The Never Mythos Eldritch Beings / Characters

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The City

General

"Imagine pure, seething, undiluted rage. Every inch, every slight crease and wrinkle of that forsaken monstrosity, that spit upon comprehension, every nanometer a slavering, foam-mouthed, chaotic thing of primal rage congealed into a being of utter blasphemy and hate. It is an affront to God's name, an unfathomable rape on existence. Mankind is but a roadblock. It could swiftly destroy us as casually as if stepping on an ant, and the cosmos would shrivel in its wrath. Now... times that by twenty. Christian, this, is the City."

An ancient dimension that the enigmatic “Mr. Bright” comes out of one day teeming with eldritch creatures that descend upon Onolo in an earnest effort to rip it to shreds.

Blue-and-Orange Morality: The creatures of the City know nothing of human values save what the Consultant has tricked them into believing, and don't even understand the concept of death. They act less out of malice than sheer frustration and confusion with humanity's existence, which — mixed with the Consultant using them to repeatedly attack Earth — breeds destruction.
Eldritch Abomination: Every single one of them is a near-unspeakable alien monstrosity, often of the animalian flavor.
Unwitting Pawn: Of Lucia, who plays them all to her advantage for the sake of easing her search for Draynak's host and eventually in luring an ancient entity to their world for Draynak to feast upon.

The Passenger

Appears in: The City of Never | Empty Memories and Cold Graves

The first creature of the City that attacks Onolo. A colossal, rampaging monster capable of driving someone to catatonia with a single glance upon its amorphous, multi-limbed form, the Passenger is apparently one of the beings that serve as a member of the City's cult.

Brown Note: Its mere visage is one, driving Daniel to a day-long coma with a single glance and doing the same to many other fishermen during the attack on Onolo.
Expy: The Passenger resembles Ghatanothoa, a large, amorphous entity who's very visage is a Brown Note capable of instantly killing or driving to madness anyone who looks at it. Michael also likens its appearance to that of Eihort from Ramsey Campbell's stories.
Immune to Bullets: A constant barrage of gunfire from terrified fishermen only seems to vaguely agitate it.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has a veritable truckload of extra limbs it puts to good use when slaughtering dozens of fishermen.
What Happened to the Mouse?: It's nowhere to be seen after Draynak's stopped, although it can be presumed it was destroyed alongside the rest of the City.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Unlike its kin in the City whom people can look at without their brains folding on themselves, if not necessarily comprehend, Daniel's mind rejects the existence of the Passenger and essentially blacks out the second he looks at it directly.

The Mollusc

Appears in: The City of Never | Empty Memories and Cold Graves

A monster resembling a giant wad of meat twisted into the shape of an ammonite. Appearing to control the slag-behemoths, the Mollusc is apparently one of the creatures that comprise the City's cult.

Animalistic Abomination: Barely qualifies, but it's noted to somewhat resemble a mollusic comprised of flesh and thick growths.
Evil Is Visceral: More "eldritch" than "evil," but the description of the Mollusc is one of the most revolting, gory, and unpleasant in the entire story. It's a colossal wad of sentient flesh that constantly oozes disgusting fluids and is overgrown by a series of keratinous growths.
Expy: The Mollusc resembles Tsathoggua; a sedentary, immobile, disgusting creature with control over powerful, near-invulnerable creatures that do their bidding — the formless spawn for Tsathoggua, and the slag-behemoths for the Mollusc.
Small Role, Big Impact: Unlike the Passenger and the Priest (and the Needler, who only has one direct appearance but is alluded to as a “flame in the water” by a fisherman early on) the Mollusc only ever appears once in the City before it vanishes. Regardless, it's heavily implied to still being controlling the slag-behemoths, which are arguably the biggest threat during the attack on Onolo.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Nowhere to be seen once Draynak is defeated, although it was likely destroyed by the Emperor like the rest of the City — even more so than the rest, as there's no indication the Mollusc can leave the City or even move on its own accord.

The Needler

Appears in: The City of Never | Empty Memories and Cold Graves

An arachnidian entity that creates the slug-beings and the leeches seen in the story. Crowned with a magnificent, perpetually-burning flame upon it, the Needler is apparently one of the creatures that comprise the City's cult.

Big Creepy-Crawlies: More recognizably insectoid than many of its compatriots, although even that is loose.
Expy: The Needler visually resembles Atlach-Nacha, a spider-like abomination from the mind of Clark Ashton Smith, but its role is actually equivalent to Shub-Niggurath, a fertile being that produces and mothers an entire host of smaller entities it nourishes with its inner energies.
Giant Spider: A colossal, pale spider-like entity that stands just as tall as the Passenger.
Spiders Are Scary: Oh yes. The Needler's giant, fast, and terrifyingly brutal as it devours people left and right during the attack on Onolo.
Lamprey Mouth: Has one likened to the Saarlac it uses to devours its prey, lovingly and graphically described eating a person alive through it and leaving quite a mess in the process.
Lightning Bruiser: The Needler's not only a giant, menacing creature capable of shrugging off bullets and tearing apart a man with little effort whatsoever, it's also incredibly fast, more so than should be possible for its size.
What Happened to the Mouse?: It's nowhere to be seen after Draynak's stopped, although it can be presumed it was destroyed alongside the rest of the City.

The Priest

Appears in: The City of Never | Empty Memories and Cold Graves

The mysterious, vaguely humanoid entity that appears to lead the cult of the City. The Priest reveres an ancient, godly creature only known as “It” and appears to be invading Earth for the purpose of drawing it there – which would have apocalyptic repercussions.

