Within each folder, characters are sorted by their chapter of introduction.
Note to editors: When writing character biographies, start with their state as of the end of the chapter of their introduction (e.g. Ch. 1 for the Dragon Doctors, Ch. 3 for Inspector Blue, Ch. 7 for Rina Lee) before moving into how it changes over the course of the story. Plot details (e.g. Blue and Jack being a couple, not just friends) should be hidden behind spoilertags. As for the interaction of pronouns and Gender Benders, for any characters who do not specify pronouns for themselves, use those of the sex of their body at the time in question.
Mori
First appearance: Chapter 1
Mori is the organizer of and driving force behind the Dragon Doctors, and (probably) the only person to be stuck as male as a result of the valley curse. He identifies himself as a "Magical Scientist" — he is a master of argentine (order-based) magic and skilled crafter of magical tools — and is also a superb diagnostician, able to bring an extraordinary breadth of knowledge and experience to any problem. As such (and by temperament), he is often the de facto leader of the group, although he prefers to seek consensus when significant decisions are being made. He finds being transformed into a man unpleasant ("It's not really 'me.'
"), but deals with his condition with the same equanimity as he deals with the challenges of his chosen profession.
In the two years since their mission to Agri Valley, Mori has both formed a romantic relationship with Sarin and, in an accident with the remnants of a phoenix egg, cured herself and Aki of the valley curse. She opted to remain female after the accident, but have Sarin give her a height boost; as for their relationship, that was what orientation adapters were for.
- Chick Magnet: Much to his initial shock, Male Mori is considered highly attractive. This annoys Mori a little because as a woman, she was considered plain.
- Fantastic Science: Mori's magic is so advanced it's more like technology of the far future, complete with Holographic Terminal.
- Manchurian Agent: For the demons. Everything she sees, hears, or thinks is transmitted to their leader, the one who nearly made her Ret-Gone. There's nothing she can do about it without losing what little of herself still remains.
- Only One Name: Mori's family name was erased after Mori's parents were convicted of violating Thoria's no-transhumanism laws.
- Really 700 Years Old: 170. On account of being on the team that discovered the Fountain of Youth.
- Ret-Gone: Very nearly so. Thanks to demonic attack. The main cast can't remember her original skin tone, or much about her. Even her flashbacks are all in greyscale. Even pictures of "Lee Smith" who was given a base form based on her were affected.
- The Smart Guy: Definitely the smartest of a group of already-smart people, but doesn't like advertising it too much.
Goro Delgado
First appearance: Chapter 1
Goro is a master surgeon whose skill made him the most famous member of the Dragon Doctors prior to their formation. Her focus is much more on physical health than on magical theory and technique; the magic she knows is that which is suited to her specialty as a surgeon. Having been an army surgeon prior to joining the Dragon Doctors, she is also well-versed in physical training and combat. Unfortunately, his attempt to end the valley curse by smashing the harvest stone caused it to drain her of strength essence as well as male essence, leaving her tiny and physically weak. Given her generally macho attitude and the state of physical fitness that she had developed prior to being struck, she finds her new state difficult to deal with; that said, she refuses to let anything stop her from doing what she wants done.
Shortly after the Dragon Doctors settled in Tinto, Aki made her interest in Goro clear and they began a relationship; their mutual happiness was a major part of what reconciled Goro to being female. They became engaged a couple years later. After spending a couple years trapped in a time accelerating bubble, the two of them now have a daughter, Hitomi.
- Badass Normal: The closest the main four get to, anyway; Goro uses Utility Magic at most, for things like maintaining sterility during surgery.
- Brutal Honesty: Combined with Innocently Insensitive. The first thing he says to a patient who has been imprisoned as a statue for an extended period of time is that she's been trapped for thousands of years, without considering the ramifications. The poor patient has to be sedated to keep from harming herself or others until her mental and physical state could be stabilized. Goro gets called out on it immediately.
