Allie

Yulia is a Terran spellcaster who specializes in the distillation of magic potions. Also known as Baba Yuli, she is fairly long-lived relative to the average Terran and commands an appropriate degree of respect when in the company of other arcane practitioners. Yulia is giddy and joyful, taking great pleasure in pursuing her craft, but she takes the craft itself deadly serious. Men have long sought Baba Yuli for the power her potions can impart upon them, and witches of every stripe have sought apprenticeship with her, but she's not interested in taking on pupils, and her potions come at a hefty price. She tends to move from world to world collecting her own ingredients; she keeps a home deep in the forests of Ganymede but makes frequent visits to Titan Garden whenever she's feeling sociable or she needs some more credits in the bank. Find her tent set up at the street markets in the A-District when she's in town, she might have something of use to you.

Potion-brewing is a very old Terran practice that once fell out of favor among savvy sorcerers who preferred to sling their own spells, but in the age of the starfarer it's a skill that has found renewed utility, and those few who inherited the old knowledge are in high demand. Potions are, in essence, a fusion of spells and material components, suspending both a spellcaster's will and the mote of Terran arcane essence needed to power it into a conductive medium that allows a spell to be activated anywhere, even in the coldest depths of space. What this means is a spellcaster who can brew potions never has to worry about maintaining batteries of Terran energy, their spells are pre-loaded, and what's really handy is the person using the potion doesn't even need to be the witch who brewed it, or a even a spellcaster at all- the spell is already pre-cast, suspended in the potion, ready to enact its effects the moment it is imbibed. Through the power of potions, non-spellcasters can enjoy the effects of magic for themselves, assuming they can track down a potion-brewer to concoct the spells they want, and they don't mind the taste.

One of Yulia's key realizations as an elder spellcaster is that, while magic is an innately Terran phenomenon that depends on shaping a uniquely Terran resource, the ingredients that make the best liquid mediums to suspend those spells in could come from anywhere! Organic and mineral ingredients from other worlds have unique properties to them that potion-brewers of old have not had the opportunity to explore, and so Yulia has built an expansive knowledgebase of extra-Terran ingredients, their unique properties and what sorts of spells they resonate with the best. That's the real trick of it: there's no one potion ingredient that suspends every kind of spell equally, the right potion depends on the nature of the spell, and the temperament with which the caster prepares it. A compassionate healing spell has a different quality to it than a wrathful curse, and so ingredients with different qualities need to be prepared in different combinations, at different temperatures. The potion is a medium and it needs to be correct to the spell being contained, otherwise it won't contain the caster's will nor the Terran energy and you'll just be left with an inert and foul-tasting broth at best, or a corrupted spell loaded with side-effects at worst. It's a rare discipline for a pretty good reason.

Baba Yuli is notable for her full embrace of the space age, infusing her ancient practice with the modern technologies of the starfarer. She loves to putter around the Sol system in her clankering starship, "The Old Sow," collecting ingredients from various worlds and combining them into impossible combinations. She developed a unique portable heating element that fits around her favorite old cauldron, giving her extremely precise control and consistency in heating her brew. The thermal ring avoids hot spots at the bottom and circumvents the need to stow fuel for a cauldron fire on her ship, she can use modern fuels to sustain that heat; and what's most handy of all, is the thermal ring can be broken down into smaller pieces and stowed inside the cauldron itself, making it very easy to transport on a hover dolly. Yulia wears modern protective clothing while she's brewing her spells, in particular she is adamant about wearing a respirator while a potion is over the fire, since you don't want to be breathing a potion's fumes if you're not too wild about inheriting its effects for yourself, known or otherwise. She seems to have made her home on Ganymede either for the quiet isolation or for the abundance of native flora she can use in her potions, but The Old Sow is still a regular sight in and around Titan. Being a clanking old ship, and being that she's a witch and not an engineer, her return to Titan Garden is often preceded by a call from Carol dispatching Red Raven to tow The Old Sow into port, again. It's happened often enough, it's almost a bit charming at this point. Oh, The Old Sow's broken down outside Jovian space. Baba Yuli's in town again!

