Character subpage for the Villains of Dungeon Keeper Ami. While we call them "Villains", the true allegiance or motivations of these characters might vary. All they have in common is that they oppose the Light Gods, either directly or by working for people who do.
Be aware that some Late-Arrival Spoilers will be unmarked. Read ahead at your own risk of being spoiled.
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Dungeon Keepers
Keepers in General
- "A Keeper is one of the ruler of the underworld, commanding vast armies and magics beyond mortal ken, more powerful and wealthy than even kings! Even the mightiest of monsters would bow to your will. Perhaps even me, if you do well." –- Keeper Mercury's Horned Reaper, Chapter 1: Dungeon Keeper Ami
- Always Chaotic Evil: Most Keepers are voluntary, so it’s no surprise that someone willing to give their souls to the Dark Gods in exchange for power is usually a bad person.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Becoming a Keeper gives them all sorts of abilities to control beings who are individually stronger than their Keepers; such as a minion bond that keeps them from attacking their Keepers or the ability to snatch them, teleport them and even slap them with their minds.
- Bad Boss: Since most of them are powerhungry bastards who consider their minions as little more than Cannon Fodder, they usually mistreat them in order to keep them in line and take the most out of their potential.
- Breaching the Wall: With the Destroy Walls spell, Keepers can intrude on other Keepers’ fortified dungeons.
- Bread and Circuses: Despite their mistreatment of their minions, they’re aware that sapient minions join them voluntarily. So if they don’t rely on beasts or undead minions, they’d have to keep their smart minions somewhat satisfied in order to keep them coming.
- Card-Carrying Villain: “Keeper” is a title, and as such, as soon as you embrace it people will refer to you as Keeper Troper.
- The Corruptor: By using scavenging and torture rooms, they're able to tempt or convince enemy minions or even heroes into joining their cause.
- Demonic Possession: Keepers keep their original body after bonding with a dungeon heart and they’re still vulnerable when using it. Therefore most keepers interact with the world by proxy, possessing their minions so they can remain safe ashould something go wrong.
- Evil Makeover: One of the side effects of the corruption of their dungeon hearts is that they tend to change physically as well. If a dungeon heart gets corroded energy, it might even get out of control and affect clothing and furniture until it affects everything but the basic utility of the item.
- Evil Overlord: This is the role all voluntary Keepers want to fulfill.
- Evil Versus Evil: Most Keepers are competitive by nature and will either attack or betray each other in order to get their land, minions and resources. This is even worse when Keepers worship different Gods.
- Final Battle: The Armageddon spell teleports all minions linked to a dungeon heart in the middle of the caster’s dungeon heart for a final showdown between all their forces. It’ss one of the most expensive spells that Keepers can use, requiring a hefty amount of gold and a crystal dungeon heart to perform it.
- Forced Transformation: One of the Keepers powers is the ability to turn their minions and prisoners into chickens.
- Friendly Fireproof: Unless their minions have some really strong willpower and hatred for the Keeper, their minion bonds will keep them from attacking them and their attacks to harm them.
- Genius Loci: Once they become Dungeon Keepers, they become the Dungeon itself. They can feel every step, every spiderweb sewing, and every minion plucking their noses.
- I Control My Minions Through...: There are different ways for Keepers to control minions. Most of them are hired mercenaries who require wages and living expenses, but they might also use fear and intimidation, power or even Mind Control.
- Invisibility: With the Conceal Monster spell, Keepers can turn their creatures invisible for a short amount of time.
- Heart of the Matter: The Dungeon Heart is the most important part of the dungeon. If it’s destroyed, a Keeper is permanently exiled from the land and their soul goes back into the realm of the Dark Gods. They can only go back to the real world if they have another dungeon hear elsewhere.
- Made of Magic: This is how their Imps are created. Their most loyal minions, Imps are magical creatures whose minds belong to the realm of the Dark Gods.
- Mooks: Their main way of interacting with the world. Their minions will do all their physical bidding, even providing a body for them to manifest in the battlefield.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Being a successful Keeper requires you to be more pragmatic and efficient than simply being evil. Most ambitious and short-sighted Keepers in the story are portrayed as Too Dumb to Live.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: One of the most obvious traits of Keepers are their red eyes, which glow redder with the intensity of their emotions.
- Religion of Evil: Though there are Godless Keepers who claimed abandoned dungeon hearts for themselves, most successful Keepers worship a Dark God in order to gain power, advantages or favors from them by spreading their words or doing their wishes.
- Shock and Awe: Keepers have the ability to summon lighting at will.
- Sorcerous Overlord: Due to the base powers all Keepers share, even the most physical-inclined of Keepers have access to all sorts of spells and enchantments.
- Spikes of Villainy: They’re evil and they don’t bother hiding it. Whether they include it in their designs voluntarily or not, the dark energy that fuels their Dungeon Hearts will add these to their designs by default.
- Torture Technician: Keepers can build rooms dedicated specifically to punish their own minions and to torture information or allegiances out of their prisoners. They’re pretty creative and resourceful with it, and even have specialized minions for it. If it’s in the Torture Index, Keepers have access to it.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Courtesy of the source games, Keepers have all sorts of ways to punish their prisoners or their own minions.
- Villain Override: By virtue of Demonic Possession.
- Villain Teleportation: Keepers can teleport at will inside their own dungeon.
- Walking Wasteland: Due to the corrupted dark magic flowing through the dungeon hearts, all the land surrounding their dungeons tends to become evil in itself. It might rot and die, or it might grow to dangerous levels. Either way, the landscape will always change for worse.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: It's not uncommon for Keepers to die quickly and have new Keepers take their place. Keeper Kaion was shocked to discover Arachne would replace him for Nero, Keepers Reebald, Lavaine and Mir were nothing but a casual casualty for The Avatar, and the coast Keeper Mercury defeated to get his dungeon heart didn't even get a name!
Arachne
- First Mentioned: Chapter 8: Meet the Locals
"That blue-haired whore has interfered with my plans twice, and I'm going to return the favour. However, I am willing to let you two take the first stab at her. I know something that you don't, and it will get you burnt." — Chapter 57: Recovering
Arachne worshipped The Vermin Lord, had a subordinate Keeper in Nero, many dungeons spread across the land, and the ability to spawn hundreds of new minions given enough time and resources. All of this made her a creative and cunning force to be reckoned with.
- Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Her warlocks, at least, who have "garish red robes with embroidered black spiders."
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: She could be working with Alphel and Morrigan to eliminate Mercury once and for all, but instead prefers to tease them about it and mock them when they "get burnt" by Jadeite. Also, her spiders ended up helping Mercury during Zarekos' assault on her iceberg dungeon, by attacking the vampire's ghosts and failing miserably to harm Mercury's troops.
- Early-Bird Boss: Mercury managed to beat her dungeon by working alongside Heroes and using a Horned Reaper, but other than that she didn't have any of the other advantages that led her to genuinely beat other dungeons.
- Evil Genius: Don't let the fact that she lost more battles to Mercury than any other Keeper fool you. Arachne is definitely competent and devious when it comes to evil schemes and dungeon designs. It's just that she's facing foes who are pretty much the best of the best.
- Kaiju: Her favourite spell enlarges a minion of hers (typically a spider) to ridiculous proportions, at which point said minion can squash people beneath ''its'' feet.
- Killed Offscreen: According to King Albrecht's Spymaster, Arachne was betrayed and killed by Alphel after their failed attempt of getting rid of Mercury.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Mercury's traps and Mercury herself kill most of her attack force, Arachne decides her presence is no longer needed. Alphel did not take that well.
- Sneaky Spider: A spider-using Keeper who worships the Vermin Lord and uses traps like flooding a room after people have entered.
- Spiders Are Scary: Arachne is fond of finding new ways to make her spiders even scarier, such as making them giants or having them sneak up on humans on their weakest moments.
- Villain Team-Up: With Alphel during their attack on Mercury's iceship. It didn't end well.
- Voice of the Legion: Sort of. Her voice is not really a voice in the usual sense, but rather the rubbing of the chitin of thousands of insects (that make up her body) in approximation of vocal sounds. The resulting 'voice' is quite unsettling.
- We Have Reserves: All Arachne needs to breed a new army is one pregnant spider and tons of food. This can be done easily by using a passive giant food source, like a whale.
- The Worm That Walks: What's worse is that she is stated to still have a
libido. - The Swarm: Many (though not all) of her minions fall under this category.
- Zerg Rush: She has so many spiders that she can afford such a tactic.
Mukrezar
The greatest Dungeon Keeper to ever live.note
- First Mentioned: Chapter 12: Ambush
The Villain Protagonist of the original Dungeon Keeper, Mukrezar was considered the greatest Dungeon Keeper to ever live. Despite being a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander, he was a master strategist, a bit sadistic and a Magnificent Bastard. Mukrezar's biggest achievement was defeating his Arch-Enemy, the Avatar himself and conquering the continent of the Avatar Islands, turning it from an utopian land of goodness into a hellish landscape with no sunlight. It seemed like nothing would stop him from Taking Over the World.
That is, until he was betrayed by the denizens of the Underworld, who closed all the portals in the Avatar Islands simultaneously. With no access to the Underworld and its surface borders closed and monitored by the combined forces of the Light, Mukrezar and his empire went down in an orgy of violence and cannibalism over the few remaining resources. Rumors even have him ending up in a stewing pot. Either way, Mukrezar died and his lands were taken by one of his vampires turned Keeper, Zarekos.
Beware of unmarked spoilers.
- Arch-Enemy: The Avatar. While the Avatar hates Mukrezar, the feeling is not mutual. Instead, Mukrezar considers him to be his greatest challenger and thus enjoys the opportunity to fight him again.