Alas, Poor Villain: The Priest seems to come to terms with humanity in its final moments, with its final expression seemingly being a plead for them to escape as it's consumed by the Emperor.
Cruel and Unusual Death: Like all those devoured by the Emperor, the Priest is agonizing unmade by the Emperor's miasma and reduced to nothingness.
Expy: The Priest is somewhat more obscure, but it represents Cthulhu; a being explicitly shown to serve as the high priest of higher forces and arguably the most powerful and well-known of the City's creatures barring the Consultant.
High Priest: Named as such, and serves as this for the City's cult. Even if it is just a disposable figurehead the Consultant is using for its own ends.
Humanoid Abomination: Downplayed. No part of its disgusting, eldritch body is even remotely humanoid except for its face, which sort of resembles a human's with its jaw stretched all the way down to the bottom of its body.

The Shadows' Consultant

"Because I can. Because I will it. Because I hate."

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucia_7.png

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The emissary of the City. A masked, completely silent humanoid with a fondness for knives and leeches decked out in a leather coat, the Consultant differs from its brethren by virtue of being the only thing from the City capable of communicating with humans, leaving enigmatic, threatening messages all over the village and directly communicating with them in the underpass – while violently silencing everything else in its path. As the story goes on, the Consultant's role in the story proves to be far, far deeper than anyone else could initially suspect.