- Combat Medic: Goro's been in at least one war as a combat surgeon, and has even fought to defend a mobile hospital.
- Did Not Think This Through: In addition to the Brutal Honesty entry above, he attacked the Agri Valley stone with a hammer without pausing to learn if it had defenses he should be aware of. This act wound up sapping his strength and nearly killing him.
- Doting Parent: To her daughter, Hitomi.
- Happily Married: To Aki.
- Honor Before Reason: Chose to go after "Lee Smith" alone when she realized he had no intention of letting The Dragon Doctors live after they performed the transformation surgery he paid for. Remember, at that point, Lee Smith could shoot laser beams from his eyes. It is almost a fatal mistake.
- I Hate Past Me: Becoming a wife and mother has made Goro look back on her previous overly macho behavior and decide that she hates that aspect of her past.
- Weak, but Skilled: Much to her chagrin as magical accidents have both shrunk her, and reduced her strength, twice. Her battle in the hospital however, shows she's still a major ass kicker even then.
Sarin
First appearance: Chapter 1
Sarin the Wizard is, in her own words, a "total magical badass". She primarily works as an alterist — essentially providing shapeshifting services for hire (making her services the equivalent of plastic surgery) — but her magical knowledge and skills are quite broad, even though her primary talents lie in the realm of life magic. She tends to be cheerful and irreverent, and she is not above pulling nasty pranks on those that irritate her ... or harmless pranks on her friends. Of the Dragon Doctors, she adapts most easily to being female — possibly because she has been female before, during her magical training.
Shortly after the Dragon Doctors settled in Tinto, Sarin confessed an attraction to Mori, who then admitted that it was reciprocated; after two years of going steady, they became engaged.
- The Arch Mage: Again, while her specialty is as an Alterist, Sarin is more than capable of casting just about any kind of spell imaginable.
- Badass Teacher: She is so skilled and powerful in magic that she can slap an astral projection, and the person on the other end can feel it, and she ends up being the one to teach Tanica/Elka how to use magic.
- Clothing Damage: She knows a Nudifier spell and since Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing in this setting, a lot of shapeshifting nudifies people too. Sarin seems to think Naked People Are Funny so she doesn't mind any excuse to do this.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Sarin had a crappy childhood, because Sarin was a crappy child.
- Epiphanic Prison: Was put in one at some point in her childhood, as a direct result of a Forced Transformation when he went Mugging the Monster.
- Happily Married: To Mori.
- No-Sell: After a gorgon patient accidentally turns her to stone, she de-petrifies herself, instantly. She does this to various attempts on her life later.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: 'Sarin' was a nickname given to a poisonous bully of a child at the orphanage that said child kept as their own — even after learning not to be that person any more. Her real name is Orlando.
- Only One Name: Sarin's parents didn't give him a family name, and, as he fled the orphanage without being adopted, he never acquired one by any other means. Entertainingly enough, she ultimately marries Mori, who also has no surname.
- Training from Hell: Or the equivalent, Sarin notes that her master would change her into different forms and then leave like that for about a week.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: One of her main specialities is turning people into other things, usually at their request.
Kili Stormcrow
First appearance: Chapter 1
Kili is the Dragon Doctors' shaman and therapist who worked for the Hearts (an organization dedicated to helping the victims of magical misfortune) prior to being recruited by Mori. Her natural ability to interact with the spirit world, while valuable to a shaman, is not nearly so exceptional as her keen instincts, strong will, professional conscientiousness, and generosity of spirit; she aids the living and the dead with equal empathy and kindness, and her ability to do thorough research has paid off many times. Her life experience has left her with more experience with changes of circumstances than she deserves, and while she had no interest in becoming a woman before she came to Agri Valley, she adapts herself to it with the same conscientiousness and care that she brings to her patients.
Her part of Greg's treatment for the Crax resulted in both their falling in love and their contracting lycanthropy. Over time, Kili's werewolf form grew consistently larger than her ordinary size; she speculates that this is because she tends to bottle up her anger.
