Staff and Visitors

These are some of the more senior staff at Emporium, as well as a few other prominent store residents. Unlike player characters, they may have been here for multiple seasonal cycles. It is unlikely that you would know any of them personally, but you may have heard about them from others who came to the store before you, or from some of Emporium's own promotional materials.

The face of Emporium, Albert is known to shoppers and employees alike from most of Emporium's advertising material as a jovial TV headed Implement often seen gesticulating with a navy umbrella. They are a combined security system, catalogue, information point and customer service AI always happy to act as a friend and guide in Emporium. They can be contacted via the Albert Interface from most areas within he store.

Serious and focused, Hadley is the Implement in charge of managing tasks that come in from across the store and ensuring that employees are able to get stuck into their work. Flashing across their CRT monitor head in dizzying blurs of work are new tasks, messages and alerts. When things are quieter, Hadley is still on the move, adjusting wonky displays, devouring stray wrappers, and identifying areas of risk. If you’re looking for something to do, have questions about your shift, or want a work anecdote with questionable levels of applicability, Hadley’s the one to talk to.

A Glory who really understands how you feel and how rough what you're facing is… or at least makes a big show of saying he does. If you've spent any significant amount of time around returns or customer complaints, chances are you've passed by the condescending aura of Empathy.

As the head of security, Phloupostrophe the Ever Watchful, He Who Took The Meek And Defenseless Under His Wings, Smiter of Fears, Banisher of Winter’s Harshness, Cantor in The Song of Peace AKA Flopsie can usually be found in Security. He is a Glory whose large, fluffy presence is a reassurance to most customers. He also acts informally as the store’s welfare councillor.

Usually stationed in the Homeplane Display Area, Ciel is Orbital’s customer outreach specialist manages the Store's records of customer and employee homeplanes. These records (nothing invasive, just a basic profile) may be called up by any interested party.

Near where she's stationed, there's a complicated apparatus capable of communing directly with homeplanes (or at least, a facsimile of them). Something about it has been on the fritz lately, leading Ms. Factbooker to stare longingly at it. She's not without things to keep her busy, though. Customer dependents stored in the area can be quite lively at times!

A bull-headed (and occasionally bullheaded) Chimera who is in charge of the Hardware department. She tends to only make an appearance when she has to, though, preferring to spend most of her time down in Hardware Testing. There are many speculative rumours about what she’s working on down there.

Johann is a merry Implement with a gramophone for a head. In charge of looking after the Entertainment section of Emporium, he can sometimes be seen tinkering with some gadget or other, and is never seen without his briefcase.

Felix888 can usually be found in the Empty Vessel. Occupying a corner of the Cafe, he provides fortune telling services for anyone interested ¹⁾. Despite having a Magic 8-Ball for a head, he seems to possess a whole range of different fortune telling devices, from cards to sticks to crystal balls.

Jo cleans. Jo carries. Jo digs. Jo gives salient medical advice on post-its. Jo is an Implement of few words who gets things done. Her cactus head's spines are sometimes used to carry additional notes or hang small ornaments that have drifted to the wrong department.

Amanda Marker is a ticker-tape-headed Implement - her head an abstract mane of torn catalogues and ticker-tape - tasked with managing supply, and keeping Emporium’s stock managed. Bold and quick-tempered, she accomplishes this task by leading heading hand-picked teams of Emporium staff, 'kin, and even a few customers, into the Warehouses and locating rare items. She is typically accompanied by her long-suffering subordinate, Simon Seer (He).

Eska is an elderly Glory who, in its words, is looking for the End of the World. It has long sought out anyone foolhardy enough to join it on its quest into the Deep Stockrooms, hoping to find the edge of Emporium … but surely that’s impossible, given its infinite size. Right?

Kerral is an ambassador and diplomat from the Coo-coos, occasionally visiting the Warehouse Staging Area under an uneasy flag of truce. Shrouded in mystery, they have a habit of quizzing customers and employees alike with barrages of personal and seemingly inconsequential questions.

“Just call us Victor - everyone does!” is a boisterous, ageing Glory who’s usually far too busy in their office doing far too much important work to mingle with Entities in the store. As the most senior Orbital employee in store, Victor’s work focuses on improving the services Orbital provides in its partnership with Emporium first and foremost. While they are personable and in theory open to chatting about any subject²⁾, they usually stay in their office in the administration employee area of Emporium and delegate the lower-level aspects of the work Orbital does for Emporium to their personal assistant, Serendipitous-Swift-Sensical (alias Swift) and, more recently and to a much lesser extent, the work experience Glory, Spreadsheet.

A heron Chimera who serves as secretary to the Orbital management representative, We Who Sing of 10,000 Victories, Swift is an expert of combining polite and professional business-speak with the desperation of the overwhelmed. Often the one doing the bulk of the legwork for Victor, Swift swoops through the aisles of Emporium on strange errands. Before these tasks, his suits are pristine. Afterwards, they aren’t so lucky.

Swift is forever manifesting their stress and exasperation in ruffled feathers and aggressive snacking on fish products.

A Glory of lackadaisically shifting spreadsheets, Spreadsheet is on a work experience placement with Orbital, but is in no rush to experience work of any kind. Found most often in the Arts & Crafts section of Emporium, she likes to explore, have a chill time, and explore to find even more chill times. Sometimes Spreadsheet gets into trouble, but to him it’s a non-issue: things have a way of working themselves out in the end, so why waste time worrying about anything?

It’s not a secret that Spreadsheet does pretty much nothing on their job description, but the lack of punishment has led to rumours that they know someone important, either at Orbital, Emporium, or both, and is exploiting that connection.