Introduction
As part of All Systems Go!‘s special hour-long piracy-themed episode, one of the live segments was a death battle bracket with pirate original characters created by our cast. Since the contestants were only given a short time to present their creations, we thought it would be fun to post them in an article here.
Table of Contents
Astria Starlight
We’ll start with Charlene Switzer’s Astria Starlight.
Name: Astria Starlight
Age: 21 (cuz I’m pretty sure you can’t legally own a ship if you’re younger).Powers:
Standard: Advanced knowledge of magic, lore, and alchemy. Can draw on outside sources and spells in her books (which she keeps safely in her bag), as well as craft potions using available materials whose effects range from healing to material/element generation to dissolution. Does not use any abilities with negative sources or drawbacks (ex: corruptive forms of magic/bringing back the dead), but knows very effectively how to counter them.With Avia (the owl): Ridiculously advanced Astral magic. Can create weapons and constructs using energy from the Astral plane, as well as use the parallel world to travel, fly, and become intangible. Constructs are stronger then they appear, with the stars embedded in them being hot enough to cause both physical and spiritual damage. She also cannot be damaged in astral form due to being able to completely change her form to one made of energy and stardust. Can also see/communicate with ghosts due to their existance on the Astral plane (normal people see them as ghosts/shadows/ghost ships, she actually sees them as a spirit version of who they once were), and is also immune to all spectral influence (cannot be harmed by sinister/undead energy).
Backstory: Traveled the world to study ancient lore and alchemy with her owl before it died and ascended to the Astral realm. It wanted to stay with her though, so it came back and she decided to learn other forms of magic to complement her new powers. Not a standard pirate, but will use her “ghost-like powers/ghost ship” to scare other pirates and return loot stolen from innocent people. Accepts payment when offered, and if money isn’t on the table, will accept information instead involving magic sources or just useful stuff and lore.
Charlene Switzer
Veyra Sol, “The Tempest”
Charlene faced off against her sister, Cassandra, so we’ll take a look at Cassandra’s next. Here is Veyra Sol, also known as “The Tempest”.
Name: Captain Veyra Sol
Affiliation: The Phantom Armada (a fleet said to appear only during violent storms)
Calm yet intimidating, she speaks in low, rhythmic tones that echo like rolling thunder. She’s clever, pragmatic, and has a sharp sense of humor. Veyra believes every fight is a storm to be navigated — not just survived, but commanded. She respects strength, but outsmarts more than she overpowers.Abilities/Powers:
She draws power from storms, manipulating wind and lightning to strike enemies or propel herself across the battlefield.
Can create illusory doubles made of fog and rainwater to confuse opponents.
Her ghostly ship sails on stormclouds instead of water and can manifest spectral cannons that fire bolts of lightning.
Signature move: She summons a spiraling cyclone around herself and her enemies, then draws them into the calm center, where she delivers a precise, electrified strike before the winds explode outward again.Veyra isn’t just a brawler — she’s a strategist who uses the battlefield itself as a weapon. Her control of weather gives her both range and defense, while her illusions and tactical instincts make it nearly impossible to catch her off guard. She thrives in chaos, and in a battle royale where the arena itself can turn wild, the storm is her home field.
Cassandra Switzer
John Scabbard III
The next section of the bracket was Noah Levine versus Hoko Lyons, so here is Noah’s creation, John Scabbard III.
John Scabbard the third was born into a family of famous pirate scavengers, who sail the seven seas plundering other pirate ships and stealing the fleet as their own. At age 20 during a fight John was ambushed while sailing, and during the fight he lost both his eyes. After losing his vision he spent 10 years training his other senses to be heightened. These heightened senses gave him inhuman levels of speed and the ability to sense his opponents movements through vibrations in the ground and air. Since then he became a captain of his own group of scavengers, where he mostly goes after rich naval ships, and lends most of the riches to more unfortunate towns.
Noah Levine
.7zip
Hoko admits xe created xyr character’s lore on the spot and, as such, declined to include lore for the article, but I’ll still show xyr character, .7zip, since it’s a very cool drawing.
The name “.7zip” (pronounced “dot seven zip”) comes from the free and open-source file archiving software 7-zip and its associated file format, .7z.
SUNKEN HEARTBREAK
The final bracket was Vivian Schmidt versus Lynne Wheatley. Here is Vivian’s character, Sunken Heartbreak
She used to be just an average cargo ship sailor girl; however, one day, a pirate ship came by and hit her with a big cannon ball, and she was never heard from again. Despite being condemned to the bottom of the sea, her determination for revenge was so strong that she held onto her life by the very bones that comprised her. She willed her bones back into place and clawed her way back out from the depths, swearing revenge on those pirates who attempted to end her story before it could truly begin.
Her sword, the Lovelass, is not actually a combat weapon; after all, she could never cut a lass. Instead, it is a magic item that extends her determination of will and helps her recover quicker from attacks and effectively parry various attacks. She primarily depends on bashing her enemies’ heads in or punching them with her free hand to engage in combat proper.
She is almost invulnerable; her only weakness is her stubbornness. It’s very strong, but if she can’t will herself back together, that’s it. She keeps herself going via the thought that her goal of defeating all other pirates may spare anyone else from her sordid fate and quietly, distantly, with the hope that one day she may reunite with her partner from when she was still alive.
Vivian Schmidt
Maddy
Last, but certainly not least, we have Lynne’s character, Maddy.
My Pirate-sona is named Maddy, and she hails from a world of floating islands, wide open skies, and anthropomorphic animal-people. She’s not only a pirate, but also a self-taught engineer! Her gig is simple: she stows away on airships, and she steals the high-value gizmos found therein.
Her life of petty theft has been sufficient for this long, but don’t let it be forgotten that this is a high-risk pastime. Although she’s quick on her feet, you never know if a mech is just around the next corner… With this in mind, she has started keeping a handful of charge packs on her person, and if she’s in a corner it only takes touching one to the blade of her sword to zap a mech out of commission!
She never prioritized maintaining her own mech; it’s always in some state of disrepair, and really only fit for moving around things she ends up finding. Instead, her pride and joy is her airship. Salvaged from broken-down airships of yesteryear, it was the thing that even allowed her to run away from home in the first place..!
The Inspiration
I thought it’d be funny and interesting to have a very “out of place” character in this tournament, and I’ve been hyperfixating on “Solatorobo” lately, so I decided to put together a character that’d fit in that world. I’m glad how she ended up contrasting a bit with the other pirate-sonas.I asked fellow All Systems Go! cast member Hoko to design and draw the character of Maddy, and it was a very fun time seeing the design develop! I was tweaking the characterization and even the name up to about an hour before we were live, too.
Lynne Wheatley
Conclusion
What, did you think I was going to tell you who won? No way! You’ll have to go watch the episode for that!
Be sure to check out this week’s new episode (and past episodes, too) of ASG on Wednesday night at 8pm right here on the Black Squirrel Entertainment website or on the All Systems Go! YouTube channel.