History Characters / ParanoidMage

* KickTheSonOfABitch: After Callum Wells is done with the vampire nest that kidnapped his daughter through mind-control and had her tied up in their basement, bound naked with silvthrite chains, he calls in the local fire department and tells them "let it (the hotel they were using as a base) burn, just don't let the fire spread."

A 30-year-old widower of 8 years, he starts the story at the funeral of his nominal parents, who were pushing 60 when he was born, which even he finds weird. After the funeral, where he once again saw supernatural shenanigans nobody else noticed, he goes to his favorite gym, where his friend, and gym owner, Mr. Shahe tries to hook him up with a single female fellow gym member. Suddenly, a group of armed thugs storms in and fires on Mr. Shahe. Mr. Shahe retaliates with Dragon Fire. As Callum is trying to evacuate the now unconscious gym goers, the same Brownie Callum saw at his parents' funeral shows up, flashes a tattoo when asked for a badge and slaps him in handcuffs, dragging him to GAR's headquarters, where Callum is treated very, very roughly and they talked down to him like he's a brain-dead idiot. Callum is not amused, and after perusing the information GAR themselves gave him, where he notes a whopping 30% mortality rate if he '''does''' comply, decides to take his chances and bolts first chance he gets. GAR's been after him ever since.

* {{Expy}}: Imagine John Wick with space-attribute magic. Scary thought, isn't it.
** Starting from Volume 3, he starts seeing himself as James Bond with space-magic gadgets. He even refers to Lucy as his Ms. Moneypenny.

* HappilyMarried: He and Lucy get married off-screen, and come back from their honeymoon pregnant!

* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: His greatest advantage against GAR is that the organization has ossified, especially as archmage houses, like Duval, have a major berserk button that things must be done the "proper" way. So he, with his knowledge of modern physics and technology, constantly runs rings around their archaic practices. Case in point, he hides a home-bond deep in his body, as opposed to their practice of having implants just beneath the skin, allowing him to escape custody in one of the most secure BSE containment centers, and again, when he's cornered in France, just grabs his back-pack and uses gravity-kinesis, since gravity and space are linked, to completely outrun and outflank the entire squad trying to hunt him down. As to foci and magical enchants, he uses Computer Aided Drafting to build models and takes them to professional metal-workers to manufacture them, with much greater precision than GAR is capable of.
* SuperSenses: Even other space-mages, like Duval, can't see through buildings, but he can.

--> '''Duval''': "The portals are coming... FROM EARTH! HE MAY NOT EVEN BE IN THE FACILITY!"

* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: At first, helping Callum was just a lark, seeing as she was press-ganged into GAR as a "dud" and that was the ''least'' offensive thing she could have expected from House Harper. Then Agent Jahn got the "brilliant" idea to have Agent Black and some vampires use mind-control to march all the "dud" employees to interrogation rooms for questioning and compel answers. Due to being treated as a sub-human, Lucy turned on GAR in earnest. '''THEN''' Archmage Duval learns what Jahn did and decides to go with the "brilliant" plan of using Lucy as bait, rather than let Jahn's investigation play out. With Lucy being captured, mind-raped, and put under a fae Geas, branded a traitor, disowned, and exiled, she happily signs on with Callum Wells full-time starting volume 3 and actively seeks the complete and total destruction of GAR as an institution.

* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: Justified. The longer Callum Wells stays at large, the worse things get. The vampires are butt-hurt that their favorite pass-time, hunting down and blood-letting humans for fun, may now come with a life-threatening price tag. The shifters under Alpha Chester, 2/3 of the shifter population in the US, is openly talking about seceding and declaring independence, citing a vote of No Confidence, after GAR openly sided with Levigne's armed invasion and are trying to punish them for daring to support the guy who protected them, and confiscate their duly purchased property, the teleport pads Callum provided them. The always cantankerous Fae are... restless, to put it mildy, with King Ravaeb in particular out for blood, since his nobles were killed in the course of a Wild Hunt, even if Ravaeb himself hates the practice. The draconians, and the dragons that spawned them, are just sitting back and laughing. House Hargrave has already decided to withdraw, and House Fane soon after. House Duval has repeatedly made threats to shut down all the space-magic support. Grand Magius Taisen is taking the fiasco that happened in the BSE Wild Lands fortress as his cue to officially become an Archmage house in his own right, so he can work independently of GAR's red-tape and the shoe-string budget they try to force him to live by. In short, it sucks to be him.

