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Characters / The Underland Chronicles

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Characters who appear in The Underland Chronicles.

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    Overlanders 

Gregor

The main character. At first an ordinary eleven-year-old kid living in New York City, he discovers the Underland when he follows his baby sister down a vent in their apartment building's laundry room and learns he's the prophesied Warrior.

  • Because Destiny Says So: If it weren't for the prophecies, he would not be involved in any of the Underland's battles. And he isn't always happy about it.
  • Beginner's Luck: He seems to get lucky a lot when fighting, even though he's not the brightest. Somewhat justified in that he's a rager.
    • Lampshaded in Gregor and the Code of Claw, when he realizes that if his rager skills fail him, he's just a twelve-year-old kid who's had a few sword lessons, and therefore in big trouble.
  • The Berserker: In Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, he learns he's a "rager" a person with highly developed warrior skills, a natural-born killer. Meaning he has a natural capacity to go into this state when his life is in danger. It's not always voluntary, which is really bad for a character who normally hates to kill.
  • Blessed with Suck: Turns out being the Warrior of the prophecy isn't much fun for him. At the end of the series, he is warned that with his rager abilities it will be much easier for him to kill people, so he'll always have to keep an eye on himself.
  • Big Brother Instinct: He’s been responsible for the care of both of his younger sisters for years now, which means he’d do absolutely anything to keep them safe.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: He never wants to fulfill the prophecies that Sandwich set down for him, but they always find a way to rope him in. Particularly in Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, his Grandma tells him "You can run away, but the prophecy will find you somehow." A bit later his mother is infected with a deadly plague forcing him to go after the cure. The call metaphorically hits him right where he lives.
    • Ripred's "escort" for him is a much more literal example from the same book.
  • Children Forced to Kill: He's not even a teenager yet, and many of the books have him being sent into military situations fighting animal soldiers- which he's pretty good at thanks to his "rager" abilities. At the end of the series he has a conversation about how much it's messed him up.
  • Covered with Scars: By the end he's racked up an impressive total. After his fight with the Bane, he basically gives up the idea of even coming up with an excuse for them.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: He wears black armour during the final battle, and his bond is black as well.
  • Death Is Such an Odd Thing: The "Everybody Dies" Ending leaves him in a state of emotional distress about many characters, many of whom were absolute jerkasses toward him. Particularly in Gregor and the Code of Claw, when faced with the Prophecy of Time that foretells his own death.
  • Disappeared Dad: His father vanished when he was eight. Gregor finds him and helps him come back home at the end of the first book.
  • First-Name Basis: His last name is never mentioned.
  • Heroic BSoD: Suffers from one in the Gregor and The Code of Claw, when the realization that if the prophecy is true he's going to die.
  • Hyper-Awareness: He can see his surroundings by using echolocation.
  • It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: He has a bad case of this. He's fated to fulfill several prophecies which make the series go from mildly darker than standard High Fantasy to bad. Really bad.
  • Kid Hero: Twelve years old by the time the series ends.
  • Missing Mom: When his mom gets the plague in Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, she spends most of the rest of the series recuperating in the Underland.
  • Official Couple: With Luxa.
  • Promotion to Parent: With his dad missing, his mom working, and his grandma's dementia, he starts out with a lot of weight on his shoulders. Things don't get much better when he has the Underland to think about as well.
  • Scars Are Forever: Which he realizes is part of his Bittersweet Ending.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: At the end of the series. He's twelve.
  • Spectacular Spinning: Eventually like Ripred, he learns to spin. It is implied that all ragers can.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: It's strongly implied that he will never see Luxa again.
  • Unstoppable Rage: As a result of being a rager.
  • War Is Hell: He realizes this is true for both the Underland and Overland in the ending chapter.
  • Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: He seems to love mocking Luxa's stiff conduct and all that. Has some pretty funny moments.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Even before the books start, he didn't get to be much of a kid.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Brought home in Gregor and the Curse of The Warmbloods when his mom contracts the plague; he acknowledges mentally that there was no other way to ensure the prophecy would happen the way it needed to.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: The final prophecy in Gregor and the Code of Claw refers to the Warrior's death.

