Characters from The Dresden Files, the Outsiders.
WARNING! Due to the books relying heavily on mystery and surprise, the pages would be virtually unreadable with excessive spoiler tags. Therefore, all spoilers except for the most recent novel (Battle Ground) are UNMARKED. Tread carefully.
- Harry Dresden
- Harry's Household
- The White Council
- The Church
- The Vampire Courts
- The Denarians
- The Fae
- The Fomor
- The Kemmlerites
- Chicago Mafia
- Chicago Police and FBI
- Other Powerful Entities
- Ordinary People and Badass Normals
open/close all folders
The Outsiders
In General
Beings from beyond the Outer Gates at the edge of reality.
- Always Chaotic Evil: They desire nothing else than reducing all of Creation to "Empty Night."
- Big Bad: As of Battle Ground, they're more or less confirmed to be the ultimate antagonists of the entire franchise.
- Body Horror: Outsiders are often described as looking more like twisted parodies of animals than actual creatures, with tentacles, claws, teeth, horns, and all other nasty features randomly interspersed across bodies with no regards at all to bilateral symmetry.
- The Dreaded: Everyone is terrified of the Outsiders.
- Eldritch Abomination: Very powerful entities from another reality. They worked for the even more eldritch Old Ones.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: They are the Oblivion in this case, and virtually every villainous group in the series is terrified of them.
- For the Evulz: Numerous times, Outsiders have gone out of their way to sow suffering and misery in their wake even when it's potentially counter-intuitive to their plans for no other reason than they can.
- Forever War: They have waged a constant siege of reality itself for as long as the universe has existed. In the current era, the Faerie Courts - with Winter providing the muscle and Summer backing them up - are the primary defense the Outer Gates has against the Outsider hordes.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Man Behind the Man Nemesis is one of them, and they are so dangerous that the Winter Court exists to protect reality from them.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: They want to bring about "Empty Night," ending Creation itself, but for what exact reason is uncertain.
- Kryptonite Factor: The magic of a Starborn is especially devastating to them.
- Meaningful Name: They are from literally "outside." Not just "outside" our planet in terms of being extraterrestrial, but from "outside" our reality.
- No-Sell: To most forms of mortal magic.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The primary reason why they're so terrifying is so little is known about them to both the characters and reader.
- Omnicidal Maniac: According to Nemesis' fanatical Motive Rant in Battle Ground, this is their end goal - to reduce Creation itself to a sterile, blank void of nothingness.
- One-Gender Race: Possibly; while it's likely just an example of Harry being an Unreliable Narrator, all Outsiders who aren't just Dumb Muscle are given masculine pronouns.
- Theme Naming: Each of the three Walkers have a name that goes "He-Who-Walks-[Direction in Relation to Someone's Position]", consisting of He-Who-Walks-Before, He-Who-Walks-Beside, and He-Who-Walks-Behind.
- Ultraterrestrials: Implied in Ghost Story, with He Who Walks Behind smugly bragging to Harry that "this world will be ours again".
Walkers
He Who Walks Behind
He Who Walks Behind
The Lord of Slowest Terror
AKA "The Walker". A powerful creature that Justin DuMorne called up to kill Harry Dresden when he was a teenager. Harry faced the Walker and defeated it, and ever since it holds a deadly grudge against him. Other than that, little is known of the creature.
- Arch-Enemy: Hinted to be this to Harry Dresden.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Stated by Lasciel to be a powerful Walker.
- Body Horror: He can cause this. He also looks the part, with Harry describing the Walker as resembling a Humanoid Abomination covered in "fur or scales or some scabrous, fungal amalgamation of both."
- The Bully: His interactions with Harry in the convenience store are subtly reminiscent of bullies, repeatedly subjecting Harry to various humiliating and painful physical punishments, and is inconceivably outraged when his victim finally has enough and decides to actually fight back.
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- The fact that he is an Outsider indicates that Justin DuMorne was far more powerful than widely believed. It's been stated that Harry was only able to defeat the Walker thanks to unique circumstances surrounding his birth.
- Also a case of The Man Behind the Man: Harry hypothesizes that He-Who-Walks-Behind might've been on standby to kill Justin, not him, just as the Eebs had been planning to kill Rudolph but ended up going after Harry.
- Didn't See That Coming:
- Played for Laughs; He reacts with a baffled Flat "What" and Stunned Silence after Harry responds to its "The Reason You Suck" Speech by quoting Pee-Wee Herman.
- Played for Awesome; Harry is able to defeat him by capitalizing on how he doesn't know how bad of an idea it is to stand between two gasoline pumps when your enemy knows fire magic. Furthermore, it seems that he never really expected Harry to actually fight back against his torment, with Harry's narration even noting that when he hurls his Fuego at him, the Walker is screaming more in surprise and anger than genuine pain while clutching his eyes.
