Main Characters: In-Depth Book 1
This page provides supplemental background for some characters introduced in Book 1. It does not include characters from later books.
SPOILER ALERT: This information is supplemental to chapters 1-29 of Book 1 and may contain spoilers.
Cassandra Hojere is a human female, who is also a quarter lunar fae. She is 22 years old, and has long, curly black hair, purple eyes, and pale white skin. She is 5'6'' (1.68 m) and weighs 140 lbs (63.5 kg). She is also a telepath, but she does not have her own magic. She is extremely skilled in healing and writing magic spells. She speaks all fae dialects fluently. Because her mother is a lunar fae, Cassandra speaks lunar fae fluently.
Cassandra's mother is Freya Hojere. Freya was a sorceress and an escaped convict of Nortram. Her father is Ulrik Sven Hojere, the former duke of Dagmar in Nortram. Her parents were killed when she was six years old in an attack on the castle by the king's forces. This attack was instigated, according to official documents, because of an attempted rebellion on part of their parents.
Cassandra is a more shy, less outspoken woman. She typically wears cheaper brown and gray clothes to not stand out. She has a harder time making friends and casual acquaintances than her brother. Cassandra, while typically quiet, does get outspoken when she feels that others are being abused.
Cassandra speaks Common, and lunar fae fluently. She speaks the other fae dialects at the advanced level. She speaks dwarvish at a high level. She speaks elvish and druidic on an intermediate level. She speaks centaurian at a novice level.
Cassandra is the younger twin of Ethan Hojere, who refers to her as 'Cassi.' Their current ward is their uncle Clemens Alviss Hojere, current Duke of Dagmar.
Ethan Hojere is a human male, who is also a quarter lunar fae. He is 22 years old and has short, wavey black hair, silver eyes, and pale white skin. He is 6'3' (1.91 m)and weighs 195 lbs (88.45 kg). He has maternal heritage fire, wind, and sun magic. He has natural lunar magic from his mother's lunar fae heritage. This allows him to shift, which is short-distance teleportation, at will. He is an extremely skilled swordsman and mage. He knows some spell writing for fire, wind, and lunar magic. However, usually relies on his sister to write spells for him.
Ethan's mother is Freya Hojere. Freya was a sorceress and an escaped convict of Nortram. Her father is Ulrik Sven Hojere, the former duke of Dagmar in Nortram. His parents were killed when he was six years old in an attack on the castle by the king's forces. This attack was instigated, according to official documents, because of an attempted rebellion on part of their parents.
Ethan is a generally well-liked person. He is amiable with all whom he meets unless they give him a reason to dislike them. Ethan can sometimes be hot-headed about subjects and people he feels passionate about. He finds it difficult to turn down a challenge.
Ethan speaks Common fluently. He speaks lunar fae on a high level. He speaks fire fae and dwarvish at a beginner's level. He speaks sun fae, and elvish at a novice level.
Ethan is the older twin of Cassandra Hojere, who he calls 'Cassi.' Their current ward is their uncle Clemens Alviss Hojere, current Duke of Dagmar.
Estelle Verone is a kitseeth female. She is 21 years old and has straight, dark brown hair, green eyes, and medium brown skin. She is 5'2'' (1.58 m) and weighs 110 lbs (49.9 kg). She can land on her feet when falling any distance of 250' (76.2 m) or less and survive. She can clear a 10' (3.05 m) wall with a single jump. She is good at climbing. She is extremely skilled in herbs and survival skills. She is also adept at fighting with a knife and sword, and can dual wield. She is also an expert at throwing knives. She can also pickpocket and pick locks. She has the ability to absorb natural magic from the environment and use it, because of her druidic ancestry.