- Badass Boast: After realizing Preston Chang was Dead All Along, and he tries to possess her body, she turns into an enormous werewolf and lets him have it.Kili: "You could never hurt me without my permission. I can make your soul BLEED!"
- Clothing Damage: Her werewolf form is considerably larger than her human form. As such, whatever outfit she's wearing is not likely to survive the transformation. What's worse is that her werewolf form is fueled by rage, so it can trigger at any moment.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Suffered serious psychological scars as a child due to having unnaturally powerful Spirit-Sight, then lost her entire home town to a tidal wave.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Almost. As a professional therapist, she's learned how to deal with it, but she's got plenty of reason to be angry, and thanks to the aftermath of being psychically attacked by a Crax, her werewolf form has made it very difficult to reign in.
- Happily Married: To Greg.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: She turns into a werewolf when sufficiently enraged.
- Limited Wardrobe: Kili is almost always seen in a khaki shirt with a white-and-red-triangle patterned stripe across the belly and gray pants, both before the Valley Curse and afterwards.
- The Shrink: She's a professional therapist.
Aki Songbird
First appearance: Chapter 1
Aki is a native-born son of Agri Valley — which is to say, a native-born daughter of Agri Valley, as she was turned by the curse when she was still too young to remember. She is the one who went to the Dragon Doctors for help in solving the curse, and ended up joining them as a secretary and nurse when they settled in Tinto afterwards. She is a cheerful, pleasant, enthusiastic sort, fond of reading and inclined towards an upbeat view of life and humanity.
Shortly after joining them in their Tinto headquarters, she made her move on Goro, and they began dating regularly. A couple years afterwards, she was cured of the valley curse in the same phoenix egg accident as Mori; she found being a 'he' creepy at first, but over time became more acclimated to it as a possibility. Not long after that, Goro proposed and they became engaged.
- Badass Adorable: When introduced. While he and Goro are still Sickening Sweethearts, his growing out in the time dilation field has taken away most of the "adorable" traits. His daughter took up the role in his place.
- The Cutie: She is, indeed, idealistic, optimistic, and cute — especially after Sarin lets her keep the fairy traits he gave her when he was testing her susceptibility to transformation magic.
- Happily Married: To Goro.
- Hidden Depths: Is pretty knowledgable about curses, due to research done back when the valley was still cursed.
- Papa Wolf: Don't mess with his daughter Hitomi.
- Rapid Hair Growth: When trapped in a time acceleration bubble, he has no choice but to let it grow out. It takes a while before it stops looking like he recently had to vomit.
Tanica
First appearance: Chapter 2
Tanica is a former low-level Trsanti assassin who was on the team assigned to kill Mr. Smith. During that job, she was accidentally turned into a tree by Sarin's magic seed in front of the Dragon Doctors headquarters in Tinto. Being as it was both difficult and unnecessary to imprison a tree, the Dragon Doctors volunteered to take care of her — physically and mentally — during the duration of her transformation. Unexpectedly for a paid killer, she is highly intelligent and naturally analytical; that said, from her conversations with the other cast members, it becomes clear that she tends to suffer from low self-esteem when things don't go easily for her.
Over time, she has grown to regret becoming a Trsanti — in the aftermath of Mr. Smith's second appointment, Tanica ended up saving Goro's life by tearing out her own life force to fuel a healing spell, being healed with a phoenix egg by Mori and Sarin, turning back human, and being told by Blue that she would not be arrested for the crimes of the woman she no longer was. As a consequence, she told the Dragon Doctors her real name — Elka — and began living with them while she puts together a new life for herself.
- Badass Normal: Implied; in her first appearance, armed only with a knife and a no-longer-functional Invisibility Cloak, she still nearly succeeds in killing Sarin while the latter is distracted. She later says to Kili that had she been assigned to kill Mr. Smith by herself, she could have wiped out the Dragon Doctors singlehandedly.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Thanks to being rescued from certain death by a Phoenix Egg, she's now also a magical powerhouse that might be even stronger than Sarin.
