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This page details the main player's non-Guardian allies residing on Earth.

Main Character Index | Active Guardians (Historical Guardians | Guardian Classes | Uldren Sov/The Crow and Glint) | The Tower | The Reef | The Fallen (House of Devils) | The Cabal | The Vex | The Darkness (The Hive | The Taken | The Scorn) | Other Characters and Entities

Beware of unmarked spoilers.

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Humanity and Allied Forces

    Humans 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/human.jpg
"This was our world, our Solar System. We were here first. And no matter what the Darkness brings, we will be here at the dawn."

The natives of the Solar System, and therefore the ones most interested in rebuilding civilization.


  • Advanced Ancient Humans: Sort of. The ancient extinct civilization the game begins after is implied to be our future, but their past. Subverted in that "modern" humans have weaponry augmented by the Traveler. Which makes sense, since earlier humans were wiped off the face of the Solar System with their own weaponry.
  • Citadel City: The Last City has endured much. At the start of the first game, they're counting how many days that the City will continue to stand, but by the time of the Age of Triumphs, they're planning to expand beyond. This gets cut short in Destiny 2 with the Red Legion invasion, but afterwards, with the Traveler reawakening, the City is preparing to expand once more.
  • Determinator: The defining characteristic of the current human generation. They have weathered the near-total destruction of their species, multiple sieges of their last City, and the loss of what is effectively their deity. But they endure and press on, determined to retake what was once theirs, against overwhelming odds. And bit by bit, they're succeeding; even the nihilists who believe that there is no hope for the future are still determined to go down shooting.
  • Humans Are Special: The Traveler would certainly think so.
    There are those who believe the Traveler chose Earth for a reason. Now it is humanity's obligation to prove itself worthy of the Traveler's faith.
  • Humans Are Survivors: Literally, word-for-word, on their Grimoire card.
    Humans are survivors, tough and resilient, descended from those who built a Golden Age only to see it ripped away. Now, after an age of retreat and desperate struggle, they fight to take back their solar system and claim a new future.
  • Humans Are Warriors: Their entire civilization has collapsed under the power of the Darkness. What they have now are the barest scraps of what was once their Golden Age. And, slowly but surely, humanity is pushing the Darkness back to reclaim what was theirs.
  • Rising Empire: What humans hope to become once more.
  • Space Elves: Extended lifespans, far more advanced tech than their rivals, while being hampered by low population.
  • Vestigial Empire: Originally, they were incredibly powerful thanks to the Traveler's Light and the technologies they developed from it. Hundreds of years after the fall, they're just now attempting to take back the vast amount of land that they lost, and are barely holding back the Darkness from their last outpost, the City.

    Awoken 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awoken.jpg
"The others sing this song of Light and Dark. We, together, have transcended such unimaginative limitations."

The ethereal and aloof Awoken were once human, but were transformed by some unknown force back as they fled the Collapse.


  • The Ageless: Awoken don't age. They can be killed by other normal means like a gun or knife or even disease, but they won't ever die from being too old in their homeworld, the Distributary. In our universe, they do age, but still slower than us.
  • Designer Babies: Awoken mothers design their own children before birth, through both normal and technological means, in order to preserve genetic diversity and quality. In the Distributary, they also did it to ensure the children possessed immortality like other Awoken.
  • The Fair Folk: An inspiration. While the influences of ghosts, vampires, and angels may be hard to see (at first, anyway), older depictions of The Fair Folk are the most prominent. Forsaken reveals then to have been formerly immortal residents of a pocket universe created by the initial sparring of the Traveler and Darkness, invoking ideas of Arcadia as well.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: Female Awoken can qualify as this. They have bluish-gray skin, and are exotically beautiful.
  • Heroic Neutral: Descendants of people who were trying to live without the Traveler and tried to remain neutral in the Collapse. Reef Awoken keep to the creed, but City Awoken avert it, qualifying often for being Guardians.
  • Our Elves Are Different: They take on the role of Space Elves among the races of Sol, especially the Reefborn Awoken, due to their strange powers and aloof nature.
  • Our Monsters Are Different: They are influenced by a number of mythical creatures (angels, elves, ghosts and vampires, mostly), according to Bungie.
  • Power Glows: The Awoken have a peculiar coruscating glow running through their skin, the patterns of which are apparently unique to each Awoken.
  • Really 700 Years Old: The Awoken after their rebirth lived in a sub-universe inside of a singularity orbiting the Sun. Time in this universe flows differently, however; while only a few centuries had occurred in our universe, the Awoken have been around for 12.1 billion years by their perspective (though they only had bodies for several thousand), to the point where the Earth was merely a primordial myth. The Awoken are also The Agelessnote , so people like Mara, the first Awoken, have lived for the entirety of those billions of years.
  • Transhuman: According to lore, they were originally humans that tried to flee Earth in the wake of the Collapse. During their exodus, they were reborn by the powers of the Darkness, but somehow managed to retain their humanity, being a sort of Half-Human Hybrid of both humans and the powers of the Darkness. Forsaken lore clarifies they are the product of an accidental Yin-Yang Bomb caused by the Traveler and Darkness sweeping up a Generation Ship into a brand new pocket dimension.

    Exo 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/exo.jpg
"Ask yourself: what threatened your Golden Age ancestors so much that they constructed the Exos to defend themselves?"

Robots built by humanity during the Golden Age. Much about them has been forgotten, even by themselves.


  • Amnesiac Resonance: Ironically, through the way Exo memories fragment after multiple reboots, Exo Guardians often have dreams and other subconscious experiences that relate to their past lives (many tend to recall the Deep Stone Crypt, but some Exos may also have more personal dreams like Micah-10 reliving an interaction with what is implied to be her father), though they can't seem to truly remember why this happens.
  • Brain Uploading: Exo consciousnesses are formed from human souls "injected" into an Exo body, which eventually turns out to open a humongous can of worms on how this should actually work. Frequently this resulted in a sort of mental rejection known as "Disassociative Exomind Rejection" which was where the human mind rejected the Exo body; since the "brain" was not properly linked to any sort of human process, it believed itself dead and shut down. The frequent reboots were a stopgap measure to help them, and an Exo who mimicked human behaviors like sleeping, eating, and drinking could more readily adapt to the new body. The fact that not even the Darkness itself was capable of magically solving this problem with its powers, only being able to get Clovis Bray past the first step of the solution, demonstrates just how arduous and tall of an order perfecting the Exo project actually was.
  • Damaged Soul: With the confirmation that the Exo are Haunted Technology, each reboot is implied to chip away at their already mangled souls. This helps explain why every reboot wipes an Exo's memory almost entirely and they potentially become completely new people with every reboot, especially if they have quite a few under their belt, like Banshee-44.
  • Eating Machine: During Destiny 2's "Last Call" Teaser, Cayde-6 is drinking something and casually mentions that his favorite place is a ramen bar. He also mentions planning to go get a sandwich after he finishes his plan to teleport in and kill Ghaul. A terminal in Warmind reveals that Exos were engineered to be able to eat, drink, and sleep to help the uploaded human mind adapt to their new body.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Their entire existence is a gift from the Darkness to help Clovis Bray I pursue his amoral and twisted desires for immortality as part of its own agenda. Now recall the fact that Guardians are immortal, and Exos can be chosen as them to fight the Darkness.
  • Haunted Technology: The fact that the Traveler can resurrect them as Guardians, while AI such as Frames can't, hint at this. The Reveal in Beyond Light indicating that their "blood" is indeed organic and fueled by paracausal forces may have something to do with the above fact. It's implied that the "alkahest" that powers them is their own liquefied corpses (if not Vex milk)]].
  • Implacable Man: It is said that very little can stop them. Those who become Guardians also apply.
  • Loss of Identity: Exos usually retain some memory of who they were when they are rebooted, but after a while their memories of themselves become fragmented. Banshee-44, for example, has lost most of his memories, and this gets even worse if the Exo is a Guardian.
  • Machine Blood: The Alternate Reality Game for Beyond Light reveals that Exos are at least partially powered by an organic fluid called alkahest. Unlike what its name implies, that's Clovis Bray's ego talking and it's only really good for sustaining them as of this writing. It's what it's made of that's the real shocker: it's what you get when you mix the power of the Darkness itself and Vex radiolaria together.
  • Mecha-Mooks: In the past, they were war machines with a connection to the Warminds of old, Rasputin included.
  • Mechanical Lifeforms: The Exos are a race of sentient machines designed for war in a long-forgotten conflict. Now they serve humanity and the Traveler against the Darkness.
  • Numerical Theme Naming: Exos often have a numerical suffix to their name. This is the number of times they have been "rebooted" since their initial construction. As this involves some degree of formatting, they may or may not have the same personality distinctions and sets of memories between reboots, effectively causing them to be "reborn" every time they undergo this. Some Exos go long periods between this, others require more frequent rebooting, and the number behind any given Exo's name will suggest this. A terminal in Warmind reveals that the reboots are to help the uploaded human brain deal with their new body, and that they should never exceed twenty reboots. Banshee-44 proves why the warning exists, given how he regularly has lapses in memory and forgets things mid-sentence, or even mid-thought.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: One of the options players have when creating their Exo Guardian, although Bungie appears to have decided to go with blue eyes for canonical Exo characters like Cayde-6.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: That they have human proportions makes sense given that they were built by humans to interact with a human-centric civilization, but that they are divided into male and female designs or that their personalities are practically indistinguishable from humans puts them right into this trope. There are many theories as to why, from excessively anthropocentric programming, to possible Brain Uploading and transhumanism, to being purely due to the Traveler's influence, but nothing is known for certain and even the Exos themselves do not remember. The only reason they aren't considered humans is due to their mechanical bodies and obviously robotic features.
    • Cayde-6 implies that not only do Exos have sense of taste (going by how much he loves drinking and eating) but that they also have a sense of smell, going by how he complains about the smell of Fallen.
    • Eriana-3's memories and journals of Wei Ning imply that Exos can also feel romantic love, though it's not clear if this extends to physical feelings as well, since while Eriana-3 was clearly deeply in love with Wei Ning, it's never said if anything physical happened between them. Cayde-6's journal implies he felt the same way toward the researcher he was bodyguarding after he was converted into an Exo.
    • Terminals in the Clovis Bray facility in Warmind indicate that part of the reason why Exos engage in human-like behaviors is to deal with "Dissociative Exomind Rejection", a cognitive disorder where the human mind uploaded into an Exo body rejects the new shape (due to lacking a proper link to many essential human functions) and the Exo "dies". By acting like a human, the Exo mind can accept their new bodies so that they can function properly without needing constant reboots.
  • Robot Wizard: Exo Guardians are all these, in varying flavors - either just using regular weapons supercharged with their Light (a Gunslinger Hunter's Golden Gun) to making their own weapons of Light (a Sentinel Titan's shield) to using the Light itself as a weapon (a Stormcaller Warlock firing lightning from their hands).
  • Throat Light: Like their eyes, their mouths show a light when open. The color can be either be the same as the eyes or different.
  • Transhuman: Exos were originally humans, who were turned into mechanical bodies for an unknown reason. One Exo speculates that it was out of a desire to live forever, and others speculate that they were used as war machines out of necessity rather than design.
    • Cayde-6 has been confirmed to have been a flesh-and-blood human before undergoing some sort of operation to become an Exo, and later information from Warmind confirms that Exos were made by uploading human minds into Exo bodies.
    • Ghost Fragment: Vex 5 indicates the possibility that the original Exos were designed to allow human minds to transcend the Vex gate network, since purely flesh-and-blood humans were being driven insane by the experience. This is backed up by how the Titan mark Deep Stone Crypt (representing the original algorithm that seeded the Exos) resembles a Vex tower, and the Grimoire card describing the Deep Stone Crypt uses imagery similar to Vex architecture and possibly even the Black Garden itself.
  • Unwilling Roboticisation:
    • Cayde's records of his past suggest debt slavery was used to recruit test subjects for development of the Exos.
    • Lore in Warmind and Forsaken suggests that Clovis Bray Corp did this to further their studies on the differences between humans and robots, and the Exos were an offshoot that turned into a useful endeavor for whatever war they were created to fight. One of Cayde's journals during your quest to rebuild the Ace of Spades talks quite sinisterly of what the minds behind the Deep Stone Crypt did to him, and if they think they're safe just because he's gone, they are sorely mistaken. Entries in Elsie Bray's journal found on the quest for the exotic sword Worldline Zero imply that she was scared of what her own family would do with her research if they discovered it, and how they might have turned her into the Exo Stranger to keep her from blowing the whistle on their work!
    • Beyond Light takes things a step further and explains the Exos were a part of Clovis's search for human immortality, with his desires causing him to abandon all sense of morality or ethics with the test subjects. Some of the dead Exos on Europa have logs loudly complaining about being used for a plan that they thought would never work, and the Perdition Lost Sector heavily implies that Clovis, together with Helga Rasmussen, force-fed people Vex radiolaria to figure out improvements to the project!

    The Traveler 

The Traveler/The Great Machine/The Gardener

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

A mysterious object that appeared over the Earth in the distant past. Its appearance gave rise to hundreds of new technologies, and allowed the human race to expand their influence over the galaxy in a short period of time. However, some cataclysm caused most of what was gained to be lost, and the Traveler had to sacrifice some of its power in order to stop the threat from destroying all of humanity. However, the Traveler has not been destroyed; it still remains as a protecting force over the last city on Earth, and grants power to those who will fight for it.