[[folder: Archmage Serena Duval]]

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: She is a powerful, competent, and mission critical part of GAR infrastructure. Up to volume 3, she was also well-trusted. But she is such a bossy tyrant that even GAR personnel are loathe to be around her. When Agent Ray Danforth first learned of Callum Wells jumping ship, he openly stated that if Callum knew he was going to be Duval's apprentice, that alone would justify fleeing for the hills.

* HopeIsScary: When Gayle is returned to him, alive, well, and completely unmolested by Archmage Wizzy, at Callum's request, he's grateful but concerned, as Callum turning her over without demanding concessions is unheard of, and considering what he saw Callum pull off at the BSE compound, now he's worried about all the anchors Archmage Duval set up in his territory.
* HumblePie: As an archmage capable of leveling a city block, he's grown quite haughty over the years and thought capturing Callum by using Lucy as bait would be a cinch, especially since Duval was (supposedly) watching his back. Callum completely steamrolling the entire facility, snatching away Lucy '''and''' his granddaughter and then returning Gayle to him without making any demands made him strongly rethink just how much of his bravado is truly deserved.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: He put his ancestral mansion on Earth, both because he's human supremacist and because he doesn't want to give up his ancestral lands. This still proves validated because without Duval stabilizing the space, human dwellings and biology can't operate in portal worlds for an extended period of time. Furthermore, he's opposed to doing experiments with the 6th portal world, Mitclan, not because Archmage Wizzy is watching, but because it's too dangerous, even for him.

* GracefulLoser: After Callum steamrolled his fortress, he didn't swear holy vengeance like Duval, nor rant and rave like Hargrave, he took it as a well-intentioned and well-needed wake-up call that his fortress isn't as secure as he thought.
* IgnoredExpert: He warned Archmages Duval and Hargrave that their plan to capture Wells was doomed to failure. He was ignored, but he didn't press the issue because even though he has the authority, on paper, to stop it, GAR would just summarily remove him from office and replace him with someone who would blindly support them.

* TaughtByExperience: He himself states that he long, long ago learned the whole "there is only one proper way to use magic" thing the archmage house teach is pure pin-feathers and poppy-cock. After countless battles with supernatural threats, his motto is "what works works, and what doesn't doesn't." In fact, he's duly impressed that Callum, only at this for a year, is able to blindside him, his entire army, and both Hargrave and Duval.

[[folder: Archmage Wizzy (Hizlit)]]

* FantasticRacism: Justified. By the time volume 4 has come around, Callum West has come to the conclusion that Vampires on Earth shall not be suffered to live. He's right. Vampires ''know in advance'' that their precious Moon Water has a very short shelf-life on Earth, thus making it near impossible for them to live unless they actively hunt humans, but they're still pushing for entry visas and go around flaunting their kill sprees every chance they get, just for laughs. And the killings tend to be rather graphic.

** GAR has signed an arrest warrant against Archmage Fane for trying to extort assassination services from Callum West, and the archmage has eluded arrest. Under these conditions, the Fane house should be entirely blacklisted from GAR support, as shown with Alpha Chester, Fae King Ferrochar, and a few others.

The vampire chosen to represent the nest in Winut. Alpha Langley has the distinct displeasure of trying to get him to stop said nest from openly murdering residents of Winut. Not only does the attempt get rebuffed, but the nest escalates to kidnaping Clara, trying to force the Winut shifters to try a rescue, so the vampires can claim "self-defense" and take over. Then Callum West gets involved...

* CurbstompBattle: When an enraged Callum West came after his nest in a RoaringRampageOfRescue, ''not a single one'' of the vampires, thralls, or that colluding mage, had a chance.

[[folder: Mr. Shahe/Ensharrehael]]

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickName: "Mr. Shahe" is an alias. His real name, Ensharrehael, is rarely mentioned, and even then, never in mixed company.

