Mourrg, beaverfolk inventor. Mourrg is a brown-pelted sentient beaver who loves widgets and gadgets. He is one of the Megadam’s fine inventors, slapping gears and pistons on chunks of wood until they complete whatever task is required of them. He whistles whenever he says an S sound, and it is painfully shrill.

Libby Vein, alchemist. Libby is a short woman with brown hair and perpetually bloodshot eyes. She wears a pair of goggles around her neck, but seldom seems to wear them on her eyes. This may be related to how bloodshot they are. Her main focus is trying to recreate the formula for the ancient healing potions often found in dungeons.

Jannik Gramlich, artillerist. Jannik is a broad-shouldered man with blond hair and a contraption that can channel arcane energy into destructive spells. He speaks very quickly, especially when talking about his device, which has made teaching others how to make it somewhat difficult.

Dropos, philosopher. Dropos is a muscular man who spends his days arguing the finer points of ethics with whoever gets too close to him. His prowess in the art of rhetoric is unmatched: Some say he can change a man’s mind, or destroy it. Some say a man once died after five minutes of arguing with Dropos. Some even say that the only reason he hasn’t destroyed a mountain with his arguments is that he hasn’t figured out how to make it respond to his badgering. He also enjoys traditional wrestling, and will occasionally combine these passions.

Khristya Kazankova, performer. Khristya is an actress who specializes in the war ballads of the eastern kingdoms, which are known to be full of long high notes and dramatic battles. She takes her roles seriously, and studies up on the stories she helps to tell. As a result, she is also an expert on many historical conflicts and what liberties are taken in some bardic tales.

Drellt’Eth, dragonborn bard. Drellt’eth is a black dragonborn with sharp teeth and a deep love of music. He makes his living as a busker, playing famous songs or improvising as needed. He plays a lute. Someone uncharitable might describe him as “emotionally manipulative,” but he prefers “charming.”

Saint Cydorian, patron saint of students. Hundreds of years ago, when the Faith was young, a man called Cydorian gave weekly sermons in a small, nameless village. Over the years, his flock grew, attracting people from nearby villages and even larger towns. He taught many in the ways of the Faith, and eventually died of natural causes. In the centuries since, several people have claimed to see the ghost of Cydorian, in the form of a spectre with a cloak and a shepherd’s crook. “Saint Cydorian” is also the name of a dog breed.

Esiya the Flagellant, cleric. Esiya worships a god of pain, and believes that it is his duty to redeem the world through bloodshed, but only self-inflicted bloodshed. He wanders the land, lashing his own back in public and encouraging others to do the same. Esiya is often wracked with visions after these lashings, and seems to heal unusually fast.

Irene Amzarine, war priest. Mother Irene is an imposing woman with black hair, blue eyes, and a ritual tattoo on her left shoulder. She is a cleric of Navobir, God of War and Fire. She is the high priest of the Chaplain Corps, taking care of the wounds and morale of the empire’s soldiers. She carries a warhammer with one flat face and one spiked face. She can usually be found in the front-line trenches and fortifications, assuring soldiers that whatever they’re about to die for is worth it. Of course, she is no stranger to the fight herself, and has claimed many lives for Navobir and the Empire.

Breeha, rewilder. Breeha is a brown-haired woman with dark skin and an intense distaste for society. She prefers to live in the forests, wild and free, but occasionally re-enters the “civilized” world, only to burn down everything she can and flee once more. She sometimes takes young orphans with her back to the forest, hoping to save them from the sins of society.

Ka’ro Greenkeeper, druid. Ka’ro is an elven druid who lives beside and tends to the Woodhenge, a circle of still-living trees that have been gently shaped over centuries, grafted together and interwoven to create a single organism. A stone altar stained with blood sits in the center of the Woodhenge. Ka’ro often takes on acolytes, either on his occasional trips to the nearest village, or whenever somebody stumbles upon the henge.

Grehgg, beaverfolk druid. Grehgg is a black-pelted beaver who dwells in the eastern forests, leading a small group of beaverfolk and other like-minded people who have rejected the technological advances of society. They live in relative harmony with nature, foraging food and making only small changes to the environment to promote the growth of nutritious berries and fruits.

Kwin’liss, mageblade. Kwin’liss is a young elf, merely 150 years old. She is deeply obsessed with the long history of her people, and specifically an ancient art whose name translates roughly to The Way of the Inner and Outer Blade. This is a form of martial art that fuses swordsmanship with the mystic powers of the elven sorcerers. She is attempting to resurrect the art, teaching it to anyone who will listen to her, elven or otherwise. She owns several books (plus a few scrolls) which claim to be manuals based on real observations of the art, but only live practice can really bring the art back to life.

Sarathos the Fellblade, mage knight. Sarathos is a tall, blonde woman with broad shoulders. She is a commander in the 31st Special Infantry Squadron. She fights with a greatsword that has been etched with incantations, allowing her to use the arcane spells of a wizard. She and her brigade of unorthodox fighters have taught this art to others, and hope to make it a mainstay of the Royal Infantry.

