I have 9 main characters for my story and can use assistance in their development

This is going to be a long one, so buckle up! I have nine primary characters in my story. I would appreciate some assistance in giving them more traits and quirks, and developing their personalities further.

[External links deleted by moderator. If you want crit here post it here ]the second chapter that I have posted on another website, you will get more insight into the world I have created and three primary characters if you glance over these first.]

I have a human boy and girl, our two protagonists, named Ohr-Natan M'Shalev and Iris Angelita. Ohr-Natan means light-given in Hebrew, M'Shalev means combiner, or unifier, and Shalev meaning tranquil, so he unifies and brings tranquility from/with the Light. Iris is a messenger of G-d and associated with rainbows and nature in the Greek tradition. Angelita is Greek for female angel. In the start of our story they are living in a drab, sterile, colorless, adventure-less world, before being transported to the Color Realms to become Champions of the Light and fight in the war between the Realms of Prasinos and Kyaneos, Green and Blue.

Then I have Vallidius Potestas Kyaneos-Iskheus the King, who is King of the Kyaneos Isles of the Color Realms, Kyaneos being Greek for blue. In the world I have created for this story there are seven Realms, for the six colors of the rainbow (if you study some optics you will find that indigo is not a true color) and one in the Center, the Realm of the Light. Vallidius is ruler of the Blue Realm, and takes inspiration from the oceans and seas, his desire and will is to have the seas rise and cover the lands once more as it once was in eons past.

Vallidius is just a word I invented, it sounds kind of 'villainy' to me, Potestas is latin for 'power' or 'dominion', Kyaneos is blue, Iskheus means power - Blue power. Vallidius' plan is to kill the trees, raise the oceans, and have the ocean dominate once more. He is tall (about 6' 3"), has a cyan goatee that occasionally sprouts green hairs which he yanks out, has thick tan skin, typically wears shark-skin sandals and blue robes, and has mismatched blue eyes, one typical eye and another electric blue one that can see through the darkness and gives him some level of foresight as well. He is fond of octopi, both as pets and as a source of food, and also rears eaguars, which are ferocious winged jaguar-eagle hybrids.

Yionaffe Dendrophile Prasinos-Iskheus is the 'good' King in our story, who is in conflict with Vallidius. He is the ruler of the Realm of Green. Dendrophile means 'tree-lover', Prasinos is Greek for green, Prasinos-Iskheus means green-power. Now I'm thinking of giving him Hebrew names, so it would be Yionaffe Oheiv-Ilanot Yarok-Koakh. This would fit nicely, because Ohr-Natan is Hebrew, and Iris is Greek, so the arc would be Ohr-Natan starting with Hebrew wisdom and path, eventually adding Greek wisdom, and the opposite for Iris. However this would require further study and thought.

In the Realm of Prasinos there is the Great Rainforest of Green (Ya'ar Geshem Gadol shel Yarok in Hebrew), in the story Vallidius' forces attack the forest in their quest to raise the seas.

Yionaffe has yellow-golden hair and beard and green eyes.

Teltibane, High King of the Light. This ancient wizard has many names among the various peoples of the Color Realms, including Gwistinal, Rayanan, and more. He is the true ruler of the central Realm of the Light (Mamlekhet HaOhr in Hebrew) and guides from afar. He is unknown amongst most of the people, there is another King of the Light-Realm, who, although most believe him to be King, isn't the true King and is little more than Teltibane's puppet. He is the one who has summoned Ohr-Natan and Iris to the Color Realms to become Champions of the Light.

Part one of the first book in the series is about Iris and Ohr-Natan's quest to find their way home and also find the one who has summoned them there so that they can kill him, they don't understand the purpose of them being there initially.

As well as being an accomplished sorcerer, Teltibane is a highly skilled martial artist. His primary function is to keep the Colors in balance so that the mystical Light will endure and the world won't be plunged into darkness and despair.

Kiara = Kiara is a slim woman, dark skinned (what would be considered African or Caribbean on Earth), has difficulty expressing her emotions, who's primary purpose in the first book is to train Ohr-Natan in martial arts. She has an interesting backstory (besides for a beautiful future) but I'm not sure if I will get to it in the first book.

Finor = Finor is Rowoni, a race I've invented for this story. They are experts in magic, or what I call cesem (hebrew for magic), and he will train Iris.

Greybeard = Greybeard is all about adventure and becomes Ohr-Natan's dear friend. He is a Bulitro (which are similar to tolkien's dwarves but not all of them live under the mountain -- I need some assistance in changing this race so that they don't resemble Tolkiens dwarves, there is a lengthy sequence where Greybeard, Ohr-Natan, and Iris travel through Bulitro mines, I am not sure if I need to remove this since its has much in common with the sequence in LOTR where they travel through the mines of Moria). He is fond of saying that he has had more adventures then the whiskers in his grey beard. He is over 500 years old. His backstory in short is that his nature as he was born was to be shy and bashful, and cowardly, before he discovered his power and became one of the greatest adventurers in the Realms.

 

The thing is, you've describe what they are, but not who they are, in the sense that, what are they like, what are their motivations? That's what will make them interesting.

 

I have read stories involving teams of approximately nine people. Typically, only two or three are really main characters and the others are not fully developed. Do you REALLY have nine MAIN characters?

 

this got deleted and the system is not allowing me to edit it. I will make a new post soon.

 

Every Magnificent Seven has its a own Brad Dexter.

 

I want to make a new post for this because I have substantially edited, changed, and revised the it from the first version. This is really really really important for my story, but I don't want to break any rules here, so I want to know if it's ok.

 

I don't think I've ever read something with more than 4 main characters that didn't neglect any.

If the story got too big, chop it up and make different novels. Focusing each on something that matters the most to the characters.

But that's the easy way out, I guess. You do you.

 

OMG, Rum Punch is really god level writing. I love that thing and I've also watched Jackie Brown a thousand times, my favorite tarantino movie.