Nominative Determinism

[Wednesdays Child]

Antonia St. Myra - Completely inescapable schoolmarm. Truant students have made it two full leagues away and still been dragged back to class by the tail before the day's done.

Arist - Once painted the Abbot purple while he slept, and will never ever live it down. Has contemplated becoming a searat just to escape the shame.

Ashtad - An artist who works entirely in charcoals. Whenever he runs out, nearby things tend to spontaneously burn down. I'm sure it's just coincidence.

Bane Redflank - A nice young squirrel with delusions of warlordhood. He adopted the name 'redflank' after an unfortunate jam accident, and has borne it ever since. Nobody knows why his mother called him Bane.

Barumtum - He knows the tune to Little Drummer Boy and absolutely hates the fact that everyone hums it, whereever he goes. He tried to co-opt his name by becoming an alcoholic with a grievous dependency on rum, but this did not help.

Bronn - Twin brother to Broff. A relationship of mutual hatred but a joint love of farming causes the great Alternating Carrots vs Direct Carrots conflict in the latter half of the Century of the Winsome Potato.

Candace Kane - DC Universe crossover character, appears on screen for about six minutes, is cousin to Kate Kane of Batwoman fame. Probably an actual bat.

Coralbell - Creepy animated otter doll with button eyes. Enthusiastically vegan. Was once arrested for eco-vandalism.

Elliot - Poet. Can't stop writing about ravens and grey places. Absolutely incapable of taking, or giving, a compliment. This trait once very nearly caused an international incident.

Falwyn - The first documented incidence of the Welsh spoken language in the Redwall universe. Can usually be found teaching the rules of rugby to anyone he can corral.

(Gilings) Plankshifter - Inventor of the portable glockenspiel, Gilings is known mostly for his ability to play the most wicked riffs and inspire beasts to stamp rhythmically on the ground. He dies in week 4, trying to smoke spinach.

Jericho (Grim) - An otter with very human dyed white hair, constantly staring into the distance, definitely owns a gun and possibly also a katana.

Kasenia - Nemesis to Jericho, possibly also ex-lover. Almost certainly fights with two submachine guns because clearly that's what normal people do.

Kew-Kew - Everyone behaves as though Kew-Kew is a sparrow, but the narrative makes it extremely clear that they are not. It's either an exercise in interesting suspense or the writer has forgotten how adjectives work, and nobody's entirely sure which.

Kiri - The traditional hotroot-loving otter. Asks a lot of questions. Terrible at making decisions, absolutely spectacular at supervising jetty and dock construction.

Maut - Literally a crocodile. Worked for all the old greats - Cluny, Badrang, Tsarmina - as The Crocodile In The Moat. On sabbatical.

Merrill - Realtor. Merrill makes a living showing old habitats to new families. His greatest triump was getting the Moleroler family to move into a burrow system in which there had been three stabbings and a divorce just two weeks prior.

Mully Stonbrek - Karate Mole Mully Stonbrek can, as one might guess by their name, break stone. Sadly this is their only gimmick and they die in week 2.

Noi - Teamwork makes the dream work. Noi joins every collaborative endeavour they can find, and kills every one of them stone dead with an obsessive level of attention to minutes, agendas, discussion and paperwork. There may be Noi in team, but everybody wishes they weren't.

Novak - This is the legend of Novakiin, the Badger-born, who can yell people to death.

"Old One" - This mouse has been focused entirely on reading books, sitting in front of fires, drinking cocoa and napping since emerging from dibbunhood. Nobody has any idea of how old they actually are.

Priideep - A not-so-affectionate nickname that stuck (pronounced "pri'i'deep" / "Pretty Deep"). Priideep has long since lost their amateur philosophical inclinations and now is a strict utilitarian with a psychotic dedication to crafting azulejo (Portuguese tiling).

Reinmar - Reinmar, wife to Reindar and mother to Reinchild. Aggressive and prolific crocheter. Believes that all interpersonal issues can be solved with tea.

Robin Merriweather - One of the minstrels who got eaten in that Monty Python movie, back from the dead and out for revenge.

Samia - A poorly disguised Dr. Seuss crossover character. Obsessed with a meal he calls 'green eggs and ha-'.

Shahin - A snake who's only really concerned with staying warm and safe - but beasts are so clumsy and boorish that they have to get very aggressive sometimes. Probably the only snake who's ever taken part in a Neighbourhood Watch program.

