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In General
Four immensely powerful Dreadbeasts that wander the world, searching for something buried in the great labyrinth. They spend most of their time asleep, and a single one awakening is a regional catastrophe that requires the direct intervention of at least one Monarch. The last time all four awakened at once, the previous generation of Monarchs was wiped out.
- Ancient Evil: They are older than everything else on the planet, including the Monarchs. Because of this, no one has any idea where they came from.
- Dark Secret: They were created by a group of researchers hoping to use the Labyrinth to focus and contain the artificial Hunger Aura created by Monarchs that refuse to ascend. Interestingly enough it worked, reducing the danger of all other dreadbeasts. Unfortunately, they escaped containment and began their endless campaigns of destruction, but there's still an argument to be made that this is a better situation than what the world had to contend with before. The real secret, however, is that if the Monarchs just left, Hunger aura would dry up and all the dreadbeasts would die in short order.
- The Dreaded: It's in their name. Only Monarchs can fight them, and then only to the point of driving them off. Anyone else is simply crushed.
- The Four Gods: The Dreadgods are based on the four gods of Chinese mythology. Specifically:
- The Weeping Dragon = The Azure Dragon
- The Wandering Titan = The Black Tortoise
- The Silent King = The White Tiger
- The Bleeding Phoenix = The Vermilion Bird
- Hufflepuff House: The Silent Servants get almost no attention, unlike the other cults.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: The Dreadgods are typically referred to as "it," highlighting their alien and monstrous nature. The occasional use of "he" slips in, and the Bleeding Phoenix is referred to as a "mother." The Silent King uses male pronouns in its own chapter, as does the Weeping Dragon.
- Kaiju: Each can crush a city with its body, with the exception of the Silent King which is described as roughly the size of a large elephant.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The Dreadgods are repeatedly compared to natural disasters; they just wander around mindlessly destroying things. You can't get mad at them any more than you can get mad at an earthquake. When Subject One dies, they gain true intelligence, and it soon becomes apparent that are going to enjoy killing continents.
- Punch-Clock Villain: A number of cultists are just in it for the power. Advancing the normal way costs a lot of money, but borrowing the power of a Dreadgod grants a Cannibalism Superpower. It's much cheaper, you just have to deal with the fact that your leaders are insane, your god is a monster, and nearly everyone you meet will try to kill you on sight.
- Resurrective Immortality: Any Dreadgod that is killed (including Subject One) will eventually reconstitute, unless the Monarchs leave Cradle in the meantime and starve them of Hunger aura.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: They force the greatest powers in the world to work together... at least in theory. One by one, it is possible a combination of Monarchs, Heralds, and Sages could take one down, but the second one Dreadgod is engaged in combat the rest of them become active to either defend the other Dreadgod or distract the force attacking it. This is why the accepted wisdom is to never antagonize a Dreadgod, simply get out of its way, and if you're able to fight one only do so until it loses interest and wanders away or gets tired and falls back to sleep.
- World's Strongest Man: They are the most powerful creatures in the world, surpassing even the Monarchs.
Subject One, the Slumbering Wraith
Subject One (SPOILERS)
The hidden fifth Dreadgod that resides in the depths of The Labyrinth. Not much is known about it, only that the rest of the Dreadgods want to get to it no matter what.
- Dark Secret: It knows that it only exists due to Cradle having too many Monarchs, which creates artificial Hunger Madra. If they would ascend then its power would eventually disappear.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Killed by Reigan Shen before the main characters ever meet it directly, instead Lindon converses with an Echo of it created by the Labyrinth itself.
- Horror Hunger: It is this trope, it only exists due to the Monarchs of the time experimenting using Hunger Madra.
- Maker of Monsters: It is essentially the father of the four other Dreadgods.
- Name Amnesia: After millennia spent trapped in the Labyrinth, consumed by Hunger, he no longer remembers his name.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: It is the first Dreadgod and the progenitor of the rest.
- Tested on Humans: It came about due to the greatest soulsmiths of the time experimenting using Hunger Madra. We only find this out from its echo, after
Reigen Shen betrays it and murders it for its Hunger Madra Binding. - Was Once a Man: Used to be one of the original researchers of Hunger Madra, having implanted a binding into himself.
Abyssal Palace
Wandering Titan
A giant that appears to be in the shape of a human with a large turtle's shell and a long monkey tail.
