Name: Ulysses

Race: Human

God: Michael

Age: 25

Class: Swashbuckler, Shipwright, Pilot

Personality: Ulysses is a tactician through and through, approaching life as a constant measurement of chance and contingency. She carries this same philosophy into her relationships, placing any particular individual upon her invisible scales and deciding whether they might provide a worthwhile service. This disposition has isolated her from her peers, fostering an appearance of indifference. A kernel of truth lies therein, for Ulysses has always struggled to feel sympathy toward her fellow man, quicker to salvage the remains of her ship than to answer the pleas of a dying shipmate. Not many of Ulysses' crew can speak for her amiability; in fact, a shipmate is more likely to receive the sting of her whip than a word of encouragement. Despite the harsh conditions on board, Ulysses' crews are known for their undying loyalty, inspired by her nautical wisdom and relentless drive to move ever onward.

Magic: During her travels Ulysses has picked up a few magical abilities, most used only for nautical purposes. These include farsight, allowing her to view distant objects; a balancing ability which allows her to maintain her bearings when the ship is bucking; and the ability to breathe under water for a short time.

Strengths: Ulysses is a tactician first and foremost, able to out-maneuver her foes at sea or on land. In addition to being a practiced tactician, Ulysses is a brilliant hustler and swindler. When not at sea, she makes her fortune by taking the local tavern regulars for a ride, fooling them out of a week's pay. Ulysses is also practiced in the arts of ship building and piloting, among other nautical skills. She is also practiced in sword fighting.

Weaknesses: Ulysses has not been known to warm up to people, viewing close relationships as a distraction and a weakness waiting to be exploited. While this philosophy has helped her in the past, it has made it particularly difficult to gain the trust of others. In addition, during times of battle and war, Ulysses believes only in overwhelming victory or death. More often than not, this comes at the expense of fellow shipmates or soldiers.

History: Ulysses knows neither father nor mother. The day after a particularly harsh storm, a village priest and his page were taking a stroll along the beach. Drawn by the distant cries of a struggling babe, the page found an infant child that had washed ashore, naked but for a cloak of seaweed. It was as if the child had been spawned directly from the sea's tumultuous waves. The priest and his page took the infant door-to-door across their village, hoping to find a mother or father, but to no avail. Eventually it fell upon the priest's monastery to care for the child and she was thus reared by committee, each priest taking turns caring and providing for the orphan. They named her Ulysses, after the fabled adventurer that roamed the seas.

The priests cared for Ulysses for the first eight years of her life. As the child grew, so too did her restless spirit. Even in her infancy, the priests struggled to calm the child during her more tempestuous fits. Entering the autonomous stages of life, Ulysses was nearly always getting into some sort of mischief. To curb her behavior somewhat, the priests allowed her to enter into an apprenticeship with one of the local fisherman. She caught on to the tricks of the trade well enough, but seemed more fascinated with the operation of the sailboat than anything else. Unfortunately, Ulysses has always known a tempest to follow her wherever she goes, and even the tranquil lifestyles cannot escape its grasp. On the eve of summer's solstice, the village was sacked by a roaming gang of pirates, arriving by sea just before the local fishermen were to wake and cast the morning's first nets. The captain of the roaming buccaneers found Ulysses trapped under the corpse of a priest; he had apparently thrown himself across her to block the blow of a blade. A look of sympathy crossed the captain's features.

Ulysses was taken aboard their ship. The trauma of the event had cast a dark shadow upon her, robbing her of the quirky personality she had once expressed and instead yielding a husk of a child, showing little to no emotion. The captain was determined to break this spell, conveying his guilt to her by wrapping the crew member responsible for murdering many of the priests in chains and casting him overboard. Apparently this was standard procedure for Captain Suane's ship, for he did not tolerate the murder of innocent common folk. Convictions of rape yielded even harsher punishments. Ulysses was unmoved by his gesture, however, and Suane was at a loss. It wasn't until he began to show Ulysses the methods of sailing and navigation that he noticed a change in her behavior. Ulysses caught on quick and Suane was happy to teach her. She also began to learn how to properly run a ship and its crew, in particular the ideal that a ship is essentially its own sovereign state, one where the Captain both creates the laws and ensures that they are properly carried out.

