Who this story is about
Starborne is a small story set against a very large one. At its centre is a family: a blacksmith, his wife, and their daughter. Around them is a valley that is being counted, village by village, by people who believe they are doing the right thing. This chapter introduces the people you need to know, as the novel gives them, and stops short of anything that would spoil where they end up.
Lyra
Lyra is the heart of Starborne and its heroine. She is Gideon's daughter, and she is Starborn: she carries a bloodline that can perceive the Veil, and in time may be able to mend it. In the novel you will know her by a red ribbon, a small bright mark in a story that is mostly grey, ash and black glass.
Lyra's arc is one of growth. She starts small and vulnerable, raised through loss, and grows into the most powerful person in the story. Her magic is the light that matters most. At the Black Glass Observatory, where no other light survives, hers is the only one.
In the 3D version of Starborne now in development, Lyra is the only playable hero. She fights with a sword, a shield and star-magic. That version is changing quickly, and this guide will not describe it further until it settles.
Gideon
Gideon is a blacksmith and a widower, and Lyra's father. He is a red-haired, red-bearded veteran and a ritual smith in the old way. His craft is the magic of Starborne's world: black-iron nails, blood, ash, heartwood, water and counting. When he works, he speaks over the work. His mantra is the line most readers remember from the book:
offer it a hammer and a nail and a voice that will not be used to beg.
Where Lyra grows, Gideon is constant. He is the one who holds the line while his daughter is too young to, and his strength is the kind that does not change: steady, physical, made at an anvil. He belongs to the Hearth, the scattered survivors who believe the Tear must be sealed, not used.
Aurelia
Aurelia is Gideon's wife and Lyra's mother. Her death is where the story begins. The novel describes it in a single stroke: his wife dead in an instant, blood on his hands, life heavy in his arms. In that moment Gideon lifts his infant daughter, and everything that follows grows from it. This guide will say no more about Aurelia than that.
The dog with no name
Gideon has a quiet companion: a dog with no name. In a story where names are what the Ministry takes, a creature that never had one is not a small detail. It goes where Gideon goes, and it does not need a name to be counted on.
Keep
Keep is a guide and hedge figure. Keep reads hands and counts breath, which in a world whose magic runs on counting is a kind of power of its own. Where Gideon's knowledge is in his hands and his forge, Keep's is in reading people.
Alex
Alex is the antagonist. He is not a raging warlord. He is cold, methodical and patient: a ritualist and a bureaucrat, with a voice the novel calls cool as a coin. He leads a crew of acolytes, and his mark is the Ministry's own, a square with a line through it.
Alex opens the Veil with a ritual as precise as an audit: a knife, five drops of blood, chalk and ash, a lens, and a ledger. What makes him frightening is not violence but procedure. He excises names, not faces. A person he has taken is not killed so much as removed from the record, as if they had never been.
At the end of the road, Alex waits at the Black Glass Observatory beneath the Tear, and the final duel of the journey is with him. What he is by then, and what he has become under the eclipse, is for the game and the book to show you.
Other names from the book
The first volume also names Tor, Bren and Freyd. Who they are and which side of the count they stand on is best met on the page.
The sides they stand on
| Character | Side | In one line |
|---|---|---|
| Lyra | The Hearth | The Starborn daughter who grows into the story's greatest power |
| Gideon | The Hearth | The widowed ritual smith who holds the line |
| Aurelia | The Hearth | Lyra's mother, whose death begins the story |
| The dog with no name | The Hearth | Gideon's quiet, watchful companion |
| Keep | A guide | Reads hands and counts breath |
| Alex | The Ministry of Concordia | The auditor who opens the Veil and takes names |
A note on the heroes of this game
Starborne's heroine is Lyra. Other characters from the wider saga appear in the novel and in other Starborne titles, but they are not heroes of this game. In particular, Gael is not a playable hero in Starborne.
For the places these people come from and pass through, see The twelve regions. For the book they come from, see The novel.