In Medicia, money is divine, and to make money is to commune with it. The greatest sin is to lose it. In those regards, the Ladrocelli family from Bercentia are true apostates. They were respectable, middle-rate merchants who often traded in maps and measuring implements, along whatever they could manage to export from the Antillean.

Piero was the first son of Lorenzo Ladrocelli, and was afforded the ability to engage his interests as he saw fit. He took a great interest in history and tales of the Antillean, reading a number of accounts relaying the folk stories and myths of the original inhabitants of the Novus Mundus. He took up marksmanship for a summer, sailing for a few others. His greatest passion, however, came in his love of the sword. He adopted the dueling style common in Bercentia: a side-sword in the main hand and a parrying dagger in the off-hand. Of course, merely learning and engaging in friendly duels with other aristocrats did not sufficiently abate this interest. So it was, Piero studied under a Medician dueling master for three years. He received a finely crafted spada de lato bearing a pommel depicting a serpent's head.

Over the next two years, the Ladrocelli family's mercantile business began to collapse. Business deals fell through. More well-established Medician families began to source finer wares from the new world. Established sailors were becoming too expensive. Eventually, Lorenzo and Piero had to take turns overseeing their family's prized Galleon, the Fiore Sulle Onde.

Lorenzo was the unfortunate soul to targeted by Black Sails six months ago. The pirates' reputation did not disappoint, but left Piero the inheritor of crippling debt and a mercantile business with no means of sourcing goods to sell. It is unclear if it was revenge, shame, guilt, or greed that drove Piero to gather what goods he could stuff into two large suitcases and ship off to Free Sail. He has sold most everything else his family owned, and has made his presence known in a few public duels. Yet, he is biding his time as he waits for the proper time to make his move.

Just like the snake he is.

Piero's goals are simple: make money and look good while doing it... or die trying. He is a vain Medician merchant whose entire backing and support system has been ripped out from under him, and he aims to build himself back up. He bears the Mark of the Serpent, and is more than happy to prove himself worthy of the honor to any who would dare challenge him. Hell, these days, he would kill for a vintage Medician wine and good company. Of course, those are the motivations Piero is willing to admit to others (and to himself). Privately, he is mainly hiding from unpaid debtors left behind in Medicia an ocean away. He is also an admirer of arts and stories... and desperately wants to experience true adventure himself. He wants to discover lost treasures, or pluck them from the hands of those who have them already. He tells himself he wants to find relics so that he can sell them off to rebuild his fortune, but deep down he just wants to fully immerse himself in the stories he read when he was younger. Perhaps, if he is lucky, he can write his own stories to sell back home.

As a player, the plan is for Piero to be open for hire in the hopes of building capital to fund a treasure hunting expedition. He is always keeping an ear out for any rumors regarding relics or strange (and potentially supernatural) encounters. Much like Piero, I kind of want to go with the flow and see where the winds take him directly, with him weaving in and out of political maneuvering and shady deals. Piero has no love for the Castille, Albion, nor the pirates of the Black Fleet: he would be more than happy to take a detour where he gets paid to raise a little hell.

The only son of John and Mary Elizabeth Edwards, the reigning cobblers of Salt Street in the trade quarter of West Hampborough. He grew up with sisters, two older, one younger. Neil had always been expected to carry on the family business, toiling to earn an honest living. Work hard, keep your head about you, and never forget where you came from. He was quick, loved swimming, but he was short for his age. The other boys, the smaller gangs that ran the streets, called him bilge rat. He quickly got a chip on his shoulder. He went where others couldn't, stole from those others wouldn't, and was beaten more than his fair share of times. The older boys had their licks, but even the peelers kicked him around a bit. But he was a tough boy. He began to embarrass the family, but got a reputation for nimble work and an unshakeable courage. The beaks, the cacklers, the bawlers, the divers, they began to talk. Even the academy girls gave him attention, though he didn't realize he was a bit too young for those affections.

