The cast of the original Neverwinter Nights campaign along with Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. Characters who appear in more than one campaign will be noted appropriately.

Be wary of unmarked spoilers.

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Player Characters

The Hero of Neverwinter

The player character of the base campaign, a recent graduate of the Academy of Neverwinter recruited to help Aribeth find a cure for the plague ravaging the city.

The Ace: At the start of the game it's mentioned you're the star student of the academy, which is quickly proven when you pass your class-dependent final exam in moments while others still struggle.
An Adventurer Is You: You answered Aribeth's call for an adventurer to help end the Wailing Death and the star graduate of the Neverwinter Academy. Literally everything else (gender, race, class, Character Alignment, motivation, background, etc) is left to the player's imagination.
All-Loving Hero: You can be a paragon of goodness and justice who helps anyone in need. Although, see Anti-Hero.
And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the game after you beat the Final Boss, you're told in no uncertain terms that your legend will continue to grow, and worse enemies than Morag and Maugrim await you. You never find out what this means, as both expansions feature the Hero of Waterdeep instead.
Anti-Hero: You can also be an Only in It for the Money mercenary, a death-crazy Blood Knight who lives for the slaughter, or an Unscrupulous Hero who does bad things for the greater good.
The Atoner: It's possible to play, say, an Ax-Crazy psychopath who sought redemption through the life of a devout, Lawful Good paladin.
Ax-Crazy: One of the voice options was specifically described as psychotic.
Bullying a Dragon: You can do this literally; you meet several dragons in the game and have the option to threaten them to do things. Given that they're dragons, this usually just provokes them to attack rather than yield.
Character Alignment: In-universe. From Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and everything in between, any alignment is possible.
Cutting Off the Branches: Several characters from the base game appear in Hordes, and their conversations definitively establish that the Hero was a genuine good hero, and there's the spoiler entry below establishing some of their end-game reactions. Their gender is determined by what your Hordes character is (they'll have the same gender.) Anything else — race, class, age, background — is left up in the air.
Deadpan Snarker: Many dialogue options allow you to be.
The Hero: The main protagonist, the Player Character, the one who saves the city.
Irony: In a meta sense. Of all BioWare protagonists, the Hero of Neverwinter is the only one explicitly stated to go on many more famous adventures following the base game, yet they are the only one to not only never return for any expansions or sequels, in-universe they were made into the Un-person by Nasher.
Mysterious Past: Your past before the game's events are virtually a blank slate.
One-Man Army: Dozens upon dozens of enemies will fall before you, and the count will climb to hundreds and thousands as you proceed through the game.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Implied in Hordes. Conversations with NPCs from the base game imply the canon story is that the Hero convinced Aribeth to turn herself in and perform a Heel–Face Turn, but Nasher had her executed to appease the city. As a result, the Hero had a falling out with Nasher and left the city in disgust.
Ship Tease: You can romance several companions, and Aribeth and Aarin if you like, but it never amounts to anything.
Un-person: In Hordes it's revealed Lord Nasher had tried to downplay your hand in the saving of the city since the fact. The above spoiler is the likely reason why.

The Hero of Waterdeep

The player character of the two expansions, a student of Drogan Droganson who finds their mentor attacked and from there unravels a plot to conquer Faerun. The same PC returns in Hordes of the Underdark to help uncover the mystery of what's going on down there.

And the Adventure Continues: After Shadows you return in Hordes for another adventure.
Anti-Hero: While the hero could be or not at your discretion, it's difficult to reach the credits of the two expansion packs without doing some unpleasant things. Like using True Names to command people against their will. Even if you do good things with this power, like convince your companions to let go of their Dark and Troubled Past, it doesn't change the fact you hold tremendous power over them, as they comment on.
Belligerent Sexual Tension: If male and romancing Nathyrra.
Blood Knight: For example, you can get Mephistopheles's True Name, and then decide not to use it because you'd rather fight him.
The Casanova: Unlike the original game, the expansion features full romance sidequests, allowing you to charm numerous characters if you feel like it. If the Hero is male, he also gets numerous options to flirt with female quest-givers, and if he's persuasive enough, he can talk Nathyrra and Aribeth into a threesome.
The Chosen One: The Seer foresaw them as the hero who would aid the rebels in their time of need. You can fulfill her prophecy, or defy it by siding with the Valsharess.
Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Role-playing aside with how you choose to mold your character, the Hero of Waterdeep becomes this trope to the Hero of Neverwinter. The words of others imply the Hero of Neverwinter was a genuinely good and honorable individual, but when playing as the Hero of Waterdeep it's difficult to complete the expansions without doing some questionable things, even if you do them for good reasons. Hordes even allows you to undergo a Protagonist Journey to Villain if you choose certain endings. The original Hero faced the villains of their quest head-on and either talked them down or slew them in battle, but Shadows and Hordes give you more opportunities to win major confrontations through trickery, deception, and indirect methods.
Deadpan Snarker: Once again you have the option to be a witty jerk if you feel like it.
Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: They are just as cheeky to the Valsharess and one of the Archdevils of Hell as they are to ordinary people.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Did you just kill the Archdevil of the Eighth Circle of Hell? Yes, yes you did.
Drunk with Power: Even if you play a good character, the ending of Hordes implies you become subject to this once you rule Cania and begin invading other planes of existence.
Escaped from Hell: You're banished to Cania. You fight your way through hordes of demons, devils, and worse, to find the way back to Faerun.
Evil Overlord: A potential ending in Hordes allows you to become one ruling over Cania, with or without Mephistopheles as their pawn.
Fantastic Racism: They can say some pretty nasty things regarding Nathyrra's and Valen's races (drow and tiefling respectively).
Folk Hero: Deekin's novel makes them a minor one in-between expansions.
From Nobody to Nightmare: If you play your cards right, you can go from student of the local Retired Badass to ruler of one of the Nine Hells, and the ending further implies you began moving on to Multiversal Conqueror.
The Gadfly: They get plenty of opportunities to lightly tease their companions. They particularly take great joy in poking fun at Nathyrra or Valen.
Geas: After Chapter One of Hordes, they get put under one forcing them to hunt the Valsharess, whether they want to or not, courtesy of Halaster.
Guile Hero: Talking the Monster to Death is a prominent option for most major villains. With the Big Bad of Hordes, you can actually use their True Name to make them your servant, and order them to return to Cania and never again seek to leave it.
Lady and Knight: Thanks to his tendency to address her as "my lady", Valen and a female PC come across as this.
MacGuffin Delivery Service: In both campaigns you make the mistake of bringing the Big Bad the object they need for their plans. In Shadows it's the tower crystal, in Hordes it's you.
No Hero Discount: You can actually bring this up and protest it numerous times, to various justifying responses.
Not in This for Your Revolution: In Hordes you can potentially reaffirm in conversations that you're agreeing on fighting the Valsharess only to get rid of Halaster's geas. It's possible to subvert the trope however, and claim that you want to defeat her because you believe it has to be done, even if you weren't forced into it.
One-Man Army: Same as the original, you rack up a high body count by the time you finish your adventure.
Red Baron: They collect many names over their travels, the most notables ones being "Devil-Slayer of Waterdeep" and "Hellwalker". The Knower of Names also greets them as either "Light of Cania", "Judge of Cania", or "Scourge of Cania", depending on their alignment.
Seen It All: In Hordes, they start getting dialogue options that show them being more exasperated than threatened by all the things trying to kill them.
We Can Rule Together: Hand in hand with Evil Overlord above, you can rule alongside Mephistopheles in Cania.
You're Cute When You're Angry: They can list this as one of their reasons for riling up Nathyrra or Valen.

Base Campaign

Companions

Pavel

Voiced by: Cam Clarke

A fellow student at the Neverwinter Academy. His brother dies in the attack, and you can allow him to accompany you. He's mostly there to teach the player about companions, since the entire Prelude is a tutorial and all.

The Generic Guy: He's a True Neutral invoked human warrior who left his farm to join the academy and help Neverwinter, but quits when he realises the life of an adventurer doesn't suit him. It's worth mentioning that, unlike other henchmen who have unique portraits, Pavel has a generic portrait that is available in the Character Customization and reused for several NPCs.
He Knows About Timed Hits: If you know about the gameplay concepts he tries to tell you, he'll stop himself.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the end of the Prelude, he decides that he's not cut out for life as an adventurer.
Sibling Team: His brother Bim is a student of the Neverwinter Academy as well. He's slain during the attack sadly.
True Neutral: invoked His official alignment. He's not a bad person, but he doesn't have it in him to risk his life for others.

Tomi "Grin" Undergallows

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tomi_undergallows.png

Voiced by: Michael Lindsay

A halfling rogue, he lives his life on the run since a large number of people around the Sword Coast want him dead or in jail. Tomi manages to stay one step ahead of them due to his master thieving skills. He returns in Hordes of the Underdark as a possible companion, but only in Chapter 1.

Accidental Hero: He worked for a medusa that hired him to kill a vizier, and he infiltrated his home as a cook. When he fell in love with his daughter he delayed the job. The angered medusa came after him at the same time the vizier found out about him. The two chased him to a cliff and began arguing over who would punish Tomi, they attacked each other and their bodies fell into the market below. Everyone thinks Tomi is the one who did it, when all he did was run.
Chaotic Neutral: invoked He's a plucky rogue who's in it for laughs and coin.
Dark and Troubled Past: Played for laughs, actually. Tomi's backstory includes the betrayal of a close friend (resulting in his eventual death), the abandonment of a magician he was studying under, and the above tale with the medusa and the vizier. While most would be traumatized and angsty going through all this, Tomi remains plucky and cheerful and brushes them off as casual misadventures.
Kukris Are Kool: Unlike your typical rogue who's likely to wield a dagger, Tomi uses a kukri.
Large Ham: "HERE COMES HALFLING DEATH!"
Loveable Rogue: He's an outlaw, but a funny and likeable one.
Sorcerer's Apprentice Plot: His inexperienced use of his master's wand resulted in unleashing magical chaos around the tower, resulting in him fleeing and abandoning his aspiring goals of spellcasting.

Linu La'neral

Voiced by: Lara Cody

An elf cleric of Sehanine Moonbow, she was a aspiring wizard in a school for them as a child, until she fell into a dimensional portal. She should have died but was saved by Sehanine Moonbow, and Linu devoted herself to her in return. She returns in Hordes of the Underdark as a possible companion, but only in Chapter 1.

Artificial Stupidity: Seriously girl, casting "Harm" on that nearly-killed undead guy is a bad move.
Carry a Big Stick: Armed with a mace by default.
The Chosen One: Sehanine Moonbow saved her to task Linu with a quest in her name.
Combat Medic: She's a cleric and thus specializes in healing and buffing, but is decent in a fight too.
Cute Clumsy Girl: And it just makes her all the more endearing because she knows about it but is still sweet and kind.
Establishing Character Moment: She apologizes to you when you first meet, mistaking you for someone whose cat she accidentally stepped on.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: While she's portrayed as clumsy in dialogue, her Dexterity score of 12 is typical for an elf and above average by human standards; her clumsiness in the stories she tells about her background don't actually affect her attacks or spells in-game.
Happily Married: She is, though she and her husband have been on diverging adventures the last several years and she hasn't seen him in some time. You find his corpse and journal in Chapter 2 during her quest.
The Jinx: She's preternaturally clumsy to the point where terrible things seem to happen around her by sheer coincidence.
The Klutz: She's very foolish and clumsy. She claims while serving at the Temple of Tyr in Neverwinter, she was so tired from healing she fainted on a glass statue's display, sending it flying across the room to shatter behind the head of a priest just as he sat down, and did so on a particularly large splinter. After that she was asked to serve Neverwinter somewhere else. Notably her clumsiness is not due to a physical issue (as reflected in her stats, her dexterity is average), she's just amazingly unlucky.
Neutral Good: invoked She's entirely well-meaning and she keeps trying to do the right thing. It's really not her fault that everything goes wrong around her.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: With Sharwyn, the only other female companion. While Sharwyn is the adventurous and haughty bard, Linu is a soft-spoken and gentle cleric.
White Mage: Cleric, but close enough.

