Beth Welch
- "What happened to me? I used to be so nice."
The protagonist of Horrors of the Black Ring. A goody-two-shoes who finds herself wearing the ring and becoming possessed by its evil.
- Being Evil Sucks: She quickly realizes this when the ring causes her to become more and more immoral.
- Big Brother Bully: Well, Big Sister. She becomes this to Amanda when possessed by the ring, doing things like snapping off the arms and legs of her Barbie dolls, tearing up her homework, and replacing her shampoo with corn oil.
- Big Sister Instinct: She has a moment of this towards Amanda when the latter nearly gets kidnapped at the carnival.
- Cool Big Sis: Despite her Annoying Younger Sibling tendencies, Amanda seems to consider her this, claiming the reason she pestered Beth to hang out with her so much was because she missed her since she was so busy with the carnival.
- Demonic Possession: The ring transforms her from a perfect goody-two-shoes to a cruel bully.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Amanda occasionally calls her "Beth Breath".
- Evil Feels Good: She enjoys the horrible things she does under the possession of the ring at first, thinking internally at one point that she now understands that Anthony likes causing havoc because it's so much fun. This doesn't last too long though, as she quickly starts regretting it.
- Friend to All Living Things: She admits to liking animals and is upset when Amanda and Anthony are cruel towards them. She also tries to nurse an injured bird back to help, whom she names Chirpy.
- Nice Girl: The reason she's so horrified by the ring's corruption of her is because beforehand, she was very kindhearted to the point of being a goody-two-shoes.
The Black Ring
- "My evil has outgrown the ring! Now I need a living body to survive. Now I will possess you!"
An entirely black piece of jewelry home to an evil spirit. In Horrors of the Black Ring, it is first found by Beth's homeroom teacher and makes her wreak havoc. When it's done using her as a host, the ring entices Beth to wear it and uses her. Beth's sister Amanda buys an identical one.
- Clingy Macguffin: The only time it will willingly come off is when it's decided it's done with its current wearer.
- The Corrupter: The ring's earliest influence has the wearer feel the need to commit random acts of evil for fun. But over time, as its influence grows, it will just flat out take over the wearer's body.
- Dark Is Evil: It's a completely black jewel set in a band of black gold.
- Demonic Possession: At first, the people who wear the ring are unaware they are being controlled, until the evil spirit inside the ring makes itself known and threatens to make them do far worse.
- Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: And more evil as well.
- Evil Feels Good: It makes its host do cruel and evil things. One third of the time, the host body is overwhelmed with feelings of joy as they commit these twisted acts. The other two thirds of the time, the host is horrified when they realize what they've done, and try to remove the ring, only for the ring to completely take over the host.
- For the Evulz: Why the spirit in the ring does anything it seems. It's never given a reason as to why it's so evil, it just is.
- Nightmare Face: The ring's evil spirit usually manifests as a horrible looking face inside the ring's gem, which is sometimes passed off as a flaw.
- The Power of Hate: It fills Miss Gold with the desire to destroy the school fair and makes her kidnap Beth's sister. When the ring possesses Beth, it plays off her feelings of resentment to Anthony and her little sister Amanda by destroying the things they love.
