Background: Main Characters

Alaric: Orphaned at the age of six, Alaric has always known that he has to depend on himself if he’s going to thrive in Tonzimmel. Through hard work and stubborn determination, he graduated early from his orphanage’s apprenticeship program in the Tonzimmel First Security Force, and at fifteen, became the youngest full-fledged security officer in the TFSF.

Now, at the age of twenty-one, Alaric is a level nine certified security chief known for his no-nonsense attitude, his drive for success, and his almost uncanny skill at knife-throwing. No one doubts that Alaric will go far in the TFSF…until he loses a bet and is forced to go on the Quest of the Unaligned, a journey through the magical kingdom of Cadaeren that will change his life forever.

 

Laeshana: Though born in Cadaeren, Laeshana spent much of her childhood in Tonzimmel, where her fire-mage father and earth-mage mother worked hard to keep their magical abilities a secret. A fire-mage in her own right, Laeshana always considered herself more Cadaerian than Tonzimmelian. She chose to attend Cadaeren’s College of Magic rather than one of Tonzimmel’s technological institutes, and in the course of her research there, she outlined a new theory of magic. If it can be proven true, Laeshana is confident her theory will change the world.

Until she can test her theory, however, Laeshana has been living in Tonzimmel, helping her father with his engineering business and getting to know a certain security chief named Alaric. If he is who she thinks he is, the future of an entire kingdom rests on his successful completion of the Quest of the Unaligned – and he’ll need a good friend to make sure he survives it.

 

Naruahn: The youngest son of a minor noble house of Cadaeren, Naruahn has always dreamed of doing heroic deeds like those written about in the epic poems of the kings of old. Unfortunately, Naruahn’s distractibility, exuberance, and lack of forethought led to one-too-many near disasters in his family’s castle, the last one involving a tub of oil, flying pigs, and some torches that really shouldn’t have been lit so early in the day.

Shortly after the “bacon accident,” Naruahn was sent by Lord Oshamait his father to live at the Temple of the Elements, where he serves as an apprentice to the temple’s high guardian, Ruahklon. As such, the boy is responsible for helping Ruahklon keep the Prince’s Crown safe until such time as Crown Prince Alaric comes to claim it on the Quest of the Unaligned. Naruahn tries his best to do his duties, but he still can’t help but daydream about what it would be like to be a hero.

 

Ruahkini: From his youth, Lord Ruahkini was known to be the most powerful air-mage of his generation. Early in his career, his magical gifts earned him a place at court, where he quickly became Crown Prince Kethel’s favorite tutor. Officially, Lord Ruahkini taught the prince the advanced use of air-magic. Unofficially, and more importantly from Kethel’s perspective, Ruahkini taught him how to use his magic to pull off the most elaborate, stunning pranks in Cadaeren’s history. The tutor and his pupil became fast friends, and it was no surprise to anyone that when King Kethel assumed the throne, he appointed Lord Ruahkini to his advisors’ council.

Now, decades later, Ruahkini is royal steward of Cadaeren. As such, he has been tasked with finding the missing Crown Prince Alaric and returning him to Cadaeren to complete his Quest of the Unaligned. Ruahkini is confident that he’ll succeed in his mission. The hard part, of course, will be finding Prince Alaric in the foul magickless hole that is Tonzimmel. But after that, it should be easy. After all, how could any crown prince be anything but eager to return to Cadaeren and complete the quest for which he has been destined since birth?

 

Deshamai: One of Cadaeren’s oldest noble shamais, or water-mages, Lord Deshamai remembers clearly what Cadaeren was like in the “good old days.” In his prime, Deshamai was a powerful force in Cadaerian politics, whose sage advice was valued by King Ambell and the court alike. That all changed, however, when Kethel ascended to the throne.

His biggest mistake, Deshamai sees in retrospect, was not preventing the appointment of the young Lord Ruahkini as a tutor for the crown prince. At the time, since the lands of Lord Ruahkini bordered Lord Deshamai’s own, it had seemed prudent not to express his doubts regarding Ruahkini lest he jeopardize his relations with his neighbor. Since King Kethel and Queen Tathilya came to power, however, Deshamai has been forced to watch in horror as his advice goes unheeded, as traditions are overturned, and, in consequence, as chaos now threatens to destroy his homeland.

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