stuff.

[calicoy]

PLAYER

Name: pel
Age: 25+
Contact: wehwalt
Other Characters: Mhavos, Eshal, Findilay (side)
Interests: oops, blood pact. also, none of my characters are dishonest schemers and apparently im cruising to play literally all my favorite character types in one game.

CHARACTER

Name: "Calico" Jack Rackham
Canon/OC: Black Sails AU
Journal: calicoy
Race: Human
Nationality: Tevene
Occupation: Pirate
Division: Forces
Mage or Not: Noo
Age: Like early thirties. His voice broke months ago.

History
canon stuff.

• Born Soporati in Minrathous, the son of a cloth merchant specializing in calico. Father died in heinous debt, owed money. Opted to skip town rather than potentially being sold into slavery to pay dead father's debts.
• At some point, enters pub where a man is mistreating a thirteen-year-old girl. Jack slashes the throat of the man, and takes the girl along with him. This is how he meets Anne Bonny.
• The two of them end up working closely together, her being the brawn to his brains, pulling of plots and working toward a life of piracy. Lands them on the crew of Charles Vane, eventually promoting Jack to Vane's quartermaster. Uses canny trickery to become an owning partner in a brothel, using information gained there to hunt prizes, enabling him to get his own crew become a captain in own right.
• A large treasure (gaatlok. It's gaatlok) is obtained, in part because Jack steals it from under Flint's nose. All's well, he's tasked with managing its security, helping to rebuild a fort with which to hold it. Employs slave labor to do so.
• Tevinter shows up to make a more serious effort to retake Nascere. They begin offering pardons to pirates in exchange for their loyalty. Doing the sensible thing, Jack and Anne take their cache of treasure with the intention of getting the hell out of dodge.
• Or, it seems sensible, until Jack realizes he'd have to change his name to get away cleanly. As wrapped up in legacy as he is, this is something he can't do. Returns to secure a pardon, leaving Anne to watch the treasure. This leads to a highly convoluted series of events involving Jack's imprisonment, Jack's escape (thanks Anne), a sea battle with Tevinter, and Jack and his crew being taken captive again. The captured crew revolts, however, and successfully takes the Tevinter ship, the Lion, for their own.
• However, while that battle is won, the war for Nascere rages on. Things go from worse to even worse. While some people choose to leave Nascere in order to help foster the growing rebellion against Tevinter rule, Jack and Anne opt to stay, in part because the brothel they still partially own are a centerpiece of the resistance.
• Which is all well and good until Anne gets a rift shard in her hand. Then it's clearly too dangerous to stay, so Jack liquidates what holdings he can in Nascere before heading off to Kirkwall.

Personality

Jack Rackham feels he has a lot to prove to the world, and he's going to do nearly everything within his power to prove it. He may not have been well-born, educated, or lucky in life. But he wants to prove to everyone (and perhaps himself) that he's just as good despite that. It gives him quite the chip on his shoulder, one he's nursed with teaching himself everything he can from books and experience, being daring, and loudly espousing his confidence in his own plans and himself.

While other characters in Black Sails with similar ambitions and backgrounds have accomplished this through the use of narrative and character-- making themselves and their crews players in a grand story they tell themselves-- Jack accomplishes it with management and scheming. Being so constantly underestimated (in part because he barks so much people assume he has little bite and in part because he has little reputation beyond that) makes him frequently under-advantaged. Still, he's ambitious and his faith in his ability, coupled with his desperation to succeed, lead to an almost endless barrage of high risk high reward plans. He can make things work in the worst conditions, often in ways one is not expecting, or will not like, but he will make them work.

He's not a storyteller. He's a networker.

His priorities are twofold: To prove his worth despite his meager beginnings, and to be remembered for doing so.

It's an art, to him, a higher calling, but that doesn't mean he isn't willing to do very, very low things to accomplish it. Not only will he lie to good friends and make choices he knows will upset them, but he's also murdered, and condoned slavery and rape to accomplish his goals. He's not a good man, and while he can grow close to people, see them as allies and treat them with kindness, he also has little difficulty fucking someone over if it becomes a choice between him and them (or his goals and them).

But he has some decency. It just only has one outlet. And maybe he had more decency when he was younger, when he slit the throat of a man harming a thirteen year old girl on impulse. Since then, his only real, true outlet of genuine affection and love, romantic and platonic, has been Anne Bonny. He says as much at once point, 'I only ever want your happiness'. Which makes his goals threefold: Prove himself, make a mark on the world, and make sure Anne Bonny is safe and happy. He won't sacrifice any for the sake of another.

