Psychonauts/Characters

This article contains descriptions of the many characters who feature in the game Psychonauts. It also lists the names of the mental worlds found inside the minds of the appropriate characters.

Raz

 * Main article: Razputin
 * Mental worlds: Brain Tumbler Experiment (partial), Meat Circus (combined with Morceau Oleander)

Short for Razputin. One of many children attending Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, Raz is the ten-year old player character of the game.

Lili Zanotto
Lili, the daughter of Truman Zanotto, grand head of Psychonauts (whose picture can be seen in the campfire area carved on a log), is a fellow trainee at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, and has been so for a number of years prior to Razputin's temporary enlistment. She has a wealth of existing psychic experience, and loves nothing more than exciting adventures to stir up the otherwise quiet nature of the campgrounds.

From the very moment that Razputin walks (or drops, as the case may be) into the camp, Lili falls for the budding Psychonaut. However, her natural resilience to throw herself at him prevents her from immediately revealing her affections. Eventually, the two finally come together and all is revealed -- seconds before the unthinkable happens.

Morceau Oleander

 * Mental worlds: Basic Braining, Brain Tumbler Experiment (partial), Meat Circus (combined with Raz)

Tiny, easily angered, and the head coach of Whispering Rock. Oleander seems like the typical army man. Morceau Morry Oleander's job is to ensure that the participating children all receive the best psychic education possible, so that they can secure a place on the journey to becoming a Psychonaut. He runs his classes with the maximum efficiency, and drives the children to the very edge of what they can handle, using his years as a serving soldier to aid this process.

Coach Oleander seemingly spends a lot of time devising plans for his next class, and has a habit of accidentally snoring directly into the campground's speaker system, much to the distaste of those trying to relax within the campground's boundaries. When awoken, he initially expresses fear and paranoia, followed quickly by anger.

Repressed memories stored away in mental vaults reveal how disturbed the coach's mind truly is. As a child, Little Oly loved bunnies. Unfortunately, his father was a butcher who believed that animals were only good for meat, and often took his son's rabbits and chopped them up (with Little Oly watching in horror and crying). This, coupled with the shame that he was never actually accepted into the military, led Oleander to develop a hatred of mankind in general.

Razputin eventually discovers that Oleander is behind the abduction of Whispering Rock's campers. Driven mad by his nightmares, memories, and insecurities, Oleander plans to conquer the world using tanks powered by the children's psychically powerful brains. He enlisted the mad scientist Dr. Loboto to assist him, and together they mutated a lungfish to transport the children to their headquarters within the island-based Thorny Towers asylum.

After several battles, Raz is forced to combine his consciousness with that of Oleander for a final confrontation; the result blends the two foes' memories into a bizarre circus made of meat and mutilated animals. During their mindmeld, Raz is able to defeat both his own inner demons and Oleander's (both are haunted by mental images of their fathers), giving Oleander true inner peace. He later apologizes to everyone for stealing their brains and thanks Raz for his efforts.

Sasha Nein

 * Mental world: Sasha's Shooting Gallery

Sasha Nein is a true Psychonaut, with years of experience on the field behind him. He works between missions at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, where he helps out Coach Oleander with the teaching of the summer camp's kids, in the hope that at least some of them will turn out to one day become powerful Psychonauts just as he is. Sasha is constantly seen downstairs in his lab testing his experiments. His contributations to the Psychonauts as an international secret agent and scientist makes him a valuable asset.

Inside Sasha's mind, everything seems to be well organized and structured in a cube that's as cool and calculated as Sasha himself. However, once Raz overloads the Censor generator, bits and pieces of Sasha's history appear.

As it turns out, Sasha's mother got sick and died back when he was still an infant. In his mind, he has early memories of her feeding him, and playing with him back when he was a baby. She was Sasha's first loss. (This is the reason why various baby items and a deathbed appear in Sasha's mind)

Later in life, Sasha is working for his father, a shoemaker, as a teenager. Not knowing much about his mother, he tries using his early psychic talents to read his father's mind. He finds happy memories about his mother when she was alive and how his father is sure she must be an angel in heaven now. However, Sasha's mind probing seem to go a bit too deep, and he finds some thoughts about his mother that he REALLY did not want to know about. Highly embarrassed, he leaves home in order to practice honing and controlling his powers, leading into his career as a Psychonaut. Between his time in his father's shoe store and joining the Psychonauts, he worked in a factory making tacky lamps; he apparently had a miserable time there, for to this day the sight of those lamps fills him with disgust, and he has Razputin use them as target practice while earning his Marksmanship badge.