Estelle is a triplet, and her sisters are Grainne and Chauntel. Estelle's mother is named Cadhla and her father is Seamus. Her parents were never married, and her father left when he found out her mother was pregnant with triplets. As a result, her mother and grandparents raised her and her sisters. They ran an herbal shop. When Estelle was thirteen, a demon-possessed man came and killed her entire family, leaving her as the lone survivor. She was then sent to live with her father for a year before he ran away. Then she lived with a gang of teenage thieves until she was seventeen when she joined a witch's coven. When she was twenty, she left the coven due to a disagreement. She has now made it her life's goal to hunt down the demon who killed her family.
Estelle speaks Common and druidic fluently. She speaks noxian at an advanced level.
Oliver Charbonneau is a human male. He is 24 years old, and has short brown hair and brown eyes. He is 5'8'' (1.73 m) and weighs 135 lbs (61.2 kg). He has the maternal heritage of fire magic. He also has a beginner's level of fencing skills.
Oliver is the oldest of three children. He has a brother who is 20 named Troy, and a sister who is 16 named Danielle. His father, a 52-year-old named Vernon, owns a mining company, which specializes in grundsten location and extraction. Vernon has inherited a patent from his father, that aids in locating grundsten. He is a successful businessman, who has a diversified portfolio, including funding shipping for coffee imports from the Southern Isles. Oliver's mother, 48-year-old Nicolette, runs a group that hosts charity-raising functions for a variety of causes, including 'Rebuilding Families Affected by Monster Attacks,' 'Aescelland Environmental Restoration Group,' and 'Hlathanna's Charity House for Impoverished and Displaced Mothers,' among others. Vernon donates regularly to his wife's charity-raising organization, however, he controls the bulk of the family's financial assets. Like many wealthy men, when Vernon and Nicolette were married, and before they had children, Vernon paid for his wife's blood to be switched out with magic, so their children would all inherit it.
Oliver's family has three homes. One is an estate in Hillsbron, which is their main family residence and is located near the family's mine. One is an apartment in Chardor, which the family uses to conduct business inside the capital. The third is a townhouse and vacation home in Bordulac. This is because the wife is originally from Bordulac and still has family there.
Oliver is a passionate supporter of the Altruist cause and the wars against the demons. He believes that his family, especially his father, is not doing enough to support the cause, as they are largely apolitical. Oliver's father believes that Oliver is an ungrateful, soft idealist who does not understand either hardwork, or the way the world works. This has led to a tenuous relationship. Oliver has told his father that if he inherits the mining company he will turn over the mining company and the patent for locating grundsten to the Croulian government without charge, in order to further the Altruist's cause. Because of this sentiment, Vernon decided to pass the mining company and the patent over to Troy, as Troy doesn't share his brother's convictions. He also told Oliver that he would disinherit him entirely, and cut him off, unless he could demonstrate that he was a competent, self-functioning adult by graduating from a magical graduate academy. Oliver flunked out of his first two magical graduate academies before enrolling in Arduval.
Oliver is generally an agreeable person, easily making friends with other agreeable people. He enjoys drinking and sampling various types of beers and other alcohols, though is not an alcoholic. He enjoys talking a lot. He can spend a long time speaking about the Altruist cause, as he is impassioned about it, though does not go on Altruist rants with friends that seem to be annoyed or uninterested by that. Oliver has a slight build, and, while not ugly in any sense, is also not a particularly attractive man. This, in combination with his general long-windedness, has led him to have difficulty in the dating arena. He heavily relies on his family's wealth to impress women.
Oliver speaks Common fluently. He speaks Croulian at an intermediate level, and fire fae at a beginner's level.
Acaria Del'lore is a female high elf. She is 115 years old (around 46 years old in human years), and has long blonde hair and brown eyes. She is extremely pale. She is 5'10'' (1.78 m) and weighs 100 lbs (45.36 kg). As an elf, she has the natural ability to absorb wind magic from the environment and utilize it. She is a certified Wizardess, having graduated from the Crepideaus Academy in Serracolle. Bur'ron is her Wizard's name. She also has an intermediate level of fencing skills and is a highly skilled archeress.
