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The Leblancs
Eric Leblanc
The main character. He is a celebrity actor who was flying back from a trip to New York with his son Timmy before the plane crashed.
- Badass Normal: Downplayed, while he is a Celebrity Survivor, there is a huge difference between surviving in the wild AND surviving in the wild while fighting off hordes of cannibals AND looking for his kidnapped son.
- Celebrity Survivor: He is the star of a successful TV show similar to that of Survivorman.
- Heroic Mime: He doesn't speak at all throughout the game, even when appearing on a talk show in the epilogue. Subverted in Sons of the Forest, although briefly, when he is seen telling his son to get down so he can shoot a large mutant with his shotgun.
- Karma Houdini: He doesn't appear to have faced any blowback for shooting down an airliner in the first game, if his appearance in the second is any indication.
- Knight Templar Parent: He'll do anything to rescue Timmy. Anything. Including shooting down another airliner if that's what it takes to resurrect him. Subverted in the alternate ending, when he decides to let Timmy rest in peace and shuts down the obelisk instead.
- MacGyvering: Eric's a very resourceful dude, not only can he create various wilderness survival tools as would be expected of his profession, but he also knows how to make stuff like homemade electronic bombs.
- Made of Iron: First he survives a plane crash, then he engages in a Roaring Rampage of Rescue for his son that results in him facing the countless horrors of the setting, ranging from cannibals to abominations that can be easily described as crimes against nature. Being a well-known survivalist may have helped with that, and even in old age he keeps going, being able to survive getting shot from behind while facing an enormous monster, though the latter did make him start to keep a hand on his wound in his next appearance.
- Mirror Character: Both Mathew and Eric show similarities in their actions near the end and even before that, such as wearing red paint or shooting down a plane so they can sacrifice another child to save their own.
- Mook Horror Show: Can become this towards the natives, as he can kill them by the scores and use their bones as armor, weapons, and decorations. Eventually the normal enemies will flee at the sight of Eric, but call in their big brothers. Exaggerated if Eric gets coated in red paint, as the cannibals have been mentally conditioned to fear it.
- Papa Wolf: His objective in the game is to find his son, Timmy. Depending on the player's decisions, he can even willingly cause another plane crash to get a live sample to resurrect his son.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: It wasn't enough that he and his son barely survived their plane crashing, but then Eric wakes up to see someone kidnapping his son. The natives of the peninsula didn't stand a chance.
- Sole Survivor: He's the only survivor of the plane crash besides Timmy; all the other passengers either died in the crash or got gruesomely killed by the cannibals fairly quickly.
- Suddenly Voiced: In his first appearance in Sons of the Forest he tells his son to get down, as he will shoot the creature they're fighting when he comes from behind him.
- Wrote the Book: He co-authored the survival guide that the player depends on. The book is dedicated to his son, Timmy.
Tim "Timmy" Leblanc (Unmarked Spoilers)
The son of the player character, Eric. He is kidnapped by a man wearing red body paint after the plane he was on crashes on the peninsula.
- Body Horror: We don't actually get to see his transformation in the ending, or even see if he fails to repress it, but considering how Megan turned out...
- Came Back Wrong: Although he managed to escape the peninsula with his dad and even lives into adulthood, it seems that Timmy still ends up becoming a victim of the Obelisk's mutations.
- Death of a Child: The original early access ending to the game strongly implied he turns into a mutant one year after escaping the peninsula. Later on a new scene was added which seemed to show him fighting off the mutation with his father's help. The full release of the game added yet another new scene showing him living to adulthood only to begin experiencing another mutation seizure that he manages to fight off again.
- Heroic Willpower: In the new version of the ending, Timmy manages to fight off his mutation with the help of his father. In his adulthood he undergoes another episode that he manages to suppress. Confirmed by his presence in the sequel, where he is alive, albeit with one heck of a scar on his head.
- Humanoid Abomination: It seems he's going to become this off-screen in the ending. Subverted in Sons of the Forest, as while he has the ability to mutate some of his body parts, he is very much still sane and willing to help Jack Holt in their journey.
- Magic Antidote: While the "magic" part is debatable, the Sulafite rock he carried with him in Sons of the Forest's ending appears to have eventually healed his increasingly severe mutation, and made Timmy a very successful businessman through his new company's mining and use of the material as a form of medicine.
