This is the character sheet from Shadows Over Loathing.
Under construction. Some spoilers may be unmarked.
open/close all folders
Player Character
Player Character
"You are a minimum viable person."
Your character, and the protagonist. After receiving a letter from their Uncle Murray, they hop on a bus to Ocean City where their adventure begins.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: A possibility — if you don't do certain sidequests, you'll need to destroy the Shadow Government Monoliths with your bare hands, getting a negative perk lowering an M-stat by one.
- Cursed with Awesome: After a certain point in the story, you will begin seeing "holes" in reality where you can reach in and pull out consumables related to Shadow Taint. Food and items obtained from these rifts provide some very potent all-day buffs. Prolonged consumption of these items will allow the Shadow Taint to take hold, providing additional perks and easier skill checks the more corrupted one becomes. There is a very good reason why the Narrator adamantly warns you against using them: more than a trace amount of Shadow Taint will lock you out of the Good Ending.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: One possible ending has you doing this, should you choose to face the Shadowcaster head-on instead of going with one of your Companion's solutions.
- Extreme Omnivore: If the player wills it, the character can have a penchant for consuming or wanting to consume things that are not edible, such as a truck engine, bug-infested flour, and the void itself.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: In Prohibition-era Loathing, the player studies to be a ball-kicking Pig Skinner, a spell-slinging Cheese Wizard, or a gun-toting Jazz Agent. Pig Skinners can mitigate more damage, Cheese Wizards have access to a wider range of elements, and Jazz Agents focus on sheer damage. However, the player doesn't get to choose their profession until late in the prologue. The chosen profession also determines which of the three of the big bad's assistants that they will encounter throughout the game.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: The character becomes this during the Evilest Ending. Having been so far consumed by Shadow Taint, they become the greatest threat to the universe. Nobody is safe, not even Margaret or her conspirators.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Like with the last game, you can either take a randomized name from the choices provided as you talk to Ethel at the diner, or you can enter a name of your own.
- Morph Weapon: The player can acquire consumable items that can be used to modify their weapons to derive their damage from a different M-stat. Found a really cool sword from a side quest, but are playing as a Jazz Agent? Slap some gun parts on it, and now it's a sword... gun that deals damage based on your Moxie. Your character will also wield it like a gun in combat.
- Musical Assassin: Jazz Agent has multiple skills that have him play an instrument to damage an enemy, and some of the weapons you can find include instruments that you play to hurt enemies.
Companions
General
Throughout the game you can recruit several different companions that can assist you in combat.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Each companion vignette involves the player controlling them in a special level.
- Badass Crew: Each of them can hold their own in a fight, and any one of them can hold the key to saving the universe from the Shadowcaster.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members:
- You can only take one Companion with you at a time. Additional Companions will have to wait back at the speakeasy while you're out adventuring. It's only if you choose to challenge the Shadowcaster to a fight that all of your recruited Companions will come to assist you.
- Furthermore, three Companions can only be recruited if you pick the right college major (chemistry for Adams, botany for Barker, or robotics for Simone), making it impossible to recruit more than one of those three during the same playthrough.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Let's see... a goblin flapper, a Musical Assassin hobo, a gun-happy mafia soldato, an old University chemistry teacher at S.I.T., a dog that's been turned into a Planimal, a Wrench Wench named after a Russian playwright, and a violent gatorman.
Gabby
"Wow! Keen as a peach!"
A goblin flapper working with Murray, and the first companion you'll meet.- The Flapper: Has the dress, the high spirits and the historical background of the trope.
- Legacy Character: One of her companion vignettes has her burst into spores in a cave near Crystaldream Lake, and the first goblin that matures becomes the new Gabby.
- Red Mage: Aside from being your first healer companion, Gabby also has a physical attack, and eventually learns a skill that hits all enemies with Hot Damage.
- Sweet Tooth: Carries a ton of individually-wrapped candy at all times. The player misunderstands this to be a goblin characteristic, since they don't need vitamins, but it turns out Gabby mainly likes eating the wrappers.
- You No Take Candle: Like for most goblins of Loathing, English isn't her first language and it manifests with strange syntax choices.
Obie O'Brien
"I'm as cool as a cucumber."
A hobo with an oboe you can find busking in the Goldtwaith park.- The Bard: Naturally. One of the skills he learns in Hell boosts everyone's stats by his Mysticality.
- Bayonet Ya: One of his wander events has him attach a bayonet to his oboe. It's visible in his overworld sprite.
- Deal with the Devil: In the most literal sense; his vignettes reveal he traded his soul for the musical ability.
- Exact Words: His contract with Hell specified that he receive extraordinary jazz oboe musical ability and "all the fame and wealth that comes with it". Nowhere did it say exactly how much fame and wealth that was, and so when you meet him he's a homeless busker.
- Musical Assassin: His basic attack is a short riff dealing Hot damage.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The combat logs describe him as an oboe hobo.
Molly Buttons
"Let's ankle, my chopper's gotta stretch its legs!"
