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Characters / InCryptid

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Characters in the InCryptid series. Also included are some characters from the Ghost Roads series.

Beware of unmarked spoilers.

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Humans

Price-Healy Familynote 

    In General 

This list divides the family by generation, starting with the youngest at the time of the novels.

Generation A

    Verity Price 

Verity Alice Price

The Arboreal Priestess

Full-time cryptozoologist and ballroom dancer. She specializes in urban cryptids, many of which are sapient. Narrator of the first two books, Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special, and the fifth, Chaos Choreography. Also narrates "The Ghost of Bourbon Street", "Snake in the Glass", "Swamp Bromeliad", "Waking Up in Vegas", and "My Last Name".
  • Ancestral Name/"Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Verity's father wanted to name her Alice after his mother, but his wife balked since Alice is weird (even by their standards). They compromised by making Alice her middle name.
  • Animal Lover: She once broke a man's nose for kicking a dog.
  • Battle Couple: With Dominic.
  • Building Swing: This is Verity's preferred method of getting down from buildings after Roofhopping. She usually doesn't even use a rope, relying on her strength and reflexes to grip fire escapes well enough to slow her descent.
  • Dance Battler: Especially when she's fighting on a dance floor, like in books 1 and 5.
  • Girly Bruiser: She balances her two lives, ballroom dancing and secret warrior-scientist. She also dresses much girlier than her sister Antimony.
  • Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: It's hard to tell whether she's this or a Tomboy with a Girly Streak. She's a professional dancer and likes other traditionally feminine things like dresses, but she's also an Action Girl who loves climbing trees and buildings so much that her title is "The Arboreal Priestess".
  • Lots of Luggage: In the novella "Singing the Comic-Con Blues", Verity packs two huge suitcases for a trip to Emerald City Comic Con, but Antimony forces her to consolidate it into one bag, since the car is taking four people. The one bag she brings is surprisingly heavy, but it's left ambiguous how much of its contents are clothes and how much is weaponry.
  • Le Parkour: Why walk somewhere when you can run across rooftops?
  • Outdoorsy Gal: Aeslin title is "the Arboreal Priestess", showing how much she likes climbing trees (though now that she's an adult she mostly does Roof Hopping). Interestingly, she's the girlier sister, with Antimony being more of a tomboy.
  • Roofhopping: Verity's preferred mode of transport.
  • Triple Shifter: Somehow she finds time for cryptozoology, ballroom dance, and working as a waitress.

    Alex Price 

Alexander Jonathan Price

The God of Scales and Silence

The eldest sibling, he works as a herpetologist at a zoo in Columbus, Ohio. Narrates books 3 and 4, Half-Off Ragnarok and Pocket Apocalypse, as well as the novella The Measure of a Monster.
  • Ancestral Name: Alex is named after his great-great-grandfather Alexander, and great-grandfather Jonathan.
  • Badass Bookworm: The nerdiest of the three Price siblings, he actually got a graduate degree and there's no question that he'll follow in his parents' footsteps as a cryptozoologist, unlike Verity (who's torn between that and dancing) and Antimony (who's drawn to magic).
  • Battle Couple: With Shelby.
  • Blind Without 'Em: Alex's eyesight is bad enough that the world is a fuzzy unfocused blur when he's not wearing his glasses, and Cooper tells him that lycanthropy will fix that for him as a selling point.
  • Boys Like Creepy Critters: Alex is a herpetologist, and he's liked reptiles and amphibians since he was a kid (when Angela and Martin took their grandkids to Lowryland, he caught 16 species of lizards, snakes, and frogs within the park limits), but most of the female characters he interacts with (Shelby, his sisters) aren't averse to creepy crawlies either.
  • Labcoat of Science and Medicine: He wears one on the cover of Half-Off Ragnarok.
  • Too Qualified to Apply: Similar to Antimony, he left his extracurricular activity, the Society for Creative Anachronism, because he was popular enough to be elected king of the local "kingdom", and if he was, his photo might make it to the Covenant. He seems less bitter about it than Annie, though.

    Antimony Price 

Antimony Timpani Price

The Precise Priestess

The youngest of the three siblings. Narrates books 6, 7, and 8: Magic For Nothing, Tricks for Free, and That Ain't Witchcraft. Also narrates "Blocked", "Bad Dream Girl", "Jammed", "Survival Horror" Follow the Lady, and Singing the Comic-Con Blues.
  • Action Girl: As per most of the Price-Healy women.
  • Aerith and Bob: Has the most unusual name out of the three Price siblings.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Antimony has mentioned being open to liking women (though also one time stated that she wasn't), but for most of her life her family thought she was too prickly to get romantically involved with anyone. Now that she's with Sam, it's unlikely she'll ever find out for sure.
  • Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: When Antimony goes undercover in the Covenant as "Timpani Brown", her fake backstory is that she's the only survivor of an Apraxis wasp attack on a traveling carnival. This gives her a believable explanation for her already-impressive combat and gymnastics skills, and a motivation for hating cryptids. It ends up not being enough to fool them, but they keep it a secret that they know.
  • Deadpan Snarker: The snarkiest of the Price siblings, all of whom are pretty sarcastic.
  • Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: After she graduates high school, she's not so desperate to find something to do, but her parents gently push her to get a hobby. She ends up joining a roller derby team.
  • Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: She infiltrates the Covenant as The Mole for the Price family to learn their plans for North America. The Covenant, once deciding she's not a threat, train her as one of their own, and send her to infiltrate the Spenser carnival to determine whether they're knowingly harboring cryptids.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Sorcerers like Antimony and James often have to figure out their powers by trial and error, since sorcerers are few and far between, largely due to persecution by the Covenant.
  • I Have Many Names: Antimony, Annie, Timpani, Tim, plus her aliases Timpani Brown, Annie Thompson, and Melody West.
  • Magnetic Hero: After being utterly alone at the end of Magic for Nothing, with not even a mouse to accompany her, she gets a job at Lowryland because an old cheer team friend was the hiring manager, finds roommates in Fern (who she knew from roller derby) and Megan, and is later joined by Sam and Cylia. All of them except Megan accompany her to New Gravesend, where James joins their crew of True Companions. She knew most of these people already, but they all happened to be in the right place and time to join her (and at least in Cylia's case, her inner luck told her to go to Florida).
  • Nerd Action Hero: She's an Action Girl, skilled in combat, and pretty socially adept (plus her fire powers), and also a huge geek. Her first mission as leader was to a comic convention.
  • Odd Name, Normal Nickname: Antimony Price usually goes by Annie, though sometimes she uses Tim.
  • Playing with Fire: The only sorcerer in her generation of the family, she has trouble keeping her powers under control and hiding it from her family.
  • Pom-Pom Girl: She was a cheerleader in high school.
  • Pop-Cultured Badass: So much. About half the examples on the Shout Out page are from her.
  • Real Name as an Alias: This was invoked by Antimony's and her cousin Elsie's parents in naming them. Antimony can go by Annie, Tim, or either of her actual given names with the (several generations removed) Nom de Mom Brown to fool any spells that detect if someone is giving a false name. The same applies to Elsinore Norelle Harrington, who can go by Elsie, Nore, Elle, or either of her given names. (Antimony's the one sent to infiltrate the Covenant (as Timpani Brown) though, since she's 100% human)
  • Rollerblade Good: Justified, since she plays Roller Derby. One of the few things she carries with her when she's fleeing the Covenant is a pair of skates.
  • Too Qualified to Apply: Her parents pulled her out of gymnastics and circus school as a kid, and wouldn't let her do college cheerleading, because she was so good she might attract the Covenant's attention. Annie is rather bitter about this, since they let Verity dance on live TV and that's what actually let the Covenant find out they were still alive.

