Characters / Drakengard

The various very-screwed-up characters of Drakengard we all know and love. For the characters of Drakengard 3, click here. For the characters of Nier, click here. For the characters of NieR: Automata, click here. For a list of characters from NieR Re[in]carnation, click here.

Drakengard

Caim

^{Click here for his Drakengard 2 design}

"Empire rats! You shall feed the ravens!"

Voiced by: Shinnosuke "Peter" Ikehata (JP), Fleet Cooper (EN)

The protagonist of the first game, Caim is a soldier of the Union and was originally the next in line for becoming King of Caerleon before his parents were murdered by a dragon, now motivated primarily by his love for his sister Furiae and a need for revenge. After suffering a grievous wound in battle, he stumbled across a similarly wounded Angelus, and forged a pact in order to preserve both their lives. The superhuman abilities and new flying mount were a pleasant bonus. Together with Angelus and his other frien...er, travelling companions, they set out to defeat The Empire.

In Drakengard 2, he becomes one of the main antagonists. Despite the eighteen year difference between games, he's still as strong, if not stronger, and just as murderous.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Not that he was ever particularly unattractive, but his design in the Lord of Vermilion crossover makes him more of a Hunk with a form-fitting low-cut shirt and more kempt hair.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In the Drakengard 1.3 timeline, where pacts don't exist, he is instead powered by drinking Angelus' blood, making him several dozen times stronger than the average human at the cost of slowly losing his (already fragile) sanity. He didn't have to sacrifice his speech like his game counterpart, although by the end he becomes nonverbal anyway as he degenerates into being a mindless incarnation of rage.
• Adaptational Villainy: Zig-zagged with his incarnation in the alternate timeline novel Drakengard 1.3, who is overall an even worse person than his game version, but much of his descent into madness here is a result of the side-effects from drinking Angelus' blood. He starts off the same vengeful berserker who is at least fighting for a good cause (defeating the Empire), but as the Empire are defeated early on in the story, he becomes a part of the Union Army's ruthless "dragon hunts", essentially being a Psycho for Hire who'd think nothing of murdering complete innocents, his own allies, and even his own sister. By the end, he becomes a borderline Empty Shell who is more like a mindless manifestation of anger and bloodlust than a human being. Even his corpse, torn to pieces by dragons, is noted by Angelus to still be tightly gripping his sword to the point where his fingers are bleeding.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: He occasionally pets Angelus' snout as a way of calming her down before particularly tough battles, which she describes as him "warming her". She initially objects to this, but eventually grows to accept it and even requests it herself.
• Alas, Poor Villain: For all his faults (and the trouble he caused the new protagonists), his death in Drakengard 2 is portrayed as nothing short of tragic, with a montage of tender moments he shared with Angelus playing to somber music.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Happens during Ending A.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • He does have some normal and relatively reasonable motives behind his actions most of the time, such as wanting to protect or avenge his loved ones, but he is so psychotically bloodthirsty that it can sometimes seem as if these motives are secondary to his simple desire to skewer thousands of people on his sword, especially when he goes out of his way to murder way, way more people (of all walks of life) than is logically neccesary.
  • His battle style, as described in weapon stories and side materials (not so much in actual gameplay), is savage beyond belief. He's been known to hack off limbs, tear out guts, gouge out eyes, slice off heads, and some of his troops even claim to have witnessed him attack the corpses of soldiers long, long after they're already dead.^note Which actually does have precedent in gameplay, as attacking already-dead enemies is a great way to rack up combos.
• Back from the Brink: Gets a sword in his back at the beginning of the game, but he forges a pact with the red dragon Angelus to save himself.
• BFS: He can acquire several, but Hymir's Finger (which is a Shout-Out to The Dragon Slayer and is outright named "Heap of Iron" in Japanese) in particular stands out. In the first game, his sword, while unique in size and appearance, is not particularly large, though it is unusually thick for a longsword; in the second game, Caim's sword is actually bigger and longer.
• Big Brother Instinct: Furiae is one of the vanishingly few people he cares about, which he expresses by stabbing the corpse of an Imperial who laid hands on her, and smacking his teammates when they fail to protect Furiae or waste his time while he's trying to rescue her.
• Black Swords Are Better: His sword is black in the sequel.
• Blood Knight: He only smiles when he's about to, is in the process of, and the aftermath of killing.
• Brother–Sister Incest: A big part of the planned prequel manga would have been that Caim did indeed reciprocate Furiae's attraction, something which the novelization Story Side also goes with. Meanwhile, in the Drakengard 3/Drakengard 1 interim manga, he seems largely oblivious to how Furiae felt, while in the actual game, his feelings towards her are of disgust when he finds out.
• Can't Live Without You: As part of the pact, his life is linked to Angelus and vice versa.
• Character Development: Goes from "I only care about my sister," to "I only care about my sister and the dragon", but still...
• Corrupted Character Copy: While similar to Guts, he lacks the latter's eventual character development, and in fact only becomes worse as time goes on.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: They're a bit hard to make out since his hair usually covers them, and in Drakengard 2 one of them has been gouged out.
• Cynicism Catalyst: The loss of his parents and his kingdom is what eventually turned him into the murderous nutcase that he became.
• Dark Is Evil: In the second game. In the first, he's still evil, but his clothes aren't as dark as when he is a full-blown villain.
• Dark Messiah: Because the world is in a really bad shape, he is the only thing to rally people who don't want the world to be destroyed by a merciless Empire. He is a berserker, a jerk and ruthless but he wants to keep humanity alive.
• Death Seeker: In Drakengard 2, he wishes nothing more than to put his dragon out of her misery, which would incidentally kill him as well. Otherwise, he would have probably been borderline unstoppable.
• Depending on the Writer: The reason his pact price (the trait most important to him) was his voice. It's not clarified in the game, but the first novelization gives the explanation that he loved Furiae back and his lack of voice rendered him unable to tell her the truth, leading to her suicide when she mistakenly believed he rejected her, whereas Yoko Taro in an anniversary interview said that in his view it's because Caim's ability to communicate with other people was the final anchor he had with humanity as he was becoming more and more of a murderous beast-like psychopath.
• Determinator: Armies, monsters, gods... it doesn't matter what gets in his way. He'll step over the corpse and keep killing.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Was able to kill Urick simply by slashing him until he killed the Reaper.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Drakengard 1.3, he is unceremoniously killed by a frenzied dragon who snatches him off Angelus' back.
• Disney Villain Death: Subverted in Drakengard 2. Urick saves Nowe from Caim by dramatically pushing him down a cliff, though he is later shown to have survived the fall not any worse for the wear.
• The Dreaded: In 2, as the nefarious "one-eyed man" who's going around breaking the seals and killing off the Knights of the Seal's strongest warriors. He outclasses the new protagonist, and manages to kill The Grim Reaper.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: In ending E, a heavily weakened Caim and Angelus are taken out by a couple of missiles.
• Dynamic Entry: Just one slice.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He spends the first two levels carving through Imperial soldiers like a hot knife through butter with nothing but sheer martial prowess. Then he forges his pact with Angelus...
• Establishing Character Moment: Over the course of the first mission, he butchers his way through several hundred Imperial soldiers all by himself in order to rescue his sister Furiae despite taking what should have been a mortal wound. He also seems to be really enjoying himself to an extent, as he makes a number of rather enthused declarations of might while he's carving up the enemy ranks...
• Evil Costume Switch: As an antagonist in the sequel, Caim trades his upper armor and leather trousers for a dark brown tunic and looser pants, complete with a dark cloak over the whole ensemble to cement his status as a wanderer. Still rocking the crocs, though. Even his sword got a makeover, with it being black and red, instead of silver and blue in the first game.
• Evil Counterpart: Represents this for Nowe in Drakengard 2, and all it took was a single Perspective Flip.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: He's not exactly a model citizen but at least his goals don't include the complete annihilation of mankind, which is more than could be said for the Cult of the Watchers.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Caim loves his sister, Furiae, and his dragon, Angelus.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When Manah reveals Furiae's inner feelings towards him, Caim turns away in disgust.
• Evil Uncle: To Nowe, although it's unlikely either of them realize it.
• Expy: According to the developers, he's heavily inspired by Guts. Unlike Guts, however, he was born to nobility, and he never mellows out. In fact, his willingness to step over the corpses of almost anyone to get what he wants, his insanity masked by a calm exterior, and his absolute ruthlessness towards his enemies makes him akin to an unholy fusion of Guts and Griffith.
• Eye Scream: Manah stabbed an eye out while escaping from Caim. Thus, he's known as the One-Eyed Man for most of the second game.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Angelus. Averted with the rest of his merry band, who Caim doesn't seem to care about in the least.
• Freak Out: When he sees Furiae trying to reassemble their parents.
• Go Out with a Smile: In Drakengard 2, Caim dies smiling peacefully.
• Harmful to Minors: Not even child conscripts are safe from his wrath. Caim himself, as a child, witnessed an Imperial black dragon AKA Legna killing his parents. This may go some way towards explaining his behavior.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Caim doesn't really discriminate. If you stand in his way, he will gleefully kill you.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The cutscene following his boss battle in Drakengard 2 has him overpower Nowe regardless of how well you played, prompting Urick to pull a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Heroic Mime: He gave up his voice as part of the pact with Angelus, though calling him "heroic" is a bit generous. In Drakengard 2, where he's no longer the POV character, his silence makes him seem extra creepy and adds to his serial killer-esque aesthetic.
• Hero Killer: By Drakengard 2, his victims include Verdelet, Oror, and Urick. Granted, the first of those deserved it.
• Hidden Depths: His showing few signs of grief over Furiae's death is somewhat understandable; her life as the Goddess Seal was already full of pain and likely to be short. His tears for Angelus are because he realizes she's taking up that same burden, even though Angelus says that she's "stronger than a human." Just as the suffering of his beloved sister is finally brought to an end, the only other person he cares about in the world is subjected to the same fate. Even worse as additional material implies that the Goddess Seal before Furiae was his mother.
• Immune to Fate: Retroactively revealed to be a Singularity in Drakengard 3's guidebook, having unknowingly defied causality and created five Branches that correspond to the game's five endings, one of which was the Divergence phenomenon that would go on to become Nier. His Drakengard 1.3 incarnation depicted in the same guidebook is also a Singuarity.
• Interspecies Romance: With Angelus. Yoko Taro claims he did not intend for their connection to be flat-out romantic, but that was the overwhelming impression among fans which even manifested in some official supplementary materials and English translations.
• Ironic Name: In the Ars Goetia, Caim(alternatively Camio) is the name of a demon who is regarded as a 'good disputer', who 'gives men the understanding of the voices of birds, bullocks, dogs, and other creatures, and of the noise of the waters too, and gives true answers concerning things to come'. Due to being a mute from the first half of Chapter 1 onward, Drakengard's Caim is... none of these things. In any capacity.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When he kicks his friends, it's usually for a good reason. There was really no time for Verdelet to freak out, and Caim can't talk. As for Leonard, he had convinced him to go to the wrong fortress, telling Caim he foresaw his sister was there; when he turned out to be wrong, Caim was not happy about wasting hours miles away from where his sister was about to be sacrificed.
• The Juggernaut: Caim slaughters his way through entire armies, and that's without Angelus. The only things that can stop him are the Eldritch Abominations in the different endings. In the second game, you're on the receiving end of his sword, and he never comes across as any easier to stop. Point of fact, the only two people in the game capable of facing him are Nowe, a purpose-bred dragon/human hybrid, and Urick, a man who is functionally immortal. They fail to kill him, and Urick dies for his trouble. It proves easier to kill the dragon he bonded his soul to than to kill Caim.
• Kick the Dog:
  • He kicks Verdelet in the face once for practically no reason, and that dying elf who tried to appeal to him for help. He kicked her in the face, too. And then he kicked Leonard... And Seere... And then there were those child soldiers he mercilessly crushed... And all those other people he mercilessly crushed...
  • Two instances in Drakengard 2:
    • Caim killed General Oror, Nowe's surrogate human father and Gismor's balance on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
    • Later on, Caim kills Urick in order to break the seal, although that does save Nowe from having to do it personally, even at Urick's request.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: At the end of the third map, Caim catches up to an Imperial trooper trying to kill his sister Furiae. After killing the man, he spends the remaining cutscene (while Furiae and Inuart angst — er, talk) stabbing the man's dead body over and over and over until the cutscene ends.
• Kill the Ones You Love: In Drakengard 2, he tells Legna to kill Angelus so that they can be together again.
• Legendary in the Sequel:
  • In Drakengard 2 he's renowned as a legendary hero for having saved the world from the Cult of the Watchers, which is technically true, but the fact that he's also kind of a psychopath seems to have been lost to time, as Nowe is shocked when he learns that the dreaded "one-eyed man" going around killing people is actually the savior of the world.
  • Inverted in Nier. Despite helping kill the Queen and saving that world from destruction (or rather delaying it by a few more generations), Caim is completely Out of Focus in reports and media coverage about the incident; whereas Angelus' body is examined and studied at great length, Caim is only vaguely alluded to in some early reports as "a young man who was riding the dragon" with no other officially known details.
• Love Confession: He does this in Ending A.
• Love Epiphany: According to Word of God, he can't pinpoint the exact moment when his feelings for Angelus changed, but he eventually fell in love with her regardless.
• Magnetic Hero: For whatever reason, Caim seems to attract some "interesting" companions, despite the fact that he honestly could not care less about them.
• Manly Tears: Sheds them for Angelus, as she becomes the new Seal.
• Mayfly–December Romance: The "Mayfly" character; he's 24. Angelus is the December, being a several-hundred-year-old dragon.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His name is based on that of a demon from the Ars Goetia.
  • In Welsh, Caim means "protector". Which doubles as an Ironic Name, as it's quite crucial to the plot that he fails to protect those he loves.
• Mercy Kill: Asks Legna to kill Angelus in Drakengard 2 because she's lost her mind and in constant pain that Caim can feel too.
• Morality Pet: Manah, of all people, was apparently developing into this after the first game, due to the years spent traveling with the girl. Too bad she stabs him in the eye at the first opportunity and leaves him bloodthirstier than ever.
• Never Found the Body: It's mentioned in extra-canonical material that, after Caim and Angelus were shot down by the JSDF, Caim's body was never found, leaving his fate ambigious. Of course, given that Angelus was shot down by air-to-air missiles while Caim was riding fully exposed on her back, it's just as likely that there was simply Not Enough to Bury.
• Nominal Hero: In the first game, not so much in the second.
• Older Than They Look: Apart from a few more lines on his face, some facial hair, and a missing eye, 42-year-old Caim looks more or less identical to his 24-year-old self. It is unknown if his pact had something to do with this.
• One-Man Army:
  • The first game has him cutting through dozens of soldiers, and that's before he gets the pact; afterwards, he pretty much slaughters entire armies.
  • In the second game, he by himself made the entire world his enemy, and he's doing it very smoothly! Not even the next protagonist, Nowe, can stop him. How bad is it? Killing his fire-breathing, flying dragon partner was seen as the easier alternative than engaging Caim himself.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "The one-eyed man," for roughly the first half of the second game.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The man who didn't cry even for his sister sheds tears for Angelus as she becomes the new Seal.
• Perpetual Frowner: When he's not adorned with a Slasher Smile, Caim's base state is 'scowling'. Even in the prequel manga, before his parents died, the only expression he makes is a victorious smirk.
• Person of Mass Destruction: It can be understandably easy to forget that Caim is a soldier of the Union army and not the army in and of itself.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Has some very poignant moments with his sister Furiae and with Angelus. He is also quick to pursue and rescue Seere when the young lad is kidnapped.
  • In the sequel, he saves Nowe from having his head chomped by a very, very angry Angelus.
• Playing with Fire: His default powers are those of fire. And having a dragon as his pact partner, this is not a surprise.
• The Power of Hate: He's basically fueled by his sheer, undying hatred of the Empire and dragons (Drakengard 1) or the Knights of the Seal (Drakengard 2).
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Caim's appearence in the sequel. He sports a black longshirt with red markings on it, wears darker clothing in general, and his sword has switched from blue and silver to black and red. Even official artwork depicts him as this.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: This is the key aspect of his character. His parents (including his mother, who was most likely the previous goddess seal) were killed by Legna when he was just a kid. Both he and his sister were denied their lives, and so he has a burning hatred of anybody who sides with the Empire. This is lightly Deconstructed, as Caim actually enjoys the act of murder and per the guidebook, he went from genuinely wanting to avenge his parents to using their death as a cheap pretense to keep slaughtering to his heart's content.
• Rogue Protagonist: He doesn't even bother to hide it. His first deed in the second game is annihilating a whole army with a large smile! Interestingly, there isn't actually much change in his personality. The only real difference is that now you're on the receiving end of his violence.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Caim's father was a king and he's technically a landless prince. This is a big part of why he hates the Empire so much, and it makes his sister a princess on top of everything else.
• Sociopathic Hero: In your average RPG, Caim would be that needlessly sadistic Blood Knight or bandit mid-boss who the noble protagonist kills because he's a bloodthirsty maniac even though he's technically on the same side. Here, he is the protagonist. The above, incidentally, is exactly the role he fills in the sequel.
• Shoot the Dog: He's forced to do this in Ending B as Furiae becomes a horrible world-ending monster and Ending C when his pact is broken and he has to fight Angelus.
• Single Tear: For Angelus in Ending A.
• Slasher Smile: If he's not frowning or grinding his teeth in fury, he's probably sporting one of these. In the sequel, Manah has a nervous breakdown just by seeing it. Though by far his most famous one is this portrait◊ in the sequel.
• The Speechless: The price of his pact. Angelus tends to speak for him when he's not using violence to get his point across. Though violence from Caim is usually pretty eloquent.
• Suddenly Voiced: Inverted. He is initially reasonably talkative, but his pact with Angelus robs him of his ability to speak. Played straight in Ending C where he is forced to break his pact with Angelus, restoring his speech, though the only thing he ends up saying is "I am Caim!".
• Together in Death: When he and Angelus are finally reunited and die together in Drakengard 2.
• Took a Level in Badass: Somehow becomes even stronger in the sequel, possibly from his time as a wanderer having to fight endlessly, along with having to make up for the lack of a dragon.
• Uncertain Doom: His fate in Ending E. While Angelus is unquestionably killed, and Caim likely would have died too, not a single piece of lore ever comments on Caim's fate. He has very few mentions in Nier's extensive backstory, and while there are numerous unexplained events in the timeline that could possibly tie into him, there is virtually nothing that can be said for certain.
• The Unfettered: He'll protect his loved ones regardless of who, what, or how many multitudes he has to slaughter.
• Unstoppable Rage: His default state of being, though it usually comes across as Tranquil Fury on account of having no voice.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: And far more sane, until his parents were killed in front of him.
• Villain Protagonist: Perhaps narrowly averted by virtue of fighting against a force more evil than himself, although even that part is debatable as the Empire is composed largely of people who were brainwashed or just flat out forcibly enlisted, a fact which doesn't deter Caim from going out of his way to cause as much carnage as possible.
• Walking the Earth: He spent the first 15 years between Drakengard 1 and 2 travelling the world with Manah for the purpose of showing her the horrors of what she had done, not allowing her to escape or commit suicide.
• What the Hell, Hero?: A lot of characters call out his insatiable bloodlust, and nothing they say ever registers even slightly.
• Would Harm a Child: Oh yes. He kills off a legion of Imperial child conscripts, and was about to do the same to Manah in Ending A until Angelus talked him out of it.
• Would Harm a Senior: The elderly aren't safe either. He kills the 87 year old Verdelet in Drakengard 2.

