Simon

Simon is a heroic and kindhearted corsair who descends from Homyn nobility. He always tries to do the right thing and spare the lives of those he can, but isn't afraid to get his hands dirty if evil-doers push him too far. While no stranger to hard decisions, Simon tries his best to live up to the ideals from the tales of knights and heroes he grew up with. Raised on the moon, Diamond, his stoic personality and defensive combat style match his adamantine ancestry to a tee.
He cares deeply for his friends, and is always willing to put his life on the line to defend them. In battle, Simon wields a family heirloom called The Shield of Kings, which allows him to block blows meant for his allies. He is also a skilled practitioner in alchemy, and after learning the arts of paeonalchemy from Aleph, filled the role of the party's band-aid. Simon also has a deft hand at spellcraft, inventing an alarm spell that allows him to detect enemies sneaking up on him and recreating an ancient wave spell from an ancient Gargan hieroglyph.

Early Life

Simon grew up in Adamant City on Diamond, eldest son to Count Sigmund Albrecht. The Albrechts were a storied family who descended from Thomas the Philosopher King, but had lost their place in the line of succession over the centuries. As the heir to his moon, Simon enjoyed all the privileges of nobility. He learned alchemy from a hanzir matron named Treina and his father's bodyguard, Muaaz --a fallen Anduran honorguard--taught him the art of the sword.
While his dour father placed heavy expectations on him, Simon found himself gravitating to his mother's side of the family, the Rosmund's of Entar, who had entered into a series of arranged marriages with the Albrechts in a deal to provide them lumber for Diamond's shipbuilding trade. The Rosmunds were more free spirited than the Albrechts, particularly Simon's uncle, Cecil who enjoyed a career as an adventurer before becoming the count of Entar. As part of the alliance between the Albrechts and Rosmunds, Simon was promised to marry Cecil's daughter, Collette, when he came of age.
While Simon lived in the shadow of great adventurers, his younger brother, Liam, lived in Simon's own. Always struggling to live up to their father's lofty expectations, Liam found himself giving in to his darker impulses--knowing his inadequacies would never win him his father's respect and his position as second born in the homyn kingdom's strict laws of primogeniture would never win his father's throne.

Mercenary Career

As expected of someone of his birth, Simon earned entrance to the Homyn Academy upon turning sixteen. His time away from home brought his conflicting worldviews to a head, and he knew he could not live up to his heroic ideals by accepting the life of a noble. After graduating, Simon set out to prove himself by starting a mercenary company and buying a ship called The Vespertine. With the help of a cynical but experienced mariner named Hector, he assembled a crew and worked tirelessly to prove their skepticism of his abilities wrong.
Simon's crew took a job escorting a scholar from The College of Oddities named Professor Halle from the moon Trys to Lion City. The job would require them to pass behind the gas-giant Io in a passage called The Cimmerrean that required several days of sailing in total darkness. What's more, pirates from the Scourge of Io patrolled the area, hunting down any ship who dared cross.
Professor Halle was a scholar on the Progenitors and was working on a map of their ruins called the Progenitor Atlas. It was said that those who studied the elusive ancients for too long were cursed with madness, and the professor did little to disprove that theory. He slipped in and out of lucidity, often mistaking Simon for King Nasser Graham.
As their trip progressed, the professor turned into more and more of a liability. Hector recommended that a safer option would be to sell him to whatever pirates were after him and leave The Cimmerrean than take their chances of not being caught with a mad man on board. Hector's practical suggestion conflicted with Simon's idealistic worldview and Simon had come to take pity on the professor, so he refused the suggestion.
It wasn't long after that a pirateship found The Vespertine. As they boarded, Simon came face to face with their Captain, Hyena Jack. However, it wasn't Professor Halle who had alerted Jack to his location, but Hector. He and the crew had gone behind Simon's back to cut a deal for a payday and safe passage.
Insensed, Simon stood against the pirates and traitorous crew, offering to duel Hyena Jack in exchange for letting him and Professor Halle escape in a lifeboat. Jack didn't think too highly of Simon's odds at winning, and thought even less of their survival in a lifeboat through the rest of the Cimerrean, so he agreed. Simon proved the pirates wrong on both counts. He mortally wounded Jack in the duel and set off with Halle, although their salvation also came at the cost of Professor Halle's progentior atlas.
After many days adrift, Professor Halle's dangerous penchant of shouting into the void proved to be their salvation, as the client who had hired Simon had come to the Cimerrean in search of the Professor.

