Strangers all have unique names to describe their own species and cultures, but those that live on Earth use a different term to distinguish themselves from the Bystander Effect afflicted humans: Alter. This is short for "alternative from human." They also have a term to describe Alters that really are monsters: Nocen. It's a Latin word that means "wicked" or "evil."

Make no mistake, most Nocen are every bit as bad as Heretics claim all Alters are. The rest are even worse.

Note that while many of the Seosten and their operatives would classify as Nocen due to their behavior and personalities, their tropes are on the Seosten Empire page.

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In General

Always Chaotic Evil: By their very nature, Nocen is a classification given to Alters who fulfil the monstrous stereotypes the heretics believe in. As such, Nocen are always chaotic evil because that chaotic evil nature is what gives them the designation of Nocen.
It Can Think: Malicious Alters without intelligence are considered little more than particularly dangerous animals, while the Nocen classification requires intelligence.
Wild Card: Motives vary between individual Nocen and the fact that they can come from any species makes it impossible to make generalizations about their capabilities or plans.

Nocen

Fossor

I will not be prevented from doing as I please.

Fossor is an ancient and undeniably evil Necromancer with a well deserved reputation as The Dreaded. He's dangerous enough that he alone justifies a lot of Crossroads' xenophobia against Strangers. The pre-Crossroads Heretics actually went so far as to try and banish him from Earth rather than actually deal with him. It didn't work. Today even centuries old Heretics like Seller and Ruthers hesitate to so much as speak his name.

He's responsible for the disappearance of Flick's mother, having kidnapped her in 2007. His intended target was actually Felicity, but he thought it would be fun to restore Joselyn's memories of her life as a Heretic so she would understand what he was doing and she convinced him to Take Her Instead. He fathered Ammon on her in the time since, and still intends to come back for Felicity as soon as possible.

