Thomas Plank

Thomas Davis grew up in a remote port town in Wales by the name of Carmarthenshire, the son of a well-to-do carpenter and shipwright, and so he was raised in both crafts since he could lift a hammer. The town was on the outskirts of His Majesty’s kingdom, so it was fairly loosely administered by the Crown. As a result, it was a frequent port-of-call for the pirates of the region, and Thomas grew up becoming familiar with their lifestyle and morals.

Born with a shocking crop of hair and being wondered at all his young life for its volume and thickness, he was sometimes called ‘Samson’ by the locals while they watched his apprenticeship in his father’s shop, for the strength and skill with which he wielded the tools of his trade. But this was taken from him one day when his father did business with a witch, who ended up unsatisfied with her end of the bargain. In an act of spite, she cursed him and his son to lose all their hair, and be ridiculed for it. Unlike the biblical tale, however, Thomas did not lose his strength or skill due to this loss; indeed, he redoubled his efforts in the face of his cosmetic disfigurement, and won the respect of the town by his sheer virtue as a craftsman.

When he was not plying the family trade, he would spend his days among the monks in the local monastery, where he was taught reading and writing, which became a valuable skill for his father’s business. He excelled at both the hands-on work of the shop and managing the books, and his family became quite prosperous. But in his early teens, his father fell afoul of yet another witch, and this time the curse fell to Thomas alone. The evil crone laid upon him an incurable hunger and need for the wood that he worked with daily. From that point on, conventional food would not satisfy, and he was only able to subsist off of the scrap wood and sawdust from his shop. Upon the placement of this latest curse upon him, the former was released, or at least redirected. Those years of baldness came back with a fury in his facial hair, and his eyebrows, beard, and moustache became outrageously prodigious in that time. He had to shave a full growth of the stuff every morning, and by evening when he stopped working for the day, it was near full-grown again. He surprised the monks he studied under with this sudden change, but he fit right in with their own appearance as a result, so he was accepted relatively quickly.

He kept the other secret of his curse - and still one other - to himself very carefully, until after he left his hometown. That day came years later, when that same witch returned to his shop for more work. Believing that Thomas was oblivious to her responsibility in his fate and appearance, she chuckled to herself as she inquired of him the details of his work, determined to get a better price out of him than she had the boy’s father. But Thomas knew exactly who she was, and so he offered her a tour of the place to display his wares, to which she agreed. She realized her error when he arrived at a shelf of saws, and Thomas took one down and brandished it at her, a vengeful gleam in his eyes. She screamed at this most inopportune time, for at that moment a rarely-seen soldier of the Crown walked into the shop, overhearing her cry and rushing to assist. Thomas tried to explain away the incident, but this was a particularly zealous young soldier, so he moved to arrest Thomas. Giving up on his subterfuge, he buried the blade of the saw deep into the crone’s neck, and engaged the soldier with a hammer while she fell clutching her ruined throat. Had the soldier time to draw his blade fully, Thomas might have been doomed, but he had little room to maneuver, and so Thomas closed quickly, burying the hammer into his skull and laying him low.

His heart raced as he contemplated what he had just done, but he mastered himself. Knowing the jig was up and that the soldier would soon be sought out, he resolved that he had to leave his home while the heat died down. He wrote a hasty note to his father, explaining what had happened with profuse apologies, then gathered some of his tools, wood, nails, and a pail of sawdust, loaded them into a cart, and made his way to the docks. Negotiating for himself a crew spot was easy, given his trade and skills, and he was soon sailing away from Carmarthenshire for the first and last time (though he did not know this at the time), aboard the St. Michael, a merchant ship bound for Jamaica.

He served aboard the vessel for three peaceful months, enjoying the change of lifestyle and scenery, when they were beset by pirates. Two sloops, the Sultana and the Postillion, under the command of ‘Black Sam’ Bellamy, bore down on them and boarded, and the merchants surrendered without incident. Despite his terror, Thomas remembered the sort of men with whom his family had done most of their business, and slipped into an easy parley with them while they sailed for the island of Blanco. His tale of murdering a redcoat especially appealed to them, and soon his stay aboard their ship dramatically increased in quality. One deckhand by the name of Oliver Noyes, who had been himself conscripted by Bellamy when the Sultana was commandeered, ended up striking up a strong friendship with the young lad, and they went about teaching their trades to each other. By the time they arrived at Blanco, Thomas had decided to forego his former life, and when the other prisoners were offloaded, he stayed on and sailed under Bellamy aboard the Sultana, as a deckhand and carpenter.