Angelus

"Kill me if you desire. But you can never dirty my soul, wretched human."

Voiced by: Shinnosuke "Peter" Ikehata (JP), Mona Marshall (EN)

A red dragon who holds a rather disdainful opinion of humanity. Seeing the situation she was in at the beginning of the game, perhaps she can be forgiven her views. After agreeing to a pact with Caim, she becomes his mount, his (rather ineffectual) voice of reason, and over time, the closest of his companions, to the extent where Caim sheds tears when they part in the first game's canonical ending.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed in Drakengard 1.3, where she's pretty similar to her game counterpart, but is one of the few characters to not be outright worse in this timeline. Her concern over Caim's frighteningly over-the-top bloodlust is given more focus, as she feels responsible for his deteriorating sanity, having fed him her draconic blood, giving him superhuman strength at the cost of gradually robbing him of his humanity. When an equally insane Furiae charges at the two with her own dragon, Angelus tries to pivot away from her, knowing that Caim wouldn't hesitate to kill his own sister at this point but not wanting him to commit such a terrible act.
• Ambiguous Gender: She's generally accepted as female by the fanbase, but the official stance on the matter is purposely vague and ranges from describing her as not having a gender or leaning towards female while technically lacking a biological sex the way humans do. The fact that she shares the same (male) voice actor as Caim in Japanese doesn't help, though her human form as seen in side material is typically drawn as female (with the exception of Drakengard 1.3, where Angelus is androgynous and leans towards masculine).
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • After Angelus was taken out by the JSDF after Ending E, she was kept around for 8 years for Maso experimentation in the United States, until she mysteriously vanished. It's mentioned that an unknown party attacked the facility her body was stored in, but no other details were mentioned. Did Caim come back to try and take Angelus' body? Was she somehow dormant and escaped while the unknown attacker was at the facility? For now, no other information has been released.
  • In relation to the above, it's also unclear who gave the order to shoot her down to begin with. All the reports indicate that the Japanese government was merely trying to survey her rather than immediately take her out, and it's mentioned that all details regarding who it was that ordered the JSDF to open fire have been expunged from official records.
• And I Must Scream: In Drakengard 2. Being the Goddess of the Seal for 15 years was a miserable and painful enough fate as it is, but Verdelet, unable to trust a dragon with protecting humanity and paranoid that she might one day betray them, decided to converge all the seals of the Temples on Angelus alone. This resulted in not only greatly intensifying her suffering, but completely sealing her five senses, leaving her in dark, confused agony for the next 3 years. By the time she was freed, her sanity was broken beyond repair and she was reduced to an unstoppable raging monster.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Not quite outright, but it says so in the Chapter 8 Verse 9 description.
  "The dragon offers to become the seal in place of the dead goddess. For the first time, a name is spoken. For the first time, tears are shed. For the first and final time, love is confessed."
• Back from the Brink: She was dying, just like Caim, when they met. Only a pact with him saved her life.
• Barrier Maiden: In ending A, wherein she takes Furiae's place as the Goddess of the Seal.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: In her case, it's crazy, because being the Seal, which entails constant, horrific agony, for eighteen years broke her mind. It was the last three that did most of the work, as Verdelet strengthened the seal further, causing her unimaginable pain.
• Character Development: Starts out as cold and aloof towards Caim, but by the end she has mellowed out considerably.
• Continuity Cameo: In NieR Re[in]carnation, a corrupted version of Angelus' memory turns to life and attacks Hina and Yuzuki near the end.
• Cool Plane: Clearing the Brutal Bonus Level gives you a skin that turns Angelus into a Su-47 as a Shout-Out to Ace Combat.
• Dark Action Girl: She’s a misanthropic dragon who can shoot and breathe fire and is a force of nature who is nominally on the side of good.
• Deadpan Snarker: Usually at the expense of humans.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Drakengard 1.3, Angelus is the last surviving character as the frenzied dragons have devoured every other lifeform on Earth and are midway through devouring each other. Angelus herself has already been infected with the Red Eye Disease and is on the verge of being consumed by it, and the story ends in a Bolivian Army Ending as she charges towards the enemies to honor Caim's death in the most appropriate way: a Roaring Rampage of Revenge Last Stand.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her: In ending E, a heavily weakened Caim and Angelus are taken out by a couple of missiles.
• Dying as Yourself: After being driven mad by being the Seal for 18 years, she finally regains some clarity before dying.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Her ability to match and deflect the Grotesquerie Queen's attacks is never foreshadowed at all. Drakengard 3 goes a way towards rectifying it by establishing that all dragons have the power to damage Intoners and anything related to the Flower, which the Queen seems to be.
• Everyone Has Standards: After sounding Caim's heart, she's horrified by the bottomless hatred she finds there. Anytime Caim ever gets lost into his bloodlust, she always always comments in such a way that makes it clear how much she finds his actions wrong.
• Final Boss: Of the C ending path.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Her and Caim. Particularly after they defeat the Wyrm, a legendary dragon, Angelus thanks Caim for helping her become so strong through the countless battles they had fought together.
• Forced Transformation: Near the end of Drakengard 1.3, Angelus- along with all other dragons- turns into a beautiful androgynous Winged Humanoid. Her transformation is slower than the rest, so we don't see her losing her mind nor transforming further into a baby/Watcher or a bizarre Eldritch Abomination like the others.
• Graceful Loser: In the C ending, after Caim defeats her, she even seems to be happy, complimenting him on his strength.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She becomes the new seal in the A ending of the first game. In Drakengard 2, we see that being the seal entails horrific, constant agony for her.
• Hidden Depths: Michael's novel reveals she acted as Michael's Cool Big Sis and both had an intense bond. She also prefered to go by "Red" rather than by her actual name, as she felt names had no purpose amongst dragons.
• Humans Are Bastards: And how! Angelus, by the time she'd met Caim, had grown to hate the world and everyone on it for the horrors she had endured at their hands. When she met Caim and realized he felt the same thing, she accepted his pact and eventually became friends.
• Ice-Cream Koan: Angelus likes to speak in proverbs; a lot of them come off as this trope.
  Stare too much at the back of your shield, and you may begin to forget the enemy.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The final shot of Ending E (and the game as a whole) is Angelus' body impaled on Tokyo Tower. Morbidly, this is the In-Universe reason why Tokyo Tower is red.
• Interspecies Romance: With Caim, in the most beautiful way.
• Mayfly–December Romance: The "December" part; she's around 10,000.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Angelus" means "the angel" in Latin.
  • Her Japanese name is Gratuitous Spanish instead, アンヘル (Anheru), corresponding to ángel ("angel").
• Moody Mount: Caim often rides her into battle, and she's initially not very happy about it.
• Morality Pet: Becomes one for Caim as their relationship deepens. In the sequel, freeing Angelus was his whole motivation.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Like all dragons in the setting she can evolve (both mentally and physically) depending on the circumstances and is suspectible to interference from "God", the rival entity which currently controls them against their will.
• Outside-Context Problem: For the world of Ending E and by extension Nier, which is analogous to the real world and thus has no concept of anything supernatural existing outside of fairy tales, much less actual dragons. Her body would play a pivotal role in the government's understanding of so-called "magic" and its underlying physical principles and would provide enormous scientific breakthroughs such as proving the multiverse theory.
• Pet the Dog: She softens up towards Caim, despite starting out as allies of convenience.
• Race-Name Basis: She's usually referred to as simply "Red Dragon" (or "Chaos Dragon" should she reach that form), since dragons usually don't give out their real names unless it's for someone they really trust. She's also only referred to as "the dragon" in research logs from Nier as no one knows anything else about her, much less the fact that she has a name.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: In the sequel. She also has that color scheme in her ultimate Chaos form, which she only achieves in the last three Branches.
• Red Is Heroic: "Heroic" is probably not the best word, but she's one of the main protagonists.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Once she's freed from the seal, she sets out to burn the human world to ash, and probably would have succeeded if not for Nowe and Legna.
• Roswell That Ends Well: The research facility where her corpse was kept to be experimented on (and would later be mysteriously stolen from) is said to be in Roswell, New Mexico, likely referencing this event and its connection to conspiracy theories and alien autopsies.
• Shoot the Dog: Does this to herself to protect Caim in Ending A.
• Small Role, Big Impact: In the context of the world of Nier, Angelus appears only for a few minutes and then dies after she and Caim defeat the Queen Beast. Despite this, her death ends up being such an important part of the setting due to it developing magic and creating a way to combat Legion, Red Eyes, and White Chlorination Syndrome, that she is arguably just as important as the Queen Beast to the setting of Nier as said foe.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Her eyes are a bright glowing gold color.
• Tragic Monster: In 2. After selflessly deciding to become the new seal in the last game, Verdelet decides to intensify the binding spell on her to the point of depriving her of her five senses, seemingly unable to trust a dragon with the role of protecting humanity. By the time she is released from the seal, she is so consumed with rage that she becomes an uncontrollable, insane monster.
• Tsundere: Starts out as being cold and hateful to humans, and often insults them. By the end of the game, she has warmed up significantly to Caim, and truly cares for him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Some external materials claim that the Maso from her corpse was what caused White Chlorination Syndrome in Nier, while according to others it came from the Queen Beast's remains. Granted, it could've just been both.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Despite disliking humans, Angelus asks Caim if he really has to kill so many of them. She's constantly put off by Caim's ruthless killing, and near the end of the game, she even expresses disgust. This doesn't stop her from falling for him though.

