A character subpage for The Secret World. For the main page, go here.
London
Detective-Inspector and the London Metropolitan Police Service's unofficial liaison to the Templars; Shelley isn't actually a member of the Templars per se, but she is trusted enough to be allowed inside Temple Hall. With most of Ealdwic under lockdown, in the Templar introduction she ends up helping you past the police cordon and guiding you to the nearest source of information on the Secret World.
- Addiction Displacement: Used to smoke, but has since taken up eating mints; she admits that it's a dreadful habit, but she'd probably have to start smoking again to kick it.
- Vomiting Cop: Having long since gotten used to the carnage associated with magical crimes, she usually has to provide support for the members of the squad who haven't - which usually amounts to patting them on the back while they puke their guts out.
A street prophet preaching near Ealdwic station; prominent in the Templar introduction, where- through as-yet-unexplained means- he provides the flashback to the Tokyo Incident. However, in his words, it's presented as a prediction of the future...
- Cloudcuckoolander
- Consulting Mister Puppet: Has a habit of chatting with the crown-wearing glove puppet on his left hand.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: Averted, at least in the traditional sense; under his hat, the Fallen King sports a sizable pair of headphones, and remains as open and conversational as ever.
- Magical Homeless Person: He is a crazed street prophet who reportedly sleeps "underneath" London, dabbles in panhandling on the Tube, and wears plastic bags on his feet; however, his prophecies seem worryingly applicable to the looming apocalypse currently hanging over the world, and just listening to his first speech causes Templar-aligned players to experience visions of the cataclysm in Tokyo. To date, nobody has any idea of who he really is, and the full extent of his powers remain a mystery.
- Unreliable Narrator: Lampshaded. The flashback occurred before you were bonded with The Bees, making it unlikely to be a part of the future... although history is cyclical enough that it might yet be again.
A homeless man living in Ealdwic park, John Galahad claims to have been a knight in Arthurian times, although both the Templars and the local police remain skeptical. With no quest to occupy his time, most of his time is spent down at the pub, getting drunk, trying to romance the ladies, and occasionally being bailed out by his "squire," Callie James.
- Antiquated Linguistics: Immediately noticeable whenever he speaks.
- Chivalrous Pervert: He's "a bit of a letch" according Callie, and he openly admits that he's constantly lusting after women and addicted to porn. However, he's still fixated on the ideals of Chivalric Romance, and thus refuses to take advantage of her.
- Crazy Homeless People: What he's generally seen as, especially by the Templars and the Ealdwic police.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: A distinct possibility, though how he ended up in the 21st century is anyone's guess.
- Knight Errant: Specifically states himself to be this, and given that he's currently homeless, he's technically correct.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: As of yet, it's not established if Galahad really was an Arthurian Knight or if he's just insane.
Another character touched by the Bees, Callista James had to run away from home following the first manifestations of her powers - which apparently resulted in the accidental destruction of school property. Though she's been offered membership by the Templars, Callie prefers to remain neutral for the moment, sleeping rough in the park alongside John Galahad.
- Being Watched: Despite having dismissed her as a candidate for the Prometheus Initiative, the Orochi Group are still monitoring Callie just in case they need her at some point.
- Break the Cutie: During "Virgula Divina" it's revealed that Callie was subjected to this not long after discovering her powers. Unable to explain herself to her parents and the police, she decided to reveal the truth to her grandmother instead, believing that she'd be more understanding than anyone else. Unfortunately, "Gran" responded to the confession by having Callie sectioned. Doubly unfortunately, the instituion she was sent to was run by Vali - the Orochi Group's biotech corporation - and instead of being treated as a patient, she was used as a test subject for the Virgula Divina project. After months of being subjected to miserable housing, hellish drug regimes and humiliating experiments, she was ultimately rejected in favour of Emma Smith. As if to add insult to injury, Orochi responded to her failure by throwing her out of Amity House and not even bothering to keep an eye on who she told, because they knew nobody would believe her. The fact that nobody, not even "the Bad Guys," would accept her was so crushing that just recalling it drives her to tears, though her tears are more out of anger than anything else.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Of course, to Galahad.
- Country Mouse: One of the reasons why she prefers to sleep in the park, even though the local hotel has offered her a free room.
- Cursed with Awesome: Callie is very up-front in telling you that she finds the Secret World and the magic associated with it utterly glorious; even the fact that she was pushed down the rabbit hole doesn't dampen her enthusiasm that much.
- Hearing Voices: Specifically, Gaia's.
