Characters / Song of Horror

Playable Characters

• Action Survivor: None of the characters are in any way prepared to face the Presence. Even René, the police officer, dislikes combat. To end the game, at least one of the playable characters has to be alive, so you've got at least one Action Survivor on your hands.
• Anyone Can Die: If one Player Character dies, the story continues from another character's perspective. However, you only have 13 characters across all five episodes, with each episode having a limited selection of them available. If all available characters in an episode die, the episode has to be replayed from the start. The sole exception is Daniel, the main character; dying as him forces you to replay the whole episode.
• Dwindling Party: A game mechanic. Your characters suffer from perma-death and won't be available by the next episode.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Some of the characters not only know each other, but were closely related: Daniel and Sophie are an outright divorced couple. Even so, none of them won't react much in-game if the other one dies to The Presence. Justified in that when a character is killed by the Presence, no one else is around to witness it, and the game takes place over a short enough span of time that no one has time to realize any of the killed characters are missing.
• Iconic Item: Each character has a collectible/equippable item.
• Take Up My Sword: Every time one of your characters dies, they'll leave behind a bag with all their stuff so that the next character can continue.
• Uncertain Doom: For whatever character is played in Episode 5– that being Etienne, Sophie, Erica or Lidia. They have to play the Presence's song on a piano to unlock a necessary item, causing them to say something like "What the hell did I just play?", unknowing that they just played the music box's tune. Whether their slow, clunky playthrough counted enough to doom them to the melody, or if they escaped via a technicality, is uncertain. We also never see them leave the monster-infested hospital...

Introduced in Episode 1: Husher Mansion

Daniel Noyer

The main protagonist. A publisher who becomes the target of the Presence when he visits the home of Sebastian Husher.

• Addled Addict: Daniel is a recovering alcoholic; his addiction previously cost him his first job and marriage.
• Amicable Exes: With Sophie. Despite their divorce, Sophie and Daniel still care about each other, and Sophie goes out of her way to find Daniel in episode 1, as well as helping him solve the mystery surrounding the music box in every other episode, excluding the third one.
• And I Must Scream: Assimilated by the Presence at the end of the game, joining the other countless lost souls it has consumed.
• Distressed Dude: Daniel spends the entirety of the first episode trapped in the house and the four characters have to rescue him.
• Doomed Protagonist: Anyone who listens to the song becomes overtaken by the horror. Daniel spends the entire game trying to prevent this. He fails.
• Downer Ending: Daniel is taken by the Presence and becomes one of the countless lost souls trying to escape.
• Endless Corridor: Daniel winds up in one by the end of the fourth episode.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Very nearly happens at the beginning of the game, as he describes the black nothingness that haunts him in the locked room. Very possibly happened to little Julia, too.
• Iconic Item: Badge of Perseverance, from his AA Meetings. The Badge of Perseverance changes Daniel's stats depending on how many other characters are still alive or how many have died.
• Supporting Protagonist: Daniel is the real protagonist of the game, but there's a very good possibility that you will be spending time as other characters so that you won't have to restart the chapter if one of them dies.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Every playable character will be subjected to Perma-Death should the player fail to keep them safe; they will then disappear from the story and not be playable again at all. Daniel is the sole exception, as he cannot die until the final cutscene, so if he dies the episode restarts.

Sebastian P. Husher

The doomed author whose interest in the music box led to tragedy for his entire family.

• And Now for Someone Completely Different: He is a playable character in a short intermission/interlude between Episodes 3 and 4, where he goes to St. Cecelia's Abbey in search of clues for the music box.
• Big Fancy House: The Husher Mansion.
• Family Man: Implied to be a good parent in his letters to Julia, where he leaves her little puzzles to solve to encourage her interests. His Episode 5 Nightmare seems to be simply knowing what happened to his household.
• Most Writers Are Writers: A horror author. According to Masha, he's quite good, and his books constantly sell out at his publishing company.
• Plot-Triggering Death: His disappearance prompts Etienne to send Daniel after him, causing the game's chain of events.
• Tragic Mistake: Played the music box without knowing about the curse, dooming himself and his entire household.

Etienne Bertrand

Boss and close friend of Daniel.