Daelan Red Tiger

Voiced by: Steve Blum

A half-orc barbarian who hails from the Uthgardt tribes, he's been banished from his tribe and seeks to return to them and restore his honor. He's quite well-spoken for a half-orc, likely thanks to being brought up by people who can speak in complete sentences. He returns in Hordes of the Underdark as a possible companion, but only in Chapter 1.

Barbarian Hero: It's his character class, and he's a very noble and upright sort.
Child by Rape: Possibly: one story he was told was that he was conceived when a band of orcs raided his tribe, and raped his mother. Others said his mother actually fell in love with an orc and his father was killed by other warriors of the tribe when this relationship was discovered. He has no way of finding out which is true. He faced the stigma of being orc-blooded and considered by some to have been conceived through violence growing up, and strives to be better than whoever his father was.
Chaotic Good: invoked He's kind and honorable, but still a mercenary-for-hire.
Half-Human Hybrid: Half-orc, half-human.
Horny Vikings: Uthgardt are basically a society of these. Their founder was named Uthgar Gardolfsson for God's sake. So, basically a half Viking Half-Orc.
Hot-Blooded: Zigzagged. He's quite calm outside of battle, but once combat breaks out and he enters a barbarian rage: "THE RAGE OF THE RED TIGER, UNLEASHED!"
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: He's an honorable and well-spoken half-orc, out to prove himself despite the stigma.
Permanently Missable Content: The item needed for his quest in Chapter 2 is an axe with a notched blade. The first problem is this axe is only identified as such by the description, if you don't read its description then you're liable to ignore it since it's unenchanted and isn't very good as a weapon. The second problem is that the area you find the axe in cannot be revisited, and by the rules of the game if you leave it on the corpse you find it on, it will not reappear as a dropped quest item in the Temple of Tyr. Thus you cannot complete Daelan's quest (or continue his story in Chapter 3) without using the debug console to spawn a second axe.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Comes with being an orc... and an Uthgardt.
Screaming Warrior: See Hot-Blooded; this is his battle cry.
Ship Tease: Some of his dialogue with a female PC can come across as this, to the point that a number of players were surprised to learn he's not officially romanceable. Then again, he is voiced by Steve Blum.
You Killed My Mother: His personal quest in Chapter 2 involves dealing with his mother's killer.

Grimgnaw

A dwarf monk of the Long Death, he left his clan to join their order when he was ostracized for his bizarre fascination with death and the dying. He's come to the city to help stop the Wailing Death, as his order considers the plague an unnatural way to die.

Above Good and Evil: He thinks this of himself and his Order, well aware that most people would consider his cult as evil. For the Order of the Long Death, the concepts of morality, good and evil mean nothing before the Silent Lord, how they refer to death as.
Bald of Evil: Completely bald and the only evil henchman.
Barefisted Monk: His class.
Blood Knight: As far as he's concerned, watching the life drain out of someone he's just beaten to death with his bare hands is a religious sacrament. He recounts a story of a band of his order fighting a lich and falling to its magic to rise as zombies, and he says he despaired to watch them die to such an abomination and then be forced to serve it. However, he also says if they had died at his own hands in battle, he would have done so eagerly and considered it an honor.
Combat Sadomasochist: As a follower of the Long Death, he worships the essence of death itself. Inflicting pain, suffering and death on others, and experiencing it himself, is one of the fundamentals of the faith.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- He wants to stop the Wailing Death as much as anyone else, and later to root out the cult that caused it; as a supernatural plague, those that succumb to it die unnatural deaths and the Silent Lord is denied dominion over them.
- He and his order are hunters of undead, as they consider it a blasphemy to reanimate a peaceful and silent corpse, and undead creatures have no mind of their own to comprehend the gravitas of death claiming them. They also hate necromancers and liches, both for practicing the unholy necromantic arts and using such magics to prolong their own lives through unnatural means.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: He reappears in Hordes of the Underdark in a cameo that has no foreshadowing or build-up of any sort, is at odds with the rest of the story unfolding around you, and in which he shows a sudden ambition and lust for personal power he never really displayed before.
Hell Has New Management: Attempted. When encountered in Cania during Hordes he's planning on using Mephistopheles' absence to become the new Lord of the Ninth. He fails by making the classic blunder of picking a fight with a PC.
In Love with Your Carnage: See above; he relishes combat and does not shy from his pain.
Lawful Evil: invoked His in-game alignment. He's disciplined but ruthless, and obsessed with pain and death.
Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. He doesn't even have a beard!
Shoot the Shaggy Dog: His final personal quest has you find him a blessed dagger with which he can challenge a member of his Order's inner circle, a fight to the death where if he wins, he takes their place. That he shows up in Cania in Hordes implies that he either failed and was killed, or prevailed and then was killed by someone else very shortly after.
Token Evil Teammate: The only evil-aligned henchman in the campaign. His villainy becomes more obvious in Hordes, where he is briefly encountered in Cania. He's suddenly a lot more ambitious, so much so that he plans to fill the void left by Mephistopheles as Lord of the Eighth.
Training from Hell: The initiation rituals of the Long Death are, simply put, heinous. Grimgnaw is the only survivor of a group of six:
- First, initiates have to dwell in cemeteries, among dead bodies, to understand the beauty of death.
- Second, they have to witness people tortured on racks and let themselves tortured shortly after; this part claims many lives of the initiates.
- Third, they have to murder a rich old man, a poor young woman and a newborn child. Initiates have to learn that Death has dominion over everyone, rich or poor, young or old, man or woman.
- Fourth, the wheel. It's made of alternating white and black squares. If the pointer stops on a white square initiates can move on to the final destination. If it stops on a black square, they're slain on spot.
- Finally, to become a member of the inner circle, Grimgnaw has to assassinate one of its members. This has to be done with a blessed dagger hidden in a secret place. Finding it is his personal quest in Chapter 3.
You Can't Fight Fate:
- He has this opinion of your character. Being that there is no way to complete the campaign without massacring a lot of people and monsters, you are doing the work of the Silent Lord in his eyes, and being utterly repulsed by Grimgnaw's beliefs and disgusted by his order does not change that. He further takes his repeated meetings with you throughout the chapters as a sign the Silent Lord wishes him to accompany you and assist in the slaughter.
- He views death this way as well. When the player points out Aribeth was distraught over the nature of Fenthick's death, Grimgnaw asks if you think she would have felt any better if he'd died from a troll beating, or from some sort of slow-acting poison. Death is death — it eventually happens one way or the other and the manner of it isn't nearly as important as accepting it as a reality of life.

Sharwyn

Voiced by: Grey DeLisle

A human bard, her mother tried to marry her off to a rich lord as a child, but she fell in love with a traveling bard and eloped with him for a life of adventure. She now travels alone seeking to make a name for herself. She returns in Hordes of the Underdark as a possible companion, but only in Chapter 1.

Best Served Cold: One of her companion quests is to find a lock of nymph hair that she plans to use to unmask the woman who stole her lover as a hideous creature that uses magic to appear beautiful. It's been years since it happened and she no longer wants her lover back, but It's Personal so she wants to see it done someday.
Cannot Spit It Out: Talking to her at length in Hordes implies she fell in love with the hero of the original campaign, but never told him how she felt.
Disappeared Dad: She never met her father. Her mother cut contacts with him when she chose to leave behind her life as adventurer.
Double Weapon: Wields a two-bladed sword.
Fiery Redhead: Downplayed but present, she became a bard because she's very passionate and has a zest for life. Subverted in Hordes where Deekin clues the player in that she dyes it.
The First Cut Is the Deepest: In Hordes, it's implied her unique ring that she wears is her old engagement ring from her first lover. The description notes that even though she doesn't like to talk about it, she can be seen fingering it and growing distant in thought at times.
I Just Want to Be Special: Her goal in adventuring — rather than being a bard that sings of great heroes, she wants to someday become one of those great heroes that other bards will sing of.
Magic Knight: As a bard, she's a Jack of All Trades Master of None, capable of fighting up-close and casting spells.
Mal Mariée: Ultimately Defied: When her mother found herself in misery after inheriting a mountain of debts from her deceased husband, she tried to force Sharwyn into marrying a certain Lord Farthingdon, described as a lustful and possessive individual, only for his wealth. Meanwhile, Sharwyn fell in love for Dennan, an apprentice bard in the service of Lord Farthingdon. She tried to maintain a secret relationship with him while pretending to be interested in the wedding. Her mother however eventually found out about her infedelty, leading Sharwyn to finally take a decision: forfeit the marriage and run away with Dennan, leaving behind her mother and Lord Farthingdon before the wedding day, who tried to have the two captured and executed.
Ms. Fanservice: Her descriptions repeatedly mention her to be beautiful, her dialogue is quite flirty, and her character portrait has her showing a lot of cleavage and giving players an alluring gaze.
The Red Mage: Again, bard, offensive and support magic come in kind to her.
Refusal of the Call: In Hordes she claims Drogan tried to recruit her into the Harpers, but she refused since that type of lifestyle isn't for her.
Ship Tease: With a male player character, in both the base campaign and Hordes. Somewhat amusingly, in Hordes you can get a kiss from her, in doing so getting further in your relationship with her in one chapter than you could get across the entire base game.
Token Human: Of all the henchmen you can hire, Sharwyn is the only human.
True Neutral: invoked Her official alignment. She's self-absorbed but not without a conscience.
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Her final fate at the end of Hordes of The Underdark says she became a famous bard among the nobility. She then found her true love, a hideous man, going as far as living poor for the rest of her life to be with him.

Boddyknock Glinckle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boddyknock_glinkle.png

Voiced by: Steve Staley

A gnome sorcerer hailing from the nation of Lantan. Being that technology is held in such high regard there, Boddyknock's decision to devote himself to the magic arts made him an oddity among his people.

Captain Ersatz: As a gnome he has pointed ears, and he's from Lantan, a nation that is highly scientific, rational, and logical, traits which he prizes and exemplifies. Sound like anyone familiar? His original portrait◊ was directly based on Leonard Nimoy, before BioWare got in trouble for using celebrity likenesses and changed it to the portrait above — though the previous portrait is still available in-game.
Cultural Rebel: His devotion to magic arts makes him an oddity among his people, since in Lantan magic is barely practised. This never made him socially stigmatised however.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: As a Lawful Neutral Spock expy, he should be a wizard instead of a sorcerer, who are more chaotic and spontaneous than the former. However, their game mechanics make them far better suited for an AI companion.
Lawful Neutral: invoked His official alignment. As The Spock, he is highly concerned with logic and rules.
Proud Scholar Race: Gnomes as a whole are known as a book-smart and intellectual race, while Lantan has a reputation for creating outlandish machines and inventions. Boddyknock is no exception, though he manifests it more with his magic skills rather than technical knowledge.
Squishy Wizard: Naturally, being Dungeons & Dragons; keep him off the frontlines if you want him to survive.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Notably the only Henchman from the original game absent from Hordes, with no mention of what happened to him. Given his companion quests involved his desire to return home, presumably he did so.

Allies of Neverwinter

Aribeth de Tylmarande

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lady_aribeth.png

^{Click here to see Evil Aribeth}

Voiced by: Wendee Lee

A half-elf (or elf; Bioware is inconsistent on her race) paladin of Tyr, and one of the more prominent characters in the original campaign. She's your adviser in the original campaign, giving you your missions in the first two chapters. After that, however, her torment over what happened in the first chapter and her rising doubts over her path in life cause her to re-evaluate her position and her beliefs.