Inuart

"Furiae, now that you are the goddess, my world is already dead."

Voiced by: Toshiaki Karasawa (JP), Fleet Cooper (EN)

A bard who was initially Furiae's betrothed... until her ascension to becoming the Goddess robbed them of their chances at wedding each other. Nevertheless, he remains close to Furiae and Caim, although a strong undercurrent of jealousy remains towards Caim's exploits, as well as Furiae's deep (perhaps too deep) affection for her brother — one that the villains waste no time in exploiting.

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• Adaptation Species Change: In Drakengard 1.3, Inuart is a dog. Not a magical dog either, just a random dog kept by Furiae. This is cheekily omitted from the character introduction page, where Inuart's section simply describes him as being "very loyal and fond of Furiae" alongside a picture of his game counterpart.
• Alas, Poor Villain: In the C ending path, after Caim defeats him, mortally wounding Inuart in the process, he begs Caim to let him die with Furiae. Caim lets him, and Inuart dies next to his beloved. His last words make it even sadder.
  Can this be happiness?
• Always Someone Better: Feels this way about Caim, who was always the stronger of the two. The one time he was able to beat Caim was when he was Brainwashed and Crazy. Ironically the one thing he had over Caim, his songs, which Furiae loved, was lost as the price for his pact with a dragon. Upon defeating him, he laments that he would never be able to beat Caim.
• Blessed with Suck: His pact took away his ability to sing, which was one of the most important things to him, the one thing Furiae loved about him, and the only thing he had that Caim never would.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: His sinister red eyes aside, most of his dialogue in Caim's battle against him in Chapter 6 is crazed rambling. Ironically, after he snaps out of it after seeing Furiae has died, he becomes even crazier.
• Butt-Monkey: Besides everything he goes through in his own game, references to him in future games via Weapon Stories sometimes go out of their way to refer to him as "a weak man" and highlight his many failures.
• Cool Sword: Possesses one that looks like the hybrid of a longsword and a lance.
• Dark Reprise: The song he plays at the end of chapter 1 also plays during the fight against him in chapter 9, mixed with organ music.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: As he grows madder, he seems to gradually forget Furiae and why he joined the Empire in the first place.
• Despair Event Horizon: He crosses it and falls through it when he sees Furiae's dead body in Branch B. Blaming himself for her death, he's reduced to a screaming wreck.
  Inuart: Furiae... But I... I did it for you... I did it all for you, and yet, I... could not even sing for you. Was this all for myself?
  Furiae: *dead*
  Inuart: Did I... kill... you?
  Furiae: *dead*
  Inuart: Aaaah... AAAAAAAHHH!! *sob* AAAAAARGHH!!
  Manah: Lalalalala, lalalalala... The Watchers Dance, such fun, The Watchers Dance. Lalalalala, lalalalala, lalalalala, The Watchers, they dance.
• Distressed Dude: He is held in an Empire prison in Chapter 3. It's also where he is manipulated into betraying Caim.
• Evil Counterpart: To Caim. He's a swordsman on the Empire's side, made a pact with Legna, the dragon that killed Caim's parents and both have a Mirror Boss fight with Caim and Angelus late in the game. Note that the "evil" part is pretty much just because he joins the villains. Given he does not regularly engage in child murder, genocide, or gleefully slaughtering people for the heck of it and has a noble (if misguided) goal, 'evil' is sort of a relative term here...
• Evil Former Friend: Again, to Caim. And again, only relatively evil.
• Evil Redhead: Post-kidnapping.
• Face–Heel Turn: Because Manah has tricked him into believing she will undo Furiae's status as a Goddess without killing her, Inuart joins the Empire.
• Genre Refugee: He would've probably fared pretty well in a standard RPG and was in fact originally written to be the protagonist with Caim as his rival before their roles were flipped early in development. Drakengard is not a standard RPG.
• Go Out with a Smile: In the B ending path, he gives a weak smile after the resurrected Furiae impales him with her tentacles, hinting that he was still deluding himself to the very end.
• Green-Eyed Monster: A lot of his actions are fueled by his envy of Caim.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Deconstructed. Just because you want to be badass and get the girl, it doesn't mean you have the right to — or that she'll want you.
• Love Makes You Crazy: He loved Furiae too much for his own good. Unfortunately, Furiae's eyes were for Caim and Caim alone. The Watchers screwing with his mind and losing his ability to sing due to his pact ended up destroying his mind. He goes even crazier in Branch B, when he witnesses Furiae's dead body and is reduced to a screaming lunatic.
• Madness Mantra: "Furiae. Furiae. Furiae. Fu. Ri. Ae. Fu. Ri. Ae", which could be seen as either Word-Salad Horror or his attempt to "sing" after sacrificing his biggest talent as a pact price.
• Necromantic: He tries desperately to bring Furiae back to life after she's killed. No matter what the consequences. This may be partially because she might have lived if he hadn't kidnapped her.
• Mythology Gag: The Nier backstory has mention of an event which is nigh-identical to what Inuart goes through in Ending B of Drakengard. An unknown young Replicant travels to Legion's former headquarters in order to find a way to revive his dead lover, at which point a "white cocoon" (implicitly a Seed of Resurrection) born from the last Red Eye's corpse resurrects her for him, except she comes back as a horrifying superpowered monster who immediately kills the man.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Like all members of the Empire, Inuart's eyes become a demonic red after his Face–Heel Turn. His eyes go back to normal once he realized his actions caused Furiae's death.
• Together in Death: In the C ending path, he uses his last bit of strength to put his arm around Furiae's corpse.
• Tragic Villain: Inuart wasn't evil by choice, having been manipulated and corrupted by the Watchers to serve their own ends. When he snaps out of their control after Furiae's death, he's overcome with guilt for his actions and tries to bring her back to life, but since doing so is a BAD IDEA, he has to be killed to try and save the world.
• Unwitting Pawn: Really, the poor guy gets manipulated to death — almost always literally.
• Villainous Breakdown: When he sees Furiae's dead body, he blames himself for her death and starts screaming in horror.
• Wham Line: "Welcome to a world without song."

Furiae

"I will be safe. I am a goddess, after all."

Voiced by: Eriko Hatsune (JP), Kari Wahlgren (EN)

A young maiden chosen to be the "Goddess", a female who must bear a Seal supposedly preventing The End of the World as We Know It from occurring. Though she is a rather colorless individual, the strongest facet of Furiae's personality is also a rather unpleasant one...

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• Adaptational Badass: In Drakengard proper, Furiae’s only contribution to the plot is dying, which always results in some manner of disaster. Her weapon, a dagger, goes entirely unused in the first game. Drakengard 1.3 however makes her a far more direct combatant, giving her a sword and shield and even a Silver Dragon partner. It still ends poorly for her however, as she goes insane and eventually is killed by Angelus on Caim’s orders.
• Adaptational Villainy: In Drakengard 1.3, she is a complete Yandere for Caim and is more than willing to jeopardize her squadron's safety by sending them on deliberately dangerous missions, knowing Caim is more likely to appear in those.
• Barrier Maiden: She's the Goddess — if she dies, disaster ensues!
• Blessed with Suck: "Goddess" is a fancy term for what is essentially a living sacrifice destined to bear the lonely, painful burden of a seal that protects the world (which also puts a huge target on her back for people who may want to destroy it).
• Brother–Sister Incest: Her feelings towards Caim are not strictly platonic. Caim's seemingly-negative reaction to her feelings is what pushes her into suicidal despair.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The Seal can only be broken if the Goddess takes her own life; if she dies a natural death or is killed, the Mark of the Goddess will simply be transferred to someone else, which is why the Empire needed to kidnap her alive and try to force her into suicide. They succeed.
• Came Back Wrong: In the B ending path. Inuart puts her into one of the Seeds of Resurrection, causing her to be reborn into a monstrous angel that Caim has to kill. And then all the other seeds start releasing their copies of her...
• Damsel in Distress: Kidnapped by Inuart at the start of chapter 4. There is no way to save her in any ending path.
• Death by Irony: Drakengard 1.3; She goes to great lengths to get Caim to notice her, even getting a dragon partner of her own, only for him to deem her a lost cause due to her insanity and having Angelus kill her.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Yoko Taro has stated that Furiae represents his distaste for "bland and forgettable heroine" characters, who are demure, passive, "virtuous" women who exist only to look pretty and be fought over as a prize for the protagonist. Her feelings towards Caim, in addition to subverting this "pure" image, also remove any taboo-related titillation from Brother–Sister Incest by showing that even someone like Caim, a conscienceless mass-murderer, would react with disgust to the idea.
• Driven to Suicide: After Manah reveals her feelings for Caim in the ending C route, her brother can only look away from her in disgust. Upon seeing his reaction, Furiae succumbs to despair and stabs herself with a dagger. It’s implied she killed herself in the ending A route as well.
• Final Boss: Her resurrected form serves as this in the B ending path.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Averted in the Ending B route. Furiae gains a pair of white feathered wings, which would look angelic if her hands weren't sticking out of them.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: Played With. Manah reveals from Furiae's heart that she resents being the Goddess, wants Caim to forget about protecting the seals and be with her, and believes that the world should burn for preventing her and her brother from being together romantically.
• Image Song: Attract Mode/Ending B song "Tsukiru" and its English version "Growing Wings" appear to be from her perspective, and the former is even performed by her Japanese voice actress. The lyrics of "Growing Wings" actually tone down the more overt references to her feelings for Caim that "Tsukiru" has.
• Light Is Good: As far as incestuous relations go, she's otherwise a blandly pleasant person. The only "bad" trait she had was resentment of her burden as the Goddess, which is honestly pretty understandable. Averted in Drakengard 1.3 however, in which she flies into a destructive rage when she believes Caim is involved with a maid and is generally much more unstable.
• Sanity Slippage: Temporarily because of her parents' deaths. Drakengard 1.3 has her take the plunge wholesale, resulting in Caim having Angelus kill her.

Verdelet

"Is this the will of the gods? Is it their will that we be tested so?"

Voiced by: Iemasa Kayumi (JP), William Frederick Knight (EN)

As the Union Hierarch, Verdelet is responsible for maintaining the goddess seal, down to replacing her if necessary.

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• Adaptational Villainy: Not that he was ever that good of a person, but his Drakengard 1.3 incarnation is a particularly opportunistic bastard who just wants a higher position in the Union Army. He also has no qualms performing human experiments in an attempt to create more super-soldiers like Caim by feeding them Angelus' blood, and he only realizes her blood is lethal to anyone besides Caim after killing around 100 people.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The other characters give up speech, sight, fertility, their talent for song, and time for their pact. On the other hand, Verdelet gave up his hair. His small sacrifice for power compared to the rest of the cast adds to the disdain for the character. Then again...
• Asshole Victim: Goes from being merely kind of annoying in the first game to outright reprehensible in the second game for betraying Angelus and locking her in a horrifically amplified version of the Seal out of fear that she might one day betray humanity. This had the side effect of kicking off pretty much the entire plot of Drakengard 2 and led directly to his own rather justified death at Caim's hands.
• Awesome, but Impractical: He's partened to a dragon- an Ancient Dragon, no less- which would've been an immense Superpower Lottery victory... had it not been for the fact that his pact partner has long turned into stone and thus grants him no powers other than the standard issue telepathy.
• Baldness Angst: Presumably, since the price of a pact is generally "the trait that's most important to you", losing his hair must've hit him hard. Confirmed in the 10th anniversary interview which outright says Verdelet is the character who regrets his pact price the most since he used to be a Handsome Lech in his youth. Averted in Drakengard 1.3, where pacts don't exist and Verdelet is explicitly described as having a full head of hair.
• Cursed with Awesome/Blessed with Suck: The only thing Verdelet sacrificed is his hair, which is rather light compared to others. However, his dragon pact partner has since become petrified, leaving him with just his not-quite-telepathy.
• Despair Event Horizon: He's on the verge of a mental breakdown for more or less the entirety of the game, but he only truly loses it when the Watchers appear.
• Fantastic Racism: He says that even the Empire soldiers deserve mercy in regards to Caim's brutality. But for non-humans such as goblins, he says that they should eliminate as many as they can.
• High Priest: Of the Union. He is also the one who turns Angelus into the new seal in Ending A.
• I Was Quite a Looker: If the concept art of a young Verdelet with hair is to be taken into account.
• Killed Off for Real: Caim killed him some time before Drakengard 2 for strengthening the seal on Angelus and thus intensifying her suffering.
• The Load: Aside from his constant whining, he really doesn't do much in the overall story and the one time he tries doing something, it only made things worse.
• Monochromatic Eyes: His eyes are pure white.
• Mr. Exposition: His only purpose in the game is to remind Caim how doomed the world is.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He may not be the hero, per say, but it certainly applies:
  • In Ending A, his attempt at purifying Manah just makes her go One-Winged Angel.
  • In Drakengard 2, it's implied that his strengthening of the seal is what drove Angelus mad through her increased suffering to the point where when she is released, she intends to raze the world out of revenge.
• Non-Action Guy: The only member of Caim's group that cannot fight.
• Pet the Dog: Suprisingly, yes. He attempts to console Leonard after he joins their group and convince him the death of his brothers wasn’t his fault.
• Really Gets Around: It's implied in Drakengard 2 supplementary materials that he was one of Yaha's many sexual partners, while a developer interview also mentions that he's a womanizer, meaning Verdelet plays for both teams and is pretty flexible about age.
• Sinister Minister: In looks only, though Drakengard 2 portrays him in a significantly more negative light.
• Too Dumb to Live: Thanks to Caim's pact with Angelus, he was instantly alerted of the immense pain she was feeling due to Verdelet's decision to strengthen the seal on her, which prompted him to go and murder Verdelet.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Doesn't make it a secret that he is disturbed by Caim's brutality. Though this is only applied towards humans.

