>>6067610You are Marshall Kabot. One of Captain Edward Kabot's many bastard sons. From an early age you took to the life at sea, as comfortable on a wooden deck as on land, if not more so. In your formative years, you were sent to Crain to live alongside the main branch of House Toussle, an effort by Kabot to forge an alliance with the queer, reclusive nation. At first, he dank, humid swamps made you feel almost claustrophobic compared to the open sea, but in time you grew accustomed to the strange place, learning how to spot an alligator hidden beneath the murky waters and which plants would cause an itch, so that you could run and play with the other children. You were also exposed to the frightening rituals performed in Crain. Much of it was charlatanism, you are sure, but you saw some things you still feel you cannot explain. In your final years there, you spent your free time taking a canoe through the muddy bog and finding the decrepit hags who boiled noxious brews in their cauldrons, and would threaten you with ghastly curses unless you appeased them with gifts and compliments. In your visits, you gained some superficial understanding the swamp people's dark magics: basic charms and curses used to enhance one's luck, or sabotage another's. When you returned to Chalmuth, your experience abroad made your old life seem somehow easier. Your father began keeping you in his company when he met with his officers and advisors, and in time gave you your own boat, so long as you promised to honor his oath to the Emperor not to disrupt the Empire's merchants. The promise was quickly broken, you and your friends would sail away for days at a time, terrorizing and raiding Varyne and Issi's merchant ships. You were never caught, yet you always felt that your father secretly knew. Now you're 16 years of age, tall and dark and always wearing a cocky smile won through the countless challenges you have overcome with ease.
At the Emperor's invitation, there was no question as to who Captain Kabot would choose as his champion. Within a week, you left for Issi, not wanting to pass through Ellia, and began the long trek over land to the capital. You had never spent so long away from the sea. The feeling of trudging so long upon the solid earth made you feel as though a part of you was missing. When you finally arrived, however, the sight of the Capital city reinvigorated you. Compared to the dingy wooden huts, piers, and house boats that make up Chalmuth, the Imperial Capital may as well have been built by another species. Tall marble towers came into view first, then sturdy stone temples that seem to be built into the earth's very foundation, and then at last the hive of merchants, soldiers, and politicians who swarm endlessly through the city's clean streets.
