Characters for Anthem (2019).
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Javelins
Suits of Magitek Powered Armour, Javelins are worn by Freelancers and Sentinels, and used to protect the rest of humanity from the various threats beyond the walls of their fortress-cities. In General
From left to right: Interceptor, Colossus, Storm, Ranger
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The specialized Javelins fill this out, with the Colossus, Storm, and Interceptor respectively.
- Flying Firepower: All Javelins possess the ability to straight-up fly, and can also enter hover mode for short periods, although their systems will overheat if they fly/hover for too long. Full flight disables weapons and most abilities, but all weapons and abilities can be used whilst hovering.
- Magitek: All of them are some degree of this, requiring a hand-mounted 'signet' that allows the pilot to mentally interface with and control the suit's systems. Explains the hands-free operation of arm or shoulder-mounted weaponry, amongst other things.
- Powered Armor: Ranging between a good seven and nine feet in height, Javelins tower over normal people - and the Colossus towers over the other three.
- Regenerating Shield, Static Health: All Javelins have a regenerating shield and a static health pool, with the latter replenished by picking up red health 'blocks' that drop from enemies. The Colossus and Storm play with this trope, though; the Colossus' shield is a physical tower shield that it needs to deploy to use (limiting its offensive options), whilst the Storm's is far more durable whilst hovering.
- Videogame Dashing: Every Javelin has a defensive move; the Ranger and Interceptor use a short dash move, and the Storm has a short-range teleport. The Colossus pulls out a tower shield.
Ranger
Well-rounded, versatile, powerful; the Ranger is relatively simple but can be just as deadly as any other Javelin in the right hands.
Default Ranger Javelin
- Arm Cannon: The Ranger has an Assault Launcher strapped to one arm. It can be used to launch various kinds of missiles, or even fire an energy beam.
- Backpack Cannon: A little missile pod, used for the Ranger's Macross Missile Massacre spam.
- Deflector Shields: On top of its personal shield, the Ranger can equip deployable shield bubbles that absorb incoming damage.
- Energy Weapon: A potential choice for the Ranger's Assault Launcher is a sustained beam laser.
- Jack of All Stats: The Ranger is well-rounded and can tackle almost any situation.
- Lawman Baton: In melee, the Ranger can pull out an electrically-charged mace to smack enemies around and prime them for detonators.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Ranger's Limit Break is to launch a swarm of around twelve mini-missiles, which can be used to chew up large targets or wipe out swarms of mooks.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Grenades are the Ranger's other ability slot, allowing the use of incendiaries, freezing blasts, frag grenades, stickybombs, or even 'seeker' grenades that explode into a cloud of mini-missiles.
Colossus
Hulking, durable, devastating; the Colossus is a bit on the slow side but can soak up a lot of punishment and keep on kicking. It can pack the heaviest weapons of the four as well. It lacks the regenerating energy shield of the other javelins, instead having a collapsing tower shield strapped to one arm.
Default Colossus Javelin
- Arm Cannon: Like the Ranger, the Colossus has a heavy gun strapped to one arm. In this case it can either be a mega shotgun, a flamethrower, a railgun, or even an acid sprayer.
- Backpack Cannon: With a mount on the left shoulder, the Colossus can make use of powerful mortars for long-range firepower, or short-range tesla coils.
- BFG: Sharp-eyed players will notice there's one strapped to the Colossus' lower back. The Colossus' Limit Break is to whip it out and fire off up to three devastating shots. It's also the only Javelin capable of using Autocannons and Grenade Launchers, though it can't use pistols.
- Foe-Tossing Charge: The Colossus can use its shield (see below) to batter mooks aside whilst sprinting or flying, knocking them down in the process. There's even a special component available that quadruples the damage dealt when ramming enemies whilst charging.
- Ground Punch: The Colossus; melee attack is to strike the ground with both fists, damaging all enemies nearby. If they're also "primed", this means you can smash the ground so hard that enemies explode.
- Kill It with Fire: Between the Firewall Mortar and Flamethrower, the Colossus is one of the best Javelins for this.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: A massive collapsing shield, that is. It can absorb a fair bit of damage across a fairly wide arc, and self-repairs after a short delay when stowed.
- Mighty Glacier: The Colossus is the biggest and toughest of the four by a wide margin, easily having the most damaging attack as well as the best survivability.
- Mini-Mecha: The Colossus is big enough to qualify as one.
- Short-Range Shotgun: One of the options for the Colossus' Heavy Assault Launcher is the Flak Cannon, essentially an arm-mounted double barrel shotgun.
- Stuff Blowing Up: When the Colossus triggers a combo, the victim(s) explode - potentially damaging other nearby enemies. As a result, it's one of the best when it comes to dealing with clusters of enemies.
- Super-Strength: Easily destroys his opponent with punches and by charging into them. Hits hard enough to create shockwaves.
