History Characters / TheMagnusArchives

* BlindSeer: [[spoiler:In the post-change world, she tries to invoke this by telling the survivors she and Georgie gathered that she's had a vision of the world returning to normal. It brings them hope as she intended, but also led to them worshipping her as a prophet which she is not comfortable with]].

* BystanderSyndrome: [[spoiler:Episode 192 ("An Appointment") revealed that she suspected more than once during her time as Elias' assistant that something was up and thought about speaking up and doing something to help the others, but was afraid to lose her job and didn't]].

* EvilIsSexy: Multiple people have noted how beautiful she is. Jude Perry was even partially attracted to the cult because of her.

* {{Hypocrite}}: She doesn't take well to being made to [[spoiler:feel all the terror and suffering she's inflicted on her victims]]. Arthur Nolan's reaction to Eugene's fate suggests this is a pitfall of most cult acolytes.

!!!Administration
[[folder:Elias Bouchard]]
!!Elias Bouchard
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 001
-> '''Voiced by:''' Ben Meredith

The head of the Magnus Institute and Jon's superior.

[[folder:Peter Lukas]]
!!Peter Lukas, Avatar of the Lonely
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 033
->'''Voiced by:''' Alasdair Stuart
A member of the [[CreepyFamily Lukas family]], servant of the Lonely and [[spoiler:new head of the Magnus Institute]]. Appears to be on good terms with Elias.

* AtLeastIAdmitIt: He's quite upfront with the fact that, yes, given the chance, he will absolutely throw the world to the Lonely. But that can't happen for a while, so there's no reason not to be civil!
* TheBet: He likes to make wagers with people; [[spoiler:Simon Fairchild]] speculates that it's because it allows him to easily form temporary partnerships to people without having to get close to them in any way.
* BreakThemByTalking: Rather different than Elias' specialty of MindRape. Peter, an avatar of the Lonely, tries to do this to [[spoiler:Jon once he steps into his "space" to rescue Martin- After Jon initially fails to convince Martin to leave, Peter appears and tells him Martin "made his choice", and that Jon's just as guilty for causing him to make it as he is. He then rubs salt in the wound by asking where Jon's other friends are, forcing him to admit they're either dead, presumed dead, or simply want nothing more to do with him. Peter then claims Jon's the "last one standing", and that while he'd prefer him to leave, it'd be better for him to stay since he can't hurt anyone else if he does. Jon ''almost'' does, given his self-deprecation through season - but unfortunately for Peter, Jon doesn't, and instead uses his Archivist powers to force him to answer his questions, eventually leading to Peter breaking ''himself'' by talking.]]
* TheCaptain: Of the ''[[GhostShip Tundra]]''.
* FairPlayVillain: Peter may be a monstrous servant of a god of loneliness, but he's also an avid gambler, and so a level of fairness is inevitable in many of his interactions. While he explains that this allows him a way to interact and maintain contact with people without feeling any mutual bond, it has the side effect of making those people who he's targeted and managed to survive come away ''far'' richer than they were before. Carter Chilcot noted that while he never heard back from Lukas, he still got his full pay, and when Carlita Sloane survived her brief tenure aboard the ''Tundra'' she walked away with a ''fifty thousand pound'' check. [[spoiler: The only exception to this is his bet with Elias, where when he realizes he's lost he flees to his PocketDimension and takes Martin with him.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: Peter is ''outwardly'' pleasant and polite to people he meets, but his veneer of civility does little to hide his monstrous actions; like Simon Fairchild, Peter will speak kindly to someone as he feeds them to his patron, dooming them to a lifetime of isolation and horror with a smile on his face merely for slighting him, or for no reason at all. Paying attention to his conversations with Martin shows that his actual words below the polite tones are cruel and dismissive, and the finale of season 4 shows that all his benevolent behavior was merely a means of [[spoiler:{{Gaslighting}} Martin into believing Peter's lies about the Extinction so he would murder Jonah Magnus and destroy the Institute.]]
* GiverOfLameNames: He admits that the name for [[spoiler:his ritual, The Silence]], was rather uninspired, and that he mostly just came up with it because he assumed a name was required.
* GodzillaThreshold: How he tries to justify his actions to Martin. Yes, he wants to remake the world in the image of a horrifying incarnation of fear itself. But seeing as [[spoiler: the Extinction wants to eradicate all of humanity forever,]] he and the Institute have a mutual interest in keeping the world going.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Under the effects of Jon's Beholding powers, Peter's forced to forced to interact with another person face to face, something he detests.]]
* KickTheDog: His first appearance has him dooming a random man to eternal isolation for no apparent reason.
* MeetTheNewBoss: After Elias is incarcerated at the end of S3, Peter takes over the administration of the Magnus Institute. He's hardly more interested in Institute safety than Elias was.
* NoSocialSkills: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]]. Despite serving an entity based on a fear of loneliness and isolation, he isn't strictly speaking bad in conversations and is very polite and friendly to people he works with (unless he's being confronted, in which case his friendly facade can drop); it's just that he doesn't ''like'' engaging with people directly if he can avoid it.
* PaintingTheMedium: When he talks to Martin, the recording makes loud, whirring sounds, as if the reels are being spun out of sync.
* ThePowerOfApathy: Peter's powers literally come from Apathy as a servant of the Lonely.
* VillainousFriendship:
** Has this, or at the very least, Villainous Professional Respect, with Elias.
** He seems to have a similar relationship with Simon Fairchild, of The Vast, both belonging to families with close ties to one of the powers (though the Fairchilds aren't related by blood) and their respective fears are closely connected. The Lukases and Fairchilds were both involved (along with members of The Dark) in the creation of the space station ''Daedalus''. They at least know each other well enough to make bets with each other.
[[/folder]]


[[folder:Jonah Magnus]]
!!Jonah Magnus
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 023

The founder and namesake of the Magnus Institute.
----

!!!Other Staff

* ItsPersonal: Would completely drop his academic detachment and skeptcism whenever a Leitner showed up in a statement. [[spoiler: This is because when he was 8, he nearly fell victim to one and watched his bully getting killed by it.]]

* AccompliceByInaction: The core part of her character is that she is an enabler for Daisy. Both in the sense that she helps cover up and ignore all of her horrid instances of police brutality, and that she [[spoiler:encourages Daisy to go back to being a Hunter, which is very similar to an addiction, once she decides to get away from it]].

!!!Current Employees

[[folder:Martin Blackwood]]
!!Martin Blackwood

-> '''Voiced by:''' Alexander J. Newall

One of Jon's assistants. Jon starts the series with a dim view of his competence.

[[folder:Basira Hussain]]
!!Basira Hussain
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 043
-> '''Voiced by:''' Frank Voss
A police constable who deals with strange cases.

* AccompliceByInaction: The core part of her character is that she is an enabler for Daisy. Both in the sense that she helps cover up and ignore all of her horrid instances of police brutality, and that she [[spoiler:encourages Daisy to go back to being a Hunter, which is very similar to an addiction, once she decides to get away from it]].
* ActionGirl: While most of her cases don't involve violence, merely the aftermath of it, she's prepared for the ones that do.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Her relationship to Daisy is deliberately left vague since confirming it to be romantic would muddle the message, but their relationship is certainly very close and she never shows any interest in men.
* BadassNormal: Manages to defeat the dissociative illusions of the Stranger during its attempted apotheosis just by reasoning to herself.
* BigDamnHeroes: Shows up just in time to keep Daisy from murdering Jon.
* DirtyCop: While she's not murderous like Daisy, she is perfectly aware of her crimes and helps her cover them up.
* EmotionlessGirl: In the early episodes of Season 4, she seems to have totally shut down emotionally. It's unclear if it's due to the traumatic events that occurred in between seasons (i.e. [[spoiler:a colleague and one of her best friends dying, another friend ending up in a coma, multiple EldritchAbomination attacks on her place of work, yet two ''more'' friends being slowly taken away from her by other powers, and having to make sure the department runs in the bargain]]), her being claimed by the Beholding or both.
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:Alongside Melanie and Georgie, she's one of three total main characters that make it out of the story alive]].
* FriendOnTheForce: To the Archives. She brings Jon tapes that were confiscated during a police investigation so he can listen to them for clues. She later admits that she did it mostly to keep tabs on Jon, but by then she isn't a police officer anymore.
* HeroicWillpower: During the Unknowing, she powers through the overwhelming influence of the Stranger, successfully escaping the wax house by herself. Notably, she's the only one who does so without outside aid; Jon had the Eye to help him, and Tim was woken up by Jon.
* HiddenDepths: She handles being bound to the Institute better than anyone and seems to quite enjoy researching in the latter's library. As Jon puts it "maybe she just suits the academic life".
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** She quits the force in protest over how they handled a coverup, despite her having helped Daisy cover up a truly atrocious amount of policebruality.
** In season 4, she considers [[spoiler:Jon a monster because of his urges to feed on innocent people by forcing statements out of them and leaving them to suffer the ensuing trauma and threatens him if he does it. At the same time she is actively encouraging Daisy to return to the hunt in order to feed herself, even though Daisy herself doesn't want it]].
* MercyKill: [[spoiler:She is forced to keep her promise to kill Daisy after the latter gives in to the Hunt completely in order to defend the Institute employees from Trevor and Julia.]]
* MoralityChain: Her fellow Sectioned cop Daisy Tonner has gone ''almost'' full HeWhoFightsMonsters. Basira is the only reason for the "almost".
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Eventually quits the force, because she's so disgusted at the way her superiors handled a coverup, and says the best way Jon can thank her for her help is for her to ''never'' hear about any of this again.
* SoleSurvivor: In a sense. [[spoiler:By the end of the podcast, she is the only one of the Institute employees who both survived the events of the series and did so without grievous bodily harm or severe mental damage, although having to kill Daisy definitely counts for trauma]].
* TookALevelInJerkass: While it's reasonably understandable considering everything she goes through, [[spoiler:Basira becomes extremely hostile to Jon in Season 4 from the outset, and comes off as unsympathetic to Daisy following her escape from the Buried.]]
* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:Elias uses her through all of season 4, feeding her clues and pointers to get Jon in the position he needs him to be in order to be marked by the remaining powers (or in some cases keep her on wild goose chases so she doesn't get in the way)]].

!!!Former Employees
[[folder:Gertrude Robinson]]
!!Gertrude Robinson

-> '''Voiced by:''' Sue Sims

The former Head Archivist for the Magnus Institute. Initially a mysterious figure whose chaotic management of the archives infuriates Jon, her successor. As the story progresses we learn much more about her own handling and use of the Archive's statements and her efforts to thwart the Powers, including the Magnus Institute itself.

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:At ''the absolute best'', all her interventions in the rituals ever really did was prematurely end the suffering of the innocent victims already caught up in them and possibly prevent a scant few more victims from being drawn in.]]
* TheAloner: She was somewhat touched by the Lonely even before she started working at the Institute, having never had many friends and always preferred her own company.
* AmbiguouslyGay: She works with plenty of people, but the only two people she seems to have trusted enough to rely on are both women; Emma Harvey, who's described as her trusted confidante, and [[spoiler:Agnes Montague]], who is quite literally her soulmate.
* BigGood: PlayedWith She single-handedly foiled the rituals of the Powers for decades, defending humanity but also was incredibly ruthless while doing so, having no issue with manipulating or killing people to achieve her goals.
* EveryoneHasStandards: She was certainly no saint, but upon learning that [[spoiler:Emma, one of her assistants, had been intentionally feeding her coworkers to the Powers just to see what happens, she was absolutely furious and had Agnes burn her to death]].
* {{Foil}}: To Jon, as his predecessor. [[spoiler:While Jon sacrificed his humanity in service of his friends and became a monster torn apart by his empathy, Gertrude remained human but gave up connections to others in order to so so.]]
* GoodIsNotNice: Gertrude was determined to stop the rituals that would help the Powers to warp the universe. Among other things, she sacrificed Michael Shelley to the Distortion/Spiral in order to bind and constrict it and murdered Jan Kilbride to use his dismembered corpse to stop the Buried's ritual.
* [[HeroesLoveDogs Heroes Love Cats]]:Once asked why she worked so diligently against the powers, she states that a cultist of the Lightless Flame killed her cat. WordOfGod pointedly refuses to confirm if this did indeed happen or if this is Gertrude's idea of a joke.
* IWorkAlone: Increasingly embraced this mentality as she aged, confiding in others less and less and leaving her assistants to their own work as she pursued hers. This eventually led to [[spoiler:her death at Elias' hands, as she had nobody to help her in her plan to destroy the Archive. Episode 167 makes it clear that this trope is the sticking point between her and Jon, who refuses to stop trying to protect his friends even as he loses touch with his humanity.]]
* KillItWithFire: Her preferred approach to... anything really. She killed her first monster using fire, and went on to use it again and again through a long career of monster hunting, though she upgraded to explosives at one point. [[spoiler:It may or may not have had something to do with her connection to Agnes Montague]].
* ManipulativeBastard: Deliberately engineered sympathy and loyalty in Michael Shelley, so that he would do ''anything'' for her -- [[ArcWords because he trusted her.]]
* MysteriousPast: Jon initially sees her as an incompetent predecessor out of touch with the times, but it becomes increasingly clear that there's more to her than that. Even after more of her true character is revealed, though, a lot about her past goes unanswered. She was apparently aware of (and fighting against) the Powers well before coming to work at the Institute, and even the nigh-omniscient Elias admits he's not sure how she came to be aware of the supernatural.
* NeverMessWithGranny: She was still taking on servants of the Powers and trashing their rituals well into her grey years. Sasha describes her as "stone cold" despite looking like a little old lady, and even powerful avatars like the Lightless Flame's cultists tread lightly around her in statements where she appears.]
* ObfuscatingDisability[=/=]ObfuscatingStupidity: Pretended to be much frailer than she actually was in front of her assistants, letting them believe she was a harmless older lady who needed help and protection. Likewise, the bad archival skills Jon bemoans at the beginning of episode 1? Entirely deliberate sabotage of [[spoiler:her ostensible employer]].
* ParentalSubstitute: Despite her general coldness, she was probably the closest thing Gerard Keay ever had to a healthy maternal figure. It's strongly implied that his death was the last nail in the coffin for her IWorkAlone attitude.
* PetTheDog:
** [[spoiler:While intimidating Arthur Nolan, she makes clear that Jack Barnabas is to be left alone]].
** [[spoiler:In "Bloody Mary" (Episode 154), she at least makes an effort to be nice and sensitive to the skin book ghost of her old Institute colleague Eric Delano regarding his death, though she gets a bit testy when he turns out to know something important]].
** Despite her general willingness to sacrifice her assistants for the greater good, when she learned that [[spoiler:one of her assistants deliberately put another one in a situation which got her killed simply to learn more information about the Powers, Gertrude had Agnes kill her.]]
* PosthumousCharacter: Jon at first merely bemoans her apparent lack of archival skills, but soon becomes curious about her death.
** The finale of the first season reveals that she didn't just die in unusual circumstances but was actually murdered, as the team discover her body underneath the Institute; we get to hear recordings made by her beginning in the second season; and the third season focuses heavily on her research into, and thwarting of, the Powers. [[spoiler:Season Four shows that she was alive two months longer than we had been lead to believe, before being killed by Elias while attempting to burn down the Institute]].
* {{Revenge}}: There was supposedly no thirst for revenge in her, but it's worth noting that every time she goes after a specific monster or avatar it's to retaliate for the death of someone associated with her; The first monster she killed was the Grinning Wheel, who itself killed her predecessor, and when she learned that [[spoiler:Emma Harvey]] had been using her assistants as guinea pigs, she was furious and had them burned to death. She also claimed that she hunted the Powers because the Desolation killed her cat.
* UnscrupulousHero: Spent her entire time as Archivist investigating other Powers and preventing their rituals, including by sacrificing her employees and liberal usage of explosives.
* WalkingSpoiler: It's very difficult to talk about Gertrude without spoiling why Jon replaced her as Head Archivist and her relationship with the Powers.
* WillfullyWeak: Compared to Jon. [[spoiler:Gertrude never embraced her title as the Archivist, and was practically human. This did not stop her from being one of the most feared people by other powers.]]

[[folder:Sasha James]]
!!Sasha James
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 001
->'''Voiced by:''' Lottie Broomhall

One of Jon's assistants.

* BadassBookworm: The most intelligent, book knowledge-focused member of the original assistant trio... who also spends her [[ADayInTheLimelight statement episode]] fearlessly staring down [[HumanoidAbomination Michael]] and taking on spawn from the Flesh Hive. She also saves Tim's life from Jane Prentiss with some quick thinking (and faster running).
* BigDamnHeroes: Bolts out of a sealed, relatively safe room during Jane Prentiss' attack on the Archives in the season 1 finale to save Tim. She also dives back into the building with Elias to turn the fire alarms on and get everyone else in the Institute out. This ends up becoming a HeroicSacrifice, as she's separated from Elias and killed by the Not-Them.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Flashbacks in Season 5 reveal that [[spoiler:basically everyone expected Sasha to become the new Archivist, including Gertrude, but Jon was chosen instead, despite him being less mundanely qualified. The audience knows that Jonah/Elias picked based on who would be easier to manipulate into performing his new ritual, but Sasha never learns that. She clearly thinks that her strong qualifications and years of excellent work were ignored because of sexism.]]
* GrandTheftMe: In the Season 1 finale, courtesy of the Not-Them, who go so far as to somehow dispose of cases 0051701 and 0160204, on which Sasha's voice could be heard.
* PlayfulHacker: Hacking secure databases is one of her less-ethical methods of researching statements. After her death, Jon somewhat wistfully notes that finding such information is much harder now.
* TheReliableOne: Very good at her job; more directly, Tim refers to her work persona as "this reliable, down-to-earth nerd." In fact, she's so good that [[spoiler:Gertrude had tapped Sasha as her successor (which is no doubt one of the reasons Elias ''didn't'' choose her)]].
* SacrificialLion: Arguably the most developed of the Archive assistants in season 1. Naturally, she dies at the end to establish that AnyoneCanDie.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Due to the format of the podcast, we only get a few moments with Sasha before she gets killed and replaced by the Not-Them.

[[folder:Timothy "Tim" Stoker]]
!!Timothy "Tim" Stoker

-> '''Voiced by:''' Mike [=LeBeau=]

One of Jon's assistants.
----
* AccuserOfTheBrethren: Does not forgive Jon for his association with The Beholding, in spite of Jon's efforts at reconciliation. Though he does thank him for giving him the chance to get revenge for his brother.
* BeleagueredAssistant: What else do you call getting attacked by worms and treated as a murder suspect by your boss?
* BigDamnHeroes: At the end of Season 1.
* BreakTheCutie: Tim used to be far happier and less bitter from what we saw of him until the season 1 finale. He was still somewhat cheerful in early season 2, but Jon's paranoia put an end to that.
* CynicismCatalyst: His brother was killed by agents of The Stranger. This also explains some of his other quirks, such as his familiarity with 19th-century circuses and the work of real-life architect Robert Smirke.
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Tim is noted in Season 2 to have police "contacts" in the form of clerks — one woman and one man, who take two different shifts. They allow him access to police records. Jon notes the usefulness of such "contacts" but is irritated by how indiscrete Tim seems to be about it.
* ItsPersonal: Joined the Magnus Institute to pursue the creatures that murdered his brother.
* RageBreakingPoint: After months of being on the receiving end of Jon's paranoia and stalking in Season 2 and receiving NoSympathy from others, in "Binary" Tim snaps and gives Jon a ReasonYouSuckSpeech about his behaviour and how he's failing as a boss.
* ResignationsNotAccepted: Tim comes to hate the Institute, but he feels like there's something there that's preventing him from quitting. He later even tries running away to Malaysia but finds himself getting sicker the longer he stays away from the Institute.
* SadClown: His flippant attitude and promiscuity are the source of a good deal of the early seasons' lighter moments, but it soon becomes clear that it's all a front for some very serious personal trauma.
* SeenItAll: By season 3, Tim is completely unfazed by the horror show that is the archives. After fleshworms, infinite corridors and the twisted form of Not-Sasha, he can't be bothered to be surprised. When Elias explains his DeadManSwitch to everyone, Tim just replies with a monotone "sounds about right."
* TheSkeptic: Tended to be dismissive of the veracity of the statements until he gets caught up in Jane Prentiss's attack in the Season 1 finale.
* SirSwearsALot: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] due to the general lack of swearing in the series, but so far Tim is tied with Jon, who obviously speaks much more than him, for the honour of dropping the most F-bombs of any single character (three, and he implies a fourth), and the only cast member who does for some time. No one else says "fuck" until after his death, in fact.
* SourSupporter: He'll help the Archivist save the world, but that doesn't stop him from hating the Archives and everything they stand for.
* TakingYouWithMe: Blows himself up in order to stop the Stranger's ritual of the Unknowing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Melanie King]]
!!Melanie King
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 028
->'''Voiced by:''' Lydia Nicholas

Melanie King is an amateur ghost hunter who started to stray from the beaten path of haunted locations after witnessing a co-worker, Sarah Baldwin, peel back the skin off of her arm and staple it back on. She occasionally consults the Magnus Institute for information until she's brought on as Sasha's replacement.

