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The Endbringers

In General

First appearing in 1992, the Endbringers have been unsystematically wrecking human civilization ever since. They are, in fact, nearly the one and only thing which will cause heroes and villains to team up to fight. Each of them attacks roughly once a year, and never at the same time.

Classifications shared by all Endbringers: Brute; Trump (core)

Ambiguous Situation: We know that Eidolon had something to do with them, but what role that was exactly is unknown. The common assumption is that he subconsciously tapped one or several passengers to create them as adversaries, but an interlude revealed that Endbringer-like creatures would have existed even in a world without him, raising the possibility that they already existed and he merely activated or summoned them.
Antagonistic Offspring: The Endbringers are subconscious creations of Eidolon's power (see Outside-Context Problem below for more information on that), resulting in them effectively being this to him, and after their Hazy-Feel Turn, they become this to Scion by proxy as well.
Bizarre Alien Biology: The analyses that Tattletale and Blasto do on Leviathan and the Simurgh, respectively, demonstrate this quite conclusively.
Eldritch Abomination: No one has any idea where they come from or why they're killing people, they're stronger than any parahuman except Scion, and they blatantly violate the rules of biology and physics.
Enfante Terrible: Wildbow describes them as "unpredictable" children who naïvely view their rampages as some kind of game, and thus do not exhibit their true potential until they turn against Scion.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: The original three Endbringers form this trio, with Behemoth, Simurgh, and Leviathan respectively.
Genius Bruiser: Capes fighting Endbringers are routinely warned that the big scary monsters are much, much smarter than they look. This even applies to the Simurgh, who looks pretty smart to begin with.
Godzilla Threshold: When an Endbringer shows up, all heroes and villains in the area will suspend their disputes and join forces to drive it off. Breaking the Endbreaker Truce is very serious business, as it could mean some capes won't respond to the next attack for fear of it happening again, which could lead to massive loss of life. They're so dangerous that this threshold was passed ad infinitum from the moment Behemoth first showed up - part of the reason the "Unwritten Rules" exist is in part to ensure that there are enough capes willing to work together when these things show up.
Hazy-Feel Turn: They've stopped their campaign of extermination against humanity due to Scion going mad, but they're hardly good.
Healing Factor: Given time, they can repair any damage. The only way to overcome this is to leave nothing at all or to destroy their core.
The Heavy: Collectively with the Slaughterhouse Nine; though Jack's roving band of serial killers are directly responsible for causing the end of the world, the sheer devastation wrought by the Endbringers around the globe makes them the de facto the primary antagonists of the setting, at least until Scion reveals himself as the series' true Big Bad in the final arcs.
Hero Killer: All of them can wrack up impressive body counts given enough time, though Behemoth (who's actually referred to In-Universe as "the Herokiller") and Leviathan are particularly good at this.
I Am Not Left-Handed: Capes note that they occasionally pull out new abilities and tactics they've never used before. According to Word of God, this is because they plan to carry out their mission of gradual destruction over the course of 300 years, so they have a number of cards yet to be played they intend to meter out over the coming centuries.
Invincible Villain: They've never been defeated, only Repelled. They're so completely beyond parahumans that it isn't a question of if they'll destroy humanity, but when. That said, while Eidolon and similarly powerful heroes can't kill them, they can always drive them off, because that's the whole point of who they are.
It Can Think: Don't let the fact that they're giant monsters fool you. They are very intelligent.
Joker Immunity: A peculiar in-universe example. They can't be killed, because then Eidolon would run out of entertaining fights. Only someone who operates outside the rules that parahumans operate by, like Zion, can off them permanently.
Kaiju: Serve the purpose of the massive monstrous superbeings to fight in Worm. Notably, aside from Bohu, they're all quite a bit smaller than most depictions of Kaiju.
Nigh-Invulnerable: None of the Endbringers have ever suffered permanent harm until Behemoth died. The general answer to the question of "Why didn't they try [tactic/power/weapon] against [Endbringer]?" generally boils down to "They did, and it didn't take." Word of God is that they use the parallel realities powers are based on to effectively compress the mass of a galaxy into their cores (the only vital part of them), making them so durable that only by breaking the laws of physics can one hope to kill them. On top of that, the actual physical matter that mass is drawn from is stored in an adjacent reality with their cores serving as portals to draw from, giving them a near bottomless well of material to repair their wounds with..
- Someone actually did the calculations for the amount of pressure needed to actually damage them. Their results were 30.3 trillion MPa to destroy their limbs and 560 novemdecillion MPa for their cores. ^note.
Outside-Context Problem: No one has any idea what the Endbringers are, where they come from, or why they are trying to destroy humanity. While their origins are never explicitly stated, the story holds some clues: Interlude 29 shows an Alternate Timeline where the entity Eden was not killed. In this timeline there are Endbringer-like beings that are heavily implied to have been created by Eden in order to sow conflict among humanity. In Interlude 27, Scion tells Eidolon that he "needed worthy opponents". Assuming that Scion is telling the truth, this suggests that the Endbringers were subconsciously created by Eidolon using the power that Eden displayed in Interlude 29, since Eidolon's power gives him what he needs. Word of God has confirmed that they would not exist without Cauldron.
Pyrrhic Victory: The standard result of a fight with them. On a good day, one out of every four capes who fight will die in the battle.
Rip Van Winkle: They hibernate between attacks in locations nearly impossible to reach, much less attack. By the time of Ward they haven't left hibernation for over two years, leaving many hopeful that with the death of Eidolon and Scion they're asleep for good.
Rule of Symbolism: They all have bizarrely religious symbols to them: Simurgh is an angel, Behemoth is a demon, Leviathan a serpent, Khonsu is a Buddha, Tohu is a maiden, and Bohu is mother earth. The symbols don't really mean anything specifically, but it does hint that they're based on humanity's (or possibly just a human's) belief of power and conceptual forces.
Silicon-Based Life: The Endbringers appear to be made out of a crystalline material.
Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: Global. The end of humanity at their hands is a real and pressing threat.
Tactical Withdrawal: When sufficiently damaged they retreat from a fight, though "sufficiently damaged' rarely means they're damaged enough to be at risk of destruction. A more important factor is whether enough time has passed and enough damage has been done to give Eidolon a sufficiently satisfying fight.
Time-Limit Boss: It's noted while discussing Echidna, who doesn't have this that all the Endbringers have something that creates pressure to finish the fight quickly. A few specific examples:
- Leviathan's Making a Splash powers grow in strength with every wave he creates. How strong can they get, you ask? Well, just ask Japan or Newfoundland.
- The Simurgh's insanity-causing "song" affects more and more people for the longer she remains active. Not to mention, the longer the heroes take to drive her off, the more time she has to further her plans- and the Simurgh always has a plan.
- Bohu's fighting style is built around this. The more time she's given, the more traps she can create in the surrounding landscape- not to mention, unlike most other Endbringers, the effects of her power persists after she's defeated, so the need to defeat her quickly is even larger than you might think.
- Tohu takes some time to choose her faces, but once she chooses all three, the battle is as good as over.
Willfully Weak: More than one Thinker comes to the conclusion that, not only are they are smarter than they seem, but they're all basically pulling their punches. Yup: you read that right. Horrific though their attacks are, global extinction is not likely their primary objective. Because if it was, it would have been over before the first decade was out if they had brought their A-game to the table. It turns out that it's because they only ever need to be dangerous enough to give Eidolon a decent fight.

Behemoth

Behemoth/Hadhayosh/Prathama

Debut: Crushed 24.1

The first Endbringer to appear, on December 13th, 1992; has been variously called "Hadhayosh" and "Prathama" by different characters at different times. A forty-five-foot-tall, heavily-muscled, heavily-armored bipedal one-eyed creature with the ability to manipulate energy of all kinds (e.g. electrical, thermal, kinetic) while bypassing the Manton effect^*. Between attacks, it lies deep in the earth.

Classification: Blaster, Shaker

Anti-Magic: Behemoth's core appears to shut off parahuman powers.
Atomic Superpower: Behemoth has power over nuclear energy, which is shown during its assault on New Delhi.
Attack Reflector: He can absorb the energy of attacks, storing it for later or immediately turning it back on the attacker. This requires conscious effort though, so sneak attacks still work.
Bizarre Alien Senses: If he follows the pattern of his siblings, he perceives the world in terms of energy. Thermal, electrical, kinetic, gravitational, sonic, potential, chemical, and radioactive energy all create a complex map of the world around him.
Boss Arena Urgency: He always walks in a straight line towards something that would have catastrophic consequences if destroyed, like nuclear reactors or the Birdcage.
Character Death: Killed by Scion in Drone.
Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. Anyone who isn't 100% invulnerable that gets within a 30-foot radius of Behemoth will be roasted alive from the inside.
Cyclops: Has only one eye.
Dishing Out Dirt: He can cause earthquakes.
Energy Absorption: He's pretty Nigh-Invulnerable already, but can also just disperse the kinetic energy from incoming attacks into the ground or air as powerful shockwaves.
Hero Killer: Has killed more of them than anything else, leading it to actually be called "The Herokiller" in-universe. Proves it during the New Delhi attack by killing Ligeia, Rime, and Regent. He also killed Phir Sē offscreen.
Horned Humanoid: Or sort-of humanoid. He has arms and legs, at least.
Implacable Man: He is incinerated by Phir Sē's "time bomb" in Crushed 24.4, leaving him "A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat." He's still moving afterwards, and as his flesh visibly regenerates, he's undeterred from his target.
- In fact, to finally kill him, Scion has to rip him in half before vaporizing both halves, and Behemoth is still fighting after Scion rips him in two!
"Instant Death" Radius: The heat radiating from his body kills anyone within thirty feet of him pretty much immediately. Only Alexandria and anyone under the effect of Usher's power are explicitly shown to be immune. He can also create a larger radius of not-quite-instant death by putting out immense radiation.
The Juggernaut: Out of all the Endbringers, Behemoth appears to be the most unstoppable.
Magma Man: Appears to be made out of lava, with obsidian for "teeth".
Playing with Fire: Can project flames.
Pure Energy: His main power, dynakinesis, is the control of all types of energy.
Make Me Wanna Shout: He can cause massive internal injuries simply by roaring.
Red Baron: Hero Killer, earned through the laundry list of deaths he's caused over the years.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has a single blood-red eye.
Shock and Awe: Can fire lightning from his fingertips, as well as manipulate the flow of electricity. The former tends to be the biggest killer of capes.
Smarter Than You Look: As shown during the fight for New Delhi, Behemoth is far smarter than it appears.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Scion kills him by ripping him in half then vaporizing him. He was still struggling after being ripped in two, so if this was actually overkill is up for debate.
Walking Wasteland: Everything too close to him immediately burns and melts, while his radiation poisons the landscape for miles.
The Worf Effect: The first Endbringer to emerge, Behemoth has more kills under his belt than any other due to the nature of his powers and the fact he's been around the longest. Despite his immense power and Determinator tendencies, Scion easily drags him out of the Earth and slams him down hard enough to tear the beast in two. This also serves as foreshadowing for Scion's true nature later on in the story, as he is as far above the Endbringers as they are above Parahumans.

Leviathan

Leviathan/Jormungand/Jörmungandr

Debut: Buzz 7.12

The second Endbringer to attack, appearing for the first time in the mid-1990s. Leviathan—also known as Jormungand or Jörmungandr—is a thirty-foot-tall bipedal, tailed monster. Its obvious powers are twofold: an "afterimage" of water that follows behind it, appearing where it just was moving at that same speed, and large-scale water telekinesis. It is obviously incredibly tough—a trait which masks the fact that it is actually Nigh-Invulnerable. Recuperates deep in the ocean between assaults.

Classification: Blaster/Shaker, Mover

Bizarre Alien Senses: His only sense is being able to detect water, including the water in human bodies. He extends this ability with the rain and waves that accompany his attacks, giving him complete knowledge of the battlefield.
Boss Arena Urgency: He calls in tidal waves at regular intervals, and they get stronger as the battle continues until the entire area collapses into the ocean. Brockton Bay is situated over an aquifer, which he manages to tear open.
Character Death: Killed by Scion in Speck.
Curb Stomp Cushion: He walks all over the capes of Brockton Bay, but they manage to inflict injuries that clearly hamper his performance. It turns out that this is averted, as Word of God is that the Endbringers are holding back.
Cyborg: Gained fins made of Defiant's nanotech due to an upgrade from the Simurgh.
Hero Killer: Standard for Endbringers. Counting his first appearance he killed numerous recurring characters, including Dauntless, Velocity, Gallant, Aegis, Kaiser, and Fenja, plus an extra 25 miscellaneous capes.
Hope Spot: Pulls this multiple times on the capes defending Brockton Bay. Every time it looks like they're winning, he whips out a highly destructive attack that turns things back around. Case in point: when Flechette scores a headshot on him, he staggers, and then creates a lake, forcing everyone fighting him to run for their lives and destroying several city blocks.
Knight of Cerebus: The story is dark from the beginning, but from Leviathan's appearance really marks the point where things start going From Bad to Worse. Casualties, violence and general Nightmare Fuel all step up a huge notch from this arc on, getting worse and worse until the end of the series.
Lightning Bruiser: Faster than any known cape when in water.
Making a Splash: Has the greatest water powers out of any being in the Wormverse.
Not Quite Flight: Dashes up mist buttes he creates during the final fight.
Person of Mass Destruction: Even compared to the other Endbringers. His hydrokinesis gives him the largest destructive range of any being in the setting except Scion, allowing him to ravage whole countries. When he attacked Japan, he sank the entire island of Kyushu into the ocean, killing nearly ten million people along with most of the country's heroes and causing such enormous economic damage that Japan became a third-world country virtually overnight. His attack on Newfoundland 6 years later also destroyed the entire island, although there were considerably fewer casualties due to lower population.
Red Baron: The Second, a title with equal impact to Behemoth's because it was earned simply by showing that the Hero Killer wasn't a one-off thing.
Silent Antagonist: Unlike Behemoth's roars and The Simurgh's song, Leviathan makes no noise of his own.
Smarter Than You Look: He proves this responding to Armsmaster's ploy by letting Armsmaster think he's winning right up to the moment that he has the storm sewers explode open.
Soft Water: Completely averted. Not only does his water afterimage follow his every move, it carries the same kinetic energy. He uses this to increase his attack range significantly.
Super-Speed: In the water he's the fastest being on the planet, no contest. Outside it he's not quite so swift, but he's still incredibly fast.

