Characters / Fear & Hunger: Termina

For characters introduced in the previous game, click here.

Playable

General

• Action Survivor: Some of the characters are civilians with no combat experience: Marina and Samarie are occultists, Olivia is a botany student, Tanaka is a salaryman. While there are those that are experienced with combat or served in the war, they weren't ready to see Prehevil overtaken, nor trained for such a situation.
  • That said, O'saa serves as an exception, as he survived the dungeons of Fear & Hunger, and knew what he was getting into by traveling to Prehevil.
• All Your Powers Combined: You can unlock another character's skill tree by killing them and taking their soul.
• And I Must Scream: Talking to them while they are moonscorched (especially with Karin's Persuasion) heavily implies that a shred of their humanity still remains in them, but not enough to stop themselves from attacking the player.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The moonscorch will eventually affect most of the contestants, transforming them into twisted monsters. If the player waits until Night 3, every non-party member will be transformed or dead.
• Body Horror: Their fate if they end up being moonscorched.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Let's be honest, even those among them with the least troubled backstory carries some emotional baggage with them.
• Dwindling Party: If the player doesn't intervene, the contestants will slowly get moonscorched or killed off over the course of the festival. Uniquely, you can contribute to this by picking off contestants when they're alone or around others who won't intervene.
• Enemy Without: The designs of the contestant's moonscorched forms represent their inner flaws, repressed thoughts or guilt. For example, Olivia's moonscorched form Mechanical Dance takes the form of a legless, self-pitying metallic creature, symbolizing her inner feelings about being permanently dependent on her wheelchair.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Of the eight playable characters, there are four men (Levi, Daan, O'saa and Marcoh) and four women (Marina, Abella, Olivia and Karin) who can be selected.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Downplayed. All male characters are capable of wielding two-handed weapons while most female characters can't, O'saa can't use guns, and the game's melee specialist (Marcoh) is a man. However, Abella is capable of wielding two-handed weapons, and the gun specialist (Levi) is male.
• Heroic Willpower: While several of the contestants eventually get plagued with mental changes and start Hearing Voices telling them to kill others, the protagonist never suffers such issues. They also suffer no effects from touching the tablet to the Temple District's tower, and only become moonscorched once day 4 comes.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Everyone on the train very quickly disperses across Prehevil, with Olivia the only one left behind since she lost her wheelchair.
• Mass Transformation: While it doesn't occur all at once, one-by-one, all but two of the contestants will become moonscorched over time if they aren't killed prior. However, this is something that's played straight if one interacts with the Hollow Tower (in which all but the player character will be transformed) or on the Masochism difficulty (in which all characters other than your protagonist are moonscorched from the get-go).
• Multiple-Choice Past: When picking your character, you're put through a Choose Your Own Adventure styled text where the options you pick determine the items and skills the character will have, a feature carried over from the first game.
• Painful Transformation: If they end up getting moonscorched.
• Piñata Enemy: Fighting other contestants (especially the non-playable ones) is encouraged by the fact that killing them will grant you their soul, allowing you to learn the skills from their tree. A few also have generous loot drops, especially if stolen from, such as Abella's bench grinder or Tanaka's shillings.
• Rule of Symbolism: Their twisted, monstrous moonscorched forms represent their inner feelings or other problems that lay inside them, such as one symbolizing their regret and guilt over their past actions or another's embodying their desire to get greater heights.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: With the sole exception of the presently non-playable Caligura, every single one of them is a decent person under their unwillingness to share their histories and initial standoffishness, and many of the characters even tend towards bonding with one another if left to their own devices or kept alive long enough to. The right circumstances can lead to some of them killing one another or attacking the player unprompted, but of the ones most capable of this, even Pav isn't actively out to fight anyone but the Kaiser, and if he ends up trying to kill anyone, it'll be because they went out of their way to provoke him.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Sleeping until Night 3 or being restrained for murder results in any and all party members you recruited leaving your party forever thanks to moonscorch. Notably, you can save a few contestants from this fate that would suffer it earlier by recruiting them or talking them down, but Night 3 will mutate all but the otherwise dead ones and your player character regardless.
• Static Role, Exchangeable Character: While one can be selected as the main character, everybody else still plays a role as a passenger on the train to Prehevil and a participant in the festival of Termina.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: The character that the player decides to play through the game with has the very keen distinction of being resistant to moonscorch. They won't turn into an abomination upon touching the tablet to the tower in the Temple District, and are potentially one of the last two contestants to be moonscorched, doing so only if they take too long to end the festival, rather than being guaranteed to transform by Night 3.

Levi, the Ex-soldier

"Why do these people talk to me...? I... I don't have anything to offer to them..."

A traumatized soldier who has deserted from his army, and has returned to his hometown of Prehevil since he has nowhere else to go.

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• Abusive Parents: His alcoholic dad is implied to have beaten his mother, and also beats Levi if he tries to stand up to him.
• Addled Addict: Unless he's chosen as the protagonist and you make a certain backstory choice, he'll be addicted to heroin, with the withdrawal significantly penalizing his combat stats. His first two appearances will have him suffering withdrawal, and recruiting him on day 1 requires giving him some heroin.
• Baby Of The Bunch: He, along with Marina, is one of the youngest contestants at 18, and gets repeatedly called a boy by several characters due to his youthful appearance.
• Born Unlucky: Levi's life is a string of unfortunate events, from losing his mother to an abusive drunken father, to growing up in an comparably abusive orphanage, to being conscripted as a child soldier where he is likely to end up with a crippling heroin addiction, only to wind up in the middle of a death game that has overtaken his hometown. It's no wonder Weeping Scope breaks down into hysterics if he mutates into it.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Living in the orphanage made him impatient to leave, and he gets his wish... by being conscripted as a Child Soldier.
• The Big Guy: As the protagonist, he serves this role, as his skills are entirely oriented towards guns, and a backstory choice can improve his maximum health by a quarter, making him the one of the hardier party members. Ironically inverted as a recruitable character, however, as his Gun Proficiency is of dubious use (ammo is best spent on the field, not in combat), and his addiction makes him incredibly weak while suffering withdrawal.
• Child Soldier: Levi was conscripted at the age of 13 to fight in the Second Great War for the Eastern Union, alongside countless other child soldiers. The experience may result in him becoming an addicted mess.
• Crippling Overspecialization: All of his skills pertain to using firearms, most of them buffing their effects when used on the overworld. This despite the fact that ammo is limited, party members can't use guns on the overworld at all and all contestants but O'Saa can use guns almost as effectively on the overworld.
• Custom Uniform: Implied by Pav (who served for the entire Second Great War, and would've known what Eastern Union soldiers wear) calling him out on wearing sneakers instead of army boots. It's a bit more justifiable than many examples in that he'd deserted the army and thus wasn't beholden to its uniform standards any more.
• Defector from Decadence: Levi deserted the army due to its haphazard way of distributing troops, and out of protest that its conscripts were growing younger and younger.
• Doomed Hometown: Levi was born in Prehevil, and returns home only to find it destroyed and full of monsters.
• Foil: To Marina. Both of them are the youngest Termina contestants, being 18 years old, and are natives of Prehevil. But where Levi is implied to have lived in poverty, being the son of a drunkard, Marina comes from a position of relative privilege. And while his father, from what we get of him in Levi's backstory, was an Abusive Parent who did not care about his son, it's implied that a part of Father Domek did love Marina. Their social statuses even placed them adjacent to opposite sides of the rather corrupt church in Prehevil; Marina coming from a lineage of occultists likely descended from people who participated in rituals that may have involved ritual sacrifices, while Levi being among the many orphans of St. Domek's Orphanage meant that he was one of many who could easily be victimized by the priests there.
• The Gunslinger: Of the Trick Shot variety, as his skills make guns deadlier and more accurate, to the point where he's able to shoot off an enemy's arms with just a handgun.
• Heroic Safe Mode: If engaged in combat, Levi shifts from his frightened, nervous self to the hyperfocused soldier he was forced to become to survive the war. Absolutely no attempts to communicate with him in combat bear fruit, and it's implied in Party Talks that he relies on this capacity for weaponizing his fight-or-flight response elsewhere, as well.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: While his rifle and shotgun skills offer plausible effects, his pistol one somehow allows each shot to remove an enemy's arm, something that can normally be done only with the rifle.
• The Load:
  • If not chosen as the protagonist, he will end up as this among the recruitable contestants, as his withdrawals will severely gimp his stats unless given heroin (which is too rare to spend freely), while Gun Proficiency isn't of much use (as you're already guaranteed to hit, absent debuffs and enemy evasion). Even worse, recruiting him will make it harder for you to permanently recruit Marina, who is a much better fighter.
  • As a player character he suffers from a poor skill selection, most of which buff using guns in the overworld (which are powerful as-is) and don't actually help when he is pulled into a fight. That's on top of a crippling 30% debuff to all his stats if you aren't able to avoid or cure his withdrawal.
• Long-Range Fighter: The majority of his skills as the protagonist are oriented towards shooting enemies on the overworld. If he starts off addicted, however, the withdrawal will make him pretty worthless once you engage an enemy in a fight.
• Magikarp Power: The boy starts off quite weak, with his addiction severely hampering his stats and only having one skill when recruited. But with the proper skills, Rev points, face sigils, and/or a way to treat his addiction, Levi can become quite a powerful party member.
• Mascot: Levi acts as a sort of unofficial one for Termina, as he tends to be the viewpoint character for updates and was featured in the sole publicly viewable screenshot of the game's early modern day incarnation. He's also featured prominently in the final game's primary key art... where he's covering his face while a dismembered, one-eyed Marina slits his throat in a Gro-goroth sacrifice.
• The Quiet One: Often tends to not talk during party talk, especially when he sees something traumatic. Appropriately enough, he has the "solitary" soul. Even seeing his doppelganger doesn't provoke a reaction.
• Rough Overalls: His coveralls, the standard Eastern Union military uniform, indicate him being The Baby of the Bunch, and cause a few characters to question why he wears them as an adult.
• Schmuck Bait: New players will likely gravitate towards him given that he's on the title screen and the first option in the character select, as well as a description and title that suggest that he's good at combat. Unfortunately he's actually one of the hardest to play thanks to his poor skill selection that doesn't help either exploration or combat and the possibility that he'll start with a crippling heroin withdrawal debuff.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: If not chosen as the protagonist or if you make the backstory choice to undertake the suicide mission, the trauma of the war will result in him being addicted to heroin. And even if he isn't addicted, his Ending B will have him become an aimless drifter, as the combined trauma of the war and the festival overwhelms him with endless nightmares.
• Ship Tease:
  • Reading Olivia's mind while playing as him in the demo reveals that the botanist is attracted to him.
  • In the actual game, he has quite a lot with Marina, with them being friendly to each other during party talk and it being much easier to recruit her if playing as him. In a more morbid sense, if Needles kills them both, he'll stick their heads on a pike, angled to make them look like they're kissing.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Predictably, after everything he's gone through in both his backstory and Termina itself, should he survive, he's seen on the train in a variant of the pose, with only one knee pulled to his chest and the other laid out on the carpet.
• Walking the Earth: His fate in his variant of Ending B — he moves from place to place, trying and failing to escape the horrors that he had witnessed during Termina.

Weeping Scope

The Weeping Scope scans its surroundings with the scope...

Levi's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his lifelong trauma and inner misery. If allowed to transform, he can be found inside or near St. Domek's Orphanage.

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• Broken Tears: He constantly sobs and wails inside and out of combat.
• Inelegant Blubbering: His constant crying can come to his disadvantage if the player were to have the "Intimidate" skill, where the player can verbally abuse the monster, causing him to miss a turn or two sobbing its scope out.
• Organic Technology: His head is mutated into a giant fleshy cannon that is noted to feel like hard leather in his autopsy. The cannon does work and is even capable of firing rapidly.
• Reluctant Monster: He is one of the only Moonscorched who will run away from the protagonist instead of directly engaging them.
• Shout-Out: His design is confirmed by Word of God to be inspired after Shintarou Jagasaki's Sniper Fractured Form.
• Sympathy for the Devil: If he transforms on Day 2, bringing Karin and Marina to him after a brief shootout will result in an event where the party confronts the Weeping Scope sitting and crying harmlessly in the orphanage. Marina sympathizes with the monster while Karin is pretty callous. It's up to the player whether to enter battle or leave him be.

Marina Domek, the Occultist

"I want to live somewhere busy. With tons of people around. People who couldn't care less who I or anyone else around them really is."

An occultist born in Prehevil, who's returning to her hometown at her father's request after she learned her mother has passed away.

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• The Ace: A skilled occultist who was recognized by the Vatican for her talents. Many players consider her the ideal protagonist to build into a mage given she starts with max or near max affinity with any of the six mechanically relevant gods. Unfortunately for Marina, her talents unknowingly attracted the attention of Samarie, a gifted but unstable mind reader who falls in love with her at a distance.
• The Baby of the Bunch: She and fellow Prehevil native Levi are the two youngest contestants at 18, and if brought to the jazz club while Daan is bartending she'll be denied a drink due to her lack of ID.
• Bookworm: She retreats to the bookstore in central Prehevil if circumstances allow it on the first night to cuddle up with a book despite everything happening around her, and it takes some convincing to get her to leave, as the store was something of a sanctuary from the rest of the town in the past. This can get her killed if you can't get her to come along and haven't dealt with Needles by the next morning.
• Damsel in Distress: If Henryk moonscorches and you're not playing as her, she'll be abducted and kept as a prisoner in the mayor's manor.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Downplayed, as while she dislikes the burden of carrying a tool meant for killing, along with how heavy and clumsy it feels, it doesn't prevent her from using one out of necessity.
• Doomed Hometown: Just like Levi, she was born and raised in Prehevil, and to say that it's doomed would be a bit of an understatement.
• Foil: To Levi. Both of them are the youngest Termina contestants, being 18 years old, and are natives of Prehevil. But where Marina lived in relative comfort, coming from a somewhat well to-do and distinguished family, Levi's implied to come from a poor family and had to suffer through various hardships. And while her father is implied to at least, in part, truly care for Marina (he notably doesn't misgender her when he's personally talking to her and shows concern over her being in Prehevil), the same cannot be said for Levi. Their social statuses even placed them adjacent to opposite sides of the rather corrupt church in Prehevil; Marina coming from a lineage of occultists likely descended from people who participated in rituals that may have involved ritual sacrifices while Levi being among the many orphans of St. Domek's Orphanage meant that he was one of many who could easily be victimized by the priests there.
• Hated Hometown: She calls Prehevil a dump multiple times, and in contrast to Levi, she doesn't seem to have much issue with the whole thing being in ruins.
• The Nick Namer: She's fond of picking nicknames for the other playable contestants. Olivia is "the sleeping beauty", Abella and Karin are "the pretty one", Marcoh is, infamously, "the big chad", while everyone else gets the much more general "sleepy one".
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Implied to happen if she ends up in the bookstore before you kill the bobby in there, as it will then be nowhere to be found. Given that Marina herself is fully healthy when recruited, and the bobby can't be found anywhere (making it unlikely that it was simply lured away), it's suggested that she somehow managed to kill it without taking any injury in the fight.
• The Pastor's Queer Kid: She's the transgender daughter of Father Domek, a religious leader in Prehevil. Their father-daughter bond was rather tense, to say the least.
• Raised as the Opposite Gender: Although born as male, her mother hid her true sex and raised her as a girl, to ensure she wouldn't be raised as a dark priest. She mentions that she didn't have a problem with it as she grew older due to its intentions and the fact that it "felt natural" anyway.
• Runic Magic: She can draw runes on herself and the rest of the party faces for a variety of useful permanent buffs, most notably a +5 to the ever useful Agility.
• Ship Tease:
  • Reading Olivia's mind in the demo while playing as her reveals that the botanist is attracted to her.
  • In the actual game, she has quite a lot with Levi, with them being friendly to each other during party talk and it being much easier to recruit her if playing as him. In a more morbid sense, if Needles kills them both, he'll stick their heads on a pike, angled to make them look like they're kissing.
• Squishy Wizard: While a rather competent mage, she suffers from being unable to equip two-handed weapons just like most of the female cast, limiting her ability in physical combat.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: On the 3rd day, you can speak with her on the train and she'll ask you what day it is. The 3rd option asks if it's her birthday, which she'll play along with to get a gift out of you.
• Token Minority: The only transgender character in the game.
• Trans Tribulations: In Marina's character history, her father is emotionally distant towards her, perhaps the result of a lingering grudge over her continuing to live her life as a woman. Samarie's behavior towards her also echoes real-life experiences some trans people have with chasers.

Cocoon

A Cocoon slowly drags itself towards you...

Marina's moonscorched form. The embodiment of her father's repression even beyond death. If allowed to transform, she can be found at the Church of Alll-mer's basement.

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• Driven to Suicide: If you succesfully run from the fight, she will drop dead on the spot and grant her Changeling soul, the implication being that Marina ended her own life in one last moment of clarity.
• Dying as Yourself: Uniquely, the Cocoon's head is the only Moonscorched contestant's head to be identified as Marina's head.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: A dangerous spell-casting Tragic Monster, with an extra arm bursting out of her shirt.
• Mystical White Hair: Already a talented occultist, Marina's hair color is tinted silver after her transformation.
• Reluctant Monster: After she mutates into the Cocoon Host, she will be begging her "father" for why they need to attack the player.

Daan/Daniël, the Doctor

"There's no escaping your fate, is there?"

A doctor from Rondon who has traveled to Prehevil in order to investigate the death of his fiancée and father-in-law.

