Grim Dawn / Characters

A list of characters and factions from Grim Dawn.

Beware of spoilers!

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Main Characters

The Taken

The Player Character. A human formerly possessed by an Aetherial. This experience left them with no recollection of his/her past and newfound abilities and power. The Taken can pick two out of nine (six from the base game, two from Ashes of Malmouth, one from Forgotten Gods) classes called "Masteries" as they level up, with many different skills and affinities.

Tropes applied to the Taken in general

Amnesiac Hero: A side-effect of the aetherial possession. It is implied that the Masteries are less about the Taken learning new abilities and more about them relearning things that they already knew before their mind was wiped or finding new applications of old knowledge.
Bad Powers, Good People: The Taken can wield various types of magic or weapons that the villains also possess, most notably necromancy and occult sorceries. Many of the artifacts that they can pick up are associated with witches and monsters. In additional, most of the Inquisitor's skills come from dangerous artifacts used by various evil or insane mages which were reverse-engineered and repurposed into safer and more controlled forms by the Luminari.
Chronic Hero Syndrome: The Taken will occasionally take a break from his main quest to help those in need. However, some people will try to take advantage of him or deceive him into doing their dirty work.
Dark Is Not Evil: The Nightblade, the Occultist and the Necromancer classes.
Deadpan Snarker: Some dialogue options available to the taken are this, usually towards the most unpleasant or weird NPCs.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Constantly through the game, the Taken manages to kill abomination after abomination and might be able of killing manifestations of gods and semi-gods.
Evolving Attack:
- Some masteries have skills that do bonus damage when used as the left mouse button skill. These are cheap and grow in power over the course of the game.
- All skills can be upgraded and developed with skill points.
Kill It with Fire: If they choose the Demolitionist class, which has many incendiary skills. If they don't, there are several constellations and weapons that grant fire damage and skills.
Mage Marksman: Many of the Masteries have attack replacers which add different types of magical damage to your attacks, including firearms. It is also possible to cast spells and wield guns at the same time.
Magic Knight: Practically unavoidable if you are going with a melee build. Since eight of the nine available Masteries involve one form of magic or another, and nearly all Devotions are magical, it is actually harder to develop a non-magical melee class.
Mutually Exclusive Magic: Most of the masteries have one or more toggleable skills tagged as exclusive, meaning only one of them can be active at any given time. For example, the Necromancer has two skills; Master of Death that substantially buffs all pets and Harbinger of Souls that significantly increases the Necromancer's magical damage and Life Drain, while Shaman has Stormcaller's Pact, which increases cold and lightning damage, and Primal Bond, which buffs physical damage and pets, and a Ritualist (Shaman + Necromancer) can only have one of these four active at the same time.
Only Known by Their Nickname: You're known as The Taken to pretty much everyone.
Purely Aesthetic Gender: You can make the Taken male or female, but it makes no difference gameplay-wise.
Star Power: Spending Devotion points on various constellations on Cairn's night sky provides players with increased stats and may grant them Celestial powers, ranging from healing and protection to powerful summons and destructive spells.
Touched by Vorlons: Their Demonic Possession at the hands of an aetherial allows them to use their Portal Network and forcibly sever it from their control.

Soldier

Badass Normal: Most of their abilities are natural combat skills honed to their utmost.
Boring, but Practical: Soldier gameplay largely consists of picking a melee or ranged attack and using it for the rest of the game, and all other skills are damage-increasing and/or defensive buffs and passives. This works very well, and part-soldier classes typically max out Soldier first.
Close-Range Combatant: While they have ranged options and most of their default attacks can be used with ranged weapons, most characters that take Soldier are meant to be in the thick of things.
Counter-Attack: He has many retaliation-related skills.
Evolving Attack: The skill Cadence starts out as the light-light-heavy combo from a Beat-'Em-Up game, and evolves to have elemental damage, a chance to bleed the enemy, and a guaranteed Critical Hit.
Foe-Tossing Charge: The Blitz skill will cause the Soldier to charge at full speed and knockdown multiple enemies at the point of impact.
Heroic Second Wind: When reaching below a certain amount of health, the Soldier can rapidly heal.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Soldiers can specialize in shields, boosting how much damage they can block with them and how often, as well as getting abilities that can be use din conjunction with shields.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Some Monster Infrequents can make the War Cry skill deal damage based on your weapon, allowing you to, for example, yell so terrifyingly that you set people around you on fire.
Razor Wind: His Forcewave skill fires compressed air with a shield or a two-handed weapon.
Stone Wall: Easily the sturdiest class in the game, with multiple passives that extend your life and survivability.

Demolitionist

Badass Normal: Unusually for what's essentially a fire mage (or a fire priest of Ulzuin, as it were), the entirety of the Demolitionist's arsenal is a list of explosives and other gadgets, with the occult or Ulzuin's explicit divine intervention being mentioned very rarely.
Blinded by the Light: The flashbang grenade works like this. The light reduce enemies' defenses and can cause confusion, slowness and fumbling.
Bottomless Magazines: Demolitionists never run out of ammunition or explosives.
Caltrops: Stun Jacks. If that weren't enough, they're electrified.
Cluster Bomb: Canister Bomb, which is a pipe bomb with five firecrackers crammed in. It can be upgraded to have an electrified pipe ("Improved Casing"), which causes internal bleeding and lightning damage, and extra powder with a pinch of lightning crystals ("Concussion Bomb"), which stuns enemies.
The Engineer: The combat type.
Evolving Attack: Flame Strike starts out as a flaming bullet, then gets Splash Damage, a chance to knock enemies down, and finally, it splits into a cluster of fireballs when it hits.
Grenade Spam: Ulzun's Chosen, a capstone passive, provides (in addition to a damage buff to same), an up to 40% chance to nullify the cooldown of Stun Jacks, Grenado and Canister Bomb.
Hellfire: Has skill modifiers that add chaos damage to Blackwater Cocktail, Thermite Mines, and Fire Strike.
Heroic Second Wind: Blast Shield, automatically activating when he drops to about half health, provides the player with increased resistances and temporary hit points.
Jack of All Stats: the raw stat version, the Demolitionist line has the most balanced stat gains per mastery point invested. Demos also offer skills for damage (melee and ranged), defense, crowd control, and an array of various offensive spells, making them a good pick for any playstyle you'd want.
Kill It with Fire: Blackwater Cocktail, and a good chunk of the rest of the arsenal.
Long-Range Fighter: One of the possible builds is to have him use a gun and explosives. However, his skills can also be refitted to make him a Close-Range Combatant.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Blast Shield skill is a shield that aborbs some of the damage you receive. It's also a case of Informed Equipment since it never show-up on yourself.
Mad Bomber: Many of their skills consist in throwing explosive stuff at the enemy.
Man on Fire: Flame Touched and Vindictive Flames. Flame Touched and its upgrade Temper, is an enchantment they put on themselves, while Vindictive Flames is an explicit blessing of Ulzuin that causes fire damage as a Retaliation ability. Its upgrade, Ulzuin's Wrath, adds thunderbolts as well. This is also the natural result of fighting a class who starts out with incendiary bullets and firebombs.
Playing with Fire: He has many fire based abilities.
Shock and Awe: Lightning is another of his specialty.
Status Effects: Most of their spells have a chance to cause Burning
Throw Down the Bomblet: Immune to their own grenades, regardless of what kind.
Trick Bomb: firebombs, frag grenades, flashbangs, or cluster bombs. Even the relatively mundane Grenado can be upgraded to have tricks as well; Skyfire, which adds lightning damage, in addition to its higher yield and concussive force upgrades (it is mentioned to be on the border between a mundane explosive and a magic spell, however).
The Turret Master: Summons a mortar that automatically fires at enemies.

Occultist

Attack Backfire: Fevered Rage states that it's just as dangerous to the caster as the victim.
Bloody Murder: Blood of Dreeg gives them acidic blood for a minute or two, causing retaliation damage.
Boring, but Practical: Occultists have a varied arsenal, but for most who pick them as their "second" mastery, their most powerful spells are self-buffs and a curse that reduces enemy resistances.
Clever Crows: Raven Familiar is one of his pet and it can heal your wounds and deliver lightning damage.
Creepy Good: The kind of person who usually gets burnt at the stake for consorting with demons and blighting crops, but they've pointed their horrifying magic at the Aetherials.
Dark Is Not Evil: Occultists commune with and summon demons, sap enemies' life force, burn them with acid and afflict them with the Black Death. This has no story implications.
Death from Above: The Doombolt which calls down a massive bolt of vitality and chaos energies from the sky and hit the helpless foe of your choosing.
Eyes Do Not Belong There: "There" being whizzing through the air and exploding into acidic slime.
Hellhound: One of his pet is a hellhound that deal fire and chaos damage.
Jack of All Stats: The Occultist has something useful for almost every character. Curse of Frailty decreases enemy resistances, Blood of Dreeg heals and buffs your Offensive Ability, and Solael's Witchfire makes you attack faster.
Overclocking Attack: Fevered Rage doubles the Damage Over Time of Bloody Pox, but increases the afflicted enemies' attack speed and damage.
Make Them Rot: They have a spell that inflicts the Black Plague on enemies. Its upgrades explicitly state that their organs are rotting and the pain and fever drives them insane. This is why, lore-wise, Occultists get burned at the stake.
Mighty Glacier: Occultists have no way to get places faster, but between their defensive buffs, health regeneration, and easy access to multiple forms of lifestealing, they can be deceptively difficult to kill.
The Minion Master: He has two pets: a Hellhound and a Storm Raven, and can further enhance them with Solael's Witchfire and Bonds of Bysmiel.
Plague Master: Their skill Bloody Pox starts out causing a self-replicating Do T debuff, and evolves to creating Technically Living Zombies.
Status Effects: The aforementioned Bloody Pox spell inflicts Plague, and the Dreeg's Evil Eye spell causes poisoning.
Victory by Endurance: Provided an occultist player survives the damage in the first place, they can simply heal it all back.

Nightblade

An Ice Person: Nightblades have an affinity for cold damage - specifically, using magical techniques to draw "elemental cold" from metal.
Dual Wielding: The Dual Blades skill allows the Nightblade to wield two single-handed melee weapons at once. There's also an entire line of skills that can be unlocked with dual blades, representing different sword techniques used by various Nightblade masters.
Extra-ore-dinary: Not directly mind, but a significant amount of Nightblade techniques involve drawing power directly from the metal blades that they wield, up to the point of summoning living weapons to follow them around, conjuring defensive barriers of swords, or trapping enemies in prisons of blades.
Flash Step: Shadow Strike will rapidly zip you next to your opponent and deliver massive amount of hurting.
Flechette Storm: Both Phantasmal Blades and Amarasta's Blade Burst create bursts of small projectiles to harm enemies.
Glass Cannon: The Nightblade is fast and can inflict tons of damage (both up close and at range), but lacks a lot of direct damage mitigation. Instead, the skill tree involves self-healing, auras that reduce the enemy's ability to hit the Nightblade, and a skill that makes them temporarily invulnerable. These abilities can be combined with other, tankier Masteries to make the Nightblade very hard to damage.
Poisonous Person: Poisons and acid attacks a a major part of the Nightblade's arsenal, with optional augmentations of various skills that add poison damage.
Unskilled, but Strong: Several of the Nightblade skills were developed by Belgothian, a Nightblade master who lacked finesse but made up for it with raw strength and force of will. Both Belgothian's Shears and Blade Barrier were signature techniques of his, the former doing enormous damage and the latter completely protecting the user from harm while allowing them to heal rapidly.