The Atoner: If you get her to become a paladin again in Hordes, she becomes this.
Big Good: The leader of Nasher's forces, paragon of Tyr, and the person you report to directly for missions.
Broken Bird: She was not always a shining and proud justicar of Tyr, but she's put it behind her. Until Fenthick is killed and her dark side rises up with a vengeance. She gets broken further in Hordes, and if you convince her to remain on the dark side, she remains broken.
Chainmail Bikini: A pretty straight-forward example, as her armor for some reason leaves her torso bare above her breasts.
Dark and Troubled Past: You can get her to tell it to you in Chapter 2 of the original campaign. Serves to foreshadow her Face–Heel Turn as you find out she wasn't always as righteous and moral as Chapter 1 may have left you believing.
Deadpan Snarker: Picks up a dry wit in Hordes. Considering all she's been through, it's not hard to understand why.
Player: How are you feeling?
Aribeth: I've been wondering why I don't try to run away from myself when I attempt to turn undead.
Aribeth: My complexion is a bit pale, don't you think?
Death Seeker: By the end of the original campaign, she's fully aware that no matter what she does, she's going to die or be killed soon. And she's perfectly content with it and is expecting it.
Depraved Bisexual: Has shades of this in Hordes; if you pursue the option to have both her and Nathyrra as love interests while Aribeth is still evil, her dialogue towards Nathyrra gets some sexual undertones.
Aribeth: You can't compete with me, Nathyrra, so you might as well join me. I don't bite. It's really more of a nibble, isn't it, <Player>?"
Deuteragonist: In its own way, Aribeth's story is just as important to the original campaign as yours. She also serves as a Foil to your character; while you're an academy cadet that becomes the Hero of Neverwinter, she's the leader of the academy that becomes a commander of Morag's army to destroy Neverwinter.
Distinctive Appearances: Every other humanoid NPC is created from the same basic elements, the same ones used by the player in character creation, and are dressed in the same clothing/armour designs that the PC can use. By contrast Aribeth has an entirely unique model and her armour is part of it, the design not used anywhere else in the game.
The Dragon: Co-Dragons with Maugrim after her turn to darkness. In Hordes, if you leave her as a blackguard when you recruit her, she'll claim that she was working for Mephistopheles all along when she betrays you before the final battle. You can still Intimidate her into staying by your side. The Persuade option has you "suggesting" to her to double-cross Mephistopheles.
Eating the Eye Candy: When the Mimic steals the male player character's armor in Hordes, more obviously if she's on the dark side.
Evil Makeover: She gets a more sinister character portrait following her Face–Heel Turn. Justified by her magical conversion into a blackguard.
Face–Heel Revolving Door: Though the severity of this trope depends on the player's actions. Come Hordes, it's possible for her to have gone from good to evil and back again three or four times, with the final alignment varying.
Face–Heel Turn: Becomes an enemy after Chapter 2.
Fallen Hero: She falls very hard.
Happy Ending Override: Supplemental material states that she is enslaved by Mephistopheles again in 5e.
Heel–Face Door-Slam: Hordes implies that canonically, the player character spared her and convinced her to turn herself in, but Nasher had her executed to appease the city.
Heroic BSoD: She's suffering from a major one in Chapter 2. Seeing Fenthick executed by the city he loved and served faithfully makes her question her views on justice, loyalty, love, and morality. This is compounded by psychic dreams that make her fear Tyr has abandoned her. This results in her turning evil because she cannot find any justice in what happened to Fenthick and thus cannot believe in Tyr, instead deciding to take her own justice by claiming revenge on the city
Heroes Prefer Swords: She goes for the traditional longsword as her weapon. Subverted when she becomes evil and still uses a sword.
Informed Ability: Many promotional art and cutscenes have Aribeth Dual Wielding two shortswords, while in the game, she has a bastard sword in the first campaign and starts with a longsword in Hordes.
Informed Equipment: If you remove her armor or replace it with another, her appearance will remain the same.
Jeanne d'Archétype: Before her fall. A female holy knight born of a humble background who rises to become commander of a kingdom's armies and with "de" in her name.
Jiggle Physics: Happens from time to time during her Idle Animation.
Lady of War: Emphasized to be graceful and beautiful even as she's a mighty warrior. Being an elf paladin, it's somewhat inevitable.
Leitmotif: Interacting with Aribeth replaces the music with hew own character theme, a peaceful and idyllic melody... until Chapter 2, when interacting with Aribeth will start another, somber and darker melody, reflecting her inner despair and, later on, her Face–Heel Turn.
Love Makes You Evil: Played with. It wasn't being in love that made her turn evil, it's how it turned out. In Hordes, she has come to the epiphany that she never truly loved Fenthick, but wanted to be loved and so deluded herself into believing it because he loved her. The realization her Face–Heel Turn was done for a false pretense breaks her even further than she had become already.
Love Redeems: If your male character takes her as a love interest, you can use your feelings for her to convince her to perform a Heel–Face Turn. You can do this again in Hordes to convince her to side with you against Mephistopheles
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The Masculine Girl to Fenthick's Feminine Boy.
Meaningful Name: Her true name is Va'ardalia the Twinsouled, though really all the True Names are vaguely-disguised puns on the character's nature.
Outlaw Couple: In Hordes, with an evil player character who romances her, keeps her on the dark side and maintains her loyalty at the final battle (and chooses not to rule in Hell if he knows Mephistopheles's True Name. Coupled with shades of In Love with Your Carnage.
The Paladin: Her character class, until she becomes a blackguard at the end of Chapter 2. If redeemed in Hordes, she returns to this status.
The Paragon: Seen as a shining symbol of grace and power by the people of Neverwinter, and is a loyal servant of Tyr and Lord Nasher. If redeemed in Hordes, she returns to this status.
The Paragon Always Rebels: Oh does she ever. Not that she lacks good reason...
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Spends Chapter 1 and most of Chapter 2 hanging about at your base relying on you to do everything yourself. Subverted in Chapter 3 when she finally takes a more active role in the story, but by then it's because she's done a Face–Heel Turn. Averted in Hordes, if she's redeemed. A paladin fighting evil in Hell, anyone?
Then Let Me Be Evil: In Hordes, she's resigned to being a force for evil and thinks she's too stained by it to be redeemed. The player can talk her into embracing her good nature again to become The Atoner, or turning fully to darkness to become a Card-Carrying Villain.
Together in Death: It is implied she hopes to become this with Fenthick in the original campaign. In Hordes this is her ending if you take her as a romance option; upon your death, she fades from the world to find you on the other side.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Went on one in the past for her father prior to becoming a paladin. She goes on another in her bitterness over Fenthick's death.
Ship Tease: Male player characters can romance her. Two different player characters in fact.
Sole Survivor: In her backstory, she mentioned that orcs raided her village of Thundertree and she was the sole survivor.
Sympathy for the Devil: In Chapter 3, you can ask various characters what they think of her actions at the end of Chapter 2. Even those that do not not approve of her actions concede it's hard to blame her after what happened to her.
Un-person: In the sequel, Neverwinter's citizens don't like to talk about her anymore.
Walking Spoiler: Mentioning anything she does after Chapter 1 ruins the twist that she has a Face–Heel Turn and becomes a blackguard commander in Morag's army. It's also a spoiler that she appears in Hordes in Cania.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Even as she's trying to kill you at the end of the game, it's hard not to sympathize with why. A loading screen for Chapter 2 really demonstrates this — Aribeth kneeling behind her sword crying with a look of fury in her eyes.
Yin-Yang Bomb: She's a dual-class paladin/blackguard in Hordes of the Underdark, focusing on one or the other depending on your dialogue with her.

Aarin Gend

Nasher's spymaster who is tasked to track down the mysterious cult that attacked Neverwinter.

Badass Armfold: His portrait shows him striking this pose.
Becoming the Mask: While sent to track down a woman marked for death, his infiltration of her life led to him falling in love with her.
Born into Slavery: He was born the son of a slave woman, originary from Chult, owned by a cruel caliph in Calimshan.
Dark and Troubled Past: Previously in life was both a slave and a pirate, and has been sent on assassination missions.
Happiness in Slavery: Aarin is technically Nasher's prisoner, taken hostage when his pirate master was killed. Nasher appointed him spymaster because of his considerable talents in the field. Aarin is perfectly comfortable with this arrangement however, and is completely loyal to Nasher.
Leitmotif: A string melody starts when the player interacts with Aarin.
The Lost Lenore: When he confronts the woman he was to assassinate with the revelation he had been sent to kill her, she refused to flee him so he could spare her, and was forced to carry out his mission.
My Master, Right or Wrong: His pointed aversion of this trope is why Nasher employs him. Aarin's old master became very paranoid when Nasher was hunting him while Aarin alerted him to Nasher's traps ahead of time. When he began killing prisoners out of fear, Aarin pointedly let Nasher's next trap work. Nasher asks Aarin why he betrayed his master; Aarin explained he would betray any master that turned to wicked deeds. Nasher recruited him then, and asked Aarin for no more than a warning of his betrayal should he ever start doing things Aarin finds evil.
The Spymaster: His official title.
Ship Tease: A romance option for female characters.

Fenthick Moss

Voiced by: Tony Oliver

An elven priest who is Aribeth's lover and Desther's friend.

Heroic BSoD: He's shell-shocked when you catch up to him after The Reveal that Desther is a villain.
Horrible Judge of Character: Desther, as noted below, is Obviously Evil. Fenthick fails to see it and dies for it.
The Lost Lenore: Rare male example. His being scapegoated and publicly executed at the end of Act 1 is what drives most of Aribeth's Heel–Face Revolving Door for the rest of the campaign and expansions.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Feminine Boy to Aribeth's Masculine Girl.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He gives Desther a way to bypass Castle Never's magical defenses so he can channel the energy of Helm to help create the cure. This is what lets Desther teleport away with it and bring in his own men to attack the castle.
The Scapegoat: Unfortunately, though he really didn't help Desther willingly and was tricked like everyone else, their friendship makes him this trope; the townsfolk believe him a traitor, and though he doesn't believe it himself, Nasher relents and has him hanged.
Unwitting Pawn: To Desther.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Which unfortunately ends up getting him killed.

Nasher Alagondar

Voiced by: Alan Shearman

The ruler of the city of Neverwinter and a retired adventurer, he is the coordinating force behind all that is done to save the city.

For tropes which apply to him in Neverwinter Nights 2, see Neverwinter Nights 2.

Aesop Amnesia: When you speak to him in Chapter 4 of the original campaign, he admits it was unjust to have Fenthick executed as a scapegoat, and in light of that he understands why Aribeth turned on him. Even being aware of this, the canon established in Hordes implies he had her executed after the campaign ends. The player has the option to point out that this kind of Cycle of Revenge is pointless, but apparently Nasher didn't listen.
Arch-Nemesis: Played with. Vengaul Bloodsail is implied to be an old enemy of Nasher's and is trying to blackmail him into a confrontation with a cure reagent so he can finally one-up him. Nasher on the other hand just sees him as clinging to old rivalries and thinks at their age and condition it's silly to do so.
Been There, Shaped History: You can find books in the game that recount his adventurers with Kurth, Ophala, and Dumal Erard of Helm's Hold. The presence of his items around the Underdark in Hordes also suggests he's been down there himself.
Despair Event Horizon: Come Chapter 4 of the original campaign, he's resigned to the destruction of Neverwinter and the loss of everything he's tried to stand for.
Full Set Bonus: In Hordes you can find four items bearing his name that trigger this trope when worn together.
Glory Days: While he loves Neverwinter and her people dearly, deep down he misses the quest.
The Good King: Though he rejects the official title of King of Neverwinter and styles himself as simply "Lord", he is this trope in practice. Lore from outside the game establishes he does eventually reluctantly accept the crown and title later in life under pressure from his advisors who warned him that not having a formalized line of succession would be bad for the city he spent decades watching over.
Hypocrite: Nasher is a devout follower of Tyr, the god of Justice. That doesn't stop him from doing injustice just to keep the city safe. He had Fenthick sentenced to death even though he knows he is innocent.
My God, What Have I Done?: He considers himself responsible for Aribeth's betrayal, since he ordered it to appease the city. He admits that he and Neverwinter really have it coming.
Necessarily Evil: He's fully aware that Fenthick is an innocent and executing him is an injustice, but has it done because the city is enraged and demands he do it.
Reasonable Authority Figure: He's a gruff and stern man, but he loves his people and his city and does what is best for them.
Retired Badass: He was once a great adventurer like you, but has settled down to rule Neverwinter.
Slave to PR: Oh, is he ever! He has Fenthick executed despite knowing he's innocent because the city demands blood.
Sympathetic Slave Owner: Played With with Aarin, who's technically a prisoner who serves his sentence working as spymaster. Nasher admires Aarin for his skills and the fact that he's openly willing to betray a master who turns to evil deeds; his only request to Aarin is that of a warning of his betrayal should he ever start doing things Aarin finds evil.
We Used to Be Friends:
- In his youth, his party fractured due to a leadership struggle between Nasher and Kurth, resulting in Kurth joining Neverwinter's arch-enemy city Luskan as a High Captain, and later he wants to join Maugrim's cult to lead the siege of Neverwinter.
- Hordes implies this happened between Nasher and the player character after the original campaign's end. The implication is the player character talked Aribeth in turning herself in and seeking redemption, but Nasher had her executed to appease the citizens who demanded her death. Presumably not pleased with history repeating itself after Nasher expressed regret over Fenthick's death, the player character left Neverwinter in disgust. Nasher made them an Un-person in records of the war, downplaying their influence to focus on Aarin and your companions as the heroes that saved the city.

