Powder Monkey

The Powder Monkey is a simian creature native to Bilgewater, the crowded island port town of ships, corsairs, and gunpowder. It is drawn to vessels that carry and burn black powder in quantity, and it makes its home aboard the so-called Monkey Idol Ships as readily as on any boat where the powder runs freely. The creature's kind originates from a place now counted among the Serpent Isles, off Bilgewater's coast, and from there it has come to inhabit boats and ships throughout the port wherever gunpowder is stored and spent. It remains a minor creature of the harbor rather than a beast of legend, one more familiar sight among Bilgewater's working fleets. For all that it is a minor creature, the Powder Monkey has passed into Bilgewater's common speech. In the account of Sarah Fortune's dockside confrontation with the self-styled Captain Thorne, the preening pretender is likened to a powder monkey with a freshly stolen mango as he flaunts his new ship and stolen fortune. The comparison captures the creature's reputation for grasping, gloating opportunism.