The Simurgh

The Simurgh/Ziz

Debut: Interlude 16.z (flashback)

The third Endbringer to arrive, appearing just after the turn of the millennium. Also known as Ziz. A fifteen-foot-tall, flying, waiflike alabaster-white female human figure with pure grey eyes, long platinum hair, and numerous asymmetrically-placed white-feathered wings. Her obvious powers are telekinetic; her less-obvious powers are prophetic: she intentionally adjusts the events in places she attacks to set up the survivors as walking Disaster Dominoes that might fall months or years after the initial event. Rests between attacks in the thermosphere, three hundred or more kilometers above the earth.

Classification: Thinker, Master, Mover, Stranger

Big Bad Wannabe: The Simurgh controls the other Endbringers' actions, and is arguably a major factor in just about anything that happens in the entire series, but Scion is and remains the series' actual Big Bad - not least because she doesn't actually have a motivation outside of supplying Eidolon with interesting fights.
Bishōnen Line: The most human-looking Endbringer is also the most dangerous. When talking about the Endbringers, Taylor says:
"If Behemoth hadn't already turned the area into a radioactive, magma-ridden wasteland. If Leviathan hadn't built up enough momentum with his waves. If the Simurgh...Ok, the Simurgh was different, I had to admit. The issue with her wasn't so much winning the battle. It was what came after. Win every battle against her, lose the war, more or less."
Bizarre Alien Senses: She has no senses in the present, with no sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. What she does have is the ability to see the past and future of anyone around her, allowing her to perfectly react to present actions by anticipating them just before they happen.
Blind Seer: Doesn't have any normal senses, including sight, but is able to see people's past and futures.
The Chessmaster: Every action she takes is carefully calculated to achieve a certain result, whether now or twenty years in the future.
Combat Clairvoyance: Making her harder to hurt than any of her siblings.
Crazy-Prepared: She is actually a failsafe for the event that should a cycle fail to complete by way of an Entity dying, keeping the experiment going indefinitely and continuing to gather data and enhance Shards until such time that a new Entity arrives to complete the cycle or one arises from the Shards.
Disaster Dominoes: What she creates when she attacks. The survivors become more dangerous down the line, and often do more damage than she did in her original attack. See William Manton (the Siberian), Noelle (Echidna) and the rest of the Travelers, or Alan Gramme (Mannequin) for a few examples.
The Dreaded: Even moreso than the other Endbringers. Cities she attacks don't get to be rebuilt; they're walled off, the people there tattooed and quarantined, and anyone who goes in or out without authorization gets shot. Considering her track record, this is not an overreaction. And it's also completely meaningless, since she's incorporated these quarantines into her plans as well.
Emotion Bomb: She can use the below-linked Emotion Control on a city-wide scale.
Emotion Control: She generally builds upon already existing feelings such as anger, jealousy, insecurity and dissatisfaction in her attacks. And, that's just with normal people. Somebody with a stabilized enough condition like, say, bulimia... is not going to have it stay stable after she's done.
Faking the Dead: Survived the final battle with Scion by creating a decoy.
Hidden Agenda Villain: It's pretty much known she had some bigger scheme beyond just making things worse. It's known she's Mission Control for the other endbringers. What that agenda is? Who knows. It turns out that it's simply 'create chaos to make Eidolon's life more interesting'. After his death, she's Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life.
Humanoid Abomination: She appears humanoid aside from her size and the massive number of redundant wings, but is very far from being human.
I Am Not Left-Handed: Her attacks on Zion in the endgame reveal that no one was ever actually safe from her - even being completely immune to her precognition and telekinesis was insufficient to prevent her from joining the fight or assisting in driving Zion to suicide. On top of that, her whole song-thing (however thematically appropriate for a "siren") seems also to have been a red-herring. Which means the safe time-limit it was thought to signal was probably also not actually valid. She's made of misdirection.
Kansas City Shuffle: When we get a look in her head courtesy of Cauldron's Clairvoyant, she's outright pulling these on others. Right in front of Doctor Mother's face. But, because she knows she's being watched by somebody who isn't equipped to see it for what it is (or won't bother to tell the right others) and because the Simurgh actually can't perceive things in the here-now for the voyeur to get a solid grasp on, she merrily plays with emphasised Cow Tools as well as mysterious Useful Things? as she does whatever she's planning. As all this is probably normal for her: think about all the things she's dramatically made people look at over the years, while she does... whatever... in their perceptual blind spots.
Large Ham: The Simurgh LOVES her drama. The song? Completely unneeded, just her showing off. Her method of upgrading Leviathan? Falling out of the sky to stab him with a sword containing the upgrade like an angel descending to slay a serpent.
Light Is Not Good: Her shape quite deliberately conjures up silver-white angelic and/or sylpic associations. With all the usual Humanoid Abomination traits cranked up to the max. Go right ahead: fear her. In this case, it's simple common sense.
Long Game: The Simurgh deals far less immediate damage than the other Endbringers, but is capable of far more precise damage dealt over the long term. Her Mind Virus subtly influences people to follow certain pathways that, years down the road, will deal crippling blows to mankind.
Man Behind the Man: Appears to have deliberately set events in motion to make Taylor become Khepri. When you pause near the fridge, consider what other things she could have set in motion, given her extensive trolling of Eidolon, the rest of the Triumvirate and Cauldron over the years. Did she set the stage to get Zion in possition to kill "Daddy" when he did?
Manchurian Agent: Her song turns people into them. Well, not her song; just her skill-set — no music required.
Mind over Matter: Her more obvious power.
Mind Virus: In her attacks, her power acts like one, though it doesn't quite spread like one.
Mission Control: Seems to be this to the other Endbringers.
Non-Linear Character: The Simurgh is incapable of perceiving the present, only the past and future of minds around her. She may well perceive alternative timelines and forks, too, and be able to splice ideas across: note her dimension-hopping escapades. It's unclear how she perceives her own timeline/alts — or how much agency she has within it/them.
The Omniscient: Her ability to set up her victims to cause devastation months or years after their encounter suggests a degree of prescience that approaches this.
Our Sirens Are Different: As it turns out, she hams this role up to the max with her theatrical swooping down, singing and general showing off. She could just as easily stealth it, if she wished. She doesn't actually need to sing to do her thing; and leaving a duplicate-self to draw eyes and act as a decoy while she sneaks under the radar is in her repertoire.
Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe and out. Just look at the comments section for the chapter where her abilities are revealed.
Power Copying: Thinker and Tinker powers are her speciality... and, if she needs a gadget, idea or way of thinking she can't come up with herself, all she needs to do is get close enough to somebody who either has had it, could have it down some alternate fork or will have it down the line. And, then steal and adapt it to her needs. The more Thinkers and Tinkers in her range for longer periods? The more creative in looting their timelines she can be. Now, ask yourself what she got from Manton, Gramme and the various other brushes with Cauldron over years. Let alone Tattletale.
Power Floats: Her Flight abilities are granted by telekinesis rather than actual flight.
Psychic Powers: Is the only true telepath in the setting, and even then it's more like using telekinesis on people's brains.
Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: With the machine being the psychology of the victims.
Satanic Archetype: An beautiful, light-themed, angel-like being that seeks the annihilation of humanity, manipulates humans into doing horrible things, it's the force behind multiple disasters, The Leader of a group of monstrous beings and is the wayward creation of a powerful figure.
Spell My Name with a "The": Generally referred to as "the Simurgh".
Squishy Wizard: Kind of. Like any other Endbringer, the Simurgh is Nigh-Invulnerable, but compared to the other five, her durability is fairly slight, and she has few options for close-quarters fighting. This is demonstrated in the Final Battle with Scion, where he floors the Simurgh fairly easily. Or rather, he floored her decoy. It's unclear if he ever actually hit her. This is due in part to her core being contained in the junction between her "body" and one of her wings, making her humanoid body a further decoy.
Stealth Pun: The Simurgh has a scream that constantly plays in the minds of her victims; an EarWorm.
Time-Limit Boss: Anyone who stays in the radius of her song for too long in one go without some power protecting them will become one of her pawns — or so it is thought. However... those powers don't actually protect people from her. She just has to put more effort into manipulating them and she allows people to think they really stop her. And, that's not taking into account that she isn't linear, so who knows what cumulative effects mount up in anybody's trek down The Slow Path every time they bump into her.
Winged Humanoid: Unlike Behemoth and Leviathan, she's the least "bestial" of the trio, being a humanoid being with wings. Played for Horror as she's still a city ruining calamity in her own right and Exaggerated in that she is absolutely covered in wings, that sprout from basically everywhere.
Wings Do Nothing: Her entire body is covered in wings, but she doesn't use them to fly.
Wing Shield: Uses her wings to block frequently, said wings are so horrifically dense that nothing sort of a Disintegrator Ray has a chance of piercing them in one shot.
Xenofiction: Part of one interlude uses her point of view. It's roughly as human as Zion.
You Can't Fight Fate: More or less why she's so terrifying. She is the most powerful precog in this setting (except possibly Zion), and so any attempt you may make to counter or upset her schemes, she has already forseen and planned for.

Khonsu

Debut: Scarab 25.4

The fourth Endbringer to strike, first appearing in Japan in 2012. Described by Weaver as being somewhere between Leviathan and Behemoth in size, black in color with a broad physique, a permanent snarl on his face, silvery white teeth, tendrils like the whiskers of a catfish marking the corners of his mouth, and lacking clothing. Khonsu also has features somewhere between leaves and fins, with elaborate designs at the edges, curling away from elbows, his wrist, his fingers and around his legs, making his fingers and toes into claws, and leaving dangerous looking blades elsewhere. His biggest feature, however, is that the top and bottom halves of his body are divided by an enormous, perfectly round sphere. His known powers include the use of circular fields in which time is either slowed or increased and wide-ranging teleportation.

Classification: Mover, Shaker (?)

Acrofatic: Looks like a black-and-silver Evil Twin of various enormous Buddha statues. Moves a darned sight faster than one, even without the TPing about. With, and he's beyond slippery.
And I Must Scream: What happens to most of those trapped in his time fields: locked in a relatively small area, unable to escape, and forced to slowly starve or dehydrate to death.
Barrier Warrior: Uses time manipulation to block Scion's attacks.
Bishōnen Line: Is humanoid in shape like the Simurgh.
Cruel and Unusual Death: His time dilation fields let in living material but don't let it out. Those trapped inside are left to die over what they perceive as days or weeks through starvation, dehydration, or possibly even age, while everyone else sees this happen over the course of seconds. Those who only get partially trapped by the field get a quicker but still agonizing death as the shearing time tears them apart.
Full-Frontal Assault: Is unclothed, like the Simurgh.
"Get Back Here!" Boss: Constantly teleports away whenever things go bad for him. It gets so bad that the Triumvirate is forced to take turns fighting him.
Meaningful Name: Much like the Egyptian god he's named after, Khonsu has control over time. He is also mainly defensive in nature while his namesake is also known as the Defender.
Stone Wall: Is focused mainly on defense.
Time Master: Speeds or slows time immensely in circular fields that orbit around him. People caught in them can be reduced to dust, skeletons, or bloody smears. He can also use the time-altering fields on himself to accelerate his healing.
Time Is Dangerous: Par for course when dealing with a Time Master, the question arises what happens when nuclear fissile material is bifurcated by a time field. Would that be enough to set off a nuclear explosion?
Time-Limit Boss: Approximately every half-hour, he draws in his time fields to repair most of the damage he's taken, then teleports to another city.
Villain Teleportation: Uses this to stay a step ahead of the capes harrying it, in his first appearance teleporting from Japan to Cape Verde all the way off in western Africa. In Scarab 25.5, Taylor mentions that they've been trying to fight him for days due to his teleporting.

Tohu and Bohu

Debut: Scarab 25.6 (recording)

The fifth (and sixth) Endbringer(s) to strike, appearing in Bucharest in 2012. Bohu manipulates the battlefield, setting up traps for the defending capes and also covering the area with a shower of flying blades. Tohu chooses up to three capes, her three faces becoming distorted images of them, and copies their powers.

Classification (Tohu): Trump, other classifications vary depending on currently copied capes

Classification (Bohu): Shaker

Both

Boss Arena Urgency: Bohu slowly fills the defending city with obstacles and traps, meaning that the longer the fight continues, the harder it is for the defending capes. Tohu takes some time to choose all of her masks.
Dual Boss: Tohu and Bohu always attack together.
In-Series Nickname: Often called The Twins.
Maid and Maiden: They incorporate elements of this archetype, with Bohu as the Maid and Tohu as the Maiden. Tattletale even points this out at one point.
Meaningful Name: Named for the phrase "tohu wa-bohu", a Biblical Hebrew phrase that refers to the state of existence before God created everything. A rough translation would be "unseen and unformed", probably referring to how their appearances shift between attacks depending on the terrain (Bohu) and the powers copied (Tohu).

Tohu

Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Tohu has four clawed arms that take on traits of the people whose powers she copies.
Power Copying: Tohu takes the powers and visages of up to three capes, who don't have to be present on the battlefield or even alive. And this theoretically isn't limited to people with Shards like parahumans; Wildbow implies that, were Tohu to appear in another superhero series like DC Comics, she would be able to copy the abilities of the superheroes and villains there as well.
- Exaggerated against Scion: Tohu took to selecting Eidolon and Glastig Uaine as two of her three capes, and then deploying Eidolon as one of her ghosts.
Super Power Lottery: Tohu's ability to have whatever three powers she feels like without even the minor limits Eidolon and Glastig Uaine have makes her ludicrously powerful, even for an Endbringer.

Bohu

Evil Is Bigger: Bohu is over one thousand three hundred feet tall in her first appearance, the largest of the Endbringers by far. Later it's clarified that her height varies between attacks depending on how of the landscape she's absorbed: on another occasion she was apparently over five miles tall.
Flechette Storm: Bohu's blades, which fly through the air in between successive alterations to the environment.
Mighty Glacier: Bohu moves across the landscape at the speed of a castle being pushed on IKEA coasters: incredibly slowly. However, you should also think "inexorable bulldozer and landscaper"... on a continental scale. If there's a city in the way, it's a victim waiting to happen.
Trap Master: Bohu gradually fills the area around her with deathtraps and obstacles.

The Slaughterhouse Nine

In General

A group of nine serial killer capes led by the sociopathic Jack Slash and the amoral child tinker Bonesaw that go around causing all manner of death and destruction across North America For the Evulz, to the point that they all have a kill order. Though it would seem that they have a plan to jump-start the apocalypse beneath that reason.