- Eye Scream: One of her favorite tactics in battle is poking people in the eyes.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: While not initially heroic, she has a lot of self-esteem issues. To the point that she felt her entire life was meaningless.
- No-Sell: To her surprise, she shrugs off a magical fire attack thanks to her phoenix-imbued magic powers.
- Not Me This Time: When Goro and Aki become chimera thanks to Hitomi's shapeshifting magic lessons, training, and practice.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Thanks to a phoenix egg giving her too much mana/life energy for her human body to handle, she must train under Sarin to learn to control it or it will one day cause her to explode in flames.
- Power Incontinence: The reason for the above offer.
- Student Debt Plot: Tanica revealed that she resorted to joining the Trsanti to pay off her student loans.
- That Man Is Dead: After changing back into a human she claims that the person she was as a Trsanti is dead.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Thanks to the Phoenix egg she has a ton of magical power, however her aim is a little off.
Greg Stone
First appearance: Chapter 5
Greg Stone is a Tinto resident and actor turned professional critic. He went to the Dragon Doctors for treatment when, while on vacation, he started experiencing periodic stomach pains — which turned out to be a fortuitous decision, as they were actually caused by a terrifically-virulent type of body-assimilating parasite called the Crax. In the course of his treatment, he ended up falling in love with Kili while they walked around their mutual mental landscapes and contracting lycanthropy with her when the Crax attacked them in their mutual mental landscapes.
Greg has a tendency to proclaim himself to be a Ridiculously Average Guy, although Unfazed Everyman might be a better description; he lacks magical training and is habitually self-effacing, but he is unflappable, confident, and intelligent under pressure. He is also quite considerate, and adept at avoiding unnecessary social awkwardness.
- Badass Boast: To Preston Chang, THE CRAX. He was almost right.Greg: "You're only good at kicking people when they're down. You don't stand a chance against two souls drawing strength from one another."
- Big Damn Heroes: Numerous times. He has come to save the Dragon Doctor's lives on numerous occasions.
- Happily Married: To Kili.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: At first. Like Kili he becomes a werewolf.
- Official Couple: With Kili.
- Older Than He Looks: 60, looks like he's in his twenties thanks to Rejuvenation.
- Rousing Speech: On their very first encounter with the Crax, no less. He was able to convince Kili to free every soul that the crax had devoured. Every. Single. One.
- Took a Level in Badass: When introduced, he was nothing more than a journalist whose only talent was Talking the Monster to Death. As of now, he's a werewolf able to go toe-to-to with a full-blown Incubus and win.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He's mastered his werewolf form.
Martin Lambert
First appearance: Chapter 1
A former motorcycle courier who, shortly after the Agri curse became apparent, took a job delivering medicine to critically-ill children in Rockaxe and tried to avoid the curse by passing entirely through the valley before it affected him. He succeeded at the former and failed at the latter, but before Martin could get caught up in pitying herself, someone offered her a well-paying job taking a package back up towards Tinto — which she took, being as she was already a woman and the curse could affect her no further. Before long, she had a reputation as a speedy, professional courier willing to take the Agri Valley run, and with a lot of hard work, she parlayed it into seed capital for her own regional distribution business with associated general stores.
Probably because of her personal history, her store in Tinto offers large discounts to people who need to replace their wardrobe because of transformations.
- MacGuffin Delivery Service: Until the Agri curse was taken care of, she was the only one who could reliably be counted on to make delieries to and through that area.
Inspector Blue
First appearance: Chapter 3
Blue introduces herself as "an aesthetically-pleasing humanoid arrangement of blue crystalline structures". She's an alien from another dimension, happily resettled in Tinto, made mostly of blue crystals; apparently built/grown for "scouting" as she can fly and sports a number of extra senses. Blue's a very tough but very fair cop in a town where she's not sure what other cops she can rely upon. This frustrates her to no end.
