List of Deltora Quest characters

The Deltora series features a wide line of characters, both important and minor. The series also features many different monsters and creatures that appeared in all of the many different books. This article is a list of the many different characters and creatures that have appeared in the Deltora series.

Main Characters

Lief

Lief is the main character of the series. Lief was born to parents King Endon and Queen Sharn though he believed them to be Jarred and Anna of the forge. As a child Lief roamed the streets of Del, sharpening his wits and gaining him the skills needed for his future quests. Though he did not know it, he was constantly protected by Barda and he prided himself on his many 'lucky' escapes. On his sixteenth birthday it is revealed to him that he must accompany Barda on a quest to find the lost gems of the Belt of Deltora. At the end of the series Lief discovers he is the heir to the Belt of Deltora and becomes the king.

In Deltora Quest 2 (Deltora Shadowlands) he is plagued by assassin attempts on his life, he is also afflicted by the sound of a mysterious musical instrument. In addition, he hears the voice of the Shadow Lord in his mind, and the people cry out to him to send a rescue party to the Shadow Lord's border. Seeking to preserve his line and protect Deltora, Lief and Doom have spent much time researching the line of Adin, first King of Deltora, and creating a false Belt of Deltora. Lief later pursues Jasmine underground, and the company sets out to find the Pirran Pipe. After succeeding, Lief attempts to use the Pipe against the Shadow Lord, but only succeeds with the help of Emlis. Lief later returns to Del with the freed hostages, and begins to show romantic feelings towards Jasmine.

After his adventures in the Shadowlands, he lead the mission across Deltora to destroy the Four Sisters and get rid of the land's source of famine and disease. During his travels, he meets Bede, who resembles him closely (this is because in truth they are distant cousins). He finds the last sister, the Sister of the South, beneath the palace. The Sister is in the form of a dark version of the gems that form the Belt of Deltora, and for the first time in his life, Lief is tempted by greed, however because of his benevolent and just nature, he resists the temptation and with the help of his allies, he destroys the sister.

Lief cares much for his country and in doing so is a good king. He is an able swordsman and with the aid of the Belt of Deltora has often solved incredibly hard riddles. He uses his wits in battle letting him defeat even the more experienced opponent. However, sometimes Lief possesses a lack of foresight and often loses his temper. He is stubborn which leads to him making some poor choices. Lief, from his father's side is descended from Adin, The first king of Deltora and the creator of both the belt and the country's name, which is an acronym of Diamond-Emerald-Lapis lazuli-Topaz-Opal-Ruby-Amethyst. In the book he is known to be Jarred's and Anna's son, this is of course the king and queen's disguse.

Jasmine

Jasmine is a wild girl, who has grown up in the Forests of Silence, where Lief and Barda meet her shortly after leaving Del. Her parents, Jarred and Anna, were captured by Grey Guards when she was young, and so she has been raised by the forest. She can understand the language of the trees and of many animals, and has incredibly sharp senses, but has trouble understanding some social customs. Jasmine is usually seen with her blackbird, Kree, and a mouse-like creature she calls Filli. Jasmine is like Lief and occasionally has a quick temper. After helping Lief and Barda in the forest, she is greeted by her mother's spirit from beyond the grave, who tells her to go with Lief and Barda in their quest. After this encounter, she joins Lief and Barda on their quest for the great gems that will complete the belt.

In the second series Jasmine begins searching for Lief's attention, while remaining loyal to her previous ways of life. When she hears of Marilen, she assumes (thanks to the slandermouthed acrobat Jinks) that Lief seeks to get married. Later, Jasmine discovers the Shadow Lord's scrying crystal, with which she sees a being that she assumes is her sister. Seeking to rescue the being from the Shadowlands, Jasmine discovers the underground sanctuaries of the last Pirrans. She eventually falls in love with Lief, marries him and has three children after the last weapon of the Enemy was destroyed in Dragons of Deltora.

Barda

Before the Shadow Lord took control of Deltora, Barda was a guard in training at the palace in Del. His mother, Min, was a great gossiper, nursemaid to young Jarred and Endon, and late one night overheard a plot for the Shadow Lord to take control of Deltora. Scared, she told the news to King Endon, who believed she was mistaken and had merely been dreaming. However, several hours later she had been murdered for what she knew. Fearing for his own life, Barda fled the palace shortly before the Shadow Lord invaded Deltora. Through the darkness of the night, Barda stumbled into the forge and fell asleep.

When he awoke the Shadow Lord had commenced his attack upon the city. Only half-awake and scarred by the invasion Barda stumbled upon what he thought to be Jarred and Anna hurrying the King and Queen away. Actually, what he saw was the plan the four friends had hatched in order to keep the heir of Deltora safe. Jarred was surprised to see a palace guard lurching toward him and knocked him unconscious. While asleep, Barda rambled aloud his fears and Endon and Sharn realised that he was a friend. They enlisted his aid in searching for the lost gems of Deltora.

For the next sixteen years Barda disguised himself as a beggar so as to discover information vital to the Quest. He also became the bodyguard of Endon and Sharn's child Lief, albeit without the semi-arrogant Lief's knowledge thereof. Upon Lief's sixteenth birthday Barda revealed himself to Lief and the quest for the gems of Deltora began. Though Barda was at first annoyed to travel encumbered by a child, he soon saw Lief as more of a help than a hindrance.

In Deltora Quest 2, Barda is now reinstated as the Captain of the Palace guards. Barda's skill in swordsmanship is second to none. His courage and wits have seen his companions and himself through several tight places. When Jasmine and Glock journey to the Shadow Lands, Barda accompanies Lief to find them. He holds a genuine affection for Lief (and to a lesser degree Jasmine). His loyalty to his king makes him a good friend.

Major characters

Along with Lief, Barda and Jasmine, several other characters play important roles in the plot.

King Endon

Endon was king when the Shadow Lord took over. He was good friends with Jarred in his youth and the two of them even had their own method of writing in code. Their code was a few sentences split up into crazy words and filled with EL's. To read the code, remove the EL's and remove the spaces and put them where they belong. Although by the normal rules of succession he would have still been king if he was still alive, it is said in the Forests of Silence that his people didn't trust him, and the Belt would not shine for him. Therefore, his son is the rightful king even if Endon was still alive. King Endon was married to Queen Sharn. When Lief and his companions challenged the Guardian of the Diamond, the Guardian faked his name as "Endon" so that those who passed his challenges would be shocked and tricked into believing the real king had abandoned Deltora. Fortunately the three companions learned the truth and when they return to Del and drive away the Shadow Lord, it is revealed that Endon and Jarred switched places to hide Endon and his family. Sadly, Endon dies before he can see his son rule wisely over the people. He is killed by Fallow.

Queen Sharn

King Endon's wife and the mother of King Lief. Sharn was the Queen consort of Deltora, now the king's mother. (Ever since her son, Lief, became King.) Sharn had switched places with Anna, Jasmine's mother, in order to keep her true identity secret. She became a widow when her husband died. Later in the series, she was poisoned by Paff (the guardian of the Sister of the South) who spiked Sharn's lip balm. Zeean was also poisoned through the lip balm for she applied it. They later recovered using the healing powers of Deltora's emeralds.

Jarred the Blacksmith/Doom

Jarred was a noble of Deltora and childhood friend of Endon, who left in disgrace and disgust when he learned that the noble world he lived in was a falsehood. He moved to the blacksmith outside of the castle, and took up the trade, eventually taking over when the existing blacksmith (Crian) grew old. Jarred is Jasmine's father. Jarred is married to Anna, Crian's granddaughter. It is later revealed that on the day the Shadow Lord took over, Jarred came up with a plan to hide Endon and his family by switching places with them. Jarred and Anna, along with their unborn daughter Jasmine, fled at first towards Tora, but because of Grey Guards turned east towards the Forests of Silence. They lived there for 7 years until Grey Guards captured them. Jarred and Anna were taken to the Shadowlands, where Anna died. Jarred, because of his strength from years as a blacksmith, was sent to fight in the Shadow Arena. He fought a Vraal, and in the process escaped the Arena but lost his memory. He somehow fled the Shadowlands, with the Vraal and Grey Guards in pursuit. He fought them again, but was gravely injured. Making his way to Kinrest, he met an old hermit called Doom of the Hills. Doom nursed Jarred back to health, but was later killed by the remaining Grey Guards. Jarred, strong once more, killed them all, buried Doom, and took his name for himself. Sometime after this he met Fardeep in the Valley of the Lost and accepted his challenge of gaining the diamond, but because Fardeep pretended to be Endon, the previous king, Doom believed that the king had betrayed Deltora and sold his soul to the Shadow Lord and thus he lost all hope and faith in the Royal Family. He became head of the Deltora Resistance, and years later met Lief, Barda, and Jasmine in their quest. After several unpleasant encounters, they joined forces against the Shadow Lord. Although Doom himself was not an evil person, he felt disoriented after he entered Tora's gates because his mind and heart had been consumed by a dreadful combination of bitterness, anger, sadness and regret. After Lief helped purify the Valley of the Lost and rescue the lost souls there, Lief helped Doom realize that Fardeep was not Endon at all. During a battle with a Grade 3 Ol Dain, Doom was struck in the head and regained his memory. He recognized Jasmine, and because of a piece of paper he had given Jasmine years ago, Lief thought he was Endon. He was then revealed to be Jarred, and joined the new royal court as one of Lief's advisors.

When the people of Deltora began requesting that King Lief lead a rescue mission into the Shadow Lands to free the prisoners and slaves, Doom and Lief began scheming a way to do so, unbeknownst to even their closest friends and allies. Together they researched ways to find relatives of Lief if he were to fail in his quest to save the prisoners and forged a fake Belt of Deltora. While Lief and Barda journeyed into the underground in search of Jasmine, Doom stayed behind to watch over Lief's distant cousin Marilen as well as operations in the castle.

Anna

The wife of Jarred/Doom and mother of Jasmine. She fled Del with Jarred into the Forests of Silence. She was later captured along with Jarred by Grey Guards and died in the Shadowlands. Jasmine is visited by her through the topaz which has the power to contact the spirit world. When she is contacted, she tells Jasmine to join Barda and Lief in their journey to recollect the seven gems of Deltora. Anna was the granddaughter of Crian.

Kree

Kree is a raven and one of Jasmine's closest companions in the Forest of Silence. Years ago Thaegan took away Kree's family and ate them. Finding him alone, Jasmine took pity on him, feeling the same pain of having family taken away, and took care of him herself. Like the trees, Jasmine is able to understand Kree. Kree treats Jasmine as his master and does not tolerate it when someone says or does anything offensive towards Jasmine. When Lief and his companions entered Thaegan's territory, Jasmine ordered Kree to return to the forest and not follow them. Later on when the group were under attack by Thaegan, Kree arrived and pecked the sorceress' finger and drew blood, destroying her and avenging his family. Kree acts as Jasmine's messenger and is useful in the fact that he can fly and spot danger from great distances. Kree's presence, however, became somewhat of a nuisance since the Shadow Lord's servants were advised to look for a group of people accompanied by a crow. For a while, Jasmine and Kree were forced to separate from the Belt of Deltora and ultimately, Barda and Lief, although the group eventually reunited. Later on when Lief becomes king, Kree becomes one of the palace's official and personal messenger birds, although he prefers to stick close to Jasmine. The Shadow Lord was able to detect the actions of his enemies by having one of his servants plant a tracking device in a wound Kree received.

