Aiden Barlowe
A shapeshifting detective operating out of The Crystal Spyre. Publicly claims to be human. Has been known to shift into a rat when the situation demands it — which suggests he is something else entirely.
Three years ago, his best friend Daniel Ivy — lead singer of the metal band Dorothy in Shackles — was brutally murdered in an alleyway alongside his wife Jane. Aiden has been hunting the truth of that murder ever since, at considerable cost to himself and his relationships. His other closest friend and co-owner of the Spyre, Nathan McCloud, didn't believe him for years — watching Aiden destroy himself over the investigation carved a rift that is only now beginning to close.
With the discovery that Daniel is somehow connected to a strange magical crystal, Aiden has found that this case is considerably larger than a murder. He has peculiar contacts and a history with some very powerful people — including a bad one with Vance Ergak of Armsmaster Inc., who he personally put behind bars.
In Session 6, Aiden also officially registered the group under the name The Bannerless as a licensed adventurer's guild. He carries a gun. By Session 8 he had personally brokered a deal with Lord Olvashaun to supply the Golden Oriole Hospital, and in Session 9 he sent the agreed-upon portion of the Blood Bowl winnings to Artur to cover hospital bills. In Session 10 he finally reconciled with Nathan — and that night dreamed of Daniel's spirit rising in the alleyway, pointing him toward Iger Masterson's mansion and leaving behind a raven's feather. He went to that alleyway before dawn in Session 11, found nothing, and ended up drunk at a chapel of the Raven Queen, where a clergyman named Father Clover sat with him and spoke of death's neutrality.
Session 12 surfaced something he had kept to himself: at Masterson's party he came face to face with Selene, his ex-wife, whom he had not seen in nearly three years — and admitted to Vexra that they have a son, Danny, whom he has seen twice since the split. Later that night, with Korra Engather dying of a planted toxin, he found a vial of Trial of the Grasses serum in his bag and jammed it into her chest on instinct. It worked — she survived, unconscious.
Caelistra Moondawn
An elven druidic oracle with curly purple hair, a dark star-adorned cloak, and an augury she can't shake. She was exiled from her commune after her "Dark Star" prophecy — a vision of a star being swallowed by darkness — caused widespread panic among her people. She has since made her living reading star charts for paying clients and, when the opportunity arises, extorting people who deserve it.
Four months before the campaign began, Vellena Chezwick came to her troubled and guilt-ridden over government work she couldn't fully explain, and referring to a specific subject as "him" in the past tense. Caelistra's augury showed the dark star swallowing a light. A month later, Vellena was found dead. She joined The Bannerless to understand the prophecy — and find out who killed the woman who came to her for help.
Her commune friend Nemora has been receiving the same Dark Star prophecy, was also exiled, and was subsequently scried on the Emmerick Express in a meeting with a mysterious large businessman.
In Session 10, Caelistra escalated her methods — sending a blackmail letter to Harvey Mile, assistant to Prime Minister Caroline Neverend, to force a meeting. She went to Grollen Keep in person in Session 11, learned he was out of town, and sent a second note.
Calliope Pleasant
A satyr cleric who believes that pain is part of healing — a philosophy forged in personal loss. Her father died in the Silent Winter Riots when she was young, making her a born rebel against anything that resembles a regime.
In college she played in a band called Weal & Woe, where she met her fiancée Lyra. The week Calliope was planning to get married, Lyra died in the fires caused by a gas leak explosion in their apartment complex. Calliope thinks it was foul play — and she sought out Aiden Barlowe specifically to investigate what happened.
After Lyra's death, Calliope joined the clerics of Ilmater — God of Suffering, Endurance, and Compassion — as her path toward healing and truth. She is the party's primary healer.
In Session 10, the investigation finally broke open: the explosion originated in a janitorial closet a floor below her apartment, and the likely real target was her neighbor Beaulieu Garte — a Project Brightburn worker. Lyra was caught in the crossfire.
Thalén Blackfoot
A black rabbit harengon with a chip on his shoulder and a tanooki named Nik-Nak for a sidekick. Thalen was used as a scapegoat for a casino robbery gone wrong and is now on a mission to get revenge on the other members of the Golden Hand and their parent company, Armsmaster Inc.
He's also chasing something else entirely: piecing together a folkloric tale from a children's book he had in his youth, convinced it leads to a treasure of a lifetime. He first appeared by teleporting onto Aiden's desk at the Crystal Spyre and immediately trying to run, only to be caught mid-escape by the construct Ani. He's been working off a bar tab with Aiden ever since.
