Characters / TwoKinds

The A Crew (Trace and co.)

Trace Legacy

Trace was born into a poor family of farmers, but his talents in magic were quickly recognized and he was recruited into the Templar at a young age. He rose through the ranks and eventually took over the organization as Grand Templar following the death of his first wife. He quickly became known as a tyrant, feared by Humans and Keidran alike. His incredible power allowed him to dominate all those who opposed him. Then his memories were stolen along with his deep-seated hatred for Keidran. He now travels alongside Flora, a Keidran he befriended in his ignorance. However, his memories are slowly returning, and with them a past he would prefer to remain forgotten.

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• Amnesiac Hero: We've been told some choice details of his past, and his current goals are so drastically different from his old ones that the world may be better off if he stays this way.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: The man he is now is a perfectly nice Magnetic Hero. The man he was was a psychotic, paranoid Evil Sorcerer who everyone was scared of. Interesting in that the only person not aware of his past is himself; nearly everyone else is well aware of who he is/was and openly terrified of him. It's gotten to the point that Trace has decided that he's better off not knowing who he was. But when his Superpowered Evil Side starts poking through anyways, he determines that the best way to resist it is to learn his full past before it can take full control.
  Trace: The more I learn about my past, the more I've come to realize how better off I am now without it. I used to want to remember. But being told just made me realize the terrible person I'd been. I understand now that losing it all was the best thing to happen to me. So I've decided I'm not going to do anything to put us at risk anymore.
  • It's even lampshaded here:
    Eric: Templar laws have, in recent years, made it a crime for slave traders, such as me, to free our slaves voluntarily.
    Trace: What? Why? What kind of evil person would make a law like th... It was me wasn't it?
    Eric: Yes.
• Amnesiacs are Innocent: Pre-amnesia Trace Legacy is a genocidal Fantastic Racist/Evil Sorcerer/ambitious usurper. Post-amnesia Trace Legacy falls in Love at First Sight with a Keidran, makes friends with everyone, and fights a nigh-unwinnable battle with a jerkass god just to save one girl.
• Anime Hair: Trace's pointy hair... thing, commonly called Idiot Hair in Anime fandom. Notably, it's only present when he's in his nicer persona, but when that hair falls, it's the first sign that Templar Trace has come out to play with people's entrails... though Templar Trace has his "pointy hair... thing" here.
• Bad Boss: Used to be. He programmed Detritus up to full sapience then stuck him in a little room and told him to guard something incredibly boring and mildly loathsome (to wit, a perfectly preserved dead body) until told otherwise.
• Bad Powers, Good People: He's an avid dark magician without being a raving psychopath (anymore), able to stave off the usual corruption to mind and soul it usually entails by compartmentalizing it into one of his Super Powered Evil Sides, which he visualizes as a demon made out of black smoke and hellfire.
• Berserk Button: Hurting Trace's love interests is the last thing you'll do, period, as his revealed backstory makes very evident — the murder of his wife pushed him over the edge into using Black Magic, which from there drove him into a genocidal fury. Even after his mental reboot, hurting Flora in his presence causes him to instinctively lash out with murderous Black Magic spells.
• Black Magic: He tried to master this to bring his dead wife back and is probably one of the most skilled users of it in the world. Unfortunately for everyone, black magic has detrimental effects on a practitioner's sanity...
• Black Speech: Any time Templar Trace wakes up, of the creepy-as-hell scrawling font variety. Bonus points for having elements of Zalgo in there.
  Templar Trace: Kill my wife, Will You?
• The Chosen One: He is the chosen champion of the human god. Mind you, what he has been chosen for involves genocide against the other races to maximize the human god's power.
• Corrupt the Cutie: "Templar Trace" is actively trying to perform this on Trace, presumably to regain control of his body again on a permanent basis. He recognizes Flora as an obstacle in this goal, so he's trying to break them apart, currently favoring fostering doubt of the Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe variety. It helps that Trace and Flora's unborn Half-Human Hybrid is (so far as they know) the first one in a long time, if not ever.
• The Corruption: His left hand has mutated into a blackened claw from screwing around with black magic.
• Cosmic Plaything: Life seems to really go out if it's way to screw over Trace before and after his amnesia whenever any semblance of happiness and peace comes his way. Which ranges from his past self losing his wife, his unborn child, his sanity, and eventually his memories after turning the world upside down, and his present self having to constantly deal with the never-ending repercussions of his past self's actions, which have lead to deaths, fallouts, and other parties conspiring against him.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Trace began studying Black Magic to find a way to bring his beloved wife back from the dead. Somehow, his goal turned from that to "become leader of the humans and turn them into an instrument of Keidran genocide."
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Saria was an abolitionist who advocated against keidran slavery yet after her death and his tampering in with dark magic he decided to exterminate the keidran in her name, something she calls him out on.
• Enemy Within: Trace's Superpowered Evil Side has recently proven capable of communicating with him and is in fact trying to turn him against Flora by suggesting she's been unfaithful to him and is now pregnant with someone else's child. Trace initially laughed it off because it was clearly lying, as he tells Flora... but he's just been told she really is pregnant... which it doesn't waste any time trying to use to its advantage.
• Evil Sorceror: He used to be one, and an Evil Overlord as well. His getting amnesia'd sealed away most of his magic, along with the evil part.
• Expy: His backstory shares more than a few similarities with that of Darth Revan — a powerful magic-user who was leader of the enemies of all that is good, and was corrupted by dark powers, until his mind was wiped by another powerful magic user. At this point he ceases working for the villains and seeks to undo the evil he caused in his past life, even taking a female companion as his mate (and having a kid with them). The Superpowered Evil Side even is themed around black and red, which are traditional Sith colors. It's not helped that the comic started three months after KOTOR was released. That said, Trace is his own character now and while the basic plot is similar, it in no way decreases the enjoyment of the comic.
• Facial Markings: A blue triangle on the lower side of his left cheek. Hilariously, he wasn't aware that he had a tattoo on his face until Keith asked him about it.
• Fallen Hero: Trace was shown to be a fairly nice guy, before his first wife was killed by a Keidran highwayman. He initially only captured her assailant, before finding out that the weapon was poisoned and had killed her. To make things even worse, they had recently discovered she was pregnant. The sheer loss causes him to... snap. He tried to bring her back to life and failed, warping his mind with dark magic in the process, and then slaughtered the Master Templars, replaced them with his hand-picked acolytes, and became the bane of the Keidran race. The fact that he was also experimenting with dark magic before his wife was killed would likely not have helped.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: As a child, Trace's master quickly realized he was Brilliant, but Lazy, performing his duties faithfully but never really pushing himself, but she also realized that if he ever had a reason to try, he might be capable of damn near anything. They were right; give Trace someone to love and he'll love unconditionally. Take that person away and you have a holocaust on your hands.
  Grand Templar: He is strong. There is no doubt. But he has no heart. He does as we say, he follows our orders. But I don't think we've seen what he can really do. If he were to have some real goal... Something or someone to really care about... Then we'll see real power.
  • To really drive this home, the reason he has no memory? a Goddess battled him in an all-out fight and barely won, the moment she thinks her plan might be in danger because of Trace, she creates an Avatar and attacks him to ensure her plan goes right.
• Genocidal Maniac: His old self was this trope, as he went on a genocidal campaign against the Keidran species.
• Idiot Hair: Trace fits the letter of the trope, not the spirit.
• Improvised Weapon: Has a habit of throwing crates at enemies when nothing else is at hand, much to their surprise.
• Innocently Insensitive: Due to the circumstances regarding his memory loss, it was understandable that Trace didn't quite realize how hurtful it was to effectively abandon Nora after she saved him and being injured as a result. With his reasoning being he cares about his friends more than keeping her company despite what she did for him, completely oblivious to the fact that he's saying this to someone who was more or less his closest companion and friend before he lost his memory. It took Nora pointing this out, for Trace to realize how shitty it was for him to do that, without even once considering Nora's feelings, and truly grasping what she went through for his sake.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: Trace tends to sport a lot of scratch marks after he and Flora have sex, due to the combination of her claws, his lack of fur, and their general enthusiasm. Trace accepts them as Worth It.
• Interspecies Romance: With Flora. Which has recently made him the father of an impending Half-Human Hybrid, though he's only just learned this as of comic 738.
• Just One Man: On the receiving end in comic 921, until the town's guardian dragon shows up.
• King Incognito: He tried with some modicum of success. Then a group of templar extremists came along and tried to torch the town he's in, in his name. He chose to blow his cover to rescue the town. At least one of those he saved is actually grateful.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Trace, after a particularly nasty magical duel.
• Lethal Chef: In chapter 15, Trace attempts to cook a nice breakfast for Flora:
  Trace: Unfortunately... either my cooking skills were lost with my memories... or I never had any to begin with.
  • Hilariously, when he doesn't care about the quality, he's somehow able to produce a restaurant-worthy meal.
• Love Makes You Evil: Not a straight example; 99.99% of the time, Trace is the sweetest guy you've ever met. Introduce him to someone equally as sweet and it's Sickening. Hurt (or worse, kill) that person, and he will do horrible, horrible things. If someone doesn't calm him down fast, he will drive himself to insanity trying to make things "right." Point of fact, all he did when a Keidran brigand grazed his wife with an arrow was track that single thug down and arrest him. It was only when he returned home to find that that arrow had been poisoned that he shoved the whole world into the express elevator to hell; he attempted to resurrect his wife with a Black Magic Dangerous Forbidden Technique, and succeeded only in driving himself completely, utterly, genocidally insane. He promptly clawed his way to the top of the Templar hierarchy and began directing them in blatantly genocidal plans against the Keidrans and Basitans. Admittedly, his mania was intensified by studying the Black Magic; the death of his wife was what pushed him over the Despair Event Horizon and start studying Dangerous Forbidden Technique in hopes of bringing her back from the dead.
• Mayfly–December Romance: He knows Flora is rapidly approaching middle age for a Keidran and it bothers him. A lot.
• Meaningful Name: Trace Legacy lost his memory; with a name like that, he really should have been expecting something like that.
• Mugging the Monster: On the receiving end of this. The captain of the guard, Keiren, who tried to have him arrested upon entering the town where his estate resides realizes once his identity is revealed that Trace Legacy is his boss.
• Mysterious Past: While it's been touched upon at several points in the story, the full details of Trace and Nora's relationship has never been revealed.
• Necromancer: Has a bound ghost as his seneschal. He also had the knowhow needed to build a magical device capable of summoning his dead wife's soul into another's vessel.
• Necromantic: Trace's backstory. He uses Dark Mana to try and resurrect his dead wife. It backfires. No, not Came Back Wrong, it instead flashes back through his brain, nearly killing him and driving him mad. And on top of that, The Dark Side Will Make You Forget.
• Oops! I Forgot I Was Married: Amnesia Trace. His wife, Saria, did not forget.
• Panicky Expectant Father: Trace admits to being this in strip #748, but he says that is the "normal kind of freaking out" that his lover is pregnant, not freaking out and going evil.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Trace was this, to the extent it took a god to bring him down. And if Flora is in danger, he becomes it again.
• Pet the Dog: Even when the Black Magic drove him insane and sent him on a genocidal quest against the Keidran, he at one point saved a Keidran from slavers because she reminded him of his wife.
• Raised by the Supernatural: Although his parents were very much alive and well, while Trace was at the Templar Academy, Nora acted as a surrogate mother to him.
• Red Right Hand: As of the May 5, 2010 comic, Trace's left hand has turned black due to an overuse of black magic. He keeps it hidden with a glove.. Take a look.
• Superpowered Evil Side: He has two of these:
  • "Templar Trace", the psychotic side of him that ruled his body before his Laser-Guided Amnesia. It acts as his Enemy Within; capable of influencing his thoughts and sees Flora as the main obstacle in its path towards regaining control. Later in the comic starts actively talking to Trace in the form of Hallucinations.
  • Berserk Trace (or "Black Mana Trace", as its sometimes called) is what happens when he starts channeling Black Mana or his Berserk Button gets hit too hard (or both). In this state he regains most of his old power and displays a similar level of Bloodlust that Templar Trace had. The main difference is that unlike Templar Trace, he's still amnesic and is extremely protective of Flora; attacking anyone he thinks is threat to her be it Human, Keidran, Basitin, dragons, or even his own friends.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Trace was always a capable magician, but was never motivated to display what he was truly capable of. It took the death of his wife, the knowledge she was pregnant, and a target for him to direct his hatred upon, for him to begin unleashing all the power that he had been holding back.
• Underestimating Badassery: Frequently. Many can't wrap their heads around the fact that this nice, meek individual is Grand Templar Trace, and those who do, seriously underestimate what he's capable of when pushed too far. The two most notable examples have to be during the Basitin Island arc when a human supremacist wing of Templar try to use Trace as a battery to enslave the Basitin, and then start harming Flora. The second is when a group of Templar extremists try to torch the town he's in and claim that "The Grand Templar must be dead, and he's just an impostor." They quickly realize how wrong they are when he demonstrates a taste of his power and skill, but their leader thinks they can still take him down. Also, at the start of the comic, his officially "wanted" poster listed him as harmless.
• What the Hell, Hero?: A minor example, when a telepathic character makes Trace realize he's ignoring the still perfectly alive Flora in lieu of studying a way to magically extend her life while keeping her in the dark about it. Another would be when Keith calls Trace out for calling Flora an animal in the same paragraph where he's contemplating marrying her. Considering just how very much is wrong with Trace's speech, probably everyone was reading that and cheering Keith on.
  • The Keith example makes more sense considering that that "Grand Templar Trace" probably would consider Flora nothing more than a mildly dangerous animal while Trace respects and cares for her. The cognitive dissonance was being caused by Grand Templar Trace leaking through — especially as he said the exact opposite earlier.
• Willfully Weak: He's reluctant to unleash his true power because he fears being taken over by one or both of his Superpowered Evil Side. Even so, he's quite dangerous when provoked.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Black Magic turned him into one before he became amnesiac; a genocidal, power-hungry, and bitter man who hated the entire cosmos for taking his wife away from him, in particular Keidrans. His Templar Trace persona (or as Trace calls it, "Evil Black Smoke Hallucination") is the part that remains that way.

Flora

Flora was born in the southern rainforests but her tribe was attacked by raiders when she was three. Her parents were killed and she was sold into slavery. Flora was lucky enough to be purchased by a friendly human family who treated her more like a daughter than a slave. Thus, Flora recalls her days of slavery with an unusual fondness. She has no memory of the day her tribe was attacked. Flora eventually was allowed by her human family to return to her people. Due to her knowledge of human nature and language, she was chosen to be a representative of the Tiger Clan and a marriage was arranged between her and a prince of the Wolf Clan. The arrangement fell through, though, when her caravan was attacked. She was saved from the human attackers by Trace, who had just recently lost his memories.

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• A-Cup Angst: Flora is very petite in terms of bust-size, and she really doesn't like it much. She does not take it well when this is pointed out.
• Cat Girl: Flora, although with fur, ears, tail, claws, and muzzle, she is much further down the scale than most. It helps that she looks a lot like Tigra, who has an internet paradox named after her.
  The Tigra/Flora Paradox: If you'd hit it you're a furry; if not you're gay.
• Fat and Proud: When she gets pregnant, she thinks she's put on weight. She muses that while keidrans think fat is sexy, "humans are backwards for some reason."
• Half-Human Hybrid: She's currently pregnant with one of these, though she takes a while to accept she's pregnant, and doesn't reveal it to the father until comic #738.
• Idiot Hair: Flora fits the letter of the trope, not the spirit.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Flora, to the point that the author has complained on the forums that he wants to clothe her, but she keeps slipping out of her clothes. Less "Innocent" and more "Not really needed since she has a built-in fur coat," however. Interestingly enough, Flora was Raised by Humans, meaning she should have human modesty, and Natani (indeed, most other Keidran shown, outside of the feral and tribal ones) has no real interest in undressing. Perhaps it is a way of rebelling against her human upbringing.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: Trace tends to sport a lot of scratch marks after he and Flora have sex, due to the combination of her claws, his lack of fur, and their general enthusiasm. Flora does feel guilty about it, but they just tend to keep happening.
• Interspecies Romance: She originally had an arranged marriage with the Prince of the Wolf Keidran, and she's now in a sexual/romantic relationship with Trace, a human.
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: Hints started dropping around 2007-2008, confirmed in 2010, finally started to show a slight baby bump in 2013. That's in real life only, however; in-universe, strip #1009 finally gives a firm timeframe and says that it's just a little over two months since the series began.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: She's initially terrified that Trace will accuse of her of being unfaithful when he discovers her pregnancy, because humans and Keidrans have never had children together before. Not only is it not supposed to be physically possible, but there's also the matter of Keidrans being known for non-monogamy and more than a little promiscuousness, which makes it harder to believe when she says "The baby is totally yours and not the result of me chasing some tail." So far, he shows no signs of disbelieving her, but everyone else around them is skeptical, which means she's still worried about this.
• Morning Sickness: Flora's was mistaken for seasickness.
• Ms. Fanservice: Not normally. But then again, cake...◊
• My Secret Pregnancy: Averted, as Flora has been trying to find a moment to tell Trace that, somehow, she's pregnant and he's the only possible candidate for a father. She succeeds here.
• Obvious Pregnancy: Subverted. Flora's only just starting to show and so her bulge is still quite subtle; the largest it's been so far is in the chapter 16 title page.
• Raised by Orcs: Flora was more-or-less raised by humans, and counts as this to her kind.
• Second Love: Flora is Trace's second great love after his deceased wife (whose death sparked Trace's original Start of Darkness).^note His wife's ghost has been shown to be watching over Trace and approves of him and Flora.
• Skewed Priorities: After learning about Natani's transgender status in comic #1086, all that Flora cares about is that she's finally met a Keidran with smaller breasts than herself.^note Her logic is that, since Natani is wearing a Sarashi and can hide them so well, he obviously must have pretty small breasts—she doesn't know that, in fact, Natani uses wraps enchanted with a variant of the Bag of Holding spell to safely contain his actually very large breasts. Lampshaded by an incredulous Keith, although Natani is happy to let her believe that.
• Spanner in the Works: Her falling in love with Trace threw everyone's plans, both mundane and cosmic, helter-skelter.

