Characters / Broken Age

A list of characters in the video game Broken Age.

Protagonists

Velouria "Vella" Beastender Tartine

"I know that if I act on my instinct to fight, I would be putting my whole village in danger. So I'll ask a new question: Instead of 'What if we fought the monster?', what I want to know is... how do I kill it?"

Voiced by: Masasa Moyo

The Only Sane Woman, she wants to fight back against Mog Chothra instead of being sacrificed.

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• Action Girl: In just the first few minutes we see Vella, she's cut herself free from being a sacrifice to Mog Chothra.
• Ambiguously Brown: Vella appears to have a dark-skinned mother and a light-skinned father.
• Character Catchphrase: Vella can at least once in all her conversations talk about how she is "going to kill Mog Chothra!"
• Blood Knight: Primarily prefers destruction to solve her big problems, to a very successful degree.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Her goal in the first half.
• Girly Bruiser: Vella has a bit of this, being a fiesty, aggressive Action Girl who spends all but the first couple of scenes in a pink dress.
  Marekai: "I thought... you were a baker!"
  Vella: "Yeah. I can do that too."
• Meaningful Name: Both her middle and last name reflect her personality and heritage. Beastender for her desire to fight the Mogs and monster fighting roots, Tartine for her more relaxed, baking side of the family.
• Only Sane Woman: She is the only person besides her grandfather who realizes how horrifying the Maiden's Feast is, and the only girl who wants to fight back.
• Selective Obliviousness: Even after being told the true nature of the Mogs, she seems to believe that two of the Mog spaceships smashed together are mating, not melting together.

Shay Volta

"It's time for a mutiny... time to put aside childish things... time to grab the wheel of this ship... and steer it straight into the storm."

Voiced by: Elijah Wood

Shay is a boy who is stuck in space all his life. He wants to get out into the world.

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• Acquired Poison Immunity: Suffering through years of "hug attacks" has apparently rendered him highly resistant to being squeezed, so much that the solution to one puzzle is letting a boa constrictor squeeze Shay until IT passes out from exhaustion.
• Death Seeker: If his disappointment at being saved from suffocation in space, his excitement at falling in the runaway train, and his surprising chillness at being constricted are of any indication.
• The Heavy: Accidentally, for Vella, since his ship is Mog Chothra.
• Heroic BSoD: At the start of Act 2 after the shock of realizing that his "spaceship" looks like a giant monster, and that most of his life has been a lie. He get's over it quickly.
• In-Series Nickname: Marek calls Shay "young cub", while Mom calls him "Sweetie" or "Captain Sweetie", and Vella calls him "the boy".
• Jumped at the Call: Anything to break the tedium of his incredibly sheltered life and actually do something meaningful.
• Non-Action Guy: Despite wishing it were otherwise, his coddled upbringing means that he isn't prepared to handle himself in a physical confrontation.
• No Sense of Humor: At least, he struggles in the territory of tree puns.
• Psychic Link: The Thrush and the art book imply Shay has this in order to select specific maidens, Vella in particular filling the qualities the Thrush need.

Residents of Sugar Bunting, Meriloft, Shellmound, and inbetween

Rocky Tartine

Voiced by: Kristen Li

"Did you get eaten by a bear? If so, then I know you're lying, because we don't have bears around here!"

Vella's younger sister. An energetic kid who looks up to her older sister.

• Cheerful Child: The only time Rocky is seen not smiling is when Vella is about to be sacrificed. Even later in Act 2 when the ships are stuck on each other and under fire from the Lorunans, her first thought is to dance around rather than panic.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Despite having no prior experience with Shay's technology, she's able to figure out how to rewire his recently-repaired Hexipal to perform a dance routine in the time it took for them to get from Shellmound to the Plague Dam.
• Picky Eater: Loves cupcakes, but only those with red frosting. She thinks that the cupcakes with white frosting are gross.

Harm'ny Lightbeard

Voiced by: Jack Black

"Before you ask, let me answer... yes, you may live here in Meriloft forever."

