Characters / Aurora (2019)

Protagonists

In General

• Cast Full of Gay: While it mostly hasn't come up in the story yet, every single protagonist is queer in some way: Kendal is asexual; Alinua is pansexual; Erin and Falst are bisexual, with Falst leaning more towards the gay end of the spectrum; Tess is a lesbian; and Dainix is gay and trans.
• The Chosen Many: Aside from Falst, every one of them was chosen by a divine figure in the world
  • Kendal was created from Vash's inert body when he was abducted by the Collector, and has for mission to rescue him from the latter. However, how much he was actually chosen by Vash or just the only person he could contact to help him at the time is to be seen.
  • Alinua turns out to be the Vessel for the Life Primordial, seemingly due to being the only person affected by the Chimeric Plague to have survived that long.
  • Erin is the Elemental Magus, a special kind of mage that can control all of the elements. The Void Dragon reveals that it was him that created this status, as a ploy to get a particularly curious one to brave the Storm and free him.
  • Tess was "chosen by the sky", a phrase that the metal-caste use to describe an Unsparked person obtaining their Spark by being struck by lightning. Worthy of note is that similar individuals, also known as Stormbreakers, only started to appear following the first invocation of Lightning's truename.
  • Dainix falls into the small percentage of Ignans who aren't fire mages, instead being a Crucible with the ability to wield soulfire. This may link him to Primordial Fire, as the phenomenon is only documented to have started occurring after the first invocation of Fire's truename.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: Played With. Erin, Falst, and Dainix all fought and technically lost against one of the current protagonists before joining them properly, but the only one who was truly defeated was Falst, while the being that forced Erin to attack Kendal and Alinua retreated when he saw the latter and Dainix's struggle against his full Crucible transformation rendered him unable to continue his duel with Kendal. In addition, Dainix had already struck up a friendship with Kendal the day before.
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • Erin is initially only interested in Kendal and Alinua for their unique resistances to the Void Dragon's power and otherwise preferred to do things solo. He quickly warms up to them after they save him from the Singing Caves.
  • Falst and Dainix's relationship was very strained at first since Falst partially blamed him for Kendal's injuries and Alinua's volatile emotional state following the fight with Tynan. A couple Ancient automatons and cave crawlers later, and Dainix becomes the first person in the party that Falst opens up to about his vulnerabilities and past trauma.
• Hates Their Parent:
  • Alinua resents her parents for basically trying to kill her while she was an infant by dropping her from the Archipelago Nimbus.
  • Erin hates his father for engaging in the worst parts of high society, including buying and keeping slaves like Tess, who he treated so badly that she stayed Unsparked.
  • While Falst has fond memories of his mom, he doesn't seem to be very fond of his father.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Aside from Kendal having to deal with the grudge held by its god against Vash, Tess, Falst, and Alinua get in trouble with Zuurith's authorities due to trespassing and siding with Tess when bounty hunters come after her for the latter two. It doesn't help that Falst is a Ferin, a people who are heavily discriminated upon.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They consist of a never-seen-before entity which is only two weeks old and consistently throws himself into harm's way to help people, a self-exile who spent her entire life dreading her premature and predetermined death and barely has more self-preservation, a hubristic and arrogant mage with the ability to control every element and a Satanic Archetype threatening to possess him at any moment, a Beast Man who lived on the streets and desperately wants to not be shunned by society, a Blood Knight with overwhelming wanderlust and a particularly cruel upbringing as a slave, and a monster hunter with an insane Guilt Complex and Emotional Powers that cause him to quite literally burst into flames under distress.

Kendal

"At first I didn't know where I was — WHAT I was. It was bright, I was in pain — I had a body, but it wasn't mine. I had memories, but they were distant, like a story I'd been told. I didn't feel real. NOTHING felt real."

After Vash's soul was stolen, his empty incarnation suddenly came to life with a separate personality. Taking the name of Vash's sword, Kendal has made rescuing Vash his top priority- even taking precedence over his own well-being.

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• All-Loving Hero: Easily the most friendly and overtly trusting of the party, even when being threatened.
• Animals Hate Him: Inverted. He's seen absentmindedly playing with a wild squirrel, an animal that is generally afraid of humans, at the beginning of Chapter 8. This may be due to the fact that his partly divine nature eases off animals that would have otherwise run away from a human, or maybe Vash visiting Gleicann has gotten them used to his body.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As Falst learns the hard way.
• Beyond the Impossible: As a few characters point out, his very existence should technically be impossible, (Kendal himself at one point comparing it to a human hand functioning as normal with no bones) yet here he is. Kendal himself tells Zuurith that ambient energy formed a new soul inside Vash’s body after he was taken by the Collector (though it’s not clear yet whether this is the real explanation or just a theory). It's later suggested that the only reason that he lasted long enough for that to happen, and why his body could function afterwards, is Alinua healing him with a power surge from Life.
• Big Damn Heroes: He and Alinua rescue Erin from the Void Dragon and the monsters in the caves just as he is about to be attacked.
• Blue Is Heroic: His eyes are a bright shade of blue, and all of his internal monologue is written in blue lettering.
• Born as an Adult: Kendal came into being when Vash's incarnation developed consciousness after Vash's soul was stolen, so he was never a child.
• Cast from Hit Points: When he uses the starfire to attack, his body is also burned by it. Unlike Vash, however, Kendal needs his body to survive, and thus cannot use it nearly as frequently.
• Characterization Marches On: At the beginning of the story, while he was still a naturally calm person, Kendal was much more emotive, smiling on quite a few occasions. However, as the story progresses, he openly expresses his feelings less and less, and becomes more melancholic, to the point that his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Zuurith qualifies as O.O.C. Is Serious Business by virtue of not being coldly delivered.
  Kendal: I never thought of emotions as weapons. They seem … more distracting than helpful.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Repeatedly jumps into situations to help people without a second thought for his own safety: he insists on fighting the sentinel in the forest alone so that Alinua can get to safety, tries to help Erin when he sees him being possessed in the wastes despite the obvious danger, and investigates what’s going on with the chimeras in Gleicann’s forest simply because he doesn’t want innocent people being hurt. (This… might have something to do with the traumatic circumstances of his creation.) The alt text on this page even lampshades it:
  Alt text: WHY CAN’T YOU JUST HAVE AN OUNCE OF SELF-PRESERVATION JUST ONE TIME
• Cool Sword: Inherited it from Vash.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Falst doesn't last long against him.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Of the Emergent Human. Because his body was made by a god to be his incarnation, he lacks many reflexes (as in the biological function) and instincts that normal mortals have, like sleeping, communicating, or self-preservation, and has to put effort to emulate them.
  • Of The Big Guy. Kenal is the strongest and toughest member of his party, so he naturally puts himself in danger to protect them often. He is also the body of a god acting independently, and the manner of his creation has left him with no self-worth whatsoever. He is not risking his life to save people because his Chronic Hero Syndrome outweighs his self-preservation, but because he has no self-preservation. Kendal is only able to see himself as what he was created as: a tool to be used to protect people until it wears out.
• Determinator: He is bent on saving Vash from the Collector, and is in fact convinced that he was created for that very purpose.
• Dissonant Serenity: Even as his life is very much on the line, Kendal remains completely calm during fights, only emoting when his friends are in danger, he wants to talk things down with his opponent, or he wants to lay into them with how misguided they are.
• Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks": A dramatic and very specific example. Kendal deep down likes being alive, but cannot express this due to feeling like his life was built upon the deaths of Vash's people. As such, he often apologizes to Alinua for putting himself in danger (in truth, for upsetting her), but never actually thanked her for giving him life. At the end of Arc 1, he finally realizes this and thanks her warmly.
• Dream Spying: The first time Kendal sleeps, Vash uses the opportunity to show him a conversation he is having with the Collector so they’ll both be filled in. Given that Vash appeared to literally throw Kendal’s soul back into his body, it’s possible some form of Astral Projection was also involved.
• Emergent Human: Not human per se, but much more mortal and vulnerable than Vash was. He reasons that since Vash didn’t need to sleep, neither should he, which… doesn’t turn out great for him. Played for Laughs when Erin realizes he literally doesn’t even know how to sleep, since he has no memories of doing so: he has to literally coach him through it.
• Eye Lights Out: His eyes are a fairly ordinary blue after Vash's soul is sucked out of his body. However, there are moments where his pupils get back that glow, in particular during his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the creator of the chimeras in Hilltop.
• Ghost Memory: He has access to Vash's knowledge and memories, although they feel more abstract to him than the memories of his own direct experiences.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Subverted. Despite his innocence and willingness to save pretty much anyone, he completely understands what makes most people evil, and though he knows people can be redeemed through Vash having witnessed it, he also knows that this doesn't mean they will.
• Good Is Not Soft: He's The Paragon to a fault, but being Vash's war incarnation, he's terrifyingly brutal when he decides to go all out. It's best seen in his fight with Tynan: since actually killing the storm god by harming his incarnation is impossible, Kendal lets himself bisect him multiple times, once so hard that his entire incarnation is reduced to scraps, and even plunges his sword through his dragon form's eye.
• Go Through Me/Taking the Bullet: He frequently shields his friends with his body when the going gets tough. Being as fast as he is tough (which is a lot) and unwilling to let people die around him, it's only logical that he would step in front of attacks or villains that would kill his frailer teammates.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He has beautiful blond hair, and is completely willing to commit a Heroic Sacrifice if it means saving the lives of others.
• The Heart: His unbridled compassion for others is one of the core driving elements of the plot, and Alinua, Erin, Falst, and Dainix have joined in his quest because of his willingness to go the extra mile for them as soon as they first met (which, for Erin, Falst, and Dainix, wasn't in the best of circumstances). When Zuurith imprisons him, it causes a spat between his friends like there never was when he was there.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: As the protagonist, he carries Vash's sword, with which he shares a name.
• Heroic RRoD: He collapses at the beginning of chapter 11, and reveals he hasn't slept in the eleven days he's been alive.
  • A much more pronounced example is at the end of Tynan's assault on Zuurith. After Vash is dragged back into the Collector's prison, Kendal doesn't even get a sentence in before passing out from the grievous injuries he sustained in the fight.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Deconstructed. Kendal is a genuinely heroic person, but his tendency for self-sacrifice is less due to his benevolent nature than to his incredibly messy personhood issues. In addition, this causes a lot of strain on Alinua, who keeps saving him over and over again.
• Heroism Motive Speech: After an Armor-Piercing Question from the ghost of a citizen of Vash, Kendal, for the first time in his entire existence, actually considers what he wants in life, resulting in a short summation of his motivations.
• Human Weapon: For a certain definition of human, he sees himself as Vash's weapon.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He's one of the purest persons in the setting due to being about two weeks old and being born with the memories of Vash, and he has blue eyes.
• Innocently Insensitive: He genuinely tries to help Falst by relating to his treatment at the hands of humans, but the latter clearly doesn’t appreciate him comparing their experiences when Kendal isn’t the one who’s been treated like an animal his whole life.
• Leeroy Jenkins: He was apparently prepared to Leeroy straight into the caves to rescue Vash without so much as a plan before Erin points out how suicidally dangerous it is.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's superhumanly strong, fast, and resistant due to being Vash's battle incarnation given life.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: As much as Vash can be considered his father, their only similarity personality-wise is their selfless love for others. Vash is extravagant and casual where Kendal is straight-laced and formal, Kendal is unconditionally honorable whereas Vash is more pragmatic, Vash is a Blood Knight while Kendal is a Martial Pacifist, the list goes on.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He's very pretty, and his long blond hair only embellishes this.
• Martial Pacifist: Unlike Vash, he's not really a fan of violence, preferring to talk things out or subdue his enemies non-violently. That said, he's also not a pushover, and won't hesitate to fight in order to stop his most cruel foes.
• Martyr Without a Cause: He has very little regard for his own life, on the basis of thinking of himself as more of a living weapon than a sentient being, and still having Vash's moral code.
  Kendal: Nobody dies. Not for me. Not ever.
• Meaningful Name: He chooses the name "Kendal" (meaning "right hand") for himself because it's also what Vash named his sword, thus defining himself as a living weapon in service to Vash.
• Modest Royalty: Exaggerated. He's essentially Vash's successor, and Vash, Gleicann, and Vash's citizens treat him accordingly, with Beran even addressing him as "Lord". However, Kendal doesn't even consider himself a person, let alone anything close to a ruler, and he categorically refuses the claim that he is.
• The Needless: Downplayed, but Dainix has noticed that he doesn't need to breathe unless he's talking or fighting (or presumably other forms of heavy exertion), with him, Falst, and Tess wondering if that also applies to food and sleep, with the former being supported by the fact that Kendal has apparently never felt hungry. It's speculated that the reason for this is because he lacks any of the Void element inside of him, so unlike mortals who constantly burn through their fuel, he's self-sufficient unless actively doing something.
• Nice Guy: Kind and self-sacrificing to a fault.
• No Name Given: For the first three chapters he didn't have a name, much to Alinua's irritation.
• No Need for Names: For the first three chapters, he didn't see the point in giving himself a name. He only named himself because Alinua insisted.
  Alinua: You still need a name.
  Kendal: You're really hung up on that.
  Alinua: I don't see why you aren't! What if I need to get your attention?
  Kendal: I'll be the only person around. Just yell something.
• No-Sell: The amalgating cave crawler's psychic attack, who incapacitated Dainix, Erin, and Falst for a few seconds, does nothing to him.
• No Social Skills: He and Alinua are both pretty nervous about actually talking to anyone in Windscrest. Kendal, being a few days old, might have Vash’s memories, but he’s never actually had to interact with people as himself.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Kendal speaks in a fairly casual, polite manner and sticks with simple, direct sentences most of the time. This changes completely when he's talking to or about the villains he deals with, especially the divine ones: his syntax and vocabulary have much more presence behind them, and his sentences are longer and more profound. The change is stark enough that Dainix immediately asks if he's a god after he verbally deconstructs Zuurith's motivations for imprisoning him.
• The Paragon: Sticks by his morals of protecting people no matter what, even if it risks his death, or the person he's saving is currently being possessed by a hostile entity, and has inspired most of the main cast into being more heroic in one way or another.
  Kendal: But if they're a danger to the town, we have to do something. And if they need help, I- I can't just leave them.
• Playing with Fire: He can apparently summon the starfire out of his sword, though he hasn't gotten the hang of it as of Tynan's attack on Zuurith.
• The Power of Friendship: Invokes this a few times: one notable instance of this is him telling Falst that he doesn’t need to become human to be accepted by someone.
• Psychic Link: He appears to be able to psychically communicate with Vash. He can also hear the restless souls of the people of Vash’s city who were killed.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Made these in chapter five, probably unintentionally.
• Really Was Born Yesterday: He came into being a couple of hours after Vash's soul was ripped from his physical incarnation.
  Alinua: Oh, no. I'm so sorry. I keep forgetting you're less than a day old.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After putting up with with Zuurith's smug hostility, Kendal finally loses it after Zuurith forces him into a fight with Dainix, who's clearly in great pain:
  Kendal: Stop this now, Zuurith! Look at what this is doing to him! You took him into your city! You made him yours to protect! You gave him no choice! How dare you allow this to continue! How dare you call yourself a god!
• Semi-Divine: He needs his body to live like a mortal, but his body was created by a god and his soul formed itself alone, so he's uniquely in-between mortal and divine. Other characters also share this point of view, with Alinua referring to him as a sort of "demigod" and Caliban calling him a "godling".
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Doctor Jolon essentially tells Falst that he’s doomed to be alone and a monster forever without his help, Kendal bluntly tells him he’s wrong.
• Single Specimen Species: As far as anyone can tell, he’s one-of-a-kind: not quite human, not quite a god, with a unique soul formed in unique circumstances.
• The Sleepless: Subverted; Kendal assumed he didn't have to sleep because Vash didn't, but after 11 days without sleep he's on the verge of collapse. He can go without it much longer than an ordinary mortal or even a Ferin, but ultimately he does need to rest. Dainix, Falst, and Tess later wonder if his lack of the consumptive Void element in his elemental makeup means that he only needs to sleep when he pushes himself too far.
• Smarter Than You Look: While Kendal's recklessness and general lack of experience in life make him seem like somewhat of an Idiot Hero, they only exist because his sense of personhood is very blurry due to being an Emergent Human. However, when dealing with external problems, he proves to be quite perceptive and rational, which is why he was able to see that Falst wasn't the villain they were led to believe he was and to deduce that the entity the Collector was referring to in her monologue to Vash was the Life Primordial, among other things.
• Super-Strength: He can leap several dozen feet into the air and can effortlessly break rock with his bare hands.
• Super-Toughness: Alinua informs him, after a magical anatomical analysis, that Vash's incarnation has extremely dense bones (apparently with metal woven into them, if one of the legends about Vash is taken at face value) and made it so that his flesh wounds heal a lot faster than a mortal body. Massive trauma can still leave him incapacitated for a couple of hours. Also, his body is able to withstand the caustic energy leaking from Erin when they first encounter him, even though it's supposed to be able to destroy everything it touches. Much later, it's revealed by the Void Dragon that it is due in part to Kendal's body not containing the Void element at all, unlike other living beings.
• They Call Him "Sword": Invoked. He named himself after Vash's sword, Kendal.
• Tranquil Fury: When he's angry, he tends to get very quiet rather than yelling. Especially noticeable when he calmly, methodically, and brutally takes Falst down.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: So far, Kendal has shown himself to be unwilling to lie, even when it would have been beneficial to do so.
• The World Is Just Awesome: Wholeheartedly believes this. In fact, it's his only motivation that is not directly tied to the wellbeing of other people.
  Kendal: I want to see the world. It's beautiful. So much more than Vash got to see.
• World's Best Warrior: Due to being Vash's battle body given life, it's no surprise that he's the best fighter in the comic so far. The only one to have given him trouble without magic or godly powers was Falst, who, despite being super strong, fast, and durable, had to fight dirty to rival him. Once Kendal gets him in a fair fight, he wipes the floor with him. Erin even remarks to Tynan than in a fair fight, Kendal would have quickly won against him.
• Younger Than They Look: Really only a few days old, though he resembles an adult and has many, many years of Vash’s memories.

Alinua

"I'll die anyway. But I... don't get many opportunities to do anything good. That might make this all worth it."

An elf who was born with a magical disease called the Chimeric Plague, which gives the victim powerful, uncontrollable Life magic. Surviving far longer than any previous bearer, she eventually gained control over the power and an unspecified link to the Life Primordial.

