Characters / The Arts Of Dark And Light Mankind

The Arts of Dark and Light General Character index
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This page is for any and all Humans in The Arts of Dark and Light.

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The Amorran Empire

In General

• Ancient Grome: A more well-researched form than typical, though in addition to the obviously Roman elements of Amorr are some Greek sounding names and Greek titles for the clergy.
• Bad Ass Army: Many of the prominent families are prominent only because they're heavily invested in Amorr's military.
• Fantasy Counter Part Culture: It is an expy of the dying Roman Republic. Latin frequently shows up and expect to spend a lot of time looking up terms while reading this book.
• Gratuitous Latin: Shows up frequently, especially in religious documents.
• Off with His Head!: Execution for disobeying orders is public and goes unquestioned.
• The Republic: The waning days of the Republic, but Amorr still has functioning democracy.

House Valerius

"Our House is Amorr"

— House Valerius Creed

Sextus Valerius Corvus

Gaius Valerius was not murdered! He was guilty, and he admitted his crime openly before the legion.

• Action Dad: He is a veteran with a storied career and has 4 children(two daughters and two sons).
• Action Politician: He is a veteran general and is introduced making preparations for a battle with the goblins, but is afterwards drafted to become a consul without his direct knowledge. He winds up making a fairly smooth transition and later rises even further up the political chain. He takes a darker turn and joins a conspiracy to assassinate Severus.
• Deal with the Devil: Defied. Even though he was far down his path to dictator he refused a deal with the Watcher who offered him unlimited power, fame and the ability to set Amorr right supposedly in exchange for his service. Corvus refused to cross this final limit.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He gets offered a deal for everything he could want or need for Amorr in exchange for his service. After refusing the deal with the Watcher, he proceeds to verbally berate him, then hack him to pieces with his sword and burn down the room to finish the job.
• Good Is Not Soft: He executes two of his own soldiers over the course of the story per Amorran military protocol, one of whom is his nephew. He is however, a reasonable consul and father. Though this slowly evolves into antivillain status.
• Happily Married: Corvus and his wife Romilia. They have supported each other for many years as they have raised their family, and remain mutually devoted until the end.
• Not So Above It All: When he is in the Elven Embassy with Silvertree, he gets drunk off of magical elven wine while having a pleasant conversation with him. Even though Amorrans abhor and prohibit magic, he acknowledges he isn't the only Amorran soldier who secretly loves the magical elven wine.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: After uncovering Severus' conspiracy, he begins his own with the help of others to stop his plans at any cost, but this just causes his slide into reluctant villainy and causes Amorran civil war.

Marcus Valerius Clericus

I'm a bloody tribune, not a legate or a real general. You know that. I know that. My men know that.

• Awesomeness by Analysis: When he is informed of an attack on the Amorran envoy to Elebrion, he is tasked with quickly trying to determine who the traitor could be. Then he remembers that an anti-magic mage had a sword that would be enchanted and that none of his cohorts had a problem with it, meaning they were impostors. This allows them to be dealt with.
• Character Development: While he has plenty of training and studying, he begins the series with little experience. Over the course of the story, he gradually makes harder and harder choices while trying to prevent anyone from seeing his indecision and struggles.
• Easily Forgives: Justified given his religious background and youth, but still in a way that is a bit extreme. To date, he has forgiven Caitlys and her knife-storm-friendly-fire on Marcus when she attacks Zephanus, which would have killed him if he didn't have a special reliquary; he has forgiven the "Michaeline" assassins despite their conspiracy to kill him and plunge the entire continent into war and at least one Amorran centurion who was caught in another conspiracy with Severus, which did eventually cause civil war.
• Fast-Roping: A rare medieval version, with Marcus descending a rope attached to an Elvish warhawk, trying to infiltrate the Elebrion castle and stop the assassination attempts on the envoy.
• Guile Hero: Despite his reservations and doubts, Marcus is indeed a clever man who is able to think his way out of seemingly impossible situations. Whether its fighting goblins, salvaging a battle when your allies misbehave, investigating a coup or fleeing a foe you cannot hope to defeat, he is able to adopt on the fly.
• Know When to Fold Them: After losing his battle with his uncle Magnus, he understands that fighting or fleeing is no longer an option and is prepared to sacrifice himself rather than senselessly waste the lives of his remaining men. Fortunately, Lodi arrives with the ability to tunnel away.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Marcus studied as a cleric before his career in the Amorran military and is noted for his devotion. He even prays over difficult military decisions.
• Worthy Opponent: Played with. Towards the end of A Throne of Bones he loses an important battle to his uncle Magnus. Magnus sends him a followup letter praising his skills requesting for his surrender, men and to become one of his generals. However, the letter is somewhat passive aggressive and as Aulan points out, there's a pretty reasonable chance that Magnus may just want to kill him.