The leader of Meriloft and a spiritual guru who advocates the practice of "lightness" in all things, which involves giving up one's earthly goods. Being the leader, he has gotten the entire town to follow in this practice as well, going so far as to cut off access to the surface. He spends his time meditating high above Meriloft while leaving the day-to-day running of the town to his disciples.

• Cult: How Meriloft is run under his leadership is essentially this, with himself at the head.
• Con Man: Though he asks that his followers donate everything to free themselves of their burdens, he himself is a huge hoarder, and his flying cloud is nothing more than a massive junk pile being kept aloft by an advanced engine.

Twyla

Voiced by: Catherine Cavadini

"You didn't get picked... that's okay. Pull up a swing and sulk with me, sister."

A teenage girl who was chosen by Meriloft to become one of Mog Chothra's sacrifices, but was passed over by Mog Chothra itself during Meriloft's Maiden Feast.

• Fantastic Angst: Because being successfully sacrificed is viewed as a great honor for those living in fear of the Mogs, she is completely bummed out at not getting devoured by Mog Chothra, leaving her too ashamed to face her family.
• Hidden Depths: Though her only purpose in life was to become a sacrifice, it's revealed in Act 2 that she's also a really great seamstress.
• Human Sacrifice: Like all potential Maidens.
• Missed the Call: Ended up not getting eaten by Mog Chothra even though all the other Maidens were. It's a bit of a sore spot for her.

Curtis

Voiced by: Wil Wheaton

"Listen! I'm sorry! I didn't know you had feelings, okay?"

A lumberjack who is hiding in his cabin because he believes the trees are after him. In Act 2 his gives up being a lumberjack altogether and goes into making metal sculptures for profit.

• Hipster: Curtis makes art on the side and gets annoyed when Vella gets it. Later he says he's making "artisanal" metal sculptures.
• Properly Paranoid: At first he sounds crazy, then Vella runs into a real talking tree.

The Dialog Tree

Voiced by: Jamieson Price

"Aaaah! Murderer! Axe-wielding psychopath right here!"

A talking tree that hates humans due to their destructive behavior, namely how they keep cutting down trees to build stuff.

• Butt-Monkey: Several puzzles are solved at his expense.
• Calling Your Nausea: He does this a lot, hinting at the fact that you need to make him throw up in order to get his sap.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: From his perspective, humans have murdered his kind and made their corpses into furniture. He says that he saw Curtis hack an old lady to death, said old lady being a 300-year-old spruce tree.
• Plant Person: He is a talking tree with a face and human-level intelligence.
• Prone to Vomiting: He nearly vomits at the mere mention of a wooden stool, actually does when presented with one, and then pukes again at the memory of Vella showing said stool to him.
• Punny Name: A "dialog tree" is a video game term for how conversation options are organized, and he's a literal talking tree who can exchange dialog with you.
• Solid Gold Poop: His sap is used to solve two separate puzzles and he mentions that other humans also want to steal it and use it for their own purposes. He refuses to give it away, so the only way to get it is to make him puke it up.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: He vomits sap, what can be used as a glue.

Alex, the Dead Eye God

Voiced by: Alex Rigopulos

"THREE HUNDRED YEARS?! *sigh* I guess all the locals I knew here are long dead. That's kind of a relief... they were a little annoying."

A space traveler on the same mission as Shay, who crashed into Shellmound three hundred years ago. He couldn't stand the primitive nature of the inhabitants and the way they worshiped him as a god, so he put himself into cryogenic hibernation. Vella thaws him out.

• God Guise: Though he preferred not to be worshiped as a god, Shellmound worshiped Alex anyway.
• Mr. Exposition: To Shay, when Shay asks him their mission.
• My Future Self and Me: Parodied and subverted. When Vella first meets him, Alex does not reveal his name, leading players to believe he might be an older version of Shay. Sure enough, when Shay meets him, they both think this might be the case...until we find out Alex's name. Hilariously, this then happens again with Shay's Dad.

Crew of the Bossa Nostra

"Mom"

Voiced by: Jennifer Hale

"No more snoozies for my little spaceman this morning! Oh, I hope no bad tinkle fairies came and wet your bed during the night!"

