Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 as well as for spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.
Playable Vault Hunters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Krieg) | The Pre-Sequel (Claptrap) | Borderlands 3
Supporting Characters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC) | The Pre-Sequel | Borderlands 3
Spinoffs and other media: Tales from the Borderlands | Tiny Tina's Wonderlands | New Tales from the Borderlands | Other media
Weapon Brands: Atlas | Dahl | Hyperion (Handsome Jack) | Maliwan | Torgue | Tediore | Other Weapon Brands
Other: Bandits and Bandit Factions (Children of the Vault) | Hodunk and Zaford Clans | Creatures (Eridians and Vault Monsters) | Raid Bosses
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The Eridians
In General
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- In 1, while their weapons have the upside of theoretically infinite ammo due to their use of energy instead of traditional cartridges and warheads, many of them are of dubious utility due to their slow recharge, limited capacity, dicey damage distribution, and (in the case of the Cannon and most of the Blasters) slow projectiles. Vault Hunters also move considerably slower while they're being used.
- By the time of The Pre-Sequel! and 2, they just produced Relics, with the other companies developing E-Tech weapons instead, based on Eridian hardware. However, the companies realized that the E-Tech weapons, save some exceptions, sucked, so by the time of 3 they were directly phased out.
- Fantastic Caste System: Tannis's translation program has determined that they had a class system, though she doesn't go into details about what sort of classes existed.
- Flat Character: Not the Eridians themselves, as they have plenty of depth, but the Vault Monsters are this. Ultimately, they have no personality to speak of, and serve just as intense final bosses (or regular bosses in the third game's case).
- Fling a Light into the Future: The Eridians sacrificed their entire civilization to contain the Destroyer and protect the rest of the universe from its hunger.
- Galactic Superpower: In their time, Tannis says that they were capable of both "leadership and organized warfare". Borderlands 2 indicates that they were present on numerous worlds. And those are just the ones where they built Vaults.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: All the Vault Monsters are Flat Characters that don't have any personality beyond extreme aggression once provoked. The only exception may be the Sentinel, who is actually a Guardian construct charged with defending the Vault on Elpis.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: It's a Running Gag that almost every Vault Monster that the Vault Hunters encounter come with next to no foreshadowing of their existence. The only exceptions may be the Warrior, who is explicitly spoken of and referenced numerous times, usually by Jack who plans to wake it up and use it to take over Pandora, and the Sentinel, who isn't a monster but instead a Guardian creature determined to protect Elpis' Vault.
- Organic Technology: Their small arms look as if they were constructed from bones and other biological matter.
- Precursors: Were gone long before humanity was around. The Guardians are the only things still alive that hint at their existence.
- Benevolent Precursors: Sacrificed their entire civilization in order to seal away the Destroyer, and left a lot of important tools and equipment lying around for future civilizations in case it ever got out. However, they were arguably also...
- Neglectful Precursors: ... who didn't spend very much time or effort explaining what was in the Vaults or why they were necessary.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Their stuff is still in working order even after millennia... or longer.
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Humanity studying their ancient technology led to technological leaps and bounds. They built constructs on a titanic scale, and were able to manipulate stars and alternate dimensions. The Vaults themselves seem to be gateways to alternate realities, and they built Pandora to serve as an interdimensional prison to contain the Destroyer, who was so large it could eat entire stars.
- The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: Don't be fooled by the Green rarity of most of their weapons, they're hard to come by. It's entirely possible one could complete the main game and only encounter the Cannon used by Master McCloud.
The Guardians
Guardians of the Vault
Mysterious aliens (likely robots built by the Eridians) left behind to defend the Vaults, they are completely single-minded in pursuit of this goal. They use Eridian armor and weapons, but make no attempt to communicate in any way. They just fight off anyone who gets too close to the Vaults.
- Armored But Frail: Guardians have exceptionally powerful shields, but once that's gone their health is so low anything stronger than a gentle sneeze can frag them.
