As the old dog would tell you, there ain't much to this story. Ingle Prizzack was born to wellers on a whaling ship somewhere very wet between Farruca and Blackbone Isle, on St. Swugg's Day, 1711, and came up a wellerbeast just the same. Landsides in Bully Harbour, he worked as a crafter, longshorebeast, wrestler, and Fogey beat constable. He was married to Mairi, a fishmonger, in 1727. From that marriage, Ingle and Mairi would have fifteen children.
During the early days of the Winter War, Prizzack was at sea returning home with a fresh haul of blubber when his ship was attacked by privateers under enemy letters of marque and led by a Captain Annackers, out to plunder the Imperial whaling fleet. Annackers claimed to be an honorable pirate, and did not kill unarmed prisoners; instead, he threw two dozen bound prisoners overboard with a few empty barrels and let them fight for their lives in the freezing waters.
Against all odds, Prizzack and one other survived five months floating in a barrel. They were at last found heatstricken, full of sores, and starving and returned to the Imperium in the Summer of 1734. The young rat, now twenty-three, hurried home to his family's tenement, only to find them alive but barely holding it together, with Mrs. Prizzack even simultaneously humoring and staving off the amorous intentions of their landlord to avoid eviction. In truth, Mairi requited these affections not a tidbit, and with Ingle home, the two fought off the scoundrel, with Mairi dealing the final blow with a wet salted haddock to the jaw. Spurned and furious, the landlord saw fit to cast them out into the street.
Privation snapping at their heels, Prizzack returned to the meagre wage of a Fogey while putting all his skills to work laboring at other jobs with Mairi to make ends meet, and due to the generosity of one of his employers, the young Prizzacks found their not-so-little family lodging above one of the boss's warehouses.
It was then that a friend sought out Prizzack, urgently advising him to sign aboard the Golden Hide. The war was in full swing, and prize money was tremendous. Beasts were climbing the ranks faster than ever as their betters were promoted or slain. Some were making their fortunes overnight. Prizzack was convinced and joined as an Able Seabeast - though Mairi was opposed, his first share of prize money changed the Family Prizzack's fortune. They were able to afford their own place at last, even if a simple abode in the Docks.
After the war, in 1739, Prizzack was named Armorer's Mate after climbing to the rating of Chief Seabeast, then Master at Arms eight years later in 1747, just ten months before the Revolutions of 1748 broke out, serving alongside Quartermaster Destin. In this same year, he met the young Gyles Stowett, who was brought aboard the Hide as a Midshipper and Aide-de-Camp to the Captain. During the ensuing Vulpinsulan Civil War, the two, along with Gyles' schoolmate and then-Marine Corporal Q. E. Tultow, a young ferret named Sarabande, and two Miklarian marten corsairs named Zolac and Zeméne Coppagorza, fought numerous campaigns across the seas of the world in the service of the Lord Protector, Willard Brudenell and ostensibly the unseen Emperor and Empress, Vladimir and Vertherian Ullyanov. An unknown event separated the Miklarian duo and Sarabande from the Hide - a matter about which Prizzack has yet to break his peace.
With the arrest and imprisonment of Master Destin during the Urk Expedition, Prizzack was moved into the position of Quartermaster of the Golden Hide, with Armorer's Mate Verrin taking his place as Master at Arms. In this position he remains to the present, though he'll tell you the posts of doting husband and grandpa, the latter recently achieved for the fifth time, be the most rewarding of all. |
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Urk Expedition Service Badge
