History Main / LoadsandLoadsOfCharacters

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1644418427005713800 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

[[quoteright:269:[[Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/finalgalacticheroes_6626.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:269: More characters than the UsefulNotes/JapaneseLanguage. [[note]] And that's {{not hyperbole}}; the language has 96 kana (but thousands of additional Kanji) in use today. There's 112 in that picture. [[/note]]]]

->''"Starring...the ten characters whose names you actually remember, and all these other characters whose names you actually don't remember."''
-->-- '''WebVideo/HonestTrailers''' on ''Series/GameOfThrones''

A show that has [[CastCalculus so many regulars]] that you [[AbsenteeActor can't fit them all into one episode.]] Therefore, one week some characters will appear, while some different characters will appear in another. You'll rarely get the same combination twice. This is especially common in LongRunners, as characters tend to accumulate over time. Shows with this many characters tend towards [[FlatCharacter one-dimensional characterization]] for many of them ([[Administrivia/TropesAreTools but not always]], if the writers will put in the effort), and often make {{filler}} easy to create.

Similarly, [[Franchise/FireEmblem some]] [[VideoGame/{{Suikoden}} video]] [[VideoGame/ChronoCross games]] involve [[GottaCatchThemAll collecting]] as many distinct, unique soldiers for your army as possible. Other video games, such as fighting games, start with just a few characters but keep adding characters to the roster as more sequels come out, until you eventually have enough characters to populate an entire {{Verse}}.

Creating a CastOfSnowflakes with these loads is an achievement and will make the story lively and colorful. If the writers are smart, they'll start making a CastHerd. The LoveDodecahedron is a way to spice things up, the GeodesicCast makes use of the characters through variations on a theme, and TheClan happens when the loads are related. A CharacterMagneticTeam can sometimes create this effect. Gets ''really'' convoluted if [[TangledFamilyTree everyone is somehow related]].

Please note that this is for extreme examples of ''regularly occurring'' characters. It's really not all that uncommon for a story to have ten or fifteen characters, especially with a VillainOfTheWeek format.

This can cause crediting issues for shows with an OBB (opening billboard), leading to FakeGuestStar or being shunted into the ClosingCredits for logistical reasons.

See also CrowdedCastShot, EnsembleCast, and LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces. May result in/from YouAllShareMyStory. Can contribute to ContinuityLockout in LongRunners. Compare RevolvingDoorCasting and HeroesUnlimited. The inversion of this trope is MinimalistCast. We have an article on [[SoYouWantTo/WriteLoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters how to write this variety of character roster]].

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!!Example subpages:

[[index]]
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/AnimeAndManga
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/FanWorks
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/{{Film}}
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/{{Literature}}
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/LiveActionTV
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/VideoGames
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters/WesternAnimation
[[/index]]

