Our final character profile for Gods of the Deep is Captain Rachel Drake.

Rachel is the owner of Drake Enterprises, a merchant empire with a fleet of ships and interests all over the world. She is also very well educated, an expert shot and a competent fencer. As Captain of the Neptune’s Wing, she also puts herself in the forefront of her companies most risky ventures, taking her flagship into often very dangerous waters. When she meets Everyn, she also discovers a whole new plane of existence to explore in the ethereal realms.

While Everyn is ‘what if Isaac Newton did magic’, Rachel is a capitalist merchant venturer. She is, as the character Yphargo says, capable of buying one country and funding an army to successfuly invade another. Well, maybe not quite, that character may have been exaggerating. However, she is very wealthy.

Some of the inspiration for Rachel came from the Quaker industrialists like the Cadburys and the Rowntrees. Wealthy people who also tried to do good with their wealth, mostly by making sure that their workers had somewhere to live and their children had an education. Places like Bourneville in Birmingham are testement to this – an entire village built to house the workers for the factory that was nearby.

Of course Rachel as her flaws. She often sees her wealth as an easy solution to problems and has a tendency to be impulsive and overconfident where Everyn is often too cautious. These traits are what make her a true hero, however. Rather than risk one of her crew, she will prefer to do the dangerous things herself.