- Back from the Dead: Crowned Death originally intended to use the Avatar's mantle to materialize one of his Lesser Aspects into the world. When that plan failed, he quickly switched to a backup: raising Mukrezar instead.
- Beware the Silly Ones: This Keeper acts jovially, enacts strange schemes in response to oncoming problems, and is the most feared Keeper in the entire world that conquered an entire continent.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Compared to the other Keepers in the story, Mukrezar acts very oddly and pursues odd ideas in spite of his Butler's advice. He has an obsession with cursed rings, his first response to the Underworld cities defying him is to bake a giant cake...
- Comedic Sociopathy: Mukrezar takes great pleasure in acting childish and comical, even when performing mind trickery or cold blooded murder on his underlings and enemies alike.
- Conversation Casualty: During his conquest of the Avatar Islands, he attacked the heroes in the middle of their introductory speech, much to their surprise.
- "It saddens me to see that standards for heroes have fallen so far," the butler agreed, hanging his head. "I will miss their proud and defiant posturing and self-righteous condemnations. But most of all, I will miss seeing their disbelieving, shocked faces when you ambush them during the pre-battle formalities, your Unexpectedness."
- Pulls this off later on Crowned Death's elite forces, blowing them all to smithereens in the middle of his speech as an announcement of his resignation.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Rumors say that he ended up being boiled alive by his minions after he conquered the Avatar Islands and resources ran out.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Bears this attitude to his former subordinates and the Underworld cities as a whole, since after conquering the Avatar Islands, Mukrezar and his army were poised to finally conquer the world... And then every single portal on the Avatar Islands were shut down simultaneously from the other side, since the Underworld cities rightfully feared that the Keeper would take over their holdings too. As this last-minute betrayal resulted in his death, Mukrezar takes some time to get revenge on both groups.
- Evil Counterpart:
- To the Avatar. Both of them were the most successful and powerful entities when it came to furthering the Dark or Light Gods objectives, and both of them feel neutral to Mercury even though they should be against her.
- He and Mercury also have their tactics copied by the Light forces, he has his technique of making fake versions of himself copied, while she has her tying up her Reaper to a church bell copied, with Reaper being swapped for Cathy, and a bell for a boulder.
- Evil Feels Good: He loves his job, and more than half of his schemes are done just to cause misery and suffering to anyone who gets in his way.
- Evil Genius: Of the resourceful variety. His schemes rarely turn out as intended, but he manages to bounce back and capitalize on his failures regardless.
- Giggling Villain: Since he loves his job so much, he can't help but laugh or giggle in some instances where he was doing some particularly evil or clever.
- Large Ham: He loves living for the spectacle and his reputation is one of the most important things to him. When he learned that Keeper Mercury managed to anger a Dark God by attacking his temples and thwarting his plan of getting a physical vessel, he decided that he needed to one-up her by killing all the Crowned Death's leaders, priests and smart minions in one go to get rid of him and to keep his reputation as the greatest Dungeon Keeper uncontested.
- Laughably Evil: He often finds his own evil schemes hilarious and laughs along with the readers at them.
- Lethal Chef: The huge cake that Mukrezar baked and then offered to the Underworld representatives? He wasn't lying when he assured them it wasn't poisoned. He still keels over when he takes a bite himself, because apparently he's just that bad of a cook.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Described as an elf with long pink hair, and this does not stop him from being a legendary terror worldwide.
- Lovable Traitor: He will do anything as long as it benefits him, whether working with you or backstabbing you just because It Amuses Him. But whatever he does, he'll do it having fun and being comical about it.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's been doing this for so long that even his Imp Butler knows how and when to help him do it. Mukrezar is able to manipulate all kinds of beings, from Heroes and Underworlders to Dark Gods themselves.
- Naked on Revival: From his revival in "Backfire - Part 2":The creature was an elf, Ami realised, or at least it looked like one. Despite the smooth, snow-white skin and the long pink hair, the wild-eyed new arrival was clearly male. She was sure about that, since he had not been summoned with any clothes.
- Opportunistic Bastard: It is unknown if Mukrezar has a plan in the long run, but he does take every opportunity he can exploit to advance his schemes.
- Orcus on His Throne: An
official omake shows that Mukrezar spent his time in the afterlife this way.- Imp Butler: Your Malevolence, how did you enjoy your afterlife?Mukrezar: Not very much. Sitting on a throne of bone and listening to the endless laments of the damned gets old fairly quickly.
- Player Character: He's the Keeper from the first game.
- Plucky Comic Relief: While being monstrously evil, to boot!
- Ring of Power: He loves schemes that include magical rings. His Imp Butler duly reminds him that none of said schemes that he attempted in his past life succeeded. This didn't stop him from trying again... Only to succeed this time!
- Smug Snake: Somewhat. As his imp Butler loves to remind him, his plans very often tended to fail or even backfire. Still, one should remember that Mukrezar is the Keeper who, with few other Keeper allies (or rather, subordinates), managed to conquer one of the world's three continents, defeating the greatest champion of the Light, his forces, and all the other Keepers active in the area. After his resurrection, Mukrezar again goes to show just why he used to be so feared.
- The Starscream: To Crowned Death. He doesn't even bother to hide it particularly well. And it isn't too long before he succeeds in kicking Crowned Death to the curb.
- Take Over the World: As said in Let Them Eat Cake, it was said to be his goal. After taking over the Avatar Islands, the Underworld Cities locked down the portals and prevented him from expanding further in his world domination plans.
- Unknown Rival: A curious mutual case with Ami. They have yet to meet each other in person, don't know much about each other beyond what rumors and intelligence come their way, but are pretty much moral counterparts of each other. They also have a professional appreciation for each other's cleverness.
- Villain Decay: Inverted. Mukrezar is pretty much introduced as a formerly powerful Keeper, but on the other hand often unsuccessful in his schemes and not terribly competent. His performance post-resurrection, however, makes it clear that such a picture, while not entirely wrong, significantly downplays his prowess... For Mukrezar's track record since then is nothing short of spectacular. When he describes himself as the world's greatest Keeper, he's definitely not far off the mark.
- Villain Protagonist: After his resurrection, Mukrezar now gets his own episode in pretty much every chapter.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: He's much more of an opportunistic improviser than sticking to a single grand strategy. This has obvious disadvantages but, on the other hand, makes him very hard to predict.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Does this to Crowned Death by killing his remaining intelligent lieutenants. In fact, this is Mukrezar's general philosophy towards everyone.
Nero
- Debut: Chapter 17: Captured!
"You didn't really think you could catch the great necromancer Nero with a trick like that twice, did you, little girl?" — Chapter 19: Escape from Arachne's Dungeon
The conflict between Keepers Mercury and Zarekos in the Avatar Islands left a couple of unclaimed crystal hearts that other vampires claimed, such as Keeper Kaion. Sadly for the vampire, Arachne would strike an alliance with him only to betray him and turn Nero into her main general in the operations regarding the Islands. This would give him powers that an organic heart such as Arachne's couldn't give her, and make him take a lot more of the spotlight, with notable achievements such as performing an Armageddon spell or finding and recruiting Rabixtrel.
- Beard of Evil: His first appearance has his mentioned, as part of the generic "evil wizard" look, but the Ami's thoughts says that he looks more like a geeky college student trying cosplay.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: What he starts doing to Mercury's companions before he's rudely interrupted.
- Knight of Cerebus: Before he was a keeper, he establishes the level of evil to expect from a standard keeper or their employees as Arachne's chief torturer. It's... graphic.
- Mook Promotion: He was Arachne's chief warlock, later promoted by her to Keeper. He was still subordinated and dependent on her, though.
- Villainous Breakdown: Undergoes this shortly before his final death, to the point of collapsing his dungeon and then trying to stop Ami from saving her minions."Scream and suffer, you worthless piece of shit! I won't let you save them! I won't! I won-"
- The Worm That Walks: Nero was human, but shortly before his real death after his forces are defeated by Mercury's he underwent the procedure he learned from Arachne, which killed his human body but allowed him to transfer into a 'body' made from thousands of insects - which is much harder to destroy.
Malleus
- First Mentioned: Chapter 27: Picking the First Target
Keeper Malleus turned a once rich and fertile nation into a forsaken desert by all kinds of horrible means, he laughed while forcing the villagers to commit cannibalism between each other, while enchanting the King to slaughter his own family and while impregnating prisoners only to sacrifice the children to his God. For this, Mercury decided that he was undeserving of any mercy, and he became the first Keeper to suffer her murderous wrath.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: His Last Words were a rapid firing repeating of "I hate you" towards Mercury.
- For the Evulz: As said here:Mercury: "He sired children for the sole purpose of sa-sacrificing them! He was happy when he cut their throats! Happy!"
- Killed Off for Real: He has no more Dungeon Hearts, so he can't revive. Since Murdrul is dead, he can't get revived by his god, so the fate of his soul is currently unknown.
- Really 700 Years Old: Eight hundred years, to be exact.
- The Remnant: By the time Mercury came to the scene, Malleus' realm had been reduced to a single dungeon, and the God of Evil he worshipped was dead.
- Lack of Empathy: From "Knowledge Hard Earned", his reaction to remembering the horrors he had caused over his "eight hundred years of existence" is general sense of nostalgia and amusement.If only he had shown some remorse, some indication that he was feeling bad about what he’d done. Instead, the only thing she sensed from the direction of his consciousness was a faint sense of nostalgia, and amusement at her reaction to what she was seeing.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He's killed off merely two chapters after his debut.
