Category: Characters

Learn more about the Players of the Game saga’s characters!

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Balpors

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Czar Balpors rules the Holy Alliance with infamous cruelty.

He and Starm, the Dragon God of Power, came out on top following the cataclysmic upheaval of the Eruption centuries ago.  Their empire gradually spread across the eastern half of the supercontinent of Jeea.

And now they want the west.  All at once.

They have upgraded their armed forces with improved weapons.  Their Dragons are among the most powerful combatants in existence.

Balpors intends to take back Findenton from the Free Jeea Coalition as a matter of pride.  And pride is costly.

He is more than willing to have others on both sides pay that bloody price.  The geopolitics and conquest are secondary to him.  Balpors may lead the foremost world power on the planet of Trojis.  He may be a Dragon in the guise of a Human ruler wearing impregnable stone armor.  He may pretend to serve Starm.  But his true motivations serve another.  The one with whom he shares a mind.

Corsis.

He is a drone of flesh controlled by the Master of the Game, but with his own bellicose and misanthropic impulses.

Everything he does serves to keep the Game in a state of constant turmoil.  A role he loathes more and more with each passing year.

But he can never stop because he cannot help himself.  His will is not his own.  And he vents his frustration with his lot in life on all he encounters.

Learn more about the harm Balpors inflicts in The Breakers.

Art by Ringasure.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Ashe Stelfire

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It all started with the man called Repenter.

Ashe Stelfire started out as a selfish and cruel person.  The worst person for the job of helping Avril Enzali, his long-lost daughter, to save her goddess from eternal imprisonment in an extra-dimensional dungeon of unbreakable ice.

Things did not go as planned.

Avril and Ashe both suffered great harm.  The daughter far worse than the father.  All at the whims of Corsis, who toyed with them from the periphery of a dark empire’s rise to power.  Before he could embark on the quest to free his daughter’s goddess, Ashe had to fight through a hellish world war to reclaim the means to heal Avril’s wounds.

Ashe changed along the way.  

He lost his innate pyromancy, transformed himself with a transfusion of silver blood, and claimed the legendary Retributor axe.  And he donned the monstrous bronze mask fashioned from the face of his old mentor.  Of far greater significance, he put aside his greed for fortune hunting as he learned of the magnitude of Corsis’s threat.  He strove to be better.

To repent.

He and his allies achieved a bitter victory in the final battle, where the means to heal Avril was at last recovered.  Although they triumphed in that smaller goal, they still lost the war against the dark empire backed by Corsis.  Ashe, Avril, and several of their friends fled to another world in the aftermath.  A brighter world.

A world with the entrance to a certain ice maze.

Ashe and Avril will at last embark on the quest to break out the imprisoned goddess.  One they had originally intended to perform by themselves.  But the past hard years have imparted another hard lesson.

When it comes to the Game and all the things it touches, going it alone is folly.

They will need help.

Find out how they get it in The Breakers.

Art by Hokunin.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Celsis Kri

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Everything Avril Enzali has done. From enlisting Ashe Stelfire’s aid. To clawing her path back to the land of the living. To dueling her mother in the mountain city of Onno.

All of it has led to liberating this woman from the center of a maze of unbreakable ice.

Both women share the same shade of red hair and the forehead tattoo. But Celsis Kri is not like Avril. Her demeanor is sharp-edged. She seldom makes apologies for it. A tapestry of tattoos covers much of the Goddess of Conquest’s body. In the past, they granted her powers and weapons, but her chilled shackles now suppress such manifestations.

But her bonds cannot negate the ethereal glyphs’ defenses. They have protected her from torture and worse. The goddess’s crimson markings also allow her to explore other places within unseen realms of the mind.

And those also seen.

Using their common tattoo on both the goddess and her last follower’s foreheads, Celsis has tracked Avril’s progress, or lack thereof, through the events of Repenter and The Brigands. The imprisoned woman had to learn patience over these past sixteen centuries. Her captors have tormented her with promises of freedom if she would only renounce her rebellion against Starm, the Dragon God of the Holy Alliance. And away from the reptilian deity’s notice, enticement to rejoin the Game on Corsis’s side.

