Characters / Out-of-Placers

Kass

Kassen Akoll

The main protagonist. Originally a human refugee from the recently-conquered land of Dinnlan trying to climb the ranks in house Ivenmoth, he has an unfortunate run-in with a strange object and ends up transformed into a female Yinglet. And that's only the start of his troubles...

• Attractive Bent-Gender: Even before the ambush makeover Kass is considered pretty by male Yinglets (although Vizlet initially sneers at Kass' dishevelled and unladylike appearance). After said makeover...well...She Cleans Up Nicely.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Elim. Surviving a war and a dangerous trek across enemy territory together tends to have that effect.
• Gender Bender: It's a secondary issue compared to being turned into a Yinglet, but it doesn't exactly make Kass feel any better about the whole thing.
• Hopeless Suitor: Starts the comic convinced that the object of his desire (Ginny, a stripper) is certain to notice him soon...
• My Instincts Are Showing: Kass is not happy to find out that her new body comes with its own set of instinctive reactions. Especially the ones involving male Yinglets.
  • And then there's the time she reacts in a way she finds very disturbing to a shirtless Elim.
• Noble Bigot: Before his transformation Kassen was sympathetic but condescending to the "younger races".

Elim

Elim Dorelga

Kass' best friend and fellow Dinnish refugee. Having joined House Ivenmoth together with Kassen, he often found himself acting as the voice of reason trying to rein in Kassen's optimistic enthusiasm. Of course, now that reason has clearly taken a holiday the dynamic is starting to shift a little.

• Determinator: Even having been Impaled with Extreme Prejudice won't stop him from coming to Kass' aid.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Kassen. Surviving a war and a dangerous trek across enemy territory together tends to have that effect.
• Friend to All Children: This turns out to help him a lot when it comes to dealing with Yinglets, many of whom are rather childlike.
• Made of Iron: Has now survived injuries that should have been fatal twice. He was lucky to survive the first incident and extremely lucky with the second, but in both cases he was still moving around when anybody else would have been quietly bleeding out on the ground somewhere.
• Nice Guy: Elim gets along with just about everybody he meets and confesses that he's upset with himself for being something approaching glad Kassen is in a position that might let Elim repay him. He is also abundantly ready to protect those he cares about

Isher

An Ivenmoth guard of...indeterminate species and massive size. Fell in with Kass and Elim soon after they arrived in the city and has been stuck with them ever since.

• Buxom Beauty Standard: Isher's bust is as massive as the rest of her and can draw a lot of attention. She is of course extremely self-conscious about this and wears a binder under her uniform to conceal it.
• Caring Gardener: Would love nothing more than to work in the city's underground fungus gardens and tries her best to keep houseplants alive in the arid climate of the slum area she lives in.
• Cute Monster Girl: Quite conventionally attractive by typical human standards, just...a bit oversized. And clawed. Can't forget the claws (the guy she picked up at the bar definitely won't).
• Death Glare: Has a very impressive one but hates doing it. Unfortunately for her it's the kind of job she's routinely assigned by her superiors...
• Face of a Thug: Even leaving aside the fact that she's a giant dragon-woman, she can scowl threateningly with the best of them, as much as she hates doing it as part of her duties as House Ivenmoth guard.
• Gentle Giant: Isher couldn't hurt a fly, but she's also about twice the size and several times the mass of a typical human woman as well as adorned with scythe-like talons and horns.
• Giant Woman: Giant, clawed, scaled, horned and tail-sporting woman.
• Gunboat Diplomacy: What her job for House Ivenmoth really amounts to. She is paid to stand around looking threatening at people the House is negotiating with, as a reminder that We Can Do This The Hard Way. It's quite effective at intimidating even hardened criminals.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Isher is part something non-human. Ran clearly knows what she is but the readers have so far been left guessing.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Desperate for companionship but both shy and incredibly dangerous-looking, it's no wonder she quickly latched on to Kass and Elim.
• Interspecies Romance: Had a massive crush on Kassen (that he was entirely oblivious to) and isn't entirely sure yet how to feel about Kass' sudden change of species and gender. She also occasionally tries to pick up men at the pub but being both very socially awkward and extremely threatening-looking tends to work against her.
• Shrinking Violet: Painfully shy, self-conscious about her size and threatening looks and generally awkward, Isher fits this trope to a "T"...aside from being about nine foot tall and festooned with natural weaponry.

