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The Resistance
Reynardo
- Actual Pacifist: Becomes one at the worst possible moment in "Return of the Hippie." He achieves enlightenment and begins to meditate... while on the Emperor's flagship surrounded by hordes of Ravens. Guess what happens next.
- And I Must Scream: Happens to him at the end of "Reynardo Nukem." Zenobia is so frightened by his reckless use of the Skyripper that she seals both of them away until the Earth is incinerated by the dying sun. Reynardo is conscious the whole time.
- Badass Longcoat: Sports a fancy red one.
- Book Dumb: He/The Narrator mentions that he'd never really read any books during Sword Fu school, preferring to look at the pictures, and Zenobia.
- Cunning Like a Fox: Obviously.
- Death Seeker: In "Almost Sincere," after being forced to kill a grief-stricken Zenobia, Reynardo attacks the Emperor's fleet without any care for his own life. He is eventually cut down while experiencing an angelic vision of Zenobia.
- The Determinator: Even leaving aside the timelines where he kept on fighting despite impossible odds, experiencing death and misfortune repeatedly—over and over—isn't enough to stop Reynardo from plunging back into the book's projected destinies to find a happy ending.
- Dressed to Plunder: Downplayed, but he's a former sky pirate and has the Eyepatch of Power to match.
- Dying as Yourself: Commits suicide in one story once he realizes what the Iblis Stone is doing to him. Doubles as a Dying Moment of Awesome, as this act creates a feedback loop that destroys the stone as well.
- Eyepatch of Power: Reynardo sports one, adding to his sky pirate motif.
- Idiot Hero: Actually required for some stories. Reynardo can continue to trust Lapino despite knowing of their treachery, and try to use Skyripper and the Iblis Stone regardless of the terrible danger they represent.
- Inexplicably Tailless: Despite Zenobia sporting a tail, Reynardo has to do with the one on his coat.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He does this a lot, especially any time he uses the Skyripper. Fortunately the book gives him the chance to try again and not screw everything up.
- Obfuscating Insanity: In "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Chaos," Reynardo makes a series of nonsensical choices that baffle the Emperor and throw his forces into disarray trying to predict his next move. Unfortunately, Zenobia knew him too well, and engineered a trap where he would reveal his true plan with the Emperor listening in.
- Omnicidal Maniac: In "The Awakening," Reynardo gives in to the power of the Iblis Stone, leading him to kill Zenobia, Lapino, the entire Rebel Council and the Emperor. But doing so unleashes the Eldritch Abomination within the stone, leading to the end of time itself.
- Red Is Heroic: A red fox with a bright red coat, and the entire game revolves around the different kinds of hero he can be.
- Retired Badass: He used to be a Sky Pirate but his mother made him give up the lifestyle on her deathbed. When leveling up he’s no so much learning new skills as remembering his old ones.
- Undying Loyalty: Even though he knows Lapino's a rotten person, and even after being betrayed oh so many times, he still cares about his old war buddy.
Lapino
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Pun aside, Reynaldo reflects at one point that for all of Lapino's faults, he was always ready with a crazy plan when they needed one.
- Crazy Enough to Work: The one scheme we see him planning during the game goes off without a hitch, and it's about as crazy as they come. Selling out the Rebels and/or stealing the Iblis Stone works out well, too, at least for him.
- Disappeared Dad: He's one to his young daughter, having walked out one day and never come back.
- Green-Eyed Monster: His whole reason for betraying the Rebellion was petty jealousy over Reynardo getting all the glory.
- The Mole: Secretly works for the Empire. The only reason he wants Zenobia 'interrogated' is so Reynardo will reveal the location of the Rebel base.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Whatever alliances he makes, in the end he's only out for himself. As demonstrated when Reynardo's stupid enough to leave him alone with the Iblis Stone, and he turns on the Empire as well as the Rebellion.
- Smug Snake: Lapino is rather abrasive if you upset him, and has a considerable ego. This is one of the clues pointing towards his identity as the mole.
- Species Surname: "Lapino," as in "Lapin:" the French word for rabbit.
The Empire
Zenobia
- Anti-Villain: She is ultimately trying desperately to save what she sees as an Empire in pain, unaware that she is working for bad guys. When given proof of her father's evil, and even sometimes without it, she typically switches sides or abandons her post quickly. In the Golden Ending, when she gets the Iblis Stone she goes mad with obsession of making right for her mistakes, but ultimately wipes out both the Empire and the Rebellion before Reynardo stops or saves her.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Her adoptive father is the Emperor, and if Reynardo fails to turn her to his side she sees his mad plans through to the end. Even at the cost of her own life.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Both Reynardo and Zenobia begin the story oblivious to their true feelings for one another. But upon starting to realize it, both of them are prone to doing excessive and irrational things in devotion to one another - more noticeably for Zenobia, because while Reynardo is known to be erratic she is otherwise established as cold, collected and incredibly rational. The trick is making her realize it, because if not she will treat Reynardo as an enemy until it's too late.
- Mirror Character: An interesting case that's easy to miss, as noticing it requires doing certain endings: if/when she gets her hands on the Iblis stone after switching sides, she ultimately loses control and massacres the Rebel hierarchy when they argue against her using it against her father. It's the exact same thing that happens when Reynardo gets his hands on the stone, except this time the player is seeing the aftermath from the outside and trying to stop it. For bonus points, in Reynardo's Iblis ending it's Zenobia's soul trying to stop him from within.
