At first this post was supposed to be a rant about the lack of playable main character with names and established background. But then I realized that almost all people ever do on the forums is rant and be frustrated about things. So I thought, maybe let’s put the passion into something nice. “After all, misguided passion serves no one.”
So I made this post to ask you fellow forum dwellers, if you could choose, what personalities would you have as the main character of Darktide, with a name and established lore?
I’ll give my take; you can give yours below.
Main 4 classes
When it comes to the main 4 classes, I think it only made sense to make the main characters look just like the rejects from the poster.
They always show up in the game but were never used as anything more as models for cutscenes or trailers, so I thought they are the right choice for the main cast.
Veteran
Name: Arlo Thomasson
This name is not my creation. It actually comes from the game. The armor that every reject from the poster wears has a name attached to it, so it just feels right, that I go with these names.
Face
Starting off with the Veteran, he’s a bit tricky because his face is covered up with a mask, so that means that we have to imagine how he looks under it. I decided to go with this design for his face.
This design gives a feel of a battle hardened Veteran who has seen his fair share of horror the galaxy has to offer, and yet he still trudges on and that fits his personality.
Personality: Loose Cannon
Darktide has a bunch of personalities to choose from and the Loose Cannon, to me at least, feels the most fleshed out of every personality out there. Additionally, I want every character to break the mold. In 40k Guardsmen are always presented as loyal and that “The planet will break before the Guard will” and Loose Canon is perfect to bring in the nuance into this world. I also lean on the personalities when it comes to talking about their background and lore.
Background
Personalities always have snippets of backgrounds to them that help give them some depth and not make them feel one-dimensional, and the Loose Cannon is no-different same in that regard. So from them, we can establish some clear lore for Arlo Thomasson. Of course some creative liberties still can be taken like what planet the character came from, what they were arrested for etc.
From Frip-Frop’s video on the personality we can figure that the Imperium broke him and finding himself “Knee-deep in their old platoon’s blood” was the final straw. So with that and his joke-comments like “Running away’s got a certain appeal right now” I think it would be fitting that after his platoon has been brutally killed, he deserted and lived for a couple of years running away from his past.
Also, I think it would be very adequate to make his conviction something completely unrelated to his desertion, just to show how flawed the system is in the Imperium, so jail for being disgusted by bad tasting Corpse Starch it is.
To add an intriguing fact about his personality, I don’t think many people know about it, but there’s a dialogue where the Savant Psyker makes an interesting observation on him.
Savant: “I do not understand you. You feign irreverence, fight harder than any of us.”
“That’s slander, that is. You take it back".”
Savant: “You see? You truly are a fascinating individual.”
“I am not, and you can’t prove otherwise.”
To me, this dialogue just adds to the fact he’s ridden with trauma and guilt.
So to sum up: a Veteran who has been broken by the Imperium time and time again, who just puts on a goofy facade to cope with his traumatic experiences, but still has somber moments where it shows that he’s been through more trauma than anyone, feels just right for Darktide, don’t you agree?
“Better to leave the dead behind. And then you drink, copiously.”
Zealot
Name: Nala Cantara
Personality: Judge
Going to be honest here – at first I saw every personality in her, because the trailers used pretty much all of her voices, so I didn’t know who I saw in her. I settled on the Agitator at first, because in the gameplay trailer for the game, the voice actress’s performance was pretty impressive to me. But then Frip-Frop released a video on the Judge personality where he used her character design, and after that I couldn’t stop seeing the Judge in her.
Also, people have mentioned how the Female Judge sounds like she has a Japanese accent and the face of the poster reject looks Asian, so I’d say she fits perfectly.
Background
With her backstory, I wished to have her faith in the Emperor stem from an origin of growing up as an orphan and having nothing but faith to keep her company and give her any sense of comfort. This would lead Nala to develop a strong belief in the Emperor, but not the same as others. I’d like her to be a Zealot who follows her own set of beliefs that she thinks the Emperor would want of his servants and not what the Ecclesiarchy tries to push on people. The system can be quite corrupt, and the Ecclesiarchy can be complacent in letting corrupt people in power go unpunished for actions that would even qualify as heresy. So to me, a Zealot of her own beliefs would at some point see this hypocrisy and take action.
While I could only get “questioning the Deacon’s lavish lifestyle,” I want her defiance to be something bigger rather than a mere expression of doubt. I think it’d be good to make Nala responsible for the death of a Noble who neglected people he was supposed to care for. It fits with the Judge’s personality and how she judges everyone equally.
Her comments on the Torrent:
“A settlement. Home to the righteous? Or sinners, more likely.”
“I fear for the souls of those who must dwell here.”
“The Govenor of this planet has failed their people!”