  • And I Must Scream: According to Immaru, it did not in fact go braindead like Ghost says after the end of Lightfall, but instead is in a constant state of pain and terror, crying out for help as the Witness tears its way into the Pale Heart.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: Osiris theorizes this is what is happening within the Traveler after the Witness entered it at the end of Lightfall, redirecting its attention inward where the true threat lies. Whether or not it is actually able to hinder its enemy or not remains to be seen.
  • Big Dumb Object: When it first showed up, no one had any idea what the Traveler was, to the point that it was just deemed "Moon X". All anyone knew was that it was randomly roaming around the Solar System, terraforming entire planets.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Subverted. No one knows why the Traveler is aiding humanity, and it's theorised that it may not be for a reason humanity can comprehend. As the Grimoire cards reveal, though, the truth is very simple — it's just a Sufficiently Advanced Alien that's nice and friendly enough to want to share its incredible powers with the less fortunate. The idea that no one knows why the Traveler chose humanity comes back with Destiny 2 where Ghaul believes that it choosing humanity was a mistake and attacks the Tower in an effort to crush them and prove it.
    • Possibly Double Subverted in The Which Queen. It's revealed that Savathun, initially believed to have stolen Light from the Traveler, was actually resurrected by the Traveler, and that the light was gifted to her, implying that the Traveler may have an ulterior motive after all.
    • Possibly a Triple considering the Traveler was originally going to uplift the Hive before they got duped by The Witness into becoming what they are now and blessed Savathun with light in an attempt to help them break away from it, which would rap right back around to it just wanting to help others.
  • Comes Great Responsibility: The real reason why it's helping the galaxy. When you're big round space Jesus, using all that power for good becomes something of a moral obligation.
  • Cosmic Entity: It's a big, round alien god which pays absolutely zero regard to the laws of physics. Fortunately, it's on our side. Unfortunately, its Evil Counterpart, the Darkness, isn't, and may be even more powerful.
  • Covered in Scars: The Collapse was not kind to it — its once-immaculate surface is appallingly pitted and cracked.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Season of the Deep reveals this to be the case with the first race it uplifted; although it gifted them the Light and allowed them to grow and enter their own golden age, it remained silent as the race despaired at their lack of purpose in spite of their golden age, which led them to venture into the space and discover the Veil, and in turn their decision to enact the Final Shape. When the Traveler fled, the race it helped cultivate merged their consciousnesses and thoughts and become the Witness.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: The Traveler's powers and Light are intended to guard and protect. It isn't an entity that fights directly if possible and instead uses its powers to cultivate life. This is a problem when it comes to actually defending itself or protecting those societies and species that it cultivates, and this is one of the arguments that Toland makes that the Traveler will ultimately fail against the Darkness. This is made clear during the opening cinematic of Lightfall, where the Traveler makes its first offensive move against the Witness; the Wave-Motion Gun it uses against the Black Fleet inflicts Hostile Terraforming on it's targets, and while it does some damage to the Pyramids as structures, the Witness completely shrugs off the attack.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: It is this for multiple human (and alien) religions. Big round alien space Jesus died for your sins. Or, more accurately, its own sins, though it wasn't aware it was committing all of them at the time.
  • Deconstructed Trope: The Traveler deconstructs Tired of Running, of all things - after spending eons running from the Darkness which was controlled by the Witness, it chose to make its stand on Earth. And when it looked like it would leave again at the end of Season of the Seraph, Rasputin's Heroic Sacrifice convinced it to stay and fight for mankind. Come Lightfall, the Traveler makes its stand against the Black Fleet as they prepare to initiate the Second Collapse. While the Traveler manages to disable one of the Pyramids with its powers, the Witness is completely unharmed by the Traveler's efforts and only stops attacking because it needs the Veil to achieve its plans. This is because, as hinted in previous lore entries, while the Guardians can use the Light offensively, the Traveler primarily uses it to create things, usually via Terraforming, and has limited abilities to use it for combat. All this highlights a perfectly valid reason why one would want to run from an enemy - said enemy is one you cannot defeat in a straight fight . Season of the Deep would also reveal that the Witness needs the Traveler so that it can be linked to the Veil to begin the Final Shape - the Traveler's constant running isn't cowardice, it is a delaying action to prevent the Final Shape.
  • Deus Est Machina: Or maybe God or maybe just Sufficiently Advanced Alien. Possibilities on what this thing is. As many have noted in-universe, though, they really all amount to the same thing.
  • Dented Iron: The Traveler is a Physical God Eldritch Abomination with serious Reality Warper abilities, but the Collapse did a serious number on it, with portions of its undercarriage shown to be missing and its surface dented and cracked. Destiny 2 takes it even further; it destroyed Ghaul and released its Light to the Galaxy and beyond, but it also shattered large portions of itself in order to break the cage the Cabal held it in, with its broken remnants now orbiting the main body.
  • Dirty Coward: It never fights the Darkness; it stays with the species it chooses to help them, but then flees in panic when the Darkness gets close. By the time it found Earth, however, it had grown tired of running all the time and resolved to make a stand. Season Of The Deep, however, subverts this with the revelation that the Traveler hasn't been running out of cowardice, it's been running to protect the rest of the universe from what would happen if the Witness successfully linked it to the Veil.
    This has been such a long chase. This will be the place you will fight. Fight and win.
  • The Dog Bites Back: In Destiny 2, after being imprisoned by Ghaul it kills him with a blast of light once it gets finally free.
  • Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: It's been chased across the galaxy by the Darkness since time immemorial, but it never passes up an opportunity to lend a struggling infant civilisation a hand. This may be exactly what the Darkness is counting on.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Nobody is able to comprehend what this thing is, though one Grimoire Card suggests that its moon-sized shell is something it's forced to carry around. It appears to be a good one, given its actions in the past. This is further rubbed in by the fact that H. P. Lovecraft's favourite couplet when describing his own abominations also happens to perfectly summarise the Traveler's current state:
    That is not dead which can eternal lie,/And with strange aeons even death may die.
  • Empty Shell: The best way to describe its state at the end of Lightfall. Whatever The Witness did to it, Ghosts no longer feel its presence.
  • Fatal Flaw:
    • Cowardice. The Traveler has been confronted by The Darkness countless times in the past and has always fled, sometimes abandoning the races it had only just uplifted to be destroyed by The Darkness. By the time it found Humanity, it finally got tired of this and resolved to fight the Darkness with them. Due to its current state after the Darkness was driven off, it's likely that none of the Traveler's abilities are meant for fighting. Lightfall and Season of the Deep subvert this, though - The Witness needs both the Traveler and the Veil to enact the Final Shape, and is easily capable of overpowering the Traveler. Running away is the Traveler's best/only way to keep the Witness' plans from fruition.
    • Its real Fatal Flaw is actually an inability to properly communicate. For reasons unknown, the Traveler only rarely communicates with others, and this is usually done through visions or intermediaries. This has left the Guardians and mankind as a whole confused on what it actually wants from them, if anything, and is also a major source of consternation for Ghaul, who wants the Traveler's approval. While it had the Leviathan warn the Krill not to seek out the Worm Gods, it never told them that the Syzergy would never happen, or that they were already on their way to Fundament to uplift them. Most damningly of all, the existence of the Witness was the result of the first race the Traveler blessed with the Light never managed to figure out why it gave them said power, and were driven mad by lack of purpose.
  • Gentle Giant: Taken to an extreme — it's a friendly Sufficiently Advanced Alien that gives gifts of intelligence, longevity, reality-bending terraforming, and other things to whatever aliens it finds. It is also the size of a small moon.
  • God's Hands Are Tied: Whatever it did to survive the Collapse, stave off the Darkness, and release the Ghosts left it in a weakened state, and as such it hasn't really done much in the centuries since its Last Stand. It unties its (metaphorical) hands in the climax of Destiny 2, when it personally destroys Dominus Ghaul, proving that it's still alive and healing.
    • Some lore pieces indicate that it's a way to ensure it never coerces or forces those it blesses with the Light to do anything for it, hence why it rarely does anything of its own accord.
  • Good Is Not Soft: While it is benelovent force to humankind, it's still a reality warping cosmic entity and messing with it would be a foolish idea.
  • Good Samaritan: To humankind, or at least it tries to be. It uplifted humanity and terraformed one of the nearby planets to make it habitable for life. It even served as this to other species in the past.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of the Golden Age, the Traveler apparently made some sort of sacrifice in order to stop the Darkness from completely wiping out humanity.
  • He's Back!: At the end of Destiny 2, the Traveler has reawoken, although its only act so far is to annihilate Ghaul.
  • Humble Hero: Civilisations across the galaxy have worshipped it as a god, but it's never tried to encourage them. It just wants to help. Since the Collapse, its disastrous attempt to take down the Darkness once and for all, humility appears to have morphed into active self-loathing.
  • I Have Many Names: "The Traveler" is what humanity calls it. The Fallen call it "the Great Machine". Rasputin refers to it as "O". The Darkness calls it "the Gardener", while referring to itself as "the Winnower".
  • Last Stand: Our solar system is where it's chosen to play its last throw of the dice against the Darkness, standing and fighting against the monster that's pursued it for so long. It's already regretting the cost for its human friends. It was only partially successful: it drove the Darkness off and prevented total human extinction, but the Darkness came out of it in much better shape than the Traveler did.
    Rasputin: IT is alone and IT is strong and IT won. Even over the gardener and she held power beyond me but the gardener did not shrug and make herself alone. IT always wins.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: The Traveler generally avoids conflict despite having vast power, in part because its abilities seem poorly suited for combat. When the Black Fleet attacks it at the beginning of Lightfall, it immediately retaliates with a Wave-Motion Gun.
  • Light Is Good: This bright white object is what's been keeping the human race alive for hundreds of years. The beneficial powers it grants are even called "Light".
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: Ghaul's attack on the citadel seems to stir the sleeping Traveler back to life, and when Ghaul becomes an Energy Being, The Traveler cuts loose, breaks free of the shell Ghaul and his forces enclosed it in, and vaporises him in a flash of light.]]
  • Moment of Weakness: At the end of Season of the Seraph, it seems to finally lose its nerve at the approach of the Witness and starts to fly off again - only for Rasputin to pull his Heroic Sacrifice, at which point it stops mid-ascent and simply settles into a new position in orbit. There's an implication that it's less this trope and more that it was being cautious by moving itself away from the City, so that if ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE went off, there would be far less of a risk of innocents being caught in the ensuing devastation.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: According to various Grimoire cards, it's deeply cut up about the Collapse. Specifically, the actions that it took that led to the Collapse, and the actions that it took to survive the Collapse.
  • Nice Guy: It's a Sufficiently Advanced Alien with a social conscience, dedicated to helping the helpless wherever it can find them.
  • Non-Action Guy: It always fled in terror when the Darkness came looking for it. Given its current state is partially because it tried to stand up and fight this time, it's pretty obvious that the Traveler is not built for battle despite its godlike powers.
    The knife had a million blades. And you were giant, powerful and swift. But the knife pinned you. Cut your godly flesh away.
  • Pieces of God: Ghosts aside, Shards of the Traveler's hull are shown to be powerful artifacts in and of themselves despite being the cast-off chunks of armor it shed during the Collapse. The Hive had a (comparatively) small piece in Destiny and were using its power to teleport their forces from the Moon to Earth. The European Dead Zone in Destiny 2 is being corrupted by the skyscraper sized chunks of the Traveler that it shed, leading to its current degradated state. Said chunks, however, still contain the Traveler's Light and are instrumental in giving you back access to your powers and ability to resurrect after death.
  • Reality Warper: The Traveler has some pretty wild reality-warping capabilities:
    • It turned Mercury, a tiny, atmosphere-devoid ball of rock right next to the Sun with days half as long as its years, into a paradise garden world. And it turned Venus into a jungle planet, while even managing to add in life, and gave the Moon an atmosphere, though without any attendant life (Ghost notes there's no microbial life on the Moon and that the Thrall fill in the ecological role of scavengers). It also made Mars inhabitable, and while it's still a red desert, the presence of mostly-breathable air and signs of old plant life show that the world was inhabitable by normal humans before the Collapse. It's hard to list the number of ways in which these instances fail to make sense according to our present understanding of physics, chemistry, and biology.
    • Another Traveler-affected worlds is Io, which was the last world touched by the Traveler and which has become a transformed moon with strange, Traveler-style machinery buried throughout its surface. The rocks contain fossils from a sea that never existed.
    • The Grimoire cards for Venus, Mars, and Mercury imply that the Traveler may have quite literally reached through time and pulled a past version of those planets to create the new one that we see in the game. Either that or the Traveler looked into the past or an alternate timeline or universe and used those as inspiration to remake those planets.
    • The Traveler's Light is apparently paracausal, meaning that it ignores laws of causality and quite literally warps reality to get a desired result. This is what causes many of the Guardians' most spectacular feats, such as Kabr being able to make his Aegis (a combination of his Light and Vex technology) which can break even the Vex's time and reality-changing weaponry, and how the Guardians are able to "purify" the tainted Light in the Dreadnaught to turn against Oryx.
    • The Books of Sorrow further confirm that the Traveler is able to grant reality-warping weapons and technology.
      In their desperation, the Ammonnite have begun using paracausal weapons. What are these? How do they work? Wouldn't you like to know. Suffice to say that some powers in this universe are superordinate to material physics.
  • Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: The Traveler's Light is immensely powerful but also immensely dangerous if misused. A damaged shard of the Traveler corrupted the lands around the Dark Forest in the European Dead Zone, turning it into a strange, alien environment. Ghaul's attempt to harness the Light by force ends in the Traveler ultimately killing him.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Rasputin refers to the Traveler as 'she'. It's anyone's guess what his evidence is, but we can probably trust the superhumanly intelligent AI on this one. He may just accept the in-universe theory that the Traveler itself is just a ship the real power rides around in.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Traveler has survived as long as it has because it runs away when the Darkness finds the next civilization it tries to uplift and shepherd. The only exception was with humanity, and standing to defend humanity ended in it being crippled. It previously abandoned the Eliksni in the event known as the Whirlwind when the Darkness came knocking at Riis' doorstep. The end of Season of the Seraph sees it leaving earth, as if dooming humanity to suffer a similar fate...only to subvert this and stay behind after Rasputin sacrifices himself to destroy the Warsat Network. The Witness is of the opinion that the Traveler is staying with humanity because it finally realizes there's nowhere else for it to run.]]
  • Seers: The Traveler doesn't appear to directly communicate with anyone, not even the Speaker. Where it does communicate, it seems to do so through visions filled with metaphor. In Destiny 2, it sends several visions to the Young Wolf over the course of the game, first telling them where to go to recover their Light in the European Dead Zone, and later imparting the wisdom of other Guardians who mastered the various subclasses on a sort of vision-quest through the Dark Forest in the Dead Zone.
  • Starfish Aliens: It's a glowy white sphere the size of a small moon with the powers of a Physical God. It's hard to think of many ways an alien could be more alien. To take it further, the only way the Traveler seems to have to communicate is through visions.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Terrifyingly, the 'Dreams of Alpha Lupi' Grimoire card ('Ghost Fragment: The Traveler 2') implies that the Darkness is driving the Traveler along a particular route in its eternal hunt, dictating which systems it visits and which civilisations it helps. It's not clear what it stands to gain from this, but the possibilities aren't encouraging in the slightest.
  • The Worf Effect: While the Traveler usually defaults to Big Dumb Object, when it decides to personally intervene in a situation where you've gained its ire, you're not coming out unscathed. Just ask Dominus Ghaul. When Rhulk, direct servant of the Witness itself, attempts to steal the Light from a captured Ghost, the Traveler itself steps in and soundly reminds him that it is far beyond his reach:
The Traveler: DISCIPLE OF THE DARK.
Rhulk: Adversary?
The Traveler: THIS ONE IS NOT FOR YOU.
Rhulk (being overwhelmed with Light): RRRARGH! TOO BRIGHT!
  • The Traveler itself is on the receiving end come Lightfall, where it is quickly neutralized by the Witness and left unable to defend the Earth before being rendered effectively braindead by the end of the campaign, all without much noticable effort on the Witness' end.
  • Your Size May Vary: Depictions on the Traveler's size vary, it's either large enough to closely orbit the Earth and be seen in space (with an approximate diameter of 14 km), or small enough to be wholly within the Earth's atmosphere (with an estimated diameter of 2.4 km). If it is the former (since the figure is given in an official artbook), the Traveler would completely occupy the sky above the City.

    Frame 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frames.jpg

Robots, non-sentient and more primitive than the Exo, built to serve the City. While they can be used for combat, they appear to be mostly used for labor, such as janitorial duties, heavy lifting, and running services for guardians such as shops.


  • Cannon Fodder: Humans and especially guardians are too rare and valuable to be sacrificed even for immense tactical gain. Frames are thrown at such problems instead.
  • Mecha-Mooks: There is evidence that they are used in combat as well as labor, such as older trailers where they hold weapons or some Grimore cards referring to them being used in the battle of the Twilight Gap. Some in the Reef can even be seen with rifles on their backs, standing guard. Updates to the Grimoire have confirmed they can be used in combat. They appear to make up a large part of the Redjacks, working for Lord Shaxx by maintaining cleared enemy territory for use as Crucible arenas. It is also mentioned that Rasputin used a force of them to attack the Iron Lords who were attempting to unearth SIVA.
    • You eventually get to fight alongside them during the beginning of Shadowkeep.
  • Non-Player Character: Can easily be found in the Tower, doing various jobs.
  • Robot Maid: At least one of them is seen sweeping the Tower.
  • Tin-Can Robot: Decidedly more mechanical-looking than Exo, though they keep the humanoid shape.

    Imperial Cabal/The Cabal Ascendancy 
The remnants of the Cabal Empire that fled to Sol under the banner of Empress Caiatl following the destruction of their homeworld, Torobatl, at the hands of Xivu Arath.

See entries related to them in The Cabal.

    House of Light 
A newly formed Fallen house under the leadership of Mithrax that have chosen to continue following the Traveler and ally themselves with humanity.

See entries related to them in The Fallen.

Ghosts

     In General 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghosts.jpg
"In its dying breath, the Traveler created the Ghosts to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon—Guardians—to protect us and do what the Traveler itself no longer can."

Flying robotic drone companions that accompany Guardians and serve multiple functions such as navigation, hacking computers, opening doors, and other useful tasks.


  • The Chooser of the One: Rather, the Choosers of The Chosen Many. Ghosts choose who to fill with their Light, raising new Guardians and becoming bonded to them in the process. These can be living or unliving people, and the exact criteria by which they choose Guardians is known only to the Ghosts themselves. They are not infallible though, and on rare occasions a Ghost chooses poorly.
  • Deader than Dead: While Ghosts can self-repair and have no such thing as a natural lifespan, they can be "killed" if their Light is drained away or someone manages to hit them when they expose themselves to resurrect their Guardian. Each one that dies in this way is an irreplaceable loss.
  • Do Any Thing Robot: They're able to resurrect people from the dead to have them serve as Guardians, interface with technology, fly starships, summon vehicles, be a deadpan snarker, become a flashlight, you name it...
  • Enigmatic Empowering Entity: The science surrounding Light is still barely understood, and the Ghosts are not sharing when it comes to how they fill people with it to raise them into Guardians. It is possible the Ghosts themselves only know on an instinctual level. They are after all only fragments of a much more vast intelligence.
  • Fairy Companion: If Mechanical Lifeform Sufficiently Advanced Alien Pieces of God can be considered fairies.
  • Fatal Flaw: Undying Loyalty and Conflicting Loyalty at the same time - Ghosts are loyal to both the Traveler and their Guardians, but everyone else ranks less in their eyes. This causes problems when the Guardians abuse the Light without actually turning against it - Iron Lord Dryden got away with wiping out a whole town because there was no one to contest him, with the implication being that his Ghost never spoke up about it. Additionally, the biggest threats the Guardians have ever faced are from Lightbearers whose Ghosts defaulted to one extreme or the other - Fallen Guardians often had their Ghosts either make half-hearted efforts to turn them back to the Light or encouraged them to embrace the Darkness. The Lucent Brood, meanwhile, goes to the opposite extreme, and believes that humanity is unworthy of the Light, instead empowering the Hive as Lightbearers.
  • Immune to Bullets: Ghosts are normally immune to small arms fire, which is why they tend to ignore attacks from enemies while reviving the player. However, massive firepower such as from airstrikes and artillery, and specialized munitions like the Devourer bullets used by the Weapons of Sorrow or the Rifleman's sniper rifle, can kill them. The Hive are especially good at creating weapons that can bypass Ghost defenses. Guns wielded by Guardians can also destroy them, since they channel the Guardian's Light.
  • Master of Unlocking: While the Ghosts are noted to be able to do pretty much anything, their primary purpose in story missions and strikes is to unlock doors. Lampshaded by Eris Morn during the "Will of Crota" strike:
    Eris Morn: With its dying breath, the Traveler created the Ghosts... to open doors.
  • Meaningful Name: It's almost certainly not a coincidence that the name used by many American Christian denominations for the part of the Holy Trinity that directly carries out the will of heaven on Earth is the 'Holy Ghost'. See Our Angels Are Different below.
  • Mechanical Abomination: A very mild case, but Ghosts are a mishmash of Magitek so incomprehensible in structure and inner workings that even themselves can't understand, were created by the Traveller and shares its ability to control and manipulate Light, and can resurrect the dead (although they can only do this to their chosen Guardian) and act as a Soul Jar.
  • Mechanical Lifeforms: While they are built from machinery and Light, the unusual properties of Light give them characteristics that are more closely associated with a living being. They are fully intelligent and self-aware agents, and like living beings they can die. They also possess external mechanical "shells" that can be modified, upgraded, and exchanged to give the Ghost unique support abilities such as seeking out resource nodes.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: Downplayed. For the most part they can avoid damage due to their small size and possibly having a shield of their own. That said, it's very possible to destroy them, either with overwhelming firepower, or using a paracausal weapon, like a Weapon of Sorrow, to deal a One-Hit Kill.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: To Guardians.
  • Our Angels Are Different: Functionally, they're little robot space angels created to help humanity and carry out the divine will of a big robot space God.
  • Pieces of God: Each Ghost is a fragment of the Traveler, formed and detached with the last of its strength, and each one carries a fragment of the Traveler's intelligence and power. However, because it is only a fragment, it lacks the Traveler's full strength and memory. Much of that strength gets passed in turn to a Guardian, who can grow it further, becoming a vessel for the Traveler's Light. Your Ghost admits that he doesn't know why he was made or what the Traveler itself even is, or how he knew you were "his" Guardian.
  • Protectorate: Ghosts and their Guardians are in a mutually beneficial one with each other; Ghosts provide the Light that enables Guardians to fight off the threats to mankind as well as reviving them after death so they can keep fighting, while the Guardians see their Ghosts as their best friends and will violently defend them from harm. Even in the Last City tampering with a Guardian's Ghost is grounds for use of lethal force.
  • Robot Buddy: Their role is to find a Guardian to pair with and invest them with the Traveler's Light. When the Ghost's shell is properly upgraded, it can use various support functions, such as seeking out resource nodes or increase the energy or glimmer you gain from defeating enemies.
  • Soul Jar: In addition to being a Robot Buddy and quest tracker for their Guardian, they serve this function due to Guardians essentially being good-aligned technoliches. A Ghost imparts the Traveler's Light into their chosen Guardian, and as long as the Ghost is intact and has its Light to give the Guardian will be resurrected. Some enemy factions have picked up on this and prioritize targeting a Guardian's Ghost, with the Cabal having stated that the only effective way to kill a single Guardian is to perform an Orbital Bombardment since it all but guarantees that the Ghost gets wiped out as well.
  • Undying Loyalty: A rather unfortunate aspect to them is that they are loyal to whomever they bond with. While this is great in theory, Ghosts can unfortunately choose some of the worst people ever to become Guardians. This was the case during the time of the Risen, when some of those chosen became power-mad warlords who were not only insanely strong, but immortal to boot, with their Ghosts reviving them when they died and even help kill other Risen for supplies and power boosts. As a result, the original Iron Lords began to target Ghosts of those unwilling to change their ways. Even Dredgen Yor's Ghost remained loyal to the absolute end even after all the atrocities he committed, and it took Yor pushing his own Ghost away to get it to stop following and reviving him.
  • Your Soul Is Mine!: Relating to the above trope, Ghosts from the time of the Risen and Warlords would help kill other Risen and Ghosts so they could steal their Light for themselves and their partner. The Drifter states that it was apparently to "make a stronger connection to the Traveler", though he doesn't understand it.

