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Playable Ships
In general
"DORMANT FOR AGES, ITS DOORS
HAVE OPENED ANEW
AND WELCOME
THE VISITORS"
- Action Duo: Null and D-13 venture into the facility together, as do the Sword Ship and the Chaos Ship.
- Ambiguous Gender: The ships aren't explicitly gendered aside from Skully.
- Bullet Hell: With the right keywords on the right weapons, you can turn this around on the enemies.
- Cool Starship: The visitors all resemble spaceships from Shoot 'Em Up games, with the notable exception of Skully.
- Dueling Player Characters: Null spars with D-13 in the tutorial, D-13 fights a Power Eternal-influenced Null right before the Power Eternal terminal, and perhaps every character against Overlord.
- Limited Loadout: Only one weapon can be carried at a time; picking up a second weapon while already having one scraps the original weapon, giving you debris and health. For Skully, one weapon is all they need.
- Smart Bomb: Every visitor has these at their disposal, except for Arena Blaster.
- Trademark Favorite Food: On the pause screen Null can be seen drinking coffee, while D-13 instead sips on orange juice… somehow.
- Unlockable Difficulty Levels: D-13 essentially serves as a Hard Mode for the game, and is unlocked after beating the game as Null. After beating the game as D-13, every other character has the option of playing on Hard Mode.
Major spoilers for the following four characters are unmarked.
Null
TWELTH VISITOR
The only visitor that is playable from the start, Null serves as the basis for the other playable ships.
- Arc Symbol: One of the prongs on their sides is slightly shorter than the other.
- Drink-Based Characterization: When played as, Null is seen drinking a cup of coffee in the pause menu.
- Empty Shell: The "claimed Power Eternal" mirror report quote implies this; it has no mention of Null returning from the facility.
- Main Character Final Boss: The Power Eternal forces it to become the story's true final boss, Monolith.
D-13
D-13
THIRTEENTH VISITOR
Unlocked after beating the game as Null, D-13 serves as a Hard Mode, having the same abilities as Null but with powered-up enemies and bosses to deal with.
- Cyber Cyclops: D-13's red core gives off this impression.
- Drink-Based Characterization: When played as, D-13 is seen drinking a carton of orange juice in the pause menu.
- No Man Should Have This Power: After defeating Monolith, they destroy the conduit for the Power Eternal at the bottom of the facility.
- Staking the Loved One: Due to Null having turned into Monolith at the end of Hard difficulty, D-13 ends up doing this to them.
- Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Prior to the player's first completion of of D-13's run, they act as this. Afterwards, D-13 and Null are mechanically identical to each other.
- Warm-Up Boss: The very first Boss Battle in the whole game.
Sword Ship
Overlord
SWORD MODE
Overlord can only use swords — they start with a keyword-less sword instead of a peashooter, and they can only find and use sword weapons.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not fully certain how playable Overlord relates to the boss Overlord.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: After damaging The Machine, they are weakened and implied to become the boss Overlord.
- Cool Mask: Just like the boss Overlord, they wear an orange mask.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Yeah. In the steam store page for Relics of the Past, Overlord can be seen wielding a sword in one of the images.
- Promoted to Playable: Presumably the same Overlord that you fight as a boss, now playable. Humorously, you can still fight against the boss Overlord as playable Overlord.
Chaos Ship
???
CHAOS MODE
??? can't find and pick up weapons — instead, their default weapon is randomized to any other weapon in the game whenever they enter a new room.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: After heavily damaging The Machine, they are obliterated by it.
- Confusion Fu: ???'s mechanic forces them to adjust on the fly to whatever weapon they get each room.
- Doomed Predecessor: If ??? is unlocked and playable, the ship you are currently playing as will encounter a destroyed ??? body immediately prior to the vs.-Overlord Machine's first attack.
- Heroic Sacrifice: They heavily damage The Machine and force it to seal itself up in a slab, at the cost of their own life.
- Luck-Based Mission: They can find themselves in trouble if they end up with a sub-optimal weapon for the room they're in.
- Luck Manipulation Mechanic: They can find a unique cartridge for them that gives their weapons three keywords instead of two, giving them a higher chance for their weapons to be useful.
- My Name Is ???: They're never referred to by any other name, so it's possible that ??? is their actual name.
Major unmarked spoilers do not apply for the two characters below.
Arena Blaster
Arena Blaster
NO BOMBS, ACTIVE ITEMS
Arena Blaster doesn't have access to bombs — instead, they can find unique active items that have a variety of effects to replace their bombs.
- Abnormal Ammo: You can obtain a golden gun from the aptly named Golden Gun active, which fires a golden bullet.
- Attack Reflector: Arena Blaster can obtain one of these as an active, which deflects nearby enemy bullets with good timing.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Hellfire Barrage active devastates an entire room, but requires 12 charges to use, requiring you to have the Double Capacity upgrade to even be able to use it, and isn't so effective against bosses.
- Cast from Hit Points: The Prototype Genocide active, on top of requiring 6 charges, also costs a health part to use.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Since the button to use your active item is instead used to activate a bomb on every other character, you can find yourself accidentally using your active instead of bombing, or simply not doing anything if your active isn't fully charged.