There’s also this shared sentiment that the Judge is quite new to the whole “being a Preacher of the Master of Mankind” thing. She has unyielding resolve, and as Frip-Frop said in his video on Judge:
“But the Judge is socially inept, sometimes being portrayed as an outcast among outcasts. Apparently believing the Emperor has an unseen plan for every moment of your life can cause problems for your psyche. Of course, they don’t blame the Emperor when something turns out to be as viscerally disagreeable as fighting the entire Poxhound population of Tertium.”
I also find it a tad interesting how Fatshark directs some of the voice actors for the Zealots. From the sounds they make when swinging with melee, it is clear that each is capable of delivering some visceral screams, and yet they haven’t instructed them to put such screams into the Fury of the Faithful charge ability. It sounds like it would fit. Just an observation unrelated to the topic.
Ogryn
Name: Brogg Rockgut
Personality: Heavy
When it comes to the Ogryn, I always wanted to have something I could never do myself. I wanted the main Ogryn character to sound like a combination of all Ogryn personalities. And like a wish granted by the Emperor himself, Fatshark gives us the Heavy, who sounds exactly like I imagined all three personalities fused together. His voice is perfect. His personality is also great, since I also wanted an Ogryn that, once again, breaks the mold. They are always portrayed as big, dumb, sweet brutes. But what about a big, smart, mean brute? You suddenly get a terrifying beast who’s aware of his power, and that’s what makes him so menacing. He isn’t even secretly kind deep down like the Bully, so to me this personality makes for a perfect candidate to be one of the main characters.
Background
Since Brogg has the Heavy personality that uses the Hive Ganger slang, it only makes sense that he grew up in a gang. A gang where his strength was valued and well rewarded.
Anarchist: “You up for a bit of teamwork, Lump?”
“Only if you pay me.”
Anarchist: “Whatever you want. I’m dead generous. So let’s do it, yeah?”
“Not until I see the akkers up front. I ain’t stupid.”
I wanted to make his backstory a bit more interesting, so I decided to make it so that he went on a supply run and was abandoned. When he came back, his superior, fearing retribution, accused him of abandoning his post. But Brogg wasn’t having any of it, and he killed the superior who accused him of it. Despite him thinking this would affect his sentence, he only got Dereliction of Duty because the bureaucracy of the Imperium is so slow that it didn’t even log it into his sentence – but he doesn’t really know it.
“Alright. So I might have broken the Lex a bit. So what? Laws are for the little ‘uns. Weaklings.”
Psyker
Name: Lexander Winsdor
The name on the gambeson only has a name “Lexander” so I had to create a second name for him. A Psyker following the Lex being named Lexander feels just on the nose for the world of 40k.
Personality: Savant
People always want to have a Psyker that rejects the Imperium’s dogma. But I don’t wish for another Sienna Fuegonasus. I want something original, and a Psyker who supports the Imperium and sticks to the rules and protocol because it’s the only thing keeping him from going insane from all the voices from the Warp sounds pretty compelling for a character.
Arlo: “You’re a lot more… Serene than the other Psykers I’ve met”
“I find that dedication to duty soothes the storm in my thoughts.”
Arlo: “Not me. Makes me bored or angry, according to my mood.”
“Perhaps I have simply balanced those states of being?”
Less that they genuinely believe what they are told, and more that they think it’s better to just accept what they are being told so their doubts don’t make them vulnerable to Warp influence. Someone who is calm, kind, and well-spoken but also can be overwhelmed by the power of foresight and the peril they wield.
“No duty should be considered light when, citizens lifes are at balance.”
“One may take pleasure in a clean kill, but there should be no satisfaction found in suffering.”
“We fight for the innocent!”
“I bring justice to Atoma!”
“Such power. SUCH POWER!”
“SO. MANY. VOICES!”
“NO! Out of my mind!”
I would actually think it is very compelling if we could see the Savant personality start to behave differently sometimes when venting high amounts of Peril – getting less well-spoken and more unhinged, like at that moment he almost loses control. Something similar to the Seer.
Seer: “Fear me! FEAR ME- oops.”
Background
I think it would be nice to have every character speak about the worlds they came from, and an Ocean world would be very interesting to hear about since it feels so rare in a 40k setting. Also, the conviction of Lexander would be less a deserved sentence and more a plan schemed by the enforcers of Atoma to get rid of him – something he’s aware of, but at the same time, it’s not something that would affect his faith or beliefs, since to doubt is to become vulnerable to heresy and the Warp.
“I should have known the enforcers would not tolerate me forever. My skills, they valued, but my nature? That they despised.”
DLC classes
This is where I start to deviate from the usual pattern.
If you look at the Arbites, it is clear that the Male Maul was depicted as the main character of the trailer, and with the Hive Scum, it seems that the community-wide sentiment is that the character in the trailer was the Female Anarchist. So if I were to apply the same logic as I did with the first 4 classes, then these would be the main characters. But I do not want that.