- Scars Are Forever: Timmy has a large scar over one eye, most likely from the plane crash. He has it in the one year later section of the ending, and still has it as an adult in the full-release ending.
- String Theory: The adult Timmy has a large research wall of documents in his apartment concerning the artifact experiments, it seems he's dedicated his life to uncovering the truth behind Sahara Therapeutics and their morally questionable research.
- Uncertain Doom: Somewhat, the credits roll with his hands still shaking after he suffers more spasms of mutation that he seemingly managed to suppress. Averted as the sequel shows him to have made it. Played with again as of Sons of the Forest's credits scene, where a newspaper shows that he went missing on an island bought by him and his company, a location they were studying and mining massive amounts of Sulafite.
- Walking Spoiler: Literally everything about his role in the story except the inciting action is a massive spoiler.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Even with his Heroic Willpower as displayed on the talk show and potentially during the ending, odds are that it's not a question of if he'll mutate, but when.
- Averted with the sequel. We're never told how but in the final boss fight he shows the ability to transform individual limbs to fight while seemingly not losing control in the process.
Mutants
The Cannibals
Tribes of mutated humans who live in the titular forest.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: They'll periodically attack the player's base, if a substantial one exists.
- Bald of Evil: Male cannibals don't have any hair. Some females also lack hair.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Some male cannibals walk around without loincloths and have a totally smooth crotch. The implication is this is part of the mutations. Zigzagged with the female cannibals — they're topless and have clearly visible nipples, but when they spawn without loincloths they're visibly lacking some parts below the belt too.
- Berserk Button: Killing a female cannibal will drive all nearby males into a killing frenzy.
- Cannibal Tribe: And they're not at all subtle about it.
- Chased by Angry Natives: Likely to inflict this on the player at some point or another. The natives are rather territorial, and will take umbrage at Eric trespassing in their forest. Early in the game, this will just consist of yelling angrily and trying to scare the player off by feigning attacks, only escalating to actually attacking if the player sticks around. However, as time goes on and the player takes actions that further antagonize them (chopping down trees, building large or defensive structures, raiding their villages for supplies, and obviously attacking any of them) their "deterrence" gets more aggressive, including springing ambushes that the player is going to need to run from to keep from being overwhelmed.
- Elite Mooks: Pale cannibals are significantly tougher than the regular versions; they tend to show up more often the more you piss off the cannibals, and also have a significant presence in the endgame areas.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Some male cannibals fight naked, and female cannibals fight topless.
- Laughing Mad: A lot of them, particularly the "skinny" ones that run on all fours, will giggle while fighting the player.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Cannibal chieftains are a lot tougher than regular ones, being able to take a lot more hits and dealing much more damage with their own attacks as well.
- Screaming Warrior: More often than not, they'll scream and yell while facing off with the player.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Some cannibals act like some kind of leader or shaman and wear skulls (which emit light) on their heads.
- Super Drowning Skills: Cannibals cannot swim at all, and will drown in any water too deep to wade in.
- Tribal Face Paint: Worn by some of the cannibals.
The Creepy Mutants
In General
Hybrid Monsters made of mutilated human body parts. Cannibal raids on the player's base often include at least one creepy mutant.
- Body Horror: Good god. All of them are Animalistic Abominations that would fit right in in a H. P. Lovecraft story, and they're all made of human body parts.
- Evil Is Visceral: They are exactly as hostile as their disturbing appearance suggests.
- Fluffy the Terrible:
- They're given somewhat tame names like "Armsy" and "Virginia" by the notes and fans.
- The collective term for them, "creepy mutant", is itself quite an understatement.
- Human Resources: You can loot the corpse of an Armsy, Virginia, or Cowman to get "creepy armor", which is a layer of flesh used as body armor.
- Hybrid Monster: Human bodies, twisted into bestial forms.
- Kill It with Fire: All of them react quite negatively to fire, although it's far from a One-Hit Kill even on Normal difficulty.
- Super Drowning Skills: Like the cannibals, they cannot swim. It's quite easy to lure them into deep water where they'll drown, although you can't loot their corpses afterward.
- Was Once a Man: The endgame reveals that the mutants were once human, with the extremely mutated creatures apparently being children who were brought back to life by the Artifact of Doom.
"Armsy"
Octopus-like creatures with multiple arms.
- Animalistic Abomination: A hideously-deformed human body with six outstretched arms.