Haedraline

A lizardwoman who is trying to stop Morag, and so helps the heroes.

But Now I Must Go: Fades away in the ending.
Defector from Decadence: She's a member of Morag's people who wants to bring her down.
Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of the game the destruction of the Source Stone and the Words of Power means the death of Haedraline and the other Word Slaves after many thousands of years of life. They know this and accept it without rancour. She doesn't even expect sympathy over this, not even mentioning it to the player until after it's happened.
Lizard Folk: A member of their ancestors, actually.
Ms. Exposition: She appears pretty much to plotdump things about Morag and Maugrim that you wouldn't otherwise learn.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Hand in hand with being one of the few of her race who isn't abusive and oppressive to lesser races.
Rebel Leader: She leads the Word Slaves who have survived this long in opposing their former Queen's return to power. We never actually see any of the other Word Slaves but Aarin Gend mentions that a group of lizardfolk have been striking at Maugrim's forces.
Snake Talk: Hisses when she speaks.

Antagonists

Desther Indelayne

Voiced by: Steve Kramer

A Helmite priest in Neverwinter, who does not think highly of anyone except his Helmites dealing with the problem. He turns out to have ulterior motives.

Arc Villain: The main antagonist of Act I, he's behind the escape of the Waterdavian creatures, and later tries to send teams of assassins after you to stop you from retrieving them.
Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. He absolutely deserves the cruel punishment he receives, but it helps in no way undo the catastrophe brought forth by the Wailing Death. The people of Neverwinter remain so enraged, they look for another scapegoat to execute, who happens to be Fenthick.
Disc-One Final Boss: He's fought at the end of Chapter 1, but he's just the minion of a much larger threat looming on the horizon.
Fake Faith Healer: In lieu of any actual help for the city, his Helmite priests provide "blessings" to the people in the hopes it may stave off the plague; the blessings do nothing and were probably intended to make people more susceptible.
Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- Despite being The Mole, for the purposes of things such as Protection from alignment or Smite Evil he doesn't count as an evil-aligned character.
- He is capable of casting divine magic despite having rejected (or possibly never really worshipping) Helm and turning to worshipping Morag, who is powerful but not a god. Under the lore of Forgotten Realms divine magic can only be granted by a god, unless he's a Ur-Priest, or worships an legitimate god in addition to Morag off-screen.
Jerkass: The minute you meet him he proves to be quite the insufferable bastard.
Just Between You and Me: Played with. Though he answers some of your questions when you catch up with him, he only answers the ones that let him mock you with the answers. The actual useful information he refuses to divulge, so he can deny you the satisfaction.
Kill It with Fire: He's burned at the stake for his crimes against Neverwinter.
The Mole: Sent to infiltrate Neverwinter and encourage the spread of the plague.
Most Definitely Not a Villain: The only thing he keeps doing while undercover is being a dick to everyone, mocking the player character at every occasion (even downright accusing him of fabricating evidence about a plot) and insisting that he and his Helmite priests need more power from Lord Nasher.
Obviously Evil: The Helmite priests wear red and black robes, the "blessings" they cast take the appearance of a Negative Energy spell, and their descriptions mention they have a suspicious look about them that turns into a smile when they see you. Desther himself meanwhile spends his time mocking you and Aribeth as useless, when you bring in evidence that there's a conspiracy to suppress the search for a cure he accuses you of lying to get a reward for it, and his description notes he looks uneasy, "as if wanting more control of the situation than he has". When he's outed as a villain, it's less a dramatic reveal and more "no kidding, really?"
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After he steals the cure, the Big Bad leaves him to be captured, since his role in their plan is exhausted.
Wham Line: "Yes, Fenthick. I have the cure." With this line Desther reveals his true colors and turns on them.

Maugrim Korothir

Morag's prophet and the leader of her followers. He seized control of the Host Tower of the Arcane Brotherhood, and from there began his work to free Morag from her prison.

Bald of Evil: Not a lock of hair on him.
Company Cross References: While he's not very like him as a character his portrait rather resembles Jon Irenicus from Baldur's Gate.
The Dragon: He's Morag's second-in-command and leader of her cultists. He picks up the role again in Hordes of the Underdark, this time as a spirit in the Hells serving Grimgnaw in his attempt to take over the 8th Hell of Cania.
Epic Flail: Wields one as his melee weapon named "Nemesis". You can't loot it from his corpse, however. Until Hordes when Maugrim reappears and he can be looted for it this time.
Evil Makes You Monstrous: In Chapter 4 his character description mentions the evil powers he's been using has made him look deathly and decaying.
Evil Sorcerer: He's a dual-class wizard/cleric.
Face–Heel Turn: When he found the Source Stone, Morag contacted him and recruited him to free her.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a claw mark going over his scalp. Considering who he serves it may have been done by them to show fealty.
The Heavy: Since Morag is sealed beneath Neverwinter, it's Maugrim who does all the work.
Magic Staff: As a wizard he uses one.
Sanity Slippage: It's implied that he's had the Wailing Death ever since he first contacted Morag and the plague spread into the city, and that part of the reasons for his actions are that it's eating away at his brain and driving him mad.
The Computer Shall Taunt You: Maurgim will constantly throw insults at you during the fight. Same thing when you face him in Hordes of The Underdark.
Unwitting Pawn: It's apparent to everyone, even Aribeth, that Morag intends to pull You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Maugrim once they reach that point, but he is fully loyal to her and thinks they will rule the world together.
You Can't Thwart Stage One: There are four Words of Power needed to perform the Awakening ritual that will awaken Morag's followers in the Source Stone; Maugrim finds one of them while the player finds the other three. However, it turns out the first Word is the most powerful of them, so even though it's not a sure thing, Morag makes him perform the Awakening. Naturally, it works.

Morag

Queen of the Creator Race, a primordial race of lizardfolk who entered hibernation to escape the coming ice age thousands of years ago. Now they're awakening and are coming back.

Abusive Precursors: She and her people are the ancestors of the modern lizardfolk and yuan-ti, and as far as she's concerned anyone not of them is to be subjugated or killed.
Anti-Human Alliance: Her forces include lizardmen, orcs, frost giants, duergar, dragons, and various humanoid races of various classes, all united to destroy Neverwinter and conquer the world. Although she does also have plenty of human followers as well.
Big Bad: The primary antagonist of the game and cause of all of Neverwinter's ails.
The Corrupter: She fed Maugrim promises of power and control to convince him to join her, and uses psychic dreams to torment Aribeth and convince her to join too.
Evil Sorcerer: She's a high-level wizard.
Flunky Boss: Sics a lot of minions on you when you finally fight her.
Generic Doomsday Villain: She has pretty much no character outside being the Big Bad who wants to conquer the world. In the one conversation you have with her before the finale of the game you can ask her to tell you about herself, and she sneers that a mammalian creature like you could not understand her motivations or goals, but her dialogue implies she just wants ultimate power and control over the world.
God Save Us from the Queen!: The ancient Queen of the Creator Race was a very unpleasant individual. Aside from wanting to conquer the world and enslave everyone who isn't of the Creator Race, she implies she's killed her own family members to secure her position.
Load-Bearing Boss: Justified, as it was her personal Pocket Dimension.
Lizard Folk: She's their ancient leader; NPCs discuss that the Creator Race are ancestors of modern lizardmen.
The Man Behind the Man: The controlling force behind Maugrim and his cultists.
Multiversal Conqueror: Implied in the game's final levels; the Source Stone has gateways that reach to other worlds, and one inhabitant of those worlds mentions Morag's forces have been invading them.
Nigh-Invulnerability: In the final battle Morag is accompanied by a number of Old One priests, each of which is maintaining a spell protecting her against one form of damage (one against slashing weapons, one against crushing weapons, one against fire etc). The PC can only damage her with weapons or spells once the corresponding priest is dead.
Sealed Evil in a Can: She's sealed in the Source Stone beneath Castle Never, and communicates with the outside via projection and visions.
Take Over the World: In the past she had already done it; now that she's coming back she wants to do it again.
Tom the Dark Lord: Morag is a pretty common Scottish name.
Verbal Tic: Hisses when she speaks.

Shadows Of Undrentide

Companions

Xanos Messarmos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/xanos_messarnos.png

A half-orc barbarian/sorcerer and fellow apprentice to Drogan, he has an inflated opinion of himself and the skills to back it up. His dream is to become a king by his own hand.

Ambition Is Evil: His major character flaw is that he's hungry for power and wants to someday rule over a kingdom, but it's downplayed as he reveals he wants to rule as a benevolent king.
Cannot Spit It Out: Non-romantic variant, he never got to tell Master Drogan how much he truly values him as a teacher and friend. He averts this with you prior to the final battle, telling you he's grateful for your friendship and would continue traveling with you, and if either of you doesn't survive he wants you to know this.
Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: And the one he's chosen is To Be a Master.
Determinator: He may have a big ego and thinks he's destined for power, but he knows it's going to take time and hard work to get to that point and will not let anything stop him from making it happen.
Dirty Coward: Implied — Dorna says he's relied on the teleport ring Drogan gave his apprentices to get out of trouble during tests. Doubles as a Take That! to the Stone of Recall in the original campaign and how easily it is abused to do the same.
Freudian Excuse: Being a half-orc he was subjected to Fantastic Racism as a child and run out of his home. That is when he vowed to become strong and never need bow or beg ever again.
Hidden Depths: Despite his egotistical nature and hunger for power, he's quite philosophical about the nature of ruling and the necessity of being a benevolent king.
Xanos: To be a great leader, to create a lasting kingdom, one must not only be able to conquer or subject his people, one must also be able to win their hears.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It takes a lot to bring it out, but beneath the arrogance and ambition is a decent man.
Knight Templar: Declares this would be his method of ruling — he will treat his subjects like his own children, and his enemies as mortal ones.
Magic Knight: Dual-class Sorcerer and Barbarian.
Pet the Dog: When Drogan performs his Heroic Sacrifice, Xanos realizes how much the old man truly meant to him and realizes how much Drogan cared for him in turn. He laments it took until Drogan's death for him to realize this things and that he could have said so much more if he had known before.
Small Name, Big Ego: He thinks very highly of himself despite being a nobody.
Square Race, Round Class: Barbarian/Sorceror is not the combination most players pick for their half-orc character.
Take Over the World: You have the option to jokingly suggest this is his goal based on his attitude. He doesn't exactly reject the claim...
Third-Person Person: Not all the time, but often.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Xanos, along with Dorna, never makes a return in Hordes of the Underdark and there is nothing as to what happened to either of them. Deekin does mention him in one of his random pop-up lines:
Deekin: What happen to mean half-orc you goes to school with? Deekin thinking he gots eaten, maybe.
What the Hell Is That Accent?: Is vaguely German-Russian-ish.
You No Take Candle: Downplayed to the point it's more like Buffy Speak. "I came to Master Drogan to learn to be an adventurer. I wish to adventure!"

Dorna Trapspringer

A dwarven cleric/rogue, she left her dwarven clan when she realized her desires and lifestyle were ill-suited to the typical dwarven life.

