History Characters / HeraldsOfValdemarVowsAndHonor

* DisabledLoveInterest: His chronic pain limits his energy and physical ability and has him convinced that Kethry couldn't want him, until she makes it as plain as she can.

* RememberedICouldFly: Whenever Tarma takes up Need, Need grants her [[AntiMagic perfect immunity to all magic cast on Tarma without her consent]], letting her [[CurbStompBattle curbstomp]] any [[MageKiller mages]] that she faces. She never seems to remember that she can just ask for Need for a few minutes before entering a confrontation with a mage, it always happens in a moment of desperation without planning for it.

* SquishyWizard: Need makes up a lot of the difference and is a very skilled fighter who grants brief super strength, but Kethry's own strengths are very much in magic rather than physical combat. She is still in pretty good shape and struggles in a FreakyFridayFlip involving a body that hasn't been traveling and riding horses for years.

* BadBoss: He sees all humanity as far beneath him. They can share in his rapine, but
* BestialityIsDepraved: Tarma, comparing notes with a priest, notes that it's ''weird'' that Thalhkarsh has sex with humans and most demons wouldn't consider it, the way most humans don't want to have sex with dogs. She concludes that the sadism is probably part of it.

* PostRapeTaunt: Lastel Longknife, a bandit who Kethry [[KarmicTransformation forced to resemble a woman as punishment]] [[KarmicRape for his own proclivities]], survived and summoned Thalhkarsh for help and {{Revenge}}. Revenge, Thalhkarsh liked, but he also liked to play with Lastel and taunt him about his reactions, telling him that actually he was enjoying it.

* TheUnfought: He appears himself and even has some POV in the short story "The Leslac Version", in ''Oathblood'', but while Tarma and Kethry complain about him at length they never actually speak to or confront him on page.

* SquishyWizard: Need makes up a lot of the difference and is a very skilled fighter who grants brief super strength, but Kethry's own strengths are very much in magic rather than physical combat.

* EatTheSummoner: The mage who summoned him ''intended'' to summon a minor imp with a similar name but got the pronounciation wrong. Thalhkarsh broke free of the mage's protections, transformed into a form he found irresistibly attractive, and then played with him before eating him.
* DealWithTheDevil: In his first encounter with them he offers a deal to Tarma and Kethry, promising pleasure and power and to make both of them very good looking, but he doesn't seem to be as all-powerful as that trope often suggests. Later, Kethry confesses that she had been afraid that Tarma would accept the offer if it was to bring her clan BackFromTheDead, but Tarma says they're beyond his reach anyway.

* PostRapeTaunt: Lastel Longknife, a bandit who Kethry [[KarmicTransformation forced to resemble a woman as punishment]] [[KarmicRape for his own proclivities]], survived and summoned Thalhkarsh for help and {{Revenge}}. Revenge, Thalhkarsh liked, but he also liked to play with Lastel and taunt him about his reactions.

%%* SwornBrothers: With Tarma. This makes her Tale'sedrin by blood and her children the core of the rebuilt Clan.

* BloodBrothers: With Kethry. Specifically they are "she'enedra" or oath-sisters to each other, and the Goddess blessed their oath by instantly healing the bloody palms they clasped together, leaving crescent-shaped scars. This provides a loophole when Tarma's sexlessness makes it impossible to provide the core blood to rebuild her Clan.

* ExtraParentConception: Tarma is sterile, which is a problem for her as the [[LastOfHisKind last of her kind]] - Talesedrin can be rebuilt but it requires a "living core" of blood relatives of the ''old'' clan. Fortunately, as Tarma's [[BloodBrothers oath-sister]] Kethry is also considered to be of the blood, and her children are regarded as having three parents.

* BloodBrothers: With Tarma. This makes her Tale'sedrin by blood and her children the core of the rebuilt Clan.

* GutturalGrowler: Her voice after being left for dead by bandits is harsh and unpleasant. Tarma takes a certain satisfaction in seeing people startle hearing it for the first time.

* ChasteHeroine: Before she became Swordsworn Tarma had a fiance. Afterwards, as with all Swordsworn, she has [[UsefulNotes/{{Asexuality}} no sexual interest in anything or anyone]]. (This does nothing to stop the rumors that she and Kethry are a couple, or at least FriendsWithBenefits).

* FightingForAHomeland: Tarma is the [[LastOfHisKind single surviving member of Clan Tale'sedrin]]. She's sterile, but Kethry as her oath-sister vows to have children who can be the living core of a reborn clan. The other members will come from other Shin'a'in clans, but the number and quality of the people who will come depend entirely on how much prestige and capital she accrues. Therefore, she and Kethry become professional mercenaries, since as they represent such a range of skill and work very well together they have a good chance of becoming famous, and perhaps wealthy as well.

** When Kethry takes a mortal wound, Tarma tries to [[BargainWithHeaven bargain with her goddess to save her]] and is willing to discard even the one thing she's sought most ardently, the restoration of her clan. "Take my body - take my life - let my clan be declared dead! Without Kethry to share it with me, none of it matters!" Her goddess is so pleased that Tarma's found love that the only price she takes in exchange is EnergyDonation and some temporary exhaustion.

