Aether & Iron — Characters Guide

Gia Randazzo is the player character and the lens through which Aether & Iron's floating New York is experienced. A second-generation Italian-American smuggler who grew up in the Lowers, Gia is defined by her street intelligence, dark humor, and a deeply buried sense of justice that repeatedly gets her into trouble. She drives the narrative forward through three stat channels — Hustle, Smarts, and Brass — each of which reflects a different facet of her personality that the player develops over the course of the game.

Gia's parents were aether-dock workers who lost their jobs when the Heights barons automated the upper docks. Her father's subsequent involvement with the Copper Wire gang — and his disappearance when Gia was fourteen — is the wound at the center of her character. She doesn't talk about it unless she trusts you completely, and who she trusts is entirely up to the player.

Nellie is a scientist from the Uppers hired by a Heights industrial consortium to retrieve something from the Lowers — something she won't explain in detail when she first hires Gia as her escort. She is brilliant, catastrophically unprepared for street life, and funnier than she intends to be. Her culture-clash dynamic with Gia generates much of the game's early comedy, but her intelligence and hidden knowledge of the aether conspiracy make her the most plot-critical character in the cast.

Nellie studied aetheric engineering at the Heights Institute, where she became one of three researchers with access to classified data about the aether material's true origin. When her two colleagues were killed in what the city officially called accidents, Nellie went to the Lowers to find the evidence buried there — evidence that would explain why the city's barons are so desperate to control the aether supply.

Cress is a non-binary fixer who operates out of the Lowers' most dangerous district, the Rust Quarter. They know everyone, owe everyone, and are owed by everyone — a social web that gives Gia access to information and resources that money alone can't buy. Cress speaks in clipped, economical sentences and has a talent for sizing up situations faster than anyone else in the crew.

Cress's history with the Copper Wire gang — the same organization connected to Gia's missing father — is a thread that runs underneath their friendly professional relationship. Whether that thread pulls them together or apart depends on choices made in Act 2.

Shiel is a former Heights military weapons officer who left (or was expelled from — he won't clarify which) the service after an incident he describes only as 'a difference of professional opinion.' He is precise, formal, and occasionally alarming in his enthusiasm for applied ballistics. Of all the crew, he integrates into Lowers life most poorly, but his combat effectiveness is unmatched.

Shiel's military background means he has contacts in the Heights security apparatus that no other crew member can access. Several mid-game missions become significantly easier if you've maintained a positive relationship with him — he can call in favors that bypass otherwise mandatory combat encounters.

Sofia is a former racing driver from before the city's aether-road regulations shut down competitive racing in the Lowers. She is loud, competitive, and constitutionally incapable of taking a route that isn't the fastest one available. Her knowledge of the Lowers' road network is encyclopedic and repeatedly saves the crew from ambushes.

Sofia's rivalry with a Heights-sponsored racing team is a recurring subplot. If you invest in her relationship arc, it culminates in a side mission that unlocks a unique vehicle chassis unavailable through any other means.

Luca is a former information broker who accumulated enough debt to the wrong people that selling his services to Gia was his safest remaining option. He is nervous, precise, and genuinely terrified of physical confrontation — but his intelligence-gathering abilities make the crew dramatically better informed than any enemy they face.

Luca's backstory is the most elaborately branched of the secondary crew members. His loyalty is not guaranteed — if you make specific choices in Act 2, he will consider an offer from the antagonist's faction, and whether he stays or leaves depends entirely on how you've treated him.

Benny is the crew's mechanic and the person who keeps Gia's car from falling out of the sky on a weekly basis. Sardonic, perpetually covered in aether grease, and possessed of a work ethic that puts everyone else to shame, Benny is the crew member most players end up appreciating most by Act 3. She has zero patience for people who mistreat machinery and considerable patience for everything else.

Benny's family runs the most respected independent repair yard in the Lowers. Her access to parts, schematics, and back-channel vehicle components is what makes advanced vehicle builds possible. Her relationship arc explores the tension between loyalty to family business and loyalty to the crew.