Joining the Corsairs

Simon's client turned out to be none other than Jin Bei, the leader of the corsairs. He was impressed with Simon's skill and his commitment to protecting Professor Halle. He offered Simon a position among the Corsairs, his faith in his chosen profession as an adventurer shaken by his failures. Instead, he resigned himself to his birthright as a noble and returned home.
But Simon did not get the welcome of the prodigal son he expected. He found his father insensed at his decision to abandon his home and lower himself to becoming a mercenary. While he couldn't strip Simon of his inheritance, Sigmund did all in his power to ensure Simon's life would be as difficult as possible while the coutn remained alive by cutting him off completely from the family's resources. Simon left home with nothing to his name but the ancestral shield he carried on his back.
Without other prospects, Simon sought out Jin Bei to try his hand at becoming a corsair. Since the homyn forbid corsairs from taking titles, he figured it would be the best way to finally sever his ties from his family and allow his brother, Liam, to inherit the throne without conflict.
Simon arrived on the moon, Aspidie, at Jin Bei's instructions. He arrived to a bit of a surprise to find fellow corsair candidate, Wukong, charging at him with a staff. Wukong has lost his memories and had no idea how he got across the system from Mong Bal. Deciding the Mong Bal didn't mean harm, Simon forgave and forgot, and decided to go help Wukong figure things out.
Unbeknownst to Simon, Hector had also arrived on Aspidie and was offering a golden lion to anyone with information as to Simon's whereabouts. He ran into Helix, who, much to Simon's luck, turned down the first-mate turned bounty hunter's offer. After meeting up with the others, Simon found Jin Bei mortally wounded after a fight with Prince Lucas that activated a hyperion bomb. After his healing efforts failed, the party was given the choice to either redirect a ship to save Jin Bei, but at the cost of being able to evacuate twenty other citizens. While Simon was grateful for Jin Bei's intervention while he was stranded, he couldn't accept letting twenty people die just to save one person. Fortunately, for Jin Bei, the others outvoted Simon and the ship was redirected.
After arriving at Lion City, Simon met up with the bartender's daughter, Astrid, from Aspidie, and learned from her that her parents did not survive the blast, having waited until the last minute to help others evacuate. Astrid's new boss, the information broker, Clay, helped the party learn more about the Progenitor Atlas. Apparently, the Corsairs and Prince Lucas's White Lion Armada had been fighting over the atlas, and it most recently ended up in the hands of the Hanuman Brotherhood, who were auctioning it off at the homyn princess's nineteenth birthday party. The information broker procured them tickets, and the party set off to find the map.
While at the party, Simon and Wukong snuck into a secret room inside the Homyn palace that housed none other than Professor Halle. The old professor wasn't lucid enough to be of much help, but he did reveal that King Nasser Graham had brought him to the castle to search for something called the Orphan Sphere. They also found a letter from Jin Bei to Halle that spoke of them going on a journey together to find the Orphan Sphere, but the mad professor claimed not to know what the letter was talking about.
Simon and Helix then found the auction where the atlas was being sold. He helped a member fo the Hanuman Brotherhood named Ken hide a dead body in exchange for access to the auction store room. Simon retrieved the Progenitor Atlas and replaced it with a forgery. The corsair hunter, Desmond Eld, won the auction, but recognized the forgery as soon as the map was in his possession. Luckily, Simon was able to beat feet out before the corsair hunter caught up to him.