Atrocious Alias: Jack Slash purposely had the idea of giving people lame cape aliases so that they'd be even more terrifying as a result.
Badass Transplant: The Nine often augment their members with improved organs courtesy of Bonesaw, making them even harder to kill. How badass? Bonesaw gets stabbed in the neck and eye in one incident, loses both arms in another, and gets impaled in the heart and cut in half in a third, and is barely affected by any of them.
Bad Powers, Bad People:
- Most of the Nine have powers that are pretty much impossible to use for good, and many were pretty nasty even before they got their powers.
- Special mention goes to Breed, who has the power to create Xenomorph-like alien bugs that infect people and eat their way out. Somehow a career as a superhero doesn't seem in the cards for someone with that power.
The Bully: Taylor thinks that when it comes down to it, they are this trope taken way, way up to eleven.
Carnival of Killers: Once served as such for the original Teeth before killing them off.
Clone Army: Bonesaw makes an army of clones out of the Nine's deceased members, making the Slaughterhouse 9000.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: The cloned Slaughterhouse Nine give the heroes slightly less of a hard time than the originals had in previous encounters, though this may simply be because the heroes have improved since the Time Skip, as well as Jack purposely using them as cannon fodder. Other factors include the fact that, after Brockton Bay, the heroes learned the weaknesses of some of the key members (e.g. the Siberian being a projection created by an otherwise-unpowered parahuman), and the Crawler clones haven't had time to develop into the Nigh-Invulnerable monsters that the original had become by the time he died. It's later explained that this is also because their connections to their passengers aren't as mature.
Cruel and Unusual Death: They make a point to inflict these.
The Dreaded: The Slaughterhouse Nine invoke terror in all who encounter them.
Dwindling Party: Due to the massive targets on their backs, they tend to go through members at a fair pace.
Enfante Terrible: According to Word of God, when Jack Slash and Harbinger murdered King, they were no older than 12.
Fate Worse than Death: They specialize in dishing these out, especially Bonesaw and Grey Boy. Regent considers joining them to be a Fate Worse than Death as well.
Females Are More Innocent:
- Played with as all the members of the Nine, at least as of their time in Brockton Bay, are unambiguously evil bastards. However, the women on the team tend to consider torture & mass-murder as a means to an end and/or initially received a kill order due to factors largely beyond their control. Cherish only joined the team because their notoriety would protect her from Heartbreaker; Bonesaw was forcibly captured, initially feared being killed if she didn't entertain Jack, and (even with the Nine) cared more about having the freedom to bio-tinker; Burnscar was taken in by the Nine after escaping the parahuman asylum and, by the time her power-based psychosis wore off, already had a case of Kill on Sight; even Shatterbird was force-fed a Cauldron formula, has been a fugitive since she nearly destroyed Dubai by accident, and remains with the Nine to fully embrace her dangerousness. In contrast, most of the males in the group (Jack, Mannequin, Siberian, and (later) Hookwolf) are motivated purely by Ax-Crazy sadism.
- Averted with Winter, whose motives for evil are just because she can, and was a human trafficker and torturer long before she joined the Nine.
Good Powers, Bad People: Bonesaw and Mannequin both had enormous potential to use their powers for good. In fact, Mannequin was doing just that under the name of Sphere before his work was destroyed in an attack by the Simurgh, and Bonesaw helps Panacea as the best medics they have during the last arc.
Hero Killer: They've killed a lot of heroes over the years and into the present, with named examples including Mouse Protector and Battery.
High-Heel–Face Turn: Zigzagged in the first Slaughterhouse Nine arc. Two members of the Nine, both female, defect. Of the two, Shatterbird is enslaved by Alec and forced to fight for the Undersiders as a puppet for the remainder of her life, and Cherish actually does attempt to make a deal with the good guys, but they don't trust her, imprison her in solitary confinement, and then she suffers one of the worst fates worse than death in a series full of them when her former team catches up to her: having her brain extracted, put into one of Mannequin's perfect life support spheres, then dropped into the ocean, where she will "live" forever.
High Turnover Rate: They're constantly looking for new members since at least some of them get killed every time they attack a city.
Kick the Dog: They live for doing terrible things just to be evil.
Kill on Sight: For their murderous actions the entire group has a kill order placed on them.
Press-Ganged: The Nine usually force potential members to go through tests to break them down and kill potential members who are weak.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: They always deliver on the slaughter, put it that way.
Non-Indicative Name: It's mostly an Artifact Title from the original group under King, which indeed had nine members. Since Jack took the helm there's rarely a full nine people in the group due to their high turnover rate and high standards for new recruits, with their numbers typically ranging from six to eight.
Send in the Clones: It's revealed in Interlude 20 that Bonesaw is growing a number of clones created from the genetic material of nearly every past and present member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. It's mentioned in Interlude 25 that she's successfully created 275 clones.
Sequel Hook: Bonesaw and several of the clones survived until Golden Morning and may still be out there. One of the Damsel of Distress clones is a major character in the sequel series Ward, another clone of the same person shows up as a prisoner, Bonesaw has been mentioned to still be paling around with the likes of Panacea and Nilbog, and a fusion of Crawler and Breed shows up during the raid on Teacher's base. That leaves two unaccounted for, one of Mannequin and a fusion of Night Hag and Nyx.
Serial Killer: An entire group of them. In Taylor's words, they're what happens when messed-up people get even worse after getting powers.
Sliding Scale of Villain Threat. They're at City level, but upgrade to Global when they try to end the world.
The Unseen: Based on descriptions in Bonesaw's viewpoint chapter there's six members of the Nine at minimum who were never shown or mentioned in the story, possibly more if she wasn't able to get the material to clone every member. Given that they're all dead by the time of the story and Khepri confirmed that none of their clones survived, it's more a neat bit of trivia rather than a portent of doom.
Would Hurt a Child: The Nine, during their assault of a hospital, attack the nursery first.

Active Members

Jack Slash (Major Spoilers)

Jacob (Jack Slash)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.b (appearance)

"My interest is in the design of people. What makes them tick? What holds them together? All too often, it's one little thing. In architecture, they call it a keystone. The one stone that keeps the entire arch from collapsing. The weak point. And I'm very, very good at finding those weak points."

The present leader of the Nine, he has the ability to make the cutting edge of his knives extend as far as he likes outwards from their physical length. He is described by Dinah Alcott as the man who will set the end of the world in motion. According to Scion, his power is the result of receiving the weakened "broadcast" shard that allowed communication between the Entities, which grants him both his blade-projection powers and his instinctive Thinker ability.

Classification: Striker/Blaster (?), Thinker

Abusive Parents: According to Word of God his parents were mentally unbalanced and left him trapped in a bomb shelter with a one-way radio link to his father, who wanted to use it to instill Jacob with sufficient fear of the threats of the outside world. This left him broken, but his parents left him there because it was easier, leading to him triggering upon finally leaving the shelter and finding out the world was absolutely fine.
And I Must Scream: Meets his end when Grey Boy turns on him, leaving him trapped in a time loop.
Ax-Crazy: All members of the Nine are some shade of this, but Jack as the leader and one of the founding members sets the example. As Theo lampshades it, Jack is little more than a petty and egomaniacal sociopath who did nothing his whole life other than spreading bloodshed, both by killing countless people himself and having others do absolutely horrible things.
Beard of Evil: Has a goatee with the area around the lips cultivated to look like a buzzsaw.
BFS: Jack wields a four-foot-long claymore, courtesy of Mannequin in lieu of his normal knives in the finale when he faces off against Golem.
Climax Boss: Jack's defeat directly instigates Scion's turn to villainy, beginning the end of the world and the climax of the story.
The Corrupter: His specialty is breaking capes so that they will become their absolute worst selves, and how he brings about the end of the world when he causes Scion's Face–Heel Turn.
Fate Worse than Death: Gets trapped in one of Gray Boy's time loops.
Faux Affably Evil: He's surprisingly polite. Doesn't make him any less of a monster.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Before becoming the leader and founder of the current iteration of the Slaughterhouse Nine, Jack was originally just another thug, though even then he was feared.
Grooming the Enemy: The other side of his corruptive tendencies, he threatens Theo Anders as part of the sick series of tests the Nine are doing in Brockton Bay. Tattletale opines it's part of his efforts to stave off boredom and keep life interesting.
Gutted Like a Fish: Threatens to cut Theo from "cock to chin" when they first meet, he does this to several other people.
The Heavy: Though Jack is not the one who will directly end the world as predicted by Dinah, it's his destiny to set off this apocalypse that drives most of the plot, and stopping him becomes Taylor's primary motivation after she dethrones Coil.
Hidden Depths: Of the negative kind. With the reveal of the of his second power, it becomes clear that Jack is neither a particulary competent supervillain nor a charismatic manipulator. It's heavily implied that he would have died long ago if it wasn't for the Broadcast ability, and ultimately is, as Theo puts it, "sad, pathetic killer with delusions of grandeur".
Hoist by His Own Petard: All of the events that lead to his Fate Worse than Death were set in motion by him, from Golem, to Weaver, to the Gray Boy clone.
Hope Crusher: This is his MO in a nutshell, driving good if flawed people off the edge and recruiting from the monsters that result.
Implausible Fencing Powers: Jack Slash can cut down entire crowds with a single swing due to his ability to extend the edge of a blade an absurd distance, completely invisibly.
Klingon Promotion: Jack Slash got his position by killing King, the original leader of the Nine.
Large and in Charge: Stated to be half a foot shorter than King. King was 7 feet tall, which by extension means Jack is a pretty impressive 6 and a half feet tall himself.
The Man Behind the Man: Ends up causing Scion to bring about Gold Morning in the final arc.
Meta Power: Jack Slash's secondary power is the ability to influence the Shards of other parahumans due to having the Broadcast Shard, which gives him an uncanny insight into the workings of their powers, nudges him from having the Slaughterhouse Nine engage in fights with other parahumans that they can't win, and even influences other parahumans to use their powers in ways that are counterproductive while fighting him. It's so subtle that he doesn't even know he has it, but it's what he's used to make the Slaughterhouse Nine one of the most dangerous villain groups in the world. Its main Achilles' Heel is that it's useless for dealing with the unpowered, but since Jack is surrounded by dangerous parahumans most of the time, actually getting a competent enough non-cape into position is easier said than done.
Manipulative Bastard: Jack Slash isn't the leader of a pack of the most deadly mass murderers on the planet because of his power—he's the leader because he's frighteningly good at identifying what people need, what they want, and what they fear, and using that information to steer them in whatever direction he likes.
Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Meta-wise; Word of God states that his secondary Thinker ability, which makes him practically untouchable to parahumans, would be useless if he was outside Worm's story's setting and instead somewhere like the DC universe, where he would easily be defeated due to the lack of a Shard system.
Omnicidal Maniac: Upon finding out that he will cause the end of the world, he decides that sounds like a great idea.
Playing Card Motifs: He's named Jack and he usurps power from a supervillain named King.
Practically Joker: A supervillain who shares their name with a playing card and tortures and murders people For the Evulz, who is seemingly weak compared to other characters in the setting but manages to be a global threat nonetheless through cunning, audacity, and sheer luck. Reconstructed in that the only reason Jack has managed to survive as long as he has is because he has a subtle but ludicrously powerful secondary power helping him out, which not even he knows about.
Psycho Knife Nut: While the mass-murdering supervillain Jack Slash can use just about any blade as a conduit to project their cutting edge invisibly, he specializes in knives and razors since his power means the normal range issues no longer apply.
Rank Scales with Asskicking: Subverted. He's not exactly weak, but his team includes people like Crawler and Siberian, some of the most powerful characters in the setting. He's able to keep them in line because he's The Social Expert.
Seemingly Profound Fool: Jack has an unnerving skill when it comes to analyzing and breaking parahumans mentally through pure charisma. However, this is solely due to his secondary power feeding him the weaknesses of his parahuman victims. This power doesn't work on non-parahumans so he would come off as shallow and uncharismatic to them if he ever cared enough to interact with them.
The Sociopath: He has an extremely good understanding of how people work, but is so utterly lacking in empathy that he kills thousands and knowingly sets up the deaths of billions simply because he likes conflict.
Spider-Sense: How his second power works. He can sense and communicate on a limited level with other people's passengers, letting him know when and how they're about to attack. This, in combination with Bonesaw's modifications, has made him invincible for thirty years, and it's implied that it's so subtle that he doesn't even know it exists. It only works on superpowered people, though, so when he's finally taken down, it's because of a PRT officer in Powered Armor.
Sword Beam: He can extend the cutting edges of his knives to frighteningly-long distances.
Would Hit a Girl: Had no problems giving Tattletale a Glasgow Smile for mouthing off, and has certainly murdered women in the past.
Would Hurt a Child: Threatened to murder Aster and Theo in his Interlude, and has certainly murdered children before.

Bonesaw

Riley (Bonesaw)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.h (appearance)

"Bonesaw laughed, and it was a sound without reservations, not shaped by social constraint or culture or self-censorship. It was the laugh of a child, free and without a care."

Be a good girl.

A demented but childlike tinker no older than fourteen who specializes in organic beings. She joined the Slaughterhouse Nine after they killed her entire family and had her revive them, only to do it again over and over until she broke mentally.

