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Main Archetypes
The Girl
The Little Red Riding Hood and typically main character of each Tale. Originally, her role was to be menaced by the Wolf and rescued by the Woodsman.
- Damsel in Distress: Her traditional role is to be the victim of the Wolf who must be saved by the Woodsman.
- Little Dead Riding Hood: She traditionally serves as the victim of the Wolf.
- Little Red Fighting Hood: Several versions are fully capable of holding their own in battle, whether it be two playable party members, friendly NPCs, or the many enemy versions encountered.
The Wolf
The Big Bad Wolf and typically the antagonist of each Tale. Originally, his role was to deceive and devour the Girl.
- Adaptational Heroism: The Wolf is usually the villain of each Tale as in the original story, but there are several benevolent Wolves; many NPC wolves are friendly and non-aggressive.
- The Big Bad Wolf: As the Red Riding Hood fable is central to the plot, various incarnations of these (with their role generally referred to simply as the Wolf) are encountered throughout. There's even a bar exclusively for Wolves that can only be accessed by Ulfina. Wolves range from literal quadrupedal wolves to wolfmen to Little Bit Beastly people with wolf characteristics to predatory humans to somewhat more abstract predatory forces.
- Big Bad: Usually serves as the In-Universe one for each Tale, as he preys upon the Girl and must be beaten by the Woodsman.
- Little Bit Beastly: Multiple incarnations of The Big Bad Wolf, most significantly Ulfina, Fenris, and Estra, appear as humans with wolf ears and a tail.
- Promoted to Love Interest: As is typical for retellings, several versions of the Wolf become a love interest for a main character.
The Woodsman
The man who rescues the Girl from the Wolf.
- The Cavalry: The fundamental role of the Woodsman in the central Fable. He's there to defeat the Wolf and either rescue or avenge the Girl.
Main Party
General
The four adventurers going across the Tales.
- Dating Catwoman: Ulfina is attracted to Wilhelm despite their adversarial roles in the Fable as Wolf and Woodsman, respectively. Wilhelm is slower to come around to the idea given the gritty nature of his own home Tale and the Wolf Plague that came from it. Hood is also dating a Wolf, Fenris, and Ingrid also shows attraction to him.
- Genre Refugee: A literal example; since all of them are fleeing their original Tales in search of different and more fulfilling lives, they frequently wind up in Tales with drastically different tones than their home Tales.
- Rage Against the Author: Their entire quest ultimately becomes a battle against the Storytellers themselves and an attempt to free their Tales from their tyrannical grip. For example, Ingrid and Ulfina actively defy the Storyteller of Ulfina's Tale and seek to flee the Tale to escape their ham-fisted narrative and avoid having the Storyteller mess with their heads too much in their attempt to railroad the duo. Fortunately for them, there are areas "beneath" the Tale where the Storyteller can't easily reach them.
- Unwitting Pawn: It turns out that the Dark Dreamer is the one who gave Ingrid the power of Violence and guided her to leave Bangville, knowing she would open the portal that would let his Wolf Blight loose on the world. Form then on, he has been encouraging the party to get stronger so he could have Bloody Ingrid clash with them in one violent ending. Meanwhile, the New Canisan Dreamer has been using them for its own agenda to control their Tales. However, Hood reveals she knew full well she was being used and comes up with a way to fight back.
Ingrid, the "Slut"
The main heroine of her tale and the game. She starts out as a dumb blonde bimbo who has various sexcapades in her home town, but after an encounter with Hood and Fenris changes her, she decides she is dissatisfied with casual sex and wants to find a purpose in her life. She then accidentally opens a path for the Wolf Blight to escape from Wilhelm’s Tale, and has to venture to seal it up again.
- Brainless Beauty: Ingrid starts out as this; a Dumb Blonde who thinks only of sex, just like everyone else in her village of Bangville, and trusts the Obviously Evil Wolf who clearly wants to take advantage of her. The initial part of the game has you encouraged to decrease her Intelligence and increase her Corruption. Until an encounter with another Girl and Wolf from another Tale leads her to get bored with her role and set out to become smarter, among other things; from then on, you are tasked with increasing her Intelligence.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: After her first accidental adventure with Hood and Fenris, Ingrid returns home, but finds herself a Stranger in a Familiar Land, no longer fulfilled by her quaint little lewd Tale, even when she tries to play it out to completion. She realizes that neither the adventure nor the deeper emotional bonds she now wants are anywhere to be found in Bangville and without really knowing exactly what she does want or where she'll go, she seeks out a way to leave her Tale again.