A God Am I: Downplayed, because Lucia actually used to be a god, and thus, her raging god complex and belief it is her right to torment and torture things simply because she's so utterly above them can be traced back to once having had the power to slake her thirst for power — and, once stripped of it, deciding to take all of existence to the grave with her in an epic Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum simply because they denied her her godhood.
Abusive Precursors: Lucia is a Daydreamer-one of the five goddesses who reigned over the Old World...however, Lucia was ruthlessly devoted to hurting all the people she could for sport, which got her kicked out of heaven by her fellow goddesses.
Archenemy: To Eliza Cortly. the Consultant has hounded her for centuries, and murders her students with frightening regularity, while Eliza can only rescue the Seers she can to vex the Consultant's plans.
Ax-Crazy: That thin veneer of sanity is just that: a veneer. Beneath it, the Consultant is a raging storm of sadism just waiting to be directed.
Big Bad:
- For The City of Never. The Priest may be the City's "leader," but the Shadows' Consultant is steadily revealed to be manipulating it and the entire human cast for its own purposes. It's ultimately subverted. Draynak is the true mastermind, and while the Consultant is hardly a loyal servant, everything she does is ultimately to free it from the Heart.
- Shaping up to be such for The Wolves of War. Not even Heydrich is aware that 'Helga' is, in fact, the Consultant helping to set up and fund the conspiracy for her own ends.
Big Bad Duumvirate: In Empty Memories and Cold Graves, the Consultant joins Nyarlathotep himself as chief villains of the story.
Birds of a Feather: Lucia implies one thing that made an impression on her was meeting the monstrous demon Azazel Baal from Reign in Hell, a fellow sociopath and sadist. She describes looking into his eyes as seeing herself.
Black Cloak: Conceals its identity and face through a thick, double-riders leather jacket and a totally obscuring black mask.
But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The Consultant learns that in spreading the Black Plague with Nyarlathotep, she helped to kill Hardestadt Delac's wife Maria in the 1300s. The Consultant's reaction to this after having no idea what Hardestadt is talking about? Is a bored, dismissive gesture approximating to 'whatever.'
You do not strain your mind over the reason you eat a meal every morning, midday and evening. You do not puzzle over the reasons you walk and you breathe. They are as everyday motions for me[...] something you couldn't possibly begin to fathom.
The Chessmaster: The Consultant plays almost every single character in the plot as pawns for some unknown end, manipulating Hansel into isolating himself into the City to eventually use him as a rod to find her next location to scout for her "candidates," haunting Christian's family line for years and forcing them to catalog the thoughts of everyone around them through the Memorycatcher, and endlessly fooling the creatures of the City itself by convincing them to form a cult dedicated to alien human values to summon an entity to their dimension, one that will eventually destroy both Earth and the City. Even Draynak is simply a tool to her, and it's all but explicitly stated that Lucia murdered a potentially perfect host for Draynak — Zyra Nyson, the artificial Seer that destroyed the Old World — simply to find a means to prolong her own vengeance against reality.
Classic Villain: Not obvious at first, but wrath. Lucia, through and through, is likened more to a " sentient, stinking hole of hatred" than anything truly alive, fueled by nothing more than nihilistic, hateful rage towards everything that lives.
Cold-Blooded Torture: The Consultant is a master at it and genuinely enjoys inflicting awful pain on living innocents.
Cruel and Unusual Death: Melted alive by the poisons of the Empire of Rain and rotted away in agonizing pain.
Determinator: A villainous variation, but the Consultant has apparently been active for billions of years on its own accord, ever since she was initially banished by the Daydreamers.
Disproportionate Retribution: Lucia seeks to wipe out countless lives across reality simply because she had her godhood stripped from her due to her rampant sadism.
Dragon-in-Chief: Serves as this to Draynak. While Draynak is by technicality the main antagonist, it spends three-fourths of the book sealed away unable to do anything except give Lucia her goals. It's Lucia's sadism, manipulations, and omnicidal drive, even outside of Draynak's wishes, that drive the plot, with even her dark master ultimately being nothing more than a tool for her ultimate goal to destroy everything and everyone.
Dragon with an Agenda: She cares nothing for Draynak or his goals. All she wants is to satisfy her own sadistic lust for revenge against all she considers beneath her.
Emotionless Girl: A fairly bizarre take on this, but Lucia is physically female and is virtually emotionless the whole way through, letting her cold ruthlessness and hatred drive her as opposed to her emotions.
Evil Is Not a Toy: Lucia's own hubris is what prevents her from seeing the Emperor of Rain is far too much for even her to control — which factors directly into her destruction at its hands at the end.
Evil Is Petty:
- When the chips are down, Lucia is at heart an insanely petty, spiteful monster who's entire mission in life is to get revenge on her sisters for stopping the abuse of her powers — something Lucia thought she had the right to do — via the extermination of all that lives. When this plan is waylaid? Lucia redirects her attention to Earth, vowing to find a destroy it purely to spite the few ragtag survivors who stopped her plan.
- The Consultant once decided to make Eliza's life hell, stalking her and her lover Aisling, murdering anyone who encountered them...for no other reason than Eliza was happy and the Consultant wished to destroy that. Once Aisling and Eliza split? The Consultant didn't look twice at Aisling.
Expy: The Shadows' Consultant is representative of Nyarlathotep, serving directly as the emissary of the eldritch forces. Further adding to this, not only does the Consultant take the form of multiple avatars to which to further its goals — those seen being the Consultant, "Shaw Sultan" and Helga Boehmer— but it's also explicitly the most human-like and sadistic of the eldritch creatures, fully capable of conversing with and manipulating humans for its own designs. Ultimately, the connotations become even more apparent when it's revealed the Consultant isn't the emissary of the City's creatures, but rather Draynak, who itself is the in-story equivalent of an Outer God. Unlike Nyarlathotep, who maintains a sadistic playfulness in most guises, Lucia is a vicious No-Nonsense Nemesis who is less interested in subtlety and more interested in just going to slaughter and torture things directly. This becomes even more apparent when they finally meet and Lucia clearly has nothing but impatience for his showy theatrics
Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: The Consultant is quite attractive beneath the mask. The Consultant is still a remorseless, monstrous sadist whose only joy is the pain of others.
The Faceless: The Consultant's face is completely blacked out by a tight, featureless black mask underneath the hood of its jacket.
Femme Fatalons: Under the outfit, it favors sharp, sharp claws.
Foil: While an Expy of Nyarlathotep, the recent crossover of The Kindness of Devils puts it as a foil to Nyarlathotep himself. While the two share levels of sadism, Nyarlathotep is grandiose, eloquent and charismatic while Lucia is ice-cold, no-nonsense and focused in her drive. Nyarlathotep is utterly fixated upon his impending godhood but is unable to resist leaving himself challenges, while Lucia is hell-bent on reality's destruction and does not allow for many by way of loose ends. Nyarlathotep also loves subtlety and complex manipulation while Lucia prefers to unleash monsters or her claws on anything before her. Turns out they are very, very aware of one another. Lucia just hates him.
The Heavy: She's not the Big Bad of the Mythos, but she is its most prominent and influential villain. Everything, from all the agony in Eliza's life, from the attack on Onolo, to the destruction of St. Howard's and the ruination of virtually everyone's lives in the story, all for the purpose of drawing Draynak into the world.
Hidden Agenda Villain: It's nakedly clear that the Consultant is planning something outside of the City's own desires, but what this is isn't revealed until the climax. This end goal being to rise her dark master Draynak out of its seal and obliterate the entirety of the Teraverse through it, all out of hateful vengeance for being stripped of her godhood in the past.
Humanoid Abomination: The Consultant is a terrifying entity, with a humanoid figure but several blatant things just wrong about its appearance. Considering the Consultant is in actuality a member of the godlike Daydreamers, this makes perfect sense.
Implacable Man: The Consultant is a beast to put Michael Myers to shame. It takes punishment and just keeps coming until it has its victims.
It's Personal: Most of the Consultant's victims are just toys to hurt or insects to her. There are three exceptions.
- Alessa Hopper helping to foil her plans results in an enraged Lucia abandoning all pretense of subtlety or caution to try to torture her to death.
- Eliza Cortly has foiled the Consultant less time and protected Seers from her for centuries. The Consultant holds a burning hatred towards her and relishes the chance to make her suffer.
- Hardestadt Delac is the only man to come close to killing her, interrupted only milliseconds before he could finish her off. The Consultant ends Empty Memories and Cold Graves brooding furiously over him and Eliza with a vow to break them as she's never broken anyone before.
It's Personal with the Dragon: Draynak lacks any spite or vendetta toward its pawns to really make things "personal." Lucia, on the other hand, ruins lives as easily as she breathes and manages to earn the ire of near every single hero in the saga.