They sailed all around the Caribbean, plundering what ships they came across, until one day they spotted a massive slave galleon in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola. Despite being armed to the teeth, her captain, the slaver Lawrence Prince, was something of a coward, and when Bellamy’s ships put her abow, he turned her rudder and fled toward the Bahamas. They chased her for three days, each lobbing chase cannon fire at the other here and there but neither scoring a hit. Despondent at the pirates’ tenacity on the third day, Lawrence Prince finally signalled his surrender and handed the galley over to Bellamy. Ever a kindhearted skallywag when he was not forced to work for his plunder, Black Sam traded the Sultana to Prince for the Whydah, and sent him on his way, after recruiting many of Prince’s crew to his own service. Thomas joined Bellamy aboard the Whydah when the latter made her his flagship, having ingratiated himself with the notorious pirate, and they sailed north to harry the Crown along the New World’s east coast.

They enjoyed plunder a-plenty for a year, until they came upon a fog bank near Massachusetts. Unable to see his fleet, or anything else a few feet beyond the gunwales, a sudden squall picked up from the northeast, and drove the galley aground on a sand bar before ripping her violently back out to sea. The stress and constant battering splintered the ship, and she went down just off the shore. The frigid waters and furious wind and waves claimed all but two of the 146 mates aboard the Whydah - one of whom was Thomas. They made it to shore, and were quickly taken into custody by the local magistrate, one Joseph Doane, and locked up in Barnstable Gaol to await trial. He, another carpenter aboard another of Bellamy’s vessels named Thomas South, and Davis’ friend Oliver Noyes all worked out a cover story together to avoid execution. When they testified, they all concurred that each of the others had been conscripted by Bellamy, forced to choose between service under the pirate captain or death. Their gambit paid off, and all three were acquitted of all charges and set free.

Finding it best at this point to go their separate ways, they parted, and Thomas returned to honest work again for a time, serving another merchant vessel doing business back down south, in the Caribbean. After a few years of once again serving as a deckhand and carpenter, they pulled into a small port town to trade, making berth right next to the most eye-wrenching vessel Thomas had ever seen, and he headed to a tavern to drink his pay. It was there that he met the captain of that vessel, a very odd and round man who went by the name of Eggouus. Despite his extreme oddness, Thomas found that he rather liked the man, and upon learning that he was a pirate, counted his fortunes as good once again. He abandoned his post on the merchant vessel without regret, and joined the crew of the Liberated Latebra.

They returned to Isla de Oro, and Thomas made his new life among the skallywags there, in time making his way up to the post of Navigator on the Latebra. The magicks of the Isle, as well as the motley assortment of characters he made acquaintance with, made him less apprehensive about sharing the secret of his curse, and for the first time he was able to openly eat sawdust without fear of persecution. But his first night offered him a shock that took him some time to recover from. He reeled away from Thatch’s Tavern, having gotten very drunk during the celebration of his landing and official recognition by the Council, and had stumbled his way up to the bluffs in the north to watch the moon. And so he bore witness to the ritual of the Nightwatch, as they arrayed themselves before the Boneyard and ‘prayed’ to a profane power in a profane language that Thomas did not understand. He watched as the structural ribs of a great galleon arose from the sea there - and his jaw dropped. He recognized those ship bones as none other than those of the Whydah, the last pirate vessel he had served on, which had sunk a few thousand miles north of where he believed he currently was. Thusly stunned, he dropped his drink, and the clang and splash drew the attention of Dread Captain Jane Barnaby, who let the Whydah sink back into the sea while she confronted the castaway who had interrupted them. Upon questioning, Thomas revealed his former affiliation with the vessel, and Jane Barnaby thereupon resolved that he should join her crew, and reunite with his former vessel. He cried out that he was already crewed to the Latebra under Eggouus just as she pressed the muzzle of her flintlock to his temple. Holding it there for a tense moment, she eventually swore aloud and put the pistol away, telling him that she would be sure to ‘negotiate’ with Eggouus in order to acquire him. He never changed hands though, and so it seemed Eggouus had stood his ground in retaining his service. But every so often, Jane Barnaby would eye him askance, a predatory look in her eye sockets, as if she was still determined to conscript him to the Nightwatch. And Thomas would make his way quickly to light and company at those times, in case she decided that forceful conscription was a valid option for her.

