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The Feds
In General
- Big Brother Is Watching: Through Edward, they maintain a watch on the main characters. Something Edward does to protect them from more invasive watching.
- Critical Staffing Shortage: They have a severe lack of agents, something Arthur is trying to fix. They are so hard-pressed that they are willing to deputize a criminal (Abraham) when they go after Magus.
- The Men in Black: They're the ones responsible for dealing with magic-related and alien-related incidents, as well as making sure as little people know about magic and aliens as possible.
- Oddly Small Organization: They are the US government agency responsible for regulating magic users and keeping everything a secret. The organization is so small that they are hit hard by the resignation of a single agent. When it comes down to keeping track of a potentially dangerous Wild Card, Magus, they are so hard pressed for agents that they resort to using a wizard who just left the teaching profession, a wizard Boxed Crook, a novice, and only one official agent.
Mr. Verres
Agent Edward Verres
Tedd's father and a significant figure in the paranormal community. He works for a government organization tasked with dealing with the supernatural and extraterrestrial and does a pretty good job at it. He acts as a mentor figure to the kids and trusts them to keep a tight lid on the fantastic stuff that goes on. Has been known to spout expository dialog ad nauseum.
- Badass Bookworm: How? He apparently stops a horde of aliens from invading and rampaging...through the power of exposition.
- Badass Longcoat: Whenever circumstances require him to take the field.
- Bad Liar: As Elliot notes at one point early on, despite it being his job to cover stuff up, he doesn't seem to be very good at lying beyond that, like when he tells Grace that nothing is wrong... right before telling her to stay away from the windows...
- Barrier Warrior: Claims that he has a barrier spell
for defense. - Big Good: The closest the comic has, anyway. Lampshaded when he was explicitly compared to Dumbledore and Gandalf.
- Big "NO!": He agrees to buy pizza for eight teenagers without thinking.
- Closet Geek: If he's not into geeky things, he's at least extremely familiar with them in his role as the man behind covering up real-life SF & fantasy shenanigans. For example, when Grace wanted to wear some alien spandex for a workout.Mr. Verres: Okay, fine. But if anyone asks, you're cosplaying as an oc from your dc superheroes ff.
Grace: I'm what?- He's been stated to be familiar with the term "Delayed Blast Fireball"
- Crazy-Prepared: Mostly when the Rule of Funny requires it.
- Death Glare: Gives one at the end of Painted Black, though his expression quickly softens.
- He also gives one to Abraham after attacking him for fighting with Nanase
- He also gives one to Abraham after attacking him for fighting with Nanase
- The Dreaded: With very good reason. Even Voltaire didn't dare attack Tedd directly in order to avoid his wrath.Voltaire: One does not provoke the wrath of Edward Verres lightly, not to mention his monster hunter ex-wife.
- Eyes Out of Sight: Like Tedd, Mr. Verres has Opaque Lenses which hide his eyes. His eyes were finally revealed after his glasses were knocked off in battle, showing he has heterochromia. Only took ~20 years.
- The Face: For the paranormal branch of the government. While his power is no joke, it's his unmatched talent in diplomacy that really cements him as a powerhouse in the magical community.
- Hero of Another Story: He's said to have thwarted entire apocalypses at several occasions.
- Ignorance Is Bliss: Considers keeping secrets that would make people unhappy part of his job. He himself struggles with the moral line where they should know regardless.
- In particular, he struggles with whether Tedd should know that the exact same people who are now offering him a lab and funding because they now recognize his usefulness once came close to shutting him down to traumatize him due to an act of Revenge by Proxy by Bishop against Edward.
- The Illegible: His handwriting it so bad it is called "Ink Blot Handwriting" in a title. The kids he is with all come to different interpretations of what his letter to Tedd actually said. Justin thought it wasn't handwriting at all.Justin: Maybe, it's a map?
- Innocently Insensitive: His son is genderfluid, but Mr. Verres is convinced that Tedd's frequent genderbending can't be good for him. This has not helped Tedd in being comfortable with his gender identity. Recently, he seems to have gotten over it, at least in appearance.
- Interspecies Romance: He started dating his Uryuom assistant Lavender, after years of her pining for him. As of "Balance", he proposed to her.
- It's Personal: With all the incidents his son and his son's friend group gets involved in, he is personally invested in making sure they are okay when all is said and done. His superior suspected as much and his suspicion is confirmed when Edward attacks a criminal after he surrendered because of what Abraham did to Nanase and Ellen. Because of his excess personal investment in whatever happens to the main characters, his superior removes him from his position into a new one made just for him.
- Kicked Upstairs: As a result of his actions in Sister II. Apparently, no one wants him fired. Even the guy kicking him upstairs would raise hell if he was axed. (Given some of the feats he has accomplished, it's pretty clear why.) For related reasons he still has genuine responsibility for a decent chunk of his old job (the parts that involve speaking with paranormal entities) — it just supposedly is a higher-ranking position now.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Even he didn't knowabout his wife's facial scars and estimates that the only time she could have gotten such an injury was 20 years ago.
