Captain Pants
Captain Pants, despite his comedy-inspiring name, was the dreaded piratical captain of Mella's Justice and leader of the notorious Riptide Ring. Pants was a Hysh'hisal Naga with copper scales and intimidating build. His titles included Lord of Rund, The Copper Akwasarr, The Boneduster, and the Riptide King; he was also given the epithet of Slaughterous.
Appearance #
Captain Pants was Hysh'hisal in heritage and had gleaming copper scales. He had deep blue eyes. Folklore surrounding the Riptide King claims that Pants' eyes were once golden, but turned blue the first time he set his eyes on the sea.
Captain Pants became indulgent in a variety of fashions following his rise to power, and could be seen wearing a plethora of different clothing.
Prosthetics & Missing Body Parts #
After returning from being stranded on Rund Isle, Pants began to wear an eyepatch after losing his left eye. After his fight with Kribbo Rass, Pants gained a peg leg and a hook. Although he could undoubtedly afford it, Pants has refused to acquire more sophisticated prosthetics from Destral after meeting with Azalea Abernathy. The Riptide King had a prideful misinterpretation of Azalea Abernathy's kindness as disrespectful pity. Pants would hold this grudge for the rest of his life.
Tools of Fear #
Captain Pants carried with him an ornamented cutlass and a muzzle loading pistol, although his signature weapon was his maul, Hyshsik. Forged from Saurium, enchanted with pyromantic magic, and named after the primordial deities of nagakind, Hyshsik was a fearsome callback to the Captain's brutal origins.
Agelessness #
Captain Pants never seemed to age, especially when the crew members of his ship retired or passed away. He ruled the Riptide Ring with the virility and energy of a young man for over a 150 years, which was extraordinarily unusual for a naga.
The source of this agelessness was the Devilteeth Necklace that he wore. The Righteous Order grew suspicious of Pants' agelessness, although they were never able to capture him because of his slipperiness and vast piratical connections.
Biography #
Hysh'hisal Priesthood #
The young Pankshallassiss was born in the Hysh'hisal Kingdom in 150 DHT. He was raised to be an attendant in the Hydrisikk temples, and quickly found himself deeply immersed within the religious culture of the Hysh'hisal.
Slavery #
During a trip across the underground as a member of a travelling band of naga priests, Pankshallassiss and his compatriots were set upon by Hiskrallion bandits, who were seeking to loot the naga priests of their Saurium liturgical paraphernalia. While the rest of the priests were slain, Pankshallassiss was taken captive. His copper, shiny scales resembled saurium itself, and he would make an ideal slave.
Pankshallassiss was eventually sold to a Vish'hisal warlord known as Rishk, where he would become his personal servant for a number of years. After 2 years of serving Rishk, Pankshallassiss fought his way to freedom. When Rishk was visited by another Vish'hisal warlord, a dispute broke out in typical naga fashion, and Rishk's stronghold caught fire. Taking advantage of the chaos, Pankshallassiss broke his bonds and escaped the burning structure. As he lay in the cavern surrounding the burning fortress, Pankshallassiss found himself face to face with a partially-burned Rishk, who reprimanded his servant for not rescuing him. Pankshallassiss took a rock that way lying nearby and proceeded to cave Rishk's head in. As he finished, Rishk's closest surviving allies came upon the scene, and Pankshallassiss fled.
Pankshallassiss attempted to hide out in nearby Vish'hisal villages, using his Hysh'hisal heritage and priestly experiences to garner enough favour to hop from village to village and inn to inn. However, word that a Vish'hisal warlord was killed at the hand of "a Hish'hisal with scales like that of saurium" made its rounds throughout the Vish'hisal kingdom, and soon Pankshallassiss was forced to flee. The tunnels connecting Vish'hisal lands to neighboring kingdoms were treacherous though, and those other kingdoms were equally as dangerous. Pankshallassiss had one other escape route: upwards.
Escape to the Surface & Sailing Career #
In 160 DHT, Pankshallassiss made his way to the Land Beneath the Snowy Mountain, and then wandered southwest towards the Phovezilan Domain. By 161 DHT, he found work as a deckhand for a Phovezilan freighter called Phovezila's Magnificence. During his work as a member of her crew, Pankshallassiss earned his nickname of Pants, which was easier to say than his Sikliss name.