Leonard

"I am already dead. Where this body drops and rots is of no matter now."

Voiced by: Kōichi Yamadera (JP), Paul St. Peter (EN)

A man with a peaceful heart, who would rather avoid violence when possible. Leonard feels terrible guilt over the death of his brothers, and initially follows Caim in hopes of getting killed.

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• Adaptational Villainy: His Drakengard 1.3 incarnation is still a pedophile, but he seems to lack his game counterpart's guilt over this, and it's implied he's been abusing his position of power as the beloved leader of his local village by forming a choir consisting entirely of young boys whom he is implied to have possibly molested. When the village is under attack, he chooses to protect a young boy who is already clearly dead instead of his still-alive older sister, who has to sit there and watch as Leonard (whom she had a crush on) protect her brother's body from harm over her.
• All Gays Are Pedophiles: Seems to care as much for females as he does for adults.
• Anti-Hero: Unlike most of the rest of the team, who are Nominal Heroes or even Villain Protagonists, Leonard is genuinely heroic. He's also a pedophile, but he understands how wrong being one is, and feels guilt that slipping into that lead to the deaths of his family.
• The Atoner: After joining with Caim, he desires to stop the Empire as part of his own guilt over his pedophilic thoughts at the time led him to leave his brothers behind, which caused their deaths in his mind.
• Bowdlerise: In the original Japanese version, Leonard is explicitly stated to be a pedophile. There are still hints here and there in the English-language version, such as how he gulps nervously when Seere hugs him, and a weapon story in the second game refers to him having a "certain antisocial tendency". However, because this would almost certainly bring issues when localized, it was mostly downplayed to avoid any issues that would arise.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: In the Japanese version, he was pleasuring himself in the forest when the Empire attacked his home.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: As with Arioch, he does not appear in the sequel. He does, however, get a minor mention by an NPC, and you can find his weapon.
• Dirty Old Man: He's apparently still up to his old tricks 18 years later in Drakengard 2 as a resident in the City of Rust mentions that people are concerned about a certain "blind traveller who is a bit too interested in the local children".
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Drakengard 1.3, he is murdered by Arioch For the Evulz.
• Disability Superpower: In exchange for his pact powers, he gave up his sight. Not that it hinders him at all in gameplay.
• The Dog Bites Back: After being tormented by the faerie for the entire game, he crushes her in his fist before committing his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Driven to Suicide: He tries to commit suicide after his brothers are killed, but he is unable to go through with it. He ends up sacrificing his life for his party in the D and E routes.
• Due to the Dead: Prays over an Empire soldier's corpse when Caim first meets him (much to Caim’s confusion), and later tries to bury dead child soldiers. In one novelization this causes Caim to outright view him as The Load and he makes it clear that the only reason they're travelling together is because he happens to be a pact partner.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Per Word of God, this is the reason his pact price was his sight; he can no longer ogle little boys nor satisfy his urges in any other way since he forbade himself from actually acting out on his desires.
• Epic Flail: As seen in his artwork, Leonard's weapon can apparently be used as a sort of segmented whip-flail thing, but in gameplay he only ever uses it like a giant baton.
• Foil: To Furiae; while Furiae hides her desires for her brother more out of social pressure than any moral fiber, Leonard suppresses his pedophilia out of an understanding of how wrong it is. Furiae wants the world to burn for condemning her desires, while Leonard agrees with the world’s assessment of his. Furiae is essentially helpless, while Leonard is fully capable of defending himself. And finally, Furiae kills herself out of grief when her brother rejects her desires and dooms the world to chaos in doing so, while Leonard kills himself to give his allies a chance at victory.
• Good Counterpart: To Arioch. Both have mental disorders that give them urges to commit heinous acts against children, but while Arioch is completely insane and gleefully indulges in her urges, Leonard is fully sane (if self-destructive) and actively represses his.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: You know your story is dark when the pedophile is the most heroic character in the setting. Out of everyone, Leonard is the kindest, showing horror at Caim’s brutality and being thoroughly disturbed by Arioch’s actions in her chapter. After Caim finished slaughtering child conscripts, Leonard’s first instinct is to attempt to give them a proper burial, and he’s the only character to perform a genuine Heroic Sacrifice.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Blows up himself (and the Faerie) to take out some of the Grotesqueries.
• It's All My Fault: Blames himself for the death of his brothers.
• Light Is Good: Is the most heroic characters and wields the power of light. This is despite his urges.
• Mythology Gag: The Forest Castle in NieR: Automata was apparently once owned by one "Leonard III", though according to Yoko Taro, the two figures aren't connected.
• Sickening "Crunch!": Right before he explodes, one of the Watchers chomps down on him, most likely splitting him in two.
• Survivor Guilt: His younger brothers were all killed by the Empire when he was off masturbating. He's been trying to atone ever since.
• Taking You with Me: He does this with the Faerie in Branch D, especially since the two are Pactbound and she's been nothing but a little shit to him all game.
• Token Good Teammate: Leonard is the most morally good person of the core cast, finding the actions of the other members wrong and not being willing to do the same things they do. Even though he's a pedophile, he keeps those urges in check and understands how wrong they are, which is why he works with the group.

Faerie

Voiced by: Yuko Miyamura (JP), Wendee Lee (EN)

Leonard's pact partner, introduced after his failed suicide attempt. She tried to have him take another go at it, before deciding that forging a pact with him would be more amusing. This sets the tone for their relationship.

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• Adapted Out: Does not appear in Drakengard 1.3, as pacts don't exist in this timeline, and Leonard's nonhuman partner is a green dragon.
• Corrupted Character Copy: She bears notable physical resemblance to Puck, both taking the form of young androgynous boys and being fairies (although Puck is referred to as an elf), but unlike Puck, who acts as Guts's sole moral center for most of the story, when she comes across an utterly broken person, she only helps him to prolong his suffering. This bites her in the ass later.
• Dirty Coward: After chastising Leonard for being a coward throughout the whole game, she doesn't take it well when he stays behind to sacrifice himself against the Grotesqueries, which would kill her as well.
• The Fair Folk: She looks cute, but is easily one of the nastiest characters in the game. The rest of her race is no different, as seen in this game and the others.
• Hate Sink: Almost everyone else in the game is either a victim of horrible trauma, hates themselves for what they are, or both. Except for her, she's just a cruel, obnoxious brat who's pointlessly awful to everyone for no reason whatsoever.
• Hermaphrodite: The fairy race all look like tiny, feminine boys. That's because they're hermaphrodites. Though this would be contradicted by the databook, which states that Faerie chose this appearance to play on Leonard's proclivities.
• Humans Are Bastards: When she isn't busy mocking Leonard, she will usually insult humans.
• Jerkass: To pretty much everyone she talks to, but especially towards Leonard and Seere.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Leonard attempts to bury the child soldiers Caim killed, the Faerie mockingly asks him if they really have time for that. Considering at this point the forest seal is currently under attack, she is kind of right.
• Laser-Guided Karma: She's constantly telling Leonard to kill himself because of his urges, even though it's clear he hates himself for it and tries to repress them as much as he possibly can. Eventually, he takes her advice... and brings her along for the ride.
• Moral Myopia: She accuses Leonard of being a coward who can't even kill himself right (and may very well be correct... at least at that point in the story). Then, when Leonard does his Heroic Sacrifice against the Grotesqueries, the Faerie turns out to be an even greater coward who would be cool with the world ending if only she was allowed to survive.
• Planet of Hats: Faerie isn't a jerkass by her race's standards. All the fairies are like that.
• Sadist: The sole reason she partnered with Leonard is because she found toying with him in death more amusing than laughing at his death, and she spends the entire time deliberately playing on his insecurities, shameful sexual proclivities and pain to grant herself more amusement, and is unable to be killed because Leonard would die doing so as well.
• Sidekick Creature Nuisance: She pretty much only exists to tell Leonard how much he sucks.

Arioch

"So sweet. So sweet... the cute little children. No need to worry. I will take care of you.... so sweet."

Voiced by: Megumi Hayashibara (JP), Michelle Ruff (EN)

One of the few survivors of the Empire's attack on the Forest Seal and elven purge. After enduring such horrific circumstances — after seeing her family slaughtered by the Empire — her mind… broke. In exchange for her womb, she entered into a pact with the spirits of water and fire, Undine and Salamander.

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• Adaptational Villainy: Like most of the cast, her incarnation in the Drakengard 1.3 timeline is even worse than the original, if only slightly. She's still the same old psychotic cannibal with the same backstory, but she's more callous and sadistic, forcing Leonard to choose which resident of his village she'll spare from a senseless murder. She also lacks the game counterpart's Redemption Equals Death moment, as her final moments here are spent tearing a baby out of a woman going through labor and eating it alive, before being sliced to pieces by Caim.
• Ax-Crazy: She makes Caim look like a healthy well-adjusted adult by comparison. In the few instances where she's not outright homicidal, she's just sort of weird and childlike.
• Break the Cutie: She was once a kind and loving young mother, until Empire soldiers slaughtered her family...
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In Branches D and E, she single-handedly killed one of the bigger Watchers on foot, but was left beaten up and battered. This ultimately leads to her death when the rest of its kin jump on her, though the verse description for her demise implies this was on purpose.
• Child Eater: She prefers eating children over adults. Her logic is that devouring them will ensure they're never taken from her again and she can care for them forever.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She disappears from the face of the planet in the sequel, with the only mention of her being in the form of her weapon, which your protagonist can find. There is rough concept art in the artbook of what she might've looked like in this game, where she appears a lot more demented and wears nothing but rags.
• Dark Action Girl: She is an even worse person than Caim, but also extremely powerful.
• Death by Irony: So you like eating babies, huh? Well, perhaps it's only fitting that you got eaten by mind-numbing horrors in the shape of human babies…
• Eats Babies: She has a disturbing tendency to eat human children, ranging from as young as infants to (worryingly) as old as Seere. She doesn't do it for the taste, though; she believes she's "saving them" by "guarding them in her womb". Though she does seem to enjoy it a fair bit anyway.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Leonard. Both of them have horrible urges regarding children, but while Leonard is sane and controls his urges, Arioch is completely batshit crazy and gleefully indulges in them, much to the former’s horror.
  • Also to Caim to an extent. Both of them were sane, kind people, but then the Empire invaded and slaughtered their families, leaving them broken. But while Caim’s madness was more of a slow burn and he was still able to care about others and saved his violence for the Empire, Arioch is completely off her rocker and does not discriminate at all; the only thing keeping her from murdering Caim or his allies is the seal Verdelet placed on her.
• Evil Weapon: Her weapon, the Mourning Thorn, was apparently made by a demented wizard and has the side effect of amplifying its wielder's bloodlust and madness, which helps explain a few things. This isn't reflected in gameplay if you choose to equip it by the protagonists of future games.
• Freudian Excuse: Once she was a humble elven housewife. Then the Empire invaded and slaughtered her family right before her eyes. Is it any wonder she's so crazy?
• Gory Discretion Shot: In Endings D and E, once she's killed, the only visible part of her body is her right arm, covered in blood and bruises.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Maybe. The verse description of the verse in which she gets devoured by the Grotesqueries implies that her inviting them to devour her was meant as a distraction so a path would open for the others, noting that she was a "true friend in the end".
• I Am a Humanitarian: Mostly children, but doesn't mind adults when there aren't any children around. In Arioch's novella, she bites off the fingers of one of her guards and she doesn't spit them out.
• Insane Troll Logic: Yes, Arioch, eating children will totally mean you can protect them forever. Though, in fairness she is actually insane.
• Karmic Death: She, who enjoyed the flesh of children, is Eaten Alive in Route D/E by over a dozen Grotesqueries, who look like babies with adult teeth. Unlike most examples, she embraces and enjoys it, laughing as they fly towards her.
• Laughing Mad: She is introduced laughing in her cell off screen while the two Empire soldiers talk about her before they are blown up.
• Making a Splash: The power of one of her two pact partners, the water elemental Undine, allows her to manipulate water including generating a devastating flashflood.
• Names to Run Away From: She's named after a demon and author Michael Moorcock's Chaos god.
• Older Than They Look: Averted. Unlike the usual trope for elves being physically young and chronologically old, she's actually 24 years old (born on 1075 - died on 1099) and not some elven equivalent as in most fantasy works.
• Only Sane Man: Not Arioch herself obviously, but her pact partners Undine and Salamander are actually relatively down to earth and reasonable for the standards of the setting and magical partners in particular.
• Our Elves Are Different: Unlike common depictions of elves, she is not Really 700 Years Old and is only 24. Also instead of elves being Long-Lived but eventually aging, here they are similar to the ones in Tolkien and stop aging as a young adult. They also downplay the pointy ears and elven superiority to humans (outside of their lifespan and good looks, they're no better than normal humans). And in her specific case, elves aren't usually cannibals.
• Playing with Fire: The power of one of her two pact partners, the fire elemental Salamander, allows her to manipulate fire including generating a massive firestorm.
• Pointy Ears: Downplayed. Especially for an elf in a somewhat Standard Japanese Fantasy Setting, Arioch and other elves in this world have ears that are barely pointed. Even at a close distance, she's almost indistinguishable from a human.
• The Quiet One: She doesn't talk very often, but when she does...
  So sweet...
  I smell fire... Hmhmhmhm... Hahahahahahahahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AAHAHAHAHA!!
• Serial Killer: An especially horrific one that preys on children and the occasional adult, she was finally captured and in her novella, the citizenry were shocked to find that the murderer terrorizing the area is a young woman.
• Suddenly Shouting: Her summoning line, quoted above, in both the English and Japanese dubs.
• Token Evil Teammate: By far the most unpleasant and unhinged member of Caim's party, only forced to fight alongside them by Verdelet's seal. And considering the rest of the crew is made up of a racist dragon, a cowardly and incompetent priest, a naive child, a self-loathing pedophile, and well, Caim, that says a hell of a lot.
• Token Nonhuman: Among Caim's allies, the only person that isn't human (aside from, y'know, the dragon) is Arioch. She's an insane elf.