- Ethical Slut: Her role and title is literally Slut, and she was initially created just to be the bimbo who is subject to the sexual appetite of her village, but she decides to find her own place in life and becomes a heroine who saves many people and uses her sex skills to help others.
- Healer Signs On Early: In this case, the heroine doubles as the main healer.
- Heroic Seductress: Ingrid, the protagonist, is a version of Little Red Riding Hood from a pornographic version of the Fable, and while she initially leaves her Tale to go find something to do other than be a sex object, she is still willing to use her experience to coax people into helping her out as shown in several sex scenes, such as the one where she gives a titjob to a man to persuade him to help her and her party enter the Canisan Sewers.
- Idiot Hair: Ingrid, the initially Brainless Beauty heroine, has a single strand on her head that sticks out of her red hood and sways left and right while walking.
- Idiot Hero: Subverted with Ingrid. Her original tale is set up to make her one, with various events that increase her Corruption and decrease her Intelligence stat. However, after the Intro is finished and Ingrid learns the truth about her situation, those two values are reset, and throughout the rest of the game she can only increase Intelligence and decrease Corruption as she becomes a true heroine. Since this is also part of the nature her Tale created her with, Ingrid also tends to be very much in doubt of her own intelligence and (especially in the early game) will often not even attempt certain tasks out of a belief that she's too dumb to do them; as the story goes on and her Intelligence stat goes up, this trait goes away.
- Improbable Weapon User: Ingrid's standard weapon (and thus the only one she can use in her basic "Slut" job) is a basket. As it turns out, a wicker basket with a heavy object in it or a solid iron basket can do pretty substantial damage as a bludgeon.
- Instant Expert: Ingrid is noted to have a particularly flexible Nature, and is thus able to easily pick up a wide variety of jobs. While she still has to master them, it's implied that most other people would have a hard time learning the job at all.
- Little Dead Riding Hood: Ingrid starts off with no particular survival skills and is nearly killed by an Order soldier because she knows too much, and even afterwards is borderline helpless in a fight until she acquires some more combat-capable jobs like Survivor and Slayer. Even in her own Tale, she was originally intended to be a sexual victim to the Tale's Wolf and a sexual prize for the Tale's Woodsman. However, Ingrid Takes a Level in Badass and becomes Little Red Fighting Hood. Along the way, many other Girls are found to have died in their Tales, including the Girl in Wilhelm's Tale, who was one of the countless victims of the Wolf Plague and the Girl in the Tale taken over by the Snow Queen (though the Woodsman and Wolf of that Tale met the same fate).
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: After her first unintentional adventure, Ingrid is still absolutely pathetic compared to the threat level of many other Tales even within her own Fable, but after the experience, she's already far stronger than anyone else in her own Tale and easily mops the floor with her Tale's Wolf when he doesn't take "no" for an answer.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: When Ingrid is confronted by an Order soldier for the first time and winds up fleeing to another Tale with Hood, the experience changes her. When Hood and Fenris return her to Bangville, Ingrid's more distant and unsatisfied by the simple and overtly sexual lifestyle of her Tale, even when she tries to go through the motions of its plot. This is what sets off her journey to find another life in another Tale.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ingrid herself kicks off the conflict by traveling to Wilhelm's Tale through a portal, in the process leaving the Wolf Blight a way out of the Tale where they can now threaten other Tales, including her hometown of Bangville. Despite wanting to leave her hometown and Desperately Seeking A Purpose In Life, Ingrid is still willing to go on an arduous journey to fix her mistake before it wipes out her people.
Wilhelm, the "Woodsman"
The Woodsman and main character of his Tale, and the second party member. He has been fighting the Wolf Blight all his life, and lost his first love to it. He meets and rescues Ingrid when she wanders into his Tale, and works with her to keep the Blight from venturing out of his Tale. He also meets and slowly forms a relationship with Ulfina.
- Big Damn Heroes: He is introduced saving Ingrid from a bunch of Wolves after she falls in battle with them.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: He is the brooding one who carries a great deal of trauma and angst from being the hunter of the Wolf Blight and losing his first love to it, while Ulfina is the gentle (if hyperactive) Wolfgirl who helps him loosen up a little.
