Strephon Bellman: A semi-immortal half-fae, the offspring of a mortal father and a faerie mother. He is a faerie from the waist up, and has looked much the same for over a century; but his legs are mortal, and have aged as a normal person’s body would. For that reason, he has been confined to a wheelchair for much of the past several decades. He was once married to a mortal named Phyllis, but since her death, he has withdrawn from both the Faerie Realm and the world of mortals, content to observe things from the sanctuary of his old Victorian mansion. His aunt, the Queen of Faerie, has commissioned him to investigate fae activity in the City of Redemption, forcing him to become involved in the world of Redemption’s magical community.
Mrs Hudson: Strephon’s cat. A perfectly respectable cat who minds her own business and wishes that others would do the same.
Devon: A courtier of the Faerie Realm who delivers the Queen’s commission to Strephon and who pops in every now and then to pester him. He likes to wear black and affects a cool, sarcastic persona. Strephon refers to him as a cousin, although whether there is a family connection between the two of them or Strephon is just employing a human convention is difficult to say. Strephon finds him annoying.
Tobias Simms: A Jamaican cab driver who often drives Strephon around town. He is a large, friendly man and acts somewhat like a guardian angel for Strephon, because Strephon is friends with his grandmother, a local wise woman. He has a habit of showing up just when he is wanted because “Gran’ told me you might be needing me.”
Cassandra True: A reporter for The Daily Oracle, a local tabloid noted for sensationalist stories and for photographs of well-endowed ladies. When we meet her, Cassandra’s job consists mostly of writing captions for the “Page Three Girls”, but she has ambitions of better things. She has an interest in the hidden history of the City of Redemption and a drive to uncover the truth. She little knows what secrets she might uncover.
Melchior Dusk: The mortal guise of Lord Melchior, a powerful fae noble. He calls himself one of the “Silicon Fae” and claims to be a new breed of fae with an affinity for technology and immunity to cold iron. How he gained these abilities, he has not divulged. He has bought Vanir Technology, a company designing computer games, and is applying fae magic to the firm’s new gaming platform. Since any time a fae noble is absent from the Faerie Court for any significant length of time it can only mean he’s plotting something, Strephon has been charged with finding out exactly what he’s up to. Melchior is also trying to recruit Strephon to his side for his own purposes.
Inanna: An executive assistant working for Lord Melchior. Like Melchior, she is a fae, and also like him, her faerie nature has been augmented to give her an affinity for technology and an immunity to cold iron, an anathema to most fae. A saucy minx, she exhibits a most improper interest in the mortal portions of Strephon’s anatomy.
St. Augustine of Canterbury: A Sixth Century missionary sent to England by Gregory the Great to convert the Saxons. He has nothing to do with the story, really; he just gets bugged when people confuse him with the more famous theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo.
Togwogmagog: A supernatural creature worshiped by the ancient Britons prior to the founding of Redemption and, according to local legend, defeated by Augustine’s monks. Some scholars speculate that his name is a corruption of “Gog and Magog”, giants mentioned in the Bible who were later transformed by legend into protectors of the City of London. Or he could just be an in-joke.
Aileta: A Saxon priestess who figures in a tragic legend about the founding of the City of Redemption which Cassandra found in an old and elusive book.
Grandma Simms: A wise woman who runs the local Friendlee-Mart on Fitch Street and is the undisputed matriarch of the Jamaican community. She has known Strephon for years and he respects her wisdom and her no-nonsense advice. He doesn’t always follow her advice, but when he doesn’t, he usually wishes that he had.
Isaac Masey: A police detective who was investigating wolf attacks in the city until one of his suspects bit him. He is now trying to balance his responsibilities as a police officer against his new status as a werewolf and the consort of a powerful pack leader. He does not play a large role in this story.
Aoi Kurayami: A shrewd businesswoman who owns a tech firm as well as a string of cyber-cafes. As serene as a worldly Buddha and as lethal as a shuriken, she is also a powerful vampiress, and her club, the “Cyba-Netsu” is popular place with the city’s denizens of the night, as well as with mortal clientele who enjoy living on the dark side.
Malcolm Raven: Werewolf and leader of the Raven wolf pack. He is also a business rival of Lucinda Dupres.
Lukas Bianka: Handsome and charismatic, a respected businessman and the founder of the Redemption Decency League. But although he fights moral turpitude by day, by night he is the leader of the Reaver Pack, one of the more unsavory werewolf clans of the city. His pack is noted for wearing collars inlaid with silver runes as a mark of their loyalty to him, and perhaps for other reasons as well.
Lucinda Dupres: Leader of the Moonshadow Pack, one of the most powerful wolf packs of the city. She also runs a marketing firm, with the same ruthless efficiency as she runs her wolf clan. Both Lukas Bianka and Malcolm Raven of the rival Raven Clan would like to merge their respective clans with her, but so far she prefers to keep her pack independent. She has recently acquired a new “pet”, Detective Masey.