Filli

Little is known about Filli. He appears to be a small, mouse-like creature (although Jasmine denies that he looks anything at all like a mouse or a rat) that sticks close to Jasmine just as Kree does. Filli often hides himself in Jasmine's clothes. Like Kree, Jasmine is able to understand Filli. He has often helped the group out on various occasions. When the group was brought to the city of Noradz (No Rats), the inhabitants mistook Filli to be a mouse and attempted to kill him. Filli was also badly hurt a Forset creature, the Orchid Keeper, trying to defend an unconscious Jasmine. There is an implied past relationship with an Orchid Keeper.

Josef

A librarian that preserved in secret the Deltora Annuals, which contained the whole human history of that land. He was the palace librarian during King Alton's (Lief's grandfather) reign. He was ordered to burn the Deltora Annuals but disagreed and made it seem that he had died in the same fire that burned the Annuals, but in truth, he faked his death and took the Annuals to safety, waiting for the time when they could be used again. It was he who revealed the story of the Pirran Pipe to King Lief. Author of Deltora Book of Monsters and Tales of Deltora. He is the one who starts Lief and co on the quest to awake the Dragons. His notes that are a help to Lief and co. are changed by his treacherous assistant, Paff. She drugged Josef to confuse him so he distrusts Doom, and to easily get information out of him. When she had no more use for him she poisoned him. But not before he warned Lief of danger in Hira, the City of the Rats.

Ranesh

A orphan from childhood. Ranesh was forced to live the life of a thief but was found by Josef and taken in as his adoptive son. At the end of Shadowlands he leaves Josef and marries Marilen. They have borne a child, named Josef after Ranesh's foster-father.He once worked on a small boat but was ultimately kidnapped by three pirates along with everyone else on the boat. The pirates killed everyone else exept him and the ships captain and took them to the Maze of the Beast. The pirates wanted him to work for them because he was young and strong. He refused at first but was thrown into the Maze of the Beast with a rope tied around his waist. The captain of the ship was thrown down to the bottom and killed by the Glus. The pirates told him if he did not do as they say this would be his fate. Ranesh escaped from the pirates during a rival crew battle. he also encountered Fardeep on his way to Del but refused to play the game because he valued freedom over riches.

Marilen

A distant cousin of Lief's. She is a descendant of Adin through her dead mother. Thus Marilen is Lief's heir to the throne of Deltora, until later when Lief marries Jasmine and his own children are born. Lief entrusted the Belt of Deltora to her just in case he did not succeed in returning from his quest into the Shadow Lands to rescue the prisoners and slaves.

Minor characters

The Enigmatic Giant

The Enigmatic Giant (also known as The Giant with Golden Eyes, both names are as he is referred to in the anime) is a character Lief, Barda and Jasmine encounter in Lake of Tears. In reality, the Giant is actually a very large, talking bird that attempted to assassinate Thaegan through deception in order to help a friend whose life was in peril. He failed and was enslaved by Thaegan and turned into a man of enormous stature, tanned skinned and a pointed nose, armed with a massive sword and wearing only a loincloth (his appearance is very similar to Ganondorf). He is forced to serve Thaegan (although he denies being her servant) as a guard to a bridge that leads into her territory. He challenges those who attempt to cross the bridge to riddles, allowing only those who are successful in answering pass and killing any who fail. The first riddle he asks is to take 11 sticks and make them 9 (In the anime it was 5 sticks and the goal was to make them 3. In the book, Jasmine rearranged the sticks so that they spelled out the word "nine" while in the anime, she rearranged the sticks so they resembled the number 3), the second challenge was for Barda. The bridgekeeper riddle was a question: "What do beggars have, rich men need, and the dead eat?": "Nothing". (In the anime, the game was taking pieces of wood with odd symbols on them and make them into the number 10. The symbols were, in fact, normal numbers facing their own reflection). Jasmine and Barda are able to pass his tests, however Lief fails. For Lief's challenge the giant then sings a song about Thaegan and her thirteen children in their home cave and about how each child had brought several animals with them (each child had brought a toad (13 Toads), while there were two grubs on each toad (26), while there were two fleas on each grub (52). The riddle was how many living creatures were in the rhyme? These numbers totaled together would equal 104 (with Thaegan it would equal 105), but what the giant doesn't mention is that Thaegan has eaten a raven and the raven adds one more (106).

Before he kills Lief, the giant offers another riddle. "When does the truth become a lie?" This riddle is the key to the curse placed on him by Thaegan. The giant offers two ways Lief could die, if Lief chooses truth, the giant will strangle him to death, but if he chooses lie, then he will cut off his head. Lief then requests to have his head cut off, but because the option of getting his head cut off is a lie it cancels out and becomes the truth and Lief won't be killed. This stunt breaks the curse on the bridgekeeper, causing him to return to his true form as a large, talking bird. Soon after Lief falls off the bridge, but the bird returned and saved him, catching him and carrying him to safety.

Manus

Manus is a Ralad from the city of Raladin. Lief and co. first encounter him on the way to the Lake of Tears, when he is being escorted by a troop of Grey Guards. They free him, and escape the Guards only to fall into the hands of Jin and Jod, two of Thaegan's children. Manus helps them escape, and reveals that he was their prisoner for several years. He also reveals that the Ralads cannot speak because of a curse placed upon them by Thaegan. Manus then takes them to Raladin, where they meet the Ralads. Despite the warnings and despair of the people, Manus accompanies Lief and co. to the Lake. There, Soldeen wishes to exchange the ruby of the Belt of Deltora for Manus, but then does so because of the topaz clearing his mind. After Thaegan is destroyed, the Ralads regain their voices, beginning with Manus. He later joined Lief and co. as the representative of the Ralad tribe in the ceremony to find the heir of Deltora. When Lief, Barda, and Jasmine return to Del in order to defeat the Sister of the South, he is the one that eventually leads them to its hiding space because the Ralad people were the ones that had built the royal palace in the past.

Tom

Tom is a shopkeeper, brother of Ava the sibyl, and of Laughing Jack the pirate and nomad. He is a man of business rather than honour, and will sell to anyone, regardless of allegiance. He even once tricked a Grey Guard into trading golds for a mudlet's urine. He claims to be the same person to everyone, and not take sides, but aids Lief, Jasmine, and Barda numerous times and also assists Lief, Barda and Jasmine against his brother, Laughing Jack. Because Tom is psychically or mentally bound to his siblings, he knows when either is in danger or causes danger for others. Tom also tends to speak in the third-person.

Tira

A descendant of the Plains tribe. Her people were driven from Hira into a new city called Noradz. The reason for the move was the sudden rat infestation. She was born under the tyranny of the Ra-Kacharz. She later helps Lief and his companions escape from prison. She was later taken to the Shadowlands.

Queen Bee

An old, roundish woman, who raises bees to make her Queen Bee Honey, which has certain healing properties. She also grows apples to make her Queen Bee Cider, which makes a person energetic and aggressive. After Lief and his party fled the City of the Rats, they stole nine apples from her orchard; Queen Bee was ready to have her bees sting them to death, but when she realized that they had destroyed the City of the Rats (and by extension were working against the Shadow Lord), she let them go and promised to pretend she had never seen them.

She is Steven and Nevets' mother.

Glock

Glock is a savage member of the Jalis tribe. The party first meets him in the Rithmere arena, where he mocks Jasmine's petite size; however, he has no chance to fight her. Glock was supposedly, the last of the Jalis, a warrior tribe that was destroyed by the Shadow Lord in the Dark Ages. It is later found out that Glock is not the last of the warrior tribe-there are some in the Shadowlands. In later books he seems more a boastful annoyance than anything else, and he takes every chance to tease Jasmine. He helps Lief, Barda and Jasmine battle The Fear but is killed in battle. In his dying breath he told Jasmine that he never meant anything he said when he was teasing her and he knew that she had the heart of a warrior and gave her his talisman, which was in fact a piece of the Pirran Pipe.

Neridah

The battler of Lief in The Rithmere Games in The Shifting Sands. In the Rithmere games, Neridah is known as Neridah The Swift. She is deceitful and agile, and seeks to merit personal gain from every enterprise. Neridah also appears in The Valley of the Lost, wherein she is a Resistance hanger-on. She begs Lief and his group on to let her join their group so that they can escort her home but in fact wanted to go with them to the Valley of the Lost in order to claim the Diamond of the Belt of Deltora out of greed. When the Guardian challenges a group to a game for a chance to win the diamond, she refuses and the Guardian allows her to leave. However, not long after she returns to steal the diamond and takes off. However, the Diamond had a curse on it that whenever it is acquired through dishonorable and deceitful means, ill-fortune falls upon the one who claimed it. Because of the curse she dies in the mists when she slipped on a smooth rock and bashed her head causing her to get knocked unconscious and she drowns in a stream.

Prin

A young sweet tempered female Kin. Kin are large, round, winged creatures that when sleeping, resemble rocks; children sometimes have stuffed animal versions (Lief's was named Monty). Prin is rather childish when Lief first meets her, but she becomes quite brave as she helps Lief, Barda, and Jasmine retrieve the emerald for the Belt of Deltora by saving them from a Vraal and later helps them on their journey to the Isle of the Dead (by which time she has grown considerably). She is young, so she often jumps into some things without thinking of the consequences.

Gla-Thon

An old member of the Dread Gnomes tribe. She frequently helps Lief and friends from the background.

Steven/Nevets

Steven is a peddler (wandering merchant) whom Lief, Barda, and Jasmine encounter on their journey. He is cheerful and pleasant, and sings almost constantly. He supplies Queen Bee products to the Resistance - not surprising, once it is mentioned that his mother is Queen Bee herself. Lief at first worries about Steven travelling alone, but he is told that Steven is safe travelling without companions, as he always has his brother (Nevets) with him. Nevets is not seen until the last book (although at times he is heard singing with Steven).

When Steven, or someone close to him, is threatened, yellow light pours from his body and Nevets appears: a great giant with a golden mane and fur, capable of destroying large groups of enemies without difficulty. Nevets is somewhat overprotective, turning on anyone in the vicinity, friend or foe (he thus fits the profile of a berserker). Often he is triggered by danger in a circumstance where his appearance would cause more harm than good, and Steven wrestles to keep him from coming out, even begging him out loud ("If you attack now, the guards will kill him - please wait!"). At these times Steven convulses, and his eyes flash back and forth between brown and golden, but most of the time he can stop Nevets from coming out or at least delay him enough to allow friends to get to safety. Josef had put Nevets into the Book of Deltora Monsters as well. Steven and Nevets had saved Josef's life when a pair of Ols attempted to kill him, however Nevets emerged from Steven and killed the two Ols.

Steven and Nevets grew up on the plains (the territory of the opal); in The Sister of the South, the Topaz Dragon comments that the territory of the plains breeds strange beings. Nevets's name comes from Steven turned backwards.

Chett

Chett is a polypan (a type of ape-like creature) that the group met in Maze of the Beast. It is said that those who have polypans in their service are usually up to no good. Polypans are known to be very skilled thieves and pickpockets. He served the captain of the Queen's Express by doing smaller chores and by using the rowboat to pick up potential customers. After the Ols aboard the ship revealed themselves when the pirates began to raid the ship, Chett fled with the pirates aboard their own ship in a fit of panic. When Lief and his group were capture, Chett helped them by stealing the Belt of Deltora back from the pirates to give to Lief in exchange for the chewing tobacco-like gum that Lief had in his pocket. They met the polyphan again in Valley of the Lost when Lief, Jasmine and Barda were attempting to rescue Dain from his pirate captors. A fight broke out between crew members and in a state of panic, Chett tossed a lantern into the storage area where the pirates kept a great deal of flammable materials (such as paint and oil), this caused the pirates' ship to catch fire. Chett helped get Dain of the ship and then rowed the group's rowboat back to shore before fleeing into the wilderness.

