Name: Hyena Jack
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Faction: Three Snakes
Deity:
Ghede NiboSkills:
Major Skill Set: All aboard! - Swords and Flintlocks, Close Quarters Combat, Acrobatics, Low-Light Adaptation, basically anything you'd expect of a practiced member of a pirate boarding party.
Minor Skill: Tag! You're it! - Between Jack's decades of playing keep-away with swords and his position as a
Often overlooked, the Striker was a native of the West Indies, typically from Darien or the Mosquito Coast. They were expert hunters who trapped sea turtles and manatees; fished for sharks and other large fish; and also hunted wild game when the crew came ashore. Their knowledge of local plants aided in collecting edible fruits and vegetables as well as medicinal plants and herbs.Their expert ability at hunting and fishing earned them a spot among the crew.
Jack fights and moves quickly like the animals (and men) he hunts.
Minor Skill: I've got friends in low places. - Between Charbon's years on the job and the Three Snake's influence in Louisiana, Jack has contacts in every port.
Background: Born on a Haitian sugar plantation in 1778, Hyena Jack, as he'd come to be called, was born to a mulatto freedman and a field slave. without the boon of his father's white parentage, Jack was treated as any other slave, growing and working alongside his mother and others while his father served in the Big House. For thirteen years, the young boy's days were spent stripping and chopping sugarcane and his nights learning of his people and the Lao.
In 1791 the Haitian Revolution began. Tensions had been high for sometime as slaves outnumbered their owners 10:1 in most places for several years leading up to the rebellion. As a House Slave, Jack's father was ordered to aid in the defense against the rebellion. Familial bonds were a strong facet of slave community and, as such, rather than defend his masters and put down the family who had raised his son, Jack's father used the time before his betrayal was discovered to smuggle his son off the plantation. With only vague instructions or indeed knowledge of why he needed to flee the island, Jack stowed away on a ship still in port.
Used to little food and impoverished conditions, Jack managed to hide away three weeks off rats he had caught and rainwater that trickled from the main deck before he was found by the ship's quartermaster attempting to steal from the food stores. Whilst being dragged topside, Jack bit and clawed his handlers until he finally broke free. Using his small form and years worth of muscle, Jack climbed, dipped, dodged and scurried the length of the ship and back again evading recapture until the captain had had enough.
Captain Jean-Jacques "Charcoal Jack" Charbon and his ship the Dog Headed Whore were known for crass humor and seeing potential. Most times this equated to noticing a particularly under protected caravan but this time such keen eye proved arguably more useful. Amused but, more importantly, impressed by the youth's antics, the captain took on Jack as his cabin boy. With no name of his own, Jack was christened in his near benefactor's honour. To commemorate the fact humour was the only reason he'd live another day (more likely though a jab at the boy being "darker than Charcoal") Hyena Jack was born.
With nothing to go back to, Jack threw himself into his new position though he lacked his father's dandy love for waiting on his betters. Jack's break wouldn't come for another two years at sea. Pirates by trade, Charbon and his men had made more than a few enemies in their time and, as such, often found themselves under attack.
Often either these battles went in Charbon's favour or his crew would simply flee around the larger navy vessels which hunted them. One such occasion though escape was not an option. Pinned near a reef of the coast of Barbados with no chance to win an open firefight, Charbon had his men load the cannons with great large hooks.
As Charbon and his men traversed the ropes unto the enemy ship, Jack saw the Naval soldiers cutting the ropes from the hooks. Thinking quickly, Jack climbed Charbon's ship's remaining mast and swung across to the other ship. While no way experienced in combat, years of hacking sugarcane meant he knew his way around a knife. Bounding and leaping through the chaos on deck, Jack drove a dagger into the soldier's neck before helping the remaining half of the crew up from the ropes. With the full strength of Charbon's crew and Jack's skirmish of darting attacks, the Dog Headed Whore lived to sail another day.
Proving a useful member of the crew, Jack was appointed to the position of Striker, hunter of man and beast alike both on land and sea. For almost two decades now Jack has sailed with Charbon and his crew hunting, fishing, boarding, sneaking and genuinely living up to the family name. Now a man in his early thirties, Jack is as Charbon has always been: a lover of women, a taker of lives and a sucker for a good joke.