- The Dreaded: When Madge invokes the Walker at the end of Blood Rites, Harry has a massive Brown Note reaction.
- Early-Bird Cameo: He's this for the Outsider faction, having first appeared in Harry's backstory and been mentioned in the first book, long before Harry even knew Outsiders were a thing and just thought HWWB was something Justin DuMorne dredged up from a particularly nasty corner of the Nevernever.
- Eldritch Abomination: Harry initially thought that He Who Walks Behind was "just" a powerful demon, but he eventually realizes this wasn't the case as he gains more knowledge about Outsiders and Walkers in particular.
- Evil Brit: The Walker chooses to communicate to Harry in a perfectly clear but contemptuous British accent.
- Evil Is Bigger: Harry's description of the Walker in Ghost Story claims that he was taller and broader than the door of the convenience store that he was trying to rob.
- Evil Is Petty: He gruesomely kills poor Stan for no other reason that Stan was present and killable. Also, while he was clearly trying to shape Harry so as to accomplish something on his behalf, he does so through literally throwing poor Dresden around a convenience store and generally beating the crap out of him and is furious when Harry actually tries to defend himself.
- Flat "What": His response when Harry quotes Pee-Wee Herman is to literally stop in its tracks and ask "...What?". Amusingly, the fact that he's described as asking the question with genuine confusion seems to be implying that this wasn't part of whatever façade he was putting on as part of him trying to manipulate Harry; he just genuinely didn't see that coming.
- Foreshadowing: Way back in Storm Front, the drug-addled Three-Eye addict sees Harry and mentions "those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind." Harry is quite disturbed and mentions his encounter with He Who Walks Behind, but it's not until Cold Days that we discover that the first half of the sentence was referring to another Eldritch Abomination.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Harry claims the Walker has "empty, angled pits of dim violet light" where his eyes should be.
- Humans Are Insects: At one point during his duel with a teenage Harry in Ghost Story, he mockingly asks if Harry is "one of the swarm who infests this world."
- Hypocrite: Despite the fact that he was physically beating the crap out of Harry to shape him into his Unwitting Pawn, the Walker gets royally pissed when Harry actually dares to fight back. Apparently, the psychology of bullies is trans-universal.
- Kick the Dog: In Ghost Story, Harry's flashback to the confrontation with the entity involves the Walker casually killing poor Stan the convenience store attendant for no reason beyond the fact that he could.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Overlapping with Death by Irony; He-Who-Walks-Behind spends most of his time with Harry mocking him and belittling ordinary humans as pathetic and unable to hurt him in any meaningful way. His physical form is discorporated when Harry casts Fuego for the first time and manages to blow up a gas station, something that is very ordinary and not even among the worst things that ordinary humans have come up with. No wonder the Walker still seems to be holding a grudge over getting thoroughly embarrassed and having his words shoved right where he deserved it.
- Logical Weakness: His standing behind the victim he intends to kill or torment also means the person has an exact location on him should they try to actually fight back. One needs only stay still, look at a reflective surface to see the Walker, and turn one's weapon on him without turning one's back. Harry does this by blowing up a gas station as the Walker was standing by some gas pumps in the reflection.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: A notably downplayed example given away in his name. Beside being an Eldritch Abomination with serious strength and magical power, he has the talent to be behind his target. Always behind them. Harry could see him only by his reflection, and the Walker was invisible and silent to the other person present until he was killed. No matter how or where Harry moved (even with his back against a wall), the Walker just knocked him around from behind, with no evidence of the Walker moving. When Harry catches him in an explosion, he was immobile long enough for Harry to get a good look at him until the Walker discorporated.
- The Man Behind the Man: Behind DuMorne, but it's not yet clear how this trope played out. When he initially showed up in Harry's life, Harry initially thought that DuMorne summoned him to kill Harry, then Harry suspected that DuMorne was influenced by He-Who-Walks-Behind. As details about Harry's life unfold, it's becoming less clear what the relationship between the Walker and DuMorne was, and it may have even been antagonistic. They're definitely related somehow, but the Outsider isn't talking and DuMorne is too dead to give his side.
- Meaningful Name: Harry's first encounter with it has the Walker literally staying behind him the entire time, invisible to normal senses; Harry can only see it through reflections in glass.
- Mirror Character: Never touched on, but he's one for the Leansidhe; both put Harry through a brutal Training from Hell while acting as a Stealth Mentor so he can be shaped into an Unwitting Pawn. However, He-Who-Walks-Behind is on the side of the Outsiders and is an Omnicidal Maniac who clearly views Harry as only a potentially useful pawn, while Lea actually does sincerely care about Harry (...well, in her own screwed-up way) and is firmly on the side of the Winter Court, the first line of defense the forces of Creation/"Inside" have.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The creature's primary name is already pretty scary, but also keep in mind he is referred to as "Lord of Slowest Terror." This is speculated in the RPG books that the Walker either loves tormenting his victims (hence the "walks behind" part) or that he is the slowest of the Walkers, meaning the others are ludicrously fast. And then there's his "true name," which is a psychic Brown Note as detailed below.
