Pirat Mate

The life of a pirat is often bloody and short. Those who survive more than a few seasons on the high seas become battle hardened veterans and are commonly promoted to more responsible positions. A pirate that acquires such a status will never grew bored in letting their ship mates know about it. As battle-hardened veterans of many campaigns they know how to wield their weapons with a certain amount of skill and finesse and how to use their expendable crews to the fullest. In a crew that has to be ambitious to survive, they have to be the most ambitious and resourceful of the bunch and walk over many corpses on their bloody way to the top. This leaves little space to make any friends though short lived alliances in a common goal are not uncommon. Each alliance ends in a foreseeable backstabbing though. As it isn't wise to keep enemies and competitors alive the death toll amongst aspiring mates is particularly high. Yet this unnatural selection leads to especially skilled and shrewd mates in the long run.
The mates have little restraint to further their own agendas by sacrificing loads of underlings if this ensures to reach their goals. Their constant bullying enforces the pecking order on their ships and ensures the lower ranks stay in line. As disliked as they are, they become the first line of defence for captains against mutineers but also are prone to certain 'accidents' on board. They are also better equipped and fed then any of the lower ranked crewmates. They use a part of their extra rations to bribe some snitches in the crew to keep them informed about assassination attempts or rumours of mutiny. This tactic has proven surprisingly effective as it's rather hard to smell a rat amongst a Corym crew. Since a mate has proven that he is worth its cheese in numerous battles and survived several attempts on their lives from underlings and competitors for titles, most of them are scared or missing body parts. In the long run every mates aspiration is to get his own ship and become a captain on their own right.