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Captains - Version 13 vs Version 14
Aug 27, 2026, 06:01 AM
Added the six captains confirmed by name in the shipped build, the Captain Selection screen and the save-crew-or-captain rule; replaced the unsupported pillar-captain framing
Sep 21, 2026, 06:46 AM
Removed the leftover claim that captains front the four progression paths, aligned the recruitable-captains paragraph with the confirmed roster, and updated the open questions now that captain traits and free swapping are confirmed
1-Captains are the named officers who command the player's ships in Corsair Cove and front its four progression paths. Each ship that sails out of the haven needs a captain at its helm, and the captain assigned to an expedition shapes how that voyage plays out at sea. This page collects the captains confirmed so far: the named roster recruited across a run, and the characters introduced ahead of launch. Individual captain bonuses have not been published in detail.1+Captains are the named officers who command the player's ships in Corsair Cove. Each ship that sails out of the haven needs a captain at its helm, and the captain assigned to an expedition shapes how that voyage plays out at sea. This page collects the captains confirmed so far: the named roster recruited across a run, and the characters introduced ahead of launch. Individual captain bonuses have not been published in detail.22Paths and Captains44Captains are recruited and selected independently of the four progression paths. Four are available from the start of a run and the rest are unlocked out at sea, and each embodies a different idea of what a pirate can become. Leaning into a pillar is partly a story focus on that captain's arc, and it changes which missions, buildings, and ships open up. Six captains are confirmed by name in the shipped build; see the roster below.66PillarCaptain ThemeWhat the Pillar PushesNotorietyThe feared, infamous pirateVice-driven income and a reputation built on fear, which also draws pirate hunters and the Crown.EmpireThe pirate king or queenAn independent pirate nation with political weight and territorial reach.SeafaringThe master marinerLong-range voyages, better ships, and exploration deep into uncharted water.WealthThe wealthy pirate lordGold, trade routes, and the economic muscle to outspend rivals rather than outfight them.88The pillars are not mutually exclusive. A player can work toward more than one over a single run, and committing to one simply gets that captain's branch first. The full breakdown of each path lives on the Progression Paths page.99Recruitable Captains1111The player recruits named captains over the course of a campaign. The confirmed historical figure available to enlist is Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. He is a hireable captain rather than a pillar of his own, so bringing him aboard expands the roster a player can deploy on naval combat without changing which pillar the haven is built around. The wider roster of recruitable captains has not been fully detailed, so any unnamed figure in the line-up should be treated as a period character until the developer confirms otherwise.12+The player recruits named captains over the course of a campaign, and the roster is not tied to the pillars: bringing a captain aboard expands the line-up a player can deploy in naval combat without changing which pillar the haven is built around. Six captains are confirmed by name in the shipped build (see The Captain Roster below), among them Teach, the game's take on Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Each captain has unique traits and event abilities suited to particular kinds of events, and captains can be switched between ships freely at any time. Any figure in the line-up not yet named here should be treated as a period character until the developer confirms otherwise.1313Legends Before the Storm1515Ahead of launch, the developer and publisher began introducing named characters from the game's world through a series titled Legends Before the Storm, released weekly. The series ran to seven entries and closed three days before launch. Six were character profiles: Honorata Van Horn, styled "the Adventurer"; Scarlet Drake, "the Fearless"; Kanja Shan, "the Gambler"; Edward Teach, "the Brute"; Rambullion, "the Tavernkeep"; and Amara Machado, "the Pirate Hunter." The seventh, "A Storm on the Seven Seas," pulled them together. Read in order they turn out to be one story rather than six: five of the six converge on the same harbour tavern, are arrested there by the sixth, and are shipped out together toward a Crown prison. Of the group, only Edward Teach has a confirmed gameplay role, as the recruitable historical captain described above. For the rest, how each appears inside the playable build has not been stated. Except where noted, the details below are confirmed backstory, not confirmed gameplay roles.1717Honorata Van Horn1919Honorata Van Horn was born into a wealthy merchant family and raised among four brothers. Her mother had quietly become the matriarch of