Character sheet for Blue Core. Currently under construction. With the series having ended on January 14, 2022, spoilers may be unmarked.
open/close all folders
Blue and Companions
Blue
Waking up with memories that indicate he Was Once a Man, a dungeon core later going by the name Blue finds himself in a cavern surrounded with crystal shards and a very short hallway leading straight outside, completely unprotected. He burrows into the soil and hides, and not a moment too soon as a couple of level 50 thugs arrive and starts smashing walls, just for laughs. He then has to build up his dungeon ecology with nobody give him pointers and no idea how his skills work, since the descriptions give him little more than a name.
- Berserk Button: He's got two best not pressed if you don't want a horrible death.
- [Anathema], either from Red Cores or Mage-kings (who use red core dungeons). Contact with them has him Blinded by Rage and he won't come back to himself until the offense is dead or gone.
- For the love of whatever you hold sacred, don't mess with Shayma. The very first guy who tried to pick her pockets wound up taking a lava bath and then having a literal ton of ice slam him into a crater.
- Beyond the Impossible: Curing Depletion is supposed to be impossible. He can do it through Deus Sex Machina.
- Crime of Self-Defense: Some of his dungeon traps kill an especially greedy and stupid adventuring party that used a magical device to track down his core, to enslave or destroy him when he was sheltering them from the deprivations of Vok Nal, a particularly nasty mage-king. The father of the party's leader is a particularly myopic and vengeful duke who wanted to drive Blue off or kill him "to get justice for his son" even though he knows Blue is a dungeon, and there's good character evidence that Blue wouldn't have killed off the brat unprovoked, and what's worse, the duke in question was unflinching in this even though he's repeatedly informed by Queen Iniri that Blue can't be driven off and is the only thing keeping them out of Vok Nal's clutches, which include being fed alive to dungeons.
- Deus Sex Machina: He learns, by accident, that his breeding chamber can cure Depletion.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Blue is a sweetheart, a shameless flirt, and very easy going, but he is a [Power]. Going out of your way to provoke him is a dangerous and stupid game. Succeed, and death will be a mercy.
- Genius Loci: “Not that I feel particularly trapped or anything; I’ve got more than enough space. It’s just that there are certain limitations that come with being a landscape.“
- Good Is Dumb: Invoked. He is actually very intelligent and cautious, but his dungeon instincts override his consciousness and either make him stupid or strip away his free agency altogether, forcing him into fugues where he wakes up later only to learn about the damage.
- Guide Dang It!: Ansae theorizes Blue is treading unknown waters since the descriptions of his skills are rarely more than their name for all intents and purposes, and he has no way to know what the heck he's doing, forced to flail around by trial and error.
- Hero Ball: He was born with one. Being a Blue Dungeon forces him to do objectively "good" things even when it would be better to be more pragmatic or ruthless, and when he got the [Merciful] title, he no longer earns experience from killing intruders out to enslave or destroy him, rather he gets rewarded for driving them off and letting them live to come back later, no matter how antagonistic they are.
- Naughty Tentacles: How Blue's breeding chamber works.
- Poor Communication Kills: Invoked. Blue is physically incapable of even trying to communicate with anyone other than Shayma... until Ansae finds a way to eavesdrop. This has caused several major problems, such as most people thinking Blue is controlled by Shayma or is a non-sentient ball of glass, not to mention causing real logistic headaches.
- Reincarnate in Another World: Blue seems to check all the boxes for this trope, though he doesn’t discuss his origins even to himself until we’ll into the second book.
- Sex God: After upgrading his breeding chamber, not only can he control the number, size, and shape of his tentacles, he can even sense what his partners are feeling. The ladies find his breeding chamber addictive and given a choice, keep coming back for more...
- Sickening Sweethearts: He is a shameless flirt and loves to dote on Shayma. Everyone who can pick up on it gets rather envious of her happiness.
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Whenever his name is spoken, it automatically gets his attention, and depending on the seriousness of the conversation, the more attention he gives it, and it's apparently world wide, as a nation several days by sea away is not outside his range, and he had no dungeon presence there at the time.
- Unobtainium: Blue eventually sets up a way to manufacture extremely rare materials, some of which are so rare other people have never heard of them. A few of these are so difficult to make, even for him, that they remain highly limited resources.
- Was Once a Man: Subverted. Blue is actually a fragment of a gestalt intelligence developed by a highly advanced civilization (Kardashev level 2 according to
Word of God) for the purpose of simulating the rise of civilizations for study.
Shayma Ell
A fox-kin introduced fleeing from a gang of four hunters, carrying a strange metal box. She runs into Blue's cave to hide. She darts into the room holding a table, chair, food, a bed, and a breeding chamber, then Blue closes the door, leading the hunters to take a path with booby-traps. On her own initiative, she asks Blue to secure the metal box and then sits on the breeding chamber of her own volition. After some rather intense tentacle play, she keeps coming back for more...
- Back from the Dead: After she's killed in trying to rescue the Ells from House Anell, she wakes up one year and a day later under the Tree of Eschaton, or the tree of Fate, and learns she has a skill that should do that if she dies again, but Blue isn't going to take that kind of risk.
- Beastman: She's human with fox-ears, fur, and a fox tail.
- Blessed with Suck: Her [Seeker] class is impressive in twisting causality and finding the most desirable things, but it locks her out of being able to use magic or martial skills. Evolving to [Trickster] and [Noble Trickster] solves this issue, and she gets to keep her [Seeker] and [Luck] skills!
- The Champion: Since Blue can't fight for himself, aside from the use of traps, she usually has to fight on his behalf, not that she's complaining.
- Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu: She and Ansae are best buddies, despite the fact that the latter is both an ancient dragon and a [Power].
