Characters / World of Horror

Character page of World of Horror.

Main characters

The five starting characters.^note From left to right: Kouji, Mizuki, Aiko, Kirie and Haru. Not pictured: the many, many characters you can unlock through various means.

General:

• Action Girl: Kirie, Aiko, Mizuki and Mimi (plus Miku, Moriko, Ayaka, Juri, and Yumiko if they're unlocked) all fight against the supernatural, and it's a must to survive.
• Action Survivor: Several of the characters are just ordinary civilians with such occupations as "Photographer" or "Teen Idol". Given the choice between letting the old god rise or risking their life and sanity to stop it, however, all of them choose the latter.
• Age Lift: All of the 17–19-year-old characters got aged up to being 20 with the 1.0 update.
• Amateur Sleuth: Despite the lack of any detective training, they're able to investigate what the police can't handle and find out the machination of the Old Gods, the supernatural and their cult lackeys.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You normally are limited to recruiting a maximum of 3 allies from the School, but additional allies can join either as part of a main quest (Kana), summoned with a spell, as part of a random event (e.g. the dog you can save in the forest or the 2 cult members that can join you as part of a random encounter), or a successful Intimidate check against students.
• Badass Adorable: Most of the playable cast are quite cute and attractive, and can become strong enough to fight back against the Old Gods, with special mention going to Kirie and Toshiaki.
• Bad Boss: If you have the Paranoia curse, you'll be unable to dismiss allies, instead unlocking the ability to kill them instead "for plotting against you".
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted; your protagonists can suffer some pretty nasty injuries, which aren't necessarily a death sentence.
• Combat Pragmatist: The cast isn't shy about getting their hands dirty. Knives, bats, broken bottles, tree branches, even using their own allies are fair game when fighting the various horrors of the town.
• Determined Defeatist: Your chosen protagonist knows that the Old Gods cannot be killed and Evil Only Has to Win Once. Doesn't stop them from fighting back regardless.
• Improbably Female Cast: There are currently 14 playable characters. 9 of them (around 2/3) are female.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Aside from their natural backstories, the player can unlock and select extra backgrounds to add more flavor and complications.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: Regardless of who you choose, they live in the same apartment complex and are neighbors with Kana.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: If their Stamina and Reason dip too low, they tend to develop this, losing any highlights they had in their eyes and/or developing Exhausted Eye Bags.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: No matter how many allies you might have accumulated, if your protagonist gets taken down, that's it.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: A common refrain of theirs before starting a new mystery.
• Would Hit a Girl: Especially if the bad guys are female.

Kirie Minami

Transfer Student

An 18-year-old student who just transferred to Shiokawa. Introduced in the demo as the default protagonist of "Chilling Chronicle of a Crimson Cape", she races against time to save a friend from playing a dangerous game that may have something to do with a supernatural being known as Aka Manto. The demo has her surname as ''Sato''. Has a natural bonus to her Knowledge stat, but lower Strength, and starts already knowing a random spell.

Her personal perks Arcane Grasp, Ghost Connection, Second Sight, and Self-Therapy increase her spell slots from 4 to 6, grants her a new spell after each mystery, gives her bonus damage against Ghost and Eldritch type enemies, and doubles the amount of Reason she receives from forgetting spells.

Her personal item is her Bag, which changes the benefit of forgetting a Spell from Reason recovery to obtaining a new Spell when forgetting one for the price of 1-2 Reason.

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• Black Magician Girl: She's a new face to Shiokawa, always starts off with a spell, and her 4 unique perks all revolve around spells or ghosts.
• Break the Cutie: While all the protagonists go through this, Kirie outright has this trope as one of her personal events, where she can either cry her eyes out from the stress or continue to push on.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Her personal events suggest this is the cause of not only her involvement in the looming destruction of Shiokawa, but also her dealings with ghosts: she always reaches out to them wherever possible, even the ones senselessly hostile to the living, because of a need to put them at ease and help them move on.
• Discard and Draw: Her bag allows spending 1-2 reason to gain a spell by forgetting another, thus allowing her to exchange unneeded spells for better ones.
• A Friend in Need: In the 2017 demo, she gets even more involved with the supernatural than before in hopes of keeping her friend from drawing the attention of Aka Manto.
• I See Dead People: One of her many ties to the paranormal world is an increased ability to see ghosts. Ones who aren't actively trying to kill her, anyway; the ones who are make themselves loud and clear to their targets.
• New Meat: She just recently moved to Shiokawa to continue her education.
• New Transfer Student: Moved to Shiokawa just in time for all the Old God shenanigans to kick in.
• Parental Abandonment: One of her personal events reveals not only are both her parents dead, but her seances to contact them have always ended in failure and other spirits furiously lashing out at her and people in her life.
• Supernatural Sensitivity: Her skills suggest she possesses a natural talent when it comes to the supernatural.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: According to Jeane, she is written like a shoujo protagonist who "ended up on the wrong set".

Aiko Takahashi

Swim Team Captain

The 18-year-old captain of the Swim Team and the protagonist of the default "Extracurricular Activities" playthrough. Following a disastrous encounter where she nearly drowned, she's determined to learn why that happened and see if she can put a stop to whatever's behind it. Has naturally higher Dexterity, but lower Knowledge, and starts with extra combat speed.

Her personal perks Discipline, Fast Swimmer, Hot Bath, and Running Shoes let her recover 1 Stamina for each successful skill check, further increase her combat speed, increase her Stamina and Reason recovery from baths and resting, and reduces her Doom penalty from running from fights.

Her personal item is her Plush Toy, which reduces incoming damage by 1 but lowers Perception and Luck by 2.

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• Action Girl: While all the female cast can kick plenty of ass with the best of them, Aiko especially stands out as a strong, fast heavy-hitter that relies more on her natural abilities and perks rather than particular weapons or character-exclusive gimmicks. Specifically, she starts with increased dexterity and faster combat action speed compared to other player characters and can obtain a perk that further increases her combat speed.
• Bad Luck Charm: Her plush toy gives a -2 luck penalty (and the same to perception) in exchange for decreasing damage taken in combat.
• Healing Factor: One of her perks lets her recover 1 Stamina for every succeeded skill check. Another perk increases her recovery amount from resting at home.
• It's Personal: After Aiko survived her near drowning from the hands of a ghost, she decided to look into the incident, and the supernatural. If she completes "Macabre Memoir of Morbid Mermaids" (which concerns members of the school swim team being kidnapped and mutilated) through violence, you get an achievement called "This is for my friends!"
• Lightning Bruiser: Aiko's perks and natural ability give her incredibly fast combat speed, letting her dish out several combat actions per turn. With her initial combat speed bonus + her combat speed bonus perk + maxed out Dex and a Dex weapon, she has the most attacks per turn of any character in the game, with the exception of Mizuki using several allies to stack her Fame perk.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Her near drowning incident. Which could have happened if the specter had its way.
• Passionate Sports Girl: Is a star member of her swimming team and her Flavor Text strongly implies she greatly cares for her teammates.
• School Sport Uniform: Not in any of her main outfits, but she shows off her stomach in a sports bra and athletic bloomers in the good ending picture. In addition, the picture for her unique "Discipline" perk focuses on her (very toned) midsection.
• Ship Tease: In the cast's victory picture, Aiko and Mizuki can be seen standing together with Aiko's hand placed over one of Mizuki's dress straps. Though since Aiko is not charmed by the Young Witch like Moriko is, this may be platonic, or a case of Single-Target Sexuality.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Befitting her status as the experienced athlete of the bunch, she wears her hair pulled back in a high ponytail.

Mizuki Hamasaki

Teen Idol

A rising teen idol at the age of 18, she serves as the default protagonist for the episode "Far Out Fable of a Fear Festival", where she's invited to spend some time in a local village when she notices that something unnatural is happening within it. Has higher Charisma, but lower Strength, and starts with a random Ally.

Her personal perks Fame, Occult Signs, Parting Gift, and Signed Contract increase her combat speed for every ally following her, gives her a small amount of experience for every spell she casts, permanently increases one of her stats every time she releases an ally, and increases her money gain from completing mysteries.

Her personal item is the Vanity Mirror, which informs the player if an event's choice is a skill check.

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• Casting Couch: invoked The specter of sexual exploitation casts a long, dark shadow of Realism-Induced Horror over Mizuki's life in her personal events. One of them reveals that something very bad happened involving her in a mansion at the very start of her idol career, that left a scar on the side of her abdomen and — if the player so chooses — she can will herself to forget the specifics of. The other, should you hand one of her allies over to Mizuki's fat ugly manager who replaced her previous manager under highly suspicious circumstances, will end with Mizuki suspecting she's never going to see them again.
• Deal with the Devil: Mizuki's events heavily imply that her idol contract might be one of these, either metaphorically, literally—or both.
• Hero Looking for Group: The "Safety in Numbers" status added in the Ceaseless Curse update reveals that Mizuki, independently of the actions the player has her take, actively seeks out friends and companions for self-preservation: if she's around friends, allies, and loved ones, she's safer from the pursuit of a mysterious stalker seemingly connected to the talent agency she signed up with.
• Idol Singer: A rising one — and, as a horror protagonist, one with no shortage of literal and figurative predators bearing down on her.
• Lightning Bruiser: Like with Aiko, Mizuki's Perks heavily favor faster combat speed. Unlike Aiko or Miku however, her combat growth isn't limited to Perk acquirement. With enough Allies on her side, Mizuki can become the fastest character in the game, since there's hypothetically no limit to the number of event-specific party members that can join. However, as this is incredibly situational, Aiko is still much more reliable to consistently level up to a high attack rate character.
• Magic Mirror: Her vanity mirror is stated to show glimpses of the future. In gameplay terms, it allows seeing if a stat check is required, and which stat will be rolled.
• Magnetic Heroine: Not only does she start with an Ally, but her natural Charisma also raises the chances of her being able to convince others to join her cause, and many of her special Perks are connected to using her Allies in various ways. In addition, the Achievement for gathering four followers is entitled "True Idol".
• More Friends, More Benefits: The more friends Mizuki has on her side, the greater her acquired benefits become. While this is true for every character, her Fame Perk gives her a bonus to her combat speed with every new Ally. Her Parting Gift perk also boosts one of her stats every time she dismisses an ally.
• Ms. Fanservice: With Mizuki being an idol, it's practically a given. Her default outfit shows a good amount of skin, she has quite the bust that's further showcased by her wearing a "MEGA MIRK" shirt, and her bath portrait shows that she wears a strapless bra unlike the other female characters.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Outright encouraged with Mizuki's intended playstyle, where she grows in power based on her number of allies recruited, making her all-out attack her most powerful offensive option. This creates quite the amusing sight of a pretty idol telling her friends to beat the everloving shit out of the enemy.
• Ship Tease: Blink and you'll miss it, but in the cast's victory picture, Aiko and Mizuki can be seen standing together with Aiko's hand suggestively placed over one of Mizuki's dress straps.
• Stepford Smiler: As her personal events show, terrible things have happened to her and continue to threaten to happen to her behind the scenes of her career. The game is unsettlingly ambiguous over whether this is the result of a semi-literal Deal with the Devil, or just the often-predatory nature of the idol industry.
  [why did you sign that contract?]
• Unstable Equilibrium: Since a large part of her strength comes from the number of Allies following her, a Mizuki finding herself alone or with less than three friends will suffer the consequences. On the other hand, something as simple as gaining a strong Ally at the start can give her a large advantage that's only further increased with various Ally effects.

Kouji Tagawa

Photographer

A 19-year-old student who's the protagonist of the sample version of the "Spine-Chilling Story of School Scissors" mystery. He stays behind for one night to investigate on what happened to his friend after said person never showed up for class. Gets a bonus to his Perception at the cost of lower Dexterity, and starts with a Camera.

His personal perks Deduction, Fast Hands, Improvise, and Reporter's Bag grant him extra experience for completing mysteries, lets him swap equipment during combat, increases the damage he does from throwing items, and increases his inventory space by 1.

His personal item is the Film Roll, which allows him to gain 10 Experience for the price of 1 Fund every time it's used.

