12 of Swords -- the Professor

The Professor of Swords grew up watching stories of the Ethiopian famines in the 1980s and decided to make it his life's work to feed people. His grandparents came from life as sharecroppers during Jim Crow and find it odd that the first member of the family to go to college would get a PhD to go back and become a farmer, but the Professor has tenure plus 17 published papers on wheat and rye genetics (and counting) to refute the comments.

Given the general public's distrust of genetic modification in particular and university agriculture in general, in his more cynical moments the Professor likes to joke that his machete handles monkeywrenchers as well as weeds. Deep down, though, he's afraid for all the good he's trying to do the world that he might actually have to use it that way someday.

11 of Swords -- the Journeyman

When the other kids were tossing footballs around and shooting baskets, the Journeyman of Swords was in martial arts class, doing kata or sparring, or dueling with bamboo garden stakes with his somewhat reluctant big sister. Now that he's in college, he's going through the trials and tribulations of a varsity athlete without gaining any of the glory, because fencing is the one activity he enjoys more than anything else. He realizes one day he'll have to go out into a real world where playing with knives is frowned upon, and he's fine with that; he's already studying stickfighting with an SCA master to keep his hand in the game long after his eligibility runs out for college competition.

And he isn't really a lefty. Just a big fan of The Princess Bride.