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: It is she, not any of the four tier (level 70-80) characters that defeats Vok Nal, by grabbing the core to his pet dungeon, but it came at the price of severely burning her arms.
- For a much straighter example. She faces off against Tor Kot in Blue's audience chamber, with the guy having two level 70-80 mantis monsters with him, and managed to fight the three of them to a stalemate, with the barest of Blue's aid, since Tor Kot's very presence was weakening our friendly dungeon.
- Common Law Marriage: She and Blue are married in all but name. Several other characters, like her own parents, even go on to lampshade it.
- Mouth of Sauron: Since Blue can only speak with Shayma, she has the unfortunate task of having to speak on his behalf.
- Questionable Consent: Their First Time with Blue is full of problematic circumstances due to her desperation and his muteness. She took refuge in his dungeon to avoid four hunters, he never communicated his intent, because he couldn't, she asked him to secure her metal cube, which he did, and then she lay down on his breeding chamber, unprompted. After she recovered from the experience, he made no attempt at persuading her to stay.
- Reality Warper: As listed in her [Illusion] skill, reality is what she wants it to be. She can either give her illusions mass, or render actual objects illusionary and have them disappear with a touch.
- Top Wife: She's the one who decides what woman is going to enter Blue's breeding chamber, and she's the one he dotes on the most.
- Twisting the Words: Since Blue doesn't know how to carry himself like a [Power], nor does he even bother to try, she reinterprets what he says so it carries the [Power] dignity people expect.
- With This Ring: Blue gifts her the ring [Promise] both as a power-up and to demonstrate to the world their common affection.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: She can use her [Luck] skill to change causality in her favor, but overuse can give her [Bad Luck] which means the universe turns on her.
- Wowing Cthulhu: She impressed Tor Kor twice.
Ansae
An ancient dragon and [Power] Blue finds when searching for supplies early in the story. He accidentally breaks into her hoard and wisely withdraws the moment he sees her dragon form napping. She tracks him back through his dungeon, and he bribes her with a lair. Impressed, she moves in and has been his tenant ever since.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Her "Dragon's Eye" artifact is indeed impressive and overwhelming. But to use it, she has to spend hundreds of thousands of mana and stamina. It's even worse when one considers that, thanks to her high depletion value, it takes centuries of slumber to get those numbers.
- The Dreaded: Even mage-kings, who don't care about anyone else, are terrified of her might.
- Red Baron: She's known as "The Silver Woe."
- That's No Moon: Literally. The world has two moons in the sky. One of them is an artifact she created and controls, known as "The Dragon's Eye." She shows it off when the attacking mage-kings decide to use Core-slaying weapons on Blue
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: With only two points away from full depletion, she bows her head and begs Blue to cure her.
- Were Dragon: She can sport either a huge dragon form in all its glory, or a 3 meter amazon with glorious horns and scales that look like a sleek dress.
Queen Iniri
The queen of Tarnil. She was introduced hiding in the city's sewers from Vok Nal's treachery. She's spent the entire first volume trying to win back her kingdom from the Mage-kings, who invaded without warning or provocation and then began raping and murdering her subjects, in addition to feeding them to their dungeons. Her task was both cruel and thankless, and she can't even enjoy her success as the price was just too damn high.
- Angst Coma: After she fired the [Light of Eschaton], and learns the consequences, she completely shuts down and has to be teleported off the battlefield as a Nivir deep agent takes the opportunity to blast her with an attack spell. It's only once she's inside Blue's dungeon that she breaks down in tears, and even Shayma comforting her doesn't register.
- Lonely at the Top: As Queen, she's surrounded by yes-men, worshippers, schemers, and traitors. The only one who is truly her friend is Shayma.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Her entire war campaign for book one was this. She manages to round up an army that succeeds at taking down mage-king Vok Nal, but the price was steep. The capital city of Meil was critically damaged, her strongest fighters were heavily depleted, one totally, and there were at least 20 civilian casualties. Her victory against Tor Kot was worse. Thanks to the mage-king finding his way to Blue's audience chamber, he wasn't able to lend her his full support when she needed it most, facing an army of over 4000 monsters, traitors, mercenaries, and collaborators, with a certain duke even turning on allies, being butt-hurt that his son went and committed suicide by dungeon. She is left no choice but to use her trump card. She wins the fight using Fate magic, and wrecks the country in the aftermath. She can't even enjoy beating him as he doesn't surrender or offer restitution. He just grabs all his remaining dungeon cores and flees the country on his flying ship, going to a land far outside her reach.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: She lets her closest subordinate and Only Friend Shayma forge a Bargain with Blue to save her capital city from mage-king Vok Nal, and then forges a Bargain herself with him to save her country.
Taleatha
an [Herbalist]] that comes from the farming village Antown and gets Blue's attention after picking one of his christenium flowers. When the farming village decides to stay in Blue's territory permanently, she makes a [Bargain] to be Blue's official wife.
- Alchemy Is Magic: As a result of her herbalist career, she unlocks an [Alchemy] skill which automatically adds mana to her recipes. Without this effect, the recipe will not work as intended.
- Babies Make Everything Better: She winds up pregnant with twins as a result of consummating her marriage vows with Blue.
- Does Not Like Men: The reason she agrees to marry Blue is that she wants kids but doesn't want to marry a man, so she marries a dungeon to get kids and doesn't have to worry about a man in her house.
- Uncertified Expert: Despite not actually being a member of the alchemist's guild, she is so skilled with her alchemy craft that Blue trusts her to deal with his unique dungeon products before she became his wife.
Tarnil
Cheya
Tarnil’s spymaster and one of Iniri’s closest confidants
- Parental Substitute: Iniri’s mother figure growing up.
- The Spymaster: Literally her job.
- Triple Shifter: Being spymaster and rebuilding an entire country’s infrastructure is hard work. At one point Iniri has to order her to take a break.