- Rage Breaking Point: He quickly loses all composure and basically starts frothing with rage when Harry finally manages to "kill" him (as in, sending him back to the Outside):He-Who-Walks-Behind: HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU RAISE YOUR HAND AGAINST ME!
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He sneeringly calls Harry a "pathetic, whimpering, mewling thing" along with being "useless" right when he seems to be going in for the kill.
- Slasher Smile: Has an absolutely terrifying one, to the point where Harry claims that the Walker has "a smile from Lewis Carroll's opium-inspired, laudanum-dosed nightmares."
- Stealth Mentor: Harry notes in Cold Days that the Walker was probably trying to teach him... something. It was implied he was trying to shape Harry into a killer to take out his mentor Justin.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: When asked his name, he responds with a couple paragraphs of psychic impressions (pain, contempt, love of Cold-Blooded Torture, etc.) Harry, being Harry, quotes the trope name at him.
- Underestimating Badassery: A downplayed variant; while he was clearly pulling his punches to an extent when fighting a teenaged Harry (and Harry thinks this was because he was trying to Stealth Mentor him for something), he didn't ever think to consider "vanilla mortals" a threat, leading to Harry outsmarting him and destroying his physical form through blowing up a gas station.
- Villain Respect: Heavily downplayed; while still constantly mocking and belittling Harry during his fight with him, he also takes the time to praise his ingenuity and ability to think quickly and clearly while in the midst of battle. He even smiles and cheerily notes "There you are" when he sees how Harry has finally snapped after Stan's pointless death and is ready to directly fight him.Harry: (while still dazed from getting slammed into an arcade machine) You sound like my guidance counselor. I guess maybe you are a little scary.
He-Who-Walks-Behind: Neither fear nor pain sway you from your objective. Excellent. - Worf Had the Flu: An adult Harry is understandably freaked out to realize that, after reviewing over his memories of his fight with the entity, He-Who-Walks-Behind was clearly being Willfully Weak (i.e., not just ripping him to shreds as soon as he walked into the gas station) as he was trying to shape Harry into his Unwitting Pawn for unknown reasons.
He Who Walks Before, aka "Sharkface"
He Who Walks Before, aka "Sharkface"
Another of the Walkers. He appears in Cold Days, where he acts as the vanguard of the Outsiders.
- Anti-Magic: Like all Outsiders, he is highly resistant to magic, although Harry manages to batter down his defenses by using Soulfire.
- Black Cloak: It seems to actually be part of his body. He can move it around and detach strips of cloth from it to attack.
- Boom, Headshot!: Harry shoves a rifle into the Walker's mouth and blows his head off with a Winter & Soulfire-empowered bullet.
- Doppelgänger Attack: He can split himself into fifty or so identical bodies.
- Eyeless Face: It doesn't have eyes.
- Foreshadowing: Way back in Storm Front, the drug-addled Three-Eye addict sees Harry and mentions "those who walk before and He Who Walks Behind." Harry is quite disturbed and mentions his encounter with He Who Walks Behind, but it's not until Cold Days that we discover that the first half of the sentence was referring to another Eldritch Abomination.
- Frontline General: His role among the Outsiders; he's both a general and an advance scout, which is why he 'walks before'.
- Humanoid Abomination: An Outsider in human (or close enough) form.
- I Have Many Names: Not counting "Sharkface," there's Gatebreaker, Harbinger, Feargiver, Hopeslayer, and He Who Walks Before.
- Mind Rape: Emotional attacks seem to be his forte, and he subjects Harry to a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: All of the names he lists off after Harry compels him to Name himself, actually.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Bullets, blunt trauma, fire, teeth and claws, magic, Sharkface shrugs it all off. It takes a Soulfire- and Winter-empowered bullet delivered at point blank range to bring him down.
- Slasher Smile: Seems to be a permanent fixture, although he doesn't have any teeth on his upper jaw, hence Harry's nickname for him.
He Who Walks Beside (Spoilers!)
Nemesis
A self-aware entity or force (precisely which is unclear, though it's implied to be a kind of Outsider) that can infect and change the minds of those it intrudes into, which subverts people to the service of the Outsiders. It’s not named until the events of Cold Days, and Titania warns Harry that he should be careful to speak its name, and instead prefers to refer to it as "the adversary." In Battle Ground it is finally forced to admit its name is He Who Walks Beside.
- The Corruption: Gradually infects and transforms those possessed by it into effectively servants of the Outsiders. Its victims think they're trying to achieve their own goals the whole time.