Arcanist

Disintegrator Ray: The aether ray can deliver massive fire and aether damage. Combine with the disintegrate upgrade, the ray can further deal more damage in the form of lightning. This ability is however a huge drain on your energy reserve.
Elemental Powers: Arcanist has the power of fire, cold and lightning and aether.
Glass Cannon: Zig-zagged. The Arcanist gains very little health as the mastery is leveled, making them very vulnerable. However, Maiven's Sphere of Protection and Mirror of Ereoctes are some of the better defensive skills in the game.
Heroic Second Wind: Like Soldier and Demolitionist, Arcanists have a buff that automatically triggers on low health, but instead of healing and defense, it provides the player with offense and mana, probably intended to help clean the screen from the ones that deal it in the first place.
Magic Missile Storm: The Panetti's Replicating Missile skill. Once this baby fires up, it will multiply on impact and flood the screen with magic projectiles.
Meteor-Summoning Attack: Pick your flavor: casting ice meteors along with lightning damage or aether meteors combined with fire damage.
Recursive Ammo: Panetti's Replicating Missile splits into 3-5 (depending on skill level) extra shots when it hits an enemy. Crosses over with Herd-Hitting Attack.
Status-Buff Dispel: The only Mastery capable of this without the use of Devotion constellations. The skill in question is Nullification, which both dispels enemy buffs but also debuffs on the player character and/or allies.
Squishy Wizard: Zig-zagged. Arcanists are casters that offer little in the way of physical combat, but the Mastery does have some very strong defensive skills. These, combined with weapon augmenting skills, can make an Arcanist surprisingly dangerous and hard to kill in close combat.
Sufficiently Advanced Magic: They study magic, as opposed to the Shaman and Occultist, who simply channel it. Their basic attack skill, "Panetti's Replicating Missile," is a refinement of Magic Missile that supposedly violates Conservation of Energy, and it took Panetti a long time to develop.

Shaman

Always Accurate Attack: The Storm Totems' lightning attacks never miss their targets.
Deal with the Devil: The capstone of Wendigo Totem is entering a pact with the spirit, rather than simply invoking it with the totem.
The Minion Master: Four temporary pets and one permanent pet. Storm/Wendigo Totems, a Manticore, Wind Devils and a Briarthorn, respectively.
Life Drain: Blood Pact (Wendigo Totem upgrade), Feral Hunger and Devouring Swarm.
Magic Knight: Shamans' lightning spells often involve using their weapon as a conduit to someone's face.
Nature Hero: The Shaman has an affinity to nature because his skills involve wild creatures and weather controlling effects.
Shock and Awe: The Shaman has many lightning skills in the form of wind devils, storm totems and two-handed skills.
Stone Wall: Shamans have a number of defensive and self-sustaining spells.
The Swarm: The Devouring Swarm skill which send a flight of bugs at your enemies. Even fully maximized, the damage is low, so boosting bleeding and vitality through synergies is a crucial.
The Turret Master: The Shaman can drop totems on the ground and they will attack anyone that come too close to them.

Inquisitor

Badass Normal: Inquisitors don't cast spells, but use magic artifacts enchanted by someone else.
Combat Medic: A viable playstyle given the plethora of buffs and support skills the Inquisitor has at their disposal.
Critical Hit Class: Emphasized with the Deadly Aim Passive. Which activates on a critical hit, boosting your crit damage further as well as giving a large boost to Offensive Ability, allowing you to crit even more.
Elemental Powers: Much like the Arcanist, the Inquisitor also specializes in utilizing fire, ice, and lightning-based attacks, both as spells and with ranged weapons.
Evolving Attack: He can make custom bullets and mix them randomly into his clips. These spew elemental effects when they hit.
Fire-Breathing Weapon: The "Flames of Ignaffar" spell - essentially a magic flamethrower.
Guns Akimbo: The Mastery's selling point. Much like the Nightblade it unlocks the ability to invest in the ability to do this at mastery level 1.
Item Caddy: While it makes no difference gameplay-wise, Inquisitors' offensive abilities come from a bag of magic items they carry around.
Long-Range Fighter: The Inquisitor mainly relies on guns or spells as his way of dealing damage.
Mage Marksman: Enchanted firearms.
Magitek: They have the magitek versions of a flamethrower and a taser.
More Dakka: An Inquisitor specced for Storm Spread will play like this, as Storm Spread fires out 4 fanning shots per pistol (or 8 in the case of a 2 handed ranged weapon). It may seem weak with each shot only dealing 33% weapon damage, however, nothing stops you from having all 8 shots hit one target.
Spread Shot: Storm Spread fires many lightning balls in a spread-out pattern from your firearm.
Status Buff: Unique among all masteries is the Inquisitor Exclusive Skill Aura of Conviction, in that it is the only exclusive skill in the game that also extends to 'all' allies.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When an Inquisitor Taken is interacting with either the Order of Death's Vigil or the Coven of Ugdenbog, characters will remark with a mixture of resentment or hostility to the idea of teaming up with one of the people who had been persecuting them before the Grim Dawn.
Trap Master: Both rune spells are essentially traps.

Necromancer

Dark Is Not Evil: Second most "evil" mastery in the game, no storyline effects aside from being marked hostile by a faction that hunts necromancers.
Dem Bones: Necromancers can raise skeletons to fight for them. You'll get warriors, archers and arcanists. The number and quality of skeletons depend of your skill levels.
Hard-Coded Hostility: Necromancers are explicitly barred from joining Kymon's Chosen. Although you can still join them by simply siding with them before picking the Necromancer Mastery. They won't be pleased to find out they let a necromancer in, though.
Life Drain: Has multiple skills that convert part of their damage to health including; a channeled ranged attack, an Area of Effect nova, a passive chance on all base attacks and a toggleable guarantee on all basic attacks.
Make Them Rot: The capstone of Drain causes the enemy's flesh to decay before they die, heavily debuffing their attacks.
The Minion Master: Can have eight Skeletons, a Blight Fiend, and a temporary Sundered Wraith just from class skills alone. Necromancers can also apply temporary and toggleable buffs to their minions.
Quantity vs. Quality: Skeletons are weaker than other pets, but you can get at least three on the lowest level of the skill.
Our Ghosts Are Different: Another pet is the Sundering Wraith which only lasts for a limited time.
Plague Master: They have a few disease-causing spells. In their own way, they're just as nasty as Bloody Pox, but instead of directly slapping them on enemies, they conjure a Blight Beast or a Hell Mouth that vomits rotting corpses.
Stone Wall: Particularly when combined with a Soldier to form a Death Knight.
Victory by Endurance: If they haven't put their skill points into summoning minions Necromancers can be supremely hard to take down with multiple life-leeching methods and high levels of retaliation damage.

Oathkeeper

Counter-Attack: Can add a portion of their melee retaliation damage to their attacks, synergizing well with some item sets that offer a lot of retaliation.
Evolving Attack: Their skill Righteous Fervor adds fire damage to their sword strikes (and since they're empowered by the entire pantheon, they can also ask Dreeg for some acid damage). When used as the default attack, it gains a stacking self-buff. It also adds some retaliation damage.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Oathkeepers are a shield-based mastery, moreso than Soldier.
The Paladin: If used alongside the Inquisitor Mastery, this is what the combination is called. Even without it, Oathkeepers embody the trope the most.
Shield Bash: The Oathkeeper can do this without any special components or unique shields' special abilities.
Spin Attack: The Eye of Reckoning skill which allows you to spin around and damage multiple adversaries.
Throwing Your Shield Always Works: One skill is hurling your shield and hitting multiple targets with it, Captain America-style.
You Will Not Evade Me: The Judgement skill pulls nearby enemies in and can be augmented to slow them.

Inquisitor Creed

A member of the Luminari, an order responsible for protecting the Erulan Empire from supernatural threats, and the most prominent figure in the human resistance against the Aetherials and Chtonians.

Authority Equals Asskicking: As Ulgrim puts it, Creed is one of the most powerful inquisitors in Cairn, with many years of experience handling supernatural threats and with powerful magical artifacts at his disposal. This is further demostrated by the fact that he managed to escape Krieg's underground laboratory unharmed.
Bad Powers, Good People: While is an Inquisitor, he is also indicated to be experienced in Occultist techniques as well, given his depiction on the game's art showing him with a Great Raven familiar. Ashes of Malmouth opens with him using an occult ritual, though he admits he isn't a warlock and so he doesn't have much luck with his spell.
Big Good: Of all the humans in the game, he's the one making the greatest concerted efforts to make sure humanity itself can survive and defeat its many enemies. He goes from town to town as you do, making sure to be right where the next push needs to be made.
Crazy-Prepared: Being an Inquisitor, he's equipped with a number of innocuous-seeming objects which are actually powerful magical weapons. He uses these to good effect to blast his way out of Warden Krieg's prison.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Creed doesn't mind working alongside occultists, witches and necromancers, despite belonging to an order whose main job was to hunt down people like them. He understands that you can't be too picky with your allies in the Apocalypse.
Scars Are Forever: Creed has a scar over his right eye.
The Stoic: Creed shows little emotion when he speaks.
- Not So Stoic: If you save Ulgrim from the void, but before talking to him, Creed will uncharacteristically be estatic of your rescue.

Ulgrim

A cook you find on your way to Burrwitch. You can invite him to Devil's Crossing, where he'll serve you soup and tell you stories.

Ambiguously Human: Creed writes in his journal that he's not entirely convinced Ulgrim is completely human, given his near-superhuman strength and his surprisingly vast knowledge of ancient history, and may in fact be an Ascendant Demigod.
Badass in Distress: Ulgrim gets trapped in the void by the end of Act IV. You have to rescue him in the Expansion.
Big Good: While less of an organizer and more of a field agent, he still competes with Creed for the role, doing almost as much heavy lifting as you do while leading those that still live on the battlefield.
Chef of Iron: When you find Ulgrim, he has been surviving in the wilderness of Burrwitch for days, hunting down and eating anything that dared to get too close to him. Not bad for a cook. Subverted in the sense that Ulgrim is actually a very dangerous professional assassin, although it seems that cooking is a real hobby for him.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He's the one who finishes off the Loghorrean after the Taken banishes it back to the void.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: When you reach Void's Edge, you find him with a heavily wounded arm and in the brink of madness, indicating that the battle took a considerable toll on his mind. Fortunately, you manage to snap him out of it, though he gets sidelined for the rest of the expansion due to both residual mental damage and a nasty arm injury.
The Dreaded: It's mentioned by all that no one, even those noble houses that were powerful enough to have their own Nightblades, dared question the First Blade's existence or plot against the Emperor too openly, lest Ulgrim pay them a visit.
Dual Wielding: He always carry two swords on his back.
Expy: A cook who turns out to be an almost unstoppable assassin? He's more than a little reminiscent of Casey Ryback from Under Siege.
I Just Want to Be Normal: When he first reveals to the Taken that he's not actually a cook, he remarks that maybe things would have been better if he was.
King Incognito: When you find him at the Burrwitch Outskirts he presents himself as a simple cook who somehow managed to survive the Grim Dawn by his own. But later you find that he's one of Cairn's deadliest individuals: the late Emperor's personal assassin and spy.
The Kingslayer: A more reluctant example of the trope than usual. He was responsible for killing the Emperor — at the latter's own request after becoming possessed by an Aetherial.
Lightning Bruiser: Whenever his fights are described, it's made explicit he both moves impossibly fast for a human and hits like a runaway train, which leaves an impression on everyone witnessing it.
Manly Facial Hair: Ulgrim sports a mustache and is very much a badass, as many suspect he is no ordinary human.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We only get to see the aftermath of his battle to the death with the Loghorrean.
Really 700 Years Old: Heavily implied. Ulgrim seems to be strangely familiar with the first summoning of the Loghorrean, an event that happened many centuries ago.
Walking Spoiler: Nearly all of his entries has spoiler tags, otherwise we'll be revealing too many surprises.

Allied Factions

Devil's Crossing

A group of survivors taking shelter in the Devil's Crossing prison. They are the ones who find the Taken.

Captain John Bourbon

The leader of Devil's Crossing.

