Character Tendency

What is this?

In Demon's Souls, there is World Tendency and character tendency. While World Tendency has events which effect a world, character tendency has its own risks and rewards and adds special content as well. Character tendency is roughly analagous to an 'alignment' for your character. Your character's tendency is independant of the world tendencies, and similarly it affects the difficulty, and at pure white or pure black, adds some content to the game.

Killing invading or named Black Phantoms moves your character towards White, and killing harmless NPCs/vendors or being a BP invader moves you towards Black.

You can get a rough view of your character's tendency in game by viewing the statue at the center of the archstone status display menu. If the statue is glowing bright blue, your character tendency is white. If your character is darkened (black), your character tendency is towards black.

What does it do?

Your character's tendency is independant of the world tendencies, and similarly it affects the difficulty, and at pure white or pure black, adds some content to the game.

• When Pure White
  • Talk to the Monumental (in Body form) to get the Friend's Ring when your Character Tendency is Pure White.
  • Attack power is increased in Soul Form (increases in 2 steps, max at pure white).

• When Neutral
  • Your maximum HP in Soul Form is reduced to 95%. (stacks with World Tendency)

• When Pure Black
  • Your maximum HP in Soul Form is reduced to 90%. (stacks with World Tendency, i.e. 0.81% with a Pure Black Character and World Tendency, so you get only max of 61% of your body HP even with Cling Ring!)
  • Mephistopheles will show up on the second floor of the Nexus when your Character Tendency is Pure Black, and if you have released and killed Yurt in 3-2.
  • If possible, it's suggested you do these before going into 1-3 as Ostrava and Biorr may not be available after that time.
  • All Nexus citizens do not need to be alive for Mephistopheles to show up, but you cannot get rewards for their deaths (they will be skipped).

Mephistopheles will request a series of NPC assassination quests of you, as follows:

Target Reward Saint Urbain and followers Stone of Ephemeral Eyes Sage Freke and followers Stone of Ephemeral Eyes Patches, the Hyena Colorless Demon's Soul Biorr of the Twin Fangs Colorless Demon's Soul Ostrava Talisman of Beasts Yuria the Witch Foe's Ring

What is mine right now?

You can get a rough view of your character's tendency in game by viewing the statue at the center of the archstone status display menu. If the statue is glowing bright blue, your character tendency is white. If your character is darkened (black), your character tendency is towards black. The image shown on the right is a character in pure white tendency.

How to find out your Character Tendency.

The bonus damage of these Weapon are dependant on your Character Tendency:

Weapon Pure White Neutral Pure Black Demonbrand PhyAtk +130 MagAtk +110 PhyAtk +0 MagAtk +0 PhyAtk -130 MagAtk -110 Soulbrand PhyAtk -120 MagAtk -130 PhyAtk +0 MagAtk +0 PhyAtk +120 MagAtk +130 North Regalia PhyAtk +135 MagAtk +135 PhyAtk +0 MagAtk +0 PhyAtk +135 MagAtk +135

How can I change it?

Change in Character Tendency is immediate. There is no need to return to the Nexus.

• Towards White
  • Defeat Black phantom that invaded
  • Defeat Unique Named NPC Black Phantoms which appear only with Pure Black World Tendency. This applies only to these five unique "named" NPC Black Phantoms (Miralda, Scirvir, Rydyell, Satsuki, and Selen). There are other Black Phantoms which won't adjust your character tendency (tested after Patch 1.04) such as the two BPs in the Crystal Gecko nest tunnel in Stonefang (2-2) or the three BPs that appear just beyond the Penetrator's hall (1-4). Killing Black Phantoms Ostrava and Garl Vinland will also not adjust your character tendency, even though they are named.
    • 1-1 Defeat Black Phantom - Executioner Miralda (Note: you need to deliver the final killing blow. Don't let her fall to her death in the stairwell)
    • 2-2 Defeat Black Phantom - Scirvir the Wanderer
    • 3-1 Defeat Black Phantom - Lord Rydyell
    • 3-3 Defeat Old Monk in Online Mode (counts as Black Phantom PK). Offline mode doesn't count.
    • 4-1 Defeat Black Phantom - Satsuki
    • 5-2 Defeat Black Phantom - Selen Vinland (Note: don't kill her with Soulsucker or there will be no effect in Character Tendency - verified by meng-huo from GameFAQs forum)
    • Note: Killing these 5 Black Phantom NPC in certain manner (details uncertain) will not trigger the shift in Character Tendency. Here are some tested examples:
      • Killing Black Phantom Selen with Soulsucker.
      • Let Black Phantom Miralda fall to her death in the stairwell. (A blast from God's Wrath or fighting in the stair well may cause this)
      • Let Black Phantom Scirvir the Wanderer fall to his death
      • Killing any Black Phantom exclusively with Poison Cloud seems to prevent the shift in character tendency. (I tested this with Rydyell and Scirvir, with update 1.04 installed. -StefanieTN)
  • Summoned as a Blue Phantom, get yourself killed before defeating the Demon Boss. (Doesn't work for me with update 1.04 installed. -Novril)

• Towards Black
  • Invade as a Black Phantom, kill host.
  • Kill harmless NPC.
  • Using Blue Stone in world 3, you will sometimes to be picked up by the Old Monk to be a Black Phantom, which will lower your CT. You can keep doing this as many times as you like until your CT is black and doesn't require the killing of NPC's, and is safer than invading with Black Stone.
    • You can also "force" the Old Monk to summon you if you use the Black Stone in 3-3. You can use the stone in the small chamber at the bottom of the tower's steps, close to the Maneater Archstone, but you may have to move farther away from the Archstone if it doesn't let you. If the invasion fails, there was no player that you could challenge, but you can always try again.
    • If summoned for the Old Monk, your tendency will only change if you actually kill the other player yourself. It's possible that the other player will die getting to you, and you can still receive the Monk's Head Wrappings if they do, but it won't shift your tendency.

Here's a list of relatively harmless (won't hurt your game if dead) NPCs that you can kill to shift the character tendency.
(Note: please add to it from time to time.)

• 1-1, 1-2, 1-3: Dregling
• 2-1, 2-2: Filthy Man
• 3-1: Once Royal Mistress
• 4-1, 4-2: Graverobber Blige
• 5-1, 5-2: Filthy Woman
• Nexus: Blue Phantom NPC (If you don't speak to him, he'll remain in the Nexus for the duration of the game, or until you kill him.)
• Killing four or five (depending on World Tendency) will take you from Pure White to Pure Black.

Notes:
Killing the following Named Black Phantom NPCs has no impact (either way) on Character Tendency (both confirmed).

• 1-4 Black Phantom Ostrava (He appears during any world tendency.)
• 5-3 Black Phantom Garl Vinland (He appears only during Pure White world tendency.)