Characters / Darkest Dungeon: Heroes (A to F)

Darkest Dungeon Main Character Index
Heroes (A-F, G-L, M-Z) | NPCs and Merchants | Darkest Dungeon: Monsters | Darkest Dungeon II: Monsters | DLC Monsters

The Abomination

"I fear no demon, for the greatest monster lies inside!"

"Tortured and reclusive… this man is more dangerous than he seems."

The Abomination is a unique stance-shifting hero whose role can shift between damage dealing and support. In human form, he can use his manacles to stun the middle ranks, vomit out his acidic bile to cause blight, or resolve himself through praying, allowing him to destress and heal. As a beast, he can quickly rack up damage with Rake, take on a at the cost of the party's stress and his own, gradually wearing on his psyche until his resolve gets tested.

---

• All the Other Reindeer: Religious classes (Crusader, Flagellant, Leper, and Vestal) initially refused to join a party that had an Abomination in it. This is no longer the case since the Color of Madness update.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: The branding is supposed to be on the left side of his head. As his sprite's usually facing left, the brand shows on the right instead.
• Boring, but Practical: His moveset when he isn't transformed isn't as powerful as when he's transformed, nor is it as flashy, but it's still fairly well-balanced and usable, with a stun, blight, and a self-heal for both health and stress, and it avoids the stress penalties that the transformation brings.
• Brown Note Being: Transforming will cause stress on the rest of the party.
• Bullying a Dragon: In his backstory comic, three people are branding his face. Only one of them ran away fast enough.
• Breaking the Bonds: His unleashed beast form will break its bond into pieces, but the chains eventually reform themselves when he turns back into a man.
• Canon Name: The name of the default Abomination in the game files is Bigby, a character of the Fables series.
• Chained by Fashion: The Abomination is usually tied to magic chains, and his associated trinkets are actually different locks for said chains.
• Chain Pain: The human form will smack enemies with his chains when using the Manacles combat skill. They combine great reach, decent damage, and a stun effect to make him a competent fighter even when not transformed.
• Creepy Good: The Abomination is a gaunt-looking man who can transform into a monster at will.
• Dash Attack: In his Beast Form, the Abomination can use Slam to dash forward if it's been displaced to the back ranks.
• Death Seeker: Some of his lines (especially what he says when he's sacrificed to the Heart of Darkness) show that he prefers death to living as he does now.
  Whatever awaits, it cannot be worse than what I've endured.
• Enemy Within: Many of his barks suggest he's struggling to keep his inner beast in check.
• Fantasy Character Classes: He is the Beast, a character able to turn into a wild monstrous form that is very powerful but can do nothing but attack the enemy.
• For Science!: Implied by his dialogue to be how he became a Humanoid Abomination.
• Hulking Out: The Abomination can let the Beast inside him take over, which results in a dramatic size and muscle growth, as well as the appearance of animalistic features such as claws and horns. It understandably stresses the rest of the party when he does that. In The Butcher's Circus, it instead horrifies the enemy team, although the Abomination himself still takes Stress over time to maintain the transformation.
• Humanoid Abomination: We don't know what happened to him, precisely, but he's not exactly human anymore. Even in his "normal" form, he has inhuman abilities.
• Irony: Despite "religious" characters refusing to party with him, the Absolution skill implies that the Abomination himself is at least somewhat religious; possibly a religious scientist along the lines of Gregor Mendel, based on his quote about a monastery and research before he became The Abomination.
• It Can Think: His beast form seems to know better than to attack his teammates (at least while not Afflicted), and is even capable of becoming Virtuous.
• The Killer in Me: He is terrified that "it," the monster inside him, will somehow overtake him without him realizing it.
  I am full… are any children missing from the hamlet?
• Lightning Bruiser: He combines decent defense, high speed, and some of the highest base-damage skills in the game into one brutal package. This is balanced by his beast form stressing out himself and the party.
• Lotus Position: The Anger Management camping skill shows an icon of the Abomination trying to meditate. But, while it calms others down, it ends up stressing him further.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Even in his human form, he can half-shift to spray bile at enemies. His beast form is a monster of a unit, but shifting into it stresses out the rest of the party, while staying in it stresses him.
• Lunacy: A minor example — the "A Gibbous Moon" town event will cause all Abominations to gain a Resolve level while they're idle in the Hamlet. The picture for it depicts a transformed Abomination howling at the moon while on a cliff, and the Hamlet will have an Abomination that appears to have horns (implying he's in the middle of transforming) chained next to the statue for the Ancestor's Memoirs in an example of Kind Restraints.
• Magic Pants: His beast form is bigger than his human form, yet his shorts don't rip. Possibly justified by how his pants look baggy on him in human form. His chains, which his transformation into a beast destroys, are also justified; the Abomination's description in the Blacksmith's shop explicitly states that his chains are cursed.
• Malfunction Malady: If the Abomination turns Afflicted while transformed, he will forcibly revert, and can't transform again for the rest of the battle. However, there's nothing stopping you from transforming the Abomination if he's already Afflicted at the start of the fight.
• Man Bites Man: Rage makes the Abomination bite a single enemy for massive damage, although the monsters are seldom human anymore.
• Mark of Shame: He has a large "A" — marking him as an Abomination — on the right side of his forehead.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Abomination differs from other heroes in that he possesses a Stance System, allowing him to switch between his human and beast forms. Prior to Color of Madness, religious characters (usually the Leper, Crusader, Vestal, and Flagellant) also refused to join a party with him.
• Older Than They Look: The Abomination looks physically like he is in his late twenties or early thirties, but his description in the Guild states that he was "imprisoned for decades" implying that he is much older.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The Kickstarter backer that helped design him was a big Werewolf: The Forsaken fan, and the Abomination clearly shows that influence. He shapeshifts into a wolf-like beast minus fur, with horns, and with very visible poison in his veins.
• Power at a Price: He's a flexible combatant who can go from support to combat at a moment's notice. But his transformations stress out the party, and said form gradually wears on his psyche, and always risks afflictions if he stays in his beast form for too long.
• Pious Monster: In his Human form, he can pray for healing.
• A Sinister Clue: The Abomination's beast form has a left arm that is significantly more muscular than its right, which is especially obvious when it performs Rake. As evident by the Volcanic Veins in that arm, the poison that the Abomination was subjected to is likely especially prevalent in it, as opposed to the Abomination's right arm. Also, the left arm is closer to the heart, suggesting that the tainted bile in his veins is pumping into that limb first.
• Superpowered Evil Side: His beast form came with a mind of its own.
• Stance System: Essentially how his character works. In human form, the Abomination is a flexible backline Support Party Member who can inflict Stun and Blight and cure Stress. In beast form, he's an incredibly powerful damage dealer whose moves do more damage the more you use them. However, the transformation taxes his mind, inflicting a lot of Stress per turn. Figuring out the best time to bring it out is key to mastering him.
• Super Spit: Beast's Bile has the Abomination vomit out acid, blighting the middle ranks.
• Tainted Veins: His beast form has venom in its veins, giving them a sickly yellow appearance. It thrums up even in his human form when he is attacked or making use of his bile attack.
• Tame His Anger: He has a camping skill called Anger Management. The skill reins himself in for other heroes in the party to calm down, but it ends up stressing him further.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: He can still get stressed out in gameplay, but he claims that the monsters they fight don't scare him because his inner beast is more frightening than anything the Darkest Dungeon can cook up.
• Transformation Horror: Transforming into his beast form will cause some stress damage to his own team, and in the Butcher's Circus DLC will inflict Horror to the whole enemy team.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Notable because Transformation is the only free skill in the game. After turning from man to beast or vice versa, he can immediately use another skill. However, the Transformation Horror of such action prevents abusing this power, as turning from man to beast freaks out the rest of the team, while turning from beast to man imposes a speed penalty. Additionally, he can only transform each way once in a given fight.
• Use Your Head: When using Slam, the Abomination charges head down into an enemy, which has a chance of knocking them back.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Transforming him into his beast form provides you with a piledriver of a unit that will literally tear your enemies apart… but it takes a serious toll not just on the sanity of the Abomination, but on the rest of his party as well.

The Antiquarian

"I've developed an eye for spotting useful relics."

"She searches where others will not go... and sees what others will not see."

The Antiquarian is a support hero whose special trait allows her to stack up more gold and occasionally find valuable artifacts to supplement. In combat, she's mostly focused in self-preservation. She can boost the party's evasion, heal enough to bring a hero back from Death's Door, remove stealth, and even give minor blight.

To see her tropes as a wandering boss enemy in II, look here.

