Characters / Cuphead - Main Characters

Cuphead | Main character index
Main Characters | Allies and Enemies | The Runaway Debtors | The King's Court | The Delicious Last Course

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The heroes and villains of our story.

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Heroes

Cuphead & Mugman

"Well, Cuphead and his pal Mugman, they like to roll the dice..."

The Player Characters and protagonists of the story, two brothers that are anthropomorphic cups with bodies.

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• Abnormal Ammo:
  • Judging by the fact that the different types of weapons you can buy come in bottles, it seems that Cuphead and Mugman shoot moonshine and other beverages at their enemies. Furthermore, the first super attack has them firing the contents of their cups as giant lasers — and the developers have stated that the cups contain their souls.
  • Invoked while using their airplanes' machine guns. Their Ex Move, Chomper Missile, launches a large missile with a chomping jaw on it that deals damage with each bite.
• Action Bomb: In flying stages, their supers turn them into literal bombs that they can ram into their opponents. It's fittingly named Super Bomb Morph.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: At the beginning, when the boys lose in a game of Craps against the Devil, who's about to claim their souls, they kneel down and beg for their lives to be spared◊. Needless to say, it works.
• Autocannibalism: Mugman drinks the liquid from his own head (stated to be his soul) through his own straw at the start of every boss battle and mausoleum stage in co-op. Presumably, it just ends up being put back into his head.
• Badass Adorable: They're cute little homages to cartoon protagonists from the '30s that, eventually, can become strong enough to beat up Satan.
• Badass in Distress: If you are using Ms. Chalice for the final boss of the DLC, whichever brother she was swapped for is being held captive by Chef Saltbaker as the final ingredient of his Wondertart.
• Bash Brothers: A literal example, as Cuphead and Mugman are actual brothers.
• Big Little Brother: Though the brothers may seem to be around the same height, Mugman is noticeably slightly taller than Cuphead despite being his younger brother.
• Blood Knight: If his intro animations are anything to go by, Cuphead is more eager to fight than Mugman. That being said, they both sport huge grins while blasting away at their enemies.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: When playing two players. If one dies and the remaining player can parry their ghost before they float away, they will give out a direct "Thank you!" at the player before reforming back to normal and rejoining the battle.
• Bug Catching: The first page of a storybook at the very beginning shows the boys catching some bugs with the Elder Kettle in the forest (as Cuphead indicates by holding a bug-catching net).
• Bumbling Henchmen Duo: One of the comics in Zack Keller's Cuphead: Cartoon Chronicles & Calamities depicts events following the bad ending of the game, and portrays Evil Cuphead and Vile Mugman as such; on their first day on the job as the Devil's minions, their absurdly violent and bloodthirsty manner causes them to completely sabotage all of the Devil's plots for no real reason other than they really wanted to break stuff.
• Color-Coded Characters: Cuphead's red, Mugman's blue. Even their personalities reflect this.
• Deal with the Devil: What kicks off the whole adventure when the two tried to play a game of Craps against the Devil and lost. They pleaded for their lives and he claimed he might spare their lives if they do his bidding.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In the good ending, they beat the crap outta The Devil himself.
• Distressed Dude: In The Delicious Last Course, if you face Chef Saltbaker as Ms. Chalice, the brother she swaps out for is captured by him as the final ingredient of his Wondertart.
• The Drag-Along: Mugman understood the dangers of taking the Devil's gamble but Cuphead was blinded by the prize. Mugman now has to be a debt collector alongside Cuphead on the Devil's behalf, though Mugman was willing to gamble in the Devil's casino at first, only stopping upon realizing the dangers of taking the Devil's gamble, though it was too late by that time.
• Empty Eyes: Or "Empty Eye Sockets", rather: if you lose to the Devil's second phase and onwards, he holds up the lifeless, decrepit heads of Cuphead and Mugman. You can see that their heads have no eyes at all (and there are some cracks in their black, hollowed-out eye sockets), as if they're both deprived of their souls.◊
• Evil Debt Collector: A rare non-villainous variation of this trope, since they are basically forced to collect the Devil's soul contracts from other Inkwell Islanders to save themselves. Either the good ending can subvert this since they opt to turn against the Devil and free all other debtors instead, or the bad ending can play it straight as they hand over the contracts to him and become his servant.
• Expy: Both of them evoke many old-school animation protagonists in both design and personality, particularly Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Mickey Mouse. Indeed, they were both modeled after a cartoon character with a teacup for a head who pours a liquid into his head, then transforms into a tank in a 1936 Japanese propaganda cartoon.
• Face–Heel Turn: In the bad ending, they become the Devil's servants. Promotional and adaptational material call them Evil Cuphead and Vile Mugman in this state, respectively.
• Finger Gun: They attack by making finger guns and firing shots from them, with the shots apparently being drawn from the liquid in their heads. Comes in nine flavors:
  • Peashooter: Basic attack in blue, single-line shot with high rate of fire. Ex Move is Mega Blast, a Kamehame Hadouken Energy Ball attack.
  • Spread: Spread Shot in red, powerful three-way shotgun attack but has a limited range. Ex Move is Eight Way, a Multi-Directional Barrage in all 8 directions.
  • Chaser: Homing Projectile in green, homes in on enemies (and some projectiles) but has low damage output. Ex Move is Chaos Orbit, an Orbiting Particle Shield/Reverse Shrapnel move of four orbiting projectiles.
  • Lobber: Arcing projectile in purple, slower rate of fire but bounces off the ground until it makes contact. Ex Move is Kablooey, a much bigger arcing bomb.
  • Charge: Charged Attack in orange, single-line shot that can be charged and released to deal more damage. Ex Move is Radial Barrage, a close-range explosion from the player's hands to inflict massive damage.
  • Roundabout: Battle Boomerang attack in cyan, single-line shot that will travel for a short range then reverse direction to hit enemies behind the shooter. Ex Move is Jumbo Roundabout, a giant sawblade that will fly around until it returns to Cuphead (dodging it on the return allows it to make another round and deal more damage in the process).
  • Crackshot: Straight shot in pink, after traveling a set distance without hitting anything it splits off a weaker shot aimed directly at the closest enemy. Ex Move is P. Turret, a pink planet-shaped turret that automatically shoots at enemies and can be parried to lob it at opponents. Introduced in The Delicious Last Course.
  • Converge: Spread Shot of lightning bolts in yellow, travels farther than Spread, has an adjustable spread angle, and pierces through enemies, but has a slower rate of fire and lower damage. Ex Move is Electro-Bolt, an electric beam that pierces through everything it hits. Introduced in The Delicious Last Course.
  • Twist-Up: Spread Shot of mini-tornadoes in turquoise, high rate of fire combined with average damage, but travels in strange upward arcs. Ex Move is Cyclone Spiral, a bigger tornado that moves in a spiral motion. Introduced in The Delicious Last Course.
• Fireball Eyeballs: The boys have these when they are turned into the Devil's servants in the bad ending.
• Forced into Evil: They have no choice but to be the Devil's enforcers; if they don't collect the souls then they too are doomed to live in hell for all eternity.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Cuphead and Mugman, respectively. Case in point, Mugman tried to discourage Cuphead from gambling their souls for the Devil's loot, but the latter was so blinded by his own greed that he took the bet and lost.
• The Gambling Addict: When Cuphead goes on a winning streak at the Devil's Casino, he's gets so addicted to it that, despite Mugman's warning, he ends up betting their souls and losing. It's downplayed; this is the only time he shows such behavior, and more of a symptom of his stubbornness and tendency to get into trouble.