Zarekos
- "Insolent imps intruding on my dark domain, however, call for callous and cruel corrective action. Begone! Slay the servants of the Keeper who boldly besieges this place of profane power!" — Zarekos demostrating his love for Added Alliterative Appeal, Chapter 108: Assault on Wemos
He remained in the continent undisturbed, forcing vampires to worship him and working on his plan to become a God and achieve perfect immortality. That is until Keeper Mercury decided to ally herself with the rebellious trolls and attack the Islands, thus starting a military conflict that would last for the entirety of the Avatar Islands arc.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Something he seriously loves — nearly every sentence of his is full of it.
- Back from the Dead: Being a vampire, destroying his body did not mean that he was Killed Off for Real (unlike regular Keepers), unless it was incinerated by sunlight on top of moving waters. When Mercury did just that, he still didn't die, but was instead raised as a ghost in his temple. This was apparently a result of his research of ascent into godhood, and the properties of his temple, which is a modification of the Oracle Towers used by the heroic Shining Concord Empire.
- Bad Boss: He basically treats his undead minions as cattle, and forces them to worship him in order to increase his powers.
- Clipped-Wing Angel: This became much more apparent after the events of his fight with Mercury, but he might be able to dominate anyone who makes eye contact with him as a ghost, be invulnerable to normal damage, and retain his intelligence in the process. But as the Avatar notes, Zarekos might have a lot more limitations than he's letting in. He can't move from the pentagram on his statue's forehead. Zarekos can't survive without the Mantle either. He also cannot have access to Keeper powers or control the ghosts and skeletons without a puppet Keeper.
- Evil Genius: Zarekos is scarily competent and intelligent, so much that he was very close to winning the war against Mercury. The only reason Zarekos lost is because his resources were so small - had he been capable of even one more tremor spell he probably would have won.
- Genre Savvy: At one point, he was decisively winning the battle against Mercury. He briefly wondered whether to conserve the last of his gold (he couldn't get more, and he needed it for spellcasting, thus it was very important to him). He decided against it; he would rather continue going all-in. This is because he himself has been in the reverse position several times, and managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat because his enemies were winning and thus let their guard down.
- Godhood Seeker: He dominates his undead minions and insists that they worship him as a god. Which is exactly what he's trying to become.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Zarekos does this to use Added Alliterative Appeal in his speak. For example, using "begone", "brainless" and "buffoon", instead of words like "leave", "idiot" and "fool":"Begone, brainless buffoon,"
- Vampire Monarch: From "Temple Breached", it appears that if any of the vampires he sired looks him in the eye, he can control them:An echo of this power within his own blood responded to the foreign touch, squashing even the possibility of rebellious thoughts. "M-Master?"
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Mercury was winning all of her battles and retreating from threats she couldn't handle, and things were pretty much going according to her plans. That is until Zarekos attacked her new dungeon, completely overwhelmed her, banished her from that land forever and sent her right to Azzathra.
- Zerg Rush: His ghosts and skeletons are rather weak individually, but he has many thousands of them.
Morrigan
- Debut: Chapter 57: Recovering
"Morrigan had heard of subtlety but saw little reason to apply it. He liked building big. Big rock blocks, big statues, big pillars, or in this case, a big entrance gate." — Chapter 173: Delivering Presents
Morrigan has a tendency to head-butt his way into most problems. His minions are too prude for his tastes? He'll have them Brainwashed. He needs to get rid of Keeper Mercury? He'll just make a dungeon in the area and overwhelm her with his strength, instead of working with his fellow Keepers. Even his head warlock is a scantily clad woman who he constantly forces to come up with direct and simple solutions, mostly because he dislikes working with warlocks in the first place. With such a mindset, he's easily tricked by Mercury in multiple occasions.
- Back from the Dead: He comes back from the realm of the Dark Gods after being defeated. Twice.
- Boring, but Practical: How his more successful plans work. For instance, he protects his dungeon heart with an enormous block of dungeon-reinforced stone and averts Myopic Architecture. It would have been almost impossible to assail if his dungeon had been active.
- Butt-Monkey: Arachne and Alphel both enjoy mercilessly mocking him.
- Heroic Build: Has a huge physique and flaunts it constantly. However, it is implied by Monteraine to be fake and a result of her work.
- Really Gets Around: There's a reason he prefers all of his minions to be female. It's noted in-story that this quite possibly includes his Bile Demons!
- Refuge in Audacity: He doesn’t simply assault Keeper Mercury's main dungeon on her rightful islands, he does so in a flying dungeon carried by the Island’s ghosts (whom he believed to be hers) while sabotaging her dungeon's energy with the aid of another Dark God.
- The Hedonist: There are only two things Morrigan truly desires and respects. Physical strength, as shown by his magically induced physique and worshipping of Azzathra; and sex, as shown by his choice of minions and grotesque decorations.
- Unknown Rival: To Ami. While he constantly looks for ways to defeat her like invading her Islands, twice, she doesn't even recognize him by name.
- Morrigan had not made it onto the list of urgent issues Ami was concerned about even before Jadeite had kicked him off the Avatar Islands. "He slipped my mind," she admitted. "It's not as if he has made much of a lasting impression so far.
- With Great Power Comes Great Hotness: Although we don’t know how he was before his transformation, his huge muscles are not natural, but a result of Monteraine's work.
Alphel
- Debut: Chapter 57: Recovering
"MERCURY! Do you think you have won? Do you really think you can get away with humiliating me like that? More powerful Keepers than you have tried, and none remain among the living! [...] I will show you why brute force and power triumph over sneakiness and trickery!" — 102: Nero's Spell (Part 2)
She frequently possesses Juzint, a Dark Mistress professional assassin, but is also quite fond of using the eldest dragon in existence as one of her minions. She had no trouble working with Morrigan, and later Arachne to defeat Mercury while using Nero as a distraction.
- Anti-Magic: Her most efficient weapon and one that almost got Mercury defeated is her magic nullifying glare.
- Death Glare: She often throws these at her fellow keepers, and her sight is known for taking away magic powers.
- Deadpan Snarker: She frequently takes this role when talking with Morrigan and Arachne, being distrustful of both of their motivations and capabilities.
- The Faceless: We never get to see what Alphel really looks like. When she's not possessing a creature, she's always in her dark alcove next to one of her dungeon hearts - leaving everything hidden except her red eyes. From the scenes of her talks with her minions (including her voice), it seems likely - though not certain - that she's large and monstrous.
- Genius Bruiser: Like Morrigan, she also worships Azzathra, who's basically the Dark God of force, martial prowess and bullies, but Alphel is much more intelligent and pragmatic than Morrigan.
- Ironic Last Words: In "Nero's Spell (Part 2)", facing a target in a metal cylinder, right before her current body dies from being eaten by something, due to sticking her claw / paw in its "mouth" while trying to open the "tin":"Seriously, Keeper? Tinned food?" Alphel gloated as she sat down before the covered pit, raising a giant paw like a cat ready to strike. "I shall crush you with these very claws!"
- Villain Team-Up: With Arachne during their attack on Mercury's iceship. It didn't end well.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Supposedly does this to Arachne after they fail to get rid of Mercury during the Armageddon Battle.
Midori
- Debut: Chapter 79: Cruising Along
Midori: "I thought you might want to know that I sold the information about your current whereabouts to Keepers Morrigan, Alphel, and Arachne"Mercury: "You-? Why tell me this?"Midori: "So you'll put up a good fight, of course. A one-sided battle isn't much fun to watch. Besides, you'll want to buy information on some of them from me sooner or later, so the first warning is free!"Mercury: "Information? You sell my location to my enemies, and then you expect me to be willing to buy something from you?"Midori: "If it's any consolation, I'm willing to sell out the others just as fast as you" — Chapter 79: Cruising Along
After failing to assassinate Mercury, Midori gleefully contacted her and tried to barter information in exchange of minions, favors and titles. This began their uneasy neutrality, where the scheming Keeper would pop up from time to time to offer help, casually chat with or spy on the young senshi, while trying to strike an alliance with her.
- Above Good and Evil: Has no qualms about working with the Heroes or Mercury as long as he gets something out of it. He even asked Mercury for a nobility title that would only be useful in the surface.
- Ambition Is Evil: He's completely immoral and untrustworthy, as he'll do whatever benefits him the most and gives him the most power in the end. Even if it is backstabbing the person he just made a deal with.
- Bystander Syndrome: Doesn't really like getting into fights or conflicts himself. He prefers to just profit from the battle by helping both sides.
- Can't See a Damn Thing: An imp covered his orb with a rag to prevent him from seeing Mercury's battle against the Crowned Death, much to his displeasure.
- The Avatar: "What are you doing, Keeper? That stuff is dangerous."Midori: "What IS she doing? Come on, don't block my scrying like that! This sucks!"
- The Chessmaster: He tries to manipulate other Keepers into doing his bidding, and seems quite successful at it. Mercury tried to avoid dealing with Midori for as long as she could, but she eventually had to relent.
- Collector of the Strange: According to him, he collects rare and unique minions, and seems particularly interested in Jadeite and Mercury's Giant Metal Golem.
- Deal with the Devil: Asking for his help usually feels like this for Ami, since she knows that she'll owe him something if she asks for his help or information.
- Enemy Mine: Repeatedly helps Mercury in her fight against Crowned Death's cult, as Midori himself is also on hostile terms with them.
- Evil Genius: Possibly the single smartest Keeper in the world. Note: this is said while keeping in mind the other super-intelligent Keepers, like Ami/Mercury, Zarekos and Mukrezar.
- Friend in the Black Market: He specializes in the trading of information and news, therefore he's known to dabble in spying and darker magics to sell them to other Keepers.