- Magic Knight: Abraham uses melee weapons alongside magic when he duels Adrian.
- Martial Pacifist: Edward manages to deescalate a situation where one non-human being almost attacks another non-human being out of reactive fear by taking control of the attacker's spell, dispelling it, and explaining that the cause of the fear is not a threat, just like himself, unless he has to be.
- The Men in Black: He's good at cover-ups and got a reputation as more cooperative than others (like his successor), though the excess of personal involvement eventually led to being Kicked Upstairs out of this position.
- Mr. Exposition: "I am an endless barrel of exposition!" (and the current page image!)
- Opaque Lenses: His eyes have been hidden behind these for decades of real-life time, until they got knocked off in a scuffle in one 2022 comic.
- Pals with Jesus: Casually speaks to and about "Steve", a being that Andrea describes as a Physical God.
- Papa Wolf: Not just to Tedd, but an Uncle Wolf to Nanase as well.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Trusts the kids with the secrets of what's going on around the town and acts in their best interests behind the scenes.
- Saying Too Much: Surprisingly, in the "allowed" circle "an endless barrel of exposition" is prone to spilling more than is really needed. In the commentary for that comic, the author theorizes note that Mr. Verres spends so much time lying and keeping secrets that he cannot help but spill information when he doesn't need to keep secrets.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: He has valuable connections that have saved the Earth more than once, which is why the government has allowed him a certain amount of leeway. Having said that, even his connections have limits. He wasn't actually legally allowed to let his son help the Uryuoms with their tech. His valuable connections are implied to be the only reason Leifeld gave him a chance to shutdown Tedd on his own, as opposed to being immediately fired and imprisoned, if not worse.
- Shock and Awe: Claims to have several "flavors" of lightning spells. Not counting spells in wands
- Refuge in Audacity: Some of his cover-up plans seem to run off of this, especially when it comes to the Uryuom.
- Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: While Tedd's experiments, in general, don't faze him much anymore, he finds it unsettling that Tedd actually spends quite a bit of time in female forms. Or it might have something to do with what Tedd wears when in female form.
Wolf and Cranium
Agents Wolf and Cranium
Federal agents who work for Mr. Verres. Both are powerful wizards in their own right.
- Agent Mulder: Wolf. He tends to be the more conspiratorial of the pair, and continually pesters Lavender with the "wacky theory" that she's an alien. Given that Mr. Verres says that Uryuoms are an even better kept secret than magic, he likely doesn't have the clearance to know about them. Given later revelations, it's likely that he's one of the people who can see through projections, so he can see her as she truly is when not using a clone form.
- Agent Scully: Downplayed with Cranium, given the context. She's more focused and analytical than Wolf and is willing to suggest mundane possibilities, but she is still a wizard who works for the magic police.
- Ambiguously Related: Given how genetic affinities work, and Pandora's implying that she's the one with the same spell as Sarah that was forced into government work, Cranium and Sarah might be related.
- Agents Dating: And they are really bad at concealing this.
- Blessed with Suck: Her ability to observe places remotely is implied to be the example Pandora gave of someone with Sarah's power being strong-armed into government service.
- Captain Ersatz: Of Mulder and Scully from the X-files.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Though we have yet to see them truly in action, Raven offhandedly describes Wolf as one of the most powerful wizards in the mid-western United States, and the security scan reveals he's surprisingly buff under his Badass Longcoat. Meanwhile, Cranium apparently has a clairvoyance spell similar to what Sarah can cast. Pandora made it clear when explaining that power just how strong and rare it was.
- The Men in Black: Their job.
- Meaningful Name: Emphasizing their parallels to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
- Power Perversion Potential: Cranium has the ability to observe rooms without being in them. Cue obligatory locker room peeping.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Due to Cranium's dislike of how Arthur runs things, she quits, leaving Wolf running a team of "deputies".
- Will They or Won't They?: Defied. In the words of the author, "they have, they will again, and they utterly fail at hiding it".
Arthur
Arthur J. Arthur
"I do not waste time."
Mr. Verres' successor (and predecessor) as head of the office of Paranormal Affairs. Reputed to care more about keeping secrets than helping people. Mr. Raven is on non-speaking terms with him.- All for Nothing: Arthur came to the conclusion some time ago that maintaining The Masquerade was becoming too difficult in the information age, and drastic action would be required to keep the secret. To that end, he spent months going completely against his department’s normal procedures in order to hint at the existence of magic, even stating that a few casualties would not disrupt their objective. Said objective being to drastically change magic to keep the majority of people from being able to use it. However, during the meeting with the Will of Magic to discuss the changes, he learns that the very mechanics of the change will inevitably result in the majority of people gaining access to magic anyway, meaning his entire plan was doomed to fail from the very start.
- Connected All Along: Long after Jay is introduced, it is revealed that Arthur is Jay's grandfather.
- Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Kevin being sentient was not what he had intended.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: While he wants a situation where magic will change how it works, he realizes that trying to force the hand of a Sentient Cosmic Force is like messing with a god, and is very careful not to try and push things too much in that regard, explaining that to his assistant when she questions why they aren't doing more to cause a change.
