Liff is a young girl living in the struggling agrarian settlement of Landfall on the planet Imir. As the colony faces severe ecological decay and starvation, she relies on a children's book called Wonders of Earth to make sense of her harsh environment. She suffers from deeply contradictory memories regarding her family and the history of her world, recalling her grandfather as both a historical legend and a living relative. Believing in local folklore, she ventures into the hills to seek a mysterious "Witch" who she thinks holds answers about her reality.

Miranda is an Interlocutor for the starship Skipper, existing as a Nodan microbial collective inhabiting a cloned human body. She acts as a covert spy, infiltrating the human colony of Landfall under the guise of a local schoolteacher named Miranda Lain. She struggles to reconcile her plural, parasitic nature with the singular human identity she must perform to maintain her cover. As she studies the failing colony, her natural empathy increasingly conflicts with her directive to remain a passive observer.

Avrana Kern is an ancient artificial intelligence construct based on the uploaded consciousness of a human terraforming scientist. She travels with the multi-species crew of the Skipper, providing immense computational power and historical data. On the surface of Imir, the local colonists misinterpret her powerful presence in the hills as the "Witch in the Cave," a figure of folklore they blame for their decaying world. She finds this mythological label infuriating and insists on operating entirely through logic.

Heorest Holt is the historical founder of the Landfall colony and captain of the ark ship Enkidu. Remembered by the colonists as a legendary mariner who led their ancestors to a new world, he faced immense pressure to ensure humanity's survival following a catastrophic system failure. He carries the heavy guilt of leaving thousands of colonists suspended in cryosleep aboard the orbiting ark ship due to Imir's lack of viable resources.

Uncle Molder is a councilman and militia leader in Landfall, as well as Liff's harsh guardian following the death of her parents. As the colony faces starvation and ecological collapse, he consolidates power by stirring up xenophobia and paranoia among the desperate townspeople. He actively scapegoats mythical enemies and newcomers for the community's failing harvests, demanding strict adherence to his violent, authoritarian rules.

Gothi is an uplifted Corvid from the planet Rourke who possesses a highly specialized intelligence. She functions as the "memorizer" in a paired cognitive dynamic, perfectly recalling observed data, literary quotes, and environmental patterns. She frequently insists that she is merely a biological machine mimicking sentience rather than a truly conscious being, viewing the universe through a detached, analytical lens.

Gethli is an uplifted Corvid who operates as the "processor" half of a paired intelligence. He takes the raw data recalled by Gothi and analyzes it to identify hidden patterns and solve mechanical problems. Stationed on the Skipper, he observes the Imir colony with intense curiosity, showing little regard for human emotional norms and viewing complex social structures merely as data sets to be decoded.

Fabian is a Portiid spider and a resourceful member of the Skipper crew. He infiltrates the Landfall colony alongside Miranda, disguising his non-human nature to work as a local mechanic. He attempts to blend into the struggling agrarian society by repairing old machinery, though the town's growing paranoia makes his cover increasingly difficult to maintain.

Portia is a capable Portiid spider serving on the starship Skipper. She works undercover on Imir, posing alongside her crewmates as a refugee from a failed outlying farm. She possesses a highly pragmatic and sometimes ruthless perspective on the failing colony's social structures, frequently arguing for a more direct intervention to fix the broken system.

Paul is an uplifted Octopus crewmember assigned to the Skipper. He participates in the covert infiltration of Imir, using advanced camouflage and mechanical assistance to hide his true form while living among the human colonists. He spends his time gathering environmental data through his children and creating art, making him a target for the xenophobic locals.

Bianca is a Portiid spider who serves as the captain and superior officer aboard the Skipper. She oversees the multi-species crew and authorizes the initial covert infiltration of the Imir colony, carefully weighing the scientific integrity of their mission against the risks of revealing their presence to the paranoid locals.

Jodry is a human crewmember serving aboard the starship Skipper. As the only true biological human on the vessel, he often feels uneasy around the Nodan entity inhabiting Miranda's body, harboring a quiet distrust of the collective organism's capabilities and history.

Esi Arbandir is a colonist originally stationed aboard the Enkidu and the wife of Captain Heorest Holt. She struggles with the deep moral compromises necessary for the colony's founding, specifically living in terror that the thousands of sleepers abandoned in orbit will one day awaken and seek vengeance against the descendants of Landfall.

Dastin Gembel is the lead agriculturist for the Landfall colony and a vocal member of its town council. He takes immense pride in engineering Imir's simplified food web, attempting to deliberately exclude Earth's pests, though his rigid agricultural system leaves the colony highly vulnerable to ecological collapse.

Halena Garm is the security chief of the ark ship Enkidu. A pragmatic and action-oriented officer, she prioritizes the immediate survival of the active crew and advocates for defensive measures during the dangerous early days of the Imir settlement.

Olf is a dedicated engineer aboard the Enkidu. He is tasked with keeping the failing ship and its shuttles operational despite severe resource limitations, prioritizing the mechanical survival of the colony over long-term technological advancement.

Renee Pepper is a historical ecologist and genetic engineer who served on the Phoenix terraforming mission at Rourke. Stranded on a toxic planet, she inadvertently influenced the evolution of local wildlife, leaving behind a legacy that shapes the behavior of the intelligent Corvids centuries later.