Abusive Parents: His son is terrified of making him angry. He also did something to Ammon that turned him into the sociopath serial killer he is today. This may or may not have been after he turned the kid into a Heretic by burying him alive with the blood of an Alter.
The Archmage: Fossor is known as a Necromancer for good reason, but he doesn't limit himself to controlling the dead. He's gone out of his way to learn many other forms of magic.
Badass Boast: He has a habit of making these calmly or even casually to tell or remind someone what he's capable of and how foolish it is to think he can be beaten.
Been There, Shaped History: He caused The Black Death.
- That event also had a noticeable impact in shaping the story's Alternate History. There was a time when the Heretics who would eventually lead Crossroads were willing to trust Alters in desperate situations. Fossor's betrayal and subsequent launch of The Black Death is one of the main reasons they've remained so xenophobic for so long.
Berserk Button: Don't try to tell Fossor what to do. He'll take it personally. When the Heretics tried to curse him to stay off Earth, his response was to base himself there out of spite.
- Disobedience is another of his buttons. He really doesn't like being disobeyed.
Big Bad Ensemble: Possibly the Biggest Bad of the setting as a whole. Definitely the BB to his own race, as he conquered their homeworld and farms it for ghosts that turn into ashes he can step on; and to the Meregan, who he pushed to the brink of extinction in order to use their giant corpses. Unquestionably one of Flick's greatest enemies.
Blood Magic: During the age of piracy he would infect sailors and passengers with blood curses, using them as proxies to spread the affliction across the world.
Control Freak: Stemming from being restricted and imprisoned in his youth, he can't stand not being the one in absolute control. Disobeying even a minor request from Fossor is the easiest way to mark yourself for a painful demise and reanimation.
Curse: He can only walk on Earth by stepping on the ashes of his enemies.
The Dreaded: Fossor's reputation is earned and formidable enough that even someone as old and experienced as Seller will avoid saying his name out loud if he can help it. It only takes one encounter to leave Flick terrified of him.
Establishing Character Moment: Making a joke about his ancient curse and then laughing at the suggestion that he could ever run out of enemies.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Had loved ones. A young Fossor genuinely loved his mother and sister. But they've been dead and gone for thousands of years.
Evil Gloating: His introduction in a nutshell. He shows up at the end of one chapter and spends the next gloating until he leaves.
Evil Plan: The details are still unclear, but he's planning on using Joselyn to wipe out every Crossroads and Eden's Garden Heretic in existence, save (presumably) Joselyn and her children.
Exact Words: Very much the type of guy who concerns himself with the letter of an agreement over the spirit. Case in point: the deal he made with Joselyn was to leave her child alone in exchange for her servitude and obedience in all things. But it only applies as long as Felicity is Joselyn's child. He can and fully intends to take her like he originally planned once she's an adult.
Faux Affably Evil: Fossor looks and sounds more like a children's dentist than a necromancer. That just makes him creepier in the face of how fucking evil he is. He's really good at the act, to the point where he can even make his eye twinkle.
Freudian Excuse: Subverted. His interlude looks like it's going to take this route at first when you see what happened after his mother's death. But then he murders his sister to make her "immortal" (turn her into a zombie), making it clear that he was pretty messed up in the head from the beginning.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Fossor, the ancient necromancer who conquers planets and wipes out entire species, began life as Merakeul, the average son of a farmer.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Smokes cigarettes.
Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: A habit of his. He likes to plan attacks on what should be special days for an added level of "fun." He goes out of his way to introduce himself and have his "chat" with Flick on her seventeenth birthday. Months later, he has Ammon control her childhood friend and babysitter Scott Utell to commit suicide in front of her on Christmas Eve. On Family Day, an Heretic holiday, he makes his move for the Hangman rope and gives Flick the chance to stop it or to save Abigail.
