Illustration and Character Sheet - Volume 1

(Illustrations are in the comment linked to the name)

NAME: Arthur Olvasen

Age: 16

Appearance: Arthur Olvasen is the main character of Bleak Midwinter. He has light brown-blonde hair and a pair of extremely pale grey eyes which seem to meld with the white of his eyes sometimes. He is around the same height as Michael—5'11 or 180.3 cm.

Personality: He is an unassuming boy who likes to keep to himself. While not entirely indifferent to people around him, he is not a very socially available person. He has shown to know things which are still undisclosed and much like every other character, he is struggling to place his own pieces over the grand board of chess.

Arthur is shown to be extremely observant, seen in how he remembered when Astrid's that time of the month started, and he adjusted his behaviour accordingly. While most of his decisions seem like him acting on instinct, we don't know for now since he is secretive about how he comes to conclusions.

His battle style—unlike Michael who focuses on pure destruction—is also very collected where he takes advantage of the openings in his opponents. It was how he was able to keep up with Ed—even though Ed was holding back, a lot.

He has a slight aversion to physical touch and prefers it to be over some kind of clothing since it activates his "bloodlust" or "violent" tendencies. The reason behind this is unknown and the condition subsides when adrenaline takes over him (i.e in fights)

Although it is not common, there are times when Arthur has had a slightly mysoginistic attitude, especially girls his age, as he looks down on them call them "girl" instead of their name, evident from how he threatened to slap Isolde's teeth out when she lashed out on him.

So far Arthur has shown a lot of feats from destroying a battlefield, to quantum tunnelling which in theory is faster than the speed of light, however, his slipstream was extremely nerfed version of the real thing. We have seen Arthur mention that he could access Phase 2 of his capabilities, but it seems to be false given how he was able to use Slipstream which only those who have access to Phase 3 can begin to use in small intervals.

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Names: Michael White (left) & Finn Andersen (right)

AGES: 17 and 16 (respectively)

APPEARENCES: Michael has long white hair tied in a manbun and a pair of bright golden eyes while Finn has raven black hair and black coloured eyes. Both golden and pure black eyes are rare eye colours. Michael stands at around the same height at Arthur being 5'11 while Finn is 5'9 or 175 cm.

Personalities:

—Michael is a pretentious and cocky teen, which is brought up multiple times by Astrid. He is a womaniser and leaves no chance to bed them, despite his tender age. However, due to his past with Arthur, despite making improper remarks about Astrid's chest, he never truly tries to hit on her.

Arthur has described his voice as being exceptionally cruel to hear, like an executioner's voice. So far, he has shown to be extremely physically gifted due to his Divine Covenant, however, there has been no information on his arcane arts.

—Much about Finn is not known however, it can be seen that he is a close friend of Michael, evident from how he got worried after the first signs of merger appeared and Michael was attacked by wyrms from Eden. While he has not gotten as much of a screentime as Maria, Finn has been shown to have "Axis Manipulation" and has access to spells up to Phase 2.

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NAME: Dotun Olaniyan

AGE: 17

APPEARNCE: He is the tallest amongst the heirs of the seven syndicates, and even taller than some of the lords. Standing at around 6'1, he has bright white hair which is cut into a buzzcut and grey-ish blue eyes. Despite having an African descent, he is shown to have an extremely pale skin due to his albinism which is a frequent occurrence in the Olaniyans. 

PERSONALITY: Dotun is showed to be a quiet boy, but not like Arthur. While Arthur retains most of information to himself and does not introspect about his own plans, we have seen Dotun disclose multiple intel to his fellow heirs. Although later it's shown that he only says stuff which is going to revealed soon anyways, indicating how is secretive in his own ways.

Dotun is shown as an extremely composed boy, as we have seen in the chapter Horizon's Edge where he stays calm and collected even when the prehistoric creature—which was the biggest recorded avian bird in human history—was attacking them at full speed. He's considerate as well, asking Maria if he should kill it since she was in a shock and had complicated feelings as he thought she'd need to blow off some steam.

Although he seems apathetic to human lives being ending, given how he was excited about the world's physics changing more than the death of people.

Dotun has been shown to use nanites repeatedly, but the exact nature of his arcane arts stays shrouded in mystery.

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Name: Andrew Ashford

Age: 19-20

Appearance: Andrew Ashford is the deuteragonist of Bleak Midwinter. Standing tall at 6'3 (190.5 cms), he initially had long golden blonde hair that fell well below his shoulders, a homage to his deceased older brother. As of recent, now he keeps his hair in a significantly shorter style, wearing his hair in a messy French crop. His eyes are an unnatural crimson red, which seem to shine in times of extreme emotion.

