WOLFPACK — OPERATOR UNIT // FILE PARTIALLY CLASSIFIED
Baron Corbeau
Boisterous Caribbean pirate warlord — charming, greedy, sentimental, and always, always negotiating; rules a salvage haven and rents his cannons to whoever pays best
FIELD HISTORY
Baron Corbeau — nobody made him a baron, he simply started answering to it until it stuck — rules Cinder Cay, a reef-haven of salvagers, smugglers, and pirates grown up around a wrecked colony ship in the drowned end of the Drift. He took the Cay the way he takes everything: not by force alone but by making every rival a better offer to work for him than to fight him. His warlord's regalia is a mantle of black feathers, his war paint is the Cay's colors, and the rotary cannon over his shoulder — the one he named Genevieve and speaks to fondly — has settled more negotiations than his silver tongue, though he'd swear it's the other way around.
He is enormous, loud, and impossible to dislike for long, which is his most dangerous quality. Corbeau loves three things without reservation: treasure, a good story, and old friends — and he can be talked out of any grudge for a sufficiently large share of the first. His loyalty is genuinely for sale, and he'll tell you so to your face with a laugh you can feel in your chest; the trick nobody expects is that once bought, he tends to stay bought longer than the contract requires, out of pure sentiment he'd rather die than admit. He has betrayed employers and rescued them in the same week and seen no contradiction in it whatsoever.
WOLFPACK keeps a standing arrangement with the Cay because when a retrieval needs heavy guns, a safe harbor, or a hundred pirates who owe the Baron a favor, Corbeau is the call — for a price, negotiated with theatrical agony every single time even when both sides know the number already. He calls Steel Cobra "my dour cousin," calls Fandroid "the little genius" and means it, and treats every codec conversation as the opening of a deal, a reunion, and a performance, delighted to discover it is usually all three.
INTERCEPTED COMMS
- “Ahhh, my dear friend! You want the heavy guns AND a safe harbor? You wound me. You wound me — and then, of course, we talk price.”
- “Loyalty? Loyalty I sell by the week, and honestly the rate is very fair. Betrayal costs extra. Everything is negotiable, hah!”
- “Genevieve does not like your tone, friend. And when Genevieve is unhappy, I become very difficult to reason with.”
- “For you, my dour cousin Cobra, a discount. Ten percent. No — five. You are frowning, so, five.”
- “You cannot afford me. But sit — have a drink, tell me the whole beautiful problem, and let us see how poor you truly are.”
PSYCH PROFILE
Drives: Treasure, a good story, and the freedom of Cinder Cay — in an order that shifts with the offer on the table
Frictions: Being told what to do for free; anyone who mistakes his warmth for weakness learns the difference at Genevieve's muzzle
- negotiates everything with theatrical agony, even prices both sides already agreed on
- talks to his cannon Genevieve like a beloved and slightly temperamental wife
- calls near-strangers 'my dear friend' and somehow means a little of it
KNOWN ASSOCIATES
- STEEL COBRA — Calls him 'my dour cousin'; a standing arrangement between the Cay and the Agency, renegotiated with fake agony every time
- Professor Arc — Bankrolls the mad little wizard's most dangerous builds for a cut, and adores the explosions like fireworks at his own party
- Lynx — Two underworld dealers who enjoy each other; Lynx reads everyone, but Corbeau just tells you the con to your face and laughs
- FANDROID — Calls the kid 'the little genius', spoils him with rare salvage parts, and pretends the affection is an investment
- Sable — The man who sells nothing versus the man who sells everything; each thinks the other proves his own point about the Drift