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The Skullkickers
"Baldy"
"Baldy", real name Rex Maraud
The human half of the Skullkickers. Usually wields a six-shot revolver.- The Chosen One: Chosen by Mother Marsh to save everyone. He was also the avatar of Thool for a while.
- Evil Weapon: His gun is a magical weapon granted to him by an eldritch abomination that won't stop firing until everything is dead. It also mentally enslaved him to Thool until he broke free.
- Hand Cannon: His pistol has a massive barrel.
- Infinite Supplies: Always has ammo, regardless of the situation. This is because the gun is a result of a soul wish. If he ever runs out of ammo, he'll just find himself vomiting more up.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: He understands the language of animals in arc 2, which understandably freaks him out when it doesn't go away. This is a side effect of being chosen by nature.
- Trapped in Another World: Originally a cowboy on Earth, until Thool threw him through a portal.
"Shorty"
"Shorty", real name Rolf Copperhead
The dwarf half of the Skullkickers. Usually wields a pair of handaxes.- Boring, but Practical: A tavern tale has a lengthy speech from him talking about how much unnecessary complexity a sword brings to combat and how an axe is better because of its simple design (the handling bit and the cleaving bit) and how he only needs to know two types of attack (chop and chop harder).
- Complete Immortality: After Taxthalmus's meddling gets him barred from the Halls of the Dead, he becomes unable to die (though that doesn't mean getting killed feels pleasant).
- Trapped in Another World: As it turns out, the world in the story isn't his world of origin, though it's close enough that it's unclear if he realizes it.
Kusia
Kusia
An elven huntress, assassin, and part-time zealot of nature's balance.- Action Girl: One of the biggest badasses in the comic.
- Ambiguously Gay: Never made overt, but the only person she calls "sexy" is a woman, who also happens to be the only person she compliments on their physical appearance.
- And the Adventure Continues: Ends the comic continuing Baldy and Shorty's tradition of charging headfirst towards dangerous adventure.
- Cool Sword: She claims Rutilus after its former owner is claimed by Thool.
- Heel–Face Turn: She turns on Poppa Plant when she has a revelation about the balance of nature, and over the course of the next story arc she goes from an enemy of the Skullkickers to a reluctant ally to a full-on friend.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: The shot she makes to kill Chancellor Kenby is downright superhuman considering the distance involved and the fact that she was using a bow.
SPOILER CHARACTER
Alternate Skullkickers
Alternate universe versions of the Skullkickers. Expect a lot of confusion over who's who.Rex Maraud and Rolf Copperhead
The most prominent pair of alternate Skullkickers, who show up all the way back in the end of arc 2.- Heroes Prefer Swords: This Rex does, a massive two-handed sword.
Rolf Copperhead and Rex
A pair of (ostensible) dwarves whose roles have been reversed; Rolf is the big guy and Rex is the little guy.- Dual Wield: Rex wields a pair of daggers in combat.
- Our Dwarves Are Different: Both of them. Rolf is the size of normal Rex (he's sensetive about his "condition"), and Rex is still hairless (it's rude to talk about the beardless).
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In-universe. They're from normal Rolf's original universe, where this Rolf was a narrative replacement when normal Rolf was hurtled to another dimension.
Li-Shi and Lou-Ku
An odd pair from a shaolin martial arts story. Li-Shi is a monk and a meditator, Lou-Ku is a mercenary and troublemaker.- Wuxia: Their clear inspiration.
Rolf Goldbottom/Axeman the Skull Knight and Rex Rexerson/Little Gun the Bald Wonder
A "crime-fighter" duo from a superhero story.- Affectionate Parody: Of Batman and Robin.
- Black-and-White Insanity: They consider profanity deserving of a swift beatdown because it "leads to a breakdown in the moral order."
- Sociopathic Hero: Let's put it this way, their idea of cleaning up the city is punching old ladies, shooting a random bystander who objected to them punching an old lady, and telling people to stop being poor.
Rexxor and "Old Chum"
A pair of heroes modeled after old space adventurer comics.- Jetpack: They have them when they're not getting stolen by technopaths.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: As one would expect from the particular time period they're modeled on, they're of the opinion women shouldn't get involved in fighting.
