Character page for The Chant.
open/close all folders
Humans
Jess
Jessica Briars
Played by: Siobhan Williams (voice), Taylor McKay (facial model)
The protagonist of The Chant. Jess is a troubled twentysomething woman with a career in biomedicine. She is invited to the Prismic Science Retreat on Glory Island by her old friend Kim in hopes of healing their fractured relationship and dealing with her past traumas.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: The indigo prism lets Jess become invisible for a short period of time as long as she doesn’t attack anything, allowing her to slip past Gloom creatures with impunity. Sounds great, right? Here’s the catch. It doesn’t unlock until near the end of the penultimate chapter of the game, and there are maybe two or three good opportunities to use it before the credits roll.
- Action Survivor: Jess is an ordinary young woman with no special training that we know of, but she manages to fight her way through a psychedelic hellscape with nothing more than a few fistfuls of herbs, some special crystals, and sheer bloody-minded determination to help her friend.
- Agony of the Feet: Notably averted. Jess spends the game walking/running barefoot through a forest, a mine, and many, many decaying buildings and somehow doesn't get so much as a splinter.
- Apologetic Attacker: Jess apologizes to Kim when she smashes her head into a mirror to break the Gloom's hold on her.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Jess gets increasingly beaten up and splattered in muck and blood as the night wears on. By the final chapter, her clothes are so filthy that it's hard to believe they used to be white.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Her little sister Angie drowned while they were visiting their family’s lake cabin with Kim. Kim told Angie that there was a sunken treasure at the bottom of the lake, and Jess played along with the joke. Angie tried to swim out and find the treasure, but drowned when she couldn’t get back to shore. Jess and Kim both had their headphones in and couldn’t hear her cries for help.
- Improbable Weapon User: Jess uses sage, burning thorn branches, “witch sticks” (bundles of mugwort and sage), salt, and essential oil to battle the Gloom.
- It's All My Fault: At the end of the game, Jess accepts that it's her fault that Angie died.
- Only Sane Man: Despite suffering her own issues, Jess is the most grounded person of everyone in the retreat, especially when the chant goes wrong.
- Summon Magic: Two of the prism abilities let Jess summon Gloom creatures to attack enemies; the green prism calls up a swarm of Mandaphores that will jump to a new enemy after killing the last one, and the red prism summons a gaggle of cultists that burst out of the earth to grapple and slow enemies.
- Super-Scream: The orange prism lets Jess unleash an ear-splitting howl that knocks enemies back and physically damages them.
- Trauma Button: Jess isn't too fond of flies, as they strongly remind her of the moment she found her sister's body. As such, swarms of them act as tutorial enemies.
- Uncertain Doom: The Mind ending sees Jess and Kim leaving the island on a boat, only for a Gloom whirlpool to suddenly open up and suck them in. It's made less uncertain as of The Gloom Below, which reveals that they've been sucked into the Gloom and now have to fight their way out.
- We Used to Be Friends: Jess and Kim were best friends for years until Angie drowned. They drifted apart in the aftermath, with both of them unable to come fully to terms with their guilt or with the other’s responsibility for the accident.
Kim
Kim Mallari
Played by: Kira Clavell
Jess’ former best friend, who drifted away from her after a tragedy that left them both with deep mental and emotional scars. She became part of the Prismic Science Retreat in an effort to deal with her personal demons and has asked Jess to come out and join her at the retreat's compound on Glory Island, hoping to heal their fractured relationship and confront their shared trauma.
- Convenient Coma: After Jess breaks her free of Gloom possession, Kim lapses into a comatose state that lasts for the rest of the night.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kim is still grappling with her guilt over the death of Jess’ little sister Angie. When they were visiting Jess and Angie’s family’s lake cabin, Kim told Angie that there was a sunken treasure at the bottom of the lake, and Jess played along with the joke. Angie tried to swim out and find the treasure, but drowned when she couldn’t get back to shore. Jess and Kim both had their headphones in and couldn’t hear her cries for help.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Kim has IED (intermittent explosive disorder), and it causes her to accidentally mess up the chant by unleashing her bottled-up emotions towards Jess at the wrong moment.
- Uncertain Doom: The Mind ending sees Jess and Kim leaving the island on a boat, only for a Gloom whirlpool to suddenly open up and suck them in. It's made less uncertain as of The Gloom Below, which reveals that they've been sucked into the Gloom and now have to fight their way out.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Kim blows up at Jess in the middle of the group ritual thanks to her intermittent explosive disorder, causing the chant to go wrong and unleashing the Gloom on the island. As a direct result of this, everyone on the island except for the two of them winds up dead.
- We Used to Be Friends: Jess and Kim were best friends for years until Angie’s drowning. They drifted apart in the aftermath, with both of them unable to come fully to terms with their guilt or with the other’s responsibility for the accident.