* PsychologicalProjection: He tries to convince Archmages Hargrave and Taisen that Chester's North American Alliance will not tolerate the existence of any power except their own, immediately after Callum West removed the heavily corrupt Constance Earl and her vampire allies, before Callum could publicly reveal his motive, never mind investigate the mountain of corruption in the paperwork he seized from her office as he booted her to space. At the end of Volume 4, it's revealed that he's the one guilty of this mindset, scheming to pressure the Guild of Enchanting to cut off all "rogue" Archmage houses (read: Those not affiliated with him), destroy Chester's Alliance, and above all else, eliminate Callum Wells because they aren't under his control.

! Protagonist and close allies:

! GAR:

[[folder: Agent Jahn]]
Introduced inspecting the area at the site of the funeral of Callum's parents, hunting a supernatural corpse eater, he's the one who arrests Callum at the start of the story.

* CreateYourOwnHero: It is his very rough and demeaning treatment of Callum Wells that convinces the latter to ditch GAR at the first opportunity and go rogue. Furthermore, every time he tries to get a grip on Callum causes the latter to balk and engage in the very heroics that bring his organization ever closer to ruin.
* DoubleStandard: TruthInTelevision He's clearly biased against Alpha Chester and enforces GAR rules on a lop-sided basis. At first, he clearly backed Levigne's invasion, apparently in exchange for Mordite mining rights and other forms of favor-trading with the vampire community. Once he declared a manhunt against Callum, he orders Agents Black and Ray Danforth to harass Alpha Chester by going after the shifter leader with a bunch of rules and regulations that are clearly not being enforced for anyone else, hoping to bring the shifter community down via a DeathOfAThousandCuts (his words, no less).
* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: Justified. The longer Callum Wells stays at large, the worse things get. The vampires are butt-hurt that their favorite pass-time, hunting down and blood-letting humans for fun, may now come with a life-threatening price tag. The shifters under Alpha Chester, 2/3 of the shifter population in the US, is openly talking about seceding and declaring independence, citing a vote of No Confidence, after GAR openly sided with Levigne's armed invasion and are trying to punish them for daring to support the guy who protected them, and confiscate their duly purchased property, the teleport pads Callum provided them. The always cantankerous Fae are... restless, to put it mildy, with King Ravaeb in particular out for blood, since his nobles were killed in the course of a Wild Hunt, even if Ravaeb himself hates the practice. The draconians, and the dragons that spawned them, are just sitting back and laughing. House Hargrave has already decided to withdraw, and House Fane soon after. House Duval has repeatedly made threats to shut down all the space-magic support. Grand Magius Taisen is taking the fiasco that happened in the BSE Wild Lands fortress as his cue to officially become an Archmage house in his own right, so he can work independently of GAR's red-tape and the shoe-string budget they try to force him to live by. In short, it sucks to be him.
* NeverMyFault: When '''all''' the Archmage houses tear into him for his foolish use of Agent Black and a bunch of vampires using CompellingVoice to interrogate all the "duds" working for him, the vast majority of them innocent, he tells himself and everyone who will listen that it's all Callum's fault.
* RabidCop: When he first greets Callum, as the latter is trying to rescue unconscious mundanes from the burning building that was Mr. Shahe's gym, he knocks Callum to the ground, demands to know if Callum has any idea how many laws he's broken, flashes a tattoo when asked to show a badge, and then just slaps Callum into handcuffs without explanation or charge. Callum doesn't have to pretend very hard to be offended in ignorance.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: When things at GAR get too hot, he goes into seclusion with Grand Magus Taisen, and offers the same to Ray Danforth and Felicia Black.

[[folder: Agent Ray Danforth]]
The human of a pair of agents first tasked with investigating Callum Wells.

! House Hargrave:

[[folder: Gayle Hargrave]]
Callum meets her in a book-store, studying for a test to try and get out of being Fane's apprentice. Callum does his best to help, not knowing about Fane's laws against inverse healing. Naturally, Gayle suffers for it.

* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: Justified. The longer Callum Wells stays at large, the worse things get. The vampires are butt-hurt that their favorite pass-time, hunting down and blood-letting humans for fun, may now come with a life-threatening price tag. The shifters under Alpha Chester, 2/3 of the shifter population in the US, is openly talking about seceding and declaring independence, citing a vote of No Confidence, after GAR openly sided with Levigne's armed invasion and are trying to punish them for daring to support the guy who protected them, and confiscate their duly purchased property, the teleport pads Callum provided them. The always cantankerous Fae are... restless, to put it mildy, with King Ravaeb in particular out for blood, since his nobles were killed in the course of a Wild Hunt, even if Ravaeb himself hates the practice. The draconians, and the dragons that spawned them, are just sitting back and laughing. House Hargrave has already decided to withdraw, and House Fane soon after. House Duval has repeatedly made threats to shut down all the space-magic support. Grand Magius Tensien is taking the fiasco that happened in the BSE Wild Lands fortress as his cue to officially become an Archmage house in his own right, so he can work independently of GAR's red-tape and the shoe-string budget they try to force him to live by. In short, it sucks to be him.

[[folder: Grand Magius Tensien]]

! Enchanters Guild:

[[folder: Grand Magus Lorenzo Rossi]]
The chief in charge of the enchanter's guild.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: His own attempts to smoke out Wells by spreading parts of enchanting guild designs among mundane authorities and marking them as "the work of a terrorist" tips off Wells that they're after him.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: After learning that Wells took down Archmage Fane, he has his organization go from "Bring him in" to "Let's make a deal!"
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: When he and Wells finally manage to sit down and have a chat, all he asks is for Wells to stop spreading around Enchanting Guild Intellectual Property, startled, Callum asks for specifics and agrees to it, then the guild offers to ''hire him'' to prepare space-attribute enchantments and pays Lucy royalties for her work with enchanting obsidian glass from Portal world 6. Wells still doesn't trust the guild as far as he can throw them, but he's happy to work ''with'' them, as long as they pay him appropriately.
* SkewedPriorities: Of all the things he could object to in regards to Wells, the thing that gets his panties in knots is ''copyright infringement'' because Wells cribbed together several enchantments he scouted from observing portals in action to make his own.
* VillainHasAPoint: Even in the most free and open society, protecting intellectual property rights is a well-established facet of law, so he's right in wanting to protect Enchanting Guild secrets.

! House Janry

[[folder: Archamge Janry]]
The leader of the nominally "Pro GAR" faction. GAR self-destructing actually doesn't matter to him or his allies, as he and his faction were just using GAR as a front. With its destruction, he and his allies convince themselves that they are righteousness incarnate for pushing forward their own interests regardless of the cost for everyone else.

* AristocratsAreEvil: As with most archmage houses, he's centuries old, from a time with a feudal culture and thinks like an aristocrat. As such, serving his interests, regardless of cost, is the height of righteousness, and everyone who opposes him is, at best, "misguided" and has to be brought into line by force, or the very definition of evil for daring to oppose him.
* MoralMyopia: With 100% certainty, every vampire that came to Earth was a murder-happy monster who hunted humans, mundane and mage alike, for sport, every chance they got. Fae King Ravaeb was the aggressor attacking all his neighbors, shifter, fae, human, indiscriminately. Constance was corrupt as hell and saw nothing wrong with violating every law in her way for money, even targeting helpless children for death when it suits her. Yet, he sees Callum as the bad guy for stopping them by any means necessary, including shutting down the portal to the Night Lands, because his personal interests might, just might be adversely affected.
* PsychologicalProjection: He tries to convince Archmages Hargrave and Taisen that Chester's North American Alliance will not tolerate the existence of any power except their own, immediately after Callum West removed the heavily corrupt Constance Earl and her vampire allies, before Callum could publicly reveal his motive, never mind investigate the mountain of corruption in the paperwork he seized from her office as he booted her to space. At the end of Volume 4, it's revealed that he's the one guilty of this mindset, scheming to pressure the Guild of Enchanting to cut off all "rogue" Archmage houses (read: Those not affiliated with him), destroy Chester's Alliance, and above all else, eliminate Callum Wells because they aren't under his control.

! Mundane Authorities

[[folder: Agent Daniel Lowry]]
An IRS hitman, he's accustomed to doing the organization's dirty work, and shouting "IRS" into terrifying his targets into a panic. He approaches the Chester compound in Nebraska, unannounced, and is beside himself with rage when Chester barely reacts, shouting "assaulting Federal Agents" when his men draw guns and are harmlessly disarmed.

