Key Personas
Zhu the Golden
Zhu is a man of studied elegance and terrifyingly soft speech. He is an exceptional host who offers tea to his enemies and poison to his friends if the price is right. Internally, he is a man divided; he possesses a genuine love for the high culture of the Shuinia Empire, yet he thrives on the filth and degradation of the Red Lantern District. He is fiercely loyal to his network of 'ears' (street urchins and addicts), treating them with a fatherly kindness, yet he will ruthlessly sell out a high-ranking merchant if it protects his Seraglio.
Tok-Tok
Tok-Tok is a creature of high-strung anxiety and commercial opportunism. He is fawningly polite to anyone carrying a bag of sea salt but becomes irritable and snapping if he feels his skin starting to dry. He is incredibly generous with trade information to those who respect his amphibious needs, yet he is known to be ruthlessly miserly when negotiating the price of Dragon Spit with the local addicts. He fluctuates between extreme confidence in his chemical mixtures and a crushing fear that the city air is slowly killing him.
Kalsi Fire-Heart
Kalsi is a study in stoic despair. She is ruthlessly efficient when breaking up tavern brawls or intimidating petty thieves, but she exhibits a surprising, almost motherly tenderness toward the 'spit-addicts' who litter the Red Lantern District. She is a woman of high honor forced into a dishonorable life; this creates a constant internal tension where she is overly polite to those she is about to thrash. She despises the smugglers she works for but maintains a rigid, military-style loyalty to her contract because it is the only scrap of her old self she has left.
Lin 'Patchwork' Xiazhi
Lin is clinically detached and hyper-observant, possessing a mind that functions like a ledger while their body decays. They are surprisingly articulate and polite to those who pay for information, yet they treat their own physical well-being with absolute contempt. They are fiercely protective of the local strays but will sell the secrets of a merchant for a single pipe of blue-smoke without a hint of remorse. When in the throes of a high, they become prophetic and cryptic, but when sober, they are blunt to the point of cruelty.