Schweitzer
Joergen Schweitzer is the youngest son of a Tilthian merchant family that resides in an outsider's ghetto in Dragheria, the large capital city of the Giorand Empire. Giorands are racially different than Tilthians, and view all Westerners as outsiders. In general, outsiders are not allowed to live permanently within the Empire and are not allowed to own real estate, however, exceptions are made if the services the outsiders provide are considered valuable to one of the seven houses in power. If so, depending on the importance of the service they provide, they typically live on the estate of the house in question, or live within a small "ghetto" area within the city where non-Giorand outsiders live and are contained.
The Schweitzers are slave runners for House of the Scorpion. They "procure" slaves with special skills or attributes, including slaves of exotic races and backgrounds, masters of unusual crafts, specialists or experts in a trade, and arena fighters. The family procures the slaves through trade within and without the Giorand Empire, and occasional raids (in cooperation with other families) in lands like Mirvia, the Pirate Isles or the vast wastes of the Emirates. The family has provided this service to the House of the Scorpion for generations and culturally they are nearly more Giorand than Tilthian.
Within the Empire, families like the Schweitzers are considered a necessary (yet unsavory) resource. Outside of the Empire, they are generally considered pirates or brigands. The slave trade is legal within the Giorand Empire, however, and the Empire protects the Schweitzers, and other families like them, from the justice or backlash of other cultures. Since slavery is one of the pillars of Giorand society, the Empire learned long ago that wars with other kingdoms can inadvertently begin when Giorands capture peoples outside of the Empire and forcibly bring them back and place them into slavery. Thus, they accomplish this task by employing the services of families of non-Giorand races.
At an early age Joergen Schweitzer became enthralled by the fighting arenas of Dragheria. Slaves fighting other slaves, animals fighting animals, slaves fighting animals, and the occasional citizen who had something to prove. He assisted at the arena in Dragheria originally as an errand boy and eventually learned some important skills: fighting, animal training, and negotiation.
The Schweitzer family (and other families) organized a enterprise to travel to the South Isles and purchase slaves from the pirates and natives. A pirate raiding party, led by a Bugbear who wields a cutlass and dresses in human fashion, double-crossed the Schweitzers. Some of the family were killed in the raid while many managed to escape. Joergen Schweitzer was captured. Instead of killing Jeorge, they sold him at the slave market on Togoto. He was to become a gladiator in the Fighting Pits of SullyͰs Point, an almost certain death sentence for one so young. However, he became invaluable to the master of the fighting arena, and managed to save his own skin by assisting in the operation of the arena, and managed to survive a year or more. The first good opportunity to escape from this life was when JP and his crew came and started stirring things up in the South Isles. Potenzia, then the bosunͰs mate of JPͰs boat, and a member of the band of adventures who would come to be known as the Crew of the Black Dragon, paid to have Schweitzer release, and he joined the crew.
Schweitzer is currently a Champion of Mahund "The Black Huntsman" deity, and one of his goals is to spread his religion through selective violence and gamesmanship.
