Songerein application
Sep. 1st, 2030 02:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burnttoashesPlayer: Luna
Age: 30+
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
LunaHoshino or LunaHoshino#2383 on Discord
Current Characters: N/A
Character: General Nuadha/Crown Prince Woden Roth Nibelung
Canon: Tales of the Rays (canon point: chapter 16 of Last Cradle, the current story arc)
Age: 22
Background Information:
General world history for Tir Na Nog
Nuadha’s story begins in the Bifrost Empire as Crown Prince Woden Roth Nibelung. Woden lived a peaceful life alongside his best friend and loyal retainer Baldr until word reached Bifrost that the Kingdom of Sellund - the other kingdom that remained after the war that followed in the wake of Nibelung's destruction, with whom Bifrost had established an armistice - was exoflecting mirrites and attempting to reawaken the power of the god Balor, something that their armistice had strictly forbidden. According to legend, if a mirrist of Balor's bloodline were to create a mirrite who inherited the Eye of Balor, that power would bring about the world's destruction. Thus it was that in an attempt to prevent this from happening, Woden ordered an attack on the island of Odanse and the extermination of all silver-haired mirrists who lived there, as the descendents of Balor were said to have silver hair. The raid was successful, killing Balor's descendent Ix Nieves before he was ever able to summon a mirrite; however, what Woden did not account for was the rage and grief of Ix's fiancee, Mileena Weiss, who swore revenge upon all of Bifrost for his death.
This incident touched off the Mirrage Wars, a fierce conflict between Bifrost and Sellund, with neither side willing to back down over their beliefs. With the help of another genuis mirrist and researcher, her childhood friend Phillip Reston, Mileena developed a magical weapon of mass destruction known as the Kaleidoscope, capable of extracting the anima from living beings and rendering them little more than animus particles. The war was brought to a swift and decisive end when Sellund unleashed this weapon on Bifrost, wiping out Woden, Baldr, the citizens of Bifrost, and much of the country itself, their animus particles becoming trapped in a sort of purgatory within the Voidstorm that engulfed much of the world in the wake of the use of the Kaleidoscope.
And there he remained for ten years until the events of Mirrage Prison, when his younger sister Princess Mercuria extracts him and Baldr from the Void to be used as prototypes in her Living Doll project with the ultimate goal of reviving the dead citizens of Bifrost. Said project involves putting the animus particles of the dead into another person's body in a sort of forced parasitization/chimerization; in a spectacular twist of irony, Woden ends up being revived in the preserved body of the very man he had ordered killed years earlier, the original Ix Nieves. Abandoning the name 'Woden' in favor of 'Nuadha' (taken from the god of the sea) as he considers Woden to be dead, Nuadha works under Emperor Demitrius in the technical sense but primarily pursues his own objectives of eliminating the Sellund mirrists and their mirrites: namely, the exoflected Ix and Mileena. He doesn't have any love for Demitrius' ambitions to revive the ancient kingdom of Nibelung, however, at one point outright attempting to sabotage the man's plans to summon the goddess Dana into a mortal vessel (Martel) by attempting to kill said vessel before the ceremony can take place.
Aside from that particular incident, he remains largely in the background for the majority of the arc until the final chapter. In a surprisingly calm conversation, he and Demitrius confront each other over their opposing plans and each agree to walk their own paths with the unspoken understanding that they will likely come into conflict in the near future. He then goes to confront Mileena and the others at the base of the destroyed Kaleidoscope, intent on stopping them from releasing Ix from the mirrage crystals, but is ultimately defeated in battle. Ix being freed causes his animus particles to begin separating, and he ends up returning to the Void along with Baldr.
He is absent for most of Fairy’s Requiem due to being in the Void once more until Junior pulls him and Baldr back out in the hopes that they will be able to save Mercuria, whose heart has been damaged after she was forced to exoflect a mirrite and then kill it. Or at least... that was the plan until Mercuria winds up being possessed by said dead mirrite. He, Richter, Junior and Baldr travel to the exoflected Bifrost in the hopes of rescuing her; ultimately, all he is able to do is to protect Ix and Mileena while they use their combined powers to defeat the dead mirrites. Once Mercuria is safely returned to normal, the newly-formed Paladin Order of Bifrost (currently consisting of Nuadha, Baldr, Mercuria, Richter, Junior, Marcus, and joined by Kocis) sets off to establish a base for themselves and figure out what to do next.