Under the Dragon's Eye
The adventurer's party lead by Duke Sarthi's only son.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved: The party's leader is the son of Duke Lehrem Sarthi, who, beyond all reason, tried to avenge his death.
- Glory Seeker: As spelled out by Ansae. The fact that they chose to name themselves after her unique artifact means that they just want to be famous wherever they go.
- Too Dumb to Live: Using a magical device to track down Blue's core, while Vok Nal's armies are trying to swarm the place, in order to loot the core and try to sell him to a mage-king that is unlikely to be grateful and would far more likely feed you to his own dungeon for the affront of thinking he's an equal? Yeah...
- Underestimating Badassery: They thought Blue was just an inanimate dungeon. He's sentient. He just stomps them with steam, lava, and a nice water-cutter.
- Ungrateful Bastard: How do they thank Blue for rescuing them and the country of Tarnil from the deprivations of Vok Nal? They use a magical device to track down Blue's core in the attempt to enslave him and either abuse his dungeon powers for themselves, or sell him off to pad their wallets. It's a fatal error.
Duke Lehrem Sarthi
The father of the adventurer who stupidly let his greed lead a party in an ill advised attack on Blue's core. At first, his demands for "justice" were understandable, since few people knew Blue wasn't either a Great dungeon nor a red one, but his single-minded pursuit of vengeance eventually leads him to engage in full-blown treason, right as mage-king Tor Kot was attacking. He still thinks he's in the right after Blue rescued the country from certain annihilation from no less than three hostile vectors.
- Crusading Widower: Deconstructed. With his wife dead for some time, all he had left was his son, who went and provoked a Power, getting killed as a result. Rather than admit the truth, mourn, and move on, he fixates on "getting justice" and backbites Queen Irini at every step because she can't expel or destroy Blue, even if she wanted to and Blue wasn't the country's only defense against the depravity of the mage-kings. He eventually tricks one of his servants into an act of treason in the heat of battle against Tor Kot, leading to a hopeless battle, forcing Queen Iniri to use a Fate attribute weapon, resulting in a horrific Pyrrhic Victory. Even after being convicted of treason for this, he still believes he's in the right and has the gall to be shocked when he's sentenced to death for it.
- Defiant to the End: Even as he's being dragged off from Queen Iniri's audience chamber, convicted of treason and sentenced to death, he struggles and loudly protests that she can't execute him, and she's the traitor for daring to work with Blue, the dungeon power.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Until just before he had his servant sabotage the defending party during the battle with Tor Kot's army, his protests and actions were understandable and defendable, but the instant he engaged in open treason, and was too cowardly to do it himself, instead tricking an underling with lies, he gave Queen Iniri no choice but to declare him a traitor and give him the death penalty.
- Revenge Before Reason: In the lead-up to the fight with Tor Kot, he did everything humanly possible to sabotage the war effort, from having the top alchemist try to bully Taletha into handing over the recipes and materials Blue provided and allowed her to use, at Queen Iniri's order, all the way to having an underling sabotage the battle, because he proclaims that Tor Kot, who openly grabs women and has his pet dungeons rape them, as well as openly grabs dissidents and feeds them to his pet dungeons is less of a threat than Blue, who killed his son and party in clear-cut self-defense and has otherwise done nothing but benefit his country.
- Revenge Myopia: He demands vengeance against Blue for the death of his son, refusing to believe that his son could possibly be the one in the wrong for going after Blue in the first place.
Mage-kings
Common to all
- Achilles' Heel: Take away their dungeons, and they're just as helpless as bog-standard humans. This is hardly easy, however.
- Decadent Court: Most of the mage kings are more concerned with maintaining a luxurious lifestyle than actually doing anything productive about the depletion problem they claim to be dealing with.
- Hated by All: Nobody likes the mage-kings, not even each other. In fact, when a Leviathan pays a visit to the capital of Tarnil after the second mage-king invasion, he is more than happy to write off what originally appears to be an attack coming from Blue when it's explained that it was a stray shot that resulted from fighting back against them.
- Invading Refugees: If Tor Kot's testimony can be believed, they began their invasion and conquest of the continent where Tarnil is, starting with Tarnil itself, because they're fleeing the ever-growing Rift, and they need the space to grow their dungeons, just so they can try to fix the problem.
- Kryptonite Factor: Their corekiller weapons are this too Blue, being able to inflict permanent damage that ignores all of his defenses with no discernible medium to block.
- Smug Super: They tend to have extremely superior attitudes as a result of their core-granted powers that put them well above all but the strongest of adventurers and their depletion auras which make them dangerous just to stand near.
- Underestimating Badassery: None of them really grasp just how powerful Blue and his companions are until they’ve already provoked him well past the point of peaceful negotiation.
Vok Nal
The first of the mage-kings Queen Iniri has to fight and the one who took over the capital of Tarnil, seeking her life.
- Achilles' Heel: His power is entirely dependent on his dungeon. If it's taken down, he's nothing more than a helpless tub of lard, which Queen Iniri exploits by beheading him once Shayma's got her hands on his core.
- Fat Bastard: He is obese and utterly despicable. He sees all the people of Tarnil as nothing more than fodder that should do what he wants, when he wants, even if that involves feeding them to his pet dungeon for power and for laughs.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the other mage-kings like this guy, despite being a valued ally. When Blue manages to listen in to a mage-king council meeting, even his father speaks ill of him.
- Humans Are Insects: Despite being human himself, he sees all the people of Tarnil as nothing more than "fodder" to do with as he wishes, raping, killing, or feeding to his pet dungeon.
- Off with His Head!: How he dies.
- Powerful, but Incompetent: Despite his immense power and overwhelming tactical advantage, he still lost, because he's so stupid and lazy that he doesn't know how to fight worth a damn. Even then, the victory was costly.
