Scummy people you might know
Haze Patrons
Bexar is a Thousand Curses gang member and a street poet. His posture and physical strength make him out for being taller than he really is, and his ebony skin is criss-crossed with nasty scars. Bexar operates a number of protection rackets for bordellos and opium dens around in the North Quarter for the Thousand Curses. The soft-spoken thug has never brought any problems into Haze, but he does share his poems from time to time.
Sarja is an up-and-coming singer who is the new it-girl of the nightlife. She often likes to either start or end her nights at Haze, because nobody kisses her ass around here. She has expensive tastes and always brings a new theocrat or lawgiver to pay for her fun. Despite this she is surprisingly down to earth and friendly.
Paths Traveled is an old toothless monk that has served more Divinities than he cares to speak about. His ropey frame is barely covered by the rags he wears. Paths likes to sit in the back and play Gateway, drink tea and cough. He will read your aura for free if you offer her a drink.
We have Wylth, the pale skinned Northerner. It is said that anything she paints comes to life. Rumor has it her walls are filled with portraits that speak to her and keep her company. They dance with her, mounted on the walls, condemned to an existence upon the canvas and not in reality. Toadface says she finally douses the paintings in thinner to end their misery. The alley outside her studio is filled with damaged frames and ripped canvases.
The Lords' Table is set aside for the regular dragon's gambit players. They share no traits save for their gambling addictions The usual suspects include "the Lord" Seibasar Gulwar the mustachioed merchant and namesake of the gambler group, a vain braggart whose arrogance ill suits his seniority at the table. He claims to be a survivor from the Battle of Mishaka but nobody believes him. There is Cynis Mengs, a Dragonblood from the Realm who owns qat fields outside the City who deals in whenever she is in Great Forks for business. There is Larinor, the spoiled son of Oobal the Gold-Scaled Wyrm, who who would be better off with his credit to the other players if he would stop eating all the money he won like snacks. Another regular is Toadface, the pox-ridden kid whose presence at the table is only tolerated due to his fierce skill at the game. He is quiet most of the time. Lastly, we have Istrebei, a good-for-nothing cultist of a minor volcano god who keeps muttering nonsense about how this year Calibration marks the Beginning of the End. But it never does. Year after year.
Old Hands
As his name implies, he's been around for a while. As a very minor god of Earth, he is the keeper of stalagmites and protector of fist-sized rocks. Old Hands is stubby, bald, with craggy shoulders that may as well be marble. Full lips and bushy eyebrows round out his hard, worn face.
Old Hands and Roual go way back. The keeper has been his first confidence man since before the first war with Thorns, before Mishaka and before Roual's wife was killed in the infamous, historic battle. Old Hands owns plenty of dusty magazines in the Southern Quarter and Docks, where Roual has been able to hide countless of refugees. It also extremely useful to have an Earth god on hand, however insignificant he may be within his Pantheon, when it comes to digging out hidey-holes along the Yellow River and the surrounding drug fields.
Old Hands is a crusty old bastard, and he doesn't take to anyone, really. This isn't necessarily because he is being impossible, but he cares deeply for Roual and he feels like the refugee smuggling puts his best mortal friend in peril, which he blames on Roual's other confidants.
Dead Weasel and Meandering Peacock
These good-for-nothings are small time crooks and thugs who like to talk a big game. They have vague connections to the Thousand Curses and like to fly their colors, but they haunt the Docks which is far from the North Quarter where the Curses have a much more pronounced presence. They like starting fights and carousing around, dress in gaudy clothes and generally being assholes and having fun at other people's expense. They push qat and marijuana and do occasional break-ins and cut-purse jobs just to pay tribute to the Curses, just enough so they are in the loop. They have no weight or heft in the city, but they know the gossip on the streets.