Karmic Death: Speared in the face through one of her own victims (which Lucia prompts by mocking said victim about how she killed the kid's family) and is promptly destroyed by the very entity she intended to use as a means of drawing out her revenge against Earth in the most horrifying way possible — which only happened because Lucia threw herself into harm's way to sate her desire for revenge, something she'd otherwise been completely good about steering away from throughout the rest of the story.
Kick the Dog: Mocks Daniel over having kidnapped, tortured, and raped his children, even gloating that it did it to them all in his form to break them further.
Lack of Empathy: If you aren't Lucia, she doesn't care about your feelings or your problems.
Lightning Bruiser: The Consultant is fast and inhumanly strong as well.
Long Game: Give Lucia this...like her equally wicked counterpart Nyarlathotep (who exists in this universe as well), Lucia knows how to be patient, laying plans for a billion years to ensure the destruction of reality itself while manipulating others flawlessly to her ends.
Loves the Sound of Screaming: Stoops to her lowest when she mocks Alessa on how Crystal's screams while she was being tortured and violated were "lovely sounds to my ears."
Malevolent Masked Men: A butcher straight out of a slasher movie, complete with a face-obscuring mask that obscures every inch of the Consultant's face.
Mask of Sanity: The Consultant appears utterly relaxed when the mask comes off. This is just as much as mask as the featureless black one before. Beneath it is a maelstrom of raging fury, hate and cruelty that needs the slightest of triggers to direct.
Near-Villain Victory: Lucia comes within a hairsbreadth of her goal, managing to successfully raise Draynak from its seal without any real hiccup to her plan. The reason she fails? Draynak isn't quite as hellbent on obliterating reality as Lucia and Michael is able to talk it down. Even then, Lucia essentially just resolves to restart her goal by harnessing the powers of the Emperor, with only her insistence on taking her anger out on Earth allowing the Emperor to take her instead and finally destroy her once and for all.
Never My Fault: No, Lucia, you were not unjustly stripped of godhood and cast down to earth for no reason. It was done because you're a sadistic, twisted monster who was tormenting and destroying others for fun because you felt you had the right to. Not that Lucia will ever remotely acknowledge this or admit she had any role in her own fall from grace to begin with. Far easier to blame humanity and try to murder them.
No-Nonsense Nemesis: The Consultant does not screw around. It completely avoids any form of Evil Gloating, seems to know when not to mess around and reacts as if completely anticipating the usual cosmic horror stories tropes. People who have a grudge against it will be unceremoniously killed quickly and brutally as to prevent any interference, and all other threats and complications meet similar fates. Edison and the Blind — the latter of whom tries to force the Consultant to explain herself before she tears him to shreds — learn this the hard way, and this horrifying commitment and ruthlessness ends up assuring the rise of Draynak.
Noble Top Enforcer: Inverted. Drayank just wants freedom, and doesn't have a sadistic metaphorical bone him him. He's capable of reason, mercy and admitting he's wrong. Lucia, by contrast is a monstrous, brutal sadist out to kill whatever and whoever she can in the worst ways possible.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Lucia drops her stoicism and starts being oddly cheerful, one should watch out. She's furious.
Omnicidal Maniac: Lucia ultimately is scheming the end of all reality, as well as every single life within.
Psycho Knife Nut: The Consultant loves knives. The Consultant especially loves knives when they're going into people.
The Quiet One: The Shadows' Consultant never verbally speaks, and even when communicating telepathically via its leeches, it's curt and detached. This is a trait no less pronounced when she's Lucia, as it's revealed she was an Elective Mute as the Consultant who simply didn't think humanity was worth talking to — when she doffs the mask and the disguise, Lucia still rarely talks and usually talks in either direct statements or subdued mockery, with her vicious Motive Rant in the climax being the most she ever talks in the entire book.
Rage Against the Heavens: Went through this due to being exiled for her rampant sadism. She rages like hell at her divine former family as a result without every considering she may have been to blame. At the conclusion of The Wolves of War, Lucia evokes fury at her mother and sisters very directly.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Nyarlathotep's red. He's theatrical, energized and grandiloquent while the Consultant is extremely laid back and borderline stoic, with no patience for theatrics.
Revenge Before Reason: Her going after Katrina and Alessa at the end gets her killed.
Sadist: As she herself admits to, Lucia deeply enjoys hurting those weaker than herself, and it was this depraved mindset that got her expelled from her position in the Daydreamers.
Sadistic Choice: She gives Eliza an ultimatum to leave Hardestadt behind or Lucia will murder her former lover Aisling.
Samus Is a Girl: The Consultant's true name is Lucia, and it turns out she's actually a former member of an all-female race of gods called the Daydreamers that once ruled reality.
Serial Rapist: Lucia has no compunction violating others, have little Crystal Hopper raped with leeches and being fully willing to seduce others as per her needs. She rapes Hardestadt Delac himself at the conclusion of The Wolves of War as well via a Bed Trick.
The Stoic: Completely emotionless outside of vague flashes of sadism. She's no less so when she's revealed as Lucia, although her sadistic tendencies slip through a little more openly with a Psychotic Smirk or two.
Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: Lucia wishes to completely annihilate all reality out of petty spite, unleashing Draynak to consume the Teraverse, and herself along with it.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: One-sided, but the Consultant clearly despises Nyarlathotep. It will still work with him, but is basically seething just to see the twisted Outer God.
Token Evil Teammate: The Consultant is the only member of the City who is outright evil. Lucia is also the only Daydreamer who's evil. The others were only neglectful.
Torture Technician: Assumes this role when attending to the mysterious "candidates" it gathers. The Consultant has left thousands of half-Seers tortured, raped, and mutilated in the most savagely depraved ways possible behind it, even to the point of becoming contrary to Draynak's wishes of getting a host and instead serving to satisfy the Consultant's sick urge to torture everything underneath it.
Tranquil Fury: The Consultant showcases pure rage with outward calmness, even as it's preparing to slice someone apart.
The Unfettered: Absolutely nothing will stop the Consultant from pursuing its enigmatic goals. Not cold-blooded murder, not heartless manipulation, not the horrific torture, rape, and murder of thousands of half-Seers over a course of billions of years in an effort to find a host for Draynak. Everything and everyone is a tool for the Consultant to exploit for its own ends, even Draynak itself and even the Emperor of Ashen Rain.
The Vamp: The Consultant, when she's unmasked, is not above using her sexuality to her benefit. She remarks to Dietrich she has serviced him in bed far more often than she usually does with her pets and proxies.
Villain Ball: The Consultant, for the vast majority of the plot, is a ruthless, no-nonsense schemer who accomplishes its goals with almost no repercussions to itself in the first two thirds of the way in. In the climax, though, when her plot brought down. Lucia opts to, instead of escaping to safety as the City is consumed rapidly by the Emperor, slowly torture Alessa to death while the City's literal minutes away from being destroyed. It's this act of pointless, berserk spite that leads to Lucia being devoured by the Emperor before she even has a chance to get out.
Villainous Breakdown: Prior to Draynak's unsealing, Lucia is ruthless, pragmatic, and horrifyingly devoted to her goal and nothing else, sparing only brief moments to taunt and violate Christian and spitefully kick in Bright's ribs in and otherwise remaining a cold No-Nonsense Nemesis perpetually in control of the plot through her chessmaster tendencies who barely emotes or even talks, ultimately assuring the rise of Draynak. When Draynak is stopped, however? Lucia drops the stoicism and loses all vestige of control, letting the violent psychopathy, sadism, and pettiness that she had otherwise kept completely under control rise up to the surface, breaking into a hateful rant against life, attempting to torture Alessa to death, and vowing to obliterate Earth's dimension all out of nothing more than a means to take her anger out on something to cope with her billion-year plot being brought to ruin by "short-lived animals." While she's still outwardly in control of herself, it's her display of prior-unseen emotion and her violent insistence on assuaging her wounded pride that puts her directly in harm's way, allowing the Emperor to annihilate her.
Walking Spoiler: Initially just the mysterious, ruthless messenger of the City, but as the story goes on, the Consultant reveals itself as something much, much worse than anything else in the City.
Would Hurt a Child: The Consultant has made an art of this; the very first thing the Consultant does is attempt to butcher Katrina and Alessa, two fourteen-year-old girls, for apparently no reason at all, before following this up by slaughtering an entire family with the child not spared. This isn't even factoring in the countless villages and towns the Consultant has decimated with children — including Zyra, a thirteen-year-old girl whom the Consultant spitefully murders — very much caught in the fray. What it does to Crystal and Mark especially hurt, here; Crystal is horribly tortured, has her genitals penetrated by leeches, and left to literally rot in agony over a course of days by the Consultant, while Mark endures the same torture and is twisted into a pained, monstrous abomination. Crystal's a child and Mark is a baby when this happens to them.

