Characters | Map | Language

Character Sketches from Onweald
In countless interviews, Sandy Lender has made it clear that her characters are very dear to her. She’s spent years learning their stories and tracing their intricate family trees. Not every character has as rich a history as the next, but some are so important that the record-keepers in Kaylas in the north of Onweald brought their information here so we could list them for readers’ benefit.

Amanda Chariss Derdrui—Chariss is a twenty-year-old woman who has been raised by a wizard since age four when the sorcerer Jamieson Drake killed her family. Like many people in the world of Onweald, Chariss has an ability known as the geasa, which is a power granted by the gods. Because Drake has pursued her and her wizard guardian, Hrazon of Mon’dore, the past sixteen years, Chariss has been training to use the geasa, as well as more conventional weapons, most of her life. She’s also been running from this madman most of her life. Chariss is lethal, powerful, and amazing. But she begins the story meek and weak from a day of flight from her enemy, and the reader learns that she doesn’t really have confidence in her abilities. She has to get over that pretty quickly, though, because the mark she was born with, a tiny amethyst on her cheekbone, is the sign the gods were supposed to be watching for for centuries. She is The Master’s Protector, and her presence in the world means prophecy has been set in motion.

Hrazon of Mon’dore—Hrazon is the greatest of twelve wizards the gods created to “improve” the world. His task in life is to train The Master’s Protector. He’s 412 years old, but, about thirty-eight years before the reader is introduced to him, The Master fell in love with Hrazon’s wife, Cassandra. The Master came to the mortal world and “collected” Cassandra, along with a dragon child Julette had left on her hands, to return to Mahriket. He didn’t marry her, but the damage was done. Hrazon gave up his task to train The Master’s Protector. When the dragon child was eighteen years old, someone in Mahriket accidentally killed him. The Master returned Cassandra to Hrazon, where their grown daughter, Vertigo, was married to Charles Derdrui. The sorcerer Jamieson Drake came back from overseas to find Vertigo married, killed her and Charles, and tried to kill Chariss. Hrazon arrived in time to save the child from a spell Vertigo had thrown her into, and has been caring for her as his own ever since. The relationship Hrazon and Chariss have is beautiful and tender. It is based on 1 Corinthians 13:4.

Joshua Nigel Taiman—This man is fabulous. He is a walking contradiction because he is dark and demonic, yet he is the means of salvation for Amanda (he calls her by her given name). He basically runs the school for the family and protects his mother (Kora) and little sister (Kaylin) from Godric’s temper tantrums. He is the only member of the family who has the geasa because both Godric and Kora have had it stripped from them and the children were born without it. Sadly, he has never been encouraged to develop the use of it. Because he is the son of Julette, which he doesn’t know, a change has been taking place in his life during the two years prior to CMFG.

Master Rothahn (Rohne)—The Master is the son of The Ultimate One and Julette. He is the highest (most powerful) of the active gods, and lives in Mahriket most of the time. He’s an arrogant, prideful being, but does understand and perform his duty as often as possible.

Jamieson Drake—Lord Jamieson Drake was not always evil. He once trained alongside Godric Alan Taiman under the tutelage of Hrazon of Mon’dore, the greatest wizard the gods created. But Jamieson let the power of the geasa go to his head. He has a different strain of the geasa from Julette and is a sorcerer. He wanted Vertigo for a wife, but went overseas to make his fortune first. When he returned to find her married, he killed her and her husband, and leveled the city of Kharole where they were living. That area is now a dank fen where there used to stand a thriving little city. He’s been chasing Amanda Chariss Derdrui ever since, intending to kill her to eradicate all evidence of Vertigo’s treachery. Two years before CMFG begins, the ofersey’n’s council named Drake the ofersey’n (governor) of Kida, a region in the northwest of Onweald. He had joined forces with Julette, who convinced the king of Jovera (a kingdom to the north of Onweald), to give up his crown and army to Drake.

