Credence Barebone is the adoptive son of the adamantly anti-magic No-Maj Mary Lou Barebone, and is often tasked with spreading the propaganda and pamphlets of the New Salem Philanthropic Society. He has two younger adoptive sisters, Chastity and Modesty. Mary Lou is abusive to him, and his compressed magical power turned him into an Obscurial, a human who in moments of high stress or when losing control turns into a destructive black cloud called an Obscurus.