- Dishing Out Dirt: It uses Earth and Hunger madra, and primarily consumes natural treasures in the ground or ocean floor.
- It Can Think: During the events of Wintersteel, Lindon using his new Consume ability absorbs some of the Wandering Titan's thoughts. It has one overriding emotion: the desire to go home.
- Mighty Glacier: The slowest of the Dreadgods, it also has the highest defense of all of them.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: It has the face and limbs of a human, the shell of a turtle, and tail of a monkey.
Maraan
Maraan, High Priest of Abyssal Palace
An Underlord Lindon faces while doing assignments at Sky's Edge. He is Brother Aekin's mentor.
- Badass Teacher: Even though he's only an Underlord he has not lost to another Underlord in over 20 years and even some young Overlords find that they cannot match him. He is also the instructor and mentor of Brother Aekin who is Abyssal Palace's representative in the Uncrowned King tournament.
- Career-Ending Injury: Suffered this to his Spirit when he was younger, it's what has kept him from advancing past Underlord even though he is 100 years old. He seems to have accepted this though and his role as an instructor/mentor to the younger generation of Abyssal Palace.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: His Staff of Condemnation is an Overlord level weapon that he is still able to use as an Underlord thanks to his years of mastery. It allows him to hit much harder than any Underlord should be able to. Not that this helps him against Lindon.
- Oh, Crap!: Has this reaction when Lindon activates his Power Armor and it grows into full blown panic with each passing second of their fight.
- Taking You with Me: How he feels at the end of his fight with Lindon: Even though it cost his subordinate her arm and that he may never heal fully, at least he took out his enemy.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Thinks that his enemy is burning a suicidal amount of Madra to fight him and his cult members. With anyone else he would be right.
Redmoon Hall
Bleeding Phoenix
A giant phoenix that takes over the entire horizon when it flies. It constantly releases blood shadows that go out to bring it food (i.e. people). It awakens when Jai Daishou opens the Labyrinth, but is (temporarily) beaten back by Akura Malice.
- Blood Magic: It's in its name. It can use Blood madra to the point where it can resurrect itself in the unlikely event that it's killed.
- Eldritch Abomination: It's a gigantic, bleeding phoenix that intermittently releases parts of itself in the form of Blood Shadows that bond to people.
- It Can Think: It might look like a gigantic bloody phoenix, but it's perfectly capable of retreating and waiting for more favorable circumstances.
- Mind Hive: It is an amalgamation of countless thoughts and souls, all of which are constantly arguing with each other with little agreement. When the Dreadgods regain their minds, it focuses into clarity.
- Revenge: It is consumed by hypocritical revenge on those who harmed it... but it is too lost and confused to actually focus on anyone specifically. Then it regains its mind, and suddenly becomes a far more dangerous threat.
Red Faith
Sage of the Red Faith, Unknown Blood Path
One of the oldest (if not the oldest) Sages in the world. He is one of the leaders of Redmoon Hall. When he tried to ascend to Monarch using his Blood Shadow, it betrayed him and became a Herald in its own right.
- Blood Magic: Is a Sage of a Blood path.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He resembles a skeleton with skin to most people, and he has extremely strange mannerisms, but he is widely acknowledged as an incredibly strong Sage and researcher, able to match the Winter Sage blow-for-blow, and utterly defeating an extremely competent Archlord. He also shrugs off the Silent King's attempt to control him.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: He rarely speaks, preferring to only do feral grunts, but he is surprisingly articulate whenever he talks about Blood Shadows.
- Creepy Child: Was called Ghost Child when he was young.
- Didn't Think This Through: While waiting for Northstrider in his office he attacks The Winter Sage because he knows that Northstrider won't kill him due to an agreement with the Abidan and other Monarchs. Northstrider stops the fight and proceeds punch him clear out of the city. It won't kill the Red Sage, but it'll definitely hurt.
- Despair Event Horizon: What he crossed when his own Blood Shadow stole his advancement, betrayed him, and abandoned him.
- Quizzical Tilt: When he sees something that interests him, he tilts his head all the way to his shoulder.
- For Science!: Red Faith will do absolutely anything and make any sacrifice for knowledge. At one point in Dreadgod, Yerin leaves to power up and come back. He gets upset, since he considers her value to magical science to be so high that he'd rather she just flee and leave him to die.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He could regenerate after his fight with [[spoiler:Redmoon but instead he uses the last of his energy to kill the Bleeding Phoenix's avatar and stop it from killing Yerin.