- I Got You Covered: During a battle against Crowned Death's priests, he appeared out of nowhere to tell Mercury how to properly kill them, tell her that she owes him for the information, and then promptly leaving.
- It Amused Me: He finds a lot of his schemes to be entertaining and fun to watch, despite his main goal being profiting out of them.
- Knowledge Broker: As part of this job, he's very informed about the world, including current events. All sorts of news (guarded Keeper secrets included!) travels quickly to him.
- Meaningful Name: Midori means Green in japanese. Fitting for a Keeper that's all about trading and scheming. This is also a recurring color of his, being the eye color of Princess Julia and the color he chooses for pillows on his carriages.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: He mostly seems to be an information broker and a bit of a troll. And then he manages to use imps, upgraded to a Hive Mind, to steal one of Mercury's gem reactors...
- Opportunistic Bastard: He'll help you if it benefits him, but expect him to betray you if the other side has better things to offer.
- Playing Both Sides: He's not above telling you he sold you out to your enemies, then offering you a way to trump that and defeat said enemies, and so on.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Midori doesn't shy away from making deals with goodly heroes and generally people who are unpopular in the Underworld, as long as it suits his goals.
- Shame If Something Happened: After giving Mercury some unsolicited advice on how to deal with the Crowned Death's priests, he then tries to ask her for some sort of retribution. When Mercury refused, he gave her this insightful line:
- "You should pay me because the cost of doing so is always smaller than of not doing so."
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Despite most Keepers regularly possessing minions that represent them in some way, or at least having their gender in common, Midori is a male Keeper who likes to possess Princess Julia to represent him.
- Wild Card: You can never be sure where he's coming from whenever he offers help or threatens you, since his true intentions are always up to something more sinister.
Wemos
- First Mentioned: Chapter 100: Both Sides PrepareDebut: Chapter 106: Temple Breached
Sadly for him, he was Too Dumb to Live. Many of his plans backfired horribly, such as attacking the Underworld cities and drawing their ire on the Avatar Islands, or opening Zarekos' temple to retrieve the magical items inside, only to have them stolen by his enemies. No wonder why most of his minions tried to escape his employ at all costs.
- And I Must Scream: His fate after the returned Zarekos dominates him. Luckily, it didn't last long.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: To escape being Zarekos' puppet, he decides to help Ami on her plan to kill him by sacrificing himself.
- Big Bad Wannabe: He wants to take over the world with his small group of vampires by raiding the most dangerous and powerful alliance of evil races in existence. Not the best plan to begin with.
- Dumb Muscle: He's clearly short-sighted and delusional, but he was one of the fastest vampires to get a dungeon heart and strong enough to subdue most of them into following him against their wishes.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: He takes whatever fate that Ami had planned for him and his body, to deny the returned Zarekos, the use of it.
- Enemy Civil War: Was one of Zarekos' vampire minions who immediately after his death engaged in a free-for-all to gain control of his now unclaimed dungeon hearts and lesser undead.
- Spiteful Suicide: Decides to commit suicide to prevent Zarekos from escaping Mercury's trap.
- Too Dumb to Live: His idea to gain power is to raid an Underworld city for supplies (needed because the Avatar Islands are completely dry). The smarter vampires in his employ immediately start jumping ship and heading off to join either Nero or Mercury, because they know that the plan is suicidal - the Underworld cities are not only fairly individually powerful, but also linked in a great web of mutual defence treaties. Even the greatest Keepers would get flattened should they attempt to take this alliance head on.
Bartholomeus
- Big Bad: Of his time. He used subordinate keepers to avoid being discovered in the dwarven kingdoms.
- The Chessmaster: He played the dwarven kingdoms' stubborness and love of nobility titles to orchestrate a civil war between them, while using his subordinate keepers as distractions to keep them busy and avoid detection.
- Death by Origin Story: He was seemingly killed by Baron Leopold long ago, but his influence remains.
- Manipulative Bastard: Managed to get the dwarves into a civil war so bad that it exiled an entire kingdom.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Despite the repercussions of his actions, Bartholomeus was known for being more manipulative than strong. He mostly used other keepers and the dwarves themselves to weaken their kingdoms.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He wasn't actually killed by Baron Leopold, but trapped in an adamantine box and left to rot until his eventual demise.
- Villainous Legacy: His actions made the dwarves distrust anyone who ever worked with a Keeper and make laws against all sorts of contacts with keepers.
Keepers' Minions
Minions in General
Truly an Army of Thieves and Whores. note
Keepers are powerful, but they cannot win wars on their own. That's why they depend on hired help: Mercenaries, giant bugs, undead hordes, rogue scholars and even cratures gifted directly from the Dark Gods. They come in all shapes and sizes, and after hundreds, perhaps thousands of years dedicating themselves and their entire cultures around serving Dark Gods, their keepers and opposing the heroes, they've adapted (and maybe overadapted) into servitude. Most of them can't even show themselves on the surface, because their direct association with Keepers would get them killed on sight.
- Adorable Evil Minions: Imps and goblins can have their moments of child-like cuteness, despite their evil natures.
- Airborne Mook: Some minions are permanently flying, like ghosts, flies and fireflies, but others like dragons, dark angels and vampires can fly at will.
- All Trolls Are Different: Trolls in this universe are ugly green-skinned humanoids with excellent manufacturing skills, weak combat abilities and only able to learn a couple of spells like an acceleration spell to make themselves faster or a weak fireball. What they lack in intellect, they make up in mechanic creativity and engineering.
- Always Chaotic Evil: This is their default allegiance. Their motivations might vary, but most of them can be resumed as just wanting battle and riches.
- Army of Thieves and Whores: Since most of them are criminals, either on their own or by working for Keepers (which is considered a crime on the surface), they all fit in this category.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Most minions seem to believe so. They respect everyone who's capable of kicking their asses, especially those who worship Azzathra.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Keepers can recruit giant flies, beetles, fireflies and spiders to work as their minions. They can reproduce easily, don't require much pay and make for good Cannon Fodder.
- Black Knight: Keepers can often recruit fallen warriors that have lost their faith in the surface, who also happen to wear black armor.
- Blow You Away: Ghosts, warlocks, fireflies and vampires have the ability to summon gusts of wind to disrupt combat or find advantageous positioning in battle.
- Breath Weapon: Dragons and sufficiently trained hounds can breathe fire at their enemies.
- Butt-Monkey: Goblins are the laughingstock of just about every other intelligent being.
- Cannon Fodder: They're very wary of Keepers and the way they treat them. If they believe their Keepers are unfit and will treat them as disposable suicides, they'll just leave.
- Classical Movie Vampire: Vampires in the Dungeon Keeper universe are a smart, dignified elite with a vast array of magical abilities, but whose favorite work is to seduce, corrupt or mess with the enemies through the use of scaveging rooms.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Most minions have a bit of this, but goblins and horned reapers are the most bloodthirsty of them all.
- Cowardly Mooks: Imps will flee from all battles, since they're not made for that. Expect all minions to run away if they see a battle as a waste, a guaranteed suicide or their Keepers as incompetent.
- Defector from Decadence: Minions in general are not afraid of abandoning ship and jumping into the employ of a new Keeper if they survive their defeat.
- Dem Bones: Keepers can starve their prisoners to death in their prisons, thus turning them into skeletons that will fight for them without the need to eat.
- Demonic Possession: When they're recruited by Keepers, they can all become targets of their possessions. Some Keepers even pick specific individuals or a type of creature to represent them.
- The Ditz: Goblins as a whole race. This makes them the laughing-stock of all the other minions.
- Dragon Hoard: Dragons will often make their hoards in their Keepers' treasure rooms. It's not unusual for dragons to fight over the best spots of riches.
- Elite Mooks: Some minions are the best a Keeper can hire, and they're often the most expensive or difficult to handle too. Horned Reapers, dragons, vampires and dark angels come to mind.
- Evil Minions: Several creatures prefer to do maintenance tasks rather than fighting head on. Imps will do all of their master's bidding, but are near useless in fights. Warlocks are experts in research, but will flee in terror when a powerful enemy comes in. And trolls are excellent engineers and manufacturers, and while they can fight, they're pretty bad at it.
- Evil Sorceror: Warlocks fall into this category by definition, but any fallen wizard, maiden or spellcaster that chose to serve a Keeper counts too.
- Evil Wears Black: Black Knights, Dark Mistresses, Dark Angels... Black is a very popular color amongst minions.
- Extreme Omnivore: They have no qualms about eating almost anything, as long as it's somewhat edible. Though, by force of habit, they prefer chicken.
- Fallen Angel: Dark Angels worship the Dark Gods instead of The Light, and they're not in very good terms with their churches and acolytes either.
- Flashy Teleportation: Vampires, imps and dark mistresses can teleport with flashy effects if they desire.
- Fiery Salamander: Keepers can recruit giant salamanders that have immunity to fire, can spit burning saliva and throw fireballs, and are excellent at swimming in lava.
- Genius Slob: Warlocks have a tendency to forget about hygiene when getting caught up in projects and researches.
- Giant Flyer: Dragons can become massive in size and are able to fly over short distances.
- Giant Spider: Spiders are the strongest giant bugs Keepers can recruit.
- The Goomba: Imps, flies, fireflies, ghosts and goblins are the weakest minions you can have in an army. And yet, there are thousands of them ready to be employed.
- Gossipy Hens: Goblins love to gossip about everything whether they fully understand what happened or not.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: Goblins are not the brightest troops, or the most hygienic, or the most effective. But they are numerous, can do basic tasks and require very little pay, so...
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Most minions usually wear leather to avoid potential spying by curious warlocks with their X-ray spells.
- Henchmen Race: Some races of minions evolved physically and culturally only to serve and adapt to Keepers. Trolls, orcs, bile demons, horned reapers...