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• Achilles' Heel: Alinua is a prodigious healer, but for her to be able to heal others, they must have recently sustained injuries in order for her magic to penetrate the soul barrier. She cannot do anything if someone is poisoned, suffocating, or if their soul barrier has healed before their injuries did.
• Anger Born of Worry: Kendal's repeated refusal to take himself into account when jumping in harm's way starts to wear her down when he's imprisoned by Zuurith and tells the gang not to help him. This culminates in her exploding at him after he gets knocked out by a claw swipe from Tynan's new form.
• Aura Vision: She briefly demonstrates this ability after her magical transformation, albeit in her sleep.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Usually a pretty kind, mild person, but she flies into a rage when she realizes how badly someone has mutated the chimeras in Gleicann’s forest.
• Big Damn Heroes: She and Kendal rescue Erin from the Void Dragon and the monsters in the caves just as he is about to be attacked.
• Birthmark of Destiny: Alinua has an intricate green mark on her arm that indicates she carries the Chimeric Plague, though to the average onlooker it just looks like an ordinary rune tattoo to channel magic, unlike the other bearer of the Plague we know about, Iras, whose birthmark was vaguely similar, but not identical to Life's truename.
• Combat Medic: Her Life magic makes her an extremely capable healer, and she generally prefers doing so over fighting directly, but she is also fully capable of and willing to throw down herself with her Green Thumb abilities.
• Curse Cut Short: When Falst goes to break Kendal out of prison.
  Alinua: Son of a- FALST!
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was originally from the Flying Islands, but her birth parents threw her off the edge as an infant, probably recognizing her as a Chimeric Plague carrier. Thankfully, she was found and adopted on the surface world, but after learning what she was as a child, she ran away from home and lived as a hermit for ten years before meeting Kendal.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Over the course of the comic, she grows increasingly frustrated with Kendal's lack of self-preservation and disregard for his well-being, which comes to a head during the fight with Tynan.
  Kendal: Don’t worry about me. Help Erin. I’ll handle Tynan-
  Alinua: Stop it! Why do you keep DOING this?! LOOK at him! Look at what he DID to you! How can you act like that doesn’t matter?! How many times are you going to make me save you?
• Dream Spying: She does this by accident in chapter 9. As she's dreaming that she's the earth and making plants grow, she happens to spot Kendal walking off into the woods with Gleicann, which leads to her and Erin going after him.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: In chapter 20, she dreams of one of Life's past memories of the Chimeric Plague.
• Expressive Ears: Her pointy ears droop or lift depending on her emotional state.
• Eye Colour Change: When she uses her powers, her eyes shift from gray to green. After her strange transformation in Chapter 3, they are permanently green.
• Fertile Feet: Does this when she first walks up to Kendal. This doesn't happen again as she gains control over the power until she has to heal Kendal's grievous injuries sustained during Tynan's assault and drains all of her power doing so.
• Friend to All Living Things: She seems to care for them a lot, if her distress over the giant bear chimera in Gleicann’s forest is any indication; instead of fighting it, she gently lays it to rest.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's kind, compassionate, and selfless to a fault, but she can be quite scary when she's angered.
• Gory Discretion Shot: She gets a bear-goat chimera claw swipe to the face, but the blow is viewed from behind, and when she lands, the top half of her face is obscured by her hair. What little we see of the laceration on her neck and shoulder implies her face was quite messed up. Thankfully, Life's intervention heals her completely.
• Green Thumb: She has plant/life-based powers, and meditates by encouraging plant growth. Thanks to her birthmark, her magic is inordinately powerful, as shown in Chapter 5 when she grows a massive tree in just a few minutes. Her primary combat style is rapidly growing vines and other plants to herd, ensnare, and crush enemies.
• Happily Adopted: It's implied that Alinua was adopted as an infant by a family on the surface, but ran away at age ten after learning of her curse.
• Healing Factor: Alinua's healing magic is very quick and potent regardless of the target, but she can heal herself even quicker than others and even do so while unconscious, implicitly thanks to her connection to Primordial Life. This enables her to survive direct exposure to the Void Dragon's magic, which normally withers away and destroys whatever it touches — she can regenerate faster than it can kill her.
• Healer Signs On Early: Is the first person to join the party, aside from Kendal. Useful too, considering how many times she heals him after he suffers a serious blow.
• Healing Hands: One of her powers is being able to heal very fast and efficiently, while ordinary life mages can only heal fresh, superficial wounds.
• Hedge Mage: Having spent her childhood in a small rural town and her adolescence in self-isolation, she never recieved formal training in magic. Her fluid, intuitive use of magic is sometimes bewildering to Erin, who is an elite academic mage.
• Heroic RRoD: After she opens Zuurith's prison, she collapses from the strain. She also faltered after growing the giant tree in order to feed Windscrest's population when the Standing Storm disappears.
• Horrifying the Horror: The Void Dragon, an Eldritch Abomination whose might was enough to back the six Primordials into a corner, fears her enough to completely retreat into Erin when she appears.
• I'm a Monster: For many years this was her reasoning for isolating herself from the world, since when she did lose control of her powers there would be no one around to be hurt. After Chapter 3, her control over her powers is strengthened and she finally feels comfortable enough to leave.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: She's very unhappy about being the Life Primordial's vessel for many reasons, chief of which is that she fears she's no longer herself under their influence.
• The Lancer: She's Kendal's closest friend as well as his go-to emotional support and confidant. She also regularly challenges his view of himself regularly, either through nice conversations or not-so-nice ones, and while they're both kind and selfless, she contrasts him in a few ways:
  • She often acts as Kendal's common sense. While he's a Martyr Without a Cause and tries to stop conflict as much as possible, Alinua is slightly more pragmatic, as seen when she tries to dissuade Kendal from helping an out-of-control Erin, and much harsher when dealing with perceived antagonists, as Falst learned the hard way.
  • Alinua is much more hesitant, being one of the only characters to stutter regularly, second-guesses herself often, and openly displays a wide range of emotions. In contrast, Kendal is steadfast, to the point of stubbornness when it comes to protecting his friends, and is much calmer.
  • In combat, Alinua can control the battlefield very easily thanks to her Life magic, but is in trouble when someone attacks her physically, while Kendal is a purely Close-Range Combatant, but is nigh-unequalled in that regard. He's also the Tank to her Healer.
  • Kendal considers himself as only a means to an end, and acts accordingly, never advocating for or enjoying himself because of his mission and throwing himself in the line of danger recklessly, while Alinua really wants to live, even lamenting the many years she spent in the woods all alone and takes every opportunity to experience new things.
• Living Emotional Crutch: This page reveals Kendal is this to her. Before she met him, she had spent ten years in an absolutely miserable Self-Imposed Exile out of fear of killing anyone, but Kendal's kindness allowed her to break out into the real world. However, the loss of her home was still a lot to take in, and only Kendal could help her deal with it. So when he is on death's door after Tynan's assault, she completely breaks down, to the point that even when she successfully saved his life, she's still inconsolable.
• Living Is More than Surviving: She tells Kendal this after she almost loses control of her magic breaking open the tunnel into the Singing Caves near Vash. However, unlike most examples of this trope, she's using this argument to justify her sacrificing her life to do something good.
• Literal Metaphor: She tells Falst (and Tess, unknowingly) that if Zuurith keeps Kendal for a second more than necessary, she's going to tear that prison apart stone by stone. She was not kidding.
• Loss of Identity: She confides to Erin that she’s not entirely sure who she is after her strange transformation in chapter 3. Between her eyes changing color, suddenly feeling much more cheerful, and getting a grip on her magic, Alinua fears that she’s no longer the same person, merely being a vessel for Life. Erin quickly squashes this fear, pointing out that if that was true she wouldn’t be having an identity crisis in the first place. He also reassures her that her discomfort about being happy is entirely natural after years of seeing herself as a monster, and that her newfound confidence is entirely from herself.
• Master of One Magic: Unlike Erin, who can manipulate all elements, or Tess, Falst, Kendal, and Dainix, whose magical abilities are coupled with their physical prowess, Alinua can only do Life magic. She's also described by Erin, of all people, as "perhaps the best [Life mage] in the world".
• Nature Hero: She's spent most of her life in the wilds, so it's fair to say she's quite attuned to nature. In addition, she has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to botany, even geeking out over decreased rainfall increasing the growth limit of melons during her and Falst's outing in Zuurith.
• Nice Girl: Caring, helpful, and compassionate. The first thing she does in the story is save the life of Kendal, a complete stranger.
• No Social Skills: She and Kendal are both pretty nervous about approaching people in Windscrest; she mentions to him that she’s out of practice, as she hasn’t talked to anyone (besides him) in about ten years.
• Poke in the Third Eye: Before she got a handle on her powers, she did this unintentionally to the telepathic rodents who lived in the same woods near Vash that she did. Though they couldn't understand her language, her inner turmoil and angst over her magic was so overwhelming that merely being in her presence could leave them catatonic with grief for days.
• Power Incontinence: Her birthmark designates her as a carrier of the Chimeric Plague, a very rare and extremely powerful form of life magic that in the past has always killed its host within the first few years of life and drastically mutated anyone who had the misfortune of being near when this occurred. She specifically isolated herself as to minimize potential damage when she did lose control. However, her strange transformation in Chapter 3 apparently grants her much more control over her powers.
• Psychoactive Powers: Due to her more intuitive form of magic, her powers are susceptible to grow as she gets more emotional.
• Rage Against the Heavens: When she asks Life for their help opening up the mountain and they refuse, she furiously yells at her.
  Alinua: What do you WANT from me?!
• Shoot the Mage First/Shoot the Medic First: Being a magical powerhouse that can also heal anyone from combat-ending injuries means that the smarter villains often target her first. In particular, the Void Dragon, who is terrified of her, first makes sure she's out of commission before entering the fight against Tynan.
• Solitary Sorceress: When she meets Kendal, she is living completely isolated from the rest of the world, and later says that she hadn't talked to anyone else in a whole decade.
• Staring Down Cthulhu: After reliving Life's memory of a Chimeric Plague, she coldly asks her if she was responsible for the deaths of all the Chimeric Plague carriers. As Life closes her eyes in guilt, we cut back to Alinua, who's giving her a Death Glare.
• Tender Tears: She's the most prone to crying among the group as a result of her sensitive and empathetic nature.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: She’s noticeably more upbeat and confident after getting control of her magic, as she no longer has to constantly worry about going out of control.
• Touch of Death: She ends the life of the wild bear chimera in chapter 8 by touching it and draining its life energy, before releasing it into the environment.
• Tranquil Fury: When she truly gets mad, this is her default expression, and it gets nasty.
• Trauma Button: Erin inadvertently pushes this for Alinua when he casually mentions how uncommon cloud elves are outside of the Archipelago Nimbus. It turns out the reason she lives on the surface is because after she was born her birth parents threw her off the edge.
• The Unchosen One: She might be Life's vessel, but she's certainly not the first one. The Chimeric Plaque was caused by Life's previous vessels being destroyed by her uncontrollable power. Alinua is just the first one to have survived into adulthood. She even wonders aloud to Life if she was just the lucky one that Life got right, and judging by her birthmark actually looking like Life's truename, unlike Iras', it seems to be the case.
• Unskilled, but Strong: She's not well versed at all in the actual theories of Life magic and her field of knowledge is limited to plant growth and healing, but she's undeniably the most rawly powerful Life mage we've seen so far, due to having two decades of experience controlling her magic as well as the powerful natural affinity towards Life magic that bearers of the Chimeric Plague have.
• Voice of the Legion: Her voice occasionally overlaps with Life's when she's stressed. Sometimes their voices are in sync, but sometimes her speech bubble gains a second tail.
• The Watson: Because she's spent nearly all of her life in the wilderness, and the rest in a small godless village, she doesn't know much about the rest of the world, and is usually the one to ask questions about their travels, since Kendal, Erin, and Tess are way more knowledgeable, and Falst (who only knows slightly more than her due to being an outcast) doesn't bother to ask questions.
• We All Die Someday: She tells Kendal that she's accepted her death for a while now, due to her magic being highly unstable and threatening to kill her at every time. However, after Kendal distracts the rogue sentinel to save her, she breaks down crying as she realizes she isn't as accepting of her fate as she pretended to be.
• Your Days Are Numbered: In the beginning, Alinua believes it's only a matter of time before she loses control of her powers and it kills her, and it's a miracle she made it past the age of five. After the events of Chapter 3, this appears to no longer be an issue.

Erin Ruunaser

"Fortunately for the Academy, I am just as eager to discover what lies at the center of the Storm as anyone in the research division. And as I am the Elemental Magus, I am capable of accomplishing this grand endeavor with minimal risk."

The current Elemental Magus (a human mage capable of controlling all six known elements). His adventure to the center of the Storm of Magic went awry when he was possessed by an evil Primordial.