Gaius Valerius Fortex

Damn our orders! This is the moment!

• Hot-Blooded: He gets easily provoked into an attack by Goblins, even when most of the other soldiers seem unaffected.
• Military Maverick: Amorr and its forces are handily winning the battle against the goblins, so the goblins start trying to provoke an attack on their terms. This doesn't work on Marcus and his general, but it works very well on him, which starts a massive attack. As per Amorran traditions, he gets executed for disobeying orders so flagrantly, even though his attack was a smashing success.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He gets executed shortly into the story, after the opening battle. This starts a lot of strain on House Valerius between his father and his uncle, not to mention Marcus and Corvus. Once the Amorran Empire starts disintegrating towards the end of the first book, Magnus goes rogue, a process that starts here.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He is present only in the opening battle against the Goblins. Even then, he isn't an object of significant attention, except for a few brief, heated moments in battle.

Marcus Valerius Magnus

• Action Politician: Similar to his brother Corvus. He has been a consul 4 times and he still leads his own legion.
• Evil Uncle: To Marcus and his brother Corvinus.
• Face–Heel Turn: Downplayed. He was always gruff and somewhat pragmatic in regards to Amorran society. After his son was executed, he gradually starts losing restraint and wants Corvus’ sons executed in retribution. Then him and his legion go rogue.
• Properly Paranoid: He suspects that someone in the Amorran envoy would sabotage the diplomatic mission, so he sends Marcus with an additional gladiator as a bodyguard. His cynicism is vindicated when a conspiracy of the exact type is detected.
• Tragic Villain: His wisdom and advice helped prevent an all out war between the elves and humans in Summa Elvetica. After his son Fortex gets executed by his own brother Corvus he gradually stops supporting the institutions that made that possible and has waged a coup with his own legion after the civil war began.
• We Can Rule Together: Towards the end of A Throne of Bones, he bests Marcus’ army in battle and offers him and his troops a good spot in his army out of necessity. His son Sextus thinks its a trap though and justifiably so.

House Severus

Aulus Severus Patronus

• Anti-Villain: On a personal level, he is sociable and true to his word, though he is pretty stern, especially with his children. His end goal of a unified republic as one country isn't even that strange, nor are most of his tactics until his peaceful tactics get completely turned down. He's still sponsoring assassinations and coups and kings when his peaceful methods fail.
• Evil Plan: Savondir is growing in strength and splendor whereas Amorr is in slow decline. Fearing Savondir, he longs for Amorr and all of its provinces to join together as one country, instead of one city state, 12 allies 15 conquered provinces with their own identities. At first he uses his political powers to convince everyone to do this willingly, but when that falls through due to Corvus and the general will against it, he goes through with a slow, steady, behind-the-scenes coup to install friendly puppet kings to pull this off.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He goes the peaceful, diplomatic and standard route first, which is simply raising his plans in the senate and trying to get them passed legally and openly. Its only when they're stopped to popular applause that he tries more murderous, subversive methods.
• You Cannot Kill An Idea: He gets murdered in broad daylight by a fellow senator. This only makes him a martyr and destroys what little cohesion was left in the Amorran Empire.

