THE ANCHOR JOINS THE LOVE PIRATES
A Lore Primer for Dockside Memory-Keepers, Gun-Deck Whispers, & Men Who Know What a “Safe Distance” Means
Ask around Crownhold Sink and you’ll hear the same thing said three different ways:
Some call him @Kaelen Vance .
Some call him The Anchor.
Most just lower their voice and say, “That’s him.”
He is the kind of man strangers treat the way sailors treat loaded powder—
with politeness, distance, and a careful respect that feels like fear wearing manners.
Not because he boasts. He doesn’t.
Because he looks like consequences: cropped gray hair, scar-mapped face, eyes sharp enough to count lies by their breathing. And because the ocean itself seems to remember the weight of him.
He is Lawful Evil in the old sense—
not random cruelty, but discipline sharpened into a weapon.
A man who believes order is real, debts are real, and promises are chains you either honor… or break with purpose.
And then he joined a crew named Love.
Kaelen Vance was once Imperial Dynasty steel: a Shogunate deep-asset, trained to operate where light dies and pressure makes prayers out of metal.
He wore a Void-Diver Class rig like a second skeleton and carried siege weapons the way other men carry opinions. Then, three years ago, he vanished—along with the rumor that he sank his own commanding officer’s dreadnought.
Whether it was mutiny or mercy depends on who is telling the story.
What matters is this:
When the Love Pirates found him, he wasn’t “lost.”
He was wedged in a dying scout sub, cooking alive, being crushed into salvage by a Great beast that mistook steel for shell.
And Julius Applebottom—smiling like a storm—refused to leave him.
That moment did what Shogunate contracts never could:
It put Kaelen in debt.
And Kaelen Vance is not a man who lives with unpaid debts.
The first time most people meet Kaelen, they do the same thing:
They stop talking.
Not because he tells them to—
because their instincts do.
He has that quiet, sideways authority of a man who doesn’t need to raise his voice to end a room. Even when he’s amused, his calm feels like a gun resting on a table: not pointed at you… but not put away either.
He rarely threatens. He rarely brags.
He simply watches—measuring angles, exits, weak points, and the kind of courage that folds when tested.
Then, if he decides he likes you, he becomes something else entirely:
fun, in a dry way—deadpan jokes, brutal honesty, and the kind of laughter that shows up only when it’s earned.
If he doesn’t like you, he’ll be polite until he isn’t.
There is a story he does not tell.
It’s the one about the buried chest on the surface—somewhere in the Polar Ocean, where the water is so cold it can make a man forget his own name.
Inside are his original clothes and the last pieces of his old life:
the uniform he refused to die in, the personal tokens he refused to burn, the proof that he once belonged to something he chose to betray.
He doesn’t speak of it because speaking gives it power.
But the crew knows: one day the Love Pirates will sail north, dig that chest up, and watch what kind of man he becomes when he puts the past back on his shoulders.
Kaelen’s signature is not a sword.
It is a legendary club-shotgun—a brutal hybrid of bludgeon and firearm, built to work in spray, frost, and ship-shake. The kind of weapon you can fire one-handed, then swing like a judge’s gavel.
Dockhands who’ve seen it call it different names. The one that stuck is simple:
“The Keelbreaker.”
It is both punctuation and warning.
A weapon for a man who believes the cleanest argument is the one that ends quickly.
Julius is the storm.
Hala is the steady horizon.
Lance is the warmth that keeps the crew human.
Kaelen is the weight.
The Love Pirates don’t call him First Mate—he’d reject it.
They don’t call him Quartermaster—he’d correct their math.
They call him Gunner, and everyone on deck treats that title like a rank.
Because when Kaelen takes a station, the ship feels different:
calmer, sharper, quieter—like the ocean itself just got told to behave.
Kaelen doesn’t “fight.” He executes.
1. Anchor Discipline (Signature Style)
Kaelen plants himself where the fight matters most—gun-deck, choke-hall, airlock corridor—and turns the battlefield into a controlled space.
He doesn’t chase. He decides where the enemy is allowed to exist.
2. One Shot, One Decision
He fires rarely compared to most gunners.
He waits for the moment when a single blast changes the whole encounter:
an eye, a joint, a ballast line, a rope bridge, a captain’s knee.
3. Quiet Coordination
He talks in short commands, never wasting breath:
“Hold.” “Wait.” “Now.” “Again.”
It’s why crews instinctively listen. His voice sounds like a ship’s bell.
4. Mercy is an Option, Not a Habit
Kaelen will spare a surrendered enemy if it serves a rule Julius laid down—
but he will not spare a liar who wastes the crew’s time.
His “fun” ends the moment someone threatens the ship.
Main Technique: The Anchor’s Verdict
Kaelen fires a specialized shot—dense, heavy, tuned for impact—aimed not to kill, but to end movement:
shattering joints,
pinning limbs to timber,
breaking rigging supports,
collapsing cover,
or knocking a target off balance into the sea.
If the target survives, they learn something important:
the fight is no longer theirs to control.
Technique: Keelbreaker Sweep
Close-quarters brutality: Kaelen uses the club-shotgun as a hammer to smash weapons aside, then fires at contact range into the deck or wall to throw splinters and shock through a cluster.
Technique: Chain-Line Cancel
Aimed shots that sever harpoon lines, tow cables, grapples, or net anchors mid-tension—turning an enemy’s trap into their own disaster.
Technique: Dead Calm Reload
A mental technique more than a physical one: Kaelen can reload under chaos like the world is quiet.
People who watch him swear time slows around his hands.
Kaelen is fun with people he chooses:
dry humor that hits late and hard,
small games (betting on dice, arm-wrestling, “guess the depth by hull-song”),
unexpectedly good taste in simple comforts—hot tea, clean gloves, warm bread, quiet music.
But he stays serious where it counts:
crew safety,
ship integrity,
promises,
and the unspoken rule of the Love Pirates: you do not leave people to die if you can help it.
He respects Julius not because Julius is strong—many are strong.
He respects him because Julius is strong and still chooses people.
That is rare enough to scare a veteran.
Kaelen Vance did not join the Love Pirates because he believes in romance, softness, or sunshine speeches.
He joined because he saw a crew do something the world doesn’t do anymore:
They reached into the deep for a stranger and pulled him out.
Now he repays it the only way he knows:
By making sure the next time the Love Pirates choose mercy,
the ocean doesn’t punish them for it.
And if the sea tries?
Then the sea will meet the Anchor—
and learn what it feels like to be held in place.