the Van Horn trading company and intended for Honorata to help run the family business. Honorata wanted a different life. Drawn to adventure by the books she read after dark, she sought out sailors and captains, learned to navigate and command a ship, then stole a company vessel and sailed away.2222She was not a pirate by temperament; by her own account she had never thought much of pirates. What pulled her to the sea was an obsession with the mythical creatures that turn up in sea shanties and sailors' tales. That obsession led her to Daredevil's League, described in the reveal as a group of fearless pirates set on mastering the Seven Seas. Her search for the League takes her to a harbor tavern, a run-in with a Crown officer, and a rough awakening in the hold of an unfamiliar ship. The reveal leaves the rest of her story open.2424Daredevil's League2626Daredevil's League is a named group within the game's fiction: a band of fearless pirates out to master the Seven Seas. It is introduced through Honorata's profile as the crew she sets out to find. Its role inside the playable build, and which of its members appear, have not been detailed publicly.2828Scarlet Drake3030Scarlet Drake, styled "the Fearless," is the second character profiled in the Legends Before the Storm series. She grew up a poor orphan in Ireland and stowed away aboard a merchant ship bound for the Americas. Pirates under a captain known as "Old Hob" O'Malley attacked the ship and killed the crew, but Old Hob found the girl hiding in the cargo, brandishing a kitchen knife in defiance, and took her under his wing. Under his tutelage she grew into a sharp-minded, sharp-bladed pirate.3333Unlike most pirates, Scarlet is not driven by rum or coin. She wants fame and notoriety, to be remembered as a pirate legend. That ambition hardened after Old Hob and his crew were claimed by the Reaper, a cursed corsair Scarlet alone survived. To learn how to best death itself she sought out the Brethren of the Coast, legendary pirates said to have fought the Reaper, tracking them to a harbor tavern. There her path crossed that of the Crown's pirate hunter, the same officer who appears in Honorata's profile, and the reveal ends with Scarlet beaten but unbroken. Whether she features in the playable build as a recruitable captain, a story figure, or otherwise has not been confirmed.3535Kanja Shan3737Kanja Shan, styled "the Gambler," is the third character profiled in the Legends Before the Storm series. He was born in Calcutta and built a fortune in the spice trade, rising to its highest ranks on a mix of business sense and a bottomless appetite for more. Rather than compete honestly, he sponsored and armed pirate crews and sent them after rival merchants, a high-risk game he found exhilarating.4040That greed made him powerful enemies. A smuggler league called the Golden Chain wanted him quartered for stealing their saffron, and the emperor himself seized his fortune and scattered his trading fleet. Kanja escaped Calcutta and spent months on the run before going to ground in a busy free port, where cheap tavern liquor was his only comfort. His boasting there drew the same Crown pirate hunter who appears in the other profiles, and he was captured without a fight and hauled off toward the Crown's pirate prison. Kanja is confirmed in the playable build: a post-launch patch fixed his hair visuals during captain selection.4242Edward Teach4444Edward Teach, styled "the Brute" and better known as Blackbeard, is the fourth character profiled in the Legends Before the Storm series and the only one already confirmed as a recruitable captain, the same historical figure introduced above. The reveal casts him as the last of the old guard from the twilight of the Golden Age of Piracy: the pirates around him have fallen to the Crown, to pirate hunters, or to their own crews, and Teach has outlasted them through sheer brutality, vigilance, and force of will. He was not always the monster of the horror stories, a fearsome name he cultivated on purpose. Once he had been a mentor to his men and an ally to his friends, a man who believed in honor among thieves, before years of betrayal, endless battles, and the grind of survival under the Crown wore that man down.4747Teach has since lost faith in the idea of pirates sailing under a single flag and come to believe they need a king to rule them with an iron fist. He has slid into a cynical, self-destructive routine of terrorizing, looting, and drinking, his old discipline giving way to indulgence and recklessness. The profile catches him on a bad day, wrecking a pirate tavern he frequents and daring anyone in the room to fight him. He saves his sharpest insults for a Crown officer who walks in, the same pirate hunter who runs through the other Legends profiles, and her reply is a rifle stock to the head. Teach wakes up imprisoned, hungover and humiliated, then throws in with other captives working out an escape as a scarred tavernkeep produces a hidden gunpowder bomb. Whether that jailbreak, and Teach's climb back to power, plays out in the campaign has not