List of Slayers characters
The Slayers light novel series features a cast of characters created by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. It follows the adventures of teenage sorceress Lina Inverse and her companions as they journey through their world. Using powerful magic and swordsmanship, they battle difficult overreaching wizards, demons seeking to destroy the world, dark lords, and the occasional hapless gang of bandits. Slayers has been adapted into several manga series, five televised anime series, two three-episode original video animations, and five anime films where events and characters differ significantly from the original novels.
Major characters
Lina Inverse
Lina Inverse is the main protagonist and central figure of the Slayers franchise. Although still a teenager, she is a powerful and well-known sorceress with nicknames such as the "Bandit Killer" and "Black Witch". Born to a merchant family, she has a great love of money, treasure, and food. After meeting in the first novel, Gourry becomes Lina's constant companion and never leaves her for very long. Although the two appear to be in love with each other in anime, there is no romance between them.Lina specializes in black magic, specifically attack magic that calls upon the power of demons. Her signature spell, Dragon Slave, comes from the power of the Dark Lord Shabranigdu, while Ragna Blade and her most powerful spell Giga Slave call upon the Lord of Nightmares. She is also a skilled swordsman, though not on the level of Gourry or Zelgadis, as she lacks physical strength. During the series, Lina and company face down and defeat many powerful demons, including two fragments of Shabranigdu, Hellmaster Fibrizo, and Dynast Graushera.
Gourry Gabriev
Gourry Gabriev is a wandering swordsman who meets Lina at the beginning of the series and accompanies her from then on as a self-appointed bodyguard. Although chivalrous and a loyal friend, he is rather dumb and appears to have memory deficiencies. However, his skills as a swordsman are unmatched, especially when armed with his family's magic blade, the Sword of Light, also known as Gorun Nova. When Gourry is captured by Hellmaster Fibrizo in the eighth novel, the demon sends the Sword of Light back to its creator, [|Dark Star]. In the tenth book, he begins using a sword taken from the collection of Lavas Nexalia Langmeier. When that seemingly breaks in the thirteenth novel, it is revealed to actually be the Blast Sword, a weapon known for its extreme sharpness. Gourry also has a high magic capacity and the potential to cast spells that rival Lina's power, but because of his faulty memory and disinterest, he cannot remember spells well enough to ever use them.Zelgadis Graywords
Zelgadis Graywords is a sorcerer who Lina and Gourry meet in the first novel. As a retainer for his relative Rezo the Red Priest, Zelgadis and his colleagues fight Lina for the philosopher's stone. However, he is actually seeking the stone to make himself powerful enough to kill Rezo as revenge for turning him into a chimera. Although he asked Rezo to make him stronger, he did not know he would do so by fusing him with a rock golem and brow daemon. Zelgadis teams up with Lina and Gourry to destroy Rezo, and again two months later to defeat [|Rezo's copy] when bounties are issued for the three. Sometime later, he runs into and works with them, plus Amelia, while attempting to acquire the manuscript of the Claire Bible in possession of the [|demon-worshiping cult], with the hope it will help him turn back into human. Searching for a way to regain his humanity, Zelgadis continues to travel with Lina and company out of convenience, not friendship. After the defeat of Hellmaster Fibrizo in the eighth novel, Zelgadis leaves Lina's group and continues his quest.Zelgadis specializes in Shamanistic magic, which includes both elemental and astral magic, the latter of which deals with the astral, or spiritual, plane. Though he is not as learned in the art as Lina, Zelgadis' even combination of physical force and magical finesse render him among the most fearsome warriors. Due to his chimeric appearance, Zelgadis usually covers his head and face and often avoids human contact.
Sylphiel
Sylphiel Nells Ruda is a shrine maiden and the daughter of the high priest of Sairaag. She knows Gourry from when he helped her father in a previous visit to the city, and has had a crush on him ever since. She is introduced in the third novel. By the time Sylphiel realizes that Rezo the Red Priest is somehow poisoning her father, he already has control over the people of Sairaag. She teams up with Zelgadis and, shortly after, with Lina, Gourry and Lantz. In the fight with Copy Rezo, Sylphiel's father and all of Sairaag are wiped off the planet. She then begins to live with her uncle in Saillune City in the fourth novel. In the eighth novel, she returns to the seemingly-restored Sairaag in order to save Gourry.As a cleric, Sylphiel's skills in white magic are impressive. Her defensive magic is powerful enough to easily hold its own against Copy Rezo. While her healing magic is able to bring Lina back from the brink of death using a high level resurrection spell. Although Sylphiel is weak in shamanism and black magic, she is able to cast Dragon Slave.
