Theodore Groves is a man who is notable first and foremost for his seemingly endless wealth of warmth and kindness. He has a smile for everyone and a gentleness that speaks of naivety and youth in ways that have made men new to him question – again and again – how it could be that someone so inexplicably harmless managed to make not only lieutenant, but first lieutenant on a first rate ship of the line.

Some think it is perhaps a loyalty to the crown as incredible as that gentleness seems persevering – but these men are entirely mistaken. Theodore holds no loyalty to the crown at all – duty, to him, is something of a foreign societal construct that he feels obligated to play to the tune of in order to live the life that he wants to.

Theodore’s philosophy of life is a very simple one – to live without regret and to have as many adventures along the way as possible. To obtain this, he acts true to himself regardless of societal consequence on many fronts – he is a painfully, shockingly honest person and that in combination with his kindness and charisma tends to ease the worst of storms.

What makes him remarkable is the ferocious loyalty of his division – especially when new men join up or get pressed into service, it is notable that Theodore is strangely maternal in how far his kindness will go. Few seem to take advantage of it and those who do tend to be brought to task by Theodore’s midshipmen well before Theodore himself notes a problem.

It is often believed that Theodore has his command through purchase and it is not until men see him fight that they understand immediately both why men follow him and why his kindness is in fact a blessing, for a man of his brutality to be cruel would surely be among the greatest tyrants to ever sail the seven seas.

His body moves with a fluid focus that is both aggressive and brutally efficient. He strikes fast, always moving to end a battle before it has truly begun,never wasting energy in a dance for sake of style or grace. While men with classical training fight with an almost balletic quality to their movements, Theodore is in stark contrast economic in every motion and does not waste much effort on form when functionality and force can do twice as well.

There is a nigh preternatural sense of strategy to his style that, to the untrained eye, appears horrifically reckless or at the very least utterly oblivious to his own sustained damage. Theodore is a man who will give up on one shot and take a hit simply to make a certain cut across an opponent’s throat rather than waste energy or powder on dodging and potential counter actions. To those who witness matters more astutely it becomes clear that the action is calculated – that he allowed himself to be wounded, simply to kill something in one shot rather than two.

Because Theodore lives his every moment in life striving to go without regret, he is capable of denying the human instinct to preserve himself. His fighting style reflects intimately a man who values minimal time and effort to conclude a battle with brutal efficiency and damn the consequence. He is a man whose philosophy is centered around the awareness that death is inevitable, and adventure is worth living for.

Battle, for Theodore, is little more than a challenge to best in order to see what life brings next. He has no love for it and so, he seeks to end it quickly so that he can move on – this is the terrifying power behind his way of life, the ability to view battle as nothing more than something else to be concluded without regrets. His opponents face him for their own reasons and they do so knowing they may well die – that he came out victorious is not something to be ashamed or broken by.