The Sea Beggars

The Sea Beggars is an incomplete book series by Paul Kearney. It began with The Mark of Ran (2004) and tells the story of Rol Cortishane. It is based almost entirely around ocean-based adventures. A second volume, This Forsaken Earth (original working title The Stars We Sail By) was published in July 2006. The series was expected to be four books long and the third had nearly been completed when the series was unexpectedly dropped by Bantam in May 2007. After signing a new contract with Solaris, Paul announced this would now be a three book series and that the last book in the series was due to be published as an omnibus in Autumn 2012. However, due to the US publishers never releasing the rights for the final book, this remains unpublished.

The lead character is Rol Cortishane. His mother was Amelie, supposedly a descendant of the Weren race, a pre-human race with superhuman qualities, often referred to as Angels or Demons. The Weren bred with humans when their numbers diminished thousands of years ago and so many humans thenceforth contained Weren blood, sometimes merely making them beautiful and talented individuals, sometimes warping their bodies into monsters called the Fallen or Half-Trolls.

Amelie’s parents, Ardisan and Emilia, were of the former descendants. However it is later revealed that Amelie is actually an ancient, powerful, violent spirit cast into pure Weren form and given a soul.

Rol’s father is actually the last of the original Weren, Cambrius Orr, who fled to undiscovered lands because all his half-human children were Fallen and he wished to protect them from being slain to purify the Weren blood. He set himself up as the Mage-King of Kull and has survived for thousands of years in order to sire Rol. How he met Amelie is not yet known. Both his parents, therefore, have pure Weren blood, so Rol is not at all human, but rather an “Angel” of sorts.

Rol was brought up by his grandfather, Ardisan, on the fishing island of Dennifrey, with two “foster parents”, Morin and Ayd. These too are actually Golems created by Ardisan’s magic to protect Rol as a child. He was taught nothing of his heritage, believing he was a human, but was socially isolated from other children because of his Weren blood, which usually forms a mental barrier between ordinary people and Rol. In one particularly stormy winter, whilst Rol (now 15) is caring for his family’s boat, the Eyrie, he is visited by a strange man, possibly an incarnation of the Secondary god (i.e. a divinity who was not the Supreme God, the Creator) of storms, Ran. This man marks Rol’s hand after a confusing conversation. Then he vanishes.

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Wikipedia