The Hedge Wizard 3: A GameLit/LitRPG Adventure characters

Also known as Prince Kassius

Appears from the start

The prince who patronised the expedition into the Bledsbury dungeon, outwardly generous and secretly a warlock and a necromancer, who preached that the gods are only ascended mortals hoarding the path to power for themselves. In the dungeon's core he freed the dying wolf-dragon bound there as its guardian, and Hump burned him down to a barely living husk to stop him, at which point a masked shadow tore the world open and carried him away. His death was never confirmed. Officially he died a hero, and whether he is alive is not known.

Appears from the start

A woman who died at Fishers Lake, at the close of the previous book. Once since then, and only once, she has appeared to Hump after her death. He has no account of what she was.

Also known as Humphrey, Humphrey Woodrow

Appears from the start

A hedge wizard riding into Sheercliff three months after the Fishers Lake crisis, into a city swollen with refugees. He carries his late master's staff, the soul-bound Book of Infinite Pages, a bonded wolf-dragon's egg, a permanently scarred hand, and an injury to his soul that by his own society's definition makes him a warlock. He arrives to find the Wizard Society hunting an unnamed apprentice it believes murdered its own master, and begins to doubt the goblin ambush he has always blamed for that death.

Also known as Robert Blackthorne, Lord Robert Blackthorne

Appears from the start

A young knight sworn to Kelisia, Goddess of Winter, who fights with her cold blue frostfire and travels under a plain name rather than his own: he is a nobleman, heir to House Blackthorne, who left home without explanation. Earnest and quick to put himself between danger and other people, he has stayed at Hump's side since Bledsbury and is one of the few who knows what happened to his friend's soul.

Appears from the start

A non-human archer who trained under Vamir and chose Hump's party over returning to her own people. Her childhood dragon's-blood transformation left her unusually strong and dark-adapted, and she carries a bow and a dagger taken from Prince Kassius. Her people are dragon keepers, so the wolf-dragon egg Hump is bonded to is her concern as much as his.

Appears from the start

Vivienne's apprentice and a druid, a Chosen of Krioc who heals with a god's blessing rather than a practitioner's craft and fights with a staff, growing vines, and borrowed animal aspects. He has travelled and fought with the party since Fishers Lake, and on reaching Sheercliff he is finally registered with the Adventurers' Guild as their official fourth member.

Also known as Vivi

Appears from the start

A rank-five wizard and Hump's teacher, an old academy classmate of his late master. She comes to Sheercliff to await a Wizard Society summons over her own conduct at Fishers Lake, an investigation opened once Lady Helen Astida submitted her report to the Guild. She goes on training Hump personally, down to an earth-affinity variant of her own water missile spell.

Appears from the start

Hump's late master, the wizard who raised him from childhood and left him a staff, a medallion, and the soul-bound Book of Infinite Pages. He has been dead since the opening of Book 1, killed, as Hump believes, by a poisoned arrow days after a goblin ambush. He and Vivienne, the wizard now teaching Hump, were students together long before either of them met his apprentice.

Also known as Justine

Appears from the start

The Countess of Sheercliff and the most powerful noble in a city filling with refugees who are fleeing rising monster activity across Alveron. The party knows her through Bud's family, and when the Society's accusation over his master's death surfaces on their arrival, Hump turns to her patronage to hold it off long enough to survive the investigation.

Appears from the start

An Inquisitor of the Wizard Society, assigned to investigate the death of the wizard Sethril Woodrow and to find the apprentice the Society's council believes killed him. The council has no name on record yet. He and Vivienne have a history of not getting along, and he has not yet reached Sheercliff when the party arrives.

Appears from the start

A young Sheercliff lord Hump first crossed in the city itself, where he sold him doctored enhancer ingredients to spare a herbalist's apprentice Randall was leaning on. Randall caught up with him later at Fishers Lake and formally challenged him to a duel over it, and by the end of that crisis was bringing boats out himself to fetch the party in. His letter is what draws them from Fishers Lake back up to Sheercliff.

First appears in chapter 3

Countess Daston's daughter, named at the close of the party's first audience at the Daston estate when her mother assigns her to show them around Sheercliff Academy. The party has just been enrolled there as nominal students, a cover arranged to put Hump beyond the Wizard Society's easy reach.

First appears in chapter 4

A scholarly Chosen of Loften and Sheercliff Academy's master artificer, generous and openly curious about magical artifacts. He notices the Springleaf sigil on Hump's cloak, identifies it as the work of an old and apparently defunct group, and offers to repair the garment's worn enchantment channels. A lens confirms for him that Hump is a wizard.

First appears in chapter 6

A silver-rank adventurer not yet thirty, wealthy and carrying a fine enchanted spear, named as the leader of the Academy's expedition team against the three dungeons that have opened around Sheercliff. The party is directed to him once the Guild announces its response. Hump finds his polished manner unsettling and cannot read the power he senses underneath it.

