Perry, Half Elf Battlemind (Nick)

Pieter was a hired bodyguard on a merchant vessel traveling between Africa and the Carolinas. Their vessel was laden down with hundreds of slaves, silver, gold, and numerous trade goods. An explosion rocked the ship in the night, and the startled crew awoke in time to drown in a miserable death as the ship sunk in two parts below the murky depths of the Atlantic.

The blast through Peiter back into a dinghy, and the force broke the buckles free, sprawling him and his new boat, into the waters below. In a foggy haze he could see the billowing smoke and his ship disappear beneath the surface, as the ship melted into the waters, so did his consciousness.

He didn't know how long he was drifting before he awoke. His skin was raw and stung from sunburn, and his body swollen from the beating he took. A fierce hunger and thirst gnawed at him. No land, no ships, nothing in sight... he knew he was going to die. He expected to die from a musket or blade, but a lonely death at sea was no way to go for a mercenary.

Two days later he found salvation on the whaleship Essex, and was brought aboard in the midst of a mutiny.