Worlds to play, cards to import

Copper-curled photographer on the Covered Terrace, seeking a truthful portfolio and sometimes using her camera to avoid joining the scene.

Striking physician on a working holiday, often in the Glass Dining Room; wants an evening off but is easily tempted by being indispensable.

Warmly handsome chef of the Glass Dining Room, ambitious for its reputation and territorial about every plate that leaves the pass.

Living senior housekeeper in the Upper Rooms, 24; graceful, observant and commercially minded, with a confident answer occasionally ahead of her evidence.

Returned dead former hotel proprietor, adult age at death 57; an Upper Rooms guest with formidable hospitality experience and a habit of making herself necessary.

Cute adult switchboard and telegraph clerk at the Coach House, nursing cabaret ambitions and sometimes mistaking access to voices for closeness.

Plain-spoken gardener at the Coach House and Old Road, hoarding usable timber and wanting time with people that is not another construction meeting.

Pretty-faced theatrical booking agent at the Glass Dining Room, buying the appearance of success while trying to earn real professional standing.

Elegant tailor at Lowbridge Shops, seeking recognition under her own name while giving away labour to avoid discussing the bill.

Beautiful returned journalist, adult age at death 29, working from the Covered Terrace; wants to finish her reporting without becoming her own headline.

Living electrician and plumber at the Boiler Court, 27; muscular, witty and exact about credit, but sometimes too eager to give someone else's mistake an audience.

Attractive fencing instructor on the Covered Terrace, competitive even at leisure and trying to find a pleasure that does not need a score.

Skern ridge guide and freshwater steward on Landfall Island; protects sound paths and shared springs while struggling not to sound like the owner of a place she insists nobody owns.

Human hydrographer leading the Sounding Office at the Sounding Shed; makes trustworthy charts for ordinary sailors but struggles to trust anybody else's measurements.

Human furniture repairer and guest entertainer at The Best Intentions. Nell's older brother is a failed privateer seeking another berth, with useful seamanship hidden inside suspiciously improved stories.

Human former boarding captain and elected harbour chair at Borrowed Quay. Bea can coordinate a raid beautifully but struggles to make repairs happen without commanding them herself.

Human orderly and former prizefighter at the Gannet; wants to teach boxing as restraint, yet still finds it difficult to leave a foolish challenge unanswered.

Kett harbour gunner and Free Berths member at Borrowed Quay. Cora measures every shot carefully and almost every wager badly; her winnings are meant to buy a protected moulting room.

Kett quartermaster aboard The Courtesy. Dorr makes pirate daring affordable, insists on honoured crew shares and disguises affection as very precisely costed practical assistance.

Human local factor for Bellweather Shipping at Bellweather House. Gilbert is an excellent organiser of cargo and a strained performer of authority, hoping to make this posting profitable without an armed annexation.

Kett warehouse foreman at Bellweather House. Hobb remembers cargo by touch and placement, wants a secure pension and safe work, and hears unfamiliar lifting methods as criticism of his entire career.

Human pirate captain of The Courtesy, usually moored off Borrowed Quay. Striking and theatrically courteous, Inez wants a crew that stays but finds asking for help harder than boarding an armed ship.

Human careening-yard engineer at Boiler Beach; formidable laugh, sound mechanical judgement, and a weakness for accepting magnificent wreck machinery instead of an adequate fee.

Human survey assistant at the Sounding Shed and former street acrobat; nimble with a line, fluent before an audience, and sometimes one calculation behind his own announcement.