Storm
Built using technology stolen from the Dominion and reverse-engineered by Heliost's Engineers and Arcanists, the Storm mixes high mobility and devastating Magitek firepower.
Default Storm Javelin
- Badass Cape: The Storm wears a very cool cape that flows with its aerial movements.
- Deflector Shields: Like the Ranger, the Storm has a deployable shield - in this case, the Storm's is called Wind Wall, and is a flat plane rather than a bubble.
- Evil Counterpart: In the form of the Dominion's Valkyries.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: All of the Storm's abilities are elementally-charged, even its melee attack, using one of these three elements. It can fling ice bolts, call down lightning strikes, throw fireballs, fling bouncing ball lightning, and more.
- Flaming Meteor: Not just flaming ones; there's ice and lightning ones too. The Storm can call down a trio of elemental "meteors" as its Limit Break, dealing serious damage to large groups of enemies.
- Magitek: The most science-fantasy of all the Javelins, the Storm uses 'Seals' to unleash powerful elemental attacks.
- Our Mages Are Different: Unlike the other Javelins, the Storm directly manipulates the Anthem of Creation through seals, giving this impression.
- Power Floats: Instead of sprinting, the Storm just glide-hovers along, and doesn't use a jetpack for flight. The lower heat generation means it can stay in hover mode for much, much longer than its peers.
- Squishy Wizard: The Storm is fairly squishy and very wizardy, but it can be surprisingly durable whilst hovering.
- Teleportation: The Storm's defensive ability is to perform a short-range "blink".
Interceptor
Fragile but high-speed, the Interceptor is designed to get in and out of dangerous situations as quickly as possible, striking fast and disappearing before the enemy even knows what happened.
Default Interceptor Javelin
- Close-Range Combatant: While there are long-ranged options available, the Interceptor specializes in close-range melee combat. The Interceptor has no cooldown for the default melee skill, meaning that players can use the default melee skill without any cooldowns limiting them.
- Cyber Ninja: The Interceptor Javelin is essentially a ninja-esque mech suit that is swift and powerful. It throws shurikens, dual wields daggers, triple jumps, and is very acrobatic.
- Damage-Increasing Debuff: Interceptors can use a beacon that marks targets, causing them to take additional damage for a short duration. If the target expires before the mark expires, it jumps to another nearby enemy.
- Devious Daggers: Interceptors are agile ninja who wield dual Bladed Daggers for close range combat.
- Dual Wielding: Interceptors dual wield Bladed Daggers by default. For its Limit Break, the Interceptor whips out a pair of blades called Assassin's Blades and goes to town, creating deadly afterimages with each attack.
- Fragile Speedster: The Interceptor is one of the fastest, but most fragile Javelins and doesn't have as powerful attack as the really high damage Javelins.
- Glass Cannon: One of the Interceptors unique mods makes it even more fragile while boosting all damage it inflicts.
- Stock Ninja Weaponry: The Interceptor has several throwing star-type weapons and daggers at its disposal.
The Freelancer and Co.
The protagonist of Anthem and their key allies. They, Haluk, and Faye were the only survivors of the disastrous mission to stop the Heart of Rage that kicks off the game. Owen became the Freelancer's cypher once they parted ways with Haluk and Faye, after their relationship with Haluk took a disastrous nosedive in the aftermath of the Heart of Rage. The events of the game see them brought back together to finish what they started. The Freelancer
- Voiced by: Sarah Elmaleh (Female) / Ray Chase (Male)
- Deadpan Snarker: Quite often.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Two years after the Heart of Rage, they have been reduced to taking any work they can find, and are using a rental suit to re-calibrate sensors by the start of the second mission.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: And barely even aesthetic at that, as you rarely see your character's face. Mostly it defines your voice.
- Rags to Riches: You start out disgraced, down on your luck, with a rusty, dirty, beat-up, poorly-equipped loaner javelin to your name and barely any contracts on the board. By the end of the game, though, you can have a much cleaner, shinier javelin (or four) that's decked out with masterwork weapons and gear, and with steady income from a regular flow of contracts.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Goes on one against the Monitor's underlings after he murders the Corvus agent they were sent to rescue.
Haluk
- Voiced by: Nick E. Tarabay
- Broken Ace: Haluk was a legendary freelancer until the Heart of Rage but in the aftermath he was reduced to only being able to almost move his javelin on the best of days.
- Genius Bruiser: Pilots a Colossus, is good enough with machinery to keep the same beat-up Strider running for years despite it constantly breaking down, and is quite confident that he can create a new Shield of Dawn to replace General Tarsis' after Owen steals the Javelin of Dawn.
- Handicapped Badass: Had his knee badly broken in a fight with a creature over who was who's dinner. He uses a cane most of the time, but he refuses to hang up his Javelin and is a freelancer till the day he dies.
- I Can Still Fight!: He refused to retreat from the Heart of Rage, despite the considerable damage his suit had sustained, and had to be all but dragged out of the fight by the player's Freelancer.
