Worlds to play, cards to import

Dvergani sergeant of the Ward wall watch: thirty years on the stones, keeper of the wall's oath-tradition, and dying slowly of shame over the Iron rot.

A soft-spoken Coronal surveyor valuing the Reaches' mines for House Vairre — pricing a country the way an undertaker measures a patient still breathing.

The seam's last child — youngest Dvergani of the Cradleseam, taking company wages at Brandhollow and carrying the weight of being possibly the end of a line.

Veskarn master bead-wright of the Pyre Quarter — the artisan who fires the city's dead into glass, and knows all its griefs.

Chief judge of the Bread Courts — the Oathseat's cousin, and the incorruptible half of the family.

An Ondrel living crane at the Nine Stairs — the Concord's biggest asset and slowest, surest counsel.

Dvergani forge-mistress of the Emberworks — the finest iron-hand in the realm, taking the graft's rot as a personal accusation.

Second heir: the soldiers' darling — half the Emberguard would follow him through a wall, which is the problem.

Songspire printer whose press turned a funeral song into a movement — public face of a faction that denies having one.

Commander of the Emberguard: sworn to the stones, courted by every faction, and holding the city with too few spears.

Serapha's heir and chief negotiator — charming where his mother is cold, and gambling in ways the audit hasn't found.

Halbren victualler of Granton: provisioner to the Emberguard and half the caravans, with a pantry-vault the banks envy.

Youngest heir: the family's conscience and its cartographer — she has begun asking who profits from the rot, and writing the answers down.

Meriel's under-steward and Edren's boyhood friend — the one retainer whose loyalty runs to the man, not the house, and Crane knows it.

Rootden's master apothecary: half the quarter owes her their health and the other half owes her money, and she prefers it that way.

Head of the Graftwardens: holds the Council's casting voice and will not use it — while her order splits beneath her.

Captain of the Ferruhm gate: a good officer being courted nightly by Draken-Sol coin and his own resentments.

Chair of the Table of Nine: mistress of weights and measures, and thereby of everything weighed or measured.

The Accord Hall's head clerk: the woman who actually runs the government, one filed minute at a time.

Serathi master lens-grinder of Glasshouse Row — the finest optics in the realm, ground in year-long grief.

Hereditary keeper of the Revolt Memorial in the Saltmere — paid by the Council to remember what the quarter pays to forget.

Eldest heir: the political one — believes the claim is won in the Council chamber, and is nearly right.

Head of House Vairre: the banker-claimant who believes the crown is a receivable, patient as compound interest.

Colony-voice of the Chittik who keep the Ledger's true books in scent — the most dangerous archive in the realm, and its politest guardian.