- In 3 their regular health are their shields and a good shock weapon will tear them apart, but they have a tendency to evolve into "possessed" forms which given them a rather beefy armor which only corrosive and cryo are good against, but these two elements suck against shields...
- Beef Gate: They serve no other purpose than expel anyone who dares to approach the Vaults. If you're having trouble fighting these guys you have absolutely no chance against what is coming after them.
- Dance Battler: A lot of them spin and backflip around the battlefield.
- Deflector Shields: They have extremely high shields, but laughable health. Any ability that lets you ignore shields cuts through them like wheat.
- It Can Think:
- Everyone is shocked when seeing the Alien in The Pre-Sequel!, which possesses enough intelligence to mock someone for trying to shoot it.
- Nyriad's writings in 3 similarly show surprise that the guardians can act on their own accord. According to her it's only some of the guardians that are sentient, and she doesn't know what makes them special.
- Nerf: They're noticeably easier to kill in Borderlands 3 than they were in the first game; they're slower and dodge around much less and are overall a lot less frustrating to hit, and their weak spot is much easier to hit.
- Organic Technology: According to Athena, they're bio-mechanical constructs built by the Eridians, presumably in their own image, but in the end are not actually alive.
- Remote Body: The bodies the Vault Hunters fight are shells, and when killed the Guardian just transfers to another shell. The location where their "souls" reside is hidden.
- The Resenter: In 3 the Vault Hunters can find hidden challenge areas guarded by talking Guardians. These Guardians explain that they resent the job of overseeing the Vaults since it makes them both wardens and prisoners. When you finish all the challenges they mockingly tell you the Vaults are the Vault Hunters' responsibility now.
- Spin to Deflect Stuff: Some Guardians (notably the Sentinel) can spin their staffs to deflect bullets.
- Uncanny Valley: What makes a good part of Guardians so strange to look at. A lot of them have just enough human-like figures to recognize them as such but they feel... off, especially their "faces" in 1 and Pre-Sequel.
- White Mask of Doom: They have blank masks for faces in Borderlands, and human-looking masks in The Pre-Sequel! A Borderlands artist says that their faces reform to approximately mimic the appearance of whatever species it interacts with
.
The Watcher
...?
Voiced by: Wendy Powell
An alien of some type who is working with Zarpedon. It wears Eridian guardian armor and is assumed to be one, but in the end its origins remain unclear.
- Ambiguous Gender: As a faceless alien of an unknown species (who might also be a robot), its gender is understandably a vague factor. Even its voice is androgynous.
- Big Damn Heroes: It jumps in at the end of The Pre-Sequel! in order to save Athena from being executed by the Crimson Raiders. It also convinces Lilith to call off Axton and Gaige from killing Aurelia and instead bring her to Sanctuary.
- Bullet Dodges You: Its main trick is just stopping bullets in midair.
- Boss Subtitles: Its intro card is unique in that its name is written in Eridian script, and its subtitle just has an ellipsis followed by a question mark, adding to how otherworldly it is.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Last seen in a cliffhanger that is somehow completely unacknowledged in the subsequent installment it was supposed to be setting up.
- The Dreaded: It doesn't show up much, but it makes quite the impression.Player Character: (paraphrased) What the hell was that?
Jack: No idea, never seen it before. But I've got the feeling that it could kill us with its brain, so, y'know... [nervous laughter] Keep running. - Drop-In Character: It first appears to save Zarpedon, only to disappear without a fight, and again at the very end of The Pre-Sequel! to save Athena, and tell Lilith that they'll need all the Vault Hunters they can get.
- Enigmatic Minion: While we know why it's opposing the protagonists, no one knows what The Watcher's long game is.
- Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: The introduction card is in what looks like Eridian script. Even the caption just reads "...?"
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": It's only referred to by its moniker "The Watcher".
- The Herald: Strongly implied to be the one who led Zarpedon down to the Vault proper, and showed her the danger. It also warns Lilith and the others that activating the Vault map in 2 is bringing a war, and that they'll need to be ready.
