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THE BASICS
Name: Court
Preferred Pronouns: she/her
Timezone: PST
Contact: demonology#1725 /![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
demonology
Invite: Jay
Character Name: Ardbert
Username: soulshard
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canonpoint: End of 5.0, aka the base story of Shadowbringers, after the return to the Crystarium.
Background: Here!
Inventory: Ardbert will be bringing his axe, which he constantly had with him even as a shade. Notably, it will no longer be soaked in blood due to character development reasons.
Abilities:please don't make me explain ffxiv powers
Ardbert is a Warrior, which essentially means that he fights with an axe and is a "tank" role, so he's the one who jumps into the fray and tries to get attention from all the monsters so that the damage dealers and healers can do their thing without being targeted. Of course, he usually did the off-tank role and let his buddy Branden main tank, but that's besides the point. Warriors are technically able to go into a sort of berserker state that makes them stronger, but we actually never see Ardbert do this. That being said, given the sort of foes he's cut down, he is quite powerful! He can do some real damage with his axe and he's resilient enough to shrug off a lot of hits and keep moving.
CHARACTER SURVEY
What are your character's motivations? What drives them? Who are some important people to them, if anyone?
Ardbert's motivations starting out were simple enough: adventure, see the world, and maybe do some good along the way. He wasn't at all prepared for how this developed into him and his band of friends becoming vaunted heroes who were tasked with protecting the entire world, and yet somehow they stumbled into it all the same, one good deed piling on another.
Long story short, this did not ultimately end well, and through a series of unfortunate events as masterminded by other forces, Ardbert lost everything: his friends, his world, his purpose. He was left hopeless, little more than a wandering shade left to relive his mistakes over and over. This meant that for a long while, he had no drive at all, and no understanding of why he even still existed.
Then, with the appearance of the Warrior of Light and the realization that she could interact with him, there's a glimmer of hope. There's a chance that he might still have a point. From there Ardbert's primary motivation is to support the Warrior of Light in any small way that he can, in order to see her heal the world that he'd almost wiped out. When they reach the end of that journey, it's his presence that's able to give her the final push to wipe out the darkness threatening to consume all, finally granting him redemption.
Important people to him are, naturally, the Warrior of Light (Aria in this case) — they are in fact two shards from the same soul. Along with her, there's also the friends he used to adventure with before everything became terrible, the other Warriors of Darkness, who are his trusted companions. And, last but not least! Seto, his amaro (a giant bird horse creature?) who he saved from a life of neglect and abuse and added to his team. They were basically inseparable despite not being able to communicate. (Ardbert's a horse girl.)
If given the chance, what would your character change about themselves or their circumstances?
As is hinted above, Ardbert's actions ultimately led to about 90% of his world being wiped off the map. His work traveling across the realm and helping people essentially led to there being too much light, when there is always meant to be a balance between light and dark. When he cut down the Ascian Mitron (Ascians are, to keep things very simple, the bad guys in this situation), his axe rent through him and released a Flood of light which covered the land, scorching most of it into an unlivable husk.
At this point, Ardbert and friends were approached by a different Ascian who took advantage of their desperation and offered them a way to save their world, though it came with a price. They forfeited their physical forms and allowed him to ferry their souls to another world, promising that if they brought about a calamity there it would allow their own world to be put back in balance. This ultimately failed, but Ardbert still gave up everything to try.
Suffice to say that he is filled with immense guilt over all these choices, along with anger that despite wanting to do the right thing, he ended up being responsible for so much destruction.
("We did everything right! Everything that was asked of us, and still... still things came to this!")
Strengths? Favorite things?
First of all, Ardbert is just strong period. He swings that axe around without much trouble, and after a long while spent traveling around and doing adventurer/hero things, he amassed even more power. He was able to destroy two Ascians, and given that they're powerful beings that are far beyond human, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Less literally, Ardbert is the sort of person who was able to gather people around him who wanted to follow him as he did the whole hero thing, meaning that he's got some natural magnetism and leadership qualities. A lot of this has been ground into dust after a hundred years of being a lonely ghost, but he was still able to act as moral support and a grounding force for the Warrior of Light when everything was falling apart around her. He ultimately dredged up that inner strength to lend to her when she needed it most, so he also has incredible strength of will.
Some of his favorite things: his people, his amaro, animals in general, a good flagon of ale, his axe, adventure, a good talk with a friend.
Weaknesses? Fears and phobias? Anything they regret or avoid?
Due to Ardbert's circumstances, he was full of a lot of anger and cynicism about pretty much everything. Some of this has been alleviated by prevailing over the bad guys in the end, but it's not completely gone, and he still has a lot of bottled-up emotions to work through. Given that he couldn't interact with anyone for literally a century, he's also going to have a lot to adjust to now that he'll be back in a corporeal form and able to interact with other people. It was somewhat effortless with the Warrior of Light because they're of the same soul, but with other people he may stumble a bit more.
