This page details the organic, zombie-like aliens that invade the Solar system in the name of their pantheon.

The Hive

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hive.jpg

"They are nightmares rising from the shadows, and they hunger for our dying hope."

A mysterious race of chitinous, zombie-like aliens whose primary base is on the Moon and Oryx's Dreadnought at Saturn, but make regular attacks on Earth. Unlike the more technologically-oriented species encountered elsewhere, the Hive wield strange and esoteric magics and mystical rituals, which they gained through covenants with their "worm gods" and service to the Darkness.

Beware of unmarked spoilers.

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In General

Appeal to Force: Their entire philosophy revolves around it. Heck, it's essentially their religion.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: Hive Thralls, the most newborn of the Hive, know few other tactics, being too bestial and zealous to do very much other than Zerg Rush their opponents.
BFS: Cleavers, giant swords of bone and metal used by Knights to carve through enemy lines.
Bee People: Despite their relatively humanoid shape and some identifiable human-like mannerisms, they have an extremely eusocial structure with Wizards breeding thousands of other Hive creatures each. That's where it ends though, as the Hive are advanced enough to have religion and recognize the Osmium Pantheon as their masters instead of a local queen.
Bizarre Alien Biology: The Hive are actually all born biologically female, but upon puberty, they collectively gain a Gender Bender ability, with those who identify as male quickly taking the opportunity to fit their self-image. There's not that many Hive who have undergone a gender change after they reach adulthood, Oryx being the most prominent exception. Male seems to be mandatory for the King and Prince morphs, but is apparently optional for the very similar Knight morph. Wizards are always female, and are the only females able to produce offspring.
Blue-and-Orange Morality
- The Hive philosophers thrive on something called Sword Logic: If something dies, it had no right to exist in the first place. The universe, they believe, will end with all things broken but one, which will exist forever. They find this glorious. This idea extends all the way up to their gods, who spend eternity killing each other and learning from the attempt. For this gift, the Hive gods love each other.
- Truly reversing a "final" death in the form of resurrection and necromancy is considered abhorrent to the Hive, because it is reversing the "truth" of the Sword Logic. If something has died, it is too weak to survive in the face of the strength of something greater than it, and the death of the weaker entity pushes the universe toward greater perfection. Reversing death is therefore a blatant slap in the face of the Sword Logic that the Hive follows. It's acceptable to manipulate one's mortality so that they cannot die, as the Hive Gods do, but to invert the death of something that has truly been killed is the deepest heresy.
Cannon Fodder: Thralls' Zerg Rush tendencies leave them as little more than Cannon Fodder for the Knights and Wizards.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Not only does it happen, and not only is it expected, but for the Hive's upper echelons treachery is considered a sign of love. Oryx even calls Alak-Hul a "beloved son" because he betrayed and tried to usurp the Taken King's throne.
Church Militant: As much crusading devotees in their Religion of Evil as they are soldiers.
Close-Range Combatant: The Hive are generally the most close-combat-oriented faction. The Thralls' overzealous demeanor leads them to attack foes with their bare claws. Knights also fall into this when using cleavers.
The Corruption: The Hive have been so thoroughly corrupted by the Darkness that it's in their very DNA. Exposure to Hive artifacts, power, and even bones over a prolonged period can alter and change non-Hive, such as what happened to Eris Morn, Dredgen Yor/ Rezyl Azzir, and is now affecting the Shadows of Yor.
Creepy Cathedral: A vague aesthetic for Hive interior decor, with lots of stone hewed into buttresses and alcoves, tattered ancient banners hung from walls, reliquary urns, and many little glowing crystals placed about that resemble clusters of candles. Given that they are a Religion of Evil, their fortresses are as much shrines of worship as cities.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: For the higher-level Hive, both Exalted and Ascendant, death is an inconvenience, and killing them simply sends them back to their own pocket dimension. The only way to permanently end them is to follow them to their "throne world" and kill them there.
The Dragon: The Hive as we know them are the oldest most direct servants of the Darkness. The Vex are the other race to serve the Darkness, but only after an encounter with the Hive reshaped their thinking into worshipping the Darkness.
Doing in the Scientist: They're the most explicitly magical enemy faction, with their powers and rituals explicitly being referred to as magic. They lean heavily on the "fantasy" end of the Science Fantasy scale that Destiny has, with the Vex swinging and Cabal swinging in the complete opposite direction.
Elaborate Underground Base: The Hellmouth isn't just their only underground lair on the Moon. It's just where they started digging. By the time of the game, they've filled the entire moon with subterranean caverns and tunnel networks.
Elite Mooks: Hive Knights, the Hive's most zealous servants, are also the Hive's military leadership, their armor grown and shaped and hardened over centuries while their minds are honed to a tactical keenness and given some of the Hive's most powerful weapons.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: A very weird example. Male and female Hivebeasts have very rigid, specific gender roles... but they can also switch genders at will if they want to try something else.
Even Evil Has Standards: Usually the Hive are uncaring at worst of Savathûn's schemes, such is their way of thinking. But when she tries to double-cross the Darkness itself, the Hive are quick to excommunicate her as a result.
Everything's Deader with Zombies: A strong aesthetic with the Hive. In particular, the Thralls, savage, animalistic Hive newborns, function, look, and act much like (fast and surprisingly cunning) zombies.
Everything Trying to Kill You: The mortal race they were before they became the Hive evolved on islands of solid ground floating in a middle layer of a gas giant. Although intelligent, in relative size and ecological niche they're referred to several times as "krill".
Evil Evolves: Osiris claims that the Hive constantly adapt and develop mutations as easily as we breathe, which is one of the reasons the Vex have an interest in them.
Evil Sounds Raspy: From what little we hear of their language, it sounds like someone dragging a pumice stone over their tongues. The wizards in particular are strong examples.
Evil Is Visceral: In contrast to the coldly mechanical Vex, the Darkness's other principal agents in the solar system, the Hive dive straight into this trope. They're big fans of Organic Technology, and even their (mostly) inorganic architecture has an uncomfortable biomechanical-gothic H. R. Giger vibe to it. They are also big fans of causing Guardians to die slow painful deaths by torture, as seen in a Grimoire card.
Evil Makes You Ugly: They used to be a fairly normal alien species of three-eyed humanoids, at least until they struck a deal with the mysterious Worm Gods, turning them into the present day omnicidal Hive. The most calling example of this is Aurash, who became horrified at her future self, Oryx. They look and are decayed from birth.
Expy:
- A lot of Hive units seem to draw inspiration from the enemies from Marathon. This is especially apparent with Acolytes and Wizards, who are dead ringers for Pfhor Fighters and S'pht Compilers, respectively.
- The Cursed Thralls bare more than a passing resemblance to the often-hated Wights of Bungie's earlier Myth series.
- The Knights bear a strong resemblance to the Elite Zealots from Halo, being religiously fanatical, sword-bearing military commanders.
- If the Vex are the Geth, then the Hive are Husks- The primary, but not only, servants of a dark alien force, made up of Zerg Rush cybernetic zombies (with an exploding variant), slightly-tougher gun-wielding cybernetic zombies, giant, monstrous cybernetic zombies, and female, screaming Mind over Matter cybernetic Elite Mook zombies.
- Thrall look similar to the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise
Extra Eyes: Most of them have three glowing eyes. The Thralls have none and Ogres have one, though others sometimes also have none or have what may be helmets or carapace covering them.
Faction Calculus: According to the Book of Sorrows entries there are three separate Hive factions that split up millions of years ago. Oryx's faction was the first one encountered,^note and his focus on many different avenues of attack probably makes him Balance. Xivu Arath is more specifically a war god, and is the Powerhouse, with her Hive appearing in Beyond Light acting like berserkers. Savathûn's fleet is explicitly the Subversion faction, and tended to focus more on subterfuge and magic.
Fantastic Caste System: Established by Oryx himself, in which tithes (read: violence and destruction) are passed up the line from Thrall to Acolyte to Knight, Wizard, and Prince, eventually reaching Oryx and his sisters.
Friendly Enemy: The Hive doesn't have any other kinds of friends. They actively wage war against and betray everyone, and even those they love are valid targets. Indeed, betraying and attacking each other is how they express their love for one another. When Toland the Shattered met Ir Yut, and he was able to communicate with her, the two had a genuinely "pleasant conversation"... which ended with Ir Yut killing Toland and casting his soul adrift in the Ascendant Realms.
From Nobody to Nightmare: The proto-Hive were a short-lived race, near the bottom of the food chain, that were facing an imminent extinction event. In order to save their species and to avenge their murdered king, the three heirs made a pact with the Darkness. Millennia later, the Hive are an unstoppable Horde of Alien Locusts that routinely exterminates whole civilizations as proof of the Darkness's universal supremacy. The bitter irony is that the Traveler was hanging around one of Fundament's moons. Had things been a little different, the proto-Hive may have been another of her uplifted races instead of the great enemy of all life in the Universe.
Gender Bender: One of the key elements of the Hive's Bizarre Alien Biology - provided they have a functioning mind (i.e., they aren't Thralls or Ogres), their gender is completely voluntary and optional.
Gender-Blender Name: Contrary to the name, Wizards are in fact female. Not that it matters for the Hive, but it's worth noting.
Giant Mook: Knights are easily brought down by a few headshots, but Ogres are another matter — very large, very durable, normally in the company of smaller mooks, and they constantly shoot lasers from their face.
Great Big Library of Everything: The World's Grave, a massive library containing the names of every planet the Hive have seen the Darkness (them) destroy. An exact number is not given, but Ghost's dialogue indicates that it's very large.
Grenade Launcher: Boomers, the standard weapons for Knights, are energy weapons that function very similarly to conventional grenade launchers. The similarity in design to Vex Torch Hammers may not be a coincidence.
The High Middle Ages: Oryx's Hive is based on Medieval Kingdoms of old; Oryx being the King and his Hive the court. Oryx's raid initially begins as an open challenge towards him by using tomb husks to open a portal; Bungie's developers compare this to the way knights challenged each other by banging on a shield. The Knights are the most visible part of this; from their name to wearing heavy armor and often carrying hefty sword-like cleavers. Even Oryx's method of taxing of death and destruction for his own nourishment through the blood tithe system. Bungie described them as being reminiscent of undead royalty.
Hypocrite:
- Calus outright pities the Hive's belief in the Sword Logic, thinking that they use it as an excuse to hide their own fear of death; if they truly believed said Sword Logic, they would kill themselves at the mere sight of the Player Character, given the constant defeats by the latter's hand.
- All Hive, including their Gods, derive their power from their worms, which is given by the Worm Gods in exchange for tribute. This is in direct contradiction of the Sword Logic that power can only be taken, not gifted. Oryx notes this, but does not solve it when he kills Akka.
  - Within this same vein, the tithe system is hypocritical as well; instead of each Hive taking the strength that they gain from the deaths of their foes wholly for themselves, or stronger Hive simply forcibly taking whatever strength as tribute that they wish from weaker Hive (which could include in a manner that isn't strictly lethal and simply proves that the Hive in question was strong enough to take what they wanted and was thus deserving of it, so they don't effectively cannibalize themselves into self-destruction), lesser Hive are instead expected and commanded to consciously give most of what they gain to their superiors, only keeping enough for themselves to marginally advance in the ranks of the Hive inch by inch. While it could be argued that stronger Hive are technically enforcing this upon weaker Hive under the pain of death (or worse), the existence of Mengoor and Cra'adug- a pair of Knights whom Oryx punished for choosing to give their tithes of strength to each other rather than to him- shows that this giving of tribute in this way is largely voluntary.
- Moreover, Ascendant Hive regularly cheat death by fleeing to their Ascendant Realm rather than die when they prove weaker than their opponents.
- In The Witch Queen Savathûn has developed her own Ghosts, allowing deceased Hive to be resurrected like Guardians. Of course, by this point, Savathûn and all the Hive who remained loyal to her are already heretics and conscious defectors, so they can't really be expected to care too much about the Hive's credos.
I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Hellmouth, their base on the Moon.
Insectoid Aliens: More subtle than the Fallen, but the Hive qualify as this. They resemble alien skeletons in bony armor, but they’re actually eusocial Bee People (unlike the Fallen) who undergo metamorphosis into various biological castes.
Interspecies Romance: According to Spider and the lore, it's not unheard for Hive to couple with members of other races. Two examples being Hiraks, the Mindbender with In Anânh and the dark relationship between Dredgen Yor and Xyor, the Unwed.
Kill It with Fire: Solar damage is generally most effective against the Hive, particularly their Wizards.
Knight of Cerebus: Destiny may be Lovecraft Lite, but that requires that it have some Cosmic Horror elements to start with, and that's what the Hive first introduce to the storyline. Every time they play a greater role in events, things get that much darker and scarier - your first meeting with them on Earth features a Genre Shift from Planetary Romance to horror as a tide of screeching Thralls ambush you in a pitch-black room, and the first mission on the Moon shows you your first permanently dead Guardian, and then reveals that he's permanently dead because the Hive have kidnapped his Ghost and slowly tortured the poor little robot to death. Yeesh.
Leitmotif: Many of their associated tracks are punctuated with sinister Scare Chords and frantic, rave-like beats that hammer home the feeling of an incoming Zerg Rush (because that's what the droves of Thralls are best at). Oryx's motif is an oddity since it's a grandiose and bombastic brass movement.
Let's You and Him Fight: The big twist in The Witch Queen; The Krill were chosen by the Traveller to receive the Light, but The Witness arrived first, convinced them The Traveller would cause the end of their world, and engineered the meeting of The Worms.
Magitek: The most prevalent users in the game, blending mechanical devices and Organic Technology with the power of the Darkness to create their tools of war. It's noted in the Grimoire that many Hive guns actually lack a mechanism that would allow them to shoot anything, but can spew baleful energy when held by one of their soldiers anyway. Their magitek nature is particularly notable as of Destiny 2, where the Cabal have been able to replicate Hive technology to steal and contain Light, minus the magical and religious trappings of Hive rituals.
Mook Promotion: Hivebeasts begin as Thralls and work their way up. Having proven themselves, they are mutated by a Wizard into an Acolyte, the next higher form in the Hive caste system. After an Acolyte proves itself, it be mutated into one of three forms: a Wizard, a Knight, or (if a Wizard is feeling particularly cruel) an Ogre.
Mother of a Thousand Young: Wizards are responsible for birthing the Hive's armies, though the Hive's sociobiology is so weird that it's unclear whether they physically give birth or just oversee an artificial process.
Motive Rant: “Apocalypse Refrains”, the 47th entry in the Books of Sorrow, is a simple five-paragraph summation of the Hive’s beliefs and desires, presented as a challenge to anyone who opposes them, penned by Oryx.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In Shadowkeep, Omar's weekly memory mission reveals that, after his physical body's death, the Hive proceeded to experiment on Omar's soul by "flaying" his Light and transplanting his soul into a Hive insect. The end result is a sentient and very pissed off insect who is all too willing to help the Young Wolf take revenge on his tormentors by acting as the power core for the Xenophage machine gun.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: They're essentially Zombie Alien Wizards that came from the Moon.
No Body Left Behind: When Hive are killed, their bodies disintegrate into ash. And yes, you should be concerned by the implications. There seems to be some level of Gameplay and Story Segregation here, as several Hive (namely the Lucent Brood) are shown as corpses.
Omnicidal Maniac: The end goal of the Hive is quite literally the destruction of all life in the universe in the name of the Darkness. They operate under what is called "sword logic" - that only the strongest and most ruthless life forms have the right to exist, and anything not strong enough to withstand the Hive is quite literally not worthy of existing.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When the player encounters the Hive in Old Russia, their Ghost notes that the Hive hasn't even set foot on Earth in centuries, and becomes terrified that the Darkness is coming back.
Organic Technology: They make heavy, though not exclusive, use of it. Their soldiers are created through genetic manipulation, their body armor is actually grown from their hides, and several of their most powerful weapons, like the Ogre's Eye Beams, are part of their bodies rather than tools that they carry.
Our Zombies Are Different: The Grimoire card "Ghost Fragment: Hive" asks whether the Hive are even alive as we understand the term.
"Are they alive? They move, they shriek, they fall upon us in ravenous waves. But I see death, decay, and corruption, not life."
Out of Focus: While the Hive were central to the plots of two of the first game's expansions and a major part of the early half of the first game's plot, in Destiny 2 they are less important, only operating on the moon of Titan in the main plotline of the sequel and having little direct influence on the story compared to the Cabal. Being more of a nuissance than an overwhelming threat. They become significantly more important in the Warmind expansion, complete with the player fighting and slaying both Nokris and Xol, a Worm God. They fully retake the stage during The Witch Queen, which focuses on Savathûn figuring out how to harness the power of the Light for the Hive's own ends.
- This state of affairs seems to be directly related to the arrival and subsequent death of Oryx. When Oryx arrived in the system, the very first thing he did was begin creating a new Taken army that the Guardians are still fighting to this day. For a while, the Taken more-or-less supplanted the Hive in terms of narrative importance and with their greatest leaders dead they simply weren't in a position to pose a significant threat to the Earth. Savathûn, and later Xivu Arath, end up turning it around during Season of the Hunt, Season of the Lost, The Witch-Queen, Season of the Risen, and Season of the Seraph, menacing Sol with their efforts and showing how dangerous the Hive still are.
Pistol Whip: Knights can do this with their boomers when enraged.
Portal Pool: Hive enemies occasionally spawn by climbing out of pre-existing pools of water. The confusing thing is that things like Ogres will literally claw their way out of them and tower over you, while you are standing in the same innocuous looking puddle that only go up to your shin.
Reality Warper: Their Sword Logic essentially allows them - to a greater or lesser extent, depending upon their mastery of it - to give the middle finger to physics and decide what they want to be true. It's so powerful that the Vex, whose precognitive simulations are otherwise almost perfect, cannot reliably predict their actions.
Reduced to Dust: All Hive member disintegrate like this upon death, as part of their zombie/mummy aesthetic. Lethal headshots will cause them to burst into flame instead.
Religion is Magic: Their power comes from worship and invocation of the Darkness. For example, Oryx's Total Party Kill attack in King's Fall is called doxology.
Religion of Evil: While the Cabal and Fallen see humanity is a pest that needs to be destroyed for them to be able to take their possessions, the Hive worship the Darkness and see their war with humanity as a Crusade. They have a full pantheon of gods.
- At the top is the Darkness itself, which they refer to as the Deep. Beneath it are the Worm Gods (Eir, Ur, Xol, Yul, and Akka). Beneath them are the Hive gods proper (Oryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath). Beneath them are the Hive gods' children (Crota, Ir Halak and Ir Anûk, Malok, and more).
The Rival: With the Vex. They've come to blows before and have defectors on both sides. Presumably loyalty to the Darkness is the only thing keeping them from further violence. Justified by the fact that the Darkness's end goal sees one species dominating to the point it eclipses all other life across the universe. The Hive and the Vex are both working to make sure they are that race.
Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Their dogma is as scary as it gets - they worship the Darkness as a universal force of destruction, and obliterate planet after planet to show their devotion to it. Fundamentally, they believe that laws and rules make a species weak, and that weakness must be eradicated. Their omnicidal crusade is one long proof that the very concept of civilization is a restricting lie, and that only ruthlessness endures. The Worlds' Grave is a massive archive of every planet they have destroyed in service of the Darkness.
Screaming Warrior: Thralls tend to screech at opponents when charging them. Other Hive tend to just roar at opponents. And then there is Omnighul, whose unique screech is a warning that angry reinforcements are coming to support her.
Short-Lived Organism: The eusocial proto-Hive species were referred to metaphorically as "krill" due to their large numbers and short lifespans. If they weren't eaten by predators or killed by some other danger, they would die of old age after ten years. Supposedly, they evolved this way so their species would adapt more quickly to threats. However, like other eusocial species, their "queens" lived much longer, although it isn't specified just how long. The desire to surpass their brief decade of life was part of the reason they chose to become the monstrous Hive.
Sickly Green Glow: Much of their technology emanates it, in case they weren't Obviously Evil enough already.
Smoke Out: Hive wizards can conjurer a cloud of darkness that obscures vision and slows and saps any non-Hive that pass through it. They will either project it around themselves to cover displacing their position, or project it onto an enemy to keep them pinned down.
The Social Darwinist: The reasoning behind their Omnicidal Maniac behavior.
Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Justified in-universe. Described as a "rising force," the full strength of the Hive is difficult to ascertain: at some points it has been great enough to "shatter species" on contact and at least once has overwhelmed a galactic civilization. However, this strength does not seem constant, and more often they seem to require beachheads in which they quickly breed themselves to a sufficient critical mass. At this point the Hive's Gods usually arrive to direct their forces in a large-scale offensive. The Moon is one such beachhead, and explains the Hive's relative weakness and passive attitude as of Destiny: they're not yet prepared to attack Earth. From this point onwards, the Hive grows increasingly aggressive and powerful.
The Starscream: Actually encouraged as part of their philosophy and culture - if you're not constantly trying to better yourself through slaying or betraying others that get in your way, including your own superiors, then you have no worth.
Turns Red: A literal example. If a Knight or Ogre takes too much damage in too sort a space of time, they'll start glowing red, regenerate a little health, and charge towards you in a frenzied rage. Knights in particular will start to Pistol Whip you with their boomers when angered.
Unholy Matrimony: Their Wizards may have something like this going on, if the Boss Subtitles of Xyor being "the Unwed" is anything to go by.
The Unfettered: The Hive is committed to perpetuating its own existence, which in their minds necessitates killing everything else that exists. They refer to themselves as "lawless", "ruthless", and "truly free", and claim that any civilization that thinks it can survive by being nice is deluding itself.
Victor Gains Loser's Powers: They have this ability, though they speak of it like a philosophy. Operating under the "sword logic", individual Hive become more powerful by killing dangerous enemies, because by doing so, they prove that they were stronger than that enemy. They also literally gain the strength of the defeated through these "proofs". This can apply to other traits, such as cunning and even certain types of knowledge. Part of why the Hive gods are so dangerous is that they're empowered by billions of years of these proofs.
Wizards from Outer Space: Their leadership caste (explicitly called Wizards, no less), who can directly employ the power of the Darkness to obliterate their foes and mutate their minions towards whatever purpose is necessary.

Classes

Thralls

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thrall_grimoire_card1.jpg

"The shadows have claws."

The youngest and least of the Hive, the endless legions of Thralls are spawned in vast numbers and hurl themselves at the Hive's enemies in a tide of screaming claws and snapping teeth.

Action Bomb: Some Thralls are "cursed" with a volatility and a mission: to terminate themselves in a torrent of pain near their enemies, taking them with them if possible.
Child Soldiers: As they are the youngest of their kind, they can be seen as this.
It Can Think: The Thralls are amongst the most animalistic and (apparently) mindless foes in the game, which makes it even more surprising when they sneak up behind you or lure you into an ambush. They do that a lot.
Mook Promotion: Thrall who live long or prove themselves in battle are eventually mutated into Acolytes.
Weaponized Offspring: The Thralls are the youngest of the Hive beasts, being the closest thing the Hive have to children. They are nearly mindless, sent almost like Attack Animals to Zerg Rush the Hive's enemies under the supervision of more senior Hive beasts.
We Have Reserves: There is no shortage of Thralls under the Hive's control, and they are liberal in their use.
Zerg Rush: Thralls generally attack in vast numbers, and while individually they can be easily slain, even an experienced and powerful Guardian can be overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.

Acolytes

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/acolyte_grimoire_card1.jpg

"Belief is a powerful weapon."

The next stage in Hive ascension after the Thrall, the Acolytes are humanoid soldiers, but also a force of belief and power, hungry to commit atrocities to further grow in strength.

Dumbass No More: While Thrall are not exactly stupid and are fairly cunning in a fight, their tactics still revolve around charging their target en masse and ripping it to shreds with little regard to anything else. When they become Acolytes, they gain the ability to use ranged weapons and conjure fireballs to toss at their targets, while also becoming significantly more cautious and strategic in battle.
The Fundamentalist: While Thrall are vicious and mostly animalistic, Acolytes are intelligent, and devote themselves to their Ascendant Hive master and their Hive gods.
Grenade Launcher: Sometimes you'll run into Acolytes that wield Boomers...they won't Pistol Whip you with it however.
Mage Marksman: In the sequel, some Acolytes will actually try to throw fireballs at you.
Mook Promotion: The Acolytes are promoted from Thralls, and seek to advance to the status of either Knight or Wizard.
More Dakka: Normally, they're equipped with Shredders, which are effectively semi-automatic pistols that are capable of some mean firepower. They don't do much damage, but they have the highest rate of fire among Hive weapons, barring the Ogre's Eye Beams, especially since they attempt Death by a Thousand Cuts on you.
Zerg Rush: Not to the extent that Thralls do it, but Acolytes are numerous and all too willing to hurl themselves in great numbers at their enemies.

Adherent

A variant of the Acolyte only encountered on the Hellas Basin, Mars. Specializes in long-range combat.

Cold Sniper: Given that the Hive on the Hellas Basin are covered in ice, this is very literal.
Sniper Rifle: One that fires a Void beam at you.
Underground Monkey: They're basically just Acolytes with a Sniper Rifle. They imitate Vex Hobgoblins in this regard.

Knights

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/knight_grimoire_card1.jpg

"It put up a hand and swallowed the rocket with a wall of shadow."

Massive, elite Hive warriors, Knights are the heavily-armored, frontline champions and commanders of Hive forces in the field, bent on destruction and offering of tribute to ascend further into the upper ranks of the Hive's hierarchy.