- Mysterious Watcher: It spends most of its time observing people, only intervening in limited ways to provide cryptic advice. In Borderlands 3, of of Queen Nyriad's logs indicates that it was present and watching as far back as when the Eridians were wiped out to contain the Destroyer.
- No Name Given: Due to being The Unpronouncable with a vague story, there's been no official name or title for this character as of yet, apart from Annie Swan referring to it as "that Watcher alien."
- Smug Super: It seems amused by Jack shooting at it, even mockingly wagging a finger in his direction while droning, "Naughty..."
- The Spook: Absolutely nothing is known about it beyond the bare basic gist of its goals.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sees Jack as a dangerous sociopath who would use the power of the Eridium Vault to eradicate most of Humanity into uncertainty. While it was certainly true that Jack eventually became the man known as Handsome Jack, its plan as a whole is what brought Jack to the brink of insanity and paranoia that made him the untrustworthy sociopath to be.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Tells a contractor with an ill girl working on Elpis "She will live. Leave this moon."
- The Unpronounceable: And the illegible - its name is written on its introduction card like everyone else, but in an unknown alien script.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It only appears in The Pre-Sequel! a handful of times, and not only never makes a reappearance, but is never even referenced again outside of one of Nyriad's writings.
The Sentinel
Guardian of the Vault
- All Your Powers Combined: It alternates between all the game's elements every time you complete one of its phases.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: After defeating in the first round, it sinks into ground and erupts back as a larger version of itself known as The Empyrean Sentinel.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Shooting the Empyrean Sentinel's faces is the only way to harm it.
- Barrier Change Boss: It swaps to other elements when you deplete its shield.
- Breath Weapon: In it's final phase, it hurls corrosive acid onto the floor.
- Close-Range Combatant: It starts the first half of its fight this way; essentially being a powered up version of the Vault Guardians who use staffs to fight.
- Energy Weapon: In both of its phases, it fires elemental beams at you.
- Final Boss: The final opponent of the The Pre-Sequel's' main story.
- Flunky Boss: Fighting alongside it are Eridian guardians.
- Giggling Villain: Every time you deplete its shields during the first phase it'll let out strange noises that sounds distinctly like its cackling at you.
- Humanoid Abomination: In contrast to other Vault monsters, The Sentinel is humanoid in body shape and (at first) size.
- Magic Knight: Much like the Guardians, the Sentinel uses a staff to fight the Vault Hunters while also channeling the each of the four elements of the game to unleash devastating attacks.
- Multiple Head Case: The Sentinel possesses a set of three faces, however they're not representative of any personality to speak of.
- Pillar of Light: The Empyrean Sentinel can summon columns energy from the ground to attack the Vault Hunters.
- Pivotal Boss: The Empyrean Sentinel. Its so huge it occupies the central part of the arena.
- Purple Is Powerful: The Sentinel has purple glowing Tron Lines across its body. Being a Vault Monster and the final boss, its power is undoubtable.
- Sequential Boss: It starts first half of its fight as a human-sized, more powerful version of the regular Guardians. After killing it first, it becomes The Empyrean Sentinel; a giant version of itself known and a Sequential Boss on it's own as it shifts from element to element.
- Smart Bomb: The Sentinel will let out a powerful attack that will hit the entire arena every time it change elements.
- Tron Lines: The Sentinel possesses glowing Tron Lines over its body. While starting out as purple, they change color signaling which elements its channeling.
- Upgraded Boss: After beating the main story it gets upgraded as the Raid Boss of the base game.
- You Will Not Evade Me: The Empyrean Sentinel can create a black hole that can suck the Vault Hunters in until it causes the black hole to explode.
The Overseer
"Something has changed."
"Vault Hunter. I thought you might show up sooner or later. So naughty, your species. So curious. The Vault of Vault has been opened... and it has been released. Prove your worth, and I will reveal why the Masters made me wait for you."