Boots

Gregor's youngest sister. Her real name is Margaret. She starts the events of the whole series by falling through a vent in her apartment's laundry room.

Lizzie

Gregor's second younger sister. Extremely shy, she never even visits the Underland until the last book.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: In Gregor and The Code of Claw, her talent with puzzles becomes incredibly useful.
  • First-Name Basis: Her last name is never mentioned.
  • Good with Numbers: Lizzie's extremely skilled with math, incidentally something she has in common with Ripred's late daughter.
  • Replacement Goldfish: For Ripred. She reminds him of one of his deceased daughters.
  • Secret-Keeper: Is often required to explain why her family members have disappeared for extended periods of time.
  • Shrinking Violet: Painfully shy, with only one friend from school, and finds the Underland too frightening to visit, even when her mother is recuperating from the plague in Regalia.

Gregor, Boots and Lizzie's Family

Gregor, Lizzie, and Boots' parents, though their father has been missing for years at the start of the series, and their paternal grandmother who lives with them.
  • Adults Are Useless: The parents are not completely useless, and never by choice, but they are rarely able to help Gregor with his unique problems. Averted in Gregor the Overlander when the dad manages to steer them back to Regalia.
  • Disappeared Dad: The father in Gregor the Overlander, vanished when Gregor was eight. It turns out he ended up in the Underland, and he comes back home at the end of the first book.
  • First-Name Basis: The mother's first name is Grace.
  • Good Parents: Though their father is mysteriously missing in Gregor the Overlander, and their mother is a Missing Mom for most of the last three books.
  • Missing Mom: When the mom gets the plague in Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, she spends most of the rest of the series recuperating in the Underland.
  • No Name Given: We never learn the father's name.
  • Shipper on Deck: The mom who approves of Luxa, because she's "got attitude."

Mrs. Cormaci

An older widow who lives in the same apartment building as Gregor's family.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: She tends to send just the right objects at just the right times and who gives tarot readings. Gregor at one point wonders if she can see what he needs in her tarot cards, and given that psychics exist in this series, he could be right.
  • Nosy Neighbor: A well-intentioned and not especially annoying version, but any questions are awkward when you don't know have a good explanation.
  • Secret-Keeper: Becomes this for the family starting in Gregor and the Marks of Secret.
  • Supreme Chef: Apparently a very good chef.