Ambition Is Evil: Which is encouraged within their society. Knights are notably more ambitious to accrue power and tribute compared with Wizards, and want to rise up to become Ascendant Hive. Few ever get that far, but not for a lack of effort.
Automatic Crossbows: Destiny 2 has some Knights wield Splinters, large crossbows that fire constant bursts of Solar energy that spread out instead of their usual Arc Boomers, giving them a more medieval theme.
Barrier Warrior: Knights can conjure up barriers of pure darkness that absorb incoming fire. Barrier Knights can also put up an impenetrable barrier if they get hurt enough, letting them recover health unless it's pierced by Anti-Barrier damage.
Ground Punch: Boss-level Knights that prefer Boomers over blades prefer to use their Fist Of Darkness attack, punching the ground to unleash a shockwave against enemies that are too close for their own good.
Machete Mayhem: Their massive cleavers are enormous weapons forged of bone and metal that look like a falchion.
Pistol Whip: If they're equipped with Boomers, they can do this; especially when they get mad.
Really 700 Years Old: Knights are effectively immortal, and often spend centuries collecting tribute and proving their skill and viciousness in order to advance themselves up the ranks of the various levels of Hive Knights.
Stuff Blowing Up: They're the only Hive that regularly carries the Boomer, a cannon that fires bolts of rotting stellar mass.

Darkblades

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shiftingbladezor1.jpg

A variant of Knight that is larger, has a face covering helmet, and wield large axes.

Degraded Boss: The first Darkblade you canonically fight is Alak-Hul, who is a Strike boss. From then on, you meet several more in Destiny 2, though they're mostly relegated to Public Events, Ascendant Challenges or bodyguarding a stronger Hive boss.
Mighty Glacier: Darkblades are very strong, but also very slow. However, once they take enough damage to knock their helmet off, they start moving as fast as Cleaver Knights.
Giant Mook: All Darkblades have shown to about the same size as Crota.
Underground Monkey: A titanic, towering Knight variation, often serving as bosses.
Villain Teleportation: Like Alak-Hul before them, they’ll happily vanish into thin air and reappear somewhere else to get the drop on you.

Vanquisher

A variant of Knight that was initially encountered on the Hellas Basin, Mars. They can be seen in other locations as a yellow bar mini boss.

Close-Range Combatant: They're exclusively specialized for CQB engagements.
The Heretic: The Hive factions that field Knights with shields (Nokris's sect, Savathûn's Hive, the Hidden Swarm, etc.) are considered as traitors to the Sword-Logic, so the shield seems to be associated with heresy.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Whenever they take a hit, they'll raise their shields and keep coming after you. Luckily, they don't see a need to Shield Bash you. That being said, their shields will be destroyed after sustaining enough damage.
One-Handed Zweihänder: They wield a Hive Cleaver in one hand, and a shield in the other. Once they lose their shields, they will use their Cleavers the way most Knights would.
Shield-Bearing Mook: They walk around with a shield and a cleaver.
Underground Monkey: They're sword-wielding Knights that also pack shields. That's about it.

Wizards

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wizard_grimoire_card1.jpg

"The only word for what we saw is sorcery."

Wizards are the scholars, scientists, and leaders of hive nexts, and serve to nurture and strengthen Hive broods and develop new sorceries and technologies.

Ambiguous Situation: Do Wizards have legs? We never see any under their "dresses" but every single Hive variation and morph (except larva) have legs, so it wouldn't make much sense for one to exist that doesn't. It's possible that they atrophy off because Wizards seem to do nothing but fly to get around. It's also possible that they canonically do but have never been modeled.
- Savathûn, at the very least, has legs.
Kill It with Fire: Most Wizards use shields which are vulnerable to Solar damage.
Mad Scientist: They serve this role in the Hive, often capturing and vicisecting victims to learn of their biological nature... or just because they enjoy it. They also engage in studies of death and how to manipulate it, going so far as to be able to "hide their deaths" in some cases, making them virtually immortal.
Mother of a Thousand Young: Wizards are the ones who give birth to Hive Thralls in vast numbers, seeding their brooding complexes and nurturing the eggs and newly-born Hive to adulthood.
Non-Mammal Mammaries: While it is not seen in regular Wizards, models for elite Wizards like Omnigul and In Anânh show that they do possess breasts, even having armor moulded to fit them. Which doesn't make much sense since the Hive reproduce through laying eggs and cocoons, being more akin to insects in this regard, as well as having rather sharp teeth that would make it impractical to breast-feed and especially with their numbers. It is possible that they serve a purely sexual purpose, that just raises further questions.
One-Gender Race: Wizards are exclusively "female" due to being the Hive equivalent of their past society's Mother morph. The only other Hive morph to share this trait is the King morph, of which Oryx is the only recorded member.
Poisonous Person: If attacked in close, Wizards will often create clouds of an inky, toxic darkness to shield themselves and inflict steady damage to anyone within the cloud, regardless of their armor.
Torture Technician: One of the ways that they worship the darkness is by "flaying the light" from their victims, which, according to Eris Morn, involves using Hive sorcery to strip away the light from captured Guardians bit by bit, and is considered one of the most horrible things that can happen to a Guardian.
Truly Single Parent: Apparently an option; according to the Books of Sorrow, "A mother Wizard gets fertility from a mate, or from herself."

Ogres

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ogre_grimoire_card1.jpg

"Its gaze shattered the rock, and then it smashed the rock to powder."

Monstrosities of pure rage and violence, Ogres are formed from Hive sorceries through terrible rituals. They serve as massive siege and support weapons who fire deadly beams from their eyes and can crush anyone foolish enough to get too close.

The Berserker: The rituals that make an Ogre fills it with an unceasing hatred and urge to commit violence, to the point that they are difficult to control. Not even Oryx can directly command an Ogre without having to Take it first, such is their unthinking fury and destructive nature. Unstoppable Ogres take it up a notch by being (almost) impossible to stop moving, and walloping anyone unfortunate to get in their way unless they're stunned with anti-Unstoppable attacks.
Dumb Muscle: Compared with Knights, Ogres are not terribly smart and rely on pure brute force to destroy their enemies. Their unending hatred and rage precludes tactical thinking in favor of raw violence.
Eye Beams: They can fire a devastating beam from their eyes that will obliterate any Guardian who doesn't clear out immediately.
More Dakka: Like Shriekers, Ogres can fire an endless stream of energy bullets, in this case in the direction they're looking.
Lightning Bruiser: They can move at a decently brisk jog if sufficiently angry or at low enough health. Unstoppable Ogres are even worse, as on top of moving at a solid stride, they're also absurdly tough and have a tendency to one-shot you if you get blasted with their eye beams or get caught in their Shockwave Stomp unless they get stunned and immobilized.
Mighty Glacier: Their pace almost never goes beyond a lurching walk, with even their rage-filled stomping if they’re maddened further by their opponent being fairly slow as well, but even a normal Ogre can take a decent beating before dying and their Eye Beams will tear Guardians apart extremely quickly if caught out in the open.
Threshold Guardian: They often serve this role, standing watch over high-value Hive sites, and brutally testing anyone who approaches, Hive or otherwise.
Unstoppable Rage: Ogres only feel rage and fury, and unleash it on whatever violates the areas they've been placed to guard.

Shriekers

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grimoire_shrieker.jpg

Not a Hive morph, but a combination of a sentry gun and security camera used by the Hive to both attack intruders and keep an eye on their minions.

Go for the Eye: In Destiny 2, they gain a weak spot: the dead center of the "eye". Unfortunately, with their barrage of bullets, you won't be hitting it without taking a beating.
Giant Eye of Doom: A mass of Void energy in the shape of an eye with the Hive Magitek powering it serving as the pupil, and due to its function as a fairly tanky laser cannon anyone who crosses its line of sight will likely meet their own doom quite quickly.
More Dakka: In Destiny 2, Shriekers traded their Void volley pulses instead for a near endless deluge of bullets. The helical pattern of this attack makes it very hard to fully protect yourself from it.
Nigh-Invulnerability: So long as the Shrieker's "shell" is closed, you won't be scratching it.
Sentry Gun: Shriekers are generally stationary, never moving from their spot. Only boss-tier Shriekers with segmented health bars like Savathûn's Song are capable of teleporting around the arena.
Sinister Surveillance: Some believe Shriekers to be some form of remote viewing construct. Though for a zombie security camera, they're heavily armed. This is further enforced in Destiny 2, where they appear to have an eye-like structure in them.
Screaming Warrior: The Shrieker lets out an audible, mournful wailing when it goes on the offensive
Taking You with Me: In Destiny 1, Shriekers would release a volley of Void energy blasts upon death that would slowly home in on their killers with surprising tenacity. It was so dangerous that even killing a single Shrieker could potentially kill a Fireteam.

Hive Gods

Hive Gods in General

The Gods of the Hive

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hive_gods.png

Left to Right: Xivu Arath, Savathûn, and Oryx

Oryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath. The lords of the Hive are the oldest and strongest of their race — paracausal entities of incredible power who have overseen the extermination of countless advanced civilizations.

The Ageless: They all border on immortal and Oryx and his sisters have existed for literally billions of years.
Always Someone Better: From The Dark Below to Season of Arrivals, they were the greatest figures of fear and power in the setting, being billion year old abominations who feed on death and are responsible for the dire straits of the Cabal and Fallen, and the Darkness worship of the Sol Divisive Vex. It takes systemic destruction of their death tribute to even stand a chance against them, and multiple expansions are the result of their manipulations if not spent confronting the siblings themselves. Then the Black Fleet arrives and they are immediately knocked down a peg in the setting. Savathûn is made an outcast heretic as the Witness becomes aware of her scheming, and Xivu Arath is demoted from a member of the Big Bad Ensemble to The Dragon for the Witness, hunting down her own sister. Oryx, meanwhile, is posthumously revealed to have been little more than a result of the manipulations of the Witness and his Disciples, having never been a candidate for Disciplehood unlike Savathûn.
Arch-Enemy: As immortal abominations who have led their armies to snuff out trillions of lives, it is unsurprising that they have more than a few individuals gunning for their heads. However, there are three in particular during the story that stand out:
- Mara Sov, Queen of the Awoken. Oryx decimated the Awoken during the onset of the Taken War and Savathûn cursed the Dreaming City to a never ending loop of death and destruction. Mara has made it her mission to exterminate the original Hive siblings, and has thus far been successful with exterminating Oryx and Savathûn, although Savathûn herself was able to evade true justice for the curse on the Dreaming City. She has also sparred with Xivu Arath and taunted her for forever living in her sister's shadow.
- Eris Morn: One of the most recent victims of their light drinking and permanently traumatized by the horrors she experienced in the Hellmouth by Crota's hand. She has entered into Mara Sov's plan to destroy the Hive Gods and has been successful at guiding the Young Wolf in destroying their tribute and weakening them to a point where they can be destroyed before they are able to pose a threat to the Last City.
- The Young Wolf themself, however, can be considered their greatest adversary. Even after eons of destroying worlds and chasing the Traveler, none of the Hive have been able to stand up to the Young Wolf in combat. Oryx, at the height of his power in his Throne World, was not only destroyed permanently but had his remains turned into the Touch of Malice. Savathûn's various plots and schemes across Destiny 2 are held at bay by the Young Wolf's actions, including holding back the Curse on the Dreaming City, thwarting Dul Incaru's search for the Distributary, and stopping her ultimate goal of sealing the Traveler away in her Throne World. Even Xivu Arath has been stopped by them time and time again, having her High Celebrant killed by their hand and her plan to Take the Earth for the Witness being stopped by the Young Wolf keeping her forces at stalemate.
Berserk Button: All three of the Hive God siblings share one: their family.
- Oryx responded to Crota’s death with blind rage, specifically targeting his son’s killer. This crusade led to his own death.
- Savathûn and Xivu Arath both grieve over Oryx’s own death, with the latter outright going on a grief-stricken rant in the Ghosts of the Deep collectibles.
- Savathûn and Xivu Arath also legitimately care for each other, with Xivu making it clear that the bulk of her rage at Savathûn is her venting her grief after being separated from her only living sibling.
  - Deputy Commander Sloane, who has a connection to Xivu’s will due to being half-Taken, states this outright; Mara Sov also stops Xivu in her tracks earlier by pointing out that Savathûn only abandoned Xivu because the latter was too far gone to save.
Big Bad Ensemble: The three sibling Gods went their separate ways after the destruction of Harmony, and began to work independently from each other, with lesser deities like Crota a means to convey tithe to their superior (Oryx in Crota's case). After Oryx's true demise, Savathûn and Xivu Arath seem to have entered into a power struggle to take up his mantle, continuing well into Destiny 2 as they both send their minions into the Dreaming City. Savathûn ultimately turns to the side of the Traveler, although not humanity, trying to seal it away to protect it from the Witness before ultimately being defeated. This leaves only Xivu Arath and her brood to serve as The Dragon for the Witness going forward.
Big Bad Duumvirate: When the Black Fleet razes a world, it seems that usually one Disciple and one Hive God are sent together. Oryx and Rhulk were partnered together for the destruction of the Eliksni homeworld, Riis, and Savathûn was partnered with Nezarec for the first Collapse on Earth.
Dimension Lord: Each Hive God actually dwells in Another Dimension known as a "throne world" or "ascendant realm", which they can remake at their will. If you successfully kill them in the material realm they simply retreat back to their throne world, regaining their strength and acting through their "Ascendant Hive", those who have earned the right to enter their throne world. They can only permanently die if they are killed within their throne world, but that's no easy feat, as they're at their strongest in their realms.
Eldritch Abomination: Not on the level of the Darkness or the Worm Gods, but each one is a walking, talking crime against creation.
Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: They literally ARE family and they all genuinely love each other. Their family values are pretty unusual, though.
For twenty thousand years they fought across the moons and they fought in the abyssal plains and lightning palaces of each other's sword spaces. And they killed each other again and again, so that they could practice death.

Such was their love.
Freudian Trio: Xivu Arath is the Id (as the Goddess of War), Oryx is the Ego (as the God-King), and Savathûn is the Superego (as the Goddess of Wisdom).
God of Evil: Basically, if the Hive worship you as a god, you qualify as a God of Evil. Though the Hive also view this trope as a good thing.
Horror Hunger: As part of their pact with the Darkness, they're each parasitized by a worm that grants them power as long as it remains fed. Like the rest of the Hive, their worms feed on bloodshed and devastation. Unlike the rest of the Hive, their worms also feed on the essential aspects of their natures. Oryx must always inquire and seek answers, Savathûn must always scheme and be cunning, and Xivu Arath must always fight and test her strength, lest their respective worms eat them instead.
Lacerating Love Language: Much like the guardians, they like testing themselves against each other in order to hone themselves. Unlike the Guardians, they see it as the purest expression of love.
Mook Lieutenant: In the grand scheme of things, they merely lead the Black Fleet's Hive ground forces, while the Witness and its Disciples sit out of reach.
Pocket Dimension: All Hive, upon passing a certain threshold of power, develop a personal pocket universe known interchangeably as a "throne world", "sword world", or "ascendant realm". This is an extension of their own rapidly expanding mind; as such, they're at their strongest within their own throne.
Reality Warper: They're unaffected by causality. Instead, they affect the universe.
Resurrective Immortality: Even if you're strong enough to kill them, they're just banished to their throne world from which they can return at will. In order to kill them permanently, you have to do it inside their own throne, which is also where they're strongest. Even then, the Hive gods can be just permanently trapped in their throne. And if the Hive god in question embodies a certain concept, like Xivu Arath embodies War or Savathûn embodies Cunning, then they can be resurrected again by performing a great enough act of said concept.
Sequel Hook: While Oryx is the main focus of the Taken King, his two sisters have yet to be dealt with despite being just as bad as him. Not only that but the fate of their tutor Taox (a proto-hive that rejected the Worm Gods) is left unresolved. Come The Witch Queen and Savathûn has been dealt with, but Xivu Arath is still out there working for the Black Fleet and Savathûn may be revived in the future considering her Ghost, Immaru, is still out there.
The Ghost: The Hive Gods usually do not make appearance in person until their respective expansion or the season before it.
- Oryx is the first example of this, though in his case it’s more Justified, as he didn’t personally affect the ongoing plot until the Taken King, before that his name was merely brought up in some off-hand conversations.
- Zig-Zagged with Savathûn, who despite being a heavy player as far back as Year 1 of Destiny 2 never made a full physical appearance until The Witch Queen, did show up in the form of Osiris from Season of the Hunt to Season of the Lost as well as being imprisoned in a crystal mid-transformation.
- Xivu Arath has yet to make a physical appearance despite her heavy involvement in the story beginning with Season of the Hunt, though starting in Season of the Deep she finally had her voice heard.
Time Abyss: We never get any specific numbers, but they've been doing their thing for a long, long time. Oryx's Dreadnaught alone predates the Earth. Other hints relating to the Hive indicate that time passes more slowly inside the Ascendant Realms than it does in the normal world; for example, an war rages in the normal world in the time it takes Oryx to take ten steps inside his realm. This supports how the Hive tend to wage war over extremely long time-spans, with them using strategies that take hundreds or thousands of years to see fruition, because within an Ascendant Realm such times can pass much more quickly.
Unwitting Pawn: While Taox killing their father was (as far as we know) an event unrelated to the Black Fleet, everything on from that point in their existence has been due to the manipulations of the Witness and Rhulk. It was only Savathûn who was eventually able to break free of the Pyramids' influence, but even she was taken aback by how deeply they were deceived.
Worthy Opponent: Their relationship with each other, summed up. Like a sibling rivalry cranked up so high the knob broke off. They also consider anyone strong enough to actually defeat them to be such; Oryx even took steps to ensure that if he was truly killed, that he would have a means to let his killer mantle his power and become the next Taken King, as they would be worthy of that title due to sheer strength.
You Killed My Father: In their backstory the three sisters (yes, including Oryx) were the daughters of the Osmium King, the ruler of the Fundament continent known as the Osmium Court. When he started raving about an oncoming disaster which would wipe out the the proto-Hive, Taox, the sisters' tutor, believed that he had gone insane, and that the three sisters were unsuited to assume the Osmium Throne. As a result, Taox invited the rulers of the rival Helium Court to invade the Osmium Court and kill the King and daughters, where she would serve as their regent. While the King was killed, the three sisters survived, swearing a Blood Oath to kill Taox in the process.

Oryx

Oryx, the Taken King

You took my Son! Now I... WILL TAKE YOU!"

Voiced by: Anonymous

"Crota's spawn will snuff out the worlds of Light, and Oryx's coming shall be unfettered."

The older brother of Savathûn and Xivu Arath, Oryx, born with the name Aurash and previously known as Auryx, is the God-King of the Hive and the father of Crota, who conquered the Moon in Oryx's name, supposedly to pave the way for his father's own invasion of Earth. All Hive sects owe loyalty to him, and the Hive have built a number of shrines in the Solar system to him.