Zeean

A wise old Toran who assists Lief in a few occasions. She is poisned with Lief's mother Sharn by Paff through Sharn's lip balm, but lives.

Jinks

Before the Shadowlord's rule, Jinks lived in the Castle of Del as a clown and joker. He fled when the Shadowlord came and joined the Resistance. He knew Barda as a boy and lusts for riches. He died when he ate a poisoned cake meant for Marilen while stealing treasures.

Flash and Fury

Flash and Fury are two fighting spiders, spiders that are gambled on depending on how they fight (similar to a Cockfight). Each spider as large as a plate and have an obsession for fighting and if a spider loses in battle it will hold a grudge and track down the spider that defeated it and seek vengeance in battle. Flash belonged to Glock and is male and Fury belonged to Jinks and is female. The two of them are rivals and when Flash defeated Fury when their owners bet on them, Fury became enraged and desperately wanted to fight Flash to settle the score. When Jasmine and Glock went missing, Lief and Barda used Fury to track them (since Jinks told them that Glock had taken Flash with him). Even after Glock had died and Jinks had abandoned Lief and Barda to the Granuous, Lief and his comrades took the two fighting spiders with them and wouldn't allow them to be harmed. Eventually when they reached the Island of Auron (otherwise known as the Isle of Illusion), the group was attacked by Arachs and that was when the two spiders finally realized that they had an even greater enemy and the two of them put aside their differences and only wrestled each other out of fun. When Lief, Barda and Jasmine got the second piece of the Pirran Pipe, they left the two spiders under the care of the Aurons.

Lindal of Broome

A huntress descended from cannibal warriors who ate the brains of their enemies. Lindal knows a great deal about the wildlife and superstitions of Deltora, as well as how to hunt, how to fight, and how to tease without being malicious. She eventually marries Barda, (Whom she often teases) and has six children (Each bigger than they are).

Penn

Penn is the history keeper of the Aurons. It is her responsibility to record all that occurs on the rafts where the Auron's live. She became Lief, Barda and Jasmine's guide and explained to them about the Isle of Illusion as well as the history of the Aurons. Like the rest of her race, she detests lying but was forced to not tell the whole truth about her race's history on orders of the Aurons' Piper. When Lief and his companions left the Auron, they left Flash and Fury under Penn's care. Penn has two "companions" Tresk and Mesk, sea horse like creatures that are very dear to her.

Emlis

A young Pirran from the Pirran island of Keras that helps Lief in the Shadowlands. Emlis plays the Pirran Pipe in the Shadowlands. Once they return, he tells them he will adventure into the seas that are unknown.

Claw

A man from Del who was captured in the raids. He escaped from the Shadow Lord after being mutated into a fighting beast with talons, hence the name Claw. His real name is Mikal. He was a resistance fighter in the Shadowlands, along with former Rithmere champions Helene and Brianne.

Gers

The brother of Glock, Gers became one of the many Deltorans held prisoner in the Shadowlands. He escaped the Shadow Arena and made it to a branch of the Deltoran Resistance, led by Claw. He became the leader of the remaining Jalis after being entrusted with the Goblin (Pirran) talisman.

The Masked Ones

The Masked Ones are a group of wandering nomads and performers (similar to a Circus Troupe). It was founded long ago by King Adin's grandson and King Elstred's brother, Ballum, after he had been expelled from the palace. Lief, Barda and Jasmine join the group after a misunderstanding when a man from their group, Otto, is killed by one of the Masked One's phantoms. They are very strict and are distrustful towards newcomers into their group. They also have a deep hatred towards the Kings of Deltora, and so Lief and his friends are forced to take fake names for themselves to disguise themselves. The masks they make have magical attributes, when a member of the troupe reaches adulthood, they are given a magically crafted mask that merges and becomes part of the wearer's face. These Masks of Adulthood also make the wearer have absolute loyalty to the Masked Ones, making them think and feel like them.

Bess

An Inner Circle Masked One and Bede's mother. She is superstitious and believes many incidents to be omens. Her mask is that of an owl When the trio of Lief, Barda, and Jasmine travel with the Masked Ones, she says that Lewin(Lief) looks a lot like her son, because the Inner Circle is descended from Ballum, King Elstred's brother, who was expelled by Elstred's chief advisor. Lief is a descendant (heir) of Elstred. When "Lewin" says that his first loyalty must be to "Berry"(Barda), his and "Jay's" (Jasmine's) supposed uncle, and that "Berry" wanted to move west, Bess attempted to intervene. She requested that Lief at least wear Bede's Mask of Adulthood for at least one hour (so that it would become part of him and therefore he would never want to leave) and tried to poison Barda, but Kree saw to it that she drank her own poison.

Bede

A former wandering stage-actor, member of the outlaw entertainers known as the Masked Ones. Bede resembles Lief in appearance, because of their mutual ancestry; both of them are descendants of Adin, the first ruler of Deltora. He had a beautiful singing voice that many of Deltora's women fell in love with, although the feeling wasn't mutual. He wore a mask of a bird. When the Masked Ones came to Shadowgate, he became the boyfriend of Kirsten but then at last fell in love with Kirsten's sister, Mariette. They both wandered into the mountains and were never seen again. It was then revealed that Kirsten had captured Bede and made him her slave. Fortunately, Lief and the Emerald Dragon destroyed the Sister of the North and Bede and Mariette were saved.

Rust

A suspicious member of the Inner Circle Masked Ones. She wears the mask of a fox. She seems to dislike the fact that Barda, Lief and Jasmine have joined the Masked Ones and wishes to expel them from the group and becomes delighted that they chose to leave on their own free will.

Zerry

A thieving young Masked One, student of Plug, and orphan. He steals the Belt of Deltora, but Lief, Jasmine, and Steven/Nevets manage to get it back. Later, Steven takes Zerry as an assistant.

Otto

An Inner Circle Masked One who is killed by the Masked One, probably in mistake for Barda. Otto wears a mask shaped like the face of a Wild Pig, which like all the inner circle's masks is bonded into his skin by the contraction of the boiled roots from which it is made.

Fern

Laughing Jack's servant. She is a "bareface hanger-on" of the Masked Ones. She is killed by The Masked One.

Mariette

The "despicable bareface" that Bede fell in love with. Actually quite humble, unlike Kirsten of Shadowgate, who is her sister. When Bede fell in love with Mariette, Kirsten became jealous that Bede had not chosen her and so she captured them both and imprisoned Mariette in her locket. Fortunately, after Kirsten was killed and the Sister of the North destroyed, both Mariette and Bede were freed.

Ava

A fortune teller who owns a shop near the western coast of Deltora. Like Tom, she promises a free gift for customers because she is Tom's sister. She is also the sister of Laughing Jack. She sells things such as potions and cures, and has boats for hire. At the beginning of The Sister of The South, she tells Lief that she can see creeping darkness in his future. This may have been intended as a joke, as Ava is blind. However, creeping darkness does appear in Lief's future, in the form of black slime which Paff uses to kill people such as palace guards.

Red Han

Father of Verity and Lighthouse-keeper at Bone Point, near Tora. He was cheated, blackmailed, and eventually changed into a horse by the Shadow Lord's servant James Gant (Laughing Jack), later to be rescued by Jasmine.

Verity

The daughter of Red Han. She is a painter. Since she was born in Bone Point's Lighthouse (which itself possessed Toran magic to protect itself), she developed magical powers. Laughing Jack holds her hostage and kills her afterwards. She shows some Toran magic while held hostage, creating a network of spells that releases Lief and Barda from Laughing Jack's sorcery.

Monsters of Deltora

Deltora is well-known as the land of Magic and Monsters. These are just some of the many fantastic creatures that inhabit it.

The Great Beast

Before the Shadow Lord came to Deltora, he came upon an island inhabited by the Four Sisters. Because of his hatred he killed each of the sisters. Beneath the surface of the island slept an enormous horned monster. The singing of the four sisters lulled this beast into a peaceful slumber. However, once the sisters' singing ceased, the monster awakened and emerged in a violent rage. The monster's strength and rage were so great that it destroyed the entire island, not even the Shadow Lord's magic was affective against it and so he was forced to retreat. Later on, the Shadow Lord created the Grey Tide and the Four Sisters, inspired by his experience with the original Four Sisters and the Great Beast.

The Wennbar and the Wenn

The Wennbar is a large predator who lives in First wood (something that is like a carnivorous Apatosaurus) who exerts authority over a tribe of creatures called the Wenn. The Wenn are smaller creatures with pale skin and have no head or neck, but have a pair of stalk eyes coming from their shoulders. The Wenn live in there territory called Wenn Del. These Wenn worship the Wennbar as a god, offering it gifts of live prey which they have captured. Although they are small, Wenn are capable of subduing large prey by means of a sound they produce by rubbing their lower legs (similar to crickets), which drives animals to the point of insanity. They then sting and paralyze their victims and offer them as sacrifices to the Wennbar. If the Wennbar is not fed, it is enraged and will eat its worshippers. The Wennbar's neck can extend to long, high place. The Wennbar moves slowly but can move at a fast rate when angry or hungry

It is believed that every hundred years, the present Wennbar is bathed in special oils by the Wenn and dies in its sleep while giving birth to several young. These young fight over the body of their dead parent and the surviving victor becomes the new tyrant over the Wenn.

Mudlets

Mudlets are bizarre, albeit rare, gentle and highly valued, beasts of burden who supposedly exist in central Deltora, around the area near the City of Rats. They resemble Zebras (though they are splodged, not striped) crossed with gazelles and some type of herbivorous Dinosaur. They have three legs. In The City of Rats, Lief, Barda and Jasmine are sold three Mudlets as mounts by the eccentric, uncaring shopkeeper named Tom. Apparently, they were only being stabled there and were not Tom's to sell, and truly belonged to the people of the city of Noradz. This results in, when the heroes pass Noradz, the Mudlets bolting (due to excitement at catching the scent of home) and the heroes ending up in the clutches of the Ra-Kacharz. The three mudlets are returned to their herd, and neither them nor any other Mudlets are featured or mentioned for the rest of the series.

Sand Beasts

Sand Beasts are insectoid animals native to the Shifting Sands, a desert country created from the leavings of the Hive. They resemble a fearsome mix of a spider and a praying mantis(The head and body of a praying mantis and the legs of a spider) . The males of this species store nutrients in large spherical sacs growing off their chests that look rather similar to giant grapes. Females mate with males by laying their eggs in these sacs, in which the babies feed on the nutrients inside until they are too large to be contained and can hunt for themselves, which causes the sac to fall from the male's body. They first appear in the Shifting Sands (and they are featured on the cover). They burrow in the dunes to hide, and at any vibration will spring up to kill and eat prey. The treasure and bones of the prey will be offered to the hive. The only creatures that seems to be the natural predator of Sand Beasts are the Lapiz Lazuli Dragons. The technical term for Sand Beast is Terreocti.

Kin

The Kin are an ancient, rare and fabled species of rodent-like flying creatures. They are among the few harmless, gentle creatures in Deltora, and have long been the apple of the eyes of many Deltoran children and the common subject of picture books, fairytales, folklore and stuffed toys. They resemble cute, round, bulbous crosses between a pig and a ferret, with pig-like back legs and rodent-like front legs, large leathery wings, velvet-esque fur, pouches, and expressive faces. Their size ranges from that of a large dog, to almost as large as Dragons. They are capable of human speech. Unfortunately, the Kin are very rare in the time of the stories. They once lived on Dread Mountain, where they lived and bred prosperously, but were driven out by the Dread Gnomes who hunted them for sport and enjoyment. Now all that are left of them live at the enchanted Dreaming Spring, where they are gradually dwindling. In the fifth book of the first series, Dread Mountain, Lief, Barda and Jasmine encounter the remaining tribe of Kin at Dreaming Spring and save their only young, a boisterous, dim-witted, energetic youngster named Prin from a pair of Grey Guards. For reasons of adventure, homesickness and owing a debt to the heroes, three older Kin agree to take them to their former, now Gnome-controlled home of the mountain. When they can go no further and these three Kin leave, the three heroes discover that Prin, desperate to see the Kin's ex-home and disobeying her mother, had followed them. She accompanies them for the rest of the book, helping the three heroes defeat Gellick and eventually allowing the Kin to return to their former home.