* AffectionateNickname: Her dad used to call her "Little Moth". Daisy calls her "Mel," though she switches to "Ms. King" when Melanie says she doesn't like it.
* AmnesiaMissedASpot: She ''is'' the spot, in this case; [=NotSasha=] leaves her with full memories of what the real Sasha was like, so she's left confused and angry when everyone seemingly tries to gaslight her about the fake Sasha.
* AxCrazy: While she never reaches that point (at least not on-screen), she does become gradually more violent and angry throughout seasons 3 and 4. [[spoiler:Jon and Basira eventually realize that it's because she's touched by the Slaughter, and on her way to becoming an avatar]].
* BadassNormal: After her crew disperses, she goes off hunting war ghosts on her own, regardless of the fact they can actually hurt her, unlike the Grey Ladies she used to investigate. Also tries to kill Elias multiple times, albeit unsuccessfully.
* BlindSeer: [[spoiler:In the post-change world, she tries to invoke this by telling the survivors she and Georgie gathered that she's had a vision of the world returning to normal. It brings them hope as she intended, but also led to them worshipping her as a prophet which she is not comfortable with]].
* TheCassandra: At least twice, usually because of her {{Jerkass}} tendencies making her too aggressive to patiently explain anything.
** In the second season, she's the only one who notices that Sasha is not who she claims to be, but is largely ignored since everyone else have had their memories tampered with.
** In the third and fourth seasons, she repeatedly insists that they should just kill Elias, but is rejected since it might kill them too. [[spoiler:While Elias' death might have killed everyone working at the institute (as he's the only source on this and a known liar), it would also have prevented his nefarious plans from plunging the world into an unending hellscape of fear and horror]].
* CommonalityConnection: She and Jon don't get along very well, and they have two very different approaches to supernatural investigation, but in "The Smell of Blood", they start nerding out over historical documents she found while investigating in the exact same way, and they're both willing to almost totally disregard their safety in the pursuit of information.
* DaddysGirl: Melanie's dad used to be her last "anchor" before his death. She's driven to a sobbing fit when Elias implants in her head the knowledge of the awful way he died.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Bitchy, but less visibly hostile than just about everyone in the Institute except Jon and Martin. She also immediately tries to poison Elias upon realizing what a bastard he is, then tries to ''shiv'' him. When the Flesh attacks the institute in between Seasons 3 and 4, she fights so violently and efficiently that Jared Hopworth, its foremost avatar, actually ''[[AttackAttackRetreatRetreat gets scared and runs away]]''.
* DoNotCallMePaul: She doesn't like being called "Mel."
* EmpoweredBadassNormal: It's implied that there is ''something'' about her in season 4, even if she doesn't have any obviously supernatural traits. Otherwise, it's hard to explain how an average woman with no combat experience to speak of got close enough to killing a powerful avatar of the Flesh to make him run away scared.
* EyeScream: [[spoiler:She ends up removing her eyes with an awl, as this is the only way you can escape the Beholding's influence and quit the Magnus Institute.]]
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:Alongside Basira and Georgie, she's one of three total main characters who make it out of the series alive]].
* HeroicWillpower: While [[spoiler:Basira and Jon cutting the bullet out of her leg was the impetus for her breaking out of the Slaughter's influence, she implies that it wasn't as simple as that and that it required her making the active choice to deny it. And that's not even getting into how much willpower it took to stab out her own eyes]].
* InstantHumiliationJustAddYouTube: She's caught on camera while yelling at some security guards about blood and ghosts, which becomes a meme and robs her of any credibility she used to have.
* {{Jerkass}}: The first thing she does upon being interviewed is snobbishly chew out the very people trying to interview her, even though she went to them precisely because her coworkers wouldn't even listen to her. One of the things she criticizes is the Institute's policy of looking into stories that lack evidence. When she tells her story and Jon does his usual thing and say that the Institute will look into her story, rather than believing her outright, she gets pissed off and yells at him. [[{{Hypocrite}} Even though she arrived with no real evidence]]. (Although it's implied the abrasiveness is her way of dealing with how much Sarah scared her, and that she's much nicer when she's ''not'' scared).
* MirrorCharacter: To Jon, whom she shares a lot of traits with despite their mutual dislike. They share a common interest in paranormal and occult studies and research, and often throw themselves headfirst into danger in the hopes of learning something new, which more often than not causes them long-lasting injuries and near-death experiences. They are both fairly abrasive and make poor first impressions, and both let paranoia and obsession get the better of them, causing them to drive away most of their friends throughout season 2. Finally, they have both been marked by supernatural powers far beyond their control, and are being turned into avatars against their will. The only difference that makes their paths diverge is that [[spoiler:Melanie has the willpower to break free of her entity's influence, which Jon ultimately does not]]. Also, both have or are dating Georgie Barker.
* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Adopts this attitude after she has a bad encounter with a ghost and is drawn in by The Slaughter. She is adamant that killing Elias is the only option they have, and is vehemently against the actual plan to just put him in prison.
* NeverMyFault: Melanie has a nasty habit of blaming everyone around her for her suffering and failing to recognize her own failings. Jon is the most common subject of her anger, as she blames him for getting her stuck in the archives, for being the Archivist, for not believing her first statement, for failing to recognize [=NotSasha=], etc.
* ParanormalInvestigation: Her Website/YouTube show is about this. She insists at first that it is more evidence-based than the Archives, although they sometimes ham it up because looking at temperature readings isn't very exciting on-camera, but later discovers that her show and others like it have been unconsciously avoiding real paranormal sites.
* OptOut: Melanie can't ''actually'' quit, but she ''can'' [[spoiler:choose to just not do any work. Which she does, as she believes doing anything that empowers the Beholding is evil.]] And then when [[spoiler:Jon discovers it ''is'' possible to unbind yourself from the Beholding by [[EyeScream blinding yourself]], she takes an awl to her eyes.]]
* RunningGag: A short-lived one; when she records statements (at least the first few times), she claps her hands as a sound marker when starting to read and finishing reading the statement, likely a holdover from her experience working in visual media and editing.
* ScrewDestiny: So far Melanie is the only person known to have [[spoiler:severed her ties to two different powers]].
** [[spoiler:Melanie spends most of seasons 3 and 4 being slowly corrupted by the Slaughter, coming very close to becoming an Avatar, but before she is fully consumed, Basira and Jon cut the bullet out of her wound, giving her the chance to recover, which she eventually does]].
** [[spoiler:After learning how Eric Delano quit the institute, Melanie does the same, taking an awl to her eyes and severing her ties to the Beholding at the cost of her eyesight]].
* SerialKiller: [[spoiler:It's implied that she would have become this eventually if the Slaughter bullet wasn't removed from her leg, as her patron would not be satisfied with just Elias' and Jon's deaths]].
* TookALevelInJerkass: Becomes increasingly aggressive and abrasive over the course of the third season, culminating in a diatribe about how nobody appreciates the struggle she went through to start a ghost-hunting series.
** She takes another level in Season 4. [[spoiler:Upon her first reappearance, she nearly attacks Jon, blaming him for Tim and Daisy's deaths, and all but growls at him to stay away from her. In Episode 125, Jon realizes this is happening because she was shot by a bullet from an avatar of the Slaughter, which was "infecting" her, increasing her aggression to the point where it nearly consumes other aspects of her identity.]]
* TookALevelInKindness: Having [[spoiler:the cursed bullet out]] and going to therapy in the back half of Season 4 have helps Melanie do this. Escaping her entrapment in the Magnus Institute and moving in with Georgie significantly improves her mental health and she lets Jon know she sees him as a friend despite everything that has happened between them.
* TooMuchAlike: Why she doesn't like Jon. In MAG 191, Georgie says she and Jon are actually pretty similar, and Melanie bitterly quips "at least I hate consistently".
* UnwantedFalseFaith: [[spoiler:In Season 5, she hates being the object of the cult's worship along with Georgie, because of the unbelievable pressure of them taking everything she says as gospel. Also, she hates them calling her the Blind Prophet, but can't manage to talk them out of it.]]
* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:Elias hired her in the hopes that she would attack or hurt Jon and thus mark him for the Slaughter, which she eventually does. That said, Elias admits that he hardly did any manipulation aside from keeping her around, and had nothing to do with her becoming an avatar]].

[[folder:Daisy Tonner]]
!!Alice "Daisy" Tonner
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 061
->'''Voiced by:''' Fay Roberts

A detective and avatar of the Hunt. The metropolitan police force turns a blind eye to her murderous activities, so long as she keeps hunting other spooks.

* AffectionateNickname: She takes to calling Melanie "Mel". When Melanie says she doesn't like it, Daisy jokingly calls her "Ms. King" instead.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Her relationship with Basira is deliberately left vague, since confirming it to be romantic would muddle the message, but they do have a very close relationship that can easily be read as romantic.
* BodyHorror: [[spoiler:We don't get much detail about what, exactly, Daisy looks like after she gives herself entirely to the Hunt, but she ''[[EvilSoundsDeep sounds]]'' less human than anything else in the series, and the one detail we get about her mentions [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily "a hundred sharpened teeth."]]]]
* DisneyDeath: When [[spoiler:Breekon traps her in the Coffin as revenge for her killing Hope in the season 3 finale]], the archival staff have reason to believe she's dead - until [[spoiler:it's revealed in the middle of season four that she's alive after all, just trapped in [[EldritchLocation the Buried]]. Jon's able to get her out]]. [[spoiler:After she succumbs to the Hunt, she is killed off for real by Basira in MAG 179.]]
* FireForgedFriends: With Jon. She originally hates him, believing that he's [[spoiler:one of the monsters [[HunterOfMonsters she's dedicated her life to hunting]] (to be fair, she's not entirely wrong); she would have murdered him after finding him with Mike Crew if [[MoralityChain Basira]] hadn't intervened]]. But after he [[spoiler:goes into the Coffin to rescue her and the two of them end up trapped in the Buried together for three days]], they end up becoming much closer. By the middle of season four, they're arguably the only two members of the Archives that genuinely consider each other friends.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: There is very little except her friendship with Basira separating her from what she hunts. In the Season 3 finale, she goes all the way off the deep end, tearing one of the deliverymen apart with her ''bare hands'', and seems so overcome with bloodlust that she's no longer really a person. As of episode 158, [[spoiler:she fully gives into the Hunt in order to defend Basira and Jon as the Institute is invaded by Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert]].
* HiddenDepths: [[spoiler:When cut off from the Hunt's influence, she reveals herself to be a far kinder and more vulnerable person]].
* HunterOfMonsters: Daisy's whole thing is killing monsters, that is people who have been touched by the Powers. That said she doesn't particularily care to distinguish between willing avatars who spread fear for fun or power, and unfortunate innocents caught up in it.
* LaughingMad: Daisy's reaction to [[spoiler:the Unknowing]] is to go berserk while laughing maniacally.
* KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: After her DisneyDeath in Season 4, she's killed for real by Basira in season 5, after fully succumbing to the Hunt.]]
* KillerCop: She was when she was on the force, performing illegal killing of people involved with the supernatural. Under Elias, it's also implied that she gets up to some rather murderous activities, though by that point she's not a cop anymore.
* MoralityChain: For all her faults, she does genuinely care about her partner, and agrees to work for Elias because he claims Basira would die if she killed him, and so she can stay close to her.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: It's not something she talks about a lot, but after she's [[spoiler:rescued from the Coffin, incarceration in which significantly lessened the Hunt's hold over her, she clearly feels bad about what she did while serving it, particularly because she abused her position as a police officer]].
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Her first name is actually Alice- Daisy is a nickname based on a flower-shape scar she has. It's very easy to forget this.
* PoliceBrutality: Very much so, to the point of having a secret gravesite in the woods for her victims.
* RabidCop: Even when she wasn't outright murdering suspects, she was this, hounding ex-cons and people she believed "deserved" to be locked up and using "operational discretion" as an excuse to ignore due process. More than a few times she's compared to a rabid dog.
* ResurrectionSickness: After [[spoiler:she's trapped in [[EldritchLocation the Buried for six months]], she's extremely weak and has to undergo months of physical therapy - partly because she'd been unable to move for an extended period of time, and partly because she's lost her connection to [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity the Hunt]]]].
* SociopathicHero: Kills monsters, but mostly because she likes killing. [[spoiler:However, her love for murder is exacerbated by the Hunt, and she expresses regret for her actions after she stops serving it]].
* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:Elias specifically requested that she be assigned to investigating Gertrude and Jurgen's deaths so she would be likely to threaten or hurt Jon, thus marking him with the Hunt]].

[[folder:Elias Bouchard]]
!!Elias Bouchard
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 001
-> '''Voiced by:''' Ben Meredith

The head of the Magnus Institute and Jon's superior.

* AmbiguouslyHuman: An avatar of the Beholding, one of the [[SentientCosmicForce Powers]]. Although he looks human, he's just as monstrous as Jane Prentiss or Michael.
* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:In MAG 160, he successfully completes a ritual that brings not just Beholding, but '''''all''''' the Powers into the world]].
* BoxedCrook: After the crew manages to put him in jail, he rapidly gains favor and privileges by using his Beholding powers to help catch other criminals.
* DevilInPlainSight: Head of the Magnus Institute. Also murdered Gertrude Robinson and Jurgen Leitner, and is not only a vessel for the [[SentientCosmicForce Eye]] but [[spoiler:''actually Jonah Magnus'']].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler:His grand ritual as well. When he taunts Jon, he basically admits that he already ''has'' everything he would want out of it; he has an effective means of maintaining immortality and has guaranteed safety from anyone else's rituals. In fact, he knew that he had all of this before he even started grooming Jon for the ritual! In the end, he dies in a far worse situation than he would have had to deal with had he not simply allowed things to run their course. Both of these failures to think things through do go back to his patron, admittedly.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: Perfectly civil with his underlings, even when they tell him to shove it or try to murder him repeatedly. However, he is more than happy to psychically torture people at the drop of a hat as well.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Was once an ordinary archival assistant. People who knew him then are honestly shocked that he's now the Head of the Institute. [[spoiler:Turns out this is both averted and actually {{Foreshadowing}}, as the "Elias" the audience knows is actually a bodyhopping Jonah Magnus. The real Elias Bouchard has been dead for years.]]
* MindRape: One of his more insidious powers is to force traumatic visions into the minds of his victim, doing this to Melanie by showing her how much pain her father was in when he died, and to Martin by letting him know exactly why his mother always seemed distant and resentful of him.
* TheNicknamer: He always calls Basira "Detective", despite her not being an actual detective. When she asks why, he says he just likes the sound of it.
* NotSoOmniscientAfterAll: For all his abilities, Elias is unable know everything and has a limited amount of focus. Basira talks to Elias to distract him from Jon and Daisy planning how to get rid of him.
* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: He's insistent to his staff (and Jon in particular) that every unethical or cruel thing he does is to protect the archives and prevent TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. No one really believes him, and he pretty transparently has ulterior motives, but what they are is a mystery for most of the show. [[spoiler:Eventually he admits to Jon that he never had noble goals; he always wanted to end the world to secure his immortality, and the only reason he wanted the other rituals stopped was just so no one else could do it first.]]
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Why, yes, he murdered two people and sees all of his employees as disposable, but that doesn't mean you get to duck out of paperwork.
-->'''Elias:''' Oh, that reminds me. Make sure you keep any receipts for expenses, assuming you wish to claim them back.
-->'''Jon:''' And assuming we don’t, you know, die.
-->'''Elias:''' Yes. If you die, I’m afraid you probably won’t be able to claim your expenses. Now, if you’ll excuse me?
* TheOmniscient: His Beholding powers seem to extend to knowing people's deepest secrets, such as the incident mentioned in BreakThemByTalking. Although he says he doesn't know ''everything'', because it would be "exhausting", suggesting he knows things that pertain to him (like Melanie's murder attempt) or that he specifically looks for.
* PlayAlongPrisoner: [[spoiler:He only went to jail because it was convenient for his plans (being away from Jon meant Jon couldn't accidentally read his mind and find out his master plan) and just walks out when he decides he needs to be back at the Institute.]]
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: [[spoiler:Is actually Jonah Magnus, founder of the Magnus Institute, using the body of Elias.]]
* SquishyWizard: He has great powers of omniscience and telepathy granted to him by the Eye, but it doesn't give him any special advantages in a physical fight. When Melanie goes to stab him to death, he relies on Jon to talk her down.

[[folder:Rosie Zampano]]
!!Rosie Zampano
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 11
->'''Voiced by:''' Hannah Brankin
Elias' assistant.

* BystanderSyndrome: [[spoiler:Episode 192 ("An Appointment") revealed that she suspected more than once during her time as Elias' assistant that something was up and thought about speaking up and doing something to help the others, but was afraid to lose her job and didn't]].
* ImproperlyParanoid: [[spoiler:Her story in Episode 192 ("An Appointment")]] suggests that she was married before coming to work at the Institute, but it was ended by her paranoia.
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: She is never involved in the ongoing drama with the others much and it isn't made clear if she is even aware of the supernatural events, [[spoiler:until Episode 192 ("An Appointment"), when she is revealed to have gradually figured out that something was off about Elias]].
* SatelliteCharacter: For most of the podcast, she doesn't get much characterization outside of being Elias' assistant.

[[folder:Peter Lukas]]
!!Peter Lukas, Avatar of the Lonely
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 033
->'''Voiced by:''' Alasdair Stuart
A member of the [[CreepyFamily Lukas family]], servant of the Lonely and [[spoiler:new head of the Magnus Institute]]. Appears to be on good terms with Elias.

* AtLeastIAdmitIt: He's quite upfront with the fact that, yes, given the chance, he will absolutely throw the world to the Lonely. But that can't happen for a while, so there's no reason not to be civil!
* TheBet: He likes to make wagers with people; [[spoiler:Simon Fairchild]] speculates that it's because it allows him to easily form temporary partnerships to people without having to get close to them in any way.
* BreakThemByTalking: Rather different than Elias' specialty of MindRape. Peter, an avatar of the Lonely, tries to do this to [[spoiler:Jon once he steps into his "space" to rescue Martin- After Jon initially fails to convince Martin to leave, Peter appears and tells him Martin "made his choice", and that Jon's just as guilty for causing him to make it as he is. He then rubs salt in the wound by asking where Jon's other friends are, forcing him to admit they're either dead, presumed dead, or simply want nothing more to do with him. Peter then claims Jon's the "last one standing", and that while he'd prefer him to leave, it'd be better for him to stay since he can't hurt anyone else if he does. Jon ''almost'' does, given his self-deprecation through season - but unfortunately for Peter, Jon doesn't, and instead uses his Archivist powers to force him to answer his questions, eventually leading to Peter breaking ''himself'' by talking.]]
* TheCaptain: Of the ''[[GhostShip Tundra]]''.
* FairPlayVillain: Peter may be a monstrous servant of a god of loneliness, but he's also an avid gambler, and so a level of fairness is inevitable in many of his interactions. While he explains that this allows him a way to interact and maintain contact with people without feeling any mutual bond, it has the side effect of making those people who he's targeted and managed to survive come away ''far'' richer than they were before. Carter Chilcot noted that while he never heard back from Lukas, he still got his full pay, and when Carlita Sloane survived her brief tenure aboard the ''Tundra'' she walked away with a ''fifty thousand pound'' check. [[spoiler: The only exception to this is his bet with Elias, where when he realizes he's lost he flees to his PocketDimension and takes Martin with him.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: Peter is ''outwardly'' pleasant and polite to people he meets, but his veneer of civility does little to hide his monstrous actions; like Simon Fairchild, Peter will speak kindly to someone as he feeds them to his patron, dooming them to a lifetime of isolation and horror with a smile on his face merely for slighting him, or for no reason at all. Paying attention to his conversations with Martin shows that his actual words below the polite tones are cruel and dismissive, and the finale of season 4 shows that all his benevolent behavior was merely a means of [[spoiler:{{Gaslighting}} Martin into believing Peter's lies about the Extinction so he would murder Jonah Magnus and destroy the Institute.]]
* GiverOfLameNames: He admits that the name for [[spoiler:his ritual, The Silence]], was rather uninspired, and that he mostly just came up with it because he assumed a name was required.
* GodzillaThreshold: How he tries to justify his actions to Martin. Yes, he wants to remake the world in the image of a horrifying incarnation of fear itself. But seeing as [[spoiler: the Extinction wants to eradicate all of humanity forever,]] he and the Institute have a mutual interest in keeping the world going.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Under the effects of Jon's Beholding powers, Peter's forced to forced to interact with another person face to face, something he detests.]]
* KickTheDog: His first appearance has him dooming a random man to eternal isolation for no apparent reason.
* MeetTheNewBoss: After Elias is incarcerated at the end of S3, Peter takes over the administration of the Magnus Institute. He's hardly more interested in Institute safety than Elias was.
* NoSocialSkills: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]]. Despite serving an entity based on a fear of loneliness and isolation, he isn't strictly speaking bad in conversations and is very polite and friendly to people he works with (unless he's being confronted, in which case his friendly facade can drop); it's just that he doesn't ''like'' engaging with people directly if he can avoid it.
* PaintingTheMedium: When he talks to Martin, the recording makes loud, whirring sounds, as if the reels are being spun out of sync.
* ThePowerOfApathy: Peter's powers literally come from Apathy as a servant of the Lonely.
* VillainousFriendship:
** Has this, or at the very least, Villainous Professional Respect, with Elias.
** He seems to have a similar relationship with Simon Fairchild, of The Vast, both belonging to families with close ties to one of the powers (though the Fairchilds aren't related by blood) and their respective fears are closely connected. The Lukases and Fairchilds were both involved (along with members of The Dark) in the creation of the space station ''Daedalus''. They at least know each other well enough to make bets with each other.

