The First Law

by Joe Abercrombie

59 characters, locations, and items in this world codex.

Characters

• Logen Ninefingers — A northern barbarian trying to leave his bloody past behind — cursed with a berserker alter ego that takes over in combat and makes 'being a better ma
• Bayaz, First of the Magi — The wise mentor who is secretly the villain of the entire world — an immortal wizard who has been manipulating kings, wars, and economies for centurie
• Sand dan Glokta — A crippled torturer who was once the Union's most dashing swordsman — broken by two years in Gurkish prisons, now extracting confessions with the same
• Jezal dan Luthar — A vain, shallow fencing champion who was installed as king of the Union by Bayaz — spending the rest of his life discovering that wearing a crown mean
• Ferro Maljinn — A former Gurkish slave consumed by hatred so pure it's practically a superpower — recruited by Bayaz because rage makes an excellent weapon, especiall
• Collem West — The Union's most competent officer, rising from common birth through sheer ability — carrying the secret that he beats his sister and the knowledge th
• The Dogman — The most reasonable man in the North — a Named Man who'd rather talk than fight, which in the North is practically a disability, and who keeps survivi
• Rudd Threetrees — An aging Named Man who knows his best days are behind him — fighting one last war with the weary dignity of someone who's been killing people long eno
• Black Dow — The meanest bastard in the North who murdered his way to a crown — a man who enjoys violence with an honesty that makes everyone else's pretense look
• Bethod — The northern king who united the clans through cunning and Logen's violence — a schemer who used the Bloody-Nine as a weapon and then discovered you c
• Ardee West — A sharp-tongued, hard-drinking woman trapped between her brother's violence and a society that offers her nothing — who ends up married to the Union's
• Arch Lector Sult — The head of the Inquisition — a ruthless old spider who believes he's the most powerful man in the Union, right up until Bayaz reminds him who actuall
• Severard — Glokta's most capable Practical — a spy, assassin, and smartass who's too good at his job for his own good.
• Practical Frost — Glokta's albino enforcer — a giant with a speech impediment who communicates through violence and loyalty in roughly equal measure.
• Shylo Vitari — A Styrian Practical working for the Inquisition — a red-haired killer whose children are held hostage to ensure her loyalty, making every mission a ca
• Khalul — The Prophet of the Gurkish Empire and Bayaz's ancient rival — another Magi who broke the same laws Bayaz did, just with less hypocrisy about it.
• Yulwei — A Magi who chose wandering over empire-building — the closest thing to a good wizard in a world where wizards are the problem.
• Yoru Sulfur — Bayaz's servant and fixer — a shapeshifting creature of unknown origin who does the First of the Magi's dirty work with the bland efficiency of a corp
• Tul Duru Thunderhead — The biggest Named Man in the North — a gentle giant with a talent for violence he'd rather not use and a loyalty that outlasts his better judgment.
• Forley the Weakest — The weakest member of Logen's crew — named for it, mocked for it, but consistently present through every campaign because somebody has to do the ungla
• Harding Grim — The quietest Named Man — a bowman who lets his arrows do the talking and his silence do the rest.
• Monzcarro Murcatto — The Snake of Talins — a mercenary general betrayed and left for dead by the man she served, who crawls back from the grave and systematically murders
• Caul Shivers — A Northman who went south to be a better man — and lost an eye, his ideals, and his humanity in the process, becoming the cold-blooded killer he was t
• Nicomo Cosca — The most famous mercenary captain in Styria — a drunken, treacherous, endlessly entertaining scoundrel whose only consistent loyalty is to the next dr
• Friendly — A convict who counts everything — steps, bricks, heartbeats — and kills with the same detached mathematical precision, because violence is just anothe
• Whirrun of Bligh — A northern warrior convinced he can't die until the right moment — fighting naked from the waist up with a legendary sword, laughing his way through t
• Bremer dan Gorst — The Union's greatest swordsman — a mountain of muscle with a ridiculous high-pitched voice, consumed by self-loathing and a desperate need for the onl
• Calder — Bethod's clever son who inherited his father's brains and none of his muscle — a schemer who smiles his way to power while everyone around him fights
• Scale — Bethod's warrior son who got his father's strength and none of his brains — the hammer to Calder's scalpel, used and discarded by a brother who's smar
• Curnden Craw — An aging northern veteran trying to do the right thing in a world that makes 'the right thing' impossible to define — the last decent man in a profess
• Temple — A former slave, former lawyer, former mercenary who can't commit to anything — drifting through the Far Country looking for redemption he's not sure h
• Savine dan Glokta — The Union's most ambitious socialite and investor — Glokta's secret daughter who inherited his intelligence and his ruthlessness, navigating revolutio
• Leo dan Brock — The Young Lion — a golden-haired war hero who starts as everything a fantasy protagonist should be and ends as proof that heroism and fascism are sepa
• Rikke — The Dogman's daughter who inherited the Long Eye — northern second sight that shows the future in agonizing, seizure-inducing visions, giving her powe
• Orso dan Luthar — The last Luthar king — a charming, well-meaning prince who inherited his father's puppet throne and discovered that being likeable doesn't keep you al
• Gunnar Broad — A Union soldier trying to leave violence behind — a family man whose rage sits just below the surface, proving that you can take the man out of the wa
• Vick dan Teufel — An Inquisition spy embedded in the Breaker revolution — a woman who's been so many things to so many people that she's not sure which version of herse
• Jonas Clover — A northern veteran who's survived every war by switching sides at exactly the right moment — a man whose cowardice is so precisely calibrated it looks
• Stour Nightfall — The Great Wolf — Calder's son and the North's most ambitious young warrior, convinced he's the next Logen Ninefingers and completely wrong about what
• Brother Longfoot — A self-proclaimed Navigator of the Order of Travelers — a pompous, endlessly cheerful guide whose actual competence is perpetually debatable.
• Malacus Quai — Bayaz's sickly apprentice who turns out to be something far worse — a vessel for an ancient spirit whose true nature rewrites everything you thought y
• Isern-i-Phail — A hillwoman mystic who chews bones, reads omens, and says exactly what you don't want to hear with the cheerful certainty of someone who thinks fate i
• Judge — The leader of the Breaker revolution — a zealot whose righteous fury at the Union's inequality curdles into the kind of terror that replaces one tyran
• Corporal Tunny — The Union's greatest survivor — a career soldier who's avoided promotion, responsibility, and death with equal skill for decades.