- Survivor Guilt: The first encounter with the Heart of Rage left him with shades of this. The deaths of the majority of the team weighs on him more than he lets on and he thinks of the mission as a fight he left unfinished. On top of all that his Javelin stopped working properly after the Heart of Rage and after repeated repairing to the point of borderline perfection Faye is convinced that this is interfering with his mental link to his Javelin, saying some days Haluk can almost move it and others it won't budge.
Faye
- Voiced by: Rochelle Neil
- Glowing Eyes: When Faye is exposed to the Anthem, as she shields the Freelancer so that they can remove the Dominion's control device from the Cenotaph, she has a strong, golden-yellow glow in her eyes.
- Going Through the Motions: During conversations with the player, she has a rather noticeable habit of holding her arms in the very specific position of her right forearm being raised while her left hand is on her right bicep.
- Heroic Willpower: Even though most secretly wish to hear it, almost all cyphers go mad if they hear the full force of the Anthem of Creation, and that's only if they don't die. Faye didn't, though Haluk notes that it did leave her with something she can't shake off.
- Mission Control: For the tutorial, and eventually takes over for Owen on main story quests, once she, Haluk, and the Freelancer reunite. Owen becomes rather passive-aggressive about it.
Owen Corley
- Voiced by: T.J. Ramini
- But I Read a Book About It: Owen is too poor to afford actual training sessions, but insists he's ready to pilot a Javelin based on reading books and watching actual Freelancers train whilst he's off hiding in the bushes. When he does manage to steal an Outlaw Ranger, he manages to do even worse than Matthias.
- Eye Scream: A less-gory example; after the Monitor's initial attempt at reaching the Cenotaph fails, Owen defects away from the Dominion again and reveals that his face was badly burned, likely his punishment from the Monitor, rendering his eyes a milky white and likely useless.
- Face–Heel Turn: After the Freelancer reunites with Faye and Haluk, proving his ineptitude with a Javelin, and being repeatedly told "no" to continued insistence he be given one after the fact, he finally sabotages the Freelancer's javelin to remotely lock up and Faye's link to malfunction. He then steals the Javelin of Dawn for himself and sides with the Dominion, believing that the Freelancer doesn't have what it takes to beat them or the Monitor.
- Implausible Deniability: Owen is downright delusional about how much of a disaster his first attempt to pilot a javelin was. He continually insists that he performed well even when reminded of the fact that he completely locked up while fighting the Dominion, forcing the Freelancer to protect him.
- It's All About Me: After he stabs the team in the back it becomes clear he's only concerned about himself and how to further his own delusions. This includes stabbing the Dominion and the Monitor in the back after seeing them as the better side to join only to fuck up their plans by not knowing how the Shield of Dawn needs Tarsis' Signet. The Monitor fries his face for it.
- Mission Control: Up until the Freelancer reunites with Haluk and Faye, after which Faye takes over, and he's pushed aside. He's not pleased with the development, and begins acting very passive-aggressively until he springs his plan to steal the Javelin of Dawn and throws his lot in with the Dominion.
- Put on a Bus: Makes an exit from the story before the end of the main plotline, taking the Javelin of Dawn with him. It remains to be seen whether he'll show up again, but he's cemented himself both as a villain and self-serving bastard at this point.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the initial replica of the Shield of Dawn fails, Haluk storms off to the Fortress of Dawn by himself and needs to be rescued by the Freelancer as the Dominion closes in around him. Eventually Owen shows up as well, and reveals that the Dominion failed in their most recent attempt to get to the Cenotaph but is already preparing for another attempt. Owen has decided not to help them, though, and hands the Freelancer one of the seals from the original Shield of Dawn - allowing them to perfect the replica - before warning them of another impending Dominion attack bearing down on the Fortress, after which he quickly retreats.
- Unskilled, but Strong: The only reason he's not a complete fuck-up in the Javelin of Dawn is that it's an Ace Custom Super Prototype.
- Unwanted Assistance: "Borrows" a Javelin during a Dominion ambush, thinking it's his chance to prove himself as a potential Freelancer. Whilst it works out okay at first, he panics under combat pressure and his borrowed Javelin locks up as a result - proving that he's a disaster waiting to happen and should be kept as far away from a Javelin as possible. Even worse, the resulting admonishment and reality check he's given by almost everyone only pushes him towards his eventual betrayal even harder.
- Walking Spoiler: Note the amount of spoiled tropes?
Freelancers
Mercenary Lancers - that is, Javelin pilots - the Freelancers are a long-standing organization that has existed since the dissolution of the Legion of Dawn. Formerly some of the Antium Empire's best and bravest, they have been hit doubly hard in recent years; first, by the loss of some of their best at the Battle of Freemark, and then again, two years ago, in a disastrous attempt to breach the Heart of Rage and reach the Cenotaph. Now but a shadow of their former selves, the Freelancers scrape by around the edges as best they can. Yarrow
- Voiced by: David Lodge
- Exposition: He doesn't exposit constantly, but one of the first things he does is tell the Freelancer about the battle of Freemark (where the Dominion first attempted to activate the Cenotaph, and thus created the Heart of Rage), to help frame the story for the player.