Ancestral Weapon: Her axe is said to have runes carved in it from previous owners before her, which is why she won't give it up, it has such meaning to her.
Combat Medic: As a cleric she has several healing spells, and is still capable of going into battle with you.
Cool Sword: Short swords are her weapons, and she starts with one named for her as custom equipment.
Cowardly Lion: As the adventure continues and the stakes grow higher, her bravado and eagerness begin to wear down into caution and fear. However, she still sticks by you to the very end and she remains strong in combat.
Dark and Troubled Past: That last name? She did something to earn it that she's not proud of.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Her alignment is True Neutral, but it's most shown through her Only in It for the Money attitude, otherwise she acts like a Good-aligned character and is often uncomfortable when you take the "evil" solutions to quests.
Greed: Her love of money and goods worth money is evident in many conversations she has. She's also a follower of Vergadain, who is practically the dwarven god of the trope.
Jumped at the Call: When she heard about Drogan she was eager to join him and get away from her clan to discover her own path.
Luke Nounverber: A Rogue named Trapspringer. Invoked in-game since her clan bestows meaningful last names on its people when they do something to earn them, and they're expected to live up to them.
Magic Knight: Dual-class Cleric and Rogue.
My Greatest Failure: She blames herself for getting her sister estranged and exiled from their clan by convincing her to go against their traditions, causing her to seek adventure and fall in with the wrong crowd. She notes that while she never approved of such behavior, her own defiance of the traditions set the example her sister followeds.
Only in It for the Money: She makes no secret that her interest in the adventure is the material rewards that await you.
Our Dwarves Are All the Same: That she's an aversion of this trope is the reason she left her clan, she knew she didn't really belong there.
Square Race, Round Class: Cleric and Rogue usually aren't the first classes that leap to mind when thinking of what your dwarf character will be.
Squishy Wizard: While her lack of hitpoints is somewhat compensated for with her Rogue-based evasion skills, she's still not very durable when six enemies close in on the two of you.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Neither of the fellow apprentices in SOU make a return in Hordes of the Underdark and there is nothing as to what happened to either of them. Unlike Xanos, poor Dorna doesn't even get a mention.

Deekin Scalesinger

A kobold Bard under the control of the dragon Tymofarrar, who taught Deekin to sing and write as an experiment to see how successful it would be. Deekin is a companion in Shadows of the Undrentide. He returns as a companion in Hordes of the Underdark, where he's made a name for himself between games, and is the only companion who can accompany you through the whole campaign.

The Cameo: Reappears in Neverwinter Nights 2 as a shopkeeper in Neverwinter.
Chaotic Good: In "Shadows of Undrentide". True Neutral in "Hordes of the Underdark". invoked
Comically Missing the Point: Most of his interactions with other henchmen. Especially with Nathyrra he inteprets her snark as honest curiosity.
Deekin: Deekin go there to learns to be sorcerer, but Old Master say Deekin not so good at it. He thinks Deekin maybe better if he sings and tells stories.
Nathyrra: It's a wonder he didn't just give up on you and devour you in a single gulp.
Deekin: Deekin wonder about that sometimes. Maybe Old Master be lonely. He not have many friends. Nobody ever come to visit, and Old Master never get invited to parties.
Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu? / Shut Up, Hannibal!: To the Big Bad in Hordes.
Doomy Dooms of Doom: One of his trademark bard songs is just singing "doom" over and over.
Growing Wings: If Deekin becomes a Level 9 Red Dragon Disciple, as expected from that class, a pair of red wings will grow on his back.
Lampshade Hanging: He hangs a fair few lampshades wherever he goes. Comes with being a bard.
Deekin: If priests raise dead, then why anybody die?
Deekin: If dragons not fly, then why they gots wings?
Luke Nounverber: Invoked, he takes the name for himself between Shadows and Hordes.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: He muses that most kobolds are evil, or at least are seen as such, and he may be the only "good" kobold there is. He further suggests perhaps he could "teach" other kobolds to be good.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Discussed with Nathyrra. She's momentarily suggests that Deekin's apparent weakness, lack of intelligence and innocence is a thoughtful act to let his enemies' guard down. She quickly changes her mind; Deekin is genuinely too trusting and naive.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's small, but he's not to be underestimated; especially once he becomes a Red Dragon Disciple.
Squishy Wizard: As a bard he has access to magic and some handy buffs, but isn't much in a fight, not helped by him being a kobold. In Hordes when he becomes a Red Dragon Disciple, he evolves into a Magic Knight as his physical prowess improves.
Tagalong Chronicler: He writes a book about his adventures alongside your character after the events of Shadows of Undrentide, resulting in both becoming minor celebrities.
Third-Person Person: Always refers to himself this way.
Too Dumb to Live: Also Discussed. Nathyrra notes in Hordes that Deekin is not all that intelligent or wise (by normal standards, anyway), as well as being far too trusting and nice and being physically weak and unimposing. By any sensible measure, the adventures he's been on and the beings he's encountered should have gotten him killed by now. Yet, somehow he endures, and she has no idea how.
Took a Level in Badass: In Hordes of the Underdark, where he's a Red Dragon Disciple. And you can make him take more levels by using his True Name to make him believe in himself—according to the ending if you do such, he becomes a famed adventurer in his own right without you, and eventually goes back to his original tribe and becomes their chieftain.
Undying Loyalty: He's incredibly loyal to "the boss" (you). Just how loyal is he? When Mephistopheles tries to turn your party members against you, Deekin will give a Shut Up, Hannibal! to him without needing a skill check or True Name to be kept in line.
Deekin: DEEKIN NOT LIKES YOU!
You No Take Candle: Like the rest of his kobold tribe.

Allies

Drogan Droganson

A dwarven wizard, he's long retired from adventuring to teach the next generation what he knows. He's the player character's mentor and instructor.

Ancient Order of Protectors: He's a member of the Harpers, a secret society pledged to fight evil no matter the form or location.
Deus Exit Machina: He's sidelined by a poison that cannot be healed by normal methods at the start of the game, and needs Ayala to tend to him. Otherwise with their skills they could do things themselves and you could stay at home waiting to hear from them.
Retired Badass: Used to be an adventurer like you before settling down.
Heroic Sacrifice: Gives his life to hold up the portal to Heurodis as the ruin collapses around him.
Mentor Occupational Hazard: Pretty textbook example, he's your mentor and father figure and he does not survive the expansion.
The Mentor: Your character's mentor who has taught them all they know.
Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. Drogan is a wizard rather than the usual fighter type. He also lives on the surface and teaches adventuring.
Repetitive Name: Drogan Droganson.
Zerg Rush: How he is attacked in the opening. He may be a powerful wizard throwing around high-level spells, but when there's dozens of kobalds swarming you, sooner or later one is going to get through.

Mischa Waymeet

A paladin apprentice in Drogan's school.

Advertised Extra: She is introduced with the other, potential companion students, gets a unique portrait and voice acting then proceeds to do nothing for the rest of the plot.
Black-and-White Morality: Her philosophy. "A creature of evil deserves no mercy from the righteous".
The Paladin: Her class. Specifically she's a paladin of Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, which the game itself notes is an odd combination in-universe. Sadly we get no backstory on how this came to be the case.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: She protests Drogan gave her an unfair test when he tasked her to rescue a child and she found out it was a goblin, because that puts her beliefs at odds with this trope.

Ayala

An elven warrior who was tracking the kobalds that attacked Drogan, she heals his wounds and sees to him during the first chapter. Is also a member of the Harpers like him.

Ancient Order of Protectors: Just like Drogan, she's a Harper.
Ms. Exposition: Gives a Plot Dump of the starting story arc in the first two minutes of the campaign.

Antagonists

Tymofarrar

A young white dragon living in the mountains near Hilltop, he leads the kobold tribes in the region.

An Ice Person: Cold breath is standard stuff for white dragons.
Bad Boss: Zigzagged. The kobolds are terrified of him, but this has more to do with him being a dragon than a cruel master. In fact it seems Tymofarrar treats them fairly well, and in Hordes Deekin muses he misses him sometimes.
Cloudcuckoolander: Tymofarrar's behavior is a far cry from your typical dragon. For one thing he employs a tribe of kobolds to serve him and has trained one of them as a bard to entertain him. For another, rumor is he shapeshifts into human form and ventures into the village of Hilltop to socialize and enjoy the local pastries. It's just a rumor, but if true it actually wouldn't be out-of-character for him.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: White dragons are normally very lacking in intelligence, especially younger ones like him^note. His love of civilization and rejection of animalistic impulses makes him a very unusual specimen of his kind.
Noble Demon: As far as dragons go, Tymofarrar is a stand-up fellow. While other dragons will attack you for getting snippy with them, he's just amused by your attitude and only attacks if you directly threaten him.
Oh, Crap!: If you have the phylactery J'Nah was planning to use to kill him with, he senses the magic from it and quickly decides he wants no part of it, offering you any reward you want if you promise not to use it.
Our Dragons Are Different: This one is just plain weird.
Pet the Dog: In Hordes, Deekin implies Tymofarrar took good care of him and was grooming him to be a Red Dragon Disciple.
Surrounded by Idiots: His attitude towards his minions. Considering they're kobolds, he's entirely justified in it.
Villains Out Shopping: Ever wonder what dragons do with their time when they aren't flying around being nasty reptilians? Tymofarrar is your answer. He enjoys magic research, listening to his kobold bard sing, and venturing into villages shapeshifted as a human to enjoy the local culture.

J'Nah

A sorceress commanding an army of gnolls, she organized the attack on Drogan to claim four artifacts he had, but only one is of any value to her.

Arc Villain: As the one behind the theft of the artifacts, she's the antagonist of Chapter 1, but is just working for a greater villain to be confronted later.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Invoked and enforced, the gnolls listen to her because she's demonstrated she could casually kill them if they don't.
Bad Boss: The gnolls really don't like working for her and want her dead.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: She lies to and manipulates Tymofarrar, attempts to kill you after you kill him for her, and is plotting to betray Heurodis as well.
Disc-One Final Boss: She's probably the final boss you'll face in the chapter; the way the questline goes, either she is the last fight, or she's the penultimate fight with the actual last boss (Tymofarrar) being optional, if you prefer diplomacy to combat.
Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Half-elf and half-demon.
The Starscream: Is planning to betray her mistress and claim power for herself.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Pulls it on you if you accept her deal to kill Tymofarrar and follow through on it.

Heurodis

^{Click here to see her lich form}

A student of the ancient lich Balpheron, she escaped the destruction of her master and fellow students at the hands of the Harpers and seeks the power of the Netheril to conquer Faerun.

Avenging the Villain: She's in the interests of destroying the Harpers out of revenge for killing her master.
Big Bad: She's the primary antagonist of Shadows.
Discard and Draw: The transformation into a lich destroys her petrifying gaze, but she gets far greater abilities in return.
Evil Sorceror: She's seeking ancient forgotten magic to take over the world.
Generic Doomsday Villain: She has virtually no personality beyond wanting to conquer Faerun.
Godhood Seeker: Uses the power of the mythallars to become a near-omniscient lich. When you meet her she claims she's able to see the soul of the world, the Dungeons & Dragons equivalent of The Lifestream that endows all beings with magic.
In the Hood: She conceals her true nature under a hooded robe. The descriptions refer to her simply as "Hooded Figure".
Load-Bearing Boss: Inverted. To defeat her, you must destroy the ring of mythallars surrounding her, which causes Undrentide to plummet down from the sky.
Medusa: What she turns out to be.
Our Liches Are Different: The mythallar turns her into a lich.
Taken for Granite: She is a medusa, after all.
Take Over the World: Her goal.
Unknown Rival: She despises Drogan and was hoping she would get to confront him instead of you in the end; Drogan never even knew she existed until the events of the game. This is also a plot point, the Harpers presumed Balpheron had no other living students, and thus never tracked down and killed this one.
Was Once a Man: She's a medusa when you meet her. By the final battle she's become something even worse.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The power of the mythallar drives her mad.

Hordes Of The Underdark

Allies

Durnan

The gruff tavernkeeper of the Yawning Portal Inn, built above the entrance to the Undermountain, of which he's the self-appointed gatekeeper.