---

• Achilles' Heel: His tattoos allow him to cast magic safely, but they're also his biggest tactical weakness, as they require him to touch them in order to cast magic. Not only does this make his effective reaction time in combat slower, but covering the tattoos or preventing Erin from touching them means he's helpless. Interestingly, the Void Dragon doesn't seem to have that same weakness when possessing him, as seen by him casting numerous spells without touching the tattoos first.
• Apocalypse Maiden: If the Void Dragon gets him into the planet's core, he'll undo the prison, destroy the planet, and eat the sun.
• Bag of Holding: His bag was magically made bigger on the inside. It stores spare clothes, his manuals on magical theory, his notebook, decks of playing cards, different novels, many different lacrimas, and comfortable bedding. Alinua does question the logic of this.
  Alinua: Look, this is why putting ALL your stuff in one bag is a bad idea. Especially if it's Bigger on the Inside.
  Erin: I CAN'T CARRY IT OTHERWISE!
• Being Good Sucks: The way he characterizes his conscience as the powerful entity that's possessing him and his personal Arch-Enemy might hint at this worldview from him.
• Big Damn Heroes
  • He and Alinua attempt this in Chapter 9 by attacking Falst to “help” Kendal fight him, unnecessarily escalating the situation. Pretty cool entrance, though.
  • Erin properly pulls this off during the group's stay in Zuurith. As Alinua, Falst, and Tess are cornered by Shrike's hunters, injured and surrounded, Erin finds them and immediately immobilizes the metal-wearing hunters by using his stone magic. Then he and Tess show up to help Kendal fight Tynan, with Erin protecting Kendal with a barrier and using his magic to tear holes in the storm, and Tess punching the storm god in the face.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths
  • He acts sure of himself and tells Kendal he can handle his possession problem by himself, but in truth, he’s terrified. This becomes even more obvious when the Void Dragon abducts him and tries to use him to break out of his ancient prison.
  • In a more general sense, he's not afraid to be proven wrong despite his arrogance and can set his pride aside to further his goals and extend his knowledge. Even said goals are ultimately secondary to the safety of his friends, as seen when he abandons the knowledge within the Paladin Archives to save Alinua, Falst, and Tess from Shrike and her hunters.
• Captain's Log: Chapter 4 opens with writings in his journal about the Storm, eventually leading to his grand introduction and the start of his journey into the Storm.
• Claimed by the Supernatural: After his possession, he permanently bears a violet dragon-shaped tattoo on his chest, marking him as the Eldritch Abomination's host. When talking about the Void Dragon, he often has a hand over his chest where his tattoo is.
• Comically Missing the Point: He’s fascinated upon witnessing Alinua apparently summon the Life Primordial, leading to this exchange:
  Kendal: Are you all right? What WAS that?!
  Erin: And could you reproduce it in controlled conditions?
  Alinua: What?
  Kendal: Erin, not now!
• Crazy-Prepared: The reason he offers Dainix to travel with them despite the deep personal cost to him is that he's looking for as many people as possible to ally with that can fight the Void Dragon effectively. Tess even notes that it's expected of him to have contingencies.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's usually busy with unraveling mysteries and dealing with his possession problem, but he has his moments.
  Kendal: Hi, Erin. How was the Archive?
  Erin: How was the-? Well, Kendal, I got a little sidetracked when the city was attacked by a storm god trying to murder you.
• Demonic Possession: Has the misfortune of getting possessed by the Void Dragon in the Storm of Magic.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: His response to the dark being retreating into him?
  Erin: AND STAY OUT!!
• Early-Bird Cameo: He's first introduced at the start of Chapter 4 before being formally introduced to the protagonists mid-way through Chapter 5.
• Eyes Are Mental: Normally, Erin's eyes are dark blue. When Void Dragon is dominantly in control, his eyes turn yellow with slit pupils and black schlera.
• Fighting from the Inside: After Kendal first meets him while he's possessed, he manages to scream at him to run before being taken control of again. When he learns of the Void Dragon's plan, he uses lightning magic to paralyze his own body and leave them both of them helpless in the caverns as he's left with no other options and the Dragon's freedom will spell death for the entire planet.
• For Science!: He’s very curious about the world, and this is a big part of the reason he wants to explore the Storm. Unfortunately, his curious mind gets him into some trouble.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed. Kendal, Alinua, and Falst like him, but they're also aware that he's kinda hard to be friends with, mostly due to his habit of acting Innocently Insensitive, and don't shy away from letting him know that. He's also the most likely to be made fun of by the team.
• Friendless Background: Implied, considering that his father bought Tess to be his playmate.
• Glass Cannon: He's one hell of a heavy-hitter, but he's the most fragile of the group, which means he's easily dispatched if a physical fighter gets close enough.
• Hero with an F in Good: Red once described him more or less as such.
  Erin would make a *fantastic* villain, but since he doesn't want to be one, he's a mediocre hero instead.
• Hidden Depths
  • He doesn’t deny it when the Void Dragon calls him arrogant and self-centered, but he’s not bluffing when he paralyzes himself with lightning magic to prevent the Void Dragon from freeing himself, despite knowing he will also likely get killed or worse in the caves. Luckily, Alinua and Kendal arrive just in time, something that he wasn't expecting.
  • Later, in Chapter 11, he shows a surprising amount of emotional intelligence when he reassures Alinua that she is, despite her role as Life’s vessel, still her own person. This interaction follows:
  Alinua: You’re surprisingly motivational today.
  Erin: Please. This isn’t my first identity crisis.
• Hollywood Atheist: Exactly what the archetype would be in a world where gods are objectively real. He refers to the Paladins as a cult who should go worship some real gods because their beliefs have no objective proof. Crosses over into Flat-Earth Atheist since he literally has their Satanic Archetype on his chest.
• Hypocrite: A surprisingly positive example. Erin claims that pursuing the greater good is the most important thing to do and even chastizes Alinua and Kendal's recklessly selfless tendencies, but he is wracked with guilt over Kendal's imprisonment in Zuurith due to his insisting on going to the Paladin Archive, drops his research on the Void Dragon immediately when he learns that Alinua, Tess, and Falst are in trouble, and tries to take Tynan with him by launching a point-blank fireball to take him out. He also took advantage of the Void Dragon's brief weakness to paralyze himself and deprive him of a vessel to free him, thus saving the entire world.
• Innocently Insensitive: His hubris and For Science! attitude sometimes make him forget about other people’s feelings. His first reaction upon Alinua telling him about the Dark and Troubled Past behind her magic is to call it "fascinating," though he immediately tries to backtrack and express sympathy.
  The Rant: look at Mister Sensitivity over here
• Insufferable Genius: Somewhat deconstructed, since he's ignorant to basic social cues and struggles to connect with other people. This adds up to often unintentionally hurting people's feelings.
• It's All My Fault: Tess reveals that he blames himself heavily for not stopping his father from enslaving her and causing her not to get her Spark.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Despite having the means to do so, he hasn't contacted anyone from his entourage after he went into the Storm, as only Kendal, Alinua, and Dainix can survive the Void Dragon.
• I Work Alone: Believes that he's the only one good enough to do the experiments he undertakes. Considering he's the Elemental Magus, he may be right. This continues after he is possessed by the Void Dragon, believing that he's the only one that can be trusted to fix it, and that he doesn't need anyone else anyway. Although that at least is tempered by the fact that he's worried about losing control at unpredictable times, as well as how the Void Dragon seems to fear Alinua's connection to Life.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He freely admits he’s arrogant, petty, and vindictive, but he does grow to care about his companions after getting through a few life-or-death situations with them.
• Like Brother and Sister: Despite his father essentially buying Tess into the family, Erin thinks of and refers to her as his sister.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He used to be one, until Tess left and he got a haircut, presumably emulating her hairstyle.
• Master of All: Being the current Elemental Magus means he can use all six elements.
• Mighty Glacier: Surprisingly enough for a Squishy Wizard, he's also this trope. Erin's mastery over the six elements allows him to dish out powerful attacks even without the versatility he has in comparison to other mages, but because his manner of casting requires him to form a runic circle for every spell he has and to charge the more powerful ones, he's very slow in contrast to his teammates and foes, and the few times he has been seen casting without runic circles, he ended up injuring himself about as much as he did his opponent.
• Mr. Exposition: Being the most formally educated out of the protagonists, he often takes the opportunity to explain how a given aspect of magic, politics, or society works (with accompanying illustrations).
• Not So Above It All: In a positive way. He criticizes Kendal and Alinua for their lack of self-preservation, and later tries to get himself killed in order to take the Void Dragon with him.
• Oh, Crap!: His reaction when he sees the mark of the Void Dragon on his chest and realizes what it means.
• Power of the Void: Only when possessed, but it's extremely potent. He first uses it himself when he cures Falst of his recently contracted cave corruption by extracting the Void energy from his body.
• Power-Strain Blackout: The first time the Void Dragon takes over, Erin passes out shortly after regaining control.
• Power Tattoo: He has tattoos forming intricate patterns and symbols on both of his arms. They are meant to help channel magic to create more powerful spells, and each pulses with its respective element when he uses that form of magic.
  • Power Nullifier: Downplayed. His tattoos are revealed in Chapter 1 of Arc 2 to be sealing tattoos. While we don't yet know why Erin has gotten them, the way he and Tarren speak about it implies Sealing is very undesirable and only applied in dangerous health cases, such as susceptibility to elemental corruption.
• Pragmatic Hero: Erin does try to accomplish good, but he's much more preoccupied with the greater good. This means that, in order to do so, he's ready to do some pretty dirty stuff, like letting Kendal stay imprisoned in order to stay at Zuurith or manipulating the Junior Archivist into letting him into the Paladin Archives. That said, he does have his limits.
• Pretty Boy: While it could be argued that this is due to the art style, comparison with the more chiseled Kendal/Dainix and the more rugged Falst, his softer, thinner features indicates that he is, indeed, very pretty.
• Pride: He’s pretty confident in his abilities, often a little too much.
• Princely Young Man: Erin comes from a wealthy background and is very well educated and mannered.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Followed by a Little "No", upon realizing that he’s been marked by the Void Dragon.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech : His summary of Tynan after he joins the fight definitely qualifies.
  Erin: Fight you? Don't be ridiculous. I'm not a fighter. And, more importantly, neither are you. You're just dressed like one. Swinging those ridiculous swords around in a whimpering plea for attention. If you WERE a fighter, I wouldn't need to be here. Kendal would have beaten you fair and square. But I suspect you don't like fair fights. You're not a warrior, a king, or any of the things you style yourself after. You're just a problem. I'm not going to fight you. I'm going to solve you.
• Science Wizard: As a student of the Aseran Academy, Erin uses his exceptional magical abilities to investigate how the world works.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He tries to pull this when the Junior Archivist refuses him access to the library. She's not impressed, and he goes back to the embassy thoroughly crushed.
• The Smart Guy: He's the most intelligent in the group, being extremely well-studied in many areas from his years at the mage academy, and is most useful in fights thanks to his extensive knowledge and quick thinking to keep up with Kendal, Alinua, and even Tess.
• Smug Super: Is he ever. He takes immense pride in being the Elemental Magus, and the abilities it grants him.
  Erin: (while writing in his journal) ...nobody has ever seen what lies at the center of the storm. Of course, this is because I've never tried.
  Erin: Hm. They didn't like it when I used "phenomenal natural talent" last time.
• Skewed Priorities: In Falst's eyes at least, he should really be more concerned about the fact that the two of them were fighting moments before than by Falst's reckless experimentation.
• Strong and Skilled: While by the cast's standards, he is Weak, but Skilled, he is definitely this overall. He is a remarkably accomplished and learned mage, and he can dish out spells strong enough to affect an entire city.
• Summon Bigger Fish: When Tynan had him in his claws, he blew himself up, allowing VD to take over and bring him crashing to the ground. Whether or not this was on purpose is up for debate.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Erin's possession by the Void Dragon is theoretically capable of functioning like this when they both have the same enemy, as seen in the fight against Tynan. His magic is vastly more powerful and he can cast void magic, something no one else can do, but the Void Dragon is so evil and dangerous that it's more of a curse than anything.
• Taking You with Me: Attempts this on the Void Dragon when he’s possessed and taken into the caves by paralyzing himself with lightning magic. He’s rescued by Kendal and Alinua before he can go through with it.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Was "saving" Kendal by flinging a giant wave of lava really necessary? Well…
  Alt text: yes, throwing a bunch of lava at your opponent could be considered overkill, but consider - Erin really wanted him to know he could do that
• Too Clever by Half: He knows he’s smart and a powerful mage, but even after figuring out exactly how to explore the Storm safely and even stop it, he doesn’t pause to consider that the pedestal at the source of it with a mysterious rune engraved at the center of the Primordials' truenames might be a trap.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He becomes considerably nicer to the others after they save him from the Void Dragon and the cave monsters, though his arrogance and self-sure attitude don’t completely go away.
• Unwitting Pawn: He plays right into the Void Dragon's hands by taking the bait of the elemental storm and being possessed for the purpose of setting the beast free.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He seems to have a knack for attracting this kind of relationship. Falst is the most prominent example due to his sharp tongue and the two's diametrically opposed upbringings, but he and Tess snipe at each other quite often, and even Alinua is not above lighthearted mockery or arguing with him over magic theory.
• Voices Are Mental: The webcomic version of this trope, where the Void Dragon talks in a distinctly different font, text color and speech bubble, despite being in Erin's body. Unlike with most examples of this trope, the other characters actually do notice that something is different.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: Twice: first, when Kendal and Alinua save him from the Void Dragon in the wastes; second, when Kendal and Alinua save him from the Void Dragon in the caves.
• Weak, but Skilled: Only by the main cast's standards. While he's an accomplished and powerful mage, he's considerably less powerful than magical powerhouse Alinua, lacks the supernatural strength and combat prowess of Kendal and Falst, and, unlike Tess and Dainix, has no martial training to complement his own magic, but he makes up for it with versatility, arcane knowledge, and strategic use of the six magical elements.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He weaponizes the fact that he caused quite the scene at the Archive to deter the Void Dragon from possessing him after Kendal, Alinua, and Dainix are all made unavailable near Zuurith.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Tries to comfort Alinua in Chapter 11 by telling her that she isn’t just Life’s Vessel - she’s still herself.
  Erin: All that confidence and freedom - that's not your magic. None of that would matter to a primordial. That's YOU.

Falst

"Well, I'm sorry they don't perfectly understand every facet of your personality! Meanwhile, they hunt ME like an animal because I wasn't cursed to be a perfect human specimen!"

A young Ferin who first encountered the party after stealing Erin's bag. He's since worked it out with them and joined them on their journey.

---

• Animal Eyes: As a lion Ferin, he has catlike eyes with slit pupils.
• Animal Stereotypes: He's surly and abrasive, but he's loyal to a fault and hates being lonely, much like a typical housecat.
• Anti-Hero: Falst is first and foremost concerned with self-preservation, meaning he's fine with leaving other people in danger, as seen when he tries to convince Alinua against saving Tess from Shrike's hunters. However, he will run headlong into danger to save his friends, and he's completely enraged by the existence of Zuurith's unfair prison system.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Gives one to Alinua when she's freaking out about Primordial Life potentially using her as a vessel to end the world, like the Collector wants. Falst barely has any idea about what's going on, but he points out that if Life really didn't care about the creatures created from her and wanted to end them all to be free, she probably wouldn't have been so pissed off about Dr. Jolon twisting those animals into Chimeras.
• The Big Guy: As a Ferin, he’s physically stronger than most mortals, and has a high resistance to magic. Alinua and Erin, despite being powerful mages, struggle to take him down, and only Kendal is able to decisively overpower him.
• Cat Folk: He's a lion Ferin: a human with animalistic traits due to a curse. He has catlike eyes, ears, and claws, a lion-like tail, and hair that resembles a lion's mane.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Being hard to hurt and hanging with Alinua, a powerful Life mage, means his creativity can manifest in him jumping off an actual mountain.
  Alt text: caliban's met weirder mortals, but not many
• Combat Pragmatist: As fitting a lifelong outcast who's barely survived by the skin of his teeth, Falst fights dirty, using sneak attacks or throwing mud at a dragon's face to blind it, which is how he can keep up against powerhouses like Kendal or groups of opponents like Zuurith's guards.
• Comforting Comforter: He gently covers Alinua with a cloak while she's tiring herself trying to resuscitate Kendal.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His mother transformed into a cave crawler when he was very young while his father is heavily implied to have abandoned him soon afterwards. He presumably lived in the woods by himself for years, struggling to survive both the wild environment and discrimination against ferin. In chapter 21, he describes to Dainix the extent of his major injuries with a casualness and in enough detail that sells how this is ordinary for him, even going as far as saying that not being sick, concussed, or poisoned is a plus. Dainix's reaction really says it all.
  Dainix: Sorry. Before I was exiled, I'd never met any ferin.
  Falst: Oh, it's great. You make so many friends. Hunters, monsters, villagers with pitchforks who think you ate their sheep- the wild chimeras that ACTUALLY ate their sheep-
• Deadpan Snarker: Even after joining the heroes, he retains a decidedly sarcastic attitude and tendency towards flatly lampshading stupid things people do or say.
  Alinua, trying not to fall off a roof: I'm STOPPING you!
  [Beat]
  Falst, sitting on another building several meters away: I think you're gonna need to make that jump first.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Falst's mother was, by his account, a loving and caring woman towards him, so her becoming a mindless killer that was later killed by Falst's father hit him even harder, especially considering that Falst seems to hate him in the present day.
• Determinator: Falst's strongest attribute is by far his iron will. Even by Ferin standards, he's incredibly resilient and will let nothing stop him from getting back up. His internal monologue implies this is why he managed to use Light magic to slice the amorphous slime monster that grabbed Dainix.
• Expressive Ears: Being a lion Ferin and all, his ears sometimes perk up, like when he’s surprised. Shown pretty clearly in this side-by-side.
• Genre Savvy: He's much more aware of the power balance in place for superhero/fantasy stories, correctly identifying Erin as the Glass Cannon, Kendal as the frontline Lightning Bruiser, Alinua as the fragile Combat Medic, and himself as the sneaky yet durable rogue.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Exploited. He knows he's sturdier than most people and has a healing factor that can even surpass Kendal's, which is why he's willing to take huge risks in order to save himself and his friends.
  Alinua: Ok, that was quick thinking, but please NEVER do that again.
  Falst: What? You're a healer and I'm really hard to hurt. This was the fastest way down.
• Harmful to Minors: He witnessed the death of his cave-corrupted mom at the hands of his father.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He's very easy to piss off, and his first response to most difficult situations is to throw a punch.
• Height Angst: Implied, if this exchange is anything to go by.
  Alinua: Have...you two met?
  Tess: OH! The little guy from the river!
  Falst: Little-?!
• Heroic RRoD: After the fight with Tynan, Falst refuses to be healed by Alinua, meaning he has to fend off the threats in the Ancient bunker with a badly broken arm and several smaller fractures and injuries. The fight against the Cave Crawler horde takes an even bigger toll on him, so much that by the end of it, he can barely speak audibly, and after a final push to make the tunnel colapse behind him and Dainix, he falls unconscious.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: He wants to undo his Ferin curse so people will stop treating him like a monster. He stole Jolon's lacrima and Erin's journal in an attempt to transform himself, and he's very frustrated when Erin explains that at best it would've only been temporary.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: This is the source of his desire to become human, as he believes it's the only way he can stop being alone.
• Internalized Categorism: He hates being a Ferin because of how people treat him, and he wants to be a normal human. A later conversation with Dainix show that he has started to outgrow that sentiment after Kendal's Armor-Piercing Question about his loneliness and that he now recognizes that most of what he hates about being a Ferin are things that are done to him about it.
• Iron Butt Monkey: He's able to shrug off a ridiculous amount of damage with his healing factor and general resistance to physical damage, which is good since he's very frequently subject to harm in order to progress the plot or open himself emotionally.
• Jerkass Realization: As Dainix insists on stopping to treat Falst's broken arm, he lashes out at him and says that the only reason he's taking those hits are that Dainix is here. Seeing Dainix's hurt expression makes him back off and accept the treatment.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Runs off to break Kendal out of jail even after Alinua, who also did not like him being in there, explains that Kendal cannot hide from gods.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's quite agile, very fast, and even more durable, which makes him one of the few characters so far to be able to keep up with Kendal with physical prowess alone.
• Little Bit Beastly: Due to the Ferin curse, he has animal-like features on an otherwise human body. He has catlike eyes, ears, fangs, and claws, and a tail like that of a lion.
• Logical Weakness: As good as his Healing Factor may be, he's just as weak to infection as anyone else. When he's badly slashed by a Crawler, Dainix has to resort to using kitridine, a very painful disinfectant, to clean the wound specifically because of that, resulting in Falst accidentally clawing him.
• Made of Iron: He can tank a ridiculous amount of damage without slowing down thanks to his Ferin heritage and having to survive alone and in undesirable conditions for so long.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Zig Zagged. Unlike his teammates, Falst doesn't possess extraordinary abilities beyond what his Ferin heritage has given him. However, he knows a bit of magical theory and spell-carving, enough at least to use unprogrammed lacrimas by himself.
• Meaningful Echo: After he and Alinua escape from Zuurith’s guards by jumping off the mountain, he justifies his plan to her with the phrase: “You’re a healer, and I’m hard to hurt”. He later repeats it to her with a more dramatic meaning later, when the mountain starts crumbling around her, threatening to crush her.
  Falst: You're a healer, I'm just hard to hurt! Which of us do you think Kendal's gonna need more?!
• My God, What Have I Done?: When he sees that he dug deeply into Dainix's already injured shoulder with his claws, he looks horrified by what he's done.
• The Napoleon: He's the shortest of the protagonists, and he's very grumpy and stubborn.
• Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: The automatons in the Ancient ruins are partially certain he is "of the people", meaning that Falst could have Ancient ancestry, which is supported by their responses to him being less immediately hostile than for example Dainix, as the latter pointed out. Furthermore, while inside the ruins, what little technology remains active, such as door locks, responds only to his presence. This seems further corroborated by the name "Emira", implied to belong to his late mother, being written in the Ancient alphabet on her gravestone as seen in his dreams and flashbacks.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Downplayed, but Falst is the only character to be consistently drawn with pupils.
• Not So Stoic: He's generally emotionally distant and closed-off, but there are moments when his feelings bubble over the surface.
  • When Alinua starts draining the Life lacrima and he's wrestled into submission by Kendal, he desperately pleads for them to stop because it's his only way to become human.
  • His aloof demeanor completely withers away when Erin is rebuffed by the Junior Archivist, which leaves him almost dying from laughter.
  • When Alinua finishes cracking Zuurith's mountain/prison, we see his first genuinely happy smile.
  • He tears into Dainix after Dainix makes the mistake of asking whether he hurt Falst in his Crucible form.
  • He is left shaking and tearing up after the cave crawler that was about to kill Dainix says the word "starving" in a language he understands.
• Obviously Evil: A smirking, underhanded, taunting, ruthless Beast Man with Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness, no qualms with violence, dressed all in black, and who so happens to steal Erin's bag while the gang is distracted with a chimera created with the lacrima he possesses? Surely this guy must be the one creating the chimeras! He's not. He stole the lacrima from Jolon, who was the one who created the chimeras ans used prejudice against Ferin to throw the blame on him.
• Only Sane Man: Erin describes Falst in this way:
  Erin, to Tess: [Falst's ] perspective is often more...worldly than ours. I find that contrast invaluable.
  • Case in point, he realises immediately that bringing their particular group into Zuurith's city can only end badly.
  Kendal: Vash loves mortals for their chaotic individuality. Zuurith seems to hate them for the same reason.
  Falst, to Erin: And you thought it was smart to bring US here?!
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Falst is a tactical man focused on preserving his friends and himself first and foremost. Whenever possible, he always advocates for avoiding unnecessary danger, even if it means leaving innocent strangers defenseless. So when he ignores Dainix's exit strategy entirely because he's too focused on fighting to the death with the cave crawlers, it's a good indication that something is wrong.
• Perpetual Frowner: When he's not scowling or shouting. He's genuinely smiled twice.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's the smallest of the party, being almost one head shorter than even Squishy Wizards Erin and Alinua, but in terms of physical combat prowess, he's only second to Kendal.
• Sarcastic Devotee: He's consistently demonstrated that he is loyal to his friends as early as a few days after their first encounter (and fight) and would fight for them, but he's almost always grumpy in his way about it.
• The Scapegoat: Jolon frames him for creating chimeras with the lacrima.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: While he was unconscious, he hears "Find your way if you are truly my son" in his dreams, implying that one of his parents (almost surely his father, considering his backstory) might have been one.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: In comparison to the general cleanliness of the rest of the cast’s language, Falst is remarkably foul-mouthed, in that he uses swear words at all and has about as many curses cut short. Red even commented that of all the characters, he was the one for which swearing came the most naturally.
• Smarter Than You Look: While he at first looks like a simple petty thief, he turns out to be far more cunning and calculating than that, formulating a plan to turn human that even Erin compliments, seeing through Jolon's lies and manipulation, and being capable of adapting quickly to a situation when it goes sour.
• Stating the Simple Solution: When Kendal inexplicably collapses and the group is freaking out over him and speculating about what injuries he may have received, Falst simply asks when the last he slept was. As it turns out, Kendal had assumed he didn't need to sleep and had indeed remain awake until he collapsed from exhaustion.
  Alt Text: yeah the claws and healing factor are nice, but Falst's greatest superpower is probably his rare gift of Common Sense
• Strong Family Resemblance: From what little we see of him, Falst's dad looks a lot like a taller, older version of him with long hair. Contrast that with his mother, who shares almost nothing appearance-wise with him. Justified, as Ferin genes are always dominant.
• Touché: He admits that he can't question Dainix's reasoning when the latter explains why he needs to be completely honest with him about how he's feeling.
• Walking Spoiler: It’s hard to talk about him without revealing he was framed by Jolon, and that he joins the party at the end of Chapter 10.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: His irises are gold-colored, and he's a Combat Pragmatist through and through.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Falst often taunts and belittles his opponents whenever he's confident, even when they're a slime amalgamation that likely can't understand him.