Keith Keiser

Keith was born on the Basidian Islands, a large landmass located near the mainland. His father was a General, his mother was a soldier, but she sheltered him from military life for much of his childhood. Like all Basitins, he did eventually join the military, but at 8 years of age, late for most Basitins. Keith was blamed for his parents death at the age of 13 and banished from the islands. He was ordered not to return until he brought back the Grand Templar.

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• Action Hero: He was able to fight Alaric to a near standstill, although Alaric was starting to gain ground before his untimely demise.
• Ancestral Weapon: The armor that Keith initially wears once belonged to his father. In an interesting twist, it's actually a mark of dishonor rather than family pride; he wears it as a condition of his banishment, and is eager to get rid of it after the Basitin Isles arc is done.
• The Atoner: Ironically, for things that weren't his fault. Even killing his father was arguable, as he had discovered his wife murdered, likely suspected that the Intelligence General was responsible, and even Keith himself admits he couldn't have beaten his father if his best day fell on his father's worst and it was like the man "fell on his spear."
• Beta Couple: With Natani.
• Cartwright Curse: Every time someone falls in love with him, and he reciprocates, it does not go well. He was about to be married to Laura, until she cracked under the pressure of her family and peers, and ran away, on the eve before their wedding. They reconcile on the Basitin Island only to have her die in his arms because the same "family friend" that killed his mother and drove his father to Suicide by Cop blasts her with magic. He was forced to duel Alaric to the death. Natani is in a coma due to the backlash of his connection with Zen being severed (Natani gets better after reconciling with their feminine side). Madelyn.... It's probably best that Keith doesn't know about her crush right now.
• Closet Key: To Natani, more or less. Although one could argue that Natani is really bisexual but in denial of his attraction to men, it works out the same.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He and his dad were at ends for most of his childhood, he came home one evening to find his dad had apparently murdered his mom, then he accidentally killed his dad whilst defending himself. For this, he was exiled from the island until and unless he could bring the leader of the Templars back to the Basidian Islands. He was taken in by a female fox keidran, Laura, and was going to give up on going home and get married... and then she ran away in fear and stress before the wedding, so he left her and went on in search of his quest.
• Doom Magnet: Aside from the one time where he found an amnesiac Trace who was perfectly willing to travel with him, nothing's ever gone right for him, at least not for very long, and people close to him tend to have much shorter life-spans.
• Fantastic Arousal: Like all basitins, his ears are very sensitive, and so it's easy to turn him on by touching or kissing him there.
  • Word of God also proclaims that foot-fetishism is effectively universal amongst Basitins, hence the reason why bare feet are considered obscene. It's unclear if Keith still has this fetish, or if spending so long amongst keidrans, who run around bare-pawed all the time, has caused him to lose any sense of eroticism to them.
• Fighting Your Friend: He and Alaric were forced by the Intelligence General's actions to fight to the death.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Made clear in Comic #809; he does genuinely see Natani as "one of the guys," but despite that and his own heterosexuality, he is attracted to Natani as well.
• Impossible Task: Keith was set the impossible — perhaps even suicidal — task of "bring back the Grand Templar" as a condition of his banishment. He was just as surprised as anyone when an amnesiac Trace cheerfully accepted his invitation.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His East Basitin heritage means that he isn't supposed to show emotion, but his feelings run extremely deep due to his mother's West Basitin blood and influence; as a result, he comes off as a Tsundere/Sugar-and-Ice Personality. This may be common among even "normal" Basitins such as Alaric, based on how quickly Keith realized he was playing a trick on him.
• Killer Rabbit: He's the smallest member of the group, with even Flora being almost a head taller than him. He's also incredible strong and tough, immune to poison and heals a lot faster than a human does. He's also the only one besides Natani and Red who remembers his training, as Trace is an amnesiac.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Invoked. Though he does have feelings for Natani, he doubts anything will come from it, since he knows and respects that Natani's transgender and is, as far as he is aware, either asexual or only interested in women.
  • Zigzagged: after Natani makes the first move, although he admits the fact he sees Natani as One of the Boys makes it a little weird for him, Keith is still ultimately happy to return Natani's feelings.
  • He is also strongly implied to be on the other end of this with his Unlucky Childhood Friend Alaric.
• Interspecies Romance: Used to have one with Laura, a fox keidran, and Ship Tease with Natani the wolf keidran ultimately turns into them becoming a second Official Couple.
• Love Dodecahedron: Where to begin? Prior to the Basitin Isle arc, Keith had his ex-girlfriend Laura, who he tried to forget about, and then he and Natani started developing something. Then, on the Basitin Isles, said ex-girlfriend comes back looking to start things up again, a random female guard (Madelyn) becomes infatuated with his fighting skill, and it's strongly implied that his best buddy Alaric is a gay man with a crush on Keith and a perfect willingness to flirt. It then seems to boil back down to a Love Triangle when Laura and Alaric end up dead, and Madelyn joins the crew... only to finally resolve itself into a straight-up Keith/Natani pairing.
• Love Hurts: After being exiled from the islands, he fell in love with a fox keidran and almost married her... but then she went and slept with someone else before the wedding day, so he wandered off heart-broken. Then he starts running around with Trace and Flora, a human/keidran couple who initially bring back bitter memories of his unfaithful lover, causing him to be quite hostile towards them. Then he gets involved with a wolf keidran who is Transgender, with hints of a mutual crush forming between them. Then his old fiancée returns and reveals she was drugged before the wedding to trigger her heat... but, before they can sort things out, she gets killed. Then Natani, the aforementioned wolf keidran, offers to help him get some closure with a spell... but he can't bring himself to end it, despite the fact that he knows it's an illusion that's sapping his life-force... But, finally averted when he manages to get past her death, Natani comes clean about his crush on him and they start a tentative relationship. And then Natani gets put in a seemingly near-fatal coma, leaving Keith an emotional wreck until the wolf recovers from the broken Mental Fusion.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Natani and Keith's relationship sits somewhere between this and a version of Sensitive Guy and Manly Man, in both cases downplayed. Even beyond Natani's outright thinking of himself as a guy, at least prior to his Journey to the Center of the Mind, Natani is rough, brash, hot-headed, aggressively chases after women (until he hooks up with Keith), and very macho-acting. In comparison, Keith is quiet, refined, level-headed, actually rather shy when it comes to romance, smaller than Natani by almost a foot, and delicate-featured enough that Natani outright calls him "girly-looking" (if partially as a joke) repeatedly. And, in fact, he does actually look rather feminine in comparison, unless Natani is deliberately showing off his breasts. It's downplayed in that, even if Natani is definitely the aggressive one in their relationship, Keith is still a strong, capable fighter and in many ways it's a meeting of true equals.
• Mistaken for Gay: First by Flora, then by Maddie, both times due to his interactions with Natani. Just how well this trope applies is highly debatable, due to the confusing and somewhat self-contradictory nature of sexuality when it comes to Keith and Natani's involvement. He was eventually confirmed to be queer - he's probably bisexual.
• Naked People Are Funny: Poor guy is a victim of this trope in most bonus art, not that anyone besides him is complaining. It doesn't help at all that he's very body shy, so his reaction to his own nudity is almost always humorous.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Basitins seem to be based a lot on tropes often applied to both Orcs and Dwarves. They're a small but immensely strong and tough species, very warlike, naturally inclined to military service, resistant to poisons, and with no natural affinity for magic, even compared to Keidrans.
• Prone to Tears: He cries a lot. But don't think that doesn't mean he can't kick ass with the best of them.
• Real-Life Relative: According to some of the bonus comics, at any rate.
• Relationship Upgrade: He and Natani actually go through several of these over the course of the stories; from captor and prisoner to genuine friends to romantically attracted to secretly together before finally becoming an outright couple.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The very ability to do this at all (even if it's incredibly difficult) is what makes Keith so dangerous in the eyes of the Basitins.
• Secret-Keeper: He's the only one aware of the fact Natani is transgender and has a mental-connection with his brother, preserving the secrecy of these facts for Natani's sake. He then adds their relationship to the list of secrets they're keeping together. Eventually, Natani's transgender nature and their relationship come out in the open.
• Self-Made Orphan: Keith killed his drunken father in self-defense, but got the blame because the father was a war hero and the best friend of one of the Basitin Generals.
• Skintone Sclerae: His sclerae are colored the same as his fur.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Though Natani might object to the "girl" part, the two of them together come off as this; the keidran is 6'3" tall, whilst the basitin is only 5'4" — that makes Keith a good eleven inches shorter than his boyfriend.
• Trauma Conga Line: See the Dark and Troubled Past entry above? That's Keith's backstory. And then there's what's happened to him since the story started: he found out Laura had been drugged to make her sleep with someone else and that she'd been looking for him to try and reconcile, only for her to get killed saving him. And then his best friend from when he was a kid got killed. And then he found out his mother had been murdered by an old "friend" of his father's because he thought she was no good for him, implying his father had basically committed suicide on Keith's spear. And then Natani cast a spell to try and help him come to terms with Laura's death, but he almost died from the strain of it. And then Natani suddenly goes into a magically-induced coma and the place Natani is sleeping goes up in flames. Fortunately Natani made it out just in time.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Keith learns this the hard way. He survives, but loses what little left he holds dear; he finds out that not only can he no longer fit into Basitin culture due to his experiences as an exile, but also he never really did due to his mother's blood, influence, and the fact that the Intelligence General hated them both and wanted them dead just for even existing, let alone associating with his father. And that most of Basitin culture agreed with him - to the point of not only attempting to re-exile him, but execute all of his friends. Keith has an even worse case of this than Zuko.

Natani

Natani is a wolf keidran who was forced to live homeless with his brother after his parents and tribe were destroyed by human Templar. Born a girl, he originally disguised himself as a male to join an assassins guild with his brother, Zen, in order to make ends meet. Due to an accident during an assassination mission, Natani became magically and permanently linked to his brother, and much of his brother's male personality overpowered Natani's own, causing him to start identifying himself as a man.