Polyphan

Polyphan(s) are a race of ape-like humanoids. They are not commonly seen in Deltora, but it is usually said that someone that has a Polyphan in their service is usually up to no good. Polyphans are also notoriously known to be skilled pick-pockets. The only Polyphan featured in the series is Chett.

Granous

The Granous are evil creatures who appear only in the second and third Deltora quest series. They resemble bestial humanoids (similar to yeti) with dog-like noses long, clawed fingers and white to brown fur. They inhabit the Os-mine hills, a series of old, unknown, ill-trodden hills to the northwest of the Forest of Silence. Granous are sadistic creatures who delight in the torture and grief of others. They roam around their territory in tribes of 10 or so individuals and capture whoever they find. The Granuous are carnivores and their favorite food are the fingers and toes of their prey, saying that they are the sweetest tasting parts. Once they have secured a victim, they play a game with it called 20 Questions. In this game, a series of 20 riddles is asked to the victim, and they have 20 seconds to solve it. If they cannot solve the riddle in time, the leader Granous bites off one of the victim's fingers. If all fingers are gone, they start on toes. The penalty for cheating is 5 fingers. This method of their game probably stemmed from how they favor the taste of fingers and toes. Granous are cowardly creatures, however, and with a bit of oppression and intimidation, they can easily be driven off. They seem to be the natural prey of the Topaz Dragons.

Fighting Spiders

Fighting spiders are a large species of spider (though not nearly as gargantuan as a Sand Beast or Arach, more like the size of a cat or dog) that are kept as pets by the people of Deltora. They are normally used in a cockfight-style sport (hence their name). Whenever a spider loses, the loser will have a sheer and raw desire to find its opponent and challenge it to a rematch. The only known Fighting Spiders featured in the series are Flash and Fury, Glock and Jinx's fighting spiders.

The Fear

The Fear is an underground aquatic beast which presumably became entrapped within the secret caverns beneath Deltora during the cataclysm of the continents of Pirra and Deltora coming together to form a single land. The creature is a hybrid of a mollusk and a cephalapod and resembles a gigantic snail crossed with an octopus. It has a mass of hundreds of thread-tipped tentacles ringed around a beaked mouth growing out of the shell. Though the shell of the creature has became stuck with the roof of its cavern and it is now part of the cave, its tentacles allow it to reach any part of its domain without it having to move and since it lives in the caverns deep beneath the earth with very little light, it relies more on touch than sight. It's tentacles are incredible hard and durable, even when Glock attempted to slice one with his sword, his weapon broke in half. The Fear features as the key monster in the first book of the second series, The Cavern of the Fear. In it, it terrorizes the Pirran faction who live in the ruby caverns, the Plumes. It demands a living sacrifice each year, or it creates great waves which destroy the Plume village. Lief, Barda, Jasmine and Glock are captured by the Plumes to be sacrificed to the Fear, but a deal is struck up that the companions can slay the beast. They eventually manage to do so, at the price of Glock's life, and the Plumes give them the mouthpiece of the Piran pipe in return. The Plumes originally believed that The Fear was a monster that was bred by the Aurons to terrorize them although later on this was proven to be untrue.

Arach

Obviously their name is derived from arachnid. The Arach are giant Spider-like creatures who appear in the second book of the Deltora Shadowlands series: The Isle of Illusion.Arach live in, but can walk on water. They have huge, bloated bodies, and are purplish-black in color with eight blood red eyes. They have 8 spindly legs which bear spikes and are clawed at the end. They are both venomous and have the ability to spin webs. They are highly vicious creatures whose first motive when they spot a living thing is to tear it to shreds and feast upon it. One can guess that they are descended from the beasts of the sea of Deltora's ancient times. In The Isle of Illusion, it is learned that a group of the Pirran faction known as the Aurons has broken off from the others to try to establish a magically simulated recreation of their former homeland of Pira. The Arach (who apparently hate light) came out of hiding when the water around the Aurons' island began to darken. They are also attracted to the heat of the island. Lief, Barda and Jasmine are forced to contend with several of them before getting into the dome in which the simulated Pira is located. When they destroy the simulation spell, and the light which was held within the dome escapes into the caverns, the Arach attempt to take refuge in the darkened dome. While the three heroes hid, the leader and last of the separated Auron group, in a desperate attempt to preserve the spell which fueled the simulated Pira, is killed by the creatures. When the spell ends and the light is returned, the Arach flee back into hiding.

Forbidden Passage Leeches

Leeches with wings that live in the Forbidden Passage. The Kerons use them for fish bait. They die if exposed to light. The Kerons did not light the Forbidden Passage because they believed that if they killed all the leeches, their defense against the Aurons would be gone.

Capricons

Capricons are the Deltora Quest equivalent of Fauns or Satyrs, having the upper body of a human and the lower body of a goat, their name is most likey a pun on Capricorn. Only one appears in the first book of the third series; Dragon's nest. He is known as Rolf, and though he is a friend at first whom Lief, Barda and Jasmine rescue from the Granous, in the end it turns out he was a servant of the Shadow Lord and the guardian of the Sister of the East. The Capricons supposedly once lived in a beautiful, rose-pink city named Capra in the far northeast of Deltora. Apparently, however, the deep-down-inside greedy and selfish creatures' city was destroyed by the red dragons due to them stealing their eggs to make dragon eggshell lanterns. Humans then came and built the city of Broome on the ruins of the place, and most Capricons nowadays, though there are only a few, are wandering rogues, like Rolf.

Orchard Keepers

Orchard Keepers are large, predatory birds who dwell around the Forest of Silence (though they make no appearance and have no mention until the third series). They catch their prey in an interesting way; they find and keep orchards of a special type of tree, the delicious fruit of which causes paralysis. Using the bones of victims, it makes paths to their orchard which lure victims to it, which in turn eat the fruit and become immobilized. The Orchid keeper then comes and devours the prey. Despite these undeniably evil habits, killing an Orchard Keeper is said to be bad luck. In the first book of the third series, Dragon's Nest, Lief, Barda and Jasmine nearly fall victim to an Orchard Keeper and its hunting method.

Kobb

A giant golden-brown shark-like creature with a mane of seaweed-like hair and a long, blue tongue. It hunts on the west coast of Deltora like the Glus, another quite mysterious sea monster. It leaves a clear slime in its path that, over time, has thickly coated the Isle of Dead. Its home was in the cave on the Isle of Dead where until recently the Sister of the West had taken up residence. The song of the Sister held it back until it was destroyed letting the Kobb return home. In the Tenna Birdsong Tale "The Land of Dragons", it lists the Kobb as one of the sea monsters that invaded the land.

Dragons

The Dragons of Deltora are considered to be the land's most magnificent, mysterious and glorious of all its creatures and are the only creatures that the Shadow Lord himself fears for they are the strongest and most resilient against his magic. There were seven different Dragon Tribes, each one drawing power from and associated with the seven different gems of Deltora. The Dragons believed that if one should reveal one's true name, those who knew that individual's name had great power over them and so the dragons rarely revealed their names and only did so to those they truly trusted. Long ago the Dragons of Deltora were quite numerous, until the Shadow Lord sent his monstrous birds, the Ak-Baba, to hunt down the dragons until one of each tribe remained. This was when "Doran the Dragonlover", or "Dragonfriend" to the dragons, came to each of the remaining dragons, having them to swear and oath. This oath entitled that each dragon would go into a deep hibernation until the current king, wearing the Belt of Deltora, would come to them and awaken them. Once awakened, they must also never to use the other dragons' hibernation to their advantage to invade their lands. In present day, Lief went to each of the dragons' lands and awakened them one by one and calling upon them for assistance in destroying the Four Sisters, for Dragonfire seemed to be the most efficient weapon against the Shadow Lord's magic. They were called upon one last time by Lief to destroy the Grey Tide, and Lief inadvertently revealed all of the names of the dragons to one another and so they all had equal power over one another.

Fidelis

Dragon of the Topaz, gold as the stone of its territory, Fidelis is the first dragon the companions encounter and awaken. Originally found during the search for the Pirran Pipe, Fidelis was awakened when Lief came into its territory wearing the true Belt of Deltora. It saved Lief and his companions from Granous, and then spoke to Lief. It sensed the Sister of the East, and meant to destroy it. However, it refused to accompany Lief to Dragon's Nest to destroy the Sister of the East, because Doran Dragonfriend had bound it to the promise of never entering another Dragon's territory while the master thereof slept. Lief later re-encountered it in Del, where it flew over the city, trying to get at the South Sister to destroy it. It was wounded by the citizens of Del, but still helped Lief destroy the Sister. It later carried Lief, Barda, and Jasmine on its back to the ruins of Hira to stop the Grey Tide, and fought alongside the Dragon of the Opal. Lief, who when touching Doran the Dragonlover's soul stone had acquired a list of names, realized what they were. He called them, revealing the Topaz Dragon to be Fidelis. The name itself means "loyal". Fidelis' lair is located in the Os-Mine Hills, a feared part of the Deltora countryside.

Joyeu

The dragon of the ruby and the second to be awakened, Joyeu was for a time impersonated by the evil mage Rolf. The true Joyeu later revealed itself when Rolf attacked Lief and his group in Dragon's Nest. After destroying Rolf, Joyeu teamed up with Lief to destroy the Sister of the East. Later, it carried Lief and co. on its back to the northwestern edge of its territory. Joyeu next appeared when Lief called its name to do battle with the seven Ak-Baba. Joyeu's lair is located somewhere in the vicinity of Dragon's Nest.

Fortuna

Fortuna is the dragon of the lapis-lazuli and the fourth to be awaked. It is disliked by Honora (the emerald dragon). Fortuna is mentioned only a few times in the books but is quite friendly dragon. It flew into Honora's territory and was chased. Fortuna flies very quickly and escaped into his own territory. Its gem is the heavenly gem. Fortuna is shrouded in secrets and mysteries.

Honora

Dragon of the emerald and fifth to be awakened, Honora has great dislike for the lapis lazuli dragon, whom it considers sly for trusting in luck rather than in honor. When it wakes up, it senses Fortuna in its territory, and attacks it in rage. It later returns to help Lief destroy the Sister of the North. It comes to the company again, demanding the emerald for itself. It does not seem to care that it is breaking its vow by entering the amethyst's territory, in spite of its commitment to the ideal of honour. It consequently has a heated argument with Jasmine, who accuses it of being hypocritical. Honora is a bit haughty and stingy. Honora returns once more when Lief summons the seven dragons, and is angry at Lief for revealing its name. However, it is powerless to stop the other Dragons from learning its name, let alone itself from doing the same. Honora's lair is located somewhere in the mountains that line the Deltora/Shadowlands border.

