Who is Dante?

Dante is the main character in the Nightbane Series. She is also the guild leader of the Nightbane Guild and is 28 years old at the start of the series.

Dante was born an orphan. Her mother died in childbirth in the middle of a forest, alone. There were no signs of her biological father being around, and Dante to this day still doesn't know. She was then taken in by a nearby werewolf pack who heard her screams after she'd been born. She was raised with the pack until she was 16, it was at this time that she was sold into slavery and sold to a vicious man named Vance.

Depending on the moment she can either be extremely laid-back, easy-going, or just an all-around great person to be around. Or, she can be very uptight, very serious, and deadly. It just depends. Dante suffers from quite a few mental health issues: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, nightmares, night terrors, and more. Many of the stem from her time as a slave in the abuse she endured under the hand of Vance. However, some of them are a result of something else, which is explained later on in the series.

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She is a fire user or an elemental as it’s called in this series, so she can manipulate and conjure fire at will. Ways that she can manipulate it that are shown in the series are creating fire wisps, conjuring flames in her hand or on her fingers, and conjuring weapons such as daggers, bow and arrow, and whips. She can also light certain objects and keep them from burning objects, such as weapons or clothes.

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At the beginning of the series, Dante is with Felix. Felix is her second in command and her lover. When Dante and Felix first met, Felix was second in command to Vance who was Dante’s slave owner. When Vance wasn’t paying attention, Felix taught her self-defense, thieving, and assassination techniques, and was her friend when Alexander was around. After Vance was killed, there was this lull period where she and Felix were just friends, but eventually, that morphed into a relationship and the two have been together since. At the beginning of this series, the two of them have already been together for nearly a decade. However, they are having some rocky relations at this point. Dante is coming to realize that Felix just quite isn’t listening to what she has to say about certain things, their interests aren’t aligning anymore, and Felix is really starting to show his narcissistic personality. It’s that same narcissistic personality that is not only realizing is compromising their relationship but also the guild and their professional relationship. 

When A Widow’s Web begins, Dante’s best friend is Alexander. She’s known him since her time as a slave. They met when her slave owner, Vance, sent her to retrieve Alexander after he returned from an assignment.  Again, at the time she was a slave, but for him, it was love at first sight. After that, they didn’t have much interaction until she attempted suicide where he saved her and convinced her to keep on living. Since then, they’ve been the best of friends. He made sure to be there for her every time Vance abused her, he tried to stop multiple attempts and abuse whenever he caught wind of it, and even after Vance was gone Alexander was always there for her both in a professional capacity, such as assignments, or friendly capacity, as a friend. To this day, the two of them are thick as thieves. They have this wonderful witty banter between them that to an outsider looking in it would look like they’re insulting each other, but in reality, they’re actually building each other up and joking with one another.

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Who is Felix?

Felix is the second in command to the night being killed and Dante’s lover. He is 36 years old at the start of the series. Felix was actually born into a wealthy merchant class family. He’s described as growing up with a silver spoon in his mouth, brought up to be a lord, but ultimately watched his family being murdered before avenging their murder himself. It was after he avenge them that he joined the guild and eventually rose to the ranks of second in command under Vance.

Depending on whom you ask, Felix can either be super helpful, very nice, or easy to talk to. Or, he can be a narcissistic asshole who likes to manipulate people into either doing his bidding or seeing his way. Both are correct. Felix is 100% a narcissist, he will manipulate his own characteristics and personality to adapt to the person that he’s speaking to. If he wants something out of them he will turn up the charm and eventually manipulate them into seeing his way; or, he will berate them, break them down, and eventually convince them that what they’re doing is wrong and he was right the whole time. Again, it really depends on how useful you are to him and how much you rebel against his train of thought and his points of view.

Felix is a normal human. He does not have any magical abilities, he’s not part of any species. He is entirely human like you and me and is perfectly content with that. He also has no animosity towards those who have magical abilities and does not resent them for what he does not have.

At the beginning of the series, Felix is with Dante. When he and Dante first met, Felix was second in command to Vance, who was Dante’s slave owner. On certain nights Vance would send Dante to Felix in hopes that he would not only rape her but would break her down and belittle her the way that dance would. However, instead, Felix taught her self-defense, thieving, and assassination techniques as a way to build her up and give her a sense of reprieve when Vance wasn’t around. It was also in these moments that Felix would feed her well and remove the shackles that nullified her magic allowing her to truly feel like herself. It was in these moments that Felix and Dante built up their relationship and became good friends. Aside from Alexander, Dante would tell Felix everything, would really confide in him, and use him as a sounding board.

After Vance was killed, initially, Dante had asked Felix if he wanted to step up and be guild leader. Felix turned it down, he did not want to be guild leader, he did not want that responsibility. He was content with his position. So, with that, Dante asked Felix to be her second in command not only because he had the role previously, but because he knew the aspects of the role and what it entailed. He also had a sense of leadership that she knew she could lean on as guild leader. This is where the novel picks up, ten years after Vance has been killed, and the guild is in a really great place both financially and professionally.

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Who is Alexander?

Alexander is probably the closest thing to the main character than a side character can get. He is not his best friend, he is a lieutenant in the Nightbane Guild, he is twenty-five years old at the start of the series, and he is a man written by a woman.

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There is no doubt about it, everyone loves Alexander, both readers, and characters in the novel. Alexander has a very laid-back personality, he’s very easy to work with, a jokester, witty, sensitive when he wants, and genuinely cares about the people in his life. At the same time, he does have a deadly side to him. He did do a stint as an assassin but didn't care for it.