Despite this, he worked hard for his family, when he wasn't muckin' about. They knew he cared for them. His late growth spurt was welcome to the local girls, but he was still lithe and agile, with a good aim. First with rocks, then with pistols. 'Barking Irons' they called it in Albion. He'd first handled a few after he'd met his first, bonified pirate. They hung around Allpenny Bumper, a riverside alehouse that catered to sailors and bargemen. Neil had never led a gang, but his reputation as a wildcard had blossomed right when his parents were losing their fortunes in the business. War and famine had begun to effect the populace, and Neil had taken to more unsavory work to keep his family afloat. His oldest sister was getting married soon, to boot.

After a nasty barge theft, a few of the pirates had grown wise to Neil's operation. They started inviting him into their circles, drinking with them. At night they would take him out on the river and let him handle the pistols and swords. He was taught a few basic moves at his request, and he practiced pistols with them, shooting empty bottles out of the air, just over the brackish water. In exchange, he ran a few odd jobs for them on land, became a courier for their contacts. One night he was followed, a man pulled a knife. Neil had to defend himself. It was the first man he ever killed.

Soon word reached his family. Not the killing, though they suspected. But his choice of friends. John Edwards confronted him, told him to knock off this business with his street activities. His mother's heart was breaking. Neil was given two options. Follow them to the countryside to find better opportunities, or join up with the Navy. Neil decided to take the king's honest schilling. Aye, that was much safer work. Half a year later, with basic training and drill down, he went off as a midshipmen on the privateer sloop The Queen's Business. He'd never been more exhilarated, even during the down times. He found action a handful of times during the latter half of the infamous 4 year war, Albion's rising navy battling Castille and Vallé D'Or for rights to the Silver Stream searoute.

He did not rise to Lieutenant, he'd disobeyed too often for that, but he was raised to Gunner for valor. Wounded after his third battle, he spent the last two months of the war on the mend, and was discharged along with the rest of the crew. They re-positioned themselves as merchantmen, and Neil kept at sea for another year until he arrived as Medicia. He'd picked up a few words from serving alongside some Medicians on his jaunt as a merchant sailor, and his contract was just about up. He'd had enough of sea life for a bit. Three years with no more than two dozen days on land, if that. He needed a vacation, and let his contract go. He began to bet his earnings, growing more accustomed to the lingo and learning the tells and tricks of the local divers. He found himself befriending a barman, an Inigo Almaste, who gave him some clues on some rumrunning and smuggling. He had just dipped his toes in that life again when he was swept up by a siren out of song. He'd never seen a woman like Camille of Anderton, and their tempestuous lovematch was as bright and titillating as cannonfire. But then she was snatched before his very eyes, and she confessed she was the princess of one of the petty kingdoms that made up Medicia. He'll never forget it, it was the first time they had professed their love, when the guards dragged them away. Neil was sent to the clinker, but he had all his buttons on. He broke out in a day, and found out from Inigo she was to be wed in a week.

He spent his money on two swords, and bartered his way onto galleon bound for the New World. The day of the wedding was bright, and Neil sequestered himself in one of the closets the night before to get passed the guards, and slipped into the crowd once the festivities started. Before the vows, he tossed aside his cloak and threw Camille a blade, unsheathing his own backsword. Together they told the lord to stick it where the sun didn't shine and fought their way out of there, rushing to the docks, hand in hand. But Theus had other plans, and as Neil leaped aboard, Camille was taken out of his hands by the dockyard watchmen. She told him to go, or he would be killed. He didn't care, but the look in her eyes stopped him dead. He vowed he would come back, after finding his fortune. He would come back, not as a lone thief, but a captain. He would come back, he swore, and bloody take her back.

Neil wants the power to free his woman from her evil father and husband-to-be. He wants a fast ship and the men to follow him.