Veritas

Dragon of the amethyst, Veritas is the sixth dragon to be aroused. However, as it is digging out of its hiding place, the amethyst in the Belt of Deltora, meant to give strength, is removed from its territory. It manages to escape, but is terribly weak and believes that it will die. It is found by Lief and Barda, and then fully unearthed by the Torans. Veritas tells Lief its name as a precaution, and comes forward when the elder diamond dragon seems to be dead. Veritas fights the monster Kobb, and then with Lief finds the Sister of the West hidden in the ancient body of Doran the Dragonlover, still alive after centuries. Veritas takes away Doran's breath, and then destroys the Sister of the West. Veritas also inscribes Doran's tombstone, and stays in the diamond territory to tutor the infant diamond dragon. It reappears when Lief calls the names of the seven dragons to battle the Ak-Baba. It is Veritas who titles the young Diamond Dragon Forta, after its mother.

Forta

Forta is a name given to two dragons of the diamond. The first one was the dragon that Doran convinced to hide itself, and the second was her daughter. The original was found dead on Blood Lily Island, where it had fallen asleep and then been devoured by the Blood Lillies and Flesh Banes of that island. However, the younger Forta was found by Lief and his friends, inside her egg amid the bones of her mother. She hatched from her egg at the coming of the Belt of Deltora, too small to destroy the Sister of the West. Lief later pulled her from a pocket in his cloak and showed her to Doran, who thought that her tribe was lost forever. Forta was then tutored by Veritas of the amethyst, who named her after her mother when Lief called their names.

Hopian

Hopian is the dragon of the opal and the third to be awakened. It is also the largest and fiercest of the Deltoran dragons and the last of them to be encountered. Later, when Lief and co. rode Fidelis to the ruins of Hira, Hopian arose in rage. However, it was diverted by the arrival of the seven Ak-Baba. Fidelis joined forces with it, but the two were still outmatched. Lief then called the names of the seven dragons, and they banded together to destroy the Shadow Lord's last plan. Hopian's lair is located somewhere near the City of the Rats. Hopian has never spoken aloud in any of the book series, so no one knows what its temper or attitude is.

Villains

Not all of the characters in Deltora Quest are friendly, however. There are many malevolent characters as well, some serve the Shadow Lord himself while others are just malevolent in nature.

The Shadow Lord

The Shadow Lord is the Dark Lord-like tyrant ruler of the Northern region once called Pirra, to which he has laid waste. Once a human sorcerer, he had a deep hatred for all things good, beautiful and righteous and believed strongly that all beings must serve him. He is the main source of evil that plagues the world.

It is believed that in life, the Shadow Lord was the evil sorcerer who encountered the Four Sisters, a group of sisters who sang beautiful life-giving songs on an island far away from the land that is now Deltora. Even then the Shadow Lord's malevolence was great, and he attempted to silence the Four Sisters by spreading them out over the island that they lived on, but the sisters continued to sing to each other. The Shadow Lord then sought to silence them for good by slaying each sister, one by one, until all were dead. It was then that he realized that their singing kept a massive and powerful monster that lived underground at bay. The songs had soothed this beast to sleep, but since the sisters were gone, the monster awoke and proceeded to destroy the island. Being no match for the monster, the Shadow Lord conjured a raft and fled the island as it sunk into the ocean.

Some time later, the Shadow Lord came upon the Land of Dragons (the land that is now Deltora), he desired to completely dominate it. When he first reached the land he was repelled by a spell cast by the Torans. He travelled north and ended up out of reach of the Toran's magic. He then encountered an Emerald Dragon and tried to convince it to serve him by bribing it with gold and treasures, but because of the Emerald Dragon's honorable nature, the dragon chased the Shadow Lord away. The Shadow Lord fled to the mountains to the north that divided the Land of the Dragons and Pirra, there he encountered thieves, bandits and criminals in hiding, and convinced them to serve him, inspired by his evil heart. The Shadow Lord and his followers also encountered many monstrous beasts in the mountains that he recruited to his cause. During this time, he studied the dragons, realizing they were a powerful race. He then planned to use a dragon of his own to attack the others and pave his way to conquest. He sent his followers to find dragon eggs, however this task proved difficult, only one egg was retrieved. When this egg hatched, a dragon did not emerge, instead a deformed creature emerged, enraged at not having a dragon, the Shadow Lord was about to smite the hatchling, but then saw the potential the creature had and kept it alive, and thus the Ak-Baba came to be.

Before invading the Land of Dragons, he went to Pirra to conquer it. His evil influence was kept at bay by the Pirran Pipe, a flute that had the same evil-deflecting magic as the Four Sisters' songs, however, the Pirran People wanted three different musicians to play the flute, which caused conflict between them. Seeing his opportunity, the Shadow Lord suggested to the people to divide the Pipe into three pieces so that all three musicians could play, to which they agreed. However, now that the pipe was divided, its music no longer had the strength to ward off evil. This gave the Shadow Lord the chance he sought and he invaded Pira, corrupting it and turning it into the forsaken Shadow Lands, which then became his domain and headquarters.

Even though the Shadow Lord's physical body died, his evil spirit remained to haunt the world. His intelligence, his desire for control, and his hate for all that is good and does not obey and serve him survived and re-embodied itself as a more metaphysical being of pure darkness, shrouded in grey and red clouds (in the anime, the Shadow Lord takes on the form of a colossal black devil made of shadows and black smoke with flaming red eyes). A voice it has, and it can cause physical reactions such as the creation of living things or the movement of objects. It forgets nothing, and it always makes multilayered plans.

In its attempt at conquest, the Shadow Lord was foiled by Adin the blacksmith, who united all the seven tribes of the land into an army of his own. Backed by the warrior Jalis, the noble Dread Gnomes, the hedonistic Mere tribe, his own faithful Del people, the hopeful Plains folk, the cheerful Ralad, and the magical but hidebound Torans, Adin vanquished the Shadow Army and seized power, becoming the king of the land he now called Deltora. Furious, the Shadow Lord withdrew and began concocting other plans. Sending Ols to be chief advisors of the royal family, it instilled its voice in the ears of rulers, causing them to neglect the Belt and ultimately robbing the kings and queens of their power until they did nothing but obey worthless customs. While biding his time, the Shadow Lord sent the Ak-Baba to exterminate the dragons in order to get rid of a powerful enemy as well as pave the way for another of his goals, to implant the Four Sisters (evil devices that would cause the land to die and cause famine and disease) and the Grey Tide in the land. When Doran convinced the remaining dragons of each tribe to go into hibernation, the Shadow Lord's path was clear and he proceeded with his plan, unbeknownst to all but Doran. When Doran sought to oppose him, the Shadow Lord punished Doran by making him the immortal vessel of the Sister of the West, thus making him its unwilling guardian.

At last, the time came when the Shadow Lord would invade again. He sent the seven Ak-Baba to steal the tribal talisman gems from the Belt of Deltora, concealing each in a perilous and terrifying place and guarded by an equally horrible and evil guardian. However, the gems were recovered by a descendant of Adin, Lief as well as Barda, and Jasmine of Del. The Belt was remade, and the land freed from the foreign threat.

After the Shadow Lord's forces were expelled from Deltora, the Shadow Lord continued to torment Lief by speaking in his mind using the viewing crystal used by Prandine to communicate with the Shadow Lord that remained inside the palace in Del. Using the same crystal, the Shadow Lord also lured Jasmine into the Shadow Lands, knowing that Lief (and the Belt of Deltora) would follow since he was aware of Lief's love for Jasmine. What he didn't count on was that Lief and his companions would also bring with them the reassembled Pirran Pipe, the only device that the Shadow Lord fears, for its pure music can dispel his evil influence. Lief, Barda, Jasmine and their companions freed the captured slaves in the Shadow Lands and brought them back.

After Lief and his friends rescued the slaves from the Shadow Lands, the Shadow Lord continued to torment Lief telepathically until Lief put an end to it by destroying the crystal. It should be noted that the Shadow Lord was not permanently destroyed, merely defeated and is still plotting against his enemies, namely the present and future heirs of the Kingdom of Deltora.

Ak-Baba

Ak-Baba are giant reptilian vulture-like birds that live for a thousand years. It was the Ak-Baba who hunted the dragons of Deltora near extinction until Doran the Dragonlover (known as Dragonfriend to the dragons) persuaded them to sleep until a king of Deltora wearing the Belt of Deltora came to rouse them. The Shadow Lord is in control of at least seven Ak-Baba which took the seven gems to the seven areas of Deltora. In 'The Sister of the South`, the dragons face off the Ak-Baba. In that battle, four of them die and the rest flee to the Shadowlands. The shadow lord found them when he mistaken one of their eggs for a dragon's and stole it so it would serve him. The Ak-Baba nearly kill the opal dragon

Greers

Before the Shadow Lord perfected the creation of Grey Guards and Ols, he created golem-like beings known as Greers. The Greers were deformed human-like creatures with gray skin (they are possibly an early prototype of today's Grey Guards). Unlike their successors, the Greers had incredibly limited intelligence, only able to carry out the simplest of commands, and they are weakened by cold temperatures and weather. They did possess superior strength, however, and they were very violent. Before the creation of the Grey Guards, the Greers were used as the Shadow Army's footsoldiers.

Grey Guards

Grey Guards are part of the Shadow Lord's attacking force. They serve as the Shadow Army's footsoldiers. Their main and most fatal weapon are 'blisters', which are filled with Gellick's poison, explode on impact, and cause a quick but torturous death. Grey Guards possess an incredible amount of durability, speed and accuracy. They can stay up nearly all night and not get tired.

The various pods have names, such as "Carn pod", and an identical pod is grown in time to replace the ageing pod, so that to the populace it seems that Carn pod goes to the Shadowlands, and then Carn pod returns invigorated, good for another seven years. Somehow Jasmine knows about the general idea of pods (that they don't know mothers or fathers because they "are raised in groups of ten") when Lief and Barda first meet her; it is questionable how she knows, given that the general populace does not seem to know. Her father did go to the Shadowlands and may have learned this information, but never returned to her to share it. The Grey Guards do not actually know that they are grown in factories and replaced regularly, so they could not have talked about it while Jasmine listened in. It is possible, if not likely, that Kree heard this from other birds; aside from that, there is no ready explanation.

Vraal

Vraal are ferocious lizard-men beasts with hoofed feet that have a height taller than a bear. They are the ultimate human-killer, specifically bred for fighting and killing. They cannot feel pain or pity, only a savage thirst for blood and meat and the thrill of battle. Their massive claws are a lethal weapon not to be underestimated. Most Vraals are found in the Shadowlands and are used in the gladiator-arena like Shadow Arenas and are forced to fight the prisoners and slaves the Grey Guards and other villainous creatures under the command of the Shadow Lord pit them against. Vraal are very intelligent in battle-wise combat. A Vraal was encountered near Dread Mountain. The Vraal nearly killed Lief and his friends, however Prin managed to splatter a purple moss over the eyes and inside the ears of the Vraal causing the beast to temporarily lose his sight and hearing, then tumbled into a stream and carried away. According to Prin, however, the purple moss' effects would only last for a short time and the Vraal would recover within a few days. Vraal have greenish skin similar to a lizards and have yellow eyes they generally have three claws and carnivorous teeth. Their tail is also a very destructive weapon that can take down a tree. At the Shadowlands prisoners are thrown in a Shadow Arena and are pitted against a Vraal and to try to use all their might to kill it. Only one person has been able to defeat a Vraal (implied that it was Jarred/Doom) who then fled out of the arena and out of the Shadowlands, causing Grey Guards and the Vraal he were fighting in pursuit. The Vraals themselves are not evil even though they were made by the Shadow Lord. They will kill anything and obey no one. Only the Shadowlord can make them do his bidding by controlling their minds.