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• Armored Closet Gay: He retains enough of his original identity that he does find men (or at least Keith) attractive. Acting on that attraction, however, is mentally repulsive to him, since the bulk of his mentality is transplanted from Zen, a staunchly heterosexual male. Until Keith ultimately acts as a Closet Key for him. As of Chapter 22, however, the soul link has been severed and Natani has reintegrated with his 'young girl' self, so how this affects him is still to be seen.
• Beta Couple: With Keith.
• Big Damn Kiss: Lays one on Keith in Comic #465. They don't have time to talk about it until Comic #806 onwards, over 340 comics later.
  • And then he does it again in Comic #809 after Keith admits he does see him as one of the guys.
• Big Eater: Implied: In comic #972, multiple empty bowls, a ravaged roast bird, a large slice of cake, half a melon and several bottles can be seen in the background as Natani chews on a drumstick. In comic #987, when he comments about wanting to head to breakfast, Keith playfully feigns disgust at the thought and asks how Natani can think about more food after all they ate the previous night. Natani simply says that he's a wolf, then exhorts Keith to get up and dressed, as he can smell bacon cooking in the kitchen.
• Boomerang Bigot: Despite being transgender (because of externally-induced mental trauma), it's made clear during his Journey to the Center of the Mind that he considers "woman" synonymous with "weak," and that he's appearing in female form as a subconscious reaction to his present weak state. The mental healing he undergoes is implied to have helped him resolve this flaw, to some extent.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Ironically, despite trying to hide his physical gender from everyone, Natani is really, really bad at it. Over the course of the series, he inadvertently reveals his body first to Keith (who tries to become his Secret-Keeper), then he accidentally reveals the fact he has breasts to Mike & Evals (trying to cover it up with an incredibly pitiful story about "Basitin Black Magic"^note Basitin can't use magic, it turns them into mindless zombies if they try), then he accidentally gives Flora hints that he and Keith are keeping a secret from the rest of the party (though Flora believes the secret is that the two are gay interspecies lovers), then he accidentally reveals the truth to Kathrin... Ultimately, he ends up showing off his female body to the whole of the main cast, by which point (with the aid of some Character Development) he just says screw it and admits he's a female-bodied guy.
• Can't Spit It Out: Natani initially cannot bring himself to admit his feelings to Keith. Justified due to the fact he's still struggling to admit his attraction to him to himself and the fact that, by the time he can admit it to himself, Keith has just lost his former lover.
  • Averted in Comic #807, where he finally starts talking with Keith about his possible feelings for him. In the very next one, he unthinkingly blurts out that he wants Keith to kiss him. This promptly leads to a Relationship Upgrade over the next few pages.
• Came Back Strong: When Clovis reduces Natani to an Empty Shell, Natani's fragmented soul is able to recombine itself, not only ending Natani's dependence on the link, but also recovering a lot of magical potential Natani had been unable to use due to the soul injury.
• Character Development: Undergoes a lot of it throughout his sub-arc based on his interactions with Keith. This leads first to their Relationship Upgrade and then culminates (so far) in his Journey to the Center of the Mind, which seems to have given him a more "balanced" perception on his masculinity and his femininity. Starting out having always described his body as a curse in early issues, upon having inadvertently revealed his bosom in Comic #942, Natani's reaction is to maturely admit that he's always looked this way, he just prefers to be thought of as a guy, instead of desperately trying to hide it or explain it away or getting upset about The Reveal.
  • In the next comic, the keidran who originally wanted to hide they were together because he "couldn't handle" admitting he was in a relationship reveals that he and Keither are together to the rest of the crew by kissing Keith in front of them.
  • In the comic for April 13, 2017, despite initially freaking out when Kathrin gives him a set of very feminine "smallclothes" (the In-Universe equivalent of frilly panties), he also forcibly refuses to give them back. Although he's quick to come up with an excuse for it, the obvious inferral is that there's a part of him that likes the idea of wearing them now, a sign of the ongoing reconciliation between his masculine and feminine aspects.
  • Discussed in Comic #972, where he states outright that the healing of the rift hasn't completely changed him back to a female in his head — years of experience and the initial soul-link have left their mark — but he's much more comfortable with who and how he is as a mixture of male and female. Promptly played for laughs in the next comic, where said comfortable acceptance is used to screw with Keith's head by flirting with him, before Natani then offers a sincere, casual invitation for Keith to touch his boobs.
• D-Cup Distress: Because of a near-fatal Black Magic spell in his youth, part of Natani's soul was torn away and had to be replaced with a transplant from his brother. This means he is transgender, identifying himself as male despite his female form, and so his breasts are just a reminder that his body and mind don't match. Normally he's indifferent — the breasts are easily held back by a good set of bandages and a thick jacket — but he finds plenty to complain about in the regular heat cycle he experiences.
• Empty Shell: A Black Magic spell by a criminal mage shattered Natani's soul into pieces, leaving the body in a comatose state. Clovis had used a spell that created a telepathic link between them and Zen's soul, which was used to fill in for the parts of their soul that was broken, which had the unfortunate side effect of messing with Natani's identity due to one of the shattered pieces being Natani's feminity. When Clovis shatters the link, he expects Natani to revert to a comatose state, mentioning the trope by name, only to his surprise, discover that Natani has had time to reconnect with the broken pieces, and recover from the accident that had forced them to have the link in the first place.
• Eye Colour Change: The color of his eyes reflects the state of his soul and the mind link with his brother. He was born with two brown eyes, but after he underwent the mind link with Zen, his right eye switched to grey, reflecting the damage his soul had taken. When Zen uses the link to speak to Flora and Keith through him the right eye goes brown again, as it's Zen's (un-fractured) soul looking out through Natani's eyes at that point. When the mind link was severed due to Zen being placed in a magic-suppressing shackle, both eyes went grey as his soul crashed without the support of the link. They remained that way during his Journey to the Center of the Mind, where his feminine-aspect younger self still sports two brown eyes. When he wakes back up after reconciling with his other half, his eyes have gone back to the normal one grey one brown, reflecting how, despite his still-fractured soul, he's learned to stand on his own even without the link. After Clovis shatters the link completely, Natani is forced to use their rebuilt connection to their soul fragments to undergo a Split-Personality Merge. When Natani recovers consciousness, both eyes are brown. The eye color change is not just symbolic, as Keith comments on them changing.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: He offers, perhaps seriously, to do this permanently with Kat if he ever learns a spell for it, even though it would mean both of them switching species. The reason being that because of the soul-bond between him and Zen, Natani mostly identifies as a heterosexual male, but has a female body which still goes into estrus (heat), during which he feels a female's biological compulsion to mate with a male. Meanwhile Kat was specifically bred to be barren (and has never experienced estrus) but wants to have children.
• Hidden Buxom: By way of an enchanted Sarashi that sends his breasts into Hammerspace.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Despite initially only being attracted to women, Natani eventually admits his attraction to Keith... and that he really wants to be with him. Initially doesn't want to outright call it a relationship, though, because of how hard it is for him to wrap his mind around it. It progresses to the point of them being able to sleep together (actual sleep, not any sexual liason) without Natani being bothered when he wakes up with Keith's head pillowed on his breasts. However, he does have a mild freakout when he feels Keith's morning wood pressed against...let's just say that, considering their position and the height differential, things could have progressed quite easily from that point. Ironically, Natani does later admit that he's considering having sex with Keith.
• Incompatible Orientation: Zigzagged. As explained under Armored Closet Gay, despite his professions of only liking women, he is very strongly attracted to Keith. This, understandably, leads to a lot of frustration on his part... especially when it turns out that Madelyn, a female Basitin with a crush on Keith, is also on-board the ship with them. Eventually, he forces himself to admit his attraction to Keith to the Basitin.
• I Owe You My Life: Delibarately Invoked to Enforce Defeat Means Friendship. Flora keeping him from getting killed when he and Zen screw up their assassination attempt on the party causes her to remind him of this little tidbit of the keidran moral code. While he considers snapping Trace out of a Black Magic induced psychotic episode "debt paid," some humans threatening to skin him alive over the border hedge being burnt down changes his mind pretty quick. Sythe later points out that you'd either need to be crazy or stupid to think keeping around someone who was trying to kill you 5 minutes ago is a good idea.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: After Zen's link with him is unwittingly severed, Natani goes into a coma that ultimately leads to him undergoing one of these, where he confronts his prior self as an adolescent girl.
• The Lad-ette: Possibly the best descriptor of Natani after his encounter with past!Natani and the subsequent mental healing. He accepts that he has a female body and a mental image that is at least partially female, but sees no particular reason that means he has to act more feminine. Perhaps the best example of this is in comic #973, where Natani casually asks if Keith would like to touch his boobs.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Somewhat literally; during the Journey to the Center of the Mind, past!Natani explains that a lot of present!Natani's memories are effectively "fake," being sublimated versions of Zen's memories and perspectives of those events, as a side-effect of their Mental Fusion.
• Love Triangle: During the Basitin Isles arc, Natani begins developing a crush on Keith, who has had his own First Love return to him. However, it resolves itself by comic 815, at which point said First Love is dead, Keith has gotten over her death, and Natani has confessed his feelings and had them reciprocated.
• Mental Fusion: Natani only survived the Black Magic attack in her youth as a result of spell that did this, creating a permanent telepathic link between the Assassin Brothers. His being transgender was an unfortunate side-effect of the process.
  • When Zen gets placed in magic-dampening shackles in Comic #846, it seemingly undoes this effect. It almost kills Natani, but he does manage to survive. What effects this will have on his already rather scarred mindscape is the big question at the moment.
  • During Natani's Journey to the Center of the Mind, his past self confronts him over how much of his present identity is really Zen's influence (less than he thinks) and how much is actually his own personality (more than he realizes/admits). Accepting this as true is implied to have had a beneficial effect on Natani's psyche, although details are still developing.
    • Comic #972 and #973 touch upon the details in brief; Natani is a lot more accepting of his female aspects, and the rift between his male and female sides has healed significantly, which makes him much more comfortable with his body. However, he hasn't completely gone back to being all-female, because he spent too long thinking of himself as male to do so, and his mind is still a "little" fractured, such that past!Natani is still an active presence in his head.
• Metaphorically True: In a flashback, he's shown chatting up a female wolf by telling her that the dark mage he and his brother were sent to assassinate took one look at them and killed himself. He leaves out the part in the middle where the mage cast a Black Magic spell with fatal consequences at the two, flaying Natani's soul but causing feedback that killed the caster.
• Mistaken for Gay: Both Flora and Maddie think Natani is a gay man in love with Keith. The truth is... rather harder to describe.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Natani and Keith's relationship sits somewhere between this and a version of Sensitive Guy and Manly Man, in both cases downplayed. Even beyond Natani's outright thinking of himself as a guy, at least prior to his Journey to the Center of the Mind, Natani is rough, brash, hot-headed, aggressively chases after women (until he hooks up with Keith), and very macho-acting. In comparison, Keith is quiet, refined, level-headed, actually rather shy when it comes to romance, smaller than Natani by almost a foot, and delicate-featured enough that Natani outright calls him "girly-looking" (if partially as a joke) in some comics. It's downplayed in that, even if Natani is definitely the aggressive one in their relationship, Keith is still a strong, capable fighter and in many ways it's a meeting of true equals.
• Master of Illusion: Natani's magical specialty is casting illusions, though he can use other kinds of spells as well.
• Mundane Utility: Makes particular use of his magic to help himself present as male, from wearing what is essentially a Bag of Holding as a bra to experimenting with an easily sustained illusion so he can go around barechested.
• The Nose Knows: One of Natani's problems is a purely visual disguise won't fool other Keidran; he has to fool their sense of smell as well.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: For an assassin, Natani is a pretty lousy fighter. Even the comic's author notes that the "famous Assassin Brothers" owe much of their hype to a combination of luck and their own boasting.
  • Actually lampshaded in comic #970, where Keith teases Natani about just how bad Natani is at actually being an assassin.
• Real-Life Relative: According to some of the bonus comics, at any rate.
• Relationship Upgrade: Undergoes this repeatedly with Keith over the course of the comic. Initially his angry prisoner, they become friends through training together and talking on the way to the Basitin Isles. His playing Secret-Keeper for him whilst he's in heat starts a romantic attraction on her part, and after they leave the Isles, this ultimately blossoms into a secret relationship. In Comic #943, after undergoing a strong amount of In-Universe Character Development as a result of his Journey to the Center of the Mind, he casually reveals that he and Keith are together by kissing him in front of the rest of the team.
• Sarashi: Uses a chest wrap to tie down his breasts and thus disguise himself as male. When it was pointed out that Natani's sheer bustiness makes this rather implausible, a tie-in comic explains he uses enchanted wraps to shunt his breasts into Hammerspace.
• Split-Personality Merge: When Clovis shatters the link completely, Natani's younger Tomboy self backs him up, reassures him that they no longer need the link, and fully rejoins with the main personality.
• He's Back!: To Keith's surprise, and possibly eternal joy, Natani shows up, asking what he's missed, after Keith watches the ship they were on go down in flames.
• Statuesque Stunner: Natani is 6'3" (an early size chart listed him at 6' even; a later chart listed him taller). He's the tallest member of the core cast by far, and at Size D has the largest breasts of the cast (when he's not binding them to hide them).
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Overlaps with Painting the Medium as a means of emphasizing Natani's transgender status. Female characters in Twokinds are normally drawn with visible eyelashes - but Natani, despite having a female body, is drawn without them. The only time you'll see him drawn with female-style eyelashes is on his younger female-aspect past self inside his head, or the one time he put on a 'girly voice' to mess with Keith.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Though Natani might object to the "girl" part, he is this with Keith; the keidran is 6'3" tall, whilst the basitin is only 5'4". That's almost a foot's worth of difference.
• Tomboy: According to Natani's past-self, she didn't originally mind being a girl, but she also liked being seen as a boy when young, meaning Natani was at least this before the Mental Fusion.
• Trans Tribulations: One of the most convoluted aspects of Natani, and the source of no little fan debate. Originally a female, although conversation with past!Natani reveals he was always a tomboyish girl, the incident in which part of Natani's soul was destroyed required mages to save his life by pasting copied fragments of his brother Zen's soul into the gaps. This turns out to have had the side-effect of plastering some of Zen's perceptions over Natani's own. This led to Natani spending many years thinking of himself as a male unfairly trapped in a female body, fueling a spiritual and mental rift in the keidran's psyche, something that was actually strengthened by the active presence of Zen in Natani's head via their mental link. When this link was temporarily muted,^note due to Zen wearing a magic-dampening restraint Natani undergoes a Journey to the Center of the Mind, which is called out as helping him to heal from this "assimilation" and make peace with himself. This hasn't reversed what he went through all those years, but has made him less mentally fractured, with the precise result still being in development — in comic #1036, he describes himself as basically a guy with boobs.
  • In summary, Natani has, through the aid of magic, gone from "tomboyish girl" to "self-loathing man in a woman's body" to "comfortably gender-fluid," and that seems to be where he's settling.
  • Incidentally, one of the issues with this trait and how it has been handled is the constant edit warring over whether to use masculine or feminine pronouns when referring to Natani.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: In strip #1108, it turns out that Natani stuffed a rather large supply of magic crystals in his breast bindings.
• Waistcoat of Style: Natani's latest outfit (made by Kathrin with the remains of Natani's old robes and some spare fabric of Eric's) is a green waistcoat under a black cape/cloak.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: This is what Natani originally was when the Assassin Brothers were first training as assassins. After Natani's near-death and Mental Fusion with Zen, this stopped being quite the case.

Madelyn "Maddie" Adelaide

A young female Basitin who has developed a massive crush on Keith, despite (or perhaps because) of his Dark and Troubled Past. Originally appeared as an overly energetic guard who acted as a witness to the duel between Alaric and Keith, she later sneaks on-board Erik's ship as they leave the Basitin Islands, becoming the Tagalong Kid.

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• Abomination Accusation Attack: Falsely accuses Eric of coming on to her in order to trick Trace and Flora into helping her stay on the ship, when they are understandably outraged to find that Eric is apparently a pedophile in addition to his other perversions. No wonder he hates her...
• Ambiguously Bi: Maddie starts out with a massive crush on Keith, but once she's off the island she expresses curiosity regarding Seraphina's exposed chest and becomes flustered when Karen accidentally flirts with her after getting a tail.
• Animal Eyes: Madelyn has the same eyes as Flora: gold and slitted like a cat. Do note that she's also the only Basitin whose drawn with visible pupils.
• Berserk Button: Karen calling her shrimpy earns her ire, on account of Maddie being Older Than They Look and insecure about her short height compared to her towering mother.
• Cat Girl: She acts like one despite being a Basitin: Curious, energetic, and has a knack for mischief.
• Child Soldier: Like all Basitin she was enrolled in the army at a young age, and looks to be around 13 or 14. Subverted, as she's actually 17 years old, practically an adult.
• False Rape Accusation: Maddie tells Trace and Flora that Erik tried to molest her, but his protestations of innocence and her smirk while hugging them indicate she's lying in order to avoid being sent back to the brig.
• Fragile Speedster: Maddie is very stealthy and preternaturally fast, but Word of God is she'd be pretty much useless in a stand-up fight because she's primarily trained to be a scout. Lampshaded by her in strip #1055, where she bitterly admits to Karen that no matter what she accomplished, the Basitin high command were always disappointed in her because she wasn't a carbon copy of her mother (who's practically a giantess, and an extremely powerful warrior).
• The Gadfly: Maddie enjoys playing pranks and practical jokes, then vanishing before she can be accused, preferably so that the blame falls on someone else.
• Genius Ditz: Madelyn can act very silly and juvenile one minute, clever and intelligent the next. Kind of like any young teenager, actually, but it's not clear how much of it is just an act.
  • When Maddie slips a note to Natani (who can't read it) Natani assumes it's just an adolescent girl's juvenile love note to her crush because Maddie covered it with cutesy decorations. Turns out it's actually a vital report on Keith's battle with Alaric... even if it is written in the phonetic equivalent of a Valley Girl accent.
  • She's one of the five officers presiding over Keith's trial.
  • She somehow escapes from the brig of Eric's ship despite being locked in a cell. Twice, even when it was double-padlocked.
  • She manipulates Flora and Trace by making insinuations about Eric, who is, after all, a Handsome Lech.
  • She builds an elaborate structure from random junk because she's bored in 746.
  • She then instantly realises that the best way to summon everyone quickly is to disrupt her sculpture, which she does by removing one key component in the next comic.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: About as much as any Basitin can be, apparently, though it may just be because she's being allowed to indulge in her adolescent sexual curiosity outside of the rigid confines of Basitin society. Her first thought upon seeing the Adrakist take massive Clothing Damage was "So that's what a human's [breasts] look like. Neat."
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: When she notices how casually intimate Keith and Natani are, she discards her Precocious Crush immediately.
• King In Cognito: She's actually King Adelaide's daughter. No one in Trace's party knows this until she admits it to Karen in Strip #1055.
• Love Triangle: Maddie clearly has a crush on Keith. Keith and Natani have a rather complicated relationship developing already. However, it's ultimately averted in that once she notices how they are around each other, she's all business with Keith.
• Metaphorically True: Maddie doesn't lie, exactly, but she certainly likes to shade the truth, telling Keith that she "wouldn't leave without informing my superior officer" when she actually just left a note for her mom, who is not happy when she finds it.
• The Napoleon: Channels a bit of Edward Elric when Karen calls her short. Possibly linked to insecurity about her height compared to her mother at the same age. Of course, that's compared to her seven-and-a-half-foot-tall mother; compared to the rest of the population of her people, she's of average height.
• Older Than They Look: She acts and looks to be in her early teens, being assumed to be thirteen or fourteen years old, but is actually seventeen and embarrassed about her short height.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Maddie uses them here and they work as designed. Trace then lampshades the trope by name.
• Rebellious Princess: Turns out she's actually the daughter of King Adelaide of the Basitins. Except for Karen, the others don't know this yet.
• Sherlock Scan: She immediately realizes that Natani and Keith have gotten together upon first meeting them because she spots Natani has looped his tail with Keith's.
• Small, Annoying Creature: In-Universe. Eric thinks of her as this, trying to get rid of her the instant he finds out about her. Her being a stowaway (and accusing him of trying to bad-tough her) contributes to this outlook immensely.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: While she is a master of this trope, she lampshades the possibility that Lynne might be even better here.
• Squick: Shows up in her expression In-Universe as she listens to a Primal Scene while hiding under Trace and Flora's bed.
• Tagalong Kid: To the rest of the main gang, so far. That doesn't mean she's dead weight, as she's a trained scout.
• Valley Girl: In letter form!
  "I, Lieutenant Madelyn Adelaide, witnessed a duel between Keith Keiser and Nickolai Alaric... and it was awesome! You should have seen it! At first Keith was all like 'oh noes!'..."

Messenger Lynn

Keith's majordomo after he is named Ambassador, Lynn's title of "messenger" carries an important connotation, as it means Lynn is asexual in a rigidly gender-segregated society and thus allowed to act as a go-between the sexes, though Lynn implies messengers receive more pity than honor from most Basitin.

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• Badass Bureaucrat: Despite the fact that he is (probably) a Non-Action Guy, he's still a Basitin. He's badass in his own way.
  Sealeen: Hey, wait! Wasn't that burned?
  Lynn: Oh please, my dear. I'm a bureaucrat. All my documents are in triplicate, naturally.
• Crazy-Prepared: He seems to have a document for any occasion. Or tea and coffee cake. And those documents? He has them in triplicate, in the unlikely event they encounter a crazy dragon-worshipping lady who torches them.
• The Jeeves: Anticipating Keith's needs appears to be second nature.
• No-Sell: Lynn has absolutely no sex drive whatsoever, which is an essential requirement for any messenger. This gives Lynn a perverse degree of freedom, as messengers are not subject to the stringent gender segregation that characterizes Basitin society. They're even exempt from curfew. It's not made clear if he's naturally asexual, though, or if he was made asexual, as gelding males to make them into messengers is just the kind of thing that Basitins would be capable of from what we've seen of their culture. In any case, it makes him completely immune to the powers of a human woman who relies on her sexual Charm Person talents in battle.
• Not So Stoic: Seeing Natani and Keith kiss in Comic #943 shocks him so much that his ears shoot up with enough force to slap Madelyn and Katherine in the face.
• Something Else Also Rises: There's something very suggestive in the way his ears spring up after seeing Natani kiss Keith. Which is amusing/ironic, given he explicitly has such low sex drive it helped him evade a sex-based Charm Person spell.
• Stating the Simple Solution: To prevent a riot because the town they're in is at war with a tribe of Wolf-Keidran who just moments ago set numerous major fires, he suggests Trace "arrest" Natani to be taken to the Legacy estate rather then risk coming to blows with the town guards.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Parodied. Him talking with his opponent during a fight ticked her ally off.

The B Crew (Red-Hair Guy and co.)

Karen Taverndatter

Karen is the hyperactive younger of the Taverndatter sisters. She doesn't care about races or wars or religions. She just enjoys interesting stuff, and if nothing interesting is happening, she tends to cause it. Karen's set of Keidran ears were given to her as a curse by Trace, whom she was annoying. The curse backfired, however, when Karen decided she loved the ears and wanted to keep them.

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• Cloudcuckoolander: She can go into some really strange trails of thought at times. Like, after confirming that changes between Raine's forms carry over, she asks what would happen if Raine got pregnant by Sythe in wolf-form and then changed back to human form; would the result be human babies or wolf Keidran puppies?
• Cat Girl: Much higher up the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism than Flora is — for a long time, she's got cat-like ears and that's it. In page 1193, a mis-cast spell from Clovis gives her a tail as well, which she's overjoyed by.
  Karen: [gasp] TAIL! It's real! Oh, thank you, Mr. Clovis!
  Maddie: Karen, don't thank him!
• Keet: Everything excites her. She is so adorable when she is happy about her village being destroyed. The one time she visibly seems to loose some of her perkiness is when she's told she almost died in comic #841.
• Mistaken for Flirting: After getting a tail, Karen accidentally entwines it with Maddie's — a very intimate act in Basitin culture — on page 1214. While Karen doesn't see the big deal, Maddie is extremely flustered and calls her a pervert.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Karen's excitable nature leads to her frequently asking inappropriate questions and invading others' personal space, such as poking Reni's human form in the chest while noting how flat she is.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Given she asks if Raine mating with Sythe would produce human or Keidran offspring, she may well be hoping for them to hook up. Or else she might just have been having one of her ditzy moments.
  • Happens again in page 1074, where she teases Maren and Sythe, and on page 1120 where she shows immense joy over hearing they were planning to “hook up”.

Maren Taverndatter

Maren is the bossy elder of the Taverndatter sisters. She's one of Trace's current "girlfriends," though Trace and her were never seriously involved. They met at her tavern as Trace was passing by during his missions. She knew Trace still loved his wife, who had passed away years before; and she knew she was really just being used by Trace as a momentary distraction. But she stayed with him, nonetheless.