Potion-brewing is a bit of a rare discipline, and Yulia looks to keep it that way. Potions are very handy to have in space, but there's already enough bad actors who have committed to a lifetime of studying the ars arcanum, you don't need to be feeding potions to every two-bit Star Patrol captain looking to consolidate their power. Fewer, wiser potion-brewers means more discretion in who has access to this sort of power, so apprenticeships are hard to come by on purpose. This is true of a few other potion-brewers, but for Yulia in particular, she decided she'd had enough headaches teaching potions to apprentices after her last student- an otherwise exemplary pupil- decided to play around with subspace and wiped out half of a Terran city thirty-something years ago. That one didn't even have anything to do with potions! It was a matter of discipline, in knowing the boundaries of what can and shouldn't be done, and when you're distilling magic into a form quaffable by anyone it's hard to keep a thumb on who should and shouldn't be using your magic. So rather than take on more students, Yulia decided to focus on her own craft, on what she can control, and push the boundaries on how extra-Terran ingredients interact with her cauldron-stirring artform. She does try to check in on her last student from time to time, since they let her out of space jail for the whole subspace thing. She likes to make sure her legacy is doing alright, that she's using her potion-brewing responsibly, and importantly, that her captain and first mate are keeping her grounded and safe, that she doesn't repeat her hubris or go completely off the deep end. Baba Yuli isn't taking on new students, but she does want to be sure her old ones are being taken care of. So far she's pleased enough that her appearances are rare, which is probably for the best, given the puttering state of her old starship.

Caleb is a Terran astrophysicist and one of the Sol system's leading experts on warp currents and their influence on starship traffic. He likes other people well enough but tends to enjoy his solitude- when he's planetside on Terra he tends to keep nocturnal hours, and when he's up in space he feels most at ease, secure in his deep space research stations. While Caleb will give new people the benefit of the doubt, he isn't a very welcoming person until he comes to know you better, and if you earn his trust you, well, you still won't ever get a warm greeting from him, but you'll know he respects you when you share a space with him. The vibe is different. He's like that. He's a big fella, and he finds Callistan fashion tends to fit him better than Terran cuts, so he'll often be seen wearing slatted Callistan shirts despite his apparent lack of quills.

Warp currents: just what are they, exactly? Well! Beneath the fabric of traversable space, between habitable reality and subspace, there is a membrane of astroplasm keeping our universe intact. We're only beginning to learn about what astroplasm is made of or where it comes from, but in the past hundred years we have learned how to harness it to make space travel easier. It's known that astroplasm has fluid dynamics to it, and that it's constantly in motion, and like Terra's own seas it flows in currents- warp engineers have learned how to deploy technologies that can reach towards the boundaries of physical reality and harness these currents, riding them like sailing ships of old. You can go anywhere in space, but if you want to get somewhere quickly you'll need to follow the warp currents. You can't travel faster than light, but with a proper warp sail and a skilled engineer you can come close to it.

Since warp currents are fluid and often change, scientists like Caleb study them and document these changes for broader use. Caleb spends a lot of time in deep space laboratories- tin boxes set in space near satellite outposts- where he manages probes and monitors the flow of warp currents. Starship charts need to be updated frequently in order to be of any use to starfarers, and Caleb is in charge of supplying the raw data those charts need to remain useful. He understands the flow of warp currents, particularly in the effect the rotation of the planets have on them and the way in which those currents weave between those orbits; understanding these tendencies helps predict how warp currents will change ahead of time and provide helpful context for commercial space travel to connect between the many worlds of Sol. Transporting goods and people between moons and planets quickly is important, and it's folks like Caleb who help make that possible. They're the unsung heroes of the space age.

