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The Protagonist
Paul Prospero
Paul Prospero
- Voiced by: Marty Allen
The main protagonist, a private detective with enigmatic powers that allow him to see things others can't. He's brought to Red Creek Valley after young Ethan sends him a fan letter, and is tasked with slowly piecing together what happened in the town and where Ethan is.
- Alliterative Name
- Hardboiled Detective: Ticks off every stereotype of the classic noir detectives, because Ethan invented him with those in mind.
- Late to the Tragedy: He enters Red Creek Valley only after it's become a Ghost Town and has no idea what happened.
- Noodle Incident: He alludes to a lot of previous cases, but we're only privy to the details of his investigation in Red Creek Valley. They're all in Ethan's head, anyway.
- Occult Detective: He regularly deals with supernatural phenomena and solves cases by piecing together and viewing events of the past.
- Psychopomp: One of his roles tied with solving mysteries involves him helping ghosts make peace with their deaths. He helps his creator, Ethan, "let go" at the end of the game while assuring him that his was a "fine story".
- Tomato in the Mirror: Played with. The revelation that he never existed before Ethan dreamed him up comes as a shock, but Paul adjusts pretty quickly and states that he feels like he always knew.
- Walking Spoiler: Due to how little information is given about him otherwise, it's tough to talk about him without mentioning his true nature.
The Carter Family
Ethan Carter
Ethan Carter
- Voiced by: Jake Amigo
A young resident of Red Creek Valley with a fondness for writing and telling stories, which gets him ostracized in the heavily traditional environment. He vanishes along with the rest of his town, though he has written a letter to Paul Prospero asking him to visit.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: How his family sees him due to his love for storytelling.
- Cruel Twist Ending: All of his stories with the notable exception of the alchemist's end in poetic death and mayhem for either the protagonist or those accosting him. That Paul Prospero's tale finishes with him being confronted by the reality that he is a fictional character in the mind of a dying boy is one of the happier conclusions is saying something.
- Dead All Along: He suffocates from smoke inhalation after his mother accidentally lights the Vandergriff house on fire. Paul Prospero's reason for existing is to find him and help him accept this.
- Like Father, Like Son: Both Dale and Ethan have creative tendencies - Dale is an unsuccessful inventor, Ethan writes stories - that the rest of their family is not understanding or supportive of. They both have their secret bases - the mines and the Vandegriff house - where they pursue these hobbies because of this. Their similarity is probably the reason, Dale takes Ethan's side throughout the events of the game.
- Mr. Imagination: His horror stories are scattered throughout the game. His family is not fond of them. At the end it is revealed that the whole game is just his imagination. His other stories are real, though, and his family really doesn't like them.
- Reality Warper: It quickly becomes apparent that his stories are affecting reality, as Paul Prospero encounters various events based on his ideas. Subverted, as the whole game is one of his stories.
- Sole Survivor: He wrote the letter to Paul Prospero after eluding his family and is hiding out somewhere, waiting to meet him. In the end, it's inverted: he's the only character who really died.
- The Unfavorite: Nobody in his family cares for him very much, with the possible exception of his father. Though in real life, they're all willing to band together to try to stop him from being burned alive.
Missy Carter
Missy Carter
- Voiced by: Ashley Laurence
Ethan's mother.
- Abusive Parents: Emotionally abusive toward Ethan. Then she starts trying to outright kill him.
- Big Bad: Leads the Carter family's attempts to kill Ethan. Ethan may be portraying her this way because she had the biggest role in his death.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Dale, her husband, betrays and kills her when the search for Ethan becomes too much.
- Evil Matriarch: While one of the story sequences shows that she has some care for Ethan, she loses her temper frequently and treats him coldly for his unconventional behavior - and then, of course, she starts trying to kill him. While it's less apparent in the real world, she's still no prize.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In real life, while she's not the best mother in the world, she cares enough about her son's wellbeing to spend a whole day searching for him in the woods, and when she accidentally sets fire to the house Ethan is hiding in, she organizes the whole family in an attempt to save his life.
- Karmic Death: She slowly drowned in the mines when her husband, who has snapped after being forced to hunt down his son, tricks her into entering an elevator that connects to a flooded shaft.
- Kill It with Water: Dale locks her in a mining elevator and lowers her into a flooded tunnel when hunting his son breaks him.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In the real world, her lantern sets fire to the Vandergriff house when she turns to admonish Chad and Travis, resulting in Ethan's death.
Dale Carter
Dale Carter
- Voiced by: Michael Sinterniklaas
Ethan's father.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Stabs himself with scissors when cornered by an axe-wielding Travis.
- Big Good: Secretly helps Ethan elude the other family members and even takes Missy out of the equation himself.
- Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Unlike most of Ethan's stories and his family, who are more associated with fire (Ed's campfire and the Sap story, Missy's lantern, the fire in the crypt, ...), water has a strong presence where Dale plays an active role - he drowns Missy, tells Ethan to escape through a path filled with water, the story Ethan showed him is about the Sea-Thing and he dies near the dam. After solving his death, you have to close the dam gates and lower the river's level. In the real world, he is also the one carrying the water buckets to the burning Vandegriff house in an attempt to rescue Ethan. The distinction makes sense, considering he is pretty much the Big Good of the game.
- Henpecked Husband: It's clear that he only goes along with Missy's plans out of fear and cowardice.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Stabs himself in the throat with a pair of scissors.
