Renya Rhimehart

While Renya is skilled in the art of combat, that alone is not what makes her dangerous. As a swashbuckler fighting is as much about style as it is power, treating combat like a lethal artform that draws on dexterity and cleverness over raw strength. Renya fights with extravegant flair and uses her cunning to toy with her opponents until she can find an opening to strike through. She is is a highly mobile combatant, nimbly weaving through a fight and taking advantage of objects in the environment around her to outmaneuver foes. She prefers fighting with her calisabre gunblade, but can utilize most any manner of blade or personal firearm one might find in a pirate's arsenal effectively.

Foxes are naturally agile, relying on quick reflexes and wits over pure physical strength. Renya has been honing such agility from a young age in using parkour to transverse her environment. She excels at sprinting, jumping and climbing; using this skills to overcome obstacles and maneuver around her foes or hazards. Which also helps her keep stable footing on uneven ground, such as the rocking deck of a ship. This combined with her swashbuckler skills enables her to use the environment itself as a versatile offensive and defensive tool. When she needs an extra boost she has a few gadgets such as the grapple launcher concealed in an arm brace and the rail-grinding notches in her boot soles.

Renya's main weapon is her calisabre gunblade, a fusion of a cutlass blade with a powerful naval firearm. It allows her to quickly switch between melee and mid-range combat without changing weapons; very suitable to her mobile and flamboyant fighting style. The gun chamber and blade are made of frostburn metal, giving the weapon an icy ambience that can inflict painful frostbite wounds and shoot bursts of frigid aether energy.

Fighting and tossing witty remarks are not the only skills Renya posesses. She is an experienced pirate, which of course involves the hijacking of ships and raiding of ports. This has also come to involve smuggling across various borders and even between other worlds. As the Captain it is her duty to lead, either using a combination of tactics and charisma, or assign her Officers to head operations in her name if their skills are more suitable to the mission. She runs her operation in a manner similar to a meritocracy, where eveyone is valued by skill and capability over origins or appearance, which is all laid out in the articles of agreement that all crewmembers must swear to. Renya is also a capable sailor in general, knowledgable in navigation, negotiating services, and various shipside tasks.

Renya can use the specific skills she learned as an orphan rogue to deal with certain mechanical obstacles. The most noteworthy being her high capacity for picking locks and other physical containment methods. She can use these skills to disable traps and sabotage simple machinery as well, as long as there are mechanical or steam-powered components for her to work with. She can do little with purely electronic technologies or magic, though she can attempt to disable physical components connected to them with a lesser degree of effectiveness. Renya is also versed in general thievery, be it picking pockets or pilfering larger personal items.

A marveleous machine for its time, the Polar Vortex lacks the obvious zepplin balloons of other airships. Instead it utilizes multiple internal ballast chambers to control it's altitude by the amount of aether collected in them, while propelled by a combination of steam-driven rotors and classic sails. Its sides are armored with a combination of iron, brass, and frostburn metal that makes a wake of frosty mist around its hull (and gives it the name). Though it is perfectly capable of sailing on water as well. The airship carries numerous cannons of various sizes, though they are meant mainly for ship-to-ship and seige combat. The Polar Vortex's primary purpose is serving as a mobile base for pirate activities, dispatching smaller steam-powered craft for travel and raiding.

Lindsey was raised by her parents to be little more than a showpiece married off to a rich aristocrat. She snubbed this lifestyle to spite their controlling nature, joining the pirate crew as the ship's musician and morale officer. In addition to providing entertainment on long voyages she can use her music as a bard to inspiring her allies and sow discord amongst enemies. Her 'weapon' is the aetherphone, an instrument played by stroking aether fields between the two arrays instead of strings, producing a wider range of tones to augment the effectiveness of her music. Rarely does she engage directly in combat, instead bolstering pirate squads or disorienting foes with sound-based effects.