Tess

"Of course you won't. Because even if you think it’s smart, you don’t abandon people. Neither do I."

A young metal-caste woman who made a few appearances looking for Erin before being revealed to be his adopted sister. She has a scar on her shoulder from the lightning strike that gave her free will and lightning magic.

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• Action Girl: She literally punches dragons!
• Big Sister Instinct: Despite having just been smacked aside like a ragdoll by Tynan's dragon form, the minute Erin blows himself up with a fireball, she instantly gets back up, forgoing Alinua's healing, and prioritizes his safety above anything else.
• The Big Gal: She's a highly efficient Kung-Fu Wizard thanks to her general athleticism combined with her lightning magic making her quicker than everyone else and Metal-caste people's natural armor allowing to take a lot more damage and output more strength than other mortals.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Apparently a victim of this, since Aserans don't call her being bought to work without pay or having any agency as a servant "slavery".
• Blood Knight: Downplayed. If her opponent is both someone who can withstand her might and someone who deserved to be fought hard, she's guaranteed to have a good time punching them around.
• Boisterous Bruiser: She's cheerful and enthusiastic in battle, and she can punch hard.
• Broken Bird: Defied. With all the horrific abuse she was submitted to in her early life, she has every right to be emotionally ruined and, as Falst (and apparently Erin) points out, should have no desire to even be reminded of the Ruunaser family, let alone want to talk to any of them ever again. Nevertheless, she's determined not to let this pain define her, and takes the whole situation with incredible maturity, keeping a good rapport with Erin and his mom, who actually seemed to treat her courteously, unlike Galen, Erin's father.
• Butch Lesbian: She's tall, brash, dresses in simple, drab clothes that show off her musculature, and according to this blog post by Red, really loves the ladies.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Tess is pretty confident in battle, which translates to her talking a lot more casually than others, as evidenced by her arguing with a dragon she's fighting like it's a misbehaving pet.
• Chrome Champion: Being metal-caste, Tess' flexible metal skin allows her to tank a lot of damage and exert a level of force that would be harmful for squishier people's muscles.
• Death of Personality: More like Stillbirth of Personality, but a previously bad experience (implied to be linked with her former slave status in one way or another) caused her to never develop a Spark, which meant that she'd never acquire her sense of self. Fortunately, she was chosen by the sky, and thus gained her Spark anyway.
• Distinguishing Mark: Tess has a scar stretching from her neck to her bicep similar to a Lichtenberg figure left after being struck by lightning.
• Early-Bird Cameo: We see her clearly for the first time while she's fighting a dragon in Chapter 6, but she can be spotted as early as Chapter 4 walking around Windscrest.
• Everyone Has Standards: She's a very enthusiastic Blood Knight, but she's squicked out by Kendal's brutality when he fights Tynan.
• Exact Words: When Erin said to her to not let Kendal do anything "stupid by [his] mother's standards", he meant keeping him at the campment while he and Alinua were off to search for Dainix and Falst. So when Kendal wakes up and prepares to go after them, Tess uses the wording of Erin's order to justify going with him.
  Tess: And like Mom always says, there's nothing stupider than leaving Erin unsupervised.
• Genki Girl: She's almost constantly cheerful and enthusiastic, even when fighting dragons or bounty hunters.
• Family of Choice: While she dearly loves her blood family back at Ironhill, she also considers Erin and his mom to be family as well, as explicitly stated by her for the former and made evident by her for the latter by still calling her "Mom".
• In a Single Bound: She is able to use her lightning magic to leap enormous distances.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: She primarily uses her magic to empower her normal physical abilities, which are already pretty good.
• Lightning Bruiser: Quite literally. As a metal-caste lightning mage with visible muscle, she's a great fighter both physically and magically, can take quite a beating, and can move quickly with her magic to jump large distances In a Single Bound.
• The Magnificent: She's earned the title of Stormbreaker by virtue of being chosen by the sky.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Her eyes are featureless silver orbs, a trait common to the metal-caste.
• Only Sane Woman: She seems to be the only person in Zuurith that has bothered to notice Tynan's arrival or seems to grasp the full scale of the danger.
• Ride the Lightning: Lightning's property of repulsion/attraction means she can give herself and the ground like charges and then perform an electrified super jump.
• Same Surname Means Related: Chapter 14 reveals her full name to be Tess Ruunaser, suggesting relation to Erin. It turns out she was bought by Erin's father as a playmate for him. Her voluntarily identifying by this name, as shown by the wind lacrima recognising her as a Ruunaser, while hating Erin's father and the way she talks about Erin's family suggest that it was either Erin or his mother who gave her the name.
• Shock and Awe: She's a lightning mage.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: After getting her Spark, she fled from Asera and returned to Ironhill, where her family was, but found that it didn't feel like home anymore. She then decided to travel around the world to get to know herself.
• Super-Toughness: Being a metal-caste gives her a natural armor, which makes all but the most powerful of blades useless against her and allows her to tank a large amount of damage before going down.
• Uninhibited Muscle Power: A variant in which her metal skin gives her a natural armor, allowing her to exert more force than humans normally can while not having to worry about hurting herself.
• Walking the Earth: After she left the Ruunaser household, she wandered around the world in order to fully appreciate her newfound freedom and selfhood.

Dainix

"An emotion is a force. If you push back against it, you're fighting yourself, which weakens you. But if you give that force a direction, it can push you and make you that much stronger."

An Ignan (fire-influenced human) who was sent from his village to find out how to kill a monster. After an altercation with some bandits, he was captured and forced to fight in Zuurith's arena.

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• Apologises a Lot: Downplayed, but his first reaction in a lot of situations is to apologise or assume he's done something wrong.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance. Subverted. Ignans have fire markings all over their bodies and usually have red-orange hair and eye colors because of their natural connection to the Fire element, which also means that an overwhelming majority of them are Fire mages, but Dainix isn't a mage. Double Subverted when it's revealed he's a Crucible, a person who can turn themself entirely into Soulfire.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His full Crucible form. While transformed, he's lightning fast, strong enough to easily obliterate Obsidian Ghouls, who can resist most weapons, and impervious to all physical damage, including a full-force Void energy blast head-on. However, he's also solely focused on the source of his fury and cannot be stopped, leading to an enormous amount of risk for the people near him. The first time he transformed, he wrecked his entire village in the process of destroying the Obsidian Ghouls, to the point that everyone, including him, agreed he was too dangerous to stay.
• Bear Hug: He goes to hug Erin very hard when he gives him a lead for his quest.
• Body Horror: The proper reveal of his soulfire came with burning cracks forming across his skin and his left hand burning up, replaced with fiery claws.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: His main weapons are a spear and a hand crossbow.
• Cloak of Defense: His poncho is made of wyrmsilk, a highly resistant and fireproof material.
• Death Seeker: His journey to find a way to control his soulfire seemed so hopeless that by the time we meet him in Zuurith's prison, he's hoping to die in order to put down the demon in him for good.
  Kendal: You said you were hunting the demon. You were lying.
  Dainix: No. I said...I needed to kill it.
• Defiant Captive: In order to make the Arenamaster look weak, he wins all of his fights without killing or even maiming his opponents, and it's worked.
• Die or Fly: His Ravvan group had a surprise encounter with a bunch of Obsidian Ghouls in a gathering mission gone awry. With their fire magic and weapons being completely ineffective against them, Dainix's soulfire awakened for the first time.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: As a Crucible, he can transform into a powerful creature of pure soulfire.
• Emotional Powers: His soulfire turns out to work this way, being fueled by his rage and guilt.
• Empowered Badass Normal: His previous occupation was spending all day fighting desert monsters like wyrms, which has made him a prodigious physical fighter, even though he was not a Fire mage. Then his Crucible powers awoke ...
• Eye Scream: Dainix's right eye is covered by bandages with the implication that it's blinded from some injury. Chapter 16 reveals that his own guilt burned his eye out.
• Eyepatch of Power: He's become the Champion of Zuurith's gladiatoral arena without fighting at full strength, and when he gears up to go save Kendal, he wears an eyepatch.
• Fiery Stoic: While he can be quite emotional, he's chill and polite most of the time, and being a Crucible has given him the powerful ability to conjure and control soulfire.
• Fights Like a Normal: Dainix is a trained warrior proficient in many forms of combat and weaponry, and mostly uses these assets in order to fight, since his Crucible powers are new to him and very unstable.
• Gladiator Games: He fights in Zuurith's gladiator arena.
• Glowing Eyes: His eye seems to glow orange when he wears his gladiator helmet. It's later revealed to be a byproduct of his Crucible abilities.
• Godzilla Threshold: He limits his Crucible abilities to fire generation because controlling it is very new to him, but also because his other abilities are extremely dangerous to anyone around him. As such, it takes the Void Dragon possessing Erin and curb-stomping Tynan into the ground and the realisation that he's going to go after Kendal and Alinua when he's done with Tynan to willingly enter his full Crucible form.
• Handicapped Badass: He only has one eye, but that doesn't stop him from being a competent fighter or a crackshot with his hand crossbow.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: The loss he suffered due to his nature as a Crucible combined with having to take selfish decisions in order to get away from Zuurith's oppressive legal system have made him into a big ball of guilt and self-hatred, to the point that he genuinely believes he should die so he can't harm the people around him.
• Hunter of Monsters: His people are monster slayers, according to him.
• Hypocrisy Nod: He acknowledges that letting Falst fight off the cave crawlers alone because of his desire not to kill anything that close to actual people was hypocritical of him when the moment he was injured by one of them, he immediately retaliated with lethal force.
• I'm a Monster: He specifically identifies his Crucible form as a Demon, a legendary monster feared by his people.
• Magic Pants: His clothes aren't even singed when he exits his Crucible state. Possibly justified if they're made of wyrmsilk, but that's not yet been confirmed in-universe.
• Martial Pacifist: He's a good fighter with a spear, but refuses to use lethal force, despite being in a gladiator arena and fighting in deathmatches.
• Metaphorically True: He tells Kendal that he's been searching for a way to kill a monster of Ignan legend. What he neglects to mention is that said monster was him.
• Mr. Fanservice: Completely unintentionally on the author's part, but Dainix's long flowing hair, chiseled physique, and tendency to at least be partially shirtless has earned him the attention of the fans.
• Nice Guy: Dainix, despite all the reasons he has to be cranky, is polite, understanding, and rarely raises his voice.
• No-Sell: In his fully-transformed Crucible form, he is able to reform after being hit by a void wave and ultimately come out unharmed.
• Playing with Fire: Double Subverted. Ignans, i.e. fire-influenced humans, are all resistant to fire and almost all of them are fire mages. Dainix is not a fire mage, as the arenamaster mentions. Instead, he's a Crucible - an ignan brimming with the much more potent soulfire that he can harness.
• Power Incontinence: His soulfire powers are fueled by his emotions. However, months of imprisonment in Zuurith led to Dainix bottling his emotions up to extreme amounts. By the time he's made to fight Kendal, he's so emotionally off-balance that his powers run rampant and soulfire starts bursting out of his skin.
• Psychoactive Powers: His soulfire grows stronger in accordance to his emotions, namely anger and guilt. His Heroic Self-Deprecation, however, leads to the above-mentioned Power Incontinence, and before caused one of his eyes to burn out.
• Queer Establishing Moment: A very understated one on page 1-19-5, where he tells Erin that he never thought much about developing magic since transitioning had a slight chance of closing his soul-channels anyway, confirming that he is a trans man.
• Rage Breaking Point: He had been managing his anger fairly well despite being unfairly imprisoned, but then the Arenamaster makes him choose between fighting Kendal in the arena or spending five more years in the mountain. The choice makes him so miserable that his Crucible abilities flare up in the ensuing match.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Limited to Falst, who seems to be holding a grudge, both for what Dainix did to Kendal, for creating an opportunity for Tynan to sneak-attack Kendal, and for his history in the arena in general. He seems to have gotten over it during their stay in the Ancient bunker.
  Dainix: Look, I get that Ferin heal fast, but -
  Falst: Pick that one up in the arena?
• Slipknot Ponytail: He loses the ponytail when things get intense, usually a sign that the crucible is about to come out.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Of the "unstoppable Id" variety. His full Crucible form is very powerful and is able to reform itself after sustaining heavy amounts of damage, but it is completely ruled by his emotions, particularly his rage, meaning he can't try to avoid collateral damage or going too far.
• Survivor Guilt: The guilt that caused him to burn out his eye is at least partly due to him blaming himself for his friends being attacked by a group of Obsidian Ghouls he failed to notice.
• There Is Another: He is overjoyed when Erin tells him that another mortal has apparently experienced and researched something similar to his Crucible nature and left her findings in the Soulshaper Monks' library.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: As part of the Ravvan, Dainix's main occupation was hunting monsters to protect people, and as he explains, this has led him to take a principled stance against killing other people, even as he was pushed to do so at the Arena. This rule is broken when, in reflex, he deals a fatal blow to a cave crawler who had just slashed his shoulder.
• Un-Sorcerer: Unlike the great majority of his people, Dainix isn't a Fire mage. It didn't stop him from becoming a capable hunter and warrior. It's likely that his inability to channel magic in the usual way is related to his Crucible status.
• Utility Weapon: He can use a hook on a string to turn his hand crossbow into a grappling hook.
• Wake Up Fighting: When Falst tries to wake him in the Ancient ruins after falling down a chute together Dainix promptly tries to take his head off.
  Alt Text: bro he was in prison for half a year you’re LUCKY you only got almost kicked in the face
• Walking Armory: When fully geared out, Dainix carries a truly impressive amount of equipment on his person for how little it shows, including, but not limited to, a spear, a hand crossbow, smoke and flash grenades, a grappling hook, knives, and a first aid kit.
• Warrior Therapist: Dainix is quite insightful and in touch with his emotions, so he often gets a pretty good read on the people around him, as seen when he explains the value of emotions as weapons and the futility of suppressing them to Kendal. It doesn't always work, however, as Falst demonstrated to him.

Antagonists

The Collector

"I've taken apart hundreds of mortal souls. They have nothing left to teach me. But I've never acquired the soul of a god."

A powerful Life mage who kicked off the plot by abducting Vash and destroying his city. She can manipulate other elements by "healing" them with Life, and her ultimate goal is to free Life by destroying every soul keeping her essence trapped.

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• Affably Evil: The Collector is very cheerful and personable in conversation, maintains a polite tone at all times and makes conscious effort not to insult or belittle others — even when she's in the process of dissecting their souls or destroying their cities.
  The Collector: Oh, where are my manners? You were upset by the screaming. It would be unkind of me to keep you here longer than necessary.
• Ambiguously Human: Subverted. Kendal notes that she seems human, but her eyes have an inhuman color, and her apparent immortality cements her possible lack of humanity in his eyes. In answer to that, the forest god Gleicann says that although she may not be mortal anymore, she is still human.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With the Void Dragon. Her kidnapping of Vash sets the entire plot in motion, and she's the threat Kendal and Alinua are looking to defeat.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: She actually seems to believe that destroying the city Vash wasn't any worse than removing the mountain she put in its place would be. She also doesn't value the life of any being other than Life, including herself.
• The Collector: In this case, she collects souls, and delights in adding Vash to her collection.
• Dark Is Evil: She dresses in dark brown-red clothing, and has long, black hair.
• Death of Personality: She used to have a name as well as personal hopes and dreams, but they were all erased when she touched Life's mind
• Dramatically Missing the Point: She seeks to free Primordial Life, but as Vash notes, that means destroying the world Life died to create (not to mention freeing the Void Dragon from his prison, since he can only be contained by the fusion of all six elements). Life herself does seem to care about mortals and feels guilty for accidentally inflicting the Chimeric Plague on them, so it's likely that Life really wouldn't be on board with the Collector's plan. Life also absolutely hates the creation of chimeras, something that the Collector does regularly.
• Establishing Character Moment: Shortly after her introduction, she ends up destroying a city purely to render its god vulnerable to soul extraction and then politely asks said god how he feels as a scientific inquiry, immediately showing how utterly amoral she is as well as her scientific mind.
• Evil Counterpart: Much like Kendal, she's devoted her entire life to saving her (sort of) patron deity, and is ready to sacrifice herself for that goal, to the point that both of them have constantly deny their existence as more than a tool to free their deity. However, unlike Kendal, who's very insistent on nobody dying, especially dying for him, she's singleminded in her pursuit, and will not stop at anything in order to revive the Life Primordial, not even the death of all life on the planet.
• Evil Genius: Fittingly for a former researcher, she's very knowledgeable in the workings of magic, especially Life magic, calculating, and rigorous, having meticulously gathered data on soul energy in order to accomplish her plan. In addition to that, her defeat of Vash, one of the most powerful urban gods on the continent, along with the destruction of his entire city using only Life magic and planning is an effective display of her tactical intelligence and cunning.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Her irises and sclerae are two different shades of bright green.
• For Science!: Her main motivation for soul theft is so she can study and experiment on them. The results are... not pretty. Neither are the intended applications of that knowledge.
• Glory Seeker: She hints that she used to be concerned with glory, but discarded this quality of hers when she saw the "greater picture"
• Go Mad from the Revelation: From what we know, she used to be a normal person before accidentally making contact with the thought-dead mind of the Life Primordial. Afterwards, she became bent on freeing Life at any cost, a process that involves destroying souls.
• Healing Factor: Implied. After she destroys the city, Vash runs her through with his sword out of rage, which does little more than startle her. She doesn't even bleed.
• Kill the God: The objective of her experiments on Vash is to find an efficient way to destroy him, which she hopes will lead her to a generally applicable method of destroying soul energy that she can use to free Primordial Life.
• Life/Death Juxtaposition: One of the core aspects of the Collector is the contrast between life and death in her character and motivation. She's a Life mage (a field primarily concerned with healing) and a mass murderer. She's immortal, but suffered a Death of Personality around 300 years ago. She seeks to kill every single being on the planet in order to revive the Life Primordial. She doesn't value the life of mortals, but the death of the Primordials is a big deal to her. And to top it off, she's the only character to have used Life magic to heal a being long dead (the Stone primordial).
• Light Is Not Good: She's a life mage — a type of magic typically associated with healing and goodness — but uses her magic to create monsters and is a major antagonist.
• Loophole Abuse: Despite being a Life mage, she's able to close the crater that Vash is built into, completely destroying the city, by healing the wound on the Stone Primordial's body.
• Mad Scientist: Implies she used to be one, concerning herself only with the glory her research would give her, waking up a dead Primordial in the process.
• Mortals Are Insects: Her villainy is almost entirely based on this. Because she touched the mind of an incomprehensibly vast and ancient Primordial, Life, she has lost the ability to see mortals as anything other than inconsequential. This is why she can be genuinely mean it when she says it would be unkind to keep Vash in his city right after she murdered all of his citizens without a second thought.
  The Collector: You assign so much value to such unpleasant amalgams.
• Name Amnesia: According to herself, she forgot what her original name was after making contact with Life's mind.
• No-Sell: She isn't fazed in the slightest by Vash stabbing her through the heart with a sword.
• Offstage Villainy: She apparently stole the souls of hundreds of mortals and a few nature spirits before stealing Vash's, and also sent a flying chimera after Kria when she went to investigate, injuring her.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Her master plan is to kill every living thing in the world, unraveling their souls and freeing Life's energy in order to bring the Primordial back.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: even to herself, she's only the Collector or the God-taker.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She's usually nothing but polite to Vash, but when he gives her a genuinely insightful Kirk Summation, she replies with a hurtful retort and doesn't apologize for it like when she was Innocently Insensitive earlier in their conversation, indicating that he actually struck a nerve.
• Really 700 Years Old: She's several centuries old, but it seems she hasn't aged for most of that time.
• Red Baron: The party calls her the Collector of course, and gods tend to refer to her as the god-taker. Justified, as even she doesn't know her name anymore.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: She pretty bluntly shuts down Vash's arguments against her plan.
  The Collector: You hope I'll change my mind at the first hint of introspection. Even a being as vast as you can't seem to comprehend the greater good.
• Visionary Villain: Her goal is bring the Life Primordial back to her original state, which will bring about the end of all life on the planet.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If she gets her way, unfusing the Life Primordial from the planet, the Void Dragon would be able to escape his prison formed by the fusion of the elemental Primordials. Considering it took all six of them giving their lives to stop his endless quest to consume the stars, her quest to free Life might lead to the end of the universe itself.
• Was Once a Man: Or at least a normal human mage. Gleicann tells Kendal she is still technically human, just (potentially) no longer killable.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She thinks she's helping the Life Primordial by bringing her back to life... even though that will destroy the world and all of the life she had previously created, not to mention how the Void Dragon would be freed.

