Once the Knights stopped being simple gamer stereotypes and started being actual characters, the KODT writers began to introduce other gamer groups to be able to explore funny gamer situations that just wouldn't happen at the Knights table. The first was the Black Hands.
Another group to gain a lot of focus within the KODT strips to the point where each issue now usually features an ongoing strip with them and they've had their own miniseries. The group consists mostly of preestablished characters with everyone aside from Stevil getting at least a mention prior to the introduction of the Black Hands group. Their main distinctive feature is that they play together because nobody else will have them, so five difficult personalities get together each week and try to tolerate each other long enough to get through a game.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Black Hands are constantly betraying each other and team killing.
- Evil Counterpart: They have all the Knights' darker qualities but none of their True Companions status.
- Humiliation Conga: Pulled on each other whenever possible. Institutionalized with the "Hubcap of Shame."
- If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: Unlike the Knights, rights of inheritance are not respected.
- Medal of Dishonor: Any member who embarrasses the group or gamers in general is required to wear "The Hubcap of Shame". Even Nitro is bound by this practice.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The only reason the Hands game together is no other group will have them.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The main challenge of the group is hold back their irritation with each other long enough to do anything useful in the game.
Victor "Nitro" Ferguson
An unorthodox GM known for his edgy and weird gaming experiments. Nitro is a former drill sergeant and brings that mentality to the table. He's twice run a live action dungeon crawl in the steam tunnels beneath the local university and once trapped and imprisoned a group of gamers to run a wargame scenario, getting him banned from sanctioned play. He and Bob still have a bit of bad blood over the oft referenced incident where Bob threw salt in his eyes and hit him with a dinner tray (the man touched his dice.)
- Ascended Extra: As with many of the Knights' secondary characters, Nitro was referred to long before he actually appeared in the comic. Nowadays, after the core five and Weird Pete, he's probably the character who appears most.
- Black and Nerdy: You could be forgiven for not knowing this unless you've spotted Nitro on a cover or in one of the rare colorized strips, but he's black.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: At least early on. He's still tough on his group but has softened a bit.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Nitro's game-mastering style was bizarre in his first few appearances.
- Nitro: A hole opens up in the floor and somebody rises into view. You realize that it's Andy Warhol. He's accompanied by a panda bear wearing a set of Bermuda shorts made out of an old Nazi flag.
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Word of God is that those early Nitro strips stem from a real-life encounter with a guy nicknamed 'Nitro' when the author was desperate to get into a D&D game. It turned out he wasn't desperate enough to put up with THAT.
- Establishing Character Moment: When he first enters the comic, even before he enters the panel, he immediately sets the tone:
- Jerkass: He is frequently very harsh and abrasive, particularly when he's in Drill Sergeant Nasty mode, but one especially notable moment is when he gets invited into B.A.'s game as a guest NPC. He then manipulated Dave into betraying the rest of the party. After a huge battle, everybody in the game, a game that was running for years, was dead and without any chance to come back or continue the story. The entire table was dismayed. Nitro just got up and said "Looks like my work here is through".
- Jerkass Has a Point: In-universe, Nitro has a lot more respect and control over his games than BA does his. His harsh style works.
Weird Pete Ashton
A partner with Gary Jackson during the transition of Hackmaster from wargame to rpg, Gary bought him out shortly before Hackmaster went to press and he used the money to open Weird Pete's Game Pit. The Black Hand's game takes place in his back room. Naturally, being a merchant in a struggling industry that is also his primary way of making friends, all his relationships are complicated by the financial matters surrounding the hobby. When behind the screen, he's a grouchy old school Killer GM.
- Drunk with Power: Any kind of power seems to go to Weird Pete's head. He becomes a petty tyrant when running a campaign (or even just sitting in as a temporary GM on someone else's) - handing out demerits at the drop of a hat for infringing rules he has just made up - and he runs the Gamers Court as a Hanging Judge.
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: His campaign setting (no doubt inspired by early Gygax material) is so difficult to survive in that nobody has ever made it past third level.
- Expy: Is one for Dave Arneson with a lot of the actual Gary Gygax (more than Gary Jackson at least). He even made the equivalent of the Tomb of Horrors.
- Honest John's Dealership: Often fast-talks customers (usually B.A.) into buying whatever he's trying to unload at the moment, regardless of its quality or usefulness.
- Judicial Wig: Pete wears whenever he is presiding as judge at Gamer Court. It is not known if judges in other Gamer Courts also do this, or if this is just another example of Pete's fondness for theatrics and formal trappings.
- Killer GM: Moreso than the others. And he's always eager to get behind the screen again when the trauma of the previous campaign has healed.
- Nitro: "Actually, I was just thinking he's mellowed. In the old days, he didn't give warnings."