By the time Last Cradle rolls around, he has established a functional truce with Ix and Mileena, recognizing that they are working towards the same goals and thus need each other’s support for now. With Kocis (Ix’s mirrite) now staying with them for the time being, the Bifrost Crew works towards investigating both the Eye of Balor and Demitrius’ plans, intent on putting an end to the man's ambitions to revive the kingdom of Nibelung while also finding a way to save Tir Na Nog from the Voidstorm that threatens to consume it. Most of what they do winds up being information-gathering rather than actual fighting; at his current canon point, Nuadha and Baldr have recently come back from two months' worth of reconnaissance into Demitrius' past, trying to determine whether he is the 'real' Demitrius or whether he is being influenced by something else.
Personality:
Nuadha is very much a person for whom the end justifies the means. As he demonstrates repeatedly in canon, he has no qualms about killing in cold blood if he believes it is for the greater good—it was he who ultimately issued the order for the raid on Odanse and the elimination of all of the silver-haired mirrists there, and he was also prepared to kill Martel to prevent her from being used as a vessel for Dana. Above all, his priority is doing whatever he believes is necessary to ensure the future of the world, and if that “whatever” happens to include murder, well, so be it.
He isn’t heartless, though—- it’s clear he cares deeply for Mercuria and Baldr, and Cecily states that he and Baldr were the only ones to come to her defense during the Mirrage Wars when she was accused of being a spy. He explicitly gives Baldr permission to continue going behind his back to put a stop to the Living Doll project once he realizes what Baldr is up to, stating that what Baldr is doing isn't wrong because he too is against the idea of the project, and before he confronts Mileena at the Kaleidoscope, he orders Cecily to stop the production of Living Dolls because he doesn't want to create more victims of the upcoming battle. While he may have no qualms committing murder for (what he believes to be) the greater good of the world, he also has no desire to see or participate in unnecessary suffering. He does have feelings somewhere deep down!
The problem is? He's absolutely terrible at showing or even admitting that he cares. What are emotions and how do they work, Nuadha just doesn't know. After Baldr is resurrected and immediately proceeds to fling himself in front of a massive fireball in order to protect Nuadha and Mercuria, Nuadha's response is to berate him, calling him an idiot and saying that he should have been the one to take the hit instead; however, Baldr immediately realizes what's really going on, as the fear for Baldr's life was enough to activate Nuadha's Overray Mirrage (which can only be activated by incredibly strong emotions). Even after Baldr calls him out on it, he refuses to admit just how worried he was and digs in even deeper with his anger rather than just say "yes, I was scared for you." He seems to view expressing emotions as a weakness, and as such he's very determined not to do it.
... which leads us to his stubbornness. So stubborn is he about considering himself dead, in fact, that not even an actual god can bypass that mental block in order to make contact with him. (Balor tells Baldr that he had originally been planning to make Nuadha his vanguard rather than Baldr, but because Nuadha is so determined to think of himself as dead, he didn't respond to Balor's attempts to contact him-- unlike Baldr, who wanted to live.) He's putting in all this effort to preserve the future of a world he doesn't even plan to live in, not because it isn't possible for him to be resurrected like Baldr was, but because he believes that he is dead and should stay that way even though Mercuria and Baldr would very much rather have him be alive.
Said stubbornness goes hand-in-hand with – and is most likely at least partially derived from – his pride. Nuadha very much dislikes asking for or accepting help of any sort; it takes both Baldr and Richter scolding him to get him to accept the assistance that Zelos and Kratos were freely offering, even though all logic indicated that that was the best thing to do. (To his credit, he does at least admit he was in the wrong there.) At one point in a flashback he calls Baldr in under the pretense of asking for Baldr's opinion about something when in fact what he actually wanted was encouragement and support when it came to making a particular decision-- he was simply too proud to ask for it outright. No doubt this is due to his former position as crown prince-- though Bifrost may be destroyed, he still seems to take that role very seriously.