• Grin of Audacity: Both brothers grin fearlessly when shooting at their enemies or when flying a plane.
• Head Swap: Mugman is functionally just a different head on Cuphead's body, and they play exactly the same otherwise, which is more apparent with the introduction of Ms. Chalice as playable character.
• Intergenerational Friendship: By the end of the DLC campaign, they solidify themselves as a friend of Chalice, who's much older than them.
• Kid Hero: Although these two are adolescents, they seem to fit the bill quite nicely when they are fighting for their souls. Indeed, the only way for them to be true Kid Heroes is when they can save the Inkwell Isles from the Devil himself... if they play the cards right.
• Limit Break: The boys can collect three super moves during their adventures, granted by the Legendary Chalice at Mausoleums around the island. They can be used once all 5 Ex Cards are filled.
  • I — Energy Beam: The first Super Art they receive allows them to jump into the air and fire a giant stream of liquid, Wave-Motion Gun-style, at their opponent.
  • II — Invincibility: The second Super Art they get is, as stated, an Invincibility Power-Up that lasts for a limited time (after they somehow turn their heads huge and give off a creepy laugh... for some reason).
  • III — Giant Ghost: The third super they can gain allows them to manifest a ghostly, stronger form of themselves which will float and spin around and hit their enemies repeatedly, after which it will vanish and leave behind a pink heart they can parry for extra mana.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: The boys are on the receiving end of this one after the Devil offers them a chance to collect the Soul Contracts of other debtors who have lost to him. You can even see the Devil's foot kicking their butts out the door!◊
• Losing Your Head: Played for laughs for a bit. When Cuphead and Mugman drink the potion for the Peashooter from the Elder Kettle or get a Super Powerup from the Legendary Chalice, they get a tingling sensation in their bodies, and then they hold up their smiling heads by their handles in a tip-off before placing them back on their own necks.
• Macross Missile Massacre: While using their airplane bombs, their Ex Move becomes Magnet Mine/Missile, which launches a missile barrage that homes in on nearby enemies and works great for screen-clearing.
• Mocky Mouse: Their designs of having mostly black bodies while wearing white gloves, shoes and shorts is clearly evocative of Mickey Mouse.^note They're actually wearing black sweaters, but their extremely flat coloring and lack of texture still gives them the appearance of having mostly black skin.
• Morphic Resonance: They maintain their primary colors when transforming into missiles for their plane Super Art.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Cuphead may be greedy and short-sighted, but he, along with Mugman, frees the souls they collected for the Devil after beating him up.
• Naughty Is Good: The boys who gambled at Satan's casino despite the Elder Kettle's warnings to stay away happen to be the same ones who saved many of Inkwell Isle's residents from eternal servitude to Satan.
• Nice Guy: While a bit impulsive, the two are pretty friendly and go out of their way to free the other souls, no strings attached.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Cuphead was basically the one who got the duo into their nasty situation in the first place by taking a high-stakes game against the Devil and losing, though Mugman was willing to gamble in the Devil's casino at first, only stopping upon realizing the dangers of taking the Devil's gamble, though it was too late by that time. Though if it weren't for that, the brothers wouldn't have been able to collect the soul contracts, which would let them get close to the Devil, beat the ever-loving tar out of him, then burn all the soul contracts, freeing the Inkwell Isle residents from eternal servitude to the Devil.
• Non-Human Head: They have a cup and a mug for heads, respectively.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: When the Devil first meets Cuphead and Mugman at the start of the game, the boys are terrified of him and beg for their lives. The Devil then offers them a chance to get off the hook in exchange for being his debt collectors, and the boys fearfully set out to get it done. By the time they finish the job and return, they realize their potential to take down the Devil themselves and proceed to beat him into submission. The boys' shining confidence post-victory is a massive 180 from their scared little selves in the beginning of the game.
• Parrying Bullets: A non-sword variant. When being shot at by pink-colored bullets, the two can jump off of them or slap them aside to avoid damage and possibly collect one special charge. The patched version makes this very essential in the final part of Dr. Kahl's stage, where they will be parry-slapping his pink bullets a lot while attacking him and avoiding electric barriers.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Both of them are outright dwarfed by their opponents (and if the Token Human characters like Sally Stageplay are to go by, about half the size of an average person), but the two of them can send anyone packing.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Cuphead is known for being the hot-blooded, courageous, and sometimes devious older twin brother. Mugman is known for being the good-humored, thoughtful, and sometimes rascally younger twin brother.
• Primary-Color Champion: Cuphead and Mugman are red and blue, respectively. Sometimes, they also sport yellow gloves.
• Protagonist Title: Cuphead is the protagonist and the title of the game.
• Raised by Grandparents: They live with their mentor Elder Kettle and their parents are never seen.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Cuphead has loads of red and black in his design and is doing the Devil's work, though not by choice. Oddly enough, if you side with the Devil, all of Cuphead's red bits change to purple.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Cuphead is the hot-blooded red oni and Mugman is the more easygoing blue oni. While both of them have a rebellious streak, Mugman does try to stop Cuphead when he gets too overconfident betting against the Devil, and Cuphead is the one who gives Chef Saltbaker No Sympathy at the end of The Delicious Last Course.
• Schmuck Bait: Cuphead leaps onto the Devil's offer to raise the stakes in the craps game. Mugman realizes the danger, but is too late to stop his brother.
• Sibling Team: See Bash Brothers stated above.
• Shaped Like Itself: Cuphead has a cup for a head. Mugman is a man whose mug is a mug.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: Their Parry move that allows them to deflect pink-coloured attacks has them do a somersault, deflecting the attack with a hand that grows out of the straw on their head.
• Stone Wall: The Heart charm turns them into this, reducing damage output in exchange for an extra heart. The Double Heart charm nerfs your damage even more in exchange for one more additional heart (two total).
• Took a Level in Badass: They begin with no fighting prowess whatsoever, but they eventually become strong enough to defeat the Devil in the good ending.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • Cuphead and Mugman eventually discover that they are becoming unwitting pawns of the Devil, to their own misfortune, and they have to decide whether they can back out of a deal or not.
  • It happens again in The Delicious Last Course, with Chef Saltbaker duping the brothers and Ms. Chalice by leaving out the important ingredient in the Wondertart: a living soul.
• Vague Age:
  • In the style of the classic cartoons that inspired the game, it's unclear exactly how old Cuphead and Mugman are. The two look rather young and live with their legal guardian, the Elder Kettle. And while the plot is kicked off by gambling, it's hard to tell if they're actually legal gambling age or not, because it's unlikely that a casino run by the Devil would even care about that.
  • Studio MDHR jokingly describes both of them as "kidults". A now-deleted tweet from Evan Skolnick, the game's writer, describes them as adolescents.
  • The Cuphead in Carnival Chaos novel describes them as attending elementary school, but it's unclear if this is canon to the games themselves.
• Weak, but Skilled: On their own, they are extremely weak and fragile, with three direct hits being enough to shatter them to pieces. However, they are very agile and persistent, capable of constantly dodging their enemies' attacks and firing at them non-stop with their Finger Guns until they are too injured to fight further.
• Wingding Eyes: At the beginning, Cuphead's eyes show dollar signs to reflect how he's become blinded by greed at the Devil's Casino.