Mr. L.G. Trotter: President of the city’s largest bank. Although a titan of finance, he is socially a quiet, unassuming man. He probably collects silver cow creamers or some such thing.
Mrs. Trotter: The wife of the banker, and devoted patron of the arts. She leads the Redemption Culture Claque, a civic group devoted to promoting the arts and preserving the city’s rich history; and she organizes its annual Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. If she were in a Marx Brothers movie she’d be played by Margaret Dumond.
Simon Knox: Owner of the Morning Star, Redemption’s largest newspaper. Like many in Redemption’s magical community, Knox prefers to conceal his true self. Strephon suspects he might be a sorcerer of some type, but cannot tell for sure.
Thoth: (also known as Mithras, Aliester Crowley, and Timmy Worpleton), An eccentric bookseller who runs the oldest established New Age bookstore in the city. He claims to have been the Egyptian god Thoth, and since he is immortal, he may be telling the truth. He is also as mad as a moonbeam sandwich.
Byron Sanders: Senior programmer for Vanir Technologies and creator of the original “Virtual Hot Tub” game. He’s in his mid-20s, although he looks younger. Since Melchior bought out the company he has become more and more unsettled by the uncanny changes Melchior and his people have brought. He thinks Melchior might be an alien, but he’s wrong. He’s sure that there’s something not quite human about Melchior and there is is more correct than he could ever imagine.
Cecily Draper: Cassandra’s roommate and closest confidante. She is a fun-loving party girl and thinks that Cassandra is too serious sometimes. She teases Cassandra about this Strephon guy she’s been seeing. She tends to be late in paying her share of the rent.
Cyril Potts: Cassandra’s editor at the Daily Oracle. He is a firm adherent to the journalistic maxim that there is no story which cannot be improved by including photos of a girl with big hooters.
Ferner Cooper: An expatriate Fae living in Redemption who fell in love with a werewolf and has “gone native”. She used to belong to the Reaver Pack, the pack to which her lover, Luna, belonged, but some time ago Luna disappeared. The Reavers were unwilling to help her find Luna, and she was unable to go to the Faerie Court she had renounced, leaving her bitter and alone. Ferner works days at a local children’s hospital. She has a wolf tattoo on her face because… I’m not sure why. Maybe one night she and Luna got drunk together and she thought it would be romantic.
Luna Oswell: A wolf who used to run with the Reaver Pack. She fell in love with a Faerie named Ferner who likewise adopted the form of a werewolf to live with her. They were happy together for several years, but then she abruptly vanished, and Ferner has been searching for her ever since.
Greg Hans: The ghost of a serial killer, shot by police a week or two ago. He has been haunting the Club Cyba-Netsu recently until forcibly ejected by Miss Kurayami.
Saul Taylor: A reporter on the staff of the Morning Star who has offered to show Cassandra the ropes at her new job. He’s personable, handsome and charming; and Strephon is going to become extremely jealous.
Billy Johnson: The features editor at the Morning Star, and Cassandra’s new boss. He’s crusty, intimidating, and has zero interest in publishing anything supernatural.
Belladonna Morrigan: A local witch and long-time member of the Redemption Culture Claque. She is active in the group’s annual Gilbert & Sullivan Festival and often plays the ‘Katisha’ roles in their productions. She takes an unusual interest in Cassandra.
Banshee and Wisp: A couple of young people who are staying at Morrigan’s cottage. She calls them “Sheila” and “Winston” and claims they are her niece and nephew from Australia. They’re not. They don’t smile and they rarely speak and they never, never blink.
The Council: A board consisiting of prominent members of Redemption’s magical community whose purpose it to mediate relations between the various magical factions.
Seymour and Claude: Personal attendants to Miss Kurayami. Seymour is the bouncer at the Club Cyba-Netsu and serves as what vampirologists call a “Renfield”. Claude is a Fae servitor whom Melchior gave to Kurayami as a gift as part of his business negotiations with her. He has a magical affinity for technology, which Kurayami uses to augment the efficiency of her computer system. And he is adequate in bed.
Rev. Arthur Palmer: Vicar of St. Onesimus, the church Strephon attends. A good-hearted soul, Arthur is also something of a tech-head and likes to come up with ways to employ new technology into his churchly duties as an excuse to tinker with new gadgets.
Lydia Palmer: The Vicar’s wife and also a witch belonging to an organization called ISIS. She knows Strephon socially and the two have been cordial acquaintances for years.
The International Sisterhood of Independent Sorceresses: ISIS for short. An organization founded by the IWW back in the 1930s with the purpose of unionizing the witches of England. Chiefly a social group, since the 1970s it has become more of a political force in the city and has won representation on the Council.
Theodora Simms: Another member of Grandma Simms’s family. She works as a stock-girl and cashier at the Friendlee-Mart. Grandma Simms is also training her in the family’s magic traditions and she might well become a Wise Woman herself someday.
