All Thabit wanted to do was get enough funding to keep his girlfriend's temple running. But when their wealthy benefactor got him to enter a tournament for publicity purposes, and then bribed his opponent to throw the match, he did the virtuous thing and fessed up. But with the temple's one remaining backer in prison, he was forced into a downward spiral of crime to pay for its maintenance, finally ending up with the blood of a fellow knight on his hands in the midst of a crowd of witnesses. He turned to black magic to escape long enough to say goodbye to his daughter, but the spell turned his eyes to pits of darkness and she fled from him. The Frost Maiden offered him the chance to undo it all in exchange for his soul, and he accepted.

All Lupis wanted to do was be awesome. She was the greatest duelist who ever lived. But when she went off to slay a dragon rather than deal with the stress of her father's imminent death, he left the whole estate to her moronic brother and his corrupt accountant. She began dueling for cash, which was all right by her until she accidentally killed a young nobleman. Rather bizarrely, his family agreed to drop the charges if she married her victim's brother. She resigned herself to a life of dreary duplicity, professing love to her despised husband and cheating on him constantly. But when the Frost Maiden offered her the chance to escape, she took it, ultimately winding up a renegade knight at war with her former fellows.