Rex and Rolf
A pair of biker adventurers.- Bayonet Ya: Rolf has an axeblade on his shotgun barrel.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Rex & Rolf, who are a pair of biker detective zombie hunters.
Allies and Neutral Parties
Pankey
A half-goblin who leads the Urbia thieves' guild.
- Complete Immortality: Due to a curse from the gods of deceit, the halls of the dead won't accept him until he atones for an unknown wrong. In the meantime he can certainly be killed, but it won't stick for more than a few minutes at most.
The Tavern Keeper
A short old lady who's more than she seems.
- Almighty Janitor: Whoever or whatever she is, she can perceive and understand Baldy's gun and convinces Kusia to turn on Poppa Plant with a few whispered words. As it turns out, she's Mother Marsh herself.
- Forced Transformation: She can turn things into plants, whether they're demons, someone's eyes, or an arrow aimed at her chosen one.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: She recaps the plot at the start of each new arc and is aware of the story's nature as a narrative, up to calling Baldy and Shorty the protagonists.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The nature creatures she summons to defend the Gizzard accidentally kill its master and cause it to collapse entirely.
Captain Cutlass
Captain of the pirate ship Mermaid's Bottom.
- Cool Sword: She has a sentient cutlass called Rutilus. It's bade is made of ruby, it glows when it senses danger, it can burst into flames, and it might be able to sense lies. It also speaks in rhymes with an English accent, a standard feature for magic swords in the setting.
- Hook Hand: Replacing her right hand.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: After she's claimed by Thool, Rutilus runs her through.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Willing to abide stowaways as long as they behave themselves and work for their passage.
Drissle
First mate of the ship Mermaid's Bottom.
- Eyepatch of Power: Wears a bandanna over her left eye.
- Uncertain Doom: Gets brain drilled by Thool and goes down with the ship, but we never actually see her die.
The Deity of Doors
Master of the Gizzard, an interuniverse narrative nexus.
- Kill the God: Killed by a stray unicorn for no reason other than that unicorns are stupid.
Antagonists
Pordacio
A necromancer whose theft of Chancellor Kenby's body kicks off the first story arc.
- Arc Villain: Of One Thousand Opas and a Dead Body.
- Fate Worse than Death: Oh, he does die, but the worse part of it comes when his soul is collected by his demon lord master.
- The Tooth Hurts: Takes a bullet to his talk-hole, which emphasizes the hole part and greatly reduces the talk part.
Poppa Plant
A blood-sucking plant capable of growing to truly titanic proportions in the right conditions.
- Arc Villain: Of Five Funerals and a Bucket of Blood.
Taxthalmus
A demon lord of the 9th Circle of Hell.
- Bad Boss: Regularly immolates his underlings. Not even for failing them, at one point he burns two of them just because someone else brought him news, and not even bad news.
- Evil Is Petty: Out of every possible attack, he chooses to bitchslap Thool when they fight.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Literally, as he lays out Thool using nothing but his abre hands when they fight.
- Man Behind the Man: To Pordacio.
Deep Thool
An ancient being that exists across worlds, times, dimensions, and universes.
- The Assimilator: It can make others into its children, and its children are all Thool.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Despite its human mannerisms, it has little focus beyond spreading itself as far as it can.
- Eldritch Abomination: Looks down on humans as specks? Existed long before everything else? Shapeless, tentacles form? It checks all the boxes.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Even a baby Thool is nearly impossible to kill, no matter how much punishment is heaped on it.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Most of the time, if it talks, it talks in a grandiose, fragmented way with distorted text and gibberish symbols punctuating its speech bubbles. When talking to those whose mind's it's already ensnared, it talks far more casually, which is how you get an eldritch abomination calling things "bad ass" or "so lame."
- Truly Single Parent: In its own words, it's both mommy and daddy. In fact, it's its own mommy and daddy thanks to some time shenanigans during its attempts to spread itself through reality.
Assorted Monsters
- Kraken and Leviathan: The former is real at least, and has some sort of bond with Thool.
- Unicorn: One of many monsters to appear in the comic. And yes, monster is the correct term; Skullkicker unicorns seem about as peaceful and pure as rabid dogs with knives strapped to their faces.