Yannit

An insectoid Indrel, exiled from her home colony due to her unusual fascination with humanity. Kass and Elim deliver her to Val Salia just before Things Get Weird and she's been along for the ride ever since.

• Berserk Button: Certain scents can put an Indrel in a panic or rage, which adds an extra element of terror to Ran's experiments.
• Bizarre Alien Psychology: Indrel don't have a classic Hive Mind but they do have a Hive Mentality. In their colonies, they maintain constant contact with each other through scent, and an Indrel isolated from this constant reassuring presence quickly starts to go...a bit off. Yannit has learned how to mitigate the worst of the effect through touching humans (usually creeping the hell out of the humans involved), and Ran is trying to identify and reproduce some scents that will calm her down.
• Humanity Is Infectious: Yannit encountered human traders passing through her hive's territory and became so fascinated with them that she did something to get herself permanently exiled from Indrel society so she could travel to human lands.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: Both literally and metaphorically. For the former, Indrel see in a different part of the spectrum than humans and whenever the comic shows things from Yannit's perspective it looks more like the output of some kind of night vision apparatus than the usual artwork. For the latter, Yannit is fascinated by all the alien things humans do and tries with more or less success to fit them into her own system of reference, so those same Yannit-perspective parts of the story also use alien concepts to describe human behaviors.
• Insectoid Aliens: Indrel look like a cross between a wingless wasp and a praying mantis and are known for being difficult to understand or deal with due to their main mode of communication being scent-based. Compared to the weird-but-generally-reasonable baxxid and the annoying-but-mostly-harmless yinglets, they stand out as by far the most alien of the world's sentient species.

House Ivenmoth

The trading house that runs Val Salia.

Viracroix Salia

Current head of the house. Perpetually cheerful and smiling, but don't let that fool you. Can be quite ruthless when the situation calls for it.

• Beware the Silly Ones: A Salia family trait. He's whimsical, cheerful, and eccentric. Don't take that to mean that he won't cheerfully have your head removed from your shoulders if you mess up badly enough.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Salia family has a reputation for eccentricity, and Viracroix certainly matches the popular image with his whimsical mannerisms and moth-breeding hobby. He's also very, very competent at his job. It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to call him a cross between Willy Wonka and Lord Vetinari.
• The Dreaded: Being called into his office is generally on top of the list of things any employee of House Ivenmoth wants to avoid at all costs.
• The Good King: Well, trademaster, not king. But he definitely fits the trope, being a benevolent ruler who takes his duties very seriously.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Very notably stops smiling when he hears about the attack on Kass.

Ran Ste-Su G'Mindel

Head researcher of House Ivenmoth.

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Just like his boss. While undeniably brilliant, Ran would probably be way too eccentric (and cheerfully Trollish) to make it anywhere else, but he fits right in at House Ivenmoth.
• Nightmare Fetishist: From Kass' point of view, at least. He's absolutely fascinated by all aspects of Kass' transformation and the insights into Yinglet biology and psychology that it brings.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Gets them when telling Lopin to take off his clothes... so he can play dress-up with him.
• Squick: Frequently gets this reaction in-universe. His lecture on Yinglet sex for example clearly includes way too much information and overly enthusiastic use of exotic fruit. And Kass definitely doesn't appreciate his interest in Yinglet body functions...invoked
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Is apparently capable of this whenever somebody mentions something of interest to him anywhere within The Teeth, as demonstrated here.
• Troll: Loves messing with people. Currently mostly focused on Kass, although Isher has been on the receiving end of his antics as well.