The Corsair Exam

During the corsair exam, Simon accompanied the party to a city of nectar-radiated mutants living in the old Koan imperial city. The mutants had captured the patriarch of a minor noble family who had come to the city to collect nectar, and were holding him hostage. The mutants, led by a monarch named King Kaloo, threatened that any mutants who were killed during the exam would result in a human hostage being killed in turn.
Simon and Wukong tried to sneak into the mutant palace to free the hostages, but got caught and killed some mutants in the process. At their trial, the mutant king decided that Simon and Wukong had acted and self-defense, so no hostages would be killed. However, their crime of trespass was intentional and their legs would be cut off as a result.
With the help of an Anduran prince and fellow corsair candidate, Prince Sadhi, Helix freed Wukong and Simon and in the process started a mutant rebellion led by King Kaloo's lieutenant, Grokus. With the balance of power shifted, Simon was able to convince King Kaloo to normalize diplomatic relations with the humans in exchange for the party's help stopping the rebellion.
During the next phase of the corsair exam, the party encountered Prince Lucas again. Simon tried to find out why he had attacked Jin Bei, but before they could finish the conversation, a daemon pulled the prince and Sena into a cave far beneath Source. There, they encountered the Homyn Princess again, who was also after the Progenitor Atlas. She revealed that her middle name was Halle, and it dawned on Simon that the letter talking about searching for the orphan sphere with Jin Bei might have been referring to the princess rather than the professor. After defeating the daemon and saving the prince, the party earned their corsair compasses, with Simon winning four votes in his favor from the Chimera Council.

Setting Sail

With Jin Bei restored to consciousness and recovering from his injuries, he entrusted the party to seek out the orphan sphere and the missing Homyn King. As the crew set sail, Simon developed a rivalry with newcomer to the party, Royce, and also a budding romance with the Princess. Though she was betrothed to the Koan Knight, Sir Reglas, they shared many commonalities in their upbringings and worldview.
In the meantime, the party took up some odd jobs around Lion City. On a mission to retrieve a petrified space serpent egg from a group of pirates, the party was beset by strider hounds and Simon found himself guarding the shore on his own. The beasts tore up his leg, causing nerve damage that permanently hobbled his movement.
To make matters worse, Simon learned that he was a wanted man and that his brother Liam was offering an improbably large bounty of 10,000 golden lions and forty ships for anyone who took the new corsair out. Simon couldn't fathom why his little brother would want him dead, especially since he had given up his birthright. Hector was chasing the bounty and was working with Wukong's childhood rival Fang Feng to try to take the corsairs down. Wukong managed to defeat Feng in a duel and buy them some safety, but Simon knew it wouldn't be long before he heard from bounty hunters again.

The Moku Annexation and Rebellion

During the party's adventures on Nimbus, Simon accidentally offended the Moku High Priest Hakua by trying to shake his hand with a steel gauntlet. To try to take some pressure off Count Arkades, he volunteered the party to escort his students to collect some samples from the local wildlife in his efforts to find a cure for the Helioschosis that afflicted the Moku. The group was attacked by a ship under the command of the pirate queen, Agni, hoping to capture Alyn Arkades and use the cure he was developing for their own ends. Not wanting to endanger the students, Simon pretneded to be Count Arkades and offered himself as a prisoner.
The pirates took Simon to their volcano lair, where he met the pirate queen face to face. She recognized his ruse immediately, and imprisoned him aboard her ship. But Princess Halle had stowed aboard and rescued Simon with their Jaunt Drive. They escaped into a pirate tavern to try to find passage out, only for Simon to run into a Hector leading a group of bounty hunters for his capture. Simon managed to finish off his pursuers with the help of the pirate queen's first mate and lover, Lagos. He decided to spare Hector's life, even though the scurrilous bounty hunter hardly deserved it.
When Simon reconvened with Count Arkades and the rest of the party, the pirates agreed to let the party ascend the top of the volcanoe, Gargoyle Peak to find the missing pieces for the cure to Helioschosis. While preparing for the mission, Simon bought a chunk of an incredibly rare mineral called razorcite and hired a smith to forge it into a Vorpal Sword.
With the cure for Helioschosis in hand, Simon accompanied the rest of the party in helping the Moku rebel against the Homyn after Brigadier General Howe turned against them. He ascended the altar of the Goddess where he found an ancient Illithid rifle that allowed him to swithc places with any target he hit. With the help of Itthis's intelligence gathered from The Dream World, Simon was able to convince Brigadier General Howe to stand down and stop his assault on the Moku and dream world. The conflcit over, Simon voted with the rest of the party to choose Tempi as the high priests' successor to lead the Moku.

