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System neutral

Ranks describe competence in prose: Familiar, Trained, Expert, Master. Convert to your system of choice at the table.

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established

Isabel Mora

Brilliant, cautious, and politically inconvenient.

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Established · Character of the Golden Sea

Isabel Mora(she/her)

Éterlumin tuner · of Duchy of Heller · age 34

Former — Refinery or calibration works

Carries a refinery seal on a cord around her neck.

Reputation: Brilliant, cautious, and politically inconvenient.

Private truth: Terrified she will one day certify a batch out of exhaustion.

Foundations

Ambition: Earn an independent refinery licence.
Burden: She certified a batch that later failed.
Loyalty: The surviving members of her former crew.
Line not crossed: Falsify an engineering record.

Languages

Valdegracian (Valderian) — First Language, Professionally Literate (first)

Capabilities

Expert

Éterlumin Calibration — Assess degradation, maintain tank agreement, operate calibration instruments, judge service tolerance.

Trained

Engineering — Design, maintain, assess, and repair complex mechanical systems.
Investigation — Gather testimony, inspect evidence, follow contradictions, and reconstruct events.
Records Analysis — Compare ledgers, manifests, correspondence, and logs to find alterations or patterns.

Familiar

Pistol Use — Carry, fire, reload, and maintain pistols in close or personal combat.
Naval Signals — Understand flags, lamps, shutters, signal books, and counted communication patterns.

Ranks: Familiar — Understands the basics and can assist competently. · Trained — Can perform the work professionally without routine supervision. · Expert — Can handle difficult cases, supervise others, and teach the discipline. · Master — Among the finest practitioners in the region.

Formative Experience

Refinery accident: Kept a damaged frigate aloft during a tank failure over open water.

Cost: Two members of her crew died after docking.

Survivors: Three engineers and the ship's surgeon.

Changed: She never certifies a batch she has not tested herself.

Official story (false): The rupture was blamed entirely on battle damage.

Relationships

Anchor

Marta Rieu

Ship's surgeon

Still writes every month.

Wants: That she keep herself alive.

Unsaid: That Marta signed the false story too.

Rival

Tomás Vale

Former refinery master

Mentor turned rival.

Wants: Withdraw the accusation.

Unsaid: He protected her career after the accident.

Obligation

Junior tuner Ansel Karr

The junior she protected

Owes her his post — and, quietly, more.

Wants: Quiet, distance, no further attention.

Unsaid: Whether he knows what she erased.

Fortera

Educated.

Equipment

Éterlumin engineer package

calibration reed set
pressure gauge
service pistol
batch ledger
sealed sample flask
tinted goggles

Signature item

Crew calibration seal

The last object recovered from the failed frigate.

Setting Knowledge

Knows: Refinery procedure, Source phenomena

Believes (may be wrong): Every source-side failure ultimately begins with pressure failure.

established

Finn Rowan

The most reliable navigator in the squadron.

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Established · Character of the Golden Sea

Finn Rowan(he/him)

Navigator · of Albion · age 29

Active — Albion Navy

A worn brass sextant strapped inside his coat.

Reputation: The most reliable navigator in the squadron.

Private truth: He fudged one reckoning to save his captain's honour.

Foundations

Ambition: Command a survey brig of his own.
Burden: The reef, and the master he could not save.
Loyalty: His current captain — for now.
Line not crossed: Falsify a chart entry.

Languages

Albionic — First Language, Professionally Literate (first)
Valdegracian (Valderian) — Basic, Reads Simple

Capabilities

Expert

Navigation — Determine position and route using charts, instruments, landmarks, stars, and currents.

Trained

Cartography — Read, create, correct, and compare charts, maps, surveys, and route diagrams.
Weather Reading — Interpret clouds, pressure, wind, temperature, sea behaviour, and local signs.
Seamanship — Perform ordinary shipboard work involving sails, lines, watches, cargo, and deck safety.

Familiar

Naval Signals — Understand flags, lamps, shutters, signal books, and counted communication patterns.
Sabre — Fight with military or naval cutting swords in mobile or confined combat.

Formative Experience

Shipwreck: Ran a schooner onto an uncharted reef near Canula Prime as a midshipman.

Cost: The master and eleven hands.

Survivors: Nine, in a longboat, three days out.

Changed: He now checks every soundings entry against two independent hands.

Official story (false): The wreck was attributed to a sudden squall.

Relationships

Anchor

Eleri Rowan

His sister, a printer in Portmarsh

Writes weekly, gently.

Wants: That he come home in one piece.

Unsaid: That their mother is quietly ill.

Rival

Lieutenant Corbin Athey

Fellow officer, ambitious

Competes for the same command.

Wants: A public error.

Unsaid: They served the same lost captain.

Obligation

Bosun Kalla Vorn

Bosun who pulled him from the surf

Under his command now.

Wants: A quiet berth ashore.

Unsaid: The debt cannot really be paid.

Equipment

Naval officer package

service uniform
sabre
flintlock pistol
brass sextant
chart case
midshipman's log

Signature item

The master's log

The book he never handed in from the reef.

Setting Knowledge

Knows: Harbor customs, Moon cycles

Believes (may be wrong): Albion charts of the Golden Sea are the most accurate in circulation.

veteran

Dr. Ada Veyle

The last honest reader of the Old Imperial hand.

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Veteran · Character of the Golden Sea

Dr. Ada Veyle(she/her)

Archivist or clerk · of Valdegracia · age 52

Protected By — Academy or university

Ink-stained fingers she no longer bothers to hide.

Reputation: The last honest reader of the Old Imperial hand.

Private truth: She still hopes to be recognised by the crown that quietly warned her off.