Severa

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She develops a crush on a low class gladiator. Her father engineers his death in the arena to stop this.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: She begins the story rebelling against her father, but comes to understand and appreciate him more over the course of the story.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: After a talk with her father, its clear that she is to be married to someone of good political status. However, Severus agrees to give her some leeway so that she can pick a man she reasonably likes and is attracted to. This results in marrying Sextus Valerius, who winds up being both a very good match for her personally and politically.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Played with. Amorran society generally gives her this treatment, which causes her to reach out to a female led Utruccan Witch Cult. But as the story progresses, she comes to better terms with her father and is gradually and gently let into his plans where possible. This includes marrying for political gain to a man who will also listen to her side of politics. This trend increases as she comes to represent her family more after her father's death.
• The Woman Behind The Man: Deconstructed. She is deliberately trying to go this route as Amorran politics would not allow a woman direct control. However, she cannot go the puppet route as a man who is too easy for her to control would be easy for others to control as well. In the end, she marries Sextus Valerius, who largely agrees with most of her ideas in politics, though notably he ignores requests he doesn't like and he can only accomplish what he can, when he can, how he thinks he can.

Savondir

In General

• Fantasy Counter Part Culture: This is Medieval France, but beyond aesthetics and language, there's not really any meaningful similarity. However, as a neighboring Kingdom to the North of Fantasy Rome full of people the Fantasy Romans consider barbarian, it is also analogous to Gaul.
• Gratuitous French: Played with. French phrases and cognates get used frequently, even though the rest of the sentence is translated to English.
• The Magocracy: Played with. The Savondese mages are at the top of Savondir's society, but they are also not the true rulers as it is a hereditary monarchy. Theuderic even takes orders from the royalty himself, despite being a very valuable mage. It helps that the mages are relatively few in number, even after the breeding program.
• Super Breeding Program: Mages are near the top of the chain in Savondese society, though largely only if you are a man. The women with natural magical talents are conscripted to the Savondese breeding program regardless of background or consent, where they will have hopefully magical children.
• We Have Reserves: They show little respect for the lives of entry-level soldiers, many of whom are actually tricked into signing up for the military. This happened to Serranus as well as the protagonist of A Wardog's Coin.

Savondir's Royal Family

King Louis-Charles de Mirid

• Genius Bruiser: He's definitely a brute and is described as having fists the size of hams. He's also damn brutal and repressive when he wants to be, which is most of the time. He does however, manage to stop his childrens' less pragmatic impulses and he manages diplomacy to a competent degree.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When talking to his son The Red Prince, he learns that his son was insulted by a duc. Outraged, he agrees that some horrible death is warranted, but he will not deliver on this as "One generation conquers, four generations consolidate power."

Charles-Philippe The Red Prince

• Anyone Can Die: He meets his end suddenly when werewolves transformed into a human state sneak into his chambers for an ambush. Though the werewolves are defeated, he lives long ago to have his last rites performed and to confess his sins.
• Frontline General: A very competent one at that, despite his lack of diplomacy.
• Hidden Depths: While he is probably a high-functioning sociopath, he can control his impulses and seems to be far more reasonable when required to fulfill his duties. In particular, he dies during the fight against the werewolves that he personally leads as a competent leader, rather than just a petty prince.
• Overlord Jr.: He functions as this, as he is next in line for the throne. He even leads the first wave of Savondese soldiers against the werewolves alongside the Dalarn.
• The Mistress: Confesses to having one during his last rites as he lays dying.
• You Have Failed Me: In the backstory, after the city of Montrove fell, he executed all the officers of the residing Duc for their failure.

Savondese Armed Forces

Sieur Theuderic de Merovech

• Always Some One Better: While he's still a very skilled mage by any human standard, he understands that he doesn't truly compare to the elves.
• Badass Bookworm: He is one of the most skilled sorcerers in Savondir and towards the end of the first book goes on a stealth mission with a few of Marcus' soldiers, helping them out by using wind magic to blow out the torches of the rebelling soldiers. Even before that, he took to flying on top of the Elven Warhawks rather quickly.
• Dissonant Serenity: He has a tendency to just make a quip at the horrors of his country and most bad situations he comes across. It tends to be more funny than scary, but it still says a lot about his psyche.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: The source of his loyalty, not that he has many qualms about evil.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Lodi arrives, he is visibly aghast and turns white. Marcus notes that for once he shut up and reacted with something other than a glib quip.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He is the Comte de Thôneaux, but is not really seen doing anything administrative as you might expect. Typically, he is providing magical support to the state security or some sort of mission for the King.