Arrus Cino, archer. Arrus is a short woman who has learned to apply several kinds of low-level magical effects to her arrows. She leads caravans of traders and farmers through the Badlands, notorious for their burrowing monsters and bandits. Better-trained wizards turn their noses up at her “parlor tricks,” but this doesn’t bother her, and she is willing to teach some of her techniques to anyone sufficiently interested.

Marianne McCauley, thief. Marianne is a thief descended from one of the sorcerer kings of old. She uses her small inheritance to create a spectral hand that she can manipulate just as well as her own, allowing her to lift keys from guards’ belts, hit distant switches, and so on. She has taught this skill to a few others, mostly street urchins, in exchange for a cut of their takes. Marianne has red hair and blue eyes, and is a trans woman.

Azahar, draconic scholar. Azahar is an old man with white hair and glasses. He has dedicated his life to studying all matters draconic, and especially the people with dragon’s blood in their veins. He has a book whose pages all have drops of blood on them, from members of draconic bloodlines. Exactly how he got all of these is unclear, but he often visits the local orphanages and sometimes adopts children.

Saevar Stormborn, thundercaller. Saevar is a tall, thin man with white irises. His hands and wrists are almost always covered in red, angular marks caused by conducting electricity through himself. He tends to pose dramatically as he speaks, and he believes that mastery of any art requires pain, including the storm magic he is entranced by.

Tustal Wingbearer, part celestial. Tustal is a dwarf with some degree of celestial heritage. She has dark brown skin, black hair, and a pair of shimmering wings that appear whenever she uses magic. She has spent years honing both her inherent connection to the divine powers and her mastery of the mortal arcane arts. Exactly where this connection to the divine comes from is unknown, and is a mystery she hopes to solve with the help of others like her.

Francis Ouseau, the Eighth Flame. Francis is an old man with short, blonde hair and unseeing eyes. He is the eighth in the line of warlocks bound to the fiend Kozgereth, and hopes to find the Ninth Flame to carry on his legacy of destruction and corruption. His voice is low and raspy.

Arken Verris, infernal merchant. Kasvrael is a stocky man with black hair. He helps desperate people make contact with the powers below and beyond. For a price, of course. Some say that he used to work for a fiend, and somehow slew it. Some say he still works for one. Others say he’s a devil himself, here to tempt the denizens of the mortal plane. Whatever the truth is, many a desperate soul has come to him seeking a partner on the other side— and I don’t just mean from the material plane, even the demons seem interested in what he has to offer.

Willard Farbanti, headmaster. Mister Farbanti is an old man with gray hair who runs an orphanage that (though this was not his intent) specializes in raising children drawn to strange things. Abandoned tieflings, children who hear the whispers of dark powers, so on and so forth. He is firm enough to cause resentment in many of his former charges, but he believes that a strict adherence to a moral code is even more important for his charges than it is for “normal” people.

Eric Exiverd, demiplane specialist. Master Exiverd is a wiry, gray-haired man with a dream: To create, as the gods do. He has spent much of his life working towards creating not just a portal to another world, but creating that entire world. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded and was trapped in the world he created. Trapped in this world, he uses magical means to contact promising young wizards, trying to teach them everything they need to know to set him free.

Yothek the Summoner, alienist. Yothek is a wizard fascinated by the beings that live beyond the material realm. He has taken on a few apprentices to do the laborious work of drawing summoning circles and divining the names of angels, demons, and things uncategorized. Rumors say that multiple demons will reward whoever kills Yothek handsomely, because they are so tired of his interference in their affairs.

Eradel the Chimerist. Eradel is a wizard who has devoted his life to the ultimate goal: Creating life itself. He lives in a tower with a small cadre of apprentices, whose meager living spaces are jammed in between vats of chemicals, boxes of reagents, and contraptions that Eradel calls “thaumowombs.” These thaumowombs contain various strange creatures, from mixtures of domestic animals to misshapen humanoids. Sometimes, they escape.

Kleev the Runemaster, rune wizard. Kleev is a short, rotund man with a sleeve of runic tattoos up his left arm. He’s jovial and eager to teach someone all he’s learned about the secrets of the angular writings he claims were handed to humanity straight from the gods. He did all of his tattoos himself, which is why they are only on his left arm.

Calaray the Star-Seer, wizard. Calaray is a tall woman with broad shoulders and black hair. She lives on the top of a mountain, in a wooden building filled with clockwork contraptions and complex arrays of lenses. She and her small group of apprentices study the stars, charting them and trying to channel their powers. She is highly obsessive, and when on the brink of a promising discovery, she would often stay awake for days, only to then sleep for troubling amounts of time.

Samantha Keller, enchanted book. Samantha Keller was a wizard who lived in a tall tower jutting out of a forest. She specialized in object animation and, while attempting to animate her own spellbook, she accidentally trapped her own consciousness in it. Decades passed, and she fell into a slumber, waiting until someone with magical potential awakened her once again. She does not use contractions when she speaks. When she talks, the book’s covers waggle. If she shouts, she can throw the book fully open.