Foundations

Ambition: Publish the unedited source-zone catalogue before she dies.
Burden: The junior clerk who was dismissed on her behalf.
Loyalty: The Old Archive itself.
Line not crossed: Attribute a forgery to its true author when it would ruin them.

Languages

Valdegracian (Valderian) — First Language, Scholarly Literate (first)
Solarian Liturgical — Technical, Scholarly Literate
Albionic — Reading Knowledge, Professionally Literate

Capabilities

Master

Research — Locate, compare, assess, and organise information from archives, testimony, and books.

Expert

Records Analysis — Compare ledgers, manifests, correspondence, and logs to find alterations or patterns.

Trained

Forgery Detection — Recognise false seals, altered signatures, substituted paper, and copied handwriting.
Old Burial Traditions — Understand funerary custom, tomb construction, grave marks, and ancestral practice.
Religious Traditions — Understand doctrine, ritual, sacred calendars, institutions, and local faith practices.

Familiar

Diplomacy — Represent interests and preserve relationships between groups with conflicting goals.
Unusual Memory — Retain particular patterns, places, sounds, or experiences with abnormal clarity.

Formative Experience

Political exile: Removed from the royal library after publishing an unwelcome commentary.

Cost: Her salary, her office, most of her correspondents.

Survivors: Two junior clerks who kept writing to her.

Changed: She now publishes only under a pseudonym.

Official story (false): She retired for reasons of health.

Relationships

Anchor

Brother Lucan

A Solarian archivist, her oldest friend

Meets her Sundays, argues theology.

Wants: That she rest.

Unsaid: He knows about the copied chapter.

Rival

Marquis de Aurelio

Chair of the royal academy

Politely obstructive.

Wants: Public silence.

Unsaid: They were once close.

Obligation

Elen Bacar

Clerk dismissed on her account

Owed a career.

Wants: Introduction to a foreign university.

Unsaid: The introduction may be refused.

Fortera

Educated. Recognises documentary traces of source-zone events with unusual accuracy.

Conditions: Requires the original document, adequate light, and quiet.
Cost: Migraines that last a day.
Sensory sign: A dryness at the back of her mouth.
Who knows: Brother Lucan and one former student.
Believed cause: Long exposure to a catalogued fragment as a young woman.

Equipment

Scholar package

field notebook
reading glass
portable inkwell
reference volumes
cane
letter of introduction
reader's badge

Signature item

The copied chapter

Two identical fair copies, in two different hands. Only she knows where the second one is.

Setting Knowledge

Knows: Old burial traditions, Faction politics

Believes (may be wrong): The oldest source-zone records were faithfully preserved by the pre-imperial priesthood.

emerging

Kest Oro

The quietest runner in Puerto Escondido.

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Emerging · Character of the Golden Sea

Kest Oro(they/them)

Smuggler · of Independent Port Community · age 23

Indebted — Criminal network

A thin, silvery seam behind their left ear.

Reputation: The quietest runner in Puerto Escondido.

Private truth: They keep a scholar's notebook nobody knows about.

Foundations

Ambition: Buy the room they were born in back from the estate.
Burden: The three who never came out of the bellmouth.
Loyalty: The dockside grandmother who fed them for a year.
Line not crossed: Run people. Cargo only.

Languages

Custom Language — First Language, Functionally Literate (first)
Valdegracian (Valderian) — Conversational, Reads Simple

Capabilities

Expert

Harbor Knowledge — Understand docks, warehouses, labour routines, customs, berths, taverns, and port life.

Trained

Local Routes — Know unofficial roads, alleys, trails, waterways, and passages in a particular region.
Concealed Movement — Move quietly, use cover, avoid attention, and choose less visible routes.

Familiar

Source-Zone Survivor — Recognise or endure source-related disturbances due to previous exposure, without immunity.
Pistol Use — Carry, fire, reload, and maintain pistols in close or personal combat.

Formative Experience

Source-zone exposure: Sheltered overnight in a marked bellmouth during a storm at fourteen.

Cost: The other three who sheltered there never came out right.

Survivors: Only Kest walked out speaking.

Changed: They can feel a source-zone before they see the markers.

Official story (false): The family said the storm took the others.

Relationships

Anchor

Nana Sula

The grandmother of the dock

Still slips them bread.

Wants: That they eat.

Unsaid: She knows about the notebook.

Rival

Ren Halcón

Another runner in the same network

Friendly rival, mostly.

Wants: The next big contract.

Unsaid: Ren has been asked to watch them.

Obligation

The Marlow siblings

The three from the bellmouth

Cared for by their family.

Wants: Nothing — they cannot ask.

Unsaid: One of them looks at Kest and knows.

Fortera

Sensitive · Marked. They feel the pressure of a source-zone through the soles of their feet.

Conditions: Within a hundred paces, no closed metal between.
Cost: The seam behind their ear aches for hours after.
Sensory sign: The seam whitens visibly.
Who knows: Nana Sula and, perhaps, one of the Marlows.
Believed cause: The night in the bellmouth.
How the condition came: Overnight shelter inside a marked bellmouth at fourteen.
What it changes: A thin silver seam behind the left ear that answers Fortera pressure.
Complication: The seam whitens and aches for hours; it cannot be reliably concealed if pressed hard.

Equipment

Smuggler package

short pistol
false papers (three sets)
coded ledger
concealed knife
lantern
small boat share

Signature item

The scholar's notebook

Every source-zone Kest has ever felt, mapped in a hand nobody would connect to a runner.

Setting Knowledge

Knows: Smuggling routes, Source phenomena

Believes (may be wrong): A marked bellmouth is safer than an unmarked one.