Bones

About

Captain Bones is an Atlantic sturgeon with a larger-than-life presence. He’s an infamous pirate who controls large swaths of the Atlantic Ocean, and his flagship Vain Star is known and feared across the high seas. He’s short, he’s pink, and he’ll cut your throat if you try to push him around.

His resting expression is stern, his tone usually gruff. Bones is armor-plated both inside and out, and he doesn’t like anyone to know what he’s thinking or feeling. He displays fearless arrogance in the face of a challenge, regardless of the odds against him. He hates insubordination and disrespect, and he’s known to publicly humiliate those who don’t do what he tells them. His barbels twitch when he is irritated or interested. If you don’t know him very well, it can be dangerous to guess which is which.

Bones doesn’t place much stock in personal relationships - he values a loyal crew, of course, but his relationship to all of them is purely professional. None of them are close enough to be considered “friends.” Bones prefers efficiency to companionship, and he doesn’t make an effort to be pleasant company unless he thinks gaining someone’s favor will be useful. In general, he’s terrible at team-building exercises - he has a high opinion of himself, is always taking charge, and is notoriously bad at compromising.

Bones is known for wearing dark, tight-fitting leather outfits, which are often covered in belts, studs, and buckles. Most of the belts don’t do anything, but he enjoys the aesthetic. His sandpapery skin chews through fabric more quickly than the average wearer, so he often goes clothes shopping whenever he’s ashore. His scutes are tougher than his clothes anyway, so much so that he often boasts he is bulletproof. He is not.

Bones also wears metal heels at all times, both to augment his height and to give him another weapon. He does enjoy literally kicking people while they’re down, after all. The metal soles are loud on a ship’s wooden decks, so you’ll always hear him coming when he’s on his way to screw you over. His impeccable balance is a side effect of his choice in footwear - he’s so used to his heels, he can scale a mast or ride out a storm just as well as his crew.

His greatest rival on the high seas is Gutt, that bastard squid. Bones can’t help but antagonize him whenever their paths cross, and they often end up embroiled in petty fights that go on for days. Bones likes to taunt Gutt that he’ll make calamari out of him one day, and he plans to make good on his threats if given the chance. Bones thinks about Gutt a lot. It wouldn't be a stretch to say he's obsessed. Why, if Bones had the chance, he’d chain Gutt to the floor, he’d beat him within an inch of his life, he’d break him until he… well. Best not to go into detail.

Unfortunately for Captain Bones, he is thalassophobic. It is his greatest secret, and if he has his way, no one will ever know about it. To be clear, he’s fine on his ship, no matter how rough the seas become, and no river or lake can sway him regardless of depth. Even in shallow or benthic ocean waters, where the seafloor is in sight, Bones is touchy but overall fine. But if he’s afloat in the open ocean with no deck beneath his feet, surrounded on all sides by an endless blue haze, it doesn’t matter that he can breathe saltwater just as easily as air. His skin crawls, his vision blurs, his throat closes up, and he all but falls apart as his mind races to escape the sea’s endless, formless embrace. The sea breeze calms him down, but the sea’s grasp makes him feel horribly, hopelessly mortal.