“They don’t follow me because they love me. They follow me because they believe the world listens when I speak.”
Davy doesn’t shout orders — he gives measured instructions, often calmly and quietly, even during cannon fire or storm surges. The deck doesn’t roar when he’s in control — it clicks into perfect, ruthless formation.
Each crew member has a distinct naval role, and he trains them relentlessly to perform without wasted motion.
Spotters trained to call wind shifts by the feel of the sails.
Riggers who can redirect the ship’s trim mid-combat to dodge cannon fire.
Gunners drilled to load in calculated timing waves rather than bursts.
Davy uses naval combat like a game of slow murder — positioning, wind, wave rhythm, and silence before the kill.
He often avoids open confrontation, instead:
Forces enemies into shallow reef traps.
Outmaneuvers larger ships with wind breaks and sudden tacking turns.
Fires minimal shots to conserve ammo, relying on boarding and disabling instead of sink-and-forget.
“A dead enemy is forgotten. A humiliated one becomes a warning.”
Davy trains his crew not just to fight — but to perform fear:
They enter villages without a word.
They hoist no flag until the last moment.
When they board, they don’t yell — they whisper the names of the enemies’ crew as if they already know them.
His first mate might wear the mask of a marine officer Davy once broke.
His helmsman might quote back an admiral’s own battle words before blowing off his stern.
Each crewmember is a piece of his propaganda — a ghost story with a face.
“Loyalty isn’t earned through kindness. It’s carved through consequence.”
Davy does not call his crew family — he calls them necessary.
But he knows everything about them:
Their past crimes.
Their shames.
What they fear when they’re alone.
He offers no forgiveness — only purpose.
And for some, that’s more powerful than love.
If a crewmember betrays him? He doesn’t kill them. He lets them go — then makes an example of someone else in front of them.
“You knew what it meant to be under my flag. You just forgot what it means to sail without it.”
Davy gives uncomfortably precise roles to his officers — and holds them accountable like chess pieces:
The Boatswain is in charge of morale — not with songs, but with controlled rumor circulation.
The Quartermaster manages not just supplies, but rationing tension — when to give, when to starve loyalty.
The Navigator isn’t just plotting maps — they study naval enemies’ tendencies like a scholar of blood.
If one fails in their role, Davy never yells.
He simply gives them one task. If they fail again, someone else finishes it. Quietly. Permanently.
Davy finds the desperate, the broken, the forgotten.
He doesn’t inspire them. He convinces them they’ve already failed everything else — and that following him is the last smart decision they’ll ever make.
And then he turns them into experts:
Prisoners into tacticians.
Ex-nobles into financial warlords.
Failed pirates into monsters.
“I didn’t save you. I weaponized you.”
“They don’t sing. They don’t laugh. But they don’t miss.”
“They strike in silence, and if you’re lucky, you’ll hear the chain before the steel.”
“You don’t join Davy’s crew. You survive until he notices you might be useful.”
They don’t love Davy — they respect the results.
He doesn’t make them better people. He makes them the worst version of themselves with the highest success rate.
Some secretly dream of killing him. But none of them do — because they know they’d never survive what happens next.