Ministry of Agriculture and Development staff:
Kuma-Nu
- A younger scribe from the team of eight assigned to help Sandra. He's proud he can do all four "basic" (by modern Earth standards) mathematical operations. The guy is practically a genius. No, seriously. He is in charge of accounting.
Gu-Maranu
- The eldest scribe of the eight. He is proud, disagreeable, and a sycophant. But he knows what is at stake and that he is strapped to a "mars or bust" kind of rocket. They either get the job done and become heroes, or they don't and become corpses. He's trying to figure out what color of cape he wants.
Fara-Wil
- A senior scribe with a fine taste for gold. He wasn't as good at earning it so he turned to the dark side. It didn't end well.
Tamiwa
- One of the thirty guardsmen/soldiers (no, there's no distinction between the two terms) assigned to assist Sandra in enforcing the ministry policies and keeping the minister safe. Also, report what she was doing to the Enshi.
Bur-Batolo
- A scribe that likes maps. He was promoted to lead cartographer.
Ministry civilian hires:
Zar-Kiira
- An opportunistic and outspoken woman that snatched the job of overseeing the ministry civilian taskforce. At least the females because the men wouldn't endure two sausage-less bosses. Sandra gets a free pass because of her status as both a minister and Tarhun's chosen.
Utuaa
- One of the male civilian workers, his late cousin had a brickworks. Suggested to Sandra she could use silicon bricks as a building block for small projects. Hired to help with the male workers.
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Elsewhere in Es-Kina:
Sao-Akitu
- One of the apprentices at Samus & Aran's smithy. He used to deliver the slag to Sandra's house. His name means "New Year's Bounty".
Merem-Selit
- One of the councilmembers that called a vote too early for Sandra and Abil-Kisu to attend and elected Nephew the new Enshi. He also bribed some scribes to forge documents. When that plan failed, he allegedly set fire to the records at the courthouse and challenged Sandra to a duel. He lost and died. The new magistrate seized his assets but Sandra negotiated to keep his council votes to herself.
Emes-Bintu (Princess Snowflake)
- The social butterfly daughter of the general. Thinks Brandon Al-Amir belongs to her and is dedicated to getting all thots away from "her" hunk. In a world where the word "snow" is synonymous with "death", the nickname Sandra gave her was a mortal insult.
Captain MyEyes
- One of Brandon's coworkers, this perfect specimen of beta male thought that removing all obstacles on Emes-Bintu's path would make her look his way. It doesn't work that way, guys. He picked a fight with Sandra and Dime raked his face from top to bottom, poking both eyes. In the general's words, killing him would be bigger mercy.
Prince Marduk
- Getting stabbed and having one's innards turned to boiling soap from a deadly charge of sodium and a subsequent hydrogen-oxygen explosion is nothing compared to the power of faith. Prince Marduk survived all that because he made a pact with the deities Nergal and Ereshkigal. Get Sandra to an altar and "sacrifice" her to the deities and he will live, otherwise, he's on borrowed time. I know where I'd put my money.
Banunu & Rubati
- The widows of "fancy-toga" Hama-Tula they fled to the capital to evade the debt collectors until Sandra... "collected" such debts to herself along with the belongings of said debtors. She pardoned the debt - the children were the collateral, legally void because of herself - and summoned the women back. They arrived and marveled at the splendid job Sandra did raising their kids all these months. They decided to work for Sandra because she would let them freeload for very little work.
Bronze Age Collapse (not a person, but important enough to make an entry here)
- A real-world event where the civilizations of the Near East almost vanished in less than a century. That really happened IRL and you are a bad person for skipping history classes. In truth, the gods decided to cut their losses and transmigrate their believers to another world en masse, creating the void historians bash their heads to comprehend. Roughly four millennia later, a bespectacled bookwormish environmental sciences student got hit by divine lightning and here we are.
The "Patriarch" (@ Ancient Earth)
- His name starts with "Ab" but names have power, so we won't mention it here. He was a citizen of Ur when a God of Creation (capital letters, doh) did a pact with him to beget his chosen people from his loins. The salty gods of the Near East and that land-between-rivers didn't like that and departed Earth as the sore losers they were.
Nootesh-Geerzu
- The General, father to Emes-Bintu and Brandon's boss. He is an honorable man that works for the Enshi, period. Spoiled his daughter rotten. A cautious man not prone to rushed judgments, he is giving Sandra a chance to prove her worth.
"Kazeed" the Magistrate
- Not his real name, as every Magistrate forfeits their name and holdings upon taking tenure. He took Nephew's old job after he was crowned Enshi of Es-Kina. A person that plays with his cards close to his chest, he used some greedy arsonist merchant to test the waters with Sandra and quickly threw him under the bus while looting everything he owned to pay for the damages caused.