Julette (The Dragon)—Centuries ago when she was friends with Enara Dane, Julette was known as Kelthowr, but she was always powerful. Before she was immortal, The Ultimate One (creator of the world), saw her and chose her for a wife. This is referenced in the short story “Enara’s Choice” in What Choices We Made: Short Stories From the History of Onweald, Volume 1. He made her immortal and imparted great power (almost equal to his own) to her. Her children are Hrothmund, Mahsilette, Master Rothahn, and a couple of others we don’t meet in CMFG. When The Ultimate One announced that he was “retiring” and turning over the throne of the world to one of his sons, Julette became enraged and war ensued. The end result was Master Rothahn taking the throne. Julette took the form of a dragon during the war, and can take that form whenever she chooses. Some of her children are afflicted with the ability as well, but not all of them. All of her children, however, are born with a spell over them that influences whoever finds them to fall in love with them and “want” to raise them as their own. It ensures their survival to adulthood.

Godric Alan Taiman—Godric (a traitor from the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon) is a terrible person. Twenty-eight years before CMFG, when he finished his training cycle with Hrazon of Mon’dore, he was headed back to Arcana, the name of the estate his family owns, when he stopped the night in the city of Candlewood. Eight months later, a whore showed up on the family’s doorstep heavy with his child. It turned out to be Julette, The Dragon, with whom he’d slept. The Taiman family runs a school for Geasa’n children, and he had assumed his father would turn it over to him when he returned from his cycle. But the senior Taiman was fed up and decided to turn the school over to Godric’s sister, Alise. A mysterious fire in the family’s stables killed both the father and Alise, but Julette was not that easy to get rid of. The child was born and Godric was left to raise it on his own when Julette left with a promise that she’d be back when the boy was old enough to be useful to her.

Kora Taiman—Kora is Master Rothahn’s daughter. She deserves so much more than a mere paragraph on this Web site. She’s a lovely, compassionate, tender woman who gave up immortality to raise another woman’s son and to love an unlovable man. Despite the age wearing on her now-mortal frame when we’re introduced to her in CMFG, she is the beautiful portrait one would expect a caring goddess to be. It’s not just inner beauty that glows through her, but outer as well. She’s more than 500 years old yet doesn’t look a day over 40. She has long blonde hair, soft green eyes, and a shapely smile always at the ready. When The Master Rothahn yanked Godric and his infant to Mahriket twenty-eight years before CMFG begins, Kora fell in love with the baby (and with Godric, which no one can understand). It broke The Master’s heart, but He allowed His daughter to go to the mortal world, to Arcana, with Godric and the child. She and Godric have four children: Jake Noel, Jorin Noble, Kaylin Dew, and a baby girl who will be named Elandra on the way.

Loetha and Lahs—These two women are life partners who live and work at the Taiman estate. Loetha was a member of the nobility in Mahriket but gave up that life to follow and care for Kora in the mortal world twenty-eight years prior to CMFG. She found Lahs in Arcana City about nine years prior to CMFG and fell instantly in love with her. The two have been inseparable since. Their relationship gives us an opportunity to see Godric’s bigotry and an opportunity to see yet another example of true, unconditional love throughout the Choices series.

Sergeant Brendan Naegling—(astute readers will recognize the name Naegling as one of Beowulf’s swords; even more astute readers will know its history and its level of usefulness) The sergeant has a fairly minor role in CMFG, but reveals secrets of his heritage as the story unfolds. Chariss appoints him captain rather than try to remember his station as sergeant.

Adelaide and Lydia—These two women are life partners who live in the city of Arcana. They are prostitutes with worldly knowledge that Chariss needs to access. Their role in the story begins in CMFG but continues as the series (and the plot) develops. The part they play was inspired by the Biblical story in Joshua chapter 2.