The Blind

Appears in: The City of Never

"Why would you wish to return to your own doomed plane?"

One of the creatures from the City who Christian instead finds drifting on the far point of reality. Once a member of the cult of the City, the Blind was excommunicated and banished from the City for reasons unknown.

The Exile: Found itself banished to the furthest end of reality as a result of it having challenged the Consultant's manipulations, which displaced the City's own values.
Foil: To the Consultant. While both entities are capable of communicating with and even understanding humans, the Consultant is only bent on manipulating, using, and disposing them. The Blind, on the other hand, is a comparatively benevolent being who's studied for humans for centuries in an effort to try and save their realm from It.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Lucia kills it shortly after she unmasks herself, impaling it with her claws and tearing it through.
Mr. Exposition: Serves this role to Christian, explaining vital lore about the City and what it wants not longer after it reveals itself.
Token Good Teammate: To the City, being one of the only entities within it able to communicate with humanity and dedicating its existence to preserving humanity and protecting them from the Consultant's goals.

The Writhe

Appears in: Sangue Serenissima

A gargantuan, worm-like creatures that lives within the 'labyrinth,' a seemingly endless dessert populated by insect-like monsters. The Writhe seems to have no beginning or end and has no sentience as human may understand it, relying on psychic visions to lure in prey.

Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Writhe is an enormous, wormlike being that shifts beneath its sands endlessly, and its realm is populated by giant insect monsters that serve as food when it needs a bite.
Gravity Master: The Writhe can wield pure pressure and gravity as power, enough to crush a human into a pebble.
Non-Malicious Monster: The Writhe isn't malicious at all. It's simply a massive, hungry creature that must be stopped or escaped from as it is bound by Eliphas Coyte

The Scrambler

Appears in: Empty Memories and Cold Graves

A giant monster controlled by the Consultant that can reshape beings and 'blend' them together. The Scrambler is one of the more dangerous City Beasts.

Alas, Poor Villain: Hardestadt takes no pleasure in killing it, recognizing it as one of the Consultant's victims.
And I Must Scream: The Scrambler's victims are often merged into hideous tableaus of living flesh, and the Scrambler itself is bound in agony to the Consultant's control.
Body Horror: The fate of those taken by the Scrambler. They are blended with other City-Beasts or fused together into living walls of screaming flesh.
Co-Dragons: Serves as the most visible subordinate of the Consultant along with The Hyena.
Mercy Kill: Hardestadt recognizes the Scrambler's agony, and it welcomes the deathblow he gives it to liberate it.
Non-Malicious Monster: The Scrambler is only an enemy as it is being forcibly and painfully controlled by the Consultant to commit its horrific actions.

The Hyena

Appears in: Empty Memories and Cold Graves

A massive, red-furred creature that resembles a hyena, with a cackle to go along with it. The Hyena is a savage hunter and sadist that delights in bringing down its prey.

Bad Boss: It eats one of its own Hounds that just gets in the way when Hardestadt throws it at its pack.
Co-Dragons: Serves as the Consultant's most fearsome beast in its introductory story, along with the Scrambler.
Combat by Champion: It faces Hardestadt in the Scrambler's arena, surrounded by its Houdns, for the pleasure of the Consultant.
Combat Tentacles: The Hyena has giant tentacles that sprout from its shoulders, and uses them in combat.
Evil Laugh: The Hyena lets out high-pitched whooping cackles that reverberate in the victims' heads.
Healing Factor: The Hyena heals very swiftly, even regenerating lost limbs.
It Can Think: The Hyena quickly shows it's not just a mindless, hungry animal, but a cunning strategist.
Jawbreaker: Hardestadt, during their fight, wrenches open the Hyena's jaw and very savagely breaks it, wounding the beast severely.
Large and in Charge: The Hyena is massive, far bigger than any of its Hounds, and is clearly the pack leader.
Know When to Fold 'Em: When Hardestadt beats it into submission, the Hyena lowers its head submissively to the 'King of the Beasts.'
Sadist: Something that differentiates it from the other City Beasts? The Hyena relishes the pain and fear it causes, even keeping a snapped up torso to spit in front of Hardestadt, just to mock him.
Would Hurt a Child: The Hyena very deliberately goes out of its way to go for defenseless, innocent prey, particularly kids.

Xi'Acerbia

Ix Nagoth, The Ending Eye

Appears in: Sangue Serenissima | The Wolves of War

A mysterious and monstrous deity that lurks at the end of the Teraverse in a realm called Xi'Acerbia. The 'father' of Adam and his arch-enemy.

Abusive Parents: Adam is a created 'toy' of the Ending Eye, made to be a plaything for it, given he 'knows something of agony' beyond human comprehension. He's not the only one: Ix Nagoth has created countless beings for no purpose but endless torture. All for its cruel amusement.
Archnemesis Dad: The 'father' of Adam and Adam's sworn enemy.
Berserk Button: the Eye seems to like its worshipers leaving it as much as Nyarlathotep does, if its greedy, hungry reaction at Eliphas Coyte's return is any indication.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Practically the god of it. Xi'Acerbia is described as a world of the worst tortures imaginable, and Ix Nagoth presides over all of it, constantly creating or spiriting away new beings to ever fill the ranks of it.
The Dreaded: Of all the dark gods Eliphas Coyte is sworn to, he dreads the Eye the most. The Eye is hinted to be terrifying and falling into its clutches is considered the worst possible fate one can endure.
Fire and Brimstone Hell: From what little we know of its domain, there is eternal torture and fire there.
Giggling Villain: The little we have heard of Ix Nagoth so hard is wicked, demonic giggling.
Sadist:Ix Nagoth delights in agony and fear. It even creates beings to torture them, such as Adam himself.
Unseen Evil: Ix Nagoth's true form is never seen or perceived. All it is represented by is the image of its perpetually-watching eye.