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• Art Evolution: 0.9.15 sharpened his face up a bit, making his eyes sleeker and his face more centered.
• Boring, but Practical: Sure, a camera and a bonus to Perception may not be as flashy as other characters' innate Perks, but it also ensures he has a solid starting advantage. Cameras are hard to find and cost a solid price in stores, so simply not having to worry about buying one can come in handy, as well as being able to sell it if you're strapped for cash. Perception is also a very frequently checked skill.
• Break Them by Talking: A mild version. As an aspiring reporter, it's his job (well, almost) to act and speak in a manner which makes his interviewees cough up valuable information. His events show him using both intimidation and persuasion to get people to crack.
• Camera Fiend: His starting item is a Camera, which he automatically uses during the start of every combat encounter. Not only that, but his personal item is a Film Roll, which allows him to exchange funds for experience.
• DreamWorks Face: Kouji's never seen without this expression on his face; no matter how much of a mangled wreck he becomes.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: Kouji always had these really bad whenever his Reason dropped below 10, and were very prominent before his low reason sprite was changed in the Dreadful Dreams update. As of said update, his Low Stamina overlay shows him with eye bags, even with high Reason.
• A Friend in Need: Much like Kirie, he doesn't sit back and let the apocalypse happen when his friend's life is on the line.
• Improbable Weapon User: Besides using his camera to disorient enemies, he has unique perks that increase his inventory size and increase the damage he does by throwing objects, giving him a combat style based around throwing random junk at Eldritch horrors. Another of his perks also lets him swap equipment during combat, something you normally can't do. This lets him take certain combat actions on-the-fly, such as using a crowbar to pry open the manhole during the fight with the Mad Janitor, whereas other characters would need to plan ahead and equip themselves properly beforehand.
• Intrepid Reporter: The achievement received for succeeding a run using him is called "Reporter Survivor". Considering that he is willing to risk life and limb to save the world, he definitely counts. One of his perks also lets him get more experience from solving mysteries compared to other characters.
• It's Personal: He stayed behind at school to investigate what happened to his friend.
• Only Sane Man: The only character to lack backstory angst, (implied) mental issues, or a propensity for violent crime. As such, he comes off as rather well-adjusted in comparison to the others.
• Ordinary High-School Student: A typical student with nothing exceptional about him or his backstory, who has no personal reasons to get involved, but decides to stop the old god anyway.
• Required Party Member: The tutorial is played as him and him alone.
• Spell My Name With An S: His first name is sometime spelled as Koji.
• String Theory: One of his events shows that he does this. Of course, technically so does everyone else as the mysteries are completed, but he's the only one shown to specifically use it as a method of investigation.
• We Need to Get Proof: His introductory blurb in-game implies that this is one of his goals, as it states that "the government won't sweep this one under the rug."

Haru

Yakuza Driver

A 24-year old yakuza wakashu who's way in over his head. Before the story, he and some of his fellow wakashu raided a mansion they thought was abandoned; Haru was the only one to survive their encounter with its occupant. Has higher Strength, but lower Knowledge, and starts with a pack of Cigarettes and the special Nicotine Rush/Nicotine Withdrawal status effects which give him a combat bonus as long as he has cigarettes to consume, and a debuff if he runs out of them.

His personal perks are Core Strength, CQC Training, Irezumi, and Yakuza Card, which increase his combat damage, increase his damage when using firearms as melee weapons, decrease the cost of items in shops, and increase the number of items available in shops each visit.

His personal item is the Cigarette Case, which has a 15% chance to add a Cigarette to his total amount of Cigarettes every time he investigates a location.

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• Addiction-Powered: While every character gains a combat speed bonus from cigarettes, Haru's Hard-Knock perk also allows him to get a damage bonus while smoking.
• Anti-Hero: The only person from a criminal background to look into the supernatural mysteries and save Shiokawa from certain doom. Unless the player is able to unlock Miku or Ayaka, that is.
• Balance Buff: Prior to the 0.9.15 patch, Haru was considered to be one of the worst playable characters due to needing to buying cigarettes to keep the Nicotine Rush status active, which is considered by some to barely make up for how expensive cigarettes are in general. The 0.9.15 patch now grants Haru a unique perk named "Hard-Knock" that grants him a +1 damage bonus whenever he smokes, while also allowing him to reap the benefits of the Nicotine Rush status effect.
• Getaway Driver: Is one for the yakuza.
• Lightning Bruiser: Haru has potential to become this if you keep his Nicotine Rush (and thus, Hard-Knock) going and grab Core Strength perk when leveling up, giving him a total of +2 Damage bonus (in a game where +1 damage bonus is hard to get), on top of faster combat actions. It's not hard for Haru to defeat stronger enemies in just one turn.
• Luck-Based Mission: He becomes much more powerful if he manages to recruit Maria as an ally, as she'll obtain a cigarette after every combat encounter, giving you a steady supply of cigarettes to fuel Haru's nicotine dependency.
• Mr. Fanservice: Haru is quite a good-looking man, and his Samurai outfit shows off his nice chest.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: He's somewhat buffer than the other characters, which is reflected by him having the highest starting strength of everyone else, as well as having access to the Core Strength card, which increases his damage output.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Choosing to confront the White Death when presented with the opportunity is presented as this to him.
  [you won't be weak anymore]
• Pistol-Whipping: One of his unique perks increases the damage he does when using firearms as melee weapons; he's unique amongst the starting characters in having a perk that increases his efficiency with firearms, as befitting a yakuza member. Also befitting a yakuza member, one of his exclusive events (a *Click* Hello situation from another yakuza) allows him to obtain the Semi-Auto, an alternative to the Police Revolver that deals less damage when fired but is both the fastest firearm and second fastest melee weapon in the game (only surpassed in the latter by the Chainsaw, which requires a significant amount of setup to obtain), through a Strength stat check.
• Protection Racket: Two of his perks are based around shaking down shopkeepers; "Irezumi" decreases the price of items, while "Yakuza Card" increases the amount of items available for sale.
• Required Party Member: Only he gets a chance to confront the White Death in combat. Everyone else is out of luck.
• Smoking Is Cool: Haru’s seen smoking a cig in his character portrait. This doubles as a game mechanic; smoking cigarettes gives you a special status called Nicotine Rush which can make your combat actions a bit faster. As of version 0.9.15, Haru also has Hard-Knock perk at start, which grants a bonus to his attacks when under effects of Nicotine Rush.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: Cigarettes are addictive and running out of them gives you Nicotine Withdrawal that slows you down in combat and negates Haru's unique perk.
• Sole Survivor: Of his wakashu group after they ransacked a mansion that turned out to be the home of a vampire.
• Survivor's Guilt: Even leaving aside the debuff any character can get (the image for this status even features him!), Haru's personal events show he has this bad, castigating himself as a coward for running away while his brother wakashu were being slaughtered by a vampire.
• Tattooed Crook: Wearing the Samurai or T-Shirt outfits reveals him to have the same arm tattoo that many cultists have. The Irezumi perk is also specific to him, and adds a shoulder tattoo.

Mimi

Med Student

A 22-year-old medical student who sees this as an opportunity to put everything she's learned thus far to good use. Has higher Knowledge, but lower Dexterity, and starts with a Scalpel; she also has a unique affliction, "Mimi's Obsession", which lowers her max Reason by 20%. She is unlocked by beating the game twice.

Her personal perks Anatomy Class, Fast Learner, and First Aid increase her damage against Human type enemies, grants her a small amount of experience whenever she takes damage in combat, and lets her regain 2 Reason every time she defeats an enemy.

Her personal item is the Anatomy Book, which lets her deal 2 Stamina damage to herself in order to gain 10 Experience.

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• All in the Manual: invoked She's arguably the character whose personality we know the most about, and almost all of that can be gleaned from her personal effects and perks. She has the affliction “Mimi’s Obsession”, which is never specified but does a solid number on her sanity, and is seemingly so easily adjusted to the idea of an impending apocalypse, that she’ll become engrossed in activities such as surfing. Additionally, Fast Learner shows she gets just a bit of mental stimulation from pain. Not only that, but the Anatomy Book allows her to slice herself open to study her own body.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The scalpel she starts with is a Knowledge-based weapon, and this combined with her description suggests that her skill in combat hinges upon her ability to quickly identify her target's weak points thanks to her studies. Her Fast Learner perk lets her earn experience from taking damage, and her Anatomy Class perk increases her damage against Human enemies.
• Body Horror: Self-inflicted in Mimi's Little Project, with such alterations as bear claws on her feet, a second joint on one arm, sliced off kneecaps, disabled pain receptors and saline solution replacing the liquid in her eyeball.
• Cumbersome Claws: Implied in her personal challenge, as while grafting bear claws to her toes does improve kicking damage, it also causes an injury with each mystery completed.
• Cute and Psycho: A cute, cheery medical student with an alarming fascination with human viscera.
• Deadly Doctor: As a medical student/nurse, her starting and primary weapon is a scalpel. She also puts her medical knowledge to use with the Anatomy Class perk, which makes her do more damage to humans.
• Disk One Nuke: On top of already having a solid weapon that plays off her naturally highest stat, Mimi has a distinct advantage if the titular Scissors is one of her Mysteries. There's nothing preventing a player from obtaining them early and using her high Knowledge to tear into enemies.
• Ditzy Genius: Her personal events show she's pretty scatterbrained. That being said she still has an immense knowledge of human anatomy and will jump at the opportunity to examine it up close - and the more abnormal the better.
• Feel No Pain: As part of the Mimi's Little Project challenge, she can disable her own pain receptors with an icepick, reducing received damage in combat at the cost of knowledge.
• Hospital Hottie: She's a medical student, and when intact in both body and mind, she appears to be relatively attractive.
• Life Drain: One of her perks lets her recover 2 Reason for each defeated enemy.
• Necessary Drawback: She's only of the few playable characters to already start off with a weapon, so she also has a lowered Sanity Meter.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Implied by her description and stats alluding to her already having studied the Old Gods beforehand and her unique "Mimi's Obsession" affliction, then confirmed spectacularly by her personal events.
• Noble Profession: While Mimi's worrying obsession with mutilation and Body Horror can drive her to do terrible things, she also has the choice to resist it in events, and almost always restores a fair bit of reason in the process, often with better results than just indulging. Notably, the most horrific surgeries she can perform are all on herself.
• Professor Guinea Pig: The Mimi's Little Project challenge has her engaging in various cruel and unethical experiments, using herself as the test subject.
• Reluctant Psycho: One of her personal events reveals that she knows there's something seriously wrong with her that gets in the way of her job. It can potentially end with her contemplating booking a psychologist — and the consideration recovers her Reason.
• Self-Harm: Her personal Anatomy Book allows her to slice herself open, so as to study her body. Exaggerated in the Mimi's Little Project challenge, as her experiments go from installing a second heart or disabling one's pain receptors to slicing off a kneecap for seemingly no reason.
• Self-Surgery: The Mimi's Little Project challenge is all about her performing various elective surgeries on herself.
• Science-Related Memetic Disorder:
  Narrator: "You set your scalpel to work and carefully cut away the tumor— only for it to immediately regenerate! This needs to be studied further. You pocket a sample of the tissue with breathless glee. This research could [do] the medical community some incredible good. And god isn't it just so *fascinating*?"
  (-2 Reason + Item: Lump of Flesh)
• Shout-Out: Her name is possibly a reference to (who else?) Junji Ito's Mimi's Tales of Terror and her gimmick might be inspired by Ruriko Tamiya from Fragments of Horror.
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: The picture for her event "Summertime" shows her in a somewhat skimpy swimsuit.
• Youthful Freckles: Dusting the bridge of her nose and both cheeks.

Miku

Rioter

An unlockable character, a 19-year-old rioter. To get her, you need to defeat the delinquent girl in Downtown and collect her Prescription. By using up 4 funds, one can get a prescription drug and bring it to the Illegal Den, where Miku is unlocked. She has higher Strength but lower Perception, and her unique ability Mayhem boosts all her stats as the level of Doom increases.

Her personal perks Adrenaline, Doomed Already, Looting, and Pickpocket increase her combat speed, allows her to regain 1 Reason for every failed skill check, allows her to obtain money from defeated enemies, and increases her odds of looting items from enemies.

Her personal item is her Guitar, which grants a +1 Reason bonus and an additional 1% penalty to Doom whenever she rests.