Ambiguous Situation:
- After he was defeated and reduced to a Soul Jar that is the Touch of Malice, it's not made clear how his essence is able to empower the weapon despite having no sign of his Worm, the source of his power, in it. For that matter, where his Worm ends up after his defeat is also not made clear, though it is suggested the Worm might be the "giant sea serpent" sighted in Titan's oceans.
- It's currently unknown how aware he was about the Witness, or rather how much the Witness and the Darkness contradict each other. Given he was the God-King of the Hive, and Savathûn and Rhulk knew of each other long enough to develop a rivalry, it's safe to say that he was at least aware of the Witness and their distinction from the Deep he worshipped. His feelings on the Witness, and whether or not he would have betrayed them eventually, are also unknown. It turns out that Oryx and the Witness both participated in wiping out aspects of Darkness worship that did not match their propaganda, but Oryx's feelings on the matter are left unsaid.
Abstract Apotheosis: As stated in "Oryx: Rebuked", he seeks to become isomorphic to the concepts of "Conquest", "Triumph", "Killing" and "Death" and ascend to become an axiom.
Affably Evil: By Hive standards, at least. When he isn't causing havoc with his legions of Taken and Hive, he has been documented as having a caring relationship with his children and sisters.
Aliens Speaking English: He is surprisingly fluent in English, moreso than Variks. This also makes him one of the few Hive to do so. He introduces himself through an apparition by slowly and angrily making this statement to your Guardian:
"Light! Give your will to me!"
Always Someone Better: For all that Oryx was successful in, ultimately he was seen as little more than a pawn to the Witness, and was likely never a candidate for Disciplehood the way Savathûn was.
Antagonist in Mourning: He clearly grieves for the loss of Crota (see Outliving One's Offspring). In fact, it's what kicks off the plot of The Taken King.
Antagonist Title: He is the eponymous "Taken King".
Arc Villain: Oryx is the primary antagonist of The Taken King, waging war in the Sol system in order to exact revenge on the people that killed his son Crota. Unlike most Arc Villains in the series, his influence is felt long after his final demise in the expansion's raid, something which he brought upon himself. In-Universe as late as Joker's Wild, Oryx is still something of a measuring point as far as threats to the Last City go, with Dominus Ghaul being his only real rival in this regard.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Oryx as you fight him in "Regicide" is no bigger than the Fallen Kells you've faced. Come the "King's Fall" raid, however, he is several times bigger, dwarfing the occasional Tombship that spawns in his boss fight. For reference, the Ogres that spawn during the same fight are only the size of his fist.
Back from the Dead: To varying degrees on two different occasions.
- In Shadowkeep, Hashladûn attempts to revive Oryx by summoning the Nightmares created by the Pyramid and harvesting their essence to create a Nightmare of Oryx. She recognises it as a violation of the Sword Logic, but decides it's necessary as the Young Wolf didn't take Oryx's place and power as King as the Sword Logic decrees. She ultimately fails to accomplish her task thanks to the Young Wolf's intervention.
- In Season of the Deep, the Lucent Brood attempt to resurrect Oryx via Hive necromancy and imbue him with Light using a Ghost, intending on turning him into a Lightbearer. The goal of "Ghosts of the Deep" is to stop the Lucent Hive from reviving the Taken King before they succeed.
Benevolent Boss: By Hive standards he's a pretty cool guy and is a loving father. Of course the Hive also genocide the Traveler's patron races on principle and regularly assault or even kill each other as a way of displaying affection, so this trope doesn't really apply to anyone but other Hive.
BFS: Like his son, Oryx wields a massive Hive Cleaver called the Willbreaker.
Big Red Devil: His whole design seems to evoke this; and lo and behold, he just so happens to be wearing red too.
Big Bad Wannabe: Not even the God King of the Hive could hold a candle to the Witness, being nothing but a pawn.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: He has a genuinely loving relationship with his sizable family, including his two sisters, his son, and his daughters. However, to the Hive, "genuine love" is the same thing as "murderous intent". He and his sisters once spent 20,000 years making war and killing each other whenever they got the chance, out of love for each other.
Blood Knight: Oryx literally lives for battle and the death and destruction it causes. If he lets up in his warpath his own worm (his source of power) will eventually consume him from within.
Boss Banter: His boss fight at the end of the "Taken King" questline has him repeatedly shouting his intent to avenge Crota, and sometimes switches to Hive Black Speech. His Echo is just as chatty during its many encounters. Occasionally he'll shout out Crota's name during his attacks.
Character Development: Savathûn notes in Season of the Witch, long after his demise, that his adaptability was ultimately his greatest strength, clawing his way to new powers and identities and changing with the universe. She contrasts this with herself and Xivu Arath, whose natures are seemingly unchanging and thus inhibitive.
Cool Old Guy: The billions of years of warfare and experience as one of the foremost agents of the Darkness (or the Deep, as the Hive and the Worm Gods prefer to call it) have shaped him into one of the most feared beings in the galaxy, yet that doesn't stop him from being a loving father at the same time. Of course, though being a "loving father" by Hive standards is vastly different from our vision.
The Corrupter: In addition to the Hive, Oryx leads the Taken, an army made up of other races brought under his thrall by "taking" them from our dimension into Oryx's, altering them with the power of the Darkness to become Oryx's slaves, and then shoving them back into our dimension as little more than living shadows stripped of their free will.
Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: In his backstory Taox feared that Aurash's curiosity would draw her away from her duties.
The Dragon: Much as his son was his herald and a proper Arc Villain, Oryx himself was but a prominent servant and herald to the true Big Bad of the story, the Witness.
The Dreaded: To put it bluntly, everyone is afraid of Oryx. When we first meet him in "The Coming War", Eris Morn goes into a full blown Freak Out, and even Commander Zavala panics slightly. When the Cabal on Mars learn that he's in the Solar system, they flee their bases on Phobos, leaving behind several of their own people, in outright terror. They proceed to send a warning back to the High Command on their homeworld, which gives Legions on Mars direct orders to crash a ship into the Dreadnaught to form a beachhead, then destroy the Dreadnaught's core. An action that will destroy not only the Dreadnaught, but most of the Solar system. They're that terrified of Oryx.
- Even long after his death, his legacy and marks live on in Destiny 2, which shows the extreme lengths of his power. The Taken are still around, and in the Forsaken expansion, it was revealed that he's Taken even more, including Mara Sov's techuns, in the Dreaming City. The Dreaming City itself is said, in various lore tabs, to have been a place where Oryx spent a lot of his time exploring while we were fighting his Taken during The Taken King, and he even took the Ahamkara, Riven, who was living in the heart of the City.
Evil Counterpart: Has become one of Cayde-6 over the years, much like how Savathûn clearly parallels Ikora Rey. Both are leaders of their respective groups as an initial Power Trio; both represent exploration and curiosity; both have surprisingly-troubled backstories marred with tragedy and self-conflict; both are (initially) defined by the use of Arc attacks in combat; both are critcized by other characters as having gotten themselves killed through a lapse in judgement that led them to charge ahead of forces that could have otherwise helped them. Furthermore, neither of them wanted to be truly resurrected in the event that they were to be permanently killed, only for the Light or its forces to conspire to recreate them again. The difference is that while the Hive are prevented from doing so with Oryx, The Final Shape reveals the Light has since managed to bring Cayde back (or at least an appellation of him.)
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In this case, his son Crota. The latter's death in The Dark Below is enough to bring Oryx into focus for the game's third expansion.
- The Books Of Sorrow cards actually go into greater detail on how Oryx and his family worked. It turns out he has a happy, loving relationship with not only his son, but his daughters and his two sisters, Savathûn and Xivu Arath, who rule the Hive alongside him. Of course, this being the Hive, the Books of Sorrow also point out that their love for each other often takes the form of killing each other. However, since the Hive gods are Dimension Lords who can only die permanently if killed in their own throne room, which are in Another Dimension known as "Ascendant Realms", these are just tests of strength to keep them sharp.
Evil Is Hammy: He's a King and he's pissed at you, so of course he'd get down to tearing your world to pieces in your own language.
"You... are the last hope of the Light? I have taken entire worlds. You are not worthy to face me."
"At last! I. Will. Have. Vengeance!"
Evil Overlord: Just as straight an example as Crota, and for many of the same reasons. He has an army of pseudo-undead knights and creepy wizards at his command, rules an Ominous Floating Castle that travels through space, and like Crota, desires to destroy the forces of light with the power of an evil god (in Oryx's case, the Darkness).
Evil Power Vacuum: After his final death in "King's Fall", various leading figures in his Taken and Hive armies (like Malok) strive to take the crown and become the new Taken King, but are ultimately unsuccessful thanks to the Young Wolf's efforts. In Destiny 2, however, his sister, the Witch-Queen Savathûn, seems to have gained control of much of Oryx's Taken, and is preparing to enter the Sol system. As the sequel's story progresses through its expansions, we also learn that Hive and Taken affiliated with Xivu Arath are on the march, setting up a duumvirate between Oryx's sisters.
- The vacuum left by his death is so great that there have been two separate attempts by his fellow Hive since his death, all the way to Lightfall. Savathûn pointedly refuses to become the Taken Queen and be left eternally in her brother's shadow, while Xivu Arath merely commands the Taken at the behest of the Witness. It appears that Oryx was, for all that he was a pawn, the only one the Witness would allow to command and Take in its place.
Evil Sounds Deep/Voice of the Legion: Speaks with a deep, echoing voice.
Fighting a Shadow: You get to fight the Echo of Oryx in a few missions of the "Taken King" questline, though it's obviously a mimic that pales in comparison to the real Oryx.
Freudian Excuse: His backstory is incredibly tragic and his status as a villain is not entirely willing on his part, as he was corrupted by the Worm gods and by extension, the Witness itself.
From Bad to Worse: This was a common tactic for Oryx to use. After wearing down a civilization's resources and strength with the Hive, Oryx would then unleash his court intentionally at the worst possible moment for the civilization.
Gender Bender: As revealed in the Books of Sorrow, Oryx was once Aurash, the oldest of three sisters.. It's referenced by the fact that he looks like a blend between a Knight and a Wizard.
Genius Bruiser: While he lacked Savathûn's sheer cunning, Oryx was bound by his worm to endlessly inquire and seek knowledge. This led to him coming closer to understanding the Darkness than either of his sisters and obtaining the power to "take" his enemies.
God-Emperor: While Crota was the ruler of the Hive on the Moon, Oryx is the God-King of the Hive across the universe. After destroying the Shrine of Oryx, Ghost notes that Oryx was either "Their God or King", as if the Hive word doesn't have a difference.
Godzilla Threshold: Oryx is one for the entire system. The Queen launches her armada away from the Reef to engage him, the Cabal hold their fire on Guardians when they respond to the distress beacon on Phobos, and eventually the Cabal assault his ship directly with the intent to destroy its core, which threatens to wipe out the entire Solar system. He's that much of a threat.
Good Wings, Evil Wings: He sports batlike wings that reinforce the feeling that you're dealing with a devil.
Greater-Scope Villain: For The Dark Below. Oryx is the one who called Crota off after the massacre on the moon, so Crota reawakening was on his orders. The backstory for the Dreaming City's predicament in Forsaken can also be traced back to him, as lore tabs reveal he invaded it and made a bargain with Riven around the same time the Taken War raged on.
Hero Killer: He's so dangerous that the Tower calls in every single Guardian they have in defense of themselves, including the typically solitary Stormcaller Warlocks, Nightstalker Hunters, and Sunbreaker Titans.
Horror Hunger: As part of the pact with the Worm gods of the Hive that gave him his power, Oryx feeds the "worm" that gives him his power Light through violence and destruction, making both of them stronger. However, the more Oryx himself feeds his worm, the greater it becomes, which makes it even hungrier. Oryx eventually realized that his worm's appetite was beginning to grow faster than he could feed it, at which point it would eat him, until he came up with the Hive's tithing system. Each member of the Hive would feed some of the destruction they caused to their superiors, and they would pass it on to theirs, eventually reaching Oryx. Crota and his sisters are an instrumental link in this chain, and if Oryx's children died he would no longer be able to keep his worm fed and it would eventually turn on him.
Hypocrite: The main reason that Oryx and the Hive pantheon in general target the Traveler and any civilization it blesses, is because they believe that any civilization that is artificially strengthened doesn't deserve to survive. By killing the Traveler they hope to bring the universe into a natural state of chaos where only the truly strong survive. Noble in a way sure, but Oryx and his family hardly practice what they preach. Oryx relied on the Worm Gods to save his species, which would have otherwise been wiped out by a natural disaster. Most of Oryx's power comes from the worm parasite that he possesses, not his own strength, something that he himself notes when confronting Akka as why the Hive must kill to feed their worms in the first place; the worms were given, not taken.
- He also partook in deleting the Darkness-affinity that the Ecumene and Qugu possessed, along with the Witness. This is likely due to the fact that their Darkness use didn't line up with the Sword Logic (the Qugu used the Darkness to speak with long lost loved ones, when Hive philosophy dictates the Darkness abhors the dead as things that should have never existed) and warmongering that Oryx spent his whole life pushing (the Ecumene used their Darkness powers to unify many species through mutual understanding).
King Mook: Averted, a first for Destiny. While his Echo appears as an oversized Wizard with a new model, his true form has no direct counterpart in any other Hive enemy, and uses both magic and a sword against you in equal measure.
Legacy Immortality: This is Oryx's final plan should he fall to any who opposed him. Oryx records and leaves behind the Books of Sorrow, which detailed his origins and rise into the dark god he is. Oryx hopes that by understanding him and his life, and by taking the weapon he had left behind, that his killer will take the mantle of Oryx for themselves. Thus his own killer is the only one who has the right to bear his name and title, and the name Oryx will live past the original Oryx.
Magic Knight: Oryx fights using a combination of dark magic and a giant cleaver called Willbreaker.
Morton's Fork: Oryx when he was known as Aurash had to make an impossible choice, between the utter extinction of her species or serving under a dark god for the rest of her life and her race becoming little more than corrupted slaves to darkness.
Not Quite Dead: Downplayed. Oryx is very much dead, but his physical body is somehow still active. The Hidden report that his body is undergoing some sort of mitosis, hence why it's much bigger than in the "King's Fall" raid, and on top of that, it's radiating Taken and Dark energies that cause visual and audible hallucinations when approached.
Omnicidal Maniac: Oryx and his court have lived for countless ages, and through that time he cut a bloody path that ended entire civilizations and the complete genocide of many species.
Our Liches Are Different: Apart from his image of being a Big Red Devil and in keeping with the Hive's undead theme, Oryx is also pretty much this especially after you kill him. The Touch of Malice Scout Rifle pretty much becomes his Soul Jar, and it is implied that its owner will eventually turn into him.
Outliving One's Offspring: Despite being the God of evil Oryx did love Crota dearly and genuinely misses his son.
"Where is my son? Where is Crota, your lord, your princely god, your godly prince? Tell me no lies! I feel his absence like a hole in my stomach."
Papa Wolf: Even though the relationship with his son is... complicated, he goes on a vengeful rampage after he is killed.
Person of Mass Destruction: Wipes the entire battlefield clean after a large group of fighters attack his flagship.
Pet the Dog: Defied the Sword Logic to give Crota his sword and his name, but made it clear that, that was it for parental mercy.
Puzzle Boss: His final encounter in "King's Fall". Most of the damage you deal on him is done through the detonation of orbs of corrupted Light, which requires some coordination to ensure maximum damage output each round. Also, you are allowed some respite with an aura of invincibility, but not before doing a platforming segment similar to the previous battle against his twin daughters.
Recurring Boss: The Echo of Oryx, a spectral manifestation of his presence, is fought a few times in the main questline, and fought several more times in the Taken Wars quest.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Oryx's skin and armor (chitin?) is red and black. And there is no denying he's evil.
Red Baron: The Taken King, Taker of Will, the Lord/King of Shapes, Harrowed God, Carver of Tablets, Destroyer of Light, First Navigator of Phase Spaces (or more commonly just "The First Navigator"), and Primogenitor of Possibilities.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Crota's demise at the hand of the Guardians, Oryx goes on one that devastates the Cabal and would have utterly destroyed the galaxy were he not stopped.
Self-Deprecation: Oryx isn't beyond noting his own weaknesses; indeed, being aware of his weaknesses and rectifying them is all part of becoming stronger. He makes note of when someone outwits or defeats him, and even admits in the Grimoire card for Thalnok that he's keeping him around out of foolish sentimentality so he can see his son again.
So Proud of You: When they grew into adults, Oryx praised the twins Ir Anuk and Ir Halak for their strength and cunning.
Oryx: Look at you! Already you are grown, my daughter, already you are a wizard. Have I been away so long? Now you are Ir Anûk, and Savathûn cackles and rages at your brilliance. You have written eleven axioms describing the ascendant places, our throne world. You have announced that you will kill one of these axioms, as Akka would kill the truth, and in mantling Akka you will become a God, as I am. If you try it I may kill you, or I may applaud. Well done.
And you, Ir Halak, you are a wizard too, as is the way of twins. I have been with Xivu Arath, who complains that you have made a song, and sung it in her throne world, and killed everyone who listened, quite irrevocably. Will we have songs instead of swords and boomers? What have you made for me? It is a tooth shaped like death! I will keep it in my mouth. What have you written for me? It is the course of the Nicha Thought-ship! I will track it down.
I made you by cutting one larvae in half. It would not die. Each half grew into one of you. My sword is named Willbreaker, but it never broke you.
Soul Jar: The "Touch of Malice" exotic scout rifle houses his Ravenous Heart even after his final defeat in his Throne World, allowing his existence to remain in some capacity through the Player Character's use of the weapon. The weapon's construction by Eris ironically played into Oryx's contigency plan. Years later, Xol would replicate the technique by transforming himself into the "Whisper of the Worm" exotic sniper rifle.
Thanatos Gambit: Oryx, starting to get tired over the billions of years of servitude to the Worm Gods, devised a way to free himself from the Horror Hunger associated with the tithe system, without destabilizing the tithe system: should someone truly kill him in his Throne Realm, his existence would indeed be removed from the tithe's equation, before passing on all his knowledge and experience to his killer so they could become the next Taken King; if Oryx instead kills whoever challenges him in his Throne Realm, then the cycle goes on anyway, true to Sword Logic. What was not expected, however, was the player Guardian simply walking away from the mantle of Taken King after killing Oryx; something that illicits a What the Hell, Hero? moment from Toland, who's been observing the events of The Taken King.
Top God: "King of the Gods" variety. He is the God-King of the Hive, but is described as "born of Darkness". Whatever that means, it makes Oryx the closest link to the Darkness that the Guardians have ever encountered with the exception of the Black Heart.
- "Born of Darkness" is actually a mistranslation. Since the Hive word for the Darkness actually translates directly into "the Deep", Oryx is "born of the Deep", a reference to how he dove into the oceans of Fundament, the ancestral proto-Hive homeworld, and emerged with his sisters as Auryx, the Hive King.
Tranquil Fury: His attitude after his son is killed. It's most noticeable when he calmly floats to his altar in the wake of an attack on his flagship, stabs his sword down and unleashes a Sphere of Destruction that utterly obliterates the enemy forces.
Tragic Villain: He was once a genuinely noble and kind person who wanted to improve her kingdom. After her kingdom was betrayed, her father murdered and her people threatened by a coming disaster, she and her sisters turned to the Worm gods in the center of Fundament out of desperation. Thus they were corrupted into the monsters they are now, a fact that absolutely horrified the young Aurash.
Unnecessarily Large Vessel: The Dreadnought, Oryx's "fortress", which is millions of years old and clearly as decayed as the Hive themselves are. Surpassing the Fallen Ketches in size, it's so large it's going to be a "Patrol" area. It also houses gargantuan cavernous spaces such as these◊. The Book of Sorrows entry about its creation reveals it's built around a small segment of the elder Hive god he killed to ascend. The Dreadnaught itself is so massive that it is visible within Saturn's rings from a very long distance out.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Amazingly enough, his origin as detailed in the Books of Sorrow indicate that he was once an idealistic heir to the throne of a continent-sized kingdom. Unfortunately, the kingdom was betrayed and a series of increasingly catastrophic events led to her pledging herself to what would become the Worm gods of the Hive and ultimately serving the Darkness as its willing King. When a Vex simulation of his former self encounters him as he is now, she's appalled at what she's become.
We Have Reserves: His first major act in The Taken King is to obliterate both the Reef's fleet and his own flotilla of warships, leaving the Dreadnaught alone around Saturn's rings and without much of an army to continue his crusade. However, he then turns his attention to the Cabal on Mars and begins Taking half of their forces and the number of Taken across the system only piles up from there.
Written by the Winners: Exaggerated. Under Oryx's rule, he and the Hive scrubbed at least several races and factions from the universe's history after killing all of their members, the only remaining references being stored in the Books of Sorrow and other ancient apocrypha. While the Ecumene are one of the known victims of this (and to a lesser extent the Eimin-Tin, although the Titans eventually recovered their last records and the Warlocks a ritual mask), it's implied that some of the individuals the King's Fall weapons are named for were claimed by Oryx's revisionism as well, as neither they nor anyone related to them ever show up again in the game's lore. Tragically discussed by Midha, whose only trace of existence is a fusion rifle calling them the Consort of Stars:
"I see now that everything dies. Even... even memory."
You Are What You Hate: Narrowly averted. "Ghosts of the Deep" sees the Lucent Brood attempting to revive Oryx using Hive sorcery and a Ghost, intending on bringing him back as a Lightbearer, something he most definitely would have despised.
You Kill It, You Bought It: His Taken powers directly come from slaying the Worm God Akka, something that the other Worm Gods are strangely pleased with.
You Killed My Father:
- Inverted. The greatest of the Hive gods is coming to the Solar system to avenge his dead spawn, Crota, whom you defeated in "Crota's End".
- Played straight in his backstory, where his father was killed in the invasion of a rival kingdom, made possible by the traitor Taox.

Savathûn

Savathûn, the Witch-Queen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/savathuninfo1.jpg

"Who is Savathûn?" you ask. You already know, oh Guardian mine. I am your friend.

^{Savathûn, as she appears in Season of the Lost}

Voiced by: Debra Wilson

"Truth is a funny thing. Does it live in the world, or in the mind? Is it constant, or can it be bent? Who decides what is true, in this universe of light and dark? There is no greater power. Tell me, Little Light, what is your truth now?"

The younger sister of Oryx and older sister of Xivu Arath, Savathûn, born with the name Sathona, is the Hive's goddess of wisdom. Driven to understand the secrets of the universe, her broods left Oryx's fleet after the conquest of Harmony by traveling into a black hole, claiming that they would be stronger for it.

After Oryx's untimely death in his own Ascendant Realm, the Hive leadership was practically left in shambles until the Red War, with signs of Hive broods and Taken hordes under Savathûn's command attacking Titan and Io, respectively. She would later emerge as the underlying antagonist in some of Forsaken's subplots, with all irregularities hinting at her playing a convoluted chess game behind the scenes with not just the forces of Light, but those of Darkness as well.