    Sarah Zellaby 

Sarah Zellaby

The Younger Heartless One (later the Calculating Priestess)

One of only two non-Always Chaotic Evil cuckoos in the world (the other one's her mother). She looks human, but is actually a Johrlac or cuckoo, a telepathic species that usually act as a Backstory Invader to parasitize people's lives. Adoptive sister of Evelyn, but closer in age to her children, so they consider her a cousin. Narrator of the ninth book, Imaginary Numbers, the tenth book, Calculated Risks, and part of Midnight Blue-Light Special.
  • Anti Anti Christ: Once she realizes Ingrid has deceived her, she fights to prevent the destruction of Earth and of her own mind (and those of her friends and family).
  • Apocalypse Maiden: The Johrlac, especially Ingrid, want to use Sarah to tear a hole in this dimension, sending the Johrlac to a new one and destroying Earth in the process.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Most Johrlac use their powers to act as parasites or predators in human (or cryptid) lives, until eventually the victims lose their sense of self. Sarah is a polite, kind person who just wants to live and let live.
  • Bizarre Taste in Food: Apparently all cuckoos have a taste for tomato sauce and ketchup. Sarah mixes it with drinks, like tonic water or a milkshake.
  • Broken Bird: After using her telepathy to rewrite the Covenant team's memories and save Verity, Sarah suffers a semi-breakdown and goes back to her parents' house, where they (and Alex) help her slowly recover. She doesn't feel well enough to leave and go back to Oregon until 5 years after the incident.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: All Johrlac look like this, with Occult Blue Eyes.
  • Everyone Can See It: The mutual attraction between her and Artie is obvious to everyone except the two of them.
  • Evolution Power-Up: After she enters her later instars, she can teleport people through space and time, rip a hole between dimensions, and use telekinesis.
  • Friend to Bugs: At least to one bug, Greg the Giant Spider. She won't let anyone harm him, and he feels likewise about her.
  • Glowing Eyes: Like all Johrlac, her eyes turn white when she actively uses her telepathy.
  • Good with Numbers: All Johrlac have an affinity for math, and Sarah relaxes by reading math books or listening to lectures on tape. She later finds out that the right equations can literally change reality.
  • Happily Adopted: By Martin and Angela when she was about 9, though it took her years to lower her guard and feel like she truly had a real family.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: After Sarah becomes a Johrlac Queen, she takes a while to figure out her vastly expanded new powers, partially because she doesn't want to accidentally hurt anyone with them.
  • Human Outside, Alien Inside: Cuckoos are parasites who evolved to be outwardly identical to humans (the "Heartless One" title refers to their decentralized circulatory systems).
  • Mad Mathematician: All Johrlac are Good with Numbers as one of their species hats, but most of them are pretty sane (albeit with sociopathic/Blue-and-Orange Morality). When Sarah is forced into an Evolution Power-Up that turns her into an Unstable Powered Woman, she starts writing equations everywhere (including in her own Mental World) and acting more erratically as the cosmic equation forces its way into more and more of her mind, and would have eventually caused her mind to melt if she hadn't been able to spread it out over hundreds of other minds.
  • Magical Barefooter: At the climax of Imaginary Numbers, Sarah's friends and family find her barefoot and wearing an Ethereal White Dress in the middle of the Johrlac ritual. Subverted when she snaps out of the psychic trance and spends half the next book looking for shoes and more sensible clothes.
  • Meaningful Name: She chose her last name as a reference to Angela Zellaby from The Midwich Cuckoos.
  • Mind over Manners: She actively tries to avoid messing with people's minds too much, though she will temporarily use her powers to get people to leave her alone or let her through security at an airport. In Calculated Risks, she asks all the people they bring back to Earth with them if they want to remember the last two days in Another Dimension or not, and only gives Laser-Guided Amnesia to those who give her permission. She also doesn't mess around in the Johrlac children's minds without their consent.
  • Orc Raised by Elves: One of the only non-sociopathic cuckoos, though in this case one of the "elves" was another Token Heroic Orc (Angela).
  • Pest Controller: In Calculated Risks, she telepathically tames a Giant Spider and rides it to meet up with the others.
  • Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Sarah, who already has telepathic Puberty Superpowers, goes into a coma after giving a Covenant strike team Laser-Guided Amnesia and spends five years recovering. Once she feels fully recovered, it's revealed that she was actually undergoing her "instars", a kind of Evolution Power-Up that turns her into a Johrlac queen, capable of tearing holes between dimensions.
  • Tyke Bomb: An odd example, since she didn't know about it and her childhood was mostly happy (after Angela and Martin adopted her). Her species normally leave their young as Doorstop Babies with Muggle Foster Parents (who are almost invariably murdered by their unknowingly adopted child upon their Human Alien Discovery). After her original human parents were killed, she ended up being adopted by Angela, the Token Heroic Orc of her species, who raised her to have human values and respect for others. Once she's an adult, her biological mother comes back and reveals she had Sarah, killed her human parents, and arranged for her to be found by Angela, all so Sarah could undergo an Evolution Power-Up into a Johrlac queen and tear a hole in reality. Never mind that this would fry Sarah's brain. Fortunately, Sarah refuses and manages to prevent her mind being destroyed (at the destruction of almost all the rest of her kind).
  • Unstable Powered Woman: When Sarah overexerts herself by rewriting the Covenant team's memories, it damages her mind for years, to the point that it's only in Imaginary Numbers, five years later, that she's healed enough to go back to Oregon. And then the Johrlac hive finds her and forces her to start her metamorphosis into a Johrlac queen (read: Apocalypse Maiden).

    Elsie Harrington 

Elsinore Norelle "Elsie" Harrington

The Polychromatic Priestess

The Price siblings' cousin, she's a lesbian succubus.
  • Big Sister Instinct: She cares deeply about her little brother Artie, and even cries when he was sucked into Sarah's mindscape and she didn't know if he'd wake up.
  • The Empath: Lilu naturally have empathic powers, allowing them to read people's emotions.
  • Good Bad Girl: Shamelessly sleeps around with many different women, and is unashamed to talk about sex.
    "I am the patron saint of inappropriate innuendo and giving people hickeys right before their mothers show up. I’m considering becoming a religious icon. You think I could get a following?”note 
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: Like with most siblings, she's the only one allowed to tease Artie.
  • I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: As a succubus, she naturally produces pheromones that attract human males (except her relatives) to her. She has no interest in them and finds it rather annoying, since she's trying to flirt with their girlfriends.