Legendary Chalice/Ms. Chalice

^{Click here to see her as Ms. Chalice.}

"Speaking of magic... please accept this gift, it should help!"

A spiritual beverage-holder investigating magic. Grants a super move each time the players protect the urn imprisoning her at a mausoleum in the Inkwell Isles (three in all).

She becomes playable in the downloadable side story, The Delicious Last Course, where she goes by the name Ms. Chalice. She can be played as by equipping the Astral Cookie charm, obtained at the start of the DLC, which swaps her out for your current character (even in the main game).

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• Action Girl: She's a playable character following the DLC update and arguably more skilled at fighting than the two main brothers.
• Adaptation Deviation: Spinoff materials and merchandise largely ignore Ms. Chalice's past as the Legendary Chalice, instead depicting her as a peer of Cuphead. In The Delicious Last Course, she's only able to temporarily swap forms, while The Cuphead Show! depicts her as being able to change at will.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Her mole is always facing to the camera.
• And Starring: The reveal trailer for The Delicious Last Course credits her as "starring The Legendary Chalice as Ms. Chalice", implying that she plays the role as herself.
• Ascended Extra: She starts off as an NPC who only serves to give both Cuphead and Mugman their Super Arts once they manage to save her from the ghosts in each of the three Mausoleums. With The Delicious Last Course, she's become a much more prominent figure as Ms. Chalice, both in how she's Promoted to Playable and how tie-in material has made her the third member of the Power Trio.
• Ax-Crazy: As Ms. Malice, she appears to be even more deranged than the boys when becoming the Devil's servant in the main game's bad ending.
• Back from the Dead: The central plot of the DLC is that Chef Saltbaker can make a cookie that brings her back to life temporarily, but at the cost of swapping her spirit with the brother who eats it. The goal is to find ingredients for Saltbaker to bake a tart that can bring her back permanently.
• Badass Adorable: As Ms. Chalice, she's just as adorable as Cuphead and Mugman, and just as tough a fighter.
• Body Surf: In a sense. Once the boys get the Astral Cookie from Ms. Chalice at the start of the DLC, one of them at a time can use it to trade places with her, putting his own soul into the astral plane and letting hers fight in a physical body.
• Cavalry of the Dead: Her third Super Art, "Ghostly Barrage", calls in a barrage of souls that hits everything on the screen multiple times.
• Cute Ghost Girl: Her main form as a ghost is pretty adorable in addition to being an ally to the cup brothers. And the cutscenes in the DLC campaign made her look even more adorable.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • In all three mausoleums, she's always found stuck inside an urn and needing rescue from the ghosts within. However, she always rewards the boys with a new powerup that she found.
  • This is Averted as Ms. Chalice, as she's capable of fighting alongside the boys.
  • If you face Chef Saltbaker as either Cuphead or Mugman, Ms. Chalice will be the one held captive by him as the final ingredient of his Wondertart.
• Death Seeker: Inverted. The Legendary Chalice has been searching the Inkwell Isles for a way to go back to life and escape the astral plane, a search that leads her to the Mausoleums and finally to Chef Saltbaker.
• Determinator: Chalice will stop at nothing to find a way to return to life, even if it gets herself into trouble like being trapped by the ghosts in the Mausoleums. When her quest to get the Wondertart is rendered pointless upon learning that it requires a living soul to bake and Chef Saltbaker intends to use one of the trio's soul for it, she deems the treat unworthy but vows to the boys that she will find another way regardless.
• Double Jump: Has one as Ms. Chalice.
• Equivalent Exchange: The astral cookie lets her become corporeal temporarily, but only when Cuphead or Mugman takes her place. The Wondertart turns out to operate similarly with a permanent effect. However, all three of them appear together at the ending of the DLC, suggesting she found a way around those limitations.
• Everyone Has Standards: Chalice may be willing to trick Mugman as a test subject for the astral cookie and swap mortality with him without consent early on in the DLC campaign, but upon learning that the Wondertart she's after requires a living soul to bake, she deems the pastry unworthy, as she doesn't want to sacrifice anyone in order for her to live.
• Experienced Protagonist: Implied. She's heavily implied to have a storied past as a heroine of the land as the Legendary Chalice before becoming an optional Player Character in the DLC. It'd probably explain all the unique and helpful skills she has along with having 4 HP with no damage reduction unlike the brothers who only have 3 HP by default unless they use the Heart charms that also reduce their damage output.
• Face–Heel Turn: She joins the brothers as the Devil's servant in the bad ending of the main game. Promotional material calls her Ms. Malice in this state.
• Fallen Heroine: If her history as the land's heroine back when she was alive is any indication, then her Face–Heel Turn as the Devil's servant in the main game's bad ending makes her fall into this.
• Finger Gun: Her main form of attack just like the boys, with her arsenal being identical to them.
• Fountain of Youth: She seems around Cuphead and Mugman's age as Ms. Chalice, compared to where she looked considerably older than them as a ghost. Might have something to do with the method she uses to regain a living form.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The cups clearly have more than one cookie, since Ms. Chalice is playable in multiple battles. However, there is only one Ms. Chalice, so if both Cuphead and Mugman equip it, only one of them turns into Ms. Chalice, and the other drops the cookie before he can eat it. It's randomly decided which one gets to be Chalice. In plane levels, the other player's plane snatches the cookie away and eats it.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: An angelic ghost, patterned after the Holy Grail, who gives the boys valuable tools to help in their quest in exchange for their aid. As revealed in the castle ruins of Rugged Ridge, before she died, she was one of the land's heroes.
• Grin of Audacity: She sports the same fearless grin like the boys when shooting her enemies, suggesting that she has the same thirst for battle.
• Informed Attribute: The art book describes Legendary Chalice as "inquisitive and zany" and having a penchant for curiosity that constantly leads her to trouble, but the only sign of this in-game is her getting trapped in the mausoleums by the Spectre Syndicate for spelunking for magical arts (and even then, she later does this to help Cuphead and Mugman after they rescue her from the first one). Her appearances as Ms. Chalice have rectified this, with The Delicious Last Course showing her spunkiness directly and spin-off material taking that to heart.
• Intergenerational Friendship: By the end of the DLC campaign, she considers herself a friend to the cup brothers, who are much younger than her.
• Lady of War: Appeared to be this back when she was alive, judging by her statue in Rugged Ridge. Her Super Art 3 variant allows her to assume this form temporarily.
• Leitmotif: She's associated heavily with xylophone. In the base game, her theme is played on xylophone, while The Delicious Last Course adds several xylophone tunes associated with her, the main one being "Recipe for Ms. Chalice".
• Limit Break: Ms. Chalice has three different super moves than Cuphead and Mugman.
  • I — Spiral Pillar: Her first Super Art has her jump into the air and launch a giant stream of Pillar of Light-esque golden liquid straight up and down.
  • II — Shield Pal: Her second Super Art turns her head into a giant heart, which floats off her shoulders and spits a new head onto them before shrinking down to fit on a winged shield. It completely negates the next hit she takes, then pops like a balloon and goes flying off the screen.
  • III — Ghostly Barrage: Her third Super Art has her turn back into the heroine she once was and call in a Cavalry of the Dead of the Calix Animi, damaging almost every enemy on screen with the charge. Afterward, her spear turns pink and floats in the air for a moment, and parrying it charges up one card on the Super Meter.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: With her second Super Art, Chalice can summon a heart companion that will protect her from the next hit.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • In addition to having a unique moveset compared to Cuphead and Mugman, you don't choose her character directly. Instead, your current character has to equip the "Astral Cookie" charm so she can swap mortality with them and enter the fight.
  • Additionally, Ms. Chalice is unable to parry normally; her dash parry is her only method of parrying pink objects and projectiles.
  • This extends to flying stages as well. Her plane's main fire is a three-shot spread with more coverage but less damage per bullet (whose Ex Move deploys two magnet missiles), and the secondary fire sends out a cluster of smaller bombs (whose Ex Move deploys a chomper bomb that arcs straight down). Also, her Super Move turns her into a yellow missile that can only be moved up and down as it automatically moves forward, but does just as much damage.
• Mocky Mouse: Her living appearance invokes this just like the boys, though her skirt is more evocative of Minnie Mouse.
• Morphic Resonance: Chalice's missile form assumed during her plane Super Art — on top of being a sleeker design than the Fat Man-esque look that Cuphead and Mugman use — is golden and has prominent eyelashes.
• Nice Girl: While a bit of a trickster, she’s still a kind-ish girl and proves she isn’t willing to sacrifice someone to come back to life.
• Primary-Color Champion: Ms. Chalice completes the trio with her association with yellow/gold.
• Promoted to Playable: Made as a playable character following "The Delicious Last Course", both for the new DLC and on the original Isles.
• Really 700 Years Old: As Ms. Chalice, she looks just as old as the adolescent brothers, despite her many years of existence as the Legendary Chalice. Her "ancient form" that appears during Ghostly Barrage (as well as a statue in Rugged Ridge) looks significantly older, appearing about the size of an average human.
• Reincarnation:
  • She can temporarily reincarnate as Ms. Chalice by swapping mortality with the cup brothers, and her goal is to find a way to permanently come back to life.
  • Judging by a statue in Rugged Ridge, she herself might be a reincarnation of the original Chalice who was part of the Calix Animi — if they're not already the same person to begin with. She briefly becomes the original Chalice for her Ghostly Barrage Super Art, the description of which calls it her "ancient form".
• Skill Gate Characters: One of the goals with her being playable is to make finishing the game more accessible for younger players, akin to Toadette in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe or Tails in classic Sonic the Hedgehog games. To that end, she has a double jump and a dodge roll, and her dash also works as a parry. On top of all these unique and useful benefits, she starts battles with 4 HP, unlike the brothers, who only have 3 by default and have to equip damage-reducing charms for any more.
• Speaking Simlish: She's one of the few characters with voiced dialogue, and it's done in this way.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: She's got prominent eyelashes, a skirt, and sometimes is shown wearing lipstick.
• Too Dumb to Live: Subverted. She keeps going into the Mausoleums despite being captured every time, but only because she wants to find a way to return to life, alongside new Super Arts for the brothers while she's at it. And besides, it's not like she's alive anyway.
• The Trickster: At the start of The Delicious Last Course, she tricks Mugman into taking a bite of the astral cookie without telling him that it'll cause him to switch places with her as a ghost while she comes back to life. Naturally, Chalice is overjoyed despite Mugman's visible distress. Once she takes the time to explain the situation and how Saltbaker can bring her back to life permanently, however, the boys have no ill will and agree to help her.
• Unexplained Recovery: In the final page of the credits, she's shown celebrating with the boys, Saltbaker, and the rest of the island residents in her corporeal body with nobody in sight being benched in the astral plane on her behalf. Whether Saltbaker managed to bake the Wondertart (hopefully not at the expense of a soul, somehow) or some liberty was taken for an optimal Group Photo Ending is left up in the air. The same occurs in the vanilla game's bad ending, in which she's shown under the Devil's rule alongside Cuphead and Mugman, completely alive and fine (besides having her soul become the Devil's property).
• Unwitting Pawn: She had no idea that Chef Saltbaker needed a living soul to make the Wondertart she was after to gain a physical body, Saltbaker just left that out when she and the brothers went to gather the rest of the ingredients.
• Walking the Earth: In attempt to find a magic to make her return to life, Chalice is willing to search back and forth throughout Inkwell Island, which leads her to the Mausoleums and eventually Chef Saltbaker.
• Would Hurt a Child: There's nothing stopping the player from using her to attack Wally Warbles' kid or the Howling Aces' puppies.

Elder Kettle

"What a fine pickle you boys have gotten yourselves into!"

Cuphead and Mugman's mentor and legal guardian. An anthropomorphic tea kettle who gives them a special potion to defend themselves against the Devil's debtors.