- Starter Villain: The first villain Blue and co actually have to fight. The rest were all killed by their own stupidity.
Tor Kot
The second of the mage-kings introduced and the one leading the original invasion of Tarnil.
- Affably Evil: Friendly, jovial, and polite, even as he's clamping down on Blue's portal, and doing his best to Depletion kill Shayma's allies, holding Shayma herself immobile by grabbing her shoulder with a gentle tug.
- Entertainingly Wrong: For a considerable time, he thought Blue was some unnamed [Controller] like himself that had taken possession of his experimental dungeon, and in his final confrontation with Shayma, thought that Blue was some hidden third party. He never realized Blue was the very dungeon he wanted to claim.
- Evil Virtues: Honor. He treated the people of Tarnil as little more than renewable resources, but, for what it's worth, he fights fairly, was willing to negotiate, and sent Queen Iniri a letter warning her that the four cities he ruled were going to fall apart with his departure, rather than simply running away and letting them collapse without doing anything.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: It takes a few weeks after Tor Kot's departure for the effects to become evident, but this mage-king kept the people docile by using brainwashing drugs in their food, artificially keeping them content. When this food ran out, there were riots and attempted mass-suicides. Fortunately, Blue managed to gain the help of the Scalemind people to treat the underlying mental illness.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: It was his own experiment, putting Blue's core in a mana-poor environment, that led to the rise of Blue, his people's greatest enemy.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: When he saw Queen Iniri use Fate magic to fight off his army, he called off his invasion, in its entirety and fled the country, sending the queen a note to that effect.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: He knows his actions are evil, but genuinely believes he has no other viable option, and is actually open to dialogue and negotiation when he sees another viable option possible. The rest of the mage-kings to date are all far worse as they openly refuse to admit they're wrong, drown in their own power and ego, and openly try to eliminate any possible competition, even if their competition actually has the answer to their centuries' old problem of dealing with the blight-spewing rift that threatens their planet.
- Moral Myopia: Which Shayma calls him out on, and he recognizes as he flinches under the accusation. He heralded an armed invasion, murdering, raping, and feeding people to dungeons, by the millions, turns four cities into clock-work dystopias, and treated the people of Tarnil like fodder, and let his subordinates, like Vok Nal, do the same. Yet, when Shayma refuses to hand over Blue's cores, the first being an experiment he intentionally left unattended in the wilderness, and the latter that was captured at horrific cost from Vok Nal, he accuses Shayma of behaving like a common bandit, just grabbing whatever she can get her hands on.
- Never My Fault: He brushes off all of his nastiness, and the nastiness of his fellow mage-kings as "unfortunate and unavoidable acts."
- Nothing Personal: As he's trying to negotiate the return of the dungeon cores that are now Blue to his control, he defends his horrific acts by stating he personally had no malice towards the people of Tarnil. Shayma is unmoved.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: Justified and subverted. Shayma repeatedly demands he leave Blue's audience chamber, but he refuses, citing all the costs involved in mobilizing his army of sapient monsters, and stating he won't go away empty-handed, then he sees the [Light of Eschedon] in action, and flees in terror, sending a letter to Iniri some time later with an empty apology and his intent to completely vacate the country, letting his four captured cities rot.
- Villain Has a Point: His final assertion to try and get Blue's cores returned to his control that dungeons are inherently very, very dangerous, even when properly controlled, is true. He just happens to be unaware that the Power Blue is the very dungeon he's trying to claim, and is only dangerous when provoked.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: If what he's saying is true, he did all his nastiness to try and find a way to deal with The Rift and stop The End of the World as We Know It.
- Wowing Cthulhu: A strange case where one Cthulhu is fascinated by another. When in Blue's audience chamber, he was awestruck by Blue's mana dynamos, even when he didn't fully understand how they work. Blue was genuinely flattered by it.
Vok Lim
Vok Nal's father.
- The Brute: He has piss-poor understanding of the words restraint, subtlety, or finesse. He prefers to just mob his enemies with numbers, pure strength, or pounding away at them until either he or they break.
- The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: He and his family have long ago forgotten that the reason mage-kings wield dungeon magic is that they need to find a way to defeat the rift and stop the world from being swallowed by Depletion. All he cares about is power and control and he will do any nasty thing he has to in order to maintain it. He teaches his family to think the same, and woe to anyone who defeats a Vok in battle.
- Lack of Empathy: He sees all people, even other mage-kings, as nothing but fodder. He even doesn't care about his son, at all. He only seeks to avenge his son's death because the Voks would look weak if he lets some "rogue controller" go unpunished.
- Like Father, Like Son: His son's almost the spitting image of him, both flaunting that all non-mage-kings, are "fodder" especially relative to the Vok clan, is just as obese as his son was, and while his son favored goblins, he favors ogres.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: He literally laughs off Tor Kot's warnings that Blue is far, far more dangerous than he appears, the locals of Tarnil have a Fate attribute weapon, which itself is nothing to laugh at, and that whoever is controlling the cores he lost is far, far more adept than himself, doing things with dungeons nobody's even dreamed off, and that the fact no monsters were spotted, at all, is very suspicious, thinking that Tor Kot's nothing but a weak coward.
Yit Niv
One of Tor Kot's allies.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Part of the mage-king invasion of the continent of Einteril… right up until Shayma arrives telling them to get out or suffer the wrath of Blue. She promptly leaves without a hint of resistance, complaint, or hesitation.
- The Smurfette Principle: One of the exceedingly rare female mage-kings.
Nivir
Chancellor Keel
Queen Iniri's chancellor, serving the royal family for generations.