Nicolas de Mere of Lutéce

• Deep Cover Agent: He is in the Malkans, posing as a mercenary as part of a quest to find and rescue Lithriel Everbright. During this quest, he will scheme and plan and behave as a normal guard whenever necessary.
• Hidden Badass: Played with. His skills are quickly discovered, but his real talent is far beyond what is determined by the experts.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Less extreme than usual, but he clearly has a flashback triggered by a murder investigation at the brothel, where he is afraid there may be more soldiers.
• They Know Too Much: After his cover is blown and the Malkan guards determine that he is a mage, they request his cooperation or face the consequences. He gives them a free death for their troubles, though only to prevent the Malkans from informing the government about his magical abilities.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: A dark one. One of his minions is rather inept, so he hires one assassin on him and the other on Quadras Aetias, a target he wishes to befriend. He kills both assassins but not before they successfully kill his minion, leaving him available for work with Aetias. The audience and the minion only finds out about this plan when he commits it.

Le Sergent

Okay, you're all confessed and clean lad. Now go forth and kill some gobbos.

• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: The short story The Wardog's Coin spends more time focusing on the terror he feels that he keeps bottled up.
• Band of Brothers: Him and his fellow soldiers are all in it together. Unfortunately most of them die.
• Confessional: One of his fellow soldiers comes to him to confess before their big battle. It turns out the others jokes he was a priest.
• Laughing Mad: After being rescued by a Warhawk after his mission.
• Never Learned to Read: He is unable to even read his own identifying insignia on his coin.
• Only Known By His Nick Name: The Savondese Ducs just hire mercenaries for their military duty and call it a day. The Sergent is known only by his rank even to the audience, reflecting the careless disregard for the soldiers.
• Sad Clown: He continuously quips and has a fairly dark sense of humor, which is just coping with his trauma. He is genuinely terrified that each day might be his last. He drops some of the humor though when circumstances get too bleak even for him.
• War Is Hell: Medieval warfare has not been kind to him, nor are the events of his story.

The Dalarns

The Skullbreaker's Clan

Fjotra

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Downplayed, but she notes her attraction to both Savondese Princes, who are in all likelihood mid-to-high-functioning sociopaths. She herself understands this is a little messed up.
• Altar Diplomacy: Its not her only tactic, but she is willing to marry Savondese royalty or nobility to help secure her peoples' rescue from the Werewolves.
• Fish out of Water: She is basically a Viking refugee living within late medieval France.
• Had to Be Sharp: Even before the Werewolf invasion the Iles de Loup was a rough place. She has honed abilities and can even provide basic assistance in battle, though in this situation she spends more time dealing with Savondese politics than battle preparations.
• Politically-Active Princess: She is completely dedicated to the salvation of her people from the Werewolves. First she forms a sort of desperate alliance with the King of Savondir, then joins Savondese high society in trying to jockey for better support. These provide her with military support and a facilitate the wholesale evacuation of the Dalarns into Savondir. Even when Roheis offers her dubious but somewhat believable news that the Savondese nobles won't uphold their deal, she continues to politically maneuver around the probable lies.
• You No Take Candle: While she is a refugee in Savondir asking for military assistance, she had never been there before and as such must learn their language Savondese. She starts out barely comprehensible and finishes the first book with odd grammar and simple vocabulary, but is nonetheless beyond conversational.

Brynjolf

• Authority Equals Ass Kicking: He is the son of Skuli Skullbreaker and is as good at battle as you would expect him to be.
• Fish out of Water: He is basically a Viking refugee living within late medieval France and takes longer to adjust than his sister.
• Had to Be Sharp: Even before the Werewolf invasion the Iles de Loup was a rough place. He has pretty reasonable combat prowess and even helped foil an assassination attempt at his first party in Savondir.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He's both a warrior and in the current climate, a diplomat. Downplayed though, as he simply is not currently active in battle as he's dealing with politics abroad. Even then, he's not active as his sister in this catastrophe.
• You No Take Candle: His Savondese is rough even in comparison to his sister's, though by the end of the first book he is at least conversational.

