••• briar rose (sleeping beauty, life of luxury, j. de gouw)
the birth of briar rose was celebrated in her kingdom of seppantyre in the homelands, considering the king and queen had significant difficulty conceiving children and heirs to their throne. at her birth, her three fairy godmothers from the twilight lands each bestowed an eternal gift upon her, once including limitless wealth. however, at the feast celebrating her birth, a dark fairy known as hadeon the destroyer interrupted the party unexpectedly and cursed her with death should she happen to prick her finger on a spinning wheel. leysa the defender, another fairy, managed to alter and stop the curse, changing it so that briar rose would not fall dead, but instead would fall into a deep slumber, along with any living thing in her immediate radius or vicinity. the curse would render her asleep whenever she pricked her finger on a sharp object, causing rose thrones to cover the building in which she slept, and the only thing that was able to wake her was a kiss of true love. after first pricking her finger, prince charming awoke her with a kiss, however it did not end her curse. her marriage to charming was brief, being his second wife, and upon her escape to fabletown she became extraordinarily wealthy by manipulating and guessing the stock market. she also, briefly, was the lead singer of her own rock band, which gained quick mundy fame, forcing snow white to demand her to shut it down before their true nature was revealed to the mundane world. now, she lives in extreme wealth in the woodlands, searching for her next adventure...and avoiding sharp objects.
••• bluebeard (bluebeard folklore, life of luxury, b. zane)
bluebeard garnered quite the notorious reputation in the homelands. he was the powerful lord of his own kingdom, meticulous about keeping his lands free of wolves. he was notorious for marrying women and then, on their wedding night, gutting them viciously and leaving their decaying corpses for his later wives to discover within the walls of his castle. when the adversary invaded his kingdom, he fled in his own swan boat, which he also used to ferry other fables across to a portal to the mundane world, escaping the adversary's clutches. for a price. upon his arrival in fabletown, he took up residence on the fourth floor of the woodlands, using all of his extraordinary wealth to purchase enchantments that allowed him to fit his entire castle inside of a single apartment. he is one of the few fables to have escaped the homelands with all of his great riches (somewhere in the billions of dollars) intact. bluebeard is a highly talented swordsman, and is willing to perform morally questionable acts if he deems it necessary, which includes torture and killing.
••• weyland smith (wayland the smith, administrator of the farm, h. jackman)
back in the homelands, weyland was a legendary blacksmith and infamous for his talents with manufacturing and perfecting weapons. now, he serves as the sole and chief administrator of fabletown's uptown farm, presiding over the fables that live there and making the governing rules. while he is a kind and humble man, and does his best to do right by the fables restrained to the farm, many of the fables there resent him, seeing him more as a jailor than an administrator.
••• maddy (medea, enchantress on the thirteenth floor, m. fox)
maddy has assumed many identities and forms over her many centuries of living and is known to be one of the most powerful enchantresses of all time. her most infamous guises were as the goddess medea and sycorax, the dark witch. now, she is one of the powerful witches that resides and works on the thirteenth floor of the woodlands, often preferring to retain the form of a prowling black cat with a devil's tail.
••• faith (donkeyskin girl, prostitute at the pudding and pie, e . rachel wood)
faith is the titular character from the fable of the donkeyskin girl. after her father enchanted his entire kingdom with a curse that only made it possible for him to marry the most beautiful girl within that kingdom, faith came to the unfortunate realization that it was her. being the most beautiful of her kingdom, she was forced to wear an enchanted cloak made of donkeyskin, which masked her beauty and helped her escape her imminent marriage to her own father. after escaping her kingdom, she met and fell in love with a prince named lawrence, and they lived happily together. until the exodus. leaving the homelands, faith managed to escape with lawrence, the clothes on her back, and nothing else. her life should have had a happy ending in prince lawrence's kingdom, however, the mundy world showed her no mercy, and with no money or funds to help her and lawrence scrape by, she was forced to turn to prostitution to support herself and her husband. as a result, her marriage began suffering considerably, and she spent more time turning tricks at the pudding and pie, attempting to manage to keep a roof over their heads. needless to say, her life is anything but a happily ever after, or easy.
••• kay (the snow queen, ally to the business office, m. goode)
in the homelands, kay was the unfortunate prisoner of the snow queen, which resulted eventually in him having a troll mirror shard shoved deep into one of his eye sockets. instead of rendering him blind, however, the mirror shard enabled kay with the gift -- or, really, curse -- to be able to see all the bad any person had ever done simply by glancing at them. the pain of constantly seeing all of the terrible deeds and things people have done causes him to routinely gouge his own eyes out, blinding himself momentarily to those horrors, even though his eyes grow back every ten years, forcing him to repeat the painful process. kay has proven to be a useful ally to the business office and fabletown, considering he's able to see the true nature of the bad in people, and has been useful in pointing out traitors in the past. he is also one of the very few select fables that know the true extent of sheriff bigby wolf's bloody past.