• Benevolent Boss: Cares very much about his employees, specifically his friend Daniel, and investigates their disappearances out of concern for their wellbeing
• Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. If you don't play as Etienne, or play as him and survive, nothing kills him. Even if you play as Etienne first and end up dying, he is investigating the disappearance of the Husher family, who are all white and already dead.
• Family Man: Loves and often mentions his wife and son. He sends Daniel to the Husher house in the first place because he's taking off work to see his son's game. If he dies, many of his mutterings refer to his family needing him.
• Iconic Item: Note Folder, which he constantly writes in. It markdowns items and points-of-interest on the map. This can help the player to keep track of where everything is.
• Must Make Amends: Blames himself for Daniel's ordeal, as he was the one who sent him to the Husher residence in the first place.
• True Companions: With Daniel; he's willing to risk his life to find him and keep him safe.

Sophie van Denend

The ex-wife of Daniel, Sophie runs an art gallery.

• Amicable Exes: With Daniel. Despite their divorce, Sophie and Daniel still care about each other, and Sophie goes out of her way to find Daniel in episode 1, as well as helping him solve the mystery surrounding the music box in every other episode, excluding the third one.
• Brainy Brunette: Runs her own very respected art gallery.
• Final Girl: If you play as her in the final episode and survive, she could very well count.
• Iconic Item: Scented Candles, which makes her feel safer and more peaceful. Scented candles can be placed on the ground, providing a small area to improve serenity. If Sophie places a candle but is then killed, the candle remains in the same place for the next character (although it cannot be picked up).

Alexander Laskin

A housekeeper at the Husher residence.

• Iconic Item: Leather Hip Flask. Using the flask will instantly calm the player's character unless the character is already calm.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Carries a hip flask and can restore some of his Serenity by taking a swig from it.
• Kindly Housekeeper: Both he and Masha seem to care a lot for the children.
• Mysterious Past: He and his wife refuse to talk about their past before immigrating.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Was part of the Soviet army when he was younger, and it's apparent that it left him with mental scars. It's also the reason he carries around a drinking flask.
• Token Religious Teammate: The one of two playable characters who is explicitly religious, specifically Christian (ambiguously Catholic). He often prays when stressed, and his wife is said to have found solace in her Bible right before her death. If he dies, the only way to tell if his Revenant is friendly is if he is muttering the Lord's Prayer.
• War Refugees: Implied with him and Masha.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: If Alexander finds Daniel, he swears to help him on his quest so that he can find out what happened to his wife and their charges. However, he isn't playable following Episode 3, and thus disappears.

Alina Ramos

An electrical technician sent to the Husher residence.

• Ambiguously Christian: Specifically Ambiguously Catholic, as she sometimes swears by the saints. One of her haunted Revenant lines is "Jesús... he was the savior..." or begging for God to let her leave. However, other haunted lines indicate that she "shouldn't have believed those lies" and was wrong, making one wonder if she left the church and regrets it after death, thinking she is in hell.
• Big Sister Instinct: Alina left her country to find a better life for her sister, Rosa. She mentions Rosa on occasion, and if her character dies and other characters happen upon her Revenant, she is often apologizing to Rosa for leaving her.
• Disappeared Dad: Mentions her mother, but never her dad.
• Ethnic Menial Labor: Implied; Alina is said to have "traveled the world" with her sister in search of a better life, and currently works as an electrician. After seeing a girl disappear, she worries about what the company would do if they found out.
• Iconic Item: Walkie-Talkie. Alina's Walkie-Talkie picks up interference when the Presence is nearby, allowing for the player to easily know when danger is about and act accordingly.
• An Immigrant's Tale: Her character bio says that she traveled to Europe in search of a better life for her and her sister.
• Latino Is Brown: Alina has olive skin and dark hair.
• The Old Country: Alina muses about fruits from her "old country." Which country is never disclosed.
• Put on a Bus: If she finds Daniel, Alina refuses to continue in the investigation following the first episode. She had a chance to be playable again but lost the popular vote to Erica Färber, meaning she completely disappears from the narrative.
• Right Man in the Wrong Place: The only reason Alina goes to the Husher mansion is because she works for the security company that installed their alarm, which had gone off. She has no connection to Daniel or the Hushers, and if you finish episode 1 with her, at the start of the second episode, she refuses to continue the investigation, going back to her job.
• Shout-Out: Alina works for the Monolith Security Company, whose logo is the Marker from Dead Space.
• Token Minority: The only Latine in the main cast.