The combination of his stubbornness and pride leads him to have a very black-and-white mindset and makes him resistant to changing his opinion on things, even when faced with evidence that he might in fact be wrong. Despite witnessing Balor resurrect Baldr right in front of him, he still insists that the only god Bifrost recognizes is the goddess Dana, and not even spending a considerable amount of time around Kocis and Marcus is enough to get him to think of mirrites as anything other than harbingers of destruction. Once he has made up his mind about something, he tends to cling to that belief unless something happens that forces him to change his mind.
Unfortunately, the end result of all of these things is that he... comes off as a huge jerk most of the time. And to be fair, a lot of the time he is. He's not above snapping at Baldr - his oldest, closest friend who quite literally died for his sake - and telling him to "know his place" when he disapproves of something Baldr does or says; he frequently addresses Kocis as just "Mirrite" rather than by name, and at one point he flat-out states that he considers the rest of the Bifrost Crew neither his subordinates nor his companions but rather just people he's working with. While he may be an effective leader when it comes to issuing orders, his emotional intelligence is woefully low (Baldr frequently has to explain things on that front to him), and combined with the fact that he often doesn't seem to realize or care just how he's coming across to others, he can be a very unpleasant person to be around. As Kocis says at one point, "General Nuadha really is harsh, isn't he?"
Still, Nuadha isn't a bad person - he genuinely wants to save the world, broken though it may be, he cares for his sister and his retainer, he has no desire for unnecessary death, and he opposed the idea of the Living Doll project because he felt it was wrong - but he isn't exactly a good person either. He's a very, very flawed person, and one of his flaws is that he isn't very good at recognizing his own flaws, or at self-reflection in general. He's shown that he is capable of change and growth, but it's going to take someone (or something) knocking some sense into him in a big way to get him to reexamine his entire mindset and start looking at things from a different angle.
Abilities & Inventory: Since he’s a Tales character, I’m just gonna drop this arte exhibition right here. (It’s missing his three newest 5-stars and his Overray Mirrage Arte since they were released after that video was made.) He specializes in quick double strikes with both his sword and dagger, and he's got his own versions of some of the Tales classics (Demon Fang, Beast and Rising Falcon) along with two AoE attacks in the form of Yatoryuu/Yatometsuryuu and Jugonjin/Jugonboujin. Stat-wise, he's pretty much an all-rounder (his defense type is 'Balanced').
Due to the fact that his body is quite literally a corpse, he has a dulled sense of pain, and in canon he has no need to eat or sleep (although it's possible for him to do so). In Songerein, he'll need to eat and sleep just like anyone else, and while he'll retain the dulled sense of pain, it won't be quite as strong as it is in canon. Also, his right hand and part of his arm is a metal prosthetic; it doesn't ever really come up in canon, but I assume it would be heavier/stronger than a normal human hand.
Additionally, Nuadha is a mirrist, which is sort of like the Tales of the Rays version of a mage. His exact abilities on this front have never been clearly outlined, but we’ve seen him exoflect items (basically, he can physically manifest a chosen item into existence), create an illusionary body for a companion who was stuck as a sort of soul in a jar, and open up a mental connection of sorts with another person (once the initial connection ability had been established by someone else).
However, all of said abilities have natural limits on them already. Exoflection uses up energy, so exoflecting something large will exhaust him, and certain things are simply too large for him to exoflect by himself without the aid of something like a Kaleidoscope. The illusionary body can only exist within a certain radius of the mirrage being used as its focus; if it goes too far away, it will disappear. Likewise, his exoflection is limited to items he’s familiar with/can picture in his mind. A key to a door that’s right in front of him? No problem. A smartphone? Nope, he has no idea what that is. A specific item that he’s never seen before? Also no. As far as the mental connection goes, it was initially created by someone else, and he had difficulty opening it up and maintaining it for long because the person he was connected with was not also a mirrist, so this won’t even be a thing in the game unless we miraculously get that particular castmate.