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• Androcles' Lion: To unlock her, you need to buy and return her expensive medicine^note 4 funds, which is what the player usually starts with on the standard difficulty, despite the fact that she previously tried to kill you. The resulting achievement acknowledges this through its name "Soft Side."
• Apathetic Clerk: One of her personal events reveals that Miku is a waitress to pay the bills for both herself and her grandmother. She hates it, but the cash register is easily pilfered for change.
• Batter Up!: Uses a baseball bat like the generic female delinquent enemies.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Has an especially bright smile, showing some teeth, which can morph into a Slasher Smile as she retains it even as her health and sanity dwindle.
• Even Bad Girls Love Their Grandmas: She might be a violent crook, but she cares about her ailing grandmother.
• Everyone Has Standards: While she is a selfish rioter who has no qualms with using violence to accomplish her goals, Miku still shares the same responses to horrific or tragic events as other playable characters do.
• Failure Hero: Actively encouraged as a method of play. Two of her Perks, Mayhem and Doomed Already drastically increases her stats for the former as Doom increases, and the latter grants her +1 Reason to every stat roll she fails. This makes her the only character who not only survives but thrives in Ill-Fated runs.
• Girlish Pigtails: Wears her hair pulled back into two low ones, sticking out just behind her neck.
• Healing Factor: One of her perks lets her regain 1 Reason for every failed skill check, which often partially offsets whatever penalty the failed skill check gave you.
• Healthcare Motivation: The prescription she drops is for her sick grandma, as she reveals when you unlock her.
• Heel–Face Turn: You first encounter her as an enemy, but after the protagonist defeats her and pays for her grandma's medication, she sees the good in people and starts working to prevent the apocalypse.
• Japanese Delinquents: She's a sukeban par excellence. Wears a face mask? Check. Primarily seen wielding a bat? Check. An abrasive demeanor hiding a softer, more compassionate side? Check. [[Kleptomaniac Hero Frequently lots places and people for cash? Check. About the only criteria she doesn't check is being a high-schooler.
• Lightning Bruiser: Like Aiko and Mizuki, Miku has a perk that increases her combat speed. Aiko and Mizuki are still faster, as Aiko's perk stacks on top of her starting combat speed bonus, while Mizuki's perk increases with every Ally she acquires, and the game theoretically has no max Ally limit.
• Made of Iron: When she's confronted as an enemy, she can be shot at, incinerated, stabbed, bludgeoned, etc., and all she'll have to show for it are a few scratches and a black eye. Averted (obviously for balancing reasons) once she is Promoted to Playable.
• Magikarp Power: To balance her increased stats as her Doom counter goes up, Miku has easily the lowest starting stats of any player character (she starts with a stat total of 19, compared to 33 for the first 6 characters and 27 for most of the later unlocked characters). Survive long enough however, and she'll quickly become proficient in just about every roll.
• Money Spider: Her perks allow her to collect money and items from defeated foes, even things like ghosts or animals which would be unlikely to be carrying such things.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her resting sprite at home has a Panty Shot, and successfully completing a run with her grants a picture of her in a swimsuit.
• Noble Demon: There's nothing stopping the player from taking on a more heroic role as Miku, in spite of her role as a former enemy.
• Plunder: Miku has access to two perks that simulate this, Looting, which grants Miku 1 fund after defeating an enemy, and Pickpocket, which increases the chances of finding items after combat.
• Sinister Switchblade: She's the only character that can obtain the switchblade, a Perception weapon that has high hit chance and is one of the fastest weapons in the game (second only to the chainsaw), as it only drops by defeating the alternate Rioter, who only Miku can fight (everyone else just fights Miku).
• Token Evil Teammate: More so than Haru. In fact, she can be fought as an enemy, which is a requirement to unlock her. Her description says that she fights the Old Gods "for her own selfish reasons."
• Turn the Other Cheek: Unlocking her requires the player to spend a large amount of funds entirely for the benefit for someone who attempted to murder them.
• Unstable Equilibrium: Like with Mizuki, Miku has a much harder time starting out, but if you can survive the first few Mysteries, her odds quickly ensure greater and greater odds of victory.
• Zero-Effort Boss: Thanks to Mayhem, the entirety of the Lighthouse is all but a victory lap. If you've made it this far already, Miku's stats will be high enough to clear the flat stat checks, since they only cover thresholds, and aren't rolled. About the only threats to finishing the game at this point are the two quiz challenges (which was your second case, and which was the second enemy you fought), which have a hefty Doom penalty if you can't remember and choose the wrong option.

Moriko Ishii

Hunter's Daughter

The 8th available character. The 19-year-old daughter of a hunter, who is the subject of a missing person's report on TV and is subsequently unlocked as part of a random event in the Forest after seeing the report on her and taking the "Outdoorsman" perk. She has higher Perception, but lower Dexterity, and starts with her father's shotgun. Debuted in the 0.9.12 update.

Her personal perks Ammo Stash, Daddy's Girl, and Deft Handling give her 1-2 bullets after each mystery, allows her to regain 2 Stamina after each mystery (on top of the usual recovery after a mystery), and make her firearms melee attacks faster.

Her personal item is the Blessed Shell, which can be used up during combat to increase her Ammo by 1 and a whooping 10+ damage boost whenever she fires, at the price of 5% Doom.

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• Butch Lesbian: Outdoorsy, likes hunting, burlier than the other female player characters, fashion sense tends towards the frumpy, just as vulnerable to the Young Witch's wiles as the male characters, has a labrys patch on her jacket...
• Chainsaw Good: There's an achievement for killing an enemy with the chainsaw while playing as her. Coupled with her usage of a shotgun, and the name of the achievement ("Hail to the King"), this seems to be a Shout-Out to Evil Dead. Since the chainsaw is a Perception-based weapon, and Moriko has above-average Perception (though not quite as high as the first 6 characters or Juri), it can be a Disc-One Nuke in her hands.
• Daddy's Girl: One of her perks is literally named this. Additionally, the Old Shotgun she starts out with is her father's, and the description states that she's keen to return it as soon as possible.
• Grave Robbing: If Moriko is carrying a shovel and the player chooses to dig up her mother's grave, Moriko will be horrified to discover that there's nothing buried there at all.
• The Gunslinger: She's the only character that's guaranteed a firearm, and one of her perks gives her one or two shotgun shells after completing a mystery, allowing her to have a somewhat regular supply of ammo. She also has another perk that makes her more effective at Pistol-Whipping compared to other characters.
• Japanese Christian: Implied by her mother's body being buried at her grave. Or at least, it's supposed to be...
• Meaningful Name: Her first name translates to "forest child", and she ekes out a life in the forest.
• Nature Hero: Lived in isolation out in the forest near Shiokawa with her dad and twigged onto the coming apocalypse from a monster killing the local wildlife.
• Missing Mom: Because she died when she was young.
• Necessary Drawback: Aside from her Perception, her stats are all mediocre. This is due to her starting with a shotgun with two shells, rather than a scalpel (Mimi) or no weapon (everyone else). The shotgun also uses Perception to attack, so it's not as big an issue as it seems.
• Pistol-Whipping: One of her perks increases her combat speed, but only with firearm melee attacks. The shotgun she starts with is also a decent melee weapon on top of functioning as a firearm.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Starts out with a double-barreled shotgun and can gain unique firearm-based perks as she levels up, which helps give her an edge in combat despite her mediocre stats.
• Silver Bullet: Her personal Blessed Shell, which was made with her mom's jewelry. Unlike most examples of the trope, however, it works against any enemy.
• Tragic Keepsake: The Blessed Shell, made with her dead mom's jewelry. She's rather reluctant to use it and using it will have her apologize to her mom.
• You Are Grounded!: Her personal challenge, "But Dad!!!", has her automatically discard any guns she gets her hands on, including the shotgun she normally starts with.

Yashiro Kawaji

Priest

The 9th available character. A 26-year-old seminary dropout who's willing to take the fight to the Old Gods, having gone to Shiokawa upon receiving a letter by his dead sister. He is unlocked by safely drinking eldritch blood. He has higher Knowledge, but lower Charisma, and starts with a Bronze Crucifix. He has the unique Ominous Letter affliction, which increases the amount of experience he needs to level up by 40%, as well as the unique Faith stat, which is affected by his success in combat and grants him minor bonuses as long as you keep it above a certain level. Introduced in the 0.9.15 update.

His personal perks On Your Own, My Weird Collection, Stealth, and Zeal increase all of his stats by 1 if he has no allies, grants him a new occult artifact after each mystery, grants him 10 experience every time he runs away from combat (which is about the same as the experience gain from winning most combats), and increase his combat damage at the cost of lowering his maximum Stamina and Reason respectively.

His personal item is the Marked Bible, which restores +1 Reason or Stamina if Yashiro's Faith is above or below 0 respectively.

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• Age Lift: Inverted, Version 1.0 lowered his age from 26 to 24.
• Badass Preacher: He's not ordained, admittedly, but he'll kick ass for the Lord or die trying.
• Can't Catch Up: The Ominous Letter given to him by his dead sister hinders his ability to gain levels by making it so that he needs 40% more EXP for each level. It's likely that an endgame Yashiro will be weaker than everyone else, even with a Compass to boost his EXP gain.
• Collector of the Strange: His "My Weird Collection" perk gives him a random Occult item at the end of each mystery.
• Crisis of Faith: The Faith stat provides its strongest benefits at the start of the game, but unless you get very lucky avoiding or quickly defeating enemies, it will gradually erode and start inflicting penalties instead, evoking this trope. Fittingly, as of 0.9.84f this is the name of one of his personal events.
• Deadly Upgrade: His Zeal perk increases the damage of all of his combat moves by 1. Unfortunately, it also permanently lowers his maximum Stamina and Reason by 4 (though this is less of an issue later in the game where it's common to never be able to recover to maximum Stamina or Reason anyway).
• Demoted to Extra: If Kana is the player character, he simply ends up being their neighbour. Unlike Kana, he doesn't even get his own mystery.
• Expy: Of John Ward, a fellow formerly aspiring priest whose shaky faith might be all that can get him through the occult horror gathering around him in the Eighties.
• I Work Alone: His On Your Own perk grants him a +1 boost to all of his stats should he have no Allies with him. This also gives him good synergy with the Seventh Curse background, which boosts your starting funds at the cost of instantly killing any human allies you recruit.
• Japanese Christian: It's kind of his thing.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: He's the only character to have the Faith stat. It increases 2 points for every won fight, decreases 1 point for every point of damage you take, and modestly increases your stats (+2 Max Stamina and Reason as well as +1 Dexterity), EXP gain, and Stamina/Reason recovery after each mystery, as long as you keep it above a certain level.
• Necessary Drawback: Like Moriko, his stats are average (his starting stat total is only 27, compared to 33 for the first 6 playable characters), but his I Work Alone perk makes up the difference and gives him a boost to all stats as long as he has no allies. With the increased max Stamina+Reason and Dexterity he gets from high Faith, this puts him slightly above other characters in terms of raw stats.
• Perpetual Frowner: Yashiro is never seen smiling in-game whatsoever. The only time he can actually smile is if he gains the Slit Mouth injury.
• Sexy Priest: Yashiro is a young priest who happens to be quite handsome.
• Shout-Out: A troubled man who goes to a haunted town upon the urging of a mysterious letter by a deceased person close to him. Are we talking about Yashiro Kawaji, or James Sunderland?
• The Sneaky Guy: His Stealth perk gives him a decent experience boost every time he runs from combat, though doing so still increases his Doom meter (unless he obtains and casts the Invisibility spell, in which case he can run from every combat encounter and still level up at the same rate as if he fought everything, with no Doom penalty).
• Touch the Intangible: His Bronze Crucifix item allows him to fight Ghost-type enemies normally, whereas other player characters are unable to interact with them physically and have to either run away or use spiritual actions against them.

Ayaka Kuroi

Witch

The 10th available character. A 17-year-old witch that accidentally killed a number of her friends in a ritual, their souls continuing to torment her. She is unlocked by accumulating five curses in a single run. She has higher Knowledge, but lower Luck, and starts with an Onyx Pendant. Said pendant is cursed and unable to be gotten rid of, plus it inflicts two curses whenever you start a mystery but removes one of them when the mystery is complete. Introduced in the 0.9.84 update.

Her personal perks Blood Mania, Doom Effigy, and Eldritch Possession grants her bonuses for the number of curses she's inflicted with, at the expense of reducing her max Stamina and Reason. Blood Mania makes all her combat moves stronger and faster, Doom Effigy removes more Doom for each completed mystery, and Eldritch Possession gives bonuses to her stats.

Her personal item is her Chalk, which lets her deal an additional +2 damage to Ghost enemies.

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• Accidental Murder: The Cornucopia personal event implies the ritual that killed her friends wasn't a case of Human Sacrifice like you'd expect, but them being killed by a magical backlash from trying to help her with ill effects she was suffering as a result of doing the ritual alone. Ayaka understandably feels responsible for their deaths, judging from the description of her Chalk.
• The Assimilator: One of her personal events implies that her onyx medallion causes her to actually absorb the people around her who die as a result of her curse.
• Black Magician Girl: Of a much darker flavor than Kirie.
• Cursed Item: The Onyx Pendant. It can't be thrown away, it can't be put into storage, and it's active even if you don't have it equipped.
• Deadly Upgrade: All three of her perks reduce her max Stamina and Reason when you take them - Blood Mania reduces Stamina by 10%, Doom Effigy reduces Reason 10%, and Eldritch Possession reduces both by 10%.
• Dying Curse: She's a victim of this, haunted by the souls of her friends. And they make themselves known by manifesting random additional curses upon her.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Her Blood Mania and Eldritch Possession character perks just run on this. Those curses that hinder you? They can be turned into utter power. Because of how damn powerful she can get, the fanbase has likened her to the Doom Slayer.
• Glass Cannon: If you start the game on either True Believer or Harbinger of Doom difficulty, her personal perks make the already low max Stamina and Reason for those difficulties even lower.
• Lightning Bruiser: Her Blood Mania perk puts her on the levels of Aiko, Mizuki, and Miku when it comes to combat speed, maybe even outdoing them. Additionally, she also receives a significant damage boost to her attacks.
• Magic Knight: Despite being a practicing witch, her perks primarily give her buffs to physical combat rather than magic usage.
• Magikarp Power: Her stats are below average (though not quite as low as Miku or Toshiaki), but her perks can give her a massive power boost from her accumulated curses.

Toshiaki Wakamatsu

Ex-Cultist

The 11th available character. A 19-year-old ex-cultist, who ran away from his school club after finding out they were actually a cult, taking their most prized possession with him: a copy of the Necronomicon. He is unlocked by buying four things from the History Club at the School to get the "Stabbed to death" ending. He has higher Perception, but lower Strength, and starts with the Necronomicon still in his possession. As he levels, more of the book's power can potentially be unlocked, which results in granting him some unique spells that he can cast. Introduced in the 0.9.84 update.