He also bears a striking resemble to Andrew Fletcher, a member of the electronic music band Depeche Mode.

Milla Vodello

 * Mental world: Milla's Dance Party

Milla Vodello, The Mental Minx, completes the trio of Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp's trainers. A fun-loving international secret agent and Psychonaut teacher, Milla projects the image of a party girl who enjoys being the center of attention. Her area of psychic specialty seems to be Levitation, which she teacher to the campers within a dance party in her mind.

She has two memory vaults, one of which contains a sad, dark past that belies her party girl appearance.

The first, more easily accessible memory vault shows her going on various adventures with Sasha Nein as Psychonauts. Partnering with the more cool and reserved Sasha seemed to make for an odd pairing, but deep down she seems to harbor strong feelings towards Sasha Nein. One image shows Milla smiling down at Sasha, into whose arms she appears to have been thrown during a dangerous mission.

The second memory vault contains Milla's nightmares. Hidden in her mind is a small room with various children's toys, figments, and a large toy box. She warns Raz to get out of that part of her mind and rejoin the party, because whatever is in there is a party killer. If Raz disregards her warning and enters into the toy chest, he uncovers a room containing another memory vault and Milla's nightmares. The room contains various dark, menacing shadows held within a cage made of what appears to be fire. Milla tells Raz that he has stumbled upon her deepest and darkest nightmares, but that she manages to keep them under control. Listening closely to the nightmares reveals whispers directed towards Milla: Save us, Why did you let us die? and other disturbing voices.

More information can be found in the memory reel from the second vault, Milla's Children. Presumably before becoming a Psychonaut, Milla Vodello held a position as a nun or a nurse (which one is not clear) at an orphanage. Her memories depict her feeding the children, singing songs with them, and playing with them; it is obvious that she cared deeply for the children. A subsequent image shows Milla returning from grocery shopping to find the orphanage consumed in flames. She is seen covering her head in anguish as the children's cries surround her; it is unclear whether this occurs during the fire itself or whether she is haunted by the pleas later. She clearly feels a great amount of guilt over being away from the orphanage when the fire started, and this may be what drove her to become a Psychonaut: the prospect of righting wrongs to atone for her (self-perceived) failure.

Although Milla's nationality is not explicitly stated, her manner of speech and accent is mildly reminiscent of Spanish-born entertainer Charo.

Ford Cruller
At first glance, Ford Cruller seems to be a somewhat senile old man who finds a way to be everywhere at once. In each location, he is wearing a different outfit and filling a different position (Admiral Ford in the boathouse, Ranger Ford in the wilderness, Chef Ford in the lodge, et cetera). However, there is much more to Ford than meets the eye.

Ford Cruller is one of the original Psychonauts, and one of the best. His immense psychic powers earned him prominence and a leadership position within the Psychonauts. Unfortunately, a battle with a powerful enemy psychic left him physically unharmed but shattered his psyche. As a result, Ford can only ever be himself when he is near a large quantity of Psitanium, an element that focuses and amplifies psychic energy. His personality fragments as he moves away from the metal, causing him to forget his true identity.

Since this condition left him nearly useless as a Psychonaut, Ford became involved with the Whispering Rock Summer Camp for two purposes: to help train young, new recruits and to be near one of the world's largest deposits of Psitanium. His underground sanctuary is built directly over the enormous meteor that created the valley in which Lake Oblangata now lies.

The operational branch of the Psychonauts now seem to regard Ford as a crazy old has-been. Only Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello maintain any respect for him; secretly, Cruller monitors information feeds from around the world and assigns Sasha and Milla to undertake missions for him.

Later, with Nein and Vodello out of the picture, Raz is the only one capable of stopping Coach Oleander's evil plot. Ford takes the roles of Raz's supervisor, mentor, and confidante throughout his mission. Any time Raz needs advice or extraction back to Ford's sanctuary, he only has to wave a piece of bacon (Ford's favorite food) beside his ear. In response, a psychic projection of Cruller emerges from Razputin's ear.

Children at Whispering Rock
Below is a list of Raz's fellow bunkmates at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. Each kid can be found at different locations during different times of the day, and depending on which part of the story being played through.


