Gavinus Garland
A Nessardine privateer with a heart of gold, a silver tongue and brass balls, Gavinus is Beulah Garland's husband and the father of her children. His unexplained absence prompted her embarking upon her southward journey and her encounter with the other members of the The Ladies' Hiking Club.
Childhood
Gavinus Carey was born on the 11th of Summer, 793 WA. He grew up on the rough streets of Orphan's End before taking his first opportunity to escape Nessardine as a cabin boy at the age of seven. He has always refused to speak about his life before he went to sea with anyone, even a first mate or beloved wife. Those that know him well know that he is an instinctive manipulator, a born survivor and a man with a hard-earned head for business. The larger-than-life persona he constructed for himself makes him seem somewhat of a man that sprung fully formed from the sea foam, which his wife long thought was an intentional misdirection. It did not escape her notice that he had never -- not once in all their lives together -- volunteered to discuss his mother or father, who are not, to her knowledge, yet deceased.
The sea life suited Gav beautifully. He was a born leader and naturally competent at reading winds and weather. He had a knack for navigation and an energetic, optimistic demeanor. People naturally trusted him, and although he was an unreliable friend and a nearly compulsive liar, that trust was seldom misplaced. He sailed for several years on the Tenth cutter St Phineas, being apprenticed by fluke to the great Captain Janet "Freckles" Chalmers on the first command of her remarkable and infamous career. The first mate on St Phineas was Denby Mott: the same Commodore Mott that defeated the Corran Armada, resulting in the Treaty of Exeter Long. A cabin boy interested in a life at sea could not have hoped for a more intense and thorough education from more illustrious faculty.
Above: The St Phineas, a cutter in the Tenth Fleet
Gavinus began navigating the St Phineas by 10 and had earned his first watch by 14. One night in Greater Shelton, when Chalmers stole away from her quarters with an intent to abandon her commission and board a sloop she'd purchased crewed with her best and most disaffected officers, she woke 15-year-old Gavinus before leaving. She asked if he would leave everything behind him to become a pirate, playing the nations of Oa against each other and getting rich in the process. Gavinus did not require the short time he was given to think. That ship, the Harbinger, is without question the most famous ship ever to sail the south seas, and Gavinus was aboard from launch to wreck.
Personal History
Childhood
Gavinus Carey was born on the 11th of Summer, 793 WA. He grew up on the rough streets of Orphan's End before taking his first opportunity to escape Nessardine as a cabin boy at the age of seven. He has always refused to speak about his life before he went to sea with anyone, even a first mate or beloved wife. Those that know him well know that he is an instinctive manipulator, a born survivor and a man with a hard-earned head for business. The larger-than-life persona he constructed for himself makes him seem somewhat of a man that sprung fully formed from the sea foam, which his wife long thought was an intentional misdirection. It did not escape her notice that he had never -- not once in all their lives together -- volunteered to discuss his mother or father, who are not, to her knowledge, yet deceased.Apprenticeship at Sea: the St Phineas
The sea life suited Gav beautifully. He was a born leader and naturally competent at reading winds and weather. He had a knack for navigation and an energetic, optimistic demeanor. People naturally trusted him, and although he was an unreliable friend and a nearly compulsive liar, that trust was seldom misplaced. He sailed for several years on the Tenth cutter St Phineas, being apprenticed by fluke to the great Captain Janet "Freckles" Chalmers on the first command of her remarkable and infamous career. The first mate on St Phineas was Denby Mott: the same Commodore Mott that defeated the Corran Armada, resulting in the Treaty of Exeter Long. A cabin boy interested in a life at sea could not have hoped for a more intense and thorough education from more illustrious faculty.
Gavinus began navigating the St Phineas by 10 and had earned his first watch by 14. One night in Greater Shelton, when Chalmers stole away from her quarters with an intent to abandon her commission and board a sloop she'd purchased crewed with her best and most disaffected officers, she woke 15-year-old Gavinus before leaving. She asked if he would leave everything behind him to become a pirate, playing the nations of Oa against each other and getting rich in the process. Gavinus did not require the short time he was given to think. That ship, the Harbinger, is without question the most famous ship ever to sail the south seas, and Gavinus was aboard from launch to wreck.
Assuming Command
Gavinus rose through the ranks quickly through aptitude and attrition, coming on as Chalmers' first mate by age 26, first aboard the Harbinger then after its loss upon the flagship galleon Premonition: a command of 230 souls. Chalmers reassigned him from first mate's duties to captain of the Mounted Stag at age 31 when that prototype Corran pinnace was added to the fleet.