- Hunter of Monsters: His role in his Tale is to hunt down the Blight-infected Wolves and humans who turned into wolves. He has dedicated his entire life to it and knows little outside of it.
- Kill the Ones You Love: He confesses in a post-game scene that he himself had to kill the Girl he loved, since she got infected with the Wolf Blight and turned into a rabid wolf.
- Mr. Fanservice: He is Tall, Dark, and Handsome, a Hunk with a chiseled chest which is shown off in some of his sex scenes.
Ulfina, the "Wolfgirl"
The Wolfgirl and heroine of her Tale, and the third party member. She was created by her Voice to be the embodiment of innocence and kindness, and the perpetual victim of the Hateful Villagers. Ingrid meets and rescues her, and she decides to tag along, finding herself and becoming something more than a punching bag. She also falls in love with Wilhelm.
- Adaptational Heroism: She's a female Wolf who is the innocent victim of wicked human villagers and becomes one of the main party members. She is one of the nicest and friendlies characters in the game, and her aggressiveness only comes out if some other woman is after Wilhelm.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Being a Wolfgirl who grew up in a forest, she fights in the nude with only her hair covering her up.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: She was created to be innocence personified and grew up without the need for clothes, so she wanders everywhere with just her Godiva Hair to cover her up.
- Nice Girl: Outside of any woman trying to make a move on Wilhelm, she doesn’t have a vicious bone in her body, always nice and friendly to everyone; she had to be taught how to defend herself against the Hateful Villagers by Ingrid because her creator just wanted her to be a Woobie for its Tale.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Ulfina, a Wolfgirl, falls for the Woodsman Wilhelm from a different version of the Tale. He's initially hesitant to return her affections as all of his Wolves were borderline-zombies, but he gradually becomes more comfortable with it.
- The Woobie: In-universe, Ulfina's role within her Tale is to be the sympathetic, helpless protagonist who is constantly mistreated, tormented, and hunted down by the cruel humans of the village.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Deconstructed with Ulfina, who was created by the Voice to be sweet innocence personified, and promptly get endlessly tormented by evil, hateful humans who have no value for the innocence they are destroying, so the Voice can tell a story about how humans are evil and Ulfina is too pure for the world. Ingrid, upon visiting the Tale, finds herself aghast at how Ulfina is being used as nothing more than a static pawn by some cruel Storyteller without being allowed to have real desires of her own, and rescues her from her static role. The Voice hypocritically becomes furious that Ulfina proceeds to defy this trope and become her own person.
- Wolverine Claws: Ulfina can equip clawed gauntlets to enhance her melee attack in her Little Bad Wolf class.
Hood, the "Sorcerer"
A traveling sorcerer Girl and the fourth party member. She is the girlfriend of Fenris, a demon Wolf, and the both of them are fleeing the Order so they can have sex with each other. She meets Ingrid and becomes a mentor to her, guiding her throughout the Tales.
- Dark and Troubled Past: When revealing her backstory, she explains that she was one of many girls with the archetype of Victim to be sacrificed to the Wolf of her Tale, but she was able to resist and take the archetype of a Sorceress for herself.
- Little Dead Riding Hood: She's an even starker example than Ingrid, as in her original tale her intended role was to be murdered horribly, with her "core essence" being Victim, giving her even less power to fight back than Ingrid's Slut. Luckily she was able to steal a Sorcerer essence to replace it with.
- Ms. Exposition: She is the primary source of information on the Tales and their rules, and so the one who explains them to Ingrid, Wilhelm, and Ulfina.
- Official Couple: With Fenris, a demon wolf she met at some point in her travels.
- Seen It All: She is generally the one in the party to be unfazed by many of the odd and bizarre things the party experiences, as she has traveled through the Tales so much that she has seen a lot and learned how things work.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: She is in a relationship with Fenris, a demon Wolf, and because their archetypes are supposed to be enemies, they have to hide from the Order of Tales that forbids their romance.
Major Allies
Fenris
A demon wolf and Hood's boyfriend. He hails from a Tale with heavy Japanese influence, and serves as a frequent ally to the party.
- Adaptational Heroism: Hood's Love Interest and a major help to the party who, whenever he can, guides them through various obstacles. He's a fairly sweet man with a mutually loving relationship with Hood, his version of the hooded Girl.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He is a pitch-black demon wolf who is on the side of the heroes and a fairly kind wolf who is a loving boyfriend to Hood.