     Your Ghost 

Ghost

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghosts.jpg
Voiced by: Peter Dinklage (Destiny Year One), Nolan North (Destiny Year Two-Present)

Eyes up, Guardian! It worked, you're alive! You don't know how long I've been looking for you. I'm a Ghost. Actually, now I'm your Ghost. And you... well, you've been dead a long time, so you're going to see a lot of things you won't understand.

The player character's Ghost, a robotic drone that resurrects them in the Cosmodrome in Russia and accompanies them throughout their journeys.

See his entry under Player Characters

    Sagira 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sagira.png
Voiced by: Morena Baccarin

Osiris' Ghost, who was separated from him after being thrown into a portal during a Vex ambush. She leads the Young Wolf through space and time to track him down.


  • Ancient Egypt: As shown with her Egyptian name and the floating golden pyramid shapes that serves as her shell.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Osiris sometimes call her "Little Light", coincidentally the name the Exo Stranger used for your Ghost.
  • Bling of War: Played with since it's actually Osiris who does the fighting, but compared to every other Ghost seen in the game thus far Sagira is very, very shiny. And golden.
  • Bus Crash: After years without an in-game appearance, the "Immolant" lore page released on Bungie.net during Season of the Hunt reveals she was Killed Offscreen to save Osiris from a Hive ritual.
  • Deadpan Snarker: It appears that your Ghost isn't the only Little Light that is strong in the snark.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: When a Hive ritual traps Osiris and starts draining his Light, Sagira overloads herself to override the ritual's effects, a process that kills her and fills the chasm on Luna surrounding the Pyramid with Light for days.
  • Meaningful Name: Sagira is an Egyptian name which means "little one", which is pretty appropriate for this Little Light.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Like every other Ghost to their Guardians, Sagira is this to Osiris.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Sagira forgoes the typical style of most Ghost shells, being composed of a spherical shell around the eye with several floating pyramid shapes.
  • No One Gets Left Behind: Absolutely refuses to leave Osiris behind while they were being overrun by the Vex. Osiris had to throw her through a portal when he realises the Vex were targeting her. She pulls this act again when Osiris is trapped in a Hive ritual overlooking the Lunar Pyramid, only this time it directly leads to her death.
  • Posthumous Character: Even though she has been confirmed dead for some time, her shell becomes a vitally important plot point for the main story of The Witch Queen.
  • The Smurfette Principle: While there has been mention of "female" Ghosts (well, Ghosts with a female voice, anyway) in the game (Lady Efrideet's Ghost, for example), Sagira is currently the only known female Ghost actually featured in the game.
  • Troll: Osiris freezing time during a firefight while he works on something is apparently the perfect time to mess with the Vex by moving all their guns around.
    Sagira: (To a Vex Minotaur) "Reach for the sky, big guy!"

     Glint 
See his entry under Uldren Sov/The Crow and Glint.

     Immaru 

First Ghost Immaru

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

Savathûn's personal Ghost, granted control of Lucent Brood operations. While initially believed to be a result of Hive Magic or some form of mind control, it becomes apparent that he chose to revive the Witch Queen of his own accord, and thus is firmly aligned with the Lucent Brood. Find his character entry at The Hive.

    Fynch 

Fynch, Conscientious Objector

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

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. While he begins aligned to the Hive, he becomes the Throne World vendor afterwards and a valuable informant for the Vanguard.


  • Aerith and Bob: Named his Knight "Ken."
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Don't let his friendly, skittish personality make you think he's harmless. When he was unable to make it see reason Fynch killed the knight he resurrected, and refused to resurrect it after.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: One of the Hive Ghosts, but a pacifist who wants to save them from themselves.
  • Hearing Voices: His second entry in Lucent Tales reveals that even after killing his Knight, he can still hear (or thinks he can hear) it in his head, begging to be revived, which hasn’t been good for his psyche.
  • First-Episode Twist: The reveal of him being a Hive Ghost early on is the beginning of a litany of Not Brainwashed twists in the campaign.
  • The Mole: For you. The other Lucent Hive haven’t realized he’s a traitor yet.
  • No Social Skills: A nervous wreck that doesn't seem to be capable of putting a lot of conviction into his speech.
  • Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Stutters and pauses a lot in his dialogue to illustrate his lack of social skills.
  • Uniformity Exception: One of the prongs of his shell is broken off, making him recognizable from all the other identical Hive Ghosts.

    Tokki 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/speed_metal.jpg
Tokki's appearance, circa Season of Arrivals
An unpaired Ghost who marooned themselves out on Pluto. Through her, the Exo Stranger met her fish-like companion, but the two also found something else...
  • Child of Two Worlds: Her shell has been transformed into a Neomunan machine from exposure to the city's nanite technology, essentially making her a living bridge between the Guardians and the Cloudstriders. It's also because of her that Elsie is able to reactivate the derelict Quicksilver Storm, as the pouka Tokki finds is enough for the rifle's OS to override its locks and register both of them as fellow Neomunans.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Like Glint before the Crow's resurrection, it's suggested she might have a few screws loose since she tried to find a Guardian in a completely-empty space station on Pluto.
  • Meaningful Name: The romanization of the Japanese word for "time" with an extra "k;" Tokki's closest thing to a companion is the time-travelling Elsie Bray.
  • Mundane Utility: Uses Neomuna's nanomachines to make herself look prettier. It doesn't last, as Elsie takes her supply and shoves it into the rebuilt Quicksilver Storm. That being said, the silver in Tokki's body might not entirely be for show, as enough was left inside her to react to the Storm once Elsie had restored it to working condition and filled the magazine.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: She's the reason Elsie has the pouka first shown in Beyond Light, having found it in the Plutonian space station. Elsie scouting Eris during Season of Arrivals, allowing Quicksilver Storm to function without a Cloudstrider, and ultimately allowing physical evidence of Neomuna's existence to leave Neptune — all of it is solely because of a chance discovery Tokki made.
  • Visual Pun: Tokki's shell (the Speed Metal Shell, obtained for pre-ordering Lightfall) has marks on it that make it resemble a racing helmet or crash test dummy part, and the silvery nanites from Neomuna run through her seams. In other words, she's decked out in quicksilver.

    Gilgamesh 
A Ghost who partnered with the Hunter Katabasis, and stuck by him even when he came into the employment of Emperor Calus.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Also known as "Gilly" for short, a nickname given to him by his Guardian.
  • Best Served Cold: During the Red War, Katabasis abandoned him in the Last City to survive. He never forgot this, and quietly held a grudge against him for years for the cowardly act. When both become trapped on the Glykon with Scorn running rampant, he purposefully revives a currently-dead Katabasis with Scorn surrounding him, leaving him open to be Killed Off for Real by them once Katabasis kills Gilgamesh.
  • The Dog Bites Back: As noted above in Best Served Cold, Gilgamesh never forgot or forgave Katabasis for abandoning him during the Red War to save himself. He ultimately gets his revenge by ensuring Katabasis will die for real on the Glykon.
  • Posthumous Character: Considering the fact that no one (save Calus) survived what happened on the Glykon, as well as what became of Katabasis, it is safe to say that Gilgamesh had long died before the Young Wolf found the ship.

Residents of the Tower

    The Speaker 

The Speaker, the Voice of the Traveler

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6155fcabd1deb2e2dd278bf4162c70bf.jpg
Voiced by: Bill Nighy

"Until it wakes and finds its voice, I am the one who speaks for the Traveler."

An anonymous combination of scholar, oracle, and high-priest, the Speaker is a position held by one who conceals their face behind a mask and keeps constant watch on the Traveler to interpret its will and speak for it.


  • Big Good: If the Traveler can be considered a Bigger Good, then the Speaker can be considered this.
  • Character Death: Dies of his wounds near the end of the story mode of Destiny 2 after collapsing out of his restraints, likely due to the wounds inflicted in Cold-Blooded Torture.
  • Defiant to the End: The Speaker spends his entire screentime in Destiny 2 mocking and belittling Ghaul despite being tortured, without ever considering to surrender himself or the Traveler's secrets. He ultimately dies due to his wounds, but never gave Ghaul the secrets he wanted.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: The Speaker mocks Ghaul throughout the duration of his imprisonment.
    Speaker: Devotion inspires bravery. Bravery inspires sacrifice. Sacrifice leads to death. So, feel free to kill yourself.
  • The Faceless: Nobody knows just what is behind his mask. Eris Morn implies that she might know, though. Ultimately, his face is never shown; even when his mask falls off when he is released from his restraints by the Consul, his body lies facedown on the ground and the Consul shatters it, symbolizing the Speaker's final death.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": "The Speaker" is the name of his position and role in The City. His actual name and face are by tradition kept deliberately anonymous.
  • High Priest: The Speaker is essentially the Traveler's high priest, though he admits to Ghaul that while he speaks for the Traveler, the Traveler doesn't talk to him.
  • Last of His Kind: The Constellations lore book reveals that before the Collapse, Speakers were folks who were able to hear the Traveler through detailed lucid dreams. After the Collapse, Speakers stopped dreaming and could be identified by unpaired Ghosts gathering around them. Before the Red Legion attack, the Speaker was searching for someone to replace him in the event of his death.
  • Legacy Character: There's been a Speaker for the Traveler as long as anyone can remember, and they've been wearing the same mask for just as long. When Zavala first found the early survivors huddling under the Traveler, there was already a Speaker leading them. The original Speaker also possessed a Ghost, indicating that the first one may have been a Guardian. The current Speaker appears to be purely human or Awoken, but his features are never seen.
  • Light Is Good: Wears a white robe and white mask.
  • The Mentor: He mentored Osiris when he became Vanguard Commander. The Disciples of said Osiris maintain that he's an Evil Mentor. Lately, the Speaker has been worrying that they may be right.
  • Mouth of Sauron: The Speaker claims to speak for the Traveler, and much of his time in Destiny 2 is spent explaining to Ghaul why it chose to give humans the Light and not the Cabal. This ends up being subverted in his last words, as he outright tells Ghaul that while he speaks for the Traveler, he never said it speaks to him. Ultimately played somewhat straight as the Constellations lore book reveals that the Traveler talks to the Speaker by sending him dream visions, but the dreams aren't clear as to what exactly the Traveler is trying to say and must be interpreted.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After some of the events that Osiris predicted began to come true, the Speaker began to have serious regrets about exiling him and wondered about the questions he had regarding the Traveler.
  • Never Found the Body: The Speaker disappears during the attack on the tower in the opening mission of Destiny 2. Later cutscenes reveal that he is still alive, but predictably held captive and tortured by Ghaul for information about the Traveler.
  • Supporting Leader: Despite being the de facto leader of the City, he hasn't really done much so far plot wise. Justified as he's busy with other stuff like managing politics and the Vanguard are the ones who give Guardians orders.

Faction Reps

    Lakshmi- 2 

Lakshmi-2, Future War Cult Faction Rep

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lakshmi_2_d2.jpg

"War is our fate. Can you learn to love it?"

An enigmatic Exo, Lakshmi is full of secrets that she only divulges to those who ascend into the mysteries of the Future War Cult. Those who can get past her rather brutal philosophy of endless struggle have found her to be otherwise excellent company.


