"Mad" Maddie Starhawk

The legend of “Mad” Maddie goes back to her childhood in Ireland. She grew up under wealthy aristocratic parents who were nonetheless under the thumb of the British, so she was always raised with their standards of ladyhood in mind. Of all the fine arts she was required to cultivate, she loved and was most talented at fencing, and became quite proficient under her teacher, a young progressive lad named Shawn. This somewhat dismayed her parents, but she learned her other skills passably well enough that they were not compelled to intervene.

Maddie was content enough in this situation, right up until her mother died. Then her father decided it was time to clean house, and arranged for her to marry the foppish son of a Parliamentary Cabinet member, in order to strengthen his business arrangements. This did not agree with the fiery spirit in her at all, and so she conspired with Shawn to escape. He had lately come to the conclusion that he had nothing else to teach his bright young pupil, as she had begun besting him in their duels as often as she lost, and he was loath to see her talents wasted to a life of servitude and homemaking. So they waited and watched, and their chance soon arrived in the form of a French freighter pulling into port. She was smuggled aboard without incident, and after a few days at sea came to learn that her transport was, in fact, a pirate ship in disguise. Sensing her next opportunity at a life of adventure and excitement, she came out of her hiding place in the hold, to the great alarm of all the crew, and challenged their captain to a duel.

The man, condescendingly impressed by her bravado on account of her stature, agreed, and gave her a few testing prods. Maddie trounced him on the spot, and as he fell to the ground with her sword tip at his throat, the rest of the crew gathered round and drew their own blades. The captain, now legitimately impressed with this fiery woman, waved them off and bartered for his life with an offer to have her join his crew. She agreed, and thus took the first step onto her life of piracy, as well as earning the appellation “Mad” to her name, due to her unconventional recruitment method.

Their strategy was simple: they maintained their guise as a freighter to allow themselves to get close to ‘friendly’ ships, then boarded and took over the vessel, sometimes without incident. This proved highly successful for a time, but a consequence of their deception soon revealed itself, when they drew the attention of Captain Dan Starhawk. Thinking he had found himself easy plunder, he called his crew aboard the Starhawk’s Revenge and set sail for their prize. He ran the vessel down within a fortnight and piled his crew aboard, howling with glee at their easy prey. But easy prey they were not; they were fought to a standstill, due in large part to the uncanny skill and consummate fury of a mysteriously cloaked member of their crew. Dan, no slouch at fencing himself, decided to take this whirlwind on himself, and engaged straightaway. And thus it was that he found himself bested for the first time in quite a while, and for the first time ever by a woman, as he slashed her mask away, revealing the face of “Mad” Maddie. Aghast but intrigued, he might have died to her killing blow, had Joey Deft-Hands not come up behind her and knocked her unconscious before she could deal it. Joey again intervened when the Captain tried to finish her off as she lay stunned, and they carried her aboard the Revenge, along with the rest of their haul.

On their course back home, Dan ended up spending quite a bit of time with his prisoner, somewhat to Joey’s chagrin, and became quite enamored of her after a time. Maddie returned his affections, as impressed by him as he was of her, and was soon let out of the brig and offered a spot on the crew of the Revenge. When they arrived at the Isle, she was appointed to train all the crews in fencing, and raced through the ranks of her own. When the Revenge was sunk, her invaluable service saw her transferred immediately to the Quacken’s Wrath, where she continues to serve to this day. So great did the love between Dan and Maddie grow that they were married one day, right in the middle of an island raid, by BC himself. Their love remains strong to this day, and “Mad” Maddie herself remains a legendary figure on the Isla de Oro.

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