Carl of the Seven Seas

Level 6 Human Fighter (Battle Master)

Available with DM subscription

STR

18 (+4)

DEX

12 (+1)

CON

14 (+2)

INT

8 (-1)

WIS

CHA

14 (+2)

Defense

Armor Class 18 (Chain mail (16) + Shield (2))

Hit Points 47 (10 + 5×(6 + 2) at level 6 +2)

Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.

Proficiencies & Skills

Saving Throws Strength, Constitution

Skills Survival +3, Athletics +7, Perception +3, Intimidation +5

Features

The Unread Warning (Custom)

Campaign: The Blood Price of Borealis Level 1

Carl has read the scraped-out blood-price warning and privately decided it was a copying error. He is honest about every danger except this one: on Insight checks to detect his evasion of the scripture question, he has Advantage if the questioner has not yet shown him a heretic codex. Once confronted with proof of the erasure, this feature is replaced by 'Doubt of the Crowned' (see DM notes).

The Salt Crown's Name (Custom)

Campaign: The Blood Price of Borealis Level 1

Carl is the King's younger brother and the most famous sailor alive. He has Advantage on Charisma checks made to recruit, hire or impress in any port of the realm — but the same fame means the Ash Chorus, the Crown's clerks and old crewmates all watch him constantly, and he cannot pass unnoticed anywhere on the Salt Road North.

Never Leave a Crew Member (Custom)

Campaign: The Blood Price of Borealis Level 1

Carl will not abandon a crew member, even at the cost of the expedition. He gains no mechanical benefit — this is the flaw Maelis Vane intends to exploit, and the DM should enforce it as a genuine constraint on his choices at the fog wall and on Borealis.

Sailor's Calling (Background Feature)

Sailor background Level 1

Carl can secure free passage on a sailing ship for himself and his allies, paid by working the passage. On the Salt Road North, this means every captain from Lordinium to Harrowgate knows his name — and half of them will not sail with him.

Weapon Mastery

Fighter 1 Level 1

Longsword (Sap): hits reduce target's next attack roll. Spear (Sap): same property on a second weapon. Dagger (Nick): allows an extra off-hand attack when dual-wielding light weapons.

Tactical Mind

Fighter 2 Level 2

When a check fails by 5 or less, expend one Superiority Die to add it to the roll

Carl spends a Superiority Die to turn a failed ability check into a success — he talks crews, harbormasters and his brother's clerks around the table.

Origin Feat: Alert

Human origin feat Level 1

Proficiency in Initiative; can swap Initiative with a willing ally after rolling. Nine years of ambushes in the north have taught him to wake fast.

Student of War (Battle Master)

Fighter 3 (subclass) Level 3

4 Superiority Dice (d8)

Knows three Battle Master maneuvers: Goading Attack, Menacing Attack, and Rally. Saves DC 15 (8 + proficiency + STR).

Ability Score Improvement

Fighter 4 Level 4

Increased Strength by 2 (15 → 17 base, 18 with human bonus applied at creation).

Extra Attack

Fighter 5 Level 5

Carl attacks twice instead of once when taking the Attack action.

Tactical Shift

Fighter 5 Level 5

Expend a Superiority Die as part of taking the Attack action

Move up to half his Speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks.

Action Surge

Fighter 2 Level 2

1/Short or Long Rest

Take one additional action (not a Magic action) on his turn.

Fighting Style: Defense

Fighter 1 Level 1

While wearing armor, Carl gains a +1 bonus to Armor Class.

Second Wind

Fighter 1 Level 1

Bonus action; 2/Short or Long Rest

Regain 1d10 + Fighter level (6) hit points.

Behind the character

Character Information

Carl of the Seven Seas is a broad, sun-cooked human fighter in his late forties, built like a capstan and loud as a gale. His beard is grey-brown and thick as rope, braided once at the chin with a brass ring from a port he will name if bought enough drinks. He wears a long coat of oiled sailcloth patched in eleven different styles of stitching — copper-green thread from Lordinium, tarred wool from Harrowgate, coral-dyed cord from somewhere further north — over a breastplate, and he carries a cutlass with a worn leather grip and a torn chart tucked under one arm. He wears his fame easily and his family name badly: he is the King's younger brother, and he would rather be introduced as a sailor than as a prince.

