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Captain Geoff Curnow
Guard Captain Geoff Curnow
Curnow's loyalty to the Lord Regent is feigned. It is a dangerous game he plays.
Voiced by: Christopher Corey Smith
The Guard Captain of the City Watch, and the uncle of Callista. They are the last members of what was once a large family. After Callista learns that High Overseer Campbell is planning to kill him, she asks Corvo to save her uncle.
- Ambiguously Gay: Using the heart on him will reveal his first lover was a Tyvian soldier. The gender of this soldier is conspicuously unmentioned. And given he's unmarried with no children...
- Dark and Troubled Past: According to the Heart, Curnow's first lover was a soldier from Tyvia — a secret he killed to keep.
- Deceptive Disciple: To the Lord Regent. Curnow pretends to be loyal, but privately disagrees with the Lord Regent's methods and the way he's taken control of the city.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice In the Back: What Campbell does to him if Corvo thwarts his poison attempt but does not stop Campbell from physically attacking Curnow.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Zigzagged. On one hand, Campbell is planning to kill him because Curnow refuses to become corrupt and bow to the Lord Regent's tyranny. On the other, the Heart reveals that he has some darkness his past.
- I Owe You My Life: If Corvo kills/knocks out Campbell just as Campbell is preparing to strike Curnow down, Curnow will acknowledge that Corvo has saved his life and does not alert the Overseers to Corvo's presence, electing to repay his debt by allowing Corvo to walk away unhindered.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's no match for Corvo, but he is more than capable of fighting his way out of the Office of the High Overseer if he has to.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Curnow will escape unharmed if a body is found before he and Campbell reach the wine glasses (or the wine glasses are smashed), or the alarm is set off, or a Swarm of Rats is summoned near him.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Campbell attempts to kill him by putting poison in his wine. Corvo can either switch the glasses or smash them to save Curnow from death by poison.*
- Warning Song: If Campbell brings Curnow into his secret chamber due to the smashed wine glasses, his second assassination attempt can be thwarted by toggling the Music Player near the crates after Campbell draws his sword. This will enable Curnow to kill Campbell in self defense, as the sound of the music compels him to turn around and investigate, and in the process catch his would be assassin.
Tallboys
Tallboys
The Heart: They walk above the Plague, above the rats, above the flooded streets.
The most powerful brand of watchmen. A man in body armor on whale-oil powered stilts, with some wooden shields for protection and a bow and Molotov Cocktail arrows for weaponry, the Tallboy is a Steampunk mech for the budget-conscious.
- Arrows on Fire: Their weapon of choice.
- Artificial Limbs: Their stilts. At first glance it's difficult to tell where the man ends and the metal legs begin.
- Attack Its Weak Point: They have vulnerable tanks of Whale-Oil on their backs. Blowing up several of these will kill them outright.
- Elite Mooks: As said they are the most powerful watchmen and their height and shields make them difficult to take down.
- Expy: Of the Striders from Half-Life 2. Considering that the art director was the same, it's no surprise.
- Fake Ultimate Mook: Zig-zagged, depending on how you play. A skilled High Chaos Corvo can make quick work of Tallboys like any lower City Watch Mooks. However, if Corvo is going for Low Chaos, they're the only enemies he can't render unconscious and must avoid.
- Feel No Pain: They are drugged with a substance that makes them resistant to pain.
- Heavily Armored Mook: They walk on stilts, which already protects them from most direct engagements, but are also decked out in heavy armor with shields for good measure.
- Lack of Empathy: The drugs given to them also dull their sense of empathy.
- Mini-Mecha: The Tallboy is a essentially stripped-down version of this.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Despite the "feel no pain" drugs mentioned above that they take, they do still have these to better protect themselves from snipers, which is one of the few forms of attack they would be very open to otherwise.
- Super-Soldier: An old-fashioned equivalent.
Officers
City Watch Officers
The Heart: Arrogant. Corrupt. And fiercely loyal to the Lord Regent.
Elite watchmen, tasked in supervisory roles and protecting important individuals. They carry pistols and are skilled swordsmen.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: They're the sons of rich and powerful families, and tend to be ruthlessly corrupt, debauched and sadistic narcissists.
- City Guards: A promoted form of the more usual variety, which is why they do still engage in normal small-talk.
- Doomed Hometown: Some are not native to Dunwall according to the Heart, but can't make it back for the Plague has spreaded there.
- Elite Mook: Which is why they are given more specific assignments.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For every despicable secret the Heart will reveal about them, it tells just as many sad ones.The Heart: "He is worried. It's been four days since he's had word from her."The Heart: "He visits his father in the asylum, though the man no longer remembers him."
- Knight Templar: They have some shades.
- Mook Lieutenant: While their titles may be more elite, they aren't that hard to take out and still get treated as mostly common mooks.
- Secretly Dying : The Heart will allude to this trope on occasions.The Heart: "Twice today he has coughed up blood. He's told no one."
- Undying Loyalty: They are the Lord Regent's most trusted men, and will follow orders to the end.
- Villainous Incest: Invoked by the Heart.The Heart: "When his cousin refused his advances, he sent a Watch patrol to beat her to death."
- Would Hurt a Child:The Heart: "He has a pistol and has used it on children before!"The Heart: "No one ever mentioned the missing boys. He feels confident he's gotten away with it."
Guards
City Watch Guards
The Heart: Only fools and weepers openly confront the Watch.
The rank and file of the City Watch. Better trained and more respectable than the Lower Guard, although not by much.
- City Guards: The basic, easily-dispatched idiots of the game.
- Dirty Cop: Many of them are read as such by the Heart, you can catch them harassing or killing the people they are meant to be protecting, and they're a lot more common in High Chaos.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Some of them desperately search for their missing relatives when off-duty.
- Even Evil Has Standards: They loyally serve Hiram Burrows in his corrupt dictatorship, but the second Corvo broadcasts that Burrows unleashed the rat plague, they're disgusted and refuse his bribery attempts.
- Mooks: Most common variety in the game by far.
- Pacifism Backfire: The Heart implies sparing them not only won't save them, but will cause even more harm in the process.The Heart: "Unless he dies tonight, he will kill twice more before ending his own life."
- Police Brutality: As mentioned under Dirty Cop they are very quick to turn to violence.
- The Chain of Harm:The Heart: "His father beat him. Now it is his turn to beat his son."
Lower Guard
Watch Lower Guard
The Heart: Filthy, cowardly. You smell the Lower Guard before you see them.
The bottom rung on the City Watch's ladder. The Lower Guard are little more than glorified thugs in uniform.
- Ailment-Induced Cruelty: Implied by The Heart.The Heart: "The pain in his head drives him to do unspeakable things."
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: The two varieties of the Lower Guard NPCs in a nutshell.
- City Guards: Like the rest of the City Watch, though these can barely be called "guards".
- Lean and Mean: Most you see have lean builds and worse tempers.
- The Pig-Pen: Most of them never wash, except by accident.
- Police Brutality: Are even worse in this regard than the normal city watch.
- Recruiting the Criminal: Many of the Lower Guard are recruited from prisons.
