[Roger Owen]

- Player Info -

Name/nickname: Lei

AIM/e-mail/whatnot: PM or IM

Substitute players: Anyone.

- Character info -

Name: Roger Owen

Nickname/Alias: Owen, mostly. Some of the crew don’t realize that it isn’t his first name.

Age: 24

Gender: male

Rank/Occupation: Seaman (Able-Bodied)

Appearance: Owen has a rather jovial face, with round, ruddy cheeks, large brown eyes, and plump lips that serve to make him look even more youthful than his twenty-four years. He tends to adopt a sort of dreamy grin as his default expression. His hair is brown and curly, though the Caribbean sun has given it a golden tint in spots, and tends to occupy that awkward length where it’s too long to be tidy and too short to pull back out of the way. He’s an average sized youth, perhaps learning a bit to the taller side, with well-muscled arms and shoulders (a product of his labor).

Personality: Slow but sweet, Owen is a very kindhearted lad whose wits have always been a little bit dimmer than average. He’s an unwavering optimist with a constant need to please people. Additionally, he has no sense of sarcasm. His difficulty in reading social cues can occasionally make him a nuisance to those around him, but his intentions are always well-meaning. Owen has some difficulty with abstract ideas and complicated emotions, and tends to approach the world with a perspective one might expect from a child. Every now and then, though, his naïveté prompts him to say something unexpectedly wise.

Bio: Owen was born the middle [surviving] child of Elias and Winifred Owen. His father was a fisherman, his mother a fishmonger, and while his sisters helped their mother gut, clean, and sell the fish, Owen began at an early age to accompany his father out on their fishing boat. By then time he was ten years old, he was an adept little sailor with an instinctive affinity for the trade. When he was fifteen, his mother passed away from the pox. His father was so grief-stricken than Owen began taking the boat out on his own, while his older sister Martha effectively took control of their tiny household, managing the finances and keeping them afloat, so to speak. Eventually Elias recovered himself enough to go back out on the water with his son, but by going out to sea on his own, Owen had somehow proven that he was, effectively, a man.

Things more or less continued as they always had for several more years, until the year Owen turned nineteen. After a particularly good haul, he and a few other fishermen went to a wharf-side pub to celebrate. That was when the press came through. Too confused to make a run for it, Owen was swiftly scooped up by the press-gangs, and a week later found himself aboard a King’s ship. When it became apparent that he’d spent more of his life on the sea than off it, he was soon rated Able-Bodied. He spent a year and a half serving aboard the ship of the line HMS Minerva before he had a chance to sneak ashore at Plymouth to see his family. To his dismay, his father had died almost a year prior of consumption. His two sisters were well, however, having gone into business with a local innkeeper. Owen, finding he wasn’t really needed in his old life, came to the conclusion that being in the navy perhaps wasn’t all that bad of a career choice.

When the War of Jenkin’s Ear broke out, a third of Minerva’s complement was sent to the Indies to help crew the ships there. On the voyage, however, a number of the crewmen – including Owen – developed some nasty tropical fever and had to be quarantined on their arrival. By the time Owen recovered, the ship whose crew he’d been meant to join had already left port. Fortunately, a smaller vessel by the name of Steadfast was still at anchor. It didn’t take long for him to enlist and join the crew, which he has been a part of now for nigh on two years…

Birthplace: Plymouth, England.

Family:
Father: Elias Owen [deceased]
Mother: Winifred Owen [deceased]
Sisters: Martha and Mabel Owen [alive and well, thankyouverymuch]

Skills: Owen is a strong lad, good with the ins and outs of a ship, and he has an uncanny knack for knots. He also has a penny whistle he sometimes plays below-decks when spirits are high.

Weaknesses: Owen is not very bright. He’s a slow thinker, he’s illiterate, and he’s hopelessly gullible (making him the butt of many a joke). His innate gentleness makes him useless in a fight.

Anything Else: Though ill-schooled in religion due to his illiteracy, Owen is very pious in his own odd way.

[Percival W. Legge]

Approved!