Hades guide: The House of Hades characters and House Contractor upgrades

House of Hades – The areas and characters

The House of Hades has six main areas:

• Great Hall – The initial area which contains the blood pool (where Zagreus spawns after dying), and characters like Hades, Cerberus, Orpheus, Nyx, Meg, and the House Contractor.
• The West Hall – A side area connected by a short hallway. You’ll spot Achilles and Thanatos here.
• Zagreus’ Bedroom – To the east, you’ll find Zagreus’ personal chamber which has the Mirror of Night, the Fated List of Prophecies, and his bed which can be used to rest (and, at times, learn more about Hades‘ backstory).
• The Armory/training room – This area is just past Zagreus’ bedroom. You’ll find your selection of Infernal Arms (weapons) and Skelly, an undead “training dummy.” This room also has your Keepsake collection so you can change your relics. Exiting through the southeast doorway will start your dungeon delve.
• The Lounge – This doorway is just opposite of Zagreus’ bedroom. It won’t be available until you’ve done a few runs in Hades‘ dungeons (success won’t matter). Once available, you’ll find the chef (you can give the fella any fish you’ve caught in the wild), the Wretched Broker (who can process resource/artifact trades), and Dusa, the house maid — Maid Dusa = Medusa, get it?
• Administrative Chamber – This room is first seen through a flashback or dream sequence. Later, you can obtain an upgrade that lets you enter this room anytime you’d like. You’ll find some details here related to Zagreus’ escape attempts and what his father, Hades, has been doing the entire time.

Some of the notable characters have already been mentioned above, but others will visit from time to time as you progress through Hades‘ campaign. Keep in mind that progression doesn’t necessarily mean “how many times you’ve completed the game.” Rather, in many cases, it has more to do with how many runs you’ve done.

The “cycle” tends to add to your tally whenever Zagreus dies and respawns in the House of Hades. As such, it’s possible for some characters to be busy or MIA on certain occasions, or new characters might pop up in other areas, allowing you to interact with them.

Note: If characters are speaking to each other and only the “Listen” prompt is available, you can only listen in on the conversation. You won’t be able to interact with the characters directly (ie. giving gifts) and you’ll need to do another escape attempt to see if the NPCs aren’t busy anymore.

Nectars and gifts

The following characters in the House of Hades can be given Nectar in order to obtain Keepsakes and increase their affinity/relationship with Zagreus:

• Achilles
• Cerberus
• Megaera
• Skelly
• Dusa
• Orpheus
• Nyx
• Thanatos
• Hypnos

Note: Hades can be given Nectar, but he’s a terrible father so Zagreus won’t get a Keepsake from him.

The Wretched Broker

You can interact with the Wretched Broker once the lounge area is open (roughly three or four runs). This NPC lets you trade in some of your resources in exchange for other items:

As you can clearly see, the prices can be a little too steep at times. It’s often better to just farm for the items you want unless you’re really in need of a specific resource. You can also check back with the Wretched Broker after each escape attempt because he’ll have different limited-time offers (seen in the image below).

Note: The Head Chef near the Wretched Broker gives you various items such as Nectar, Diamonds, Titan Blood, and more (for free) depending on the fish you’ve caught during your Hades runs.

Next up, let’s talk about the House Contractor, an NPC next to Hades that allows you to unlock various upgrades and cosmetic options.