The cast of Gregor the Overlander spans humans, bats, cockroaches, spiders, and rats, all bound by ancient prophecies and fragile alliances beneath New York City. In the Underland, courage and prejudice, loyalty and betrayal shape every choice, and the fate of whole species can hinge on a single bond. These characters’ tangled relationships drive a quest that tests what family, honor, and leadership truly mean.
Main Characters
Gregor
Gregor is an eleven-year-old New Yorker who tumbles into the Underland and is named the “warrior” of the Prophecy of Gray. Reluctant and practical, he’s driven by fierce family responsibility and the urgent need to rescue his missing father, which pulls him into leadership he never wanted. Overcoming fear with ingenuity and grit, he improvises solutions—from everyday Overland tricks to risky gambits—that keep his companions alive. As he navigates uneasy alliances with humans, bats, cockroaches, spiders, and even a rat, his coming-of-age journey reframes heroism as love put into action.
Boots (Margaret)
Boots is Gregor’s two-year-old sister and the quest’s heart, whose innocence cuts through the Underland’s ingrained hatreds. Too young to fear “monsters,” she treats every creature with the same cheerful curiosity, and the cockroaches revere her as their “princess,” a loyalty that repeatedly saves the party. Her delight and empathy soften hardened warriors and make possible alliances others deem impossible, reminding the quest why peace is worth fighting for.
Luxa
Luxa is the young queen of Regalia, proud, silver-haired, and shaped by the trauma of losing her parents to rats. She embodies the Underlanders’ hauteur and suspicion, yet the quest forces her to rely on an Overlander she initially dismisses and to confront her own prejudice and alliances. Her courage as a flier and fighter is undeniable, but leadership demands humility she’s only beginning to learn. The shattering betrayal within her own family compels her to reevaluate trust, duty, and what kind of ruler she wants to become.
Henry
Henry is Luxa’s athletic, charming cousin whose easy camaraderie hides a calculating ambition. Convinced that power justifies any bargain, he secretly aligns with the rats, becoming a personification of betrayal and loyalty inverted. His treason devastates those closest to him and fractures the party at a critical moment, forcing stark choices about honor and allegiance. In the end, his downfall exposes the spiritual cost of treating allies as pawns.
Ripred
Ripred is a scarred, razor-witted rat—a rogue warrior and corrosively funny realist—who opposes the rat regime from the shadows. Serving as a perilous guide, he challenges human assumptions while teaching Gregor how to think tactically and survive. Operating under his own code, he complicates the Underland’s war and conflict by proving that enemies are not monoliths and that cooperation can be born from cold necessity. His prickly mentorship and strategic gambles make him both indispensable and unpredictable.
King Gorger
King Gorger is the ruthless ruler of the rats, intent on consolidating power and eradicating rival species. He epitomizes domination through terror—casual cruelty, calculated intimidation, and armies driven by fear. Manipulating human weakness to trap the “warrior,” he underestimates both Overlander ingenuity and the fragile alliances arrayed against him. His end—engineered by strategy rather than brute force—exposes the limits of tyranny in a world where trust can turn the tide.
Supporting Characters
Gregor's Dad
Gregor’s Dad is the “one lost up ahead,” a captive whose absence has defined Gregor’s life. A resilient former science teacher, he survives among rats by feigning weapon-making and later uses his ingenuity to craft a compass that guides the party home. His rescue fulfills the prophecy’s promise and restores hope to a family held together by perseverance.
Vikus
Vikus is a wise Regalian elder and Luxa’s grandfather, a patient diplomat who believes in prophecy while working tirelessly to reduce bloodshed. He mentors Gregor, translating Underland history, politics, and peril into hard-won guidance. His controversial choice to entrust the quest to a notorious rat strains bonds but ultimately enables the alliances the prophecy requires.
Ares
Ares is a powerful black bat whose sacred bond is tested when his human betrays Regalia. Choosing conscience over convention, he breaks with his partner to save the true warrior, risking exile and disgrace to uphold a higher ideal of honor. The new bond he forges in the aftermath reframes betrayal and loyalty as fidelity to principles and cements a formidable partnership in the skies.
Minor Characters
- Solovet: Vikus’s wife and Regalia’s steely military strategist, a pragmatist who prioritizes survival over sentiment.
- Mareth: A steadfast Regalian guard whose bravery and kindness steady Gregor; he’s wounded protecting the party from rats.
- Dulcet: A gentle caregiver who watches over Boots, embodying everyday compassion amid political tumult.
- Temp and Tick: Two devoted crawlers who follow the “princess”; Tick’s sacrifice at the bridge secures the party’s escape and honors their code.
- Gox: An orange spinner who joins after her web-city is attacked; after losing her companion Treflex, she herself is slain in the rat conflict.
- Nerissa: Henry’s frail, visionary sister who provides the written Prophecy of Gray and hints at futures others refuse to see.
- Aurora: Luxa’s golden bat and bonded partner, a swift and loyal flier who mirrors Luxa’s courage aloft.
- Gregor’s Family (Mom, Lizzie, Grandma): Loved ones in the Overland whose absence presses on Gregor at every step and anchors his resolve to return.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
The bond between Gregor and Boots is the story’s moral compass: his protective love drives every risk he takes, while her openness dissolves prejudices that centuries of war have calcified. Through Boots, the crawlers become steadfast allies, proving that trust can grow where others see only weakness. This sibling core reframes the prophecy’s stakes as familial rather than purely political.
Gregor and Luxa begin as avatars of their worlds—Overland pragmatism versus Underland pride—clashing over status, strategy, and bias. Shared danger forges respect, and when betrayal erupts within Luxa’s own family, reliance replaces rivalry; she learns to temper command with empathy, while Gregor learns that leadership in Regalia is a burden carried in public and paid for in private. Their uneasy alliance becomes a blueprint for cooperation beyond species lines.
Ripred’s abrasive mentorship tests Gregor’s instincts and punctures Underlander absolutism. His long, fraught history with Vikus and Solovet suggests a time when dialogue with rats was possible, and his calculated opposition to the rat throne fractures a supposedly united enemy. In this triangulation, the line between ally and adversary is defined by goals and methods, not by species.
Henry’s treason detonates the story’s most sacred institution: the human–flier bond. When Ares rejects complicity and chooses to save the warrior, he elevates the bond from mere oath to moral covenant, showing that loyalty without integrity is just obedience. The new partnership he forms strengthens the Regalian–flier alliance at the very moment it could have collapsed.
Across the Underland, alliances organize into overlapping factions. Humans and bats are linked by vows of mutual protection; crawlers offer quiet constancy anchored by their devotion to the “princess”; spinners bargain for survival; and rats split between tyrannical conquest and subversive reform. The Prophecy of Gray pulls these threads tight, demanding sacrifices that expose the costs—and the possibilities—of trust, until strategy and solidarity, not brute force, topple a king and carry a family home.