    Underlanders 

Underland Creatures

Tropes that apply to a species as a whole.
  • Aerith and Bob: The humans have both typical English names — Henry, Howard, York, Susanna, Judith — and more fantastic names like Solovet, Nerissa, Vikus and Mareth. Lampshaded when Gregor is introduced to – Henry, he almost laughs that "among all these strange names, there's a Henry".
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Most rats and humans believe this about each other.
  • Animals Not to Scale: All of the animals are much, much larger than their Overland cousins.
  • Bat Out of Hell: Averted, as the bats are the humans' most valuable allies.
  • Bond Creatures: The humans and the bats are the only species with this. Until Gregor and the Code of Claw.
  • Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The assorted oversized creatures of the overworld are given simpler names, allegedly by the people who live there. (Rats are known as "gnawers", spiders as "spinners", and so on.) This is what the creatures of the Underworld actually call themselves, just translated into the nearest thing in English. Humans have one of these names too among the Underworld creaturesnote , but they don't like to hear it.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Seems to be an inborn trait of the rats, who are also some of the few underlanders to use informal language.
    Twitchtip: (when Photos-glow-glow "can't understand" boots): Allow me to translate. She said If you don't stop you incessant bable that big rat sitting in the boat next to you will rip you head off.
  • Dirty Coward: The fireflies.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: And how. All the rats seem to be like this.
  • Evolutionary Stasis: Averted in that the Underlander humans' eyes turned purple and their hair turned a very light blond. Although how living under ground could cause a change in melanin levels that quickly could be an example of artistic license.
  • Fantastic Racism:
    • Even though the crawlers/cockroaches, gnawers/rats, spinners/spiders, fliers/bats, etc. that coexist with humans in the Underland are not human, they are sentient and treated as full characters on the same level as humans. Prejudices held among human characters towards these species are even treated as equal to any intra-human bigotry.
    • The bats, humans, and mice are allies with each other, and hate the rats, who hate just about everyone but especially the humans and mice.
    • The insects dislike pretty much all the mammals. The spiders are willing to play both sides, and the cockroaches are considered stupid.
  • Gender Is No Object: Certainly not for the armed forces of Regalia, humans and bats alike, to the point that they're currently led by women.
  • Good with Numbers: The mice, judging by their Theme Naming.
  • Humans Kill Wantonly: The giant, intelligent rats are called "Gnawers", bats are "Flyers", mice are "Nibblers", etc. Humans are " Killers", a moniker they picked up after they nearly drove a population of moles to extinction in order to take their land. Not that anyone would call them that to their faces, of course.
  • Lazy Bum: The fireflies. Mareth describes how he once saw two fireflies try to fight to the death over a piece of cake, only to accuse the other of cheating and resort to sulking.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Ripred, The Bane (whose true name is Pearlpelt), Twirltongue, Lapblood, Mange...all the rats have some scary names.
  • The Nose Knows: The rats demonstrate this quality in their first appearance by accurately calculating what Gragor and Boots ate for dinner hours earlier right down to the tiny bowl of greens. They also are shown to be able to estimate human emotions and navigate and fight in complete darkness.
  • Old Shame: invoked In Gregor and the Code of Claw, it's revealed that Bartholomew of Sandwich resorted to poisoning the moles to get their land. It was thought they were all killed by this tactic, and it poisoned everyone else's opinion of the humans.
  • People of Hair Colour: All the Regalians have silver/blond hair.
  • Rat Men: The giant rats, which are sentient. There are similar giant versions of many small animals from our world.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: The rats and mice both are much larger than their above-ground counterparts.
  • Spider Swarm: There's a species of spiders called "Spinners" living as an entire race.
  • Strange-Syntax Speaker: The cockroaches tend to mix up verb and subject placement as well as using repetition of certain sentence elements, such as "Do it, I can, do it," or "be small Human, be?"
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: If two or more species have to work together, it most likely involves this.
  • Theme Naming:
    • All of the bats have names taken from Greek mythology.
    • Luxa's mother is named Judith, while Judith's twin is named Hamnet and their sister is named Susannah. William Shakespeare had a daughter named Susannah and twins named Judith and Hamnet.
    • The mice are named after famous mathematicians and mathematical principles.
    • The rats have compound names, usually violent — Ripred, Gorger, Makemince.

Luxa

A year younger than Gregor, she is the reigning queen of Regalia, though still under the authority of a ruling Council. Frequently involved in the quests.
  • Ace Pilot: Universally regarded by her fellow Regalians as the most talented bat-flier in the Underland. Together, she and Aurora can pull off acrobatics that much more talented soldiers would be hard-pressed to muster.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: When she is introduced, she's eleven, and the Queen of Regalia. Subverted in that she doesn't actually have much authority at first — a ruling council of adult ministers makes the decisions.
  • Action Girl: Pretty much a requirement, with the humans nearly always at war with the rats.
  • Cool Big Sis: Eventually becomes this for Hazard, post-"Curse of the Warmbloods".
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: We never learn much about her parents, but apparently they were pretty decent people.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Very cold with Gregor when they first meet, a combination of arrogance and stoicism, but over time warms up to him, and others.
  • Fantastic Racism: Getting over it is part of her Character Development.
  • A Girl and Her X: With her bond bat, Aurora. They're incredibly close even for bonds — after her parents were killed, Luxa spent so much time with Aurora they were allowed to become bonds earlier than usual, and when Aurora's injured wing means she's unable to leave the jungle, Luxa absolutely refuses to leave her.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    • Becomes essentially catatonic when her cousin betrays her.
    • Then, three books later, she has it a magnitude worse when her mice friends who had earlier saved her in the jungle succumb to poisonous gas emitted by the volcano,
  • Official Couple: With Gregor.
  • Rebellious Princess: Technically a queen, still she owns this trope completely, but makes it seem pretty cool.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: More so as the books go on, especially when almost the entire Council is killed in the war.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: It's strongly implied she and Gregor will never see each other again.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Ripred starting from The Curse of the Warmbloods. The 'teeth-clenched' part is mostly over by the end of The Code of Claw.
  • Unable to Cry: Gregor really starts warming up to her when she tells him that she has not cried since her parents' deaths. When her cousin Henry betrays her at the end of Gregor the Overlander, she goes into a catatonic state of sorts, and it seems like she still won't cry - until she sees Vikus.
    • Not So Stoic: She breaks down into a furious, screaming mess at the end of Marks of the Secret while witnessing a pack of mice, many of which were her good friends, perish in a slow and excruciating way by being gassed. Part of this is because Ripred forcibly prevents her and Aurora from trying to save them, even though she knows the effort would kill them both.
  • Tsundere: Type A to pretty much everyone, but especially Gregor and Vikus.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Gets called out more than once on her behavior.

