8-Bit Theater

8-Bit Theater is a sprite based webcomic loosely based on the original Final Fantasy. It is written by Brian Clevinger.

Overview
It was fortold by the sages that when the darkness would threaten to destroy the world, four great heroes would appear and save the world from this great evil....

Unfortunately, they were late for the audition and have been replaced by a sword swinging idiot of a Warrior, a elven Thief who would steal from his grandmother then sue her for all she had, a stats obsessive Red Mage and a human nexus of Dark energy.

Despite being completely wrong for their titles, emposed by a delusional king, they travel the world, save and destroying it equally as they go

The Light Warriors

 * Fighter McWarrior - Fighter is characterized by his gullibility and innocence. He has an obsession with swords and spends his life trying to perfect his invention, the "Sword-Chucks", a combination of swords and nunchucks.


 * Black Mage Evilwizardington - Black Mage is an old colleague of Fighter's, but that does not mean he likes Fighter. He openly admits he is evil and constantly tries to stab his teammates, especially Fighter.  He holds a powerful spell, "Hadoken," which he can only cast once a day. The spell siphons love from the universe.


 * Prince of the Khee'Bler clan of Elves (aka Thief) - Thief is the self-proclaimed leader of the Light Warriors, and there is nothing the team can do about it because Fighter signed a contract making it essentially the law. Thief is the prince of the Khee'Bler clan of Elves in Elfland, and he enjoys conning people out of their rights.  He invented "Super-Ultra-Fine Print."


 * Red Mage Statscowski - Red Mage understands that he is in a stat-based RPG, and thus is the nerd of the team. He often calculates "plans" by putting all of his stat points into Intelligence.

Major recurring characters

 * White Mage - White Mage is probably the only person in the entire series with a sense of right and wrong. She is sworn to travel with and protect the Light Warriors.  Although Black Mage has a crush on her, she hates him. However, she does show a certain amount of attraction towards the rarely-appearing sensitive and compassionate aspects of him.


 * Black Belt - Black Belt is White Mage's bodyguard of sorts. He has good intentions and is an unbeatable master of martial arts, but he also has a terrible sense of direction (as illustrated during the visit to the Temple of Fiends). Black Belt was killed during a battle with Kary, the Fiend of Fire. White Mage once revived him, but since the top of his head was missing he instantly died again from blood loss.

Minor recurring characters

 * King Steve - The king of Corneria. He is completely incompetent and appears to have very poor short-term memory, completely forgetting about the existence of his own daughter shortly after dispatching the Warriors of Light to rescue her; Sara alludes that this is typical behavior.  He frequently issues declarations of civic duty that forbid any civilian from questioning his rule, and is depicted as either completely destroying Corneria or a very large area surrounding it in an attempt to "drill for Mana", which as Red Mage points out, is impossible.


 * Matoya - Matoya is a witch who poisons the Light Warriors and says she will cure them when they find her the Crystal which cures her blindness. She shows Fighter to the "Armor of Invincibility," which is really the "Armoire of Invincibility."  Fighter carries this around with him until it is destroyed in the Light Warriors' first encounter with Vilbert.


 * Bahamut - Bahamut, the recurring summon from Final Fantasy games, also makes an appearance in 8-Bit Theater. He is the lover of Matoya. While the party must still obtain the Rat Tail for him as a sidequest in the Castle of Ordeals, it is merely used as an ingredient in some virility soup. Nevertheless, Bahamut still grants the four warriors class changes: Fighter becomes a Knight, Red Mage becomes a Mime, and Thief becomes a Ninja. Black Mage is able to turn into a Blue Mage after some haggling in Hell.


 * Sarda - Sarda is a great sage who would have been the creator of the universe if he had not sent White Mage into the past so that she would not become the creator. Thus, Sarda caused the creation of the universe via a time paradox. In the present, he sends the Light Warriors on their quest for the Orbs of the elements, while sitting alone in his cave choosing to summon them whenever the feeling takes him. His reasons for collecting the Orbs are unclear, but he possesses such power that he could no doubt pick them all up with the power of his mind without ever asking for anyone's help. Fighter successfully "broke his mind" when he told him that he had become the Drownball Champion.


 * Dragoon - Dragoon is the guardian of a tower in the middle of the desert. He is the last of his order, and inherited an enormous hate for dragons - but he considered every dragon he's seen, including his pet Muffin, to be a parrot. Dragoon is capable of enormous jumps, usually landing on Black Mage. Dragoon teamed up with the Light Warriors after Black Mage attacked them along with Muffin. Later he ended up being the one to land the killing blow on Muffin.

Villains

 * Evil Princess Sara - Princess Sara is the princess of Corneria. She gets kidnapped by Garland in the beginning of the adventure, but finds him to be a weak villain.  As a result, she helps him become a better villain, and thus develops an obsession with being evil.


 * Garland - Garland is an amazingly incompetent villain who kidnaps Princess Sara. He is a caring and sensitive person who enjoys baking cookies and is terrified of Forest Imps, who are the weakest monsters in the game. Garland is the leader of the Dark Warriors.