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• Even the Girls Want Her: Played with in multiple bonus material, as Raine seems to be extraordinarily aware of Maren when she's around her, even wondering in one instance if they're going on a "date".
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: As the saner, elder Taverndatter, she's generally responsible for trying to keep Karen from doing anything too stupid.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: When it comes to Raine. She may not be perfect yet, but she's willing to talk to and interact with her, even brushing her fur coat.
• Fantastic Racism: If you wanted to know how an average human villager acts around other species, here you go. Although she is slowly getting better about it. Slowly. Later subverted, thanks to her ongoing interactions with a certain Wolf Keidran...
• Hidden Buxom: It normally doesn't show due to her loose fitting peasant shirt, but as this Patreon sketch shows, she's got some hiding under it.
• Liquid Courage: While considering sleeping with Sythe.
• Replacement Goldfish: Trace formed a brief relationship with her because he felt that she resembled his dead wife, Saria, which is also why he was planning to use her as a sacrifice for Saria's revival.
• Ship Tease: With Sythe, especially on Patreon sketches.
• Tsundere: If Patreon sketches are anything to go by, she seems to have developed romantic feelings for Sythe, but is heavily in denial, though anytime Sythe’s pet squirrel Ms. Nibbly shows affection, she shows clear jealousy.
• Tragic Bigot: It’s revealed in her reference sheet that her father was murdered by a keidran servant named Tanlen, which is likely what caused her hatred of keidran.
• Ungrateful Bastard: After hearing that Raine saved her life, her only reaction is an "eh, whatever" because she realized that Raine has a Keidran form. At least that's better than she was before hearing that, when she tried to kill Raine when Raine surprised her in Keidran form.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: While it may have begun as fan-fueled subtext, Maren has found herself inexplicably drawn towards Sythe, to the point that she was able to overcome her previous biased attitudes about Keidran [1], to the point that she's actually considering the prospect of possibly being "intimate" with him [2].

Red-Headed Guy

Red-Headed Guy (a.k.a. "Database Error") was one of Trace's friends from the Templar Academy. However, he dropped out after a few years when he showed little magical development. He later joined the local militia of his hometown. He hates and distrusts all Keidran, which causes complications when circumstances force him and his friends to make common cause with Sythe. He's also developed a crush on Raine, which rocks his whole world when her true nature is revealed.

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• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He and Sythe take the role of leader when it is clear an assassin is after them.
• Battle Cry: "In the name of meaningless battle!"
• Blood Knight: Again his war-cry is "In the Name of Meaningless Battle!!!"
• Character Development: One of the biggest examples in the series. For a long time the central point of his personality was his racism towards Keidran's. During the series, it slowly disappears as he learns about Raine's secret, and over time comes to accept it. He eventually shows that he managed to overcome much of his racism - to the point of punching Reni in the face, when she tries to attack Raine when her wolf form is revealed on the bases she was in league with the ones that cast had dealt prior, and gives her a What the Hell, Hero? for blinding rushing to conclusions, a mistake that he himself admitted he made.
• Fantastic Racism: Probably the worst human supremacist of the main characters. When consoling Raine, it basically amounts to "Don't worry, Keidran are monsters, but you're not really one."
  • However, he's becoming increasingly tolerant as the strip goes on — even becoming friendly with Sythe, and actively trying to cut down on his automatic slurs. He retains some of his racism, but it amounts to lingering condecension as opposed to outright bigotry now.
• Hidden Depths: He is quite clever when he wants to be. He is good at deception and used to be an actor in the Templar Theatre Troupe. When Sythe lampshades it, Red tells him that he better not be dissing the theater.
• Hypocrite: He's disgusted at how some Keidran take human slaves. Since he was a Templar, he must know that humans take Keidran slaves, so he either didn't think of it, or considers it acceptable.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Red starts playing with Raine's tail after she swats his face with it. He then begins to touch and rub it, with panels showing her humorous facial reactions and blushing.
  • He then recieves a very physical reason why you should never touch a lady's tail without her permission.
• Imagine Spot: Red freaking out here due to the revelation that Raine is secretly a Kiedran, making him wonder if he's a secret Kiedran. The April Fool's joke involved that actually being the case.
• Insult Friendly Fire: Red has a burning hatred of Keidran, which is unfortunate for him when he's paired up with one. It gets worse when it's revealed that Raine is also a Keidran, so every time he insults the Keidran he hates, he's also insulting the woman he's attracted to.
• Noble Bigot: His hatred is always expressed as a desire to protect humans.
• No Name Given: [Database Error] can't even get his name on the character page, though careful analysis of the comic does reveal that his name does start with a "P", "R", or "B".
  • The only info on what his name is in the background of the fourth panel in this strip. Apparently, it's a plant-based name (i.e. like Rowan, etc.).
• Only Known By His Nickname: So far, the only name we have for him is "Red," mockingly applied to him first by Zen and later by Sythe. A background conversation between him and Trace in strip #1008 clarifies that his name, whatever it is, is similar to an as-yet unnamed plant.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: "Red" has run afoul of this with his current traveling companions. Pretty much instantaneously jumps to Digging Himself Deeper territory. Heck, this page is even called 'Keep diggin' that hole.'
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Maren takes note of it when Red makes an effort not to be racist, and is floored by it.
• Running Gag: His nickname "Red" and the fact that he is never referred to by his real name which is still a mystery.
• Ungrateful Bastard: After Zen saves the group and helps to feed Carver he is badly injured Raine 0 and the others ten to zen but reds reaction is to do nothing but Raine talk some sense and to him that even though he was sent after them, (Mainly just Sythe), he has proved that he is a good person and was willing to help them and they're not just gonna sit around let him die for his heroic act. He later helps.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: A sword in this case. It gets him into trouble when Raine turns into her Keidran form. He attacked her thinking she was trying to hurt Maren. To be fair, after realizing the truth he was horrified by what he'd nearly done, and felt incredibly guilty about it. He's mellowed out a bit since, and has even been nicer to Sythe.
  Red: I'm so used to solving my problems by hitting them until they go away, but... this time it was a mistake. I'm sorry.

Raine Silverlock

^{Click to see Raine's Keidran form.}

The daughter of Trace's predecessor Grand Templar Mary Silverlock and High Templar Euchre, a male wolf Keidran shape-shifter unknowingly accepted into the Templar ranks. Raine has a powerful magic potential but no formal training, so her results tend to be erratic. Like her father she has a human and a Keidran form. Unlike her father she has little control over her transformations between them because her mother hid this ability from her using a series of increasingly powerful magic artifacts. Losing control over her emotions means losing control over her form. Raine currently only retains her human appearance due to the powerful spell on the metal cuffs she wears, but as that spell only works while the cuffs are closed she constantly risks exposure.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Strip 1218 shows that Euchre calls her "Raindrop".
• Beware the Nice Ones: Her powers might be a little random due both to lack of training and her own reservations about using magic, but as strip 996 shows, it is not a good idea to piss her off. Just ask Carver...it was a lot further than 10 metres...
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Yes, she can freely transform between human, Keidran or hybrid forms, more or less, but since the two species are at war with each other, that's not really a very valuable ability. To say nothing of the personal pain caused by her ability. Additionally, if she's upset, it's harder for her to transform from one to the other.
  • Her Involuntary Shapeshifting once left her stuck with a wolf right arm and left leg on an otherwise human frame, which not only made her even more embarrassed over her condition but also made it hard to walk!
  • Sythe tells her that her Keidran form is pretty cute but Raine, who doesn't want to be a Keidran, doesn't want to hear it.
• Chained by Fashion: She has to wear enchanted shackles because without them her ability to control her form-shifting is too unstable and she reverts back to Keidran form.
• Cute Little Fangs: In her human form. She also has yellow eyes and shaggy fur-like hair.
• Cute Monster Girl: In comic #811, she manages to partially shift back into human form, leaving her with a form that has Keidran ears, tail, forearms and legs with a human torso, upper arms and face.
• Cursed with Awesome: Raine suspects that her Involuntary Shapeshifting is a punishment from the gods for her parent's transgression of (unintentionally) exploiting Euchre's shapeshifting abilities to create the first human/keidran hybrid. It's more likely that Mary's hiding of Raine's heritage meant she never received any instruction on controlling her powers.
• Eyes Never Lie: Red initially believes she's been replaced by a Keidran but one good look into her eyes convinces him she hasn't.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Her father is the Keidran shape-shifter High Templar Euchre and she has inherited his shape-shifting ability, along with a human transformation spell; she shifts from human to keidran uncontrollably. Her mother is Mary Silverlock, Trace Legacy's predecessor as Grand Templar. When she is calm and her limiter breaks, she transforms only half-way. This may or may not be her "true form." It's hard to tell with shapeshifters.
• Interspecies Romance: Raine is the Half-Human Hybrid result of one of these, and there appears to be a mutual crush between her and "Red." Sythe also thinks she's cute, but there's no sign that Raine reciprocates.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Her emotions can cause her to shape-shift from human to Keidran.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Changes made to one of Raine's forms are, as far as she's aware, carried over between forms, so injuries aren't fixed by shapeshifting.
  • She may have strong native magical ability, but when in her wolf form she's still subject to the Keidran limitation of needing mana crystals to cast spells. Whether she needs crystals to use magic while in her half-way form is unknown.
• Long-Lost Relative: Is actually the first cousin once removed of Roselyn, the sensechal at the Legacy Estate, though she doesn't know this until strip #1064.
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: As a gag, there's a story she wrote about "Mrs. Nibbly" in the character section where she claims Mrs. Nibbly is a widow who wanted something more. She further claims that is why Nibbly was brave enough to join the two-legged beasts.
• Multi Boobage: In comic #951, Sythe claims that as a Keidran Raine actually has several rows of nipples continuing down her stomach underneath the fur, which presumably would only grow into breasts if she got pregnant. Of course, he's probably just lying to mess with Red.
• Mystical White Hair: In both forms, though she's got a lot more hair in her wolf form. She inherits this from her father, who is a white wolf Keidran in his natural form and a white haired androgynous man in his human form.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Puts Zen in her magic-suppressing shackle so that her friends won't have to kill him due to being unable to trust him. This severs the soul link Zen has with his sibling, Natani, throwing Natani into a long coma.
• Nonhumans Lack Attributes: Of the "fur explicitly covers up what's there" variety, as discussed in comic #951.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: She's the daughter of a wolf Keidran who had the innate ability to shapeshift into a human form and she can shift shapes as well. She even references the trope.
• Sarashi: Binds her breasts for modesty even while in wolf form.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Her reference sheet states that she has the highest raw magical capacity of the entire cast, not counting dragons, meaning her body can naturally store the most magic. However she lacks the training to use her powers effectively.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Raine can change her form but this ability has been suppressed her whole life so she never developed much control over it. Rose, who possess the same ability, begins training her to control it in strip #1065.

Sythe

Prince of the Wolf clan and Flora's former fiance. During a raid on the human village Sythe is forced to choose between his loyalty to his people and killing humans he actually knows. Unfortunately for him he hesitated just a bit too long and was forced to throw in his luck with Raine, [Database Error], and the Taverndatter sisters to seek a place where Keidran and Human can live and let live.

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• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He and Red take the role of leader when it is clear an assassin is after them.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Either due to his size or it looking different than a human penis, when he and Maren are getting ready to hook up, her reaction to catching a glimpse of it is I Need a Freaking Drink.
• Category Traitor: Thanks to Karen, he is now considered a race traitor and Zen believes his punishment for it will be death. He is equally horrified to learn that a Keidran is working with the Templar.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He shows signs of them when he's shown to be Not So Above It All. Antagonized by Red for so long and under the threat of death by the assassin, he snaps a bit and pulls his weapon on a squirrel (he thought it was the assassin trying to sneak up on him) which he then adopted and started calling "Mrs. Nibbly." Red points out that he's started to refer to the squirrel as a person and that it's weirding both he and Raine out.
• Deadpan Snarker: Notable even among the "B" crew, who tend to be fairly snarky as a group. It causes problem with Red when he rejects all of his plans outright.
• Foil: He is this mutually with Red. He is a non-racist Keidran who is a lot more snarky. He is also smarter or at least more in control of his thoughts whereas Red verbally digs himself into holes. He also plays the part of warrior, but is really the Non-Action Guy, at least compared to Blood Knight Red. Their whole subplot involves them fighting whereas Raine has to be the mediator.
• Friend to All Living Things: He is, surprisingly, one of the few non-racist cast members. In chapter 17, he befriends snd adopts a squirrel despite being a wolf Keidran.
• Manipulative Bastard: In chapter 2, He manipulated Flora into killing trace for him by saying that trace was responsible for her enslavement and for her family's deaths. After Flora leaves to do the job, he then confirms to himself that he was lying and never told her the truth about what really happened.
• Multi Boobage: Assuming he's not lying about it and wolf Keidran really do have multiple breasts, then he's technically got this, although as a male he's only got nipples.
• Non-Action Guy: Sythe was raised to be a diplomat, not a warrior. He still tries and all it does is lead him to kill the Author Avatar and pull a weapon on a squirrel which he proceeds to adopt instead of eat.
• Ship Tease: With Maren, especially in Patreon posts. She even takes him up on his offer to fool around.
• Spell My Name With An S: Invoked In-Universe; he wanted to name himself after the scythe, because he thought it was really cool-looking and because that's the closest human equaviliant to his Keidran name, but due to not being that good with the human language and the near-silent "c" in the word, he didn't realize it wasn't spelled S-Y-T-H-E.
• Troll: In comic #951, he sneakily "mentions" to Red that Raine's Keidran form has Multi Boobage hidden under her fur, teasing that he just thought the human might like to know "the perks." Red angrily hisses back that he's certain Sythe is just lying to mess with him.

Zen

Zen is a wolf keidran who was forced to live homeless with his younger sister Nataniafter their parents and tribe were destroyed by human Templar. As a result, he is very protective of his sibling, the only family he has left. He joined the assassin's guild to try to make ends meet, only to have Natani disguise herself as a male and follow him into the guild. Due to an accident during their first assassination mission, Zen and Natani's minds became permanently magically linked, leading to no end of trouble for the siblings down the line.

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• Big Brother Bully: Somewhat downplayed; Zen obviously cares deeply for Natani and would do anything to keep his sibling safe, but that doesn't stop him from teasing Natani relentlessly. Some of that can be put down to harmless sibling banter, but his habit of teasing Natani about any apparently 'feminine' impulses or behaviors comes across as a bit mean-spirited given Natani's situation.
• Big Brother Instinct: In spades towards Natani, to the point where it's arguably his most defining character trait. Somewhat justified given the surrogate parent role he was forced into after they were orphaned and Natani's later near-fatal run-in with Black Magic and resulting mental dependence on him, but despite his good intentions he has some trouble recognizing that Natani is more than capable of standing on his own these days.
• Bounty Hunter: Zen becomes this after he gets a mission to capture Sythe alive from group B.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Delivers one of these to Keith, practically verbatim, the first chance he gets after Keith and Natani's Relationship Upgrade. Immediately played for laughs - since he was speaking through Natani using the link at the time, Natani's feelings for Keith leaked through in his speech, turning a sincere threat into something significantly more comedic. Natani is amused; Zen, less so.
• It's All About Me: Played for laughs, but Zen is horrified when Natani admits that his acceptance of his feelings for Keith have grown to the point of being increasingly curious about having sex with the Basitin... because he's afraid he might either stumble across the memories in Natani's head or experience it second-hand through their mental link.
• Mental Fusion: He was forced to undergo a spell that permanently telepathically linked his mind with Natani's, in order to save her life after she was hit by a Black Magic curse that shattered her soul. This link and its side effects are the source of most of the character drama between the siblings.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Zen has shown that he wouldn't want to hurt anyone that didn't deserve it. Like when the tiny told him that he had to kill Flora while she was on the verge of collapsing due to a sleeping spell, Send told Flora that he became an assassin not for reasons that Flora might believe but for other reasons and that he could not kill someone,that was weak and defenseless, that way and was about to let her go until he was stabbed in the back by Keith. Even when on the tale of group B his actions weren't really harmful as the "poison" he used on the girls wasn't really much of a poison but much more of a 2nd rate tranquilizer and he wasn't even there to kill anybody, he was only there to capture one person and that was because he was mistaken as a traitor.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Zen hasn't had a particularly good on-screen track record as an assassin. Presumably he and Natani have been more successful off-screen, but the comic's author still notes that the "famous Assassin Brothers" owe much of their hype to a combination of luck and their own boasting.
• Pragmatic Hero: Zen show that he is the more pragmatic and more realistic when it comes to fighting and figuring out situations then Natani as proof when Trying to get after group A before Natani went in guns blazing, when he tries to capture Sythe from group B, it was going very well until Raine saw through his illusion spell that Natani was helping him conduct and How he worked out a deal with group B and tagging along with them like his brother did with group A.
• Promotion to Parent: Was forced into this role to take care of his little sister after they were orphaned by the destruction of their tribe. Given that he was only a year older than Natani it can't have been easy, and it's obviously left its marks on his psyche.
• Sad Clown: His projected attitude towards life sits somewhere between this and The Pollyanna or Stepford Smiler. Outwardly he cultivates an optimistic lighthearted devil-may-care persona - the 'charming rogue,' making wise-cracks, flirting with girls, and seemingly never taking anything seriously. Catch him in a more serious moment, however, and it's apparent just how much his childhood trauma and the stresses of his perceived protector's role towards Natani weigh on him.
• Siblings in Crime: Zen and Natani's life together in the assassin's guild, where they were referred to as the "Assassin Brothers." They're portrayed sympathetically rather than as evil, but 'assassin' still isn't a nice occupation.
• Secret-Keeper: Zen is one of the few people who knows about Natani's physical gender, and helps Natani conceal it from the rest of the assassin's guild, who would be ...rather less than pleased to find a woman in their ranks.
• Stepford Smiler: As mentioned before with the Sad Clown trope, Zen likes to hold a optimistic personality but this happy-go-lucky optimistic personalmay may just be a facade to hide a more darker side to his personality.
• The Anti-Nihilist- Maybe not the nihilist part but Zen knows how bad he and Natani's situation in life is and entries to bring a little optimism in their lives and tries to be the caring and protected brother that he is. Zen has also shown time and time again that he does not care about what happens to him like he when gets stabbed Through the ches t, get hit in the head with a rock, tied to a tree and get his leg almost burned hes still wouldn't care as long as Natani is safe then he doesn't care at all.