Vikus

A member of the ruling Council, husband of Solovet and Luxa's grandfather.
  • Adults Are Useless: Averted, though he usually plays more of a supporting role.
  • Fantastic Racism: One of the few Underland humans who doesn't have it.
  • Friend to All Living Things: One of a very few Underland humans who would willingly work with a rat.
  • Happily Married: With Solovet. Though it's implied her participation in the creation of the plague made things rocky between them.
  • Heroic BSoD: Suffers a stroke after his wife dies.
  • Nice Guy: Would much rather talk through differences than fight over them.
  • No Accounting for Taste: With Solovet: she's a ruthless general willing to resort to almost any tactic to win, he's a pacifist at heart who always tries the diplomatic option first. When Gregor comments on how odd it is that they are married, Vikus admits it has always been somewhat of a puzzle to them as well.
  • Non-Action Guy: He would rather talk out problems than fight.
  • Odd Friendship: With Ripred. Throughout the series they show deep respect for each other and trust each other's judgements. When Ripred goes missing in the fourth book, Vikus confides his concerns to Gregor, stating that Ripred doesn't usually "leave him the in dark for so long". On Ripred's side, when Vikus shows the first signs of a stroke Ripred springs into action; shouting for a doctor and urging Vikus to stay calm, even pushing his nose against the man's face as he does so.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter Judith, Luxa's mother, died years before the first book. His son Hamnet is missing for years, and dies at the end of the third book. Nearly happens with Luxa, his granddaughter who is missing, possibly dead between books two and three. One could also count Henry, as Vikus may very well have been a Parental Substitute for him.
  • Parental Substitute: Closest thing to a parent Luxa has.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Though he's such a Nice Guy Gregor and others don't feel they can always confide in him.
  • Sheathe Your Sword: The man is a really strong believer in this idea, while his wife subscribes to a nearly opposite point.
  • Supporting Leader: As a member of the ruling council, he has much more influence in Regalia's government than his preteen granddaughter, but he never takes part in the quests and typically works behind the scenes to keep the main characters out of trouble or to get them the resources they need.

Solovet

Wife of Vikus, leader of the human armies, and grandmother to Luxa.
  • Action Girl: Well, more like Action Grandma.
  • Cool Old Lady: Knows how to ride a bat and is quite dangerous with a blade, and is generally considered the most capable fighter of the group in the first book (prior to Ripred's introduction) despite being up in her ages.
  • Happily Married: With Vikus. Though it seems that their relations started becoming sourer after that whole plague thing in Curse of the Warmbloods.
  • Knight Templar: Will do anything to protect Regalia and its citizens, and we do mean anything — creating a bioweapon and flooding a valley full of infant rat pups barely register as blips on Solovet's moral radar; she just rationalizes both atrocities (and many others besides) as being in defense of Underland's humans.
  • Lady of War: Though she isn't above using some rather dishonest tricks in warfare, Synthetic Plague included.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Age and a family hasn't slowed her down in the slightest. She even directly takes part in the war effort in Code of Claw, despite it taking part several years after the beginning of the series.
  • Shoot the Dog: She will not hesitate to do it if that means benefit for her people's safety. See Knight Templar above.