PERSONALITY: After the tragic events that had befallen the Ashford family many years ago, Andrew adopted a personality that he had believed to be the "perfect" personality: that of his late brother. Under this masquerade, Andrew presents himself as a very sociable affable individual, who possesses an innate talent of interpersonal skills which he had to develop after taking the role of head of the Ashford family to maintain their long-lasting business empire.

When Andrew is either by himself, or around company he feels comfortable or trusts, does his masquerade begin to slip, resulting in usually a more sarcastic and bitter version of Andrew. His personality often seems contradictory, with his values and motives often swaying between extreme levels of nihilism and altruism. This is believed to be caused from his real self-merging and mixing with the persona he performs.

Andrew harbours a deep disdain for arcanum related subjects, but usually does well in suppressing that hate down, hiding it behind a smile. Andrew convinces himself that using arcanum is in the interest of 'bettering the human race', and 'using evil to destroy evil'.

Little is known about Andrew's arcanum prowess, as he is still learning about his abilities. As of now, he's only capable of basic physical enhancements, drawing Andrew's physical capabilities into the superhuman realm. Unknowingly, Andrew has yet to observe that other awakened individuals in his presence often wise perform at a higher level.

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Name: Sarah Ashford

Age: 17-18

Appearance: Sarah Ashford is the younger sister of Andrew Ashford and shares the signature Ashford traits: golden blonde hair, and crimson red eyes. Her hair falls just above her shoulders—long enough to style as she pleases but short enough to avoid the typical inconveniences of longer hair. Sarah stands at an unusually tall height of 5'9 (175.25 cm)

Personality: Energetic yet lazy, loud yet soft, chaotic yet coherent—Sarah lives for a good time. She loves fooling around and making her and others laugh. While Sarah enjoys messing with people, she is both careful and conscious not to push anyone too far.

Sarah loves her brother more than anything else in the world. As the only direct family she has left, Sarah would do anything to support his agendas.

Academically, Sarah could be doing better. However, while she struggles in this area, Sarah excels both in emotional perception and intelligence, often at times using that ability to playfully mess with people. Sarah has also shown the uncanny ability to be able to pick up, mimic and learn skills at an alarmingly quick rate—assuming that they're not related to academics.

Before the events of Arcanum became widely known to the public, Sarah was far more recognized than Andrew, boasting a large following across multiple social media platforms. This popularity was largely due to her community-dubbed "gremlin" personality, paired with her natural charm and good looks.

Recently awakened by the effects of Arcanum, Sarah only currently possesses the ability to enhance her physical abilities. Her abilities are likely to continue to develop alongside Andrew's.

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NAME: Astrid Aalto

AGE: 17

Appearance:

Astrid is a tall girl, standing at around 5'8. She has long silver-ish, white hair and a pair of clear blue eyes which Arthur described as the clear sky after a heavy downpour. She usually styles her hair in a side ponytail and lets her bangs run loose when she's comfortable, however, when it's a formal setting, she often lets it loose or ties it up in a bun.

Michael has commented about Astrid for having a smaller chest but exceling in another department, but despite this, he never truly hit on her.

PERSONALITY:

Astrid, while appearing to be timid, is a bold and charismatic girl. Her first meeting with the other heirs was kind of nerve wracking, but she made friends with Yuki, Zara and Trisha quickly after Yuki approached her, with her even going to a diner with them as well.

While she is a confident girl, she seems extremely emotionally dependent on Arthur. Her mood is always influenced by how Arthur behaves and has shown the tendency to get extremely upset and say weird things when she Arthur isn't emotionally available to her. The reason behind this is quite vague but it could be attributed to Arthur saving her when both were little.

She hates Michael a lot.

Her arcane art is "Sealing" as we have seen her seal Arthur's injuries, heal the parasite eating his insides, seal the Wujin army in a ravine and even delay the opening of the rift that would've started the merger. And while her arcane art is extremely powerful, she is physically frail and can't use her arcane art in a battle since her interpretation of her powers and her own temperament is not violent.

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Name: Isolde Cromwell

Age: Around 19-20 human years

Appearance:

Isolde Cromwell is the princess of the Cromwell Lineage and is one of the contenders to the throne of Central Dominion—albeit not the strongest candidate.

She has white hair which is usually left to flow naturally like the waves of a waterfall. Unlike her brothers who have pure white hair, she has a slight tint to hers, which is not really visible but was enough to make Arthur have second guesses.

She has the Cromwell trademark golden eyes which glow when she pours arcanum into her body or gets agitated.