Yinglets

Yinglets in general

A species of quirky little rat-bird-things. Generally regarded as a nuisance and referred to as "Scavs" (short for Scavengers) by everybody else.

• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A species-wide problem for them, particularly young males. Females and older males are less strongly affected, and the rare exceptions to the rule usually find themselves in leadership roles.
• Berserk Button: A Yinglet under attack can issue an alarm call that will generally bring in every single other Yinglet within earshot to find out what's going on. If the troubled Yinglet isn't somebody who clearly has it coming, any attacker will quickly find themselves faced with a lot of angry scavs. But that is nothing compared to the reaction such a cry will get if the one issuing it is female. "Protect the females" is a Yinglet instinct that easily overrides their natural fight-or-flight response and it will send any Yinglet within range into a frothing rage.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Yinglets are egg-laying mammals with females who have some control over which traits from their matings they pass on to the next generation. Matriarchs oversee this process to ensure that desirable traits are supported and weaknesses weeded out. They also have immense genetic variability, meaning new and interesting (and often unfortunate) mutations pop up all the time to be evaluated and added to (or discarded from) the gene pool by the females.
• Death by a Thousand Cuts: Too weak to land a decisive blow against a human-sized target under most circumstances, Yinglets will instead attempt to inflict as many lesser injuries as they can as quickly as possible. The results can be rather ugly.
• Everyone Is Bi: Literally baked into the Yinglet genome: since females are relatively rare and tend to be selective when they do breed, males who want romantic relationships or recreational sex have to do so with each other and their genitals have evolved to be just as compatible male/male as male/female specifically for these purposes.
• Fragile Speedster: Yinglets run fast and have quick reflexes, but their build is rather birdlike and a solid kick from an adult human can easily kill one.
• Gender Rarity Value: Males greatly outnumber females, who are typically kept safe in the most secure and comfortable dwelling available to the enclave.
• Matriarchy: Yinglet enclaves are ruled by a Matriarch, who controls access to the other females and thus which genes get passed on to the next generation.
• Mutants: Yinglets are extremely prone to mutation, and it's the matriarch's job to select the beneficial ones for further breeding while weeding out harmful traits. Those who hatch with particularly strange mutations are called "Odd Ones".
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Present on female Yinglets. They're vestigial - female Yinglets did nurse their young in the past, but they have since used their directed evolution to make breastfeeding unnecessary so the more numerous males can care for the younglets (leaving the females free to produce more).
• Speech Impediment: Due to Yinglets lacking the front teeth humans have in favor of their shell-tooth, yinglets can't make za T-H sound zat humans can. It gives Kass some grief at first.
• Too Dumb to Live: Rather common in young males, who tend to have truly appalling survival rates. Fortunately for the species, there's a lot of them.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Oysters and other shellfish. They both have all the nutrients required to keep a Yinglet healthy and provide them with an euphoric rush.
• We Are as Mayflies: Yinglets reach full adulthood at 3 years and only very few live to the ripe old age of 25. It's hard to determine precisely what their natural maximum lifespan is however, as the vast majority die rather messy (and probably very stupid) deaths long before that.
• Women Are Wiser: Or at least not as strongly affected by their species-wide Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! problem. They are also usually the only ones in an enclave who get an actual education from the Matriarch.
• Zerg Rush: Yinglets being as weak and fragile as they are rely on numbers and speed in a fight. Their favorite tactic is the Spear Circle, where a group of Yinglets with spears surround the target. Whoever the target is facing acts as a distraction, everybody else tries to stab at weak spots from behind and the sides. This often ends poorly for the Yinglet(s) in front, but there's always more Yinglets where they came from...

Vizlet

Matriarch of the Val Salia enclave and the smartest (and best-educated) Yinglet seen so far.

