[b]APPLICATION:[/b] [b]NAME:[/b] Cato Valentinovna [b]SEX:[/b] Female [b]DATE OF BIRTH:[/b] November 7th, 1690 [b]PLACE OF BIRTH:[/b] Moscow, Russia [b]BACKSTORY:[/b] Cato Valentinovna was born into the proud nobility of the Russian Tsardom, growing up in the distinguished court of Peter the First. Her father was a rich merchant that sold luxurious fabrics and clothing to the aristocracy. Her mother was a French noblewoman and avid artist. Her childhood was as comfortable for her family as it was insufferable for her sensibilities. She was raised to be a gentle and polite lady of the court, but she longed to take part in more boyish fields of study like science and history. Both her parents heavily reprimanded her for this behaviour, as they did not want to damage their reputation with the other more traditional Russian nobles. Inspired by the sweeping modernization reforms enacted by her own monarch, Peter I, Cato resisted her mother’s desperate attempts to civilize her. She stole books on medicine and surgery, which she studied profusely. After a year of maintaining her fascination with the medical profession, she declared that she would become a doctor to the Tsars of Russia. Her parents, who had already planned to marry her off to another Russian family in order to better their position in the nobility, completely forbade her to pursue her new ambitions. In response, she stole as much money and product from her father’s storehouse and fled from her home. She paid her way through Europe, learning what she could from willing medical institutions and moving on. She spent a year in Paris, becoming a novelty in the court of Louis XIV. She treated the aristocracy of the Sun King until she realized that she was more of a novelty than a doctor to the decadent French peerage. After leaving Paris, she decided to travel to the Americas, where she believed that she could be taken more seriously as a medical doctor. As she neared the Caribbean, a fierce gale struck, driving her ship off course and tearing its sails badly. Drifting a few miles out of Nassau, the ship was easy pickings for the first pirate to inevitably happen upon it: 'Black Jack' Blackett of the Bucephalus. Boarding the battered vessel, the pirates swiftly overcame any resistance, and began the process of transferring cargo and captives across to their own ship. Without warning, however, a third ship began to fire upon the Bucephalus. A pirate hunter sloop-of-war, its deck packed with veteran privateers. Blackett's crew rushed to man their own guns, but amidst the chaos the pirates' quartermaster was hit by dozens of splinters from a nearby cannon impact. The wounds would certainly have killed him, had a certain Cato not stepped forward from amidst the captives and offered to treat the wounded man. With the captain's permission, she proceeded to meticulously remove every trace of shrapnel from the quartermaster, disinfecting and stitching his wounds quickly and cleanly, even as the two ships continued to exchange cannonfire. Recognising the value of having such a skilled surgeon on board, Captain Blackett immediately offered her a choice: take a position on his crew, or be enslaved, ransomed, or killed like the rest of the captives. After some decidedly brief consideration, she accepted his offer. [b]APPEARANCE:[/b] https://i.imgur.com/YzCUqqb.png [b]MOTIVATION:[/b] Cato wants to be recognized as a proper medical professional in some great court of Europe, although that ambition has somewhat fallen to the wayside since her first taste of the adventure of piracy. At the moment, she has decided to see the world before settling anywhere. [b]SKILLS/STRENGTHS:[/b] Cato is a skilled surgeon and regular doctor, with knowledge on much of the world and many fields of medicine. She has been known to make sparkling conversation with both crew-members and captives, and she can play the violin nicely. [b]WEAKNESSES:[/b] She is well versed in swordplay on paper, but in actuality she has quite a bit of trouble holding her own. Instead of joining the fight, she can usually be found below-deck either taking shelter or treating the wounded. [b]NAME OF CAPTAIN:[/b] John Lysander Blackett [b]ROLE ON SHIP:[/b] Ship’s Doctor [b]NAME OF SHIP:[/b] The Bucephalus [b]SHIP DESCRIPTION/SPECS:[/b] The Bucephalus is a 32 gun frigate, formerly a 5th rate warship of the Royal Navy. It carries 24 broadside 12-pound guns, 4 long 9-pound bow chasers, and 4 long 9-pound stern chasers, along with 6 swivel guns on deck for close action. It has a crew complement of 145. Under Captain Blackett, the ship is decorated with crimson sails, a Jolly Roger depicting a horse with the lower half of a fish (hippocampus) piercing a heart with a trident, and a bronze figurehead depicting the same creature as on the flag, minus the trident and heart.