open/close all folders
Campaign Protagonists
Krilian
Kirilian
The Jerkass Genie himself and avatar of the titular Fear Machine, appearing as a toy fortune teller in the machine. While not directly playable he is the tutorial guide and deceptive mentor to all of the protagonists, using the power of the Fear Machine.- Been There, Shaped History: Among other things, one of the former users of the Fear Machine was Josef Stalin.
- Big Bad: The central villain of the story, and our guide. It's that kind of game.
- Deal with the Devil: Specializes in creating these, promising to help any who provide a coin and their story fulfill any desire they name. He makes good on his word but not the spirit.
- Eldritch Abomination: Downplayed but there. As an embodiment of the Fear Machine made manifest, he is highly intelligent and has powers that no coin operated machine doll should have.
- Exact Words: As befitting his Jerkass Genie title, he will fulfill all deals you make to the Letter. The spirit, on the other hand....
- Jerkass Genie: Be very very careful about how you word your wishes during the deal. Except Santos, every single protagonist in the game walks themselves right into trouble
Jen
Jen Hammond
Jen Hammond is a scientist and rising executive at Phadro Pharm, a major pharmaceutical company. Following a neglected childhood from her world famous scientist parents she has developed a deep seated obsession with eyes and being seen. Her wish is to rise to a position where the eyes of the entire world are on her.- Attention Whore: Jen is obsessed with receiving attention and is willing to give up billions of dollars and kill countless people to ensure that the world is looking at her.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: She frequently vivisected her childhood pets and treated them more as test subjects than companions.
- Body Motifs: Jen has an obsession with eyes both literal and metaphorical. Literally she removes the eyes from everything she has dissected and vivisected and keeps them preserved in jars in her home and office. Metaphorically she wants the world's eyes on her as part of her desperate need for attention. Her eventual death comes from bleeding out after having her eyes ripped out by an angry mob and her servant form has only empty sockets where her eyes should be.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: An angry mob eventually rips her eyes out to bypass her retinal scanner.
- Chronic Pet Killer: Her childhood pets had a tendency to be treated as lab animals and subjects for vivisection rather than any sort of companions.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Once Jen has control of Phadro she immediately starts producing extremely addictive opioids while covering up any evidence of the harm her products do.
- Crutch Character: When she shows up as a servant during Jimmy’s campaign she starts with very high initial stats compared to her counterpart Dante. However she can't level up like Dante so the player has to be careful to not let her steal all the xp.
- Dying Alone: The mob who kill her leave her forgotten to die alone in her office as they loot her vault. This is part of her Karmic Death since she ultimately dies forgotten after all she did to get attention.
- Daddy Didn't Show: Her parents were frequently absent when she was growing up and didn't even show up to her graduation.
- Didn't Think This Through: She wanted the eyes of the world on her, hanging on her every word. She decided to accomplish this goal by making a Deal with the Devil and manufacturing drugs and plagues. Little did she realize that a world that is hanging on her every word and obsessively watching her might decide to simply kill her.
- Embarrassing Nickname: She can end up being known as Queen of the Pigs in Italy after Briosca publicizes her experiments with infected pigs.
- Freudian Excuse: Her many issues stem at least in part from a combination of parental neglect and a desire to impress her absent parents.
- Karmic Death: Her eventual death is karmic in at least three different ways. First, she is eventually killed by an angry mob concerned about a disease she both initially created and which she hyped up the threat of for profit and attention. So irrational fear is both the reason she rose in the world and her eventual downfall. Second, the mob rips out her eyes to get into her vault full of vaccines, unknowingly recreating the fate she inflicted on many pets and lab animals. Finally, immediately after ripping her eyes out the mob leaves to loot the vault, meaning that after years of trying to get public attention she gets it briefly and painfully before becoming ignored once again. She eventually bleeds out alone and blinded in her office with not a single person paying attention to her as she dies.
- Poison and Cure Gambit: Subverted. Jen bio engineers a deadly but not very transmissible plague and makes sure it is released into the world after she has already developed a vaccine for it. However, she is not doing this to profit from selling the vaccine but just to get the eyes of the world on her.
- Predecessor Villain: She's dead by the time the second campaign starts and even shows up as a servant. She's still responsible for creating Nolopaine and therefore Jimmy's descent into addiction.
- The Sociopath: By the time the first mission is over, Jen has either been cemented as this or something close. While somewhat sympathetic due to her lonely upbringing, it is undermined by her sadism and habit of vivisecting her own pets to collect their eyes. She also displays a great deal of cruelty and ambition, but no real shame or hesitation. All in order to pursue an utterly selfish goal.
- Torn Apart by the Mob: She is eventually attacked and killed by an angry mob who rip out her eyes and use them to bypass her retinal scanner.
- Withholding the Cure: Jen’s end goal is to manufacture a disease that will cause widespread panic, announce that her company has developed a vaccine and cause everyone in the world to hang on her every word for news about the vaccine. Since actually releasing the vaccine would cause her to lose the attention she craves, she intends to keep the vaccine locked up forever.
Jimmy
James Franklin “Jimmy” Grier
Jimmy Grier is a hapless and dimwitted insurance salesman with a powerful addiction to Nolopaine. He wishes to have a steady supply of drugs for the rest of his life, and Kirlian gets him to use fear as a tool to build his business and run for public office on the back of public paranoia.- As You Know: He frequently is on the receiving end of other characters explaining things he probably should already know. This works for him because he generally doesn't understand what they are talking about anyway.
