Description
Massive hands — the first thing anyone notices. Two fingers missing from the left, lost to a rope-and-capstan accident he won’t discuss. Built for thirty years of heavy work and still built for it. Face weathered to the consistency of old leather, deeply lined around the eyes from squinting into Mediterranean sun and Adriatic gale. Ragusan born but entirely maritime now; the city is just the place the ship leaves from.
He wears a carved wooden figure of St. Elmo on a cord around his neck. He touches it without thinking, the way other men check a watch or turn a coin. He is not aware he does it.
Background
Three decades on this route and variations of it. He has worked these waters long enough to accumulate a knowledge that has no book behind it — a sense of which patches of sea feel wrong, which winds carry a particular quality of silence, which becalmings are weather and which are something else. He calls this superstition. It functions like experience.
He is the crew’s real authority. Vukovic holds the first mate’s rank; Petar holds the crew’s trust. The distinction is invisible in fair weather and decisive in bad. When Petar is steady, the men are steady. When Petar shows fear, they break. He has understood this about himself for a long time.
Personality
Still rather than loud. His few words tend to be worth hearing. He has a contemptuous patience with Drago’s arguments that can, under pressure, become something colder. He does not dismiss fear — he manages it, in himself and others, and has no respect for men who pretend it isn’t there. He respects the sea, which is different from fearing it, and he respects anyone else who does.
Connections
- Nathaniel Holt — First ally among the crew; befriended him on his first night aboard
- Capitano Niccolo Zanier — The captain he serves and, during the becalming, the man he holds together when the wheel loses its authority
- Luka — The boy who follows him; an unacknowledged responsibility
- Drago — Fellow Dalmatian, fellow crewman; a man Petar can contain right up until he can’t
Appearances
Connections
People
Knows
- Capitano Niccolo Zanier NPC warmReliable subordinate and the captain's anchor in the crew hierarchy. Zanier trusts Petar to hold the forecastle when the quarterdeck loses confidence.3 sessions, The Morning After to Give Rest
- Nathaniel Holt Player character warmImmediate mutual respect between two men who understand ships. Strung up a hammock next to Holt's on his first night aboard — an unambiguous gesture of alliance and approval.3 sessions, The Morning After to Give Rest
- Drago NPC hostilePetar holds authority over him; Drago chafes but does not openly defy the bosun except during the becalming, when fear overrides discipline.1 session: Give Rest
- Luka NPC warmFollows the bosun like a shadow on his first long voyage. Petar is the fixed point he orients around when everything else becomes uncertain.1 session: The Becalming
Places
Located at
- La Speranza Location neutralAboard for the Trieste → Alexandria passage2 sessions, The Morning After to Give Rest
Serves
- La Speranza Location warmBosun and real authority of the working crew.2 sessions, The Morning After to Give Rest