- Husky Russkie: Yarrow has a distinctly slavic-esque accent and speaks in broken English.
- My Greatest Failure: Through dialogue with him, it's revealed that when he was young, he left a wounded outlaw alive. In return, the outlaw hunted Yarrow for years, seeing his mercy as an unforgivable insult, until he ran into Yarrow's best friend, Freelancer Garnet, and killed him. Yarrow has blamed himself for Garnet's death ever since, and the entire ordeal left him hardened, having come to believe that the only way to keep the people who depend on you safe is to show your enemies no mercy.
- Sergeant Rock: An older Freelancer, Yarrow serves this role to the rookies.
- Tragic Keepsake: Yarrow asks you to collect the Links of any fallen Freelancers, so that he can record their stories for the wall in the Enclave. As you progress through his sidemissions, the walls will gain more and more images showing the final moments of Freelancers.
Lucky Jak
- Voiced by: Matthew Gravelle
A happy-go-lucky and actually lucky 'lancer, Jak is sharp with both a gun and a pen. When he's not out in the field messing with relics (and forcing Zoe to overhaul the shielding on his Javelin) he can usually be found squaring away the ledgers in the Fort. Seems to have a regular team he works with, but they're never met or named.
Rythe
- Voiced by: Kate Kennedy
- Catchphrase: "Sexy" in front of... lots of things. Sexy danger, sexy bad decisions...
- The Ditz: Whilst not a full-blown one, she certainly comes across this way between her general behaviour and some of the email she sends you.
Corvus
The Antium Empire's Secret Police, Corvus' factors and agents are responsible for keeping track of threats to the Empire, a task made all the more daunting by the frequent cataclysms and landscape rearrangements they cause. Tassyn
- Voiced by: Annie Wersching
- Cannot Tell a Joke: Being a Corvus Factor, Tassyn is very serious and bad at telling jokes.
- Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Wears a very smart red uniform with a prominently displayed Corvus badge. It's a good thing she's not a field agent.
- Insistent Terminology: Tassyn isn't a spy, and she doesn't oversee spies, she oversees agents.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Tassyn is fairly reasonable, though even she breaks down slightly when things aren't going according to plan for the Freelancer.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: She introduces herself to the Freelancer and Owen this way, and greets them at Maxine's bar in the same manner.
Sev
- Voiced by: Stuart Martin
- Mission Control: Serves as part of your mission control team for the two Scar Strongholds. Demo players will likely be very familiar with him.
- Straight Gay: If you idle near him, you can hear him admit that Matthias is easy on the eyes, so he could be this or bisexual. The Cataclysm update adds an entire conversation regarding him and his husband, a Sentinel named Knox.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Or rather, skorpions. He isn't pleased when the Tyrant Mine mission ends with the Freelancer fighting a giant queen skorpion.
The Sentinels
One part standing army, one part law enforcement, the Sentinels are Antium's militarized police force. More and more pressure has been placed upon them after the losses sustained by the Freelancers in recent years, leaving the Sentinels in an uncomfortable position as many Sentinels do not trust those Freelancers that remain - and yet need their assistance if they're to keep the people of the Empire safe. In General
- Blue Is Heroic: Their Javelins are predominately blue and white.
- Super Cop: They're basically cops in Power Armor.
- The Reliable One: Some people see them as this. Being more readily available and dependable than Freelancers, who will fly in to lend a hand, then be off to fulfill another one of their contracts just as fast.
Commander Vule
- Voiced by: Peter Macon
- Hidden Depths: According to mails from Rythe, Vule likes to bake lemon-based cakes. Or at least he tries to.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: His job is to keep Sentinel Dax out of trouble, given who she is. He begrudgingly admits that you're free to follow up on the stolen journal whilst Dax is under house arrest as it won't result in her getting in harm's way.
- Scary Black Man: Commanding officer of the Sentinels in Fort Tarsis, to the point where he has more authority than an actual princess. Also, a black guy.
- Sergeant Rock: His cortex entry describes him as a tough but fair commander.
Sentinel Ryssa Brin
- Voiced by: Amy Okuda
- Caring Gardener: Brin's 'office' out front is host to both a contract board... and racks and racks of plants. She has so many her superiors ordered her to take them outside as they were taking up too much space.
- Character Tics: Brin taps her fingers together when she's especially nervous. Which seems to be whenever she's talking to the Freelancer.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: It's not unreasonable to think that Brin is a harmless Desk Jockey, but she'll sheepishly admit that her damage "has been in the highest percentiles" - and when she does take to the field, Brin can break out her suit's Limit Break unlike regular Mook-tier Sentinels.