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• All for Nothing: He is driven to despair if he wins the Termina festival, as he leaves Prehevil with not only the trauma of the experience, but he never learns anything about what happened to Elise.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The Analyze skill will expose an enemy's weakspot (usually the head), making it very easy to hit.
• Back-Alley Doctor: For all his medical expertise, he never got around to getting a proper degree. His backstory also gives him an option to earn a living by setting up an unlicensed magic-based practice, until he eventually gets taken in by Baron Von Dutch.
• The Bartender: If brought to PRHVL Bop, he'll tend the bar, serving drinks that restore your Mind. He also thinks of retiring from medicine (as it's incredibly busy work) and becoming a bartender after surviving the festival
• Cast from Hit Points: Besides consuming a big chunk of Mind, his Magna-Medicinal also makes him lose a limb (causing him to bleed) and a decent amount of Body.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: The only character to smoke cigarettes, he mainly does so while discussing the disturbing events in Prehevil. He's also implied to be depressed due to the recent death of his fiancee.
• Combat Medic: While some of his skills are oriented towards healing, his Analyze skills allows him to expose weakspots, making certain locations much easier to hit. The Precision Stance, meanwhile, increases the accuracy of his attacks. He's also one of the 3 characters that can start off with a gun, as he has the potential to have been an actual combat medic in his backstory.
• Crusading Widow: After he returned home from the war, he found his fiancée and father-in-law had been murdered in some occult ritual. When he searched through his father-in-law documents for clues, he found he was recently interested in a place town called Prehevil, so he traveled there to investigate what happened.
• Cult Defector: His parents were members of the cult of Sylvian, who regularly participated in orgies and tried to indoctrinate their son into their ways. He escaped the cult's grasp when his parents disappeared during one of its orgies.
• Deadly Doctor: His Analyze and Precision Stance skills come directly from his knowledge of anatomy and surgical precision, respectively. The scalpel is also unique to him, and makes for a good starting weapon.
• Driven to Suicide: In an unusual Death of Personality variation, he'll agree to Pocketcat's offer to become a copy of him in his ending B, as he completely loses his will to go on due to not being able to find anything about Elise's death.
• Enemy Scan: The Diagnosis skill (which he has if recruited) allows him to check enemy corpses, giving you some flavor info, as well as information on their weaknesses and resistances to various damage types.
• Equivalent Exchange:
  • His standard Medicinal skill cures status effects, but it requires harvesting and sacrificing an organ corresponding to the status (such as a heart for bleeding, or eyes for blindness).
  • The magna-medicinal skill allows him to resurrect a character who died in combat (but only before the fight ends), but it requires him to lose a limb and a big chunk of Mind.
• Eyepatch of Power: Daan wears an eyepatch, and is a veteran of the Second Great War.
• Eye Scream: Daan is implied to have self-inflicted this in an attempted exchange to resurrect Elise.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: He took his eye out to try to revive Elise, which was likely an attempt to use the magna-medicinal from his Hexen tree.
• Healer Signs On Early: If chosen as the protagonist, he can start with the Loving Whispers spell for healing. Alternatively, he may start off with the Medicinal skill, allowing him to harvest organs to cure status effects. Subverted if he's not the Player Character, however, as he'll quickly leave your party when recruited on Day 1, and joins permanently only if found on Day 2.
• Heroic BSoD: On Day 2, provided the player attempted to help him with the Moonscorched, he can be found in the madman's apartment, having gone catatonic over recognizing a dangerous sigil for a ritual. The player can recruit him permanently here.
• I Have Many Names: His mother called him Daan, and his father called him Daniël, so it's anyone's guess as to which is the real name. The game always refers to him as Daan, however.
• The Lost Lenore: He was in love with a young woman named Elise before he was shipped off to war. When he returned, he found she had perished in a ritual, spurring him to go to Prehevil and figure out why.
• The Medic: He's a doctor, and thus the dedicated healer among the contestants. Depending on player choices during his background, he's even able to learn a Sylvian healing spell right from the start.
• Open Heart Dentistry: He's not a veterinarian, but he'll diagnose moonscorched animals anyway, which he does surprisingly well. He does give up on trying to diagnose the Mechanical Dance (unsuccesfully trying to pass the issue onto Abella if she's present), however, as it's too robotic for his medical knowledge to be useful. He also fails to diagnose a sergal, as it's an entirely new species whose existence isn't known by the public.
• Parental Abandonment: His parents disappeared while going off to one of the Bunnymask orgies, likely due to getting entranced and left unable to stop.
• Parental Neglect: His parents focused more on worshipping Sylvian than on caring for him, leading him to hate such a life.
• Pressure Point: If he restrains the player character, he'll incapacitate them by applying pressure to the nerves.
• Rags to Riches: He was a poor orphan when he met Baron Von Dutch and became his apprentice, and became part of the noble family when he got engaged to his daughter, Elise.
• Rape as Backstory: What is there about his life before joining the Von Dutch family points to this. His parents were followers of Sylvian and were said to have tried to "pass the healing gift of Sylvian to him". Given that Sylvian is a Sex God and the previous game had her Sex Magic be among the ways that the player can be healed, it paints a very uncomfortable picture as to what that wording meant.
• Stepford Smiler: To everyone else, he seems like an unremarkable and friendly guy, even cracking a joke here and there. However, all of that hides his Dark and Troubled Past and grief over the death of Elise, which can even culminate in him commiting suicide by becoming a copy of Pocketcat.
• Uncertified Expert: He never got around to getting a medical degree and taking the Hippocratic Oath. This is despite working as a doctor's apprentice and possibly serving in the army as a medic. This surprises Karin greatly, though she accepts it once Daan explains the reason for this.
• Waistcoat of Style: He starts with one of these. While it doesn't provide much physical protection, it does give him some magic resistance.

Pocketcat

The Pocketcat gives you a genuine smile.

Daan's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his dirty, degenerate deal with Pocketcat. If allowed to transform, he can be found inside the museum, replacing the original.

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• All for Nothing: Deciding to get the B Ending while playing as Daan can be this if you do so specifically to avoid getting Moonscorched, since Daan still reaches his Despair Event Horizon because he never got closure regarding Elise's disappearance, leaving him so emotionally broken that he's considering taking Pocketcat's deal.
• Despair Event Horizon: If Daan's Nonstandard Game Over is anything to go by, he turns into Pocketcat by choice out of despair after some convincing by the cat.
• Morphic Resonance: He is distinguishable from the regular Pocketcat when mutated by his checkered pants, which he keeps from his original human form.
• Moveset Clone: Aside from the checkered pants he wears, he uses the same moves and dialogue as the other Pocketcat.
• Psycho Pink: His mask is a pink shade, in contrast to the original's purple, and he's still not above dealing in the heads of your fellow contestants and/or ripping off your limbs.
• Unique Enemy: Unlike the other Moonscorched contestants, Daan as Pocketcat neither undergoes a Painful Transformation nor does he have any physical traits that could symbolize any internal guilt or trauma that he carries.

Abella, the Mechanic

"These bunkers got me both absolutely terrified and super curious. I think the curious side wins. It's not like curiosity ever killed a cat, ay?"

A mechanic from Oldegård who's part of an underground resistance group attempting to stop another world war. She volunteered to go travel to Prehevil to learn what Bremen is planning there.

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• Action Girl: Abella is the only playable female character who is capable of equipping two-handed melee weapons or restraining you for committing murder. As a recruitable character, she's also the only one who comes with a skill directly related to physical combat.
• Amazonian Beauty: Although it's noticeable in her artwork, she's implied to be quite muscular, but is still considered to be a very attractive woman, as Henryk gives her compliments about her toned figure.
• Bad Liar: If the player finds the hidden base of the NLU in Prehevil, she makes a bad job of hiding that she's part of the group. Karin picks it up right away, and Abella confesses soon after very little prompting.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Is one of the nicer and more helpful characters in the story, but will restrain the player if she witnesses them killing someone, and is the only contestant to be granted an offense boost if the player tries to intimidate them when fighting her.
• Big Sister Instinct: Being the eldest child in her family, she has a protective instinct towards those around her, which is quite fitting for someone with the Caressing soul. Witnessing her relatives go off to fight in the war, with many of them dying in the process, frustrated her knowing she couldn't help them directly.
• Braids of Action: She has waist-long hair, but keeps it tied to a braid so it doesn't get in her way.
• Crutch Character and Disc-One Nuke: As an NPC; Abella can join permanently on the first third of Day 1 if the player immediately goes to Bunker 7, far quicker than any other character. Her pipe wrench serves as a decent weapon, allowing her to hold her own, with throwing it remaining relevant through the entire game (as a reliable non-magic stun), and her ability to short circuit electric locks will come in handy in exploring the bunkers around Prehevil. Recruiting her early is a good way to make sure you have backup for the fights ahead. She'll remain a worthy ally to have throughout the entire rest of the game, even if Wrench Toss becomes a bit one-note as time goes on; it's a very good one note, even if a player will want some other party members like Daan, Marcoh, and either mage when they become available if not flying solo.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Downplayed — having seen such small tools create great destruction around the world, she disdains firearms. In a situation like the festival, though, holding one makes her feel safer.
• The Engineer: She became an engineer for the homefront during the war, having studied as either a mechanic or an electrician, and she's capable of learning how to craft weapons and traps.
• Genius Bruiser: While she has the Wrench Toss skill and is the only female character strong enough to wield two-handed weapons or physically restrain the player, she's also a skilled engineer, capable of short-circuiting locks and crafting weapons and traps.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Several characters comment on her being attractive, with Marina even referring to her as "the pretty lady" before she learns Abella's name.
• Jumped at the Call: She wasn't happy with her life as a war mechanic and wished she could do more. When she learned about the Nameless Liberty Underground, she jumped at the chance to join them and make a real change in the world. She even volunteered to investigate Prehevil when she learned Bremen had big plans there.
• MacGyvering: How Weapon and Trap Crafting work. With a bit of ingenuity and liberal use of duct tape, Abella can put together weapons that in one notable case is objectively more powerful than the signature weapon that a New God wields. Most of the others are comparably as flashy.
• Master of Unlocking: Her short-circuit ability allows her to open electronic locks, making her invaluable in the bunkers.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Downplayed as Henryk isn't recruitable, but snapping him out of his transformation by going to the mayor's house will trigger Abella's transformation, and if the player recruits Abella before going into the bunker, it will trigger his. The only two ways to save both in one playthrough is to either play as Abella herself, or make a mad dash to the White Bunker ASAP as O'saa.
• Nice Girl: She has a Caressing Soul, has dedicated her life to helping others, is notably the most easygoing of all the contestants, and is the easiest to recruit by far.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted, as when Daan tries to prod her into helping diagnose the Mechanical Dance (a robot-like being), her only response is to say that she has no idea of what's happening in this place. The knowledge of electronics, mechanics, and crafting demonstrated by her is also basic enough for a single individual to learn.
• Pacifist Run: Abella is the only other character, aside from O'saa, that can save every contestant except herself, as she can rescue Henryk without herself being mutated. Going for Ending A with no other contestants in the party will cause her to be the only "fatality" in the festival if one plays their cards right.
• Rough Overalls: Her overalls make it instantly clear that she's a blue-collar worker, and she's actually more used to her yellow work overalls than her everyday clothes (which still use overalls).
• Sexy Scandinavian: She comes from Oldegärd (a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Scandinavia), and is described as being beautiful, with Henryk constantly flirting with her at the train.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: She's the most physically focused of the female characters, and her overalls have no sleeves, illustrating her tough personality.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: The most masculine woman in the cast, she wears a tank top under her work overalls.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Her wrench throw skill, which stuns the targeted body part and deals heavier damage.
• Weapon Specialization: The pipe wrench, as her Wrench Throw requires having it equipped.
• Working-Class Hero: The only blue-collar worker in the cast, she's also smart and has a caring personality.
• Wrench Wench: Abella's family owned a garage, causing her to learn how to deal with machinery and electronics since she was little. When the war started, she was eager to try to support her country during the war, but as a woman, she couldn't be a soldier, so she became a war engineer instead.

Chaugnar

Mucus is spewing out of the creature's trunk as it attacks!

Abella's moonscorched form. The embodiment of her pent-up rage. If allowed to transform, she can be found inside Bunker 7.

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• Animalistic Abomination: The moonscorch turns her into this thing, an elephant-like creature if the player does not go to Bunker 7 to recruit her on Day 1.
• Cruel Elephant: Her moonscorched form takes the form of a humanoid with a mutated, elephant-like head, and like most moonscorched beings, Chaugnar is homicidally aggressive.
• Gender Bender: The Chaugnar has a masculine body and noticeably lacks breasts or any feminine feature of its female host.
• Hulking Out: Abella's realistic athletic form mutates into a hulking, giant muscular monster in her moonscorched form.
• Made of Iron: Chaugnar is effectively immortal, at least as far as the player is concerned. Even if she's defeated and her soul is claimed, she will strike at you again in Tunnel 7's basement. Fell her once more and the description you get from beating her afterward reveals she's still very much alive, even if she won't give chase after that.
• Magic Pants: Downplayed — Abella's shirt and boots are destroyed, yet her overalls remain somewhat intact.
• Meaningful Name: Chaugnar is the name of an elephant-like creature from the Lovecraft Mythos.
• Super-Scream: Well, "Super Trumpet", anyway. One of Chaugnar's deadliest attacks is Doomsday Trumpet, a move that causes it to bellow out a deafening cry that hits your entire party. Anyone who hears this attack twice will receive a splitting headache.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Much as Abella herself is the first party member who can be recruited, Chaugnar in turn is the earliest Moonscorched who can potentially spawn, and far more brutal a fight than the Gentleman. A player early in their run is extremely unlikely to be equipped to fight her, meaning they're likely to just need to run like hell when she bursts in.
• Your Head A-Splode: Once you hear her Doomsday Trumpet twice, get ready to say goodbye to your head.

O'saa, the Yellow Mage

"There is a greater scheme that we all enact, 'fate' if you will. You can manipulate that force and bend it to your own will."

An Abyssonian yellow mage who traveled to Prehevil to take part in the Termina contest.

---

• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: His outfit wouldn't look out of place 350 years in the past (it's what yellow mages wore in the dungeons), but he makes it fit into the current time period, and it highlights him as a powerful mage.
• Beef Gate: Acts as a minor sort of roaming one of these. Prior to his recruitment, every time slot that passes will see him meditating in a certain location, usually an otherwise convenient path to go through. He’ll very plainly tell the player that if they pass through, he will defend himself, using Hurting to remove their limbs like the previous game’s Yellow Mages, and like them, if provoked, this can only be stopped by fleeing or killing them. He’s bulky for a mage and tricky to fight alone (the rest of the party won’t act unless he happens to hit one of them first), so unless the player has some serious offense, fighting him may be extremely risky.
• Birds of a Feather: Of all other party members, he gets along the best with Marina, a fellow mage and heckler, with most of their party chats being a great deal more amicable than his usual interactions.
• Breakout Mook Character: A playable Yellow Mage, enemies who needed to be fought to recruit their master Nas'hrah in the previous title. Here, you carry his conscious charred remains around as an NPC. If you choose to fight O'saa in battle, his sprite is positioned in the same stance as the Yellow Mages from the previous game.
• Break the Haughty: Between being shot in the arm and offered companionship in the face of adversity, O'saa has the potential to relax a bit.
• Close-Range Combatant: As the protagonist, his inability to use guns makes it impossible to kill enemies in the overworld, and greatly hinders his ability to weaken them. However, the +25 Body bonus and the Spice Forge skill greatly improve his combat ability, making him potentially one of the strongest contestants.
• Dance Battler: As with all yellow mages, he knows La Danse Macabre, which he'll do whenever engaged in battle or casting spells. He also dances on the overworld in exactly the same way as his predecessors in the first game in a bid to tear your limbs off if you're ever too close to him while he's meditating and you haven't recruited him yet.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Completely incapable of equipping guns, unlike every other contestant.
• Ethnic Magician: O'saa, the only dark-skinned character, is a mage that hails from Abyssonia, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to African countries.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Cold as he is, it took him a while to convince himself that he won't miss his family.
• Experienced Protagonist: Unlike the rest of the contestants, who never had a serious encounter with the supernatural, O'saa had such an experience after going to the Dungeons of Fear & Hunger, and he's more versed in magic and the gods than anybody else (even Marina and Samarie). If chosen as the main character, he may potentially start off with more and better gear than anybody else.
• Expy: Of Enki from the previous game, a dour, studious, misanthropic mage with unique equipment restrictions compared to the rest of the cast. Both possess an Enlightened Soul as well, somewhat explaining their similarities in personality and motivations.
• Face Death with Dignity: Noticeably, should he be Moonscorched, he is the only playable character that doesn't scream in pain, instead just quietly sitting down to bear his burden in silence. Should he succumb to Moonscorch as a companion at the Tower, he also calmly accepts his fate. This is presumably the reason his Moonscorch mutation isn't as horrific as the other contestants.
  O'saa: "So be it."
• Farm Boy: Implies that he spent his childhood farming, as he states that kids in his land worked from the moment they could hold a hoe.
• Gathering Steam: La Danse Macabre, which increases magic attack with each turn that passes.
• Guide Dang It!: If you choose not to abridge it, he'll reminiscence on his visiting the dungeon of Fear and Hunger from the previous game in the form of a long text adventure that can reward him with more starting loot than any other character. Getting through it is simple enough, but there are numerous game overs to be had from either lingering in one area of the dungeon too long, failing to avoid a monster, or leaping into the below mentioned toilet hole. On the other hand, there are also lucrative rewards both for thorough exploration and repeatedly searching the same area. Getting a key to a secret location in the game proper requires checking a desk 11 times.
• Insufferable Genius: An intelligent and gifted student of the arcane who also has a misanthropic streak a mile long — the only person he remotely seems to respect is the millennia-old lich he carries with him, at least outside his B ending.
• Irony: O'saa the Yellow Mage, a member of a hedonistic, self-interested group who follows the equally depraved Nas'hrah, is one of only two contestants who can unwittingly sacrifice himself to save everyone else.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The player’s ability to prove him right aside, his insistence all other competitors steer clear of him or face limb-removal magic is reasonably warranted even by other players’ contact with one another.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: As the protagonist, he has the same +25 maximum Body that Marcoh and Levi can get. And unlike Marina, the other spell-focused character, he's capable of using two-handed melee weapons.
• Magikarp Power: His Spice Forge can't be learned via backstory, and depends greatly on improving affinities and spending soul stones on spells. Once this is done, however, he becomes an extremely strong combat character, capable of easily killing enemies in a single turn by himself.
• Major Injury Underreaction:
  • If he loses to the Janitor, he doesn't show any pain or shock while getting his legs cut off.
  • If he wears the Inverse Crown of Thorns, his sprite noticeably lacks a screaming expression compared to that of the other playable characters.
  • Getting Moonscorched clearly entails Body Horror galore, with limbs audibly breaking and bones cracking to accommodate the unfortunate soul's new body. But while almost all other player characters scream in pain while undergoing the transformation, O'saa calmly accepts it.
• Misery Builds Character: A firm believer in this trope, as he thinks that misery builds strength and limitations breed creativity. That, and having to spend every hour wondering about your next meal prevents troublesome patterns of thoughts.
• Mr. Exposition: He'll happily explain magic to you in depth if you recruit him and drop him off at the train.
• Nay-Theist: Being a yellow mage, he refuses to actually worship any of the gods, only using them as a source of magic and other means to further one's personal agenda.
• Nerves of Steel: In his backstory, he braved the Dungeon of Fear and Hunger entirely alone, staying calm and collected even as the rest of the expedition around him went mad. He is, unfortunately, just as prone to being worn down mentally as anyone else once the game proper starts, though he does suffer his transformation into the Mastermind with stone-faced grace. He also lacks a pained reaction when wearing the Inverse Crown of Thorns or having his legs cut off by the Janitor, and he's merely confused while being raped by Needles.
• Nominal Hero: As a yellow mage, he only cares about himself. Compared to Caligura and the servants of Rher, however, he doesn't go out of his way to kill people and/or encourage murder, and is willing to work with other contestants to achieve his goals.
• Non-Standard Game Over: When O'saa is going through the dungeons of Fear and Hunger, he has the option to jump into a toilet hole. Doing this causes him to get trapped at the bottom of the hole and the game to mockingly state that your "adventure ended before it even began" before sending you back to the title screen. He can also die in relatively more dignified ways by being caught and killed by a monster otherwise.
• Not So Above It All:
  • He's prone to telling goofy jokes in party talks, and he even admits to being fond of the PRHVL Bop jazz club, which several other party members will tease him about.
  • Telling him that committing murder turned the player character on causes him to apparently burst out in laughter, before recomposing himself and saying that's "seriously messed up."
• Pacifist Run: Just like Abella, it's possible to save every other contestant except for the player when choosing to play as him. ^note Due to what is likely a bug or oversight, O'saa can save August on Day 1, unlike the rest of the party, since Nas'rah's event takes precedence over and cancels out August's in the White Bunker. If he recruits Abella, Henryk despawns from the game, but isn't technically moonscorched, which the game counts as dead for the endings, until the player sleeps at least once, meaning O'saa can simply rush to attain ending A on Day 1 Morning and spare everyone else.
• Spell Crafting: His Spice Forge, which allows upgrading known spells:
  • Greater: The spell takes less Mind to cast.
  • First: The spell is immediately cast as the battle begins. Some spells will also become less costly to use.
  • Double: The spell will be cast twice, but it randomly chooses targets.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: A magic-focused character with yellow eyes, although it's not stated if they're related to him being a yellow mage.
• Token Minority: The only black character in the game.
• Troll: He'll act as a priest of All-mer whom you can confess to, only to reveal he did it as a joke, and can be found blocking critical progression points for no readily apparent reason except that he decided that would be where he'd meditate at that moment. You can try and pass by him, but he'll immediately start flinging spells at you that lob off your limbs once you draw too close, making it a risky move unless you intend to bum rush and kill him.