More than anything, I think he's afraid of being left to feel that helpless again. It was something he had to live with for so long, only to finally get a measure of peace and resolution at the end of Shadowbringers. While having a second chance at life within the context of this game will be refreshing in some ways, he'll nonethless be apprehensive that everything is going to fall apart around him again. (TL;DR: PTSD is the worst.)
His regrets have been covered, but he isn't usually one to avoid or shy away from things, preferring to face them head-on. He's ready to jump into the action with his axe drawn to bash some heads (you know, now that he can).
Where does your character fall on the moral spectrum? Are they the average, law-abiding citizen? A mischief-maker? A genocidal villain? What are some of the things they've done for or against the greater good?
Ardbert is definitely good, but there are a lot of caveats to that. He first set out into the world just wanting adventure and to see the sights, and naturally fell into taking on odd jobs and helping people, which then turned into hunting down dangerous monsters or saving a kingdom from a terrible curse. Thus did he and his friends get branded as "heroes," Warriors of Light, a title that holds a lot of weight within this universe (as you may have noticed). That being said, he isn't just about epic adventures. This is someone who came across an amaro that was being abused and hardly fed enough and went out of his way to purchase him so that he could live a better life. It was, in fact, being so good that landed him in such a terrible set of circumstances.
When he finds out that one of his companions was enlisted to betray him and she demands that he fight and kill her, he refuses to do so, his love and care for her not allowing him to cut her down despite what she'd done.
That being said, once the worst happens and he's pushed past his breaking point and into a place of desperation, he is broken to the point that he's willing to do some terrible things to try and undo those mistakes. In order to travel from his home, the First, to the Source, he and his friends have to surrender their physical bodies to make the trip. It's implied that at that point, Ardbert is the one who cuts them all down to release their souls from their bodies. To be clear, every one of his companions agreed to this idea, but he was still the one who took on the burden of bloodying his hands.
The plan, at that point, was to bring about a calamity on the Source in order to save the First, but this was thwarted by the Warrior of Light. It's made clear that Ardbert's willing to do whatever it takes to save his home. Would he have actually gone through with it if he hadn't been stopped? Would he have go so far as to destroy another world to save his own? It's hard to say, but I imagine that he would have realized this wasn't the way, even among all of his anger and grief and despair.
So, while Ardbert is good, kind, loyal, merciful, loving, and so many other things, he has been through a lot and is weighed down by it. He wouldn't allow himself to get fooled in such a way again, but he's definitely been at that low point.
Name: Court
Preferred Pronouns: she/her
Timezone: PST
Contact: demonology#1725 /
Invite: Jay
Character Name: Ardbert
Username: soulshard
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canonpoint: End of 5.0, aka the base story of Shadowbringers, after the return to the Crystarium.
Background: Here!
Inventory: Ardbert will be bringing his axe, which he constantly had with him even as a shade. Notably, it will no longer be soaked in blood due to character development reasons.
Abilities:
Ardbert is a Warrior, which essentially means that he fights with an axe and is a "tank" role, so he's the one who jumps into the fray and tries to get attention from all the monsters so that the damage dealers and healers can do their thing without being targeted. Of course, he usually did the off-tank role and let his buddy Branden main tank, but that's besides the point. Warriors are technically able to go into a sort of berserker state that makes them stronger, but we actually never see Ardbert do this. That being said, given the sort of foes he's cut down, he is quite powerful! He can do some real damage with his axe and he's resilient enough to shrug off a lot of hits and keep moving.
CHARACTER SURVEY
What are your character's motivations? What drives them? Who are some important people to them, if anyone?
Ardbert's motivations starting out were simple enough: adventure, see the world, and maybe do some good along the way. He wasn't at all prepared for how this developed into him and his band of friends becoming vaunted heroes who were tasked with protecting the entire world, and yet somehow they stumbled into it all the same, one good deed piling on another.
Long story short, this did not ultimately end well, and through a series of unfortunate events as masterminded by other forces, Ardbert lost everything: his friends, his world, his purpose. He was left hopeless, little more than a wandering shade left to relive his mistakes over and over. This meant that for a long while, he had no drive at all, and no understanding of why he even still existed.
Then, with the appearance of the Warrior of Light and the realization that she could interact with him, there's a glimmer of hope. There's a chance that he might still have a point. From there Ardbert's primary motivation is to support the Warrior of Light in any small way that he can, in order to see her heal the world that he'd almost wiped out. When they reach the end of that journey, it's his presence that's able to give her the final push to wipe out the darkness threatening to consume all, finally granting him redemption.
Important people to him are, naturally, the Warrior of Light (Aria in this case) — they are in fact two shards from the same soul. Along with her, there's also the friends he used to adventure with before everything became terrible, the other Warriors of Darkness, who are his trusted companions. And, last but not least! Seto, his amaro (a giant bird horse creature?) who he saved from a life of neglect and abuse and added to his team. They were basically inseparable despite not being able to communicate. (Ardbert's a horse girl.)