The Void Dragon

"There, sequestered from the stars I consumed, they hoped I would simply whither away. But I do not wither. I am the withering."

The entity responsible for killing the six primordials who make up the world. He is possessing Erin in hopes of destroying the adamant prison his body is sealed in.

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• Always a Bigger Fish: Tynan is a powerful god and could only be exiled in the past, but the Void Dragon proves far more dangerous and is able to bring him down even while his main body is still sealed away.
• Achilles' Heel: Downplayed. While he's still a force to be reckoned with even when this weakness is in play, his Void energy can only disintegrate entities who contain some part of his essence, either though their constitution (like mortal life) or by having/being a representation of his true name (Tynan, as a god, would have had a built-in immunity to void energy disintegration, had he not taken the form of a dragon, which is a symbol of the Dragon's true name). This means that to beings like the Elemental Primordials, Kendal, or Dainix when in his soulfire form, Void energy just burns like normal fire.
• Badass Boast: The quote above, handily summarising his status in the story and the world.
• Berserk Button: Tynan assuming his form (a dragon) sends him into a rage, so much that he begins to magically consume the storm god in retaliation.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With the Collector. He is the biggest confirmed threat the heroes are facing, due to being a world-ending Eldritch Abomination, and defeating him is Erin's primary motivation.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He knows that by any standards, he's a monster, and even refers to himself as such when Kendal stops Dainix from killing Erin while he's under the Dragon's control.
• Creation Myth: Erin mentions that the Void Dragon is a well-known myth, a story used to explain why the Primordials died creating the world. Unfortunately, he turns out to be very real.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When he possesses Erin during the fight against Tynan, he destroys the latter's One-Winged Angel form with one wave of his hand.
• Demonic Possession: Does this to take a physical form, such as Erin.
• Disproportionate Retribution: For the terrible crime of transforming into a dragon, a form originated by the Void Dragon, Tynan is consumed from the inside by the same void Dragon. Granted, he also thoroughly and indirectly injured Erin, but their Eviler than Thou speech mostly revolves around this theft, which is not worth the soul-searing agony he's facing.
• Early-Bird Cameo: It first appears in the comic's short introduction before being properly introduced in Chapter 5.
• Eldritch Abomination: Seems to be a being of pure destruction, leaking caustic black energy that destroys everything in its path. It's later revealed that its true form seems to be some kind of massive dragon made of darkness and that it's also a very ancient being that can kill gods and destroy worlds.
• Eviler than Thou: After Erin is healed by Alinua but still unconscious, he takes control of his body and upstages Tynan's dragon transformation by utterly destroying him.
• Faux Affably Evil: When talking to Erin, he speaks in a very calm and polite manner while calling his killing of the six Primordials his finest work. There's also a subtle air of mockery and superiority to his words.
• Godzilla Threshold: One interpretation of the Tynan fight is that Erin blew himself up on purpose so that VD would destroy Tynan, knowing he'd want to protect his vessel. It's just as likely that it was unintentional on Erin's part.
• Hero Killer: They mortally wounded the six Primordials in ancient times, forcing Stone to sacrifice himself while the others gave their energy to seal them in their final moments.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Their killing of the six Primordials ultimately worked against it, as they combined their elements to create his adamant prison in the core of the planet as they died, and their deaths mean that it's impossible for them to undo the prison. The Void Dragon had to try making mortals via the Twins to have them use elemental magic to undo it, and when their first attempt failed due to their counterpart giving said mortals free will, they created the Elemental Magus to have them do it, but Erin is capable of resisting them, giving mortals a way to fight back against them, and a lot of previously unknown information.
• Leaking Can of Evil: Humans and elves used to live in the Singing Caves with no ill effects, but thousands of years later and those who stay in the caves for even a few days are afflicted with cave corruption. This implies that the Void Dragon's energy has been slowly seeping out from his prison.
• The Maker: Surprisingly, considering they are the avatar of destruction, they're behind the creation of mortals, with the goal being to have them free them using magic, which would have worked if his counterpart hadn't given them free will and consciousness.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: A dragon who is refered to with both he/him and they/them pronouns, according to the Characters page.
• "Not So Different" Remark: He makes one comparing himself to the long dead Primordial Fire. Saying that, like himself, Fire was highly destructive, had a temper and would often kill whatever he touched.
• Not So Omniscient After All: Even though he can control the Twins, which created every living species, and knows a lot about Ancient and current mortal societies, he can be blindsided by a few things, like Kendal's existence or Crucibles, which he assumes are mortals who let themselves be consumed and/or possessed by the Fire Primordial.
• Planet Eater: He feeds on stars and if the primordials didn't stop him then, he would have consumed all stars in existence.
• Sadist: Takes great pleasure in killing Tynan, even noting how much he likes that Tynan will die in ignorance.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Freaks out upon seeing the Life entity in Alinua, and retreats back into Erin.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: His main body was trapped inside what would become the core of the world by the dying primordials.
• Sore Loser: Whenever he's outplayed by or powerless against someone or something, his only two reactions are petulant sulking and omnidirectional rage.
• Superpowered Evil Side: For Erin. While possessed, Erin not only has access to the Void Dragon's own power, but notably doesn't need to touch his tattoos prior in order to use magic.
• Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain: The Despicable Villain to the Collector's Sympathetic Villain. He's an Eldritch Abomination whose only goal is to destroy and consume everything in the universe. More over, he's condescending, sadistic, petty, and one hell of a Sore Loser.
• Villainous Glutton: Their primary motivation is to consume all the stars in the universe.
• Villain Takes an Interest: He's fascinated by Kendal when he learns that not only is he not one of his creations, but also that he is made of starmetal, something he hasn't tasted in a long time.

The Chimera-maker of Hilltop (WARNING: all spoilers unmarked!)

Doctor Jolon

"That's unfortunate. If you'd played your parts, this could have been resolved simply and cleanly. Now this is going to get complicated."

A life mage whose kindly demeanor hides a sinister personality.

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• Ambiguous Situation: The last we see of Jolon is Gleicann dragging him into the depths of the forest to punish him for his crimes, with the treeline snapping closed behind them. Whatever happens afterward is, to quote Red, "at Gleicann's discretion".
• Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel bad for him when Gleicann drags him off into the woods to punish him.
• The Beastmaster: The battle with Jolon is really more a battle with his chimeras.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Jolon invokes this, wearing Nerd Glasses to seem more friendly and bumbling. When the heroes find out about his true nature, he removes them, which indicates that he doesn't really need them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He acts like a kindly doctor who's just trying to help the heroes, but it turns out that he's a Mad Doctor who's lying through his teeth.
• Blatant Lies: He tells the gang he suspects Falst is behind the chimeras. He himself is making them.
• Break Them by Talking: He attempts to do this to Falst, calling him a monster and telling him that he is doomed to be alone unless he accepts his "generous" offer and helps him with his research.
• Dragged Off to Hell: He's last seen trapped in a cage of branches, being taken away by Gleicann to punish him for mutating the forest creatures.
• Evil All Along: Chapter 10 reveals that he's an antagonist, and his placement on the webcomic's Characters page is updated accordingly.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Kendal figures that he justifies his deeds to himself by believing that everybody else is as immoral as he is.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's able to act friendly enough to fool the heroes and he still remains a polite speaker even after his true colors have been revealed, but he's quick to resort to yelling and insults when someone counters his reasoning.
• The Glasses Come Off: He takes off his glasses (pictured above) before summoning his chimeras to attack our heroes.
• Good Powers, Bad People: He's a Life Mage doctor who horribly mutates animals into chimeras and tries to pin the blame on an innocent Ferin.
• Lack of Empathy: Shows no compassion for the people hurt and scared by his experiments.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He's been causing a lot of trouble in Gleicann's forest, and in the end he's left to Gleicann himself to be punished.
• Mad Doctor: He’s a doctor who mutates animals into chimeras and researches the Ferin curse, both of which are forbidden by the Aseran Academy he studied at.
• Manipulative Bastard: Tricks the heroes into finding Falst for him, then tries to talk Falst into willingly becoming his test subject.
• Uncertain Doom: How exactly does Gleicann punish him? The forest god drags him away, the heroes move on, and we never find out.
• Villainous Breakdown: When he's captured by the forest god, he panics, tries to bargain with him, and finally appeals to Falst for help. Falst, unsurprisingly, leaves him to his fate.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to discuss him without mentioning that he's actually an antagonist who framed Falst for his crimes and infested the forest with chimeras.

Zuurith

"I knew Vash was careless. I did not think him capable of this level of impropriety."

The god of his eponymous city, Zuurith is known for his strict and unyielding stance on law and social regulation. This view clashed with Vash's considerably more free-spirited views, and the two gods became bitter rivals as a result.

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• Anti-Villain: Though he has made his city a Police State, seemingly hates that mortals have free will and individuality, and is uselessly antagonistic towards anyone who doesn't fit into his "perfect society", he isn't the cause of the systemic prejudice towards Ferin, which is in part due to the Arenamaster enlisting prisoners to fight in gladiatorial games, he can be reasoned with (at least in regards to Kendal's imprisonment), and he does want to protect his people.
• Berserk Button: Questioning his control. Kendal finally gets him to lose his composure by suggesting that he's less influential and respected than he believes himself to be.
  Kendal: I don't think you have as much influence as you believe.
  Zuurith, with Glowing Eyes of Doom and a Death Glare: *attacks and ensnares Kendal with a a glowing magical chain*
• Break the Haughty: Zuurith thinks of himself as the embodiment of law and regards himself very highly. Then he gets curb-stomped by Tynan, his city is wrecked in the ensuing chaos, and he's given a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Vash and is forced to reassess his attitude, or at least his policies.
• Control Freak: He enforces a strict code of laws on his citizens, with those who break them imprisoned in a massive prison. Kendal notes he likes to see himself has the embodiment of order, and the former snaps and attacks him when Kendal suggests his influence isn't as great as he thinks it is.
• Epic Flail: He wields a flail-like weapon with a blade shaped like his sigil in place of the usual mace-head.
• Even Evil Has Standards
  • He is not a fan of the bloodsport the arena conducts, calling it "an ugly thing".
  • He also considered Vash an equal despite their rivalry which is why he won't allow his vessel (Kendal) to be used in the arena. However, it is eventually subverted when it only takes a little convincing from the arenamaster to get him to throw Kendal in the pit by appealing to his ego.
• The Evils of Free Will: Kendal notes that Zuurith seems to hate mortals for their individuality and chaotic nature.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Zuurith Lawbringer tolerates no disorder, and thus any violation of order is severely punished. Tess, Falst, and Alinua found that out the hard way when they were hunted by a gang of ruthless bounty hunters who tried to send them to a gladiatorial arena simply because they were trespassing.
• Holier Than Thou: As his title of "Lawbringer" indicates, the guy sees himself as a shining beacon of order in a chaotic world. Spend any time around him, however, and you'll see that he's not much more than a Control Freak.
• Humanizing Tears: He cries at the sight of his devastated city after Tynan's attack, then performs the only act of kindness we see from him by helping a citizen who is trapped under a fallen timber.
• Hypocrite: He values laws and rules above all, including the well-being of his people, but he's willing to break them when something threatens the order he's established in his city.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Finally crosses this line with Kendal in the Arena, dismissing him as little more than a fragment of a dead god.
• Jerkass Has a Point
  • He's not wrong that the other gods will see Kendal as a threat if he goes against them, but he ruins this point by exclusively addressing Kendal as "Vessel".
  • He's also correct that trying to save Vash is likely a futile effort at this point since the city he was tied to has been completely destroyed.
• Knight Templar: Kendal and Alinua, who are both All Loving Heroes, agree that the order that laws bring can be good, but unlike Zuurith, they believe that this can only be possible if the laws are made to care for and protect them, while Zuurith only cares about order itself.
• The Magnificent: He's sometimes referred to as Zuurith Lawbringer.
• Order Is Not Good: Zuurith's fixation with order has created a society where people may face years of imprisonment and forced labor for minor crimes like tresspassing.
• Paper Tiger: As Falst summarizes, his society's oppression is only allowed to continue because the oppressees aren't allowed to fight back. When he is faced with someone who can challenge him, namely Kendal and Tynan, he bent the rules of his society and essentially held hostage the former's friends in order to imprison him and was effortlessly defeated by the latter.
• Pragmatic Villainy: His initial motive is to get Kendal out of his hair, which is part of why he acquiesces to Erin's request to release him in one day immediately. However, the arenamaster persuades him that it'll be even more pragmatic to make Kendal fight Dainix, as no one else is strong enough to challenge the arena champion.
• Principles Zealot: He is all about law and order, more specifically his rather draconian variety of law and order.
• Purple Is Powerful: He's heavily associated with the color and is a god.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: In Arc 2, he sheds his cape and most of his gold accessories, possibly symbolizing increased humility and/or the loss of his city's material wealth.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: The two cities aren't too terribly far from one another, and neither god is too fond of their neighbor, but as far as we know, Vash and Zuurith were never outright enemies.
• Small Name, Big Ego
  • According to Kendal, he seems to think of himself as a bastion of order and an example for all other city gods to follow but Vash's memories of him show that the other gods never held him in high regard.
  Vash: (to the Collector) Why MY city? If you'd taken Zuurith, half the cities on the continent would've hailed you as a hero.
  The Collector: Hm. True. But Zuurith is inconveniently located.
  • This is further reinforced when his avatar is disintegrated by a single bolt of lightning from Tynan. Given that Vash was the only god who could successfully stand up to Tynan's might, it's pretty clear that Zuurith was never in the same league as Vash power-wise, despite their rivalry.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Seems to be under the impression that not arresting Erin for traveling with Kendal is some kind of good deed.

Shrike Fainne

"My dream is to win. And I have. I played their game, and now they let me do whatever I want."

A stone mage and a bounty hunter who freelances finding gladiators for Zuurith's arena.

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• Affably Evil: She's cheerful, friendly, and perfectly willing to drag people to fight in the arena over minor crimes like trespassing.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Lampshaded by Red in The Rant:
  Red: don’t ask how shrike’s bangs work. modern science is baffled.
• Ambition Is Evil: Her only goal in life is victory, and thanks to her time in the Arena, she views victory as dominating others with force. When Zuurith's prison is destroyed with no intent on the city nor the god of rebuilding it, she goes after another unwilling source of power, forgoing the morally better option to help rebuild Zuurith because it would result in less people beneath her.
• Anti-Villain: She's willingly condemning people to fight in the Arena, which is especially more heinous when it's revealed she actually experienced just how awful it is, but she does so in a desire to stay on top of the oppressive social system of Zuurith, seems to care for her friends like Trusk, and doesn't really care if her victims manage to cheat the system as long as she's getting paid.
  • Sort of loses this status after she leaves Zuurith. This time, she's purely tracking our protagonists for her own self-interest with plenty of other opportunities to do something else with her life, as Trusk points out.
• Braids of Action: When on the job, she wears her hair in a braid.
• Bounty Hunter: She's hired to track down Zuurith's "criminals" and turn them over to the Arenamaster for pay.
• Bullying a Dragon: After seeing just what Alinua can do, she decides to go after her.
• Combat Pragmatist: She resorts to every tactic she can to win, whether it's using restraining bolts, knockout powders, or ambushes.
• Dirty Cop: In Arc 1, she's a bounty hunter who enforces Zuurith's laws by arresting anyone too difficult for the guards to apprehend. However, she's perfectly willing to bend or break the rules if it benefits her. She even looks sort of like a cop, being dressed in all blue.
  Shrike: Come on, pivoting to law enforcement? It's a dream! We get to do what we want and the city doesn't get mad about it!
• Evil Mentor: She takes on Theia as her apprenctice after the latter joins in her quest after our heroes, and while her pupil's quest isn't quite as noble as they think it is, they're still a Hero Antagonist, while Shrike is purely in it for personal power.
• Extra-ore-dinary: As a stone mage, she can manipulate metal, which she can use to throw chain bolas and shackles around or enhance the accuracy of her shots.
• Fantastic Racism: Zigzagged. The only reason she targets Ferin more than other people is not because she hates or even thinks less of them, as seen with her complete willingness to work with or even be close friends with some of them, but because she knows the Arena is more likely to deem them criminals than others. Hence, while she's not racist on a personal level, she does participate in the systematic oppression of Ferin.
• Framing the Guilty Party: She's tasked with capturing the mountain trespassers in addition to Tess. She has no way of knowing for sure that Falst really was one of the trespassers when she encounters him, but reasons that he could have tanked a fall from the mountain, pins him as a perfect gladiator type, and tries to arrest him anyway.
  The Rant: Hey, that's circumstantial at best!
• Had to Be Sharp: She's a competent warrior, but otherwise not very remarkable compared to what we've seen of the other gladiators in the Arena. However, her ruthless tactics inform us of how she survived there.
• Misery Builds Character: Her justification for her lack of sympathy towards the people she forces to become gladiators is that she got stronger because of her time as one.
• A Mother to Her Men: One of Shrike's sole redeeming qualities is the respect and care she bears towards her followers.
• Power Tattoo: She has a stone rune tattoo on the palm of her left hand to help channel her magic, which she keeps concealed under a glove.
• Punch-Clock Villain: She doesn't care about the rigorousness of her work in any way whatsoever, meaning she's captured innocent people, even by the city's standards, but she's also not worried about her targets being released without consequences as long as she's paid. She loses this trait after she goes after our protagonists for personal reasons.
• Villain Takes an Interest: She departs from Zuurith in order to track down Alinua and harness her power for herself.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Despite seeing them both as overall strong, she calls Trusk and Alinua weak and, in Alinua's case, a coward for not wielding their power for themselves out of a desire not to hurt others unnecessarily.