Mrs. Nibbly

A squirrel adopted by Sythe. She's sometimes referred to as "Nibs".

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• It Can Think: Mrs. Nibbly is assumed to be an ordinary squirrel by the cast, but is far more intelligent than the average squirrel and is implied to be a shape-shifted dragon. This is all but confirmed on page 1141.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She pretends to be nothing more than a regular squirrel, but is something else in disguise. Glimpsing her true form after he tries to incinerate her leaves Remus recoiling in terror.
• The Prankster: Particularly in Patreon posts, Mrs. Nibbly can be frequently seen getting into mischief.
• Ship Tease: With Sythe, particularly in a Patreon post side-comic where she dons a collar that turns her into a Keidran.

Other Characters

Templars

High Templar Euchre

Wolf form.

^{Human form}

A male wolf Keidran unknowingly accepted into the Templar's ranks thanks to his innate mystical ability to flawlessly transform into a human man in every physical detail. Raine's father, he also mentored Flora during her childhood in his guise as a Keidran indentured servant. Is he an infiltrator or a race traitor? Either way, he appears to be playing a deep game of his own.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: At first, he looks like a helpful Nice Guy. In fact, he's a Manipulative Bastard who abandoned his own daughter, played a hand in overthrowing his former lover, and was perfectly willing to allow his cousin Rose to be killed, if it meant his secret of being Keidren in disguise, stayed a secret.
• The Chessmaster: He's the Master Strategist of the High Templars, so it's a given.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Euchre just seemed to be forgotten about. After Trace's battle with a Neutral-possessed Flora, he is never mentioned again, despite being a rather important and seemingly powerful character who was in league with the Master Spy. He might simply be Master Strategist in a magical disguise. In truth, he IS a Keidran that can disguise into a human down to the genes and with what seems to be some kind of double personality syndrome, since he helps Keidran while undisguised while leading the persecution in disguise. He has a half-human/keidran changeling daughter.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Supported Trace's coup against Mary Silverlock on the condition that neither Mary nor Raine be harmed. Subverted in that he prioritized himself over Roselyn's life, on the possibility that his secret could be revealed, even though they were shown to have a pretty close relationship prior to the incident.
• Faux Affably Evil: Don't be deluded - his courtesy is only a facade, or at the very least he intends to do good, as long as he benefits from the act.
• Interspecies Romance: Had a sexual relationship with a fellow Templar, future Grand Templar Mary Silverlock, which resulted in Raine.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: His to decision to abandon Roselyn, and allow her to be killed when she needed his help the most, all so his identity as a Keidren wouldn't be revealed to the Templers. He's called out on this by Mary, who was rightfully disgusted by his character, and Rose in turn rightfully hates his guts, after seeing the kind of person he was.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: He's an anthropomorphic wolf who has the ability to shapeshift into a human form.
• Pet the Dog: Allowed Mary and Raine to escape when Trace wasn't looking.
• Sadistic Choice: Euchre tells Mary he believes the debacle with his cousin Rose was a deliberate attempt by Sirius to force him to become The Mole within the templar ranks. Mary is not impressed.
• Smug Snake: Raine describes her father, as described to her by her mother, as being "manipulative and self-serving" by nature. He never even confessed to Mary about what he was until she confronted him on it, having learned by reading the mind of his cousin... who he was willing to let another Templar hang in order to preserve his secret.
• Manipulative Bastard: All of the people he knows or works with are just pawns to him. So far, he managed to manipulate Flora, Trace, Roselyn, Raine, Mary and whole Templar Order.
• The Mole: You'd think he'd make a perfect mole for the Keidran, but so far he's only been shown to be out for himself.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Mary Silverlock was the head of the Templar academy
• Trickster Mentor: to Flora when she was little.
• What You Are in the Dark: When push comes to shove, Euchre has shown that he will prioritize himself over others, regardless of how close he may be to them, and this side of his character may have never be revealed, had Mary not intervened when Rose was about to be killed. Those who were victims of his actions, and know him personally, know he isn't as benevolent as he appears to be.

Mary Silverlock

Raine's mother and Trace's predecessor as Grand Templar, Mary has spent much of her life trying to protect her daughter Raine by concealing her and suppressing her powers.

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• Interspecies Romance: Had a sexual relationship with a fellow Templar, the Keidran shape-shifter Euchre, which resulted in her Half-Human Hybrid daughter, Raine. Downplayed, since Mary didn't know Euchre was not human, and learning it broke their relationship, although it's all but stated that it was the ''circumstances'' of the revelation--and what it said about his character--that broke their relationship rather than the revelation itself. Raine mentions that she is under the impression that a part of her mother still loves him, despite this—what ever the case, Mary's feelings seem to be a bit complicated.
• Karmic Transformation: Trace turned her into a wolf Keidran and enslaved her after he overthrew her as Grand Templar.
• Knight Templar Parent: A Patreon sketch revealed that when Raine was born, the midwife present wanted her killed and was about to alert the Templars. Mary put a curse on the woman that would kill her if she tried to tell anyone, and also threatened to kill her family afterwards.
• Old Shame: In-Universe, her former relationship with Euchre and, arguably, her secret half-keidran daughter, Raine.
• Missing Mom: Was alienated from Raine throughout much of her childhood, then became separated from Raine while they were attempting to escape to the hidden village of Lyn'knoll, a place where humans and Keidran live together in peace.
• My Beloved Smother: Not in the usual sense, but her habit of using magical artifacts to suppress Raine's powers in order to conceal her shapeshifting prevented Raine from developing much control over her magical abilities.
• Parents as People: Given Euchre's actions, while her parenting is less than stellar, it is very understandable. It doesn't help that she had no one to do to for help.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Euchre. That didn't work out so well.

Master Seer Brahn

After his coup, Templar Trace installed him as one of the new top templars.

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• Affably Evil: When he finally steps into the light, he's remarkably polite and pleasant. While it could just be a front to build good relations with the Tigers, he keeps this attitude even when he's talking to Clovis in private.
• Animal Eye Spy: His daughter is blind, but has the ability to control and see through animals. Brahn uses this to keep an eye on Trace and company. She also seems to be able to connect him as well, as he later directly gives orders to a soldier through a horse she was riding on.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The current leader of the Templars after Trace disappeared, with no intentions of letting him regain his authority. He briefly worked with Clovis to manipulate the tiger nomads, but they went separate ways once their deal was done.
• Bright Is Not Good: Has blonde hair and dresses in white robes, but is very much evil.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He finds it disgusting that Clovis would be willing to betray his own species. However, Clovis points out that it was he who organised the whole attack and made a deal with Keidran - although he hates them.
• Fantastic Racism: Fittingly, as the leader of the human supremacist Templar order, though he knows how to hide it more than the others. He is amicable enough with the tigers and willing to work with Clovis, but when he sees Trace save a wolf from a fall, Brahn simply scoffs that his old master has fallen far.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: What he wants beyond becoming Grand Templar is unknown, but he doesn't seem to have any loyalty to either of Trace's personalities.
• Hypocrite: He despises Clovis for betraying his whole species. However, he was the one that organised the attack on Edinmire, a city primarily populated by humans, and made a deal with Keidran despite hating them. Clovis finds it quite funny.
• I Gave My Word: Clovis expected Brahn to double-cross him and he certainly had the opportunity to, but Brahn held up his end of their bargain, stating that he is true to his word.
• The Kingslayer: He orchestrated the death of the human king.
• Red Right Hand: His left eye is blue, while his right eye is yellow. While he's not the only character to have them, yellow eyes have frequently been used to show aggression, suggesting there's something more unpleasant under his polite demeanor.
• Seers: As per his title, he can predict the future and he takes advantage of it for his schemes. However, it has been noted to be imperfect.
• The Starscream: Planned to make the human king bow down to him and tried to become the new Grand Templar in Trace's absence. The king is dead, but his desire to replace Trace is still strong.

Brahn's Daughter

High Templar and Brahn's daughter.

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• Animal Eye Spy: She is the owner of several pets (all black) and can borrow their sight and control them to some extent.
• Creepy Child: Downplayed. She may be disturbing, but isn't really scary.
• Daddy's Little Villain: She helps her father with most of his plans.
• Dark Is Evil: She wears black clothes, has black hair and all of her pets are also black.
• No Name Given: Although she has been in the comic for quite some time, she was never actually named. Even the author only calls her "Brahn's daughter" or just simply "daughter".
• Red Right Hand: She is blind, but can see through the eyes of animals.

Legacy Household

Saria au Gruhen

Trace's dead wife.

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• Ambiguously Bi: She married and very much loved Trace, but Patreon sketches show that she and Roselyn were very close. Saria almost seemed to be flirting with her half the time.
• Back from the Dead: Ever so briefly. Detritus uses Maren's body as a vessel and forcefully brings her back from the dead, but she gives up a second chance at life since it would come at the cost of Maren's.
• Dead All Along: In her debut chapter, she first appears to still be alive, but is eventually revealed to simply be a ghost.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Once the conflict with Neutral was resolved, Saria lies to Trace that she wasn't actually his wife after seeing that he found someone new in Flora, hoping this will finally allow him to move on.
• The Lost Lenore: She's Trace's long-dead wife, and his hang-ups with her death affect both his pre-amnesia personality and his post-amnesia struggles with his past and identity.
• Nice Girl: An incredibly kind-hearted woman.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: In comic #1175, she delivers a scathing one while in Maren's body to Trace — or, more specifically, to what he became after her death — where she lists out and rejects all of the terrible things he did in her name. When Dark Trace manifests and refuses to give up on saving her, she tells him to let the new Trace and Flora be happy together.
  Saria: I know you're not the same man I knew. But if any part of him is still left in you... there's something I'd want to say to him. Trace. ... I'm ashamed. The things you've done... not just here, but out there... to the Keidran... to my Rosey... it's just unforgivable. You've caused so much pain to the world. In my name! I am gone. And so is the man I once loved. I only hope the man you are now is willing to undo some of the damage left behind... and what you became after I died never comes back!

Roselyn

^{Click to see Rose's human form.}

A white wolf Keidran, Roselyn is the Seneschal at the Legacy Estate. She's also high Templar Euchre's cousin Rose, the one he was willing to sacrifice to protect his secret. She later became the servant to Trace's lost wife, Saria, and thus ultimately Trace himself.

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• Accent Slip-Up: She was portrayed as something of a country girl in her younger days, with an accent to match - she was captured by the Templar due to her "strong rural Keidran dialect" giving her away, and in the present day her cousin remarks how odd it is to hear her speak "without your drawl." She's trained it out of herself since then as befits the prim and proper Seneschal of the Legacy Estate, but has a tendency to slip up when she forgets to be formal, such as when Trace blindsides her with his intention to propose to Flora.
• Ambiguously Evil: At first she just seems like a straitlaced, cynical, and snarky but more-or-less decent person in a bad situation. But after everything goes ominous-red-magic-crazy and The Reveal that she actually died before the series began, and so may actually be a creation of Templar Trace or a spirit corrupted by his dark magic, her nature and motivations are murky to say the least. She might be responsible for some or all of what's going on, including Maren's seeming abduction and the golem attack on Trace's allies, as part of some sort of plot to resurrect Saria. Ultimately though, the manor going crazy is the work of Detritus, who said that he was made to step in if Rose broke free of her restrictions.
• Beneath the Mask: Wears the persona of the proper, cool, dignified Seneschal of the Legacy Estate like a mask, both as expected of a noble's retainer and necessitated as a keidran servant of the notoriously keidran-hating Grand Templar Trace Legacy. Underneath, however, is a much warmer and earthier personality, hidden behind the defensive shell of her Seneschal role. When Trace gets her to open up a bit she admits that she does take a certain mischievous amusement in playing the "stern old lady," as one of the only ways she can find some fun in her current situation.
• Butlerspace: Shows a distinct ability to suddenly appear at opportune moments, often after her name is mentioned. It might just be Rule of Funny, but circumstantial evidence (such as her apparently not having heard what people had been saying before she popped up) suggests she actually may be teleporting, presumably via some aspect of the mansion's magical amenities. This is all but confirmed in strip #1058, where she says that Templar Trace had used magic to give her control over the mansion's interior, allowing her to be aware of everything going on inside its walls and even having some ability to physically affect it. Page 1113 reveals that she's actually dead, which pretty naturally explains this ability.
• Cool Old Lady: Keidran have shorter lifespans than humans, so Rose is already a cool old lady despite being about the same age as Trace.
• Deadpan Snarker: In spades, to anyone she feels deserves it.
• Dead All Along: Page 1113 reveals that she died two years prior to the comic. What the "Roselyn" who's been in the strip thus far actually is has yet to be revealed.
• Eye Am Watching You: Does this to Natani in strip #964
• Funetik Aksent: Any slips into her youthful "rural" accent are marked by replacing "I" and "I'm" with "Ah" and "Ah'm" in her speech bubbles, along with ending words with "in'" instead of "ing."
• Long-Lost Relative: Is actually Raine's first cousin once removed, though she may not have known this until strip 1020.
• Old Retainer: Roselyn was Saria's servant. Somehow pre-amnesia Trace allowed her to live and keep her position even as he launched a genocidal war against all other Keidran in revenge for Saria's death. Her reference sheet explains that he kept her on knowing that Saria would have never forgiven him otherwise. However, he did use magic to keep her out of some areas of the estate, as revealed in strip #1054.
• Peaceful in Death: After being resurrected, Being forced to serve at the estate for a few more years of her life and finally seeing Saria again, Roselyn finally comes to peace and passes peacefully while hugging Saria spirit and both go on to the afterlife together.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Wears her hair neatly tied up as part of her cool and distant Seneschal persona. Notably, when she can't restrain herself from breaking out in laughter at Trace's revelation, the change in mood is reflected visually by strands and curls of her hair breaking loose of the bun and hanging freely around her face.
• Not So Stoic: Breaks out in disbelieving and relieved laughter when Trace tells her he's intending to propose to Flora.
• The Starscream: Invoked in conjunction with Drunk with Power when she tells Trace that she could easily arrange his death despite not being able to directly harm him. Trace nervously asks if she would do so, and she only says no after a lengthy pause, telling him she had to think about it when he asks why it took so long to come to that conclusion. Pages 1112 and 1113 suggest that she indeed has her own plans separate from Trace's, though what they are has yet to be revealed.
  • It's revealed her true intentions were to train Raine to face her father Euchre if necessary, and the slave collar training was to ensure that she could never be enslaved.
• Strong Family Resemblance: A portrait of Rose painted in her younger days reveals a noticeable family resemblance to Raine. She's even shown making the same "hair wringing" gesture that Raine uses when she's nervous.
• Tragic One-Shot Character: Somewhat zigzagged. Played fairly straight in her initial appearance, being a new character seemingly introduced solely to be killed off in a Tear Jerker moment, and even though she didn't actually die she wasn't seen again. But people liked her, so Tom decided to give her a minor role in a side comic, and then much later shocked everyone by re-introducing her into the main comic in her current role as Seneschal. And yet, despite being averted in two different ways by her not dying and not actually only appearing once, this still is the narrative role she played in her initial appearance.
• Troll:
  • In strip 1058, after finally being granted full control of her powers over the mansion, she tells Trace that while she can't harm him directly, she wouldn't have any difficulty arranging his death by "accidental" means. Trace nervously asks if she would, and after a lengthy pause, she says no. When he asks why she hesitated, she just smirks and says "I had to think about it."
  • While using a control collar to help Raine try to gain control over her shapeshifting, she gives her an innocent-sounding order that would have resulted in Raine involuntarily exposing herself in front of Red in order to try to force her to overcome the collar's commands. When Raine frantically asks her to "take it back" she just smirks and intentionally misunderstands the request.
• Undeath Always Ends: After pre-amnesia Trace forcibly bound her spirit to the estate upon her death two years ago, Rose finally passes on to the afterlife along with Saria once Detritus' plan is undone.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Reveals to Raine in strip #1064 that she can shapeshift between keidran and human form as well. Strip #1065 has her comment that it's a family trait, though usually one that has to be powered by mana - Euchre and Raine have the ability naturally.

Stoneward

A stone lizard given life by Nora for Trace.

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• The Caretaker: It was created to be a friend and guardian to Trace and Saria's child.
• Fluffy the Terrible: A large stone guard affectionately called "Stoney".
• The Glomp: Seems fond of this when it comes to Trace, to the point he had to order it to stop. Considering Stoneward is made of stone, its hugs can't be too comfortable.
• Golem: It's a stone construct, albeit shaped like a lizardfolk rather than a human. It also has more emotion than this trope usually allows for.
• Go Out with a Smile: After destroying Detritus' core, it looks at the pregnant Flora and smiles before their eyes fade, having fulfilled their purpose by protecting Trace's child.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: They're sliced in half by Detritus and "die" shortly after.
• Last Breath Bullet: Even after being fatally damaged by Detritus, they manage to destroy his core with their fire breath before the life leaves them.
• Living Statue: A statue of a lizard given life by Nora.
• Papa Wolf: It was created to protect Trace's child; as such, when it learns that Flora is pregnant with his kid, it gains a Heroic Second Wind and breaks free of Detritus' restraints and even unleashes a Breath Weapon against it.
• Taking the Bullet: It takes one of Detritus' tendrils to the chest to keep it from striking Trace.
• The Unintelligible: All it says is "Wark," but according to the transcripts, they actually mean things related to its programming, ex [Directive 'Protect the Child' completed].

Detritus

Naught but memory, or...?