- Belly Mouth: Has a large, vertical opening in its chest. Whether this is an actual mouth or simply a deformity is unknown.
- Blade Spam: Not blades exactly, but they swing their arms with enough force to knock down trees. Best to keep them away from your treehouses.
- Elite Zombie: Pale blue Armsies are faster and more powerful than the standard ones.
- Helpful Mook: They often knock down trees while swinging their arms around; if you pick the battlefield carefully they can give you dozens of logs for free before they go down.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Six arms, very dangerous.
- Roar Before Beating: Armsies are quite vocal, and their roaring and grumbling usually gives them away long before they're close enough to attack.
- Super-Strength: Freakishly strong as they can knock down fully grown trees by swinging their arms, forcing the player to fight on the ground or lure them away from their tree-houses.
"Virginia"
Six-legged, spider-like monsters.
- Animalistic Abomination: Among the least-humanoid of the creepy mutants, it resembles a spider more than anything.
- Elite Zombie: Pale blue Virginias are faster and more powerful than the standard ones.
- The Faceless: The only facial feature that remains is a long diagonal slit that might have been a mouth.
- Full-Frontal Assault: They have exposed nipples, and at least one of the fused bodies in it has an atrophied vulva.
- Mook Maker: Mutant babies tend to spawn in large numbers whenever a Virginia is in the area. It's implied that she births them periodically.
- Sneaky Spider: They are the quietest of the creepy mutants, and you may very well not notice one in the area until it bears down on you.
- Spider People: A vaguely humanoid torso on top of six legs.
"Cowman"
An obese-looking humanoid creature that charges at the player.
- Acrofatic: They can turn on a dime while charging, making them surprisingly difficult to dodge.
- Artificial Stupidity: It's quite easy to lure them into charging off a cliff, or into the ocean where they'll drown.
- Bad Vibrations: Its loud, booming footsteps are often the first indication that a Cowman is in the area.
- Brutish Bulls: Their charging attack and angry panting are not unlike those of a stereotypical angry bull, hence their nickname.
- Eyeless Face: Cowmen have eye sockets, but they appear to have skin grown over them.
- Fat Bastard: They have a visible beer belly.
- Humanoid Abomination: The most humanoid of the creepy mutants, but still a hideous monster.
- Kill It with Fire: Even by creepy mutant standards, the Cowman is vulnerable to fire. Ignite one, and it'll flail about in a panic rather than continue attacking you... until the flames go out, that is.
- Lightning Bruiser: Fast and durable.
- Slasher Smile: Their face seems locked into one of these.
"John"
Slug-like creatures that can link together into various combat forms. Also known as the Worm.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Worm is far less recognizable from its human ancestors than the other creepy mutants, and significantly more reality-defying as well.
- From a Single Cell: As long as one worm is still alive, it can quickly regenerate into a swarm.
- Giant Flyer: One of its combat forms is a flying creature that can body-slam structures on the ground.
- Optional Boss: It typically only appears after you've beaten the game, chosen the Endless Game ending, and defeated the Degraded Boss version of the Final Boss when it appears as a regular enemy on the surface.
- The Swarm: Instead of a single creature, the Worm is a group of small ones that work in unison.
- Tripod Terror: One of its combat forms is a three-legged creature that can stomp over most defenses.
Mutant Babies
Malformed human babies, usually found in the peninsula's cave systems or in proximity to a Virginia.
- Enfant Terrible: However sympathetic they may appear, they will try to kill you via leap attacks.
- One-Hit Kill: A single hit from any weapon will kill them.
Megan Cross (Unmarked Spoilers)
The daughter of the "Red Man", Dr. Mathew Cross. She died from multiple vertical lacerations on her spine sometime before the events of the game. Her death is what causes Mathew to crash the plane Eric and Timmy are flying on in order to bring her back.
- Ax-Crazy: Mentally, she's not very well post-resurrection, considering that she almost certainly murdered her father quite gruesomely with her crayons.
- Back from the Dead: Killed by an Armsy sometime in the recent past, and resurrected by her father via the Artifact.
- Body Horror: She's still got the wounds that killed her post-resurrection, and she looks like a corpse, what with her bluish skin. Then she transforms and makes that look downright pretty in comparison.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: After killing her father, she writes "DADDY'S DEAD :(" on the nearby whiteboard in his blood.
- Creepy Child: She plays with a toy plane, back turned to you, before turning into a horrific multi-legged abomination.
