Francis Carnegie

Early life
Francis Carnegie was born on 9 June 1640, in the attic of the Captain's Daughter, a pub in Port Haven, Pandora, Acronia; and a Carnegie family hideout. Born two years into the Third Pirate War, Carnegie was born in tumultuous circumstances, as his family's home territory on the Carnegie Islands was on the verge of compromise at the hands of the Imperial Acronian Navy. In view of this, the head of the family, Julian Carnegie, felt it necessary to send Mary, his heavily pregnant wife, to Pandora, in order to seek refuge with the Wressleville Crimsons, a Port Haven-based pirate gang with whom the Carnegies shared positive relations, instructing her to wait there until calmer times. Due to this, Francis Carnegie remains the only leader of the Carnegie family to date to have not been born on the Carnegie Islands – however, he was still eligible for leadership of the family as he still met the criterion of being born on the shores of the Carnegie Sea, due to Port Haven's geographical situation southeast of Cape Hope.

Introduction to the cane flute
Studying under the tutelage of noted Chaeyoungi warrior monk and master of the martial arts Tou Bing (alternatively transliterated Tobin), Carnegie was introduced to the cane flute, a heralded piece of ancient weaponry uniquely used by select members of the Erlin Monastery. Carnegie became fixated with the weapon upon discovering its existence, and incessantly begged the monks to allow him to try to use it for weeks before they reluctantly obliged him. Despite having no prior knowledge of the cane flute, let alone the intricacies of properly using one, Carnegie was almost immediately able to wield the cane flute with impressive aptitude in sparring matches, reportedly defeating a fellow monk with a fully mastered Hidden Trance technique (呆暗技术, Dai'An Technique), incorporating and adapting his knowledge of the Vesperian flute to great effect.

Zentrum skirmish
As word of Carnegie's return quickly spread through Vesperia, the heir to the Carnegie family naturally came to the attention of various pirate factions throughout the continent, including an independent vikingr by the name of Aabiörn Björkman. Upon hearing that the young heir had been sent north into the Mistral Sea by his father, the Zentrum-based pirate planned to capture Carnegie and hold him hostage, in an attempt to force Julian Carnegie to allow the Zerinite access to the Acronian family's transfale smuggling routes. Nevertheless, the younger Carnegie accepted Björkman's request to meet "a day's sail east of Livrnds on Kattegat, into the Zentrum sea", and reprised command of the Waltzing Wench. He successfully passed Kattegat Island and reached the agreed point of contact on 22 February 1660, where he was met by two Zerinite, the ZIMS Svart Stjernne and the ZIMS Hucklsgratr, with Björkman aboard the former.

Once the Waltzing Wench came close enough to Björkman's ships, the men-of-war reportedly began firing upon the Wench without warning, prompting Carnegie to immediately order the ship to turn and sail south. As the Wench was a and therefore much faster than the men-of-war, Carnegie was able to use this to his advantage by creating enough distance between himself and his adversaries for cannon fire from the men-of-war to be avoided, but not advancing far enough so that the Zerinites would lose sight of him and abandon their pursuit - as Carnegie later noted in his diary, he swore upon his ship that he would not leave the Zentrum until both the Svart Stjernne and the Hucklsgratr were destroyed. With his strategy of sustained calculated distancing buying him time to devise a plan, Carnegie abruptly stopped off the eastern coast of the North Chazicarian Peninsula, amidst a cluster of and  in fairly shallow waters. An unusually warm winter's day in the southern Zentrum generated heavy fog through, rapidly plummeting visibility. Taking note of this, Carnegie quickly took into account the layout of the surrounding skerries and committed it to memory before Björkman reached the area. Carnegie then made his way to the end of the quarterdeck, facing the tailing Zerinites, and adopted his infamous signature battle pose - the "Big F", consisting of raising one leg and placing the raised foot flat on the other leg while playing the cane flute - for the first time. Applying his knowledge of foghorns from his days in Port Haven, Carnegie knew that higher frequency sounds were prone to being blocked by fog, and as such, began repeatedly playing the same piece on the cane flute in differing octaves in order to disorient Björkman and his ships. To further compound this effect, Carnegie deployed the of the Waltzing Wench into the water once visibility allowed him to do so undetected, bringing a few crew members with him and ordering them to row him to the nearest skerry, all while still playing the cane flute. The crew members aboard the Wench were then ordered to commence and maintain a rapid, wide circular loop around the skerry starboard, trapping the Svart Stjernne and the Hucklsgratr between the Wench and the skerry.

With no visibility to spot Carnegie or the Wench, and no maneuverability due to the risk of running into one of the skerries, Björkman reportedly ordered his men to begin firing at random, with the puzzlingly distorted and seemingly ever-fluctuating sound of Carnegie's cane flute ensuring that the cannons from the men-of-war missed him. Meanwhile, the Wench, still undetected, began firing its 30 guns at the Svart Stjernne and the Hucklsgratr while still maintaining a fast circular trajectory around the Zerinite ships, causing mass panic amongst Björkman's men, who were still under the impression that the Wench was fairly stationary somewhere in front of them. With attack and retreat both impossible, Björkman's men were decimated, and within minutes, the Svart Stjernne had caught fire and been abandoned by its crew, while the entirety of the Hucklsgratr's upper deck had been blown off. Once Carnegie could no longer hear or see the Zerinite ships firing its cannons, he signaled for the Waltzing Wench to retrieve him, and he promptly sailed back to Acronia.