Xol Malig

Appears in: The Wolves of War

"Happiness was never a choice. Release was never an option."

One of the Ix-spawn, and Adam's younger brother.

And Your Little Dog, Too!: In return for Adam's defiance, Malig gleefully assures him that he and Ix Nagoth have plans for Hardestadt and Eliza
Big Brother Bully: Inverted. Malig calls Adam 'big brother' yet gleefully recalls how he had a part in torturing Adam for an unspeakable amount of time.
Cain and Abel: Malig refers to Adam as a brother, both children of Ix Nagoth, the Ending Eye. While Adam is ruthless with a host of good qualities and benevolence, Malig is a vicious monster who gleefully remembers how he made Adam scream under his tortures.
The Dragon: Appears to be this to his father, Ix Nagoth, and an Eldritch Abomination in his own right.
Evil Gloating: Malig is thrilled to remind Adam of how Malig once made him scream.
Fantastic Racism: Malig thinks of human as 'shitbag meatballs' at best.
Mouth of Sauron: Ix Nagoth has never appeared directly, let alone said a word, so Malig does the communication for him, even possessing his servants directly.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Adam's comments imply most if not all the Ix-spawn are helpless against their father's tortures—except for Malig, who seems to gleefully bypass this and serves his father faithfully while helping to torture his own siblings.
No Sense of Personal Space: Through his host body, Malig gleefully lavishes attention on Adam while mocking and caressing him.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Oddly for an eldritch being of agony and torture, Malig is extremely coarse in language, while referring to Eliza as a 'white whore.'
Sophisticated as Hell: Malig talks with flowery language, only to throw in coarse and rough profanity through it.
Torture Technician: The son of Ix Nagoth, the god of torture, and every bit as rehearsed. Adam interrupts him while he's in the middle of conducting a "party" underneath a concentration camp. It is also revealed that unlike Malig's father, he was able to make Adam break his vow to never scream.
Sadist: As vile as his father, and perhaps even a bit worse in some aspects if some of his quips can be trusted. Malig even relishes in the long-term suffering in the aftermath of wars like World War II when his father tends to ignore it.
Too Kinky to Torture: Malig appears to relish agony, probably how he got the job of his father's chief lieutenant.

Adam

See The Never Mythos Others

Others

”It”

The unfathomably cosmic presence that the City reveres. It turns out the main purpose of the City's activity on Earth is to draw It to the City through Earth, which would unfortunately annihilate the latter in the process.

Dropped a Bridge on Him: It's only function to the Consultant's scheme is to be used as sustenance for Draynak. When Draynak resurrects and escapes the City, the very first thing it does is butcher and eat It.
Eldritch Abomination: Even compared to the beings of the City, It is a cosmic, world-ending presence capable of tearing apart Earth's entire universe simply by existing in it. Then it turns out it's remarkably lower down the ladder than previously thought, so much so that it's the first thing Draynak takes and eats in its absolute weakest form.

Spoiler Character

Draynak

Appears in: The City of Never | Empty Memories and Cold Graves

"What are we but fraying specks, consulting the nature of an orderless chaos that judges our very existence as meaningless?"

The being Lucia – aka the Shadows' Consultant – worships, and the ultimate Big Bad behind Lucia. An unfathomably old deity that once held the sum total of all knowledge in the Teraverse before a force of pure, horrifying evil called the Emperor of Ashen Rain corrupted it in an effort to destroy the Teraverse. Forcefully regressed to a weak form, its knowledge stolen from it, and its form locked away in a seal called the Heart, Draynak spent untold eons languishing in its seal with the hope to eventually free itself and regain the knowledge it lost. To this end, Draynak takes to using Lucia in its scheme to ultimately break free by using a descendant of the Seers to hook to the Remeditary and draw its form into them, allowing it to take form in the physical realm once more.

