Assigning tasks to OCs though in this case it is one OC in his many permutations.
Building a deck
FFXIV Klesk probably has the most practical experience of any of his AUs, having spent a couple years doing work for essentially fantasy Taskrabbit. Usually that meant fighting monsters and other assorted pests, but when people needed a day laborer who wouldn’t ask too many questions, he wouldn’t turn down the money. So if you want someone who knows how to do basic construction, he’s done enough of it that he’s your guy.
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Moving furniture
The thing that unites all Kleskizhaes is being real buff and strong, and eager to impress people with how buff and strong they are, so all of them could do this easily. Your best bet is still FFXIV Kleskizhae because of his fantasy gig work experience, but all of them would be happy to help and do a competent job.
SWTOR Kleskizhae is a notable outlier, because he can move things with his mind, but he uses his telekinesis almost exclusively for tossing his enemies around like rag dolls, and the most precision he usually bothers with is making sure he’s got them by the throat while he does that. This will not stop him from trying, but will end with him smashing your furniture against the wall.
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Organizing book/CD/movie collection
Another thing that unites them all is how horribly disorganized he is. SWTOR Kleskizhae probably is your best bet because he’ll make 2V-R8 do it. GW2 Klejskizae might also be able to call upon the legend of some great historian (Durmand, maybe?) and do it while literally possessed. But 2V is probably a better bet.
Wowwwww I can't believe you picked number 14 completely at random with no prompting whatsoever! What a wild and crazy coincidence! You won the cactpot!
Head: Dried Red Oldrose
Body: Manderville Coatee
Hands: No. 2 Type B
Gloves Legs: Manderville Bottoms
Feet: High House Halfboots
Weapon: Manderville Knuckles
He’s not what I’d call anti-intellectual, but he’s very skeptical of formal education being anything but a way to indoctrinate young people into propaganda. If he never got the education he had in Garlemald, he never would’ve had to unlearn so many lies that he once wholeheartedly believed. How lucky others are, to have learned things for themselves, rather than to be taught!
12. Describe an instance where your character experienced a direct consequence of the ‘butterfly effect’.
When he was young, his father would bring him to the imperial palace because it was part of his education, but he didn’t really care what his son was up to as long as it didn’t come back and ruin his own reputation. So Klesk got mostly free reign to wander around, if he was good at looking like he was supposed to be there and staying away from guards who’d bring him back to his dad by the ear.
When he was about 13 or so, he met a kid a bit younger than him in a similar situation, who knew the various spooky corridors and hidden rooms as well as he did. His dad was cooler than Klesk’s, though, since he let him have a sword. Kleskizhae was reading a book of Doman poetry, and he told this kid about how the Domans have all these great poems about their special swords, called katanas, which are supposed to be the most powerful, coolest swords in the world. They talked a bit until his tutor found him, and scolded Klesk for being a bad influence on the young prince. Kleskizhae’s father was furious, since getting into trouble with one of Solus zos Galvus’s great-grandsons was the kind of thing that could bite him, and forbade him from speaking to this child ever again.
Kleskizhae didn’t think much about this. He could’ve easily continued not thinking about it until decades later, when defending Rhalgr’s Reach from a Galvus slightly younger than him with a katana.
24. Would your character sink a ship if it meant dragging their enemies down with them?
Probably not. Even the idea of having "enemies" is kind of scary to Eduard, and while he sometimes has a questionable sense of self-preservation, he’s more likely to risk it all in search of knowledge that excites him. Spite isn’t something he has much of. He’d rather we all live.
36. How does your character kill time?
Mostly reading, either catching up on all the literature in his field that he’s missed if he’s in the mood to engage his brain, reading extremely gory and formulaic penny dreadfuls if he’s not, or getting his arcanum all set and calculated if he anticipates he’s going to need that once he’s done waiting around.