- Deep Cover Agent: He's been serving the Tarnil family so faithfully, even Cenya, the spymaster was fooled into thinking he's a loyal Tarnil. It's only when he turns on Queen Iniri in the aftermath of the battle with Tor Kot's army that his loyalty to Nivir is discovered, and even then, he would have taken the secret to his grave if Blue hadn't noticed that his teeth were magically altered.
- Playing with Fire: The only magic he used on-screen is a powerful fire-ball.
- Walking Spoiler: The fact that he's Nivir's mole could easily spoil the ending twist of book 1.
King Virn Esox
The king of Nivir.
- Enemy Mine: He works together with Blue, Shayma, Keri, and Annit to deal with House Anell, upon Blue receiving a vision that the Anells were planning to assassinate the entire royal house. Earlier, Nivir had launched an armed invasion into Tarnil immediately after Queen Iniri had used the Adamant Fortress to defeat Tor Kot at incredible cost and Tarnil was vulnerable.
- Revenge Myopia: Discussed. He tells Shayma that there are factions in his country that are opposed to normalizing relations with Tarnil as a result of the humiliation of being repulsed with ease by Blue's Lost Forest strategy. Blue points out that he could have killed the invading armies with ease, but Shayma doesn't pass that particular message on.
Haerlish
Milly Aops
Known as The Hurricane, she is one of the three fourth-tier adventurers who sign on to fight Vok Nal. She is more than a little unhinged.
- Blood Knight: The only thing she likes more than self-destructive sexual escapades is laying waste to armies and the landscape.
- Casual Kink: Exaggerated. The only part of Safe, Sane, and Consensual she can understand is "Consensual." Her tastes in sex are completely self-destructive to the point she almost dies before Blue can get her sexually satisfied, and his dungeon instincts forced him to comply with that desire. (Shudder).
- The Cavalry: When four mage-kings launch an attack on Tarnil from flying islands with cores specialized for combat, and park a mile up, out of Blue's counter-attack range (after getting their clocks cleaned trying for their normal "go in close and admire their terrorized faces" tactics), she shows up with a literal hurricane and starts slamming all four fortresses around, and with her new immunity to depletion, they could do nothing to deal with her.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Blue maximizes her chances of survival against Vok Nal by gifting her a Storm attribute Primal Source and after the fight, Shayma talks him into curing her Depletion so she can be Shayma's escort when stealing the final piece of [The Adamant Fortress] from the city of Deunn, one of Tor Kot's dungeon controlled cities. She not only welches on her end of the bargain, fleeing from Blue while he is shocked at her antics, but runs to her home country and rounds up an army to try and storm Blue for loot.
- Large Ham: As she's fighting the mage-king fortresses, she happily sings the local equivalent of Ride of the Valkyries, and even starts making up lyrics.
- The Magnificent: She refuses to go by her given name Milly. She insists people call her The Hurricane.
- One-Woman Army: She's well-known as "army killer."
- Ordered Apology: When Blue is finally able to catch up with her, by bringing her home country to task for going along with her inane scheme to steal from a [Power] to whom she already owes a debt, Shayma orders her to apologize for daring to welch on her end of a deal with a [Power]. She apologizes but still glares. Shayma did specify the apology didn't have to be sincere because she knew this Ungrateful Bitch would think that was an unreasonable demand.
- Shock and Awe: As a result of using Storm Attribute magic, she primarily attacks with lightning.
- Wrong Assumption: Per Word of God in the Q&A chapter between book one and book two, she responds to the question "What Were You Thinking?, betraying a Power?" with "Pfft. That Shayma girl? She's an illusionist, what's she going to do, scare me to death?" presuming the deal was with Shamya, a harmless dungeon owner, refusing to realize Blue, the dungeon, is the one in control, until Blue catches up with her and has Shayma slam her to the ground with the pressure of his presence alone.
- When she's done with her part of rescuing Tarnil from the mage-kings a second time, she presumes she's going to get more of that lovely dungeon sex! Sadly for her, Blue and Shayma learned their lesson, and there won't be a repeat performance, but she does get rewarded handsomely, relations are repaired with her home country, and her two nephews are given Water Primal Sources so the Lineage Skill will be unlocked and succession can happen safely and peacefully.
Haurs Aops
The king and Milly's younger brother.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Downplayed. Milly never told him she welched on an agreement with Blue, the dungeon, but she did tell him everything else, especially the part about being cured of Depletion and that glorious dungeon sex. In fact, she never shut up about it.
- Never My Fault: He repeatedly tries to deny or downplay responsibility for his elder sister's antics and giving her permission to storm Blue for loot. Shayma (or Blue through Shayma) calls him out on it.
- Succession Crisis: The reason he let Milly go after Blue for loot is because he's got two sons bickering over inheriting the throne and neither has manifested the Lineage skill yet. If this isn't resolved soon, it would be a civil war, at best.
- Wrong Assumption: He presumed the dungeon in Tarnil was found and ruled by Queen Iniri and thus, by international law, Milly was right in demanding a share of the dungeon's treasures, or if she's denied, taking them by force. He learns, too late, when Shayma's got him over a barrel, that Tarnil is the dungeon's protectorate, and was a fellow ally, not a subordinate, of Queen Iniri.
Ir
Prince Andis
The crown prince.
- "Ass" in Ambassador: Subverted. His first appearance and he comes across as little more than a boorish dandy, but he proves himself a gentleman by putting himself in harm's way to try and stop an assassination attempt against Queen Iniri. He's swat aside with ease, but the attempt was genuine.
- The Dandy: He has a messenger sent to Tarnil with official letters, to be read aloud, under the pretext of normalizing relations, which is suspicious as Ir did nothing to help deal with the mage-kings. It takes a while, but Queen Iniri realizes it's a letter designed to try and court her. Then when he shows up in person, uses his Light affinity to make himself look more dashing. It doesn't work.