    Artie Harrington 

Arthur James "Artie" Harrington

The God of Chosen Isolation

The Price siblings' cousin, he's an incubus. Narrates part of book 9, Imaginary Numbers.
  • Accidental Pornomancer: Deconstructed. Artie can't go out in public because of the risk that someone will try to jump his bones. When he was a kid, he even worried that his powers would make the Aeslin mice be attracted to him (fortunately, they're biologically incompatible with humanoids and therefore immune). Altogether he's So Beautiful, It's a Curse.
  • Came Back Wrong: After having his mind accidentally wiped and becoming an Empty Shell, Sarah tries to reconstruct his mind from everyone else's memories of him, but not having his own original memories makes him a little...off.
  • The Empath: Lilu naturally have empathic powers, allowing them to read people's emotions.
  • Everyone Can See It: Everyone except him and Sarah can see the mutual attraction between them.
  • Hikikomori: By necessity. If he ever leaves the house, he wears cologne strong enough to destroy the sense of smell of anyone in a ten-foot radius, since otherwise his pheromones would be overpowering to any female (or gay/bi male) he's not related to.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Possibly the only person he could have a romantic relationship with is Sarah, since she's not related to him by blood, but she's not human (or even a mammal) so his pheromones have no effect.
  • Living Aphrodisiac: Like Elsie, he produces pheromones that attract unrelated humans of the opposite sex. Unlike her, his are much stronger.
  • Mistaken for Gay: In "My Last Name", Verity is pretty sure that Jane thinks her son is gay, since he attended live drawing classes with male models (so he wouldn't affect female ones). Apparently, the fact that he would have come out already, since his parents have shown they're okay with his sister being gay, didn't occur to her.
  • Non-Action Guy: Compared to his human cousins. He still knows how to use a gun and field-dress a wound.
  • Playful Hacker: Inverted. Artie is an extremely solemn and serious hacker. He has to be. He is the one who does all the fake identification documentation from birth certificates to driver's licenses to passports for many members of the family up until Magic for Nothing, which results in Antimony having to sort out her own because she can't lead anything back to the family.
  • Power Incontinence: The reason for him being a hikikomori. He can't stop or even reduce his pheromones, so he stays away from anyone he might affect with them.

Generation B

    Kevin Price 

Kevin Alexander Price

The God of Decisions Made in Necessity

Son of Alice and Thomas, husband of Evelyn, father of Alex, Verity, and Antimony.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Antimony finds out her dad is bisexual when he makes a pass at a bleeding Ted Harrington (whose pheromones only work on people attracted to men).
  • Badass Bookworm / The Professor: He spends much of his time on research, and actually has a job as a researcher at a local college.
  • Papa Wolf: He may not be as violently protective as his wife, but he's just as ready to kill to protect his children.
  • Parental Abandonment: Shares this (Missing Mom and Disappeared Dad) with his sister due to their father being snatched by his Deal with the Devil, and is mother running off to find him when Kevin was still a toddler. Kevin stepped into the role of caretaker for thir house and is pragmatic about his mother spending 50 odd years searching for his father.
  • Raised by the Community: He and Jane were largely raised by the Campbell Family Carnival, since Alice was off in Another Dimension looking for Thomas.

    Evelyn Price-Baker 

Evelyn Ann Baker Price

The Thoughtful Priestess

Adopted daughter of Angela and Martin, wife of Kevin, mother of Alex, Verity, and Antimony.
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Ultimately subverted in the short story "My Last Name". Verity warns Dominic that her mother is the one to worry about, but both her parents ultimately accept him as their son-in-law.
    Kevin: Your mother’s going to bury him in a shallow grave somewhere on the property. You understand that, don’t you?...I mean, I’m the father figure holding a shotgun, so you’d think I’d be the one screaming about despoiling my little girl, but really, I want to go ask the man if he’s considered going into Witness Protection before your mother gets her hands on him.
  • Combat Medic: Like the rest of the family, she's a badass trained in combat and survival, but her primary skill is field medicine, specifically for cryptids.
  • Like Parent, Like Spouse: Verity muses that Kevin unconsciously picked a wife very much like his mother Alice: pretty, blonde, occasionally violent, and almost never there.
  • Mama Bear: Do NOT mess with her children. Verity had a very real worry that her mom might kill her fiancé and bury him in a shallow grave when she found out he used to be from the Covenant.
  • Raised by the Supernatural: Evelyn was adopted as a Doorstop Baby by Martin and Angela, and both her adoptive siblings are cryptids, though Drew (bogeyman) wasn't adopted until she was 18, and Sarah wasn't adopted until she was in her thirties and had her own children.

    Jane Harrington-Price 

Jane Rose Price Harrington

The Silent Priestess

Daughter of Alice and Thomas, sister of Kevin, husband of Ted, and mother of Elsie and Artie.
  • Missing Mom: Shares this and Disappeared Dad with Kevin. Alice was the physically present type first, then completely absent when she left to find Thomas. She took it much harder than Kevin did.
  • Parental Abandonment: See also Kevin's entry. She appears to hold no enmity for Thomas but she hates Alice for having left her children to search for Thomas.
  • Raised by the Community: She and Kevin were largely raised by the Campbell Family Carnival, since Alice was off in Another Dimension looking for Thomas.

    Ted Harrington 

The God of Careful Chances

Husband of Jane, father of Elsie and Artie. He's an Incubus.

Generation C

    Alice Price-Healy 

Alice Enid Price-Healy

The Noisy Priestess (before Thomas's disappearance)/The Pilgrim Priestess (afterwards)

The Price siblings' paternal grandmother. Often in another dimension, searching for her missing husband. Narrates the eleventh book, Spelunking Through Hell, and the twelfth, Backpacking Through Bedlam.
  • Ancestral Name/"Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Alice is named as a feminine form of "Alex", since her parents thought she was going to be a boy and planned to name her after her grandfather. Her middle name is Enid, after her grandmother.
  • Animated Tattoo: Frequently comes back from her interdimensional trips with new tattoos, or missing old ones, some of which can move.
  • Cast from Calories: Her Power Tattoos consume some of her energy, and she carries around glucose and electrolyte packets to replenish it.
  • Dating What Daddy Hates: Despite his Covenant background, she finds herself attracted to Thomas, to her father's horror.
  • Determinator: For the last 50+ years, she's had one goal: to find Thomas and bring him home. Sarah (who's read her mind) mentions that she's damaged, but not complex.
  • Dimensional Traveler: She's been traveling through other dimensions for over 50 years trying to find Thomas.
  • Fighting Fingerprint: When she finally finds Thomas in Another Dimension, he recognizes she's really her by her fighting style.
  • I Will Find You: After her husband Thomas was Trapped in Another World by an Eldritch Abomination, Alice spends the next 50+ years as a Dimensional Traveler searching for him. In the eleventh book, after 56 years, they're finally reunited.
  • Missing Mom: Alice is the mom in question. She left her young children to be raised by her best friend so she could search the multiverse for her husband.
  • Mistaken for Suicidal: In And Sweep Up the Wood, everyone, even the Aeslin mice, thinks that Alice is suicidal, because she cut open her own arm to remove parasitic Apraxis wasp nymphs (and her father had just died).
  • Mum Looks Like a Sister: In this case, grandma looks like a sister, and poses as Verity's in Chaos Choreography.
  • Older Than They Look: Spending time in other dimensions has caused Alice to appear much younger than she really is. She can pass for her granddaughter Verity's sister.
  • Posthumous Sibling: Daniel Healy was murdered at age three, and it was another three years before Fran and Jonathan had Alice. She doesn't seem to have many issues with her upbringing relating to Daniel, but Jonathan becomes a helicopter parent after Fran is killed too.
  • Power Tattoos: She has magical tattoos that contain spells for healing, translation, and dimensional travel.
  • Searching for the Lost Relative: After her husband Thomas was Trapped in Another World by an Eldritch Abomination, Alice spends the next 50+ years as a Dimensional Traveler searching for him. In the eleventh book, after 56 years, they're finally reunited.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: Alice was born in 1938, but has spent so much time in other dimensions where time flows differently that she looks the same age as her own granddaughters.
    • In Spelunking Through Hell, it's revealed that she actually stays young-looking via an extremely painful process involving being Flayed Alive.
  • Tank-Top Tomboy: In both books where she appears on the covernote , and in most fanart of her (such as this and this◊), she's in a tank top (and holding a weapon), emphasizing her Action Girl status (and showing off her Power Tattoos).