He has six personal perks and starts with one of them: Aura of Azal-Zhull, a passive perk that lowers Doom for completing a mystery by an additional 10%. The rest are Cure of Cthur-Izto, which heals 3 stamina and reason at the cost of 7 Doom per use; F'Thoth Flash, which lets him spend 15 experience to lower the Doom counter by 3% per use; Krootky's Kill, which instantly kills an encountered enemy at the cost of 15 Doom per use; Rage of Ragh-Zhull, which grants +1 damage until the end of the current mystery at the cost of 6 Doom per use; and Shebbe's Surge, which grants a +1 to all of his stats until the end of the current mystery at the cost of 5 Doom per use.

His personal item is his Book Strap, which speeds up his combat actions depending on how many books he is carrying, including the Necronomicon.

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• Bookworm: His personal Book Strap speeds up his combat actions the more books he has, and examining it states that the Necronomicon wasn't the only book that he took.
• Failed a Spot Check: The crux of his "Wrong Book!" challenge: he somehow mistook a cookbook for the Necronomicon.
  Toshiaki: "I swear the covers were identical!"
• Magikarp Power: His starting stats are utterly pathetic, even lower than Miku's, and unlike Miku's they don't increase along with Doom. As he starts recovering pages of the Necronomicon, though, he gains access to spells far more powerful than those available to any other character, and extra Doom to take full advantage of them.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: He has six personal perks as opposed to the usual 3-4, each representing a stolen page of the Necronomicon. Except for the first, none of them provide passive benefits; most grant him a temporary buff in exchange for a major Doom increase.
• Not the Intended Use: Normally, he's meant to use his starting page (-10% Doom per mystery completed) to compensate for the steep Doom costs of his spells. However, it's perfectly viable to simply avoid casting the Necronomicon spells, and instead use the Doom reduction in order to take advantage of sub-locations and resting.
• Not What I Signed on For: Once he realized the school club he'd joined was actually a front for a cult, he fled, stealing their Necronomicon and using it to try and prevent them from beckoning their god.
• One-Hit Kill: Krookty's Kill even works on enemies that aren't supposed to be killable, but the narration will proceed as if you ended the fight the intended way.
• Power at a Price: Using most of the Necronomicon's perks results in a significant Doom increase, though this is countered by the first perk reducing Doom by an extra 10% per mystery.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: He has a copy of the Necronomicon in his possession.
• Wrong Context Magic: Most spells are obtained separately from everything else, have a limit on how many can be known at once, and can be forgotten to gain Reason. Toshiaki's spells, however, are taken as perks, have no limit on how many can be taken (although, in practice, you can only get so many levels), and can't be forgotten. He can also still learn standard magic.

Juri Okusawa

Haunted Heiress

The 12th available character. The 21-year-old heiress of a cursed family, trying to solve the mysteries of Shiokawa before the Horror that haunts her catches up. She is unlocked by acquiring the Extension D card pack from beating the game five times. She has higher Perception, lower Dexterity, and starts with the "Family Curse" effect. Said Family Curse has her be hunted by an unnamed Horror, which has its own Doom counter until it catches Juri. Until the Horror catches her, Juri takes half as much experience to level up; once it catches her, though, she's stuck at the level she was caught at. Introduced in the 0.9.9 update.

Her personal perks are Test of Will, Escapee, and Elusive. Test of Will boosts her Knowledge at the expense of increasing Doom, Escapee does the same with her Dexterity, while Elusive reduces the Doom counter by 5%.

Her personal item is her Check Book, which grants +3 Funds in exchange for advancing the Doom counter by 3%, which also accelerates her personal Horror counter.

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• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Her personal item obtained via the Prepare action is a Check Book, which lets you gain 5 Funds every time it's used. Although this is at the expense of 3% Doom for each check cashed.
• Body Horror: Once the Horror catches up to her, Juri's face and body look like it's trying to flay itself.
• Can't Catch Up: A very peculiar case. Before the Horror catches her, she can potentially out level all the other characters you can play as, especially Yashiro. Once the Horror catches her, she's stuck at the level she was caught at. Meaning that if you faffed about, you can possibly be stuck at level one for an entire playthrough.
• Hereditary Curse: The Horror that hunts her has apparently haunted her family for a long time, but it's never specified which side of her family it's from.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Juri is outright meant to be a speedrun character. The lower leveling threshold until the Horror catches her and the sheer speed the Horror gauge fills up incentivizes completing mysteries without going for the best endings to get as many levels as possible.
• Power Up Let Down: The Check Book looks good on paper, but between the 5% Doom penalty for using Prepare and the 3% penalty for using it, you're looking at a 16% Horror penalty for using it once.
• Secretly Wealthy: She inherited a large enough fortune that she can gain unlimited money with just a check book. However, she lives below her means in a standard apartment, both to avoid attention from the Horror, and because it takes valuable time to cash in the check.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Her default expression is a frightened and bewildered stare. Given the nature of the horror chasing her however, she can't exactly be blamed for looking like that.
• Tomato in the Mirror: As the achievement for letting the real Juri in is obtained by being caught, it's suggested that the one you initially play as is either an impostor, or was never truly human to begin with.

Yumiko Ichimura

Baseball Player

The 13th available character. A 20-year old baseball player, seeking to find her twin brother, who suddenly went missing during a family vacation. She is unlocked by collecting both of the baseball bats (the Baseball Bat dropped by the Apartment Stalker and the Wooden Bat from the Scissors mystery.) Like Ayaka she starts with below average stats (with only Miku and Toshiaki starting lower), and also a temporary penalty to Knowledge due to a Concussion, but she also starts with a Lucky Bat that gives +2 to her luck along with being a weapon. Introduced in the 1.0 update.

Her personal perks Swift Maneuvers, Swing and Hit, and Haunting Dreams increase her ability to dodge attacks, increase damage done by prepared hits, and give her additional Reason recovery from solving mysteries.

Her personal item is a baseball, which can be used in combat to reduce an enemy's Power to 0.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Her events hint that she was involved in the death of a popular girl, and it apparently forced Yumiko to cut her hair in order to fool somebody. However, there are also hints that the real Yumiko is the popular girl who was killed by her own brother (who did, after all, disappear out of the blue), then was impersonated (possibly by her brother, or possibly by someone else). No confirmation is given on which one is the case, though it's implied that it may be the latter.
• Arc Words: Her personal events all end with an ominous "They will find her one day."
• Batter Up!: She begins with a Lucky Bat which helps shore up her poor stats and gives a good boost to luck when equipped.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was apparently involved in an "unfortunate accident" in which a popular and beloved female student fell off a seaside cliff, whose body was never recovered. Apparently, this forced her to change her identity to a degree.
• Deadly Dodging: Her Swift Maneuvers unique perk gives her better dodging, which combined with her Swing and Hit perk gives her a combat style focused around dodging combined with a single power hit each turn, rather than spamming attacks like the more Lightning Bruiser characters like Aiko.
• Good Luck Charm: Her Lucky Bat, which provides a +2 to Luck while equipped.
• Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Her Haunting Dreams perk hints that she suffers nightmares about her involvement in the disappearance of a girl, as the related event causes her to lose Reason and try to get her mind off it.
• I Know Madden Kombat: Being a baseball player, she starts off with a bat, and can also use a baseball to weaken enemies. Her combat-related perks are also likely to have come from her knowledge of the sport.
• I Will Find You: Her character introduction mentions that she swore to find her brother, no matter what she has to resort to in order to find him. Oddly, no brother is ever mentioned in any of her personal events, which instead hint she was involved in the disappearance of a female student off a rocky cliff.
• Master of None: Her starting stats are well-balanced, but overall below average, and she doesn't really have any major advantages to compensate for it. At the same time, she also doesn't have any major drawbacks such as Ayaka's curse accumulation or Juri's Family Curse.
• Noodle Incident: It's never explained as to what led to her concussion, and if that's related to her personal events or not.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's noticeably more petite than the other female playable characters but knows how to use a baseball bat effectively and can deal +2 extra damage using prepared hits with her Swing and Hit perk. She can be above-average in combat, though her average speed and below-average stats means she's not nearly the combat powerhouse that Aiko, a high-follower Mizuki, or an endgame Miku or Ayaka can be.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: After his disappearance on a family vacation, Yumiko got caught up in the eldritch happenings to find out what had become of her twin brother.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: It's implied that she's taken on her brother's identity/appearance (or possibly it's the other way around) in order to ferret out whoever made him/her disappear. (Or just maybe...?).

The 14th Character

See Kana's entry under Friends and Allies.

Friends and Allies

General:

• Assist Character: None of them can actually fight in normal combat (most of them are ordinary civilians), but they do provide various passive bonuses to you and can also be called upon to perform various special actions in combat such as distracting the enemy or performing a Death or Glory Attack.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the player's discretion, they can throw themselves at an enemy, attempting to do as much damage as possible before they're taken down. Can double as a Senseless Sacrifice, especially if their desperate attack doesn't deal any damage.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Unlike your protagonist, if your ally is struck by an enemy, that's it for them. Same goes for them making an attack.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Certain random events enable the player to recruit cultists, only to discover that they're completely normal allies that you've likely encountered in other runs.
• Unwitting Pawn: Their trust in you can be ill-placed, if you're using something like the K'npha Ritual or sacrifice them to appease Oetaru.
• We Need a Distraction: Can be asked to distract your opponent, which can cost them dearly if said opponent manages to land a hit on them in the process.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Can be on either end of this. Some potential allies won't join you unless you can convince them of the severity of the situation. Others are being dismissed as crazy themselves and failing the check for their event means that your protag doesn't believe them, either.

Kana

One of your protagonist's friends and neighbors in their apartment complex. Steps up and takes a central role during the "Eerie Episode of Evolving Eels". As an Ally, can help lower the amount of damage you take during combat.

As the secret 14th playable character, they're motivated to save their neighbor (you), who disappeared while investigating a weird mystery. They have average stats, with reduced perception and knowledge and increased charisma. They have no unique perks and start with a can of soda. Their unique status effect, Always There, gives them significantly reduced max stamina and reason compared to other characters (a mere 8 instead of 17 on Normal difficulty), but they cannot die from loss of Stamina or Reason; zeroing out either will instead restore them to full status but also increase the Doom counter instead. They're also unaffected by effects that reduce max stamina or reason.

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• Ambiguous Gender Identity: By means of the Random Number Generator; as of 0.9.14 (prior versions had Kana explicitly be a girl), Kana's gender is now randomized in each run. Upon taking the Eels mystery, the game will choose to refer to Kana as either she, he, or they. In character selection, meanwhile, their gender is just listed as ???.
• Assist Character: As an ally, they can't fight, but will reduce all damage you take by 1 while they're in your party.
• Boring, but Practical: Their ally effect simply reduces all damage taken by 1. They're still among the best allies to have thanks to how strong damage reduction is in this game.
• Curiosity Killed the Cast: Their desire to learn what one of their neighbors is up to can get them into serious trouble. It says something when the best possible outcome for them is losing an eye. As a playable character, their personal curse that incurs a Doom penalty for each time their Stamina or Reason is reduced to zero is even called "Cat's Curiosity".
• A Day in the Limelight: "Eerie Episode of Evolving Eels" focuses on them roping the protag into helping them investigate what another neighbor has been up to. Can potentially become A Death in the Limelight.
• Determinator: Whenever their Cat's Curiosity perk triggers, they refuse to die from losing Stamina or Reason and instead increase Doom.
  "This is not the end. (+5% DOOM)"
• Eye Scream: May end up on the receiving end, in order to save them from death by parasitic eel.
• Gender-Blender Name: Potentially. Kana is a traditionally feminine name, but since Kana can also be called he or they by the game, there is potential for this trope to happen.
• Iconic Outfit: Their "Happiest Lemon"/"Sorry I don't celebrate that" black shirt with triangles on it, which Yashiro also gets to wear in Timeline B. It's also used as their character selection icon, instead of an upper body portrait like everyone else.
• Jumped at the Call: Potentially. They're certainly eager to find out what's going on during their episode.
• Lethal Joke Character: Kana has average stats, no special perks or items, and starts with noticeably less stamina and reason compared to other player characters. However, the fact their max stamina and reason are fixed means that you can spam spells that normally cost max stamina or reason, such as Mind Drain, as well as equip items that normally reduce max stamina or reason with no added penalty. Oh, and they're also effectively unkillable and can only lose by maxing out the Doom counter, but this is balanced out by their Doom penalty increasing exponentially for every time they undergo an Unexplained Recovery.
• Limited Wardrobe: Downplayed in that while they do wear a different shirt in one of the endings of their mystery, the rest of their time is spent wearing a black shirt with triangles on it. Even if you're playing as them, they only have their "Happiest Lemon" shirt, unlike the other characters, who get at least a single alternative outfit.
• Lovable Rogue: A little less than half the things they do or put you up to are misdemeanors, and they completely fail to understand the Player Character's implied objections to the breaking and entering and petty theft. Nonetheless, none of their mischief is actually harmful to anyone other than themself.
• Minor Living Alone: Kana is under 18 according to Word of God, and there's no sign of their parents in-game.
• Nice Girl: They're never anything but friendly and gregarious. Even if you choose to puncture their eye, their only reaction is gratitude, since it ultimately ended up saving their life.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty: Their penalty to max Stamina and Reason is much less impactful on higher difficulties. This is because their max Stamina and Reason is always 8, while for other characters their max Stamina and Reason is reduced as difficulty increases.
• Plucky Girl: Manages to look on the bright side of things even if they lose an eye during their episode.
• Promoted to Playable: Kana is the final unlockable character in the game, only gotten once you get all the in-game achievements.
• Took a Level in Badass: As an ally in the Eels mystery, they rely on your help in the investigation, then eventually rush off and get an eel infection. Once unlocked and chosen as the player character, however, they prove to be a capable investigator in their own right, with their own unique ability.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Soda, as they're mentioned drinking it multiple times, and as the player character, they start with a soft drink.
• Unexplained Recovery: Their special ability; their Stamina and Reason are much lower than normal, but they can't die, and will instead incur an exponentially increasing Doom penalty when either is reduced to 0.
• Vague Age: While Word of God confirms that they're under 18 and they look like a late teen, no exact age is known. Even unlocking them still doesn't reveal anything, as their age is just listed as ???.

