Appoline

Appoline Lacles is the crew’s lookout. Once a huntress for a renowned Vandal tribe who hunted leviathans. When the Board of Artificers’ negligence and corruption wiped out her entire tribe with a deadly chemical agent, she set about a quest for vengeance to find and punish those responsible. She is wanted as a serial killer for doling out vengeance to the artificers responsible for the tragedy.
Far from a savage, Appoline has an intricate understanding of machines and engineering, studying them in the way that any accomplished hunter would study their prey. She joined the crew after a stint with the White Lion Armada, on the condition that they shelter her from the authorities and allow her to kill her final mark--the High Artificer of the Koan Republic--once she obtains proof of his complicity in the death of her people.
Appoline mostly keeps to herself on the Nomad's crow's nest. Nevertheless she has a good rapport with the rest of the crew when they come to visit her, even earning the honor of being the only non-corsair crew member that Anh liked well enough to provide with a gift after his passing--a gravity knife of his own design.

Skills
Spot 1d12
Bows 1d12
Assess Person 1d12
Dodge 1d10
Sneak 1d8
Repair 1d8
Sabotage 1d8
Engineering 1d8


Traits & Edges
Pace 6”
Toughness 5
Damage (bow): 2d10


Vandal Sniper: Appoline may select a unique sniper lookout bonus when inside a crow’s nest. When this bonus is selected, Appoline may fire her bow at a crew member aboard the enemy ship during the crew phase if the ship is within Boarding Distance.


Calm Waters: Once per voyage, Appoline may chart a day’s journey through empty waters. That day, rather than making an Encounter Roll, the ship automatically receives a Free Night.

Early Life

Appoline grew up among a renowned tribe of Vandal leviathan hunters called the Tribe of the Hawk. She lived in the Great Mangrove Barrier that divided the civilized hemisphere of the Koan homeworld with the wild and untamed sea of leviathans.
With her sharp eyes and prodigious hunting abilities, Appoline earned the honor of becoming the forward scout for the tribe. She would travel alone deep into leviathan territory and report back to her tribe the activities of both predator and prey.
The Tribe of the Hawk had friendly relations with the Koan Republic, often sharing their knowledge about leviathans and delivering early warnings when a leviathan stampede was poised to cross the barrier.

A Quest for Vengeance

Appoline's life took a tragic turn when the Koan Board of Artificers developed a new chemical agent called Tangerine Gas. It served as a repllant for leviathans, but would otherwise leave the rest of the ecosystem untouched. At least, that what it was meant to do.
The Board of Artificers deployed the Tangerine Gas into the barrier where Appoline's people resided. She was out scouting at the time, so she did not see its effects other than the ominous orange cloud hovering over their campground. She returned to find nothing left of her tribe, save husks filled with sores and tumors.
Confused and angry, she left the Great Mangrove Barrier in search of answers. Appoline studied the artificers who destroyed her tribe with the same rigor as she did the creatures she hunted in the Great Mangrove Barrier. If she was going to take action against the artificers, she wanted her kills to be justice (at least as her hunter's code defined it) rather than slaughter.
Her observations revealed a system rife with negligence and corruption. Favors and bribes were routinely traded among the artificers to ignore safety regulations. So, she set about extracting vengeance any artificer culpable for the dangerous deployment of Tangerine Gas, from the bottom up.

Joining the White Lion Armada

Despite her methodical approach to vengeance, Appoline soon racked up a reputation for killing artificers. She was wanted for murder all throughout the Koan Republic, which made her a fugitive across the entire Chimera Alliance.
As her profile grew, infiltrating Koan society without getting caught became more and more difficult. However, she caught word of a new power moving into Koan territory called the White Lion Armada. Fancying themselves the new protectors of the spheres, they were recruiting artificers to develop weapons from ancient artifacts unsanctioned by the Koa.
While Appoline's ideals couldn't be farther from those of the White Lion Armada, she saw an opportunity to take advantage of their status as an extra-judicial military to continue her quest while evading capture from Koan authorities.
She signed up with an ambitious White Lion Captain named Jastes. She submitted to Captain Jasters' authority, even allowing him to place a bomb collar around her neck to keep her in line. Appoline had studied Jastes before reaching out, and knew that she could exploit his tendency to see what he wanted to rather than what was really there. He mistook Appoline's mission for vengeance with general bloodlust. In exchange for allowing her the occasional shore leave to fulfill her "cravings" Appoline kept watch for Jastes's fleet just as she had for the Tribe of the Hawk.
Her aid allowed him to penetrate farther into koan territory than any other white lion crew, capturing an artificer blacksite called Port Loa. Of course, Appoline was subtly manipulating Jastes to suit her own ends, as inside Port Loa resided the next artificer on her list.

