Heroes (A-F, G-L, M-Z) | NPCs and Merchants | Darkest Dungeon: Monsters | Darkest Dungeon II: Monsters | DLC Monsters
Women and men; soldiers and outlaws; fools and corpses. All will find their way to us now that the road is clear.
—The Ancestor
"We are the Flame! And Darkness fears us!" note
The playable characters with which you can build your exploration parties. They came to the Darkest Estate for their own reasons and can be recruited to fight off the hellish horrors of the Darkest Dungeon. Under your leadership they band together, putting at risk both their bodies and their minds...
The Heroes as a Whole
- 24-Hour Armor: With few exceptions, none of the classes are ever seen taking off their armor or helmet/mask, no matter what they're currently doing. The comics largely avert this and shows what most of the armored heroes look like underneath. This is justified in the dungeons themselves, since the dangers the heroes face can come at any time. And you'll be glad the heroes kept their armor on and their weapons close at hand when you get attacked while camping. Averted in the sequel, where you play through memories of the characters, showing them in different outfits and showing characters like the leper before his disease and the plague doctor without her mask.
- Aerith and Bob: As shown under Canon Name, their names run the gamut from "average joe on the street" to "uncommon foreign word" to "unheard of past 1000 BCE." Under the right circumstances, you could have a team comprised of people named Amani, Paracelsus, Barristan and Baldwin in Darkest Dungeon, and a team of people named Junia, Sarmenti, Damian and Bonnie in II, just to mention a few examples.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: No matter how composed a class may be, they will start suggesting they run when taking stress damage or watching an enemy land a critical hit on an ally. Notably, the Vestal, Plague Doctor, Grave Robber, and Arbalest will plead for their lives if you scroll over them for Come Unto Your Maker.
- Anti-Hero: The entire hamlet of heroes are at best Classical anti-heroes like the Crusader, Houndmaster or Vestal to Unscrupulous types like the Bounty Hunter, Flagellant or Jester. However, exposure to stress and afflictions put them squarely in the Nominal side as they become abusive, insane, or both.
- Badass Boast: Heroes tend to make a snappy one-liner when landing a critical hit on an enemy or when Virtuous, and some will even make boasts while Masochistic.
- Badass Crew: Big time. Every single character is a badass in one way or another.
- Badass Normal: A good number of the classes have jobs not suited for combat (such as the Jester or Antiquarian), and very few provide any supernatural abilities and attacks, but they can fight against the horrors lurking in the dungeons just the same as anybody else.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Downplayed; how attractive are the Heroes depends from individual to individual: while characters like the Highwayman and Arbalest could quality as a scruffy Unkempt Beauty, Heroes like Leper and (transformed) Abomination... do not. However every hero on average looks much, much better than most of the enemies they fight, as most of them are hideous corrupted creatures or former humans at best or Eldritch Abominations at worst. About the only enemy type that could compare on being as pleseant to the eyes as the Heroes are the Brigands, if only because they are just normal humans.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: The Heroes are a misguided, flawed Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, with a sordid past and many regrets on their backs and while they do have some rotten apples among their numbers, most of them are decent people putting their lives on the line to save the world either out kindness, sense of duty, to fulfill their deathwish or just for coin. By contrasts, the people they fight include mindless vicious beasts, bloodthirsty brigands, Eldritch Abominations all to willing to exploit or feed on humanity, former humans turned into monsters and an apocalyptic cult trying to bring The End of the World as We Know It. It is not really hard to see who you should rot for: even the few enemies they fight that are not really evil like the Prophet and the Chirurgeon are better off dead.
- Blood Lust: Should one of them become Masochistic. Especially notable in the case of the Grave Robber and Musketeer, whose barks verge on Hemo Erotic.
- Canon Name: While every character, barring the first Highwayman and Crusader you get when starting the game, comes with a randomly selected name, they each have a default name that is treated as their canonical one. It's made more clear in Darkest Dungeon II, were the randomized names is eschewed for simply having their canon ones as the default, in accordance to the sequels greater focus on the classes as individuals.