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• Ambiguously Related: He's stated to be the caretaker of Cuphead and Mugman, but it's unclear if he's actually their father, grandfather, foster parent, or otherwise. Considering that he's an anthropomorphic kettle, and they're cup-headed people, they do look somewhat different.
• Big Good: Cuphead and Mugman's mentor who is responsible for giving them the tools to solve their current problem.
• Disappointed in You: His conversation at the beginning implies that he feels this way towards Cuphead and Mugman for gambling in the Devil's Casino.
• Do Wrong, Right: He gives Cuphead and Mugman a potion that will help them fight the runaway debtors. He also says that ideally Cuphead and Mugman wouldn't have to do it, but the boys have no choice.
• Mentor Archetype: He acts as a father figure to Cuphead and Mugman, though it's not made clear if they're actually family. A now-deleted tweet from writer Evan Skolnick confirmed that the Elder Kettle is Cuphead and Mugman's legal guardian, which is more apparent in The Cuphead Show!.
• Nice Guy: Only expresses mild disappointment in the boys for not listening to his advice, powers them up so they can take down the debtors, and beams with pride when they do the right thing and free the souls in the good ending.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite the fact that he's disappointed that Cuphead and Mugman gambled in the Devil's Casino, he also helps them by offering a magic potion which will allow them to fight the debtors for their contracts. He also hopes that if they get powerful enough, that they can take on the Devil and free their souls.
• Retired Badass: Implied, as he "passes the torch" down to Cuphead and Mugman by giving them a magic potion for their Peashooter ability. There's also a sword hanging on the wall of his cottage, and just where he got that potion is never clarified, suggesting it came from an adventure in his youth. In the ruins in the Rugged Ridge level, there is a statue of him kneeling with sword in hand.
• Shout-Out: His design may be based on Mr. Coffeepot from the 1935 Van Beuren cartoon Picnic Panic.
• So Proud of You: The good ending when the boys free the Inkwell Isles residents of their debts.

Villains

The Devil

"Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed!"

The ruler of Hell, the owner of The Devil's Casino, and a collector of souls. He wins a Craps game against Cuphead and Mugman, but supposedly agrees to spare them if they do his bidding. Fights you in "One Hell of a Time".

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• 0% Approval Rating: All of the residents of Inkwell Isle hate The Devil due to many of them being in debt to him to the point where many of the residents refuse to hand their soul contracts over to him. Once the cups defeat him, the residents celebrate being free of their debt to The Devil. Even the residents of Isle 4, which is considerably farther away from the mainland, don't like him very much, and the news boy congratulates you for 'doing the world a favor' if you go there after beating him!
• Aerith and Bob: Most other bosses have creative (and often alliterative) names, but he is plainly referred to as "The Devil".
• Antagonist Title: Sorta. His name appears in the game's subtitle, "Don't Deal with the Devil".
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: He's already quite large during the final battle with him, but then you get to the second phase of the fight, where you battle him in Hell itself. He proceeds to unleash his inner Kaiju on the player, to the point that the protagonists are about as big as his pupil.
• Background Boss: He spends the first phase of the fight on his throne in the background, reaching into the foreground to do various attacks. Taken further during his second phase and onward, where his giant head takes up most of the background.
• Badass Boast: Lose to him in the second phase of the fight and onwards, and his death taunt is this, complete with a picture of him holding the lifeless, decapitated heads of Cuphead and Mugman.
  The Devil: Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed!
• Bad Boss: Immediately after the brothers defeat King Dice, his most loyal employee and the only one who tried to warn him that they might pose a threat, the Devil dismisses him as a "good-for-nothing lackey". And he was a prick to him before then, too. Some of his attacks — specifically, his magical projectiles — can also kill his own Imp mooks during his boss fight.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In the main game's bad ending, he succeeds with gathering all the soul contracts from the runaway debitors and turning the cups into his servants.
• Berserk Button: Don't break a deal with the Devil. Ever.
  The Devil: Welching on me just like all the others, eh... I'll teach you for backing out of a deal — have at you!!
• Big Bad: He's the one who starts the whole adventure by sending the two boys out on errands.
• Big Red Devil:
  • Although he has black fur rather than red skin, he otherwise fits this trope, with features like horns and a pointy tail and ears.
  • Played straighter during his kaiju-sized Phase 2 and onward, where his body takes on a more noticeable dark red tone.
  • The devil from the Nightmare from The Delicious Last Course outright resembles a red version of him.
• Break the Haughty: During the final battle, the Devil goes from smug, to angry, to crying tears of frustration as the cups wear him down.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He's a real "naughty boy" and he's sure "You'll agree."
• Cigar Chomper: The Devil casually smokes a cigar at his desk while counting his casino's earnings.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: The Devil's final phase is just him crying (parryable) tears in pain and frustration while the arena is reduced to a single platform under his face on which a single chip falls down. Said chip can be dodged without parrying, and these two attacks are the only ones he has at that point.
• The Corrupter: If the brothers agree to join him and hand over the soul contracts, it leads to a bad ending where the Devil turns them into his demonic servants.
• Dark Is Evil: He has a dark, threatening appearance, fitting for the Devil himself.
• Death Glare: His fight begins with a one-eyed glare, so thorough his pupil briefly transforms and plays out what he plans to do to the cups. It seems to work; this intro is the only one in the game where the cups scream out in terror instead of getting hyped up for battle.
• Decapitation Presentation: The opening theme song isn't kidding if you lose to his second phase and onwards!
• The Devil Is a Loser: The final phase of his boss battle has him crying, and when the cups finally beat him, he surrenders without hesitation. For being hyped as the ultimate evil of the game, his loss is honestly kinda pathetic.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: As with most depictions of the Devil, he's associated with fire.
• Fangs Are Evil: Most of the other characters have normal, rectangle-shaped teeth. Not him. He has very pointy teeth.
• Fatal Flaw: Fittingly for the Devil, pride. While he's undeniably powerful and cunning, the Devil overestimates his abilities and never once considers the possibility that he can actually lose. King Dice tries to warn him not to underestimate Cuphead and Mugman, but he dismisses Dice's concerns and clearly sees the heroes as no threat to him. This ultimately becomes his undoing, as the brothers eventually become powerful enough to actually defeat him. It's even reflected in the boss fight — once you've pushed him into his final phase and shattered his pride, he just starts crying.
• Faux Affably Evil: He seems like a pleasant fellow when he first introduces himself to Cuphead and Mugman, but once the brothers lose his game of dice, he wastes no time showing his true demonic colors.
• Final Boss: Should go without saying, but indeed, he's the last boss faced in the game.
• Flunky Boss: His battles — both of them — have him flanked by purple-coloured demons. Smaller ones which die in one shot in the first phase, and larger, purple Giant Mook-types in the second.
• Graceful Loser: Well, his display at the end is far from graceful, but... He really does stick by his words when he talks about how "a bet is a bet". After his defeat, he pulls no strings or backstabbings and instead, truly frees Cuphead and Mugman and even lets them burn the bosses' Soul Contracts.
• Gruesome Goat: During the first phase of his boss fight. One of his attacks is having his face morph into a goat head (complete with rectangular-shaped pupils) and his hands turn into hooves. Even his Evil Laugh sounds like goat bleats during that attack.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He deliberately rigged the dice game so he could get Cuphead and Mugman to get the soul contracts from his indebtors and complete his takeover of Inkwell Isle. However, he didn't expect the two boys to get so strong and ultimately is defeated by them, losing the contracts in the process.
• Horns of Villainy: He has long, bone-white horns.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Devil may be humanoid in appearance, but is so powerful that he is capable of shapeshifting into various terrifying forms.
• Inelegant Blubbering: How he sounds when crying at the end of his fight.
• Jerkass: Anyone who loses to him in his casino has to repay him with their soul in eternal servitude. And if that weren't enough... he's the Devil.
• Losing Your Head: One of his attacks has him remove his head before transforming it into a spider, not that it kills him.
• Names to Run Away From: The Devil, obviously. In addition, the Italian localizaton refers to him as "Satan the All-Conquering".
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Sending the brothers on their quest to collect his wayward debtors bites him big-time: after their Training from Hell, Cuphead and Mugman end up becoming strong enough to defeat him.
• "Not So Different" Remark: If the cups decide not to hand over the Soul Contracts after all, the Devil accuses them of "welching on [him] just like all the others" before doing battle with them.
• Obviously Evil: Again, he's the Devil. It should really go without saying.
• Off with His Head!: The previous trailers had him threaten to cut off Cuphead and Mugman's heads when he's set to claim their souls in the trailer. The shadow on the wall illustrates this point when he makes the cutthroat motion.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Based on how many contracts that the cups have to collect, the Devil has tricked many toons into losing their souls.
• One-Winged Angel: Once the Devil brings the fight to his turf, his head takes over most of the screen due to his now humongous size.
• Orcus on His Throne: He mostly stays at his casino while the heroes do his dirty work. King Dice even warns him that Cuphead and Mugman are getting pretty strong, but the Devil refuses to listen. The first phase of his boss fight even has him mainly seated on his throne.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His eyes are sometimes red, he's mainly colored black, and he's the Devil.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He's a dangerous foe and, when particularly malicious, his normally black eyes become red.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Able to transform his head into a draconic serpent.
• Satan: He's the Devil himself, of course.
• Scaled Up: One of his transformation attacks has his head become a draconic serpent.
• Shout-Out:
  • The part where he gives a We Can Rule Together offer to the heroes, complete with yes/no option, a bad ending scene if accepted, and a boss fight against him if rejected, hearkens back to Colonel Bahamut's similar offer in one story path of Contra: Hard Corps.
  • Being defeated in phase two causes him to quote M. Bison/Vega from Street Fighter II.
• Smug Snake: He's dangerous and cunning, that's for sure. But he's far from invincible and is far too overconfident for his own good.
• Turns Red: Halfway through his fight, his skeleton leaps out of his body into a hole in the ground, where the player finds he has grown so large his head encompasses the entire background and his fur takes on a hue of dark red.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Can't get any viler than having Old Scratch serve as the main villain of the game. The game itself is a lighthearted throwback to 1930s cartoons with an anthropomorphic cup and mug serving as the protagonists that provides An Aesop on the dangers of gambling. Then there's the Devil himself, who has no qualms with forcing two innocent people to do his dirty work for him and also killing said people if they back out of his deal, or turning them into his demonic servants if they agree to join him.
• Villainous Breakdown: When the player decides not to hand over the soul contracts after all, the Devil sets the scene on fire and laughs maniacally as the fight with him is triggered. As the second phase of his fight progresses on, he gradually grows angrier and more frustrated. By the final phase, he's lost all composure, is reduced to pitifully crying parryable tears, and no longer has the strength or will to summon anything other than a lone poker chip on the only remaining platform. Upon defeat, his pride is completely shattered and he can only clutch his head in pain.
• Villain by Default: He is the Devil, in a game inspired by cartoons of the '30s, of course he is going to be evil.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Pulls a number of these in the first phase of his fight, turning into a draconic serpent, a spider, and a goat-like creature.
• We Can Rule Together: He offers the cups to join his team when they collect all of the soul contracts. The player can choose whether or not to accept his offer.
• White Flag: He's shown holding one in the good ending after getting heavily beaten up by Cuphead and Mugman.
• Wingding Eyes: Aside from the Death Glare above, he weaponizes this in his second phase.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Usually depicted with yellow sclerae, befitting his trickster nature.
• Your Size May Vary: In the opening cutscene, the Devil is large, but is only seemingly slightly bigger than King Dice. In his fight, he's absolutely gigantic. And there's his form in Hell itself, which is the largest boss in the entire game, to the point that his pupils are taller than the Cup brothers!

