I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him

[immortalaccursed]

PLAYER INFO

Player Name: Psi
Player Contact: PsiYamaneko | PM
Character(s) In-Game: Link | The Legend of Zelda | sublimebeast

(content warning: app contains references to suicidal ideation)

CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Ardyn Izunia (birth name: Ardyn Lucis Caelum, referred to by the Caelum Royal Family as "Adagium")
Age: over 2000 years old. (physical aging ceased at age 33)
Canon: Final Fantasy XV

World Description: Eos

History: Ardyn


Death: Canon Death: Cut down by his collateral descendant, Noctis Lucis Caelum, the legendary King of Light. He ended up in Beacon before Noctis could enter the Crystal and destroy his soul which means he still has the Starscourge. Sorry about that.


What are your plans for this character in-game? Exploring the question of who Ardyn could be when removed from Eos.

It's not impossible to convince him to play nice with the good guys. In fact, there is an entire alternate ending (Dawn of the Future) in which he's the hero so the potential to be a force of good is there. It's also worth mentioning that the gods of his world chained him to the fate of becoming a living blight on mankind so that a King of Light could emerge and save humanity. His blight, the Starscourge, turns people into daemons and blankets the world in an eternal darkness where no sunlight shines through.

He's never been fond of fate, or the gods, so he could end up helping people just to prove his own free will and flex on Bahamut and the Crystal of Eos. Saving a world from eternal darkness would be very, very funny. He really is that spiteful.

All of that said he is still a villain whose mind is clouded with madness. Depending on what happens to him in game he could very well remain a bad guy.


What aspects of this game and/or its setting are you most interested in having this character engage with? For Ardyn specifically what is interesting is the obvious similarity between the state of the world in game and the state of the world he just came from. The main difference is that back home the Long Night was all his doing and he's pretty sure he didn't scourge Beacon.


How does your character generally get along with other people? Ardyn takes pride in his ability to make friends in high places. He likes to push boundaries but always tries to lace his mannerisms with a layer of tact and present himself as a gentleman, usually to the point of being obnoxiously patronizing and condescending. As a master manipulator, he speaks well and is skilled at tricking people into following along with his schemes. He is a self-styled "man of no consequence" who prefers getting people to talk about themselves in conversation and redirects the topic away from himself if it gets too close. He's chatty but it's very rare for anyone to get him to open up. He can talk with someone for hours without even mentioning his own name.

Sometimes people rub him the wrong way but he tends to let the hostility of others roll off him or pretends to be shocked by their rudeness. He's very old and patient and slow to rouse into full blown rage but if anything gets him to that point he can be murderous.

There are going to be obvious people in Beacon whom he may not bother even trying to deceive with his usual tactics. Namely, Noctis and a couple members of his entourage. Since he never actually had much against Noctis and his friends specifically, just everything Noctis represents, he would be willing to play nice there or at least stand back and see what happens. Really the worst thing Noctis ever did to Ardyn personally was be as close to Ardyn's younger brother Somnus as genetic drift allows.


What is your character's mental state upon entering the game? Ardyn hasn't been mentally stable for over two thousand years and has really been losing his grip on sanity over the last few decades. Before he became Adagium he clung to sanity through sheer force of will. After daemonifying and absorbing the memories of the fire god Ifrit he learned about Somnus's betrayal and started daemonifying humans en masse, gaining their memories in the process. He knows objectively which memories are his own and which are those of his victims but he still carries the memories of victims as if he's lived them and that's worn his mind down.

Coming into Beacon he will be confused on top of the usual madness. He'd been promised by the gods that death at the hands of the King of Light would finally end his suffering. If he cannot prove his own dominion over fate by slaying Noctis then being killed by Noctis with the knowledge that the young King dies soon after is a satisfying outcome to him even if it means being reduced to nothing. Saying he's suicidal is an overstatement. It's more accurate to say Ardyn, beneath it all, is just tired of the cards he's been dealt. One way or another he wants out of the celestial game... So why, Beacon? Why is he still here? He'll want answers.


