Some Citizens
Some citizens of the Leacher’s Column Borough
Finiche Salmosalor
Occupation: Salt Farmer
The dutiful and stocky grunter. Finiche’s salt pan is where silicate-woman Winnama Liquidation was formed; the animating alien intelligence of the Despot, Xyl Hypogeal, uttered upon his lips. Such witchery seen by his longtime friend Cork Willingdone as he delivered his custom flintlock pistol to Salmosalor’s house; a gift for Finiche’s rightful duty to defend the City against the Eastern Republican Uprisings. A secret now kept between friends, as the Unhuman Winnama found love with the horologist Jansen. Finiche also has a love letter to his recent girlfriend, Puppette Kish, sweat-stained as he aches over how to break the news to her of his elective military service.
Cork Willingdone
Occupation: Gunsmith
A squat and greasy toad, deft of hand, near artistic even, in the smithing of flintlock pistols, Cork Willingdone is. A witness to witchcraft, the Unhuman Winnama uttered in creation by Finiche and something else as he delivered his finest pistol to Finiche. The experience left quite a shock; Mr. Willingdone abandoned the Church of the Hanged Martyr for the stargazing cult of the Rotting Betrayers of the Royal Imps. Religious and moral doubt weighs heavily. To exacerbate the matter, Cork opines for the affections of the pugilist lover of his dear friend, Puppette Kish. Secretly sending flowers and unsigned love letters to her room before her bouts at Bohnapart’s Den. Finiche’s military service offers Mr. Willingdone an opportunity to confess his affections publicly.
Winnama Liquidation
Occupation: Watchmaker
A silicate woman. Her “hair” long. She remembers two men standing over her as something stirred within her. They taught her manners, as a parent to a child. She left home and caught the eye of the Horologist Jansen Liquidation. The idea of geologic time appealed to her, marrying the anal-retentive Jensen for what he represents. She fiddles with the gears of watches, and ponders the alien intelligences of stone from the window of Jansen Liquidation Horologists Ltd. A recent jaunt to the gambling and fisticuffs den of Bohnapart’s was fortuitous, taking her earnings from the parlor game of Blind Looky and placing it upon the fist fighter Puppette Kish.
Puppette Kish
Occupation: Pugilist
A fist fighter, beautiful and without a scar. No fist has found purchase upon her porcelain face. A record of 13-0 at Bohnapart’s Den is quite the feat. Flowers and letters of adoration show up constantly to her locker. This strikes her as odd; she would prefer the unknown paramour to go away, as her love life has taken a turn for the better; a stocky salter, Finiche Salmosalor, found a place within her heart. Much like her, down to earth, her beau is salt of the earth. She can tell something is up, however, with him. He frets with something in his pocket often now.
Kerry Elsekiss
Occupation: "Gin"-Maker
An orphan adopted from Saint Evenage’s by the cherry pie smiths, the Elsekisses. Now a dashing young radical, gungho after joining the Iron Garrison, a voting rights cadre seeking equal representation in the City’s borough councils for all non-land-holding men (and women and mutants). His cherry-pie recipes now morphed into various ales and spirits that Kerry brews while day-dreaming of chance encounters with the oyster seller Patricia Wippingham. The cadre sells his Cherry Grass Spirits to raise funds for arms and ammunition, a fact that the Vengeful Movement goons have sought to end. Street clashes abound between the two groups.
Cedric Silkyshag
Occupation: Hog Slaughterer
A hulking brute of a hog-killer. The business hand-built by his father Haud, Silkyshag’s Meat Packing stands in a heap, collapsed under the weight of offal, blood, and smoking meats. Praise the Hanged Martyr that he was able to pull Patricia Wippingham to safety before it fell upon her. The neighborhood hasn’t rallied around him as now the filth runs through the streets, causing issues with the road sweeper Tristopher, who blames his fine on Cedric. Everyone seems to hate him now besides Mistress Tope, who still asks for the finer cuts. Goods from the midden heap, family heirlooms like his father’s pointy star hat, have gone missing. His boyfriend Mott Puddinstone says he saw Patricia attempting to sell it, although Cedric demands to know why Mott decided to fine the road sweeper.
Mott Puddinstone
Occupation: Tax Collector
Trapped in a thankless job of being the Tax Collector for the Leacher’s Column Borough, Mott Puddinstone attempts to rebuild his life with Cedric Silkyshag after a strange abduction by tiny, bald unhumans took him underground for a few weeks. The unhumans spoke to machines and the burrowing voles. They returned him unharmed, but behind on tax collections. To make up the difference, he’s parlayed Cedric’s collapsed place of business into a tax revenue opportunity by fining the road sweeper Tristopher for “improper road cleanliness standards”, which inadvertently is causing increasingly loud rows with Cedric in their now shared, cramped, blood-smelling apartment. Mott tries to distract Cedric from this blunder by making up stories about seeing the oyster seller Patricia having a missing pointy star hat of Cedric’s father.
Patricia Wippingham
Occupation: Oyster Seller
A lanky woman. Her arms can reach the muddy river floor from Cousin Tope’s river barge, grabbing the oysters that rest there, just as her Oyster master taught her. Patricia Wippingham sells her oysters at fair market price, one penny each. She’s debating whether to mark up the price to three pence each after the collapse of Silkyshag’s Meat Packing. The oysters now take on a reddish hue from all the blood that stains the river now. She’s unsure why, but folks have been intimating she’s involved in stealing goods from his business. She’s not sure why; she was saved by Cedric himself and has been lighting a candle at the Church of the Hanged Martyr in honor of Cedric’s bravery. She’s been asking her cousin Misstress Tope (on her mother’s side) to keep her ear to the ground for any rumors of who is spreading these lies.
Misstress Tope
Occupation: Barge Pilot
A ten-year drunk, now just an old dried-out sleaze who recently joined the radical temperance movement of the Vengeful Movement. She misdelivers ale, blaming improperly filled out bills of lading, and drowns drunkards who use her barge at night. Misstress Tope pilots the river barge in Leacher’s Column, ferrying folks across to the other boroughs as her Cousin Patricia fishes for oysters from the reddening river. It’s a job she’s hardly trained or qualified for. Although she gets to hear the neighborhood’s chinwagging; the Taxman’s tall tales of vole-speaking unhuman underground. She thinks the man silly, but jests that these bald men could be behind the collapse of Silkyshag’s Meat Packing, her jokes balanced by her paying top dollar for the freshest cuts of hog.
Tristopher Homfrie
Occupation: Road Sweeper
Rough and ruthless as a Northern-Moors Dog, Tristopher Homfrie plots the murder of the tax collector Mott Puddinstone after he levied a fine for "improper road cleanliness standards". The offal and blood are the result of Silkyshag’s Meat Packing. Time and time again, Homfrie has asked the hulking mouth-breather to not let the pig blood spill into the street. Each request has fallen on deaf ears. This will be the last time. He knows how easy it is to get away with murder; witnessing the Temperance Psycho, Misstress Tope, dump a drunkard’s body into the river from her barge boat not a fortnight ago. Another body shouldn’t alert the Nightwatchmen, especially a taxman.