Hero of Another Story: Talking to various NPC reveal that Bourbon saved many refugees and brought them to Devil's Crossing.
Optional Boss: One of the original two from the base game. An army of clones of him are able to be fought in a secret quest in a reference to how in the beta kickstarter versions a clone of him would block the player's progress to unfinish content sections. In the finished game, you can go to the edge of reality through a very convoluted secret questline where his clones will attempt to prevent you from progressing and become increasingly angry as you disobey them. At the end of the dungeon they all swarm you at once using various abilities. The boss music is also a reference to Crate's past, being the ending theme of one of Titan Quest's expansions.
Reasonable Authority Figure: He has you hanged for being a Taken. When the Aetherial leaves your body before you die, Captain Bourbon saves you since he now sees you as a human being. He then makes a deal with you: help them defend and rebuild their place in exchange for a new home and eventually, acceptance from the other survivors.
Scars Are Forever: Bourbon has a scar over his right eye.

Kasparov

Chief scientist of Devil's Crossing.

Absent-Minded Professor: Kasparov is a scientist and is rather insensitive to people around him.
Everyone Has Standards: He doesn't seem to care too much about the ethical implications of most of his experiments, but even he finds Theodin's researchs too wicked and disturbing to ever want them to see the light of day.
For Science!: Although his researchs end up being useful for the player and for humanity in general, this seems to be his main motivation.
Major Injury Underreaction: While experimenting, Kasparov lose another of his fingers. He simply shrugs off and continue talking to you as nothing happened.
No Social Skills: He's more comfortable with his research than people.

Hangman Jarvis

The local executioner.

Burn the Witch!: In the opening cinematic, you were hanged because you were a Taken. However, the Aetherial possessing you fled your body just as you died. Captain Bourbon saved you from the noose because he now sees you as a human being. Jarvis still wants you hanged however.
Inspector Javert: No matter what you say or do, he'll refuse to believe that you're on their side. When you save the world from the Ch'thonians, he's completely baffled and wonder what you really up to.
Jerkass: This guy is by far the biggest asshole to you, to the point that when you put down Warden Krieg, he calls it "one bastard taking down another."

Sahdina

The spirit guide for Devil's Crossing.

Heroic Sacrifice: A line from Edwin the cook suggest that she saved his life just before meeting her end.
In the Hood: Sahdina always wear a hood.
Killed Offscreen: Sahdina is killed while Devil's Crossing is under attacked at the beginning of the Ashes of Malmouth expansion.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Aside from being in game's intro and skilled with spirits dealing, the PC player hardly know anything about Sahdina before she dies.

Constance

A seamstress and survivor who reside in Devil's Crossing with two children.

My Greatest Failure: Left her children to spend some time with a neighbor. Then, the Grim Dawn rocked the world and her children died. She deeply regrets her actions ever since.

Barnabas

The resident handyman.

Mr. Fixit: He's in charged of fixing the water pump, but needs your help for the parts.

Direni

A former prisoner in Devil's Crossing before the Grim Dawn.

The Mole: Direni turns out to be an agent of the cult of Ch'thon and was responsible for sabotaging the water pump that Barnabas asked you to fix, a move meant to force the people of Devil's Crossing to leave the prison and become prey for the cult in question.

Amala Torven

A refugee from the city of Malmouth.

Badass Normal: Amala has no training in combat and yet, she managed to reach Devil's Crossing all by herself. All the other members of her party died except for her father who was stranded in Ugdenbog.

The Rovers

A close-knit band of wanderers and traders who have existed since before the Grim Dawn. Currently, they seek to uncover the secrets of the fallen Arkovian Empire, which has brought them into conflict with Arkovia's now Undead remnants.

Demonic Possession: A little girl was possessed by a Chthonian. Her parents couldn't exorcise her and were unwilling to kill her, so they locked her inside a cave.
The Chosen People: King Rowan abdicated his throne when he received a vision from Mogdrogen who warned him of a terrible calmity that would befall the Arkovian Empire. When he left along with his followers, they escaped the curse of undeath that befell the rest of the Empire. Ever since then, the Rovers have existed as Mogdrogen's chosen people, and he protects them in the wild.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Rhowari, also called Rovers, are very much like the Romani. They constantly travel, have no place to call home and other civilizations look down on them with prejudice. Some of them even have wagons.
Heroic Lineage: They are descendants of King Rowan, the only Arkovian who managed to escape Urubooruk's curse. This is the main reason the Undead hate them so much.
Martial Pacifist: Rovers devote their lives to non-violence. However, that doesn't mean they are stupid. They will defend themselves if threaten and with the Grim Dawn, some are willing to throw that notion away.
Sealed Evil in a Can: In your travels, you find a little girl trapped inside a cave. She's actually possessed by a Chthonian. Her parents were unwilling to slay her so they imprisoned her inside the cave. Naturally, she tries to manipulate you into freeing her.

Homestead

Once a bustling trading hub in central Cairn, Homestead has become one of the last holdouts of civilization after the Grim Dawn. But with the Aetherials to the east, the Cthonians to the north, and giant insects to the west, Homestead will need all the help it can get to survive.

Action Mom: Dalia, a retired adventurer, has a daughter named Lisa.
Action Survivor: Though they mostly rely on the Black Legion for protection against the Aetherials, the farmers of Homestead are more than capable of defending against the regular beasts of Cairn and work together in the past to exterminate dangerous monsters like the Dermapterans.
Happily Married: She is married to Oliver Thornberry and describe him as very understanding when she leaves to search for her brother.
Missing Mom: Dalia's mother is absent from the game.
Non-Action Guy: Not by choice, but rather by necessity. The farmers of Homestead suffered badly during the Grim Dawn and are relying on the Black Legion for protection. Most of the survivors are busy just trying to grow enough food to keep themselves and the Legion fed. If the Taken is able to help them out by killing enough monsters and doing bounties to reach Honored status, they'll be able to grow enough food to send a surplus to Devil's Crossing in thanks.
Retired Badass: A hidden sidequest hints that Dalia was once a mighty adventurer like the Taken, but retired after her brother Dravis fell into evil due to his obsession with their father's legacy. Ashes of Malmouth reveals that not only is this very much true, but Dalia has now taken up her sword once more in order to stop Dravis from hurting others in his hunt for their father.

Dravis Thornsbury

A farmer and missing brother of Dalia Thornsbury.

Ambition Is Evil: Being a necromancer and immortal isn't enough for him, he wants to become an evil god.
Big Bad Wannabe: Dravis has delusions of grandeur and wants to overtake Korvaak as the new god. First, his powers are limited to necromancy, not celestial or divine. Second, necromancy gives him power over the undead and immortality, but not invulnerability. Third, he doesn't have any worshipers to back him up.
Cain and Abel: Dalia and Dravis. Dalia is a friendly, helpful and secretly monstrously powerful adventurer, while Dravis has become obsessed with their father's legacy and secrets so that he's become a villainous necromancer.
Disappeared Dad: Dravis's father disappeared from the family farm. However, it's believed that he's still alive somewhere.
Drunk on the Dark Side: Dravis is not shy about boasting his newfound powers.
Evil Is Hammy: Once Dravis has a taste of power, his speech pattern take dramatic shift skyward.
Evil Uncle: Dravis is the evil uncle of Lisa Thornsbury, Dalia's daughter.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Dravis started as a simple farmer's son. Once he discovers his father's dark secrets, he becomes hellbent on surpassing him and becoming a god.
The Ghost: You heard of him by reading various notes and interacting with his sister Dalia, but he's never found in the game. Until he does show up in Forgotten Gods.
Kneel Before Zod: He demands this of you in exchange for mercy.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Dravis has red eyes, courtesy of his necromantic powers and his will to overtake the world by force.
Sibling Yin-Yang: The Thornsbury siblings are quite the opposites. Daila is loving and caring while her brother Dravis is violently obsessed.
Walking Spoiler: All his entries are hidden for a good reason.
We Can Rule Together: Dravis has tempted Dalia to rule by side, but she turned him down.

The Black Legion

Before the Grim Dawn, the Black Legion was a specialized army made up entirely by conscripted criminals who were known for their unmatched power and dedicated loyalty to one another. Now, they serve as makeshift protects of Cairn, but with threats on all sides, their supplies and manpower are being stretched thin.

Action Girl: All female members of the Black Legion are capable of fighting, including Elsa.
Army of Thieves and Whores: Their ranks are made up entirely by conscripted criminals.
Badass in Distress: Elsa is very capable warrior. Her capture by Cronley's men was because of his companion's recklessness.
Brainwashing for the Greater Good: All Black Legion soldiers are mentally conditioned to loyally serve the Empire, no matter what. Captain Somer called the legion an addictive drug. She also mentioned that her uncle bailed her out, but she simply rejoined their ranks.
Damsel out of Distress: We were lead to believe that Elsa was just a typical Damsel in Distress. In truth, she escapes Cronely's gang on her own and slain leagues of monsters to reach Homestead.
Elite Army: Despite their criminal backgrounds, they are widely regarded as the best warriors Cairn has to offer.
Good Is Not Nice: While they are dedicated to safeguarding humanity, they tend to be rather dickish and demanding to those under their protection, such as Homestead.
Iron Lady: Captain Somer, the Black Legion in charge of Homestead. She is very stern and has a no-nonsense attitude.

Coven of Ugdenbog

Before the Grim Dawn, witchcraft and those who practiced it were heavily persecuted by the ruling empire. To combat this, a group of powerful witches and mages established a secret Coven deep within the Ugdenbog Swamp as a safe haven. After the Dawn, the Coven prefers to keep out of the fight, but are willing to aid those who prove themselves worthy. They are aware of Barrowholm's secret, but currently have an uneasy truce with them.

Blind Seer: The Coven Witch Ragia is blind because she and other witches dared to summon the Witches Gods. Despite this, she has the ability of foresight.
Burn the Witch!: In Act 3, a witch named Rallia is about to be burn on a stake. You have the chance to free her or let her die. If you free her, you can meet her later at the Coven.
Get Out!: The leader of the Coven isn't too pleased of seeing you the first time and will ask you to: "Leave. Now."
Enemy Mine: Before the start of the game, the Luminari have been hunting down the Coven for a very long time. With the Grim Dawn, Creed ask that you seek their help to save Malmouth and Ulgrim.
Sole Survivor: Ragia is the only one left alive of the Witches that summoned the Witch Gods.

Malmouth Resistance

When the Grim Dawn began, the city of Malmouth was one of the first areas lost to humanity, and has since become the Aetherials' main base of operations. However, a small group of survivors still exist within the city, banding together as a Resistance determined to take back their home, even as the Master of Flesh's new Vanguard bear down on them.

Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Resistance's HQ is located in Malmouth's sewers. The room they use is very large and house several refugees.
Badass Normal: Nicoh Erin, a simple soldier with no special powers, protected two orphans for weeks inside a dilapidated house. You can find remains of several Aetherials at the step of their door. To cap it off, Nicoh was using a plain normal sword with no magical enhancements. Sadly, the ordeal has done a serious number on his sanity.
Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. Everyone in the Resistance greatly admire Korrinia for her fighting and leadership skills. If you reveal to them that she is an Aetherial, they are shocked and angry. Ultimately, they grudgingly choose to let her continue leading the Resistance because of her past deeds. They also think they wouldn't stand a chance against the Aetherials without her.
Hero of Another Story: Were not for the heroic actions of Korrinia, the resistance would have been wiped out long before you set foot in Malmouth.
Irony: The heroic leader of the Resistance is revealed to be an Aetherial.
La Résistance: The last holdings of humanity within Malmouth.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: If Anasteria is still alive, she eventually reveals that Korrinia, the Resistance's leader, is like her: an Aetherial who chose to betray her kind and side with humanity.
You and What Army?: Captain Wilfor will use these words if you tell him you've come to help. No army is here to back you up, but once you lower the drawbridge, they will.

Enemy Factions

The Aetherials

The main antagonists of the game and the perpetrators of the fatidical event known as the Grim Dawn (which they call "the Glorious Dawn"), the aetherials are a class of incorporeal beings determined to take over Cairn. Long before the events of the Grim Dawn, they were the servants of the primordial gods, whose lust for power and envy towards each other drove them to war. In the aftermath of the conflict, the servants were punished for obeying their masters by being stripped of their physical forms and banished to the Aether-Realm. But when the first human arcanists started to meddle with the aether plane, the aetherials saw the opportunity to rise in power once again...