While I like the over-the-top Maul who fits into the satirical portrayal of 40k cops, it gets tiring if you hear him speak with this gravelly tone 24/7. His personality also doesn’t really have any room for nuance and development like the others. Same thing goes for the Anarchist. I like characters that are less over the top, if you get my meaning. With that explained, let’s continue.
Arbites
Since I am not going with what we were shown in the Arbites trailer, that means I had to make an Arbites design from scratch and this is what I settled on. I took no small inspiration from the Frip Frop design of the Fatalist and for a good reason.
Name: Derlin Norton
Complete lack of a name for any Arbites meant I needed to, once again, create a completely new name.
Personality: Fatalist (voiced by Mark Takeshi Ota)
Now I hear you asking, why would I like to have the Fatalist voiced by the guy who voices the Authoritarian? I have my reasons for this. For starters, no offense to Michael Geary – his performance as Fatalist is flawless. It’s just that I have a certain vision of this character. He may have the personality of the Fatalist and say all the things he says, but a logical approach to the broken and corrupt system is one thing, and what your feelings on it are is another.
My idea of this character is that while he may agree that the Lex is not perfect but also the best thing they have, he still can’t help but have an intense hatred for how flawed the Imperium is. For that reason, while in battle his demeanor could sometimes shift from despondent to enraged, and his behavior would then be comparable to the Maul. It would be him using the heretics as an outlet for his suppressed anger toward the broken system that is the Imperium.
Now I think Mark Takeshi Ota could achieve such a performance because of the way he can deliver his lines. Even as an Authoritarian – a bit naive and socially awkward person – he can sound absolutely menacing in some of his combat ability voicelines.
People who played as this personality probably know the kind of voicelines I’m talking about.
0:18 “No escape! No quater!!! NO MERCY!”
0:23 “You have no way out!”
1:21 “BACK!!!”
1:30 “BACK AWAY!”
To name a few.
So, just think how he would sound if he was directed to the Fatalist but with the intensity of how he can voice the Authoritarian. Imagine how menacing the combat ability lines would sound then.
“You can run, please do! It makes it fun!”
“SCATTER!!!”
Background
With all that in mind, I believe that making Derlin actively volunteer to go to the Schola Progenium – having a naive belief that the system is perfect and that by joining it he can help make the world a better place – only for all these beliefs to be crushed under the boots of corruption, would be compelling. The older he got, the more he realized just how unfair the truth is, and while he may not try to fight it and may approach it logically, it won’t change how he truly feels about it. But it’s not like he will make it known.
“No. The Lex isn’t perfect. But as long as it serves, I’ll serve it in turn, and through that, terra and the Imperium.”
Nala: “Is there no place for mercy under the Lex?”
“I believe so. But we are being watched… if you take my meaning.”
Nala: “The Beneficent Emperor sees every sparrow fall, it is true.”
“It isn’t him that I worry about.”
Hive Scum
Name: Nadia Harns
Personality: Outlaw
With the Hive Scum being the newest class, and with it the personalities having the least lines, that means that they don’t yet have any snippets of interesting lore about them like other personalities do. So it gets left to me to think what lore the Female Outlaw would have, and I think I got just the thing.
Background
I think Nadia could be a part of the Iron Riders Cartel. Since she joined, all she ever did was prove to everyone that she’s the best. Her personality would be more like the Bounty Hunter before the Uprising. Her ambitions came first; people she cared about, like her family, second. One time she and many other best Iron Riders were assigned a special mission by Lord Magleviathan himself: to infiltrate the other Cartels, rise up in the ranks thanks to their skill, get close to the leaders, and influence the Cartels’ decisions from the inside, which would benefit the Iron Riders in the long run. She was assigned to infiltrate the Water Cartel, and she did so gladly. It would be her biggest achievement yet and the best-paid one too.
That plan unfortunately was hindered when the heretics attacked. Before she could even get close to the Ragged King, the heretics killed him and most of the Cartel. Nadia was forced to run and fight her way back to the Iron Riders. But when she finally got home, she could only pull the trigger as her own family ran at her, corrupted by Nurgle and turned into Poxers. She’s now ridden with guilt and intense hatred for the Rotters. She believes that it is her ambitions that led to her taking Magleviathan’s mission, so she wasn’t able to protect her family when they needed her most. She also blames the Nobles of Tertium, who neglected their citizens for so long that a whole cult could be raised in the depths of the Hive and no one batted an eye until it was too late.
End
And that’s it for who I think would be good to have as main characters of Darktide. Their personalities could bounce off each other very well, and they could interact with people aboard the Mourningstar to give us some insightful and entertaining dialogue.
Even though everything I wrote here was essentially a glorified “what if?” fanfiction/headcanon, I am not worried about the lack of main characters as much anymore. Fatshark has made a decision to give us the ability to make our own characters, and they can’t just walk it back. They have to commit. But that also means that we will get a lot of cool, interesting, entertaining dialogue, with each personality getting their own depth and even character development as time goes on. We just have to wait.