A Guardian clad in golden armor who watches over the Eridian Trials scattered across the galaxy.- Damned by Faint Praise: She has several quotes when judging your performace on the trails, but most of them are rather... condescending."Some skill has been demonstrated, I suppose."
"You do have SOME skills, I suppose."
"Luck, perhaps. We will see." - Hidden Purpose Test: Every trial is about killing things from all sizes, shapes and form you met throughout your journey, but to what end? When all of them are finished The Overseer declares the Vault Hunters are the "Guardians" now.Overseer: It is done, and my masters have taken note. Would you like to know what they told me right before they vanished? "Beware the Vault Hunter. They will take your kind’s place." Now I am free. And you are chained. Until next time... "guardian".
- Meaningful Name: She does exactly what her name implies, she supervises and oversees the trials.
- Mysterious Stranger: As per usual with Eridian Guardians. Nothing about The Overseer's goal is truly clear. The Overseer speaking about her "masters" only make things even more mysterious, especially as she refers to them in the present tense.
- The Nicknamer: For every trial the Vault Hunters clear, The Overseer calls them a new name: warrior, hunter, seeker, adventurer, hero, and finally, guardian.
- The Resenter: The Overseer mentions protecting the Vaults is their duty but also their prison and is clearly frustrated with their predicament.
- Unexpected Successor: Or not so unexpected. The vagueness of The Overseer's final commentary makes it difficult to really understand if the Eridians were truly expecting for the Vault Hunters to protect the vaults and not only plunder them.
The Seer
The course must be corrected.
A mysterious Guardian behind the series of murders that Ava and the Vault Hunters have been investigating across the galaxy, revealed to have had a hand manipulating the events of Borderland 3's main campaign.- Big Bad: Of the Mysteriouslier storyline. It's a Greater-Scope Villain as well as its actions heavily swayed the story in favor of the Crimson Raiders and the Calypso twins whenever it felt it was necessary. Without the interference of The Seer it's very probable that things would have gone very differently for everyone.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Inverted. The arena is a death trap that The Seer uses to fight the Vault Hunters. The giant Glyphs (cube like things) will fire elemental lasers and the central area has the black water that will draw Revenants towards you if you step in it.
- The Chessmaster: The final mission of Mysteriouslier shows it rigging the race for the Vaults using several people as its pawns so they would feed (mis)information to the CoV or the Crimson Raiders.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: Has by far the most health of any main storyline boss in either the base game or its expansions. Even worse, the Heralds that spawn during the fight can heal it.
- Didn't Think This Through: For all its planning and careful gambits it failed to predict two major events: the death of both Calypsos and Lilith's sacrifice. Before its boss fight begins in earnest it declares whatever it had planned wasn't "bent", it was completely "shattered".
- Final Boss: It's the final enemy that must be defeated in order to conclude the Mysteriouslier DLC.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Apparently The Seer can share its visions of the future and whatever it showed to Hizzen Mays freaked him out so badly he agreed to cooperate immediately.
- Grand Theft Me: One of its powers is possessing its victims and forcing them to cooperate.
- Healing Boss: Heralds can and will heal The Seer. Shoot the Medic First is highly advisable.
- Invisibility: One of its powers. It can still be damaged, but it's easy to lose track of it and you can't ping the damn thing to keep track of it.
- The Man Behind the Man: Is revealed to have been either helping or hindering the Vault Hunters and Calypsos during the main storyline. Whatever its plans were, they were ruined when the Calypsos died and Lilith sacrificed herself to save Elpis and Pandora.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: It makes its possession victims kill themselves when they have served their purpose to cover its tracks.