- Invincibility Power-Up: One of the active items allow you to make yourself invincible temporarily.
- Spell Book: Several active items are themed after these, and they allow you to invoke a specific school of magic.
- Use Item: Arena Blaster has these in place of Smart Bombs.
Skully
Skully
MODULAR WEAPONS
Skully is limited to using his default weapon. Instead of using weapons, he can upgrade his default weapon by picking up weapon upgrades that modify it.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Skully can choose to stack up on weapon modifiers that dramatically increase his damage at the cost of lowering his firerate in order to create a weapon that can one-shot bosses… but shoots no more than once every several dozen seconds.
- Breakout Mook Character: Skully looks near-identical to the enemy Skullies you've been gunning down throughout the facility.
- Flying Face: Well, flying skull.
- Furry Reminder: If you hit the Smart Bomb button while you don't have any, he shakes around like the other Skullies (and unlike the actual miniature starships).
- Lethal Joke Character: Skully has a weaker starting weapon than the other ships, needing to reload periodically, and he can't get an upfront power boost by changing his loadout from the get-go. But if he picks up the correct weapon modifiers, he can end up with a monstrously powerful gun that can take down late-game bosses in seconds.
- Magikarp Power: Skully doesn't seem like much at first, but his firepower's growth is beyond that of his damage stat; his increasingly numerous weapon upgrades eventually blow the other ships right out of the water.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: Weapons that Skully pick up instead augment his base weapon with various effects such as increasing his damage, firerate, or even completely changing the projectiles he fires. Additionally, his starting weapon needs to reload similarly to the revolver weapon.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Unlike every other visitor, Skully looks like a skull instead of a spaceship.
Other
Hub NPCs
Kleines
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Describes standard Sentinels as "slow, lightly armed, and relentless".
- Cat Folk: Seemingly halfway between this and a large round blob.
- Deadpan Snarker: He's quite snarky in his dialogue, particularly in some of his messages for you dying to enemies.
- The Don: Funnily enough he serves this role to the Hermits and Wiseguys, seemingly being in charge of them. Interacting with the care package Hermit makes them mention that "The cat sends his regards."
- Eyes Always Shut: His eyes appear to be perpetually closed.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he can be rather snobbish about his discoveries and otherwise dislikes excessive contact with the player ship, he is still willing to give them useful advice and sell useful items for your use.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Unlike most of the other things in the facility which are some kind of ghost, machine, or mage, he's a big cat-shaped blob.
- Plucky Comic Relief: He's a silly looking cat blob that snarks at you when you talk to him.
- Poke the Poodle: You can try to keep on talking to him until he gets annoyed, which nets you an achievement!
- Mr. Exposition: Often fills you in on the facility's history and some useful tips.
Sentinel
- Electronic Speech Impediment: They have a tendency to sound a "BZZT" before and after their sentences.
- Machine Monotone: They give off this impression in the way they describe your choice of furnishings.
Skully
- Genki Girl: They're very enthusiastic in their manner of speaking.
Blastcore
- Important Hair Accessory: They'll wear the ribbon you gift them, signifying their change of spirit.
- Straw Nihilist: They remark on how their life has no meaning except despair when you talk to them. They no longer feel this way if you manage to gift them a ribbon.
- Video Game Caring Potential: You can find a ribbon deep in the facility and gift it to them, which will give them new meaning to their life.
Hermit
Pet Ghost
Mysterious Trader
Rad Sentinel
Shopkeepers
Bloke
- Beware the Silly Ones: He might not seem like much, but he is in possession of a Humongous Mecha which he won't hesitate to pull on you if you decide to take him up on his special offer.
- Cool Shades: He wears a pair of these resembling Kamina's shades. You can even get them as a cartridge!
- Dungeon Shop: He primarily runs one on all of the floors before floor 6 — unless you happen to be wearing cool sunglasses.
- Meaningful Name: Bloke sounds like block, which he's shaped like.
- Perpetual Smiler: He's perpetually flashing a wide grin at you.
Shrine Statue
- Deal with the Devil: Its primary purpose is to offer you these. One of the deals is to gain 20% extra damage, but lose half your current HP.
Other Shopkeepers
Major unmarked spoilers from here below!
The Old Council
To surpass all limits.
To overcome all adversity.
To temper weakness in fire.
To attain prosperity, at any cost.
To peer into the abyss.
To lose the fear of the unknown.
For all members except the heads of electromancy and cryomancy:The head of pyromancy is Ordinator, found under Bellows Bosses.
The head of geomancy is Bloke, found under Shopkeepers. His boss fight, Special Offer, is found under Seal Bosses.
The head of necromancy is now known as Renegade, found under Seal Bosses.
The head of sight is Daemon, found under Archives Bosses.
The head of enigmancy is the Warden, found under Temple Bosses.
The Originating Force
Power Eternal
- Artifact Domination: Its full force overrides the will and identities of those who claim it.
- Big Bad: It's behind the facility's rise and ruin, and its conduit's destruction is required to liberate the place.
- Leaking Can of Evil: Even after the council set up the Machine to guard it and sealed the sixth floor away, Power Eternal's influence is shown through the constructs it shapes and undead reduced to Lost Souls.