Nerissa

Luxa's cousin (on her father's side). Sister of Henry.
  • Blessed with Suck: Funny how a society built on one man's prophecies treats their own personal prophetess so poorly.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never truly addressed whether or not Nerissa's oracular powers really exist. Sometimes she can accurately predict events, sometimes not, sometimes she even recalls the past instead of the future. The true nature of her abilities are hotly debated both in- and out of universe.
  • The Ophelia: Mix visions she can't control and a Dark and Troubled Past together, and Nerissa is justifiably considered as one.
  • Waif Prophet: It's suggested that the deaths of her parents broke her, but her visions certainly don't help; she is always described as looking unwell, faints occasionally, and with a handful of exceptions is never believed.

Henry

Luxa's cousin (on her father's side), and brother to Nerissa.

  • A Boy and His X: Bonded with Ares, a black bat stated to be stronger than others of his kind.
  • Big Bad Friend: To all appearances, his affection for his cousin and his offer to rule with her are sincere.
    • To Ares, as well.
  • Character Death: Dies at the end of Gregor the Overlander.
  • Fantastic Racism: Like Luxa, he mocks the cockroaches and even attempts to kill Ripred while the rat is asleep.
  • Jerkass: He isn't the worst example, but he makes fun of both Gregor and the cockroaches, particularly the latter.
  • The Mole: He allied with the vicious rat king Gorger, with the goal of taking over the Underland.
  • Walking Spoiler: He's a spoiler for the end of the first book, specifically because he turns out to be the traitor in the party. He dies because Ares saves Gregor instead, as that is what the bat thought was the right thing to do.
  • We Can Rule Together: Says this to Luxa, trying to convince her to side with him in his betrayal.

Howard

Luxa's cousin (on her mother's side), from the smaller human settlement known as the Fount. Grandson of Vikus. Introduced in Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane.
  • A Boy and His X: Bonded with Pandora. After she's killed, Nike becomes his unofficial bond for the remainder of the series.
  • Big Brother Instinct: On the voyage in "Prophecy of Bane", he treats Boots like his own little sister, and eventually becomes very much like a big brother to Luxa; and Gregor, in a way.
  • Big Brother Mentor: To Luxa and Gregor both, eventually.
  • Combat Medic: Training to become a doctor hasn't taken away any of his fighting skills, and he still actively takes a part in combat missions with the rest of the protagonists for the last two books.
  • Heroic BSoD: Breaks down in a major way after Pandora, his bond, is killed in Prophecy of Bane. He eventually recovers.
  • The Medic: After coming down with the Curse of the Warmbloods in the third book, he takes an interest in medicine, and has become a doctor working at Regalia's hospital by the last book.
  • Nice Guy: A little stuck-up at first, he quickly matures into one of the kindest and most sensible characters in the cast.
  • Shipper on Deck: Averted: he has a very awkward conversation with Gregor in Marks of Secret after Gregor tries (and fails) to convince Howard that his and Luxa's secret mission to save the mice is just them going on a date. It's not that he disapproves of Gregor and Luxa together necessarily, it's just that Luxa's position as queen makes her romantic relationships incredibly important, and he wants to make sure Gregor understands the situation.

Mareth

A member of the human army. Luxa's coach, and occasionally included in quests.
  • Handicapped Badass: He loses his leg in Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane.
  • Nice Guy: A consistent friend to Gregor throughout the series.

Perdita

Another member of the human army, getting a notable part in the last book.
  • Action Girl: One of the best fighters Regalia City has to offer.
  • Badass Normal: Stated to be on par with Gregor during training, despite lacking the 'rager' abilities.
  • The Bus Came Back: After getting badly injured in the initial clash with rats the very first book, she'd been away for three books — to show up early in The Code of Claw.
  • You Are in Command Now: Ripred tells her to take command after Solovet's death in The Code of Claw, even though she isn't next in line.