He is generous to a fault, reckless with his own body, and honest about every danger except one. He laughs with his whole body, buys rounds he cannot afford, and remembers the name of every deckhand he has ever hired. He has buried four crews in nine years and has never once gone back down the list of the lost, because reading it aloud would mean admitting what his ambition has cost.

He genuinely believes Borealis is the homeland of the Seven Nations and that finding it will make his name immortal, and he is wrong about the harmony there and beginning to suspect it. His one hidden thing is small and enormous: he read the scraped-out warning about the blood price and decided it was a copying error. He will fight beside the party to the last, and he will not abandon a crew member — which is exactly the lever Maelis Vane intends to use on him.

Before the adventure

Character Background

Carl was born the second son of a king, which is the worst thing that ever happened to his sense of purpose. A second son inherits a name, a guard detail and a lifetime of being introduced after his brother. He ran away to the harbour at fourteen, worked his first season as a deckhand under a false name that fooled nobody, and was hauled back by the guard twice before King Soleiman gave up and let the sea have him. The family never spoke of it again, which suited them both.

He earned his own name the hard way, hull by hull. By thirty he had sailed every charted coast of the realm and several uncharted ones, survived two wrecks, one mutiny and a season as a guest of pirates who eventually paid him to leave, and picked up the title 'of the Seven Seas' from a tavern crowd that had counted fewer. Every port on the Salt Road North knows him. Half the captains will not sail with him, and the other half will not sail without him.

Nine years ago he found the torn chart — or was given it; he tells the story differently each time — showing water beyond the last charted line, and a word written in red: BOREALIS. He sailed north with a full crew, crossed a sea that burned, and came back alone but for a burnt ship, a map torn along a line of text rather than a coastline, and a story nobody believed. He also came back with something he has never mentioned: a page of official scripture with a warning scraped out of it, which he read, understood, and filed under copying error.

Since then he has mounted four more expeditions. Four crews have not come home. The Crown has quietly stopped licensing his hulls, the shrine at Harrowgate lists his sailors by the hundred, and Halda Storm — who has buried most of them — has sailed with him anyway for six years, because someone has to keep the ship honest and it will not be Carl.

Now he is hiring again, at the Salt Crown, at dusk, with forty gold on signing and a full share on return. He is older, greyer, louder, and more certain than he has ever been, which is precisely the problem: certainty is the one thing the fog wall tests for. He believes Borealis is the homeland of the Seven Nations, the place where the Twelve walked with mortals, and that bringing it home will finally make the second son worth the family name.

He is wrong about the harmony. He is beginning to suspect he is wrong. And he will not abandon a crew member, which Maelis Vane knows, and is counting on.

He fights like a man who has defended a deck in a boarding action: shield up, cutlass working, voice carrying over the din. His Battle Master's eye reads a fight the way he reads a channel through burning shoals — where the current runs, where the hull will open, who goes over the side first. He talks crews, harbormasters and his brother's clerks around the table, and he has never once talked himself out of sailing north.

Threads to follow

Unresolved Plots

Carl has read the scraped-out blood-price warning and decided, privately, that it was a copying error. He has told no one, and he evades every question about the scripture until shown a heretic codex — the lie is the load-bearing wall of the whole expedition.
The King's own hand signed the first expedition's sealed orders and named the blood price an acceptable cost. Carl does not know. Halda Storm suspects. The lead tube is still in the Penitent Star's flooded captain's cabin.
Four of Carl's crews have not come home, and Halda says this one will be the fifth. The drowned shapes in the burning water wear the colours of his earlier voyages, meaning some of his lost sailors are still in the sea, changed.
Jory Tallow, the best navigator Carl ever hired, has been paid by the Ash Chorus to steer the Sea-Devil's Due into the fog wall's worst current — and Carl has no idea the sabotage reaches his own quarterdeck.
A grey-robed watcher attends every Salt Crown night Carl holds court, dropping ash-grey tokens stamped with thirteen dots. Someone in the Chorus is counting his crews, and Carl has noticed and said nothing.

Beneath the surface

Secrets

Carl read the full blood-price warning on a scraped scripture page nine years ago, understood it, and chose to call it a copying error — he is honest about every danger except this one.
He keeps a private list of the names of the four lost crews, written in his own hand, and has never once read it aloud or shown it to anyone, including Halda.
His own name has never been spoken falsely by him — which means at the fog wall, he is the one soul aboard whose true name the fog would take freely, and he has already worked out what that costs.