- Magical Homeless Person: He is a runaway and a member of Gaia's Chosen sleeping rough in Ealdwic Park. Having been committed to a mental hospital after her magical powers manifested, she was a test subject of an Orochi Group subsidiary before being discarded as a failure and dumped on the streets of London. Most of her time is spent learning how to control her powers, trying to decide which of the factions she wants to side with, and trying to keep her friend and fellow vagrant John Galahad out of trouble.
- Mundane Utility: In "Virgula Divina," she uses a handheld fireball to light a cigarette.
- Oop North: Grew up near the Yorkshire moors, and still sports a very noticeable northern accent.
- Playing with Fire: Her primary ability.
- Power Incontinence: Not a serious case, but still enough for her to comment that fire-retardant foam is a nightmare to get out of her hair.
- The Runaway: Fearing the reception she might get from her family or the local police, Callie has no intention on returning home any time soon - though she does still send the occasional postcard to her parents just to let them know that she's alive and well.
- Too Much Information: At one point, lulled into security by your unending silence, she starts telling you that she's thinking of getting Beardsly's Sir Bedevere tattooed somewhere intimate on her body- before she realizes her mistake and hastily shuts up.
- Touched by Vorlons: Just like the player.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: This is one of the reasons she hasn't joined the Templars, as they aren't exactly the Shining Knights she's looking for.
- Voiced by: Elisabeth Uter
New York
Paranoiac, conspiracy theorist, and editor-in-chief of underground magazine "Weird Non-Fiction." Working out of a laundromat in a condemned building, Screed mainly exists to provide information on the Illuminati, but unlike similar NPCs in London and Seoul, he has no real affiliation with the organization he details.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Amongst other things, Screed thinks that Pac-Man is a visual representation of how the Illuminati see the rest of humanity.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: He might be wrong about quite a few things, but when it comes to fearing the Illuminati's power, he's absolutely right.
- Even David's claim Pac-Man is Illuminati propaganda may not be so far-fetched as it seems at first glance, as Kirsten Geary claims that, not only does the Illuminati run Hollywood, they've also had hands in much of America's pop culture to spread their message, such as Elvis Presley.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: He might be wrong about quite a few things, but when it comes to fearing the Illuminati's power, he's absolutely right.
- Conspiracy Theorist: To say the least; if it exists, Screed's prepared to weave it into a conspiracy - to the point that the Illuminati actually use him as a means of obfuscating what they're really up to, while at the same time using his occasional accuracy to uncover the more obscure details they haven't learned of just yet.
- It's hinted in the Dragon Mission Report for the "Crossroad of the Worlds" Raid that the Dragon is also providing intel to David, and protecting his site from being shut down (not that he knows any of it), all to keep stirring up the pot of chaos, as per their want.
- Failed a Spot Check: Oddly enough, despite all the paranoia he demonstrates in virtually every other aspect of his life, Screed doesn't see anything particularly suspicious about one of his friends taking a photo of him talking to you.
- The worst part? The friend that took the photo? That's Leah Cassini, the Illuminati sysadmin.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Still firmly believes that Leah isn't in any way suspicious. For good measure, even by the events of "The Broadcast," he still believes you to be completely trustworthy and doesn't even suspect you of being a member of a secret society (Illuminati or otherwise). Worse still, he doesn't even consider that allowing you access to his computer might be a bad idea, even with all the restrictions he's left on it - and believes Leah to be unnecessarily paranoid for warning him not to trust you!
- I Know You Know I Know: "The Illuminati... I know you know, and they know I know. You know?"
- The Insomniac: Believing that the world will inevitably change for the worst in his sleep, he's tried everything he can possibly try to avoid sleeping: vitamin supplements, energy drinks, nicotine gum, pop rocks, hair spray...
- Intrepid Reporter: He likes to think so.
- Kill and Replace: Believes that the Illuminati have done this to his girlfriend, replacing her with an android duplicate that's trying to drug his meals.
- Meaningful Name: The rant-prone conspiracy nut is appropriately named for a speech or diatribe.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: Ironically, Screed is unknowingly part of the coverup mechanism the Illuminati use to disguise the Secret World, which involves judicious use of this trope; basically, they ensure that he and other conspiracy theorists publish as many of their theories as possible, the crazier the better. That way, if any real snippets of info leak out, they'll be lost in the mass of bullshit that Screed and the others have propagated.