* RunawayPrincess: [[spoiler: She's actually Fae royalty, Felicity Niflungr Blackblood, daughter of King Oberon and Queen Mab, who fled her obligations so she can play detective.]]

* RunawayPrincess: [[spoiler: She's actually Fae royalty, Felicity Niflungr Blackblood, daughter of King Oberon and Queen Mab, who fled her obligations so she can play detective.]]

! House Hargrave:

[[folder: Gayle Hargrave]]
Callum meets her in a book-store, studying for a test to try and get out of being Fane's apprentice. Callum does his best to help, not knowing about Fane's laws against inverse healing. Naturally, Gayle suffers for it.

! Fae:

[[folder: King Jisarel]]
The fae king who goes to investigate a bunch of fae nobles going missing in his territory. Using Fae magic, he quickly learns they launched TheWildHunt, against his wishes, and ran afoul of Callum Wells. Despite hating the nobles in question, he is still honor-bound to try and avenge them.

* AintTooProudToBeg: Played with. He is indeed very proud and would prefer to avoid begging, but because Callum Wells was travelling through the territory of other fae kings in search of a portal world where he could collect bane-metals to play with, King Ravaeb had to beg permission from the other fae kings to continue hunting Callum down.
* ExactWords: On the wrong end. Because he lets GAR capture the hiking couple who were rescued by Callum, Callum was able to go to the Fae King of Miami and have the latter's help in breaking them out and ''permanently'' keeping GAR from going after them again, seeing as the original promise was that if the couple could survive until sunrise, they would be free, but being in GAR's holding cell violates that.
* FriendlyEnemy: Fae politics are just as odd as their magic. He welcomes Callum to his throne with open arms when the latter comes looking to do business, despite trying to kill him earlier for dealing with some arrogant nobles in his enclave. In fact, he's rather grateful Callum removed them, as it keeps his own hands clean and he can still MakeAnExampleOfThem.
* RefugeInAudacity: He respects Callum for walking right up to his front door and greeting him face to face, in order to do business, despite previously hunting him.
* SeriousBusiness: As a Fae King, oaths and story telling are deeply important.
* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: To confirm Callum is The Ghost, he asks where the nobles Callum hunted earlier are. Callum answers honestly, telling that the fools are dead in a cavern a hundred or so meters from where they fought.

[[folder: Fae King Ferrochar]]
The fae who helps Callum break the hiking couple out of GAR custody.

* ExactWords: Even though he admits it's pure sophistry, he helps Callum by making the hiking couple completely untraceable by GAR agents ever again, thanks to the fae nobles' promise that if they survive TheWildHunt until sunrise, they would be free, but GAR broke that promise by holding them for questioning.
* ItAmusedMe: He helps Callum out because he finds the idea of spiting GAR and King Ravaeb amusing.
* PlausibleDeniability: GAR can't have proof of their involvement, no sir, but if the hiking couple goes missing while GAR's security devices are down...

[[folder: King Ravaeb]]
The Fae king who put Lucy under a Geas. Callum doesn't think that alone is worth the risk of taking him on, but when Callum hears that he's been hunting Chester's people, shifter and mundane alike, it's war.

* LethallyStupid: She manages to sniff out one of Callum's teleport anchors in Fane's mansion, China, and ''immediately'' tries to activate it without any thought. She doesn't know where it leads, or what's on the other side. It's only as she's in the process of trying to wrest a portal into existence that she even thinks of calling for the capture specialists. Fortunately for her, she fails to connect as Callum just decided to destroy the anchor on his end. She remains blissfully unaware of how close she came to having an anti-materiel rifle round going off in her face. Now, Wells is even more on guard, and Duvall believes catching him is just a matter of time, refusing to remember that Callum Wells can and will resort to lethal force if he's sufficiently threatened.

! DOA

The head of DOA in GAR France.

! Enchanters Guild:

[[folder: Grand Magus Lorenzo Rossi]]
The chief in charge of the enchanter's guild.

* InnocentCohabitation: Since she and Callum are now on the run, they have to live under one roof. As much as she loves to tease him and flirt, they're not ready for any hanky panky at the moment.