Druuna
The main character, a beautiful young woman who lives in a post-apocalyptic world.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Although many other characters may suffer horrible injuries or mutations, Druuna herself never loses her stunning looks. In Morbus Gravis, a doctor wonders if she has some sort of genetic immunity to the viral plague. In Clone, she starts off with the disease having negatively affected her appearance, such as losing all of her hair, but her mind is then uploaded into a healthy version of her old body.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Serpieri explains in the art album Druuna X that Druuna's looks are based on Valérie Kaprinsky in the Erotic Film La Femme Publique. Facially, they're almost identical, but below the neck Serpieri made Druuna even curvier.
- Establishing Character Moment: The very first panel of the very first comic shows a half-naked Druuna reading from a book about mountains and rivers, things she's never seen or even heard of. It immediately establishes both herself as Ms. Fanservice and that something clearly isn't right with her world.
- Ethical Slut: Druuna is an incredibly erotic character who either initiates passionate sex on her own accord or is cajoled into it, but underneath her sex goddess exterior is very much a Nice Girl. The author specifically stated that he wrote her cavalier attitude to lovemaking to "challenge conventional notions of female sexuality".
- Lust Object: Pretty much the whole point. Druuna exists to be the subject of other characters' lust-filled fantasies and is an Ethical Slut.
- Ms. Fanservice: Druuna is an idealized dark-haired Mediterranean woman with a curvy body who is either naked or wearing a skimpy tank-top-and-thong combo roughly ninety percent of the time. The highly detailed renderings drawn by her creator have been widely distributed as pin-ups.
- Thong of Shielding: Druuna is often dressed in just a red thong and a white tank top while navigating the post-apocalyptic world around her.
Shastar
Druuna's original lover, who has fallen victim to Morbus Gravis and turned into a monster.
- Dying as Yourself: Druuna acquires medicines that cure his condition, but it doesn't last long. He shoots himself through the head both to protect Druuna and so he can die as a man.
- The Lost Lenore: Shastar is infected by The Virus and she manages to temporarily cure him in the first album, but when it returns he chooses to kill himself to protect Druuna. Throughout the rest of the series, his disembodied mind or spirit continues to guide her from time to time and she frequently reminisces about him.
Captain Lewis
The Captain of Druuna's city-ship.
- Death Seeker: The entire plot of Morbus Gravis is initiated because Captain Lewis is sick and tired of being unable to die and existing as nothing more than a disembodied head plugged into the ship's systems. He tricks Druuna into believing that deactivating the Master Computer responsible for running the massive city-ship, which has gone rogue, will solve the Viral Transformation plague that is wrecking it. It instead triggers the self-destruct, but Lewis ultimately can't bring himself to let Druuna die along with the rest of the human race simply because he loves her so much.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: He often takes on the appearance of his younger self while interacting with Druuna. In the present, he's initially a decrepit old man before he becomes a Man in the Machine.
- Kiss Me, I'm Virtual:
- Captain Lewis is, in reality, a disembodied head connected to the ship's systems, but he maintains a psychic link to Druuna. At one point he projects an image of his handsome young self to her on a beach he used to visit, where they proceed to make love.
- Played with in a later album where Druuna is trapped inside the remnants of Captain Lewis' half-lucid post-mortem mind, and a middle-aged version of Lewis observes Druuna having sex with another man on the same beach.
- Man in the Machine: His head was put in stasis to extend his lifespan beyond human standards, almost fully integrating him with the ship. The ship's A.I. still acts as an independent authority and limits Lewis' control, so he recruits Druuna to help him deactivate it.
Commander Will
The captain of a second ship which runs into Druuna's.
- Second Love: After she loses Shastar and then Lewis, Will becomes a new love interest for Druuna.
Old Hermit
An loony old hermit who lives on the outskirts of Druuna's city who becomes a recurring sort-of ally.
- Cool Old Guy: In Morbus Gravis, Druuna runs into the hermit who protects her from various dangers, being crazy wicked with a knife. In the last few albums, he returns to accompany Druuna in the form of an android. In the final album, the android puts on a mask that makes him look exactly like the old hermit, implying that they had always been one and the same all along.
The Doctor
A doctor on Commander Will's ship.
- Author Avatar: Paolo Serpieri has inserted himself into his Druuna comics in the form of a character called The Doctor. Since Druuna is basically his idealized woman, it's more or less an extensive Galatea fantasy on his part. In Anima, Serpieri adds another avatar in the character of an artist painting a mural of Druuna.
