| Minipirate | |
|---|---|
 Two minipirates confront eachother | |
| General Information | |
| Habitat: | Zamonian Sea |
| Abilities: | Best seafarers |
| Diet: | Mostly seaweed and small fish |
| Physical Information | |
| Extremities: | Two arms with iron hooks and two wooden legs |
The Minipirates are a group of seafaring tiny creatures that sail the oceans surrounding Zamonia, and are extremely skilled at their seamanship.
Size[]
"The Minpirates were the masters of the Zamonian sea. Nobody knew this, however, because they were too small to be noticed."
The Minipirates are extremely small: as Bluebear says: "A minipirate six inches tall was considered a giant by his own kind." The ships of the minipirates are so small that they go completely unnoticed by larger vessels.
Appearance[]
All minipirates are born with two wooden legs, an eyepatch over one eye, and two iron hooks for hands, a hat with an image resembling a skull on it, and even mustaches.
Seamanship[]
"The most audacious of all seafarers, they were forever seeking oppurtunities to demonstrate their nautical skill, even when confronted by the most potent of natural forces."
The minipirates are the best and most masterful seafarers in all of Zamonia, despite the fact that they did not even use a magnetic compass. They are, for example, the only people able to navigate in the regions near the Malmstrom without being sucked into the whirlpool. They are also the only people who have masterred the art of "stopping dead," completely halting their ship in order to avoid collisions with fish. Minipirates can work extremely quickly, and could often be in constant motion. While they worked, they would sing strange sea shanties. All minipirates on a ship are of equal rank; they know know what to do without having to be issues any orders. Bluebear states that they "reefed sails and unfurled them a moment later. They reacted to every quirk of the sea, every puff of wind and movement of the ship, and knew
A minipirate
at once what had to be done next." One reason for their exceptional skill is their size, which makes them live in another time dimension. Things appear to move slower to a minipirate, so they have more time to do things, and from our point of view, appear to be moving extremely fast. Jobs on a minipirate ship included scrubbing decks, which was done with a mixture of soap and sand, and the masthead lookout, who's job it was to use a telescope to survey the area in from of the ship, looking for other ships, favorable currents and wave tunnels, and other items of interest. Other minipirates steered the ship, manned pumps, cooked, repaired planks, removed sea snails from the hull of a ship, threw lifebelts, and hoisted sails.
One imporatant skill masterred by the minipirates is the art of tying knots. Minipirates know 723 different methods for tying a knot. Types of knots they tye include the reef knot, the Minipirate's double Skirtlet, the Storm Cravat, the Goose Gallows, the Hobgoblin Hitch, the Double Gordian, the Hempen Twist, the Octopus Noose, which used eight different strands of rope, the Manilla Maze, the Rio Rope-Yarn, the Buccaneer's Bowline, and the Captain's Clinch.
Minipirates are also experts on waves. Depending on the shape, color, size, temperature, noisiness, speed, composition, and spacing of waves, as well as the way in which the waves moved, a minipirate can tell not only whether he is near land, but exactly where he is, what dangers to expect, and even what type of wildlife is in the area.
Despite their incredible skill, minipirates have never been able to capture a larger vessel or aquire any treasure. The minipirates often attack larger ships, attatching themselves to the sides of these ships with their grapling hooks, but are merely towed along by these bigger vessels, and their presence not even noticed. Minipirates also have cannons, but when fired, the cannonballs never even reach their targets, landing in the sea after travelling only a few feet.
Fears[]
Minipirates hate boredom, and will groan and even tear their clothing when experiencing even slight boredom. Minipirates are also very afraid of the dark. They beleive that Hobgoblins come to feed on sailos souls during the night, and that to keep Hobgoblins away from them, they must light their ships extravagantly and make large amounts of noise. Therefore, Minipirate ships are never dark. Lighting on minipirate ships includes lanterns, torches, strings of fairy lights, and even small fires. During the night, Minipirates also make even more noise than they do in the day time, by singing, shouting, and banging on iron saucepans.
Diet[]
The minipirates live mainly on seaweed and extremely small fish like sardines and scampi that they were able to catch. They know over 400 ways of preparing dishes like this. They also drink rhumm , which is made of seaweed juice and mollasses, and affects minipirates much in the way alchohol affects other creatures, despite rhumm's complete lack of alchohol. Dishes eaten by minipirates included sea-snails in a seaweed boiullon, 'seaweed natur ', seaweed bread, and sophisticated soufflés of seaweed. They also drank seaweed juice.
Other Habits[]
Minipirates will often be found boasting about false stories regarding their adventures and the treasures and ships they have captured. Minipirates often also sing pirate songs. Because of all the singing, groaning, and boasting aboard Minipirate ships, they can be extremely loud. Also, because Minipirates are so afraid of the dark, they only sleep during the day.
"The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear"[]
In the novel, Bluebear is found by a group of minipirates as he is drifting towards the Malmstrom in a walnut shell. He spends 5 years with the minipirates, who teach him their trade. Bluebear even becomes better at knot-tying than most minipirates. After 5 years, bluebear has grown to be so big that he threatens to sink the minipirate ship, so he is left on the shores of Hobgoblin Island with a bottle of Seaweed Juice and a loaf of Seaweed Bread, which he promptly devours.