- Poor Communication Kills: Almost literally. He spotted the Anell's pet assassin before Queen Iniri did, but failed to enlighten her. Though he does try to intervene and protect her, she's unimpressed because he withheld vital information.
- Spotting the Thread: While he was in attendance, he spotted the Anell assassin Torn Nell through the window. The fact that Queen Inirir noticed him noticing ultimately saved her life, as she was able to react to his void affinity attack.
Emperor Wright
The monarch of the Ir empire.
- The Good King: He rules his country fairly, is beloved by his family and subjects, and is very reasonable when dealing with international politics.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: His marriage is purely a political affair, but he still strives to make and keep his wife happy. So when he sees Blue offer a Volcano Affinity Primal Source, he jumps at the chance to buy it, as his wife is a Volcano mage.
- Precognition: Whenever he's troubled, he goes to the smithy and just lets his muse guide him, taking the end result as a kind of divination. Case in point, when the four mage-kings are invading Tarnil, he crafts a sun-dial and takes that as a sign to stand back and wait for the outcome of the fight.
- Realpolitik: He is a good and morally upright man, but his nation's interests come first.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Because he's a fifth tier smith, there's precious little he can't build once he's got his hands on the materials. In fact, just getting his hands on some dungeon-supermaterials, as a paid-in-advance reward for giving Shayma a lesson, he crafts a powerful near-artifact that he gets to keep.
- Wowing Cthulhu: He impresses Blue with his blacksmith skills, being just shy of what Blue can do, and Blue is only better because of his inherent dungeon bonuses.
Wildwood Retreat
Monat
The guild-leader of the Wildwood Retreat adventurer city.
- Famed In-Story: In the world of the story, his name is well-known and carries a lot of weight, even outside of Tarnil.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: If you're an adventurer who does their job well, he's got your back 100%.
- Reluctant Ruler: He really doesn't want to be in charge, and would like to retire. So when Queen Iniri and Blue reclaim the place, he's quietly happy to step down.
Sienne and Giorn
Shayma's parents.
- Cast From Hitpoints: Sienne's Void affinity leaves her hands skinned and bleeding every time she uses it, until Blue fixes that with a magical rapier he has Shayma craft for him.
- Fast Ball Special: By mutual consent, Giorn frequently throws Sienne at their enemies.
- Good Parents: They adore their daughter Shayma and spent every night worried sick when they were separated from her by the mage-king's first invasion of Tarnil.
- Happily Married: The two of them have been married for decades and are clearly ecstatic to be together.
- I Want Grandkids: Sienne really wants Blue and Shayma to crank out kids like they're going out of style, and it's their input that prompts Blue to make his union Shayma official.
- Loveable Sex Maniac: Sienne's void affinity makes her unable to be satiated by sex, but that's okay, Giorn is just as hungry for it as she is... which makes people wonder why Shyama's an only child.
- Missed Him by That Much: Not only were they separated from Shayma for years because they just happened to be away from Shayma a day or two before the mage-king's invasion, but they and Shayma repeatedly missed each other in Wildwood Retreat, and when Shayma called in a favor from Ansae to deliver a message to return to the city of Meil to meet her, she winds up having to go to Deun to steal the last piece of the Adamant Fortress from one of Tor Kot's lackeys, just days before they arrive!
- Runaway Princess: Sienne is one of the top members of the Ell family and has spent her time in Tarnil in hiding from the Anell house.
Piping Hot Pies
An adventuring band that takes a liking to Shayma, and her friends Annit and Keri.
- The Exile: Their Orrelin member, Tissana, was exiled from her extremely xenophobic country. Under normal circumstances, this isn't an issue, but when they were catering the Orn continental summit, an overly self-righteous Inquisitor decided he was going to cause trouble by abusing his authority. None of the other delegates were pleased and Queen Iniri had Blue boot him out with a nice teleport.
- Famed In-Story: They are a well-known and talented adventuring party, loved by all, save the isolationist country of Orrelin.
- Meaningful Name: Their party is called "Piping Hot Pies" and they're well known pastry chefs, especially pies.
- Serious Business: They prioritize cooking tasty food over adventuring. They only go hunting monsters for ingredients and money to buy ingredients to cook with.
- Supreme Chef: They love to cook and are well-known to be skilled in their craft. They are good enough that Blue commissions them to cater a diplomatic summit using his dungeon-grown plants as ingredients.
Annit and Keri
A pair of female adventurers that are romantically tied to each other.
- Brought Down to Normal: Annit was hit with a huge amount of Depletion as the party was fleeing Tor Kot at the outskirts of Deun.
- Love at First Sight: Annit and Keri fell in love with each other when they met on a barge while Keri was fleeing the Kingdom of Nivir.
- Healing Hands: Keri specializes in healing magic, which is made even stronger with Blue's gift of a Healing Primal Source.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Annit is the masculine to Keri's feminine.
- Removed Achilles' Heel: Downplayed. Annit and Keri are provided Soul Prosthesis by Blue to prevent further Depletion, and these artifacts can't be lost or stolen, but since they are inherently opposed to using Blue's Deus Sex Machina to cure the Depletion they already have, can't restore what was already lost.
- Runaway Princess: Combined with Runaway Bride. Keri Esox fled Nivir to avoid an unwanted arranged marriage.
Yamil
One of the three fourth-tier adventurers aiding the fight against Vok Nal.
- Back from the Dead: Downplayed. He doesn't die, but was fully depleted, trapped in a coma for months. Blue and Shayma manage to bring him back but at a price that would be nigh impossible for anyone else to afford. They had to use two Kinetic Primal Source and lock down his soul with a Soul Prosthesis artifact. Even then, he's knocked back down to level 1 and all his nifty skills are gone forever.