- An Ice Person: Many minions have the ability to shoot ice attacks or manipulate ice in some way. Vampires, Dark Mistresses, Dark Angels, Tentacles, Giant spiders and beetles....
- I'm a Humanitarian: Most of them truly don't care about eating meat of their own race. Eating meat is good enough for them.
- Invisibility: Ghosts, warlocks, thieves an rogues can use their spells or trickery to become completely invisible to the naked eye.
- Just Following Orders: Though many minions don't have to justify their actions, this is how many surfacers who have served under keepers justify themselves.
- Klingon Promotion: It is implied to be a normal custom for orcs and other humanoid races.
- Life Drain: Certain minions, like vampires, dark mistresses and ghosts can drain the life essence of their enemies at a safe distance.
- Lovable Coward: Goblins and imps won't look back if they feel like they're about to die and have the chance to run away.
- Mad Scientist: Warlocks love to experiment and research new projects, no matter how bloody or explodey things get when they do.
- Mooks: They fulfill almost all of these roles, depending on which mook you're looking for.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Ghosts, skeletons and vampires are common minions in many Keeper's armies. They never let prisoners or corpses go to waste.
- Nocturnal Mooks: Her vampires are mostly nocturnal, since they can't go out in the daylight without shapeshifting.
- Our Angels Are Different: Dark Angels are fallen angels that have chosen to serve the Dark Gods. They are strong swordsmen and even stronger spellcasters. They can fly, summon a temporary army of skeletons, shoot frost-based attacks and are experts at research.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demon is a very broad term in Adushul. On one hand, Horned Reapers are called demons despite looking just a bit like Bile Demons; who are big and round monsters with giant horns who don't get along with skeletons, and that can fight by using spiked maces attached to their horns, or using their toxic natural gasses. On the other hand, Demon Spawns are demons only by name. Since they're scaly, squat creatures who hate hounds, love training, are immune to lava and turn into dragons when they train hard enough. Speaking of which...
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons Are Demonic in Adushul, since they're all evil by default and it's implied that they're the grown stages of Demon Spawns. They love to hoard gold and riches in their lairs, and will demand hefty sums to Keepers who employ them. However, they're very capable minions who can do all sorts of tasks, are very formidable in combat with their flight, their healing and their fire breathing, and can live for millenia.
- Our Elves Are Different: In contrast to the surface elves, Dark Elves are pale, have adapted to life in the Underworld and prefer to use crossbows and thrown daggers instead of bows. They don't get along with surface elves, but they don't get along with dwarves either.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghosts under the employ of Keepers are usually the result of dying prisoners in the torture chambers, who refused to join the torturing keeper and now their soul is bound to them. They're very efficient against magic, since they can rebound spells, but they're very weak against physical attacks. One good swing of a weapon and you can dispel a ghost like it was smoke.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins in Adushul are childish, stupid, violent and suicidal. They can cast basic magic and are known to be quite gossipy and curious.
- Our Orcs Are Different: Pink and burly humanoids with big bellies, white hair and exaggerated facial features. They're a Proud Warrior Race that either live only to fight under the banner of Keepers or live in the surface as nomadic barbarian tribes that raid other surfacers.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires in Adushul like to spend their time in Scavenging Rooms, sending dark, confusing or seductive thoughts towards other beings. They have basic elemental powers like casting lighting and frost, while also having other abilities like shapeshifting, teleportation and flight.
- Playing with Fire: Warlocks, trolls, salamanders, dragons and hounds have the ability to wield fire in combat. Either in the form of fireballs or fire breaths.
- Punch-Clock Villain: They might be evil mercenaries who serve Keepers nd their Dark Gods, but they work for food, a roof over their heads and a good pay every week or month. If the Keeper who they serve is defeated or is simply unfit to keep them hired, they'll just leave and search for work somewhere else.
- Recruiting the Criminal: Many of the recruited minions are criminals to begin with, and whenever a Keeper wins over a battle it's normal for them to either capture the remaining troops or retrieve their corpses to either brainwash them into their side or turn them into skeletons, ghosts and vampires.
- Shock and Awe: Vampires can shoot lighting at will. If trained well enough, so can Dark Mistresses and Skeletons.
- Spider People: Keepers can recruit Maidens, half-spider half-women who are excellent spellcasters and researchers.
- Spikes of Villainy: Some minions wear spiked clothing, one of the best examples being the Horned Reapers, whose armors lacked a cuirass or greaves but definitely had spikes.
- Sycophantic Servant: It's not unusual to see minions acting this way when they're scared of their bosses.
- Tentacled Terror: Tentacle monsters are available to Keepers to recruit as well.
- Too Dumb to Live: Goblins as a whole race, as said in "More Recruits", by a warlock:Given complicated equipment and sufficient time, the probability that a goblin will set itself on fire approaches one!
- Too Kinky to Torture: The Dark Mistresses love pain in all her forms, whether suffering it themselves or inflicting it on others.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Vampires can turn into bats or wolves at will, and this is one of the few ways they can cross water.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Minions know they're expendable and their enemies won't have any mercy on them. So they'll either join passive keepers who won't make them fight often, or strong keepers that will make sure their side is always victorious.
Mercury's Horned Reaper
The Horned Reaper, as depicted in Dungeon Keeper 2
- "Horned Reapers are some of the most feared minions of evil. Legends tell of them as unstoppable killing machines, bestowed upon deserving Keepers as a sign of favour by the gods of evil." — Snyder, Chapter 18: Spiders Everywhere!
The Horned Reaper is cunning and powerful, but short-tempered, bloodthirsty, malicious and impatient. He's by far the most antagonistic minion Ami's ever had, constantly attacking or insulting her and clashing with her ideals and objectives. It doesn't help that he was Ami's first introduction to this world, and her reluctant Evil Mentor.
It comes to the surprise of no one that as soon as he had the chance, he escaped Keeper Mercury's ranks. He's later sent back by the Dark Gods to hunt Mercury for offending them, gets imprisoned by the young Keeper, and is finally forced to participate in a Duel to the Death against a Keeper by the Dark God Azzathra, meeting his fate against his opponent.
- Acrofatic: To Horned Reaper standards, at least. After being fed to fatten him up against his will by his duel opponent, his weight becomes the source of mockery for the audience of Azzathra's duel. Yet, he's still a powerful and quick opponent for the opposing Keeper.
- Big Red Devil: As descibed by Ami in the first chapter:This horned monster sure did look like a Western illustration of the devil.
- Blood Knight: As he very well should be, being what he is. He has to keep constantly reminding himself that he shouldn't kill Ami yet when she first arrives, and barely listens to her anyway whenever she tries to stop him from killing anything he wants.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: An odd homicidal example. He's a Horned Reaper, so he's already a barely-restrained killing machine of the Dark Gods. But while he was waiting for someone to reactivate the dungeon he was trapped in, he did nothing to stay in shape or escape. He lazed about for decades, basically twiddling his thumbs after he killed the rats and bugs in that dungeon. So beyond killing basic Mooks, he cannot keep up with someone of Baron Leopold's caliber in a straight bash-up.
- The Bus Came Back: After escaping to the Underworld, he's sent back by the Dark Gods with a new mission: Hunting Keeper Mercury down.
- Demonic Possession: He's the one to teach Mercury about her ability to perform this, and becomes a victim of it right after.
- Dragged into Drag: One of the side effects of having a Sailor Senshi as a Keeper is that whenever she transforms, all her minions get her magical costume and makeup as well. The Reaper absolutely hates everytime Mercury transforms.
- Evil Mentor: Teaches Mercury the basics of being a Keeper after tricking her into becoming one in the first place.
- Fire/Ice Duo: With Ami. He had to teach her and help her out of many dangerous situations, despite hating each other until the bitter end.
- Fire Is Red: Red-skinned, with his main use of magic, being fire magic, and the spell he uses to make his armor, involves generating it from flames.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Ami accidentally traded bodies with the Reaper during her first Possession attempt. She (being the Horned Reaper) went into an apoplectic rage and attempted to beat him (Ami at this point) to death. He (Ami) decided to use this as both a way to work at all hours and to punish the Reaper's disobedience. Ami temporarily stops using female pronouns to refer to himself, reasoning that being in a male body means male pronouns.
- Instant Cosplay Surprise: Whenever Ami transforms into Sailor Mercury he gets transformed with her clothes and make up as well.
- Lightning Bruiser: Despite spending centuries lazying around in an abandoned dungeon, and latter on gaining some weight, he's still a force to reckon with thanks to his raw power and quick movement.
- Playing with Fire: He can create fireballs, which Ami uses to heat forges and such. Plus, the spell he uses to make his armor, involves generating it from flames.
- Put on a Bus: As soon as he gets a chance to escape from Keeper Mercury's employment while trying to get his revenge on her, he does.
- Race-Name Basis: His name is never revealed, as he doesn't care and Ami is too cowed by him to ask him anything beyond Keeper techniques.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He comes to intensely hate Ami (for both the ways she used him, all the ways she humiliated him, and her do-gooder attitude), and wants very dearly to kill her.
- Sinister Scythe: His main weapon, as expected from his race. He seems to take pride in it, getting annoyed by Cathy's comments about it.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He despises Ami with all his might, but he's willing to help her survive and achieve her objectives if it ensures his survival.
- Turncoat: Pretty much expected from him. He betrays Ami at the first opportunity he has, then comes back to kill her on the Dark Gods' payroll.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Pulls this on Ami, once she makes the mistake of bringing him out of her dungeon to fight off an Underworld extortion attempt. He is no longer trapped underground, and immediately attempts to kill Ami while killing any creature in arms reach.