- Distressed Dude: He gets captured by the Order, necessitating the party find a way to the Tower of Order to break him out.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Fenris is a humanoid demon Wolf who is in a loving relationship with Hood, a version of Little Red/the Girl.
Brunhilde
A battle-hardened Girl who runs Hoodton. She helps Hood and Ingrid in their journey and can train them in their Archetypes, giving them free Job Points, in return for Heart Branches.
- Eyepatch of Power: Brunhilde is a black-armored warrior woman that wears a black patch over her scarred left eye.
Frieda
A Fairy Grandmother who lives in her Tale in the forest. She helps the party come up with the method to seal away the portal connecting Bangville to the Wolf Blight.
- Cool Old Lady: Unlike the Girl, the Wolf, and the Woodsman, the function of a secondary character like the Grandmother can vary wildly. Frieda is one of the few prominent characters with that role, having survived being devoured by her Wolf due to the nature of the Tale she's from, and is the one that bequeaths the "Grandmother" class to the party once they complete her "Fairy Grandmother" quest.
- Fairy Godmother: A cross between this and Little Red’s grandmother. She was originally just the grandmother but became this to break out of her "Groundhog Day" Loop, and will lend her magical aid to Ingrid several times.
- Silver Vixen: She is depicted as quite attractive despite being a Grandmother, enough to charm her Woodsman, and has a sex scene for herself where she shows off her not-at-all wrinkly body.
Estra
A Wolf girl who runs a clothing shop in New Canisan and is one of Hood's contacts.
Bangville
Villagers
The sex-obsessed inhabitants of Bangville.
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: When Ingrid is first returned to her home Tale, she tries to go through the motions of its story, including letting her story's "Wolf" have his way with her in hopes that sex would in some way make her feel fulfilled in the way Hood and Fenris seemed fulfilled by their sex life, which proves not to be the case as she feels she needs a more intimate emotional connection and not just the physical act of sex. When the Wolf tries to press the matter, she kicks his ass before her Tale's Woodsman can even arrive to rescue her and leaves just as he arrives, leaving the Woodsman miffed by what just happened.
- Cheating with the Milkman: One of the residents of Bangville is a plumber who is pretty much openly having sex with other residents' wives. Not that marital fidelity seems to be a strongly held value in Bangville and marriage seems to exist mostly in the village to facilitate adultery fetishes.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Later on in the postgame, Big John and a Horny Orc experience the same dissatisfaction with their static roles, and if Ingrid is far enough in the game, she can invite them to go to other Tales; Big John becomes an actual craftsman in Hoodton while the Orc ventures to other Tales to do whatever comes to him.
- Emasculated Cuckold: Mr. Suzuki is presumably this, as his wife is said to screw other men right in front of him.
- Flat Character: In-Universe, they have no real personality beyond being horny 24/7 as they were created to fulfill sexual fantasies and nothing more. At least until Big John and the Orc gain self-awareness and leave to find their own place in the Tales.
Mister Wolf
The Wolf of Ingrid's Tale who preys on women who wander carelessly into the woods.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: The version Ingrid interacts with is little more than an easily-defeated Starter Villain, but the alternate version that menaced Bloody Ingrid successfully raped her, driving her on the path that would lead to her Face–Heel Turn.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He only exists as the Starter Villain, but his sexual encounter with Ingrid is what leaves her feeling so dissatisfied that she decides to leave Bangville and form actual bonds with people. In the post-game, it is further revealed that an alternate version of him raping his version of Ingrid is what led her to snap and become Bloody Ingrid, The Dragon to the Dark Dreamer.
- Starter Villain: Mister Wolf, the Wolf of Ingrid's Tale, is the first major antagonist she faces in her journey who wants to rape her, and her fighting him off signifies the true start of her journey from blonde bimbo sex object to a capable, intelligent, world-saving heroine in her own right.
- Warmup Boss: He is the first boss and major villain Ingrid fights, and can be taken down in only a few hits.
Wilhelm's Tale
The Wolf Blight
The Wolves of Wilhelm's Tale. They are a group of Wolves that spread through a virus they infect humans with, turning them into Wolves as well. The entire village Wilhelm lived in was wiped out by them, and Ingrid opening a portal to her Tale has brought with it the danger of them escaping.
