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What is Character Tendency and how does it work? Character Tendency is second only to World Tendency when it comes to the most complicated concepts in Demon's Souls. We're here to tell you how it works as part of our Demon's Souls guide that aims to bring you up to speed and make an avid Demon slayer out of you in no time.

After you've gotten a grasp on Character Tendency and how it works, we'd recommend checking out our guide on Demon's Souls: World Tendency to further flesh out your understanding of Tendency and how it impacts your Demon's Souls experience.

Demon's Souls: Character Tendency

Below you'll find all you need to know about Character Tendency in Demon's Souls.

What is Character Tendency?

Your player character has an associated Character Tendency that will fluctuate based on your actions throughout the game. Just like World Tendency, Character Tendency can be Pure White, Pure Black, or somewhere in the middle. Unlike World Tendency, changes in Character Tendency become effective immediately and don't require returning to The Nexus to occur.

Your Character Tendency will have a small but notable impact on your character's damage output and health. It's not quite as impactful as World Tendency, but it can cause a few unique things to occur.

What Does Pure White Character Tendency Do?

Attaining Pure White Character Tendency will give you small boosts to your health and damage while in Soul Form. These increases are pretty negligible, but they're good to be aware of in a game like Demon's Souls where every little bit can count. Pure White Character Tendency also increases the damage you'll deal when summoned to help in another person's game as a Blue Phantom.

Other than that, the only notable thing about Pure White Character Tendency is that it enables you to get the Friend's Ring from the Monumental on the upper floor of The Nexus. Provided you answered "Yes" to his question at the beginning of the game, talking to him with Pure White Character Tendency will cause him to give you the ring which further increases your damage as a Blue Phantom in another player's game if you're wearing it.

What Does Pure Black Character Tendency Do?

Pure Black Character Tendency largely does the opposite of Pure White. Your max HP in Soul Form will be decreased, and you won't have the same Soul Form and Blue Phantom damage boosts that Pure White Character Tendency affords you. However, your damage does see a boost if you invade another player's game as a Black Phantom.

Having Pure Black Character Tendency also enables you to snag a few items as part of a sidequest that becomes available. A woman named Mephistopheles will show up on The Nexus's second floor and she will task you with assassinating a number of the game's NPC's. Doing so will net you some useful stuff including a ring that boosts your attack power as a Black Phantom.

How Do You Tell What Your Character Tendency Currently Is?

There are two ways of telling your current Character Tendency. The eye icon in the upper left corner of the screen will become lighter or darker as your Character Tendency changes. Otherwise, if you really want to, you can navigate to the Tendency option in the Options menu and navigate to the Character tab to see a larger and more clear version of that same eye icon.

How Do You Change Character Tendency?

To change your Character Tendency towards Pure White, do either of the following:

  • Best an invading Black Phantom player
  • Defeat one of the unique NPC Black Phantoms that show up in Pure Black World Tendency

Defeating all five unique Black Phantom NPC's will bring you from your starting Character Tendency to Pure White.

To trend toward Pure Black, you can:

  • Defeat a player character as an invading Black Phantom
  • Kill an otherwise harmless NPC

It's easier to get to Pure Black than it is Pure White as you only have to kill a handful of NPC's to get straight to Pure Black from Pure White.

Are you planning on going Pure White or Pure Black in you next Demon's Souls playthrough? Let us know in the comments below and take a look at our Demon's Souls guide where we go over many other facets of Demon's Souls.