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"Stop Having Fun" Guys: He's an old school gamer who is vocal in his belief that newer games suck. In one strip, a newbie gamer at the Games Pit outlines his reasons for not liking Hackmaster, prompting Pete to launch into a lecture about what's wrong with the newbie's attitude, not noticing that his would-be customer has left partway through the rant.
Steven "Stevil" Van Hostle
Also known as "Evil Stevil" and "Bitter Stevil." Stevil is a prickly individual who unleashes pent up office frustrations at the game table. He has to commute from Indianapolis to gaming nights, leading to his frequent complaint "I can't believe I drove forty frickin' miles for THIS!" Newt has rubbed him the wrong way from day one, leading to an escalating vengeance war between them.
- Catchphrase: "I can't believe I drove forty fricking miles for this!"
- The Chessmaster: The "loan arrangement" he made with Newt (which involved a contract with fine print and a gawd oath) to make Newt his permanent slave. He eventually gets Out-Gambitted though.
- The Comically Serious: Even in universe. The whole reason Nitro decides to let Newt stay is because he likes how Newt treats Stevil. But the crowning example comes during their Cattlepunk game when Stevil is forced to wear a giant sombrero. He is not happy about this.
- Deadpan Snarker: And a vicious one at that.
- Evil Counterpart: Stevil is basically Bob if you strip away Bob's nice traits and throw in a dash of Brian's scheming.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Stevil may seem like a total Jerkass, but as you get to know him better, you realize that deep, deep down, he really is a total Jerkass.
- Kick the Dog: Drew complaints of this early on as he tended to pick on Newt a lot with little provocation, but Newt more than makes up for it by arranging bail for everyone BUT Stevil later on.Stevil: That big guy in holding cell three made me dance for twenty hours straight!
- Only Sane Man: Oddly Stevil seems to fill this role for the Black Hands, especially when it comes to dealing with situations outside of gaming. His reaction to listening a bunch of gamers planning to invest in gold (in the real world) is priceless.
- Pet the Dog: In his kinder moments, Stevil seems to regard Nitro or Pete (whichever of them is not GMing) as a partner against the real enemies; Newt and the GM.
- Punny Name: His last name can be read as a mutation of "hostile." And Stevil certainly is.
- The Smart Guy: He may be an unrepentant Jerkass, but there's no denying his intelligence. He's come up with some pretty devious plans over the years, at one point point even beating the Temple of Horrendous Doom!
Gordo Sheckberry
A former chemist on permanent disability after getting in an accident at work. Between workers' comp and disability, Gordo now has all the time and money he needs to dedicate himself to gaming. Gordo is obnoxious in a very different way than the rest of the Black Hands: he's a dedicated deep-immersion role player with a vast fund of long, rambling character stories; a "frightening" mastery of fairy lore; and a complete inability to sense the comfort zones of his fellow gamers.
- Camp Straight: His orientation is pretty ambiguous, though in one strip he does discuss his 'dream woman' with some of the other Black Hands.
- Cross Player: The trope that embodied Gordo till Character Development ensued. His introduction was as an off panel reference to what happens to players that crossplay (as the Knights were about to have to.)
- Nice Guy: He is one of the most genuinely nice characters in the entire comic. Even being constantly picked on by the other players makes him more upset than angry.
- The Roleplayer: Gordo embodies some of the more negative aspects of the trope: he has a long history of creating ineffective characters and placing their welfare ahead of the group's.
Newt Forager
Probably the youngest of the series regular characters. Newt still lives at home and is in college. He was introduced as a temporary replacement for Bob, where he made his mark by killing the other players' characters in their sleep and looting their bodies to stock up for another campaign he really wanted to play in. Apparently, this type of behavior continued until the first Black Hands strip where he showed up desperate to finally be accepted into a group (the Black Hands being his last chance). Nitro decided to keep him because he liked how Newt rattled Stevil.
- Angst: He is in love with this trope as applied to his characters. Just one of the many things Stevil hates about him.Stevil: (as Newt is about to introduce his latest character): Ooh, let me guess. Does he haunt the night? Is Death his only companion? Does he crave vengeance?
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Even more so than the rest of the Black Hands.
- Darker and Edgier: The other trope he loves to use with his characters.
- Eyes Out Ofsight: Always has his eyes obscured by his fringe.
- In the Hood: Newt's characters invariably dress this way as part of his attempt to imbue them with a Shrouded in Myth mystique. No one else is ever impressed.
- The Munchkin: Moreso than any other player, yet strangely he's also The Roleplayer. He'll take any opportunity to kill and steal from his teammates, though he's settled down some as he knows this table is his last chance at a regular campaign.
- Ninja Looter: Compulsively. He was first introduced as one of these. Nitro has him on a leash but he tugs at it constantly.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Frequently tries to suck up to Nitro with superficial praise of his GMing (but doesn't let up on the annoying munchkin behaviors that make Nitro's job harder). Nitro isn't impressed.
