Malcolm: the stranger with the debt

Dreadmoor's protagonist is Malcolm, and the game introduces him the way it introduces everything else — with a problem and a bill. The name comes from hands-on coverage of the demo build; Dream Dock has not published a character page, so treat the spelling and any backstory as reported rather than official.

He arrives in the Submerged Lands exposed to the Blight, is treated with Essence, and discovers the treatment was a loan. The same coverage notes that he narrates the tutorial beats with full voice acting, which makes him an unusually present first-person protagonist: he comments on what he is doing, complains about the boat, and reacts to the world rather than serving as a silent camera.

That voice work matters because the game is otherwise quiet. Dream Dock's design material leans heavily on silence, fog and distance as tension tools, and a protagonist who talks gives the player something to hold onto in water that is deliberately empty. It also sets the tone: Malcolm is not a hero arriving to fix the world. He is a man in a leaking boat who owes money.

The studio has not published a detailed backstory, and the demo does not explain how he came to be in the Submerged Lands. Treat any "Malcolm was a [profession] before the collapse" claim as speculation.

Gill and Bozur: the shop with two faces

The most memorable introduction in the demo is the trading post's shopkeeper, and it is memorable because there are two of him.

Bozur is the body: a large figure who looks, in the words of one hands-on preview, like someone "straight out of Innsmouth". Gill is the fish-like entity protruding from Bozur's neck, and Gill does the talking.

The pairing sets the game's register immediately. This is body horror played as commerce: a mutation so advanced that the person and the parasite have settled into a working relationship, running a bait shop on a crab's legs. Hands-on coverage describes the shop as operating through a dialogue wheel, with Gill handling the negotiation while Bozur stands there.

Functionally, they are the demo's quest hub. They offer the Essence that starts the debt, give you the bunkhouse key, hand out the Snapper and Harpooner contracts, and sell the carburetor you need for the engine upgrade. If you are stuck, they are usually the first place to return to.

Narratively, they are the game's thesis in miniature: in the Submerged Lands, mutation does not end a person's life, it changes their job. The Sea Blight page explains the process that produced Gill in the first place.

John the Fifth: the engineer who gates everything

John the Fifth is the local engineer, and he is the reason the demo's middle act exists.

He holds the dry dock key, which is the single most important object in the early game, and he will not give it up while his moonshine still is broken. The still has a prosthetic leg lodged inside it and needs three materials to repair: coral fiber from Angler's Island, bug slime, and metal plates.

That chain — engineer, still, materials, key, dock — is the demo's structural spine. It forces you off the main island, teaches the axe and the hook gun, and makes the boat upgrade path feel earned rather than purchased.

John himself is characterised as a man in no condition to help you, which is a recurring type in this setting: competent people whose equipment has outlived their ability to maintain it. His name implies a lineage, and the numeral is doing deliberate work — there were at least four others, and the world does not explain what happened to them.

Betsy: the crab the shop stands on

The trading post is built on the back of a giant crab, and hands-on coverage calls it Betsy. The shop sign reads Betsy and Sons, which is either a joke about the crab's offspring or a joke about the shop's owners, and the game does not clarify which. One preview instead describes an anglerfish called Betsy perched on Gill; the crab reading matches both the official screenshot of the shop on crab legs and the sign, so this page follows that one.

The image is one of the strongest in the promotional material: a wooden bait shop perched on monstrous legs, standing in shallow water, with a dry dock beside it. It communicates the setting faster than any paragraph — industry, biology and commerce fused into something that should not work and evidently does.

Whether Betsy is alive, mechanical, or something in between is not settled in the material available. One preview describes a "giant metal crab"; the store description says "monstrous crab legs". Both readings fit the game's biotech aesthetic.

The Baron: reported, not confirmed

Early hands-on impressions mention the Baron as the figure who runs the local operation, and one writer immediately wanted to know what he controls — trade, fuel, territory, fish.

He has not appeared in official screenshots, trailers, developer diaries or the demo's documented quest chain. That does not mean he is not in the game; it means the only source is a player's impression of a mention.

Given the setting's structure — isolated settlements, powerful traders, scarce resources — a local power broker is entirely plausible, and the name fits the game's tone. But a character page that describes his role, motives or appearance would be inventing. He is listed here so that readers who encounter the name know what is actually known: a mention, not a character sheet.

Who else is likely to matter

The developer diaries describe a world of settlements that range from structured towns to tribal groups and Blight-worshipping cults, and say that trust between people is rare and valuable. That is a promise of a cast rather than a list of names.

What can be said with confidence is the type of character Dreadmoor favours: people whose bodies or equipment have been changed by the world and who have adapted by taking up a role — trader, engineer, fixer. Nobody in the demo is a quest-giver in the abstract. Everyone has a machine that needs fixing or a debt that needs collecting.

If you want to see how those roles structure the actual play, the demo walkthrough follows the chain from Malcolm's arrival to The Throat gate, and the world and lore page explains the history the characters are living inside.

Sources

Sources checked November 3, 2026. Character details come from hands-on coverage of the demo and official screenshots; the Baron is a reported mention only.