The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu has been just released and it’s a game we’ve been all waiting for. An adaption of the short story The Mound by H.P. Lovecraft, it has some incredible characters, which you get to know through recovered logbooks. If you want to know about The Mound Omen of Cthulhu characters including the characters you can pick at the beginning, the NPCs who work on the ship and help you through your journeys and the sailors long gone, stay with us.
What you’ll read in this guide:
Disclaimer: I haven’t had the time to finish the whole game yet, so I have gathered this information from reliable sources on the internet. There might be a few mistakes or incomplete info. I try to update the guide as soon as more info was available. Till then if you found any mistakes let me know in the comments.
The Playable Characters in The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu
There are 8 playable characters in total. 4 of the are available right away but the rest can be unlocked through progression or the Deluxe Edition’s character pack. Here’s the important thing to know before you overthink about who to pick: Every character plays exactly the same. There are no classes, no unique abilities, and no stat differences. The choice is entirely about appearance and narrative. Your role among your teammates is determined by the equipment and weapons you carry in each expedition, not your character’s skills.
That said, each explorer comes with a short personal backstory that adds some flavor to who you’re playing as.
Alonso de la Torre
A former soldier, free from launch. Alonso is worn down; to him all the wars he’s fought in the past have been pointless. He’s not chasing gold for its own sake, he’s chasing the freedom it can buy him.
Leonor
Also free at launch, Leonor is a fugitive from Spain. She killed a man in Seville and doesn’t regret it; joining an expedition into an uncharted, deadly jungle is simply the only path left open to her.
Don Rodrigo de Medina
A disillusioned nobleman (a hidalgo: basically a Spanish aristocrat), available from the start. He’s grown cynical about honor and nobility in war and is looking for something that feels genuine, even if it’s far from noble.
Fray Gaspar
The fourth and last free launch character is a priest seeking atonement, who is by far my least favorite character to start with (I hate all religious figures in games and movies). He’s troubled by watching faith get twisted into a tool of violence and hopes the wilderness might offer him some kind of redemption (Well he’s in for a hell of a surprise.)
Beatriz
An unlockable Criolla character. Beatriz has never had anything to lose, and has a straightforward mentality about the expeditions: take what justice you can by force, because nobody’s handing it to you.
Hassan
An unlockable pirate. Hassan has travelled the world and answers to no law but his own and has seen enough of the world to stop being surprised by it.
Juana “la Culebra”
An unlockable contrabandist (her nickname means “the Snake”). Juana’s spent her life as an outlaw and has made peace with it. She believes people like her are as necessary to the world as the law itself.
Nahuel
The eighth unlockable character, a former prisoner. Nahuel was jailed unjustly and lost years of his life to it. He’s on this expedition to get paid back, literally, in gold.
The Crew: Who Runs the Ship in The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu
You start the game on the galleon Tempestad and in between your expeditions you have to go back there. It’s staffed by crew members who handle everything from contracts to valuing the treasures you have brought back. Unlike the playable explorers, these characters actually have defined jobs that matter to the gameplay.
The Captain
The whole game is based on signing a contract and going on an expediotion to hunt treasures. If you want to sign a contract, the Captain is the guy you have to pay a visit. He’s also the most-heard NPC voice on the ship after the game’s narrator.
Father Escalona
The ship’s priest (not to be confused with Fray Gaspar, the playable priest). Whenever you go on expeditions he accompanies you on his ox-wagon, which acts as your party’s shared storage and return point during expeditions. If you started hallucinating during the expedition it’s for the best to return to the wagon immediately.
The Appraiser
As his name suggests, he puts a price on whatever treasure you drag back from the jungle.
Melchor
The resident occultist, tied to the game’s stranger. He work with more esoteric tools.
The Woodworker
Carves recovered figures into the game’s Patron Saints, the passive blessings you can bring on expeditions.
Rodrigo Castillo
A rowboat soldier who helps at the landing stage.
The Cook
If you need advice on which food items are worth hunting or foraging for, you have to see the Cook.
The Lute Player
Provides camp music, and can learn new songs if you find Music Tablets out in the field.
The Tutor, Benjamín the Naturalist, Brute, Roque, Grummet, and Native
These are smaller supporting crew members with less-defined roles so far that you get to know little by little during the game.
The Lore Characters Behind The Mound’s Story
This is where The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu characters get genuinely interesting, and it’s easy to miss if you don’t have the patience to read every journal page you pick up. The game’s actual backstory isn’t told through cutscenes with your crew but it’s told through recovered logbooks written by earlier, doomed expeditions, more specifically two rival ship captains.
Captain Baltasar de Salvatierra
Captain of the Lazarillo, one of two ships already wrecked on the cursed coast before your story begins (the other is El Comendador). From his journals you realize he is a man consumed by ambition, determined to claim the underground city of Tsath for himself rather than for the Spanish crown. He rules through fear, dismisses the region’s Mapuche people as superstitious, and treats mercy as a weakness that spreads like a disease through his crew (Did his unyielding character lead to success and conquest? Well his wrecked ship would have us believed otherwise.)
Captain Zamacona
In Salvatierra’s journals he is referred to as a rival. A more thoughtful, more willing captain to take native warnings seriously, and clearly more troubled by what the expedition uncovers. If you are a Lovecraft fan this name might be familiar to you: in the original 1930 novella The Mound, the entire plot revolves around a manuscript written by a 16th-century conquistador named Pánfilo de Zamacona y Nuñez, who travels into the same underground realm the game is built around. ACE Team pulled this character directly out of the source material rather than inventing something new, then built a rival captain around him to create internal conflict on the expedition.
The Mapuche
The Mapuche is not one individual but the game’s ongoing representation of the region’s real indigenous people. Journal fragments repeatedly show expedition members regretting that they didn’t listen to Mapuche warnings about the jungle before it was too late.
Tomás Ruiz
A minor named figure mentioned in the logbooks. He is a sailor that was missing from his watch one night. It’s a small detail, but it’s the kind of quiet, ominous beat that subtly tells you what you are up against.
Between the explorers you control, the crew keeping the Tempestad running, and the doomed voices buried in the jungle’s logbooks, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu builds a surprisingly layered cast for those who are interested in not just in the mechanics of the game but in the story itself. Which one is your favorite character? Tell me in the comments below!