Celsis refused. And has continued to refuse. Her change of heart endures.

The horrors of the Eruption changed her perspective, reminding her of the Weird War from millennia earlier. The realization pierced through her very core. Everything Starm overtly put into motion and everything Corsis covertly orchestrated without the Dragon God’s knowledge, all of it continued the mad agenda the Weird Ones had attempted to inflict on the world. Reshape it into something outside of the natural order. Something twisted.

The cataclysm that created the Fire Well was only the beginning.

She had undone everything she’d fought to save in the Weird War. And so she rebelled against Starm and Corsis. The Dragon God captured and imprisoned her, while the Master of the Game has continued to whittle at her resolve from the shadows.

She bides her time and has recently let something dangerous creep into her mind. Hope that she might walk out of her frigid prison. If only Avril, Ashe, and a group of New Players can breach the cold dungeon. If only they can break her free.

Read more about the quest to liberate Celsis Kri in The Breakers.

Art by Ringasure.

Players of the Game Cover Preview: The Breakers

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I’ve had this image for a couple of years. I even gave a cropped version of it to my cousin. (Hey, Nick!)

I think it looks amazing.

It shows Ashe Stelfire and Celsis Kri in the middle of a fight with a bunch of Fethelither demons. I love the sense of frantic action.

I might end up changing the titling design with my name on the bottom, instead of being squeezed at the top. But the image will stay as is. It was made by Ringasure. You can check out his stuff on DeviantArt and ArtStation.

I’m still narrowing down the launch date for it. Probably end of July or sometime in August. I might even set up preorder on the various platforms to see how that goes.

More to come in future posts.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Avril Enzali – Krian Armor

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Avril Enzali sets in motion much in the Players of the Game saga.

And it all starts when she embarks on a quest to find her biological father, Ashe Stelfire, in his remote tower on an island in Sufrinzon’s Ocean of the Lost.  With a companion who has an agenda of his own.

Svithe.  Broker of All Things Rare.

But Avril possesses much of her own resources.  She wields Nixer, a sword that leaves ethereal and everlasting harm on anyone it stabs or strikes.  Her Krian helm, symbol of her order’s leadership.  One she took on from her adoptive father.

Her most potent asset, however, is her determination.  It drives her to become the best in swordplay and myriad forms of mancy.  But despite that, she still cannot master the one thing that will free her goddess from her prison of unbreakable ice.

Channeling Flames of Tumult. She needs Ashe Stelfire for that. 

And nothing will stop her from recruiting him to her cause.

Whether they can actually return to Trojis to accomplish that goal is another matter entirely.  A goal Svithe will stand against.  Or get others to do in his stead.

Read more about Avril’s early struggles, starting in Repenter.

And check out her image below without her helmet with her forehead’s Kri’s Eyes tattoos.

Art by Moonarc.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Eric Enzali

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Eric Enzali holds no love for the Grells.

As part of the Krians, he led an invasion of Grelland in the conflict that resulted in the Eruption.  In its aftermath, Eric regrouped the sect of warriors following Celsis Kri’s imprisonment by Starm.

And time has not been kind to the immortal warrior’s organization.  The Krians have diminished.  All of his children and many others died in futile attempts to free their goddess.

Eric and those below him will never reclaim their former glory unless they can liberate Celsis Kri.  That’s the hope.

Hope that just might be kindled by the infant Avril.

Her arrival in the hands of the Peddler of All Things Rare bodes ill, however. 

The Krians remain weak.  While they are fierce warriors, they are vulnerable in their diminished state.  Even if they get help from the Grells against common enemies.

Find out Eric’s fate in Repenter and The Brigands.

Art by Moonarc.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Vick Burnhelt

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Vick Burnhelt solves problems.

He’s a Long Lived mechmancer who melds both ethereal arts and bleeding edge technology in his wares.  Be it his multi-functional pistol, his modular Battle Engine aircraft, the blood-stained power armor he can’t bear to don, or even the vast wall encircling the island of New Grelland that shields his homeland from the unnatural inferno of the Fire Well.