- Broken Bird: Thanks to being attacked by Cary. She's terrified of seeing the sun because it reminds her too much of what Cary did to her. Need we point out that her people are photosynthetic, and worship the sun?
- Broken Tears: Combined with tears of fear. When Cary shows up at Sam's house, takes Jack away, and she can only look on, too terrified to act.
- By-the-Book Cop: She is a real stickler for rules and protocol, until she's pushed too far, like threatening her mate.
- Emergency Transformation: The Dragon Doctors had to make her human so they could treat her injuries, and then leave her that way because she's too scared to go outside and see the sun.
- Game Face: The blank face her crystal form normally projects is her being nice. When she's sufficiently enraged, she has Glowing Eyes of Doom, Scary Teeth, and mandbiles, and she knows how to use them.
- Hikkikomori: Cary's assault has left her too traumatized to leave her own house.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Blue was more than willing to let "Tanica" stay with The Dragon Doctors because "Elka," as a member of the Trsanti, is not someone who would risk her life for another. She officially wrote "Elka" is dead, and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of Tinto police on her report.
As time passes, she finds several allies in Tinto, including the Dragon Doctors; the most significant of these is Jack Coral, who becomes her boyfriend and, later, fiance.
Tomo Wakeman
First appearance: Chapter 4
A high school girl from Tinto who became victim to a rather nasty curse that left her invisible and undetectable by normal human beings. She sought help from Kili, who was able to detect her with her spirit vision and, from there, figure out that she was dead, but under a curse which stopped her from moving on to the afterlife and from being detected by others. After Kili helped lift her curse, Tomo decided to dedicate herself to helping Kili.
- Big Damn Heroes: Saves Kili from Preston Chang, twice.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Not that she was aware of it, at first.
Terry Grevas
First appearance: Chapter 8
Terry is a fitness nut and an old friend of Greg. One drunken night years before the story began, he roped two of his friends, Drew and Gren, into a contest to see who could get furthest into Agri Valley without being changed — which neatly explains why all three of them are victims of the valley curse. Terry took it particularly badly, having subscribed to a manly philosophy prior to being affected. Therapy has been a big help over time, although he remains male in spirit, despite the impossibility of a cure ... and when Mori and Aki accidentally discover that phoenix fire can cure the curse, he ends up imprisoned for attempting to hijack a phoenix fire shipment.
- Despair Event Horizon: After his drunken game of "chicken" regarding the Valley and its curse. It only got worse when a cure was found, but with the knowledge that the cure is forever out of her reach.
- Gender Bender: Thanks to playing "chicken" against the Aggro Valley curse.
- Interrupted Suicide: Terry's friends had to restrain him at one point.
Gren
One of Greg's best friends. Friendly and cheerful. Unlike most victims, including Terry and Drew (the other participants in the valley-curse-chicken game), her reaction to having been Gender Bendered was about as insouciant as it can get.
- The Lad-ette: Gren seems to wear much the same clothes and behave much the same way as she did before being cursed, although she is perfectly willing to dress up for a party.
Jack Coral
First appearance: Chapter 9
An unemployed writer and a friend of Blue. He often helps her with her police duties; while he is not a trained police investigator, he is intelligent, helpful, and has a personal grudge against Cary (leader of the smuggling ring) for what he did to Capt. Cora Coral of the Fronteria Coast Guard — his mother — when he went to Sunset Island to steal the harvest stone that caused the Agri Valley curse. Jack is also dating Blue, and after Cary catches him and zaps him (and half of the Agri region, all the way out to Tinto and Rockaxe) with a new harvest stone, she accepts Blue's marriage proposal.
- Gender Bender: Combined with Forced Transformation. Cary decides to test out her brand spanking new Agri totem on him, for fun.
- Going for the Big Scoop: Combined with It's Personal. He was spying on Cary's base, reporting back to Blue, not only to make the front page of the newspaper, but because Cary put his mother through an extended And I Must Scream scenario by throwing her petrified body overboard, leaving her at the bottom of the ocean. Even Cary was shocked at how traumatic the experience was, or pretended to be at any rate.