- Obliviously Evil: Zenobia is, when she and Reynardo first meet, unaware that her father is an insane, dark god worshipping tyrant, and that the rebellions she puts down are being sacrificed to his mad goals. Reynardo can either let her know about it or deal with her without ever letting her know. The latter generally leads to one of them killing the other.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Zenobia is cool and collected at all times and most storylines, so that fact that the Iblis Stone and the Skyripper completely terrify her is an explicit plot point whenever it comes up. To the point that in one storyline, upon realizing that Reynardo is being taken over by the Stone, she surrenders to the Rebellion without even needing to know about her father's evil for the chance at stopping him.
- Token Good Teammate: Among the other Empire aligned characters, being a brutal and devious, but honor-bound and occasionally even reasonable opponent who is simply unaware that her peers are completely evil. As she believes herself to be doing good and carries herself accordingly, she arguably doesn't even qualify as a Noble Demon.
- Magic Knight: Zenobia is described as a master of both sword and sorcery by the narrator, and the few times they fight on even terms, she can utterly clobber Reynardo.
Emperor Isengrim III
- Big Bad: The Emperor himself. Despite his horrific crimes, he's really an Anti-Villain who only started Jumping Off the Slippery Slope after researching Things That Man Was Not Meant To Know.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Weeks before the events of the game, he wrote a letter to his daughter about how he regrets the necessity of sacrificing her and will miss her for eternity.
- The Ghost: Is alluded to often, and his writings can be found throughout the game, but the Emperor rarely appears himself, and when he does is not met face to face and rarely does much. Most of his personality and backstory is gleaned from the aforementioned writings.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Any of his defeats involving the Skyripper or the Iblis Stone (including the Golden Ending) could only come about as a result of his own diabolical attempts to raise the Stone (which in turn raised the Skyripper) in the first place.
- Offing the Offspring: Planned to sacrifice his own adoptive daughter Zenobia to appease the dark gods.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: It's mentioned that Emperor Isengard III used to be a shy and humble toad who sponsored libraries and ruled fairly. Then he started poking around in ruins of lost eldritch lore, and it all went downhill from there.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the end his goal is an eternally peaceful kingdom with him as its immortal ruler. He just needs to make a few itty-bitty bargains with Dark Gods banished from this earth, which might involve a few teeny-tiny little mass sacrifices, including that of his daughter, that's all.
Other Characters
Calaveras
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Reynardo keep going to him for sage advice, but nearly everything he says or does is catastrophically incorrect. The sole exception is his advice on how to control the combined Iblis Stone / Skyripper Core without going mad, which is completely accurate, but still get Reynardo killed thanks to Reynardo going overboard and taking it too far.
- Old Master: A parody. He's a wise old man who lives on the mountain and who gives Reynardo guidance, most of which is full of bad ideas.
Hypatia and Peter
- Enfant Terrible: The one good thing you can say about Peter's personality is that you aren't going to miss him much after he's gone. Oh, and he hates the Empire. So what else is new?
- Hot Librarian: Well, Reynaldo thought Hypatia was one, even though he usually preferred barmaids. Their shared enjoyment of comic books helped.
- The Lost Lenore: Hypatia, the mother of Peter, was this to Reynardo.
- Posthumous Character: Hypatia had died before the story proper begins. Reynaldo wistfully reflects upon their relationship a few times.
- Protectorate: Reynardo swore to protect Peter, but the damn kid has a problem with his suggestion they turn the book over to the Empire and runs off ahead, only to get incinerated.
- Too Dumb to Live: Peter has zero combat training, yet tries to run into danger. When faced with Ravens trying to kill him, which he can only cower in fear, and then rescued by Reynardo, he still elects to keep going and taunting Reynardo instead of running away. His death comes swift when he chose to ignore Reynardo's warning of impeding danger and thus gets vaporized by Gogglers.
The Iblis Stone
- Arch-Enemy: The Skyripper is it's antithesis - despite apparently not being sapient as the Stone is: a weapon created specifically to destroy it, and is the only thing the Stone fears: with it's last resurgence being defeated by the Skyripper's use, and if the Iblis Stone ever returns the Skyripper automatically appears to combat it. If combined, the two become a single weapon of unimaginable power, and while it still makes the user dangerously unstable the Stone's consciousness will be forever annihilated.
- Artifact of Doom: So evil that it takes arcane rituals and what's implied to be a hell of a lot of ritual sacrifices to even raise it from the depths.
- The Corruption: Slowly twists its user into a murdering, power-hungry madman - even when they know its happening and try to avoid it. From Reynardo's narration, it appears that it urges them to think of killing as the first solution to any problem no matter how minor and drains their empathy for the consequences, until the Stone takes over completely. Most of the time, Reynardo (and presumably Lapino and Zenobia when they end up with it) doesn't even realize he's killing people - or that doing so could be a bad thing - until after he's standing over the bodies wondering what to do next.
- Irony: Depending on the paths taken, every single major character in story can end up with the Stone... except for the Emperor - the person who was trying to dig it up in the first place.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: As evil as the Stone is, there's something even worse inside it. Make it powerful enough, and the elder god imprisoned within will emerge, hungry for time itself.
- Talking Weapon: A gem slotted inside a gauntlet, but the concept is the same. The Iblis Stone is alive, and promises its user power the vanquish any foe... but the things it says are no good for anybody.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Played with. The Iblis Stone does consume the souls of those it kills, but that's not actually what gives it strength. It actually feeds off of the pain of it's user as they kill other sentient beings, essentially growing stronger off of broken empathy - which is why it tries to make Reynardo kill Zenobia, the person he wants to kill least in the world, first. Still, killing all those Ravens does the trick in the long run.