Nothing is known about her family, other than she says she is from House Eff'il. The House Eff'il is a family that maintains a great deal of political power in the elvish kingdom of Serracole. They are named after the hill country they are from and have been in control of since before the formal creation of the country of Serracole. It has been inferred that she is probably the illegitimate child of a high-ranking member of the Eff'il family.
Acaria served as a mage in the Quatrieme War. She even took part in the battle of Styxa, as part of the elvish army that fought outside of the city as a support to the city. After Styxa was overtaken, and after several failed attempts of recapture, she returned to Serracole to attend the Crepideaus magical academy.
After her schooling, she served as a wizardess in one of the armies that took over Rohuroku, in an attempt to get more nepheleian fliers for support against the demon forces. Even after the forced conscription of nepheles and harpies that aided in the recapture of Styxa, she noticed that the forced conscripts still struggled to find fervor for the Altruist cause and were sometimes rebelious. She spent some time in the reeducation camps, before becoming part of the faculty at Arduval.
While Arduval initially had the reputation for not taking sides for the Altruists and Zealots, Acaria made it her mission to make it into a recruiting school for defenders in the Altruist movement. She has maintained the reputation that the school does not take sides, in order to lure Zealot parents into sending their children there and then altering the children's stance to defend the Altruist's cause. Eventually, Acaria became the Headmistress of Arduval, cementing her vision of Arduval's function. She has been the Headmistress for the past twenty-three years.
Bur'ron does not accept insubordination against her or the Altruist cause. She also seeks to stifle anything that would harm the reputation of the school, which would in turn harm its ability to enroll Zealot students and reeducate them. She also wants to protect any student that could potentially be a great fighter or influencer for the Altruist's cause. Because of this, she will antagonize students that get in the way of these goals. She also goes out of her way to protect students that are potential assets from getting into trouble.
Acaria is not married and does not have any children. She does not have any known love interests. She prioritizes her work and the Altruist's cause over romantic or social relationships.
Acaria speaks Common and elvish fluently. She speaks wind fae at an advanced level. She speaks fire and nature fae at a beginner's level.
Eyxu adlp Edderkop is a female spider-person, specifically a drommegulper. She is 23 years old (around 39 years old in human years), and has eight eyes, eight legs, pedipalps, chelicerae, and fangs. She has bluish-black skin. Her main body, not including her legs, is 3'6'' (1.07 m) and weighs 255 pounds (115.67 kg).
As a spider-person, she can spin and shoot webs. She is very flexible and can fit into tight spaces. Her bite is poisonous but not immediately deadly in small amounts. Her bite causes people to become immobile. As more poison is administered, the poison rapidly liquefies internal organs for the purpose of consumption, until only the skin and bones are left. As a drommegolper, she can spin webs that emit a toxin that puts people to sleep.
Nothing is known about her past, except that she is remarkably well-socialized in comparison to other spider-people. Eyxu is smart and speaks Common fluently, which is also better than most other spider-people, who usually speak somewhere between the Novice and High levels. Eyxu has been a staff at the school for the past twelve years.
Eyxu is the kind of individual to hold a grudge. If someone, especially a student, offends her, she will do everything possible to seek their eventual murder and demise, as long as she does not have any witnesses to the murder. Eyxu patrols the perimeter of the school every night, where she eats any student or townsperson that wanders into the perimeter. Eyxu routinely hunts any large animals or magical monsters that live within a five-mile radius of the school.
Eyxu does not have any known living family or love interests. She does feel attraction towards human males but has not had consensual relations with any. She raped several male persons before killing them when she discovered them around the perimeter. At one point, she did mate with a male spider-person that had wandered into the Copperwood area, at which time she did become pregnant. However, she killed and ate that male edderkopfolk following the consummation, and devoured each of her children before they reached the age of three.
