Galeoto di Auria

Galeoto grew up around ships; it was through the wisdom of a merciful God that he has spent the last several years roaming the desert.

Born to a Genoese merchant famility, Galeoto spent his childhood wandering the family warehouses, wharves, and ships, chattering at any, and everyone, who would hold still long enough to listen.  Rebellious in his youth, it soon became clear that Galeto's future would not lie in the counting house, and he took to sea as soon as opportunity permitted.  He travelled the Med, and learned the ways, and vices, of its ports.  All was well enough, until Galeoto was caught trying to smuggle illegal goods out of Alexandria; disowned by his family, branded as a criminal, Galeoto fled to the desert.  No one knows if it was his intent for those sandy wastes to take his life, but merciful God had other plans.

Galeoto was found, collapsed, in the desert by a band of Berber raiders.  Who knows why they did not slay him out of hand?  Was it fate?  The Will of God?  Or only the amusement of a tribal chieftan?  Regardless, Galeoto's all but lifeless corpse was taken back to the Berber encampment, where his first sight was the face of the chieftan's daughter, holding a cup of water to his lips.

The tale is long, but in the end, Galeoto found a new life among the tribes.  He found true faith, and converted to Islam, won the respect of the Berber warriors, and the heart of Illi, the daughter of Hiarbus, the chief.  Galeoto now operates as a merchant and smuggler, travelling on the sandy sea.  Carefree, reckless, and hungry for gold, he risks discovery and execution by coastal princes and lords, but the only thing he truely fears is harm to his beloved Illi, and the people who gave an outcast wanderer a home.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M9omv96j_qj_mo9fds4sa6hS4AsGzA5XGoQ1J8L5O7o/edit?usp=sharing