Characters
It is no secret to those that have followed my writing that I am very character driven. There are thousands of novels out there with great stories and cheap, shallow characters. There are also thousands of novels out there with incredible characters based in shallow stories. Finding the balance, in my mind, is key. I don’t believe a book can be great without riveting, believable and interesting characters. And I also don’t think a novel can be great without a story that challenges those characters.
Osondrous
Warlord
Age: 25
Height: 5’11″
Weight: 143 lbs.
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Dirty Blond
City of Origin: Stonedowner
Description: When Osondrous was 6 years old she threw a tantrum and with her very will ripped the arm right off of her youngest brother. He bled to death. Her mother died in child birth, she was the first and last girl born to the family. She hated the Stonedowner and truly despised the provincial life of goat breeders that her father pushed upon her incessantly. In Stonedowner if a woman is not child ready she is worthless. Osondrous still harbors hatred for the Stonedowner and shed no tears when she heard of the death of her father. Of all of her family, for all Osondrous knows, she has one brother that still lives and makes a certain point to never think of them. When she reached the castle Telenay took her into tutoring instantly, recognizing her strength and power of will. When the Keltch wars began she headed out, a teenager, into the seven years of campaigns with Telenay, becoming a warrior and a woman in the endless fields of blood and death.
Karalay
Healing Ward
Age: 36
Height: 5′ 5″
Weight: 118 lbs.
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
City of Origin: Willower
Description: Raised in the Stondom mountains outside of Stonedowner Karalay was not kept from the same incessant beliefs that Osondrous had pounded into her head as a child. She was told repeatedly that she would marry, raise goats, bear many children and thank God every day that she was not worthless. If not for her grandmother, a pureblooded Willower, Karalay’s talents may never have been seen. Having taken after the far more lithe and dark Willower of the desert Karalay was not built for the ruggedness of the mountains, she spent her summers in the desert, with her grandmother, in the capital of Willower. And it was with her grandmother in her arms, arm broken, eyes glazing into death from the fall from a horse, that Karalay found the will within her. Karalay spent years healing in Willower before finally making the long trek to the castle of the Wards.
Jezaline
Ward
Age: 38
Height: 5′ 8″
Weight: 132 lbs.
Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Black
City of Origin: Willower
Description: The knowledge of the existence of the Castle of Wards and the rulers of Humans was little more than that to Jezaline as she was raised on a prominent horse breeding farm at the outskirts of Willower. She was desert born with skin dark and smoky from the years in the sun. If it was not for her father falling onto difficult and costly times Jezaline may have never made the journey to the castle to become a Ward. But it was her promised hand to marry a rich city boy that drove her to the desert where she found far more than the death she had half hoped for. In reaching the castle she was a ravenous seductress and had her way with any man that she so desired, including the king.
Constance
Ward in Training
Age: 16
Height: 5′ 3″
Weight: 112 lbs.
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Blond
City of Origin: Stonedowner
Description: Constance was born in the capital of Stonedowner where all she knew were endless, tall buildings and stone streets. Her parents were bakers and it was a simple life. They were good to her and often she remembers the smell of hot bread and her mother’s lips on her forehead, hot from the ovens, wishing her goodnight. It was a fire that killed her parents and orphaned Constance and it was her aunt that sent her to the Castle of the Wards to live as a servant. Constance was terrified but eventually found a life in the work she was given. Olisize saw something in her and began teaching her the ways of Wards, though no one is yet certain where Constance’s power lies, or if she has any.
Jaridd
Darkhalk
Age: Over 500
Height: 6′ 2″
Weight: 178 lbs.
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Black
City of Origin: Stonedowner
Description: Jaridd was born in Stonedowner, or at least ended up there, orphaned, but that is such a small part of his history that, even with the ability to remember his birth and his childhood, they are utterly inconsequential to him. What he does know is that he ended up a soldier in a rag tag number of other sword bearers and in turn ended up becoming one of the five hundred that trekked to the broken cathedral in the hills north of the Castle of the Wards in a time when there were no Wards to be found. It was after the great Ward Lionel ended the five hundred year war and peace and freedom had been handed to the humans. In the broken cathedral he and his five hundred brothers became what was eventually called a Darkhalk. Soulless, mindless, heartless and immortal. Each one guards a Ward and they all guard the Castle. Nothing more, nothing less, for the last five hundred years. There are very few of them left now, having died in war, and he stands by Karalay.
Eikian
Centaur Captain
Age: 43
Height: 7′ 2″
Weight: 752 lbs.
Eye Color: Hazel
Hair Color: Dusty Brown
City of Origin: Centmere
Description: Eikian was raised typically as a Centaur, a hunter, an archer, headed to the Wards to join the army as soon as he was of age. He was not impressed with the twelve year old squirt that Telenay named Osondrous and called a future warlord. Eikian was the biggest centaur among the fleet, Telenay’s right hand, and he was being commanded to baby sit a girl that resembled an upside down broom stick. But Eikian did as he was told, finding at least mild amusement in beating the crap out of her in the sword ring. But time passed and Osondrous grew into sinewy muscle and bone, childish eyes turned into the sharp talons of a predator looking for a kill, and they stood together during the Keltch wars. When they returned Osondrous lost her interest in him, peace drove her mad, the incessant boredom of training for nothing sent her to Telenay’s very human body. But Eikian stayed by her.
Olisize
Healer
Age: ??
Height: 5′ 10″
Weight: 162 lbs.
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Gray
City of Origin: ??
Description: Olisize does not speak of his past. Most assume he came from a small city on the protected roads, not Diggamara, nor Stonedowner, nor Willower. He is the eldest Ward that remains at the castle and the oldest other Wards have always remembered him as an old man from when they were young. He has lived through the deaths of hundreds of friends and now stands by Karalay, as her teacher. He is just and fair and never condones useless death.
Telenay
Warlord
Age: 53
Height: 5′ 11″
Weight: 173 lbs.
Eye Color: Amber
Hair Color: Black
City of Origin: Diggamara
Description: When Telenay left Diggamara he was young and very angry. He was born there with no knowledge of who his father was, raised on the streets and in the huge boats as a deck hand. He and his mother survived on the measly coin she could make in the bars as a server. She was accidentally killed in a knife fight and, because she was a Willower (the pureblood Diggamara had no time for such scum), her body was not buried but thrown in the water and used as shark bait. He never looked back and when he reached the Castle of the Wards, full of old men and Healers, Telenay took over with fire and stone. He built up the Castle for protection and defense, prepared for the war with the Keltch and was single minded until Osondrous arrived. It was easy as the only Warlord in the castle, he had no idea what it would be like to not be able to keep a single thought from another Human being.
Aerick
Second
Age: 23
Height: 6′ 3″
Weight: 220 lbs.
Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Brown
City of Origin: Diggamara
Description: Aerick always dreamed of heading to the Castle of the Wards. As a young boy he play wooden swords with the other city kids in the streets. His father was a fisherman and his mother was a server in a small bar, down by the water. His child hood was poor but not bad, he attempted to make his family proud and became a strong deck hand and impressive fisherman. But when he turned of age, Aerick slipped away, eyes fierce with desire and headed for the Castle. He moved quickly through the ranks for such a young man and was soon Telenay’s own private Second.