Who You Already Know

Seventeen people who live and work in Onda · handed to players at character creation

How to use this

Pick one, or two, or none, and tell me how your character knows them. The descriptions are deliberately thin. The details are yours to fill in, and whatever you decide is true becomes true — if you want them to be your aunt, they’re your aunt. The three prompts under each name are suggestions, not a menu; ignore them and write your own if something better occurs to you.

A note on the names. On a working quay you get called what you do, or what happened to you, and some people never lose it. Others are just their name. Both are normal here.

The quay

Otto Rask, called Twice-Said

Ropewalk foreman. Deaf in one ear and says everything twice as loud as he means to.

You might: have worked a season on his ropewalk · owe him a favour · have been sacked by him and forgiven inside a week.

Ma Silva

Sells lunch off a basket on the quay. Small, dry, and remembers exactly what you owe and how you take it.

You might: eat there daily · be behind on the tab · have been fed for nothing during a bad month and never spoken of it.

Speaker Miriam Dol, called the Last Word

The Animist who keeps the water-side rites. Sixty, salt-stained hands, finishes every sentence she starts.

You might: have had a relative buried by her · have argued with her about something · owe her for a kindness she’d call routine.

Emil Varga, called Never-Weeps

Cooper, thirty-one years in the same shed under the sea wall. Makes the sealed casks the long-crossing packets carry, and not one of them has ever leaked. In Onda, “you’ve drunk out of a Varga cask” is how you say somebody has been to sea.

You might: have drunk out of one somewhere a long way from here · have been taught something by him, badly and patiently · owe him for work he never got round to invoicing.

Isa Varga

Net-mender, thirty. Works out of her father Emil’s shed under the sea wall.

You might: have grown up alongside her · have hired her to mend gear · have been someone she stopped speaking to.

Yusuf Kar, called Two-Books

The harbourmaster’s tallyman. Knows what every hull in the strait is carrying and cannot keep a secret for one hour.

You might: drink with him · have paid him to look at a manifest · have had something of yours mentioned to the wrong person.

Rosa Ashu

Keeps the rooms above the chandlery. Rents by the week and has never once asked a name twice.

You might: live there now · have left owing rent · have been given a room on a night you had nowhere else.

Petra Vell, called the Gentle

Sets bones and stitches up dock injuries. She is not. Takes payment in fish, favours, or eventually.

You might: owe her for a limb that still works · have fetched and carried for her · be the reason she keeps a particular scar in her memory.

Halim Bram, called Half-Share

Runs a small boat crew and undercuts everyone on the quay, cheerfully and in the open.

You might: have crewed for him · have lost work to him · have been the one person he doesn’t try it on with.

Silas Sarn

Keeps the local ledger for a counting-house across the strait. Unpopular, and unfailingly polite about it.

You might: be in that ledger · have done quiet work for him · have watched him take something from someone you liked.

Tam

Twelve, runs messages up and down the quay for coppers. Everyone’s errand and nobody’s responsibility.

You might: look out for them · have been them, ten years ago · be paying them for something you shouldn’t.

Bess, called the Sour

Keeps the Long Crossing because she has to, and has never once pretended otherwise. Cigarette hanging off her lip, no patience for anybody, and nobody on that quay has tried her twice.

You might: drink there most nights · have worked a season behind that bar · have been thrown out by her, personally.

The Ferrantes

Losam Ferrante

Oysterman, and the wealthiest man in Onda by an accident of geography he was sharp enough to notice. He bought a stretch of mudflat nobody else wanted, worked out what was living in it, and has been quietly buying the beds either side of it ever since. Says very little and misses nothing.

You might: have worked his beds · have sold him that land and gone away pleased with the price · have asked him for a loan and got one, on terms.

Delta Ferrante

Losam’s wife, and Onda’s foremost authority on what Onda needs. She gives generously, publicly, and rather too often, and cannot pass a struggling family without improving them.

You might: have been improved by her · have had a debt of yours settled without being asked first · work in that house and have opinions about it.

Marta Ferrante, called Marta of the Forge

Blacksmith, twenty. Hoops casks, mends the strand’s iron cressets, and shoes nothing, because there are no horses on Onda. Forearms like a considerably larger person.

You might: have paid her for work · have been carried out of a fight by her · be the reason she doesn’t drink at the Long Crossing any more.

Dita Ferrante, called Dita of the Crossing

Marta’s twin, identical, and has never once touched an anvil. Holds the same corner table at the Long Crossing most nights and is extremely clear about who is and is not permitted to sit at it.

You might: have been allowed at that table · have been removed from it · owe her money and have been drinking somewhere else for a month.

Champ Ferrante

The heir, twenty-two, magnificent, and entirely unoccupied. He strokes the fastest racing gig on the quay, in a boat his father paid for, with a crew who have learned when to pull hard and when not to. There is a mole high on his cheek that Delta has called his pearl since he was four, and Onda has never once let it go.

You might: pull an oar in that crew · have beaten him at something in front of people · be the one person alive who calls him Aurel.

🌊 Fluid · handed to players at character creation · the cold opens that draw on these people are here