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The Player and Friends
Vulcan
The Player Character, though his (or her) name and face are customizable your nickname remains Vulcan.- Body Horror: Giving in to the demon will cause Vulcan to take on a more demonic appearance.
- Deadpan Snarker: Likes to point out the absurdity of a lot of situations.
- Demonic Possession: Gets possessed by a Fire Demon early on. A major element of the game is whether or not the player allows the demon greater control in exchange for its powers.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Vulcan naturally comes off as sarcastic and abrasive but if the player selects mostly "good" dialogue they come across as this.
- Jerkass: If ruder dialogue options are chosen, Vulcan can come off as this.
- The Lad-ette: A female Vulcan comes across as this, as she has the same rough and snarky personality as the male version.
- Meaningful Name: A fire-spouting character in a game with an extensive crafting mechanic.
- The Smurfette Principle: If Vulcan is female, she'll be the only female member of the Freeborn Blades.
- "Uh-Oh" Eyes: His eyes turn gold with Hellish Pupils when the Demon takes over.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Even if Vulcan lets their body get mutated by the Demon, almost no one they meet ever remarks on the fact they've got burning blue-black skin and giant horns growing out of their head.
Sybil
- Badass Bookworm: Not as badass as most companions, as her strength lies in healing, but she can still dish out some pain.
- Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Edwen's Veronica.
- Brainy Brunette: Brown-haired and very smart.
- Covert Pervert: While generally quite chaste in her attitude she does show a rather focussed interest in Matthras' love life (though she is really not ready for the truth of such.
- Healer Signs On Early: She's the White Magician Girl and the first companion that joins you. Given how stingy the game is with healing items, she's incredibly helpful.
- The Ingenue: She's quite innocent, idealistic, and more than a little naive.
- Took a Level in Badass: If she's still with you by the end she toughens up some and seeks revenge against the Creator Concubine for the deaths of her fellow Red Scribes. At least in the Sacrifice ending (the only one with a full epilogue) she takes a further level, becoming a new and effective leader of the Red Scribes.
- White Magician Girl: Your healer, though she packs a mean punch with lightning magic as well.
Edwen
- Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Sybil's Betty.
- Brought Down to Normal: Edwen is actually White Lady, one of the Ice Lords, who was turned back into a human and exiled by the other six as part of a power struggle within the group.
- Expy: Arguably one of Morrigan, from the combat role to the personality to the outfit to the accent.
- Hot Witch: Frequently lampshaded.
- Lady of Black Magic: Her ice magic is the same sort of thing the powers behind the Dead Walkers use. That's because she is one of the seven Ice Lords. Or at least, she was until the other six stripped her of her power, causing her to seek revenge against them.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: At the end of Act 2 she and Rhelmar will attack each other in an argument over whether your party should save the Elves or use them as a distraction to attack Blackfrost directly. The one that you don't side with will turn irrevocably hostile towards you, run away, and come back later to try and kill you. Siding with Edwen and sacrificing the Elves is considered the evil choice.
- Pet the Dog: If Edwen is alive at the end of the game and Vulcan is female, when Vulcan asks her for advice on what to do with the Worldheart, Edwen will simply advise Vulcan to decide her own fate, instead of trying to obtain the power for herself with a We Can Rule Together offer like she does with a male Vulcan. This seems to show that, with a female Vulcan, Edwen is content with having achieved her revenge against Blackfrost and has accepted the fact she'll remain stuck as a human.
- Really 700 Years Old: She's a former Ice Lord, and thus hasn't aged in the past two or three centuries during her time as an immortal necromancer.
- Revenge: Her reason for opposing the Lords of Ice.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: With Vulcan.
- Stripperiffic: Particularly notable since all other female characters and armor sets are quite sensible. This gets lampshaded a lot throughout the game.
- According to Mathras, Edwen's current outfit is actually quite modest compared to what she wore when she was originally human a few centuries ago.
- Token Evil Teammate/Obviously Evil: Despite a few stabs at Witcher/Game of Thrones style moral ambiguity early on, she's pretty much transparently evil and damn proud of it. Then you find out she used to be one of the Ice Lords.
- We Can Rule Together: Makes this offer to a male Vulcan if she survives until the ending. There's no actual way to take her up on it; apparently Vulcan prefers I Can Rule Alone. However, if Vulcan is female, Edwen will respect her enough to simply tell her to decide her own fate, instead of trying to manipulate her at the end.
Rhelmar
- Deadpan Snarker: Like Vulcan, he's very sarcastic and snarky.
- Dual Boss: If Vulcan decides to betray the Elves, Rhelmar will flee and return later with Prince Arandil, at which point they attack Vulcan for their betrayal.