- I Am a Monster: He believes in The Needs of the Many and has self-described himself as a monster in the service of the greater good. Some people, including Mr. Verres, do not entirely trust him because of this, though Tedd believes that none of this is relevant today.
- Masquerade: Though he stuns Mr. Verres when his first act is to reveal the Masquerade, not reinforce it, implying that he may be playing a deeper game. His goal is to get Magic itself to "knock over the board" and change the rules of magic.
- Oh, Crap!: This is a fairly good way to describe Arthur's expression when the man who spent decades leading The Men in Black learns that the scenario he had been working towards for months - magic "flipping the board" and leaving an even playing field- would be accompanied by giving over a thousand random people the new magic playbook and hoping none of them decided to wreck The Masquerade through
internet tutorials. - Only One Name: The J? It stands for Just. As in "Arthur, Just Arthur."
- Patriotic Fervor: He has a strong belief in the "ideal America", particularly the ideas of freedom and acceptance. That belief lets him accept Tedd's gender fluidity without question, even though he doesn't understand it. The Rant clarifies that Arthur doesn't necessarily love the USA unconditionally, but he firmly stands for what it should be.
- Pet-Peeve Trope: Arthur is shown to dislike the idea of a Royalty Superpower; as a man who strives to uphold the ideals of the United States, he doesn't look kindly on the idea of people receiving power or responsibility solely for being part of a "dynasty." Upon learning that the seers who would be charged with teaching a new system of magic are born, not chosen, he cites his nationality as his reason for immediately changing his position (even as one onlooker notes he'd previously been happy not to be in a democracy.)
- The Quiet One: As his quote indicates, he gets right to the point.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite his initial portrayal as a callous individual, he has his moments.
- Upon learning new information regarding Seers and how the mechanics of a system change for magic works, he quickly realized there's no hope of keeping magic a secret. He promptly changed his position during the consultation with the Will of Magic from a severe system change to minimal changes. He also offered Tedd funding and proper research facilities upon learning Tedd wants to find a way to increase everyone's magic resistance.
- He apologizes to Ellen, Elliot, and Ashley for magically putting them to sleep after realizing that it was Magus and Sirlek who were responsible for the mess at the facility, makes it clear that they aren't in trouble, and lets Ellen call Nanase to keep her from panicking — although this is at least partly out of concern for what a panicking Nanase might do.
- He also feels responsible for the sentient wand he created by accident, and lets him stay with Ashley.
- Seers: Is a Seer, like Tedd.
- Repetitive Name: Arthur Arthur.
- Wham Line:
- "The occasional casualty will not disrupt our long term objectives".
- Concerning public knowledge of magic "...the next incident could be the last straw, and that would solve the problem for decades."
Sybil
Sybil
Arthur's loyal assistant.
- Not So Stoic: One of the only times Sybil shows any emotion is when she thinks Arthur was dying.
- Opaque Lenses: They help maintain her limited emotional range.
- Satellite Character: She's only ever seen around Arthur.
- The Stoic: Almost always has no emotional reaction to anything.
Leifeld
Assistant Director Leifeld
"You have too many important friends who would raise hell, myself included."
Edward Verres' superior.- Inconsistent Spelling: The author commentary from his first appearance spells his name as Liefeld, but Arthur calls him Leifeld on-panel.
- Large and in Charge: A massively muscled man who regularly hits the gym and the superior to the head of the office of Paranormal Affairs.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Recognizes that Mr. Verres is too important to fire and that even he would raise hell if it were to happen. However, he promotes him to a non-existent position to keep him out of the field after he loses control due to a personal connection to the series of events. A few months later it's revealed that he's been in on Arthur's plan to get Magic to knock the board over, but he was also assured by Arthur that it would solve the problems. Despite that, he's began to doubt the plan.
- Named After Someone Famous: Was named after comic book writer Rob Liefeld who's known for drawing people with his exact build.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: His glasses turn shiny here while he's threatening Edward to either take away Tedd's access to uryuom tech, or have other agents do it for him.
Knight
Agent Knight
"WE'VE. BEEN. RECKLESS."
An agent assigned to keep magic under wraps and under control, injured by his own magic going out of control after the Will of Magic changed the rules of magic.- Animal Motifs: Wolves. Dan only called him Agent Knight because Agent Wolf was taken.
- Chess Motifs: To the knight piece, obviously, as according to the author, the knight piece "suggested ideals of nobility". Also, Knights move straight on a chess board and slightly bend (as in, bend the rules here, but stays mostly straight laced).
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: The Good Cop to Bishop's Bad Cop. He's glad that the vandal he was chasing was uninjured, and thinks that they need more caution to prevent accidentally harming or killing people just because they were too confident in their magic."He deserved a smack upside the head and a talking to, not... not what I almost did."
- Reasonable Authority Figure: After being injured by his own magic, he's glad that he's the one who got injured, rather than the magical vandal he was pursuing.