Tropes applying to the Aetherials in general

Aliens Are Bastards: They're the closest thing to aliens in this setting, and are undeniably malicious.
Becoming the Mask: A side-effect of possessing humans for some aetherials is that they might take the traits and tendencies of their hosts. This can result in particulary vicious and sadistic aetherials like Warden Krieg or compassionate individuals like Anasteria and Korrinia. Oddly enough, one missive from an aetherial states that they should start calling him by his human name and no longer by his true aetherial name, and all indications are that they sincerely identify as their human hosts' name too.
Body Horror: They tend to evoke this in the humans they possess. The Fleshwarped enemies you meet early on resemble mutants more than they do humans, while enemies you meet in the expansion barely look like they ever were human. That's not getting into some of their bosses, who transform into grotesque monsters when they abandon all attempts at subtlety.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Originally they fell under this, but an Aetherial you can help in the expansion notes that many of them have become sadistic after possessing violent humans.
The Chessmaster: The Aetherials has been orchestrating the events of the Grim Dawn since many years. They started possessing many powerful and influential people, which allowed them to do such things as disarm armies, weaken defenses, and isolate cities, all in preparation for the great invasion. They even managed to take control of the Emperor himself, but he managed to retain enough of his willpower to summon Ulgrim to assassinate him to protect the Empire.
Crystal Landscape: Areas infested with Aetherials are covered in green crystalline growths. These same types of crystals also sometimes grow on the mutated bodies of aetherial hosts. The player can harvest various types of aether crystals for use in item creation and support after destroying the crystal clusters.
Demonic Possession: Aetherials can possess any living being, from hounds to trolls and humans, and even possess dead bodies, plants, and scarecrows. It's noted that dead bodies make poor-quality hosts, though, and Aetherials prefer living hosts. Corpses are typically instead animated by Aetherial energy into more generic zombie-like beings and given general orders.
Elite Army: The Aetherial Vanguard, a new caste of Aether Corruption Super Soldiers handcrafted by the Master of Flesh to crush all remaining human resistance.
Even Evil Has Standards: For all the carnage and human blood on their hands, the Aetherials have little taste for simply torturing people For the Evulz. The one possessing Warden Krieg gets a missive from another Aetherial calling it out for letting Krieg's human sadism influence its treatment of human prisoners.
Evil Sounds Deep: All the Aetherials have a deep voice, the male ones at least.
Fighting a Shadow: Killing an Aetherial in the physical realm will simply banish it back to the Aether. Permanently killing it in the physical realm is very difficult, as the only way that seems to work is to destroy the host body while the Aetherial is trapped in a magical binding circle, as the threat of doing so caused the one possessing the Taken to abandon their body in a panic at the start of the game.
Glowing Eyes: Humans possessed by Aetherials have green glowing eyes. However, they can revert to normal looking eyes when needed to avoid suspicion.
Greater-Scope Villain: The Circle of Five, a group of Aetherials that seem to be behind the invasion of Cairn. We only learn of their existence through missives sent to the Aetherials in Malmouth.
Humanity Is Infectious: And not in a good way. When an Aetherial takes over a living body, their minds begin to gradually shift to matching the original host's personality in many ways. However, the primary method that Aetherials use to slip into a human's body is to find vices and desires that they can use to tempt the host to let them in. Those same vices tend to corrupt the Aetherial who takes over the body, twisting them into cruel monsters. Anasteria is one of the few Aetherials who wasn't completely corrupted by their host's vile natures.
Hostile Terraforming: When they secure an area, Aetherials actively change the landscape to an environment that is suitable for them, but hostile to other species, to the point where the emanating energy from the landscape causes damage-over-time to humans just by standing near it. There is even an enemy type called Aetherial Terraformer that can be found on maps with an Aetherial-themed landscape.
Les Collaborateurs: While their approach to the Grim Dawn depended on possessing influential humans, you'll find notes from unpossessed humans who willing chose to collaborate with them, generally in the delusional belief that the Aetherials were heralding a new ascension for humanity. These traitors most often ended up being possessed by Aetherials themselves.
Light Is Not Good: Aetherials seem generally light-themed in contrast with the darkness-themed Cthonians. Aetherials without a body manifest as balls of light, and their magic consists of bright beams or streams of green light. Aetherial corruption generally seems to illuminate areas with this same type of light. The concept of Aether has also historically been associated with the concept of light, and Aether in mythology is the material present in region of the universe beyond the skies.
Me's a Crowd: An Aetherial hero is called Mesmer and has the ability to clone itself.
My Death Is Just the Beginning: When killed, their Reanimators are fond of reminding you that you're just Fighting a Shadow, quoting either this trope or It Has Only Just Begun almost word-for-word.
No Name Given: A missive indicates that they have individual names when it orders other Aetherials to refer to him by his human name from now on instead of his Aetherial name. But you only ever know the named Aetherials by the names of their human hosts. There is never even a hint of what Aetherial's actual name looks, sounds, or is spelled like.
Not Using the "Z" Word: Aetherial-controlled corpses are generally just referred to as "the dead," and are distinguished from the undead created by necromancers, which are animated through magical spells rather than Aetherial energies.
Oculothorax: Some Aether Corruptions are this, floating spheres with giant eyes randomly spread in their bodies. They come in many variety from Corruptions, Overseers, Overminds, to Mindragers.
The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Aetherials are apparently directed by a "Council of Five", as a missive carried by Allostria signed by the "Fourth, of the Council of Five" will reveal.
Pragmatic Villainy: Aetherials are against torturing and tormenting humans for the sake of it, not because they care about them, but because they consider it a waste of time and resources. And even the Aetherials who do end up torturing humans, like Warden Krieg, do so only because Humanity Is Infectious (in the worst way) and people like Krieg were sadistic bastards long before any Aetherial possessed them.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The only thing that will get an Aetherial to willingly flee from a host's body is binding it through a magical ward, which happens to the Taken at the start of the game. Doing so will allow the Aetherial's spirit to be destroyed permanently if the host is killed, which means that it will flee if it has no other option.
Shoot the Mage First: Slay the Aetherial mages first if you want to live longer.
Touched by Vorlons: They're on the "touching" end of the trope, as the beings they possess or mutate will inevitably gain any number of Aether powers. If the Taken protagonist is any indication, the beings would get to keep at least some of the powers even if the Aetherial spirit was driven out.
Ultraterrestrials: A fantasy version. They claim that they inhabited Cairn long before the first humans, and are merely reclaiming what was once theirs. Before the Grim Dawn came and enabled the Aetherials to operate openly, the humans they possessed upheld a Masquerade to keep their grand plot hidden.
Weaksauce Weakness: Aetherials can be repelled with salt as coming in contact with it cause them great pain. Aetherial Vanguards seem to suffer less from it.
We Have Reserves: For the most part, the Aetherials don't care if their host bodies are destroyed, expressing at most annoyance that they will have to find a new one to inhabit. They are also unconcerned with the destruction of reanimated bodies that they use as foot soldiers.

Warden Krieg

The first Aetherial commander you encounter, who has possessed the former Warden of the Devil's Crossing Prison.

And Your Little Dog, Too!: During his boss fight, one of his taunts is to boast that after he's done with you, he'll crush the survivors of Devil's Crossing next.
Arc Villain: He's the one behind all the chaos you see in Act 1.
Back from the Dead: He returns in Ashes of Malmouth with a new body as one of Theodin's generals.
Elaborate Underground Base: His underground base of operation is ridiculously large, to the point that you could almost hide another Burrwitch Village in there. It has a cellar, tunnels, labs, storerooms, jail cells, and living quarters, just to name a few. It also has some giant spiders and various beasts that are as hostile to the Aetherials as they are to you.
Evil Is Hammy: Very much: "Witness MY TRUE POWERRRRAAAAAH!!!!!"
Mad Scientist: One of Krieg's uglier traits is his penchant for experimenting on humans with Aether, turning them into the possessed horrors known as the Dead.
Sequential Boss: After defeating him once, he fully sheds his human disguise, and becomes far more dangerous.
Starter Villain: The very first true villain that you battle in the game.
Voice of the Legion: He already speaks with a deep, reverberating voice like all other Aetherial-possessed humans, but it grows even more monstrous when he transforms.
Wake-Up Call Boss: Unless you stumble upon either of the optional bosses, everything in Act 1 is simple enough for a new player. Krieg, on the other hand, can dish out a ton of damage in a short time, close the distance between you incredibly quickly, and has a small arena. It's far better to hit and run than try to tank his attacks, something you'll need to know for the rest of the game. And on top of all that, he has two forms.
Wardens Are Evil: While getting possessed by an Aetherial certainly didn't improve Krieg's morality, you'll find plenty of evidence that even before the Grim Dawn, he was one sadistic son of a bitch.

Theodin Marcell, the Master of Flesh

The commanding Aetherial behind the operations in Malmouth. His host is a highly ambitious and amoral aristocrat surgeon, and he himself was clearly not better.

Arc Villain: Of the Ashes of Malmouth expansion.
Bullet Hell: You have to dodge multiple aether projectiles fired in several directions.
Evilutionary Biologist: He "improves" humanity through his wicked experiments to give aetherials the perfect hosts.
Final Boss: Of the Ashes of Malmouth expansion.
Flunky Boss: Will summon flukies during his first phase.
Ground Pound: One of his attack during his wraith form is this. Stay away from it as much as you can.
Mad Doctor: His host was already an ammoral surgeon willing to do unethical things to achieve knowledge. He took this to the extreme with the horrific abomination he created in Malmouth.
Sequential Boss: Theodin first start as a Stationary Boss, a multi-legged form and finally a flying form.
Spider People: His second form has eight legs shaped like a spider.

Valdaran, the Storm Scourge

The Aetherials' Nemesis. A fleshwarped reanimator with lightning-based powers.

Shock and Awe: Fitting for his title, Valdaran has many lightning-based attacks.
Teleport Spam: He loves to teleport during battle. He can even swap positions with the player.

Archmage Aleksander

The Aetherial Vanguard's Nemesis.

Death from Above: His meteor attack, which is extremely deadly.
- One-Hit Kill: the usual outcome of being hit by his meteor without extreme amounts of damage absorption
Humanoid Abomination: He doesn't seem to have bothered with other Aetherials' ridiculous size or gruesome mutations. Aleksander still looks more or less human while being an immensely dangerous fountain of Aetherial and Arcane power that can turn even optimized characters into a pile of green ash in seconds.
Teleport Spam

Allostria, the Mind Thief

A high ranking Aetherial with a deep connection to the Taken.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Humanity wouldn't have a champion to fight back the invasion if Allostria didn't leave the Taken's body during his/her execution in the gallow, causing Bourbon to spare our protagonist's life. Even more, the aftereffects of the possession made the Taken powerful enough to take down the whole operation in Malmouth mostly by himself/herself in the first place.
Optional Boss: Finding and defeating her is entirely optional, but doing so rewards you with some valuable insight on both the Taken and the Aetherials' ultimate plans.
Small Role, Big Impact: She's essentially an Optional Boss, but since she was the Aetherial who first possessed the Taken all the way back in Devil's Crossing, she pretty much indirectly caused the entire plot of the game.
Smug Snake: Allostria think highly of herself and see you as nothing but an inferior life form unworthy her notice. Time to prove her wrong.
This Cannot Be!: Her reaction when you slay her.
Underestimating Badassery: She certainly thinks you can't beat her, easily ignoring the mountains of corpses you've been leaving in your wake.

The Chthonians

A race of demonic creatures from the void, spawn of Ch'thon, the Dying God. Their ranks also include the Bloodsworn, fanatical human worshippers of the deity.