- Eagle Squadron: Got in a fair bit of trouble for joining the war against the Dead Walkers back when the scale of the threat wasn't apparent and the elves were officially neutral.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: At the end of Act 2 He and Edwen will attack each other in an argument over whether your party should save the Elves or use them as a distraction to attack Blackfrost directly. The one that you don't side with will turn irrevocably hostile towards you, run away, and come back later to try and kill you. Siding with him and trying (unsuccessfully, it turns out) to save the elves is considered the good choice.
- Perma-Stubble: Since elves in Vertiel are able to grow facial hair unlike in many fantasy settings Rhelmar sports this.
- Sarcasm Mode: If Rhelmar is speaking, there will be sarcasm involved.
Randval
- The Big Guy: He's the most physically combative of all companions.
- Death Seeker: His goal is to die in a worthy battle.
- Duel Boss: He challenges you to a friendly duel as a test of strength soon after you meet him.
- Husky Russkie: His accent and the fact he comes from a Northern warrior tribe from a harsh Wintery land gives the impression his people were originally a Fantasy Counterpart Culture version of this.
- Kill the Ones You Love: The Lords of Ice turned his wife and two daughters undead, forcing him to slay them.
- Last of His Kind: Said to be the last member of the Ember Knights.
- Third-Person Person: Refers to himself as "the knight." Even more then that,he narrates when he speaks.
Mathras
- Body Surf: Can switch to a new body when his current undead one runs out of juice (although he never does this over the course of the game). If Edwen dies, in his ending narration Mathras remarks on his disappointment in not being able to use her (rather spectacular) body due to Rhelmar deciding to have her corpse mutilated and burned as repayment for her having been an asshole the whole game.
- Complete Immortality: He at least believes that there is no way to permanently kill him.
- Deadpan Snarker: It's hard to take life seriously after as long as he's lived.
- Ethical Slut: He is a generally benevolent individual (at least by the time of the game) and when Sybil questions him on his love life he explains that in 6000 years he's tried everything.
- Expecting Someone Taller: Upon their first meeting, Vulcan naturally assumes he's an Ice Lord and remarks that he thought he'd be taller.
- The Older Immortal: While the Ice Lords are a few centuries old, Mathras is several millenia old. In fact the Ice Lords are only as powerful as they are because of knowledge they stole from him a few centuries ago (he admits not simply killing them at the time turned out to be a mistake).
- Quintessential British Gentleman: He has a British accent and carries himself in this fashion. His fighting style is even fencing with a walking stick.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Having a walking, talking corpse as a traveling companion does cause some commotion, but not nearly as much as you would expect, even if you don't factor in the pretty major Zombie War going on.
NP Cs
The Fire Demon
- Ambiguously Evil: While it wants to defeat the Lords of Ice, it's exact goals are unknown. The demon claims to not want Vulcan's body, but Eolas claims whatever it says can't be trusted.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: It turns out the "Demon" is actually essentially a primordial nature spirit, and the reason it's so ruthless and angry is due to centuries of being imprisoned and tortured by the Ice Lords.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Although described as a demon, and having some classic demon attributes (namely horns and fire), the entity is actually more accurately thought of as an alien being, with an equally alien morality.
- Body Horror: Giving in to the demon's influence will cause Vulcan to take on a more demonic appearance.
- Deadpan Snarker: Like Vulcan, the demon is frequently, vocally unimpressed with the strange occurrences that frequently befall them both.
- Deal with the Devil: Tries to make one with Vulcan, more power for greater control.
- Demonic Possession: Ends up possessing Vulcan's body and uses offers of power to tempt the player into giving him greater control of Vulcan's body.
- Face Framed in Shadow: How it first appears to Vulcan in Vulcan's dreams.
- No Name Given: Only called "the Demon."
- Ye Olde Butchered English: It's preferred way of speaking.
The Captain
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Each initiate into the Freeborn Blades has to take part in a duel with the Captain. The Captain is said to be undefeatable and most duels, including those with Vulcan and Randval, are said to be humiliating for those involved. Apparently the only way to succeed him as leader of the Freeborn Blades is to best him in a one-on-one duel to the death.
- Brave Scot: Or at the very least the Fantasy Counterpart Culture version of one, if his accent is any indication.
- The Captain: His rank as leader of the Freeborn Blades. He doesn't take kindly to people referring to him by his name instead of his title.
- Deadpan Snarker: Almost seems like it's a requisite to be a member of the Freeborn Blades.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Freeborn Blades only call him Captain, and he prefers it that way as seen at his indignation at Rhelmar calling him by his real name, Elrich.
- A Father to His Men: Despite trying to come across as a hardass, it's clear that he has paternal affection for his men.
- So Proud of You: A tragic example. When Vulcan kills him in a duel to take over command of the company and prevent them leaving the fight to save the world the Captain's last words are "I knew it would be you" as he grips Vulcan's hand.