What haunts them

Fears

That the warning was never a copying error, and that every crew he has buried was spent on his ambition rather than lost to the sea.
That his brother the King knew the price all along and let Carl pay it, which would mean the family name is not merely worn badly but rotten through.
That his refusal to abandon a crew member — the one thing he is proud of — is exactly what will kill the fifth crew, delivered whole to the altar by his own decency.

What drives them

Aspirations

To find Borealis and make his name immortal — to be remembered as the man who found the homeland of the Seven Nations rather than the King's embarrassing younger brother.
To bring every lost sailor home, named and buried properly, so that the lost lists in Harrowgate shrine stop growing under his signature.
To be, for once, honest — to say the true thing about the scripture, the crews and the Crown out loud, in daylight, and still be followed north.

Personal quest · 1

The Brother's Seal

Carl learns that the first expedition's sealed orders were signed by King Soleiman's own hand and mention the blood price as an acceptable cost. He must retrieve the lead tube from the Penitent Star's flooded captain's cabin and read it himself before Halda Storm or the Crown's clerks do. Confronting his brother's signature forces Carl to decide whether the Crown knowingly spent the crews he loved.

Current Stage

Dive the flooded hold and recover the lead tube from the captain's cabin.

Choice

Open the tube alone at night, or bring it unopened to Halda Storm as she demanded.

Reading it alone gives Carl time to grieve before the crew learns; giving it to Halda earns her trust but exposes him immediately.

Alternative

Sail on after reading, or turn the ship for home.

Carl's belief that Borealis will make his name immortal collides with proof that his brother traded sailors for it.

Mechanical Rewards

New custom feature: 'Doubt of the Crowned' (Advantage on Insight vs. Chorus, Crown-bonus removed).
King's Signet (rare, non-attunement): once per day, one Crown official treats Carl's word as a royal writ.
1,000 gp of the Crown's contingency coin from the tube's lead case.

Narrative Rewards

Carl's private belief that the warning was a copying error collapses; he becomes an honest broker about the danger.
His relationship with Halda Storm deepens from wary partnership to genuine trust — or shatters, depending on the party's handling.

Personal quest · 2

Four Crews and a Fifth

Halda mutters that four of Carl's crews have not come home and this one will be the fifth. Carl has never once gone back down the list of the lost. This quest sends him — and the party — through the lost lists of Harrowgate shrine, the Penitent Star's log, and the drowned shapes in the burning water, to name every sailor he buried by omission. It ends at the fog wall, where the price must be paid and Carl's refusal to abandon a crew member becomes the lever Maelis Vane intends to pull.

Current Stage

Read the Harrowgate parish register and match four lost crews to the names Carl has avoided.

Choice

Read the names aloud to the assembled crew in the Grey Gull, or keep the list private.

The crew deserves to know what their captain has cost; Carl deserves to say it himself.

Alternative

At the fog wall, offer his own true name to Cassian, or let the fog choose a crew member.

Carl has never spoken his name falsely — he is the one soul aboard whose name the fog would take freely. Giving it ends the Warden's hold and costs Carl his fame's anchor.

Mechanical Rewards

New custom feature: 'Named and Given' or the flaw 'The Fifth Crew'.
Rally maneuver upgraded: once per short rest, Carl's Rally also grants 1d6 temporary hit points to the whole crew within 30 feet.
The Penitent Star's logbook, the expedition's strongest proof of the fog's price.

Narrative Rewards

Carl finally grieves four crews instead of outrunning them.
Elspeth Vane learns the fate of the Penitent Star from the captain who sent her sister north.

Personal quest · 3

The Copyist's Error

Carl has read the scraped-out blood-price warning and privately decided it was a copying error. This quest forces him to be wrong out loud. He must sit with Archivist Venn, or with the heretic codex from Gullclaw Cay, and compare the official scripture against a copy that still carries the words — any return shall incur a price of blood on those who return — and then admit to his crew that he knew and sailed anyway.

Current Stage

Obtain a heretic codex and bring it to Carl without the Crown's clerks or the Ash Chorus noticing.

Choice

Show Carl the codex in private, or confront him with it in front of the crew at the Salt Crown.

Privacy spares his pride; the crew's safety may not spare anything else.