King Dice

Voiced by: Alana Bridgewater ("Die House", "Closing Credits")

"So clever, so dapper, ya betta' believe this dice is loaded. Hi-de-ho!"

A man with a die for a head, who serves as the manager of The Devil's Casino and as The Dragon to the Devil. Fights you in "All Bets Are Off".

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• Ambidextrous Sprite: Averted; in "All Bets Are Off", he has separate sprites for facing left and right, with the left side of his head showing three pips and the right side showing four.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Due to the mechanics of Ms. Chalice's Parry Dash, his cards in his final phase emit pink particles so that she has a much better time getting through his attack.
• Berserk Button: Don't make him lose a bet.
• Boss Bonanza: His boss battle in 'All Bets Are Off' can potentially make you play through one via a dice game. Depending on how you play his game, you can end up fighting three to nine bosses before you get to him (though neither they nor he have multiple forms, thankfully).
• Card-Carrying Villain: His theme song, "Die House," proudly proclaims "I never play nice, I'm the Devil's right-hand man!" Indeed, when you actually fight him, he becomes a literal card-carrying villain.
• Dastardly Whiplash: His appearance resembles this style of villain. He even has the pencil-mustache.
• Death Dealer: His main attack when he finally deigns to confront you by himself consists of rows of giant playing cards that come marching toward you.
• The Dragon: He's the self-described "Devil's right-hand man", his boss' main face and enforcer on the island, and the last boss that needs to be fought to get to the Devil.
• Eat the Camera: When he sends you to fight one of his mini-bosses, he leans toward the camera and swallows it.
• Evil Counterpart: To Cuphead and Mugman. In addition to the details covered below, his attacks are fired from his hands just like Cuphead and Mugman, his colors mirror theirs (purple to the brothers' red and blue respectively), and he represents what Cuphead and Mugman would turn into under the Devil's rule.
• Evil Eyebrows: Both his eyes and eyebrows are constantly arched upward in maniacal glee.
• Evil Is Petty: Once you reach the casino, King Dice forces you to fight his minions because he's lost a bet with the Devil over whether you'd make it that far.
• Evil Laugh: During the boss fight with him, he laughs when sending his cards to attack you.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He sings with a deep, Louis Armstrong-esque voice.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Goes hand-in-hand with having a Louis Armstrong-esque voice.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Unless his eyelids are just naturally purple.
• Faux Affably Evil: Despite being the Devil's right-hand man, he acts surprisingly friendly and personable. Even when he confronts the brothers for his boss fight, he still keeps up the polite persona, although he's clearly pissed at them for making him lose a bet with his boss. Of course, as a casino manager, he's got to keep a friendly and welcoming attitude up to convince people to come there in the first place. Also goes hand-in-hand with his status as a sort of Anthropomorphic Personification of gambling and games of chance — tempting with the promise of riches, yet deceitful and dangerous.
• Flunky Boss: King Dice never actually attacks you directly. For most of his boss fight, he instead sends you to a Boss Bonanza of various minibosses, and even when he does fight you himself, he sends lines of cards marching towards you; if you can't parry off the pink heart cards, you'll get hurt.
• Foil: Seems to be one for Cuphead and Mugman. Both are cartoony people with Non Human Heads who partake in gambling, but while Cuphead and Mugman seem more innocent and hardworking, King Dice is more gaudy and arrogant. Notice how he wears a fancy tuxedo, while Cuphead and Mugman wear much simpler clothes. He also has friends in high places, while Cuphead and Mugman are stuck doing said friend's dirty work.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Frequently does this throughout his boss fight. When you parry the dice to select which member of his court you fight, he'll wink at the camera and then Eat the Camera to teleport you there, as if he's fully aware there are people watching him.
• The Gambler: He has a dice motif, down to the "game" he makes you play when reached (a roll of dice determines your progress in his Boss Bonanza). Also the bosses he sends at you are, as a majority, based on all sorts of games of chance, from poker chips, a living roulette, dominoes, a racing horse, and even a claw machine and its evil toy.
• Genre Savvy: It's implied King Dice grew privy to the idea that the Devil might just replace him with Cuphead and Mugman should they successfully bring him the contracts, so he decides to fight the boys for them and deliver the contracts himself. Given who his boss is, he has all the reason to be wary of his job security.
• Green and Mean: He's got green eyes and he's one of the game's main villains.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The real challenge of All Bets are Off! is not to defeat King Dice but to actually get to him by defeating his minions. The fights themselves are relatively simpler single-phase battles that are more honed in on a particular challenge.
• The Heavy: A downplayed example, but throughout the game, King Dice is the one who checks on the cups' progress and allows or refuses them passage further on as necessary, while his boss, The Devil, is not seen outside of cutscenes until the final battle.
• King In Name Only: While his name is "King" Dice, it's doesn't show that he rules over a specific country or even the casino he works at, so his title could just be an ordinary name or just an Alias he takes when challenging any customers to his casino games.
• Lean and Mean: He's tall and skinny, and certainly wicked.
• Light Is Not Good: He wears some white and is The Dragon to the Devil.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: While he isn't the Devil himself, King Dice is his right-hand man, and is dressed in a sharp tuxedo.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • According to artists Jake Clark and Joseph Coleman, the character was heavily inspired by Cab Calloway.
  • This is further emphasized in The Cuphead Show!, where he appears singing and dancing on stage in a very similar fashion to Calloway's famous "Minnie the Moocher" routine.
• Non-Human Head: He has a humanlike body and a giant six-sided die for a head.
• NPC Roadblock: His Die Houses block the bridges between the isles, and he'll only let you through once you've defeated all the bosses on that island. Even his boss fight is this, as the route to the Devil will only open up once he's played his game with the boys. Referenced in his Villain Song.
  I can't let you pass 'cause you ain't done everything!
  Bring me those contracts! Come on, bring 'em to the king!
• Obviously Evil: He's a guy with a dice for a head who constantly has an evil smile on his face and manages a casino owned by the Devil himself. His Villain Song has him openly and proudly boast that he's not a nice person and that he's the Devil's right-hand man. Hell, even the opening narration calls him a "sleazy manager".
• Perpetual Smiler: Dice is almost never seen without that trademark grin of his.
• Playing Card Motifs: Goes hand-in-hand (heh) with the hand of cards that he deals out of his hand. Unlike the other suits, the heart suit cards are pink and are thus parry-able.
• Properly Paranoid: A mid-game cutscene has him chatting with the Devil about the boys' progress and worrying if they may be getting too strong in their quest to claim the Soul Contracts. The Devil just brushes it off, stating he'll deal with them if they turn against him. King Dice ends up turning out to be right.
• Purple Is Powerful: As the strong-arm of the Devil himself, his purple outfit definitely means power.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Wears a purple tux and has green eyes.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears a purple tux.
• Shout-Out:
  • The dice game Boss Bonanza he puts you through is one toward Gunstar Heroes, which likewise had a similar gimmick in Black's stage (though this can be manipulated by skillful parries rather than being based on pure luck).
  • His horrible wide grin and flashing green eyes also bear a close resemblance◊ to the Coachman from Disney's Pinocchio.
  • Aside from being partially modeled after him (see No Celebrities Were Harmed), King Dice makes many references to Cab Calloway. His game over quote ends with "Hi-de-ho!", which was a phrase Calloway often used while singing. While using his card attack, his hand moves in a manner similar to Calloway's dancing.
• Slasher Smile: He sports a rather potent grin.
• Stealing the Credit: Implied in his Villain Song. Despite the fact that the cups have to collect soul contracts for the Devil, King Dice won't let you see him, even if you have all of them. Instead, you have to beat him before facing the Devil.
  Bring me those contracts, pronto!
  Don't you mess with me!
  Bring me those contracts! Come on, bring 'em to the king!
• Sudden Eye Colour: When he's being particularly menacing, his irises turn green.
• Tranquil Fury: When you finally confront him for his boss fight, despite the fact that he's clearly pissed at the brothers for making him lose a bet with the Devil, that smile of his never leaves his face.
• Villainous Breakdown: He begins losing it when the cups defeat him.
• Villain Song: Die House, in which he bosses the cups around and introduces himself as a major threat and unrepentant villain.
  "I'm Mr. King Dice, I'm the gamest in the land.
  "I never play nice, I'm the Devil's right-hand man!"
• Wink "Ding!": Pulls this before sending you to fight one of his Court.
• Your Size May Vary: During the storybook cutscenes and Die House segments, he appears to be no taller than an average person compared to the cups. Come "All Bets Are Off", he's gigantic.

