The illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry Farseer, brought to Buckkeep Castle as a child and raised in the stables before being taken into the service of the crown as a royal assassin. Fitz carries both the Skill and the Wit - the former the prised magic of the Farseer line, the latter a stigmatised ability to bond with animals that he must conceal throughout his life. Hobb's most sustained creation, followed across six novels and decades of in-world time, he is one of contemporary fantasy's most fully realised protagonists - a man defined by his service to others and his difficulty in serving himself.

The youngest legitimate son of King Shrewd, whose resentment of Fitz and contempt for the coastal duchies he considers beneath his ambitions make him the primary antagonist of the Farseer Trilogy. Regal is not a subtle villain - his cruelty and self-interest are apparent - but Hobb grounds his behaviour in comprehensible psychology rather than pure malevolence. His treatment of Fitz and of Verity is the source of the trilogy's most direct moral outrage.

The stablemaster of Buckkeep who raises Fitz after Prince Chivalry's abdication, providing the closest thing to a father the boy has. Burrich is a man of fierce principles and genuine tenderness beneath a forbidding exterior, whose complicated feelings about the Wit - which he suppresses in himself with considerable cost - shape his relationship with Fitz in ways neither fully understands for much of the sequence. One of the most beloved supporting characters in the Elderlings universe.

The illegitimate half-brother of King Shrewd who has served the Farseer crown as its secret assassin for decades, living hidden in the walls of Buckkeep Castle. Chade takes Fitz as his apprentice and shapes his training as an assassin with a complex mixture of genuine care and ruthless pragmatism. One of the longest-serving characters in the sequence, appearing across all three Fitz trilogies, his relationship with Fitz evolves from mentor to colleague to something more complicated as both age and the costs of their service become clearer.

The cruel Skillmaster at Buckkeep who trains Fitz and the other Skill students. A man whose particular harshness toward Fitz, and whose particular political affinities within the Farseer court, is one of the things the early Farseer books unfold with patient care.

The Mountain Kingdom princess who marries Verity Farseer and becomes Queen of the Six Duchies, bringing with her a set of values around duty and service that sit in productive tension with the court culture she enters. Kettricken's arc across the Farseer Trilogy is one of its most carefully observed - a woman adapting to an alien culture while holding to her own principles - and her role develops considerably in the Tawny Man Trilogy.

Fitz's childhood companion and first love, whose relationship with him is shaped by the constraints his secret service to the crown places on everything he might otherwise choose. Molly's practical competence and emotional directness stand in contrast to the court world Fitz inhabits, and the gap between what Fitz wants and what his obligations allow defines much of his personal tragedy in the Farseer Trilogy. Her role develops significantly in the later trilogies.

The wife of Prince Chivalry and therefore Fitz's stepmother by circumstance if not by acknowledgment, whose eccentric energy and genuine warmth toward Fitz are among the more unexpected sources of support in his early life at court. Patience is one of Hobb's more original creations - chaotic, brilliant, and impossible to predict - and her relationship with Fitz develops quietly across the trilogy into something of real significance.

Kettricken's brother, heir to the Mountain Kingdom. A sickly but intelligent prince who befriends Fitz during the betrothal negotiations at Jhaampe.

The reigning King of the Six Duchies at the opening of the Farseer Trilogy, whose pragmatic intelligence gave him his name and whose relationship with Fitz is one of calculated use alongside genuine if complicated affection. Shrewd takes the bastard Fitz into the crown's service with clear-eyed assessment of what the boy can offer and what he is owed in return - a transaction that defines much of Fitz's early understanding of duty and loyalty. His decline across the trilogy is one of its most painful threads.

The enigmatic White Prophet whose existence is bound to FitzChivalry Farseer's by prophecy and by a relationship that develops across six novels into one of the most celebrated in contemporary fantasy fiction. The Fool's true origins, nature, and gender are deliberately and consistently ambiguous - Hobb treats the uncertainty as essential rather than incidental. Appearing first as the King's Fool at Buckkeep, the character moves through multiple identities and presentations across the sequence while remaining recognisably and profoundly themselves. Their bond with Fitz is the emotional centre of the entire Elderlings sequence.

The second son of King Shrewd, whose genuine decency and selfless devotion to his kingdom make him the embodiment of the kingly virtues his name suggests. Verity's relationship with Fitz is one of the warmest in the sequence - the prince treats his bastard nephew with straightforward respect and affection that stands in contrast to much of Fitz's experience at court. His obsessive use of the Skill to combat the Red Ship Raiders and his eventual fate are among the most significant and affecting developments of the Farseer Trilogy.

A Farseer cousin and member of Galen's Skill coterie. Regal's ally who is skilled in the Skill but used as a political tool.

The eldest son of King Shrewd and Fitz's father, whose abdication upon the revelation of his bastard son shapes the entire trajectory of the Farseer Trilogy without his ever appearing directly in it. Chivalry is known entirely through reputation and the memories of those who loved him - a man of such genuine virtue that his name became both aspiration and burden for the son he never acknowledged. His absence is one of the trilogy's defining structural facts.

Regal's groom who attacks Burrich in the stables, part of Regal's campaign against Fitz's allies.

The Duke of Neatbay who has restored his watchtowers with Kettricken's encouragement. He hosts the queen's visit and his cooperation represents a success for Kettricken's efforts to strengthen the coastal defences.

A stable boy at Buckkeep who becomes Fitz's travelling companion on the journey to the Mountain Kingdom.

The weapons-master at Buckkeep who trains Fitz in combat. She recognises the battle-axe as his natural weapon and hones his fighting skills, with the brisk impatience of someone who has been a soldier for considerably longer than her young charges have been alive.

King Eyod's sister and a healer at Jhaampe who tends to Fitz after he is poisoned.

Patience's loyal and sharp-witted serving woman who accompanies her to Buckkeep.