The captain of The Magnificence was George Elmwick, who commanded the vessel in service of its owner, Rivan Menskovich, a Veskovian-Phovezilan business magnate who spearheaded many of the trade deals between Veskovia and Phovezila. After Rivan's wife died, Rivan chose to move his young daughter, Mella Menskovich, to Phovezila to live with his relatives there. During that voyage, Mella was astounded at the sight of the naga in the crew, and constantly bombarded Pants with questions about where he came from. Pants shared more and more details with each passing day at sea, spending more and more time with Mella (including when she had a serious bout of seasickness following a rough day on the waves). Mella grew fond of Pants, and began to call him "Uncle Pants" by the end of their voyage.
"Uncle Pants" regails Mella Menskovich with stories from Hysh'hisal.
Mella enjoyed Pants' company so much that she begged her father to take her with them the next time they sailed, and so Mella became a semi-regular member of The Magnificence's crew. Pants became quite attached to the little girl, and even began to teach her Sikliss (to Rivan's delight--knowing his daughter could speak such an exotic and rare language would be something to brag about in the noble circles that he socialized in).
Pirates #
One day in 162 DHT while sailing to Veskovia, The Magnificence was boarded by pirates of The Blue Skull. When they began to speak of taking the crew prisoner and selling them as slaves, Pants snapped and began to brawl with the pirates. Captain Elmwick's crew, inspired by Pants' ferocity, rose to join their comrade in fighting the pirates. As the fight raged on, Pants was shot point blank in the head. The pistol ball glanced off of Pants' head, destroying his left eye. Filled with adrenaline, Pants grabbed the pistol from the pirate that shot him and threw it at the pirates' captain. The captain careened overboard where he died by drowning.
The pirates, many of whom had never seen a naga fight before, fearfully disembarked The Magnificence and opened fire upon the vessel from The Blue Skull. The Magnificence sank and most of her crew met a watery demise. Captain Elmwick, Rivan, and even Mella all perished during the ordeal.
Deserted & Rescued on Rund Isle #
Pants washed ashore Rund Isle, which was uninhabited and devoid of societal infrastructure or food. Day and night, Pants lay on the island's beach where he ruminated on the horrors of losing Mella and the crew that had become his family. Pants grew emaciated and weak, and accepted his death. To his surprise, he found himself rescued by a ground of Phovezilans who were the final vestiges of the Cornerstone Foundation. They were accompanied by a pair of knights from the Righteous Order, and were helping to chase down some leads that the Cornerstone Foundation had mothballed across the Ancient Era. With their help, Pants was nursed back to health. The expeditioners promised to take Pants back to Phovezila once their job was complete.
The Devilteeth Deal #
While Pants stayed behind at the campsite, he did eventually learn what the expedition was concerned about: a hidden stash of Demonium weapons left here from skirmishes between Angels and Demons during the Demon Wars. On the final night on Rund, Pants' curiosity got the better of him, and he snuck into the tent that held the recovered artifacts to look at them. Among the demonium objects, Pants found himself fascinated the most by the metallic skull of an imp. The imp skull and its dislodged demonium teeth were laid out neatly on a table, and Pants picked up the teeth to examine them. As he went over them in his fingers, a voice whispered to him. It empathized with Pants, sorrowfully lamenting the loss of his friends and the sweet, innocent Mella. But it also whispered that Pants could make things right. The bastards that did such a heinous thing were out there still. The voice offered a deal: as long as Pants held onto these teeth, he would transcend time and cease aging until he could successfully enact revenge upon the pirates that had attacked The Magnificence. Pants took the deal and pocketed the teeth, which the expeditioners never noticed were stolen.
Career of Piracy #
When Pants arrived back in Icthy’s Rest, he quickly began his search to find the pirates he had sworn to kill. Since the pirates had lost their captain, many of them had split up and joined other crews. Some joined new pirate crews while others made their way onto the decks of more legitimate sea vessels.
