The Library (Roland) | The Wings | Syndicates (The Five Fingers | Subsidiaries | Other Syndicates | The Reverb Ensemble) | Fixers (Associations | Offices) | Other Guests | Distortions | Abnormalities | Others
Former humans who have been transformed into monstrous entities thanks to the "White Nights and Dark Days" instigated by L Corp.
They are similar to Abnormalities, but with several differences. Unlike Abnormalities, Distortions are not (semi-)naturally occurring phenomena, they manifest as a result of their originators willingly succumbing to their desires rather than against their will, and they also cannot generate Enkephalin like Abnormalities can.
Distortions who had partially manifested can be cured by the smoke produced by Moses' pipe, but there is no turning back if it has fully manifested. Almost everyone in the City is susceptible to manifesting as a Distortion, and partially managing to manifest E.G.O does not make one fully exempt either.
If a Distortion can come to terms with their own emotions and accept living as one, they can 'stabilize' (i.e take on a less volatile and often a more humanoid form). Distortions can also manifest as places.
While The Distortion Detective and notes in the Dawn Office's Core Pages features destructive Distortions whose sole purpose is to go onto a destructive rampage out of depression, pressure, grief or other negative emotions only to be suppressed or slain, the ones seen within the Blue Reverb's ranks had embraced their distorted selves and don't outright show their destructive urges.
For Distortions that appear in The Distortion Detective, check here.
For the Distortions that make up the Reverberation Ensemble, go to their own page
For enlxmfflsdis, the Distorted form of Messenger Yan, refer to his folder in The Five Fingers Page.
And lastly, Roland, the Black Silence gets not one, but two distorted forms. For more info on that, refer to his spoiler folder in the corresponding Character Page.
- Always Chaotic Evil: As the manifestations of distorted desires and dark repressed emotions, Distortions are—as a rule—all Ax-Crazy abominations that utilize their powers for the sake of going on mindless rampages. Even the more "stabilized", humanoid Distortions (e.g the ones that form the Reverberation Ensemble) are simply more intelligent in the way they go about their destruction.
- Ambiguously Human: They used to be human and may have human traits, but their behavior says otherwise.
- Call-Back: Many Distortions inexplicably take traits from Abnormalities seen previously, such as The Pianist's music having pretty much the same effect as The Silent Orchestra's. This is even acknowledged in-universe, with Angela noting the similarities a few times.
- The Dreaded: The Distortion Phenomenon causes great fear in the City, as not only can Distortions wield immense, destructive power, but no one can predict where and from whom they'll manifest. By the game's end, the Phenomenon is feared enough to justify the creation of an entire new Association dedicated to dealing with them.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Many of these used to be down-to-the-dirt people, who just so happened to transform into insane and destructive forces determined to either self-terminate or wreck havoc.
- More than Mind Control: Distortions can become human again, but it's a physically dangerous and mentally draining process with no guarantee of success. What's more, if they manage to retain their sapience, most Distortions would prefer to use their new powers to lash out at the circumstances and world that pushed them to the edge in the first place.
- Outside-Context Problem: No one in the City really knows how to deal with Distortions and their unprecedented levels of power. The Pianist alone managed to kill hundreds of thousands, just because no one saw it or its capabilities coming.
- Was Once a Man: Distortions are humans who had succumbed to their desires being amplified by the half-complete Seed of Light's power. Many of them also take traits seen in past Abnormalities or Ordeals, such as the devil in Der Freischutz's story, Nosferatu, or the Crimson Dawn.
- Wrong Context Magic: Subverted. While there's plenty of fantastical abilities to be found in the City, it usually comes from specialized technology or Singularities that all their own set of rules and limitations, which ostensibly doesn't seem to apply to Distortions, whose powers appear as though they come from magic. However, it turns out that they just use the same logic as E.G.O., the difference being that they manifest when someone was actually unable to control their negative desires. Thus, Distortions are, in fact, an indirect product of Singularities as opposed to being their own unique existence.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The powers the Distortions manifest are based on any number of consequences that led to them Distorting. For example, The Pianist is a Distortion born from an out-of-luck performer, and could perform music powerful enough to destroy a considerable amount of the City.
- The Corrupter: She attempts to push those who are close to a Despair Event Horizon into distorting, with Philip and Yan being two instances of someone succumbing. However, while Xiao nearly gave in, she managed to resist and manifested her E.G.O as a result.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Before Hokma's floor realization, he tells Angela that the origin of the voice was actually Carmen. Who would ever believe that a seemingly random Backstreets preacher would become an omnipresent and invisible destructive force?
- Spirit Advisor: She appears to serve as one to Argalia and the Blue Reverb Ensemble as a whole. She warns Argalia of Iori's treachery, and is the one who suggested that Argalia explore an abandoned laboratory (one that was heavily implied to be the site of the original Cogito experiments).
The Pianist
It was later revealed that the Pianist killed Angelica, Roland's wife and Argalia's sister, driving the former into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that resulted in the loss of his standing and being sent to the Library by Iori, and rendering the latter criminally insane enough to recruit as many of Roland's past victims as possible for the ultimate goal of spreading the Seed of Light and turning everyone into Distortions.
- The Assimilator: According to accounts of its appearance, the people it killed either fused with its organ or turned into floating music notes.
- Brown Note: Its "music". If hearing it doesn't outright kill you, it can also drive you insane and turn you homicidally obsessed with replicating it, as is the case for the Musicians of Bremen and Argalia.
- Disaster Dominoes: Relatively speaking, the Pianist was killed very quickly after he arose, and the City bounced back from the loss of life and damages. The consequences, however, did not end there. With the death of the Black Silence, another one took her place and went on a long rampage against a huge amount of large Syndicates, Fingers and Fixer Offices, which leads to the Library getting its latest member, then to the rest of the game and the conga line of death and tragedy afterwards.
- Expy:
- As Lampshaded by Angela, it's incredibly similar to, albeit marginally weaker than, the Silent Orchestra, its music being the "same type". It also has some similarities to the Singing Machine, in that some people seem compelled to replicate the music by killing others.
- When Angela goes into a meltdown in the Floor of Art, she starts by wearing the Silent Orchestra's E.G.O., Da Capo. When Roland sees this, he again makes a comment that Angela looks very similar to the Pianist in this form.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: It was originally an ordinary pianist hit with a streak of bad luck, until they hit the Despair Event Horizon and turned into the most powerful Distortion ever seen.
- Hero Killer: The Pianist killed many Fixers and others who tried to take it down during its rampage, most notably Angelica, a legendary color fixer, specifically the Black Silence.
- Off with His Head!: The Musicians Of Bremen describe how he had his hands and head cut off by the Black Silence.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Manifested in a district that was unprepared for attacks from the inside, and wiped out 80% of its citizens.
- Posthumous Character: Despite having been killed well before the story's start, the fallout of its rampage on the city can still be felt in the present.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Played a gigantic Brown Note-producing piano with them.
