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There are a lot of families in and out of the Lower Boroughs. People disappear. People whose childhoods are spent in and out of poverty, sometimes striking it rich on a quick run at the card tables, other times scraping for bread from people who'll give it to them. For as long as Magpie could remember, he was an extra mouth to feed around the Boroughs, at a time when nobody had time for a lot of extra mouths. His father wasn't around, and his mother was busy being a tough with axe and shield for the Grayhopes ... so he had to make his own way. He found his calling in the docks, doing quick runs -- he was always a fast runner -- for the drugrunners and the smugglers and the fencers and the thieves. He eventually ended up taking to the seas with a strange yearning. He became a man for transporting hot cargo in and out of the city, over time -- more or less apprenticing with other pirates and smugglers until he found his own way. With the weight of the Grayhopes behind him, he could take greater risks and make better profits. He showed some independence of spirit.

Magpie is fit, strong and built like a swimmer or a sailor, with broad arms and narrow hips. His eyes are deep set beneath a concerned brow, deep blue and piercing -- or twinkling, depending. There's a classic, rugged masculinity about his features, from the strong chin and fierce jaw to the bold stroke of his nose. His hair is a dark tousle of waves, deep, rich brown with a few threads of auburn caught in highlights. He has one of those faces prone to five o'clock shadow regardless of the hour of the day or how recently he claims to have shaved.

Rakish and debonair, Magpie enjoys the smuggler's life. He enjoys the finer things: money, silk, liquor, women, maybe even men if the mood takes him. He enjoys not being bound by rules, except the rules that say things like 'don't steal more than you can get away with' and 'don't take so much you draw the Iron Guard down on your neck'. He enjoys a simple life wth as little complexity as possible, but complexity always seems to be lurking around the corner for him. He hides behind a defensive wall of humor and sarcasm, and generally speaking, hopes that disaster won't find him, or that if it does find him, it will be escapable. More an emotional coward than a physical coward, he won't avoid simple scraps, but prefers to avoid emotional entanglements and commitments. And conflicts of loyalty. Good gods does he hate conflicts of loyalty.