Classification: Tinker (Biology), Trump

Ambiguous Innocence: Bonesaw in a nutshell. She's one of the worst serial killers in the Wormverse, but she doesn't necessarily do what she does because of malice. Rather, she feels that the idea of a concrete moral system is absurd and doesn't apply to her, and she does what she does because she finds it fun and interesting. Later subverted when it turns out it was just an act she played so Jack didn't kill her.
The Atoner: After Jack is defeated, Riley gives up the name Bonesaw and dedicates herself to helping heal people.
Back from the Dead: Bonesaw can bring people back to life if they're not too damaged.
Becoming the Mask: Twice, first when she genuinely falls into the mindset she was initially faking to fit in with the Slaughterhouse Nine, and second when her faked friendship with someone outside of the S9 becomes real and contributes to her Heel–Face Turn.
Body Horror: She looks pretty much normal (yet, has performed extensive surgery on herself all the same), but she certainly (and very openly) inflicts this on anyone unfortunate enough to fall into her clutches. You see biological horror; she sees performance art!
Cheerful Child: She's very cheerful on the outside, which, when combined with her tendencies to create Body Horror, makes her even creepier.
Child Prodigy: Is very well versed in the workings of the human body.
Creepy Child: A little girl whose power is basically that she understands bodies well enough to create Frankenstein's monsters. She makes a lot. And her "family" is a group of psychopaths.
Cyborg: She's technologically enhanced her body, but this isn't immediately obvious because her enhancements are mostly internal.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Slaughterhouse Nine, a group of psychopathic killers, are viewed by Bonesaw as family. It's as disturbing as it sounds, and while most of the group are simply amused by Bonesaw's monsters, "Siberian's fondness for Bonesaw bordered on the maternal, like a mother bear for her cub." This is likely because Manton views Bonesaw as a substitute for his deceased daughter.
Even Evil Has Standards: In her own words, not even she is crazy enough to attempt making an Endbringer. Which makes her actually saner than Blasto.
Feel No Pain: One of her enhancements allows her to turn off her pain response, allowing her to perform surgery on herself while still conscious.
Gadgeteer Genius: While most of what she does is highly biological, her spiders and spine demonstrate a lot of mechanical expertise as well.
Giver of Lame Names: Bonesaw admits that she's terrible at naming her creations.
Good Powers, Bad People: Bonesaw is capable of doing incredible surgeries, and can even bring back the dead if their body is intact, but is completely amoral and sees people mainly as toys for her amusement.
Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Bonesaw's inner monologue in her Interlude exhibits this. She also tends to talk like this and demands it of others, only swearing on very rare occasions.
Heel Realization: Has one in Interlude 25, courtesy of Contessa and two years away from Jack.
Mad Doctor: Bonesaw is a classic example—the "art" she makes with her hands and her spider-robots starts at Body Horror and only gets worse from there.
Made of Iron: Her enhancements enable her to survive huge amounts of damage. This is most noticeable in her fight with Defiant in Interlude 19, in which she keeps her usual cheer even after being impaled and bisected.
Meaningful Rename: Riley's abandonment of the name "Bonesaw" reflects her desire to move away from the awful things she did as Bonesaw.
People Puppets: Is capable of hijacking people's bodies in order to do her bidding.
Perpetual Smiler: Always walks around with a smile on her face.
Plague Master: Can easily create various diseases, and fills her own body with killer viruses in case she's cut.
Sole Survivor: She's the only original member of the Slaughterhouse 9 to survive Worm.
Stepford Smiler: Is revealed to be one in her Interlude.
Wetware CPU: Her spiders are revealed in Interlude 25 to work using interconnected lumps of grey matter, with computer chips for more basic functions.

Shatterbird

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.e (appearance)

"He knew all too well that Shatterbird pretended civility, but she got as restless as Siberian when things got quiet, and she would look up from whatever book she read every thirty, fifteen or ten seconds, as if waiting for something to happen, craving it."

A telekinetic of silicon, controlling the glass through high-frequency sounds, and one of the most successful members of the team at identifying new candidates for membership. She was born in the Arab Emirates and dosed with a Cauldron formula, prompting the manifestation of her powers and the deaths of thousands. Eventually made her way to London, then America, joining the Slaughterhouse Nine. Captured by Regent, and abandoned by the surviving members of the Slaughterhouse Nine when they left the city.

Classification: Mover, Blaster(?)

Animal Motifs: Birds.
Asshole Victim: Being Regent's thrall is a terrible fate, but she's terrible enough a person that no one feels that bad about it.
Dishing Out Dirt: Her power gives her essentially perfect control over every piece of glass within multiple city blocks of her location. She has a much...cruder effect on sand and the silicon in electronic devices.
Combat Pragmatist: If for some reason her powers are nullified, she carries a gun under her costume.
Flight: Is capable of flight, but whether she does so with her costume or via some other means is unclear.
Glass Cannon: Literally and metaphorically. Her offensive capabilities are phenomenal. Defensively, she's one of the Nine's weakest members.
Glass-Shattering Sound: Her power works by screaming to shatter glass, with some added telekinesis.
Laser-Guided Karma: The whole reason she kills people is that she wants to be perceived as powerful. She ends up a powerless puppet under Regent's control, and he humiliates her in petty ways to keep her emotionally drained so she can't break free if she gets too far away.
Malevolent Masked Woman: Everybody dreads her distinctively masked-and-glittery arrival to a city. Nothing but bad things does she bring.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Her power works through soundwaves.
Narcissist: She's defined by her ego, which is Jack's primary means of controlling her.
Person of Mass Destruction: She can break (and then weaponize) glass over a radius of several miles. When the Nine arrive in a city, she invariably kicks off the festivities by demolishing it.
The Power of Glass: Shatterbird is a "silica kinetic," having the ability to manipulate silicon through high-frequency sounds, giving her essentially perfect control over all glass, sand, and other siliceous compounds. Her favorite thing to do is make the glass in a city explode to announce the arrival of her faction.
Pride: She needs to be seen as powerful by others. It's part of why Jack lets her announce their arrival in every city with an explosion of glass and computer chips despite personally considering it boring, as that one moment of showing off and the fear it gets her will keep her content and in line for weeks.
Uncertain Doom: The last time we have any indication of her existence is during Echidna's attack when Regent looses contact with her and she sets off a silicon explosion, with nothing about her survival or death afterward. During Ward Vista implies that she killed her.
Winged Humanoid: Isn't one, but her costume evokes it by having stained glass take the shape of a bird around her, topped with a bird mask on her head.

Crawler

Ned (Crawler)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.f ("offscreen"), Interlude 12.x (appearance)

"Crawler was one of the two group members who had yet to rejoin the group. He was engaged with a young man with a glow that suffused his hair and emanated from his eyes and mouth. White flashes appeared with little accuracy and devastating effect, carving spherical chunks out of the brute. This only encouraged the monster, and Crawler eagerly paced closer, his wounds closing together with startling rapidity. So few things could hurt Crawler these days that Jack rarely got to see the regeneration in full effect. Crawler's healing powers appeared to play out in fast-forward when compared to even the regenerators who could heal wounds in seconds. Hundreds of pounds of flesh were replaced in one or two heartbeats."

A massive regenerator who in his original form was a rather small man, standing at about 5'5". Every time he is harmed by something and survives, he becomes more able to resist it in the future.

Classification: Brute, Changer(?)

Adaptive Ability: Crawler of the Slaughterhouse Nine is not only a regenerator, he becomes immune to whatever made him need to regenerate in the first place. He throws himself into suicidal situations for this very reason.
Attack Its Weak Point: Like all parahumans, destroying his corona would strip him of his powers. However, it's shifted from his brain to a heavily armored, hard-to-reach core buried deep within his body, meaning one would have to severely injure him just to get to it. Word of God explicitly likens it to an Endbringer's core.
Boom, Headshot!: Simply shooting him in the head won't work, but his brain is still vulnerable. Not much considering you'd have to get past his armor and skull first, not to mention it won't actually kill him, but in the few seconds, it takes him to regenerate his brain he's out of action. Of course, since we see this it's very likely he's evolved past this weakness by the time he recovers.
The Brute: Crawler is considered one of the Nine's heavy hitters as well as Brute being his official cape classification.
Character Death: Turned into a glass statue by a Bakuda bomb in Prey.
Combat Sadomasochist: He throws himself into suicidal situations so that his Adaptive Ability can heal him. Nothing pleases him more than being given a chance to get hurt, to the point that he secretly wishes that Siberan would try to seriously hurt him.
Combat Tentacles: Has tentacles on his legs for attacking people.
Expy: His abilities, personality, and appearance are all evocative of SCP-682.
Eyes Do Not Belong There: Has eyes all along his torso.
From Nobody to Nightmare: The fact that before triggering he was just a 5'5" man seems to suggest that he was no one before becoming one of the world's most dangerous parahumans.
Groin Attack: No one tries it that we see, but apparently his genitals have adapted to be internal in order to avoid this.
Healing Factor: Even worse, he grows stronger adaptations as he heals. He wants nothing more than to grow stronger in this way.
Hero Killer: He nearly kills Glory Girl with an acid shot.
Immune to Bullets: Getting shot is one of the most basic ways to attack something, so he's long since become immune.
Leeroy Jenkins: Crawler purposely does this in order to make himself stronger. This backfires on him when he stands still and lets the PRT hit him with Tinkertech bombs that transmute him to glass. His body can't regenerate when the entire thing is turned into nonliving material.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He has six limbs, each of which splits at the elbow into either two more limbs or the main limb and a cluster of tentacles. Typically he uses all of these as legs, but he can rise up on his hind legs when he wants to.
Nigh-Invulnerable: By the time the story starts, he's so nearly invincible that even Scrub's blasts barely slow him. Apparently, by the time of the story, he can tank a nuke and walk away unharmed. In fact, he's killed not through brute force but transmuting him into a nonliving substance, namely glass. Though later on, the Crawler clones are too new and haven't adapted enough to be as dangerous as the original, making them easier to kill if enough firepower is used on them.
Nothing Is Scarier: His attack on Coil's base in Interlude 11.f never actually has him "onscreen", all we get are the sounds and aftermath.
Super-Senses: Has a heightened sense of smell and the eyes all over his body give him a 360 field of vision with no blind spots.
Super Spit: His saliva is highly caustic. It's even worse when it hits an organic target, when an additional component of the mixture causes it to self-replicate with the biomass it melts.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The PRT killed him and Mannequin using Tinker-made super bombs (Bakuda's specialty), and Dragon kills two of his clones by using nanowire to turn them into Pink Mist.
To the Pain: When Skitter manages to temporarily best him in Prey 14.4, he goes into detail into what he'll do when he catches her:
"Run, little girl!" Crawler's broken voice carried, a rumble so low I could feel it. "I'll get free! I'll catch you! I'll hold you down and lick your skin until it melts! I'll pluck your eyes out with the tip of my tongue! I have your scent and you cannot ever stop me! You cannot ever escape!"
Tom the Dark Lord: His original given name was the rather unthreatening Ned.
Was Once a Man: Crawler no longer even looks human due to all the adaptations he's had. Part of this is that he not only evolves to be more able to resist what hurt him, but to avoid being hurt in the first place. Extra limbs keep him from being knocked down, extra eyes, and a sense of smell help him know when a threat's incoming, weapons help him take out foes before they can hurt him, and so on.
The Worf Barrage: Crawler deliberately invokes this on his opponents, letting them hit him with everything they have and shrugging it off before becoming immune to it. Piggot uses this against him by telling him where to stand to be hit by a barrage of Bakuda's bombs, which prove to be too much even for him.

Mannequin

Alan Gramme (Mannequin, formerly Sphere)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.d

"What was going on behind that expressionless mask? Was he coming up with a battle plan? Maybe, maybe not. ... Or maybe, behind that hard shell, he was in the throes of mental anguish. Maybe he was spending every second of every day reliving the day he lost his family and his dreams to a nigh-unstoppable, malignant force."

Known as Sphere before he became a victim of the Simurgh. Was trying to solve all the world's big problems—famine, global warming, etc.—but flipped when his wife and children were killed and sealed himself away in a doll-like body.

Classification: Tinker (Biomes, Terraforming, Self-contained Ecosystems)

Arch-Enemy: To Skitter, first because she is trying to help people in her territory, but afterward because she kicked his ass.
Blade Below the Shoulder: He has a lot of blades built into his body, most often seen from the arms in some form or another.
Character Death: Transformed into a glass statue by a Bakuda bomb in Prey.
Confusion Fu: Due to being a mostly modular Tinker construction, his fighting style is never quite the same twice, particularly when given time to tweak; his flexibility and many weapons give him a lot of options even without downtime, however. His clones seem to have distinct styles of their own as well, yet the modular-based fighting accessories and constructed traps or puzzles still crop up as a consistent theme across all of them.
Creepy Doll: Why stick to just one deliberately invoked set of blank-faced creep when you can combine it with Murderous Mannequin in extra-nightmare-inducing, mime-like ceramic white on top?
Cranial Processing Unit: Averted; his brain is stored in his chest.
Full-Conversion Cyborg: Following his Start of Darkness, he modified his body to the point that he's little more than a sac of organs sealed within his puppet-esque chassis.
Death Seeker: According to Word of God, he desires death deep down.
Discard and Draw: His body is modular, allowing him to switch out parts to counter a specific threat.
Do Not Call Me "Paul": Mannequin hates being called by his first name as it reminds him of who he once was.
Enemy Mime: Not played for laughs. At all. The most creepily dangerous of voiceless, murderous Sad Clowns is he.
Evil Is Petty: Few things bother Mannequin as much as seeing someone try to help others and succeed where he had catastrophically failed, which is why he decided to target the people under Skitter's protection.
Expy: Of Mr. Freeze—a brilliant scientist who becomes a monster due to something happening to his wife and can only survive inside a sealed suit. Later on, he even uses some ice-based tech.
The Faceless: Mannequin's face is completely blank, as his head is primarily decorative.
Fragile Speedster: For a given degree of fragile. He moves fast and he's incredibly agile, but Weld could crush him like a tin can with one solid hit.
Genius Bruiser: Oh, yeah. He hits very hard, but it's his brain you need to keep tabs on more than his limbs.
In-Series Nickname: Bonesaw calls his child-aged clone A.G., unlike how she called the other members by their cape names regardless of their age, possibly because she doesn't see him as Mannequin when he's still a normal person.
It's Personal: Apart from Jack, Taylor considers him her most personal enemy amongst the Nine for his attacks on those under her protection.
Lightning Bruiser: To everyone without heavy-hitting powers, he combines deadly precise attacks with incredible speed and a highly durable body.
Mad Doctor: Consider that he had pretty much completely converted himself into a modular, Murderous Mannequin using primarily self-surgery and Tinker-tech well before Bonesaw joined the S9 party... Yeah.
Meaningful Rename: Went by Sphere before his family was killed and he went crazy.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: At one point he uses a four-armed chassis that trades hidden blades for hydraulic Super-Strength.
Reed Richards Is Useless: Was trying to avert this with his work. Then the Simurgh showed up...
Serial Killer: Mannequin prefers killing rogues, other tinkers, and just about anyone trying to better the world with their powers.
Slashed Throat: His favorite means of killing is slitting throats.
The Speechless: Mannequin literally doesn't have a mouth or means of verbal communication, all self-inflicted. Used to a chilling effect when introduced, as he has to use pantomime and props to communicate. "U=ME"
Start of Darkness: His family's death led him to become Mannequin.
Was Once a Man: Before he turned himself into a self-contained puppet-like cyborg-thing.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: His world was utterly destroyed and he wants to make sure everybody else knows his grief and pain as he systematically destroys theirs.

The Siberian

William Manton (The Siberian)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.a

"The Siberian." A woman, naked from head to toe, her body painted in alternating stripes of jet black and snow white. She had gone up against the Triumvirate—Legend, Alexandria and Eidolon—on a dozen occasions, and she was still around to talk about it. Or around, at least. From what I'd read, she didn't talk.