A young mafia soldato sent by Don Toblerone to assist you. She comes equipped with the standard mob tools of the trade: A tommy gun for kneecapping, and a bat for capping knees.
- Ambiguously Bi: When you first meet her, she accuses you of flirting with her. She turns you down stating that she already has a sweetheart, and that "she's prettier than you". She says this regardless of whatever pronouns you prefer.
- Bottomless Magazines: The amount of bullets she fires per attack depends on her Muscle; if you boost it hard enough, she can fire hundreds or thousands of bullets from a single magazine.
- Eternal Sexual Freedom: Apparently the Loathing-verse didn't have the same hangups about homosexuality or bisexuality in the Roaring Twenties as Earth did, since nobody comments about her having a girlfriend.
- Jive Turkey: She almost exclusively speaks in Prohibition-era slang.
- More Dakka: Her primary attack involves unloading as many bullets as her stats will allow, hitting random enemies for one damage each.
- Trigger-Happy: Her first solution to every problem is to shoot it until it stops being a problem.
- Weapon-Based Characterization: Tommy Gun — she's a Trigger-Happy mob member with preference for accuracy by volume of fire.
Professor Ambrose Adams (unmarked spoilers for Chemical major)
"Oh, goodneſs me. Is it Monday already?"
The bronze statue in the Chemical building is actually the professor himself, who turned himself into copper and needs to be revived to finish the major.- Chekhov's Gun: His ending calls back to his Chemistry class, with him merely mentioning that the Shadowcaster smells like umbraline. Surely one of your numerous failed attempts at passing the class interacts with umbraline, right?
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: After all is said and done, he turns himself back into a statue.
- Professor Guinea Pig: Him turning to a statue was a result of a concoction he himself devised.
- Really 700 Years Old: He was born in 1666, and the game takes place in 1928. He spent 205 years encased in bronze.
- Support Party Member: Technicallynote the only party member to lack direct-damaging combat skills, but also a stronger healer than Gabby and a reducer of foes' Moxie. On top of that, he grants you an extra 3 XP every time you win a fight with him.
- Taken for Granite: Spent the past two hundred years as a statue.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: To get across how old he is, his dialogue is peppered with long s's
.
Simone Chekhov
"I'm not used to operating in adventurer mode, but sure."
The Robotics student. She joins you after you help her pass her classes, bringing a Robot Buddy and assorted science gizmos to the fray.- Foreshadowing: You encounter her father in the prologue, and he mentions she's studying in the SIT.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Before an update in April 2023, the game couldn't decide if her family's surname is Chekov or Chekhov, finally settling on the latter.
- Literal Metaphor: One of her attacks is a literal Chekhov's Gun.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: Most of Simone's damage potential is over prolonged fights. She can set foes On Fire, which (unlike Bleeding and contrary to Poison) increases in severity each round, and all of her direct damage (before obtaining her varmint rifle) hits random targets. She also lacks a supporting skill, so all she can do is continuously increase the pressure.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Anton Chekhov, natch.
- Robot Buddy: Brings Clarence, a robot she had constructed, to fight alongside her. Clarence also goes after random targets.
- Speaks in Binary: She understands Clarence's beeps and boops, like how Clarence understands human speech.
Barker
"...Woof."
An once-ordinary dog who was subjected to his master's experiments in hybridising plants and animals, and now a plant creature that nevertheless exhibits supremely doggy behaviour. He joins a PC who studies Botany as a major and gives him food. Barker is his default name, but he can be renamed at the player's whim.- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: His entire head opens like a flower — and each petal is lined with pointed teeth.
- Mundane Object Amazement: The times you get into his head in the companion vignettes, it's rare you'll find a sentence without an exclamation mark when he examines even random things. Hey! Wow!
- Planimal: Shaped like a dog, but with a strange circular bud-maw-thing for a head and no obvious eyes or nose. Nevertheless, he acts like the faithful and energetic canine he was before being changed, complete with eating gross stuff and rolling in anything smelly.
- Power-Up Food: He often get new skills or levels up from eating plants he finds.
Alphonse Gator
"I FOLLOW! KILL ENEMIES! EAT ENEMIES! NAME ALPHONSE!"
The gatorman companion. If you end up with non-zero Shadow Taint, he finds you on the Big Moist and forces himself into your party.- Cool Shades: Alphonse picks up a pair of these during his first vignette, forcefully taking them back from a rival gatorman who stole the glasses from him in the first place.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: Having too much Shadow Taint will still lock you out of his Companion ending, not that it's very different from the best ending you'll be locked into.
- Insane Troll Logic: When Alphonse stops by to visit his family in the Big Moist after running around with the player character for god knows how long, he is utterly bewildered to see that both of his teenage children are acting all disrespectful and aggressive towards him and his wife is berating him for neglecting her and their kids. Upon confronting the shadow president, Alphonse comes to the conclusion that his family was acting crazy because the shadow president drove them all insane, as opposed to him being a bad husband and his kids acting like typical rebellious teenagers, and nothing can convince him otherwise.