The crew of the Polar Vortex comes in all manner of shapes, sizes and species. They're a motely crew of buccaneers and scallywags to say the least, loyal to the Captain but not afraid to hamstring each other for her favor and bigger cuts of the loot. Cutlasses and pistols are the most common weapons used. But various knives, whips, axes and other slashing or cutting weapons are also available. Most pirates care more for offense than defense, wielding a menagerie of melee weapons and firearms as they see fit, but only piecemeal armor from leather and whatever scrap-metal they can strap or rivet to it.

The Highjack twins are the steampunk machinists in charge of maintaining the Polar Vortex and her steampunk crew. The various flight and power systems of the airship were their father's work and keeping it operating is how they carry on his legacy. They also handle maintenance of weapons and gear for the crew, and occasionally dabbling in other mechanical gadgetry. Maven focuses on mechanical and enginering work, while Magnum handles munitions and combat gear. While primarily machinists they are perfectly capable of fighting and are often the ones in charge of supply and equipment raids. Magnum wields a modified musketoon with a boarding axe affixed to the muzzle. Maven weilds a wrench like a mace and a shield made of a boiler hatch.

Renya thrives on having as much attention as possible on herself and spreading her reputation as a formidable sky pirate. She presents herself in a rather over-the-top manner to do so, making grandoise dynamic entrances and cutting with her sharp wit as oft as her blade. She can be sneaky and cunning but she'll make the moment of the big reveal of her activity all the more overdramatic for it. Her flamboyant, bombastic presentation makes her very hard to ignore, be it in admiration or annoyance, and most attempts at subtlety are short to say the least. Renya doesn't care what you think of her, as long as it's about her.

Renya has little fear for her own mortality. And honestly would rather die in a blaze of glory with her jackboots on and calisabre in hand than alive but forgotten in some Navy brig. For this pirate captain there is no half-way, she goes for everything to take big risks for big rewards and increasing her reputation. Renya may be brave and cunning but she seems to have little in the way of common sense; to her danger is more of a gauge of how challenging and exciting something will be. Which often has her and her crew sailing headlong into trouble with little concern other than getting rich and famous.

Renya will gladly help other Antagonists and sell the services of her crew as mercenaries... But her loyalty only goes as far as it can be paid for. She's not afraid to doublecross such an ally at an inopportune moment to get what *she* wants, what her crew deems more valuable, or because real motives have become apparent as something she wants no involvement in. Likewise while the majority of her crew is loyal to her, they're not above hamstringing each other trying to earn her favor and a larger portion of the spoils. Renya allows this to a degree, as competition is good encouragment while helping clear out those unsuited to the rough lifestyle of piracy, but she won't tolerate direct treason against herself or her Officers or intentional interference in the crew's capacity. But because of various factors internal conflicts may surface at inappropriate times to inadvertantly complicate plans of herself or allies.

While she has no problem overall with killing Renya does prefer to keep it as a last resort. She would rather defeat or at least humiliate a foe but leave them alive to spread word of her shenanigans to build up her reputation. As such Renya tends to toy with her opponents, flaunting her swagger and slinging insults instead of the more direct approach. She also desires rivaltry, taking it as a measure of fame, and thus tends to being more coy and mischevious with an opponent she deems worthy. Renya desires such attention so much that she will sometimes even purposely leave hints after her nefarious deeds to lead others into a confrontation. This all can make her a wonderful diversionary tactic but is certainly annoying, and may give her opponents an opprotunity to turn a fight around on her.

The pirate code of conduct Renya employs helps keep her crew in order, effective in missions and in general loyal to her cause. As Captain she gets the biggest share of the bounty, but in return Renya is expected to lead them to the various opportunities for adventure, fame and riches. Or appoint her Officers as appropriate to act in her name in doing so. Needing to fulfill these obligations is fairly stressful, and Renya is more willing to push the odds for bigger rewards to appease her followers, be it facing more dangerous risks or potentially doublecrossing another ally.