Eolas
- Big Good: The closest the game has with him being the leader of the men trying to defeat the Lords of Ice. This may be subverted, but Edwen kills him before we can find out how far it went.
- Evil All Along: When Sybil tries to save Edwen, he pulls a knife on his own daughter. Vulcan realizes he knew exactly where the vicious abomination killing the locals was but kept it a secret, and thus concludes he must have had control over it.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: According to Edwen, his ultimate goal was to become a Lord himself. Edwen is a known liar and manipulator, but Eolas is extremely suspicious himself, and she kills him before Vulcan can figure out what's really going on.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Eolas basically has one scene near the beginning where he warns you not to trust the Demon; you then have no interactions with him until the end of Chapter 1 where Edwen promptly kills him.
- Wizard Beard: Not as long as most examples but still fairly impressive.
Lord Blackfrost
- Big Bad: He's the only Ice Lord you deal with directly over the course of the game, not counting White Lady/Edwen
- Climax Boss: Is fought at the end of the game at the climax of the story. Descending into the Worldheart and dealing with the second Demon is pretty much just wrapping up the story.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: When you fight him for the last time, he splits into three opponents; a fighter, a mage, and an archer. The fighter is the real Blackfrost, but you're best off killing the other two first as they have less health and the archer can mind-control your party members into attacking you.
- Malevolent Masked Man: Wears a mask, explaining that when the Demon escaped from the Worldheart it caused a power surge that scarred the Ice Lords.
- Me's a Crowd: He splits into three of himself in his boss fight.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Well, he is an evil undead necromancer lord. In particular, whenever he turns a woman into one of his undead concubines, he apparently attaches several pairs of extra legs to her torso. Edwen remarks that he has some rather strange sexual tastes.
- Smug Snake: He remains quite assured that the warrior who has cut through all of his minions so far still has no chance against him.
- The Starscream: He's planning to overthrow the other Ice Lords by stealing the power of the Demon from Vulcan.
- Quality over Quantity: It's mentioned that Blackfrost's army is actually one of the smallest among the Ice Lords, but he makes much more use of Elite Mooks compared to the other Ice Lords.
The Lords of Ice
Seven immortal sorcerers that arrived in Vertiel 150 years ago. With their seemingly unstoppable legions of dead soldiers, they've managed to take over most of Vertiel but will stop at nothing to conquer all.- Big Bad Duumvirate: There are seven Lords of Ice, though none of them like the idea of sharing power and many believe, once they've conquered Vertiel, they'll turn on each other.
- The Brute: From what we hear Marshal Winters is this, at least compared to the others. He uses brute force and numbers rather than any subtler tactics and is the one that came up with the Juggernauts. He's also responsible for the attack on the temple at the start of the game and the later attack on Velvelnor, both of which were pretty straightforward Zerg Rush assaults with no real strategy.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: They're called the Lords of Ice, it's something of a given.
- Expy: They share a lot in common with the White Walkers. Both are seemingly unstoppable evils associated with cold that originate from the Grim Up North and lead an army of undead.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Mathras recalls meeting the Ice Lords centuries ago, when they were little more than upstart magicians who came to his palace in the far north. He was quite unimpressed with them at the time but they did manage to steal an ancient book from his library. In retrospect, he should probably have taken the book back.
- Necromancer: They're able to raise an army of undead to serve as their soldiers.
- Theme Naming: Fittingly, their names all seemed to be themed around ice. Blackfrost, White Lady, Black Storm, Crystal, Marshall Winters, Ice Duchess, and the Chiller.
- The Unfought: You only deal directly with Lord Blackfrost. Depending on which ending you pick, your actions in the Worldheart either cause the remaining Ice Lords to lose their source of power, be incinerated by a surge of power, or die along with the rest of all life on Vertiel.
- Unknown Character: Only Blackfrost and White Lady receive any major characterization in the game; the rest of the Ice Lords are mentioned in passing, but some details about what they're like can be gleamed from various conversations. The sole exception is the Chiller, who is only mentioned once in the entire game, simply as part of a list of the names of all the Ice Lords.
- Vain Sorceress: Blackfrost and White Lady imply that Crystal, another of the Ice Lords, is one of these. It's mentioned that she was particularly upset at being scarred by the power surge that occurred when the Demon escaped the Worldheart.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: According to Mathras, when they were still human the Ice Lords (back then a group of scholars known as the White Lords) were sane enough to be well-liked by the citizens of their home city. While it's possible they were simply Villains with Good Publicity, it's still a far cry from the power-mad Omnicidal Maniacs they turned into after acquiring ultimate power.
- Zombie Apocalypse: They're causing one and have managed to conquer most of Vertiel in their quest for ultimate power.