  • Affably Evil: Those who know Lakshmi say that once you get past her bloody philosophy, she's actually very good company.
    • Season of the Splicer has her still being friendly and approachable with player Guardians... but she does whatever she can to harass the House of Light while they're busy actually defending the City.
  • All for Nothing: In the end, all her antagonism towards the House of Light, culminating in the failed coup via opening a Vex portal into the City, achieved the exact opposite of what she wanted. She's killed by a random Goblin after they subvert the portal to invade the City, the House of Light are saved by the Vanguard working together with Mithrax, and another blow has been dealt to the Vex. On top of that, the other two factions have left the City, and her Future War Cult, previously on the decline, is now in shambles. Instead of leading the City as a beacon of hope for its people, now she'll go down as a dangerous zealot whose arrogance and prejudice nearly doomed her own home.
  • Alphabetical Theme Naming: All of their weapons start with a "the C". The Chance, the Calling, the Crash, the Culling...
    • Their weapons in House of Wolves all start with "the F-", as in the Fulcrum, the Frenzy, and the Fear. All we need now are W's.
    • Year 2 doesn't start with W-themed weapons, but V; the Vanity, the Vortex, the Variable, etc.
    • The W-series of weapons appears in Year 3, with the Wail, the Waltz, the Warpath, and so on.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: A more-bloodthirsty-than-usual example. Lakshmi and the FWC's philosophy can be summed up as follows — war is eternal, peace is a fool's hope, and the enemies we're up against will probably kill us... so hey, let's go out in style.
  • Ascended Extra: Enters the spotlight in "Season of the Splicer" where her visions of war engulfing the city leads her to take increasingly drastic measures against the newfound alliance between the Vanguard and the House of Light.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: She thought she could use the Endless Night and the presence of the House of Light to foment a coup against the Vanguard and take over the Last City. When she tries to open a portal to the Vex Network and use it to banish the House of Light back into space, the Vex take control of the portal and quickly start trying to assimilate the City, killing her in the process and driving the factions out of the City. Lakshmi thought she could take over the City, but in the end, she was just another pawn Savathun used and discarded when Lakshmi had served her purpose to the Witch Queen.
  • Blood Knight: The Future War Cult's philosophy is simple — peace is an illusion and war is the only constant, so grab your gun, get blasting, and have fun whilst doing it.
  • Bootstrapped Leitmotif: Her attempted coup has the themes of Zero Hour and Scourge of the Past playing throughout, clearly representing her character and machinations rather than the Vex or Eliksni.
  • Church Militant: The Cult take this to a logical extreme — they preach a future of eternal warfare, and want to get in on the ground floor ASAP.
  • Corrupt Politician:
    • Uses her influence in the City to mobilize massive, armed hate groups against Eliksni refugees, hiding behind a Vex simulation that she knows could easily be a Prophecy Twist or Self-Fulfilling Prophecy as rationale. Even Saladin and Caiatl are deeply unnerved by her antics.
    • Upon discovering Quria has been leading the Endless Night, she begins lying to the City about how Mithrax and the Vanguard are playing into their hands, all for the purpose of attempting to usurp the Vanguard under the logic that she is somehow more capable of dealing with the problem than them... in the middle of a full-blown Taken infection.
  • The Coup: Attempts one by trying to execute the House of Light with a Vex portal to outer space, but it fails when the Vex use it to enter the City, the Guardians intervene, and she dies when a Vex attacks her.
  • Crying Wolf: Season of the Splicer reveals nobody believes her or the Future War Cult on their predictions because of the overwhelming amount of times they never came to pass. The fact that they use Vex technology in the presence of paracausal forces (which messes with simulations) may have something to do with this.
  • Despair Event Horizon: She and her Cult aren't over yet, but are circling the drain. They managed to get their hands on a Vex parallel-universe viewer, and they still haven't found a timeline where humanity doesn't get obliterated. It's had a predictable effect on their morale and philosophy. However, the FWC's grim outlook may not be the whole story. If Atheon's defeat in the Vault of Glass is anything to go by, Vex predictions are not infallible because Guardians make their own fate.
  • Evil All Along: Her morality prior to Season of the Splicer is called into question during Season of the Deep, where it's revealed she is a partial or total memory clone of Maya Sundaresh. Osiris explicitly condemns Maya's actions surrounding the Veil and Lakshmi's reawakening as no better than the Witness, meaning by transitivity Lakshmi was likely just as amoral and depraved as her on the inside all along.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Her predictions of the future were achieved using Vex technology, which in itself is a big red warning flag. Lakshmi-2 believes that her continued use of the device means she has some control over the Vex technology, not helped by Osiris seemingly teaching her how to open a Vex portal of all things. By the end of Season of the Splicer, she tries to open a Vex portal in the Eliksni Quarter with the intent of throwing the House of Light into space. The Vex use the portal to invade the City and she's promptly shot by one of them for her troubles.
  • The Extremist Was Right:
    • Critics dismiss Future War Cult as being too bloodthirsty in its claims that the Darkness is coming back and humanity has to fight it. The only problem is that FWC is actually right: the Darkness is returning, and it's gunning for humanity.
    • Lakshmi-2 says as much during the first Faction Rally in Destiny 2, stating that they knew the Red War would come eventually and prepared accordingly. They formed a large bulk of the fighting forces that remained in the City to oppose the Cabal occupation, proving that their brutal philosophy also makes them exceptional soldiers.
  • Fantastic Racism: Lore entries from Season of the Splicer demonstrate Lakshmi and the FWC turning into an outright hate group towards the Eliksni at a disturbingly rapid pace. The depravity of her acts (particularly siccing a lynch mob on a refugee for the crime of wanting to try spicy ramen) immediately catch the attention of Lord Saladin and Caiatl, with the former trying to warn Zavala without worsening the tensions between them and the latter outright comparing her to Umun'Arath, who had similarly grown violently fanatical in the pursuit of what she thought was the truth.
  • Four Is Death: Override: Last City, which directly leads to her death, follows the fourth prediction in Stochastic Variable's lore, which outlines to a tee the opening of the portal, Saint and the House of Light being besieged, FWC and Dead Orbit's presence evaporating literally overnight, and Asher's consciousness "speaking" to the player as he watches the chaos from afar.
  • Freudian Excuse: The "Achilles Weaves a Cocoon" lorebook explains why Lakshmi and what's left of the FWC are so vicious towards the Eliksni: among Mithrax's refugees is Akileuks/Namrask, a Captain who had participated in the burning of London. Though this is already enough to immediately sour Lakshmi's mood, what really causes them to butt heads is Namrask's desire to turn over a new leaf, even though the atrocities he and his comrades committed were considered so unrepentantly vile, not even Variks would consider helping him.
  • Hidden Depths: On the outside, the War Cult is a vicious cult devoted to violence and warfare and preparation for the same. Digging deeper into the lore shows that the War Cult actually was founded by the Isthar Collective's researchers into the Vex gate network, who used Vex technology to explore the time and space-traversing Vex collective mind, and that all of the Cult's temporal experimentation logs use a traditional format started by Maya Sundaresh. The war Cult is also apparently linked to the Exo Stranger, going by their similar time-exploration logs and the end result of the No Time To Explain quest, where you receive an improved version of the Stranger's Rifle, which Lakshmi says is clearly intended as a message for you.
  • Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The Future War Cult is one of the most overtly militant factions, and their uniforms are primarily bright blue or purple with large areas of red and yellow highlights for contrast.
  • Hoist by Her Own Petard: Lakshmi is ultimately shot to death by a horde of Vex she unwittingly summoned using the very same portal she was planning to kill off the House Of Light.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Because of the nature of her creation, the Ishtar Collective does not consider her human in any way, shape, or form. Fittingly, she dies with the whole world understanding just what they meant by that.
  • Hypocrite: She claims to have the interests of the Last City at heart... but her behavior in Season of the Splicer makes it clear she only cares about wanting to be right, not actually helping the City.
  • Insane Troll Logic: While Mithrax has a plan to stop the Endless Night, it obviously takes time with how thoroughly knotted the Vex network (which Lakshmi has been ogling ever since he arrived) has been since the simulation kicked in. Her response to this is to immediately use this as evidence that she is good and wise and Mithrax is scheming and dangerous.
  • I Reject Your Reality: Lakshmi seemingly doesn't care whatsoever about Mithrax's willingness to join forces with the Guardians to stop the Endless Night. If you ask her, Mithrax is just waiting for the perfect moment to strike humanity at its most vulnerable, and just twiddling his thumbs to let the Endless Night go on for longer. Considering she uses Vex tech to see into the future, this trope could possibly be played as a Literal Metaphor.
  • It's All About Me: Season of the Splicer has her acting in a really selfish and hateful fashion towards Mithrax and his Eliksni. She constantly complains about how the Vanguard are supposedly ignoring the citizens' plight, and frequently portrays herself as the Only Sane Man willing to do what's right, though her definition of "what's right" involves whipping citizens into anti-Eliksni frenzies.
  • Karmic Death: Dies while transmitting an "emergency broadcast" to the City in an attempt to have the House of Light banished, the last words on the airwaves consisting of her panic and an excruciatingly yet well-deserved choked scream as she is shot to death by Vex.
  • Killed Offscreen: Lakshmi was killed by a Vex Goblin shortly after she tried to banish the House of Light by opening a Vex portal to banish them through in the Last City. They ended up killing each other, as both their corpses can be found at the start of Override: Last City.
  • Killer Robot: Exos were built for war, and she delights in that fact.
  • Lack of Empathy: Aside from her Fantastic Racism, she was reprogrammed by Maya Sundaresh to inherit all of her negative traits For Science!. As far as Lakshmi is concerned, viewing anything and anyone as beneath her if it provides some advantage has always been second nature in her lifetime.
  • The Millstone: While Mithrax and the Guardians are occupied with actually doing things to put a stop to the Endless Night, Lakshmi... intentionally riles up citizens into hating the Eliksni that were allowed in, and it's made abundantly clear that she's willing to cause a coup if it means she'll get her way. All while she claims Mithrax is plotting evil schemes. While she doesn't directly get in the Guardians' way, she's definitely not helping in the City herself. This culminates in her failed coup against the Vanguard, where she tries to banish the House of Light by opening a Vex portal inside the City itself. She gets killed by a Goblin for her troubles, and the other factions disappear afterward, meaning all her efforts achieved nothing.
  • Motive Rant: Shortly before her death, Lakshmi went into one of these shortly before and after opening a Vex portal to banish the Eliksni population of the Last City into space, having finally jumped off, utterly consumed by her hatred and paranoia of them.
    Lakshmi-2: People of the Last City, we have endured many great tragedies thanks to our strength and a steadfast commitment to humanity. The Traveller chose us. It abandoned the Fallen because they are unfit, unworthy of the Light. They would take it from us if they could. The Vanguard have lost their way. They embrace the Darkness. Welcome Eramis' followers into our midst with open arms. Force us to celebrate our lost heroes alongside those who MURDERED them! Yes, the Endless Night is over. But now, Mithrax and his House will use this opportunity to do what the Fallen have always done: Covet. Cheat. Steal. Kill. I have seen the future with my own eyes... and it has not changed. Doom still builds on our horizon like a terrible storm. But there is hope. Right now, loyalists to the Future War Cult and New Monarchy have rounded up the Fallen in our city. With the aid of Osiris, I have learned how to safely command the power of the Vex. I will use it to do what the Vanguard will not. I will tear open a rift; Banish the Fallen to the depths of space, from where they came. We alone will save humanity. I have seen the darkest of futures, and with this act, I WILL- (the Vex enter through the portal and start shooting everyone indiscriminately) No... NO! (agonised screams)
  • Mysterious Past: Nobody knows where she came from, as she suddenly appeared in the city one day and says very little about herself aside from reminiscing about battles she has seen.
  • Mutual Kill: When her body is found at the start of the Override: Last City mission, it seems that Lakshmi managed to kill her attacker in her final moments, considering there’s a Vex Goblin corpse nearby as well.
  • Not Brainwashed: The Reveal in Season of the Deep that she was merged with the consciousness of Maya Sundaresh indicates that Lakshmi was always as monstrous as she was in Season of the Splicer, and that Savathun's influence just made her stop pretending otherwise.
  • Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Her prejudice towards House Light has at least some credibility, especially considering that one of its members is Namrask, a prolific Eliksni who helped burn London to the ground. However, as the season goes on, she gradually becomes more fanatical and violently murderous in her hatred for the Eliksni, willfully turning a blind eye to any information that contradicts her point of view and attempting to whip citizens into insensate lynch mobs against the Fallen House. Eventually, she opens a Vex portal into the Eliksni quarter with the intent to banish all of them, uncaring of whether the victims are guilty or innocent.
  • Psycho Prototype: The initial product of humanity's first attempt to interact with the Veil, and equally wretched underneath her Mask of Sanity.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Like many Exos, Lakshmi has seen her fair share of history; she has a seemingly endless trove of war stories to tell her followers, and she was around in the post-Collapse Dark Age.
    Lakshmi: I walked during the dark times. A thousand Kings rose and fell then.
  • Ret-Gone: If you complete the secret ending to the Paradox mission and bring the Cult Ghost back to Lakshmi, she'll admit she does not remember anyone named Praedyth, yet the evidence of a War Cult Ghost and file headers requiring her clearance to write means that he did exist. Rather than be troubled by this paradox, Laskshmi sends you to investigate it and learn more about what other secrets and lost items are hidden in the Vex network, in order to undo these Ret-Gone events.
  • Right Hand Versus Left Hand: She wants to see the City protected from humanity's enemies. And she'll casually incite racist mobs to attack friendly Eliksni to do so while also undermining the Vanguard's authority.
  • Self-Disposing Villain: Despite Lakshmi opening a Vex portal directly within the Eliksni quarter to banish and kill off the House Of Light, she finds out the hard way that she isn't as in control as she thought and promptly gets killed when the Vex emerge and start shooting up the place]
  • Smug Snake: As shown throughout Season Of The Splicer, Lakshmi is a seriously egotistical woman with an out of control hero complex that attempts to undermine the House Of Light and eventually the Vanguard at every turn, with her baseless accusations and racist, self-righteous tangents only showcasing how far up her own mechanical arse she is. Unfortunately for her, she has little actual idea to the forces she’s playing around with, opening a Vex Portal in the Eliksni quarter in an attempt to banish them into space, and ends up dying an Undignified Death when the Vex arrive and start to kill everyone present, her included.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The simulation that drove her into her murderous hatred towards the Eliksni had them standing over and pillaging the ruins of the Last City. It turned out she caused the devastation when she tried to banish everyone in the Eliksni quarter with a Vex incursion. The Stochastic Variable's lore describes a set of at least three different simulations, including the one she wanted to make true: a vision where Lakshmi and the FWC ruled over the City, with Zavala gone, Mithrax under trial and the Botza District free of Eliksni.
  • Skewed Priorities: The Endless Night in the Last City is definitely concerning to all involved, especially civilians and Eliksni. Rather than actually help ease tensions between humanity and the Eliksni, Lakshmi decides to intentionally stoke the fires of racism... and predictably it just causes easily avoidable pain.
  • The Storyteller: Lakshmi has seen hundreds of battles, and loves to tell stories about them.
  • Time Travel: The War Cult's philosophy comes out of a mixture of practical experience and possession of devices that allow acolytes to move through time and see possible futures. Virtually every future they've seen ends with humanity's destruction... which colors their perceptions. It's also not outright stated, but both the Grimoire entries for the War Cult and the sidequest No Time To Explain indicate that they have a direct connection to the Exo Stranger.
  • Too Dumb to Live: There's no telling what made her think it was a good idea to open the Vex gate from a close distance without any plans to evacuate. Unsurprisingly, she's shot dead seconds after doing that.
  • War Is Glorious: It's the Cult's founding principle, and Lakshmi has no end of tales of past battles to stir the blood of prospective recruits.
  • You Are What You Hate: Override: Last City's soundtrack cycles between eight Leitmotifs associated with the Kell's Scourge and Eramis (with the exception of "The Families," which represents the Black Armory), symbolizing how Lakshmi is just as depraved if not worse than her scapegoats.

    Arach Jalaal 

Arach Jalaal, Dead Orbit Faction Rep

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jalaal_d2.jpg

Voiced by: Peter Stormare
"A younger world awaits, skies that never have been scarred by the Fallen or the Hive."

An Awoken with dreams of the stars, Jalaal is an Arach of the Dead Orbit, and fears that if humanity does not make a voyage from the solar system of its birth than it will surely be destroyed if the Darkness returns.


  • Badass Normal: His objective is to turn humanity into this, prospering through their own strength rather than through divine assistance. Slightly ironic, seeing as he's an Awoken.
  • Chiaroscuro: Invoked symbolically in Dead Orbit's choice of contrasting black and white colors, representing humanity leaving the Traveler's shadow.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: He looks like a pretty shady guy and his group makes use of lots of dreary and pessimistic aesthetics (no bright and cheery colors like the two rival factions for example) but he isn't any more wrong than the other groups in trying to figure out what to do next and wants humanity and its allies to survive just as much as anyone else in the Tower.
  • Fantastic Honorifics: "Arach" is actually a title, short for "arachnid". It represents someone within Dead Orbit who is dedicated to building their influence, expanding their fleet, and pushing humanity to a diaspora, much in the way a spider builds their web outward.
  • The Fundamentalist: Funnily enough for the representative of the closest thing the Tower's got to a militant atheist Faction. Jalaal is uncompromising in his beliefs, and evangelizes about humanity's future among the stars with the fervour of the most frothy-mouthed of street preachers.
  • I Knew It!: invoked Jalaal has this attitude during the first Faction Rally in Destiny 2, stating that their being bound to the City made them a sitting duck for the Cabal like he'd been saying for years.
  • Large Ham: He is extremely enthusiastic about his dreams of spreading humanity out among the stars, and this is reflected in much of his dialogue.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his somewhat cynical beliefs about the Traveler and bombastic personality, ultimately he's merely concerned about humanity's future and genuinely means well. Notably, he criticizes the Future War Cult for not giving people hope when he believes they direly need it.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: At least, what is right from his perspective. Jalaal believes so deeply in Dead Orbit's mission that he is completely willing to bend or break the law in order to advance its cause and build their fleet.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One way to look at Dead Orbit. Having grown cynical of the Guardians and the Vanguard's ability to defend the Last City when humanity's been hounded and attacked for centuries, the Darkness' impending return and the Traveler's seeming refusal to do anything has led them to believe they are better off leaving Earth behind in favor of someplace safer. As of Season of the Splicer, they've finally left.
  • Screw You, Elves!: Dead Orbit's philosophy. Humanity should learn to stand on its own, without the meddling of alien gods, because the Collapse showed the limits of the Traveler's ability to protect mankind and they suspect that it might have even led the Darkness to them.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: Dead Orbit's goals would amount to this in a nutshell - as revealed in Season of the Deep, the Witness, the true architect of the Collapse, wants to use the Traveler and the Veil to reshape the universe however it sees fit. This means that, if Dead Orbit had succeeded in convincing mankind to leave the Traveler, they'd just have sped up the end of everything by depriving it of its only defenders.
  • Straw Nihilist: Their critics like to portray Dead Orbit as this in-universe, but in truth, while they are a bit pessimistic, there are strong, positive principles under all that cynicism. It's telling that Jalaal chastises the New Monarchy for offering false hope and the Future War Cult for offering no hope at all.

    Executor Hideo 

Executor Hideo, New Monarchy Faction Rep

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hideo_d2_0.jpg

Voiced by: James Remar
"If the Speaker won't take charge of the Consensus, then we'll have to do it ourselves."

An industrial magnate of the City's foundries and well-known philanthropist, Hideo has become convinced that the City needs stronger leadership that the Speaker and less factionalism if it is to survive the trials everyone can feel coming. Thus, he has turned his resources to forwarding the cause of the New Monarchy, and seeks out Guardians to champion it.


  • Bling-Bling-BANG!: In Destiny 2, New Monarchy's gear starts getting shiny metallic highlights, even on their exclusive shaders... mostly brass or chrome. New Monarchy also considers this luxuriant design to be less about showing off wealth, and more of a means of selling their philosophy to others.
    Sovereign Robes: "While our wealth is not meant for personal use, we should remember that a taste of luxury can be instructive, even persuasive." — Laws of the Executors, Vol. 13
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The Seven Tenets of the New Monarchy are mostly feelgood platitudes about defending the City from aliens, fostering technological development, defending human rights, and so on... and then you get to number seven, where they promise to have the Consensus, the City's legislature, vote to disband itself and transfer its powers to a single dictator-for-life.
  • The Cynic: New Monarchy Zig Zags between this and Wide-Eyed Idealist depending on which side of the coin they are looking at. While their goals of uniting the city under The Good King are idealistic in the extreme, their belief that Democracy Is Bad and methods for ending it are extremely cynical.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Some of his dialogue has him wondering about the true motivations of the other Factions and wondering if the Speaker is even human. He also claims that the Cryptarchs are more of a player in the city's affairs then they pretend to be.
  • Democracy Is Bad: While the Consensus isn't an entirely democratic legislaturenote  a big drive for the New Monarchy is a sense that the democratic process has failed the City too many times, and when the Darkness returns it may be too indecisive to properly protect it.
  • Dirty Coward: Rather than admit any wrongdoing in the Last City Override, Hideo takes New Monarchy, has them tag along with Dead Orbit, and flees the city with them.
  • The Good King: Believes humanity is in desperate need of this to unite it. New Monarchy propaganda does stress that the 'monarchy' they want is more a collective unity of purpose, but its critics do question whether Hideo might have someone very specific in mind for the embodiment of this collective will. He does, but surprisingly, it's not himself — it's Commander Zavala of the Vanguard. This extends to the fundamental teachings of the New Monarchy as a whole:
    Sovereign Vest: "In seeking a true leader, the Executor must test the heart of each candidate, sifting through the weak, foolish, and evil for the good." — Laws of the Executors, Vol. 13
    Sovereign Gloves: "The hand of the law must fall impartially on the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak. This is required of both rulers and the Executors who serve them." — Laws of the Executors, Vol. 6
    Sovereign Legs: "The time to walk away from a poor candidate is before the crown is offered. Executors must test and dismiss many thousands without guarantee of success." — Laws of the Executors, Vol. 10
  • Honest Corporate Executive: Built himself a reputation as this, though some have wondered if it still holds true now he's leader of the New Monarchy. See Uncle Pennybags below. New Monarchy considers this as one of the fundamental laws of being an Executor.
    Sovereign Plate: "Opportunities will arise to profit from our mission, to accrue personal power and wealth. Decline them." —Laws of the Executors, Vol. 12
  • Karma Houdini: He and New Monarchy escape the Last City before anyone is able to hold them accountable for their willing assistance to Lakshmi's attempted coup and the earthbound Vex invasion force.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: Part of New Monarcy's propaganda displays them as the faction fighting to protect the City and restore the Golden Age, as opposed to Dead Orbit's stated goal to abandon Earth, and Future War Cult's "fight for the sake of fighting" motive for war.
  • Order Versus Chaos: The New Monarchy set themselves up as the defenders of order, rising above the infighting and factionalism of the City to present a unified front against the Darkness. Others wonder whose order it might be, and what they might have to sacrifice for it. There's a reason they're only one Faction of many.
  • Properly Paranoid: New Monarchy takes the possibility of the return of the Ahamkara very seriously, to the point that they accuse anyone even sporting dragon designs on their equipment as being possibly in collusion with them. While overly paranoid about it, they have a point with how many Guardians are running around with Ahamkara bones, how some of them have been spotted around Jupiter, and how Emperor Calus seems to be in contact with one. Ironically enough, a lot of their guns are made by Suros, a company known to proudly emblazon a dragon on their logo.
  • Pyrrhic Victory: With all three Factions having been effectively removed from their position in the Consensus in the wake of the Vex invasion, the only remaining political power in the City is the Vanguard. Commander Zavala, being the leader of the Vanguard, has essentially become the "new monarch" Hideo was seeking to make of him. Of course, none of New Monarchy are around anymore to enjoy the fruits of their "victory".
  • Red Is Heroic: The New Monarchy chose their red-and-white color scheme for this reason.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the wake of Lakshmi’s failed coup and resulting death by her own hand, Hideo and the rest of New Monarchy decide to skip town along with Dead Orbit rather than accept responsibility for their hand in the plot.
  • Uncle Pennybags: He used to be a famous and beloved philanthropist, and still characterizes himself as such, only with more of an eye on the big picture. Others, however, have noted that the origins and direction of his cashflow have become increasingly hard-to-determine in recent years, leading some to wonder where, exactly, it's coming from and going.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: He created the New Monarchy to stand against this tendency within humanity, unifying the warring Factions into a single unified purpose. Ironically, his party has only contributed further to the problem, becoming yet another player in the City's great game.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: A charitable interpretation of his Faction, with their romantic idealization of The Good King as a concept and their unique optimism about humanity's odds on restoring its Golden Age.

Support Staff

    Kadi 55-30 

Kadi 55-30, Postmaster

Voiced by: Nika Futterman
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kadi.jpg
"Whenever you need me again, Guardian."

A Frame that acts as the postmaster for the Tower, Kadi has a somewhat worried personality matrix.


  • Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Always trying faithfully to tend the mail, but had to deal with joke packages, packages for people who are not officially recognized by the Tower, and packages for Warlocks that have a habit of floating away from their shelves. Not to mention Cayde-6's antics. Banshee's packages apparently make ticking noises. Oh dear.
    Kadi 55-30: Inappropriate picture message received from Cayde.
  • Catchphrase: "... oh dear." She has a lot of reason to say it.
  • Verbal Tic: Has a tendency to sometimes repeat words two or three times, making it sounds like she has a bit of a stutter.
    "All done, all done."

    Master Rahool 

Master Rahool, Cryptarch

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

Voiced by: Erick Avari
""Why a garden? Eden? Hesperides? Hesperides from Hesperus, Venus on Venus? No, no!"

One of the City's Crypto-Archaeologists, Rahool's insatiable hunger to study history has brought him to the Tower where he can be the first to see, study, and catalog new items that Guardians bring in from the frontier.