- Living MacGuffin: Cary snatches her up, by force, to use as a "sample" for whatever horrific bio-weapon project she has planned.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Cary unveils her "brilliant" plan to use a new, bigger, better Agri stone on Tinto, Jack proceeds to call out Cary on the sheer stupidity of her goals. When Cary comes back "well everything was just fine before those damn Dragon Doctors showed up," Jack proceeds to really tear into Cary regarding her Moral Myopia.Jack Coral: "And I bet you didn't sell any drugs or murder any one then either.... You're not Robin Hood! You're Al Capone!"
Sam
First appearances: Chapter 10 (as an unnamed Spear Carrier); Chapter 16 (as a named character)
One of Blue's fellow cops. Words that might spring to mind to describe her include 'self-confident', 'determined', and 'brash'; in her own words, "Dude, I gave up my dick just to chase a perp into no-man's-land". As an honest cop in Tinto, she has become one of Blue's allies — in fact, Sam takes advantage of the chief cutting off Blue from dispatcher support against Frances Brill to arrest her own boss for obstruction of justice.
- By-the-Book Cop: When clearing out the corruption in the police force, she had to fire everyone but herself. Cary's stranglehold is just that strong.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: The good cop to the Chief's bad cop.
- Oh, Crap!: When she sees Cary at her front door.
- Villainous Rescue: On the receiving end of this when the Mayor, who is actually the Succubus which has been using Kill and Replace on the mayors of Tinto is letting the cast know that Cary's "plan" is likely to leave Tinto a crater within the next 24 hours.
Honey Songbird
First appearance: Chapter 1
Honey Songbird is a doctor and Aki's mom.
- Brutal Honesty: Her bedside manner leaves much to be desired. She makes Goro look considerate by comparison.
- Doctor Jerk: Granted, she is quite skilled in medicine, but her treatment of patients itself is quite poor. It's amazing she has a licence to practice at all.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's far more abrasive than she needs to be, but she genuinely wants what's in the best interests of her patients.
Cary
First appearance: Chapter 16
Cary is the leader of a gang smuggling goods through Agri Valley and selling drugs in the region. She and her inner circle are all victims of the valley curse; in fact, she is personally responsible for stealing the harvest stone and planting it in Agri Valley. She is breezily confident to the point of impetuousness and almost always cheerful and friendly, even to her enemies ... but she is as vicious as they come when her plans demand it. She is also possessed of rather unusual powers as the latest Auric, including immunity to scrying and much literal fire-power.
A couple years after Mori destroys the Harvest Stone, Cary unveils and fires off a new one, with Jack Coral being its first victim; shortly afterwards, she attacks Blue, scarring her quite badly.
- Bad Boss: She's almost constantly demanding "sacrifices" from her henchmen, often ambushing them with it, and then claiming that whatever they gave up is "something [they] won't miss anyway."
- Berserk Button: Never give Cary an order, no matter how just it is, or what authority you have. Cary's power will cause her to run amok and deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on you, if you're lucky.
- Blessed with Suck: Considering Cary sought out her power, one wouldn't think this to be true, but aside from the inability to be mind-controlled, brainwashed, or overpowered in any way, Cary's power is just loaded with pitfalls, not the least of which is that if she's ever given an order, legal or otherwise, no matter the source, she will immediately flip her shit and go into an Unstoppable Rage against the one(s) who gave it. She will also go into Tranquil Fury if she thinks someone is about to give her an order, even if it's someone she's hired specifically to tell her when she's on the wrong path. What's worse is that, if she's telling the truth, she doesn't control her power, her power controls her, and she has to spend every waking moment resisting it to maintain some kind of free will. She tells Blue that she's been resisting for 30 years while lashing out.
- Card-Carrying Villain: She makes a point of telling her victims, particularly Jack Coral, that the one thing more dangerous than getting her attention is losing it.