I Need You Stronger: The stronger Flick is when Fossor takes her, the more fun he'll have breaking her. One of the reasons he warns her that he's coming is to give her the motivation to make herself as strong as possible.
It Amused Me: Pretty much every move Fossor makes depends on how much it will amuse or intrigue him.
Manipulative Bastard: His first major action on Earth was when he took advantage of how the (pre-Crossroads) Heretics were dealing with a different threat to cause massive casualties. To be specific, he convinced them to let him help and then betrayed them by unleashing The Black Death on Europe.
- During his chat with Flick he brings up damning details about her mother's history with Crossroads while leaving out important context in an effort to get her to distrust her teachers and superiors.
Meaningful Name: "Fossor" is a word that was used by the early Christian church for gravediggers. The word most likely came from him, considering that he's been using it for thousands of years.
Mundane Utility: His ghosts can serve as cigarette lighters. Seriously.
Necromancer: He's got an army of ghosts and zombies from multiple Alter races at his beck and call.
Not So Omniscient After All: Having Ammon kill Scott reveals to Flick that he doesn't know as much about her situation as he would like her to think, as he had no idea that Scott is a pooka.
Only You Can Repopulate My Race: He wants to rebuild his people's society under his direction, and for various reasons has decided that he wants to use Joselyn Atherby and her daughter to do it.
Person of Mass Destruction: Fossor is powerful enough that he can legitimately be called a one man extinction event, fully capable of wiping out races and destroying civilizations on his own.
Psychopathic Manchild: He's downright obsessed with having his way and being able to do whatever he wants.
Sadist: Takes great pleasure in hurting and scaring people. He restored Joselyn's memories specifically so she would recognize him and realize what he would do to Felicity if he took her, and he's highly amused by Flick's emotional distress when he tells her this a decade later.
Stalker with a Crush / Stalker without a Crush: Towards Flick. He's been keeping track of her for over half her life, although it's hard to say exactly when his desire for her started to constitute a Villainous Crush as opposed to wanting to use her to hurt others.
Start of Darkness: A nine year old Mera discovered his necromantic abilities during his mother's funeral, when he attempted to prevent her ghost from moving on and was stopped by a priest and his father. Seven years later, he tried to make his sister "immortal" by turning her into a zombie, only to be stopped by his father before he could finish. He spent the next seventeen years in one of the worst prisons on the planet. When he finally escaped, he decided that he was never going to let anyone stop him from doing what he wanted again.
Take Over the World: According to Word of God, he's already taken over his homeworld.
Terms of Endangerment: Has a habit of saying "my dear," to women. He also repeatedly calls Flick his "prize."
They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: When Flick sees him for the first time, she's surprised by how utterly normal he looks. Nothing about his appearance suggests that he's anything other than an ordinary, friendly man.
Villainous Friendship: They're not quite "friends," but Fossor has a relatively cordial relationship with Fahsteth, an old prison mate from his youth.
Villains Never Lie: Flick quickly pegs him as the kind of guy that enjoys hurting people with the truth.
Villain Takes an Interest: Fossor finds himself intrigued by Flick soon after learning about her back when she was a young child.
We Have Reserves: He sacrifices his ghosts at the drop of the hat because he has a lot of them on top of a steady supply to replenish his losses.
What the Hell, Hero?: Fossor appears to enjoy calling out Heretics on their less savory actions. This is one of the reasons he wanted to kidnap Felicity in the first place. He thought it would be "poetic" to take the innocent child of the revolutionary the Heretic leaders crossed so many lines to stop and turn her into a weapon against them.
Would Hurt a Child: He relished the thought of kidnapping Joselyn Atherby's seven year old daughter and raising her to be his servant and weapon.
Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: When Fossor gives someone a command, he's giving them a choice. Obey, or be punished for disobeying.
You Are Number 6: "Fah-Seur" simply means "thirty-four," in an old language from Fossor's homeworld. It was the number given to Merakeul when he was imprisoned as a teenager.