The Arenamaster

"My lord, you know better than anyone that a system that functions perfectly on paper often falters when mortals attempt to implement it."

Zuurith’s emissary in charge of the prison and arena.

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• Control Freak: He is incensed by how Dainix keeps resisting his demands, and when he tries to kill Falst and Alinua after the latter breaks the prison open, he outright says that he's doing to hold onto his control over his domain despite everything else going on.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's only called by his title, "The Arenamaster".
• Evil Is Petty: During Tynan's flood, he's more focused on keeping the prison intact than the lives of the prisoners (and guards) he would condemn to death by doing so.
• Faux Affably Evil: He speaks and acts like a reasonable authority whose only concern is maintaining the law, but in reality, he's a callous man who's self-servingly power-hungry.
• Hate Sink: Unlike his deity, who at least has some standards, he is a cruel Manipulative Bastard who participates in an oppressive system for petty reasons at best and power-hunger at worst. He's also one of the most prominently racist characters so far, as mentioned under the Politically Incorrect Villain entry below.
• Light Is Not Good: He wears white pants with a very pale green tunic, and is an emissary of Zuurith, which are essentially the clerics of this world. Nevertheless, he's the main operator of Zuurith's prison industrial complex, as well as a real jackass.
• Manipulative Bastard: He convinces Zuurith to let him pit Kendal against Dainix in the Arena by framing his own personal power struggle with Dainix as a matter of civic importance that reflects on Zuurith's leadership, then maneuvers Dainix into fighting in earnest by offering him freedom if he does so and threatening to extend his sentence if he refuses to fight.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The disproportionately large number of Ferin in the prison, Vienne personally demanding Shrike doesn't imprison the first Ferin she sees because "the Arena isn't picky", and him solely referring to Falst as a "beast" all point to him being racist towards Ferin.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: His color scheme mainly incorporates purple and green, in case you were wondering if he's a bad guy or not.
• Skewed Priorities: As Falst lampshades when the Emissary tries to stop Alinua from cacking the prison mountain open, he's not even trying to get the convicts (or even the guards, based on how several can be seen inside) out before the place floods from Tynan's storm, despite it technically being his job she's doing. He then tries to kill the two after she succeeds and is exhausted, just so he won't lose control.
• Villainous Breakdown: As Alinua starts tearing the prison apart during Tynan's attack, he grows more and more desperate to stop her, culminating in him trying to kill her and Falst after they've successfully cracked the mountain open.
• Wardens Are Evil: He runs Zuurith's prison system and has no qualms about manipulating his god, interfering with diplomatic communications, twisting the institution's rules to indulge his personal grudge against a prisoner, and ultimately leaving both prisoners and guards to face a deadly flood without leadership while he flees for his life.

Tynan

"Always just talk. Only one of you could ever really back it up. But from what I hear, he's gone. I wonder how you'll manage without him?"

A cruel storm god who has returned after learning that Vash, who banished him, is gone.

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• At Least I Admit It: He's open about how he only views mortals as sustenance and contrasts himself with Zuurith, whom he accuses of pretending to protect his people by imposing order when he's really only concerned with his own power.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His dragon form is powerful enough to knock Tess and Kendal out, but it's also much more solid and permanent than his previous incarnation, which, while a good defense against attacks, stops him from reincarnating indefinitely, aka the main reason he couldn't lose against Kendal alone.
• Baddie Flattery: He compliments Kendal on his tenacity and durability, stating that it would be pointless and boring if he went down quickly.
• Berserk Button: Mortals fighting him back, apparently. He was exhilarated by Vash's resistance, but his first reaction when seeing Kendal briefly activate the starfire is pure unbridled rage and only winds down when he sees he can't manifest it for too long, and he's furious when Erin not only No Sells his lightning, but gives him a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech and prepares a huge fire spell.
• Big "NO!": When Vash reveals his starfire aura.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He revels in boasting about his atrocious acts and intentions. Justified, as his dangerous reputation is how he gets more fear to feed on.
• Cumulonemesis: He began life as a living, roving storm, and technically that's precisely what he is now — his humanoid body is a form he creates to interact with the world — and is profoundly malicious in nature, using his rain, winds and lightning to spread death and destruction in order to create fear and despair to feed on.
• Dual Wielding: Tynan's chosen weapons are twin sabers.
• Dynamic Entry: Appears in Zuurith's Arena with a massive lightning bolt that knocks Kendal and Dainix off their feet.
• Early-Bird Cameo: When Ilia explains how news of Vash's disappearance has spread, he is one of the gods pictured.
• Elemental Hair Composition: His incarnation's "hair" is actually a tendril of cloud that crackles with lightning.
• Emotion Eater: Tynan began life as a storm that was given strength and sapience by the fear of the humans it affected. He later learned to deliberately spread death and destruction in order to generate dread and terror to feed on and grow stronger from, and takes great pains to cultivate a terrifying image of himself in order to achieve this.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first thing he does on-panel is destroy the incarnation of the god of the Crow's Head Plains and deride them for being weak.
• Eye Scream: Kendal lodges his sword in his dragon form's eye and then channels a burst of starfire into it.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's fairly jovial and lighthearted in demeanor as he's terrorizing and wreaking havoc on innocent mortals. However, as soon as he meets any significant resistance, he drops the façade.
• Fun Personified: A darker twist on the trope. He's all about enjoying himself and doing what pleases him the most, it just so happens that what pleases him is to wreak terror and destruction on innocent people, as well as growing more powerful.
• God of Thunder: He's a living thunderstorm who feeds off the fear his lightning causes mortals.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: If it weren't for his ability to incarnate indefinitely, he would have been killed by Kendal in the first few moments of their duel, as well as the many other times his incarnation is destroyed over the course of their fight.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Transforming into a dragon was a sound plan, being able to instill more terror by laying waste to Zuurith, and able to take anything Kendal or Tess threw at him as well as shrugging off Erin's point-blank fireball. However, the fact that Erin had to blow himself up with said fireball and that he transformed into a dragon draws the ire of the Void Dragon, who promptly runs Tynan into the ground.
• Hope Crusher: He was eager to have a visible, drawn-out fight with the surviving vessel of the only god ever to defeat him so that the onlookers' fear would be prolonged and sharpened by letting them build up hope and then snatching it away.
• Hungry Menace: He terrorizes people because being feared by mortals is what sustains him as a god.
• Hypocrite: For all of his Social Darwinist pretenses, he really dislikes when someone can actually fight back.
• Kick the Dog: Invoked. Since his goal is to establish fear among the people, he often acts gratuitously villainous in order to reinforce that fear. This is why, when he should have probably focused on Kendal, who at that point had his sword firmly planted into his eye, he instead decided to vaporize a huge chunk of the city, re-establishing the terror in the citizens of Zuurith, who had started to regain hope when Erin first hurt the storm.
• It Amused Me: While his primary motivation for causing chaos is to grow more powerful, his secondary one is simply because he loves doing it.
• Logical Weakness
  • He may be able to incarnate indefinitely, but he's still a storm, which can be dispersed.
  • His power being dependent on fear means that anything that makes him less scary in the eyes of his victims also makes him weaker. He starts to look pretty desperate when Erin kicks him around and Zuurith's people stop fleeing and start talking about ways they can fight back.
• The Magnificent: He goes by Tynan, Shadow of Thunder, a moniker he chose for himself.
• One-Winged Angel: After the main characters start inspiring hope in the people of Zuurith by fighting him, he changes his tactics and changes into a dragon.
• Personality Powers: Even before he became the Shadow of Thunder and learned how to feed from the fear of his victims, Tynan was noted for his cruelty.
• Post-Mortem One-Liner: Delivered to Zuurith after disintegrating him.
  Tynan Next time, take a lesson from Vash. Build it to last. (scaters the pile of ashes with a kick)
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Delivered right before he zaps Zuurith's incarnation into oblivion.
  Zuurith: We of the mountain are rooted deep in the stone, Tynan. I do not bend, and I will not yield.
  Tynan: Then shatter.
• Sadist: He greatly enjoys inflicting terror on people.
• Scaled Up: He turns into a dragon halfway through the fight as "new material" to inspire terror in Zuurith's populace.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: After Tynan is defeated, Tahraim traps him in a rune-inscribed knife, much like how the Collector took Vash.
• Villain Has a Point
  • In his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Zuurith, he notes that despite the city god claiming that he brings his city order, the mortals living in it are only really "fuel for his power" while Tynan himself is pretty honest about what he intends to do with them.
  • He's also correct in pointing out that laws are just threats backed by power and violence, especially the way that Zuurith uses them.
• Villainous Breakdown: He gets rattled a few times during his fight when Kendal and his friends look like they're about to win, but he fully loses it when Vash comes back.

Cave Crawlers

Once normal sapients, cave crawlers are those terminally affected by "cave corruption", AKA void elemental corruption, and afflicted with ravenous hunger, which can be focused on anything from root vegetables to bone marrow. Many of them roam in the Singing Caves, feeding on anyone or anything that they can find, driven mad by their desire to consume.

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• Blinded by the Light: Because of the time they spend deep in the Singing Caves, cave crawlers are usually very averse to light and heat. This weakness is often exploited via flashbangs, lightning or simply to Kill It with Fire.
• Body Horror: One particular cave crawler encountered by the protagonists has, according to Red, been stewing in void energy for so long it was corrupted down to the cellular level. The result? A hungry pile of Ominous Obsidian Ooze.
• Creepily Long Arms: They have emaciated bodies with elongated limbs. Falst describes them as "stretched-out sick people".
• Creepy Long Fingers: Most of the cave crawlers seen so far have their fingers stretched and sharpened into claws.
• Horror Hunger: All victims of cave corruption gradually become overwhelmed by ravenous and insatiable hunger. They might not all crave the flesh of other sapients in particular, but enough of them do that all cave crawlers are presumed to be extremely dangerous.
• It Can Think: While driven mad by hunger, they can still occasionally speak or act intelligently.
• Was Once a Man: Every cave crawler was once a normal person prior to their corruption. And if they persist for long enough, their form can deteriorate beyond anything resembling a humanoid shape.

Gods

In General

• Domain Holder: A god's power over their domain manifests in a passive awareness of its workings and possibly being able to physically move components of it. Some gods even have multiple domains. Of course, outside their domain(s), they don't hold any real power and can't incarnate. In practice, this means that gods of places like forests are limited to their one location and can only affect the landscape, while gods of concepts like justice can manifest basically anywhere and possess great powers.
• Genius Loci: A god's actual consciousness is spread throughout their domain, and even when incarnated they have at least some awareness of everything happening within their realm. In the case of place-gods especially, there isn't generally a very strong distinction made between them and their domain — a city god and a city are, on a fundamental level, the same thing, use the same name, and are treated as the same entity by the story and the characters.
• Glowing Eyes: Most gods manifest with glowing eyes, sometimes with the glow spilling out past the eyes themselves.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Downplayed. Gods are formed by mortals' collective awareness and perception of a concept or place, but don't need active worship to stay alive. The only way for a god to die is for mortals to completely forget about the thing they're the god of.
• The Magnificent: Many gods have epithets they are commonly referred to as alongside their names, such as Jiya the Crimson, Serenis Bright-Eyed, Brenn Ever-Changing, Sennaia Word-Seller, etc.
• Nature Spirit: Gods of natural places and processes, such as forests, mountains and the weather, act as embodiments and protectors of their homes, and while they have a profound link with the creatures of their ecosystem, they often have trouble understanding and relating to mortals.
• The Needless: Gods have no physical needs when not incarnated, and their incarnations are usually short-term tools maintained by the god's will rather than by biological processes. Incarnated gods sometimes eat for novelty and pleasure - Argist enjoys tea, and Kendal mentions that Vash likes cake. Kendal has to learn and adjust to his own limits as a mortal - he collapses from exhaustion while travelling because it didn't occur to him that he would ever need rest, and he's apprehensive about sleeping for the first time.
• Our Gods Are Different: They're essentially very large souls that come into being as a result of mortals anthropomorphizing things, places, and natural processes. Their true selves are spread throughout their domains, and the bodies they use to interact with the world, known as 'incarnations', are temporary constructs that hold a small part of the god's essence; it's speculated that in this state they have a much more diffuse mental state, as some gods imply that taking corporeal form helps them to think and perceive things in a clearer manner.
• Painting the Medium: Their speech bubbles and words match their color schemes.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Gods can reshape their incarnations with effort, but the most comfortable way for them to appear is in their 'true form', set by the way others view their domain.
• Stock Gods: Many of these slots have been filled out through Red's answers to questions from Tumblr.
  • While there is no concrete God of Good, there is Hesta, the goddess of compassion, as well as Graiann, the god of justice.
  • As stated above, there's a whole litany of deities that embody various natural phenomena, but Lyssandra is the conceptual goddess of evolution and adaptation, and is stated to have taken over most of Life's old domain.
  • Ishva is an agriculture god in the same way that Kronos/Saturn is, namely that they represent time, decay, and cycles, such as the annual cycle of planting and harvesting crops.
  • Jiya the Crimson is the goddess of war, and was waiting on the surface when the humans and elves emerged from the caves, serving as a grim portent of future suffering.
  • Serenis Bright-Eyed is the deity of love. Their domain includes friendship and familial love as well as romance and carnal desire.
  • Tahraim is the Ultimate Blacksmith, complete with the fire association.
  • There are actually two dream gods, the siblings Emnis and Erebas, the former being the older brother and god of dreams, and the latter being the younger sister and goddess of nightmares.
  • Brenn Ever-Changing is the god of wisdom and learning from one's mistakes, while Sennaia Word-Seller is the goddess of knowledge in the more academic sense.
  • Zinju of the Bitter Waters fits part of the Healer God role, being the god of medicine, but he's also the god of poison and of booze.
  • Haol is the God of Darkness and the unseen. They're not known to be malicious, but they are feared due to the primal and dangerous nature of their domain.

Vash

"Beran, stop. You had me at 'beasts'. So, where should I start?"

The god of the city that shared his name.

---

• 10-Minute Retirement: Inverted. After being largely absent from the ongoing narrative, he returns in chapter 18, using Kendal's body to kick Tynan's ass. However, as he is still bound to the Collector's prison, he can't stay for long and is forced to go back.
• The Ace: The magistrate of Windscrest calls him "notoriously competent," he was the only god on his continent who managed to intimidate Tynan into exile while still a fledgling god, and he was apparently liked and respected by at least some of the other gods and locals. He demonstrates this with a flourish when Kendal summons his back into his body in Chapter 18. He defeats Tynan's more powerful dragon form as well as his storm in one blow, showcasing at the same time his complete mastery over the starmetal, then tricks him and Zuurith into thinking he's still a threat to them despite his imprisonment, and makes sure Kendal's wounds are tended for as he's dragged back into the Collector's prison.
• All-Loving Hero: He welcomed all sorts of outcasts into his city with open arms, from godless exiles to Ferin, something that seems to have carried over to Kendal.
• Armor-Piercing Response: He delivers one to the Collector by pointing out that death is a part of life, that a life's worth is determined by its achievements more than by its length, and that because the Primordials died to create the world, she's just destroying what they themselves tried to create, and if the Collector's hurtful retort, despite having apologized for saying something similar earlier, is anything to go by, it might've struck a nerve.
  Alt Text: she's just mad cuz he interrupted her monologue with an actually good point
• Badass in Distress: His abduction in Chapter 1 is what kickstarts the main plot.
• Beyond the Impossible: In the past, he sought out the blacksmith Tahraim to help him fight Tynan, despite knowing that this task was technically impossible. It simply isn't in his nature to give up, even when faced with an impossible task.
  Tahraim: Vash knew he couldn't fight a storm. No city could... but if Vash had given up just because it was impossible, he wouldn't have been Vash.
• Blood Knight: The Arenamaster describes him as very warlike, and as his joyful expressions while fighting the chimeras or the quote above can attest, he certainly deserves this reputation.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Possibly. Compared to the other gods, it seems he was pretty laid-back and chaotic as a sort-of ruler. To his credit, his people seemed to have faith in him, and he was actually doing a pretty good job of sustaining a thriving city until the Collector showed up.
• Cool Sword: His sword is made out of the elementally unique starmetal, and can literally cut a storm in two.
• Decoy Protagonist: He's the first major character introduced and presented as the hero... until his soul gets sucked out of his body in the first chapter. Turns out the guy inhabiting his body after this is the real protagonist.
• Dragon Rider: Implied. Kendal starts telling the story of how Vash flew over the storm with "he just knew this dragon who-", but he gets interrupted by the explosion of Void Energy. Presumably, being carried underneath would be below a god's dignity.
• The Dreaded: He appears to be the only god Tynan ever feared, and the only one who could force him to leave their continent alone. Unfortunately, Vash isn't around right now...
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Vash was this to most of the surrounding city gods, since he took in exiles from their cities, which is something of a no-no, as most cities agree not to take in the exiles or godless of others. Still, they're all pretty freaked out when the Collector wipes the city off the map.
• Glowing Eyes: Vash's eyes glow consistently, and after his soul is taken they fade to a more human blue.
• God in Human Form: Vash and Kendal's body is described as Vash's "incarnation" which he periodically is called into to help mortals deal with threats.
• The Good King: Not strictly a king, perhaps, but he's treated by his people as a kind of ruler and called "Lord Vash" by some of them. He clearly cares very much for his citizens and tries his best to keep them safe. Then the Collector comes along...
• Good Parents: While he's not Kendal's parent in the traditional sense, he is his creator (unintentional as it may have been), and is overall shown to be a kind person who wants the best for Kendal. After Kendal tries to pull a Heroic Sacrifice, Vash is notably angry and tells his friends to never let Kendal do anything like it again.
• Grin of Audacity: He is seen visibly grinning while taking down the chimeras and later Tynan.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Implied. He's made quite a few friends with his heroics, but his standing with city gods seems to be a little more iffy, especially since he accepted exiles and godless from other cities among his, which is frowned upon. Notably, Kendal, who has all of Vash's memories, doesn't deny anything Zuurith says of Vash's reputation with the other gods, hinting that there's some truth to it.
• He's Back!: Towards the end of chapter 18, Kendal stabs himself with his sword to draw his essence back into his incarnation, eliciting an Oh, Crap! from Tynan.
• Hot God: His epithet "Fairblade" plays on several different meanings of the word "fair", including "attractive".
• The Magnificent: One of his notable epithets is "Fairblade", referencing both his complexion and his moral character.
• Papa Wolf: To his people, and later to Kendal, who he forces out of his psychic dream to avoid having the Collector find out about him. (He might not literally be Kendal's dad, but he's the closest thing to one that he has, and the characters and author liken him to a protective father.)
  Alt Text: kendal: my sort-of-dad is just TOO caring for my well-being! he won't let me sacrifice myself for him!
  the "our parents aren't in the picture for various currently unspecified reasons" squad: #cantrelate
• Psychic Link: He has some kind of connection with the souls of his people; when their city is destroyed, he tells the Collector that he "can feel them screaming". Also seems to have one with Kendal, who can hear his voice and communicate with him in his dreams.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives one to Zuurith for abandoning the care of his city to deal with their petty feud after defeating Tynan for the second time.
• Shirtless Scene: He spends the entirety of his appearance in chapter 18 shirtless on account of it being destroyed in Kendal's fight with Tynan, giving us a very good look at his muscular physique.
• Stepford Smiler: He keeps his brash and confident demeanor, but if his threat to Tynan and Zuurith is any indication, he's way more shaken up by his city's death than he lets on.
• Super-Toughness: His incarnations are incredibly durable, due to having metal woven into their bones, who themselves are super dense. As Tynan's effortless defeat of Zuurith shows, it's a conscious choice on his part.

