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Characters from Young Wizards. As usual, BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION. There are many characters missing from this list, and most need more tropes added.

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    Callahan Family 

Nita Callahan

The first of the series's main protagonists, she's a geeky bookworm harassed by bullies, which ends up driving her into the library one day and discovering her wizard's manual, changing her life forever after and shortly after bringing her into partnership with Kit. Her initial affinity tends toward plants and animals; she later gains talents as a hydromage and a visionary.

  • Action Girl: She is a wizard and she used a vine whip in her first outing.
  • Badass Bookworm: She found her Manual in the library and quickly became a well-versed wizard.
  • Deal with the Devil: Nita attempts to make a deal with the Lone Power in order to save her mother's life, but doesn't go through with it.
  • Embarrassing Middle Name: Louise. She hates it, but it's never stated why. Carmela takes great delight in needling her about it.
  • Little Miss Badass: As a grade school student she foiled the Lone One's invasion of earth.
  • Magic Feather: In So You Want To Be a Wizard, Nita believes that her special space pen helps her to pass tests at school.
  • Making a Splash: Implied from the second book, but outright started as having a water affinity in A Wizard of Mars.
  • The Medic: In the first few books, Nita has an affinity for living matter and a natural talent for healing that makes her start to focus on healing spells. Then her affinity starts to change.
  • Naïve Everygirl: She fits the role at the very beginning of the series, but grows out of it pretty quickly after acquiring wizardry and taking her first level in badass.
  • Not So Weak: In the first book it's much more obvious, but she keeps many of the same character traits. It's also apparently a useful set of characteristics for wizards in general, who aren't really supposed to do things for their own benefit.
  • Official Couple: With Kit. The two have with The Manual refers to as a "permanent partnership".
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is Juanita, but you can count the times she's referred to as such on one hand.

Dairine Callahan

Nita's bratty younger sister with intelligence beyond her years and dreams of wizards fighting evil (largely evident through her love of Star Wars). Not long after Nita and Kit come out as wizards to their families in Deep Wizardry she jumps at the call, taking the Wizard's Oath from Nita's manual and kicking off the events of High Wizardry.

  • Action Girl: She becomes a mighty techno-wizard.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Dairine starts as this to Nita, and is jokingly given the nickname "Botherer-Of-Her-Sister".
  • Ascended Fangirl: Dresses up as a Jedi Padawan for Halloween, right down to getting a lightsaber built despite the impracticalities of a weapon you can hear.
  • Badass Family: Thanks to her, the Callahans are the biggest badass family in the universe; it includes an entire species with an extraordinarily high ratio of wizards to non-wizards.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Although she does get better, she is initially a pest to Nita.
  • Child Prodigy: She is gifted in both in regular subjects and in wizardry. She gets her Ordeal at eleven, which isn't the youngest ever by any means but still quite a bit younger than what's typical.
  • Constantly Curious: Dairine wants to know as much as she possibly can.
  • Cry for the Devil: She develops sympathy Lone Power. It works. invoked
  • Fiery Redhead: She is much more gung-ho than her brown-haired sister.
  • Jumped at the Call: She desperately wanted to be a wizard as soon as she found out about it, and she got her wish.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: She was so eager to Jump At The Call that she didn't bother thinking through the implications before she took the Oath. (If she'd been able to read her sister's biography before that, she would have had a far better idea about what she was getting herself into) A big part of her character development in book 3 is acknowledging the flaws that let her take the Oath without really meaning it - she was all about the 'big power' without getting the 'big responsibility' part. Dairine's habit of action first, think about the consequences later pops up again in book 5. When she's told about her mother's cancer, she immediately tries a more or less improvised spell to cure her. It backfires spectacularly - she's still wizard-grounded over it in book 7, and she has to sit back and only watch while Nita undergoes specialist training to try and help Betty.
  • Insufferable Genius: Accepting that she doesn't always know better than everyone else, and isn't automatically the best at anything has always been a struggle for Dairine. It plays a major part of her initial problems with Roshaun, too - they have a similar entitled attitude. For Roshaun, it's his royal heritage with accompanying noblesse oblige, for Dairine, it's because she's usually far and away the smartest person in the room.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Dairine becomes a wizard in the third book.
  • Little Miss Snarker: She enjoys snarking before Roshaun disappears. After that, she doesn't seem to take as much pleasure in it, and it has a far darker tone.
  • Mama Bear: Towards her "buddies," a race of sentient silicon lifeforms she helped "birth" — since they came into existence, all the Bad Guy has to do is suggest a threat toward them and said Bad Guy will immediately suffer The Wrath of Dairine
  • Playful Hacker: She has such an affinity for computers and cracking codes, and enjoyment in doing such, that her version of the Manual is a computer instead of a book.
  • Ship Tease: No one is quite sure what is going on between her and Roshaun.