---

• Adventurer Archaeologist: Downplayed thanks to her Non-Action Guy status, but she's still seeking out relics and artifacts in dangerous ruins.
• Anti-Hero: She is at the Hamlet to help stem the flow of corruption, but her comic depicts her as being part of a ritual involving human sacrifice. She kills the man, presumably her master, performing the ritual, but the comic leaves it ambiguous as to whether she saves the woman who was being sacrificed, or completed it and only killed the man performing it to gain his power.
• Badass Long Robe: Bundled up in layer upon layer, with a scarf around her mouth, more to emphasize her air of mystery rather than any particular combat skill on her part.
• Blinded by the Light: Flash Powder. The Antiquarian throws a small firework bomb which doesn't stun but decreases Accuracy. Much more viable as of The Colour of Madness, as it also flushes a target out of stealth, and unlike some other effects which do the same, it doesn't have a limited number of uses per battle.
• Boring, but Practical: Fortifying Vapors is the only decent skill in the Antiquarian's kit that doesn't mostly benefit her herself, and isn't worse than every comparable skill that other classes have access to. At max level, it offers a +10 boost to dodge and stacks up to three times, which makes her entire party difficult to hit; a dodge-heavy group can expect to barely have to put up with incoming stress or damage in the first place. All it takes is her doing nothing but swinging her censer for the entire fight.
• Canon Name: The Antiquarian's default name is Josephine.
• Collector of the Strange: The Antiquarian's associated trinkets are the most diverse ones, being idols, bags of marbles, a rare coin, or a magic candle.
• Cower Power: The Get Down! and Protect Me! skills evoke this. The former gives a boost to her dodge and speed while ducking two positions back in the party's formation; the latter forces a Guard and Marked status on the hero she uses it on, transferring any attacks targeted at her over to them on top of making enemies more likely to attack that hero in particular. That said, it also gives them a dodge and protection buff, and if said hero can riposte, then being Marked is actually good for them.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Resupply camping skill allows the Antiquarian to produce a random supply item she packed herself. This ability only costs one action point, and can be used three times. If you've been forced to expend more supplies than expected, it could be a blessing to have the right supply to continue suddenly.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Antiquarians are pure support and can be a liability. That said, most of her skills can be used regardless of her position in the team's formation, giving her quite a bit of utility. Ultimately, bringing an Antiquarian is a long-term investment, as keeping her alive will give ample gold upon return. Though, because this, she tends to fall off in late-game once money is no longer a problem.
• Dirty Coward: While skills like Get Down! and Protect Me! do have utility to the party (fixing formation and designating a tank, respectively), thematically these skills — and indeed most of her kit — is geared towards benefiting her and her alone.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: The Two of Three trinket is an amulet missing one of its three pearls.
• Draw Aggro: Inverted — Protect Me! marks an ally and forces them to Guard the Antiquarian, along with giving them a moderate buff to Dodge and Prot. Similarly, Get Down! has the Antiquarian drop back two ranks, forcing the rest of the party between her and the enemy, and increasing her own Dodge.
• Face–Heel Turn: Appears in Darkest Dungeon II as a hostile unit.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Antiquarian's Crimson Court trinket set suggests that she's looking for a particular item, presumably a pearl missing from an amulet, and that she'll seek it whatever the cost.
• Greed: Most noticeable in her Afflicted barks. She's constantly rambling on about gold, profit, and who gets what share of the loot.
• Guide Dang It!: The Antiquarian's real purpose never comes up in the game. She can increase the amount of gold in each stack by 750 each and has a chance of finding artifacts every time while you check curios with her.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: A lock of hair covers one of her eyes in her Darkest Dungeon 2 design, representing her untrustworthiness and betrayal.
• Intrepid Merchant: She's basically Antiques Roadshow as a character, able to spot valuable antiques in loot drops that other characters would ignore. Resupply plays into this as well, allowing her to produce spare supply items, whether scrounging them from the dungeon or producing them from within her robes. The Silk Road was used as the source of inspiration for her design, as voted by Kickstarter backers.
• Item Caddy: Each Antiquarian in the party let you carry 750 more gold per stack in your inventory. Having an Antiquarian will also let you find valuable antiques in every loot drop, although having multiple Antiquarians doesn't increase the number of antiques.
• Kukris Are Kool: The Antiquarian uses a kukri when performing Nervous Stab. The stab is one of the weakest moves in the entire game, doing barely more than Scratch Damage, but it is quite accurate and can attack all but the last enemy rank from any rank in the party.
• Lethal Joke Character: Her flavor text almost goes out of its way to emphasize that she's essentially a non-combatant, but she can be an excellent team player in certain situations. Specifically, when she's in a group with a Highwayman or Man-At-Arms, her ability to deflect damage to them (while buffing their protection and dodge) combined with their riposte abilities can ruin an enemy's day. With The Crimson Court downloaded, she has even more synergy with the Flagellant, who actively gets stronger when his health drops below a certain point. And this isn't even going into her uncanny ability to make Hamlet's coffers fill with treasure very fast.
• Master of None: She can do a little bit of everything but almost none of it particularly well. Her attacks are weak, her Blight is negligible, her healing restores very little HP, her HP is low, and she's not particularly fast. Where she excels? Collecting cash and relics and dodging attacks.
• Money Multiplier: Not multiply, but rather, increases the amount carried. A stack of 1,750 gold normally takes up one slot in your inventory. The Antiquarian has a passive effect that buffs that to 2,500 gold per stack (an increase of about 40%), as well as letting you pick up small artifacts that are financially valuable but only drop with her in the party; one of them, the Minor Antique, is worth 500 gold and can be stacked 20 times per slot. This character is perfect for Money Grinding or solving any money problems.
• Non-Action Guy: The Antiquarian only has two skills that directly harm enemies, a weak melee attack and an even weaker blight, and while she can heal and buff, there are better options for both. She has several skills that only serve to put someone else between her and the enemy. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have her uses.
• Panacea: With her Strange Powders camp skill, the Antiquarian can buff her or an ally's resistance to any status, including disease.
• Power Floats: In Darkest Dungeon II, her updated idle animation has her floating above the ground rather than standing.
• Rogue Protagonist: Downplayed since she was one of many playable classes, but still applies in Darkest Dungeon II.
• Soul Jar: She keeps the soul of her former master in her censer. The fumes it emits when she uses Fortifying Vapours, Invigorating Vapours, or Festering Vapours can either heal and buff allies or inflict a small Blight status.
• The Scrounger: While camping, she can use Trinket Scrounge to look for an additional random trinket. The flavour text for Resupply has her do the same for a random camp item.
• Support Party Member: Where she falls in the sorting algorithm of party makeup. She's not a damage-dealer or tank, or much of a healer either: she can do damage, but it's the weakest damage in the game bar none; she can heal, but even when using a full set of healing trinkets and having the Hippocratic quirk, her heals are pathetic; and instead of tanking, she hides from any incoming damage and forces other characters to take the bullet for her. But the latter also comes with a sizable buff to Dodge and PROT, and her Fortifying Vapors can relieve you of the need for a tank or healer in the first place by increasing Dodge party-wide. Her Blight attack, while weak on its own, also greatly reduces enemies' resistance to further Blight attacks, synergizing well with a Plague Doctor, mid-rank Abomination, or Shieldbreaker.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: It's generally not recommended to bring her along for any of the boss fights because she won't be able to contribute much. However, she's a great pick to fight against the Siren for a few reasons. First, the Siren prioritizes the character with the lowest debuff resistance, which tends to be the Antiquarian (or you can pump the other members with Holy Water.) Second, on the very likely chance she does get taken, she won't deal lots of damage to your team or provide the Siren with any meaningful healing.
• Token Evil Teammate: Her comic may seem ambiguous about whether she sacrificed the woman. She's a nearly useless fighter, but the flavor text of her Crimson Court trinkets (and one of them being called Two of Three) "It will be mine - whatever the cost!" hints that the Antiquarian did in fact sacrifice the woman and makes her a lot more unsympathetic than the other heroes at first glance. At least we know that the Occultist made his Deal with the Devil to fight it. In Darkest Dungeon II, she appears to have given in entirely to her avarice and appears as a hostile enemy.
  Once she had a sliver of decency... now only greed.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • In the Butcher's Circus, many of her skills are buffed to make her a more viable pick. While in that game mode, her function shifts from being a non-combatant who increases your loot to a genuine combatant specializing in abilities that affect the entire enemy or ally roster at once.
  • She also took another level in Darkest Dungeon II to the point where she can be considered a mini-boss.
• Utility Party Member: She passively allows you to stack gold up to 2500 per item slot, as opposed to the normal 1750, and she can also find antiques of varying values that can stack up to 20 times. Combine this with her camp skills, which are helpful but more importantly, cheap, 2 points or less, and she can easily double or triple whatever treasure you bring back to the Hamlet, while making the dilemma between treasure or supplies far less of a headache.
• Was It Really Worth It?: This seems to factor into her oddly sober, vaguely ironic reaction if she's chosen as the recipient of Come Unto Your Maker.
  So I'm the final antique, yet there will be nothing around to collect…

The Arbalest

"A bloody good shot!"