- Evil Gloating: This could be considered Nemesis's Fatal Flaw: both of the times that Harry is able to figure out who it's possessing and force a direct confrontation, Nemesis is perhaps too willing to talk instead of just trying to kill him. It's actually how he figures out that Cat Sith is possessed - Harry notices the real Cat Sith would just have cut out his spine before Harry even knew he was there. And when he's talking to Nemesis as it possesses Justine, he's able to jump overboard and call for Demonreach to get him to safety before it gets within reach of him.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Nemesis's corruption is behind a large majority of the early villains: Victor Sells, Agent Denton, Kravos, and likely Aurora. It's also behind Maeve in Cold Days, and orchestrates Ethniu's Fomor invasion in Peace Talks and Battle Ground as a distraction in order to gain access to Demonreach.
- Hidden Villain: Turns out to be the Greater-Scope Villain in Battle Ground and The Man Behind the Man towards Ethniu (using the Titan as its Unwitting Pawn), but its influence is not revealed until the aftermath of the Final Battle in the book when Harry manages to put the pieces together, and as of now only Harry and Lara are confirmed to be aware that it was the real puppetmaster behind the whole ordeal.
- I Have Your Wife: It threatens Justine and her (and Thomas's) unborn kid by possessing Justine herself, in order to get Thomas to perform an assassination attempt on Etri just before the peace talks begin in Peace Talks.
- The Man Behind the Man: Its reveal in Cold Days is accompanied by the revelation that it was involved in nearly every villain in the books. Victor Sells, Agent Denton, Kravos, Aurora, and Maeve all became villains due to its corruption, it's using the Red Court as pawns (since it was their party where Lea got hold of the athame that corrupted her), the Black Council are likely its agents, and the Fomori are indirectly its pawns to get to Demonreach. There's no telling which other problems in the series are the result of its interferance.
- Manchurian Agent: Its specialty, as it's described as a sapper for the Outsiders. Its posessees generally act completely normal and its corruption is hard to distinguish from a number of other character influences (for example, we still don't know if Victor Sells was always a jerk who got drunk on power or if his trip down the slippery slope was influenced by Nemesis)... until it needs said pawn to either take some action that will eventually benefit it, or go nuts and switch sides, in which case they'll do so without ever knowing why.
- Manipulative Bastard: It's what it does best. In Battle Ground its revealed that it's had Justine under its thrall for years and it was under the Walker's influence that she started working for Lara and euphorically tells Harry its directly responsible for Thomas's actions in Peace Talks by using I Have Your Wife as a tactic, pointing out that Virtue Is A Weakness that can be easily controlled if one knows how. It’s also made clear that it used Ethniu as an Unwitting Pawn for its own personal goal: Ethniu's entire attack on Chicago was merely a distraction to prevent Dresden from noticing that Justine had been possessed so Nemesis would have access to Demonreach, allowing it free her and the many other prisoners, which would have ended the whole ordeal with its total victory, if not for Harry remembering Thomas's desperate and seemingly unconnected warning. Talk about one hell of a Near-Villain Victory.
- More than Mind Control:
- At the basic level, Nemesis infection just makes the victim take actions that they might have taken anyway, but in a manner that aids the Outsiders (i.e. Bianca St. Claire would likely have blamed Harry for Paula's death and decided to rise up the Red Court ranks without any help, but Nemesis used her party to corrupt Lea), sometimes aided by a fall into evil that's nearly indistinguishable from a natural Face–Heel Turn. It is capable of outright Mind Control when the situation calls for it, but it generally doesn't do this unless someone has already called it out.
- This is also the reason why the Leanansidhe could be cured of Nemesis' corruption, but Maeve could not. Lea attempted to resist Nemesis, and while her efforts were ineffective on their own, they gave Mab the opportunity to imprison her and slowly draw out the corruption over the course of several years. Maeve, however, had grown to resent Mab and her role as Winter Lady, and willingly allowed herself to be subsumed by Nemesis for a chance at revenge. Mab asks (probably the closest she'll come to pleading) Maeve to give her the chance to cure her daughter of the infection, but Maeve was too giddy at the prospect of payback.
- Mundane Utility: What's the greatest asset it gives to a possessed Maeve? The ability to lie. For a Sidhe, who are physically incapable of outright falsehoods, that's a big deal.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Harry sees through to Cat Sith's possession almost immediately. Why? Because the real Cat Sith would have ripped his spine out without a word instead of gloating about it. And he realizes that Maeve is possessed as well because the Sidhe never give straightforward answers, and the Nemesis' plan revolved around using the inability of Sidhe to lie to manipulate Lily and Harry.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Battle Ground reveals that the commonly uttered phrase "Empty Night" is far more than a mere curse word, as it seems to be Nemesis's whole endgame if not the endgame of all Outsiders as a whole. To create an universe utterly empty and void of any aspect of life imaginable for the rest of eternity, a true unraveling of all things into darkness and eternal silence. A disturbed Harry even notes that He Who Walks Beside utters the phrase "Empty Night" almost as if the whole concept was holy towards it.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Its biggest problem is that its active influence tends to cause people to act in ways completely opposite their usual natures (i.e. Cat Sith stopping to gloat, Maeve not speaking in riddles) that can cause people who know about it to cotton on to its presence.