Ammon

Ammon is a young half human, half something boy with a Compelling Voice, absolutely no conscious, and a desire to find and do "interesting" things. On top of being half-human, his father also made him into a Heretic of Denuvus.

He's also Flick's half-brother.

Abusive Parents: Generally speaking, Ammon's father spoils the living hell out of him. Right up until Ammon disobeys him. There's a reason his father is pretty much the only person Ammon is afraid of.
- Fossor turned him into a Heretic through an old method. By burying him alive while bathed in the blood of an Alter. Please note that Ammon was eight years old in his introduction, which means he was eight years old at the very most when his father did this to him. It was probably a lot earlier than that.
Ambiguous Innocence: Let's not sugarcoat it, Ammon is a Serial Killer. He's just as much of a monster as Crossroads claims all Strangers are. But with an upbringing like his, what else could you expect? He legitimately doesn't know any better because he's never had the chance to be anything but a monster. On top of that, it's later implied that his inability to feel emotions like sadness or guilt isn't natural, but the result of something Fossor did to his head.
Cain and Abel: Ammon is a rare evil Abel, but only insofar as he doesn't want to outright kill his sister. He just wants to torture her. Because he's pretty sure he likes her.
Child by Rape: Possibly. The circumstances behind the disappearance of Joselyn Chambers are unknown when Ammon first shows up. Later revelations make it very clear that this is the case.
Cold-Blooded Torture: This is what Ammon does to the people he likes. People he doesn't like get off comparatively easy.
Compelling Voice: Any command he gives after saying "My name is Ammon" must be followed.
Creepy Child: To put it mildly.
Didn't See That Coming: His response to people who are unaffected by his Compelling Voice is usually to freeze up in shock. He never sees it coming and doesn't know how to react. It ultimately gets him killed when he tries to control a woman who turns out to be his grandmother.
Enfant Terrible
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: At all. As hard as Ammon tries, he seriously can't wrap his head around concepts like empathy and altruism in any way. He can't even understand why his sister is never happy to see him.
Evil Uncle: To Koren Fellows. He's very happy to find another relative that his father hasn't forbidden him from seeing.
Foil: To Flick. Ammon serves as an example of what Flick might have become if Fossor had abducted her instead of Joselyn.
Freudian Excuse: Ammon has a whole slew of these. He's seriously messed up in the head.
- His father is a mass murdering psychopath that alternates between spoiling and scaring the living hell out of him.
- His mind control powers make it extremely difficult for him to see people as anything other than tools or toys, exacerbating his already extreme (and possibly unnatural) sociopathy.
- His mother is his father's slave, magically compelled to obey his every order. As Joselyn and Fossor are the only real behavioral examples he's ever had, he thinks this is normal.
- He's grown up watching his father, an immortal necromancer, casually play with the laws of life and death. As far as Ammon is concerned, there's no real difference between his mind slaves and Fossor's zombie servants. As a result, he thinks absolutely nothing about killing people.
- And finally, Fossor did something to him that changed him into... well, you should have a pretty good picture by now.
Green-Eyed Monster: He's upset that Flick cares about other people like Avalon and Shiori more than him.
Healing Hands: In sharp contrast to the rest of of his powers, Ammon is capable of healing other people's injuries. Unfortunately, he mostly uses this ability to keep torturing people after they've reached their limit.
Healing Factor: Potent enough that falling face first into concrete from three stories up doesn't really bother him. He doesn't heal immediately, but he barely reacts when he finishes.
Human Pet: He considers his mind slaves to be his pets and counts Flick as one of them. She's his sister after all. In his mind, that means she belongs to him.
It's All About Me: To an extreme degree. Ammon is totally incapable of understanding that people other than him matter. Exemplified when he calls Flick a bad sister for not helping him figure out if he likes her or not and then "forgives" her for ruining his "game" by stopping him from murdering a bunch of people.
Flick: What about the innocent people you hurt and kill? You destroy lives, Ammon.
Ammon: They're not me.
Kids Are Cruel: Extremely cruel.
Lack of Empathy: A textbook case. He's physically incapable of feeling anything for anyone, and seems confused when Flick confronts him with how many lives he's destroyed. Some of his comments in Arc 5 suggest that Ammon is aware of this issue and resents it, which plays a large part in why he's constantly doing terrible things to people, in an effort to try and feel something.
Lonely Rich Kid: Once you strip away the sociopathy, sadism, and insanity, Ammon is basically this.
Long-Lost Relative: He's ecstatic to learn that he has an older sister and almost immediately disobeys his father to set off on a cross country road trip to find her. Seller is one of their ancestors.
- He and Flick also have older twin siblings born in the sixties, Wyatt Rendell and Abigail Fellows, as well as a niece, Abigail's daughter Koren.
Meaningful Name: Ammon is a name from the bible that means "the son of my people." One of the reasons Fossor gave him that name was to state his intention to use Ammon to rebuild his the society of his own race, which he enslaved, the way he thinks it should be.
Moral Myopia: To an insane degree. Ammon's understanding of morality is based entirely on whether or not people are "nice" to him by doing anything and everything he tells them to. Anyone other than his father (the disciplinarian) who isn't nice to him is a "terrible, awful person" in his mind. He quite simply does not understand that people other than him matter.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He purposefully doesn't tell his father that he met someone other than Flick who is immune to his powers when he infiltrated Crossroads because he doesn't want to be forbidden from seeing her. As a result, Koren and Abigail are at least temporarily safe from Fossor, although Koren is still in danger from Ammon himself.
No-Sell: All of Ammon's blood relatives within two or three generations are immune to his Compelling Voice, and he in turn is immune to their powers.
Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Occasionally uses his Compelling Voice to order people to kill themselves, such as when he makes Denise drown herself with gasoline. He later uses this on Shiori and Scott; both fail, as Flick and her sharks save Shiori while Scott reincarnates using his pooka powers.
Sadist: Ammon thinks hurting people is "interesting."
The Sociopath: He doesn't feel things. This actually bothers him, as he really wants to. That's why his "games" are so brutal. He thinks causing pain to people he might like will help him feel things.
- Later, it's implied that this isn't natural.
Spoiled Brat
Squishy Wizard: His Compelling Voice is incredibly potent and can even bypass most Alter/Heretic-based forms of Psychic Block Defense, but aside from his regeneration he's physically just a little kid with no combat training. Flick, who has only spent a couple of weeks learning to fight by the time they face off, pounds Ammon into the mat in a matter of seconds once she finally manages to get her hands on him.
Superpower Lottery: Ammon is strictly speaking not an Alter, but a natural Denevus heretic, as well as a hybrid with whatever Fossor is. This means he has full Reaper power power absorption in addition to his Compelling Voice.
Thicker Than Water: Perhaps the closest thing Ammon has to a sense of morality is the understanding that "family is supposed to care about family." This largely translates to him believing that his family members other than his father are supposed to do whatever he says (like everyone else) and also makes him more likely to "forgive" them for disobeying (unlike everyone else).
Tyke-Bomb: He was intentionally raised to be the way he is.
- Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: Towards Denuvus.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to his mother, at any rate. Joselyn claims that Ammon used to be a sweet boy before Fossor did something that turned him into... that.
Joselyn: Ammon sweet before. Good boy. Fossor did something. Changed him. Broke him.
Would Hurt a Child: Pushes a teenage girl down an escalator shaft for no purpose but giggles in one of his interludes, after trying to force her to shove her younger brother ans another kid in, as if it needed to be pounded into the audience's brains even more that he's a messed-up Sadist. He also has zero issue torturing Flick to see if doing so would make him sad.