"Shoot, bandage, and pillage: the dancing steps of war."

A runaway turned soldier, the Arbalest is the definitive backline fighter. Able to rain suppressing fire on the enemy, snipe high-profile targets, and apply powerfully effective first-aid, she is a rallying point, a turret, a beacon in the dark.

See the Arbalest's comic here◊.

---

• Abnormal Ammo: The arbalest can fire bolas and flares in addition to her arrows.
• Annoying Arrows: A nice aversion — her Critical Hit Class status is often enough to one-shot those pesky enemies in the back.
• Battle Bolas: The Arbalest has a skill called "Bola" which fires one from their crossbow. This hits the front two ranks of the enemy formation for reduced damage but can push them backwards, disrupting the enemy group's formation.
• Canon Name: The default name for the Arbalest is Missandei, after the character from A Song Of Ice Andfire.
• Chainsaw-Grip BFG: As can be seen, this is how she holds her large arbalest. While there are no known medieval examples of crossbows of this size, in Ancient Greece, they did have enormous crossbows fired from the stomach or hip known as gastrophetes, which were used similarly.
• Cold Sniper: Generally averted, as usually she's quite boisterous and cocky. However, when she gains the Focused virtue, her barks become much colder and more deliberate.
  Focused Arbalest: Target sighted.
• Combat Medic: Appears to have been her previous profession in the military. Her Battlefield Bandages ability has her perform a small heal, but it buffs subsequent heals too. She also has Triage and Field Dressing, two camping skill that can heal a lot despite her supposed focus on ranged combat.
• Combos: Sniper Shot does extra damage against marked enemies.
• Crippling Overspecialization: All her skills except for Blindfire (which does reduced damage to a random target) and Rallying Flare require her to be in the back two rows, which makes her nearly helpless if she is either Surprised or pulled to the front. She also can't target the enemy front row (except with Blindfire and Bola; the former selects a target randomly if there's more than one enemy left and the latter does half of her normal weapon damage).
• Critical Hit Class: The Arbalest is designed to favor critical hits, especially if the target is marked. She begins with a higher than average critical chance (going up to 11%), Sniper Shot has a positive crit modifier, her Restring Crossbow gives her a 8% crit chance buff, and some trinkets give her even more crit chance!
• Desperation Attack:
  • Blindfire can be used from anywhere in the formation and hits any target, but at the cost of selecting its target randomly. It's intended to be her last-resort attack if she's stranded in an unfavorable position or has no remaining backline to target. To her benefit, Blindfire's randomness is rigged in favor of active combatants and will only hit corpses if the remaining live targets are stealthed.
  • Bola in the Butcher's Circus game mode is modified to be accessible at the third rank and forward, hitting both frontal enemy positions and allowing her to turn the tides if dragged forward.
• Dreadlock Warrior: Pulled back into a big ponytail.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was forced to become a runaway at a very young age after her father fell victim to a mob.
• Empathy Doll Shot: Her background comic uses her stuffed rabbit in the common symbol-for-innocence vein as her father takes it from her and fills her hands with a crossbow before sending her to flee for her life.
• Fantasy Character Classes: The Sniper Ranger. The Arbalest is a long-range fighter, meaning that she cannot do anything when in the front ranks, and also has few ways of hurting close enemies, but on the other hand, she can deal high damage and various debuffs, as well as slightly heal her allies.
• Flare Gun: Just one more thing her crossbow can be used for. Rallying Flare increases the Light meter but also cleans Stuns and Marked status, which is useful in the Warrens and Weald and against the Swine King. With the Color of Madness patch, it also cancels Stealth on every enemy and slightly stress heals too.
• Glory Hound: A bit. Her idea of encouraging people is to say "Just think of the songs they will sing of us!" When Masochistic, the Arbalest has this little tidbit:
  Wounds heal, but glory never fades!
• Had to Be Sharp: Probably this, as she was forced to be a runaway after her home (and likely her father as well) was burned by a mob, though the presence of her mother and if she happened to find a foster family afterward is unknown.
• I Call It "Vera": Played With. The Arbalest clearly has a deep connection to her crossbow, referring to it as "my sweet" when using "Restring Crossbow" at the campfire. However, it's only at its highest upgrade that it gets a name, "Millicent". It's implied that Millicent was the name of her stuffed rabbit when she was a child.
• Meaningful Name: Millicent, the name the arbalest itself gets at max upgrade. It's a medieval female name whose Germanic roots are the words for "work" and "strength".
• Military Brat: Under the influence of the Selfish affliction, she will claim to be a General's daughter.
• Moveset Clone: Has one in the form of the Musketeer, previously only available to Kickstarter backers. The only non-cosmetic difference between their skills and trinkets are the crystalline items introduced in The Color of Madness: both grant a +20% DMG boost (and given how much damage the Arbalest's crossbow already does, that's nothing to sneeze at), and unlike the Musketeer, the Arbalest's Keening Bolts trinket also grants her a +7% CRIT boost to all her ranged skills, but at the price of granting a small amount of stress with every single shot.
• Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: "Sniper's Mark" inflicts the Mark status and massively decreases the target's evasion.
• Not Completely Useless: The Rally Flare skill cleanses the Marked and Stunned status effects from your party and breaks enemy Stealth. It's very situational but worth its weight in gold when it comes up.
• Rain of Arrows: "Suppressive Fire" makes the Arbalest fire a bunch of arrows, but the skill's main draw is the accuracy and crit chance debuff, making it useful in low light conditions.
• The Runaway: Her origins before becoming part of the military.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Fairly mild, but she uses stronger language than most of the heroes, a la "Hell's fires, I'm good!" and "A bloody good shot!"
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Peeks out a bit when she becomes afflicted. If you know her backstory, she has a good reason for this.
• Trick Arrow: Besides regular arrows, she can fire bolas and flares.
• Technician vs. Performer: The Performer to the Musketeer's Technician, as a career soldier who seems to have been a medic first and foremost who picked up some shooting skill along the way, compared to the Musketeer's lifetime of hunting and competitive shooting. Somewhat typical of the trope, the Performer performs somewhat better under pressure, if her crystalline trinket is any indication — it gives her a +7% Crit Chance in exchange for increasing her stress with every shot. The equivalent trinket for the Musketeer gives her a 20% chance of hitting a random target instead of what she aims at.
• Token Minority: The only (unambiguously) black character in the game.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Her father tragically fell victim to one of these when she was a mere child. Why her home was burned (and probably her father with it) is unstated.

The Bounty Hunter

"Called your bluff, friend."

^{Click here to see him in the first Darkest Dungeon.}

"The thrill of the hunt... The promise of payment."

A brutally efficient single-target executioner and crowd control specialist. For the Bounty Hunter, planning is key — mark targets for bonus damage or look for opportunities to capitalize on a stunned foe. He can also wreak havoc on an enemy party's order using his grappling hook, flashbangs, and powerful uppercut.

See the Bounty Hunter's comic here◊.