Above Good and Evil: Bluntly states that paracausal beings like herself or Guardians cannot be considered heroes or villains.
Agent Provocateur: In Season of the Splicer Savathûn has assumed human form, or something close too it, and is wandering the city, using her magic to spread discord amongst the citizens. But unfortunately, it appears that they're spreading something to her as well.
Aliens Speaking English: The same as her big brother, perhaps even more so.
Antagonist Title: She is the eponymous "Witch Queen" of the 2022 The Witch Queen expansion.
Arc Villain: After being built up as an antagonist since Destiny 2's Day One release, Savathûn finally takes center stage in The Witch Queen, where the Guardians must discover how she stole the Light. She was actually gifted it by the Traveler, in its attempt to make up for arriving too late to save the proto-Hive before the Worm Gods tricked them into serving the Darkness. Her plan is to steal the Traveler from the Last City and seal it away in her throne world, the High Coven.
Berserk Button: She really does not like it when someone tricks her. Exploited by the Guardians, who reveal to her that the Darkness deceived her into joining them instead of the Traveler, causing her to lose all composure and forethought and fight the Guardians herself, upon which she is defeated.
Back from the Dead: In a twist, the memory of Savathûn preceding the big reveal about the Traveler in the main campaign of The Witch Queen shows that following her escape from her imprisonment at the end of Season of the Lost, she actually keeled over and died due to the separation from her worm... only to get resurrected by the Traveler, then recovering her memory through the player Guardian's actions. Not only that, but a subsequent memory shows that the Hive were always meant to be blessed by the Traveler's power; it's just that the Witness got to them first and manipulated them with a big lie to worship the Deep instead.
- Season of the Deep ends with the revelation that, in order to prevent the Witness' plans from coming to fruition, the Guardians must revive her and get her to reveal how to bypass the portal in the Traveler.
- Season of the Witch ends with her true revival, although not before having her throat slit by Eris to gain a flow of tribute massive enough to exile Xivu Arath from her throne world. She returns to the depths of her throne world, leaving Immaru with the Guardians as a peace offering and promising to show them the way through the portal in the Traveler.
The Bad Guy Wins: While she upholds her end of the bargain by giving back Osiris, she still gets what she wanted in the end - her worm removed and therefore freeing her from its clutches. She also escapes into thin air the instant the exorcism is complete, denying Mara and Saint a chance to attack her when she's vulnerable.
- Also debatably comes out on top in Season of the Witch. The season ends with her resurrection and while Xivu Arath being weakened and cut off from her Throne World still benefits the Vanguard immensely, it also severely kneecaps one of the only other threats to her, and given that she's, insofar as anybody knows, humanity's only lead on how to go through the portal into the Traveler to pursue The Witness, the Vanguard's hands are more or less tied.
Belief Makes You Stupid: Considers this to be her greatest regret, which the Darkness wastes no time mocking her for when probing its most recent Victim of the Week, the Glykon Volatus.
Body Horror: According to Season of the Splicer lore, The Witch Queen's human guise is very unstable and prone to falling apart if she can't sustain it through Imbaru.
Brown Note: The main riff of the main theme for Shadowkeep is actually a viral chant by Savathûn that serves as a mark of her influence. What it actually does is never elaborated on, but it can't be good. As of the Season of the Splicer, the song has spread to Lord Shaxx, the Crow, every remaining member of the Future War Cult, and gradually spreading across the entire populace of the City. It is shown to be subtly, but steadily, amplifying people's rooted fear and hatred of the Fallen and breeding a growing distrust of the House of Light and the Vanguard.
…But He Sounds Handsome: Indulges in a bit of this during Season of the Splicer while possessing Osiris. When Mithrax ponders the idea of an unlikely alliance with the Witch Queen, or Ikora gripes about feeling outplayed by her machinations, "Osiris" is quick to sing the praises of Savathûn's cunning and intellect.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: She was the first one to try betraying her siblings, assassinating Oryx for attempting to parley with one of their first enemies. This resulted in the three warring with each other for almost twenty thousand years. Later, when Oryx was figuring out the tithe system, she urged Oryx to kill her to buy him more time to figure it out, secretly intending to kill him, but Oryx was faster. Oryx loves her for it, because he feels having her to test him makes him stronger.
- However, this comes back to bite her when she tries to backstab the Darkness by interfering in its communications with the Guardians during The Arrival. The rest of the Hive really didn't appreciate her failed attempt to betray the highest God of gods in their Pantheon, and now she's considered a heretic and been forced into hiding to avoid being hunted down and killed.
The Corrupter: The lore of the Reed's Regret linear fusion rifle implies she may have gotten too close to the Warlock Shayura, who is known by this point to have become a criminally insane Knight Templar who murders anyone that uses Stasis indiscriminately. The titular Reed-7 discovers the notes in Osiris's quarters that point towards this next to the gun, and he is furious at the idea of having willingly surrendered someone like Shayura to the Witch Queen.
Crown-Shaped Head: A crown and circlet growing directly out of her chitin.
Deal with the Devil: Blackmails the Guardians into one in Season of the Lost, promising to release Osiris from possession in return for helping free her from her worm.
Deadpan Snarker: She can get in some real witticisms on occasion.
Dragon with an Agenda: By her very nature, she has been attempting to escape her Worm ever since their symbiosis, fitting her status as a Goddess of Trickery. The Witness and Oryx were both noted to encourage this cleverness, with the Witness even considering her for Disciplehood at one point in opposition to Rhulk's distrust of her. However, it turns out that she has been planning for centuries to betray the Black Fleet for the Traveler, obfuscating the Witness' attempts to communicate with the Guardians and infuriating it enough to finally excommunicate her from its forces. Ultimately, Savathûn has no loyalty to anyone but herself.
Enemy Mine: Has no issue helping the Last City to achieve her own ends.
Evil Counterpart: Of Ikora Rey; both are long-lived de-facto leaders of their kind, talented scholars, and as of The Witch Queen, use Void Light as their signature offensive technique.
Evil Genius: She's the scholar of the Hive gods, driven to make sense of the deepest secrets of the universe. The Books of Sorrow note that she's both proud of her niece Ir Anûk's brilliant cunning, and jealous of it as well.
Evil Overlord List: A subtle reference in "Truth To Power" has Savathûn explain that it is a law of her High Coven that one's plan should be incomprehensible to a Thrall, which is clearly refering to the Overlord list's rules about using a five-year old to spot any flaws in your plan or to test codes and passwords.
Foreshadowing: It's heavily implied that she's the next major Hive threat coming down the pipe in Destiny 2, as several of her agents are encountered on Titan and Io, particularly in the strike "Savathûn's Song". Savathûn apparently also now has the ability to Take, a power that was previously exclusive to Oryx.
Fatal Flaw: Her savior complex. At her core, Savathûn is a very proud person, and desperately wants to do important things, having been so ever since she was Sathona. The Witness and the Worm Gods were aware of this, and engineered the supposed "God-Wave" to play on both her fear and her need to feel important to corrupt her before the Traveler could arrive on Fundament to save the Krill from their miserable existence.
Faux Affably Evil: She’s a complicated mix of both this and Affably Evil. When she meets face-to-face with the player Guardian, she’s extremely polite and seems to genuinely regard them as a Friendly Enemy. However, like her sister and brother she has an extensive history of genocide, dooming countless people to death with her manipulations.
The Ghost: Fitting for a Hive god of deceit, she primarily keeps to the background, constantly scheming and sowing discord among her enemies so as to feed off of their constant paranoia and theorizing. This no longer applies to her in Season of the Lost, as she finally appears in-game, though trapped in crystal.
Godzilla Threshold: In the finale of Season of the Deep, Ahsa reveals that of all the characters who know how to reach the Witness beyond the portal created by the veil, Savathûn is the only person who knows how. This revelation shakes Saladin and especially Saint-14, with Saladin reminding Zavala that Caiatl has a bone to pick with the Witch Queen and Saint-14 is still understandably pissed at Savathûn for possessing Osiris and using him as a meat suit. Zavala understands their concerns, but states they do not have any other alternative solution.
Greater-Scope Villain: Although never present at the forefront, she is responsible for several plots and threats that pose serious danger for the Guardians.
- She's responsible for the events that occur in missions on Titan and Io in Destiny 2, strongly indicating that Savathûn has assumed Oryx's place as God-Queen of the Hive and mistress of the Taken.
- She is the Greater-Scope Villain of Forsaken. Even if she isn't directly controlling Riven, Mara Sov's goal is to stop her from using the Dreaming City to enter the Distributary, the Awoken's home dimension, and use it to slaughter the Awoken and use it's altered flow of time to gain a massive amount of death tribute to feed her worm.
- Despite technically now in exile after her attempts to stop the Guardians from communicating with the Darkness, Savathûn still manages to find a way to hit the Guardians where it hurts, directing Quria, the Dreaming Mind in infecting the Vex Network and creating the Endless Night.
- Finally drops this in The Witch Queen, where she takes center stage as the Arc Villain and directly opposes the Guardians.
- The lore from the end of Season of the Witch reveals another event she's responsible for: the Great Disaster. Somehow, she set Crota against Eris' fireteam, causing her to become the City's Hive expert and eventually a God capable of taking down Xivu Arath herself.
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Savathûn's plan in the Dreaming City ultimately breaks down to this. Either the Guardians play along her scheme, killing thousands of Scorn and Hive before Dûl Incaru's death resets the three week loop and giving Savathûn an infinite source of destruction to feed on, or they abandon the Dreaming City, condemning the Reef to oblivion, giving her a massive foothold in the system, and potentially liberating the Hive from the Worms by extracting near-infinite tribute from the Distributary's time sink properties.
Humanoid Abomination: In Season Of The Splicer, Savathûn is revealed to have assumed a human form and is walking the streets of the Last City, spreading discord amongst the populace. However, her guise is unstable and prone to Body Horror, requiring careful maintenance via Imbaru to prevent it from falling apart completely.
The Heretic: She already seeks to undermine the Darkness and become a god separate to their power, and dabbles in arts that are forbidden to Hive. However, she mainly got support from the various Hive lineages in the Solar System since she was the most prominent Hive God after the death of Oryx and the defeat of Xol. This changed after The Arrival, where her numerous attempts at interference through Nokris to prevent communication between the Guardians and the Pyramids ended up turning the rest of the Hive against her, with her being branded as a heretic and being hunted. Now she's hidden herself away from even her own court, and most Hive and tributes in the system either rally behind the Pyramids or Xivu Arath.
Hidden Depths: To make a long story short, Savathûn is a much more interesting and layered character than the generically evil, genocidal sorceress we've been expecting. It's revealed in the lore of Destiny 2 (Particuarly Forsaken and Shadowkeep) that in a lot of ways, Savathûn is the ultimate heretic. Unlike her siblings, Savathûn has been trying to rid herself of her servitude to the worm gods and the Darkness for eons, she has doubts about the royal family's eternal campaign to destroy the Universe and finds "absolutes" like time, space, death and even gods to be trite and meaningless. Her ultimate goal was revealed to be stopping the Darkness from ending everything and bringing about the Final Shape, then becoming something that she believes is truly "absolute" and ascending to beyond Light and Dark. While she certainly isn't going to win any redemption points going by her unending string of nefarious schemes, the complexity of her circumstances and motivations make her one of the more important players in the greater scope of the story.
I Gave My Word: The finale of Season of the Lost has her fulfill her end of the bargain. Mara removes her worm, and she returns Osiris to the Guardians, seemingly unharmed. This does come at the cost of her disappearing immediately after the ritual is finished, though.
I Have Many Names: If Dûl Incaru's narration in Truth to Power is to be believed, Savathûn goes by many names; Witch-Queen Savathûn, Archentrope, Queen of Encrypts, the Black Needle, deepest in the High Coven, Emancipator of Worms, the Missing Piece of All Puzzles, who shall see the cosmos unborn into an infinitely dwindled egg.
- Additional monikers that have been ascribed to Savathûn are Queen of Lies, Subjugant to None, and Sword-Breaker.
- Lampshaded by herself, as she calls herself "Sister of Shapes, deepest in the Hive Coven... etcetera, etcetera" when talking with the Guardians about releasing Osiris.
I Just Want to Be Special: In her backstory Savathûn, original name Sathona, wanted to eat the "mother jelly" which would allow her to spawn and live longer, not because she wanted children or was afraid of dying, but because she wanted to live long enough to do something important with her life.
Insane Troll Logic: She tries to persuade the Guardian that she is their ally by naming her scheme's side effects, some of which were beneficial to them for the short term, but aren't even close to outweighing the damage that she has already done to the Reef and to other Guardians. Of course, being the Hive's goddess of deceit, it only makes sense that she'd try to get us to fall for this line of thinking.
I Surrender, Suckers: When the Worms appetites began to outgrow the Hive's ability to feed it, Oryx realized that he could gain that power from the Worm God Akka. Savathûn offered to let Oryx strangle her to gain her strength and face it, but in reality she was planning to stab him when he got close and try it herself. Oryx, however, was faster.
King Mook: Averted. While Savathûn is a Wizard, she doesn't look like any of the Wizards shown in either game, such as using actual wings for flight while normal Wizards use the Darkness. The Books of Sorrow describe it as the "Mother morph" used by Krill mothers.
Large and in Charge: Bungie made a point to note that Savathûn's physical incarnation is 21 feet tall, something that's only dwarfed by Oryx's Throne World incarnation.
Light Is Not Good: The Witch-Queen expansion is kicked off by her discovering how to imbue Hive with Light, creating Hive Guardians loyal to her.
Logical Weakness: Savathûn's M.O. is to know far more than anyone else on the chessboard, and to be a master deceiver, schemer, and manipulator. However, the flip side of this is that when something legitimately surprises her, such as the Witness having lied about the Traveler causing the Syzygy, she breaks down.
Macabre Moth Motif: She has a set of moth-like wings, and as of Season of the Lost, moths signify her influence.
Mad Scientist: The more knowledgeable of arcane powers of the three Hive siblings, constantly seeking the deepest secrets of the universe and, like any Hive, is most certainly mad by our definition. She also has many flavours of Mad Doctor to her considering she was the one to devise the original Morphs and mutations of the Hive units. She even has a Scalpel as her signature weapon. Her most important experimentation, which ties in with Forsaken, is to acquire a theoretically infinite death tribute to feed to her brood's Worms, using her subjects as guinea pigs and even siccing them through a black hole to figure out if time dilatation would deceive the Worms' appetite.
Magitek: Unique among her siblings, Savathûn makes use of Vex technology, primarily her pet Axis Mind Quria, to simulate possible futures, new schemes and even control some of the Taken. This is possible because Quria has been altered by Hive magic in the past.
Marathon Boss: Savathûn as you fight her at the end of The Witch Queen's main campaign is uncontestably the most lengthy battle outside of endgame activities like raids and Nightfall strikes. To wit, you first have to confront her directly along with a trio of Hive Lightbearers. Then, you have to dispel her illusions, followed by going through a portal to disrupt Savathûn's plan twice. Then, you have to fight Savathûn at full health once more, and this time she's assisted by Wizards who maintain her shield. By the end of it, it's no wonder your Ghost lampshades how Savathûn is so damn resilient.
Master of Illusion: In the "False Idols" lore entry, Savathûn's meeting with Nokris is revealed to have been this. He was speaking with her, but not directly. The singularity-obscured shape he'd been addressing was a lone Thrall, its death stretched out over eons, "mouth agape to utter words at the Taken Queen’s whim as patsy, and nothing more." This fits Savathûn's nature, "for the Queen would not be so foolish to reveal herself."
Master Poisoner: Explicitly said to use powerful poisons against her enemies. Note that the smoke attacks Hive Wizards use give a debuff called "Poisoned".
My Greatest Failure: Believing the dogma of Sword Logic was an actual truth, after spending several years coming to understand this is not the case and has simply doomed her species to eternal servitude that cannot be escaped without plunging their society into chaos or even extinction.
"Not So Different" Remark: Uses this on Mara Sov in Season of the Lost as a parting shot, before Mara strengthens her chrysalis and essentially puts her on mute:
Mara: Unlike some creatures, I uphold my word when I give it.
Savathûn: But we're the same creature, are we not?
Mara: I am nothing like you.
Savathûn: No, of course not. I thought you were a powerful, competent woman plagued by a difficult relationship with her family. Someone who weaves complicated, long-spun schemes across the arc of time's bow. My mistake.
The Omniscient: She is driven to discover all of the deepest secrets of the universe. However, she believes such a thing as learning everything is impossible, and that if everything was somehow discovered and learnt then this would bring about the Final Shape and the end of existence. However, this doesn't discourage her: it inspires her, and considers "Ignorance" the one true "absolute" of the universe.
Savathûn: One can learn more, but none can learn all.
Outgambitted: Downplayed - while she did manage to manipulate the Guardians into removing her sister as a threat, Immaru's reactions indicate that she didn't expect this to happen by having Eris resurrect and kill her so that she'd get a big enough power boost to sever Xivu's connection to her throne world. Savathun takes it in stride, though.
Power of the Void: After stealing the Light in The Witch Queen, she becomes a Voidwalker capable of casting Nova Bombs.
Pet the Dog: The Fundament Shell reveals she visited Earth shortly before the Collapse and, while wearing a Human Disguise, helped a human family survive into the Dark Age out of her own free will. The only price was teaching them her song, leading their descendants to believe she had meant to exact a deeper toll centuries later (and if she did, she never collected it before her death at the end of Year 4.)
Put on a Bus: The Witch Queen's main campaign ends with Savathûn physically dead, but her Ghost Immaru escapes, leaving open the possibility of her coming back to life in future expansions. At the very least, the Vanguard retrieved her corpse and stored it in a vault on Mars.
Red Baron: The Witch-Queen, the Whisper Queen, the Deceitful Sister, the Scheme-Mother, the Queen of Encrypts, Archentrope, the Black Needle, the Missing Piece of All Puzzles, the Needle-Fingered one, the Queen of Lies, Subjugant to None.
Schmuck Bait: She purposely left a powerful artifact, the Crown of Sorrow, on one of the Hive's war moons for Calus' Shadows to retrieve, with the intent of controlling and corrupting the Cabal Emperor once he puts it on. Calus suspected it was an obvious trap, but since he wanted to control the Hive, he bred a Cabal Super-Soldier, Gahlran, to wear the artifact. The trap was indeed real, as Gahlran's personality was obliterated by the viral language contained within the Crown mere minutes after wearing it.
Shrouded in Myth: She has invented her own unique brand of tribute separate from the Sword Logic that's based on this, which she names "Imbaru". Any failed attempt to understand her, any rumor, any falsehood, any misguided theory, any false prediction and any supposition, along with her own schemes and conspiracies and accumilating of secrets will all add to her power through definition of her "Cunning". The more schemes she makes and the more secrets she hoards, the more incomprehensible she will become and the more rumors and speculation will spread, and thus the more tribute she will receive.
Sinister Surveillance: Aside from being an attempt at imitating Oryx's power to compel wills, the Crown of Sorrow she laid out as a trap for Calus also doubles as a surveillance device meant to spy on the Cabal Emperor while Savathûn resides in her Ascendant Realm.
- In Season of Arrivals, she steps it up another notch. The weekly bosses of the "Interference" missions are giant Shriekers called "Savathûn's Witness." Even our Ghost acknowledges that "Those are all eyes." In addition, scattered across the destinations are glowing orbs called "Eyes of Savathûn," which light up and appear to face the player when they get close. They're immune to damage to everything except the Ruinous Effigy exotic weapon.
Superior Successor: When resurrected as a Lightbearer, Savathûn‘s abilities are much stronger and more versatile in ways that those of her fellow Lucid Brood or Guardians lack, possessing Alak-Hul’s Arc energy ball barrage ability, a devastating Landfall attack, and along with being capable of casting Nova Bombs much more frequently and producing a Nova Warp-esque blast for close quarters combat, she can also project a portable, unbreakable version of the Ward Of Dawn Super that she uses during the final boss fight of Witch Queen. And she can switch between all of them on the fly. However, despite her formidable capabilities, they in turn lack some potent aspects that are Guardian-exclusive, such as her Ward Of Dawn robbing the sight of and weakening anyone entering it as a Sentinel Titan’s Ward would do, the relative lack of power in her attacks, with her Nova Bomb being more or less a slightly souped-up Vortex Grenade, and her Nova Warp attack being more along the lines of the Shockwave Stomp used by many other tough foes than the destructive Action Bomb it’s known to be. The only ability that Savathûn wields which doesn’t have much of a downside is her Landfall attack, which inflicts a lot of damage and can be used quite regularly.
Soft-Spoken Sadist: Fittingly for an Evil Genius, she is a calm Cold Ham in comparison to her bombastic brother and shouting sister.
Sophisticated as Hell: Whereas the vernaular of the other two Osmium siblings is florid and theatrical, Savathun throws in casual language like "third-string witches" and "RIP Cayde" when she's being snarky.
Spanner in the Works: In Season of Arrivals, Savathûn is implied to be interfering with Eris' plan to make contact with the Darkness when the later reaches out to the player Guardian, redirecting them repeatedly into her Court while Eris tries to wrestle them back to Io. Eris thinks that the Witch-Queen is actively trying to prevent her from understanding the Darkness, and speculates that failure to do so led to the Collapse long ago. Unfortunately for Savathûn, the plan fails, and the Darkness is so incensed that it begins hunting Savathûn, forcing her to flee her throne world as her broods turn on her in the name of the Darkness.
- She is also responsible for humanity surviving the Collapse and the Witness abandoning Earth for centuries. She betrayed Nezarec during the Collapse and stole the Veil away from the Black Fleet, severing the Witness' connection to the Veil and implicitly the Traveler, causing it to return to deep space and give the Traveler a chance to recover from its injuries. This allows humanity and the universe to survive to the present day, with the Witness only returning because of something the Witch Queen couldn't foresee (its reawakening to stop Dominus Ghaul).
The Starscream: Probably one of the biggest examples among the Hive...not that Oryx minds, he actually accepts that as love. Then she tries it on the Witness and it is not as accepting as Oryx.
Super Prototype: She's essentially the first modern Hive Wizard, and much, much more powerful than the other Wizards.
- As the first of the Lucent Hive, she's *far* more dangerous and powerful than any Hive Guardian.
Superior Successor: Savathûn's versions of the typical Light-based Supers show vast improvements over the standard Guardian's.
- A Gunslinger's Blade Barrage is notoriously inaccurate and liable to miss, even at close range. Savathûn's Blade Barrage shows pinpoint accuracy and decimates your health in seconds.
- Voidwalkers' Nova Bombs are deadly, but slow to charge. Savathûn can fire several Nova Bombs in a handful of seconds.
  - Another character capable of this is Ikora; a far more experienced Light user capable of downing many Cabal ships with her rapid Nova Bombs. An impressive sign of Savathûn's sheer talent or aptitude all the same being compared to the Warlock Vanguard.
- Stormcallers must stay in place while using Chaos Reach. Not only can Savathûn fly while doing so, she also flushes you out of cover with a lightning storm.
- A typical Sentinel's Ward of Dawn only covers a small area, has a limited amount of health, and cannot move once its placed. Savathûn's version moves around with her, lasts indefinitely, covers far more ground, and grants her *massive* damage reduction.
Too Clever by Half: Without a doubt, Savathûn certainly is as cunning, deceitful, and intelligent as the Hive god of lies and wisdom should be... the problem is that she knows it, and as the climax of The Witch Queen can attest to, she's so good at duping others into doing her bidding and being one step ahead of everyone else that she never accounts for the possibility that someone else might have the sufficient intelligence and cunning to do the same to her.
The Witness: These frail siblings will soon be claimed by the Light... unless we claim them first.
Savathûn: What is this? How did you...
The Witness: We will tell the most cunning sibling of a cataclysm... a prophecy of great loss.
Savathûn: No... no, that's not what happened. The Traveler never came to us, we were forced to choose the Deep... how could I have missed this?
Tragic Villain: Ultimately what Savathûn is revealed to be by the end of The Witch Queen expansion, being little more than an Unwitting Pawn by the Witness just before the beginning of a Golden Age at the hands of the Traveler, thereby leading to the damnation of her family and her species into Hive all under the illusion that the Traveler never was going to live up to it's promise of salvation until it was far too late for it to matter for the both of them.
The Trickster: As part of her pact with her worm, Savathûn must always use cunning and trickery against her opponents. She's even resorted to deceiving her siblings a few times. She's also responsible for bringing the Vex into Oryx's Ascendant Realm, and introducing them to their Religion of Evil.
Virtue Is Weakness: During the Hive's campaign of destruction in the Fundament, Oryx, back when he was known as Auryx, was willing to negotiate with the Ammonite instead of simply warring with them. Savathûn, under pressure from her Worm, killed Auryx for showing weakness; Auryx, while recovering in his Ascendant Realm, realized what that meant, and cast aside any goodwill he had left, becoming a ruthless tyrant.
Villainous Breakdown: After the Young Wolf reveals through her old worm familiar that her entire life since their pact with the Worm Gods was born from a lie, she lapses into denial, devolving from her composed demeanour into angrily shouting at the Guardian and only becoming more enraged as she repeatedly views the memory.
Villainous Valor: Her scheme to petition the Traveler for a Ghost, while successful, ultimately hinged on this; to be revived as a Lightbearer, she had to die first, and she openly admits the Traveler has every ability to just ignore her - she still greets it without question.
Winged Humanoid: Like her brother, Savathûn possesses wings, though hers are much more moth like than the bat like wings Oryx possessed.
Weak, but Skilled: In her backstory, her tutor Taox thought that she was a good leader, but would make a poor warrior, and thus unsuited to assume the Osmium Throne.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everything she has done leading up to and during The Witch Queen was an attempt to lure out, isolate, and destroy the Witness. It's just that she didn't plan on the fact that her very existence is itself a trick by them.
- She wanted to protect the Traveler from the Witness by sealing it off inside the High Coven. Unfortunately, this would've doomed humanity and the Eliksni in the Last City to a painful and horrific end.
We ARE Struggling Together: Her time working with the Disciples was apparently fraught with conflict. Rhulk believed she was too clever to be left alive and apparently tried to convince the Witness of this several times to no avail before being stranded in her Throne World after her resurrection. She is also responsible for the original death of Nezarec, which she specifically did to ensure the Traveler's survival and the Veil's concealment.
Xanatos Gambit: Her corruption of Riven and the Dreaming City is all part of one massive scheme. If the Guardians leave Riven unattended, the Reef would fall, and likely the City soon after. With Riven's death, Savathûn's wish is granted, and the corruption spreads throughout the City. Leaving it unchecked would be just as bad for the Reef as Riven herself. The only way to stop it is to spend several weeks charging the Blind Well, enter the Shattered Throne, and kill Dûl Incaru. But in doing so, a causal loop is created that resets the entire process. Savathûn has created her theoretical "murder battery" by locking the Guardians in a Vicious Cycle of 'fight, charge, kill, repeat' and given herself an endless source of tithing, and if her daughter completes her goal of finding the Distributary? Even better since that's all she came for!
- In another sense her bargain with Mara is this as well. She offers to give Osiris back in exchange for exorcising her worm. Either the exorcism succeeds and she's freed from her worm, or it fails and humanity loses one of their greatest warlocks forever in addition to missing a chance to extract information from her.
You Are in Command Now: As of Destiny 2, she and Xivu Arath seem to both be wrestling for control of the Taken after Oryx's true death, with numerous agents belonging to either one showing up since then, though a majority seems to be under Savathûn's control. This comes to an end in Beyond Light's Season of the Lost, as the loss of Quria broke her hold over them, returning them back into the hands of the Darkness, though many have been given to Xivu in turn. The Witch Queen reveals that Savathûn never actually intended to replace Oryx, she was more interested in learning how the Darkness could move objects from one dimension to another when Taking, intending to replicate the process, steal the Traveler, and seal it in the High Coven.

Xivu Arath

Xivu Arath, God of War

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/destiny_xivu.png

"This is our obligation as lords of the Hive, to make war upon each other, to eradicate weakness and make ourselves sharp."

Voiced by: Kimberly Brooks

"MY HOME IS WAR. MY VOICE IS A BATTLE SONG. FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAVE WORSHIPED WAR, YOU HAVE WORSHIPED ME. I AM HERE TO CLAIM MY TRIBUTE. IT IS OVERDUE."

The youngest sister of Oryx and Savathûn, Xivu Arath, born as Xi Ro, is the Hive's goddess of war. Driven to constantly test her strength, her broods left Oryx's fleet after the conquest of Harmony because she felt he had become too powerful to accept without challenging.

In Destiny 2, vanguards of Xivu Arath would appear in the Dreaming City concurrently with Taken hordes during the events of Forsaken, hinting at a possible power struggle between her and Savathûn following Oryx's death. The goddess of war becomes the main antagonist of Year Four's Season of the Hunt, summoning Hive Cryptoglyphs across the system to drive several factions on a rampage.