Fahsteth

Fahsteth is a notorious member of the shark-like Akheilosan race. He is extremely dangerous and extremely evil.

Cyborg: Other than money, Fahsteth is often paid in "enhancements." At this point he's probably more of a machine than an Akheilosan.
The Dreaded: Hearing his name instantly makes Seller get serious.
Early-Bird Cameo: Shows up in the third interlude quite some time before he actually enters the story.
Flash Step: He is very fast.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Avalon cuts off the lower half of his body (and all the upgrades he had stored inside). It doesn't kill him, but it sets him back while he regenerates.
Hired Guns: He usually works as a mercenary.
I'm a Humanitarian: He gleefully tries to eat an eleven year old girl when he needs to replenish his strength, pausing only to lament that he didn't have enough time to enjoy his meal. Other Akheilosans appear to enjoy eating humans as well.
Make It Look Like an Accident: He was hired to murder a young Hannah Owens in such a way that would leave her looking like a random victim. And even before that, he's the one who murdered her mother and made it look like Death by Childbirth
Master Poisoner: Definitely. His skill with poison is good enough that even the Seosten will hire him for assassinations.
Moral Pragmatist: Admits that if he knew Liesje Aken's anti-possession spell, he'd retire from mercenary work and start selling the spell to interested parties because it would make him a lot more money.
Nothing Personal: Quick to drop this line to justify his actions, though he quickly transitions to It's Personal when Avalon disagrees and attacks him. He seems to actually mean it too, if his reaction to Fossor using the same excuse on him is any indication.
Poisoned Weapons: His blades are coated with an incredibly deadly (and very painful) poison.
More Teeth than the Osmond Family: He has several rows of shark-like teeth.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He flees Earth when the Seosten start trying to kill him to keep him quiet.
Speaks Fluent Animal: Controls animal predators. All predators.
Threatening Shark: His species resembles humanoid sharks.
Villainous Friendship: Calling the two friends might be pushing it, but Fahsteth has a pretty easy rapport going with Fossor.
Would Hurt a Child: Without compunction, he'll kill infants because he's paid to or eat children because they're a convenient snack.
You Are Number 6: "Fah-steth" means thirty-seven in an ancient language from a planet he was imprisoned on. The same prison Fossor, aka Fah-Seur, spent seventeen years in.
You Killed My Father: Mother, actually. He killed Avalon's when she was born.

Reggie Owens

Reggie Owens was an ordinary alcoholic who violently abused his young daughter Hannah until one day when he was mortally wounded by Fahsteth and subsequently left for dead by the Heretics who knew what he'd been doing to Hannah. He survived long enough to be saved by a passing vampire, who shared some blood with him to save his life. Now he's a vampire. And unlike most other vampires, he's actually evil.

Killed by Avalon in Interlude 31-C.

Abusive Parents: He regularly beat and berated his daughter for the first eleven years of her life until she was saved from him.
The Alcoholic: He turned to drink after the death of his wife.
Archnemesis Dad: To Hannah Owens, who changed her name to Avalon Sinclaire.
The Assimilator: Much like Heretics, he can gain the powers of other beings, though he gets them through drinking their blood. This isn't a natural ability, but an "upgrade" given to him by his benefactor.
Casting a Shadow: The first power he assimilated, allowing him to bypass his weakness to sunlight.
Elemental Powers: He has power over fire and lightning.
The Heavy: He serves as a recurring threat to his daughter, increasing his own power to stay a match with her. Though he may have acted this way on his own, he's doing it at the behest of the Seosten.
Left for Dead: After Fahsteth mortally wounds him, he's left to die, partially because he wasn't worth trying to save and partially because Fahsteth isn't in the habit of doling out wounds that can be survivable, regardless of magic or healing.
Mook Chivalry: Averted; he brings over twenty of his "drinking buddies" with him to try and kill his daughter.
Offing the Offspring: He tracks his daughter down roughly a year after she thought he died to try to kill her, and he's been trying to finish the job ever since.
Scarily Competent Tracker: Hannah and Seller have no idea how he keeps tracking her down year after year. It's later implied that Professor Tangle's lover is giving him her location.
Too Dumb to Live: A big problem Heretics have is that they can't be prepared for everything, making them vulnerable to being attacked by something they're not expecting. But because he keeps attacking his daughter, the one thing she's always prepared to fight is vampires.
Unwitting Pawn: He was "nudged" into hating his daughter enough to abuse her by the people who killed his wife. They later turned him into a vampire to finish the job.
Would Hurt a Child: Besides his abuse of his own daughter mentioned above, his comments indicate that he's absolutely willing to feed on Crossroads students and very likely enjoys it.