---

• 24-Hour Armor: The Bounty Hunter is never seen without his armor. The closest we get to see what's under his armor is this promo image◊, with the lower half of his Cool Helmet exposed.
• Ambiguously Human: Darkest Dungeon II plays up his mystique and the differences between him and the other party members to the point where it's not clear if he's really a mundane man. He mysteriously appears at inns that have posters bearing his mark, he doesn't interact with his fellow heroes at all, and he pointedly refuses to relive his memories at the Shrine of Reflections (if he even can). The Academic's quotes frame "The Hunter" as an almost mythical figure and suggest that there might not be anything behind his mask.
• Animal Motif: According to Word of God in a Reddit AMA, they gave the Bounty Hunter a bird/raptor motif. His axe and grappling hook are supposed to be talons.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The This Is How We Do It camping skill evokes the idea of a well-placed blow being able to fell the toughest monsters.
• Awesome by Analysis: His Mark for Death skill is used to single out an enemy that must be prioritized in the enemy formation.
• The Berserker: When Powerful, half of his related lines are inarticulate roars and yells, and he gains a significant damage buff that he shares with the party periodically.
• Blinded by the Light: Has a Flashbang skill. Its effect is a generic stun effect used by many skills rather than a different blind effect, though it also moves the enemy randomly through their ranks (evoking the target moving around semi-randomly while dazed and confused by the flashbang).
• Blood Knight: Downplayed, but some of his afflicted/vigorous quotes lean towards this, and he outright calls his job "fun" in one Selfish bark.
• Bounty Hunter: Duh. His Collect Bounty skill has a damage bonus against humans. This is referenced in II, as his character is now hired and not available at the start of the campaigns like other heroes. Plus, he's not developing any relationship with the other party members, it's all strictly professional for him.
• Canon Name: The Bounty Hunter's default name is Tardif, named after the Red Hook's programmer Pierre Tardif.
• Caltrops: The Bounty Hunter uses them in his Caltrops skill, which causes Bleed, and also debuffs Accuracy and Speed to represent the caltrops disturbing enemy movement.
• Combat Pragmatist: His two melee abilities, Collect Bounty and Finish Him!, encourage this, with the former gaining bonus damage against marked targets while the latter gains bonus damage against stunned targets. While the Bounty Hunter has his own stun and mark to use, it's much more efficient to allow the other party members to mark/stun his targets and then use either of his abilities for much more damage in one round.
• Confusion Fu: The Bounty Hunter is the best hero at disrupting the enemy's formation, with Uppercut and Come Hither allowing him to shove powerful melee opponents behind their own allies or yank distant threats too close to open fire effectively.
• Consummate Professional: The Bounty Hunter takes his job very seriously, being entirely no-nonsense, and rarely speaks outside of camp or the humorless Bond One-Liner, with Visible Silence or a snort when he gets a kill otherwise. If he's afflicted or virtuous this gets averted as his stoicism begins to crack.
  • II takes it even further. He's here to do exactly what he's paid for, kill things and get your party through the upcoming region. He won't form relationships with the other heroes, he turns up his nose at the shrines that other heroes can reflect on their pasts at, and as soon as you reach the inn he collects his fee and leaves the party.
• Cool Helmet: The most recognizable feature, and his trinkets usually involve collecting more. The bounties he carries have the eyepiece of his helmet as the insignia.
• Crazy-Prepared: His camping skills are all focused on preparing him for the battles ahead. Expecting evasive monsters? This Is How We Do It gives him an accuracy buff. Don't want to be surprised? Tracking will lower the chances of your party being ambushed while increasing your chance of ambushing the enemy. Planned Takedown will significantly help if you face large monsters, and intricate dungeons will be made easier if Scout Ahead's scouting chance buff is applied.
• Creepy Souvenir: He keeps a bag of molars from his past victims in a sack he carries around. True to form, he takes the crime lord's teeth in his comic as shown in the last panel.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: In the second game, his right arm's sleeve is ripped off, exposing it and its scars, and he wears a bracer instead another leather glove.
• Fantasy Character Classes: The Bandit, although his characterization puts him on the other side of the law. His skills are a combination of straightforward violent attacks and underhanded tricks that put the enemy at a disadvantage.
• Finishing Move: Two of his attacks have a bonus damage multiplier when used on stunned or marked enemies. One is even explicitly called "Finish Him!". Finish Him also ignores some of the foes' death resistance in the sequel.
  • The trope is enhanced with "Finish Him!" in The Butcher's Circus as it has a tremendous +50% Deathblow bonus — it would take a huge stroke of luck to survive it.
• The Gambler: A number of his quotes refer to gambling — like calling on an enemy's "bluff" or comparing their situation to "a bad hand" when Fearful. One of his Powerful barks has him promise to pay for a trip to the brothel if they survive.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: One of his quotes when Powerful has him slapping an ally, telling them it's time for the hunt.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: His Mark for Death move, where the Bounty Hunter points at a target and marks them, increasing damage dealt to them by some attacks and otherwise singles out an enemy.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: His fists are just another weapon in his kit, with an Uppercut so solid that it knocks the target back two ranks and stuns them.
• Guest-Star Party Member: In the second game, the Bounty Hunter is a temporary hire who can replace a hero for a single region.
• Hidden Depths: One of his Irrational quotes has him mention that he "would've made a damn fine baker". Since he's Irrational, however, the quote should be taken with a grain of salt.
• Hooks and Crooks: He can use a hooked line with Come Hither to pull an enemy forward.
• I Work Alone: Downplayed, but the Bounty Hunter is a purely single-target character. His skill kit synergizes well with itself, as Mark for Death and Uppercut/Flashbang set up his attacks. Moreover, his skills only work on himself, and he seldom has any bark that has him socializing with his mates.
• Jack of All Trades: The Bounty Hunter is an excellent damage dealer who can operate from nearly any point in the party, having melee skills that don't restrict him to the front two positions, enemy movement skills for when he needs to get something in range, and the ability to mark and stun for his own bonus damage attacks. His ability to use Damage Over Time is a little lacking but compensates with a PROT-reducing mark.
• Jerkass: Downplayed. While to a point, he cares about his fellow companions (one of his afflicted barks has him begging for them all to be let go), he's entirely self-serving and unempathetic to whoever he's healing. The sequel describes him being Only in It for the Money and doesn't care to know who he's venturing with. This stems from his reserved and professional demeanor than any malice on his part.
• Multi-Ranged Master: True to the archetype, the Bounty Hunter is a consummate Combat Pragmatist. He can toss out a grappling hook to yank distant enemies into melee range, scatter caltrops to induce bleeding, or stun and shuffle enemy ranks with a flashbang.
• Mysterious Past: The Bounty Hunter's past is barely explored in both games, with only the occasional bark alluding to his life before being a bounty hunter. His comics only shows him during a job and in II, he's unable to use the Shrine of Reflections, only snorting before the party leaves. There are some very sparse Story Breadcrumbs (mostly in the first game) that he may have once been affiliated with a crime syndicate of some kind before they betrayed him, but even that involves a lot of filling in gaps with guesswork.
• Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack:
  • "Mark for Death" not only marks the target, increasing damage taken from certain skills like Collect Bounty, but also reduces defense.
  • "Flashbang" stuns the enemy for a turn and shuffles the order that the enemies are in.
• Not So Stoic: When he becomes afflicted, the Bounty Hunter will start to talk more and show a lot more emotion. In some lines, it's clear that he's panicking, with one quote having him outright beg that he and his companions be let go. If he is Irrational, he straight-up snaps and becomes probably the biggest Cloudcuckoolander out of the heroes, which is saying a lot.
  Bring me a small dog. So crunchy. Mmm.
• Off with His Head!: He decapitates a Mook with his axe in his comic.
• Only in It for the Money: The promise of payment is the main reasons he joins the heroes. It comes to the forefront if he happens to get Paranoid or Selfish.
• Outside-Context Problem: Even in the original game, the Bounty Hunter was presented as a fairly stoic and unflappable sort. While possessing no special resistances to the horrors around him, his backstory comic uniquely shows him in his element of cornering a mark and bringing them to justice without a hint of witnessing horrors or trauma, be it otherworldly or mundane. Come the sequel, the Bounty Hunter's now balanced around being a Guest-Star Party Member with overtuned stats, a skillset that allows him to operate within any party, and no need for the introspective recollections about his past the same as the other player classes, standing in a league of his own and only bothering with the impending world-threatening crisis because his services have been paid for.
• The Quiet One: Where the other adventurers might gloat or make a Badass Boast after a crit, the Bounty Hunter often responds with "…" or snorts. Even when he's being chosen as a sacrifice for the Final Boss' One-Hit Kill, his only response is to mutter "…Hm". Most of his other individual lines don't have him interact with his comrades much, but he opens up more at camp or when afflicted/virtuous.
• Quit Your Whining: When he uses the "Encourage" or "Wound Care" camp skill.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His trinket set description implies that he is motivated by revenge.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Thankfully one on your team. His Tracking camping skill has him look for monster footprints to better surprise them instead of the reverse.
  There is no trail I cannot follow.
• Sixth Ranger: The Bounty Hunter was changed to be this in II, being recruitable at inns for for a flat four-candle fee and staying with the party for one region before leaving. Unlike other heroes, he starts out with all of his skills upgraded and with two trinkets and is just as strong as he was in the first game, meaning he's well worth the investment if you think you'll need an extra edge to take down a lair boss or get through a difficult region.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Inverted in II. The Bounty Hunter starts with a trinket when you hire him, and leaves it behind when he departs for the rest of your party to use. This includes his Indelible Bounty Hunter trinkets, the Utility Belt and the Crime Lords' Molars, which are unique in that they are not Bounty Hunter-exclusive and can be used by anybody.
• The Stoic: Hardly anything seems to faze him or get him to talk much, even successful hits or when he's about to be sacrificed to the source of all evil. This is averted when he is afflicted, where he shows clear signs of insanity or becomes paranoid and insisting that he was Only in It for the Money.
• Tap on the Head: Of the Western strike-to-the-jaw variety. Uppercut shows the Bounty Hunter sucker punching an enemy, which can knock them back and stun them.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In II, the Bounty Hunter can use the No Escape Skill, which consists of throwing his main axe at the enemy's face. It doesn't do much damage but ignores evading tokens, stuns, and dazes them, making it an excellent skill against evasive foes.
• Unscrupulous Hero: As harsh and brutal as he is, the Bounty Hunter still only goes after criminals and monsters. He's not averse to slaughtering the corrupt, as his origin comic shows him killing a group of lawmen who are later shown to be led by the Hound Master's corrupt chief.
• Walking Armory: His arsenal gives him a choice of multiple weapons, making him effective at any rank against any rank. His weapon is a handaxe, along with a grappling hook, caltrops, and flashbangs.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Can use his Come Hither to bring enemies from the back into the front and mark them for good measure.

