Nemesis is Melinoe rival, a daughter of Nyx who slips into your runs to challenge you, trade resources, or hand over free loot.
Nemesis is the only ally in Hades 2 who can lock you out of a room and buy out Charon shop before you ever reach it.
She is Retribution incarnate, a daughter of Nyx posted as the guard of the Crossroads, and she resents being stuck on sentry duty while Melinoe gets the mission to topple Chronos. That resentment is the whole relationship: she shows up mid-run to prove she is the stronger fighter.
Each time she appears she does one of three things, and the one you want most also feeds her Evil Eye keepsake, the cleanest revenge tool in the game for a boss that keeps killing you.
This guide covers where Nemesis appears, every Fair Trade type she offers, the Evil Eye keepsake, and how to earn her Trust all the way to romance.
take her Fair Trade encounters, since both wins and losses build Trust.Nemesis is the personification of Retribution, the daughter of Night who makes sure everyone gets their just deserts.
The wiki lists her as a Chthonic Goddess and one of the Children of Nyx, which makes her a sister to Charon, Moros, Thanatos, and Eris. In the first Hades she was only named as a previous bearer of the Stygian Blade; in Hades 2 she appears in person as a member of the resistance against Chronos.
Her posting is the sore spot. After Chronos took the House of Hades, Hecate enlisted Nemesis to protect the Crossroads, a job she treats as a waste of her talent. She is hot-blooded, blunt, and openly competitive, and she sees Melinoe as both a rival to beat and, grudgingly, a fighter to measure herself against.
She is closest to her brother Moros, who notes that her attitude toward Melinoe softens over time, and she has a tangled history with Artemis 
that the game treats as a former romance. As of patch v1.0 she is voiced by Becca Q. Co.
Nemesis is a roaming encounter, not a boss fight: she drops into the start of regular rooms rather than waiting at the end of a region.
According to the wiki she appears in Erebus, Oceanus, and the Fields of Mourning, and eventually in Tartarus once you progress both her story and the Chronos story far enough. Her brother Charon ferries her down to Tartarus by boat after many Nights of trying and failing to get there alone.
When she shows up she can do more than offer a deal. She can enter a chamber ahead of Melinoe and block you out of it, and she can buy wares from Charon shop before you reach them. If you are fast enough to enter a room before she does, you trigger special Melinoe dialogue. In practice she works like a friendly nuisance who happens to carry good rewards.
The wiki also notes she backs you up like a mirror of Heracles: Nemesis steps in as Melinoe is going down, while Heracles steps in on the way up. That makes her presence a quiet safety net even on the runs where you lose the contest.
Treat a Nemesis sighting as a reason to slow down, not speed up. The free-resource and trade encounters are pure value, and even her challenges build Trust whether you win or lose.
Every Nemesis encounter resolves into one of three interaction types, chosen at random when she appears.
The wiki groups them as free resources, a wager battle, and a damage contest. Two are competitions and one is a gift, but all of them count toward her affinity once her gauge is unlocked.
| Interaction | How it works | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| Free Resources | She has already cleared the room or is waiting in the Fields of Mourning, and gives you something for nothing. | Centaur Soul, food healing, Armor, Kiss of Styx, or doubled Pom of Power and Centaur Heart in the Fields of Mourning. |
| Wager Battle | A race to see who slays more enemies in the encounter. | Win for +100 Gold, lose and she takes 100 Gold from you. |
| Damage Contest | A test of raw output where she dares you to hit as hard as you can. | A reward for clearing her damage bar, paid out when you meet the mark. |
The free-resource version is the jackpot, especially in the Fields of Mourning where the items come doubled. The two contests are lower stakes, but they are the encounters that actually unlock and fill her affinity gauge, so they are the ones to chase if you care about her keepsake and her story.
Her wager battle is scored on kill count, not damage, so a wide clearing weapon or a crowd-control build wins it far more reliably than a single-target setup. Bring area pressure on regions where you expect to see her.