Tropes applying to the Chthonians in general

Blood Magic: Their rituals depend on blood to summon demons into the world of Cairn.
Cthulhumanoid: Ryloks
Chaos Is Evil: Chthonians and their cult fight primarily using Chaos magic, which manifests as bursts of red-blackish energy. Although, the player does have the option of also fighting with Chaos-elemental magic if they so choose.
Dark Is Evil: In general, Chthonians and the Void where they come from are darkness-themed. The areas of the Void accessible by the player are essentially a rocky, desolate, dimly lit wasteland surrounded by more darkness or dark-reddish chaos magic.
Deader than Dead: Cthonians killed on Cairn are simply banished back to the Void. The only way to kill them for good is to kill them in the Void itself.
Eldritch Abomination: While the lesser Chthonians look like vicious demons, the higher-tier creatures are far more twisted and bizarre monsters with tentacles and vast, gaping maws.

The Bloodsworn

Anti-Villain: It applies to some bloodsworn, who were just desperate people who joined the cult to get shelter and food, escaping from the horrors of the Grim Dawn. Many of them ended believing what the cult professes.
Apocalypse Cult: They wish to return to Ch'thon all the blood that was taken from him to create mortals. To achieve this would clearly mean the annihilation of all life.
Ax-Crazy: "Kill the non-believer!"
Decapitated Army: In Ashes of Malmouth, with both Bloodlord Thalonis and the Loghorrean dead, the Bloodsworn are in a complete state of disarray, with an unseen Grand Priest desperately trying to hold what remains of the cult together.
I Did What I Had to Do: Some of the cultist you meet in the void say they only joined because they were desperate for food and shelter.
Voice of the Legion: Their voices tend to be dark, deep and distorted, possibly a side effect of spending so much time around Cthonic corruption and magic.

Karroz, Sigil of Ch'thon

Arc Villain: The main villain of Arc 3, killing him concludes the arc and revals the true plan of the Cult.
Big "NO!": When you beat him, he let out this outloud. Not because you defeated him, but because his body is about to burst out.
Evil Sorcerer: He mostly uses spells and chaos-tainted sorcery to fight.
Orcus on His Throne: He has no reason to leave the Darkvale Gate.
Painful Transformation: When you defeat him, his body levitates and spasm violently as he lets out a strings of pained "no". Then, Thall'nosh the Unraveler burst out of his corpse in a shower of blood and proceeds to fight you.
Sequential Boss: You first have to kill Karroz himself. Then, Thal'nosh will erupt from his corpse and you have to defeat him as well.
With My Dying Breath, I Summon You: As with many Bloodsworn, his death allows a Chthonian to breach into Cairn. In his case, the unique and powerful Chthonian Thal'nosh the Unraveler is summoned through his corpse.
You Shall Not Pass!: Tries to pull this on anyone trying to get through Darvale Pass and up north towards Fort Ikon and the Necropolis.

Loghorrean, the Voice of Ch'thon

Almighty Idiot: Despite being the Big Bad of the main game and the key to Cthon's resurrection, its all but stated that the Loghorrean is basically a demonic animal that's barely sentient, if even that.
Attack of the Monster Appendage: You first meet his giant fleshy tentacles scattered across the gaps of the ruined Seal, with some of them even attacking you if you're too close. Only by entering the Tomb itself you come face to face with the Loghorrean himself. Oddly, the scenery tentacles keep moving after the main body's demise.
Combat Tentacles: When its not too busy throwing spells at you or summoning monstrosities, it will take the time to flay you with its tentacles.
Deader than Dead: Ashes of Malmouth reveals that the Taken defeating it merely banished it back to the Void, where Ulgrim finished it off.
The Dreaded: The Erulan Empire went to extreme lengths to keep it sealed after it was defeated and captured centuries previously, and had the slaves who built the final chamber and inscribed the sealing runes entombed with it. When the Taken brings word of the plan to release it, Captain Somer, Creed, and even Ulgrim are worried about it being released.
Extra Eyes: It has four visible eyes.
More Teeth than the Osmond Family: It has many sharp teeth in its many mouths.
Mouth of Sauron: The Voice of Cthon. Its name means "One Who Babbles."
Sealed Evil in a Can: The vast structure of the Necropolis was secretly designed to serve as a prison to hold the Loghorrean. It took decades to built and cost hundreds of lives to construct, and reportedly cost the lives of a hundred Imperial Arcanists to create the magical seals to keep it contained. The slaves who were assigned to finish the final chamber were sealed inside to keep its existence secret.
Stationary Boss: It's incapable of moving, but with all its immense powers it doesn't need to.
Too Many Mouths: It has one large mouth with two rows of sharp teeth. Several smaller mouths are also located next to its head and at the end of two tentacles.
Vagina Dentata: Its main mouth is shaped like this with several sharp teeth.

Benn'Jhar, the Colossal

The first Chthonian Nemesis, a gargantuan Obsidian Ravager.

Grava'Thul, the Voiddrinker

The second Chthonian Nemesis, a gigantic Rylok. Only spawns in certain Ashes of Malmouth locations.

Lightning Bruiser: Grava moves fast, hits like a truck and has lots of health.
Painfully Slow Projectile: His Annihilation Orb moves incredibly slowly, but given if it hits you, you either get your buffs removed, or you get killed. Even if you survive it the loss of your buffs could mean you'd get killed anyways shortly after.
Status-Buff Dispel: He can cast a nasty projectile that burns energy and dispels every buff on your character.

Cronley's Gang

Before the Grim Dawn, Devil's Crossing was used as a prison to hold the land's most notorious and dangerous criminals. When the Dawn came, many of these outlaws escaped the prison and banded together under the charismatic crimelord Darius Cronley. Now, the Gang sets its hungry eyes on Devil's Crossing once again, but Cronley himself has a dark secret not even his most loyal are aware of.

Tropes applying to Cronley's Gang as a whole

Bit Part Bad Guys: The only time you fight them in great quantities is during Act 2 and in the Arkovian Docks in Act 3, which is an entirely optional area. Their only real connection to the main story of the game is that they are a threat to Devil's Crossing. rather tellingly, Cronley himself is fought halfway through Act 2, with the rest of that part of the game involving getting to Homestead.
Body Horror: Cronley and some of his elite minions have infused themselves with Aether, which has given them unnatural, crystalline growths across their bodies.
Les Collaborateurs: Unbeknownst to even his followers, Cronley has sold out to the Aetherials and is using a secret stash of Aether Crystals to convert members of the Gang into new soldiers for them.
Even Evil Has Standards: Some gang members think Cronley has gone more insane than usual and tried to desert. Cronley has them imprisoned and you can choose to kill them or free them.
Hufflepuff House: You have to deal with them in Act 2, but once you're done with them, they become irrelevant.
In-Series Nickname: Some gang members have a nickname attached to their name like: "Moneybags" Martin, Leander "Blackwater" Greene, Igor "The Brawler" .
More Criminals Than Targets: Probably a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation, but Cronley's Gang is ridiculously numerous for a band of thieves and murderers, which makes one wonder how do they sustain themselves just through robbery and slavery, specially in a world where civilization has collapsed.

Darius Cronley

Authority Equals Asskicking: The tallest and baddest of all the gang.
Ax-Crazy: He was already condemned for two counts of murder before the Grim Dawn. He is a sadists and take delight in harming others, either they be innocents and authority-figures. Infusing himself with Aether crystals seem to have made him even worse.
Bad Boss: Darius Cronley isn't exactly a model citizen. He doesn't treat his men with care and punishes anyone who questions his orders.
Big Bad Wannabe: Cronley has grand plans to conquer Devil's Crossing and torture its people as Warden Krieg did with the people he experimented on. However, he cannot even hope to compare to the Aetherials and Chthonians who plot to conquer or destroy the world respectively. Cronley's gang is hopelessly small compared to legions of Aetherials, Chthonians, Beasts and Undead who control much larger territories. This probably motivate him to join the Aetherials to get a bigger share of the pie.
Body Horror: Cronley allowed himself to be incrusted with Aether crystals, giving him new powers and increasing his strength, but also turning his body into a monstrosity.
Blood Knight: He can't do anything without violence or injuring others.
Evil Laugh
Flunky Boss: You never fight him alone. He has Aether crystals and summoned creatures fighting alongside him. Sometimes, he can also be accompanied by one of his elite fighters, the bruiser Romanov.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Cronley was just a petty leader of thugs. When civilization collapsed, nothing stopped him from reorganizing his gang into a powerful band of raiders, extortionists, murderers and rapists.
Sadist: Cronley enjoys inflicting pain and suffering to others and doesn't care about his own men. When you mention Elsa to him, he fantasizes about many cruel things he wish he could have done to her.

Fabius "The Unseen" Gonzar

The Nemesis of Cronley's Gang. A former Nightblade that went rogue and ended up as Cronley's best assassin and secret weapon.

Eyepatch of Power: He wears one on his right eye, and he's the most powerful boss that Cronley's Gang has to offer.
The Kingslayer: He used to be a Nightblade under the service of a noble house, but he grew tired of the political intrigues between the noble families and ended up murdering his own masters before getting captured by the First Blade.
Mirror Boss: He can be this against Nightblade characters. Almost every skill he uses belong to said mastery.
Professional Killer: Very fitting for a former Nightblade.
That One Attack: Or rather That one Weapon. Given that Fabius can spawn wielding epic and legendary weapons, one weapon players dread seeing him equipped with is the Notched Bone of a Thousand Deaths, a weapon that has a proc skill that synergizes incredibly well with his attacks and easily inflicts a One-Hit Kill.

The Arkovian Undead

Long ago, the empire of Arkovia ruled Cairn with an iron fist under the rule of its four Oligarchs. However, when they kidnapped and tortured the necromancer Urubooruk for his secret of immortality, Urubooruk gave them exactly what they wanted. Their bodies rotted and withered, but they were denied the peace of death they now craved. Now, the skeletal and spectral remnants of Arkovia wander the ruins of their empire, seething with madness and hatred towards the living.

Arch-Enemy: While they despise all the living, they hold a special enmity towards the Rovers, because of them being the descendant of king Rhowan, one of the few arkovians who managed to escape Urubooruk's curse.
Be Careful What You Wish For: They abducted and tortured Urubooruk for his secret of immortality, and he indeed gave it to them...but left out a few key details.
And I Must Scream: The Undead are incapable of moving on to the afterlife and are driven mad by their condition.
Dem Bones: Skeletons are always found in great numbers and come in a various types, from lowly warriors to revenants and spellcasters.
Elite Mooks: The Revenants, coming in the variety of Knights, Storm Revenant, Flame Revenant and Frost Revenant. They not only possess buffs and debuffs, they are more durable and pack quite a punch in groups.
Our Ghosts Are Different: The vast majority of ghosts attack you on sight because they hate your guts for being alive. You can meet friendly ghosts NPC, but they are very rare.
Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Ghouls are mostly found in desecrated tombs. They love to inflict bleeding damage.
Shoot the Medic First: Kill the Skeleton Priests first if you don't want them to undo your work.
Ultimate Blacksmith: Deep within the Necropolis, you can find an Undead blacksmith who is not only friendly, but is unique in that he can convert your excess rare Aetherial or Cthonian crafting components (Tainted Brain Matter and Blood of Cthon, respectively), into their opposite counterpart.

Moosilauke, the Chillwind

The Undead Nemesis.

An Ice Person: Most of its attacks are cold-based.
Sequential Boss: Once you kill its first form it gets even bigger and starts using new and more lethal attacks.

Beasts

Various beasts and beastkin that inhabit Cairn. Already dangerous before the Grim Dawn, they've only become moreso now that civilization has largely collapsed. While nearly all of them are different, all of them want the seem thing: you for a snack.