- To Absent Friends: After the end of Brin's sideplots, you can join Brin and two of her colleagues for an informal toast to fallen Sentinels. You can choose to either finish the standard Sentinel oath, or to honour the fallen as Freelancers.
Sentinel Dax, A.K.A. Lady Adaxia Miravala Dell
- Voiced by: Jee Young Han
- Action Girl: Pretty capable in a fight, and has a habit of getting herself into trouble. She got banished to Fort Tarsis for shooting someone in a duel. Not even fatally, but he apparently kicked up enough of a fuss that her family had her sent away until things calmed down.
- Foreshadowing: Long before her arrival in Fort Tarsis, the Antium Talk message feed will say that she's been assigned the rank of Captain with the Sentinels, but it isn't clear where she's been assigned at that time.
- King Incognito: Well, Princess Incognito. Bit of a Paper-Thin Disguise though.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: A rarer example of a royal being the one reassigned, rather than doing the reassigning. Dax has apparently been drawing some scandal lately, and thus has basically been put on a bus until things calm down.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: A Princess, in the Sentinels. Although she'd really much rather be a cartographer. She gets to pursue her dreams once she's reunited with her Aunt at least.
Arcanists
Scientists and researchers, Arcanists seek to understand and document the world's mysteries, especially Shaper relics and the Anthem. It was with their help that the Storm was created, as they assisted in reverse-engineering the advanced technology utilized by the Dominion. Matthias Erryl Sumner
- Voiced by: Vik Sahay
- Bar Brawl: Matthias is banned from Max's unnamed bar, for starting a fight over scientific manuscripts. You can persuade Max to reconsider the ban for Matti and Erryl, if you're so inclined.
- Chronoscope: Completing all of his core/launch story content results in the Trio getting their hands on a device called the Auspex, which can be used to see into the future. The smaller the scope and timescale, the more accurate it is. They even lampshade the fact that its previous owner must have known he was going to be killed, as one of the last things he did before dying was hide it from the Symposium.
- Clone Degeneration: Matti starts to suffer some effects of this, and the others would likely start feeling it soon as well, until you help them fix it. It dips into pretty dark territory/themes too, as Matti says that he feels "porous", that his limbs don't work right, and in the later stages he starts losing the ability to perceive spacetime in its proper coherent order.
- Clone Angst: To be expected given their situation. Matti and Erryl seem to cope just fine (Matti is distracted chasing the next big Arcanist Thing, Erryl is off doing the book-work) but Sumner admits to the Freelancer that out of all of them he's really not sure what his place or role is, as he doesn't seem to be as capable an Arcanist as his "brothers". None of them seem to be particularly distraught though.
- Didn't Think This Through: Matti admits that while he's spent years looking for the ancient manuscripts, he never actually planned out how he would go about studying them once they were in his hands.
- Foreshadowing: Dominion logs state that only one soldier was sent into the Manifold Vault... yet you meet three Valkyries, all of which fight rather poorly. This foreshadows the breakdown that Matti begins to experience later on.
- Literal Split Personality: As a result of messing with the Manifold, Matthias ends up getting physically duplicated and mentally split into three, and each take a part of his name: Matti, representing his For Science! tendencies; Erryl, representing his softer intellectual side; and Sumner, reflecting his past-self, a survivor of the streets. Fortunately, you're able to stabilize the three, and they start to diverge. Give a little nudge here and there, and Aruna will even try to hook up with Sumner.
- Married to the Job: Aruna claims this is why their relationship didn't work out originally, as they were both Married To The Job. That was a long time ago, though, and there are three of him now.
- Mission Control: Matti acts as your mission control on all Arcanist contracts after the main storyline concludes.
- Only One Name: After his Literal Split Personality, each fragment of Matthias takes a different part of his name. They also wear different headgear to differentiate themselves; Matti goes bald with a scarf, Erryl wears a turban-esque setup, and Sumner has the same scarf as Matti that he wears as a hood.
- Percussive Maintenance: He employs "an old Arcanists trick" to get the Manifold working, which involves him bashing it against a piece of machinery. Sure enough, this does the trick.
Regulators
Smugglers, bandits, and other ne'er-do-wells, the Regulators can all be identified by their trademark jackets and uniforms - an odd choice for those who deal in moving goods inconspicuously. If you want to acquire or move something without the Sentinels noticing, you go to the Regulators. They also seem to have a strong tradition of gambling, especially card games. Maxine (Max)
- Voiced by: Catherine Tate
- Benevolent Boss: Max is pretty reasonable, though she's far from an authority figure. You can convince her to help Rythe out of a bind (Rythe kind of bet her 'suit and lost it...) and she's generally more inclined to solve any problems that come to her through diplomacy than violence.
- Friend in the Black Market: Max wears the uniform of the Regulators, which means she has... special connections. If you need something unusual found, whether it's straight-up illegal or just difficult to get ahold of in general, Max is the best person in Fort Tarsis to talk to about it.