As before, his exoflection will be limited to small items that he is familiar with/can picture in his mind, and he won't be able to do it too many times in a row before needing to take a break.
The latest chapter revealed that he is in fact a descendant of Nuadha Aifread, one of the three gods of Tir Na Nog, and thus possesses a secret Bifrost Imperial mirristry arte passed down through his bloodline: Imagination mirristry secret arte "Gjera Bifrost." This particular technique allows Nuadha to create a direct connection with someone's heart and (to paraphrase Kingdom Hearts) dive into it. Doing this allows him both to speak directly to the person regardless of the distance between them and also "restrain/bind" them, so to speak... it's unclear as to whether the restraint is actually physical or not, however. It's implied that there is considerable risk involved in using this technique-- we've only ever seen him use it twice in canon and only in drastic situations.
This one will probably need to be nerfed! I don't expect it to ever come into play given that there's no real need for it when the setting already allows for something similar with the dreams (plus the whole "implied to be risky" bit) but I'm totally fine with it being tweaked to whatever you think would work best.
Inventory:
- His sword and dagger
- His mirrage comm (his world’s equivalent of a cellphone—basically a magic mirror of sorts, which will be useless here)
- The mirrage he wears on his wrist (Note: thiiiiiiiis is a little complicated! From what canon has implied so far, it originally belonged to the god Balor himself, and the antagonists want it because of the power it is supposed to hold. However, we don’t know if this particular version of the mirrage – there are three in existence – still has any powers left or even if it’s functional at all, and if it is, what exactly its powers are capable of. It’s worth noting that this one is totally blackened as opposed to the usual rainbow color of other mirrages, so it might not be functional. Basically, though, it’s a case of “we don’t know exactly what it does because canon hasn’t given us this information yet” so I figured I would be up front about this. I don’t plan on doing anything with it at the moment since so far Nuadha doesn’t actually do so in canon!)
Suitability & Plans:
Nuadha is a very independent character who will actively engage with the setting on his own given reasons to do so and who also doesn’t need canonmates around to do things-- he might complain about it, but he isn't the sort of person to just sit back and do nothing. He's very take-charge and I feel like that would transfer over well into Songerein. Whether that will necessarily be a good thing or not remains to be seen, but that's half the fun!
Also, his canon draws a lot of inspiration from both Irish and Norse mythology, so a game themed after fairy tales seems like a natural fit for him. (And there’s also the whole part about the current canon world being literally built from pieces of other worlds, so. Building a new world is something he’s personally very familiar with.) Plus, you know, Tales of, fantasy-type world, etc.
Finally, I would really like to play him in a situation where he does NOT have Baldr to fall back on/call him out on things. I adore their relationship, I really do! But in many ways, Baldr is almost a crutch for him and he relies a great deal on him. I would like to see how he deals with things without having Baldr there given that he’s had Baldr around to serve as a tempering force for his entire life.
As far as plans go, I would like to have him eventually come to stop thinking of himself as being dead and move towards actively wanting to live again (something that is in fact possible in canon if he would just be willing to accept it), but in order to do that, he needs to grow emotionally first and stop being so stubbornly mired in the past. I think the dreams will be the perfect avenue for that, both dreamwalking in other people’s dreams and having other people see his own; he’s very closed off by nature, but this will put him in situations where he can’t just clam up/shut down a conversation he doesn’t like and will also force him to confront things he’s never really dealt with, only repressed. Being literally unable to hide his emotions? Whoo boy, he's going to hate that, which means I'm absolutely going to love it. What’s more, he will also likely be forced to accept help at times, which is another thing he needs to learn to be able to do—in fact, having him become more open-minded in general is something he would benefit a great deal from, as he has trouble seeing things in shades of grey rather than black and white. All in all, I think it would be a great opportunity for him to learn and grow in a number of ways.