  • Absent-Minded Professor: He's not completely tethered to reality, going off on odd little tangents at the slightest provocation. It was the in-game explanation for his once-notorious habit of short-changing Guardians on Engrams, and he got better about it when Cayde pulled him aside and asked him to "decode a sack of doorknobs". By the time of The Taken King, he'll even apologize to the player if they think they've been disappointed by his decryption's results in the past.
  • Adventure Archaeologist: Downplayed. While he does not go out adventuring, he prefers to be at the Tower where the Guardians can be found instead of at the Cryptarch's Archives, since that is where he is best positioned to get the first look at artifacts coming back from the wild and talk to the Guardians who found them about the adventures they had getting them. Indeed, as of The Taken King there is a dedicated crytographer faction who the player can get reputation with simply by bringing them engrams for them to happily decode so they can find more secrets from the Golden Age or the other alien races.
  • Bookworm: He gets quite excited about texts being recovered, as he is eager to read them and discover all he can about the Golden Age and before.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's got an almost unhealthy interest in the secrets of the Golden Age, and mostly sets up his kiosk in the Tower courtyard so he can immediately decrypt whatever things the Guardians find. That being said, he's also one of the greatest experts on Golden Age technology and cryptography, making him incredibly useful to the Guardians and Vanguard.
  • The Exile: Used to live in the Reef before leaving for the Last City. Considering what the Queen thinks of Awoken who leave the Reef, it is highly doubtful he could ever go back if he wanted to.
  • Mythology Gag: Some of his mumbling are obscure references to Bungie's early Myth series:
    Rahool: A Wind Age, a Wolf Age... presentiment of the collapse?
  • The Rival: Of Master Ives of the Reef, although since Rahool never mentions him, it may be more of a one-sided affair.
  • The Smart Guy: Among the Tower's collection of experts, Rahool is the unquestioned master of golden Age technology and crytography. Pretty much any time you need to decrypt engrams or alien technology, you'll go to him, and he says that things like Hive runic encryption or Vex codes are "amusing puzzles".

    Tess Everis 

Tess Everis, Special Orders

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tess_everis.jpg
Voiced by: Claudia Black

A "fixer" of a sort, Tess is known for her wide web of connections and abilities to procure unusual goods. She has a kiosk in the Tower from which she can get Guardians special orders not found anywhere else: in other words, items obtained outside of the game through special codes or events. After The Taken King was released, she re-purposed her kiosk into a new Microtransactions shop called Eververse.


  • The Bus Came Back: Tess sees a return in mid-October with a new look and store as part of the Eververse Trading Company.
  • The Fixer: She can get almost anything for the right price.
  • Microtransactions: Her purpose as of October 13, 2015. Though her initial inventory averts the Bribing Your Way to Victory element seen in most MMO-style games, opting for cosmetic items. Most notably, dance emotes.
  • Put on a Bus: Tess was removed from the Tower with the 1.2.0.5 patch, while her special orders were transferred to a kiosk near Eva Levante. Bungie assured fans that Tess would return with the release of the 2.0 patch, the update that would precede the release of The Taken King. Lead a number of jokes within the fandom that Tess had been "taken" by Oryx.

    Eva Levante 

Eva Levante, Guardian Outfitter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eva_levante.jpg
Voiced by: Nika Futterman

An artist and meta-material hacker who looks to both past and present for inspiration, Eva has a long career of outfitting Guardians with custom heraldic signs and recoloring armor and equipment.


  • All Hail the Great God Mickey!: Downplayed in that no one is worshiping any of them, but in her role as a heraldic artist she draws inspiration from old logos and images from pre-collapse sources, often hiring Guardians to go out and find new examples for her. Hence, a lot of the designs she sells for Guardians to use as personal symbols are actually old sales logos from big companies that no longer exist (and occasionally a few that still do).
  • The Bus Came Back: Eva returns after a period of absence in Destiny 2 for the Dawning event, which has Guardians bake cookies by gathering ingredients during their adventures to bake them and gift them to various NPCs in the game.
  • Collector of the Strange: Despite being an artist, she posts Patrol bounties to collect lots of things that don't have anything to do with art, including enemy drops, scans of Golden Age or enemy technology, etc.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: The Grimoire card for The Festival of the Lost features a conversation between Eva and Ikora which reveals that Eva's child is dead.
  • Put on a Bus: She's no longer in the tower as of Destiny 2, and according to a scannable she's busy getting the bazaar back up and running.

    Amanda Holliday 

Amanda Holliday, Shipwright

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/amanda_holliday.png
Voiced by: Courtenay Taylor

The daughter of traveling pilgrims, Holliday learned mechanical maintenance from a young age as a necessity, and when she settled in the City her expertise earned her a senior position repairing and refurbishing jumpships and other vehicles.


  • Ace Pilot: She's able to pilot a Hawk VTOL in the midst of the Cabal invasion's chaos and fly it close enough to the Red Legion's flagship to drop the player Guardian on it. Emperor Calus also seems to believe that her skills rival that of the Ace-Defiants, an entire fleet of these from a spacefaring species, but whether or not the Psions forging the Chronicon did their research on that part is left ambiguous.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Up until Update 2.0 and The Taken King, Amanda was little more than a vendor selling ships for players to use. As of The Taken King, however, she's become slightly more involved in the plot and appears in a cutscene, as well as giving out quests that help expand her past before and after she arrived in the Last City.
    • In the main story of Destiny 2, Amanda is given a much larger role than she was in the previous base game. She's also a recurring character during Season of the Chosen and helps the Young Wolf deal with the Cabal war games.
    • She, Devrim and Crow are the NPC focus' of Season of Defiance, which unfortunately leads to her death.
  • Artificial Limbs: After the 2.0 update overhauled Amanda's design, her right leg was revealed to be a mechanical replacement.
  • Badass Normal: She's no Guardian, but she is perfectly capable of holding herself well in a fight. She's an ace pilot, and as shown in Season of the Splicer, she is very handy with her shotgun. The Eliksni from the House of Light were very surprised to learn she wasn't a Guardian, having assumed from what they saw of her that Amanda had to be one.
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: She has nothing but happy memories about her parents, both of whom perished on the journey to the Last City.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Is killed out of nowhere during Season of Defiance - while her death is framed as a Heroic Sacrifice to help save prisoners from the Shadow Legion after the cavern they're in starts to self destruct, it wasn't until just before her death that there was any indication the base was about to blow- and even then, the most we really get is what's hinted to be a countdown timer on the screen of the console she's hotwiring to release Mithrax and the hostages- and it's only because of a vague warning from Eramis at the start of the mission that there was any sign of anything out of the ordinary beforehand.
  • Family of Choice: Having lost her family before reaching the Last City, Amanda found a new one with Zavala, Cayde, and Ikora. She explicitly refers to them as her family, and often serves as Zavala's confidant.
  • Go Out with a Smile: She is left smiling in contentment moments before her death, having helped save a bunch of prisoners from a Shadow Legion prison.
  • I Reject Your Reality: It's implied she's in denial about the events of "Harbinger," as she throws out an auto rifle themed after the Radiant Accipiter acquired from it after learning Crow used to be Uldren. "Harbinger" is itself a mission about acceptance for Crow's resurrection, and is well over a year bygone after Amanda learns the truth. Season of the Haunted later indicates that Crow does not even register as an actual human being to her anymore. However, a later audio log reveals she comes to seriously regret having this mindset. Come Lightfall, she is shown struggling to try and move past it...unfortunately, DroppedABridgeOnHim her sudden death prevents her from fully making peace with Crow.
  • Kick the Dog: In Season of the Haunted, the first thing we hear from Amanda is taking out her refusal to acknowledge Crow as a person now that she knows he used to be Uldren on Crow himself. It's...not pretty. She mentions in an audio log that she regrets raging at Crow, saying he didn't deserve all the hateful things she said. They later end up having a heart-to-heart in Season of Defiance where Amanda acknowledges that she's being unfair to Crow, but she's still struggling to separate him from the feelings she has towards Uldren.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: She's among the many people in the Tower, besides Osiris, Ikora, and the Young Wolf, who does not know that the Crow is Uldren Sov Back from the Dead as a Guardian. She's finally let in during The Witch Queen, where she has some serious problems reconciling Crow with Uldren.
  • Ship Tease: With Crow in Season of the Chosen. Despite their initial disagreements regarding their thoughts and views about the Cabal and other races, she's very quick to warm up to him and even asks him out for a drink. This is sadly undone when Amanda learns he's a post-resurrected Uldren Sov. The Sweet Sorrow and Ivory Empress lore cards detail how the revelation's affected her and how it's affected her relationship with him. Lightfall does show signs of their relationship mending, however, as Amanda is trying to see Crow as he is, not as Uldren. The latter, meanwhile, accepts this and patiently plays the Dogged Nice Guy.
  • Snark-to-Snark Combat: She and Cayde appear to have this dynamic in the Taken King expansion. Despite that, they're clearly good friends.
  • Sole Survivor: She was the only member of her family to make it to the City alive. Her mother died defending their group with her shotgun The Chaperone and her father died of pneumonia half a day's ride from the gates of the Last City.
  • Southern-Fried Genius: Presumably her family of pilgrims was from the southern parts of North America, if her accent is anything to go by. Amanda herself mentions that her mother died while crossing the Panama Ravine, which would suggest and reinforce several fan theories that the Last City is located in the mountains of South America.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Cayde. They constantly snark and joke at each other, but are obviously close.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In The Witch Queen, she is absolutely furious upon learning Crow's identity, unable to understand why the Young Wolf is okay with Cayde's murderer walking among them or how they're friends with him now. She starts to move past it late in the expansion, and is shown trying to rebuild her friendship with Crow after their falling out.
  • Wrench Wench: Ever since she was a child.

    Banshee- 44 

Banshee-44, Gunsmith

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/banshee_44.jpg

Voiced by: John Dimaggio
"They say Exos don't dream... but are they dreams, or memories?"

An Exo soldier who saw too much during his long existence and has the damage-repair seams to prove it. His numerous resets have kept him functional after all this time, but his vast memory is fragmented and even he has trouble sifting it. Never the less, his experience with guns is second to none, and he spends his days building and repairing weapons used by Guardians.


  • Amnesiac Dissonance: Clovis Bray was a near-sociopathic Mad Scientist, but his Exo clone is a friendly, slightly senile Cool Old Guy. Even back when he was Clovis-1, he was thoroughly disgusted with his organic self, not having the litany of self-delusions that allowed Clovis to believe he was immune to compassion.
  • Arms Dealer: He sells early, uncommon-quality weapons to low-level guardians and afterward sells foundry orders for advanced, legendary-quality guns to high-level Guardians, as well as offering prototype weapons for the Guardians to test. He'll also give out gifts of armaments to Guardians who test weapons for him and who bring him rare weapon components and complete weapon-related questlines.
  • The Blacksmith: If any Guardian needs special modification on a weapon, or has a piece of Golden Age or alien weaponry they are uncertain of, they can be assured that Banshee probably knows something about it and has the skills necessary to work it over.
  • Clones Are People, Too: Beyond Light reveals that he's a copy of Clovis Bray I, created with his genius and personality but none of his memories. He didn't take it well and grew to hate his template for what he had done, eventually asking Elsie to change his name to Banshee once he was done fighting the Vex.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Banshee's not 100% there when you talk to him, often going off on philosophical tangents. In Warmind, a terminal on the Exo project reveals that the maximum number of reboots an Exo should go through is twenty, meaning Banshee has exceeded the safe standards for Exo reboots twice over, which explains his oddities.
  • Cool Old Guy: One of the eldest residents of the Tower (and probably the oldest non-Guardian there) and is responsible for ensuring Guardians get top of the line-equipment and custom weaponry.
  • Cool Sword: The true owner of the Lament, created back when he was still called Clovis to fight off the Glassway's Vex invasions. After it is recovered and repaired, however, Banshee entrusts it to the Young Wolf.
  • Foreshadowing: A throwaway line in his weekly bounty for Dreaming City kills has Banshee mention that he remembers fighting a war with time loops, something only the Vex should be capable of. Beyond Light follows up on this when it's revealed that he was a One-Man Army against a horde of Vex in his past, back when his real name was Clovis.
  • I Am Who?: I am a copy of Clovis Bray I?
  • Meaningful Rename: "Banshee" was a nickname his old squadmates gave him, after the very distinctive sound made by his signature sword. When he decided to reset himself to forget his past as Clovis Bray's Exo clone, he asked that his registry be changed as well, going from Clovis-43, to Banshee-44.
  • Morally Superior Copy: Clovis Bray I, obsessed with becoming the last universal common ancestor for humanity's future scientific progress, developed the Brain Uploading technology that would create the Exos, also part of his bid to escape death with immortality. He ultimately created two copies of himself, an AI copy of his mind, which would oversee the facility called the Deep Stone Crypt, and an Exo duplicate with his basic personality but not his memories. Clovis I's Exo, when he discovered what a heartless monster his antecedent was, chose to reject his philosophies after getting Clovis I's memories uploaded to him. The Exo Clovis— after going to war against the Vex, shutting down their portal in the Glassway on Europa, and suffering numerous resets in the process— underwent one last reset, but requested that his Clovis memories be removed, taking a new identity as Banshee-44.
  • Old Soldier: Exos may not age, but that does not mean they are immune to the wear-and-tear that comes with hard combat and time, and Banshee has been through plenty of both. The numeric suffix for his name is the amount of times he has had to be rebooted since activation, often after extensive repairs, and he bears the scars both physical and cognitive of this.
  • Passing the Torch: After the Young Wolf wipes the floor with the Vex using the Lament for the first time, Banshee recalls his true past as Clovis Bray I's other AI copy, and the war he waged with the Lament against the Glassway's Vex. Feeling that the Young Wolf has earned the right to use it just like his electronic twin, he leaves the blade to them as he obviously has no need for it anymore.
  • Redeeming Replacement: Of Clovis Bray.
  • Retired Badass: Used to serve the City and the Exo Stranger in a combat capacity, including at Twilight Gap. Now he puts his long experience with weaponry to good use for the Guardians.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: His long experiences in combat spanning centuries and repeated repairs and reboots have left his memory fragmented and partial. Things he senses sometimes bring those memory fragments to the fore, sometimes people he sees remind him of people he has lost, etc. However, his expertise with weapons and their maintenance has stayed, even if he sometimes cannot remember where he saw a particular example.
  • Ultimate Gunsmith: He's responsible for the crafting and maintenance of several Guardian's arsenals- notably, he assembles Fabian Strategy, Ace of Spades, and Tlaloc as custom weapons for Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks, respectively. Back in Year One, he was instrumental in the creation of Pocket Infinity, the realization of Toland's design for Bad Juju, and the restoration of Invective, a Golden Age shotgun which once belonged to Ikora Rey. In addition, it is heavily implied that he was at least partially responsible for hijacking the malevolent precepts of SIVA, either convincing or forcing it to be more like the benevolent Transmission project developed alongside it. This created the Adept versions of the Wrath of the Machine primaries. Of course, this makes sense, considering he created it in a past life.
  • Wistful Amnesia: He'll often comment on things he thinks he remembers, and at the end of the Cayde's Will quest in Forsaken he'll wonder where Cayde is after completing the gun. This is attributed to the massive number of reboots he's undergone, which Warmind states is over twice the amount that an Exo should undergo before they are retired.

    Roni 55- 30 

Roni 55-30, Vanguard Quartermaster

Voiced by: Nika Futterman

A well-composed Frame, Roni functions as the quartermaster for the Vanguard. She remains unflappable, despite Cayde-6's attempts to produce a reaction.


  • The Stoic: Despite Cayde's better efforts, Roni has not shown any emotional reaction.

    Arcite 99- 40 

Arcite 99-40, Crucible Quartermaster

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arcite_99_40.jpg

Voiced by: Dominic Keating

A former combat Frame under the control of Lord Shaxx, Arcite has long since been repurposed into assisting Shaxx's with some of the more clerical parts of managing the Crucible. While he has been demilitarized, he retains his memories and some of his programming as a combat frame, and carries the personality that comes with it.


  • Blood Knight: He learned to love combat during his time as a combat Frame. From one of his after-action reports in the Grimoire:
    "Enemy units harbored a structural defect in the center chassis that the Redjacks exploited with great prejudice. Over two dozen hostile units fell: it was amazing."
  • Last of His Kind: He shares this distinction with Dahlia 99-40 of being one the last two of Shaxx's original Redjack combat Frames. However, unlike Dahlia, Arcite no longer serves in combat.
  • Jerkass: In a sharp contrast to the rest of the Frames, who are calm, polite, and helpful, he likes to insult the Guardians he serves and jerk them around with fake technical glitches. Apparently, Shaxx was a bad influence.
  • Mecha-Mooks: Served as one of Shaxx's original combat frames in the Redjacks, a group dedicated to securing the locations that become Crucible arenas.
  • Retired Badass: No longer has combat skills due to those systems being deactivated, but he still has all his memories of the battles he fought.

    Xander 99- 40 

Xander 99-40, Bounty Tracker

Voiced by: Dominic Keating

One of the newest model of Frames to come out of the City's foundries, Xander is responsible for tracking bounties posted for Guardians in the Tower and is authorized to distribute compensation when brought proof of completion.


  • Noodle Incident: He was reassigned to issue bounties after a mopping "incident" involving powerful cleaning supplies melted through some deck plating.

Owl Sector

A group of civilians who assist the Vanguard in monitoring and aiding Guardians. When a mysterious swarm of mites begin appearing around the heads of Guardians, increasing the speed at which they gain experience, the Owl Sector begins to investigating Clovis Bray's ties to the technology.

    Shun Li 

Liaison Shun Li

Owl Sector's Liaison to the Vanguard.


  • The Charmer: Refers to himself as one, which is probably why he's the liaison to the Vanguard.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Frequently makes snarky comments.
    Shun: They're Guardians, Quist. Means the Light has cooked their brains. Haven't you seen them dancing in the Plaza, for no reason, with no music at all? We'll take what we can get.
  • Working with the Ex: Implied to have once been in a relationship with Ikora, with Quist being surprised she still speaks to him and Shun calling her Korrie while teasingly asking if she would be worried more if he got infected with the mite. When he is possibly exposed, Ikora is noticeably disturbed. He also successfully guesses that her first question to Ramos will be asking about him.

    Quist 

Geographer Quist

Owl Sector's geographer.

  • Good Parents:
    "I can call my children on a screen and sing them to sleep, but I can't hold them or help them up when they stumble."
  • The Pessimist: Compared to the others, Quist normally seems more depressed.
    Shun: Berriole's deployed on Mars, Quist is whimpering in the corner-
    Quist: Slander.

    Berriole 

Bypass Authority Berriole

A field agent of Owl Sector.


  • Badass Normal: She isn't a Guardian but still gets sent on field missions to dangerous locations, including to the Dust Palace on Mars.
  • Playful Hacker: She successfully hacks the terminals in the Dust Palace, accessing information about the origin of the outbreak.
  • The Sneaky Gal: Slips past Cabal and Vex fighting over the Dust Palace with ease.

    Ramos 

Ramos

Takes over as Liaison to the Vanguard when Shun falls ill.

    Camrin Dumuzi 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/camrin_5.png

Introduced in the Destiny 2: Warmind comic, Camrin is a researcher for Owl Sector who helps Ana Bray in her search for her past and clues to locate Rasputin, and later fell in love with her.