- Outside-Context Problem: It allows Maeve, a Faerie Lady, to lie, something that is utterly impossible for faeries to do. Because it's assumed she cannot lie, no one can see through her deception.
- As of Battle Ground, it's implied that something like this, or Super-Empowering, may be among its abilities, as it was able to strengthen Justine, an ordinary human, enough that she (or rather, her body under its control) could break off a four foot section of steel railing with one hand.
- Paranoia Fuel: It's openly regarded as this In-Universe by virtue of just existing to anyone who knows about it.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Acts as this towards Cat Sith, unknown how much it affected its other victims. Maeve seemed to respond very differently, if anything given more free will than before. Battle Ground reveals that it has been doing this towards Justine for years with none the wiser, as well.
- Stupid Evil: It itself isn't, but this trope is a common symptom of its possession. For example, the possessed Cat Sith gets the drop on Harry and then stops to gloat to him- when the real Sith (as demonstrated earlier), wouldn't have wasted the successful ambush and would have merely killed him before he could react. This allows Harry to fight off Cat Sith and survive to ruin Maeve's plan to detonate Demonreach.
Others
The Sleeper
The Sleeper
A Great Old One thought to be sleeping somewhere underneath the Pacific.
- Eldritch Abomination: Of the kind that HP Lovecraft wrote about. note
- Religion of Evil: One is set up to worship him.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He's sleeping in a tomb somewhere — and if he ever breaks out, things are going to get really bad for humanity.
The Shoggoth
The Shoggoth
In retrospect, letting it loose probably wasn't the best plan.
A Shoggoth stored in a farmhouse in rural Iowa.
- Brown Note: The screams of those it has absorbed can have this effect.
- Hate Plague: It can instigate this.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Will kill everything if unleashed.
The Mistfiend
The Mistfiend
A monster used by Samuel Peabody during his escape from the White Council headquarters.
- Fog of Doom: Takes the form of a black fog, as its name indicates.
- Plausible Deniability: The White Council explained away its unusual nature by calling it an exotic creature from the farthest reaches of the Nevernever. While technically true, we would later learn that it was an Outsider.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Stored in one of Peabody's inkwells.
- Throwing the Distraction: Peabody threw his inkwell when he was caught out in his plot, and it released the mistfiend, buying him time to escape.
- Walking Wasteland: Anything it touched would disintegrate, causing a gruesome death when partially disintegrating people left the bleeding to death or gutted.
Cornerhounds
The Cornerhounds
An animalistic Outsider known for entering the mundane world from the vertices of solid surfaces. Also called The Hounds of Tindalos.- 13 Is Unlucky: Apparently 13 is considered to be a full pack of them.
- Animalistic Abomination: Described as having a canine body structure, though the size of a horse, with claws and a head that only has a maw and a trail of tentacles that goes down their spine, ending in a long tail-like tentacle.
- Brown Note: Their roars start deep and drop into infrasound, vibrating organs and the inner ear, stunning prey and causing all sort of nasty, destablizing effects.
- Dumb Muscle: Little more than a very effective attack animal. An unknown party summoned up a pack to capture or eliminate Ebenezar and Harry.
- Feel No Pain: One of the functions left out of its physical bodies, since it wasn't stricly necessary for its corporeal forms.
- Hive Mind: Played with. It's a single Outsider that reaches into the mundane world by manifesting and puppeteering multiple bodies, apparently while fundamentally still in the Nevernever.
- Kill It with Fire: Ebenezar mentions that they're most vulnerable to fire. Being Outsiders, they're weirdly harmed less by magical flame than by natural fire.
- Marionette Motion: When in pursuit, they move quickly, but strangely. They alter between lightning fast motion and holding perfectly still for a moment, like they have to stop to consider the movement they have to take as they chase down their prey.
- Puzzle Boss: Between being strong, fast, and exceptionally tough, and coming in numbers, fighting them head on is basically suicide, even for a Senior Councilman. You instead have to banish them away, putting yourself at great risk to do so, and risking the nasty consequences of mind-to-mind contact with an Outsider.
- Nothing Is Scarier: They prefer to capture their victims and drag them back to parts unknown through a corner. What happens then is anybody's guess.
- Super-Hearing: Apparently blind, but make do with excellent hearing and echolocation.