Much like any other sovereign state, however, governments and their people are liable to revolution. A mutiny occurred roughly four years after Ulysses had joined their crew. By this time she had yet to even accompany the crew on any of their exploits, but could still sense tension among the buccaneers, even taking note of how the captain was being isolated from his own men. The mutiny was orchestrated by Suane's own first mate and occurred with as little warning as their sacking of Ulysses' village. In those four years Ulysses had grown very close to the captain, nicknamed "Suane's little shadow" among members of the crew. She attempted to resist but was put down easily, locked away below decks while the other third of the crew was purged by sword. The first mate Jin explained to her the necessity for fresh leadership on board a marauder's ship, that mutiny was as common as the changing of the tides. Ulysses was still uncooperative, but even so Jin promised her her freedom on board if she simply fell in line. He saw value in raising a young swashbuckler, even if she resisted at first. Jin was forced to deprive Ulysses of food, but she eventually accepted him as her captain. In much the same way as Suane, Jin took Ulysses under his wing, explaining to her that Suane had grown weak in his later years as captain, that he had grown too old and too sympathetic. While these characteristics might be noble, they are easily exploited and can mean disaster for a captain and his crew.

Ulysses began joining Jin and his crew on their escapades, harrying small coastal villages and ransacking merchant ships. The crew had begun to make a name for itself, and therefore a reputation among local authorities. They had their first run in with an armed ship during Ulysses' ninth year on board. They defeated the ship, boarding it and putting the crew to the sword, but only just. Jin's crew suffered a great many casualties, with just the right amount of men left to man the sails and bring it to port. It was at their hideaway that Captain Adjuah of [NATION'S NAME] launched his ambush. The Navy had sent the initial ship as a distraction, while Adjuah and his men waited from the shore and followed Jin's ship as it limped away from the battle. Ulysses, knowing that her only advantage in this situation was her young age, cowered in a corner and wailed while the crew was slaughtered. Her grief was real, but she found only numbness where she once felt pain, using that apathy to feign emotion. When she met Adjuah for the first time, her story was simple: the crew had burned her village to the ground, kidnapped her, and kept her for their own vile purposes.

Adjuah and his crew were on an extended assignment, and due to time constraints could not simply dump Ulysses off at the nearest coastal village. Therefore, Ulysses became an honorary member of their crew. It was not difficult for Ulysses to accept Adjuah as her new captain, knowing well enough that she could not let her emotions compromise her survival. It was true that Adjuah had military training, but it soon became clear that the rest of the crew did not. Upon inquiry, Ulysses learned that Adjuah was not an official member of the [NATION'S NAME] navy, but rather a privateer, manning a privately owned ship with commission from a local government. Adjuah's mission was no more complicated than that of a simple bounty hunter, charged mainly with investigating occurrences of piracy on the high seas and bringing those responsible to justice. More often than not, this meant the wholesale slaughter of pirates and other such marauders. Ulysses admired Adjuah and the way he captained his ship. Even moreso, she admired his massive book collection that he kept stowed away in his cabin, spending many lazy days at sea absorbing all she could, mostly stories of famous ship captains and books containing general nautical knowledge. In much the same way that she shadowed Suane and Jin, Ulysses followed Adjuah everywhere when she was not occupied by a book. From him she learned not only further knowledge of how to run a ship and its crew, but also military tactics, how to use weather and environment to your advantage and how to catch your opponent off-guard. Nautical warfare, and warfare in general, was akin to a game of chess, "And all the more better if I could perceive the future," Adjuah would often say.

In less than a year Ulysses was a full-fledged and valued member of Adjuah's crew, spending the next decade of her life hopping from one privateering vessel to the next. Life expectancy aboard a privateering ship was not high, Adjuah dying only three years after accepting Ulysses into his crew. She would know many captains after him. Ulysses killed pirates and brigands with little remorse, aware that there was no comradeship on the high seas, only opportunity. It was common for privateers to be tasked with harrying the coasts of rival villages or kingdoms, and it was then that she realized that there was little difference between a pirate and a civil servant; they all served themselves in the end.

Recently, Ulysses has been searching for her own crew, determined to captain a ship of her own and take to the seas once again.