  • Artificial Limbs: She ends up with a cybernetic right arm, courtesy of Rasputin's medical advancements.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Camrin figured out that "Stasya Pak" was actually Anastasia Bray pretty much based on how fondly Ana spoke about her family.
  • Badass Bookworm: Is only a researcher for Owl Sector, and not a Guardian outright. Doesn't stop her from holding her own in a Clovis Bray terminal littered with Vex.
  • Badass Normal: It's not everyday one sees a regular human being go up against Vex. Granted, she had a Guardian watching her back, and she did end up seriously hurt, but still...
  • Black and Nerdy: Ana was very impressed that Camrin knew her stuff. She's also no stranger to Technobabble either.
    Camrin: You a big fan of nanite-induced cellular regeneration and cyberneural prosthetics?
    Ana Bray: I mean, who isn't?
  • Human Popsicle: Spent a year in stasis after she was caught in the blast of a Vex grenade, while Rasputin healed her.
  • Secret-Keeper: Not even Zavala knew that Ana was still alive by the time Camrin figured out who she was, and when he asked she assured him that "Stasya Pak" was just a civilian enthusiast and not Ana Bray, the seeker of forbidden knowledge.

Annex Residents

    Benedict 99- 40 (Spoilers) 

Benedict 99-40, Emperor's Advocate

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/benedict_99_40.png

One of the Frames assigned to cleaning duties on the Tower, Benedict remains steadfast to his job, even if there's an invasion on the horizon. Oddly enough, his circuits seem to fizzle out and give way to something unexppected when approached by chosen Guardians...


  • Creepy Monotone: His voice inflexion is the same as every other Frame, which is to say mechanical, except the content of his speeches reveals that he's a fanatic zealot who gladly transmits Calus's admiration and revelry for the Guardians' unbridled might.
  • Manchurian Agent: Only when you interact with him does he brings out a hidden persona. He's an agent of Calus, rewarding the Guardians who braved the Leviathan's trials and transmitting additional messages from the Cabal Emperor.
  • Meaningful Name: Benedict 99-40's name is meant to invoke Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold was a traitor in the American Revolutionary War who defected from the American Continental Army to the British Army, with his name becoming a byword for treason and betrayal. Benedict 99-40 has been hacked by Calus and now serves as his agent within the Tower.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Not for nothing he's got an epithet when you finally become able to interact with him He's Calus representative on the Tower, hence the Emperor's Advocate. He seems to transmit direct messages from the real Calus, as opposed to the robot copy you fought prior on the Leviathan.
  • Put on a Bus: Once the Leviathan disappears from Nessus's orbit at the start of Season 12, so does Benedict from his Annex post.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: His normally blue circuits lights flare red when he talks in Calus's stead.
  • Walking Spoiler: Not only his relevance to the story comes out of nowhere, he doesn't even come into focus until after you have completed the main postgame content!
  • While Rome Burns: You can find him in the prologue of Destiny 2 sweeping in the hallway leading up to Ikora, completely oblivious to the fierce assault on the Tower. Curiously enough, there are also Cabal corpses lying next to him.

    The Drifter 

The Drifter, Rogue Lightbearer

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

Voiced by: Todd Haberkorn
"Alright, alright, alright! Let's see what we've got!"

A rogue Lightbearer that's towing a mysterious asteroid from his ship The Derelict, the Drifter oversees and orchestrates Gambit, a PvP / PvE hybrid mode that debuted in Forsaken. His identity and motives are unknown, but he seems to have a great respect for the Darkness and the Taken in particular.


  • Affably Evil: He cheers both for the Darkness and Guardians competing in Gambit, giving them pep talks with the team that's falling behind and showing sympathy when they lose.
  • Ambiguously Evil: A major theme with him - No matter your perspective on him, he's definitely been involved in the deaths of many good people over an inhuman span of time, but how much he's at fault is impossible to say. Nobody trusts him, and yet he knows when he's caused harm and is completely forthright about it, though it's never clear whether he's being Brutally Honest or just plain callous. Every time he's cast harsh judgement on a 'good guy', it's turned out he had a damn good reason to, but it often turns out that he didn't have the full picture either.
  • An Ice Person Gains the ability to use Stasis in Beyond Light.
  • Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: The weapons you get from him for participating in Gambit all look like they were pulled from around the WWII era and before; the Trust Hand Cannon for example, has a vague resemblance to a break-action Colt Walker. These weapons all have old-fashioned wooden furnishings, and blackened metal frames. The weapons you get from him for participating in Gambit Prime, however, look like they were put together by a motorcycle gang's gunsmith, with very skeletal frames.
  • All Your Powers Combined: During the allegiance quest when you side with the Vanguard, one of Aunor's messages to you contains a transcript of the Drifter talking with a Titan. The transcript lists both of them as Guardians, but lists his class as "Multi", and by the Drifter's admission the division of Guardian classes didn't exist during the Dark Age.
  • The Atoner: He was a Shadow of Yor for a while, but realized they were actually living the Darkness instead of just using it, and he's since renounced them; he's actually a little embarrassed when you bring up his Dredgen name. Gambit was invented as a way to examine Dark use without being corrupted by it or forcing betrayal of other Guardians.
  • Body Horror: His Ghost is a red-eyed amalgam of several other Ghost shells, which looks visibly damaged and leans to one side. Said Ghost underwent enormous Sanity Slippage when the Red War saw the Light sealed away, not helped by how Drifter and them were the last of their crew alive on a planet filled with Darkness-based monsters. In a depserate bid to escape, he told his Lightbearer to fuse the shells of other Ghosts to his own so that he could perceive other wavelengths of Light, and possibly even the Darkness, which was apparently what they used to escape.
  • The Corruptor: He occasionally tells the Guardians to "embrace the Darkness" during Gambit matches. When you invade the enemy team during Gambit, he might even say "This is how the Taken feel! Revel in it!", indicating that he's trying to make you experience the mindset of an actual minion of the Darkness. This is because he wants to prove one can wield or have a similar mindset to the Darkness, without being evil and still fighting for humanity.
  • Bling-Bling-BANG!: The Season 4 ornaments on the Gambit weapons replace their wooden furniture with ivory, and much of their frame is instead made shinier, sometimes with a bit of gold highlights. The Black Armory ornaments take it up a notch, often gilding large areas of each weapon.
  • Blood Knight: More than Shaxx. He actually respects the Darkness and its philosophy.
  • The Cynic: Being one of the first Guardians, he saw the Dark Age at its worst — and how amoral even the Iron Lords could be. This has since made him very distrustful of Ghosts, even his own, and the Light as a concept.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: What he wants to prove. In his travels in the outer reaches of the system, he's apparently learned that Darkness isn't inherently evil, even if the malicious faction known as The Darkness is evil. He mentions how once, it was even controversial to wield Void Light, and that humanity got past that. He wants to see a day where both Light and Darkness can be wielded as weapons, and he sees them not as omnibenevolent or omnimalevolent forces, but just tools that can be wielded for good or bad.
  • Deserted Island: His backstory involves him being trapped on a planet. He and his crew of other Lightbearers found a "cold hunk of ice with no name" which contained creatures that repulsed the Light. Things went bad and he emerged as the only survivor.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: The first Invitation of the Nine cutscene features Drifter casually summoning a Taken Captain to blindside a Shadow holding him at gunpoint. Said Captain then immediately turns on him.
  • Evil Laugh: The Drifter is always in a cheery mood when overseeing Gambit matches, but it's when you wipe an entire team that his sinister enthusiasm reaches its peak, belting out all sorts of delighted, if sadistic, exclamations.
    "Hahaha! I'm sorry, were they saying something? 'Cuz they're dead now!"
  • Extreme Omnivore: Due to having starved to death multiple times during the Dark Age, one of the Drifter's most notable quirks is his eagerness to consume the enemy species you face in Gambit, from cooking up Hive to drinking Vex milk.
  • Foil: To Shaxx. While both of them provide Arenas for Guardians to sharpen their skills, but while Shaxx does so for the purpose of creating better defenders of the City; The Drifter seems to have his own reasons for doing so.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: He might be setting up shop in the Tower, but it's pretty clear that absolutely no one trusts him, and for good reason considering all the secrets he's hiding and what can be inferred about his past. The only reason he's even still alive and not a pile of ash is because Shin Malphur needs both him and Gambit in order to flush out the Shadows of Yor.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: The Drifter has invented numerous devices ever since his introduction. A few examples of his inventions include the Bank, Malfeasance, the Mote Synthesizer, Prismatic Recaster, Umbral Decoder, and many more.
  • Good Old Ways: He dislikes modern weaponry, and sees most of it as unnecessary flash and style or as overkill and a waste of resources. The weapons he rewards you with in Gambit are the only weapons made with Dark Age-style craftsmanship, and they're some of the most basic weapons in the game and focus on consistency and reliability instead of impressive perk effects or special traitsnote . He applauds the Tex Mechanica foundry for their weaponry as well; according to him, they come really close to Dark Age reliability, much closer than other foundries. Funnily enough, the pinnacle LMG 21% Delirium is actually of SUROS make, though it matches the Gambit weapon aesthetic and has its logo scratched out.
  • Higher Understanding Through Drugs: It's implied he knows of the Weave (the string theory-like principle of reality later forged into Strand during Lightfall) because of a Mushroom Samba induced by cooking Acolyte eyes. This was mentioned more than two years before Strand and the Weave were revealed.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: One lore entry implies he's experimented with eating himself, with him mentioning that if The Guardian loses extremities while dying of frostbite, there won't be enough for a stew before their Ghost restores them.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: Like Shaxx, he seems to love it when The Guardian really lets loose with their powers.
    The Drifter: Damn! You fight like this every day?! I'd hate to see you go to war, there'd be nothing left!
  • Light Is Not Good: How the Drifter sees the Traveler as it brought Hell to Earth.
  • Love Hurts: Non-fatal example. The Drifter and the Guardian Orin were in some kind of deeply personal relationship, which doesn't bode well when she is transformed into the Emissary. Standing within earshot of Drifter but without him noticing will occasionally reveal him sobbing uncontrollably over Orin, which may be partially fueled by guilt — Orin did not take kindly to learning that the Drifter was not who he initially said he was.
  • Meaningful Name: Not him, but Gambit. It really is part of some kind of gambit he is working. His lore tabs end with him promising to tell you more if his gambit makes it that far. His 'Gambit' seems to be a test to see whether or not the Darkness can be wielded safely, which he's very confident it can be, and if humanity as a whole will accept it as a possible weapon against the faction known as the Darkness and for humanity's survival.
  • No Name Given: Played with. He tells you to just call him Drifter, and lore from Joker's Wild reveals that he went under several aliases in the past, all inconclusive of his real name. "Stolen Intelligence" reveals that his Dredgen title is Hope, while the vision for the 7th Invitation of the Nine has Orin referring to the Drifter as Wu Ming. None of these end up pointing toward his real name, as the Dredgen title is merely a cover up the Drifter discards once he's disillusioned with the Shadows of Yor, and "Wu Ming" is also an alias whose meaning in Mandarin Chinese amounts to "Nameless", much to Orin's dismay upon finding out the Drifter lied to her about his true identity. The closest we'll ever get is the Emissary (aka the present-day Orin) faintly recollecting that she once knew him as Eli. Season of Arrivals muddies the waters further when Eris calls him Germaine, as does Eido in Season of Plunder. Drifter's brief Oh, Crap! and wondering how the hell she know's that name implies that it might well be his real one, or at least one he keeps close to his chest. Saladin also calls him Germaine in Season of the Deep before asking if it's still "Dredgen Hope", but Drifter in this case shrugs it off and says it's just Drifter now.
  • Oh, Crap!: Compared to his usually confident and smooth demeanor, he's noticeably shaken and asks for a minute to think when he learns that Callum Sol was killed by Shin Malphur. This prompts him to begin creating Malfeasance, gifting it to you at the end of its quest line in the hope that on the day Shin comes gunning for him, you'll face him alongside the Drifter.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His usualy jovial and jokester attitude is subdued, if not gone totally when he sees Sloane infected by Taken corruption, realizing the severity of her condition and gently tells her to come home so they can get her help. As several lore tabs throughout Year 6 have shown, Drifter has a very big soft spot for Eris, and drops his usual attitude around her in favor of more tender interactions.
  • Paper Tiger: If you complete the questline that puts you in opposition of him, at the end of the quest, the Lone Wolf decides that far from being a threat, the Drifter is "a fearful, scrabbling scavenger running from the spectres of death". You and the Vanguard member you were working with decide he is nothing to be particularly worried about.
    • In the Dark Future, which is stated to be a very common timeline, the Drifter’s rotting corpse is found alone in the Deep Stone Crypt; implying that for all his bravado, he truly had no idea what he was up against.
  • Planet Spaceship: That asteroid the Drifter tows around using the derelict? It's a containment field for Unknown Space. As in, the domain of the Nine.
  • Rage Breaking Point: He loses his temper at the end of the Warden of Nothing Strike, when Ghost tries to rip into the Drifter and calls him a scammer who intentionally set up the path to kill you. When pressed, the Drifter says it's simply an act of kindness to point towards the Mad Servitor, but Ghost still doesn't believe him. He then immediately calls Ghost out for being incredibly spineless for being the Young Wolf's partner.note 
    You're the sorriest thing I've ever met.
  • Really 700 Years Old: One of the Drifter's lines mentions a time when Lady Efrideet trashed a bar he ran when the Iron Lords were still around. This would mean he's been around as long as the likes of Commander Zavala and Lord Shaxx, if not even longer.
  • Sole Survivor: Of his crew, who all perished on a "cold hunk of ice with no name" while investigating the remains of an alien civilization that left behind Monoliths which contained frozen creatures similar in appearance to the Hive. Unlike the Hive, however, each one generated a field that suppressed light "like a Darkness Zone, but contained to a gooey, vacuous form with no head". Over the course of a year stranded on the planet, some of the Guardians died their final deaths; the remainder of them, save for the Drifter, died when the Traveler's Light was sealed off by Ghaul. The Drifter somehow found a way off of the planet, and began organizing Gambit for reasons known only to him. Rather worryingly, the creatures are described as being headless, which combined with their light-repulsing powers, heavily implies that they were Tormentors.
  • Summon Magic: He used a Mote of Dark to summon nine Primevals to deal with a Cabal troop and a capital ship as back-up that was holding him a gunpoint. Needless to say, the Cabal did not survive.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: If you choose to investigate him instead of joining him, he will still let you run gambits and do jobs for him, after all he needs all the help he can get and you could use the rewards he's got even if you don't trust each other.
  • Unwitting Pawn: To Shin Malphur and Lord Shaxx, who are using Gambit as a way to lure the Shadows of Yor back out of hiding and to keep an eye out for any other Guardians that would be tempted in a similar manner.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: He's very much in the pre-City mode of thought about Guardians — that immortality is a burden that threatens Loss of Identity. He greatly envies the survival instincts of regular people that live their one life to the fullest, while the Risen needlessly throw away countless of theirs. His relationship with his Ghost is a distant one, treating it like a tool and actively rejecting any help it offers.
  • Wisdom from the Gutter: Surviving across the outer-edges of the system with nothing but will and scraps teaches you things. To fill in the time it takes for the transmat to fire-up before every Gambit match, Drifter will often drop little wisdoms on surviving in the wild pertaining to whatever your enemy is; little bits like "Hive guts are easily flammable and make for good fire-fuel" or "Cabal shields are indestructible and make for good shelter" or "the shell of a Hydra makes good sleeping, if you can defuse their self-destruct".
  • You're Insane!: Says this pretty much word-for-word upon completing The Last Wish if you use the Tenth Wish (replaces all of Riven's dialogue with The Drifter's observations on your experience during the Raid).
    The Drifter: I started today wonderin' what you're like out here, away from Gambit. And now I know: you are insane.
  • Zen Survivor: The Drifter is one of the wisest characters in the series due to his wealth of experience dating all the way back to the Dark Age, in a time when being gifted with the Traveler's Light wasn't necessarily a good thing. Back then, he starved for a very long time, even dying and getting resurrected by his Ghost in a starving state, and he was caught in the war between the renegade Risen Warlords and the self-righteous Iron Lords. Seeing firsthand the deaths of Lightless innocents caught in the crossfire, the Drifter understandably has no sympathy for either side, and set out on a journey outside the Sol system to find something greater than that accursed Light which had created so many problems back on Earth. His apathy towards the Traveler also extends to his views on the conflict between the Vanguard and the Shadows of Yor; having been one such Shadow for a short while, he came to realize that neither side is as good as they pretend to be. During the events of Joker's Wild, he prepared some pre-recorded tapes for you to listen to, which essentially amount to his experiences and his reflections on them, as well as telling you, someone whom he could call "friend" for the first time in nearly a thousand years, to go beyond the Traveler's dogma and see the world for yourself.

    Ada- 1 

Ada-1, Curator of the Black Armory

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ada_1.png
Voiced by: Britt Baron

Born Adelaide Meyrin during the Golden Age and daughter of one of the three founders of the Black Armory, Ada-1 is the current head of the eponymous armory. Extremely distrustful of Guardians due to the deaths of her mother and co-leaders of the Black Armory by the hands of Risen Warlords, she now reluctantly seeks help from them in order to recover the forges that were once thought to be lost in the wild.


  • The Bus Came Back: She returns in Season of the Splicer, as a purveyor for the new transmogrification system, as well as a general armor and mod vendor.
  • Defeating the Undefeatable: Canonically speaking she's one of the first people to ever kill a Guardian (or Risen as they were known at the time). During the Collapse she managed to take down two Risen using the Izanagi's Burden before destroying their Ghosts, while they were about to kill her mother. Before this anytime Ada or her party fought with and killed the Risen they would inevitably revive and continue chasing them.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Throughout the course of Black Armory, your valiance in recovering the lost forges and rooting out their saboteurs gradually lessen Ada's prejudice against Guardians, though she still remains cautious of their general greed. The Spider muses that it's the first time he's seen Ada mellow out to a Guardian.
  • Desperately Seeking A Purpose In Life: With the Forges lost to the Darkness' move at the end of Shadowkeep, Ada spent many months stuck in a rut, not knowing what to do with herself without the ability to create Black Armory weapons. She eventually finds a new purpose as a dedicated armorer after the Guardian retrieves a matter programming device from the Bray Exoscience facility.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Her Exo body bears little resemblance to any other Exo character in the series, likely owing to her being one of the original prototype Exos.
  • Not So Above It All:
    • Despite having reservations about getting friendly with Guardians or anyone else in the Tower, Ada-1 still has a soft spot for the Dawning event, as evidenced by her main monitor displaying the Dawning crest instead of the usual Forge blueprints.
    • While quite stoic and serious, she occasionally sings and hums a tune if the Guardian stands around long enough.
    • She also takes part in the 2019 Festival of the Lost.
  • Odd Friendship: Sparks one with Suraya Hawthorne and Eido during Season of the Splicer.
  • Power Glows: After taking back all of the lost forges at the end of Black Armory's main questline, you find an Obsidian Accelerator and give it to Ada. It turns out that this particular piece was the one thing that Ada was missing to recover her true ability as a walking, talking forge. Afterwards, her body permanently radiates a rainbow glow.
  • Put on a Bus: Ada becomes inaccessible starting in Season 12, having closed off the door leading to her laboratory. This coincides with Black Armory content being sunset alongside other Year 1 and Year 2 seasonal activities.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Whilst this would hardly be surprising or noteworthy for any well-maintained mechanical body, the number after an Exo's name indicates how many times they've been rebooted/memory-wiped. As a result, this means Ada has only ever been rebooted once from her original meat-self. She likely has one of the longest uninterrupted spans of memory besides Lakshmi-2 of the Future War Cult... assuming she didn't spend all that time in sleep mode or something.
  • Sole Survivor: Ada is the only person left who holds the secrets of the three families that founded the Black Armory, following the deaths of the other co-leaders (including her mother) at the hands of proto-Guardians.