Nim 2 and 5, and iirc you have a miqo’te somewhere too so 1 and 8 for them
Mr. Catboy is still being worked on so I’m gonna do Nimoeph’s first
This got pretty long so I’ll do a cut
2. What major allegiances does your character have? Are they with the Scions through and through, or do they have different or additional priorities?
In-game Nimoeph has reached the highest adventurer rank in the Immortal Flames, but I haven’t decided if any of that is canon! She definitely has more affection for Ul’dah than the other 3 OG city states. Nanamo has her full support and she does still have a few relatives within its walls.
Aymeric and by extension Ishgard take priority after scion business. He’s aware of her prior commitments and she of his, so it usually works out even if it can suck.
5. What does your character think of the Echo? What was it like when they first experienced it?
Nimeoph first experienced the Echo in her early teens while visiting her father in Gridania. Upon seeing his daughter near pass out with some sort of vision, a panicked Ejoux took her immediately to a conjurer to be evaluated. Finding nothing wrong physically, the conjurer proceeded to make a series of assumptions. Young girl hearing voices and having out of body experiences in the Black Shroud? Clearly this child was born to be a Hearer.
Nimoeph was not born to be a Hearer. Though she jumped at the chance to learn a form of magic and excelled at her studies, when it became clear that she had no more of a connection to the elementals than any other fledgling conjurer, the guild lost interest in sponsoring a young duskwight’s studies.
The Echo has opened doors for her, first with magic study and then with the scions, but she generally views it as an annoyance. It’s not fun to be copying documentation at the Ossuary and come out of a vision to find you’ve covered half the page in a line of ink. To say nothing of the danger of going under on a battlefield, though she’s only had that displeasure on a scant few occasions.
Cat Time! Warning that I have... not as much to say here yet lmao.
1. Where is your character from, and how did they wind up in their starting city (if they’re not from there)?
V’ahlter is from Raincatcher Gully in La Noscea, and frequents Limsa Lominsa fairly regularly, for both business and pleasure. He often brings materials from the forest for trade with the local merchants on behalf of his tribe, and has worked out a deal with one the Culinarian guild. If he brings them something exotic to experiment with, he gets a meal on the house.
2. What is your character’s favorite place— to visit, or to stay in?
If he ever gets to visit, definitely the Sea of Clouds. Yes it’s cold, but also it’s so high up? There are bird people? You get everywhere by flying? It’s also absolutely gorgeous. V’ahlter would happily spend multiple days exploring until the low temperature gets to him.
Where is your character from, and how did they wind up in their starting city (if they’re not from there)?
Eduard is from Sharlayan. He was born in Bozja but he was young when he left and he barely remembers it and it’s just for the best if he doesn’t bring that up since then everyone talks about some awful thing that he wasn’t even there for, and whether or not he wants to help rebuild. (maybe???? but also he’s got this whole other life?)
He went to Limsa Lominsa after he heard about some auction of some cool Allagan artifacts that he wanted to get a hold of, even if they’d be way less useful to his scholarship because the pirates aren’t going to tell him about the provenience and he probably shouldn’t encourage the antiquities market by buying stuff from them, but it sounded so cool that he had to make an exception or at least take a look at it.
Anyway he got robbed as soon as he landed and lost all his money, so that whole ethical dilemma ended up moot. He took a job at the Arcanists Guild to buy a ticket home and by then he decided that maybe he’ll stay in Eorzea for a while. And invest in some better pockets that are harder to pick. And get some less theoretical experience, so that when he gets mugged he can fight back.
What was your character doing during the Seventh Umbral Calamity? Do they still think/talk about that time, or do they try to avoid it now?
He was in school at the time, studying magic and stuff, so he wasn’t particularly close to the destruction. After the Calamity, he was very suddenly interested in the Allagan Empire. Why? Haha no reason, they’re just fascinating and they did so much and we know so little about them, he’s definitely not worried about what the modern people who claim to be their heirs are doing with their stuff or anything!