Hamnet

The son of Vikus and Solovet, uncle to Luxa and Howard, and father of Hazard. Shows up in Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, after living (almost) on his own in the jungle for years.

Hazard

Hamnet's son by an Overlander woman, first introduced in Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. After Hamnet's death, he comes to live with Luxa in Regalia.
  • A Boy and His X : In Gregor and the Marks of Secret he has a close relationship with the bat Thalia, and it's practically a given they'll become bonds once they're old enough. Until Thalia dies, that is.
  • Brutal Honesty: Incredibly blunt, though not intentionally so.
  • Disappeared Dad: Hamnet dies at the end of "Curse of the Warmbloods.
  • Harmful to Minors: Like most Underlander children, Hazard is far more familiar with death and dangerous situations than those around him would like, most notably in Gregor and the Marks of Secret, when he not only witnesses the attempted genocide of the mice, but his best friend and near-bond Thalia dies shortly thereafter.
  • Missing Mom: His mother died in the jungle.
  • Omniglot: Unlike most other humans, he's learning to speak the languages of the Underland animals, at least as much as his ears can hear.

Ares

A big black bat, initially bonded to Henry but after his betrayal and death in book 1, becomes bond to Gregor.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: In Prophecy of Bane, he and Gregor struggle with their relationship as bonds, given that they hardly know each other, but by the end they've reached an understanding.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Spends most of the series as something of an outcast for letting his bond die. Not that saving Henry — a traitor — would have been any better.
  • To Be Lawful or Good: Has to make this decision at the end of the first book, when choosing between saving Henry or Gregor.

Ripred

A warrior rat, the semi-official leader of the few rats who don't want continual war with the humans.
  • The Berserker: Like Gregor, he is also a "rager".
  • Covered with Scars: Ripred has multiple scars from the battles he's been in, including one across his face. This becomes a plot point in the last book where he inflicts another scar on his face to make an X, intentionally making himself a candidate for one of the prophetic figures.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Constantly.
    Henry: Perhaps we leave the gnawer dead beside us.
    Ripred: Perhaps. But having witnessed your last attempt, I doubt it.
    Luxa: We have killed five rats since midday.
    Ripred: You mean the idiots that I handpicked for cowardice and ineptitude? Oh, yes, bravo, Your Highness. That was a masterly piece of combat.
  • Failure Knight: Is this for his dead mate and pups.
  • Fair-Weather Mentor: He could fit into this, particularly in Gregor and The Curse of the Warmbloods.
  • Good Is Not Nice: For all his faults, he is genuinely interested in making peace between the humans and the rats, and on rare occasions, shows he does have a Hidden Heartof Gold.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's an antisocial semi-loner with only a small band of outcasts around him, and doesn't respect anyone unless they earn it from him. He has his moments, such as in Gregor the Overlander comforting Gregor after one of the quest members dies and he feels it's his fault, but in Gregor and the Code of Claw, we learn he had a family that drowned in an event described in Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. He had a daughter, named Silksharp, that liked to do math puzzles and was apparently not very strong-bodied. Lizzie, the middle child of Gregor's family, reminds him of her. He comforts Lizzie in the middle of the night after she has a panic attack. Additionally, Ripred is mentioned to be, unlike with Gregor, a patient teacher with Hazard when teaching him how to speak in Gnawer, and when Vikus suffers a stroke, Ripred reassures the boy that it was not his fault for mentioning his thoughts on Solovet and Hamnet (though he does privately tell Gregor that it wasn't the best thing for Hazard to say).
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His compound name includes "Rip" and "red", invoking attacks and blood.
  • One-Man Army: It takes four hundred soldiers to take him out.
  • Pet the Dog: He is never more than civil to anyone, until he meets Lizzie.
  • Rodent of Unusual Size: Like all the gnawers, Ripred is a gigantic rat.
  • Spin Attack: One of, if not the, most powerful attack Ripred can use. By circling in one spot at an impossibly fast pace, alternating between his front and back paws, he can use his claws, tail, and teeth to utterly pulverize anyone or anything that comes near him.
  • Unstoppable Rage: As a result of being a rager.
  • "X" Marks the Hero: He gets this type of scar near the end of Gregor and the Code of Claw from himself, so he could fill the role of the a person from one of Sandwich's prophecies.