- Fusion Dance: The Blight Wolf is a result of the heroes fusing the various wolves into a singular threat that they could defeat and thus provide a climactic finish to the Tale that would drive off the Blight for some time.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Being animalistic Wolves as opposed to the more human-like ones, they never speak or show any personality; they are defined solely as tools of the Dark Dreamer who must be stopped before they reach Bangville, their main role being to motivate Ingrid to go on her quest.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: When Ingrid arrives in Wilhelm's tale, she's confronted with several powerful wolves and equipped with little more than a weighted flower basket, some improvised armor, and her basic "Slut" job. Even if she wins the first encounter, mobs of the wolves keep spawning until she loses and is subsequently rescued by Wilhelm, who teaches her the more useful "Woodsman" job.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: The Blight is a plague of Wolves that spread through a virus and turn others into Wolves. Wilhelm is the only survivor of the Blight that we see, with his village having been wiped out.
- Superboss: The Blight Wolf is one of the last post-game bosses and is a tough hitter with a lot of HP and powerful attacks that can inflict status ailments.
Wilhelm's Girl
The now deceased lover of Wilhelm and Girl of his Tale.
Hoodton
Red Arena Champion
The Wolf who is the Champion of the Red Arena.
- Adaptational Heroism: He is a Wolf who is a Hero Antagonist to the party, genuinely respectful of their skills, and is fond of Brunhilde.
- Hero Antagonist: As the Chanpion of the Red Arena, he challenges the party to a fight should they climb the ranks.
- Promoted to Love Interest: He's a Wolf revealed after beating him to be in a Teacher/Student Romance with Brunhilde, his mentor and the Girl of Hoodton.
Ulfina's Tale
Hateful Villagers
The cruel and bigoted villagers of Ulfina's Tale, the Girl and Woodsman among them.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: The human villagers from Ulfina’s tale were created by the Voice to be one-dimensional Hate Sinks, and as such have no personality outside their Fantastic Racism and sadism. When speaking to one in the post-game, he says a handful of generic evil lines and doesn’t really react to the party; as Hood explains, the villagers are less their own sentient beings and more empty constructs for the Voice to carry out its “humans bad, forest creatures good” narrative.Villager: Hate... hate... hate...
Ingrid: Ummm... he’s not going to attack us?
Hood: Like a puppet with its strings cut. I think the villagers weren’t really people to the Storyteller, just tools.
Villager: Wolf bad... hate wolf...
Wilhelm: Many of us have suffered, but there are always worse fates.
Ulfina: I don’t know what the nice thing to do is... can we rescue him? I don’t think so…
Hood: If it’s any comfort, I don’t think they’re in any pain. They probably don’t have much interiority at all.
Villager: Good things bad... persecute good things because evil...
Frozen Tale
The Snow Queen
A refugee from another Fable who has taken over the Frozen Tale.
- Corrupted Character Copy: The Snow Queen encountered in game bears a strong physical resemblance to Elsa from Disney's Frozen (especially as she appears prior to "Let it Go"), which is one of the best-known modern renditions of the Snow Queen Fable. That said, the resemblance only really goes as deep as her appearance and powers as she's far more cruel than Elsa, and of course given the nature of the game, far more sexually active.
New Canisan
The Brotherhood
The syndicate of Wolves that rules over New Canisan.
Grim Tale, Violent Tale, and Dead Tale
Peasants
The human villagers who are falling victim to a plague that turns them into violent zombies.
Hand of Violence
A spirit of violence that appears in Grimton after visiting the Crucible of the Abstract once.
Order of Tales
General
A peacekeeping knighthood that has the mission of keeping order over the Tales, making sure they each go according to their story and the wishes of the Dreamers.
- Adaptational Villainy: There are several Girls and Woodsmen working as soldiers for the Order and carrying out its will to uphold the often unpleasant status quo in each Tale.
- Degraded Boss: The Elite trio, who serve as an Optional Boss in the Isolated Tale, show up as a regular encounter in the Tower of Order, though are still tough.
- Light Is Not Good: The Order of Tales is a peacekeeping organization dressed up in golden armor and clothing that portray themselves as the enforcers of stability. However, in practice they are only concerned with enforcing the status quo of each Tale, no matter how horrible it is to the characters involved, and meddle in Tales just as much as the people they go after.
- The Lopsided Arm of the Law: The Order of Tales is supposed to be a peacekeeping group that keeps each Tale going to its script, and are shown fighting against the Snow Queen taking over one Tale, but in general, they spend far more effort hunting down Ingrid and her party for simply wanting to be free from the roles of their Tale (for example, Hood and Fenris just want to have a healthy sexual relationship) than they do even acknowledging the actual threats to the Tales, like the Wolf Blight that Ingrid is trying to stop from escaping their Tale and massacring everyone else, or the Dark Dreamer and Bloody Ingrid who are rampaging everywhere.
