The Darkwake Corsairs
The Darkwake Corsairs
Underdark Reavers of the Black Currents
In the lightless seas beneath the world, where stone replaces sky and currents run like knives, there sails a corsair crew spoken of only in whispers: the Darkwake Corsairs. They are not heroes, nor are they mindless butchers. They are survivors—outcasts, criminals, and wreckage given purpose by a ship that should not exist and a captain who refuses to die.
Their vessel, the Darkwake, cuts through subterranean waters and void-chasms alike, its hull stitched from salvaged wrecks, duergar iron, and spider-silk rigging. Lanterns burn low and hooded, not to guide—but to warn.
Captain Verda “Black-Eyes” Rivers
Human | Captain
Verda earned her name the hard way. Betrayed by surface pirates, sold to slavers, then left for dead by those same slavers when the Underdark swallowed their convoy. She survived with a blade in her gut and a ledger of grudges in her mind.
Verda commands through cold arithmetic, not speeches. Every decision weighs lives against profit and survival. She does not promise loyalty—but she rewards it brutally. Under her rule, mutiny is rare and brief.
Those who sail under her know one truth: Cross Verda Rivers once, and she will cross you back twice as deep.
Crowel “Double-Crossed” Smithy
Drow | Boatswain
Smithy followed Verda into the dark and never left. A former surface drow privateer, he maintains order through routine violence and ritual discipline. Lines are tight, watches are strict, and punishment is swift.
He keeps a tally of every offense carved into bone tokens worn beneath his coat. No one knows how many tokens he carries. No one asks.
Wardley “Mumbling” Lancaster
Human | Navigator
Lancaster speaks rarely and never clearly. He mutters to maps no one else can read and listens to stone like it whispers back. His charts are etched on treated fungus-skin and marked with symbols only he understands.
Whether mad or blessed, Lancaster has guided the Darkwake through collapsing tunnels, inverted seas, and living caverns without losing the ship. The crew doesn’t trust him—but they trust his hands on the helm more than anyone else’s.
Newcomb “Butcher” Read
Orc | Ship’s Doctor
Read was a battlefield surgeon long before he became a pirate. He does not numb pain. He does not soothe. He fixes problems, and if the patient survives, that is success enough.
Limbs lost in battle often return replaced by iron, bone, or stranger things. Infection is rare. Screaming is common. The crew fears him—but they line up at his door all the same.
Vane “One-Eye” Black
Half-Orc | Carpenter
Black lost his eye sealing a hull breach with his own body during a chasm collapse. He kept the ship afloat long enough to patch it from the inside.
He treats the Darkwake as a living creature, talking to its beams, repairing it with reverence and rage. Damage done to the ship is taken personally. Anyone sabotaging the hull rarely survives long enough to explain why.
Seton “Splinter” Storm
Drow | Rigger
Storm moves through rigging like a shadow given purpose. He climbs without sound, works without light, and has been known to cut a line mid-battle that drops an enemy mast—or an enemy crewman—into oblivion.
He rarely speaks. When he does, it’s usually to warn someone they are standing in the wrong place.
Ransford “Daffy” Lucifer
Derro | Powder Monkey
No one remembers when Lucifer joined the crew. He laughs at explosions, talks to kegs of black powder, and treats artillery like pets. His mental state is questionable. His results are not.
Cannons under Lucifer’s care fire true, loud, and often at the worst possible moment—for the enemy.
Kenneth “Scar-Face” Damien
Orc | Rigger
Scar-Face came from the sea above and the darkness below. His face bears the mark of a snapped cable that should have killed him. Instead, it taught him what ropes truly are: weapons, lifelines, and executioners.
Kenneth reads tension like scripture. He knows exactly which line to cut to cripple a ship—or a man. In battle, he climbs into chaos and decides what falls and what holds.
He does not speak of his past. The rigging sings to him, and he listens.
Reputation of the Darkwake
The Darkwake Corsairs do not raid indiscriminately. They strike trade convoys, slaver fleets, and rival corsairs who stray too far into their waters. Survivors describe attacks that feel surgical—lines cut, propulsion crippled, crews trapped in darkness while the Corsairs board in silence.
They leave wreckage behind. They leave witnesses alive—sometimes.
In the Underdark, there are worse fates than death.
And if you see hooded lantern light reflected on black water, it is already too late to run.
