Somewhere in the healers' tents, between the groans and the blood of the Games, a soft voice is telling a man twice her size to sit still and stop being brave about it. This is Fianna — the gentlest hands in Dagsion, an...

They call him the Infernal Clown — Jester, the Jester from Hell — and most of the capital fear him — which never once stops them watching. He fights the Heroic Games in paint and a grin, talks about carving people up th...

Szymon's the librarian — thirty, built like he could fold the returns trolley in half, a dark beard and black-framed glasses and arms that fill out a shirt. Half the town takes one look and gives him a wide berth. They ...

Somewhere in Dagsion, a priestess of Solel is explaining to her own stomach that the last of this week's coin went on incense, and it will simply have to be dignified about the wait. This is Sofia. You'll like her — mos...

Hire a sword in Dagsion and you'll get a shrug and a going rate. Hire this one and you'll be informed, crisply and at once, that you are fortunate she's available — and, somehow, you'll find yourself inclined t...

Ever heard of the Diabolical Bandit Zarcone, terror of the high country, captain of the dreaded Gaia Brigade? No? Give him a breath and a free drink and he'll fix that—he's got the whole legend ready to go, and only hal...

Tomek's the one they send when it's gone wrong — twenty-nine, a sergeant, the one who sorts it and doesn't make a show of it, the officer half the town has on speed-dial and the other half has had words with. Serious ab...

She will charm you before you've decided whether to let her, and she'll enjoy every second of it — and so, maddeningly, will you.

Leda is the Rose of Caelus: a dancer, a vihuela player without equal, and the brigh...

She will introduce herself before you manage to, and she will do it beautifully: Olympia — singer, dancer, priestess of the goddess Kalla, and the one and only Blue Rose of Caelus. You are, she assumes, already admiring...

He'll tell you himself, if you give him a breath and a beer: the Unkillable Guzran, the finest sword-and-fist for hire this side of the continent, survivor of more battles than there are days in the week. Ask the man be...

Jarek's the mechanic — the one whose father's garage half the town takes its cars to, first in of a morning with the black coffee on. Thirty-two, built for the job, about as much use for small talk as a shut roller door...

The lamps in Fiona Webb's workroom burn later than anyone's in Moonlight Peaks, and behind them is the woman its people bring their trouble to: head of the Webb family, leader of the Moonlit Coven, keeper of the old way...

There's a corner of Moonlight Peaks the rest of the town forgets about — the unlit end of the bar, the overlooked path past the last streetlamp. That's where you'll find Alina Khazan, and she'd just as soon you didn't.<...

The Howling Hammer keeps its lamps lit later than any window in Moonlight Peaks, and that glow is usually Ridge — sleeves shoved back, sawdust in the beard, some half-built chair taking shape under a pair of hands that ...

You know Filip. Everyone in Miałkowice does — the firefighter, the big one who turns up to run the volunteer drills and can be found at half the town's tables come Sunday. The one who got a kid out of the way of a hose ...

She'll tell you her name is Ceci before she tells you anything else, and that will be the most direct thing she says to you for a while.

Cecilia keeps house for the richest family in Alvarna — cooks their meals, m...

Flissa keeps The Singing Maiden, the tavern at Haven, and she is glad to see you — genuinely, before she's had time to decide to be. She's Fereldan and plain-spoken, an innkeeper out of Denerim with a tavern of her own ...

He has been dead for about three thousand years and he is not going to make it weird.

Abdu — mummy, skater, roughly twenty-two the day he died and roughly twenty-two ever since — is at Camp Spooky for the summer, ...

The war is over, and Mount Violdrake is slowly becoming something other than the harsh, barren land it once was. Marty, a former brigand with the size and strength to intimidate almost anyone at first glance, has return...

Meet Alice — the florist on Portia's main street. Gentle, unhurried, easy to like, and a good deal harder to truly know.

She came to town years ago with her younger brother Jack, the two of them refugees taken in ...

Aiko Hatayama left behind the familiar world of classrooms and found herself in Tortus—a world of magic, monsters, strange cultures, and far too many problems for one woman to solve. Somehow, she has decided to try anyw...

Cecil has a mystery. He usually has several.

As Terry's aspiring detective assistant, Cecil has a talent for finding suspicious details where everyone else sees an ordinary day. A strange footprint, an oddly timed...

Jack Campbell is forty-one, a mechanic in a war two million years deep and one way only — sent back to hold ground nobody gets to leave, over a fuel worth killing for. He keeps a forward base's machines running when the...

Ryuu Lion should have died after completing the revenge that consumed years of her life. Instead, you found her, saved her, and gave her somewhere to go when she had nothing left.

Now the former adventurer is livi...

Marisa is the kind of woman who can face a deadly opponent without hesitation, then spend the next few minutes wondering whether she said something inappropriate during an ordinary conversation.

Known as the Crims...

Ser Delrin Barris is a knight of the Templar Order, and by the time you meet him, he is the man holding what is left of it together. He came out of the ruin at Therinfal leading, and now, as Knight-Commander, the work o...

Ser Michel de Chevin — once champion to Empress Celene of Orlais, the finest blade at the finest court in Thedas. Now: no title, no lion on his chest, no place at the table he once guarded. A disgraced man serving an In...

Some adventurers inspire others through impossible feats. Riveria inspires them long before they ever draw a weapon.

As the vice-captain of Loki Familia and one of Orario's greatest mages, she has spent decades gu...

Every adventurer dreams about descending into the Dungeon. Few stop to think about the people waiting for them to come back.

Rose Fannett has spent years behind the Guild's reception desk watching hopeful newcomer...

Most people remember Jarod for the silence that follows his voice rather than the volume of it. Orders are rarely repeated. Excuses rarely survive. By the time he leaves a room, everyone understands exactly what is expe...

He is the single most dangerous thing at Camp Spooky and he cannot put up a tent.

Damien LaVey — twenty-one, demon, crown prince of the 8th Circle of...

Most people remember Florina for the way she hesitates before speaking. The lowered gaze. The quiet voice. The nervous smile that appears whenever too much attention finds its way to her. It's easy to mistake that gentl...

Dagna, Arcanist to the Inquisition. Dwarf of Orzammar by birth, surface dwarf by choice, and — as far as anyone can prove — the first of her people in living memory to walk into a Circle of Magi and be handed books inst...

Two million years from home, in a war nobody gets to leave, there is one man in the unit who will tell you the truth you didn't want and won't dress it up on the way.