been detailed.4949Rambullion5151Rambullion, styled "the Tavernkeep," is the fifth profile and the character who ties the others together. The name is an alias: he was born Tadhg MacMhuircheartaich, a name he abandoned along with his ambitions when he went into hiding. In his prime he was a pirate of some standing, and when age began to tell he threw in with a group of established captains on a shared project, a haven where crews would live free and equal on a mix of stolen coin and honest work.5454That first haven did not last. The Crown came to claim it, and Rambullion fought its final battle alongside pirates he names as the Averies, the O'Malleys, and Blackbeard, whom he calls an arrogant bastard. The harbour fell and the survivors scattered. The episode matters beyond his own biography: it is the closest thing the pre-launch lore gives to a precedent for the settlement the player builds, and it establishes that a pirate haven has already been tried and lost once in this setting.5656He resurfaced years later behind the counter of an unremarkable tavern, old and grizzled, with a scar across his scalp deep enough that regulars assume a cannonball did it. He tells a different story about it every time he is asked. Nobody recognises him, which suits him: exposure means the gallows. From behind the bar he watches the pirates who pass through, waiting for a crew with enough spark to revive the old dream. When one finally turns up and is arrested on the spot, he makes enough noise to be arrested with them. The profile closes on his own summary of his career: he has a knack for being in the right place at the right time.5858The scarred tavernkeep is visible in every earlier profile before he gets one of his own. He serves Honorata her drinks, watches Scarlet hold court, refills Kanja's cup while Kanja boasts, and reaches for something under the counter as the soldiers arrive. In Teach's profile he is the prisoner who produces a hidden gunpowder bomb once the cell door closes.6060Amara Machado6262Amara Machado, styled "the Pirate Hunter," is the sixth profile and the only one written from the Crown's side. She is the daughter of Admiral Fernando Machado, and her mother was killed in a pirate attack on a ship her father was commanding. The admiral raised her, in the profile's words, as a son: rigorous military training, and a career in the Admiralty laid out ahead of her. She is described at first glance as the Crown's ideal, uniform perfectly fitted and gaze stern. She is the officer who appears in every other Legends profile and the recurring human face of the Crown for a haven that gets loud enough to attract attention.6565Her motive is not her father's. She was too young when her mother died to inherit his hatred of pirates, and his escalating brutality against any resistance in the Seven Seas sits badly with her. She hunts pirates because she believes the Crown's peace requires it, not for revenge. That distinction produced the break in her career: ordered to find and execute a crew who had escaped the Bloody Bastille, she brought them in for questioning and trial instead. Her father would not accept it and gave her an ultimatum, either prove she could do the job or be replaced.6767The crackdown that follows is the event the other five profiles are describing from the other side. After months of hunting she moved on several notorious pirate locations at once, this time under orders to deliver her captures personally to the Bloody Bastille for public execution. The profile's last line makes clear she intends to carry that order out.6969The Bloody Bastille7171The Bloody Bastille is named in both Kanja's and Amara's profiles as the Crown's dedicated prison for pirates in this stretch of the Seven Seas, reached by prison ship and followed, for most arrivals, by the gallows. It is the destination the Legends are being taken to when their profiles end, and the place the crew in Amara's backstory escaped from before she was sent after them. Whether it appears in the playable build as a location, a mission target, or purely as story framing has not been stated.7373A Storm on the Seven Seas7575The seventh and final entry in the series, published July 28, 2026, is the one that states the arrangement outright. Amara Machado, carrying a mandate from the Admiral himself, took a whole fleet out against harbours tipped for pirate activity, killing many and capturing many more to be hanged later. A tip from a local led her to a shabby old pirate tavern, where a raid caught a group of well-known pirates in a single stroke.7777The five who ended up in the hold of the resulting prison galleon are named as an ensemble, each with a one-line motivation:7979CaptainHow the Post Frames ThemTeachThe old, disgruntled legend. Hungover, but hungry for power and dominationScarletThe wildcat full of vinegar, yearning for gloryKanjaThe cunning spice lord, penniless and ready for one last playHonorataThe rising star striving for freedom and mastery of the seaRambullionThe old tavernkeep who never gave up on the dream of a pirate haven unified under one flag, and