Camilla del Atranto is the only daughter of the reigning Duke Federico del Atranto. While the Duke still hopes for a male heir, he dotes on his daughter. From an early age she was indulged beyond the normal bounds of her sex. While she was trained in the traditional feminine skills of poetry, pageantry (dance), and poison (healing) she was also permitted to learn the more masculine arts of hunting, hawking, and handwork (fencing).

While she is adequately skilled in the byzantine social customs of her homeland her true talent lay in dance and, not coincidentally, fencing. Her father, ever indulgent, provided her with a series of swordmasters to advance her education. Her ability with a sword made her something of a jewel at the court of Atranto and helped aid Federico in his diplomatic maneuvering.

A high spirited girl, filled with the confidence she roamed far beyond her social station, associating with guardsmen and travelling out into the often fractious city. Though firmly in the Vaticine camp religious, Atrantian politics often put the city at odds with the Holy See due to internal Medician power dynamics. Several years ago this resulted in a period of intense rioting where the populace, whipped up by fanatic preachers, engaged in a protracted orgy of rioting against the Duke’s ‘ungodly’ policies. Caught up in these disturbances and the ensuing intrigues and street fighting, Camilla engaged in a whirlwind love affair with a foreigner by the name of Aneillio Edoardo. When order was finally restored and Camilla was dragged back to the palace by her father’s somewhat exasperated guards she was informed that she was to be married of to the ambitious and unscrupulous Duke Cesare de Monte Calabra as part of the settlement with the Holy See, a move that would see control of Atranto pass to Monte Calabra in the event the Duke, now an aging man, was unable to produce a male heir. Camilla was furious at being bartered away in such a trade and repelled by the despicable Cesare and swore she would never wed such a brute. Her father, knowing her tempremeant too well, had her imprisoned until the day of the nuptials.

The day of the wedding dawned and the reluctant bride was escorted to the cathedral by her fathers guards. Dressed in wedding day finery she was all but frog marched to the altar to meet the grinning Duke Cesare. The ceremony began but at the moment the priest asked for objections Aneillio stepped forward and swept back his cloak, calling out his objection and swearing to prove it upon the Duke’s body if need be. When the Duke scoffed at the challenge of a commoner and ordered his guards to kill the interloper Aneillio tossed a sword to Camilla and drew his own. The Cathedral descended into chaos as the pair fought their way free of Cesare’s troops, the fighting spilling over into the city.

Aneillio had arranged passage out of Atranto on a merchantman but by the time they reached the docks the city had descended into something between a riot and a revolution as partisans Vaticine and Atrantian independence clashed in the streets. Aneillio was able to reach the departing ship and leaped aboard only to see Camilla knocked off her feet by Cesare’s guards as the distance between ship and dock yawned open.

With her lover carried off to see Camilla was dragged back to the palace. Duke Cesare had been badly wounded in the fighting and was furious, but not furious enough to have the young woman strangled out of hand. He declared that as soon as he was recovered they would be married and made it clear that she could consider her days numbered after that. Cursing and swearing Camilla was led away to a cell to await her fate. Fortunately for her there were plenty in the city who thought of her fondly, particularly as the grip of Duke Cesare’s soldiers grew more onerous. A priest, offended by the ungodly ways of Cesare, arranged to dress her as a nun and smuggle her out of the city on a ship bound for the New World.

Camilla is on the run. Cesare needs her to confirm his rule of Atranto and any number of other factions could use her for their own ends. This makes her interactions with the Exchange very fraught if her identity is discovered (which obviously is very likely). Her primary goal is to reunite with her love Aneillio. Beyond simple survival she will eventually want to make a name for herself and to raise money and support to take back her city. As a classically educated noblewoman she is also fascinated by the tales of magic and wonder out here at the edge of the world and will go to considerable lengths to learn more about it. This is particularly true of healing and creative things.

While she is technically quite competent in things like palace intrigue and the art of swordcraft she has led a very sheltered life which is likely to land her in trouble as often as not.