The Immanuelite Church

In General

• Anti-Magical Faction: The Amorran Republic and the Church maintain a rigorous Ban on Magic, enforced by the Michaeline Order. This deprives the Republic of a powerful weapon; but given how evil most of the heavily magic-using factions in the setting are (e.g., Savondir, the Witchkings), they can probably be excused for thinking all magic is demonic.
• The Church: The Immanuelite Church functions as an expy of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church in practice. It has a wide swath of political power, but is most certainly not the political power. Its clergy is well regarded by the devoutly religious population as a whole, even if some self-serving people sneak in to the knowledge of the general populace.
• Church Militant: They have some orders dedicated to the martial defense of the church. This includes the Michaelines, whose counter-spell magic is impressive even to Elves.

Clergy

Sanctiff Holiness Charity IV

• Cool Old Guy: He is over 100 years old, but still busy at work in his church and is overall rather pleasant to everyone he works with.
• Dawn of an Era: At the end of Summa Elvetica, he declares that Elves have souls. Though prejudices remain and the different species are overall very disparate, this starts the process of change in Selenoth and averts a terrible war between Amorr and the Elves.
• Good Shepherd: Pope Charity is the Church at its best: not merely not corrupt, but a faithful and devoted servant of all that is best in his religion. He is widely mourned after his passing.

Brother Herwaldus

• Badass Preacher: He is probably the most powerful counterspell warrior Mankind has ever produced. He effortlessly exorcises all the demons thrown at him by the Elves, merely quoting his scriptures as he does so.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: He really has nothing bad to say about anyone save the demons.
• Plot-Triggering Death: He is present only in A Master of Cats, having daily discourse with Bessarias. At the end of the story, he is put out of his misery by Bessarias during his torture by the other Elves. This turns out to be the last straw for Bessarias, who beings his gradual conversion to Immanuelism after leaving the Collegium Occludum.
• Small Role, Big Impact: His daily discourse with Bessarias gets him curious about Immanuelism and his death gets him to begin his gradual conversion. Additionally, he exorcised an army of demons so effortlessly that it caused the Elves to reevaluate Mankind; they reassessed Mankind as a possible existential threat, which helped deteriorate Man-Elf relations at the time.

Father Aestus

• False Flag Operation: He is killed by his fellow travelers towards the end of Summa Elvetica to provoke a war between Elf and Amorran.
• Good Shepherd: He is one of the few members of the Amorran liaison who is genuinely affiliated with the church and not a mercenary. In addition to being a devout man, he is dedicated to this mission. However, he is still skeptical that Elves have souls.

Zephanus

• Affably Evil: He is secretly a mercenary, not a Michaeline nor affiliated with the Church. He is sent to sabotage the Amorran liaison to the Elves and start a war, that would bring massive profits to those who supply soldiers. He is however, extremely friendly.
• Undying Loyalty: When his plan is at the brink of failure, he does a suicidal charge against the High King Mhael. There was no way he could have survived to receive payment, yet he went through with the plan anyways.

Claudius Serranus

• Affably Evil: He is secretly a mercenary sent to sabotage the Amorran envoy, not a Michaeline nor affiliated with the Church. When his plan is foiled, he does not take it personally and he is not even upset that he'll be a Church slave soldier for the next seven years.
• Cool Sword: He carries the sword of a high ranking Elf he killed in battle. The fact that it is enchanted and that he's supposedly a Michaeline is what alerts Marcus to the fact that he's actually just a mercenary.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Played with. In his youth, he was a farm boy who had accidentally got himself into war servitude. After surviving by the skin of his teeth, he eventually became a Michaeline priest, who is both holy and an anti-magical fighter for the church. He still carries the Elven sword he won in battle as a reminder of his past. Except for the history as a mercenary fighting against Elves, none of it is true.