 * Benny The Nose Fideleo: Bobby Zilch's sycophantic friend. He mocks the other campers, but becomes quite insecure whenever Bobby is not around. Later, a failed attempt at trying to torment Maloof results in being held upside down in the air by Mikail, Maloof's new friend and bodyguard.  Despite his rather large ears, he is called The Nose.
 * Bobby Zilch: Bobby is the camp bully, and singles out Raz for particular abuse. He is convinced that the entire camp is below him, and employs Benny as his sidekick/yes-man. His skin is greenish, his mouth is sparsely populated with crooked, discolored teeth and he sports an enormous 'cotton candy-like' clump of orange hair. Bobby secretly holds a crush on Chloe.
 * Chloe Barge: A space cadet in every sense of the word, Chloe is absolutely certain that she is from outer space.  She usually uses Coach Oleander's radio, connected to the camp's PA system, to try and contact any UFO passing by so she can get off Earth. However, if you climb the speaker pole before Basic Braining, you can hear her message. Her most notable trait is the space helmet she wears all the time, and she can be found either out flying a remote control space ship, or fiddling with the camp radio in Oleander's cabin.  She is the only person Bobby Zilch is authentically nice to.  She is well aware that Bobby Zilch has a crush on her, but says that his technique needs a lot of work.
 * Clem Foote: Clem is an eerily enthusiastic cadet who is close friends with Crystal. Both seem very happy on the outside, and see all other campmates as football players (as seen when Raz uses clairvoyance). However, when he is alone, he starts to track down the other half of this two-man cheerleading group, possibly to keep Crystal from hurting herself.
 * Chops Sweetwind: Chops is a Canadian cadet whose most notable feature is his afro hairstyle. He feels betrayed when his best friend J.T. becomes more involved with his relationship with Elka than his friendship with him. However, the pair reunite at the end of the story.
 * Crystal Flowers Snagrash: Crystal is an eerily enthusiastic cadet who is close friends with Clem. Both seem very happy on the outside, and see all other campmates as football players (as seen when Raz uses clairvoyance). After Ford recranializes her stolen brain, she casually admits to Raz that she has attempted to poison herself and thrown herself from a roof.
 * Dogen Boole: Dogen is a short friend of Raz who has incredible psychic powers. Poor Dogen has yet to master his psychic talents, and says that one time he kind of made someone's head explode, hence his special tin-foil hat.  He seems to be very agitated with the local squirrels who he says are telling him that he's going to kill everyone.  He also accidentally makes some squirrels explode when they bother him too much. In the campfire area, a picture of someone named Compton Boole is carved into a log. The connection, if there is any, is never explained.
 * Elka Doom: Elka is a snobby, controlling, prissy girl at Whispering Rock who first appears to be in a one-sided relationship with J.T. (whom she calls James). Later, it turns out that this was merely a revenge tactic against Nils, her ex-boyfriend.  At the end of the game, she breaks off her relationship with J.T., and gets back together with Nils (although Nils does not seem to be overly thrilled with this development).
 * James J.T. Hoofburger: J.T. is a kid who looks like he's seen way too many westerns on TV over the years.  J.T. always wears a cowboy hat, and speaks as if he was a real cowpoke.  Unfortunately for him, he seems to be in a one-sided relationship with Elka Doom which is putting a strain on his friendship with fellow camp cadet, Chops.  Despite being Elka's whipping boy, J.T. eventually gets out of the relationship, and gets back together with Chops.  He can be found at the target range outside the main lodge during the day, practicing his primary psychic ability, psychic energy blasts.  After recranialization, he patrols the kids' cabin area with his buddy, Chops.
 * Maloof Canola: Maloof is a short child who has always been the prey of bullies Bobby and Benny. Roughly halfway through the game, Maloof befriends Russian cadet Mikhail, who defends Maloof by threatening bullies with his famous Half-Deadly Nelson. Before long, Maloof attempts to form a protection racket based on Mikhail's powers.
 * Mikhail Bulgakov: A Russian immigrant with a funny hat, Mikhail is obsessed with a giant hairless bear that he believes is in the nearby woods. This happens to come up in conversation every time Mikhail is included in a scene. He is recruited by Maloof near the end of the game as a bodyguard and to help him get back at Benny by using variants of his Deadly Nelson technique.
 * Milka Phage: Milka is a cadet who is extremely gifted in the art of invisibility. Early on, she can be found in the main lodge drawing at one of the tables, but usually disappears whenever you get close to her. (She's very shy.)  However, examining her drawings show Elton Fir with hearts around him.  Later, she and Elton begin hanging out, and then even later, they go steady.
 * Elton Fir: A fearful child who can psychically communicate with fish. He has a crush on Lili early in the game, but halfway through he starts going out with Milka Phage. He still seems to harbor some resentment towards Razputin over stealing Lili from him, though.
 * Nils Lutefisk: A boy with the appearance of a child's doll, Nils is convinced he is a playboy. His first concern in any situation is how it relates to the ladies. His last serious relationship was with Elka Doom. He is commonly seen practicing clarvoyance with a squirrel and it's acorn, next to the girls cabin to see 'everything.' When he tell Raz he's practicing for tonight, Raz wonders why that such a thing would require practice, but Nils responds, My parents let me watch R-rated movies, so I think I know a little more about this than you do. His primary psychic ability is clairvoyance.
 * Phoebe Love: Phoebe is a member of the band called The Fire-Starters with Quentin.  Her main musical talent is playing the drums, and still hasn't forgotten the time Quentin levitated her as part of their act, resulting in her crashing on top of her drum set.  She is usually found practicing in the main lodge with Quentin, and later, the two work on trying to write Raz's victory song.  Her primary psychic talent is pyrokinesis.
 * Quentin Hedgemouse: Quentin is a member of the band called The Levitators with Phoebe. His main musical talent is record scratching on the turntables, and still hasn't forgotten the one time Phoebe accidentally melted his turntable records with some unplanned pyrotechnics of hers.  He is usually found practicing in the main lodge with Phoebe, and later, the two work on trying to write Raz's victory song.  His primary psychic talent is levitation.
 * Vernon Tripe: Is he a boy? Or a veritable library of epic fiction, beautifully indexed and cross-referenced? Either way, he is cursed with the inability to recount his harrowing yarns in anything but an incoherent, rambling, randomly-generated drawl of story fragments. His mantra: Never follow a snake into its den. That is the code of the mongoose. The code of the hunter.
 * Kitty Bubai: Kitty is your classic snotty, stuck-up, spoiled rich girl. She often insults Raz whenever he speaks to her.  Kitty and her best friend Franke spend most of their time making friendship bracelets in front of the main lodge.  Quentin has a crush on Kitty, and can often be heard singing a song about her while practicing in the main lodge.
 * Franke Athens: Franke is Kitty's best friend, and possibly her only real friend, as the two of them don't seem to like anyone else besides each other. She is almost as snotty as Kitty, though Kitty is better with the insults.  Franke has a secret crush on Vernon.

