Editing Gannonbere Smeeks (section)

=== Backstory ===

Gannonbere Smeeks comes from what was a long and increasingly unlucky line of pirates. The Smeeks family's fortunes waned with each generation, until his mother Pontova managed to lose the family's remaining ship and what was left of a loyal crew. With Pontova's forced retirement into time spent in a tavern nursing grog, grudges, and stories about how she would have been a pirate queen had things just gone the right way, Gannonbere's nautical career ended before it started. He fell in with the Dead Rats to make ends meet, and did pretty well for himself up until King Toy turned on him for some unclear and trumped-up reason. He ran for his life all the way to Neverwinter.

In many ways Gannonbere is typical of the Smeeks line: an ethically flexible miscreant who's seen more than the usual share of misfortune. He's atypical in two ways. One, he's one of the Dead Rats who was given "the gift" of a lesser strain of therianthropy. Two, he's a creature of faith. Gannonbere (sometimes "Gann", often "Smeeks") is devoted to a deity that he's seen in visions, a robed woman with an indistinguishable face who resembles the worn-down, faceless ivory idol he carries. He trusts in her blessings -- which ''are'' real, albeit far from a church's formal investiture -- and makes offerings to her in hopes that she'll restore the Smeeks to fortune and prestige. And for all that, he isn't sure ''who'' this goddess is. She hasn't said, clearly. Gann takes it as a test of his faith, that he might serve her will (which seems to involve striking down abusive would-be petty tyrants) without demanding proof of identity. That, or his goddess is Leira, the Lady of Mists, and she's not saying because honest revelations are Not Her Thing. Either way, no point asking questions.