    Thomas Price 

Thomas Price

The God of Difficult Bargains and Unwanted Knowledge/God of Things it is Almost Certainly Better Not to Be Aware Of/God of Empty Rooms and Colder Regrets/God of Inconvenient Timing

The Price siblings' paternal grandfather. Currently missing in another dimension after an unspecified incident with the Crossroads.
  • Badass Bookworm: He was "sworn to the pen and the page" like Alexander, meaning his primary focus was in research (though he's still trained in many forms of combat and survival). His collection of books, although miniscule compared to the Healy family library, and practically nothing compared to the Covenant's, is still extensive, and includes notes on cryptids from all over the world.
  • Benevolent Mage Ruler: He plays up the Self-Made Myth that he's a ruthless Wasteland Warlord with a harem to deter attacks by any of the other factions in the Death World. His realm, protected by a magical membrane (that also has a Universal Translator spell) is the best place to live on that world, with protection from other warlords, equality for women, and better air and water than anywhere else.
  • Deal with the Devil: Thomas made a deal with the Crossroads to save Alice's life, and was able to hold it off from collecting its payment for years, though he was confined to smaller and smaller areas (for most of that time just his house) and it eventually took him away.
  • Defecting for Love: Being a sorcerer, whom the Covenant would kill or imprison on sight if they knew, may have had something to do with his leaving their ranks, but Alice definitely had some role in it.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: When he gets back to Earth, he's been away since 1965, and has a lot of catching up to do in the way of technology.
  • Mage Born of Muggles: Not knowing any other sorcerers, he was largely Taught by Experience in the use of his powers and how to hide them.
  • Power Tattoo: His body is covered in tattoos, many of them designed to contain, enhance, or channel his magical power.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: After the Covenant started suspecting he was lying about there being no cryptids in the places he explored, they sent him on a very uncomfortable journey to live in The Alleged House in Buckley, in the middle of nowhere, and spy on the Healys. Good thing, too, since if he hadn't been sent there he and Alice never would have met.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: In the "bottle world", he designed a Power Tattoo to stop his aging until he was reunited with Alice.
  • Tranquil Fury: When Naga reveals his true colors, Thomas sets fire to all the oxygen in his cells for what he did to Alice.
  • Trapped in Another World: For several decades now.
  • Try to Fit That on a Business Card: The Aeslin seem to have given him more divine titles than any other family member.

    Angela Baker 

Angela Baker

The Elder Heartless One

The only other non-evil Johrlac. Adoptive mother of Evelyn, Drew, and Sarah.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Most Johrlac use their powers to act as parasites in human (or cryptid) lives, until eventually the victims lose their sense of self. Angela isn't a receptive telepath, so she never absorbed her biological mother's subliminal telepathic programming to act like her species (i.e. sociopathic).
  • Glowing Eyes: Like all Johrlac, her eyes turn white when she actively uses her telepathy.
  • Good with Numbers: This is the Johrlac's species hat, and she puts it to good use in her job as an accountant.
  • Human Outside, Alien Inside: Cuckoos are parasites who evolved to be outwardly identical to humans.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: She fell in love with Martin because, being a zombie, he was immune to her telepathy.
  • Shout-Out: Her name is a reference to Angela Zellaby, a character from The Midwich Cuckoos.
  • Token Heroic Orc: One of the only non-sociopathic cuckoos.
  • Vague Age: Nobody except her (and maybe Martin) knows how old she is, since Johrlac don't visibly age like humans.

    Martin Baker 

Martin Baker

Angela's husband and adoptive father of Evelyn, Drew, and Sarah. A revenant made from parts of several dead bodies.

Generation D

    Jonathan Healy 

Jonathan Healy

The God of Unexpected Situations

Husband of Fran and father of Alice.
  • Badass Bookworm: He and his father are the town librarians of Buckley, and he often gives off a professorial vibe. At the same time, he's always armed with a variety of weapons and is capable of subduing most foes lethally or non-lethally.
  • Flanderization: After Fran's death, he becomes completely defined by his overprotective personality.
  • Helicopter Parents: Following Fran's death, Jonathan becomes this to Alice, refusing to teach her anything about cryptids and trying to make her have a so-called 'normal' life. This lasts up until she nearly gets killed by a dire boar in "Target Practice", and Alice puts her foot down.
  • Ironic Nickname: Fran calls him "city boy", but Buckley probably has fewer than a thousand people. After seeing the town she rethinks how accurate it is.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: His son Daniel dies at only three years old in The First Fall.
  • The Professor: His outfits and tendency to infodump about the cryptid in question make him seem like a professor sometimes.

    Frances Healy 

Frances Brown Healy

The Violent Priestess

Wife of Jonathan and mother of Alice. Also known as "The Fabulous Fran", "The Flower of Arizona", and "The Star of New Mexico" when she performed with the Campbell Family Circus.
  • Circus Brat: Fran was left as a Doorstop Baby at the Campbell Family Carnival, and raised by the carnies. She ended up becoming their star performer until she left with Jonathan Healy, but she stayed in touch with her friends there, and Jonathan even arranges for the Carnival to come to Buckley for their wedding.
  • Doorstop Baby: Little Fran was left outside the flap of the main tent of the circus she grows up to perform with. Calculated Risks reveals this was because she was half-Kairos, and the Johrlac were hunting down her and her parents.
  • Dual Wielding: Fran can do this with guns and knives. It's likely other members of the family are also able to do the same with their weapons of choice.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: In Calculated Risks, we learn that her mother was human and her father was a Kairos.
  • Horse Archer: She doesn't use a bow, but she can do extremely accurate knife throwing on horseback.
  • Immune to Mind Control: She has a natural resistance to Johrlac mind control.
  • Knife-Throwing Act: She was a circus star who did trick knife throwing...on horseback.
  • The Lost Lenore: Her death is the catalyst for Jonathan becoming a Helicopter Parent.
  • Mama Bear: You do not want to get in between Frances Healy and her baby.
  • "Open!" Says Me: When Frances Healy wants in, and you don't let her in, her shotgun is how she knocks (the door off its hinges).
  • Outliving One's Offspring: Her son Daniel dies at age three in The First Fall. She makes Jonathan promise she won't have to bury any more of their children.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: The family is pretty sure Fran wasn't fully human, since she and her descendants all have some degree of natural immunity to Johrlac telepathy.
  • We Named The Dog Indiana: She claims she was named after the snake-handler's favorite python. She could have been trolling Jonathan though.

