Is it possible to run a Cowboy Bebop campaign on a more earthly medieval/western setting? I mean...

Is it possible to run a Cowboy Bebop campaign on a more earthly medieval/western setting? I mean, you can do bounty hunters. But what to substitute the spaceship? What about the different factions?

>What about the different factions?

I mean, what about picturing the vastness of the world (each character having a different past with ties into different organisations, etc; each villain having an intrincate background behind their actions, etc)

Corsairs in a ship. Something in witch Jack Sparrow roam the sea. So, you have many colonial country, not! Spain, not! Portugal, not! British, who fight for some islands and parts of the newly discovered continent. Ho, and a few different pirate factions.

>But what to substitute the spaceship? What about the different factions?
Use adventurers and have them affiliated with different factions in different regions.
Have them travel around doing shit.

Use a train for the main ship. Horses are obviously their personal ships.

Sounds like a job for a notMediterranean Sea, something to link a series of disparate nations together in trade, intrigue, and war. That way you can have a ship without needing an airship to complicate matters. (They're like flying PCs; they require a lot of extra work from the GM to stop them from negating every other challenge, and the PCs will never appreciate being told "airship doesn't work because reasons".)

If I were doing something along those lines, I'd be tempted to not make a setting until Session Zero. Every PC that wants to come from somewhere can describe that somewhere, and get a 5e style background narrative perk to explain the sort of access they have to that place and why that helps them keep the ship running. The pirate from pirateland has smuggling contacts to bring in maintenance money, and if you want to make a story that deals with the criminal underground you tap that character's backstory. The veteran soldier from the notRoman Empire has naval experience and permission to use Imperial ports, and can be used whenever you want to do a courtly whispers session. Et cetera.

Sloop. Small colonies, city states along the shore.

I don't recommend ship because this is quite difficult to fluff away crew requirements for an ocean-faring ship that might complicate character bonding moments with NPC crewmembers.

If you really want a mobile homebase to go with your adventures but don't want hanger-ons, use caravans and wagons which have the advantage of being on as big as you want it to be without sacrificing too much suspension of belief..

>quite difficult to fluff away crew requirements for an ocean-faring ship
I thought the whole point to the Cowboy Bebop thing was to avoid ships that large. Spike Spiegel, Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, Dave Lister, they're the underdogs in small ships, never picking a fight with the big ones unless it involves throwing a cheap shot and then running away.

"You see that triple-masted galleon with forty cannon ports and enough hold space to carry a king's ransom in spice? Yeah, mine's behind that. No, the smaller one."

The inland sea allows for smaller ships. Not that you can't have a few NPC crew, but you can definitely keep the number in the single digits.

How come no anime can have a happy ending? Seriously, do the nips just like being suicidally depressed?