The Twins

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Creator gods of all living things. Current whereabouts unknown.

---

• Ambiguous Situation: The Twins do not embody a concept like the Primordials, which is why they're considered gods. However, they also cannot have been born from the collective consciousness from the Elder and Younger races, since they created them in the first place, so how they came into being is still a mystery. Paladin Order lore holds that they were created by the Void Dragon and Light Dragon working together, while the Void Dragon himself merely states that he can control them, not that he made them.
• Art Initiates Life: Zig-Zagged, the Twins actually have the mindset of artists when making new creatures.
• The Dividual: They are largely treated as one unit, and are apparently never seen apart from each other.
• Early-Bird Cameo: They first appear only briefly in the prologue.
• The Maker: According to their lore page, they created all life on the planet.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: They are both "mostly" refered to with they/them pronouns.
• Reclusive Artist: The Twins are these in-universe, being extremely difficult to find and not very responsive to questions. However, they have been known to create species proposed to them by mortals if the idea is interesting enough.
• Unwitting Pawn: They were controlled by the Void Dragon and made to create the mortal races for the purpose of freeing it from its imprisonment.
• The Voiceless: Lore implies that they can speak, but they don't say a word during their initial in-comic appearance.

Ilia

"Ha. You do almost sound like him. Vash was less formal, though."

Goddess of the Ilia lake and river valley.

---

• Ear Fins: Appropriate for her watery theme.
• Elemental Hair Colors: Her incarnation's hair is blue, and it flows as if it were underwater.
• Genius Loci: She is the spirit of the Ilia lake and river valley. Her power is very limited when she is away from her domain.
• Ms. Exposition: In her one appearance in the comic, she visits Kendal to deliver an Info Dump about the Collector.
• Nature Spirit: She is the goddess of a lake and river.

Gleicann

"This is my domain, yet you immediately seek to interfere in my affairs. Between gods, this would pose a severe transgression. So you cannot be a god. So I have no cause to stop you."

The god of a forest who has become more menacing in appearance in recent days.

---

• Elemental Hair Colors: His hair is dark green. It became longer and messier as humans became more fearful of his forest.
• Face of a Thug: Looks intimidating when Kendal first meets him, but he's pretty amicable. He notes that he used to have a kinder appearance, but since his forest became dangerous and chimera-infested, his appearance changed accordingly.
• Fauns and Satyrs: His incarnation is a goat-like humanoid. Before humans became fearful of his forest, Gleicann was known for playing beautiful music on his pan-pipes.
• Genius Loci: As the spirit of a forest, his appearance depends on how humans view his forest.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Played with. His appearance is warped as the nearby villagers grow more fearful of the forest, becoming more monstrous and imposing.
• Good Is Not Soft: He's generally courteous, reasonable and has the wellbeing of both his forest and the neighboring humans in mind but when Jolon is subdued by the entity within Alinua, he convinces her that he should be the one to punish the doctor for twisting the creatures of his forest and drags him off to an unknown fate while ignoring his pleas for mercy.
• Green Means Natural: He's a forest god whose soul energy has a green glow, most visible in his eyes.
• Horned Humanoid: His incarnation has goat-like horns that appear to be made of living wood.
• Loophole Abuse: It's a serious offense for gods to meddle in each other's affairs, but Gleicann reasons that since Kendal is not strictly a god, he's not breaking any rules.
• Nature Spirit: He is the god of a particular forest.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Though the affairs of his forest fall under his jurisdiction and he doesn't take kindly to people wreaking havoc, he's fine with Kendal trying to help with the chimera problem, since he's not really a god and therefore not technically breaking any rules.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: His ominous appearance casts a dark shadow around his beady, glowing eyes.
• Tranquil Fury: When he finally catches Jolon, all he says to him before dragging him off is calm statement of how, since he was the one to make him so fearsome, it's only right for him to play that role for him as well.

Crow's Head

The deity of the Crow's Head Plains, the easternmost point of the continent.

---

• Ambiguous Gender: Red refers to this god as "they", in contrast to most other gods seen thus far, who are more clearly masculine or feminine.
• Uncertain Doom: Tynan seemingly destroyed their physical manifestation and brought his storm over their domain, but its unclear how much damage that actually did to them.
• The Worf Effect: After Gleicann showed the status and power that nature spirits can hold, they're shown getting effortlessly trounced by Tynan to establish how big of a threat he is.

Caliban

"Twice-born son of a carrion crawler! You HAD a plan this whole time?!"

The god of the Ignans (fire-influenced humans).

---

• Early-Bird Cameo: They appear front and center in the same panel as Tynan's cameo during Ilia's conversation with Kendal.
• Elemental Hair Colors: They're a deity strongly associated with fire, and they have orange hair to match.
• Ethnic God: They're the patron god of the Ignans, humans influenced by the element of fire.
• Fiery Redhead: In their interactions with Tahraim, they come across as very emotional and easily exasperated, and their hair is often literally fiery.
• Flaming Hair: When they're in particularly fiery mood, their hair turns into a mass of flame.
• God of Fire: They're the patron god of the Ignans, a group of people heavily influenced by elemental fire. As such, Caliban is also associated with the element. They are very emotional and volatile, and their hair has a tendency to burst into flames when they become angry.
• Glowing Eyes: Their eyes glow a solid, pupil-less yellow.
• King Incognito: They incarnate to appear as a regular prison guard so that they can subtly encourage Dainix to be more proactive about his imprisonment.
• Living Mood Ring: When Caliban is feeling particularly angry or irritated, their skin markings glow white and their hair turns into fire.
• Manipulative Bastard: They disguise as a guard of Zuurith's prison in order to rile up Dainix enough for Tahraim to help him get over his guilt, which, while well-intentioned, was still a nasty thing to do.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Uses he/him, she/her, and they/them pronouns, according to the Characters page.
• The Older Immortal: The reason they're an ethnic god and not a city god is that they predate the existence of cities.
• Playing with Fire: As would be expected from the god of the Ignans. Their cloak trails into flames on its bottom, and their hair also tends to go up in flames during moments on intense emotion.
• Seen It All: They're a god, so they've been around for enough time to mostly not be phased by Tess and Falst jumping off the mountain. It still was enough to make them stop for a second.
• Trickster God: Despite their annoyance with Tahraim's tricks, they're a crafty god themself, as evidenced by all the shapeshifter shenanigans they get up to in Zuurith's prison.

Tahraim

"People temper at a more complicated pace than metal. If you want him to do the impossible, we need him to believe he can."

The god of forges, responsible for the creation of Vash's sword. He seems to currently be forging a weapon for Caliban as well.

---

• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: He's not evil, just fundamentally amoral, but he imprisons Tynan in much the same way the Collector imprisoned Vash, a method that none of the heroes would have been willing to enact, especially since just before, Vash simply threatened to hunt him down if he were to cause trouble again.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Tahraim is a nice enough guy, but he is fundamentally amoral. He doesn't seem to view people as people, but rather as projects who can either evolve into something more meaningful and interesting or stagnate and become worthless. For instance, the reason he declined to craft the Collector's god-imprisoning knife is not because her work would at best condemn a god to an And I Must Scream fate, but because if he did the work for her, she might not have been able to grow. By the same way of reasoning, he gave Vash materials that could be made into a weapon that could defeat Tynan while letting him figure out how to use it by himself, since a weapon that was just given would have been inferior by his standards, thus risking the death of Vash's entire city under Tynan's assault.
• Cryptic Conversation: He tends to be very cryptic when he talks, dropping hints and suggestions about what conclusions he wants his conversational partner to come to but never outright saying what he means.
• Deity of Human Origin: Word of Red reveals he's the only mortal^note His brown skintone, his fire powers, his knowledge of Crucibles, his marking on his left cheek similar to Dainix's fire markings, and the fact that Caliban knows him well and, according to Red, when he was still mortal, all imply that he may be an Ignan to have ever ascended to godhood. How he even did it is unknown, and considering his personality, it's unclear whether or not he'll ever come clean.
• Fiery Stoic: He is sedate, if a bit tricksy, and is heavily associated with fire due to being the god of forges as well as having fire powers.
• Forged by the Gods: The main reason anyone comes to him is for this.
• Glowing Eyes: His eyes glow a solid, pupil-less yellow-white.
• Guile Hero: Well, hero is a bit of a stretch, but as the god of forges, one of his domains is creativity, and suitably, he's quite cunning.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He can be utterly insensitive about the dangers people around him face, like when he simply treated Vash's imminent destruction by flooding as mere fire for the forging of Vash's sword or when he put down Zuurith for feeling devastated by the same threat menacing his city, but he's invested in seeing people growing and overcoming their obstacles, and is overall friendly outside of these circumstances.
• Trickster Mentor: He takes the view that a lesson is most valuable is the learner comes to it themselves instead of being simply told what it is. He consequently refuses to simply tell people what they need to learn, instead preferring to push and prod them into coming to their realizations themselves.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: He's the god of forging and smithing, and is famed for his ability to produce fantastical and supernatural weapons.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He capitalizes on the convergence of four world-shaking powers (Kendal, Tynan, and the Life Primordial's and Void Dragon's Vessels, Alinua and Erin) on Dainix's location to help Caliban in getting him out of prison.

Argist

"I so rarely incarnate for leisure or relaxation. You would be doing me the highest favor by simply helping me savor this lovely pot of tea."

The god of a coastal city and major trade port.

---

• The Chains of Commanding: A minor example, but he does mention that he rarely incarnates for relaxation or leisure.
• Condescending Compassion: How Falst sees it. Argist wants what's best for Kendal, but essentially tells him to sit on the sidelines while he gets the gods to handle the Collector.
• Ear Fins: Part of his oceanic theme as the god of a coastal city who has trade relationships with Sekrai and merfolk.
• Royal "We": In his conversation with Kendal, Argist switches between using "I" when speaking for himself on a personal level as an individual and "we" when speaking in his capacity as a city god.
• Sex Shifter: According to Word of Red, Argist uses a masculine human form when incarnating on land and a merfolk form, which doesn't fit into the Elder Races' usual divisions of gender, when incarnating for underwater diplomacy.

Primordials

In General

• Allegorical Character: All Primordials embody a concept. While we do not know yet which concept is personified through the Light Dragon, we know which are associated with the Elementals and the Void Dragon:
  • Stone: Stability/Loyalty
  • Fire: Transmutation
  • Wind: Communication
  • Water: Flexibility
  • Lightning: Connection
  • Life: Adaptation/Survival
  • Void Dragon: Consumption
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Most of the primordials' bodies fell apart after their deaths, but what's left of them heavily implies that their anatomy was very strange.
  • Stone stayed the most intact after dying and thus his anatomy is the most well-documented. He possessed six arms and three hearts; his flesh was made of rock, his blood and nervous system comprised various metals, and his bones were made of crystals. His circulatory system makes up the Singing Caves.
  • What remains of Primordial Fire are "cores" that draw fire energy towards them and compel the energy to burn. These cores are responsible for volcanoes in this world.
• Eldritch Abomination: At their core, each primordial was the personification of a principle, which physically manifested as each of the elements. For example, the principle of stability was embodied in Primordial Stone.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Elemental Primordials gave their lives to imprison the Void Dragon and stop him from consuming all of existence.
• Painting the Medium: Their speech is just written out on the page (and in fancy font) instead of being confined to speech bubbles.
• Posthumous Character: All six of the elemental primordials are long-dead by the time the comic begins, and most of what we know about them either comes from the study of their corpses or the Void Dragon, the Primordial who killed them.

Life

"I NEEDED EYES THAT DID NOT HATE WHAT I HAVE BECOME"

The Primordial being who embodies Life and fused with five others to create the world. First seen after Alinua's magical overload, her goals and desires are unknown.

---

• And I Must Scream: Having been revived by the Collector, she regained consciousness to find that her body had been split up into millions of life forms; trying to do anything had catastrophic results. She had grown to hate what she had become before she managed to successfully make Alinua her vessel.
• Ambiguously Evil: The Collector believes she wishes to be freed, which would destroy the world, but it's unclear if this is actually her desire, or if it is just the Collector's misinterpretation. Falst notes that her behavior manifested through Alinua, especially being angered by the existence of chimeras, supports her not being an Omnicidal Maniac as she'd have no reason to care so much about something she only saw as part of her prison. Her later appearance to Alinua in a dream explains that while she does care about current life, she's also had a hard time adjusting to the new state of being and caused the Chimera Plague by complete accident while trying to simply interact with the world. She needed a vessel so she could experience mortal perspective and learn to deal with being split up. She appears to genuinely care about Alinua's safety and regrets her role in the Chimera Plague's creation.
• Aura Vision: She appears to see the world this way, and by extension so can Alinua after becoming her vessel.
• Back from the Dead: She is one of the six Primordials who died sealing away the Void Dragon. The Collector reawakened her when she discovered her truename.
• Berserk Button: She becomes enraged whenever someone uses her magic to twist living things into unnatural beings. The only reason she didn't do something horrible to Dr. Jolon for his chimera army is because Gleicann persuaded her to let him do the honors.
• The Dreaded: The Void Dragon's reaction to seeing her was to immediately hide inside Erin's body. To further prove this was specifically Life that he feared, he did not react like this when he thought he was going against Fire in the body of Dainix.
• Eldritch Abomination: Before anything else, she embodies the principle of adaptation and survival, which may have enabled her to come back to life after she was killed, unlike the other primordials. Her power is considered the most dangerous of the elements for its unique ability to pass through the soul barrier, allowing for all sorts of Body Horror. That said, she's a more benevolent example than, say, the Void Dragon, as she takes offense to mages using her power to create chimeras.
• Extra Eyes: She has many eyes.
• Glowing Eyes: Her eyes glow bright green.
• Green Means Natural: Green is her signature color and is thereby associated with a field of magic that concerns living things and is widely used for healing and directing plant growth.
• Green Thumb: She has demonstrated great control over plants, forming them into lassos to subdue others.
• Mother Nature: As the embodiment of life energy, her essence is within every living thing on the planet, and she gets really angry with people who mutate creatures with her power.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: She has multiple of every body feature, including arms, and is so far the only Elemental Primordial that is actively feared by the Void Dragon.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Refered to with she/her and they/them pronouns, according to the Characters page.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Her reawakening caused the notoriously deadly Chimeric Plague, but she was simply trying to figure out how her essence was arranged now that she wasn't a single body anymore, essentially causing massive damage whenever she tried to move.
• Painting the Medium: Her words are not contained within speech bubbles, and the font they are written in is shared only with her fellow Primordials the Void and Light Dragons.
• Power Incontinence: The Chimeric Plague is her accidentally inducing this in her chosen vessels by pouring more of her power into them, hence why she refuses to use Alinua as a vessel unless absolutely necessary.
• Power Stereotype Flip: Life magic is usually considered to be a gentle, supportive kind of magic, but in this comic, Life's powers are seen as the most terrifying of the six Elemental Primordials, due to her ability to mutate living beings into horrifying creatures.
• Willfully Weak: She limits her possession of Alinua to the absolute minimum, since every time before, her attempting to possess previous bearers of the Chimeric Plague caused them to overload with magical energy.

Fire

The Primordial being who embodies Fire and fused with five others to create the world. Much of what we know about him is from the Void Dragon's account.

---

• Hot-Blooded: Fittingly for the embodiment of fire, he was reckless, emotional, and had a temper.
• Mistaken Identity: The Void Dragon mistakes Dainix's Crucible form as Fire, leading to wildly underestimate the former.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The Void Dragon compares himself to him when faced with a fully transformed Crucible Dainix, in terms of powers and temperament.
• Playing with Fire: Surprisingly, considering his name.
• Walking Wasteland: He apparently killed everything he touched.

The Paladin Order

The Light Dragon

"Our battle has raged since the birth of your species. There is always time to fight back."

A counterpart to the Void Dragon worshipped by the Paladin order. She is widely believed to not have existed originally, but instead having emerged thanks to the faith of their followers.

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• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: It is thought that the Light Dragon did not exist originally, but as its faith spread, more people believed in and worshipped it, until it became a genuinely real deity. Though recent evidence casts doubt on that theory...
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Inverted. In a world where gods are explicitly real and regularily interact with mortals, the paladins seemingly chose to worship a god who does not exist.
• Good Counterpart: The Light Dragon is, surprise surprise, one to the Void Dragon, dedicated to preserving and nurturing life where the Void dragon wants to destroy it.
• Heroic R Ro D: In the prologue of Arc 2, she admits to Lord Stefan that she has spread thin. Considering she possessed a dragon who flew for more than a week straight and was looking through the eyes of many of her followers to track down Erin and granting the Paladins their powers, not to mention her own Avatar flying towards Erin's position, it's understandable she would feel this way.
• Light Is Good: Her magic is of a bright blue-white, and she's the Big Good of the Paladin Order and seeks to stop the Void Dragon's endless destruction.
• Painting the Medium: Like the Void Dragon, her words are not contained by speech bubbles, and her font is only shared with him and the Life Primordial.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Paladin Order started out as a cult based off of Ancient religion which stated the world was built by two dragons, one Dark (aka the Void Dragon) and one Light. The current scientific consensus is that this is patently untrue, but that the idea gaining followers until they eventually became numerous enough ended up making their god real. Erin finds it very frustrating that a religion based on an incorrect theory created its own proof. However, his research into the memoirs of Huracan, which he claims contains knowledge no one could have faked knowing, more or less disproves this theory.
• Satanic Archetype: Surprisingly, considering her benevolent nature, she's this to the Void Dragon's creator god. She is associated with light and the sky, much like Lucifer Morningstar, whose role in the inception of mortals was to "corrupt" them with sentience, much like Satan who tricked Adam and Eve into eating the Fruit of Knowledge. In addition, she's able to possess people other people, although she limits her full possesion to dragons, whereas she doesn't override the will of her followers and her Avatar when she possesses them.
• Symbiotic Possession: She can use the eyes of her followers without overriding their free will, and her Avatar, the Paladin Champion, fully shares his body with her, as evident by his eyes being similar to Erin when under the influence of the Void Dragon.
• Spanner in the Works: After the Void Dragon finally creates a mortal who can influence the Primordials' lingering energies, they intervened to give them sentience as well as to their entire kind, forcing him to resort to more creative ways of freeing himself.
• Uniformity Exception: The primary reason why scholars dismiss her being an eighth Primordial is that she had no influence in the creation of the world, unlike the Elemental Primordials and the Void Dragon, whose influence has been documented as a potential consumptive seventh element. Turns out, her influence is Hidden in Plain Sight; she gave mortals free will and sentience.
• Wrong Context Magic: In order to use elemental magic, a mortal's soul must have soul channels in order to influence the elements. Void magic, despite using the power of a still living primordial, the Void Dragon, functions the exact same way. However, Light magic does not seem to follow this rule, as the notoriously sturdy Ancients could use it, as well as Falst, a Ferin, and thus part of a species who famously never bore mages.