Thorney Towers staff and residents
These are people Raz meets in the Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed asylum:

Boyd Cooper

 * Mental world: The Milkman Conspiracy

Security guard at Thorney Towers. Highly paranoid, Cooper is obsessed with an individual he refers to as The Milkman, and is on orders not to let anyone into the asylum until the Milkman arrives. In order to find out more about the Milkman, Raz journeys into Boyd's mind. After exploring a warped suburban neighborhood crawling with secret agents who are also looking for the Milkman, Raz discovers the truth... Boyd and the Milkman are one and the same.

Apparently, Boyd was once the security guard at a department store. Incensed at being unexpectedly fired (from yet another job, it appears), Boyd snapped and burned the place down. He wound up a patient at Thorney Towers, where Boyd's mental status fell into even deeper decay. He became increasingly paranoid, spending his days by plotting conspiracy theories, until Oleander offered him a job as the asylum's security guard... and used hypnosis to plant subconscious orders into Boyd's mind. On cue, Boyd would become the Milkman, a serial arsonist who would burn down the asylum, leaving no trace of Oleander's plot for world domination.

Gloria Van Gouten

 * Mental world: Gloria's Theater

A former star and actress, Gloria suffers from Bipolar Disorder. She has a tendency to suddenly shift moods at random intervals, being a kind and passive person one minute to being rage-filled and mean the next. The disorder seems to stem from her mother's suicide and is represented in her mind by the ongoing conflict between her inner muse, Bonita Soleil and the critic Jasper Rolls (Bonita mentions that Jasper appeared not long after Gloria's mother killed herself). Gloria's mind is set up as a theatre production constantly playing vignettes from her past, particularly in her childhood as a student of an Acting Academy. However, Gloria herself cannot be found in her own mind.

Fred Bonaparte

 * Mental world: Waterloo World

Descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte and Chief Orderly of Thorney Towers. Lost a game of Waterloo with Crispin Whytehead, and became haunted by the ashamed memory of his ancestor. His losses piled up over time, until his ancestor's personality took him over completely, making him switch personalities between Fred and Napoleon every few seconds. He now constantly plays out the Waterloo game in his mind between himself and Napoleon. He plays the game in his mind rather unenthusiastically, but with Raz's help, he starts to develop a sense of determinism and spirit. After being cured of Dissociative Identity disorder, Fred gives Raz his Straitjacket, which is needed to fool Crispin. It is also later suggested that after a nap, Fred went to go beat Crispin up.