Spot

Dairine's manual, one of the first ones to arrive in computer form; the original resembles an Apple laptop with the bite missing from the apple in the logo. Over time, she has modified its form such that it's picked up legs, eyes and a personality. It's often found following her around like a pet when it can do so openly.

Harry Callahan

Nita and Dairine's father who owns a flower shop and spends a lot of his free time in the household gardens. A generally Reasonable Authority Figure who has to deal with the added stress of knowing his children are involved in jobs that involve saving the universe and can sometimes turn deadly. Since the aftermath of A Wizards Dilemma, he's doing so as a single parent.

  • Muggle Born of Mages: Harry has other wizardly relatives he never realized until after Nita came out as a wizard and let him in on The Masquerade; his grandmother supposedly was one and his sister, Annie, is actively one and appears as a major side character in A Wizard Abroad. (He might have liked to know this before sending Nita to Ireland on a vacation to get her away from wizardry for a while...)
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: All considered, he takes wizardly hijinks and aliens in his basement very well.

Betty Callahan

Nita and Dairine's mother, also a generally Reasonable Authority Figure dealing with the stress of being mother to two wizardly children. However, in A Wizard's Dilemma she is diagnosed with a fatal cancer for which wizardry could only buy her a little extra time (and nearly costing Nita's soul in the process). Her absence is greatly felt by her family members in the subsequent books.

  • Badass Normal: A normal human faces down a incarnation of the Lone One. She did have home-turf advantage as the struggle was taking place in her own mind, but it is still a mighty feat considering what her enemy has done in the minds of others.
  • Dance Battler: A variant. She was a professional dancer before marrying Harry, and her actions throughout the house are still graceful and fluid. During her fight against the Lone One, she brutally assaults him with the concentrated agony of just how much her body suffered in those days: "Oh, we KNOW about pain! Dance is eight hours of childbirth, five days a week! MORE on weekends!"
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: During her battle with the Lone One's incarnation, she calls him, among other things, "unusually dumb." That's right—Betty is insulting the personification of evil.
  • Face Death with Dignity: She ultimately chooses this, even when she gains the upper hand against the Lone One and could easily destroy it, along with all of her terminal cancer. Betty correctly determines that this is a Xanatos Gambit on the part of the Power—if she did obliterate it, she'd become so addicted to life and determined to squeeze out every last possible second that her soul would be corrupted. By choosing to die, albeit it on her own terms, she outwits the Power and makes it to Timeheart.
  • Handicapped Badass: Dying of cancer when she told off the Lone One.
  • Mama Bear: Protects Nina even from the Powers.
  • Silk Hiding Steel: Graceful, demure, polite...and NOT to be messed with. She lampshades the trope when she remarks that she once danced the lead role in Swan Lake, telling Nita that while swans look beautiful and dainty, they could snap a person's arm without even trying (this is Truth in Television—swans' wings are dangerously powerful).

Aunt Annie (Annie Callahan)

Harry's sister and, to his surprise in A Wizard Abroad, a wizard. (The wizardry apparently comes from his side of the family). She's an American currently living in Ireland, running a horse farm in County Wicklow.