A memory construct of Trace made in his high templar days, as a backup in case Rose ever deviated from her duties as Seneschal.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted. It's only antagonistic because Trace's personality flipped 180 degrees. It's malevolent because it was programmed to be. Until Maren activated its resurrection protocols, it was even content to act as a butler, running an Auto-Kitchen and Portal Network to get food to whatever room it was ordered in.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Detritus was nothing more than a creature programmed to bring Saria back and therefore had no agency of its own. Saria offers it comfort in its last moments, acknowledging that it had no choice but to follow orders.
• All for Nothing: It successfully resurrects Saria in Maren's body. However, not wanting to steal the life of an innocent person, Saria rejects the resurrection and gives Maren her body back. Detritus' plan was doomed from the start.
• Arc Villain: For Chapter 21. While Clovis is busy doing his own thing, it is Detritus' resurrection plan that drives the conflict and also allows Clovis to break into the manor in the first place.
• Body Horror: He is only a shadow, seemingly, but the right side of his "body" is missing, exposing what looks like ribs.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It becomes briefly saddened when it is reminded of Saria's unborn child who died with her.
• Expendable Clone: Pre-amnesia Trace intended it to cast the resurrection spell that fried his brain, on the grounds that if he failed again it might kill him. Hence Detritus' appearance: a single arm to cast with, a lung to talk with, and a brain to think with. Everything else was pared away.
• I'm Melting!: When it succeeds at resurrecting Saria in Maren's body, it begins to liquify, giving the impression of Tears of Joy at seeing her again. Shortly after, it collapses into a puddle on the floor, seemingly dead.
• It's All About Me: Being a construct of Trace at his worst, it reflects his selfishness. It has no consideration of Maren's life as long as it can use her body for Saria's resurrection, and when Sythe saves her, it views it as Saria being taken from it by wolves again instead of Sythe trying to save the life of a friend.
• Meaningful Name: Detritus means something that has been worn away, such as rubble from a construction site or wood shavings from a woodcarver's workshop. Detritus is a memory construct created from Trace Legacy, making him literally detritus from his creator.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Subverted; it doesn't serve any function other than fulfilling the duties given to it at creation, so it is legitimately confused as to why Trace is trying to stop it. When the master who gave it those duties (and treated it like dirt) suddenly orders it give up on his ambitions, it decides to rebel against what it classifies as a master with Death of Personality and goes rogue by attempting to stab Trace to death.
• No True Scotsman: Detritus calls out Trace for calling it an imitation when it acts more in character and will than the real thing.
• Perpetually Protean: Its body fluctuates constantly, from a mutilated-evil-ghost-looking version of Trace, with and without half a face hanging from its bare skull, to a scythe-limbed, vaguely centipede-like creature with Combat Tentacles and back over the course of the Soul Forge arc.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Its avatar is a mutilated silhouette of Trace with red highlights.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Its plans for Maren. She's the spitting image of Saria, except for hair color. It wants to kill her in a way that won't harm her too much so Saria's soul can have her body.
• Tortured Monster: Desperately wants to perform its primary function and (being a warped reflection of Trace) see "his" beloved wife again.

Humans

Eric Vaughan

A renowned eccentric trader and owner of Keidran slaves, Eric becomes an ally to the main characters early on. In exchange for some opportunities to have Flora model for him, he provides transportation to and eventually from the Basitin Isles.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a very good trader, very well read on a variety of subjects, speaks fluent Keidran and Basitin, and is an expert on Keidran anatomy and physiology. He's also a serious lech whose expertise in Keidrans is due to his lustful attraction to them.
• Child Hater: Sees Madelyn as a nuisance to be gotten rid of and/or kept in the brig even before she accuses him of being a pedophile.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He is very much a lech, and loves drawing Keidran erotic pictures, but he's fairly polite and affable. The "Mutiny" story arc, however, casts some sinister suggestions as to just how "chivalrous" he may be towards the Keidran he actually owns...
• Everyone Has Standards: a pervert he may be, but under-age is off limits.
• Furry Fandom: Is an In-Universe furry fan, well-known for his fetishistic love of Keidrans. He loves to have sex with them, and fills his home with various erotic portraiture and sketchwork, most of it self-done. He has expressed similar interests in Basitin women as well, but three things (their tendency to avoid human territory, their far more prudish culture, and the fact nobody deals in Basitin slaves) has stymied his efforts there.
• Hypocrite: Eric hates how slaves are bound by control spells, claiming it "kills them inside." He may treat his own slaves better than most slavers, but that doesn't stop him from using this exact same spell on them (except Kat). Note, though, that this is the law, and he's risking his own neck keeping Kat free as it is.
  • Though even in the face of being begged, Eric showed no restraint in re-shackling Evals all because he couldn't be bothered with looking for answers the slowest way. To be fair to him, though, they were in the middle of the ocean on a ship that almost burned down. If it had done so, they would have all been stranded or died. Even if they did survive, who knows how long they would have been stuck out there and how potential rescuers would react to Trace. Still, they were out of danger at that point and they had time to do things the slow way. The whole thing turned into a verbal beatdown to Eric by Kathrin.
• Like Brother and Sister: To Kathrin, ironically, despite the fact she genuinely loves him and she's a sex slave.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: The initial assessment/portrayal of him, but after the "Mutiny" story arc, this became a lot more controversial.
• Otaku Surrogate: Eric has a huge Keidran (and Basitin) fetish, and since the only socially acceptable way to explore this in his society is to be a slave trader, well, that's what he does. It's implied that he treats his slaves far better than the average trader, and we never see him buying or selling slaves, so that may be a cover.
  • But...
• Playing Doctor: He admits that he and Kat "fooled around" out of curiosity when they were kids.
• The Pornomancer: Somehow talks a Basitin into posing for one of his nude portraits. Basitins are very conservative and xenophobic; although artwork is exempt from their decency laws.
• Properly Paranoid: Eric is properly paranoid of everyone around him, except for Kat, even if it might be too much regarding certain individuals. More than anything, he just wants to keep the people he cares about safe, and is willing to be ruthless if you give him reason to doubt.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After his supposed Ungrateful Bastard moment, Eric finally decides to sell Mike and Evals to Trace (knowing they were just getting released) and free Kat himself. Note that both acts are explicitly against Templar!Trace's law, and if he was found out, Eric and anyone connected to him would be in serious trouble. He's so concerned with this that the only thing that could convince him to do these acts is Kat's Kirk Summation.
• Sympathetic Slave Owner: Eric starts to develop second thoughts about his choice of profession over the course of the comic. It helps a bit that he thinks of one Keidran slave his family has had since he was a kid as his little sister (and she has a crush on him).
• Ungrateful Bastard: Eric refuses to let his slaves go even though they risked their own lives and sacrificed their chance at freedom to wait for him to return to the ship. And these slaves weren't even under a control spell at the time. Then again, considering who makes the decision to wait, and that nobody wanted Eric to let them go in the first place, only to let them be bought their freedom, it's not all that clear cut. Eric even specifically made sure Kat and the slaves were ready to escape on their own if he and the others failed. Besides, even one half of the slaves aren't sure about how good an idea it is to be that free in the first place, and if both mind-controlled slaves were set free, that would leave the ship to be crewed by just Kat and Eric, making travel almost impossible. Eric's got a lot more reasons not to set them free besides being a jerk, even if that turns out to be his main reason.
  • Later strips reveal that the notion of freeing a slave out of gratitude is simply outside of Eric's frame of reference and also carries serious, potentially even fatal, consequences. Eric eventually comes around after he's had some time to think about it and Trace figures out how to provide him with Plausible Deniability.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Despite freedom being handed over to them on a silver platter, Eric's slaves (apart from Kat) are convinced by Flora to wait for him and Trace to return, risking going back to being slaves though making Flora promise to convince Eric to release them. He's about as grateful as you'd expect.

Keidrans

Kathrin "Spots" Vaughan

Eric's most loyal and dedicated slave, the attractive Kathrin is a selectively bred feline/canine hybrid. Very optimistic and happy-go-lucky, but somewhat naïve, due to being brought up in shelter as a slave.

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• Blessed with Suck: A lineage of selective breeding makes Kathrin very physically attractive, and her erotic appearance makes her very valuable as a slave. Thing is, as she explains to Natani, it also causes people to pigeonhole her, because they can tell on sight that she was bred to be a sex-slave. Furthermore, canine/feline Keidran hybrids like her are infertile, which she finds personally painful because she would have at least liked the choice to be a mother.
  • There's also the fact she has the sincere affection and love of her master, which causes him to give her plenty of freedom and respect... but also means he won't touch her sexually, since he sees her like a sister, even though she herself is deeply in love with him and would welcome sex with him.
• Bookworm: Kathrin loves to read human books ever since Eric taught her how to, though she also admits that she prefers ones with pictures in them since they are a bit easier to understand.
• Brain Bleach: She's clearly wishing for some after Natani explains that Zen got to experience his first heat after they were linked.
• Cartoon Creature: She doesn't quite look like either a dog or a cat; it's eventually explained that she's a carefully engineered crossbreed of both Keidran strains.
• Cat Girl: Notably, she was specifically bred to be far, far higher up the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism than most Keidran... At the cost of her fertility.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: She's a well-endowed and passively sexual cat-girl that was the result of breeding for a perfect Keidran sex slave. Despite being bred to be a sex slave, she is, as her character page entry notes, very naive about sex. Eric treats her more like a little sister than anything. Add this to the fact that she's poorly dressed or naked a majority of the time. These are a few examples of this.
• Ms. Fanservice: Kathrin was specifically bred to be appealing to human males, so she's basically a walking sexpot with a penchant for casually acting sexual and spewing out Innocent Innuendo comments. Amusingly, Flora has flat out questioned if anyone who says the things Kathrin says could possibly not understand the innuendo. All hints as of this time point to yes, meaning that Tom has managed to write a Ms. Fanservice who ALSO is a complete innocent. Amazing.
• Sex Slave: Subverted. She admits that people aren't wrong to assume her to be one at first glance, because this was her initial purpose for being crossbred in the first place, but she is never used this way herself.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: She's a sex slave who never has sex. Justified because she was regarded as infertile thanks to selective crossbreeding, and was sold off because of this before anyone made use of her. On the plus side, her owner Eric is very fond of her, but sees her as a sibling and not a sexual partner, despite his general Keidran fetish.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Possibly Kathrin. Eric likes Keidran women noticeably and Kathrin likes him. Because they're so near each other, Eric has yet to show any reciprocation for her fondness beyond treating her well.

Laura of the Coastal Fox Clan

Keith's long-vanished fiancé, whom he never really got over.

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• Almost Dead Guy: In Chapter 12, after being fatally injured in the tower explosion, she hangs on until she can see Keith one last time.
• Ambiguous Situation: The Living Memory of her claims that due to the magic around the island being broken, she was able to resist being pulled into the afterlife and manifest by bonding with Natani's illusion spell. Natani thinks that Keith's subconscious is inventing a plausible sounding excuse to rationalize her as real. Trace proposes a test, with him asking something the two of them would know, but Keith wouldn't. She fails the test, but it's also possible she failed it on purpose after hearing that keeping the spell going would kill Keith.
• Apologetic Attacker: She apologizes profusely while strangling the Intelligence General with his own necklace.
  I... I'm sorry I'm hurting you!
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: At the end of Chapter 12, she reunites with Keith just in time to die in his arms.
• Distracted by the Sexy: She had her meeting with Keith planned out ahead of time, but when they meet she's too distracted by having seen him half-naked to string two thoughts together.
• Go Out with a Smile: She dies smiling, simply being glad to have reconciled with Keith while she had the chance.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She gives her life to destroy the Templar tower, hanging on just long enough to say goodbye afterwards.
• Living Memory: After Laura's death, Keith begs Natani to cast the "heart's desire" illusion on him so that he can see and talk to Laura again. Natani tells him that it runs off his life-force and will kill him if he lets it go too long, and that it won't really be her, but he says he just wants to say goodbye. However, the "illusion" is realistic enough to act and speak of its own initiative, and claims to actually be Laura's soul and to have found a way to manifest.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: She's initially presented as a third angle to a love triangle formed of herself, Keith and Natani, with Keith in the center and the other two both wishing for his affections. This particular triangle is solved through Laura's death not long after.

Mike

One of Eric's slaves, Mike is a fox Keidran serving on a ship.

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• Butt-Monkey: He is threatened by Keith, turned into a girl by Nora, sexually harassed by Evals and is accused of setting the ship on fire. Poor guy.
• Chick Magnet: Not in the comic proper, but Patreon sketches regularly portray many different women as being attracted to him.
• Foxy Vixen: When he's turned into a girl by Nora.
• Gender Bender: The first example in the series. Nora turned Mike into a girl for a day, which caused him to be nearly sexually harassed by Evals.
• Those Two Guys: He is seen with Evals most of the time.

Evals

Second of Eric's slaves, Evals is a dog Keidran and best friend of Mike.

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• Meaningful Name: His name is "slave" backwards.
• Those Two Guys: He is seen with Mike most of the time.

Clovis

A Keidran wizard with a mercenary streak a mile long. The person who designed Natani's soul transplant, and interested in the B team for unknown reasons.