Back for the Finale: With the player character first stuck in the Underdark because of Halaster's Geas and then in Cania after their death, Durnan stops playing any meaningful role to the plot. He reappears only in the Final Battle against Mephistopheles, when he's invading Waterdeep. After a quick dialogue with the player, he's teleported away by Sobrey. Then the Modular Ending tells of his whereabouts.
The Bartender: The Retired Badass innkeeper of the Yawning Portal Inn. Being the gatekeeper of the entrance to the Undermountain beneath his inn, he dispenses valuable suggestions and knowledge to aspiring adventurers.
Big Good: For the first chapter of Hordes. He is the gatekeeper of the entrance well built beneath his inn, and directs the mission to the Undermountain to stop the invading hordes. While you venture further in the Undermountain, you can periodically return to Durnan and update him on what you're discovering about Halaster, the Drow and the Valsharess.
Fantastic Racism: Downplayed: he reacts negatively to the player sending him an apparently good goblin who wants to abandon the war going on in the Undermountain. That's understandable, since goblins tend to be Always Chaotic Evil. Nonetheless, he can be convinced to cast aside his suspicions and allow the goblin to do manual labor in his inn.
Feeling Their Age: A Jerkass player can ask them this after they're knocked unconscious by a beholder. He doesn't take it nicely.
Hero of Another Story: Further Forgotten Realms lore tells of his days when he was called "the Wanderer" and of his excursion in the Undermountain.
Original Character: Inverted: He's one of the few characters coming directly from the original Forgotten Realms lore and not invented specifically for the game.
Rebel Leader: He organises a resistence against the invading hordes in his own inn and, with the city guard already too busy trying to keep order in the city, he's the only one capable of planning an incursion in the Undermountain.
Retired Badass: He was a famed adventurer in the past and even ventured in the Undermountain. Now he's settled with running the Yawning Portal Inn.

Companions

Nathyrra

A drow assassin/wizard, she trained under the Red Sisters in her craft, and now serves the Seer to show the drow a better way of life and stop the Valsharess from conquering the Underdark. She can join your party in Chapters 2 and 3, and is a romance option for male characters.

Artificial Stupidity: As usual for rogue henchmen; she is notable for charging headfirst and getting herself killed the moment she joins the party if nothing is done to prevent it.
The Atoner: Her previous life as an assassin and the many lives she took weighs heavily on her and she is determined to make up for it. If taken with the PC into the Hells she almost succumbs to guilt stirred up by the whispers of her victims.
Becoming the Mask: She was ordered by the Valsharess to assassinate the Seer, and spent a long time studying the teaching of Eilistraee to better understand her enemy. She initially dismissed such things as foolish, unaware that they had already planted, subtly, the seeds of her future conversion. When Nathyrra infiltrated the Seer's camp posing as a would-be convert, she got the chance to meet with the Seer alone, but she couldn't finish her mission. Nathyrra was so overwhelmed by the Seer's serenity in the face of death and the redemption she offered, she could only kneel before the Seer and ask for forgiveness. That's when she swore loyalty to the Seer.
Belligerent Sexual Tension: With the male PC.
Big "SHUT UP!": A conversation between Nathyrra and Deekin, when he recalls how he felt bewildered the first time he saw the sun, ends with her abruptly interrupting him. It's doubtful if she does that out of annoyance, or because it's a sore subject for her, since she never left the Underdark.
The Comically Serious: Particularly when interacting with Deekin or a more jovial PC.
Dark and Troubled Past: She joined the Valsharess because her home was destroyed and she had nowhere else to go, unless she wanted to live her life on the run.
Dark Is Not Evil: She's a dark elf worshipping the chaotic good goddess Eilistraee, who is herself an example of the trope.
Defrosting Ice Queen: Downplayed, as she is rarely less than polite to the PC, but present; if you choose to pursue her as a romance option she responds to your early flirtations with exasperation and brushes you off. As the campaign progresses she warms up to you and eventually confesses her love.
First Time in the Sun: Her good epilogue reveals that, after the defeat of Mephistopheles, she fulfilled her dream to leave the Underdark and see the surface of Toril.
Forceful Kiss: A nasty option with the True Name (which was Dummied Out) allows you to force her to be your lover, then order her to kiss you to shut her up. All while calling back the You're Cute When You're Angry you told her prior in the campaign.
Player: You're so sexy when you're mad. Give me a kiss!
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Her in-game alignment is Lawful Evilinvoked, but she acts more like a Good-aligned character. This is because Assassins require one to be Evil-aligned.
Hitman with a Heart: Though it took a lot to coax it out.
Heel–Face Turn: Formerly a minion of the Valsharess, she was sent to kill the Seer. Something compelled her to stay her hand when the time came though, and she pledged herself to the Seer's service to make amends. She converted to the worship of Eilistraee shortly after.
Klingon Promotion: Discussed when telling you of her past. You can express puzzlement at her decision to join the Valsharess after she exterminated her family; Nathyrra will explain that, in drow culture, family doesn't count for much, and she would have plotted to kill her mother and her older sisters to become Matron Mother anyway, and her sisters would have done the same.
Lawful Evil: invoked So her sheet says, as a relic of her past and to ensure she can continue to qualify for the Assassin Prestige Class. She actually acts as a Good-aligned character, loyal to the Seer and serving the Chaotic Good goddess Eilistraee.
Magic Knight: A three-way class mix of rogue, assassin, and wizard. On the player's request she can keep going the middle route between rogue and assassin, and wizard, or lean to one side.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Along with all the other Eilistraee-worshipping drow.
No Sense of Humor: Doesn't appreciate the PC cracking jokes in the midst of a beholder lair or when facing an army of demons.
One-Man Army: Initially, the Valsharess wanted her dead and kept sending assassins after her. She realized Nathyrra would be more useful as an ally when the assassins kept winding up dead and she didn't.
Only One Name: She's one of the few companions referred to only with her first name. Later on she reveals to be the daughter of the Matron Mother of the extinct House Kant'tar.
Training from Hell: As a part of the Red Sisters' training, only one student out of a class of six is allowed to graduation and officially become an assassin. Five of them are bound to die either because of their fatal training methods or at the hand of other students. Murdering rivals is in fact encouraged, even outside training sessions. She was obviously the lucky survivor of her class.
Undying Loyalty: To you, if your male PC takes her as a romance option. When Mephistopheles tries to talk her into betraying you, she doesn't need a skill check or True Name to be swayed back, she calmly tells him she would rather die next to the man she loves rather than side against him.
You Can't Go Home Again: Because her entire family and house were destroyed and trampled under the Valsharess's heel. All she has for the immediate future is foiling her plans.
You're Cute When You're Angry: When a flirtation with Nathyrra has her getting upset over being called "bossy" and "defensive", you can reply this way. She actually calms down and seems to appreciate it.

Valen Shadowbreath

Voiced by: Frederick Zbryski

A tiefling weapon master, he spent a long time traveling the outer planes before he found his way to the Underdark. Before you came around he was the leader of the Seer's forces, something he's not entirely comfortable with. He can join your party in Chapters 2 and 3, and is a romance option for female characters.

Dark and Troubled Past: Hoo boy.
Deadpan Snarker:
Valen: How are we going to get across this river of lava? Somehow I don't think swimming is the answer.
Defrosting Ice King: Valen starts out very suspicious of you and takes time to warm up. Once he does, though, he proves himself a steadfast and loyal friend.
The Determinator: He's been through the planes and beyond, spent years traversing the world he knew nothing about to meet a woman who looked at him for a moment in the middle of a battle.
Don't Ask: When he related the tale of his escape from a devil lord, he had to make a deal with a Marilith to have access to a portal. When you press for details, he says he doesn't want to talk about it.
Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Valen goes through an astonishing amount of sexual harassment throughout the game. In backstory, he had to make a deal with a marilith demon—which amounted to sexual extortion—in order to escape the Abyss. If he and Nathyrra are in the party together, they'll bring up a time when a drow commander made a comment about his "tail". A female PC also has the option to make many inappropriate sexual comments towards him (thankfully, none of them are necessary to romance him). None of this is ever really acknowledged.
Epic Flail: And it's called Devil's Bane.
Fiery Redhead: Downplayed. While he's a redheaded tiefling constantly tormented by his own demonic blood, he desperately tries every moment to resist the urge to massacre everyone around. He does show Large Ham tendencies in battle, but he otherwise capable of showing restraint.
Horned Humanoid: As a tiefling he has some demon blood in his ancestry, which in his case manifests as a barbed tail and horns.
I Owe You My Life: The reason he's so dedicated to the Seer; she not only saved his life, she saved his humanity as well.
Lady and Knight: Tends to call the female PC "my lady", giving his romance this slant.
Large Ham: Valen's affection for combat is reflected in his over-the-top lines when entering engagements
Valen: You CANNOT win this fight!
Valen: Into the flames, we leap!
Luke Nounverber: Valen Shadowbreath.
Nay-Theist: His planar perspective makes him mistrustful of deities and "higher powers."
Properly Paranoid: He's concerned that you cannot be trusted and will betray the Seer. You fully have the option to do this.
Red/Green Contrast: In his own portrait. His red hair contrasts his metallic green armour. It's noticeable also in gameplay (unless the player changes his armour), but is less glaring.
"Shaggy Dog" Story : If you roleplay as evil and betray the Seer, his entire life becomes this so very much.
Son of a Whore: Her mother was a human prostitute at the service of a demoness. He was told she was killed by a customer, but he believes she was actually killled by the matron herself, the month she underperformed due to illness.
Sour Supporter: He doesn't fully believe in the Seer, Eilistraee, or even you. But he's going to fight to protect them all regardless.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Downplayed with the PC. While he's absolutely devout to the Seer, he makes it clear he's not sure her visions are to be trusted (he's aware that Gods can be manipulated or simply wrong.) and believes she's wrong in putting too much faith in the PC. That said, he remains loyal and respectful to them but never makes a secret of his suspicions. He will come eventually to trust completely the PC should they carry the Seer's mission to the end and won't let themselves be swayed by the Valsharess.
This Is Gonna Suck: His reaction when he realises that he and the PC are in Baator, home of the baatezu or devils, if you bring him along in Chapter 3.
Troubled, but Cute: Dude has a lot of angst under wraps, which the female PC can claim makes him even more attractive.
Uneven Hybrid: He's a tiefling, a human with fiendish blood. He's specifically part tanar'ri, or demon.
Undying Loyalty: As a love interest. Like Nathyrra, if your PC has romanced Valen successfully, he will side with you against Mephistopheles in the final battle regardless of attempts to sway him.
Vague Age: He's not even sure about his own age. Valen remarks that he totally lost track of time of his childhood, the Blood Wars, the torture at the hands of his master.

Enserric

The spirit of an ancient and powerful mage, he was a former adventurer into the Underdark that got killed and sealed into a sword. The player has the option to free him from his new undead owner, and he provides a fairly potent weapon, as well as lots of helpful and not-so-helpful commentary on your adventure.

And I Must Scream: When you retrieve him from the Hall of the Sleeping kings, he begs you to take him with you, use him in battle, even sell him to a merchant... anything but leave him to spend any more time alone in the tomb.
Aborted Arc: At one point you can ask if there's a way to free him, and he mentions that since his original body is probably long gone, you could find a soulless body for him, or something like a golem or similar construct. You can animate such a golem as a henchman in Chapter 2, but there's no way to transfer Enserric's spirit to it. The developers had the idea to make this possible, but they had it too late in development to implement it in the game.
Blood Knight: Since all he can do as a sword is kill, he's fully embraced it and enjoys doing it.
Calling Your Attacks: He'll do so for you, adjusting his lines appropriately for different enemies and commenting on their "taste".
Cool Sword: He's a very powerful weapon throughout the game.
Deadpan Snarker: Oh dear god, you have no idea. "You're asking a sword for advice? Here's some advice — don't do that."
Empathic Weapon: Can carry on full conversations with you if you like.
Infinity -1 Sword: He's not the best weapon in the game, but is still very powerful when first acquired and continues to be effective right up until the Final Boss, if you know how to make full usage of his powers.^Explanation
Infinity +1 Sword: If you upgrade him to +10. With power up he'll be the only +13 weapon in game.
Life Drain: After Chapter I you can open a dialogue option that ends with him being able to temporarily drain part of your spirit to empower the blade, allowing you to take temporary Constitution penalties to increase the enchantments on it.
Morph Weapon: His default form is a Longsword, but if you don't like that he can change into a Dagger, Greatsword or Shortsword.
Snarky Non Human Side Kick: Very snarky for a sword.
Talking Weapon: Straight example, he's a sword that talks.
Wild Mass Guessing: In-universe. Enserric wonders, due to the fact he's fading and can't remember a lot about his life, if he's really Enserric, or if his companions revived his human body and the Enserric in the sword is a shade of the real Enserric who continued on with his life unaware of what became of the sword and vice-versa.