Test Drive Sample: Here, here and here!
Questions: Why is my canon like this
Age: 30+
Contact:
Current Characters: N/A
Character: General Nuadha/Crown Prince Woden Roth Nibelung
Canon: Tales of the Rays (canon point: chapter 16 of Last Cradle, the current story arc)
Age: 22
Background Information:
General world history for Tir Na Nog
Nuadha’s story begins in the Bifrost Empire as Crown Prince Woden Roth Nibelung. Woden lived a peaceful life alongside his best friend and loyal retainer Baldr until word reached Bifrost that the Kingdom of Sellund - the other kingdom that remained after the war that followed in the wake of Nibelung's destruction, with whom Bifrost had established an armistice - was exoflecting mirrites and attempting to reawaken the power of the god Balor, something that their armistice had strictly forbidden. According to legend, if a mirrist of Balor's bloodline were to create a mirrite who inherited the Eye of Balor, that power would bring about the world's destruction. Thus it was that in an attempt to prevent this from happening, Woden ordered an attack on the island of Odanse and the extermination of all silver-haired mirrists who lived there, as the descendents of Balor were said to have silver hair. The raid was successful, killing Balor's descendent Ix Nieves before he was ever able to summon a mirrite; however, what Woden did not account for was the rage and grief of Ix's fiancee, Mileena Weiss, who swore revenge upon all of Bifrost for his death.
This incident touched off the Mirrage Wars, a fierce conflict between Bifrost and Sellund, with neither side willing to back down over their beliefs. With the help of another genuis mirrist and researcher, her childhood friend Phillip Reston, Mileena developed a magical weapon of mass destruction known as the Kaleidoscope, capable of extracting the anima from living beings and rendering them little more than animus particles. The war was brought to a swift and decisive end when Sellund unleashed this weapon on Bifrost, wiping out Woden, Baldr, the citizens of Bifrost, and much of the country itself, their animus particles becoming trapped in a sort of purgatory within the Voidstorm that engulfed much of the world in the wake of the use of the Kaleidoscope.
And there he remained for ten years until the events of Mirrage Prison, when his younger sister Princess Mercuria extracts him and Baldr from the Void to be used as prototypes in her Living Doll project with the ultimate goal of reviving the dead citizens of Bifrost. Said project involves putting the animus particles of the dead into another person's body in a sort of forced parasitization/chimerization; in a spectacular twist of irony, Woden ends up being revived in the preserved body of the very man he had ordered killed years earlier, the original Ix Nieves. Abandoning the name 'Woden' in favor of 'Nuadha' (taken from the god of the sea) as he considers Woden to be dead, Nuadha works under Emperor Demitrius in the technical sense but primarily pursues his own objectives of eliminating the Sellund mirrists and their mirrites: namely, the exoflected Ix and Mileena. He doesn't have any love for Demitrius' ambitions to revive the ancient kingdom of Nibelung, however, at one point outright attempting to sabotage the man's plans to summon the goddess Dana into a mortal vessel (Martel) by attempting to kill said vessel before the ceremony can take place.
Aside from that particular incident, he remains largely in the background for the majority of the arc until the final chapter. In a surprisingly calm conversation, he and Demitrius confront each other over their opposing plans and each agree to walk their own paths with the unspoken understanding that they will likely come into conflict in the near future. He then goes to confront Mileena and the others at the base of the destroyed Kaleidoscope, intent on stopping them from releasing Ix from the mirrage crystals, but is ultimately defeated in battle. Ix being freed causes his animus particles to begin separating, and he ends up returning to the Void along with Baldr.
He is absent for most of Fairy’s Requiem due to being in the Void once more until Junior pulls him and Baldr back out in the hopes that they will be able to save Mercuria, whose heart has been damaged after she was forced to exoflect a mirrite and then kill it. Or at least... that was the plan until Mercuria winds up being possessed by said dead mirrite. He, Richter, Junior and Baldr travel to the exoflected Bifrost in the hopes of rescuing her; ultimately, all he is able to do is to protect Ix and Mileena while they use their combined powers to defeat the dead mirrites. Once Mercuria is safely returned to normal, the newly-formed Paladin Order of Bifrost (currently consisting of Nuadha, Baldr, Mercuria, Richter, Junior, Marcus, and joined by Kocis) sets off to establish a base for themselves and figure out what to do next.
