Thriller Bark Pirates

This was the second band led by Gecko Moria, the one-time Warlord, and the chief threat throughout the Thriller Bark Arc. Its flag is a white skull crowned with two purple wings and flanked by pale flames. At the top sit four humans dubbed the Mysterious Four, Moria himself together with Hogback, Absalom, and Perona, who command tiers of undead beneath them: general zombies drawn from old legends, surprise zombies posing as objects, common soldier zombies, savage animal zombies, the one-of-a-kind special zombie Oars, and web-spinning spider mice.

The bulk of the crew was a near-unkillable undead army, powered by shadows torn from victims using Moria's Devil Fruit. At their peak they fielded close to nine hundred reanimated corpses, among them the swordsman Shimotsuki Ryuma, the giant Oars, and former members of the Rocks Pirates. Every night at midnight they launched their Night Attacks, seizing anyone trapped on the island so Moria could strip their shadow before casting them back out. They ambushed the Straw Hats, stole shadows from the crew's strongest fighters, and nearly finished them with Oars. Moria's Warlord rank lent the operation official cover, but their crushing loss to Luffy's crew cost them the undead army and saw Moria stripped of his title for weakness.

Moria formed the crew after Kaidou destroyed his earlier Gecko Pirates at Wano, a trauma that pushed him toward an army he felt nothing for. Hogback supplied the surgical skill to build the zombies, while Absalom and Perona rounded out the Mysterious Four as Devil Fruit users. The crew's island vessel, Thriller Bark itself, was a West Blue landmass reshaped into the largest ship afloat. Their downfall came on Thriller Bark, after which Hogback and Absalom fled with the unconscious Moria. Later threads saw Moria fight at Marineford, lose his title, hunt for Blackbeard at Hachinosu, and eventually break out of prison with Perona's help during the Egghead Arc.