Henry Bakerson—This dashing ol’ ruffian is a sailor when the reader meets him in CMFG. Unfortunately, he’s a sailor contracted to carry goods for the evil Jamieson Drake. He likes women, ale, women, tale talls, women, gambling, women… He’s Nigel Taiman’s best friend from the good ol’ days when they drank every bar in Arcana City dry and sought “female companionship” in less-than-reputable places. Henry’s one of those ruffian-on-the-outside-good-guy-on-the-inside kind of characters that women are attracted to. He’s a kind ol’ fellow who teases little Kaylin Taiman and sends the miserly ol’ Godric Taiman into a much-needed tailspin. He gets Nigel into minor trouble, but keeps him out of any real trouble. His decision to sell off his family’s bread-making business to go off to sea (which really was an escape from a young lady claiming to be “with child”) may have made him appear rash in the past, but his decision to stay on land and help an old friend in the Choices series proves he’s a trustworthy partner after all.

Abigail Farrier—Poor Abigail is a lovesick woman, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, living on the east continent of Bellan in CMFG. We learn that she once lived just outside of Arcana City and loved Nigel Taiman very much. In fact, she’s harbored an infatuation with the man for about nine or ten years since her father moved her family away from the vicinity of the Taiman estate. She’s a pretty lady with lovely features, but her mind is a bit addled from her obsessive fantasies about what her life should be like with Nigel as her beau. Her family has slowly fallen apart over the years: her sister died of illness; her mother died in a work accident; her father lost his legs in a work accident. Now she works as a dishwasher for a hotel owner who used to be a slave owner and cooks for her father in their one-room abode. She’s waiting on a miracle to rescue her from a hard life and her father thinks that miracle will come in the form of her current beau, a Mister Horace Bendehl who works at the shipping harbor.

Arcana—Hleo-Arcana is a school for Geasa’n, people who have “the gift.” It’s a palatial estate carved out of the Freotho Mountain with a beautiful home for the Taiman family. Odda Taiman built it generations before CMFG begins for his bride, Arcana Scheld. When the success of the school and the harbor Odda protected became long-lasting events for the people of that region of Onweald, they changed the name of the city of Hleo-burgh to Hleo-Arcana in honor of the beautiful woman who had inspired the Taiman clan. It may seem odd to list an estate/a house as a character, but as the reader delves into the story, it’s apparent that Hleo-Arcana is a breathing entity that wraps her arms around her family and does her best to protect them.

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Onweald is an Old English word meaning “power.” For the world of Onweald, which comprises many societies, I needed a little help keeping track of where my characters were and how far they were traveling in a day’s time, etc. My good friend Megan Kissinger, who is an extraordinary artist in Southwest Florida, agreed to help me. She took a ridiculous sketch of mine with my scribblings and notes and turned it into the masterpiece you see here.

The map of Onweald appears in print in each of the Choices trilogy novels. Megan’s paintings and sculptures appear all over the Southwest Florida business environment. Here are a couple of her works. You can see Megan’s other stunning work at her site by clicking here.

An Illustration and Layout for the Ft. Myers News Press

Eventide Sandhill Crane at Nest

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The Ungol Language

As explained in Choices Meant for Gods, the loving, patient nature of the Ungol people makes them perfect guards for the prophecies of Onweald and the doomed prophets in the underground city of Tiurlang. This gentle race of creative, artistic, and peaceful humanoids can serve as guardians and warriors for the gods when necessary. They have their own language, although most of them know enough of the common language of Onweald to communicate with its citizens when traveling above-ground. While it’s not necessary to learn the Ungol language to read the Choices series, we’ve posted some information below to help visitors to the site brush up on the vocabulary just for fun.

A Couple of Basics:
the letter “i” is pronounced “il”
there are no possessives

Anthi    (pronounced an-thil) fields
Elder Edda       the canon of prophecy scrolls in Tiurlang
Hhass Luna      night hunting expedition or night hunt
Hhassad           huntress
Hhassath          hunting party of males and females
Jidaw   (pronounced jil-dow) one to be pitied
Nithi     (pronounced nil-thil) descendant of a priestess
Nuthi    (pronounced new-thil) daughter of a priestess
Sapedrel           village-like grouping of homes
Tiurlang            at peace with beauty

(More to come!)

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