Little is known about the origins of the Vraal, the only thing we know about their origins is that they were created when the Shadow Lord stumbled upon a lizard and was inspired to create them by fusing the lizard with a man and a behemoth. Thus, he created the Vraal. The Vraal's Habitat or Breeding area is unknown many People believe they are created by Shadow Lord and are sent into a den or cave, others believe they are know bred by Grey Guards under command of the Shadow Lord but the real and true habitat is yet to be uncovered.

Ols

Ols are the Shadow Lord's shapeshifters (doppelgangers in their own right). They are inherently self-centered, seeking only their own promotion, achieved by pleasing the Shadow Lord. At the core of every Ol is the Shadow Lord's mark, and in whatever shape the Ol takes, that mark is always somewhere on the body. Most Ols attempt to cover the mark with clothing or camouflage it with tattoos. Grade 1 Ols and Grade 2 Ols can be killed by stabbing them through the heart, which is located on the right-hand side; given the evidence so far, Grade 3 Ols might not be able to be killed in this manner. Josef wrote in the Book of Deltora Monsters that he was almost assassinated by two Ols. One day when he was hiding in the streets of Del, he met a Dread Gnome that tried to warn Del's people of Gellick and Ols and other evil creatures. Josef paid little heed until the next morning when he found the gnome dead. The killers were a pair of Ols that hung out near the inn where Josef was staying and they would have assassinated him as well if Steven had not been in the area and allowed Nevets to kill them.

Ols come is three types:

• Grade 1 Ols:
  • Can mimic any living creature - from the description, size does not matter, but all the Ols shown have been humanoid, or animals at least as large as a woodmouse.
  • Can hold their shape for three days. After this there is a break in concentration, a spasm known as "The Tremor", which is an unmistakable sign of an Ol
  • Are very cold to the touch, and can cause freeze burns during attacks
  • Cannot eat or drink
  • Must travel in pairs, although the pairs do not need to look alike and may even be different species (e.g. a farmer and his pig, or presumably a dog and a flea)
• Grade 2 Ols:
  • Are similar to Grade 1 Ols, but capable of mimicking the acts of eating and drinking, and producing body heat. They are also able to travel alone.
• Grade 3 Ols:
  • Can shapeshift into even non-living things, e.g. a dagger
  • Can hold their shape indefinitely
  • Are indistinguishable from the real person, except by personality (for a convincing performance, the Ol would have to have time to study the one being mimicked)
  • Can travel alone
  • Can die like the beings they imitate, for example when Prandine was killed by being pushed out a window by Sharn.

Dain

Dain was originally encountered as a nervous servant to Doom, and a member of the Resistance. He was cultured, polite, respectful, and often afraid, yet noble in battle and showing evidence of a great spirit. He saved Lief, Barda, and Jasmine from shape-changing Ols, before they knew what an Ol was, and helped them escape from Doom when Doom held them prisoner for his own reasons. However, Dain was kidnapped by pirates. When the trio later encountered the same pirates, Dain had just freed himself with the help of a polypan, and he came with them to Tora, the magical city.

Dain had hoped to meet his parents in Tora, but the city was deserted. He seemed to be all but destroyed by the news, but once they left the city he seemed to feel more hopeful.

In the final book, Lief assembles representatives of all seven tribes to pledge loyalty to the Heir and thus hope that the Belt will lead them to the Heir. It seems clear that Dain is the heir (his name is even made of the same letters as the first King, Adin), but just then he gets kidnapped. Lief picks up his fallen dagger and carries it with him. Knowing that they must get the Belt to the true Heir, the team makes plans to get into the city. However, their plans are all anticipated and easily overcome, and most of the group are captured.

It turns out Dain is not the Heir, but a Grade 3 Ol, capable of assuming even inanimate shapes, and sent to spy on the Resistance and eventually on the trio. The fact that he had killed other Ols is not surprising; they were less talented varieties and the Shadow Lord's creations don't have anything resembling a conscience. Ols think only of furthering their own usefulness to the Shadow Lord. Despite this, some fans speculate that he could have been replaced with an Ol after being captured by the pirates. The fact that he was an Ol was the reason he was weakened when he entered the magical city of Tora, as its magic weakens evil.

In the end, it is the Belt of Deltora itself that destroys Dain. Dain's betrayal is one of the larger shocks in the tale, despite the previous depiction of Grade 3 Ols.

Prandine

Endon's Chief advisor, who turns out to be a servant of the Shadow Lord. After the Belt is stolen, Prandine traps Endon, Jarred, and Sharn in the highest tower, ready to kill them with a poisoned knife. However, he underestimates the resourcefulness of the "painted doll" Sharn, who tips him out of the window in defiance of the limits pregnancy put on her; he falls to his death.

Prandine is thought by Lief to be a Grade 3 Ol, due to a speech made by Fallow in the fifth book of the first series (Dread Mountain).

Fallow

Ancient traitorous Chief advisor. He is another Grade 3 Ol who seems to act as a personal advisor to the Shadow Lord. After Prandine is killed he takes on his appearance since the Shadow Lord seems to favor that particular form. He interrogates Lief's father, asking about the boy (Lief), the man (Barda) and the wild girl with a black bird (Jasmine and Kree) and questioning if the boy in the group is his son who is undoing the Shadow Lord's grip on the world of Deltora. He also mistakenly thought that the man that was traveling with him (Barda) is none other than King Endon himself. Fallow also seems to have an addiction to Lumin, a reward the Shadow Lord granted him, however the Shadow Lord threatens to take it away if Fallow does not buckle down in finding the heir of Deltora as well as the traitors. Fallow was the one who hosted the punishment for Lief's allies (although it is normally a Grey Guard who does this but since it was a special situation, Fallow was granted the honor) but was driven back by Lief using the Belt of Deltora. See Prandine for more details. He is also known for killing King Endon before he can see his son rule Deltora wisely as Endon did.

Conversion Project Slugs

Pink worm-analogues, the result of the Shadow Lord's genetic technology, that dig into the brain and allow the Shadow Lord to gain control. Their method of controlling their hosts is very similar to the Yeerks from Animorphs. They are the latest and so far most perfect of his creations. The Shadow Lord planned to implant these worms in the brains of his slaves and then return them to Deltora to act as spies to fool their family and friends. Before they were perfected they would damage their host, for example: deafness, blindness, headaches, and babbling.

Sorceress Thaegan

Thaegan makes an appearance in "The Lake of Tears" as one of the major villains. She is similar to the traditional interpretation of an evil fairytale witch. Her mother was a sorceress who used her magic for benevolent reasons such as healing, and could even transform herself into a blackbird. Her daughter, although beautiful, was much different and was spiteful to other living beings and ran away from home after sheer disgust towards her mother. Over time her power grew and she returned. She hated the vitality of the life and beauty of the city of D'Or and so she used her power to turn the city into a barren swamp, home to the Lake of Tears, and she turned its people into fish, worms and blind, crawling things and turned D'Or's leader, Nanion, into the sea-monster, Soldeen. When the Ralads had known of her treachery, they spoke out against her, so she used her magic to "silence" the voices of the Ralads, leaving them mute until her spell is lifted. She has a deep hatred of birds because of their free spirits and out of spite for her mother and her favourite food is a live raven; she apparently ate Kree's parents, causing him to flee to the Forests of Silence. Her death can be brought upon her by spilling at least a single drop of her tainted blood. Many have tried to kill her but she uses her magic to create a barrier around herself. Her only weak spot is her finger when she casts her spells. With the Shadow Lord at the new tyrant of Deltora, Thaegan became one of his most powerful allies and her power grew with his dominance. She was vanquished after Kree pecked her there just before she blasted Lief, Jasmine and Barda on the shore of the Lake of Tears.

Thaegan's 13 Children

Thaegan has 13 demonic children who are named in an uncanny rhyme:

Hot, Tot, Jin, Jod.

Fie, Fly, Zan, Zod.

Pik, Snik, Lun, Lod.

And the dreaded Ichabod.

It is unknown if Thaegan had mothered her children with another evil being or if she simply conjured them to life. Her children are monstrous in appearance, able to take on either the form of some grotesque beast or a wolf, they are also gluttonous and greedy in nature, so much that they are willing to fight and kill each other in order to feed themselves. While Thaegan is similar to the stereotype fairytale witch, her children are like the traditional trolls, ogres and goblins of other fairytales (and the fact that her children can shapeshift into wolves makes them similar to stories about werewolves). Most of her children are divided into a pair of twins and a handful of them are identical twins, the ones that have similar names are twins, (Jin and Jod, Hot and Tot, Fie and Fly etc...).

Jin and Jod are a pair of green ogre-like monsters, Jin is a grotesquely fat being with a pair of yellow tusks and three small horns on the back of her head and Jod is a toadish creature with dagger-like teeth and flaring nostrils (in the anime, Jin is a squat, light pink creature with blue eyes, reddish colored wrinkles, a pair of yellow tusks and three horns while Jod is a brown creature whose skin resembles mud or stone and has a flickering blue forked tongue and yellow lop-sided eyes, Jin wielded an axe while Jod used a pitchfork, also in the anime, Jin and Jod have the ability to combine into a larger, more powerful version of themselves resembling conjoined twins.) They are able to use magic to mask their true evil selves (as well as the dungeon-like setting of their cottage) to make them appear as a kindly elderly couple and their sentences are spoken backwards to fool their victims into thinking they are simply speaking an incomprehensible language (so their names sound like "Nij" and "Doj", it is never revealed if the other eleven are able to use such powers as well). Jin and Jod trap the three heroes in their house using their magic to trick them and plot to kill them. It is also revealed that the Ralad, Manus, was a captive "pet" of the two for a time since he was too small to eat and simply didn't have very much other use until he escaped but was then recaptured by the Grey Guards and was being escorted back to Jin and Jod's cottage. Manus helps rescue Lief, Barda and Jasmine by distracting the two and by revealing to Lief how to cross the quicksand moat. Just as Jin and Jod went in pursuit of them they are killed by their own quicksand moat when Jasmine moved the moss over the moat and stepping stones to trick them into falling into a patch of quicksand instead of the hidden bridge under the water (in the anime, instead of this hidden path in the sand, there was a switch that could be pressed that made a magical bridge appear, before Jin and Jod could get off, the heroes deactivated the bridge, causing them to sink).

The remaining children pursue Lief and company in City of Rats so that they could get revenge for the deaths of their siblings and their mother and so that they can eat them. In the anime, Jin and Jod return as Will-o'-the-wisp-like spirits to guide their living siblings. Fie and Fly are also a pair of green ogre-like monsters with tattoo-like markings on their body (in the anime they don't have the tattoos), Hot and Tot are two impish, yellow-skinned creatures, Pik and Snik are two humanoids covered in long brown hair that obscures most of their features (in the anime they are a pair of creatures that resemble a mix of a monkey and a minotaur), Lan and Lod are pale monsters with bald skin, Zan has a humanoid upper torso with beige skin but has six stumpy legs and had two horns and a large mouth full of fangs (in the anime he has purple colored skin and a shark-like head), Zod is another ogre-like monster covered in lumps with a huge mouth (in the anime he also has stone-like skin like his brother Jod), and Ichabod is a massive beast with thick arms and legs and slimy red skin that resembles, or might possibly be, muscle tissue (and had a large purple tongue in the anime). Lief and Barda trick them into fighting each other and 10 of the other eleven are killed in a fight over who would get to eat which parts of them and Ichabod wins this fight only to have the three escape; he is only heard from again in "Return to Del". Doom remarks that Ichabod is the "Only one of that foul brood who still prowls", suggesting that he slew his siblings in the said fight. He is described variously as a "freak", as a "fiend as red as blood", or simply as a monster. He broke into Withick Mire, a resistance stronghold near Del, and supposedly kidnaps Dain and takes him to Del. It is later reveled that he actually walked alone, while Lief unknowingly carried Dain in the form of his dagger. When the belt is restored and worn by Leif, the book says that Ichabod was "...sprawled like a drained sack of red skin over the gnawed bones of his last meal."