Sheercrest - A squirrel with a surfboard. Sheercrest took on an ill-advised dare as a youth and has ever since then been trying to ride waves better than an otter. 50% of their bodyweight is various greases that they use to make their tail more hydrodynamic.

Siler - A mole. Silo (pronounced Siler) is so named because of his prodigious appetite for hazelnuts. Yes, he once ate his way through a decent chunk of an entire storage silo of the delicious treats.

Smooths - The very worst nickname in the universe. Smooths is in fact a porcupine, and he hates everyone. Without an ounce of diplomacy in his body, Smooths is the perfect anti-hug device.

Yahn - Yahn, son of Yaaahn, is a sloth. All sloths are called Yahn. You can only tell them apart by the intensity, duration, and microtonal shifts in the aaaah.

[Hethrin]

I CAN'T BREATHE.

[Vizon]

Wow. This is the best.

[Wednesdays Child]

Bise - Schemers. This is in fact a pair of mole twins, only ever referred to as Bise ('boys') by their mother, and then everyone else. They have never taken individual names because it suits them far better not to.

Dawl Dredgemast - You'd think that a beast named after two wooden things and one act of dock maintenance would have something to do with the sea, but you'd be entirely wrong. Dawl is a flying squirrel and has never seen any body of water any bigger than a forest brook. His signature attack is to splat onto his opponent's face and drag them to the ground.

Dinogad - A hedgehog with a strange compulsion to dig things up. He has been to the ruins of Sampetra, and St. Ninian's, and a host of other ancient strongholds besides, and is the proud owner of a truly staggering amount of broken pottery.

Elrad - El Rad invented sunglasses purely to have something to put on his face whenever he did something to impress people. Unfortunately his idea of sunglasses is everybeast else's idea of a welding mask. He hasn't impressed a beast for eight seasons.

Galena Rosepaw - Brigand, so named for her formidable collection of rose quartz jewellery. She keeps having to rebuild the collection, though, because it turns out that a brigand weighed down with a hundredweight of gold and quartz can't really run very fast.

Lucan - Luke-Anne was born Anne, but their tomboy tendencies had their family reveal the name they'd picked in case they had a boy. Lucan now spends their time as a deckpaw aboard the Reliant, gambling and carousing and emphatically never getting Involved with anybeast.

Rolf - Rolf is Mossflower's first dog, and The Berserker to boot. He is a very very loud Jack Russell who makes up for his slightly sub-cat size with the tenacity and destructive tendency of at least three badger lords hopped up on dark bean water.

Therion - Twin sister to Therioff, because if I'm going to do a twins joke I'm going to do it twice gosh darn it. They have had many arguments over the years but only via letters in the local newspaper. Residents have come to fear the Sunday Opinions page and the psionic warfare it brings with it.

Unga Underbite - The underbite went away in adolescence, but the mean nickname did not. Unga is now a spectacularly pretty ferret jill who spends her days campaigning against bullying in all its forms, and carries a large mace for when the campaigning doesn't work.

Fiyero, and Zandir Firesage - If you come home on day and find two beasts living in your attic without permission, those beasts will be Fiyero and Zandir Firesage. They will inform you that they are arsonists. They will store all manner of combustible items in your attic and will gladly inform you that they intend to burn the town to the ground, one building at a time. You will not believe a single word they say until you arrive home months later to find nothing but a charred stain on the ground.

[Wednesdays Child]

Ayla Bramble, Brother Hawthorn, Elias Heatherpaw - Berserker, Duelist and Guardian. All three have plant-themed attacks and routinely have blazing rows about which of them is meant to be on which 'lane'. Nobody really knows what they're talking about, but they are spectacularly good at patrolling one particular stretch of forest and keeping it bandit-free.

Bihto Snowridge - Bi - two. Toe - toe. Bihto Snowridge is a shrew who refuses to move where it's warm because, and I quote, "I just prefer the cold." He has had frostbite many times, but somehow still survives - presumably driven by the will to prove that his living arrangements are in fact completely fine.

Cecil Farrah - Broadly speaking Cecil translates to Blind and Farrah to Beauty. So we can assume that Cecil is a really handsome bat. Quite what we can do with this knowledge, I have no idea. Perhaps he's a schemer who uses a smirk and a wink to get things done.

Chitterfang the Wrigglekin - Chitterfang is an ocelot who never quite outgrew the chittering instinct that cats display around flies and other small insects that they might - and that Chitterfang absolutely can - swipe out of the air with a single twisting bound. Wrigglekin? Yes, that's because he has a very fidgety tail.