An invincible black-and-white-striped woman with a fetish for eating people, although she does not need them for sustenance. Capable of bestowing her invincibility on anyone or anything she touches.

Classification: Breaker, Brute, Master, Trump

Arch-Enemy: To the Triumvirate, due to killing Hero and permanently injuring Alexandria.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Siberian can punch through any defense, including Alexandria's otherwise-complete immunity to any damage.
The Dragon: She is nearly always with Jack, serves as a silent enforcer and is, by far, the strongest member of the team.
The Dreaded: When Glory Girl and Brandish see her, they run without so much as a word, simply abandoning several civilians in the process.
Feral Villain: Exploited Manton is actually completely sane but he does revel in his actions as Siberian; his Minion acts like a complete cannibalistic madwomen who isn't far off from a wild animal.
Foe-Tossing Charge: She does this in battle against groups. Anyone caught in her path is seriously injured, since she cannot be affected by the collision force, meaning that any matter coming into contact with her is displaced without resistance.
Full-Frontal Assault: Siberian fights stark naked which just makes her creepier with the gore she tends to accumulate.
Gravity Master: Downplayed, can choose whether gravity can affect her or not, which also applies to other gravity powers but that's about it.
Hero Killer: While pretty much all of the Slaughterhouse Nine are this, Siberian is of particular note due to being the one who killed the original Hero.
Hope Spot: Darkly invoked—one of her favorite games is to hunt a target, wound them, and then let them get a small edge before catching up to attack them again.
Humanoid Abomination: Brian indirectly describes her (by talking about the duplicate of himself he created by copying Manton's powers) as a "hole in reality" shaped by the thoughts of the person currently using Manton's power.
I'm a Humanitarian: Eats people out of a perverse sense of pleasure.
The Juggernaut: The Siberian's Nigh-Invulnerability makes her unkillable and absolutely unstoppable, which allows her to damage even heroes that have Nigh-Invulnerability. Only effects that are similarly inviolate can stop her, and even then, they only cancel out the projection temporarily.
Nigh-Invulnerable: The Siberian as a projection at least is completely immune to any sort of harm. Her body ignores any kind of force applied to it, so she cannot be damaged by any means, nor can her movement be impeded.
Not Quite Flight: She can't fly, but she can choose not to let gravity or air resistance affect her, allowing her to leap and glide until she feels like coming down.
No-Sell: Pretty much any attack against her will turn out like this. The only things that have been able to stop her are impacting something that Clockblocker has time-frozen, getting shot by items Flechette/Foil has affected, and Scion.
No Sense of Personal Space: Comes up so close to Bitch in her Interlude that their chests are touching.
Projected Man: Her true nature. She's not a cape herself, she's a Master projection of William Manton.
Knight of Cerebus: Not to the story itself, but to the setting as a whole. Legend reflects that Siberian's appearance was really the end of the Golden Age of superheroes.
Killed Offscreen: Courtesy of Dragon and Defiant.
Replacement Goldfish: It seems probable that she acts maternally towards Bonesaw because of what happened to his daughter.
The Speechless: Is assumed to be this, but informs Bitch that actually, she killed everyone else who'd ever heard her voice.
Spell My Name with a "The": Is called "the Siberian" more often than just "Siberian", although that's heard as well.

Burnscar

Mimi (Burnscar)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.c

"So I burned the pimp to scare him, then I burned him to hurt him, for payback over his hounding me, and then I couldn't really stop myself. I burned him to death."

A manipulator of fire who becomes less and less controlled the more fire she is using. Able to teleport freely through flames. Was incarcerated in the same facility as Labyrinth, once. Saw herself as Elle's friend. It was not actually mutual. Twenty-ish, dark brown hair, green eyes, and a vertical row of cigarette burns on each cheek.

Classification: Blaster, Mover

Burn Scars, Burning Powers: Her flame powers complement the cigarette-burn scars down her cheeks from which she takes her name.
Character Death: Grue kills her by bashing her head against a counter.
Creepy Monotone: Due to her power deadening her emotions, Taylor describes her voice as being similar to an actor phoning in their lines.
Emotionless Girl: Very nearly, especially if she's been using her power.
Playing with Fire: Her main power is fire manipulation, ranging from more classical fireballs to moving figures made of flame.
Portal Network: She can jump freely from point to point within any fire and between fires.
The Sociopath: A low-functioning example, but only when using her powers. The pain of having her conscience come back, though, causes her to use her power as much as possible. Which just compounds her problems.
Trapped in Villainy: Feels that she'll either get killed by the heroes due to the kill order, or killed by the Nine if she tries to leave, so she's stuck.
Villainous Friendship: Seems to actually get along with Shatterbird.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Every time she uses her powers, she becomes more and more unstable.

Cherish

Cherie Vasil (Cherish)

Debut: Interlude 11.g

"She closed her eyes for a moment, listened for the music that came from his mind and body. The jangling, dissonant noise of alarm, the throbbing percussion of mortal fear, every part of his body shifting into fight or flight mode. The underlying notes spoke to his personality. His love of his family, his fear that he was about to leave them behind, anger towards her, a momentary anxiety that he was overreacting. She grasped this in the fraction of a second. Reaching for that mortal fear, she wrenched it."

A daughter of Heartbreaker who escaped and joined the Nine after she killed Hatchet Face. Detects and controls emotions.

Classification: Master

And I Must Scream:
- The Nine jacked up her power to feel negative emotions and trapped her for her treachery in an impervious, life-sustaining shell of Mannequin's design and sink her to the bottom of the derelict Boat Graveyard, where she is expected to live for several (tens of) thousand(s) (of) years.
- And after Skitter killed Butcher using Cherish's suicide aura, Cherish became the new Butcher- and since she didn't beat the old Butcher in a fair fight, she thus gets fourteen voices in her head that hate her and will likely work together to drive her even more insane.
- Presumably put out of her misery when Scion destroys the Eastern Seaboard on Earth Bet.
Arch-Enemy: To Alec.
Break the Haughty: What happened during the Slaughterhouse Nine arc and, before then, the "tests" they made her undergo before becoming a member.
Broken Bird: She had to go through 8 tests twice to join the Slaughterhouse Nine. Mannequin ordered her to get a massive tattoo that would degrade her in other's eyes, Burnscar ordered her to kill her greatest fear, Siberian chased her for three days, biting off a finger each time she was caught until time was up, Shatterbird stuck her in a blacked out room with a shard of glass following her for an undisclosed period of time. When she finally got to Jack's test, he was slightly upset that she was already broken, so his test is to go through the first eight all over again. Bonesaw even revived Hatchet Face for it.
Delinquent Hair: It has a red streak in it.
Didn't Think This Through: Time and again, she proves that multi-step plans are not her specialty. Well-thought-out ones even less so. Not a one of them pans out as she'd hoped in incredibly predictable ways.
The Ditz: Twisted empath she may be, but she is neither very bright nor insightful with it. Nor can she relate to the people she reads. It makes her... a bit random.
The Empath: She can detect people's emotions from across the entire city, both allowing her to track them and allowing her to detect their relationships with each other. Ironically, she might be able to determine people's emotional states like a champ, but she's seriously unable to relate enough to be reliable for anything more than broad-strokes.
Emotion Control: When she's close enough, she can induce emotional states in her targets at will.
Establishing Character Moment: The first action Cherish takes in her interlude is a mistake that nearly gets her killed.
Even Evil Has Standards: There's one thing she and Alec can agree on: their dad's a disappointing waste of space, however horrifying he otherwise is. Congrats, Cherie: you have a teaspoon of sense. Shame you don't use it more often.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Well, more like "a sociopath who cannot comprehend people with working empathy-sympathy pathways even if she can see their readout displays", but same difference in her particularly bonkers case.
Fan Disservice: She's an attractive girl...with gigantic, absolutely hideous tattoos on her stomach and back.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Due to her impending punishment for trying to usurp the Nine.
Motive Misidentification: As powerful as her empathetic abilities are, she makes a number of major errors in her analysis of the major players in Brockton Bay, including completely missing Skitter's actual motivations. Worse: thinking she could gain subtle neurological control over Bonesaw given enough time? Girl, what about "Mad Doctor" did you miss?
Outgambitted: She tries to induce emotional dependency in the other Nine to wrap them around her finger. In doing so she severely underestimates who shes up against as they figure out what she's doing, set up safeguards against it, and proceed to fake ignorance just to see her face when she realizes they knew all along.
Psychic-Assisted Suicide: One of her favorite weapons is using her emotion powers to make people kill themselves out of despair.
Teens Are Monsters: She's about 18. And, like most of the rest of her family, lacking in the real empathy department.
Trauma Conga Line: She thought running away from Daddy and finding back-up would improve her life from the pit it was already in... Nope: not the way she went about it. It's been a lot of downhill moments with no sign of stopping.

Founding Members

Gray Boy

Nicholas (Gray Boy)

Debut: Interlude 25

One of the first members of the Slaughterhouse Nine, whom Jack remembers quite fondly. Prepubescent in appearance, older than ten but younger than fourteen, with neatly parted hair and a private school uniform, complete with glossy black shoes. He also has a monochrome effect surrounding him, occasionally flickering with his body looking in a different direction. His power traps people in loops for all eternity, with only their minds continuing to progress.

Classification: Shaker

Creepy Child: Looks like he crawled out of a formal black-and-white, private school photograph from the mid-20th century. Yeah. And, that's before you work out what he does.
The Dragon: Plays this to Jack after being cloned, before betraying him.
The Dreaded: Overall the single most feared member of the Slaughterhouse 9 in its history, even more than Bonesaw or the Siberian.
Fate Worse than Death: His power traps people in a loop until, in his own words, "the sun goes out." (Though according to Word of God, it's only "merely" for a few thousand years.) During this loop, the only changes to the affected parties are from what he inflicts on them (such as a cut or burn), and in the progression of their thoughts. Pain inflicted on them is repeated over and over and over, and they can only speak a few syllables at a time before being rewound.
Make Way for the New Villains: What originally happened to him courtesy of Glaistig Uaine, applying retroactively in the story itself when Glaistig manifests Gray Boy's spirit.
Older Than They Look: Gray Boy's power prevents him from aging, so he'll always look like a child.
Posthumous Character: Killed by Glastig Uaine long before the start of the story.
Resurrective Immortality: According to Word of God, Gray Boy is automatically revived by his time reversion powers even if he suffers a lethal wound, though Foil's power seems to be able to bypass this effect.
Sadist: Probably the worst out of the Nine in this regard, as he likes to put people under his time reversion powers for fun. Apparently this only applies to the clone, and the original Gray Boy wasn't lucid enough to be sadistic, just wandering around aimlessly using his powers indiscriminately.
Shrouded in Myth: The attitudes of King and Jack Slash towards Gray Boy made this clear long before his clone demonstrated just how dangerous he was.
The Starscream: He gets fed up with Jack's mounting failures and loops him during the final confrontation.
Time Master: In addition to keeping him alive, his time reversion prevents any aging. As such, he always looks exactly like he did when he first got his powers, clothing included.
Walking Spoiler: A lot of things about his character are kept hidden for a long time.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: According to Word of God, the original Grey Boy was similar to Labyrinth in that he wasn't very lucid using his powers, to the point that King recruited him mainly because King's power allowed him to get close without being trapped by it.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: According to Word of God, Cauldron manipulated Glaistig Uaine into absorbing him mainly because he was removing too many capes that were going to contribute to fighting Scion, but his power still needed to be in play.

King

Gabriel Maxberry (King)

Debut: Interlude 21.x (flashback)

The original leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a seven-foot-tall blond, who was killed in 1987 by Jack Slash and Harbinger, later known as Number Man. His power transfers his injuries to everyone he's touched in a 24-hour period.

Classification: Striker/Brute; Master

Boom, Headshot!: Jack Slash and Harbinger killed him with a variation of this, using Harbinger's power to aim Jack's attack up his nose to strike his corona.
Control Freak: Part of why he founded the Nine was that he enjoyed being in control of powerful and dangerous people.
Irony: He loved being in power and people knowing he was in power. Having people like Harbinger and Crimson at his beck and call, able to make them lick his feet if he ordered, and more importantly, knowing others knew he was the top dog of such scary-as-fuck killers, was what gave him purpose. Come present day, he's little more than a footnote in Jack Slash's origin to the public eye.
Large and in Charge: The original leader of the Nine, and about half a foot taller than Jack who replaced him, making him about seven feet tall.
Liquid Assets: His injury transference ability.
Lonely at the Top: A big part of why he triggered. He was the top dog in school, in his fraternity, as an athlete, and as a student, but finding he didn't know how to keep rising after already reaching the top drove him to self-destruction and triggering.
No-Sell: According to Word of God his power allowed him to be effectively immune to Gray Boy's ability, which is how he was able to get a hold on him. invoked
Posthumous Character: King is long dead by the events of the story.
Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Before he triggered he was constantly pushing boundaries of what he could get away with, terrorizing pledges, going after girls, tormenting professors, etc., but between being the police chief's son and his high standing in just about everything he was a part of no one stopped him. This was a big part of his power as the sense of being untouchable became very literal.
Self-Harm: His power works on self-inflicted injuries, letting him get around an opponent that refuses to attack him.
The Stool Pigeon: Of the Obedient variety. When going after the Slaughterhouse 9000, Weaver mentions that he's one of the only ones who'd view cheating as an annoyance and report it rather than ignore it for the sake of the additional challenge.
Smarter Than You Look: He's smarter than he lets on, which is why he survived as leader of the group for so long.
Super-Strength: He's super-humanly strong.

Crimson

Debut: Interlude 25 (mentioned), Sting 26.2 (appearance)

One of the earliest members of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and Winter's lover. Powers up into a super-strong form by consuming the blood of multiple victims.Classification: Changer

BFS: Carries a sword that is as long as he is tall—after he's Hulked out.
In a Single Bound: Thanks to his Super-Strength.
Made of Iron: Weaver actually describes him as having flesh as hard as iron. It's not an exaggeration either, he falls three stories without a scratch and is largely immune to ordinary weapons.
Our Vampires Are Different: After he's drank enough blood, Crimson grows into a form Weaver describes as "big, muscular, fueled by rage and impulse". She states that "his flesh would be engorged, purple-red, the veins would be standing out. He'd be as hard as iron, strong".
Posthumous Character: Like all the Nine's founding members save Jack Slash and Harbinger, he's dead before the beginning of the story, though he survived the longest.
Unholy Matrimony: Was in a relationship with Winter.

Breed

Bradley (Breed)

Debut: Sting 26.3

A former and founding member of the Slaughterhouse Nine whose power allowed him to create insectoid parasites.

