Characters introduced in The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.
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The Party
Kevin Lodge
"What would you rather have? A fantasy world with its own mysteries and pitfalls or just another cookie cutter setting with no real surprises?"
The DM of the campaign. He's trying to write a module based on the game, but is frustrated by his players' powergaming. Flirts awkwardly with Joanna for much of the movie. In Hands of Fate, his role is barely more than a cameo in the festival cut. In the extended cut, he and Joanna have a conflict over the status of their relationship.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Downplayed and without typical dramatic situations. He wants to have a group engaging in his world, but is routinely unprepared for Joanna's roleplaying and eventually admits that his characters all just one-dimensional placeholders without proper names.
- Foil: To Cass. Both are fans and gamers, especially in Dungeons and Dragons, who are prone to Control Freak tendencies in their respective perspectives as gamer vs game master, who constantly come to blows whenever things don't go their way.
- Cass is a full-blown hardcore gamer with a heavy tendency towards typical D&D fantasy (elves and the like), and Lodge as a story-centric game master with a fantasy-European setting. He also consistently tries to bend the rules in order to give himself and his team as much of an advantage (or just to fuck with Lodge), oftentimes stretching Lodge's patience.
- Lodge expects his party to conform to his desires as a DM, but primarily because he wants to create a new story module that can be sold, something that's hard to do when his party keeps on trying to break the game and ignore his wishes. However, his own inflexibility and inability to recognize the limitations of his writing means that he constantly finds himself butting heads with his party, and leaving in frustration.
- Where things differ is how they ultimately change: Lodge tries to make an attempt to improve himself to accommodate for his party's wishes after a talk with Joanna, subtly acknowledging that he needs to be more open-minded and finding that he can make things more interesting without needing to be so rigid. He's also much more able to actually talk things out with Joanna over his troubles, showing that he isn't incapable of being open-minded. Cass however had a falling out with Joanna before the film because of his inability to let go of his Control Freak tendencies. He also tries to undermine and belittle her thoughts on more than one occasion and disregarding her feelings on a matter more than once, which eventually culminates in the climax of the film, where her decision to revive Osric causes him to Rage Quit and drive her to tears, before shamefacedly returning later to apologize after cooling off.
- Game Master: He runs the scenario for his group - for the third time.
- Hypocrite:
- He makes a big deal about not wanting to have any Monks in the party, since it would break the fantasy-Europe setting. Then the second combat encounter is with ninjas. This doesn't go unnoticed by Cass.
- There is the general contrast between Lodge talking about desire to make an epic adventure with lived-in world and the fact that it's populated by nameless placeholders, the story is cliche to the fault and the setting couldn't be more generic. In fact, his general idea for "unique fantasy" is that of a Standard Fantasy Setting - it just isn't any of the official D&D settings.
- Last-Name Basis: Lodge.Joanna: Help me out here, Kevin.
Cass: Kevin?
Gary: Wait, your name is Kevin?
Leo: You have a first name? - Railroading: He doesn't want to trust his players with the story and feels obliged to have them on a short leash to keep them on track.
- Writer's Block: He struggles to finish writing his module both before and throughout the movie. By the end, he finally gets it published.
Sir Osric
Kevin's GMPC, Sir Osric, is a Paladin placed there solely to police the party.- GMPC: Lodge adds him to the party to keep the players on track, much to their annoyance at the "babysitter". It becomes a Reconstructed Trope - his presence mirrors the frictions between Lodge and the players, but as they get along better in the game, Osric's personality develops and he builds more of a rapport with the PCs.
- The Paladin: It's his class — a Magic Knight empowered by the gods to uphold the ideals of Lawful Good. As the PCs tend to stray quite far from those ideals, his vows require some careful handling all around.
- Stupid Good: The rest of the group has to blatantly lie that there is an evil act being committed somewhere off screen just to get this Lawful Good paladin to leave in order for the rest of them to torture a villain for information, of which normally he would not allow. Lampshaded by the third time this happens, Sir Osric is well aware of their antics, sighs to himself and half-heartedly leaves to "fight evil".
- By the time they get to interrogating the Death Demon, they have him turn a filled waterskin into Holy Water. The Death Demon claims the Paladin wouldn't tolerate torture. The party just looks at Osric, as at that point, Lodge just gives up on trying to stop them from doing so.