Declan Stahlrender - Declan renders stools. That is, he's a carpenter who only builds short sitting furniture. Do not come to him for chairs or cupboards, he will send you on your way with an earful of choice cussings. But he does make the most resilient stools in all the land.

Elsabeth van Riften - She's a vampire. There's really no other way to say it. Sure, nobeast dies on camera and there's no specific, actual blood drinking, and her lumpen heavily-accented dogsbody could believably be said to be a mole, but Elsabeth van Riften absolutely belongs in a cape with a scream track.

Flauros and Hana - Hana is, as Hana often is, another word for 'Flower'. But Hana isn't very good at spelling, so she's a baker. She and Flauros set up a bakery many seasons ago and it's the best bakery in Western Southsward, and even bakes for the Southsward royal court.

Ilka - Ilka, the elk, is not interested in much that you have to say. If you are large, she might listen to you, but even then you will be very small to her. If you are small she will never even notice you, let alone engage in conversation. But life's just like that sometimes, you know?

Jargur Strongfist - He's called Strongfist because he was very good at punching - at least, until he got in a fistfight with a wolverine. People considered updating his name but decided that Jargur Hookpaw would just make him feel bad.

Jennabelle - The daughter of the toymaker who made Coralbell. They can often be found playing together where youngsters should not be - graveyards and old houses and places where beasts have died. Until the sun rises, that is, when there is no sign of them any more and no sign that they were ever there.

Kenway - By any nominative rules a character called Kenway must be an assassin. This Kenway however is under the employ of the Mossflower In Bloom society, who have retained him to kill any and all pests that threaten their exquisite dahlia collection, which simply must be kept pristine for the competition next week.

Rickard Greymane - An unreasonably fluffy shrew who was called Richard by his mother and Rick by everyone else. A natural bridge-builder, Rickard concentrates on making people get along by proving that the middle ground is okay. Unfortunately beasts are rather more stubborn than he thinks. That's why he's grey.

Rita - No avian cast would be complete without Rita Duckworth, who is naturally a duck. She wears a cyan bonnet, because to wear a blue one would invite an intellectual property dispute from the estate of Beatrix Potter.

Rynn - You might be excused for thinking that Rynn is going to be a small land mammal of some kind, but you'll understand why you're wrong when I tell you that their full name is Rynn Flider. Rynn is a Potoo. He believes that he wins award for his smouldering good looks, but that's because nobody's told him that having food thrown at you is actually a bad thing.

Seamus Blackquill - Seamus Blackquill is the accountant for a small pirate collective off the coast of Southsward. He got the surname after beasts realised that his eye and his script were good enough to detect fake Black Marks and prove their falsity in court. Many searat captains have come to him for help after receiving a Black Mark, and many have left newly safe and much happier. I'm sure there's no bribery involved.

Shatter - Oh good, someone wrote Link, complete with green hat and sword, and sociopathic compulsion to destroy all earthware he can reach. Well, at least they remembered to make him a mouse. They... did remember to do that, right?

Sheeva - What can one say to the weasel who has deliberately named themselves after the God of Destruction? That the buildings that keep falling down around them are the products of subsidence and sinkhole activity? That it's only his unerring instinct to find fresh flowing water that keeps him in such perilous places? Of course not. Let him keep his illusions.

Siobhan, Codename: The Mantis - Sister Siobhan Sugarsnap was given the operational codename 'Mantis' by the gaggle of dibbuns she looks after every afternoon for the Abbey population, because she's always praying. But wouldn't you be, with fifteen unruly brats to look after all by yourself? Poor Sister Siobhan.

Tanne Grymklifer - Everyone who lives in the town of Bader on the Swamp is grateful to Tan Grime-Cleaver. Not specifically him, mind you, as their walking past with noses upturned tells us. But they are grateful, in general, for the sewers always staying unclogged.

Trajan - An ancient Roman Emperor, re-expressed as a pine marten? Trajan writes an excellent Man Out Of Time routine but gets voted out in round five after calling for the reinstatement of slavery with a little too much zeal.

Vanya Sandtalon - Everything points to this app being a vulture, right? The Russian-sounding forename, the sand for deserts, the talons. But Vanya Sandtalon is in fact a shrew who has captured and tamed a rogue vulture, and rides it into battle but mostly down to the riverside for fishing trips.

[Frost]

I may have to resign my app, since Weds has the gift of foresight (or one of the rings of power)

[Fern Greenwood]

I am crying. CRYING.