Julia Morgana, Midori's Elven Princess of Danai
- Debut: Chapter 70: Sacrifice
Julia: "These quarters are completely unsuitable for a person of my status! Just look at this moth-eaten carpet! It is an insult! And who are you, anyway, to address me so familiarly?"Ami: "My name is Sailor Mercury. Is there's anything wrong that isn't related to your quarters?"Julia: "Are you kidding? My clothes are filthy, I itch everywhere, there's no servant in sight, and I need a bath!" — Chapter 71: A Rescued Princess
- Brainless Beauty: Subverted. She's beautiful, and Ami's first impression of her is an airhead, but she's smarter than she looks.
- Color-Coded Eyes: She's a sorceror with green eyes. This doubles as Colour-Coded for Your Convenience, since her green eyes fit with Midori's general affinity for the green color, and it helps everyone identify whether it's Julia or Midori talking through her body.
- Decoy Damsel: She didn't lie about her not being a Damsel in Distress, but since Mercury and Jadeite kept treating her like one no one could've expected her to be actually dangerous.
- Drama Queen: She tends to exaggerate her Rich Bitch attitude in order to deceive her opponents into a false sense of security and to hide her possible surprise attacks.
- Eternally Pearly-White Teeth: She's described as having these.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Underneath her beautiful elven exterior of a spoiled brat lies a core of unapologetic, petty yet highlty effective evil assassin.
- Magical Gesture: As a sorceror and an assassin, Julia can be pretty sneaky when using her spells. She once almost killed Mercury while casually patting dirt off of her shoulder, hiding her summoning of a spell in the casual gesture.
- The Mole: Pretended to be a helpless rescued princess only to be revealed as Midori's assassin, while trying to assassinate Mercury.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Ami at first thinks Julia's just a horribly spoiled airhead. Horribly spoiled she is, but she's much more devious than she lets on at first (not to mention being Keeper Midori's minion).
- Opportunistic Bastard: She describes her assassination attempt as an unexpected opportunity, one that she was willing to take.
- Rich Bitch: She's a noble (Specifically a princess) who is a jerk.
- Upper-Class Twit: She's a princess, who plays the Brainless Beauty, but, she's smarter than she looks.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Played with. She was treated as a helpless elven noble by Mercury and Jadeite, despite her insistince on not being helpless at all. A mistake that almost cost Mercury her life.
Eline, Morrigan's Dark Elf Guard
Nurgil, Zarekos' Defector Vampire
Venna, Morrigan's Brainwashed Dark Elf
Rabixtrel, Nero's Horned Reaper
Monteraine, Morrigan's Head Warlock
Mukrezar's Imp Butler
"It is the solemn duty of nosy servants everywhere to spy on their masters, particularly when there is the chance of learning something juicy to gossip about."
- "It has been fifteen years, Master. Fifteen years without being kicked, stomped on, set on fire, stabbed, chased by your pets, bitten, electrified, poisoned, poked, and being punished for slights I did not commit. Fifteen utterly peaceful years... It was horrible, your Heinousness! I missed you, Master!" — Chapter 132: Mukrezar's Return
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's Mukrezar's imp butler, while his name is unknown.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He despises everything that can be considered "good", such as romance or green hills.
- Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is described as being deep and cultivated.
- Gossipy Hens: Considers gossiping about their Keepers one of the expected traits of minions.
- Iron Butt Monkey: Mukrezar constantly abused him in all sorts of comedic ways, and he seemed to just brush them all off just fine.
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: He always gave a different title to Mukrezar 0- "Your ____ness" - with the second word depending on the situation. Examples include your Heinousness, your Maliciousness, your Torturousness, your Rebelliousness, your Possessiveness, your Unexpectedness...
- Servile Snarker: Constantly. He liked to tease and make fun of Mukrezar, despite how often that got him tons of pain from the Keeper.
- Time-Passage Beard: Much to the surprise of Mukrezar, he grew a beard after waiting in hiding for fifteen years.
- Vocal Dissonance: Being a small imp, and considering what most imps sound like, he's expected to have a high pitched voice. He has a deep and cultivated voice instead.
- Wasn't That Fun?: When Mukrezar returns, the Butler lists all the ways in which the Keeper put him in mortal danger and punished him unjustifiedly during his earlier service to him. Then he happily joins him, because despite all of that he had the time of his life!
- Wicked Cultured: For a small imp sheltered for years, he seems to be quite aware of the state of the world and shows hints of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
The Dark Gods
Metallia: The Queen Of Darkness
- First Mentioned: Chapter 9: A Youma's Report
"You have proven yourself a worthy servant. Receive my dark blessing!" — Chapter 102: Nero's Spell (Part 2)
Mercury would later start reluctantly worshipping her and giving her life energy from time to time mostly to save the youmas imprisoned in Eternal Sleep and to make sure her soul would go to Metallia instead of the Dark Gods who hate her should she ever die; saving her from an eternity of torture and suffering at their hands.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Mercury once asked her what kinds of life force she preferred by providing a bunch of samples from different races and asking Metallia to consume them in order from most to least appealing. Metallia took the energy from Dragons first, as expected. But then she took two very unexpected choices: Goblins and Light Energy.
- Does Not Like Spam: Her least preferred source of life energy are non-sapient animals, with a close second being undead beings such as skeletons and ghosts.
- Evil Takes a Nap: She's asleep for most of the story, while all her minions try to awaken her.
- God of Evil: The most powerful known, should she awaken fully. According to the Light, she could take on all of the gods of the dark pantheon simultaneously and win.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Everyone refers to her as Queen Metallia, and she's one of the main villains of the setting. Even the Light and other Dark Gods are afraid of her.
- Greater-Scope Villain: She's mostly in a coma during most of the story, while Queen Beryl and Keeper Mercury do most of the work for her.
- In-Series Nickname: Metallia describes herself with this title in the episode "Nero's Spell (Part 2)".
- Nightmare Face: She has one.
- Only Mostly Dead: She's in a coma, and her followers in the Dark Kingdom are trying to wake her up.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: As per the original series, she's asleep and needs waking with doses of life energy.
- Trademark Favorite Food: She loves the life force of Dragons, and even rewards Mercury when she gets her a good chunk of it.
Murdrul: The Devourer
- Death by Origin Story: His death is what weakens Keeper Malleus enough for Ami to defeat Malleus and get her second Dungeon Heart.
- Death by Irony: Was devoured by Azzathra after they fought, and is described as being slowly digested in what passes for Azzathra's stomach.
- God of Evil: By opposing The Light, and the realm he lives in emits corruption that rots and kills things.
- In-Series Nickname: His title, of "The Devourer".
Azzathra: The Mighty Tyrant
- First Mentioned: Chapter 26: Production ModelDebut: Chapter 36: Ultimatum
Jered: "He is the god of using strength, brute force, martial skill, and intimation in order to force your will on everyone weaker. He does not dispute the power of magic, but spurns those who use it or trickery in order to further their agendas, and takes great pleasure in humiliating them at every opportunity."
Azzathra frequently hosted duels to the death in his name, and would later challenge Mercury to one against her own ex-horned reaper, which Mercury would win with trickery and deception. This greatly enraged the Dark God, who would go as far as to ally himself with the Crowned Death and work with the Unraveller in order to bring her down. With two of his most devoted worshippers, Keepers Morrigan and Alphel, being tasked to deal with her as well.
- Blood Knight: He loves battle, whether it's war, a competition or any other kind of fight.
- Brains Evil, Brawn Good: Even though Azzathra recognizes the power of magic and smarts, he still thinks strength is the main factor when it comes to determining someone's worth.
- The Bully: Ami flat-out calls him "The God of schoolyard bullies".
- Dumb Muscle: The Unraveller considers him this.
- God-Eating: Eats up Murdrul after defeating him.
- God of Evil: By opposing The Light, and the realm he lives in emits corruption that rots and kills things.
- Mage Killer: One of his most infamous rules for his duels is that whenever a duelist casts a spell, it will be mirrored. If it's a buff, the opponent will be buffed as well, if it's an attack, the caster will be attacked as well. This makes sure that any mage is either at a disadvantage, or is suicidal enough to keep going.
- He also doesn't respond well to attempts to get cute either. One wizard tried a spell that turned them into themself to debuff his opponent. But that Loophole Abuse didn't fly and he was killed in short order.
- In-Series Nickname: He's called "Azzy" by Arachne, a worshipper of the Vermin Lord.
- Strength Equals Worthiness: He's a firm believer in this, which is why he challenges Mercury to a duel to demonstrate her worth.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He doesn't particularly like working with the Unraveller or Crowned Death, but as long as he gets to destroy that meddling Mercury...
- Too Dumb to Fool: Inasmuch as dark gods have good qualities, this is one of his. So is Stating the Simple Solution.
- Villain Team-Up: With Crowned Death, another Dark God. It didn't last long.
The Vermin Lord
The Carrion God himself.
- First Mentioned: Chapter 57: Recovering
"The Vermin Lord is a dark god who takes delight in suffering inflicted by small pests. Preferably on people, but animals are targets of opportunity too." — Pusakuronu's Word of God saved in the Wiki from the defunct original source.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: One of the gifts he gives to his worshippers is the ability to enlarge a small creature to turn it into a threat instantly.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: He's the God of all the giant insects that keepers can employ.
- Evil Versus Evil: Queen Beryl's generals accidentally opened up a portal to his domain, letting his troops enter the Dark Kingdom and locking them in a military stalemate with the queen's youmas.
- Giant Mook: Giant Spiders, Rodents of Unusual Size and all other pests that he can control can be enlarged to become this.
- God of Evil: He's a Dark God in a world where Dark Is Evil.