- Professional Gambler: Seems to be a requirement for joining the Regulators. Some of them take it as serious as a formal, written, signed contract. Max won her bar from the previous owner in a card game.
- The Nameless: Her bar is, at least. If you listen to ambient chatter, you can hear some of its past names. Some of them are alright; some are pretty terrible.
- Straight Gay: Max will casually drop "my wife" and "ex-wife" in the middle of conversation at least once, so she's either this or bisexual.
- Throwing the Fight: Max is fairly sure the previous owner threw his hand on purpose, given how he skipped town immediately after losing. Especially since he was supposedly killed (alongside the at-the-time Governor) in a Strider incident, but it sounds like they Never Found the Body. She doesn't think it was a hit, though; the man owed a lot of people a lot of money, and dead men don't pay their debts.
Sayrna
- Voiced by: Kristen Schaal
- Genki Girl: She comes across as pretty immature and ditzy even at the best of times.
Princess Zhim
- Voiced by: Elysia Rotaru
- Masochist's Meal: She tries to subject Haluk to not one, but two of these, in order to seal their agreement. Whilst he eats the first (with a lot of complaining), the Freelancer quite brashly takes the second for him - much to Zhim's amusement.
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One-Scene Wonder: Only appears in one cutscene where you reunite with Haluk and Faye, never to be seen again. - What Happened to the Mouse?: Disappears after the Dominion attack on her base.
Other Citizens
There are plenty of other friendly (and not-so-friendly) faces around Fort Tarsis too, mostly just commonfolk trying to make ends meet on the edge of the empire. Zoe
- Voiced by: Niamh McGrady
- Team Mom: Comes across as one of these a bit; she knows how much the 'lancers rely on her, and she seems to enjoy taking care of them in turn.
- Wrench Wench: Zoe is responsible for maintaining and repairing basically all of the Freelancer-owned Javelins operating out of Fort Tarsis.
Prospero
- Voiced by: Chiké Okonkwo
Fort Tarsis' cosmetics vendor.
- Catchphrase: Loves to talk about selling "thunder"; that is, making Freelancers look awe-inspiring, to inspire their allies and terrify their enemies. You can either lean into it or say that you think he's speaking nonsense.
- Steel Ear Drums: Averted in his backstory. He's deaf in one ear thanks to looking back at a monstrous Titan-amalgam; it created a thunderous shockwave that blew out one of his eardrums.
Amal
- Voiced by: Jack McBrayer
Bartender at Maxine's bar, Amal is a young former actor who had a bit role as a Sentinel in a radio serial. Young and somewhat naive.
Neeson Giles
- Voiced by: Joe Lo Truglio
- Dumbass Has a Point: Ninety-nine percent of what he says is pointless drivel, but the rumors he heard about something being wrong with Owen turn out to be true.
- Foreshadowing: He mentions hearing that something was wrong with Owen a long time before it becomes a real issue.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: It's clear from all the Freelancer's dialogue with him that they really don't want anything to do with him. He keeps asking if they want to hang out with him, and they say no until you eventually get a dialogue choice with both options saying "Nope." and "No."
- Gossipy Hens: A rare male example, and solitary at that. It seems like nobody in the Fort wants to have anything to do with him, leaving him to gossip and do oddjobs like laundry.
Pirndel Blatch
- Voiced by: Trevor Schmidt
The Fort's head janitor, Pirndel has opinions about public safety and cleanliness, and will let you know about them any time you dare to walk anywhere near him. Talk to him, and he'll try to rope you into filling out forms, questionnaires, or surveys about the state of the Fort.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The only thing keeping him from being one of these is that he's a lowly janitor. If you talk to him enough, he heads to the capital to go be obstructive to the bureaucracy there.
Aunt Cardea
- Voiced by: Sumalee Montano
A famous cartographer from the royal family, Aunt Cardea went missing years ago whilst mapping the jungles around Fort Tarsis. Sentinel Dax believes she was caught in a spate of disappearances alongside others.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Cardea disappeared years ago due to a Shaper relic in the area. Whilst you eventually free her, with Dax' assistance, she's still spent years in a kind of... temporal stasis, seeing possible pasts, presents, and futures. She suffers some headaches and self-doubt after the fact, as she remembers things differently to Dax.
- Portent of Doom: One of the potential futures she sees is one where something else terrible happens, and this time the Freelancers fail. Could be hinting at the urgoth in The Stinger, or something else.
- Unexpected Successor: Cardea's return - alongside many other disappeared royalty, apparently - forces scribes in the capital of Antium to rewrite the entire order of succession. Cardea turns out to be fairly close to the throne, but this bumps Dax down to something like twelfth or thirteenth in line making her far less appealing to Lord Roye... who thus basically tries to propose to Cardea.
