The Pendleton Twins

The Pendleton twins are objectively evil characters. They run silver mines that utilize slave labor, abuse their Parliamentarian power for their own gain, and engage in such despicable acts of cruelty that it's half of their given personality in the game. But here me out! I find much fascination in their characters for several reasons, but the main one has been because we know so little of them outside Heart whispers and whiny audiographs by their younger brother. Their twin relationship intrigues me; we know so little of how their actual dynamic works (since they don't interact with each other in-game) and it leaves a lot to the imagination. Same goes for their actual personalities. While of course there's some parts of canon that are indisputable such as their sadism, a lot of liberties can be taken with their characters and how to interpret them, and additional nuance can be extrapolated from the given lore. There's a lot to make up in terms of their characters, and I find that creative process interesting.

Also, if I'm being honest, I find their voices very satisfying to listen to.

Custis

His blood founded this city but now Custis Pendleton lives only to plunder it.

While I love both twins, I have a stronger bias towards Custis, even though he's the more evil of the two. From the few scenes we see of him, he has virtually no redeeming qualities. But those few scenes, with the aura that he carries himself in, my brain just sort of latched onto him and it's been downhill ever since.

Between the two twins, he tends to have the more "consistent" characterization. He's canonically the smartest of the family, which implies that he's the older of the twins, the one to handle all of the logistics of the family business. He's also the cruelest, which combined with how we see him talk, implies that he's generally the more stressed out and grumpy of the twins, which further complies with the idea of him being the real head of the business. He's arrogant, obviously so, and the pride that comes with that makes him a character that won't admit to mistakes, even when he recognizes them. Unfortunately, that type of haughty character is my favorite kind of character.

Morgan

Morgan Pendleton. How greedily he clings to what is left of the family fortune.

All of the above isn't to say that I don't like Morgan; I love him too. He fascinates me in a different way because unlike Custis, he's an inherent contradiction. We're told that he's cruel, sadistic, greedy. And while yes, he is those things, there's less implied by those facts when we see him in-game. He chats casually with his courtesan, doesn't even force her to address him as a lord, and listens intently with what she has to say. That snapshot of him gives him some nuance and implies that some unreliability in Treavor's narrations. Combined with the fact that Treavor would miss Morgan a little while not missing Custis at all, we get some hints that he's not exactly just a simply corrupt and despicable personality.

He can be thought of in many ways. Some people interpret him as being just like Custis, matching his cruelty. Some people lean him more towards the lighthearted/normal personality side. Me? I pet him wet hands style I personally like striking a balance in between. While he IS cruel, he also draws a few, if arbitrary, lines regarding morals. He can be polite, but usually because he has something to gain. He's selfish, but in a "prettier" way compared to Custis, and sometimes that's worse than straightforward wickedness.