Opinions & Affiliations

Please note: The following are Jack's real opinions. But he'll say anything if he thinks it'll get him an advantage.

• TEVINTER: The country is a cesspit of over-educated nonces who think they own the world based on breeding and magic. Sink into the fucking ocean, assholes.
• QUNARI: The war makes piracy easier and thank fuck for that. He has read the tome of Koslun in order to be rakish and scandalous and mostly found it poorly translated poetry. Dislikes the idea of anti-self-determinism but since it doesn't apply to him, wahoo.
• ELVES: They think they're soooo oppressed. Imagine being a human and poor!
• MAGES VS TEMPLARS: Boring, but war is profitable, so thanks guys. That said, the mages are going to win because mages always win.
• SLAVERY & BLOOD MAGIC: Just don't do it to him or Anne or like... someone he needs for A Plan. But it's just the way the world works and it's something you have to work around. Blood magic is no worse than other magic (besides maybe healing?) and people who say otherwise are hypocrites. Slavery is no worse than many other kinds of impressment, indentured servitude, imprisonment, and forced labor that is perfectly legal elsewhere; again, anyone who says otherwise is a hypocrite.
• PROSTITUTION: Cool.
• PIRACY: Cool.
• EQUALITY AND SELF ACTUALIZATION: Cool.
• ANNE BONNY: Ice cold.

Adaptation Notes

In canon, Jack is from England, which represents, in the narrative of the show, an oppressive and colonialist power rife with corruption and class inequity. Especially since class is essential to Jack's backstory, Tevinter seemed a natural choice. This is furthered by Tevinter's allowance of slavery. Spanish gold becoming Gaatlok makes more sense in this universe, but still carries incredible value.

With this in mind, Jack is largely unchanged from his canon counterpoint, with the exception of things like knowledge of elves and magic. His core motivations, to prove himself and put a stamp on the world's history, are unchanged, and that to me is the most essential part.

Strengths & Weaknesses

PHYSICAL
➕ He's, uh, scrappy? He knows how to hold a sword and fight with it, just not, like. Well.
➖ Jack is not a fighter. All the fights he wins are rigged either rigged or involve straight up fighting dirty, and still comes out by the skin of his teeth. In a true test of brawn, endurance, or physical skill, he's fuuuuucked.

MENTAL
➕ Jack will be the first to tell you that he's smarter than everyone in the room. Unlike some people who focus their intelligence on the arts, Jack is deeply interested in economics, trade, the flow of goods, and manipulating those properties. He's also none too shabby with sailing a ship, especially in unconventional methods, and he can frequently out-think an enemy before he has to outfight them. He's excellent at coming up with and successfully pulling off high risk / high reward ploys. Likewise, speaks Tevene and Trade fluently. Knows scattered phrases in Rivaini and Antivan for pirating reasons (surrender! Fuck off! etc) but he's nowhere near even conversational and his accent is terrible. Lastly, he's not a terrible cardsharp / card-counter / gambling cheat.
➖ His ambition, spite, and pettiness can get the best of his long-term planning and / or common sense.

EMOTIONAL
➕ Excellent at reading others' motives, gauging their needs, and manipulating people / situations to his advantage.
➖ Only really cares deeply about two people and one of them is him. Also, being around historic of famous people (who are historic / famous for their actions rather than birth or w/e) clouds his better judgement. Moreover, sometimes he under or overestimates other people's estimations of him when he's too deep in a plan.

Inventory

-The Lion, a ship more fast than strong. Manned by a skeleton crew (lol) of npc pirates, probably numbering in the low 20s. They will lose allegiance to Jack's ship once they reach Kirkwall, and he'll have to build a crew of (mostly?) non-npcs (and player plot permission etc) if he wants to pirate again.

-Bare minimum supplies for the crew.

-A few pairs of clothes (really only good for warm weather), a sword, a small dirk, navigation equipment, books, personal belongings etc.

-Several pineapples.

-A fair sum of money that will rapidly disappear unless good investments are made with it.

Motivation

While he was staying behind to aid the rebellion on Nascere, a rift exploded and put a shard in Anne Bonny's hand. Suddenly, getting Anne to safer waters was paramount. He took his ship and crew along with him because it's a good way to keep cash coming in. Too bad that gets fucked when he shows up, time to look for a new crew.

SAMPLES

1 & 2.