who carried the explosive key to their freedom8181Amara herself is described as the ambitious captain of the Crown, driven to prove her worth to her father. The post closes on the group as "one big fat powder keg, ready to explode," needing only a spark. Rambullion's smuggled explosive is that spark, and the escape it enables is where the campaign begins. That also settles the group's narrative function: these five are the founding crew of the haven, not a set of unrelated cameos.8282Captains in Play8484At sea, the captain is one of the three inputs that decide a turn of naval combat, alongside the outfitted ship's stats and a dice roll. The cards the player commits each turn come from the captain's hand, so the same card resolves differently under a different captain. Captains also matter outside of straight fights: some sea missions are negotiations or stealth runs rather than battles, and a captain built purely for combat is a poor fit for those. Picking the right captain for the mission is part of planning an expedition.8686Captains sit on top of the crew rather than replacing it. The specialist roles a ship carries, covered on the Crew and Population page, still drive what the vessel can do; the captain shapes how those tools are used. The exact bonuses tied to individual captains, and how the player swaps between them, have not been confirmed in detail.8888Unconfirmed Details9090The bonuses attached to each named captain.Whether Honorata Van Horn, Scarlet Drake, Kanja Shan, Rambullion, or Amara Machado are recruitable captains, and which pillar, if any, they belong to.Daredevil's League, the Brethren of the Coast, the Golden Chain, and the Bloody Bastille as elements of the playable build rather than backstory.The specific bonuses, traits, or special abilities tied to each captain.The five captains in the roster not yet confirmed by name.How captains are recruited, leveled, or swapped between ships.Whether the tavern arrest and the prison break the profiles describe play out as the campaign's opening, and how they connect to the shipwreck the run starts from.How many of the six Legends characters are selectable captains rather than story figures. The series established the five as the founding crew but did not map them onto the four pillars.91+The bonuses, traits, and event abilities attached to each named captain; they exist and were given clearer tooltips in Patch 5, but their values are unpublished.Whether Honorata Van Horn, Scarlet Drake, Rambullion, or Amara Machado are recruitable captains, and which pillar, if any, they belong to. Kanja is confirmed playable.Daredevil's League, the Brethren of the Coast, the Golden Chain, and the Bloody Bastille as elements of the playable build rather than backstory; the Patch 5 notes name embarkations titled Spies of the Brethren of the Coast and Spies of the Daredevil's League, which confirms both groups appear in play without saying in what role.The five captains in the roster not yet confirmed by name.Whether captains level up; recruitment through sea quests and free swapping between ships are confirmed.Whether the tavern arrest and the prison break the profiles describe play out as the campaign's opening, and how they connect to the shipwreck the run starts from.How many of the six Legends characters are selectable captains rather than story figures. The series established the five as the founding crew but did not map them onto the four pillars.9292The Captain Roster9494The release build carries roughly eleven captains. Four are available immediately and the rest are unlocked by completing quests out at sea, so the roster grows with exploration rather than with any single path. Captains are picked on a dedicated Captain Selection screen at the start of a run, and each offers a different set of bonuses.9696Six are confirmed by name in the shipped build, four of them through their own recruitment achievements and two through post-launch patch notes.9898CaptainHow ConfirmedRavenRecruitment achievement; also named in the quests Raven in the Jungle and Raiding with RavenCharlieRecruitment achievement; also named in the quest Charting with CharlieTimothyRecruitment achievementEnriqueRecruitment achievement; also named in the quest A Noose for EnriqueChenNamed in a post-launch fix to recruitment rewardsKanjaNamed in a post-launch fix to captain selection visuals, confirming the Legends character is playable100100Kanja is the one name that bridges the two lists: he was introduced before launch as Kanja Shan, the Gambler, in the character series described below, and a post-launch patch fixing his hair during captain selection confirms he is selectable in the shipped game rather than backstory alone.101101Losing a Captain103103Captains can be taken out of circulation. When a ship goes down the player chooses between saving the crew and saving the captain, and a captain who is not rescued becomes unavailable for a set period rather than being lost permanently. That makes captain assignment a risk decision on top of a fit decision. See Naval Combat for how a battle reaches that point.