  • Author Avatar: Annie bears the most superficial resemblences to Diane Duane - an American with red hair who's immigrated to Ireland and lives in the country of County Wickalow near Dublin (though in meta-works like the 30-Day OTP challenge, Duane appears as herself). In Lifeboats, she's seen briefly with a man that suspiciously resembles Duane's Real Life husband, Peter Morwood.
  • Write Who You Know: Duane has admitted on her Tumblr that Aunt Annie is a tribute to Anne McCaffrey.

    Rodriguez Family 

Kit Rodriguez

Co-protagonist and Nita's partner in wizardry. Like Nita, Kit was first attracted to wizardry because he had problems with bullies, being in the advanced class in school (in older editions, having skipped a grade) and being Hispanic. His initial affinity is with inorganic things, particularly machines and electronics; his partnership with his dog, Ponch, soon becomes incredibly important as Ponch grows in wisdom and gains unusual talents.

  • Gadgeteer Genius: In contrast to Nita, his initial specialty was technology. In one book, he can be seen mediating a spat between his TV and VCR.
  • Official Couple: With Nita. The two have with The Manual refers to as a "permanent partnership".
  • Shorter Means Smarter: Until his growth spurt, anyway, he was shorter than his peers and doing wizardy calculations.
  • Technopath: Although all wizards are capable of this to some extent, Kit's specialty (with mechanical non-organic inanimate objects) has remained the same throughout the series, unlike Nita's.

Ponch

Kit's big, friendly Border Collie/German Shepherd mutt. While it's common for wizardly pets to pick up strange habits, Ponch starts demonstrating unusual talents, such as being able to create and enter other universes. His character arc comes to a head in Wizards at War where all the wisdom he's gained will be used to change the tide of the battle and the fate of the canine species.

  • Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: Leaves the cast by returning to Timeheart.
  • Dogs Are Dumb: Averted. he started out smart, and only got smarter as time went on after being around Kit for so long.
  • God: He is an incarnation of The One.
  • God Is Good: An Incarnation of The One and a fantastic pet. He's been working on some Powers-level scheme all this time he's been pretending to be a normal dog.
  • King of All Cosmos: He's the local God, and his favorite pastime is to incarnate as a dog because he likes the 'spell it backwards joke'. According to the Transcendent Pig, He has fondness for bad old jokes.
  • Uplifted Animal: At first, his increasing intelligence is thought to be because of his exposure to the wizardry of his owner. It is later revealed that his high intelligence is actually because He's The One.

Carmela Rodriguez

Kit's older sister (his oldest sister, Helena, is rarely seen, having gone to college). Though too old to be offered wizardry (unless the Powers grew truly desperate) she has an astounding talent with languages and becomes fluent in the Speech after the Rodriguez family entertainment system starts picking up channels from other galaxies. Her talent, outgoing personality and surprising ability with energy weapons get her as firmly ingrained in Kit and Nita's wizardly circles as any other wizard and she's become a frequent visitor to The Crossings (which she helps save from hostile takeover in Wizards at War).

  • Action Girl: She helps fight nasties with energy weapons she ordered from other planets.
  • Badass Normal: She starts participating in the fighting aspects plot around the eighth book despite not being a wizard. However, she is a natural in The Speech and so she can order alien tech from their version of the internet.
  • Cunning Linguist: A natural in the Speech and other languages, including long-dead Martian writings that had Wizards stumped.
  • Embarrassing Middle Name: Inverted- her middle name is unique ("Emeda"), but she likes it.
  • Spicy Latina: She is quite sassy, even to alien mercenaries.

Helena Rodriguez

Kit's oldest sister, rarely seen. She doesn't initially take to Kit's wizardry well, believing he must have done some sort of Deal with the Devil, though she eventually comes to terms with it in a round-about way.

Juan Rodriguez

Kit's father, an employee at the printing facility for a major Long Island newspaper. Tends toward being laid back and laconic; his eventual reaction to Kit revealing his wizardry to his family can be summed up as "Cool. My son's a brujo."

