A Rain Wild girl born with more of the river's physical changes than society considers acceptable, whose selection as a dragon keeper offers escape from a life of careful invisibility. Thymara's arc across the Rain Wild Chronicles is about the gradual discovery of what she is capable of when circumstances stop requiring her to minimise herself, and her relationship with her dragon Sintara - difficult, demanding, and ultimately transformative - is the emotional centre of the quartet. Her navigation of the keeper community's social dynamics and her own changing body give the Chronicles their most grounded human perspective.

A Bingtown Trader's daughter, plain and freckled with red hair and grey eyes. A self-taught scholar of dragons and Elderlings with an extensive private library. She enters a loveless marriage of convenience with Hest Finbok, who offers her financial security and a promise to visit the Rain Wilds. Five years into the marriage she finally forces Hest to honour that promise and travels upriver on the liveship Paragon.

An ancient male dragon entombed in glacial ice on the island of Aslevjal - the last surviving male dragon from the era before the cataclysm, and the figure whose rescue becomes the central quest of Fool's Fate. The longer consequences of that quest for the dragon population of the world are among the things the Tawny Man trilogy lets its closing chapters carefully unfold.

Head of the powerful Khuprus family of Rain Wild Traders. Arrives to discuss her son Reyn's courtship of Malta. Flame-jewels adorn her face veil.

The captain of the Tarman, the oldest liveship on the Rain Wild River, whose pragmatic competence and genuine warmth make him one of the more immediately likeable characters in the sequence. Leftrin's relationship with Alise is one of the Rain Wild Chronicles' central emotional threads, and his knowledge of the river and his loyalty to his unusual crew give him a grounded authority that the keeper expedition depends on. His history with the Rain Wilds and his connection to Tarman run deeper than they initially appear.

Keffria and Kyle's daughter, about twelve years old. Willful and precocious, she tests boundaries and is beginning to chafe against her grandmother's authority.

The gold dragon who emerges as a natural leader among the keeper expedition's charges, whose unusual clarity of memory and calm authority distinguish him from the other damaged young dragons. Mercor's knowledge of Elderling history and his measured approach to the keeper relationships make him the most accessible of the dragons to human understanding, and his role in the expedition's most significant decisions gives him quiet but consistent importance.

The most cheerful and seemingly simple of the dragon keepers, whose relationship with his dragon Heeby and whose gradual immersion in Elderling memory across the Chronicles produces one of the sequence's more unsettling character developments. Rapskal's arc is a study in what it means to be changed by something you invited in without fully understanding what it would cost, and his later appearances in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy give his transformation additional weight.

Hest Finbok's personal secretary and closest companion, formerly a Bingtown Trader's son. A charming, gentle, well-groomed young man who has been Alise's friend since childhood. He is deeply bound to Hest emotionally. Hest sends him to accompany Alise to the Rain Wilds, ostensibly as chaperone, though Sedric is resentful. He meets privately with Chalcedean merchant Begasti Cored and appears to be scheming to acquire dragon parts for sale.

The blue-silver dragon assigned to Thymara, whose demanding arrogance and refusal to acknowledge dependency on her keeper create the central tension of their relationship. Sintara is one of the more fully realised dragon characters in the sequence - her pride is genuine, her memories of what dragons should be are vivid, and her gradual physical recovery mirrors a psychological arc that is more complex than her surface behaviour suggests. Her relationship with Thymara is combative, transformative, and ultimately one of the Chronicles' most affecting.

The first fully recovered dragon of the modern age, whose emergence from her cocoon precedes the Rain Wild Chronicles and whose role in the Liveship Traders and Rain Wild sequences establishes her as one of the universe's most significant non-human characters. Tintaglia's imperious demands on the humans who assisted her recovery and her complex relationship with Malta Vestrit examine the question of what obligation exists between species when one has saved the other. Her fate in Blood of Dragons is one of the Chronicles' most emotionally charged developments.

Male dragon keeper, cousin to Kase; injured in the face (blackened eyes) during the white flood.

Hunter on the Tarman expedition; a large, capable man with a full ginger beard and rare black eyes. Trustworthy and loyal, he searched tirelessly for survivors after the white flood. Develops a clear affection for Sedric.

Daughter of the Duke of Chalced, held captive in her father's court. After the Duke's death during the dragon attack on Chalced, she emerges as the new Duchess and works to reform Chalcedean society.

Young apprentice/boy to the hunter Carson; thirteen years old, develops a strong fascination and attentiveness towards Sedric during his illness.

The aging, tyrannical ruler of the Chalced States, whose obsessive pursuit of dragon blood and body parts to restore his failing health drives a great deal of the threat against the Rain Wilds and the dragon keepers across the Rain Wild Chronicles.

A Chalcedean military commander who leads raids against the Rain Wild Traders in search of dragon parts for the Duke of Chalced.

The infant son of Malta Haven and Reyn Khuprus, born with Elderling characteristics. Named after Malta's grandfather Ephron Vestrit.

Small red female dragon, keeper is Rapskal. Missing and presumed dead after the white flood.

Tarman's mate, a crewmember who serves aboard the barge.