Ahoy, folks!
Down to business. The Caribbean Golden Age of Piracy is kind of my jam, and in stereotypical fashion, I decided to play a character that fits none of that. It's a curse, I tell ya.
I will be playing Kazimierz "Kazik" Wielislaw, a Half-Drow from The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Going with the idea that the very superstitious, Not-As-Catholic Lithuanians are actually Drow, joined together with the predominantly human Poles for mutual aid and protection under God against such savagery as The Turks and The Swedes, the devils.
Kazik is about 30 years old, a member of the King's Winged Hussars, the elite mounted warriors of Poland. A veteran of The Great Northern War, Kazik has fought Swedes and Prussians, Russians and Austrians alike. His family's service to The Crown goes back many years: His grandfather defended The Commonwealth during the horrors of The Deluge, and his father rode alongside King Jan III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna, smashing the Ottomans and saving the city and Europe from further Turkish encroachments.
Needless to say, the Wielislaw family has served its King honorably for many decades, each time bearing the armor of The Winged Hussars and using their lances and sabers to crush their enemies. However, The Commonwealth is not doing so well lately. The time of mass cavalry charges is ending quickly under the domination of volley fire and artillery used by Poland's enemies, and her borders are too vast to properly defend against her many enemies.
Kazik knows this. But Kazik is loyal to his King, and so fears nothing. He holds his saber tightly and does not run down the Swedish Officer that burned his village to the ground, instead protecting the civilians he was asked to evacuate. He fights a war where his countrymen change sides and change sides again, always marching against the next foe without any understanding as to why the Russians were once their allies and now their guns cut down their horses and riders. The cold, hard ground of Eastern Europe holds Kazik as he lays wounded many times, but each time he finds himself back in his stirrups, back to the fight, trading blows with Prussian
Uhlans and Tartar cavalry alike.
Alas, The Great Northern War sees an intact Commonwealth but not a healthy one as it ends in 1710, two years ago. The King's hold on the land is fading, and enemies circle her, hungry vultures waiting to see when Lithuania will be ripe for conquest. That is when Kazik's King demands of him that he protect his home by leaving it, to take off from their fertile land and make way across salt seas to a tropical clime. For, during The Deluge and all its misery, The Swedish made off with many important artifacts of The Commonwealth. Amongst them was something that Kazik was made to understand as
vital to Poland's continued survival, that without which The Commonwealth would fall. He, a Knight of The Old World, must travel to The New World to find this Arthurian grail for his King, an artifact supposedly last seen on a Spanish Treasure Galleon that now rests at the bottom of the sea.
Mechanics-Wise, Kazimierz will be an
Oath of The Crown Paladin, concerned far more with saving his Commonwealth than with God or a Code of Ethics. He was a military officer, a competent rider and soldier, and a veteran of battle. Though he has little to no true experience at sea (aside from his journey from Europe to The Caribbean), he is driven to fulfill his assignment and save Poland or die trying, even if it means turning Pirate along the way. He will be Lawful Neutral in the sense that he supports his country first, but has seen enough war to know that certain moralistic views have to be blinded to do what is necessary for survival. His Role in the party would be more to lead from the front, Saber in hand, inspiring others to greatness and challenging foes to face a Knight in an age of Gunpowder. Bold, Severe, and Courageous, Kazik is ready to lend his blade to your cause in return for assistance in uncovering the mysterious artifact that supposedly rests within
La Gloriosa del Mar, and with it, the fate of Poland-Lithuania.
I have gone with Rolling for Stats and they are so:
_: 4D6.HIGH(3) = [5, 2, 6, 5] = 16
4D6.HIGH(3) = [6, 6, 1, 6] = 18
4D6.HIGH(3) = [1, 5, 2, 4] = 11
4D6.HIGH(3) = [5, 3, 4, 1] = 12
4D6.HIGH(3) = [3, 6, 5, 4] = 15
4D6.HIGH(3) = [4, 2, 2, 4] = 10