• Deadpan Snarker: A side effect of having to act as the Designated Adult for a Yinglet enclave.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Vizlet explains to Kass that she spent her youth travelling the world.Despite being born into the ruling class, she went to human settlements to act as an apprentice for craftsmen and learn everything she could from and about humans. She eventually returned to the Yinglets with a whole lot of new ideas about advancing their society but faces opposition from the more conservative Yinglet leaders, who are afraid of trading in their culture for those advances. Taken together, this makes her rather sound like a Yinglet version of Peter the Great.
• Only Sane Woman: An island of stability in the ocean of madness that is a Yinglet enclave.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Gets them while discussing "cloakin'-an'-daggerin'" with the leaders of her military and intelligence forces. Of course, the effect is rather spoiled just a few panels later...
• Surrounded by Idiots: Surrounded by Yinglets, which is a source of endless frustration for her.

Za Girls

The other females of the Val Salia enclave: Zally (the intense one), Pekkit (the bookish one), Lippie (the nervous one), Feeeena (the fancy one) and Vesaria (the cheerful one).

• The Beautiful Elite: Most Yinglets either go naked, wear a few rags or stick to strictly utilitarian clothing. Vizlet, Za Girls and the Patriarchs by contrast wear well-tailored outfits, make-up and jewelry.
• Bookworm: Pekkit loves to read, a rather unusual hobby for a Yinglet. The House Ivenmoth librarians were initially skeptical of her ability to return loaned books unchewed but have since come to accept her as something of a mascot.
• Extreme Libido: Zally's sex drive is absolutely insatiable and any male in her vicinity is likely to find himself dragged off for an exhaustive mating session. This is a slight problem for Vizlet as it can mess with the selective breeding program but she does produce a lot of healthy and extremely energetic offspring, so her antics are tolerated.
• The Fashionista: Feeeena is the enclave's resident expert on fashion, cosmetics, proper etiquette and generally looking extremely fancy.
• Inadequate Inheritor: A major problem for Vizlet. None of her girls have everything it takes to be a good matriarch. Lippie comes closest but is unfortunately entirely at the mercy of her crippling anxiety issues.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Vesaria stands out as such even among Yinglets (who are extremely lively to begin with). Eternally cheerful and determined to share her happiness with anybody else she meets.
• Mutants: Feeeena literally has two left hands...the thumb on her right hand is on the opposite side of where you'd expect it. This makes her an "Odd One", which are generally not included in the breeding program, but since it doesn't seem to impair her in any way and the Val Salia enclave is chronically short on females as it is Vizlet sees no problem with keeping the trait around.
• My Nayme Is: Feeeena. Yes, all four of these "e"s are intentional. According to the author, "You gotta draw it out to say it properly."
• Nervous Wreck: Poor, poor Lippie.
• Signature Headgear: Pekkit is rarely seen without her very distinctive hat. Initially plain brown, Patriarch Chakki later paints it to match her white-and-green outfit color.
• Women Are Wiser: Slightly wiser, at least. They are less strongly afflicted by the species-wide Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! problem than the majority of males and Vizlet made sure to give them the best education she could but at the end of the day they are still Yinglets with the emotional maturity of human adolescents.

Beizel

Patriarch of Scouting and Intel. Sneaky and dangerously clever.

• Deadpan Snarker:
  I sense you are not terribly impressed, female. Zat is probably for ze best. Welcome home.
• The Spymaster: Is this for Vizlet and seems to be rather good at it.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: The Yinglet version, anyway.

Narklet

Patriarch of Scavenging and a spy placed on the council by the traditionalist elders. Very definitely up to something.

• The Mole: Sent to keep an eye on Vizlet and her dangerously modern ideas. Vizlet is fully aware of this but can't get rid of him unless he makes an obvious misstep.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Smarter than he lets on, which comes as a nasty surprise to Vizlet who thought she'd had him figured out.

Kattajak

Patriarch of Hunting and disturbingly enthusiastic about his job.