Classification: Master

Bad Powers, Bad People: It's hard to be a superhero when your power is making nightmarish bugs that breed inside people's bodies. Word of God is that the parasites exclusively target humans, meaning that trying to use it with animals is a no-go.
Boss Arena Urgency: He can only make a few parasites a day and they take time to grow to their full size. Give him time and he can assemble a swarm of gigantic monsters, but when he doesn't have a few days or weeks to prepare he's fairly weak.
Kill It with Fire: Breed died from someone shooting an incendiary missile at the building he was in.
No-Sell: His parasites are immune to Weaver's control, despite their insectoid shape.
Orifice Invasion: His parasites can and will enter bodies through the mouth, nose, and anus.
Posthumous Character: Like all the Nine's founding members save Jack Slash and Harbinger, he's dead before the beginning of the story.
They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Is described as fairly normal-looking in appearance, which contrasts with his power.

Screamer

Debut: Sting 26.2

Former member of the Slaughterhouse Nine with the ability to manipulate sound within a huge area. She used it to amplify her voice, alter her voice to match others' voices, throw her voice to speak directly into people's ears (pretending to be their thoughts), or cancel out sounds she doesn't want heard.

Classification: Shaker(?)

Hell Is That Noise: Weaponizes it by speaking into people's ears.
Inner Monologue: After adapting to people's voices, she can imitate this.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Usually a subtle version of this, but is able to stun people with loud screeches.
Posthumous Character: Like all the Nine's founding members save Jack Slash and Harbinger, she's dead before the beginning of the story.
Suicide Dare: Her favored tactic is to do this while mimicking someone's inner monologue to make people think it's their own thoughts and eventually give in to her urgings.
Voice Changeling: The primary use for her ability.

Nyx

Debut: Sting 26.3

A former and founding member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and a Case-53. She has red skin, black eyes, and vents along her hairline, the back of her neck, and down the backs of her arms. These vents can generate a poison gas which she forms into solid shapes that move at her will. If she chooses to release it or the shape is broken by other means, the gas is released.

Classification: Stranger

Cain and Abel: Nyx is the Cain as a member of the 9, while her sister is the Abel as a member of the Protectorate.
Master of Illusion: She can create visual illusions with her gas.
Poisonous Person: Her illusions are made of poison gas which either knocks you out at best or causes permanent brain damage and organ failure at worse. She also seems limited in how much gas she can produce.
Posthumous Character: Like all the Nine's founding members save Jack Slash and Harbinger, she's dead before the beginning of the story.

Psychosoma

Rafael (Psychosoma)

Debut: Interlude 25

A former and founding member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a tall and narrow bald man with a pencil thin mustache and beard, spidery fingers, and clothes that look as if they were draped on. Has the ability to warp people into rabid monsters that can climb on walls. Dealing enough damage breaks the effect and returns them to their normal, unhurt self.

Classification: Stranger 4; Master 7

Bald of Evil: Is completely bald and a villain.
Body Horror: His ability causes one victim's ribs to distend, and his arms to turn into claws.
Forced Transformation: His power is forcibly transforming people into rabid monsters.
Lean and Mean: Is skeletally thin and a villain.
Posthumous Character: Like all the Nine's founding members save Jack Slash and Harbinger, he's dead before the beginning of the story.
This Was His True Form: Hurting people affected by his power seems to be the only way to reverse it. Though it is not as simple as it sounds as if you break the effect for one, the others would then tear the freed victim apart if nearby.

Harbinger

See the tropes associated with The Number Man in the Cauldron section of this page.

Later Members

Hatchet Face

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned)

A Power Nullifier with superhuman strength and enhanced durability, who triggered following being injured by capes in a careless attack. His claim to fame was attacking a news station where a cape was being interviewed and butchering them with his axe after stripping them with his powers. Cherish used her range advantage to kill him; Bonesaw brought his corpse back to something resembling life.

Classification: Trump, Brute

Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: A serial killer and literal Brute specializing in killing other capes who wields a woodcutter's axe.
Boomerang Bigot: Hates other parahumans in general, and Brutes in particular, and Jack got him to join by giving him more capes to kill.
Driven to Suicide: Cherish killed him by using her emotion powers to make him commit suicide.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: His face is described as just a giant mass of scar tissue.
Logical Weakness: His Trump aura is a Power Nullifier, not Antimagic, which means parahumans are powerless while in his range but powers with a greater range than him can still affect him.
Power Nullifier: His main ability nullifies other powers, which made him especially deadly to capes, since most are helpless without their powers, and he also has enhanced strength and toughness.
Super-Strength: Along with Super-Toughness. He's super strong and tough to the point of shrugging off most damage.
You Are What You Hate: Has a particular grudge against Brutes since it was one who maimed him, despite the fact that he's a Brute himself.

Chuckles

Debut: Interlude 13.y (mentioned), Interlude 25 (appearance)

A former member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a tall, pear-shaped, fat clown with super-speed powers with a twist. He has super speed in the head and legs, and super strength in the chest and arms. Unfortunately, his powers had the nasty side effect of causing him to perceive the world in perpetual slow motion, leaving him unable to communicate. He has only managed to teach himself to make a sound that is similar to laughter, hence the name. This eventually caused him to lose his mind. His post-modification self also has arms that zigzag, consisting of more elbow than arm, that trail behind him like ribbons.

Classification: Brute, Mover

Body Horror: Besides the nightmarish situation the power puts him in, Bonesaw's modifications gave him thirty-one elbows. Whether that's per arm or in total isn't specified.
Evil Laugh: A rather unique one that is described as a discordant sound, as if there were a different voice for each syllable of the utterance. According to Word of God, because he perceives the world in slow motion, it's the only sound he can make.
Fat Bastard: Is pretty fat, and pretty evil.
Monster Clown: His makeup is actually made up of tattooed-on scars.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Post-modification he has several limbs.
Posthumous Character: Her was a member of the Nine in 2005 but died sometime before the start of the story.
The Speechless: Can't talk, but he can laugh.
Super-Speed: His main power, focused on his head and feet.
Super-Strength: His other power, focused on his chest and arms.
Tattooed Crook: His face is covered in tattooed scars that look like clown makeup.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Was driven mad by how quickly he perceived the world.

Winter

Madeline (Winter)

Debut: Interlude 13.y (mentioned), Sting 26.2 (appearance)

One of the previous members of the Slaughterhouse Nine and a former arms dealer and slave trader, Winter was a white-haired woman with white irises edged in black. Crimson's lover. Her power involved a dampening effect that caused locations to lose heat, moving objects to lose inertia, and humans to lose will.

Classification: Shaker(?), Breaker(?)

An Ice Person: As a side effect of her actual power.
Arms Dealer: What she used to be before triggering.
Child Soldier: Started out as one, according to Bonesaw.
Cold-Blooded Torture: She tortured people who were caught in her power and unable to escape or fight back.
Posthumous Character: One of the older members, killed before the start of the story.
Sadist: Got a kick out of torturing people, and joined the Nine to do more of it.
Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: She was a slaver after triggering but before joining the Nine.
Super Hero Packing Heat: Inverted since she's a villain, Winter carries around firearms like sniper rifles.
Unholy Matrimony: Was in a relationship with Crimson.
White Hair, Black Heart: Has white hair and happens to be a villain.

Nice Guy

Debut: Sting 26.1

A previous member of the Slaughterhouse Nine whose power makes people incapable of perceiving him as a threat.

Classification: Stranger

Jedi Mind Trick: When he uses his power on people, they can still see and interact with him, but they are unable to recognize him as a potential threat, even while he's being violent.
Nice Guy: Subverted, he's anything but, he has that moniker because people can't percieve him as a threat.
The Nondescript: Is so generic in appearance that people can barely recognize that he's standing there in front of them if his power is "on".
Posthumous Character: Killed sometime before the start of the story.
Shoot the Hostage: Being willing to kill innocents is one way of getting around his power.

Miasma

Debut: Sting 26.5

A former member of the Nine who can turn invisible and undetectable, spewing an odorless gas that wears away at other's minds, causing headaches, ringing in the ears, watery eyes and eventual blindness, memory loss and coma.

Classification: Stranger, Blaster

Bad Powers, Bad People: It's hard to imagine any good use for his power.
Invisibility: Can turn invisible.
Loss of Identity: What his power can do to you, right before sending you into a coma.
Poisonous Person: Spews poison gas.
Posthumous Character: Killed sometime before the start of the story.

Hookwolf

A member of E88 and alter Fenrir's Chosen who was recruited into the Nine while under the effects of a perception altering drug. His tropes are here.

Damsel of Distress

Ashley Stillions (Damsel of Distress)

Debut: Interlude 16.y (mentioned), Interlude 19.x (appearance)

A relatively harmless villainess who makes her home in a small town, occasionally trying to extend her influence into the larger, neighboring cities only to fail and return to lick her wounds. Damsel has space-warping powers, capable of destroying any matter or construction, albeit with a minimum of control. She was recruited by the Slaughterhouse Nine to increase their numbers after the events of Brockton Bay, only to be killed by Defiant as he pursued them.

Classification: Mover, Shaker

Artificial Limbs: Her arms are entirely, or at least largely, artificial, designed to help her control her power.
Ascended Extra: Was a relatively minor character in Worm that died without accomplishing much. In Ward, one of her surviving clones is part of Ms. Yamada's therapy group that Victoria is planning on mentoring.
Creepily Long Arms: Has extremely long, Bonesaw-special arms (that do help her control her power more effectively)...
Creepy Long Fingers: ...with extremely long, stabby fingers (that make everyday tasks impossible to manage).
Deal with the Devil: Agreed to Bonesaw's modifications in order to control her powers, only to become more of a monster.
Evil Gloating: Is compelled to do these due to her Power Incontinence.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Bisected by Defiant in her first appearance with the Nine.
Harmless Villain: Wasn't considered much of a threat prior to joining the Nine.
Lean and Mean: Her years of living on the streets made her painfully thin to the point of emaciated.
Power Incontinence: She can't control her powers, described by wildbow as the result of her passenger constantly pushing her to be ambitious and punishing her for failure.
Punny Name: She's the cause of distress instead of being in distress.
Recoil Boost: Her annihilation blasts create outward force, which she gives her Mover capabilities when properly channeled.
Space Master: She can destroy any matter or construction in range, but it's very chaotic.
The Speechless: Part of Bonesaw's modifications robbed her of her voice, possibly by completely removing her voicebox and tongue.
Trapped in Villainy: She's far from an enthusiastic member of the group, but Bonesaw's additions will kill her if she tries to break from the group and prevent her from simply killing the other Nine.
White Hair, Black Heart: Has white hair and happens to be a villain.

Skinslip

Debut: Interlude 25

One of the newer members of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a minor regenerator with the ability to manipulate his own skin. He can extend this ability by flaying people and crudely stitching or stapling their skin to his. This gives him wider (if disgusting) reach and lets him bludgeon/asphyxiate foes, scale buildings, and other applications.

Classification: Changer

Body Horror: Has a patchwork appearance due to his added skin.
Building Swing: Uses large patchwork quilts of skin to grapple buildings and get to/from rooftops.
Healing Factor: Skinslip has a relatively weak one.
Genuine Human Hide: Uses this to enhance his powers.
Master of Your Domain: His skin manipulation ability.

Night Hag

Debut: Interlude 25

One of the newer members of the Slaughterhouse Nine, Night Hag is a dark-haired woman wearing a black dress with skin as white as chalk. Her power appears to be location possession, being able to reform herself if destroyed from any area she has "infected" with her power. A breaker with the secondary benefits of not needing sleep or food.

Classification: Breaker, Mover(?)

Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Her skin is described as being as white as chalk.
Fully-Embraced Fiend: Not necessarily fiends, but she embraced being a parahuman to the point that she chose to stay permanently in Breaker form.
The Needless: She doesn't need to eat or drink.
Teleporter's Visualization Clause: Her location-possession power allows her to reform herself if destroyed using spots she's "infected" with her power, though it works best with materials above the ground.

Bonesaw's Creations

Murder Rat

Debut: Interlude 11.h

A hybrid creation from the remains of the hero Mouse Protector and the villain Ravager.

Classification: Striker, Mover, Brute

And I Must Scream: Both Ravager and Mouse Protector are fully conscious but can't do anything.
Bizarre Alien Senses: She can sense people she's wounded.
Body Horror: Again, a Frankenstein creation made from two capes that were both left with enough brain activity for their passengers' to consider them alive. She has two and a half brains crammed into her head, a face surgically altered to look like a rat's, a second row of teeth crammed into her gums, fingers, and toes replaced by blades, and so thoroughly twisted with viruses and transplants that even Panacea can't tell where MP ends and Ravager begins.
Combo Platter Powers: Ravager and Mouse Protector were both grab-bag capes, and Murder Rat has all their powers.
Elite Mooks: Apparently the 9 put her through their initiation tests and she actually passed, which results in her being the only one of Bonesaw's creations that she likes enough to make clones of alongside the other members.
Explosive Leash: Bonesaw rigged a control frame into her skeleton and nervous system, with a mechanism of needles around her heart, rigged to kill her if the system was ever disabled.
Mercy Kill: Put down by Flashbang when Panacea disables her.
Primal Stance: She moves on all fours most of the time.
Teleporter's Visualization Clause: One of her powers lets her teleport to people she's touched, a power that works equally well with those she's wounded.
Wall Crawl: Not power derived outside of the strength boost helping her grip, but she can sue her claws to cling to walls and ceilings.
Wolverine Claws: Her fingers and toes were replaced with machete-like blades.
Wound That Will Not Heal: Wounds inflicted with her blades smoke and burn when she's close, making them worse and potentially causing people to bleed out. Even if she's gone they take much longer to heal and almost always scar.

Hack Job

Debut: Interlude 11.h

After Hatchet Face was killed by Cherish and Oni Lee proved unfit for the team, Bonesaw grafted the two together.

Classification: Trump, Brute, Mover.

And I Must Scream: Hatchet Face is pretty much braindead thanks to Bonesaw's lobotomy to ensure his obedience, but Oni Lee is still conscious and aware.
Body Horror: Oni Lee was cut apart and implanted into Hatchet Face's back like a tumor, his face, organs, and bones still visible as malformed lumps beneath the skin.
Killed Offscreen: Sundancer incinerates him during the fight at Parian's base.
Power Nullifier: He keeps Hatchet Face's power nullifying aura
Teleporter's Visualization Clause: Oni Lee's teleportation power carries over to Hack Job. It's not a perfect mesh though, as Bonesaw comments that it causes some wear and tear and his teleport doubles come apart in blood and ash where Oni Lee were just dust.

