Below are the characters that I’ve used throughout this corner of the web. The top are the individuals who might appear in all the stories, and then below those, are the ones from the books.
Jump Link to a Book Characters:
Ongoing Characters
Ziggy Pumpernickle
Role: Wandering Animal Tracker & Unofficial Lore Keeper
Location: Wherever he feels like (Vertex, Artizan, or somewhere in between)
Signature Look: Pockets full of snacks, handful of snails, geckos and the odd pigeon. Zero arrow tattoos
Ziggy is an animal tracker currently compiling a book as he roams between Vertex and Artizan. How he crosses between the two lands without using the main bridge—or bearing a single mark or arrow tattoo—is a complete mystery.
He travels light, usually with a small friend in one pocket and a snack in the other. Thanks to his endless wandering, he occasionally imparts profound wisdom to anyone lucky (or unlucky) enough to cross his path.
As for his book? Nobody knows the title, and he has never let anyone read it. He simply appears out of nowhere when you least expect him, and occasionally when you need him most. Or not. He follows no schedule and accepts no appointments.
Even as the writer, I can’t predict when Ziggy will make an appearance. He’s just that good at hiding from the narrative.
Toshi
Role: A bustling ball of fluff that has thievery inclinations
Location: Indigenous to the world. Including yours.
Signature Look: Has large feet, a purple-tinged coat, and one large tooth that sticks out courtesy of his overbite that he never bothered to fix, back when they were a dustmite.
Toshis steal socks. That’s the beginning and the end of it. They tend to steal the left ones, but to be honest, sometimes they go for all of them. The sock type doesn’t matter, and they very rarely get caught. They are masters of it.
What is really peculiar is how they do it. They don’t have arms. So, it is naturally assumed that they use their teeth. Or feet. It’s not really certain how they do it.
‘Only the Toshi Knows‘ has become a popular saying.
Maude or “The Maude”
Role: Ultimate Survivor & Unwitting President-Elect
Location: Unregistered / Mobile Hideouts
Signature Look: Thick patterned shawl, severe bun, and her infamous Knitting Needles of Chaos.
Maude’s name came up as a potential president for Vertex, many, many, many, moons ago. Back then, they used to choose their president through something known as “The Peckish Games.” 24 Participants, or tributes, were chosen from a bowl, from each region in Vertex. They were hunted through the wilderness by officials carrying light appetizers. Maude managed to elude them all using pure stealth, agility, and sheer stubbornness.
However, because she was never caught, nobody told her the game was over. She has been roaming the wild ever since on the lands, completely off the grid. Every now and then, a person might catch the whisper of her shawl disappearing around the corner, or a cackle of laughter in the night. Most of the time, innocent individuals stumble upon one of her thousands of hideouts. The only clue that she ever was there is the tangled mess of yarn.
Yarn that could just be a simple forgotten ball, or perhaps a tactical distraction, to give her time to plod back into the shadows.
Death – Desedomona
Role: Collecting souls and causing death
Location: Global
Signature Look: Tends to wear dark clothes, as it shows less stains. Might have some accessories like a chain belt, hourglass and maybe a skull or two.
Meet Desedomona—though if you call her “Grim” or mistake her for a generic reaper, expect a heavy sigh and a lengthy phonetic correction (it’s De-sed-o-mo-na, really not that difficult). Having been around for yonks, she has weathered centuries of population booms.
While pop culture has historically painted her as a terrifying, scythe-wielding specter in a dramatic black cloak, Desedomona insists the wardrobe choice is purely practical: death is a notoriously messy business, and black simply hides the stains better. These days, with the global population skyrocketing as humans are opting to not only eat pudding, but ‘be’ the pudding, she has found herself entirely overwhelmed.
In an attempt to stay relevant on the internet (#DeathHasVibrancy), she has decided to dabble in web serials, such as this one. She is currently taking on guest appearances in between these pages to offer a bit of professional insight—mostly because her job security is hanging by a thread, and an outsourced corporate entity is breathing down her neck. #JobWorkBalance
From the Tale: Pending Doom
Something catastrophic is brewing in Vertex, but the people tasked with handling it couldn’t be more mismatched. Follow Dave the accountant, Rammi the obsessed chef, Lydia the town gossip, and Bill the gardener as they chase wild flour theories, garden infestations, and municipal sewer hazards. Beyond the petty squabbles and local chaos lies the truth of the real, impending doom—if this deeply unqualified crew can survive each other long enough to uncover it.
Below are the main characters you can expect to encounter.
Bill Lukas
Role: Gardener & “Grounded Logic” for the Doomsday Task Force
Location: Secondhand, right at the top of Vertex
Signature Look: Coated in topsoil, stubbled chin, wearing a sturdy chocolate-brown apron (rumored to have once been salmon pink), equipped with a trowel and watering can
Bill is the grounded rock of our task force, selected by the council to figure out what on earth the town clock is counting down to. He possesses a solid sense of logic, a calming presence, and a habit of speaking his mind directly. Having spent most of his life conversing with turnips and rare daffodils, he occasionally forgets that—unlike his usual flora audience—humans can actually reply.
He brings a sense of peace to the rest of the group’s drama-filled dynamic. That said, when the constant squabbling gets tedious, Bill has a tendency to wander off in search of an unusual butterfly or a particularly wiggly caterpillar. Pretty much anything is more interesting to him than small-town gossip.
Underneath all that mud, Bill is undeniably handsome. As this is my story, I’m allowed a delicious man. If you don’t like it, tough.