Bishop
Agent Bishop
- Animal Motifs: Snakes.
- Black-and-White Insanity: Sees harming or killing people who abuse their access to magic as a heroic act, believes that anyone who abuses their magic is a complete monster, and sees no issue with the "chicken enchanter" potentially being injured by Knight's magic going haywire instead of Knight himself. She also snuck a warning card onto his dresser in his room while he was sleeping in said room after the incident.
- Chess Motifs: To the bishop piece, obviously. Unlike the straightforward nobility of the knight piece, the bishop piece travels diagonally across the chessboard, which, according to the author, "can be interpreted in all sorts of interesting ways".
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: The Bad Cop to Knight's Good Cop. She believes that harming others is justified if it means that they keep magic out of the lives of civilians.
- Jerkass: She happened to eavesdrop on Edward talking about how letting his son work on an alien tech project had restored his shattered confidence. She then took advantage to hurt him through his son by trying to use the laws of The Masquerade to shutdown said project and get Edward into deep trouble.
- Knight Templar: She has inherited Arthur's ruthlessness, without the idealism and pragmatism restraining it.
- The Needs of the Many: Is shown to believe in this.
- Nightmare Face: Pulls off a particularly frightening one while trying to reassure Knight that everything they do is for the greater good.
- Slasher Smile: Her flavor of Nightmare Face, with a side of Scary Flashlight Face.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: She fits the bill, given her Lady of Black Magic appearance and snark towards those she dislikes, as well as Word of God confirming that she's 6'5", and thereby one of the tallest characters in the comic.
- You're Not My Father: Her attitude towards Mr. Verres after he took over for Arthur, as seen in this dramatized flashback. It seems like Arthur had been something of a Parental Substitute to Bishop, and she didn't accept Edward taking over in his role.
Other Magic-Users
Noriko
Noriko Verres
Tedd's estranged mother, a monster hunter with a long family history of powerful magic users. Upset by Tedd's apparent lack of magical ability, Noriko left when Tedd was little. Last known to be somewhere in Europe, pursuing a career in magic, or possibly a travel agent.
- Black Sheep: Her sister (Nanase's mother) has never forgiven her for walking out on Tedd and Edward.
- The Faceless: Her face has yet to be revealed in the comic but it could be assumed to be similar to Nanase's given the apparently Strong Family Resemblance.
- Turns out there was a reason we never saw her face...
- Turns out
- Functional Magic: Has a reputation as a powerhouse magic user.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While it doesn't at all excuse her abandoning Tedd, The Reveal of her true face suggests that she had better reasons to be afraid for him than we'd thought.
- Missing Mom: Bailed when Tedd was young. Tedd blames himself. We later learn that Adrian Raven sees himself as the real reason. Turns out she may have learned her lesson, as she has been raising a son she had with another man after leaving the Verres household. Though considering Van was able to use magic young whilst Tedd could (apparently) not may have played a role.
- Shrouded in Myth: What we know of her is that she's a "A badass monster hunter" and a total powerhouse. Even Nanase didn't know this about her.
- Strong Family Resemblance: According to Not Tengu, Noriko and Nanase very strongly resemble each other. Tedd also resembles her. When we finally see her face, she does, in fact, resemble Nanase. Apart from the horrible facial scars.
- Two-Faced: Tedd theorizes that the transformation mirror in the basement was so Noriko could put on daily cosmetics without hassle. It reveals that her true form has massive scarring on the left side of her head and face; her 'daily cosmetics' were to hide this. And not even her husband knew this.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: It's presumed that one of the reasons she abandoned Tedd is because he seemingly failed to inherit his parents' magical talent.
Lord Tedd
Lord Tedd
An Alternate Universe version of Tedd, presumably in control of significant chunks of his dimension along with the ability to slip a few surprises into nearby ones.
- Alternate Universe: Where he rules.
- Artificial Limbs: Has what appears to be a prosthetic arm that can shoot energy blasts. Some fans have theorized that it's partly made of the TF gun that causes Body Horror.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: His last physical appearance was in 2003. In the two decades since then, he's only been referenced but has yet to return in person. The author has admitted that he had introduced Lord Tedd far earlier than he should have, so it's anyone's guess when the arc will pick up again. He is beginning to obtain more mention. After Tedd repeats the same feat that he performed to meet the Space Whale with a baseball bat (testing if he can see Elliot's default form under his female transformation), the audience of Elliot, Grace, and Edward bring attention his eyes turning all black. Just like Lord Tedd. That said, Dan's commentary in the latter comic mentions that he has nothing for Lord Tedd to actually do at the moment; but he has plenty of use for the "shadow he casts".
- Evil Counterpart: He is a version of Tedd that became evil, and while the author recognises they introduced Lord Tedd too early, Dan will contrast him against the main universe's Tedd as part of their character development.
- Evil Overlord: His apparent job, along with General Shade Tail, his Dragon, and Nioi. Though we're not sure to what extent.
- Game Face: Tedd's identical gauntlet reveals what the thing with his eyes are. When turned on, his gauntlet makes him look REALLY evil. When off? He's Tedd.