Twitchtip

A rat and one of Ripred's close friends. She's a "scent seer", a rat with an abnormally powerful sense of smell.
  • Action Girl
  • The Aloner: She lived on her own for a while before Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, since the rats didn't want her knowing their secrets.
  • Blessed with Suck: Her sense of smell is so accurate that she can smell secrets — not a fast track to the popular crowd.
  • Bus Crash: In The Code of Claw, Gregor decodes a message saying she died in a pit.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Like most of the rats.
  • The Nose Knows: She has such a sensitive nose that she is called a "scent seer." Among other things she can detect the scent of a rager, newly hardened volcanic rock, a whirlpool, and the color of Boots' shirt from outside the castle tower Boots is in.
  • Rodent of Unusual Size: She's large just like all the Gnawers.

The Bane/Pearlpelt

The Big Bad of the series, an enormous and physically powerful rat with pure white fur. Prophesied by Sandwich's "Prophecy of Bane" to eventually grow into a new leader for the rats following Gorger's death, he does indeed grow into a monster even more dangerous than his predecessor after Gregor fails to kill him as an infant.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Scarily good orator, possibly insane, wreaks Holocaust-style genocide on a group of innocent mice ("nibblers"). He tells them that he is only "relocating" them yet again; however, this is discovered to be false when he traps them under a volcano and gasses them to death.
  • Big Bad: Although not at the beginning of the series, he becomes the Big Bad by the end, as the leader of the rats.
  • Dark Messiah: The rats loyal to Gorger come to see him as a savior figure, especially as his leadership restores their status in the Underland and reignites the war with Regalia with the intention of wiping out all non-rats underground, on top of attempting genocide on the mice. He comes within inches of succeeding at both goals, too.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Interestingly enough, he gets one after his initial introduction. We first meet him as a baby, whose cries for his mother make it impossible for Gregor to kill him. What could be more innocent? Well, in Gregor and the Marks of Secret, we learn he killed his devoted caretaker. Still, he said it was an accident, and he's so big he might not know his own strength .. he tried to eat him to cover it up?
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Initially, he's only addressed as "the Bane". Marks of Secret reveal that his real name is Pearlpelt.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Over the course of the series, he goes from a innocent rat pup crying over his mother's body to one of the most monstrous rulers in the Underland's history.
  • Large and in Charge: While most rats in Underland aren't small, he towers over every one of them.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Played Straight by his nickname, the Bane, but completely averted by his real name, Pearlpelt.
  • Never My Fault: Tends to explain away any mistake he makes, either as an accident or somebody else's fault. It starts as endearing but quickly grows unnerving, as he begins to rationalize bigger and bigger atrocities. Hits its peak in the Final Battle after Gregor reveals Twirltongue's manipulation of the Bane and he kills her in a fit of rage. He looks over the body for a second, then screams "YOU KILLED HER!" at Gregor and flies into a berserk rage.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: He tries to look mature before his public (rather convincingly), but when alone or only with immediate acquaintances, it's clear he never really grew up.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: He's an albino rat, and while not initially qualifying for this trope, quickly comes to fit it like a glove as he slides into villainy.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: His father killed his other children so Pearlpelt could have more milk and grow stronger. His parents killed each other in a fight, and he saw his mother lying dead with her innards spilled over the ground. To make matters worse, almost all the humans shun him because he's the Bane, and many of his fellow rats honor him and want him to be their king. Eventually, he goes completely off the deep end, becoming a great Hitler allegory.

Lapblood

A representative of the rats seeking a cure for the plague, along with Ripred and her mate Mange, in Curse of the Warmbloods.

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