What’s your character’s family like (found, blood, or both)? Are they still in contact?
His father took him out of Bozja when he was still young, slightly before the place exploded. His father took them to Sharlayan, where his magical and technological experience would get him welcomed, and where he eventually became an Archon. If Eduard has any other living family, he doesn’t know anything about them.
Eduard’s father is sort of in the isolationist camp, since he doesn’t want to lose his home to the Empire a second time and thinks that people like Louisoix and the Scions antagonizing them is just going to result in them retaliating on the people who’ve had more success with just a few people than any of the larger, Eorzean nation-states have with their armies. Eduard disagrees, thinks that it’s kind of inevitable that they’ll start wanting to loot what they’ve got and that they should take a more proactive approach in keeping them out.
As much as they argue about this in circles, they’re still in contact. His father doesn’t want to alienate the only family he’s got, and it’s not as if he isn’t proud of the stuff he’s doing that’s not harassing the Empire and doesn’t brag to all his colleagues every time his cub gets a co-author credit in some paper about the Crystal Tower or whatever. He just doesn’t bring up that Eduard’s basically a Scion.
Kleskizhae
What is your character’s favorite place— to visit, or to stay in?
He’s fond of Ishgard. Reminds him of home, in so much as it’s cold, miserable, run by horrible people, involved in a forever-war based on lies, has secret police who will kidnap you in your sleep, has an architectural philosophy that can only be described as intentionally depressing… wait maybe he doesn’t like Ishgard that much…
How does your character approach combat? Are they in the thick of the action? Do they take a supporting role?
Kleskizhae is joyously in the thick of things. He’s the first to draw his weapon and the last to retreat. Even when he’s working with long ranged weapons he’s still using them to vex and confuse and distract his opponents with his skills and his incredibly risky maneuvers that somehow always pay off.
When he thinks about it too much, he gets a little uncomfortable because this is genuinely a thing where he and Zenos are not too different after all. The major difference is that he’s able to take pleasure in things other than violence, that he only does it for an actual goal, that he has any interest in what’s right and wrong, that he fights to protect his friends, which he has, and to advance his goals, which he has. But in that moment, when he draws his sword and throws himself into battle, knowing full well that he will murder someone and smiling all the same, because as much as he will weep for them later, for now it is all about the joy of doing something extremely well, he gets it. Almost. Not quite enough to think that Zenos is not a monster that needs to be put down, but enough to worry about himself and whether he deserves the same fate.
How does your character interact with working animals— chocobos, other mounts, etc?
He has no idea how to handle them, since he was used to either magitek mounts or horrific genetic abominations as working animals. It’s a little weird, isn’t it? Having like, an animal who lives and breathes and has its own desires and temperament and you just. Get on top of it. And it moves you around. It’s not as if he’s never heard of them before, or hasn’t spent a lot of his life drinking down romantic tales of knights and their trusty steeds, but when it comes to him personally, in real life? He gets a bit nervous. He gets used to it but as soon as he has access to a suit of magitek armor again, he’ll stick to that, thanks.
Kleskizhae and Yangir, incredibly loud and painful high five.
Here it is, the dumbasses. Extremely mild and possibly misleading Stormblood spoilers?
The first time Susano was summoned, Yangir was at the ready to take the Lord of Revels on, but Kleskizhae was off skulking around Zenos’s airship, living in the vents, taking advantage of the full-face cover of the standard Imperial uniform and occasionally emerging to challenge the crown prince to a duel.
The second time they were both in Kugane, so they should have been able to fight Him together. Kleskizhae was writing a few songs for the Mujizoka theater, but Yangir had been arrested for “trespassing and vandalism.” The vandalism was a mistake, and maybe instead of plating their roofs in gold that would get ruined when someone stepped on them and then complain when inevitably someone stepped on them, they could just not do that. When Kleskizhae came for their bail or to break them out, the Sekiseigumi chased him out because of the last time he busted someone out of jail. It was just the one time, and it was Hildibrand’s idea, but telling them that only seemed to make them angrier. So he had to fight Susano without them.