Actress Allusion: This isn't the first time that Kimberly Brooks has provided a voice for "the ultimate warrior" of a race of aliens who, for eons, have invaded other planets and destroyed their native life in the name of a "perfect universe" (and who are now gunning for Earth) with strong Psychopathic Womanchild tendencies and an obsessive and desperate need to vindicate her Might Makes Right mindset.
A Day in the Limelight: Season of the Witch is the first Destiny content to really delve into her personality and motivations.
All for Nothing:
- In one of the memories found in the "Ghosts of the Deep" dungeon, Xivu Arath outright asks whether or not their decision to take up the Sword Logic and side with the Witness was this. After all, the Guardians have killed Oryx and spat on the Sword Logic by not taking his vacant throne, and her own sister spurned the Witness and the Sword Logic in favor of the Light.
Xivu Arath: HOW? HOW CAN THE SPEAR THAT PIERCED A MILLION WORLDS BE KILLED BY THOSE WHO WOULD DENY THE ALL-EDGED TRUTH? (weeps) MOTHER... ARE YOU LAUGHING? SISTER, ARE YOU SMILING? IS THIS THE FATE WORSE THAN EXTINCTION? WAS IT ALL FOR...NOTHING?
- The purpose of the Whetstone was to beef up the Young Wolf for a worthy fight. Eris Morn drains all of her power after its purpose has been thoroughly served, but before she can actually test the Young Wolf in that regard.
Annoying Younger Sibling: Savathûn certainly seems to think so, calling her a spoiled hypocrite while she was lashing out over Oryx's death. Further dialogue from Savathûn seems to indicate that she resents how her sister is so caught up in the Sword Logic that she can consider no alternatives, in spite of making exceptions for her own family.
Antagonist in Mourning: The memories found in the "Ghosts of the Deep" dungeon, particularly the fourth, show that Xivu Arath is very much angry at the Guardians for killing Oryx; she audibly wails when recounting his death.
Antiquated Linguistics: Falls into this occassionally, sprinkling "thine" and "mine" into her dialogue.
Arch-Enemy: Caital considers her this after the razing of Torobatl.
- Sloane herself also comes to see Xivu in this light following her years battling her forces, as revealed in Season of the Deep.
- Eris Morn has also set her sights on Xivu Arath as of Season of the Witch, preparing herself for an inevitable confrontation. For Xivu's part, it becomes clear by Week 2 that she sees Eris as a Worthy Opponent as the one who orchestrated the downfall of her family.
Arc Villain: Directly ascends to this position for Season of the Deep, being the greatest force of evil affecting the story while the Witness remains an unreachable Greater-Scope Villain for the time being. Season of the Witch actively sees her as the biggest threat in Sol, as Immaru refuses to revive Savathûn until Xivu Arath is off the board, and the entire season is spent training to kill her.
Attack Its Weakpoint: Xivu Arath's philosophy is that if you cannot attack an enemy's strengths, you must "infect their weaknesses".
The Baby of the Bunch: Indicated as such by comments from Savathûn, who states that she is used to butting her head against a wall until she gets her way and always has. It certainly fits with her taking the loss of their father and Oryx the worst among them, having been used to looking to her older siblings for wisdom.
BFS: In the early days Xivu Arath used a cleaver against opponents.
Big Brother Worship: Xivu Arath has nothing but glowing praise and affection for Oryx as seen in the memories found in the "Ghosts of the Deep" mission. Xivu Arath sees him as a source of inspiration and guide throughout their lives as Krill and Hive. She loves Oryx so much that she sees little problem with the Lucent Brood reviving Oryx, even though such an act is deemed heretical by the Sword Logic.
Brought Down to Normal: Insomuch that a Hive God with eons of experience and power obtained from never-ending war could possibly be reduced to "normal", but the climax of Season of the Witch sees her cut off from her Throne World permanently, rendering her mortal and vulnerable to an offense from the Last City.
Call-Back: In one of the memories found in "Ghosts of the Deep", Xivu Arath experiences emotions she's never felt or forgotten she had as she laments her brother's passing and the pain it's brought her. The lore tab of Hawkmoon, which is written from Savathûn's perspective as she watches the budding, if uncertain friendship between the Young Wolf and Crow, sees the Witch Queen experiencing something similar due to inhabiting Osiris' body during the events of Beyond Light and its encompassing seasons.
"WHAT IS THIS FEELING? I DO NOT WANT IT!"
Challenge Seeker: She is driven to constantly test her strength against others as part of her contract with her worm.
Combat Sadomasochist: In the "Barotrauma" mission in Season Of The Deep, whenever you cleanse the corrupted Egregore coral being used to try to Take Ahsa, Xivu briefly grunts in pain before chuckling fondly at the Guardian's defiance.
The Corruptor: Starting with Season of the Hunt, we learn that Xivu Arath is capable of corrupting other races into worshipping her, turning them into savage warriors called Wrathborn, through Hive growths/artifacts called Crytopliths. In Season of the Chosen, it goes further. The Cabal Evocate-General Umun'Arath fell into worshipping her, through the manipulations of Savathûn, which ultimately led to Umun's death at Caiatl's hand, which served as a sacrifice and means to open a portal for Xivu Arath straight to Torobatl, the Cabal capital world.
Creative Sterility: As you chase down the High Celebrant through the Dreaming City midway through the Season of the Hunt, Osiris notes that Xivu Arath is merely pushing through the cracks in the Dreaming City that her sister Savathûn had left back in Forsaken, lampshading that the Hive God of War must be lacking in ambitions of her own. This gets funnier when you realize that Savathûn herself is the one pointing this out.
Crisis of Faith: Has been having an extended one ever since Oryx died, struggling to reconcile her grief with the Hive dogma that the dead didn't deserve to exist.
Demonic Possession: Does this to Sloane in the climax of Season of the Deep in a last-ditch attempt to thwart her connection to Ahsa.
The Dragon: Season of the Lost sees her ascend to this position, directly hunting Savathûn on the behest of the Witness and gaining control over not only the Taken, but the Scorn as well.
The Dreaded: A given, being the Hive God of War, but taken further by Savathûn, who will not revive until Xivu is taken off the board. The implication seems to be that Savathûn doesn't like her chances in taking on her sister in a fair fight or what such a confrontation would lead to.
Dumb Muscle: Downplayed. While her tactical smarts are mentioned by the Books of Sorrow to be fairly impressive, Xivu Arath is consistently shown to be simpler, easier to fool and generally less intelligent than her siblings. Even the Worm Gods talk down to her and many a Hive battle has boiled down to Xivu Arath ramming her immortal, superpowered head into a wall until Oryx and Savathûn come up with a better solution. Still, Shadowkeep lore warns not to underestimate her: she might not have her siblings’ subtlety, but that just means absolutely nothing can stop her ramming that wall and between her and the wall, the wall will give up first. She is stated to be a master of siege warfare and an expert strategist. In essence, if compared to her siblings— one who worked out how to commune with the Darkness and master the power to Take, and the actual god of cunning and trickery— Xivu Arath does come out looking stupid, but this by no means should be taken to mean that she is stupid. Season of the Seraph reveals exactly just how believing that she is this trope alone is a gross mistake to make, as she manages to nearly make her enemies nearly destroy themselves by being unknowing pawns of her ritual through bloodshed that would open the Ascendant Realm and literally Take the entire Earth before they realized what she was trying to accomplish.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Xivu Arath legitimately cannot or simply refuses to understand why the Guardians not only don't adhere to the Sword Logic, but also actively reject it. In the fourth memory found in "Ghosts of the Deep", she asks why the Guardians refuse to succeed Oryx as the Taken King, sounding confused and almost hysterical at what she calls "blasphemy". Season of the Witch, in which Guardians do utilize the sword logic, sees her overjoyed that everything makes sense again, unable to comprehend that the people involved are using it solely as a means to an end and brushing off everyone who says as much.
Evil Is Visceral: The Sororicide lore book describes her throne world as being made of living flesh and viscera, playing into her truly fanatical belief in the sword logic and how it promotes eternal life.
The Ghost: Plays a prominent role in the Hive's origins, but didn’t make a physical appearance in the main game until The Witch Queen, which was even then a flashback/visualization of her earliest days and so might not still be accurate. Her presence and actions are still felt, however, as she serves as a Greater-Scope Villain for Beyond Light.
Greater-Scope Villain:
- Of the seasons comprising Beyond Light.
  - In Season of the Hunt after Savathûn's failed attempts to interfere with the Darkness' message to the Guardians, the Darkness has declared Savathûn an enemy, and most of the Hive sided with their Top God. Savathûn went into hiding and Xivu Arath now intends to fill the Evil Power Vacuum left by Oryx's death and Savathûn's failure, sending her High Celebrant to raise the Wrathborn, an army of brainwashed warriors which will slaughter everyone in the Solar system in Xivu Arath's name.
  - In Season of the Chosen, we learn she has also destroyed Torobatl, the Cabal homeworld, driving Empress Caiatl to move to the Sol System to galvanize her forces and find a new path to victory.
  - In Season of the Lost, Xivu Arath is hunting Savathûn at the behest of the Darkness, using not only the remaining Wrathborn in the system to kill her sister, but has been given command of the Taken and the Scorn, as well as giving those two races access to Stasis, though the Ascendant knight Kelgorath serves as the leader of Xivu Arath's hordes.
- In Season of the Seraph, she is once again sending her Wrathborn on the warpath, attacking Rasputin's sub-mind bunkers to gain control of the Warsats, so as to use them against the Solar System. And even if her forces fail to acquire them, if the Guardians were to use the Warsats against her forces, the resulting deaths would be enough to fuel her ritual and summon her to Earth and to do to it what she did to Torobatl.
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: What her goal in Season of the Seraph amounts to: no matter who controls Rasputin's Warsats, so long as they are used to inflict massive amounts of death in her war, she will be able to destroy the solar system, either with the Warsats themselves or by being summoned and destroying it herself.
The Heavy: Following the end of Lightfall and the Witness' departure from Sol, Xivu Arath becomes the most present driving force of evil in the setting. Season of the Deep in particular focuses on Xivu Arath's attempts to sever Sloane's connection to Ahsa before she can reveal critical information about the Witness' plans. Season of the Witch sees the end of this now that she has been made mortal by Eris' ritual.
Heroic Sacrifice: When the Worms' appetites began to outgrow the Hive's capacity to feed it, Oryx realized he could gain the power from the Worm God Akka, but needed more strength than he possessed. Xivu Arath immediately volunteered to let Oryx cut off her head so that Oryx could gain her power to face Akka. Unlike Savathûn's example above, this was a genuine sacrifice.
Hidden Depths:
- In Season of the Seraph, it is indicated that Xivu Arath, for all her fanaticism and wrath, may actually be deeply unhappy with her position in the Black Fleet. She is aware that she could never break free of the Witness's influence the way her sister did, and the fact that she has not been named a Disciple yet, indicates that while she may torment Eramis, her own standing with the Witness is little better.
- The "Ghosts of the Deep" dungeon shows Xivu Arath lamenting over her brother's death, expressing her love for him and the doubts that his death brings her. Despite being one of the most zealous followers of the Sword Logic seen among the Hive, she shows little to no scorn or anger at the thought of resurrecting him^note, even accepting the possibility of dying at an enraged Oryx's hands if it meant she could have her brother back. It's worth noting that the only Hive enemies you face throughout the dungeon are Lucent Brood and regular Hive forces, implying Xivu Arath either chose not to interfere with the ritual or helped to aid it.
I Am the Noun: In the Disparity lore tab, when Xivu Arath's Wrathborn begin their siege of Bray Exoscience, Clovis Bray I activates his defenses and demands to know who approaches. Xivu's response is straightforward. "I AM WAR."
I Just Want to Be Badass: As a child, she wanted to take the Knight morph which would allow her to become a warrior. She more than got her wish after becoming the Hive's god of war.
Incoming Ham: She announces her presence in the solar system with all the restraint and quiet someone who writes in all caps and is very deeply angry at the Guardians one would expect:
I AM THE MOUNTAIN UPON WHICH ALL SWORDS SHATTER!! HONE YOUR EDGE AGAINST ME!!!!
Inconsistent Dub: The way characters can pronounce "Arath" varies, and it's never made clear which is the right way to say it. Some pronounce it "a-RATH", and others say it as "a-ROTH". Character accents tend to play a part in this, though likewise this has bled out into the real world as Bungie employees tend to have their own ways of pronouncing Xivu Arath's name.
I Need You Stronger: Unsatisfied with her victories through Years 5 and 6 and seemingly unfazed by the Witness informing her of impending Villain Decay, Xivu Arath sets up the Whetstone during Season of the Deep, a trial by combat in a terraformed part of the New Pacific Arcology to try and strengthen the Young Wolf in hopes of a more challenging fight. Completing it rewards Wicked Implement, a Stasis scout rifle that can harvest Stasis shards without needing to directly tap into the element itself.
Lonely at the Top: Xivu Arath has accomplished what the Sword Logic has asked of her from the beginning: she is the last of her siblings, just about the most powerful being left in the universe sans the Witness, and is set to be present for the fabled Final Shape and the end of everything. However, dialogue from her skirmish with Mara Sov seems to indicate that her thoughts mostly rest on how much she misses her siblings.
Love Goddess: Being the Hive's god of war means she's also the Hive's god of (platonic) love, showing mainly in how dearly she holds her siblings.
No Indoor Voice: All of her written dialogue has been written in all caps and is implied to be shouted at the top of her voice. When we finally hear her in Season of the Deep, Xivu Arath's dialogue is spoken in ferocious growls and screams of bloodlust, even when she would otherwise be speaking more mellow words.
Not So Invincible After All: Although she manages to enter Sol by the end of Season of the Deep, the Witness tells her in no uncertain terms, that despite previous indications, the Guardians are in fact gaining ground against her. Her response to this is the Whetstone, to try and make the Young Wolf even stronger. Only time will tell if this is a suitable measure. As of the end of Season of the Witch, Xivu has been rendered mortal, thanks to Eris Morn banishing her from her own throne world.
Pet the Dog: The most emotional and (traditionally) loving of the three Hive gods. She took Taox's betrayal the hardest, she willingly sacrificed herself so Oryx could speak to the Deep, and in Season of the Lost Savathûn claimed that part of the reason Xivu Arath was hunting her down so fanatically was that she didn't want to lose her only other sibling. Book XXXV of the Books of Sorrow is made up entirely of Xivu Arath's praises of Oryx. In Ghosts of the Deep, her reaction to Oryx's death is heard: she's not only enraged, but also in tears.
Psychopathic Womanchild: She's been referred to as "childish" more than once, with Savathûn calling her one outright in regard to how she's handling Oryx's death in an audio record during Season Of The Witch, and in that same season, Eris notes that Xivu's fanatical and desperate adherence to the Sword Logic comes from a childlike desire for a world "[..] without grief, or pity, or doubt".
Shout-Out: The Grimoire Anthology, volume V, features an illustration of Xivu Arath's immense presence overshadowing Torobatl in a manner reminiscent of Mephisto's giant form looming over Faust's town in the 1926 silent movie Faust.
Static Character: Invoked by Savathûn, who states that Xivu Arath is a slave to her nature as God of War, being unable to adapt like Oryx or Savathûn and instead being stuck in the Sword Logic and remaining a slave to the Witness.
The Stoic: Inverted. There is no subtlety to Xivu Arath's emotions — she feels them as titanic things. The memories recoverable in Ghosts of the Deep show her swinging between extremes of rage, despair, and devotion, as emphasized by her No Indoor Voice.
Story-Breaker Power: For someone who's compared unfavourably to her siblings, Xivu Arath really pulls her weight in the overall story by way of her seemingly absolute dominion over the concept of war. Literally the only way to hold her at bay is through a stalemate, but even that wouldn't hold long against her forces.
The Strategist: The Books of Sorrow note that she's just as good a strategist as she is a warrior, using both against the Hive's enemies. Lore from Shadowkeep indicates that her armies are better organized and disciplined than her siblings’.
Super Prototype: She's the first modern Hive Knight, and much, much more powerful than the other Knights.
Unskilled, but Strong: In polar opposite evaluation of Sathona, their tutor, Taox, felt that Xi Ro would make a great warrior, but would be a terrible leader, thus being unfit to assume the Osmium Throne.
Vertical Mecha Fins: The first clearish look we have of her, in The Witch Queen's opening cinematic, Xivu has a pair of these growing from her head.
Villain Decay: While not subject to it yet, the Witness informs her at the end of Season of the Deep that this is in store for her if she keeps letting the Guardians do as they please despite being able to gain tribute from war.
- Season of the Witch sees Eris Morn using tithes gained from the Guardian and Savathun to ascend to the most powerful Hive ever seen, allowing her to cut off Xivu from her Throne World entirely. Following this, it is said that Xivu is now mortal and vulnerable, crippled and unable to serve the Witness further.
Villainous Breakdown: Undergoes one as heard in the fourth memory of "Ghosts of the Deep". Initially sounding very angry for the Guardians for killing Oryx, her rant grows more grief-filled and histerical at the Guardians' perceived "blasphemy". Towards the end of the memory, she's on the verge of tears and bitterly questions if all they've done was for nothing.
"IS THIS THE FATE WORSE THAN EXTINCTION?"
- As revealed in Week 2 of Season of the Witch, she has been in this state since Oryx's death, doubling down on the Sword Logic in a way that Savathûn frankly finds quite disturbing. Her dogmatitism goes so deep that she honestly cannot conceive of the Guardians or Eris not using the Sword Logic to take Oryx's place.
The Voiceless: While active in the plot since Season of the Hunt, Xivu Arath's dialogue always lacked voicelines, and was presented as gameplay notification messages rather than subtitles, showing that her influence is still distant. Eventually, she loses this status in Season of the Deep as she gains a voice - which also means that she is now close enough to be heard.
War God: Explicitly referred to as the Hive's "god of war", despite still being female. Her tribute makes her very dangerous, given she can spread her influence wherever there is war. Even the act of resisting her or fighting against her empowers her.
Winged Humanoid: If the art of her over Torobatl is any indication, she seems to have wings like her siblings, but more like a cloak as opposed to Savathûn's moth wings and Oryx's bat wings.
Worthy Opponent: An Exotic Mission in Season of the Deep has her acknowledge the Guardians as one despite her fury toward them for killing Oryx, though she's nonetheless eager for the day when they clash blows with one another. Likewise, Season of the Witch reveals that she considers Eris Morn to be Oryx's heir and a sort of honorary Hive due to her role in masterminding his death.
You Are in Command Now: Xivu Arath and Savathûn seem to be in a power play with each other trying to claim Oryx's Taken for themselves, with Hive and Taken of Savathûn appearing on Titan and Io, while Taken and Hive of Xivu Arath have started appearing in the Dreaming City. With Savathûn's excommunication from the Hive and the subsequent loss of Quria resulting in losing control over the Taken, the Witness returns to having complete dominion over them, but lends Xivu Arath a part of its horde in order to hunt down her sister.
Your Soul Is Mine!: The Witness uses Xivu Arath's Wrathborn to punish Eramis over the events of Season of Plunder in this manner, sucking out the minds of hundreds if not thousands of her followers through Cryptoliths. The implication, of course, is that she wouldn't be such a failure if she didn't have a brain.

Crota

Crota, Son of Oryx

"I'll cut them apart."

"He waits in the dark below."

The ancient warlord of the Hive's invasion of the solar system, a Prince sired by Oryx. In the past, he conquered the Moon and held it against a massive Guardian counterattack, killing hundreds alone in a single battle. A fireteam lead by Eriana-3 managed to assassinate him, but the Hive managed to capture his soul, and there are rumors that he's about to make a comeback.

Arc Villain: He's the primary antagonist of The Dark Below, with his underlings mobilizing for his resurrection. Notably, he isn't personally directing the events of the story, and he only appears in the "Crota's End" raid, but everything is being done in his name.
Authority Equals Asskicking: The Hive's leader in our solar system and easily its most dangerous warrior.
Back from the Dead: Subverted. He's not revived in the traditional sense, as the Crota the Young Wolf encounters in Shadowkeep is a Nightmare based on their encounter with him.
Butt-Monkey: Post-resurrection, he's been notably less intimidating. Humiliations suffered include having his resurrection stopped midway through, getting killed in his personal universe (where he's supposed to be at his most powerful), having a chunk of his soul stolen posthumously, and having the one weapon in the family that got him teased by his sisters fall into the hands of a Guardian. Permanently. And that's not even getting into all the goofy ways players have discovered he can be beaten...
Cool Sword: His signature weapon was the Sword of Crota, which is infamous enough that the player goes on a mission specifically to destroy it. It consumes the Light of those it kills, and considering Guardians are powered by Light... When you fight Crota himself he uses another sword but to the same deadly efficiency. When he swings it, it often means dying in one hit regardless of class, equipment, or ability.
Death Cry Echo: Did you hear that last satisfying wail as Crota disintegrated? Unfortunately for you and the rest of the solar system his father Oryx heard it too, and Oryx is answering that cry with a vengeance.
The Dragon: While he's the primary antagonist of The Dark Below, in the grand scheme of things Crota was merely Oryx's most powerful servant and heir apparent.
The Dreaded: As the warlord responsible for slaughtering thousands of Guardians, he is rightly feared in the Tower.
Ikora Rey: We abandoned the Moon rather than face him.
Dumbass Teenage Son: Amusingly, the Books of Sorrow suggest he was something like this by his family's standards. He can't easily understand his sisters' technobabble, infested his father's throne room with Vex while screwing around with their stuff, and finally got comically outwitted by the Vex, who just used their teleportation to pop a few feet away whenever he tried to swing his sword at them.
- Even after their troubles with the Vex cleared up, Crota still got some flak from his sisters for not using one of the Hive's many advanced superweapons and sticking to a simple sword instead. Since the only reference to this information is a personal account by the Deathsingers themselves, it doesn't look like he was really aware of this, either.
Energy Being: His true form appears to be as much solid bone as it is transparent greenish energy. His appearance as a Nightmare in Shadowkeep, however, is much more solidly built and akin to his impersonator Thalnok, suggesting that it's how he looked before his first defeat at the hands of Eris' fireteam.
Evil Overlord: Rules an monstrous underground fortress carved out beneath a lifeless, uninhabitable plain with an army of pseudo-undead and creepy wizards at his command, with ambitions to wipe out humanity in the service of an evil god. Really, he's the straightest example in Destiny. The Dark Below reveals that not only does he rule the Hellmouth, he's also got a personal pocket universe to call home. The similarity between his dimension and the Vex's own pocket dimensions has been noted by Ikora Rey.
Fighting a Shadow: Deliberately invoked in the Grimoire Card for Crota's End by Eriana-3, where she says that Toland describes his presence on the Moon was such. His actual self resides in Another Dimension, which is the setpiece for Crota's End.
God-Emperor: More like a God-Prince. While Oryx is the God-King of the Hive, Crota is described as the "heir to the Osmium Throne" and rules the Hive on the Moon in Oryx's name. In the House of Wolves, Petra Venj refers to Crota as a "Hive prince" in the video that plays when the player enters the Reef for the first time.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Killing Crota requires hitting him with a special weapon called the Ascendant Blade, which is a Hive weapon.
Humiliation Conga: Crota has had it rough ever since he returned. Almost all of his major forces have been destroyed/scattered and he gets killed in his own dimension by a Hive weapon (and that's not counting all the ridiculous ways players have found to beat him), but worst of all is that he can't even die in peace since the Guardians sneak into his funeral and steal part of his soul.
I Am X, Son of Y: Crota, Son of Oryx. Not that Crota ever says that himself. Ikora Rey notes that the translation is somewhat disputed among Warlocks. Although that doesn't stop it from actually being literal, since Oryx goes out of his way to call Crota his son.
"Instant Death" Radius: If Crota is standing and you are a few feet away from him; be prepared to eat a sword attack that kills you instantly. The main gimmick of his fight is to temporarily stop him from having one.
Killed Off for Real: Crota appears and perishes during the same raid of The Dark Below, "Crota's End". The third expansion focuses on Oryx, the Taken King, who is out for revenge against the Guardians who killed Crota two expansions earlier.
King Mook: Not for nothing do they call him the God-Knight. He's a super-Knight and nearly two stories tall.
Logical Weakness: While he has ranged attacks, they're far less powerful than his melee abilities, meaning he's really only a serious threat to those stupid enough to engage him head-on. The Vex realize this during the war in the Ascendant Realm, and stymie his efforts to come to grips with them by blinking away any time he tried to close the distance.
Magic Knight: Despite not being as skilled as his sisters Crota does have access to magic. Crota much like his father uses a magic bullet attack that while it doesn't kill immediately it does drain health extremely fast. Crota is also able to use his Oversoul to decimate a party if he senses that a Guardian has died.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: According to the Books of Sorrow, his name is Hive for "Hope Eater"
One-Man Army: He singlehandedly "butchered the greatest army of Guardians ever assembled." When you go down into the Hive's temples to retrieve the Sword of Crota, your Ghost is able to track its location solely by the Light of the thousands of Guardians who were slain by it in Crota's hands.
Red Baron: The Son of Oryx, the Monster of Luna, the God-Knight, the Eater of Hope.
Stealthy Colossus: No, seriously. It's not fair that something that large can move so silently.
Takes One to Kill One: He can only be damaged with an Ascendant Sword.
The Voiceless: He can speak, but when the Young Wolf encounters him, he chooses not to.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It turns out that Crota was the one who woke the Vex up to the Darkness and the Hive gods, and only after studying them did the Vex decide worship was the ideal means to gain power from such entities.

Ir Anûk and Ir Halak

Ir Anûk, the Weaver and Ir Halak, the Unraveler

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ir_ank_deathsinger.jpg

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ir_halak_deathsinger.jpg

"I made you by cutting one larvae in half. It would not die. Each half grew into one of you. My sword is named Willbreaker, but it never broke you."

—Oryx

The twin daughters of Oryx and younger sisters of Crota, Ir Anûk and Ir Halak were the first Deathsingers. They were born out a larva that Oryx cut in half but did not die. They are encountered as bosses in the raid King's Fall, directly preceding the encounter with the Taken King Himself.

Black Speech: When fighting the Deathsingers they begin to utter a guttural howling sound; this is their song and the means of which they kill.
Brown Note: As Deathsingers, their primary attacks during the Raid are Deathsongs, with Ir Anûk singing the "Hymn of Weaving", and Ir Halak singing the "Dirge of Unraveling". The Book of Sorrows also mentions an incident when Ir Halak visited her aunt Xivu Arath's court and sung one of her songs. At their next meeting Xivu Arath complained to Oryx that all the members of her court who heard it died permanently.
Dual Boss: They are fought together as part of the King's Fall raid.
Early-Bird Cameo: The sisters first appear during the story mission "Last Rites", where they lead the other Deathsingers during Crota's funeral.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Like all of Oryx's family, they truly love their father, brother, and aunts. The player first sees them at their funeral for Crota, which the twins and Oryx become quite pissed at the Guardian for interrupting to steal a bit of Crota's soul, especially since they were the ones who killed Crota in the first place.
Evil Genius: They are both quite brilliant, which is to be expected of daughters of Oryx. Ir Anûk is noted to be particularly smart in the Book of Sorrows, with Savathûn being both proud and jealous of her niece's brilliance. She is also mentioned to have written eleven axioms describing the ascendant places where the Hive gods live, and is planning on killing one of those axioms so that she too can become a god.
Evil Laugh: During the Deathsinger boss battle they will occasionally laugh as they are completing their song.
Evil Weapon: Apparently, the Black Spindle wasn't just the final form of the infamous bone-encrusted, ammo-filled Year 1 sniper. It was something that Anûk and Halak used, which had the ability to tamper with the existence of its targets, and never killed; instead they "wove" alternate existences of endless torture and subjected their targets to them. Ouch. They even chastise Crota for using nothing more than the brute force of a sword when the Hive have more advanced and terrifying superweapons on them.
Floating Platforms: Their main gimmick is the fact that a Guardian needs to jump on platforms in a certain order to get a buff. This buff is required to steal the bosses' aura which takes away their invincibility and gives it to the raid team. Without the buff the Deathsingers are invincible and will eventually complete their song instantly killing the raid team, the invincibility is required to survive their song since even if one is killed the other will still complete the song.
King Mook: They're extra large Wizards.
Super Prototype: They were the first Deathsingers, and apparently much more powerful than Ir Yût.
Technobabble: In the Books of Sorrow Grimoire cards, the sisters explain how they came up with the Deathsongs with increasingly technical terminology. Oryx eventually gets annoyed, brandishes Willbreaker, and tells them to "speak in the Royal Tongue" so that he can understand them.
Ir Halak and Ir Anûk: We propose a method by which Ascendant souls can be detached and integrated into a tautological and autonomous thanatosphere, which we tentatively term an oversoul. Oversouls can be stored in a throne world as a mechanism of enhanced death resilience. As a side effect, new refinements to our Deathsong may be achieved, moving us closer to a generally effective paracausal death impulse.
Oryx: (brandishes his sword) Speak the Royal Tongue, or I'll pin you up for Eir to eat.
Ir Halak and Ir Anûk: If we can separate our deaths from ourselves, and hide them, we will be hard to kill.
This Is Gonna Suck: After battling the Vex that Crota accidently let onto Oryx's throneworld for over a hundred years and not making any progress, Ir Halak realizes that their dad is not going be very happy with them once he returns.
Ir Halak: (sighing) Father's going to eat our souls.
Timed Boss: Like Ir Yut before them the raid team has little time to gather what's necessary to damage and kill both Deathsingers. If the team fails to do what's necessary then they will automatically wipe.
Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: As children they began experimenting on how to avoid dying... by killing themselves. As many times as they could. Oryx found this "adorably precocious".

Nokris

Nokris, Herald of Xol Supplicant to Savathûn

“Hear me, o dreadful worm. We will raise an army."

"The ageless volumes and apocrypha, all consumed voraciously, feeding the mind of the lesser. Driven by a different kind of Sword Logic, he let the stories of the world fill the void just as the worm feeds."

A Hive God noted in a scan by Ghost outside of Oryx's chambers, standing across from Crota. While Ghost can read his name, he cannot recall any mention of this particular god in Hive lore. In Destiny 2, he finally makes his debut in Warmind as the High Priest of a cult that worships Xol, Will of the Thousands.

Aliens Speaking English: He returns as a disembodied voice in Season of Arrivals, popping in his aunt Savathûn's court once to say one line of various dialogue lines, just as quickly disappearing.
The Bus Came Back: After a couple years of his fate being left up in the air after physically dying in Warmind, Nokris returns as a disembodied voice in Season of Arrivals.
The Dragon: Nokris serves this role for Xol, Will of the Thousands, and is the second to last boss fought right before battling Xol itself.
- As of Season of Arrivals, he's the Dragon again, but this time it's to his aunt, Savathûn, exchanging his knowledge of Necromancy for knowledge that she has gleaned and a place in her Court. He's behind the "Interference" in the communications between the Darkness and the Guardian.
Degraded Boss: The Deceived Likeness of Nokris is a Taken Primeval that shares Nokris' physical model and attack animations, with the difference in that it only appears in Gambit Prime and Tier 1 Reckoning as one of the potential bosses. Instead of summoning Hive underlings, it spawns multiple Warbeast shadows similar to how Taken Wizards summon Thrall shades.
Evil Genius: Compared with Crota, who was a mighty warrior, Nokris was far weaker physically, but had a vastly sharper mind, which he turned to learning the mysteries of the Hive and seeking out power that only Oryx was privy to.
Evil Sounds Raspy: His voice in Season of Arrivals is noticeably raspy, making his chiding of the player Guardian quite sinister.
Final Boss: Serves as this for the "Interference" story of the Season of Arrivals.
The Ghost: There was virtually no information known about who or what Nokris was before the events of Warmind. There isn't even a mention of him in the World's Grave, only oblique references to Oryx possibly having more than one son in the Books of Sorrow, where it is said that Crota was not the first direct child that Oryx spawned. Asher Mir notes this when telling Eris that there are absolutely no mentions of Nokris within the Tower Archives.
The Heretic: Nokris' crime against the Hive was twofold: First for gaining and practising the art of Resurrection, something which goes against the concept of the Sword Logic. The Ascendant Hive just hide their deaths in their Throne Worlds so they don't die for real, while Nokris would bring back that which truly died with Necromancy. The second was for making a pact with a Worm God, something only Oryx had done and was given instead of taken. The Hive believe you should take what you need to survive and prove your strength, while being given anything will always weaken what's given, such as the Worms and their hunger. For Nokris to ask a Worm God for power and knowledge instead of simply killing it and taking it, like his father did, he committed sacrilege. For these crimes he was branded a heretic and cast out. Ironically, this heresy gave Nokris the freedom to act outside of the will of the Hive, letting him make his own mark on the universe.
High Priest: He serves as the Priest of Xol to his followers.
Jock Dad, Nerd Son: The relationship between Oryx and Nokris was the Hive equivalent of this, with Oryx being the jock (i.e. a great warrior) and Nokris being the nerd (a scholar).
Killed Off for Real: The final stage of the Interference missions culminates in a final battle with him in the Ascendant Plane. As Ghost puts it, "he's not coming back from that".
King Mook: He's basically a super-Wizard. This also makes him the only known male Wizard, or possibly a new morph like how Crota was a super-knight called a "Prince".
Manipulative Bastard: According to him and his aunt, the Darkness might actually get along pretty well with the Guardians, and neither side knows that yet. He's spent some time since his initial defeat stringing them along into continued conflict, trying to make sure it stays that way.
Necromancer: Nokris specialized in the manipulation and reversing of death, which was especially abhorrent among the Hive, because doing so violates the Sword Logic by bringing back that which was too weak to survive. It's one thing to shift and hide one's mortality and avert death, but once something has been slain, its place in the universe has been established and reversing that is deeply wrong.
The Omniscient: What he sought to become, reasoning that in lieu of power through strength (which he lacked), he would gain it through knowledge, as Knowledge is Power. This idea helped him devise an new, different Sword Logic to feed his worm with by learning all the secrets and wisdom of the universe as a proof of power instead of having to kill everything; instead of being the strongest, he would be the smartest.
Sorting Algorithm of Deadness: 3. The Guardian does kill him, but Hive Gods such as Nokris usually just go back to their Ascendant Realm for a breather, and in any case Nokris was cast out for playing around with resurrection. On the other hand, Nokris was banished by Oryx, both physically and quite possibly from the Ascendant Realm as well. Season of Arrivals confirms he did manage to survive his defeat, but as of writing it's left unclear if he's unscathed or worse for wear, only appearing as a disembodied voice in Savathûn's court.
Strong Family Resemblance: He looks exactly like Oryx without the wings.
Un-person: He was excommunicated by Oryx and had their name completely erased from the World's Grave, making it seem like he never existed.
Nokris was cast out, his name removed from the World's Grave, the Books of Sorrow. In the king's rage, all memory of the unfavored son was obscured, all but one statue, defiant in its permanence.

