Aetherium Realms

Scion of House Vance, a mid-tier noble family. Cassian was a disappointment at the Arcane Academy, failing to bond with the noble phoenix his family lineage demanded. In secret shame, he formed a deep, accidental pact with a humble but cunning stone warden spirit from the foundations of the city, a bond he now hides while publicly pretending to command a more prestigious summon.

An orphan who survived the slums by bonding with a pair of mischievous dust sprites. He uses them for cons, pickpocketing, and scouting. Kael operates on the fringes of the Gutter Guild, taking on low-level monster extermination contracts (like clearing sewers of slimes) to earn enough coin to buy better pact-lore scrolls from the black market.

The formidable matriarch of a high noble house. Elara earned her epithet 'Thorn' by mercilessly purging familial rivals using her pact-bound spectral assassins. She views her bound spirits as expendable weapons and her serfs as resources, all in the relentless pursuit of power and legacy. She runs her family's private magic school with an iron fist.

A former serf who manifested summoning talent during a goblin raid, instinctively calling forth a protective hearth-spirit. She fled her noble overseers and was taken in by the Gutter Guild. Now a freelance 'Reclaimer,' she specializes in cleansing infested farmlands and villages, using her bond with earth and fire spirits to protect common folk for a fair price.

A legendary, rogue summoner of unknown origin who is said to have broken all the established rules of pact-making. He wanders the realms without a faction, accompanied by a shifting retinue of unique, often monstrous spirits he's befriended rather than bound. Both the Aristocracy and the Guild see him as a dangerous heretic and a potential font of forbidden knowledge.