- Optional Boss:
- In the Isolated Tale, after fighting off three waves of enemies, you can fight the Elite Girl, Elite Wolf, and Elite Woodsman, a trio of tough bosses with hard-hitting attacks and tactics that mirror your own. Or you can skip them and fight the mandatory Mutated Woodsman boss, who is much easier.
- The Dragon, the boss of the Tower of Order, is completely optional and out of the way.
- Playing with Syringes: The Order performs experiments on its prisoners in order to make them into minions, as seen with the Mutated Woodsman boss.
- The Remnant: The post-game quest "The Order's Revenge" has four Order soldiers in New Canisan seeking revenge on Ingrid and her party, who contributed to the fall of the Order’s branch that they belonged to.
- Wolfpack Boss: The Elite trio Optional Boss in the Isolated Tale, consisting of a Girl, Wolf, and Woodsman who each have their own attacks, with the Girl specializing in magic and the other two being physical fighters.
The Witch
A sorceress with sex magic who works for the Order and captures Fenris.
- The Unfought: Unlike every other antagonist, you never fight the Witch at any point; by the time you find Fenris and are ready to save him from her, he’s already exhausted her with sex.
- Wicked Witch: She works for the Order of Tales and captures Fenris, inflicting a curse that keeps him from being able to fight alongside the party.
The Storytellers/Dreamers (Unmarked Spoilers)
General
The abstract beings who create and run the Tales.
- Author Powers: "Storytellers" have a nasty habit of railroading characters and can alter the Tale and its inhabitants, including those from outside, to suit their whims. However, a Storyteller's powers can be escaped at least temporarily in certain crevices "beneath" the Tale itself.
- Big Bad Ensemble: As a whole, they are the creators of the Fables and Tales and all the conflicts within, using their creations as a playground for their selfish desires.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Dreamer appears as a differently-colored swirl of magic with text to match; Ulfina’s voice and the Bangville Dreamer are pink, the Order’s Dreamer is yellow, the New Canisan Dreamer is blue, and the Dark Dreamer is red.
- Control Freak: They all want their Tales to go their way, and lash out at any characters to try to defy it.
- Ulfina’s Voice directs her Hateful Villagers, her in-universe Hate Sinks, to attack Ingrid for trying to save Ulfina from their torment, because its Tale is all about Ulfina losing her innocence to human cruelty.
- The Order’s Dreamer created the Order of Tales with the specific goal of stopping any characters from deviating from their roles, no matter how unsatisfied they are with them.
- The Dark Dreamer, a more openly chaotic presence, still hijacks Bloody Ingrid and forces her to fight the party because he wants a violent Tale with a violent end.
- Even the seemingly friendly New Canisan Dreamer shows its true nature when the party decide to try reasoning with Bloody Ingrid, and it personally tries to kill them and make a peaceful solution impossible, because that would interfere with its plan to control their Tales.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Dreamers are the abstract entities who created (or at least shaped to their whim) the Tales that we see, and can tailor each one of them to their own desires. They are also cruel, all-powerful beings who can subject their creations to their own will, they can reshape their worlds to their will and hijack the minds of their creations, and discovering the very existence of them psychologically and existentially broke Bloody Ingrid into becoming an Ax-Crazy mass-murderer in a vain attempt to free the Tales from their control. The party has to fight them and their conflicting agendas to get the freedom they desire, but even then they cannot directly hurt the Dreamers, who are simply on another level of existence altogether. By the end, they have only managed to temporarily stop the Dreamers but have full knowledge that they will return with a vengeance.Brunhilde: Okay, first: that "Voice" you met? Nobody knows what they really are, anyone who says otherwise is lying. But we've taken to calling them "Storytellers"- they don't make the Tales, but they can control them.
Ingrid: But why? What do they gain by it?
Brunhilde: Not a fucking clue. We can observe what they do, but no one has any idea why. They're powerful beyond belief, capable of bending an entire Tale to their whims. [...] There aren't many things that can stand up to a Storyteller's power. The Order of Tales seems to be able to, but I don't know how. - Fighting a Shadow: Whenever one feels the need to personally fight the heroes, it creates a physical form to attack, but as Hood explains, defeating it does nothing to the actual Dreamer. Ultimately, the heroes have to settle for temporarily driving them away from the Tales to beat them.