Tyler
Tyler Anton
Played by: Adam Millard
The charismatic and spiritual leader of the Prismic Science Spiritual Retreat. He’s a well-known yogi and guru who wants to help his disciples achieve their potential, and believes that the Prismic Science method will accomplish this goal.
- Achilles in His Tent: After the chant goes wrong, Tyler retreats into his tent to brood over the failure, not emerging until the climax of the story.
- The Face: He’s the face of the Prismic Science Retreat, while Sonny handles the money and Hannah promotes it using her influencer knowhow.
- Gold Digger: Tyler makes a point of collecting people who can fund his ambitions for Prismic Science. In particular, he's dating Hannah because she's a trust fund kid with access to plenty of money, and the reason he let Jess come out to the island is because he thinks she might have connections to wealthy investors.
- It's All About Me: Tyler’s notes reveal that he doesn’t give a damn about any of his disciples beyond what they can give him, namely money, praise, attention, and sex.
- Looks Like Jesus: He’s grown his hair and beard out, probably to better fit the role of commune leader.
- Manipulative Bastard: Like his grandfather before him, Tyler uses the intake forms that his disciples fill out to learn how best to manipulate them. He plays on their needs and fears to get them to trust him and more readily give him what he wants.
- Money Dumb: An early note in the game states that Tyler is helpless when it comes to financial matters, which is why Sonny is part of his inner circle.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Tyler does his best to deliberately invoke the trope through his appearance and mannerisms.
- Vampiric Draining: Tyler meets this fate at the hands of his own grandfather. Monroe absorbs Tyler's entire body and soul, restoring himself to his youthful appearance.
Hannah
Hannah Wilson
Played by: Emily Tennant
Tyler’s girlfriend and one of his closest disciples. She is a kind, soft-spoken young woman who uses her savvy as an online influencer to promote Tyler and the Prismic Science Retreat.
- All There in the Manual: The game’s official website mentions that she’s been using her influencer knowhow to help promote the Prismic Science retreat, something that goes unmentioned in the game.
- Broken Bird: Hannah went through an ugly breakup sometime prior to the game’s events, and Sonny and Maya’s deaths and the reveal that Tyler’s been manipulating her for the entirety of their relationship only break her further.
- Extreme Doormat: Hannah, supposedly. Tyler's notes call her a doormat and she acknowledges that he treated her like one, but she stands up to him pretty easily and it's implied in supplemental material that she's effectively running the retreat for him.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blonde-haired Hannah is a gentle and kindhearted young woman. Sadly, it doesn't stop the Gloom from corrupting her.
- Hates Being Alone: Hannah is terrified of being rejected and left alone. The Gloom uses this fear to manipulate her into believing that she can bring Tyler, Maya, and Sonny back if she completes the ritual.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Having been through a very ugly breakup not long ago, Hannah is terrified of rejection and her deepest desire is to have someone care for her. Tyler’s exploiting her fear to get her to use her money for the retreat, and it’s the lever the Gloom uses to manipulate her into completing the ritual and unleashing the final boss.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Overlapping with the previous tropes, Hannah's thoughts reveal that she's jealous of Jess and Kim's friendship, even damaged as it is, and wishes that Jess would be her friend too. When she succumbs to the Gloom, she summons Gloom-twisted versions of Sonny, Maya, and Tyler to try and force Jess to stay on the island with her.
- Neutral Female: She spends most of the game at the geodome taking care of Kim and trying to talk Tyler into helping with the ritual while Jess ventures out to the rest of the island to gather the prisms.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: When Hannah finally succumbs to the Gloom, she unleashes Sonny, Maya, Tyler, and various other Gloom powers on Jess to try and force her to stay on the island.
- Secretly Rich: Late in the game, it's revealed that Hannah has a trust fund worth over a million dollars. Tyler is manipulating her via their romantic relationship so that she'll use her money to fund his retreat.
Sonny
Sonny Sonti
Played by: Praneet Akilla
One of Tyler’s disciples and his money man. Sonny is an ambitious young man who comes from a wealthy family, but has left a trail of failed projects and broken promises behind him. He sees the Prismic Science Retreat as his last chance for redemption.
- Alliterative Name: Sonny Sonti.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Sonny is struggling to prove himself to his father after a string of costly failures, including the botched Spirit Ember Festival.
- Dying as Yourself: Sonny snaps back to normal after Jess kills the Strider, apologizing for his anger and telling her that all he could see was his own pain.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He’s not as explosive as Kim, but he flies into a paranoid rage very quickly after the ritual goes wrong and starts accusing Jess of trying to sabotage him and Prismic Science.
- Only in It for the Money: Played with. Sonny’s notes indicate that he’s a true believer in Prismic Science, but he primarily sees it as a way to make tons of money and redeem himself in his family’s eyes.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Sonny doesn’t get much in the way of screentime or characterization before he dies. The main thing we find out about him is that he comes from money and is desperately hoping that Prismic Science will pan out and redeem him after a string of costly failures.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sonny is trying to prove himself to his father after a string of failed projects. The Gloom uses this against him.