Mastermind

Mastermind rises up with determined movements.

O'saa's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his desire to achieve greater knowledge. If allowed to transform, he can be found in the streets of Mausoleum Alley.

---

• Dismemberment Is Cheap: Cut off his arms and he'll just conjure up phantom arms to continue the fight. Luckily for you, the same does not apply to his legs.
• Expy: The design and fact that he talks in nothing but mumbles makes the Mastermind a nod to the Mumbler species of enemies from the previous game.
• The Faceless: The blob his head is now has no face to speak with.
• Token Human: Downplayed. The Mastermind is still pretty monstrous with the horrific growth on his head, but he looks the second least mutated out of every Moonscorched contestant. The player can even identify the monster as "the yellow mage" if you choose to talk to him during battle.
• The Unintelligible: Attempting to talk with him only results in him mumbling, and the protagonist being unable to make out what it means.

Olivia Haas, the Botanist

"This kind of stuff makes me want to become a hermit and move to a lone shack in the middle of nowhere... just me and the nature..."

A disabled botanist from Bremen who has traveled to Prehevil to search for clues about her missing sister, who was accused of treason by the Bremen Empire.

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• Always Someone Better: She has an inferiority complex about her sister Reila, who has always outshined her at everything, being smarter, more sociable, and healthier than Olivia.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Olivia can climb stairs without dismounting from her wheelchair if she's a party member, saving the player from tediously needing to unequip and re-equip her wheelchair in their inventory.
• Badass Bookworm: Despite her lack of combat experience she's just as capable with one-handed weapons and firearms as the rest of the contestants, even able to wield a trenchgun while pushing her wheelchair around. Though not a physical threat if attacked she'll use Condensed Nettle to permanently lower the player's accuracy which can be crippling if the player doesn't have a Sylvian circle available to heal it.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While she is one of the nicer contestants, Olivia is surprisingly dangerous as an enemy when attacked by the player character, as she'll use her wheelchair as a weapon and attempt to poison or permanently debuff her assailant with her knowledge of botany.
• Can't Use Stairs: Trying to go onto stairs in her wheelchair will simply cause her to slide down. As such, she has to get out of it and crawl up the stairs.
• Difficult, but Awesome: She can make use of her wheelchair mechanics and a shotgun to rapidly kill certain enemies on the overworld, as the stun state she can force them into with it is identical to the state everyone else normally needs to spend an additional shotgun shell to invoke.
• Disability Immunity: Since Olivia's legs are useless she can lose them without any hit to her speed or survivability. On the flipside because she needs her arms to move losing one will halve her movement speed and losing the second immobilises her entirely and is a death sentence.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: It's implied that she resents her wheelchair-bound state, and would prefer that people stop viewing her through the disability lens.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • An egregrious example happens with regards to her limb loss in parties, particularly if she's your protagonist. She suffers the speed reduction and immediate game over or shock that comes with one and both her arms being severed respectively no matter the circumstances surrounding it. This is logical when she's alone, but, given she has access to a wheelchair, which anyone else should reasonably be able to push, this makes a lot less sense when up to 3 of her potentially fully limbed and healthy allies let her hobble her way about Prehevil, or simply sit and die in the event she loses both arms.
  • Even though she's depicted as wearing glasses, she doesn't actually have eyeglasses equipped in her inventory.
• Genius Cripple: Though weak and bound to a wheelchair, Olivia excelled academically, having been constantly ranked top of the class in university.
• Green Thumb: She's heavily suggested to worship Vinushka, as she can start with the relevant Skin Bible, and will have the Photosynthesis skill if recruited. It is implied that she gains further ability over plants in her Ending B, as it states that she's no longer bound by the limitations of human body, and that nature provides for her.
• Handicapped Badass: Although she may get knocked out of her chair in combat, her combat ability is otherwise not penalized by being bound to a wheelchair. To maintain parity with the rest of the cast, this includes jumping over bear traps to avoid them in combat.
• Healing Factor: Starts with Photosynthesis as her sole skill if recruited as a party member. It really doesn't compensate for any of her player skills.
• Hidden Depths: Olivia gets strangely excited about carrying guns.

  Your body is tingling with adrenaline from just holding the rifle. You've never used one before, but oddly it feels just right. Like you were always meant to wield one.

• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Attacks that sever arms are a lot more common than those that sever legs, which can spell the end of her run very quickly if you don't find something that grants her arm or limb loss immunity.
• Late Character Syndrome: Can join the party starting Day 2 after Marcoh and/or Tanaka find a wheelchair, but rather than starting with any of the skills from her tree, she only has Photosynthesis, a skill which allows the user to heal in the sunlight. It makes it hard to justify using her when combined with needing to contend with her wheelchair mechanics.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Her wheelchair is factored into her gameplay in multiple ways:
  • She cannot go up stairs, and must dismount her chair to crawl upwards. In tandem, she has additional speed if she goes down with her chair.
  • If she crashes into an enemy while freewheeling down stairs she'll stun them, allowing them to be killed with a single trenchgun blast.
  • She can be knocked off her chair in combat, leaving her defenseless.
  • She has a unique "Wheels" slot in her equip screen which is always taken up by the Foldable Wheelchair item.
  • She can ignore losing her legs, but losing an arm will slow her down, and missing both arms will result in a game over.
• Nature Hero: She uses her botanical skills to gather plants and, in one case, find a shortcut through the forest. She even states that nature is her only home, and her Ending B results in her traveling around the world, with nature providing for her.
• Nerd Glasses: A botany student with thick black glasses, which accentuate her lack of experience with the supernatural and the harsher sides of life.
• Nervous Wreck: She often gets concerned about her own safety while exploring Prehevil and its surroundings, and has the most scared reaction when attacked or intimidated by you. This is justified by her disability and lack of any experience with combat or the supernatural.
• Nice Girl: One of the kinder contestants all around. She and Tanaka are the most sympathetic of your visitors if you commit murder near the train and get restrained for it.
• Plant Person: Her affinity for nature and the implicit assistance of her sister, the Machine God Logic, makes her this in her B ending, where she appears to have roots where her legs are. The ending describes her as no longer possessing the limitations of the human body thanks in part to nature "(taking) care of (her) no matter where (she) went."
• Poisoned Weapons: Her skill line contains Poison Tip, which makes weapons cause poison with each attack.
• The Power of the Sun: She starts with Vinushka's Photosynthesis if recruited as a party member, which lets her regenerate health during daylight hours while exposed to sunlight.
• Schrödinger's Gun: If you're not playing as her, she isn't initially recruitable because she doesn't have a wheelchair with her; somebody was supposed to deliver one to the station for her when the train arrived. If you are playing as her, then she did bring one with her on the train.
• Ship Tease: Reading her mind as Marina or Levi in the demo reveals she's attracted to both.
• Significant Birth Date: Having been born slightly earlier than her sister, her birthday is December 31. Which, if you get Ending A as her, may fit her perfectly, as she unwittingly ends up helping her sister ascend as a god, an event heavily implied to start a new age of history. Even if you don't, her Ending B implies that Reila ascended anyway.
• Story Branch Favoritism: Although Ending A can be achieved by anyone, Olivia is slightly nudged towards it — not only is the Machine God's host her sister Reila, but Olivia is also the only playable character who gets unique dialogue directed towards her.
• Stronger Than They Look: Don't be fooled by her being bound to a wheelchair to traverse the area, as Olivia can go anywhere just as well as anyone else. Even a ladder won't deter her, as her animation shows her using her arms alone to climb.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Olivia suffers from this, as while she did rather well with studying botany, Reila not only excels at her studies, she has a much stronger body and social skills. Olivia's unique soul is the "Shadowed Soul", reflecting her feeling of inferiority to her sister.
• Took a Level in Badass: She starts off as a nervous, scared, and least combative contestant. In her Ending B, she becomes much more confident and courageous after resolving her trauma over the festival, and also sheds the limitations of human body. Thus, she ends up traveling to the most remote of places in her botanical studies, feeling true freedom for the first time in her life.
• Walking the Earth: She states a desire to travel around the world to see the beauty of nature. In her Ending B, she does just that, traveling even to the most remote of locations, relying on nature to provide for her.
• Wheelchair Antics: If attacked by the player, she'll drift her wheelchair to tackle for a surprising amount of damage. She'll also do the same when attacking unarmed as a party member, and appears to drift on dead bodies when beating them. She can also stun enemies on her way down stairs by bowling them over with her chair.

Mechanical Dance

The Mechanical Dance slowly approaches you...

Olivia's moonscorched form. The embodiment of her resentment over her disability. If allowed to transform, she can be found inside the museum's halls.

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• Don't Look At Me: Olivia's shame over what she has become leads her to scream at whoever confronts her to not look upon her.
• I Am a Monster: Her self-loathing is so great that she refers to herself as a "freak" and "monster", amongst other insults, should you try to reason with her.
• Irony: Despite being the one most attuned with nature of the group, Olivia's moonscorched form is a robot-like being that represents Olivia's hatred of being forever tied to machinery to function.
• Mechanical Abomination: As a dark mockery of Olivia's life as a botanist attuned with nature, the Mechanical Dance is a creature made from steel.
• Shared Family Quirks: Her and her sister, Logic, share the same robotic aesthetic in their transformations.

Marcoh, the Thug/Boxer

"It doesn't matter how much you get punched, what matters is how many punches you can take. And how hard you can punch back. And how many times you get back up to punch again, or something along those lines, that's what my coach used to say..."

A boxer from Vatican City who got mixed up with the mafia. He's on the run from both the police and the mafia after killing his own mafia boss, and ended up traveling to Prehevil by circumstance.