* MoralityChain: Tarma's neutral-to-contemptuous about most people outside of the Shin'a'in and doesn't like to stick her neck out without getting paid for it. The more softhearted Kethry is bound to help women in trouble and more willing to care besides, so Tarma's grudgingly dragged into altruistic acts again and again to keep Kethry from having to face danger alone. Some of Tarma's indifference is a front, but she still would walk away from a lot of the situations they find themselves in if Kethry wasn't so willing to step in.
* MusclesAreMeaningful: Tarma is lean but quite toned. When [[HornyDevils Thalhkarsh]] captures and [[ForcedTransformation transforms her]] into a softer and more curvaceous woman, she struggles in a fight until she gets her hands on Need, who undoes it.

* PrayerIsALastResort: Shin'a'in have an unusually close relationship to their Goddess, but they aren't supposed to appeal to Her for help except in the most dire of extremity, after exhausting their other options.

* SuicideByCop: Tarma takes a full year to catch up to the bandits who slaughtered her clan, at which point they're well ensconced in a town. She's willing to just immediately confront them, but Kethry persuades her to accept her help and they whittle the bandits down until there's just a core left. Tarma is prepared to die taking them down, but Kethry saves her again and asks why she wanted to die.

* GuileHero: She prefers a less direct approach than Tarma, best shown in the short story where they meet - in ''Sword Sworn'', Tarma tracks down her clan's murderers to a town they had taken over, and she would have just gone after the lot of them and gotten killed. Kethry, hired by the town's residents, stops her and arranges lodgings, then persuades her to help whittle the bandits' numbers down a few at a time over the course of two months. ''Then'', with the odds much better, she agrees to storm their base.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Amber-haired. When she's not being extremely cynical and showing a LackOfEmpathy towards enemies or [[RealWomenDontWearDresses feminine women]], Kethry is certainly the kinder and more compassionate of the two, and usually doesn't mind Need compelling her to wander the countryside helping desperate women all that much.

* HeroicVow: Kethry, in taking on Need, has implicitly sworn that she [[WouldntHitAGirl will not kill women]], and there will be backlash if she goes against that. When she meets Tarma's people she vows to have children in Tarma's place, who will become the living core of the rebuilt Tale'sedrin.

* ImpoverishedPatrician: House Pheregul hadn't been much of a noble house for years by the time she was born. One loyal servant stayed with them. After their parents died, her older brother decided to sell her to a very wealthy banker who wanted a title and "liked 'em young."

* MamaBear: In ''Oathblood'', two of her and Tarma's young female students are kidnapped and her oldest daughter Jadrie accompanies them on their rescue mission, and has to be protected herself. With Need's vengeful outrage accentuating what Kethry feels herself, Jadrie finds her mother's fury and lack of mercy to be quite unsettling.

** Her books also make it clear that magic is an ''innate ability'' in this 'verse -- when Kethry gets body-swapped with another woman, she can't use magic despite her training, since the body she's using is not capable of channeling it.

* BestialityIsDepraved: Tarma, comparing notes with a priest, notes that it's ''weird'' that Thalhkarsh is attracted to humans and most wouldn't consider it, the way most humans don't want to have sex with dogs. She concludes that the sadism is probably part of it.

* Glamour: Likes to take on a large, mostly human form that's extremely good looking. When he sets up a cult around himself that includes public HumanSacrifice of "brides", the first "bride" runs to him willingly, though the others... stop being as willing as they see what that means.

* SuccubiAndIncubi: He fits a lot of the trope.

* NonActionGuy: As someone suffering chronic pain since boyhood he's got no combat experience whatsoever and slows Tarma and Kethry down traveling with them.

* ThrowingOffTheDisability: Downplayed. Traveling with Kethry would have been even harder on him except that she has [[HealingShiv Need]], and one of the benefits of Need is that healing is provided to people Kethry loves and who love her in return. Even though it means living through some pretty adverse conditions, until they actually started climbing into an icy mountain pass Jadrek benefited from Need's proximity and felt less pain and greater strength than he was used to.

* ImageSong: "The Price of Command"
* LadyOfWar: As head of a mercenary company
* AMotherToHerMen: Part of her popularity.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Has this inflicted on him by Tarma and Kethry when Kethry completes the Outcasting ritual with a spell that "brings all the broken oaths home to roost".

* FamedInStory: Among his clan, at least. Rris, another ''kyree'' in the ''Mage Winds'' trilogy, constantly name-drops his 'famous cousin Warrl'.
* IntellectualAnimal

* NoBiologicalSex: Technically neuter, which is a natural third sex for ''kyree'', but referred to by male pronouns.

* OutOfFocus: He joins them quite early on but generally has less to do than the two women and in many of the stories is basically just present, never evidencing having his own motivations.

* BloodBrothers: With Kethry. This provides a loophole when Tarma's sexlessness makes it impossible to provide the core blood to rebuild her Clan.

* RapeAsBackstory: The initial reason she became Kal'enedral was to avenge the ones who assaulted her and butchered her Clan. The accompanying asexuality helps her recover from the trauma, but it also complicates the requirement to rebuild the Clan from her own blood.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: The girly girl to Tarma's tomboy. Kethry dresses more feminine, has a more conventionally attractive appearance in general, is typically happier to stop and help strangers, and has a kinder, more approachable demeanor.

** Additionally, Need won't allow herself to be used to attack other women. Once their bond is mature, the sword itself would kill Kethry if she took the life of another woman. It rarely comes up but is a major problem when it does.

* AbdicateTheThrone: 'Throne' is overstating it, but as of the end of the first story in ''The Oathbound'' Kethry states her disinterest in her noble House, title and manor included, and as they've been stripped from her brother allows distant cousins to take both.