Lydia
Role: Town Gossip, Highly Renowned, Incredibly Popular
Location: Secondtown (though frequently on holiday, as is fashionable)
Signature Look: The Latest Fashion, That is Sometimes So Late, Everyone has Forgotten
Lydia – no last time – is the ultimate queen of all things to reign. She knows everything that is going on, right down to your deepest secret, and what you had for breakfast yesterday. Nobody knows exactly how she knows, but she does. She can often be seen with an espresso, or a martini, or an espresso martini, at the most ‘happening’ joint.
She knows every owner and manager personally. Her only weakness, for some strange reason, is Bill. Bill is the only man who can get Lydia to do anything, including wearing unbranded clothes and exploring tunnels. If Bill’s not coming, she cannot bother with such things as adventures.
Despite hoarding vast amounts of dangerous local gossip, Lydia is surprisingly principled: she respects people’s secrets and genuinely uses her influence to help those in need. This warm-hearted nature is why people love her company. However, she draws the line at Viscose. That fabric has gone too far, as far as she is concerned.
Rammi
Role: Multitasking culinary maestro, resident problem-solver, and occasional navigator of local chaos
Location: Secondhand, right at the top of Vertex
Signature Look: Crisp chef’s whites, an impeccable toque, and an expression that says he has seen entirely too much nonsense today but will still make you a phenomenal pastry.
Meet Rammi—the steady, reliable hand keeping things afloat when the world around him is quite literally collapsing or flooding. Whether he’s greeting patrons with a handshake, pointing out the local oddities, or dodging altitude-induced animal panics, he approaches every crisis with the calm dignity of someone who takes his coffee very seriously.
While others might panic when dragons drop by or town architecture turns upside down, Rammi is the kind of character who keeps his apron spotless and his wits about him. He knows everyone, manages everything, and somehow holds down the fort while the rest of the cast treats disaster like an extreme sport.
If you ever need someone to ground a chaotic scene with a warm cup and a knowing look, Rammi is your person.
Oh, and if you find Rammi’s sock, please let us know. He lost it somewhere in Chapter 5…
From the Tale: Shadows Beyond the Waterfall
Some debts are paid in blood. Others are collected by the dark.
In an insular town built on cruelty and quiet malice, the rules are simple: stay away from the waterfall, keep your head down, and pray the rare blue lunar moon doesn’t wake what slumbers in the deep.
Seeping through the stone to the subterranean abyss below, her life force awakens a dormant consciousness within the beast—one fueled by the very malice the town tried to bury. And when the next blue lunar moon rises, the monster won’t just hunt in the shadows. It will come for them all.
Kiera Lynia
Role: Sibling to Chris and Babby
Location: Oakhaven, by the tall waterfall
Signature Look: Tunic, natural fibres and dyes.
Kiera is thrust into harsh, unforgiving maturity before her time. Following the loss of her mother, the bitter hostility of her oldest brother Chris, and ultimately his sacrifice to the monster, ten-year-old Kiera is left alone in the world with only her infant brother, Babby, to protect.
Where others in the village respond to tragedy with cowardice, locking their doors and washing their hands of the vulnerable, Kiera’s trauma hardens into something unbreakable. She is fiercely protective, observant, and deeply resentful of a community that trades human lives for temporary peace. She doesn’t just feel fear; she learns how to suppress it, shifting from a terrified child into a cold, calculating force of absolute resolve.
Kiera’s journey takes her from the cobblestone streets of the village, through the perilous, mist-drowned lowlands, and up the sheer, freezing face of the mountain to the waterfall cave. Rather than seeking simple survival, her arc culminates in the ultimate subversion: turning her own self-sacrifice into a weaponized curse that binds her shadow, her cat, and the beast directly to the complacent town below.
Tobias Hawkin
Role: Town Head of Council, Gideon’s Dad
Location: Highfall
Signature Look: The Latest Fashion, That is Sometimes So Late, Everyone has Forgotten
Dignified yet heavy with the quiet grief of a father who has lost a son to the mountain. He carries the heavy burden of council leadership, making cold, calculated choices under the guise of mercy while secretly wrestling with the weight of the village’s grim traditions.
Tobias wears his authority like heavy iron armor, polished to a mirror shine but freezing to the touch. Once a warm-hearted man and a devoted father, his world fractured the day the monster that leaves behind the waterfall claimed his son—a private tragedy that hollowed out his empathy and replaced it with a rigid, unyielding devotion to the village’s survival.
Where the younger villagers flinch from hard choices, Tobias steps forward to make them, hiding his lingering grief behind a stern expression and deeply traditional blue robes. He has convinced himself that absolute compliance and cold sacrifices are the only shields keeping the horrors of the foothills at bay. Yet, beneath his dignified exterior lies the exhausting, quiet terror of a man who knows that the rules he enforces are built on a crumbling foundation, and that his iron-fisted control may ultimately doom them all to the very fate they are trying to escape.
But yet he still tries to make right, and do better then he has before.
Katal Lynia
Role: Elder and the Origin
Location: The Shadowed Cascades (Deep within the mist-veiled caverns behind the primary waterfall)
Signature Look: Flowing golden-ochre robes patterned with subtle glyphs along the sleeves, weathered leather boots, and long white hair swept back into a neat bun with twin braided locks.
Katal is the living memory of the settlement—a sharp-eyed elder whose words hold more weight than any village law. As the community’s master storyteller, she holds the young and old spellbound around the fires, weaving ancient lore, warnings, and forgotten histories with a voice like river-polished stone. Yet for all her authority, Katal carries a stern, guarded air that keeps most people at a respectful distance.
While the village turns to her for wisdom and history, few dare ask about the uncanny phenomena that seem to follow her quiet moments. There is something about the way shadows ripple unnaturally in her presence, or how the murky depths beneath her bench seem to watch her with quiet, glowing curiosity. Katal knows every secret the waters hold, though whether she is guarding the village from what lurks beyond the waterfall, or guarding the creature from the village, remains a secret she keeps firmly to herself.