The youngest child of Agnes and Barnaby Boddingham, Gerard was raised with seven brothers and twelve sisters, which called for a lot of ruckus and a lot of mischief. And mischief sure did run in Gerard's family, for his father did get in the same amount of trouble he did when he was a youngin, and his grandmother, and his great grandfather, so on and so forth. Gerard was raised in an incredibly strict household, even to where this strictness bordered on physical and verbal abuse, typically by the hands of his father, who trained him in all sorts of things, hence his skills and talents.

Gerard mostly stayed around with his brother Benedict growing up, since he was more "sane" out of the whole family according to Gerard. Up until they started to be both abused when their father found out that Gerard liked to hang out with Benedict, and this changed the both of them very differently - while Gerard still tried to keep himself sane, Benedict started to retract further into himself and became more violent, inconsolable and all the more aggressive, even to a point where he started beating on Gerard too.

Gerard met his wife Winifred Wyclot when he shot the gunslinger, who was her father, and she immediately kissed him after she witnessed it, in which he quickly fell in love with her, not for her beauty or the way she kissed him, but for her sadistic nature and wonderful personality.

Gerard sometimes gets himself in the worst situations, much to the dismay of Winifred. Whether it be getting into scuffles in an alley, fights in some sleazy brothel, Gerard will fight anything and anyone that threatens him, or duck out last minute, even when he caused it in the first place.

Gerard's mostly aggressive and violent nature roots from fighting with his brothers when he was a child, he even brags he could throw punches by the age of six, though he's not at all good at fighting. But despite this, his brother Benedict is more violent than Gerard because of the abuse they both endured at the hands of their father. When Benedict is the Yin of their relationship, Gerard is pretty much the Yang, even though they used to be so close when they were children and teenagers.

When Gerard was around five, he received the Specter Ring from an unknown relative, he still doesn't know who gave it to him, though the sender claimed to be one of his seventeen aunts, who were well-known for being assassins for royals back in the day. Once Gerard wore the ring, he was immediately possessed by a violent and blood-thirsty spirit that refused to get out of him when an exorcist was involved, Gerard's father nearly gave up trying, even though the exorcist told him that the spirit that was possessing the young boy could potentially make him go insane and slowly kill him from the inside out. But luckily, they were able to trap it back in the ring. It is still not known who the spirit is, but Gerard says that the sender must have done it out of spite.

Gerard often travels a lot, and it's why he's after his brother Benedict to stop him from going on a murderous rampage, since he followed him all the way to the New World, though Gerard is still trying to figure out where he may be, and the only person Benedict has killed so far is his sister Zephoria.

Gerard went out on sea to search for the meaning of life, he picked up meditation, yoga and many other things on his travels, and mostly, to find his brother Benedict and put a stop to what he's trying to do.

Gerard simply wants to stop his criminal ways, but he also wants to stop his brother Benedict from a murderous rampage he's about to unleash on Vallé D'Or, and Gerard does not like the only way he can stop him - murder. What caused Benedict to be so violent was believed to be when Gerard gave him his very-dreaded Specter Ring and the ghost happened to have possessed Benedict, though it's just a rumor and his reasonings are still unknown. Gerard is still on the hunt to find Benedict in various cities and countries.

Gerard also wants to find out what spirit possesses his Specter Ring and try to find a way to break the curse of the ring and free the angry spirit, and he'll stop at nothing to find the sender and confront them.