- Combination Attack:
- In the first game, marking for death an enemy leaves them vulnerable to specific attacks from heroes such as the Arbalest or the Bounty Hunter. It mostly involves dealing extra damage to the marked foe.
- In the second game, combination attacks between heroes have been considerably reworked. Several heroes can give a "combo" token which marks and enemy, and other skills have extra properties when targeting a combo-able enemy. For instance, the Hellion's Bleed Out may ignore some bleed resistance.
- Dark and Troubled Past: All of the characters, either in their backstory comics or when chatting, will show that none of them had entirely happy lives before arriving at the Hamlet, with some having nothing left to live for. In Darkest Dungeon II, you get to play through them and see the events that led to who they are today.
- Death Seeker: Masochistic, Hopeless, and some Fearful heroes will sometimes beg for the enemy to kill them, and a good number of the characters display this trope in their personalities.
- Despair Event Horizon: An Enforced Trope. Adventurers will gain stress as they embark on the mission or from enemy attacks, and if failing a resolve check, they will cross the horizon with varying degrees of insanity. The trope is also downplayed in that it's possible to come back from it. Still, it won't be happening mid-mission without an exorbitant amount of luck and dedicated stress-healingnote ; generally speaking, removing an Affliction requires a visit to the Brothel, Gambling Hall, or Abbey after the quest is done.
- Empty Shell: Described by the Ancestor to be the result of those who you dismiss.Slumped shoulders, wild eyes, and a stumbling gait — this one is no more good to us.
- Everyone Is Bi: In the second game, any combination of characters can become Amorous with one another.
- Heroic Sacrifice: For the rest of the party to retreat from an area with a Darkest difficulty, one brave soul will stay behind and fend off the invading monsters, resulting in their offscreen death. Most heroes will willingly offer to give their lives for Come Unto Your Maker.
- Heroic Second Wind: A hero with 100 Stress may become Virtuous instead of Afflicted, and rather than snapping under the horrors of the current dungeon will power on through with renewed fervor and a huge stat boost, among other conditions depending on the virtue involved. (However they will lose their virtue should their stress hit 200 again.) Unfortunately, unlike an Affliction, the Virtuous state does not last after the end of the quest.
- Powerful: The Unstoppable Rage kind, where the hero has had enough and goes on a rampage, tearing through enemies with increased power and rallying the team into striking harder as well.
- Courageous: The hero takes charge, not only powering through their own stress through sheer will, but encouraging others to do so as well, reducing stress for everyone.
- Stalwart: The hero in question steels himself, and shrugs off the most stressful and maddening of events through power of will, entering a Determinator trance.
- Vigorous: The hero shrugs off injuries both physical and mental, constantly recovering with one last burst of energy to put down the villains once and for all.
- Focused: The hero puts aside anything that isn't his objective and the foes in the way, their blows finding their mark with increased lethality and accuracy.
- Informed Equipment: Due to the limitations on sprites, you will never see the characters with their different trinkets, even if said trinkets are as massive as a flagpole.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It... varies from hero to hero the ratio of "Jerk" and "Heart" that they have (and even individually it varies depending on how the dungeons decide to treat them). At their best, however, they show camaraderie and care for each other, especially when Virtuous.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Some heroes take to Admiring the Abomination when Masochistic, begging to keep going so they can see what new gribblies they get to fight.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Among the classes, there is a mad jester, a guilt-ridden highwayman, a thrill-seeking grave robber, a warlock, a werebeast, a former slave, a masochistic lunatic, a disgraced markswoman, a sociopathic bounty hunter, a former lawman, a cowardly barbarian, and a leprosy-ridden former king. Dark and Troubled Pasts mostly come standard among all of the classes.
- Sanity Slippage: A failed resolve check. Most noticeably when they are Irrational.
- Tempting Fate: Some newly arrived heroes will remark that the place doesn't look as dangerous as they expected.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Characters who become Selfish will start demanding more pay or material needs, and those who become Abusive will verbally assault and belittle their companions.
- True Companions: While some characters are outwardly cold and dismissive of their allies, the classes have a degree of respect and blossoming friendship toward one another — unless they hit the Despair Event Horizon, of course.