Sir Osric: [sighs] My, what fine, yet rustic architecture. I think I will examine it more closely. [walks away after getting a pat on the back from Daphne, and an aside glance to the party, as the Death Demon starts to panic] - This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: At the end of the movie, when Gary/Luster insists yet again in character that she is not Evil she's Chaotic Neutral:Sir Osric: You are evil, and a whore.
Joanna
"I spent 2 hours on this character and I'm gonna play her, okay?"
Cass's ex-girlfriend. The newbie and The Roleplayer. Flirts with Lodge for most of the movie. In Hands of Fate, she is now the Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend, but largely unchanged from what little we see of her in the festival cut. In the extended cut, she discovers an engagement ring in Lodge's backpack and freaks out about it.
- Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: Inverted. Joanna starts out being the only player who treats Lodge's world seriously, which is a big part of why he takes a liking to her. This doesn't stop her character from nearly getting killed.
- Close-Range Combatant: The other players initially expect her to be their Stone Wall, and are shocked when she actually turns out to be extremely effective damage-dealer. Somewhat deconstructed, as this actually leaves the party without a real tank, with often lethal results.
- Flawless Token: Played With. In addition to being a more enthusiastic roleplayer, Joanna is able to come up with a killer combo in her first time playing. Subverted in that said combo involves a
Game-Breaker feat that shouldn't even have been available in a basic handbook and ultimately are useless except a single encounter. Cass objects to low hit points and defense for the party's Tank. And he gets vindicated - in the first non-Mook battle where she isn't able to crit-kill all the low-level stuff on the field, she's knocked down to a handful of hit points in the first round. It's not so much she out-Min-Maxed the Min-Maxer, it's that her playstyle better matches that of the GM. - Not So Above It All: When Cass cheats during the fight against Mort Kemnon by rearranging the game pieces while Lodge is distracted, Joanna looks like she's about to protest, but decides to go through with it when she realizes that it'll benefit the party.
- The Roleplayer: Notably the only member of the group with any interest in roleplaying and engaging in the story, rather than killing things.
Daphne
Joanna's fighter is physically frail but excellent at inflicting Critical Hits at high speed. Her uniquely specialized build is an oddity in terms of game mechanics, and her interest in other characters is an oddity in the party. She's usually the one to talk to NPCs, think about the story, and act as she thinks her character would.- Crippling Overspecialization: Her build focuses on maximizing the chances and damage of critical hits, to the detriment of defense or hit points. Too bad there is exactly one combat encounter in the campaign with anything not immune to them.
- Chain Lethality Enabler: One of her feats grants a follow-up attack when she kills an enemy before they can act in the fight.
- Critical Hit Class: The main emphasis of her character build. She has a hugely increased chance of scoring critical hits, does extra damage on crits, and can make additional attacks after she gets a critical.
- Glass Cannon: Her Constitution is so low she has less than half the Hit Points a fighter of her level could have,Explanation but her build is designed to strike first and deal out a load of critical hits.
- Waif-Fu: A tiny girl, easily dwarfed by just about anyone, that still kicks some serious ass. Subverted when she's facing enemies that are impossible to crit-hit.
- Weak, but Skilled: Her physical stats are abysmal for a Fighter but she makes up for it with a clever combination of feats.
- Weapon Specialization: As another unorthodox choice, Daphne is fighting with a spear. And it's integral part of her build, allowing her to be deadly effective... as long as she can crit-attack.
Sean "Cass" Cassidy
"You could have been a GOD! I know Mormons who would kill for that!"
The Munchkin. He often gets into arguments with Lodge about Rules vs. Story. When told that this is a humans-only campaign with a European style, he creates an Elven Monk.
In Hands of Fate, he is still a Munchkin more concerned with winning than stories, though he manages to remain a Loveable Rogue as the story progresses rather than a Designated Hero.
- Character Development: In the third movie, Cass goes from being openly disdainful of the card game and its players and playing just to get into a chick's pants to enjoying the game (and the players) for its own merits and story.
- Converted Fanboy: Cass by the end of Hands of Fate.
- Deadpan Snarker: Especially in Hands of Fate, where his snarks aren't just playful - they are downright hostile.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Cass is quick to correct the announcer that refers to him by full name, Sean Cassidy.
- Even Nerds Have Standards: Cass makes it clear that LARPers are the lamest of the lame. Except for furries. He also goes into a full-on nerd rage when he encounters card game players, to everyone else's confusion.
- Hypocrite: Cass constantly brings up the rules whenever he objects to Lodge's DMing, but during the encounter against Mort Kemnon, the second Lodge gets distracted, he cheats by rearranging the game pieces during combat to give the party an advantage. Additionally, when the party gains access to the loot of the previous party, Cass uses it as an excuse to use multiple weapons that were never in the campaign to begin with.