- Death of a Child: She was killed by a rampaging Armsy before the events of the game, then brought back to life by her father, then killed again by Eric.
- Degraded Boss: After you beat the game, and if you choose the Endless Game ending, a mutant identical to her Final Boss form (but substantially weaker) can appear on the surface.
- Face-Revealing Turn: Does this when the player finally finds her at Sahara, revealing a blood-stained mouth.
- Final Boss: She turns into a giant unique mutant that serves as the final boss of the game.
- Humanoid Abomination: What she became after being resurrected with the Artifact.
- Lightning Bruiser: Virginias and Cowmen are both fast and tough, but Megan takes it to a whole other level.
- Mook Maker: Like the Virginias, her mutant form can spawn mutant babies. Unlike the Virginias, she can do it mid-combat.
- Orifice Evacuation: Her mutant form literally pushes itself out of her open mouth like a tentacle.
- Self-Made Orphan: Heavily implied upon finding Mathew's body in the research lab, where multiple parts of his body have been stabbed by crayons.
- Transformation Horror: She gruesomely transforms from a little girl into an fleshy-limbed abomination.
- Tripod Terror: Her One-Winged Angel form has three long tentacles used both for combat and locomotion.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Like Timmy, Megan was an innocent child who loved to draw and the player can find her artwork scattered around the yacht, various caves, and the Sahara facility.
Sahara Therapeutics (Unmarked Spoilers)
In General
A pharmaceutical company specializing in genetic experimentation. Years or decades prior to Eric's plane crash, Sahara discovered the peninsula and set up shop to study the mutants and the mysterious Precursor obelisks that created them.
- Ambiguously Evil: It's unclear how much of the Dr. Cross's experiments on children were sanctioned by Sahara. One document claims that they fired him for unethical research, but the sheer scope of said research seems difficult to reconcile with this.
- Elaborate Underground Base: They have an extensive one that spans much of the peninsula and serves as the game's Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Immortality Immorality: The Jarius Project, which aims to improve human longevity by reverse-engineering the Precursor obelisks that can resurrect dead children as mutants.
- Sigil Spam: Their name and logo are plastered all over their underground base.
The Red Man
Dr. Mathew Cross, the man painted in red that kidnaps Timmy after the plane crashes.
- All for Nothing: He successfully resurrects Megan... who then kills him, turns into a monster, and is killed again for good by Eric.
- Asshole Victim: He went through a messy divorce and his ex-wife Jessica was later stabbed to death, possibly implying he murdered her, and he oversaw horrific experiments on children before being killed by Megan.
- Ax-Crazy: If his crazed scribblings weren't enough, it's heavily implied he was abusive to his estranged wife Jessica and/or his daughter Megan, which culminated in him violently murdering the former before abducting the latter.
- Big Bad: Dr. Cross is the man who kidnaps your son and caused the plane crash in the first place, as well as having played a large role in the experiments on the island.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Death by crayon is quite unusual indeed, and by the looks of it, Megan certainly got creative killing him with them.
- Eye Scream: He is found dead (presumably murdered by Megan) with crayons stabbed into his eyes, neck and mouth.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being an immoral scientist that had experimented on children, he seemed to have at least some kind of love for his daughter given the lengths he went through to bring her back.
- Karmic Death: Given how he shot down a plane to bring back his daughter who he indirectly killed and murdered his own wife, dying by his resurrected daughter is fitting.
- Mirror Character: Both Mathew and Eric show similarities in their actions near the end and even before that, such as wearing red paint or shooting down a plane so they can sacrifice another child to save their own.
- Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter Megan was already terminally ill and got killed when an Armsy broke out of its containment cell. Reverting this is his goal.
- Papa Wolf: His motive for the entire storyline is to resurrect his daughter with a live sacrifice from the plane.
- Sanity Slippage: The various notes you can find scattered around the peninsula written by him seem to indicate he's slowly losing his mind following his daughter's death.
- Spell My Name With An S: His name is apparently spelled "Mathew" with just one "t". This is consistent across several different documents so it appears to be intentional and not a typo, for whatever reason.
- Would Hurt a Child: He oversees the mutilation of many children as part of the Jarius Project, and abducts Timmy for the purpose of feeding him to the resurrection obelisk to bring back his dead daughter.
- The Unfought: You only meet him twice throughout the game, once at the very beginning and once at the very end, but he's already dead by the time you find him.