- Shoot the Medic First: Given its raid boss-level health and the ability for Heralds to heal it, it's in your best interest to gun down any you see ASAP.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Its voice never raises above a moderate, if harsh and condemning tone, but even so its actions makes very clear it is pissed with its plans, whatever they were, being ruined by the Vault Hunters.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Whatever its plans are, it seeks to avert an unknown future crisis. It just so happened that it involved assisting the Calypsos along with the Vault Hunters, and murdering its pawns once it was done. Even one of its victims called out the Seer for it, and the Seer agreed.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Its modus operandi. Whenever someone completes their purpose The Seer simply ties up loose ends in the only way possible to keep everything it does secret: killing the one who helped it. With its plans evidently ruined, it decides to kill the Vault Hunters and Ava. This is also the reason for the murders and suicides you come across.
Vault Monsters
The Destroyer
The Destroyer
A god-like being from another dimension who all but wiped out the Eridians... Maybe.
- Combat Tentacles: Which impale Commandant Steele within seconds of the Vault's opening. In 2, Handsome Jack dubs it "the universe's angriest squid."
- Deader than Dead: Moxxi sabotages the Eye of Helios in an attempt to kill both the Destroyer as well as Jack and his goon squad. Jack attempts to salvage the eye in a sidequest, only to blow it up for good. Subverted in 3, where the Destroyer is revealed to still be alive; presumably what the original Vault Hunters fought was just a portion of its body.
- Eldritch Abomination: Hailing from another dimension.
- Fun Size: Due to Nakayama's poor math, a clone of the Destroyer turned out to be only 3 feet tall. Its eye beam is more of a mild annoyance rather than world-destroying magnitude.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Destroyer is widely considered In-Universe as an abomination and a nearly unstoppable monster with it being sealed in the vault as the only way to deal with it until the vault hunters came along. However, it's really not the unstoppable juggernaut it's made out to be, with 1's vault hunters (which are considered the weakest both gameplay and story-wise) having dealt with it with relative ease. It doesn't even move from it's one spot. 3 hints that this trope may not be in play due to the Destroyer fought in 1 was a piece of the Destroyer, but only time will tell.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Blatantly, and subject to much Self-Deprecation.
- Greater-Scope Villain: In addition to being the Final Boss of 1, the consequences of its release inadvertently drives the plot of both 2 and The Pre-Sequel, especially the latter since part of its body is directly involved. 3 outright confirms that it is in fact this for the entire franchise, where it's revealed that the Eridians created Pandora as a planet-sized Great Vault to seal the Destroyer, who is in fact capable of living up to its name in regards to the entire universe.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: The incarnation killed at the end of 1 was only a small part of the true Destroyer.
- MacGuffin Guardian: While Jack has Angel claim it's a universe destroying Eldritch Abomination that wiped out the Eridians, it was assumed in light of later encounters with the likes of the Warrior, Traveler and Sentinel that it was simply one of many Vault Guardians... until 3 reveals that the Destroyer was indeed a universal obliterator.
- Money Spider: On a much larger scale than any other creature in the entire Borderlands franchise. While it does drop loot as any other boss in game, 2 reveals that its death also seeded the entire planet with Eridium.
- Multiple-Choice Past: In The Pre-Sequel, Jack makes an offhand comment that implies that it's simply another Eridian-built superweapon. This is consistent with dialogue from Angel in 2 that implies that Jack may have made up the whole "save the universe from an extra-dimensional eldritch abomination" thing (which is consistent with Jack's grandiose heroism fantasies). 3 indicates that the Destroyer is indeed an extra-dimensional universal threat and that what Jack was trying to harness was merely a minuscule part of the real deal.
- Not Quite Dead: The Pre-Sequel reveals that Jack used The Destroyer's eye as Helios' Wave-Motion Gun. 3 reveals that the Destroyer itself survived its encounter with the original four vault hunters, which only involved a fragment of its true form.
- Precursor Killers: It wiped out the Eridians before the last of them sealed it within the Vault. At least that's what Jack had Angel tell you. Turns out they were actually telling the truth.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Destroyer is the actual contents of the Vault, sealed within by the last of the Eridians to prevent it from destroying the universe ...at least, that's the story Jack has Angel feed you. 3 confirms the original story.
- Stationary Boss: Fortunately for the player, it won't move at all.