Locations

• Adua — The capital of the Union — a sprawling, stinking, magnificent city where wealth and poverty share walls, and the Agriont fortress watches over everyth
• The Agriont — The ancient fortress at the heart of Adua — part palace, part prison, part seat of government, all built by the Maker in an age when gods still walked
• Midderland — The heartland of the Union — rich farmland and industry feeding an empire that's rotting from the inside, where the gap between the lords and the work
• Angland — The Union's wild northern province — a frontier where civilization thins and the Northmen are always just over the next hill.
• The North — A brutal, beautiful wilderness ruled by Named Men and clan loyalty — where power comes from the sharpness of your sword and the fearfulness of your re
• Carleon — The North's capital — less a city than a gathering point for warriors, built from wood and ambition and burned down at regular intervals.
• Dagoska — The Union's southern outpost — a fortified city on the Gurkish border where Glokta was sent to die and instead proved that a crippled torturer with no
• Styria — A peninsula of squabbling city-states that make Italian Renaissance politics look civilized — where mercenary captains are the real power and betrayal
• Talins — Styria's greatest city — a rich, beautiful port where commerce and assassination coexist with practiced ease.
• The Old Empire — The ruins of a civilization destroyed by the war between the Maker and his brother — a wasteland of impossible architecture and ancient danger where B
• Aulcus — The Maker's ruined seat — an ancient city of impossible craftsmanship at the heart of the Old Empire, where the Seed waited for centuries until Bayaz
• Valbeck — An industrial city in Midderland where the workers' revolution began — the factory floor of the Union, where exploitation finally produced the explosi
• The Gurkish Empire — A theocratic empire ruled by the Prophet Khalul — the Union's southern rival, powered by religious authority and an army of flesh-eating sorcerers cal

Items

• The Seed — An ancient weapon of mass destruction created by the Maker — the nuclear option that Bayaz used to devastate half of Adua and kill thousands, because
• The Divider — The Maker's sword — forged by Kanedias himself, capable of cutting through anything including the barriers between the living and the dead, a blade th

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