By the time Last Cradle rolls around, he has established a functional truce with Ix and Mileena, recognizing that they are working towards the same goals and thus need each other’s support for now. With Kocis (Ix’s mirrite) now staying with them for the time being, the Bifrost Crew works towards investigating both the Eye of Balor and Demitrius’ plans, intent on putting an end to the man's ambitions to revive the kingdom of Nibelung while also finding a way to save Tir Na Nog from the Voidstorm that threatens to consume it. Most of what they do winds up being information-gathering rather than actual fighting; at his current canon point, Nuadha and Baldr have recently come back from two months' worth of reconnaissance into Demitrius' past, trying to determine whether he is the 'real' Demitrius or whether he is being influenced by something else.
Personality:
Nuadha is very much a person for whom the end justifies the means. As he demonstrates repeatedly in canon, he has no qualms about killing in cold blood if he believes it is for the greater good—it was he who ultimately issued the order for the raid on Odanse and the elimination of all of the silver-haired mirrists there, and he was also prepared to kill Martel to prevent her from being used as a vessel for Dana. Above all, his priority is doing whatever he believes is necessary to ensure the future of the world, and if that “whatever” happens to include murder, well, so be it.
He isn’t heartless, though—- it’s clear he cares deeply for Mercuria and Baldr, and Cecily states that he and Baldr were the only ones to come to her defense during the Mirrage Wars when she was accused of being a spy. He explicitly gives Baldr permission to continue going behind his back to put a stop to the Living Doll project once he realizes what Baldr is up to, stating that what Baldr is doing isn't wrong because he too is against the idea of the project, and before he confronts Mileena at the Kaleidoscope, he orders Cecily to stop the production of Living Dolls because he doesn't want to create more victims of the upcoming battle. While he may have no qualms committing murder for (what he believes to be) the greater good of the world, he also has no desire to see or participate in unnecessary suffering. He does have feelings somewhere deep down!
The problem is? He's absolutely terrible at showing or even admitting that he cares. What are emotions and how do they work, Nuadha just doesn't know. After Baldr is resurrected and immediately proceeds to fling himself in front of a massive fireball in order to protect Nuadha and Mercuria, Nuadha's response is to berate him, calling him an idiot and saying that he should have been the one to take the hit instead; however, Baldr immediately realizes what's really going on, as the fear for Baldr's life was enough to activate Nuadha's Overray Mirrage (which can only be activated by incredibly strong emotions). Even after Baldr calls him out on it, he refuses to admit just how worried he was and digs in even deeper with his anger rather than just say "yes, I was scared for you." He seems to view expressing emotions as a weakness, and as such he's very determined not to do it.
... which leads us to his stubbornness. So stubborn is he about considering himself dead, in fact, that not even an actual god can bypass that mental block in order to make contact with him. (Balor tells Baldr that he had originally been planning to make Nuadha his vanguard rather than Baldr, but because Nuadha is so determined to think of himself as dead, he didn't respond to Balor's attempts to contact him-- unlike Baldr, who wanted to live.) He's putting in all this effort to preserve the future of a world he doesn't even plan to live in, not because it isn't possible for him to be resurrected like Baldr was, but because he believes that he is dead and should stay that way even though Mercuria and Baldr would very much rather have him be alive.
Said stubbornness goes hand-in-hand with – and is most likely at least partially derived from – his pride. Nuadha very much dislikes asking for or accepting help of any sort; it takes both Baldr and Richter scolding him to get him to accept the assistance that Zelos and Kratos were freely offering, even though all logic indicated that that was the best thing to do. (To his credit, he does at least admit he was in the wrong there.) At one point in a flashback he calls Baldr in under the pretense of asking for Baldr's opinion about something when in fact what he actually wanted was encouragement and support when it came to making a particular decision-- he was simply too proud to ask for it outright. No doubt this is due to his former position as crown prince-- though Bifrost may be destroyed, he still seems to take that role very seriously.