Introduced in The Delicious Last Course

Chef Saltbaker (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Voiced by: Luke de Ayora (in-game), Peter McGillivray ("A Chef's Coda")

^{Click here to see him as seen in "A Dish to Die For."} "Marinate in your defeat while I complete this astral treat!"

"Stay on your guard, intrepid cups! Fetching those ingredients will be a test of wit and wills. But remember — like any good bake, heart and soul is the secret ingredient!"

A pastry chef who resides in Inkwell Isle Four, Chef Saltbaker is a jolly old salt shaker known as "the best baker in all the lands". He's seeking to bake the legendary Wondertart, which will confer total power over the astral plane to whoever eats it. This power can bring Ms. Chalice to life, and so Cuphead and Mugman aid Chef Saltbaker in collecting the necessary ingredients from the inhabitants of the island.

After collecting the ingredients, he reveals his true colors as a power-hungry madman who wants the Wondertart only for himself. He captures one of the three cups to use their soul as the final ingredient of the Wondertart, and the remaining two are forced to battle him in "A Dish to Die For" to save their friend.

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• Adaptation Deviation: While it's due to said adaptations coming out before the DLC, his portrayals in Ron Bates' novels and Zack Keller's comics have none of the power-hungry megalomania that Saltbaker displays at the endgame of the DLC, portraying him more like he was in the advertising of the expansion and how he is at the start of the game as well as in the epilogue as a jolly dessert chef whose treats are unmatched (though Bates' portrayal also gives him a bit of a perfectionist streak, and Keller's portrayal seems to imply he's also a bit of a cheapskate).
• Alas, Poor Villain: When his bakery collapses, he also slumps down in despair. He has some moments during his community service in the end credits where he looks abjectly miserable — though eventually he learns his lesson and puts himself back together.
• All Your Powers Combined: Uses the ingredients the player gathered as weapons against them.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: After destroying his giant form, the rest of the battle takes place in a wasteland of salt surrounded by the ruins of both the bakery and Saltbaker's glass body, over a backdrop of a pulsating background pattern. Weirdly enough, the subsequent cutscene shows that this apparently still takes place in the basement of the bakery.
• Animate Inanimate Matter: In the final phase of his boss battle, he's shown to be essentially a giant living pile of salt inside a glass container, as he continues to remain animate after his glass body shatters by shaping the now-loose salt into new bodies and using it to attack the cups.
• Animation Bump: All of the DLC bosses qualify, but Saltbaker blows them out of the water with the sheer degree of fluidity present in his animation.
• Arc Words: "Caute Cave Mortem", as heard in the two themes leading up to his boss fight (one of them even being named "Caute Cave Mortem" on the soundtrack), as well in the beginning of the boss fight itself. It translates to "Beware of death" or "Be cautious of death", presumably as a warning not to mess with mortality - something that one could do with the Wondertart.
• Art Shift: While the Devil's Chernabog-inspired second form marks the first time the game deviates from its 1930s rubberhose artstyle, Chef Saltbaker in his boss fight stands out by being the only boss in the entire game to almost entirely abandon said artstyle, with his animation more resembling that of the West Coast style of full animation popularized by Walt Disney Studios' Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; what little rubberhosing present in the fight is reserved for other background elements (like the Wondertart ingredients), the pepper shakers in his second phase, and his heart in the final phase.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: He's a salt shaker man who's also a chef, with his mushroom cap doubling as a toque blanche.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Chef Saltbaker towers over the cups in his boss fight, and then he uses a mushroom to grow even bigger - so big, in fact, that it renders his bakery an unstable wreck.
• Ax-Crazy: He's unhinged and psychotic when his true colors are revealed, abusing his sentient ingredients with glee and using them as his attacks during the first phase of his boss fight. Essentially, he's just as terrifying as, if possibly moreso than The Devil himself!
• Background Boss: His first two phases in his boss fight are in the background. The first phase can be hit normally, but the gigantic Saltbaker in the second is far too large to hurt; he can only take damage from getting hit by his pepper-shaker minions.
• Badass Fingersnap: Does this to summon the pepper shakers and signal the start of his second phase. Notably, he actually cracks his (glass) index finger in the process.
• Bad Boss: The dough and limes in the kitchen that he uses for his attacks are sentient and afraid of him. He attacks the basket of strawberries to use the fruit as a weapon and makes the basket cry. The sugar cube boy doesn't like him either, but he's too confused to react.
• Battle Boomerang: Uses the Desert Limes this way in his first phase.
• Biblical Motifs: A subtle one, but it's there. For his final phase, Saltbaker's innards pour down as two pillars of salt. Turning into pillars of salt was the fate of Lot's wife in the Book of Genesis, after she looked back at the Wretched Hives of Sodom and Gomorrah as they were being destroyed for their misdoings. Here, Saltbaker takes form as this when the cups give him his comeuppance.
• Big Bad: He's revealed to be the main antagonist of The Delicious Last Course after collecting all the ingredients, having captured one of the trio to use for his Wondertart.
• Big Fun: He's rather portly, and he has a clearly jolly demeanor, which takes a dark turn upon his Evil All Along reveal.
• Big "NO!": He lets one out after the second phase of his battle as his underground kitchen collapses around him.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He's all smiles in front of the cups, and seems like he genuinely wants to help Ms. Chalice with his Astral Cookies, but shows his true colors when he attempts to use one of their souls to bake the Wondertart.
• Body Horror: The only way to describe his form in his third and fourth phases. His glass body cracks, but its hollow, smiling husk lingers in the background as the battlefield becomes an abstract "salt domain". Then, the body shatters away, and he turns into a floating, sentient heart. Pieces of broken glass rain from above, while the remaining salt forms into a storm that consolidates into two tornado-like salt pillars, covered in spiraling, howling faces.
• Breaking Old Trends: The theme for his boss fight is the only theme in the whole game to not be named after the level it plays on (it's named "Baking the Wondertart" in the soundtrack as opposed to "A Dish to Die For"), though presumably this is only so that the identity of the final boss wouldn't be immediately spoiled on the track listings for the OST.^note There's also the technical examples of "The King's Court", the battle theme for the Dice Palace bosses, and "Admission to Perdition", the Devil's first phase theme; for the former, the "Die House" instrumental in the cutscene preceding the level is named after the level, "All Bets are Off!", while for the latter, the Devil's second to fourth phase theme, "One Hell of a Time", is the one named after the level.
• Break the Haughty: His ego is what gets him into evil, and he has to go through a lengthy Humiliation Conga upon his defeat.
• Call-Back: Much like the Devil in the main game, Saltbaker has four phases, and the last one's relatively easier in terms of the carnage you have to deal with — though unlike the Devil, Saltbaker's final phase is not him sobbing or crying, but still trying to kick Chalice and friends' asses, even though he's been reduced to a heart and two streams of salt.
• Chef of Iron: As the final boss of the DLC, Saltbaker has tremendous fighting chops. His ending song implies that he gained his power from his studies of the Wondertart recipe, since he mentions the power went to his head.
• Chekhov's Gun: All the ingredients that the cups had to collect for the Wondertart come back into play as Chef Saltbaker's attacks (he's baking the Wondertart while fighting them, after all), with most of them being in the first phase.
  • Icy Sugar Cubes: One of two ingredients that have a chance of being already stacked as the fight begins. Saltbaker picks up a sugar cube person and chisels them into a pile of smaller sugar cubes before blowing them off the screen, as the cubes then float back into the player field in a wavy motion.
  • Desert Limes: The other ingredient that can be already stacked at the start of the fight. Saltbaker chops living limes into slices and shoves them off-screen with his knife. The lime slices then spin into the player field, going straight forward until they reach the other end of the screen, as they then u-turn back to where they came from.
  • Distillery Dough: A wad of living dough plops onto the counter, which Saltbaker immediately flattens with a pin roller, and uses cookie cutters to make animal crackers out of it. He then motions the animal crackers away, and they hop into the player field.
  • Gnome Berries: A living basket full of these will occasionally pass by, and Saltbaker wastes no moment to squeeze the Gnome Berries out of it, sending them upwards. They then drop down into the player field in a diagonal motion.
  • Pineapple Mint: The only ingredient to appear in the second phase rather than the first, Saltbaker grabs a handful of mint leaves and throws them upwards, after which they slowly descend into the player field.
• Chubby Chef: He's a pudgy-looking chef. Understandable, as weight problems occur for people with a high sodium content in their body.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: He's this to the Devil. Both are the Big Bads of their respective sections of the game, with four phases, but otherwise they contrast in almost every way:
  • The Devil is a black-furred Card-Carrying Villain and The Dreaded due to being Satan, while the white chef uniform-wearing Saltbaker is a Villain with Good Publicity due to being a Supreme Chef.
  • The Devil's subordinates include his Dragon King Dice, who's also a Card-Carrying Villain, and a number of imp minions. Meanwhile, Chef Saltbaker mostly works alone, and uses the Cups as Unwitting Pawns.
  • Whereas the Devil is Lean and Mean, Saltbaker is a Fat Bastard.
  • During the first phases of their respective battles, the Devil mainly uses magical spells and transformations that he naturally has, while Saltbaker uses the ingredients of the Wondertart to attack.
  • The Devil's imp minions are happy to assist him in battle, while the sentient, terrified Wondertart ingredients are forcibly butchered by Saltbaker into projectiles.
  • The Devil's final phase is him crying and weeping despite not showing damage. Saltbaker's last phase, on the other hand, is him desperately fighting to the end even after his body shatters, displaying Villainous Valor and backbone the Devil just doesn't possess.
    • This even ties to the gameplay of said final phases. The Devil's final phase is less of an actual boss phase and more like a pre-finish line trap meant to catch unsuspecting players off-guard, especially if they're aiming for a perfect score; while Saltbaker's final phase, despite being shorter than the first two, is still a legitimate challenge and a fitting final test of the player's platforming skill.^note That's not to say the fight is devoid of such a trap; Saltbaker's third phase fills that role instead.
  • The Devil remains evil after his defeat, while Saltbaker is able to go through a Heel–Face Turn and redeem himself.
  • In the game over screen of their respective last phases (or phases 2 to 4, as in the case of the Devil), the Devil quotes M. Bison, while Saltbaker paraphrases Gill.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: In the battle against him, and the cutscene preceding it, Saltbaker suddenly gains dark circles around his eyes. Combined with his Slasher Smile, these help him look especially psychotic.
• Crystalline Creature: Being an anthropomorphic saltshaker, he is made of glass.
• Death from Above: He uses the Gnome Berries like this in his first phase, and follows up with the Pineapple Mint in his second phase.
• Defeat Means Menial Labor: The battle ends with him arrested for his crimes and sentenced to menial labor, serving all the other bosses in the game. However, in doing so, he reforms and sincerely befriends Cuphead's group.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: While he has to perform hard labor to make up for his crimes, he's eventually freed and allowed to rebuild his bakery.
• Easily Forgiven: His sentence for trying to kill Cuphead, Mugman, and Ms. Chalice, and willfully injuring a whole lot of innocent living food during his boss battle? Community service. Though he finds many of the tasks rather grueling, everyone else seems genuinely appreciative of his help, judging by the illustrations seen in the credits. He's even allowed to rebuild and re-open his destroyed bakery. That being said, he does make an honest effort to reform, and admits that he's learned his lesson; furthermore, most of what he ends up doing is restoring the harm he's done, so his victims get restitution, which presumably made it easier to forgive him.
• Eldritch Abomination: Not seemingly at first, but his later phases are at least evocative of this. His final phase is a glass heart and two pillars made of dozens of swirling, pained faces. If this is his true form, it is very probable that even his main form qualifies as a Humanoid Abomination.
• Evil All Along: He cons Cuphead, Mugman, and Ms. Chalice into gathering the materials for the Wondertart without telling them the truth about why he wants to bake it, and he only hints that the final ingredient is one of their souls.
• Evil Chef: He's an Ax-Crazy chef who plans to use one of the Cups' souls as the final ingredient for his Wondertart recipe.
• Evil Laugh: Throws these like they're going out of style in his boss fight. He ends his final song with a much kinder laugh, indicating how he's changed for the better.
• Evil Living Flames: During the first phase of his fight, there's a sentient, invulnerable flame that jumps down from the ceiling and back up as an obstacle. The second phase has the flame jump around on his hand instead. On Expert mode, there are two flames.
• Evil Sorcerer: His food has magical properties, which he uses to great effect in his boss fight.
• Exact Words:
  • As the game begins, Saltbaker tells the cups "But remember — like any good bake, heart and soul is the secret ingredient!" As it turns out, the most important, secret ingredient just so happens to be quite literally a living soul.
  • He also tells them "I just know you'll put yourself fully into bringing the Wondertart to life." He already knows that the final ingredient is a living soul, and he intends to take one of the Cups to do it with — so yes indeed, one of them will be putting themselves fully into bringing the pastry to life, in the darkest way possible.
• Face-Revealing Turn: After the cups find him in his kitchen basement, he reveals his true intentions after turning to face them.
• Fatal Flaw: His pride. He's clearly proud of being the best baker in the land, and his obsessive desire to create the Wondertart and prove his superiority causes him to become the villain of the campaign.
• Fat Bastard: He's pudgy and the campaign's true villain.
• Final Boss: It turns out that Saltbaker's greed and pride in constructing the legendary treat ("the Wondertart will be my finest work yet!") has caused him to go off the deep end, and two of the trio have to battle him last to save the currently-swapped-out character's soul from being sacrificed as the final ingredient for the Wondertart.
• Foreshadowing: There are some clues to his true nature before The Reveal.
  • His name is a pun on "salt shaker", but doubles as Names to Run Away from Really Fast; a fictional character with the word "salt" in their name is unlikely to be moral.
  • He tells the Cups, "But remember — like any good bake, heart and soul is the secret ingredient!" Turns out the final ingredient for the Wondertart is a live soul.
  • His Leitmotif is in a minor key and sounds a little unsettling. Turns out he's a manipulative, unhinged chef who wants one of the Cups' souls to bake the Wondertart and gain control over the Astral Plane.
• Gag Nose: His nose is noticeably long and pointy. Also counts as a Sinister Schnoz given his true nature.
• Game Face: After revealing his true nature, his face noticeably changes: he has visisble yellow irises, shadows surrounding his eyes and a teeth-baring sinister smile as opposed to his innocent closed-mouth smirk.
• Godhood Seeker: The Wondertart is mostly discussed as something that can bring the Legendary Chalice back to life permanently, but with its effect being stated as "granting control over the Astral Plane itself" and Saltbaker being driven to power-hungry madness in his attempt to complete it, it's suggested that the end result from baking and eating it is more akin to attaining godhood.
• Graceful Loser: While he doesn't take it well at first, Saltbaker eventually becomes content with his punishment of community service, which leads to his redemption.
• Heavy Voice: Judging by the Delicious Last Course launch trailer and the epilogue, Chef Saltbaker's got quite the baritone to go along with his hefty physique.
• Heel–Face Turn: As the epilogue suggests, he eventually makes an effort to reform during his grueling community service and starts to take joy in it. He's even allowed to rebuild and reopen his bakery afterward.
• Humiliation Conga: After he's beaten by two of the trio, his bakery collapses, to which Cuphead gives him No Sympathy. The epilogue sequence shows him getting arrested and tried in court. Despite getting on his knees, the judge forces him to do community service for the residents of Inkwell Isle Four — replanting Glumstone's and the Gnomes' Gnome Berries, hauling around barrels of the Moonshine Mob's "baking powder", cleaning the teeth of Mortimer's whale, repainting the boatman's boat, serving Esther's saloon customers, and repairing the Howling Aces' airplane. He's pretty upset about it at first, but eventually seems to find happiness in helping the others out, leading him to reform for good.
• An Ice Person: Uses the Icy Sugar Cubes as projectiles in his first phase.
• Laser-Guided Karma: For taking the locals' food and attempting to cook the cups for the sake of his own pride, Saltbaker loses his bakery, gets arrested, and ends up sentenced to community service. He's not allowed to rebuild the bakery until he's fixed everything else he broke in his quest for power.
• Leitmotif: While Saltbaker has his own singing as a more general leitmotif in the advertising, he has a self-titled theme in the soundtrack. It features prominently in his boss battle. Notably, it has extremely prominent organ notes, sounding almost like a Castlevania or Final Fantasy theme; the game's more common jazz stylings only really become prominent towards the end of his battle, representing the player overcoming Saltbaker. His main motif is also a prominent theme in the soundtrack as a whole, heard both as it starts off "The Delicious Last Course" and as it closes "The Key Ingredients". The epilogue theme which shows his Heel–Face Turn is a Triumphant Reprise in a major key.
• Let's Meet the Meat:
  • It's heavily implied that the salt is the part of him that's sentient. In the third and fourth phases of his boss fight, the salt spills out from his cracked glass body and is still able to animate on its own.
  • Turns out, most of the ingredients that Cuphead, Mugman, and Chalice brought to him are sentient. They're anywhere from merely confused to mortally terrified when they're about to be served up by the Chef.
• Light Is Not Good: He wears a white chef uniform and presents a friendly, harmless façade, but proves to be very dangerous in his attempts to realize his ambitions.
• Literal Metaphor:
  • "Like any good bake, heart and soul is the secret ingredient!" It sounds like simple advice to put effort into your craft, but he means exactly that — the key ingredient of the Wondertart is a living soul.