Pants, armed with a ball peen hammer, began to seek out these pirates and kill them. While at first he killed them quickly, over time he became more and more cruel. His signature execution style was to break each of his victim's limbs before caving in their chest and letting them suffocate/hemorrhage to death. ^2be6a6
Pants acquired a crew after realizing that it would be unrealistic to patiently wait for the pirates he was hunting to arrive back in Icthy's Rest. Using the money that he had plundered from the pirates he's executed, Pants hired a small, ragtag crew of pirates and an old schooner formerly used by Phovezilan-aligned privateers--The Fist of the West. Pants began to hunt down the vessels carrying his quarry on the open sea, boarding them and demanding they relinquish his targets to him. If they resisted, Pants and his crew would show no mercy and slaughter the entire crew. Pants' reputation grew in notoriety, especially since his small crew and relatively small vessel were able to get the upper hand on any vessel they set their sights on. The legend of the Naga Pirate spread throughout Legere's ports, inspiring fear and ridicule--what were the purposes of guns, arcane enhancements, and armed guards if a small schooner with a crew 7 and no naval artillery could overcome them with such ease?
Pants' crew (and Pants himself) grew in wealth as they amassed riches plundered from the vessels they boarded. To placate the ne'er-do-wells within his own crew, Pants allowed them to steal as they pleased from the vessels they boarded. By 170 DHT, Pants found himself nearing the amount of money needed to commission his very own vessel. He began to draw up designs for a ship of his own. In the meantime, Pants' loyalties expanded as other pirate captains approached Pants to create alliances with him. Some captains turned in members of their crew that they believed Pants was hunting. Other captains simply wanted to join Pants to avoid his ire. Soon, Pants found himself at the head of a network of pirates that hunted the high seas on his behalf. If they found pirates that Pants was looking for, they would take them prisoner and bring them to Pants--always careful to allow Pants the privilege of execution. The few times where pirates brought Pants' quarry in dead was enough to teach the other pirate crews a lesson--Pants had the captains that were attempting to help executed in the same manner he would have the ex-Blue Skull pirate he was hunting.
The most loyal of these pirate captains found themselves into the personal circle of Pants, and so the Riptide Ring was born.
The Final Pirate of The Blue Skull #
By 171 DHT, Pants' influence and wealth surpassed what he had required to build his own ship. The Riptide King sent his designs for his vessel to an esteemed shipwright in Icthy’s Rest. The shipwright, Quiven Mentarion, and his men refused to work for someone as notorious as Pants, and made plans to report him to the Phovezilan government. However, in the dead of night, Quiven and his workers were abducted by Pants and dropped off at Rund Isle, where they were left for 2 days without food or water. After those two days, Pants returned and asked them to reconsider and help build the ship. They refused again, and Pants left them to continue to starve and thirst for another 2 days. Upon his next return, Quiven relented and agreed to help build the ship. Pants supplied them with food and water, building materials, and a group of Riptide Ring enforcers to watch over them as they worked.
During this time, Pants also instructed the Ring to build a hideout on Rune Isle that they could use as a safe port for the future. It would also act as a better place to store the Ring's riches as they grew--safely away from the grip of Phovezila, who was becoming more and more interested in Pants' activities (and the taxes he wasn't paying).
As Captain Pant's new ship neared completion, the Blue Skull's former First Mate, Kribbo Rass, struck a deal with Phovezila. Although he had become a pirate captain himself, Captain Rass had no problem exposing himself to Phovezila if it meant he could escape a fate at the hands of Pants. Rass' deal with Phovezila was to hunt the Riptide King down, and transfer the secured treasure to the Phovezilan treasury. Rass' knowledge of Pants' activities on Rund Isle was leaked to him through acquaintances that he had within the Riptide Ring, and alongside his own ship he led two Phovezilan destroyers loaded to the brim with elemental warriors.
Pants' new vessel finished just in time. Without any ceremony or christening, Pants had the newly finished Mella's Justice set out to sea after hearing word that Phovezilan destroyers were on their way to Rund. Pants' ship, alongside a handful of other vessels in the Riptide Ring's armada met the Phovezilan warships and Rass' own gunship in naval combat.
Captain Pants quickly found himself thankful for demanding such an advanced vessel out of Quiven. Most of the Riptide Ring's ships had no chance gainst the devastating elemental power of the Phovezilan warships' nativus carronades[^1], and were sunk within the first couple of elemental volleys. Mella's Justice stood strong against the barrage of elemental blasts and cannon fire, and soon found itself boarded from both sides. Pants' crew fought with unwavering loyalty and fury, and Pants himself embraced the primal savagery wielded by the naga for the first time in a long time. Even after being disarmed and running out of ammunition, Pants clawed and bit at his enemies, proving that even the Fire Iron armoured elemental warriors couldn't contain the ferocity of the Lord of Rund.