Hyacinth Cnuasachd is a female dryad. She is 24 years old and has mint green skin and medium green hair. She has brown eyes. She is 5'4'' (1.63 m) and weighs 110 lbs (49.9 kg). As a dryad, she has the ability to transform into one plant. Her plant is the hyacinth flower. Hyacinth also has natural nature magic.
Hyacinth was born to a dryad mother who was a stripper, and a dyad father who left before he knew the mother was pregnant. Hyacinth's mother was hoping that the baby would bring the father back into a relationship with her, or at least in paying child support. However, the father did not ever get back with her, or administer financial support. As a result, Hyacinth's mother abandoned her at just a few years old at an orphanage. Hyacinth left the orphanage when she was thirteen to live with her boyfriend. Hyacinth lived with and had several boyfriends up until the age of fifteen, at which time she became a prostitute (sixteen is the legal age for prostitution, though some fourteen or fifteen-year-olds [along with their pimps or madames] pretend they are sixteen to become prostitutes earlier).
Around the age of nineteen, Hyacinth saw an advertisement in the newspaper, wanting dryad women to marry and bear children to aescel men. Hyacinth answered this advertisement and became Cadmus's fiancee.
Hyacinth ultimately did not want this arrangement, as aescels were not as physically attractive to her, and she did not want to get pregnant. However, she did want the financial support. So she convinced Cadmus's family to pay for her university education before marriage and children, as a way to secure the support for a few years before leaving. Cadmus's family paid for him to go alongside her as a way of protecting Hyacinth, their investment.
While at university, Hyacinth began cheating on Cadmus. The first time that Cadmus caught her cheating, he beat up the other man in anger. This excited Hyacinth and she and Cadmus had intercourse for the first time. This was Cadmus's first time engaging in intercourse, and he became attached to Hyacinth, despite their reason for engaging in this liaison. Cadmus and Hyacinth continued their relationship as such throughout university, with her cheating and then him catching her, beating up the guy, and them engaging in intercourse afterward. Hyacinth became pregnant five times with Cadmus's babies (she knew because aescel babies start out as small sprouts growing externally from her abdomen), but each time she aborted the baby by clipping off the sprout. It is important to note that if Cadmus or his family found out about her aborting his children, they would have cut her off, as breeding the endangered aescel species was the whole purpose of their relationship.
While at university, Hyacinth met and befriended the sylph girl, Adrianna Pfieffer.
As Hyacinth's university education came to a close, Hyacinth, never intending from the beginning on becoming an aescel-wife or baring aescel children at any point, convinced Cadmus's family to pay for her magical graduate school education as well. His family agreed and sent her along with Cadmus to Arduval. However, at this point, Hyacinth was also tired of her relationship with Cadmus, with the thrill of his anger wearing off. She resolved that she would have to find another rich or powerful man that she could latch onto so she could continue the financial support without ending up with an aescel as a husband. She began using her position as a student at the magical academy to gain access to parties, so she could sleep with rich men. Once she became a student, she also slept with almost all of the male finalists in the Newcomer's Tournament in an effort to find one that would commit to her. However, this strategy backfired, as none of the male finalists committed to her, and Cadmus broke up with her as a result of her extreme infidelity.
Because her financial support was cut off when Cadmus broke up with her, she had to engage in intercourse with the cyclops, Vandoonk. She used his species' known stupidity and codependency on relationships to secure funding, with the promise of marriage as well as weekly liaisons with the cyclops. Hyacinth is unhappy with this relationship and uses the cyclops' oblivious nature to continue to cheat with other men in order to find someone better. One of the men that she continues to have relationships with is the nisse, Jussi, whom she especially likes and wants to be in an actual relationship with.
Hyacinth speaks Common fluently. She speaks nature and wind fae at the beginner's level.
