Tourgen’s Intro
Island life and eating rubbery half-cooked fish enrage him. The small spine fish bones catch between his sharp teeth and cause his gums to bleed ceaselessly. The snotty innards of salt water muscles mix with his hot breath into an obscene noxious gas that doubles over even the hardiest fishmonger.
Tourgen wants nothing more than to escape the soul crushing confines of his town and make his mark upon the world. Every day spent mending nets and sniffing fish guts feeds the irrational, screeching red-hot banshee behind his eyes. Only the open seas will subdue it.
He plans and plots escape and adventure during every waking hour. He prowls the coastline for a rare treasure bottle or debris to build a small craft – crazy, improbable dreams, but something tangible to grasp. He spends his free time and many nights at the highest point of the island, scanning the horizon for hope and the stars for guidance.
The daily minutiae frustrates and infuriates Tourgen. The small plans and narrow vision of his countrymen inflicts him with uncontrolled frothing and violent jaw muscle spasms. He loves his family, friends, and townsfolk dearly, but he cannot help what he is.
One night he has [what he convinces himself is] a vision from the Goddess of Ravens. He stands in a churning blood-red tidal pool below a gnarled black iron-oak growing impossibly from solid rock and salt water. A great raven with solid black glistening eyes perches upon his snout and gently kaaw’s the inevitable truth into his ear hole. He must take up arms and explore the sea, punishing hubris and the folly of those who seek to subvert the natural order of birth, life, and death. Crush their bones with your talons. Rend their throats with your powerful jaw while breathing fire and death into their hollow skulls. Pillage their treasures and build a mighty fleet. Hoist the colors of the Raven.
Only when the blood of the Raven Goddess’ foes has soaked into every galley deck like the piss of oar-slaves and the skulls of false-prophets and non-believers have been stacked high enough will the Raven God take notice. Only then will her minions peck the eyes of fear and doubt from their sockets so that one might glimpse The True Path.