The combination of his stubbornness and pride leads him to have a very black-and-white mindset and makes him resistant to changing his opinion on things, even when faced with evidence that he might in fact be wrong. Despite witnessing Balor resurrect Baldr right in front of him, he still insists that the only god Bifrost recognizes is the goddess Dana, and not even spending a considerable amount of time around Kocis and Marcus is enough to get him to think of mirrites as anything other than harbingers of destruction. Once he has made up his mind about something, he tends to cling to that belief unless something happens that forces him to change his mind.
Unfortunately, the end result of all of these things is that he... comes off as a huge jerk most of the time. And to be fair, a lot of the time he is. He's not above snapping at Baldr - his oldest, closest friend who quite literally died for his sake - and telling him to "know his place" when he disapproves of something Baldr does or says; he frequently addresses Kocis as just "Mirrite" rather than by name, and at one point he flat-out states that he considers the rest of the Bifrost Crew neither his subordinates nor his companions but rather just people he's working with. While he may be an effective leader when it comes to issuing orders, his emotional intelligence is woefully low (Baldr frequently has to explain things on that front to him), and combined with the fact that he often doesn't seem to realize or care just how he's coming across to others, he can be a very unpleasant person to be around. As Kocis says at one point, "General Nuadha really is harsh, isn't he?"
Still, Nuadha isn't a bad person - he genuinely wants to save the world, broken though it may be, he cares for his sister and his retainer, he has no desire for unnecessary death, and he opposed the idea of the Living Doll project because he felt it was wrong - but he isn't exactly a good person either. He's a very, very flawed person, and one of his flaws is that he isn't very good at recognizing his own flaws, or at self-reflection in general. He's shown that he is capable of change and growth, but it's going to take someone (or something) knocking some sense into him in a big way to get him to reexamine his entire mindset and start looking at things from a different angle.
Abilities & Inventory: Since he’s a Tales character, I’m just gonna drop this arte exhibition right here. (It’s missing his three newest 5-stars and his Overray Mirrage Arte since they were released after that video was made.) He specializes in quick double strikes with both his sword and dagger, and he's got his own versions of some of the Tales classics (Demon Fang, Beast and Rising Falcon) along with two AoE attacks in the form of Yatoryuu/Yatometsuryuu and Jugonjin/Jugonboujin. Stat-wise, he's pretty much an all-rounder (his defense type is 'Balanced').
Due to the fact that his body is quite literally a corpse, he has a dulled sense of pain, and in canon he has no need to eat or sleep (although it's possible for him to do so). In Songerein, he'll need to eat and sleep just like anyone else, and while he'll retain the dulled sense of pain, it won't be quite as strong as it is in canon. Also, his right hand and part of his arm is a metal prosthetic; it doesn't ever really come up in canon, but I assume it would be heavier/stronger than a normal human hand.
Additionally, Nuadha is a mirrist, which is sort of like the Tales of the Rays version of a mage. His exact abilities on this front have never been clearly outlined, but we’ve seen him exoflect items (basically, he can physically manifest a chosen item into existence), create an illusionary body for a companion who was stuck as a sort of soul in a jar, and open up a mental connection of sorts with another person (once the initial connection ability had been established by someone else).
However, all of said abilities have natural limits on them already. Exoflection uses up energy, so exoflecting something large will exhaust him, and certain things are simply too large for him to exoflect by himself without the aid of something like a Kaleidoscope. The illusionary body can only exist within a certain radius of the mirrage being used as its focus; if it goes too far away, it will disappear. Likewise, his exoflection is limited to items he’s familiar with/can picture in his mind. A key to a door that’s right in front of him? No problem. A smartphone? Nope, he has no idea what that is. A specific item that he’s never seen before? Also no. As far as the mental connection goes, it was initially created by someone else, and he had difficulty opening it up and maintaining it for long because the person he was connected with was not also a mirrist, so this won’t even be a thing in the game unless we miraculously get that particular castmate.