Caleb is an old friend of Red Raven's Lydia, the two studying warp theory together at the Academy of Astrophysics in Athens. He was quiet and reserved, even back then, and found comfort in Lydia's unobtrusive shyness, and so the two helped each other in their studies, becoming experts in their fields. Lydia went on to develop warp engines for Delta Astronautics, while Caleb pursued astrometeorology with the Terran Star Navy. The two kept in touch over the years, and Caleb would help Lydia test her Pocket Drive technology, reporting its movement through space off the books using the warp current research facilities he was stationed at. He's not a very outward and mirthful friend, but over the years- as she found herself leaving Delta and becoming Red Raven's warp engineer- he's always kept an open door for her. Whenever she has questions or she needs a favor, Caleb's willing to lend a hand. He's a leading authority in warp theory, he can bend Star Naval regulations here and there since he's too valuable to fire and replace. The Sol system's trade routes and transit systems depend on Caleb's work to stay up to date and expedient, so if he misappropriates his space station or causes a problem here or there to help an old friend, what are his bosses gonna do? Fly out to the middle of nowhere and scold him? A disciplinary phone call is just a blip in his schedule, and once it's over he's back to enjoying the quiet isolation of life in deep space, with naught but the hum and ping of his scientific equipment to disturb the silence.

Blitz is a Terran spellcaster and the head of Terra's leading school of electromancy. Optimistic and a bit of an idealist, Blitz believes strongly in the notion of a greater good, of a higher purpose that should steer the use of exceptional talents towards the betterment of all living things. This commitment to chasing a better future has often put Blitz and his school at odds with established practices and authorities who rather enjoy the way things currently are. He's very protective of his students, but his moral compass can sometimes lead trouble towards his school- fortunately, he's had a few years in his position to learn good leadership skills, and plenty of opportunities to learn them the hard way.

Electromancy is a potent arcane discipline, one which synergizes well with the modern age of the starfarer. Novice electromancers learn to influence the flow of electrical currents, coaxing them into taking less-direct but more-useful routes to a given grounding point; journeymen spellcasters can shape Terra's ambient magic essence into new electrical currents, having the practiced guiding hand to not immediately electrocute themselves; master electromancers can weave electrical currents into powerful magnetic fields, creating protective shields against the radiation of space or the machinations of their fellow starfarer. Many young electromancers are eager to get to the Cool Stuff, to learn how to create electromagnetic pulses, but in an age of life-sustaining technology this technique requires tremendous discipline and understanding to know when and where to use, as a well-meaning electromancer can defuse a Star Patroller's pulse wave rifle with an arcane EMP blast, but they can just as easily defuse the atmospheric control, forcefield generators or engine array on the starship they generated that EMP blast on. A fair number of Blitz's students have gone on to serve as engineers in starship crews, using their magic to reinforce ship defenses or hold a broken power routing system together until more mundane repairs can be completed. When you're surrounded by electronics, electromancy is a handy skill to have, provided you also have the physical material components to power it in the void of space. Remember: magic shapes an ambient energy that emanates from Terra's core into an expression of a spellcaster's will, you need to store motes of that energy inside physical objects to power your magic when you venture away from Terran soil. Electromancy can't charge these batteries!

Blitz has had many students over a great many years, but his own story begins long, long ago, in an age before industrial technology. He was the star pupil of a class of maybe a dozen students, studying under an old Thundermancer, powerful in their age but their name lost to time. Blitz's family came from a seafaring tradition, and he sought to master thundermancy as a way to direct bolts of lightning away from the tall masts of his family's sailing ships during storms at sea. His teacher practiced thundermancy as a matter of purely academic interest, studying it as one of a library of arcane practices sought over a long and greying lifetime. The old master's current passion was Chronomancy, a rare and difficult school of magic understood by few, with a great many succumbing to the volatile climb up its mountain of study. He'd mastered many schools, he was confident he would clear the gap to commanding time's mysteries. He had a ritual planned, but he needed an assistant to help in the invocation. He called upon his star pupil for aid. Blitz agreed to help out.

