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The characters from The Consuming Shadow.
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Player Characters
General
- Action Survivor: The Scholar and the Wizard don't seem to possess any combat training, but take on a horde of otherworldly abominations and can even survive the experience. The Warrior is a downplayed example, in that while he's a more seasoned fighter than the other characters, he's still a lone wolf trying to stop The End of the World as We Know It.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu:
- If a character banishes and defeats the Ancient while at low sanity, the effort drives them mad and leaves them a crazed shell of their former self.
- Banishing the Ancient, then being defeated during the Boss Battle results in them vanishing into the Ancient's realm, with their ultimate fate uncertain.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each character is represented by a color: red for the Scholar, blue for the Ministry Man, orange for the Warrior, and green for the Wizard
- Driven to Suicide: If they fail to prevent the Ancient's incursion by running out of time, they will shoot themself rather than let the Shadow take them.
- Embodiment of Virtue: The Insanity Edition seems to pair each investigator with a virtue: the Scholar represents Wisdom, the Ministry Man represents Cunning, The Warrior represents Skill, and the Wizard represents Magic.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The playable characters are only named by their profession and/or descriptive moniker.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The unlockable characters, in contrast to The Scholar, are specialized along these lines. The Warrior has a better melee attack and dodge, but no gun, the Wizard can't use melee, but can cast spells with no sanity loss, and the Ministry Man has little time, but much better intel and enough money to buy good equipment from the get go.
- My God, What Have I Done?: If they banish the wrong Ancient, each one has a moment of utter horror and despair in which they berate themself for their failure, then commit suicide before the Shadow can take them.
- Physical, Mystical, Technological: To an extent: while all classes can use items and cast spells to a limited extent and most of them can fight back in melee, the unlockable classes' specialization skews towards this, with the melee-focused Warrior as the Physical, spell-focused Wizard as the Mystical, and item-focused Ministry Man as the Technological.
- Spell Book: Every character has an empty spell book that they use for writing down spells they discover. Except for The Wizard, who has a completed spell book.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: The narration for ending B - where they banish the Ancient with low Sanity - is delivered from their own point of view.
- Uncertain Doom: If ending C is achieved. They vanish into the Ancient's realm and do not return, with the narration leaving it ambiguous as to whether they died in there, or were trapped and left to a terrible fate.
The Scholar
The Scholar
- A determined and idealistic reader of the occult, who foresaw the coming of the Ancient and now sacrifices everything to ensure that a world remains for his children.
- The Hero: He is the main hero that you start with.
- Jack of All Trades: Unlike the specialized unlockable classes, the Scholar has neither noticeable strengths nor glaring weaknesses.
- Madness Mantra: Their Ending B narration finishes with nothing but "It hurts." written over and over again.
- Red Is Heroic: The Scholar is associated with red, and he is the main hero that you start with.
The Ministry Man
The Ministry Man/T.
- A veteran paranormal detective and senior agent of the Ministry of Occultism, fighting to maintain control as the corruption of the Ancients encircles him. Has he bitten off more than he can chew this time?
- Bookends: If one accepts that the Chzo Mythos games share the same canon as this one and that the Ministry Man is indeed Trilby, then his Golden Ending could be seen as this, with both his first and (currently) final appearances - 5 Days a Stranger and The Consuming Shadow - ending with him overlooking a vista after defeating an otherworldly entity.
- Blue Is Heroic: Colour-coded as blue and unquestionably heroic.
- Experienced Protagonist: Explicitly described as a veteran detective in his Steam trading card, and has more hands-on experience with the occult than the other three playable characters. He even comments on this in his A-Rank Victory closing speech, stating that "once again" he's saved the world, and no-one will ever know, dryly commenting that "You'd think I'd get used to it." Depending on whether or not the player assumes that T is Trilby from The Chzo Mythos, he could be referring to some other event within the Ministry, the events of the Mythos, or even him toppling a corrupt, brainwashing weapons company.
- Laughing Mad: In Ending B, he is reduced to this, falsely believing that he failed and the doctors are possessed beings lying about the Ancient being defeated. In some endings, he's right.
- Mission Control: He texts you every now and then on some tips and encouragement.
- Mood-Swinger: When not playing as him, T can suddenly flick between suicidal and jovial in the span of a single text message. However, there is an implied possibility that an outside party, be it the agents of the Ancient or the Ancient themselves, may be sending you distressing messages under the names of those you trust, which may go some way to explaining his erratic outlook.