The Hiding Man

A mysterious Stranger responsible for a string of disappearances seven years before the story begins, leaving only black roses behind. Koren Fellows encountered him when she was ten.

He's a Fomorian left stranded on Earth after most of his race was sealed off from Earth, and has spent the ensuing century hiding from Heretical attention and working to undo the enchantment that keeps his people away.

Batman Gambit: His attack on Koren and her neighbors seven years ago was engineered to make Crossroads more likely to accept Joselyn Atherby's granddaughter as a student.
Body Horror: He wears a half-decayed organic mask, uses real eyes as security cameras, and remakes Koren's mother's heart so it needs to be manually pumped while also adding living booby traps. And that's not even getting into what he did to make the decoy Hiding Man.
Calling Card: The only clue he left behind was a black rose at most of his crime scenes.
Collective Identity: The Hiding Man is two individuals: An ordinary human warped into a monster and the Fomorian that created and controlled him.
Deadperson Impersonation: He takes the guise of Koren's father, erasing all memories of the original so no one can uncover his ruse.
Didn't See That Coming: He spent a solid decade searching for Joselyn Atherby or one of her children for his purposes before he found Abigail and Koren, at which point he had to spent another seven years waiting for the right opportunity. As a result, he's understandably surprised when another one (Flick) drops right into his lap.
Even Evil Has Standards: He's mildly offended by the suggestion that he would ever work with a creature like Fossor, although he's only marginally better at best.
Faux Affably Evil: He psychologically tortures children for hours but acts almost like a normal person.
Human Shield: He connects several babies to himself that will die if he's harmed.
Killed Offscreen: By the time of the main story, his case is considered resolved. This is because the Heretics blamed his actions on a human he warped into a monster in order to act as a decoy. This happens again when Nevada kills the real culprit.
Man Behind the Man: To creature thought to be The Hiding Man.
Mr. Exposition: He knows quite a bit about the history of both humanity in general and Heretics in particular. And he's almost eager to share that knowledge. Understandable, as its the first opportunity for conversation he's had in over a century.
No Name Given: He never provides a name for himself. His alias comes from what a terrified child called him.
Nothing Is Scarier: We only ever see him from a Bystander's perspective, which means any time we would have seen what he looks like the narrative jumps right past it. Played again when the main characters are reading the case file, as we never get any description on what he was or what he did to his victims. And once more when they meet him in person, where very little detail is given about his actual appearance.
Sadist: Based on what little we see of him, he appears to enjoy scaring the shit out of his victims. He apparently spent a fair amount of time screwing with Koren's head for kicks, although since we see this from her Bystander perspective, there's a lot we don't see.
The Scapegoat: The Hiding Man found and killed by Heretics was a decoy created by the stranded Fomorian to throw them off his trail.
Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: He plays on several of these stereotypes, like tapping on the window and hiding in the closet, to terrify his victims.
This Cannot Be!: He can't imagine that anyone is capable of getting the better of him. When it happens, his reaction is shock and disbelief.
Un-person: One of his victims was completely removed from the memories of other Bystanders, making his true body count impossible to know for certain.
Was Once a Man: The decoy Hiding Man that he created. He was once a human before being twisted by the stranded Fomorian. Whatever the end result was, it was so inhuman that it triggered the Bystander Effect, and even the Heretics that killed it didn't notice anything off.
Villain Teleportation: He has some method of teleportation, though we never see it.
Would Hurt a Child: Most of his victims were children. And as seen under Human Shield, he considers the lives of infants to be a worthwhile price to pace for his own safety.