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• Ambiguously Gay: There a few hints that Marcoh might be gay, but no actual confirmation is given:
  • Caligura calls him a faggot and claims that he was dallying (which can be slang for having sexual relations with somebody) with one of his men, but it remains ambiguous as to whether Caligura was serious, or if he was sarcastically referring to that encounter as being sexual. As he then says that the soldier was killed, however, it's likely that he genuinely thought they were having sex.
  • He doesn't seem to have a wife or even a lover at an age of 31. With the setting being highly reminiscent of the real 1940's, that would be somewhat rare for a heterosexual or bisexual man, with a lack of any marriages sometimes being used to imply homosexuality.
  • After visting the Museum, he compares the party inside to Sodom and Gomorrah, and once Daan suggests joining in, he responds positively to it (as a last resort plan). He likely didn't mean it in any way seriously, but considering that Sodom is associated with homosexuality...
• The Atoner: When on the mob's payroll, he was forced to murder a man in the ring. His guilt for this ties into his Moonscorched form, and he's one of 5 contestants that will restrain you for murder if he's nearby. His Ending B also has him atone for the people he killed (both before and during the festival) by teaching people to fight against the supernatural.
• Badass Arm-Fold: Prone to doing it whenever waiting around, to the point that Tanaka takes after him.
• Badass Normal: All of his combat expertise comes from completely mundane boxing and streetfighting experience, but it's enough to let him fight his way past a club full of mobsters, and is reasonably effective against the monstrosities of Prehevil. Can turn into Empowered Badass Normal if you teach him spells.
• Berserk Button: If he sees a Bremen officer, he has to punch them. This can result in Pav shooting him if the player doesn't intervene.
• Big Brother Instinct: Turned either to a life of crime or boxing in order to provide for his sister, even killing a dangerous man who had gotten romantically involved with her.
• The Big Guy: One of the two party members who specializes in physical combat, with his unarmed attack being just as good as most weapons are. As the protagonist, he starts with better base stats, and can learn several skills for combat. And as a recruitable character, he's very much aware of his role, and suggests that the party lets him deal with any enemies.
• Boxing Battler: Having been a boxer throughout his whole life, his fists strike twice and do more damage, and he can learn the bare-fisted proficiency to improve unarmed accuracy. His other skills are also tied to his experience in boxing, such as bobbing and weaving.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Despite his tough demeanor and excellent skill with his fists, he's shown to be rather quiet with a good moral compass. If one plays as Olivia and talks to him on the train, he'll act shy and awkward around her.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: You'd expect him to be either doping up on something good or supernaturally strong by virtue of his punches being capable of dismembering his enemies far easier than any other contestant. But nope, he (was) just a normal boxer.
• Casualty in the Ring: His backstory involves him being forced to kill an ex-mobster under the cover of a boxing match.
• Counter-Attack: The Counter Stance is in his skill tree, allowing him to automatically strike back when the enemy attacks.
• Didn't Need Those Anyway!: Losing his arms is a relatively minor inconvenience to Marcoh, as he can box just as effectively with bloody stumps. You'll probably want to give him one of the game's powerful two-handed weapons or especially a firearm if he's your protagonist, so it's not ideal, but compared to the rest of the contestants, he can get by surprisingly well without them.
• Does Not Like Guns: Has made a vow to himself to not use any guns, although the situation in Prehevil may force him to break it, depending on the player's choice.
• Determinator: Tells to move forward with motivational phrases and once calls all complaining team members punching bags. If the party falls into a rural toilet, he is the only one who does not give up in a seemingly hopeless situation.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Can become this if taught spells.
• Expy: Based on ​Rocky Balboa and Kazuma Kiryu. A common misconception is that Marcoh is based on Jotaro Kujo, but Miro has never watched the series; while Hirohiko Araki's art was used as reference, Marcoh isn't really based on any particular JoJo character.
• Face of a Thug: His powerful physique and boxing skill initially scare Olivia, as she doesn't yet know him to be a kind-hearted man who will actually interact pretty nicely with her.
• Fight Clubbing: He got his first proper experience in boxing by participating in underground rings, as they pay better than streetfighting and don't come with the risk of opponents pulling knives.
• Foil: To Caligura. While his tree in the Hexen is completely distinct from his fellow gangster, he can choose to start with half of Caligura's skills through his backstory, and both have shady, entwined backgrounds. But where Caligura is a ruthless thug concerned for no one but himself, Marcoh is a kind, well-meaning man who teaches Tanaka how to box and will help him retrieve Olivia's wheelchair if the player doesn't.
• Functional Addict: Implied in his backstory, as the "Take your luxury products with you" option gives him pep pills (which are amphetamines) and heroin, thus showing that he does drugs recreationally. He doesn't start with a heroin addiction, however, nor does he ever complain about withdrawals, but appears to be on his last legs: if he does take heroin in Prehevil, he will be as badly affected by withdrawal as Levi.
• Gathering Steam: Adrenaline Rush, which slowly increases normal attack with each turn.
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: Unlike the rest of the contestants, who have a reason to specifically go to Prehevil, or don't have one known (like Henryk and Caligura), the only reason Marcoh is even present is because he took the first train out of Vatican City after killing his mafia boss. If he took a later train or killed his boss at a different time, he wouldn't be present at all.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's icy outwardly, spending most of the game sitting around at the train, and his angry streak can lead to him being held at gunpoint by Pavel, but he's one of the more thoroughly kind participants underneath it. He'll be one of the quickest to restrain a player he sees kill someone, yet still treat them with a degree of empathy after tying them up and questioning them, offering blunt but solid advice about living with one's mistakes, and unless Olivia is the protagonist, he's very likely spending time there primarily to keep company with the one person who can't explore the city without a wheelchair, only finally heading out to find her one. If he and Tanaka both survive to this point, even, he'll proceed to train him in boxing.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: He generally does best when unarmed, and disdains firearms, so it's possible to invoke this trope while playing him. He is also one of the most heroic contestants, restraining you for murder when close by, going out of his way to get Olivia's wheelchair, and training Tanaka in combat, while Ending B has him atone for his murders by helping people train to fight the supernatural.
• Heroic Build: His broad shoulders and muscular neck make him stand out, and get him called a big chad by Marina. It's particularly noticeable in his ending photo, which shows him to be rather large in comparison to the average-sized people around him, with well-developed legs.
• Hidden Depths: Checking a book in the book store with Marcoh as your player character reveals he's fond of historical comedies, unlike how everyone else dislikes them.
• Killing Intent: He thought that Riccardo could sense it from miles away, which is why they never met one-on-one. If he opts to kill Riccardo straight away instead of initially trying to flee the city, he'll also learn Caligura's Killing Intent skill.
• Lightning Bruiser: Marcoh hits harder than anyone else right out the gate, has the potential to start with higher base Agility than anyone else, and can further augment his speed with Speed Stance, making him the only character who can natively gain two turns a round, freeing up equipment or Marina's face runes for anything else he wants. While he has to pick only one of his skills during his backstory, he's also got three potent defensive options in Perfect Guard, Counter Stance, and Bob and Weave, letting him deal damage, dodge, and guard to more readily tank hits all in the same turn once he develops a bit in the Hexen.
• Master of Unlocking: Capable of starting with Lockpicking as the protagonist, if he chose to be a burglar.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He'll eventually teach Tanaka in boxing if they both survive for long enough. On Day 3, however, he'll moonscorch if he goes to the White Apartments together with Tanaka just as the latter gains courage and finishes his training.
• Nerves of Steel: In a downplayed variant, he merely grits his teeth while getting his legs cut off by the Janitor, and doesn't show any reaction while getting raped by Needles. However, he still gets shocked by other events that provoke such a reaction from most contestants.
• No Social Skills: If present when Marina finds the corpse of her father Marcoh will uncomfortably ask if she could use a hug. If the player says yes he'll awkwardly attempt to offer one and end up patting her on the shoulder instead.
• One-Man Army: In a downplayed variant, he managed to fight his way past a dozen mobsters after killing Riccardo, getting out with only minor injuries.
• Parental Abandonment: His parents disappeared for reasons he can't remember, leaving him alone to care for his sister.
• Pet the Dog: Marcoh and Tanaka will be the ones who bring a new wheelchair back to the train for Olivia if found during their standoff with Pav on Day 2.
• Promoted to Parent: After his parents perished in an incident not even he can remember, he was tasked with taking care of his sister in the Vatican. Unable to turn to the church for help, he either began working as a crook or failed to make an honest living. He then turned to boxing in the street for cash for the both of them.
• Real Men Wear Pink: It seems he's fond of animals when you choose to talk to him in certain locations. He talks to toads in the forest and calls a scurrying sewer rat cute, and both times he gets embarrassed when he finds you listening.
• Rebel Relaxation: Ends up doing this pose in the ending picture if he survives.
• Recruitment by Rescue: Should you save him from getting shot by Pav, he'll join your party after being done with training Tanaka (or immediately, if Tanaka's dead).
• Signature Move: His Quick Jabs, which allow him to punch twice with higher damage, are the only ability that can't be learned by killing him, as they don't count as a skill. That said, he'll eventually teach Tanaka to box, allowing him to also perform quick jabs.
• Trapped in Villainy: Marcoh ended up being forced by the mobster Riccardo to work as his thug, as Riccardo threatened to harm his sister if he refused. He eventually ended up solving the issue by killing Riccardo, then taking the first train available out of town... which was heading to Prehevil.
• Video Game Stealing: Can opt to start with the Steal skill, if he was a pickpocket in his youth.

Giant

The hulking creature eminates rage and violence!

Marcoh's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his fear of his violent tendencies. If allowed to transform, he can be found in the Rher's dimension version of the White Mold Apartments.

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• The Berserker: He relentlessly charges towards you, and trying too hard to convince him to stand down just angers him more.
• Evil Is Bigger: Marcoh's above-average height becomes a grotesque exaggeration — the Giant fittingly towers over the player character.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: The Giant has numerous eyes scattered around his torso.
• One-Word Vocabulary: He is only capable of screaming the word "guilt" in this form.
  G-GUILT! GUILT!
• These Hands Have Killed: One of the Giant's arms has a vaguely humanoid figure at the end, mimicking a violent choking, symbolising Marcoh's fears and guilt over what he had done due to his criminal connections.
• Visual Innuendo: As the fight goes on, the shrunken sac on the Giant's head gets erect.

Karin Sauer, the Journalist

"Why can't anything be normal in this hellhole?"

A journalist from Bremen that opposes her country's imperialist goals. She traveled to Prehevil to investigate why the Kaiser seems to have so much interest in the area.

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• Accidental Murder: When confronting August about his suspicious behavior, she can end up shooting him by reflex when he attempts to disarm her, which kills him. She's clearly horrified by it.
• Agent Scully: She doesn't have any experience with the occult, and often attempts to try to rationalize some logical explanation of the obvious supernatural occurrences happening all around her.
• Badass Bystander: If you kill a contestant around her, she performs a citizen’s arrest on you, much like Marcoh, Abella, Daan, and Tanaka. Unlike those four, she merely holds you at gunpoint. Also unlike those four, she will kill you if you attempt to struggle.
• Berserk Button: The Bremen military is one for her, as meeting Pav while playing as her will have all your replies be cold or outright insulting.
• Character Tics: Always keeps her hands in her pockets even while fighting or running, taking them out only when performing an action in battle, climbing a ladder, dragging herself with her legs removed, or holding a gun outside of combat.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Though dismissive of the supernatural, the idea of a conspiracy by the New Gods and them being responsible for the Great Wars seems plausible to her, which is part of why she travels to Prehevil. She's also very quick to blame the events in Prehevil on being an experiment by the Bremen Empire. In her Ending B, she also starts believing in the supernatural and becomes a full-fledged conspiracy theorist, trying to find proof on the Kaiser and the New Gods.
• Crutch Character: Her utility abilities make her a good choice for newer players still learning the game, but are less useful for experienced players. Lockpicking is useful for exploration, Escape Plan lets her flee from enemies more easily and Persuade and Diplomacy help her learn which enemies have useful Talk options without wasting a turn, as well as dealing with bobbies. Her lack of any combat skills, combined with the inability to use two-handed weapons, make her less useful to more seasoned players who can use keys or brute force on key doors and who are better at avoiding unfavorable enounters.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Formerly, as she used to hate the mere idea of guns. Nowadays, though, she sees guns as simple tools, and it's the people behind guns that disgust her.
• Escape Battle Technique: Her Escape Plan skill, which increases the chance of escape when the protagonist uses their Run skill.
• Expy: Of Cahara of the first game. They spent their childhoods in Eastern Sanctuaries (specifically, the city of Jettaiah) and share the Endless Soul, causing both to seek endless freedom and outlets for creativity in their backstories. Also, she acquires his Lockpicking and Escape Plan skills.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: She's constantly searching for a rational explanation to everything, and seems to be dismissive of magic and religion, even though the gods are undoubtedly real, and you can cast magic right in front of her (or even teach her magic). Gets to a ridiculous point when her "radiation" theory gets dismissed by Daan (as mutation from it doesn't happen that quickly), and she just dismisses Daan back.
• Going for the Big Scoop: She travels to Prehevil right after it recently gets annexed by the Bremen Empire, despite the personal risk posed by trying to uncover the real reasons behind it's capture. Even when she finds out that the town has been ravaged by Rher, she still initially insists on going in alone instead of joining the player's party.
• Good is Not Nice: Karin has high moral integrity and puts her life on the life to make the world a better place, yet she can be quite stubborn and has a nasty temper, and be quite a jerk when interacting with the other contestants, even the nice ones. She also tells you to kill Caligura after he murders Levi, as letting him remain alive would endanger the surviving contestants.
• Guile Hero: As the protagonist, she may learn Persuasion and Diplomacy, allowing her to avoid fights or make them easier by talking to enemies.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She can be quite temperamental when dealing with the other contestants and will often snap at them if annoyed, especially with Daan since he often challenges her Agent Scully act.
• Hypocrite: If not the player character, she insults Daan is by calling him a queer/flaky eyepatched foreigner. While they're on Bremen territory, it was only recently occupied, with the residents being all bohemians, so Karin is effectively a foreigner herself. She's also shown to dislike Bremen's imperialism, which makes the phrase rather ironic.
• Intrepid Reporter: Karin, a journalist, is one of these: she's previously been to combat zones to report on the activities of the Bremen Empire, and she travels to Prehevil to investigate evidence of another Bremen conspiracy. Despite the fact that the city is infested with monsters and otherworldly activity, she ventures in alone to figure out what's happening. She's also armed with a pistol, which she carries with her everywhere she goes.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Her confrontation with August can potentially result in her shooting him dead by impulse, which she quickly freaks out over.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: Medical science isn't her strongest suit, leading to heated arguments with Daan:
  • The first is when she blames the shared dream on Bremen hallucinogens. Daan then tells her that he never encountered anything that can produce such dreams, nevermind anything that would have the same dream happen to 14 people at once. She still keeps insisting on her conspiracy theory and insults him, annoying Daan further.
  • Another one is when she tries to explain the moonscorch as simply being radiation. As Daan points out, short-term exposure would not mutate anybody (the moonscorching happens over only a few hours), and anything intense would've killed the contestants by now. She doesn't care, however, and simply dismisses Daan.
• I Work Alone: Initially insists on going alone into Prehevil, which is the reason for her refusing to join the player on Day 1. On Day 2, however, she eventually realizes that the whole situation is too dangerous to go solo, and will be willing to join the party.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Most of her most abrasive moments have an ultimately reasonable basis; she's one of the harshest to a player character restrained after killing someone, and her confrontation with August is prompted by discovering that he was keeping detailed notes not only on the profiles of every other contestant, but how easily he could kill them should the need arise. She's prone in general to keeping people at arm's length, and a great deal of the things that can happen throughout the game prove it to be a very reasonable stance to take.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although very abrasive and stubborn on her opinions, some of her dialogue and backstory make it clear that the strong opinions come from her hate for the injustices of the world, and that she engages in journalism in order to uncover them.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Downplayed in that while she is a competent journalist and makes a few correct observations, her Agent Scully act results in her making a lot of wild theories, then arguing with others who try to refute them. Speaking to Daan on Day 1 morning after voicing the "Bremen experiment" theory while playing as her will also have you choose between either saying that you're never wrong, or that it happens only in extremely rare cases.
• Late Character Syndrome: If not chosen as the protagonist, she only offers Lockpicking. Because she can only be recruited on Day 2, however, you'll usually have a sufficient supply of small keys to open doors with, and are likely to have assembled enough party members that you can easily break down any door in your path. She also can't equip two-handed weapons, reducing her usefulness in late-game combat.
• Literal Metaphor: Her comparison of war reporters to valkyries carrying soldiers on their backs. Her moonscorched form is, in fact, a valkyrie with bellends on her back.
• Master of Unlocking: Capable of learning Lockpicking due to her soul. If recruited by the Player Character, she'll already know it, and will gladly open any pickable doors.
• My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Though born in Bremen, she's extremely hateful of the current government and it's military, as the ruler is a fascist war criminal who also instigated the populist riots that harmed her family.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Her theory of choice is that everything going on in Prehevil relates to an experiment by the occupying Bremen army. They are, in fact, worsening the situation in the name of a grand experiment, but it's also in every way exactly as mystical and metaphysical as she rejects it being, and the effects of the Moon God that cause the most direct problems for the cast are obviously out of the Kaiser's control.
• Shout-Out: She'll tell you that she's covered wars, you know.
• Support Party Member: As the protagonist, Escape Plan helps her escape unfavorable fights, while Persuade and Diplomacy work wonders for debuffing enemies. However, her offensive power is hampered by her inability to wield two-handed weapons.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Her Diplomacy skill is a downplayed example, as it causes you to open each fight by talking to the enemy. Any subsequent attempts at talking, however, will still consume your turn.
• Utility Party Member: If recruited into the party, her lockpicking skill is handy to avoid key hunting or having to bash down doors. She doesn't start with any combat skills, however, and is incapable of using two-handed melee weapons, leaving unique swords or ammo-consuming firearms as her best choice for doing damage.
• Valkyries: Compares herself to one, carrying the stories of the people on her back. It's more literal than she thinks, as she will become a harpy-like creature literally carrying soldiers on her back if she is moonscorched.
• We Need to Get Proof: Once she gets to Prehevil, she ends up being focused on trying to get proof about what happened in Prehevil, and you can spot her taking photos on Day 2. In her Ending B, she starts to devote her life to finding proof for the rumors about the Kaiser and the New Gods, as her conspiracy theories would look like the ramblings of a mad woman otherwise.

Valkyrie

The Valkyrie is carrying the deceased warriors on its back.

Karin's moonscorched form. The embodiment of her conflicting thoughts about her career. If allowed to transform, she can be found perched on the island by the lake.

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• Dark Is Evil: The Valkyrie is covered in dark feathers and embodies the more unscrupulous aspects of its host's career.
• Giant Flyer: As the Valkyrie, Karin towers over the player character — one of her wings is about as wide as they are tall.
• Valkyries: As a dark echo of Karin's comparison, she becomes a literal grotesque valkyrie with numerous bellends being carried by her.
• Vile Vulture: Some of Karin's reservations about her work as a journalist is how she feels as if she is feeding off of the misery and losses of other people for her own gain, not unlike a vulture. As a result, her Moonscorched form becomes a mockery of her self-comparison to a Valkyrie, combining it with vulture-like traits.

Other Participants

Henryk

"It's my word. I can backpedal all I want. I say it was nothing. We should just move on."

A chef hailing from the country of Rondon. He's secretive about his reasons for coming to Prehevil.

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• Amazon Chaser: He's openly attracted to Abella, the most physically fit of the female characters, often flirting with her, but ignoring the other girls.
• Ambiguous Criminal History: Even though he appears to just be a chef, he happens to know of Caligura's reputation (even though they're both from different countries), and intimidating his moonscorched self with Caligura's skills will have him remark on you acting like a mob boss. He also happens to be one of the most dangerous contestants as a human, has Melee Proficiency in his skill tree, and is capable of poisoning food.
• Ambiguously Trained: Though he simply claims to be a chef and is rather cowardly, it's implied that he might have served in the military, as he is unusually fast with his knife, is the only non-disabled contestant to kick in combat, and has the Melee Proficiency in his skill tree. His knife attacks also cause infection, implying that he intentionally got it dirty for combat use, thus suggesting a knowledge of dirty tricks.
• An Arm and a Leg: One of the only contestants to acknowledge the loss of his in a fight. It's not a coincidence that he proceeds to kick you once both his arms are severed.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Competence in a fight and his brief episode in the mansion aside, there's no indication whatsoever that Henryk is anything but well meaning. Even reading his mind doesn't offer insight into his decision to murder the contestants staying in PRHVL Bop via tampered food. Granted, given that if he does this, he'll be Moonscorched at the Mayor's Manor after, it's likely that the mutation had something to do with it.
• Chef of Iron: Although rather cowardly, he's one of the hardest contestants to fight in their human form. Not to mention that his skill tree contains melee proficiency.
• Covert Pervert: His first line of the game if talked to is casually remarking on Abella's behind, to her chagrin.
• Cowardly Lion: Although his skill tree has melee proficiency, and he's one of the more difficult contestants to fight (as he gets double turns and tends to act first), he also refuses to fight you if you murder a person in front of him, and Nash'Rah even calls him a coward.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Normally, he's an everyman who also happens to be a coward and a hopeless flirt, with his interactions with Abella serving as comic relief. If you attack him, however, he'll become much more brave (not even allowing you to run away) and start rapidly slashing away with his knife.
• The Farmer and the Viper: If you rescue him and tell him to head to PRHVL Bop, he will eventually poison everyone in the club on Day 3, including those who were you while you getting him out of the mansion. However, it's implied that this is being caused by the moonscorch, as he becomes the Gentleman afterwards.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Can potentially be threatened by Caligura, which if the player doesn't interfere will get him killed, but try fighting either of them and it's clear that Henryk vastly outclasses him.
• Lightning Bruiser: Fought in combat as a human, he's one of the strongest non-moonscorched contestants, doing a decent amount of damage with his knife (along with bleeding and infection), almost always striking twice and first, and with just as much health as some of the toughest contestants, with no damage vulnerabilities.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Downplayed as Henryk isn't recruitable, but snapping him out of his transformation by going to the mayor's house immediately transforms Abella and vice-versa. The only two ways to save both in one playthrough is to either play as Abella herself, or hurry to the White Bunker as O'saa without sleeping, as either one will mutate in the evening.
• Supreme Chef: His skill tree has the Masterchef skill, which allows you to cook stat-buffing food. He's also the only person who can cook the food found in the town's pantry.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Inviting him to the PHVL Bop and sleeping on Day 3 will cause him to poison every character in the bar. This can kill up to eight contestants if you had been trying to recruit everyone you could.
• Team Chef: If rescued, he'll start cooking food at the train (or at the restaurant/cafe/PRHVL Bop, if told to go there), allowing you to relieve hunger for free.