An Interlude in Mons Mirror

After the events on Nimbus, the party decided to head to Mons Mirror to upgrade their ship. It seemed Simon's brother had upped his game, as they were waylaid by a bounty hunter named Xorba riding a flying carpet. The hunter was an Anduran calorie man, a powerful assassin who had eaten a mutagenic fruit that imbued him with armored fat. So in demand were Xorba's services, that he was paid by the second. He was confident that his client bought enough time to take out Simon, but Simon upset the odds by slicing off the calorie man's hand with his Vorpal Sword. Again, Simon let the boutny hunter leave with his life, but took his flying carpet, Kip Kip, as a reward for his trouble.
In Mons Mirror, the party took on some odd jobs to pay for upgrades to their ship. Itthis took on a job to assassinate an actor named Botta who had been compromised to use his influence against certain Homyn business interests. After accidentally seducing Botta's girlfriend, Simon learned from the actor that he was actually using his influence to disrupt the homyn economy and end the exploitation of vassal races. Simon and Royce got into an argument about whether they should kill Botta, but before they came to a resolution, Itthis finished the job himself.

Worthy of His Name

Upon leaving Mons Mirror Simon ran into his brother, Liam. He announced in a cavalier fashion that their father was diagnosed with a terminal disease. He planned on ending his life prematurely by drinking hemlock at the end of the cycle but wanted to speak with Simon one last time before he died.
They set sail Diamond to see Simon’s father and resolve the sibling rivalry once and for all. They arrived at the moon, whose strong trees once supported Io’s largest shipbuilding industry, but had in the last few decades, been decimated by a disease called hog rot, which left their wood weak and brittle. House Albrecht still maintained its dominion over the shipwright trade thanks to the alliance with Simon's mother's family.
Simon disembarked at the capitol, where one of his father’s coaches made yet another attempt on his life. Another coach managed to intervene on the attempt, driven by none other by Simon’s uncle, Cecil Rosmund. In the time Simon was away, Cecil had been trying to enact reforms of the Homyn aristocracy to better support the vassal races.
The Corsairs decided to get into Cecil’s carriage to go to the palace. Inside, Simon reunited with his cousin and former betrothed, Collette. Collette gave the party an icy greeting. Simon’s father also had little warmth to share with his oldest son, in spite of his nearing death. He revealed that he had called Simon in because there were rumors that the two Albrecht brothers were feuding. Simon protested that Liam was the only aggressor, but Sigmund demanded that Simon remain on Diamond and attend Liam’s wedding with Collette to dispel any doubt as to the legitimacy of his brother’s succession.
Simon spent the day visiting some of the mentors from his youth. Treina revealed that Liam had sociopathic tendencies when he was a youth but suppressed them because he idolized Simon. When Simon left, Liam stopped studying for the Academy entrance exam and was sent to the Lunar Brigade. He also met with his dueling instructor, Muaaz, who told Simon that Liam returned from the Lunar Brigade disturbed and traumatized, and that he often mistreated the vassals of Diamond.
That night, Simon stayed under the guard of his uncle at a hotel near the palace. Royce decided to go out to the docks to investigate Liam’s whereabouts. Once there, he stumbled across Count Cecil trying to intimidate a bar full of mercenaries into leaving Simon alone. Royce chatted a bit with Cecil, and the two departed in his carriage back to the hotel. Before they arrived, a group of mercenaries crashed their carriage into Cecil’s, causing the occupants to black out.