- Informed Attribute: Cass is supposedly a munchkin, yet he plays a character who is not particularly more impressive in combat than the rest of the party. He does, however, possess the psychopatic drive for killing, so that's that.
- Instant Expert: When he first picks up Nine Empires the qualifiers for the world championships are already running. Somehow between then and the finals he becomes a master-level player, even if he didn't design his deck himself he's playing it perfectly.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When he first sees Daphne's stats he calls her out as a bad build useless for traditional tanking. However, the first time a non-mook takes a swing at her she loses almost all of her health, and her focus on boosting the odds and damage of critical hits makes her vulnerable against undead (which the vast majority of enemies in the campaign are). Furthermore, Cass already played the scenario twice, so he already knows what to expect and Daphne just doesn't cut those "requirements".
- Munchkin: A particularly curious case, since he displays various negative traits of one, but when it comes to using and playing the game, he's not particularly skilled or well-versed in the rules (his rule-lawyering is mostly about misconceptions rather than actual rules). The end result is an entitled jerk that wants to murder everything on his path.
- Never My Fault: Whenever things go wrong, Cass is first to blame just about anyone else, even if majority of those situations at least encouraged, if not outright caused by him. Including the reputation his gaming group has as bunch of terrible munchkins and murderhobos.
- Rules Lawyer: To near-sociopathic levels. It routinely bites him back in the ass, too.
- Shirtless Scene: Played for Laughs with Cass during his brief D&D Training Montage. The fact that Gary is dressed in black and thwacking him with a riding crop doesn't help matters.
- Sore Loser: He's horrible at losing. In fact, the plot comes from his insistence to "win" the scenario prepared by Lodge, even if he failed previous two attempts.
Brother Silence
Think kung-fu monk.- All Monks Know Kung-Fu: Despite Lodge's protest that the setting is Western Europe style, so there would be no kung-fu monks, Cass insists upon it enough that Lodge lets him.
- Barefisted Monk: He's supposed to be this, but most of his effective fist attacks come from using Stunning Fist. Otherwise, he mostly fights with weapons he finds in the chest from the previous party the players had.
- Ice-Cream Koan: Every so often Brother Silence tries to come up with a wise-sounding phrase to fit the Eastern monk his player is determined to play him as. Unfortunately for him, Cass lacks the linguistic skill to actually come up with anything profound. Highlighted at one point where, after saying something particularly stupid in one of these attemptsnote , the screen cuts back to the players all staring at Cass, and Lodge finally saying "...Lose fifty experience.""Indeed! The four elements, like man alone, are weak - but together they form the strong fifth element...Boron!"
Gary
"I'm not evil! I'm chaotic neutral!"
Gary's gameplay philosophy seems to be "If it moves, kill it," making him The Real Man. He insists that his Sorceress character is Chaotic Neutral despite her tendency to kill peasants, and he forgets that his character is female, leading to some humorous situations.
In Hands of Fate, he is the star of the main subplot, which involves Gary's hatred of a particular member of the Furry Fandom that was clearly inspired by Pokémon.
Gary returns in the Natural One spin-off mini-series, where he tries to dissuade his sister Monica from marrying a non-gamer—by playing RPGs with both of them, of course.
- Ax-Crazy: When it comes to Chibi-Chan in Hands of Fate.
- The Loonie: When he's not busy murdering things, he devises the craziest actions, like reanimating a roasted turkey - just for the kicks.
- The Real Man: He plays to kill enemies in every over-the-top way at his disposal, and counts hapless farmers as enemies when there's nothing else on hand.
- Serious Business: In Natural One, we find out only a true gamer is allowed to marry him or his sister.
Luster
Gary's Wild Sorceress PC.- Affirmative Action Girl: Parodied with Luster, a Vain Sorceress who is, fetishistically, played by a man.
- Chaotic Stupid/Stupid Evil: Kills multiple innocent peasants, because she could. Also uses Amnesia to avoid being hit with Smite Evil by Osric after killing so many of them.
- Chaotic Neutral: The alignment Gary claims Luster is to weakly justify her actions. By the end, everyone at the table flat out says she's Evil, not Neutral.
- Cross Player/Crosscast Role: Luster is alternately acted by a female and a crossdressing male. Typically any swaps between the two actors are done with clever camera cuts, but the movie does lampshade the trope by having a single occurrence where the two actors tag-team swap as the camera continues to roll.