- Hypocritical Humor: When he, Yerin, and Khan Mala are making plans, at first he refuses to make an oath of mutual loyalty.
Redmoon: I have no intentions of betrayal. I am not like that rat, Redmoon. I strike only when it is in my own interests.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Compared to Redmoon. Red Faith is creepy and awful and deranged and will do literally anything For Science!, but he's still lucid enough to oppose the Dreadgods and ultimately believes everything he does will serve the greater good, whereas Redmoon worships the Bleeding Phoenix.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Red Faith is only ever referred to as Red Faith or the Blood Sage, and when he was young was called Ghost Child. Frozen Blade speculates that he has forgotten his own name.
- Mad Scientist: He was studying Blood Shadows before he went off the deep end.
- Moment of Lucidity: Most of the time he either growls, issues one word answers, or just outright attacks anyone that's near him. When he's discussing his research though listeners describe it as being able to see the scientist he used to be before he went mad.
- My Greatest Failure: He describes how he raised his Blood Shadow as this, he did everything he could to increase its power so that together they could rise to Monarch. In the end the Blood Shadow betrayed and abandoned him.
- In Dreadgod he realises that his own nature prevented him from fusing with his Shadow. His Will would not allow him to bend to another, and so his Shadow will not cooperate with him.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: What apparently happened to him centuries ago. Narration from The Winter Sage states that at one point in time he was a well respected Sacred Arts researcher, but that the further he got in his understanding of the Bleeding Phoenix and the Blood Shadows the darker he became.
- So Proud of You: As he considers himself Yerin’s mentor, [ he has this reaction to her Fusion Dance with Ruby. As she does not reciprocate the feeling, she’s quite upset for her part.
- Spanner in the Works: it is revealed in Dreadgod that, like all monarchs or sages/heralds considered likely to become Monarchs, he is aware that the Dreadgods only exist because of, and are fueled by, the hunger aura generated by the Monarchs that refuse to ascend beyond Cradle, and was bound by an oath to not reveal this knowledge to anyone who is not aware. Thing is… he swore that oath to the previous generation of Monarchs, who are all long dead, and none of the current generation thought to make sure he was still bound. Which means that he’s able to freely explain it to Yerin when Lindon cannot, and allows her to freely share that information with the entire planet.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He does truly terrible things For Science!, but he ultimately believes that his results will serve the greater good.
- You Killed My Father: Invoked and played with. Redmoon's remnant claims to have killed Yerin's family in order to get her angry enough to power-up; after she's mastered the technique he was trying to teach her, she calms down and asks him if he actually did, and he says that he genuinely doesn't remember, since she wasn't important at the time.
Redmoon
Red Faith's Blood Shadow that refused to merge with him. He broke free of Red Faith and advanced to Herald on his own.
- Axe-Crazy: Worships the Bleeding Phoenix as a god.
- Copied the Morals, Too: Red Faith's Fusion Dance with Redmoon failed because Redmoon was a perfect copy of him and both refused to subsume themselves to another's will.
- Meaningful Name: Named both himself and his organization Redmoon. Red Faith and Yerin both complain that this is needlessly confusing.
- Unnecessarily Large Interior: Red Faith also complains that Redmoon's throne room in their cloud fortress is a huge waste of space.
Kahn Mala
Archlady Khan Mala, Unknown Venom and Blood Path
An Archlady of Redmoon Hall. Saner than most, she is in the Sage of Red Faith's faction.- Beleaguered Assistant: Seems to do much of the actual organizing of the organization since the leadership have other things to do.
- Chessmaster Sidekick: Red Faith's second-in-command of the part of Redmoon Hall that regards the Bleeding Phoenix as a path to power, and doesn't worship it.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: A large part of her role seems to be managing Red Faith's and Yerin's oversized personalities.
- Feather Boa Constrictor: Her blood shadow takes the form of a cobra, which usually rides around on her shoulders.
Yan Shoumei
Yan Shomei, Unknown Blood Path
A student of the Sage of the Red Faith and representative of Red Moon Hall in both Ghostwater and The Uncrowned King Tournament. Her Blood Shadow manifests either as a controllable cloak of blood or a giant creature that looks like a mix between a rabbit, a gorilla, and a porcupine.
- Ax-Crazy: When we first meet her she wants to attack anyone and everyone around her and gives an insane rant to Lindon before disappearing. This is a case of Shell-Shocked Veteran as she has made so many enemies defending her city that for a little bit she came to see everyone as working for them.