!!Other examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]
* Advertising/{{Geico}} cycles between so many mascots, it's become ridiculous. The have their eponymous Australian gecko, the googly-eyed stack of money, the offended cavemen, Michael [=McGlone=] the spokesman, [[ThoseTwoGuys the guitar playing duo]] that are always spouting hyperbolic comparisons, and Maxwell the anthropomorphic pig. This isn’t counting the many characters who show up for one commercial or characters from other series.
* Advertising/{{Orangina}} itself already have a bunch of characters in their commercials, but they have many models (mostly female) in their [[http://orangina.fr website]] (although their old website had MORE females, including a female penguin!).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Art]]
* ''Art/TheGhentAltarpiece'' features dozens or hundreds of figures, all beautifully executed -- saints, angels, knights, judges, Adam, Eve, God... The sheer scale of the execution, in a work that ''also'' helped bring UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance to northern Europe, is stunning.
* Art/SistineChapel:
** The ceiling covers nine scenes from the Literature/BookOfGenesis, depicting God, Adam, Eve, the serpent, Noah, Noah's family, all the people fleeing the global flood, a host of characters from other Biblical episodes, and a host of prophets and sibyls who foreshadowed Christ,
** ''The Last Judgement'' is covered with dozens of saints, prophets, and sinners that are either ascending to Heaven or descending into Hell, with Christ and Mary in the center below the throne of God.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Board Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Talisman}}'' has a large number of playable characters for a board game. With all of the expansions released so far, the current edition includes: Elf, Dwarf, Priest, Warrior, Thief, Troll, Ghoul, Monk, Wizard, Sorceress, Minstrel, Druid, Assassin, Prophetess, Highlander, Valkyrie, Cleric, Rogue, Swashbuckler, Vampiress, Knight, Dread Knight, Chivalric Knight, Merchant, Alchemist, Sprite, Warlock, Sage, Philosopher, Gladiator, Magus, Gypsy, Amazon, and Necromancer.
* ''Talisman'' has nothing on ''Tomb'', which has 84 different recruitable characters in the original, and as many twice more in two standalone expansions.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi Taikyoku shogi]], the largest known TabletopGame/{{Shogi}} variant, uses 209 different types of pieces.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Creator/{{DC|Comics}} [[Franchise/DCUniverse Comics]] and Creator/{{Marvel|Comics}} [[Franchise/MarvelUniverse Comics]] both possess incredibly large casts of characters, due to both being long-running multi-media franchises involving {{shared|Universe}} [[TheMultiverse multiverses]]. They each have a total amount of characters numbering somewhere in the ''thousands''.
* ComicBook/ScottPilgrim, definitely. The third volume even included a diagram of the 30-odd characters and their relationships to each other.
* ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'':
** The comic has even more characters than its animated counterpart. Over the entire run, there have been more than 80 distinct members of the team. Because of frequent {{continuity reboot}}s, who is actually on the team varies from time to time but the core group is generally the size of 20-30 or so members at any time.
** And in ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis: Legion of Three Worlds'', well, you do the math...
** Hilariously spoofed in Valentino's ''Normalman'', where the Roll Call for the "Legion of Superfluous Heroes" has to be spread out over several whole '''issues!'''
* The post-''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' ''[[ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica JSA]]'' roster grew to Legion-sizes at the end of Creator/GeoffJohns' reign, as countless LegacyCharacter-types were drawn from the ether. The new writers eventually split them into two teams to properly write them. It got even crazier when the two teams were reunited under Marc Guggenheim, and several other new characters like ComicBook/{{Manhunter}} Ri, and Libery Belle were added to the cast. At that point, Guggenheim {{ReTool}}ed the team into a ''literal'' society of superheroes living in the city of Monument Point.
* The ''ComicBook/XMen'' have so many characters that there's two separate books just for the core team, another one for the Junior Team/Reserves, and when you get into the various spin-off groups...
** And that's not counting the various characters that have been PutOnABus, [[DroppedABridgeOnHim had a bridge dropped on them]], got StuffedInTheFridge, or (most recently) got depowered, or just plain old forgotten about.
** For a better understanding, just look at the gatefold cover of X-men #200, which features everyone who had been part of the core team, even those who only hung around for a year or so.
** That's actually the main reason behind M-Day. The people who did it felt that there were getting to be too many super-powered people in the Marvel Universe.
** Matt Fraction brought up as many mutants he can to the new X-Men base, Utopia island. Not only all X-Men members, their students, New Mutants, his original creations and characters he brought back from the death or ComicBookLimbo but even ComicBook/{{Magneto}} and... [[ComicBook/SubMariner Namor]]. One wonders why, as he clearly crossed the line and cannot handle so much of them (it's doubtful that anybody would), yet brings back many other ones.
** There are currently eight separate X-Books in the aftermath of Schism. Three books deal with the Jean Grey Academy alone.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'''s character roster, taking from both the games, ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'', and original characters, number in the triple digits. However, thanks to a heaping dose of ScrewedByTheLawyers, ''most'' of the original characters got jettisoned from the comic, bringing down the number significantly. The number started climbing back up in the wake of reboot; while all the characters from the games and most from the TV series stayed on, new original characters were introduced consistently, leading to several new groups of freedom fighters and factions working under Eggman, and the introduction of even more obscure game characters such as [[VideoGame/SonicTheFighters Honey the Cat]] and [[VideoGame/TailsSkypatrol Wendy and the Witchcarters]].
* Current Marvel canon has established that there are 100 ''ComicBook/{{Eternals}}'' on earth - all million-year old immortals. Previous series have focused on a relatively small cast, with others sometimes turning up as guest stars elsewhere. Whereas Creator/KieronGillen started his [[ComicBook/Eternals2021 2021 series]] by naming and listing (almost) all of them, assigning them to the various cities and factions. It remains to be seen how many play major roles, but an increasing number are being mentioned in conversation and data pages, even if they remain offstage.
* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' have issued "Avengers Assemble" calls to the entire roster several times, resulting in anywhere from 30 to 100+ members showing up. After Heroes Reborn, when the team was assembled to fight Morgana, the issue after showed 30 Avengers attempting to take down one B-list villain, with disastrous results. Typically these assemblies also show one-time Avengers ComicBook/IncredibleHulk, ComicBook/SpiderMan, or the ComicBook/FantasticFour making an excuse not to tag along. (Although Spider-Man later became a full time member)
** This was lampshaded in one short "What If?" story, ''What if Everyone Who Had Ever Been an Avenger Stayed an Avenger?" (issue #34). In the story, Avengers Mansion was so full of superheroes that one couldn't swing a dead Skrull without knocking down a dozen or so of Creator/MarvelComics finest.
** Creator/GeoffJohns' run had one of the largest casts. The team included ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, ComicBook/IronMan, ComicBook/TheWasp, Yellowjacket, ComicBook/BlackPanther, ComicBook/TheFalcon, [[ComicBook/SubMariner Namor]], ComicBook/MsMarvel, ComicBook/ScarletWitch, ComicBook/TheVision, ComicBook/AntMan (Scott Lang), ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}, ComicBook/SheHulk, and Jack of Hearts. Looking at his tenures on the above-mentioned JSA and the ComicBook/New52 ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague'', it seems that he loves working with huge casts.
** Jonathan Hickman's team has a similarly huge cast, to the point that they had to launch a second title, ''Avengers World'', just to give more screentime to some of the underused players.
* The ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' may be largely divorced from the greater Marvel Universe (but not without some crossover), but don't let that make you think the series will have a MinimalistCast as a result. In the first arc alone, consisting of eighteen issues, you have the Alex, Gert, Karolina, Chase, Nico, and Molly as well as their TeamPet Old Lace making up the Runaways themselves. Then you have their parents: The Wilders, Yorkes, Deans, Steins, Minorus, and Hayeses compose the Pride. Various other characters such as Lt. Flores, Topher, ComicBook/CloakAndDagger make appearances throughout, and of course, there's the [[GreaterScopeVillain Gibborim]]. Oh, and ComicBook/CaptainAmerica makes an appearance at the end. This amounts to ''27 characters'' in just a mere eighteen issues. It only goes up from there.
* ''ComicBook/UsagiYojimbo'' had a big group photo of all its featured characters (good and evil, living and dead) as of vol. ~15, roughly about three-dozen characters.
* Franchise/{{Batman}} probably has the largest cast of villains, allies and supporting characters of any one superhero. He's perhaps the ultimate IneffectualLoner.
* Franchise/SpiderMan may be the one solo hero who can rival Batman -- between Spidey, his allies, his supporting cast, the other Spider heroes, and of course, his ''very'' extensive RoguesGallery, the wall-crawler alone tends to be very magnetic. That's not counting the fact that characters from ''other'' series tend to stop by all the time.
* Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' built up an impressive cast over the years. Dream himself has six siblings and over half a dozen recurring servants. that's not getting into the recurring humans, Faeries, Gods angels and demons.
* ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' put together every version of every major hero at once while throwing in a couple of unique characters. That's just counting the main story line, side stories eventually pulled in virtually every single character in DC history. Ultimately, ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' had almost ''every'' DCU character who had their own series ''ever.''
* ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' characters all have distinct personalities and appearances, and varying, unique, pretty outfits.
* ''ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics'' hits this trope pretty hard; just the family trees of {{Mickey|Mouse}}, Donald Duck, and WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} alone are really big, and the long number of other supporting cast members...
* ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' to the point that a guide book had to be published, though only a dozen or so hold any real bearing on the plot, most of them just exist for giant group shots of people fighting.
* ''ComicBook/GothamCentral'' has between eight and who knows how many major, recurring, or named minor characters in each issue. And that's not counting the villains who pop up from time to time. This happens because it follows two shifts of the Major Case Unit at the Gotham Police Department, and each shift has eight detectives and a shift commander.
* Creator/AntarcticPress series ''ComicBook/GoldDigger'' and ''ComicBook/NinjaHighSchool'' indeed have an incredible amount of characters from mainstays to one shots, mostly because the creators love using {{Expy}} to create new characters.
* Creator/DCComics' UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-based ''ComicBook/AllStarSquadron'' consisted of every DC and Quality Comics (a publisher eventually acquired by DC) hero from the 1940s, plus all newer DC characters established as having been active at the time. [[FunWithAcronyms The ASS]] had upwards of 75 members (though a good number of them only appeared in cameos or at occasional full-roster meetings.)
* Over the 50 year history of the ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'', there have been [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Justice_League_members 116 full-time members and entire slate of part-timers, reservists, associates, and buddies who just occasionally show up to help.]]
* Their young counterpart team the ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' aren't slouches either. Between their various main teams, ancillary teams, associates, and iterations, there have been over 70 members at some point or another. Chances are, if you're a young superhero in the DC Universe, you will have been a Titan at some point. In fact, ''ComicBook/DCRebirth'' gave us ''two'' variations of them: ''ComicBook/TitansRebirth'' (focusing on classic members all grown up) and ''ComicBook/TeenTitansRebirth'' (focusing on newer/younger members). [[ComicBook/TheLazarusContract They crossed over, naturally]].
* Even excluding one-shots and background cameos, the lack of a single main character/team (along with the {{Cryptic Background Reference}}s and {{Continuity Nod}}s) causes ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' to have several dozen characters with regular appearances scattered throughout the series' run. This is especially true in extended story arcs like "Tarnished Angel" and "The Dark Age", which often star characters who only get a brief appearance in other stories.
* ''ComicBook/PrideHigh'' has its reader characters on its message boards, which has more characters than one may be willing to count -- and many of these have made cameos in the comic itself.
* ''ComicBook/LoveAndRockets'', particularly the Palomar stories, which follow the intertwining lives of residents in a small town and their descendants.
* The ''Knight and Squire'' miniseries from DC Comics featured dozens and dozens of new British heroes and villains, both currently and retroactively. Most of them were identified in annotations added in the trade paperback release.
* ''ComicBook/AfterlifeWithArchie'' features many and many main and supporting cast member from the Archie universe. Just in the core group, we have Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Kevin, Cheryl and their family, which would bring up the tally to roughly 8-10 characters. And that doesn't count Jughead, who was PatientZero of the zombie apocalypse and the leader of the zombies. The series even made an effort to pull out obscure characters such as the Lodge's butler Smithers, Jughead and Betty's sister Jellybean and Polly, Nancy and Ginger (who are PromotedToLoveInterest to each other) and even from different titles such as ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch and even ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats.
* Creator/RobLiefeld is well-known for the many, many characters he creates, especially in the early [[Creator/ImageComics Image Universe]] kickstarted by his series ''ComicBook/{{Youngblood}}''. However, this is one of the best-known cases of a [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools misuse of this trope]], considering that many of them are {{Ersatz}} versions of famous heroes who get little development if any at all before Rob throws another team, group or set out of nowhere and starts writing about them. Not to mention that OnlySixFaces is in effect, making a lot of them hard to distinguish from one and other. It's actually been suspected that the large cast was accumulated because Liefeld would quickly ''get bored'' of what he's currently writing. As Linkara put it...
-->'''[[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]:''' A good creator is capable of making more that just one good character. Liefeld, on the other hand, settles on inventing 60,000 characters and ''none'' of them are good!
* Another Marvel instance played for the [=LOL=]s: ''The Fantastic Four Roast'' (February, 1982) has the Marvel Universe en masse at the titular fete, villains included.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': The three issue "The Witch and the Warrior" story made an attempt to use every female villain and hero active in the DCU at the time. There are over 60 female villains and 60 female heroes identified by ComicBook/{{Oracle}} alone, and that's not including the male heroes who were victims of Circe's magic.
** ''[[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Wonder Woman 600]]'': Phill Jimez's valiant effort to cram as many Wonder Woman characters as possible into one two-page spread contains more than 80 characters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* Large casts are especially rare in newspaper comics, due to new papers constantly picking up the series and almost no reruns to catch up with, but ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' is a famous exception. At one time a Sunday strip ran that was just one big panel with a group-photo-style picture of the entire cast. Along the side of the panel was a ''SixDegreesOfKevinBacon''-style chain of how they are connected to one another.
** A previous strip, published about five years earlier, Lampshaded this by doing a similar chart and having Zonker explain that this was being done because "most 19th century Russian epic novels have fewer characters than this feature." Since then, the cast has only GROWN (as this was before everyone started having kids.)
** This was lampshaded in the comic strip ''ComicStrip/{{Foxtrot}}'' once. A tossed-off gag in the middle of a Sunday strip involved Jason downloading the cast list of ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'', and the file was many megabytes in size.
** Wiki/TheOtherWiki counts 68 characters.
** Lampshaded again [[http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2013/06/02 here]].
* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'', a notable LongRunner, contains about twenty principal characters (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Rerun, Schroeder, Woodstock, Sally, Marcie, Frieda, Peppermint Patty, Franklin, Pig-Pen, Spike, Shermy, Eudora, Molly Volley, Crybaby Boobie, Patty, Violet, 5, Peggy Jean), and the unseen Little Red-Haired Girl, Mrs Othmar, and all the parents, and a sentient schoolhouse. A few of them were [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome brother chucked]], though.
** If Crybaby Boobie and Molly Volley count as "principal characters", then so does Roy, the kid who introduced Peppermint Patty to Charlie Brown. He appeared in quite a few summer camp strips. And what about the pig-tailed girl who's friends with Rerun?
** A complete list of all the characters is [[http://fivecentsplease.com/dpb/castlist.html here]]. Oh, and that's just the ''named'' cast members.
** The core of the cast is probably Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, Woodstock, Sally, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie. Due to the strip's LongRunner status, the core of the cast has evolved as it's gone on. Shermy, Patty, Violet, Pig-Pen, Frieda, Franklin, Rerun, and Eudora have been members of the core, or at least the main cast, at some point or another; a case could also be made for 5, Roy, Spike, and Rerun's aforementioned friend. That's 17-21 main cast members, a pretty remarkable tally, though no more than ten or so at any one time.
* ComicStrip/BeetleBailey has around thirty characters.
** Even creator Mort Walker stated that he had more characters in Beetle than any other comic strip that is running.
* ''Tumbleweeds'' has a good thirty characters in its main cast, split between members of the town and the surrounding lands' Native tribes.
* ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' has a core family of five, plus friends, relatives, and pets. And then the kids started having families of their own...
* ''ComicStrip/{{Mutts}}'' started as just a man and his dog, then added a couple with a cat. Several dogs, many cats, an array of invertebrates and other animals, and a few humans later, it definitely qualifies.
* ''ComicStrip/GasolineAlley'' is unusual in being a LongRunner where the characters have aged ''in real time.'' In that time, many castmembers have died, new ones have kept getting introduced, baby Skeezix is now an old man, and Walt Wallet, the original protagonist, is now over 100. The cast is very big, and long stretches can go by without Walt or Skeezix popping up, although together they are still both the heart of the strip.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Manhwa]]
* In the manhwa ''Manhwa/FaeriesLanding'', there's Fanta and the other faeries, then the gods and creatures in the faerie realm, then Ryang, his family, friends, classmates, and other human extras, and the 108 pairs of affinities. And all the characters from the past and the present...
* ''Manhua/RavagesOfTime'' takes the original characters from ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' and adds original ones, as if there weren't already enough.
* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' has about 40 recurring and/or plot relevant characters.
%%* ''Manhwa/{{Yureka}}'' has a huge amount of characters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Any rap record that has a lot of guest features.
* This is generally {{invoked|trope}} by several entertainment companies in the {{Kpop}} scene.
** {{Music/SEVENTEEN}} has 13 members.
** Music/TheBoyz had 12 members at debut but became 11 after Hwall's departure.
** This seems to be a favorite concept for SM Entertainment in particular, as they have the following groups under them:
*** {{Music/NCT}} has 23 known members and they are supposed to continue expanding infinitely as their main concept.
*** Music/SuperJunior had 13 members at debut but now have 9 active members with one more inactive member.
*** {{Music/EXO}} used to have 12 members but after 3 members leaving the group they became 9.
* Music/HelloProject. They're currently at 61 members, and have had 128 members in total to date.
** A few years ago, Morning Musume had 15 members.
** The Eggs (trainees) are now at 28 members. And they keep ''adding more of them'' every few months.
* Music/AKB48 -- as their name implies, you'd think they have 48 members. Right now they're at ''83''.