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Not much is known about Alexander’s origins. The only person he’s revealed them to is Nauzar, who is one of his best friends. However, it is known that Alexander was dropped off at the guild at an early age, roughly six years old, and was basically raised by the guild. He became one of the youngest lieutenants at sixteen and had his own crew by the time he was thirteen. He was always a fast learner, he sticks to his guns, and he is very determined to not only help those around him but better than guild in every aspect. The Nightbane Guild is his life and he’s going to make sure that he does everything in his power to make sure it doesn’t crumble around him.

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When A Widow’s Web begins, one of Alexander’s best friends is Dante. The two of them met after he had come back from receiving the assignment and didn’t immediately check in with Vance. As such, Vance sent Dante to go retrieve him. Initially, their meeting did not go well. He accused Dante of being a slut before realizing that she was a slave. It was very much love at first sight for him, but not for her. He tried walking back his words but unfortunately didn’t succeed and offended her, rightfully so. It was about a year before Alexander saw her and could interact with her again. It was at this time that he not only learned her name, but he stopped her from an attempted suicide. Upon stopping her he convinced her that he would be there for her with every step moving forward and then he would never leave her. But doing so, he gave her something to hold onto, something to not only call her own by to latch onto when she felt like nothing else was there. It was also with this that he began to try and prevent Vance from abusing her further. He would try and stop lashings, he would try and step in to prevent Vance from physically abusing her in other ways, both normal abuse and sexual abuse. If he couldn’t get there in time, he made sure to be there after work to help clean her up, take care of any wounds she had, and make sure that she knew and remembered herself and what she stood for.

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It was in that year that the two of them became very close and became thick as thieves. After her advancement to guild leader, she and Alexander became even closer, often joining her on assignments and backing her up during jobs. They would also go out nightly, they would hang out together during the day, etc. As they both grew older, eventually the banter and hangouts weren’t enough. Things escalated to creating dangerous bets, trying to outdo one another, roughhousing, etc. Eventually, the guild came to know them both by a saying: “when the two of them are together the Gods make bets.” What this means is some of their roughhousing, some of their bets got so dangerous it borderline deadly or often came close to killing one of them. There were numerous times when one of them was confined to the infirmary for months at a time due to a serious injury, nightmares/terrors were had for months, etc. The two of them really love pushing the boundary with one another and seeing who could be the stupidest.

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Alexander’s other best friend is Nauzar. Nauzar, now, is known as the spymaster lieutenant. He is able to manipulate shadows. Alexander first met Nauzar when he was eight years old, Nauzar was 10 at the time. Alexander’s homeland had a dialect similar to Nauzar’s, so when is our first came to the guild and couldn’t speak a lick of the common tongue, Alexander not only translated everything Sara had to say but also type the spymaster in the common tongue. To this day, the two are basically brothers. They have shared a tent together since Nauzar first arrived at the camp, the two seem to know things or know what each other is thinking just by a single look. They’ve also gone on a number of assignments together, like Dante and Alexander, and have had each other’s back since the beginning.
 

Who is Jade?

Jade is a thief of the Nightbane Guild. Her lieutenant is Alexander and is a captain under his command. She helps look after the other thieves under Alexander and helps him with anything else he might need. She's XXX years old and is currently dating Nauzar. Many view Jade as a mom figure of the guild. She's someone guild members feel like they can go to for advice, to confide in, and even just hang out with. There are very few people who don't like Jade.

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Not much is known about this character at this time. Jade is a side character that doesn't show up as often as Alexander or Felix.

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Who is Nauzar?

Nauzar​ is a side character and a lieutenant of the Nightbane Guild. He looks after twenty-five spies for the guild and has an affinity for manipulating shadows. Nauzar is from a land named Treaston where the people were gifted magic by dragons. Since his people are from the badlands and predominantly reside in caves and ravines, the people of that region could manipulate shadows and some can see in the dark (not Nauzar). 

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Nauzar came to the guild when he was 10 years old. When he first joined, he didn't know a lick of the common tongue. Because his dialect was so similar to Alexander's native tongue, the two shared a tent, and Alexander was tasked with teaching the young Nauzar the common tongue. Because the two were in such close proximity, they became best friends and to this day feel like brothers. They know everything about one another and seem to understand each other better than most.

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Who is Farrynn Varieth?

Farrynn is the Queen of the Bremore Kingdom and a side character of the series. Farrynn is the antagonist of the series and believes that all those associated with the Nightbane Guild are trash and beneath her.

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Farrynn, with the help of her royal guard, Roran, and the council set a trap for the Nightbane Guild to force them into contractual employment with the kingdom. She doesn't agree with the guild's practices and hinders them from doing their job because she wants to keep the guild and the kingdom's actions honorable. However, as Dante repeatedly tells her, that is harming her kingdom and making her lose the war.

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While Farrynn despises the guild, she loathes Dante. Dante seems to know what buttons to press and tells her things Farrynn doesn't want to hear. Also, because of her laidback personality and ability to take things in stride, Farrynn envies her. She's bogged down with so much more and isn't able to move through the problems as fluidly as the guild leader.

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Who is Arryn Varieth?

Arryn is Farrynn's younger sister and a Princess of Bremore. Not much is known about the Princess. She goes to school near Mslone and is guarded by a number of guards at all times.

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Do you have any LGBTQ+ characters?

Yes! Actually, the main character and her best friend, Alexander, are both bisexual. As the story progresses (i.e. as more books come out), you'll see more and more LGBTQ+ characters.

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Is the main character in a relationship prior to the novel starting or does she find love in the novel?

When A Widow's Web begins, Dante is in a committed relationship with her second in command, Felix. At the start of the story, they've been in a relationship for nearly ten years but they've known each other for twelve.

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