Vigil Guests

Four people who are supposedly family members of the protagonist. They appear in "Vicious Verses of A Violent Vigil" and are instructed alongside the protagonist to perform a vigil for their grand-uncle's body. They consist of Hawado, a weird fiction writer, Miyako, Hawado's wife, Akane, a rich heiress, and Sotomura, a thuggish man with a large scar on his face.

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• Ambiguously Related: The guests are claimed to be related to the protagonist, but the narration says they don't recognize any of them. Given the implication that the protagonist's "grand-uncle" isn't actually their grand-uncle at all, they may very well be total strangers who fell for the letter sent by the law firm.
• Body Horror: Don't follow the vigil's instructions and they'll be mutated into monsters you'll be forced to kill.
  • Hawado and Miyako's faces fuse together as more eyes grow on their heads.
  • Warts appear on Akane's body as her forehead creates an occult symbol.
  • Sotomura's scar tears open, exposing his skull and two giant white eyes.
• The Dividual: Hawado and Miyako technically count as one guest for the purpose of gameplay.
• Fish People: Miyako has bulging eyes and gills on her neck. Word of God confirms she is a Deep One hybrid.
• The Goomba: If they end up mutating due to you mis-performing the vigil, they'll have much lower stats than regular enemies, and should easily be disposed of in combat.
• Guest-Star Party Member: They don't join you as an ally like regular allies do, and even if they survive the mystery, they'll leave immediately once it's over.
• Human Sacrifice: Their purpose in the vigil is to be sacrificed by the protagonist to bring the Horrible Old Man back to life. Depending on your actions, they can be saved from this fate.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Hawado takes clear inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft, right down to the name.

Eimi

A curator for Shiokawa's art gallery encountered in "Perilous Parable of the Peculiar Painting", who came to Ichiro-san's estate to study the ritualistic rock markings there. As an Ally, she restores +1 Reason for every Mystery you complete.

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• Assist Character: She can't fight, but will boost your Reason gain from solving mysteries by 1 if she joins you.
• Curiosity Killed the Cast: Like Kana, Eimi's urge to keep investigating despite all the ominous signs around her can lead her to a gruesome end.
• Escort Mission: If you want to keep her alive, then you have to stick with her for nearly every step of the investigation. You'll 'lose track' of her if you do two consecutive investigations at a spot she isn't present at, or three such investigations in total.

Dog(s)

They can be rescued from a bear trap at the forest. There are three variants: Dog, who improves variety or quality of item drops at end of combat; Camp Dog, who wears a cute backpack, increasing your Inventory slots by 1; or Attack Dog, a fierce black dog who increases all damage you deal by 1.

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• Canine Companion: One of them can become an ally.
• I Owe You My Life: You find the dog trapped in a bear trap.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Attack Dog increases all damage you deal by 1.

Ryoko

A park ranger who can be stumbled across as a random event. She increases damage of all weapons by 1.

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• BFG: Carries a Hunting Rifle, which you can acquire at the cost of losing her as an ally by using the option she unlocks in the Forest Watcher event.
• Never Found the Body: If you have her during the Forest Watcher event, then you can unlock the option to send her to confront whoever is watching you. When you go and check, both of them have disappeared, although Ryoko left her rifle behind.
• You Owe Me: If you have her as an ally during the Amateur Priest event, she can tell the priest that he can pay her back for helping get rid of what she euphemistically calls a "bear" problem last year by helping you, which nets you a guaranteed spell.

Random Students

Attendees of the same school as most of the potential protagonists, who can be found milling around the Schoolyard, serving as a fountain of gossip and potential allies.

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• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: They won't willingly join you if you have 3 or more Allies in your party already. A successful Intimidate attempt can force them to join anyway, but failure will make them permanently unavailable and incur a Doom penalty.
• Gender-Blender Name: As names are randomly assigned, it's not unusual to see guys with feminine-sounding names and vice-versa.
• Gossipy Hens: Good luck getting any actionable intel out of them.
• The Load: While most companions provide passive boosts to your stats or other potentially valuable skills, some of the students actually lower one of your stats instead. Not everybody's suited to facing down eldritch monstrosities, after all...though if the RNG picks them instead of a useful character they can get sacrificed. They're also nice fodder if a character has Paranoia and the K'Npha Rittual active.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Downplayed; Even if the protag clearly isn't a fellow student, none of the students react to this or treat them any differently. Attempting to take one hostage also doesn't provoke a reaction from any others who happen to be present in the courtyard at the time.

Others

The Shiba Inu Shopkeeper

An enterprising pooch who runs a shop Downtown. They offer various goods and services, including the ability to purchase a random item for cheap.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: Go ahead, piss it off by wasting its time. Enjoy being minced, cooked and served to its kin.
• Collector of the Strange: What does it have to offer? Flashlights, cigarettes, blue gems, etc...
• Post-Apocalyptic Dog: In a city teetering on the brink, one of your most valuable allies is this loyal friend.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: One of the Town Statuses sees the Shiba Inu decide to pack up and leave, removing its shop for the rest of the run.

School Nurse

A nurse with a disturbing appearance and a morbid reputation. If enabled as one of the school's sub-locations during a run, will treat the protagonist's minor injuries for free.

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• Boring, but Practical: Getting all your minor injuries healed with only a slight Doom increase isn't as flashy as having a source of easy spells and experience, easy-to-recruit allies, or the truly wild bonuses the History Club offers, but it's more than useful enough to justify taking their place, especially if you're running the Medical History background.
• Creepy Good: Despite her unsettling appearance, she's willing to postpone other appointments to help the protagonist, even if they're clearly not a student, with no hint of any ulterior motive.
• Face of a Thug: She has quite the disturbing appearance, but there's no indication that she's anything other than a kind, devoted nurse who's more than willing to patch you up even if you aren't one of her students.
• The Grotesque: She looks horrifying, and her description states that younger students are afraid of her, yet she shows no signs of being anything but eager to help.
• Nice Girl: In defiance of her creepy appearance, the nurse is a sweet lady who is always willing to heal you up, free of charge.

History Club President

The head of the History Club, who offers a random occult item, random spell and a random perk, in exchange for raising Doom.

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• Four Is Death: You can make three purchases without any problems if you are willing to pay the Doom cost, but if you make a fourth one, you get killed by her.
• Human Sacrifice: Making too many purchases will result in you getting knocked out, and waking up to this, resulting in your death.
• Weird Currency: The cost for a purchase is an increase in Doom.

Special Enemies

Apartment Stalker

A mysterious killer who skulks about the apartment building (of course) the character lives in.

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• Badass Normal: Despite seeming to be just a normal human creep, he's got above-average combat stats and does respectable damage.
• Batter Up!: Uses a baseball bat as a weapon, which you get if you defeat the Stalker.
• Level Drain: His attacks have a high chance of causing a concussion, which will lower your Knowledge stat for the duration of the current mystery.
• Malevolent Masked Man: Wears a Monster Clown mask bearing a massive, toothy grin. You can get his mask as a randomly obtained item, which gives you +1 damage against Human enemies.

Maru, Marked by the Scissor Lady

One of two possible mandatory encounters that may appear in "Spine-Chilling Story of School Scissors". She holds the blessed chalk required for the ritual to weaken the Scissor Woman.

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• Evil Is Not a Toy: According to her bio, she summoned the Scissor Woman to the school to get back at her bullies and was claimed by her for her trouble.
• Eye Scream: The Scissor Woman cut out her eyes. This doesn't seem to have slowed her down any.
• Glasgow Grin: Her mouth is cut open on both sides.
• Reforged into a Minion: The Scissor Woman had something special in mind for her summoner.

Cultist Hunters

Cult members that appear exclusively if you choose the "Hunted by the Cult" background, who attempt to hunt down the player character. Cultist Hunter A is female, whilst Cultist Hunter B is male.

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• Cold Sniper: Cultist Hunter B brandishes a high damage rifle, and is described as cold, calm and silent before battle. Kill him and you can get the rifle.
• Faux Affably Evil: Cultist Hunter A is introduced trying to slash you with a knife whilst saying "You can run from us, but you won't hide... friend."
• Glass Cannon: Cultist Hunter B isn't anything exceptional when it comes to defense (leaning on the lower side), but his damage is a devastating -4 STA, making him extremely lethal if you can't end the fight quickly.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Both of them wear the cult's distinctive mask.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Cultist Hunter A's main weapon is a long knife.

White Death

The vampire residing within the seemingly abandoned mansion that Haru and co. ransacked, and who slaughtered and ate all of them, except for Haru, when they disturbed her sleep. Only available through opting to fight her during Haru's "Deja Vu" personal event.

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• Arch-Enemy: To Haru, for killing all of his brother wakashu.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: The narration only ever calls her an 'it'. The fact she can only be encountered by the man who has a deep grudge against her for eating his comrades probably has something to do with that.
• It's Personal: So much so that only Haru can encounter her.
• Non-Standard Character Design: While most other characters are drawn in a Manga-esque style similar to Junji Ito's, what can be seen of White Death's face seems to be based on more traditional Japanese paintings.
• Skippable Boss: You can spend a little Stamina and Reason to evade her if you don't feel up to the task.
• Wight in a Wedding Dress: For whatever reason, she's seemingly in a traditional Japanese wedding gown. Her white veil betrays the blood-soaked teeth behind it...

Something Truly Evil

A force that stalks you provided you take the correct steps. It was made available to the public in the 0.9.11 update.

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• The Corruption: As seen below with The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You. It corrupts the very user interface the player uses as it draws closer and closer. Just to draw things out.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: At some point after getting its attention, the character during the investigation window, item description, and action menu are replaced with its visage, staring at you.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In a game of Cosmic Horrors and Eldritch Abominations, it's Something Truly Evil.
• Expy: Most likely of Nyarlathotep. They both are Eldritch Abominations that are close enough to human thought patterns to understand what evil is. And relish in it.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: Barely visible in the void where its face should be.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: You can't attack it, and it won't let you simply run away. Your only options during the battle are to sacrifice your Stamina and Reason in the hopes that you can appease it and let you leave before it kills you or drives you insane. That or Press X to Die.
• Humanoid Abomination: Only when you finally 'fight' it. And even then, its 'face' looks like a void in a mannequin's head, with two possible eyes staring at you.
• Implacable Man: Once you've drawn its attention, it follows you everywhere, and you can do absolutely nothing to hurt it (it is possible to defeat it in combat using certain exploits (it still takes Spell damage), but this doesn't stop it from stalking you). You can only hope that the fleeting amusement it takes in stalking you doesn't result in your death.
• Made of Evil: The closest you can get to describing what it is. Most of the monsters you face, including most of the Old Gods, couldn't even be called sapient. They can't be evil because that requires them to have moral agency instead of just existing. Something Truly Evil? It's just that. Truly Evil. It relishes in doing evil things.
• Marked to Die: If you choose to go through your mail when the event gives you the option, you either receive an electricity bill, a lottery reward, or a picture of Something Truly Evil. Once you see its face, it will start showing up in other places like subway advertisements and paintings as it hunts you. Then, it will start haunting your home and corrupting the game's interface as it gets closer and closer...
• Nothing Is Scarier: You're never given a name; just the indication that something persistent and malicious is now after you.
• Optional Boss: It starts to hunt you down, provided you do a certain number of steps.
• Press X to Die: The option "Give yourself up to me" during the "battle" against this thing will instantly kill your character.

Bosses

Scissor Woman

The actual supernatural monster. She is faced at the climax of "Spine-Chilling Story of School Scissors".

