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Age: Late 20’s, early 30’s
Appearance: Thomas is a man of commanding height and build. His exterior is rough and weathered, with skin that would be fair save for the constant rays of the Caribbean sun. Though he possesses hair of a natural auburn, again the sun has left its mark by bleaching his locks to a golden sheen. His eyes are dark copper, becoming ever darker with foul moods and sinful whims. Across his back are several large, circular scars; souvenirs from a near fatal encounter with a leviathan off the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. His jaw is ever adorned with a short cropped beard that is bleached blond like his hair, and suspended around his neck is a carved piece of scrimshaw; the only lasting memory from his true family.
Crew Position: Captain
Background: Thomas Lightfoot has no memory before the attack upon the ship that was to change his life forever. Seeking the opportunity of the New World, Thomas’ father, a merchant seaman, had set out for the tiny English settlement of St. Kitts, when the boy was no more than five years of age. Thomas had heard the tales of the strange evils in the seas of the Caribbean, and he can distinctly recall his fear of the unknown that fateful morning when his fears turned into cries of terror that were wholly tangible.
A Spanish Man-of-War from Guadeloupe set upon the English vessel, and the roar of cannon, the choke of acrid smoke, and the cries of dying seaman were forever scored into Thomas’ mind as his first true memory. His father died before his eyes, taking a large splinter of the ship’s main mast through his cheek, and into his brain. Thomas’ fingers had somehow worked the piece of scrimshaw from around his father’s lifeless neck, and then beyond that he recalled only the numbness, and then the blackness, and then nothing at all.
When he awoke, he was shocked to be alive, and even more stunned to be in the care of an English privateer. This man went by the singular name, Lightfoot, and the churlish rogue explained that his crew had happened upon the battle, and had sunk the Spanish warship before searching the still floating ruin of Thomas’ own vessel. It was there, Lightfoot said, that they found the boy, huddled over his father’s body, covered in blood and ash, and in total state of shock. Not another living soul was found aboard the English merchantman.
Lightfoot took in young Thomas, and brought him back to the pirate stronghold of Tortuga. Amongst the corsairs, buccaneers, pirates, and privateers, Thomas was raised. Lightfoot taught the boy all he knew of the world, of seamanship, and of the strange dangers of the Caribbean. He learned to speak Dutch, French, and Spanish. He learned to shoot and fight, to steal and kill, but most important of all, Lightfoot taught him how to be cunning.
By the time he was sixteen, Thomas sailed always at Lightfoot’s side. The unlikely pair raided the hated Spanish settlements and sea lanes from Florida to the Antilles, and beyond. Thomas had found his calling, and truly the sea had become his home.
Early in Thomas’ twenties, Lightfoot was killed by Shaking Fever as the privateer crew was holed up on an unnamed island after barely surviving the wrath of a great hurricane. It was there, as Lightfoot fought to remain conscious amid his haze of fever and rum, that he passed his ship onto Thomas, and bid that the crew vote him as their new captain. It was that day that Thomas became a true privateer, and the captain of the infamous frigate, Dusk Skate. Thomas relocated to the English colony city of Port Royal, and from then on has worked to line his coffers, and those of his crew, with Spanish gold and the hope of eternal life through delicious infamy.