It kept happening, to the point where Susano Himself wondered why His two favorites never seemed to be fighting Him together. He was tired of them being the only ones who seemed happy to see Him, and as Kleskizhae protested that he was never happy to see an eikon, Susano unsummoned Himself until His two “FAVORED WARRIOR SOULS, MOST JOYOUS AND FIERCE” were together to fight Him again. That was probably something that the more scholarly members of the Scions would be interested to hear, but despite whatever implications that had, it wasn’t as if the two of them hadn’t talked about how they needed to fight primals together more often anyway.
It wasn’t long before they chartered a boat to the Isle of Zekki, where the Red Kojin put up only a token resistance. They knew they were only warm ups for the main event. Once they busted into the sacred vault, Susano was already there to greet them.
“WELCOME, TREASURED GUESTS! I SEE YOU ARE UNITED IN PURPOSE AND JOY! TALL ONE!” the primal bellowed at Kleskizhae. “WILT THOU SING FOR US ONCE MORE?”
As much as he’d protest in public about how Susano was a threat to Othard, and the very world, he was also weak to flattery, and if Susano liked his singing, he couldn’t help but like that too.
“Indeed I shall, oh Commander of the Waves! I have composed a song for this very occasion, in which…”
‘It’s about how we’re gonna kick Your ass!” Yangir said, clutching their spear in glee.
“Exactly as my boon companion said. ‘Tis a song about kicking Your ass.”
Susano laughed, and ear-splitting thunder followed. ‘EXCELLENT! FULL GLAD ARE WE THAT YOU HAVE COME PREPARED TO PARTY! THIS SHALL BE A CELEBRATION FOR THE AGES!”
He raised his enormous sword, in case either of the Warriors of Light had forgotten what the kami’s idea of a celebration was, and Kleskizhae was quick with his glowing Allagan-tech shield to intercept it before it crushed them all like insects.
Under the strain of holding back Ame-no-Murakumo, Kleskizhae began to sing.
“Oh great Lord of Revels, we are here to kick Thine ass..”
“YES!” Susano bellowed, applying more pressure to Kleskizhae’s shield. “YES!”
While the primal was distracted by His sheer delight, Yangir lept into action, their spear glinting with the reflection of the lightning that was suddenly everywhere. They jumped through the storm gales to attach themself to His armor by the spear, screaming and kicking all the while. They pierced His shoulder, and Susano let out a yell that nearly left Yangir deaf as He swatted them off. Kleskizhae moved in to catch Yangir, and they landed on his shield, ready to jump even further this time.
“Betcha I can knock off His helmet,” Yangir whispered to Kleskizhae.
“Oooh would that even kill him?” Kleskizhae whispered back, dodging another wave with Yangir perched atop his shield.
“Let’s find out!” Yangir jumped up as Kleskizhae pushed them into the air at Susano’s head. They flew through the air, catching on fire and laughing as they rammed straight through Susano’s head, knocking it clean off. The helmet fell to the ground with a clang, empty of anything but aether. Susano paused His assault to pick it back up, and He laughed.
“INCREDIBLE WORK, MY COURAGEOUS SOULS! A MOST EXCELLENT CLASH! I THANK YOU! SHOULD YOU HAVE YOUR SONG TO US WRITTEN DOWN, PLEASE LEAVE IT HERE, SO THAT MY FOLLOWERS CAN SING IT FOR ME!”
The enormous primal bowed to the two and as the skies cleared, His armor clattered to the ground, empty of the animating kami until such a time when the Kojin summoned Him again.
They took a moment to catch their breaths. They were soaking wet, and Kleskizhae’s magitech shield was sparking a bit from the damage it sustained keeping Susano’s sacred sword at bay. Once they had stopped panting, they started laughing.
