Dramatis Personae
DRAMATIS PERSONAE (or: a brief guide to the people, places, and one dog you are about to become entirely too attached to.)
THE STIRLINGS
Freya Stirling - Green-thumbed would-be botanist. Accidental wife to three husbands. Crack shot with a rifle. Brews well. Bakes. Can sing a little. Rides a horse like a sack of potatoes.
Alexia Stirling – Stirling-Mother Alexia. Brewer, distiller, matriarch, and the most dangerous woman in Carbon who isn’t currently dead. Correct about almost everything. Warm about almost nothing. Loves her daughter. Has a peculiar way of showing it.
Thomas Stirling - Papa Thomas. Eldest of Alexia’s husbands, and brother to Marcus, William and John. Known throughout Carbon as the Stirling Fox. The cleverest man in any room he enters, including this one. Has opinions he keeps to himself until exactly the right moment.
Marcus Stirling - Papa Marcus. Second husband to Alexia. Broad-shouldered, reliable, not a man who wastes words. A giant in the brewing industry.
William Stirling - Papa William. Third husband to Alexia. Does his job. Asks no unnecessary questions. A virtue more people should cultivate.
John Stirling - Papa John. Youngest of Alexia’s husbands. A dead-eye good shot and determined that daughters should be too.
Iris Stirling - Stirling-Mother Iris. Freya’s oldest sister. Has her mother’s spine and a head for commerce. Heir to the Stirling business. Runs things with frightening efficiency. Not in this story much. Mentioned here anyway because she deserves the acknowledgment.
Jane Stirling - Fisk-Mother Jane. Freya’s other older sister. Married to the Fisk Brothers, who paid an exorbitant bride-price for the privilege. They will tell you she was worth every penny of it, and and then some. That’s because they know what’s good for them. Jane is a revolutionary, natty dresser, and the ruling queen of the Riverboat Kingfisker. Husbands Etienne, Laurent, Armand, and Henri run the floating den of iniquity known as The Kingfisker along with her. Children, Isobel, George, and Liliane don’t come into the story much, but are growing up to be elegant little menaces.
THE GOSSES
Mattias Goss (Stirling) - Formerly Lieutenant Goss. Eldest Goss brother. Married Freya under duress, fell in love against his better judgment, and has been furious about it ever since in the way that happy people sometimes are. Tactical. Terse. Possesses a smile he deploys approximately twice a year. Worth waiting for.
Daniel Goss (Stirling) - Middle Goss brother. Large. Good-looking. Plays dumb with the commitment of a man who has made it a career. Is not dumb. Caused this entire situation. Has the grace to be grateful about it.
Edwin Goss (Stirling) - Youngest Goss brother. Engineer. Scientifically minded. An idealist in a world that has given him very little cause for idealism, yet persists anyway. Caused some trouble in Stagmouth, ending a man who deserved it. Does not regret it.
Clara Goss - Goss-Mother Clara. Widow. Raised six children alone on two pensions and sheer determination after the Outbreak of ’71 took both her husbands. The Western Colony has produced harder women than Clara Goss, but not many, and they are not in this story.
Bela - A dog. Mattias’s dog, technically. Bela has not been informed of this.
CARBON AND ENVIRONS
Sheriff Brennan - Carbon’s sheriff. Nominally the law in Carbon. Occasionally upholds the law in Carbon. A decent man in a job that requires someone slightly more decisive.
Martha Grimley - Grimley-Mother Martha. Nearest neighbour to the Stirling homestead. Capable woman. Good dogs. Survives the story, which is more than can be said for everyone.
Graham Grimley - One of Martha Grimley’s four husbands. Reliable shot. Mentioned here because he earns it.
PREWITT’S SQUAD
Sergeant Alden Prewitt - Garrison sergeant out of Carbon. Blond. Competent. Hunky. Possessed of an open, friendly face that does not adequately warn you of what is underneath it. Mattias Goss’s former subordinate. Rides to the rescue with some regularity. Sad part of a Prewitt's background. He's an orphan.
Corporal Keene - Squad medic. Steady hands, careful eyes, knows when to stand down and keep quiet. An asset both in the field and at the supper table.
Corporal Tolliver - Dependable. Present. Does not complicate things. There are not enough Tollivers in the world.
Private Crowe - An uncomplicated trooper in Prewitt’s troop. He troops.
Private Cooper - An uncomplicated private in Prewitt’s troop. He troops.
Private Hale - Green as spring wheat. Will still manage to water your horse correctly without instructions. May even milk your goat if you ask nicely. Give him time.
OTHERS OF NOTE
The Calle Brothers - All four of them. Couriers, traders, adventurers, opportunists, smugglers, and tellers of extremely tall tales. A separate set of three Calle brothers runs a smaller, more honest cartage business out of Carbon. The family resemblance is evident.
Lieutenant Prentiss - A local legend. Retired. He was at Fort Bleriot and came out alive. People buy him drinks just for that.
Ashe - A very bad man from Stagmouth. Dead now, and good riddance.
PLACES
Carbon - The northernmost river port on the Great Stag River. Big enough to matter. Small enough that everyone knows your name. Full of coal mines, timber, soldiers, saloons, salons, and Stirlings.
The Stirling Homestead - Ten miles north of Carbon, at the end of a coulee that even zombies find inconvenient to reach. Abandoned since the Outbreak of ’71. Structurally sound, defensively excellent. Possessed of sweet water, good defences, salamanders and many flat acres of good crop-land. Freya’s problem now.
Fort Bleriot - Garrison fort with a nasty reputation and a higher than average attrition rate. Lieutenant Prentiss made it out alive. Most people find this remarkable.
Bitter Creek - Town to the north of Carbon. On the Stag River, but too far north for riverboats to reach. Makes its own arrangements. Also makes sub-par whiskey.
Stagmouth City - The largest and wealthiest city in all the Western Colony. Sits on the southern coast, where the Stagmouth River reaches the sea. The Empire’s only real foothold out here, and it knows it. Hot, muggy, and full of money, decadence, sin, and ships.
Glacier Rock - A gigantical erratic rock sitting in the middle of the bald-ass prairie, doing nothing, meaning nothing, and nevertheless managing to be involved in at least one significant event in this story.
The Boreal - The great northern forest. Stretches from north of Bitter Creek to the edge of The Ice. Dark, large, and full of wild animals. Just ask the Calle brothers, they’ve been there. Really. They have.
The Ice - The continental ice sheet. Stretches from the edge of The Boreal to God knows where. Nobody has gone to find out. Nobody sensible, anyway.
The Mighty Stag River - Navigable, enormous, and the reason Carbon exists at all. Carries coal, cargo, riverboats, news, vice, and rumour. How mighty is it? Mightily. 3,800 miles from headwaters to delta. 3,400 of which are navigable miles by steamboat. Harbours alligators in the southern stretches. Freezes over on the northern bits. Also has the Fisk brothers working its entire length, who are arguably more dangerous than alligators.
The Lawrence - Another river. It’s not in the story (yet). It’s there, though, way far away to the east. At its westernmost branch, it comes within 300 miles of The Stag. Three hundred miles of remote, mountainous, zombie-infested territory, that is. This might be strategically important if you happened to be the head of a colonial empire. Or an anti-imperialist rebel, maybe.