Ra-Kacharz

Are the ruling class in Noradz. They are dressed from head-to-toe in red and carry whips. Their name is a derivative of "rat catchers" and work for the Shadow Lord. It was they who caused the "rat plague" that drove humanity from the city of Hira, under which was buried a chemical that would pollute the whole of Deltora if released by the burning of the Four Sisters. The Ra-Kacharz are similar to priests, in that they "serve sacred laws", (cleanliness, watchfulness, and duty; three things required for reaction to rat overpopulation) but in other ways are more like oppressors. They keep the people afraid, though of what the citizens do not know. They also provided luxuries for the noble families in Del, blinding them to the poverty on the castle doorsteps.

The word "Noradz" is of course derived from "No Rats"; whereas the "blessing" uttered by the Ra-Kacharz, Noradzeer, means "There are no rats here".

Nak, Finne, and Milne the Pirates

Three pirates who raided the riverside town of Where Waters Meet. In Maze of the Beast they capture Dain, and Milne, a traitor, was put with Lief, Jasmine and Barda into the Maze of the Beast. Milne ran from Lief and co and was eventually killed and eaten by the Glus. Nak and Finne discovered that Lief and his friends managed to escape the Maze of the Beast and attempted to attack them but was sucked into a blowhole and into the earth (a fate similar to Enna, the girl that was believed to the be the owner of the Glus). Most likely Nak and Finne were also victims of the Glus.

Laughing Jack

Also known as Captain James Gant, captain of the gambling ship Lady Luck, Laughing Jack is a travelling moneylender who cheats his victims and threatens their lives. He makes his customers sign a paper that they cannot read, which states that they must pay back 5 or 6 times what they borrowed. Laughing Jack is Tom and Ava's brother, although they will not tell anyone this. He was given great powers of sorcery by his Master, the Shadow Lord. He was told to stop the companions' quest, but failed, first when he encountered Steven, and then he broke an oath he made in the past. He had promised in the presence of magicker Verity, who was his prisoner, that he would not take a coin of his ill-gotten gold for himself as long as his crewmen must row the ship without oarslaves. After breaking his oath he was pulled into the Ocean by his crew, who are now little more than animated cadavers, having plied at the oars for longer than mortal lifetime.

The Guardians of the Gems

The Guardians are the ones that the Shadow Lord sent the Ak-Baba to deliver the Seven Gems of the Belt of Deltora to in order for them to keep them from falling into the hands of his enemies. Some of these beings are minions and allies of the Shadow Lord himself such as Reeah and Gellick, while others are merely acting on their own accord such as Gorl the Knight and the Glus in the Maze of the Beast. In whatever way they are connected to the Shadow Lord, all of the Guardians are terrible and getting the Gems from them is no easy task. The Guardians include the Glus and the Hive in the Shifting Sands, they also include:

Gorl

Gorl's appearance is in the first book, "The Forests of Silence". He is a knight-like warrior that wears golden Jalis armor and has a pair of horns on the top of his helmet and is the guardian of the Lillies of Life and the Topaz, which is located in the hilt of his sword. He is referred to as The Knight of Truth. He unknowingly prevented the Lillies from blooming by tending vines that grew to block out the sun. He and his two brothers were Jalis knights searching for the Lillies of Life, whose abundant nectar had healing properties. When they found it Gorl slew his two brothers for the last of the magical nectar, desiring eternal life. Since then, it appears Gorl has lost his human form and become a ghost haunting a suit of large gold armour and has been dwelling in the Forests of Silence. He was born before Adin united the seven tribes together and formed the Belt of Deltora and therefore is not familiar with him since he had been living in the Forests of Silence since the discovery of the lilies of life. When he engages in combat, he can use telepathic or magical powers to bend people to his will or mesmerise them. The only way to break out of his binding is to distract him. The only way to destroy him is to crush him and his armour, as Jasmine did with a large tree branch. In the Anime adaptation, Gorl briefly climbs from under the debris that crushed him and attempted to take the Lilies of Life but his armor fell apart revealing an empty shell.

Nanion/Soldeen

A demonic sea monster who guards the ruby. He resembles a mix of an eel, a catfish and a shark. Soldeen was once Nanion, the leader of the D'or Tribe. He, along with several others, (the number is not stated, but assumed to be in the hundreds) were transformed and controlled by Thaegan, most of which were turned into mud and clay and the repulsive worms and other crawling creatures in the mud, but were freed by Thaegan's death at the attack of Kree. When Thaegan is killed by Kree, the lake he and the rest of his townsfolk are imprisoned in dries up instantly. In the same stroke, the spells Thaegan placed are destroyed, and all of them are returned to human forms.

Soldeen was the monster that inspired Josef to write and publish The Book of Deltora Monsters and is the first monster featured in the book.

Reeah

This is an evil and giant snake monster. She lives in the City of the Rats, feeding on the rats that live there. She wears a crown set with an opal, one of the gems of the Belt of Deltora. Reeah was bred by the Ra-Kacharz on orders from the Shadow Lord to guard this stone; a position that gave her great arrogance. Reeah originally dwelled in the sewers and cellars, the underground areas of what is now "The City of Rats", and used to be a much smaller snake. But the "Rat Catchers" helped Reeah survive down below by secretly collecting and breeding the rat population to feed her while Reeah bid her time and continued to grow in size. Eventually the rats became so numerous that they overran the city and so the people were forced to leave and form Noradz somewhere elsewhere, leaving Reeah to claim the city as her new kingdom, with an abundant food supply.

Reeah is a very vain creature, becoming flustered with pride when she was complimented. Reeah also seemed to have some form of telepathy as well, she could see into the minds of her prey and read their thoughts. She also has some influence as well, luring her prey closer and closer to her with her alluring voice, something she did to Lief to lure him into a trap (perhaps this was a power bestowed upon her by the great Opal because of its power to see into the future). Reeah also gave a Lief a mental command to remove the Belt of Deltora, which would been have followed if not for the mind-clearing powers of the topaz. Fortunately Jasmine and Lief managed to kill Reeah and Lief managed to collect the Opal that he was guarding. Ironically, when Reeah died, the rats that she fed on and depended on as her food for so long began to devour her corpse when the three heroes departed the city.

The Hive

Possibly the most ancient and mysterious of Deltoran monsters. The Hive is a vast community of underground invertebrates, of what kind no human knows. They, like bees, have a Queen Mother, workers, and studs. Smoke calms them, whereas heat agitates them. They dwell in a massive pyramid of bones, gold, gems, and other nonperishing oddments, which sink to the Hive like detritus in a whirlpool. The Shifting Sands are made up of the Hive's dead. Every grain of red sand was once a Hive member. The vast number of them has created a simple ecosystem similar to a desert above the Hive. Strangely, the Hive somehow has an ability to draw living creatures into the desert, something that happened to a Mere woman named Rigane, who spent her life living on the outskirts of the desert and studying the Sand Beasts and other creatures of the desert. The Hive then became the Guardian(s) of the Lapis Lazuli, and the jewel became part of the Hive's pyramid beneath the ground. Jasmine's dagger also became part of the pyramid. Lief entered the cone in the center of the desert to retrieve the gem while Barda and Jasmine calmed the hive by using smoke. He managed to retrieve both the Lapiz lazuli and Jasmine's dagger.

Gellick

Gellick is an enormous and greedy toad-like monster. The Shadow Lord placed upon him the task of guarding the Emerald of the Belt of Deltora. Gellick sat in a great chamber that served as the Great Gnomes' treasure hoard, sitting on a pile of gold coins and other gems as his throne. Here the Dread Gnomes tend to his whim such as bringing him a supply of dead flies as his food. The Dread Gnomes serve as Gellick's slaves and caretakers in return for Gellick protecting them and giving them his venomous slime to use for their poisonous arrows. This same venom is also used in making the Grey Guards' blisters and whatever venom that the gnomes don't use is shipped off somewhere where the Grey Guards collect it and use it to make their most-feared weapon. Lief and his group attempted to kill the monster using the blisters they had stolen but because they were made of the same poison the toad produced the blisters had no effect. Fortunately Lief still had some water from the Dream Spring and hurled some down the throat of the toad. Because of the enchantment on it, the water from the spring cannot be consumed by those with evil hearts, causing them to turn into trees. This is a fate that Gellick was also doomed with.

The Glus

A giant white-skinned slug monster with blue glowing stripes, 8 eyes and 28 teeth, it bears some resemblance to the giant worm Kaiju, El Gusano, from Godzilla: The Series. Its name is an anagram of "slug"; It is also known as The Beast (for it is none other than the very creature that the Maze of the Beast gets its name from) or Deathspinner. Even though it does not appear that the Glus is a servant of the Shadow Lord, nor one of his creations, the Belt of Deltora's Ruby and Emerald dulled in its presence, therefore signifying that it is indeed an evil and dangerous creature. The origins of the Glus is still unknown, although there are theories. It is one of many different species of sea monsters that went to hunt on land (including the Kobb) and thus escaped the tectonic shift that joined the Land of Dragons to Pirra. One tale that probably describes its origin is a Torran tale of "Little Enna" that tells of the young girl, Enna. finding a smooth stone that hatched a "sweet sea worm". When Enna showed the worm to her mother, she was terrified and demanded her daughter to take the worm back to the sea. Enna was saddened and ran off, declaring that if the worm belonged to the sea then she did as well. While she was running a wave of water caused her to fall into a cavity in the earth. No one knows what happened to Enna, but many believed the sea worm eventually grew up to become the dreaded beast, the Glus, from the last lines of the story: "Since that sad day long years have flown, But still beneath the seething foam, Where Enna sleeps, The sea-worm creeps, and spins its webs of bone-white stone."

Although it is blind and deaf, it is attracted by movement within the maze just as a spider is attracted to movement within its web. The Glus has fine hairs on its underbelly that allows it to feel movement and captures its prey by spitting a milky, glue-like substance that hardens like cement when it dries. The walls of the maze also seem to drip with the same substance. The walls of the Maze are composed of a combination of rock, the creature's glue-like substance and the remains of its victims. Although the Glus is not a particularly fast creature, all it has to do is follow its prey and wait. If its prey stays still long enough, the substance hardens like cement leaving it easy prey for the Glus to consume when it finally catches up. To the Glus, its lair is more important than food, demonstrated when it sealed a hole that threatened to release water into its maze. It is the guardian of the Amethyst. It is revealed that Ranesh encountered the Glus by a group of pirates that captured him and the crew of the ship that he was working on long before he met Josef. During this time, the pirates threw the ship's captain into the Maze of the Beast and Ranesh was lowered on a rope into the maze to see what kind of fate he suffered if he refused to cooperate with the pirates. The Glus was shown capturing the captain in its tendrils but Ranesh was pulled out just before the Glus came upon the doomed captain. The only victim in the series is Milne, a pirate that was betrayed by his fellow pirates. Lief, Barda and Jasmine also were forced to encounter this monster when they were thrown into the Maze of the Beast by the pirates and to find the Amethyst. Fortunately they were able to figure out the Glus' handicap and evaded it by walking slowly through the maze. Lief found an exit out of the maze by carving out a fissure in the side of a wall that lead outside. The Glus, not wanting sea water to flood its domain, allowed Barda and Jasmine to escape when it decided to close the hole instead of chasing after its prey.