Above Good and Evil: Given that Draynak was once an omniscient, omnipotent god who gave no more thought to the life in the Teraverse as ants in the ground, conventional notions of good and evil don't apply to it, even baffling Draynak in how deliberate they are.
Affably Evil: For a given definition of “evil,” Draynak is still remarkably courteous, patient, and well-spoken with the mortals it's seeking to destroy, even telling Lucia to spare the citizens of Onolo as “their time will come later.”
Ancient Evil: A being that existed since the beginning of the Teraverse, having existed enough to pack the entirety of Earth's life "a vigintillion times over" — that opens up the fourth act by rising from its seal.
Anti-Villain: Draynak isn't evil or malicious by a long-shot, but it's wholly unconcerned with the entirety of the Teraverse as it still considers it to be beneath its notice. The final confrontation with Draynak isn't an epic fight, but rather Michael trying to gently talk Draynak into accepting the inevitable and realizing that all life is precious – leading to Draynak to willingly regressing its own form in some effort to comprehend the life it had once dismissed as meaningless.
The Assimilator: Draynak's scheme to empower itself after it's freed from the Heart is to assimilate a number of higher beings and assimilate their power into it, starting with It and working its way up the ladder until it retains the full scope of the power that was taken from it in the first place.
Big Bad: Ultimately, all the schemes of Lucia fall back to Draynak's bid to escape its seal and destroy the Teraverse to perpetuate its own existence.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: As a result of being a godly Eldritch Abomination that was once above all of existence and seeks to be again, Draynak's desires are familiar in the sense that it, too, wants to survive – but its morals are what create the conflict between it and humanity, as it also doesn't see anything necessarily wrong it tearing apart existence itself to do so.
Character Filibuster: Draynak has a lot of grand, epic speeches toward the end of the book, some serving to bring some clarity onto its schemes but others to outline its own bizarre morality and challenge Michael's.
The Chessmaster: Seamlessly arranges all of Lucia's plots in a complicated scheme to free itself, managing to indirectly make pawns of virtually every single character in the plot in the process. Fittingly enough, Draynak remarks that the game of chess and the concept of “pawns” is what gave it ease in manipulating all the events, and the Heart is decked out with a gigantic chess table to complete this metaphor.
Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu: The final “battle” between Michael and Draynak is essentially an extended philosophical debate between the two over a board of chess.
Eldritch Abomination: Even by the standards of the story, Draynak fits this; even at its weakest, Draynak is still a bizarre, horrifying entity barely able to be looked upon by humans capable of growing even stronger and more eldritch through the assimilation of other entities, to the point where it can eventually shred through the Teraverse with little effort at all and contain the entirety of reality's knowledge within its mind (which itself can be turned into a nearly-perfect Lotus-Eater Machine for Michael even at Draynak's weakest). Even it is nothing compared to the Emperor of Ashen Rain, though.
Even Evil Has Standards: Draynak isn't exactly evil, but it is incredibly amoral and detached from conventional reality. Even it, however, is disgusted by Lucia's nightmarishly evil behavior towards everyone around her.
Expy: Draynak itself is one of these to Yog-Sothoth, down to initially appearing as a gathering of "sleek, iridescent spheres," which is how Yog-Sothoth is usually presented, naming two of its own names as "the Gate" and "Aforgomon," both canonical avatars of Yog-Sothoth, and existing as an entity which once held the entirety of reality's knowledge within its endless mind. Parts of its dialogue are also direct shout-outs to its conversation with Randolph Carter in Through the Gates of the Silver Key.
Foil: With the Kindness of Devils crossover, Draynak becomes one to Yog-Sothoth himself. Both are Eldritch Abomination entities and keepers of great knowledge, but while Draynak is imprisoned, Yog-Sothoth is as powerful as ever. While Draynak can be talked down and is non-malicious, Yog-Sothoth is unbelievably callous and refuses to even consider the needs of humans. While Michael reaches Draynak at the end, Yog-Sothoth coldly leaves Erin Hasegawa to her own fate without another word the second she ceases being useful.
Graceful Loser: When Michael manages to overcome Draynak's test, Draynak ultimately concedes to his agreement honorably and fairly, with its only request being to retain a small portion of its power as the rest goes to Michael to live as a small, powerless entity and gain a second chance at life in a new form. Michael happily obliges.
Heel–Face Turn: Though not much of a heel in the typical sense, Draynak is still an amoral god who sees nothing morally wrong with destroying all of reality. Michael manages to talk it down, get it to consider the consequences of its actions, the genuine virtue of life underneath it, and how even Draynak is no different from the life underneath it, ultimately convincing Draynak to abandon its scheme and regress itself to a form where it can wander around the Teraverse and take a second chance at life.
Lack of Empathy: Perhaps the closest it gets to a true Kick the Dog moment is its stunning lack of regard for Daniel losing his daughter Crystal (whom Draynak's taken as a host) and essentially telling him "get over it" when he hits the Despair Event Horizon as a result.
Light Is Not Good: Every single inch of Draynak is spilling with radiant, holy light. This does not mean it's benevolent.
Lotus-Eater Machine: Draynak conjures up one of these for Michael as a test in the climax, telling him to find the most valuable thing in a world that's completely tailored to Michael's personal fantasy – with the addendum that if he doesn't, he'll be wandering around in the fantasy world forever. Ultimately, Michael's character development means he picks up ostensibly the least appealing object within (a flickering, busted lamp) and explaining to Draynak that change is the most valuable thing in that world, with the only sign of it in an unchanging fantasy being the most powerful thing he can find within.
The Man Behind the Man: To Lucia. While Lucia fancies herself The Starscream and Draynak is a Sealed Evil in a Can for a long time, everything ultimately comes back to its own direction.
Omnicidal Maniac: Draynak seeks to destroy the Teraverse as it views it as a prison keeping it away from its own immortality. Unlike many instances of the trope, Draynak actually treats this as completely impersonal and the climax is devoted to making it realize the repercussions of its own Blue-and-Orange Morality.
Omniscient Morality License: Draynak believes itself to have one of these, casually shrugging off that its manipulations result in the carnage and slaughter of thousands if not millions of innocents on Earth, the horrific violation and death of thousands more half-Seers in an effort to find it a host, the destruction of Onolo and the near-destruction of the entire universe, and the ruination of the lives of all those it manipulates – most directly Hansel, whom Draynak implants the knowledge of the Redemeditary and the City into before allowing Lucia to cast him into the City for years – with the excuse that it just wants to survive like anyone else. Michael manages to convince it that even it is no more immune to the winds of change itself and that it's not quite as above all of this as it thinks it is.
Reasoning with God: The entire confrontation between Michael and Draynak is essentially Michael trying to convince Draynak to leave the Teraverse alone.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Not evil, per se, but a destructive, amoral force that orchestrates everything in order to break out of the Heart (which is sealed within the City).
The Stoic: Always perpetually emotionless and controlled when talking with others, a further hint that Draynak is entirely above human conceptions.
Time Abyss: Draynak has existed since the beginning of reality itself, making even the billion-year-old Lucia look comparatively young.
Walking Spoiler: By far the biggest one in the plot.
Would Hurt a Child: By proxy of Lucia, Draynak masterminds Crystal's horrible torture and rape so it can use her as its host, ultimately killing the poor girl when it possesses her body and casually brushing off her death when her anguished father Daniel confronts it over the matter.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Downplayed. Draynak dismisses all mankind as "no longer needed" after it finishes taking its host and moves to consume reality, although Draynak later remarks that's a process that could potentially take trillions of years to humanity — and its last words to the Onolonians are "may you live your days unperturbed by our affairs."