The Black Council, AKA "The Circle"
In General
A mysterious group with unknown goals beyond generally disrupting existing supernatural power structures. Heavily implied to be the Big Bad of the series.
- Ambiguously Evil: Assuming they're guilty of everything Harry suspects them of (which isn't certain), they're into some pretty shady stuff... but we still don't know their identities or their motives, so exactly how evil they are remains to be seen. Cowl, a prime suspect for one of their members, is a Well-Intentioned Extremist rather than an out-and-out villain.
- Ambiguous Situation: Who are they? What's their endgame? Do they exist at all? Cold Days seems to hint that they're not an organization as such, but people who fell under the influence of a single being called Nemesis. However, even that wouldn't explain everything.
- Bad Boss: According to Vittorio Malvora, they react "murderously" to deception.
- Man Behind the Man:
- To Victor Sells, Agent Denton, Kravos, implied with Aurora, and quite possibly the entire Red Court. They don't actually become primary antagonists until Turn Coat; prior to that book, Harry is mostly fighting cat's paws of theirs or encountering events connected to them.
- As of Cold Days, there may be a case of Man Behind the Man Behind The Man in the form of something called Nemesis. Its exact nature is unclear, but it acts as The Virus and has a corrupting effect on those under its influence, and has essentially been the cause of most bad things that have happened thus far into the series — all the way back to Victor Sells in the first book.
- The Black Council's relation with Nemesis remains unclear. While the Black Council is responsible for infecting Victor Sells, the rogue FBI werewolves, Aurora, Leonid Kravos, the Red Court, the White Court, and Lea with Nemesis, it’s unknown if the Black Council is using Nemesis, is used by Nemesis, or is working in partnership with Nemesis.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: An unusually low-key version. The Black Council are very good at hiding their presence; Harry didn't even have confirmation that they even existed until White Night.
Cowl
Cowl
I do not perceive myself to be mad. But if I were truly mad, would I be able to tell?
An incredibly powerful and mysterious necromancer who, with his assistant Kumori, showed up in Dead Beat to try to harness the Darkhallow. Both he and his assistant Kumori are probably White Council members, and they're pretty much confirmed to be on the Black Council, but their identities are otherwise unknown. Cowl does, however, deny being a Kemmlerite.
- Affably Evil: While not as friendly as Nicodemus or Marcone, Cowl is pretty respectful of Dresden after the latter flips a car on him. However, on his reappearance in White Night, he's a lot less affable, probably because Harry very nearly killed him when he blew the Darkhallow up in his face and he's still visibly in pain from that.
- Ambiguously Evil: Is he really Necessarily Evil or just evil?
- Arch-Enemy: As he's Harry Dresden's Evil Counterpart, he's probably Dresden's greatest and most personal recurring enemy outside of maybe He Who Walks Behind and Mavra.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: With Vittorio in White Night. Cowl is his master within the Black Council, but Malvora is more proactive in orchestrating the takeover of the White Court.
- Big Bad Ensemble: He, Grevane, and the Corpsetaker are all fighting to gain the Darkhallow's power in Dead Beat, with Cowl as the most active in directly countering Harry's attempts to foil the Kemmlerites. He eventually outmaneuvers the others and becomes the novel's Final Boss.
- Black Cloak: Harry, of course, makes lots of bad jokes about it.
- Chekhov's Gunman: First seen in Grave Peril with the rest of Chekhov's Army, giving Lea the athame. Not really introduced until he shows up 4 books later with the rest of Necromancers-R-Us.
- Dented Iron: When Harry catches a glimpse of him in White Night, he's described as moving in visible pain and is clearly strained, implying that he still hasn't fully recovered from the Darkhallow going off in his face.
- Determinator: Had a car thrown at him and was only reduced to having a slight limp afterwards. Multiple death curses or the Darkhallow destabilizing and literally exploding in his face have not stopped this guy.
- Early-Bird Cameo: He shows up way back at Bianca's party in Grave Peril, handing Ferrovax and Lea their presents. Nothing in that appearance indicated how important he'd become later on.
- Evil Counterpart: Dedicated, a bit curmudgeonly, and uses dark power for what seem to be good-ish purposes. Yep, he's basically Harry Dresden but if he became The Unfettered, went full black-hat, and decided to put his own goals above the value of other people's lives. It's getting even more pronounced as of "Zoo Day", where he's strongly implied to have acquired one of the pups from Mouse's litter, and "Fugitive" (from Mouse's POV) has him drop some of his usual formal language out of Harry's presence, grumbling in respect of Mouse's intervention "Harry, you are an almighty pain in my ass" — which also suggests he knows Harry personally.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He has disdain for Kemmler, whom he calls a "madman". Possibly subverted when he later suggests that he was actually one of his students - or at least was willing to pretend that he was working to fulfil Kemmler's legacy to the other Kemmlerites as much as they were.