** They actually were at 48 members at one point in 2007..
* The now-defunct group Bishoujo Club 31 (Saki Fukuda and Beni Arashiro were in it) had - you guessed it - 31 members.
* Bang Camaro has 16 members for their studio and touring band, but to add to this, when the venue is big enough, they add on some session members to get as many people on stage as possible. Their lineup is basically a typical 4 piece rock band, plus 12 or more singers; part of their trademark sound is that there's a small choir of voices singing the lyrics rather than a traditional "lead" vocalist.
* The Music/TransSiberianOrchestra has 41 members, touring or otherwise.
* Only few people were able to keep track of exactly how many different band members [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laibach_(band) Laibach]] had until now. The fact that the active band members change regularly and often use pseudonyms or don't use any individual names at all makes it worse. Intentionally. The list on the Wikipedia article seems to be complete though.
* Music/TheFall's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Fall_members former band member list]] rivals their [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_discography discography]] in size. [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/jan/05/popandrock This article]] details a journalist's attempt to track down all of them.
* Menudo definitely has them. The band has been around since 1977, and members are thrown out and replaced when they turn 16, their voice changes, the start to shave, or get too tall. This has led to a revolving door of singers.
* The Music/WuTangClan. If you have no trouble keeping track of [[SpellMyNameWithAThe The RZA, The GZA,]] Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Masta Killa, Method Man, Cappadonna, and their [[IHaveManyNames countless aliases and alter egos,]] there are dozens if not hundreds of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wu-Tang_Clan_affiliates associated groups, rappers, and singers]] to get lost in.
* Music/TheDoobieBrothers, so much so that there used to be a joke: "[[ReallyGetsAround She's had more members in her than the Doobie Brothers.]]"
** At their 2004 induction into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doobie_Brothers#Band every musician who had ever been a member of The Doobie Brothers]] showed up to perform. The stage that night was...crowded, to say the least.
* ''Music/{{Vocaloid}}'', if we include unreleased Vocaloids and private voicebanks, and don't include Append, Extend, V3 Updates, fanmades like Haku & Neru, or things like Ice Mountain, there are 94 Vocaloids.
* GAGGLE, an all female "alt-choir", has between 20-25 members at any one time.
* Swedish pirate folk band Ye Banished Privateers currently has a lineup of 24 official members, according to their Wikipedia page, though only about a dozen go on tour at a time (which is still pretty impressive on its own).
* The Band from TV - founded by Creator/GregGrunberg, and boasting Creator/HughLaurie and Creator/TeriHatcher in its ranks - is a large group consisting entirely of TV stars.
* In another lesser example, Music/{{Typhoon}} tours with twelve people.
* As Music/ThePolyphonicSpree is basically a small indie rock orchestra with a choir of varying size on vocals, the sheer number of people it brings onstage is one of its trademarks.
* Film and TV soundtrack albums are no stranger to this trope.
** The [[Music/Furious7Soundtrack soundtrack album]] of ''[[Film/TheFastAndTheFurious Furious 7]]'' features a whopping '''31''' artists, consisting primarily of rappers, [=DJs=], latin artists, and pop singers. This is mainly because a lot of the artists collaborated with one another.
** The ''[[Film/TheBoatThatRocked Pirate Radio]]'' soundtrack has almost as many as ''Furious 7'', with 29 artists featured over two discs.
* Music/TheOcean has had over '''50''' people working on their projects. So many people have worked that the website even admits to giving up listing everyone who has been involved.
* So far, ''Music/VisionDivine'' had two singers, three keyboard players, two bassists and five drummers. The only constant members on the lineup are Olaf and Federico, the guitar players.
* ''Music/{{Ayreon}}'' is basically a who-is-who of ProgressiveRock and ProgressiveMetal. The other wiki [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ayreon_guest_musicians lists 84 guests vocalists]] as of now (post-Transitus), and plenty of guest instrumentalitst. The in-universe storyline has even more characters - many of the guests vocalists appear on multiple albums but there are almost no recurring characters so the average guest vocalist plays ~3 different characters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]
* Epics and holy scriptures tend to be this, due to them having been collected from stories told for eons.
* OlderThanFeudalism: Creator/{{Homer}}'s ''Literature/TheIliad''. [[KillEmAll Most of them die, usually within a page of being introduced.]]
** The character sheets for ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' run to several pages, however most of them only appear in one or two books.
** This probably was the case for the six other epics in the Literature/TrojanCycle, considering it covered everything from UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar's origin to Odysseus's death.
** This is because every Greek family claimed to have some ancestor who fought in UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar. Every character, even the throwaways, would have been hugely important to someone.
* Virgil's ''Literature/TheAeneid'' is just as bad as Homer's works.
* Myth/ClassicalMythology in general is like this. You have the Olympian gods, the Titans, heroes, demigods, monsters, kings... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_mythological_figures Here's a list]]
* The ancient Hindu epic ''Literature/{{Mahabharata}}'', part literature and part mythology, defined Loads And Loads Of Characters for possibly the first time ever, and then ''re''defined it just for fun. For most of the story, it's just the five heroes and their wife having wacky adventures. In the final year of the story, the cast suddenly balloons as the heroes are boarded up with a royal family, which naturally includes the extended family and several orders' staff and servants, all named. Then you get to TheWarSequence, and it's the main heroes, miscellaneous friends and political allies, their extended families, and sons and nephews in the double digits ''each'', against the enemy force of ''one hundred'' named villains and ''their'' allies, cousins, sons and nephews. This is just the named characters -- {{mooks}} are in the thousands. And ''each named character'' gets [[CharacterFocus his own story]]. This, kids, is why the ''Mahabharata'' is the longest poem ever written by an incredibly wide margin.
** Also the ''Literature/{{Ramayana}}''. The main story is about Rama. It starts before his conception and ends with his ascension to his celestial abode. Its characters include His father, his wife, his wife's parents, his father's three wives, their offspring, their offspring's wives, their wives' parents, the respective households, Rama's teacher Valmiki, Hanuman, the other monkeys, some eagles, Ravana, Ravana's offspring and other related people in the households, Rama's two children etc. There are a lot more, but you get the idea.
* Literature/TheBible. Each book has a whole new array of characters, and it even goes into their family trees for a bunch of generations. Several characters have multiple children who then have their own children. Several of those books were religious history texts, covering religious, political, and cultural events relevant to not only a nation, but several generations of that nation. Add to that the New Testament, made up primarily of letters to entire churches...
** It should be noted that the Bible isn't a single book written by one author, but a collection of scriptures written by multiple authors throughout several generations.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pinball]]
* Creator/SternPinball's ''[[Pinball/XMenStern X-Men]]'' has one of the largest casts in a {{Pinball}} game, with nearly fifty characters making appearances, many of them voiced.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* The ''Podcast/CoolKidsTable'' game ''Creepy Town'' has twelve player characters, more than any other game played on the show. Justified, though, since in this game two-thirds of them are going to die before the final act.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* ''Series/PiliFantasyWarOfDragons'': The cast has several dozen characters sharing complex interrelated backstories. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/ThunderboltFantasy/comments/cd0a0f/basic_introduce_for_pili_fantasy/ Here's a quick visual primer.]]
* Franchise/TheMuppets, by their very nature, embody this trope. ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' alone has a sizable "lead" cast (Kermit, Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Rowlf, Statler and Waldorf, the Electric Mayhem, Sam Eagle, the Swedish Chef, Robin, Scooter, Bunsen and Beaker, and, for a time, Rizzo), along with background characters (both recurring and one-off) out the wazoo. Likewise, ''Series/SesameStreet'' has a boat load of Muppet characters, and an equally large cast of human characters (especially when you count both the series regulars and the various one-offs and interchangeable background figures). Factor in the characters from ''Series/FraggleRock'', ''Series/TheJimHensonHour'', ''Series/MuppetsTonight'', ''Series/SamAndFriends'', and the various Muppet TV specials and movies on top of the above two examples, and you get almost enough characters to populate a small country.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* In 1980s WWF was the result of Wrestling/VinceMcMahon Jr crushing or buying out most of the visible promotions of USA and Canada while signing the talent he wanted most. Only a portion of the entire roster was featured each week. Usually, two tag teams and four singles wrestlers would be spotlighted (often, evenly divided between faces and heels), and even with backstage interviews (pre-filmed interviews, frequently promoting an upcoming card in the viewing area) and [[TalkShowWithFists segments such as "Piper's Pit"]], there still wouldn't be enough time in a 60-minute program to give camera time to, much less even mention, ''every'' wrestler in the promotion every week. If 50 percent of a promotion (of 50-60 headline-type wrestlers, not including those who were strictly jobbers) were featured each week, they did well.
** The annual Royal Rumble Match (held the last Sunday of January every year) is a good way to bring all these characters together. Thirty (forty in 2011, and twenty when it began in 1988) wrestlers compete in the match over the course of about an hour, and typically only about ten of them will be recognizable to casual fans. Even WWE diehards may have trouble keeping track of all the cameos. Remember Daniel Puder? Probably not - but if you're a Royal Rumble connoisseur, you do.
* In 1987, Jim Crockett Promotions took over/bought (Nobody seems to know which is the absolute truth) Championship Wrestling from Florida and bought the [[Wrestling/HerbAbramsUWF Universal Wrestling Federation]]. This gave them four more hours of TV to fill each week. While there were three distinct and separate crews, wrestlers would move over constantly. Late in the year, the UWF shows stopped having their own crews while CWF kept losing importance. At the end of the year, the UWF shows were the same as the JCP shows with different names/intros (UWF was the same as Wrestling/{{N|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA Pro Wrestling and Power Pro Wrestling was the same as NWA World Wide Wrestling. The announcers would only mention "The Wrestling Network" during the shows.), while CWF's BShow (Southern Pro Wrestling) was cancelled and CWF became a NWA Pro Wrestling with localized commentary and a different name/intro. UWF disappeared as 1988 started, PPW disappeared a few weeks later, and CWF stuck around for a few more months.
* Part of {{Wrestling/WCW}}'s grand "Kill The [[{{Wrestling/WWE}} WWF]] in Five Years" plan was to hire as many quality wrestlers as possible- veterans, foreign stars, up-and-comers and indy standouts alike. The problem was that this was mainly done to severely limit the [[{{Wrestling/WWE}} WWF's]] available talent pool and {{Wrestling/WCW}}, who had only a 2-3 hour show, had no intention of using most of these people. Wrestlers were paid not based on whether they were booked for matches, but whether they showed up to tapings, and even then, all a performer had to do was sign a register and he was given a full payday no questions asked, regardless of whether he had actually worked that night or not. This left {{Wrestling/WCW}} with a bloated roster, many of whom were getting paid for doing nothing, and often resented that they weren't being used, and willingly took a pay cut to jump to [[{{Wrestling/WWE}} WWF]] where they were actually shown on TV as soon as their contracts expired. This was one of the lesser poor management decisions that led to Literature/TheDeathOfWCW.
* The [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder nWo]], by necessity of it being a group meant to take over WCW. However, this became a problem when the angle was extended much longer than originally planned and keeping up with all the nWo members became a chore.
* Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Legion Extrajera, a PowerStable led by Wrestling/{{Konnan}} that basically every foreigner in AAA at the time was thrown into. It was so large that it had its own sub-groups. But AAA would not stop there. La Legion Extranjera later [[LegionOfDoom merged]] with Los Maniacos (three people), La Milicia (ten), El Consejo (ten) and Los Perros Del Mal (an entire invading promotion, though it often limited its AAA presence to a "core" five or ten) to create La Sociedad, one of the largest stables to ever exist. The {{tecnico}}s were so desperate that they resorted to [[TheMole internal sabotage]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/TheArchers'' - thanks in part to its Extreme LongRunner status - has a regular character list of about 60, with a couple of dozen appearing each week. Include occasional and silent characters, and you're into the hundreds.
* ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' had three main cast members, a handful of supporting players (which included the announcer and some of the regular musicians) and a few recurring guest stars. Between them they played something like fifty roles, over thirty of them regulars. The bulk of these were voiced by Creator/PeterSellers and Creator/SpikeMilligan, though Milligan claimed he only had so many parts to prevent Sellers from talking to himself.
* The cast of The Session on ''Creator/TheBrewingNetwork'' expanded over time to include a stable group of regulars, as well as a much larger group of people who regularly appear in episodes. Add on regular listeners who call and contribute, plus the stable of hosts of the various shows that got added after The Session
* ''Radio/LoZooDi105'': Due to each sketch having its own characters, and the abundance of sketches themselves throughout the years.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse has this in spades, with 37 playable heroes (counting the Southwest Sentinels/Void Guard, who appear as both a team and solo heroes), 97 hero character cards (some of whom represent different people - Legacy, Bunker, Luminary and Stuntman all have variants who are distinct people from the base hero card), 24 solo villain decks, 6 with variant villain cards, 15 team villain decks, a whole bunch of named minions and Elite Mooks, multiple environment decks with named characters (the Court of Blood, Enclave of the Endlings, Maerynian Refuge and so on), and an ultra-villain who brings with him ten lesser villains plus all the dimension-hopping hero and villain alternates like Omni-Unity, Arataki (a female counterpart to Haka), and El Mejor Legado. And this is before factoring in the characters added in the RPG and Tactics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* ''Theatre/TheLaramieProject'' has over seventy characters, all of whom are [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles regularly played by eight people.]]
** Same goes for ''Theatre/AngelsInAmerica'', though there aren't quite so many characters.
* ''Theatre/TheCrucible'' has about twenty parts, all of which are given, if not deep character development, then something to do at least.
* Most Creator/CirqueDuSoleil shows have at least fifty performers apiece; a few of the non-touring shows have upwards of ''70''. This can roughly be broken down into:
** 5-10 principal characters and/or character groups, including clowns, singers, and lead dancers.
** Characters and/or groups that exist for one act in particular, but might have a member or two appear elsewhere in the show (i.e. the Zebras in ''"O"'', the Nymphs in ''Alegria'') for character work. ActingForTwo applies here.
** The musicians.
* Many Creator/WilliamShakespeare plays have dozens of named characters, particularly the histories. Often modern productions cut the plays down (since uncut most would last over four hours), merge bit parts with one or two lines into single characters, and double- or even triple-cast actors in medium and sometimes even larger characters.
* ''Theatre/TwilightLosAngeles'' is a docudrama that tells the story of the riots in Los Angeles in 1992. Lot of people.
* ''Theatre/TheBlueBird'' has a fairy give two children ''eight'' sidekicks for their journey, into lands with even more named characters -- ranging from the kids' dead grandparents to Night to a forest's worth of tree spirits to Luxuries and Happinesses to unborn children waiting to go to Earth. Tellingly, lesser sidekick characters like Water are sidelined for significant stretches of the action.
* Between the main 3 engines, Poppa, Electra's components, the coaches, the freight trucks, the Rockies/Hip-Hoppers and the national engines (and Greaseball's lackies, the race marshalls and Control), ''Theatre/StarlightExpress'' has a rather sizeable cast.
* ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods'' has approximately 20 to 24 characters depending on the production that have at least a few lines or non-ensemble singing duties.
* ''Theatre/{{Finale}}'' has several different major characters and story arcs.
* ''Theatre/LesMiserables'' has 9 main characters (Valjean, Javert, Marius, Cosette, Fantine, Enjolras, and the Thenardiers, including Eponine) plus many supporting characters (the other students, including Gavroche, Joly, Combferre, Coufeyrac, Prouvaire, Grantaire, and Feuilly), several one-scene wonders (the Bishop, Bamatabois, Fauchlevant, and Major Domo), other unnamed extras who show up for a line or two (the women in the factory, the prisoners in the workyard, the women who sing "Turning", the wedding guests), and unnamed characters who nonetheless serve a purpose (the nuns at the Bishop's convent, the non-singing Lovely Ladies, the patrons of Thenardier's inn, and the general chorus of poor people).
* ''Theatre/TheRingOfTheNibelung'': through the 16 hours that last the 4-part opera series, we get the names of 3 Rhine Daughters, 3 Nornes, 7 Gods, 8 Valkyries...
* ''Theatre/UtopiaLimited'' features a whopping ''seventeen'' individual named speaking and singing roles, most of whom are on stage at the same time so they can't be doubled. That combined with the fact that most of them also require at least two wardrobe changes (the characters appear first in their "traditional" Utopian dress and later in formal English attire) probably has something to do with why this one isn't produced nearly as often as other Creator/GilbertAndSullivan shows.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* Ride/DisneyThemeParks: In addition to hundreds of characters from the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon, WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts, and a few television properties, there's also dozens of characters exclusive to the parks, like the Ghost Host (Ride/TheHauntedMansion), the Country Bears (''Country Bear Jamboree''), and Figment (Epcot's imagination-based pavillion).
** At Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, there are days when the managers all dress in character costumes for a day. The sheer number of "forgotten" major characters is mind-boggling, and the fact that they ''usually have characters left over'' is simply jaw-dropping.
* Ride/WeekiWacheeSprings, a UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} Theme Park famous for its mermaid show, debuted in 1947, making it understandable that something that has [[LongRunners been around so long]] would have seen many performers come and go.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}''. Being a LongRunner, the TropeCodifier for MerchandiseDriven (Creator/{{Hasbro}}'s 'king' of toy lines) ''and'' having the most infamous ContinuitySnarl ever from being so AdaptationOverdosed, this trope was inevitable. And then there's when this trope occurs ''within'' adaptations:
** The ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'' and Generation 2 comics are notable for featuring somewhere in the region of 300 named characters over the course of their ten-year run. Of these, over 120 are permanently killed off, some for dramatic effect to drive the story, but mostly because there were simply too many of them for the writer to keep track of, and because their toys had come off the shelf and no longer needed to be "sold" through the comic. They often went out in large batches (for instance, in issue #19, Omega Supreme offlines nearly every Decepticon from the first year of the series in about two pages), with the most famous instance surely being issue #50, in which a cosmically-powered Starscream unceremoniously kills almost every other surviving character from the first three years of the series with a few waves of his hands. This is without even bringing up the unnamed background characters, such as the entire population of San Francisco.
** ''Anime/TransformersArmada'' had a relatively small cast. However, the sequel series ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'' went so overboard in cramming in Autobot characters and using them at any excuse that in certain shots you can't actually tell what's going on. Needless to say, this left all but a few with no characterization at all. This got better in ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'', which [[DubInducedPlotHole may]] [[AscendedFanon or may not]] be a followup to ''Energon'', but it didn't improve by that much.
*** Supposedly the reason for the many accents that the characters of ''Transformers: Cybertron'' was that they were so underdeveloped that otherwise they were virtually the same beyond their names and appearances.
*** ''Anime/TransformersSuperGodMasterforce'' and ''Anime/TransformersVictory'', which featured all-new, considerably smaller casts in an obvious effort to start afresh.
* ''Franchise/GIJoe''. Since the franchise was revived in 1982, the action figure lines have featured hundreds of characters, most of whom have appeared in the various TV shows, movies and comics at some point.
* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' has a huge cast of primary, secondary, tertiary, and background characters, spread across several generations of toys, shows, comics, and other assorted media. The toy line itself ''did'' briefly play with the idea of using a MinimalistCast instead of this trope in 2008-2009, with only 10 characters - three of whom weren't even named - having toys during that time, but even then the cartoons still included enough other characters that the ChristmasSpecial ''Twinkle Wish Adventure'' easily filled out crowd scenes with them. Although ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' downplays this, with the show's central cast being somewhat small and consistent, it still has a very large number of characters overall. The total number of My Little Pony characters is debatable, due to issues such as the existence of multiple versions of some characters, but the answer is somewhere in the '''thousands'''.
* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'', definitely. The main cast comprises over 200 characters, and there are countless RedShirt villagers scattered all throughout the islands that the story hasn't covered.
** According to the comics and stories, some of those FacelessMooks were also sentient.
* The Japanese stationery company ''Creator/{{Sanrio}}'' has been in business since 1962, though they didn't start creating characters until 1973, but didn't became common place until they created Franchise/HelloKitty in 1974. After creating Hello Kitty, the company decided to create more and more characters to see how successfully they would sell in stores. [[AmericansHateTingle While some characters are hardly ever heard of outside of Japan]], or are [[ChuckCunningHamSyndrome forgotten]], others become very popular. [[http://www.sanrio.co.jp/characterindex/ The Japanese]] [[http://www.sanrio.com/timeline/ and American]] websites for Sanrio have lists of how many characters they have, mostly the popular and successful ones. In total, they have over 400 characters [[note]] And that's only counting the titular characters. Friends, family members and relatives of any titular Sanrio Character would open up a huge can of worms. [[/note]] Unlike Sanrio's other websites, their [[https://www.sanrio.co.jp/character/?class=age Japanese website has a complete history of their characters sorted by decade.]] Heck Sanrio's official Japanese Youtube channel even released a music video titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24BrlzQ6eo "Mell's Sanrio Cute Memory Song"]] which featured Mell from Wish Me Mell singing about almost every single Sanrio Character up to that period. The song length is 5:27 minutes long showing how many characters (outside of some of their family and friends) Sanrio has created over the years.
* ''Toys/MonsterHigh'' has a designated main cast, and nearly 100 other supporting characters who appear with varying frequency.
* ''Toys/{{Uglydolls}}'' have a giant variety of characters in the line, even out of the core main ones.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Mixels}}'' has had 81 characters released via the toys, with countless Nixel characters, along with multiple [[ToylessToylineCharacter show-exclusive ones]].
* ''Toys/GoGosCrazyBones''. ''Ho boy, where do we begin?'' It's nigh-inevitable for collectible toy series in this vein to fall victim to this trope, but ''Gogo's Crazy Bones'', which has had a ton of sets of Gogos released for it over the years, contains over 700 characters in the sets from the reboot series ''alone''. Heck, each separate set of Gogos usually consists of loads and loads of characters, usually ranging from 60 to 90 characters, but the "New Generation" set has ''120 characters'', the most out of any set in the series! To a lesser extent, Magic Box Int.'s other collectible toy series, such as ''Toys/StarMonsters'', fall under this too.
* The Franchise/{{Tamagotchi}} franchise of digital pet toys introduces several new characters that your pet can grow up to become for each new release. Given that it's been [[LongRunners going since 1996]], the character count reaching a high level was a given; according to the franchise's [[TheWikiRule wiki]], there are over 730 documented characters in the series.
* Franchise/SylvanianFamilies: Due to it's status as a LongRunner of over 30 years, this is unavoidable. Each core set contains 4 figures of the family, some families are actually bigger and have booster packs (for example, the core Chocolate Rabbit Family, a four-figurine set, can be added on with three more babies, an older sister, and two grandparents. The Milk Rabbit Family, while smaller, also has booster sets of at least one baby. There are at least three rabbit families (Chocolate, Milk and Cottontail). There are plenty more families, some seasonal, some permanent, some retired, some are even regional. Advise: CrackIsCheaper, consider focusing on only one or two species, and avoid going for characters that are no longer produced, to avoid having your finance spiral out of control.
* ''Toys/{{Lalaloopsy}}'' has about ''156'' ragdoll characters, with their origins ranging from fabrics of simple clothes (or in Pillow's case, a blanket) to things that are utterly ridiculous and impossible to sew into dolls.
* What happens when a toy company devotes almost all of its product to mass-produced vinyl figures from various franchises, many with Loads and Loads of Characters themselves? Two words: [[Toys/FunkoPop Funko. Pops]].
** The same can be said about Toys/{{Nendoroid}}, especially for Japanese franchises, though nendoroids are higher quality and made using PVC.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' has a relatively small core cast (twelve main characters), but add in all the spin-offs that are counted as part of the series' world and the list of recurring characters and one-shot characters alone pushes quadruple digits. Some of these characters are a popcorn maker, a printer, or a wagon full of pancakes. Not anthropomorphized. Just a regular popcorn maker named Frank Benedetto.
* ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'' features about 40 speaking roles, over half of which are major players in the plot.
* By the end of the first season, ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'''s core cast included thirteen characters (Church, Tucker, Caboose, Sheila, Tex, Grif, Sarge, Simmons, Lopez, Donut, Vic, and O'Malley), and it's only grown from there: Red and Blue soldiers (Captain Flowers, Sister, Doc, and Andy the Bomb), Freelancers (Wyoming, York, Wash, South, North, Maine, CT, and Carolina), AIs (Gamma, Delta, Epsilon - [[spoiler:who replaced Church in the main cast]] - Sigma, and Theta), important Freelancer personnel (the Director, the Counselor, the Chairman, and the Pilot\479er), aliens (Crunchbite and Junior), and people from - or met in - Chorus (Felix, Locus, Kimball, Dr. Grey, the Lieutenants). And that's not counting more minor characters such as the Green Alien or "imaginary" versions of characters from Caboose's mind or the capture unit.
* ''WebAnimation/SlushInvaders'' has the Slush Fighters, who consist of around 27 regulars, each with their own unique abilities. Two of them are named Brian, which doesn't help. And that's not counting the antagonists...
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' features over 30 named characters by the end of Volume 2, almost all of whom are integral to the plot in some manner. The Vol.2 finale is almost entirely dedicated to showing as many of them kicking ass as possible, and even manages to introduce three more characters in the process (four, if you count [[spoiler:Adam]]). Volume 3 introduces even more given it features a TournamentArc, though it started to phase many of the original cast OutOfFocus - not that it reduced the new characters, helped by how Vol. 4 indulged in PartyScattering and [[FourLinesAllWaiting separate plots]] for the main characters. The main cast are mostly reunited by Vol. 6, and Vol. 7 features a LampshadeHanging -- General Ironwood comes to a party at Schnee Manor accompanied by sixteen other characters, half of whom are the main cast and every one of them named and well-established, leading Whitley to snark about the party's size.
* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': The main cast alone consists of ''26'' characters, and thats just the ''initial'' members! The massive cast being split up so thin in [='VRcade'=] is what led to the episode's massive length too.
* [[JustifiedTrope Given that]] [[Website/GoAnimate GoAnimate]] allows you to make pretty much any character ever, the grounded videos have starred everyone from LeafyIsHere to [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience color coded]] [[SendInTheClones clones]] of WesternAnimation/{{Pingu}}. A search for "gets grounded" on [[Website/YouTube YouTube]] yields 513,000 results as of early 2017, hence the truckload of characters.
* ''WebAnimation/BattleForDreamIsland'' had lots of characters to begin with. Then Jackenjellify (the creator) gave people the choice to send in their own characters, and there's over 100 of them. The new season, BFB, has 65 contestants. With Four, X and Two included, that's 68 named characters excluding all of the recommended characters.
* ''Machinima/GamingAllStars'': Considering the '''''staggering''''' number of franchises involved (Even more than, say, VideoGame/SuperSmashBros), this trope definitely comes into play. In ''2'', the amount of characters involved becomes so enormous that the title card of each episode lists the franchises being represented in any given episode, much to the viewer's convenience.
* ''Creator/{{Nijisanji}}'' has been recruiting members since their debut back in 2018 and they currently have over 100 members.
* Similarly, ''WebAnimation/{{Hololive}}'' has over 50 talents. Each sorted by generations, both from Japan and overseas.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' has the Light Warriors, the Real Light Warriors, the Dark Warriors, the Elemental Fiends, the Other Warriors, White Mage and Black Belt, Onion Kid, Akbar and Jeff, King Steve, Princess Sara, Left-Hand Man Gary, Matoya, Bahamut, Dragoon, Sarda, The Trickster God, Dr. Swordopolis, Dodecahedron, Darko the Dark God of the Dark, Chaos, and more. For added goodness, two strips showed the Light Warriors, the Dark Warriors, the Other Warriors, and Warmech [[CrowdedCastShot all on panel at once.]] The Light Warriors, Real Light Warriors, Dark Warriors, Elemental Fiends, and Other Warriors are each made up of 4 characters. So that's a total of 37 listed here, and there's more supporting cast than that.
* ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace''. [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Arthurian myth]], being made of various legends and ballads bolted together by Malory, has Loads And Loads Of Characters and AKOTAS includes most of them. (And the others are probably due to be introduced later.) Lampshaded [[http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/2120.htm here]]
* ''Webcomic/BasketsOfGuts'': Starting off with two protagonists, the number of characters involved in the story dramatically increases, after said pair reaches the city.
* ''Webcomic/{{Buildingverse}}'' works tend to have a massive cast, or to be precise a limited main cast[[note]]''Webcomic/GirlsNextDoor'': Sarah, Christine, Erik, Jareth; ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}'': Erik, Jareth, Javert, James; ''Webcomic/{{Superintendent}}'': Javert, Valjean; etc.[[/note]] which inflates over 20 with all the regulars and to ridicculous levels with everybody (The character page for ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}'' lists more than 100 characters).
* The [[http://www.captainsnes.com/data.html cast page]] for ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'' lists '''120''' named characters - and it's incomplete. Including four different [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Link]]s and the Nintendo Censorship Angel. And along the same lines, how bout we introduce [[http://www.kidradd.com/ Kid Radd]] here as well? Tons of bit parts (hah) who were nonetheless named, or at least referenced in such a way as to make them notable...
* ''Webcomic/CharbyTheVampirate'' oh god, just look at the picture on the [[Characters/CharbyTheVampirate character page]]! The character page is incomplete and lists 80 named characters, not including the split off character page for the Kellwood city residents who have their own side comic, ''Webcomic/HereThereBeMonsters'', and are therefore listed on ''that'' character page.
* ''Webcomic/{{Consolers}}'' is a comic about [[AnthropomorphicPersonification game companies]]. Every game company (and even a few non-game companies) has a potential personification in this comic, and there's almost 40 of them so far.
* In ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'', even the artist has admitted that there are too many characters to keep up with, with at least one of the main characters in the beginning being moved to nearly invisible.
* ''Webcomic/DearChildren'' By the end of the second chapter nearly 30 major and minor characters have been met, and the authors have hinted at many more to come.
* ''Webcomic/DebuggingDestiny'' is lighter than a lot of these examples, at only 18 characters. However, every one of those eighteen is a major character with real consequences on the story, even if they do not personally make an appearance very often. Most episodes only include two to six.
* ''Webcomic/DeepRise'' Over 25 named non-humans identified by color, hard-to-remember names and eye-configuration.
* As of October 2014, ''Webcomic/DeviantUniverse'' has over 300 named characters.
* ''Webcomic/DrawYourOwnStory'' has accumulated [[http://dyos.wikkii.com/wiki/Category:Characters tons of self-inserts, as well as canon characters taken from other works]]. [[http://dyos.wikkii.com/wiki/File:Roundup.jpg Here's a pic]], and there's not even half of everyone in there.
* ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}''. There are several noble houses, each with its leader, officers, counsellors and soldiers. There is the imperial house - ditto. There are the demon-busting Templars - ditto. There are the renegades and diabolists - ditto. There is the great school, with its staff and pupils. There are Ariel's friends (where not previously covered). And that doesn't even start on the supporting characters, citizens and walk-ons. Plus, they all have long, straight white hair and narrow builds. There is a very good reason why the drow in this universe favour distinctive jewellery, facial decals, and hair dye patterns...
** In later chapters, the creators have started adding cameo appearances for fanmade characters, further expanding the named cast. Some of the "cameos" went on to become fairly important characters.
* ''Webcomic/DumbingOfAge'', while a less extreme example, actually uses this as an advertising point: one of the banner ads for the comic reads "Dumbing of Age has too many characters". As an UltimateUniverse of the entire Walkyverse, this was inevitable.
* [[http://www.ookii.org/egs/statistics/ Everything you wanted to know]] and more about the cast of ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive''.
* ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'' has a cast page that lists twelve major characters, plus a couple of dozen minors, not including one-episode appearances.
* ''Webcomic/FurryFightChronicles'' has four protagonists, a biker gang, an elite team of Combagals with more than a dozen members, individual Combagals, friends, relatives, acquaintances, and a cast that expands with each chapter.
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', between the Circus, Castle Wulfenbach, Sturmhalten, Beetleburg, Mechanicsburg, the Knights of Jove, the Jägers, and the assorted wandering types... let's just say there are a big damn lot of people who go in and out of the story.
** Kaja Foglio has stopped trying to maintain a big character bio page, and now just deletes the old page and starts from scratch at the beginning of each chapter, adding in characters as they become relevant. Only 10 pages into chapter 9, there's already ''seventeen'' characters up there, and that's not including the "Old Heterodynes" (included on the page for generic backstory) and the author-insert bit characters. Ten pages of comic. Seventeen characters.
* ''Webcomic/GreystoneInn'' started out with just a few core characters, but quickly expanded, with minor characters getting plotlines that would last for weeks. When the original main characters started getting less and less time, the strip gave way to ''Webcomic/EvilInc''.
* ''Webcomic/HazardsWake''. So many damn characters! At least the author eventually had the good sense to stick them into one of three groups and rotate them ala FourLinesAllWaiting.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'''s provides around 26 main characters[[note]]John, Rose, Dave, Jade, Nanna, Mom Lalonde, Bro Strider, Grandpa, WV, PM, Jack, the 12 trolls, and two [[WalkingSpoiler Walking Spoilers]][[/note]], which seems underwhelming until AlternateUniverse and BadFuture triple that count. The sheer quantity eventually forces focus to be split by GeodesicCast, spending whole Acts focusing on one group while everyone else is relegated to sporadic Intermissions. A full list, including the host of minor characters, can be found [[Characters/{{Homestuck}} here]].
** The current count tips the scales at over 95 recurring characters. [[spoiler: Even with much of the cast above having been KilledOffForReal.]]
** And now, after [[spoiler: John averted the [[BadFuture Game Over Timeline,]]]], there are two sets of at least 12 different major characters. [[note]]Namely: Rose, Dave, Jade, Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, Gamzee, Vriska, Tavros, Jane, Dirk, and Jake.[[/note]] These can surely be handled as separate characters, since the differences in their respective timelines go back to three entire years.
* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has at ''least'' Bob Smithson, Jean Poule, Molly, Princess Voluptua, Galatea, Snookums, Hibachi, Rocko Sasquatch, Fructose Riboflavin, Agent Ben, Agent Jerry, Djali, Mr. Bystander, Dean Martin, Floyd Fitznewski, Heywood J. Lookathat, Abby Primrose, Ahem, Oogrook/Rainbow Sunshine, the Bear, the Grammar Squirrel, and the Halloween Monster. That's not counting characters who've only appeared in one story so far, like Mook, Goona, Zodboink, or Zippobic...
%%* ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'', anyone? At least each theme are separate, [[CrossOver sometimes]]...
* ''Webcomic/{{Juathuur}}'' has almost 50 characters in the part one cast page. At least 20 of them are very, very important to the plot.
* ''Webcomic/TheKamics'', although if you eliminate all the one shots & isolate characters who stick to their own series (usually) it seems a little more manageable.
* ''Webcomic/{{Khatru}}'' has four main characters and twelve (and counting) minor ones.
* ''Webcomic/{{Kubera}}'' has 10 main characters as defined by the author, but has about ''80'' recurring characters. Each of them [[CastOfSnowflakes has a distinct design]] and OneDegreeOfSeparation is ''very'' much in effect.
* ''Webcomic/{{Lackadaisy}}'' currently features 28 characters, and that's just the ones listed on the website's biography page. There are dozens of named characters with speaking roles in the comic beside the main 28 and Tracy has hinted that there are at least a couple more major players yet to be introduced.
* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' has at least 20 "main" characters to keep up with (12 criminals + 4 volunteers + 4 members of the Vaeo Family), and staff and various other family members associated with them. The main justification? It's a RealityShow -- which, in the tradition of most shows, has a huge cast (to start) and then settles down into more important Characters. There's also a few clans starting to emerge, which increase the numbers further. The [[http://www.lastres0rt.com/cast/ official cast page]] listed '''40''' characters at one point, give or take [[spoiler: whether you think Daisy is really Scout Arael or not]], and it was already out of date then.
* New characters are introduced at a positively frightening rate in ''Webcomic/MagicalMisfits''. To be fair, they are usually given distinctive backstories, but it does somewhat lead to a KudzuPlot.
* ''Webcomic/LiberalArt'': Justified in that a typical liberal art school has about 400 students at any given time.
* ''Webcomic/AMagicalRoommate'': Aylia is sent to college by her parents, mocked by her sister, and one roommate is replaced every semester. This doesn't account for even a quarter of the cast. Everybody in [[http://amr.comicgenesis.com/amr0835.html this strip]] has a name and personality, and blood relation with each other. Only the one in the first panel is part of the core cast.
* ''Webcomic/TheMansionOfE'' has 30 main and semi-main characters listed on its cast page.
* ''WebComic/MountainTime'' is an interesting example. About half the strips don't have ''any'' recurring characters. The other half, however, draws from a cast of characters much larger than the 25 or so listed on the Characters page.
* ''Webcomic/NFansTheSeries'' had practically an ''army'' of characters. Yes, they were all {{Self Insert}}s, but they actually played the trope rather well since most of them weren't afraid to have some pretty bad things happen to them. Sadly, because the plot [[SpotlightStealingSquad fixated on a couple]], at least half the cast was PutOnABus or removed from the comic after getting very little screentime beyond their arcs. (Team Lalala was one of the worst, having been left on the same screen for almost a year of real time.)
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. After the inclusion of notable Azure City paladins and Greysky City thieves, the author seems a little quicker to kill off any new faces. The [[Characters/TheOrderOfTheStick characters pages]] for the webcomic on this wiki include 13 subpages so far.
* ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'' is getting there, with over forty characters notable enough to get an entry in the character sheet section of the website.