Generation E

    Alexander Healy 

Alexander Christopher Healy

The God of Uncommon Sense

Husband of Enid, father of Jonathan, and grandfather of Alice. He and Enid were the first to defect from the Covenant.
  • Badass Bookworm: In the Covenant, he was "sworn to the pen and the page", meaning his strengths lay in research. However, he still has extensive combat and survival training, and is a force to be reckoned with. In Buckley, he's the town librarian.
  • Battle Couple: With Enid. Thomas notes that it's virtually impossible to fight one of them alone.
  • Blade Enthusiast: Alexander is famed within the Covenant for his knife-fighting skills, to the extent that Thomas doubts being able to take him even in his relative retirement.
  • Cool Old Guy: Age hasn't prevented him from being just as deadly as he was in his youth.
  • Happily Married: They started out with Enid holding him at gunpoint and telling him if it came down to his loyalty to the Covenant or the mice, she'd pick the mice. He soon came to agree with her, and they were married more than fifty years.

    Enid Healy 

Enid Katarina Carew Healy

The Patient Priestess

Wife of Alexander, mother of Jonathan, and grandmother of Alice. She and Alexander were the first to defect from the Covenant.

Covenant of St. George

A secret quasi-religious order whose mission is to exterminate anything they deem "monsters". The Price family split from them several generations back.
    In General 
"The Covenant tends to shoot first and ask questions never. At the same time, the Covenant takes care of their own. They let women have jobs and positions of authority and guns—do you know how many organizations would have been willing to let me learn how to shoot when I was your age?"
  • Thomas also mentions (in the 1950s) that the Covenant turns a blind eye to homosexuality among its ranks, as long as they fulfill their duty and sire children.

    Dominic de Luca 

Dominic de Luca

The God of Hard Choices in Dark Places

A Covenant operative who meets Verity in New York in the first book. They team up to defeat a greater enemy, and eventually he defects from the Covenant and they get married.
  • Badass Longcoat: He almost always wears a leather duster.
  • Battle Couple: With Verity.
  • The Comically Serious: He always speaks very seriously, even when he's being funny. Verity teases him about it.
  • Defecting for Love: He realizes he loves Verity and she's right about cryptids not being all bad, and then enlists their help to rescue her from the Covenant.
  • Sentimental Drunk: Dominic accidentally gets high off swamp bromeliad pollen and becomes overly affectionate towards Verity, which would be nice if they weren't currently trying to rescue a kid from a Man-Eating Plant.
    Dominic: You're beautiful. Did you know? You must know. You own so many lip glosses. No one would own that many lip glosses and not know. Do you want to dance?
  • Sex–Face Turn: His Belligerent Sexual Tension with Verity leads to them hooking up, after which he starts questioning his Covenant beliefs and seeing cryptids as people.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's only really tall compared to barely-5-foot Verity, but he has darker skin than hers and is prone to snark, especially once she starts influencing him.
  • Took the Wife's Name: After Dominic and Verity get married, he takes her last name to become Dominic Price, symbolizing a break with his Covenant past.

    Leonard Cunningham 

Leonard Cunningham

Grandson of the current leader of the Covenant, and heir apparent to the role.
  • Enemy Mine: Leonard and Antimony temporarily team up to destroy the Crossroads.
  • Entitled to Have You: There's an undercurrent of this in his treatment of Antimony, especially when he mentions Sam to her, in disbelief that she'd choose a cryptid over him.
  • Evil Brit: He's an English villain.

    Margaret Healy 

Margaret Healy

A member of the branch of the family that stayed with the Covenant.
  • Clashing Cousins: She hates her cousins for being traitors to the Covenant (despite the ones alive today never having been part of the Covenant at all).
  • Dark Action Girl: A foil to her distant cousins Verity and Antimony.
  • Evil Brit: She grew up in the Covenant's London headquarters.

    Gwendolyn Brandt 
A dangerous fighter and Thomas's betrothed.
  • Abhorrent Admirer: Thomas has been afraid of her since they were introduced, since he knows how deadly she can be.
  • Beauty Is Bad: The Brandts have been breeding for female beauty for generations. Too bad she's evil and a terrible match for Thomas.
  • Dark Action Girl: Thomas knows that in a fight between her and Alice, Alice (who's no slouch with weapons) would end up dead.
  • Evil Brit: Though she's Welsh, not English.
  • The Fundamentalist: Gwendolyn believes wholeheartedly in the Covenant's mission, and is even willing to kill humans who oppose her.
  • My Biological Clock Is Ticking: She desperately wants to have a child with Thomas, though it seems to be less for the sake of having a child than for 1) Giving birth to a new member of the Covenant and 2) Gaining control of the Price family bank accounts for the Covenant.
  • Obliviously Evil: She sees no way that the Covenant could ever be wrong about anything, especially not the need to "cleanse the world of monsters".
  • Offscreen Karma: Downplayed. Nobody except Mary knows that she released the bidi-taurabo-haza, and Mary never tells anyone that she unleashed its ghost on Gwendolyn. The audience sees it all, though.
  • Yandere: She openly threatens to kill Thomas's "wife" Mary and make him a widower if that's what it takes to become his wife (little does she know that Mary is already a ghost).

Tanner Family

An Australian family of cryptozoologists. Prominent in the Thirty-Six Society, the Australian cryptozoology organization.

    In General 
  • Awesome Aussie
  • Badass Family: The Tanners are familiar with guns and weapons, and hunt cryptids their way.
  • Fantastic Racism: Unlike the Prices, they don't treat intelligent cryptids as equals or associate much with them at all, even though there are plenty in Australia that could help them (especially reptilian species like Wadjet, who are immune to lycanthropy).

    Shelby Tanner 

Shelby Tanner

The Unpredictable Priestess

An Australian cryptozoologist, she works at the same zoo as Alex, as a big cat expert. She and Alex start dating and get engaged by book 4.
  • Action Girl
  • Awesome Aussie: Shelby is a member of an Australian family that fights dangerous Australian cryptids, poachers and Van Helsing Hate Crimes practitioners and is quick to take the initiative in going against danger.
  • Battle Couple: With Alex.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Shelby is blonde and very nice, but no pushover.
  • Pregnant Badass: In one of the short stories, Shelby takes part in the usual adventure, helping take on several poachers, then reveals afterward that she's pregnant.
  • When She Smiles: Shelby gets this description early on.
    Alex: Shelby was one of those people who looked miserable, almost funereal, when she wasn't smiling. When she did, it seemed like she could outshine the sun.

Others

    Emery Spenser 

Emery Spenser

Owner of the Spenser Carnival and grandmother of Sam.