Introduced in Episode 2: Eerily Quiet

Erica Färber

The daughter of an antique store owner who goes off on her own adventures.

• Bold Explorer: Has been away from home a long time due to her travels.
• Boyish Short Hair: Cut into a sharp bob.
• Breakout Character: The most popular character, winning a majority vote to return in Episode 5.
• Daddy's Girl: Runs an antique shop with her father; the two of them are very close.
• Iconic Item: Radio Cassette Player, playing her favorite rock songs to help her drown out the world and focus on herself. The player allows Erica to tune out The Presence during "The Darkness" mini-game. This makes the event significantly easier to complete without dying.
• Missing Mom: Died of cancer a while prior to the story.
• Rebellious Spirit: With her punk style and horror posters, unusual pets, and disdainful attitude.
• Shout-Out: The symbol on Erica's shirt is "The Yellow Sign", first mentioned in The King in Yellow. The actual appearance of "The Yellow Sign" however is from the Call of Cthulhu.
• Unusual Pets for Unusual People: Keeps a scorpion and venomous spider as her beloved pets. As she knows they're venomous, she will refuse the prompt to stick her hand in the enclosure. Because she is the only character who is aware of this, she cannot fall victim to the trap.
• You Should Have Died Instead: If Erica dies and is found as a Revenant, One of her lines as an antagonistic ghost is "Why did it have to be mom...?", while another angrily asks her father what he has done. Despite her deep love for her father in life, it seems that in death Erica wishes her mother had lived instead.

René Artigas

• *Click* Hello: If René dies and becomes a Revenant, he can and will shoot your character. The only way to escape is to listen for the sound of his Dramatic Gun Cock and race out of the room.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Carries one, but wishes that nobody would have to use one.
• Friend on the Force: Can become this if he is played and survives.
• Iconic Item: Service Weapon. This can be used to save the player from an instant death with a trapped mirror hidden behind a tarp. It has use in Episode 3, as it saves you from an instadeath in the State University of Arts and Humanities' newspaper archives. The weapon does come with a downfall when the player loses René to The Presence, however. If René dies, it is possible for him to return as a dangerous encounter where he will shoot and kill your character. The best way to avoid this is to listen for the cock of a gun and leave the area immediately, returning later after he disappears again.
• Minority Police Officer: An immigrant from the Caribbean.
• Police Are Useless: While not used with René, it's said that he has become extremely disillusioned with the police of both his old home and new one.

Introduced in Episode 3: A Twisted Trail

Grace Richards

• Book Smart: As befits her transfer student status.
• Iconic Item: Caffeine Pills for exams, which give the player a temporary speed boost.
• The Quiet One: The only character to not have any voice lines during encounters, only before and after.
• Teacher's Pet: Has a strong connection with and great respect for Husher.
• True Companions: With Omar Nassiri, her beloved teacher. She says that he's always helped her.

Omar Nassiri

• Iconic Item: Reading Glasses. They will reveal an object's secret upon first interaction.
• Token Religious Teammate: The only Muslim on cast. He will often mention Allah and Muhammad, and his Revenant mumblings will refer deeply to the religion.
• Token Minority: The only ambiguously Arabic cast member.
• True Companions: With Grace Richards.

Introduced in Episode 4: The Last Concert

Ernest Finnegan

• Iconic Item: His hearing aid. This will let the player hear the Presence immediately through any and all doors.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Implied. He mentions having a brother who died in World War II.
• True Companions: All of his mutterings as a Revenant refer to Sebastian and their deep friendship. He regrets having not gone with him, begs for forgiveness, and seems to be trying to find him even in death.

Introduced in Episode 5: The Horror and the Song

Dr. Berenice Prestegard

• Face–Monster Turn: Her revenant is faced as the Silence in Episode 5.
• Iconic Item: Dream Catcher. She believes nothing bad will befall her if she has it with her. She's quite wrong.
• Take Up My Sword: Dr. Berenice discovered how to lift the curse, but she died before she could accomplish anything. Daniel ends up using her findings to get rid of the music box by dropping it off in the Presence's realm.
• Tragic Mistake: Decided to do a study on the Music Box by playing it for other prisoners, all of whom were absorbed into the Presence.

