The Figures

Gods and Founders

Manatar — The creator god. He remade humanity and gave it red mana. Archon's fanatical devotion to him was rewarded with eternal life.

Archon — The first wizard, creator of humanity's system of magic, hermit of the Central Ark, and later a god. He created the Partage, the planar seal, Regenerescence, Divine Judgment, and Soul Odyssey. He lived a hidden second life as Polymarch. Aldor killed him.

Askenar — The dwarf who made the runes, killed by Manatar at the very start of the count and called a god by his people afterwards. The dwarven language bears his name and Kaz'Nakaram is his own mine.

Gérard Alois — He led the exodus, served at Vlad Varanov's court, gave the vampire the stone that poisoned him, and founded the Council of Mages. A transmuter, an immortal, and a master of Time Stop.

The Era of Partage

Vlad Varanov — A merchant raised to praetor by his daughter's forced marriage, then destroyed by the family that raised him. Commode Telus murdered his wife and son and had him condemned for the assault that followed. On the scaffold he cursed himself, the axe would not cut, and the first vampire stood up. He co-founded Cerberus with the paladin Antoine and became master of the colony. An alliance of dwarves and young mages killed him. Gaspar was his adviser and Vorac his alchemist. His son, the second vampire, succeeded him in Vlad.

Antoine de Cerberus — A noble paladin of Archon who made the Great Refusal. He found Vlad Varanov on the Ark and chose him as an ally rather than prey, then founded the state with him. He disappeared.

Alfred Varanov — Vlad's son, the second vampire, and lord of the province of Vlad. He negotiated the transition to the Council of Mages rather than avenge his father.

Kaskad — A dwarf merchant in service to the Stonehearts. He violated his caste's code by drawing a weapon to save the infant Lucius, and Vlad Varanov cursed him for it.

Jerax — The Aboleth. She controlled the dwarven mine of Kal'dach through mental domination until Perennus petrified her with a word. Sobiesansky made every Cerberan Psychic from her cerebriles, restored her during the war for the Ark, and lost control of the result. Aldor killed her in the Underdark.

Bork — A red troll who ruled the land that became the Ark before Archon sealed him into a medallion with Object Prisoner. The medallion went into exile with Commode Telus, was looted off his body by white dragons, and came out of Brisé's hoard in Vidock's hand. Bork killed Randall Blackwater from inside it and then kept Vidock's mind alive in its pocket dimension. He still intends to destroy the Ark and its god.

Commode Telus — The censor's second son and the youngest senator in the Ark's history: brilliant at politics, war, and magic, and rotten underneath. He murdered Natalia Varanov and her son Alfred because she would not have him, then had Vlad condemned for attacking him. He made the vampire without ever intending to.

Hector Telus — The censor's youngest son. He raped Olga Varanov, and his father's order that he marry her is what dragged the family into the nobility. He died the day his son was born.

Olga Varanov — Vlad's daughter. Hours from giving birth and knowing at last who had destroyed her family, she laid a desperate curse on her own child and told it to kill its father and every Telus after him. It obeyed.

Perennus Albion — Businessman, restaurateur, Academy professor, and recruiter for the Psychic Project. Master of Aldor, Gyllyn, Frolix, and the rest of their class.

Christophe Rolland, Myveen Tracy, Salamin Touleh — Academy professors of breadth of knowledge, transmutation, and necromancy, respectively.

Thomas Grillot — Academy professor of enchantment. He chews a prepared mushroom to raise a wind that dulls the mind, then lands the real spell on someone no longer able to argue.

Sven — A Psychic from the first group brought back from Brazzant. Skarde — The most unstable of the six, sleepless and consumed by chronic pain, assigned to defend the frontier. Baltix — The strongest among them and Frolix's father. He went mad after hurling his mind against the Aboleth. Sobiesansky later grafted all three into his own body, where they died helping Frolix resist him.

Marcin Sobiesansky and Gérard Alois waged a cold war through competing programs: the Psychic Project on one side and the Witcher Project on the other—an orphan transformed through alchemy into a war beast capable of tolerating decoctions that would kill a man. The Alois family launched it because Psychic powers came from a source beyond magic and often proved stronger and easier to cast than their own spells.

Magellan Leblanc — Academy professor of divination and consul. Christophe Rolland — Inventor of the double-scroll technique. Thomas Grillot — An enchanter who combined enchantment magic with perfume, making his spells far harder to resist. Director Dreyfus — He runs the Academy, though nothing else is known about him.

Christophe Leblanc — Divination, popular novels, and Future Victory. He died at twenty-five facing Vlad Varanov. Others named Christophe Leblanc came before and after him.

Lucius Stoneheart — He preaches order through contracts and personally forges the rings he offers.

Daviau Morin — A level 22 wizard and member of the Council of Mages. One of the three young mages who brought down Varanov.

Cosimo Leblanc — Keeper of the secret of Regenerescence and Mathilde's father.

Charlie Stoneheart — An abjuration prodigy and heir to Jason Stoneheart's secret.

