To many on the ships and ports of the Shackles, tengus are seen as nothing but mascots or good luck charms, not crew or comrades. For Madiya, though, this could hardly be less true. For years, her family brought their traditional Bonuwat sailing skills to an infamous pirate ship captained and crewed by mostly tengus: the Black Feather. Even before the little girl could walk, she began to tinker with the weapons in the ship's workshop. Deadly ballistae, giant bombards, and fine rapiers were her childhood toys, and Tokko, the ship's resident priest of Hei Feng, her babysitter.
As she grew, Madiya formally joined her parents the workshop, fixing up and testing the ship's many ballistae after every combat. At the same time, Tokko, seeing a spark of talent in the girl unmatched by even the most skilled tengus on board, began instructing Madiya in both the tengu martial arts and divine magic, and how to weave the two into a special fighting style.
Unfortunately, her time on the seas was cut short with disaster before she even came of age. After a skirmish with a force of Chelish frigates scouting the outskirts of the Shackles, the Black Feather was heavily damaged and drifted, uncontrollable, towards the edge of the Eye of Abendego. The crew hastily abandoned ship, but besides Tokko and a few other children who she ended up with in one of the ship's rowboats, she has never seen any of them - including her family - ever again.
After drifting on the edge of the Eye for days, the rowboat eventually landed near Drenchport, where the survivors made their home for the next few years under the watchful eyes of the aging Tokko. Eventually, though, Tokko's time came, and the remaining survivors split up and went their separate ways. Madiya returned to Port Peril, former home of the Black Feather, with little but Tokko's rapier, her faith in Hei Feng, and a dream of one day serving on a well-known pirate ship much as her family had done.