- Evil Sorcerer: Who may or may not be Necessarily Evil, if you believe him.
- The Faceless: His cloak conceals his true appearance.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: We know what he was after in Dead Beat specifically, but his long-term goals are still mysterious.
- Implacable Man: See above, the car.
- In the Hood: Part and parcel of his aesthetic.
- The Man Behind the Man: To Vittorio Malvora, in White Night, having taught him how to perform magic and even acting in the Final Battle in the Raith Deeps to try and prevent Harry & Lara from successfully escaping.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Breaks Dresden's binding over the Erlking, making him responsible for all of the deaths caused by the Wild Hunt in Chicago. He also caused the massive hexes over the city in preparation for the Darkhallow, and was almost the one to take in the Darkhallow itself (which would've caused the deaths of essentially everyone in the whole damn city). All three times he shrugs off these horrific losses of innocent life as just part of his job as a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
- Mirror Character: Harry notices a lot of similarities between the two of them in Dead Beat, and is appropriately disturbed by the implications. In particular Cowl gives the same musing of "I don't think I am mad, but if I were mad, would I notice?" that Harry had himself gone through earlier in the book.
- Mysterious Past: It is completely unclear who he is, how he got so strong without being noticed beforehand, and what he's up to. The most we get is a suggestion that he may have known Kemmler going by the way he referred to him as a madman, Kumori's claim that he's eaten a bunch of death curses before, and his sudden drop of formality and use of Harry's name in the familiar context when he's being thwarted by Mouse, remarking "Harry, you are an almighty pain in my ass" — which might suggest he knows Harry personally.
- Near-Villain Victory: If Harry had been just a few seconds slower, than Cowl would've taken control of the Darkhallow and ensured the Black Council's victory.
- Necromancer: He'd have to be, in order to make use of the Darkhallow and be Kumori's mentor, though he doesn't use these abilities as often as the other members of the Necromancers R Us.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He destabilized the barrier between the spirit world and Chicago so much in preparation for the Darkhallow that it allowed Harry to resurrect Sue and completely destroy his plans.
- No Name Given: Introduces himself as "Cowl", but it's pretty obviously not his real name. This has generated a lot of
Epileptic Trees. - Not So Above It All: Amusingly enough, his brief appearance in "Fugitive" has him dropping his general formality and pretentiousness, even swearing in annoyance over Mouse (and by proxy, Harry) interfering in his stratagems.
- Strong and Skilled: Dresden explicitly states that he's even stronger than Ebenezar McCoy - and this is after he knew about Casaverde and everything else Ebenezar did as the Blackstaff - and he's demonstrated to have serious technical skill, discussed when he pulled the complex hex on Chicago to black it out in Dead Beat. Bob also speculates that he might have known that Halloween was one of the very few times the Darkhallow could have actually worked.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: He was Affably Evil in Dead Beat. In White Night, not so much, holding a significant grudge for Dresden almost killing him and attempts to fry him on sight.
- Villain Respect: While initially unimpressed (with him even mocking Dresden by claiming that he was hoping that he was "ready to compete with the heavyweights"), Cowl quickly becomes very respectful of Dresden's abilities, both magical and deductive. He in fact notes that he believes Dresden really could have contained the Erlking the entire night, something Harry himself doubted he'd actually be able to do (describing his chances as a spider's chance of entrapping a tiger).
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Why does he want to become a god in Dead Beat? He thinks it's inevitable that someone will and considers himself the least possible evil (and when you look at Corpsetaker and Grevane, he probably has a point...except for the slight problem that he's working with the Outsiders). Also, if his apprentice Kumori is anything to go by, his ultimate goal of seizing control of the Darkhallow and becoming a lowercase-g god was for the purpose of ending death.
- Wicked Cultured: Is a fan of Goethe.
Vittorio Malvora
Vittorio Malvora
A scion of House Malvora, a White Court noble house that favors feeding off fear.
- Axe-Crazy: Hides it under a controlled and civilized veneer, but when he summons his army of uber-ghouls, he goes berserk.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He's the main antagonist of White Night, though he's actually acting as The Heavy for Cowl.
- Combat Pragmatist: Throughout White Night, he's calm, practical, and completely efficient in everything he does. However, he loses this trait when he goes Axe-Crazy.
- The Dragon: He's one of the apprentices of Cowl.
- Emotion Eater: Favors fear.
- Emotion Bomb: Can create what's essentially a psychic bullet combining fear, lust and despair, that requires Lash's intervention, to stop it.
- False Confession: He and Madrigal claim responsibility for the murder of female practitioners, hoping to steal the thunder from House Skavis. This bites him in the ass, as it gives Harry perfect justification to demand justice for these crimes.