- In-Series Nickname: He's called "The Vermin Lord" and the Carrion God, while his real name is unknown.
- Kaiju: The God of Vermin seems to find much enjoyment and humor in the small vermin suddenly being able to squash the people, and is willing to give some followers (like Keeper Arachne) a spell to super size various critters.
- Make My Monster Grow: His powers allow him to turn his creatures into giant versions of themselves, and let his worshippers do so as well.
- The Minion Master: Expected with the sheer amount of pests he can control.
- The Swarm: He specializes in pests and insects.
- We Have Reserves: Insects and pests are an useful tool to him, but he doesn't consider them valuable in the slightest. Sacrificing them to him is a waste of time.
- Zerg Rush: Having an infinite army of small pests he can enlarge at any time lets him do this against the youmas.
The Unraveller of Mysteries
- First Mentioned: Chapter 107: Allies?Debut: Chapter 158: Unholy Dealings
"I will be around. Observing you. This is turning out to be quite the fascinating experiment." — Chapter 160: For Science
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Dangle a piece of new tech or magic in front of her, and she'll stop an interrogation in order to patiently study it.
- Beige Prose: Speaks this way. Constantly ask questions. Answers herself most of the time. Doesn't wait for answers.
- Creepy Monotone: Her voice is repeatedly described in terms of its monotone-ness, specifically like "A flat, female voice."
- Deadpan Snarker: When you've got to work with "The God of School Bullies" and a Loser Deity of Death, you get plenty of chances to point out their mistakes and shortcomings.
- Dull Surprise: From Chapter 166: Abandon Ship, Part 3
- "Oh. No." The Unraveller managed to convey resigned disbelief despite its emotionless voice. "You did not just do that."
- Emotionless Girl: Subverted. She does in fact have and show emotions... But in a much more subdued fashion than other gods, or mortals.
- Evil Genius:
- Just one example: when she captures Ami, the Unraveller starts immediately taking apart and studying all the items Ami has on her person. The speed at which the Unraveller perfectly figures out each bit of modern technology is scary. That's 20th-21st century tech in a medieval world!
- Her body is big enough to have a horizon, with fractal micro-structure. And the tools/appendages used are described as suspiciously similar to a nanotech universal (dis)assembler.
- Expy: Of GLaDOS, according to Word of God.
- Fragile Speedster: Outright states that, while she cannot match Azzathra or Crowned Death in combat, she can outrun them and thus doesn't need to fight them.
- God of Evil: She will do anything for more knowledge. Such as vivisecting people and rewiring their brains.
- In-Series Nickname: "The Unraveller of Mysteries" is what she's known as, but presumably she has a name, like some of the other dark gods.
- Mad Scientist: Implied to be the patron goddess of mad scientists everywhere. Because she wants more knowledge and doesn't care how she gets it.
- Mind Manipulation: Can rewire brains.
- Wetware CPU: She has many people who were geniuses in life attached to her body, thus increasing her computing power.
Crowned Death
- First Mentioned: Chapter 109: ResignationMercury: "I saw a crown made of black-flame above the temple's central basin just before I lost contact with my ice golems. Could Crowned Death himself be present in that temple?"The Avatar: "Unless the ground is belching forth demons, the ocean is turning into poison, and the dead are rising from their graves, I'd claim with confidence that he isn't." — Chapter 130: Backfire - Part 1
Some of his most infamous achievements were corrupting the Avatar's mantle in a ritual that consisted of completely coating his mantle with blood and kidnapping thousands of people to sacrifice them all and acquire a physical form, then plucking their eyes out to make them easier to handle in the process. This was thwarted by Keeper Mercury, who saved the hostages, stopped the ritual and then later on destroyed one of his hidden ancient temples; thus starting a war between the Dark Empress and the Dark God of Death, who would call upon the help of an ancient evil defeated long ago...
- Deadly Gaze: Being the God of Death, he’s able to seize the life from people just by directly looking at them from a physical anchor.
- Flat "What": Causes this reaction once his followers begin fighting Ami in earnest. His cult, being necromancers, raise undead. This goes way beyond what people traditionally think of when they hear the term 'undead', since they raise literally every dead being they can when on the warpath... the weirdest (if logical) example being a raised coral reef. It's not threatening, as it moves very slowly (but it can move!)... still, seeing it made Ami pause.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: He's obviously against the Light and their armies, but he's also at odds with all other Gods and is fairly unpopular with the Underworlders as well. Nobody likes worshipping him since he wants to see all living beings dead.
- God of Evil: By opposing The Light, and the realm he lives in emits corruption that rots and kills things. He also has a priesthood that tries to kill everything.
- In-Series Nickname: Following his failures in dealing with Mercury and the ensuing frustration, the Unraveller nicknames him 'Crying Death'.
- Loser Deity: Ever since Keeper Mercury became his Arch-Enemy, the Dark God seems to be in a bit of a losing streak.
- Omnicidal Maniac: He just wants to kill everything.
- Necromancer: More like the God of Necromancy, Death, and Undeath...
- Raising the Steaks: He's not above using animals as undead minions, and in fact one of his most iconic armies was an enormous amount of undead aquatic fauna.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He hates Ami for all the damages and foiled plans she has caused him, and goes into one of these after she foils his plan to getting a physical form.
- Shoot the Dog: He ordered to have the eyes of thousands of people plucked so they could be more docile and easy to handle when the time came to sacrifice them all.
- Villain Decay: He's still extremely dangerous, but his repeated failures have been noted by the other dark gods, especially the Unraveller. This is accompanied by his Villainous Breakdown. Finally, Mukrezar finished off Crowned Death's remaining intelligent forces in an awesome twist, therefore pretty much ending Crowned Death's tenure as an important dark god.
- Villain Team-Up: With Azzathra, another Dark God. It didn't last long.
Isubiar: The Flame Emperor
- God of Evil: He's a Dark God in a world where Dark Is Evil.
- Kill It with Fire: He gives his followers the ability to set things on fire.
Fleshripper
Another Dark God in the setting of Adushul. Not much is known about them, since they haven't made an appearance in the story so far and they only exist because the author mentioned them in his notes.
- All There in the Manual: Only known about from Word of God in comments.
- God of Evil: They're a Dark God in a world where Dark Is Evil.
- In-Series Nickname: That's all we know about them, that they're called "Fleshripper". We don't even know their gender.
The Dark Kingdom
Queen Beryl
- Debut: Chapter 9: A Youma's Report
"Once I find a way to get to that world, Jadeite will wish he was back in Eternal Sleep." — Chapter 105: Beryl's Plan
The Big Bad that the Sailor Senshi oppose. Queen Beryl is known for being The Leader of the Dark Kingdom and the one orchestrating their efforts on getting enough Life Energy to get Queen Metallia back from her eternal slumber, despite the interference of Sailor Moon and her teammates. She punishes many of her employees, such as Jadeite or other youmas, by putting them in Eternal Sleep, trapping them in crystals for all eternity and sending them back to Queen Metallia.
She would later develop a one-sided rivalry with Keeper Mercury, who despite being Trapped in Another World would get Metallia's favor much quicker than her and for re-hiring the minions Beryl imprisoned in Eternal Sleep. This made her focus her generals on creating a portal to that new world, accidentally engaging in a war with the Vermin Lord.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: All her generals are afraid of her because of her vast powers and intimidating personality.
- Bad Boss: She's known to dispose of her underlings once they stop being useful to her. In "Time Flies", Jadeite thinks on how his current employer is treating him better than Beryl did:To summarise, he had pretty much left the enemy dungeon a smoking, hollowed out shell of its former self, even if he couldn't strike at the dungeon heart directly. But would Beryl have taken that into account? No, she would have focused on the one failure where the wraith-like form of the enemy Keeper had been near the opening portal by sheer bad luck, giving her the opportunity to retaliate. And then, the red-haired brat would probably have demanded that he find a way to maintain a portal for more than a few seconds, despite knowing what a strain that caused.
- Big Bad: She leads the Dark Kingdom, which is the primary threat to the Senshis' home universe. (And should they succeed, a threat to the other world too)
- The Dragon: To Queen Metallia.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Since Queen Metallia is in a coma, she takes charge and leads the Dark Kingdom into awakening her.
- Evil Redhead: Her hair is red and she's evil as she can be.
- Fiery Redhead: Her bad temper is known and feared by all who work for her.
- General Failure: Despite being so feared and respected by all characters in the setting, her plans have a tendency to backfire tremendously. Her punishing Jadeite ended up with him serving under Mercury, and her insistency on getting into their world got her and her youmas into a possible war with a Dark God and his insect minions.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Ever since Mercury started gaining more and more of Metallia's favor, she started resenting the young keeper and started focusing more and more into getting to her.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: The main reason the generals fear her so much is how easy she is to anger, and how severe her punishments can be.
- Orcus on His Throne: She spends most of her day looking into her Crystal Ball and bossing her underlings into coming up with new ideas to further the cause, but she doesn't do much more than that.
- Theme Naming: She's called after a mineral, like her generals.
- You Have Failed Me: She exiled Jadeite and many youmas to Eternal Sleep whenever they failed, annoyed her too much or showed hints of betrayal.
General Nephrite
- First Mentioned: Chapter 9: A Youma's Report
"The stars know everything"
He seems to have trouble fighting the sailor senshi as well as his predecesor did, and was later tasked with opening a portal into the world of Adushul. This went horribly right, since he did manage to break into that world, but he entered the domain of the Vermin Lord and accidentally started a military conflict with the Dark God himself.
- Astrologer: Constantly consults the stars for advice and new ways of achieving victory.
- Butt-Monkey: He's considered as this for most of the other Generals.
