Warning: Spoilers from Autumn in Hieron are not hidden.
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Seasons of Hieron
Player Characters
Hella Varal
The Fighter. An Ordennan mercenary in possession of a supernaturally imbued sword.
- Berserker Tears: As she chokes Calhoun three times over, she cries in remorse for what she's doing to her friend.
- The Big Guy: Hella is without a doubt the heaviest hitter of Boat Party.
- Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: She is also one of the first to be killed, though this does not last.
- The Conqueror: By the time Winter in Hieron rolls, she is hailed as "Queenkiller", a national hero of the Ordennans.
- Deal with the Devil: When she dies, Tristero comes to her, proposing that she may have a second chance at life if she kills his son in order to force him to take his place as a psychopomp.
- Dumb Muscle: Her "evil" alignment means she does not seek to understand most things, but rather to destroy them. She also has a -1 to intelligence.
- Heroic Build: She's described as being very muscular, tall, and long-limbed, along with a heroic square jaw. To describe Hella as a hero, however, would require heavy bias towards the Ordennan agenda.
- The Kingslayer: Hella slays Queen Adelaide with Ordennan steel, and becomes a hero to Ordenna for it.
Lem King
The Bard. A charming young orc student from the New Archives.
- Badass Bookworm: While not specialized in combat by any means, he's still stronger and taller than the average player character due to being an orc.
- The Charmer: He has an ability literally named Charming And Open, which allows him to easily exchange information with non-player characters.
- Constantly Curious: He usually has his head on his shoulders more, but upon visiting Nacre and the New Old Museum, this becomes a detrimental part of his personality as he loses track of the big picture. In effect, Lem's greatest flaw is his tendency to become a tourist.
- For Science!: Arriving in Nacre distracts him completely from his original reason for being there, and at once he wants to study its contents and remain there.
- Instrument of Murder: While Lem's (stolen) violin isn't inherently any more murderous than any violin, he uses it to trigger pattern magic, with sometimes deadly results.
- Loving a Shadow: Since Jack's attachment to Emmanuel mostly comes from out of character discussion, Lem's infatuation is justified as the result of projection. This does lead to an actual relationship, however.
- Mind Manipulation: In the New Old Museum, Lem uses pattern magic to turn a guard against his colleague, with a grisly outcome.
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: While outwardly sweet much of the time, Lem King has done brutal things for purely selfish reason, and his image has allowed him to evade this mostly without reproach.
Fero Feritas
The Druid. A halfling from Rosemerrow, running from a stuffy and backwards-looking society.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Fero has a lot of energy that goes in lots of different directions, therefore he can be one of the party members least attached to the main mission goals.
- Friend to All Living Things: Fero contains the spirits of the towering mountains, and can communicate with any animal native to his land. He is also the only person in the party to get close to the alienated gnolls.
- The Pig-Pen: He's described as looking overall rather unkempt.
- Messy Hair: This is mentioned specifically as part of his appearance.
- Stoners Are Funny: Upon breaking into the New Old Museum, he stops at one point to smoke weed with Mother Glory and get to know her.
- Voluntary Shapeshifter: His primary ability as a druid is to change into animals, such as voles or birds.
Hadrian
The Paladin. A human soldier of the Order of Eternal Princes, in service to the Creed of Samothes.
- Curiosity Causes Conversion: While conversion hasn't occurred as of yet, Samot's affable approach of Hadrian has caused him to have doubts about Samothes and to have increasingly confused feelings about Samot.
- Detect Evil: This is among his abilities. An early running gag has been him trying to scan for something precise, and only detecting Hella, with the running gag becoming increasingly sad as he grows close to her and the inevitability of a confrontation becomes clear.
- Good Is Not Nice: Hadrian, while habitually kindhearted, is defined by mercilessness in the face of lawbreakers. His judgement can be rash, and the consequences severe.
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Hadrian cannot suffer an evil creature to live. This comes across in a particularly chilling way when he breaks Jericho Alum's neck while comforting him.
- Love Redeems: He seems to believe that by remaining a friend to Hella, he can turn her away from her evil ways. All this in spite of the fact that in any other case, he cannot suffer an evil creature to live, which makes this rather an interesting double-edged version of the trope.
- Parental Neglect: His career takes him far from his family, including his son Benjamin, though he does take steps to ensure their safety.
The Great Fantasmo
The Wizard. An arrogant scholar from a university which dates to before the Erasure.
- Back for the Finale: Of a sort. Although Arrell has died by this point, a recorded version of Fantasmo is summoned to help the party when Samot begins his plot to end the threat of the Heat and the Dark.
- Dark and Troubled Past: When he speaks to the Word Eater, he talks around a difficult childhood without going into detail, mentioning a crippling fear of the unknown.
