The Quacken

The Quacken is the most terrifying denizen of the Isla de Oro. Bound to Davy Jones but contracted to serve the Lords and Captains of the Isle, the fearsome creature is deployed in the most dire of circumstances, when the enemies of the crew prove particularly resilient, or in great enough numbers to be a threat to the Isle itself. It is, without fail, the last thing these unfortunate souls ever see.

## ***BACKSTORY***

The origins of the Quacken are, oddly enough, immortalized in a nursery rhyme. The tale of *The Five Little Ducks* is where he begins, and the true story ends after the first stanza. For he was the first little rubber duck to swim away, and contrary to the happy ending of the rhyme, he never came back. Instead, he swam through some mysterious sludge in the ocean, and began to mutate, growing in size and sprouting tentacles. As he became a monstrosity, he developed a hunger for the ships and sailors of the Royal Navy, and he set out to sate that hunger.

This drew the attention of Davy Jones, who approached the beast just after one of its very first kills. Mad with blood rage, the Quacken struck out at Davy, but Jones subdued him in an epic battle, resoundingly reinforcing his status as Lord of the Deep. The beast knew humility for the first time, and willingly bowed to the only creature that had ever bested him, or would ever. Formalities complete, Davy turned the Quacken loose to do as he wished, provided that the monster would come to his call at any hour, to annihilate his chosen targets.

Although the Quacken prefers assailing the ships of the Crown, he does not limit himself only to them. Any vessel that is about when his hunger is roused becomes an unlucky target, and so it came to pass that one day, a pirate ship came into his sights as it lay reefed and dormant above. Not so dormant, it turned out: the crew were sentencing one of their own to be planked at sea. Thus on alert, the crew turned and put up a fight as the Quacken rose and tore their ship asunder. He took a harpoon in the beak during the fight, and when it was over, only the marooned mate remained alive. Instead of swimming away in terror, the sailor reached up and pulled that harpoon from the monster's beak, and it was then that the beast first remembered affection and companionship from its younger days, before displacement and mutation had hardened him. He carried the sailor - none other than the Pirate Lord Flintlock - safely to the nearest port, and has maintained his bond with him ever since.

At Flintlock's request, the Quacken has agreed to answer the call of all the Lords and Captains of the Isle in their hour of need, provided Davy Jones does not need him first. But the goals of Jones and the pirates of the Isle are consistently aligned anyway, and the opportunity to mangle British ships and colonies appears to be all the reward the beast needs.

## ***APPEARANCE***

The Quacken is a be-tentacled Lovecraftian nightmare, 10 of the appendages dangling from beneath his upper body, which is that of a disconcertingly adorable duckling. His beak is upturned in a perpetual benevolent grin, which belies his constant mindset of destruction. And he is *massive*; he has utterly dwarfed any and every ship he has ever happened upon, or been sent against him. At rest, he is the size of multiple common houses; when incensed and in battle rage, he expands as any of his squid cousins would, and becomes truly unfathomable.

## ***PERSONALITY***

The word itself is grossly generous given the Quacken’s nature, but he does have some nuance of character beyond mere instinctual hunger. His affections for Flintlock are singular to him, as is his genuine respect for Davy Jones, rather than simple fear. And he is more or less benevolent to all the skallywags of Puerto Dorado, if somewhat aloof to any but the Council and Captains.

## ***ABILITIES***

* The Quacken is a primal force, and merely overwhelms his victims with sheer brute force overall. His tentacles are the breadth of most vessels, and are dotted with toothed suction cups the size of a man. These grasp onto the ship, when he can then casually lift and toss it, or tear it in two, or drag it beneath the waves - whatever suits his caprice at the time.

* His skin is extremely toxic to the touch, so any sailors that manage to escape the destruction he wreaks are often doomed anyway. If they were simply brushed by the mucus that coats his body, they will waste away in a matter of hours, quite painfully and horrifically.

* Isla de Oro Wiki
* The Island
* The Town
* The Council of Bones
* The Fleet
* The Captains
* The Officers
* The Nightwatch
* NPCs
* The Library
* The Hall of Legends