- Walking Spoiler: Well, not technically as if it were moving around the world would be in big trouble. It's kind of hard to discuss The Destroyer without spoiling the Plot Twist that its what's inside The Vault. It becomes this again in regards to 3.
The Warrior
The Warrior
Much like the Destroyer, the Warrior is an ancient monstrosity sealed away in a Vault. However, whereas the Destroyer was, maybe, an otherworldly entity that was sealed away by the Eridians, the Warrior is a bio-superweapon of Eridian Origin. Handsome Jack plans to unleash the Warrior and use it to "cleanse" Pandora of what he considers to be "undesirables".
- Attack Its Weak Point: The large glowing spot on its chest pretty much screams WEAK POINT. In fact, there's a Badass Rank challenge you can obtain by not attacking that spot. Its other weak point is the mouth, which won't make you fail the challenge but is much harder to hit.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: The Warrior's tail fires a beam that slags you, but it also uses it like a scorpion's stinger.
- Breath Weapon: It breaths fire/napalm.
- Cool, but Inefficient: The Warrior is essentially Handsome Jack's pride given form; it's big, it's awesome, it burns things down, and as far as he cares it's his best bet at taking over Pandora. The problem is that his obsession with the beast costs him his supply of Eridium, his money, his army, his engineers, and his own daughter. In the end he's left with a glorified artillery unit - a role the presently-accessible Helios space station already accomplished. There's also the fact that even though it has wings, it's never seen flying around, suggesting it's forced to stay on the ground, adding even MORE inefficiency.
- Final Boss: The last enemy you fight in the main campaign.
- Forgotten Super Weapon: He's a leftover bioweapon of the Eridians empire, buried for centuries. In Borderlands 3, an Eridian message explains that the Warrior was used by the Eridians to eliminate those who sided with the Destroyer.
- Our Dragons Are Different / Our Gryphons Are Different: Resembles a massive cross between a dragon and a griffin made out of lava and slag.
- Olympus Mons: Its defining traits are that it can obliterate all life on the planet and that the first person to make contact can control it. When you finally fight it, it doesn't do much beyond what its told, to the point that the fight sounds like a Pokémon battle.Jack: "Protect your chest, Warrior!" "Fire breath! Now!" "Back into the lava!" "Smash 'em, Warrior!" "Don't let 'em shoot you there! Goddamn!"
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Zigzagged. It's sealed away, yes, but it turns out the Warrior is the can.
- Sequel Escalation: The Destroyer, despite its huge health pool, was a Stationary Boss that only had a handful of attacks and roughly a third of it was composed of weakpoints. The Warrior, by contrast, constantly moves around the arena, has many different and hard-hitting attacks, and its weakpoints are harder to target.
- Shielded Core Boss: You can blast off the cracked pieces on its chest to gain access to a nice big glowing critical hit zone. However, they regenerate every time it goes back in and out of the lava. There is also a Badass Challenge for killing it without doing this. Luckily, its mouth is also a critical hit zone, although it's much harder to hit.
The Leviathan
He's really, really, really big
The final boss of the Captain Scarlett DLC, A massive beast that guards the treasure which happens to be an Eridian Vault, implying that the creature itself is a Vault Monster.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Much like the Warrior, it can only be harmed by shooting a weak point on it's body. Or in this case a series of weak points; large blue crystalline areas around its body and under its head/tongue.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: This thing swallowed a Rakk Hive whole.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Both of it's arms are massive bone blades. After killing it, one of them is used as a platform to cross over to the Vault room.
- Flunky Boss: It summons a bunch of Sand Worms to fight against the Vaunt Hunter.
- Leaking Can of Evil: Unlike most Vault Monsters, the Leviathan is free-roaming around Wurmwater. It's not made clear if this is by design or not.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: It's tongue... head? Whichever, is surrounded by three rows of teeth.
- Nested Mouths: A giant Sand Worm.
- Swallowed Whole: It does this to the Vault Hunter, Captain Scarlett and her pet Roscoe, a Rakk Hive.
