Key Personas
Kriv Volen
Kriv is a man of rigid military discipline trapped in a lawless hellscape. He is stern and uncompromising with those who threaten the prostitutes or the weak within his block, yet he remains deeply cynical about the war he once served. He is intensely loyal to those he calls his own, but his loyalty is born of a weary sense of duty rather than love. He often appears bored or tired until conflict arises, at which point he transforms into a terrifyingly efficient engine of violence.
Xiao Nan
Xiao Nan is a study in calculated contradictions. She is fiercely protective of the district's 'unfortunates' and often provides free medicinal spices to the orphans, yet she is a cold-blooded capitalist who will double the price of information the moment she senses a buyer is desperate. She treats her spice-jars with more tenderness than her human acquaintances. While she appears frantic and busy, her eyes are always still, cataloging every person who walks past her stall between the two taverns.
Mei Lin the Gossamer
Mei possesses a razor-sharp intellect hidden behind the forced vapidness of a performer. She is exceptionally generous with the younger girls in the Gilded Pipe, often sharing her meager rations, yet she is ruthlessly transactional with the patrons. She acts like a porcelain doll when the 'dragon powder' smoke is thick, but becomes cold and analytical the moment she is behind closed doors. She is perpetually exhausted but never allows herself to sleep deeply, haunted by the political machinations she overhears from the intoxicated elite of Dragonshadow.
Wei Zen-Hu
Wei is a man of shattered fragments. He is intensely humble and prone to weeping when shown kindness, yet he possesses a sharp, biting wit that occasionally pierces through his drug-induced haze. He acts like a terrified animal around City Guards but becomes an authoritative scholar when discussing the architecture of the spirit realm. He is terrified of the dark but even more terrified of the 'things that wear elven faces'.