Bennet Burnhelt, his father, may lead the Grells.  But Vick’s many designs give the nation its edge.

But some problems are more intractable than others. The Game ruined the world, and Vick does everything he can to keep it from getting worse, knowing it’s not enough.  It’s why he and his wife imbued their sons, Ed and Matt, with hyper powers.  Hoping that the next generation can help forge a better future.

Corsis has other designs.
 
The Master of the Game has a vendetta against the Burnhelts.  He does whatever he can to ensure the women of the family meet terrible ends.  Vick’s wife died protecting Ed and Matt.  Her dried blood still covers his unused power armor. Vick keeps his long simmering romance with Een under wraps out of fear that Corsis might harm her too.

Vick also works with others outside of New Grelland and the realm of Trojis itself.  Sufrinzon in particular. He becomes a covert ally of Ashe Stelfire, Avril Enzali, and their allies.

He has minor appearances in both Repenter and The Brigands.  His presence then expands in The New Players.  

Read more about him throughout the POTG saga.

Art by Ringasure.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Benefactor

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Four thousand years ago, Bennet Burnhelt saved the world.  Smiting down the King of the Weird Ones.  Gaining a vastly extended lifespan.  Honing his considerable ethereal might.  Crafting a world order with the other victors.  The queen granted him his title, Benefactor, as a jest.  But the name stuck.

He seldom speaks about any part of his early life.

Because Corsis helped him save Trojis.  And that had a cost.

Now his world and many others suffer as part of the Game, though few know it.  Benefactor didn’t see the danger his old ally posed.  He didn’t realize Corsis had amassed the conquered Weird Ones’ vast powers until it was far too late.

Benefactor now strives to end Corsis’s reign in the background as he publicly leads New Grelland.  A role that burdens him.

But he isn’t alone in standing against the Game.  His son, Vick.  His grandsons, Ed and Matt.  And even that group of Brigands in Sufrinzon.  He will guide them as best he can.

Benefactor Plays the Game because he must.  And he intends to win.

Find out more about Benefactor’s plans starting in The New Players.

Art by Moonarc.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Nirva Iniv – Drandfiev Armor

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This version of Nirva Iniv appears in Repenter and The Brigands as she amasses power in Sufrinzon.  From marrying into the Iniv family, to becoming the Baroness of Palle, to conquering Alagar as the Empress of the Palle Empire.

She reclaimed the Drandfiev armor from the tomb of the long dead empress of Sufrinzon.  The dark-red attire amplifies her ethereal might and further cements her claim to legitimacy as the ruler of the dark world.

She schemes to reclaim her daughter, Avril, whether she wants it or not.  Nirva has a bad history with Avril’s father, Ashe Stelfire, and deeply craves to wreak suffering on him.  She will inflict her unhinged desires on anyone close to them.

Desires dictated by the abstract painting that she created.  Her masterwork drives her to dominate the super continent.  Originally, she did it to prevent a worse disaster from coming to pass.  As Corsis whispered in her ear to do it.

But she has long since lost sight of that altruistic motivation.  Nirva’s ambition has consumed her in a fugue of cruelty.

Find out if her ambition also consumes Ashe, Avril, and their friends in Repenter and The Brigands.

Art by Moonarc.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Meve Harlander

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Meve Harlander has seen a thing or two in his long career. 

As a Javelin pilot of the Holy Alliance, he was one of the few who survived the War of No Hope.  He and Harry Mang met during its final bimonths and became good friends.  He later got promoted to shipmaster of an airship and quickly ran afoul of his superiors when he questioned unwise or unethical orders.

This got him assigned to the frontier city of Findenton, with the other problematic people.  Like Shelocke.  Like Harry.

Meve’s acerbic and earnest conduct makes him one of the people Harry trusts most to tell him when something isn’t right.

Something like the horrors skulking about Findenton’s streets at night.

Find out how Meve and Harry deal with the horrors in The New Players.

Art by Moonarc.