Lidia Salgari

• Asthma Peril
• Final Girl: If you play as her in the final episode and survive, she could very well count.
• A Friend in Need: Agrees to investigate an abandoned mental hospital for Daniel, despite knowing very little context as to the rest of the game.
• Iconic Item: Portable Inhaler. Helps her breathe during stressful minigames.
• True Companions: Daniel's sponsor who is very close with him. She will show up in his hospital room, let him crash on her couch if Sophie is dead, and can be chosen to investigate the Asylum as a favor to him.

Non-Playable Characters

The Presence

• And I Must Scream: Any of the Presence's victims.
• Ankle Drag: Sometimes, the Presence will catch the player character by the legs and try to drag them into the abyss. The player can fortunately forcibly escape the Presence's grip by mashing the right buttons.
• Artifact of Death: The music box which is the catalyst for the Presence's current manifestations. It was built when Argos LeGrant foolishly wanted a device to make his family listen to the "supposedly cursed" music that laid waste to the St. Cecilia's Abbey.
• The Assimilator: Those taken by the Presence seem to become part of it, which it then uses to hunt down more victims. Towards the end of the game the Presence starts manifesting as a tidal wave of hundreds of clawing and grasping bodies.
• Dark Is Evil: The Presence stays away from any concentrated light and can be driven away by emergency lights, spotlights or flares. Shining a light from a strong lantern at the wraiths is the only way to defeat the Requiem.
• Devil, but No God: If you consider the Presence as the Devil. It definitely exists and acts, with no apparent good counterpart, not even faith in God. One of the earliest cases in the plot of the Presence's manifestations is in a Christian abbey, and the monks' faith does not hinder the Presence in the slightest. Additionally, Alexander, one of the playable characters, is pious and often prays in moments of distress, but he's just as vulnerable as any other character.
• Eldritch Abomination: Some kind of eldritch monstrocity, whether it be a single monster or a hivemind.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: One of it's manifestations causes an extreme drop in temperature, even causing the screen to start to freeze over.
• Evil Tainted the Place: Anywhere that the Presence's song has played will remain haunted by its manifestations, no matter how many years have passed, and even people that have never heard the song can be attacked and killed by it for so much as being around these locations.
• Haunted Technology: The Presence will affect any footage, from microfiche readers to reel projectors, which can lead to jump scares where a nighmarish face suddenly appears. In Episode 3, the heroes will exploit this in order to reach a parellel version of the archives.
• Hearing Voices: One of the possible manifestations of the Presence is for the characters to hear a continuous whisper, accompanied by a shadowy wind.
• Humanoid Abomination: It's "Black Figure" form, which appears as a tall, featureless, humanoid figure shrouded in shadows with tentacles where it's hands and legs should be.
• Mistaken for Disease: The doctors of Jeremy Hartwood Mental Hospital mistook it for a "contagious mental illness".
• Mirror Monster: Some ghosts can only be seen through the mirror and some can even attack you through them. It's not a coincidence that most of the mirrors you run into are either shattered or too grimy to reflect anything. A mirror is also the only way you can see the Presence's wraiths during the Requiem minigame.
• Ominous Obsidian Ooze: One of the signs of the Presence's coming is a black ooze beginning to cover the walls of the level. Your player character thus has to quickly find a hiding place to escape it. In other situations, it has to be burned off using intense light.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: In-universe. The Presence was initially summoned by a cursed music box and anyone hearing it is doomed to stalked by the Presence.
• Schmuck Bait: Attempting to save Husher's wife and son, or later in the game any other known victims of the Presence, will immediately get you killed, as they've already become part of it. The only exception is Daniel, who you manage to rescue alive and still mostly well at the end of Episode 1. Some Presence victims, such as Julia, will also give you a gift instead of attacking you, though there's no clear indication whether or not a Presence victim will be hostile or not.
• Was Once a Man: It absorbs the souls of its victims into it, and uses them to try and claw out of doors and beg for help, before killing whoever does come to assist.
• Weakened by the Light: Any physical manifestation of the Presence is dissolved by light, and this is a core part of a number of puzzles. Downplayed in that the light has to be bright enough for that, such as a spotlight or ceiling lamp — candlelight or a regular flashlight won't cut it.

Revenants

Victims of the Presence that have been assimilated into it.