Marina Rodriguez

Kit's mother, a nurse. A very warm and nurturing personality who has come to handle her son's wizardry career with much the same acceptance as her husband.

  • Apron Matron: When not working, can often be found in the kitchen. Supposedly her skills at cooking are limited but the things she knows how to make well, she makes really well. It's mentioned in How Lovely Are They Branches that she's constantly trying to improve. Has a very no-nonsense mindset to back up the personality.

    Supporting Humans 

Carl Romero and Tom Swale

The area Advisory (later promoted to Senior) wizards for the Long Island region, they serve as the young wizards' immediate superiors and advisers.

  • Ambiguously Gay: Tom and Carl happen to live side by side in a single house and have dogs and koi fish but it's unclear on what the nature of their relationship with each other is. While Nita at one point says they're definitely just friends, they're shown sharing a bed in Owl Be Home For Christmas, so she's probably just oblivious.
  • Good Is Not Soft: They're both pretty nice guys, and always happy to help Nita and Kit, but also can be very straightforward and blunt, even harsh at times. As Advisories, their job is to tell the truth and help younger wizards get their jobs done, but they're in a hard profession where, sometimes, hard choices have to be made.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: One valid interpretation of their relationship can be seen as this as they do not give off much warning signs on their sexuality and the Flip-Flop of God from the author had left their relationship open to interpretation.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Word of God from the author has stated that Tom and Carl are inspirations of two friends of the author. Since their passing, she has revealed that they were married and that she refused to confirm the fictional characters' relationship due to request of confidentiality during their lifetimes.
  • Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: They warn Nita and Kit about this once in a while.

Ronan Nolan

An older teenage wizard that Nita first meets in Ireland during A Wizard Abroad. He can initially come off as brash and projects a facade of being hotheaded and sarcastic but his actions show genuine care for others and commitment to wizardry and he eventually becomes a close part of Kit and Nita's circle of wizardly friends.

  • Foreign Cuss Word: Definitely in A Wizard of Mars, to the point where the characters recognize that he's saying something offensive even if they're not sure just what it is.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Tries to kill himself with the Spear of Light to allow the One's Champion to manifest fully. It doesn't stick.
  • I Am Who?: He's shocked to find out he's an incarnation of The One's Champion.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Does not take the news about his being an avatar to the One's Champion at all well, and is terrified of losing his self if he lets the Champion take control.
  • Making a Splash: Implied from his Ordeal, stated as being his elemental affinity in A Wizard of Mars.

Darryl McAllister

A young autistic boy who is initially offered wizardry and is encountered by Kit and Nita in A Wizard Alone when he seemingly becomes lost in his own mind on his Ordeal. In the original version of the book he cures his own autism at the end but Duane rewrote it after feedback from other autistic people so that he remains autistic but is able to function in the outside world much better. Since then he's functioned as the occasional Kid Sidekick to the team and proven to have a humorous and even bubbly personality at times.

  • Barrier Maiden: A Spear Counterpart version. He is a Font of The One's power, I.E. the means by which Nina, Kit, etc receive their power. If he realizes it, he'll die, so everyone is very careful about preserving the Masquerade.
  • Disability Superpower: Though his autism is bizarrely portrayed (his behaviour on the outside is accurate enough, but his experience from the inside not so much), Darryl makes his first appearance as a severely autistic boy who also turns out to be a human conduit for a large amount of the wizardly power available to Earth. It is a Justified Trope: Darryl's autism is something the Lone Power has done to him; it's reasonable that it would only superficially resemble an organic condition. So in other words, it's not really autism.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: If he ever learns that he's an abdal, he'll immediately a) stop being one and b) die.
  • Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: In A Wizard Alone, Darryl becomes autistic in an attempt to withdraw from the sensations of being malignantly observed by the Lone Power.
  • What Beautiful Eyes!: Darryl has eyes so innocent that it hurts the first time you see them.

Mr. Millman

The councilor at Nita's school with whom she is visiting after her mother's death. Nita finds him, to her surprise, to be a pretty decent person, even if her grief makes dealing with the meetings difficult.