Seere

^{Click here for his Drakengard 2 design}

"I will do my best. If I do, will you like me?"

Voiced by: Sota Murakami (JP), Mona Marshall (EN)

Manah's twin brother, who was adored by his mother, Seere feels guilty about being favoured at the expense of his sister. He made a pact with Golem, but prefers to call Golem his friend rather than his pact-beast.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: He turns out to be able to freeze the Queen Grotesquerie in Ending D by releasing his "time", which somehow clashes with the Queen's Time Master nature and freezes everyone in the vicinity in time for perpetuity.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the Drakengard 1.3 timeline, Seere was taken alongside Manah to become the Cult of the Watchers' priests, and both are held in more-or-less equal regard. Seere, for his part, hates this arrangement as he has no interest in the Cult of the Watchers' beliefs (and feels alienated by them as he is the only member without red eyes), and it took his mother's attention away from just himself to include Manah as well, who up until this point was abused and neglected.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In Drakengard 1.3, despite vowing to protect Manah, he secretly resented her as he wanted all of their mother's affection to be his and was glad that their mother was dead as it meant that Manah's portion of her love died with her, and even felt a bit of sadistic glee informing Manah about her death (though he does feel guilt over thinking this way).
• Always Identical Twins: He looks almost exactly like his twin sister Manah in the first game. In Drakengard 2 this is no longer the case as Manah had aged normally while Seere remains visually 6 years old on account of his pact-induced immortality.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Drakengard 2, wherein he calls in an army of Golems to take on the dragons.
• Blessed with Suck: Since his pact with Golem took his "time", Seere will never physically age. He's six.
• Bystander Syndrome: Manah at least characterizes him as an ineffective coward who notices when bad things happen around him but never bothers to help until it's too late, such as Manah's abuse by their mother and in Drakengard 2 the Seals that he's responsible for being broken one by one.
  Manah: How typical of you, Seere. You watch and take no action.
• Death by Adaptation: In Drakengard 1.3, he gets devoured by a frenzied dragon, possibly under Manah's command.
• Gentle Giant: His pact partner Golem, who is also a Mighty Glacier.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Which parallels Manah, though she only has a "heart of gold" in Drakengard 2.
• The Heart: Optimistic and friendly, Seere keeps the group together and helps bring out the best in them. Which unfortunately is not a whole lot, but you can't fault him for trying.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He has a somewhat distorted view of his relationship to Manah. Oh, and his best friends in the first game are a pedophile, a mass murderer, and an elf who Eats Babies.
• Improbable Infant Survival: He is, impressively, one of the only characters to survive every single ending in both Drakengard 1 and 2 (though he does subject himself to a Fate Worse than Death in the former's Ending D). The novels (in particular Drakengard 1.3), on the other hand, have not been as kind to him.
• It's All My Fault: He blames himself for Manah's descent into madness as he knowingly hogged all of their mother's affection while leaving Manah to be abused.
• The Kid with the Remote Control: He controls a giant Golem.
• Kid Hero: He even invokes it himself when he brings up the "Little Hero" story his mother used to tell him. He gets his wish in ending D, when he uses his Time to stop the Grotesqueries.
• Lethal Joke Character: His melee attacks have pitiful range and damage, but his magic attack summons his golem to ground pound everything in front of him for massive damage.
• The Load: His search for his sister is pretty much a waste of everyone's time. Gameplay-wise, he averts this, since while he may be useless on his own (considering he's a prepubescent boy with a dagger, it's justified), his Golem more than makes up for it.
• Love Hungry: Despite (or due to) receiving 100% of his mother's love, Seere is constantly looking for adoration and approval, best exemplified in his summoning line quoted above. Some of the novelizations exaggerate this trait to the negative, whereas in the game proper it's portrayed as innocuous for the most part.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Due to his pact with Golem, he’s stuck in the body of a 6-years old.
• Only Sane Man: He doesn't have any major character flaws like the rest of the playable party in the first game; his worst attributes are his relative naivete and Love Hungry nature, though he's aware of both of these and tries to keep them in check.
• Tagalong Kid: He's much younger than the rest of the party, which is rather alarming when you consider the party is composed of the sorts of people who should not be allowed anywhere near children. Arioch seems to be constantly looking for an excuse to eat him, Leonard has to restrain himself from thinking impure thoughts about him, and Caim is Caim.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Seere (or technically Golem)'s murder of Manah was what kickstarted the arrival of the Watchers and all the messed up stuff that led to. He does make up for it in Ending D in what is arguably the closest thing the game has to a happy ending; Ending E, on the other hand...
• Vocal Evolution: In Drakengard 2, he switches from an American accent to a British accent.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Manah and Nowe take out Gismor and break the penultimate seal, Seere shows up and points out that not only have they freed a very powerful and very, very angry dragon, but if they kill the dragon, they will break the final seal and start the end of the world.

Manah

^{Click here for her Drakengard 2 design}

"Lalalalala. Lalalalala. Watchers... lala!"

Voiced by: Natsuki Yamashita, Daisuke Gōri (when possessed), Koyuki Matsuyama (Drakengard 2) (JP), Sherry Lynn, Daran Norris (when possessed) (EN)

High Priestess of the Cult of Watchers and apparent leader of the Empire via mind control, Manah started her life as a simple, unassuming child. Unfortunately, her mother hated her for some reason, to the extent that Manah viewed death as a preferable alternative. When "God" approached the unhappy and insecure six-year old with promises of eternal love and happiness if she accepted it, it found a willing vessel.

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• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the game, Manah formed and lead the Empire largely by herself and the higher powers guiding her. In Drakengard 1.3, Manah is taken by the Cult of the Watchers who believe her to be a reincarnation of the cult's founder (One), and seems to be more of a figurehead while the actual leadership was done by adults.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: In the second game, she initially has no idea of all the vile deeds she did in the first game. Once she finds out, she rather understandably loses her mind.
• Apocalypse Maiden: She's destined to carry out God's will and destroy mankind even if she were to die. Especially if she were to die.
• Big Bad: She's the main on-screen villain for the majority of the first game.
• Big Little Sister: By the time of 2, Manah is much taller than her older twin brother Seere. Justified, considering that he's The Ageless and she isn't.
• Black Magician Girl: A little girl who mind-controlled an entire army's worth of men to do her bidding.
• Creepy Child: In 1, she 's quite a clear cut example, especially when she's possessed, as she serves as the leader of The Empire and an Apocalypse Maiden. In 2, she's grown out of it in more ways than one.
• Demonic Possession: She's actually possessed by "God"... and it doesn't take kindly to her death, as Ending D demonstrates.
• Desperately Craves Affection: All she really wants is to feel loved, which is something she was denied her entire childhood by her abusive mother. "God" exploited this vulnerability by turning her into its vessel in exchange for giving her the adoration she so craved. In Drakengard 2, she manages to break free of its spell after finally receiving true, genuine love, courtesy of Nowe.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her: In the C Ending path of Drakengard 1, she gets unceremoniously killed by dragons.
• Enfant Terrible: In 1, although she's but a little girl, she's the Grotesqueries' tool in their apocalyptic plans and is basically the head of the oppressive Empire.
• Fate Worse than Death: In her mind, at the very least. In Ending A, Caim takes her with him and drags her around the world to make her look at what she had done. She eventually attempts suicide by jumping off a cliff after managing to shake Caim off (as he was distracted by sensing Angelus' sudden anguish); she survives, albeit with a bout of amnesia and a new lease on life thanks to being saved by kindhearted villagers.
• Final Boss: Of the A ending path; Caim and Angelus have to battle a titanic Manah above the Imperial City.
• Freak Out: In Drakengard 2, Manah sees Caim once, once, and she flips the fuck out.
• Freudian Excuse: Her mother abused her horribly, both physically and mentally.
• Giant Woman: Her One-Winged Angel form in the A Ending path of Drakengard 1.
• Good Costume Switch: Between games, Manah loses her red and black robes in exchange for a brownish shirt and pants combo with a green cape.
• The Heavy: She's the main on-screen antagonistic force in the first game and causes some degree of trouble in all of its routes, but she's by no means the highest authority.
• Heroic BSoD: In the sequel, regaining her memories of what she did in the first game leaves her vulnerable to Demonic Possession.
• Madness Mantra: Much of her dialogue in the first game is some variation of "The Watchers sing/dance/laugh/etc.".
• Official Couple: With Nowe.
• Perspective Reversal: In the first game, she's fought by Caim as the Final Boss of Ending A, whereas in the second game, you can fight Caim while playing as her.
• The Power of Love:
  • Granted, it's the love of warped and twisted horrors from beyond who seek to devour all life, but Manah seems happy with it — or maybe she just enjoys controlling the minds of her thousands of minions. In one of the first game's memorably creepy scenes, she shares this little tidbit:
    Silence! You cannot kill me. I am loved! Loved by them. More than anyone else. See? Humans still don't know what they really need. Stupid! They're all stupid! Salvation lies before them, but stupid people won't be loved. Lalalalala, lalalalala... Those who aren't loved, die! [...] Now is the time to feel the love of the gods! A deep love. A great love. A love powerful and formidable. A love that crushes like a mace. Lalala-la-la!
  • Played more straight in the sequel, as Nowe's love for her frees her from the Watchers' control, and in endings A and C, her kiss awakens Nowe's true power.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: She wears a red and black dress in the first game.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: She has bright red eyes, as do all victims of her mind control, though she herself seems to have them from birth (despite also being mind controlled by a greater force).
• The Resenter: She has a very low opinion of her brother Seere, who knew she was being abused by their mother but did nothing to try and stop it. Even in Drakengard 2, where she is 18 years older and a much better person, she still rejects Seere's attempts to rekindle their connection and generally tries to avoid talking to him more than necessary.
• Room Full of Crazy: The walls in some of the Temples and her memory-room in Drakengard 2 are covered with insane writings and creepy childlike doodles.
• She Is All Grown Up: In the second game, she's clearly much taller and developed than she was in the first, with Seere apparently jealous of it.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the second game, she goes from a little whelp that has to undergo Demonic Possession to be a threat to a capable party member and a go-to Black Magician Girl.
• The Un Favourite: For reasons never fully explained, Manah's mother hated her. There are some hints in the weapon history of the short sword 'Hero's Knife' in Drakengard 2, though.
• Vocal Dissonance: When possessed, Manah's voice becomes very deep and masculine, which significantly constrasts with her 6 year old girl body. Her normal voice averts this trope, sounding like an ordinary young girl.
• Vocal Evolution: Like her brother in Drakengard 2, she switches from an American accent to a British accent.
• Voice of the Legion: She sometimes speaks with a deep male voice who repeats her lines. In Drakengard 2, the voice begins speaking independently of Manah, and it's revealed it belongs to the same "God" who brainwashed her to begin with.

Legna

"Jealousy, hatred, treachery... sounds like a typical human story."

Voiced by: Yoshio Harada (JP) Stephen Greif (EN, uncredited)

A black dragon that appears throughout the series. He is both the dragon responsible for Caim and Furiae's parents' deaths, as well as the dragon Inuart rode in the first game. By the second game, he becomes a mentor and caretaker to Nowe.

He also appears in the Fatal Crimson manga and its novelized sequel Drakengard 1.3, an alternate timeline where he has a particularly sinister agenda.