Amelia
Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune is the youngest princess of the Holy Kingdom of Saillune, and its head shrine maiden. She is introduced in the fourth novel, where she joins Lina and Gourry on their travels after they stop her uncle and nephew's assassination attempts on her father, Phil Saillune. Amelia longs to be a "hero of justice" and quixotically pursues her quest for justice by following Lina and fighting those who appear to be villains. Her naïve tendency to believe whatever she is told sometimes leads her to mistake friend and foe. Although Amelia is around the same age as Lina, the latter is often annoyed with Amelia for her naïveté and her larger bust size, but eventually comes to accept her as a friend. After the eighth novel, Amelia leaves Lina and Gourry and returns to Saillune.Amelia's perspective on good and evil evolves significantly as the series progresses. Most of her lessons in justice and heroism came from her father. After the murder of her mother, Amelia vowed never to use blades, though she once used the Sword of Light to channel the Ra-Tilt. Amelia is versed in the common clerical spells, and knows a bit of black and Shamanistic magic that she learned with her older sister, who may be Gracia, Naga the Serpent.
Xellos
Xellos, known as Xellos the Priest, is a high-level demon who serves Greater Beast Zellas Metallium. He serves as her emissary and is extremely powerful; in the Incarnation War over 1,000 years ago, Xellos destroyed nearly all dragons by himself. Whereas Shabranigdu's four other demon lieutenants created both a priest and general to do their bidding, Zellas only created Xellos, thus he is twice as strong as the other demons' emissaries. Xellos is sometimes a hindrance, and sometimes a help to Lina and the other main characters. His actions appear frustratingly inconsistent because of his oft-changing loyalties at his master's request. His signature response to any important question that he does not want to answer is, "That is a secret!".Xellos first appears in the fifth novel, where he is a mysterious priest that teams up with Lina and her friends so he can destroy the manuscript of the Claire Bible in possession of the demon-worshiping cult. In the next novel, Xellos reappears and starts to travel with Lina and company. He later admits to Lina that he is a demon serving Zellas and that he was originally tasked with destroying the Claire Bible manuscripts, but his current job was concocted by Hellmaster Fibrizo and is to protect and guide Lina to the Claire Bible. Knowing she can not defeat the strong demon, Lina accepts Xellos into the group. After successfully leading Lina to the Claire Bible at Dragons' Peak in the eighth novel, Xellos flees after being severely injured by [|Gaav]. After Hellmaster Fibrizo is defeated in the next novel, Xellos appears in order to have Lina explain what happened. After she does, both say goodbye and wish to never meet again. Xellos briefly appears in the fifteenth novel, first stopping a demon attack on Lina and company led by [|Bradu], and then destroying Bradu when he was about to give secrets away to them.
Luke and Mileena
Luke and Mileena are a pair of traveling mercenaries and treasure hunters who first appear in the ninth novel. Luke has black hair and an unfriendly face, while the beautiful Mileena has silver hair and a much more reserved personality. They have a friendly competition with Lina and Gourry for the magical sword in Bezeld, before teaming up with them to defeat the hyperdemon created by Sherra. Although Luke is cocky and often argues with Lina, he seems to have a crush on Mileena and will follow his partner's commands. Although he can also cast spells, Luke has a magical sword he fights with. When Luke casts a spell to enhance his sword with the power of Shabranigdu, Lina and Sherra both note how they have never heard of it before. Luke and Mileena reappear in the tenth novel as bodyguards hired by Lavas Nexalia Langmeier. However, they are secretly investigating whether or not Lavas' father, the lord of Solaria City, has been usurped. After learning Lavas is creating chimeras, they team up with Lina and Gourry to fight Lavas, who has turned himself into a demonoid. In the twelfth novel, Luke and Mileena have been hired by Jade Caudwell, a knight from the Kingdom of Dils, to investigate a mercenary who has quickly risen through the ranks and effectively controls the kingdom with the king's complete trust. They accepted after hearing her name is Sherra. They defeat the demon general with Lina and Gourry. Sticking with the duo, Luke and Mileena also help them defeat Dynast Graushera in the thirteenth novel.In the fourteenth novel, Luke and Mileena are employed in Selentia City as bodyguards by Head Priest Ceres Laurencio during the struggle to see who will be the city's next high priest. Teaming up with Lina and Gourry, they are ambushed by mercenaries and assassins and Mileena is cut by a poisoned blade. When she dies, Luke loses control and seeks revenge; he dismembers the assassin who slashed her, kills Head Priest Francis Dmitri for hiring said assassin, and kills Head Priest Ryan Seinford for having turned them away when they sought medical attention for her at his temple. Each time, Lina and Gourry fail to stop him. Luke then heads for Ceres, because the medical care he gave Mileena was not enough to save her. After seeing the former comrades fight, Ceres willingly offers his life in order to stop the chaos, but Luke flees. In the fifteenth novel, Luke reveals himself to be the masked Shabranigdu who challenges Lina and Gourry to kill him. He explains that he willingly merged with the Shabranigdu fragment hidden inside him after being unable to get over Mileena's death and coming to hate the entire world; humans and demons alike. Luke plans to merge with the other Shabranigdu frozen in the Kataart Mountains, destroy the world, and then themselves. Lina destroys Luke/Shabranigdu by individually bursting and attacking with her four talismans that enhance magical capacity that she bought from Xellos, each representing one of the Dark Lords from the four worlds. The last one, representing Shabranigdu himself, only works because Luke wanted to die so he can see Mileena again.