Gentleman

The Gentleman rises from the dinner table to confront you!

Henryk's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his obsession with respectable behavior. If allowed to transform, he can be found inside the mayor's manor.

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• Berserk Button: If you wish to avoid battle with what has become of the Gentleman, do NOT:
  • Refuse to sit down for dinner.
  • Mention his antlers. Jeeves even specifically points out that he's sensitive about them.
  • Reject his food.
  • Say the word "genitalia".
  • Imply that his cooking is ordinary.
  • Show support for the Bremen Army.
• Dual Wielding: After transforming into the mayor, he'll dual-wield a knife and a fork.
• Fork Fencing: As the mayor, he wields a rather large fork. It actually hurts more than the knife, though it doesn't remove limbs.
• Magic Pants: Henryk's mutation into the Gentleman causes his body to increase in size, particularly around his upper chest. Despite this, his only article of clothing to be destroyed are his shoes.
  • Averted in an earlier version of his battle sprite, but the lack of pants ends up being dissonant in a funny, rather than frightening, way.
• Pet the Dog: If he becomes the Mayor of Prehevil, he actually remains rather cordial, provided the protagonist returns the gesture. He will actually give the player the lion-head key if they prove to be decent company, with the only stipulation being they don't tell the army he helped them.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Although his moon-scorched form is the least violent of all contestants, he'll still attack you if you say anything vulgar or call his cooking ordinary. And, being a chef, he'll fight you with a knife (alongside a fork).
• Villainous Glutton: He appears to be a fat, disfigured man who forces the party to have dinner with him, and will attack them if they insult his disgusting-looking food. If left alive, he'll also kidnap Marina, keeping her in one of the mansion's bedrooms on night 1. Should the party be polite during his dinner, however, he'll hand over one of the two keys to the city.
• Warm-Up Boss: Almost definitely going to be the first Moonscorched encountered, but given that what triggers him is also the player’s first opportunity to save, the heavy ways he can hit a player are a (relatively) safe way to demonstrate that they can be quite threatening. Still though, his torso HP isn’t especially high, and though dangerous, his attacks are also fairly simple.
• Wicked Pretentious: He puts on a facade of sophistication and refinement, with strange, phallic food he insists are delicacies and an inflated sense of self importance and culture, contrasting the well traveled but humble man he once was.

Pavel "Pav" Yudin

"That's what they whisper in the dark of the night. Supposedly he cut all opposition down, quite literally, and took Bremen council by force after they refused to appoint him as the chancellor despite having the general public behind him. The rumours say that the military police couldn't slow him down with their gunfire. I called it bullshit, but here we are... I don't know what to believe anymore."

An officer in the Bremen Army who traveled to Prehevil in search of the Kaiser.

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• Acceptable Targets: In-Universe. The Bremen Army is despised by just about everyone else in the cast, so even if he's injured and resting on the train, he won't trigger the usual response of restraining the player character that attacking another participant prompts. Your party members will also never hesitate to kill him, even if you didn't see him kill anybody.
• Agent Peacock: A rather flamboyant man who casually shows off a Navel-Deep Neckline. Also an experienced soldier with a draw quick enough to shoot a party member before you get your first turn.
• Ambiguously Bi: Even though he flirts with all the female characters, he also flirts with O'saa and Marcoh in the demo and in the actual version, though it's only present in the code and isn't viewable normally.:
  • For Marcoh he says "You don't try to swing those meat hammers around me and I won't whip out my little peacemaker. Simple." (and instead of "Take it easy. I saw you at the train already.", for Marcoh he says "Take it easy big man. I saw you sleeping at the train already.", and Marcoh is the only one with that unique line)
  • For O'saa he says "I'm not too fond of you witch doctor types. You can never really tell what goes on inside those freaky yellow eyes of yours."
• Becoming the Mask: He may have joined the Bremen Army to get close to the Kaiser, but as an officer, that meant years of serving it faithfully. He regularly comes into conflict with contestants who aren't fond of Bremen's imperialism as a result.
• Best Served Cold: His reason for joining the Bremen army, as a way to get close to the Kaiser and kill him for burning down Pav's village. Though he didn't know that the Kaiser, as a new god, would be rather resistant to bullets.
• Doomed Hometown: His home village has been burnt down (along will all his relatives) by the Kaiser's forces in the First Great War.
• Doomed Hurt Guy: If you patch up his wounds after he gets injured by the Kaiser, he'll die anyway by the afternoon of Day 3. However, it can be averted if you finish the game before that, in which case he's shown to survive his injury.
• Extra Turn: His skill tree is oriented towards this, with En Garde allowing the protagonist to open the fight with a free attack, while Order, Attack! makes the rest of the party perform an additional attack.
• Fastest Gun in the West: If engaged in combat, he'll immediately shoot a party member before you're even able to choose your actions.
• Freudian Slip: Invoked by him the first time you meet him.
  Pav: "Be killing you- I mean, be seeing you later!"
• Hated by All: None of the other contestants have an initial positive opinion of him due to his open membership in the Bremen Army and somewhat inappropriate behavior, to the point that nobody will hesitate to kill him in combat and anybody who would normally restrain you for murder will instead look the other way.
• Heroic Safe Mode: His "Bury the Trauma" is noted to work as this, allowing one to deal with the stress of situation in a safer place, after the festival ends. Fittingly, it reduces one's passive Mind drain from dark places.
• In Spite of a Nail: You can attempt to treat his wounds after the Kaiser retaliates against him, but he dies regardless if the game isn't finished before the 3rd afternoon.
• Killed Offscreen: He will always die by Day 3 afternoon, possibly with no body to be found, being one of the few contestants that has no moonscorched form.
• Marked Bullet: Mentions having one for the Kaiser in his confrontation with him.
• Mr. Fanservice: A very conventionally attractive character who dresses the most provocatively of the cast, prone to flirtatious or teasing behavior when antagonizing them. His open shirt and v-neck emphasize his muscular figure further, especially in his battle portrait.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: His shirt has a v-shaped neckline that goes down to his midsection.
• Poor Communication Kills: He genuinely has no intent of participating in the game, solely focused on his mission, but his standoffishness and the cast's natural distrust towards Bremen's military can combine in nasty ways, potentially getting him killed in altercations with the player or getting him to shoot and kill Tanaka and Marcoh when the latter provokes him. No one even knows he's defected and out to kill his former leader until his running off to handle that solo has ended disastrously.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Heavily implied by one of his skills being called Bury the Trauma (which reduces passive Mind loss).
• The Worf Effect: With his point-blank shot and ability to potentially kill an ally as massively strong as Marcoh, it's clear that Pav's rank is no joke. He gets defeated in a single hit to the Kaiser near the tower, his gunfire having no effect on the man as he pacifies him in a single slash.

Kida Tanaka

“We live in the 1940s. We are civilized people, not some bloodthirsty barbarians of the yore. Let's act like it!”

A businessman from Edo who is traveling all over Europa to support his family's business.

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• All Asians Know Martial Arts: A downplayed variant, as he's by no means a great fighter, but when restraining the player for murder, he's noted to apply an arm lock, instead of using anatomical knowledge (like Daan) or brute strength (which is what Marcoh and Abella rely on). He's also the only Asian character in the game.
• Badass Arm-Fold: If he survives, he ends up doing this pose in the ending picture, as if taking after Marcoh.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Although he seems rather meek (in part due to the number of ways he can die), he's capable of revving up if you don't cut off his arm (ignoring the normal limitations that the player suffers), even gaining agility bonuses from doing it twice, unlike the player (to the point of getting an extra turn), and his suitcase can do a decent amount of damage. He's also one of the four contestants who will restrain you if they witness you commit murder, using a joint lock to do so. Marcoh's training will eventually make him a better fighter, to the point that he'll become comparable to his teacher.
• Boring, but Practical: His aptly named Latent Soul's skill tree is comprised entirely of stat boosts, with no special abilities otherwise. These boosts are nonetheless universally useful, particularly the +1 to Agility.
• Born Unlucky: Tanaka can be killed in a myriad of different ways throughout the festival, including one method that is all but pre-ordained to happen on most players' first playthroughs. It's unlikely he'll survive the events of the game without careful player intervention.
• Boxing Battler: Provided that he survives along with Marcoh, he'll eventually get trained in boxing, allowing him to use its techniques in combat.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: If he gets trained by Marcoh, but is forced to go alone to the White Mold Apartments on Day 3, he'll appear to have been driven murderously insane by the mold, attacking you with a blank expression on his face and no reaction to anything you say.
• The Coats Are Off: He's at his weakest when wearing the suit jacket. Being trained by Marcoh will have him remove the jacket, with his combat stats improving.
• Handbag of Hurt: Tanaka uses a suitcase to attack you if you fight him. It's surpringly lethal, too.
• Instant Expert: It takes him the space of a single day of training to box with comparable competence to Marcoh, a years long pugilist skilled and powerful enough to kill his opponent in the ring.
• Martial Arts Headband: He'll eventually don one of these after being trained by Marcoh in boxing.
• Martial Pacifist: Tanaka doesn't want to fight, to the point where if he's attacked by the player, he offers peace when talked to. If you accept it yet keep attacking, however, the betrayal will make him rev up twice.
• Moveset Clone: If Tanaka is trained by Marcoh, he'll use the exact same attacks as his trainer.
• Nice Guy: He's the nicest and most friendly character in the game. Even if the player attacks, he's the easiest to talk down.
• Odd Friendship: He's found around Prehevil mostly with Marcoh, despite their differences. Provided they both survive the standoff with Pav, they will bring a wheelchair back to the train for Olivia.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Downplayed and Implied. Fighting Needles after Tanaka gets killed by him will have the Monster Clown's head be much easier to damage, which could mean that Tanaka at least didn't go down without a fight. Though he'll be moonscorched if a post-Face–Heel Turn August doesn't kill him on the final night, the fact that he did last long enough to be killed by him also implies that he's one of the characters most resistant to Moonscorching.
• Salaryman: Tanaka travels to Prehevil for business purposes: he's there to try to expand his family's company. He wears a salaryman's hat and carries a briefcase.
• Token Minority: Tanaka is the only Asian character in the game, with Edo being a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Japan.
• Took a Level in Badass: If Marcoh trains him in boxing, he'll become a more dangerous fighter due to gaining more HP on his arms and torso. Once he puts the headband on, he'll start fighting with boxing techniques instead of the briefcase. And on day 3, he will promise to avenge Marcoh if he gets moonsorched in the apartments, showing him to become much more brave in the process.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Prone to suffering this fate, as he can be beheaded by Needles in Bunker 7 (unless the player reaches the city before traveling far enough into the bunker to hear it, requiring the player to find bolt cutters), killed by the woodsman if you jump into the well, shot dead by Pav, or killed by August.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Reading his mind reveals he's worried about missing an important meeting and disappointing his father.

Judgement

The Judgement marches towards you without hesitation.

Tanaka's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his job consuming his life, and his inability to achieve his true potential without grave self sacrifice. If allowed to transform, he can be found inside the museum's halls.

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• Ambiguously Human: Even more than Mastermind, Judgement appears almost entirely human, with his torture implements being the only thing visually off about him. Performing an autopsy on him does reveal that the injuries he suffered from the glass shards embedded into his body and the torture device disfiguring his neck would have killed any normal human, if nothing else.
• Deliberately Painful Clothing: The player can notice that he was wearing a torture cube stretching his neck, most likely to demonstrate that he can still work despite pain.
• The Power of Glass: Judgement manipulates glass against his opponents, able to hit the entire party at once to cause massive bleeding.
• A Taste of the Lash: He holds a cat-o-nine-tails, and it's implied that he has used it on himself as self-punishment. Confront him, and he'll just as easily use it upon you.
• Visual Pun: The glass shards protruding out of his head and arm represent Judgement breaking the glass ceiling holding Tanaka back.
• Workaholic: Attempting to talk to him causes Judgement to ramble on about doing his job, and he brushes off the crossword puzzle he filled in while still human if the protagonist shows it him.

Samarie

"I'm no one... Just a lonely caterpillar waiting to shed her skin..."

A dark priest who fell in love with Marina during their schooling days. She stalked her all the way to Prehevil in order to "protect" her.

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• Bait-and-Switch: Saving her and asking her to join you leads to her giving it consideration, before responding with a flat "no".
• Blood Magic: Her blood sacrifice, performed via slitting one's throat on a Gro-Goroth circle. It doesn't cast any magic by itself, but the increase in affinity allows unlocking stronger spells.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Samarie has an extremely unhealthy pale skin tone, jet-black hair, and has rather dubious motivations.
• Goth Girls Know Magic: Samarie's pale skin and black makeup and dress makes her look akin to a stereotypical goth. She is also a rather talented dark priest with ties to both Gro-goroth and Sylvian.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Reading her mind if you find her after she kills Father Domek reveals that she is utterly traumatized by the fact that she has killed someone.
• Psycho Lesbian: Downplayed: Samarie is in love with Marina, and killed her father after implying Marina hated him — although she quickly suffers a mental break over taking a life and actually witnessing the confrontation shows that Father Domek, bashing Samarie over the head, was the one to escalate it into physical violence.
• Satellite Character: Her role in the story and most of her characterization revolves around her obsession with Marina.
• Sex Magic: Her Masturbation skill, used as a way to improve affinity with Sylvian.
• Squishy Wizard: On one hand, Samarie knows rather complex blood magic and mind reading capabilities, and in combat, Hurting is a rather powerful spell capable of severing limbs. On the other hand, she's fragile in combat, and her past at the Ninth Circle has ravaged her body to the extent that she won't live long even if she survives Termina.
• Stalker with a Crush: Samarie is romantically obsessed with Marina, having constantly followed her since meeting her at the Vatican. She states she knows all of Marina's secrets and desires, and even killed Marina's father in the hopes that it would bring the two of them together. Despite this, Marina doesn't recognize her when the two of them meet, since Samarie kept herself hidden.
• Unexplained Recovery: In Marina's Ending B, she somehow returns to stalk Marina once again, even though she was personally killed by Marina's hands, and may have also been decapitated and/or devoured. It's implied, however, that she may actually be a doppelganger.
• Yandere: She's obsessed with Marina to a psychotic degree.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Part of her bizarre behavior is caused by the fact that being part of the Ninth Circle at the Vatican Ministry of Darkness has resulted in her body being withered by its rites. As such, her body is deteriorating rapidly, and she'll inevitably die young.

Dysmorphia

Dysmorphia is radiating before you.

Samarie's moonscorched form. The embodiment of her desire to achieve an ideal self. If allowed to transform, she can be found in the Rher's dimension version of the Church of Alll-mer.

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• Enemy Summoner: Can summon Ghouls to help assist her in killing the player.
• Eye Scream: Looking closely at Dysmorphia reveals that one of Samarie's eyes is outright gone.
• Facial Horror: The back of Dysmorphia's face appears to have been flayed open and spread out over a ring.
• The Face of the Sun: A grotesque example — Dysmorphia's head, with its rays, resembles a sun.
• Madness Mantra: Will simply not stop claiming that she is "radiating" in combat.
• Visual Pun: A humorously grotesque example, but she repeatedly says she's "radiating" while you fight her and the way her face's skin is stretched over the ring makes it look like a gory rendition of a sun.

August

"What an ugly tone you got there. I bet you've been practicing that intimidation tone in front of a mirror, am I wrong? Too bad I've seen horrors beyond comprehension on my travels. No man can intimidate me at this point. But don't fret. I'm sure your voice might've had effect on me when I was still a wee lad."

A mysterious and secluded man who came to Prehevil to settle a score he has with the Kaiser.