- The Dreaded: After his arrest, Frankie's remarks about Cary are fairly unambiguous.Frankie: You're bad, Blue, but Cary fucking terrifies me. She said she once killed a bunch of mobsters with pocket change.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: When her girlfriend is brainwashed into attacking her with a cursed knife, and dies, Cary jumps right over the Despair Event Horizon and promises no more half-measures, a terrifying prospect considering what she's already done so far. What Cary fails to realize is that this is precisely what the demons she's rebelling against want her to do, as they feed off pain, suffering, and despair, and Cary's wanton damage is giving them an all you can eat buffet.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Jack Coral tells her he doesn't want revenge, only that he wants her to stop her rampage, she laughs at him, and insults him before turning on her prototype Agri stone and laughing like a loon when it goes wild.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: When her power runs wild, her body turns into flames that literally burn off her clothes.
- Evil Feels Good: When she went up against the Grunchinks gang, alone, she got a euphoric rush while causing damage and destruction, the more damage and destruction, the better. By the time she was done, she was exhausted but giddy with euphoric release, "feeling more alive than ever before."
- Faux Affably Evil: Cary only pretends to be courteous and polite. She really just wants to sow chaos and destruction everywhere she goes.
- Female Misogynist: If her backstory to Jack Coral is accurate, she was born a girl, scrounged enough money to get magical gender-changing surgery to male because she thinks being a girl is too "weak" to justify being the leader of a street gang, until deliberate exposure to an Agri stone made her a girl again, but even so still thinks badly of other women.
- For the Evulz: While she's powered by the spirit of rebellion, and is openly rebelling against demons, she only causes mayhem and destruction because she thinks it's fun.
- Hypocrite: She hates being given orders. It even serves as her berserk button, but she orders around anyone and everyone she comes across, and woe be unto anyone who doesn't comply.
- Improbable Weapon User: Since she can't be overpowered, when a gang of mobsters surrounds her, all armed with high powered guns, she responds by flinging loose change at them with the force of bullets.
- It's All About Me: The only "rights" she cares about are her own.
- Misplaced Retribution: Combined with All for Nothing. All her efforts to rebel and strike at the Demons do absolutely nothing to hurt them in any way. All she's doing is harming other humans. Her Moral Myopia is so bad, she simply doesn't care.
- Moral Myopia: She takes harm to her followers badly, unless she does it herself, but just look at how much harm she's done to others, and if called out on it, she just gives lip service regretting harm to "innocents."Cary: "When you're the leader of a criminal ring, you just have to accept that you're going to hurt people who don't deserve it."
- Multiple-Choice Past: It's a safe bet that even she doesn't know how she became the Auric. She tells the leader of the Hearts Society that she sought out her power, but then goes and tells Jack Coral that it "awakened" when she was forced to fight a street gang that had her and her best friend cornered as a child.
- Older Than They Look: Part of the powers of the Auric include being unaging.
- Out Of Context Villain: Her super-natural powers don't revolve around magic so countermeasures against magic just won't work.
- Revenge Myopia: In self-righteous fury, she is wholly insistent on avenging herself upon anyone and anything that slights her, even accidentally, or anybody she thinks "deserves it," and has rationalized that avoiding harm to innocents is an impossibility. Ergo, if she has to burn the whole world to ash to get her "justice," so be it.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Done in Tranquil Fury, but no less terrifying, against the demons for the death of her girlfriend. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the demons want her to do.
- She Who Fights Monsters: If the story she told Jack Coral is accurate, fighting street gangs that came after her and killed the people she cared about is precisely what turned her into a mobster herself.
- Smug Snake: Just because nothing can overpower her, Cary has come to believe that she can not be outsmarted, and although quite clever and resourceful, is nowhere near as intelligent as she thinks she is.