Evil Eye is Nemesis keepsake, and it is the most thematically perfect item in the game: it helps you take revenge on whatever just killed you.
You earn it the first time you gift Nectar to Nemesis, which also makes her start appearing on runs more often. Once equipped, the wiki states it makes Melinoe deal +20%/25%/30%/40% more damage to the last foe that vanquished you, scaling from Common up to the Heroic rank. It sits in the wider keepsake pool with the other character mementos and ranks up automatically as you clear encounters.
The catch is in the targeting. Evil Eye tracks the last enemy that defeated you even if it was unequipped at the time, so a random foe that ends your run before the Guardian can steal the slot from the boss you actually wanted to punish. The damage bonus also only applies to Melinoe herself, not to companions or charmed minions.
Use Evil Eye as a boss-killer, not a general damage boost. Die to a Guardian like Scylla or Chronos, equip Evil Eye next run, and reach that same boss without dying to anything else first so the bonus is pointed at the right target.
Nemesis affinity caps at 14 hearts, and unlocking her gauge requires fighting her in a Fair Trade encounter first.
That first contest triggers a conversation about the two of them fighting side by side over Ambrosia, and once it ends her affinity gauge opens. From there you raise it with gifts: Nectar to start, then Bath Salts from Hot Springs events, a Twin Lure from the restored fishing pier, and Ambrosia for the later hearts. You can only give one Indulgence per night, so her bond is a slow burn across many runs.
The wiki specifies that reaching maximum affinity unlocks a romance scene after a Fair Trade encounter, where Melinoe can either start a relationship with Nemesis or stay friends. Progressing her story toward Tartarus is part of the gate, so the final beat tends to land on a deep run rather than back at the Crossroads.
One detail worth knowing: conversations between Melinoe and Artemis imply Artemis and Nemesis were once together, and Artemis gives Melinoe her blessing to pursue Nemesis anyway. If you are tracking every relationship, the Melinoe 
romance routes do not lock each other out.
Hold your gift items until you actually see Nemesis on a run. She often leaves her Crossroads post, and an Indulgence does nothing while she is away, so banking gifts for when she appears saves wasted nights.
Nemesis is the goddess of Retribution and a daughter of Nyx, which makes her a sister to Charon, Moros, and Eris. In Hades 2 she serves as the sentry of the Crossroads and acts as Melinoe rival, dropping into runs to challenge her or trade resources.
No. Nemesis is not a Guardian boss fight. She appears at the start of regular encounters and either competes with Melinoe in a kill-count or damage contest, offers a Fair Trade, or gives free resources. You never fight her directly.
The Evil Eye. It makes Melinoe deal 20% to 40% more damage to the last foe that vanquished her, scaling by rank. It is earned by gifting Nectar to Nemesis and works best as a targeted boss-killer.
Gift Nectar to Nemesis for the first time. That unlocks the Evil Eye keepsake and also makes Nemesis appear on your runs more often. The keepsake then ranks up automatically as you clear more encounters with it equipped.
Fair Trades are the encounters Nemesis offers when she appears. The type is random: free resources such as healing, Armor, or a doubled Pom of Power, a wager battle for 100 Gold based on kill count, or a damage contest. All of them build her affinity once her gauge is unlocked.
Yes. Nemesis is one of the romanceable characters. You unlock her affinity gauge by fighting her in a Fair Trade, then raise it with Nectar, Bath Salts, a Twin Lure, and Ambrosia. At maximum affinity a romance scene plays after a Fair Trade encounter.
No. Melinoe is the daughter of Hades and Persephone, while Nemesis is a daughter of Nyx. They are rivals and potential lovers, not siblings, though both are part of the underworld family tree.
She appears in Erebus, Oceanus, and the Fields of Mourning, and eventually in Tartarus once you progress her story and the Chronos story far enough. When she is not on a run, you can find her at her post in the Crossroads.
Keep building out your Hades 2 knowledge with these next stops.
Game data and character art adapted from hades.fandom.com, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Original content remains the property of the wiki contributors and Supergiant Games.