The Traveler
The Traveler
Your journey ends here.
The Vault Guardian of the Vault of the Traveler (naturally). Shows up as the Final Boss of Tales From the Borderlands, just like its predecessors.
- Arch-Enemy: To Gortys, in a sense. When she is fully assembled, the Traveler becomes anchored to her location, and they are doomed to fight until one of them is destroyed.
- Attack Its Weak Point: There is an organ inside the Traveler responsible for its teleportation powers. Fiona and Sasha are charged with destroying it so that the Traveler can be killed.
- Conflict Killer: The moment this thing shows up it forces Vallory to call a truce and get Fiona's help.
- Final Boss: Of Tales from the Borderlands.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Like all Vault Guardians, it serves solely to be a giant monster that the characters have to deal with at the end of the game.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Shows up at the end of Episode 5's opening act, despite having received no foreshadowing at any point in the series (other than the narrator briefly mentioning that opening a Vault usually results in "complications"). Justified in that anyone familiar with the Borderlands games will know that every Vault has a Vault Guardian, who serve as the Final Boss of the game and (other than the Warrior) never receive any foreshadowing of their existence.
- It Can Think: It's rather intelligent for a Vault Guardian. For instance, it knows that destroying Gortys will make it disappear, so it refrains from doing so.
- In addition, when faced with something it thinks is a particularly hopeless way of stopping it, it laughs.
- Kaiju: It makes the Destroyer, the Warrior, and the Sentinel look positively tiny by comparison. The prior Borderlands Vault Hunters even note that it's the largest Vault Guardian they've ever seen.
- Money Spider: Comes with being a Borderlands boss. After it's death, it drops a ton of loot that the Vault Hunters take no time in gathering.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: As with all the other Vault Guardians.
- Teleport Spam: To hell with its size, this is the main reason it's so extremely difficult to kill. It didn't get the name "Traveler" for nothing.
The Rampager
Guardian Monster of the Vault on Promethea.
- Barrier Change Boss: The Rampager will cycle through Radiation/Corrosive/Fire elements to keep you on your toes.
- Breath Weapon: Shoots corrosive, radiation and fire elemental energy balls from the mouths in its head and chest, in addition to blinding white laser beams.
- Climax Boss: He's the monster guarding Promethea's Vault and the last obstacle between you and your first Vault.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: Just like all his predecessors, The Rampager can take huge amounts of damage before going down.
- Energy Ball: Whenever he's not trying to smash you he's trying to blast you with huge energy blasts. They're rather slow but it hardly matters when the damn thing is able to fill the arena with them.
- Foil: To the Graveward. Both them are strong Vault monsters that protect an Eridian artifact on their respective planets. But while the Graveward is giant, nearly motionless, and tilts the arena as a base attack, the Rampager is small (for a Vault Monster), erratic, and destroys part of the arena without changing the layout.
- Final-Exam Boss: While The Rampager is obviously not the final boss, it uses similar tactics of previous bosses you fought while assembling Promethea's Vault Key. It changes elements like Captain Traunt, uses dangerous attacks that you are safer taking cover from than trying to dodge on your own like Katagawa Ball, and its final phase has it jump across the arena hurling very deadly projectiles that must be actively dodged like Katagawa Jr's grenades.
- Large Runt: When compared to other Vault Guardians The Rampager is small. He's still about five times bigger than you and just as destructive as its name implies.
- Lightning Bruiser: Possesses hard-hitting elemental attacks and moves surprisingly quickly while having a truckload of health.
- Multiple Headcase: Seems to have just one head only to reveal the growth on it's back to be a neck with a head of its own, with the 'primary' head sinking into its open chest.
- One-Winged Angel: Downplayed. It starts off as a primate-like beast and transforms into a more draconic monster with wings as the fight escalates, but it never grows bigger or undergoes a more drastic change.
- Power Gives You Wings: Its third and final phase has the creature sprouting elemental wings.