  • All Therapists Are Muggles: Subverted. While not a wizard himself, he's in on The Masquerade and knows how to spot one. This comes in handy when the cast needs time off from school to save the universe.

Irina Mladen

The Planetary Wizard for Earth (and by extension the person with local authority on Earth's unpopulated neighbor planets including Mars). Her unassuming appearance as a short, middle-aged woman contrasts with her immense power and authority.

  • Action Mom: The most powerful wizard native to Earth, usually to be found carrying her baby in a sling.
  • Mama Bear: Towards the whole planet, judging by her behavior.

    Supporting Aliens 

Fred (sentient white hole)

  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: Fred hasn't been mentioned more than once or twice since the first book.
  • Some Call Me "Tim": Kit gives him the name "Fred" because there was no way either he or Nita would be able to pronounce, let alone remember his true name.
  • The Unpronounceable: His full name is Khairelikoblephareglukumeilichephreidosd'enagouni.

Pralaya

  • Devil in Disguise: The wizard Pralaya in The Wizard's Dilemma is "overshadowed" by the Lone Power (meaning, possessed by the Devil, basically).

Roshaun ke Nelaid

  • Human Aliens: By all appearances and factors, he is totally human but he comes from another planet. In fact, he thinks that earthlings are the "humanoids", not him.
  • Overly Long Name: Roshaun ke Nelaid am Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Teriaunst am det Wellakhit, and that's the short version. It's explained at one point that the first two are his personal name and a patronymic, and the rest are a lengthy series of titles, therefore it also fits neatly under Try to Fit That on a Business Card.
  • Pretty Boy: His descriptions in both books where he appears stress how pretty he is.
  • Royal Brat: Roshaun, a prince who arrives on the exchange program in Wizard's Holiday, is difficult to get along with.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: His family is in charge of monitoring the local star and keeping it under control.
  • Sheltered Aristocrat: The royal palace is located on the other side of the planet from the population centers (specifically, the part that the sun melted), so walking among people who aren't servants is a new experience for him. He's definitely arrogant.

Sker'ret

  • Deadpan Snarker: Learns sarcasm while on exchange. He becomes very adept at using it.
  • Extreme Omnivore: He can and does eat pretty much anything, be it pasta, tin cans or used oxygen tanks.
  • Starfish Aliens: A Rirhait, described as resembling a giant metallic centipede.

Filif

  • Extra Eyes: The little red "berries" all over his branches are basically eyes.
  • Fish out of Water: As a sentient plant visiting a world run by humans, the culture shock hits him pretty hard, especially when he learns about vegetarians.
  • Klingons Love Shakespeare: During his time on earth, he develops a fascination with human clothes. He can't wear them conventionally, for obvious reasons, but likes to hang them from his branches.
  • Our Nudity Is Different: Uses a "decency shield" spell to obscure his roots.
  • Overly Long Name: Filifermanhathrhumneits'elhessaiffnth, in full.
  • Starfish Aliens: He's a walking pine tree with berries for eyes who speaks by rustling his branches.

Mamvish

  • Badass Bookworm: He is the Species Archivist to the Powers that Be and one of the most powerful wizards in the galaxy, possibly so much so that the Lone Power opted out of participating in her Ordeal.
  • Genki Girl: Energetic, emotive (her culture finds no advantage to suppressing their feelings) and constantly running around the galaxy on business such that she often only has minutes at a time to check in with the main characters.
  • Lizard Folk: Is a saurian
  • Really 700 Years Old: Her race has a very long lifespan, so while she's a millennia or two old, she hasn't hit puberty yet. It is almost an inversion of the trope in that people keep forgetting how young she actually is.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Tomatoes.