Above: The Premonition
Below: The Mounted Stag
Below: The Mounted Stag
The exploits of that ship over the ensuing nine years are notable in their own right, sometimes spoken of in the same breath as those undertaken by Chalmers herself. Gavinus' accomplishments were somewhat overshadowed by having been undertaken as part of Chalmers' Red Fleet, even though its ships were largely left to operate independently with strict bookkeeping requirements and availability for calls to arms.
Gavinus never struck terror in the hearts of seamen the way Chalmers did, nor did he have her ambition, ruthlessness or skill at organizing a fleet. It is arguable, however, that he was the superior sailor. His New Year's evening escape from the Corran Navy across the Maulden Archipelago is considered by maritime historians to be perhaps the greatest feat of seamanship (or pure dumb luck) in recorded history; and he was one of the very few captains in the Red Fleet never to have faced, let alone been displaced by, mutiny.
Introduction to Independent Privateering and Adventuring
After Chalmers' death and the dismantling of the Red Fleet in 821WA, Gavinus returned to the Wandering City to release substantially all of his crew and to recruit a new one. He had long since made up his mind that Chalmers was more of a pirate than a businesswoman. Piracy was not an optimal business model for a ship owner. The work was too dangerous, the rewards too few, too cumbersome and too hard to collect. Too often he found himself ordering badly injured men to haul aboard soaked crates of grain that had to be fenced for a single-figure margin in a real damn hurry to avoid spoilage. The vast majority of wealth is, of course, stored on land; and destroying a ship is substantially easier than destroying and salvaging it (let alone boarding and seizing it). And with the real market friction in obtaining land-based goods being an unwillingness to break or inability to evade the law, the potential margins for privateering and adventuring were substantially more profitable uses of a nautical asset. The die was cast. Gavinus only needed a skeleton crew of talented sailors that he could pay well. The latter he retained on the Stag of those dedicated professionals that had been more interested in serving under the skilled captain Gavinus Carey than they had been in being a dread pirate of the Red Fleet. What he really needed now was a Letter of Marque and a team of adventurers. One of his prisoners-turned-crew, Torwall Ignus had revealed himself to Gavinus as a warlock of some considerable strength and was ready-made candidate to do double duty as an adventurer. He settled in instantly as first mate. After several months of scouting and turning away top-flight mercenaries, soldiers and bodyguards, Gavinus and Torwall settled on Lamark, a journeyman Aildean gladiator, as the muscle. He was hired at full rates, refusing throughout his entire career ever to take a share of bounty and frequently swearing to abandon the crew the moment his quarterly pay, negotiated annually, was a day late. In the course of his career with Gavinus, he did so four times. Having failed to shake loose a mage from Anthur-Ro, funds were running low and Gavinus had to set to sea to earn some Lamark money. Without a lead on any lucrative adventuring prospects, he sought to secure his Letter of Marque from Tenthun without any success. His silver tongue and deftness with inducements got him nowhere with the pious Tenth ambassadors. He simply could not understand what would motivate those dedicated men of faith to bend the rules. Ultimately he turned to the Bard College, seeking desperately to hire a diplomat that might be able to secure such a royal favour with what borrowed funds he still had left. For reasons he would not appreciate until much later in life, the Master he inquired with did not direct him to the Bards of the Eloquence roster, but instead to an up-and-coming talent that she thought might fit the bill. She encouraged him to attend that evening's show at The Lamplight Inn's cabaret in Crackclaw.Introduction to Bella Garland
Beulah Garland was performing at the Lamplight that night. Accounts differ as to what happened next, but the facts appear to be these: Gavinus required a Letter of Marque that he could not obtain on his own. He had the funds for the letter, but not for a professional bard. He was, however, famously skilled when it came to obtaining the sympathies of impressionable young women. Bella Garland was performing extremely well at Bard College but was growing disinterested in both the shady world of professional entertainment and repetitive work of diplomacy. She had expressed this to her mentor and favourite Master in confidence. She wanted to perform, but she wanted her performances to mean something and for her life to encompass more than the walk between an embassy and a high commission on a daily basis. More than anything she missed the sea. There was a seduction. A Letter of Marque was obtained. The lovers embarked on an uncertain heading later that week.Crew and Retirement
The sailing crew fluctuated for years, but the adventuring team eventually grew to include Marina Sitwell, Joshua Bridle and Lucida Baldelli. They sailed, privateered and occasionally pirated and raided in the Mounted Stag, eventually replacing that ship with the galleon Mercyafter the former drew too much heat to carry on with respectable privateering.