- White Shirt of Death: Sonny’s clothes are soaked with blood and filth when he dies.
Maya
Maya Kalani
Played by: Nicole Anthony (voice), Chantey Dayal (facial model)
An elegant and kindhearted woman who met Tyler some time ago and has become one of his favorite disciples. She is a hardworking and multi-talented individual who does the day-to-day work that keeps the retreat going.
- Broken Bird: She hides it well at first, but Maya clearly isn’t over her son’s death, and the Gloom uses it against her.
- Evil Matriarch: After she’s swallowed by the Gloom, she proclaims the Mandaphores to be her children and screams at Jess that she’ll take care of her like a mother should.
- Granola Girl: Maya is a dancer who used to roam the world going to festivals, which is how she met Tyler, and believes strongly in the New Age ideals he's promoting with Prismic Science. She cooks using foraged ingredients, wears her hair in dreadlocks, and goes dancing in the forest in her free time. More tragically, her distrust of doctors and big pharma led her to reject a recommended vaccination for her son, only for him to die from the very disease she'd refused to have him immunized against.
- The Heart: Maya is outright called the heart of the group on the game's official website. She doesn't get much of a chance to show it in the game, sadly.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A Mandaphore skewers Maya through the chest when she embraces it under the delusion that it's her son.
- It's All My Fault: Maya blames herself for her son Seva's death, since he died from a disease that she refused to have him vaccinated against.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Aside from Tyler, Maya is the most outwardly hippie-ish of the group.
- Parents as People: She made what she thought was the right choice for her son by refusing a certain vaccine, only to have it backfire on her in the worst way possible when he died from the very disease that vaccine was supposed to prevent. Her mental narration, as overheard by Jess, invokes the trope by arguing that it’s impossible to know how things are going to turn out when you make such a decision, and that she was doing the best she could for her son.
- Sanity Slippage: She’s doing fine at first, but when she goes out to the lighthouse with Jess, the Gloom really starts eating at her.
- Science Is Bad: She opted not to have her son vaccinated against a certain disease, claiming that the doctor who was recommending the vaccine was doing so because he was a mouthpiece for “big pharma”. She came to regret this decision when her son died of the disease.
- Team Mom: The game's website indicates that this is Maya's role in the retreat group, though she doesn't get much of a chance to show it before things go sideways. After she’s swallowed by the Gloom, she becomes its team mom, declaring that the Mandaphores are her children and violently insisting that she’ll “take care” of Jess, too.
- White Shirt of Death: Maya's clothes are soaked with blood and filth when she dies.
Monroe Anton
Monroe Anton
Played by: Nick Oliver
A past owner of Glory Island and founder of a cult dedicated to the Gloom. He’s dead by the time the game begins, but his shadow looms large over everyone on the island.
- Admiring the Abomination: His notes reveal that he was fascinated by the Gloom and its native inhabitants.
- Beam Spam: During his second boss battle, he fires bolts of prismatic energy at Jess.
- Flunky Boss: He has Gloom Cultists to help him in both his boss fights; in the second one, they do all the fighting for him. As it turns out, they’re only listening to him because he’s bathed in Prismic light; the instant that Jess cuts off the light, the cultists turn on him.
- Harem Seeker: He sought out the most attractive and pliable young women in the commune for “private lessons”.
- I Have No Son!: When Tyler tells Monroe that he’s his grandson, Monroe retorts that Tyler’s “bitch mother” abandoned him and the cult and kills him without remorse.
- Mad Scientist: He became obsessed with studying the Gloom and its potent effects on the human mind and body. He started out by experimenting on farm animals, but quickly graduated to using his own disciples, namely those who were too strong-willed or insightful to be controlled by his usual manipulative methods or who asked too many questions.
- Malevolent Masked Man: He first appears wearing an elaborate ritual mask designed to allow him to control and manipulate the Gloom’s energies.
- Manipulative Bastard: Monroe kept extensive notes on his disciples so that he could better learn to manipulate them. He deliberately invoked love triangles to break up couples, used rumors and gossip to end “unsanctioned” friendships, and generally played his followers off against each other to ensure that none of them grew powerful enough to challenge him.
- Pre-Final Boss: It seems like he’s going to be the final boss of the game, but then Hannah succumbs to the Gloom corruption and summons the real final boss.
- Puzzle Boss: A simple one. All Jess has to do is knock over three prism reflectors, which cuts off the light protecting him from his own Mooks.
- Vampiric Draining: He absorbs Tyler’s body and soul, which rejuvenates him into his younger self.
- Victory Fakeout: He goes down pretty easily in his first boss fight, but then he manages to absorb Tyler’s life force and reclaim his ritual mask, making him too strong to be fought directly.