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• Aloof Ally: Even when he does help out, he remains rather secretive as to his ulterior motives. This can potentially end in Karin negligently shooting him dead.
• Aloof Archer: He's a mysterious and analytical Master Archer who seems to have good intentions, but is a lone wolf who secludes himself from the other contestants.
• Ambiguous Situation: He's one of the most mysterious characters in the game, and outside of his beef with the Kaiser and being Ambiguously Related to Ragnvaldr, not much is learned about him.
• Ambiguously Related: His choice of weapon, grudge towards the Kaiser, and close familial-like relationship with Moonless hints that he's a descendant of Ragnvaldr.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: A Master Archer in a fine suede suit. It's so nice, in fact, that it boosts one's confidence and thus critical rate.
• Big Damn Heroes: He can show up from out of nowhere to save or help the player in a few situations:
  • He will save a character defeated by a decrepit priest and crucified on Alll-Mer's cross.
  • He'll save you from Moonless (and Moonless from you) after you injure it enough, then give you some cloth fragments and condensed blue vials to heal yourself.
  • He'll also show up just before your boss fights with the Kaiser if you reach the depths of the White Bunker on Day 1 and riddle his face with arrows. The Kaiser will take him down soon after, but the fight will be easier as a result.
• Born Unlucky: Not as much as Tanaka (who he can potentially kill), but August's Tormented Soul can easily result in his death, whether it be by the hands of you, Karin, the Kaiser, or even himself.
• Driven to Suicide: On Day 3, August may slit his throat to prevent himself from becoming moonscorched, and can be found dead at night.
• Expy: Much like Ragnvaldr, his implied ancestor, his character design is heavily reminiscent of a Belmont of Castlevania fame. As for August, his more auburn hair color, middle-aged look and Manly Facial Hair who potentially contributes to the defeat of his arch-nemesis at great personal cost all point to him being inspired by Julius Belmont.
• Face–Heel Turn: If you witness the fight between the Kaiser and Pav, you can tell August about the Kaiser’s location at Day 3 Evening. This will convince him not to kill himself as he usually does. At night, he’ll then be found in front of the Moon Tower, potentially killing Tanaka, before proclaiming his intent to partake in the Festival before attacking you.
• Heroic Lineage: August is implied to be a descendant of Ragnvaldr, the Outlander from the previous game, being a continuation of his warrior lineage.
• Heroic Spirit: His Sisu skill (a Finnish word referring to this very concept), which gives a Last Chance Hit Point.
• Iconic Item: His bow, which instantly points him out as being unusual, as no one else uses one. This also makes it obvious that he's the one who shot O'saa.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: If engaged in combat, he can somehow shoot off a character's head with a single arrow, something that none of the gun-wielding enemies can do.
• In a Single Bound: He can be spotted jumping very high over the Old Town's gate to Prehevil, and then Roof Hopping in Prehevil itself.
• Ineffectual Loner: While powerful and knowledgeable his unwillingness to cooperate with other contestants means he'll either die after attacking Kaiser alone or accomplish absolutely nothing, surviving only if the player completes Ending A without him.
• Interface Spoiler: It isn't difficult to deduce that his skill tree on the Hexen contains skills like Devour and Bloodlust, making it obvious he isn't what he seems.
• I Work Alone: He's reluctant to work with the other contestants, as he doesn't want to get attached in case he's forced to kill them to survive the contest.
• Killed Offscreen: If you fail to witness the Kaiser/Pav conflict and/or don't tell August about it, he will kill himself on Day 3, between afternoon and night.
• Master Archer: He's good enough with a bow to use it in a setting where guns are the norm. His bright green arrows are implied to be enchanted somehow.
• Manly Facial Hair: He has a mustache, that, combined with his combover, gives him an adult, dignified appearance that goes well with his serious personality on top of him being incredibly strong and fast.
• Metal Slime: Probably the single biggest obstacle a player hoping to achieve Ending C has. Every guaranteed way to kill him comes on Day 3, most of the time being spotted hopping around in a way that makes him impossible for a player to reach and attack him, with the exception of a scripted death on Day 1 that, if a player sees, they're already hard locked into Ending A. He drops some nice loot, though, some of which even raises further questions about his true nature.
• Mysterious Watcher: Deconstructed. He's watching the other participants in great detail throughout the Festival, refusing to explain any more than potentially telling Abella he's a quarter Oldegårdian while clearly having greater knowledge of what's going on and connections to the city, and it greatly hampers his ability to actually do anything of note besides survive on his own. Karin can discover that he's keeping a journal with elaborate psychological profiles of every other participant, as well as how feasibly he could take them in a fight (it's been stolen by the time she tries to show the player for proof after, but reading his thoughts removes any doubt it exists), which coupled with his continued refusal to explain himself - and pulling his bow on her - can get either of them killed.
• Le Parkour: He can be spotted climbing and jumping in Prehevil at several points, which is implied to be the reason for why he's so hard to catch.
• Roof Hopping: His main way of moving through Prehevil is at the roof level, and you can spot him jumping around. Notably, he's the hardest contestant to interact with before Day 3, suggesting that he avoids coming down to the street level.
• Sole Survivor: He has the potential to be the only NPC contestant to maintain their humanity on Night 3, though if he survives that long and you encounter him again, only one of you will walk away from it afterward.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: August is the only character in the game who wields a bow in combat. If attacked by the player, he can even pull off a coin flip-based One-Hit Kill with it, just like Ragnvaldr did in the first game. If he and Karin's shootout isn't interrupted, he'll even win their quick-draw, and she'll be the one who needs medical attention.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Serves as this to Ragnvaldr, as he shares some skills, wields a bow in combat, has the same tormented soul, and attempts to kill the Kaiser (Le'garde) while saying that he waited a long time for it. He also considers Moonless to be a part of his family, to the point where she's like a sibling to him.

Caligura

"...How thick are ya?! Once you're lying face first on the ground, I can take all I want."

A mobster from Vatican City, nicknamed "Count Dragul" by his peers for his ghastly appearance and lack of morals. It is unknown as to why he's in Prehevil to begin with.

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• Asshole Victim: Considering that both Marcoh and Henryk hate him from the outset and Karin can potentially authorize his death, no tears will be shed for him if he ends up as one of Termina's casualties, whether it'd be by abusing the wrong person or Rher moonscorching him.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • He can ambush Marcoh while he's sleeping, even though Marcoh is a muscular competitive boxer with plenty of experience hurting (and killing) people. If it escalates into a fight, the player is unlikely to lose, as Marcoh is a much better fighter than Caligura.
  • His attempts to sexually assault Marina, a talented occultist who invariably starts the game with at least some mastery of magic, and Abella, a mechanic who is physically strong enough to wield two-handed weapons and restrain even the hulking Marcoh, will likely end even worse for him.
• Dark Is Evil: In contrast to his bright outfit, his Decrepit Soul is shown to be as black as pitch. Just like him, a remorseless gangster who will gleefully rape and/or murder the first chance he gets.
• Demolitions Expert: The Explosives skill is in his skill tree, and stealing from him will net you a pipe bomb.
• The Dreaded: He has acquired a reputation for being an exceptionally cruel mobster, with it being known by Marcoh, Karin, and Henryk. This can lead to Karin telling the player and others to keep their guard up, and to kill him if possible.
• Establishing Character Moment: If you fail to pick up the map and combat manual and go back to pick them up, he'll immediately establish himself as an asshole by refusing to budge when you speak to him. Once you annoy him into leaving, he then immediately runs out of the train, shoving you and Marina with no care in the world.
• Fan Disservice: A rather unsightly man who at one point, you can fight while he has no pants on after he attempts to rape the player character (if either Abella or Marina was chosen)
• Foil: To Marcoh. Marcoh has recently left the mob, and is a kind man who was forced to commit crimes by his boss, having to be threatened into doing assigned tasks. Caligura, meanwhile, is a violent unsympathetic thug who is still in the mob, prone to random violence and even rape.
• Gonk: He's a very gross and unpleasant-looking man.
• Hate Sink: He's a vile mobster with no redeeming or positive traits, and all of his interactions have him act antagonistic towards another contestant, often resulting in him trying to kill or rape someone. The game almost encourages you to kill him for his head, as he's a fairly easy opponent if you get into a fight with him, even solo.
  • Furthering the incentive, his soul even gives decent skills, killing him can save other potential allies, he has absolutely no subplots besides his attempts on people’s lives unlike Pav and Tanaka, nor mechanical benefits to being kept alive like August or Henryk, nor the satisfaction of preventing a boss fight by reaching the lategame fast enough like Samarie, and in fact, his Moonscorched form becomes FAR stronger, even locking down the sewers. Given that he only even appears in person under certain circumstances and brief windows it’s possible to miss entirely by simply recruiting Levi too early or missing Henryk, it is not an exaggeration to say that finding and killing Caligura within the first two days is its own reward.
• Improperly Paranoid: He assumes that Marcoh is in Prehevil on orders to whack him, possibly resulting in a confrontation. Depending on how the dialogue goes, it may end with Marcoh killing him in self-defense.
• Jerkass: All of his interactions with other contestants amount to him demeaning, threatening, or shoving them.
• Karma Houdini: If he kills Levi and/or Henryk and you fail to kill him before getting Ending A, he'll get away with his murders and escape Prehevil safely.
• Kick the Dog: Aside from the rather rude awakening he gives Marcoh (i.e., threatening him while loudly banging on the floor), he also attacks Levi (if he's not chosen by the player) and Henryk, and can even kill them unless you intervene. It's especially cruel in Levi's case, due to his addled state and what is known about his father in his backstory. He also sexually assaults Abella or Marina, should they sleep in the Mayor's house.
• Killing Intent: One of the skills in his tree is named after the trope, which makes weak enemies run away from the player. Marcoh will also sense it if he's ambushed by Caligura while sleeping.
• Light Is Not Good: His outfit is mostly white, but he's the most morally debased character among the fourteen contestants.
• The Mafia: Marcoh recognizes him as a caporegime from a rival mob family in Vatican City.
• Meaningful Name: His name is very similar to that of the Roman emperor Caligula, who was alleged to be cruel, sadistic, and sexually devious (although the sources are questionable). Just like these allegations, Caligura is a vile man who bullies, murders, and rapes contestants just because he wants to.
• More Hateable Minor Villain: While Per'kele and the Kaiser may be the two most at fault for Termina's events, they both have a few admirable qualities, are too mysterious to really despise, and their ultimate goals of awakening the Sulfur God and Machine God respectively may or may not be bad ideas. Caligura has nothing to do with them or their end goals — and proves himself to be much more detestable than either of them, being a shameless mafioso having no qualms with rape and murder.
• Paper Tiger: Though he acts rather intimidating, has a fearful reputation, and may kill Levi and Henryk, he actually turns out to be weak in combat, due to only having a single mediocre attack and being very easy to kill.
• Pipe Pain: Wields a pipe in combat, and is rather eager to use it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Calls Marcoh a faggot while confronting him, with an implication that he was meaning it specifically as a homophobic slur, rather than a generic insult.
• Rambunctious Italian: A Fantasy Counterpart Culture variant, as most of his encounters have him being angry and loud at someone, constantly trying to prove his own superiority.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Will try to rape Abella or Marina if she sleeps alone in the Mayor's house, highlighting how immoral he is.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Nearly all of his lines have him swearing, with them being responsible for at least a third of the game's profanity count. Notably, the first line as the Monster, throws at you is a very crude "Choke on my baaalllls...".
• Video Game Stealing: The Steal skill is on his segment of the Hexen.
• Undignified Death: If Marina or Abella attempt to sleep in the manor, Caligura will try and have his way with them. This will almost certainly end in his dying face down, pantless, emasculated, and eventually beheaded.

Monster

Slime and mucus is dripping from the gaping mouth of the creature...

Caligura's moonscorched form. The embodiment of his inner depravity. If allowed to transform, he can be found inside the sewers.

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• Amphibian Assault: His spherical underbelly, hunched-over posture, lurking within the watery sewers and use of poison all combine to make the Monster look akin to a large toad. Bonus points for becoming this way by otherworldly powers.
• Karmic Transformation: He becomes what appears to be a yonic, multi-armed creature with numerous testicle-like growths on its torso — in short, he's now looking as monstrous as he was when he was still human.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He grows numerous arms after being moonscorched, which he can use to attack.
• Zombie Puke Attack: One of his main attacks is to vomit all over your party, inflicting nausea and poison.

Bosses

The Janitor

A strange man(?) who captures you during the strange dream and forces you to work in his “sweatshop”.

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• Ambiguously Human: While the sweatshop of his is located in Rher’s domain, and doesn’t seem to mind his flayed back, the similarity of said back to Moonscorched Samarie’s head as well as similar blue face paint to the Sulfur cultists imply he is a Moonscorched human.
• Bad Boss: The first time you meet him, he hurls insults at you and tells you to get your ass back to make more cubes and threatens the woman next to you for just staring.
• Improvised Weapon: Wields a kassara, which the description describes as meant for cutting branches.
• Open-Ended Boss Battle: Losing to him will result in him cutting your legs off and sticking you back in your chair, only for you to escape anyways and be teleported away and healed by Per'kele. Managing to win (through either shooting him as Levi, Karin, or Daan, using Marcoh’s or Abella’s brute strength, a lucky spell from O’Saa or Marina, or getting lucky and obtaining a Bear Trap) will allow you to flee unmutilated, to be teleported to Per’kele anyways.
• That Was Not a Dream: Killing him and grabbing the kassara will have the protagonist get chills down their back, thanks to keeping the weapon when you wake up.
• Warm-Up Boss: As the first boss of the game, he sets the tone fights take in the game: high risk, and without proper resources and/or strategy, likely to end in your death.

Needles

Needles came waltzing in to greet you...

A madman in clown getup, who attempts to kill you/the other contestants for unknown reasons.

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• Achilles' Heel: Needles has a rather impressive array of resistances, including reduced damage from bullets. However, he's incredibly vulnerable to the Bear Trap, which will freeze him in place. If you then throw some glass shards in his eyes and then take out his legs and run away, you can re-enter the fight and sever his head, killing him instantly.
• Ambiguous Situation: Daan can discover his identity as his former father-in-law, Eihner von Dutch, but given he found his dead body in the von Dutch manor, it's unclear how or why he's in Prehevil and why in this state. It's implied to be related to his experiments and dealings with the occult, particularly with the God of Sulfur.
• Came Back Wrong: If Daan had previously encountered and diagnosed Stitches, he comes to the conclusion that Needles resembles his adoptive father, Eihner von Dutch, who he found dead back in Rondon.
• Establishing Character Moment: It’s very likely your first encounter with him will be in Tunnel 7, where he's found beheading Tanaka, before immediately giving chase. Fighting him here has him wear Tanaka’s hat in mockery of his victim.
• Evil Laugh: Has a sinister chuckle that can be heard in combat, and is described to be his reaction if you try and plead for mercy.
• Expy: Is fairly obviously based off of Art the Clown, being a sadistic Monster Clown Serial Killer that’s packing heat if things go south for them. His name of Needles also brings to mind Needles Kane, aka Sweet Tooth, who is also a clown-themed murderer.
• Forced Orgasm: If defeated by him, the player wakes up chained and soon hallucinates being attacked by a red ghost and experiencing an orgasm so strong they pass out. The implication being Needles have drugged the player with pleasure-enhancing drugs and then molested them.
• Giggling Villain: He does this a lot. It's also how the game alerts you that he's in the area:
  "You hear distant laughter. It's cold and devoid of life."
• Hero Killer: Can kill Tanaka, and if he’s not taken out by Day 2, can kill Marina as well. If the player loses the battle against him, they are tortured but spared, but any party members you brought with you will be killed in unique and gruesome ways, with their bodies found all around town.
• Improvised Weapon: Wields a cat-o-nine-tails whip made of used syringes in his right hand, with the ability to both cause infections and inflict bleeding.
• In the Back: Lose to him with Daan in the party, and you'll come across Daan having been stabbed in the back with three knives by Needles. This wasn't the first time Baron Eihner von Dutch betrayed his son-in-law...
• Let's Get Dangerous!: If you manage to sever one of his arms without severing the other, Needles will pull out a pistol and proceed to shoot to kill.
• Monster Clown: He's a deranged killer who wears clown make-up. The player will even attempt to mock him for it if trying to intimidate him via dialogue, but he doesn't care.
• No Body Left Behind: Even if you cut his head off, he's notable for being one of, if not the only, enemy in the game to not leave a body behind once you leave the screen he was killed on.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Losing to him will have you chained up in Tunnel 7, with you getting sexually assaulted by a ghostly figure before passing out. You awake unchained (and with your party members dead), and Needles will try and kill you if he encounters you again.
• Off with His Head!: How he kills Tanaka, and most of your party members if he defeats you.
• Out-of-Character Alert: If engaged in battle with Daan in the party he will recognize him and frown slightly, momentarily breaking his Giggling Villain persona. This is a hint that these two are connected.
• Poisonous Person: In his left hand is a syringe full of poison. It doesn’t deal a lot of damage, but it does poison you. He can also pull off a coin flip attack where he adds paralysis infliction to the injection.
• Roaming Enemy: Upon entering Prehevil proper, he starts chasing you, with his laughter being the herald of him entering the area.
• Sadist: He enjoys chasing after the contestants and killing and torturing them in creative ways.
• Shipper on Deck: A rather morbid version, if you can even call it shipping in the first place. Lose to him with Levi and Marina in your party and he'll put their heads on spikes and position them to look like they're kissing each other.
• Slasher Smile: He constantly has a sadistic shit-eating grin on his face. Analyzing his body describes he has it even in death.
• Super-Persistent Predator: If Tanaka's dialogue when running into him in Prehevil is any indication, then he's been following the salaryman around, which can culminate in Needles beheading him if you don't kill him before entering the Bunker. Additionally, being this game's version of Crow Mauler, he will follow you around Prehevil even after you have a Non-Standard Game Over from losing to him.
• Tear Off Your Face: One of his methods for killing Marina has him tear her face off, and wears it as a mask the next time you run into him.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: The handgun he wields after losing an arm can never be either stolen or looted from him, though you do always get the makeshift cat o' nine tails he uses in the form of 3 syringes of heroin.
• The Worf Effect: Will kill your party members offscreen if you lose to him, which means he managed to overpower Marcoh (a trained boxer who has survived fights with criminal gangs) and O'saa (a yellow mage capable of performing powerful spells).

The Centaur

A Marriage between what seems to be a man and a horse, running around the woods trampling all in its path. Try not to get run over.

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• The Artifact: Sylvian's Marriage rituals were a gameplay mechanic in the last game and many of the monsters of the setting came from the ritual. In this game the marriage mechanic is done away with and Sylvian has since fallen in popularity in-story. The Centaur acts as a Call-Back of sorts.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: Has traits that point to it being the result of a man doing a Sylvian ritual with a horse of all things.
• Optional Boss: Killing it is not required, as it is not required for progression, nor does it drop anything on death.

Father Donnovan Hugo

Father Hugo widens his arms to embrace you.

The headmaster of the Father Domek orphanage, who, like the rest of the townsfolk, has gone mad under the influence of Rher.