Fardeep

The Diamond Guardian's proper name. He is from the Mere tribe and used to own the Champion Inn until the Shadow Lord took it over. The Shadow Lord's minions attacked Rithmere and Fardeep was forced out of his life of luxury. He came to what is now the Valley of the Lost to find peace but the Shadow Lord's influence seeped into his mind, promising him riches and luxury again and Fardeep fell into despair and temptation conquered him and thus he became the Guardian. Although he was changed, his love of games and riddles still remained even after he became the guardian. When he was made Guardian of the diamond, those who came to seek it were given the chance to win the Diamond in a game of his choice. Those who failed became ghosts and were forced to become his "disciples", sadly roaming the Valley of the Lost forever. He also seemed to be the most reasonable and merciful of the Guardians, he was willing to allow his visitors safe passage and leave if they did not want to play his games in order to get the Diamond (something he did with Ranesh a long time ago and Neridah). When the Toran people broke their promise to give the Royal Family of Deltora assistance, they became ghosts of their former selves and became Fardeep's disciples. In the Deltora Book of Monsters it just calls him 'the Guardian. It is also revealed that Ranesh had also encountered the guardian before he met Josef. Ranesh told Josef that Fardeep had challenged him to win the diamond, however Ranesh did not want to risk his freedom, feeling it was more valuable than any jewel. The guardian allowed him to leave and said that it was not a big loss since he would be gaining many more deciples soon (which probably meant he knew that Tora's people would all become his disciples).

When Lief, Barda and Jasmine challenged the Guardian to the game that gave them the opportunity to win the Diamond, he promised that he would allow the group to take possession of whatever item was contained inside a golden casket within a glass room and the casket was where the Diamond of the Belt of Deltora was contained. To gain entry, they had to figure out the Guardian's name. The Guardian's name was also the password that the group needed to open the door get inside the chamber where the gold casket was stored in. The Guardian only gave a small sample of clues, such as that the clues they needed to find were inside the Guardian's palace and that the riddle they needed to help them find out his name was hidden but also so out in the open that it was right in front of their noses. As it turned out the riddle was in the mirror in the chamber, when they looked inside they found this riddle:

"My secret name awaits within. My first the first of Pride's great sin. My second and my last begin, The sum of errors in the twin. My third begins a sparkle of bright-The treasure pure? The point of light? My fourth, the sum of happiness, For those who try my name to guess."

The Guardian has four demons attached to him through cords of flesh. They are named after and symbolize his four greatest sins; "Pride", "Envy", "Greed", and "Hate" (four sins similar to the Seven Deadly Sins). Strangely, the method that the Guardian named the monsters was not after their personalities. For example, Pride was not a vain creature, Envy was not envious, Greed was not greedy and Hate had never hated anyone or anything in its life. However, each monster did have at least one trait that their siblings were name after, which became one of the clues that Lief, Barda and Jasmine needed to find out The Guardian's name as well as the password to the chamber where the Diamond was being contained since the riddle said that the first letter was "Pride's first sin" meaning it was the sin that the monster Pride represented. The Guardian had also noted that Hate was also not an envious creature. He also hinted that the envious and proud monsters were afraid of Greed and that Envy nearly killed the greedy monster for fighting over the table scraps. That's how the group discovered that Greed was the monster of hatred, Envy was the monster of pride, Hate is the monster of greed and that Pride was the monster of "E"nvy and so they found out that the first letter of the guardian's name was the letter "E".

The other clues the group found were around the palace. Lief figured out that the fourth letter was the letter "O" since the sum of the happiness that was brought to everyone who tried to guess his name was "0". Also, Barda figured out that third letter of the name was the letter "D" after they group found a window with designs of stars and diamonds on it. Because of his former life as a palace guard and how he worked doing formations in the palace in the olden days he was able to figure out the pattern of the shapes on the window and that the last shape to be filled in (and the clue they needed) was a "D"iamond. To find out the last two letters the group found two portraits of a hermit and although they appeared identical, they had several differences. When the group counted out the number of differences they found "N"ine differences in the two and so they found out that the second and last letters were the letter "N".

When Lief, Barda and Jasmine completed the task, they found out that the Guardian's name and password was "ENDON". The answer filled them with great shock, not expecting the Guardian to be none other than the previous King of Deltora. The Guardian revealed that only one other person managed to complete his test: Doom. Because of his discovery, Doom had lost all of his faith in the King and the Royal family of Deltora since the King was now a servant of the Shadow Lord and thus began his lifetime of bitterness and belief that Deltora's people could only depend on themselves in order to survive. Since he was so shocked and filled with grief from his discovery, Doom left the Valley of the Lost without even collecting the Diamond. When Lief, Barda and Jasmine complete their task, Lief discovers that the diamond within the casket is not the real diamond when they return to claim it since the Belt of Deltora did not react to it, the real diamond had been stolen by Neridah. Suddenly Pride, Envy, Greed and Hatred began to attack and devour the Guardian, but fortunately Lief saved him by severing the cords that connected the demons to the Guardian causing them to wither and die. After this the Guardian told Lief where to find Neridah and the real diamond and fainted. When Lief reclaimed the real Diamond, the Valley of the Lost and everyone within it became purified because they had been forgiven for their betrayal, the "disciples" became alive again and the Guardian was purified and became who he truly was, Fardeep the Hermit (he was also the hermit in the two portraits in the palace). Fardeep told the group that he used the false name "Endon" on orders from the Shadow Lord to fool those who completed his game since he found the idea amusing. He is a useful aid in Return to Del, being that he is a pureblood Meresman and therefore a descendant of the original Deltorans.

The Guardians of the Four Sisters

Just as the Gems of Deltora had guardians in Deltora Quest, the Four Sisters each had a guardian to defend them. Doran was made into such a guardian against his will. These guardians included:

Rolf

A Capricon (Satyr) and servant of the Shadow Lord, Rolf is the Guardian of the East who is first encountered in the Os-mine hills In series three, he is captured by granous and saved by Leif and his companions. He takes the form of a Ruby dragon and destroys the companions' escort. He tries to destroy the companions when they reach Dragon's Nest, but is defeated by the true Ruby dragon, Joyeu. Rolf is believed by some people to be one of the strongest grade 3 Ols and said that he is an Ol. Rolf is also believed to be someone important in the history of Capra otherwise the Shadow Lord would not have chose him.

Kirsten the Masked One

A woman that Lief, Barda, and Jasmine discover in a castle in the mountains. She was Mariette's sister and Bede's girlfriend until Bede fell in love Mariette and chose her sister over her. This made Kirsten bitter with resentment and so she allied herself to the Shadow Lord for vengeance. The Shadow Lord gave Kirsten evil magical powers and thus she became the Masked One, now a sorceress with the appearance of a black-cloaked figure with a green mask and pale hands that could kill others just by touching them. She used her power to enslave Bede and imprison Mariette in her locket. She also had the power to conjure phantoms of herself in Deltora, a technique she used to try and kill her enemies. In return she was given the task of guarding the Sister of the North. When Lief, Barda and Jasmine went to her castle, they at first thought that she is under Bede's power, however Bede was able to clue them in with his song. Kirsten almost killed Barda and Jasmine when she caused the walls of her castle to swallow them. However, as Lief jumped into the Snake pit that the Sister of the North was contained, the snakes in the pit latched onto her and bit her, killing her with their venom.

Doran the Dragonlover

Also known as "Dragonfriend" by the dragons, Doran is said to be Deltora's greatest explorer and was a kind and noble man. He developed everlasting friendships with Deltora's Dragons and even explored Deltora's underworld and befriended the Pirran people that had sheltered themselves there. When the Ak-Baba killed nearly all of the dragons of Deltora, Doran went to each of the remaining dragons and had them swear an oath to go into a deep hibernation until the King of Deltora came and awakened the Dragons using the Belt of Deltora. He also made them promise not to take advantage of the other Dragons' hibernation and not to invade their territories. After the dragons went into hibernation, Doran then found out too late that the Dragons were an obstacle to the Shadow Lord's plan to plant the Four Sisters throughout Deltora and by having the dragons go into hibernation, Doran had removed this obstacle once and for all. Doran then drew a map to where the Four Sisters were located and asked the map to be delivered to the King, but the people of Deltora thought he was mad and his map was torn into four pieces. Doran then went into the wilderness to find another way to get rid of the sisters and was never seen again. It was revealed later on that the Shadow Lord had captured Doran and as punishment for resisting him, Doran was forced to become the immortal vessel of the Sister of the West (having the sister contained inside his own body) and thus he was unwillingly forced to become the Guardian of the Sister of the West. He became situated in the Kobb's lair on the Isle of the Dead. Lief and his group managed to finally meet him and Doran was saddened to discover that the Diamond Dragon was dead, but was overcome with joy when he found out her daughter still lived. Sadly, Veritas was forced to destroy Doran by stealing his breath in order to destroy the Sister of the West that he guarded, but knowing that the Diamond Dragon species still lived and that there was still hope for Deltora, Doran died a peaceful death as he disintegrated into dust.

Paff

When Ranesh left to Tora, this young girl took his place as assistant librarian to Josef. But it is revealed she is a servant of The Shadow Lord and guardian of The Sister of the South. She was made such in the Shadowlands, while her dark Master concocted his plan. While Lief, Barda and Jasmine went in search of the hibernating dragons and the Four Sisters, Paff secretly slipped poison in Josef's food and drink, causing his health to deteriorate and become dillusional, causing him to think that Doom did not trust him. Not only that, but she conjured the Black Mist, a bizare monster made from darkness and had the heads of an eagle and a wild dog. Lief and Doom figure out her treachery and capture her. Doom intended to kill her to put her out of her misery but Lief wanted her alive for questioning. Out of her grief, Paff grabbed the Belt of Deltora and the belt's holy magic destroyed her. Paff had an inferior complex, believing that no one truly loved her and so became a bitter misanthrope and became the Shadow Lord's servant.

The Black Mist

The Black Mist is a monster that was conjured and controlled by Paff. It was a monster formed from darkness itself and was filled with hatred, spreading hate throughout Del. As its name implies, the Black Mist takes on the form of dark colored smoke or mist that easily slips through cracks in doors and walls, it's physical form is a mass of black, poisonous slime and tentacles with the head of a wild dog and an eagle. It's tentacles were as sharp as the blade of a sword and was poisonous to touch. It was one of Lief's most challenging opponents, it took the combined might of Fidelis (the Topaz Dragon), Nevets and Lief and his friends to completely destroy it.

Grey Tide

The final opponent for the protagonists of Deltora. The Grey Tide is a massive, growing creature made of a gray, poisonous slime that lived in the center of The City of the Rats. It is the enemy's secret weapon. It is awoken when all Four Sisters are destroyed, to grow until its poison sweeps over Deltora. The idea supposedly reached the Shadow Lord via a Tenna Birdsong Tale, in which the singing of four sisters kept a monster imprisoned, until a sorcerer killed them. This sorcerer could easily be the Shadow Lord, whom it amused to watch his enemy re-enact the story and in the act annihilate his country.

The Shadow Lord's plan was simple; if the Four Sisters remained, Deltora would starve. If they were destroyed, the chemical substance would spread all the way across Deltora, smothering the land and killing every living thing. The only weapon against it was Dragonfire. Therefore, Lief summoned Veritas, Hopian, Forta, Fortuna, Fidelis, Honora, and Joyeu to burn it away. The Ak-Baba were sent to defend the Grey Tide, but they were defeated by the dragons and their bodies became consumed by the Grey Tide as well. Before it could grow too large, the dragons managed to burn the Grey Tide, causing it to wither and die. As a matter of course, each Dragon learnt every other's name, making it impossible for them to conflict with one another and survive.

External links

• Australian Deltora Quest website
• US Deltora website
• Emily Rodda's offical website
• Deltora Quest anime website