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• Adaptation Deviation: All of his main appearances are from different timelines, and they all have rather different takes on the character.
  • Drakengard establishes that he's the dragon who killed Caim's parents, but he's nonverbal and it's never indicated whether or not he has any goals of his own, as he mostly just serves as Inuart's pact-partner.
  • In Drakengard 2 he obtains the name Legna (both In-Universe and in a meta sense) and is characterized as a Grumpy Old Man with a hidden agenda to restore the dragon race to their former glory and fight back against "God".
  • In Drakengard 1.3, he's still the killer of Caim's parents, but he eventually seems to mellow out and starts admiring humans and the bond they can have with dragons. This is all an act that relies on humanity exploiting the dragons' kindness, forcing the dragons to endure years of torture and abuse so that they'd slowly succumb to madness, leading to an outbreak of Red Eye Disease among dragons where they would devour all life on Earth, including each other, reducing all creation to dust. He succeeds.
• All There in the Manual: It's directly stated in the Drakengard 2: Memory of Blood supplement that Legna is both the dragon that killed Caim and Furiae's parents, and the dragon Inuart rode in the first game. This is not directly stated in-game, nor does Legna allude to it in any form (possibly due to having no memory of those events, as they took place before his "blood memory" awakened and he gained a new sense of self), though the Book of Seeds does make mention of the "black dragon" that was involved in Nowe's conception.
• Ascended Extra: In Drakengard, he's just Inuart's pact-partner. Drakengard 2 makes him a main character.
• Big Bad: In Drakengard 2, as well as the Fatal Crimson / Drakengard 1.3 timeline.
• Dark Is Evil: He is a pitch-black dragon, and he's the main villain of Drakengard 2.
• Dragons Are Divine: Becomes a bona fide Holy Dragon in the climax of Drakengard 2.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite his dislike for humans and trying to pass it off as following the Book of Seeds, he did love Nowe as his own son, to the point he wanted him to fight the Gods by his side. He also sympathized with Inuart's grief, despite considering him a sentimental fool.
• Evil Mentor: Well, not per se given the setting of Drakengard, but definitely not one of the good guys.
• Evil Plan: In Fatal Crimson, he uses the Empire to spread the Red Eye disease. His ultimate goal is revealed in 1.3, where he plans on having dragonkind empower themselves by devouring humanity, then every thing living or material thing in the world, then finally each other.
• Final Boss: In Drakengard 2, he is the final opponent you face in Endings A and C; since Ending C is the final unlockable ending, this also makes him the True Final Boss of the whole game.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's the reason that Caim and Furiae's parents are dead and their kingdom is in ruins and is the reason Furiae manages to get captured by the Empire. He's also responsible for the spread of Red Eye Disease in the Fatal Crimson timeline by manipulating its unwitting vector (One), which lead to the events of Drakengard 1.3 and by extension the end of the world.
• Grumpy Old Man: Probably helped along by his voice actor.
• Humans Are Bastards: Legna's attitude to all humans except Nowe. Which kicks into high gear in the endgame.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Legna ate Caim and Furiae's parents, King Gaap of Caerleon and his wife, in front of their son.
• Light Is Not Good: His true Holy Dragon form is predominantly white, gold and blue, and he's the Final Boss in Route A and C.
• Karma Houdini: In Ending B of Drakengard 2, as Nowe sides with him and helps him fight the Watchers.
• Named in the Sequel: He was only referred to as the "black dragon" in the first game. This actually has In-Universe significance: Legna only gained a name and a sense of self when Nowe was conceived, as his draconic "blood memory" awakened in response to the birth of the fabled "new breed", at which point he became laser-focused on raising Nowe to eventually kill "God".
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: His endgame in Drakengard 2 is to defeat the Watchers and "God" who are actively trying to destroy humanity and the entire world, but only because he wants to restore the dragons' divine status; a world ruled by dragons would be absolute hell for humans to live in and only marginally better than being killed outright. Nowe and Seere realize this in Ending C of Drakengard 2, which is why they decide to take down Legna despite sharing a common enemy.
• Not Quite Dead: The Stinger of Drakengard 2's Ending C implies he survived his final fight with Nowe and now roams the world.
• Offing the Offspring: Legna tries to kill Nowe in outrage at his defiance in endings A and C. Nowe was created with some of Legna's blood and was partly raised by him. Unlike what one would expect from Legna, he's deeply conflicted over this, but his certainty that the Book of Seeds' prophecy will become true overcomes his own parental instincts.
• One-Winged Angel: He spends the entirety of the first game in his own version of Angelus' Chaos form. Though he starts the second game with a more normal form, he returns to his own Chaos form late in the game and then gains an even stronger Holy Dragon form.
• Perspective Reversal: You fight him while riding Angelus in the first game, while in the second game you fight Angelus while riding Legna.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Legna's eyes are a bright red in all of his forms.
• Sdrawkcab Name: To Angel. This bit is lost in translation when they decided to call her Angelus.
• You Can't Fight Fate: He's a firm believer of this, following to the letter the Book of Seeds that predicts the evolution and victory of dragonkind against their natural enemy, the Gods. He's deeply shocked when Nowe fights back against the Book's prophecy and ultimately screws destiny by defeating him.
• You Don't Look Like You: He actually starts off as dark blue in Drakengard 2 (and is described as such by Urick), though he becomes gradually more black as he evolves, likely to hide the fact that he's the "black dragon" from the first game until it's spelled out in the Ancient Tomb.

The Watchers (UNMARKED SERIES-WIDE SPOILERS)

The Grotesquerie Queen. Tokyo, Japan, 2003.

Speak not the Watchers.
Draw not the Watchers.
Write not the Watchers.
Sculpt not the Watchers.
Sing not the Watchers.
Call not the Watchers' name.

The mysterious entities worshipped by the Cult of the Watchers. Also known as "grotesqueries", "angels", and "enemies".

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• 13 Is Unlucky: The arrival of the Queen to the "real world", marking the beginning of the Nier timeline and the effective end of humanity, was just one day before that year's Friday the 13th. Which, as a bonus, was in June.
• Angelic Abomination: In actual appearance, they look like twisted versions of cherubs; namely, gigantic babies made of sodium with wings of lightning... and perhaps creepiest of all, adult sets of teeth. The Queen, which has the body of an adult, instead has a long, serpentine tongue. There's also early concept art which gives them more traditional angelic traits such as white wings and a halo, alongside an extra dosage of Body Horror.
• Ambiguously Related:
  • To the Legion from Nier's backstory, who were created in part thanks to the Watchers' influence and share many traits with them (wanting to destroy mankind, producing the same eerie sounds of bells, seemingly looking like humanoids made of salt by default), but they also have some stark physical differences; Legion as depicted in one drama CD and NieR Re[in]carnation range from humanoid to insectoid to bestial, and are typically covered in a skeletal armor.
  • Also, to the dragons; while they're typically considered to be the Watchers' enemies, the timeline depicted in Drakengard 1.3 throws a curveball by having dragons consume humans afflicted with Red Eye Disease, which ends up transforming them into "grotesque humanoid babies". There's also the fact that all dragons have angelic names and, like the Watchers, are generally depicted as being servants or creations of God.
  • Lastly, to the Machine Lifeforms introduced in Automata; while they're absent from the game itself, Final Fantasy XIV and NieR Re[in]carnation feature "Her Inflorescence" and the "Mournful Mother" respectively, both of which appear to be a similar type of entity to the original Queen, and both hint at a connection to the Terminals and the Machine Lifeforms antagonizing humanity's remnants. There's also the fact that Logic Virus, a condition related to Red Eye Disease and thus (more distantly) the Watchers, originates from Machine Lifeforms.
• Arch-Enemy: The dragon race has been their mortal enemy since time immemorial.
• Arc Words: "I. Hear. A. Sound", the verse description of the final mission of Drakengard, has become associated with the Watchers over the course of the series. Grimoire Nier features an Apocalyptic Log where a particle physicist is called over to inspect the aftermath of the Queen's death and possibly make sense of White Chlorination Syndrome, to which she finds that many of its patients report "hearing sounds", something she attributed to brain damage; she would eventually come in contact with the "disease" and start hallucinating sounds of bells before the log abruptly ends with an entry that only says "I. Hear. A. Sound".
• Balloon Belly: When she's in her "nest" in the Imperial Capital, the Queen's stomach is for whatever reason monstrously inflated to the point where it looks oddly similar to a Seed of Resurrection. She's still visibly pregnant in other appearances but to a more normal degree.
• Breaking Old Trends: The usually silent Watchers actually speak in their NieR Re[in]carnation appearance. The "Mourning Mother" cryptically talks about "our plans" and humanity, whereas the baby-type Watchers simply repeat "Mama".
• Breath Weapon: They attack by firing electrified blasts from their mouths. The bigger ones fire homing blue projectiles that do massive damage.
• The Bus Came Back: After a long absence in favor of "Queen" type Watchers, the baby-type Watchers returned for a cameo in NieR Re[in]carnation as part of 10H's Hidden Story, where they suddenly show up as she's fighting seemingly unrelated enemies while her allies escape the Cage. One of 10H's character profiles also refers to gods and angels, with 10H viewing herself as a lonely mechanical angel and directly quoting the commandments of the Cult of the Watchers by begging anyone to "speak of [her], write of [her], draw [her], scuplt [her]" and so on.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • Their only appearance in Drakengard 2 is a brief shot in Ending B of an army of baby-type Watchers protecting the heavens from the incoming army of dragons. There's also a peculiar carving of a giant baby face near the District of Heavenly Time.
  • In NieR: Automata, the mark on Eve's chest is the insignia of the Cult of the Watchers. Apparently Adam saw it in the machine network's archives of human history and told Eve to display it under the belief it'd make them look more human.
  • Arioch's crossover card in Lord of Vermilion depicts her laying on top of what seems to be a pile of statue-esque, bloody, featureless giant babies, which could be a reference to her death at the hands of the Watchers (though it could also just be alluding to her infamous proclivity).
• Deliberately Monochrome: In Ending E of Drakengard, the Queen's sodium-based white visage spreads to her surroundings in Shinjuku, making everything look monochrome. Word of God confirms that this "has a connection" of some sort to other Deliberately Monochrome places appearing in the series, such as the Tower and Copied City of NieR: Automata.
• Diabolus ex Machina: In Branches D and E, it turns out killing Manah was the worst thing Seere and the Golem could've possibly done, as it served as the catalyst for the Watchers to jump into action (though curiously, this didn't happen when she died in Branch C; possibly because her death there was carried out by dragons and is by extension a part of God's will).
• The Dragon: They are (seemingly) the most effective of God's many weapons against humanity, which also include Manah, the Dragons, the Seeds of Resurrection, Legion, Red Eye, the Black Flower, etc (all of which have been shown to be directly or indirectly linked to the Watchers in some way). It remains unknown what sort of "allegiance" they have to it, or if they even possess anything resembling conscious thought or a concept of morality, though that also applies to whatever "God" itself is.
• Giant Woman: The "Queen" units seen across the franchise always take the appearance of giant women made of salt, though their exact features vary a lot.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Watchers that invade the world bear an uncanny resemblance to human babies, while the Queen-Beast looks like a fully-grown woman.
• I Have Many Names: Angels/Watchers (by the cult that worships them), Grotesqueries (as Angelus calls them). The mission descriptions in the first game simply refer to them as "enemies" (always in quotes, which separates them from other enemies in the game).
• Karma Houdini: For the most part. They do get destroyed en masse whenever they show up, but they are ultimately just weapons and defeating them is usually a Pyrrhic Victory with the exception of the Final Fantasy XIV crossover event where their manifestation as the False Idol / Her Inflorescence is safely defeated and banished from that world, though even then it's hinted that there is still an active Seed of Resurrection in there.
• Knight of Cerebus: The story was already relentlessly grim and hopeless to start with, but it was at least comprehensible in its own context with a clear goal that needed to be accomplished, and thus a very faint prospect of a happy ending. When the Watchers show up, things instantly go From Bad to Worse as none of the characters have any clue what's going on, much less how to even begin to formulate a plan to stop them.
• Left the Background Music On: The ominous church bells that provide the "music" to the battle against the Queen are heard In-Universe as they are its actual vocalizations- or rather its "song"- which seems to leave a horrible effect on the world as well as pass on to victims of White Chlorination Syndrome. The Nier Drama CD shows the terrified people of Tokyo reacting to the sounds in real time.
• Leitmotif: The aforementioned 4 ominous bell notes, originally heard in the first game's "Chapter XIII ~ Closing", which are usually an indicator that a severe amount of Mind Screw is currently taking place. Final Fantasy XIV's collaboration event with NieR: Automata would remix them with Kainé's Leitmotif and the Final Fantasy Main and Prelude themes.
• Our Angels Are Different: In the original Japanese, they were called "Angels" instead of Watchers. Likewise, the Cult of the Watchers was explicitly called a "church".
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Their arrival is met with unanimous confusion as no one has any clue what to make of them. Even Angelus, who is much more knowledgeable about the inner workings of the world and knows the truth about the Seeds of Resurrection is left completely baffled when it comes to the Watchers. The remainder of the game following their appearance consists primarily of pure chaos as the few remaining characters try to fight through the confusion with mixed results.
  • This is even more extreme in the world of Ending E / Nier, which is analogous to the real world and anything supernatural would be an Outside-Context Problem. The arrival of the Queen Beast in the middle of Tokyo marks a quick and brutal end to normalcy in that world and starts the chain of events that would lead to the extinction of mankind. The Nier world eventually does manage to construct a scientific theory of magic and correctly deduce that it came from a different world, but they are just as in the dark as the Drakengard world in regard to what exactly the Watcher Queen is.
  • The trend of Watchers confusing the entire cast continues in NieR Re[in]carnation, where neither Mama nor 10H- the two people who should be the most knowledgable about the Cage and the enemies attacking it- are utterly baffled by the Watchers when they show up, claiming nothing like them exists in the records.
• Portal Network: The Seeds of Resurrection act as a terminal that allows the Watchers (or some approximation thereof) to manifest and carry out God's will to destroy the world and even other worlds and dimensions altogether, such as in Nier's backstory where it gives birth to a new Red Eye or the Final Fantasy XIV crossover event where it merges with N2 to become a Queen Beast-type creature.
• Power Gives You Wings: They have wing-shaped electric discharges flowing from their backs.
• Reality Warper: They (or possibly just the Queen unit) have some control over Great Time, which appears to be the totality of time and space in the game's multiverse and is only barely kept stable thanks to the Seals. This is how the Queen travelled to the Nier world in Ending E, though in Ending D, this also proves to be her undoing thanks to Seere successfully freezing her in time.
• Riddle for the Ages: As with "God", no one In-Universe really understands what the Watchers are and official materials and guidebooks purposely avoid giving out too much information, which requires piecing together context clues to even get a semblance of an idea of what they might be.
• Sculpted Physique: Their blank white bodies make them look like marble sculptures, but their bodies are actually composed of salt. White Chlorination Syndrome can inflict a similar physiology on its victims.
• Surreal Horror: They're pretty bizarre creatures to begin with, but the events of Ending E and its presentation feel like a particularly outlandish fever dream.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Somewhat infamously, the True Final Boss fight against the Grotesquerie Queen in the first game plays completely differently than anything else in the game with little to no warning or instructions. It's essentially a rhythm game / "Simon Says" Mini-Game where she "sings" black or white shockwaves towards you which you have to deflect by firing your own attacks in the corresponding color, which is easier said than done. This would later become a series tradition and come back with new twists in Drakengard 3, Final Fantasy XIV and NieR Re[in]carnation.
• Villainous Legacy: Even if they appeared in person only in the first game and an ending cutscene in the second game, their influence and the results of their actions are felt throughout the series all the way through to Nier and on.
• Wave of Babies: The baby-type Watchers seen in the first game and briefly in the second game take the form of an army of enormous flying babies.
• Zerg Rush: One of the biggest reasons they're a threat; while they aren't weak necessarily, and the Grotesquerie Queen is a whole other can of worms, they're all still capable of being slain (with a dragon in the latter case and just about any weapon in the former). The main problem is that they come in such absurd numbers that fighting them is basically an unwinnable war of attrition. The Legion from Nier were all eventually killed by the combined forces of humanity, Androids, and Replicants, but it took approximately 1,200 years of brutal conflict and was a Pyrrhic Victory as the world was still effectively destroyed by that point.