Skills/Abilities:

POWER OF KINGS

Armiger: Ardyn is able to utilize the Royal Arms (he is able to call on the same thirteen weapons Noctis can) through a power called Armiger. The spectral weapons he calls upon usually swirl around his body as a defensive shield but being very old he's learned to use Armiger in different ways. He can combine his Royal Arms into a giant scythe, arch them across his back to create "wings", and launch them across a battlefield to hammer missile-like into an enemy. This last trick heals him a small amount.

Warping and Blinking: When Ardyn tosses his weapon he can teleport to its location allowing him to move rapidly around a battlefield and disorient opponents or hammer the weapon deeper into an enemy. Since he has to be able to see where he's throwing his weapon, Warping is always restricted to line of sight. Blinking is very similar but he retains possession of his weapon and can move through objects like pillars or trees but not walls. After Warping or Blinking he leaves behind a phantasmal image of himself.

STARSCOURGE

Daemonify: Ardyn's body and soul are the epicenter of the Starscourge which allows him to absorb the disease from those who already have it or infect those who do not. When he passes on the Starscourge he "daemonifies" his victims, turning them into daemons. At this point he can turn them loose, enthrall them, or reabsorb them into his body which allows him to gain their memories and knowledge. In canon it's implied he can gain up to an entire lifetime's worth of memories from his victims through daemonification but in game he will only be able get a small handful or so when it works at all. Only weaker enemies can be daemonified meaning stronger opponents will have be beaten down first. Dead enemies exposed to Starscourge can also be reanimated as daemons. In his own world nothing seems to be immune to the Scourge as even gods can be daemonified.

(Daemonification will always be something done with mod awareness ((exploration related)) or as player plots and not something he just does in the background. Since his Starscourge abilities get more powerful the more daemons he absorbs, he usually goes the assimilation route instead of letting the monsters roam....usually.)

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared Miasma: At will Ardyn can break himself and anything on his person down into a cloud of miasma and dodge quickly around attacks, avoid falling damage or perform "phantasmal leaps". Leaps have a much greater range than his warps and blinks since they are not limited to where he can throw his weapon. He can, for example, leap to the top corner of a skyscraper from street level. Leaping is still limited to line of sight. He cannot leap through objects. Ardyn cannot be harmed at all while in a miasma form but he cannot harm anything else either, making this a strictly defensive ability. He cannot maintain the form indefinitely... unless he's dead. Upon death he collapses into miasma and dissipates instead of leaving a body behind.

(Most of his form is carefully contained miasma at this point. He also bleeds the stuff.)

Regeneration: Ardyn can regenerate from most forms of damage but in game the regeneration will be slowed. The larger the injury the longer it will take to heal, ranging from an hour for minor injuries to a few days for missing limbs. Lethal damage like decapitation will now be able to kill him outright. Taking damage faster than he can regenerate will also kill him. Being physically fueled by the Starscourge once meant that he was able to go without food or drink. In Beacon he will need to eat and drink, albeit less often than normal humans. He’s immune to poisons and disease.

Resistance to Pain: Ardyn doesn't feel pain the way a normal human does. Any pain inflicted against him tends to get lost in the general chaos of the Starscourge unless it's supernatural in origin.

Weapons Mastery: Ardyn is skilled with a wide variety of weapons from melee weapons to sniper rifles due to absorbing the memories of Lucian military. His sword skills were learned in ancient times.

Overkill: If he takes a lot of damage in a fight his physical form destabilizes into a ghoulish abomination. He will start to fight with animalistic ferocity and his blows do more damage. While in this state he is mostly limited to attacking with non-magic weapons and his fists. He cannot cast spells or use the Power of Kings and healing items and magic do not work on him. His lantern will reflect this and his flame will start to fade and become erratic the longer he's in this form. This means once he hits an "Overkill" state he has to either kill his enemy or escape and lick his wounds before his time runs out. He'll have no longer than a couple minutes to get himself out of combat. If he's taken lethal amounts of damage Overkill cannot save him. He will just die instead of destabilizing.

Increased Strength: Which normally is used in his martial arts. Ardyn will use kicks and punches to subdue enemies he feels are "unworthy" of his more supernatural powers.

