Characters is a catch-all term to refer to the multiple different individuals the player can meet throughout
Death Road to Canada. The Player will begin the game with up to two randomly generated characters if they do not choose to load custom ones.
The Player will encounter numerous characters throughout the course of the game which they can potentially add to their party. Depending on Game Mode these will be varying combinations of rare, custom, and randomly generated.
Recruitable characters may be found randomly on the road, in certain locations (such as the Bar or Apartment with "HELP" Banner), randomly while looting, during Rescue events or in Trader Camps.
NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) can also be encountered throughout the game in the form of randomly generated survivors that stand around in Trader Camps. These characters will only say a single (occasionally helpful) sentence when interacted with.
Halloween[]
As of the SPLEEN update, on October 31st (or Halloween) most characters (except for custom made characters and some rare characters) will undergo a "Halloween Weirdness". However, as of the NERVE update the Halloween event now takes place from October 25th to the 31st
Most Characters heads are randomly replaced with a Jack-o'-Lantern, generic ghost sheet (not to be confused with the Haunted Mansion Ghosts), bat, werewolf, skull, a random rare character's head, or the Prime Minister. Sometimes the body with also be replaced by a ghost sheet, skeleton, spooky robes (like the axe trader's), or random rare character body.
Additionally, the Halloween SCARETACULAR event will happen at the beginning of each run started that day.
These effects happens from 12:00 am on October 25th to 11:59 pm on October 31st and will return all "weirded' characters back to normal on 12:00am November 1st, however, any team members with these changes will retain the effects til' the game is either won or lost/deleted.
If you manually change your phone, console, or PC time to October 25th-31st you can have the "Halloween Weirdness" happen anytime.
Before October of 2021 , this was the only Holiday event that did not have a unique character associated with it, (i.e. Valentines Day- Cupid, Canada Day- Beaver , 4th of July- Uncle Sam/Muscle Eagle, Thanksgiving- Turkey, Christmas- Santa/Evil Santa). However, as of the Halloween 2021 update, the Clown, G*rf, Mason/???, and Count Dinkula where added to the Halloween SCARETACULAR event where they can be recruited at the start of the journey.