- Love Redeems: At least, while looking for Nioi, he looked like a more athletic version of "our" Tedd, as opposed to his maniacal look on Beta Tedd's photo and goo cell telemetry scene.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: We know absolutely nothing about his goals or what he's doing now.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Appears this way when looking for Nioi in his last appearance.
Magus
Magus
A wizard who was tricked into transporting to the spirit plane of this universe, and is only able to interact with immortals and aberrations. He occasionally does "favors" for Pandora, in exchange for her help executing a convoluted plan to restore his physical body. Pandora also taught him how to influence emotions, and he has used this power to manipulate certain events throughout the comic.
- Alternate Self: He is a version of Elliot from an Alternate Universe where magic is stronger and commonplace. Unlike the Elliot of the main universe, he is blonde, was born female, and was born as an extremely powerful wizard.
- Antagonist in Mourning: Despite hating Sirleck from the moment he met him and had planned to kill him since then, he did mourn the vampire's death. Even he notes that this is pretty screwed up.Magus: He was the only one I could talk to for months. He was like a friend to me. How messed up is that?
- Anti-Villain: He has been causing the main cast lots of problems, but he does feel guilty about it and has only been doing so due to being trapped in a very desperate situation.
- Apologetic Attacker: Apologizes to Ashley for using magic to make her sleep and reassures her that her friends will be alright.
- Audience Surrogate: The Rant explicitly spells out the points he made in this comic are based on the criticism of the "creation of Ellen" arc, more than 15 years ago.
- Back from the Dead: His ultimate goal.
- Batman Gambit: He gives Sirleck, who he knows is a sociopathic body snatcher, an impassioned plea to help him because he's alone in the world. When Sirleck just told him that he's busy looking for a new host with no connections to his old one. Sirleck immediately decides to help him, making it either this or Too Dumb to Live. Turns out that yes, he knew Sirleck would try to body-snatch him.Magus: Not once did I ask you who you planned to possess after Ellen. Should've been a red flag.
- Bias Steamroller: Between his guilt over needing to engineer Ellen's existence to return to corporal form, and just how personal he finds the thought of being forced into the wrong gender, Magus is inclined to assign very self-serving motives to Elliot and the rest of the people around Ellen. One of the first things he does upon actually being able to speak to Elliot is give him an icy "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how he'd been mistreating Ellen- even though Magus hadn't actually had a chance to consult her yet, and only had limited glimpses into her life to build his argument. Later, he responds to the realization that Elliot had a justifiable reason to misinterpret his intentions in casting a spell on Ellen by saying "...Dammit, I can see that."
- Big Eater: Orders a large amount of pizzas after finally becoming corporeal again.
- Blood Knight: Seems to really enjoy fighting the Golem.
- Bullying a Dragon: Not himself, but Ellen is a little worried about the magical cops who might go after him.Ellen: He was training to fight dragons in a way that requires upper-body strength.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: His world having ready access to gender-changing magic apparently means that anyone who wants a certain role is expected to change themselves to the gender associated with that role. Thus, he expresses a desire to transform Ellen into a male whether she wants it or not - though he believes her to be forced into accepting her female form, noting Elliot's reluctance to stay a girl.
- Demonic Possession: He temporarily takes over Elliot's body as the first step in his attempts to resurrect himself.
- The Empath: He has the ability to sense and magnify the emotions of others, which is the only power he still has over the normal world while incorporeal.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Ellen thinks that part of the reason that he became so convinced that she was being forced to stay the "wrong" gender was because he only had relatively limited windows to observe her and her emotions due to the Immortals hanging around Elliot, and came to the wrong conclusions based on what he saw during said windows.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Played with. Is noticeably distraught at the potential harm to innocent Moperville civilians that can come about from his and Sirleck's plans, but still goes along with it (it WAS his idea, after all). And that's not even taking into account that he's barely a villain at all and is only doing bad deeds because he's been pushed to the point of desperation in trying to get his body back.
- He was going to talk to Ellen before changing her, even if his word choice implied otherwise.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's a magician and he's called "Magus". It's not until after he gets his own body and kills Sirleck that we even learn that's a nickname.
- Extremity Extremist: Despite his insistence on upper body strength being important for a combat mage, he used kicks almost exclusively during his first fight after getting his body back.
- Gender Bender: Was born female, but changed to male to become a battle mage. Such a thing is fairly common in his world, apparently.
- Gender-Blender Name: "Magus" is a high school nickname. His real name is Ellen, since he was born female and didn't bother to change his birth name.
- Given Name Reveal: Magus is just an old nickname; turns out his real name is Ellen.
- Little "No": He gave Chaos a big one, refusing to go along with her plans of Disproportionate Retribution against the already defeated Abraham. Chaos was not pleased by this.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Even an incorporeal being like Sirleck is apparently incapable of hurting him. Unfortunately, this does not apply to Immortals at all, and their constant pursuit of him is undoubtedly a large part of what drove him to being so desperate to regain his body.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Elliot and Magus do not get along.