Pagoda

Debut: Interlude 11.h

A hybrid created from the second-coming wannabe Prophet and the Slaughterhouse 9 hopeful Carnal.

Classification: Brute

Explosive Leash: A mechanism in his heart would reverse his healing factor if he ever broke out of Bonesaw's control, causing him to come apart at the seams.
Feel No Pain: Either one of his powers or the result of how he's put together.
Healing Factor: Both Prophet and Carnal were regenerators and their abilities combine and amplify in Pagoda.
Our Centaurs Are Different: Carnal's head was removed with Prophet's upper body grafted on like some macabre centaur.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Panacea kills him by activating Bonesaw's safeguards just a few paragraphs after he shows up.

Cauldron

In General

A mysterious organization that appears to have figured out how to give people powers.

Antagonistic Offspring: The Case 53s are basically this to them as a group. The hundreds of people with a staggering array of powers who they created (often without anything resembling informed consent), isolated, psychologically and physically abused and then just discarded or, worse, kept in solitary confinement for years? Yeah: how was that not going to backfire horribly in some way?
Awesomeness by Analysis: Most groups, in a situation where they need to send an enforcer to bust some heads, would send a Brute or a Striker. Cauldron sends Thinkers. However, this is also their Achilles' Heel: too many Thinkers means too few rounded people to keep them all grounded.
Expy: Of SEELE from Neon Genesis Evangelion. The pocket dimension they use for their council meetings seems to be designed after the SEELE council holograms.
Greater-Scope Villain: As the story progresses, a lot of problems in the Wormverse are traced back to them. Dragon herself rates them as being on the same level as the Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine in terms of their danger to the world. However, they're knocked out of the Big Bad role by Scion, and end up being more of an extremely amoral and surprisingly ineffectual attempt at being the Big Good.
Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Their headquarters is invaded near the end of the story by the Case 53s they turned into deformed creatures and abandoned on Earth Bet.
- Trying to keep Eidolon in the game whatever it took when misunderstanding the core of his ability? Whoops. Talk about creating monsters that can bite you...
Not Wearing Tights: No one in Cauldron's inner circle dresses like a stereotypical hero or villain.
Oddly Small Organization: For all the influence that can ultimately be traced back to them, there are only fewer than ten people who are actual, direct Cauldron employees rather than just power-buyers, proxies or Unwitting Pawns.
Story-Breaker Power: Contessa and Number Man are probably the most powerful non-Endbringer Thinkers in the web novel. In general, all their members except Doctor Mother are ludicrously powerful.
Super Serum: They make these and sell them, hoping that their formula will balance out the tendency of people who triggered normally to become villains by letting them gain their powers in a less-traumatizing way.
Supervillain Lair: The huge complex in which they work, which may possibly be in another dimension.
The Needs of the Many: While Cauldron is initially presented as a business selling superpowers to customers, it turns out that their goal is to kill Scion, thereby saving humanity. They engage in many heinous actions to achieve these ends, including sacrificing thousands of lives to appease a supervillain and abducting civilians to use as test subjects.
The Syndicate: Which trades in super serums.
We Are Everywhere: A lot of capes, heroes and villains alike, have ties to them due to their super serum ring. Notable examples include Battery, Coil, and the Triumvirate.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: They claim that their goal is to avert the apocalypse, but we eventually learn that they allowed it to happen because they believed it was inevitable and could only be postponed, which would only make things worse. They were right.

Leadership

Doctor Mother

"Doctor Mother"

Debut: Interlude 12.1/2

The apparent chief of the organization, described as a black woman with long hair in a doctor's getup. Personally recruited Rebecca Costa-Brown, among others.

Above Good and Evil: Gives off this vibe when explaining the rationale for her actions.
Badass Normal: She never actually gains powers herself, despite having the potential to trigger, but she leads one of the most powerful organizations in the series.
Determined Defeatist: She doesn't believe that Scion can be defeated, but she's still trying.
From Nobody to Nightmare: She was originally just a random woman who got torn away from her homeworld before helping the little girl later known as Contessa kill Eden and becoming one of the most powerful individuals in the setting.
Lack of Empathy: It becomes fairly obvious that Doctor Mother has a very poor grasp of the feelings of other people. Heck, she's not all that good at identifying her own! It's probably at least part of why Cauldron is so bad at saving the world.
Karmic Death: Gets crushed by Garrote, a Case 53, in Venom 29.7. Not only is Garrote one of her own creations, but Garrote, lacking control of her powers, has to choose someone in the room to kill - and as she points out, Doctor Mother is the least valuable person in the room at the moment, in an echo of Doctor Mother's own Cold Equation thinking.
Mad Scientist: It appears that she is in charge of recruiting (or kidnapping) and dosing patients with the Super Serums. However, it eventually turns out that not only is she not a Tinker, or even a parahuman, she's not even actually a doctor; what little actual science is involved in producing the power serums is done using Contessa and the Number Man's powers.
The Man Behind the Man: Well, woman, Doctor Mother was responsible for Coil and the Triumvirate, among others.
Moral Sociopathy: She's in it to save humanity as a whole, whatever it takes, no matter how much blood covers the ground in doing it. The problem is that she can't actually emotionally engage with people very well either face-to-face or in the abstract, so she takes some very dubious and circuitous routes to do it. The implications are that she never could actually understand herself or others fully, even before she found a crusade worth further chopping her empathy off for.
Not So Stoic: After the Undersiders and the Guild take control of three of the Endbringers, she's briefly rendered incapable of forming complete words.
One Bad Mother: Doctor Mother is the woman behind various capes, and she's the head of an evil (or, at the very least, amoral) organization.
Pet the Dog: In Contessa's Interlude it's shown that Doctor Mother does have a softer side when it comes to her since they've known each other for so long.
Smug Snake: She tries to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist and extremely brutal Pragmatic Hero, but it becomes more and more apparent to everyone but herself that she's failed the basic competency exam.
Straw Vulcan: Her Fatal Flaw—she's become so divorced from her own emotions that she's lost her instinctive understanding of human behavior. For example, explaining why you wouldn't know the real name of a heavily-traumatized Case 53, i.e., not knowing them personally and there's a lot of "data" to sift through, might not endear you to that Case 53 enough to save your life.
The Unfettered: She's willing to do absolutely anything if it might save humanity from Scion.

Contessa

Fortuna (Contessa)

Debut: Interlude 14.y

The Doctor's right-hand woman since the formation of Cauldron, if not earlier. Acts as her aide, bodyguard, and enforcer. She is described as an attractive woman of either French or Italian descent around Danny Hebert's age with slightly-longer-than-shoulder-length black hair between wavy and curly. Her outfit consists mainly of black suits tailor-made to fit her body. Capable of single-handedly incapacitating Faultline's entire crew.

Contessa's power appears to be some sort of precognition and/or Super-Reflexes, but these are actually just facets of her true power, which automatically supplies her with whatever steps she needs to take to succeed at the task she visualizes, whether it be combat, psychological manipulation, or Cauldron's long-term plans. Unusually enough, she lacks the common Thinker weakness of being cancelled out by other Thinkers. In Interlude 26, it is revealed that her shard is neither "dead" (like Cauldron-supers) nor from Scion (like all known trigger-supers). Seemingly killed fighting the Irregulars due to Mantellum's power, only to be revealed to have survived in Interlude 29.

Classification: Thinker

Achilles' Heel: Her power allows her to answer any question...but she doesn't always know the best question to ask.
Awesome by Analysis: Physically, she's no stronger or faster than a normal human, but her power allows her to effortlessly demolish entire teams of capes.
Badass in a Nice Suit: Contessa is always seen wearing a woman's suit.
Blank Slate: Or, as near to one as a person can get. She's not called "the bogeyman" for nothing: nobody in-world besides Doctor Mother knows much about her. And, there isn't much to know, as she very rarely talks. Without somebody to supply questions for her to find answers to or a goal for her to select a route that works, she becomes rudderless.
Casual Danger Dialogue: Has a phone conversation with the Number Man in her Interlude while fighting Weld.
Combat Clairvoyance: What is seen of her fight with Lung's former gang suggests this, and she explains to Weaver that her power works by calculating the path needed to victory, and following through. It doesn't work on Endbringers, meaning that Taylor's crazy plan to recruit the Simurgh completely blindsided her.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers one to everyone she fights with the exception of Mantellum. Bonus points for finishing off one member of Lung's old gang with an actual curbstomp.
Devious Daggers: Contessa is a mysterious, dreaded figure, and her weapon is a stiletto no longer than a finger.
Dodge the Bullet: In Lung's Interlude, she dodges and parries several bullets at point-blank range.
The Dragon: To Doctor Mother, being Cauldron's second-in-command.
Dragon-in-Chief: A variation. Doctor Mother makes most of the overarching decisions and serves as Cauldron's face, and Contessa relies on her for direction because she never really grew up, but Cauldron's core plan and driving goal actually come from Contessa—Doctor Mother was just chosen as the face and official leader because Contessa was a child when they started.
Drama-Preserving Handicap: Contessa has the most capable precognition of all parahumanity... except that it's been crippled to not work on the beings that really matter, namely the Endbringers and Scion.
The Dreaded: Contessa is so feared by other capes, despite not even knowing her name, that she's referred to simply as "her". When Weaver asks Prefab her classification, she's told, "Thinker. Don't worry about the number. Just run."
Enigmatic Minion: No one really knows Contessa's deal except Doctor Mother. Maybe.
Faking the Dead: How she avoids getting killed by the Irregulars during their raid of Cauldron's base.
Fedora of Asskicking: She wears a fedora, which, thanks to her supernatural combat prowess, she can sometimes use as a weapon, as shown when she burns Gregor by filling it with his own slime and sticking it to him.
He Knows Too Much: In Number Man's Interlude, it's mentioned that Contessa's job is more or less to assassinate people who learn too much about Cauldron and attempt to release that information.
Hero Killer: She single-handedly incapacitated Faultline's crew, and, upon meeting Weaver, handed her a total defeat, making it clear that she could've killed her at any time.
Lady in a Power Suit: Capable and always in a woman's suit.
Lady of War: Lung describes her as being very graceful in combat.
Meatgrinder Surgery: One of the (many) benefits of her superpower is that she can turn this into a useful, viable option. Best exemplified when she performs preliminary brain surgery with a Double Tap to the back of the head in order to save someone's life.
Mundane Utility: Her power makes her pretty much invincible. It also lets her know how to tie a necktie.
Mysterious Woman: Complete with the fedora; she's practically built based on this trope to the point where it's likely her costume intentionally evokes it. She knows more about what's going on than almost anyone else, rarely shares her secrets, and is at the center of everything important that occurs.
"Not So Different" Remark: At the end of the series, she notes that she and Taylor weren't so different in how they chose to solve problems.
Omniscient Morality License: She considers herself to have this, at least early on. The concept is played with a bit in that the people she's sacrificed for the greater good clearly disagree, and she eventually decides to stop behaving this way after her final conversation with Taylor.
One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce:
- Inverted since Contessa is an antagonist, but she happens to be immune to the Thinker weakness of being canceled out by other Thinkers. Certain beings such as Scion and Endbringers are immune to her ability, but, even then, she can still predict their actions by considering the situation as a hypothetical, though it is possible for them to surprise her. Unfortunately for her, Mantellum was able to counter her completely.
- The Simurgh can trump it whenever she feels like by being a precognitive Endbringer, as seen when Taylor's plan to recruit the Endbringers actually works.
Pet the Dog:
- Saves Taylor's life and sanity with a couple of bullets.
- After Scion is no longer a threat and Cauldron disbands, she tries to become a nicer person. Emphasis on tries, but, hey, at least she's making the effort.
The Quiet One: Contessa doesn't talk much, and when she does, it's quick and to the point. This is due to the fact that her power is being used to translate since she speaks a language not spoken on Earth Bet, and it tends to unnerve people due to the lag involved.
Required Secondary Powers: Her power doesn't just tell her what to do to execute the path, it also basically puppets her body to allow her to perfectly carry out all the required actions.
Secret-Keeper: The world believes she killed Khepri. She's happy to let them.
The Worf Effect: Her offscreen match with Faultline's crew was impressive enough, but far more vivid was her curb stomping in Crushed 24.2 of Weaver and the Chicago Wards, handing Taylor one of her very few outright losses.
Would Hurt a Child: Contessa had no compunctions about killing every non-Lung member of his original street gang, despite all of them being little more than teenagers at the time, and would've killed Weaver and the Chicago Wards if they hadn't backed down.
The Unfettered: Does not care about anything but stopping Zion.
Walking Spoiler: As a character this close to the story of Worm, it's to be expected.

The Number Man

Kurt Wynn (The Number Man, formerly Harbinger)

Debut: Interlude 14.y

"He understood numbers, and through them, he understood everything."

A Thinker in the employ of Cauldron, responsible for managing funds for many capes, legitimate and not. He is described as a bookish middle-aged man wearing a button-up shirt and thin-rimmed glasses, his blond hair cut short to be easy to maintain. Was also the monitor for the Undersiders' bank accounts on the behalf of Coil. Once fought alongside Jacob—the man who became Jack Slash—as a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine in his former identity as Harbinger. Cloned by Bonesaw.

