Dugald Tirel Gaffon
| Age | 33 (Born Humidor 1731) |
| Species | Rat |
| Height | Below Average |
| Skills | Seabeastship: Professional Logistics: Professional Swordplay: Experienced Brawling: Experienced Intimidation: Rookie Deception: Rookie |
| Affiliation | Imperial Navy |
| Rank | Captain |
DESCRIPTION:
Haggard, wiry, and somewhat below average in height, Dugald Gaffon does not strike an imposing figure. Almost always seen with a pipe or cigarette, the rat often seems lost in thought or memory, silent and deliberate in his movements. Stern and aloof, he wears his rank openly, and proudly carries himself as an officer, preferring not to get his paws dirty doing manual labor, though he has few reservations about using the sword at his side.
BIOGRAPHY:
Born into the large family of a struggling merchant, Dugald learned to sail from an early age, helping his father to make runs to and fro the Tookumberry Keys in their ramshackle sloop. His father had taken a hard line against smuggling, barely making profit when his shipments were undercut by cheaper goods, delivered by unscrupulous merchants also taking on various illegal narcotics, such as the infamous but highly profitable Trotter’s Leaf.
If business had been bad during peacetime, the calamity and war that came in 1748 brought it to a sudden halt. It was at this tense time that the Gaffon family also began to fracture, with many of the eldest sons and daughters joining up with or being conscripted by various sides of the civil war. Dugald, for his part, had emerged from childhood a staunch republican, believing the corrupt, illegitimate institutions of the Imperium had allowed criminality to thrive at the expense of honest citizens, who only ever saw the face of the law when challenging Imperial authority.
Who was right and who was wrong mattered less and less as the conflict drew on. Dugald was eventually captured by government forces and imprisoned for sixteen months on a prison hulk in the harbour - the Valdez. Despair and disease decimated the prisoners, month after month, but somehow the rat survived.
Changed irreparably by his experiences, Dugald found himself alone and unsure in his freedom. His family was gone - wiped out or scattered by the war - and the family business gone with it. With few options, he joined the navy, signing on just in time for the round of reforms and refits the new Empress in Amarone had ordered. Coolly confident, and competent at sea, owing to his merchanter upbringing, Gaffon rose gradually up through the ranks, even aboard the same ship he’d once suffered on for so long.
Though loath to admit it to another beast, or to even discuss his past at all, there was a strange comfort to the vessel. The Valdez had once been his hell on earth - the lowest point of his life. Now, with nothing else to return to, the quiet captain regards it as an old friend of sorts - the only other soul still bound to his, that knew him as he had been before. All that matters now is to keep sailing.
POSSESSIONS:
As a captain of the Imperial Navy, Dugald Gaffon maintains a wardrobe of uniforms for various occasions, and a small collection of naval cutlasses to carry on duty. Most often he wears a simple but dignified officer's coat of blue and white with gold trim, and black, practical trousers.
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