- I'm a Humanitarian: During the ghoul attack he "feeds", as in literally gorges on other White Court vamps, including his own mom on whose remains he feasts on alongside the ghouls that slew her.
- Never Found the Body: Harry speculates he died in the Deeps when the bomb went off, but didn't see it happen. As yet, Vitto has not resurfaced.
- Oh, Crap!: He's absolutely terrified of Harry after Lash lets him shrug off his psychic attack and Vitto gets his hand blown off for his troubles.
- Out-Gambitted: While Vitto has an army of uber-ghouls as his cavalry to call in and kill all the White Court nobles and wizards, he and his Master Cowl, are defeated by Harry calling in Marcone and the warriors Marcone is paying Odin for and the powerful explosives they bring with them.
- Powers via Possession: Being possessed by an Outsider allows him to create the psychic bullet mentioned above.
- Strong and Skilled: Combines extreme skill with weapons and some knowledge of magic with the physical stats of a White Court vampire.
- Super-Speed: Apparently outclasses both Lara and Thomas in this department.
- Quick Draw: For both guns and blades.
- Villain Ball: He recognizes the danger of bringing Harry in, at Madrigal's insistence, but failed to consider just how much of a wrench he would bring to the affair. It results in him having to actually physically fight Harry in combat to reap any political gain from his planning.
- Villainous Breakdown: Has one when Harry apparently shrugs off his super-powered psychic bullet (there was, of course, no way he could know about Lash).
Samuel Peabody
Samuel Peabody
Nobody ever suspects the secretary. Which is just the way he likes it.
A clerical wizard who insists on keeping everything in order, which makes him ideal for his job as the Council's senior paper-pusher. He records Council meetings and handles a wide range of extremely sensitive documents. However, he's also a member of the Black Council.
- Almighty Janitor: His entire job involves pushing paper around and taking notes, making him a minor but important functionary. He's not a slouch in actual combat either; he's an effective combat wizard, a good hand with a knife, and a dangerous expert in mind-control magic.
- Anti-Magic: Surprisingly adept at countering spells. He deflects most of Harry's spells while he's attempting to run him down.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: With the Skinwalker in Turn Coat.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Morgan kills him.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Important he might be, but he's still a very minor functionary.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Peabody has made numerous minor appearances in earlier books, always as a minor background character. For example, he's the one who took notes on the Council meeting in Summer Knight, wrote Die Lied der Erlking, was present at Molly's trial in Proven Guilty, and so on.
- Foreshadowing: Whenever the Senior Council, particularly the Merlin, is about to Kick the Dog in the earlier books, Peabody is generally in the background, scribbling away.
- Meaningful Background Event: As mentioned before, he was generally on-hand whenever the Senior Council was being particularly hidebound. And the moment he sees Harry rise to give testimony at Morgan's trial, he pulls out an ink jar concealing a mistfiend to use at a moments notice.
- Mind Control: He puts the majority of the Council under varying degrees. The younger members could go Manchurian Agent, while the Senior Council were gently nudged into acting in more rash ways and their negative qualities enhanced.
- Mind Rape: Part and parcel of the Mind Control.
- The Mole: For the Black Council.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: One of the reasons he failed to Mind Control Harry Dresden is because since he had always been a collossally pompous and controlling jerk to Harry even by Council standards, Harry would rarely talk, interact or listen to Peabody unless its absolutely necessary. This directly proved to be his downfall.
- Paperworkaholic: Not much of a wizard but loves his paperwork, which is why other Council members dump all the bureaucratic tasks on him. Harry mostly perceives him as an Obstructive Bureaucrat, however. It could just be he relished this because, as The Mole in the Council, he used the signatures that various wizards left on his papers to Mind Control them. Harry, who never signed anything out of dislike for Peabody, thus became the only member left to oppose him.
- Smug Snake: He claims he has a bastion of order in his office and detests anything untidy, like Harry or the German language.
- On the latter, when Harry pointed out a mistake in a book Peabody authored in German, Peabody chose to blame ''the language'' instead of himself.
- Tempting Fate: When Harry brings up Mouse to identify him as The Mole, he scoffs at the idea of Mouse identifying him at all. Then Ancient Mai identifies Mouse as a Foo Dog and beyond reproach with his testimony.
- Your Head Asplode: In Turn Coat, Morgan double-taps him at point blank range. Not much is left.
- Would Hit a Girl: He attempted to kill Ancient Mai via proxy and cut the artery of a female Warden he took hostage to slow down Harry.
Agents of Nemesis
For Victor Sells, Leonid Kravos, and the Evil Eye cult, see their entries under other powerful people.
For Philip Denton and his hexenwulfen, see their entries under the FBI.
For the Leanansidhe, Maeve, Aurora, and Cat Sith, see their entries under the Fae.
For Justine, see her folder under the Vampires.