[[folder:Angus Stacey]]
!!Angus Stacey
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 167

The Head Archivist before Gertrude Robinson.

* BadBoss: It's hard to know what he was like as a person, but he did burn through all but one of his assistants before he himself died, which speaks to at minimum a disregard for safety.
* FatalFlaw: From what little we learn of him, his seems to have been hubris; Specifically the hubris to think he could re-categorize and redefine the Dread Powers, which ultimately got him killed.
* PosthumousCharacter: Long dead by the time we learn of him.
* SatelliteCharacter: Angus is barely a character in his own right, existing mostly to fill out the lore and show that there ''were'' Archivists before Gertrude who did their own thing. He's not even that important to Gertrude's story, and only really connected to Fiona Law, who is herself a very minor character.
* TearOffYourFace: His fate at the hand of a monster Gertrude called The Grinning Wheel, which she later killed.

[[folder:Jonah Magnus]]
!!Jonah Magnus
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 023

The founder and namesake of the Magnus Institute.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Has no explicit relationships, but many of the statements written as letters for him (all written by men) imply that there was something between them and Jonah, often calling him "dear Jonah" and telling how much they miss him.
* BigBad: Arguably shares this with The Web. Throughout the series, he manipulates Jonathan into fulfilling his role as The Archivist and arranges many of the encounters Jonathan has with the other power's. All so he may enact a ritual which will summon all of the powers at once, and rule over what remains of the world for eternity.
* ForcedToWatch: A twisted inversion. His friend, Barnabas Bennett, crossed one of the Lukases and writes to him for help. Magnus chose to do nothing, not out of malice or an inability to help, but because he wanted to see what would happen to Barnabas.
* ImmortalityImmorality: [[spoiler:Explains in "The Eye Opens" (Episode 160) that his whole goal in summoning the Powers into the world is so he himself can become immortal and rule over what's left of Earth]].
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:He bludgeons Jurgen Leitner to death at the end of Season 2, and his ultimate drive was to cheat death; at the end of Season 5, Jon savagely beats him as he begs for mercy, and he's stabbed to death even as he's pleading that he doesn't want to die.]]
* KillAndReplace: He overwrites the bodies of those he intends to possess when he places his eyes in their sockets, and poses as the overwritten character while they are promoted to his Head of Institute position.
* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler:He sustained himself throughout the centuries by killing and possessing the bodies of his employees, all so he could eventually enact a ritual that would damn the rest of the world and make him immortal. While he succeeded, he gets caught up in the Eye with his mind and personality violently taken over, and what's left of him is forced to watch and recount a perpetual vision of terror.]]
* TheOmniscient: [[spoiler:After his failed attempt at the Watcher's Crown, he found that he could turn his sight anywhere he wished. This trait remained even as he hopped between various bodies over the years, so long as his actual body remained in the panopticon]].
* ParasiticImmortality: [[spoiler:Magnus takes over the bodies of successive hosts by transferring his eyes into their sockets.]]
* PosthumousCharacter: He's long dead by the start of the story. [[spoiler:Or at least his original body is. Sort of]].
* SoulJar: [[spoiler:Though his mind no longer resides in his original body, destroying it will kill him]].
* WalkingSpoiler: Talking about him in any detail inevitably moves to the topic of [[spoiler: how he founded the Magnus Institute in service to Beholding, as well as the fact that he's actually Elias Bouchard]].
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:In the finale, once it becomes clear that Jon is legitimately going to kill him, all his smugness vanishes and the immortal mastermind demigod is reduceded to helplessly, desperately begging for his life.]]
* VoiceOfTheLegion: Magnus's voice is this blended with radio static when Jon experiences a flashback of Elias's interview with him.

[[folder:Spoiler Character]]
!!Elias Bouchard
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 001

The real Elias Bouchard, whose body was taken over by Jonah Magnus.

* BrilliantButLazy: Specifically described as such in-universe by his own father, who wanted to avoid having his son become an IdleRich.
* EyeScream: The ritual through which Jonah Magnus took over his body apparently involved removing his eyes and, presumably, replacing them with his own.
* FriendlessBackground: When he was hired for a research position at the Institute, he was basically alone in the world, with his parents dead, as was his only other known close friend, Allan Schrieber.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Elias apparently envied students from lesser, non-elite families that did not have such immense expectations thrust upon them.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Episode 193 ("A Stern Look") revealed that Elias came from a privileged family and his classist father taught him that he was special and better than others and had to work hard to prove it. Unfortunately, later in life, Elias either wasn't academically inclined or [[BrilliantButLazy wasn't dedicated enough to put in the work]] and performed disappointingly in his studies. He still felt like he was somehow entitled to a higher position in life and thought the position at the Institute would be a stepping stone to that goal.
* MindRape: Magnus subjected him to this over the course of an interview for a position with the Institute, to such a degree that Elias feels convinced he must heed the call he feels to the Beholding even though he does not understand why it called him and even after he feels horrific images coursing through them.
* PosthumousCharacter: Is long-since dead when the story begins.
* TheStoner: During his university years, he was a bit of a pothead.

!!!Gertrude's Assistants
[[folder:Fiona Law]]
!!Fiona Law
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 29
A former Archival Assistant who worked under Head Archivist Angus Stacey, and later his successor, Gertrude Robinson.

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:Her ultimate fate was to be pushed into the Coffin by Emma Harvey, a fate which fainting wouldn't save her from. Since the Buried is loathe to give up its victims, one can assume that she's still down there]].
* CowardlyLion: She's noted to have been an odd mix of curious and cowardly, as she would always push forward to learn as much as possible but turn tail and run the second it became obvious that there was any real danger.
* DramaticallyMissingthePoint: She was locked in with the horrors so often that she concluded that spontaneously locking doors was a sign of the Powers manifesting. [[spoiler:She never considered that her coworker Emma might be locking them intentionally]].
* EarlyBirdCameo: She's first mentioned in episode 29, 138 episode before her story would be fully explained.
* FaintInShock: She tended to faint whenever she was terrified, which actually saved her from a lot of encounters with the Powers; An unconscious person isn't afraid, so killing them doesn't benefit them in any way.
* FatalFlaw: Curiosity. Despite being scared to the point of unconsciousness again and again, she just couldn't help but push further into the unknown to learn more.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Her cause of death mentioned in episode 29 is complications during a liver transplant. [[spoiler:Episode 167 reveals that she was actually pushed into the Coffin by Emma]].
* OptOut: Defied. [[spoiler:It's mentioned that Angus' death could have freed her from the Eye, but she chose to stay on as Gertrude's assistant voluntarily]].
* PosthumousCharacter: The first time she's mentioned is also the same episode where we learn that she died over a decade prior.
* SoleSurvivor: She was the last surviving assistant from the previous Archivist before Gertrude and his [[spoiler:ill-fated attempt at re-defining the Dread Powers. That said, she did not survive Gertrude's tenure]].
* UnwittingTestSubject: [[spoiler:She was unaware until her final day that Emma was using her as a guinea pig]].

[[folder:Emma Harvey '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
!!Emma Harvey
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 154
A former Archival Assistant who worked under Gertrude.

* AffablyEvil: Eric mentions her as someone who was nice to him, contrasting her against Gertrude, implying that she was a rather pleasant person when not sacrificing her coworkers to the Dread Powers out of morbid curiosity. This would also explain why neither Fiona nor Sarah suspected her.
* TheConfidant: Described as having been this for Gertrude, the only person she would trust enough to talk about her plans with and the only one who knew about her and Agnes' connection. This trust was part of the reason Gertrude never suspected her of treachery.
* DirtyCoward: For all her curiosity and willingness to get her hands dirty to learn something new, Emma seems to have drawn the line at anything that would put her in actual danger. She only ever used her coworkers as test subjects, and avoided Eric specifically because Mary Keay, someone much more dangerous, had already claimed him.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: As she burned to death, she refused to give the fire the satisfaction of being afraid.
* ForScience: The only stated reason she had for pushing her coworkers into horrible and dangerous situations was out of curiosity, just to see what the Dread Powers would do.
* KarmicDeath: The woman who kept secrets from Gertrude died without ever realizing that she arranged her death. She also got Sarah killed by way of the Desolation, and was herself killed by Agnes, the Desolation's messiah.
* PosthumousCharacter: She's been dead for a few years by the time she's mentioned, killed by Agnes Montague at Gertrude's behest.
* TheResenter: Not explicitly stated, but it's strongly implied that she was resentful of Fiona and Sarah. At least part of her motivation for pushing Fiona and Sarah into dangerous situations seems to have been that both had an uncanny nack for getting out of them, and Jon mentions that Emma was "desperate" to see Sarah consumed by the Spiral, and disappointed when she survived.
* {{Sadist}}: Apparently her entire motivation for taking Sarah as her unwitting test subject was to find out how much horror it would take to break her.
* TokenEvilTeammate: While Gertrude was no saint herself, Emma was far worse, letting her friends and coworkers die just to satisfy her curiosity.
* TouchedByVorlons: She was, if not an avatar, then at least influenced enough by the Web to start manifesting physical signs of it, and had to wash cobwebs out of her hair every day from the day she lied to Gertrude about Fiona's death. The Web supplied her with whatever she needed to keep her true business secret from Gertrude.
* WalkingSpoiler: It's very hard to discuss her, since she's only discussed (outside of a single mention of her first name) in a single episode way into the fifth season.

[[folder:Eric Delano]]
!!Eric Delano
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 62
->'''Voiced by:''' Richard Soames
A former Archival Assistant who worked under Gertrude, husband of Mary Keay, and father of Gerard Keay.

* DeaderThanDead: [[spoiler:Gertrude burned his page after he gave his statement and told her how to quit, on his own request]].
* EyeScream: [[spoiler:How he quit the Institute. According to him it's sufficient to destroy your eyesight (pointing out that one could do that without destroying the eyes with acid), but he went all out and destroyed his eyes entirely]].
* GoodParents: Part of why he wanted to quit the Institute is so he could be there for his son. [[spoiler:Sadly, he never got the chance]].
* NightmareFetishist: Downplayed. Eric seems to have been pretty normal all things considered, but he describes Mary as beautiful in the same way a ''shark'' is beautiful, and his attraction apparently didn't lessen after learning she was a murderer.
* PosthumousCharacter: He's been dead for a few years by the time we hear about him [[spoiler:and his only statement is given posthumously]].
* PrecursorHeroes: Downplayed in that he is hardly a hero (quite the opposite given that he helped Mary Keay with her business), but [[spoiler:his work to discover a way to sever his connection to the Beholding is later used by Melanie to finally quit the Institute]].
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: He somehow discovered [[spoiler:how to sever ones connection to the Eye, something not even Gertrude could figure out]].
* TheResenter: His statement makes it clear that he is not fond of Gertrude, in particular her tendency to keep secrets and gaslight her assistants into thinking they were imagining whatever supernatural happenings occurred around them. Part of what drew him to Mary was that she was at the very least honest about being a horrible person.
* ScrewDestiny: [[spoiler:As far as we know, Eric is the only person bound to the Eye that has fully managed to sever himself from its influence, a feat that would later be replicated by Melanie]].
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He [[spoiler:was killed by Mary after he blinded himself, since she had no use of a blind husband]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Michael Shelley]]
!!Michael Shelley
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 26
->'''Voiced by:''' Luke Booys
A former archival assistant who worked under Gertrude Robinson, brought on to replace the late Fiona Law.
For the entity he became afterward, see Michael/Helen under servants of the Spiral.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: It's very vague how much of Michael is still alive inside the Distortion. It could be him driven mad, it could be an entity wearing his body, it could be a poorly made copy, or anything in between.
* TheBabyOfTheBunch: Michael is described as too young to work as an archival assistant, and it's specifically mentioned that Sarah, who was hired after him, was older.
* EtTuBrute: He was betrayed by Gertrude, his boss whom he trusted a great deal. The betrayal hit him so hard that it carries over into the Distortion's poor recreation of him, manifesting as anger towards the Archivist.
* {{Irony}}: Michael was kept wholly unaware of the supernatural as part of Emma's experiments, yet he's the only one who became something like an avatar, while Fiona and Sarah simply died (or worse).
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Done on purpose. Emma wanted to know how long a person could be kept in the dark while working directly with the supernatural. As it turns out, their entire life, however short that may be.
* UnwittingTestSubject: Like Fiona and Sarah, he was used as part of Emma's experiments. Unlike them, he was not used to observe the Powers, but rather how long someone could be kept in the dark about the supernatural.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sarah Carpenter]]
!!Sarah Carpenter
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 27
A former archival assistant who worked under Gertrude Robinson, brought on to replace the late Eric Delano.
----
* {{Determinator}}: Sarah was described as having had a fire to her, which gave her an uncanny nack for getting out of encounters untouched. It's mentioned that she spent an entire night staring up into the night sky with a Vast-possessed book, or sleeping in a house haunted by the Spiral, and got out perfectly fine both times. [[spoiler:Even her untimely death was not due to a failing of character, but simply being caught off-guard by a monster of the Desolation]].
* EarlyBirdCameo: She's mentioned as early as in episode 27 as having followed up on Paul [=MacKenzie=]'s statement, making her the earliest appearing of Gertrude's assistants (aside from Michael).
* ExoticEyeDesigns: After an incident in which she stayed under a night sky mapping the stars with a book implied to have been touched by the Vast, one could glimpse the reflections of uncanny constellations in her eyes.
* FamousLastWords: "Hello? I’m from –” [[spoiler:Said moments before a monster of the Desolation burned her to death and consumed the ashes]].
* LastOfHerKind: She was the last new archival assistant hired by Gertrude, as she would never have another.
* PosthumousCharacter: Already dead by the time the series starts.
* UnwittingTestSubject: [[spoiler:Emma used her the same way she used Fiona, pushing her into dangerous situations just to see what would happen]].
[[/folder]]

!The Powers
A rough grouping of 14 unimaginably powerful entities that exist “beside” our reality. The Powers manifest themselves in our reality as monstrous phenomena and entities. They and their human (or formerly-human) followers are responsible for all of the case files the Magnus Institute collects – as well as for the Magnus Institute itself.

[[folder:In General]]
!!The Powers/The Entities/[[spoiler:The Things That Were Fear]]
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 080
----

* TearOffYourFace: His fate at the hand of a servitor of the Stranger known as The Grinning Wheel, whom Gertrude later killed.

* SatelliteCharacter: Angus is barely a character in his own right, existing mostly to fill out the lore and show that there ''were'' Archivists before Gertrude who did their own thing.

!!Agnes Montague, Avatar of the Desolation

* DarkMessiah: [[spoiler:Created by the Cult of the Lightless Flame to assist with their plan for ascension]].

* EvilIsSexy: Multiple people have noted how beautiful she is. (Jude Perry was even partially attracted to the cult because of her).

* SateliteCharacter: Angus is barely a character in his own right, existing mostly to fill out the lore and show that there ''were'' Archivists before Gertrude who did their own thing.

[[folder:Jonah Magnus]]
!!Jonah Magnus
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 023

The founder and namesake of the Magnus Institute.

A former archival assistant who worked under Gertrude Robinson, who was sacrificed to stop a ritual of the Spiral. For the entity he became afterward, see Michael/Helen under servants of the Spiral.

* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Adopts this attitude after she has a bad encounter with a ghost and is drawn in by The Slaughter. She is adamant that killing Elias is the only option they have.

[[folder:Michael Shelley '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]

[[folder:Sarah Carpenter]]
!!Sarah Carpenter
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 27
A former archival assistant who worked under Gertrude Robinson, brought on to replace the late Eric Delano.

* {{Determinator}}: Sarah was described as having had a fire to her, which gave her an uncanny nack for getting out of encounters untouched. It's mentioned that she spent an entire night staring up into the night sky with a Vast-possessed book, or sleeping in a house haunted by the Spiral, and got out perfectly fine both times. [[spoiler:Even her untimely death was not due to a failing of character, but simply being caught off-guard by a monster of the Desolation]].
* EarlyBirdCameo: She's mentioned as early as in episode 27 as having followed up on Paul [=MacKenzie=]'s statement, making her the earliest appearing of Gertrude's assistants (aside from Michael).
* ExoticEyeDesigns: After an incident in which she stayed under a night sky mapping the stars with a book implied to have been touched by the Vast, one could glimpse the reflections of uncanny constellations in her eyes.
* FamousLastWords: "Hello? I’m from –” [[spoiler:Said moments before a monster of the Desolation burned her to death and consumed the ashes]].
* LastOfHerKind: She was the last new archival assistant hired by Gertrude, as she would never have another.
* UnwittingTestSubject: [[spoiler:Emma used her the same way she used Fiona, pushing her into dangerous situations just to see what would happen]].

!The Powers
A rough grouping of 14 unimaginably powerful entities that exist “beside” our reality. The Powers manifest themselves in our reality as monstrous phenomena and entities. They and their human (or formerly-human) followers are responsible for all of the case files the Magnus Institute collects – as well as for the Magnus Institute itself.

[[folder:In General]]
!!The Powers/The Entities/[[spoiler:The Things That Were Fear]]
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 080

[[folder:Michael/[[spoiler:Helen]]]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Luke Booys[=/=][[spoiler:Imogen Harris]]

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler: Perhaps befitting a minion of the Spiral: how much of the Distortion is Micheal Shelly/Helen Richardson, and how much is an alien monster wearing the faces of the dead? Jon is able to confirm that Micheal and Helen are genuinely different beings, but also that the original Helen and Micheal are "gone", and any attempts to clarify how much and what remains gets lost in the twists of the Spiral.]]

* ExactWords: As the Distortion is built on confusion, Michael[[spoiler: /Helen]] cannot directly lie, but also can never be fully truthful. [[spoiler: What finally seals Helen's fate is her letting a lie slip out of panic, letting the Eye finally find her.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: In contrast to [[spoiler:Michael, Helen]] is quite polite to Jon, and carries on a friendly conversation with [[{{Jerkass}} Melanie]]. [[spoiler:However, MAG 187 reveals that [[BitchInSheepsClothing this is a front]] that ties directly into her nature as the embodiment of false friendships. She is friendly so that she can keep people close enough to manipulate and gaslight them.]]

* GlamourFailure: When looked at directly, Michael appears to be a normal human. However, when seen through warped glass, it appears to be very tall and thin, with a body that appears to have no structure, and hands nearly as big as its torso [[spoiler:[[AvertedTrope Averted]] with Helen. She is never described as looking non-ordinary or different from the vanilla version in any way, barring extremely long FemmeFatalons capable of carving flesh.]]
* TheLastOfHisKind: Temporarily, at least. [[spoiler:Michael does mention that the Spiral has many avatars and monsters just like the other Powers, but Gertrude's disruption of the Great Twisting ritual meant that the vast majority of them died and were banished from the world, respectively. At the time that the show takes place, most creatures of the Spiral hadn't found their way back into reality, leaving Michael, and later Helen, as the Spiral's only major active agent.]]
* OneSteveLimit: Averted, with the other reoccurring (and equally villainous) Michael Crew.

* SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan: [[spoiler: Michael was once an assistant of Gertrude Robinson's. In order to stop the apotheosis of the Spiral, Gertrude sacrificed Michael, effectively causing the Spiral to manifest in Michael. Enough of the original remains for it to want revenge.]]
* WildCard: Depending on what's at stake [[spoiler:and whose body it's using]], the Distortion can either be helpful to the Institute staff or try to kill them. As revealed in 187, [[spoiler:this was truly its only real goal. While the Distortion did not want Jon to revert the world and was manipulating him to try and prevent it, it was engaged in a careful performance even before that was a factor, acting just shady enough to be mistrusted while also being helpful and friendly enough that the Archive crew, Jon especially, had doubts that perhaps they were being too harsh on it. There was never any end to this other than delighting in the fear, self-doubt, and paranoia.]]
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: In MAG 101, [[spoiler:the Distortion destroys the "Michael" incarnation, because residual hatred for the Archivist temporarily overrode its actual aims, and makes Helen its new avatar.]]