The Disciples of Crota

Omnigul

Omnigul, the Will of Crota

"It has been told that with these screams another spawn is awakened, birthed in the name of the god it holds."

—Toland, the Shattered

The bride of Crota and his chief servant, a Wizard working to gather an army of Hive in preparation for her master's revival.

Back from the Dead: In her revamped strike introduced in The Dawning update, she comes back to life due to being an Ascendant Hive. As long as her Oversoul is intact, she will continue to return.
Chekhov's Gunman: At the start of "The Fist of Crota" mission, you come across her and several of her spawn as they engage the Fallen in battle, though she is not your objective and can be easily skipped over. Come the next mission, and she's directly interfering with Rasputin, requiring you to intercept her.
Co-Dragons: To Crota, a role she split with Sardon. Omnigul is responsible for spawning Crota's army, and Sardon leads that spawn into battle. Omnigul is considered the more important of the two, however, as she is responsible for paving the way for Crota's return (and thus, the bigger threat).
Enemy Summoner: From groups of Thrall up to a giant Ogre called the Might of Crota.
Evil Laugh: Every time she teleports away, it's punctuated by a high-pitched cackle that rubs in your face.
Evil Sorceror: Repeatedly billed by Eris as clever, Omnigul lays most of the groundwork in preparation for Crota's awakening and is even more powerful than any of the Wizards encountered.
Flunky Boss: Good mother of Crota! Her strike is one of the most hated due to the nature of her boss battle: it takes place in an incredibly small room (compared to the large areas of the other strikes' bosses), and she not only has a number of Boomer-wielding Knights that spawn around the room, but she'll summon a posse of Wizards to fight alongside her multiple times as her health goes down. Throw Arc Burn^note into the mix, and trying to leave the hallway leading to this room is a death sentence.
The Heavy: Spends all of her time in The Dark Below ushering in Crota's return and attempting to eliminate threats like Rasputin, though this doesn't make her the expansion's main villain.
Horned Humanoid: Unlike other wizards, she has horns growing out of head.
King Mook: A super-Wizard, with the primary difference being that she has an Arc shield rather than a Solar one.
Large and in Charge: As the bride of Crota, she's one of the most senior Wizards in the solar system, and much larger than her sisters.
Our Banshees Are Louder: Screams constantly in contrast to the lesser Wizards' death wail, and usually summons reinforcements with a very high-pitched shriek.
Unholy Matrimony: She's the mother of Crota's spawn, and is entirely devoted to him, though it's unlikely that it's because of anything as human and benign as romantic love.
Villain Teleportation: Given enough damage on anything but the final stretch of her Strike mission, Omnigul will warp away to safety in a cloud of black smoke, often leaving hordes of Hive behind for Guardians to deal with.

Hashladûn

Hashladûn, Daughter of Crota

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hashladun_d2.png

The eldest of Crota and Omnigul's four wizard daughters and new leader of the Hidden Swarm. She is responsible for the construction of the Scarlet Keep on the Moon and resides atop the Tower of Woe. She is the boss and target of the Scarlet Keep strike.

Came Back Strong: When she was young, her Father, Crota, had her go through an ancient Trial, an inundation, to remove all but her greatest strengths from her. She was trapped in "a space between worlds" and impaled in six places, and left to die as she was overwhelmed with five different tortures; bloodied hydrogen, fire, light^note, one which is "secret", and words. She broke the impalements and, in immense pain with burnt flesh and cracked skin, crawled her way back to Crota's Throne World, where he congratulated her for now only having parts of Oryx, which are considered the best parts. Then He promptly kicked her out of his Court.
Disc-One Final Boss: Hashladûn is responsible for reactivating the Pyramid and summoning the Nightmares in an attempt to resurrect Oryx without breaking the sword-logic, thus making her responsible for the events of Shadowkeep. But instead of making her the expansion's Arc Villain, she's killed off fairly early in the campaign which causes the intelligence inside the Pyramid to take the role of Arc Villain of Shadowkeep.
- Her death essentially ends the role and agency of the Hive in the plot. After her mission, they become little more than an obstacle while the real enemy are the Nightmares.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She wishes to kill the Young Wolf to avenge her father, mother, and grandfather's deaths at their hands.
Evil Sorceror: What else do you expect from the daughter of Omnigul? It was Hashladûn's experiments that resulted in the reawakening of the Pyramid below the moon's surface. Other lore entries indicate that the Nightmares are experiments in attempting to call Oryx's essence back to his throne world, allowing the Taken King to resume his reign as God-King of the Hive (and secure Hashladûn's dynastic claims) even if it means violating the Sword-Logic with outright necromancy like Nokris.
The Heretic: Discussed. She and her sisters conspired with the Hidden Swarm of the Moon to use the Nightmares to resurrect Oryx, even if it meant violating the Sword Logic. However, they raise the counterpoint that Oryx brought back Savathûn and Xivu Arath from death by embodying War and Cunning, and so they declare to test Oryx's Will about forbidding Necromancy with the Will of their entire Swarm in attempt to bring their ruler back to the Hive. If Hashladûn succeeds and brings Oryx's back, he may cut them down, but at least Oryx is back and thus her Dynasty is secured and the Hive ruled. If she fails, then not only will what the Swarm have been doing not be heretical since they weren't killed, but they would have proven that their collective Will is stronger than Oryx's and that they don't need him.
King Mook: She's a super-wizard like her mother, but about the same size as her father was in the Ascendant realm.
Remember the New Guy?: No daughters of Crota were mentioned prior to Shadowkeep. Mostly justified in that Crota is noted to have tons of children via Omnigul and likely other wizards. Although one as noteworthy as Hashladûn probably should've come up in the past.
Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Eris states that Hashladûn was reported dead shortly after Crota's defeat, but she is alive and well come Shadowkeep.
Stronger Than They Look: Lore entries indicate that she was this as soon as she was born. She apparently was fighting Knights when she was just a Thrall! And when her Father had her go through a trial to remove all but her greatest strengths, she fought a hundred Thralls, ten Knights, and a Ogre by herself to avoid capture... and won. Crota had to come down personally to capture her, though He was touched by her effort.
You Killed My Father: Along with her mother and her grandfather. Needless to say, she wants revenge on the Young Wolf for wiping out her lineage.

Zulmak

Zulmak, Instrument of Torment

A champion of the Hidden Swarm, Zulmak cut through many contenders within the pit on the Moon in a bid to claim the mantle of new God-King of the Hive following the demise of Oryx and Crota. However, he was felled by the foul heresy of Akrazul and his sisters, but was saved from death by the manipulations of Savathûn and given to the Daughters of Crota for experimentation. Reborn in heretical rituals deep beneath the lunar surface, Zulmak is hunted by the Guardians to prevent his rise as a new instrument of death for the Hive.

Asskicking Leads to Leadership: By virture of the Sword Logic, Zulmak grew insanely powerful in the pit by killing hundreds of other Hive champions in his efforts to claim Oryx's throne.
Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The guy looks charred and bristling with flames from every nook and cranny from his body, so it makes sense that all of his attacks, from energy blasts to sword swings, are Solar in nature.
Came Back Wrong: Whatever experiments and rituals were conducted upon him by the Daughters of Crota have left Zulmak heavily altered from typical Hive knights and covered in flames.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Rises from a simple knight of the Hidden Swarm to a legitimate contender for leadership of the Hive. And that was before he was experimented upon by the Daughters of Crota.
Inadequate Inheritor: Despite his victories in the pit, the Daughters of Crota despaired at the thought of Zulmak becoming the new God-King of the Hive due to his reliance on naught but brute strength. While this was largely in keeping with the Sword Logic, Zulmak had none of Oryx's cunning and the Daughters had begun to question the supremacy of the Logic after all of the Hive's defeats.
Optional Boss: He is the final boss of the Pit of Heresy dungeon in Shadowkeep.
Playing with Fire: Did his charred appearance not tip you off? Zulmak punctuates all of his attacks with Solar energy, whether they be individual energy blasts, sword swings or even the Sword Plant he performs to regain his shield (and incinerate the entire area around the crystal).

Sardon

Sardon, the Fist of Crota

"One sword stands tallest among them, leading the charge against us all."

The primary general of Crota's armies and master of the Swarm Princes. He is dispatched to Earth to pave the way for Crota's return.

Bright Is Not Good: Wears gleaming golden armor and a golden sword, but is the commander of an evil god-prince's army.
Co-Dragons: Shared this role with Omnigul for Crota. Omnigul would spawn the armies, and Sardon would lead them in battle.
Frontline General: As befits the warrior culture of the Hive, Sardon commands Crota's army personally and spearheads his operations.
Ground Pound: When he hits his cleaver on the ground, it sends an Arc wave along. To ensure that the player has trouble avoiding it, he gives a debuff called "A Dark Burden", which takes away the player's double jump ability.
King Mook: He's an extra-strong Hive Knight.
Super Prototype: When Vell Tarlowe asked if he was one of the Swarm Princes, Toland said that he's essentially a more powerful version, but notes that it's a "stretch of the concept".

Ir Yût

Ir Yût, the Deathsinger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ir_yt_the_deathsinger.jpg

"The song is death. To hear it is to die. To know the words is mortal."

An Ultra Wizard capable of singing a liturgy that kills those who hear it, and one of the bosses of Crota's End, preceding the Monster of Luna himself.

Brown Note: Her primary attack is by signing the Liturgy of Ruin, a song that will kill the players if she finishes it. Toland the Shattered speculated that the Hive are part of the song to avoid dying to it.
Evil Sorceror: As a Wizard. The Taken King reveals that she is actually a lesser Deathsinger, with Ir Halak and Ir Anuk, Oryx's daughters, being significantly larger and much more powerful Deathsingers than her.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Ir Yût seems to be a title for the Deathsingers rather than a personal name, given Crota's funeral in The Taken King features more than one of the Deathsingers (sans Ir Halak and Ir Anuk) who are identified as Ir Yût, Deathsinger.
Palette Swap: She's one for Omnigul, right down to the horns. Interestingly, all the other Deathsingers we see (sans Oryx's daughters) look identical to her.
Timed Boss: Once she starts signing the Liturgy, you have thirty seconds to kill her before she kills the entire fireteam.

The Swarm Princes

Banuk, Ur Prince; Dakoor, Yul Prince; Garok, Xol Prince; and Merok, Eir Prince

The field commanders of Crota's armies. They are also the guardians of the Sword of Crota, waiting for their master to return and restart his campaign.

Back from the Dead: One of the Ascendant Challenges in Forsaken reveals that Savathûn claimed ownership of the Princes, having been spurned by their Worm Gods and now guard a Hive Sword in the Ascendant Realm. The challenge itself revolves around re-doing the fight with them once more to put them down for good, though Banuk is absent.
Boss in Mook Clothing: They're extra-strong Hive Knights.
Hoist by His Own Petard: The Swarm Princes were the ones who made the Sword of Crota. The very same sword you use to kill them.
MacGuffin Guardian: They are the protectors of the Sword of Crota.
Replacement Goldfish: A Prince of Yul can be found as one of Forsaken's Wanted Bounties, seemingly Dakoor's replacement after Yul disowned him.
Theme Naming: Each one seems to represent one of the Worms Gods except Akka, who is dead (but far from gone).
What Happened to the Mouse?: Banuk is conspicuously absent from the Princes' sudden return in Forsaken for unknown reasons.

Mormu

Mormu, Xol Spawn

"How many horrors have they summoned?"

A Hive Wizard in charge of the Summoning Pits on the Moon. She is encountered by the Guardian in the strike "The Summoning Pits".

Evil Sorcerer: Standard for a Hive wizard, and she leads a several covens of them.
Gate Guardian: Commands the Hive forces who try to protect the gate to the Circle of Bones during the strike.
Mad Scientist: She is responsible for leading covens of Wizards in conducting terrible experiments upon the Ogres in the Summoning Pits, including putting them through the "ritual of rebirth" to give them singular purpose for their hunger and violence. Her latest project is Phogoth, whom she attempts to prevent the Guardian from killing.
Mini-Boss: She is the first boss of "The Summoning Pits" strike.

Phogoth

Phogoth, the Untamed

"The summoning tempers their rage... but first that rage must be stoked."

The boss of the Summoning Pits Strike, a Hivebeast currently in the process of being mutated to enormous size in order to serve as a living siege-weapon for his dark masters. It's your responsibility to ensure they don't finish the job.

Boss Dissonance: The whole level leading up to this guy is pretty trivial by itself. The guy himself? Let's just say that people have resorted to finding safe spots everywhere to beat him and camp it out, as much as possible.
Damage-Sponge Boss: An even more severe example than most Strike bosses. That hard-to-hit weakspot doesn't help, either.
The Dreaded: Has this reputation as a frighteningly strong Ogre. Despite never leaving the Summoning Pits, his return as a Nightmare makes Eris more than a little concerned.
Eye Beams: All Ogres have these, though it's more accurate to say that they're projected from the mass of tumorous growths where eyes would otherwise be. Phogoth's are particularly large and powerful.
Flunky Boss: Not only is he personally formidable, but his mook summons are particularly dangerous, including powerful 'officer' enemies like Knights and Wizards in rather greater numbers than most players will be comfortable with. In fact, his main role in the battle is to use his massive eye lasers to keep Guardians pinned down on the edges of the arena while the Hive minions rush them in close combat. Killing his backup before it gets close enough to threaten the Guardians is a crucial part of the strategy to beat him.
King Mook: An even more gigantic Ogre, with a much harder-to-hit weakspot.
Make My Monster Grow: According to the pre-mission dialogue, Phogoth used to be an average Ogre. The Hive than proceeded to "tame" the ever living hell out of him, until he earned his title.
The Bus Came Back: Cruelly subverted; Rise of Iron revamped The Summoning Pits as the The Abomination Heist, replacing Phogoth with the generically named "Hive Abomination." This is justified since Phogoth is dead by this point in Destiny's story. The cruel part is that the original Level 12 version of the Strike also replaces Phogoth with the Hive Abomination.
Wake-Up Call Boss: By far, doing this boss even slightly below its recommended level, will kick your ass back to Orbit. His signature eye-laser will crush our health, and the enemies that spawn around him, right from Knights to Wizards, both enemies who are hard to fight on their own, and the result is increased difficulty.

Urzok

Urzok, the Hated

"By pleasing their gods, the Hive carve scars on the fabric of our realm."

—Toland the Shattered

A Hive Knight who appears during public events at the Skywatch. He must be killed as part of the Urn of Sacrifice quest.

Back from the Dead: Maybe. In Destiny 2, if a Taken Blight public event starts in the Lost Oasis on Io, a Taken Knight named Urzok, Aspect of Hate will spawn and is required to unlock the Whisper of the Worm. Get to the end of the secret mission and you will fight a Taken version of him along with two other Destiny 1 bosses.
Damage-Sponge Boss: By the Traveler, this guy is hard to kill. In addition to a ridiculously powerful Arc shield^note (which will only deplete from Arc damage), he's got a rather high amount of health. Not the mention the fact that you'll have to keep clear of dozens of high tier Hive and Fallen while trying to kill him. All in all, he's one of the hardest sub-bosses in the game.
Elite Mook: He is a knight who is part of the Hive's lower hierarchy, but is a very tough and difficult to kill opponent.
Human Sacrifice: Tasked by the Hive wizards with executing those whom are deemed "Forsaken".
Ironic Nickname: From the Hive's perspective, the epithet "the Hated" is highly desired, as it make the sacrifices necessary to please the Hive's gods. The playerbase considers it completely fitting.
Time-Limit Boss: Urzok appears during a timed Public Event, meaning you have to kill him before the Event ends and he just disappears; often, for extra frustration, he's finally down to his last sliver of health when he vanishes.

Xyor

Xyor, the Unwed

"I am the end of 'morrows. Xyor, the Blessed. Xyor, the Betrothed. I am of the coming storm. These are not my words, but prophesy. Your Light will one day shatter and die. For now it simply offends... And you, dear, sweet, fragile thing, shall be made to suffer for your transgressions upon this holy ground."

A ancient and powerful Hive wizard who was encountered by the famed Guardian Rezyl Azzir when he investigated the moon for evidence of the Hive's existence.

All There in the Manual: Everything we know about her comes from the grimoire.
The Corrupter: Her encounter with Azzir resulted in him turning into Dredgen Yor.
Minor Major Character: Plays a huge role in the history of the conflict between the Guardians and the Hive, but only appears as a bonus boss in the Summoning Pits strike and has no grimoire card.
Unholy Matrimony: She was engaged to a powerful Hive knight. However, he was killed by Azzir before they could wed, which is why her sobriquet changed from "the Betrothed" to "the Unwed".

Malkanth, Azavath, and Akrazul

Malkanth, the Deceiver; Azavath, the Deathsinger; Akrazul, the Severed

Three siblings of the Hidden Swarm, their actions are chronicled in the Inquisition of the Damned lore book from Shadowkeep. Believing that none of Oryx's surviving bloodline are strong enough to rise up to assume the throne, they decide to punish the Swarm's nobles for their unworthiness. To that end, Malkanth enacts a ritual, severing the essences of her siblings from their bodies, putting Akrazul's essence in Azavath's body so he can slaughter their enemies.

All There in the Manual: None of the siblings ever make an appearance in the game; everything we know comes from the Inquisition of the Damned lore book in Shadowkeep.
An Arm and a Leg: Akrazul is called "The Severed" because he lost an arm.
Brown Note: Azavath is a Deathsinger, knowing how to use the Song of Death. It is used to enact Malkanth's ritual, and later to finally kill Akrazul. Savathûn also plans to use the Song as a weapon as part of her grander schemes.
My Sibling Will Live Through Me: Literally. Azavath agrees to Malkanth's ritual because it will allow her impotent brother to be able to make use of his rage.
Ritual Magic: Malkanth proposes this to allow them to carry out their plan.
- Empty Shell: What is left of her siblings' bodies after she severs their essences.
- Possessing a Dead Body: Akrazul's essence is put into Azavath's body by Malkanth to create "The Butcher Queen." Savathûn then puts Azavath's essence into Malkanth's body, so she can stop the Butcher Queen's path of rage.
Unstoppable Rage: Akrazul, in a nutshell. His deformity (his missing arm) means he cannot use it, until Malkanth proposes her ritual. Once inside Azavath's body, he slaughters his way through the Pit and up to the Necropolis below the Crimson Spire, killing anyone he can.
Unwitting Pawn: Savathûn manipulates all three of them into killing each other to further her own schemes.

The Court of Oryx

The Warpriest

"Match me in bloodshed
Or in blood be drowned"

An Ascendant Hive one one of Oryx's oldest and mightiest champions. He is the first boss encountered in the King's Fall Raid.

Badass Cape: Wears a large cape on his back.
Badass Preacher: Not for nothing he is called the Warpriest. Being a devout advocate for slaughter and victory in the name of the Taken King and the Worm Gods Oryx himself serves, he's said to have conquered 585 worlds over the aeons.
BFG: Wields a boomer in combat.
The Dragon: Noted to be Oryx's most trusted commander, engineer and warrior, and has been at his king's side for ages.
Fling a Light into the Future: It's implied by the Warpriest's very existence that Oryx, even when knee-deep in the Worm Gods' compulsions that drive his power, still seeks a means to break himself free from the Horror Hunger he is afflicted with, however long it will take. Though the Warpriest helps with this by gathering larger and larger tributes, solving nothing.
King Mook: He's a super-Knight with a rather strange visage.
Nemean Skinning: Implied in the aftermath of King's Fall. The War Numen set's helmet and legs implies that he was cut up to make it, as the helmet is a carbon copy of his head, and the mold of the leggings is similar to his own legs.
Only the Worthy May Pass: To even enter the Warpriest's inner chambers, you must "prove your worth" by having teammates stand on Annihilator Totems while gathering "Deathsinger's power". Once you've done this long enough, the Wapriest will deem the fireteam worthy of facing him.
Power Copying: On Hard Mode, upon summoning the Oculus, he'll also tap into the monolith you've been hiding behind and gain an extra ability straight from Taken enemies. It can be either the Centurion's slow-moving orb, the Hobgoblin's retaliatory projectiles, or the Captain's blinding sphere. When the raid is reprised in Destiny 2, the Warpriest has all three attacks at his disposal from the get-go, with the monoliths disintegrated by the Oculus determining which variety of enemy mobs gets added to the fray after each damage phase.
Sphere of Destruction: The Warpriest's most devastating attack is the "Oculus", a smaller and weaker version of Crota's Oversoul that destroys everything not hiding in the shadow of the glyphs.
Time Abyss: He's been serving Oryx for millions of years.
Time-Limit Boss: Like many others in the King's Fall raid, the Warpriest will enrage after the Fireteam takes too long to kill him. However, he can also cause a wipe if the Fireteam fails to kill him before he summons his Oculus a fourth time.

Golgoroth

"O Eir, decree the shape of this new thing

Judge its testament to the last truth

This new shape is Golgoroth"

An absurdly tough Ogre and one of the bosses of King's Fall. So far, the heartiest enemy that can be dealt any significant amount of damage to without disrupting some sort of ritual.

Action Bomb: Not him, no, but during the fight with him on Hard mode, he'll periodically turn a random member of the team who's standing in a Pool of Reclaimed Light into one of these. This won't kill the afflicted individual, but anybody standing near them when they go off dies instantaneously. The mechanic returns in the Destiny 2 version of the raid, though this time you have the option to detonate the debuff next to him to inflict a lot of damage.
Damage-Sponge Boss: Puts even the Templar, Skolas, and the Warpriest to shame in this regard. While the exact number is unspecified, most guesses put his health at upwards of ten million health, absolutely dwarfing the next heartiest Ogre we've yet seen. It's actually part of his gimmick: you need to stand in some puddles to increase your damage output to be able to kill him, else he'll enrage and, while technically still possible to kill while enraged, being blind makes shooting in the right direction quite a hassle.
Eye Beams: Like any good Ogre.
King Mook: An even bigger, meaner Ogre than Phogoth.
Spider Limbs: Which don't look to actually be used for moving, but to cover up one of his weak points.
Time-Limit Boss: An interesting variation- like Atheon and the Templar in the Vault of Glass, it is mechanically possible to defeat Golgoroth after he's been Enraged, as it doesn't damage you (not for awhile at least) or immediately kill everyone on the Fireteam, instead slowly darkening the player's screen.

Thalnok

Thalnok, Fanatic of Crota

A Hive Knight who bears a striking resemblance to Crota and has been approved into Oryx's entourage exactly because of it. Fought as a Tier 3 boss in the Court of Oryx public event.

Energy Being: Parodied; his colour palette and glowing silhouette make it look like his body's just as translucent as Crota himself, but upon closer look, it's just his chitin that's lightly coloured. Way to go, impersonator.
Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: While Crota is left unmentioned, Oryx is not too pleased with Thalnok's impersonation and laughs at the latter's superficial ambition, only making him part of the Court just to "observe his son by proxy".
Fan Boy: If the title Fanatic of Crota didn't say enough, Thalnok is obsessed with Crota, to the point he dresses like him.
Legacy Boss Battle: An almost exact replica of Crota's boss fight from the raid, complete with the Triumphant Reprise that blares when you pick up the Sword of Crota replica. This time around, you can respawn without fear of wiping since there is no Oversoul or darkness zone involved, and you can gather up to 8 random players given it's a public event.
Replacement Goldfish: Oryx lets Thalnok into his court after Crota's death. He does not really think much of Thalnok, but misses Crota so much that even this pale imitation helps him cope.
Oryx: I create Thalnok to My Court
So that I may observe my son
by faithful, foolish proxy
Time-Limit Boss: As with all Court of Oryx bosses, you are given 4 minutes to beat him.

Balwûr

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/balwr.jpg

"To Balwûr I entrust, with bitter tongue
A terrible work
Daughter of Savathûn, untouched by time
Your death is hidden well"

A powerful Wizard, one of the weekly Antiquated Rune bosses, and one of Savathûn's spawn, Balwûr was summoned to Oryx's Court to conjure armor for his warriors and weaken his enemies, such that the flow of death from them would never cease, and Oryx's crusade to reshape the universe would be a guaranteed success.

Evil Sorceress: As a Wizard and daughter of Savathûn, this is a given.
Flunky Boss / Puzzle Boss: Defeating her requires one takes advantage of the Lost Light floating around her arena and killing some special Acolytes to create more. Failing to do so results in the Court being covered in a blight and dealing damage to all players out of range of the Lost Light underneath the portal.

Kagoor

"I compel the loyalty of all new flesh
Huge and furious in its hunger
That which may not otherwise be commanded
My death is hidden in this sport"

One of the Antiquated Rune bosses, Kagoor is a Taken Wizard accompanied by a massive Servile Ogre.

Evil Sorceress: She is a powerful Taken Wizard responsible for creating and taming Ogres. Not to mention she used her powers to somehow hide her death inside her Servile Ogre.
Human Shield: The only way to deal damage to Kagoor is to defeat her Servile Ogre.
Squishy Wizard: Once the Servile Ogre is killed, she goes down very quickly.

Lokaar

"Who is this nameless thing?
She fell upon Omnigul, whose aspects multiply, saying
I am diminished. Gift me your death."

Originally an unnamed Wizard, Lokaar came to Oryx's attention after she attempted to murder Omnigul and evaded Crota's attempts to exact revenge. Impressed by her actions and annoyed by Crota's request to kill her, Oryx raised her to his court.

