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Need help finding a reason for someone of to lose an eye

John Penny

New Member
It’s a pirate fantasy and one of my characters loses an eye at the beginning of his legacy. any ideas of how he lost it though?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Infection.

Scratched out by an alien cat monster.

Part of his torture at enemy hands before escaping.

Removed of his own accord in a ritual sacrifice for power.

Lost to a water god as payment for a debt.

Someone was running with scissors.
 

Insolent Lad

Maester
The captain's parrot went for it. A loose rope snapped into his eye. A parasitic worm got into it (maybe while he slept in a pestilent swamp or beach). Or just a good old fashioned fight with some gouging.
 
Torture
Near-death experience
Accident
Thought that he needed to lack an eye to make an authentic pirate
Someone challenged his "courage"
Some weird ritual
Someone was aiming for a bird and hit him in the eye somehow
Took his eye out to impress the crew, if he can do it to himself then what will he do to you type thing.
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
I know someone that lost an eye while walking through a wood at night. A twig/branch caught them just wrong and went straight to the back of the socket. It didn't bleed that much. They did scream a lot.
But I'm with others, make the loss significant, or don't try to explain it at all...
 
"What does this button do?"

Or maybe he was teaching a new crew member why you shouldn't check if a gun is loaded by looking down the barrel.

Or divine intervention. The god of pirates noticed that there was no one on board with an eye patch, which made them not a real pirate crew. So the god intervened and used his usual tool for the job: a kraken surfaced from the bottom of an ocean trench, slapped a sucker from one of his tentacles over the eye and pulled it out. The victim was more or less random (or not?) but he's now revered by the other pirates as blessed by the pirate god. Of course, even this is a curse, since they now make him be the first to charge into battle. And he doesn't feel invulnerable at all...

Sorry, got carried away there. Man, I now want to write a story with an angry pirate god in it. Or rather, I happen to be writing a pirate story and I'm now thinking if I can fit an angry pirate god in there.
 
Once, on an uncharted island thought to be deserted, the pirate encountered a sea hag who convinced him she could make the pirate powerful, feared and "all seeing". He gave the eye up willingly, the price paid to have the hag conjure a bird familiar through whose eyes the pirate can also now see.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
He removed his eye so it could be replaced with magical artifact hidden under his eye patch.

His crew gouged out his eye in a traditional hazing of their new captain.

He had two eyes of different colors and had one removed so people wouldn't think he was possessed.

He traded his eye for rum to a group of cannibals.

He had his eye embalmed and left in a jar on the ship's deck, so that he could tell his crew that he's always watching them.

He needed to have his eye removed and infected with a magical plague in order to create a vaccine for himself.

His eye was always twitching and looked silly, so he staged a glorious eye gouging with an enemy to impress his crew.

He was born without an eye but upon becoming captain decided not to wear his glass one.

His brain was invaded by a monstrous parasitic worm, and the surgeon entered his head through his eye socket to remove it. (this is definitely my favorite)

Edit to add one more:

In grief for losing members of his crew, he smashed something into his eye, which lead to its removal.
 
Last edited:
He didn't lose an eye. He was born/cursed with a magical eye that can see things a normal eye cannot but cannot see as a normal eye does. Problem is, it's very disorienting to use both eyes at the same time, so he has to wear an eyepatch. He keeps his magic eye a secret because it's an "evil eye" and would get him killed by others.

Or, the eye is a magical artifact shoved into his eye socket against his will by his dying mentor, or perhaps a dying nemesis (who wore it as an eye) out of spite. Why an eyepatch? See above. Maybe throw in a bounty as well.
 

LAG

Troubadour
His eye gained sentience and decided to bugger off and sail the high seas.

Seagull got it. Nice and Simple.

He looked at naughty books with one eye shut (Necronomicon)

His eye exists, but in a higher dimension where it is a soprano performing every Friday on the GalactoFeed opera circuit.

He has an eye, but no one can see it, and they convinced him he ain't got it

A wizard changed his eye into his ship.

He once tried to eat a were-lobster.

His mother told him how to use forks wrong.

There was a nice, golden nose-cap that he wanted, so he traded his eye to a wandering optician for a few gold coins

He got lost in the desert, and went looking for food under rocks ... scorpion stung him.
 

Arranah

Troubadour
Where I live people still hunt with bows and arrows. Someone shot one of our local wild turkeys with an arrow. It penetrated his intestines, and they hung out and trailed behind him. The poor thing hid in the bushes. It's an incredibly cruel way to hunt. So this popped into my mind.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
As i recall, there was a group of William Tell folks and at some drunken party they put an apple on a head and the man was shot in the eye. He didn’t win the Darwin Award that year because he lived. No doubt, he had an eyepatch.

Where I live people still hunt with bows and arrows. Someone shot one of our local wild turkeys with an arrow. It penetrated his intestines, and they hung out and trailed behind him. The poor thing hid in the bushes. It's an incredibly cruel way to hunt. So this popped into my mind.
 

Arranah

Troubadour
I'm not as familiar with William as you are. I remember the William Tell Overture and the story of the guy shooting the apple off of his head. In any case it probably was not a pleasant experience.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
It was an archery club or some such... alcohol... apples... bows... what could go wrong?

William Tell was actually a crossbow, but hey.

I'm not as familiar with William as you are. I remember the William Tell Overture and the story of the guy shooting the apple off of his head. In any case it probably was not a pleasant experience.
 

Creggan

Acolyte
Use a reason rooted in real sailing mishaps back in the days of sail.....fish hook stuck in the eye, splinter of wood from a cannonball impact impales the eye, hit hard in the back of the head with a swinging boom or other spar hard enough to detach a retina, advanced case of scurvy, advanced case of gonhorrea....
 
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