The Crusader

"Be judged by the light!"

^{Click here to see him in the first Darkest Dungeon.}

"A mighty sword arm anchored by holy purpose."

The Crusader is a hero who doesn't specialize in any particular role. What he does have is a well-rounded kit that can help him fit into any role as necessary. He possesses both a heal and stress heal, a basic frontline attack and a move to get him back into position if he's shuffled out for whatever reason. He also possesses a decent health pool and a move to help draw aggro to himself.

He returns in Darkest Dungeon II with the The Binding Blade DLC, though you'll have to complete the Lost Crusade and track him down in order to unlock him. His all-rounder status remains mostly unchanged, though with the obvious added bonus of II's Paths allowing him to take on a more specialized role of your preference.

---

• 24-Hour Armor: You will never see the Crusader without his armor, be it camping or in the brothel. This finally gets subverted in The Binding Blade, where we get to see what he looked like back when he was a humble farmer.
• Abusive Parents: An Irrational Crusader has a lot to say about his father, including his punishments for not learning the Verses.
• Anti-Regeneration: His Reap skill in II allows him to cleave the first two ranks and apply a debuff that prevents enemies occupying those ranks from healing by 20 percent, which makes it exceptionally useful for fighting the Fanatics' and Plague Eaters' healing abilities, as well as any Flunky Bosses who can heal their subordinates.
• Ascended Meme: His Pilfered Wealth indelible trinket in II is an obvious reference to the many memes of how Reynauld was guaranteed to start with the Kleptomania quirk in Darkest Dungeon as a reference to the real life Raynald of Châtillon.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: In his backstory comics, the Crusader began his crusade as a simple infantryman without even a piece of his current armor. Three panels of slaying enemies later, we see him at the head of an army.
• Badass in Distress: In The Binding Blade, he has been imprisoned by the Warlord, his helmet lost and sword broken. His exact location is also very well hidden, forcing heroes to gather any information and artifacts possible to track him down and free him. When he's released, he's ready to crack some skulls just as much as in the first game.
• Blatant Lies: The Crusader is not as good at bandaging people up as he claims to be. (His four unique camping skills are all variations on stress recovery, not health recovery; he has to use less effective generic camping skills to heal physically.)
  Of course I know what I'm doing! I'm a soldier!
  Incidentally, if ye perish, I can perform last rites.
  You heal quickly. Praise the Light.
• Blood Knight: His Hero Shrines in II reveal that though he was originally an unassuming farmer who joined the Crusade to earn money to prevent his family from starving, he soon discovered that he loved the thrill of battle and eventually came to realize he had nothing in common with his family anymore. This is consistent with his behavior when Afflicted in Darkest Dungeon, as he flip-flops between being an arrogant Knight Templar and a bloodthirsty Leeroy Jenkins.
• The Bus Came Back: After sitting out the initial launch of Darkest Dungeon II, Reynauld returns in The Binding Blade DLC pack.
• Canon Name: The starting Crusader is named Reynauld. It's likely a reference to Raynald of Châtillon, a controversial crusader knight who was eventually executed by Saladin himself; Reynauld always starts with the Kleptomania quirk, alluding to Raynald's habit of pillaging Saladin's supply caravans for his own profit.
• Colonel Kilgore: His actual rank during the Crusade was unknown, but he was evidently given command over a contingent of soldiers who were at one point routed by the Warlord, and he otherwise fits the trope like a glove, having found something he truly enjoyed and was good at in the form of war and being unable to return to the more domestic farming life he once had after discovering his affinity for battle.
• Combat Medic: While Reynauld's initial loadout wouldn't indicate it, the Crusader still works extraordinarily well in a healer role. While the Crusader can only heal or ease the stress of one hero at a time, notably the Crusader can use these abilities from any battlefield position, which sets him apart from the Vestal and Plague Doctor. He is also the only character that can both heal and destress, making the Crusader the only class that benefits from both benefit's of the Ancestor's Scroll.
• Cool Helmet: Wears an imposing armet helm.
• Church Militant: Just as the name implies. Special mention goes to the starting Crusader, who always has the God Fearing quirk, meaning he can only relieve stress through prayer.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His training at the hands of the Church was anything but a pleasant experience, judging by his afflicted quotes.
• Dash Attack: If it is equipped and the Crusader is displaced, he can use Holy Lance to move to the front ranks by running an enemy through with his sword.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Paladin and Knight in Shining Armor types. The Crusader is clearly a man who genuinely believes that he fights for the greater good and is an honest and diligent man at his core, but he is also just as bloodthirsty and hungry for battle as some of the nastiest offenders in that regard across both games, especially The Warlord. It's also clear that no matter how much of a paragon of virtue he tries to be at all times, he is still a man with dark impulses desperately trying to rein them in by committing his skills to a good cause, demonstrating that even the most honorable and virtuous knight can still falter and succumb to despair or evil if pushed to their limit.
• Distressed Dude: In II, he is held captive by the Warlord until you manage to find him and set him free.
• Draw Aggro: Bulwark of Faith shows the Crusader stand his ground beside his standard, causing a Marked status effect on himself.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He was Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder even before he became a Magic Knight.
• Fantasy Character Classes: The Paladin. The Crusader is a devout armored fighter who fights For Great Justice and his combat skills are half swordsmanship, half support abilities that heal or destress his teammates.
• For Great Justice: Many of his combat and camp quotes suggest that he came to the Estate with the sole intention of doing battle against evil.
• A God Am I: Selfish Crusaders take this attitude.
• Hammer Hilt: His Stunning Blow skill animation depicts him using his pommel to strike a target, dealing less damage but also potentially stunning it.
• The Hero: Out of all the characters, he fits the bill best; he's also one of the first characters you get, along with the Highwayman. However, even he can die.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Fights with a longsword and is the most leader-like out of all the characters, with two camping skills for resisting and reducing stress for the whole party, plus one of them is called Unshakeable Leader.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In artworks and various promotional material, the Crusader's headgear only consists of a hood which doesn't hide his face much. Averted in the proper game, where he is one of several characters who goes full-helmed.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Dismas the Highwayman: he and Reynauld are the starting characters in the first game and in the second game Dismas is the most proactive out of all the heroes in looking for his missing brother-in-arms. Subverted if they end up developing a negative relationship, or become Amorous.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Loosely. He is named after Reynauld of Châtillon, and both were crusaders with a perhaps too great a desire for other peoples' riches. However, beyond that they do not share much beyond a name. The DD Reynauld started out as a peasant who joined a crusade to provide for his family and who otherwise is one of the most heroic of characters. The historical Reynaud was not so pleasant and while opinions of his competence and wisdom vary, he was an aristocrat who ruthlessly pursued profit and was willing to ravage allied lands and exact horrifying tortures in order to keep the money flowing.
• Jack of All Trades: He basically has everything, with a self-buff tanking ability (Bulwark of Faith), a multi-target attack (Zealous Accusation), assassination against undead (Smite and Holy Lance, the latter with some mobility to move him up a rank), target heal (Battle Heal), stun (Stunning Blow), and Stress heal and torch addition (Inspiring Cry). His main weakness is many abilities being unable to be used without being in the front row, but unlike the Leper, he even has a few options for being in the back (Inspiring Cry or Holy Lance). His skill set in The Butcher's Circus game mode increases his utility. His Bulwark of Faith is changed to a party-wide PROT buff, and his Battle Heal heals himself and his target while lifting debuffs, and Inspiring Cry also removes Horror and improves Virtue chance. He has so much handy utility that it's all counterbalanced by four skill slots.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Personality-wise, he fits the bill. Unless he falls into despair. Played Straight when Virtuous, especially for the first two seconds or so.
• Large Ham: He's… enthusiastic. Especially when Afflicted or Virtuous.
• Last of Their Kind: The description for The Binding Blade refers to "the last of the Crusaders", which given Reynauld is playable in the DLC implies it's him.
• The Leader: In addition to fighting on the front lines, he can aid his party in a Headstrong-style, with Inspiring Cry in combat to heal a bit, reduce stress, and strengthen the torch. He also has two camping skills (Stand Tall and Zealous Speech) to motivate and comfort his entire party similarly.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • When Irrational or Masochistic, he rushes headlong into battle, heedless of harm.
    I will fight any of you! I will fight you barehanded!
    I am invincible! I am anointed by the Light!
  • Even some of his barks while Courageous fit the bill, quick as he is to enter the fray.
    OOONWAAARD!
    CHAAARGE!
• Light Is Good: Wields the holy power of the Light, just like the Vestal, using it to smite undead or buff his allies, and he is a defender of justice. In particular, several of his abilities increase the strength of the torch, alongside their positive effect.
• Long-Range Fighter: Counter-intuitively, the many guides for the Crusader suggest putting him in the back two rows in this capacity, thanks to Holy Lance, which is an incredibly effective tool for smashing open fragile back-rank opponents thanks to the Crusader's excellent base damage.
• The Lost Lenore: He will sometimes mention a girl he loves when depressed. He also might mention that he married once, but his wife died. He's technically still married, but he hasn't returned to his wife and child in a long, long time.
• Magic Knight: The Crusader is an armored warrior with some magical items, such as scrolls or standards, to perform spells. In the first game, he was mostly a White Mage, as most of his magical abilities were focused on healing health and stress, but in the second game he gained some offensive magical abilities as well, being able to inflict Burn.
• Mighty Glacier: The lowest base Speed of all the Heroes, and most of his trinkets reduce it even further. He makes up for it by having high base health, multiple ways to inflict damage, and support abilities.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Because he humiliated the Warlord by sparing him instead of taking his life, the Warlord dedicated his life toward getting his revenge on the Crusader and eventually succeeds at capturing and imprisoning him some time before Darkest Dungeon II.
• No Place for Me There: He left his wife and child to join the Crusade so that he could earn a wage to keep them from starving. When he returns years later, he can't bring himself to go back to them after everything he's done, as he feels more at home as a soldier. Yet he hasn't given up on fighting evil.
• The Paladin: He is a holy knight dedicated to the fight against evil.
• Playing with Fire: In the second game, the Crusader can cause Burn with some of his attacks.
• Sacred Flames: Darkest Dungeon II gives him a way to spread Burn via Zealous Accusation and Holy Lance. Certain abilities also get extra effects when used against burning enemies, including giving him extra damage, healing on hit or the ability to bypass Death's Door armor, though the latter two are exclusive to the Aggressor path.
• Shout-Out: Will occasionally shout or say "Praise the Light!" along with the similarity of his blue palette to the Elite Knight armor Set.
• Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: He started as a farmer who mostly signed up for the pay to support his family after a bad harvest before turning out to be a talented Magic Knight.
• The One That Got Away: A line when becoming depressed has him say "Why did I trade her for this life? She loved me...", and another likely related one has him state "How can I fight for truth when I betray all I love?" His comic reveals that he's talking about his wife, whom he left to join the crusade.
• Rousing Speech: Three of his camping skills are this, particularly Zealous Speech, which causes a party-wide destress and stress resistance, although the speech seems to be lengthy, as it takes five Respite Points.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Conscripted into the Crusade, he left his wife and toddler at their homestead, and after years of killing and fire, returned to see a middle-aged woman and a young teenager. He turned away.
• Taking You with Me: His final words, should he be chosen to tank the hit of the Heart of Darkness as he is willing to do one final act of heroism.
  Unholy foulness! I will take you with me!
• Took a Level in Badass: His comic shows he set out to war from fairly humble origins with little more than a horse, bracers, and a sword and leaving behind a wife and son in a house not much larger than a small apartment. Toward the end of it, he's fully dressed in his armor and at the head of what's at least a small army.
• Training from Hell: His afflicted quotes imply that the journey to becoming a Crusader was not pleasant. The Church who trained him would not hesitate to flog him if he failed to remember the verses. If that didn't suffice, the father of the Church would whip someone else for him, children included, especially since he was conscripted, not willingly joining the order. By the end, he became nothing more than a mindless soldier of the faith.
• War Is Glorious: Was vastly more successful as a soldier than he was as a mere farmer. This puts him at odds with the Hellion and the Man-At-Arms, a warrior of a barbarian tribe and a well-to-do man with the connections to give him rank and authority over others, who experienced nothing but life-defining trauma from their first taste of real battle.
• Warts and All: The Crusader is one of the most morally righteous and noble heroes of the roster, but he is a bloodthirsty zealot with a kleptomaniac streak who left his wife and child behind to pursue a military career. He is still ultimately a good person, but much like all the other Heroes of Darkest Dungeon, he is far from perfect.
• Weapon Across the Shoulder: Carries his sword this way.
• Words Can Break My Bones: Zealous Accusation shows a holy document that 'accuses' the front two rows. Presumably, the source of damage is from the power of the Light, which the Vestal also uses.