Dark Action Girl: Nearly murdered Omnigul and then gave Crota the runaround, with him eventually being forced to ask his dad to kill her.
Meaningful Name: Oryx dubbed her Lokaar, which means "not there" in the language of the Hive.
Rank Up: Went from a nameless Wizard who was close to death to a member of Oryx's court.
Refuge in Audacity: Tried to kill Omnigul, Crota's closest follower, and take her power. That she managed to avoid death and was raised to Oryx's court was due only to Oryx's amusement at the situation.
Teleport Spam: Repeatedly teleports around the Court of Oryx during her battles against the Guardians to avoid their attacks, although she is left vulnerable for a brief period after doing so.

Mengoor and Cra'adug

A pair of Knights, one Hive and one Taken. They refused to give their tithe of death to Oryx, so the Taken King punished them by Taking Cra'adug, leaving Mengoor as a Hive. They're fought as Tier One bosses in the Court of Oryx.

Bash Brothers: While they fight together, their punishment is supposed to be a subversion of the trope. When separate, the Knights have invincible shields. However, when in close proximity, their shields disappear, allowing players to damage them. When one is killed, the shield on the other disappears completely.
BFG: Cra'adug uses a Boomer.
BFS: Mengoor uses a Cleaver.
Deflector Shields: Both Knights have invincible Energy shields around them when they a far distance from each other. The trick to beating them is to agro them toward each other, causing their shields to lower and allow you to damage them.
Greed: Cra'adug was Taken because he and Mengoor gave their tithe of violence to each other, rather than send it to Oryx.
Time Abyss: They've been serving Oryx for eons.

Vorlog

"Ah, Vorlog! Delight of delights
You killed my Celebrants, and you gave their deaths to me
Preaching: I have seen the truth in bronze glass space
This shape is the only god"

A Hive Knight that began to worship the Vex, killing many Celebrants of Oryx in defiance of his godhood. He is fought as a Tier One boss in the Court of Oryx.

Back from the Dead: Šimmumah ur-Nokru revives him in Season of the Deep as a component of the Lucent Brood's ritual to try and revive Oryx with a Lucent Ghost, and must be killed repeatedly throughout the fight. Notably, he's a regular Knight, not a Lightbearer, meaning his repeated resurrections have more to do with necromancy than Ghost revival.

Elemental Barrier: Similar to Valus Trau'ug, Vorlog's main gimmick is a shield that changes elemental types once depleted.
Flowery Insults: His Grimoire Card dedicates a paragraph to Oryx praising his prowess with both weapons and magic... and ends with Oryx declaring that his name means "Less Than Me." Ouch.

Alzok Däl, Gornuk Däl, and Zyrok Däl

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alzok_dal_gornuk_dal_zyrok_dal.jpg

"We have hidden our deaths in each other
So that we will never be alone"

A trio of Wizard sisters who made it so that as long as one of them lived, the others would be resurrected within a few seconds. They can be summoned by the Guardians at the Court of Oryx.

Resurrective Immortality: Their main gimmick is that all three need to be killed within a short span of time, otherwise the ones that were killed would be brought back by her sisters.
Sibling Team: Three powerful Wizard sisters who work together to kill Guardians and keep each other alive in battle.
Squishy Wizard: Like most Hive Wizards, they cannot take a ton of damage. The trick with the Däl sisters is managing to kill all three at once so they cannot revive each other.

Krughor

"First I count Krughor, touched by Savathûn
I boast of Krughor, invincible
Distant Savathûn hid the death of Krughor
inside another curse"

A mutated Ogre, Krughor is among the Court of Oryx members who can be summoned to fight the Guardians.

Barrier Warrior: His shield can only be taken down briefly by detonating a cursed thrall near him.

The Court of Savathûn

Dûl Incaru

Dûl Incaru, the Eternal Return

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dul_incaru_the_eternal_return.jpg

Savathûn's daughter, sent into the Dreaming City to explore Mara Sov's Throne World, Eleusinia, and extract the Awoken's secrets. She is the final boss of the secret dungeon "Shattered Throne".

The Dragon: Savathûn's primary agent and lieutenant, just as her cousin Crota was to Oryx.
Evil Only Has to Win Once: Dûl Incaru's goal is to find the way into the Distributary to kill the Awoken inside there and tithe the massive deaths in such a short period of time to her mother, while the Guardians can keep killing her again and again, she has practically infinite retries on account of the causal loop to complete her goal no matter how many times she dies, and each reset makes her mother more powerful.
Faux Affably Evil: Surreal as it is, Dûl Incaru as she is narrated in Truth to Power is creepily polite to the reader, serving poison in a tea set of Ahamkara bone as she muses about her mother's schemes, fully aware of and lampshading her own fate in the Dreaming City's curse.
[...] the Hive Wizard sings in a voice that would make the terms of an equation flee from each other and hide in the arrays of distant sets so that arithmetic itself would collapse.
Flunky Boss: Three Darkblades, dubbed as Fatesmiths, guard her and will slowly walk up to you when the fight starts, and masses of Taken Psions will spawn. Since the boss arena is small with little to no cover, this is quite noticeable, as the enemies will be in your face most of the time.
King Mook: Aside from an unique model, she's for all intents and purpose an oversized Wizard with similar bolt attacks and a ridiculous amount of health that will not go down quickly unless you get a buff from slaying her bodyguards. The only real addition is that she will create a crystal that will grant an immunity shield to her knights should the fight drag on, and you will need to destroy that crystal in order to resume damage on the Fatesmiths.
Resurrective Immortality: Due to the Stable Time Loop Riven and Savathûn made, killing her simply means she will invade the Dreaming City again at a later point, fully aware of her death in the last loop and not caring, at least that was the case before...
Superboss: Getting into the "Shattered Throne" dungeon is already a hassle, since there isn't any indication that the Well in the Convergence is active during the week that the Taken curse is at its strongest. Getting to the end of that mission is an even more grueling task that takes half an hour and upwards to solve puzzles and defeat powerful bosses that recommend a power level of 590, which is above the "Last Wish" raid's difficulty. Dûl Incaru herself is flanked by three Darkblades, sports a massive amount of health (easily around 10 million), and will kick your ass if you're underleveled, if her knights won't do it first.

Savathûn's Song

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1200px_savathuns_song.jpg

A Giant Shrieker and the boss of the Strike named for it, and an integral part of a vast summoning ritual intended to bring its master to Titan.

King Mook: Is literally a giant Shrieker that can teleport.
Eye Beams: Within the Shrieker is a massive eyeball of darkness that fires energy beams.
Macross Missile Massacre: In the third stage of its boss fight, it will augment its outgoing fire with seeker missiles.
More Dakka: Like other Destiny 2 Shriekers, it launches a near-endless stream of projectiles at whichever Guardian has caught its eye.

The Lucent Brood

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucent_brood.jpg

Members of the Brood casting Supers. Left to right: An Acolyte preparing Blade Barrage, a Wizard manifesting Stormtrance, and a Knight Dual Wielding Sentinel Shields.

Savathûn's new generation of Hive, unleashed upon Sol in The Witch Queen. The plot of the expansion revolves around investigating the circumstances of their origin, where they have somehow managed to bind to Ghosts and wield the Light while remaining antagonistic to humanity.

Action Bomb: Apart from Cursed Thralls as usual, Lucent Moths are also this. They deliver a potent explosion if shot or allowed to detonate near Guardians.
Animal Motifs: Their Ghosts all use the same shell, a spread of fins made from bone that resemble the silhouette of a moth in flight.
Back from the Dead: Being Hive with Ghosts, some of their Lightbearers are identifiable as Hive characters previously killed off by Guardians. This was first evidenced by Alak-Hul, but Ghosts of the Deep delights in throwing other recognizable names at the player, such as Ecthar, Vorlog, and Simmumah ur-Nokru.
The Corruptor: Lore for The Witch Queen and Season of the Risen shows the Hive Ghosts encouraging their Lightbearers to kill guardians and destroy their Ghosts, which several of the Risen Hive object to.
Evil Knockoff: The Lucent Brood are capable of copying exotic equipment to an extent, with Lucent Knights being able to use a copy of the perk given to Citan's Ramparts to create a barricade they can shoot through. They have not been seen using Exotic weaponry or any other Exotic armour perks to date.
The Faceless: Apart from the Knight who has a visible lower jaw, all of them look like they're wearing face-obscuring helmets on their heads, with only their eyes being distinguishable. Crosses over with Faceless Eye as well.
Fisher King: Season of the Risen sees them attempting to invade the Solar System. The architecture and plant life of Savathûn’s throne world sprouts up wherever they land, as if overwriting the local terrain. Their ultimate plan is to seize the Scarlet Keep so they can evert the throne world into realspace, like what was done with Oryx’s Dreadnaught, creating an instant beachhead for an assault on the City.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: When it comes to actual gameplay, the Lucent Hive are far less lethal than a normal Guardian when using their supers (because having them be able to One-Hit Kill players would be overwhelmingly frustrating), but in the actual story, the Lucent Hive have been remarkably successful in hunting and killing Guardians despite the massive experience gap between them in wielding the Light.
- On the other hand, on much higher difficulties, it becomes Gameplay and Story Integration instead, as their Supers can easily mop the floor with any Guardian caught in the way. The Acolytes' Blade Barrage is a notable offender, as the flaming knives home in and can easily One-Hit Kill a target, and they can do multiple barrages in a row before their energy runs out.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: Their Lightbearers have extremely bright glowing eyes, which are initially white but turn their respective elemental colors when their Super is ready to go.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Hive invested with a Lucent Moth have an added layer of protection. However, once the Moth is seperated from its host, it can be shot with explosive results.
Hunter of His Own Kind: The Lucent Hive have been hunting down Guardians, draining their Light and storing it for unknown purposes.
Light Is Not Good: The Lucent Hive use the power of the Light for evil purposes.
Mind over Matter: Gunslinger Acolytes are able to combine Blade Barrage with telekinesis to fling the knives with greater accuracy and multiple times in a row, as well as homing in on targets. Compare to Hunters, who can only fire one handful of blade from each hand, and they have to actually aim to land their hits.
Moth Menace: It's not just a design motif - members of the Lucent Brood often get accompanied by Lucent Moths. If allowed to touch a Hive member, the Moth will bestow a temporary element-neutral shield to them, though it won't stop precision damage unless the target has an elemental shield already up. If their host dies, the Moth will simply try to bless other nearby Hive. If there's none around, then they'll become an Action Bomb to try and blow up Guardians.
Power Copying: They can use at least one technique from each of the three Guardian classes perfectly, showing players being assaulted by Sentinel Shield, Blade Barrage, Stormtrance, and Solar Light grenades.
Power Nullifier: Sentinel Knights can use Suppressor Grenades just like Titans can. If your abilities are locked down and a Sentinel Knight's present, you'll know why.
Redemption Rejection: A collective example - the lore for sole of the Throneworld and Season of the Risen weapons have several newly risen Hive Lightbearers go against the Sword Logic and refrain from permanently killing Guardians, but the vast majority of them simply decide to go back to tithing as usual.
Resurrective Immortality: They've got Ghosts now, so they can revive on the spot after a brief delay if their Ghosts aren't destroyed as well.
Shadow Archetype: The most direct counterpart to the Guardians encountered thus far, being able to wield the subclasses and resurrect with Ghosts while remaining in direct opposition to humanity.
Space Pirates: They make a surprise reappearance in the last weeks of Season of the Plunder, raiding pirate strongholds just like the player was doing to try to get their hands on Nezarec's relics.
Superior Successor: The Lucent Brood have demonstrated a greater degree of control over their Supers compared to humanity's Guardians. Not only that, but in Season of the Risen they've repeatedly permanently slain entire fireteams of Guardians, despite the fact that they've only had the Light for a few days.
- A real Sentinel can only carry one shield, and it's a plain disk of metal. A Sentinel Knight can carry two, and they're both ornate and serrated. Certain Titan builds can manage two throws whilst their Super's up, though.
- Real Stormcallers have to fire Landfall straight down. Stormcaller Wizards are able to fire it at an angle and instantly vaporize an entire fireteam from a distance.
- Real Gunslingers must manually draw and fire/throw all of their equipment. The Gunslinger Acolyte uses telekinesis instead, and can throw multiple homing volleys of Blade Barrage. Normal Gunslingers can only manage two throws of knives in one activiation.
Sucksessor: Only in gameplay. Despite the increased versatility of the Lucent Brood’s abilities compared to the Tower Lightbearers, they’re also significantly weaker, with many abilities that would kill outright merely inflicting severe damage instead when facing them on even ground.To note:
- The Gunslinger Acolytes are capable of extending the Blade Barrage into a Super Mode, and tossing multiple waves of exploding knives before running out of steam, but their barrages are slow to launch and easy to predict, compared to the Tower Guardians’ near instantaneous Storm of Blades that, while only usable once per Super, can and will easily wipe out entire groups of average Mooks or other Guardians and can take a sizeable chunk out of anything tougher.
- The Stormcaller Wizards have an impressive range advantage when using their Super shock attacks and can not only cast multiple Landfall shockwaves, but actively direct them at their foes. However, their Landfall attacks and long range lightning bolts significantly fall behind in lethality when it comes to those of the Tower Stormcaller’s Landfall, the raw power of Chaos Reach, or the double-handed lightning storm of Stormtrance. In practice they tend to be the weakest of the three types and the one most easily dispatched.
- The Sentinel Knights are relentless in their shield tossing and can cast barricades similar to those of Citan’s Ramparts without need for the exotic. However, their attacks are not only less lethal than those of a Tower Sentinel aside from their shields when their Super is up (and even then, their Super shield tosses and melee attacks are painful but rarely outright fatal unless you’re under-levelled, allow both thrown shields to hit you or the shockwave from their Shield Bash sends you flying into the nearest wall or Bottomless Pit), but they also lack their defensive capabilities. Their nastiest trick is possibly their Suppressor grenades.
- Finally, whilst they're all fairly tough, all types also lack one key trick Guardians have - regeneration. Wizards can throw down Wells, true, but this is on a cooldown, heals very slowly, and is exclusive to them. Humanity's Guardians, by comparison, just need to get some distance and hunker down for a few seconds, then they're good to go for another round. Lucent Hive Lightbearers can't withdraw to recuperate, meaning they can be worn down methodically even if you can't just blitz them with Power weapons or your own Super.
- The lore for the Sparagmos jumpship in Season of the Witch also indicates that the Lucent Brood's Lightbearers can only specialize in one set of Light powers, unlike the Guardians. Rather notably, despite the Hive loving to use swords, Wizards are only shown becoming Stormcallers and never getting to use Solar Light and, by extension, Daybreak. The lore for the Veiled Tithes leg armor implies that this is due to their reverence for the Light preventing them from experimenting too much with it.

Immaru

First Ghost Immaru

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wq_1_fig_3_10800.jpg

Voiced by: David Shaughnessy

Savathûn's personal Ghost, granted control of Lucent Brood operations.

Ax-Crazy: Part of the reason why he fits in with the Hive so well is because he shares their taste for extreme cruelty and violence.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Immaru bluntly tells the Drifter he finds it disgusting how friendly Guardians can be with their Ghosts, and wishes to meet one that was different. Drifter eventually responds by introducing Immaru to his Ghost, who is incredibly distant with Drifter due to the latter viewing his Light as a curse. The experience leaves Immaru disturbed.
Brooklyn Rage: For whatever reason, he has a very distinct New York accent that complements his extremely rude personality.
Dragon Ascendant: After the player kills Savathûn, Immaru escapes, but the Vanguard retrieves her corpse, preventing her revival. In her absence, Immaru takes complete control of the Lucent Hive, and continues to act as their Mission Control if patrol beacons are anything to go by.
Dirty Coward: Immaru's very fond of talking tough so long as he has someone to hide behind, but when placed on the backfoot or threatened with death, as seen numerous times in Season of the Witch, he shamelessly pleads for his life or quickly shut up entirely. He's so craven that he even has plans to desert Savathûn as well should he feel that the plan is going to end with his death, and only stays for the finale because Eris forces him to.
Enemy Mine: Season of the Witch sees Eris and Ikora forced to work with him on a plan to put Xivu Arath on the back foot and get some breathing room with which to revive Savathûn, who knows information the Vanguard desperately needs. Much Teeth-Clenched Teamwork ensues. He even continues to lead the Lucent Hive against Guardians within the Throne World.
Evil Counterpart: Of the destination vendors, running tactical and managing patrols in the Throne World. He's also more directly one to Fynch, as both are socially-stunted Ghosts who manage vital operations for their respective sides.
Foil:
- Contrasted to Savathûn, an unfailingly polite, smooth-talking schemer, Immaru doesn’t sugarcoat anything; he’s a rude, blunt thug who’s constantly spewing threats and insults.
- Immaru has turned his back on mankind and embraced the Hive, but otherwise retains his sanity and has no interest in exploring the Darkness. Drifter's Ghost, meanwhile, underwent colossal Sanity Slippage and ended up embracing the Darkness, but still aides his Lightbearer in helping mankind. Fittingly, when Immaru meets Drifter's Ghost during the 2023 Festival of the Lost, he's left completely unnerved despite the latter making earnest efforts to help him.
Hidden Depths: The lore for the Veiled Tithes leg armor in Season of the Witch finally gives insight into his character, and reveals part of the reason why he dislikes humans so much - he sees their usage of the Light are irreverent, especially since they always refer to it as "My Light", and never as belonging to their Ghosts or the Traveler. He also dislikes how the Guardians view Light as a tool, but begrudgingly admits that this makes them better at wielding it than the Hive, who treat it with reverence. That being said, he seems to ignore how little the Lucent Brood respect their own Ghosts.
Horrifying the Horror: For all his bravado, Immaru is left unnerved after meeting Drifter's Ghost.
Hypocrite: The above-mentioned distaste Immaru has for humanity's (perceived) disrespect towards the Light falls flat due lore from The Witch Queen showing that Hive Ghosts get even less respect from their Lightbearers, with Immaru the only one who is treated as an equal to his master.
Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Despite having a mutually affectionate relationship with his Lightbearer Savathûn, he shamelessly reveals to the Young Wolf in Season Of The Witch that he's not above deserting even her if it suits his purposes.
Karma Houdini: Threadbounds the player both times they attempt to crush him and escapes without ever facing accountability for his crimes against humanity.
Meaningful Name: Sumerian for "light." His name is also one letter off Imbaru, Savathûn's previous trick where she replaced the tithing of blood/slaughter with secrets/confusion.
Meaningful Rename: Ghost comments that he wasn't always called Immaru, so he presumably renamed himself after resurrecting Savathûn, to reflect his new bond. It wouldn't be the first time Sumerian has stood in for the Hive language.
Misanthrope Supreme: Gave up on humanity and wants to replace them with The Right of a Superior Species.
Immaru: Hey Guardians! Consider this an invite to a little ritual. It doesn't NEED a Human sacrifice, but it'd be rude to say no if you bring one.
My Master, Right or Wrong: Being able to defy this trope is the real reason he has such a huge superiority complex. It's not completely unjustified, either, as there is precedent in the lore for Ghosts like the Warlords', Dredgen Yor's, and Guren who are so fanatically loyal to their Guardians that they will commit acts that endanger themselves and other people (up to and including implied ritual suicide or mass homicide) regardless of morality.
Not Brainwashed: While none of the Hive Ghosts were tricked into serving Savathun, Immaru stands out for how clearly The Witch Queen and Season of the Witch establish that he has always been an elitist bully that saw the Traveler choosing mankind as a mistake, and that its decision to choose the Hive is a correction of that mistake.
Not So Above It All: Immaru is a raging Jerkass, but it's implied that he actually likes the Festival of the Lost and is enjoying himself in it more than he will admit.
Psychopathic Manchild: Rather disturbingly, his actual personality is comparable to a schoolyard bully, and he's the one telling the Lucent Brood what to do throughout much of the story. Your Ghost says he was a bully even before he joined up with the Hive.
The Right of a Superior Species: Part of a group of older Ghosts who just gave up on humanity, citing the desire to invoke this trope by finding a "better" use for their powers.
Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: His favorite strategy for combating Scorn and Guardian interlopers in Savathûn's throne world? Sit back and let them hammer each other, then mop up the survivors.
Smug Snake: Despite all his threats and boasting, it's incredibly clear that the only reason why he wasn't killed along with Savathûn at the end of The Witch Queen is because the Traveller bailed him out. Even when he teams up with the Guardians to find a way to pursue the Witness, he's extremely condescending and doesn't hesitate to flat-out insult his allies, but quickly shuts up or begs for his life when they threaten to imprison or kill him in response to his mouthing off. And for all that he believes that Savanthun was able to keep her plans secret from the Guardians, he's shocked when the Guardians find a way into the Imbaru Engine and pathetically tries to ward them off with a childish "you're not supposed to be here!"
Sophisticated as Hell: Has a habit of peppering his normally-formal speech with less mature insults (including ones towards his comrades) like "lamp-maggots", "glitter bombs", and "fluorescent fleabags."
Too Clever by Half: A variation - Immaru isn't explicitly shown to be extremely knowledgeable, but he knows that his Lightbearer is The Chessmaster and often states how everything is All According to Plan for her. He's visibly panicking in Season of the Witch whenever Xivu Arath decides to flip the script.
Undying Loyalty: Same as most Ghosts - the issue is that he is bonded to the Witch-Queen. Eventually subverted in Season of the Witch, where he makes it clear he doesn't have much loyalty to Savathûn and will abandon her plans if they look set to fail.
Uniformity Exception: Distinguished from other Hive Ghosts by the four additional spikes around his eye, pointing in each cardinal direction.
Villainous Friendship: He is genuinely mutually fond of Savathûn, similar to a normal Ghost and their Guardian.
You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Has this reaction in "Tales of the Forgotten Volume 3" when he meets a Ghost with a Caramel Apple Shell.

Fynch

Fynch, Conscientious Objector

Voiced by: Ian James Corlett

One of the Ghosts who joined up with the Hive, only to defect and provide valuable intel on the Throne World after realizing the job wasn't all it was cracked up to be.See his entry under The Tower.

Alak-Hul

Alak-Hul, the Darkblade/Lightblade

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2022_twq_lighblade_strike_large12_scaled_3.jpg

The Boss of the Sunless Cell strike, Alak-Hul is a Darkblade, an elite class of Hive knight. One of Crota's lieutenants during the invasion of the Moon, he and his consort Verok were present to fight back Eris Morn and Eriana-3's assassination attempt, and their spawn killed the Titan Vell Tarlowe. Following the raid gone wrong, Alak-Hul and Verok launched a rebellion against Oryx, but the Taken King captured Alak-Hul and imprisoned him within the Dreadnaught, decreeing that he never see light again.

As of The Witch Queen, he has died - but was chosen as a member of the Lucent Brood, being reborn as the Lightblade.

Back from the Dead: Alak-Hul is brought back to life by Savathûn as the Lightblade in The Witch Queen in order to guard the secrets hidden within the temple dedicated to Oryx. Fynch lampshades the irony of Alak-Hul being relegated to the task of guarding his rival's temple.
Body Horror: Beneath his huge helmet, his head is covered in tumorous growths like those of Ogres.
Came Back Strong: As the Lightblade, he has Guardian powers plus his own. Although he's not seen casting supers like the rest of the Lucent Hive, he gains a nasty ranged attack with a superficial resemblance to Stormtrance.
Degraded Boss: In Destiny 2, you can fight a watered down version of his model called an Abyssal Champion, who appears in the Witches' Ritual public event on Titan. He'll wield the same axe, vanish out of sight once he takes enough damage, and will even rush at you once his health is low enough and his helmet is broken. More Abyssal Champions are also present in some of the Ascendant Challenges in the Dreaming City, though they mainly serve as obstacles while you try to solve the puzzles.
Dragon Ascendant: Eris organizes the Sunless Cell strike specifically to avert this trope, fearing that Alak-Hul would assume leadership of the Hive after Oryx's defeat.
The Heretic: As Oryx is the God-King of the Hive, Alak-Hul rebelling against him makes him not only a traitor, but a heretic - and became even more so after he became a Lucent, swearing himself to the Light (however twisted).
King Mook: A subversion; he would fit in the giant Cleaver Knight type of boss like Crota, but no other enemy shares his slow movement pattern, much less his weapon.
Light Is Not Good: Aside from being a Lucent Hive in The Witch Queen, his armor is polished up and set in a pit with actual lighting as the Lightblade. It only shows to prove that he's more dangerous now.
Love Makes You Evil: Betrayed Oryx in the name of his mate Verok. Of course it's doubtful he was a saint beforehand.
Overlord Jr.: Believe it or not, he's Oryx's foster son.
Rebel Leader: Lead a rebellion against Oryx after the invasion of the Moon. Apparently, eusocial, Darkness worshiping zombies don't always agree on everything.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Oryx locked him in a cell in the Dreadnaught for betraying him. The Strike's objective is to kill him so Oryx's defeat isn't followed up by something even worse.
Secret Test of Character: His entire rebellion. He passed. Oryx is very proud of him.
The Starscream: His ambition was to take out Oryx and become the Hive's next successor. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work out, and he got imprisoned for his troubles.
Stealth Hi/Bye:
- His boss gimmick is to show up next to you and slam you with his axe, and, after taking a few shots, disappear from the map for a moment. This is enforced with the pitch-black darkness of the boss arena, and he usually appears behind your back.
- His Ghost pulls this in Destiny 2, fleeing before you can destroy it, meaning he's still alive.
Turns Red: As soon as his health drops to a third, part of his head burns red, and the game announces that he's about to "charge his foes", making him more aggressive.
Unholy Matrimony: Rebelled against Oryx in the name of Verok, a Hive Wizard and his mate.

Mor'ak

Mor'ak, Lightstealer

A Lightbearer Acolyte who commands hunting parties of Lucent Hive in the European Dead Zone, slaughtering Guardians and stealing their Light for Savathûn.