* [[HeroesLoveDogs Heroes Love Cats]]: [[spoiler: Once asked why she worked so diligently against the powers, she states that a cultist of the Lightless Flame killed her cat. WordOfGod pointedly refuses to confirm if this did indeed happen or if this is Gertrude's idea of a joke.]]
* IWorkAlone: [[spoiler:Increasingly embraced this mentality as she aged, confiding in others less and less and leaving her assistants to their own work as she pursued hers. This eventually led to her death at Elias' hands, as she had nobody to help her in her plan to destroy the Archive. Episode 167 makes it clear that this trope is the sticking point between her and Jon, who refuses to stop trying to protect his friends even as he loses touch with his humanity.]]

* ObfuscatingDisability[=/=]ObfuscatingStupidity: Pretended to be much frailer than she actually was in front of her assistants, letting them believe she was a harmless older lady who needed help and protection. Likewise, the bad archival skills Jon bemoans at the beginning of episode 1? [[spoiler:Entirely deliberate sabotage of her ostensible employer.]]

** The finale of the first season reveals that she didn't just die in unusual circumstances but was actually murdered, as the team discover her body underneath the Institute; [[spoiler:we get to hear recordings made by her beginning in the second season; and the third season focuses heavily on her research into, and thwarting of, the Powers. Season Four shows that she was alive two months longer than we had been lead to believe, before being killed by Elias while attempting to burn down the Institute.]]

[[folder:Eric Delano]]
!!Eric Delano
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 62
->'''Voiced by:''' Richard Soames
A former Archival Assistant who worked under Gertrude, husband of Mary Keay, and father of Gerard Keay.

* DeaderThanDead: [[spoiler:Gertrude burned his page after he gave his statement and told her how to quit, on his own request]].
* EyeScream: [[spoiler:How he quit the Institute. According to him it's sufficient to destroy your eyesight (pointing out that one could do that without destroying the eyes with acid), but he went all out and destroyed his eyes entirely]].
* GoodParents: Part of why he wanted to quit the Institute is so he could be there for his son. [[spoiler:Sadly, he never got the chance]].
* NightmareFetishist: Downplayed. Eric seems to have been pretty normal all things considered, but he describes Mary as beautiful in the same way a ''shark'' is beautiful, and his attraction apparently didn't lessen after learning she was a murderer.
* PrecursorHeroes: Downplayed in that he is hardly a hero (quite the opposite given that he helped Mary Keay with her business), but [[spoiler:his work to discover a way to sever his connection to the Beholding is later used by Melanie to finally quit the Institute]].
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: He somehow discovered [[spoiler:how to sever ones connection to the Eye, something not even Gertrude could figure out]].
* TheResenter: His statement makes it clear that he is not fond of Gertrude, in particular her tendency to keep secrets and gaslight her assistants into thinking they were imagining whatever supernatural happenings occurred around them. Part of what drew him to Mary was that she was at the very least honest about being a horrible person.
* ScrewDestiny: [[spoiler:As far as we know, Eric is the only person bound to the Eye that has fully managed to sever himself from its influence, a feat that would later be replicated by Melanie]].
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He [[spoiler:was killed by Mary after he blinded himself, since she had no use of a blind husband]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Peter Lukas]]
!!Peter Lukas, Avatar of the Lonely
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 033
->'''Voiced by:''' Alasdair Stuart
A member of the [[CreepyFamily Lukas family]], servant of the Lonely and [[spoiler:new head of the Magnus Institute]]. Appears to be on good terms with Elias.
----

!The Powers
A rough grouping of 14 unimaginably powerful entities that exist “beside” our reality. The Powers manifest themselves in our reality as monstrous phenomena and entities. They and their human (or formerly-human) followers are responsible for all of the case files the Magnus Institute collects – as well as for the Magnus Institute itself.

[[folder:In General]]
!!The Powers/The Entities/[[spoiler:The Things That Were Fear]]
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 080

* AlmightyIdiot: It's revealed in season 5 that, [[spoiler:with the exception of [[TheChessmaster The Web]] and [[OmnicidalManiac The End]], the entities are essentially just pure hunger with no actual minds or wills to act on that desire or any ability to understand the world except through human metaphors. They're framed as closer to [[AnimalisticAbomination starving animals]] than actual people]].
* AmbiguousSituation: At times, the Powers seem to bleed into each other (Jon notes that the incident in "Love Bombing" has elements of both the Flesh and the Corruption); several offhand comments suggest that the list of fourteen is only one idea of how they work.
* AnthropomorphicPersonification: [[spoiler:Season 4 introduces the possibility that the Powers can manifest not just as various monsters and weird phenomena but also as something approaching actual identities. The End is apparently male, and the Web female; it's later revealed that not only are these the only two Powers with a gender, they're the only two Powers with something like the human capacity for self-awareness and planning for the future.]]
** How anthropomorphic they really are is left up in the air, and most of the characteristics ascribed to them seem to be entirely projection on the part of their worshippers. Their cults usually end up running into the obvious problem with worshipping an EldritchAbomination: it's so far beyond human comprehension that there's no way to tell what it actually ''wants,'' or if it wants anything at all.
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Powers tend to manifest certain objects with unusual characteristics.
* BadPowersBadPeople: “You feed them, and they feed you". The longer one serves the Powers (becoming stronger in the process), the more alienated from humanity one becomes.
* BigBadEnsemble: Collectively they make up the ultimate force of evil in the TMA-verse, being responsible for pretty much every supernatural incident heard in the show so far. [[spoiler:The Season 4 finale has them finally [[TheBadGuyWins enter the world physically]], setting them (and their summoner, [[TheDragon Jonah Magnus]]) to take the stage as proper Big Bads for the final season.]]
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: As far as the Powers are concerned, anything that causes the kind of fear they embody is good, anything that reduces that fear is bad.
* DevilButNoGod: The closest thing the setting has to a benign faction is the Beholding, and that’s only insofar as their body count primarily comes from depraved indifference, rather than outright malice. [[spoiler: And then this turns out to be a lie, and the Eye is the Power responsible for triggering the Change via Jonah Magnus and plunging the world into hell. The ''actual'' closest thing to a benign faction is the Web, and that's because the Web would prefer to slowly and subtly infect a thousand other worlds throughout TheMultiverse than use up this one and die with it. Although since the Eye is an AlmightyIdiot incapable of planning and the Web has been manipulating events to lead to this point...well, it all comes back around.]]
** In Episode 111 Gerard Keay lays out very clearly to Jon that the ''only'' Powers in this universe are the ones based on the emotion of fear, and there are no corresponding Powers based on positive emotions like hope and love. Unlike other universes that run on EmotionalPowers, the characters in this story have the misfortune of living in a CosmicHorrorStory where fear is the underlying principle of the universe.
* EldritchAbomination: Eldritch, powerful (to the point of being called The Powers), fear-based entities.
* EldritchLocation: Smirke's dreams were haunted by strange and horrible places, which he believed to be the truest representations of the Entities.
* EnemyCivilWar: Not that the Powers represent a united faction per se, but there seems to be some pretty strong hostility between the followers of various factions. The Hive, the Earth and the Stranger have all attempted to invade [[spoiler:the Institute]] at various points. Meanwhile, the Spiral hates the Hive, and the mention of the spiderweb pattern on the table locking down some of one of the Not-Them's power suggests the Web don't like the Stranger. The Dark in particular seems to have an intense rivalry with The Eye, but this is almost entirely one sided (as The Eye finds The Dark far too boring to pay attention to). Additionally, even beings touched by the same Power do not necessarily get along: beings of the Hunt are nearly as likely to go after each other as they are anyone else (see: [[spoiler:Trevor and the vampires]]), and religious disagreements among the Lightless Flame get ''really'' violent.
** [[spoiler: The ending reveals that Jon becoming the Archivist and having one of the Eye's most powerful servants become the greatest enemy to its agenda was, in fact, AllAccordingToPlan from the Web, who's been playing the Eye as its UnwittingPawn this whole time.]]
* EvilEvolves: One recurring theme is that as cosmic and eternal as the Powers may seem, they've evolved a great deal over time, changing as human fears evolve over history, and becoming more diverse and more dangerous as time passes (although Gerard Keay believes they've been "mostly stable" since the Industrial Revolution). The last new Power to emerge was the Flesh, sometime after the advent of factory farming. [[spoiler: Season 5 reveals that a new Power, the Extinction, is slowly forming out of the new existential fears of humanity in the 21st century, and that the eldest and original Power, from before human consciousness arose out of animal life, was the Hunt. It also reveals that the Web is the first and only Power to achieve true sapience some time ago and that it's been manipulating humanity and all the other Powers in its EvilPlan ever since.]]
* EvilIsPetty: Some of the Powers may be more patient and into playing the LongGame than others, but that doesn't mean they won't prey on or wreck the life of some random civilians on the side. The Beholding and the Web both take time out of their schedules to harass a woman into a paranoid frenzy or to feast on a few actors or teenagers' insides.
* EvilMakesYouMonstrous: Spend enough time as the focus of one of the Powers, and your appearance will become increasingly inhuman.
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: Inverted in a manner that's intended to terrify its victims. They exist outside our universe as abstract, incomprehensible concepts. In our reality, they manifest as a variety of horrifying creatures. [[spoiler:Although they may also manifest as actual personalities; Antonio Blake potentially refers to the End and the Web as 'him' and 'her' respectively.]]
* GodOfEvil: What else do you call beings of immeasurable scale and power that feed on and embody the primal fears of humanity?
* GreaterScopeVillain: In Seasons 1 and 2, the primary antagonists are [[TheWormThatWalks Jane Prentiss]] and [[{{Doppelganger}} Not!Sasha]]. TheReveal in the Season 2 finale shows that even these entities are mere servants of the Powers, who want to [[HostileTerraforming reshape reality itself]].
* HiveMind: Every Power acts like this for the lesser beings who act as its avatars and servitors, although to what degree said servitors are capable of communication and coordination depends on the nature of the Power in question. The Powers themselves are like this with each other, being aspects of one original being "torn apart" by the human minds they feed on. [[spoiler: Although it's eventually revealed only the Web is conscious enough to qualify as a "mind" at all -- if the Powers are seen as aspects of a single being, then it's like the Web is the conscious mind of a person mostly driven by their unconscious HorrorHunger addictions, one of which, the End, is an outright suicidal [[DeathSeeker death wish]].]]
* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: [[spoiler:In Season 5, they've crossed over into/merged with our reality, and are feasting on the traumatised remnants of humanity. However... in this new world, no new humans are being born or created, so eventually and inevitably the human race will die out -- and, due to the aforementioned merging, the Powers will have nothing left to feast on. And so ''they'' will die as well, terrified and desperate.]]
* HorrorHunger: "You feed them and they feed you". Everything about their actions is driven by the need to "feed" on human fear and suffering, with each one of the individual Powers defined by the particular "flavor" of fear they're addicted to. (And that's leaving aside the ones that feed on the fear of being physically eaten, most notably the Flesh).
** [[spoiler: Season 5 reveals that this really is akin to an addiction, with the Powers as a whole having mindlessly pursued the idea of a ritual to change the world to give them more fears to feed on in the short term while inevitably dooming them to destruction in the long run. It's then revealed that the Web, the only truly conscious Power, engineered this whole scenario because it knew it couldn't stop the other Powers from completing a ritual forever and did so in a way that would give it the opportunity to escape. And it picked the Eye as its patsy in this scheme because ironically the Eye is the stupidest and least self-controlled of the Powers, an AlmightyIdiot driven by its mindless hunger for new experiences and memories.]]
* HostileTerraforming: [[spoiler:There exist Rituals capable of restructuring human reality to make it more amenable to them, with the intent of allowing them through into our world. What form these rituals take vary, as the Powers themselves have no set strictures, leaving it up to their followers to devise an appropriate means and structure, though they tend to involve [[HumanSacrifice people being murdered while being subjected to the Power's fear]]]].
* IHaveManyNames: The Powers each have several different ways people refer to them--the Spiral is also the Es Mentiras, the Corruption is also the Filth, the Stranger is also I-Do-Not-Know-You, etc. Making things more complicated is when stronger aspects of the Powers appear that have their own titles, yet are still their own beings, like the Piper for the Slaughter, the Distortion for the Spiral or [[spoiler:the Archivist]] for the Beholding.
* InTheBlood: Collaboration with various Powers seems to run in certain [[CreepyFamily families]]. This includes the Hans (the Flesh), and the Lukases (the Lonely). Subverted trope with the Fairchilds (the Vast) as they are implied to be an adopted family.
* MysteriousBacker: Sometimes Powers will save random humans from each other, like in Recluse, when Agnes saves the statement-giver from the Web. In the best-case scenario, this is for the simple satisfaction of putting one over on an enemy, meaning the person in question will probably get left alone afterwards. In the worst-case scenario, like poor Father Edwin, the Power ''does'' care, because it wants to use the human for something.
* MysteriousPast: We know what the nature of the Powers is -- they're manifestations of the human (and animal) emotion of fear that have evolved as the concept of fear has -- but we don't know where they came from in the first place and why in this universe fear is linked to transcendent, supernatural beings while no other emotion is. [[spoiler: The finale reveals that one of the things the Eye cannot see is its own past from before it emerged as a distinct Entity from among the other Powers, so even the Archivist can't know the answer to this question. The Powers may have evolved for the first time in this world, or they may have come to this world from another -- just as the Web now seeks to escape this world to another -- and may be a spreading infection throughout TheMultiverse. Georgie considers this the most likely possibility, but no one actually knows the answer except ''maybe'' Annabelle and/or the Web itself, and any answer they gave would be self-serving.]]
* NightmareFetishist: The fact that the Powers originate from the human emotion of fear helps explain why so many people are perversely drawn to their service even though their effects on the world are so purely negative.
* PersonalityPowers: Most of the main servants of the Powers are chosen because their personalities suit their patrons. Avatars of The Filth want (to be infested with) a family, avatars of The Hunt love the chase, avatars of The Beholding crave knowledge, etc.
* ThePowerOfLove: Has been shown repeatedly to be somewhat of a weakness of the Powers. If someone has an emotional anchor they can hold on to-- such as the voice of Evan Lukas in Episode 12, Andrea Nunis's mother in Episode 48 and the sheath to a beloved Kukri in Episode 129-- they can escape alive, if not unharmed.
* PrimalFear: Each of the powers is an embodiment of a primal fear, e.g. fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, fear of being hunted, etc...
* ReligionOfEvil: A few of the Powers, such as the Desolation and the Lonely, have an organized faction of worshippers that treat their allegiance to their Power very much like a religious faith.
* RightHandVsLeftHand: [[spoiler: The finale reveals that all of the events of the story were a GambitPileup between the only two of the Powers that, by their nature, have the ability to think ahead to the future, the End, who seeks the death of all that exists including the Powers themselves, and the Web, who seeks to survive eternally by escaping this universe for another one. Season 5 reveals that the Change seems to be a final victory for the End's agenda, only for it to turn out that this was AllAccordingToPlan for the Web -- whose whole shtick is out-gambiting everyone else.]]
* SentientCosmicForce: Of various human fears.
* SheatheYourSword: If an EldritchLocation or creature associated with a power can't feed off a victim's fear, it may simply give up and move on--Fiona was a case study for unconsciousness being an effective defense against attacks, and Karolina Gorka survived her experience within a cursed train car by simply laying down and waiting to die. [[AvertedTrope It should be noted that this isn't a safe bet, however]]. The Anglerfish is happy to take any victim that gets too close, while the Not-Them feeds on the fear of those adjacent to its victims, and vampires, whatever their sacred power, are noted to prefer victims who are asleep or otherwise can't fight back.
* ShroudedInMyth: Even though "Smirke's List" of the Fourteen Powers is useful enough that all the characters use it as a framework and Robert Smirke probably understood them better than any other human, it's still repeatedly stated by Jon and the other avatars that this is a very limited human understanding of how they work and there are constant exceptions and gray areas in these "rules". In later episodes whenever someone tries too hard to pin down which of the Powers is responsible for something Jon is quick to correct them that these labels are ultimately meaningless.
** [[spoiler: Annabelle's statement about the house at Hill Top Road says that the Web itself isn't sure whether the crack in reality opened by the death of the ancient warrior Eowa was caused by the Corruption or the Slaughter, and that, as different as these two Powers might seem in the present day, at that time they may have somehow still been one and the same.]]
** [[spoiler: Jon's final statement when he becomes the Pupil of the Eye in the finale reveals that the Web itself also doesn't know the answer to the chicken-and-egg problem of whether the Powers created the emotion of fear in human beings or vice versa. And the fact that the Web is the only one of the Powers to be a sapient being both in some ways validates the idea of there being fourteen "separate Powers" and in some ways completely undermines it -- when the Web "manipulates" the other Powers into doing its bidding it isn't really like a person manipulating other people at all, and is more like a single person trying to keep control of their own HorrorHunger appetites.]]
* UncertainDoom: The only thing certain about their ultimate fate is that [[spoiler:They're not in this universe anymore, and that wherever they ended up, they're in the same position they used to be, leaking through reality as monsters and evil locations and artifacts, but unable to feast.]] In fact, it's never clarified if [[spoiler:every Power ended up in a given universe as one of fifteen, and if the Web ever succeeded in freeing itself from the other Powers' interference, although since every past attempt to separate one Power from the others -- i.e. the original rituals -- has failed, most likely this is impossible. There’s not even a guarantee they ended up in a universe with life. If they ended up in one without it, they doomed themselves to consume each other.]]
* TheVirus: Many of them spread their influence like an infection (especially the Corruption, which is specifically themed around this concept). [[spoiler: The finale broaches the theory that they spread from universe to universe like a virus or a cancer, turning the mundane and relatively-benign fears and hatreds of living things in those dimensions into something malignant and supernatural.]]
* WasOnceAMan: The eventual fate of those who follow a given Power long enough. Some may appear quite human, but the resemblance is only [[HumanoidAbomination superficial]].
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: Followers of various Powers seem to be at odds with one another as often as not. The fact certain Powers appear to draw their power from opposing fears doubtless has something to do about it.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Those who serve as avatars of the Powers generally have a tenuous grip on reality as we understand it. (Of course, that's assuming they still have ''minds'' as we understand them; "Michael" seems to consider itself more of an appendage than a person, but it's a rather unique case).
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: As they exist outside of human reality, it’s not even clear if they have a true “form”.
** Episode 160 reveals that [[spoiler:this is what has actually been screwing over their own ''cultists.'' They're not fourteen distinct manifestations, but a manifestation of human fear that has as many faces as humans have things to be afraid of. Some are too similar not to overlap, like the Hunt and the Slaughter, while others rely on each other to define themselves, like the Buried and the Vast. You cannot be afraid of a world that is entirely vast beyond human comprehension, because then there's nothing to compare it to; likewise, you cannot have a world that is entirely buried, because then there is no such thing as ''too'' close. Bringing just one into the world doesn't work - you have to bring them all together.]]
** [[spoiler: One of the post-Change domains, highlighted in Episode 183, is a twisted version of the Magnus Institute intended as a mocking monument to Robert Smirke and every other human who thought themselves capable of devising a theory to categorize and explain the workings of the Powers, where scholars of the Powers themselves get their own IronicHell.]]

[[folder:The Buried]]
!!The Buried, Choke, The Center, Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 099

Plays on claustrophobia and the fear of suffocation. [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Sunken Sky"]].

* AchillesHeel: [[spoiler:Its ritual, Sunken Sky, is foiled by Gertrude introducing a body touched by the Vast into it]].
* AndIMustScream: A recurrent trend in its statements: even after being utterly mangled or confined for longer then it would take to starve to death, its victims remain alive and conscious. Breekon claims that death cannot find you in the Coffin, and it's impled that even a ''corpse'' thrown in it isn't entirely safe.
* BuriedAlive: The fate of several people who encounter it. It's not always literal, however - [[spoiler:Episode 129 shows that drowning is under its influence, as are metaphorical forms of burial, such as being buried in debt]].
* CreatorProvincialism: For whatever reason, Gertrude Robinson, based on a statement originally made in the 1950s (as Episode 99 of the podcast, "Dust to Dust"), came to believe that North America was the center of the Buried's manifestations and (correctly) predicted its ritual would take place in the United States. (She also believed this to be true of the Hunt but was less certain about it and considered it a lower priority).
* {{Foil}}: To the Vast, the fear of wide, empty spaces, easily the best example of two Powers being opposites of each other. This is highlighted by [[spoiler:Gertrude stopping the Buried's ritual with the remains of someone marked by the Vast]]. However, they also provide an example of why [[spoiler:no one Power could be brought into the world on its own. As Jonah Magnus put it, "Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down. To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down."]]
* GeniusLoci: Compared to the other entities it's often treated as or referred to as a place rather than a being, but it appears just as active as the other entities.
* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: One of its associated artifacts is a coffin with "Do Not Open" scratched into it, which contains the Buried's domain of power and can compel people to walk into it. Two statements it shows up in involve heavy, downward-driving rain when it's enticing a victim.
* MadnessMantra: The man from "Dig" becomes so obsessed with the word that he felt compelled to dig into the ground wherever he was, [[spoiler:eventually digging himself so deep into the ground that his pit collapsed on him and killed him]].
* OutOfFocus: A curious example; the Buried does show up in the story a good deal, thanks to the Coffin, but unlike the other Powers it doesn't have an avatar, so the aims and motivations of people who might follow or serve such an entity are left almost totally unexplored.
* RuleOfSymbolism: The Buried isn't just associated with being physically trapped but metaphorically trapped by obligation -- a telltale sign of a statement involving the Buried is often someone who's forced to go or stay somewhere by poverty or debts. [[spoiler: The inhabitants of its post-Change domain, the Field of Worms, are all said to have been desperately poor in their previous lives.]]
* TheWallsAreClosingIn: Its manifestation as the book ''The Seven Lamps of Architecture'' causes people to be entombed within walls when read, unless it's read within a building designed by Robert Smirke. Also seen in "Underground", as Karolina describes the London Underground car she’s in being slowly crushed from either side.