- Doppelgänger: He is the weaker, older version of Arrell he made by casting part of his story outside of himself, to act in his behalf.
- Grumpy Old Man: This is especially evident when contrasted with Throndir's effusive affection. His obstinate refusal to call the rest of the party his friends even when it comes naturally to him is the utmost curmudgeonly behavior.
- Magic Misfire: He attempts to cast Charm Person on Samot, but given that he is a god, this doesn't work out well. Fantasmo winds up believing himself to be Samot's old friend.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He has a tendency to disappear while in the heat of battle.
- Swapped Roles: His unseen servant turns out to have been his creator, who was using him all along.
Throndir
The Ranger. A fresh-faced exile from the snow elf settlement of Auniq.
- Big Eater: He's described as "soft", which is due to him wanting to taste everything wherever he goes.Austin: So, he looks like can put in a day's work, but like he can also put away these chicken wings?
- The Heart: He's often mentioned as going with his gut, and having a common sense approach to their obstacles, while being very sweet.
- Heroes Love Dogs: He's followed by a giant, gentle, (but still warlike, at times) mastiff named Kodiak.
- Our Vampires Are Different: One of the first things established when he's turned is that Hieron vampires are not maleficent, and in fact, the few of them that we know are confined to the Golden Lance. Later on, it is said that they feed not from blood, but from life and energy expenditure.
- Sixth Ranger: Throndir joins after the initial arc, rounding out Ice Party.
Adaire
The Thief. An intelligent and silver-tongued con artist and mapmaker from Velas.
- Combat Pragmatist: She is described as "soft", and as such, she tends to use practical means of getting out of scuffles alive, notably poison.
- Guile Hero: A necessity as a con artist.
- No Honor Among Thieves: When she shrugs off the fate of Rosemerrow when her intervention fails, Bray poses this accusation:Bray Tevilton: If you keep walking away, you'll never believe in anything.
- Social Engineering: Adaire circumlocutes her way into getting what she wants, often trying to offer an apparent compromise that benefits the other.
Ephrim
The Immolator. A handsome and condescending Eternal Prince of the Creed of Samothes - in essence, a missionary.
- Hot-Blooded: The figurative counterpart: he's prone to anger, and desire to assert himself.
- Ice King: His snooty, condescending air around most people cements him as this, ironically enough.
- My Blood Runs Hot: Due to the fire that runs through him, he needs not worry about the winter that assails Hieron.
- Pretty Boy: He's described as perfectly androgynous.
- Princely Young Man: The encyclopedic picture of a prince, according to Andi.
NPCs
Samot
Samothes
Samol
Galenica
Saveria
Arrell
Uklan Tell
Marielda
Player Characters
Aubrey
The alchemist of the Six. A peaceful and rather meek cobbin woman.
- Actual Pacifist: She's not inclined to perform any kind of direct violence on people. This eventually changes, before the last heist.
- Can't Hold Her Liquor: She is pretty small, after all.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Using the leech playbook, this is one of Aubrey's functions, though she tends more towards the biological threats.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Cobbin is meant to be the more appropriate name for what is referred to in D&D as Kobolds. Here this means something between lizard, human, and dog.
Castille
The only Pala-din known to have discernable sentience, empowered with many strange and unique abilities.
- Coat, Hat, Mask: To hide her nature, she wears a long skirted long sleeved dress and a summer hat.
- Familiar: Castille owns a porcelaine cat, which she can inhabit when she needs to.
- Living Statue: Like all other Pala-din, she's made of marble.
- Sense Loss Sadness: Sadness isn't quite right. It's more like a wistfulness. But either way, she's known to hold an orange just so she can experience the sense memory of what it might have been like to eat it.
Hitchcock
A pair of rakish brothers, Edmund & Ethan, who teach duelling & dancing above the Six's headquarters.
- Con Man: Part of their job description as The Slide.
- Dance Battler: It's brought up that dancing (which Edmund teaches) and duelling (which Ethan teaches) aren't that different. Edmund is certainly this trope, and Ethan likely is too.
- Identical Twin Mistake: The Hitchcocks frequently make use of this.
- Treasure Hunter: Their father allegedly went searching for a map their mother saw in Maelgwyn's childhood home. They pursue the same dream.
Sige
A cutter for the Six, building a boat to leave town forever.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: He's got em.
- One-Man Army: Mechanically, he counts as a small gang.
- Riches to Rags: His family was rich, but died in the confrontation between Pala-din and Samot's forces. From then on, he worked in factories as a child until he was big enough to follow another pass.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: This is one of his beliefs, though it never really comes up in play.
NPCs
Snitch Nightly