- Parental Neglect: As revealed in one of his vignettes, Alphonse has a wife and two kids somewhere in The Big Moist...all of whom he constantly ignores to go on wacky adventures with the player character.
- Token Evil Teammate: He's easily the most violent and ill-mannered of your companions by a mile, to the point that he legitimately can't comprehend that there's more to life than fighting and killing.
- You No Take Candle: Much like the rest of the gatormen you encounter, Alphonse's diction leaves something to be desired.
Ocean City
Murray Morris
The owner of the "Murray's Antiques" store, and the Player Character's uncle. His letter asking them to come to Ocean City kickstarts the plot.
- Distressed Dude: Spends most of the game captured by the Big Bad.
- Early-Bird Cameo: He's one of the Roberto cultists you can un-brainwash in West of Loathing.
Donald "Don" Toblerone
"Don Toblerone verbalizing."
A capo of the Ocean City mafia. At the start of chapter two, he will call you to perform various tasks on behalf of the mob.
- Delusions of Eloquence: He speaks almost exclusively in Perfectly Cromulent Words, adding suffixes in a misguided effort to sound smart. Even when he chances on an actual word, he usually misuses it, such as objectification to mean objective.
- Embarrassing Nickname: "Donny Thesaurus", on account of his, ahem, speech patterns.
- The Family for the Whole Family: If you turn down the offer of cooperation, he tries to send goons to menace you, but they're not really effective at their jobs.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Don is not his title; It's just short for Donald.
- Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: If you work with him, the errands he's sending you on are either harmless Literal Metaphors, or targeting vampires. If you end up doing all his missions, he ends up bankrolling Murray's operations in the epilogue.
Government Valley
The Nemesis
Depending on the player's class choice, they will encounter one of the President's lackeys: General Bruise (Pig Skinner), Dark Noël (Cheese Wizard), and Terrence Poindexter (Jazz Agent).
All Nemeses
- I See Them, Too: Whoever your Nemesis is, they note that your ability to see the stars on their Hat (the Shadow) is highly unusual in your second dream.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: Unlike Margaret, who couldn't care less until you come to her literal doorstep to stop her, each Nemesis appears a few times before the final confrontation and personally antagonizes you.
- One-Winged Angel: Every Nemesis has a second, debatably more-fearsome form, which they'll bring out if you defeat their "first" form in battle. If you defeat them outside of combat through your class's B-Perk, 10 of your class's M-stat, and 8 Spooky Armor, they'll offer a chance to see what you'll miss out on by banishing them; however, you can simply say "no" to that.
- To the Pain: Your less-honorable nemeses (basically everyone but General Bruise) bail out on the threat that you'll do this to them, if you beat them through Bamboozling or Bewitching instead of fighting them.
General Bruise
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Generally acts like one of these despite being a general.
Terence Poindexter
- Clock King: Jazz Agent nemesis Terrence Poindexter, the square, stuffy bureaucrat to a Jazz Agent's free spirit, prides himself on being able to reduce the world to predictable patterns which he can recognize, prepare for, and block or counter. Being able to manipulate time helps. With a high enough Moxie, he gets defeated when the Player Character literally chooses moves on a roll of a dice... and then ignores them for the final blow.
- The Corrupter: Terrence Poindexter already had Shadow on his Hat while the Shadow President was still a mere Comptroller of Ocean City, back when her last name wasn't smudged. Given her trajectory, it's possible he had her get deeper into the Shadow business.
- Stealing from the Till: According to the President, Poindexter "borrows" some of her funds, and she's willing to tolerate that up to a point.
Dark Noël
- Friendly Enemy: Dark Noël is rather civil in her dealings with the Cheese Wizard, in comparison to the other two nemeses.
- Holiday Motif: Dark Noël is themed around Crimbo, the Loathingverse's take on Christmas.
The President of Shadows
The President of Shadows, birth name Margaret (unintelligible), is the main antagonist of the game.
- Big Bad: Whatever nemesis was antagonizing you was operating on her orders, the current state of Ocean City is in part a result of her embezzling the funds back when she was a city comptroller, the dam on the Crystaldream River was her idea, and the gatormen became more aggressive because she ordered their leader to keep them underfed and irritated.
- Black Speech: Her family name by default is given as a bunch of unreadable squiggles. Apparently it can be transcribed to English as "Dooley".
- Corrupt Politician: Before she started dabbling in the occult, she embezzled a ton of Ocean City municipal funds, to bankroll her Shadow-Presidential campaign.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Her name appears as early as chapter one, on the plaque commemorating her donation of pointy rocks to Goldtwaith Park.
- Spikes of Villainy: In the present, her hair is a set of shifting spikes encircling her head.
- Zero-Effort Boss: Aside from punching you in the face in her courtyard, Margaret is a non-entity in boss-fights. All options to deal with her alone either one-shot her or have her stand down. If you don't take any of those and fight the Shadowcaster, she aligns with the Shadowcaster, but is immediately immobilized and gets consumed by the Shadow on her third turn.