- Gender Bender: Luster is constantly switching between female and male due to Gary forgetting and being reminded of her true gender.
- Kill It with Fire: His/her favorite M.O.
- Lady of Black Magic: An attempt at this archetype with her evil, vain nature and fire magic, but her player isn't very good at the whole "dignity" aspect.
- Skill Point Reset: Has her levels as sorcerer replaced by equal levels of cleric by a goddess at the end of Dorkness Rising.
- Stripperiffic: Her extremely revealing clothes. They work as Ms. Fanservice when she's played by female actress and Fan Disservice when Gary forgets Luster is female and portrays her himself.
- Third-Person Seductress: Luster, based on Gary's Hot Teacher. He gets the idea to hit on Daphne, gets reminded he's playing a woman, and decides to continue hitting on her because Girl on Girl Is Hot.
- Token Evil Teammate: A parody on the type of players who try to justify their character evil actions by inacuratly labeling them as Chaotic Neutral.
- Vain Sorceress
- Vancian Magic: Has to prepare her spells ahead of time. In one battle she spends the entire fight trying to re-prepare a spell she wasted frying a peasant.
- Wild Magic: A Wild Mage (variant wizard in AD&D or prestige class in 3E) who has a random chance of spells going awry. Causes her lightning bolt spell during their first battle to get delayed until after all the enemies are dead, zapping Flynn instead.
Leo
"Yes! I can totally seduce any homophobe with that roll!"
Leo usually plays fighters, but this time around he decided to play a bard. How different can it be? He finds out as he is constantly killed the first time he is attacked. Thank goodness for the Staff of Resurrection and back-up character sheets. On the plus side, he can totally seduce any woman he wants. And does. Probably would be The Loonie if he didn't die so much.
In Hands of Fate, he is still managing the local game store. He's also the Old Master who trains Cass in the ways of the Collectible Card Game.
In Natural One, Leo reluctantly joins Gary in his little scheme to break up Monica and Ryan.
- Insane Troll Logic: Leo maintains that he is able to sneak attack a book, despite its lack of a discernible anatomy, due to the fact that it has a "spine." And that despite bards not being able to sneak attack in the first place.
- Old Master: To Cass in Hands of Fate.
- Real Joke Name: His full name is Leo DaVinci.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Is far more calm and mature in Hands of Fate.
Flynn
Leo's Quirky Bard PC.- Butt-Monkey: Dies at least once per encounter Except the last battle, in which Sir Osric is the one to die. Thankfully the party was given a Staff of Healing that can revive him.
- When he tries to use the above mentioned Insane Troll Logic, the Random Number God again, has a hand in smiting the hubris of a player. Cue yet another Critical Failure that was so much of an Epic Fail, Flynn stabs himself, killing him again.
- Dies to an undead turkey that Luster cast Raise Dead on.
- Death Is Cheap: Flynn, and his impressive use of backup characters.Flynn: There's 37 more of me, assholes!
- Subverted twice, though. Original!Flynn dies so many times that he loses enough levels from every time he raised to be completely ineffective anymore. Solution? Have his store's staff/regulars write 50 copies of Flynn on PC sheets for him, so that every time he dies he just sends in another clone. Which he burns through in a single fight. Eventually the Staff of Healing runs out of charges from reviving him so many times, forcing the party to go back to the temple to heal Flynn the 51st.
- Did Not Think This Through: Leo normally plays Fighter or other combat focused characters, but decided to give Bard a go this time out of curiosity, and to give the party more support abilities. Which would be great, if he remembered what half his class's features are. He has to be reminded about his Bardic Knowledge, which is one of the most basic features of being Bard, and never casts buffs ahead of time.
- This joke can pass to youngest viewers, since D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e don't have Bardic Knowledge as a class feature for all bards.
- Horny Bard: A parody, courtesy of The Loonie playing him and his sky-high Seduction skill. He has a quickie with Luster in the middle of a royal audience and follows it up with a celibate nun right in front of the Hierophant.Flynn: Hey baby, wanna... tune my mandolin?
Daphne: Please understand, the horny bard does not represent us. - Kavorka Man: Flynn, to be kind, is not the kind of bard women typically swoon for. Thank god for high seduction stats.
- Lyrical Dissonance: Flynn sings a happy and soothing tune telling a panicked peasant to shut up or he'll let the sorceress murder him. And it works.Flynn: (singing) Shut up, peasant, rest your head, or we'll let the sorceress kill your ass dead...