    James Smith 

James Smith Price

The Stolen God

A young sorcerer living in the town of New Gravesend, Maine.
  • Always a Child to Parent: His father mixes this with a fair amount of resentment for his wife's death, so doesn't bat an eye when his adult son is having cookies and milk over textbooks with a girl his own age, like they were 11 year olds.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Artie's pheromones only work on people attracted to men. James doesn't show any effects at first, but when he comes into contact with Artie's blood (and then licks it), the attraction to Artie is strong enough to break a cuckoo's mind control over him. Afterwards he couldn't look at Artie and had to go take a cold shower and some aconite (though he was still strong enough to recognize that it was affecting him). Seanan later confirmed that James is gay.
  • Badass Bookworm: He's really good at research, since he had nothing else to do for most of his time in New Gravesend.
  • Family of Choice: After seeing how James's dad treats him, Annie declares that she's taking him back to Oregon with her as an honorary brother.
  • Hereditary Curse: He doesn't realize it, but there's a reason his mom died young, he's never left town, and every member of his maternal line has been a sorcerer. His ancestor made a deal with the Crossroads that his magic power would always breed true, that there may always be a sorcerer to protect New Gravesend. This clause means that James can't leave the town limits, or he'll start to die. And since the deal only mentioned one sorcerer, the parent dies soon after their child is born.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Sorcerers like Antimony and James often have to figure out their powers by trial and error, since sorcerers are few and far between, largely due to persecution by the Covenant.
  • An Ice Person: Just like Antimony has fire powers, James has ice powers.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: His best friend Sally lost her life making a deal with the Crossroads on his behalf. He feels responsible, and makes it his mission to destroy the Crossroads. Turns out she's still alive, just Trapped in Another World.
  • Queer Establishing Moment: In Imaginary Numbers, Artie's pheromones are shown to work on James, proving that he's attracted to men (incubus pheromones only work on people of a compatible orientation). The author later confirmed that James is gay, rather than bisexual as some readers had guessed. This was further supported by Sally's comments in Spelunking Through Hell, saying that Sam "didn't need to worry about James and Antimony".
  • Trademark Favorite Food: According to Sally, "James would never stay in a house for more than about a week before there were blueberry Eggos on hand."
  • Tragic Ice Character: James has ice powers, and has a pretty terrible lot in life before meeting Antimony and her friends. His mom died when he was young from a Hereditary Curse that traps him in the town he was born in, his best friend was taken by the Crossroads in an attempt to end that curse, and his dad is homophobic and resents him for the death of his wife. And when Annie meets him, the Crossroads try to make her kill him. Once the Crossroads are destroyed and Annie adopts James into the family, things start getting better for him, though he's still quiet and reserved.

    Laura Campbell 

Laura Campbell

The daughter of Juniper Campbell, Fran's sister in all but blood, and Alice's best friend. She's a routewitch and an umbramancer.
  • Circus Brat: She was raised with the Campbell Family Carnival, and only settled down for a bit when she went to college.
  • I See Dead People: Comes with the territory of being an umbramancer. She can even see ghosts that don't want to be seen.
  • Unhappy Medium: Being an umbramancer involves gaining power from distance traveled, like routewitches, but the more powerful one gets, the more they're tormented by ghosts.

    Sally Henderson (SPOILERS) 

Sally Henderson Price

The Conscripted Priestess

James's best friend, thought dead but actually trapped in the same dimension as Thomas.
  • Action Girl: It's unknown if she was as athletic or good at fighting before being Trapped in Another World, but she's certainly a fierce enough fighter to be in command of Thomas's guards.
  • Bizarre Taste in Food: She makes a sandwich out of blueberry Eggos, peanut butter, sweet pickles, and chicken curry.
  • Class Princess: James mentions that when he and Sally were in second grade, everyone liked her and would have felt lucky just to touch her hand, although he never mentions if she retained her popularity as a teenager after befriending him. He initially avoided her due to fearing that his status as the class outcast would get him beaten up for talking to her. However, Sally didn't feel that way about him and got into a fight with another kid when she saw him bullying James, who admiringly recalls that she won the fight without even messing up her hair.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: She takes a while to warm up to Alice, initially assuming she's an assassin sent by the crossroads to kill Thomas.
  • Interracial Adoption Struggles: Sally is a Korean girl adopted by a white couple as a baby. She resents them for not helping her connect to her heritage, and says they were the kind of people who think that adopting an Asian child means they can't be racist.
  • Trapped in Another World: For seven years, by the time Alice meets her.

Cryptids

    Aeslin mice 
A species of intelligent mice who have a natural tendency towards religion. The only known colonies all worship the Price family.
  • Animal Religion: Their species hat. They worship the Price family (not all of whom have the last name Price) as gods (male) and priestesses (female).note 
  • Badass Adorable: Don't make the mistake of thinking they're helpless; they make and use weapons, and in groups can even take down large snakes and alligators.
  • Capital Letters Are Magic: Several characters mention how the mice can somehow verbally capitalize any letter.
    Mouse: Please. We seek Forgiveness and Absolution. Allow us to petition you for these things, for only then may we be Properly Made Clean.
  • Dying Race: The only known colonies of Aeslin mice live with the Price-Healy family. Some splinter groups strike out on their own, but none of them are heard from again. In Magic for Nothing, Antimony finds a hidden colony living in the Covenant, going undetected as such because they don't wear religious raiment. They can be and are mistaken for ordinary mice. Unfortunately, this also means they are treated as such.
  • Giant Animal Worship: Somewhat inverted with the mice, who worship the gigantic (to them) Price-Healy family as their Animal Religion, and rely on their gods to protect them from larger threats, like dangerous predators and the Covenant. Before encountering the family, the Aeslin played this straighter, worshiping a chicken.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Several, never named, in And Sweep Up the Wood.
  • Killer Rabbit: On their own, an Aeslin mouse is almost as vulnerable as an ordinary mouse, though they do make and use weapons. In a group, they've been known to take down large snakes, venomous gila monsters, and even alligators.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: The Aeslin mice have a knack for making anything, from a hotel room to bacon to Dominic's penis, the subject of a new ritual or catechism.
    Mouse: Hail! Hail to the room service menu of wings and mozzarella sticks! Hail to the two hundred and thirty-seven channels! Oh, greatest of rejoicing, for this is the hotel of High-Wattage Exterior Lighting, attracting such delights from out the desert wastes! Hail!
  • Nice Mice: They have undying loyalty to the Price-Healy family (as long as their gods keep their end of the deal, providing protection and sometimes food).
  • The Nicknamer: The Aeslin mice refer to the members of the Price-Healy family as gods and priestesses, and each member has a special title. Verity is the Arboreal Priestess, Antimony is the Precise Priestess, Fran is the Violent Priestess, Alex is the God of Scales and Silence, etc. These can gain retroactive tearjerker status when a posthumous divinity is applied (The God of Early Arrivals and Earlier Departures, The Violent Priestess, Who Never Learned to be Careful).
  • Photographic Memory: The mice remember every thing they've ever heard, basing entire holy days around events in the history of the Price family. They also, when traveling with the family, serve as living black boxes to let the family know how any family member died should they fail to return.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter
  • Scavenged Punk: The mice clothe themselves in regalia made of scavenged objects, varying by which deity they follow. They also build their homes, weapons, and accessories out of things they find or kill (they made a number of mouse-sized suitcases from the skin of a gila monster they killed).
  • Trademark Favorite Food:
    • Be prepared for a raucous cheer if you offer the Aeslin mice CHEESE AND CAKE!!!
    • Artie mentions that when he promises the mice pizza, they demand ALL the toppings.
  • The Unpronounceable: The Aeslin Mice all have names that involve squeaks and chitters, possibly movements of whiskers and ears, and possibly pheromone emissions. As a result, the family either refers to them as "Mouse", whatever their apparent rank in the religious hierarchy is, or they give them a nickname in English.