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• Arch-Enemy: Due to her case being used for the tutorial and him being the sole playable character for it, she's implicitly one for Kouji Tagawa.
• Cursed Item: Defeating her without properly materializing her into a physical form will cause her to drop her cursed scissors. They're likely the best Knowledge-based weapons in the game, but have a small chance of raising Doom with every attack.
• Glasgow Grin: The Scissor Woman sports one of these and can inflict one on the player as well, either during combat or in a Game Over if she can't be exorcised and killed.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Die against her and she'll promptly give you the same Glasgow Grin she has.
• Maniac Tongue: During the battle, her sprite may shift to have her tongues lolling out of her mouths. This is the player's cue to brace themselves, as she will attempt a special attack the following turn.
• Multiple Head Case: Contrary to most depictions of the Kuchisake-onna, the Scissor Woman has what appears to be three heads merged together and turned sideways, all connected with her Glasgow Grin. In Timeline B, she's nothing but heads.
• Oh, Crap!: A minor case. Using the sigil to force her into a a physical form not only make her look like a fairly normal lady (well, three of them anyway), but the expression on her face seems mildly startled.
• Puzzle Boss: In Timeline B, instead of fighting her normally, you are instead required to determine the correct order of 5 bows and claps to banish her. Unlike the banishment against Ghost-type enemies, you only have 1 try to get the correct sequence. It doesn't banish her even if you get the sequence right, but each correct step gives you 5 experience points instead of dinging you for 1 Stamina and Reason each.
• Shear Menace: She's known as a "tall woman with scissors", a malevolent spirit with three creepily conjoined faces. While her bloodied scissors are entirely normal-sized, she'll still eventually kill you with them if you don't flee in time, due to being invulnerable until you succeed in bringing her down to a vulnerable physical form through a ritual. In the B path, you can obtain her cursed scissors after defeating her.
• Tulpa: The influence of the Old Gods seeping out into the world allows the old dare to summon the Kuchisake-onna to conjure a real scissor-wielding Humanoid Abomination.
• Urban Legend: She is based on the sharp smiler of the same name. However, the usual methods to banish her (giving a noncommittal answer or asking her if you're pretty) don't seem to work here.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Blunt weapons (like the Baseball Bat) deal extra damage to her. As of the Ceaseless Cure update, there's a guaranteed Wooden Bat, a weaker version of the Baseball Bat, that you can only get during this mystery!

Aka Manto (Red Mantle/Cape)

The actual supernatural monster himself faces you in "Chilling Chronicles of a Crimson Cape".

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• Arch-Enemy: Of Kirie, with the 2017 demo being dedicated to her race to stop him before her friend naively summons him.
• Cursed Item: Defeating him without revealing his true form will cause him to drop his Crestfallen Mask. Wearing it reduces Doom by a respectable 10%, but taking it off will remove your face, giving you the Faceless curse, which lowers every single one of your stats by 2. Putting the mask back on doesn't remove the curse.
• Evil Is Bigger: The narration for his approach mentions he towers over the stalls, to the point where it clearly shouldn't have been possible for him to get through the bathroom door.
• Humanoid Abomination: Most of the Eldritch enemies are explicitly or implicitly former humans. Aka Manto? He's indisputably a thing trying to pass as a human. He's weirdly committed to the facade, sticking to stabbing and strangling even when he's clearly a void-faced hulk who's dragged his latest prey into his native alien dimension.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Die against him in his true form and you'll be stranded in the Otherworld, transforming into an Eldritch Abomination yourself and being recruited by the Herald to entertain the Shattered Court.
• Malevolent Masked Man: He appears to wear a mask, which hides a black void where his face should be. You can obtain the mask itself in Ending B of the mystery.
• No Face Under the Mask: Going for Ending A reveals him as being this without his mask—there's nothing but a yawning void behind it. If Ending B is taken instead, the player may inflict this upon themselves if they're dumb enough to put on and then take off the Crestfallen Mask.
• Psycho Knife Nut: During combat, he fights you with a combat knife.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Aka Manto is encountered with a dress suit and shirt.
• Urban Legend: Based on the cloaked creeper of the same name.
• White Mask of Doom: His mask is always shown as the color of the palette intended to be the palest, and encountering him as a civilian is almost certainly a death sentence. Even in the protagonist seat, he's a heavy hitter with a solid health pool and a double-damaging special attack, making him a tough nut to crack.

Mad Janitor

A psycho who's said to be responsible for the disappearance of several schoolgirls in a local school in Shiokawa. He's encountered in "Macabre Memoir of Morbid Mermaids".

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• All for Nothing: In Ending B, the actual mermaid/Deep One who just tore him apart ruefully notes that he almost had it right, but the fish part is supposed to go on top.
• Arch-Enemy: Because he's been killing members of the girls' swimming team, there's an achievement for defeating him with Aiko called "This is for my friends!".
• Badass Normal: He's remarkably tough for a regular human.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: In Timeline B, where he's a Deep One hybrid whose motive for his butchery is desperate loneliness.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In Timeline B, Ending E Has you give the man exactly what he wants if you surrender a friend as tribute. He devours your ally and gets away scot-free, still on the loose and leaving you with the trauma of sacrificing someone to save your own skin. On all acounts, you lost.
• Body Horror: He's been murdering young girls and sewing their upper bodies to the lower bodies of fish in order to create his own mermaid.
• Distracted by the Sexy: A fairly twisted example. If your character has the curse "Insmasu Look", you can show him your gills when you confront him. He gapes at them for long enough that his victim gets up and kills him before dying herself.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: In Timeline B, he's a half-Deep One who is motivated to craft his twisted mermaids out of a desire for companionship rather than obsession.
• Karmic Death: If you don't kill him yourself, pretty much every method by which he can die (see Skippable Boss below) counts as such.
• Mighty Glacier: He's got lots of health and respectable damage and dodge rate. Unless you're really well-prepared for a fight, you might be better off just burning the whole school down in the hope of catching him in the flames.
• Serial Killer: What he essentially is, given his methods are lethal despite his intentions.
• Skippable Boss: There are multiple ways to avoid a full-length fight with him, including setting the school on fire, opening a manhole so a real mermaid can drag him off to a bloody fate, or (if your character has Insmasu Look curse) showing him your gills and distracting him long enough for his latest victim to kill him with her dying breath. However, skipping the fight with him causes you to miss out on his fireaxe, which is one of the strongest melee weapons in the game and required to get Ending A of "Bizarre Bruit of the Blood-Curdling Botanist".
• Would Hit a Girl: Rumors suggested that he's responsible for missing people cases with schoolgirls in Shiokawa. They're right.

Oetaru

The boss of the "Horrible History of a Household Hell" case, it is a massive creature that emerges from the waters outside the manor.

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• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: They’re the only enemy that has the player appear on their portrait, and they’re practically a speck compared to the monster.
• Eldritch Abomination: More so than any other boss. It towers above the player, emerges from the ocean, has a bizarre, confusing appearance, and is impossible to defeat — the only way to drive it off is by sacrificing an ally to it.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: You can't even attack it, as the combat screen says that it's simply too massive to do any damage to. You can try to shoot it, but the chance of any shots landing is zero. Your only options are to run away or sacrifice an ally to appease it.
• Lord British Postulate: Similar to Something Truly Evil, you can "kill" it with spells, but the game just treats this as if you ran away from the fight. The amount of spellcasting required to kill it will also likely tank your Reason or Doom meter, making the rest of the playthrough impossible to complete.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Die against it and it'll pop every hollow cavity in your head, starting with your inner ears.
• Shout-Out: A subtle one. Weird as its appearance may be, it looks very similar to a human inner ear. If you noticed this, you’ve most likely read Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, where it’s a brief plot point.
• Timed Mission: You have 3 turns to either run away or sacrifice an ally to appease it, before it blows out your head, eardrums-first.

Horrible Old Man

The boss of "Vicious Verses of a Violent Vigil". The protagonist's supposed granduncle and is responsible for gathering people to perform the vigil to resurrect himself.

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• Ambiguously Related: He claims to be your granduncle, at least. The player character isn't sure if he's really a relative of theirs.
• Back from the Dead: He succeeds in Ending C.
  • If you use the assess action on him in combat, it states he "died in 1838 and 1943", meaning he's also pulled this off before.
• Deal with the Devil: He made one with an Eldritch Abomination to return from the dead. His boss title is "Cheated death twice", meaning this deal has already paid off once. If both of the other guests die, he succeeds again - but if you beat him, the deal's off, and he has to pay up in person.
• Evil Old Folks: It's in his name.
• Evil Uncle: If he is your granduncle, anyway. He's definitely got the evil down.
• Fat Bastard: He's described as bloated and is unpleasant to say the least.
• Full-Frontal Assault: It's implied he's completely naked in your battle with him.
• Human Sacrifice: The key to his Deal with the Devil. If both of the guests die by your hand, either during the mystery or during the fight with him, the deal is complete, and you get Ending C. During the fight, you can kill one of the guests to deal half the boss's health in damage; this gets you Ending B. Both guests must survive for Ending A.
• Stone Wall: He's got very high health, but relatively low dodge chance, and instead of dealing Stamina or Reason damage his attacks do low Doom damage, similar to Takashi-san.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: "HORRIBLE OLD MAN doesn't do anything.", reports the combat log. When you can drag your opponents into an eldritch void, it seems you can just sit back and wait.

Dream Devourer

The boss of "Curious Case of a Contagious Coma". An Eldritch Abomination that feeds on the dreams of coma patients through its fingers.

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• Attack of the Monster Appendage: After the boss battle against the Dream Devourer, the player character makes the horrifying discovery that the thing they fought wasn't the creature itself, but just the "finger" of something much larger.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If you don't have the Dust of Seeing, the Dream Devourer successfully devours the minds of the coma patients and recedes.
• Dream Stealer: As suggested by its name, it consumes the dreams of the patients.
• Eldritch Abomination: A lanky... thing from the Dream Land with a wide maw and is just a fingertip of a far larger being. It's safe to say that it counts as one.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The investigation indicates that it was summoned into the waking world by the person who was its first victim, who was a dabbler in magic.
• Invisible to Normals: You'll need the Dust of Seeing to find out and therefore confront it.
• Lightning Bruiser: It has a lot of health, high dodge rate, and does very high amounts of both Stamina and Reason damage. In fact, it's probably the toughest enemy in the game that you fight in normal combat. You can significantly lower its health by unplugging the nearby patients it's feeding off of from life support, but this obviously kills them.
• Logical Weakness: It's feeding off a group of comatose patients. Just pull the plug and you'll hurt it ...if your character can take the Reason hit from basically committing murder.

The Garden

Encountered at the climax of the "Bizarre Bruit of the Blood-Curdling Botanist", this sentient foliage attempts to prevent you from rescuing the titular character. For good reason...

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• Botanical Abomination: Sentient enough to grasp and grab and prioritizes Shiro-san over you unless you specifically shield him.
• Good All Along: If you take the time during the battle to inspect Shiro-san more closely, you'll realize he's been infested/possessed by some unnatural form of fungus growing out of his brain, and the Garden is essentially just trying to prevent The Last of Us from happening.

Cordyceps Fungus

The main threat faced in "Bizarre Bruit of the Blood-Curdling Botanist", found in the deep recesses of an overgrown mansion.

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• The Bad Guy Wins: One of the endings has it successfully elude the protagonist, presumably spreading its spores to other hosts.
• Foreshadowing: The fact that it's puppeteering Shiro-san is heavily implied by the quest hint.
• Kill It with Fire: The most surefire way to destroy it. Shiro-san appears to have planned to do this but was unable to do it before the fungus took over his brain. Acquiring the DIY Flamethrower from his van (which requires the Fire Axe), then using it to incinerate Shiro-san, gets you Ending A for the mystery.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The player character is, unfortunately, too late to save Shiro-san from this fate.
• Unblockable Attack: The two endings out of four in which you deal with it directly force you to eat at least one of these. This is because certain in-combat actions required to access said endings have a fixed time unit cost taking up most of the sequence bar, such that dodging or bracing is nigh-impossible. Each case is justified by context: the first is you trying to inspect Shiro's strange head injuries, causing the fungus to reveal itself and catch you off-guard; the second and third respectively involve you chopping a path through thick vines and frantically searching a minivan with a violent fungus-thrall bearing down on you. The third can plausibly be dodged/braced for, but only if your character has very high Dexterity/Strength.

"Together"/The Voice of Humanity

The boss of the "Bloody Brief of a Beckoning Bulletin", a mysterious entity that compels anyone who connects to its online bulletin to commit suicide.

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• Assimilation Plot: The motive behind the suicide epidemic it starts.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If you refuse to engage with it, you get Ending C where it bans you from the bulletin. With no way to continue the investigation, the suicides not only continue but accelerate.
• Expy: Of the titular website from the Japanese horror Flash animation The Red Room, which also induced suicides. It even greets visitors with the line "Do you like it?"
• Graceful Loser: In Ending A, you can convince it that it's impossible for it to "save" humanity under the current circumstances, since an Old God is about to arrive, and most people aren't connected to the Internet anyway. It realizes you're right and leaves you to prevent the apocalypse but promises to return once the Internet has proliferated more.
• Mind Hive: It's actually collective of various ghosts who want to assimilate all of humanity into themselves.
• Mind Rape: Pretty much this is how it makes people kill themselves. Played with, however, in that while it's actually connecting people to its Mind Hive, which causes them to want to join with it out of pure happiness, its sole surviving target feels like every inch of her soul was being violated after fighting off the urge to kill herself.
• Skippable Boss: You can avoid fighting it by obtaining the note from the optional objective to learn its name, then telling it that the technology isn't yet there for it to reach enough people to "save" mankind and never will be there if it doesn't get out of the way so you can prevent an Old God's coming. It will then leave and promise to return when computers are more widespread. As it is one of the toughest enemies in the game, avoiding the fight with it is very desirable, and also gets you the Ending A for the mystery.
• Together in Death: It plans to unite humanity in death.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: It doesn't want to hurt anyone, just free them of their meat so they can become part of the Mind Hive. It actively gets out of the way in Ending A when it realizes it can't save humanity if everyone is killed by the Old God.