First appears in chapter 16

A sixth-circle Chosen of Lady Light who runs Sheercliff's temple district, remembered for destroying the Blackwood dungeon. The party first sees him storming out of a meeting at the Daston estate in a fury: the Countess has traded the Wizard Society access to a murdered priestess's ritual scene in return for their cooperation, and he resents the bargain.

First appears in chapter 16

A researcher and a former student of Sir Isaac, working inside Countess Daston's circle on whether a weakening veil between realms connects the Fishers Lake gateway, the new Sheercliff dungeons, and the rise in warlocks. He is also chasing a way to identify warlocks without the old ritual test. The Countess hands him the black stone the party took from the bandit camp for his lab to study.

First appears in chapter 17

An Inquisitor of the Wizard Society, in Sheercliff alongside Abraxus. She turns out to be the "E." whose letter warned Vivienne that the Society's council blames Sethril's apprentice for his death: she, Vivienne, and Sethril were students together at Elenvine Academy. She approaches Vivienne warmly as an old friend, offers condolences, and confirms the Society still has no name on record for that apprentice.

First appears in chapter 18

A noble and Bud's fiancee, until now only an unnamed arrangement he had fled from. She comes to Sheercliff to represent her own family in the city's defense, and is ambushed into meeting him anyway by his cousin. She fights with a rapier and buckler and says plainly what she thinks of being managed.

First appears in chapter 18

Bud's older cousin, in Sheercliff with a company of fellow knights to represent House Blackthorne. He brings Bud's fiancee to lunch without warning either of them, and carries word that Bud's father is furious at his leaving and expects the marriage to go ahead.

First appears in chapter 18

Ricard's second-in-command at the Academy's expedition office, a fourth-circle Chosen of a god of travel and language. She confirms that the party's bandit contract was regraded upward once warlocks turned up in it, and tells them to expect an outer-region patrol near one of the dungeons next.

First appears in chapter 19

A priestess of Lady Light who treated Hump after Bledsbury and is now posted in Sheercliff working with the refugees. The party runs into her leaving a restaurant and she greets Hump warmly. Her interest in him is plain enough that Celaine and Bud tease him about it for the rest of the walk home.

First appears in chapter 27

Randall's father, head of House Ferrand and leader of the faction set against Countess Daston. He appears in person at the city's council meeting, brushes off a Merchants' Guild complaint about the temple guard's treatment of a minority religious community, and publicly accuses the Countess of hypocrisy for keeping the party's recovered black stone from the council. She turns the charge back on him, to the room's amusement.

First appears in chapter 25

The shield-bearer of Marcela's own party, introduced when she presents her party by name and role to Hump's. He makes a dismissive remark about being partnered with a wizard, and apologises once Hump sets out his record: a dungeon core captured, and creatures from another realm fought at Fishers Lake.

First appears in chapter 39

A bronze-rank adventurer and a fourth-circle Chosen whose soul is already manifested and who fights with visible lightning. He leads the party that arrives to break the siege of Tailsend, recognises Marcela as a Daston noble on sight, and brings word that the assault on the Stonebark dungeon core has failed, with no news of whether Ricard survived it.

First appears in chapter 28

A Chosen knight of Ordana who leads one of the Academy's iron-rank parties on the Stonebark Forest expedition, assigned to one of the three villages it must shield. He resents taking orders from Marcela and argues openly that the patrol is there to kill monsters rather than feed villagers. A member of his own party steps in to smooth over one of his outbursts.

First appears in chapter 41

A bronze-rank spearman, one of three adventurers pulled out of a razor-claw ambush in the forest less than a mile from Tailsend, by a rescue party drawn from four groups on Marcela's authority. He collapses from exhaustion once the fight is over, introduces himself, and recognizes Marcela's name, asking whether she is Count Daston's daughter.

First appears in chapter 41

A noble of House Daston, named for the first time when a rescued adventurer asks Marcela whether she is his daughter and she confirms it. He is Marcela's father, a different person from her mother, Countess Daston. He has not appeared in person.

First appears in chapter 50

A general given command of the investigation into the captured Blackstone Warlocks, appointed by a duke who is Countess Daston's cousin specifically to hold the inquiry neutral between the city's factions. Under his authority the questioning escalates to direct soul attacks on the prisoners, which break them no more than anything tried before.

First appears in chapter 53

A lord. When Countess Daston moves to intervene over Vivienne's arrest, she sends word to him, among others, asking him to meet her at the House of Stone. He does not appear in person, and nothing more about him is established at this point.

First appears in chapter 72

A warlock of extraordinary personal power, who walks onto the stage of the Sheercliff Opera House after the city's forces find hundreds of corpses drained grey inside it. He parries a strike from Sir Roderick that should have levelled buildings, without giving ground. He tells them he let himself be found: he is a distraction, one small piece among larger ones, and his part is now finished. Then he springs the trap and withdraws as a tree of damnation erupts through the auditorium floor.