Recruitment

While Jastes overlooked Appoline's true nature, Lion City's information broker Clay noticed something amiss. When Jin Bei hired him to assemble dossiers for potential crew member, Appoline struck his curiosity. Clay correctly predicted that Appoline could be swayed from her service to the White Lion Armada, and suggested the Corsairs travel to Port Loa.
By the time they arrived, the armada had captured the settlement and started a manhunt for the artificer who lived there. Port Loa had been developing a giant mortar called a Thunder Cannon, said to be able to launch projectiles through space to hit targets on other spheres. The armada wanted the artificer captures so that he could be interrogated and his work finished, so Appoline knew she would need to be crafty to get her kill.
She fomented rebellion among the occupied settlement using the radio communications as a mysterious figure named Cipher. Appoline allowed the townsfolk and White Lion Armada to assume Cipher was the artificer, letting her manipulate both sides to arrange her kill and escape.
After using her psuedonym radio persona to enlist the Corsairs' help, Appoline was ready to strike. She snuck out of Jastes' castle, causing the White Lion Armada to give chase. She let the Corsairs take out Jastes crew and lead her to where the artificer had taken shelter inside the thunder mortar.
The Corsairs entered the cannon to find the head artificer waiting for them inside. An ultra-light glider had been installed to help make their escape per appolines plans. The artificer thanked them for their help and asked what to do next. After speaking with him for a bit, it became clear that he too was being given instructions by Cipher and thought that Anh was the one who had been speaking to him. Just then, Cipher came on the radio and told the Corsairs to duck. Appoline shot an arrow over their heads at the artificer, revealing that she had been Cipher the entire time.
She interrogated the head artificer about a schema he had approved without performing required testing, which the artificer referred to as “project tangerine.” The head artificer admitted he was bribed by the director of the entire Board of Artificers to approve the schema. After hearing his confession, Appoline executed the artificer (which scared Wukong, but Anh thought was hot).
She explained that she no longer needed the White Lion Armada and offered to help the Corsairs escape. Anh removed the schema for the cannon from the head artificer’s body. Appoline explained that she was going to destroy the cannon, however stopping its production was not her main goal. She recommended they destroy the schema so that it could never be built again, but ultimately left that decision up to the Corsairs. Anh burned the schema without a second thought and hopped onto the glider.
As they launched off in the ultralight, Captain Jastes hopped aboard from the top of the cannon. He dealt Wukong a devastating blow with his pneumatic gauntlet, but Anh was able to quickly tend to his aid and together they overpowered him, throwing him off the ultralight onto the ground below.
Appoline released the mollusks over the village, revealing that they were what strider-hound’s ate. With a stable source of nourishment, the hounds patrolling the city turned against the white lion soldiers. Appoline used her bow to snipe white lion soldiers placed on the mortars, while Anh concocted a thermite arrow to burn a white lion ship pursuing the Nomad.
Having reached their ship, Appoline took charge of the crow’s nest and led them out of the fort’s defenses. At the last moment, she radioed in as Cipher to instruct the lighthouse operator to shoot a beam of light at one of the mirrors, revealing they had actually been positioned to blind the white lion cannon operators. With their defenses weakened and believing the lookout of whom they lived in fear had been blinded, the town rose up and drove of the white lion soldiers.
Appoline agreed to join the crew if the Corsairs would agree to shelter her from authorities, but also asked that when the time was right, they allow her to kill the final person responsible for the Tangerine Gas incident. Wukong wasn’t keen on helping Appoline kill someone but was willing to allow her to stay on the ship. Whether she would receive the Corsair’s assistance in the last act of vengeance, would remain to be seen.