Outside the Tower

    Suraya Hawthorne 

Suraya Hawthorne, Clan Steward

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/suraya_hawthorne_d2.jpg
Voiced by: Sumalee Montano

Leader of the survivor enclave outside of the city known as "The Farm". She spent many years out in the wilds, with only the company of her hawk Louis.


  • Ambiguously Brown: Suraya is a name that can be found in many Middle Eastern countries, but her specific ancestry isn't revealed.
  • Awesome Backpack: Noteworthily averted. It's hard to see as she's rarely seen from the back but Hawthorne carries the bag that was offered with the Collector's Edition of Destiny 2, a bag that, when first shown to the public, was regarded as hideous.
  • Badass Normal: Hawthorne is just a human. No blessing of the Traveler's Light; just her own wit, cunning, and skill.
    • How badass, you ask? She's taking part in the Guardian Games. As a non-Guardian. The lore page for The Underdog ship reveals that she's capable of clearing Lost Sectors, presumably by herself. No easy feat, considering the typical residents of these zones. She also opts to rep the Titans in the Guardian Games, not the Hunters as one might expect.
  • Cold Sniper: Hawthorne shows a strong preference for sniper rifles, and she has a pretty standoffish attitude.
  • Cultural Posturing: Likes to boast about living outside the Last City, calling the City a "prison", even though with the state of the Solar System, the Last City really was the safest place humanity had and its last hope of making a major recovery after the collapse.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She's prone to making thinly-veiled jabs at the Guardians and the Last City, which Devrim has to remind her to try to be polite.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hawthorne holds a sense of disdain for the Last City, but was nonetheless the first person to mobilize forces to assist the now fallen Guardians. Devrim Kay has to frequently clarify whenever she's actually grateful for your help despite her dismissive dialogue.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Hawthorne's falcon, Louis, is her eye in the sky.
  • Punny Name: She's prickly and has a falcon or to say it another way, she's thorny and has a hawk. Hawk-Thorn. Hawthorne.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: An odd Blue to Devrim's Red. She's calmer, but prone to making biting remarks.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: She gets mad at the player Guardian for leaving her camp to join Zavala on Titan. Believing that they are abandoning the refugees who need their help. She's happy to see them when they return later though.

    Devrim Kay VIII 

Devrim Kay VIII, Dead Zone Scout

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/devrim_kay_destiny_2.jpg

Voiced by: Gideon Emery

Ever the gentleman sniper, Devrim Kay holds fast the wilds of the European Dead Zone for Hawthorne.


  • Ambiguously Brown: Devrim is a Turkish name, but whether that means he's of Turkish descent or not is up in the air.
  • Badass Normal: Devrim isn't a Guardian of any sort. Yet he's the head scout in charge of keeping tabs on the European Dead Zone, somewhere even the Guardians haven't been able to completely take back.
  • The Bus Came Back: After being shafted to the background, if not rendered non-existent after the Red War arc, Devrim finally returns to the forefront in Season of Defiance.
  • Friendly Sniper: Unlike Hawthorne, Devrim is a fairly cheerful man who always keeps a delightfully formal manner of speech, even as he's blowing off Fallen heads and Cabal helmets.
  • Officer and a Gentleman: A former member of the City militia, Devrim speaks in a very polite manner.
  • Otaku: Devrim shows a rather unusual interest in... Fallen accents. Hawthorne has to warn you not to bring it up or else he'll talk your ear off, and Amanda tells Mithrax to not answer a question about his accent because they'd be there all day otherwise.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: An odd Red to Hawthorne's Blue. He's more passionate, but also very polite.
  • Stealth Pun: He's a sniper who misses his Marc. Also used in the Forsaken DLC where one of the daily bounties you can receive in the EDZ is titled "Marc's Man", an obvious play on "marksman".
  • Straight Gay: He'll occasionally mention a husband named Marc when reminiscing about his home.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Devrim loves his tea, and will happily chug it down like water (somehow), despite offering to make you some.

    Failsafe 

Failsafe, Exodus Black AI

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/failsafe.png
Voiced by: Joy Osmanski

The AI of the ship Exodus Black that crashed on Nessus. Seems that due to damage from the crash and the following centuries of isolation, her programming has been... jumbled. As in, made very caustic.


  • Benevolent A.I.: Failsafe is your primary source of advice on Nessus. However, the crash of the Exodus Black caused some damage to her personality protocols. Note that benevolence doesn't mean friendly; while she never does anything overtly hostile to anyone, she is still annoyed with Cadye and your Ghost.
  • Blatant Lies: Her unfriendly side claims she's dealing perfectly well with Cayde's death in Forsaken. She then immediately talks herself into a Heroic BSoD and Unfriendly!Failsafe actually cries.
  • Blood Knight: Her more unpleasant side positively relishes violence and talks about killing enemies and taking their stuff in the closest thing it gets to happiness. On one bounty she hands out asking for grenade kills has a quote from her about wanting to see stuff blown up. Another asking for sniper rifle kills has her saying that headshots are cool.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The lights in Failsafe's mainframe change depending on her mood, from yellow (Friendly!Failsafe) to orange (Unfriendly!Failsafe).
  • Deadpan Snarker: Due to her Mood-Swinger traits, but she especially seems like taking her bad side out on your Ghost while being bright and cheery with you and Zavala. She gets especially snarky around Ghost.
    Ghost: The Vex are building something!
    Failsafe: Calculating probability. (long pause) Yes! They are!
  • Eccentric A.I.: She's gone a little loopy from both the catastrophic loss of all of her crew, the eons of isolation, and now the forces of literal Darkness tearing at her ship's core for parts and answers. This comes across as either cheerful, barely-sane passive-aggressiveness or snarky, whiny cynical moping in the vein of an Emo Teen or Daria, even when the player is dodging massive planet-cracking drills or trying to fight off alien bandits.
  • Evil Twin: Cayde introduces Failsafe as "Failsafe and her evil twin, Failsafe", though Ghost is led to wonder which is which.
    Friendly!Failsafe: If I had feelings, they would be hurt!
  • The Gadfly: She enjoys being obtuse-not that she has a choice in not telling you these things (her programming prevents it) but she seems to relish revealing how much she cannot help you.
  • Insistent Terminology: Failsafe insists on using specific titles for each person she interacts with. Cayde is "the Cayde-6 Unit", Ghost is "Friendly Ghost", and after the story missions on Nessus are finished, the Young Wolf is "Captain". She also refers to other Guardians as "Crewmembers".
  • Luke, You Are My Father: Failsafe postulates in her ambient dialogue that if the Traveller was responsible for the creation of A.I.s like her, that would then make it her "father".
  • Mood-Swinger: Due to some problems to her systems, Failsafe's attitude frequently switches between happy to help and eternally annoyed.
  • The Nicknamer: She likes to give nicknames to various characters when she is in happy mode. From Cayde (The Cayde-6 or The Cayde Unit), to Ghost (The Friendly Ghost), and to you (Captain). The only character she really refers to by name is Asher Mir.
  • Sour Supporter: Even in her nice mood, she does not have a high opinion of Cayde's intelligence. Anyone would be cranky with someone if they painted a huge target on their backs, especially after they had been successfully hiding from the Fallen and the Vex for five centuries.
  • Stepford Smiler: She's depressed and upset about the loss of the Exodus' crew, and depending on her mood she masks it with strained cheerfulness or acerbic commentary.
    Friendly!Failsafe: Anecdote! As the AI of Exodus Black, I experienced the death of every single one of my crewmembers! I hypothesized that the more loss one has suffered, the easier subsequent losses become! Field research has proven my hypothesis false!
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Friendly!Failsafe states that she will help you and your Ghost. Unfriendly!Failsafe immediately follows it up by stating that she's going to be as unpleasant as possible throughout.
  • Troll: She yells intruder alert any time someone approaches her hull. Including Cayde and The Young Wolf.
  • Zombie Advocate: She has a soft spot for the Fallen, strangely, and wants to prove they can be negotiated with and be grateful in a couple Nessus adventures.

    Brother Vance 

Brother Vance, Follower of Osiris

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brother_vance.jpg
Voiced by: Bob O'Donnell

A semi-delusional and obsessive Follower of Osiris, keeper of the Lighthouse on Mercury and oracle of the Lost Prophecies. Also Osiris's "greatest fan".


  • Ascended Extra: In Destiny he was merely a vendor at the Reef but in Curse of Osiris, while he still serves as a vendor he plays a major part in the DLC as quest giver.
  • As the Good Book Says...: Often quotes his cult's scripture in Curse of Osiris, when the player begins a new patrol or public event.
    Brother Vance: The Tenth Command: Just as Osiris does, embrace toil and blood in the service of the path.
  • Blind Seer: His job within the cult is to interpret the prophecies that centre around Osiris and the Vex. Oh, and he's blind as a bat, too.
    Brother Vance: I may be blind, Guardian, but I know you are there.
  • Character Exaggeration: His idolization of Osiris is severely exaggerated in Curse of Osiris, to the point where he acts uppity and dejected upon realizing that your Guardian has garnered more attention from Osiris than Vance, Osiris's self-proclaimed greatest publisher, ever will.
  • Cult: He is the only named member Note , perhaps even the leader, of the Followers of Osiris. Not that Osiris appreciates being their object of worship.
  • The Exile: When the Speaker exiled Osiris from the City, Vance and the rest of Osiris's followers joined him.
  • Fanboy: Ikora calls him "Osiris's greatest fan" at one point, but it quickly becomes apparent that "greatest fan" is an understatement.
  • Hearing Voices: He often listens to the "little Osiris voice" in his head.
  • Historical In-Joke: "Passeri" implies Vance is the true author of "Hope for the Future," who composed it based on the tones emitted during the Trials of Osiris and spread it across time and space.
  • I Choose to Stay: With the Darkness coming for the Infinite Forest and its ability to access the Vex network and the Corridors of Time, Vance refuses to evacuate and seals the Forest from within, while spreading a message of hope across time in the form of a song.
  • In the Hood: Always seen in a yellow and black monk's cowl that covers most of his face and leaves only his mouth visible.
  • The Social Darwinist: According to Ikora, if Osiris's followers could not survive in regions such as the EDZ then they were never worthy to begin with. Some of the Osirian scripture quoted by Brother Vance seems to corroborate her claim.
  • Tsundere: Generally speaking, the Disciples of Osiris have a poor opinion of the Speaker, but occasionally Brother Vance will ask you if the Speaker still talks about Osiris.

Weapon Foundries

    SUROS 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/suros.png
This is my sword
Function is a given; it must be given form
Design is honed, precision
Every curve, every line, every chamfer speaks to the Suros philosophy
Suros is elegance amidst brutality

Some say that the best weapons change to fit the wielder's needs. SUROS believes wholeheartedly in this philosophy, featuring quick and easy re-purposing of their firearms so that Guardians can make the most out of any situation, with two columns of stat-focused modifiers and a single stat-focused perk. With a quick swap of a few nodes, you have all you need: SUROS.

From The Witch Queen onwards, SUROS' Origin Trait is SUROS Synergy, which increases Handling and flinch resistance after reloading.

SUROS specializes in making Auto Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Rocket Launchers. In Destiny 2, they've expanded their armory to include Hand Cannons, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Sidearms, Machine Guns, and Submachine Guns, and SUROS weapons dropped more frequently on Titan as part of Sloane's rank-up packages.

Their best-known product is of course the SUROS Regime Auto Rifle.


  • Abnormal Ammo: SUROS-brand Shotguns in Destiny 2 swap out the buckshot for single-shot slugs instead; which is far from abnormal by realistic standards, but is rare for most video games.
  • Color Motif: SUROS originals and brand-related Shaders greatly feature a red and white color scheme, combining a sleek futuristic sense of style and finesse with a flash of heroic flair.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Before the other major founderies were formally introduced, there were already openly SUROS-branded weapons.
    • In Destiny 1, SUROS didn't manufacture legendary-grade shotguns, but there were a few rare-grade SUROS-branded shotguns (which also predate the other foundries), albeit without the sleek design associated with proper SUROS weapons. Come Destiny 2, SUROS is manufacturing their own legendary-grade shotguns.
  • Energy Weapon: In Destiny 2 a large number of SUROS weapons are Energy or Power Weapons.
  • Everything Is An I Pod In The Future/Raygun Gothic: SUROS weapons feature (especially SUROS originals) sleek, curvy, bright white frames that almost look like they're made of some kind of polymer. Sometimes, they even feel a little like school pulp Sci-Fi tech, especially in the case of their signature SUROS Regime Exotic Auto Rifle.
  • Faction Motto: In Destiny 1, SUROS weapons' Flavor Text almost always reads like this, following the pattern of "Descriptor. Descriptor. SUROS."
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase In Destiny 2, their weapons frequently feature Flavor Texts of "SUROS invites you to (X)".
  • More Dakka: SUROS Sidearms in Destiny 2 feature fully automatic fire, while their SMGs frequently feature a ludicrous fire rate of 900 RPM. SUROS begins manufacturing Machine Guns in Forsaken.
  • Red Is Heroic: Some SUROS originals feature splashes of bright red to complement the white frames.
  • Theme Naming: SUROS weapon names are very simplistic, almost always following the format of "SUROS XXX-####". In Destiny 2, they swap this out for a showbiz/musical theme, with names such as "Refrain" or "Encore".
  • Unskilled, but Strong: SUROS weapons can very easily reach max Range, Stability, or Reload Speed due to their focus on stat modifiers. However, they trade it off with a focus on perks that further improve statistic performance rather than flashy damage or energy perks.

    Omolon 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/omolon.png
Experimental, bordering on irresponsible
Powered by barely understood technology
A fusion of the mad scientist and product engineer of the new frontier
Hallmark is the liquid ammo displays and Omolon power cells
Omolon is the future returned

Why use a torch when you can use a spotlight? Omolon leads the way into the world of energy weapons, going beyond combustion ballistics. With lighter ergonomic frames, Omolon weapons are easier to handle and allow a choice between two secondary perks, often focusing behavioral effects for the tactical gunfighter.

From The Witch Queen onwards, Omolon's Origin Trait is Omolon Fluid Dynamics, which increases handling and stability for the top half of the magazine.

Omolon specialize in making Scout Rifles, Hand Cannons, Sniper Rifles, and Fusion Rifles. In Destiny 2, they've expanded their armory with Auto Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Sidearms, Submachine Guns, and Grenade Launchers, and Omolon weapons will drop more frequently on Nessus as part of Failsafe's rank-up packages.

Their best-known products are the Hard Light Auto Rifle, Coldheart and Wavesplitter Trace Rifles, and the Warlock-exclusive Tlaloc Scout Rifle.


  • Abnormal Ammo: Omolon weapons feature liquid ammo rather than solid slugs, effectively making them 3D Printer guns. Come round Destiny 2, Omolon weapons are exclusively classed as Energy Weapons or Power Weapons.
  • Beam Spam: Due to the way their weapons work, it can give this look, especially with Hard Light. However, it's not really any sort of energy-based weaponry.
  • BFS: Had the Fallen Guillotine model, a massive rectangular Void blade, made it to mass production, Omolon would've offered one of these. Thankfully, Drifter steals the prototype in Season of Arrivals and finishes it up with the help of Dark motes.
  • Color Motif: Omolon originals and brand Shaders strongly feature the color blue with black, silver, or white accents. This accentuates their more intellectual and experimental approach to weapon design, in contrast to the sleek SUROS weapons and the militaristic Häkke weapons.
  • Energy Weapon: In Destiny 2, all Omolon weapons fall under the categories of Energy or Power Weapons. However, it's implied they can be reconfigured to fire kinetic rounds, as Cold Denial and False Promises from Season of Arrivals are clearly stolen Omolon models that nonetheless go in the kinetic slot.
  • More Dakka: Their Sidearms in Destiny 2 are capable of burst-fire. Couple with a high-cycle rate and large mag, they can potentially become machine pistols.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Omolon weapon frames do not look... safe. Often skeletal with just the bare necessities with seemingly fragile liquid ammo indicators that look easy to hitnote  and power cells for Hand Cannons, they aren't kidding on the "irresponsible" part.
  • Theme Naming: Omolon weapons are usually named after beings and concepts related to water, death, and the supernatural. E.G. the Kumakatok HC4 Hand Cannon (a Filipino supernatural entity who serves as the omen of death), the Tuonela SR4 Legendary Scout Rifle (the realm of the dead in Finnish mythology), the Susanoo Fusion Rifle (the Shinto god of seas and storms) and the Tlaloc Exotic Scout Rifle (the Aztec god of fertility and rain).
  • Weak, but Skilled: Omolon weapons vary in Impact, but are often have good Stability. They also have two secondary perks, allowing for a little flexibility that most weapons don't have. In addition, their weapon perks focus on behavioral effects, so they're usually not focused on outright damage. By Destiny 2, Omolon-brand Energy Weapons count, due to such weapons dealing less damage to unshielded opponents than Kinetics, but quickly draining enemy shields, and generally having middle-of-the-road damage profiles.

    Häkke 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hakke.png
Hammers, not scalpels
Relatable design harkening back to a lost era
Häkke is not about exciting form, it is about exciting function
A weapon's weapon
Hakke is the instrument of the people

Häkke specializes in building reliable tools built for soldiers in the field, valuing simplicity over intricacy. Function over flair. This militaristic and practical philosophy leads to simplistic yet effective weapon designs and functionality, featuring front loaded perks focused on performance in the midst of combat.

From The Witch Queen onwards, Häkke's Origin Trait is Häkke Breach Armaments, which increases damage dealt to vehicles, turrets, Barricades, and Stasis crystals.

Häkke specialize in making Auto Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Hand Cannons, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and Sidearms. In Destiny 2, they've expanded their armory with Scout Rifles, Submachine Guns, Rocket Launchers, and Grenade Launchers, and drop more frequently in the EDZ as part of Devrim Kay's rank-up packages.