    Istas 

Istas

A waheela who works at the same nightclub as Verity. She and her boyfriend Ryan get several days in the limelight in the shorts "Red As Snow", "Black as Blood", and "White as a Raven's Wing".
  • Action Fashionista: She's one of the best dressed characters, and her narration takes care to describe her outfits. When possible, she tries to strip before transforming, since Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing and her outfits are mostly handmade.
  • Ambiguously Bi: She says she could never have been romantically involved with Verity, not because she's a woman, or because she's human, but because she's so breakable.
  • Elegant Gothic Lolita: She wears gothic lolita-style clothing when she's not in her giant wolf-bear form.
  • Girly Bruiser: She's not that girly in her giant wolf-beast form, but she contemplates disemboweling enemies when she's in her humanoid form.
  • Hulking Out: From cute girl to somewhat less cute wolf-bear creature.
  • Literal-Minded: Waheela language is very simple and not prone to nuance. Because of this, Istas often has trouble with human idioms.
  • My Instincts Are Showing: Even in human form, she tends to express her emotions through growling. She's actually much more restrained than most of her kind.
  • The Nose Knows: Even in human form, she has an exceptional sense of smell.
  • Spock Speak: She tends to use overly technical language, like saying she and Ryan "will be having a pleasant evening involving courtship activities, food, and coitus."
  • Therianthrope: An actual taxonomic classification in this series. Waheela can shapeshift into a giant wolf-bear creature.
  • Totally Not a Werewolf: Waheela transform into giant wolflike monsters (or transform from that into human, depending on your point of view), but they are definitely not werewolves (for one thing, they're a separate species, and can't turn people by biting them).

    Ryan 

Ryan Yukimura

A tanuki who works at the same nightclub as Verity.
  • The Bartender: His job at Dave's Fish and Strips/The Freakshow.
  • Hulking Out: Ryan's therianthrope form is a gigantic, ferocious tanuki.
  • Taken for Granite: Tanuki can partially petrify their own bodies.
  • Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's tall, has dark hair and eyes, and is pretty good-looking, at least according to Istas.
  • Therianthrope: An actual taxonomic classification in this series. Tanuki can shift between a human form, a raccoon-dog form, and one that's an 8-to-10 foot tall monster tanuki. Pray you never see the third one.
  • Understanding Boyfriend: It's a testament to Ryan's devotion to Istas that he still sticks with her even after seeing her and her brothers kill their Archnemesis Dad.

    Dave 

Dave Smith

A bogeyman, owner of the nightclub where Verity works. Gets A Day in the Limelight in the Patreon short story "What Was I Meant to Do?"
  • Bad Boss: He's a sleazy nightclub owner, and stops just short of sexually harassing his employees. Later, he sells them out as sacrifices to the Snake Cult.
  • How the Mighty Have Fallen: How "mighty" he ever was is debatable, but after fleeing New York he ends up working as a poor bartender in New Mexico, with no chance of ever moving up or owning his own business again.
  • Information Broker

    Kitty 

Kitty

Dave's niece, who takes over ownership of the bar after the events of Discount Armageddon.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: She's a much better boss than her uncle was, and works with Verity to ensure the safety of New York's cryptids.

    Dee 

Deanna Lynn Taylor de Rodriguez

Alex's assistant at the zoo. She's a Pliny's gorgon, living with her people in a hidden settlement outside of town.

    Sam 

Samuel Coleridge Taylor

A fūri (technically half-fūri, since his mother was human) who lives and works as an acrobat at the Spenser Carnival, owned by his grandmother. Later becomes Antimony's boyfriend.
  • Berserk Button: After they start dating, anyone threatening Antimony. He openly threatens to rip Leo's arms off if he tries anything.
  • Defrosting Ice King: Acts like a Jerkass to Antimony at first, though he had good reasons: she's an outsider (who turns out to be (supposedly) working for The Covenant), and he's never had a relationship with anyone who likes him in his fūri form.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: His father was a fūri, while his mother was human.
  • Handy Feet: His feet are like a monkey's.
  • Hard Head: In his fūri form, he can survive a shot to the head.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a 19th-century British composer. It's unknown what the connection to him is, though.
  • Prefers Going Barefoot: He can't even wear shoes in his cryptid form, but he's almost always seen barefoot at the carnival, even when in human form.
  • Prehensile Tail: Comes in handy on the trapeze. Also useful for holding onto Antimony.
  • Raised by Grandparents: He was raised by his grandma, Emery Spenser.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Can hold his own in Snark-to-Snark Combat with Antimony, and is pretty tall.
  • Therianthrope: An actual taxonomic classification in this series. He can shift between his human and simian forms at will (unless someone's using a spell on him to prevent it). Unlike most other therianthropes, his default form is simian, and he describes holding human shape as like holding back a sneeze that never comes.
  • Tsundere: Sam is pretty reserved with people he doesn't know, though he's fiercely protective of his loved ones.

    Fern 

Fern Conway

A sylph, and an old friend of Antimony's from roller derby. She can manipulate her density, becoming super heavy or super light.
  • Battle Couple: Not technically a couple but Antimony and Fern fill the same niche in the roller derby environment.
  • Gravity Master: The sylph species hat is personal density manipulation. While staying the same size, Fern can become super heavy or light enough that she actually floats off the ground.

    Cylia 

Cylia Mackie

A jink, also a friend of Antimony's from roller derby.
  • Team Mom: Cylia is older than most of the rest of Annie's True Companions, having been married before the events of the books, and often focuses on practicalities like finding a car or a place to stay.
  • Winds of Destiny, Change!: The jink species' hat is that they can sense and manipulate luck (both their own and that of people close to them), which is a lot harder than it sounds. If someone has too much good luck, they're in for an equivalent amount of bad luck soon.note 

    Megan 

Megan Rodriguez

Dee's daughter, and Antimony and Fern's friend and roommate. She's studying at the Lowryland medical school to become a doctor.

    Mark (SPOILERS) 

Mark

A Johrlac who at first seems to be helping Ingrid's hive kidnap Sarah and turn her into an Apocalypse Maiden. However, he has his own motivations.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: The only reason he's helping Ingrid is she threatened his human parents and sister. He helps Sarah's family rescue her, because he doesn't want the world destroyed. But he makes no illusions of friendship with them, or of caring about any other humans.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Like all Johrlac.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Usually, when Johrlac go through their first instar (around puberty), the telepathic information overload overwhelms them and they murder their human host family. However, his human little sister Cici thought he was playing a game, and he chased her around the house with a knife for so long that his mind stabilized and he instead became fiercely protective of them.
  • Glowing Eyes: Like all Johrlac, his eyes turn white when he actively uses his telepathy.
  • Heel–Face Turn: He was only on the cuckoos' side because they threatened Cici, but after Calculated Risks there's no doubt he's a good guy.
  • Mr. Exposition: He often reveals information about Johrlac cultural history to the viewpoint characters.
  • Supporting the Monster Loved One: Inverted. He's protective of his human foster family, though they don't know he's not human.