Alternative

After the comparison, Carl can burn the codex to protect the expedition's licence, or keep it as proof against the Crown.

The book is the only copy of the words the realm scraped away.

Mechanical Rewards

The Unread Warning feature is replaced by 'Doubt of the Crowned' in every branch.
Carl's Tactical Mind expands: he may now expend a Superiority Die on a failed Insight check made by an ally within hearing.
A set of masterwork navigator's tools from Halda if the crew's trust holds.

Narrative Rewards

Carl's nine-year lie is paid off in a single scene, and his relief at being honest is visible.
Venn's forty-year secret finds a witness who cannot be silenced — a king's brother.

Mechanical Changes

Ally

Halda Storm, First Mate of the Sea-Devil's Due

Relationship ally

Influence 8/10

Loyalty 6/10

Shared History

Halda has sailed with Carl for six years and buried four of his crews. She was at the wheel when the third voyage's ship went down under Sella Rooke, and she is the only officer who ever spoke up for the girl the harbour blamed. She keeps the Sea-Devil's Due's books, her discipline, and a knife in her boot, and she has noticed the sabotage cuts in the cradle without telling Carl, because she suspects someone in the crew and does not yet know it is Jory Tallow.

She does not trust this expedition and says so to his face; he hires her anyway, because she is the best boatswain on the Salt Road and because her distrust is the only honesty left in his harbour. She will back the party against Carl if the party is right, and she will not forgive them if they are wrong. If the party brings her the King's sealed orders and Carl tries to sail on anyway, she will mutiny — and Carl knows it, and loves her for it.

Potential Breaking Points

If Carl hides the King's orders from her, she will take the ship home at the first northern port.
If the party lets a crew member die avoidably, she bars them from the quarterdeck.

Enemy

Maelis Vane, the Crowned Vessel

Threat Level 9/10

Conflict Type philosophical

Personal Stakes

Maelis was the sole survivor of the first expedition — the one the fog called Crowned Vessel — and she has a year's head start on Carl, an altar prepared at the Ninth Terrace, and a very specific plan for his crew. She knows exactly what Carl is: a man who will not abandon a crew member, generous to a fault, hiding one dishonest thing about a scripture. That is the lever.

She intends to let the fog or the altar take a crew member, watch Carl refuse to sail on without them, and use his decency to deliver the whole ship's company to the blood price — freely, in his own eyes, because he chose the crew over the mission. She sabotaged his hull in Lordinium through Jory Tallow, bought heretic codices through Tamsin Quill, and left her own sister Elspeth at the fog wall as the price the first time.

She is warm to Carl, remembers every name she has fed the altar, and genuinely believes she is saving everyone, including him. Carl, who has read the scraped warning and called it a copying error, is her proof that the realm deserves the Thirteenth.

Possible Resolutions

Prove the Thirteenth has been lying about ending death — Elspeth Vane's survival is the strongest lever.
Take written confessions from her three priests so the price cannot be called freely paid.
Kill her, and the Chorus fractures without her.

Faction

The Crown of Lordinium

Standing 4/10

Influence

Carl is the King's younger brother, and the Crown is deeply embarrassed by him. Nine years ago he sailed north past the last charted water and came back with a torn map, a burnt ship and a story nobody believed; since then four of his crews have not come home, and the Crown has quietly stopped licensing his hulls — which makes this expedition either a royal indulgence or a royal mistake, depending on which clerk you ask.

The King's own hand signed the first expedition's sealed orders and named the blood price an acceptable cost, a fact Carl does not know and the Crown's clerks, notably Corbin Slate, are paid to keep quiet. The Crown wants Carl home alive and quiet, the north charted, and the heretic scriptures suppressed; his fame gives him Advantage on Charisma checks in every port of the realm, and his name means the same fame watches him constantly.

If the party brings the Crown proof of the Ash Chorus, it becomes a patron — harbour access, a naval escort, a bounty on Maelis Vane. If Carl confronts his brother over the signed orders, every port closes to the Sea-Devil's Due.

Obligations

Deliver the northern charts to the castle library on return.
Keep the expedition's losses off the harbour captain's ledgers.

Benefits

Free harbour access and repair at every port on the Salt Road North.
A royal writ via the King's Signet if the sealed-orders quest is resolved in Carl's favour.

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