The A.I. of the Bossa Nostra, with the personality of a doting, loving, if overbearing mother. Her full name is Hope Volta, and she's not really an A.I.

• Anti-Villain: She does truly care about Shay's well-being and safety... even if it means keeping him effectively imprisoned on the ship. The first Act of Shay's story is basically trying to escape from her.
• Brain Uploading: Implied to be the result of this. She's actually a real person using a special interface.
• Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: She's got a whole catalogue of delicious, nutritious breakfast cereals.
• The Computer Is Your Friend: She only wants what's best for Shay... whether he likes it or not. Except she's not a computer.
• Control Freak: Shay sees her as this.
• The Face of the Sun: What her interface looks like. She pops into lamps as a glowing yellow face, but does not move.
• Good All Along: She's not an AI that is primarily concerned about the mission, but Shay's human mother who is worried about Shay's safety for his own sake, and is oblivious to Operation: Dandelion's real purpose.
• Good Morning, Crono: How she is introduced.
• Master Computer: She is in complete control of the Bossa Nostra for the majority of the game. Until it's revealed that she isn't actually a computer.
• Ms. Exposition: To Vella, who asks in detail about Operation: Dandelion, compared to Shay who would already know about it by now.
• My Beloved Smother: Mom is pretty much omnipresent on the ship, which makes it nearly impossible to escape her watchful eye. Also, she tries to keep Shay locked into a routine, and doesn't seem to understand that he's outgrown her parenting methods, which are geared more towards very small children and infants.
• Safety Worst: She's effectively made it nearly impossible for Shay to get so much as a bruise. She's even worried about "delayed fractures," which aren't even a thing.
• Walking Spoiler: The truth about her is revealed in Act 2.

"Dad"

Voiced by: John Cygan

"You'd better get up. I'm almost off duty. Your mom's going to be here soon, and you know how she is."

A side A.I. of the Bossa Nostra, who is a much more relaxed and somber companion to "Mom". He's rarely seen because he's busy doing repairs on the ship and such most of the time. His full name is Ray Volta, and he's not really an A.I., either.

• Brain Uploading: Implied to be the result of this. He's actually a real person using a special interface.
• The Man in the Moon: Contrast to Mom's The Face of the Sun.
• Walking Spoiler: Like Mom, Dad's true nature is revealed in Act 2.

The Yarn Pals

Voiced by: Kristen Li (Blue), Kate Higgins (Red), and Grey Griffin (Yellow)

"This is a terrible thing to happen to us!"
"Especially because it seems so preventable!"

A trio of living dolls knitted by "Mom" as companions for Shay. Their main purpose is to serve as "victims" for Shay to rescue on his "missions."

• Cute Machines: Everything about their design, voices, and behaviors is meant to be as adorable as possible. Not to mention that they're made out of yarn.
• The Glomp: They really love hugging Shay. One of the "missions" consists only of them hugging him.
• Made of Indestructium: They aren't made of regular yarn, but nigh-indestructible nanofibers. They can be unraveled, but this only incapacitates them until someone puts them back together.

Marekai

Voiced by: David Kaufman

"When you tire of child's play... when you're ready for real danger... come see me."

A stowaway in a wolf costume onboard the Bossa Nostra that is using the ship to rescue aliens from dangerous planets. He recruits Shay to help him gain control of the ship.

• Big Bad: He's the face of the Thrush, rulers of the Lorunan people and the villains of the game..
• Evil Mentor: To Shay, not that he was teaching Shay to be evil, but the things he made Shay do were evil.
• Legacy Character: It's implied that Marek/ Marekai is something like this, given that Alex had one on his own ship 300 years ago.
• Obviously Evil: By the end of Act I, Marek's motives are unknown, but it's obvious they're not good. Act 2 reveals them.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Greatly and sincerely praises Shay's ability to save the aliens, which amounts to a glorified claw game.
• Mr. Exposition: He's the main source of exposition in the game, though some of it is false.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Averted. Marek admits that he's not really a wolf. And averted in that it hides his giant head ridge.
• Walking Spoiler: As expected from someone hiding in a wolf suit.