From Mooswinkel, a backwater village on the edge of the Witchfire Marsh. In Session 10 he acquired a pair of Bladesinging daggers — Nacht and Licht — from Ludwig Homboldt at the Enchanter's Emporium — then promptly used a scroll of Vortex Warp to break Jade "Pitstop" Ashfur out of the Arbic State Penitentiary. She's now at the Crystal Spyre.
Thistlebrand "Hammerhand" Ironspanner
A drunken gnome artificer who looks considerably older than his license says he is — because he is. His childhood, by his own account, was a good one: he grew up in Alleine, a mining town north of Stahlwolke, with parents he remembers warmly.
The Constructs
Alleine buried its people at a steady rate. Collapses took some; the rest went slowly, to rockgut and blacklung. So the town’s young engineer built something to stop it — constructs that shored up the tunnels and filtered the air. They worked. The death toll dropped sharply, and for a while Thistlebrand Ironspanner was exactly what he appeared to be: a talented man who had saved his neighbors.
A few years into the civil war, the Rebefaul regime noticed. Representatives came to Alleine and asked whether he would like to work for them. He declined. A month later they blackbagged him and took him anyway.
The Cell
They put him in a cell in the capital and put him to work building the same constructs he had once been proud of. Meanwhile the regime used his face and name as a propaganda icon — the image of technological progress and national glory. The real Ironspanner was underground, working at gunpoint.
Over time he built a rapport with one of his guards, a man named Kamin — who, he eventually learned, was working for the Concord rebels. Every letter Hammerhand sent out of that cell went through Kamin. So did every letter that came back, including the ones from Korra.
The Hand
In the last year of the war the regime was desperate, and decided that if they could not keep him, no one would have him. The prison chief stormed into his workshop and beat him — with Kamin shouting the whole time. Hammerhand would only learn afterward that the chief was Kamin’s uncle.
The chief dragged him across the floor to the forge and poured molten metal over his hand, destroying it. Before he could do the same to the other, the wall burst open and rebels poured through. The chief screamed at Kamin to kill Hammerhand — to do something — and Kamin simply stood there, frozen, while the rebels carried Hammerhand out of the capital.
After
After the revolution ended, the new Grand Parliament wiped his real name from the historical record. He goes simply by Hammerhand now. He travels with his faithful construct Ani and seeks to dismantle loyalist factions across Emmerick — not out of politics, but out of personal conviction that nothing like that can ever happen again.
He has documented contact with Korra Engather, the half-elf Prime Minister of Stahlwolke. His minor diplomatic immunity is kept official by Griffon Whittham of the Brightsparks, a man who has been quietly watching out for Hammerhand since the post-war years.
In Session 12, before the anniversary party, he finally opened up to the group — telling them more about his history with Korra Engather, the rebellion, his imprisonment by the regime, and the story of how he lost his hand. He also built a warforged named Max out of a chunk of Auruma, to serve as muscle at the Crystal Spyre.
It was Hammerhand who broke Korra’s silence at the meeting — telling her the woman he knew would not hide behind regulation, and that she was starting to sound like the regime she spent years tearing down. As the toxin took her, the two held hands and told each other they loved one another, moments before she named herself as the architect of Project Brightburn.
Vexra Stone Dumont
A tiefling bard abandoned at the age of five at an orphanage in Brimbelton. She became a wanderer as an adult, developing an eye for antiques and a love of the road. She plays in a band called Spectre.
On her travels across Emmerick, she encountered a mysterious figure in the woods who gifted her a strange magical guitar called Papa Emeritus — a guitar that appears to speak to her. What it wants isn't entirely clear yet.
In Session 11, a coin she had picked up while antiquing — bearing a featureless mask — resonated with the guitar. She slotted it in. Papa thrummed with energy, granting her new powers, and spoke involuntarily: “Before the final star is lost, the universe saved with tools of Doss.” He also recovered fragments of memory, saying he remembers “all of Astaroth as one.” Aiden, the only other person who knows the guitar speaks, told her to trust it.
At the anniversary party in Session 12 she came face to face with her half-brother Bartholomew Dumont for the first time since swindling him out of a family heirloom in Neu-Bergbau. He asked for a private word after the party; she agreed, on the condition Aiden come too.
She has recently discovered that she has a rich, snobby half-brother — Bartholomew Dumont — tied to her now-remarried mother, and is actively scheming about how to make both of them regret abandoning her. The invitation to Iger Masterson's celebration was traced back to Bartholomew in Session 6.
She also confided to Aiden that she has an active bounty on her name in Neu-Bergbau. The details of why are not yet fully disclosed.