the island and do difference of activities - from fishing, patrolling the island and giving you any info they obtained, to even attacking other ships and selling the cargo & sealed chests!
Aaand finally, since I feel like this is too big of a text wall for a suggestion - you are able to purchase these castaways as your own deckhands! They will be functionally the same - but with different outfit, stat, and etc.
Conclusion
I would write much more about different mechanics, but it’s becoming a pure text wall which i’m sure not much people like to read. I will edit this suggestion later for even more mechanics or additions. Have a nice day! ^w^