* ''Webcomic/PennyAndAggie'' has almost 30 characters on its cast page and regularly diverts attention from the two female leads to focus on them. Aggie in particular seems to have been demoted to supporting cast in her own comic.
%%* ''Webcomic/{{Precocious}}''. Check out the [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/page/cast cast page.]]
* ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'' has a massive cast, leading to [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome many characters ending up overlooked]] much of the time. There's Marten and his roommates, as well as other people in the building, the Coffee of Doom workers, Deathmole, various people at the college where Marten works, and a few robots. As of #3090 I count 87, disregarding the unnamed (including several named characters' parents) and those who appear in only one strip. A looser count gets well over a hundred.
* Webcomic/{{Realmwalker}} has most of the Norse pantheon, alongside lots of monsters, villains, and creatures from folklore.
* ''Webcomic/RedString'' has 8 main characters, which doesn't seem like a lot. However, there are almost thirty secondary and tertiary characters, all of whom get as much development as the author can realistically cram in. This means there are some chapters where main characters (the main main character Miharu, even) don't show up at all. Only 2 or 3 chapters so far--in 40 chapters--have included most of the main characters at once.
* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' has expanded into something of a CastHerd over the years, and keeps getting steadily bigger. While the company grows, we mostly follow the Special Ops squad and the officers, and people die in combat. Sometimes, they also come back. [[spoiler: Tagon, Petey, and especially Kevyn, who did so three or four times in one story arc]]. And sometimes they opt out (Doythaban, TT!Kevyn, Der Trihs, Shep, Nick, LOTA, a number just before the "Longshoreman" arc, a squad after "Mandatory Failure"...)
* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'': You have the original humans, the religious deities, the demons, numerous added humans (especially with the Matriarchy Arcs), characters symbolizing America and other abstracts, supernatural characters, living items, pets,... [[Characters/{{Sinfest}} Perhaps something of every type one could imagine.]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Sins}}''. You've got the SevenDeadlySins...that's not so bad. Then consider that all but two have been replaced. And some have been replaced ''twice''. And then there's the Seven Holy Virtues, the golems, the Vices, the hosts... and Murdock.
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''. This webcomic was started in 1997, and an old count of characters on [[http://www2.gvsu.edu/~loulab/sluggy.html this website]] puts the number at 156. A lot more have been introduced since.
* ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive'' The main cast isn't overly large for a webcomic, but once you get to the past main characters (Jhim, Kim, Monette) to the supporting cast (Cab, Berenger, Claire, Anna, Lisa, Celie, The Teddy-Bear Liberation Front Guy, etc), things get a little crazy. Made worse by the occasional recurrer that only appears a total of five times in six years (Davan's friend Andy), and the fact that often a year goes by between Jhim or Anna appearances.
* ''Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}'' has at least 30 characters in only 10 issues.
* ''Webcomic/SunsetGrill'' features an EnsembleCast and the cast page has over 65+ characters. And nearly all of them are not background characters.
* In ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'', the number of members of the protagonist's extended team alone is in the dozens as of 2020.
* The ''Webcomic/{{Walkyverse}}'': At the end of ''It's Walky!'' alone, there were 247 named or otherwise identifiable characters.
* ''Webcomic/WapsiSquare'' used to have dozens of them, but now the main cast has been downsized (reducing best friends and significant others to bit parts) to just eight. And their multiple personalities and personal demons. Not bad for a comic that is mostly about [[GagBoobs Monica's bust]] :).
* ''Webcomic/WaywardSons'': Over 30 characters, with more being introduced periodically.
* ''Webcomic/TheWordWeary'' features a cast of nine canonical main characters and many, many secondary characters who contribute to the plot.
* ''Webcomic/YetAnotherFantasyGamerComic'': The author has been so kind as to do a WhereAreTheyNow-style recap for all of his characters. [[http://yafgc.net/comic/2670-there-will-be-a-test-later/ The number of characters and stories contained within this single comic is truly staggering]].
* ''Webcomic/{{Zoophobia}}'': 5 months after it began and it's at 30 characters and counting. With 248098402 more expected to come.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* By the end of the first Part of ''WebOriginal/BloodAndTheStars'', the number of named characters is already in the double digits. The number only keeps going up with each sucessive part.
* Roleplay/CampusLife, having been going on for around four or five years now, was bound to fall under this trope. As of adding this, there are no less than ''20'' main plot important characters, and who knows how many supporting characters.
* ''WebOriginal/TheColmatonUniverse'' has this due to the growing number of characters made by the various authors that are part of the group.
* ''Roleplay/TheGamersAlliance'' has had dozens of players, each of whom has introduced a multitude of both player characters and [=NPCs=] over the course of several years.
* ''Roleplay/BZpB'': Consider the fact that there are about 7-8 active players, and there have been plenty of other players so far. Now consider the fact that each has his own CAST of characters, complete with a BigBad, or several Big Bads. Many of the characters are constantly interacting with each other. Otherwise, they separate into their own Cast Herds.
* ''Roleplay/WarriorCatsRPG'' has had, over the course of its history, as many as ''100,000'' different characters.
* ''Roleplay/WeAreAllPokemonTrainers'' has nearly 30 players representing at least one human character, and that's without their Pokémon and other [=NPCs=].
* ''Roleplay/WeAreOurAvatars'', the longest running forum Role Playing Game, has so many characters (including one-shots, regulars, background characters, [=NPCs=], and so on) that it could possibly rival many of the items on this page for cast size!
* ''Roleplay/ZOOOOOmmxBIES'' started with more than thirty player characters. And while not many of them survived until the end, there were still lots of well characterized [=NPCs=] added.
* Roleplay/DinoAttackRPG has had many, many characters. Just in the titular Dino Attack Team there are 241 characters. That's not counting the numerous villains, civilians, and official LEGO characters that appeared in the almost seven-and-a-half year story.
* ''Roleplay/FireEmblemOnForums'': Each individual game has a massive cast, between player characters, boss characters and other non-player characters in-between. Given that there are dozens of individual games, the sum total of characters may approach somewhere in the ''hundreds''.
* Roleplay/{{BZPRPG}}: To be expected, with six years(''and counting'')and innumerable players.
* Since Roleplay/AbsitOmen's creation more than three years ago, no less than ''707'' characters have been created. While many are inactive, the currently active roster still includes more than a hundred at a time.
* As expected with any semi-open RPG, ''[[Roleplay/CirqueDesReves Cirque des Reves]]'' has over 100 characters at almost any given time.
* ''Roleplay/DestroyTheGodmodder'': has had hundreds of summons, many of which have little tid-bits here and there, and every last one is named, and many players do not deal well with losing them. The only thing that keeps the world update from being pages in length is the fact that [[KillEmAll few entities last more than a week or two.]] It gets even worse when you realize that you could technically include all of the other characters from the various universes that affect what is going on if you include off-screen characters, which all in all sends the character sheet into the thousands.
* ''Roleplay/TheMassiveMultiFandomRPG'' is not called "massive" for nothing. Even if you ignore all the characters who only appeared in a couple of posts, at any given time there are a lot of more major characters taking part. By Season 3 the characters needed to be [[CastHerd split into a number of separate groups]] to limit the number of characters a player needs keep track of.
* Fluidanims' Rock Hard Gladiator program is filled with all sorts of stickmen, each with (mostly) different powers. Examples include Andre, a brute with a giant hammer, Umbrella, who has a SwissArmyWeapon umbrella, Tentionmaru, whose scarf transforms into a sword, and Fry, who fights with a frying pan.
* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', with Foundation personnel and their groups/persons of interest adding along side the number of [=SCPs=] themselves, the amount of which has past 5,000.
* Gildedguy's ''Slush Invaders'' series, hosting a vibrant cast of similarly colored rainbow stickmen.
* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has an enormous cast of superheroes, supervillains, ordinary people and giant monsters. Several hundred [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual capes]] are mentioned at least briefly in the story, and many of those have at least basic information about their powers or allies given. The range of powers is probably more notable than the number of characters, as the setting largely avoids having superpowers, so virtually everyone who's powers are used or mentions has a unique, unusual set of powers. Also somewhat unusual for the trope, the main story happens entirely from Taylors point of view, although various major and minor other characters get ADayInTheLimelight during the numerous interludes.
** The SequelSeries ''Literature/{{Ward}}'' just continues on, with new main character [[spoiler:Victoria Dallon]], and a whole host of returning and new characters and an ever expanding list of absurd superpowers.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfTaras'', for a WebSerialNovel with seventeen episodes, sure does had tons of characters [[spoiler: even if so many of them are dying left and right]]. There's the core cast of eight, Mr. Taylor the Counselor, the Guards Johnson and Brown, Najis Rakkasiak, the BigBad, and tons of other characters referenced in the series.
* The ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'' is still growing. There are something like 15 Canon authors, writing 20 or so protagonists. Then there are all the other main characters and friends (and enemies and teachers) at SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy. There are supposed to be nearly 600 students, plus dozens of teachers, researchers, security officers, and so on. It seems like we've met about a third of them. Maybe more. Plus the families of the main characters, an assortment of heroes and villains outside the school... Since there are now something like 150 novels, novelettes, short stories, novel chapters, and vignettes, it isn't surprising that we've met hundreds of characters. So far. One fan put together a spreadsheet: the authors may have introduced or namechecked 80% of the roughly ''six hundred'' students currently at Whateley Academy. And we got to meet ''every'' new student who started in Winter Term.
* Every season of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' has a very large cast, with over one hundred students and several terrorists on top of that. One of the test runs had ''200 students''. By the end of a season [[KillEmAll only one student is left]], but it's still a huge cast. Version 3 ''itself'' hit the two hundred mark, and that isn't even counting those who didn't get into the game or NPC characters. V4 has 276 students total playing in the game. Add to that terrorists, teachers, family members, friends, students not in the game....
* ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries''. The ''AH.com'' has a crew of about twenty, as do the ships of many of their recurring villains and allies, and then there's all the people they might meet in this week's timeline. Usually an episode will only focus on five or six crewers and the others just get one or two lines each.
* ''Literature/TalesOfMU'' starts by introducing the two dozen girls that live on protagonist Mack's floor and goes from there.
* AlternateHistory timelines can span centuries, of not a millennium or more. Hence, they also tend to have this, like ''Literature/DecadesOfDarkness'', ''Literature/LookToTheWest'' and the ''Literature/ChaosTimeline''.
* The ''Roleplay/LeagueOfIntergalacticCosmicChampions''.
* The many former reviewers that made up the content of Website/ChannelAwesome. It doesn't help that there's lots of AlterEgoActing going on. Makes writing FanFiction very confusing indeed.
* The Bounty Hunter Inn topics at Website/GameFAQs tend to have this, as except for the latest administrator everyone has at least one player character... and can introduce as much [=NPCs=] as needed. Thankfully, many of these go unheard of if their creator quits, unless they were deeply connected to the current {{Arc}}.
* As ''Roleplay/DarwinsSoldiers'' is an online RP which has had eighteen writers across two forums, with no limit to the amount of characters a writer can control, this is a given.
* Parodied in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXwwqgkhshA this Upright Citizen's Brigade sketch]]
* ''Literature/TheSalvationWar''. The number of characters you really need to keep track of is pretty reasonable, and helped by the large number of real life people, but the number of minor characters quickly goes off the charts. Not helping is that many of Hell's residents have absurdly long, complex names.
* ''Literature/TrintonChronicles'' has 5 main authors and 2 part-time authors; 15 main characters, 20-something secondary, and over 100 throw-away characters.
* ''Roleplay/FateNuovoGuerra'' is heading toward this way, what with the infinite servant, master and magus slots.
* ''Roleplay/{{The Insane Quest|OfUnfathomableRandomness}}'': While the number of characters may not be as large as that or Darwin's Soldiers, it is still fairly sizable. Despite characters occasionally being PutOnABus due to player inactivity, the core cast rarely dwindles below twenty, and nearly every seemingly minor NPC introduced by the GM is almost guaranteed to gain a more important role later on. The Character Sheet for the RP currently lists 56 characters and growing.
* Inevitable in ''Literature/ChaosFighters'' due to every new installment contains entirely new characters, save for a few recurring characters.
* With each member having access to at least four characters, Roleplay/MarvelsRPG has ended up with this.
* The ever-growing GeodesicCast of ''Blog/TheTradingPost''.
* ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'' has had over 8,000 members, each creating at least one character, with many forever lost due to the site's transfer to Yuku and the ezHack. But that's just the entire site's twelve year history. At any one moment, the current number of characters per faction averages at at least 25 active at the time, not including lurkers, bumping the character count at the time to around 200.
* ''AudioPlay/WereAlive'': Over a dozen main cast members who are often split into multiple storylines.
* Being a universe made by dozens of writers, and including the ''entire world'' in that setting, ''Literature/MetamorKeep''.
* ''Blog/TheTyrannosaurChronicles'' had to make a [[http://traumador.blogspot.com/p/character-profile.html People Tracking Centre]] for the numerous amounts of dinosaurs and humans that popped up over its existence.
* ''Roleplay/CerberusDailyNews'': Being a RP site modeled after actual internet forums will do that
* ''WebOriginal/FanPro'' adds a new batch of characters every week, with at least 1000 total having been confirmed. One of the goals of the fandom is to break the world record for the largest amount of characters in a work.
* ''WebOriginal/FurryBasketballAssociation'' is definitely this. You have at least 12 players per team. With 24 teams, that's 288 characters right there. Then you have coaches, managers, agents, retired players, notable fans, etc. etc. etc...
* ''Literature/{{Pyrrhic}}'' has 30 students as its basis for the experiment, but also a mysterious family seeking to save them, flashbacks showing the student's families, and the members of the Sons of the Constitution. All in all, considering it's not even halfway through, there may be more coming.
* ''Roleplay/ReEvolution'' has a massive meta universe, with several dozen plot-relevant [=NPCs=] in the main universe alone. This is in addition to the 20+ player characters and their families and friends.
* ''WebVideo/PoohsAdventures''... Well, not ''all'' the time, but most of the time, they'll want to cram every. Single. Character. The end result is making the movies twice as long, with the major contributor to the length being introduction sequences and villain arrivals and a cast list that's... Alright, [[http://poohadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Pooh%27s_Adventures_of_Scooby-Doo_and_the_Ghoul_School you just have to see how long a cast list for this]].
* The ''WebVideo/VinesauceTomodachiLife'' has had around 70 islanders overall (for the record, ''VideoGame/TomodachiLife'' has a hard cap of 100 Miis at a time), including characters from other fictional works, from in-jokes, from real life, and some original characters, with all being unique in some way. It's less daunting than it sounds, however, as only about 10-15 of them are consistently involved in the many plot threads and/or have a developed personality. Also, Vinny is actively making sure that the population doesn't grow out of control with various methods, including [[spoiler:the assimilation arc, which eliminated more than a dozen of the least-memorable islanders]]. By the time the original run wraps up, the population of the island is less than 50.
* ''Literature/VoidDomain'' has a primary Point-Of-View cast of about ten characters. Then there are all the background and side characters and plenty of main characters who simply do not get point-of-view segments. The cast page tends to grow every handful of chapters.
* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'', as a live streamed Dungeons and Dragons campaign. There's the main party of eight - Vax, Vex, Pike, Grog, Percy, Tiberius, Keyleth and Scanlan. Then there are the guest players - Zahra, Lyra, Kashaw, Thorbir, Lilith, Kerrek, Gern, Garthok, and Shale - who appear for anywhere from one to four episodes each. Some party members have family, like the twins' father or Keyleth's father, and [[spoiler: both Percy and Scanlan have family they don't know about at first]]. There are recurring allies (Gilmore, Kima, Clarota, Garmelie, Jarett, Allura, Seeker Asum, Sovereign Uriel), and because the party played for a few years before streaming, there are some allies the viewers might not be as familiar with. There are major and minor villains and their followers (K'varn, the Briarwoods, Saundor, Kevdak, [[spoiler: Ripley]]). There are deceased characters (the twins' mother, the entire De Rolo family, and [[spoiler: Mistress Asharu]]). There are named shopkeepers, clerics, major religious or political figures, bureaucrats, organizations, tavern-owners, pilots and assistants who might show up again at any time (Sherrie, Captain Damon, Viktor, Tyriok, Osysa, Keeper Yennin, the members of the Clasp, Vanessa, J'Mon Sa'Ord, Kynan). There are unnamed shopkeepers and swindlers (the Vasselheim potion merchant, the fortune-teller in Ank'Harel, the "spice dealers", the hat shop owner). There are friendly boss fights (Kern, Earthbreaker Grune, Kamaljiori). There are gods and almost-gods (The Raven Queen, Sarenrae, Vecna, Orcus, [[spoiler: Artagan]]). There are demons (Orthax, Hotis, Yenk). And, of course, there are [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin dragons]] (Brimscythe, Rimefang, Thordak, Raishan, Umbrasyl and Vorugal). There are dozens and dozens of named characters, and players and viewers alike are baffled as to how the Dungeon Master, [[Creator/MatthewMercer Matt]], keeps them all straight.
* Creator/{{Mattwo}}: Mattwo's universe is a nexus universe, so pretty much every character from every universe he feels like having in his universe lives there, though characters his writer doesn't feel comfortable writing for naturally won't get much of the spotlight.
* ''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'': The main "Deathworlders" plot alone has enough characters that even relying on a RotatingProtagonist system can make characters absent for long stretches. Hell, ''Kevin Jenkins himself'' was absent for five chapters in the middle, including "Warhorse" which is a {{Doorstopper}} by itself. Then there are the characters of Salvage (some of them popping over to the Deathworlders for a crossover), Humans Don't Make Good Pets...
* ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms'': Inevitable, given [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms the source material]]. Occasionally lampshaded, as lists of characters might be compressed to the relevant ones and "forgettable guys."
* The ''LetsPlay/DreamSMP'', as of May 2021, has 34 main members of the SMP, each with their own unique POV, while discounting the sheer number of side characters played by the main content creators, pets, and [[OneShotCharacter one-off characters]] unique to the spin-off ''Tales From the SMP''.
* In LetsPlay/StacyPlays' ''Dogcraft'' series, Stacy has her all the Minecraft equivalents of her and her family's real life pets (Page, Molly, Polly, Chica, Milquetoast, Pipsqueak), her six wolves, nine (other) cats, ''101'' dalmatians, 16 colourful poodles, and that's just scratching the surface.
* ''WebVideo/StampysLovelyWorld'' features an extremely vast cast list, including Stampy himself, the old and new Helpers, all of the pets (numbering at 25 dogs, 2 cats, and a horse), antagonists like Hit The Target [[spoiler:and Veeva Dash]], [[ShowWithinAShow fictional characters like Renna and [=BrickIt=]]], friendly mobs like Fred, Hilda, and Henry...the list goes on. Justified given [[LongRunners how long the series has been around for]] (it started in May 2012).
* ''Podcast/PretendingToBePeople'' has multiple [[TheConspiracy shadowy organizations]], each with a roster of employees. Then there's the seemingly-normal citizens of Contention. Then there's the figures from Contention's founding. And then there's the characters from the side arcs, some of whom can be seen in the series itself. And every once in a while, their families appear.
[[/folder]]

* Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses. It doesn't help that there's lots of AlterEgoActing going on. Makes writing FanFiction very confusing indeed.

* What happens when a toy company devotes almost all of its product to vinyl figures from various franchises, many with Loads and Loads of Characters themselves? Two words: [[Toys/FunkoPop Funko. Pops]].
** The same can be said about Toys/{{Nendoroid}}, especially for Japanese franchises.

* What happens when a toy company devotes almost all of its product to vinyl figures from various franchises, many with Loads and Loads of Characters themselves? Two words: '''[[Toys/FunkoPop Funko. Pops]]'''.

* ''Art/TheGhentAltarpiece'' features dozens or hundreds of figures, all beautifully executed -- saints, angels, knights, judges, Adam, Eve, God... The sheer scale of the execution, in a work that ''also'' helped bring UsefulNote/TheRenaissance to northern Europe, is stunning.

* Roleplay/CampusLife, having been going on for around four or five years now, was bound to fall under this trope. As of adding this, there are no less than ''20'' main plot important characters, and who knows how many supporting characters.

* The VideoGame/{{Tamagotchi}} franchise of digital pet toys introduces several new characters that your pet can grow up to become for each new release. Given that it's been [[LongRunners going since 1996]], the character count reaching a high level was a given; according to the franchise's [[TheWikiRule wiki]], there are over 730 documented characters in the series.

* Part of {{Wrestling/WCW}}'s grand "Kill The [[{{Wrestling/WWE}} WWF]] in Five Years" plan was to hire as many quality wrestlers as possible- veterans, foreign stars, up-and-comers and indy standouts alike. The problem was that this was mainly done to severely limit the [[{{Wrestling/WWE}} WWF's]] available talent pool and {{Wrestling/WCW}}, who had only a 2-3 hour show, had no intention of using most of these people. Wrestlers were paid not based on whether they were booked for matches, but if they showed up to tapings, and even then, all a performer had to do was sign a register and he was given a full payday no questions asked, regardless of whether he had actually worked that night or not. This left {{Wrestling/WCW}} with a bloated roster, many of whom were getting paid for doing nothing, and who often resented the fact that they weren't being used, and willingly took a paycut to jump to [[{{Wrestling/WWE}} WWF]] where they were actually shown on TV as soon as their contracts expired. This was one of the lesser poor management decisions that lead to Literature/TheDeathOfWCW.
* The [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder nWo]], by necessity of it being a group meant to takeover WCW. However, this became a problem when the angle was extended much longer than originally planned and keeping up with all the nWo members became a chore.
* Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Legion Extrajera, a Powerstable lead by Wrestling/{{Konnan}} that basically every foreigner in AAA at the time was thrown into. It was so large it had its own sub groups. But AAA would not stop there. La Legion Extranjera later [[LegionOfDoom merged]] with Los Maniacos(three people), La Milicia(ten), El Consejo(ten) and Los Perros Del Mal(an entire invading promotion, though it often limited its AAA presence to a "core" five or ten) to create La Sociedad, one of the largest stables to ever exist. The {{tecnico}}s were so desperate they resorted [[TheMole to internal sabotage]].

* GAGGLE, an all female "alt-choir" has between 20-25 members at any one time.

* The Band from TV -- founded by Creator/GregGrunberg and boasting Creator/HughLaurie and Creator/TeriHatcher in its ranks - is a large group consisting entirely of TV stars.

[[caption-width-right:269: More characters than the \\
UsefulNotes/JapaneseLanguage. [[note]] And that's {{not hyperbole}}; the language has 96 kana (but thousands of additional Kanji) in use today. There's 112 in that picture. [[/note]]]]

* TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse has this in spades, with 36 playable heroes, 47 villains, and more than a dozen minor characters who are either cards in someone else's deck or not seen in the card game.