"God" (UNMARKED SERIES-WIDE SPOILERS)

"Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if we'll ever have a chance to kill him."

— 2B, Opening Monologue of NieR: Automata

A mysterious "Nameless Entity" that possessed Manah in Drakengard 1, the higher-up of the Watchers and dragons and also the latter's arch-enemy, and (possibly) the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire Drakengard / NieR franchise. Really hates humans for some reason and is apparently not actually "God".

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• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Very little about it is known for certain, and what little is known differs between translations of the games, such as it being referred to in the plural in some instances and/or conflated with the Watchers altogether. Officially, it seems to be a singular entity that is separate from the Watchers seen on-screen although the exact nature of its connection to them is unknown (their Japanese name suggests that they are its "angels", but there are also hints that it may belong to a similar group itself or that the group is a Hive Mind of sorts). It doesn't help that the Watchers themselves are equally as mysterious and seldom alluded to in official materials.
  • There's also the slight problem that some of its background information is sourced to Drakengard 2, which was not written by Yoko Taro, though it's also never been excluded from the canon (which is a Timey-Wimey Ball either way) and its information doesn't contradict what we do know from the other games thus far.
  • The series is very heavily implied to take place in a Stable Time Loop, and while "God" and its various curses played a huge part in making it that way^note Via introducing magic to the world and trying to kill off humanity, which lead to the post-Nier world unwittingly trying to dispose of it by hurling it to another dimension, which ended up being the same dimension and timeframe it came from, it's unknown if that was its intention or if it's even affected by the causality loop at all.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Come NieR: Automata, humanity in that world is completely dead (except for Emil and his many clones), and God is presumably no worse off than before.
  • The timeline depicted in Drakengard 1.3 also ends with humanity dying out, and this time not even animals or plantlife are spared as the whole planet descends into utter ruin.
  • Subverted in the (canonical according to Word of God) crossover with Final Fantasy XIV, where its invasion of the universe is stopped and Her Inflorescence, an entity that is either a Grotesquerie Queen or an incarnation of "God" itself, is destroyed with no long-lasting effects, mainly because they're affected pretty badly by the Wrong Context Magic of the other universe.
• Biblical Bad Guy: Despite its dubious godhood, its modus operandi is eerily similar to that of the Old Testament God, such as turning people to pillars of salt, forcing Legion to tear down the wall surrounding Shinjuku (appropriately named the wall of Jericho), causing mass floods, denying divinities other than itself (i.e. the Holy Dragons), and, of course, siccing its "angels" on humanity.
• Demiurge Archetype: Let's see… it refers to itself as God, it is not actually the Top God of the setting, it is nonetheless the most powerful divine entity in the setting that actively meddles with it, it is such a Control Freak that it will go to outrageous lengths to demolish anything that refuses to submit to its influence… yep, this jerk ticks off all the major boxes.
• Deus est Machina: More recent entries in the series have started dropping hints that whatever it is that's trying to destroy humanity may be robotic in some way. The Flower of Drakengard 3 is described in supplementary materials (by Accord, herself an android) as potentially being a weapon constructed by some unknown higher civilization, whereas the Machine Network Terminals of Nier Automata are a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Drakengard's Manah whose appearance in Final Fantasy XIV contains strong allusions to the Watchers and even the aforementioned Flower.
• The Ghost: Has never made a direct appearance anywhere in the series, though the strange male voice that Manah sometimes speaks with is hinted to be its voice (which is reinforced by Drakengard 2's Japanese credits, where it is explicitly listed as "God").
• God: Subverted, actually. Legna in Drakengard 2 (and Yoko Taro in some interviews) clarifies that this entity is not truly God and it is merely referred to as such by humans (and seemingly by itself). It remains unknown if there is a separate entity which better fits the profile of God or if this entity is simply the closest thing the world has to one. At the very least, it doesn't seem to be omnipotent nor omniscient, and it only attained its position through brute force.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Definitely of the first game, possibly of the whole franchise.
• Great Offscreen War: According to the Book of Seeds from Drakengard 2, it was once a "Nameless Entity" which was among the forces that warred with the Holy Dragons over the throne of divinity and came out on top, after which it settled as the new and only God and the dragons were made to be its underlings. The "blood memory" shared across all dragons is a remnant of this war and its goal is to ensure that one day, when the time is right, the dragons will remember their purpose and fight back to restore their godhood. This comes to fruition in Ending B of 2, with Nowe, Legna, Eris and an army of Holy Dragons flying towards the heavens where they are greeted by a vanguard of Watchers, at which point the game ends.
• Karma Houdini: While a lot of its plans are foiled to an extent, the closest it comes to actually facing a direct defeat is Drakengard 2's Ending C in what is arguably the only no-strings-attached Happy Ending in the series where it loses its control of Manah and the world no longer needs to be protected by Seals. Though even this gets a bit of a Happy Ending Override in one of the guidebooks where it's heavily implied it ends up returning and that timeline converges back into a timeline similar to the Nier one either way.
• Kill All Humans: Its most consistent goal. For whatever reason, it can't control humans, so it seeks out to destroy them, though it can't do that directly either^note It's implied in Drakengard 2 to exist in an Alternate Dimension and the only way for it to bridge the gap to humanity is via a portal such as the Seeds of Resurrection, which are usually kept away from the world thanks to the Seals so its attempts are done through vessels such as Manah and various curses and plagues. It has been likened to a child that's trying to break its own toys. A villager in Drakengard 2 wonders during Angelus' rampage if humans angered God in some way to cause this to happen, to which his friend replies that humans may be committing a sin simply by existing as humans.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Its influence is felt not only in its native world and its surrounding alternate dimensions but in different universes altogether should a Seed of Resurrection somehow end up there, as seen in Final Fantasy XIV where the Terminals get their hands on one and are reborn as a Grotesquerie Queen-esque abomination dubbed "Her Inflorescence" (which has implicitly very strong ties to God itself, and is outright called "God in Full Bloom" in Japanese, but the full extent of their connection is unclear). This potentially makes it a Class Z apocalyptic threat.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Its most recurring "curse" which is responsible for much of the conflict in each of the games is a Hate Plague which turns its victims' eyes red and transforms them into mindless killing machines whose only goal is mass destruction:
  • In Drakengard, it granted Manah (who has red eyes from birth) the power to mind control an entire army's worth of soldiers, thus forming the Empire, who all possess red eyes. God is also capable of forcing the dragons to act against their will, as seen in Ending C, though it's unclear if this is related to the Red Eye Disease or not.
  • Drakengard 3's external materials reveal that the Cult of the Watchers was formed by Brother One after that game's Ending A (which leads to Drakengard 1.3) and the novel-only Ending E (which leads to the original Drakengard 1), but power struggles within the Cult lead to the first mass spreading of Red Eye Disease and ultimately to the creation of the Empire. In Drakengard 1.3, the Empire is seemingly defeated by the combined forces of the Union Army and dragons, but this was all a part of a ploy by the black dragon to spread Red Eye Disease among dragons, so that they may unite to destroy the world. Angelus remarks that the disease was "designed" to lead to this exact outcome, and this timeline sees humanity's most crushing and one-sided defeat yet.
  • The 10th anniversary book describes a timeline that follows from Drakengard 2's Ending C (sort of), which loosely follows real world history from the years 1118 to 2000, except with outbursts of Red Eye Disease being at the shadows of numerous major events; for instance, Oda Nobunaga and his associates were rumored to have red eyes, The Black Death was in fact the red death, and both the first and second world wars involved outbreaks of the ailment.
  • In the backstory to Nier, the death of the Grotesquerie Queen lead to the spreading of White Chlorination Syndrome, a disease which drives people to madness and compels them to destroy the world; those who manage to disobey the order are instead simply killed and turned into pillars of salt (the guidebook explains that this is similar to the pact system of Drakengard albeit way more one-sided). This new army was dubbed Legion and was led by particularly powerful and lucid variants known as "Red Eye". It's implied that upon dying, the corpses of Red Eye turn into Seeds of Resurrection which can create new Red Eye units by putting sacrifices inside.
  • In NieR: Automata, the hostile machine lifeforms have glowing red eyes, indicative of their objective to "destroy their enemies at all costs" which was programmed into them by their alien creators. This trait can also infect manmade androids in what is known as "Logic Virus", turning them into red-eyed berserkers. Word of God confirms that this is connected to the aforementioned Red Eye Disease somehow, but the game doesn't touch on the subject.
  • NieR Re[in]carnation reinforces the idea from 1.3 and 3 that a preexisting wrath or hatred of humanity makes you a better vector for the disease or a variation of it, as one EX Story takes place during the aforementioned war against Legion and depicts a human infected with WCS (Yuzuki) transforming into a Red Eye upon reaching his Rage Breaking Point. Right before his transformation is complete, he hears a voice in his head...
  "Kill them. Kill the enemies of God." ^note "Our Gods" in the English translation.

Drakengard 2

Nowe

"I wish I could be a savior. I want to save you."

Voiced by: Ryo Katsuji (JP) James Daniel Wilson (EN)