Tropes applied to Beasts in general

All Trolls Are Different: Big, ugly, dirty, club-wielders. They also have shamans and gunners. Trolls have been around for a long time and are known to kidnap women in order to breed half-trolls. With Grim Dawn, the Aetherials empowered and enslaved many of them into their army.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The game has different kind of giant bugs looking out to eat you. Some of them are colonial insects and live in a hive.
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Yetis are found in the north and they pack they quite a punch with their fists and cold attacks. The Leafmanes are the same, except they have poison attacks and live in the swamps.
Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: While the other enemy factions share the same goals and make sense to work as a pack, Beasts occupy many different species that seem to have no problem cooperating to try and kill you.
Eviler than Thou: Are the victim of this by the Aetherials, who begin using some of them, notably Trolls and Manticores, as hosts by the mid-game.
Full-Boar Action: Boars in this game are not recognizable because of the mutation their endured. They are very large, sport giant tusks and have armored bodies.
Giant Mook: The Dranghouls (which have no relation to Ghouls despite their name), behemoth variants of the Grobles. Compared to their diminutive counterparts, the Dranghouls are far bigger and taller than you.
Giant Spider: Giant spiders are frequent enemies. While they can throw poison at you, they can close on you fast. They can also slow you down with their sticky webs.
Golem: Gloomwald and Ugdenbog are full of these, and they are often accompanied by or sometimes even summon the various carnivorous plants you encounter in that place. Interestingly, they sometimes drop various elementally-charged rifles that are described in flavour text as being forged from their stone cores.
Harping on About Harpies: Harpies are children born under the Arkovian curse that were born as such then left to die by their parents. An Arkovian spirit mentions that the original Arkovian-born harpies are biologically immortal, though their many children are not, while asking you to kill one of them.
Kraken and Leviathan: Kra'vall, Ancient of the Waters, although it lurks in the Ugdenbog swamps rather than the ocean. Somehow, the Sliths worship it as a god.
Man-Eating Plant: Those Carnivorous Plants are very big and very numerous. You'll find them in the expansion.
The Morlocks: The Trogs. They are are Gollum-like creatures that live underground, complete with bald heads and long arms. They don't have firearms like the other humanoids, but they do carry weapons and use magic.
Non-Indicative Name: Raptors are not dinosaurs. They are flying creatures that belong to the Riftspawn race.
Our Goblins Are Different: The goblin-like Grobles. They have a tribal lifestyle and have been raiding the empire long before the Grim Dawn hit Cairn. They come in different sizes, some of them being smaller than the PC while others are giant-sized behemoths.
Our Gryphons Are Different: The gryphons dwell in the desert and look for unsuspected preys, namely: you.
Our Manticores Are Spinier: All coming in the wingless, spiky-tailed (albeit stinging) variety, sometimes capable of using a teleport attack similar to Shadow Strike.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: Harpies and Sliths both descend from magically-mutated children, and both their progenitors are biologically immortal. It was unintentional on the part of the harpies, but deliberate on the part of the slith.
Raptor Attack: Dinosaurs similar to dromaeosaurs exists, but they are referred as Sandclaws and Moltenclaws. They live in the desert and the Infernal Wastes respectively. Watch out, they can leap and close the distance between you and them.
Shoot the Medic First: Much like with the Undead and their Skeleton Priests, most players should almost always try to kill the Grobles' Witchdoctors first.
Snake People: The Slith. Their lower body is that of a snake and the upper body is reptilian with two arms.
Spider Swarm: Not only do giant spiders attack in large groups, they also have specialized melee and ranged units.
T. Rexpy: One particularly large Sandclaw boss, the Titanovore, is almost akin to a T-Rex-like dinosaur and less like a raptor.
Was Once a Man:
- The Slith were created by a mad Arcanist named Oswald Hargate as part of an experiment in using the aether to mutate living creatures. He found that less intelligent creatures like grobles could create malformed hybrids, and while human test subjects could make for proper hybrids, most of his subjects were too old and died shortly after being transformed. But he conveniently had a younger test subject available: his daughter....
- Wendigos are the result of humans corrupted by the spirit of the Wendigo in Ugdenbog and turning to cannibalism. It can also affect people outside of Ugdenbog when they have to resort to cannibalism to survive.

Kupacabra, the Endless Menace

The Beast Nemesis.

Asteroids Monster: When killed, Kupacabra splits into two weaker and smaller copies of itself. Each one of these copies also split in two, meaning that you have to kill it seven times.
Bloody Murder: Kupa loves to inflict bleeding damage on you and summon blood pool that heal it while dealing even more bleeding damage to you.
Chupacabra: The similar-sounding name and predilection for bleeding damage suggest that it's based on the cryptozoological creature.

Eldritch Horrors

Monstrous creatures coming from the Eldritch Realm, servants of Korvaak. Their ranks also include the Korvaak's Chosen, the most loyal and fanatical followers of Kymon who embraced Korvaak as their god.

Animated Armor: This faction make use of many animated armors of different sizes and powers.
Fallen Hero: A good number of them, specifically the more humanoid ones, are former members of Kymon's Chosen twisted after Korvaak came calling for Father Kymon to uphold his end of their bargain. Of course, given what Kymon's Chosen are like, calling them "heroes" may be a bit of a stretch.
Golem: There are multiple type of Golems. While they are very slow, they are highly resistant and hit really hard.
Humanoid Abomination: Korvaak's ascended are humans who got transformed into huge and grotesque creatures by Korvaak's powers.
Living Statue: The Korvan animated statues when you get too close to them. They are actually possessed by eldritch spirits which you must defeat after you destroy the statues.
Mummy: During your journey through the ruins of the Korvan empire, you can find the mummified corpses of Korvaak's worshippers, ready to kill any intrude.
Our Gargoyles Rock: Hostile winged creatures described as gargoyles, except we don't see them turn to stone.
Our Gryphons Are Different: Of the living statue variety. They can still fly despite their massive weight and land next to you.
Was Once a Man: Korvaak's ascended were once humans. They are obese, hit really hard, deceptively fast, can cast meteor showers and have hook swords instead of hands.

The Messenger

A powerful servant of Korvaak.

Card-Carrying Villain: When you meet him in Kymon's studio when you've sided with the faction, he will tell you upfront that he is not a messenger of Empyrion, his master is something else, and they're playing Kymon and his cult for fools and using them for their own ends. If you threaten to reveal this information, The Messenger's response is to basically dare you to do it, saying that you would be branded a liar and a blasphemer, and cast out if not outright killed for your heresy.
Fighting a Shadow: After defeating it you can go back to Kymon's studio in the Chosen's base (if you sided with the faction) and the Messenger will be there, telling you that you can't truly kill it.
Mouth of Sauron: He is this for Korvaak.
One-Winged Angel: His first form is just a floating ball of flame. Once you beat him, he turns into a giant gargoyle.
Villainous Breakdown: Once you kill Korvaak, he gets entirely stuck in one of these, knowing he most likely won't get another chance to resurrect the Eldritch Sun and there is nothing he can do about it, not even avenge him. He will eagerly scream at you for ruining everything at every opportunity, and generally seethe with so much impotent fury just getting too close to the spirit is painful.
Fool, FOOL! You have doomed yourself, DOOMED YOUR WORLD!
Walking Spoiler: It's very difficult to talk about this character in great detail without spoiling a major reveal for a base game faction, which plays a massive part in the Forgotten Gods storyline.

Kaisan, the Eldritch Scion

The Eldritch Horror Nemesis.

Acid Attack: His attacks has an acid damage component.
Shock and Awe: His attacks also deal a considerable amount of lightning damage.

Other Potential Allied/Enemy Factions

Kymon's Chosen

A militant order of priests who serve Empyrion, god of Light, led by Father Kymon. They utterly abhor the corruption of the Void and Necromancy, and as such are staunch opponents of both the Cthonians and the Order of Death's Vigil.

Action Girl: The Blade Maiden (the Chosen's elite unit) and the Iron Maiden (the Chosen's Nemesis Boss).
Arch-Enemy: To the Order of Death's Vigil and the Chthonians.
Broken Pedestal: In Forgotten Gods, you can send a defector of Kymon's Chosen to the base to spread the word that Kymon has lied to them and betrayed humanity by allying with Korvaak. The members of the order react with disgust and disappointment at the news, although they affirm that they will keep fighting for humanity's sake as an army despite their order being based on a lie.
Defector from Decadence: When you reach Act 7, you meet a group soldiers from Kymon's Chosen who abandon their post after finding out that Kymon has lied to them. They discovered that Empyrion wasn't the god they worshiped and Kymon wants to unleash Korvaak on the world.
Evil Costume Switch: During Act 7, Kymon's Chosen become Korvaak's Chosen and they sport new uniforms.
Face–Heel Turn: By the time of Forgotten Gods, all but a mere handful of them have been completely enthralled to Korvaak's will, including Kymon himself.
Good Is Not Nice: While they fight for the good of world, they refuse to make any concessions with anything they perceive as evil, such the necromancers. They will resort to violence as the only means to achieve their goals.
Hypocrite/Irony: Despite the Chosen having an irrationally hate of necromancers, they have exclusive gears that boost necromancer's skills.
Knight Templar: They see themselves as purveyors of truth and goodness, and do not hesitate to attack anything (or anyone) they see as "evil".

Father Kymon

The aforementioned leader of the Chosen.

The Dragon: Father Kymon has become Korvaak's by the beginning of Forgotten Gods.
I Did What I Had to Do: He tells you this when you confront him in the Tomb of the Eldritch Sun. Although Kymon admits that the price that Korvaak demands is very high, he affirms that it's the only way to defeat the forces of Ch'Thon.
One-Winged Angel: At the start of his boss battle, Korvaak's influence turns him into a hulking monstrosity that can spit molten rocks from his chest.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kymon made a deal with Korvaak, a malicious primordial god, in exchange for the power to fight back the Chthonians and the Aetherials, then he lied to his followers that they are serving Empyrion. Kymon admits that he has probably doomed himself by dealing with Korvaak and that its raise in power may pose a threat to Cairn in the future, but he expresses that he saw no other option considering the current desperate state Cairn is sunk in.
Walking Spoiler

The Iron Maiden

Kymon's Chosen Nemesis.

Heroic Second Wind: Has Menhir's Will with the same activation mechanics as the Soldier.
Mirror Boss: For Soldier characters. Almost all of her skills belong to said mastery.

The Order of Death's Vigil

A secretive cabal of Necromancers founded by Urubooruk, the legendary immortal Necromancer who brought doom to Arkovia. Although many hate and revile them for their profane art, most fiercely Kymon's Chosen, their mastery over death could make them a key factor in humanity's odds against the Aetherials.

A Lighter Shade of Grey: The Order is way more tolerant and open-minded than Kymon's Chosen. They are willing to let an Inquisitor join their faction despite their violent history with the Luminari Order and understand that the grudges of the past don't matter too much when humanity's survival is at stake. In contrast, Kymon's Chosen won't let you join them if you play as a necromancer.
Arch-Enemy: To Kymon's Chosen and the Aetherials.
Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being followers of a very controversial figure and constantly meddling with the limits between life and death, the members of the Death's Vigil care about the survival of humanity as much as the other allied factions.
For Science!: They are more interested in preserving and expanding the knowledge of necromancy than gathering power through it.
Mirror Character: With Kymon's Chosen, their hated nemesis. While they claim to be pursuing power and knowledge through intellectual and necromantic pursuits, they're all too happy to send you to deliberately slaughter the Chosen's forces even if doing so doesn't advance their research, which can make their unconditional acceptance of the Taken seem more driven by pragmatism rather than enlightenment. While Kymon is a Broken Pedestal for his own Chosen, the same could be said for Urobooruk himself, who abandoned his own Order and ultimately came to the conclusion that his pursuit of necromantic arts was a meaningless delay of the inevitable.
I Warned You: If you sided with Kymon's Chosen in the base game, then when you encounter a camp of Order members during Forgotten Gods (by which point most of Kymon's Chosen have been corrupted by Korvaak), the Order members dryly remind you that they did try to warn you that Father Kymon couldn't be trusted.
Necromancer: This is a whole faction of necromancers with undead summoning and cold-related attacks.
Not So Above It All: While it's clear that the Order of Death's Vigil aren't as bloodthirsty as their arch-nemesis, you'll sometimes catch them mirthfully reminiscing about killing Kymon's Chosen and reanimating them to fight their (former) brethren.

Zantarin, the Eternal

The Order of Death's Vigil Nemesis.

Flunky Boss: He constantly summons skeletal warriors. If left unchecked, they can easily overwhelm unprepared players.
Short-Range Shotgun: His Signature Move is a burst of projectiles that is almost harmless at long distances but absolutely deadly in close range.