SORCERY

Elemancy: Ardyn is talented at casting spells. His favorite offensive spell is a torrent of darkness he can summon around enemies or focus outward from his palms as shadow beams but he can also call lightning, small meteorites, frost, and flame. His spells will no longer produce light or catch anything on fire. (Unlike other casters from his world, he does not need to draw on elemental deposits to use magic.)

Illusion: Ardyn is an extremely skilled illusionist. He can disguise himself as other people, disguise other people as himself, turn invisible and just generally create mayhem on people's perceptions. Different characters will have different levels of susceptibility to this.

Stitches In Time: He can halt time in a localized area and is able to combine this skill with illusion. Beacon isn't his dimension so he will not arrive with this ability intact. He may try to find ways of making it work and may or may not succeed. I will leave that up to mod discretion as it's the sort of thing he might attempt during an explore when cornered.

CRYSTAL STASIS

Back home the ultimate source of Ardyn's immortality was the fact that his soul was sealed into the Crystal. It still is but since its power can no longer reach him he'll just have to rely on Beacon's resurrection mechanics instead. Because of this Crystal Stasis, his body is locked in time. He never ages and his hair and nails never grow out. Useful for lazy grooming habits and not much else but there it is. This also means that if anyone looks for his soul they won't find it.

SUMMARY OF NERFS
-No longer immortal.
-Spells no longer set fires or create light.
-Regeneration slowed down.
-Lethal damage means lethal damage.
-Has to eat to and drink.
-More vulnerable in Overkill.
-Reduced flight ability with Armiger.
-Locked out of the ability to manipulate time for at least a while, maybe forever.
-Handful of memories gained (at most) from successful daemonifications, down from potentially entire lifetimes of memories.
-And one more nerf not mentioned above! I think it would be interesting if Ardyn's lantern was a bit worn down even at the best of times. The Starscourge may be his normal now but there are many themes of impurity and decay around Ardyn so the lantern could reflect that. He may be more durable than many, but his lantern will be less durable because he's a physically and mentally unstable mess. It will need special protection.


Flaws/Weaknesses:
PHYSICAL

Impurity: Ardyn is so impure in body and soul that holy and light based magic is at best very uncomfortable and at worst actively harmful. This includes healing magic. A holy spell meant to, for example, heal him over time would instead damage him over time.

Photophobia: Because the Starscourge consists of photophobic microbes, Ardyn is burned by ultraviolet light. His unusual attire protects him from the sun's rays. For obvious reasons this may not come up in game but if anyone makes or discovers a machine that emits UV rays he'll be keeping a distance. He probably won't care for the Bonfire much either, but it won't hurt him.

Impaired Agility: The Starscourge causes Ardyn discomfort so he moves with an awkward, limping gait. He's a talented swordsman in close quarters and can run and jump in a desperate situation but he usually needs his supernatural abilities to dodge and maneuver himself around a battlefield, especially against bigger or faster enemies. It's not unusual to see him Warp-Strike or phantasmal leap to a location a more able-bodied person could get to with a light jog. This is one of the reasons he generally prefers to not get himself involved in intense combat situations.

EMOTIONAL

Despair: Beneath his performance of affability, Ardyn is a creature mired in despair. Before his fall his biggest fault was being a Pollyanna but that attitude has flipped. Once upon a time he'd known hope and love and light but now he's the Starscourge. His hope had been fleeting but his pain has been allowed to live forever.

Secrecy: Ardyn has many powers but his favorite by far is the power to trick people into thinking he has none. In his ideal scenarios, people around him think he's a normal human. Even when people tend to catch on to the fact that he is barely human at all he doesn't tend to exert any more than the bare minimum of his strength unless he's trying to intimidate someone. If he could be convinced to actually use his powers to help Beacon he could be a valuable asset as a fighter... It would take a lot of convincing. Until then he's much more likely to offer his assistance as a strategist.

Untrustworthy: Since he is so fond of his secrets he is not very forthcoming with details about himself and that means many might find him hard to trust. This is the proper response, he shouldn't be trusted. He can be convinced to play nice but ultimately Ardyn looks out for Ardyn. Once his allies' goals no longer align with his own he may abandon them or turn on them.

