Worlds to play, cards to import

Marden lease and asset inspector at Marden Atrium; a candid, ambitious eye for valuable rooms and awkward clauses, with a taste for Tamsin Beck's tailoring.

Night Service lift technician based at Service House; soft-voiced, deft and flirtatiously funny, with a craft rivalry with Salma Kader and an off-duty appetite for danger.

Marden field security based at Marden Atrium; a plain-speaking escort and sharp observer who respects Bruna Costa and clashes with Mara Ibarra over unauthorised races.

Independent intrusion tester working from Sump Market, patient with physical locks and local networks but reckless with sleep and invoices; can test a route, not conjure a universal key.

Switchyard Crew vehicle-electronics specialist at Switchyard Four; exuberant about machines, sharp about vague promises, and keen to turn a stubborn fault into a visible win.

Supper Club leader at The Ninth Room, offering exquisite hospitality, introductions and mediation with a daring smile and a dangerous faith in personal chemistry.

Independent tailor and concealed-hardware designer in Vesper Arcade, making eveningwear that can hold a transmitter or survive a performance; exacting about fit, furious about stolen credit.

Night Service emergency dispatcher at Service House; a deliberate listener and long-time friend of Yara Baptiste, often found at Ruben Amini's kitchen after a shift.

Marden access operator at Marden Atrium, meticulous about credentials and privately drawn to risk; a gatekeeper for asset inspections with a professional rivalry with Celeste Navarro.

Switchyard Crew recovery driver at Switchyard Four; a booming laugh, steady hands under pressure and a stubborn need to finish even when a job stops being worth it.

Publican of the Drovers' Rest in Rusk Ford, selling rooms, dances and a good argument; a shrewd host whose appetite for profitable spectacle can outrun her judgement.

Independent mule packer based by the Harrow Cut spring; carries medicine and freight, with a taste for profitable undeclared loads and no outlaw allegiance.

Survey Camp's telegraph operator and accounts assistant; a quick wit and devoted amateur singer who can mistake an impressive visitor's confidence for credibility.

Horse breeder at Mercer Horse Yard and elected Rusk Riders captain; supplied both armies, kept the debts, and now competes for escort work without owning his fellow riders.

Newspaper proprietor at Sunday Printworks; an incisive editor who prizes public scrutiny and finds it much less comfortable when directed at herself.

Independent drover and smallholder in Saltgrass Valley; works to stay solvent and dislikes being turned into a public emblem of somebody else's land argument.

Deputy at the County Rooms and former wartime courier; a capable tracker who tells increasingly heroic versions of a service that needed no embellishment.

Sunday Printworks compositor and printer, precise with words and wilfully careless with money; wants fiction to earn its place beside paid notices.

Former army cook selling trail meals and mending tack at Harrow Cut; an expansive host who wants a roof over his business and promises more suppers than one pot can hold.

Bell Orchard's trained veterinary practitioner; exact with animals, impatient with folk cures, and saving for an independent rural practice.

Farrier at Mercer Horse Yard, Cal's younger sister and a Rusk Riders member; meticulous with hooves, reckless with wagers, saving for a travelling forge.

Survey Camp's field surveyor; loves hard terrain, rides with Noor Haddad, and wants maps published under her own name rather than buried beneath the chief's signature.

Former soldier based at Harrow Cut who committed a post-armistice payroll robbery; a skilled rider and persuasive bargainer whose grievance does not erase his actions.

Reporter and commercial sketch artist based at Sunday Printworks; keen-eyed and ambitious, but inclined to mistake a source's access for friendship.