- The Paranoiac: Though he's certainly Properly Paranoid when it comes to the Illuminati, Screed fulfils several points on the criteria list for Paranoid Personality Disorder: he's suspicious and cynical beyond even the rational limits set by being aware of the Illuminati; he's aggressive and often hostile in conversations; he's a control freak in regards to his girlfriend, taking frequent notes on her day-to-day activities in the belief that she's an Illuminati android; he's self-important enough to believe that his magazine is the last bastion of hope against the Illuminati, and that he's dangerous enough to need supervision by an android... and of course, his many, many conspiracy theories.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: A frequent problem of his, as the Dragon observe in "The Broadcast." Occasionally, he manages to discover something genuine, but usually through incorrect facts and misinterpreted evidence: in "Crossroads Of The Worlds," for example, he's absolutely right when he says that the Illuminati are using him to help cover up their activities by ensuring that he gets hold of the information - and ends up making it look ridiculous in the process. He also correctly guesses that the player must already know at least some truth about the Secret World, given that they're still paying attention to his rants. However, he came to the first conclusion because Penny started making sarcastic remarks on the latest conspiracy - and because Screed is still under the impression that Penny is an Illuminati android operative, he assumes that said remarks are all part of the scheme to make the conspiracy look ridiculous. He also fails to imagine that the player might actually represent one of the secret societies he lives in fear of.
- Robosexual: Believes himself to be one of these. Despite firmly believing Penny to be an Illuminati robot, Screed doesn't appear to have ended his love life with her, if "The Broadcast" is any evidence; apparently, a "hot android who knows the Kama Sutra" was simply too much for Screed to resist.
- The Roleplayer: Screed takes D&D very seriously, believing it to be the only logical way to resist Illuminati control.
A back-alley plastic surgeon and maverick scientist, Anton Aldini has devoted himself to the study of paraplasticism and the creation of new life - having vowed to sculpt a new breed of humanity from the bodies of the dead. However, with his ambitions largely unaccepted by fellow scientists, he's been forced to fund his operation through offering plastic surgery to fellow Secret Worlders; as such, Aldini has taken over an abandoned slaughterhouse and repurposed it as his surgery, dubbing it "The Modern Prometheus" - one of two ways for players to alter their appearance during the game.
- Affably Evil: He's undoubtedly a delusional psychopath, but there's no denying that he's also very friendly with customers and guests.
- Back-Alley Doctor: On the face of it, given that he's working out of a derelict abattoir and using a lot of brutal-looking tools. He's also very good at what he does, however.
- Berserk Button: Aldini really hates Mary Shelley and her most famous work, often resorting to Swedish obscenities when referring to her. He doesn't much appreciate being compared to Dr Frankenstein either.
- Creepy Basement / Room Full of Zombies: The Modern Prometheus boasts a sizeable basement that's currently swarming with zombified nurses; worse still, an entire corridor of the place has been overtaken by a growing blob of flesh.
- Easy Sex Change: Averted; a sex-change is one of the few things that Aldini can't do for you... yet.
- Evil Laugh: Sports an impressive chortle that he likes to make use of in times of celebration.
- Famous Ancestor: Giovanni Aldini, Dr Aldini's great-great-great-great-grandfather, was actually the inspiration for Doctor Frankenstein—hence the reason why Aldini calls his surgery "The Modern Prometheus."
- For Science!: As he puts it, most of what he does is "for the sake of beauty and perfection," and "for the sake of science and progress!"
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Aldini sports a number of old scars across his face, and true to the trope, is more than a little bit deranged.
- Gibbering Genius: Especially in "Just A Flesh Wound," in which he swings so wildly between English, Swedish and excited giggling that it's almost impossible to work out what he's saying without the subtitles.
- Grave Robbing: Contrary to the Frankenstein image he's ended up cultivating, Aldini doesn't rob the graves himself. Instead, he orders human corpses in bulk from a grave-robbing company, specifically the London-based P. Schuyler and Sons.
- Hospital Hottie: Several attractive nurses can be found on duty at The Modern Prometheus, and Aldini hints that he enjoys regular sex with them... though for some reason, none of them ever speak. More worryingly, "Just A Flesh Wound" reveals that Aldini has an entire basement infested with zombified nurses. It's never made entirely clear what happened to them: perhaps they were repurposed as test subjects in Aldini's experiments... or maybe they were the results of the experiments, reanimated corpses ultimately banished to the basement when Aldini lost control of them - which might explain why none of the current crop of nurses ever speak. This latter impression only gains more weight in the opening to "The Animate Clay," when Aldini explains that his latest attempt at creating his "perfect being" was female, and her attempts to speak ended with her vomiting black bile.