Spoiler Character

The Emperor of Ashen Rain

Appears in: The City of Never

A horrifying, all-powerful entity locked outside the Teraverse and the being responsible for corrupting Draynak in the first place.

Eldritch Abomination: The greatest, most powerful one in the story; a formless, endless, ageless evil that exists outside reality, responsible for having corrupted and regressed the in-universe equivalent of Yog-Sothoth and capable of reducing entire dimensions to formless chaos in its blind efforts to get back into the Teraverse.
Expy: Of Azathoth; a primordial being older and stronger than even Draynak that exists outside the universe, turning everything around it into a mesh of horrible, incomprehensible chaos. It's even name-dropped as a "daemon sultan" by Draynak itself, which itself is one of Azathoth's many names in the Mythos.
Greater-Scope Villain: Serves as this not only for The City of Never, but the greater Never Mythos. Draynak is the Big Bad, but even it has nothing on the Emperor, who corrupted Draynak in the first place and remains entirely uninvolved with the plot up until it destroys the City after Draynak is unsealed. Furthermore, the Emperor is remarked to be the father of Ix Nagoth, the setting's resident god of Cold-Blooded Torture, as well as other powerful abominations only obliquely described.
Unseen Evil: Fittingly enough, the biggest Eldritch Abomination in the story is also the one that's never fully seen. The most we ever get is the miasma it exudes, which destroys everyone and everything in its path.
Walking Spoiler: Similar to Draynak, who itself is a Walking Spoiler but who's existence is necessary to know of the Emperor's role in the story.

"Vladik Cardinous"

Appears in: The Red Monarch

"Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."

A man out to create a special animated film called The Red Monarch. Far more than he initially appears.

Big Bad: The main villain of The Red Monarch.
Brown Note: Uses the Red Monarch to twist minds rather fiendishly.
Card-Carrying Villain: Cheerfully refers to himself as "your preeminent author of youthful insanity."
Eldritch Abomination: What he truly is: a mysterious, almost incomprehensible monstrosity from another dimension out to completely wreck the world.
Large Ham: Has only one scene of dialogue but it's one hell of a memorable evil speech.
More than Mind Control: Able to bind the wills of others to his own, bringing them to Brilliance Studios to be his slaves in working on the film, the Red Monarch.
Sadist: Out to savor the pain of others.
Take Over the World: His ultimate plan, in horrifying fashion.

Il Padre

Appears in: Valentine | Valentine Man

The monstrous "dark divinity" underneath Bacio, Italy that Helen Valentine is wed to.

Body Horror: It's a seething mass of horrific flesh and viscera.
Brainwashing: The Padre appears able to convert foreigners from Bacio into its followers.
The Dog Bites Back: Thanks to Henri, it finally gets its revenge on Helen for keeping it as a Sex Slave for centuries.
Evil Is Visceral: From what we see of it, the Padre is monstrously graphic, resembling a mountain of human heartflesh and viscera. Valentine Man reveals that it was twisted into such a monstrous shape by Helen.
It Can Think: Implied. The Padre never communicates with anyone onscreen as anything more than a shapeless, seemingly-mindless Eldritch Abomination, but Helen claims it talked to her, calling itself a "dark divinity" that had been lingering underneath Italy for "some time." Valentine Man has it mentally communicate with Henri, expressing it's desire to be freed from Helen.
Mother of a Thousand Young: Inverted. It's the father of many of the residents of Bacio through Helen.
Non-Malicious Monster: It doesn't seem to have a nasty ounce of personality to it. It's enslaved by Helen and forced to evil, all but begging Henri to save it when they communicate.
Religion of Evil: The Padre is the central icon of one, a cult dedicated to its worship founded by Helen and spread through Bacio.
Sex Slave: Revealed in Valentine Man that it has no agency in its deeds. Helen has enslaved it and uses it as her toy.
Unholy Matrimony: With a (formerly) normal human woman, at that. Frighteningly enough, she seems to be the more evil of the duo. Valentine Man reveals this not to be the case as it has actually been enslaved by Helen.
You Sexy Beast: Helen considers the Padre to be the ultimate icon of lust and carnality. This is an opinion she alone shares.

Masque

Appears in: Sangue Serenissima | The Wolves of War | Stories Never Told

An eldritch god who offers anyone what they desire in return for a terrible price.

Antagonistic Offspring: Masque is the brother of Ix Nagoth, as well as 'The Black Piper and the Lifebane,' all children of the Emperor of Ashen Rain, whom Masque seems to have no love lost with.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Masque seems to have odd views on morals and does not even consider the pain caused by the prices of its demands.
Cain and Abel: The Wolves of War reveals him to be helping Adam in his plans to destroy the sadistic Ending Eye, who Masque considers a brother. He also plans of doing the same with other Eldritch beings such as the Black Piper and the Lifebane, but Adam wants no part.
Jackass Genie: Masque will give you anything you want, but the price will be awful in the end.
Make a Wish: Masque's raison d'etre is to be called for any wish the wisher might desire. Masque is implied to be able to grant anything.
Manipulative Bastard: Masque is seemingly leading Adam into a scheme to destroy his hated brother Ix Nagoth, and is clearly using Adam's hatred of Ix to do so.
Perpetual Smiler: It's rare Masque isn't smiling, sinister as it may be.
Villain in a White Suit: The evil-ish god Masque appears in a beautiful white suit.
Wild Card: Masque is opposed to the Emperor of Ashen Rain and his siblings, but this does not make him a force for good. Masque can be equally dangerous as many villains depending on what wish he is receiving...and this assumes he's not actively cultivating others to make wishes with him.

Characters / The Never Mythos Eldritch Beings

The City

Xi'Acerbia

Others

Draynak

The Emperor of Ashen Rain

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Characters / The Never Mythos Eldritch Beings

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