Janil Crossa
Janil Crossa: Queen of the contract
Between the years of 805 and 816 Janil Crossa ruled the Ibra Sea. Unusually for a pirate, she did so not with strength but with cunning. She was the master of the deal, of the winning gamble. Contracts drawn up by Captain Crossa put The Nine Hells to shame and she owned more souls than most of its denizens, so the popular tale went.
Even so, hapless seafarers might be happier seeing The White Dragon’s colours than those of a more bloodthirsty vessel; Crossa and her crew rarely murdered without cause, far more likely to tie their most useful victims into service, and drop those they had no use for within swimming distance of a friendly port. Those who were bound to her, willing or not, were held to strict rules. Loyalty was rewarded, but traitors were subject to a series of creatively brutal punishments.
By 816 she had amassed an extensive network of followers, not only in the fleet of ships she controlled but also in port towns right along the coast. Then she disappeared, along with The White Dragon and her entire crew.
Rumours abounded - that a kraken swallowed her ship whole, that she sought the end of the horizon and plummeted off the edge, that she still lives, ruling over a pirate haven in the Far Ocean - but the only certain truth is that she was never seen in Tanera again.
From ‘Thieves, Cutthroats, and Vagabonds: A compendium of 250 of Tanera’s most notorious lawbreakers’ by Gladys Redbrush (pub.824)
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