Editing The Sigil-Ridden Navigator

{{Spoiler}}
{{Character
|image1 = sigilriddennavigatorgaz.png
|caption1 = Has that tattoo grown since last you looked? Art from Sunless Sea.
|location = [[Fallen London]]
|allegiance = 
|alias = 
}}<blockquote>''"When you ask about his past, he winces. '[...]This -' he taps the livid sigil on his temple, which twitches like a scorpion's sting '-has burned away my memories.'"''<ref name=":0">{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Sigil-Ridden_Navigator|Invite him to dine with you| Sunless Sea}}</ref></blockquote>

The '''Sigil-Ridden Navigator''' is a nervous and timid zeeman, whose right temple is marked with a sigil of the [[The Correspondence|Correspondence]].

==A Wretched Past==
<blockquote>

"''I regret it all. I will do anything. Please.''"<ref name=":1">{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|2=Read the third page|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}</ref></blockquote>Sometime before 1887, the Navigator and his brother, Richard, were both engaged aboard the ''Bonny Swan.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|2=Read the first page|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}''"In May, my brother Richard and I took service on the Bonny Swan - he as bosun, I as navigator. The captain, Swinburne, was a good man, but ambitious."''</ref>'' The ship passed beyond [[Kingeater's Castle]], hoping to find another port<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|Read the first page|Sunless Sea}} ''"When we reached Kingeater's Castle our supplies were low, but we pressed on in the hope of finding land. There was none."''</ref> - but the Navigator made a critical error, and the crew found themselves with no supplies and no sign of land.<ref name=":3">{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|2=Read the second page|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}''"I mistook my readings and set a bad course. [...] Our supplies ran out, and still no sign of port. [...] Ravening, desperate, raving, we agreed to draw lots, with the loser giving up life and flesh so the others could go on."''</ref>

The crew were forced to turn to cannibalism in order to survive, drawing lots to determine who would meet this fate.<ref name=":3" /> The first to be eaten were the ship's captain, Swinburne,''<ref name=":2" />'' and the Navigator's own brother.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|Read the third page|Sunless Sea}} ''"The first of us to draw the short straw was the captain. The second was my brother."''</ref> By the time the ''Bonny Swan'' returned to port, seven of her crew had been eaten.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|Read the third page|Sunless Sea}} ''" Seven times we drew. Seven of our number went into the pot, and not a one of them quietly."''</ref> Although the survivors vowed silence, one of them confessed, and the Navigator returned to zee in order to avoid execution for his crimes.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|Read the third page|Sunless Sea}} ''"Those of us who made it back to port swore never to speak of our crime, but one of us - someone whith a keener conscience than mine - confessed. I fled the noose to zee again."''</ref>

==Almost Never Remembered==
<blockquote>"''If I cannot be forgiven, then I will forget. The Chapel of Lights will help me, for a price.''"<ref name=":4">{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|2=Read the fourth page|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}</ref></blockquote>[[File:Scrawl1.png|thumb|''Almost Never Remembered'', the sigil on the Navigator's temple.]]Overwhelmed with guilt, the Navigator zailed to the freezing [[The Avid Horizon|Avid Horizon]], and recorded his name and deeds at its dock<ref>{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Avid_Horizon|2=Lead the Sigil-Ridden Navigator to a certain dock-pillar|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}''"Your Navigator hunts through the slips of paper. [...] He stops, stares at one, pulls it free. 'This is mine,' he says. 'I wrote this.' It is a confession."''</ref> for a chance at clemency from the [[The Admiralty|Admiralty]]. He was not selected for a pardon; in his desperation to simply forget what had happened, he turned to the [[The Chapel of Lights|Chapel of Lights]],<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Navigator%27s_Confession|Read the fourth page|Sunless Sea}} ''"You did not answer. If I cannot be forgiven, then I will forget. The Chapel of Lights will help me, for a price."''</ref> paying them to inscribe a sigil of the [[Correspondence]] on his forehead. The sigil, which means '''"Almost Never Remembered''',"<ref>{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Frostfound|2=Show the squatters your Navigator's sigil|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}''"A vertical sheet of ice rises before you, reflective as a conjurer's glass. Engraved upon it, twenty feet high, is the Navigator's sigil. [...] 'It means'' Almost Never Remembered''.' "''</ref> has erased the Navigator's memories of the incident as well as much of his past.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Sigil-Ridden_Navigator|Invite him to dine with you|Sunless Sea}} ''"When you ask about his past, he winces.  "I can't say. This -" he taps the livid sigil on his temple [...] "- has burned away my memories. I recall I have a brother but not his name or where he is. I remember the names of the ships I've served on - the ''Implicit,'' the ''Bonny Swan'' - but not their crew.""''</ref> He now mistakenly believes that someone has cursed him with the sigil, but cannot say who.<ref>{{Citation|1=https://sunlesssea.miraheze.org/wiki/Sigil-Ridden_Navigator|2=Invite him to dine with you|3= Sunless Sea|4=}}''"How did he come by the sigil? He clutches his head. 'I don't know, I don't know. Thinking about it is like fire in my skull.' He grits his teeth. 'Someone must have hated me very much to curse me with it. But I can't even remember my enemy.' "''</ref>

== Historical Inspirations ==
The legal case ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens R v Dudley and Stephens]'' (R being Queen Victoria) took place after the starving crew of the yacht ''Mignonette'' killed and ate their cabin boy, and established in British legal precedent that necessity was not a valid defense against a charge of murder. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition John Franklin's voyage] to the Northwest Passage, in the Canadian Arctic, infamously also resulted in what is known as "survival cannibalism."

==References==
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Human]]
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