• And I Must Scream: Their entire existence.
• Face–Monster Turn: All of them used to be normal people before being consumed.
• Meaningful Background Event: At times they can appear in the background in some areas, such as the revenant of a violinist manifesting while playing and walking around a cloister in Episode 4.

Husher Household

Sebastian Husher's wife, Catherine, and children, Julia and Saul. There is also Masha Laskin, one of the servants and Alexander's wife, and a missing dog.

• Big Fancy House: Which they are now trapped in forever...
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Masha, Catherine and Saul are all killed in psychologically torturous ways. Julia, however, slowly starved to death in a tiny, cramped, room with no escape.
• Death of a Child: Every character reacts with sympathy when seeing Julia's Revenant. Her and her brother Saul's deaths are considered tragic.
• Mysterious Past: For Masha, matching with her husband Alexander.
• Schmuck Bait: Attempting to save Husher's wife and son will immediately get you killed, as they've already become part of the Presence. Some Presence victims, such as Julia, will also give you a gift instead of attacking you, though there's no clear indication whether or not a Presence victim will be hostile or not.
• Sentimental Homemade Toy: Julia's dolls, though one ends up having to be burned.
• Token Religious Teammate: Masha is the only one of the household (aside from her husband, Alexander) who is devoutly religious. As she dies, she finds solace in her Bible.

Isaac Färber

• Driven to Suicide: Hangs himself in an attempt to escape the Presence. While at first we don't see him as a Revenant, we do see his nightmares in Episode 5, implying that this didn't work.
• Sanity Slippage: Catalogued through the recordings left behind, he starts out curious about the box and slowly slips into someone who is very angry and confused, unable to tell what is real and what is the Presence. He even blames his good friend Husher.
• Tragic Mistake: Listened to the music box and later sent it to Husher.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He was the one who originally purchased the music box from Ariadne LeGrant-Amsburg, making him responsible for the events of the plot in the modern day.

Argos LeGrant

• All for Nothing: In his desparate desire to protect his family, he left baby Ariadne alone, making her a lifelong victim to the Presence, which used her to spread.
• Artifact of Death: Created the Music Box in the first place, revitalizing the horrible song.
• Big Fancy House: A family manor.
• Break the Haughty: Literally laughed in the face of the legend of the music box, and recreated it solely to make fun of the people who died, giving it to his kids to further that purpose. It didn't end well for him, and in Episodes 4 and 5 we see his final moments were of distraught terror.
• Family Man: Is horrified at the thought of the Presence harming his wife and children. In his nightmare, he is constantly looking for baby Ariadne, screaming that "Daddy's coming," and in his diary he shows a desperate desire to protect her and his family. The Presence uses this against him, making him believe his wife and eldest daughter are monsters, so he brutally murders them. When he comes to, he kills himself.
• Fatal Flaw: His pride.
• Tragic Mistake: His disbelief in the unknown caused him to turn the Presence's song into a music box, dooming possibly hundreds of people.

Natalie and Elayne LeGrant

• Death of a Child: Daniel remarks that Elayne's death was a "senseless tragedy."
• Heroic Sacrifice: With the dialogue in Argos's nightmare, it's implied that young Elayne was killed trying to protect baby Ariadne.

Ariadne LeGrant-Amsburg

• Artifact of Death: Her music box, and her sister's, which she keeps with her in order to help the Presence.
• Creepy Child: In Dr. Prestegard's levels, where she is about six or seven.
• Evil Old Folks: As a servant of the Presence.
• Ironic Echo: "It doesn't like the light. But it likes the song." Doubles as a Madness Mantra.
• Memento MacGuffin: Her hiding of Elayne's music box is what kills Daniel in the end.
• Mysterious Past: Everything in her life from the age of seven to eighty-five is a mystery. She seems to have married at some point, considering her hyphenated last name, but no partner is seen. Perhaps also lost to the Presence?
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Ariadne LeGrant-Amsberg is this. She's essentially a quiet withdrawn old lady who poses no threat but she's eerily casual about the Presence. This is because she's lived with the Presence since she was a baby and thus this represents her normal.
• Troubled Child: In Dr. Prestegard's levels, she is seven years old and talks ominously, covering her room in drawings of the black Eldritch Presence, talks casually about seeing the future, and sends Prestegard to her death in the old mansion.