CHARACTERS

Arsenia Verduzco

Race: Threadwing Antlion
Age: 25
Height: 160cm
Speaks Spanish & English

Arsenia is both tougher than she looks, and not nearly as tough as she looks.

Arsenia is the oldest daughter of Guilherme and Nathalia Verduzco. She lived in Coelary until she turned 22. After graduating from Coelary City University’s MBA program, she suddenly left the city (and the expectations of her demanding mother) to live in the jungle wilderness of Parasol Valley.

While technically still working for her parents’ business doing wilderness research, her decision to live in the forest was motivated more by a desire to find her own path in life - far away from her parents. She hoped to find some kind of fulfillment away from Coelary, but she missed her family (mostly her sister and father) and her friends too much to stay away forever. When she learned that her beloved father fell ill, that was all it took to draw her back to Coelary for the first time in years.

Arsenia is cheerful but shy, and functions well in situations where there’s a well-defined structure. She has no problem socializing… as long as nothing unexpected or uncomfortable happens. She is self-disciplined and organized, but often has trouble understanding other people’s thoughts and feelings. When she feels strongly about something, she has the tendency to rush into it without thinking… and she has strong feelings a lot more often than she’d like.

Karine Galleria

Race: Mixed race moth (plume moth/greater wax moth)
Age: 23
Height: 195cm
Speaks Russian & English

Karine has been through some troubled times.

She was taken in by her aunt at the age of 15, after her family fell apart. With her aunt being a busy social worker, Karine wasn’t often at home - and once she moved into her own apartment at 18, she spent even less time there. Karine doesn’t have a good relationship with the concept of “home”.

Karine wants to be a model, and has managed to get herself in front of a professional camera a few times, but it never seems to pan out. It’s hard enough being tall, without also being a moth with torn and ragged wings.

She is a gifted auto mechanic, and has been working on cars since she was young. When she was given the opportunity to attend Motor Academy in Gearsvault, Coelary’s sister city, she leapt at it - and finished the program in record time.

She spends a lot of time at the Gutterstruck, one of the dirtiest, rowdiest punk-rock bars in Coelary. Karine feels safe in a place full of other misfits like her.

Most of her relationships have involved the punk scene or the car scene in some way, and she’s had a lot of them. Most of them have not turned out so well. And since starting counseling a few years ago, she has started to figure out what went wrong.

Karine has been through some troubled times. But things are starting to look up.

Chad blakely

Chad has recently been made one of VERDUZCON’S youngest chief engineers. He has a passion for anything with an engine.

Race: giant water beetle
Age: 25
Height: 180cm
Speaks: English, some Spanish

Chad and Arsenia have been friends since childhood; their fathers were hunting partners, so they often found themselves in each other’s company as they grew up. As an only child with a single father, he often found himself included as a member of the Verduzco family.

Chad is an accomplished engineer at the Verduzco family business, the immense conglomerate corporation VERDUZCON, where Chad leads a team of engineers and machinists. His team adapts machines to accommodate changing needs, or changing material availability. Most of his work focuses on Coelary’s transit systems. He’s an expert on bridges, on trains, and especially on engines.

He’s very interested in trying to start a Coelary aerospace program - most of Coelary’s history took place underground, so there never seemed like much need. But he’s always looking for ways to reach new heights.

Chad has a quiet, contemplative, non-confrontational nature. His profession has only magnified his natural tendency to carefully consider a situation, instead of rushing right into it headlong. His proximity to Arsenia, and her habit of rushing into situations, has often put him in the position of being the steady voice of reason.

Lea Arichna

Race: Scarab beetle
Age: 24
Height: 170cm
Speaks: English, Spanish, Japanese

Lea and Arsenia have been best friends from childhood. Possessing the gift of absolutely unshakeable confidence, Lea has often backed up Arsenia when Arsenia couldn’t stand on her own.

Lea got married to her high school crush immediately after graduation, before Lea started at CCU with Arsenia. At work, her clear and commanding voice is often heard directing orders and delegating tasks in VERDUZCON’S management offices. Once she’s off the clock, she mellows out - only saving her iron glare and razor tongue for when she really needs it.

