Murrdock MacKenzie

Doc of the Black Tide

He was born on the rough docks of a forgotten coastal village, the kind where boys learned the hammer before they learned their letters. His father was a smith, his mother a rope‑maker, and Doc grew up with iron burns on his arms and tar under his nails. By twelve he could shape a blade, brace a hull, and judge a timber by the sound it made when struck.

He never meant to become a pirate. But working men with strong backs and no coin often find themselves aboard ships that fly no honest flag. The Black Tide crew took him in after he patched a cracked mast faster than their own shipwright could. They called him Doc because he could “fix damn near anything”, a blade, a hull, a man bleeding out on deck. The name stuck.

Years blurred into storms, raids, and rum. Too much rum. Enough that he forgot ports he’d visited but never forgot the feel of a ship rolling beneath him. He fought like a smith: direct, brutal, and unyielding. He drank like a man who didn’t expect to see old age. And he worked like someone who understood that a ship, like a blade, only stays alive if someone cares for it.

But the sea takes what it wants. A storm shattered the Black Tide, scattering the crew and leaving Doc clinging to wreckage for days. When he finally washed ashore, he was half‑mad from thirst and rum withdrawal, but alive.

He wandered until he found a pirate port where no one asked questions and no one cared about the past only what a man could do with his hands. Doc can do plenty. He can build, mend, break, and fight. He can drink until the tavern runs dry. And he can work a forge or a shipyard like he was born for it.

Now he’s come to settle at this haven of raiders and wanderers. A man who lived too long at sea, trying to stand steady on land again. A fighter, a builder, a drunk, and a survivor.