The Duelist

"Tu as merdé, ghoul!"

"Perfection glints wicked along the rapier's edge."

The Duelist is a new hero added in The Binding Blade expansion, and is the second hero exclusive to Darkest Dungeon II after the Runaway.

An unparalleled Master Swordswoman, the Duelist was once a student at a prestigious academie, where she trained under and eventually fell in love with her mentor. As their passion bloomed, so did her skill until a duel resulted in her killing him when he faltered at a crucial moment. Having learned a final important lesson from that misstep, she now travels the world searching for a Worthy Opponent to face in a Duel to the Death.

Gameplay-wise, the Duelist is a completely rank-flexible character who can fill any role, possessing an entirely unique Stance System which allows her to power up and modify her various abilities to do vastly different things on the fly. Because of her overwhelmingly specific mechanics, she is a hero who is hard to utilize effectively but can utterly decimate her opponents if deployed properly.

---

• Blood Knight: Her killing of her mentor and lover imparted upon her the wisdom that dueling for sport diminished the pursuit of perfection, and afterwards to chose to live a life of one Duel to the Death after the next until she finally finds someone good enough to kill her.
• Braids of Action: She has her hair tied into a very long braid, and is a deadly Lady of War.
• Canon Name: The Duelist's default name is Sahar.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: To the Arbalest. Both strong, beautiful black women with Renaissance-era European weapons and gear whose backstories involve the loss of a man who loved them. Whereas the Arbalest is a compassionate Support Party Member and Long-Range Fighter who was forced into a life of violence by the death of her father, the Duelist is an amoral, bloodthirsty Close-Range Combatant who murdered her father-figure/boyfriend in what may or may not have been a frenzy of sadomasochistic lust.
• Counter-Attack: Numerous abilities of hers specialize in Riposte. In the right circumstances, she can be dealing Riposte damage just as consistently as if she were attacking every turn without actually doing so.
• Dash Attack: Flèche allows her to leap forward from any rank except 1 and thrust into her opponent, dealing high damage which can be increased further by being in Offensive Stance. Because this move can be used from three different ranks, she can use it as both an offensive recovery move or as an aggressive attack depending on the rest of the party's composition.
• Death Seeker: She's looking for a Worthy Opponent capable of beating her fairly and squarely.
• Determinator: She was obsessively single minded in her ambition to become the perfect duelist when she was at the Academie. Now she's tirelessly seeking a Worthy Adversary that might be able to beat her in single combat.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Duelist is tricky to integrate well into a party composition; almost all of her moves involve rank shuffling and many of them don't synergize well with other heroes—at first glance. Once the player is more familiar with her abilities, however, it becomes readily apparent that she can fill any role desired of her besides healer and can become a lethal addition to any party.
• Dismissive Kick: The Boot allows her to knock an enemy back two ranks by kicking them hard with her boot. There's even an achievement for killing a Lair Boss with it as a means of disrespect.
• Finishing Move: Coup de Grâce has her pull out a Little Useless Gun and blast her opponent with it, purging her of whatever Stance token she currently has and doing different things defending on her current Path. Needless to say, this move works best as a finisher or when she'll be able to easily reapply a beneficial Stance on her next turn.
• Fragile Speedster: Her default Speed is decently high and several of her best strategies involve obtaining Speed tokens to keep her at the start of Initiative, but she doesn't have a tremendous amount of health^note And at least one of her Paths, Intrépide, allows her to become a Glass Cannon who can both deal and receive extremely high damage, meaning she'll either need to rely on the Dodge tokens she can generate with Meditation or a tankier fellow hero to avoid getting quickly knocked to Death's Door.
• Glass Cannon: Her Intrépide Path allows her to increase the amount of damage she deals every time she Dodges an attack, but also increase the amount of damage dealt to her, incentivizing a high-risk, high-reward playstyle involving taking huge gambles in order to deal gigantic amounts of damage while avoiding getting hit whatsoever.
• Gone Horribly Right: Her instructor made good on her yearning to be the best. It also got him killed when he faltered during one duel with her and left himself open while attacking.