Lemuel

A werewolf who lives with his pack in the jungle beneath Eden's Garden. He's not quite a Nocen, but still a huge bastard. At least as far as Heretics are concerned.

Cruel Mercy: Rather than killing her, Lemuel turns a wounded and virtually helpless Roxa Pittman into a werewolf and leaves her for dead, thinking that even if she survives all the jungle monsters around, she'll still spend her life being hunted by the people who were supposed to be her allies.
He Who Fights Monsters: It's pretty obvious that Lemuel has reasons to hate Heretics, but the sheer vindictive pleasure he takes in hurting a wounded and virtually helpless Heretic student who has yet to actually do anything makes it hard to view him as anything but the monster the Heretics assume he is.
Karmic Death: Roxa kills him after he mistakenly assumes that she'd go down to an attack that would have killed a normal werewolf.
Killed Off for Real: Round Two with Roxa doesn't go very well for him.
Sadist: At least as far as Heretics are concerned.
Scary Black Man
Unwitting Pawn: The Seosten are using Pace, under the control of Lies,] to manipulate him.

The Great Evil

A mysterious being that's been on Earth since at least the fourteenth century. Very little is known about it, but it has had a huge role in shaping Virginia Dare's life.

And Your Little Dog, Too!: Slaughtered the friends and family of Virginia Dare when she was a child solely to hurt her.
Eviler than Thou: May or may not be on the receiving end of this from Fossor. It was the Great Evil that convinced ancient Heretics to team up with Fossor, who promptly used the opportunity to launch The Black Death. Whether or not this prevented the Evil from achieving its goals at the time is unknown.
Evil Overlord: Apparently. It commands multitude of monsters that it used to attack and wipe out the original settlers of Roanoke, all in the name of using the blood of the first English child born in the Americas to destroy the world.
Godzilla Threshold: This Evil was enough of a threat to convince the Pre-Crossroads Heretics to team up with a necromancer to combat it, a decision that promptly raised the Threshold even higher.
Know When to Fold 'Em: It broke off most of its efforts to capture Dare when she joined Crossroads, apparently unwilling to openly antagonize the organization.
Stalker without a Crush: Virginia Dare has been targeted by the Great Evil for her entire life. For some reason, it wants to use her to destroy Earth.
The Ghost: As of this writing (when the most recent chapter was 37-07), the Great Evil has only been mentioned, and sporadically at that.

Denuvus

A legendary Nocen hated and feared by Alters and Heretics alike. Denuvus is - or was - supposedly an Alter that used a Djinni to merge their body with a Reaper's, granting them abilities similar to a Heretic. But their most dangerous ability is a Compelling Voice, a power that allows Denuvus to take control of anyone who hears their introduction.

Sound familiar?

Some of those who know of him suspect that Ammon's powers were derived from Denuvus's blood, a suspicion that's seemingly confirmed when Flick learns that a vial of it was stolen in 2015.

Ax-Crazy: She clearly wasn't all there in the head as far back as 1615.
Compelling Voice
Demon of Human Origin: Started life as a human being. Word of God states that she and her sister Theda were originally natural Vestil-Heretics.
The Dreaded: A boogeyman to Heretics and Alters.
Kill the Ones You Love: It would seem that Denuvus genuinely loved her sister enough that she counted as a great sacrifice needed to cast a particularly powerful bit of magic.
The Rival: To Fossor. She used the residual magic of the curse the Heretics set on him to create a Djinni, he later used her blood to turn his half-human son Ammon into a Heretic. They don't get along very well.
Samus Is a Girl: Most assume that Denuvus is a man, but she's actually a woman.
Shrouded in Myth: To the point where influential Alters like the Septs aren't even sure if he exists. They don't even know that she's a woman.
Sibling Murder: Denuvus murdered her twin sister Theda in order to turn her corpse into a Djinni. That Djinni eventually became Nevada.
Single Specimen Species: As a natural Vestil-Heretic that was then merged with a Reaper, Denuvus has effectively turned herself into her own Alter species, to the point where her blood can create Natural Heretics of her.
That Thing Is Not My Sister: It annoys her when the Djinn she created out of her sister's corpse initially refers to itself as Theda.
They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: One of the things that makes her so dangerous to Alters is that there's nothing to suggest she's not a normal Alter. She doesn't have a Stranger sense that alerts them of what she is like Heretics do.