Urubooruk

The leader and founder of the Order of Death's Vigil.

The Atoner: When you finally meet him at the gates of Korvaak's Tomb, he manifests a deep regret for all the pain and suffering his lust for power and immortality caused through the centuries.
Death Equals Redemption: Urubooruk gives his last strengths to remove the seal to allow the Taken to reach and defeat Korvaak.
Really 700 Years Old: No one knows how old he is. He was around even before the fall of the civilization of Arkovia, which happened many centuries before the start of the game.
Necromancer: The oldest and most powerful necromancer in the known history.
No Body Left Behind: Urubooruk uses the last of his strength to break the seal that block the entrance of the Temple of the Eldritch Sun. His body vanishes afterwards, leaving only a pendant.
Pay Evil unto Evil: What he did to Arkovia and its people was undeniably horrific, but as the Arkovians were Abusive Precursors, it's hard to find any tears for them.
Really Gets Around: Being immortal helped Urubooruk sired many children over the course of history.
Tragic Keepsake: The only things that remains of him after dying is a pendant with the silhouette of a woman, implied to be his late wife and the mother of Daila and Dravis. You can give it to Daila in the end of her questline to grant her some closure about the tragic end of his father and brother.
Was It Really Worth It?: For centuries, Urubooruk has stolen the souls of thousands to sustain his immortality. Over the years, guilt started to settle-in and he wondered if it was worth it.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: In his final moments, he states it was initially great, but then the guilt of his methods started grinding away at him throughout every last year; by the end, he just wants to set every soul that keeps him living free, including his own even if it has to burn.

The Outcast

Anasteria is an Aetherial Witch who, for reasons known only to herself, has abandoned her Aetherial brethren and chosen to aid humanity. Despite the protests of the Black Legion, Inquisitor Creed has agreed to work with her and has forbidden the Legion to act against her directly. However, there is no such ban on those working outside the Legion...

Heel–Face Turn: The fondness and fascination that Anasteria developed for mankind led her to betray her race and help humanity.
Insufferable Genius: She's very intelligent and knowledgeable of the Aetherials and how to deal with them. Too bad she's also a hard ass to deal with.
The Power of Hate: If you decide to antagonize her, she will get stronger as you gain infamy reputation by killing her, eventually reaching Nemesis Status.
Reformed, but Rejected: Despite saving many lives with her useful knowledge of the Aetherials, the Black Legion doesn't trust her at all and would rather see her dead. The only thing preventing them from killing her are Creed's directives.
Scare Campaign: Black Legion Commander Lucius (or rather the Aetherial possessing him) engaged in a highly-successful one against her. Inquisitor Creed's orders are all that keep her alive, and Captain Reave is looking for some Loophole Abuse to get around that. Sadly, there's no option to simply show Reave the note where a possessed Lucius admits he's doing this in hopes they'll kill her.

Barrowholm

A seemingly benign village residing in the Ugdenbog that has miraculously survived the coming of the Aetherials and Cthonians. The truth, however, is that they are a splinter group of Wendigos and Wendigo Cultists who, unlike their savage kin, choose to live peacefully and civilized. That said, they are still firm followers of the Ravager, and thus are compelled to occasionally find hapless travelers to feed on...

Affably Evil: They're quite polite and friendly for a cult of cannibals.
A Lighter Shade of Black: If you agree to work with them, when their leader reveals the town's true nature, he points out that even with their unapologetic cannibalism and worship of the Ravager, they are considerably more civil and open to friendship than their far more savage kin.
"Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: When you mention that Scorv tricked the people of Barrowholm into serving the Ravager, he retorts that "tricked" is such an ugly word.
From Nobody to Nightmare: If you side with him and gain enough reputation, Scorv Egdenorwill mention he was a just lost traveler in the swamp when he resorted to cannibalism to survive. The Ravager took notice of him and made him his pawn. Scorv then turned Barrowholm from a starving community into a thriving village by eating and sacrificing innocent travelers.
Eldritch Abomination: If you reach the worst possible reputation with the Barrowholm, the cult will summon the manifestation of the Ravager himself: Reaper of the Lost. And it will hunt you down all over the Ugdenbog and the Gloomwald.
Glamour Failure: Turn them hostile, and Barrowholm's residents will be forced to shed any pretense of being human and transform into wendigos.
I'm a Humanitarian: They eat humans to survive and to make offerings to the Ravager.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Scorv has normal looking eyes, but they permanently turn red when Ravager's summoning ritual is near to completion.
Town with a Dark Secret: They're a Cannibal Cult who worship the Ravager and sacrifice unwary travelers to him.
Wendigo: The leader of the community is possessed by a powerful wendigo spirit. The other members of the community will transform into wendigos as well if they are turned hostile.

Reaper of the Lost

Barrowholm's Nemesis. A lesser manifestation of the Ravager.

Clipped-Wing Angel: It's a significantly weaker manifestation of the Ravager compared to the Physical God tier superboss it is normally. Given that Reaper of the Lost only shows up after antagonizing Barrowholm to the point of nemesis status, the implication is that it's a partial or failed manifestation of the Ravager, probably because of the cult lacking the help of the Taken to complete the ritual properly.

Gods and other Deities

The Witch Gods

Bysmiel, Dreeg and Solael, a trio of powerful sorcerers who ascended to godhood and currently rule the Eldritch Realm.

The Beastmaster: Bysmiel's specialty is summoning beasts to do her bidding.
Deity of Human Origin: The three Witch Gods, Solael, Bysmiel and Dreeg were once humans before ascending to godhood. They have since ruled in the Eldritch realm and now have taken a greater interest in Cairn because of the Grim Dawn.
Chromatic Arrangement: The three gods are color-coded like this:
- Red: Solael.
- Blue: Bysmiel.
- Green: Dreeg.
Extra Eyes: The witch god Dreeg is said to be an unspeakable horror with thousands of lidless eyes. Ironically, his actual, previous eyes were struck blind upon ascension.
Good Is Not Nice: The three gods and their cults are the saviors of humanity, but they are not exactly benevolent. Solael is cruel and demands sacrifice from his followers before he will give them the time of day. Bysmiel is a schemer and loves manipulation, delighting in spying and steering people around. Dreeg seem to be more neutral, but can get fairly ruthless if he needs to avert a bad future and will bombard you with horrible truths so you can avert them even if it drives you mad.
Hollywood Acid: Other than Extra Eyes, everything about Dreeg always involve acid attacks.
Kill It with Fire: Solael is said to be master of eldritch fire, which combine fire and chaos damage.
Mad Oracle: Dreeg's followers tend to crack under the burden of their visions, and Dreeg himself is apparently not entirely sane.
Power at a Price: Solael's specialty. He demands sacrifices, sometimes very costly ones, but he will grant you something in return, usually eldritch power. The more you give away, the bigger his gifts can get.
Sadist: Solael is the cruelest of the Three and demand sacrifices from his followers. He will reward those sacrifices, however, so he's not a complete bastard.
Seers: Dreeg has many eyes and is said to be capable of seeing in the future and beyond the worlds.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: They originally were at war with each other, but eventually made a peace pact. In the present day, they still hate each other but they need each other and continue to stick to the peace pact, as none of them are individually strong enough to be a god by themselves.
Two Guys and a Girl: Dreeg and Solael are males and Bysmiel is female. The backstory say that Solael and Bysmiel were once in a relationship, but chose to broke it off to pursue power for themselves.
Unskilled, but Strong: Solael, in comparison to the other two. Dreeg may have his near-omniscience and Bysmiel may have her world-spanning web of intrigue and many minions, but neither can really match Solael when it comes to raw power to throw around.
The Vamp: Bysmiel seduced Ulzuin as part of a larger plot to attain godhood.
Written by the Winners: When you mention that Korvaak used to reign over the Eldritch Realm, with evidence supported from various notes you found, the Emissary quickly shot you down and say that only the Three rule over the Eldritch Realm.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Gazing upon Dreeg's true form will drive you mad. Only one of the Coven survived this ordeal and she's a complete, broken mess.

Mogdrogen

The God of Beasts, Protector of Nature and Guardian of the Rowhari.

The Beastmaster: He can summon huge beasts to assist him in battle.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: His motivations for things like allowing the Grim Dawn to happen and letting his people suffer are, as he puts it, beyond human comprehension. There's also his vision to King Rowan of Arkovia, which once you have a clearer picture of the multitude of lore notes that surround said events presents the possibility that his actions were a Self-Fullfilling Prophecy in the fall of Arkovia. Rowan was a great and kind king, and his sudden and chaotic abandoment of the throne is shown to have resulted in a bunch of absolute idiots and scum to gain power who would later make the oh so bright decision to torture the world's most powerful necromancer for a method to gain immortallity, resulting in Arkovia's fall. Mogdrogen has no real opinion on the events or sense of responsibility for this.
Deity of Human Origin: Allegedly subverted. He implicitly denies it while being insulted that you would think such a thing.
Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: You can choose to fight Mogdrogen, which is a terrible idea (even the game will tell you how misguided that is). He's not bluffing when he tells you that he can crush you like an insect, and even the normal difficulty version of him is enough to wreck a fully leveled character.
Expy: Silvanus with a dose of arrogance.
God's Hands Are Tied: If questioned about why he let the Grim Dawn happen, he will respond that the events that devasted Cairn were set in march way before anyone, even the gods, could have foreseen them, and that trying to intervene in the aetherial-chthonian conflict is futile. He also explains to the Taken that a world that requieres constant intervention from the gods is just doomed to fail and deserves to die.
Jerkass Gods: Downplayed. Mogdrogen is grateful enough to reward you for restoring his shrine, but ask the wrong question or doubt his power and he'll get unpleasant really quick, belittling you or threatening to squash you like a bug.
Nature Spirit: He's Cairn's God of Beasts and Nature.
Shock and Awe: Lightning is also one of his domains and he has some very nasty lightning attacks.
Superboss: Mogdrogen's avatar is the first Celestial-class boss that the player can battle with during the main campaign. In an area where the player's level is usually around Level 33-48 on a first run, Mogdrogen's lowest possible level is Level 71. He has at least 90% resistance to all non-physical damage types and dishes out attacks that will destroy unprepared players in moments. Being able to reliably defeat Mogdrogen's avatar is one of the community-endorsed methods of checking the viability of a skill build.

Ch'thon, the Dying God

Ch'thon was an elder god that preceded the birth of mortals. His own children betrayed him and his blood was used to create worlds, including Cairn.

And I Must Scream: He can not truly die and his discarded remains lie in the Void. Nonetheless, he can still feel the death and suffering of all mortals across the planes.
Greater-Scope Villain: He's the main god behind one of the largest and most-recurring antagonist factions, but doesn't get involved directly. Such is his scope that the blood of all mortal beings is arguably his, thus why his followers are so literally hellbent on killing everyone to get it, and the hordes of his demons that you fight throughout the game including several major act bosses and nemesis bosses could be considered the equivalent of his body cells.
The Ghost: He never made an appearance in the game. The only information we got from him is the description of his constellation.
Pandeism: A very Darker and Edgier take on it. His blood was used to create all mortal life in the Grim Dawn universe. But he feels all the pain that they feel and has been driven mad by it.
Pieces of God: Mortals are made out of his blood. His followers are dedicated to harvesting enough blood to restore him as we're all just a separate part of him.

Empyrion

The God of Light who purge the world of darkness and who many worship for guidance.

Expy: For Lathander: both are sun gods and are a beacon of light for good, and also share a dislike of undead: the Light of Empyrion celestial power does extra damage to undead.
God of Light: The God of Light in the pantheon of Cairn.
Have You Seen My God?: If you ask the Avatar of Mogdrogen or Korvaak's messenger where the light god Empyrion is, they say they haven't heard of him in a very long time and may be dead. Complicating matters is Archon Barthollem, who claims that he still serves Empyrion.
Hope Bringer: Everyone worship him because he is the protector of Cairn and the most powerful of all the gods.