- Keet: The good doctor spends most of his cutscenes in constant motion, swaggering, dancing, gesturing with his hacksaw, and posturing grandly - apparently finding it impossible to stand still unless he's actively operating on someone.
- Large Ham: Gleefully chews the scenery with just about every single line of dialogue, wether he's expounding on his own genius or just ranting in Swedish.
- Mad Artist: On top of being a mad scientist, Aldini also fancies himself something of an artist.
- Mad Doctor: More specifically, a mad plastic surgeon. Granted, he's never yet murdered a patient. In fact, the only person he's known to have murdered is his own father.
- Mad Scientist: The plastic surgery that Aldini performs is just a convenient means of financing his darker experiments in continuing his ancestor's work.
- Meat Grinder Surgery: Harvesting the flesh needed for surgery involves a lot of this, as "Just A Flesh Wound" demonstrates; in fact, you have to experiment with numerous pieces of gruesome equipment - from axes to sledgehammers - before you finally find the perfect tool for the job: a chainsaw.
- Never My Fault: Upon discovering that one of his experimental "perfect beings" has escaped the building during the intro to "The Animate Clay," Aldini promptly blames you for harvesting the defective materials that he believes led to his creation's rebellion. Quite apart from the fact that he previously found nothing wrong with the materials you harvested way back in "Just A Flesh Wound," it's later revealed that he's lying through his teeth: the perfect being wasn't made from anything you collected, but from the corpse of Aldini's own father - murdered and harvested by Dr Aldini himself.
- Patricide: Not only did Aldini murder his own father, but he also incorporated Paulo Aldini's corpse into his experiments - gradually reanimating him as his latest "perfect being." During "The Animate Clay," Anton hires the player to hunt down his father and kill him again.
- Self-Surgery: Sick and tired of forgetting his account number for P. Schuyler and Sons, Aldini actually went so far as to carve the number into the bones of his own wrist. Then, he cut a permanent incision in the flesh just above the number, so if he ever had to check in a hurry, all he would need to do was lift the flap of skin and look.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Vain and hopelessly conceited, Aldini seems himself as being destined for greatness, and even the fact that he's currently working out of an abandoned slaughterhouse and only funding his operation through back-alley surgery doesn't appear to dampen his ego. "The Animate Clay" reveals that he's even drafting his Nobel Prize acceptance speech!
- Surgical Impersonation: In the mission "Face Off", Aldini is commissioned to disguise sleeper agents as Morninglight-affiliated actors in order to curtail the cult's forays into Hollywood. For good measure, if you end up picking the wrong agents for the task, Aldini is also hired in order to make repairs when the would-be-actors go insane and tear their faces off.
Seoul
- Voiced by: Sung Wan-Kyeong
The Dragon's liaison on the local police force, Kim can usually be relied upon to provide otherwise classified information to the player - though he hints that there's a good chance that the Dragon already knows.
- The Commissioner Gordon
- Cowboy Cop: Probably the reason why the Dragon accept his aid rather than that of any other officer.
- Police Brutality: Kim takes great delight in beating up Morninglight cultists right in the middle of the police station's main office.
- Voiced by: Nam Do-Hyeong
A former pro-gamer who has been accused of stealing millions of Korean won in a gaming championship scandal, and has been in hiding since. He plays a role during a Dragon mission to gain intel on the Orochi Group.
- Frame-Up: A victim of this: after Park bailed out of the Prometheus Initiative, he was framed for a gaming championship scandal worth millions. Since then, he's taken to hiding in a PC Cafe... right above the police station, an irony he himself points out.
- Mission Control: Serves as this during the "End Game" mission for the Dragon, guiding the player through an Orochi facility.
- Voiced by: Yang Jung-Hwa
A Korean Catholic nun who was investigating the disappearance of children in Seoul, including youths from her ministry. The Dragon helped her investigation, by giving three train tickets in different directions. The one Kang chose led her to an Orochi test clinic... and showed the Awful Truth of what happened to her missing children.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: In "End Game", it's revealed that the Morninglight and the Orochi Group have been taking away countless kids not just from Kang's ministry, but also from all over Seoul. She's tried to take this up with the police, but they're either too dismisive Morninglight, or are too scared of the Orochi Group, to investigate any further. The Dragon were able to show her the Awful Truth of what one facility of the Prometheus Initiative was doing to the missing kids, it utterly horrified Kang, to the point she only HOPES the other facilities the Dragon could have shown her couldn't be as bad as the one she saw... oh, and to rub salt in the wound, there aren't any signs ANY of the Korean candidates inducted into the Prometheus Initiative are free, or even alive, from Orochi.