 * Bikke - Bikke is a pirate who stole Matoya's crystal ball, sold it on the Elfland Black Market, and killed his crew by feeding them nothing but Cheetos for months because he was too cheap to buy real food. Bikke is the second member of the Dark Warriors.


 * Drizz'l - Drizz'l, the Dark Elf Prince of the Sahn'Ta Clan, is master of the Spider-Kenshido sword style, although his swords were stolen by Fighter and named Stabby and Slashy. Drizz'l is the only member of the Dark Warriors with common sense, though his Elven arrogance does get the better of him at times. He is the son of Astos. This character is a parody of the famous dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden.


 * Vilbert von Vampire - A gothic vampire who is a fan of Live Action Roleplay. He met the Light Warriors when they visited Dwarf Land in search of the Earth Orb. Vilbert is the fourth and final member of the Dark Warriors, and is also the son of Lich, fiend of the earth.


 * The Four Fiends - Four fiends which keep the elemental orbs.


 * Lich: Lich, the undead father of Vilbert, is a powerful sorcerer which had put his own soul into the Earth Orb.


 * Kary: Kary is the bad-tempered keeper of the Fire Orb, prone to killing her own minions when angered.


 * Ur: Kraken is an ancient being worshiped by the Doom Cultists, which call him "Ur" (short for Jnn'efur). It is a tentacled monster which can bring the Apocalypse, and is kept along with the Water Orb in the Sunken Shrine.


 * Muffin: Tiamat appears as Muffin, which Dragoon considered his pet parrot until the Light Warriors pointed out her identity as a dragon to him. She owns a flying castle kept afloat by the Air Orb.


 * Dr. Malpractice - A doctor who Thief was sending money to. Thief thought that Dr. Malpractice was using the money to take care of Thief's dad, the King of Elfland, but in reality the doctor was spending the money on himself. After the Light Warriors caught him, he snuck out of the bathroom and escaped. He later appears talking with Astos, and is promised the spot of chancellor when he becomes the king. However, Astos "knows that chancellors cant be trusted" so he kills him there.


 * Astos - Astos is the ruler of the Dark Elven Sahn'Ta Clan and is Drizz'l's father. He assumed the role of "Chancellor Usurper" and snuck into Elfland to gain the trust of the Elf King of the Khee'bler Clan and try to overthrow them.  However, his plan was foiled by Thief.  He hired Dr. Malpractice to make sure the king died. He was defeated when, during the confrontation with the Light Warriors, Red Mage used a horrible attempt at a one liner (which depressed everyone) and Thief offered a do-over. When Astos accepted, BM promptly delivered the one liner 'Astos? Mo' like your ass is toast!'. Astos then promptly fell over, dead (With BM attributing this sudden death to delayed shock from RM's attempt at the one liner, while RM offered the idea that his one liner had weakened him enough for BM to finish him with HIS bad one liner).


 * The Cultists - A group of evil cultists who are actually all Mindflayers. They have girl-sounding names, like "Mrr'grt."


 * Chaos - The ultimate evil who lives in Hell. Chaos hasn't been seen, but he has sent two minions so far: A demon that destroyed the town of Prontera in an attempt to kill the Light Warriors, and "Darko," the Dark God, as dubbed by Black Mage (who happens to look like Chrono Trigger's Magus) is Chaos's other subordinate. He claims he is an executive assistant to Chaos and Black Mage's patron deity. He is also the one who changes Black Mage's class into a Blue Mage.

Running Gag Characters
Most of these characters (save for Akbar) are characters who have had their lives ruined due to the actions of the Light Warriors, either directly or indirectly.


 * Rex Crockett - A little kid that keeps getting traumatized by Black Mage. His mind was shattered by seeing Black Mage's face and he has been orphaned numerous times by the Light Warriors. There was also an off-hand reference in one episode saying that Crockett was being put on trial for the murder of the many foster parents killed by the Light Warriors.  His appearance is that of the first Onion Knight from Final Fantasy III.


 * The Messenger and Royal Guard Hank - The Messenger once brought bad news to King Steve of Corneria, and the king told him he had to be killed, only to reveal that he was just joking. After the Messenger left, King Steve sent Royal Guard Hank to kill him, forgetting to mention it was only a joke. Throughout the series, the chase can be seen.


 * The Real Light Warriors - The true heroes of destiny who were late signing up for the job. They are always one step behind the Light Warriors, due to having been delayed by Thief.


 * Akbar - A con-artist who sells people junk while claiming the items are genuine, e.g., "Akbar's Fine Wines (Might Not Be Paint Thinner.)" He has numerous ripoff shops, and can often be seen in front of the stores, muttering "suckers." In one episode, it was revealed that Akbar is on Black Mage's hit list. More recently, he walked off with the party's entire gold reserves by masquerading under the name "Not Akbar". He, along with Jeff, gets his name from the characters Akbar and Jeff from Matt Groening's comic "Life in Hell".


 * Jeff - A rival merchant of Akbar. He differs from Akbar in that while his wares are equally shoddy, he is honest about their quality and they are occasionally useful. He also has a habit of kicking Black Mage on sight.