| “ | If there's one thing I know about Finneas Cawl, it's you don't count that guy out. | ” |
—Justin McElroy
Finneas Cawl was an explorer and adventurer featured in the Ethersea prologues, in part responsible for mapping out the sea spire and other features used in the planning of Founders' Wake - including, incidentally, the study of the coral which would eventually lead to the construction of the Brinarr.
After pursuing a group of dissidents on behalf of the then-Boyar Hermine, Finneas was found in a bathysphere, unconscious, along with a dead body and several magical algae, which were later magically enlarged and used as the basis of many of the homeostasis mechanisms of Founders' Wake. Some time later, Finneas passed away - however, the continued experimentation with Brinarr construction nearby managed to snag his spirit before it evanesced. For a time, Finneas was a unique instance of a single-spirit Brinarr, though it was quickly discovered that this was insufficient to properly control a Brinarr body. As such, Finneas chose to yield share of his self to five Einarr spirits, becoming the new entity known as Ampersand Five (named for the addition of five spirits to their collective self). Later in the series, Finneas dies once again after sharing memories with the Coriolis crew, leaving Ampersand 5 behind as their own separate entity.
While Finneas appears to have retained a sense of self separate from Ampersand Five, he remains incapable of remembering details of the moments leading up to his first death.