The main protagonist in the second game, Nowe is unique in that he is able to use a Dragon, Legna, without a pact with him. Having been raised by Legna, he was taken in by the Knights of the Seal by General Oror so that he could learn how to be human. Nowe fights using a large sword and a smaller sword.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: Manah's love awakens Nowe's full power, turning his hair white, his skin blue and giving him a halo with seven tips that allows him to fly. He can also summon a massive BFS by swinging his right arm and fire homing blasts like Legna.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Isn't liked by any of his fellow knights except Eris due to presumed nepotism from Hierarch Seere and the late General Oror. There are some knights who do seem to like him, but after Gismor betrays him, the knights see him as a traitor.
• As You Know: As the Audience Surrogate, he gets filled in by Eris and his friends about things in the setting he should technically know as a Knight of the Seal but doesn't.
• Broken Bird: Not initially, but he becomes one in Ending B, where Manah dies.
• The Chosen One: At least according to Hierarch Seere. Turns out he was right, since he was specifically created to be such. How much Nowe becomes one depends on the route; in Ending A for example, he refuses to become the champion of the Dragons.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Though a sword-wielding young man with brown hair and blue eyes, he contrasts Caim in many ways. He was raised by a dragon, whereas Caim despises dragons for killing his parents; he's naive and inexperienced, compared to Caim's more seasoned/bloodthirsty character; he's doubtful and easily misled, compared to Caim and his unswerving hatred; and he had a near-feral upbringing, compared to Caim technically being a lord or prince.
• Composite Character: He's as much Inuart and Furiae (and Legna)'s "son" as he is a physical combination of them born through a Seed of Resurrection. He also has Inuart's earring, Furiae's bracelet, and in his "new breed" form his wings are shaped after Inuart's pact mark and Furiae's Goddess mark.
• The Dulcinea Effect: For Manah. From the moment he meets her, he starts to fall for her and eventually works to save her.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Because he's not fully human, he's also part Holy Dragon.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Drakengard 2 plays much like the first game in the sense that it encourages you to kill as many enemies as possible (complete with a handy kill counter at the corner of the screen), but unlike the first game it is not a Deconstruction of the genre and thus Nowe's mass murder is not really commented on much In-Universe as was often the case with Caim (even though most of Caim's victims were at least brainwashed beyond control whereas Nowe's enemies are generally sane soldiers who have every reason to believe they are fighting for a good cause).
• Half-Human Hybrid: Nowe is the child of Inuart and Furiae's corpses, facilitated by the Seeds of Resurrection and infused with the blood of Legna, making him a 'new breed'. He effectively has two human parents and a dragon father.
• The Hero: A more traditional one, when compared to Caim.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Both of his weapons are swords, and he has a heroic mindset to go along with it.
• Idiot Hero: Downplayed and Justified. Nowe isn't really an idiot, but he was raised by a dragon who didn't tell him anything about the world, so he's not truly aware of the world he lives in. When he joins the knights and starts finding things out, he's understandably confused and frustrated at how he doesn't really know whats going on. This makes it easy for him to be swayed to fighting for Manah, because while her end game is flawed, she is more open and honest about the world than anyone else is.
• Immune to Fate: Like Caim, Nowe was retroactively revealed to be a Singularity in Drakengard 3's guidebook, being the divergence point responsible for the game's timelines splitting into three.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Inside Manah's mind. This is never really explained.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Or Lord Error-Prone, depending on how you view him. It helps that he is literally a knight in shining armor at the start of the game, though he later ditches both his knighthood status and his shining armor. He also fits a lot of other archetypical "dreamy fairy tale knight" tropes, such as saving maidens (Manah) atop his trusty steed (Legna) and even gets to slay some dragons (Angelus and again Legna).
• Locked Out of the Loop: Virtually everyone in this world locks him out of it, forcing him to have to chose who to believe. This bites him hard when he follows Manah and Urick's decisions to destroy the seals, despite having no knowledge of what they were holding back.
• Naïve Newcomer: Is recently knighted as a Knight of the Seal in the opening, and seems to be woefully unaware of just what being a Knight of the Seal actually entailed.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His actions in helping Manah release Angelus, who quickly goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. They then kill her, with less than satisfactory results.
• No Social Skills: He had some odd habits as a child, including apparently a resistance to wearing clothes.
• Official Couple: With Manah.
• One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: According to Word of God, Nowe is in a pact with Legna, which was carried over from Inuart's pact from the last game, but since he was born with it he didn't have to pay a pact price, and his life isn't tied to that of his partner.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Ending B, where he leads the charge against "God" and the Watchers alongside the dragons. In the other endings it's Rage Against the Mentor.
• Screw Destiny: Nowe was created to destroy "God" and lead the Dragons against it. In two out of three endings, Nowe basically says "screw that" and fights the Dragons instead, even though according to Legna the Book of Seeds is not a prediction or a prophecy but an objective chronicling of the future which Nowe should have no way to fight against.
• Shields Are Useless: Has a shield around his waist which he never uses in gameplay, even when you might expect him to, such as when guarding with a one-handed sword while not doing anything with the other arm.
• Skilled, but Naive: Incredibly skilled and powerful, but his sense of justice gives him issues. Thankfully, this doesn't stop him from slaughtering armies.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Or more specifically Stock JRPG Hero. He's young, idealistic, pretty, passioned, determined, a bit dim-witted, likes swords, has spiky hair and lots of belts, has humble roots but is actually The Chosen One, has multiple women after his heart, aims to kill God in one route, you get the idea.
• Stupid Good: Has a rather line-of-sight morality which, while good-natured, lacks in foresight and leads to a lot of preventable disasters as he tries to do the right thing.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • After Gismor explains his life philosophy, what is Nowe's response?
    Nowe: Gismor... you are a sad man.
  • He feels sympathetic towards Caim and Angelus' predicament despite the fact that the former killed some of the most important people in his life.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Compared to Caim, Urick, or others, he's more powerful than skilled.
• Ultimate Life Form: As the "new breed" (or "true humanity" in Japanese), he is capable of flight, immensely powerful magic and can defeat Holy Dragon-mode Legna by his own. By design, he's also expected to be able to kill God, though that was never attempted on-screen.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: In his transformed state, thus making him the first of many white-haired protagonists in the franchise.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Apart from Ending B, he never completely loses his idealism.

Eris

"I am a Knight of the Seal! It is my duty to arrest those who betray us!"

Voiced by: Saki Aibu (JP), Emma Ferguson (EN)

A member of the Knights of the Seal and an old friend of Nowe's, Eris is the youngest person to attain the rank of commander. Her strong loyalty to the Knights, whose authority she deems as absolute, causes her to turn against Nowe when he abandons his place as a Knight.

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• Anti-Villain: She's hostile towards Nowe for the majority of the game, but only because from her perspective he's trying to bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Her immense dislike of Manah is not only because she's a rebel and an enemy of the Knights of the Seal, but because she stole Nowe from her.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Becomes the new Seal in the first ending, albeit without the agony that Angelus went through. However, in the short story written for Drakengard 3 that takes place after Ending A, Eris is not only still suffering the pain that comes from carrying the seal, but has been reduced to living only three more years by the time of the story.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Her magic and weapon are aligned with the Holy element, and as such she is the only character who can effectively kill undead enemies.
• Knight Templar: Character Development takes her out of it, though.
• Light Is Good: Not at first, given her Knight Templar tendencies, but she grows into this once she loses said tendencies and keeps her Holy element powers, and white clothes.
• Slasher Smile: She seems a bit too happy about the propsect of burning Manah at the stake.
• Unexplained Recovery: How did she get better from getting a big ol' sword through the guts? It might have to do with the time/space distortions brought about by the breaking of the seals, which have been known to resurrect the dead.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Sorry, Eris. You're in Nowe's "friend" or "sister" zone. At least in the first ending...

Urick

"Nothing's more terrifying than death, but then life's no picnic, either."

Voiced by: Rikiya Koyama (JP), Charles Rubendall (EN)

The pact partner of The Reaper, Urick was once a member of the Knights of the Seal.

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• Achilles' Heel: The Reaper will be killed if Urick takes a mortal blow while it's possessing him.
• Big Brother Mentor: Completing Nowe's mentor trifecta along with Legna and Oror.
• Body Horror: Has a gaping hole in the middle of his chest given to him by Caim which is circled by his pact-mark. He uses it to scare off some bounty hunters in his first appearance.
• Cool Mask: Usually hides his face with an elaborate skull-shaped mask, likely to conceal the scars he got from Caim's slash. Clearing the game once gives you the ability to take off the mask during gameplay.
• Death Seeker: He's not at all proud of his immortality which he obtained by ditching his allies and making a pact with the Reaper out of little more than desperation and a fear of death. He's still very much scared of dying but nevertheless seeks out Caim in hopes of being killed by him along with the Reaper.
• Flower Motifs: His pact mark incorporates a rose, as do his shoes.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: It is stated that Urick cannot die due to his reaper pact partner automatically reviving him. The player still gets a Game Over if he dies while being used. Though it could be explained by the Reaper willingly breaking the pact because he considers him to be a failure, or by Urick simply not dying at all as the screen just fades to black.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He ultimately gives his life to save Nowe from Caim.
• My Greatest Failure: Fleeing and abandoning Oror to die at the hands of the One Eyed Man is something he feels incredibly guilty about.
• Sinister Scythe: It's called Axe in the game, but that thing is a scythe.
• Straight Gay: Implied. It's strongly hinted that he and Yaha used to be more than friends, until Yaha made his pact with the gnomes.

Gismor

Voiced by: Fumihiko Tachiki (JP), Colin McFarlane (EN)

After Oror's death, Gismor took over as the Knights of the Seal's leader. A shady man with many secrets, he's Nowe's enemy and the game's main antagonist.

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• Big Bad Wannabe: For all his talk, he's ultimately just an insecure, power-hungry coward whose only goal is to establish his own strength.
• Casting a Shadow: His pact is partner is a Shadow, and the price of his pact was his physical body, making Gismor himself a literal walking shadow whose physical form is just an illusion.
• Dark Is Evil: Let's see, black hair, black armor, black sword, uses darkness-based powers. Literally turns into a shadow creature at one point. Nope, he seems like a pretty nice guy to me.
• '80s Hair: Gives him an uncanny resemblance to Billy Mitchell.
• Freudian Excuse: He was apparently a soldier of the Empire during the events of Drakengard 1, and like most of the Empire he was brainwashed by Manah to fight for a cause he doesn't believe in. He had no memory of the war once it was over but was nevertheless severely persecuted for his involvement.
• It's All About Me: He only cares about himself. The plight of people who are in the same position he was in when younger does not bother him.
• Jerkass: He simply cannot stand idealism, which is why he poisoned Oror and Nowe.
• Mythology Gag: His pact partner is a Shadow, which you might remember from Drakengard 1 as those optional Boss in Mook Clothing type enemies that sometimes show up during stages and have a Barrier Change system, much like Gismor in his 2nd boss fight.
• One-Winged Angel: His shadow form, which he takes for his final stand.
• Villain Has a Point: While he's obviously only protecting the Seals for his own sake and admits as much, he's entirely correct when he derides Nowe as an "idiotic idealist" whose justice is "nothing but a lie", as unbeknownst to Nowe, each Seal functions to restrain the maddened Angelus, preventing her from wreaking havoc upon humanity. While Legna and Nowe manage to kill her, this only makes things worse, given the fact that Angelus is also the Goddess Of The Seal.
  Nowe: You're the last one! The people will be free when you die!
  Gismor: You have no idea what you are about to do...

Oror

Voiced by: Takaya Hashi (JP)

The former leader of the Knights of the Seal and Nowe's foster father.

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• Mentor Archetype: Is the one who trained Nowe, Eris, and Urick.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: A limited instance: the weapon history for "Nowe's Sword" refers to Oror as "Iron Dragon."
• Posthumous Character: Developed via weapon histories and what characters mention about him rather than flashbacks, with the exception of one very easily missable scene where Nowe is sent to the past to the moment of Oror's death.
• Remember the New Guy?: Oror is never mentioned in Drakengard. The weapon history for "Oror's Lionblade" indicates he was the leading general of the Union, probably Caim's Number Two, and that he was present in The War Sequence of the first game.
• So Proud of You: In the secret scene he tells Nowe that he's proud of him for choosing his own path, even if that path goes against his own as a Knight of the Seal.
• Warrior Poet: If the weapon history for "Oror's Falconblade" is anything to go off of.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Much like his adopted son.
• Worf Had the Flu: He was killed in battle because the poison which was fed to him by Gismor was starting to take effect. Granted, his opponent was Caim, meaning there's a good chance he would've died either way.

Zhangpo

Voiced by: Gashuin Tatsuya (JP)

A lieutenant of the Knights of the Seal who guards the District of Soul Flame, he is the pact partner of Ifrit.

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• All There in the Manual: The artbook shows what Ifrit looks like. It's also revealed that Zhangpo was born prematurely which motivated him to eat a lot to make up for his weak constitution. He was also born to a rich family and bribed his way into the Knights of the Seal. None of this is revealed in the game.
• Playing with Fire: Implied; he is partnered to an Ifrit.
• The Unfought: Is unceremoniously killed off by Manah early on before she becomes playable.
• Villainous Glutton: He claims he only eats to become strong, but he also takes great pleasure in it, or rather he used to before his sense of taste was taken as his pact price.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Considering what little we did see of him, it's probably for the best.

Hanch

Voiced by: Sachiko Kojima (JP)

A lieutenant of the Knights of the Seal who guards the District of Hallowed Waters, she is the pact partner of Kelpie.

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• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted; her pact price was her "charm".
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Her primary physical flaw.
• Hellish Horse: Her pact beast, Kelpie.
• Informed Flaw: You wouldn't have a very hard time finding fans who disagree with the notion that she had lost her charm. Especially considering one of her teammates is Zhangpo.
• Our Kelpies Are Different: This one can fly, fire volleys of energy blasts, and conjure barricades of ice.
• Making a Splash: Though she makes more use of ice magic in battle.
• Master Poisoner: She was the one who poisoned the drink Oror took before he lost his life, at Gismor's command. She tried the same with Nowe. It didn't work.
• Perpetual Frowner: Due to her pact price.
• When She Smiles: In her backstory, her smile was charming enough for her to be called "Sunsmile".

Yaha

Voiced by: Rolly Teranishi (JP)

A lieutenant of the Knights of the Seal who guards the District of Precious Light, he is the pact partner of 40 gnomes.

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• All There in the Manual: If you were wondering, his pact-mark is located on his penis (thus making him something of a Spear Counterpart to Arioch). He's also apparently slept with many, many members of the Knights of the Seal, including, perplexingly, Verdelet.
• The Charmer: His pact gave him the ability to charm whomever he wants, with his price being his inability to feel pleasure himself.
• Depraved Homosexual: Part of the reason he made a pact was so that he could seduce Urick.
• Irony: Made a pact at the cost of feeling pleasure, which gave him the ability to seduce anyone he wants. ...Except the person he actually wanted to seduce.
• The Minion Master: Rather than controlling a single creature, he made a pact with a pack of gnomes.

The Bone Casket (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

A sentient instrument of a similar kind to the Seeds of Resurrection. It was created by "God" (or "the gods", plural, in the English version) on a whim and is said to have the power to instantly make anyone who enters it evolve and obtain tremendous power. The dragons, spearheaded by Legna, plan to use it to rebel against its creator.

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• Final Boss: Of Ending B. It is fought in two phases, first as a Puzzle Boss on the ground then in a standard aerial battle.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Legna revels in the idea of using it to empower Nowe so they can fight "God", who created the Casket to begin with and is seemingly unaware of the dragons' plans of revenge.
  • The Bone Casket itself is ultimately destroyed by Manah whom it attempted to make into its tool.
• It Can Think: Despite looking like a giant marble statue of a golf ball, it is sentient and can reject people from entering it as well as fight back if cornered.
• Mythology Gag: Its attack patterns after absorbing Manah are very similar to her own back in Drakengard 1 as Ending A's Final Boss.
• Oh, Crap!: It is clearly alarmed when Nowe manages to damage it, immediately moving to kidnap Manah in a desperate attempt to turn her back into a vessel and destroy the world.

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