[[folder:FanWorks]]
* Most of characters of the Pre-Crisis DC multiverse make an appearance in ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' saga ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy''. And more than one dozen have plot relevance.
* ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', on account of being a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, has this in spades. By the author's count, over '''200''' characters are named, and most either had a plot impact in ''Fanfic/{{Fractured}}'', have one in ''Origins'', or are carryovers from canon.
* Though probably not as many characters as some other examples on this page, ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'' probably fits; featuring almost the entire cast of LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya (including minor characters and even background characters only mentioned in the supplemental materials), most of the cast of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', and a bunch of [=OCs=] thrown in for good measure.
* ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureauTheOtherSideOfTheSpectrum'', like most ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfics, already deals with a large amount of characters. Except it has a MirrorUniverse in the form of [[EvilCounterpart TCB!Equestria]] as well as Canon!Equestria, and Earth. On top of that, has several original characters, human and pony alike and utilizes an EnsembleCast and YouAllShareMyStory (at least as the fic is nearing its conclusion).
* ''Fanfic/DungeonKeeperAmi'' has the main characters of the 90s ''Anime/SailorMoon'' up until the introduction of Sailor Jupiter, as well as a few more obscure ones such as Dr Mizuno, but then it goes on to introduce dozens of characters from Adushul, ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'''s world. From heroes, to keepers, their minions, their dark gods and Mercury's army as well, for a cast that goes over 80 named characters, plus all the unnamed ones.
* ''Fanfic/Hottie3TheBestFanFicInTheWorld'', on the count of it being a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover.
* The ''Fanfic/StillWatersSeries'', based on ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'', comes packed with dozens of characters already; the author saw fit to add more. The third story in the series currently has '''one hundred''' characters, canons and original, on its character sheet.
* ''Fanfic/WhatAboutWitchQueen'' utilizes Anna, Elsa, Kristoff and Hans from ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' and throws in at least ''thirty five'' named characters for a good measure. Moreover, it's sometimes hard to say whether a new character is a one-shot, a new regular cast member or a one-shot who's really a ChekhovsGunman. Some of those from the last category can return after twenty chapters of absence.
* [[http://alaxr274.deviantart.com/gallery/33810717 Super Milestone Wars and its sequel.]]
* ''Fanfic/OnePieceParallelWorks''. Yuki-Rin's crew has over '''30''' members and counting.
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' FanFic series ''Witches' Secret'' eventually ends up with a core harem of hundreds, and an extended one of thousands. The Owls, Dragons, Horses, and other animals.
* ''Fanfic/TiberiumWars'' has ''loads'' of characters, to the point where the author has hinted that he has a separate text document ''just'' to handle force organization. The only thing keeping it from getting too mind-boggling is the fact that the author [[AnyoneCanDie gleefully kills characters left and right]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' FanFic ''The Order of the Avatar Slayer'' starts out by throwing about 15 characters out to the readers in the first 10 chapters. By the end of the series, there's a total of at least 60 or 70.
* ''Fanfic/WhatLiesBeyondTheWalls'' introduces at ''least'' thirteen named characters in the first chapter (who don't die in the first chapter, that is). And from that point on, more and more named characters are thrown at the readers, to the point where even the characters ''themselves'' don't remember them all.
--> '''Kallin''': [[LampshadeHanging "How the 'ell are we s'posed to keep track?! There’s so many of you vermin 'round here that we'd need to write all ye names down in a book!"]]
* Any massive crossover, especially if the author tries to put every character from every source that is being crossed over. One insane example is ''Lonely Souls'', a crossover of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' AND ''LightNovel/SisterPrincess'', complete with most of the main cast of each, plus countless minor characters as well.
* ''[[Fanfic/TheNewTrialsOfCardCaptorSakura The New Trials of Card Captor Sakura and Friends]]'', a ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'' Fanfiction, has a whole cast of main character [=OCs=] longer than the cast from the show, and more characters are continually being added, including back stories for most of the main characters' parents (both those deceased and living), the Li Clan, and more. Some characters that at first appear minor and insignificant turn out to be [[ChekhovsGun highly important later on]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' Fanfic ''[[Fanfic/TotalDramaComebackSeries Total Drama Battlegrounds]]'' introduces over fifty characters (22 canon contestants, 22 {{Original Character}}s, Chris, Chef, and several superimposed talking animals) in the first chapter. Even with one person getting eliminated each challenge, chapters average about 10,000 words just to give everyone a MandatoryLine.
* ''Fanfic/TheUnitySaga'' takes it UpToEleven by being a crossover of ''two'' Loads and Loads universes, to which it also adds a few original characters.
* Both ''Fanfic/MegsFamilySeries'' and ''Fanfic/TheSpellbook'' uses almost every ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' character who ever appeared (especially the former), as well as a wide cast of Original Characters.
* The ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' fanfic ''Fanfic/{{PRIMARCHS}}'', aside from the 20 Primarchs, features more or less every well know character in ''[=WH40K=]'' canon. Then it starts bringing in characters from ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Warhammer Fantasy]]'', ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'', ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' and then some. This goes to the point where the author regularly forgets how many characters are in any particular scene. Due to having NoFourthWall, this is frequently lampshaded by the characters themselves.
* ''Fanfic/HookerVerse''. Sooner or later, ''everyone'' from Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses is going to be in this thing.
* ''Fanfic/TheDreamLandStory''. Almost every character, no matter how minor, who has ever appeared in the ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'' series has most likely appeared in this story, and the [[TheCameo cameos]] and {{Canon Immigrant}}s.
* The Batman fanfiction ''Fanfic/CatTales'' encompasses not only Batman's cast (rogues, heroes, and civilians alike), but at times the DC universe. Every named Batman character from the animated series or comics at least makes a minor appearance, with almost every rogue or member of the Batfamily getting to star in at least one story. As all of the rogues hang out at [[BadGuyBar the same bar]] (the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge), it's inevitable that they're all going to show up eventually.
* ''Fanfic/BeyondTheDawn'', extremely huge Russian [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tolkien]] fiction, based on Beren and Lúthien story. Author had not only developed the original Tolkien characters, who were nameless or briefly mentioned in the original story (11 companions of Finrod, Beren's mother, elven maidens from Lúthien's suite, warriors of Fingon, Maedhros and Thingol, Boldog the orc, even several Sauron's wolves gained names and personalities), but invented her own characters: Beren's squire Gili, knights of Angband, Dortonion highlanders, elven captives and so on.
* ''Fanfic/ImperfectMetamorphosis'' not only has the gargantuan ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' cast to work with and give them prominent roles, even the [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome PC-98 cast]], but keeps adding original characters as well. The author openly admits that keeping track of all of them and their [[GambitPileup constantly shifting allegiances]] is almost as much work as actually writing it.
* After Ren and Pin-Mei, and Horo-Horo and Rong have families in ''Fanfic/AGiftOfLove'', there are effectively 9 main characters. Add in extended family, spirits, bodyguards, friends and classmates, teachers, villains, ancestors, and estranged family members. Now you have ''over fifty.''
* Everything written by Creator/MorwenTindomerel overflows with [=OCs=].
* ''Breakaway'', the first installment of the [[WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand BLoSC]] FanVerse ''Fanfic/ForGood'', introduces an OriginalCharacter protagonist and just a couple of supporting females throughout the first few chapters... and then the story hits Chapter 10 and turns into a FlashForwardFic. Enter three ActionGirl stars and four male soldiers... and the distinct possibility of more cadets on their way.
* The ''Fanfic/DeliverUsFromEvilSeries'' starts out with eight (or nine, depending on how you want to categorize Sean Youghal) Scotland Yarders, AscendedExtra Davy Wiggins and an indeterminate number of [[StreetUrchin Baker Street Irregulars]] making screentime (full Irregular count is 50), plus [[AloofBigBrother Mycroft Holmes]], [[LikeBrotherAndSister Mary Watson]], and [[TeamMom Mrs. Hudson]] getting more screentime. That's not even mentioning the bad guys, or the OriginalCharacter supporting cast. All this in [[UpToEleven ONE BOOK]].
* ''Fanfic/TheFirstSaniwa'', crossing over [[VideoGame/ToukenRanbu two]] [[VideoGame/{{Onmyoji}} games]] with gigantic casts of their own. There are ''eighteen'' named characters from ''[=TouRabu=]'' canon as recurring good characters (emphasis on ''recurring'' and ''good'' – background characters and enemies do not count), while the ''Onmyōji'' side brings to the table ''thirteen'' named characters (not counting {{Original Character}}s Abe no Yasuna, Minamoto no Mitsunaka and Yorichika).
* There are at least ''90'' named characters to keep track of in ''Fanfic/TheTaintedGrimoire''. Clan Gully alone has 9 members as of this writing, 10 if you count Gull the Chocobo. Then, there are all the other clans, the people Clan Gully helps, and their enemies.
* ''Fanfic/SpiritOfRedemption'' Just try counting them all. Dare you.
* ''Fanfic/YuGiOhForever'' has over 60 characters, consisting largely of originally-created characters but also including approximately 22 characters from the canon series who are either recurring supporting characters or who are given brief cameos...and that's without taking into consideration the number of characters in the story's now-discontinued sequel.
* By the end of ''Silent Sorrow'', the ''Fanfic/TamersForeverSeries'' has a ''massive'' cast of characters.
* [[http://ideas.wikia.com/wiki/Torchic_and_Pals/Happy_Tree_Pokemons_and_Others Torchic and Pals]] has 168 Main Characters in the entire series.
* Rinjapine's ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' fanfictions quite possibly have the most characters of any work. '''[[http://rinjapine.deviantart.com/gallery/25046381 Over 600 total!]]'''
* This is a given of any ''Literature/BattleRoyale'' fanfiction. ''72Hours'', for instance, features 50 students, all of whom get their own chapter.
* ''Fanfic/SonicGenerationsFriendshipIsTimeless'' features a lot of {{Franchise/Sonic|TheHedgehog}} characters (moreso than [[VideoGame/SonicGenerations the original game]]) and plenty of [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic ponies]], including background ones, get some time in the sun.
* The pro wrestling story, ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5699880/1/A-Ring-of-Their-Own A Ring Of Their Own]]'', features or mentions virtually every decent female professional wrestler of the 2000's.
* The pro wrestling story, ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10340937/1/The-Return-Remixed The Return-Remixed]]'' features the seven returning members of DEAR, plus almost the entire Wrestling/{{WWE}} roster during the story's time period of 2011, as well as two original characters, Wrestling/{{Edge}}, [[Wrestling/CarleneMoore Jazz]] and a cameo from Wrestling/MollyHolly.
* ''Fanfic/HorseshoesAndHandGrenades'', and its side stories have 72 named characters from ''all'' the Kamen Rider Shows involved and lots of OC characters, major and minor that each have a small part to play in the whole universe.
* ''Fanfic/BoysUndSenshado'' not only has the entire and sizable cast of Anime/GirlsUndPanzer, but it has many original characters. 16 boys join Oarai's tankery team, and there are several other teams.
* ''Fanfic/HalkegeniaOnline'': While neither ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' nor ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'' would qualify on their own, the combination of the two is pretty significant, and there are enough [[OriginalCharacter Original Characters]] to roughly double that number.
* ''Fanfic/DiariesOfAMadman'' already inherited this from the original source material. Then it adds even more characters on top.
* ''Fanfic/SonicXDarkChaos'' adds quite a large cast of heroes and villains, from [[LegacyCharacter Legacy Characters]] Fang and Mighty to dozens of new ones.
* Apparently, [[http://dmits.deviantart.com/art/The-Ultimate-Chapter-Paper-Finale-376351524 according to this piece of Paper Mario fanart,]] there are a total of '''275''' ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' fan characters. ''And these were only made by 55 artists.''
** In fact, the one artist who drew ''all of them'' even said that it took him ''six months''[[note]] That's half a year.[[/note]] to finish it.
* ''Fanfic/NecessaryToWin'', a ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' and ''Manga/{{Saki}}'' crossover, found [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10130193/1/Necessary-To-Win here]], has five to ten Saki characters at each of the major schools, in addition to the canon cast of characters, resulting in a cast of dozens of characters.
* ''Fanfic/CoolerRising'', by chapter thirty-five, is beginning to head into this. Given that this is based on [[Anime/DragonBallZ Dragon Ball Z]], this shouldn't be too surprising though.
* ''Fanfic/WeissReacts'' could also qualify. It includes the entire cast of RWBY, characters from ''VideoGame/Persona3'', ''VideoGame/Persona4'', ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', ''Anime/CodeGeass'' and various assorted series -- and that's not even going into the vast amount of [[OCStandIn OC stand-ins]] used for parents, teachers and Jaune's siblings. Its sister fic, ''Diary of Glynda Goodwitch'', also adds to the amount of characters present. ''Fanfic/TheReactsverse'' overall contains characters from the above, ''Fanfic/LucinaReacts'' and other spinoffs and fanfics set in the same universe.
* ''Fanfic/MyLittlePonyRockIsMagic'' has many recurring characters, to the point that there is not an obvious main character. (It is usually Light My Fire or Hotel California).
* ''Fanfic/KingdomCrossovers'': The Destiny Islands arc alone already features as many [[{{Creator/Nickelodeon}} Nicktoon]] characters imaginable, as opposed to the characters you can count with your fingers in the same arc of ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''. Then [[WesternAnimation/InvaderZim Zim]] gets to [[UpToEleven Traverse Town]]...
* In ''Fanfic/TheStoryToEndAllStories'', the cast keeps growing as the story goes on. Lampshaded by Poirot towards the end.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' Fic ''Fanfic/AllAmericanGirl'' involves not only the protagonist Americanized pony Sandalwood/Daisy Jo "DJ" Martinez and her adopted human family, but also her [[TrueCompanions childhood friends]], her husband and children, her other friends and allies, The Mane Six, the princesses, other canon characters, the ''husbands and children'' of all the canon characters, and countless other original pony, human, griffin, and changeling characters, from all walks of life. Many of which, either get a POV at some point or their on story in the "Be Human Side Stories".
* ''Fanfic/MakeYourMove'' has had over a thousand movesets for a thousand characters -- and counting.
* ''The Wormhole Chronicles'' (a ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''/''Franchise/MassEffect'' crossover series) has this trope in spades. Starting with ''Fanfic/WhenThereWasATomorrow'', The Normandy Crew meets the cast of ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' plus several ''Halo'' ExpandedUniverse characters, plus several OC antagonists. It gets taken UpToEleven in its sequel, ''Fanfic/GuiltySparks'' where not only do the surviving characters from the first story (plus more [=OCs=]) step into the limelight, but [[TwoLinesNoWaiting an extensive B-plot]] opens up with Liara T'Soni in the ''Mass Effect'' universe where she partners up with Wrex, plus four [=OCs=] who team up to form a BadassCrew of their own. They also have to stop an alliance between The Covenant and several other villain factions in the ''Mass Effect'' universe, each with their own [=OCs=]. Oh, and there are [=OCs=] back in the Haloverse that get ''their own'' character arcs.
* ''Fanfic/TheGreatDisneyAdventureSaga'': The whole Disney animated canon and most of the live action canon are fair game for this fic, so there's plenty of people to see and encounter.
* The cast of ''Fanfic/{{Intercom}}'' when you think about it is pretty sizable. You have the main 6 characters (Riley and emotions, with Joy and Fear being slightly more important), Supporting cast students and parents plus THEIR emotions, coaches, teachers, mind workers. There's a lot of characters in this story compared to the film, even if some of them aren't as complex.
* ''Blog/ThePreDespairKids'' has had nearly every single ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' character with official sprites be available for asks at some point, (including some without official sprites, such as Mukuro Ikusaba (as herself)[[spoiler: [[LightNovel/DanganRonpaZero Ryouko Otonashi, and Yasuke Matsuda]]]], with [[Manga/KillerKiller Takumi Hijirihara]], [[Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool Miaya Gekkogahara]], and Santa Shikiba being regulars on the sequel blog) with the only exception among the human characters being Haiji Towa (though nobody's complaining about that), while other characters from the universe who don't have sprites occasionally appear to advance the story. And then there are the [[OriginalCharacter Named Anons]], of which there are at least twenty.
** ''Blog/AskTheNewHopesPeak'' has slightly less characters, due to being a ContinuationFic and only having the survivors of [[Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool the anime]] to work with, however by also including its own cast of {{Original Character}}s and a few of the more obscure characters, it can still be counted as having plenty of characters.
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10211960/1/Toons Toons]]'', a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover of cartoons, has its first chapter be a huge list of "main characters" from at least a hundred different series confirmed to be in the fic's universe, ranging from the iconic (''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'') to the lesser-known (''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Grossology}}'', ''WesternAnimation/SheZow'') to even {{anime}} (''Anime/SoulEater'').
* ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'' has branched out from the original story and now includes [[ExpandedUniverse many tie-in oneshots in the same continuity,]] to the point it now needs its [[Characters/PokemonResetBloodlines own character page]]. Including both official and original characters, and it will most certainly keep expanding.
* ''Fanfic/ForestofDespair'' has a lot of characters. Just the students alone are 21 characters to remember. Then there's Monokuma...and Hideyoshi...and everybody's family...and everybody's friends...let's just say, by the end of it all, you'll have to memorize a lot of names.
* With it being a ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' fanfiction, there's no doubt that ''Fanfic/SmashLife'' have so many characters in it. There's up to 200 residents in both the Smash Mansion and Assist Tower.
* The comics, stories and cartoons in the ''Fanfic/HauntedMansionAndTheHatboxGhost'' FanVerse. There are (as implied, but not ''shown'' in {{Canon}}) no less than 999 Happy Haunts in Gracey Manor alone, and that's not even counting the mortal characters and the spooks from Phantom Manor.
* ''[[Fanfic/BreakMyHeartBreakYourHeart Break My Heart, Break Your Heart]]'' is an [[VideoGame/{{Overwatch}} Overwatch]] fanfic in which all but three of the game's 25-and-counting playable characters have their own roles to play in the plot.
* ''Fanfic/ShatteredSkiesTheMorningLights'' is a MagicalGirl CrisisCrossover featuring the casts of ''Franchise/SailorMoon'', ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'', the first ten ''Anime/PrettyCure'' continuities, ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'', and ''Franchise/MadokaMagica'' uniting against a common threat. Even with much of the casts pared down due to the villains' actions, there are still nearly a dozen ''main'' characters, hailing from each of the five universes.
* ''Fanfic/MaxLandisSuperMarioWorld'' has almost every Mario character in a supporting role with character arcs, or being name-dropped at least once.
* Being a CrisisCrossover of ''Franchise/MortalKombat'', ''Franchise/StreetFighter'', ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' and the ''VideoGame/SoulSeries'', ''Fanfic/TheKetsuekiQuadrilogy'' is certainly this, which each part adding more and more characters. It starts out with around 72 characters in the first book, 94 in the second and 120+ in the third one (7 of which are {{Original Character}}s, and the rest players from all the different games). And that's not counting, all the minor characters that appear from time to time.
* ''Fanfic/TheGreatStarshipBattle'' features characters from ''Doctor Who'' (including every incarnation of the Doctor up to that point), ''Franchise/StarTrek'', ''Franchise/StarWars'', ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'' and ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'', just to name a few.
* ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'', being a PatchworkFic, has a list of its 100 or so Smurfs made up from [[ComicBook/TheSmurfs the comic books]], [[WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show]], [[Film/TheSmurfs Sony Pictures' live-action films]], [[MerchandiseDriven the PVC character toy line]], and some originals.
* The ProfessionalWrestling series ''Fanfic/TheJWL'' has FIVE character pages on here, and that's without those characters who were there as {{Jobber}}s.
* ''Fanfic/CodeEquus'' has a lot of characters already published, and it's still growing. This is justified; ''Codex Equus'' is a collaborative PseudocanonicalFic that [[WorldBuilding encourages expansion of existing lore and the creation of new ones to make certain things in canon seem more believable]].
* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' is a crossover between ''Literature/HarryPotter'', the Marvel universe as a whole (with a focus on ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' and ''ComicBook/XMen'' but also featuring other characters), ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' and ''Franchise/TheDCU''. Each of them has loads of characters in its own right, and the author is determined to include in meaningful ways ''every single one of them''. As a result the character roster is now separated into seven pages, and aside from Harry's own page, each of the other six has ''at least'' 20 characters on it.
* ''Fanfic/ThePokemonSquad''. There are 28 active members of the squad (plus 10 that were PutOnABus). Not to mention the Yaoi House (18 residents, 12 of which are currently there), the government (11; 9 are active), general residents (multiple of them, the most major of which being [[WesternAnimation/KaBlam Larry]] and WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}) and several characters that were either retired (such as the ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'' gang) or the countless number of one-shots throughout its run.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic ''Fanfic/TheApprenticeTheStudentAndTheCharlatan'', there are more than twenty characters who affect the plot in a meaningful way, spread across over 300,000 words. These include our pair of protagonists, their parents, all three Princesses and Shining Armor, Trixie, her dad, Aegis, Sharp Eye, the other five Manes, Professor Hoofman, Clover the Clever, Steelshod, Summer Blossom, Shimmer Silvermane, Princess Chrysalis, Star Swirl, and many more.
* ''Fanfic/FracturesATLA'': Aside from the canon cast, lots of worldbuilding effort by the author is put into the story, giving names and personalities to characters such as Zuko's caretakers, Fire Nation palace staff, Fire Nation royal servants, as well as Fire Nation military commanders.
* ''Fanfic/WithThisRing'' is set in the ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' universe, but draws freely from wider DC canon, bringing in dozens and dozens of major (eg Larfleeze, John Constantine) and minor (eg Lord Manga Khan, J'onn J'aarkn) canonical characters, plus some original ones (eg Hinon Hee Hannanan). Most only show up briefly or occasionally, but others take on important roles. There's no comprehensive listing anywhere, but it's a safe bet that ''every one'' of its hundred-plus episodes introduces at least one new character, more often several.
* The ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' MassiveMultiplayerCrossover fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13332622/1/Total-drama-cruise Total drama cruise]]'' features 27 contestants, with 5 more joining the competition later on. That's already more than any canon ''Total Drama'' season (barring ''WesternAnimation/TheRidonculousRace'' spinoff) has, but the proposed roster for the sequel takes it UpToEleven with a whopping ''41'' newcomers on top of 9 returning characters for a total of '''50''' contestants.
* ''Fanfic/CodePrime'' brings the cast of ''Anime/CodeGeass'' together with the characters from the ''Franchise/TransformersAlignedUniverse''. By the end of ''R1: Rebellion'', more than 100 characters from both franchises have appeared, and the roster is split into ten separate pages. The sequel, ''R2: Revolution'', incorporates characters '''''[[UptoEleven not just from every single canon element of the Transformers Aligned Universe and Code Geass]]''''', but also from ''Manga/CodeGeassNightmareofNunnally'', ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'', the 2001 ''[[Anime/TransformersRobotsinDisguise Robots in Disguise]]'' cartoon, and even ''[[Franchise/TransformersGeneration1 Generation 1!]]''
* ''Fanfic/Earth27'' not only features characters from all over the DC universe, it also features characters from Vertigo, Milestone, Wildstorm, ''Scooby-Doo'', ''Supernatural'', ''Ghostbusters'', ''Gremlins'' and even ''Scott Pilgrim'', with new characters debuting every week.
* In ''Fanfic/HarryAndTheShipgirls'', you've got the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' cast, the ''VideoGame/{{KanColle}}'' cast, [[PublicDomainArtifact the blades of Muramasa and Masamune]], other weapon spirits, characters from ''Fanfic/BelatedBattleships'', [[AdaptationExpansion shipgirls of ships who were never featured in the main game]], shipgirls of ships that were planned but never built, [[AdaptationExpansion actual world building for the magical community, including Japan's magical government]]...
* [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7458600/thenewsubwayguy thenewsubwayguy]]'s ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' fics all tend to be {{Massive Multiplayer Crossover}}s with at least a hundred contestants from different series. In particular, ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13827561/1/Total-Drama-Ultimate-Islands Total Drama Ultimate Islands]]'' has a whopping '''119''' contestants, to the point where a [[https://www.deviantart.com/nondescriptnorbert/art/Total-Drama-Ultimate-Islands-Cheat-Sheet-879155553 cheat sheet]] had to be made just to keep track of all of them.
* Any Literature/TheHungerGames fanfic about the Victors before Katniss and Peeta (popularized by Fanfic/TheVictorsProject) will commonly invoke this trope. There's the 73 Victors (75 if Katniss and Peeta are brought up), then their opponents and possibly their family/friends, then other Capitol and District citizens, then District Thirteen and other outside entities (should the author include them).
* ''Fanfic/PokemonCrossingFlyMeToTheMoon'': According to the authoress, ''every'' VideoGame/AnimalCrossing character is going to appear before the fic ends (as in, 480 animal villagers). And the important [=NPCs=]. And several canon foreigners. Yeah, it's a huge cast. The ''only'' character confirmed to not appear? The human player.
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* The Japanese stationery company ''Creator/{{Sanrio}}'' has been in business since 1962, though they didn't start creating characters until 1973, but didn't became common place until when they created Franchise/HelloKitty in 1974. After creating Hello Kitty, the company decided to create more and more characters to see how successfully they would sell in stores. [[AmericansHateTingle While some characters are hardly ever heard of outside of Japan]], or are [[ChuckCunningHamSyndrome forgotten]], others become very popular. [[http://www.sanrio.co.jp/characterindex/ The Japanese]] [[http://www.sanrio.com/timeline/ and American]] websites for Sanrio have lists of how many characters they have, mostly the popular and successful ones. In total, they have over 400 characters [[note]] And that's only counting the titular characters. Friends, family members and relatives of any titular Sanrio Character would open up a huge can of worms. [[/note]] Unlike Sanrio's other websites, their [[https://www.sanrio.co.jp/character/?class=age Japanese website has a complete history of their characters sorted by decade.]] Heck Sanrio's official Japanese Youtube channel even released a music video titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24BrlzQ6eo "Mell's Sanrio Cute Memory Song"]] which featured Mell from Wish Me Mell singing about almost every single Sanrio Character up to that period. The song length is 5:27 minutes long showing how many characters (outside of some of their family and friends) Sanrio has created over the years.