[[folder:The Corruption]]
!!The Corruption, The Hive, Filth, Crawling Rot

Plays on the visceral fear of insects, vermin, infection, and decay.

* AlienKudzu
* ArcVillain: Through the Flesh Hive, of Season 1.
* FesteringFungus
* BugsHeraldEvil: The fear manifests this way, and if you let them get in, they can take you over and turn you into a Flesh Hive.
* HufflepuffHouse: The least-known about of all of the powers. [[spoiler:The name of its Ritual isn't known]], none of its avatars have spoken on recording outside of Jane Prentiss rattling out an "Archivist" in Episode 39, and it has been generally OutOfFocus since Season 1.
* IJustWantToBeLoved: Curiously, a strong motivation for many of those who fall under its sway. Much like followers of [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Nurgle]], they associate the creatures and diseases that reside within them as showing them the affection they often lacked in their everyday lives.
** Indeed, unhealthy relationships seem to be part of the Corruption's domain. Unlike the aforementioned Nurgle cultists and daemons [[EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily who often share a genuine sense of camaraderie despite being twisted, violent monsters]], any cults or other organizations that form around the Corruption rarely take long to demonstrate that they're manifestly more destructive and painful to the participants than they could ever be to any enemy.
* InstantDeathRadius: Because of the way its powers work, exposure through touch, even slightly, almost certainly guarantees one's demise, assimilation, or both. All you need is one worm to get in, or in the case of more microbial threats, just to touch the wrong surface. Even then, the radius can be bigger than arms' length, given that Prentiss' worms had an astounding ability to leap several feet at high speed.
* ThePlague: One of its manifestations in the form of a DeadlyBook modeled after ''Journal of a Plague Year''. Its exact effects are unknown, but involve the infection of buildings.
** PlagueMaster: John Amherst, one of its avatars, spreads horrifically contagious diseases wherever he goes.
* PestController: Ants, wasps, worms...
* TheSwarm: Its avatars exhibit HiveMind on some level, though not to a total degree.
* TheWormThatWalks: Jane Prentiss, one of its avatars, takes this form after she was exposed to a "wasp's nest".

[[folder:The Dark]]
!!The Dark, Mr. Pitch, The Forever Blind, The People's Church of the Divine Host

Plays on the fear of the dark. [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Extinguished Sun"]].

* DarknessEqualsDeath: A recurring theme of its monsters is that once you're out of the light, you're as good as dead.
* GrandTheftMe[=/=]BackFromTheDead: Maxwell Rayner has existed for several centuries, and death doesn't seem to keep him down for long. However, he does appear to switch bodies at several points.
* LightIsNotGood: Servants of the Dark, such as Manuela Dominguez, regard light as destructive and corrupt, and darkness as the true beneficial state.
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: [[spoiler: Their ritual, The Extinguished Sun, would create a world of total darkness where light isn't even a concept]].
* MurderWater: The Dark is associated with water, and several events associated with it occur in or nearby water. Edmund Halley was converted to a follower of the Dark after several [[BlackEyesOfEvil black-eyed followers]] took him to a pitch-black pool of water in the woods under a canopy so thick the sunlight didn't reach, and the building where Trevor and Julia interrupted some event happening under the Dark's sway was mentioned to be flooded with ankle-deep water.
* NothingIsScarier: As is to be expected with something that revolves not being able to see what exactly is coming to kill you, most statement givers who encountered the Dark never manage to get a clear description of the things tormenting them. A notable example is the Still and Lightless Beast; despite being featured in several episodes and having a central role in [[spoiler:the Extinguished Sun ritual]], it is never described in any capacity.
* ProphetEyes: Several people influenced by the Dark gain milky-white eyes.
* SerialKiller: The first we see of The Dark is through its servant Robert Montauk, who is one of the most prolific serial killers in the United Kingdom.
* UnknownRival: The Dark and its servants have an intense hatred of The Eye and those who follow it; Dark controlled spaces are shielded from the Watcher's gaze, the various iterations of Maxwell Rayner's cult have all had a closed eye motif, an ancient cult of The Dark is implied to have destroyed an earlier iteration of the Archives, and when they enact their grand ritual, a servant of The Dark comes to the Institute to [[EvilGloating gloat]] and offer the chance of surrender. All of this is very justified by sight and sense being the Dark's LogicalWeakness. For their part, it's indicated that The Eye and it's servants couldn't care less about the Dark, [[spoiler: Elias having Maxwell Rayner killed simply to advance his plans for Jon and responding to the Extinguished Sun ritual by just sitting back and letting it fail on its own.]] This is potentially notable in the case of The Eye itself, [[spoiler: during the 'grand tour' of the Domains Jon is sent on post-Change, only one that he visits belongs to the Dark, and it's basically a temporary holding area for children to grow up in until they develop fears the Eye would ''actually'' find interesting.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: None of the Powers have any actual moral compunction about this, but [[spoiler: ep. 173 reveals the Eye finds children's fears to be relatively boring and gives the Dark the "Night Street" domain so it can play around and experiment with children's fear of darkness and monsters until they grow up into something more interesting.]]

[[folder:The Desolation]]
!!The Desolation, The Lightless Flame, Blackened Earth, The Devastation, The Ravening Burn
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 012

The fear of destruction and pain. [[spoiler:Its ritual is known as "The Scoured Earth"]].

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: It comes with the territory, but the followers of the Lightless Flame relish ColdBloodedTorture and cruelty for its own sake. [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with Agnes Montague [[spoiler: their messiah]], who at least shows hints of compassion, [[spoiler: which lead directly to [[DrivenToSuicide her suicide]].]]
* ArchEnemy: Among the other powers, the Desolation has a specific hatred for the Web, being the "chaos" in the OrderVsChaos dichotomy while the Web is "order". Agnes Montague has a thing for the symbolism of torching cobwebs. [[spoiler: Of course, in the end it turns out the Desolation was just as much the Web's UnwittingPawn as everyone else.]]
* TheDiscoveryOfFire: Is said to have entered the world at this point in human history.
* EvilIsBurningHot: Its worshippers have created the Cult of the Lightless Flame, embracing all of the bad associations of fire (destruction, burning), while rejecting its positive associations.
* ForTheEvulz: Why they do things.
* HumanoidAbomination: Its most devoted servants immolate themselves and become...something else. [[spoiler: The something is wax, which is why they don't age or need to eat.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: See the entry for Sadist, below. Every encountered member has been cruel, malicious, and [[EvilIsPetty needlessly]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking dickish]].
* {{Sadist}}: The Cult of the Lightless Flame worships [[ForTheEvulz meaningless destruction and cruelty]] as an end in and of itself. It especially loves to destroy things people love; one of the cultists, Jude, says she chose her first murder victim specifically because his life was looking up and he had lots of people who would miss him.
* TokenGoodTeammate: Agnes Montague, arguably. She saves the life of a statement giver in Episode 59, and seems to genuinely care for Jack Barnabas in Episode 67.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The End]]
!!The End, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 062

Plays on the fear of Death. [[spoiler: It apparently either does not have a Ritual, or at least has no interest in performing one]].

* ChessWithDeath: Or backgammon or roulette or trivia. It's mentioned chess is generally a bad idea, as the game has zero luck in it and Death will win every time.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: One of its {{Deadly Book}}s details a series of gruesome deaths throughout the centuries, including the death of whoever the reader is. The more frequently this book is read, the closer and more gruesome the death becomes.
* DeaderThanDead: Played with; a lot of what the End does is ''denying'' this to people and creating various forms of TheUndead, but ultimately anyone the End chooses to truly kill ends up this. [[spoiler: It turns out this is the only way anyone can die and escape the IronicHell the Earth has become after the Change, and eventually, with no new souls being created, this ''will'' happen to all life in the universe and then the Powers themselves.]]
* EvilerThanThou: Potentially, compared to the other Powers. [[spoiler:In Episode 168 ("Roots"), Oliver Banks predicts that, once the End has consumed the last living creature on Earth capable of feeling fear, it will turn its attention to ''the other Powers'', who by that point will have cause to fear their own ends since there's no one left whose fears can feed them]].
* ForeseeingMyDeath: Not ''his'' death, but Antonio Blake can see those around him who are fated to die soon.
* FateWorseThanDeath: The End has ways to keep certain people ''around'', but they're not exactly ''alive'' anymore. Become a Grim Reaper, and you won't be able to eat, or sleep, but you also won't be able to stop. Get stuck in the skin book and you're in for a world of constant pain and being summoned whenever someone wants information you have.
* TheGrimReaper: The Grim Reaper(s) actually exist, in classic skeleton-in-a-cloak sense, all of them being part of a cycle of avatars passing on undeath.
* LeonineContract: What service to it amounts to. You offer up innocent people to it as sacrifices, and in return you don't die. Yet.
* {{Necromancy}}: One of the {{Deadly Book}}s associated with it, simply referred to as "The Skin Book", is made of human skin and can have the souls of the dead bound to it.
* NonMaliciousMonster: Due to the End's proclivities when it comes to choosing them, most avatars of the End lack a lot of the negative traits of other powers. The ''worst'' people affiliated with the End simply amount to being cowards who have proverbial guns to their heads, such as [[LifeDrinker Justin Gough and Tova McHugh]]. Antonio Blake is downright helpful.
* NotAfraidToDie: [[spoiler: If the post-Change world goes on long enough, it will eventually kill every living thing, then the other powers, then itself. It's looking forward to it.]]
* ObviouslyEvil: [[InvertedTrope Inverted.]] Most avatars get the way they do due to prior contact with a Power wherein they felt a draw towards it or a particularly strong fear of it. The End consistently makes avatars out of largely normal people, for no clear reason, and seemingly at random.
* OnlySaneMan: Among the Powers, in the sense that it seems to be the only one of them that seems capable of long-term thinking regarding [[spoiler:rituals. Before the Change, its followers never attempted a ritual to bring it into the world; Peter Lukas believed this to be because if the fear of death managed to take over the world, it would cause the death of any living creature that could experience fear and in doing so wipe out its own food supply. After the Change, its avatar, Oliver Banks, points out that the way reality has shifted into a closed system of fear, the End's domains will eventually be responsible for the permanent deaths of every living human and achieve the same result]].
** [[spoiler: Later revealed to share this capacity for future planning with the Web; it's a matter of much debate whether the End's desire for final respite from the Fears' eternal existence of inflicting hell on all living things or the Web's dream of continuing this life indefinitely is the "saner" motivation.]]
* OmnicidalManiac: [[spoiler: It's one of the two entities capable of longterm planning. Specifically, it's planning to wipe out all living things, and thus all fear, the entities and itself.]]
* PragmaticVillainy: Peter Lukas theorizes that the End will never [[spoiler: attempt a ritual because the End has no reason to. It's already getting everything it wants--only beings already specifically committed to another Power are immortal, so it has a nice fat piece of the pie--and as the fear of ''death'', if it took over the world it might actually run out of people to be afraid of it]].
* SadisticChoice: Servants of it can (usually) stop whenever they want. They just stop breathing as well.
* TokenGoodTeammate: In a horribly twisted way, the End is this for the other Powers ''while being an OmnicidalManiac''. [[spoiler: After the Change, it's revealed that the only hope for the future the human race really has is the fact that their suffering will end when the End consumes them and they find the respite of true death. Indeed, the fact that the End can and will eventually kill the other Powers when it finally kills all the humans they feed on is the only meaningful threat that can be used against them. Our heroes spend some time discussing the fact that letting it finally destroy this universe and everything in it might be the morally preferable option to enabling the Web's plan to let the Powers infect the rest of TheMultiverse forever.]]
* WeAllDieSomeday: One reason why it's content with not trying to fully manifest with a ritual. In the words of Peter Lukas, "It knows that it gets everything eventually, so why bother?"
* YouCantFightFate: Befittingly for the fear of one's own death, inevitability tends to be a major theme in statements featuring the End. Fighting against its influence usually tends to just make the final outcome more violent and horrible. This is theorized to be the reason why [[spoiler: it doesn't have a ritual -- it'll still get everyone in the end anyway.]] Season 5 reveals that [[spoiler: given enough time, it fully intends to collect every human on Earth, and finally [[KillTheGod the Powers themselves]].]]
* YourMindMakesItReal: The End has more association with dreams than the other Powers-- Antonio Blake [[spoiler:aka Oliver Banks]] is able to see omens of death in his dreams and Justin Gough from Episode 113 seemingly loses his ability to kill people through carbon monoxide poisoning after Dekker removes his ability to dream via lobotomy.

[[folder:The Eye]]
!!The Eye, The Beholding, The Ceaseless Watcher, It-Knows-You
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 012

Plays on the fear of being watched, being judged, having your deepest secrets exposed and of learning things you'd rather not know. The Eye is the true patron of The Magnus Institute, empowering some of its employees to record and observe the supernatural in an unusually focused manner. [[spoiler:The Eye's original ritual, conceived by Jonah Magnus, was known as "The Watcher's Crown". Their other, successful one is unnamed, though WordOfGod calls it "[[TitleDrop The Magnus Archives]]"]].

* AchillesHeel: Servants of the Eye have immense difficulty viewing the activities of those who serve the Dark.
* AlmightyIdiot: [[spoiler:The finale reveals that for all its knowledge, the Eye is actually the least sentient of the fifteen entities; it records without actually understanding what it's looking at, and can only store past memories of what's already happened with no capacity to predict the future. Most of its smarter moves were actually engineered by The Web.]]
** [[spoiler: It was already known that something like this had to be going on when it was revealed the Eye's master plan to TakeOverTheWorld with Jonah Magnus' mass ritual could only lead to the death of all life in the universe and the deaths of the Powers themselves, playing directly into the hands of the End; Jon comments that the Eye isn't aware of this eventuality and probably wouldn't be aware until it was actually happening, lacking the capacity for foresight.]]
* GrandTheftMe:
** "Panopticon" reveals that [[spoiler:there has only ever been one head of the Magnus Institute: Jonah Magnus himself. He put his original body in the panopticon under the Institute, and has possessed each of his "successors" in turn with some ritual involving transplanting his eyes into their skull.]]
** "A Stern Look" reveals that [[spoiler:this is the Eye's ultimate plan, swapping out the "pupil" of Jonah for Jon, who it designed its Panopticon for.]]
* GreaterScopeVillain: While it's never appeared on screen and may not even be capable of doing so, everything in the podcast is ultimately down to its influence and [[spoiler: plan to reshape reality.]]
* ItAmusedMe: The closest thing to a human motivation the Eye can be said to have is this -- it has a fascination with humans, especially their fear and suffering, and all of its plans are designed to engineer novel horrors it can voyeuristically gawk at. [[spoiler: Episode 173 reveals that in the post-Change world the Eye is allowing children to age up into adults because it finds the simplistic fears of a child to be boring and predictable compared to parental fears, and gave the Dark the "Night Street" domain so it could [[EvilEvolves evolve]] the childlike fear of "monsters in the shadows" into something more complex and interesting.]]
* LackOfEmpathy: Jonah Magnus, founder of the Institute, received a letter from an old friend, pleading for help against malign supernatural forces that were closing in around him. Elias notes that Jonah could easily have saved him, but chose not to, simply out of curiosity for what would happen.
* LogicalWeakness: Its manipulative scope is terrifying given how far its powers extend, but there are some ways around it.
** Those of the Dark cannot be reliably observed due to its nature; even when [[spoiler:Jon has officially become an avatar with greater powers of knowing]], [[spoiler:he]] can't see their hideout.
** While Elias can see pretty much whatever he wants to, he actually has to ''focus'' on what he wants to see, and thus if he's busy inflicting MindRape on someone, he's blind until he finishes with them and can be OutGambitted.
** The Stranger, being a polar opposite of the Beholding, also has some natural defense against it. The Not-Them, one of its servants, had Jon fooled for an entire ''year'', which makes sense: the Stranger's schtick is looking close enough to human that even people who are looking at it won't notice (though as Martin points out in Episode 118 ("The Masquerade"), Elias seems to have seen through the ruse all along).
** Season 5 suggests that The Web's grand scheme is protected from the Eye's all-knowing by its sheer, wide reach. [[spoiler:Jon, whose powers of omniscience are at their peak, tries more than once to "know" what the plan is, but every time, all he sees is countless little actions orchestrated by the Spider, but his powers don't enable him to connect the dots and understand what they are meant to lead up to. Whenever he tries to follow the strands, he gets so caught up in it that he gets lightheaded and almost passes out]].
* MindRape: There's a sliding scale of how badly the Beholding and its servants do this to statement-givers. People who give statements of their own free will (particularly if the statements are written to be recorded later, instead of taken direct from subject) are generally fine, trauma from the original event aside. But if the Archivist [[spoiler: ''forces'' you to give a statement, you are fully aware you're being forced and can do nothing but calmly tell every last horrible detail. Worse, being Beheld in this way seems to mean you can never move past whatever horrible thing your statement was about, even if you were getting better before. Oh, and that the Archivist can watch you ''whenever you think about it''.]]
* NothingIsScarier: Inverted in the most horrifying way possible. Sometimes not knowing what happened is the better option--and the Beholding isn't going to let you take it.
* TheOmniscient: Servants of the Beholding are able to use their TrueSight to pierce the veil of several other powers who rely on hiding or obstruction;
** Jon can track down [[spoiler:Daisy even in the depths of the Buried's coffin]], see through the mind-bending power of the Unknowing with some effort, and is able to [[spoiler:accurately locate residents of the Lonely in their own domain once his powers have advanced]].
** Gertrude, though she didn't use her powers often and apparently didn't completely succumb to becoming an avatar, may have had this since she was able to build an accurate map to the center of the Spiral's maze, a particularly amazing feat as the Spiral revolves around confusion and deceit.
** Elias is ''actually omniscient'', and can see or know pretty much anything he desires to at any time, from any location.
* SinisterSentientSun: [[spoiler: After the Change, the Eye has replaced the Sun in the sky, and the rain is said to be the Eye's tears.]]
* SinisterSurveillance: The Eye’s schtick, and a primary ability of its followers. Elias has the ability to remotely view multiple people at once, and also to view past events. [[spoiler:Jon can see into the dreams of those who give him statements. And, now that he's started hunting, he can watch his victims while they're awake too.]] [[spoiler:Heads of the Magnus Institute, including Elias and James Wright (both of whom were really Jonah Magnus) have been said to be able to see through any eye, even ones in paintings]].
* {{Technopathy}}: To a limited degree; avatars of the Beholding, such as Elias and Samson Stiller (Episode 148) have been able to manipulate surveillance cameras, both to see through them, make them move in ways they're not designed to be able to move (Samson) and manipulate the footage (Elias).
* {{Telepathy}}: Elias is able to look into people's minds, and can forcibly confer knowledge on people. [[spoiler: Jon can also read minds and tear statements directly out of other people’s brains.]]
* TopGod: [[spoiler: Achieves this status after the Change, since its servant Jonah Magnus was the one who caused it. Reigns over the whole world, with the sun in the sky being replaced by a representation of the Eye, and constantly feeds on every other Power's domain by observing all the fears in the world and adding them to its store of knowledge, and imposes its metaphysics on the whole world by dividing all of humanity into "the Watchers" and "the Watched".]]
** [[spoiler: It is revealed, however, to be a PuppetKing -- its reign is hollow because the Change preventing the creation of new human souls means the End will eventually consume every human who lives, after which it will consume the other Entities and itself. Jon notes that the Eye doesn't seem aware of this eventuality or capable of comprehending it, and that it will keep on unwittingly feeding people to the End until it seals its own doom.]]
** [[spoiler: It's then revealed that it was the UnwittingPawn of the Web all along, who picked the Eye as the instrument for its XanatosGambit precisely because of all the Powers it was the most enslaved to its HorrorHunger drive to consume new fears and least capable of genuine thought or self-awareness.]]
* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler: The final statement in episode 200 reveals the Eye was always one of these -- the Web chose the Eye to be its "fool", manipulating it into a TakeOverTheWorld plot that was doomed to fail due to the Web's sabotage, because of all the powers it has the most knowledge and yet as an AlmightyIdiot is the least self-aware.]]
* [[VillainsActHeroesReact Villains Act, Other Villains React]]: Seemingly least proactive of all the Powers, in keeping with its inclination to simply observe. However it may just be playing the LongGame.
** The LongGame is ultimately [[spoiler:confirmed AND averted. While its agent ultimately performs the only successful ritual ever, the Eye is an AlmightyIdiot and cannot act of its own volition.]]