Paladin Champion

"Poor thing. Your cursed hunger has driven you to such depths. Who were you, I wonder? Before you were lost in the dark? They deserved better than this."

A member of the Paladins who uses his impressive abilities to slay monsters.

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• Angelic Possession: He seems to be the Light Dragon's avatar, as his eyes are very similar to Erin's when under the control of the Void Dragon.
• Claimed by the Supernatural: Even when he is not channeling Light magic, he has completely black sclera as well as reptilian pupils.
• Establishing Character Moment: Effortlessly kills a Cave Crawler and then empathizes with the human it once was.
• Laser Blade: Channels the power of his patron into a blade of light emitted from his hand.
• Mystical White Hair: He has white hair and supernatural powers.
• Power Gives You Wings: He gains glowing wings while powered-up by his patron.
• Power Glows: When powered-up, his eyes emit light like a god's eyes, and he gains glowing wings.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Effortlessly cleaves a charging cave crawler in two with one strike from his weapon.
• Sympathy for the Devil: He laments the fate that befell the person who became the cave crawler he's fighting in his introduction, and shows no pleasure at all when he kills them.

Theia

"Preserving the truth is the sole duty of the Archive."

A young Paladin working at the Archives in Zuurith as the Junior Archivist.

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• Berserk Button: She can handle Erin's disbelief in the precepts of the Paladins, but she draws the line at his suggestion that the Archivists are nothing more than totally accurate while copying their older records.
• Berserker Tears: She's crying tears of rage by the time the people of Zuurith have cleared the slopes of the valley after she realized she was tricked by Erin.
• Deadpan Snarker: Best demonstrated when she bluntly shoots down an overconfident Erin's request to access the entirety of the Paladin Archives despite not being part of that order. Falst finds her hilarious.
  Erin: I am an honorary ambassador for Asera. Surely there must be an exception!
  Theia: Take it up with Zuurith if it matters that much to you. Maybe he'll break the rules if you ask him nicely.
• Dragon with an Agenda: She tags along with Shrike after she voices that she wants to go after Alinua, but Theia's goal is not Alinua, but Erin.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Finding out that Erin lied to her and was in fact the vessel for the Dark Dragon her order have been fighting this whole time leaves her shocked and furious.
• Hard Light: A rare fantasy example. As a Paladin, she can shape and use light like it was tangible matter, as seen when she uses a hand made of light to open a window.
• Hero Antagonist: She decides to go after Erin with the intention of stopping the apocalyptic threat that the Void Dragon poses.
• Important Haircut: She has cut her hair short by the beginning of Arc 2, as she goes on her own quest separate from the order.
• Inspector Javert: She opposes Erin for being the Void Dragon's Avatar, not realising he might not be exactly happy to be possessed by him and is actively working to undermine him.
• Light Is Good: She's a Nice Girl working for an order whose goal is to stop The End of the World as We Know It, and in addition to her Light magic, she's dressed in a pale blue dress. After she resolves to go after Erin, she changes to a more practical outfit with darker earth tones, signifying her change to a Hero Antagonist.
• Magic Librarian: She's the Junior Archivist, and as a Paladin, she can use light magic.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Once Erin acts more respectfully and actually listens to her, she's entirely fine with agreeing to his request under her supervision.

Huracan

"So long as my Lady can guide them, they will never be defenseless."

The founder of the Paladin order and the former High Priestess of the Light Dragon.

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• The Ageless: Since her city was destroyed, she has counted 200,000 sunrises (roughly 526 years in the world of Aurora) by the time she has recounted her history to Umatz, and has not visibly aged at all during that period.
• Benevolent Precursors: While she and the rest of the Ancients feared elves and humans for their affinity with the elemental winds, she came to realize they were not dangerous, and welcomed them in the Paladin order.
• Big Good: She's the founder of the Paladin order, an organisation whose purpose is to prevent the Void Dragon from wreaking destruction.
• Sadly Mythtaken: In-Universe. Huracan, as well as the rest of the Ancient worshippers of the Light Dragon, believes that the Primordial Dragons collaborated together on the creation of mortals. In reality, the creation of mortals was a ploy by the Void Dragon to escape the prison created by the Elemental Primordials, which was thwarted by the Light Dragon giving them sentience and free will.
• Touched by Vorlons: During the destruction of the Second Great City by the Void Dragon, she was exposed to intense elemental energies and rendered ageless.
• Uncertain Doom: Even though the end of her memoirs states that she has trained elves and humans to commune with the Light Dragon in order to continue her cult after their death, the revelation that she became immortal means she might still be alive somewhere.

Other Characters

Vash's Citizens

^{Click here to see their appearance in chapter 19}

The citizens of the city of Vash, who have been harried for weeks by the Collector's chimeras at the beginning of the story.

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• Barred from the Afterlife: They cannot move on until their connection with the mortal world is broken, something that cannot be done now that Vash is stuck in the Collector's prison.
• Cheerful Child: Even in death, Vira remains as optimistic and excitable as they were in life.
• Dead Person Conversation: They return as ghosts to rouse Kendal from his despair following everything that happened in Zuurith.
• Eye Scream: Beran's left eye is covered in bandages, and it's implied to have been caused by the chimeras surrounding Vash.
• First-Episode Twist: Their untimely death at the hand of the Collector in the first chapter is the inciting incident and one of Kendal's core motivations.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: As ghosts, their eyes glow the same shade of blue as Kendal's eyes.
• Jacob Marley Apparel: They are all wearing the same clothes in their posthumous appearance in chapter 19 as they did right before their death in the first chapter.
• Legacy Seeker: A more collective and less self-interested example. Now that they are dead, the only solace they have is Kendal's extensive memory of their culture and way of life.
• Monochrome Apparition: Their ghostly forms are a very heavy dark blue tint.
• Peaceful in Death: Despite their death at the hands of the Collector and their souls being unable to move on, by Chapter 19, they have come to terms with their fate, and are instad hopeful for their legacy to carried by Kendal.
• Supernatural Light: As ghosts, their bodies are covered in blue swirls.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: They appear in a grand total of two pages before being crushed by the Collector along with their city.

Luran

"Maintaining the safety of my town is paramount. I must be sure of your intentions before I allow you through."

The Magistrate of the town of Windscrest.

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• Half-Human Hybrid: Luran is one of the first half-elves we see.
• Hospitality for Heroes: Alinua grows a ginormous life-sustaining tree to help Windscrest rebuild its infrastructure after the Storm of Magic disappears, after which he's more than glad to gift our heroes a couple of goat-horse-things for free.
  Kendal: We need to head into the wastes as soon as possible. Do you have two riding animals we could buy?
  Beat
  Luran: BUY?!
• Reasonable Authority Figure: His primary concern is the safety of Windscrest and all of its citizens. After the perplexing destruction of Vash, he questions Kendal and Alinua on how they were involved, but listens to their accounts and genuinely tries not to make assumptions. After he's convinced of their innocence, he apologizes for getting accusatory.

Tarren

"That nausea is valuable calibration data!"

A magical engineer from the Aseran Academy doing a work study in Argist. They offer Erin a ship to travel to Helm.

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• Actually Pretty Funny: They take Erin's snark in good fun, even appropriating his description of their experimental ship as a "deathtrap".
• Genius Cripple: They're at the forefront of engineering advancement, and they also wear joint stabilizers and use crutches to walk around.
• Keet: They're cheerful and optimistic, especially when it comes to scientific experimentation.
• Mad Scientist: A lighter example than most. They're not unethical, but they are very much willing to take risks for big ideas, to the point of harming themselves for life.
• Magitek: Their specialty. The ship they built is a perfect example: it's built from transmuted argent to keep it light and solid, and it has several lacrimas programmed to manipulate the elements in a specific way to improve the performance of the ship.
• Making a Splash: They're a Water mage.
• Medieval Stasis: Defied. They're the first person to successfully make a ship out of metal, rather than wood, and in general, are working with the purpose of technological advancement.
• Power Incontinence: The reason that they got Sealed is because they were apparently channeling in their sleep, increasing their proneness to Water corruption.
• Power Nullifier: With a workaround built-in. Their sealing tattoo stops them from casting freehand, which is a big deal for someone who needs crutches to walk around, but they can still cast Water magic by touching it with their other hand.
• Science Foils: With Erin. Whereas he's serious, cautious, and works primarily with magical theory and spellcasting, they're relaxed, experimental, and works with lacrimas to make machines.
• Science Wizard: Tarren uses a combination of mechanical engineering and lacrima programming to invent new vehicles.
• Superpower Disability: They're prone to Water corruption and have suffered from it over the years. Water corruption erodes the body over time e.g. causing damage to joints, which is why they need mobility aid. Their ability to cast Water magic unimpeded was slowly worsening it to the point that they had to get Sealed, which wasn’t helped by their Power Incontinence.

Pip

A member of a species of telepathic rodents who lives in the woods near the city of Vash. She appears in a short story written by Red posted on her tumblr.

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• Badass Adorable: Implied, if the sword strapped to her back and her job as a scout are any indication.
• Cartoon Creature: She's obviously some kind of rodent - having gray fur, whiskers, four paws, and a tail, and being able to fit in a paw print - but it's not exactly clear if she's a mouse, rat, or something else in specific.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Despite being very tiny and very, very scared of the Long Shadows, Pip is nonetheless driven to explore and uncover new knowledge. Unfortunately, her attempt to probe the Weeping Shadow's mind for answers assaults her with its fears and misery.
• Hero of Another Story: Pip's story centers around her search for information regarding the intruders in her forest and her encounter with the Weeping Shadow, who are all but explicitly stated to be the Collector's chimeras and Alinua respectively.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Humans and elves, or the Long Shadows as her species calls them, are still quite terrifying to her despite her thirst for knowledge. Pip describes them as having a "love of smooth things" that distinguishes their odd geometric constructions (walls, buildings, and crop fields) from natural formations. Their thoughts are apparently dark and slow, containing knowledge beyond the rodents' comprehension, in contrast to their own bright and clear minds.
• Psychic Block Defense: Pip can close off her mind from others' thoughts, which is noted to be something that most of her species can't do at all. That said, it does take effort to maintain, and particularly powerful mental forces (namely, the Weeping Shadow's grief) can overwhelm it.

Races

Humans

Top row: uninfluenced humans. Second row: fire-, wind- and lightning-influenced humans. Third and fourth rows: stone-influenced humans, including crystal, glass, and metal subgroups. Bottom row: water-influenced humans.

One of the three Elder Races and the most versatile of the three. Humans have proved the most adaptable to elemental influences, and have diversified into a considerable number of sub-races and offshoots.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: Humans are for the most part limited to real-life shades, but elementally-adapted populations can possess skin in multiple striking shades.
• Charm Person: Wind-influenced humans, AKA sirens, have very compelling and persuasive voices. Their speech cannot be misunderstood, which can be abused to make other people reach the conclusions they want them to. They are viewed with some distrust because of these traits.
• Ear Fins: The Sekrai possess these to indicate their aquatic nature.
• Fish People: Water-influenced subspecies, such as the Sekrai, often develop into finned, fishlike ocean dwellers.
• Human Subspecies: There are many, including the Stonekin and Ironhill people, who adapted to various environments and magical conditions.
• Humans Are Special: By virtue of being so adaptable, and consequently producing the most powerful and versatile mages.
• Incapable of Disobeying: Metal-caste humans are born without a sense of agency, called a "Spark", and will do whatever they are told to do. They usually gain their Spark around puberty, though certain factors can prevent them from doing so. They still have feelings and opinions, but there's a disconnect between their thoughts and their actions.
• Our Humans Are Different: Humans are one of the three primary mortal races, alongside elves and the long-vanished Ancients. They're generally defined by adaptability, by being attuned to all six elements, and through that by possessing a degree of stability that the wind- and lightning-aligned elves lack. They're the most widespread species in the world and have adapted to life in multiple environments, although in the process have split into a considerable number of Human Subspecies that can vary significantly from the human baseline, such as the horned Stonekin with rocky plates in their skin, the metal-skinned Ironhill people, and the bioluminescent, ocean-dwelling Sekrai.
• Playing with Fire: Almost all Ignans are innately born with the ability to control fire.
• World of Technicolor Hair: It's common for human variants, especially the crystal-influenced, to sport vividly colored hair in almost any shade of the rainbow.

Elves

Major elf sub-species.

Another Elder Race with tendencies to be more strongly composed of wind and lightning. They generally are either Wind or Storm Elves, with a few smaller minority groups.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: While humans are mostly in realistic colors barring the more elementally-adapted kinds, Elves tend to have colorful skin as a baseline trait, most often in sky-like colors such as blues, purples, and pale greys.
• Demihuman: They look very similar to humans, though admittedly the definition of "human" in this world is pretty flexible...
• Our Elves Are Different: Elves in this world generally live alongside humans and most have no problem befriending or even marrying and having children with them. Though they live somewhat longer than humans, they are a lot less durable and versatile. They're very closely tied to the elements of wind and lightning and are often weather mages, and tend to possess literally "airy" dispositions. Multiple populations exist, including the main divide between wind elves (more tied to wind, taller and with lighter skin) and storm elves (more tied to lightning, shorter, stockier, and with darker skin and smaller ears). Smaller groups include the dark elves, who live underground and have skin mottled with star-like spots, and the extremely isolationist cloud elves who live in a chain of floating islands with little contact with other folk.
• Pointy Ears: All elves have these, although how long or wide they are depends on which sub-species they are.

The Ancients

Drawing of an Ancient next to a human and an elf.

The third and final Elder Race, who lived on the surface while elves and humans were still living in the Singing Caves, but have long since died off.

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• Immunity Attrition: While they were heavily Resistant to Magic, which is what allowed them to build their civilization on the surface while humans and elves were largely confined to the Singing Caves to avoid elemental corruption, it seems that sufficiently powerful magic could overpower this resistance and affect their souls. For instance, the founder of the Paladins saw the destruction of her city and while blinded, she was also rendered seemingly immortal, and Red implies that the Blob Monster the heroes run into in an Ancient facility was an Ancient that succumbed to cave corruption.
• Not So Extinct: They're not completely extinct, since some elves and humans boast traces of Ancient blood.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: They appear to be at least twice the height of the average human.
• Pointy Ears: The prologue and various old drawings show that they had these, though not to the degree of elf ears.
• Precursors: They were the first people to emerge on the surface and built the world's first great civilization. The humans and elves already existed in their days, but were forced to remain underground due to the dangerous elemental winds still blowing in ancient times — the Ancients, being magically inert, weren't threatened by these. They were extremely technically skilled, and without the ability to control magic themselves still created great cities, spread their civilization across three continents, and constructed artificial means of storing magic to power vast automatons. The destroyed themselves in civil war when the humans and elves were only just beginning to emerge from the underworld, and nowadays their legacy only endures through ruins in the desert, wrecked but sometimes still operational hulks of ancient machinery, and traces of their blood among modern human and elven peoples.
• Resistant to Magic: Exaggerated to the point of No-Sell. The Ancients were so magically inert that they faced no danger from elemental corruption, which was much more threatening to even non-mage humans and elves. They also did not experience elemental influence over the generations.

Cloudchildren

The first cloudchild we meet.

One of the Younger Races. A species of small-statured winged humanoids.

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• Little People: They never grow taller than four feet, most likely to accommodate for flying.
• Winged Humanoid: All members have either bird, bat, or bug wings.

Ferin

The descendants of people cursed by a wizard into animalistic forms, the Ferin are widely distrusted in modern society and often live on the fringes of civilization. Three kinds exist — "unstable Ferin", who alternated between humanoid and animal forms largely uncontrollably; "shifter Ferin", who can do so at will; and "hybrid Ferin", who have a single, permanent form that blends humanoid and animal traits.

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• Artificial Animal People: The Ferin were originally created about a thousand years ago by a mage who went around cursing people they didn't like into animalistic forms. No one's sure how they did it or how it was even possible, and research into the curse was forbidden.
• Beast Man: Hybrid Ferin were permanently turned into forms that hybridize human and animal traits, often sporting the eyes, fangs, claws, manes or tails of their associates creatures on otherwise human or elven bodies.
• Blessed with Suck: While the curse they've inherited tends to give them a number of useful abilities, they're also shunned by humans much of the time due to their misguided fear of them, as well as them being incapable of channeling magic.
• Fantastic Racism: Ferin are deeply feared and distrusted in human and elf societies. They're seen as inherent threats to others' safety and to civilization, and often considered to be essentially animals. When they're tolerated, this is often on the basis of their perceived threat level. "Prey Ferin", with the nature of more "docile" animals, can make a life in urban areas, but "predator Ferin" are usually forced out into the wilderness. Acceptance has been growing over time, and in more metropolitan areas, Ferin can live with a minimum of distrust, but it's slow going.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Averted in an interesting way. Ferin can reproduce with humans and elves, but their offspring will always inherit the curse at its full power, effectively making "half-Ferin" nonexistent.
• Herbivores Are Friendly/Predators Are Mean: In-Universe, this is the reasoning behind the increased prejudice towards predator Ferin and the begrudging tolerance of prey Ferin.
• Healing Factor: Ferin heal from injuries remarkably quickly compared to other races, with even damage to their souls closing up fast enough that life magic stops having much of an effect after a few hours.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: The first Ferin to be created were cursed to alternate between human and animal shapes. The very first did so uncontrollably, shifting between forms either randomly or based on their emotional states, while later ones could do so at will. Their humanoid forms typically still sported tells of their true nature, typically in the form of odd eye or hair colors. Later Ferin were instead cursed into permanent, hybrid Beast Man forms, but as ferin breed true the earlier strains still exist alongside them.
• Resistant to Magic: Their souls are notoriously hardy and magic-resistant. That doesn't make the physical component of the magic hurt any less, but elemental energy will have a very hard time getting through at all. This is deconstructed when it's explained that their tightly-woven souls also render them incapable of being mages, which is a major factor in why the civilized world doesn't want the otherwise flourishing Ferin population to become a majority. It's theorized that Ferin souls had to be extremely stable in order to adequately bind together human physiology with incompatible animal mutations.

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