- Mythology Gag: Heavily implied to be a version of Trilby, and per Word of God he's not referred to as such mostly to avoid a Continuity Lockout.
The Warrior
The Warrior
- Stuck in hiding with nothing but his guilt for company, he sees the coming of the shadow as an opportunity to exorcise older, deeper-seated demons.
- The Atoner: The Warrior's Steam trading card seems to point to him as this, him fighting the invading monsters as his way of atoning for his crimes and inner demons.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: Eschews firearms in combat and uses a slightly more sophisticated moveset than the Scholar's and the Ministry Man's pistol whips.
- Close-Range Combatant: With no gun shoot enemies from a considerable distance, the Warrior is this by default.
- Devious Daggers: The Warrior's a criminal with at least one death to his name and carries a knife on himself — though it's only used for the suicide QTE.
- Does Not Like Guns: The only character who doesn’t use a gun in combat. Throughout your playthroughs, you’ll get various hints that the reason for this is because of a Noodle Incident with a gun in his past. In fact, the only time he uses his is in Ending E, where he shoots himself in the car to prevent the shadows from overtaking him.
- Noodle Incident: Just before things went to hell in a handbasket, the Warrior was hiding after a job went wrong in some non-specific way. And there are also the reasons behind his dislike of guns.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Some of his starting narration options mention he stole the Scholar's car, preventing him from dealing with the Ancient on his own. Whether it ends up a subversion or not depends on the player.
The Wizard
The Wizard
- A practitioner of magic with a mild case of something on the autism spectrum. She is one of the very few who can interpret the runes without them corroding her mind, if she can maintain focus for long enough.
- Action Girl: Becomes one once you rescue her, which unlocks her quest.
- All Witches Have Cats: One of the texts shows that she has a cat, which compliments her status as a wizard. Sadly, said text also states that they're dead.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Her main color is green, which relates to her special ability to use magic without degrading her sanity.
- Damsel in Distress: She and two other people were kidnapped by the Cultists. When you rescue her and achieve her quest, she becomes playable.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: She is a cat owner. Or at least was a cat owner if you get a text stating that they are dead. Which seems to be the only place where you find out about this fact.
- Lady of Black Magic: It might be more clinical studiousness than elegance, but she definitely carries herself quite seriously as this world’s user and researcher of magic.
- Mage Marksman: Cannot use melee attacks, so she uses both a gun and magic by default.
- The Magic Goes Away: In Ending A, the Wizard is left unable to use her magic after the Ancient is banished. Her text from T. reveals that the magic was something she taps into, not within her. He invites her to the Ministry of Occultism to get her magic back. If you then decide to play The Descent, which canonically happens after Ending A, her powers re-ignite as Stonehenge re-opens.
- Prim and Proper Bun: She wears a bun, and her dialogue shows speaking in a prim and proper manner, with some uptightness towards those who doubt her research in magic.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": She exclaims this when sealing the wrong god in Ending D.
- Science Wizard: She is a scientist who is researching magic and finding out how to apply it to advance the world.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Implied. In Ending C, all T. is able to find of her identity in the car are some notes with highly complicated jargon.
- Squishy Wizard: Since she has no melee attack, she is especially vulnerable if she runs out of bullets and/or her runes are completely degraded.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: She is an intelligent scientist, and wears glasses.
- Stoic Spectacles: She wears glasses, and her dialogue seems to suggest she is stoic.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Or "inferior minds" as she puts it. Its implied that her magic experimentation fell on deaf ears by her colleagues who were "assured of their concrete view of the universe".
- They Called Me Mad!: In one of her beginning monologues, her magic experimentation was ignored by others.
Antagonists
The Ancients
- Accounts exist of strange, illogical dimensions where a 'wall of darkness, like an immeasurable hole in reality' seeks to envelope intruders.
The Big Bad and source of the eponymous consuming shadow, the Ancient is an Eldritch Abomination from a foreign dimension that seeks to make its way into our universe.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Its underlying attack pattern is simply to drag itself toward you, using its tentacles as tethers. Allowing it to touch you immediately ends the game with Ending C.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each Ancient has its own colour, generated randomly at the start of the game.
- Eldritch Abomination: This thing is completely incomprehensible to mortal minds, to the point where its file image is nothing but a featureless smear.
- The End of the World as We Know It: The Shadow they create is slowly causing this. One of them entering the world will finish the job.
- Enemy Mine: Of the three Ancient Ones, two of them are actively hostile to you; the third is fighting against the other two for its own reasons, and may even be giving you some limited assistance.