- Prestige Class: He ends up with with a prestige class of Cantor.
- Redshirt Army: Leo's Bards.
- Send in the Clones: Leo's bard dies quickly and often. Tired of losing levels every time he's resurrected, he asks Lodge if he can just replace his character with another when he dies. He then prepares 50 bards, sending in a new one every time the last one dies. Leading to an incident during a large battle where the party needs to seek cover from an exceptionally powerful enemy and Leo advises them to "hide behind the mound of dead bards." And it works.
- They Killed Kenny Again: He dies over 55 times in the game's two sessions.
Non-Player Characters
Mort Agrippa
The first villain. Torturing him requires the characters to distract the Paladin.- Laughably Evil: He doesn't say much, but comes with a maniacal, evil laugh.
- Torture Is Ineffective: The party learns absolutely nothing when trying to make him talk.
Willem
A random peasant, who provides additional exposition on Westhaven.- Flat Character: Lodge didn't even originally have a name for him.
- Morality Pet: He's intended to be one for the party, but instead is killed with an over-the-top spell.
- Sole Survivor: He's the only resident of Westhaven that managed to escape from the massacre performed by the evil necromancers. Luster disintegrates him with a Flaming Hand of Fiery Doom for his trouble.
Drazuul
A death demon and The Dragon.- Compelling Voice: Compelling fear aura, but whatever gets in its range, can be then commanded by voice. He makes Brother Silence his total slave when Cass gets a Critical Failure on his saving throw.
- The Dragon: To Mort Kemnon.
- Eye Scream: Luster pours holy water into Drazuul's eye, causing his eyeball and part of his face to melt away.
- His Name Is...: Tries to say who's the mastermind of the evil scheme, but Luster just pours the rest of the holy water over his head, killing Drazuul mid-word.
- Holy Burns Evil: Is first maimed and then melted by a simple sack full of holy water.
- No Saving Throw: It's impossible to avoid his fear aura, meaning an instant compell when getting in range.
- Our Demons Are Different: A "death demon", summoned by Mort Kemnon as his lackey. Comes with a compelling fear aura and is flat-out impossible to fight in a direct combat. Also, commands a small army of undead.
Nodwick
A henchman left over from the last game. He was apparently waiting for two months for the wiped-out party to return when the new party showed up. He is an Homage to the Webcomic Nodwick.- Medium Awareness: He eventually figures out he's facing different characters played by the same people when meeting the current party.
Mort Kemnon:
The evil sorcerer who discovered the Mask of Death and plans to use it to overthrow the king.- Big Bad: Has an Artifact of Doom, a dungeon full of monsters, an Evil Laugh, and a plot to take over the kingdom. Subverted when he turns out not to be the one in charge.
- Die Laughing: And it's an evil, mocking laugh.
- His Name Is...: Inverted. Instead of the regular confession cut short by death, Mort Kemnon mocks the party for not figuring out who's the real Big Bad, laughing at them as he expires.
- The Psycho Rangers: In Dorkness Rising, Mort Kemnon defends himself with the undead bodies of the players' last party.
Hierophant:
The leader of the Church of Therinn- Dark Messiah: And that despite being a priest of a good-natured goddess and head of a Crystal Dragon Jesus church. Enough so that he's the true Big Bad of the story, plotting to use the Mask of Death to take over the kingdom.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No name is given to him and everyone sticks to his religious title.
- High Priest: Leads the Church of Therinn.
- Large Ham: It has to be seen to be believed.
- Royal "We": Constantly refers to himself as "we".
- Sinister Minister: He trapped Therinn in a light prison and then used her absence to stir the blind faith of the common men. If that wasn't enough, he plans to use the Mask of Death - for retrieval of which he sends the party - to take over the kingdom and rule it as Therinn's avatar.
- Treacherous Questgiver: Most of the players don't notice this because acting like Munchkins has effectively rendered them Genre Blind.
King Erasmus the Randomly-Biased
Sovereign king of the realm. Unusually acquiescent to random goings-on in his court.- Adipose Rex: Is quite pouchy, in Big Fun flavour.
- The Good King: Despite his title and not looking like much, he's a reasonable, benevolent monarch trying to protect his subjects.
- The Magnificent: The Randomly-Biased.
- Seen It All: He's completely unphased by the antics of the party, the "evil doers" in his realm or that the local religious head tried to overthrown him. When in the end the Mask of Death is stolen, he merrily sends the party on another adventure.
Other Gamers
