Overlord (series)/Characters

This is the character list for the first Overlord game and its expansion Overlord: Raising Hell.

Characters in overlord 2 should be listed here.

The Overlord and his allies

The Overlord/The Eighth Hero

The player character. Awakened by the minions to rebuild and re-instate a reign of terror after his predecessor was slain by heroes. Armed with a suit of heavy plate armor, a massive weapon, and an army of minions he now seeks revenge against the heroes who slew the previous overlord.

He was actually one of the heroes himself, and was treated to a Disney Death when the tower started collapsing. His allies left him for dead and the minions recovered the amnesiac hero and converted him to evil.

• Anti-Villain: If played with low corruption.
• Ax Crazy: At high corruption.
• Black Knight/Knight in Shining Armor: At higher levels of corruption, your armor grows spikes and turns black. If you stay low, then, as the game carries on, your armor becomes brighter and shiny.
• Fallen Hero: Both figuratively and literally. He fell from the tower during the fight with the previous Overlord and was left for dead by his comrades.
• Tomato in the Mirror: He was the eighth hero who was left for dead by his allies.
• Villainous Mime: He never speaks, but he does grunt when he swings, and his voice is very deep.
• Villain Protagonist.
• Villain with Good Publicity: At low corruption, to the extent that you're really a villain in name only.

Gnarl

"Evil always finds a way."

An ancient minion and The Dragon, Gnarl uses the Overlord's helmet to communicate with you over long distances and give you advice on what to do next.

• Affably Evil: Gnarl is polite, likeable, and soft-spoken, even as he's betraying you for your predecessor.
• Cool Old Guy
• Dirty Old Man: Gnarl gets very vocal about his attraction to the mistresses- to the point it actually gets him a Dope Slap from Kelda.
• The Dragon: Gnarl is one of the few recurring characters in the whole series, and since minions are immortal, he's had the chance to serve at least four different Overlords- possibly many more.
• Evil Chancellor
• Evil Mentor: Given that he gave the Witch-Boy "a proper evil upbringing" in the second game, it's safe to say that he was most definitely one of these.
• Manipulative Bastard: There's a common fan theory that Gnarl feigns subservience and that his guiding you around is actually playing you as his dragon.

Rose

One of the Overlord's potential mistresses, Rose is an order-obsessed stick-in-the-mud who compliments a low-corruption Overlord. Mid-game you have the option to spurn her for her sister, Velvet.

In Overlord II, Rose serves Emperor Solarius as the leader of the Sentinels, a fanatical group dedicated to hunting down magical creatures and magicians across the world; as it happens, Rose isn't following the anti-magical doctrine, and only works for Solarius because he represents the best chance the world has at lasting order and peace. She's also canonically the first Overlord's lover and mother of the second game's Overlord.

• Big Damn Heroes: When the Wizard returns and tries to steal your magic and kill you, Rose (if you didn't spurn her for Velvet) interrupts him by attacking the tower heart, giving you a chance to get your magic back and go after him.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Canonically, the Overlord kept her as his mistress.
• Different As Night and Day
• Face Heel Turn / Heel Face Turn: In an attempt to restore balance to the world, she joined Solarius in his campaign of world domination during the second game. However, when he shows signs of becoming too corrupt, Rose quickly changes sides and offers her aid to the Overlord.
• In the Hood: As leader of the Sentinels, she wears a hooded cloak.
• Witch Boy, I Am Your Mother
• Sugar and Ice Personality: At best.
• Woman Scorned: On the flipside... If you spurned her for Velvet, she betrays you in revenge and allows the Wizard into your tower.

Velvet

Rose's sister. Velvet is a sadistic, money-hungry seductress whom the Overlord rescues from William the Black. After saving her, she offers the Overlord to take her as his mistress and give him the time of his life, at which point he can spurn Rose and take her instead.

• Big Damn Heroes: When the wizard returns and tries to steal your magic and kill you, Velvet interrupts him by attacking the tower heart, giving you a chance to get your magic back and go after him.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Canonically, she was the Overlord's enemy.
• Different As Night and Day
• Gold Digger
• Woman Scorned: If you reject her... She finds a way to get the wizard into the tower.

Giblet

One of the brown minions who originally revives the Overlord and helps him recover the Tower Heart. Later becomes the forge master once the smelters are recovered.

• Mauve Shirt: Is one of the few minions with a name.
• The Blacksmith: Once you get the forge operational.

Jester

The Overlord's Jester. Hangs around the main tower hall reciting the Overlord's titles.