Marcin Sobiesansky — The Council's alchemist, formerly of Varanov's court. Creator of the verchoix, familiar, alchemical clone, and several poisons. He could command every verchoix with words known only to him. Gyllyn killed him in the Underdark after that command failed.

Émile and Simplice Adelbrand — The treasure and the stolen medallion; theft and speed. Tulipe — The thief who took the medallion.

Marcus Crassus — He turns mana into gold.

Jérôme le Rayonnant — Light. Ignis Fatis is his ultimate spell.

Agrayd — Creator of Small World, the most powerful epic spell.

Plutarch — A level 25 paladin of Archon, blessed by the god himself rather than by his censors.

Scipion — A commoner trained to build liturgies for the Ark. He built necromancy instead. His formulas last for centuries, and the paladins hunted him for removing the dead from the Partage.

Sylla — Censor of war. He built a militarized society and sells his own people's blood for gold. He erased entire dwarven clans; his peninsula was razed in retaliation.

Markus Telus — Wizard-censor, called the scholar, and builder of the palace on the island of Telus. He arrives at dinner through a doorway made of the guests' wine.

The Ark at War

Le Minotaure — Born Tiberius Telus and cursed before his first breath. He lived under Telus Island in a labyrinth that repairs itself, forbids flight, and turns teleportation back on the caster.

Polymarch — Born on Cerberus, he found Fleur de Bataille on a mercenary contract beside a young Christophe Leblanc, then left to become the Torturer of the Ark and one of Censor Sylla's five best warriors. He was Archon's second life the whole time. He had never lost a fight; he cut his own throat on Zurion rather than be taken.

The Inquisitor Talus — One of Sylla's twelve inquisitors, and his police. Divine water pours from his gloves; his gold mask poisons anyone unworthy who touches it. Interrogated before he was killed, he gave up more than the battle was worth.

Gaius Caius Picolus — The most influential senator of Sylla. He bought a prophecy for a male heir and paid in his own daughters, then had the knight who negotiated it fed to the seller.

Florentus Telus — The senator whose land bill for veterans became the crowbar of the entire war. Cerberus meant to have him murdered and got him his bill instead.

Flavius Marcus — Governor of the Crassus Peninsula, who ran the Great Barrier out of his castle behind six necromancers. He was the first man on the Ark to say aloud that something was wrong.

Vérité Crassus — Blade of the Crassus family, banished from Telus Island for assaulting a senator over the quality of the wine.

Endrass — The Nightmare Dragon, who spent centuries in dwarf form and intends to gather the monsters under one banner.

The Dwarves

Merenin — Prince and later king of Kaz'Nakaram, of Askenar's bloodline. A runic warrior monk, immensely wealthy and dressed as an ascetic. He carries Askenar's hammer. The first king to unite the dwarven realms.

Valin — A dwarf merchant and linguist who spent forty years on the Brazzant–Askenon route. Head of the merchant caste, minister of human affairs, and later admiral. Boundlessly ambitious.

Portin — A dwarf of Numbers with a perfect memory. His first Valerium research broke him. He later resumed it and created Askenon's weapons and Barriers.

Rochepin — A dwarf of Numbers and adviser to the king of Kaz'Nakaram. Kalir — Undefeated champion of Kaz'Nakaram and Merenin's training master. Yvin — A corrupt supreme judge executed by Merenin himself. Krakelin — A merchant of Kaz'Valah, Valin's rival, imprisoned on fabricated evidence.

The Free Era

Aldor l'Infernal — Born Aldor Alidel, son of the merchant Aurelius Alidel. Perennus's apprentice, Archon's killer, and king of Cerberus. Fire. His connection to the realm of fire gave him true words of power that make his spells stronger than their level suggests. Married to Ivana Varanov, his Academy classmate, and father of Aldor II and Anastasia.

Gyllyn Leblanc — Born Gyllyn Bardlac, a baker's son who entered the Academy at twenty-one on Perennus's invitation. King of the Ark, made immortal by his Divine Armor. Divination: he reads the past. Married to Mathilde Leblanc, whose name he took, and father of Archon-Marie, Joséphine, and Christophe.

Frolix — Perennus's apprentice, the Great Psychic, and Baltix's son. Telekinesis, psychometry, blindfolded eyes, and levitation. He lives on the Crassus peninsula and deliberately rules nothing.

Igor Varanov — Son of the lord of Vlad, a member of the same Academy class, and Ivana's brother.

Vidock and Glandir — The other two apprentices in the same class.

Perennus Albion — The master who trained Aldor, Gyllyn, Frolix, Jean Morin, and the others. Permanently embroiled in tax litigation with his former student turned king.

Jean Morin — Archmage, minister of magic of Cerberus, and adviser to King Aldor. He studied for fifteen years to master Soul Odyssey.

Mathilde Leblanc — Cosimo's daughter, queen of the Ark, and creator of Destruction Bubble.

Florentus Telus — A senator of the Ark who remained neutral during the war by calculation and is proud of it.

Bastion Stoneheart — Son of Lucie Stoneheart and Tristan Softpaper, graduated with honors from the Academy of Cerberus.

Einar — King of Brazzant, legendary barbarian, and member of clan Plume. Osseur le Stable belongs to his clan.