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• Caustic Critic: His opinion on Enki's Skin Bibles are less than flattering. Mostly because he cannot comprehend the idea of the Old Gods being dead.
• Expy: Of Judge Holden from Blood Meridian. From the creepy smile, hairless head to an implied fondness for touching children.
• Fan Disservice: Is surprisingly well built under the robe. Shame the time you see it involves him trying to burn you to death with a creepy smile on his face.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Takes off his robe after a couple of turns before casting Scorched Earth.
• Immune to Bullets: Downplayed. While he does widen his arm in taunting you if you try shooting him to seemingly no effect, enough bullets will kill him just the same.
• Kill It with Fire: His second phase starts with him casting Scorched Earth, setting the room on fire and also enhancing all fire-based moves for both himself and your party.
• King Mook: Is a stronger version of the Decrepit Priest enemy, and shares the same talking dialogue tree.
• Pedophile Priest: Although it's not made explicit, his creepy demeanor and his eagerness to strip and embrace you suggests this. His battle sprite in the demo even implies that he's a Marriage, having the face of a Fallen cherub on his abdomen, which is an enemy implied to be a Moonscorched child. Though it should be noted that this was later retconned and isn't in the official game.

Stitches

An insane woman seemingly stitched together roaming in the bunkers near Prehevil.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Daan can discover her real identity as his former fiancée, Elise, but given he found her dead body in the von Dutch manor, it's unclear how or why she's in Prehevil and why in this state. It's implied to be related to her father's experiments and dealings with the occult, particularly with the God of Sulfur.
• Came Back Wrong: Analyzing her corpse as Daan reveals that she was his fiancée, Elise von Dutch, who he had found dead in her manor in the Kingdom of Rondon. How she came back to life as Stitches in Prehevil is a mystery.
• The Lost Lenore: Is actually Daan's wife Elise after she Came Back Wrong.
• Scary Stitches: Considering that she's literally named Stitches, it's a given. She's a violent woman covered in macabre stitches that uses a needle and thread to create similar monstrosities, and also against potential threats.
• Shout-Out: She has stitched a group of people together ala The Human Centipede films, and will happily add you to the end if she defeats you.

The Woodsman

A local woodsman who lives in the woods near the train, who has succumbed to the Moonscorch and is thus out for blood.

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• Emasculated Cuckold: His wife cheated on him with a goat, and she even gloated it was a better lover than he ever was. Humiliated, he locked up his wife in the basement, only for her to sacrifice herself just to join the goat in the afterlife. The despair from his events led to him being Driven to Suicide, but being Moonscorched prevents him from ending his own life.
• Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": His real name is never given, and he's only ever referred by his profession.
• From Bad to Worse: First his wife cheats on him with a goat of all things, then she proceeds to sacrifice herself to join him. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Festival forbade him from ending his own life and moonscorches him into a monster.
• Full-Frontal Assault: The only thing he wears is an open trenchcoat that displays his Male Frontal Nudity, and he chases and attacks the player in this state.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: He's suicidal, but cannot kill himself thanks to the Termina festival rules.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: First introduced effortlessly killing a villager, he's a rather hard enemy to fight initially. However, he's actually weaker than the majority of the regular enemies you meet after getting past the old town, and only seems powerful because the majority of the villagers are extremely weak in comparison. Fittingly, returning to his house during the midgame will let you flatten him.
• Reluctant Monster: He is forced to kill the other contestants in the name of the Festival. After beheading Tanaka, he rescues you from the well and gives you a chance to run away.
• Super Sex Organs: Becoming Moonscorched has changed his genitalia into becoming some sort of parasite that can be detached from his body and attack people by jumping on their faces to paralyze them.
• Weapons of Their Trade: Being a woodsman, his weapon is an axe.

The Mob

A rifleman and two half-cocooned men, one wielding a makeshift chainsaw, who have teamed up and roam Western Prehevil.

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• An Arm and a Leg: Notably, the individuals making up the mob cannot have their limbs targeted. Unfortunately for you, the one with the Meat Grinder excels at de-limbing you and your party.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment: A variant: you absolutely can get the saw one of their number wields... if you have the right skills and other components to repair it, as it invariably breaks after the fight.
• Random Encounters: Their appearance isn’t fixed, with the only warning you get of their presence being a glass bottle hurled at you before they charge.
• Unique Enemy: Where the rifleman and mallet-wielding half-cocooned are common enemies, the half-cocooned with the Meat Grinder is exclusive to this fight.
• Wolfpack Boss: Three mid-game enemies who apparently decided to gang up on you and your party.

Death Mask

Heavy armored living corpses that can randomly emerge from coffins around Prehevil.

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• Damage-Sponge Boss: Comparatively to the other enemies/bosses, Death Masks have a lot of HP both for their limbs (1800 on arms and 1200 on the legs), and torso (3200) which means taking them out quickly requires either powerful weapons/spells or a full party.
• Dissonant Laughter: Their namesake masks turn death-gurgles into broken-sounding laughter. In-combat their head can use this as an attack to drain the Mind of your party members.
• Dual Wielding: They wield two machete-like swords that have 100% arm-cutting chance.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: While they can be defeated, examining their body shows that they are still alive - or at the very least have a pulse despite their wounds. This description holds even if the player removes their heads.
• Random Encounters: In contrast to almost all of enemies, their spawns are only limited by the locked coffins around Prehveil and can therefore appear multiple times in a single playthrough. Unlike The Mob that at least has the mercy of being locked to Prehevil proper, this means they can appear as early as the Old Town. With two potential spawn points for them in areas the player has genuine reason to traverse, it's even quite likely that they will.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Subverted, you can loot their Death Mask and Chainmail Dress - both of which are quite valuable equipment, but it's impossible to get their swords.

Vile

"ONLY- THE VILE- SURVIVE!"

One particular villager in Old Town who has used the gas he used before the Festival to spray fish as a weapon against you.

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• Battle Cry: His image quote. Humorously, the player only gets to see it if they've tricked him into taking his mask off and killing himself on accident due to his mask muffling it normally.
• Body Horror: On closer inspection of the body, it's revealed that the pig mask is somehow grafted onto his face.
• Deadly Gas: Sprays you pesticides and beats you with the container. He’s not immune either.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: That leaky canister of his isn’t for show. It’s possible for him to take a fatal whiff of it, provided you sufficiently annoy him.
• Talking the Monster to Death: He holds the dubious honor of being one of the only enemies in the game who can die talking to you provided you win the coin flip, thanks to inhaling a hearty dose of pesticide.
• Too Dumb to Live: It’s possible to sufficiently annoy him to the point he takes off his gas mask, despite using a pesticide spray that’s leaking out of the canister as a weapon. Winning a coin flip when he takes off the mask means this very well kills him.
• Zero-Effort Boss: While you still need a bit of luck, you can effortlessly kill him immediately through conversation.

The Platoon & Sylvian Trooper

A tank made out of a horde of people with a cannon attached, commanded by a soldier in BDSM gear.

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• Badass Normal: It's questionable on how human the Sylvian Trooper is^note autopsies indicate she's likely a Marriage the same as the rest of the Kaiser's elite troopers but she's one of the most "normal" enemies in the game if not for her command of the Platoon. Her sole attack on the player is using her whip.
• Bad Boss: It's made ambiguous given the questionable sentience of the Platoon, but given that it attacks at the behest of the Sylvian Trooper whipping him into blasting its enemies away while calling it an idiot, it's safe to say that it's very likely sentient and that the Trooper does qualify as this.
• Blood Knight: The Sylvian Trooper only fights you for a "last dance" rather than protecting the Kaiser.
• Dominatrix: The Sylvian Trooper is dressed in a BDSM body-hugging black latex, fights with a Whip of Dominance, has a violent and sexual thrill in fighting to the death and is openly demeaning to the Platoon she commands, referring to it as a "fat fuck" or an idiot.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The Platoon has a whooping 10000 HP and is resistant to a majority of damage-over-time statuses (besides poison) which means taking it out will take a few turns even with a full party.
• Dressed Like a Dominatrix: The Sylvian Trooper wears an outfit very similar to one, complete with body-hugging black latex - justified, as a follower of Sylvian.
• Dual Boss: You can fight one Platoon by itself as a boss, but late in the game another Platoon is fought alongside the Sylvian Trooper.
• One-Hit Kill: The Platoon's heavy mortar attack will kill you in one shot unless you have a hardened heart equipped.
• Slasher Smile: The only visible characteristic of the Sylvian Trooper's body beneath her BDSM gear is a simple yet dire grim she flashes to the party while fighting.
• Tank Goodness: The Platoon is made out of human bodies, but even then, Platoon is still easily one of the toughest enemies in the game with an absurd amount of HP to whittle down.
• Whip of Dominance: The Sylvian Trooper is a Dominatrix-themed Bremen officer who wields a whip as her personal weapon, also using it to order around the Platoon she fights alongside with.

Irrational Obelisk

A giant, silent obelisk of shirts that stands in the clothing store of the shopping district.

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• Brown Note: Its presence can inflict every single phobia in the game.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A giant pillar made of buttoned dress shirts. Nothing in the game tells you anything about it.
• Optional Boss: It has a nigh-infinite amount of health and does nothing but drain your mind in combat. There's no reason to fight it other than to restore your body and mind through regen equipment.

Rancid the Sergal

Rancid the sergal challenges you to a duel.

A sergal who traveled all the way from Vinland to rectify the chaos Rher unleashed/take part in the Festival.

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• Ax-Crazy: Completely gone insane with his obsession on killing things. As Nash'rah notes, this is his own personal insanity, not a normal trait of sergals.
• Barbarian Longhair: He has long unkempt hair, and is also a wild, insane warrior from the tribes of Vinland.
• Blood Knight: He joins the Festival for no other reason than to fight. As far as he thinks, all sergals exist to die in battle.
• Climax Boss: He's a mandatory fight after opening up the church's hidden passage, which requires trekking throughout Prehevil for 3 effigies, has his own boss music unlike nearly every boss preceding him, and his defeat is required for both end game areas to be accessed. He's notable also for being the closest thing^note if you have enough firepower you can skip him by breaking the gate to northern Prehevil, though this requires a fully equipped party with excessive damage output to achieve to the game's one truly mandatory fight period if you're trying to achieve a proper ending, as all previous encounters can be circumvented through traps, guns, clever movement, and dialogue choices, and all subsequent mandatory encounters are ending dependent.
• Cool Mask: Wears one with a variety of eyes painted all over.
• Cowardice Callout: If you rematch him after removing one of his arms, removing the other one will have him angrily complain that "only a coward would disarm their opponent". This is despite the fact that his spear attacks can lop off your limbs just fine.
• Funny Animal: A completely fictional animal, but still fits it as a sergal.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment: Chopping one of his arms off in his first fight will reward you with one of his spears. If you find and defeat him on day 3, you can get the other one, as well.
• Evil Counterpart: It can be argued he’s this to Ragnvaldr from the first game, being a Blood Knight barbarian from a less civilized area of the world traveling to put an end to something worse, killing everything in their path. While Ragnvaldr did so for noble reasons, since Le'Garde killed his tribe and family and wanted to recover an artifact stolen from them, potentially later putting an end to the evil present in the dungeon and going on to be a Hunter of Monsters, Rancid seems to have snapped and forgotten about his original goal, focusing on killing everyone he comes across, including non-combatants like Iki Turso.
• He Who Fights Monsters: It's all but outright stated he initially came to the festival to stop the horrors brought upon by Rher and their ilk. Instead, somewhere along the line he's become little more than a participant of the festival in all but title, picking off beasts and contenders alike while searching for a challenge.
• Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Despite being a Fear & Hunger character, and also naked (sans a mask) while fighting you, he lacks any visible genitals to target.
• Outside-Context Problem: Rancid doesn't seem to have any connection to Rher or the Festival of Termina. He traveled to Prehevil from the other side of the world in search of worthy opponents to fight.
• Recurring Boss: While his first fight is mandatory for progression, you can find him over at the corpse of a freshly-slain Iki Turso for a rematch.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: He doesn't take losing a limb well and will immediately flee his initial battle the moment you can wound any of his.

Gull Bros

A Masochism-exclusive pair of bosses, who — like the Crow Mauler — roam the map hunting for your head.

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• Dual Boss: You fight both of them at the same time, both sharing some of the same moves from their predecessor. Including the dreaded peck.
• Establishing Character Moment: As soon as you're done with the hexxen in the orphanage, one of them smashes it to bits in one swing and comes after you.
• Immune to Bullets: Subverted. The original Crow Mauler was immune to damage sources on the Overworld and could only be killed in direct battle. The Gull Bros seem to have a similar resistance, as shooting them will have a game message explicitly state they "don't seem to mind your shots", but sufficient damage will still kill them. Considering that their predecessor was the best contender for That One Boss and was always a possible threat, whereas these two can only be encountered on the hardest difficulty level, it's entirely possible that this was intended, since it's either you fight them the hard way, or you use up precious ammo that could have been used on other Demonic Spiders.
• I Shall Taunt You: Both of them cackle at you throughout the battle. Can backfire on them as both the "Persuade" and "Intimidate" option can each cause them to laugh so much they will pass a turn or two, buying you precious time to kill them.
• Monster Modesty: One of the brothers wears an apron, while the other doesn't bother to wear anything.

The Heartless One (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Superboss, a New God imprisoned by her brethren. The player may optionally free her from her chains and challenge her for substantial boons.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: The other New Gods hated her enough to imprison her within the depths of the Church of Alll-mer. She hates them in turn enough to insult them as "senile warmongering old farts".
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Zigzagged. She's immune to all means of crippling an enemy's ability to launch attacks, but is still vulnerable to all forms of Damage Over Time effects otherwise.
• Duel Boss: She only ever fights your protagonist solo, though there's nothing stopping you from summoning a Blood Golem to help out.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment: Zigzagged. The sword she wields in her left hand, the Red Virtue, drops when she's defeated. The spear in her right hand vanishes along with her, however.
• Feather Flechettes: Similar to Per'Kele, she can launch rains of feathers out of her wings.
• Guide Dang It!: Reaching her is very counter intuitive, requiring taking the most dangerous route into the church and using its Imperfect Ritual Circle to draw a Rher symbol, which is generally the least useful of its contemporaries. If at any point you drop the chandelier to enter the basement from the conventional route without first grabbing the key you need to free her, or draw another god's symbol in the church's basement, she becomes inaccesible for that playthrough. And then there's the matter of actually beating her....
• Living Legend: It's implied that her existence is well-known enough for a movie to be made around her — as seen by a poster advertising "Heartless Angel".
• Losing Your Head: Cutting her head off doesn't accomplish anything besides toggling off her mocking monologues. The rest of her just keeps on attacking until her torso is destroyed. There's even an unused interaction where she would inexplicably laugh maniacially on being decapitated, just to drive the point home.
• White Hair, Black Heart: A New God with a penchant for trash-talking everyone around her, who is perfectly willing to kill her summoner if they lose their duel, with hair as white as snow.
• Winged Humanoid: She has two large white wings, used to launch Feather Flechettes.

Others

Father Domek

Marina's father, fanatical in his belief in Dark Priest traditions.

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• Abusive Parents: Downplayed. Marina heavily implies that he was emotionally distant towards her, saw the scenario that he may have murdered his wife as a Human Sacrifice plausible, and in his confrontation with Samarie, he has no problem misgendering his own daughter, potentially right in front of her. However, he does refer to Marina correctly in his dying moments, and disparages her for returning to Prehevil after he attempted to warn her how dangerous it was.
• Connected All Along: He owned the Orphanage of Fear in which Levi resided.
• Incriminating Indifference: His letter informing Marina of her mother's death was written in a rather cold and emotionally detached tone. Marina, thinking that he had something to do with it, set out to investigate for herself.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It was Father Domek who wrote the letter that prompted Marina to return to Prehevil for answers. This led to her being roped up in Termina, and her potential death and/or Moonscorching.

The Man in Black/Black Kalev

A mysterious figure who appears as an innocuous black goat in the waking world, but as a man in Rher's.

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• Expy: Of Black Phillip from The VVitch. A black goat who turns out to be a satanic figure in disguise that brings misfortune to a woodsman and his family.
• Interspecies Romance: Disturbingly, he was the lover of the Woodsman's wife.
• The Load: Compared to Moonless, he ends up as this, due to having a much weaker attack (comparable to that of ghouls), as well as occasionally leaving the party and forcing you to spend a carrot to get him back.
• Mind Screwdriver: He provides vague but comparatively reasonable exposition about the Machine and Sulfur Gods; the Machine God being a man-made creation formed from a need to understand the world with logic and science and the Sulfur God being a sort of Enemy Without to Alll-mer.

The Old Gods

The old gods of the world, having left long ago but still affect society in many ways. For the Old Gods introduced in the first game, go here.

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Rher

• Ascended Extra: Rher has little to no influence on the first game minus Pocketcat and the Lady of the Moon being his thralls, but he's the Big Bad of Termina.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Per'kele reveals that Rher has left this world like the rest of the Old Gods and that Termina was basically just an event not unlike a natural disaster created by his traces.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Of the Old Gods, he is referred to as "The Delinquent One".
• Expy: Its appearance in Termina, as a grinning moon that comes crashing down on Earth and whose coming is heralded by a trickster Wild Card in the form of Per'kele, can bring to mind The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and the Moon that provides a similar threat to Link in that game — though here it's the moon itself that's malicious and not turned into a threat by outside forces.
• Final Boss: Of a Day 3 Ending B run.
• One-Hit Kill: Fail the coin flip on the fight against him and your character will go insane from the sight of Rher's might crashing down on them before they decide to stop this madness at any cost.
• Trickster God: He is the god of mischief and insanity, which is represented in the "festival" and in the actions of his servants, Per'kele and Pocketcat.

Vinushka

• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: As revealed in his unedited skin bible, he left the world like the rest of the Old Gods when he lost the war against industrial growth. His skin bible is doctored by the Vatican to prevent mankind from realizing that nature is dead, as their faith in his remnant is what's keeping it alive.
• Mother Nature: A male variant. He is the embodiment of nature itself in the Fear & Hunger universe.
• Remember the New Guy?: Despite being the son of Gro-Goroth and Sylvian, there were no mentions of him in the first game.