• Butt Monkey: You can freely attack him with no ill effect, he serves as a training dummy in the tutorial.
• Face Heel Turn: Ends up serving the Forgotten God
• The Jester

Villains

Seven of the Eight heroes who slew the previous overlord, as the years passed they grew complacent in their fame and succumbed to the Seven Deadly Sins.

Melvin the Halfling Hero

The first of the heroes you encounter. Since the Overlord's fall, Melvin has been made King of the Halflings, and has succumbed to the sin of Gluttony.

• Adipose Rex
• Fat Bastard
• I'm a Humanitarian: According to captured peasants, Melvin's appetites have extended this far.
• Pop goes the Halfling: When you kill Melvin he explodes into a disgusting mess of bile; when you find him in his Ironic hell, this become a gameplay element.
• Ironic Hell: For his gluttony, he wound up in a hell of killer pumpkins and exploding sheep, where he eats endless amounts of food and is unable to stop until he literally explodes... only to be re-incarnated and made to repeat this over and over and over again for all eternity.
• Rolling Attack
• Villainous Glutton

Oberon the Dreamer.

An elven ranger and one of the heroes. After the Overlord's fall, Oberon succumbed to Sloth and slept while the Dwarves raided his home and wiped out his people. As a last subconscious act, Oberon's body became a great tree, blocking passage to keep the Dwarves from further destroying his people's home.

• And I Must Scream: Oberon's semi-conscious and knows what he's doing to the forest, but is unable to do anything about it.
• Mook Maker
• Ironic Hell: His abyss, he's trapped in his tree form and forced to watch a play about the genocide of the elves that he failed to stop, forever.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Besides all the elves in the forest being, well, dead, there's also the small matter of Oberon's nightmares taking on a physical forms as monsters called Skulls.

Sir William the Bold/Black

A human paladin, Sir William succumbed to the sin of Lust and makes all of Heaven's Peak suffer for it, leading a cult devoted specifically to sex. The succubi queen he summoned to please him, his cult, and anyone else interested is the source of the heaven's peak zombie plague. He's also Velvet's betrothed, though she really doesn't give a damn about him.

• Camp Straight: He acts very effeminate, but the fact he summons succubi for his own pleasure should make it obvious he's not gay.
• Flunky Boss: When he's not fighting, he sends his cult goons to swarm you.
• Foreshadowing: He mentions the Wizard was the one who taught him to not care for his chastity, giving you an idea of who the main threat is.
• Teleport Spam.

Goldo Golderson

The Dwarven king who,predictably, fell to the sin of Greed and committed genocide on the elves to loot their forest and temple, keeping only a handful of males alive to work as slaves in his gold mines, and females to be his consorts, he uses a giant steampunk tank called Rolly.

• And I Must Scream: See below.
• Gold Fever: The dwarves have raw gold laying everywhere, he's the one who sparked this in them.
• Ironic Hell: For his Greed, Goldo gets turned into a living statue of solid gold. Though, the one calling the shots in the Abyss is fascinated when the Dwarves' fury at Goldo for getting them sent to the Abyss overcomes their greed, and is content to let Goldo get pummeled by his own once-loyal subjects.
• Taken for Granite: See above.
• Tank Goodness: Rolly.

Jewel

A human thief, Jewel suffers from the sin of envy, and uses her skill as a thief to steal whatever she can. With an army of mercenaries and beholders led by Kahn at her back.

• Green-Eyed Monster
• What Happened to the Mouse?: When you capture and interrogate her, she just... disappears from the game without any further mention.

Kahn

A human warrior, Kahn is possessed by wrath and leads the beholders and mercenaries alongside Jewel.

• Berserk Button: Everything but Jewel, but he takes it especially poorly when you capture Jewel.
• Scary Black Man

The Wizard/ Your predecessor

A human wizard and the first to turn evil, and subsequently the one to corrupt all the other heroes.

He's actually the Overlord who was killed by the heroes, having preformed Grand Theft Me on the original Wizard and purged his soul from his body. He used the player to kill the heroes after corrupting them and leaving them vulnerable while he recovered. When Kahn is killed, he takes that as his cue and returns to the tower to steal back his power and kill you.

• A Wizard Did It: The Wizard being the corrupter of all the heroes was probably a play on this meme.
• Big Bad
• Beard of Evil
• Flunky Boss: With the twist that the flunkies he's using are stronger and more demented version of your own minions.
• Grand Theft Me: He completely purged the original wizard from his body, leaving only the overlord
• Hannibal Lecture: During his fight he taunts you with words he told the heroes when he was corrupting them.
• Thanatos Gambit: His death let him posess the wizard and get close to the heroes, corrupting them slowly before taking back his throne after his replacement had done his dirty work for him.