- Karma Houdini: None of the characters have any hope of destroying the Dreamers or punishing them for all the torment they inflict on their creations, since they are on another level of power entirely; the most the heroes can do is temporarily drive them away and break their control, with the knowledge that they will return eventually.
- Interactive Narrator: The main party are aware of their existence and actively interact with them. Ulfina's Voice serves as the second Arc Villain with her and Ingrid seeking toe scape its control while it does everything in its power to keep its narrative on track, while three of them serve as the Big Bad Ensemble fighting for control of the Tales and trying to stop or manipulate the party for their benefit.
The Dark Dreamer
The creator of Wilhelm's Tale and the Grim, Violent, and Dead Tales.
- Big Bad Ensemble: With the Order and New Canisan Dreamers. He's the creator of Wilhelm's Tale and the Wolf Blight that Ingrid is trying to stop from destroying Bangville, and he plans to remake all Tales in his twisted violent image.
- Blood Knight: His one desire is violence, in all forms, and he creates his Tales to be full of the grimmest and bloodiest violence possible. He also corrupts Bloody Ingrid into becoming one of these and tries to do the same to the main party.
- Enemy Mine: The Dark and New Canisan Dreamers briefly ally in the true ending, after spending the entire story fighting each other, to seize control of Bloody Ingrid and make her attack the heroes, preventing her from having a Heel–Face Turn and ruining their war. It only takes a little bit of effort from the original Ingrid to completely thwart it.
- For the Evulz: He wants to turn all Tales into violence-filled nightmares basically for his sadistic amusement.
- In Their Own Image: His ultimate goal is to shape all Tales into violent and gruesome ones just like the Tales he created.
- Villain Override: In the true ending, when Bloody Ingrid is about to give up her evil ways, he hijacks her and turns her into Tormented Ingrid, the True Final Boss.
The New Canisan Dreamer
The creator of the New Canisan Tale.
- Big Bad Ensemble: With the Order and Dark Dreamers. Though positioning itself as a benevolent mentor to the party, it is using them to get rid of the Order and Dark Dreamers so it can usurp control of the Tales and absorb the party into its own story, and actively tries to stop them from breaking the Tales free of the Dreamers' control.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: It pretends to be a benevolent force to the party and does so well that Hood is the only one who sees through it due to her experience.
- Enemy Mine: The New Canisan and Dark Dreamers briefly ally in the true ending, after spending the entire story fighting each other, to seize control of Bloody Ingrid and make her attack the heroes, preventing her from having a Heel–Face Turn and ruining their war. It only takes a little bit of effort from the original Ingrid to completely thwart it.
- Humanoid Abomination: It takes on the form of the Incarnation in the Crucible of the Abstract, a massive demonic-looking humanoid with Floating Limbs, and still has some of its reality-warping powers.
- Token Good Teammate: Subverted; it seems to be the only one of the Dreamers who is benevolent and wants to help the party, but it turns out to be using them to gain control over the Tales. Hood takes the time to drill in to Ulfina that there is no such thing as a “good” Dreamer.
- Treacherous Quest Giver: It shows up and gives the party information about the Dark Dreamer, getting them to go fight it and save the Tales. But in the normal ending, it then tries to absorb the characters into its own story while having other characters replace their roles in their stories, to which Hood bails them out. In the post-game, she explains that she knew the Dreamer just wanted to control the Tales itself and could not be trusted, but never had the time to tell the others until now without it hearing.
The Order's Dreamer
The creator and founder of the Order of Tales.
- Big Bad Ensemble: With the Dark and New Canisan Dreamers. He is the head of the Order of Tales, a tyrannical "peacekeeping" organization he uses to enforce the status quo on all Tales no matter how horrible they are, and he directs his soldiers to capture Ingrid and her party to throw them back into their miserable lives.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Of the three Dreamers that serve as the main villains, he presents a frequent threat to the party through most of the main game, but once they manage to infiltrate and destroy his Tower, and Bloody Ingrid finishes the job for them, he retreats and ceases to be a major player, with the other two taking over for the remaining areas and lengthy post-game. Though the ending has him ready to return and cause trouble.
- Knight Templar: As the leader of the Order, he uses them to enforce the status quo on all Tales, no matter how much they make the characters of the Tales miserable, so he can preserve his perfect order.