Pants sustained heavy wounds during the fight, losing one of his hands to a cunning strike delivered by an elemental warrior's longsword, and having one of his legs severely burned by the pyromancy of another. Bleeding, crippled, and weary, Pants found himself facing the final crew member of The Blue Skull--Kribbo Rass--and pulled from his belt his executioner's tool: the same ball peen hammer he'd used to kill every other member of the pirate ship. Kribbo attempted to kill Pants while he was weakened, but Pants was filled with an unholy surge of strength. He overpowered Captain Rass despite his wounds and exhaustion, beating him to death on the deck of Mella's Justice.
Pants, his surviving crew, and his ship would successfully sink the Phovezilan vessels after sustaining heavy damage, but the nearby proximity of Rund Isle allowed them to save and repair the ship.
Even after all of The Blue Skull's pirates were dead, Captain Pants had no desire to retire or die. He had fallen in love with his power, much to the delight of the evil voice that had whispered to him him on Rund Isle so long ago.
Siege of Icthy's Rest #
Icthy's Rest had become a major site of operations for Pants and the Riptide Ring, and a lot of unwanted attention was drawn towards them following the defeat of Captain Rass. With the intent of scouring the pirates from Icthy's Rest, the Elementum Order sent elemental warriors to find and arrest the pirates of the Ring in 200 DHT.
In response to this, Mella's Justice pulled into Axehead Bay and began to fire upon Icthy's Rest. A message was sent to the reeling elemental warriors, reading that if the elementalists of Phovezila didn't retreat by sundown, the entire city would be levelled and bathed in zawmix. The elementalists hastily retreated after the embarrassing defeat. Official Phovezilan records scrubbed the event from history, but the Siege of Icthy's Rest would go on to be a widely remembered event within the residents of the port city.
The Archangel's Heroes #
With Pants' agelessness, he would rule for over a hundred years, watching the world change around him but never relinquishing his iron grip over Legere's oceans.
During the Legerian War, the Archangel's Heroes would pay Pants handsomely to have the Riptide Ring act as privateers to defend the Phovezilan coast from the Ebon Alliance's navies. Later, they would hire Captain Pants himself to sail the Archangel's Heroes directly to Zak's dark tower in a covert pincer maneuver to put an end to the Dark Mage. During the voyage, Disruptis and Sir Dafern manage to convince Pants to reveal and give up the source of his agelessness.
During his voyage back, the Legion of Thunder's ships ambushed Mella's Justice and took Captain Pants prisoner to the Cloudlands. Captain Pants wouldn't be rescued until 3 years later by Jado and Cev when they were making their way through the Cloudlands to track down and assassinate Imperator Hyperius.
The Riptide Ring had moved on without Captain Pants during this time, with most believing he was dead. Having lost control over the Ring, Pants went to retire in the quiet village of Cold Cove away from the jurisdiction of Phovezila.
Pants' Ship, Mella's Justice #
Captain Pants' ship and icon of power during majority of his time as the Riptide King was Mella's Justice, a 4-deck, Fire Ironclad gunboat decked out in cannons and arcane siege weapons. As Destral developed, a few illicitly-acquired weapons of Destrian design were added to her arsenal. Her most fearsome weapon was a mangonel that Captain Pants had loaded with zawmix procured by venomantic hedge mages. A single projectile was enough to wipe out the crew of even the strongest of vessels.
Mella's Justice also had an aeromantic runestone that allowed the ship to move at an unbelievable speed for a few minutes--perfect for outmaneuvering other ships in naval combat.
Mella's Justice's figurehead was a Hydrisikk, although many inaccurately believed the carving was actually an Akwasarr.
[^1]: A nativus carronade was a specialized naval weapon developed by the Phovezilan military. It consisted of a central vertical stone obelisk connected to eight horizontal stone obelisks that would protrude from the sides of a warship's hull. When elemental magic was channeled into the central pillar, it would be amplified and blasted out of one to all of the horizontal pillars.