Since Isolde is royalty, she has two pairs of horns. One pair juts out of her forehead and the other one from the side of her temples which curl inwards. She has grooves towards the end of her side-horns.

Michael was shown to be quite impressed by Isolde's beauty and Arthur passed a remark of his own about her body—which shouldn't come as a surprise given how both of these have a common liking towards bigger chests.

She was said to be as tall as Astrid who was wearing heels so it might be possible that she's even taller than her.

Personality:

Isolde appears quite strict but, on the inside, she is a broken child.

Outshone by her younger brother who seems to be the only candidate to the throne—besides her—and when her older brother decided to side with the more competent one, she could only look up to her father—Jayden Cromwell—for help, but the reality of Jayden only valuing talent dawned too late on her.

In the brief flashback, Isolde is shown to be a kind and charming girl, but in this point of the story, she appears grumpy, and extremely rude. When Jayden decided to punish her, a deep sadness clouded her face—though she'd grown used to it, the pain never fully faded.

After losing the duel to Arthur, Jayden forcefully decided to bind her down to him for his and Aksel's joint plans—which remain to be a mystery.

Powers and Weapons:

Isolde has also inherited the arcane art bound to The Cromwells via a blood contract—Necromancy.

She summoned a giant flying dinosaur which despite being mostly rotten to it's bones was able to contest Arthur enough for him to actually try.

Despite having a "mage-type" arcane art, she has shown that her real strength lies in her fighting style and her usage of her custom Essence Arm: Wyrmbarb.

Wyrmbarb is a rope javelin which she summons from a cracked dimension. Although we do not know much about essence arms, it's always shown to be an extremely powerful weapon which boosts the power of an individual many times over.

Where does she summon her revived creatures from?

It has not been explained as well. 

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NAME: Maria Miranda and Yuki Watanabe

AGE: 16-17 & 15-16

Appearances:

Maria has Brazilian descent long pale-golden coloured hair and grey eyes, much like Arthur's mom- Sif Olvasen. However, instead of the Olvasens' trademark pale—devoid of life grey eyes, hers are bright and full of life.

Arthur liked them so much that he once had the thought of gouging them out.

Maria is described to be of decent height, standing at around 5'5"

She avoid showing much skin and is mostly covered, with some kind of scarf around her neck which covers most of her chest being the permanent part of her attire. Yuki has a Japanese descent. She was not always the heir to Watanabes. For some reason—which is said to be her defeating her older sister, Yui Watanabe—she was elected as the current heir.

She has long shiny black hair and a pair of gradient red eyes. She is quite short, barely being 5'. Arthur described her as someone who has cute, cherubic features. She is also the youngest amongst the heirs.

However, despite complimenting her, Arthur is always extremely wary of her, and has shown caution when he was letting Astrid hang out with Yuki. Even when she showed literally zero malicious thoughts, Arthur seemed to be on high alert around her.

Personalities:

1. If Maria's personality were to be summed up, it would be the mother of the group. Despite being at odds with Whites, Olvasens, Olaniyans and Andersons, she has never once shown contempt for anyone. She treats everyone like her younger sibling.

While her relationship with Arthur is a bit more intimate—evident from how much Arthur tolerates her or listens to her—she still treats him like a child from time to time, like when she reminisced over Arthur's juvenile days like a mother would.

Unlike the others, Maria isn't very fond of Astrid and often finds herself comparing to her. While she is extremely composed, Maria has occasional breakdowns and crackdowns whenever she is alone which involves breaking things and cursing out loud and falling into a depressive spiral of self-loathing.

Arthur has an odd infatuation towards her as well, although he is oblivious to this himself, given how he has a much bigger battle to fight and his seemingly distorted memories.

 2. Much is not known about Yuki's personality, other than her being overly clingy towards Maria and having a gross distaste for her older sister. She is friendly, and was the first one to invite Astrid over to their hangout along with Zara and Trisha.

POWERS:

Maria's arcane art has not been talked about, but there are a few feats that she did:

> Absorbing an attack of energy that was flung anonymously during heirs meeting.

> She fired a ball of compressed energy at the shimmer, however, it did nothing.

> She was only one able to keep up with Albert's brutal training—although it was said that Albert was not using even a fraction of his true strength.

> She killed a quetzalcoatlus—which is the largest known flying reptiles which ruled the prehistoric skies during the Late Cretaceous period—with no effort after the Earth and Eden started to merge.

Nothing has been shown about Yuki other than her eyes glowing extremely red and her telling Maria that there is not a single way they can bypass the shimmer from outside indicating at a non-combat ability.