Shy South's stepfather - a quiet, gentle man with scarred hands who does the farm work and says very little and does not want to fight. Readers of the original trilogy will recognise Lamb. His real identity is one of Red Country's central dramatic ironies: the most dangerous man in the book is also the one most desperate to avoid violence, and the gap between what he is and what he is trying to be is where the novel lives. He is one of Abercrombie's most carefully handled characters.

A young woman trying to run a farm on the frontier and build a quiet life, who is forced back into violence when her younger siblings are taken. Shy has a past she has spent years running from - she was not always a farmer - and the journey to find her siblings in Red Country puts her back in exactly the situations she has been trying to avoid. She is Abercrombie's most emotionally direct protagonist, less armoured against feeling than most of his characters, which makes her arc in Red Country both more painful and more earned.

A large, strong family man travelling with the Fellowship, father of many children. Reliable and straightforward, he becomes one of Shy's most dependable allies.

A Northman who tries to go south and be a better man - to leave the violence of the North behind and become something else. He fails, but the manner of his failure and what it costs him make him one of the most interesting characters in the series. Shivers appears first in Best Served Cold as Monza's hired muscle and grows into a recurring presence across the standalones and Age of Madness, each appearance showing him further from who he wanted to be. His arc is the purest expression of the series' central theme: people do not change, and the things that happen to them tend to make them more themselves rather than less.

A young woman travelling with the Fellowship who proves tougher than she first appears. She carries her own secrets and hatreds beneath a quiet exterior.

Dab Sweet's Ghost companion, a woman of few words and formidable skill. She guides the Fellowship through the wilderness and serves as bridge between the settlers and the native peoples.

A famous scout and frontiersman who guides the Fellowship west into the Far Country. His legendary reputation masks a man whose best days are behind him and whose knowledge of the territory may not be all he claims.

A former convict from Safety - the Union's prison island - who counts everything and has strict rules about how things must be done. Friendly is one of the most consistently surprising characters in the series: apparently simple, actually precise, occasionally terrifying. He appears first in Best Served Cold as part of Monza's crew and recurs across the standalones. His comfort with violence and his discomfort with social interaction are presented without judgment and without explanation, and the result is one of Abercrombie's most original supporting characters.

A Kantic merchant and businessman who travels with the Fellowship and later helps manage the town of Crease. Practical, shrewd, and more decent than his commercial instincts might suggest.

A Styrian mercenary captain of considerable charm and negligible reliability, Cosca appears across nearly every book in the First Law World. He is funny, self-aware, genuinely skilled when sober, and almost never sober. His arc is one of Abercrombie's long games - a man whose capacity for self-destruction is matched only by his capacity for survival, and whose final trajectory is deeply unpleasant.

A grizzled old soldier travelling with the Fellowship who keeps his past carefully hidden. He is protective of his granddaughter and carries the quiet menace of a man who has done terrible things.

A former lawyer, former slave, and current notary to Nicomo Cosca's mercenary Company of the Gracious Hand. A man of many past lives and no convictions who has failed at every fresh start, he finds himself reluctantly drawn to both conscience and Shy South.

A fanatical Ghosts leader who has taken white children captive and retreated to the ancient Dragon People ruins in the mountains. He believes he is building a new world free of foreign influence.