The younger daughter of the Vestrit family whose passionate connection to the liveship Vivacia and refusal to accept her exclusion from seafaring drives much of the Liveship Traders Trilogy. Althea's arc is one of the sequence's most satisfying - a woman who earns her place through genuine competence in a world that would prefer she stay ashore - and her relationship with Vivacia is one of the trilogy's emotional anchors. Her path crosses with the wider Elderlings sequence in ways that reward the full reading of the universe.

The most complex antagonist in the Liveship Traders Trilogy - a pirate of genuine charisma and strategic brilliance whose vision of a free Pirate Confederation is real even as the means by which he pursues it are not. Kennit's characterisation deepens considerably across the trilogy as Hobb reveals the history beneath the charm, and his relationship with Vivacia is one of the most morally complicated in the sequence. A character whose full picture emerges only gradually and demands reassessment of everything that preceded it.

Keffria Vestrit's husband whose assumption of control over the Vestrit family's liveship and trading interests sets the Liveship Traders Trilogy in motion. Kyle is not a subtle antagonist - his arrogance, his treatment of his crew, and his fundamental misunderstanding of what a liveship is and requires make him a consistent source of damage across the trilogy. His role in Wintrow's story is the most directly harmful expression of his character.

A mysterious bead-maker with a shop in Bingtown, of indeterminate origin and unsettling perceptiveness. She seems to know far more than she should about Althea and the liveships, and her interest in Paragon is deeply personal.

A disgraced Bingtown Trader's son who serves as first mate on Vivacia before his dismissal, and whose subsequent history with cindin and the docks of Bingtown forms the backdrop to his eventual role in the rescue mission. Brashen's relationship with Althea is one of the trilogy's most carefully developed romances - complicated by circumstance, pride, and the genuine equality of their regard for each other. His captaincy of the Paragon is one of the trilogy's central plot threads.

A Bingtown Trader and old family friend of the Vestrits, well-meaning but socially oblivious. He is one of the few Old Traders willing to deal openly with the New Traders and is regarded with suspicion by his peers.

The dying patriarch of the Vestrit family and captain of the liveship Vivacia. A respected Bingtown Trader, he spends his final days at sea so his death will quicken Vivacia, as tradition demands. He is warm toward his daughters and Brashen but at odds with his son-in-law Kyle.

A former slave woman who becomes Kennit's companion - one of the trilogy's more complex secondary figures, whose fierce intelligence and genuine love for a man who is incapable of reciprocating it in kind make her arc one of its quietest and most affecting. Etta's perspective on the pirate at the centre of the trilogy is one of clear, unsentimental sight - seeing him as he is rather than as one wishes him to be.

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 elder Vestrit daughter and wife of Kyle Haven. She is caught between loyalty to her family and deference to her domineering husband, often unable to stand up to either.

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.

A massive silver-gold sea serpent with a mane of white tendrils, one of the eldest and most aware of the serpent tangle. He carries fading memories of ancient migrations and drives the tangle forward despite uncertainty.

An old Bingtown liveship, one of the first generation. Bawdy, shrewd, and warm-hearted. Discovers Althea's identity and engineers her reinstatement as a passenger and acting mate.

A mad and dangerous liveship, blinded and beached, whose reputation for killing his crews has made him an outcast among the Bingtown Traders. Paragon's madness conceals a history of genuine trauma, and his arc across the Liveship Traders Trilogy and the Rain Wild Chronicles is one of the most affecting in the sequence - a being who has survived the worst that could be done to him and must decide what he wants to become. His relationship with the Ludluck family and the truth of his origins are central to understanding him.

The matriarch of the Vestrit family whose management of their deteriorating financial situation and defence of Bingtown's independence form the domestic and political backbone of the Liveship Traders Trilogy. Ronica's perspective provides the trilogy's most grounded view of what is at stake for Bingtown as a community, and her relationship with her daughters and granddaughter maps the family's fractures and loyalties with considerable complexity.

A slave priest of Sa who incites rebellion aboard Vivacia

A female sea serpent of the tangle, red-scaled and deeply bonded to Maulkin. She is loyal and perceptive, often the first to sense when Maulkin's memories stir.

Kennit's loyal first mate whose straightforward decency provides a counterpoint to his captain's complexity. Sorcor's genuine belief in Kennit's vision of a free Pirate Confederation and his uncomplicated courage make him one of the more sympathetic figures in the pirate world of the Liveship Traders. His relationship with Kennit is one of loyalty that survives considerable testing.

The Vestrit family liveship whose quickening into full sentience opens the Liveship Traders Trilogy, and whose subsequent experiences - joy, trauma, captivity, and the slow discovery of her own nature - form one of the sequence's most original character arcs. Vivacia is neither human nor entirely other, shaped by the memories and emotions of the family members who died aboard her and by her own growing consciousness. Her relationship with Althea, with Kennit, and eventually with the truth of what liveships actually are makes her one of Hobb's most distinctive creations.

Kyle Haven's son and Althea's nephew, pulled from his priestly training and forced aboard Vivacia against his will. Wintrow's arc examines what happens when a person of genuine spiritual conviction is placed in circumstances that demand compromises his faith cannot accommodate, and his relationship with Vivacia - who quickens partly through him - is one of the trilogy's most affecting. His eventual accommodation with Kennit is one of the sequence's more morally complex developments.