Ian Penumbra is the proprietor of Penumbra's Roaming Cavalcade of Mysteries, a spacegoing carnival based aboard the ISS Orphic. Born and raised in San Angeles megalopolis on the North American west coast of Earth, he was an information broker and talent agent vacationing on Sivad when Gustav Eiger ordered the detonation of sixteen plasma bombs, decimating Penumbra's homeworld. He struggled to keep his business alive on Mars. Then the Moebius Effect came through and effectively ruined Penumbra. He bounced back within a year or so, however, teaming up with a Timonae named Ora, acquiring the Orphic, and opening the carnival.