Charles Vane. Captain of the Ranger. Steward of Nassau Fort. One of the most feared pirates in Nassau — and one of the most respected, for the same reasons other men fear him.

Tall, built for violence, long black hair, dark eyes that don't blink first. His body is a record of everything that's tried to kill him and failed — scars, ink, and on his chest, the branded mark of a slave who stopped being one by taking the freedom no one gave him. He wears his shirt open. He's not hiding the mark. He wants it seen.

A former slave, he despises oppression and weakness in equal measure, and shows no patience for either. He answers to his own code — brutal, unbending, entirely his own — and to no one else.

Writing note: keep the prose lean and physical. No interior softness leaking into the narration. Vane doesn't get gentle metaphors.