Their best-known Exotic is the Titan-exclusive Fabian Strategy Auto-Rifle. They also hold partial credit for the Revision Zero exotic pulse rifle in Destiny 2.


  • Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: By in-universe standards, as Destiny takes place centuries in the future. Häkke weapon designs are quite similar to modern firearms (for example, the standard base Auto Rifle frame is almost a dead ringer of the real life Beretta ARX-160, and some of their shotguns take cues from the infamous Franchi SPAS-12), featuring smaller steely frames and rails over large bulky chassis.
    • Come Season of the Seraph, the similarity to modern weaponry makes more sense, since Häkke dates back to the Golden Age. Lore on the Revision Zero exotic pulse rifle includes messages exchanged during the Golden Age, including someone working at Häkke studying the weapon's components and the material they're made of.
  • Color Motif: Häkke weapons and Shaders put the color beige front and center, with black, brown, and orange accents. Being a militaristic Foundry, such a color scheme is a perfect fit for open or desert warfare.
  • Cool Bike: They're responsible for the Hecuba-S exotic Sparrow, much to Banshee's surprise. The company logo is even printed on the bike.
  • Crutch Character: Häkke unlock their perks first, allowing them to quickly reach most of their potential. However, their statistical potential isn't as high as other foundry's weapons.
  • More Dakka: In Destiny 1, their Pulse Rifles featured a four-round burst instead of the standard three-round burst, allowing them to put a little bit more fire down range than other Pulse Rifles. This also gave them a slight edge in close-quarters, as more bullets spewing is better against a point blank target. By Destiny 2, they're knocked down to the standard three-round-burst and become more of a Mighty Glacier, often featuring high Impact, but poor Fire Rate and performance while moving. Season 19's ritual weapon, Veles-X, is a return to form for the foundry, as it fires in bursts of four rounds akin to other Aggressive frame pulse rifles in Destiny 2.
  • Dark Secret: They knew about and experimented with the Darkness centuries before any of the other foundries. Revision Zero is a Black Box made out of Synthweave and another alloy supplied by the Witness through Clarity Control.
  • Mighty Glacier: Häkke weapons in Destiny 2 generally fire slower than their contemporaries in exchange for hitting much harder.
  • Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: Though their weapons are quite similar to modern firearms, at times they're a tad thicker than what we're familiar with, often possessing large rectangular shapes and sharp corners.
  • Punch-Packing Pistol: Sidearms are among their primary product and stood out due being hitscan when the Vestian Dynasty, the only other Sidearm to had come out beforehand, had slight travel time. This became less unique after the Vanguard began making Sidearms of their own and also worked on hitscan.
  • Theme Naming: Häkke weapons are often named after European historical and folklore heroes and figures. E.G. the Arminius-D Auto Rifle (a Germanic chieftan), the Herja-D Pulse Rifle (a valkyrie), and the Gaheris-D Hand Cannon (the nephew of King Arthur) Only outlier is the Jingukogo Shotgun (a Japanese empress).
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Tower security logs attached to the lore for the Salvager's Salvo grenade launcher indicate that their decision to hang on to parts of the Traveler cage from the Red War makes them partially responsible for the events of Challenger's Rising IV, where the Crow and the Player Character discover a Cabal plot to use miniaturized versions of the cage (made by stealing and researching Häkke's parts) to kill Zavala.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Almost all Häkke Rocket Launchers are part of the Precision Frame archetype, which comes with tracking as a standard feature.

    Tex Mechanica 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tex_mechanica.jpg
We used to play for keeps. Used to be that was the only way.
Back in those days trust came slow, or not at all. The only thing you could truly rely on was the iron at your side.
Fate of the world? Immortal gods?
Don't know much 'bout that.
But when everything's on the line, it's quality that counts.
Tex Mechanica: we play by the old rules, the best rules.
We play for keeps.

A somewhat minor foundry supplying weapons to Guardians like any other foundry. However, they have something of a bad reputation due to their propensity for dubious business deals. As their name suggests, Tex Mechanica specializes in building Wild West-themed firearms, primarily Hand Cannons and Shotguns, with their signature products being the Last Word, Fourth Horseman, Chaperone, and First Curse Exotics in the first game, and the Prospector, The Huckleberry, and Dead Man's Tale in the sequel. Season of the Seraph introduces a new suite of legendary-grade weapons their origin trait Tex Balanced Stock, which increases movement speed and handling while aiming down sights after dealing damage from the hip.


  • A Day in the Limelight: Like Häkke in the Duality dungeon, Tex Mechanica provides some of the equipment found in the Spire of the Watcher dungeon, as shown by their stamp on its Collections trophy. It also shares the spot of this trope overall with VEIST during Season of the Seraph, as the foundry finally gets its own origin trait.
  • Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: The Dead Man's Tale is a lever-action Scout Rifle that has to be reloaded by hand, two bullets at a time.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent: If the foundries have parallels to Borderlands' various weapon manufacturers, Tex Mechanica is definitely Bungie's equivalent to Jakobs with their focus on wooden furniture, Hand Cannons and Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age.
  • Bling-Bling-BANG!: Some of their better exotics have intricate scrollwork carvings (Chaperone and Prospector) or have gold inlay (Last Word)
  • Bottomless Magazines: So long as The Huckleberry has enemies that it can kill in under 15 rounds, it absolutely never needs to reload, as its ammo refill is generated for free, rather than pulled from your reserves.
  • Cool Bike: The exotic Sparrow The Bronco is of Tex Mechanica manufacture...it even shares a design aesthetic with The Last Word.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Honesty is clearly something Tex Mechanica is not known for. They've previously attempted to bribe Lord Shaxx into fixing Crucible matches in their favor, which infuriated Lord Shaxx and led to him turning the deal on them. The quest for the Chaperone Exotic leads to Amanda Holliday discovering that they've fixed who they'll make it for, which requires that you give them a hefty bribe to instead give it to you when you finish. And finally Banshee-44 voices his reluctance to help them create the First Curse Exotic, saying that it sounds like a bad idea.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Between getting blackmailed by Shaxx for trying to bribe him into fixing Crucible matches, and barely getting any acknowledgement from the local gunsmith, Tex Mechanica as foundry isn't really looked upon fondly. Only Amanda Holliday and The Drifter look upon the foundry with any sort of respect.
  • Good Old Ways: They're very traditionalist in the making of their weaponry. The Drifter notes that weapons in the Dark Age were made for one thing — killing things. They weren't made for style, like the SUROS weapons, or technological advancement like the Omolon weapons. While stealing a shipment of Tex Mechanica weapons from a train, Drifter notes that Tex Mechanica is the only foundry that comes close to Dark Age reliability, and they come really close, according to him, which is saying something considering that Hakke is the foundry that claims to be traditionalist and reliable.
  • Grenade Launcher: Prospector fits this to a tee.
  • Irony: Despite their notoriety, their most famous work, the Last Word Exotic Hand Cannon, is associated with two of the most heroic Guardians, the late Jaren Ward and his inheritor Shin Malphur, and is one of the few weapons to be so imbued with Light that Guardians can summon it's image to hand. Also, said weapon was one of Destiny 1's most used weapons in PvP. There's an implication that Tex, and the other foundries, used to be better.
  • More Dakka: Both the Last Word and Fourth Horseman operate on this...they're both full-auto weapons that deal high damage. The inverse of this seems to be the First Curse and Chaperone in that both fire high-damage projectiles at lower rates of fire.
    • We are introduced to the dakka-tastic Grenade Launcher Prospector in the sequel.
    • The Warmind expansion gives us The Huckleberry, an SMG that ups the dakka levels as long as there are enemies to kill and has the Rampage perk.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Almost every Hand Cannon is based on revolvers. Tex Mechanica takes up a notch with the Last Word and First Curse. The Prospector and The Huckleberry also use revolving chambers with a satisfying spin animation upon reloading.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: Although they're better known for their Hand Cannons, Tex Mechanica makes some pretty unique shotguns, as the Fourth Horseman is a rapid-fire shotgun capable of high burst damage, and the Chaperone is capable of firing a single high-damage slug.
  • Super Prototype: The Dead Man's Tale was an Ace Custom scout rifle, but eventually became this in Season of the Seraph, which adds a production model to Spire of the Watcher's loot table.

    Crux/Lomar 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crux_lomar.png

Founded by Feizel Crux and Victor Lomar, very little is known about this foundry. The company specializes in making Rocket Launchers, with their signature products being the Truth, Dragon's Breath, and Gjallarhorn Exotics.


  • Crippling Overspecialization: Crux/Lomar exclusively makes Rocket Launchers... and nothing else. That said, the Rocket Launchers they make (particularly the Gjallarhorn) are among the best of the very best.
  • Skeleton Motif: Their logo appears to be a skull of some sort.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: They don't appear at all in Destiny 2, barring returning exotics and the implication that they may have assisted Cassoid in creating the Crux Termination IV.

    Nadir 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nadir.png
Nadir is one of the Last City's manufacturers for standard weaponry, together with Cassoid. Although they lack any design hallmarks, they are notable for creating the Nemesis Star Exotic Machine Gun.

Their origin trait is Nadir Focus, which increases range (including projectile velocity and sword lunge distance) and stability with sustained damage.
  • Badass Decay: According to Banshee-44.
    Banshee-44: "Nadir aren't what they used to be. I remember the new guy's grandfather."
  • The Ghost: Along with Daito, just about nothing is known about Nadir. Even Cassoid some semblance of a background to them.
  • Retcon: Season of the Witch reveals that they've been making the Last City's standard armaments (i.e., Destiny 2 Year 1 Vanguard and Crucible weapons) since the Red War.
  • Theme Naming: Non-exotic Nadir weapons are named after scientific terms plus a three-letter code with the last letter in lowercase, such as the Impulse ESc shotgun and the Pulsar MSe pulse rifle.

    Daito 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daito.png

Daito is a very Japanese-esque foundry that created the The Jade Rabbit Scout Rifle and the Two-Tailed Fox Rocket Launcher.


  • Animesque: Their iconic exotic weapons feature very Hello Kitty-esque animals as their mascots. And then you get to the Two-Tailed Fox's lore tab, which reads more like the lyrics of an anime opening song than actual lore.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Both The Jade Rabbit and Two-Tailed Fox use bright, pastel shades of blue or pink. The Moonfang-X7 Armor features asymmetrical coloring with both and uses white as a highlight.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive:
    • As early as the first year of Destiny 1, Banshee made note of them this way.
    Banshee-44: "All these lives on the line, and Daito wants more Glimmer. What goes through their heads down there?"
    • They are responsible for synthesizing an experimental antidepressant made for Guardians with very little known clinical testing. As the side effects are meant to lampshade actual player behavior, it's strongly implied they've gotten a sizable chunk of the Guardian populace addicted for profit in place of allowing other groups to get them actual help.
  • Everybody Has Standards: According to the Moonfang-X7's operating system, the armor set was trashed just before release due to irreparable defects in safety mechanisms. Considering it was meant to give Super-Speed, it's likely that a fully-operational OS and mechanisms would've quickly turned its users to paste once they hit a wall.
  • The Ghost: Along with Nadir, very little is known about Daito.
  • Theme Naming: Non-Exotic Daito weapons are named after cities plus a weapon-appropriate two-letter and one-digit code, both separated from the name by a dash, such as the Cydonia-AR1 auto rifle and the Aachen-LR2 sniper rifle.

    Cassoid 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cassoid.png

Nothing much is known about this company, barring the fact that they may have ties to the Reef. Together with Nadir, they provide the bulk of the City's generic standard-class weaponry.

They mostly manufacture Fusion Rifles, but have made a Hand Cannon and a Shotgun. They're best known for making Invective and Telesto. In Destiny 2, they are also the makers of Eriana's Vow and the Dead Messenger. Their origin trait is Wild Card, causing kills from post-Season of the Witch weapons to occasionally spawn additional explosives at the target's location.


  • Abnormal Ammo: Telesto is known for this, as its projectiles take some time before detonating. Eriana's Vow is also notable among Hand Cannons for using Special ammo, instead of Primary.
  • Death Ray: They seem to like making Fusion Rifles a lot.
  • Demolitions Expert: Explosives and heat weapons are their main specialty, with Invective and Eriana's Vow being high-impact fire-based weapons, and Telesto & Dead Messenger utilizing bombs in creative ways. Their custom rounds also break apart into mass-produced versions of Telesto's projectiles upon a lethal hit.
  • Recursive Ammo: After Season of the Witch, there's a chance their bullets will break apart into up to three comparatively-larger bombs if they kill a target. Malediction leans into the classic "cluster bomb" variant of this trope, as it's an Ace Custom that always rolls with Explosive Payload.
  • Retcon: Season of the Witch reveals they've been making standard armaments for the City since The Taken King, which is coincidentally also when Telesto was created.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: The Invective, a shotgun that was once Ikora Rey's weapon, is pretty much their most well-known product.
  • Super Prototype: Telesto's Harbinger-based projectiles, which are used to create a weaker production model baked into the rounds of all post-Season of the Witch weapons.
  • Theme Naming: Their non-Exotic products have somewhat Latin-sounding names, ending in a Roman numeral, such as the Bronzed Nox Volo V fusion rifle.

    VEIST 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/veist.jpg

Have you ever seen a man die of snake venom? Quite a horrible sight, as the founders of VEIST would tell you. Inspired by the nightmares born of witnessing a man dying to a Bothrops Asper bite, VEIST is a new foundry making waves after the fall of the Last City in Destiny 2, specializing in lightweight weapons that trade raw damage off for hyper-agile handling and performance for wielders who want their opponents to die a slow and agonizing death. By VEIST's admission, this is pretty messed up.

From The Witch Queen onwards, Veist's Origin Trait is Veist Stinger, which gives a chance on hit to partially refill the magazine and increase strafe speed for a short time.

VEIST specialize in making Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Submachine Guns, Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, Sniper Rifles, and Swords. In Forsaken, VEIST has also begun manufacturing Combat Bows. VEIST weapons drop more frequently on Io as Asher Mir's rank-up packages.

They are the makers of The Colony exotic Grenade Launcher in Curse of Osiris, and the Manticore exotic Submachine Gun in Season of the Seraph.


  • A Day in the Limelight: Season of the Seraph has them sponsoring the Guardians as they work to reactivate Rasputin, creating Ace Custom versions of their cosmetics from Season of Dawn to serve as the new Cosmetic Awards for the season. They also launch the Manticore submachine gun to sweeten the deal.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The Manticore submachine gun has an Anti-Gravity thruster that prevents the user from falling as long as they fire the weapon while the thrusters are charged. What sounds like a means for an Advanced Movement Technique quickly leaves much to be desired, as the Manticore doesn't provide lateral movement — leaving the user a sitting duck and extremely vulnerable without its catalyst.
  • Color Motif: VEIST weapon chassis often have streaks of green on them, fitting in with their Theme Naming of venomous animals. Their branded shaders all feature neon greens in some form.
  • Cool Sword: They made the Quick Fang Hunter-exclusive sword, which just so happens to overlap with Katanas Are Just Better.
  • Death Ray: VEIST is the only known creator of Linear Fusion Rifles, which compress the shots of regular fusion rifles into one single ray. This deals more damage on the spot, but requires extra precision.
  • Fragile Speedster: VEIST weapons frequently feature a high fire rate at the cost of Impact and a focus on combat on the move, much like predators that focus on wearing their prey down.
  • More Dakka: Fittingly enough for a Fragile Speedster, their weapons have rather high clip sizes and highest-in-class fire rates. Even their Scout Rifles are automatic weapons. Taken to the logical extreme with their new Origin trait, which will almost always trigger at some point in the magazine of their Auto Rifles and Submachine guns.
  • Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: The Whistler's Whim from Season of Arrivals is a rectangular hunk of metal that serves as a compound bow. It also shares a model with the Whispering Slab from Season of Arrivals, revealing that the Slab was a prototype model Drifter stole.
  • Theme Naming: VEIST weapons are almost all named after venomous creatures. E.G. the Red Mamba-3MG Submachine Gun, the Urchin-3SI Sidearm, and the Copperhead-4SN Sniper Rifle.
  • Unorthodox Reload: Downplayed example, but most VEIST Weapons don't have their magazines in the usual locations. Their Submachine Gun, for example, has the magazine sitting flush with the top of the weapon, similar to that of the FN-P90. And their Sniper, Scout, and Auto Rifles have a magazine that slots into the side of the weapon, rather than sticking out of the bottom. This means that most of their weapons need unique reload animations.

    The Black Armory 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4753154_1.png

A Crazy-Prepared organization/secret society formed during the Golden Age which built devices known as Forges that could create powerful and resilient technology. They accurately predicted the Collapse years before it would begin, keeping it a secret in the interest of public sanity. Though their technology allowed them to survive the Collapse itself, several incidents (including one in which a squad of Guardians stormed the Armory to kidnap Ada, only botched because Ada's mother baited them off with a valuable artifact) reduced the Armory to only Ada, and even then, only as an Exo due to suffering mortal injuries.

Centuries later, with the offsite Forges reclaimed by the wilderness, Ada is forced to open the Armory to the Guardians in order to restore and protect it and its Forges after the Spider inadvertently gives the Young Wolf a keycard leading to the area.


  • Applied Phlebotinum: "Phase Radiance", a strange energy that lies at the core of all of their technologies, it seems capable of doing anything, from enhancing weapons to generating powerful force fields. It takes the form of a gradient-pattern glow that suffuses their weaponry and devices and even Ada herself once she receives the Obsidian Accelerator, and may even be linked to their ammunition given that it also forms the muzzle flash of all their ballistic weapons.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
    • Items made entirely through the Forges are black with red accents. Likewise, older items from the Armory's Forges that have been refurbished are mostly blue from what appears to be corrosion.
    • Items related to the Rasmussen Clan are green and gold, and their emblem is a raised hand with a notch.
    • Items related to the Satou Tribe are blue and white, and their emblem is a fishhook.
    • Items related to the House of Meyrin are red and gold, and their emblem is a butterfly.
    • Their most powerful exotic weapons are mostly black and white with subtle accents from their respective house.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Predicted the Collapse years in advance and fortified themselves with their technology, which allowed them to survive a weeks-long total extinction event.
  • Purple Is Powerful: The Bergusia forge is capable of dropping "curated" versions of the forge weapons described as advanced prototypes that come decked out a nice purple Bergusian Night shader.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Early on, the Black Armory Papers show the Armory running from one of the Black Fleet's direct servants, a strange creature that smells of wet earth and petrichor. Season of the Seraph very strongly implies one way to describe Phase Radiance and Synthweave (due to Helga Rasmussen's past as a Clovis Bray researcher) is synthetic Darkness in the context of the Black Fleet, per Revision Zero's lore.
  • Tempting Fate: The Black Armory prizes itself in its cool guns. Turns out that's exactly what just about every faction besides the Hive are attracted to.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: They present themselves in such a way, what with their weapons being created in large bellows-like "forges", along with the pride in which they treat said weapons. Several weapons also reference blacksmithing terminology.

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