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• All for Nothing: He sold out his own kind to aid the Templars plans to get a powerful amulet, and attempted to murder/cut ties with the only person who genuinely cared about him, so he wouldn't have any distractions. All so he could steal Reni's power for himself, become a dragon, and become an unstoppable force that could do whatever he wanted. He momentary succeeds in his plan, however the efforts of the cast, and Natani blindsiding him with a magic spell he didn't anticipate, causes him to lose the amulet that gave him the means to pull of what he did, Reni breaking free from his imprisonment and obliterating his mind in retaliation, having no allies to speak of as he either killed them or sold them out, and losing all the power he attempted to take for himself forever leaving him in the form of a small powerless lizard.
• Ambiguously Gay: He shows unusual affection towards Brutus, admitts he's the closest person to him and hates women.
• Arch-Enemy: To Natani and Zen. He was the one who created the link between them, but their resulting debt to him has caused them no shortage of problems.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The most prominent Keidran villain in the story, but while he and Brahn briefly worked together they both pursue their own agendas.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: He manages to overpower Reni within his mindscape, in a very similar fashion to how Nora had overpowered him.
  • Once Reni escapes her imprisonment, she turns the tables, and forcibly brings Clovis to her mindscape like he had done to her in the previous chapter, before completely overpowering him, like how Nora had done so, only she was no where near as merciful.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Once Clovis went One-Winged Angel he not only had the means to kill everyone within the room, he also could've just left the estate immediately by flight with the cast being unable to stop him. But instead, he decided to go on a power trip, toying with everyone there, and never taking things seriously. By the time Clovis realises the seriousness of the situation he's in, it's far too late, and he ends up paying a heavy price for it.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He calls himself the Prince of Greed.
• Death of Personality: Heavily implied. Courtesy of Reni, who after escaping from her imprisonment at Clovis's hand, proceeded to obliterate him within the mindscape, severely damaging his mind in the process. The end result being he was stripped of all the power that he attempted to steal for himself, as well as any power that he could have had, and there being little left of his mind, and what little has remained, seems to be only be enough to make him barely functional.
  • To add further insult to injury "His" new form looks very feminine.
• Deconstruction: Of Gender Bender and Karmic Transformation. Clovis was magically transformed into a female version of himself by Lady Nora as punishment for his misogyny, a relatively common plot for this kind of story. Instead of him accepting his transformation or learning a moral lesson, however, this only worsened his personality due to how it interacted with his self-image — he retained his original male personality, which conflicted with his female form and caused him considerable mental stress (psychologically speaking, he's essentially a trans man under a magically-imposed inability to transition), and he was too arrogant and prideful to accept responsibility for his actions or really change as a person. As a result, what had been intended to teach him perspective and humility simply produced lifelong bitter resentment that drove him into much more extreme villainy than before.
• Didn't Think This Through: One has to wonder what was going through his head for him to think that stealing from a 2000+ year old dragon would be a good idea, once he was made aware of the fact that was who he was trying to steal from. Predictably things didn't go well for him.
  • Clovis gets another moment once he successfully traps Reni within the crystal amulet and takes her power from himself, transforming into a dragon in the process. He not only severely underestimates the danger that the cast could pose to him, he also severely overestimates his capabilities, despite not having much knowledge on how to effectively use it, remaining where he was to mess about, not once did he take into account that Natani would do everything within their power to prevent him from leaving, knowing full well what he's like and the potential danger he could pose in the future, and the fact that the amulet he was wearing could in fact be damaged. Clovis pays for it dearly, getting blindsided because of his arrogance, left in powerless form void of the magic he tried to steal, and left in a catatonic state after Reni permanently damaged his mind.
• Drunk with Power: Was already this long before he met Natani and Zen, but once he went One-Winged Angel all his negative traits reached fever pitch, and he went on a power high, believing himself to be completely untouchable, and above everyone else. It's no surprise this ended up coming back to bite in the ass hard.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's selfish enough to sell out his entire race, and backstab anyone should it serve his interests, but he still cares enough for his right hand wolf, Brutus, to personally lead a rescue mission for him. That is until he admits Brutus shouldn't matter to him, believing Love Is a Weakness, and kills him to remove that weakness. It's the only thing he seems to feel bad about, until stealing Reni's power for himself, at which point he deems every relationship he had prior, including Brutus to no longer matter.
• Eye Scream: His overconfidence upon gaining a dragon form caused him to not consider the cast a threat, this lead to one of his eyes getting blasted by a fireball curtesy of Natani. From that point onwards, his eye was always closed, which would imply it was either severely damaged, or he may have lost it completely due to his overconfidence.
• False Reassurance: "I know how you feel about being burned. It's a painful way to go. I would never kill you that way."
• Fate Worse than Death: After all his backstabbing, arrogance, lies and greed come back to bite him with a vengence, he ultimately ends up being on the receiving end of this by the events of Chapter 22. To go down the list, after being freed from his imprisonment, Reni completely obliterated his mind, effectively leaving him in a vegetable like state, unable to function properly. All the magic that he attempted to steal for himself, ended up returning right back to Reni, and his body no longer having the magic to feed his new form, ended up regressing into a small lizard, void of any power to speak of, leaving him completely trapped in that form forever. Not only that, he also has no allies to speak of, as he either killed or backstabbed them, to get the power that he attempted to steal for himself, resulting in being completely alone, with not a single person giving a damn about him. In short he's been forever crippled mentally, magically, and physically, is permanently forever stuck in a form that he'll be unable to escape from, and is left to suffer this fate alone for the rest of his days as he's burned every bridge to satisfy his own greed.
• Forced Transformation: On top of being a victim of this himself, he also tries to inflict this on Madelyn later on. Karen shields her with her body and ends up with a cat tail to match her ears. Clovis notes that he'll need more practice with this, since he intended for a full transformation instead. At least Karen is happy about the result.
• Gender Bender: His original form is male, but Lady Nora punished him with a Karmic Transformation.
• Greed: Extremely greedy, and not only for money. He even titles himself "Prince of Greed".
• Hard Work Hardly Works: One of the biggest contributing factors as to why he absolutely detests dragons. Aside from his humiliation at the hands of Nora, he absolutely loathes the fact that he has to struggle to gain any semblance of power, whereas dragons are simply born with it, and are free to do whatever they feel like doing, without anyone really being in any position to stop them.
• He-Man Woman Hater: He has a fairly low opinion of women (or at least keidran females) due to his father being a wolf keidran which are known for their male-dominated culture.
• Hypocrite: Terribly so. Ranted about how dragons oppress people, and toy with other lives, despite being the head of a guild the functions on that very premise. To really hit the point home, after he went One-Winged Angel one of his first actions was an attempt at fully transforming Madelyn into something else, just because he had the power to do it, and for his own amusement.
• It's All About Me: Clovis's defining trait, he has a complete lack of empathy towards anything and anyone, the exception being Brutus, who he tries to kill anyway, caring only about himself, and sees everyone as potential paws to use, or trash to throw away once they've served their purpose. He was not at all bothered that one of his followers was turned into an animal, only amused, even preferring them to stay way, simply because he found it funny.
• Karmic Transformation: In The Dragon Masquerade, Lady Nora turns him into a woman for abusing Zen and Natani, not to mention his loathing of women in general. The transformation is such that he cannot refer to himself as a he anymore.
  • In a surprising twist of events, Clovis's own dragon transformation ends up as this. Once Reni breaks free from his grasp and he's stripped of her magic and presumably whatever magic he had beforehand, which was needed for him to maintain his dragon form, his body is unable to handle the strain of the drastic changes he made to it, and as a result, he was reduced to a powerless small lizard.
• Kick the Morality Pet: Murdering Brutus, the only person he ever allowed himself to remotely love, because he was a weakness.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When Trace reveals himself and intervenes in Clovis' staged attack on Edinmire, he tries to keep his two minions from fleeing in a panic. Then Princess Reni comes in and knocks one of them out in a single strike, at which point he decides that they played their part and retreats.
  • He attempts this again, when Natani manages to damage the amulet he's wearing after believing they were comatose, and Trace arriving on scene during the commotion in his estate. Unfortunately for him, this time around, he was unable to retreat in time, as Reni had broken free from her imprisonment, forcibly brought him to her mindscape, and proceeded to unleash hell upon his mind before he could do anything else. The end result leaving him in the form of a small lizard, deprived of the magic that he attempted to take for himself and likely all the magic he had beforehand.
• Lobotomy: Reni more or less performs a psychic equivalent, causing permanent damage to his mind. He can still move and react, but he has been reduced to an animalistic state.
• Love Is a Weakness: Clovis tells Brutus that he has genuinely come to value and care about Brutus, even calling him "a weakness I've allowed myself to tolerate." Realizing that, Clovis kills Brutus to keep that weakness from ever being used against him.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: While not using the exact phrase, he gets a Played for Drama variation here
  Clovis: I am Clovis! The Prince of Greed!
  Reni: (looking at his body) Are... are you sure it's not Princes-
  Clovis: Don't you say that word! It's Prince!
• Never My Fault: He claims that Nora cursed him into his current form for no reason other than petty cruelty. While Nora has been known to transform people just for amusement, Clovis is one of her victims that definitely deserved his fate, given his sexism and mistreatment of his employees.
• Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Half fox keidran and half wolf keidran.
• Not Worth Killing: After going One-Winged Angel, he decides that the fight he is in no longer matters because his opponents are now completely beneath him. This comes to bite him almost immedately, as him not paying attention allows Natani shoot a fireball directly into his face and eventually lead to Reni’s freedom and what she eventually does to him for his crimes.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When he's made aware of the Karmic Transformation that Nora inflicted upon his body and what it will mean for him, as he's part of a guild that discriminates against women.
  • His face upon realising Natani didn't revert to a comatose state after he destroyed the mind link with Zen. Furthermore emphasised after Natani blasted Clovis's amulet with magic, which he was still in a state of disbelief to do anything about it.
  • He gets another one when Reni summons him to HER mindscape to get revenge on him for imprisoning her and attempting to steal her magic power for himself.
• Only in It for the Money: His core motivation for anything, according to Zen and Natani. Chapter 21 to 22 reveal his main goal was to obtain power. Precisely the power of a dragon. So no one would be able to stand against him, and so that he wouldn't need to rely on anyone anymore, as he would now have the means to do whatever he wanted, and no one would be able to stop him. Unfortunately for him, his plans literally goes up in flames, and he suffers a deserving fate for his actions.
• One-Winged Angel: After successfully stealing Princess Reni's soul and trapping it within the crystal amulet he got from his deal with Brahn, Clovis transforms into a yellow dragon with Cape Wings, introducing himself as King Clovis.
• Rage Breaking Point: Clovis is already an incredibly unhinged individual, and simply reminding him of the Karmic Transformation he received from Nora was enough to make him go of the rails. However, Natani managing to actually damage him when he went One-Winged Angel after being sure of his superiority, and expressing their clear desire to do everything to stand against him, made him snap.
• Residual Self-Image: Ambiguously invoked or subverted. Within his mindscape, his current gender bent shape is revealed to Reni's eyes. He insists he only looks that way because he wanted to show what another member of her kind did to him and hastily switches to a male image when she asks about it.
• Scars Are Forever: The horn, as well as the part of his face that Natani had managed to hit with her fireball, remain damaged, even after he lost Reni's magic, and was regressed into a form of a small lizard.
• Self-Made Man: He was born to lowly origins, but managed to claim a powerful position through his own efforts, a fact that he is both proud of and sensitive over.
• Telepathy: Gains this ability in his dragon form.
• Story-Breaker Power: Is far from being this, even with all of his accomplishments under his belt. However after going One-Winged Angel after successfully stealing Reni's magical power for his own, with the use of his amulet, he firmly becomes this, being nigh unstoppable to the party, with the only thing holding him back being his lack of knowledge on how to actually fully utilise the power he just obtained. Had it not been for Natani injuring Clovis when they did, and Clovis overestimating his newly acquired abilities, to were he believed the party was no longer a threat to him, he would have undoubtedly developed into an unstoppable force.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In chapter 21 Clovis infiltrates the legacy household under the guise of saving Brutus, who he then proceeds to attempt to kill with poison, and proceeds with his actual plan, which was to take Reni's power for his own, which he succeeds in doing, with Reni unable to stop him and being overpowered within his mindscape, and Clovis gaining a new dragon form, once he traps her soul within the amulet, and steals her power for himself.
  • Though come the next chapter, Natani damaging his amulet, and Reni escaping as a direct result, caused things to go very bad for him, and his inevitable downfall soon followed, with him being mindraped by Reni and stripped of all his magic, both her own and why he had beforehand, which culminated in him being permanently rendered a powerless lizard with no way to even return to his original form.
• The Sociopath: Clovis may appear affable, polite, and charismatic to both his enemies and his allies, but make no mistake, he's laser focused on his goals and desires, and does not give a damn about anyone or anything, as long as he gets what he wants. He's perfectly happy with stabbing his allies in the back, killing his followers when they serve no purpose, sell out his own species, and even went as far as to attempt to murder Brutus, someone who he admitted he'd come to care for, simply because he would be an obstacle in goals. This trait of only caring about himself becomes more pronounced after going One-Winged Angel, as he believes himself to untouchable and above everyone else.
• Third Law of Gender-Bending: Averted Clovis uses magic to disguise his appearance and binds his breasts, but secludes himself during the summer because he cannot cover up his female heat cycle. He does end up deciding it doesn't really matter either way anymore after going One-Winged Angel.
• Too Dumb to Live: A trope that should be stuck on his back with a posted note. Clovis has a bad habit of always biting of more than he can chew, and rather than cutting his loses when made aware of how serious a situation is, or doing the smart thing when he has the opportunity to do so, he would rather double down on his decisions, completely ignoring the potential consequences of his actions. Case in point:
  • When he was informed that the individual they were trying to steal from was none other then Lady Nora, a freaking dragon, rather than call the siblings back and call of the mission like a smart person, he instead forced them to proceed with the mission, not giving a damn about their concerns. The end result? Zen got turned into mask, Natani was forced to bargain with Nora to save him, Clovis revealed his heinous treatment of Natani and contempt of women to Nora, and as a consequence of all this, he was turned into a women, and forced to hide his predicament from his own guild, lest he be subjugated to the prejudice that he himself endorsed.
  • Came back full swing when he attempted to steal Reni's magic for himself, and turned himself into a dragon as a result of successfully doing so, with the consequences being far more severe. Rather than leaving immediately once he got what he wanted, he instead decided to remain where he was, gloat, mess about, and go on a power high sure of his own superiority. The end result? His faced got scarred by Natani, who also proceeded to fracture the amulet he had on his person containing Reni's soul, Reni broke free from his imprisonment, and she proceeded to completely annihilate his mind within the mindscape, resulting in him being stripped of all the power that he had attempted steal, as well as the power he could have had, left with a barely functioning mind, and stuck in a now powerless body.
• Villain Has a Point: Although he's not an innocent victim as he claims, he is right that Nora doesn't give a damn about people she's not interested in and enjoys playing with their lives. Somewhat subverted, as while Nora is a bit of a prankster, she generally won't doing anything to someone unless they do something to her. Case in point, she genderbent Mike because he disturbed her slumber, but the spell only lasted for day, whereas Clovis's transformation was made to be permanent, because of his mistreatment and prejudice against women.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Forcibly performs this on Reni, using the amulet he got from his deal with Brahn trapping her soul within the amulet, stealing not only her magical power, but also granting him a new dragon form. With Reni's magic feeding his form, he also obtained the natural benefits that a dragon would have, including telepathy, huge magic potentially, and an endless lifespan.
  • Later on however, Reni’s escape on page 1208, and he's forced to be subjugated to Reni's wrath, resulting in him losing all of the power that he stole as well as his amulet, being stuck in a small lizard form now completely severed of from all the magic he was abusing, and his mind being permanently damaged as a consequence of his actions.

Basitins

King Jade Adelaide

The king of the eastern basitins.

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• Deadpan Snarker: She periodically dips into dry wit, matching and contrasting the other basitins' studied stoicness.
• Large and in Charge: She's twice the size of any other basitin and the tallest humanoid character in the comic.
• Last-Name Basis: Her full name is Jade Adelaide, but in the comic she's typically just called "Adelaide".
• Not Quite Dead: She's initially written off as dead in action during the Templar tower's collapse, but is later shown to have recovered from her injuries and be back on her feet.
  "We were told you were fatally wounded!" "Yes, I'd been told that as well. I chose to ignore it and continue living."
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She's largely portrayed as the one major basitin authority who doesn't slavishly follow the letter of the law and is interested in justice above propriety and ritual.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In addition to being the basitins' monarch, she's a skilled warrior and general.
• Samus Is a Girl: As most of the main characters aren't aware that basitin monarchs are called "king" regardless of gender, they're fairly surprised to learn that Adelaide is a woman.
• She Is the King: Adelaide is the king, not queen, of the basitins, as all basitin monarchs bears this title.

Nickolai Alaric

The Basitin master general and a friend of Keith.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Calling him an outright villain is a bit of a stretch, but Keith mourns him after his death.
• The Chessmaster: Ever since Keith was banished unfairly from the islands, Alaric made it his mission to bring his friend back home. To do this, he learned every loophole their strict laws allow for and drafted hundreds of documents that would assure Keith would not only have his exile removed, but also be put into a position of power to spite those that tried to take everything away from him no matter what happens, even in case of Alaric's own death. He succeeds magnificently.
• Disney Villain Death: His duel with Keith ends with the bridge they were fighting on falling apart. While Alaric made the jump to Keith's side, the ground beneath him gave away and fell to his death anyways, since Keith was too wounded to pull him back up. We notably get to see him still alive after the impact, long enough to give a final sentiment before succumbing to his wounds.
• Eye Scream: He is blind on his left eye and has three prominent scars over it. This injury was given to him by General Alabaster for speaking out against Keith's banishment without a proper trial.
• Fighting Your Friend: He is forced to fight with Keith at the climax of the Basitin Islands arc.
• Honor Before Reason: The only reason why he fights Keith to begin with is because he's under orders to do so. As an Eastern Basitin, he is genetically compelled to obey.
• Straight Gay: He was confirmed to be gay in Pride Month art, but despite his flirting with Keith he doesn't display any stereotypical behaviour.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: It is clear that Alaric had a thing for Keith and was his best friend when they were kids. Unfortunately for him, fate had other plans and he never got the chance to act on those feelings, regardless of whether or not Keith would've reciprocated.

General Albion Alabaster

The elderly Basitin intelligence general and the one who rallied for Keith's banishment from the island.

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• Arch-Enemy: One-sidedly to Keith. General Alabaster is directly and deliberately responsible for almost everything wrong that has happened in his life, but Keith was only informed of how much the general hated him after he's already dead.
• Arc Villain: For Chapters 10-12, encompassing the Basitin Islands arc.
• Bad Boss: He smacks one of his own men with his cane for questioning his orders to burn down a local tavern. The impact had enough force in it to put a large dent in the soldier's helmet and cause him to bleed, which King Adelaide later confirms was fatal.
• Ear Notch: A piece of his left ear is missing, taken from him by Keith's mother in self-defense. Considering how sensitive Basitin ears are shown to be, this was likely extremely painful.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Even after his murder is posthumously exposed, his son Aster still honors the man he was.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Platonic example, as he was genuinely close with Keith's father Cornelius. Unfortunately, this same friendship drove him to murder Cornelius' wife out of a misplaced belief that she was a bad influence on him and went to great lengths to avenge Keith's accidental murder of him.
• Evil Old Folks: One of the oldest Basitin we meet and a thoroughly unlikable person. He's also conspiring with the Templars to grant himself and his people access to magic in exchange for handing over Trace and killing the rest of his party.
• Fantastic Racism: He despised Keith's mother Cathleen for being a "Western harlot" and Keith by proxy, to the point that he murdered her. He's not particularly fond of humans or Keidran either, only tolerating them out of professional obligation.
• Killing in Self-Defense: What he claimed happened with Keith's mother; Cathleen attacked him unprovoked and he was forced to kill her. In reality, he barged into her home during curfew and murdered her in cold blood.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: His reaction to Cornelius' plans to leave the islands with Cathleen? Murder her so he couldn't. Later on, after he manipulated events so that Keith would fail the assignment needed for him to be freed from exile, Alabaster has the tavern Keith and his friends were in burned down as soon as the time runs out.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Seems to have returned to his senses mere moments before he was obliterated by the exploding magic tower.
• Revenge Before Reason: Even after being explicitly ordered by King Adelaide herself to detain the intruders, Alabaster's hatred for Keith aided by the magic tower deteriorating his already fragile mental state causes him to defy her direct order and attempt to kill Keith and his friends anyways. Keep in mind that Eastern Basitin are genetically compelled to follow orders and that Alabaster briefly struggled with the decision.
• Sanity Slippage: Albion was always nasty, but he truly went off the deep end when he was confronted with the possibility that Keith may be able to return from banishment. The magic tower poisoning his mind only accelerated his descent into madness.
• Shock and Awe: At the climax of Chapter 11, Alabaster uses the magic granted to him to conjure lightning strikes.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the Templars. For all of Alabaster's immense knowledge, he didn't know that using magic is poisonous to Basitin minds, unwittingly aiding the Templars' plan to lobotomize his own kind by supporting their construction of a magic tower.

