Vampire Crawlers Character Unlocks: Building Your Full Roster

Staring at the same starting character is depressing, but expanding your roster requires surviving some highly specific dungeon grinds.

You start your descent into these grid-based nightmares with just Antonio. He is reliable, but relying solely on his whip deck is a quick way to end up six feet under when the later floors introduce heavier enemy swarms. The game boasts a total roster of 21 distinct characters, known here as Crawlers. Finding them is half the battle. Paying their entry fees at the Inn is the other half.

I have spent an unhealthy amount of time checking off the obscure requirements needed to populate my village. Some unlocks are handed to you naturally as you progress through the core maps. Others force you to track down specific boss variants or survive long enough to cast a single spell a hundred times over. The rules have shifted slightly since the initial launch window, moving coffins to exact dungeon floors and jacking up the spell requirements to truly test your endurance.

The good news is that progression here is shared. If you are grinding to kill 444 Skeletons for Mortaccio, every single one of those kills also feeds into the 6,666 total kills required to unlock Krochi. You are constantly making progress, even on runs that end in complete disaster.

If you are completely new to the game, also check our Vampire Crawlers Beginner Guide to get your economy sorted first. You will need a small fortune to hire everyone on this list, and an even bigger one to fund the upgrades required to keep them alive.

Complete Crawler Roster Unlocks

The full list of all 21 characters, what they bring to the table, and exactly how you force them out of hiding.

Crawler & Core Effects	Unlock Condition
Antonio Belpaese Adds 3 Armor when played. Gains a 10% damage boost on red cards.	Unlocked from the start.
Imelda Belpaese Adds 15 XP when played. Grants 1 XP Growth on yellow cards.	Unlock the Crawler Hall.
Pasqualina Belpaese Adds 10 Area when played. Increases Hand size by 1 on purple cards.	Reach Level 20 with Imelda in the Inlaid Library.
Gennaro Belpaese Adds 2 Amount when played. Deals 60 damage on red cards.	Defeat the Mantis boss in the Furious Forest.
Poe Ratcho Adds 20 Area when played. Draws 1 card on blue cards.	Use the Garlic card 100 times.
Dommario Gains 2 Duration when played. Deals 40 damage on purple cards.	Collect 5,000 coins total.
Arca Ladonna Adds 3 Mana when played. Adds 1 Mana on purple cards.	Use the Fire Wand card 100 times.
Lama Ladonna Increases damage by 50% when played. Increases damage by 15% on blue cards.	Complete a dungeon with at least 10% Curse active.
Bianca Ramba Adds 3 Amount when played. Adds 1 Amount on purple cards.	Defeat the Milk Elemental boss in the Dairy Plant.
Porta Ladonna Adds 25 Area when played. Adds 1 Mana on red cards.	Use the Lightning Ring card 100 times.
Mortaccio Adds 2 Amount when played. Adds 1 Amount on blue cards.	Defeat 444 Skeletons.
Pugnala Provola Increases damage by 20% when played. Draws 1 card on yellow cards.	Found in a Coffin on the 3rd floor of the Berserk Forest.
Yatta Cavallo Adds 2 Amount when played. Adds 1 Amount on yellow cards.	Defeat 250 Lion Heads in the Inlaid Library.
Giovanna Grana Adds 20 Luck when played. Draws 1 card on purple cards.	Found in a Coffin on the 3rd floor of the Library Sanctum.
Krochi Freetto Adds 10 Revival when played. Adds 5 Revival on Wild cards.	Defeat 6,666 total enemies across all runs.
Svor Clerici Heals 3 when played. Heals 1 after an encounter on blue cards.	Recover 1,000 HP total across all runs.
O’Sole Meeo Adds 3 Amount when played. Adds 5 Luck on red cards.	Defeat 50 Dragon Shrimps in Gallo Tower.
Concetta Caciotta Adds 10 Area when played. Adds 5 Area on red cards.	Found in a Coffin on the 3rd floor of the Gallo Tower.
Iguana Gallo Valletto Gains 25% more coins when played. Gains 10% more coins on Wild cards.	Defeated at the end of the Gallo Tower.
Christine Davain Reduces the Mana cost of the next card by 1 when played. Prevents 1 enemy attack on purple cards.	Find a Pentagram card. Unlocked when a Crawler reaches level 40 during a run.
Poppea Pecorina Increases Hand by 1 when played. Gains 1 Duration on yellow cards.	Found in a Coffin on Floor 5 of the Milk Factory.

