The half-elven daughter of a Kyokanese scholar and an Ilthmiri magess, Takako is Lethani Isa’s best friend, and a Kyokanese scientist specializing in artificial intelligence. A long-time resident of Baisotei City, last year she moved back to Harbourton, Chartannia for the sake of her research– the Technology Institute of Redwood University is home to what are still the world’s best facilities if building an AI is the sort of thing you’re likely to do. Politically active since a very young age, Takako has a tendancy to say whatever is on her mind at any given moment. Fortunately, she’s clever enough that this only occasionally results in unmitigated disaster. Like many people from Baisotei, she comes across as rather abrasive and foul mouthed to those not well-versed in the Baisotei Way of Doing Things™, and full of the bravado that comes only from living in The World’s Greatest City Ever™. Her friends all know she’s actually a giant nerd, though.

She has notoriously bad luck with men.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

Cassandra’s close friend, ex-lover, and perpetual roommate, Lydia is an accomplished thaumaturgist, a skill which is, in the Coastland’s male-dominated magic sector, more or less entirely useless. With Cassandra high-tailing it to Harbourton to finally earn her post-graduate degree, Lydia decided the best thing to do was to follow her to the (comparatively) more progressive Chartannian Republic. Lydia is possessed of a strong moral compass, and does her best to do the right thing. She tends to be rather quiet and shy around people she doesn’t really know, however.

She has a beautiful singing voice, but good luck convincing her to show it off.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

A classmate of Lydia’s in both high school and university, the two of them bonded over the parade of unimaginable horrors that is growing up queer in the Coastland. They even tried dating for a while, but realized in short order that wasn’t really what their friendship was all about. Like Lydia, Cassandra has always been interested in magic. She prefered the science’s more theoretical aspects, and so when Lydia majored in Thaumaturgy at the University of Karnack, Cassandra chose to study the more abstract field of Thaumatology. In her senior year, she studied abroad at Baisotei University, where she met Kiyohara Takako, then a member of BU’s faculty. Cassandra came back almost as annoying as an actual Baisotei resident. She is currently preparing to pursue thaumatology on a post-graduate basis at Redwood University’s Technology Institute.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

Born into the middle class of the decaying police state of Minakodo, she grew up in relative comfort and with an impeccable education until her father sold both Akira and her elven mother into indentured servitude to pay off his creditors following a failed business venture. After serving for some months in a thaumium smelting facility, she was sold to the Minakodonese government, which then gave her as a gift to the Queen of Ilthmir, one of the few countries that puts up with Minakodo. Akira was recently passed along once again, when the Queen sent her to the Archmagess of Ilthmir, Kaonthil Telith, to serve as a governess. Intelligent, eloquent, and thoughtful, Akira quietly endures the degradation of slavery and hopes for freedom.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

Following the death of her biological parents when she was an infant, Isa was adopted by the Kyokanese ambassador to Ilthmir and her husband. Despite growing up in Ilthmir, she was raised speaking Kyokanese and inherited a legacy of Kyokanese culture, literature, and political thought. Her adoptive parents knew Kiyohara Shigeo, one of the few other Kyokanese living in Ilthmir at the time, and she became close with Shigeo’s daughter, Takako. The two have now been best friends for nearly two centuries. After spending several years living among the Kyokanese expatriate community in Harbourton, Chartannia, the pair settled in Baisotei City, Kyokan.

Isa is the calm, cool, collected, and at least somewhat sensible counterpart to foul-mouthed, spontaneous Takako. The two still have much in common– sharing a dedication to progessive political struggle and science. A geneticist, Isa was one of the leading researchers in the effort to sequence the elven genome and compare it to that of humans. When this research was applied to the increasingly-widespread process of Glanding, Isa found herself suddenly rather rich, which to this day sort of surprises her.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

Ian is a post-graduate student researching artificial intelligence at the Harbourton Technology Institute at Redwood Univserity. Despite the fact that he is assisting the research of Dr. Indrath Letanos, Dr. Kiyohara Takako’s mortal enemy in the vicious, intra-departmental rivalry endemic to HTI/Redwood, he actually gets on well with Takako.

Takako secretly considers him to be most attractive man she knows, and wonders why the hell somebody as handsome, friendly, outgoing, socially adept, and apparently well-adjusted as Ian is a post-graduate student studying computer science.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

A powerful and talented magess, Telith gave birth to Kiyohara Takako after an affair with a Kyokanese scholar studying magic under her, Kiyohara Shigeo. Abandoning father and daughter alike, Telith took on an important role in the Ilthmiri government, rising through the ranks until she attained her current position as Archmagess of Ilthmir, one of the closest advisors to Queen Caladai Sethai. In recent years she has come to crave forgiveness from her estranged half-elven daughter, but Takako isn’t having any of it.

She also has a second, full-elven daughter, Kaonthil Leanis, for whom Kobayashi Akira has been made governess. She and her household are in deep mourning for unspecified reasons.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

Leanis is the young daughter of Kaonthil Telith, and Takako’s little half-sister. Despite her young age, she is precocious enough to know that there are much better places to be than Ilthmir. Kobayashi Akira, her governess, is teaching her how to speak Kyokanese.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

When she was a young woman, Queen Sethai II of the House Caladai became one of the most enduring heroines in Ilthiri’s long and illustrious history, reuniting a nation divided between petty local warladies, brigands, and corsairs.

600 or so years later, things are different. Ilthmir had been battered around by the Great Powers of the East, then the newer Great Powers of the West, and then the East again some more, before finally descending into nearly a century of bloody civil war. The queen eventually succeeded in brutally repressing the northern usurpers, but at a terrible cost. Ilthmir is a shattered, dying courtry, and its once revered queen is seen by the outside world as nothing but a corrupt tinpot dictator. While her court descends further into decadence, her government has resorted to violent and repressive means to try to hold the ashen ruins of the empire together.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips

Kanuithi Aerithos is the head overseer of all of the servands, slaves, and bonded laborers that keep the large Kaonthil household running. With Kaonthil Telith herself mostly occupied with state affairs, Aerithos is in charge of maintaining some semblance of order on the estate.

He particularly dislikes Kobayashi Akira, the indentured servant acting as young Leanis’ governess.

First Appearance | Tagged Strips