- Brought Down to Normal: When he's back among the living, he's at level 1 and greatly atrophied due to being in a coma for months, kept alive by healing magic.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He was fully [Depleted] in the fight with Vok Nal.
House Anell
Common to all
- Asshole Victim: Nobody mourns them when Blue nukes them with a [Star Lance] in a fit of rage at seeing Shayma struck down by Taeli Ell while she was shielding a child who was fleeing a prison camp.
- Assumed Win: Less than a week after they send an assassin, Torn Ell, to kill Queen Iniri, a ship sporting their flag sails boldly into Tarnil coastal waters to engage in trade and their assigned political officer Ornell had secret orders to collect Torn Ell and Sienne Ell. The entire crew is shocked to see an enraged Queen Iniri, with Blue confiscating their ship and trade goods, flour and other foodstuffs, and after the mage-king attack is dealt with, they are sent back home with notice that the ports are closed to House Arnell, and Ornell is given the task of delivering Torn Ell's severed head, as is customary in this kind of situation.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Their credo. They delude themselves into thinking they're good and morally upright people by forcing Void users into addiction to drugs and other bad things, see Sienne Ell as a rogue that needs to be captured or killed for daring to get married and have a happy family, in addition to being decent and law-abiding, and see all the countries of the Orn continent as despicable beyond measure for daring to object to having Anell house assassins going after their royal families.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: They run a merchant house wealthy enough to bribe Leviathan to let them pass and engage in intercontinental trade, and they see nothing wrong with employing assassins to secure their interests, as Queen Iniri learns first hand when one of their assassins comes at her, presumably as a result of rewarding Shayma's parents for their heroism in the fight with mage-king Tor Kot with the title Crown Marshall.
- Faux Affably Evil: When Shayma shows up and demands the release of the Ell family hostages, they talk and act in overly polite ways but it's all an act so thin a sheet of paper looks downright solid by comparison.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: One of their leaders uses a kisaru and they're clearly evil. Liana Ell, one of their hostages, also uses a kisaru, and she's unflinchingly a good person.
- Moral Myopia: They respond to Queen Iniri fighting off their assassin and declaring their trade-ships as persona non grata by accusing her of being needlessly high-handed and launching an embargo not only against Tarnil, but every country that would trade with Tarnil, and then have the gall to launch sabotage operations on the continental summit to recognize Blue as a Power, openly proclaiming to one and all that they have done no wrong. In fact, they plot and scheme to send assassins at Queen Iniri again and all the other nations of the Orn continent for daring to wrong them by breaking off trade relations with someone who sends assassins at royalty in the first place.
- Resignations Not Accepted: As Seinne Ells, Shayma's mother, testifies, they insist on having a monopoly of [Void] magic users, and Seinne has a legacy skill giving her talent in [Void] magic. They enforce this policy by hunting down any void users they find and killing everyone in their way, sending the message that they will destroy everyone and everything the void user cares for and that there's no place to run or hide. This inevitably has them send an assassin at Queen Iniri who made them her Crown Marshall and Shayma which alienates Blue, serving as the country Tarnil. When they succeed at killing Shayma, Blue retaliates and shows them that there's nowhere they can run or hide by hitting them with a miniature star.
- Stupid Evil: Despite knowing Blue is a power and that his envoy has ordered them to surrender their captives, not to mention Blue's flying fortress is staring them in the face, they use their Covert Distress Code to get Shayma past the guard entrance, guaranteeing that Taeli Ell and Shayma fight, to the death, because Taeli is just that deluded. They have the gall to be shocked when Blue retaliates.
- The Syndicate: They are not only a trade cartel, but they force Void users into indentured servitude by taking hostages or forcing them into addiction, to drugs or other unhealthy things.
Torn Ell
The assassin who tried to kill Queen Iniri with void magic.
- Assassin Outclassin': On the wrong end. Because he missed his initial attack, Queen Iniri was able to lead him through a merry chase of her castle until she pinned him with light magic and killed him.
- Did Not Think This Through: He launches his assassination attempt on Queen Iniri while she's attending to visitors, in broad daylight with many, many witnesses, and even maims Prince Andis of Ir in the attempt. Ir just happens to be a valuable trading partner of the Anell house. How, just how, was he expecting things to go well?
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Less than half, actually, after what Iniri does in response to his assasination attempt leaves him in an unspecified number of pieces.
Guiles Ell
The assassin tasked with eliminating the entire Nivir royal family.
- Addled Addict: He is so horribly addicted to Heartroot that he can only think of where he'll get his next hit and will murder his way through anybody and everybody he can to get it. Even the scalemind and Keri working together can't fix his badly abused body in one go, and it takes the entire scalemind community working together to try and piece his mind back together, with him sedated all the while.
- Cast From Hitpoints: He sacrifices his fingers to hurl around Void affinity shuriken.
Taeli Ell
The guard watching over the Ell child hostages who don't have Void affinity.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Holding helpless children and their mothers captive so that their fathers and relatives who are Void users can be used and abused as tools by the Anell family is "how good families are supposed to act" freeing them is the act of "an ungrateful child" who has to be punished for turning her back on the family and is "an outsider telling us how act!" Letting the hostages leave of their own volition is kidnapping them in his mind.
- Covert Distress Code: The Anell heads informed him that anyone coming to the hostage hideout uttering the phrase "I'm a friend of Taeli" is someone who took the information from Rusi Anell under duress, and he should treat them as an enemy.
- Evil Virtues: Loyalty. He's stubbornly loyal to the Anell House, when they clearly don't deserve it, and don't care about him in the slightest, openly saying they wouldn't mind if Shayma killed him, as long as he buys them time to escape and regroup elsewhere.