The old master's thread of life was running short, he had much more to learn and little time to learn it in, so he committed to studying the difficult art of chronomancy in hopes of not extending his lifetime, but pausing his entropic march toward the grave. Blitz was there to study thundermancy, and he wanted to stay within the old master's good graces, so he agreed to help along with a ritual outside his understanding. The old master had prepared a spell to freeze his body in a moment of time, to buffer himself against age or hunger, that he might have all the time he needs to study his interests. He'd chosen the night of a potent storm, the air rich with magical essence in which to power his spell, to cast his invocation and free himself from the dwindling thread of time. Blitz knew how to shape and contain magic, but he had no idea how chronomancy worked- he didn't need to, he just needed to be there to help hold the invocation together. Everything was set, everything was just right, the old master was just about to cheat death and buy himself an eternity of study, when nature decided to speak its mind about the whole affair.

In the midst of casting his spell, at the moment of invocation, at the very last sliver of time before eternity was his to command, a plain-old regular natural bolt of lightning split the sky, crackling down from the mundane aspects of a run-of-the-mill storm, striking the old master dead where he stood. His invocation was released, but now only Blitz had his hands in the shaping and containment of the spell, and so all that magic energy, that last shaped expression of chronomancy, it left the old master on his last breath and found its own grounding in Blitz, the young understudy. Knocked him clean off his feet. As a thundermancer he didn't have any idea how the spell worked, but he'd now inherited the very qualities his master had sought out without any way to reproduce the magic himself. Time had halted for Blitz, hunger had ceased, he had many years ahead of him to study his craft, but: he no longer had a teacher. He had a school of classmates waiting at home, classmates who had also lost their teacher to the folly of hubris. As the star pupil, Blitz was going to have to step up and become their teacher. He had a lot of independent studying to do, but now he had all the time in the world to do it.

Six hundred years have passed since Blitz was pinned in time like a thunder-struck clocktower and inherited his magic school. He had mastered his discipline, modernizing its name to electromancy around the time of Terra's industrial revolution. He bore witness to the ascent of non-magical technology, he'd seen generations come and go, building on the backs of their predecessors. He'd seen ways in which his fellow Terrans had harnessed electricity without magic, reflecting on these discoveries and expanding his own school of electromancy in light of modern practices. He built a modern and practical school, teaching his students not just the conjuration of thunderbolts as his old master envisioned, but the incorporation of electricity and electromagnetism into life-sustaining technologies. He has instilled his values into generations of students, that electricity can bring light to darkness, and to be wary of those who would use it to bring only ruin. He challenges his students to be noble in their endeavors, to use their arcane talents to protect their neighbors as they journey into the void of space. He encourages his students to work towards the commonwealth of all life, and reminds them that he will live to see the fruits of their labors.

For better or worse, he will be there to see what their magic has wrought.

Krys is a sentient starfarer of unrecorded origin who is currently renting a room at the Ox & Carriage, but could be gone at a moment's notice. Bold to a fault and ever the optimist, Krys is a former space pirate who doesn't comprehend fears in the way their organic peers do, they instead see opportunity everywhere with a small chance for a big goodbye. "I'll rob any bank for any reason. What do you need? Let's make it happen." Krys loves the thrill of executing a job; the reward is fine, it's whatever, but chasing the big score? That's where you're truly alive. Krys currently ranks #36 on the Grand Admiral's bounty board. They walk where they please in Titan Garden, defiant of any bounty hunter who would like to try their luck.

