Pirate spotting

Pirate Spotting is a popular activity in coastal cities and villages in the Known World, including the former kingdom of Ruined Sea. It involves precisely what it sounds like: sitting near the waterfront and counting the pirate ships as they go by.

Though it started as a game for morbid children, pirate spotting eventually gained a utilitarian aspect when certain town leaders realized it might be useful to track pirate movements. Descriptions and drawings of certain ships began to circulate, and once a particular ship had been seen two or three times, a statistical analysis of its movements became possible. The fruits this labor bore included minimizing death tolls and property damage in some notable land-based pirate attacks due to early warning and lower incidences of piracy in the open sea, due to ships being able to avoid known pirate routes.

Of course, pirates are cheeky, unpredictable bastards, and the data has proven useful only a handful of times.