Talitha Qualenine
tah-LEE-thah QUAW-lah-NEE-neh
Talitha Qualenine is a female of mixed species, though considered human*. Her father is a nephele and her mother is a human with a quarter-elvish heritage (people who are a quarter-elf or eighth-elf are considered half-elves). Because nepheles' wings are a maternal heritage trait, she did not inherit them. Nepheles without wings are generally considered human. She is 23 years old and has medium brown skin and dark brown curly hair. Her eyes are a light orangey-brown. She is 5'9'' (1.76 m) and weighs 125 lbs (56.7 kg). As a partial Nephele, she has natural lightning magic. Her partial elf heritage gives her the ability to absorb wind energy from the environment and use wind magic.
Talitha is from Seracolle. Talitha was the result of a rich young woman having a temporary relationship with a nephele man. Because she does not have wings, she was never excepted as part of the nephele community and was mostly raised by her mother and her family. She has her mother's family's last name. Her father was really only present with financial support. Her mother eventually got married. However, with her mother's marriage, Talitha got shipped off to boarding schools. This was so she would not interfere with her mother and stepfather's life, and because she was never accepted into her mother and stepfather's half-elf community due to the fact she is more fae than elf. Because of this family dynamic, Talitha is very insecure about her position in the world. She feels the need to prove to everyone, especially to her family, and more especially to her father, that they should be proud of her because she is an excellent mage and will someday be an excellent wizard. She has been placed on fencing teams throughout tertiary school and university, even though she had to often sabotage her rivals.
Since Serracole is governed mostly by elves, who see other species as inferior, getting into university and post-graduate magical academy in Serracole is difficult for non-elves. Therefore she was shipped to Croulia for university, where she met and developed a friendly rivalry with Jillian Wick. This was not because they liked each other, but because both saw more benefit in acting like friends rather than being overtly enemies. When they finished university, both enrolled in Arduval together.
Talitha speaks Common and elvish fluently. She speaks lightning fae at an advanced level, and wind fae at an intermediary level. She is extremely intelligent and studious, and therefore generally skilled at fae and can speak any of the fae dialects at a beginner's level.
*According to law, sylphs and nephele without wings are classified as humans with fae ancestry, even if they are more fae than human. It is also to be noted that she may have been legally considered a half-elf because she is one-eight elvish (the legal minimum to be considered such), but because of the fact she is more fae than elf, the elves will not consider her elvish or half-elvish. Therefore, she is legally human.
Lachlan Darrow is a male centaur. He is 46 years old and has brown hair and brown eyes. He has a light brown horse body. He is 6' 10'' (2.09 m) and weighs 1100 lbs (498.96 kg). He has the maternal heritage trait of wind magic. His Wizard's name is Cerberon.
Lachlan is from an influential family in the centaurian baronet in the Copperwood barony. He is descended from one of the centaurian generals that retook Styxa. He attended military school in anticipation of serving in another war with the demons like his grandfather. Then he attended Arduval to increase his mastery of magic for fighting as well. However, no war came in his lifetime. He served for some time as a volunteer soldier at Styxa, and eventually retired from the military to become a teacher at Arduval. He has been a teacher at Arduval for the past twelve years and was hired on as an Altruist Alliance teacher under Bur'ron's plan to educate the students in Altruist idealogy.
Like most centaurs, Lachlan believes that centaurs are superior to other races. He has been heavily involved in the censoring of anything critical of the centaurian people. This is the case whether or not the information he is censoring is accurate. He also participates in the integration of the children of studnapping victims into other centaur baronets. He does not view this as wrong, as he believes that humans owe this to centaurs for all the centaurs that were lost in the wars against the demons.
Lachlan is married to a centaur woman, who is from another influential family in the centaurian baronet of Copperwood. They have been married for fourteen years, and have three children. Lachlan regularly cheats on his wife, going to brothels or sometimes even engaging in liaisons with female students. Like many male centaurs, he does not consider it to be cheating on his wife, because he strictly cheats with bipedal (non-centaurian) women. He usually tries to keep these liaisons on the down-low.
Lachlan speaks Common and centaurian fluently. He speaks wind fae at an advanced level. He speaks druidic at a beginner's level. He speaks elvish at a novice level.