Characters

The Lither heir the party reached too late to save, struck down on the road as he carried an urgent message to the King — proof that the Ottomans were using their weather pylons to ruin rival farmland. Torvin served at his side for years before the two of them fell out. He lies buried at the Jewel of the Lake.

The Lither patriarch, holding the family seat at Qavvik’s Tower. An old-guard Orderborne noble: stubborn, formal, slow to trust and slower to accept how far the family has fallen. He grieves his son quietly and has not yet named an heir.

Lord Lither’s personal steward of thirty years. He vanished from Qavvik’s Tower during the night of the assassination attack and has not been seen since.

An apothecary the party pulled out of Greef hands near the Pinch. He knows how to work Golden Mandrake into real medicine, which makes him a target for everyone who wants that knowledge buried. The party’s stabilized sample is gone now, but Silas may still be the one person best equipped to help them find a replacement path.

A name that keeps surfacing and never a face. V. Ottoman sold Silas Vane to the Greefs and sits somewhere near the heart of everything the party has been pulling apart. No one has met them. No one knows who they truly are.

A politically connected Haven weatherman and Bobby’s personal nemesis. He gave the false “clear day” forecast before the fire that took Bobby’s ship. Smug, well-protected, and touchy about the nickname “Scottoman.”

Bobby’s creator, whose severed head Bobby carried for so long without being able to understand it. Beneath Stalkholm, Cybin helped bridge the gap, and Bobby accepted the connector Cogsworth had left for him. The head is now grafted onto Bobby’s back, awake enough to watch, remember, and pull old truths slowly into reach.

An Orderborne noble whose estate the Greefs seized and turned into a drug farm. The party freed the farm and Cassia rescued his family. He is now a guest at Qavvik’s Tower.

A violent Greef son who burned the Clover Tavern chasing the Golden Mandrake and murdered an honest farmer who was a client of Torvin’s. He is dead now, killed in the chaos of the attack on Qavvik’s Tower.

An elven naturalist who helped bring the Reaping Eye to Haven and once worked with Silas. At Krolen’s Salon she confirmed the Eye’s restricted custody at the Crown Physic Institute. She warned that ecological collapse threatens Crimson Veil, but returning the Eye before another supply is ready would also leave patients short of treatment. Expelled for pressing questions about the shortfall, she arranged the invitation that brought the party inside, where her former assistant Ulles Sunspark guided their visit.

A researcher at the Crown Physic Institute who received the party for a consultation. Bobby’s questions about mycelial grafts and living-mechanical interfaces persuaded him to invite them into the Eye experiment. Bobby solved its shielding problem with a closer fit of copper, and the two traded jabs about their education. Albert then showed them the laboratories and greenhouse. He reported no consistent pattern in the unusual weather they asked about.

Vendis Dayforge‘s former assistant, still working at the Crown Physic Institute. Ulles received the party and guided them through their visit. When they noticed Captain Orzogg steelcrown‘s chain, he told them it was magical and had been used to restrain Nikta.

The captain the party briefly encountered in the Institute’s secure anteroom. He sized up Torvin and moved on without a conversation. At his side hung a chain which Ulles Sunspark said had once restrained Nikta. What else that chain can do remains unknown.

A Drakona financier who hosts intellectual salons in Haven. His latest gathering brought researchers and field observers together to discuss the Crimson Veil crisis. Torvin owes him roughly one Bag from an old loan; despite winning money at the fighting pit, Torvin did not meet or repay him at the Salon.

A Katari assessor who represents financiers funding research. After inviting Cybin to a cultivation trial at Krolen’s Salon, she met the party at breakfast and accompanied them to the Breezeblaze Workshop. She has agreed to meet them at the trial farm outside Haven in about a week; the precise place and appointment remain to be settled. Her footman can reach them through Torvin at the Excelsior Inn. The identity of her backers remains unknown.

The head of research at Stalkholm, finally met in the deep level beneath the station. Melda studies ancient Clanks and mycelial integration with unsettling calm, more fascinated than frightened by Bobby’s changed body. For the moment she is showing the party another way out, though no one has decided what she is to them after that.

The man who runs Shellsinki‘s counting house and, the party now knows, a link in the Greef cargo chain. He moved the channel marker that sent boats through the turtle cove, and he held his composure under questioning. Not quite well enough.