Hero Killer: He and his forces murdered dozens of Guardians who were caught by surprise by the Lucent Hive's sudden invasion of Earth. The Young Wolf finds their bodies all over the battleground in which they follow back to Mor'ak's lair.
Lobotomy: By entering the mindscape and defeating Mor'ak there, he is separated from the Light and left mentally broken, allowing for his easy capture and imprisonment.
Mercy Kill: After several weeks of imprisonment as a lobotomized source of information, Mor'ak is killed by Crow alongside the rest of the captive Hive when he shuts down the Psiorium.
Villainous Legacy: Even after his death, he leaves behind several Adherents under his name who join the Lucent Brood's dive team on Titan. Their Light needs to be consumed in the Ghosts of the Deep dungeon to disrupt the rituals taking place down there.

Šimmumah ur-Nokru

Šimmumah ur-Nokru, Lucent Necromancer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simmumah_d2.png

Once a member of Nokris' brood, Šimmumah ur-Nokru was resurrected as a Lightbearer of the Lucent Hive. She led a ritual in the depths of Titan's methane ocean and is the final boss of the Ghosts of the Deep dungeon.

Ascended Extra: In Warmind she was a minor boss killed en route to fighting Nokris. Now she is the final boss of a dungeon and a major leader in Savathûn's court.
Back from the Dead: Slain by the Young Wolf in Warmind and returned by a Hive Ghost after Mars returns to the Sol System.
Fish People: Even though she is a hive, her appearance is vaguely reminiscent of a deep sea fish. Not to mention the fact that she led a ritual in the depths of Titan's methane ocean.
The Heretic: Was one in following Nokris and his use of necromancy in defiance of the Sword Logic. She continues as a heretic as Lightbearer and when the Guardians find her, Šimmumah is preparing for one of the most sacrilegious acts a Hive could consider taking: reviving Oryx, the Hive God who established their belief in the Sword Logic, with both necromantic rituals and a Ghost, with who knows what the potential result could have been.
Necromancer: Was presumably one in Nokris' court and even as a Lightbearer with no memories of that time she continues that role for the Lucent Hive. Vorlog was one of the Hive she raised through necromantic practices, with the ritual she is conducting on Titan aiming to revive Oryx using both Hive necromancy and a Ghost.

Ecthar

Ecthar, Sword of Oryx/Shield of Savathûn

"Their leaders belong to you. The rest await extermination."

One of Oryx's retainers, implied to be the main Warden of the Dreadnaught's prisons. He later returns in the Ghosts of the Deep dungeon as a member of the Lucent Hive.

Aliens Speaking English: Only for one cutscene, leading to the above quote.
Back from the Dead: Brought back as a Lighterbearer Knight boss in the dungeon Ghosts of the Deep, coming back as Ecthar, Shield of Savathûn.
Cool Sword: A broadsword made of light unlike the usual Cleavers you see on a Hive Knight.
Damage-Sponge Boss: Has approximately 12 million HP in Ghosts of the Deep, which at equal power scaling equates to roughly six damage phases if you're going at it alone. If you don't know the trick to breaking his shield once he's made vulnerable (he's protected by a kinetic shield, and Arbalest and Wish-Ender rip through all elemental shields), it's possible to waste several million more just wearing it down for each damage phase.
Unique Enemy: Aside from one cutscene, he is only met while patrolling the Dreadnaught, where you you must quickly defeat three Wardens to gain access to the Asylum. There, he will fight you with a unique sword of light and boasts a shield that can only be damaged by swords.

Savathûn's Worm (Season 16 spoilers)

Savathûn's Worm

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

The Worm that granted Savathûn her power and knowledge... at least until it gets separated from her at the end of Season of the Lost and is forced to search for a new host to avoid dying, striking a deal with Mara Sov in The Witch Queen's post-campaign.

Abnormal Ammo: It powers the Parasite grenade launcher. Instead of standard explosive shells, the weapon fires large wOrms that detonate with immense force and a large radius.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Mara grants its wish for a new host... by turning it into a weapon for us to use.
Savathûn's Worm: Not what we agreed!
Mara: Enough, worm. You'll live, just like you wanted.
Butt-Monkey: The entire Exotic quest chain for obtaining the Parasite heavy grenade launcher revolves around attempting to revive and keep the Worm alive long enough to find a new suitable host so it can provide useful info on the coming war with the Witness. Its affability is met with violent death threats from both Mara and your Ghost in order to make it talk seriously, it gets cursed by Savathûn's lingering magic into writhing in pain continuously when it tries to divulge the Witch Queen's secrets, and when it finally meets Mara, we are led to believe the Awoken Queen will become the new host... only for her to seal the poor Worm into a weapon for us to use. Incensed by this treatment, the Worm understandably stops divulging secrets after the quest is done.
Exact Words: In exchange for divulging information on the Witness, the Worm requests a new host so it can live without pain. Specifically, it wants Mara as its host. It gets a host, alright... in the form of a grenade launcher frame. Naturally it sputters when it happens, and Mara just bluntly informs it that it will live as promised.
Gathering Steam: Parasite is fairly strong on its own, but it gets even more destructive with stacks of Worm's Hunger, gained by getting non-Parasite kills. At max stacks, one worm blast can obliterate crowds of tough enemies and severely wound much stronger targets.
Ironic Hell: Pretty much what its existence has been turned into. It's now a weapon wielded by servants of the Light to hinder the Minions of the Darkness. This is taken to even greater heights when one considers that the philosophy underpinning the Light is often referred to as "Bomb-Logic", as a counterpart to the Darkness' "Sword-Logic", and the specific kind weapon the Worm is now bound within is a grenade launcher.
Living Weapon: The Worm gets transformed into the extremely powerful exotic grenade launcher Parasite, much to its dismay. At least it gets to live in a new host. You can get some unique banter from it during activities located on Savathûn's Throne World if you have the weapon equipped.
Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Once you have the Parasite built, the Worm occasionally chimes in through runs of the Wellspring activity (despite its petulant insistence it wouldn't talk "ever. again.") to engage in snark with your Ghost or other characters. Whilst not... actively malicious or misleading, it does try to deter and demoralize by telling you not to bother as the Witness will win sooner or later, or that the Hive are too strong and that you might as well go home and take a nap.
[on a successful Defense of the Wellspring]
Ghost: Well would you look at that? The Wellspring is still standing!
Savathûn's Worm: Yeah, yeah. Enjoy victory. Soon you only know pain.
Ghost: Hey, maybe try being more positive sometimes. You might enjoy life a bit more. We all might, honestly.
Violation of Common Sense: Normally you'd want to keep your distance from your grenade launcher's shots, as the blast can and will kill you. Parasite, however, bestows a buff called Worm Byproduct, boosting all damage for a short time. To do so, you have to actually be in the radius of the projectile's detonation. Thankfully the blast isn't enough to one-shot, it just takes off a chunk of health.
Walking Spoiler: Even though we know that Season 15 ended with it being separated from Savathûn through an exorcism ritual, we actually don't meet it until after completing The Witch Queen's main campaign, and by then, its knowledge of the Witness and Savathûn's deepest secrets becomes an important asset for things to come, especially when the Witness is on the move.
You No Take Candle: The worm's vocabulary is fairly curt and sometimes broken, and is nowhere as verbose as manipulative monstrosities like Riven, Xol, or the very Hive goddess he was once bonded to, although it gets its point across when it delivers on interesting secrets.

The Court of Xivu Arath

High Celebrant

The High Celebrant of Xivu Arath

An Ascendant Hive Knight charged with raising the Wrathborn, an army converted to the service of Xivu Arath using Cryptoliths. It is the main antagonist of the Season of the Hunt.

Arc Villain: Of the Season of the Hunt, raising an army for Xivu Arath with which she can finish what Oryx started and Savathûn failed to finish and wipe out everyone in the Solar system.
"Get Back Here!" Boss: Upon finally tracking down the High Celebrant in the Dreaming City, the Young Wolf and the Crow chase it through both the normal realm and the ascendant plane to put it down for good.
The Heavy: While Xivu Arath is the more powerful villain, the High Celebrant is the one carrying out Her will and driving the plot.
It's Personal with the Dragon: Raising the Wrathborn would be enough to mark this guy as a threat, but it became personal for Osiris and the Young Wolf when Sagira sacrificed herself to save Osiris from the High Celebrant.
King Mook: It's a super Knight with a Boomer.
Worthy Opponent: It seems to consider Osiris one, telling the Warlock to die well while attempting to sacrifice him to Xivu Arath.

Kelgorath

Kelgorath, Risen from Bones/Kelgorath, Taken from Bones

Once a Knight of the Hidden Swarm, Kelgorath swore his allegiance to Xivu Arath after coming to believe Savathûn was weak for failing to prevent the massacre of Crota's last descendants. He now stalks the Ley Lines surrounding the Dreaming City hunting for Techeuns, Guardians, and any other foes of his new master.

Back from the Dead: The Young Wolf first slays him while looking for "Osiris" in the Dreaming City. Kelgorath later returns and fights them again when they retrieve Ager's Sceptor. He returns again as the final boss of the "Exorcism" mission in Season of the Lost. And then he turns up again in Season of the Seraph, now promoted to Darkblade when he's fought in the Mars Heist Operation. According to lore, Kelgorath is reborn from battle and is likely an Ascendant Knight who must be slain in that plane to be permanently killed.
Battle Trophy: He has collected several trophies from prior conquests that he keeps at his shrine in the Ascendant Plane, including a Ghost shell that belonged to a Guardian who killed him several times and the crystal gems he ripped from the head of a Techeun whom he hunted down.
The Bus Came Back:
- Xivu Arath drags him back out of the woodwork a year after his defeat in Season of the Lost together with the Scourges during Season of the Seraph.
- He returns once again in Season of the Deep as "Kelgorath, Taken from Bones", having become a member of the Taken to continue his war against the Guardians.
Death by Irony: Not Kelgorath himself, but he attempted to invoke this on Mara Sov, who uses a planning rhetoric she dubs "bomb logic" in defiance of the Sword Logic, by killing her with a bomb rigged from a massive Taken blight.
Death or Glory Attack: When faced during the Exorcism, Kelgorath will attempt to arm and detonate a massive bomb composed of Taken energy. While Kelgorath, Kholks, and Kruutiks possess Resurrective Immortality, it's... unlikely their underlings would've come back from the cataclysmic explosion.
Final Boss: The last enemy faced in Season of the Lost, and thus also the final threat of Year 4.
The Heavy: Like the High Celebrant before it, Kelgorath is carrying out the God of War's will during Season of the Lost, Season of the Seraph and Season of the Deep.
Iron Butt Monkey: He's surprisingly fragile when left alone and keeps dying without much to show for it, and the rest of Xivu Arath's court is painfully aware of this. On top of this, one of his weapon cores is stolen by the Last City and inserted into the Guardian-use Judgment of Kelgorath glaive. Yet he's perfectly content to keep throwing himself at the Young Wolf to prove that he's better than the Witch Queen, and Xivu Arath actively enables his self-destructive tendencies by keeping him alive and providing him with weaponry.
Villain Team-Up: With the Taken split off into an independent faction controlled by the Witness, Kelgorath organizes a three-way team-up with the Taken Ogre Kholks and the Scorn elite Kruutiks in a last desperate attempt to stop Mara Sov's exorcism ritual.

Ir Garza

Ir Garza, Scourge of Earth

A powerful Wizard who commands the Hive forces in the attempt to utilize Rasputin's warsats to destroy the Traveler and begin the second Collapse.

Fighting a Shadow: She utilizes an incorporeal shadow form during much of the fight against her, only appearing corporeal when she is protected by an invulnerability shield.
Final Boss: She is the last enemy fought the ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE mission and thus the final boss of Year 5's narrative.
The Heavy: With Xivu Arath still not yet present in the Sol System, it falls to Ir Garza to set the stage for the Hive's role in the Witness's plans for another Collapse.
Minor Major Character: Despite being Xivu Arath's lieutenant in charge of ensuring the second Collapse begins and the planned genocide of humanity, Ir Garza has no presence in the lore and only appears at the very end of the final mission of Season of the Seraph.
Playing with Fire: Will unleash powerful solar attacks while corporeal and protected by a shield.

Leviathan-Eater

Leviathan-Eater, Bane of the Ammonites

Xivu Arath's most senior general, an Ascendant Hive Knight who killed the Leviathan of Fundament during the Hive's war with the Ammonites billions of years ago.

The Dreaded: When Immaru realizes who Xivu Arath sent to Savathûn's Throne World to conquer it, he flips out and tries to run away.
The Dragon: Xivu Arath's "Favored Harbinger", and one of the oldest in her service.
Final Boss: Of Season of the Witch's Bladed Path storyline, wherein he is sent to finally stop Eris' tithing ritual in an effort to prevent her from being strong enough to face Xivu Arath. It doesn't work.
Flaming Sword: He wields a Cleaver that causes Solar damage, and when he strikes it into the ground, it unleashed a path of flames similar to the one left by a Titan's Burning Maul.
The Heavy: For ''Season of the Witch", leading the Wrathborn invasion into Savathun's Throneworld to claim the tithes the Guardians are trying to channel into Eris Morn.
Hero Killer: It killed the Leviathan of Fundament, who the Krill revered as the most powerful being on Fundament.
Meaningful Rename: Was original named "Ir Uulxal", but renamed "Leviathan-Eater" after killing the Leviathan.

Scourges

Ascendant Hive directly responsible for the downfall of the races chronicled in the Books of Sorrow and Oryx's other personal writings, now consolidated by Xivu Arath as she plans her all-out assault on Sol.

Hero Killer: Helped destroy the Dakaua, part of the Ecumene federation Oryx wiped out.
Karma Houdini Warranty: Though allowed to commit atrocities for billions of years unhindered, their first and only encounter with Guardians in Season of the Seraph delivers some long-overdue justice.
Time Abyss: The Scourges have been around since at least the middle of the Books of Sorrow, with at least one confirmed to have helped depose the Helium Drinkers from the days of the proto-Hive. This makes them billions of years old.

The Wrathborn

An army of corrupted Hive, Fallen and Cabal created using the Cryptoliths to serve Xivu Arath. They were introduced in Year Four's Season of the Hunt.

Brainwashed and Crazy: With a good dose of Mind Rape too, the Wrathborn are stripped of everything mentally, leaving nothing left but the desire to kill.
Body Horror: Osiris notes that the Wrathborn have been perverted with Xivu Arath's magic to the point where they could no longer be seen as neither Hive, Fallen or Cabal. Savek, a mere Fallen Dreg, had her body ruptured and rapidly grown until she became the size of an Archon.
- Wrathborn are shown to mutate severely given enough time. One of the first Cabal Wrathborn created was found having its cleavers fused to its hands and bladed tendrils growing out of its back and stomach.
Haunted Technology: As revealed in Season of the Seraph, the Wrathborn curse is so potent that it can corrupt even the minds of machines and AI.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: As an army made from former members of various enemy factions who have been brainwashed into serving a Hive god, the Wrathborn serve as Xivu Arath's equivalent of the Taken previously deployed by her siblings.

Other Hive

Urrox

Urrox, Flame Prince

"The ground you walk upon shall burn. YOU shall burn."

Described as a "Prince to none", Urrox is an extremely powerful Hive Knight that is both fanatical in loyalty to the Darkness and not pledged to any of the Hive's deities. He is found in the Prison of Elders, but his reasons for being there are unknown- both why he was in the Reef to start with, and why the Awoken bothered capturing him. Nevertheless, he retains his primary goal as one of the Hive's most powerful- ending as many Guardians as he possibly can, and he's issued a challenge out to every Guardian who dares venture into the Reef saying as much.

Blood Knight: Like every other boss in the Prison of Elders, he's called you out to fight him, though in his case, it may only partly be for the thrill of battle.
King Mook: Looks like a Gatelord-sized Swordbearer, only armed with an enormous boomer instead of a sword.
Large and in Charge: Whatever he's doing in the Reef, it seems that leading every other Hive within it seems to be a part of it.
Physical God: He's a Hive Prince just like his brother Crota, and is almost as dangerous despite the lack of a home turf advantage.
Playing with Fire: He can summon his rage and set the entire arena on fire for 10 seconds at a time. This manifests as you taking Solar damage whenever you touch the floor. Either you bring in a Defender Titan to gain extra shields, or attempt to stay afloat for the gimmick's duration.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Is the Solar Burn modifier on? Bad news, his rage now deals much more damage. Good news? So do your Solar weapons, and no other Hive units can deal Solar damage. Hope you have a team armed with Gjallarhorns.

Gulrot

Gulrot, Unclean

"It is the physical form of sickness and rot; a walking disease."

An Ogre raised outside of the Summoning Pits by the Worm Keepers, a coven of Hive Wizards trying to take control of the Hive sects in the Prison of Elders. However, the Summoning was flawed, and Gulrot is becoming a walking disease in the Prison.

Body Horror: His name's not just a metaphor. He's an Ogre that looks severely scarred and pitted from the disease wracking his body, thanks to the imperfect Summoning.
Imperfect Ritual: Because the Worm Keepers summoned him from outside of the Summoning Pits, as the Hive require very precise conditions for their rituals to succeed, the ritual to summon him was flawed, resulting in him being covered in boils, and constantly puking bile in the Prison Of Elders.
King Mook: He's a super Ogre.
Zombie Puke Attack: Implied. His gimmick is that he occasionally "belches bile through the room", which causes you and your team to move so dang slow, you may as well not be moving. Add the swarms of Hive Thralls, squads of Boomer Knights and Wizards into mix and you'll be wishing you had a Defender Titan with you.

Taox

A proto-Hive who once tutored the three siblings that would go on to become the foundations of the present-day Hive. A sterile Mother who served the Osmium Court by mentoring Aurash, Sathona and Xi Ro, considered to be a privileged position. When she sensed that the Osmium king was becoming senile and judged that his children were unfit for the throne, she plotted with the rival Helium Court to assassinate the king and rule as a regent queen. Her plan succeeded, but she failed to kill the three daughters, who would all swear an eternal oath of revenge for her treachery.

Broken Pedestal: She was a strict teacher to Aurash and her sisters, always criticizing them for their flaws, which Taox deemed to be their undoing should they ever aspire to succeed the Osmium king. Then she herself plotted against their father and had him killed, something which drove the sisters over the edge and earned their eternal ire.
Create Your Own Villain: Little did she know her treachery would instill unadulterated vengeance in the three siblings, much less they come back empowered on an unprecedented scale by eldritch beings.
Eunuchs Are Evil: Was a female Wizard morph, but rendered sterile for the typical reasons that human eunuchs were.
Regent for Life: Following the Osmium king's assassination, she planned on ruling for as long as she could as a regent queen under the Helium King. Aurash and her sisters thought otherwise.
Sole Survivor: Often the lone survivor of a recent Hive conquest, yet she always manage to escape them, much to the siblings' frustration. After the Ammonite were destroyed, she popped up again 24,000 years later to aid the Ecumene thanks to stasis technology.
Uncertain Doom: Taox vanishes during the Hive's destruction of the Amiable Ecumene, evading Oryx's clutches. It's not clear what became of her after that, and it's hard to believe that she might still be alive by the present day, billions of years later, but Oryx at least gives her a non-zero probability of being the person who finally kills him.
- Lightfall's Collector's Edition lore mysteriously hints at a connection to the Psions' OXA machine, describing it as an "alien oracle" passed down from one civilization to another after their destruction. Its very oldest records contain Hive words, and its name is an acronym for "Odyle Xenotaph Anarchive", sometimes also formed OXTA.
The Unseen: Does not make any appearance in the game proper, instead being relegated to Hive history as told through the Book of Sorrow.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She's the one ultimately responsible for the creation of the Hive.
Walking Spoiler: She's a dead ringer for the tragic origins of the present-day Hive.
Would Hurt a Child: Attempted to assassinate the daughters of the Osmium King. Unfortunately for the rest of the universe, she failed.

In Anânh

In Anânh, Brood Queen

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/broodqueen.jpg

A Hive Brood Queen, birther of entire hordes, she is the main source of the Hive presence in the Tangled Shore and is the target for the playstation-exclusive Broodhold strike. The consort of Hiraks, the Mindbender, together they planned to create a new Brood with both Eliksni and Hive traits: Fallen Ingenuity and Ether, with Hive Ferocity and Magic; with both they would overrun the Shore.

Ir Abassin, Broodlost, who shares her model and boss mechanics, is one of two Hive bosses encountered in the European Aerial Zone for the Solstice of Heroes 2019 limited-time event. She also shares models with Ir Grza, Scourge of Earth in Season of the Seraph and Ir Kaza and Ir Dollox, Talons of Xivu Arath in Season of the Witch.

Applied Phlebotinum: She created "Brood Hosts", Knights whose worms secrete high amounts of Ether. Without a host, the worm eventually dies and explodes due to the unstable Ether. You use several as explosives to clear a path to In Anânh.
Chest Burster: When her health goes down to a third, her Shade will slowly split from her from the waist up, leaving In Anânh in visible pain as the Shade messily crawls its way out.
Dual Boss: Between her and her Shade when her health gets to a third. The Ir Abassin boss fight has her split when she loses a third.
Fighting a Shadow: Her gimmick is that she can switch between her normal form, which fires explosive Solar blasts, can cause a room sized explosion unless one is behind cover and cause burning , and her Shade form, who has rapid-fires Void blasts and can create multiple floor traps that will burn and explode if you stand in one. But when she gets down to a third of her health, she and her shade will split and battle you at once.
Interspecies Romance: Has one with the Mindbender. It is unclear if they both loved each other in some perverse manner or if they both just had a similar interest in the creation of a hybrid species, though the implication is that it was both. The Spider sends you to kill her to get rid of the Hive in the Tangled Shore and because he realises the terrifying potential of Hive with Eliksni traits. Considering we don't know how either of those species' reproductive organs work, how the project got as far as it did is a mysterious in of itself.
Literal Split Personality: When you get her health down enough, she and her Shade will literally pull and rip themselves apart just so they can both attack you at once. But if she dies before her Shade, her Shade won't disappear; it will just get even angrier. For Ir Abassin, if the Shade dies before her, she can eventually summon another one, and the Shade will disappear if she dies.
Spikes of Villainy: Her head crest is a lot spikier than a normal wizard's, and she is not only a villain to us, but is considered a traitor to her kin for becoming a consort to a member of an enemy race.
Star-Crossed Lovers: The Spider calls the Mindbender and In Anânh this trope word for word.
Trap Master: Her Shade can conjure up Void traps to burn you before exploding, providing area-denial as she can create multiple.
Unique Enemy: Initally. When Forsaken was new, In Anânh possessed a unique model and abilities that aren't shared by other Wizard type enemies. These have since been copy pasted for some slight recolors for events.

Enkaar

Enkaar, the Anointed

An Acolyte who works on the Weapons of Sorrow. After the Drifter sends the Young Wolf to experiment with a Hive artifact, he realizes that Enkaar has made significant progress on new Weapons and mobilizes the Young Wolf to take him out. Enkaar is later killed in a wild-west shootout thanks to Shin Malphur's original Last Word being transported to the Broodhold where Enkaar is hiding through unknown means. Unfortunately, the Shadows had already discovered several new revelations related to the Weapons and Dredgen Yor that could rock the system forever...

Foreshadowing: Teben Grey notes how the Weapons of Sorrow mark various calamities, meaning Enkaar's presence alone was prophetic of something. Indeed, the third confirmed Weapon of Sorrow, Osteo Striga, is associated with Savathûn's theft of the Light and the Lucent Brood's full-scale attack on all life in Sol.
Instant Death Bullet: Fail to shoot his gun out of his hand in time, and he'll kill you in a single trigger pull, no matter what defenses you have.
Poke in the Third Eye: In a sense, if Teben Grey is to be believed. Destroying Enkaar removes a major player from the Weapons of Sorrow, which are strongly implied to mark the sites of past, present, and future disasters; one of said disasters was Dredgen Yor, providing less-than-optimistic implications about his existence.
Quick Draw: How you defeat him - he tries to shoot you, and your goal is to shoot his gun out of his hands, lest he kill you in one shot.
Showdown at High Noon: Minus the "high noon" part, since the Broodhold is inside an asteroid in the Reef. Regardless, The Conversation features a duel against Enkaar of this nature.
Super Prototype: Wields a prototype version of Thorn, which has been affixed to a Soulfire Rifle. It is strong enough to kill you instantly, requiring that it be shot out of Enkaar's hand when he cocks it.
Ultimate Blacksmith: As a craftsman of the Weapons of Sorrow, Enkaar's job involves skillful manipulation and corruption of whatever Guardian tech the Hive can dig up.
Vagueness Is Coming: If Teben Grey's notes are to be believed, the new wave of weapons Enkaar and his cohorts have created strongly suggest that another crisis is imminent; of what nature is unclear.

Arunak

Arunak, Beloved by Calus

An Ogre placed under control of Calus, courtesy of Gahlran and the Crown of Sorrow. He is faced at the end of Menagerie runs when he is the weekly boss, and is also responsible for killing stragglers in the Arkborn encounter.

Go Through Me: Knights will appear to try and intercept incoming fire if Arunak isn't killed on the first damage phase, with the added benefit of being able to retaliate with their swords. Leaving them alone (or simply killing Arunak on the first phase to begin with) will reward a triumph.
One-Hit Kill: Can apparently do this at any distance to anyone who takes too long carrying around souls in the Arkborn encounter.
Puzzle Boss: Is immune until his Cursed Thralls are killed, after which the balls they drop can be used to lower his shield.

Navôta

Navôta, Eir Spawn

A Hive Wizard residing in the Cosmodrome, disgraced for her cowardice and desperate to regain her standing. She is the boss in The Disgraced strike.

Arc Villain: For the "A Guardian Rises" quest chain, after it was updated for the Beyond Light expansion.
Dirty Coward: Fled from a previous Vanguard operation against her. Since the Hive are known for being The Social Darwinist, this causes the brood to question her strength and leadership.
Hero Killer: Killed Shaw Hawn's teammates, and nearly kills him before the player drives her off. Her reputation was enough for the Vanguard to paint her as a target, culminating in "The Disgraced" strike where you hunt her down before she can regain the favor of her brood.
Legacy Boss Battle: The Disgraced strike is a carbon copy of the Will of Crota strike from the first game, so it's fitting that Navôta's boss fight proceeds the same way as Omnigul's. The main differences are that Navôta doesn't scream on top of her lungs, and the boss area is enlarged, making it less claustrophobic.

Characters / Destiny The Hive

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