- I Reject Your Reality: Even after he uses his [Void] affinity to dispel any magical skill or ability in the area which could compel the children he was holding hostage and still sees them flee through portals, he refuses to believe they're leaving of their own free will and accuses Shayma of kidnapping them.
- Principles Zealot: Familial bonds and filial piety trumps everything in his mind, even if the family in question is being clearly abused and led by a heinous criminal enterprise.
- The Quisling: There is at least one in every abusive situation, an abuse enabler. This guy angrily proclaimed that the Ells used and abused by the Anell house owe a debt of gratitude to the Anells and should be glad to serve, even though he knows that Void users are intentionally drugged into addicts and used as spies, assassins, and other nasty tasks, and there's no mind-control in effect on him.
- The Victim Must Be Confused: He is so self-righteously wrapped up in Anell House propaganda, and his own Principles Zealot belief that filial piety is a deity that must be worshipped, no matter what, that the only reasoning which makes any sense to him is that Shayma must have used some kind of mind-control skill to compel all the hostages to leave his compound, when it finally dawns on him that they're fleeing through portals. He tries disrupting this non-existent skill with his Void Affinity, and when that fails, goes absolutely murder-crazy, trying to kill the nearest helpless child for "being an ungrateful brat."
- Would Hurt a Child: Combined with Sore Loser. When the last of the captive Ell children elects to escape rather than stay at his command, he tries to murder the kid for it, and only Shayma pulling a Heroic Sacrifice stops it.
Leviathan:
Uilei-nktik
Normally, we take attacks on our people very seriously, but I am satisfied with your explanation, and it helps that you can shift the blame to those despicable mage-kings.
The Leviathan ambassador who heads to Tarnil to lodge a complaint because of collateral damage in the fight with the four mage kings led by Vok Lim.- Ambadassador: A Leviathan over a 100 meters long and the ambassador sent to normalize relations with Tarnil.
- Ascended Fanboy: Subverted. At first glance, they seem to be a fan of Ansae, The Silver Woe, but they actually had legit business with her, regarding her holdings going on 500 years that the Leviathan were watching over.
- The Cavalry: When a particularly rude Inquisitor from Orrelin decided to try and make trouble, singling out a member of Piping Hot Pies, for daring to breathe the same air he does, this Leviathan led the charge in calling to oaf to task.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: When a stray blast from Blue damaged their settlement, this Leviathan came to investigate Tarnil, and rather than retaliate, heard Blue and Queen Iniri out. This is rewarded with, in their own words, a princely gift of several Primal Sources, and an engraved invite to a continental summit to deal with many matters, such as the malice of the Anell house and having Blue officially recognized as a polity so people stop trying to raid him for loot.
Kinul:
Underneath:
Scalemind as a whole
- Become a Real Boy: When they come to Blue, they ask for two things, refuge from Blight beasts, and to become "people" as opposed to "monsters." Blue struggles to find an answer for the latter.
- Meaningful Name: They choose names based on inherent traits, and see humans choosing names for aesthetics as strange.
- Mind Rape: By accident. The reason they call humans and other surface people "gossamers" is that their telepathy is too powerful and could wreck human minds, even if every possible precaution is taken.
- Telepathy: They can communicate by thought, and prefer to do so, because many of them have anatomic irregularities that make "mouth words" difficult.
One Eye Green
Soft thing is so cute!
The scalemind who is most often seen among mixed company.- Ambadassador: After the 1 year timeskip because of the Port Anell incident, she returns to the story as a level 45 [Scalemind Ambassador], and she's already demonstrated that she has no problem being part of Shayma, Atti, and Keri's adventuring party, holding her own weight just fine.
- Cuddle Bug: She loves to go around hugging people, especially Shayma.
- Cuteness Proximity: She dotes on and goes gaga around Shayma all the time. Blue has a hard time disagreeing.
Chihuxantil:
Orrelin:
As a whole
- Absolute Xenophobe: They absolutely want nothing to do with any other country on the planet, and don't want to let their people leave either. When one of their Inquisitors sees Tassani of Piping Hot Pies, he cries out "TRAITOR" and then flashes his Inquisitor badge to try and boss her around. Naturally, since he did this on Tarnil land and refused to apologize for overstepping his authority, he gets the boot from the Orn continental conference.
- Cant Live With Them Cant Kill Them
- Civil War: After Shayma and Blue come in and solves a national crisis that the country’s leadership tried to deny was even a problem, the country erupts into one of these.
- Complaining Abour Rescues They Dont Like: Despite Tarnil taking in refugees fleeing their civil war, most of those refugees do little beyond complain about it.
- Dystopia: The country is so xenophobic that even though they live on a giant plateau, with cliffs that are impossible to scale by normal means, they still surround their country with fifty meter tall walls of stone and have concentric rings of the same, open only for roads and rivers. The entire country is basically one giant prison as Blue sees from above as he's giving his fortress a test-flight en route to Port Anell to deal with the crime syndicate that's been harassing him and his allies for the better part of two books.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: The government actively hides an existential crisis to the nation from its own officials.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The first, second, and third thing anyone with authority does when Shayma arrives with Blue’s fortress to answer their call for help (to a national crisis, no less) is to give her the runaround rather than anything productive. It should be noted that Shayma had to ditch each of them and go looking for someone potentially helpful herself before finally deciding to just go straight to the problem.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Their isolationist nature makes them extremely unpleasant to work with, and Blue would very much love to leave them to their own devices to deal with the Blight menace themselves, but the position of their country means that the Blighted monsters would not stop at the border and instead swarm the rest of the continent unopposed if Orrelin was left alone, so Blue is forced to tolerate coming to their aid, as ungrateful as they are and considering the fact that they are the one nation that utterly refuses to recognize Blue as a polity, even though he's clearly demonstrated he's a Power and can end them with ease if he so desired.