The rest of the Corsairs awoke the next day to the news that Cecil had gone missing. They set out to the city to discover his whereabouts. They soon came upon the wrecked carriage, where they found Royce lying unconscious but had no sign of Cecil. Simon went to the mercenary bar where he once again found Hector. Hector told Simon that Liam was waiting for him at a private dock atop Simon’s old ship. He had hired two mercenary companies to lie in wait to finish Simon once and for all. Their conversation was cut short when someone shouted for Hector to clean the toilets. It appeared that he was not a patron of the bar, but was working as a janitor after failing his bounty hunting career trying to catcfh Simon.
Despite his fractious history with Diamond's mercenary community, Simon decided it would be best to convince the mercenaries that his brother hired to relent before Simon encountered him on his old ship. First, he visited the leader of a Hanzir mercenary band called the Salty Bastards. The Hanzir were formerly woodcutters before hog rot took Diamond’s forests.Simon was able to convince the Hanzir leader to lend him support by convincing him that maintaining the alliance with Entar was in the mercenary community's best interes.
Next, Simon visited a group of mutated mercenaries called The Megalodons . Sigmund had once driven them from the city because of their brutal tactics but returned when they heard that the old count was dying. Simon attempted to convince the Megalodon leader to stand down, but the mercenary did not listen. The leader became aggressive and Simon drew his rifle. The leader continued to aggress Simon, not believing that Simon would attack. Simon, in a rare display of force, shot the mercenary leader in the head. He instructed the second in command to call down his troops from Liam’s side.
Simon finally went to confront his brother aboard his old ship. There, he found Count Cecil tied to the mast. Simon asked what he had done to Liam that warranted such aggression. Liam was surprised that Simon didn’t know. He explained that Cecil was attempting to discontinue the alliance agreement between the Rosmunds and Albrechts so that he could distribute his moon’s wood to better carry out his reforms. He was able to get out of the agreement, because the alliance specified that the heir to the Rosmund throne was supposed to marry Sigmund’s oldest living child.
Because Collette was now betrothed to Liam, rather than Simon, Cecil could escape his obligations to the dying moon to lend support to the vassal races. Liam had assumed that Simon was cooperating with Cecil, when Cecil offered to shelter Liam on Entar rather than leave him to the mercy of the people of Diamond. Simon explained that he knew nothing about Cecil’s plans. Just then, Collette entered the ship and proposed to Simon to preserve the Alliance. It turned out that Collette genuinely loved Simon’s brother but would marry Simon if it meant saving her lover’s claim to the throne. Simon asked Collette for a night to mull over his decision.
The next day, he spoke with his uncle to try to convince him to stop his plans to end the Alliance. Cecil was surprised that Simon was siding with his brother given his malicious proclivities, but Simon was able to convince Cecil that, with the right mentor, Liam could be worthy of his position, and that keeping him in power could benefit both the Albrechts and the Rosmunds in the long run. Cecil cautiously heeded his nephew’s counsel and agreed to maintain the alliance.
The Corsairs remained for Liam’s wedding. The two brothers reconciled and Liam offered Simon a patronship and the companion to his Shield of Kings, the Sword of Kings. The Corsairs departed Diamond later that day, and celebrated the fact that there was now one less person in the system who wanted them dead.

