Jacques Rosewood, The Minuteman of Colmar

Jacques Rosewood was the grandson of the patriarch of the Rosewood family, Marcel Rosewood, he lived a normal enough life for a lower noble of a merchant house. He squired for (Insert some Rookwood knight maybe) during the Civil War, and was generally regarded as a sharp young fellow who took to the blade well, and then to the pistol as it became more in fashion. He played the part of a nobleman as well as one could expect, was wedded to (Insert random ass noble lady here), and had sired two children by the time he was twenty-eight and his world effectively ended. In 1035, the Rosewood family would be raided by police in connection with their illegal arms dealing operation, which was frankly more vast that Jacques would have expected and fairly deep seated as well. Jacques was found to be completely innocent as were his wife and children, but his siblings, cousins, as well as many of his aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even his mother and father were indicted.

Many of the low ranking of the family managed to skirt by on the defense they were coerced, and were slapped with heavy fines and short term prison sentences as they were involved in more minor parts of the operation. The heads of the family however, sitting at the top of everything, were sentenced to death by beheading, this included Jacques' parents, grandparents, and siblings. Several aunts and uncles received long prison sentences , and still others were found innocent, but the Rosewood family had its lands and tittles seized, and those that survived were forced to be absorbed into House Lilythorne, their cousin house and of lower station.

Jacques, for his part, embraced the idea of criminality as he had been informed by his father, before his execution, of the location of a vast store of wealth, arms, and contacts in case the worst ever came to pass. Many of the survivors wished to rebuild their power by using the stash, but Jacques wanted to go into piracy and be able to weaponize what his father had left him to make the monarchy bleed. Ultimately Jacques paid a sum of cash to his family, won several of the enslaved peoples his more base family members had owned in a high stakes card game, and set off with a compliment of family members, house staff, and seven enslaved servants he freed and protected.

Notably enough, Jacques abhorred slavery in all forms, as well as prostitution, drug use, and the intermingling of humans and elves. some of this could be seen as noble, and some others...not so much. As such at least one enslaved servant, Josiah Starkweather, was personally tutored by Jacques and guarded like a treasure, and would be given command of his own vessel and a small contingent of allied ships. He gave each of the enslaved men and women a choice on if they would leave him, or sail with him. four left, intent on forging new lives but grateful to their liberator, the remaining two would become Jacques' helmsman and quartermaster. The remaining followers were made to work for their positions, not be simply given hand outs by the somewhat progressive thinking Jacques. He was intent on making a naval force that could strike hard, strike powerfully, and fully utilize black powder as a way to terrorize the high seas.

Jacques would be integral tot he formation of Requiem's fleets, as his connections laid groundwork of the Pirate King to grow far beyond what he could have hoped for, and this netted the pirate captain the command of the fourth fleet. Only surpassed by the actual military commanders above him, and Requiem, Jacques was a force to be reckoned with on his own, a strong fencer who used a rapier and a belt of pistols in battle. His ships were loaded down with as many guns as they could manage but also optimized for speed and maneuvering making their total tonnage actually less than many of the other fleet ships. He ran lighter crews and pressed them harder, but they always got the job done, and would run through enemy formations in hit and run set ups that slowly tore off chunks of the more lumbering commanders.

He made his home in the port of (Somewhere), and was indirectly responsible for beginning the Pirate War in earnest when he deployed Josiah to start things off with a bang. He mourned who was a little brother to him when he learned of his most favored captain's death as the hands of Nimbe, and he offered a one hundred thousand griffins reward on whoever could deliver him Nimbe's head on a platter. He would never get her head, but was delivered something else deep into the war, he was raided by the Maelstorms, and while his moored fleet was trying to fend off their attackers, he would be assaulted as he was rallying his men to repulse Garin's contingents of killers.

He did not expect the likes of Cynthia Silvers to go toe to toe with Gromak the Headsmasher, who was twice her size but getting wailed upon by the elf, nor did he expect Zara Moon to come crash down attempting to kill him with a surprise attack from above. While his best people were busy trying to take down a roidraging Cynthia Silvers, Jacques was left to defend himself against the vengeful little girl who stood against him for the death of her father. He wasted no breath on trying to sway her, and simply accepted that she was here for revenge and accepted his fate as a pirate to duke it out with the survivors of his assaults. Despite this, he was a noble pirate, and wasn't about to use underhanded trickery to win the day, but pistols weren't underhanded, and so the two tried to shoot it out at first. He got two in her, one slashing through part of her left arm and one nailing her in the thigh, and she got a shot in his right thigh, he had to use another two shots to kill maelstrom agents attempting to back up their comrade, both nailed them in the stomach and left them writhing in pain on the ground, but used up all his loaded shots.

Then the actual fight began, she was a good little upstart, but she lacked the experience that came two two decades of warfare, and Jacques was not stupid enough not to put leverage on this fact, and did everything eh could to push her to just before the brink of cornering. A cornered animal will become unpredictable, but someone who thinks they can win will act predictably, and Zara did, for a time, getting cut, stabbed, and parried in the first half-she was certainly not getting out of things unscathed but she had managed to avoid at least a dozen lethal strikes form Jacques, to which he respected she was her father's daughter after all. It wasn't as if he was underestimating her, he was giving it his all, but he didn't want to press too hard or too fast and leave himself open, pride cometh before the fall and all that. That was when Zara briefly began to turn the fight her way, by utilizing his leg wound she forced him into a bad stance and got a shot in at him, but missed his neck and stuck him along the cheek as he moved away. She was getting cuts in, sliced enough to cut into some muscle, but nothing deep enough to incapacitate Jacques, then she tried for his sword hand, and he scarified his left lam to take the blow. In that moment he rand her through with his rapier but missed her vital organs with the thrust, and gave her the chance to pull off and recover one last time. He was beginning to lose focus in the one eye he had left, and was becoming weary of this fight, and attempted to impale her one last time as she tried to recover from his last attack.

(insert whatever pirate bullshit she pulled off)

When the dust settled, Cynthia finally calmed down enough to see Jacques was dead, and Zara was badly injured, so she took Zara up on her shoulder and checked on their two comrades who had been shot earlier, only to find both had bled out from their wounds, before they left the two agreed they should ransack Jacques' quarters for anything they could get, and so Cynthia banded her best friend as best she could as Jacques' corpse laid staring blankly at them, and the tow proceeded to take all that was valuable and easy to move, and departed swiftly as the port burned. Jacques the Minuteman would lay dead in the streets as his home base burned around him, and his valuables were taken by his killers.

Zara has kept a keepsake of her victory over the nobleman pirate, his rapier, which is a masterful high elven piece of magnificent quality, the blade has a slight radiant glow, and the hilt is that of a brilliant rose in bloom. A trophy to show that she had avenged her father, and to remind her that even with the odds stacked against her, she can win against anyhting.