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Backstory competition 2nd Place |
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Written by Captain Obvious
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Friday, 09 December 2005 |
Congratulations to Chris Shapley for getting 2nd place in our backstory competition! His prize is a PotBS tshirt with his choice of 2 designs and a beta access key! Here's the story that got him 2nd place:
Born in times before Sociopaths and Borderline Personalities were diagnosed, a boy, lovingly named Jonathon Jacob Shapleigh, was born. Sired by a wealthy Merchant and carried in the womb of a cousin to the British Throne, it was never expected that this noble lad would grow to be 'Smiling Jack' Shapleigh, Captain of The Blood Rose, Scourge of the Seven Seas and Leader of the Sung Pirates.
Jonathon Jacob's maniacal inclinations and utter contempt for authority would not manifest themselves until his sixth birthday. It was at this tender age, at an event that brought Dukes and Duchesses to celebrate the day Jonathon was brought into this world, that Jonathon's true self was brought forth from the depths of Hell.
After successfully bloodying the noses of three of his older and much larger cousins, Jonathon was dragged away and into the kitchen by an uncle, Duke Henry Shapleigh, father of the bloodied boys. Several minutes after disappearing from the party, the blood curdling scream that sounded much like a grown woman, erupted from the Shapleigh's kitchen. Sir Harlow Shapleigh stormed the kitchen, fearing the worst, to find his brother-in-law's hand pinned to the cutting board by a knife through the back of his hand. Harlow eye's panned downward to his son, Jonathon Jacob Shapleigh. Although the boy's face was bloody and mashed, Jonathon stood there smiling as he urinated on his uncle's shoes.
Doctors and Priests failed all attempts of curbing the impetuous youth's flare for mischief and utter disregard for life and property beyond his own, his parents and his beloved spaniel, Samson. Jonathon's knack for piracy was first expressed when the lad, now ten years old, commandeered one of his father's small rowboats, mustered a crew of unsavory children from a local orphanage, boarded, looted and then set ablaze a small sailing ship belonging to his older cousin, Master Matthew Shapleigh III, a young lad who had the misfortune of teasing Jonathon at a birthday party four years earlier.
It was shortly after this event that Sir Harlow Shapleigh consulted a Bhuddist Monk that served as a translator and confidant to the Merchant when trading goods in the Orient. The Monk, seeing where he believed the Doctors and Priests failed, offered to take the boy to a Monastery high in the Mountains of China.
After much thought, and the insistance of the boy's mother for the sake of their second son, Harlow Shapleigh agreed to send his son with the next Shapleigh merchant ship destined for the Orient with the Monk, Xing Bau Hu. During this time Johnathon Jacob turned twelve and had been confined to the family Manor and tutored exclusively by the venerable Monk until the voyage left.
There were four ships sent in the Shapleigh expedition, one of which was lost as they rounded The Cape of Good Hope and yet another forced to dock with a torn main sail and a cracked mast. Johnathon felt fortunate that he was upon one of the two ships that remained unscathed despite his longing for home and the contempt he felt in the pit of his stomach towards his parents.
Before the remaining Merchants ships could reach their destination in the ports of China, their ships were fired upon and boarded by the Sung Pirates. The Sung Pirates were a fearsome group of Chinese sailors and Merchants, decended from mutanous sailors sent to explore by the ruler Zheng in the 1400s. These merciless cutthroats made their home on dozens of tiny undiscovered islands off the coast Siam, plundering any ship that passed near their island chain. The Sung Pirates were more fearsome then any Japanese Pirate and possessed nearly as many ships as the British Navy,or so they would have Merchants believe, and each ship sailing under the flag of Tiger baring its teeth with a raised paw.
Vastly outnumbered by the swarming hordes of Sung in their much smaller, faster and more maneuverable ships, the crews of the two remaining Merchant ships sailing under the Shapleigh crest had no option but to surrender unconditionally.
He watched helplessly from the Captain's Quarters as the Sung Pirates cast their hooks and boarded his father's prize ship. He watched as his father's men were thrown overboard, he watched his father's gold being taken as anger grew inside of him.
Fury, mental defect and the impetuousness of youth overwhelmed young Master Johnathon Jacob Shapleigh as he grabbed the Captain's sword and stormed the deck. He rushed the deck like a rabid wolf but, was quickly subdued by the Sung, his lack of swordmanship and emotional outpouring being the very thing to defeat him.
After falling unconcious from the beatings dealt at the hands of the merciless Sung, Johnathon laid upon the deck of The Guinevere as his father's men stood in fear, watching the Pirates empty the ship's hull of her gold. Only the venerable Monk had attempted to aid the boy during the beatings. His reward, a sword through the belly.
As the Sung began their execution of the crew, the price that cowards paid in their eyes, their leader, the great Hua Tie Hu, came aboard The Guinevere. Hua Tie Hu was in search of the boy who had fought where men stood frozen with fear. A vision he had received in a dream fortelling of a great Pirate King compelled him to find young Johnathon. He found the boy bloody and unconcious upon the deck with an aged Monk lying dead mere paces away. With a silent prayer for the fallen Monk, Hua Tie Hu gently scooped young Johnathon Jacob Shapleigh into his arms.
It was then that young Johnathon Jacob Shapleigh was adopted by a merciless band of pirates, trained in not only their sea faring ways but, in their traditions and philosophy. It is here where Johnathon learned to sail like the Sung, to fight hand-to-hand like the Sung, to instill fear like the Sung and most importantly to survive like the Sung have for so many generations. Through Piracy.
Young Johnathon Jacob Shapleigh would perish and, as a pheonix from the ashes, Smiling Jack Shapleigh would rise to become one of the scourges of the Seven Seas.
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