She was born Dona Sofia Ines de Alvarez y Cartagena. She was the only child of Don Fernado de Alvarez. Her father was a minor Castillian Noble who had served in the King’s navy with distinction. Her father married the love of his life and was devastated when she died giving birth to Sofia. Sofia reminded him of the love of his life and doted on her. He spoiled her and taught her things that were considered unseemly for a woman of her class. Don Fernando did not care as it gave him the opportunity to keep his daughter at his side. He took her to sea with him and taught her everything he knew about sailing and naval warfare. Don Fernando taught her how to use a blade. She began training at a very young age. She was an expert and could beat him by the time she was a teenager. She was young and fell in love with a minor noble who was a self made man. He had built a merchant fleet and built his fortune on trade to the new world and the riches to be gained from the east. Her father would never deny her and saw her happily wed to the love of her life, Don Rodrigo de Moreda. Her name changed to Sofia Ines de Moreda Y Cartagena. She went with her husband as he sailed the world on business. He taught her everything he knew about business. He had been expanding his holdings in the Antillean Archipelago. He had set up offices in the town of Free Sail. He had expanded his shipping fleet to include 6 ships. His prize vessel had been a wedding gift from her father, a modified Castillian Galleon that was sleek, fast, and had a large cargo hold but still had enough guns to protect itself and be a terror on the high seas. Rodrigo’s business, The Silver Bear Traders grew in wealth and influence over the years. Sofia lived a life of privilege and wealth. She was a happy woman who settled down to raise their three children. Rodrigo had built a huge manor house in Free Sail for his family. It was called the Silk Rose due to its opulence and beauty. Sofia’s favorite place was the gardens where he had roses brought in for her from Castille. Sofia had three children, two sons, Juan and Roberto, and one daughter Maria Rose.

While Sofia and her family had been happy and living a good life, others were jealous of Rodrigo’s success and plotted his downfall. Late one night a crew of assassins and cutthroats attacked their home. Rodrigo and her children were killed. Sofia had fought like the devil to protect them. She had been shot in the back and hit over the head. They had left her for dead as the villains took what loot they could before setting her home on fire. Sofia woke up surrounded by smoke and fire. She barely made it out of the house alive.

Sofia swore that those who had killed her family would pay. She used the wealth and assets her husband had left her to accomplish this. Her initial investigations and bribes led her to those who had done the deeds. It had taken her two years to hunt them all down. She had bought a dockside tavern and used it as a base for her investigations. She staffed it with people she knew to be loyal to her. She staffed with people she had rescued from dire straits and injustices of their own. She had created a persona to hide her identity, Maria Rose, La Conquistadora. She wore a golden silk mask of roses and thorns to hide her face. It was as she was exacting her revenge on the last one that she learned they had been hired to do it. They had been hired to kill her family and make it look like a burglary. She wanted the people who had signed the orders. Her latest clue said that the crew of the Crimson Demon pirate ship were the ones who hired those sent to kill her family.

Sofia began to build a network of spies, thieves, and cutthroats of her own. Her elusive goal to find who had ordered the death of her family. She takes her ship out as La Conquistadora seeking answers on the high seas. She used the ship to lure pirates in and take them out as she searched for information on the Crimson Demons.

As a player, what do you hope to accomplish and where do you want the character's story/stories to go?

The character works to right injustice while she seeks the answer of who ordered the death of her family. The seemingly charming noble lady that was widowed and continues to run a shipping empire by day. Emerges as a vigilante seeking justice for the death of her family. She refuses to let injustices go when she finds them. She uses her wealth and knowledge to build her own criminal underworld network. I want the story to lead from one good lead to another, one adventure to another as she explores the seedy underbelly of Free Sail.

What is the thing your character wants more than anything in the world- what would they fight, kill, or die for…and just as importantly why do they not have it yet?

The character wants justice. She wants to kill those who ordered her family killed. As she investigates that crime, she is exposed to more injustices of the world. She can’t right the wrong done to her yet, but she can help others. Fighting under her alias Maria Rose, La Conquistadora, gives her a way to vent her rage. It gives her purpose. The people who ordered her husband’s death are well connected in the Exchange. They ordered his death because they had hoped to kill off the business. They were upset that the Silver Bear Traders were cutting into their business. The members of the Exchange that hired the folks to kill Rodrigo and his family were smart and used multiple cut outs to prevent the crime from being linked to them. Every time she thinks she has found the answer, it leads to yet another person. The loss of her family has hardened Sofia. She no longer lives a happy content life of prestige, coddled and naive about the world. She has witnessed the cruelty of the world first hand. Having the ability to do something about it, well that is all that keeps her sane.