- Poor Communication Kills: He forgets that Elliot and company are from a world where magic is secret, and thus are not as familiar with sleep spells as he is, and thus don't know that it's recommended to let people wake up from them naturally. So, when he tries to wake Ellen up to discuss turning her male due to being in a hurry, as he believes that it is her "correct" gender, his wording makes Elliot assume that he meant to just change Ellen without consent. Magus admits that he can see how Elliot could have misinterpreted his wording in hindsight.
- Psychic Powers: His amplification ability. Apparently, Pandora taught him how to do it.
- Psychological Projection: It's implied that part of the reason he's so sure Ellen is being forced to be the "wrong" gender is that he's doing this over his own issues with the way his world handles gender identities, like with his world's version of Tedd who chose to be a battle mage despite staying female.
- Rewatch Bonus: A lot of past scenes with Magus come into focus once we learn the truth. Most notably, a scene where he observes Nanase and says "Girlfriend - feh. You would so be a man in my universe" initially comes across as both weirdly sexist and homophobic. It turns out while he is kind of sexist, it's a form specific to his universe, where genderswapping is common and people are expected to take the gender that "fits" their profession. He literally thinks a powerful magical fighter like Nanase should become male. And since the contemptious "girlfriend" comment is about the partner of an alternate version of himself who he also thinks should be male, whatever it is, it probably isn't homophobic.
- Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: He doesn't attack Sirleck until Sirleck breaks their alliance, but it's clear he expected this and was counting on it.
- Third Law of Gender-Bending: Shifted permanently to male specifically because he wanted to become a battlemage, a stereotypically male profession. This is apparently fairly commonplace in his dimension, due to permanent gender-change magic being readily available.
- Vampire Hunter: Indirect; part of his plan is to send a number of vampires after Raven as a distraction, knowing they'll get slaughtered. He also counted on Sirleck betraying him so that he would have an excuse to kill him.
- Words Can Break My Bones: When he possesses Elliot and when he eventually gets his own body, he demonstrates that he has this ability when he non-violently makes Ashley fall asleep, puts Ashley in a trance so she wouldn't panic, and lastly holds Sirleck in place so that he could easily kill Sirleck.
- Wrong Context Magic: His world's magic has different rules than the main world's, but it somehow still works the same for him, assuming that he has a body. He's not sure how this works but isn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.Magus: I could no more explain that than you could explain how this car works.
Sirleck: I know how cars work. - You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Sirleck tries to possess him, Magus reveals that he saw this coming miles away, and destroys him.
Abraham
Abraham
The creator of the Dewitchery Diamond that created Ellen. Abraham swore an oath to hunt down and destroy all new creatures created by the Diamond because, due to the nature of curses, those creatures tend to be vicious monsters. However, after learning that Ellen, the Diamond's latest creation, is an innocent human being (and is loved by her friends and family), he begins to question whether or not he is in the right anymore.
- Anti-Villain: He doesn't want to hurt anyone, and is in fact mortified when he finds out that his target is a teenage girl. He's only an antagonist because he cannot break his oath. It's no surprise that Nanase was able to quickly talk him out of killing Ellen by forcing him to confront what he was doing rationally.
- The Atoner: First for making Dewitchery Diamond, then for trying to fix this problem too enthusiastically. See for yourself. But he's still incorrigibly dramatic.
- Badass Longcoat: Uses magic to make himself one after he awakened from his statue.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: During the climax of his arc, he gives a long winded speech to Ellen about why he has to kill her instead of simply doing it, giving Nanase the time she needed to catch up to and stop him. Justified, in that he really doesn't want to go through with it.
- Boxed Crook: After the diamond's destruction, the Feds "recruit" him to hunt down Magus.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: He's sworn to an Oath of Truth. Interestingly, he deliberately avoids people so he won't have to reveal information he doesn't want to.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Was first mentioned in in the first Sister arc, but only appeared during Sister II.
- Didn't Think This Through: His defining trait. He enchanted the Dewitchery Diamond to separate a lycanthropic friend from his curse without considering the potential consequences, didn't think about things like the cosmetic use of magic when he swore that oath, and managed to forget that Adrian Raven was a wizard while in the middle of fighting him. No wonder that two of two wizards who spoke of Abe called him "idiot."
- Heel Realization: When Nanase tells him that by keeping to the letter of his vow to kill the creations of the Diamond he's actually violating his promise to protect the innocent, he realizes she's right, starts crying, and thanks her for opening his eyes.
- Hero Antagonist: In his own mind, at least.
- Idiot Hero: Double deconstructed, if that's the right way to put it. First, because of his stupidity, he made his friend's condition worse instead of selling the gem to someone more skilled, and it only went downhill from there-that's the example they have written on the Playing With A Trope page for Idiot hero. Then, because he was so stupid, he didn't think about cosmetic magic, such as, say, someone's best friend turning them into a girl or something less drastic, such as a change of hair color, he came to the conclusion that he had to kill Ellen. It's not cute and funny, it's the cause of a horrifying Knight Templar. I mean, he didn't even think to throw the damn diamond in a volcano. Was he even really trying?