  She had done as he trained her to do - flawlessly and without hesitation.

• Gratuitous French: Many of her moves have French names and her barks are peppered with French, and she seems to hail from a No Communities Were Harmed version of Medieval France (or, given her African-looking features and Muslim-sounding Canon Name, from a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Algeria). She can also be Sophisticated as Hell with her French; "Tu as merdé" can be translated as "You screwed up" or, more vulgarly, "You fucked up".
• Jack of All Trades: She can be a Dodge tank like the Grave Robber, a pure DPS character like the Highwayman and even a rank-swapping support or damage dealer like the Jester or Runaway. The only niche and rank she can't fill well is healer of any kind, as she doesn't have any healing abilities.
• Lady of War: She is a refined, uptight woman who is legendarily proficient with a blade.
• Master Swordswoman: Classically-trained in the art of dueling, her prowess is unmatched by anyone.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Duelist is not the only Hero to have a Stance System (The Abomination) nor is she the only one which can easily fill almost every role (The Bounty Hunter, The Occultist, etc.), but she is the only character so far to have unique tokens which actively change the properties of her moves beyond powering them up and the Hero with the most amount of variation between the ability changes of her three Paths.
• The Perfectionist: The Academic describes how she subjected herself to rigorous, unyielding training for years on end to become the ruthless killing machine she is now in an effort to claim the title of World's Best Warrior. This ultimately bit her instructor in the ass when her honed reflexes caused her to exploit a vulnerability in her mentor's defense while they were having a playful bout and kill him in a single strike.
• Sex Is Violence: The Academic describes how over time, her bouts with her mentor became just as passionate as any embrace the two could give to each other.
• Stance System: A much more complicated one than any other character in both games. Various moves the Duelist has allow her to apply both the Offensive and Defensive Stance tokens to herself, which greatly change the properties of several of her abilities. For example, using Touché while in Offensive Stance moves the Duelist forward one rank, whereas using it in Defensive Stance moves her back a rank. On top of this, each stance has both a buff and debuff depending on what Path she's currently using. All together, this means that the Duelist requires careful awareness of both her position and what stance she's currently in in order to use her optimally.
• Support Party Member: Two of her Paths, Antagoniste and Instructrice, allow her to become this. The former allows her to sacrifice some damage-dealing potential in exchange for the ability to apply powerful debuffs to her enemies and set up her teammates for big damage opportunities, while the latter allows her to fulfill a role similar to the Sergeant Man-At-Arms Path and shuffle her teammates around to put them in position while giving them buffs.
• Token Evil Teammate: With the Antiquarian pulling a full Face–Heel Turn, the Duelist's lack of empathy over murdering her teacher and selfish obsession with self-improvement at the cost of killing anyone she duels ties her with the Grave Robber for most morally bankrupt playable character in the sequel.

The Flagellant

"Blood for the burden! Bones for the Light!"

^{Click here to see him in the first Darkest Dungeon.}

"Awash in blood and delusion... He bears the burden of a thousand lifetimes."

The Flagellant is an unusual hero introduced in The Crimson Court DLC. While possessing a potent Bleed DoT in exchange for below-average damage, his strength is derived from taking the reliving the burden of dungeon-crawling from others onto himself, whether its taking on others stress as his own, or keeping the damage onto him. He has a unique 'Rapturous' affliction that actually strengthens his abilities, and special interactions with Death's Door, healing the rest of the party, and can recover with no mortality debuff.

In Darkest Dungeon II, his continued martyrdom has taken its toll, causing it to rot and decay to the point of changing his alignment from blood to blight. His flagrant disrespect for death has drawn the Pale Rider herself to take matters into her own hands.