  • Likewise, talking to him at his bakery before gathering all the ingredients has him say "I just know you'll put yourself fully into bringing the Wondertart to life!" An odd turn of phrase until he takes one of the cups' souls for himself.
• Load-Bearing Boss: After his defeat, his entire bakery collapses thanks to the damage it took during the fight.
• Loved by All: He enjoys such a good reputation in his part of the world that you have to wonder why he would have a hard time getting ingredients. Even after he goes off the deep end, a period of community service is enough to get him back into everyone's good graces.
• Mad Artist: He's a master chef, with the skills to back up his reputation. But he's so obsessed with his potential masterpiece — the Wondertart, and not just for the power it could bring him — that he's willing to do anything to make it.
• Manipulative Bastard: He tricks the trio to get the ingredients for the Wondertart so he can get the pastry for himself to harness the cosmic powers of the Astral Plane without a care for his promise to help Chalice back to life, if her possible captivity as the final ingredient is any indication.
• Mask of Sanity: He does a very good job of hiding the fact that he's a nutbar from the cups until he nabs one of their souls.
• Mentor Archetype: His relationship with Ms. Chalice is stated to be parallel to that of the Elder Kettle with the brothers. Presumably, this makes it harder for her when he reveals his true nature.
• Miracle Food: His specialty seems to be magic recipes, such as the special cookies that allow one to switch places with a ghost. Then there’s the Wondertart. The whole plot of the DLC revolves around finding ingredients for this mystical pastry, as according to Chef Saltbaker, whoever eats it gains control over the Astral Plane itself. The price is that it requires a living soul to be sacrificed in order to bake it.
• Mourning an Object: Falls in disbelief after his bakery comes crumbling down. The end credits show him visiting it during his community service, still despondent over it until he manages to rebuild it.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Chef Saltbaker" is a fitting name for him, come the revelation of his manipulative side.
• Non-Human Head: He's got a salt shaker for a head, but a human face and body.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Present in the first movement of his boss theme, as well as the two themes that lead into his true nature's reveal. The chants are "Caute Cave Mortem", and it translates to "Beware of death".
• Ominous Pipe Organ: A particularly epic one predominates most of the first movement of his boss theme.
• One-Winged Angel: Breaking his body will reveal his living part is actually the salt and the heart controlling it, and he manipulates it to attack you in his later two phases.
• Pepper Sneeze: His second phase summons pepper shakers that sneeze projectiles at the players.
• Playing with Fire: He has a small flame helping him out in his first two phases, presumably a cooking fire.
• Punny Name:
  • His name is a portmanteau of "salt shaker", "salt bake", and "baker". It could also be a reference to jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.
  • In the Italian translation, he's named Pinzimonio Salieri. "Pinzimonio" is an Italian salty sauce, and "Salieri" is an actual surname that sounds like "saliera" (salt shaker), but the latter is also a reference to Italian music composer Antonio Salieri.
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: Return to his bakery after collecting the Wondertart ingredients, and you're greeted to his usual theme glitching out in the background as the chef is nowhere in sight... and in his place is an ominously out-of-place trapdoor that's wide open.
• Sanity Slippage: Calm and cheerful at first, but by the time he's on the verge of actually baking the Wondertart he's gone completely wacko.
• Shout-Out:
  • One illustration of him in the artbook has him do the now infamous "Salt Bae" pose.
  • As he shifts to his second phase, he uses a glowing red and white mushroom to grow in size.
  • His Pineapple Mint attack during said phase is a wholesale reference to Wood Man's leaf attack from Mega Man 2.
  • Should you die during his final phase, his quote for that phase's death card has him channel his inner Gill.
    Saltbaker: "The mark of my salinity shall scar thy fired glaze!"
  • The number on his Institutional Apparel is 551905. This is a nod to Floyd Gottfredson, whose date of birth was May 5th, 1905.
  • The rotating pillars of salt with his face on them in the fourth phase bear more than a passing resemblance to some of Cyriak’s creations, which take the faces of people and turn them into distorted moving shapes with individual facial features moving in a rather unsettling way.
• Shows Damage: In his second phase, there's a lot of focus on how cracked his glass body is becoming, most prominently a massive chip in his nose. The start of his third phase is his glass body falling apart entirely, Saltbaker reverting to the salt inside; while the salt forms a battlefield for the third phase, it falls away entirely in the final phase, and the player has to stand on the raining chunks of glass from his original body to stay alive.
• Sizeshifter: Uses a glowing mushroom to reach gigantic size during his fight.
• Slasher Smile: He sports a pretty deranged and psychotic grin throughout his boss fight.
• Stepping Stones in the Sky: His final phase has pieces of his huge glass body constantly rain down into a Bottomless Pit below, and the player has to continuously jump up them to avoid falling in while also evading his heart.
• Sudden Eye Colour: His irises turn yellow once he reveals his true nature.
• Supreme Chef: The best chef and baker in all the Inkwell Isles. The one time we see him actually cooking, he can do some pretty literal magic with the ingredients he has available.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: In the second phase of his fight, he sends pepper shakers after you. You can attack them until they fly right into him, cracking his own glass body until it breaks.
• Treacherous Advisor: At first, he seems to be a character who serves as a mentor for the DLC campaign like Elder Kettle with the main campaign. After collecting all the ingredients for the Wondertart, however, he shows his wicked true nature and intends to use one of trio's soul as the final ingredient, revealing his role as the main antagonist of the campaign.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: Gives the cups a quest to find the ingredients for the Wondertart guarded by powerful bosses, on the promise that it can restore Ms. Chalice's physical body. Turns out, he's the villain of the campaign, and plans to bake the ingredients you've collected alongside one of the cups' souls into the Wondertart, which he wants to use to achieve control over the astral realm.
• Unexplained Recovery: At the end of his boss battle, Saltbaker's glass body has been reduced to a broken shell, and all that remains are sentient pillars of salt and his heart. But in the cutscene right after the battle, Saltbaker is seen having been brought back to his normal size with no injuries in sight. To make things even more bizarre, the damage he did to the bakery in the whole process of this does keep and makes it collapse.
• Villainous Breakdown: At the end of his second phase, he howls in sheer fury as soon as he (and his bakery) start collapsing to the ground. Doesn't stop him from trying to kill you though.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Chef Saltbaker is loved by all for his delicious treats, with a newspaper boy at the beginning calling him "the best baker in all the lands". While Saltbaker's reputation is genuine, by the time the DLC ends, it also serves to disguise his nefarious true intentions (which he may have gotten over time), in contrast to the Devil's open and upfront villainy.
• Visual Pun:
  • He's in desperate need of a check-up from the neck up and his second phase prominently shows his cracks. The more cracks he gets, the more cracked he becomes.
  • For his final phase, Saltbaker's innards pour down as two pillars of salt. Originating from The Bible, the fate of Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt became an idiom for someone to drop dead. It comes full circle in that "Lot's wife" itself is slang for a saltshaker.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about him without mentioning his role as the Final Boss of The Delicious Last Course.
• Wham Shot: The hallway leading to his boss fight can count as this for players who thought of him as just a jolly old chef. After the trio gather all 5 Wondertart ingredients, they return to Saltbaker's Bakery only to find a trapdoor that leads to an ominous-looking dungeon. If that and the foreboding music didn't tip you off, you can later find Saltbaker's shadow visibly relishing in an Evil Laugh with a knife in hand, giving away his true nature.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: He mentions in his ending song that he shouldn't have let the power go to his head. This apparently is why he turned on Chalice and her friends for the final battle.
• Would Hurt a Child: At the end of the DLC, not only does he try to kill Cuphead, Mugman, and Ms. Chalice, but in the first phase of his fight, he hurts a sentient sugar kid, a basket of little strawberries, and sentient scared little limes to cook them.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: His black eyes turn bright yellow as you face him, to help illustrate that he's taken a swan dive off the deep end.
• Your Size May Vary: Saltbaker is about the size of a regular adult consistently. But in his boss fight specifically, he towers over the cups as they fight on his kitchen table. Oddly enough, when he grows in size in the midst of his fight, he's explicitly shown using a magic mushroom to grow.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Saltbaker deliberately captures one of the cups' soul behind their back after they collect all the Wondertart's ingredients for him and intend to use them to complete the recipe.

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