Captain Starlight is a Terran adventurer famous for his flamboyant and swashbuckling exploits across the celestial seas. Very charming and a bit of a narcissist, the good captain is a great big personality who commands a crew of fifty fabulous starfarers aboard their ship, the Gilded Stag. Captain Starlight has a reputation for amassing great wealth and spending it liberally in port towns throughout the Sol system- drink flows and songs are sung at the local tavern whenever the Gilded Stag is in town. He wields a rapier-pattern wavecutter, an elegant weapon that leaves magnificent blue streaks in its wake- but no starfarer has ever reported seeing someone harmed by it. Disarming a defender and besting a commander in a duel, these stories follow tales of the Captain's exploits from port to port, but only wine- never blood- is ever spilled.
The crew of the Gilded Stag will fly anywhere and do anything if it means advancing their ends. They love to hunt for lost treasures, they will chase valuable bounties, they will rob starships themselves and amass a small fortune and then they'll fly somewhere populated and spend that fortune entertaining locals. The truth of Captain Starlight is that he's not a seeker of fortune itself, but of the fame it can buy. He wants people to talk about him, to sing his name, to praise his exploits and wax fondly about the day they met him. A gentleman rogue, when the Captain hijacks your commercial flight and he and his men request your valuables, he makes a production of it, he makes theater of the affair. They only need your jewels, your silver, your credits; your life is safe. They spend this money buying people's admiration and then exploit that admiration to liberate people of their money. It's a pretty good racket if you can get it going, but there's two secret ingredients to really make it work.
Charisma alone isn't enough to keep Captain Starlight's rogueish reputation afloat, it takes a little bit of a magic touch to grease the wheels of rumor. The good Captain is a bit of a spellsword, using his magic to cast simple charm spells upon his audiences, using his gold rapier as an arcane battery. Charm magic works to make a target more amicable to the caster, bringing the pulse of their mood more in sync with their own. It's using magic energy to alleviate tensions or apprehensions, so that they might see Captain Starlight's exploits as entertaining and non-threatening, rather than as predatory or malicious. Magic alone can't reverse someone's mood, so the theatrics and the gentleman's decorum lay the foundation for a bit of charm to do its work, and after a successful robbery a starliner's passengers are left feeling oddly good, bringing a juicy story with them to their destinations. These stories pass on to others, who pass on to others, who might be in a port town tavern when Captain Starlight and his crew roll in and use their wealth to fill the room with drink and song, which cements the stories and make future robbery encounters with the Gilded Stag even easier. It's a powerful PR cycle, but even with his magic influence there's one crucial ingredient needed to really keep the scheme airtight.
Part of the money Captain Starlight and his crew obtain is fed into an engine of children's media. Comics, cartoons and toys about the adventures of Captain Starlight and his crew flood every available media outlet, selling the swashbuckling rogue as a gold-hearted thief. When Captain Starlight meets civilians, and kids are with those civilians, they're not afraid of him- quite the contrary, they're excited to see the real-life Captain Starlight, brightly-dressed and gentle in his manner. When kids are at ease, adults are at ease, and when adults are at ease their pursestrings are at ease as well. Some might speculate whether robbing commercial flights is even worth the returns the crew get for their efforts compared to treasure-hunting and bounty-hauling, but it's never about the money itself with the Captain. People can't see you, they can't know you and they won't talk about you if you're not a presence in their lives. To roll into town and be celebrated, to have people actually share your wine, they have to know your name. Give them a story they'll remember fondly and they'll pass it on to others, and in doing so they'll etch the name of Captain Starlight into the annals of history.