What exactly Krys is, where they came from and whether there is more of their species is a subject of great curiosity to those who know them, but to most everyone else who sees them out and about it's just assumed they are one of Terra's infinite splendor of lifeforms. What's known about Krys is their body is made of geodes, their rough stone exterior contains pockets of crystalline growth and the whole thing is held together by an immeasurable dark substance they call "astroplasm", which suspends a star sapphire in their head. Krys isn't any one of these things puppeteering the rest of themselves, they will tell you that they are all of who they are, and most people accept that as a good enough answer for them. Krys's astroplasmic body suspends their mineral components into a physical shape, limited by an absolute volume of astroplasm they can directly control. Using scraps of metal or other mineral pieces as bones or anchors, Krys can extend their astroplasmic form outward to produce additional limbs to serve whatever purpose they might need, or they can spend their astroplasmic volume to extend the gaps between their mineral limbs to make themselves taller or longer, but they can't do both at once. It ain't too much of a limitation, though, it's a versatile way to get a whole bunch of different kinds of job done.

The first known encounter with Krys was their discovery by the Stone Heart Pirates, a crew of Callistan thieves known to make sport of corporate starships leaving the Inner Belt to connect with outposts beyond the Ceresian Asteroids. Inner Belt humanoids are small and squishy and shivering cold, and the Stone Hearts have found that being larger and faster, bristling with quills and with a high tolerance for the cold of space, these overloaded corporate vessels are easy pickings once you negotiate their ships' defensive arrays and manage to board them. They'll rob any ship for any reason, but the ships they tend to plunder are more worth the trouble than small merchant craft or passenger vessels. Anyways! The Stone Heart Pirates discovered Krys while hiding out in the Jovian asteroid clusters, and when they realized they were alive and not just a neat geode they adopted them into their crew and raised them as one of their own. Krys imprinted onto their Callistan family, growing out their crystals in the fashion of Callistan quills and forming their mineral hands and feet- the limbs they look down at and see from their own persective- in the shape of their Callistan crewmates. A crop of crystals have grown out the back of their head, crudely mirroring the Callistan style but also allowing light to shine inside and illuminate the rows and rows of jagged teeth that comprise most of their face. Callistan fashion provides slats for their crystal outgrowths to poke out through without tearing or rending their outfits, which they pick out for themself with great care. They opt not to wear a Callistan qorabi, instead telling their family, "if I should die, grind me into rubble and let my body pave the way for the next hand to try it." Krys loves to spacewalk without a suit, being unaffected by radiation, the cold, the vacuum of space or any environmental condition. Even the hardy Callistans shiver when they feel the cold embrace of their mineral crewmate freshly inside from a trip out the airlock. It's funnier every time.

Krys is a former pirate. They grew up and learned about life in the Sol system through the lens of their found family in the Stone Heart Pirates, but as the outlaw life goes, the sun comes up on every party sooner or later. For the Stone Hearts, the party ended when they robbed a Quasar Galactic science vessel operating undercover, drawing the ire of the Outer Belt's interplanetary interests. With Star Patrol in their own backyard hunting them down, it was time to split up, and the Stone Hearts divided their fortunes and each went their own separate way, with Krys finding themself on their own in Titan Garden with nothing to do but live how they please. They're not hard to spot but they can be difficult to find, as they keep no permanent address and tend to move about as their whims dictate, although they frequently turn up under the safe jurisdiction of the Reaper's Respite. Krys is up for almost any sort of job you might have, and if your crew is planning something and you need an unsubtle bit of muscle to ensure the job pulls off successfully, Krys is a great hire. Big jobs and little jobs are both in Krys's wheelhouse, but they do prefer the job to be interesting or fun if they're gonna lend their talents to your operation. If you seem trustworthy, they might even share some of their stories from their time with the Stone Hearts with you- they claim to have been aboard the legendary Coelacanth and broke bread with its crew, they'll tell you the captain's nicer than the stories let on and that their resident spellcaster takes an intensely academic interest in the nature of their astroplasm. You gotta earn the good stories, though. You pull off a bank job or two together first, then maybe you'll get to hear some of this ex-pirate's secrets. If you're here for their bounty? Well, good luck pal! You ain't the first and you won't be the last!