The Underdark

The Seer

Voiced by: Jocelyn Ahlf

A priestess of Eilistraee with prophetic abilities, she is the leader of the alliance to stop the Valsharess from conquering the Underdark.

Big Good: Kind, wise, and leader of the heroes of the campaign.
Dark Is Not Evil: She's a dark elf worshipping the chaotic good goddess Eilistraee.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": She has no name aside from "The Seer". She explains that she was once just like any other drow but found the light of Eilistraee and was gifted her vision to aid in spreading her beliefs. She abandoned her original name during this time because the drow who was given it no longer exists.
Heel–Face Turn: When asked about her past, she said she was a typical drow doing evil things before Eilistraee set her on the path of good.
Light Is Good: She also an example of this with her bright white apparel, contrasting the gritty and darker clothing of most drow. Eilistraee imagery in general is whiter and lighter compared to the other drow deities.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: As a worshipper of Eilistraee she preaches compassion, mercy, and temperance. Preaching those ideals to drow is not an easy job, since the drow are largely a race of ambitious and power-hungry backstabbers.
The Omniscient: Eilistrae grants her visions of the future.

The Valsharess

A high-ranked Drow matron mother and priestess of Lolth, she's making a play to take over the Underdark and more since she found a way to bind an Archdevil to her control.

The Ace: Evil example. Ruthless, ambitious, powerful, cunning, manipulative, beautiful; even the other drow allied against her admit she's pretty much the pinnacle of what drow women aspire to be.
Big Bad: She's the primary antagonist of Hordes. At first.
Big Bad Wannabe: She's a threat but obviously not as powerful and dangerous as she thinks she is, and her allies mostly think she's an upstart with delusions of grandeur who happens to have gotten a bit of power to back up the claims. When you fight her one-on-one she turns out to be pretty weak, confirming it was only ever fear of Mephistopheles that kept her allies in line.
Bullying a Dragon: Constantly mouths off to Mephistopheles, since he's bound to her and must do as she says.
Chainmail Bikini: It's a dominatrix-like outfit combined with thorns.
Depraved Bisexual: She's just as willing to vamp female Player Characters as males.
Duel Boss: There's a couple of ways to set up the battle with her, but in all of them you face her one-on-one.
Disc-One Final Boss: She's defeated at the end of Chapter 2 in time for the final chapter to begin.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Her army includes drow, duergar, beholders, mindflayers, vampires, zombies, and even a dracolich and a devil.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": And she insists you call her that. It's Drow for "queen", by the way.
Evil Sorcerer: Primarily a spellcaster, although a cleric of Lolth rather than an actual sorceress. Notably, she's also a Level 8 Blackguard, making her to some degree an evil Magic Knight.
Godhood Seeker: She plans to become ruler of the Underdark and Undermountain, and with the power she'll obtain the process, become a goddess.
Jiggle Physics: As the faces of the game cannot have moving expressions, she does a lot of body movement to express herself, resulting in this.
No-Sell: Thanks to her equipment she has a Discipline of 50. Knockdown, Disarm, Called Shot? It ain't happening.
Spikes of Villainy: More like thorns of villainy, but it fits the trope perfectly.
Stripperiffic: Her armor show a lot of more skin than Aribeth. Amusingly, it's listed as "Heavy Armor".
Take Over the World: Her goal is to mass an army large enough to storm the surface and conquer it.
Tempting Fate: She refuses to believe that the PC can "stop [her] great rise". Guess how she meets her end.
Too Dumb to Live:
- "Enslaves" Mephistopheles, the second most powerful devil in the Nine Hells. It goes as well as you might expect. He even mocks her for it when she oversteps the extent of her control over him and he breaks free.
- If you're working with her and Mephistopheles starts talking to you, she immediately decides that you're planning to betray her and picks a fight which gets her and her Red Sisters killed. The possibility that Mephistopheles might have been pulling something and that you might be a genuine ally doesn't cross her mind - then again, she is a drow, so "an ally who isn't planning to stick a knife in her back" is a concept outside her frame of reference.
The Vamp: Tries to literally seduce you into siding with her; the descriptions for the scene mention she begins by giving you a once-over and a wolfish grin, and she's wearing musky perfume and getting very close to you.
Unusable Enemy Equipment: Narrowly averted. When you kill her there's a cutscene before you can loot her body, but there's a second or two of leeway before then during which you can pause the game, click her corpse, and loot her goods before they're lost for good. For the curious, her equipment includes the Will of Lloth and the Matron Armor, which cannot be acquired any way else.
Unwitting Pawn: Mephistopheles manipulates her into confronting you personally so you can kill her and set him free from her control.
We Can Rule Together: Makes you this offer. You can even take her up on it and betray the Seer, though it doesn't take long before she suspects you of betrayal and turns on you anyway.
Whip of Dominance: She is a tyrannical drow empress and priestess of Lolth who wields a whip in combat that is called "Will of Lolth". Naturally, she's also a domineering and skilled seducer clad in a dominatrix-styled Chainmail Bikini and has the arrogance and inflated ego expected from a powerful female drow.

Planar Beings

The Reaper

A mysterious cloaked entity that oversees a pocket universe, he teleports the player there in Hordes of the Underdark whenever they near death and revives them. The player character knows the Reaper is more than he seems, and they turn out to be right.

Black Cloak: His entire wardrobe.
Don't Fear the Reaper: The Reaper is a benign spirit who watches over the dead. He's unfailingly polite to the player when they ask questions about his realm, and resurrects them when they die in battle (as long as they have Rogue Stones). Even when he's forcibly serving Mephistopheles, it's implied that he's not happy at all with this situation and is grateful when the player discovers his True Name to free him.
The Dog Bites Back: He's not very happy at being forced to serve Mephistopheles, and is pleased when you find a loophole in his servitude that lets him help you take him down.
Gameplay and Story Integration: The Reaper's Relic serves as the equivalent of the base game's Stone of Recall for Hordes; any time you're about to die and choose to respawn or teleport away, you appear in the Reaper's realm and he sends you back. Turns out the reason he's keeping you alive is because Mephistopeheles ordered him to as part of his plan. This also means come Chapter 3, once Mephistopheles doesn't need you alive anymore, the Relic is taken from you and death becomes permanent for the rest of the game.
Mysterious Backer: The player character has no idea who or what the Reaper is, or why they choose to help you, but he keeps you alive when you're about to die.
The Pawn: He serves Mephistopheles and has been keeping you alive to help him with his scheme.
Walking Spoiler: His true hand in the game's plots spoils the reveal that he's a servant of Mephistopheles and the archdevil is the real Big Bad, not the Valsharess.

Mephistopheles

A devil roped into serving the Valsharess and used as a source of power and knowledge for her. He warned her that a particular surface dweller would be the one to bring about her downfall, making your character her prime target.

Ambition Is Evil: As Archdevil of the 8th Hell, he's always looking to increase his standing and take over the 9th. He finds a loophole in this thanks to you; he'll conquer Toril and make it the 10th Hell, leapfrogging the 9th and Asmodeus.
Batman Gambit: He told the Valsharess your character would be the one to defeat her. Why? So she'll send minions to kill you, ensuring you'll be roped into fighting her. When you and she finally meet, she orders Mephistopheles to kill you, breaking their contract since that's an order he cannot obey.
Big Red Devil: Classic example, he's got hooves, horns, and is a huge red fiend with a flicking tail.
The Chessmaster: In his backstory, you find out that he heard of a coup being plotted against him. He masqueraded as a baron and became leader of the rebels so he would know everyone who was involved, and then revealed himself and punished them all. He's also the overarcing mastermind of the game's plot, setting you and the Valsharess on a collision course to earn his freedom from her and conquer the mortal plane.
Deadpan Snarker: He's a devil; being a sarcastic dick is part of the job description.
Mephistopheles: I had friends once. Eleven of them. I don't think they liked me very much.
Devil's Pitchfork: He is always holding one and boy does it really hurt if you fight him.
The Dragon: To the Valsharess. At first.
Dragon Ascendant: Usurps her as the Big Bad at the end of Chapter 2.
Evil Is Burning Hot: His magic variably manifests as fire or ice. Appropriate considering his Hell is Cania, a glacial wasteland with flows of lava in the ice.
Evil Laugh: A very deep and booming one and he does love deploying it whenever anyone tries to oppose him, finding the idea of such temerity hilarious.
Evil Sounds Deep: He sounds a good octave lower than anyone else's voice acting.
The Final Temptation: He will offer a boon to each of your companions in exchange for betraying you. Deekin will always remain loyal to you. The others will join Mephistopheles if you fail to convince them to remain on your side or if you haven't successfully romanced them. You can also use their True Names to make them loyal to you.
Greater-Scope Villain: As a devil, he's far more dangerous and powerful than the Valsharess, but is forced to be subservient for her. Turns out he's the real Big Bad all along, manipulating the Valsharess and you through her as a plan to free himself and take over the mortal plane. In a more general sense he is one of the established major villains of D&D in general.
Hell on Earth: He plots to remake Toril into the 10th Hell.
Killed Off for Real: Hard to do for any devil and particularly for an Archdevil but get his True Name and you can put him down for good.
Manipulative Bastard: He's pulling your strings from before the campaign even starts and right up until Chapter 3 everything is going as planned. He can also twist Nathyrra, Valen and Aribeth into siding with him in the final battle under certain circumstances.
Mephistopheles: The D&D version of Mephistopheles, summoned by a drow empress, bound to her will and forced to become her minion. Understandably displeased by this arrangement, he manipulates events so as to free himself from her service via some Loophole Abuse, takes her place as the main villain, and launches an invasion of Toril to turn it into the 10th layer of Hell.
Night of the Living Mooks: The first thing he does when he does when set out to Take Over the World is raise and enslave the the spirits of the dead from the recent battles between the Valsharess' forces and rebels.
Oh, Crap!: His reaction when you call out to him using his True Name. He's so frightened he actually thanks you for your mercy if you banish him back to Cania, because he knows you could do far worse.
One-Winged Angel: During Chapter 3, the chaos and death he sews on the mortal plane empowers him, causing him to sprout wings and grow larger.
Only Killable at Home: Par for the course for creatures of the Outsider type, "killing" him on the Pime Material plane causes him to reform back in the Hells, weakened but not dead, and the epilogue warns that he will be looking for revenge. If, however, you can get his True Name an command him to die he has no choice but to actually destroy himself properly.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The entire reason he told the Valsharess the player would be the one to defeat her was to further events that would lead to their confrontation.
The Starscream:
- Even if the Valsharess is forcing him to serve her, he's not happy about it and wants out. And you're his ticket to freedom.
- In a more general sense he has always been one to Asmodeus, Lord of the Ninth and overall leader of the Devils. His eventual invasion of Toril in Act 3 is with the intention of ultimately using it's power to topple Asmodeus and take his position.
Take Over the World: Freed to walk the mortal plane, he decides to take over it and turn it into a new layer of the Hells.
Walking Spoiler: He's the real Big Bad, not the Valsharess.
Wham Line: Gets one at the end of Chapter 2, where he refuses the Valsharess' order for the first time in the game.
Mephistopheles: I shall *not* do as you desire, great Valsharess.
You Fool!: Tells the Valsharess how rightly stupid she was to try and play games with one of the most manipulative and cunning Archdevils in the planes.