Classification: Thinker

Affably Evil: He certainly values politeness, and he seems quite annoyed by the active sadism of his clones, whose personalities were designed more on hearsay than any real information on him.
Black Cloak: His original costume as Harbinger included a black cloak.
The Cracker: Is a skilled hacker thanks to his powers making it child's play.
The Dreaded: Not to the same degree of Contessa, but he's still feared by those in the know as one of Cauldron's bogeymen, and that's on top of his former identity as a member of the Slaughterhouse 9.
Even Evil Has Standards: While he was originally Harbringer, he finds the active sadism of his clones (which were based on hearsay about him) to be distasteful; additionally, he spends his spare time using his power to wreck the finances of Neo-Nazi groups.
Foil: To Jack Slash of all people, even still considering him a friend. Jack is all about the flair, style and bloody impact on society's ill-equipped systems — the hare, if you will. The Number Man is all about the slow, steady push and the gradual impact by subverting the systems — the tortoise. Neither finish the race, as such, as the whole race-track changes before they can.
Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Is always seen wearing glasses, and happens to be an amoral individual.
Forced into Evil: Despite his clinical detachment from anything approaching morality, he never would have done anywhere near the amount of harm that he did if King didn't force him to be a part of the Slaughterhouse 9.
Good with Numbers: Doctor implies they don't need to test each batch of formula on multiple test subjects because because Number Man can whip out the percentages on the spot. In fact, Number Man is so good with numbers...
- ...that he can predict exactly how someone will act or react, making him especially dangerous in battle, though, according to him, it works better at range, so, as a result...
- ...his power also makes him an excellent sniper, using ricochets to expertly put down opponents.
- He threatened to do a Shatterpoint Tap to a super-strong parahuman's skull if he didn't back down.
Hazy-Feel Turn: As Harbringer, he was one of the Slaughterhouse Nine and one of the most feared villains in the setting. As Number Man, he's working to save the world - but his basic sociopathy hasn't disappeared, merely been redirected to better ends, and the overall sociopathy of Cauldron as a whole makes it hard to call him a "hero".
Long-Range Fighter: Downplayed, while the Number Man is still a formidable melee combatant if forced to fight hand to hand, his powers work best at range, making him more suited for sniping.
Measuring the Marigolds: As far as the Number Man is concerned, numbers are the only thing that's true, likely as a side effect of his power.
Mundane Utility: With full knowledge of the Number Man's powers, his usage of it in banking comes across as a fairly mundane use for one of the most broken powers in the setting.
Not Wearing Tights: Number Man purposely dresses as normal as possible. Despite looking like a nerd (complete with pocket protector), he's still fairly intimidating in Taylor's eyes.
Precision F-Strike: He drops an F-bomb when he realizes what Scion is trying to do to Cauldron's base.
Retired Monster: He's not technically retired from cape activity, but he's the only member of the Slaughterhouse 9 to retire from the group, though only because he felt the constant slaughter was pointless rather than immoral.
Shatterpoint Tap: Claims he can do this:
“You'll miss,” the Number Man said. “And I'll close in and strike you, using my pen and my hand. I can see the stress points of your body, clear as day. I can shatter your skull like a glass, and it would be an exceptionally painful way to die."
Shrouded in Myth: In-universe little is known about him.
Semantic Superpower: You'd be quite surprised at what being "merely" Good with Numbers can entail. Let us count the ways: horizontal wall-running, shrugging off a multiple-story drop, surviving an explosion in the case of his clones just by spinning in the exact right way, setting up a controlled demolition on the fly...
The Sociopath: He does his amoral work clinically and remorselessly, and only stopped doing things with the Slaughterhouse Nine because he found random slaughter pointless rather than feeling bad about the things he'd done. About his only...um..."friends" are Doctor Mother, Jack Slash, and himselves. That says a lot.
Sociopathic Hero: To the extent that he can be considered a 'hero' at all. He works to save lives and protect the world, but is also completely amoral and does so purely out of mathematical utilitarianism.
Teens Are Monsters: Going by the fact that his clones were teenagers, Number Man was only in his teens when he became part of the Slaughterhouse Nine.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Number Man believes his actions help to make the world a better place.

Staff

Doormaker

Doormaker / #23

Debut: Interlude 21.x

Capable of tearing portals through the alternate Earths, allowing Cauldron to pick up test subjects from everywhere but Earth Bet and (when desired) leave them on Earth Bet. Is effectively the gatekeeper to Cauldron's facilities, which are implied to also be in an alternate plane themselves.

Classification: Mover, Shaker(?)

Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Is extremely good at portals, particularly between worlds. Can't do anything else (including know who wants a portal to where) without a stunningly-good clairvoyant right next to him to help him.
Character Death: Is claimed by Glaistig Uaine in Speck 30.6.
Sensory Overload: Is effectively blind and deaf due to his Super-Senses.
Thinking Up Portals: He can create portals against ordinary-looking doors in a literal example of Portal Door, or even in mid-air to allow for transit.

The Clairvoyant

The Clairvoyant / #265

Debut: Interlude 21.x

Can see and hear everything that occurs within Earth's atmosphere. Is constantly with Doormaker, ensuring that he opens portals where they are needed.

Classification: Thinker

Eye Scream: His eyes burned out when he got his powers, and his eye sockets are described as "twin ash trays."
Manchild: Although he is described as being in his late teens, his mental age is said to be about eight.
Puberty Superpower: Subverted. While he has the physical age of being older than a teen, he drank one of Cauldron's superpower serums when he was a child.
Sensory Overload: Can cause this in people he touches by granting them visions of what he sees, knocking them out.
Small Role, Big Impact: Only appears in the latter half of the story and even then receives no speaking lines or characterization, but is instrumental in Khepri's defeat of Scion during Gold Morning.
Support Party Member: His power is mostly just used to help Doormaker and spy for Cauldron.
The Omniscient: Is capable of perceiving everything that happens in Earth's atmosphere, in all universes.
What Happened to the Mouse?: It's not mentioned what happened to him at the end of Worm and he does not make an appearance in the sequel.

Custodian

The Custodian / A76

Debut: Interlude 21.x

A parahuman who spends her time guarding Cauldron's main base. Duplicates herself in enormous numbers, but with all her bodies nearly incorporeal. For her tropes in Ward, see here.

Classification: Breaker (Master/Stranger)

Blow You Away: The end result of her powers. One incorporeal body can't do much, but dozens acting in concert let her move objects with more strength than she'd have even as a normal human.
Left Hanging: We learn the backgrounds of the rest of Cauldron, but we never really find out what the Custodian's deal is. Presumably she was an early success, but it's never explicitly stated. At least until the sequel, Ward.
Self-Duplication: Her power lets her split off copies of herself that have only a fraction of her mass, with her original body decreasing in mass a proportionate amount. She spends all her time split into as many bodies as she can, with her "original" body just another of her dozens of incorporeal bodies.

The Slug

Debut: Interlude 21.x

A Case 53 parahuman used to alter the memories of the failed subjects.

Classification: Master

Evil Cripple: He's limbless, though the evil part is up in the air depending on how complicit he was in Cauldron's affairs.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: The one responsible for it in Case 53s by altering their memories.
No Name Given: Only the appellation used by Alexandria.
Uncertain Doom: He's crucified by the Irregulars during their raid on Cauldron, but it's not mentioned if he survives the experience.

Former Members

William Manton

Debut: Prey 14.7 (unnamed)

A famous early researcher into capes, and the one for whom the Manton effect—the inability of most parahumans to affect both living and nonliving matter—was named. Worked for Cauldron for some time, but when he tried to give his daughter powers using one of their formulas and failed, he quit and used a stolen formula on himself before dropping completely off the grid.

Character Death: Eventually killed by Dragon during the Nine's attack on Accord, resulting in the "death" of the Siberian as well.
Despair Event Horizon: The loss of his daughter led him to become the Siberian.
Karmic Death: Manton, who eats people as The Siberan, dies from getting caught in the jaws of one of Dragon's mechs.
Killed Offscreen: Which causes the same to happen to his projection.
Man Behind the Man: To the Siberian. He remains hidden while his projection goes about her business, leaving everyone in the dark that she's not really a parahuman at all.
Mysterious Past: What happened to him between becoming the Siberian and joining the Slaughterhouse Nine is largely unknown, as are several other facets of his character, which are only hinted at.
Professor Guinea Pig: Takes one of Cauldrons formulas himself and becomes a Master. Specifically, he gained a power to create a projection resembling his daughter that can't be affected by anything he doesn't wish it to, a projection which comes to be known as the Siberian.
Tattooed Crook: He has a tattoo on each hand. One is Cauldron's symbol (which also marks the Case 53s), and the other used to be used to mark victims of the Simurgh.

Other S-Class Threats

Echidna

A parahuman from Earth Aleph who can absorb any living thing she touches and create monstrous clones of them that serve her. Due to tangential aliances, her tropes are found on the Gangs of Brockton Bay page.

Nilbog

Jamie Rinke (Nilbog)

Debut: Interlude 16.x (flashback), Sting 26.4 (appearance)

“You would shoot me!?” Rinke roared. If anything, his voice was all the more terrifying because it sounded so small, so human. ”I create life! I am a god, and this is my garden!”

A supervillain with the power to create monsters with feelings and powers of their own by making them out of collected biomass. He is described as a man, potbellied and hunchbacked, wearing a patchwork constume with jarring patterns of stripes and checkers. He wears a cloth crown with a cloth mask featuring beads for eyes and a perpetual leer of a smile. Was formerly a banker before snapping and having his trigger event. Currently staying within the city he took over for himself.

Classification: Master

Adipose Rex: He's over 400 pounds when he shows up in the main story. Or at least, his decoy is. His real body is a more normal weight.
A God Am I: Nilbog believes that he is a god, with his city being his own personal Garden of Eden.
Body Horror: Nilbog and his creations run the gamut of Body Horror tropes. Hell, he could even give The Thing a run for its money.
The Dreaded: Nilbog is spoken of in the same breath as the Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine. Luckily unlike them he prefers to stay in his town. Up until the Slaughterhouse Nine takes him away.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Originally just a banker, after snapping and having a trigger event he ended up taking over his entire city with his creations.
Loners Are Freaks: Pre-trigger event Nilbog kept mainly to himself. Present-day Nilbog is so deprived of human contact that he's regressed to a childlike mentality.
Mother of a Thousand Young: The town he inhabits is full of his creations.
Psychopathic Man Child: Over the course of ten years he's regressed to a childlike perception of himself as a god, and is practically incapable of deceit, seeing things in a fairy-tale mentality.
Replacement Goldfish: Polka, one of Nilbog's first creations and "proof" of his ascension to godhood. Now in her third iteration since his creations cannot live very long.
Sdrawkcab Name: Nilbog backwards is Goblin.
Vocal Dissonance: For all his power, Nilbog sounds like a regular person, which actually makes him even more horrifying. In his first appearance in the main story, he's been alone for long enough that his voice is practically its own accent.
We Are as Mayflies: Nilbog's creations live on average about three to four years.

The Three Blasphemies

Debut: Scarab 25.5 (mentioned), Extinction 27.2 (appearance)

A trio of young women who perform political attacks across Europe.

The Dreaded: They're to Europe what the Slaughterhouse 9 are to America.
The Kingslayer: They once murdered the Dutch king and queen.
Light Is Not Good: Their outfits, skin, and hair are all bone white.
Outside-Context Problem: Apparently they're not human and Khepri was unable to find a creator or controller, making them frighteningly similar to Siberian or the Endbringers.
Resurrective Immortality: So long as one of them lives, the others will be reconstituted.
White Mask of Doom: All of them wear one with a face depicted on it, one with a smile, one with a frown, and one with a snarl.

Ash Beast

Debut: Speck 30.5

A parahuman with the power to convert mass to energy and vice versa. He wanders through Africa surrounded by an unending explosion.

Classification: Breaker/Changer

Advancing Boss of Doom: Pretty much his whole existence, walking around on foot and destroying everything around him.
Ambiguous Gender: Only Khepri knows he's a he, as being surrounded by a constant explosion makes it difficult to get close.
Evil Is Not a Toy: Some people try to direct him towards their enemies, which never turns out well for anyone.
Stuff Blowing Up: He's constantly converting the matter around him into energy to create this effect.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Killed by Scion shortly after showing up in the story.

Sleeper

Debut: Queen 18.4 (mentioned), Speck 30.4 (appearance)

An extremely powerful supervillain who lives somewhere around Russia. While his power is never elaborated on, everyone in the world is terrified of provoking him. Fled to a private dimension during Scion's rampage, where Taylor decided to let him be due to his ability to resist her making him more trouble than he was worth.

Classification: Unknown

The Dreaded: Everyone is frighted of him and even Khepri decided that trying to get him wasn't worth the trouble. Ward reveals that the recommended powerset for going up against him is "Invincibility (better than Alexandria's), special brains, absolute annihilation powers".
Humanoid Abomination: He is described as a normal looking man reading a book aloud when we finally catch a glimpse of him. What little we know about him suggests him to be something akin to a Lovecraftian entity and made Khepri decide Screw This, I'm Outta Here.
Nothing Is Scarier: Next to nothing is learned about him in Worm, but given the effect he has on others, including Khepri, it all amounts to this.
Sequel Hook: Word of God states that leaving his plot thread hanging was for this explicit purpose.
Shrouded in Myth: We know very little about him even by the standards of Worm, where Wildbow often doesn't give real names or histories to many capes. We don't even know what his power does.

Characters / Worm Worldwide Threats

Edit Locked

The Endbringers

Behemoth/Hadhayosh/Prathama

Debut: Crushed 24.1

Leviathan/Jormungand/Jörmungandr

Debut: Buzz 7.12

The Simurgh/Ziz

Debut: Interlude 16.z (flashback)

Khonsu

Debut: Scarab 25.4

Tohu and Bohu

Debut: Scarab 25.6 (recording)

Both

Tohu

Bohu

The Slaughterhouse Nine

Active Members

Jacob (Jack Slash)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.b (appearance)

Riley (Bonesaw)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.h (appearance)

Shatterbird

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.e (appearance)

Ned (Crawler)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.f ("offscreen"), Interlude 12.x (appearance)

Alan Gramme (Mannequin, formerly Sphere)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.d

William Manton (The Siberian)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.a

Mimi (Burnscar)

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned), Interlude 11.c

Cherie Vasil (Cherish)

Debut: Interlude 11.g

Founding Members

Nicholas (Gray Boy)

Debut: Interlude 25

Gabriel Maxberry (King)

Debut: Interlude 21.x (flashback)

Crimson

Debut: Interlude 25 (mentioned), Sting 26.2 (appearance)

Bradley (Breed)

Debut: Sting 26.3

Screamer

Debut: Sting 26.2

Nyx

Debut: Sting 26.3

Rafael (Psychosoma)

Debut: Interlude 25

Later Members

Hatchet Face

Debut: Parasite 10.6 (mentioned)

Chuckles

Debut: Interlude 13.y (mentioned), Interlude 25 (appearance)

Madeline (Winter)

Debut: Interlude 13.y (mentioned), Sting 26.2 (appearance)

Nice Guy

Debut: Sting 26.1

Miasma

Debut: Sting 26.5

Ashley Stillions (Damsel of Distress)

Debut: Interlude 16.y (mentioned), Interlude 19.x (appearance)

Skinslip

Debut: Interlude 25

Night Hag

Debut: Interlude 25

Bonesaw's Creations

Murder Rat

Debut: Interlude 11.h

Hack Job

Debut: Interlude 11.h

Pagoda

Debut: Interlude 11.h

Cauldron

Leadership

"Doctor Mother"

Debut: Interlude 12.1/2

Fortuna (Contessa)

Debut: Interlude 14.y

Kurt Wynn (The Number Man, formerly Harbinger)