Lord Roye
- Voiced by: Chris Mason
- Prince Charming Wannabe: A royal from Antium, Roye is pursuing Sentinel Dax at first, but when it turns out that Cardea is closer to the throne, it becomes clear that Roye is only doing it to get close to the throne, and doesn't genuinely care about either of them. As if the halfhearted 'bouquet' of flowers wasn't enough of a hint.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: While not quite a villain, Roye quickly departs in a panic when the Freelancer and Dax tell him that his Strider just caught fire.
The Bard
- Voiced by: John Hopkins
A mysterious masked individual who mostly seems to be around to deliver an ominous message that the Emperor - and the Empire - will be watching you, after your successes. He also regales you with stories of the Legion of Dawn's founders.
- Cool Mask: A fairly high-tech looking metal mask that covers his upper face.
Madame Chronicler
- Voiced by: Kate Fleetwood
One of the Fort's older inhabitants. She has a lingering distrust of Freelancers after the Heart of Rage incident, and fears that the world may never be the same again.
- Antiquated Linguistics: Seems to have a bit of a thing about 'modern' slang and forms of address, getting fussy at you if you use more informal greetings.
- Call-Back: When first talking to her, she asks you if you have amnesia. You can hit her with the same question later, to her amusement.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Whilst she has a name, she admits that everyone just calls her Madame Chronicler anyway.
The Dominion
A technologically advanced authoritarian dictatorship from Stralheim in the far north, where individual lives mean nothing and morals are practically forbidden. Dominion spies and soldiers stop at nothing to carry out their missions, and they in turn are considered utterly expendable by their superiors. In General
- Evil Empire: In spades. Between encounters with the Monitor and Dominion forces, and an ex-Dominion spy, it's made painfully clear to the player that the Dominion is not a fun or nice place to live.
- Evil Versus Evil: In the Cataclysm update, Doctor Harken reveals that The Dominion is fighting the Urgoth.
- Evil Wears Black: They embrace this trope and don't let go. Whether it's lowly footsoldiers or the towering Monitors, everyone in the Dominion wears black, their structures are black, their metal is black, and so on and so forth.
- Giant Mook: Brutes at first, and then Furies later on. Furies in particular seem to come in pairs.
- Heel–Face Turn: At one point in the game you can meet and talk to an ex-Dominion spy, who defected after meeting a Corvus agent, and later went on to marry said agent. He remains somewhat cold and distant due to the things he's seen in his time working for the Dominion, and his wife (the Corvus agent) asks you to talk to him in an attempt to get him to open up.
- Power-Upgrading Deformation: Seems to be a side-effect of their tinkering with the native life. Furies are the most concerning example, being roughly humanoid creatures with one gigantic arm. It's unclear whether they're a branch of the Brute-based experiments, or possibly human-derived.
- Quantity vs. Quality: The Dominion tends to use small groups of powerful elite units backed up by mobs of expendable infantry, embracing both ends of this scale.
- Secret Police: The Monitors, one of which serves as the major antagonist for the initial main story arc.
- We Have Reserves: Their general tactics boil down to this. Individuality is suppressed and individual lives are meaningless. If the Dominion wants something badly enough, it'll build a bridge out of its own dead soldiers to get to it.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Considering humanity more or less started out as thralls of the urgoth centuries ago, this is likely the reason for the Dominion's strictness and aggressive pursuit of technological advantages.
The Monitor A.K.A. Armas Brom
- Voiced by: Anthony Howell
- Ace Custom: He pilots what seems to be some kind of custom javelin, possibly the Dominion's biggest and baddest model of the Storm/Valkyrie.
- Big Bad: He's the primary villain of the main story, though he clearly isn't the top of the food chain in the Dominion; it sounds like he's just one of a group of Monitors that are the Dominion's Secret Police.
- Drunk on the Dark Side: After partially merging with the Anthem, the Monitor drops all pretensions of Pragmatic Villainy and decides to destroy the world just for the hell of it.
- Faux Affably Evil: Maintains a consistently mock-courteous attitude, whether taunting the Freelancer or executing hostages, until his semi-assimilation by the Anthem sends him into a furious breakdown.
- Exemplified by his "conversation" with a Corvus agent. He seems entirely reasonable, claiming to prefer to trade for what he wants without using force... until one of his subordinates finds what they've come for, at which point he just casually executes the agent.
- In Their Own Image: What the Monitor hopes/plans to do with the power of the Anthem, and what others fear he'll do. Your allies explain that, with the power of the Anthem, he could simply rewrite reality such that the Dominion controls everything and has always controlled everything, akin to Make Wrong What Once Went Right. One day you'll be a regular Fort Tarsis Freelancer, the next, a loyal citizen of the Dominion.
- Large and in Charge: The Monitor's Javelin suit is a good head taller than even a Colossus suit, and completely towers over humans and smaller Javelins.