Vitruvia

• Equivalent Exchange: The mechanism as to how her sacrifices work. Daan can choose to remove some debilitation status effect with organs he can harvest from corpses. He can even bring the recently deceased back to life in exchange for one of his limbs.
• Meaningful Name: Most likely named after the Vitruvian man, a sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci that portrays "ideal human body proportions". This ties to both her obsession with "perfecting" humans as well as association with medicine.
• Offerings to the Gods: The organs harvested from Daan's Medical skill are sacrificed to her in exchange for healing and restoring some lost body parts.
• The Perfectionist: Displeased with the imperfections in Sylvian's creation of humans, she set out to create Alll-Mer to show her how it's done.

Per'kele

• Attack Reflector: Once he puts the wing guard up, all your otherworldy attacks will be reflected until the guarding arm is destroyed.
• Dragon with an Agenda: It's heavily implied by the New Gods in the first game that Per'kele's loyalty to Rher is tenuous at best, and that he follows his own goals. In Termina proper, Ending C shows that he has a loyalty to another god: the Sulfur God.
• Evil Is Petty: In the path to Ending B, if you tell him you've completed all the tasks and just want to go home, he will concede that his "master" would have no problem in letting your character get out of the festival unscathed... but he took a personal dislike to them and decides to kill them off anyways.
• Face Framed in Shadow: His default look has part of his face hidden behind shadow, preventing any major details from being made out from it. His battle sprite obscures even more of it, leaving only his eyes and nose visible.
• Feather Flechettes: He uses his left arm to launch a rain of feathers, inflicting several weak attacks.
• Final Boss: of Ending C, and potentially Ending B if you meet the requirements for the former but opt not to take him up on his offer.
• Lunacy: As expected of a follower of Rher, he's got a few moon-related spells in his arsenal and can summon a lunar meteorite to strike his opponents in battle.
• Mouth of Sauron: Acts as this to Rher. It is revealed in the endings that Rher has left this world a long time ago and Per'kele was merely using the leftover powers from Rher's body to make it seem as though he was still here.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Perkele" is Finnish for "Evil Spirit", and in the Finnish translation of the Bible, it's the name associated with the Devil himself. In common Finnish usage, it's the equivalent of the F-word.
• Skeletal Appendage: His torso appears to simply be a bloody ribcage.
• Was Once a Man: During his battle, Per'kele claims that he used to be a human who became a contestant in the festival. Whether he won or not is unknown but he says that he became "truly born" after the experience.
• Wing Shield: He can protect himself with one of his wings. Unusually, however, rather than protecting from physical attacks, it protects from otherworldly damage by reflecting it back at the attacker

Pocketcat

• Affably Evil: Pocketcat is friendly and jovial toward the contestants, despite being a servant of Rher and encouraging the contestants to kill one another.
• Clone by Conversion: As it turns out, he's capable of converting humans into copies of himself, but only if they agree to it, with Daan possibly suffering this fate.
• Continuity Nod: Pocketcat can mutate into a slightly odd form with long arms and Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes when he gets emotional as seen in 1. He takes up a similar form during Daan's Nonstandard Game Over.
• The Corrupter: Acts as one to Daan, he's been following him even before the festival. If Daan is chosen as the player character and runs out of time to finish the festival, Pocketcat will appear inside Daan's psyche and will give him a Breaking Speech, encouraging the young man to give into despair and become a Pocketcat himself which he does shortly after. Daan's B Ending has him consider taking this path in his depression.
• Developer's Foresight: Equipping accessories that prevent limb loss might seem like a Game-Breaker at first. But he'll catch on if you choose the same limb too many times and forces you to choose another limb for him to remove until he gives you no other choice but to take your head off.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: He had a wood-like mask in his previous incarnation. Here his model is updated to resemble his depiction in the "Tales of Pocketcat" books in the previous game with more of a rubber-looking mask.
• Fluffy the Terrible: His innocent-sounding name belies his monstrous nature.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Implied to be this, as he assumes the protagonist to be an old acquaintance in a way that makes it seem like he's actually talking to the player.
• Loophole Abuse: While he is forbidden by his master to participate in the festival, if the player picks a fight with him, he will retaliate by making them choose which limb of theirs he will remove, justifying it as following their wishes.
• The Spook: Both this game and the last leave lots of unanswered questions about who he is or what he wants, other than that he's a servant of Rher. It's not even certain what he is, exactly, as he has the general outline of a human (and it's said that he's wearing a mask) but he's anything but.
• Suddenly Voiced: He has gained voice acting, in contrast to the first game where he only made cat noises, though it can only be heard in combat as voice clips.
• Wicked Cultured: He shows some impressive knowledge of the world and waxes philosophy with the player character. He'll even muse about the nature of reality while attacking you if you trigger combat with him.
• Would Hurt a Child: He abducts and murders children on his master's behalf, although it doesn't come up as often here as it did in the first game.

Doppelgängers (Unmarked Spoilers)

Creatures who mimic contestants and pretend to be them, with varying degrees of success.

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• Ascended Glitch: Their existence is something of a meta joke based on how buggy the Fear and Hunger games tend to be: it's easy to dismiss a second version of one of your party members appearing where they shouldn't as a glitch or oversight on the developer's part (and in fact, they are loosely based on the latter), which makes the realization that they aren't all the more surprising.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: They can appear even if the original contestant is dead. In addition, a few doppelgängers forget crucial details:
  • Tanaka's doesn't know that humans can't spin their heads behind them.
  • Olivia's seems to have no idea of the original being paraplegic, as it runs around in circles.
• Exorcist Head: Tanaka's doppelgänger will spin its head this way upon meeting you, instantly giving it away as an impostor.
• Eyeless Face: Once attacked, they'll show a distinct lack of eyes.
• Moveset Clone: They all copy the combat style of their real counterpart, with Olivia's being only a partial exception, due to lacking a wheelchair in favor of having both arms act in combat and be able to scratch.
• Nightmare Face: Their real faces show a lack of eyes or a nose, with a much larger mouth than a human should have. The doppelgänger of Marina, in particular, has it's mouth positioned diagonally.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Levi's aside, none of them will attack you unprovoked.
• Outside-Context Problem: There's very little evidence as to what their deal is and where they come from - given that they seem to impersonate contestants, it would be in line with Rher's domain of trickery. The only time they're mentioned is during Rancid the Sergal's rant on humanity.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Levi's doppelgänger Nightmare Face is visible in the overworld. Surprisingly, it still counts as the real Levi's head, to the point that you can pay Pocketcat with it.
• Piñata Enemy: Not only do they drop the same items as the original, but their heads also count as contestant heads to Pocketcat.
• They Look Like Us Now: While most doppelgangers' disguises are poor, with them only repeating existing phrases and quickly shifting into their monstrous face others have better disguises. The Karin seen in the Molded Apartments video is indistinguishable from the real thing and able to do a full length news report. In one of the B endings a normal-looking Samarie appears despite the original being dead.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: None of them react when they see the original person, even if directly spoken to.
• Welcome to Corneria: 3 of the 4 parrot what their originals say in ways that often don't make sense - Tanaka's will respond to inquiries as if you'd asked it about an entirely different subject, Marina's, the most stable, still gets hung up if you ask it too many questions, and Olivia's just keeps repeating that it's a botanist with a condition in most cases.

The Kaiser (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Kaiser/The Yellow King/Le'garde

The Bremen Kaiser is none other than the captain Le'garde, who ascended to godhood in the previous game. His goal of ushering in a new age under his rule didn't come to fruition, so he's come to Prehevil to enact another grand plan of his.

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• 0% Approval Rating: Out of all the talkative Bremen soldiers and (former) citizens, none seem to like him. The Sylvian Trooper doesn't show any reverence (all she wants is a last ride before dying), Pav was always a traitor, Karin has personal beef with him, Olivia is willing to kill him to find her sister, Reila is one of the NLU leaders, and the Bremen soldier doesn't listen to his orders anymore.
• All for Nothing: Le'garde's goal in the first game was to unify humanity and usher in an era of peace and prosperity. After his ascension, humanity ignored his message because they found a new savior in the God of Fear and Hunger.
• The Bad Guy Wins: It is implied that no matter the outcome of the game, Le'Garde succeeds in his ambitions this time around. Nas'hrah's comments and Father Domek's death imply the Kaiser fought in the bunker is a mere vessel for his soul elsewhere, and Ending A unavoidably ends with your party being absorbed into and aiding the Logic's ascension. In Olivia's B Ending, Reila's spirit starts connecting with her even at extremely long distances, suggesting after the festival's completion the Logic is still beginning to activate, albeit more slowly. This also serves to make him, once more, a Karma Houdini in most ways, albiet he has failed to achieve his true objective and is disregarded both by history and the present.
• Body Horror: While he normally appears human (if way too perfect), using the Rot will produce a more drastic effect than usual, as all of his skin and hair appears to fall off, exposing a mess of muscle and bone. This implies that D'arce's S-ending from the previous game is at least partially canon.
• Break the Haughty: Although Le'garde succeeded at becoming a New God, he failed to unify mankind like he thought he was prophesied to do. This took the wind out of his sails, as he admits that his role in the greater scheme of things wasn't as significant as he thought.
• Broad Strokes: No version of the events of the original game entirely gel with the Kaiser's appearance and history in Termina. Ending C describes Le'garde as a being with yellow flesh who united the western world as the Yellow King within the player character's lifetime in the 1500s-1600s, but in Termina he at least outwardly has normal human flesh, with the Kaiser appearing to be a relatively new ruler who came to power 14 years prior to Termina's events in 1942. The only mention of a Yellow King exists as a story August tells you about a "Yellow King of Madness", a warlord from the 17th century who ventured into the Dungeon of Fear and Hunger and obtained the power he sought (though in what way, August doesn't specify), but ultimately failed to unite the world with it. D'arce's S ending presents him as a creature without skin who "crave(d) to unleash the suffering he experienced to the outside world", implying his altruistic if misguided personality had been done away with or warped beyond recognition. While he can be made to resemble this appearance with the Rot spell, with August describing the Yellow King of Madness he came to be known as as a warmongering villain, he does ultimately still harbor good intentions for mankind and works to get Logic online to that end.
• Fighting Fingerprint: His Leg Sweep attack (which is unique to him in Termina) is one of the hints that he's Le'garde, as he started with this skill in the first game.
• Flunky Boss: Like with his original boss fight, Le'garde often summons Asterisks to aid in battle, with his snake appearing to heal his wounds.
• Hated by All: In a downplayed variant, it seems that nobody likes him post-war, with the exception of those of his troops that didn't give in to the festival. There's an article praising him, but it was written before the war has shown him to be a war criminal and a bloodthirsty dictator.
• Humanoid Abomination: Given that he's a New God, the game notes that there's something ancient and inhuman about his presence.
• Immune to Bullets: Downplayed, as while it takes a lot of bullets to kill him, it's still doable and no less effective than using a melee weapon. That said, Pav does get the unpleasant surprise of discovering that a single bullet can't stop him, and August passes on a legend of him being able to shrug off any bullets fired by the police as he was slaughtering the parliament.
• Orcus on His Throne: Despite having the power of a new god and a massive army, the only time he's seen acting on his own is when Pav confronts him. Otherwise, he's literally sitting in a chair in the White Bunker, a single room before the Logic, and makes no effort whatsoever to personally enable the machinery that powers it all on despite might vastly outclassing that of any one character.
• Leitmotif: Pulse and Anxiety from the first game returns when fighting the Kaiser, adding to the implications that he is a reincarnated Le'garde.
• Light Is Not Good: He has blonde hair and wears yellow clothing.
• Mystical White Hair: Just like the first game, he has white hair as a New God.
• No Cure for Evil: Averted once more, as his snake can cast Loving Whispers on him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Like in the previous game, Le'garde thinks he'll make the world a better place by creating the Machine God. He feels all the atrocities he's committed as "the Kaiser" were justified in pursuit of this goal.

The Machine God (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Machine God/Logic/Reila Haas

A deity formed from the ingenuity of humanity in an artificial green. Her vessel is Reila Haas, Olivia's twin sister and the woman with red shoes the Nameless Liberty Underground sent Abella to meet, as well as the girl every contestant saw in the dream.

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• The Ace: Reila excelled at everything she tried in life and would eventually become a god who would ascend in an unusual manner, not at all unlike the famously successful God of Fear and Hunger herself.
• Achilles' Heel: Logic is immune to almost every major status effect in the game, and lacks weaknesses to any form of damage otherwise. Coupled with her 19600 health, one might think her to be a Marathon Boss... and she is, unless the player sets her first form on fire, which take off a whopping 1400 of her health a turn. After she shifts to her second phase, she loses her immunity to every other form of Damage Over Time to further expedite things.
• Always Someone Better: She is this to Olivia. Gifted not only physical fitness but also charismatic and a genius at computing and engineering.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: She leads you to the telectroscopes with blue butterflies, guiding you towards helping her be reborn as a god. When faced in combat, however, she also attacks you with swarms of moths, and beating her will unlock the spell for it. She and her sister also possess two halves of a butterfly necklace, which can be recombined if Olivia is your protagonist.
• Cyborg: Her physical body, exposed to the party after her outer shell's defeat, is a strange blend of flesh and machine.
• Death of Personality: A potential aversion. She'll call her sister by name and point out that she has a way for the both of them to be together forever if Ending A is achieved by Olivia, implying she maintained at least some sense of self, unlike what typically happens to ascended New Gods. Olivia feeling herself being accompanied by her sister's spirit in Ending B lends further credence to Reila retaining her human connections.
• Deity of Human Origin: Reila was chosen by the Kaiser to be the vessel for Logic, letting her ascend to the position of a New God.
• Deity of Mortal Creation: Her creation is the result of extensive work on Project Logic.
• Final Boss: Of Ending A.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Logic's second phase takes place in what appears to be Rher's dimension. Unusually, it's entirely possible to bypass this trope entirely if you defeat her first phase fast enough.
• Glass Cannon: Her second form is more aggresive and has a pair of disembodied hands to help her dish out more pain than the first, but loses most of the shell's many status resistances in the process.
• Hologram: Hologram projection is one of her powers, which she uses to help guide you towards the telectroscopes, either with images of her human form, or with blue butterflies.
• Hologram Projection Imperfection: While her butterfly holograms appear normal, those of her former self often flicker, and have a wavey effect over them, as if viewed through an old TV.
• Marathon Boss: The boss with the highest health bar none. Her first form is also invulnerable to Damage Over Time effects (except Burning), and a bug causes the game to switch to the highest difficulty during the fight, causing you to deal half the normal damage.
• Rebel Leader: The leader of the Prehevil NLU cell, as both of the coded letters are written by "R", which only fits her.
• Shock and Awe: Her main method of attack in the first phase is Red Arcs, described as concentrated bolts of electricity. A version can also be unlocked as a New Game Plus spell of hers once you get Ending A.
• Significant Birth Date: Her birthday is January 1st, fitting for a person whose ascension as a god is heavily implied to start a new era of history.

The Forgettable God (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Sulfur God

An unknown, forgotten God. Its symbol is a triangle within a triangle attached to a cross.

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• Color Motif: Blue, the color used by his cultists to paint their bodies. Real-life Sulfur is yellow when solid, but when melted, it becomes a red liquid, and when burned...it produces a blue flame. The Sulfur God is forever burning in the Sulfur pits.
• Outside-Context Problem: The Sulfur God is explained through Story Breadcrumbs at best, and is completely unrelated to the Festival at hand unless one goes out of their way for Ending C. Certain details of the god are only explained if one plays a certain character or enters Rher's dreams, which can become inaccessible if you don't use Rher's symbol at certain circles.
• Satanic Archetype: It's implied to be the Satan to Alll-mer's Jesus, being born of Alll-mer's sins and hatred when he ascended to godhood. However, based on the information given, it is questionable as to whether it was "Satan" or "Jesus" that was cast into the sulfur pits. Given the dark nature of the world, it wouldn't be strange if the good half had been cast down, and the other had ascended.

The Puppeteers (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Grand Hall

A collective of New Gods in a hall outside reality. Contrary to how they present themselves as forgotten gods who have sunk into irrelevancy, Per'kele reveals they have secretly been controlling the world for centuries in pursuit of a sinister agenda of "progress."

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• Ambition Is Evil: They're driven by a sense of ambition in relation to humanity, desiring humans to take the world into their own hands and dethrone the Older Gods, based off a mixture of Kaiser's dialogue and their own replies when asking them questions in the first game.
• Ancient Conspiracy: A unique variant where the conspiracy exists in the form of an alliance of godly beings manipulating the mortal world by distance. Karin's backstory even reveals the New Gods have a reputation akin to the Illuminati in the Fear and Hunger setting.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Much like Kaiser, there is seemingly no way to stop them from achieving their goals in the game, arguably even moreso due to how you can't even "defeat" them like one can Kaiser - in fact, merely being in their presence causes one's Mind to constantly drain.
• Early-Bird Cameo: They show up briefly in the opening sequence, well before their existence or their plan is revealed in the end-game of routes B/C and A respectively.
• Evil vs. Evil: The followers of the Sulfur God are the only ones opposing them and their plans, at least according to Per'kele, and they're nightmarish followers of a Satanic Archetype who universally take the role of serial killer Monster Clowns.
• Greater-Scope Villain: They are revealed to be this for much of the entire setting, at least by the second game, having orchestrated countless tragedies including both Great Wars in pursuit of their enigmatic ambitions. However, they have little presence in the game outside appearing in visions in relation to the Logic at multiple points, with the Bremen Kaiser acting as their sole representative you can face directly.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Their overall long term goals are unclear, but it involves ensuring the Logic is created to propel humanity forward into the future, referring to it as "the climax". If certain replies to their questions in the first game indicate anything, their ultimate goal is to destroy the Older Gods.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: They present themselves as irrelevant figures who have faded from the world, but in reality continue to control all human fates to the tune of their great game.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: They present their goals as what is necessary for humanity, but it's clear ultimately their plans come down to a desire to further their control over the world.
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Except in this case, they're near-literally omniscient. You can ask them about nearly anything in the setting in the first game, even things which have yet to happen.