The Seeping Apostle

The boss of "Sorrowful Saga of the Moonlight Sailors", a black ooze controlling the partially consumed body of a muscular sailor. Only available in Timeline B.

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• Puppeteer Parasite: It's a black ooze that has possessed the fishermen of the town. In Timeline A it can be forced to leave their bodies and return to the sea, while in Timeline B it actually eats its host bodies from the inside out, with you ending up fighting one such body halfway through the process of being dissolved.
• Skippable Boss: If you have the Torch on you from completing the optional objective, you can fling it at the Apostle, Kill It with Fire, and bypass the boss battle altogether.

Vent Crawler

The boss of "Alarming Account of Abnormal Arms", the murderous perverted building caretaker, alive as a skittering centipede-man. Only available in Timeline B.

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• Air-Vent Passageway: It isn't called the Vent Crawler for nothing.
• Egg-Laying Male: Somehow, despite formerly being a human male, the Vent Crawler laid a whole clutch of eggs containing another generation of man-centipedes. The government Cleanup Crew destroys every egg they find while carrying out their Gas Leak Cover Up, but you can still hear skittering coming from the vents at night...
  [SKITTERING SOUNDS]: they missed one
• Karmic Death: In Timeline A, in spite of his new abilities, the caretaker somehow got stuck in the ventilation system he used to creep around undetected and died of dehydration, alone and unmourned. Not so much in Timeline B though...
• Karmic Transformation: As a result of the rising influence of the Old Gods, the building caretaker's immense perversion ended up granting him Creepily Long Arms and jellified, endlessly flexible bones. In Timeline A this wasn't enough for him to not get stuck in the building's vents and die, but in Timeline B, the greater influence of the Old Gods meant this was only the beginning of his change into a disgusting centipede, a longtime symbol of kegare.
• The Peeping Tom: Spying on women, taking photos of women getting undressed, stealing women's underwear, murdering women... he did it all after his transformation.
• Was Once a Man: If the caretaker wasn't an inhuman abomination when he just had long arms and no bones, he definitely was one after turning into a humanoid centipede.

Nameless Horror/Am-Hemet

The boss of "Far-Out Fable of a Fear Festival", the Eldritch Abomination being summoned by the cult who ransacked the titular festival. Only available in Timeline B.

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• Artifact Title: Despite indeed being nameless for the longest time, the ability to assess enemies added in the Ceaseless Curse update reveals the Nameless Horror's once-forgotten name, Am-Hemet.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Downplayed; it has too much HP to defeat it in a fair fight (it has almost twice as much health as Oetaru, who was already a Hopeless Boss Fight himself), but unlike Oetaru, there is the Master Cultist to be targeted.

Your Friend

The boss of "Worrying Write-up of a Wordless Ward". Supposedly injured in a car crash, your classmate has in truth become so obsessed with you that they put themselves under the knife to quite literally become you. And they don't intend on sharing a face...

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• Badass Normal: Like the Mad Janitor, they're remarkably strong for a regular human.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Choosing to run away from them has you wake up in the hospital, being assured that there was no face-stealing friend, and it was All Just a Dream... so why do you feel different, somehow?
• Doppelgänger: They had themselves surgically altered into an almost exact replica of you, and Ending A reveals they convinced the rest of the hospital ward to follow suit with their own faces.
• Expy: Shares an MO with Batman villain Hush/Tommy Elliot.
• Gender-Concealing Writing: They're only referred to as "they", avoiding any gender-specific pronouns because when they finally remove their bandages and attack you, you learn they've become a doppelganger of the player character.
• Kill and Replace: What they intend to do with you. Or so it seems. As Ending B reveals, the truth is far worse.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: While their fresh surgery scars prevent you from telling whether or not the result is perfect at the time, their surgery to transform their face into yours is remarkably convincing; in Ending B, you don't even begin to suspect you've been shunted into their body until you realize your shoes don't quite fit right anymore. Given the setting, it's actually possible magic could have been partially involved.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Their weapon of choice is a butcher's knife, which was in the package their mother asked you to give to them. You can prevent them from getting it by placing the package in storage, but that just pisses them off and makes their attacks deal additional Reason damage come the boss fight.
• Shrinking Violet: Was apparently generally ignored at school, which results in their envy of and desire to become and replace you, one of the school's most famous/infamous students.

Ichiro Mamiya

A reclusive artist whom the player character is a fan of, encountered in "Perilous Parable of the Peculiar Painting". He acts as the boss for Ending C of the mystery, while one of his patrons is the boss for Ending A.

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• Expy: In addition to being named for another mansion-dwelling famous painter, he shares several characteristics with Richard Pickman - both are artists famed for disturbing styles who use actual eldritch beings as reference for their work.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: In Ending A you walk in on him about to sacrifice Eimi to the entities. As a result of the delay, one of the painting monsters takes him instead, and becomes the boss of the mystery in his place.
• Eye Scream: He wears dark sunglasses to hide his empty eye sockets, which appear to have sunken in on themselves and been filled with black, eldritch growths.
• Mad Artist: It's revealed that he's been using his own fans as offerings to the beings that live within his portraits.
• Skippable Boss: If you keep Eimi safe throughout the mystery up until the point the two of you finally find Ichiro, then you wait in the parlor like he asks you to instead of staying by Eimi's side, you get Ending B of the mystery in which Eimi vanishes and Ichiro gifts you an eerily lifelike painting of Eimi being attacked by a horrific otherworldly creature. As a result, you don't have to fight either Ichiro or the creature but lose Eimi.

T'Cithura

The boss of "Freakish Fable of a Frightening Flood". A river-dwelling fertility goddess that has long been the patron deity of the village of Kaibara.

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• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Unlike Oetaru or Am-Hemet, she can be defeated in physical combat, though she is still quite a tough opponent and will be revived as long as the Kaibara villagers are also active.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Her physical form resembles a building-sized penis with eyes and a Vagina Dentata mouth, rather appropriate for a fertility deity.
• Dual Boss: You fight her and a crowd of her worshippers at the same time.
• Expy: Of Shub-Niggurath.
• Healing Boss: As long as her followers are still active, they will heal her for 1 damage per turn, even bringing her back from 0 health.
• Non-Standard Game Over: If you lose to her in combat, you end up falling under her thrall, joining the villagers' orgy and becoming future Human Sacrifice fodder. This is one of the endings to the Mystery, and also ends your game run.
• The Power of Friendship: You get substantial buffs for every one of the missing researchers that you rescued previously: the linguist and geologist boost your damage by 1, while the theologist will reduce T'Cithura's own damage by 1.

Meat Horror

The boss of "Mysterious Myth of Medusa Metamorphosis". A horrific monster that appears to be a large man with no skin.

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• Body Horror: A man with no skin. His description even talks about how you can see the black blood pumping through his yellow veins, etc.
• Flayed Alive: He's a man with no skin. That doesn't stop him from being a fairly tough fight.
• Tragic Monster: The Meat Horror is actually the marine biologist you've spent the entire mystery trying to find. He was cursed after finding a tablet in a recently unearthed sunken cave; the curse caused his skin to leave his body every night and manifest as the giant jellyfish whose attacks you were investigating.

Kabuki Killer

The boss of "Nightmare News of the Noisy Nails". A Serial Killer stalking Shiokawa who seems to be collecting the fingers and nails of his victims. He turns out to be one of the workers at the hospital's mortuary, who is attempting to bring his dead daughter back to life in the form of a statue of a child made out of nails.

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• Came Back Wrong: The Unfinished Child, the statue of his daughter he was building in an attempt to bring her back to life, immediately rips out his throat as soon as it does come to life.
• Malevolent Masked Man: He wears a kabuki mask to conceal his identity.
• Psycho Knife Nut: He's a knife-wielding Serial Killer.
• Seeks Another's Resurrection: Investigating rumors reveals that he was a father whose daughter died in an accident. He's now collecting nails to create a life-sized statue of his daughter made out of nails in an attempt to resurrect her.
• Stalker without a Crush: He'll stalk you throughout the mystery and potentially attack you in multiple encounters, though these are skill checks rather than a full combat encounter.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: If you fully investigate the mystery and discover what the Kabuki Killer's been doing with the collected nails, the Unfinished Child will rip out his throat as soon as it comes to life, becoming the boss of the mystery.

Roommate

The boss of "Restless Rumors of a Residential Recluse". A Hikikomori girl who used to live in your apartment before you. Feeling that it was the only place that was safe and good, she stayed inside and only ate and slept until the food ran out, then just slept until she starved to death. Her ghost now lives inside the wall of your bedroom like a fetus in the womb.

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• Intangibility: She the game's only Ghost-type boss, which means she can't be harmed with physical attacks and can only be defeated with spiritual actions or special abilities like Yashiro's Bronze Crucifix, which lets him harm ghosts with physical attacks.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Trying to placate her by giving her her stuffed toy just causes her to curse the toy and attack you anyway. This gets you Ending B to the mystery, which seems to imply she lingers on inside the Fleshy Doll instead of being set free to move on to the afterlife as in Ending A.
• Tragic Monster: She died tragically and just wants you to join her so you can be safe and comfortable too.

Shiokawa School

The boss of "Tragic Tale of the Thaumaturgy Teacher". It's the entire Shiokawa school, currently being used as a portal by the new teacher to summon an Eldritch Abomination into the physical world.

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• The Corruptor: The new teacher bewitches the entire student body into becoming her cultist helpers; you're even forced to fight and kill one of them after she bursts out of a dead teacher's stomach. If you fully investigate the mystery, the rest of the students snap out of it after you defeat the teacher. Otherwise, they all get Dragged Off to Hell along with her.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Downplayed similar to Am-Hemet; you can't fight it in normal combat since it's literally a huge building, but you can attack the teacher performing the summoning ritual. Instead of normal combat, this is a fixed special action that is unaffected by your weapons or stats, which means the entire encounter takes a set amount of turns and you'll take a set amount of Doom damage (fully investigating the mystery increases the damage you do and shortens the encounter).
• You Have Failed Me: If you win the combat, the new teacher falls into the portal and is promptly devoured by her otherworldly master for her failure.

Takashi-san

The Final Boss, he is the leader of the cult summoning the Old God.

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• Badass Normal: He's just a regular human, yet he's the Final Boss. His stats are slightly above average, but not as high as many other boss enemies, and he also does Doom damage rather than Stamina or Reason.
• Boring, but Practical: His attack is to delay you from climbing up the Lighthouse, causing Doom to increase. Given how high Doom likely is, this is a smart move.
• Cherry Tapping: His attacks advance the player's Doom Track rather than damage their Stamina or Reason. Ordinarily, this would make him one of the easier enemies to fight, but since he's fought when the player's Doom is likeliest to be at its highest, it becomes a more substantial threat.
• Enigmatic Minion: Despite plainly being a head honcho of your mortal enemy, he shows a bizarre reluctance to hurt you at all, given the stakes. His enemy subtitle refers to him as "The Ultimate Opportunist", indicating his loyalties are rather fluid.
• Final Boss: Most successful runs will have to confront him whilst climbing the lighthouse.
• Harmless Villain: At no point in the fight does he ever actually attempt to attack you, instead attempting to physically restrain the player at the expense of the Doom counter. This itself can be run ending, but by no means is he actually more effective at advancing the Doom Track than any other enemy who does so.
• Malevolent Masked Man: As a member of the cult, he wears their trademark mask. He takes it off before your final confrontation.
• No Final Boss for You: He's the sole combat encounter inside the Lighthouse, but is one of several randomly selected encounters, so it's possible to fight him at the very beginning of the Lighthouse climb, or even not at all in a playthrough.
• Nothing Personal: He'll address you in a familiar manner and remark "Nothing personal, kiddo" before attacking you.
• The Coats Are Off: He takes off his jacket right before fighting you.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: The leader of the cult attempting to summon an Old God and bring about the apocalypse is, by all appearances, just a normal salaryman.
• You Shall Not Pass!: His 'combat' consists of him stalling you for as many precious seconds as he can, until either (a) the Old God awakens or (b) you cut him down.

The Old Gods

General:

• Big Bad: They are this in any given run.
• The Corruption: Each Old God's influence over the world mostly manifests itself in-game in the form of some gameplay modifier that adds a layer of difficulty to the game.
• Eldritch Abomination: All of them are beyond the realm of humans and are at varying levels of incomprehensible.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Each Old God has its own game over screen detailing what happens to Shiokawa when they awaken. None of them are good outcomes, to say the least.
• Timed Mission: Every last one of them function on a Doom percentage that gradually increases during play. As soon as it hits 100%, it's all over and they will be able to wreak havoc on Shiokawa as they see fit.
• The Unfought: You never actually get to fight any of them directly, which is justified since they're all-powerful eldritch entities whose mere presence can potentially cause The End of the World as We Know It. The most you can do is disrupt their summoning rituals to buy humanity some time.

Cthac-Atorasu, the Spider God

A giant spider god, breaking free from its 300-year prison to devour mankind. Its Old God's Rule (Eternal Web) prevents you from running from battles. Its medium is a massive egg sac.