- Catchphrase: "The stars know everything."
- The Dragon: He rose up to being Beryl's Number Two after the banishment of Jadeite.
- Meaningful Name: Besides being called after a mineral like his fellow generals, he's called after one of the two possible varieties of Jade. The other variety being called Jadeite, who is his rival in becoming Beryl's Number Two.
- Opportunistic Bastard: Whenever he has an advantage he latches onto it and uses it to its fullest potential. This has backfired on him, though.
- Star Power: From "Writing Home", part of his typical battle tactics:Nephrite’s speciality is monsters and attacks derived from astrology.
- Theme Naming: He's named after the mineral Nephrite, just like other mineral-named generals.
General Zoisite
- First Mentioned: Chapter 39: Seizing Heart Number 3
- Beta Couple: His relationship with Kunzite is seen as this by Jadeite, who considers them to be their only example of a somewhat "healthy relationship." He still thinks Zoisite is just using Kunzite.
- Flashy Teleportation: Shown in "Improving Logistics", when he teleports, "a swirl of flower petals materialised in the air", and from "Writing Home", it said to be part of his typical battle tactics:Zoisite uses sharp crystals and likes to teleport around a lot.
- Opportunistic Bastard: He's shown to work behind Nephrite's back to hinder him from time to time, and Jadeite considers him to be a "treacherous snake."
General Kunzite
The strongest of the generals of the Dark Kingdom under the leadership of Queen Beryl. He has a relationship with Zoisite, and was the one to discover and open the portal to Adushul from the Dark Kingdom.
- Attack Reflector: From "Writing Home", part of his typical battle tactics:Kunzite specialises in barriers, reflecting attacks, and manipulating space.
- Barrier Warrior: From "Writing Home", part of his typical battle tactics:Kunzite specialises in barriers, reflecting attacks, and manipulating space.
- Beta Couple: Jadeite considers Kunzite's relationship with Zoisite to be the only glimpse of a healthy romantic relationship in the Dark Kingdom. Even though he thinks that Zoisite might be using Kunzite for his ends.
- Out of Focus: He doesn't get that much screentime compared to Jadeite, Nephrite or even Zoisite.
- Space Master: From "Writing Home", part of his typical battle tactics:Kunzite specialises in barriers, reflecting attacks, and manipulating space.
- Theme Naming: Named after a mineral like his fellow generals.
Dolzene
- A Death In The Lime Light: She was in the "contested valley" destroyed by Queen Beryl in "Unexpected Visitors".
- Mind over Matter: As shown in "Unexpected Visitors":Pushing with one arm, she flipped herself on her side and pointed her free hand at the monstrosity looming over her, twice as tall as she was. Her open palm glowed blue as she lifted, and the beast’s four hind legs lost contact with the ground.
Kuzza
- A Death In The Lime Light: She was in the "contested valley" destroyed by Queen Beryl in "Unexpected Visitors".
- Hope Spot: As shown in "Unexpected Visitors", when Queen Beryl arrives on the battle field:“The Queen!” Kuzza said in an awed whisper. “We are saved!”
- Kill It with Fire: From "Unexpected Visitors", presumably the following description of the battlefield is due to her:Finger-long insect remains dotted the landscape like glowing coals, burning with a ghostly white flame.
Other
Nicodemus Asbraxe
- Official Debut: Chapter 3: A Deal with the Devil
"Greetings, Lady Keeper. I am Nicodemus Asbraxe, at your service. To whom do I owe the pleasure of speaking with?"
- Honest John's Dealership: He sells products of possibly violent providence."Nicodemus liked Keepers. They did not ask pointed questions about where a particular object came from, or why there was blood splattered all over it."
- Intrepid Merchant: Subverted. He may not care whom he does business with as long as he can turn a tidy profit, but he has a very keen survival instinct. He rather carefully appraises his clients, and acts according to how dangerous they are. He will most certainly not overcharge or disrespect a powerful keeper or heroic leader, for instance.
- Opportunistic Bastard: As soon as he saw Mercury for the first time, he analyzed all the possible hints of her being a rookie Keeper, and mentally increased all of his prices dealing with her.
- The Bus Came Back: He was called by Mercury to act as a middle ground and messenger between her and the Avatar, since she needed to send a couple of ravenous vampires without crossing water.
The Underworld
- "One did not mess with the Underworld settlements. Not only did they have the manpower and the mutual protection treaties to retaliate with overwhelming force against such transgressions, it also tended to piss off the gods. Besides, they could grant free passage to any heroes who wanted to use the portals as a back door into a Keeper's fortress." — Chapter 100: Both Sides Prepare
Many Keepers get their information and minions from these cities, including Mercury herself. Despite how vastly different the creatures and the cities themselves are, they're known to work together whenever they feel that something can threaten their existence. Like Keeper Wemos attacking them for resources, or Keeper Mukrezar becoming too powerful and eager to Take Over the World.
- Airborne Mook: Outside of giant insects like Fireflies and Flies, dragons and dark angels can fly for short distances, vampires can fly with their magic, and ghosts naturally float around.
- Army of Thieves and Whores: Being societies whose main purpose is serving under Keepers, most of the inhabitants of the Underworld are criminals and mercenaries looking for a Keeper to serve and indulge in their vicious and often bloodthirsty whims.
- Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Do not mess with the Underworld. They are generally antagonistic to each other but if they feel threatened, they won't hesitate on retaliating as one.
- Badass Bookworm: Warlocks, vampires, dark angels and dragons are very fond of studying and researching, and they're usually deadly opponents due to their knowledge of spells and natural fighting prowess.
- Bad Guy Bar: The Underworld is filled with these, as they make for great places to get employed by Keepers.
- Book Dumb: Trolls and bile demons despise research and studying, since their smarts are better put to use into engineering and craftmanship. But not as much as orcs, who absolutely refuse to work in libraries and dedicate themselves fully towards the military services.
- Cool Gate: In order to access the Underworld you have to go through a cool-looking portal made out of four pillars of stone, and serve as the Keepers' Portal Network, since they can reach almost everywhere in the Overworld.
- Dark Is Evil: Most of them are misfits from the Overworld society or downright criminals, if not creatures born from and for serving Keepers and the Dark Gods themselves. Many of them directly call themselves "Dark" something to reclaim the word.
- Dumb Muscle: Orcs are not entirely dumb, but they're not nearly as smart as elves, trolls, dragons and warlocks.
- Evil Counterpart Race: The dark elves live in the Underworld and serve keepers in contrast with regular elves, who live in the surface and have good relations with the other races.
- Evil Wears Black: Most of them like the general theme, but others use it simply because the Dark Gods prefer it.
- Hell Gate: The portals that lead to the Underworld are generally considered bad news for the overworlders, as the only people who go there have the same objective in mind; to be recruited by Keepers.
- A Hell of a Time: Despite being a Wretched Hive literally full of More Criminals Than Targets, you can get to watch many amusing brawl fights and dances from the various bars, and there is a thriving market of entrepeneurial creatures who make their livings out of simple jobs, such as alchemists, blacksmiths, leatherworkers and fashionistas.
- Lethal Lava Land: Some of the cities in the Underworld are created right next to giant lava lakes.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The dragons in the Underworld are green, bipedal for the most part, breathe fire and constantly compete over who gets to serve rich Keepers and who gets to make the Keeper's Treasure Chambers into their Dragon Hoards. Their fangs, hides and scales are also excellent sources of alchemy ingredients, with ancient dragons' parts being extremely valuable.
- Our Elves Are Different: The dark elves of the Underworld are albino and generally bald despite of gender. They use crossbows and either serve Keepers or establish themselves in the Underworld as a way to live.
- Our Goblins Are Different: While the goblins in the underworld are just as dumb and bullied as they are in dungeons and the surface, these goblins are far more likely to be killed or be collateral damage to all the other more dangerous citizens of the place. Which is why goblins either remain hidden, or try to blend in to stay alive until they can be hired or escape to the surface.
- Our Orcs Are Different: The orcs in the Underworld are pink and white-haired. They have big noses and bellies, and look pretty much like bulkier trolls. They're great fighters and military strategists, but dislike magic and researching in general.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are some of the most powerful creatures in the Underworld. Their only weaknesses are that they Cannot Cross Running Water, and that Light-based attacks (As well as being killed under the sun) can kill them for good. But other than that, they can fly, teleport, drain life, create Ice and use lighting attacks, as well as resurrecting in their coffins after being defeated, and having a natural Super-Speed and Super-Strength. They can turn some creatures into vampires and then have some certain Mind Control over them.
- Portal Network: Thanks to their many portals, the many underground cities serve as perfect links between dungeons and the overworld.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The orcs believe in strength over all other qualities, and are often willing to advance in their ranks throgh Klingon Promotions
- Ragtag Bunchof Misfits: The Underworld is filled with all sorts of characters, from the mightiest dragons, dark angels and vampires to the weakest and most pathetic goblins and oversized insects. A lot of them are at odds with each other and will not work together unless they have no other option.
- Shoplift and Die: Do not break the Underworld's rules, they're VERY strict on keeping order.
- Single-Biome Planet: Averted. It would've been pretty easy to just describe the whole Underworld as a hellish landscape and leave it at that, but instead the Underworld has many cities and villages in different biomes, such as underground caverns and enchanted forests.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Despite being a sizeable military force, the Underworlders are very suspicious of each other and their many differences keep them from ever working together unless they absolutely need to.
- Villain Teleportation: Many minions can use teleportation at will, such as Dark Mistresses and Vampires.
- Wretched Hive: Only through very strict and persuasive security measures and segregation by design they manage to get a society full of criminals and mercenaries to work somewhat efficiently.