    The Powers That Be 

The Lone Power

  • Aloof Big Brother: To the other Powers; the Lone One is frequently known as "Eldest, Fairest and Fallen".
  • Ambiguously Evil: In two ways. First in that It isn't always malevolent and actually means well sometimes. Second in that tying death and entropy into the universe does not actually have to be a bad thing. The problem is just that the Lone Power won't work with the others to see what can be done with it.
  • Being Evil Sucks: Everyone knows that It wants to quit and go home, but they have to keep fighting It until it breaks down and admits that It's tired of all the nonsense.
  • Big Bad: All minor villains answer to It one way or another; more to the point, It is implied to be at least partly responsible for all the evil in the universe.
  • Body Surf: Appears in lots of bodies over the course of the series, sometimes possessing mortals, sometimes as an aspect of Itself.
  • Cain and Abel: A variation with multiple Abels, since the Powers are more or less siblings and perpetually at war.
  • Demonic Possession: Has the ability, but fully posessing mortals is very difficult to use effectively, especially on a wizard. It prefers to "shadow" them instead by convincing them to be something like a Willing Channeler.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Angered by Dairine's sympathy in Book 3 during her ordeal. This pity leads to an aspect of itself accepting forgiveness and returning to Time Heart.
  • Evil Redhead: Appears in different bodies and doesn't look the same to everyone, but Nita usually sees It as a man with red-gold hair.
  • Evil Plan: It's always offering Its "Gift" and spreading it around the universe, though the reasons why vary based on the specific aspect the wizards are dealing with. In some cases the Power is a proud inventor, in others It's genuinely malicious, and in others It thinks It's being helpful.
  • Fiery Redhead: The Lone Power is pretty hot-tempered and he appears as a redheaded guy— Nita sees him that way, at least, in SYWTBAW and High Wizardry.
  • Fighting a Shadow: Everytime that Nina and Kit fight the Lone One, they're actually just fighting an aspect of it, not the real deal, because the full being is not something that can really be interacted with: It doesn't even exist inside the universe the way humans normally think of things.
  • Heel–Face Turn: In ''High Wizardry", Dairine convinces an aspect of the Lone One to redeem itself and return home. This isn't the first time it's happened - Nina did the same thing in the first book by changing its name slightly - but it's considered an extremely significant event.
  • I Have Many Names: The Lone Power, the Starsnuffer, the Old Serpent, the Isolate, Esemeli and so on. Its true name is very long, quite beautiful and is functionally a description of the Lone Power itself. At the end of the first book, Nina adds in a single character to its name to give it the chance of changing itself for the better, something that the Powers That Be find very difficult to do.
  • Light Is Not Good: Back before it was cast out, it was the fairest and brightest of the Powers That Be. Its contribution when the universe was created was entropy and death. It doesn't really understand why its gift is unappreciated and some wizards suggest that death doesn't actually have to be a bad, however, if the Lone Power would just work with everyone else on making it fit in properly.
  • Loners Are Freaks: Technically speaking, inventing entropy and death is not actually why it got in trouble but rather that it do so all by itself without working with its siblings and then added into the universe without asking.
  • Man Behind the Man: Prefers this tactic, although when dealing with wizards it is often forced to come out into the open.
  • No Sense of Humor: The one thing It hates the most is being made fun of.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: It invented death after all and spreads it around as much as It can.
  • Phrase Catcher: Wizards always greet It with "Fairest and Fallen, greetings and defiance". It notes that this has become annoying after a few thousand years.
  • Pride: The Lone Power is actually tired of being by Itself, unwelcome anywhere and always have to fight everyone, but refuses to admit it. The ultimate goal of wizards is to keep earning small victories until It gives up, stops being a brat and goes home.
  • Satan: A divine being that was cast out of Its home for rebelling against the others and is called the source of evil. In-universe, It was the inspiration for the figure of Satan in human religions. However, treating It with contempt or hatred is both dangerous and counterproductive: It opens up the wizard to being manipulated and the ultimate goal is not to destroy or defeat the Lone Power but to make it give up and start helping out again. It's why wizards have a greeting that is genuinely polite: There's no point to making it even angrier when the real goal is to eventually start working with it again.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: As Esemeli, It's reduced to a tourist attraction because It is trapped and impotent in a shrine.