When the helm of the Latebra was handed to Kennedy, though, his other secret was made manifest. Shortly after that time, Mikulia Aveline came ashore, and was crewed to the Latebra as well. From her first day, she eyed Thomas with suspicion and outright contempt, and he feared he knew why. When he confronted her to make peace, she lashed out at him, telling him that she could “smell the blood of her brothers and sisters on him”. At this, he was forced to confess to the knowledge he had kept hidden all his life. In addition to being a carpenter and a shipwright, Thomas’ father had also been a siren hunter in his youth, but had given it up when Thomas was born, not wanting his son to follow in the same trade. Thomas had still learned this secret at one point, and his father had confessed in shame and guilt to his horrible acts. Thomas swore to Miku that he had no intention of taking up that trade for any reason, remembering his father’s sorry state at the memories of slaughter. But his father’s sins had nonetheless carried to him, and so in order for Miku to serve beside him, she informed him, he would require absolution.

With the assistance of Raven Blackthorn, Miku transfused a portion of her blood into Thomas, severely weakening her but throwing Thomas into violent fits, through which he nearly died more than once. But after a very long night during which Raven watched over and tended them both, they awoke with the dawn, and Miku smiled, noting that the sins of Thomas’ father had been successfully washed away. Thomas, in his turn, wondered at some newfound anatomy and abilities, namely: the gills on his neck, and the fins that appeared on his legs when he entered salt water. Thusly reconciled, they served together, and became fast friends.

Then came the day of the Latebra’s Demise, when that vessel was struck by a powerful bolt of lightning that shivered through the great crack that went straight down her midships. While his mates abandoned ship and boarded a brig they had just taken, Thomas hopped to the wheel recently vacated by Kennedy and turned the barque toward a British man-o-war that was giving chase, intent on ramming her in a suicide run. He could not hear his crewmates cry for him to return over his own mad laughter, and so they turned to outrun the storm that had befallen them, forced to abandon him to his choice. With the man-o-war firing desperately to try to stop him from running upon them, Thomas bore witness to the power of Eggouus’ deity from up close: the figurehead suddenly sprang to life, the tentacles wrapping about the British vessel, and dragged it down to the depths as the Latebra broke apart and sank.

Thomas’ semi-siren nature manifested when he hit the waves, and he sank beneath the torrent of the storm and rested at the bottom of the sea, his gills allowing him easy survival. When he awoke, however, he found himself in a pitch-black space with absolutely no visibility, but for a gray space before him, with a table and chairs set in the middle. He approached on legs - marvelling at this, as he distinctly remembered going to sleep as a mermaid - and as he took a seat, a figure emerged from the shadows before him. He had an evil red glimmer about him, and chuckled in a very unsettling manner, and Thomas deduced that he must have died sometime during the night, and sat before the Devil, to barter for his soul. He did just that, and the Devil laid out his terms: Thomas must build for him a great ship, of the finest make he was able, and if his construction satisfied, he would be returned to life with his mates. And so Thomas set to work crafting his masterpiece, using materials of incredibly high quality (provided in whatever quantity he required and at no expense by the Devil), and toiled long and hard without rest until it was complete.

Presenting his work to the Devil, he was rewarded with an eerie smile and another unsettling chuckle, but he was plainly pleased with the young man’s work. And true to his word, the Devil, with a wink, summoned a great current which swept him away from the space before him at breakneck speed, and within moments he found himself washed up on the shores of Puerto Dorado. He was received with a whoop and a holler by his old crewmates, who had sailed home on the brig they had commandeered and redubbed her the Storm Crest, and Kennedy restored to him his old station. When he later told the story in the Tavern of what had befallen him after the Latebra went down, Jane Barnaby listened with great interest, her jawbone agape at what he described. When his tale was done, she informed him that it was no Devil he had met with, but Davy Jones himself, and began again to accost him to join the Nightwatch based on what she interpreted as his official Deal with the Lord of the Deep. Kennedy stepped between them at this, resolved to defend her crewmate newly returned to her, and Jane and Kennedy very nearly came to blows over the matter before the Council stepped in. It was ruled that Kennedy had first claim to him, as Davy had not communicated to the Pirate Lords any desire for him to change crews and join the Nightwatch, citing the fact that he retained his flesh upon delivery from the Locker. At this, Jane Barnaby stood down, and conceded his place with his former crew.

He remains the Navigator of the Storm Crest, and serves gratefully aboard that worthy vessel. But at times, he wonders what Davy Jones did with the vessel he built for Him, and hopes to see again his finest work, and show it off to his friends. And he is still obliged to step lightly around Jane Barnaby, whose desire to have him aboard the Graveyard Galleon has redoubled in the wake of all the revelations of his tale, even in spite of the Council’s decision. It remains to be seen if that is to be his ultimate fate.

* Isla de Oro Wiki
* The Island
* The Town
* The Council of Bones
* The Fleet
* The Captains
* The Officers
* The Nightwatch
* Yarrbot
* Davy Jones
* Della Rose
* The Quacken
* The Library
* The Hall of Legends