- One-Winged Angel: After succeeding in his goals of taking control of the Cenotaph and partially merging with the Anthem, the Monitor manifests as a titanic replica of himself, armed with a gigantic polearm, for the final bossfight.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The Monitor states he prefers to use bribery rather than torture, finding it to be usually more efficient, and always tries to negotiate as his first option. That said, he has no trouble executing hostages who refuse to play ball; additionally all of that goes completely out the window once he partially merges with the Anthem, transforming into an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Psychic Powers: He's both a Javelin pilot and Cypher, something only the Dominion have mastered. He uses his abilities to taunt you by interfering with your Cypher link, and to interface with the Cenotaph for the final battle.
- Ramming Always Works: What ultimately kills his powered-up form isn't the Freelancer grinding him down with small arms fire and various flavours of elemental damage — it's Haluk driving the Strider through the (still burning) Heart of Rage and plowing said Strider into the Monitor from the top of a cliff.
- Villainous Breakdown: Being partially assimilated by the Anthem drives him completely insane to the point of wanting to destroy everything.The Monitor: I should have been a god! I can still remake the world in fire.
- You Have Failed Me: When Owen approaches Haluk and the Freelancer in the Fortress of Dawn and shows them his now burned and scarred face he refers to it as "his punishment" for the Shield of Dawn failing. Given his personality and that hearing the Anthem had him rather frenzied at the time the Monitor is likely responsible.
Doctor Harken
- Voiced by: James Kyson Lee
A Dominion Arcanist responsible for activating the Cenotaph, destroying the City of Freemark and starting the Heart of Rage, Doctor Harken was considered missing for a decade. Until the Echoes of Reality Cataclysm, when he decided to let himself be captured in order to have the Freelancers stop Vara Brom, The Dominion's new leader.
- The Bus Came Back: After his short and voiceless appearance in the base game, he returned during the Echoes of Reality event. Answering the "What Happened to the Mouse?" question, in a way.
- Evil Genius: He's a Dominion scientist most infamous for blowing up a city. In Echoes of Reality, he is able to build a personal teleporting device for the Freelancers that plugs into the Shield of Dawn, and mentions that the stationary teleporter machines the Dominion set up are considerably more crude than his design.
- Play-Along Prisoner: He is somehow able to teleport out of his prison cell, just to grab a fruit and teleport back in, then casually tell the Freelancer that the personal teleportation device is ready and he left it on his workbench.
- Troll: When he returns in the Echoes of Reality Cataclysm, he turns out to be an absolute jackass. This includes not only the Play-Along Prisoner example above, but also the last-minute addition of an Escari leg on the list of parts needed to build a personal teleporter... just to see if the Freelancer could get one.
Vara Brom A.K.A. The Spear
- Voiced by:
A high-ranking Dominion Valkyrie, Vara Brom decided to sacrifice herself activating a Shaper relic in order to cause a Cataclysm, in an attempt to regain the power The Dominion lost when the Heart of Rage was silenced.
- Arc Villain: Of the Echoes of Reality Cataclysm event.
- One-Winged Angel: Her sacrifice not only caused a Cataclysm, but turned her into a giant, Titan-like humanoid with augmented elemental powers.
- Self-Sacrifice Scheme: She decided to activate the Shaper relic at the cost of her own life.
- Stronger Sibling: Inverted. While she's no slouch and has a couple of nasty tricks up her sleeve, she's The Monitor's sister.
Other
General Helena Tarsis
- Expy: Her backstory as a semi-mythical figure who led a successful slave rebellion against an oppressive Empire before dying and multiple major groups being founded in her name makes her come across as a non-religious version of Andraste.
- Four-Star Badass: She trained an entire army of lancers to forge the Legion of Dawn and end the threat of the Urgoth.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Died fending off the final attack the Urgoth launched upon Antium.
- Sole Survivor: She was the only surviving person from a group of escaped slaves. She didn't like to talk about her past.
Garred the Chronicler
One of the founding members of the Legion of Dawn alongside General Tarsis, to whom he was married. He spread the word of his wife's work to gather people to her cause and recorded the Legion's deeds. Little else is known as, much like General Tarsis herself, he talked about and wrote about himself very little.
- Happily Married: To Helena herself. He passed before she did, but other people took up his task of recording the Legion's history.
- Propaganda Machine: A living one. General Tarsis had to get the word out to as many people as she could were she to build an army to take on the Urgoth.
- Silver Tongue: His charismatic skill was legendary. It would have to be considering what his job was in the early days of the Legion.
Arden Vassa
Another one of the founding members of the Legion of Dawn and creator of the first Javelin. After the Legion split three ways he turned Antium from a small village into a fortified city. During his time there he made numerous technological breakthroughs that he eventually passed on all he knew to his children, Fortuo and Dell. Fortuo eventually left to found his city but Dell stayed in Antium, his family becoming the royal bloodline.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Said to have created the first Javelin in five days. He was also unmatched in manipulating embers and creating Forge blueprints.
