Filthy Phil Wildblood

Filthy Phil is a living example of how a cocktail of wealth opportunity and responsibility can turn into a very bad egg indeed. Born into a life of privilege and high expectations Phil was the only male heir to an established and respected naval family. No expense was spared in his education and preparation for a shining career in the Royal Navy. He was told of the great qualities that were necessary to become an outstanding officer: of duty, honour, hard work, discipline and faith. He was taught to recognise these qualities in others... and he realised that such inconvenient qualities were not present in his own character. A masterful combination of lying, cheating, manipulation, bribery, blackmail, swindling and self interest saw Phil through his early classical education. His readings of philosophy and history had taught him some important lessons that he would carry with him into adulthood: ladies love a villain, money can buy happiness and hard work is for idiots and farm animals. It also turns out that money can also buy tuition from one of the finest fencing tutors in living memory. An irksome chore learning the blade and pistol may have been, but it certainly helps to know where to stick a bullet or something pointy into someone when they are trying to do the same to you.

During naval college Phil had supplemented his substantial allowance through highway robbery and pimping local wenches to newly commissioned officers. This allowed him to fuel his considerable appetite for sloe gin, fast women and cards. Phil managed to leave naval college with an extraordinary knowledge of the local gambling houses, inns, houses of ill repute and all of the quietest places to solve a 'disagreement' without the chance of being arrested for murder. It would seem that while life is cheap a good time can be damned expensive. Years of general misconduct later and Phil found himself dishonorably discharched, disinherited and destitute.

A return to his short career as a highwayman seemed like the ideal solution until Phil remembered that riding a horse is about as comfortable a ride as a granite harlot and that in truth... he missed the sea and the freedom of being able to sail away from any situation that gets a little too unpleasant. Phil had an epiphany. In all those years of training, listening to the speeches of pompous old admirals, seeing wanted posters on tavern walls and the hushed conversations of fellow naval officers he had heard the same word come up time and again: piracy. While the act of piracy was a capital offence and pirates as a general rule were liars, thieves, drunks and gamblers with the moral code of a rotting turnip they did have a reputation for having treasure.

Phil thought long and hard about his qualifications: "I can sail, I can shoot, I can lie, cheat and steal with the worst of them. I like cards, drink and a fight when the odds are stacked in my favour... and do I love treasure. Then its decided... its a pirates life for me"