Dragons

Lady Nora

A 2000+ year old white dragon, who, unlike most of her kind, has taken great interest in the affairs of mortals, and has a very unique and complex relationship with Trace.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Moments before going into her deep sleep, she earnestly requests that Trace stays by her side, so she wouldn't have to experience the feeling of solitude, and would have the piece of mind of having a friend by her side. Despite Trace having next to no memory of her at this point in time, he ultimately decides to fulfil this request, much to her pleasure.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Heavily subverted. Nora has made no effort to hide her affections for Trace, and has even gone as far as to describe their relationship as being intimate, with this statement being very genuine. However it was never made clear how Trace, pre-amnesia, responded to these feelings despite being completely aware of how she felt towards him. On one hand he's shown to actually acknowledge her feelings and tease her about it, on the other hand, it was never revealed what he actually thought about the idea, or if he even had the time to consider such a relationship with her. To say their relationship was incredibly complex would be a huge understatement.
• Alone in a Crowd: Being a dragon of her stature and age, she perceives life differently to the other species. Having gotten to the point where she's not only seen it all, but also effectively above everyone in the power dynamic, finding someone that she considers an equal, as well as someone who interests her, is like finding a needle in a haystack. This is one of the major reasons why she is both attracted and attached to Trace, as he's not only someone who possesses an unfathomable amount of power at his disposal. He's also unpredictable, and thus an individual that's prime for becoming the subject of her fascination.
• Always Someone Better: What she is to pretty much the entire cast, and other dragons in general. There isn't really anyone that can stop her from doing what she wants, as she far outclasses them in the power and knowledge department. Furthermore she holds seniority over most dragons being one of the oldest ones alive.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Being a shapeshifter, she has taken on several forms for the benefit of herself, and others. She's usually shown in her normal dragon form, but has shapeshifted into a form of a small cat, and in other media, a human form with draconic hands and legs, and even a completely anthromorphic dragon form.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Many sketches of Nora interacting with Trace, has her practically throwing herself at Trace, and being put into a wide variety of scenarios where she's completely at his mercy.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Nora has rarely ever shown herself to be angry or enraged, that said it is not a good idea to get on her bad side. One has to remember she's one of the oldest dragons alive, with an incredible amount of power at her disposal, as Clovis discovered the hard way.
• Big Damn Heroes: She shows up to defeat the black dragon Trace summoned. Later on she saves Trace from the exploding mana tower, at the cost of being almost completely drained of her magic and needing to go into a slumber to recover.
• Big Good: Although dragons in general are supposed to be neutral, Nora is firmly on Trace's side, having saved him on more than one occasion, and is undoubtedly one of his most powerful allies.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A lot of Nora's pranks on others is merely for amusement, and because of her age and personality, unless you're someone who grabs her interest, like Trace, she likely wouldn't even remember you, or something she did to you. Word of God confirms it's highly likely she wouldn't even remember Clovis, what she did to him, or even care about him at all.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Upon finding out that Clovis was responsible for the operation that took place in The Dragon Masquerade, as well as his lack of respect for women, and his love of control over them. Rather than dispose of him, or cause him any physical harm, she turned him into a woman. Which would be in line for her usual pranks, except she did this to him having the knowledge that he was part of a guild, of his own creation, that discriminated against women. Giving Clovis exactly what he wanted, but not in the way that he wished, and having him experience what it's like to be on the receiving end of the discrimination that he enforced.
• Deus Exit Machina: She's a 2000+ year old dragon with power that far surpasses anyone of the main cast, and could easily resolve all of their problems, had she remained active. Unfortunately she couldn't continue to aid Trace on his quest, as she was almost completely drained of her magic, and needed to go into slumber to recover after saving from him from the Mana Tower Explosion, which wiped out all magic within the vicinity.
• Exact Words: Nora told Clovis that she would "give him a woman that he would have complete control over", true to her words, she transformed his body, that he controls, into that of a woman.
• Good Bad Girl: She is 100% on the side of good. Or more accurately on Trace's side, and has shown to herself to be a well meaning, caring and pleasant person to be around if she considers you a friend. That said she also as no qualms with pulling magical shenanigans on individuals for her own amusement, and her sexual fantasies regarding herself and Trace, show she can also be quite kinky.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Her playful nature does not change the fact that she's a 2000+ year old dragon with a wealth of knowledge and experience, that can read minds as well as hear others thoughts.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's a Big Good of the series, but in no way shape or form is she someone that you want to cross. She's capable of dishing out many humiliating punishments to those that deserve them, and it's in part thanks to her restraint, that humiliation is the only thing that her victims have to worry about. Case in point she considered eating Natani and Keith upon first seeing them, and only kept them alive simply because she assumed that's what Trace wanted. Had it not been for that, they'd have been killed on the spot.
• Hopeless Suitor: Heavily subverted. Trace is aware of her feelings towards him, but was focused on his pursuit of Saria, and later on his relationship with Flora. However he also never rejected her, and characters who knew of their relationship remarked that the two of them were practically inseparable.
• It Amused Me: While she is firmly on the side of good, she is also impossibly ancient and immortal, so most of what she does is to pass the time. She's taken an interest in Trace because he's a unique individual, and likely because of her feelings for him.
• It's All About Me: Her profile reveals she's egotistic and manipulative.
• The Older Immortal: She is one of the oldest dragons around and has seniority over most of them.
• Irony: Nora potentially got the alone time she always wanted with Trace where no one could possibly disturb them, and him willingly deciding to fulfil one of her earnest requests, mere moments before she had to go into a deep sleep to recover from having her magic drained from the mana tower, and only after Trace had amnesia, having next to no memory of who she was to him, but his nicer personality leading him to fulfil her request.
• Living Lie Detector: Being a 2000+ year old dragon that has innate telepathy, lying to her is all but impossible, as she can just simply read your mind.
• My Instincts Are Showing: An image has her chasing Trace, who's running for dear life, while she's in a love crazed state, heavily implying she's in heat.
• Our Dragons Are Different: She is a white dragon with powerful magic and the ability to shapeshift.
• Only Friend: Pre-amnesia, aside from Red, Nora was the only friend of Trace's during his time at Templar Academy. After that, during his time with Saria, and when he went of the deep end due to her death, she may have very well had been the only person who Trace trusted. It was only after Trace's amnesia, leading him becoming a much nicer individual, did he begin to make friends with individuals that he could trust.
• Loveable Sex Maniac: In regards to Trace. It has been made abundantly clear that she is very much into the idea of copulating with him, and has been anything but subtle in her advances, in addition to her sexual fantasies. The only thing stopping her from completely ravishing him, despite being fully capable of doing so, with Trace not really having the means to stop her in any capacity, is that she wants Trace's mutual consent.
• Monster Progenitor: Most dragons can trace their lineage back to her in one form or another.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her anthropomorphic forms are always stacked, is completely fine being in the nude in said forms, and has been drawn in very flirtatious poses.
• Mysterious Past: Being a 2000+ year old dragon, she's lived an incredibly long life with only bits of her past being revealed in sketches. The biggest mystery of all would be her history with Trace, which has only been touched upon in very small pieces, and other characters making remarks on their unique relationship.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: According to Reni, Nora's casual attitude and behaviour towards Trace is a far cry from how she normally is towards others, where she's described as being intense, and shown to not really care about anyone who doesn't interest her. Other characters have also brought up how attached she is to Trace.
• Parental Substitute: Despite his actual parents being alive and well, Nora was a friend and surrogate mother to Trace during his younger years at the Templar Academy, before their relationship began to get more complicated as he got older.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite her status as one of the oldest and most powerful dragons in the series, she has willingly gone alone with Trace's shenanigans during his youngers years simply because she found the experiences enjoyable. That said, despite being a treasured companion to him, and considering him an equal, she's also never been afraid to speak her mind, and outright reject anything that she herself does not agree with, case in point, Trace originally wanted her help in creating Stoney in the form of dragon like Nora, alongside many others, but she adamantly refused the idea as she found the notion disrespectful, and only agreed to make a stone lizard, and just the one, leaving Trace on his own to create the others how he wished.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Due to being a 2000+ with power that far surpasses practically anyone, she can do whatever the heck she wants, when she wants, with nobody really having the means to stop her. She also has no respect for the masks "rules" and does whatever she wants to do in their world, regardless of how they feel. This is something that extends to most dragons in general.
• Shipper on Deck: She may fancy Trace herself, but she also helped him out with courting his first wife Saria and encouraged him to enjoy the time he has with Flora.
• Story-Breaker Power: Lady Nora is one of the oldest and most powerful characters in the setting, being one of the oldest dragons and all. If she wasn't forced to go into a deep slumber to regain her strength after rescuing Trace and a fatally-wounded Laura from an exploding magic tower, Trace and co. probably would have reached Lyn'knoll already without having to worry about any other threats.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The simple act of her cursing Clovis into a form of a female, set in motion a string of events that would eventually lead to the twins meeting the main cast, in addition to Clovis's plotting to gain the kind of power she just displayed to him, leading to the events of chapter 22 to 23.
• Taught by Experience: Side sketches of her younger years heavily imply that her first time was with a human, and since then during her long life has partnered up with many dragons and humans alike, to where she's actually knowledgeable in the art winning over a partner of the opposite gender. Unfortunately said experience doesn't quite work in Trace's regards.
• The Big Girl: Absolutely dwarfs the main cast and even other dragons in the size department. To really hit the point home, it's revealed her feral form despite already being massive in scale, is actually smaller than her true size.
• The Dreaded: What she is to other dragons, holding the most seniority, due to being significantly older, and thus more powerful than them.
• The Unfettered: She may be a bit of prankster, and appear very nonchalant about things that don't interest her, but make no mistake, she is fiercely loyal to Trace, and is prepared to go through hell and back of it means keeping him from harm.
• This Is My Human: Her stance when it comes to Trace and everything that regards him. She's obsessed and very attached to him, being described as being joined to his hip. On the few occasions were she ignores boundaries, it's shown neither Trace, or anyone for that matter, can actually do anything about it other than make remarks about it.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Has been shown having fantasies of Trace binding her in chains, and seems to be very open to the idea of being dominated by Trace, with the implications being anything but subtle.
• Undying Loyalty: To Trace. Despite her prankster like tendencies, and her penchant for messing with others to pass time, Nora genuinely treasures her relationship with Trace, and stuck with him and supported him even during his worst moments. True to Trace's words referring to her as an eternal companion, she continued to support him even after his amnesia, helping him regain some of his list memories, and going as far as to risk her life to save him, as long as it meant he was safe from harm.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Nora's humiliating punishment inflicted onto Clovis, resulted in his negative traits being amplified, and caused him to be obsessed with gaining the kind of power that dragons had at their disposal, leading to the events of chapter 22 too 23, which would have likely resulted in Reni's demise, and an unstoppable force let loose on the world at large, had the cast not stopped him when they did.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: She transforms into a cat to... "distract" the Templars' Animal Eye Spy tomcat, much to the traumatization of the girl controlling him.

Princess Reni

^{Click to see Reni's human form.}

A young black dragon who is helping the Templars with security. She's not exactly the most dignified and proud of her kind.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Reni is open to the idea of having a relationship with a human as one of her ancestors is human, so she's okay with having a crush on Captain Keiran. Based on the captain's thoughts, he isn't okay with it in turn or just never considered it and wasn't ready for the nature in which it was revealed. Mind, all she said was that he was cute, but she freaked out and bolted for even revealing that much. Why he isn't comfortable with it hasn't been revealed.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Upon diving into Trace's memories for intel, she discovers this when she stumbles across the memory of Trace and Flora's first time.
  Reni: No no no! Nevermind! Next!
• Animal Motifs: Monarch butterflies.
• Authority in Name Only: The "princess" part of her name was given to her by the humans she works with (she is the great-granddaughter of a previous king and therefore may really be a princess by human standards) but she is actually fairly low on the draconic pecking order.
• Badass Adorable: She may be an incredibly awkward dragon, but she's still a dragon. As the wolves attacking Trace's hometown discover, she's a lot better with her fire breath than she is with her mental powers. And as the Alt Text points out, even when her fire is blocked by magic, she still has about five tons of punching force.
• Bag of Holding: She carries pouches on her sides that expand internally to fit whatever is inside of it.
• Cruel Mercy: When she takes her revenge against Clovis, brought about because of his attempt to permanently steal her magic, and by extension her soul. She doesn't kill him. But her actions cause Clovis to be forever stuck in the form of a small lizard, completely severed of from her magic, so he can't change himself back, or communicate with anyone as he no longer has telepathy. But above all that, Reni also severely damaged his mind, destroying his mental apparition of himself, seemingly leaving Clovis with a barely functioning mind.
• Damsel in Distress: Reni becomes this at the end of chapter 21 courtesy of Clovis, who trapped her soul within the amulet he received from Brahn, and stole her magical power for himself. Chapter 22 focuses on the party having to now deal with this new threat, while also figuring out a way to save her before her condition becomes permanent. Thanks to Natani’s actions in damaging the amulet, Reni is freed by page 1208, and is taking revenge by the very next page.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Justified. Reni is trying to merely think, but since she communicates over telepathy, sometimes people hear her private thoughts.
• Good Is Not Soft: As Clovis discovered the hard way, while Reni is a sweetheart most of the time, she isn't someone to be trifled with. Case in point, after she's free from Clovis's grasp, after spending several pages as a literal mana battery, she forcibly drags him into her mindscape, and proceeds to obliterate his mental apparition of himself, damaging his mind to point were he can no longer function properly, and effectively killing Clovis's identity, as there's no part of his mind to save.
• Horned Humanoid: Her human form still sports her dragon form's golden-orange, curving horns.
• Large Runt: She is far larger and stronger than any mortal but still young and small for a dragon.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Her bags only expand enough for whatever is in there to fit, nor do they lower the mass of whatever is inside them. This makes them highly uncomfortable to use as passenger seats and it's tiring for Reni to fly with too much weight.
  • Telepathy ignores language barriers, simply communicating intentions between minds. This means that dragons don't have to actually learn the languages of the mortal races if they don't want to. However, if they don't, while mind-reading they can't understand anything said in a memory — the people in memories aren't actually there and don't have minds to read, so all they can hear is the sounds. Reni knows human, but not keidran, and therefore has difficulty interpreting the memories of the captured wolf attacker.
  • She also can't actually speak any language we know of (though it's possible that a draconic language exists), since she, as noted below, doesn't possess vocal cords to produce the necessary sounds.
  • A darker example was shown during the events of chapter 21 and hinted at in chapter 19. Despite her natural magical power being impressive, courtesy of being a young dragon (her character page says that she is only 20 years old. That’s 20 HUMAN years, not dragon, which puts her at roughly the same age group as most of the cast.) her magical knowledge and experience in using her power is incredibly lacking, thus if someone with superior knowledge and experience has the means of working around that, she will be unable to defend herself. Which is ultimately why Clovis was successful in stealing her power for himself, and trapping her soul within his amulet, as she didn't have the knowledge or experience to defend herself against the method that Clovis used to overpower her.
• My Instincts Are Showing: For a civilised, regal creature, she is prone to drinking like an animal (eg, from a fountain, apparently from a puddle)
• Petite Pride: The current version of her human form is flat-chested, to Karen's bemusement, but she notes she prefers not being "top-heavy."
• Power Incontinence: She has a hard time separating her Internal Monologue from what she actually wants to say over her telepathy. See Did I Just Say That Out Loud?
• Uneven Hybrid: The exact ratio hasn't been specified, but she has a human grandmother and a dragon grandfather in her bloodline. She herself doesn't know how they bred beyond "magic".
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: As Chapter 22/23 demonstrated, Clovis's magical knowledge, and experience using magic, is far greater than Reni's at present, thus despite her natural magic being incredibly powerful, once Clovis had the means to directly oppose her, there was nothing she could do to defend herself against the specific magic he used against her, as her experience with using her powers was limited.
• The Unintelligible: She (and by extension all dragons) is this when attempting to speak the human language due to lack of proper vocal organs. This is also why dragons speak using Telepathy.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Like all dragons, Reni has the natural ability to shapeshift. (She's said she doesn't like to shapeshift into a dog because "Strangers try to pet me. It's very awkward.") Unlike most dragons, she's willing to take human form. She notes that all dragons could do this, but speculates that most don't out of pride — the implication being that she's probably more comfortable with the idea due to her partially human ancestry and being raised among humans.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After Raine's Keidran wolf form is revealed to the cast, due to her being unable to keep her emotions in check once Rose's passing was revealed to her. Reni tries to immediately attack her on the bases the she was in league with the wolves, as well as Clovis, who the party had just dealt with prior. Red punches her to prevent her from following through with her intentions, and calls her out for blindly jumping to conclusions due to Raine's appearance, a mistake that he himself admits he had made.

Masks

General

The three guardian deities of this world.

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• The Chooser of the One: Chaos and Neutral have both declared a member of their race to be their champions.
• Ethnic God: Each god is connected to one of the three civilized races, Humans for Chaos, Keidran for Neutral, and Basitins for Order. They receive power proportionate to how well their race is doing. As humanity's ingenuity has allowed them to dominate, Chaos is currently the most powerful of the three. If a god's race is wiped out completely, the god will die with them.
• God's Hands Are Tied: The masks have agreed to a set of rules. The rules are a gentleman's agreement. Nothing actually prevents them from breaking them, aside from the fact that it would provoke the others into also breaking them.
• Jerkass Gods: The three races were previously at peace, but in the current era, Chaos and Neutral have been pulling strings and manipulating a genocidal war to decide who the Top God should be.
• Order Versus Chaos: None of the gods are inherently good or evil, but each has preferred tendencies in accordance with their name.
• Seers: The gods are able to predict and plan out the future. Having said that, their prescience can be fallible even against mortals, and there are things that even they cannot see.

Ephemural

Also called the Neutral, the Mask responsible for Keidrans.

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• Above Good and Evil: She claims she is Neutral, thus not being not evil, not good.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's clear she's the Master Mage of Templar Order. However, we don't know what is she doing there, as she's the protector of Keidrans.
• Anti-Villain: Altough she is one of the main antagonists of the comic, she cares for Keidran and even makes it possible for Flora to get pregnant.
• Arch-Enemy: She is one to Chaos, who is the Mask responsible for Humans.
• Big Bad Ensemble: She is the first one to appear in the comic, being responsible for Trace's amnesia and getting Flora pregnant.
• Cool Mask: Her mask is gray, with a crack in the middle of it.
• Dark Is Evil: Her usual form is black cloud with her mask in the front.
• Deal with the Devil: She is able to possess others if they make a deal with her.
• Demonic Possession: Of sort. She is able to possess people who agree to do that with her.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Her eyes are yellow and she is quite a wrecking ball.
• Jerkass Gods: Despite her caring for Keidrans, she won't hesitate from killing them if they break the rules. She also doesn't mind leaving the world to stagnate in a Forever War, because she considers that a form of balance.

Chaos

The mask responsible for Humans.

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• Greater-Scope Villain: Hasn't been shown doing anything directly, but the current genocidal war is of his design.
• Jerkass Gods: As the masks are Ethnic Gods, they receive power corresponding to how well their race is doing. In order to become Top God, Chaos has engineered a genocidal war. Seeing as Trace is Chaos's chosen champion, the incident that caused the death of his wife was probably a result of Chaos's manipulations.

Order

The mask responsible for Basitins.

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• Minor Major Character: Order has yet to show up in the story, or even be mentioned. Order is only even known to exist because of materials outside the comic.

Others

Tom

The Author Avatar. It is a minor Running Gag that he shows up only to get murdered a few panels later.

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• Almost Dead Guy: This is literally his only purpose in the story.
• Author Avatar: Of course.

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