- Like Father, Like Son: Both Dale and Ethan have creative tendencies - Dale is an unsuccessful inventor, Ethan writes stories - that the rest of their family is not understanding or supportive of. They both have their secret bases - the mines and the Vandegriff house - where they pursue these activities because of this. Their similarity is probably the reason, Dale takes Ethan's side throughout the events of the game.
- Only Sane Man: He is not stricken with murderous rage toward Ethan and actively tries to help him at some points, ultimately trapping and drowning Missy when she comes close to finding Ethan in the mines.
Travis Carter
Travis Carter
- Voiced by: Kyle Harrington
Ethan's older brother.
- Ax-Crazy: The most violent and unstable member of the Carter family. Not that it's saying much.
- Big Brother Bully: Highly antagonistic toward Ethan even before the family becomes outright murderous, frequently hurting him and destroying his stories. This applies to both the dream world and real life.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: He gets run over by a train, which severs his legs at the knee. After crawling in agony for a short distance, Ed beats him to death with the train's crank to finish him off.
- The Dragon: To Missy, once the family starts hunting Ethan.
- Dragon Their Feet: Travis outlives Missy by a few hours and makes one last attempt on Ethan's life before dying himself.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He tied Ethan to train tracks and tried to have the train run him over. After Ed knocked him out, it hit him instead.
- Jerkass: Especially to Ethan.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Gets run over by the train immediately after trying to kill Ethan with it.
- In real life, he is shown catching fire while trying to help staunch the blaze he helped indirectly cause. Ed is trying to put him out while he panics, but he isn't likely to forget it.
Ed Carter
Ed Carter
- Voiced by: Steve Hirsh
Ethan's grandfather.
- The Alcoholic: Starts fleeing into the woods to drink after his wife dies in the Vandergriff house fire. Ethan bases his "Sap" story off of this.
- Big Damn Heroes: He saves Ethan's life when Travis comes close to killing him.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sits down and allows himself to burn, knowing that the Sleeper's inner sanctum is influenced by painful deaths.
- Out of Focus: He doesn't appear much throughout the story, as he is not among the people actively hunting Ethan.
- Small Role, Big Impact: While he appears in only two sequences, he is the one to take down the Ax-Crazy Travis and get Ethan to where he needs to go.
Chad Carter
Chad Carter
- Voiced by: Danny Katiana
Ethan's uncle.
- Buried Alive: He planned to brick Ethan up inside a crypt. Too bad he didn't check the crypt for knives first.
- Evil Versus Evil: Missy is the one to do him in.
- Eye Scream: Ethan non-fatally stabs him in the eye with a ritual knife.
- Jerkass: He's incredibly rude and spiteful toward almost everyone, with Ethan taking the brunt of the abuse. He even tries to murder his own brother Dale after Ethan stabs him in the eye, for incredibly petty reasons.
- Karmic Death: Missy kills him after he starts trying to strangle Dale.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In the ending of the real world sequence, he can be seen outside the burning house with his head in his hands, utterly despondent over his treatment of Ethan and his role in the boy's death.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He has no quandaries about calling Ethan a faggot for his creative tendencies in the dream world and real life alike.
- Starter Villain: Chronologically, he's the first of the Carters to make an attempt on Ethan's life and the first to get killed because of it.
The Antagonists
The Sleeper
The Sleeper
A mysterious Eldritch Abomination that is apparently responsible for Ethan's plight, having influenced the minds of his family members and filled them with the intent to ritualistically murder him. Though it makes no appearances in-game, its influence is felt in many of Red Creek Valley's more bizarre events. And it's actually just Ethan himself.
- Arc Words: "It's time for the Sleeper to wake up." He does at the very end.
- Eldritch Abomination: Subverted, as it's just Ethan experiencing a Dying Dream while unconscious from smoke inhalation.
- The Ghost: While it's talked about almost constantly, it never makes an appearance in-game. At least, not as it's supposed to appear in the story.
- Greater-Scope Villain: To Missy and the Carters, as they're the main villains of Ethan's last story.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Ethan supposedly let it loose on Red Creek Valley after finding and opening a secret room in the Vandergriff house.
The Cursed Miner
The Cursed Miner
A humanoid entity wandering the labyrinth found in the deepest section of the mine. It provides the only physical threat in the game, as being caught by it provides a Non-Standard Game Over.
- Humanoid Abomination
- Jump Scare: If it spots you, it can and will teleport directly in front of you.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If it catches you, it gives you a Jump Scare and teleports you back to the beginning of the labyrinth.
- Shout-Out: Intended as one to the work of Frictional Games.
- Was Once a Man: The miner was cursed and transformed into a Humanoid Abomination because he sabotaged the Sea-Thing's ritual.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: It's just trying to keep you from summoning the Sea-Thing.
The Sea-Thing
The Sea-Thing / Gnaiih
A gigantic Eldritch Abomination with power over the world's oceans. An attempted ritual to summon it in the mines of Red Creek Valley was thwarted by the man who became the Cursed Miner and later completed by Paul Prospero.
- Eldritch Abomination
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Very little else in the game foreshadows or relates to this gargantuan mass of tentacles bursting through the walls of the mines and temporarily flooding the world.
- Kraken and Leviathan: Looks like a cross between both from what little we see of it.
- Sea Monster: Goes without saying.
