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Riyria
Royce Melbourne
- Berserk Button: Any threat or insult toward Gwen is made at your own risk
- The Cynic: Royce thinks the worst of people and is usually right.
- Death Seeker: Becomes one for a while following Gwen's death
- The Dreaded: Royce, otherwise known as Duster, waged a bloody campaign of revenge on the Black Diamond after getting out of Manzant. He is still regarded as something as a boogey man to the Diamond and the city of Colnora in general.
- Half-Human Hybrid: By virtue of being a Mir, a human-elf mix.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Montemorcey wine
Hadrian Blackwater
- Ancestral Weapon: Hadrian's spadone blade is one of these. Also qualifies as a BFS.
- Dual Wielding: When not wielding his spadone.
- Hired Sword: Has spent most of his life as a mercenary.
- Implausible Fencing Powers: As a trained Teshlor, Hadrian is simply undefeatable in a fair fight. See also: Master Swordsman
- The Pollyanna: Despite his career as a mercenary and thief.
Melengar Nobility
King Alric Essendon
- Royal Brat: Grows out of it... mostly.
Princess Arista Essendon
- Insistent Terminology: She is not a witch! She is a wizardess.
- Rebellious Princess
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Her brother counts, but Arista personifies this.
Count Mauvin Pickering
- Master Swordsman: The Pickering family has learned one of the Teshlor disciplines and passed it down through generations. By the end of the series, Mauvin is second only to Hadrian as a swordsman.
New Empire
Empress Modina aka Thrace Wood
- Big Good: Becomes this after coming into her own.
- Heroic BSoD: Falls into one of these after her father's death. Amelia helps pull her out of it.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: Deliberately invoked by the church who intend to cultivate her "divine" image to control the religious populous and her roots as a poor farm girl to maintain control over the common folk.
- Meaningful Rename: Courtesy of Bishop Saldur who decided that "Thrace Wood" was not a regal enough name for an empress.
- Puppet King: How Saldur and Ethelred intended to use her. It did not go as planned.
- Rags to Royalty: From poor farm girl to Empress of the known world.
Amilia
- Rags to Riches: From downtrodden scullery maid to the second most powerful person in the Empire.
Nimbus
- God Was My Copilot: Heavily implied at the end to be Kile
Sir Breckton
- The Cape: Like a fantasy genre Captain America.
Regent Lanis Ethelred
The Church of Nyphron
Patriarch Nilnev Mawyndule
- In the Back: How his millenia-long quest for power comes to an unceremonious end, courtesy of the unassuming Monsignor Merten.
- Sdrawkcab Name: All the Patriarchs have names made up of the same six letters.
Bishop/Regent Saldur
- Affably Evil: Saldur is polite, cultured, and fatherly- as long as you do what he wants. Interfere with his plans, though, and he will show his temper. Becomes Faux Affably Evil when he says he's going to have Arista repeatedly raped unless she reveals who her co-conspirators were in trying to free Degan Gaunt.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Unintentionally sows the seeds of his own downfall simply by appointing Amilia as the Empress' tutor. Amilia brings Modina out of her catatonic state, eventually turning the Empire from the heroes' greatest enemy to their greatest ally.
Sentinel Luis Guy
- Church Militant: Like all Seret. See also: Knight Templar
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: After being a major villain throughout the series, Guy gets offed unceremoniously in the first chapter of the last book.
Sentinel Thranic
- Church Militant: Like all Seret. See also: Knight Templar
- Boomerang Bigot: Hates the Mir with a passion. Turns out to be one
Independent Characters
Esrahaddon
- Handicapped Badass: The church removed his hands to limit his use of the Art.
- Manipulative Bastard: While not evil, he is definitely this, even to the point of manipulating Arista into becoming the unwitting instigator of her own father's murder.
- Tailor-Made Prison: Spent 900 years in one.
- Wizard Classic: Looks like this once his beard grows out.
Professor Arcadius
- The Chess Master: In a story full of them, Arcadius outplays them all.
Gwen Delancy
- Miss Kitty: As proprietor of the Medford House. She is well respected in Medford and does not stand for mistreatment of the girls in her employ.
- Stuffed In A Fridge: Suffers this at the end of Wintertide in a botched hostage exchange orchestrated by Merrick and manipulated by Arcadius
Viscount Albert Winslow
Myron
- Ambiguous Disorder: Seems to have some level of OCD based on his obsession with rebuilding the Winds Abbey exactly the way it was, down to the last stone.
- Ditzy Genius: Thanks to his ability to remember everything he has ever read, Myron is probably the most knowledgeable human in Elan, but has never once left the Abbey at the beginning of the series. He wonders if horses come in blue and once mistakes a dog for a small deer.
Degan Gaunt
- Karma Houdini: Despite his long criminal history - possibly including rape - and his near sabotage of the Persepliquis mission, Gaunt ends the series rewarded with a title and an estate.
- Miles Gloriosus: Has built himself up as hero of the common people with stories of his trials and tribulations. Turns out that most of his claims are - if not made up entirely - highly embellished, and stem from his attempts to cover up his petty crimes.
Merrick Marius
- The Chess Master: Figuratively and literally.
- Evil Counterpart: To Royce
- Paranoia Gambit: How Merrick tricked Riyria into accidently causing the downfall of Delgos.
- Smart People Play Chess: Very fond of the game and of using chess terms as metaphors.
Wyatt Dementhal
Magnus
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Manages to betray the protagonists' trust almost every time he appears until being re-given life by Arista and deciding to turn over a new stone.
- Heel–Face Turn: In the last book after Arista brings him back from the dead
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Beard? Check. Craftsman? Check. Kinda greedy? Also check.