Memeki

  • Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: She is a Power that was not on hand at the creation of the universe, and so in order to interact with it, she had to incarnate as a mortal first. After transcending, she regains her true form.
  • Badass Adorable: In spite of being a giant bug, she manages; first by being cute in personality and second by personally opposing the Lone One.
  • Good Counterpart: Her purpose is explicitly to be a match to the Lone Power; someone that can meet it blow-for-blow and be the best capable at foiling its plans.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: For a species that is whole soul owned by The Lone Power she joins the wizards to fight against it.
  • Shrinking Violet: She is her kind's equivalent of a wallflower.

Macchu Picchu/Peach

  • Deadpan Snarker: Frequently throws verbal jabs at her wizard owners.
  • God Was My Copilot: She was a Power in disguise that was assisting Carl Romero and Tom Swale while waiting for her moment to strike a bigger plan.

Biddy O Dalaigh

  • The Blacksmith: Her job as a mortal is forging and repairing metal stuff.
  • God Was My Copilot: Her neighbors and even fellow wizards didn't know that she was a Power pretending to be human for personal reasons.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Helps reforge the spear, even though she knows that using her powers again (against her promise) will effectively kill her.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: She forged the original Spear of Light, and she's needed to make the replacement form for it.

    The Song of Twelve 

S'reee

ed'Rashtekaresket/"Ed" the Master-Shark

A great white shark almost a hundred feet long, Ed is the Master of all the world's sharks and the only non-wizard participant in the Song of the Twelve.


  • Awakening the Sleeping Giant: It's never entirely clear why he does this, but when the Song of the Twelve is teetering on the brink of failure, Ed abandons his neutrality and takes Nita's place in the Song, thus saving her life and binding the Lone Power more strongly than ever before.
  • Badass Normal: Zig-zagged. He's "normal" in the sense that he isn't a wizard. On the other hand, he's an intelligent shark that belongs to no living species; he may be immortal; he commands all sharks and can summon them to a massive feeding frenzy; and he seems to have empathic powers.
  • Black Comedy: Ed has a sense of humor, but it's decidedly on the dark side, fitting his nature as the ultimate shark. He definitely enjoys a bit of grim banter with Nita:
    Ed: My lady wizard, you're also scared out of your wits.
    Nita: Master-Shark, if I was, it would be stupid to say so; I'd be inviting you to eat me. And saying I wasn't scared would be stupid too — and a lie.
    Ed: That's well said, Nita. You're wise not to lie to a shark, nor to tell him that particular truth. After all, fear is distress. And I end distress; that's my job.
  • Blood Magic: Ed's only 'power,' apart from his possible immortality and empathic abilities deals with blood. If he bleeds, his blood will call all sharks from miles and miles around to come and join in the ultimate feeding frenzy. It's part of the reason why nothing tries to attack him.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Light, dark, good, evil — his moral code is best described as "none of the above". He is what he is and doesn't seek to be anything else. He understands the ideas of good and evil; he just doesn't care that much about them. He knows how others see him and accepts it, because it goes with being the Master-Shark. There's no hatred or malice in him; he kills and eats, even the Silent One, because it's what he's supposed to do.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: He's an extremely sinister killing machine, but he's not evil, or mindless. He ends distress (by eating the distressed). He's portrayed a lot like The Grim Reaper.
  • The Empath: An unusual case, Ed can sense distress from hundreds of miles away, and can sense the emotions of those around him. He can even read thoughts if they're emotionally charged enough.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: His title is "Master Shark", and that's exactly what he is: the Master of all sharks, everywhere throughout the world's oceans.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: His real name is much more impressive. But Nita can't pronounce it, so she just calls him "Ed." He seems to like it, as much as he can be said to "like" anything.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: He's the facilitator of a literal sacrifice that wizards perform regularly to keep an incarnation of the Lone Power trapped. He takes over the Silent Lord's song so that his blood, amped up by the power of Nita's wizardry, will call all the sharks on the planet as reinforcements against the Lone One.
  • Immortality: Nita speculates at one point that there may have only been one Master Shark ever. In fact, there is a theory that sharks don't die of old age, only when they succumb to injury or disease.
  • Legacy Character: Nita suspects that his name is more of a title because in the Song of Twelve's Cast-list, so to speak, it just says "Master Shark", like how human executioners wore hoods to hide their identities. He is definitely going to need a replacement after the end of book 2.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: He enjoys his role in the reoccurring reenactment of the whale's Choice and tells Nita that he's looking forward to eating her since her role is "The Silent One."
  • Mercy Kill: His role in the ocean's society is to "end distress" by killing the distressed.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Some things Ed says make him seem terribly lonely, especially considering it's implied he is rather fond of the Silent Ones every time he meets them, yet always ends up having to eat them and continue living by himself.