    Ingrid 

Ingrid

Sarah's biological mother and the main antagonist of Imaginary Numbers.
  • Abusive Parents: She wasn't there for Sarah's childhood, but once they're reunited as adults, she jumps straight into gaslighting and manipulating her.
  • Evil Matriarch: Seeking a new world for the cuckoos to infest, Ingrid orchestrates an elaborate plot to turn Sarah into an Apocalypse Maiden and tear a hole between dimensions. Uncaring that this would destroy Earth and fry Sarah's mind, Ingrid plans to use her as a sex doll to breed new super-powerful Johrlac queens. Ingrid also reveals that she had Sarah for the sole purpose of creating a Johrlac queen, and was behind the murder of her foster parents that led to Angela adopting her. She also ordered the murders of the family who lived in the house that the hive randomly chose as a base of operations.
  • Manipulative Bitch: She tricks Sarah into doing the equation that will open a hole between dimensions, claiming it's all for a good cause, and that it will remove the Johrlac from Earth (she doesn't mention it will also destroy Earth).

    Greg 

Greg

A giant jumping spider from the "giant bug dimension" in Calculated Risks.

    Cynthia 

Cynthia

A huldra, she's the owner of the Red Angel, the local cryptid-friendly bar in Buckley Township, Michigan.
  • Long-Lived: Huldra live very long, and she looks the same now as she did in the 1950s. She's been in Buckley since the 20s, at least.
  • Plant People: Huldra are essentially giant humanoid pitcher plants, who feed on blood (usually not human blood).

    Naga (SPOILERS) 

Naga

A lamia Professor of Extradimensional Studies at a university in Another Dimension.
  • Beleaguered Benefactor: He worries about Alice taking so many risks in her travels. Because that would cause him to lose the profit he's making off of her.
  • Beneath the Mask: At the end of Spelunking Through Hell, Alice and Thomas confront him about using her for profit and messing with her memories. He shows his true colors and tries to attack them.
  • The Great Serpent: When he and Alice first meet in 1944, he's about 20 feet long. By 2021, he's around 50 feet in length.
  • Hidden Disdain Reveal: Naga has been Alice's friend and patron for over 50 years, even visiting her family for Thanksgiving when she was a child (despite being a giant Snake Person). At the end of Spelunking Through Hell, Alice and Thomas confront him, and he shows his contempt for not only her, but all mammals.
  • Long-Lived: Lamia can live up to a thousand years, and never stop growing.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Alice finds out that Naga had known about Lemure, where Thomas was, for decades, but prevented her from going there and even messed with her memory to keep using her for profit. Plus, you know, the whole Flaying Alive process to harvest pneuma from her skin.
  • Meaningful Name: Naga are a race of Snake People in Hindu Mythology.
  • Mysterious Backer: He's helped Alice by providing advice and Power Tattoos to allow her to travel between dimensions, but she starts to suspect he has his own agenda. At the end, she finds out he'd been deliberately messing with her memories and selling her magic-imbued skins, essentially treating her like a pet or livestock.
  • Snake People: He's completely hairless and covered in scales, and his lower half is a gigantic serpent.

Ghosts

    Mary Dunlavy 

Mary Dunlavy

The Phantom Priestess

A crossroads ghost. Has served as an honorary aunt to the Prices and babysitter to the youngest member of the family since Alice was a child. Narrates the thirteenth book, Aftermarket Afterlife.
  • The Atoner: In Sparrow Hill Road, she seeks Rose's forgiveness for facilitating the Crossroads deal that gave Bobby Cross immortality, leading to the death of Rose and many others.
  • Cool Big Sis: She shifts from babysitter to more of a sisterly role as Alice grows up, and repeats this with Alice's children and grandchildren.
  • Cute Ghost Girl: A more tragic version than most. She's been 16 since 1939, and babysat three generations of Prices.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She doesn't often show it, but she can definitely bring it. This may be why all the Prices she helped raise are the same.
    Thomas: You're dead.
    Mary: I know! As it happens, I was one of the first people to figure that out. It’s like I was there when it happened.
  • Deal with the Devil: She made a deal with the Crossroads to stay on Earth so she could take care of her father, and by the time he died, she'd become bonded to the Price family as their babysitter. However, her deal with the Crossroads forces her to act as an intermediary between them and people looking to make a deal. She tries to talk them out of it, but the rules of the game are such that even answering a direct question can be counted as a transaction.
  • The Dutiful Daughter: She stayed as a ghost to take care of her ailing father.
  • Friendly Ghost
  • Honorary Aunt
  • How Do I Shot Web?: When Mary is only just learning how to be a ghost. Fran knows more about it than she does.
    Fran: You're a goddamn ghost! Do I need to get you an instruction book? Walk through the door!
  • I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You: Mary can't tell the Price-Healy family (or anyone else) certain things, usually about the Crossroads, without it being considered a transaction with the Crossroads. And the price is worth far more than the information would be.
  • Mystical White Hair: Her hair is prematurely white, presumably as a result of being a ghost.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: Her eyes are described as looking like "twenty miles of empty highway, all wasted miles and lonely turns".

    Rose Marshall 

Rose Marshall

A road ghost, and the Price family's other honorary ghost aunt.
  • Cue the Sun: The borrowed life Rose gets from a borrowed jacket dissipates at sunup.
  • Friendly Ghost
  • Good Bad Girl: Rose thoroughly enjoys fast food, alcohol and is even perfectly fine with sex as a way to repay people for rides or meals that she receives. She's also a genuinely good person who does mean well and strives to do the right thing usually.
  • Hero of Another Story: Rose only appears sporadically in InCryptid, but is the protagonist of Ghost Roads, which takes place in the same universe.
  • Honorary Aunt
  • Jacob Marley Apparel: Played with. Rose appears in the green silk prom dress she died in unless she concentrates otherwise and/or is wearing a borrowed coat. Her preferred appearance is the white tank top she once borrowed from Gary and the blue jeans her mother didn't like her to wear, and short brown hair. She reverts to the prom dress under stress, which invariably means in the worst possible situations.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Rose can be brought back to life, temporarily, by borrowing a sweater, jacket or coat. Only then can she enjoy a meal, a good cup of coffee, sex, etc. and only if those things are freely given to her by another.
  • Vengeful Ghost: Rose spends most of the series trying to stay away from Bobby Cross, but in the third book he's finally vulnerable and she goes on the offensive to take him down. In the process, she becomes one of the Furies, whose job is literally being a spirit of vengeance.
  • You Must Be Cold: Rose frequently takes advantage of this to get loaned jackets and other outerwear - she can ask but cannot just take, they must be freely given - but it's also true: Rose is always cold, except when she's wearing a borrowed coat or sweater.

Others

    The Crossroads 
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Mary explains that the crossroads can and do grant wishes, but they tend toward extreme Literal Genie and Jerkass Genie methods of doing so.
  • Deal with the Devil: This is the crossroads' whole thing, trading favors and abusing a system of deals to cause suffering.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The crossroads is a malicious entity that has been making unequal deals for centuries.
  • For the Evulz: Often, the crossroads' whims seem to be less about protecting itself or making it more powerful, and simply about causing pain and suffering. For example, there's no conceivable benefit to them giving Bobby Cross a demonic car that runs on souls, they just wanted him to go around killing people.
  • Genius Loci: It's the anima mundi of a dead world, and it attacked Earth's anima mundi, becoming a dimensional parasite feeding on the world's Background Magic Field.
  • Non-Linear Character: The crossroads don't experience time in a linear fashion, though this doesn't mean that they know everything about the future. They knew that a sorcerer (likely from Thomas Price's lineage) would be big trouble for them in the future, but because Antimony technically traveled into the past to kill them via Cosmic Retcon, they experience it as having already happened (despite the fact that if it had happened they wouldn't exist).

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