If given the chance, what would your character change about themselves or their circumstances?
As is hinted above, Ardbert's actions ultimately led to about 90% of his world being wiped off the map. His work traveling across the realm and helping people essentially led to there being too much light, when there is always meant to be a balance between light and dark. When he cut down the Ascian Mitron (Ascians are, to keep things very simple, the bad guys in this situation), his axe rent through him and released a Flood of light which covered the land, scorching most of it into an unlivable husk.
At this point, Ardbert and friends were approached by a different Ascian who took advantage of their desperation and offered them a way to save their world, though it came with a price. They forfeited their physical forms and allowed him to ferry their souls to another world, promising that if they brought about a calamity there it would allow their own world to be put back in balance. This ultimately failed, but Ardbert still gave up everything to try.
Suffice to say that he is filled with immense guilt over all these choices, along with anger that despite wanting to do the right thing, he ended up being responsible for so much destruction.
("We did everything right! Everything that was asked of us, and still... still things came to this!")
Strengths? Favorite things?
First of all, Ardbert is just strong period. He swings that axe around without much trouble, and after a long while spent traveling around and doing adventurer/hero things, he amassed even more power. He was able to destroy two Ascians, and given that they're powerful beings that are far beyond human, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Less literally, Ardbert is the sort of person who was able to gather people around him who wanted to follow him as he did the whole hero thing, meaning that he's got some natural magnetism and leadership qualities. A lot of this has been ground into dust after a hundred years of being a lonely ghost, but he was still able to act as moral support and a grounding force for the Warrior of Light when everything was falling apart around her. He ultimately dredged up that inner strength to lend to her when she needed it most, so he also has incredible strength of will.
Some of his favorite things: his people, his amaro, animals in general, a good flagon of ale, his axe, adventure, a good talk with a friend.
Weaknesses? Fears and phobias? Anything they regret or avoid?
Due to Ardbert's circumstances, he was full of a lot of anger and cynicism about pretty much everything. Some of this has been alleviated by prevailing over the bad guys in the end, but it's not completely gone, and he still has a lot of bottled-up emotions to work through. Given that he couldn't interact with anyone for literally a century, he's also going to have a lot to adjust to now that he'll be back in a corporeal form and able to interact with other people. It was somewhat effortless with the Warrior of Light because they're of the same soul, but with other people he may stumble a bit more.
More than anything, I think he's afraid of being left to feel that helpless again. It was something he had to live with for so long, only to finally get a measure of peace and resolution at the end of Shadowbringers. While having a second chance at life within the context of this game will be refreshing in some ways, he'll nonethless be apprehensive that everything is going to fall apart around him again. (TL;DR: PTSD is the worst.)
His regrets have been covered, but he isn't usually one to avoid or shy away from things, preferring to face them head-on. He's ready to jump into the action with his axe drawn to bash some heads (you know, now that he can).
Where does your character fall on the moral spectrum? Are they the average, law-abiding citizen? A mischief-maker? A genocidal villain? What are some of the things they've done for or against the greater good?
Ardbert is definitely good, but there are a lot of caveats to that. He first set out into the world just wanting adventure and to see the sights, and naturally fell into taking on odd jobs and helping people, which then turned into hunting down dangerous monsters or saving a kingdom from a terrible curse. Thus did he and his friends get branded as "heroes," Warriors of Light, a title that holds a lot of weight within this universe (as you may have noticed). That being said, he isn't just about epic adventures. This is someone who came across an amaro that was being abused and hardly fed enough and went out of his way to purchase him so that he could live a better life. It was, in fact, being so good that landed him in such a terrible set of circumstances.
When he finds out that one of his companions was enlisted to betray him and she demands that he fight and kill her, he refuses to do so, his love and care for her not allowing him to cut her down despite what she'd done.
That being said, once the worst happens and he's pushed past his breaking point and into a place of desperation, he is broken to the point that he's willing to do some terrible things to try and undo those mistakes. In order to travel from his home, the First, to the Source, he and his friends have to surrender their physical bodies to make the trip. It's implied that at that point, Ardbert is the one who cuts them all down to release their souls from their bodies. To be clear, every one of his companions agreed to this idea, but he was still the one who took on the burden of bloodying his hands.
The plan, at that point, was to bring about a calamity on the Source in order to save the First, but this was thwarted by the Warrior of Light. It's made clear that Ardbert's willing to do whatever it takes to save his home. Would he have actually gone through with it if he hadn't been stopped? Would he have go so far as to destroy another world to save his own? It's hard to say, but I imagine that he would have realized this wasn't the way, even among all of his anger and grief and despair.
So, while Ardbert is good, kind, loyal, merciful, loving, and so many other things, he has been through a lot and is weighed down by it. He wouldn't allow himself to get fooled in such a way again, but he's definitely been at that low point.