Check out the short story where these characters first show up: “Custody of the Rot.”

Creating characters is by far the most time-consuming part of putting together a scenario, but it makes sense why it has to be that way; weak characters ruin fiction. Thankfully, I enjoy determining every little detail of their fictional personas.

Fun fact: before I came up with Pitch, the fourth member of the dredgers was supposed to be a mole-folk man who was half-blind and attuned to magical effects to the extent that he had started to hallucinate. As I developed his character further, I realized that his role was too specialized for a group of dredgers; at the most, they would only request his help when the crew knew in advance they were going to extract an artifact from some cave system, or the underground canals. But I didn’t see that guy getting along with the rest of the crew. The ensemble dynamics is vital. So I ditched that whole concept and started from scratch.

Me finding a character fun is a big part of when I decide that a concept for one is on the right path. Pitch has shown himself in “Custody of the Rot” as a stoic, professional demolitionist who’s very good at its technical aspects, but three of his most notorious aspects have barely peeked, and may not even play out through the rest of this arc. Those buried aspects heavily influence his portrayal in an iceberg kind of way, so it works regardless.

Anyway, you came for the portraits, I’m guessing. Assuming you aren’t mindlessly reading these words.

Kestrel Brune, the laughing lifeguard

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Pitch, the sapper/demolitionist

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Saffi Two-Tides, the rope-meister

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Master Hobb Rusk, the Ash-Seal liaison