As before, his exoflection will be limited to small items that he is familiar with/can picture in his mind, and he won't be able to do it too many times in a row before needing to take a break.
The latest chapter revealed that he is in fact a descendant of Nuadha Aifread, one of the three gods of Tir Na Nog, and thus possesses a secret Bifrost Imperial mirristry arte passed down through his bloodline: Imagination mirristry secret arte "Gjera Bifrost." This particular technique allows Nuadha to create a direct connection with someone's heart and (to paraphrase Kingdom Hearts) dive into it. Doing this allows him both to speak directly to the person regardless of the distance between them and also "restrain/bind" them, so to speak... it's unclear as to whether the restraint is actually physical or not, however. It's implied that there is considerable risk involved in using this technique-- we've only ever seen him use it twice in canon and only in drastic situations.
This one will probably need to be nerfed! I don't expect it to ever come into play given that there's no real need for it when the setting already allows for something similar with the dreams (plus the whole "implied to be risky" bit) but I'm totally fine with it being tweaked to whatever you think would work best.
Inventory:
- His sword and dagger
- His mirrage comm (his world’s equivalent of a cellphone—basically a magic mirror of sorts, which will be useless here)
- The mirrage he wears on his wrist (Note: thiiiiiiiis is a little complicated! From what canon has implied so far, it originally belonged to the god Balor himself, and the antagonists want it because of the power it is supposed to hold. However, we don’t know if this particular version of the mirrage – there are three in existence – still has any powers left or even if it’s functional at all, and if it is, what exactly its powers are capable of. It’s worth noting that this one is totally blackened as opposed to the usual rainbow color of other mirrages, so it might not be functional. Basically, though, it’s a case of “we don’t know exactly what it does because canon hasn’t given us this information yet” so I figured I would be up front about this. I don’t plan on doing anything with it at the moment since so far Nuadha doesn’t actually do so in canon!)
Suitability & Plans:
Nuadha is a very independent character who will actively engage with the setting on his own given reasons to do so and who also doesn’t need canonmates around to do things-- he might complain about it, but he isn't the sort of person to just sit back and do nothing. He's very take-charge and I feel like that would transfer over well into Songerein. Whether that will necessarily be a good thing or not remains to be seen, but that's half the fun!
Also, his canon draws a lot of inspiration from both Irish and Norse mythology, so a game themed after fairy tales seems like a natural fit for him. (And there’s also the whole part about the current canon world being literally built from pieces of other worlds, so. Building a new world is something he’s personally very familiar with.) Plus, you know, Tales of, fantasy-type world, etc.
Finally, I would really like to play him in a situation where he does NOT have Baldr to fall back on/call him out on things. I adore their relationship, I really do! But in many ways, Baldr is almost a crutch for him and he relies a great deal on him. I would like to see how he deals with things without having Baldr there given that he’s had Baldr around to serve as a tempering force for his entire life.
As far as plans go, I would like to have him eventually come to stop thinking of himself as being dead and move towards actively wanting to live again (something that is in fact possible in canon if he would just be willing to accept it), but in order to do that, he needs to grow emotionally first and stop being so stubbornly mired in the past. I think the dreams will be the perfect avenue for that, both dreamwalking in other people’s dreams and having other people see his own; he’s very closed off by nature, but this will put him in situations where he can’t just clam up/shut down a conversation he doesn’t like and will also force him to confront things he’s never really dealt with, only repressed. Being literally unable to hide his emotions? Whoo boy, he's going to hate that, which means I'm absolutely going to love it. What’s more, he will also likely be forced to accept help at times, which is another thing he needs to learn to be able to do—in fact, having him become more open-minded in general is something he would benefit a great deal from, as he has trouble seeing things in shades of grey rather than black and white. All in all, I think it would be a great opportunity for him to learn and grow in a number of ways.
Test Drive Sample: Here, here and here!
Questions: Why is my canon like this