- Addled Addict: By the time he makes a deal with Kirlian his opioid addiction has already reached a point where his hands shake badly when he is experiencing withdrawal. By the time he starts running for mayor he's frequently drugging himself into a stupor.
- Black Republican: Exaggerated. Jimmy is an African American man who agrees to run for political office under the outright racist, xenophobic, far-right Our Country Party. Elie eventually warns him to look in the mirror and realize that his allies will never accept him, and she's proven right when he's killed by a mob of his own rioting supporters without them even recognizing him.
- Body Motifs: Hands. He wants a supply of drug to stop his shaking hands, his campaign is all about having the world in his hands and he dies once he gets his hands on Nolopaine.
- Corrupt Politician: In his election campaign he uses every dirty trick in the book, from smear campaigns to blackmail to leaking nude photos to discredit his opponent. Once he's actually elected he never manages to to take office because he is killed while buying drugs on election night.
- Didn't Think This Through: Part of his Establishing Character Moment is forgetting to bring a coin with him to make the deal with Kirlian. He also makes a deal with Kirlian that involves him getting drugs “For the rest of his life” leaving a massive loophole so it's easy for Kirlian to justify arranging his death whenever he wants.
- The Ditz: Jimmy is not clever at all. As an example, compared to the multipart puzzle culminating in a clue hidden in the Times crossword Jen had to solve and Santos having to wander the desert for days to find the Machine, Kirlian put his puzzle for Jimmy on a maze that came with a fast food kiddie meal. Jimmy still struggled to complete that puzzle.
- Feigning Intelligence: He often claims to know much more about what he's doing to avoid admitting just how over his head he is.
- Good Is Dumb: Jimmy is rather dim and easily the nicest of the three protagonists and the one who is least willing to harm others to achieve his goals. However his lack of intelligence also makes him easily manipulated by those around him.
- Karmic Death: The angry mob of rioters and vigilantes that eventually kill him were initially inspired by his rhetoric and fearmongering.
- Humble Goal: Compared to the global consequences of Jen, Santos, and Brubeck’s deals, Jimmy just wants to have enough drugs to fuel his addiction.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Downplayed relative to his peers since all of the protagonists get worse as the campaign goes on, but Jen and arguably Santos were already villains. In contrast Jimmy was a drug addict who gets in over his head.
- No-Respect Guy: Before making his deal with Kirlian, Jimmy was an unpopular insurance salesman looked down on by those around him. After making the deal he grows a strong following of customers, but still fails to gain the respect of anyone who regularly interacts with him like Kirlian or Brubeck.
- Tell Me Again: He frequently asks people to explain details to him again to help cover up the fact that he's out of his depth or forgetting vital information.
- Too Dumb to Live: Jimmy made a deal with a Jackass Genie where they give him something "for the rest of his life". He never thought that Kirlian could fulfill his end of the deal by just killing him.
- Unwitting Pawn: Brubeck is using Jimmy to shore up a win for his party as he prepares a presidential run and openly calls him a manipulable idiot to his inner circle. It's also implied that Kirlian only let Jimmy find the machine in the first place so he could be used by Brubeck since Kirlian talks about going out of his way to make it easy for Jimmy to find the machine then kills him as soon as Brubeck gets what he needs from Jimmy.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Ed, the owner of his local pharmacy, remembers Jimmy coming in as a child and getting candy from the store. Ed's dismayed to see Jimmy coming in to try and beg drugs off of him.
Santos
Santos
Santos is a Televangelist whose trademark stigmata have not been enough to get him the following he desires. He wishes to grow his flock and lead them to his promised land and into paradise.- As the Good Book Says...: Santos is constantly quoting the bible as a way to showcase his own religiosity and to justify his actions.
- Badass Preacher: Santos starts his campaign traveling through harsh desert for days to find the fear machine. He is also notably the only protagonist to get into physical combat when he leads his followers against the military of Ilsa Verde and later Zoe's rebels.
- Believing Their Own Lies: He points to his stigmata as proof of his blessings from God. When Kirlian points out he made them himself, he deflects by saying he made them because God commanded him too.
- But Not Too Foreign: Santos is an example of the "Born in one country, raised in another" variation. He was raised in a Mexican orphanage but the items left with him when he was dropped off heavily imply he's the child of a US border patrol agent. It becomes a plot point when the very xenophobic Brubeck campaign uses it to justify him campaigning for them.
- Doorstop Baby: Santos was left on the doorstep of an orphanage as a child.
- Greedy Televangelist: Subverted. Santos is a Fundamentalist preacher whose early following comes from his televangelism and who is not above getting his followers to send him money and trying to wring out as much ad revenue as possible. However once he has enough money and resources to lead his followers to his promised land, he abandons the pursuit of money showing that he only ever cared about it as a tool to reach his actual goals. Notably his rival in the second stage, an actual Greedy Televangelist, is horrified when she realizes he actually is as much of a fanatic as he presents himself as and it's not a ruse for money and power.
- Impaled Palm: He created his own stigmata using a nail.
- Only One Name: He was only ever given one name at the orphanage he was raised at, Santos. While he's assisting with the Brubeck campaign he will temporarily adopt a surname, but he gives up the surname as soon as it's no longer needed, showing he prefers just to be known as Santos.
- Religion of Evil: By the end of his campaign he is encouraging his followers to censor parts of the bible, suggesting that the Cult of Santos has theologically gone so far away from Christianity to become its own religion.