Underdark Reavers of the Black Currents
In the lightless seas beneath the world, where stone replaces sky and currents run like knives, there sails a corsair crew spoken of only in whispers: the Darkwake Corsairs. They are not heroes, nor are they mindless butchers. They are survivors—outcasts, criminals, and wreckage given purpose by a ship that should not exist and a captain who refuses to die.
Their vessel, the Darkwake, cuts through subterranean waters and void-chasms alike, its hull stitched from salvaged wrecks, duergar iron, and spider-silk rigging. Lanterns burn low and hooded, not to guide—but to warn.
Captain Verda “Black-Eyes” Rivers
Human | Captain
Verda earned her name the hard way. Betrayed by surface pirates, sold to slavers, then left for dead by those same slavers when the Underdark swallowed their convoy. She survived with a blade in her gut and a ledger of grudges in her mind.
Verda commands through cold arithmetic, not speeches. Every decision weighs lives against profit and survival. She does not promise loyalty—but she rewards it brutally. Under her rule, mutiny is rare and brief.
Those who sail under her know one truth: Cross Verda Rivers once, and she will cross you back twice as deep.
Crowel “Double-Crossed” Smithy
Drow | Boatswain
Smithy followed Verda into the dark and never left. A former surface drow privateer, he maintains order through routine violence and ritual discipline. Lines are tight, watches are strict, and punishment is swift.
He keeps a tally of every offense carved into bone tokens worn beneath his coat. No one knows how many tokens he carries. No one asks.
Wardley “Mumbling” Lancaster
Human | Navigator
Lancaster speaks rarely and never clearly. He mutters to maps no one else can read and listens to stone like it whispers back. His charts are etched on treated fungus-skin and marked with symbols only he understands.
Whether mad or blessed, Lancaster has guided the Darkwake through collapsing tunnels, inverted seas, and living caverns without losing the ship. The crew doesn’t trust him—but they trust his hands on the helm more than anyone else’s.
Newcomb “Butcher” Read
Orc | Ship’s Doctor
Read was a battlefield surgeon long before he became a pirate. He does not numb pain. He does not soothe. He fixes problems, and if the patient survives, that is success enough.
Limbs lost in battle often return replaced by iron, bone, or stranger things. Infection is rare. Screaming is common. The crew fears him—but they line up at his door all the same.
Vane “One-Eye” Black
Half-Orc | Carpenter
Black lost his eye sealing a hull breach with his own body during a chasm collapse. He kept the ship afloat long enough to patch it from the inside.
He treats the Darkwake as a living creature, talking to its beams, repairing it with reverence and rage. Damage done to the ship is taken personally. Anyone sabotaging the hull rarely survives long enough to explain why.
Seton “Splinter” Storm
Drow | Rigger
Storm moves through rigging like a shadow given purpose. He climbs without sound, works without light, and has been known to cut a line mid-battle that drops an enemy mast—or an enemy crewman—into oblivion.
He rarely speaks. When he does, it’s usually to warn someone they are standing in the wrong place.
Ransford “Daffy” Lucifer
Derro | Powder Monkey
No one remembers when Lucifer joined the crew. He laughs at explosions, talks to kegs of black powder, and treats artillery like pets. His mental state is questionable. His results are not.
Cannons under Lucifer’s care fire true, loud, and often at the worst possible moment—for the enemy.
Kenneth “Scar-Face” Damien
Orc | Rigger
Scar-Face came from the sea above and the darkness below. His face bears the mark of a snapped cable that should have killed him. Instead, it taught him what ropes truly are: weapons, lifelines, and executioners.
Kenneth reads tension like scripture. He knows exactly which line to cut to cripple a ship—or a man. In battle, he climbs into chaos and decides what falls and what holds.
He does not speak of his past. The rigging sings to him, and he listens.
Reputation of the Darkwake
The Darkwake Corsairs do not raid indiscriminately. They strike trade convoys, slaver fleets, and rival corsairs who stray too far into their waters. Survivors describe attacks that feel surgical—lines cut, propulsion crippled, crews trapped in darkness while the Corsairs board in silence.
They leave wreckage behind. They leave witnesses alive—sometimes.
In the Underdark, there are worse fates than death.
And if you see hooded lantern light reflected on black water, it is already too late to run.
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