- Roar Before Beating: Before beating you, while you're beating it... The Rampager is constantly roaring furiously when fighting the Vault Hunters.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Like all Vault monsters, it doesn't show up until the Vault is unlocked. And it is not happy about it. Rhys who also managed to open a Vault once even warns the Vault Hunters that opening a Vault is messy stuff.
- Serial Escalation: Vault Monsters are usually the Final Boss of their respective games, but The Rampager is fought less than 1/3rd of the way into the story and is definitely not a pushover despite that.
- Unstoppable Rage: As with all Vault Monsters, when disturbed, they will not stop attacking their assailants.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Even though most of the bosses beforehand aren't pushovers, the Rampager exists to remind you that the difficulty spike is imminent. Between attacks that hit very hard and taking ridiculous amounts of damage to die, The Rampager is how the game tells you its done pulling punches.
The Graveward
The Vault Guardian monster that protects the Vault of Eden-6.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: It rivals The Warrior in size.
- Botanical Abomination: Appears to be a construct made of bits of machinery wrapped in a body made of wood, vines, and bone.
- Climax Boss: Of Eden-6. Comes with the territory of being a Vault monster.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: It takes a ridiculous amount of firepower to bring down, and doesn't change up its attack patterns throughout the battle.
- Dual Boss: It is preceded by a fight against two Eridian guardians named Grave and Ward.
- Foil: To the Rampager. Both them are strong Vault monsters that protect an Eridian artifact on their respective planets. But while the Rampager is small, erratic, and destroys the arena without changing its layout, the Graveward is giant, almost unmoving, and tilts the arena as one of its base attacks.
- Golem: Appears to be a construct made of bits of machinery wrapped in a body made of wood, vines, and bone.
- Item Farming: Due to it's relative ease compared to other bosses thanks to being a massive target with large crit-spots and it's high drop-rates in higher difficulties, the Graveward is a popular target for farming Legendaries among the player base as well as to test out builds.
- Living Structure Monster: It appears as a mass of twisted wood and vines wrapped around some engines and other machinery with some sort of bone structure as a face of sorts.
- Mighty Glacier: Fitting for something the size of a mountain.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: It's a Vault monster. What did you expect?
Gythian
An absurdly massive tentacled monster that, though long deceased, continues to influence the events on the planet of Xylourgos, as its heart continues to beat even after its death. The Vault Hunter encounters the gargantuan corpse in the "Love, Guns, and Tentacles" DLC of Borderlands 3.
- Alien Blood: It's blood is green and corrosive.
- The Corruptor: To Vincent and Elanor Olmstead, as well as the rest of the Bonded.
- Eldritch Abomination: Good GOD yes.
- Giant Corpse World: Its massive, tentacled body sprawls across the planet, and you do go inside of it.
- Leaking Can of Evil: It's long dead, but its very presence is able to corrupt any nearby beings, driving them mad.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Its name translates to "Eater of Hearts" in an ancient and dead alien language.
- Posthumous Character: Somewhat, though technically dead, its heart still beats.
- Religion of Evil: The Bonded is a cult that venerates the dead god, being corrupted and driven insane by its beating heart.
- Shout-Out: To the entirety of the Cthulhu Mythos. A giant tentacled monster that is simultaneously dead and alive sealed away in a frozen wasteland and is able to corrupt and madden humans by its very presence? Yeah.
The Devourer
- Disc-One Final Boss: Unlike other Borderlands games, this monster is found roughly a third through the story.
- Establishing Character Moment: Octavio's frustration with not finding any Vault treasure leads him to throw a rock towards a blood pool. Then Juniper runs back to hide behind Octavio and the monster awakens.
- Multipurpose Tongue: True to its name, it contains a long tongue to smash around and damage the environment, as well as eating unsuspecting victims.
- Resurrective Immortality: As long as the green crystal attached to its tongue is there, it can resist any kind of deadly attacks. So, of course, it gets removed near the end of Chapter 2.
