community. However, once Ben was able to prove his kingship, Fillip and Sot have proved loyal to him, if a bit of a nuisance. They have a tendency to trade on their relationship with Ben to circumvent the standard legal process and take their innumerable complaints directly to Ben himself. The G'home Gnomes earned their tribal name at some unspecified point in Landover's past. When they first arrived, and the residents of Landover had learned of their kleptomaniac tendencies, members of the tribe were met with the wish/phrase "Go home, Gnome" by the general populace, expressing the general wish that they would all go home to wherever it was they came from. Over time this got abbreviated to "G'home Gnome" and eventually the wish became the name by which the tribe was known. River Master The River Master is the lord of the Lake Country and the fairy folk that live in Elderew. He was originally a creature of fairy, but now lives apart from the mists. He is a gifted healer, and by his magic the Lake Country is kept healthy while the rest of Landover succumbs to the Tarnish. He is Willow's father, though their relationship is strained. He yearns to possess Willow's mother, a wood sprite, but cannot. This, combined with the fact that Willow will go to her mother and not him when she needs help, has resulted in a very cool relationship between father and daughter. Nightshade Nightshade is a powerful witch who lives in the Deep Fell. She is one of the primary antagonists to Ben, along with Strabo the dragon. She possesses great magic, since she is from the fairy world, but has always used that power for greed and torture, which was why she was cast out of the mists and forbidden reentry. Later in the series she is sent to Earth by Haltwhistle the Mud-Puppy in defense of Mistaya. In crow form she is trapped in an aviary, but mysteriously disappears at the end of the latest novel. Strabo Strabo is a dragon who lives in the desolate Fire Springs region. He is a solitary creature, the last of his kind, and is a frequent rival to Ben in his duties as king. He is one of the few powerful creatures of magic in the valley, along with Nightshade, although in Tangle Box and Witches' Brew he has proved to be