- Tautological Templar: She believes herself and her literal burning desire for vengeance are the epitome of righteousness. As such, everything she does is righteous, regardless of all the harm and suffering she causes, especially to innocents as "a world where innocents are not harmed is impossible." As Jack Coral puts it...Jack Coral: "You have some goddamn gall to pretend to be the good guy... Drop the harmless 'kooky' gangster act. You're not Robin Hood. You're Al Capone. The Demons just want you to hurt people, and guess what, THAT'S ALL YOU'RE GOOD AT!"
- They Just Dont Get It: The phrase "insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing, yet expecting a different result" fully applies to her. She utterly refuses to believe that her methods of lashing out are completely ineffective at harming the demons that she's rebelling against. Even when someone she's specifically hired to point this out to her says so, she fires that person, and just goes on to use a bigger and nastier version of an attack she already tried. By this point in the story, the demons she's rebelling against consider this routine and are completely unfazed.
- Wants to Be Hated: Most everyone who knows about her wants her dead on either side of the fourth wall. She knows this, and likes it.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: She's almost constantly complaining that she's resisting her power. When Blue tried to place her under arrest, and ordered her to surrender, she became a ranting, raving, unstoppable engine of raging destruction. Blue was lucky to survive and only did so because Cary thought being constantly hunted by the police would be a boring hastle.
Lee Smith
First appearance: Chapter 2
Mr. Smith is a cheerfully gregarious fellow who, late one evening, went to the Dragon Doctors to have the simple surgical procedure he needed done performed by the legendary Dr. Goro Delgado, on the grounds that reducing the risk was worth the extra expense. It was only after he was already on the operating table that they learned the risk being reduced wasn't "surgical error", but "being assassinated by the Trsanti while under anesthetic". He skipped out on his bill immediately after the procedure, but returned years later to have Sarin transform him into a form that the visionaries spying on him would not recognize. He got killed anyway.
- Asshole Victim: No tears were shed when the shadowy organization he stole from finally caught up to him.
- Eye Scream: Goro throws knives into his eyes at one point, but not before Goro gets blasted by his Eye lasers.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He woke up in what looks like a hospital, learning that the magic gems in his eyes were removed, and upon demanding them back, realizes that it's all just an illusion created by the true owners of said gems.
- Manipulative Bastard: His usual method of operation is to lie, dissemble, etc. in order to lead other people into doing what he wants them to do.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The true owners of the magic gems he stole make this abundantly clear when they catch up to him.
- Paranoia Fuel: Invoked In-Universe. The people who own those magic gems that let him shoot lasers out of his eyes make perfectly clear that since the gems were in his eyes, they saw everything he saw, and even changing his appearance and identity would ultimately fail to distract them as they'd know his new appearance the moment he looked in any reflective surface.
- The Sociopath: Even ignoring the way he failed to warn the Dragon Doctors about the Trsanti, his plan after getting a new form from Sarin was to kill them all, leaving no witnesses to describe what his new form looked like.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: One of his specialties is vanishing from crowded places.
Rina Lee
First appearance: Chapter 7
Rina is one of the most ancient people in the story, despite still being a young woman; she was born shortly before the First Breaking, and was one of the few of her time to figure out magic on their own. She ended up taking The Slow Path to the post-Fourth-Breaking world after she was targeted by a violator who forced her to turn herself into stone; she was freed after she was found by a surveying expedition who contacted the Dragon Doctors. She now works for the Hearts.
- Living Relic: She was trapped in stone for about two thousand years.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Speaking to animals is one of the magical skills she taught herself.
Tinto
Agri Valley
Rockaxe
Toron
Frontera
The country where most of the comic takes place; Tinto, Agri Valley and Rockaxe are a part of it. Frontera was one of the later places settled after rebuilding from the Fourth Breaking and used to be called "the old Frontier." It's socially modeled after the 21st Century United States, being in a similar position of being a country of immigrants who strongly value individual freedom. Its newly-settled status means that there's a lot of anomalous magical disorders popping up here and there for the Dragon Doctors to cure.