---

• An Adventurer Is You: The DoT Master, specializing in Bleed in the first game, later turning to Blight in II.
• Because You Can Cope: His self-punishment means he's far more tolerant of dungeon crawling. Lash's Solace reduces a whopping 50 stress while camping — by far the most of any camp skill in the game — making it viable for him to soak up the stress of his allies by using Endure in battle. (He's also an excellent target for the Jester's Mockery for the same reason.) And even if his stress does crack 100, he'll always become Rapturous rather than one of the more detrimental random afflictions.
• The Berserker: Not that he's exactly sane even when his stress levels are low, but he'll become this when Rapturous.
• Blood Knight: Out of the heroes, the Flagellant is the one who clearly seeks and enjoys combat.
• Blood Magic: The Flagellant's skills nearly all rely on using blood to perform magic spells such as healing an ally or inflicting damage. It still technically counts as this in Darkest Dungeon II, despite his change to Blight, as it's simply that his blood has rotted and turned septic.
• Body Horror: Cheating death for so long has finally caught up with him in the sequel. His body is unhealthily lean, and his face is rotting away and now lacking lips and a nose.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The Flagellant has no mention of his encounter with the Vestal after the Abbot ordered her tortured in his own hero shrine, since he was the clergy's official torturer and she likely didn't make a huge impression on him out of his dozens of other subjects.
• Canon Name: The default name for the Flagellant is Damian, named after the monk who popularized flagellation as a form of worship.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Near-inhuman willpower coupled with a lifetime of being brought to the brink of death and back makes The Flagellant noticeably more resistant to death than others. He gets stronger when he's at Death's Door, such being almost second nature to him. By the sequel, the man is essentially a living corpse, with his body decaying to the point of rot, and he is still walking and having the time of his life.
• Church Militant: Like other religious classes, he refused to set out anywhere with an Abomination in a party until the Color of Madness patch.
• Combat Medic: On top of his plentiful bleeds, he can restore health to a target ally and himself with Redeem, although on top of a hefty debuff; it is only accessible after his health drops below 40% too. He's also the only class in the game with a DOT heal (Reclaim).
• Combat Sadomasochist:
  • It's pretty clear that The Flagellant enjoys pain, as he becomes stronger the closer to Death's Door he goes, has an excellent Death Blow resistance to make sure he'll have a tough time dying while at his peak, can heal others by receiving damage, and can absorb a teammate's Damage Over Time for his benefit. He's also the only hero with a 0% chance to disarm traps, indicating that he "disarms" it by tossing himself onto it.
  • In the sequel, the Flagellant's love of pain is so intense that he managed to evade Death simply because dying would mean an end to his suffering which he clings to with an all-consuming fervor. Death is not too happy about that and might show up and try to collect occasionally.
• Covered in Scars: For fairly obvious reasons. Hell, his armor upgrades are just getting more scars, culminating in one shaped like the Iron Crown right over his chest.
• Crazy Homeless People: The Flagellant starts his story off as a simple beggar asking for change, and when he gets a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by a pair of thugs, he becomes a sadomasochist in love with giving and taking large amounts of pain. He was picked up by the church as a Torture Technician for a while, but they deemed him too extreme and cast him back to the streets.
• Critical Status Buff:
  • The worse off the Flagellant is, the better he gets. Below 40% health, he gets a significant status buff which is increased if he is at Death's Door. Also, if he becomes afflicted, he also gets significant status buffs again thanks to his unique Rapturous affliction.
  • In II, his buffs are separated between the Exanimate and Scourge paths. Exanimate enhances his blight-causing abilities the closer to death he is, while Scourge improves his Toxic state once he's passed the Stress threshold.
• Cursed with Awesome: The Flagellant's unique Rapturous affliction causes him to act erratically, like with most other afflictions. However, it also bestows him with enough bonuses that the affliction can help turn the tides of battle in your favor.
• Death Seeker:
  • There are some minor undertones of this in the first game; he may find it the ultimate sacrifice to make to his Lord. Gets a lot more noticeable when pointed at with Come Unto Your Maker, as his quote reveals:
  "I've waited long for this! DON'T TAKE IT FROM ME."
  • Inverted in the second - after driving himself to the edge of death with the self inflicted wounds of his rapturous self mortification he's confronted by the Pale Rider herself, and chooses to defy her since dying would mean an end to the suffering he revels in. Him managing to claw his way back to life as an undying ghoul has since prompted Death to start manifesting physically to hunt him down.
• Desperation Attack: The more wounded he gets, the more powerful the Flagellant becomes. At less than half health, the Flagellant may use Exsanguinate which inflicts a devastating Bleed and heals him for a percentage of his maximum health.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Some of his Shrine battle barks involves mocking Death herself, such as the Flagellant calling her reputation "overstated" after damaging her or essentially telling her to piss off after bringing her to Death's Door.
  "Begone! Leave me to my morbid delights!"
• Draw Aggro:
  • The Flagellant can use Suffer to mark himself, and make enemies more inclined to hit him instead of an ally.
  • In II, he obtains the "More! MORE!" skill, which makes him act as an unorthodox tank that allows him to restore a set amount of health, regardless of the damage caused.
• Empathic Healer: He can heal other party members' status ailments and stress by taking them unto himself by using Suffer and Endure respectively.
• Enemies with Death: In II, his sheer refusal to die has so annoyed the Grim Reaper she'll occasionally attack a party that contains him just as you're finishing up a Resistance encounter.
• Epic Flail: Has somehow managed to combine A Taste of the Lash and this to create a weapon with three chained flails at the end of a handle that resembles a cat o' nine tails whip. He mainly uses it to flail himself or others with the Punish skill.
• Everyone Has Standards: Inverted in his backstory, as he was cast out of the church for being regarded as "too extreme" in his pursuits.
• The Faceless: Downplayed, but we don't see the upper half of his face. Even in the comic. Takes on a more literal meaning in the sequel where, as implied by one of his unique trinkets, the Flagellant has flayed the very skin from his face.
• Friend or Foe?: Will happen if he becomes Rapturous, attacking anyone on the screen at random.
• Gradual Regeneration: Reclaim gives a unique heal-over-time status to the Flagellant's allies. It is rather weak as a heal, but can still sometimes crit.
• Heel–Faith Turn: The comic started him out as a beggar who converted a thug after allowing himself to be beaten without retaliation.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Upon reaching Death's Door, he restores a decent amount of health to the rest of the party. A Flagellant who dies will also unleash a massive stun attack with a good chance to stun the entire enemy party at once.
• Life Drain: Exsanguinate deals massive damage to an enemy while healing the Flagellant. To balance such a powerful ability, he can only use it while below 40% health and only twice per battle.
• Macho Masochism: He's all about proving his devotion via enduring pain, and can get very into it when Rapturous.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His Canon Name is Damian, the preist who introduced Mortification of the Flesh, as mentioned elsewhere
  • In II, one of his character paths is "Scourge," which is also the name of his whip/flail-combo weapon.
• Mechanically Unusual Class:
  • He cannot develop any Virtues and has no Afflictions other than "Rapturous", which causes him to attack friend and foe randomly. It also gives him a massive damage bonus. It reduces his dodge ability so he can use his Critical Status Buff more often. If he's properly supported, getting him afflicted on purpose is a viable strategy, unlike other classes. In fact, he has a combat ability (Endure) and a camping ability (Lash's Anger), which are solely aimed at giving the Flagellant stress.
  • He is also the only class who objectively gets stronger when he's closer to death; a not-quite-hidden perk activates when his health drops below 40% and gets even stronger when he reaches Death's Door. Becoming "Rapturous" makes him hit even harder, but it does undercut his ability to dodge and makes him ignore his teammates' different views on receiving pain.
  • Somewhat unsurprisingly, he can only flagellate to relieve stress. Fortunately, he can't pick up the negative quirks that either demand he use other stress-relief activities or prevent him from using the Penance Hall.
  • In addition to not partying with Abominations until The Color of Madness was released, the Flagellant uniquely will not party with other Flagellants — the "burden of suffering cannot be shared." (Mechanically, allowing multiple Flagellants to support each other with constant Redeems as their health gets low would result in an essentially unkillable party, and Endure would make stress easy to handle too.)
• Megaton Punch: Exsanguinate involves marching up to a monster and punching it in the chest and, it's implied, squeezing their heart with his magic hand.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Only one Flagellant to an adventuring party at once.
  "The burden of suffering cannot be shared!"
• Necessary Drawback:
  • Darkest Dungeon limits the number of Flagellants in each party to one, with additional Flagellants refusing to join as "the burden of suffering cannot be shared." This is to prevent the creation of essentially unkillable parties that can endure massive amounts of stress and health damage.
  • II gives him purposely high tankiness, support, and damage capabilities that let him act as a massive force multiplier to the rest of the team, and respectably dangerous in his own right. In exchange, the player has to deal with the risk of Death spawning at the end of any resistance encounter and beginning a battle where the Flagellant is at a severe disadvantage.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In his character comic, he is given a vicious one by a drunkard starting with Grievous Bottley Harm to the face and losing a few teeth. Despite this, he only grins harder and eggs his attackers on to keep trying to kill him. By the end, his attacker is utterly exhausted and on his knees while the Flagellant is standing over him menacingly while caressing their face, healthier than ever.
• Poisonous Person: In II his DoT shifted from Bleed to Blight. This is due his martyrdom taking a heavy toll on his body, with it rotting and turning his blood septic.
• Purposely Overpowered: In II, the Flagellant is an immensely powerful tank/support hybrid, able to deal with healing, stress healing, DOT cleansing and others. He has to be worth the risk of encountering Death, after all.
• Sense Freak: He enjoys and revels in pain to such an extent he's literally cheated Death to keep indulging in it.
• Slasher Smile: Has a grin on his face at almost all times. In II, he literally had it removed in favor of exposing more of the inside of his mouth.
• A Taste of the Lash: His entire shtick is self-flagellation and flagellating his enemies. His cat o' nine tails lash uses flails just to make it extra punishing.
• Technically-Living Zombie: Technically being the key word. He's flagellated himself so much that he should be dead, but because of the haemomantic powers granted by his self-harm was able to fight off Death herself when his time came, meaning his body and soul are now effectively trapped together. That doesn't mean that his body is forever preserved, however, as by II he's become a skeletal wreck covered head to toe in gangrene. Fittingly, his old moves that used to use Bleed now use Blight. It also means that instead of becoming Rapturous upon reaching maximum stress, he becomes Toxic, which represents his body further deteriorating, causes enemies to receive Blight if they hit him and seriously creeps out his teammates.
• Too Kinky to Torture:
  • Another staple of his character. The Flagellant is so pious that he feels pain as just a way of getting closer to the Light. In the first game, reaching maximum stress guarantees him to receive a unique affliction called Rapturous, which essentially makes him act like this all the time, nonstop. This results in a combination of annoying, frightening and grossing out his teammates.
  • Exploited with his "More...MORE!" skill in II, which gives him two Taunt tokens and a turn-long buff which heals him back a set amount of health per Pain token, regardless of how much damage is dealt. Even if it's due to using one of his self-damaging skills.
  The Flagellant [upon getting hit by a crit]: ECSTASY! I require more!
• Torture Technician: II reveals that he used to serve as a torturer for the church (before they kicked him out for being too extreme even for them) and he's heavily implied to be responsible for imprisoning the Vestal's fellow initiates and leaving them to die.
• Undead Abomination: The Flagellant is and looks alive in the first game, but in the second his appearance is skeletal and gaunt. He has become an undying madman who has avoided Death herself even as his body and skin rots away from the damage he inflicts upon his body.
• Unscrupulous Hero: A self-harming madman who constantly lashes at enemies and himself with a bloody flail while screaming about blood would make for a perfect enemy, but the Flagellant is one of the heroes. His sadomachosism is focused mostly on relieving the burden of suffering from others and taking it upon himself, and inflicting more of it on those who deserve it.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Only wears his hood, robes, and shackles. His character comic has him wearing a full robe that covers his body.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: A Combat Sadomasochist with a whip is nothing new, but it's combined with Sinister Minister.
• Whip of Dominance: Not dominance over others; over his worldly desires.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Particularly notable in his camping skills. Feeling stressed? Whips himself. Not feeling stressed enough? Whips himself harder! Is bleeding, infected with blight, close to death? Whips himself in specific ways to cleanse himself. Needs a little speed boost? Whips himself. Contracted tetanus, black plague, or any number of horrible, hard-to-cure diseases in the dungeon? Whips himself. And it works.