Areinnye

Iniihwit

Arooon

Fang

T!h!ki

Roots

The Transcendent Pig

A supernatural creature that is everywhere at once but not always seen. No one knows where it came from, not even the Powers.
  • Beyond the Impossible: The Powers That Be, which created the Universe and everything in it, can't remember creating him. It causes them embarrassment.
  • Impossible Task: "Tell me three things I don't know and I'll tell you one thing you don't know." He is The Omniscient; just one is too much for most wizards, though he has been known to quietly bend the rules if he feels it's for a genuinely good cause.
  • The Omniscient: The Pig is everywhere at once and so he knows everything.
  • Phrase Catcher: Whenever a wizard finds him they ask, "What is the meaning of life?" If they ask long enough, the idea goes, the pig will slip and tell one of them.
  • Really 700 Years Old: He's been around so long, not even the Powers know where he came from.
  • Rule of Three: Claims to have the 'three things' rule because wizards can get into a lot of trouble with just one response.

Bobo/the peridexic effect

Mamvish

  • Badass Adorable: Despite the fact that she's nearly as tall and far longer than an elephant. ('You are my FRIEND!!')

The Stationmaster

The oracular koi

Ehef

Nelaid ke Seriv

Miril am Miril

Amadaun

Dazel

Evryss

Liused

Pont

Rhiow

  • Heartbroken Badass: The day before the climax of the book, she loses her human, Susan. It shakes her badly during the fight, but she ultimately uses it to fuel her resolve.
  • Revenge: In a roundabout way. As the Lone Power's Choice is what led to humans having only one life, she blames it for the death of her human Susan and becomes even more determined to thwart its plans for the saurian Choice.
  • Team Mom: The leader of the gateway team and the one that keeps them all running. It's what makes her such a good fit for hosting Iau, the mother of all cats.

Urruah

  • Lovable Rogue: By cat standards. He picks fights for the heck of it, steals and teases and flirts, and messes with things just because, but at the end of the day he's as loyal and brave a wizard as any.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: He's a tom, it's always in the back of his mind.

Joanne Virella

Arhu

  • Merlin Sickness: His prophetic abilities mean he's seeing things all out of order, although he's learning how to control it.
  • Sole Survivor: Of his litter.
  • The Watson: As the newest member of the gateway team and new to being in a pride, the others teach him and the audience about cat wizardry.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Heights. He's constantly seeing alternate realities where he falls off, after all.

Kkirl

Mmemyn

Neme

Rraah-yarh

Saash

  • Secretly Dying: Zigzagged. She's on her ninth life, and due to the price paid for the journey Downside, she will die when it's done, a fact she withholds from the others. However, she earns her tenth life doing so, so she's still around, even if she isn't corporeal anymore.
  • The Smart Guy: The team's computer nerd, she is very good at the technicalities of gates.

Tualha

  • Cute Kitten: Don't let that fool you. She is very knowledgeable, very wise, and can carry her weight in a fight. With words.

Khretef

Aurilelde

The Shamask-Eilitt

  • Human Aliens: After they move planet and adapt themselves to suit the new surroundings. Justified by their having seen early humans and decided that shape looked suitable.
  • Starfish Aliens: We're never told what they looked like in their original form, but it's pretty clear it wasn't humanoid.

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