Rev. Abel Shepherd: A Methodist pastor who contracted lycanthropy after a wolf attack on a youth camping trip he was leading. He has elected not to join any of the city’s wolf packs, but instead has tried to develop a theology that applies the Gospel to werewolves. Since being ejected from his former parish, he has established a mission serving the lone wolves and outcasts of the city. Most of the city’s werewolf community regard him as a flake.
Agnes Makepeace: Former organist, now retired, of St. Onesimus Church, and the biggest gossip in the parish.
Judy Bakersfield: The current organist at St. Onesimus, and director of the church’s Contemporary Choir group. Strephon does not care much for contemporary church music, but he tries to be charitable.
Cynthia Vane: A city Alderwoman and member of the Hidden Council representing the International Sisterhood of Independent Sorceresses. Currently she is the Council’s Acting Chairperson, filling out the term of the previous Chair, who recently died. She’s a career politician and likes to maintain the status quo.
Bishop Humphrey Martin: Official Church of England Liaison to the Hidden Council. Officially, the Church does not admit the Council exists, but since the Council chambers are located on Church property (a secret chamber beneath the Shrine of the Holy Redemption), the Church has traditionally been granted a non-voting seat on the Council. Bishop Martin has no magical abilities of his own, but has a respectable knowledge of magical lore and history. He leads an invocation at the beginning of each meeting.
Sir Hugo Main-Rouge: The oldest vampire in the city, having been around since roughly the time of the War of the Roses. Insanely conservative, he frequently forgets which century he’s in and tends to confuse the Communists with the Catholics. He has a small staff of historians on his staff specializing in Medieval and Renaissance clothing and textiles to maintain his wardrobe.
Tulaan: A river spirit, embodying the River Woggle, which winds around Togwogmagog Tor and through the city. She rarely speaks, but she shows up at every Council meeting. Strephon is not sure whether she is a minor god, or a very old Fae who became entranced with the river’s beauty.
Dennis Fell: A comic book writer and amateur occultist; creator of such graphic novels as A is For Anarchy, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes and The Fellowship of Literary Adventurers. He has a long, mossy beard and gnarled, rough-hewn features which makes him look something like a cross between a Druid and and Ent who teaches philology.
Horace Mergyn: An 18th Century amateur ethnologist who compiled a book of magical lore entitled Stories Queer and Curious, mostly derived from a local Redemption witch whom he neglected to credit, (or pay). In revenge, the witch cursed his manuscript so that only those of magical blood could remember its existence.
Thaddeus Simms: Tobias’s father, and son of Grandma Simms. Thaddeus served for many years on the City of Redemption’s police force, and became the first black man to be appointed one of the Yeoman Warders of Redemption Castle, a somewhat ceremonial position, but a prestigious one combining the duties of security and museum docent. Although largely self-educated, Thaddeus prides himself as being well-read and has a broad familiarity with the canon of English literature. He currently serves as Sergeant-At-Arms for the Hidden Council.
More members of the Simms family include Ariadne Simms, Thaddeus’s wife; Theophilus, their oldest son; and Melissa, Theophilus’s wife, who is currently expecting a child.
Ananias Sedge: Former Chairman of the Hidden Council. A self-proclaimed warlock with a talent for self-promotion who started a sort of Neo-Satanist church back in the 70s. He had a talent for irritating others, yet somehow always seemed to come out, if not on top, at least relatively unscathed. Strephon has a low opinion of him. Ananias died recently, leaving an opening on the Council, which Melchior hopes to fill. His Chairmanship is currently being filled by Cynthia Vane.
Apollyon Sedge: Grandson of Ananias. An earnest and moody goth who wants to to preserve his grandfather’s legacy. He thinks that the “money men” who have taken over his grandfather’s church have despoiled it, and he hopes that he can claim his grandfather’s seat on the Council. He’s a gloom twinkie.
Sgt. Razor Willis: A werewolf of the Reaver Clan leading a small group recruited to back up Philippe’s raid on Strephon’s house. A grizzled British Army vet, he runs his group like a platoon and is given to barking orders.
Among the members of his group are: Tibia and Fibula, twin brothers, and their sister, Patella, who belong to the Bone Gang, a pack originally formed by their grandfather Joe Femur which has since merged with the Reavers. Anthrax, a punkish werewolf, who does not belong to the Reaver Pack, but has been recruited for this mission; and Fred, another lone wolf who is dating Patella and who hasn’t chosen a cool pack name for himself yet.
Eddie Muldoon: a “lone wolf”, unaffiliated with any official pack, recruited to support Sgt. Willis’s squad. Eddie was a petty crook before becoming a werewolf with a weakness for drink, and becoming a wolf didn’t really help much; although he has somewhat reformed thanks to the support he has received at Rev. Shepherd’s mission.