[[folder:The Flesh]]
!!The Flesh, Meat, Viscera

Plays on the fear of the visceral and being consumed. Unique in that its primary source is animals (it gained strength after humans discovered industrial farming). [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Last Feast"]].

* TheBabyOfTheBunch: The newest of the currently roster of fourteen Powers, emerging sometime in the Industrial Revolution when modern factory farming was invented and a large percentage of sentient life on Earth became human-raised livestock. Its manifestations as a human fear tend to revolve around the way modern humans rarely think of ourselves as also being animals made of meat and find the idea fascinating and disturbing when we do.
** Noteably carried over into it's Avatars; while we hear about a few old Flesh Avatars, the two most prominent ones are both relatively young men who've only been servants of the Flesh for a few decades, compared to the other powers who often have Avatars who've served for centuries.
* BodyHorror: While the Flesh is rooted in a fear of being eaten, when it mixes with human body fixations and existential thoughts, the end results can veer into this.
* EvilIsVisceral: A statement outright compares the Flesh to the Demiurge from UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}}. [[spoiler:Appropriately enough, the Last Feast is held beneath a Gnostic temple.]]
* ImAHumanitarian: Cannibalism is a frequent element in Flesh events. As they say, "MEAT IS MEAT".
* SickeningSlaughterhouse: Due to gaining power from the fear of industrial farming created by animals, it has some degree of control over these, as seen in Episode 30. Another similar slaughterhouse appears in Episode 178 ("The Processing Line"), [[spoiler:in which humans caught in the Flesh domain are taken through it and processed and slaughtered like livestock]].
* TwistedEucharist: It's suspected to be involved with Episode 20 ("Desecrated Host"), and the {{squick}}y aspects of the Eucharist are a great hook for its manifestation in general.

[[folder:The Hunt]]
!!The Hunt
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 099

Plays on the fear of being hunted. Like The Flesh, this is a fear that is stronger within animals than in humans. [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Everchase"]].

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: It's not interested in the actual kill; that's the Slaughter's domain. For servants of the Hunt, the ''chase'' is what matters. That doesn't mean they won't hurt normal people, but they seem to prefer targets that provide a better struggle, such as vampires or the worshippers of other Powers.
* CategoryTraitor: All the Powers and their servants [[WeAreStrugglingTogether frequently find themselves at odds with each other]], but Hunters seem by far the most likely to openly interfere with the other Powers' plans, for no reason other than that [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame servants of the other Powers make the best sport]].
** [[spoiler: This ends up being reversed, in a way, by the finale's revelation that the Hunt was the original Power, and that the other Powers are its mutant wayward children -- from its perspective ''they're'' the traitors.]]
* CatsAreMean: [[spoiler: One of the more darkly whimsical moments of Season 5 is finding out that the Hunt has a whole domain dedicated to the fears of small animals hunted by housecats, where Georgie's cat The Admiral now resides as a monstrous version of his past self.]]
* FirstOfItsKind: Episode 200 very strongly implies that the Hunt is the eldest and original of the Powers, existing before humanity evolved as an inchoate manifestation of the fear every prey animal has when hunted by a predator. All the other Powers originate from humanity gaining sapience and the capacity to derive newer, abstract fears from that primal one. (The ability to actually comprehend death and mortality as the result of "being caught" spawned the End, the awareness of nighttime as a specific period of time when predators were more dangerous spawned the Dark, etc.).
* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: Naturally. The Hunt's disciples often seem to target other hunters, as seen with the werewolf going after the game hunters, the true-crime group hunting each other, and the monster hunters tracking down servants of other powers (or their own).
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: Played with. Members of a true-crime reading group end up doing this, but they only hunt one another.
* ItsTheJourneyThatCounts: The hunt doesn't have to be the literal hunting of living creatures-- Episode 133 reveals that people obsessed with reaching an undiscovered location like the Northwest Passage, or a non-existent location (such as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_City_of_Z Lost City of Z]] and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sannikov_Land Sannikov Land]]) can be drawn into its influence, as their hunt is never-ending, and VictoryIsBoring to the Hunt.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: It's by no means sweet, but its servants usually stick to hunting monsters or servants of the other Powers. While the Slaughter is all about wanton violence on the innocent and guilty alike, the Hunt seems more driven by the struggle to survive, and some of the episodes indicate that normal people are less of a challenge than rival worshippers.
* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: Creatures related to the Hunt (such as the one from Episode 31 ("First Hunt"), something that killed an associate of Leitner (Episode 80: "The Librarian") and possibly vampires) are described as having far too many teeth.
* NeverHurtAnInnocent: It varies servant to servant. The werewolf in "First Hunt" has no problem going after regular hunters in the woods. On the other hand, Lisa in "Thrill of the Chase" only targets other hunters and rejects the idea of turning her newfound bloodlust on her flatmates because they wouldn't "get it". Likewise, Julia, Trevor, and Daisy are only really interested in hunting things that serve other Powers.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Seem to have some association with vampires (here, silent telepaths more akin to solitary predators than humans), as well as with [[HeWhoFightsMonsters the people who hunt them]].
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: One unfortunate hunter finds himself encountering one in the United States, albeit he looks like a normal human. A very sharp, drooling human capable of tracking and running through a forest with ease and surviving two rifles' worth of gunshot wounds.
* SlowlySlippingIntoEvil: Of all the Powers, the Hunt seems to be the best at drawing in people with good intentions - hunting monsters, protecting humanity - and slowly twisting them until they become monsters themselves.
* VictoryIsBoring: For the Hunt and its disciples, the chase is all that matters and once their quarry is caught, they quickly move on to another. Case in point, Episode 112 ("Thrill of the Chase") featured a bunch of people who were possessed by the Hunt and proceeded to hunt down and kill each other with knives. When only one remained, she apparently entered a state of apathy, turned herself in and then died in prison; according to Basira, she just "stopped". [[spoiler: This is even present in the Hunt's Ritual, the Everchase: as the name implies, the ritual ''never ends'' and simply sends disciples on an eternal chase for something they will never find, with the occasional prey thrown their way to keep them going.]]
* WorfHadTheFlu: Hunters are very difficult to kill, though this is more for ferocity than sheer durability. Robert Montauk was apparently ''violently'' killed in his cell by Mr. Pitch for turning against the Dark, though this can be attributed to having weakened from being in prison with no way to feed the Hunt.

[[folder:The Lonely]]
!!The Lonely, Forsaken, The One Alone

Plays on the fear of isolation. [[spoiler:Its last known Ritual, engineered by Peter Lukas, was known as "The Silence"]].

* AchillesHeel: ThePowerOfLove, and being reminded that YouAreNotAlone. Three statements that deal with The Lonely (Episode 013, Episode 48 and Episode 150) have those involved escape through some reminder of love-- episode 13 has the voice of Naomi Herne's seemingly-dead fiance, Episode 48 has the face of Andrea Nunis's mother, and Episode 150 has Herman Gorgoli coming to the realization that he still loves his partner.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Statement givers who have been victims of the Lonely tend to be people who claim to in some way enjoy solitude or to be seeking it out when the incidents occur - incidents which might end with them being isolated forever.
** Naomi Herne (Episode 13: "Alone") was an introvert.
** Barnabas Bennett (Episode 92 "Nothing but Remains") was generally content with having never married or had children and reminisced fondly of an occasion when he was left alone during a trip to Egypt.
** Adonis Biros (Episode 108: "Monologue") was an actor who mainly got into acting because he liked doing monologues and didn't like socializing with his fellow cast members.
** Herman Gogoli (Episode 150: "Cul-de-Sac") was going through a nasty separation from his husband and was trying to convince himself he was happier living the single life, eventually being saved from getting stuck in a Lonely dimension by his love for his husband.
* CreepyFamily: The Lukas family appear to have long-lasting connections with the Lonely, dating back at least as far as the lifetime of Jonah Magnus himself. They appear in MAG 13, at the funeral of their local WhiteSheep, and Naomi Herne is shocked at the amount of cold disdain and apathy radiating off of them.
* DeadlyRoadTrip: One of the sub-themes of The Lonely seems to center around travel-- many statements involve people getting lost in foreign countries or cities they're unfamiliar with.
* EldritchLocation: Because of the way the Lonely works, quite a few of its manifestations involve warping areas or a victim's perception of an area to a hideous psychological effect, such as turning a drab suburb into a nameless, feeling-less world of inactivity and anonymity, or crowding a street with hundreds of people who have almost-faces and speak an almost-language.
* {{Invisibility}}: One the more practical applications of the Lonely's powers that its avatars such as Peter Lukas and [[spoiler:Martin]] can use, allowing them to go unnoticed and to further sow alienation and paranoia.
* {{Irony}}: One would expect a family serving an entity that embodies isolationist horror to be the body-hopping ones among the BigBadDuumvirate, but this is not the case--while Maxwell Rayner's "family" is really him pulling a GrandTheftMe, the Lukases actually ''marry'' and ''start families''. Granted, even this is well-spun towards The Forsaken--having people around that you are ''supposed'' to love and have a good relationship with (but don't) can fuel this Power just as well.
* LonelyAmongPeople: The Lonely doesn't necessarily require someone to be physically isolated; it can also target people who have people in their lives, but for whatever reason can't or won't connect to them.
* OminousFog: One major way the Lonely manifests itself is as an eerie, silent fog. This serves to both obscure its victims' surroundings and further isolate them by making it difficult for other people to find them.
* SpaceIsolationHorror: Generally based on a fear of isolation. The Daedalus was built to take advantage of this.
* StepfordSuburbia: This particular concern falls under the Lonely's portfolio -- this fear manifesting subtly as a fear of being ''even more alone'' when surrounded by people you have no way of making a real connection with. [[spoiler:The post-Change version of the London suburbs is implied to be populated by victims of DomesticAbuse.]]
* TokenGoodTeammate:
** Evan Lukas, introduced in Episode 13, was implied to not want anything to do with his family's business of vanishing innocent people. Episode 111 implies that he was killed by the Lukases specifically for this reason. It doesn't stop him from saving his former fiance, however.
** In Episode 159 ("The Last"), [[spoiler:Peter reveals that he had four siblings at one point; of those, two sisters disavowed the family and their association with the Lonely and moved away for good]].

[[folder:The Slaughter]]
!!The Slaughter, The War

Plays on the fear of war, violence, and slaughter. [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Risen War"]].

* TheBerserker: One statement-giver describes a recently-touched fellow soldier as being the most ferocious and savage soldier he had ever seen in the entire war. He clarifies that it is not a compliment.
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: The early twentieth-century poet [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wilfred-owen Wilfred Owen]] was touched or claimed by the Slaughter. Apparently, his best poetry came about after he "saw" the Slaughter while charging the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI Hindenburg Line]].
* TheCorruption: All Powers work like this on some level, but the Slaughter seems to function a lot like disease or blood infection. [[spoiler:Melanie is infected by the bullet in her leg, causing the Slaughter's influence to spread through her and turn her more violent and aggressive, until the infection is removed]].
* MagicMusic: Quite a lot of the encounters with it involve some kind of musical motif-- from its manifestation as the Piper to the fact that [[spoiler:its Ritual, The Risen War, is played to the tune of several drums and things that sound like trumpets.]]
* OutOfFocus: There are only about 9 episodes total that focus on the Slaughter, and most of the time it takes a backseat to more prominent powers. Even its avatars are mostly incidental and part of other stories, and the only one of its avatars to actually play a prominent role, [[spoiler:Melanie, is freed from its influence before she can manifest any Slaughter-themed powers aside from a violent disposition]].
* WarIsHell

[[folder:The Spiral]]
!!The Spiral, Es Mentiras[[note]]Spanish for "It-Is-Lies"[[/note]], It-Is-Not-What-It-Is, Twisting Deceit
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 080

Plays on madness and doubting one’s own sense of reality. [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Great Twisting"]].

* AlienGeometries: A common element of Spiral episodes is warping geometry.
* BedlamHouse: [[spoiler: Runs one of these known as "Wonderland House" after the Change, to feed on the fears of people who were afraid of [[PsychoPsychologist abusive mental health treatment]] in life.]]
* EldritchLocation: While almost all places associated with the Powers have some level of bizarreness, the Spiral really plays it up.
* EndlessCorridor: In "The New Door", the statement-giver ended up in one of these. And [[AFateWorseThanDeath has to go ''back'']].
* SinisterGeometry: If there's a pattern associated with the Spiral somewhere, it will either drive a character mad or actively try to kill them.
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: Avatars of the Spiral are, comparatively, rather rare--due to its nature, being understood or contained is inherently antithetical to it. In fact, its manifestations such as Michael are the result of at least one botched ritual--introducing a human, aka "understandable" component messes things up for it and contains it.

[[folder:The Stranger]]
!!The Stranger, I-Do-Not-Know-You

Plays on the fear of the unknown, the unseen, and the uncanny. [[spoiler:Its Ritual is known as "The Unknowing"]].

* ArcVillain: Through the Not-Them and Nikola, of seasons 2 and 3 respectively.
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy:
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Grimaldi Joseph "Joey" Grimaldi]], a famous clown during the early 1800s, is a servant of the Stranger, being remade into the form of Nikola Orsinov.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_von_Kempelen Wolfgang von Kempelen]], the creator of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk Mechanical Turk]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_von_Kempelen%27s_speaking_machine a mechanical speech synthesizer]], is revealed to have served the Stranger and to have played a pivotal role in [[spoiler:their ritual in 1787]].
* ChekhovsGun: In a shorter form, due to the "uncanny" theme, the Stranger lends itself well to early hints that one could go without noticing if they weren't looking. Melanie notices (well before it becomes apparent that she isn't human) that Sarah has an odd smell, and one of the ''off'' things about her is that when she "wakes up", she's very sudden about it and shows no sign of fatigue. Daniel Rawlings chain smokes to cover up the same scent, and Alexander Scaplehorn notices that he never makes eye contact some time before the reason for that becomes ''disturbingly'' evident.
* CircusOfFear: The Soviet Tsirk Drugoy, or "Other Circus", was a circus of Stranger agents.
* CreepyDoll: As part of their "things that look like people but are not people" theme.
* {{Doppelganger}}: The Not-Them.
* EasyImpersonation: When the Not-Them replaces someone, it doesn’t even bother creating a similar replica. Rather, with its RealityWarper abilities, it simply writes the original out of existence, overwriting photographs, videos, and even memories with this new version.
* EldritchLocation: The ritual site of the Unknowing becomes "one long category error" once it's in progress, and anyone not affiliated with it completely loses sense of their reality as their semiotic abilities fail.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Manifestations are superficially polite and cheery and sadistically violent (especially Nikola, who seems to delight in pretending to have a civil conversation while explaining how she's going to skin someone).
* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: Some of the Stranger's servants murdered Tim Stoker's brother Danny; years later, Tim gets his revenge by blowing up the ritual of the Unknowing.
* HumanResources: When they don't straight-up replace someone with a Not-Them, they use their body parts for disguises. (Nikola, being an actual mannequin, has [[DeadlyEuphemism borrowed]] a voice box from some unlucky soul -- likely Lana from Episode 83 -- so she can talk).
* MagicMusic: One of the Powers associated with this trope, along with the Slaughter. One of the chief features of its CircusOfFear is the magical Calliope played by Nikolai Denikin, which serves as the centerpiece of the statement introducing the circus (in Episode 24, "Strange Music"). Its ritual, the Unknowing, is described as a surreal dance performance accompanied by a choir.
* MurderousMannequin: Frequent, playing into the 'uncanny valley' aspect. Its head manifestation, Nikola Orsinov, is one.
* MonsterClown: As mentioned, the Stranger at one point operated through a circus, so of course there were some scary clowns.
* PerceptionFilter - TheGenericGuy: The Stranger's various manifestations, when not as polished as a Not-Them, are typically hard to distinguish; people find themselves unable to remember many details about them except that they look "like normal people" or "like you'd expect"; Breekon and Hope exhibit this, as do the Anatomy students.
* UncannyValley: In-universe, this is their thing. In addition to their control over mannequins and taxidermy, the Not-Them practically ooze it; even if you don't know someone is one, there is always something ''off'' about them. Before Jon realizes that Sasha has been replaced, he muses that all the pictures of "her" with her boyfriend look like stock photos for some reason he can't pin down.
* WeHaveReserves: The Stranger's ritual is noted to be unusually difficult to destroy, as if you don't hit them at exactly the right moment, they'll just set up shop somewhere else and get it underway again, because all of the required features are flexible. The location can change, new skins can be added, etc.

[[folder:The Vast]]
!!The Vast, The Falling Titan, The Vertigo, Void

Plays on agoraphobia, vertigo, deep waters, and the fears of the weather, emptiness and the incomprehensible scale of the universe. [[spoiler:Their last know ritual, conceived and enacted by Simon Fairchild, was called "The Awful Deep"]].

* EldritchOceanAbyss: Due to deep oceans falling under the Vast's fear of great emptiness, manifestations involving the sea will sometimes play on this.
** The statement subject of Episode 51 ("High Pressure") was a salvage diver who, during a job, found herself watching a wide, empty ocean devoid of life - except for the incomprehensibly huge shape of a hand.
** [[spoiler:The Awful Deep was an attempt by Fairchild to harness humanity's fear of the ocean during the Victorian era. It didn't take, because as it turned out, people cared less about it than Simon had hoped.]]
** Episode 195 ("Adrift"), [[spoiler:taking place in a domain based on the Vast (apparently with some Web influences), features a statement subject stuck at the dark bottom of a deep, icy ocean with some gargantuan monster swimming past them]].
* EvilVirtues: The two servants of the Vast who appear in person are both cordial and humble, even if only [[FauxAffablyEvil superficially so]]. Simon Fairchild explicitly shrugs off a failure that left him [[NoodleIncident having to swim from bottom of the ocean]] as regretable but not worth dwelling on. If nothing else, devoting one's life to realizing the impossible enormity of the universe appears to give one some perspective.
* {{Foil}}: To the Buried, the fear of constriction and tight spaces, easily the best example of two Powers being opposites of each other. This is highlighted by [[spoiler:Gertrude stopping the Buried's ritual with the remains of someone marked by the Vast]]. However, they also provide an example of why [[spoiler:no one Power could be brought into the world on its own. As Jonah Magnus put it, "Even those that seem to exist in direct opposition rely on each other for their definition as much as up relies on down. To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down."]]
* ForTheEvulz: While the servants of the Lightless Flame derive power from wanton destruction and the Lukases derive it from isolating people, the Fairchilds seem to just give people to the Vast just because they can. [[spoiler:When Simon Fairchild finally appears, he actually says he may throw Martin off of a roller coaster ''for a laugh'', and only decides against it when Martin says he isn't afraid of them.]]
* GiantHandsOfDoom: Some manifestations of the Vast prominently involve giant hands.
** Antonia Hayley (Episode 51: "High Pressure") saw the shape of a colossal hand while scuba diving and finding herself in an unimaginably deep, lifeless ocean.
** During the attack on Leitner's library (Episode 80: "The Librarian"), one of his assistants was grabbed by a giant hand that burst through the roof.
** Julian Jennings and his mother (Episode 124: "Left Hanging") saw someone get pulled out of a cable car by a grey hand from the sky.
* HumansAreInsects: Even moreso than the other Powers. Say what you will about Desolation or Meat, at least they operate on a human scale. The few glimpses we've gotten of the Vast indicate that humans and their InsignificantLittleBluePlanet don't even register as a noteworthy speck.
* InTheBlood: Subverted. The Fairchilds -- the [[CreepyFamily family]] most closely associated with the Vast -- are not blood relations. [[spoiler: Later played with, in that there is only Simon Fairchild, and he has not always been Simon Fairchild.]]
* InsignificantLittleBluePlanet
* {{Kaiju}}: [[spoiler: Simon Fairchild's post-Change Domain is a grotesque parody of this trope, where huge crowds of people flee from an enormous monster that is itself made of [[FusionDance a huge number of human beings clinging together in fear]].]]
%%* MeaningfulName: The Fairchilds may derive their name from Fairchild Aircraft Ltd.
* PunyEarthlings: Many of the things related to the fear, such as wide open spaces, great heights, deep oceans and intense weather, can be traced to a fear of being powerless against something huge and uncaring.
* ReligiousHorror: Has yet to be seen fully in the podcast, but Simon Fairchild mentions in Episode 151 ("Big Picture") that he used to play on religion until that lost its conceptual scope. Also, some victims of the Vast are said to have been grabbed by a giant hand from the sky, an imagery which certainly has religious connotations.
* RuleOfSymbolism: It's not really discussed at all, but while the Buried has claim over fears of metaphorical constriction through poverty, the two primary avatars of the Vast are known to be obscenely wealthy, again highlighting the two powers' juxtaposition.
* StrawNihilist: People who follow the Vast have become content with the fact that they don't matter in the face of their Power-- and in their eyes, neither does anyone else, so it's perfectly okay to strand them in vast, empty spaces for the rest of their puny existences.
* WeatherManipulation: Has at least some control over storms and lightning.