- Blood Magic: Is the practitioner of a Blood path.
- Creepy Cute: Invoked, at least from her perspective. She named her Blood Shadow "Crusher", and thinks that it's the cutest thing in the world.
- Friend to All Children: In Wintersteel we see that she always tries to look out for children, unfortunately because she looks like Sadako from The Ring children always run in terror of her.
- Hero of Another Story: Only bonded with a Blood Shadow because it was the least expensive/easiest path of power. She is the defender of an entire city and they call her their guardian spirit.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After Lindon Consumes her Blood Shadow Crusher she gets the hell out of dodge.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Averted. She doesn't agree with Red Faith or Reigan Shen at all, the only reason she serves them is to gain enough power to protect her city.
- Punch-Clock Villain: She actively dislikes Red Faith and has no particular allegiance to the Bleeding Phoenix; she only serves them because it's a way to advance, and makes it clear that she finds their Axe-Crazy behavior reprehensible.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Pulls this in Ghostwater after getting what she came for. Does this again at the end of Wintersteel but this time out of fear of Lindon who has just consumed her Blood Shadow and was coming for her next.
Silent Servants
Silent King
A giant tiger... relatively. It is "only" the size of a small house, by far the smallest and weakest of the Dreadgods. It is the master of Dream and Light, and controls legions of followers of all types.
- Badass Army: Uses Dream madra to subjugate an army of Sacred Artists, Sacred Beasts and Remnants.
- Blank White Void: When attempting to take over Lindon he draws him into a white void and projects views of Lindon's family under attack.
- Creepy Hairless Animal: It has black and white stripes, but no fur.
- Hive Mind: It controls anything with a mind into a massive network where everyone acts for his greater good.
- It Can Think: Unlike the other Dreadgods, it retains its full intelligence and willpower; if it didn't, it would be zero threat. Dream madra is the madra aspect of intelligent beings and the mind, so it fundamentally can't be wielded by something without intelligence.
- Squishy Wizard: By Dreadgod standards, it is extremely fragile—even the average Herald can defeat it in combat. Of course, it's still completely immortal. When Lindon manages to kill it, its last thoughts are that maybe some more physical strength wouldn't have been a bad idea.
Stormcallers
Weeping Dragon
A giant, kilometers-long azure dragon that lives on a hurricane. Was first mentioned when Suriel visited Cradle, it was considered one of the possible threats that Suriel's Presence identified.
- Deface of the Moon: Its ultimate attack is so powerful that when unleashed it puts a visible trench on the moon.
- It Can Think: It was once a sapient creature, but is now so consumed by its hunger that it can't think. When it sleeps it dreams of the past and weeps for what it lost.
- Our Dragons Are Different: A dragon Dreadgod, controlling Wind, Water, and Lightning madra.
Storm Sage
The only Sage in the Stormcaller Sect. He tortured and crippled Ziel years ago after destroying the Dawnwing Sect's defenses so that it could be consumed by the Weeping Dragon.
- Forced to Watch: Forced Ziel to watch as the Dragon spirits that followed the Weeping Dragon killed his sect members.
- Mad Doctor: After beating him in combat, he ripped apart Ziel's spirit and put it back together... wrong.
- Seers: Among all the Dreadgod cultists, he is the one with the most ability to see Fate. Reigan Shen consults him when he needs detailed information on the future. When the Mad King appears in the sky, he starts screaming.
- 0% Approval Rating: He's such a horrible person, even his own fellow cultists hate him.
Calan Archer
"We're not your enemies, Honestly, I'm an admirer. I hope we don't have to fight."
A member of the Stormcallers, and one of the Uncrowned.- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Gets a decent bit of the spotlight for a non-main character, we learn his background a little bit, and he even gets a chapter of his own. Then he takes part in Reigan Shen's assassination plot and Lindon Consumes him.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: He doesn't believe in Reigan Shen's plans and appears to outright hate the Stormcaller Sage, but they are his sponsors and his path to power so he obeys them anyways.
- Punch-Clock Villain: He doesn’t really care about his sage, his cult, or Reigen Shen. He only sees them as a means for his advancement, as he was born talented but poor.
- Shock and Awe: A defining trait for those in the Stormcaller Cult, he is able to form Lightening Dragons in the shape of the Weeping Dragon itself and launch them at his enemies to consume their power.