Truman Hyde

An Aswang, a kind of shapeshifter that feeds on human children. He's currently disguised as a High School teacher.

His wife and daughter were killed by Heretics.

He Who Fights Monsters: Nobody can really fault him for wanting revenge against Heretics, but his methods of pursuing that vengeance turn him into the monster they think he is.
Hugh Mann: Yeah, "Truman Hyde" is not his real name.
Knight Templar: He wants to stop the Heretics from continuing their crusade to exterminate Alters. How does he choose to do so? Commit as many Bystander massacres as he can to force the Heretics to conclude the price of their war isn't worth it.
Magic Knight: He's a physical powerhouse, but he also managed to learn Heretic magic.
Meaningful Name: Besides the pun mentioned below, Hyde is a reference to Mr. Hyde, fitting for a monster that can transform from a normal human into a powerful monster.
Punny Name: True-Man Hide.
Revenge Before Reason: Decided that the best way to stop Heretics from killing Alters was to slaughter as many human families as possible in retaliation.
Would Hurt a Child: Oh yeah. He has no problem eating or massacring innocent Bystanders.

Kariwase

An Iroquois warrior whose grief over the death of his son led him to seek out a witch and become a monster.

An Arm and a Leg: Dare cuts off one of his arms when she fights him, though it grows back in seconds.
BFS: One nearly six feet long.
The Brute: Strong, tough, and dumb.
Face–Monster Turn: His thirst for revenge led to his transformation into a genoskwa, a stony giant covered in hair with a potent healing factor.
I'm a Humanitarian: According to Roscoe he eats people, though how much of a habit it is us unknown.
It's Personal: He hates Virginia Dare and Tirias for stopping his rampage centuries ago.
Lightning Bruiser: He's much faster than you'd expect from someone of his size, especially considering he's made of stone.
Mighty Glacier: His healing factor and sheer durability let him tank hits that would kill frailer Alters.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He massacred hundreds in retaliation for the death of his son.
Villain Team-Up: He teams up with Roscoe and several of Dare's other enemies to distract her from the Seosten making their move on her students.

Roscoe

A four armed Alter who holds a hatred for Virginia Dare.

Dual Wielding: Try quad wielding. Though he does dual wield swords with two of his arms.
Instant Knots: He uses a whip as a secondary weapon mainly to entangle enemies so he can get a good hit in with one of his other weapons.
It's Personal: He hates Dare for reasons unknown.
Multiarmed And Dangerous: He wields weapons with all four arms.
Villain Team-Up: He teams up with Kariwase and several of Dare's other enemies to distract her from the Seosten making their move on her students.

Spedis

A reptilian cowboy with a grudge against Virginia Dare.

The Gunslinger: He wields a magic revolver as his weapon.
It's Personal: Dare made an enemy of him sometime in her past.
Lizard Folk: Of some variety or another.
Outlaw: He's a Nocen who dresses like it's the Wild West.
Shooting Superman: Played with. Dare has powers that make her incredibly durable, heal from most wounds, and detect danger, which would make normal guns a waste of time against her. On the other hand, Spedis's gun is magic, so who knows what extra features come with one of his gunshot wounds.
Villain Team-Up: He teams up with half a dozen of Dare's other enemies to distract her from the Seosten making their move on her students.

Hangmen

Not all Reapers are content to feed off of nearby deaths. Some discover that they can make their own food by killing humans or are simply driven mad by the amount of stolen memories. Either way, the result is a Hangman, a Reaper serial killer that constantly seeks victims to feed its hunger.

Always Chaotic Evil: The only type of Alter to be inherently evil. Hangmen are defined by being super-powered serial killers.
Ascended to Carnivorism: In a sense. They eat the same thing they've always eaten, but they've learned that they can make their own food through killing rather than waiting around for deaths.
Our Demons Are Different: They're sometimes referred to as Hangman Demons.
Serial Killer: They're constantly looking for more humans to kill.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The more they kill, the more memories and powers they gain. Eventually the stolen memories begin to overwhelm their own and drive them mad.

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