[[quoteright:269:[[Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/finalgalacticheroes_6626.jpg]]]]

* The Japanese stationery company ''Creator/{{Sanrio}}'' has been in business since 1962, though they didn't start creating characters until 1973, but didn't became common place until when they created Franchise/HelloKitty in 1974. After creating Hello Kitty, the company decided to create more and more characters to see how successfully they would sell in stores. [[AmericansHateTingle While some characters are hardly ever heard of outside of Japan]], or are [[ChuckCunningHamSyndrome forgotten]], others become very popular. [[http://www.sanrio.co.jp/characterindex/ The Japanese]] [[http://www.sanrio.com/timeline/ and American]] websites for Sanrio have lists of how many characters they have, mostly the popular and successful ones. In total, they have over 400 characters [[note]] And that's only counting the titular characters. Friends, family members and relatives of any titular Sanrio Character would open up a huge can of worm. [[/note]] Unlike Sanrio's other websites, their [[https://www.sanrio.co.jp/character/?class=age Japanese website has a complete history of their characters sorted by decade.]] Heck Sanrio's official Japanese Youtube channel even released a music video titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24BrlzQ6eo "Mell's Sanrio Cute Memory Song"]] which featured Mell from Wish Me Mell singing about almost every single Sanrio Character up to that period. The song length is 5:27 minutes long showing how many characters (outside of some of their family and friends) Sanrio has created over the years.

[[/folder]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* At the moment, the total human cast of Real Life has passed 7 billion. If you include all the humans who have died, the number goes up to (an estimated) 108 billion. Unfortunately, you can only maintain a stable, social relationship with [[CastHerd around 150]] of them at a given time. This is known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Dunbar's Number]], or as ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' calls it, [[http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html the Monkeysphere]]. This fact, however, doesn't stop some people having a Website/{{Facebook}} "friends list" several times that number; a source of minor contention for skeptics of social media.
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* ''Fanfic/CodePrime'' brings the cast of ''Anime/CodeGeass'' together with the characters from the ''Franchise/TransformersAlignedUniverse''. By the end of ''R1: Rebellion'', more than 100 characters from both franchises have appeared, and the roster is split into four separate pages. The sequel, ''R2: Revolution'', incorporates characters '''''[[UptoEleven not just from every single canon element of the Transformers Aligned Universe and Code Geass]]''''', but also from ''Manga/CodeGeassNightmareofNunnally'', ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'', the 2001 ''[[Anime/TransformersRobotsinDisguise Robots in Disguise]]'' cartoon, and even ''[[Franchise/TransformersGeneration1 Generation 1!]]''

* ''ComicBook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}'':

* The Japanese stationery company ''Creator/{{Sanrio}}'' has been in business since 1962, though they didn't start creating characters until 1973, but didn't became common place until when they created Franchise/HelloKitty in 1974. After creating Hello Kitty, the company decided to create more and more characters to see how successfully they would sell in stores. [[AmericansHateTingle While some characters are hardly ever heard of outside of Japan]], or are [[ChuckCunningHamSyndrome forgotten]], others become very popular. [[http://www.sanrio.co.jp/characterindex/ The Japanese]] [[http://www.sanrio.com/timeline/ and American]] websites for Sanrio have lists of how many characters they have, mostly the popular and successful ones. In total, they have over 400 characters [[note]] And that's only counting the titular characters. Friends, family members and relatives of any titular Sanrio Character would open up a huge can of worm. [[/note]] Unlike Sanrio's other websites, their [[https://www.sanrio.co.jp/character/?class=age Japanese website has a complete history of their characters sorted by decade.]] Heck Sanrio's official Japanese Youtube channel even released a music video titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24BrlzQ6eo "Mell's Sanrio Cute Memory Song"]] which featured Mell from Wish Me Mell singing about almost every single Sanrio Character up to that period. The song length is 5:27 minutes long showing how many character Sanrio has created over the years.

* ''Fanfic/PokemonCrossingFlyMeToTheMoon'': According to the authoress, ''every'' VideoGame/AnimalCrossing character is going to appear before the fic ends (as in, 480 animal villagers). And the important NPCs. And several canon foreigners. Yeah, it's a huge cast. The ''only'' character confirmed to not appear? The human player.

* The Japanese stationery company ''Creator/{{Sanrio}}'' has been in business since 1962, though they didn't start creating characters until 1973, but didn't became common place until when they created Franchise/HelloKitty in 1974. After creating Hello Kitty, the company decided to create more and more characters to see how successfully they would sell in stores. [[AmericansHateTingle While some characters are hardly ever heard of outside of Japan]], or are [[ChuckCunningHamSyndrome forgotten]], others become very popular. [[http://www.sanrio.co.jp/characterindex/ The Japanese]] [[http://www.sanrio.com/timeline/ and American]] websites for Sanrio have lists of how many characters they have, mostly the popular and successful ones. In total, they have over 400 characters [[note]] And that's only counting the titular characters. Friends, family members and relatives of any titular Sanrio Character would open up a huge can of worm. [[/note]] Unlike Sanrio's other websites, their [[https://www.sanrio.co.jp/character/?class=age Japanese website has a complete history of their characters sorted by decade.]]

* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has an enormous cast of superheroes, supervillains, ordinary people and giant monsters. Several hundred [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual capes]] are mentioned at least briefly in the story, and many of those have at least basic information about their powers or allies given. The range of powers is probably more notable than the number of characters, as the setting largely avoids having StockSuperpowers, so virtually everyone who's powers are used or mentions has a unique, unusual set of powers. Also somewhat unusual for the trope, the main story happens entirely from Taylors point of view, although various major and minor other characters get ADayInTheLimelight during the numerous interludes.