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• Animalistic Abomination: It qualifies, being a humongous eldritch spider-like being that finds humans quite tasty.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: It's an enormous spider. If your Doom gets too high, it's shown Cthac-Atorasu can easily web up the entire city.
• Expy: Of Atlach-Nacha, but its colossal size might also make it an Expy of Ungoliant.
• Giant Spider: It's the Spider God for a reason.
• Inescapable Ambush: Its presence turns every single battle into this, since it prevents you from fleeing.
• Regularly Scheduled Evil: It rises from its slumber every 300 years.
• To Serve Man: Its endgame is to web up Shiokawa, and possibly the entire world, and make its prey wait days, months, even years as it works around to devouring them one by one.

Ath-Yolazsth, the Towering Eye

A giant celestial body that threatens to encompass and destroy the Earth. Its Old God's Rule (Cosmic Gift) removes the Reason cost of any spell and turns it into a Doom cost. Stamina costs are not affected. Its medium is a telescope.

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• Expy: The entire theme of the game makes the Remina comparisons all too obvious. The "Planet(oid) with Giant Eye heralding Doom" motif also makes it a nod to Ghroth.
• Giant Eye of Doom: A given when you're known as The Towering Eye.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Fail to avoid its gaze in one event and they inflict this upon you, cursing the player with forbidden knowledge.
• Planet Eater: Reach 100% Doom, and Ath-Yolazsth will devour Earth. But not right away: your failure means that Ath-Yolazsth has, instead, noticed Earth, and is coming to eat the planet. It will take ten years, but nothing can stop it now.
• Power at a Price: Ath-Yolazsth appears to make it easier for mages to practice their craft, as spells that are normally powered by Reason no longer drain your Sanity Meter. However, casting these spells instead draws its attention to Earth, enticing it ever closer.
• The Stars Are Going Out: One of the signs that this is the god you're going up against: stars vanishing from the sky.
• Super-Empowering: If he's the Old God all of your characters get one free spell in their inventory, and it's mentioned that people all over the world are developing powers. Go ahead and use them all you want. Think of it a free lunch.
• Warm-Up Boss: It's possible to render Ath-Yolazsth's Rule completely meaningless just by never using spells at all, and its unique events aren't as punishing as some of those used by the other Old Gods, making it a common suggestion for a player's first Old God.

Goizo, the Thing Forsaken by God

Sealed centuries ago by an ancient race of lizard people, Goizo has learned how to use mirrors to ensnare and drag in prey. Its Old God's Rule (Mirror Horror) causes additional doom to accumulate when resting at home. Its medium is a mirror.

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• Driven to Madness: Judging by some unique events that may happen if Goizo is chosen as the Old God of the run, this may happen to whoever catches a glimpse of it through the mirror. These Goizo-specific events also tend to drain your Sanity Meter or inflict Curses.
• Eye Scream: If Doom reaches 100%, the protagonist joins a small cell of survivors in smashing all their mirrors and trying to seal themselves off from the carnage. Unfortunately, while looking into their lover's eyes, they see their own reflection, and Goizo begins manifesting out of that eye socket...
• Loophole Abuse: Goizo can cross to our world from mirrors. Any reflective surface counts as a mirror for this purpose, which comes into play in its ending if you reach 100% Doom.
• Mirror Monster: Goizo uses reflective surfaces to attack and capture prey.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Unlike the other Old Gods, you never get to actually see Goizo in full. The most you see are tentacles and a toothy maw coming out of mirrors and glowing eyes in their reflections.
• Shout-Out: To semi-obscure Japanese horror movie Guzoo: The Thing Forsaken by God. The titular monster in it is also a tentacle monster that attacks and devours people by crawling out of mirrors.

Ithotu, the Devouring Fire

A marble statue of a handsome young man, holding inside it a being of indescribable destructive power. Its Old God's Rule (Entropy) causes you to lose double the regular amount of Stamina or Reason when attacked, but also doubles your damage. Its medium is a slab of black stone.

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• Artifact of Doom: The marble statue that "houses" Ithotu. Choosing it as the Old God of the playthrough states that it was unearthed and placed in a museum in town.
• Expy: Of Cthugha, which is also a primordial being of fire known as "The Living Flame".
• Glass Cannon: Ithotu doubles all damage, both ways, meaning you'll be hitting harder, but also taking more.
• Humanoid Abomination: Of all of the Old Gods, Ithotu is the only one that resembles a human, albeit in the form of a statue.
• Nerf: Originally, Entropy only doubled damage dealt to the player. It was later changed to also double damage dealt by the player, making it more a risk/reward choice than simply punishing yourself.
• Person of Mass Destruction: If Doom reaches 100%, he breaks free and reduces Shiokawa to ashes. The cause of death for your character is listed as "Perished in the Hecatomb".
• Pyromaniac: It did burn down the Library of Alexandria, after all.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Ithotu is contained in a marble statue currently exposed in the museum of Shiokawa. Reach 100% Doom, and it will break free.

Ygothaeg, the Irresistible Gaze

A massive axolotl-like creature, it was awakened by Pacific nuclear tests and emerged from the Mariana Trench. Its Old God's Rule (Gaze of Ygothaeg) causes the Doom meter to rise if you investigate any location if doesn't want you to go. It is unlocked by using a Glass Eye and the Third Eye spell on the same playthrough. Its medium is a mass of coral.

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• Animalistic Abomination: It looks like an axolotl, but it's huge, lives in the deep sea, and has a hypnotic gaze.
• Berserk Button: Not obeying its commands. The ingame text outright says it gets furious if you go where it doesn't want you to go.
• Expy: Of Godzilla, both being ancient aquatic monsters awakened by nuclear tests. As an amphibian-like being with a compelling gaze, it also recalls the Hypnotoad.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Those who look into its gaze will have to do what it says, or suffer its wrath. If the player goes to locations it doesn't want you to, your Doom will rise.
• No Fair Cheating: Attempting to reroll what locations it doesn't want you to go by heading to sublocations without Doom penalties will have it notice and raise your Doom.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: If Doom reaches 100%, it will compel the population of Shiokawa, and maybe the world, to walk into the sea to their deaths. We hope, considering the terrifying alternatives to drowning "joined the Underwater Kingdom" could encompass.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Occassionally, instead of its usual orders it will simply say "don't blink or suffer its wrath." Downplayed in that it currently does nothing... or does it?

Herald of the Shattered Court

A strange creature with musical horn-like protrusions coming from its head, messenger of a hierarchy of extradimensional beings that have "invited" the town of Shiokawa to a great ball. It is unlocked by defeating an enemy with a chainsaw as Moriko. Its Old God's Rule (Court's Calling) causes two town statuses to occur when you finish a mystery instead of one. Its medium is a tuba.

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• Alien Abduction: Once the Nobles have had their fill of Shiokawans, they take the survivors with them, never to be seen again.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: The Shattered Court is a clique of self-styled "Nobles" who travel across the planes, feasting on and enslaving intelligent life wherever they go.
• Deadly Euphemism: "Shiokawa is cordially invited to our ball" actually means "We're coming to your town to eat you and shanghai whoever's left".
• Early-Bird Cameo: The Herald and its masters are both namedropped in the special game over from dying to the unmasked Aka Manto, written well before they were added to the game themselves.
• Expy: The Herald's meddling and obsession with "appeasing the Court" calls to mind The King in Yellow and the namesake play. His status as a messenger of even more powerful beings also makes him akin to Nyarlathotep, while the Shattered Court itself is also a probable reference to the Court of Azathoth.
• Gathering Steam: Its Rule means it practically has no impact during your first mystery, but the faster accumulation of town effects means he can have the hardest late game of all Old Gods.
• Harbinger of Impending Doom: While the Herald is itself an Old God, it is merely a servant of the Shattered Court, an order of even greater Old Gods.
• Made a Slave: As the whim strikes them, the Nobles will sometimes spare their victims from their ravenous hungers, instead making them spend the rest of their days performing for their amusement.
• Ominous Floating Castle: If you reach 100% Doom, the Court's palace materializes in the clouds above Shiokawa in the game over screen.
• To Serve Man: When the Court invades Shiokawa, the Nobles gorge themselves on its people as they walk its streets.
• The Wild Hunt/Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: The Shattered Court's depopulation of Shiokawa, and presumably its MO wherever it goes, has heavy elements of this: otherworldly nobles descending upon the world of humans in a procession of festivities that tramples any human unfortunate enough to cross its path underfoot.

Ktu-Rufu, the Dreaming

A being of unfathomable power that has laid in an aeons-long sleep in a sunken city deep in the ocean, his dreams driving lesser beings to insanity. Now the stars above Shiokawa are right, and he's beginning to awaken from his slumber. He is unlocked by encountering all three "dream" enemies in a single run (Dream Salesman, Dream Eater, and Dream Devourer). His Old God's Rule (Nightmare) causes the Doom meter to rise whenever Reason is lost. His medium is an effigy of himself.

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• All Just a Dream: Reaching 100% Doom reveals that Shiokawa, and perhaps reality itself, was just a dream of Ktu-Rufu. Once he awakens, the dream is over. In fact, the cause of death is listed as "Just a dream...?"
  • Having Ktu-Rufu in effect gives the player a status called "Just a dream?" that lowers Doom by an extra 2% at the end of each mystery.
• Dream Apocalypse: What happens to Shiokawa when he awakens.
• Driven to Madness: Much like his inspiration, Ktu-Rufu's mere influence causes people to go insane. This is reflected in his Old God's Rule, since the more Reason you lose (in many cases because of his exclusive events), the closer he is to awakening.
• Expy: He is Cthulhu not just in appearance, but also in name. In Japanese, the "L" and the "R" are the same letter and so are the "F" and the "H".
• Plagued by Nightmares: One unique event has the player character complain that their nightmares are getting worse and worse and decide on whether to fall asleep and accept it or if they would rather not sleep at all. Choosing to sleep deals 3 damage to Reason immediately while choosing to stay awake inflicts Insomnia, which deals 2 damage to Reason at the end of each mystery.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: He's trapped in a timeless slumber in a sunken city (which may or may not be R'lyeh), waiting until the stars are right to awaken once more.

Zhectast, the Horror from the Stars

An organic fragment that landed in a meteorite from space on the outskirts of Shirokawa. It is slowly mutating the citizens of Shiokawa until they merge into "The Perfect Form", a giant placenta that will consume the city and give birth to a god. It is unlocked by beating the game seven times. Its Old God's Rule (Perfect Form) reduces all of your stats by 1 every 21% of the Doom Counter. Its medium is a radioactive material barrel with an orb in the center.

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• The Assimilator: It intends to physically merge all living beings in Shiokawa (and possibly the world) into an amalgam of flesh known as the Perfect Form to serve as a vessel for its rebirth. It succeeds if Doom reaches 100%.
• Blob Monster: It appears in game as a floating, dripping ball of organic matter.
• Came from the Sky: It landed on a farm inside a meteorite, and immediately proceeded to turn the poor farmer who discovered it into a puddle.
• Cursed with Awesome: Zhectast's has several different unique events featuring your character experiencing some Body Horror as they grow closer to the Perfect Form. The events cause a bit of Stamina/Reason damage, but give you +3 to a stat, helping balance out the stat drain the god causes.
• Expy: Of The Colour Out of Space and Third Impact from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
• I'm Melting!: Inflicts this on Shiokawa if Doom reaches 100%... or if any of the player character's stats fall below zero.
• Level Drain: Every 21% of the Doom Counter, it will lower all your stats by 1.
• Stat Death: If a stat is reduced to 0 by its rule, the game is immediately over as you've melted into a pile of flesh.

Eh-Żhal, the Inconceivable Sadness

A being whose servants feed off of the very essence of human suffering, killing them and making their bodies and minds one with the burgeoning god. It is unlocked by beating the game with Yumiko. Its Old God's Rule (Al-Misery) gives the player a Misery Parasite that raises Doom at the end of a mystery depending on semi-randomized conditions (such as how many spells the player knows). Its medium is a hole in the ground filled with a black substance and surrounded by crystals.

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• Anti-Frustration Features: To compensate for the potentially steep Doom penalties you'll incur after each mistery, it's the only Old God without unique events.
• Bilingual Bonus: His name resembles the Polish word "żal", which means "sorrow, misery".
• Body Horror: It feeds from the misery and despair of humans by infesting them with eldritch brain parasites.
• Death by Despair: Inflicts this upon the world if Doom reaches 100%. The cause of death for your character is listed as "inconceivable sadness".
• Driven to Suicide: If Doom reaches 100%, your character and all Shiokawa will end their own lives, their minds becoming one with Eh-Żhal.
• Gathering Steam: The longer the run goes, the more potential Doom you'll accumulate after each mystery.
• Gradual Grinder: Its Doom penalties will kill the player if they don't actively try to mitigate them by getting rid of their funds, spells, inventory items, injuries, etc.
• Humanoid Abomination: Eh-Żhal is portrayed in game as a ghostly humanoid figure with a swirling void where its face should be.
• Luck-Based Mission: Depending on your character and playstyle, bypassing the random Doom debuffs given after each mystery can be trivial or can doom (no pun intended) your run. For instance, getting Doom per allies with Mizuki or Doom per spell learnt with Kirie can be devastating.