[[folder:The Web]]
!!The Web, The Spider, Mother-of-Puppets, Spinner-of-Schemes
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 081

Plays on arachnophobia, as well as the general theme of entrapment, stasis and being manipulated by an outside force. On relatively good terms with the Beholding. [[spoiler:Has also been shown to keep an interest in Jon.]] It apparently either does not have a [[spoiler: Ritual, or at least has no interest in performing one]].

* AllAccordingToPlan: This is its basic shtick, and it's repeatedly brought up how futile it is to try to outthink and outmaneuver the eldritch deity of thinking and maneuvering. [[spoiler: Jon's BatmanGambit to try to deny it its final victory in Episode 200, predictably, fails miserably due to a very well-planted ChekhovsGun (his [[PerceptionFilter inability to keep track of the cigarette lighter]] it gave him as a gift long ago).]]
* AllWebbedUp: Its victims will sometimes end up this way.
* BigBad: [[spoiler: in 197, it's revealed that its one of the few Entities capable of actual intention, and that literally ''everything'' that happened in the podcast is a part of its plan to infect the multiverse.]]
* BodyHorror: After the Corruption fades out of prominence, this is the Power that takes over that role. A disturbing pattern in statements involving the web is spiders taking up residence inside human bodies, whether be it in the form of incubation for eggs or... [[OrificeInvasion worse.]]
* [[spoiler: TheBadGuyWins: In the end, the Web got exactly what it wanted: it got to escape with the rest of its "siblings" into the multiverse, to sow and reap terror in countless other realities as they are now free from the original world that gave birth to them. Possibly [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] as it may not, however, have ultimately been able to separate itself from the other Powers or even bring them into a universe with life: see UncertainDoom in the General folder.]]
* TheDreaded: Even avatars of the other Powers tend to be terrified enough of The Web that, whenever the Spider starts clearly directing them towards something or asking them for something, they'll [[KnowWhenToFoldEm just go along with it]] out of fear that it will use its vast influence to punish them or just force them to do it anyway.
* GiantSpider:
** Appears in Episode 110 ("Creature Feature"), where it [[spoiler:eats the entire cast of a film, as well as the director. Bodies of the cast are found washed up on a shore near Los Angeles every February, completely desiccated.]]
** In Episode 172 ("Strung Out"), [[spoiler:one or several giant spiders appear in a theater filled with victims being puppeted around on the stages]].
* HiddenAgendaVillain: It seems to have some grand scheme that all of its smaller plans and machinations are supposed to facilitate, but it's anyone's guess what the end point of the plan is, [[spoiler:until Episode 197 ("Connected"), when Annabelle reveals the goal of the plan]].
* HorribleHollywood: Seems to have at least some pull over the film industry-- two FamedInStory figures associated with Hollywood (a director and a stop motion artist) either served the Web or fell under its influence.
* ItCanThink: [[spoiler:Season 5 reveals that it's the only part of the overall fear gestalt that's achieved genuine self-awareness.]]
* KillItWithFire: Daisy mentions that this is one of its weaknesses in Episode 147, hence its generally antagonistic relationship to the Desolation. Agnes Montague is one of the characters most fervently opposed to the Web, and dealt it one of its biggest setbacks when she burned down the house at Hill Top Road. [[spoiler: Or so it seems -- it later turns out this was AllPartOfThePlan to widen the crack in reality at the house, and, far from fire being the Web's "weakness", the cigarette lighter it gave Jon is the final key to carrying out its plan.]]
* LesserOfTwoEvils: The Web is quite evil indeed but is generally presented as this relative to the other Powers, since it has no ritual and seems content with the world as it is. [[spoiler: The finale sets it up as this on the grand scale, with the only two possible futures being the End's hope for the final destruction of this world after the Change with no new souls being born, or the Web's ultimate gambit of escaping this world to slowly and subtly infect the rest of the universe. Episode 199 features the main characters having a heated debate over whether this is actually the "lesser" evil if you think through the implications.]]
* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler: In seasons 3 and 4, it becomes increasingly clear that Jon’s ascension as The Archivist has been orchestrated and abetted by The Web.]]
* MediumAwareness: [[spoiler: The Web is the only one of the Powers -- indeed, one of the only entities of any kind -- to be aware that TheMultiverse exists and that the Powers aren't a universal law of nature but a specific feature of this one CosmicHorrorStory that many {{Alternate Universe}}s don't have at all, including the RealLife AlternateTimeline we're listening to the podcast in. And it resents this fact, and [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou wants to break through that fourth wall and start feeding on us as well]].]]
** [[spoiler: It's also "medium aware" in that the specific weirdness of the podcast format -- i.e. the Magnus Institute's dependence on recording audio statements onto analog magnetic tape -- is something it engineered and tricked the Eye into adopting, knowing the tapes would come under its sphere of influence as well.]]
* TheMole: The other Powers aren't really conscious enough for it to truly count as "betrayal", but the Web is revealed to be the Power working against the other Powers' TakeOverTheWorld rituals, because it likes the way the world is. [[spoiler: The DramaticIrony is, once you fully understand the situation, the Web is trying to ''save'' the other Powers from themselves -- because it's inextricably bound to them and part of them -- because their HorrorHunger for more fear to feast on will eventually destroy themselves (which is the End's actual agenda). The plot of ''TMA'' turns out to be one long XanatosGambit on its part to make sure that when a successful ritual does happen it happens in a way that will allow it to undo it and finish its escape route into TheMultiverse in the process.]]
* MoreThanMindControl: It has the power to co-opt people's will--not so much making them do things as making them decide to do things. It takes a strong will or a mark from another Power to snap out of it.
* OnlySaneMan: [[spoiler:Ultimately turns out to be the only one of the Powers with a humanlike capacity for rational self-interest, with the others purely driven by their HorrorHunger addiction to causing fear and suffering. This is ''not'' the same as the Web having a conscience or any capacity for remorse -- indeed, if the Powers have any equivalent of that, in a twisted way it's the Web's counterpart, the End, which wants the endless cycle of generating fears in humans to feed the growth of the Powers to stop someday when the universe stops, as opposed to the Web's arguably-mad dream of keeping it going forever by spreading through TheMultiverse.]]
* ParanoiaGambit: One of the Web's favorite shticks is to let everyone else tie themselves in knots thinking about whether this or that action plays into the latest game of XanatosSpeedChess, until they freak out and do nothing at all.
* PeoplePuppets: While it usually sticks to subtly manipulating people and secretly guiding them to commit certain actions, some Web-related incidents have shown that it's equally capable of controlling their physical movements directly:
** In MAG 69 ("Thought for the Day"), the statement giver was at one point compelled by Annabelle Cane into strangling himself, though he survived by knocking her into a wall and throwing her off.
** In MAG 81 ("A Guest for Mr. Spider"), Jon and another boy were both compelled to walk up to a door when reading a book of the Web.
** In MAG 172 ("Strung Out"), [[spoiler:a victim trapped in the Web's domain was puppeteered around on a stage by a giant spider with ropes stuck to them with hooks through their flesh]].
* PragmaticVillainy: Peter Lukas points out that, like the End, [[spoiler:its followers have never attempted a ritual of any kind. Unlike the End, who claims everything eventually, Lukas speculates that the Web likes the world the way it is, as people can be manipulated very easily]].
** However, Episode 160 makes this a bit ambiguous. [[spoiler:Jonah mentions that one of the reasons why he made Jon part of his plan was that he had already been marked by The Web and, Jonah figured, the Web directed him to the Institute as an implicit blessing for his plan to enact a ritual that would bring all the Powers into the world. If he is right, then it's possible that the only reason the Web never attempted a ritual of its own is because they, like Jonah, had figured out that such rituals were futile and decided to just let Jonah do the heavy lifting]].
** Episode 197 ("Connections") reveals that the Web never attempted a ritual because [[spoiler:they had figured out that the only way to do a successful one would be to bring all of the Powers into the world, including the End, which would eventually doom all life and the Powers. Instead, they spent centuries guiding avatars of the Powers, some of them their own, to the location of Hilltop Road in order to force a confrontation between them and widen a crack between dimensions to prepare for an escape when someone did perform a successful ritual]].
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: The Web is the only Entity to ever be referred to with "she/her" pronouns, by Oliver Banks in his statement in Episode 121, although he could ambiguously have been referring to its avatar Annabelle Cane. (It's also the only one with a feminine epithet, "Mother-of-Puppets").
* SneakySpider: The Web is the embodiment of this trope, as she and her agents are portrayed as subtle, patient tricksters who lie on the fringes of the main action, quietly weaving their intricate webs until their plans are ready to come to fruition.
* SpidersAreScary: Being arachnophobia incarnate, this is naturally the case with statements involving the Web.
* TheWormThatWalks: Humans sufficiently corrupted become filled with tiny spiders, as Trevor the erstwhile vampire hunter discovers.
* WouldHurtAChild: Of course, this probably applies to ''all'' the Powers, but it has targeted children in the statements we hear more than most.
** In "Recluse", it turns out the foster home is run by one of its agents, and kids who "age out" are actually used as hosts for spider eggs.
** In "A Guest For Mr. Spider", the titular children's book not only contains a fly feeding his unfortunate child to Mr. Spider but [[spoiler: enchants children to summon the Spider and give themselves to it.]]
* XanatosGambit: [[spoiler:The entire plot of ''The Magnus Archives'' is one on the part of the Web, whose wheels-within-wheels plot wasn't just to prevent the other Powers' rituals, but to eventually let the Eye succeed in one in such a way that it could be undone and allow the Web to escape to another universe.]]

[[folder:Spoiler Character]]
!!The Extinction, The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, The-World-Is-Always-Ending
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 134

A new emerging Power. Plays on the fear of catastrophic change and one's world or one's self being replaced with something terrible. So far, statements involving it have touched on nuclear warfare, transhumanism, and TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

...Except maybe not; in Episode 157, Adelard Dekker, the one who has most believed in the emergence of the Extinction, concluded that the fear may not yet be prevalent enough to manifest. Instead, he speculated that maybe such an existential fear currently only runs through the other fears in an undeveloped state, or that the proper formation of such a fear takes longer and is more complicated than previously believed. It's confirmed in MAG 160 that the Extinction has yet to manifest as its own Power, as Elias is able to complete his ritual without its mark. However, it does get at least one domain of its own in the world after the Change, but doesn't cause a grand extinction event as was feared.

* AbandonedArea: Some statements suggest that it tends to manifest in run-down, man-made locations:
** In its introductory episode, "Time of Revelation" (Episode 134), the door to post-apocalyptic Paris appears in an apartment that hadn't been used for almost 150 years.
** In "Decrypted" (Episode 144), it appears near a vacant lot with a rusty old pylon in the middle of a practically deserted rural wasteland.
** In "Reflection" (Episode 156), it appears in an old, abandoned amusement park.
* AmbiguousSituation:
** Martin notes that a lot of statements involving it could be the work of other powers-- the artificial structures in the Amazon might be under the Stranger's influence due to the uncanny human figures, the Amusement Park in Reflections may be the work of The Flesh, The Spiral or Terminus might be responsible for Sergei, and even the Spiral could, at a stretch, be responsible for creating the image of Paris post-Extinction. Episode 157 strongly indicated that the other Powers were at work during those manifestations, and that maybe the fear of an apocalypse is something that the Powers share on an existential level.
** Even after it's confirmed to exist post-change, it's still not clear what's going on with it. Was it a true 15th entity all along? Was it on its way there as Dekker feared? Or was it barely existent before it was "solidified" by the Change? Even Jon's omniscience couldn't tell for sure.
* BaitAndSwitch: For a while we're led to believe the emergence of the Extinction is the greater-scope apocalypse Jon needs to make alliances with the other Powers to prevent. This is false -- the true apocalypse was always the mass ritual being planned by Jon's [[BigBadFriend own patrons]], Jonah Magnus and the Eye itself -- but the Extinction could, ironically, be seen as a half-formed fear ''about'' this possibility, which never fully manifested before it actually came to pass.
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Emphasis on "as we know it": unlike the End, a key part of Extinction is that the world we have is replaced with something far worse.
* EvilerThanThou: Peter sees the Extinction this way, because say what you will about the other Powers, but they at least need to have humans and other living creatures around to feed on. The Extinction, at least according to a theory he seems to subscribe to, aims to wipe out all life as we know it and replace it with something new and different that can fear being annihilated in turn.
* FetusTerrible: Of a sort. The Extinction is still nascent, making it the closest thing to "unborn" a Power can get. In a way, it's rather fitting, as it concerns itself with the horrors of the world to be found after mankind in its current form, a world itself yet to be born.
* GaiasVengeance: It's implied that one of the major drivers of Extinction's emergence is climate change and environmental degradation: much like factory farming spawned the Flesh, mass extinction of animal species has helped spawn Extinction.
* ImplacableMan: If you have the misfortune to be sucked into one of the Extinction's...pocket universes? manifestations?... getting back to the normal world is only a temporary reprieve. What exactly it does is not clear yet, but Dekker says that both the people he's taken Extinction statements from were living on borrowed time, and the second one explicitly says he's being followed.
* RealAfterAll: Whatever evidence there was to believe that the Extinction wasn't real or wasn't a proper Power of its own is wiped away as of the Change, where one of its domains is very much present and very distinctly its own.
* RenegadeSplinterFaction: In Episode 134 ("Time of Revelation"), Dekker speculated that the Extinction might have been part of the End back in the time [[HumanityIsSuperior when an end of humanity was considered the end of everything]]. While the End isn't a force for good, it is fairly passive compared to the other Powers.
* {{Transhuman}}: One statement involves a (possible) transhuman experiment GoneHorriblyWrong.
* UnseenNoMore: In Episode 175 ("Epoch"), we finally get definite, concrete proof of its existence, in the form of one of its domains in the fearverse.
* WalkingSpoiler: The very existence of a 15th Power is a spoiler in an of itself.

!Recurring Characters
Characters who do not work at the Magnus Institute, but play a prominent role nonetheless:

[[folder:Adelard Dekker]]
!!Adelard Dekker
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 077

A friend and colleague of Gertrude Robinson's. [[spoiler:He shows up in several statements, cataloging and fighting against servants of the Powers.]]

* AntiHero: He's willing to do some very unscrupulous things for the sake of protecting the world from the supernatural.
* BadassNormal: Through all of his accounts there is no indication that Dekker was anything more or less than human; at several moments he lamented his lack of Fear-given powers that would make his job easier. Nonetheless, through cunning, ingenuity, and cold-bloodedness he managed to disable, trap, or even kill numerous monsters and avatars much stronger than him.
* BigGood: While he's a bit unscrupulous about it, he is a fundamentally heroic and moral figure, even more so than Gertrude. While Gertrude is only in it to stop the rituals and doesn't care about anything else, Adelard is out to protect the little guys from the horrors of the world.
* BlackAndNerdy: One of the few recurring characters to have an explicitly defined race and no less academically inclined than most of the main cast. Describes himself as being an avid reader since childhood.
* GoodIsNotNice: Though not kind, or empathetic, or merciful, he might be the employee of the Archives that can be best counted on to do the right thing.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his occasionally brutal and cold-blooded way of operating, he is revealed to be at least somewhat religious in "Rotten Core" (Episode 157). He also decides that one victim he interviews has had enough horror and protects their identity from Gertrude and a life of nightmares.
* OccultDetective: Has shades of this, aiding individuals who have encountered the supernatural and taking it upon himself to destroy or contain certain entities.
* PragmaticHero: Dekker was firmly on the side of good, but ruthlessly pragmatic in his hunts; his first appearance had him leave a man to die rather than try to save him from the avatar of the End that was killing him, because Dekker knew there was no point in picking a fight he couldn't win. [[spoiler:Even his dying moments showed this attitude; when he decided to MercyKill both himself and the other victims of Amherst's final plague, he chose fire for the job instead of something more merciful, because it would make it easier for the ECDC to clean up the plague site.]]
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler:According to "Rotten Core" (Episode 157), he died in 2013, fighting a manifestation of The Corruption]].
* {{Sadist}}: When he lobotomizes a servant of The End, the description he gives of it is... ''very'' detailed.

[[folder:Gerard Keay]]
!!Gerard Keay
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 004
->'''Voiced by:''' Jon Gracey

A young man heavily involved in the supernatural. The son of [[EvilOldFolks Mary Keay]], he appears in numerous statements at various stages of his life [[spoiler:including after his own death]].

* AffectionateNickname: “I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry”. Tellingly, whenever Jon talks about him after meeting his skin book spirit, he usually refers to him as "Gerry".
* AmbiguousSituation:
** The exact nature of his connection to the Eye is never elaborated upon. Gertrude implies that the Beholding is fond of him and he occasionally displayed the Archivist ability [[TrueSight to know things he should not have]], such as being able to detect that the statement giver in MAG 48 was marked by the Lonely. His tattoos also seemed to protect him against the abilities of other Avatars. Despite this, he never actually joined the Institute and only assisted Gertrude as a freelancer.
** There's also the circumstances around his death. While traveling with Gertrude, Gerard had a massive seizure and when brought to a hospital, they discover he's dying of a brain tumor. However, neither Gertrude or Gerry can explain to the doctors why he didn't seek any treatment and it's implied he might not have displayed any symptoms before. So did he die of natural circumstances or was there something supernatural about it? Was the Eye perhaps protecting him from certain death, similar to how the Hunt kept Trevor alive? And if so, why did it decide to let him die?
* BadassBookworm: Though not enough of the latter to stop him from destroying dangerous ones, his mother gave him a [[TomeOfEldritchLore very particular form of homeschooling]] and however it happened he's noted to be a lot stronger than he looks. Enough so that WordOfGod has described him as a "scrawny goth bookworm" when teasing listeners getting Gerard and [[BodyHorror Jared]] confused.
* DeaderThanDead: Gerard died of brain cancer, then had his soul bound to the skin book. In exchange for his help, Gerard demands that Jon burn his page, thus rendering him really, really and eternally dead. Probably.
* DisappearedDad: His father was once one of Gertrude's assistants at the Magnus Institute. His mother killed him after he finally found a way to "[[EyeScream quit]]" to raise Gerard.
* {{Goth}}: Described as one by Jurgen Leitner.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Unusually for recurring characters in statements not directly tied to the archives. Most of his appearences are either helping someone during their brush with the supernatural or getting rid of the things that cause the troubles in the first place. To the point it's revealed he ''did'' get directly linked to the institute, helping Gertrude stop The Unknowing.
* HesJustHiding: Though Gerard has been legally dead for several years, Jon stubbornly refers to his death as ''alleged''. Considering Jon's [[GutFeeling intuitive abilities]] as Archivist he's probably on to something. In season 3 it is confirmed that he is indeed dead, but not gone, having been bound to the skin book against his will.
* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Implied to be a Type B. See the AffectionateNickname entry for an example.
* MrExposition: Spends half of his statement laying out the ways that the Powers function.
* MyBelovedSmother: His mother decided even before he was born that he would follow in her steps. He eventually rebels and goes out of his way to track and destroy any [[TomeOfEldritchLore Leitner book]] he can find.
* {{Necromancer}}: Helped bind his mother to a magical book of undeath which he himself is now bound to.
* PetTheDog: He probably has the most of these out of anyone involved with the Powers, repeatedly saving civilians from AFateWorseThanDeath.
* PhraseCatcher: When he appears in a statement he's often described as having poorly dyed black hair and likely wearing black or something leather. Even outside of statements Jon correctly identifies him as being Leitner's "angry goth" due to how consistent his appearance has been and tendency to show up where Leitners were involved.
* PowerTattoo: When he was badly burned a nurse noted that the eye tattoos he had on every joint on his body were the only areas of skin undamaged from the neck down. Considering what eyes represent in this series and his apparent ties to it they are likely a lot more than just an aesthetic choice.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: One of the first things he demands upon being summoned by Jon is that Jon burn his page, effectively killing him. Jon reluctantly agrees.

[[folder:Georgie Barker]]
!!Georgie Barker
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 028
->'''Voiced by:''' Sasha Sienna

The host of the popular What The Ghost! podcast, and colleague of Melanie King. Had a relationship with Jon Sims at one point that didn’t end well. They seem to have [[AmicableExes made up]].