- Later, we learn that the "Diamond" isn't even a diamond! It's actually a crystal formed around a mysterious scale, not that Abraham ever knew.
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Though if he did know, that might explain why he didn't try selling it to pay for his friend's de-cursing.
- I Gave My Word: This leads to the To Be Lawful or Good problem below.
- Kiai: Lets one out here.
- Knight of Cerebus: Despite his good intentions, he does bring a lot of tension to the Sister II arc by nearly killing Raven, Ellen and Nanase, the latter of which temporarily lost access to her magic by stopping him.
- Knight Templar: Somewhat. He's fully aware that his goal is morally wrong, but feels that it has to be done regardless.
- Lawful Stupid: If it wasn't for his oath to kill anything born from the Dewitchery Diamond, he wouldn't even qualify as a villain.
- Meaningful Name: In The Bible, Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his own child, but at the last moment, an angel stopped him, announcing that God was just testing his faith. Now consider that Ellen was created by the Dewitchery Diamond, which means that Abraham is Ellen's father in a roundabout way. Now consider that his oath to God led him to try to kill Ellen. Now consider that Nanase looked awfully angelic when she convinced Abraham to spare Ellen's life.
- Necessarily Evil: As a result of his oath, he feels that he has no choice but to kill Ellen for being created by his diamond.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Prior to his creating the Dewitchery Diamond lycanthropy was an admittedly dangerous curse that only caused those inflicted to change on a full moon, so at most three nights within a moon cycle. By his actions, he accidentally created a monster who was always a werewolf no matter the time of day or phase of the moon with a magical desire to spread its curse. This ended up in him being responsible for the death of the very noble friend he had tried to save, as well as being indirectly responsible for the death of Pandora's husband.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: To say that he's a bit of an idiot is an understatement. He isn't taken seriously and he's infamous for his stupid and reckless action that resulted in the creation of the Dewitchery Diamond. However, he did manage to disarm and knock out Adrian Raven, a powerful half-immortal wizard in his own right, came very close to killing Ellen, and given that she's the first time he's baffled by a strange use of his diamond, it's implied he's had to put down many actual monstrous creatures over the centuries.
- Additionally after Magic's not-change makes it harder for people to use their spells by requiring more manual control it's established that he was already trained to do that and that he considers the Feds to be scrub trash for not properly training their agents to do the same.
- Additionally after Magic's not-change makes it harder for people to use their spells by requiring more manual control it's established that he was already trained to do that and that he considers the Feds to be scrub trash
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Apparently, "Every properly trained wizard has heard of Abraham, the idiot apprentice who recklessly enchanted a massive diamond instead of selling it to pay someone more skilled to fix his cursed noble friend."
- Really 700 Years Old: Has managed to live for several centuries with his statue spell.
- Taken for Granite: A voluntary version. He puts himself into suspended animation to prolong his life.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Abraham swore an oath to destroy anything spawned by the Dewitchery Diamond, and feels obligated to kill Ellen, even though he's very reluctant to harm any innocent people. Nanase convinces him that his real oath was to protect people, and following it to the letter just to kill an innocent girl is violating it.
Not-Tengu
"Not-Tengu"
A strange bat/ape monster with a penchant for mind control. Intelligent, powerful, and incorrigibly dramatic. Also spends too much time on the internet for his own good.
He went by "Tengu" as an online handle, but is admittedly not an actual tengu. What he actually is is a spoiler, so rigid rules forbids its mention in the description.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: It's no surprise that an utterly evil being like him would have access to mind control and the ability to turn people into obedient clones. This is in fact invoked, since Not-Tengu is a regular human and all of his magic is a dark result of Personality Powers.
- Batman Gambit: A pretty impressive one actually. He feigns Evil Cannot Comprehend Good to make it look like he's worried about Nanase's Guardian Form and has simply failed to understand that she can still access it. In truth, what he was worried about is that Nanase could have any number of other spells, any one of which could be an unpredictable Spanner in the Works for him. As he gleefully explains once she takes the bait, the Guardian Form prevents her from casting any of them for at least 24 hours, limiting her to super strength, super durability, and fast flight... and he already knows he outclasses her in all three. If Ellen hadn't been able to copy the form, letting them work together to keep out of his reach while burning up the ambient magic even faster, he'd probably have easily overpowered the heroes before running out of energy.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Calmly insists that he sees nothing wrong with mind control in the same way an omnivore might explain to a vegetarian why he doesn't have a problem with eating meat. The thing that makes it really creepy? He is human, and apparently used to be just an average jerk before stumbling on a way to use magic.
- Clone by Conversion: He transforms everyone at Rhea's college party into clones of Nanase. He makes it clear that he could've chosen them to look like anyone, but her picked her specifically both to get Revenge by Proxy against her aunt Noriko and disturbingly for sexual reasons.