• Ax-Crazy: Did we mention that he is very enthusiastic about stabbing, killing, skinning and butchering things?
• Berserk Button: Do not mention Zeska in the enclave. Especially around Kattajak. He wishes he could have Narklet learn that the hard way.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He may be crude and more than a little bloodthirsty, but he turns out to have a surprisingly good grasp of local politics and the cloakin'-and-daggerin' going on within the enclave.
  • He's also one of the few yinglets to have an emotional bond with his offspring (Zally) and cares for her the way a human father would. Something he explicitly acknowledges.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Prone to stabbing the council table when there's nothing else around to stab. He's actually a lot less psycho than he initially appears but seems to enjoy presenting the image of a total madlet.

Poak

Patriarch of Foodstuffs (responsible for the storage, preservation and organization of the enclave's food supply), and a true giant by Yinglet standards.

• Big Fun: Rather more...rounded than the average Yinglet and a jovial, friendly face to everyone he meets.
• Chubby Chef: As befits his title, he's the top cook among the enclave's Yinglet population. Of course, by human standards most of his recipes fall firmly within bizarrely alien territory...
• Gentle Giant: Well, giant for a Yinglet. Definitely fits the archetype though, being a big, friendly guy who breaks up fights by sitting on the aggressor until he calms down.
• Nice Guy: Everybody likes Poak.
• Superpower Lottery: Mutations are rather common among Yinglets, but most are either not particularly useful or outright harmful to the mutated individual. Poak however managed to luck out in that he was born with both vastly increased body mass AND the extra-strong limbs necessary to comfortably carry his bulk around.

Lopin

Fancy lad and modestly successful merchant of scavenged goods (i.e. random collections of shellfish and shiny rocks).

• Camp Gay: Or Camp Bi, anyway.
• Interspecies Romance: Known and derided for being a "human-chaser" by other Yinglets. He is instantly smitten with Kassen (which kicks off the plot when he just can't bring himself to say "no" to somebody so handsome) and later on appears to develop a crush on Elim.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: By Yinglet standards, at least...he is definitely the best-dressed male Yinglet seen so far. His outfit may once have belonged to a human child before he scavenged it off a clothesline, but he wears it with style and takes care to keep it in good repair.
• Signature Headgear: A snazzy blue beret with a feather in it marks Lopin as both a Fancy Lad and a Yinglet who seeks to closely emulate humans.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His spur-of-the-moment decision to sell Zat Zhing to Kassen instead of holding on to it for Brakka kicks off the plot and causes a lot of trouble for everybody involved.

Brakka

An outcast and bandit wearing a distinctive red cape. Deeply cynical, violent and desperately searching for Zat Zhing.

• Asshole Victim: His plans have all fallen apart, his gang got curb-stomped and he himself was on the receiving end of an extremely humiliating beatdown. Few people either in or out of universe would offer him any sympathy.
• Fantastic Racism: Unlike many Yinglets who envy humans to some degree, Brakka hates them.
• Sinister Shiv: Always carries an assortment of various shivs around and is quite capable of using them effectively.
• Straw Misogynist: He really doesn't understand what all the hype is about yinglet females that other males look up to them for.
• Would Hit a Girl: And probably close to unique among his whole species in that trait.

Brakka's Gang

A motley collection of Yinglet exiles and ne'er-do-wells who follow Brakka around and occasionally do what he says.

• Ascended Fanon: Their names never come up during their time on-panel. One of these nicknames (Mustard-Eyes) got picked up and de-facto canonized by the author, the rest are unofficial.
• Asshole Victim: These guys got kicked out of Yinglet society for a reason (in Feet's case, probably several reasons), and their curb-stomping at Elim's hands (and boots) is as satisfying as it is brutal.
• Ax-Crazy: All of them to some extent, but Mustard-Eyes definitely stands out among them.
  Oh! Oh Good! We gonna kill somezhin' today after all! After all!
• Cloudcuckoolander: Feet, who isn't really all there. It ends up saving his life.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: They end up finding themselves on the receiving end of one from Elim, who makes short work of them despite being wounded.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: They don't last long after their introduction.