The Battle of the North Sea

After taking a break from hunting down the progenitor ruins, Simon decided it was time to go back on the hunt. He returned to Lion City to find an unlikely pairing of two old acquaintences, Professor Halle and the mutant, King Kaloo. During his adventures the mutants had set up an outpost to trade with Lion City and share information, and the two had struck up an unlikely friendship. Simon was able to coax more informaiton about the progenitor ruins. He learned that the Armory on Mong Bal was said to house a weapon more powerful than a hyperio bomb and The Forge on Jotun was capable of building ships that could sail beyond the Rim. Professor Halle warned that a being called the Forger was imprisoned there, and warned to avoid freeing the ancient being.
During their time in Lion City, Simon and Royce discovered a plot by the White Lion Armada to attack the Geit Clans. After negotiating with the Kestrel brothers, they were able to embed Royce within the White Lion Armada as a double agent, but at the cost of handing over the Progenitor Atlas and giving the armada intelligence about the locations of the other progenitor ruins.
Simon rejoined the party and set sail for Jotun. After the death of Jorund Brighthoof at the apparent hands of the rival Habrok clan, Simon and the other corsaris volunteered to go into the Habrok city to try to negotiate the return of Jorund's body. They enlisted the help of the Habrok knight, Oskar, but Oskar made them take an oath that they would not do anything to harm the Habrok queen, Freya. Oskar told the group that Freya sought a warhorn in the city's crypts that could gain passage to the north pole where The Forge was located.
Simon ventured into the crypts where, with the help of Wukong, he took down an undead giant warrior. He found another of Queen Freya's knights, Kor, who had also been sent to the crypts to get the horn. Simon was not able to save Kor, but he eased the knights pain. In return, Kor gave him a map to a secret meeting place with the queen where he was meant to deliver the warhorn.
The meeting with Freya was cut short when Jacen Bato attacked seeking to win glory in the clansmoot by killing the queen. He fired cannons at the icy walls above them causing an avalanche to rain down. Simon was able to save Halle and get to safety by using a wave spell to part the cascading snow. He reunited with Freya and the rest of his friends back at the Habrok castle, where she revealed that the reason she had tried to start a war with the Brighthoof clan was that her clan's embermuur was dying and she wanted her people to go out in a great battle rather than whither away in the cold. There was a legend that the imprisoned Forger could restore an embermuur, but without a warhorn and a group powerful enough to venture to the north pole, it would only remain a legend.
The Corsairs agreed to venture to the North Pole, and after a lengthy climb they came face to face with the Geit Hero, Olaf, who had originally imprisoned the Forger. Except, Olaf was actually a progenitor who had come to Jotun in ancient times. He had gradually descended to madness while at his post and attacked the group. After defeating them, Olaf asked Simon to finish him with a weapon worthy of a progenitor, and Simon decapitated him using his energy-bladed axe.
After defeating Olaf, the Forger revealed that the reason for his imprisonment was a pact with the ancient Geit clans after losing to Olaf. Part of that pact involved sacrificing baby fire giants to become the hearts of the geit clans' embermuurs. The Forger could be freed from his imprisonment and use his terraforming powers to restore decayed planets like Mong Bal and the hog-rot ridden Diamond. While the temptation to free the Forger was great, Simon voted to honor his oath not to harm Queen Freya and refused to harm the Habroks. Instead, they sacrificed the baby fire giant, Iggy, to restore the Habrok's embermuurs.
Without a reason to fight the Brighthoofs, Freya returned Jorund's body and threw her entire military behind the clansmoot against the White Lion Armada. Her commitment made her eligible to lead the clansmoot, but Simon and the others threw their weight behind Garund Brighthoof.
During the battle against the White Lion Armada, Queen Freya's prophets revealed that the Vindcaller clan had sided with the White Lion Armada, rendering their tracking of the Shrikevind's movements unreliable. Simon departed on a diplomatic mission to the white druid enclave, who were said to have a wind map that could predict the Shrikevind's movements. Once there, Simon leanred that the White Druids used the Shrikevind to migrate across time during times of peril and were thus reluctant to give up there map. However, one of the druids tasked with staying behind, Ravid planned a rebellion against the chieftain to seize the map. Simon chose to tip off the chieftain to Ravid's plans and in thanks the chieftain allowed Simon to examine the windmap and bring his findings back to the clansmoot.
At the climax of the battle, Simon and the other corsairs joined Queen Freya in sinking the White Lion flagship, the Falco Rex, and capture Thane Kestrel. The corsairs found Freya at a loss of what to do now that her clan was saved. Her whole life had been built around fighting her clan's enemies and left her ill equipped for peace. Simon asked Freya to consider abandoning the Old Ways, which would allow the Forger to go free without bloodshed. The next day, he learned that Freya had left the clan in the night on her own, thus breaking the millenia-old pact holding the Forger in place.

Leaving the Party

While Thane Kestrel was in custody, several of his flagships remained on Jotun. Simon and Royce decided to remain with the Clansmoot to dispense of these remnants while the other corsairs took Halle to Sera to marry Sir Reglas.

Full Name: Simon Albrecht
Race: Homyn
Gender: Male
Background/Occupations: Noble, Mercenary, Corsair, Alchemist
Current Status: Out of Party
Biggest Block: an avelanche