- Didn't See That Coming:
- He anticipated Nanase, Ellen, and Charlotte not being enthralled by his mind control. He anticipated Nanase regaining her magic note . He anticipated Nanase using her guardian form. He did not anticipate Ellen using her clone beam to copy Nanase's guardian form.Not-Tengu: ...what.
- He did not anticipate running out of magic, either. Which ended badly for him, since his flight depended on magic to work.
- He anticipated Nanase, Ellen, and Charlotte not being enthralled by his mind control. He anticipated Nanase regaining her magic note . He anticipated Nanase using her guardian form. He did not anticipate Ellen using her clone beam to copy Nanase's guardian form.
- Evil Gloating: He loves evilly cackling about how well his plan is going and how Ellen and Nanase are powerless to stop him. This was taken advantage of by Ellen and Nanase, to give Diane a chance to help in some way.
- Eye Scream: His left eye was cut out by Noriko.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: According to Mr. Verres, Not-Tengu was just some average jerk that stumbled onto a way that allowed anyone to use magic, and is the first big example the audience sees of exactly why Mr. Verres insists on upholding The Masquerade.
- Knight of Cerebus: The most powerful, threatening and terrifying enemy to have appeared since Damien. Once his influence makes itself clear, Family Tree becomes much, MUCH scarier.
- Large Ham: He's excessively dramatic, from landing impressively in front of his quarry, greeting them with pretentious titles, and ranting about his motives.
- Mind Control: He gathers a "flock" of mind controlled followers by spiking the punch at a party. In his own words, he was put on this earth to be a ruler of mindless, obedient sheep. Most likely delusions of grandeur, since it turns out he's human.
- Mister Exposition: A largely offscreen example. He's the one who gave Charlotte all her strangely accurate information.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: He's an ape with horns and bat wings.
- Motive Rant: The second he gets an audience, he gleefully explains his entire plan: He wants revenge on Nanase's aunt Noriko (Tedd's mother) for defeating him in Europe.
- Nerd in Evil's Helmet: He's clearly a chronically-online loser by the way he acts. Unfortunately, he still manages to be terrifying with his appearance and powers.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: "Tengu" is just his online nickname; he tries to give his real name, but no one is interested. He's been unofficially referred to as "Not-Tengu".
- Proud to Be a Geek: He apparently spends a lot of time online, discussing magic with people who don't know he's a magical creature. He also criticizes Charlotte's web forum for its inadequate selection of smilies and late notifications about new posts.
- Revenge by Proxy: He wants to take revenge on Noriko by killing her family.
- Xanatos Gambit: Seems to have one going in regards to Nanase's Guardian Form. To whit, his plan is:
- Bait Nanase into attacking him first. Not-Tengu believes Guardian Form can only be used in self defense. If she isn't defending herself, she can't use it and he's free to form his flock without any worries.
- If she manages to use her Guardian Form anyway, still not a problem. Not-Tengu doesn't know her other spells, any of which could potentially beat him, but Guardian Forms locks all of those out for at least a day due to burnout.
- And while she is in Guardian Form, she can only fight in hand to hand combat, something he has no problem with.
- His plan fails because he had NO idea about Ellen's clone form spell... Or that his boosted abilities were the result of an increased Background Magic Field, which could be depleted.
The Emissary of Magic
The Emissary of Magic
A mysterious wizard first introduced in "Squirrel Prophet" who sometimes contacts Grace through her dreams, acting as the messenger for Magic itself.
- Cool Shades: He's always wearing a pair of sunglasses.
- Dream Weaver: He contacts Grace through her dreams, and can manipulate the dream somewhat for things like visual aid, to help Grace deal with a bad dream, or to kick Pandora out of Grace's head. Everything that he changes is still based on Grace's subconscious on some level, however.
- Mr. Exposition: He exists to exposit things to Grace whenever there's something pressing that Magic needs to make known. Why he talks to Grace specifically and why he has to do so through a medium that Grace will forget most of the information in is unknown, even to him.
- Mouth of Sauron: He speaks for Magic to explain things in a way that humans can more easily understand.
- The Omniscient: He becomes omniscient during the magic dreams, although he can only discuss things related to his current mission and he forgets everything that happens when the dream ends. In fact, he doesn't even know who Grace is while he's awake, which is why he's never tried contacting her in real life to explain what's happening.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: When Pandora meets the Emissary of Magic in Grace's dreams, she immediately asks him why he's contacting Grace through her dreams instead of picking up the phone and calling her (or better yet, someone else who can more directly deal with the problem). He is forced to explain that he only remembers who Grace is, why she would be the person to contact, or details about what he's trying to explain to her when using the spell to talk in her dreams. When awake, all he knows is that the problem he's trying to address still exists and that using the dream spell will let him talk to someone who can at least indirectly do something about it.
- Weaker in the Real World: Although it's not known how powerful he is exactly since we haven't met "the real him" yet, it's clear that his most powerful magic is hand-tailored for his work as Magic's emissary, which only works while he's asleep.
- Wizard Classic: He's dressed as a somewhat modernified take on this, with a flowing wizard beard, robes, and pointy hat.