“That was great!” Yangir raised their hands to high-five Kleskizhae.
Kleskizhae was still a bit jumpy, but he still met their gauntleted hand with his own gauntleted hand, and the metal audibly clanged.
“Ow!” Yangir recoiled at the slightly too forceful high five.
“Damnation!” Kleskizhae cried out, shaking his hand.
Upon realizing what happened, they laughed, the adrenaline coming off and everything seeming ridiculous.
“Hmmm. I did have a song written out, but I ended up improvising. Not that I ought to be leaving offerings for eikons, but still. He asked so politely.”
“Maybe you can have them ready next time. There is going to be a next time, right?”
“Of course not. The Kojin will realize the folly of summoning eventually. Or they’ll run out of crystals. Or something.”
“But if there is a next time?”
“Well yes. Obviously we’ll fight Him together.”
They high-fived again. It went about as badly as the last one.
robotsfromouterspace replied to your post “Some very kind friends have been taking me on a desynched run of the...”
I kinda got the vibe that they were double agents (just doing something fairly benign with it)? But then the WoL being in a Grand Company is weird enough on its own.
Agreed. A lot of dialog gets devoted to explaining that you can’t take an otherwise reasonable course of action (or must take a much less reasonable one) to preserve the independence/neutrality of the Scions. Soooooo potentially being in the upper echelons of the military command structure for one of the city-states is, uh, sure a design choice.
character pair ask meme: kleskizhae and ceidan 10-14
Who wins at chess?
Being really into chess is a mark of an educated Sith who has studied military tactics and all the things. Kleskzihae is an educated Sith. Ceidan is not. Kleskizhae wins.
Who wins at video games?
Ceidan absolutely kicks his ass in all the things since Kleskizhae only mashes buttons and doesn’t really pay attention to what’s happening on screen. Kleskizhae might win at Starcraft, and he’d certainly have a lot of fun with Mortal Kombat even though he’d constantly be complaining about how um, actually that’s now how you rip out someone’s spine, but he goes the wrong way in Mario Kart.
Would they be able to succeed at some intensely cooperative task together?
They could figure it out but it’d take an inordinately long time given that they wouldn’t exactly argue so much as Kleskizhae would be extremely loud and take way too much charge and it would try Ceidan’s patience a lot. They’d succeed but come away with more questions about each other than they started with.
What happens if you abandon the pair in the wilderness together?
AEZIYA HELP PLEASE SAVE US
If they are on opposite sides of a conflict, how would they interact if they were on the same side? If they’re on the same side, how would they interact if they were on opposite sides?
I mean “Kind of in the Empire” and “Kind of out of the Empire” are both sides that they’re on and they really both need to be on the same side where Kleskizhae gets the fuck out. Unfortunately Kleskizhae’s relationship to the Empire is pretty much a textbook example of the sunk cost fallacy where he thinks he can make it better just because he’s put so much of his life and work into it that he can’t just quit now! (He absolutely can and should)
I could see a situation where Kleskizhae is tasked with hunting down and killing Ceidan because traitor to the Empire. Kleskizhae would categorically refuse to participate in such a thing, because he’s not going to go kill his wife’s sibling’s partner like that! Unfortunately in trying to warn him he’d probably himself become a traitor to the Empire and oops he didn’t mean it like that! FAMILY IS THE ROCK UPON WHICH THE EMPIRE IS BUILT AND PROTECTING YOUR BLOODLINE IS CRUCIAL TO PROTECTING OUR NOBLE WAY OF LIFE! (No it isn’t, Kleskizhae, how did you get so bad at the Empire)
If he were in a situation where he didn’t know Ceidan and had to kill him for the Empire he still might feel bad because he’s not exactly doing anything? He’s just kind of hanging out? We could probably use this threat of death to bring him in a little bit and make him a useful asset? No one has to know that he didn’t die?