* AmicableExes: Is friendly enough with Jon to let him crash at her place indefinitely. When they later have a falling out, it's only because Georgie recognizes he's going to continue on a self-destructive path and decides to set boundaries to protect herself.
* AntiMagic: [[spoiler:Her total inability to feel fear means that none of the Powers have any claim on her, and she can even pull people out (although not too many, or the Powers counterattack).]]
* {{Cult}}: [[spoiler:Episode 189 ("Peers") revealed that she and Melanie have been pulling victims out of domains and hiding them in the old tunnels; because of Georgie's inability to feel fear, they apparently see her as some kind of Messiah figure and have formed what Georgie and Melanie both call a cult around her]].
* FearlessFool: Averted. She is well aware that her inability to feel fear could lead her to make reckless decisions and get other people hurt. Her attempts to correct for this actually make her ''too'' cautious sometimes, which Melanie gently chides her for.
* HasAType: Given her relationships with Jon and Melanie, her type is apparently paranormal academics, which fits with her own interest in the subject. [[spoiler:Both her partners were also turned into avatars of the dread powers against their will]].
* HeroicBSOD: Suffered this after an encounter with an avatar of The End, and never regains her ability to feel fear.
* MuggleBestFriend: She's the only major character who is not associated with any Powers and, aside from a minor encounter in her youth, has no foot in the supernatural world. She actively refuses to get involved in anything dangerously supernatural, even cutting contact with Jon when he gets too deep into it, and only remaining in contact with Melanie because she's actively trying to get out.
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:She's one of only three surviving main characters of the entire series, alongside Melanie and Basira]].
* OfficialCouple: With Melanie, starting from season 4.
* UnfazedEveryman: Her response to Jon’s revelations about the existence of monsters and the Powers, and the fact that he is beholden to one is essentially "okay”. Justified as an encounter with the avatar of the End removed her ability to feel fear.

[[folder:Jurgen Leitner]]
!!Jurgen Leitner
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 004
->'''Voiced by:''' Paul Sims

A rich Scandinavian eccentric who would pay exorbitant sums for various books. [[MagicalLibrary Unfortunately, the books in question were...]] [[TomeOfEldritchLore Rather]] [[MindRape unsettling.]]

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Despite being Norwegian by birth, his given name is spelled the German way (In Norwegian, it's "Jørgen") and his last name also sounds more German.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He put custom bookplates with the name of his library at the front of every book he tried to contain, ostensibly to make them easier to track if they got out, but ultimately because he hoped that the library would eventually become famous and his name would be known the world over. It's safe to say that when both of those things happened, they did not happen the way he had hoped.
* BigDamnHeroes: His first in-the-flesh appearance in the podcast is rescuing Jon from Not-Sasha in Episode 79.
* ButNotTooForeign: Despite being initially presented as a "Scandinavian recluse", speaks with a British accent and admits that he barely knows any Norwegian; apparently, he and his family emigrated to England when he was very young and English has always been his first language.
* CharacterDeath: Beaten to death by Elias at the end of Season 2.
* CollectorOfTheStrange: The foremost collector of esoteric and rare books linked to the Powers.
* DecoyAntagonist: Set up as a shadowy figure of influence in the first two seasons, and is hinted to be responsible for the various [[TomeOfEldritchLore tomes bearing his name]]. When he finally appears in season 2 , he is revealed as a vain, somewhat pathetic old man whose only real power was his [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney ungodly amounts of money]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Built his library to contain the incalculable power of the books held within it. The thought that the defenses should also be outside never occurred to him.
* FailureHero: His goals in setting up his library, while selfish in some ways, were ultimately noble: he wanted to make sure that the horribly dangerous books connected to the Powers weren't causing damage in the greater world. His failure to realize that there might be people (for lack of a better word) who would want the books out in the world led to his downfall. It's not outright stated, but it's implied that his efforts to search out lost tomes for his library simply allowed far more books out into circulation once the library was destroyed.
* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: He mentions that his only real talent was ''shopping'', but goes on to explain that's more impressive than it sounds: Leitner had an uncanny knack for not only tracking down supernatural items (specializing books out of scholarly vanity), but for convincing their owners to part with them. Part of this had to do with his resources, but it also required no small amount of networking, social adroitness, and determination. If he had been ethical enough to use his abilities and fortune to fight the supernatural instead of just hoarding evil books, he could have been a genuine force to be reckoned with through the power of smart shopping.
* MagicLibrarian: The closest thing to one that exists in the series, anyway -- though his magical books are the true source of his supernatural abilities, and the library he created is less whimsical and more ''terrifying''.
* MrExposition: Most of his brief time appearing directly in the show is spent explaining the cosmic horor metaphysics that drive the setting.
* NonIdleRich: Was fantastically wealthy enough to do nothing with his life, but chose to become one of these, collecting all the [[TomeOfEldritchLore books]] he could get his hands on.
* {{Pride}}: Admits that this was his primary sin, in thinking he could contain all his books.
* SpannerInTheWorks: Leitner's appearance at the end of season 2 is the first time Elias appears to have been genuinely caught off-guard, nearly spoiling his plans entirely by revealing too much to Jon too early, and forcing him to act rashly.
* TomeOfEldritchLore: He collects these, and marks them with his insignia -- or he ''did'', until the Powers' servants collectively trashed his library and scattered the so-called "Leitners" across the globe for unsuspecting civilians to come upon.
* WeHaveReserves: Had a very cavalier attitude towards the lives of his assistants.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Subverted. He mentions that he told himself that he was collecting the books to act as a sort of "reverse Pandora", keeping the public safe from them by containing them and studying them. Marking the books as "Leitners" was ostensibly to make them easier to recapture if any got out, but he admits deep down he'd always hoped people would learn of his collection and be suitably awestruck. It was all about pride in the end.
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: A few statements describe him as having spoken in a strange accent. When he appears in person, and speaks fluent English with a British accent, he admits that he did it as an inside joke to himself.

[[folder:Mary Keay]]
!!Mary Keay
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 004
->'''Voiced by:''' Carrie Cohen

The owner of Pinhole Books and mother of Gerard Keay.

* AbusiveParents: Gerard has very little nice to say about her, as she had him help her in truly despicable actions from an early age and seems to have treated him more like a servant and road to building a dynasty. She also claims that her father committing suicide was the best thing he did for her family, but given that she's a truly vile woman it might be that she just didn't like him for other reasons.
* BaldOfEvil: She keeps her head shaven in undeath, which may be because she can't actually ''grow'' hair.
* CameBackWrong: In her opinion. She blamed Gerard for not helping her complete the ritual that she killed herself doing since her "immortality" wasn't quite what she wanted. Unlike other bound spirits it sounds like she didn't need to be summoned to exist, but she also couldn't stay that way indefinitely.
* ConnectedAllAlong: She's the descendant of Albrecht von Closen, an associate of Jonah Magnus, on her mother's side.
* DeaderThanDead: Gertrude and Gerard burned her page in the skin book, destroying her for good.
* DealWithTheDevil: Averted. She isn't bound to any of the Powers, instead dabbling with all of them as needed.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: In a weird way; when she was young, she discovered that a doctor in her neighborhood was killing people and turning them into skin books - and was greatly offended that the doctor had this kind of power and only used it to get financial information from the book spirits.
* HumanNotepad: Postmortem example, when she's seen after her "death" she's described as having a lot of tattoos written in Sanskrit. Given how that's the language of choice for [[MarkOfTheSupernatural the skin book's rituals]] it's likely a side effect from binding herself to it in an attempt to achieve a form of immortality.
* InTheBlood: Attempted to invoke this, as her son theorizes that she wanted to build a kind of occult dynasty with herself as matriarch. He would have none of it, so those plans fell flat.
* PetTheDog: She's implied to have destroyed any evidence that would convict her son of her death, though this might have been for her own benefit.
* VagueAge: She claims to have been 9 years old in 1955, which would put her at 62 years old at the time of her bodily death in 2008. However, MAG 023 mentions that a Mary Keay was born in 1924, making her 84. It's unclear if this was a different Mary Keay, if she lied about her age, or if the author just mixed up the dates.
* ThanatosGambit: She deliberately killed and skinned herself in a ritual that was supposed to give her power over the skin book that contains the souls of the dead. It doesn't seem to have worked properly, possibly because she needed outside assistance and her son was unwilling to help.
* TheUndead: After her supposed death of overdose, she reappears manning her bookshop, through that statement actually appears before the one revealing her death. It's later revealed that she "survived" through a ritual binding herself to the skin book.

[[folder:Mikaele Salesa]]
!!Mikaele Salesa
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 014
->'''Voiced by:''' Ray Chong Nee

A black-market fence for paranormal artifacts. Little is known about him beyond the fact that he is Samoan and is quite good at his job.

* AffablyEvil: He was apparently quite chummy with his crew and [[spoiler:is a very friendly host to Jon and Martin when they stay with him for a while in Episodes 180 ("Moving On") and 181 ("Ignorance")]].
* BadassNormal: He's an entirely ordinary human who, at least so far as the listener currently knows, has escaped ill effects from his immensely dangerous wares. [[spoiler: He also survived working for Leitner, whose OSHA compliance was apparently as good as his external security, which is to say nil. And he is to date one of the only people who survives extended contact with the Powers and goes out on his own terms.]]
* BlackMarket: Is willing to buy and sell artifacts, both magic and mundane, of questionable origin.
* BenevolentBoss: Surprisingly, the statement giver of Episode 141 ("Doomed Voyage"), who was part of the crew on Salesa's ship for a few years described him as a good boss who treated his workers well, was honest about the legality of the operation and kept things organized. [[DownplayedTrope However]], he lost quite a few people along the way and he was very strict about only him being allowed inside the cargo bay, throwing a crew member who tried to break into it overboard on one occasion. Episode 115 ("Taking Stock") shows that he used to be far more benevolent, but he gave up on being that chummy of a boss when his ship's cook got ahold of an undisclosed artifact and ended up causing a serious headache...which incidentally is why he stopped letting anyone else look at the merchandise. [[spoiler: He was also all too willing to leave his final crew in the lurch, promising them a significant payday for his last job and then abandoning them with nothing but his ship when he went into hiding.]]
* IntangiblePrice: Some of the items he deals in come with this. Salesa himself deals in cold, hard cash.
* KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler:In Episode 194 ("Parting"), we learn that Annabella Cane killed Mikaele and took his invsibility-granting camera]].
* LackOfEmpathy: Salesa doesn't remotely care about the damage caused by the artifacts he sells, only caring that he gets paid and letting the buyers take the burden of risk. It's clear from some of the statements featuring him that he isn't heartless, he just can't afford to care about the wellbeing of everyone he sells to if he wants to keep in business.
* LargeAndInCharge: In Episode 141 ("Doomed Voyage"), he is said to have been a "big guy", but never to have used it to intimidate anyone (though it came in handy in case things ever had to get physical).
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:In Episode 180 ("Moving On"), he turns out to still be alive, somehow, and apparently working with Annabelle Cane in some way]].
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler:Apparently died circa 2014, if Episode 141 ("Doomed Voyage") is to be believed. Episode 181 reveals that he just faked his death.]]
* PunchClockVillain: Unlike some of the other players in the supernatural world, Salesa's actions seem to stem from a desire for profit, [[ForTheEvulz rather than evil]]. That being said, he will happily sell customers immensely harmful objects without bothering to inform them, and he's not above making bets or jokes out of their effects.

[[folder:Robert Smirke]]
!!Robert Smirke
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 026

A 19th century architect whose works and theories somehow moderate or even nullify some of the effects of the Powers.

* BalanceOfPower: His works and theories give prominence to the balancing of the Powers against one another.
** [[GeniusBonus Which makes sense, given his real-life work in Greek Revival style]].
* [[BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil Balance Between Evil And A Slightly Different Kind Of Evil]]: His architecture was centered around balance, allowing his buildings to serve as effective countermeasures against the influence of the Powers when correctly tended.
* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smirke_(architect) Smirke]] is best known for his role in the early 19th century Greek Revival style, as well as his use of concrete foundations. Here, he is a scholar of the arcane, balancing the Powers against one another.
* FailureHero: His attempts to get other prominent intellectuals to join his crusade against the Powers simply led to them becoming powerful minions, his efforts at categorizing and controlling the Powers gave their new servants all the tools they needed to empower them, and his hopes of covering his failures with churches simply led to these churches being aggressively haunted. No matter how noble his goals, everything he did simply strengthened the Powers and left the world a more dangerous place.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: His own mission was to contain & control the Powers for the safety of the world, but apparently everyone he brought into his confidence on this mission would themselves become servants of the Powers, going on to cause untold suffering & spreading their influence.
* ObsessivelyOrganized: Chastises a former student who forgoes utility for symmetry in his buildings as not being sufficiently obsessed and for using shortcuts.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smirke_(architect) Sir Robert Smirke]] (1780-1867), British architect known for his work in 19th Century Greek Revival, most famous for designing the British Museum.
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: The real Robert Smirke was, as far as we know, a fairly normal architect who didn't do any work battling eldritch abominations.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: He sincerely believed that the people he was bringing into his confidence would be just as dedicated to combating the Powers as he was, even as his students and counterparts continuously showed that they were far more interested in getting power from their patrons than fighting them. [[spoiler:His final moments were spent desperately trying to implore Jonah Magnus to abandon his plans, despite Jonah by many accounts being the worst of them all.]]
* InsufferableGenius: Knew more than any other human about the Powers and was more successful at fighting them than anyone before Gertrude Robinson came along. His theories are still portrayed as being wildly overconfident -- Smirke's List, which both in- and out-of-universe is used by nearly everyone as an "official" list of which Powers exist, is repeatedly said to be disastrously oversimplified -- and [[spoiler: post-Change the Powers themselves have created a mocking Monument to his legacy where his successors are trapped in a cycle of self-destructive futility.]]
* TokenGoodTeammate: Of the numerous Victorian intellectuals and aristocrats to learn of the Powers, he was the only one not to be taken in by them to any extent, and for all his faults he went to his last day desperately trying to fight them. Deconstructed somewhat, as he was directly responsible for a number of his counterparts finding and succumbing to the Powers, mistakenly believing that they would be as invested in stopping them as he was.

[[folder:Vampires]]
!!Vampires
!!! First Mentioned: MAG 10

Human-like creatures that kill people by draining the blood out of them. They make some appearances throughout the story, mostly in connection with Trevor Herbert, who has spent the better part of his life hunting and killing them. It's unclear what specific Power they might belong to, if they even belong to a single one, though they exclusively appear in statements involving the Hunt.

* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: They have several rows of very sharp teeth.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Use their long, bulbous tongues to drain the blood of their victims after using their sharp teeth to rip their throats open.
* StarterVillain: They served this purpose for drawing Trevor into the Hunt, and their appearance exclusively in statements involving the Hunt imply that they serve this purpose for many avatars; cutting their teeth on prey that is dangerous, but not too much for an average human to kill, drawing hunters in until they give up their humanity entirely.
* {{Telepathy}}: Can make telepathic contact with people by making eye contact with them. They're not capable of physical speech due to their gruesome mouths, but their allure means their victims never realize that they're being addressed telepathically, not aloud. Outside observers, which vampires do their best to avoid, can tell that the victim is having a one-sided conversation.

!!!Of the Corruption
[[folder:Jane Prentiss]]
!!Jane Prentiss, The Flesh Hive
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 006
-> '''Voiced by:''' Hannah Brankin

A woman seemingly turned into a hive of wormlike... ''things''.

* AchillesHeel: Both she and her worms are vulnerable to concentrated carbon dioxide. Elias ultimately kills her by flooding the Archive with the [=CO2=]-infused fire system, previously installed at Jon's request.
* ArcVillain: Of season 1. Attempts to invade the Archive at the end, and is killed for her troubles.
* HiveMind: To some degree, she is aware of all of her worms.
* HumanoidAbomination: Looks human enough to wander around unnoticed at night. Up close, she's basically a walking corpse covered in open sores that worms constantly slither in and out of.
* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Her statement indicates she struggled with this throughout her life, pre-transformation. Post-transformation, the Flesh Hive gave her what she wanted. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Oh boy]], [[BodyHorror did it give her]] [[TheWormThatWalks what she wanted]].
* KeystoneArmy: Though some of her worms remain alive in the tunnels beneath the Institute after her death, Jon notes that the survivors are sluggish and no longer hostile to humans. [[spoiler: And they seem to be getting hunted down by spiders. The Web doesn't like messes when it can help it.]]
* NewAgeRetroHippie: Worked at a crystal shop and called herself a witch before her infection.
* PestController: Jane (or the being using her body) commands masses of strange silver worms which infest more people and thus kill or enslave them.
* PlagueMaster: She can infect others with her worms, who can in turn spread it to others. These infectees often don't have long until they turn into a mass of worms and viscera.
* TalkativeLoon: Her statement is a barely coherent ramble, and that's before the Hive took over entirely.
* TheWormThatWalks: Jane's body and mind are taken over by a colony of silver worms.
* WasOnceAMan: Was once an ordinary woman; her mind and body have long since been consumed by the Hive. There's some indication that she wishes she could go back.

[[folder:John Amherst]]
!!John Amherst, Avatar of the Corruption
!!!First Mentioned: MAG 036

An avatar of the Corruption most closely tied to its aspects of disease.

* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler: Adelard Dekker defeated him by knocking him into a pit, then burying the whole thing in six feet of wet cement. This didn't kill Amherst in and of itself, but spending ages without the fear that sustains him ultimately did.]]
* {{Immortality}}: He's supposedly been around as an Avatar since at least 1899 and has been [[ResurrectiveImmortality "killed" several times]].
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: He can infect others with diseases that are not only horrifically contagious, but unusually stubborn; one victim of his resorted to amputating an extremity that implicitly continued to show resurfacing symptoms despite repeatedly being disinfected, and at least one artefact in the Institute's storage might be his work.
* MeaningfulName: His last name, Amherst, makes Jon suspect (in MAG 68: "The Tale of a Field Hospital") that he has some connection to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffery_Amherst,_1st_Baron_Amherst Jeffrey Amherst]], an 18th century British Army commander who used blankets laced with smallpox as a biological weapon against the Native American population during Pontiac's War. Though it could easily [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade be the same man]], considering his apparent immortality, or a descendant, ancestor or other relative (Amherst did actually have a brother named John), [[WordOfGod Sims' Twitter has clarified]] that it isn't intended to be the same person and is [[https://mobile.twitter.com/jonnywaistcoat/status/1301236802439782400 meant as an entirely fictional monster]].
* PestController: He has an affinity for ants and flies, though not to the same degree as the Flesh Hive.
* PlagueMaster: He spreads horrific diseases [[WalkingWasteland everywhere he goes]]. Even objects he touches can carry the plagues.
* ResurrectiveImmortality: If episode 68 is to be believed, he died at least three times during the Boer War, and it's implied he was burned to death at least twice. None of this seemed to slow him down in the slightest. [[spoiler:It takes being buried deep in cement and cut off from fear and disease to kill him for good.]]
* SealedEvilInACan: [[spoiler:Adelard Dekker gets around his immortality by dumping him in a hole and filling it with cement.]] A later episode reveals [[spoiler:that the lack of fear to feed on made him shrivel up and die]].
* TheUnfought: One of the few avatars who regularly show up in statements that never appears in person. [[spoiler: This is because Addelard Dekker killed him before the show started]]
* VillainOfAnotherStory: After Jane Prentiss's climactic siege of the Institute, John remains as a silent, looming figure associted with the Corruption that, unlike the Flesh Hive, does not seem to be able to die on a permanent basis. However, his final appearance [[spoiler:has him taken out of the picture for good and he doesn't reappear in the Corruption's domain after the Change.]]

[[folder:Jordan Kennedy]]
!!Jordan Kennedy
!!!First mentioned: MAG 55
-> '''Voiced by''': Tim Ledsam

A pest control worker first introduced giving a statement on his encounters with John Amherst, Arthur Nolan and the "wasp's nest" that infected Jane Prentiss.

* BadassNormal: A simple exterminator, who lit one of the stronger avatars ''on fire''. [[spoiler:After the change, he handles traveling through a hellscape far better than a local hostile but highly diminished avatar, even if it doesn't end well.]]
* HiveMind: [[spoiler:His ascension to avatarhood at Jon's hand essentially fuses his consciousness with the local ant monsters' hive mind.]]
* {{Irony}}: One of the victims of John Amherst who narrowly escaped with his life and sanity. [[spoiler:Eventually succeeded him as an avatar of the Corruption--working with ants, no less.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath: Whatever was happening to him after [[spoiler:succumbing to the Hive Mind]] was [[NothingIsScarier unseen but easily imagined, and undoubtedly horrible]]. In an effort to spare him from this, Jon [[spoiler:entreats the Eye to make him an avatar]].
* KillItThroughItsStomach: He is informed by Lito, a Corruption avatar, that [[spoiler:there is no "ant queen" ruling the tunnels. Unfazed by this, he decides to continue looking for a weak point, reasoning that if the colony has no brain, surely it has a heart he can kill instead.]]