Classmates
Six new students take Corkoran's tutorial and other first-year courses together. No other students are important.
- Elda is a griffin and the youngest daughter of human wizard Derk. She is much bigger than other university residents although not yet grown up.
- Felim is a brother of the Emir who rules far to the east. By purpose he is a scholar or inventor, not a member of the ruling family. His is the longest running family crisis of the year and to protect him magically from professional assassins the classmates undertake their most important program of self-study.
- Ruskin is an adult male dwarf from a fastness in the Central Peaks. He is a runaway slave from the ruling perspective but the chosen representative of his own low caste and others, for magical training at the University, eventually to help overthrow the system.
- Olga is a human woman, exceptionally beautiful, intelligent, and rich but keeps her background secret. After years working on board her father's ship, she happily arises at five and she is a find for the school rowing team. She can talk to elementals.
- Lukin is the Crown Prince of Luteria, a poor kingdom whose father King Luther forbade him to go study. As a magic-user he suffers from a jinx.
- Claudia is a teenage girl, the younger sister Titus, a young Emperor of the South. She suffers from another jinx.
Staff at the University -
- Wizard Corkoran - The friends tutor at the University, and Head of it. He likes to wear colorful ties, and his aim is to be the first man on the moon. He spends most of his time working on his moon studies, to the point of neglecting the actual University. He is also very bad with money.
- Wizard Wermacht - The teacher at the University who takes most of the first-year classes, and also the youngest. He is nasty, strict, and dislikes Elda, Lukin and the others. He particularly dislikes Lukin, after he made the bad mistake on the first day of opening a seemingly bottomless pit in the floor of Wermacht's classroom. The word Wehrmacht , whence apparently derives his name, is the German title for Nazi Germany's unified armed forces. This derivation fits the character of a man who adheres to an inflexible and narrow-minded program of teaching and treats with overbearing nastiness those who seem weak or stand out for their differences. Before learning the divinely-selected but unassuming Wizard Derk's identity, Wermacht insults him and then ejects him from the courtyard. Those suffering from imperfections in the form of jinxes like Claudia and Lukin, meet his ire. Ruskin's identity as a dwarf draws Wermacht's wrath from the first day of class and he refers to Elda as "a monster."
Outside the University -
- Wizard Derk : A wizard specializing in genetics, especially the creation of new animals. Shona, Kit, Blade, Callette, Lydda, Elda, Angelo, and Florence's father.
- Querida - One of the most powerful wizards in the world, High Chancellor of the University. However, she leaves the day-to-day running of things to Corkoran, a mistake which she later regrets.
- King Luther - King of Luteria. He is not a particularly pleasant person, and treats his sons and daughters as if they were little children, even though they are practically adults already. He forbade Lukin to go to the University.
- Emperor Titus - Emperor of the South, and Claudia's half-brother. He is the only person who really liked Claudia when she was small and was kind to her. He has been at war with King Luther for a very long time.
- Flurian Atreck - A griffin known as Flury. He is one of the four most powerful wizards in the world, and takes over teaching most of Wermacht's classes when Wermacht, for many long and complicated reasons, gets turned into a bar stool.