The Three-Crawler Party System

If you are wondering why you need to hoard all these characters, the answer lies in the Power-Up shop. You do not have to tackle these dungeons solo forever. By purchasing party slots in the village, you can eventually bring up to three characters into a single run.

This completely changes the dynamic of the game. Combining Antonio's armor buffs with Pasqualina's area expansions creates an absolute powerhouse of a deck. Unlocking the roster is no longer just about finding a main character to play. It is about drafting a team that covers each other's weaknesses. The final two dungeons in the game are absolute hell if you try to walk in there alone, so prioritize filling out your roster fast. You can dive deeper into how character passives interact in my Weapon Evolutions and Combos guide.

Strategy for Spell Grinds

A handful of these characters are locked behind a brutal casting quota. You have to cast Garlic, Fire Wand, and Lightning Ring 100 times each to unlock Poe, Arca, and Porta respectively.

My advice here is simple. Once you unlock one of these cards during a run, draft it aggressively and burn your low-cost mana on it in every single combat encounter, even if it is not the optimal tactical play.

Christine Davain is the biggest headache of the bunch. You have to find and play a Pentagram card, but the Pentagram does not even enter the draft pool until you reach Level 40 in a single run. Reaching Level 40 before the floor bosses overwhelm your deck requires extreme XP farming. I highly recommend picking Imelda for this specific task. Her base ability grants extra XP, making the climb to 40 significantly faster and much less frustrating.

Headhunting Specific Bosses and Enemies

You will naturally unlock a few Crawlers just by existing, but if you want to speed up the process, you need to hunt efficiently.

Gennaro is no longer a freebie floating around the standard Mad Forest. You have to hunt down the specific Mantis boss variant located in the Furious Forest to recruit him. If you are farming the 444 Skeletons for Mortaccio, stick to the standard Mad Forest floors where they spawn in massive clusters. For Cavallo, you need 250 Lion Heads, which are heavily concentrated in the Inlaid Library.

Do not try to force these enemy quotas on the wrong maps. You will just waste an hour of your life wandering empty hallways.

Surviving the Coffin Expeditions

Four characters are trapped inside hidden coffins scattered across the deeper dungeons. The game does not just hand these to you on a silver platter anymore. You need to reach specific floors to find them.

You have to reach the 3rd floor of the Berserk Forest for Pugnala, the 3rd floor of the Library Sanctum for Giovanna, the 3rd floor of the Gallo Tower for Concetta, and dive all the way down to Floor 5 of the Milk Factory for Poppea.

Finding a coffin is a trap. As soon as you interact with it, the game spawns a localized ambush right on your grid tile. Before you touch a coffin, make sure your mana pool is full and you have a solid defensive combo ready to deploy. If you trigger a coffin ambush with an empty hand, you are going back to the village with nothing to show for it.

Long Term Endurance Unlocks

Do not lose sleep over Dommario, Svor Clerici, or Krochi.

Collecting 5,000 coins, recovering 1,000 HP, and killing 6,666 total enemies are massive milestones that you will naturally achieve while completing other tasks. Trying to deliberately stall a fight just to heal a few extra hit points for Clerici is a terrible strategy that usually ends with a dead party. Play normally, upgrade your Greed stat at the village, and these three will quietly unlock in the background while you focus on exploring our Vampire Crawlers hub for more tactics.