The Sleeping Man

A celestial being that was searching all existence for his true love. Though he failed to find the Knower of Names that could identify her, he was told where she would one day find him and so has been waiting there a very long time. Until then he has slept; his actual name has been lost to time, and he is known now as the Sleeping Man.

Amazing Technicolor Population: His skin is green which is normal for celestial angels.
A God I Am Not: The pilgrims treat him with religious awe. When you wake him he dislikes this since it is a false tradition they subscribe to.
Berserk Button: It's possible his true love is dead at your hand by the time you wake him. Telling him this naturally leads to more fighting.
Deep Sleep: Very deep. Waking him is itself a questline since there's only a couple ways you can do it.
One True Love: His quest is to find his someday. Deconstructed somewhat, in that while he certainly does have a woman he is destined to fall in love with since who that is is randomly generated and several of the options can have already fallen in love with someone else there is no guarantee that his love will be returned.
"Shaggy Dog" Story: Sadly it's very possible that his True Love turns out to be someone he can never be with or does not want to be with him, making his aeons of waiting pointless.
Winged Humanoid: Has a large pair of white wings.

The Knower of Names

A planar being who knows the names of all beings as written in the god tongue. True Names have the power to command anyone to do anything, so her location is a very closely guarded secret.

All Girls Want Bad Boys: She's in love with Mephistopheles. The player can point out to her this isn't a wise choice in lovers, and she admits her heart is foolish.
Comes Great Responsibility: The very idea of knowing someone's True Name carries a lot of responsibility. You can command them to do anything; die on the spot, give up all their stuff, to be good, to be evil, to believe in themselves, to let go of their pasts, etc. The player has the option to invoke these commands on various characters, and even if you're doing it for their own good, or against an Asshole Victim, characters get very nervous when they realize the power you hold over them and that their entire existence rests on how responsible you're feeling at the moment.
I Know Your True Name: Her entire existence is based on this concept.
Money Sink: She'll happily tell you the True Name of many major characters (including her own). But the gods demand a tribute for the knowledge. The cheapest name sells for 100,000 gold, the priciest for 500,000. All told, you'll need around 2 million gold to learn all that the game has to offer. Hope you've been saving your pennies.
Older Than They Look: She's described as looking like a teenager, but given her nature it might be impossible to put an exact numerical value on her age.
Sealed Good in a Can: The reason no one has found her in a long time is because she's been trapped somewhere and the knowledge of where was not widely spread at the time.
Unwitting Pawn: Manipulated by Mephistopheles into helping him stop a coup, then a victim of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.
Winged Humanoid: Fair-skinned and white-winged.

Gru'ul

A pit fiend from Cania, the 8th layer of hell, where he works as the boss of an ice quarry.

Bad Boss: Treats his employees about as well as you'd expect from a walking incarnation of Lawful Evil, forcing them to work constantly in horrible conditions with no breaks and punishing insubordination cruelly.
Deal with the Devil: When he learns that you've spoken with the Knower of Names, he'll ask you if you'd like to give him the True Name of one of your companions so he can use them as a slave for the rest of eternity, offering an artefact that can only be used by evil-aligned characters in exchange.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: If you back out of the Deal with the Devil above by telling him you didn't learn the True Names of any of your followers, he'll respond with a confused "You had the chance to wield absolute power over another being, and you didn't take it? I will never understand you mortals."
I Know Your True Name: True Names play a part in the Deal with the Devil he offers you, and you can also learn his True Name, Gargleflaw the Vile, and use it against him in a few different ways.
Jerkass: Treats everyone around him with absolute contempt. Even when you're doing a service for him, the most you'll get is a sarcastic "I suppose you'd like a thank-you card? Coal-black pimple on a Glabrezu, now pike off!"
We Have Reserves: The ice grinders in his quarry are unique pieces of technology, but the imps who staff them are, in his words, "ten-a-penny".

Characters From Kingmaker Premium Module Pack

The Witch's Wake

Player Character

The amnesiac protagonist of The Witch's Wake, sole survivor of a battle which claimed your liege and all your fellow soldiers.

Aborted Arc: We never learn answers to most of the questions haunting the protagonist because the module never got chapter two.
Amnesiac Hero: You wake up with only scraps of memories.
Back from the Dead: You start coming back from dead and can come do it again later, if you pass through a maze in the Plane of Sorrows.
Badass Boast: In the first location, if you have right items, you can carve a message on a boulder surrounded by the field of corpses. If you wish so, it may say "I survived. And I'm very angry."
Creepy Souvenir: If you lose your finger you can get it back from the Ragpicker. Night Hag recommends you hold on to it.
Death Is Cheap: You can come back a number of times with few drawbacks. The game even rewards you for dying with more plot-relevant content.
Fingore: The first action you take in the game is a saving throw to see if you can act fast enough before Ragpicker tries to take your ring. If you fail, she will cut your finger.
The Fool: You will draw this card from the Night Hag, it represents your present.
Last Request: "Tell the king that she is dead." are final words of Prince Ahmed, fulfilling them is your motivation.
Multiple-Choice Past: Your character will draw a Tarot card representing their past. It may change and Night Hag will give you different hints about your past depending on the result.
Sole Survivor: Your character is the only survivor of a battle in which all of the Prince's army and the Prince himself have perished.
Take Up My Sword: You can pick up Prince's pike a use it as a weapon. You later may learn how to use it to easily resurrect yourself without going through the maze
Tarot Motifs: Night Hag makes you draw two cards from a local version of Tarot.
Undying Loyalty: You will find a servant in whom you inspired such loyalty to you that he continues to serve you even after it cost him being turned into a ratling.
The Witch Hunter: What you and the entire Prince Ahmed's army actually were.

The Night Hag

The mysterious Night Hag who aids you in your travel and brings you back from the Plane of Sorrows

Ambiguous Situation: What exactly was the relationship between her and the protagonist is only alluded to. She could as well be your friend, lover, mother figure or really, as she claims, was merely using you.
Because Destiny Says So: She says your path is preordained and you have no choice but to follow it.
Friendly Enemy: She is nothing but helpful and kind to you. Strange, considering you and Prince Ahmed killed her.
Green-Skinned Space Babe: Minus the space part. She is so beautiful even the narrator (as in, her) pauses to point out she doesn't look like a hag at all.
Mysterious Protector: She doesn't join your party but she always waits in Plane of Sorrows to resurrect you when you die, dispense advice and serve as a shopkeeper.
The Reveal: Night Hag is the "she" from Prince Ahmed's message for the king.
Vagueness Is Coming: Most of her dialogue.
You Can't Fight Fate: She will react with nothing but amusement if you say you don't want to follow your destiny.

Shadowguard

Player Character

The only child of the governor of Ghaara, a mighty trade city of the Sarakhan Empire, currently finishing your training at the Imperial Academy

Aborted Arc: Because the sequel has been canceled your hunt for Crimson Prophet is left unfinished.
Calling the Old Man Out: You can chew Ocaris for his neglect.
Cruel Mercy: At the beginning of the game you get to judge whenever a spirit of a murderer will get banished to hell or imprisoned forever in the land of the living. If you choose banishment he will consider you merciful, even if you flat out say you do it to make him suffer.
Doomed Hometown: The game ends with you sailing off in pursuit of Crimson Prophet as the city is sacked by his worshippers
Lonely Rich Kid: You start with few thousand golds of allowance, a father who misses your graduation and two friends, one of which is too focused on his work to notice you and another which is leaving the city.
Parting-Words Regret: Subverted. You surprisingly do not have much a chance to express guilt over being a jerk to Ocaris in your only conversation before his death.
Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: You can sell out Kara to her pursuers. Whenever you will do it or try to warn her, they will still decide to kill you as well.
Royal Brat: As a child of the governor you are this if you act like a jerk.
Smug Snake: The game offers you a lot of options to be condescending to just about anyone.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: You get quite a few options, including being abusive to your butler.
"Well Done, Son" Guy: You can easily play your relationship with your father like this
When You Coming Home, Dad?: Ocaris being too busy with work to ever be a real presence in your life is the main source of the rift between two of you.
You Can't Go Home Again: The family mansion is locked for most of the game, once you can actually go there It blows up. You also End up the game leaving your city as it is sacked by soldiers of Crimson Prophet.

Ocaris

Father of the protagonist and governor of Ghaara.

Artifact of Doom: He has found one and is now desperately trying to protect his city from it. To the point that he seems to have tried selling it to Crimson Prophet only for the man to kill him and steal it for himself.
Married to the Job: He dove deep into his work even before his wife died and only got worse after.
Plot-Triggering Death: He is killed by Crimson Prophet, triggering the final part of the module and what was supposed to be the main plot before Aborted Arc happenned
Redemption Equals Death: He will make an effort to reconcile with you in your only conversation. He later dies. Whenever this trope is in motion depends on if you played along with his efforts.
Sanity Slippage: He clearly shows effects of being under influence of artifact he has found and is well-aware it is happening.
When You Coming Home, Dad?: Protagonist can have this relationship with him.
Workaholic: He is always working and never has time for his only child. According to the opening narration, he was always like this, barely finding time to visit his wife on her deathbed.

Markius Albright

An agent of the Shadowguard, who ask the protagonist's help in destroying a slaver ring as a test if they're worthy to join the organization.

Arch-Enemy: Jhordak, who once kept him as a slave
Bag of Spilling: When both of you end kidnapped by slavers, your weapons are taken away and put into a chest near your cell. Except Markius had two weapons, a sword, and a crossbow, and only one will be in a chest, while the other disappears.
Berserk Button: Slavers, especially Jhordak
Big Damn Heroes: He shows up to save you from an assassination attempt, and in the final part of the module, from execution by Crimson Prophet's followers
It's Personal: Between him and Jhordak
Made a Slave: By Jhordak in the past, which is why he takes this mission so personally
Slave Liberation: The mission he wants your aid in.

Kara Dy'nesh

An elven cleric with a penchant of getting into trouble.

Back for the Finale: She comes back in the final part of the module.
Disproportionate Retribution: She summons a ghost to haunt a shopkeeper for...refusing to sell her a magic stone at discount and catching her on trying to steal it.
Implied Love Interest: Considering how every time you meet her the narration makes a point to mention how beautiful she is, this might been a plan for her. not that we will ever know.
Gone Horribly Right: She summoned a ghost to haunt a shopkeeper for a while. The ghost would not leave because it was the shopkeeper's father, whom he murdered. This trope is in play if you will read to the shopkeeper's arrest.
MacGuffin: The Bloodstone she has stolen.
Necromancer: She summons a ghost to cover her escape. The problems arise when said ghost will not leave as she thought.
The Reveal: She is a member of the Shadowguard
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After you save her from disciples of Akhana she decides to skip town.
Show Some Leg: She tries that to steal a magic stone from a shopkeeper. It fails.
Stern Chase: She is pursued by fanatical disciples of Akhana and cannot ever stay in one place for long.

Tarin Lightfingers

A halfling rogue and card game enthusiast.

Back for the Finale: He comes back in the final part of the module.
Distressed Dude: He gets kidnapped and it's up to you to save him.
The Gambler: Why yes, when you meet him he invites you to a game of cards and later gets kidnapped for gambling debts.
The Reveal: He is a member of the Shadowguard
Stern Chase: He is pursued by criminals he owes money.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After you free him, he decided to skip town.

Characters / Neverwinter Nights

Player Characters

Base Campaign

Companions

Allies of Neverwinter

Antagonists

Shadows Of Undrentide

Companions

Allies

Antagonists

Hordes Of The Underdark

Allies

Companions

The Underdark

Planar Beings

Characters From Kingmaker Premium Module Pack

The Witch's Wake

Shadowguard

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Index

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Characters / Neverwinter Nights

Edit Locked

Player Characters

Base Campaign

Companions

Allies of Neverwinter

Antagonists

Shadows Of Undrentide

Companions

Allies

Antagonists

Hordes Of The Underdark

Allies

Companions

The Underdark

Planar Beings

Characters From Kingmaker Premium Module Pack

The Witch's Wake

Shadowguard

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Index

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