Elisabeth is the most powerful magician of this age - or she will be, once she actually realizes that. She had a normal childhood with loving parents until the age of six, where the prologue of our story begins. When we meet her again, she is 17 and has just deserted her position as War Witch - something the Church is not happy about.

Constansa has been around for a while. The daughter of a Crown Magician in 15th century Lisbon, she was sent to a convent to be trained as a demon-hunter. After being thrown out of the order, having caused the earthquake of Lisbon, she has traveled the multiverse with her band of allies, staying young through magical means, slaying demons and causing trouble. As we meet her, she and her crew have been hired by the Church to bring six-year-old Elisabeth to be raised in the same kind of convent Constansa grew up in.

Sergeant Herlovsen served his military duty in peaceful Norway before the Troubles began, and worked as a middle manager in a government office. After the change of administration, most of the former middle managers were sent out in the field to get themselves killed off. Herlovsen remembered his military training and discovered survival instincts he never thought he had. These days he only cares about himself and his personal safety and has no particular loyalty to the Church, other than taking their paychecks. His greatest goal in life is trying to stay out of trouble.

Also known as "Katherine the Castrator," these days this hot-tempered warrior leads a mercenary pack of werewolves. Once a British aid worker in Africa, she was caught in the middle of a civil war and sought refuge in a church built on the sacred site of an ancient African demon-god. It heard her prayers, trading her life for her soul. Desperately, she agreed, and slaughtered the rebels with her bare hands, appeasing the blood-thirsty demigod in an orgy of death and destruction that lasted for years, until she ran into Constansa and her group. They used mind-magic to calm her down and recruit her, keeping her on until they had a falling out over "creative differences" and split up.

Tor is a slightly shell-shocked former sniper, while his brother Geir is the local sheriff of their home village Myrvang, far out in the Norwegian countryside. Together with their younger brother Bjørn, they run a survivalist school for the local children, trying to teach them what they need to know to stay alive in this post-apocalyptic landscape - as well as keeping the Church and its soldiers as far away as possible.

Born to wealthy parents in Oslo in the middle of the 19th century. A spoiled kid that used his intelligence and ambition to make a name for himself and gain influence in the secret societies of the day and eventually dug his way down to some real infernal power that he could barter away his soul to. Claiming a religious conversion, he traveled to the Vatican to study and quickly progressed in the hierarchy. A lifelong ambition was fulfilled when he was instated as Cardinal over the Church of Norway. Never satisfied, he keeps on plotting for greater and greater power and infamy.