Kalad Frima

Kalad Frima, the Windfall Hand

On the docks, they say a crew that finds Kalad Frima free has struck luck, and that’s where her nickname comes from. She takes the helm, the sails, or the galley as needed, throws an axe better than anyone aboard, and her authority is never questioned for long. She refuses any command, because she won’t answer for the lives of a crew. Every coin she’s paid goes into a school of combat and seamanship, open to the lost dwarves of the cities, as the Elder teaches (the dwarven god who takes in outcasts and those who flee). She has never kept enough to buy herself a ship. At every port of call, she looks up her former students and writes down the names of the ships they mention.

Describe Her

She steps onto a deck as if she had always served there, and within minutes the crew is asking her where things go. Her voice carries without her shouting, hoarse, with a short laugh she mostly uses to end a discussion. She smells of tarred hemp and gun oil. She weighs everything you hand her, a mug, a knife, a pommel, as if judging its balance for a throw. When you talk to her, she also watches who is listening behind you.

Play Her

Fill whatever gap opens: if an NPC falls or hesitates, she does the job without being asked. Give short orders and never repeat them. If a player asks why she isn’t a captain, turn the question back on them: do they want to answer for every one of their companions? Have her ask two questions, casually, about each port the players have passed through: the ships at the docks, the flags, who’s loading what. What drives her: she hires out her arm to feed a school, and a stray dwarf the group has met will interest her more than their gold.

What She Says (Rarely)

“Captain? And carry your drowned on my back? No thanks.”
“Pay me well. I’ve got forty mouths to feed, and not one of them is mine.”
“(without taking her eyes off the target) You know where you come from, kid? Come see me ashore.”