Top: The Mercy passing through the Withrow Arch in the Elder Swamp
After nine years of adventuring and pirating, Beulah Garland was pregnant and homesick. She negotiated an arrangement with Gavinus that would allow him to remain at sea for most of the year but to spend the winters with her and their growing family in her ancestral home in Greyshore. Gavinus was amenable to the suggestion. He was not familiar or completely comfortable with the idea of a stable family, but did love Bella -- and children.
Over the ensuing 40 years, Gavinus' portfolio of enterprises gradually dropped raiding, then most piracy, then even most privateering. Gavinus sold the Mercy to Torwall in 847WA and invested in a small fleet of merchantmen and sloops more suited to high-volume trading. With a few very lucrative exceptions, he grew quite happy choosing just the right mix of cargo up and down a trade route around the continent: clockwise one year and counterclockwise the next, plotting daring and difficult courses to outmaneuver his competition and secure better rates. He looked forward to returning to his family for the Crane Moon just as eagerly at sea as he looked forward to pushing off, ironically, by Homecoming.
Gavinus Garland's current whereabouts is unknown. He did not return from his trade route as scheduled in 864WA, nor in 865. Beulah set out to search for him, heading due south to pick up whatever she could from the incomparable Corran intelligence networks along the path to the Wandering City.
Investiture Ambush
The Ladies' Hiking Club attended what appeared to be an investiture ceremony for Gavinus at the Commissioner's Hall in Wakecrest on the 22nd of Winterfall, 866WA. Promotional material in the Wandering City suggested the Tenth royals were going to present him with a commission and create him into a noble order; instead, no one at the event seemed to know him and a series of traps were sprung on the adventurers.Contact at Last
Around noon on the day after the Ambush at Commissioner's Hall, Beulah managed to use Sending to contact Gavinus at last. An old hat at using the spell, and aware of the importance of brevity given how challenging it is for her to cast, Gavinus seemed to plot for about 15 minutes before sending exactly 25 words in reply, packing as much information as possible into that limited message. The tone and language used suggested he was not free to speak, using terms that might not arouse suspicion in his immediate vicinity. The exchange went as follows:Brinda is pregnant. I’m on the shell. Someone used your likeness to trap me. Almost died. Been looking for you. Find me. Jerk. Love. Pen, please, Joba. [long pause] 375,214,811,330. There are ten rats on the docks. They’ll bite if I stop moving. [pause, shouted, apparently to someone in the distance] Please be careful, gutterpunk! We’ve got nine weeks!Beulah was able to unpack some of this information straight away. The rest remains a mystery.
- Pen, please: Gavinus is communicating that Beulah should get a pen to write something down and gives her adequate time to do so.
- Joba: Joba Gor is one of the Crime Lords of Nessardine, and one with a particular hate-boner for the Garlands ever since they abandoned his extremely expensive Cinnédil expedition and got his prized artificer killed. It didn't help that while he was considering what to do with them they escaped his custody and made off with his personal yacht. Gavinus indicates here that he is in such close proximity to Joba at the moment that he can ask him to pass a pen. He did not, however, sound fearful or tentative in making the request.
- 375,214,811,330. Gavinus collapses trade route coordinates into a single number to squeeze under the 25-word restriction. Beulah can deduce that means 37.5W, 21.4S (Nessardine Docks -- she knows those numbers by heart) to 81.1W, 33.0N. Having now had time to pull out a map, she confirmed with a shiver that those coordinates are upstream of the river they used as their access point to Cinnédil. The other permutations of those numbers are not valid coordinates. 81.1W, 33.0S is a tempestuous passage in the White Sea; 81.1E, 33.0S is dozens of nautical miles north of shore in the Antarctic continent, and 81.1E, 33.0N is dead-center of Blessing Bay. The use of trade route coordinates rather than heading suggests he's either been going back and forth from that location or intends to shortly.
- There are ten rats on the docks. Bearing in mind that he seems to be restricted to speaking in words that could make sense in his present circumstances, what does Gavinus expect Beulah to think about when he talks about rats and/or docks? Does the word "ten" have special significance or is it a relevant number?
- They'll bite if I stop moving. "Rats" clearly seems to be a metaphor for something.
- Please be careful. Beulah understood this to be an exhortation to her. Her message emphasized that she was injured and in danger looking for him.
- Gutterpunk. An odd phrase, and not one in his usual vocabulary. He was a street orphan himself, he wouldn't be so cruel to a dockie or a cabin-boy. It does sound vaguely familiar, though.
- We've got nine weeks! In context it sounded as though he was telling someone not to rush with whatever he was handling, but it seems relevant that Gavinus is indicating a nine-week period before something happens.
Relationships
Spouses
Beulah Garland
(Wife)
Siblings
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