- Light Is Not Good: He appears as a yellow light and is the creator of the tyrannical Order who cares more about preserving the status quo than the happiness of the Tale inhabitants.
- The Unfought: Unlike the other Dreamers, you never fight him directly, as he only appears for a brief bit before Bloody Ingrid shows up and destroys the Tower of Order.
Ulfina's Voice
The creator of Ulfina's Tale.
- Arc Villain: Of the Ulfina's Tale section, as the Dreamer who created the Tale and is tormenting Ulfina and the forest critters with its creations, the Hateful Villagers, so it can tell its story about how Humans Are the Real Monsters.
- Evil Desires Innocence: It specifically created Ulfina to be the personification of innocence that is cruelly destroyed by the Hateful Villagers so it can tell a story about how Humans Are the Real Monsters. Ulfina must be kept an innocent, defenseless victim for this purpose, so when Ingrid arrives and rescues Ulfina, the Voice is indignant and tries to stop them. Then in the post-game, when Ulfina returns with a human lover and friends, now able to stand up for herself and even having sexual experience, the Voice undergoes a Villainous Breakdown accusing the others of “corrupting” Ulfina.
- Hate Sink: It is the deranged and self-righteous creator of Ulfina's Tale who is the metaphorical embodiment of narcissistic authors. The Voice responsible for subjecting her to torment by its creations, the Hateful Villagers, so it can craft a ham-fisted and black-and-white narrative where it smugly rants about how Humans Are the Real Monsters. When Ingrid arrives to rescue Ulfina, the Voice does everything it can to stop Ulfina from having a happy life; in the post-game, it hypocritically spews hatred at her for being made “impure” and “corrupted”.
- Lone Wolf Boss: It admits in the post-game that it is disinterested in the conflict between Dreamers; it is happy to keep to itself and just wants Ulfina under its control again.
- Optional Boss: The first of many; you can fight it in the cavern underneath its Tale, wherein it will personally try to punish Ingrid for “corrupting” Ulfina, and possesses some hard-hitting attacks for that point in the game.
The Bangville Dreamer
The creator of Bangville and its variants.
- Small Role, Big Impact: We only see it briefly in the post-game, but its the being that forced the other version of Ingrid to get raped by Mister Wolf, and her discovery of its existence is what made her snap and become Bloody Ingrid.
- The Unfought: You encounter it when asleep and never fight it; the encounter with it just leads to another sex scene with Wilhelm, who had his penis massively enlarged by it.
Other
The Final Boss (Unmarked Spoilers)
Bloody Ingrid
An alternate version of Ingrid who serves the Dark Dreamer. She was once another Ingrid who, after being raped by Mister Wolf and having no one to help her, discovered the existence of her Dreamer and snapped. Then the Dark Dreamer appeared to her, giving her his power of violence, and she promptly massacred the entire town. Now she goes around spreading violence and the will of her master with the goal of killing all the Dreamers.
- Ax-Crazy: She spends all her screentime either killing people or trying to kill people, and loves violence and blood.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: She first appears briefly in the intro scene, says strange things, then vanishes, and is never seen or mentioned again until she is revealed about three quarters into the main story to be The Dragon to the Dark Dreamer who has been helping him guide the party so he can corrupt them.
- The Dragon: She is the main servant of the Dark Dreamer who kills whoever is in his way and helps him carry out his plans.
- Evil Doppelgänger: She's a version of Ingrid who acts as both the Final Boss and (after a One-Winged Angel moment) the True Final Boss.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: This is what caused her to turn into an Ax-Crazy villain; she discovered that her world was created by a Dreamer, and that the rape she suffered was part of its sexual fantasies, so she broke from the existential panic and decided to find a way to kill the Dreamers so the Tales could be free from their influence.
- Heel–Face Turn: In the true ending, against all odds Ingrid is able to get through to her and accept her as a part of herself, and the two are last seen traveling through some door to an unknown location, ready to face whatever is in there together.
- I've Come Too Far: The justification she gives before the True Final Boss fight for not standing down after what she's done to defy the Dreamers and break from her role through violence.
- Rape as Backstory: Her rape by Mister Wolf is the event that traumatized her into becoming vulnerable to the influence of the Dark Dreamer, who fed her hatred of the Dreamers that put her in that situation.
- Slasher Smile: She is generally seen with a big, toothy smile as she is either slaughtering something or about to slaughter something.