Korvaak

A long forgotten primordial god who seeks to raise in power once again.

Arc Villain: Of Forgotten Gods.
Bullet Hell: Dodging projectiles from multiple direction is a popular event when fighting Korvaak.
Driven to Villainy: Various notes reveal that Korvaak was a harsh, but fair god. When Dreeg, Bysmiel and Solael overthrew him, they took over the Eldritch realm and ascended to godhood in his place. That really, really pissed him off. He bid his time and once he returns, he will not only enact a cruel and terrible vengeance on the Three, but also on all mortals.
Enemy Mine: His reason to assists Kymon is to keep Ch'thon's forces at bay while he recovers his powers. Many lore pieces mention the chtonians as his arch-enemies.
Evil Sounds Deep: Korvaak has a really deep and menacing voice.
Expy: Clearly an expy of Typhon from Titan Quest. Four arms, trapped in a prison for aeons and a very dangerous threat to the world.
Final Boss: Korvaak is the final boss the Forgotten Gods expansion.
Gods Need Prayer Badly: Like all gods, they need worshipers to sustain their divinity. After his fall, his worship waned and he was forgotten. The Grim Dawn allowed a desperate Kymon to restart his clergy and fuel his power under the false guise of Empyrion, the light god.
God of Evil: He wasn't at first, but after his fall he definitely intent on becoming one.
Kill It with Fire: Many of his attacks are fire-based. He's not named the Eldritch Sun for nothing.
Kneel Before Zod: He will taunt you with this line.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Korvaak has four arms.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Chained inside his prison for ages.
Walking Spoiler: All his tropes are hidden to avoid giving away the punchlines.

The Ravager

An evil Wendigo god who hungers for blood and is obsessed with consuming everything. Initially absent from the game, while worshipped by the various cannibals in Cairn, he can make an appearance in the Ashes of Malmouth DLC, depending on the Taken's choices.

Arch-Enemy: To Mogdrogen. He is also a sworn enemy to the Chthonians because he believes they steal his preys from him.
Expy: For Malar, although he is far more cruel and vicious.
Evil Sounds Deep: Very deep and threatening voice.
Lightning Bruiser: While deciding which of the most devoted Barrowholm cultists is sacrificed to summon him changes the type of Ravager that appears, either of the three versions made for the toughest opponent in the game before Forgotten Gods came out. Ravager has insane amounts of health (25 million HP!), hits extremely hard, heavily resists just about every damage type in the game, boasts over 2700 Offensive and Defensive Ability on top of 2900+ armor and, finally, has a unique gimmick depending on the version you fight that makes the battle even harder. Likely the strongest possible Ravager, in that regard, is the Ravager of Minds, thanks to summoning pools that cause your ALL of your attacks to miss whenever you step on them. There is a reason why beating this guy is usually taken as a proof that you created an endgame build strong enough to steamroll over the rest of the game, Crucible and Shattered Realms notwithstanding.
Resurrective Immortality: once killed by the player he simply reappears the next game session as if nothing happened, in fact mocking the Taken for thinking they could put him down for good. Even Mogdrogen, a Titan, previously handing him his ass in combat and scattering his remains the world over wasn't enough, as you can simply summon him back as the Barrowholm folk find out.
Badass Boast: many, but the best one is probably the one he says after you've already beat him at least once.

"You cannot end me any more that you could stop the skies and still the seas. I am Ravager, I am eternal."

It's All About Me: The Ravager has no redeeming qualities and see everyone as nothing but pawns to be used or preys to hunt down.
Jerkass Gods: The Ravager looks down on humans as nothing but food to be consumed. He is even more contemptious towards the Taken.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: With a name like "Ravager", what do you think? Yes! Run fast and don't ever look back!
Superboss: Similar to the Avatar of Mogdrogen, the Ravager is a Celestial-class boss that the player can fight after choosing the appropriate dialogue options, and beyond having a starting level that is far higher than other monsters in the area, the Lightning Bruiser example above glosses over exactly why the Ravager fits this trope.
Wendigo: The evil god of wendigos.

Lokarr, Master of the Crucible

The Master of the Crucible, a realm that exists outside of Cairn as we know it. The Taken is summoned by Lokarr to do battle for his amusement. Impress him with your combat prowess and be rewarded vast riches, or fail and know his scorn.

And Your Reward Is Clothes: Defeating him in Ashes of Malmouth rewards you with 1 of 4 randomly dropped pieces of his armor. It acts as a new character accelerator as the full set gives a 40% boost to all experience gained.
Badass Arm-Fold: Lokarr always has his arms crossed and is very much a badass. After all, he is a god and can kick your ass dead before you can blink.
Combat Commentator: Acts as this when playing in the crucible. Either being impressed by or disparaging your performance.
Jerkass Gods: One of the few in the game to avert this. Even though he can pluck you out of cairn at a whim, if you wish to leave his realm he does not attempt to stop you. Should you brave the entirety of the crucible his talk of rewarding you with vast riches is not an understatement, in particular completing the crucible on Gladiator rewards you with tens of thousands of iron and several legendary items. Even should you fall in battle in the crucible you still reap a modest reward for your time, though not as much as going the distance and completing it. However, he also likes to constantly mock your performance in the Crucible, but even then he always just lets you try again without objection.
- This also extends to his boss battle in Ashes of Malmouth, where compared to the other superbosses Lokarr is pretty fair but tough, rather than having out and out tactics or abilities that need specific strategies or characters to overcome. Doing battle with Lokarr merely requires your build to be reasonably balanced and the real challenge is avoiding his more devastating attacks, and dealing with his flunkies as soon as possible.
Optional Boss: The hidden boss of the Ashes of Malmouth expansion.
Physical God: Make no mistake when fighting him, even though he gives you a fair fight compared to others, you are fighting a god and he can hit just as hard as the other bosses of his caliber.
Playing with Fire: He has a very strong penchant for using fire based attacks against you in his boss battle.

Callagadra, Scion of the Sands

One of the two new superbosses introduced in the Forgotten Gods expansion, this enigmatic monster can only be summoned after gathering powerful essence from Eldritch beings and sacrificing it on an altar hidden among the desert sands. Although maybe some things are best left unbothered.

That One Boss: as a Celestial tier superboss, this is a given, but Callagadra stands out from the others by being ridiculous even by Physical God standards. The main reasons for this are the multiple sand tornadoes that she summons, which can deal lethal damage in seconds when piling up on the player, and the fact that she deals immense amounts of Physical Damage. In Grim Dawn, capping resistances at 80% is needed to survive the insane damage of endgame bosses, but Physical Resistance is extremely hard to come by and as a result 99% of builds will at best have 40% or something Physical Resistance. This is tantamount to giving Callagadra a 40% total damage boost, forcing characters to either abuse temporary buffs, stack crazy amounts of armor or run around like headless chickens to survive her hits.
No-Nonsense Nemesis: unlike Mogdrogen and Ravager, Celestials who are incredibly fond of rubbing their superior power in your face, Callagadra doesn't speak. Unlike monsters like the insectoid queen Ravna or even Nemesis monsters, she is not introduced walking about or standing at a distance so you can avoid her or choose how to approach her. Nope. Immediately upon being summoned, she drops down from the SKY directly on top of you and will give chase to the ends of the earth trying to kill you, only stopping if you die or manage to defeat her.
Achilles' Heel: while it won't make fighting her easy by any means, Retaliation damage can be extremely effective against her. It works by counterattacking any enemy hitting you with a direct attack and as such needs very high amounts of damage to be useful normally as most enemies are rather slow or use ranged techniques. The hyper-aggressive Callagadra, however, is guaranteed to set off your character's retaliation strikes multiple times per second with her relentless strikes, often damaging hersef for massive amounts of HP with her bull-rushes instead of letting her magical attacks deal with you, thus allowing you to defeat her much quicker than you normally would. Retaliation-based characters also tend to have the extreme amounts of armor and defenses needed to tank her hits without really having to lower their DPS to do so, making them especially suited to take Callagadra on.
Mighty Glacier: Callagadra is not particularly fast, despite being able to teleport around. However she packs over 30 MILLION Hp on Ultimate Difficulty, has over 3000 in both Offensive and Defensive Ability, almost 3500 armor and deals absolutely bonkers amounts of Physical, Bleeding and Piercing Damage with her attacks.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: aside from an incredibly obscure reference on an item's description (see below) there is absolutely nothing in the game that so much as hints to Callagadra's existence, which even led some unfortunate players to summon her completely by accident (and then get promptly disintegrated). In general, Callagadra's true nature is almost a complete mystery: despite looking like a Gargoyle she's classified as a Celestial creature, which would basically make her a capital G god in the setting, yet no one ever mentions her in dialogue nor in any of the numerous lore notes in the Korvan desert. This also begs the questions of why exactly does she appear only once enough Celestial Essence is gathered and used at the Sacrificial Altar, who built the Altar, why and how is she so ridiculously powerful compared to everyone else (for reference, she's pretty much a tier above Mogdrogen and a fully awakened Ravager in terms of raw power). None of these questions are addressed by the game and as such Callagadra's fight can come out extremely out of the left field unless one is actively looking for her.
Anthropomorphic Personification: while Callagadra's true nature is left largely unexplained in-game and she is as a result one of the most enigmatic characters in the setting, the flavour text of the helmet she drops reads "Manifestation of the terror of the Korvan people as they fled devastation", which hints towards her being one of these.
Superboss: One of the hidden bosses of the Forgotten Gods expansion, and one of the hardest fights in the game.
Physical God: Though it's not exactly clear what exactly Callagadra is, she IS summoned by using an item heavily connected to the Gods of the setting and is clearly immensely powerful, given she can put up a harder fight than every other boss in the game, more so than even a Titan like Mogdrogen and the Wendigo God.
Dishing Out Dirt: Callagadra attacks primarily with masses of rock, dust devils and waves of sharp sand.

Crate of Entertainment

A humanoid-looking something with a box on his head. The second superboss introduced with Forgotten Gods.

Bragging Rights Reward: Defeating the Crate of Entertainment requires very specific build setups, good piloting skills and a very powerful endgame character min-maxed to the extreme, and that's not even counting the obnoxious treasure hunt you must go on to even find the damn boss. If you do succeed, the only reward are Wilhelm's Wondrous Wargem and the Mildly Amusing Box, two joke items that give +1 to all skills and insane Health/Energy regen respectively. Useful on paper, but there are much stronger items that give large skill bonuses in one case and the extremely low armor rating (and complete lack of any other stat) makes the regen boost all but useless in the other. Which means the only real gain from the battle is the glory, as even the other ridiculous superbosses usually have a powerful drop to make up for their difficulty.
Logical Weakness: the Crate's main gimmick is summoning waves of clones that split into two copies once killed, making up for the (relatively) low health of the main boss. Naturally, builds that focus on hard-hitting single target attacks and have the toughness to weather the clone's attacks or the DPS to burst down the main body can easily tear the Crate to shreds before it can overwhelm them with its horde of clones.
Lethal Joke Character: compared to the fearsome bosses of Forgotten Gods and the overall grim aesthetic of the game, this guy looks like an absolute joke. However, it can give you a harder fight than Callagadra despite being nowhere near as tough, with its self-replicating summons, potent debuffs and legitimately dangerous spells.
- The Crate's gimmicks, in fact, make it so dangerous that it's not used as a benchmark for build strenght simply because it forces you to play such a completely different game compared to other bosses that only very specific setups can allow you to beat it.
Optional Boss: The second hidden boss of the Forgotten Gods expansion. This things is just about impossible to find without reading the wikis or a dedicated guide, as the path to its lair requires a long trek through multiple hidden locations that are only foreshadowed by incredibly vague hints and even finding the first hint is very unlikely without help.
Physical God: For a developer's joke in human(oid) form, the thing sure is powerful. It can summon more minions in less time than any enemy in the game, rain gigantic meteors over the entire battlefield, momentarily "nerf" the player and much more.
Playing with Fire: The Crate can summon a rain of meteors and some of its clones specialize in using fire-based spells.

Characters / Grim Dawn

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