Edgar Teglee

 * Mental world: Black Velvetopia

Ex-wrestler, artist and now mental patient, Edgar paints pictures in the asylum. Although he has been commissioned to paint a picture of Dr. Loboto, he can think of nothing but a raging pink bull in his mind, which represents his anger towards his lost love. Back when he was in High School, he was the captain of the Wrestling team and his teammates apparently had Animal names and personas. However he was heartbroken when his Cheerleader girlfriend Lana dumped him for Male Cheerleader Dean. This lead to his team being beat at the finals and earned him the hatred of his teammates. In his mind, the love-triangle is romanticized into a Spanish love story of some kind, represented by Lana being the dancer Lampita, Dean being the Matador Playboy Dingo and Edgar being the bull El Odio (Which is translated into The Hate in English). After Raz defeats Dingo, he comes to realize that Lana and Dean were in the end pathetic losers and finally learns to get over them, casting them away deep into the subconcious. Although now rid of his obsession of Bullfights, he develops an interest in Dogs Playing Poker (Specifically the dogs/Artists within his mind).

Crispin Whytehead
A mental patient who thinks he's an orderly. Crispin shares a history with Chief Orderly Fred Bonaparte, who he drove insane through Crispin's constant victories at a board game. He was ordered by Dr. Loboto not to let anyone but him enter the elevator to the upper floors of the asylum. Luckily, due to his exceptionally poor eyesight, he can be easily fooled with a bad disguise. Raz manages to get a Mask from Edgar (a painting of Dr. Loboto), a Coat from Fred (a straitjacket) and a Claw from Gloria (an acting trophy). It is suggested that after being fooled by Raz, Crispin was beat up by the newly-cured Fred.

Dr. Loboto
Supposedly the villain in the game. A deranged dentist who has gone into amateur brain surgery, he removes the brains of the kids to plant them into death-tanks as part of Oleander's scheme for world domination. His right arm ends in three sharp gold claws, but to remove brains he turns his golden forearm like a peppershaker to spray sneezing powder on the victim's nose. His motto: 'If a tooth is bad, you PLUCK it!'

Sheegor
Dr. Loboto's assistant, a hunchbacked girl with a very high-pitched voice and a childlike personality to match. She is a sweet person who hates collecting brains for Loboto, but she is forced to do so because he is holding her pet turtle, Mr. Pokeylope, hostage. She seems to rely on Pokeylope a lot; after Raz frees the turtle from Loboto's clutches, she asks him what they should do next to help Raz, after Pokeylope assures her, It's all right. Daddy's here.

Linda the Lungfish

 * Mental world: Lungfishopolis

Once an ordinary lungfish, Linda was pulled out of her happy Lake Oblongata home by Dr. Loboto and Coach Oleander. Used as part of their mad experiments, Linda was turned into the Hulking Lungfish, and was implanted with a brainwashing mechanism so she could go and capture the children of Whispering Rock Summer Camp. If you get to rank 100 in the game, you find out that she and Mr. Pokylope actually go back a LONG way.

Mr. Pokeylope
Mr. Pokeylope is a small turtle who belongs to Dr. Loboto's assistant, Sheegor. He is kept in a small terrarium in Dr. Loboto's lab over a hot stove. With him in captivity, Sheegor is forced into helping Dr. Loboto with his mad schemes, lest Mr. Pokeylope get turned into turtle soup. After rescuing Mr. Pokeylope, it is revealed that he can talk with a surprisingly deep voice, and he tells Sheegor how they can stop Dr. Loboto.

Mr. Pokeylope's most notable traits are his fashionable crown and boots. If one gets to rank 100 in the game, it is revealed that he and Linda the Lungfish are old acquaintances, and that Mr. Pokeylope's actual name is Sam.

Razputin's father
In Raz's mind, his father is a cruel and oppresive Psychic hater due to the fact that psychics cursed his family to die in water. In the real world however he cares deeply about his son and is merely protecting Raz from harm. He is also a Psychic himself and is very knowledgeable in matters of the mind. When Raz's powers began to take shape, he made Raz practice circus stunts like the tightrope and trapeze. Raz said that he thought his father was trying to distract Raz from his powers and or kill him.