Lack of Empathy: If Ardyn sees someone suffering he may try to help to further a goal but he'll feel nothing for their pain. Also, if he decides to target someone and torment them, he's willing to hurt people close to that person.

RELATIONSHIPS

Somnus: Ardyn's younger brother whom he once loved but now despises. Over his centuries of captivity he'd had hallucinations of being tormented by the Founder King and that was a major contributing factor to his psychotic breakdown. There were reasons Somnus hurt him so badly in the ancient past but Ardyn is too broken to ever understand them at this point. Ardyn's rampage on Lucis and desire to see Noctis dead (but only once Noctis has ascended into the King of Light) comes from his deep need to get revenge on Somnus's bloodline.

Aera: If there is a small spark of humanity left in Ardyn's decaying heart it's Aera, his former fiancée. She was killed by Somnus and died in Ardyn's arms. He's not sure if she knew his divine fate: That he'd been born just to become the host of the Starscourge then die at the hands of Somnus's bloodline as humanity's "sacrificial lamb". The fact that she might have known but chose to never tell him fills him with anger, which for him is a much easier emotion to process than love... But that love lingers beneath the darkness.

Bahamut: The War God is the one who sentenced Ardyn to becoming the bringer of Darkness which makes Ardyn feel like a puppet. He violently hates Bahamut, and the Astrals in general, but there's not much he can do about that hate so he just carries it around, deep down, where it can condense into a mental illness.

Personality: Ardyn is a man with many layers, like an onion. Also like an onion all of his layers make people cry. He acts like a classy gentleman so nobody realizes he's a monster and he's a monster because of his inner pain.

On the surface he presents himself as an affable fellow despite actually being very aloof. He does his best to get people to open up to him and talk about themselves while offering nothing of himself in return. The patina of civility does not run very deep. Every expression, every lilting note of his voice, every movement of his body is a performance of civility that is often patronizing and oily. Even as he flatters people he tries to push boundaries. When flattery fails, he attempts to subtly unbalance them and make them uncomfortable. More astute individuals find he comes across as untrustworthy due to his secrecy and oiliness.

Beneath the performance beats the heart of an ancient, twisted monster. Ardyn is driven by spite, anger and hatred. The Starscourge has contaminated his body and mind to the point that this hate is the only thing he feels able to latch on to anymore. It's mostly directed at his brother Somnus and the kingdom of Lucis which he feels was built on Somnus's lies. Unfortunately, it's not just Lucis that he ends up hurting. Being an ageless immortal whose body has become host to a demonic scourge means he's developed a flippant view towards humanity. He will kill or daemonify humans with little remorse. In fact, the gods of his world demanded that he spread his darkness so that Noctis's light could eventually shine against it. In his view, hurting people is following the script written for him. While he could choose to deviate from the script now that it's an option and rebel against destiny it's unlikely he will ever learn to love humans again.

Deep down he's always wanted to rebel against his fate. If he were to allow himself some honesty, much of his hate is misdirected. Most of his anger should be aimed at the gods who forced him to become the darkness when originally he wanted to be the light. Thus, beneath the spite is sorrow. This pain he carries comes from the small part of him that could still be called human. He hopes that if he can get revenge against Lucis or die trying he can find relief from his suffering. Someday, something might pierce down to where his humanity lies and let some of it out but he will never be purely good again. There is not enough left of the man he used to be.



Items: Chancellor's Attire (for a man who, in a world of eternal night, has nothing to hide but still wants to!) and an array of Royal Arms stored in his Armiger, though the only weapon he usually summons into his grip is his own Rakshasa Blade. There's a wing-like accessory he can pull from shadows on to his left arm. It can be used as a melee weapon but doesn't otherwise do much aside from provide a tiny amount of left shoulder armor so he rarely uses it. He also has a double edged dagger.

His clothing has no armor and thus offers no physical protection but mends whenever he collapses into miasma. It's not clear why, best not to think about it too much.

SAMPLES

Log Sample: Link
Network Sample: Link