In her free time, she builds miniature models of room interiors and local buildings - including some of Coelary’s historic architecture, which has landed Lea’s work in the Coelary Metropolitan Museum of History. She also loves to dance, and she takes her husband out dancing at least twice a month.

When Lea and Arsenia were younger, they unconsciously took turns for who would be the emotional and impulsive one, and who would be the steady and stoic one. But ever since Arsenia returned after her three years away, it seems like Lea has been permanently assigned the mantle of solemn responsibility.

Arsenia was 17 when this photo was taken. She is not very good at smiling on command.

The Verduzco Family

Guilherme Verduzco has been somewhat of a public celebrity among Coelary for a decade, after making great advancements in their rail system, their radio technology, and by modernizing the internet in Coelary, and connecting to all the other cities in Posteven. He’s hard working, charming, and genuine, with a great ability to bring people together to work toward a common goal. He can see how the big picture and the small picture work together. In his free time, he retreats into the wilderness to go hunting at the Verduzco family cabin.

Nathalia Verduzco is a popular socialite in Coelary, and has been the spokesperson for the family business for years. She maintains a full schedule of meetings, dinners, interviews, and other public events throughout Coelary’s professional world. Her public face is well known and well regarded - but among those who know her behind the scenes, she has a reputation for being strict, dismissive, and impossible to please. She just claims to have high standards, and no time to waste.

Guilherme married Nathalia when he was 28. He merged his own family’s antique business with Nathalia’s radio business to form VERDUZCON. The family was very poor for years, working endless hours to keep their daughters Arsenia and Nathalia fed while finding new avenues for success. They finally found it when Nathalia & Guilherme proposed an overhaul to the city’s radio and telephone network - the advent of internet connectivity.

Arsenia’s sister Rainha was born 5 years after Arsenia. She’s interested in computer programming, and is currently a student at CCU.

Athanasios Montferrand

Race: Stag beetle

Age: 32

Height: 2m

Speaks: English, Spanish, Russian

Athan is not from Coelary; he’s from Cedarmoss, a logging village on the far north end of Posteven. He worked for a lumber company, and often made business trips to Coelary as a consultant and as a salesman. Coelary’s economic growth in the last decade made him and his co-workers suddenly very wealthy, at which point he quit his lumber job and moved to Coelary to become a social worker. He now works as a probation officer and youth counselor, which is how he met Karine.

Athan is self-conscious about his size and fearsome stag beetle appearance, and speaks softly to try and put other people at ease. In fact, his career change was motivated entirely by the desire to use his advantages to help people without.

He lives in a log cabin that he built himself, in the conifer forests along Coelary’s southern edge, and does woodworking and bodybuilding in his spare time.

Balaban Carroway

Race: Spiny orb weaver (spider)
Age: 24
Height: 142cm
Speaks: English, some Spanish

Balaban lives with his grandma in downtown Coelary, near the Verduzco penthouse, but Arsenia and Balaban didn’t meet until Arsenia returned to Coelary at age 25. Balaban’s parents died when he was a toddler, and his grandma raised him ever since.

He’s a professional photographer, and his proximity to Coelary’s wealthier district means he’s able to make a steady living on it to support himself and his grandma.

Karine introduced Arsenia to Balaban at one of Karine’s wild get-togethers, and then Arsenia realized that they were actually neighbors; Arsenia met Balaban’s grandma and visits her frequently to help her with her little back-alley garden.

Balaban has a boyfriend named Bastien, who is a cockroach.

Tavvox Keenan

Race: Laphria (bee-like robber fly)
Age: 26
Height: 135cm
Speaks: English

Tavvox (or Tav) has been friends with Karine for a few years. They’ve found a lot in common due to their troubled upbringing, and experiences with relationships that didn’t end well.

Tav grew up in the suburbs on the west end of Coelary, raised by his laphria father and his honeybee mother, both dentists, and divorced since Tav was a child. His brother was one of his only consistent companions as he was growing up.

He moved into downtown Coelary, in the same shoddy apartment building that Karine lives in, to try and find some opportunity. But after being in and out of several colleges and universities, and countless minimum-wage jobs, he doesn’t feel any closer to building the life he wants. And the fact that he often suffers from chronic illness doesn’t help either.