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Player Information

Name: Rune
Age: Adult.
Contact details: PM/Discord.
Other characters: None

Character Information

Name: Fandaniel
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV (AU)
Canon Point: The equivalent to the middle of Stormblood.
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: AU
Age: Thousands of years! Exact age unknown.

World Information: Reasonably similar to canon in broad strokes, locations, etc. AU changes: Fandaniel's entire existence, and a whole lot of presumption of Hydaelyn and Zodiark's reasonings and effects. Due to the extreme levels of extrapolation required to invent an entirely new Ascian, AU is the way to go.

Personal History: A long, long time ago, the Convocation of Fourteen led the Ascians in a lengty period of paradisaic peacefulness, science and artistic marvels, and more. Creations great and small were forged, wonders shaped, lessons learned and all in all a flourishing society guided. For thousands of years. And then the Doom came, wrecking havoc with the Ascians' creation magic and giving their fears life. When an entire species can create nearly anything at will, this had disastrous consequences for the entire world. Thus did the Convocation of Fourteen (..thirteen.. the Fourteenth sometime during this goes AWOL) imbued their world with a will of its own and named it Zodiark, in order to save that world from imminent destruction and then later, replace the life that had been lost. Zodiark, the will of the star embodied, did exactly as He was made to do; He stopped the end times, and He created new life to replace the countless species that were lost. As far as the Convocation was concerned, this was the end of the matter, but then a lot of other Ascians suddenly summoned Hydaelyn, who then proceeded to Wreck Zodiark's Shit, and by extension everyone else.

Although Zodiark's powers were vast, Hydaelyn was created with surgical precision and a single purpose, so all His incredible breadth of abilities only managed to let Him hold Hydaelyn off for a lengthy amount of time as He could not specialise the way She did, and eventually, Hydaelyn wore Zodiark down. His final effort was to save all His worshipers and creations, buffering them as best He could versus the blow that sundered Him into fourteen pieces ... and every single thing connected to Him, including the planet itself and all life upon it. Had Zodiark not put his last great effort into trying to save His creations and people, He might have survived Hydaelyn's blow, but the self-sacrifice and altruism of the Ascians was also part of His nature, and Zodiark suffered fracturing and took everything with Him into pieces instead of outright destruction.

Hydaelyn for Her part did not mean to kill, either Zodiark or anyone else, but who could have forseen what Her final tremendous strike would cause? And it would have been a deathblow to the star and all life upon it had Zodiark not refocused His vast might on mitigating as much as He could. With Zodiark imprisoned and the world broken into one and thirteen pieces, She took it upon Herself in guilt and remorse to try to preserve what remained to the best of Her abilities. She, too, was forged with the nature of Her summoners. A few scattered Ascians escaped mostly or entirely whole, the numb and horrified survivors of a now functionally extinct species, on a star ruled by the very "goddess" that destroyed it all to begin with, surrounded by the sundered souls and struggling life that Zodiark managed to save.

At least, this is how Fandaniel tends to paraphrase it. The voidsent's in the details, of course, but what came after is in a way far more important than what came before. Some of the few Ascians who remained whole, three members of the Convocation, set about after dwelling in grief and loss for centuries, to merging the shards back together. The first few proved the theory that this could be undone - the life on the 'source' became stronger, their souls denser, slightly more than the one fourteenth fracture they once were. And those three could with effort, reawaken the soul's memories and remind them of who they were and WHAT they were.. and through that knowledge, reawaken some Ascians to a fragmented, but aware existence. The hunt for the lost fellow Convocation members took time, but all of them were found one by one, Fandaniel among them. Sometimes this ended in death - unlike the three unsundered Ascians (and the handful of others still lingering), their broken bretheren struggled to survive death and would simply reincarnate the way every other mortal did, forcing their fellows to hunt them down AGAIN and reawaken them over and over.

In the time before the Doom, Fandaniel's role had been The Protector, his duty to see to the safety and defense of the Ascian cities and works. On these broken worlds, it was painfully easy for Fandaniel to lean towards wanting to defend and preserve the people there too, even if they were broken mockeries of the people he once knew, and more than once this led him to acting against the wishes of the other Convocation members in his need to try to succeed at least ONCE with preserving others from destruction. Thus did Elidibus assign him to a new task on the Source as permanent assignment - after each and every Rejoining, make certain that the survivors flourished and redeveloped civilization. This he could do, it was after all, saving them. And eventually such efforts would result in whole, living Ascians again.. Even if it took centuries. And eventually, thousands upon thousands of years.

Several more shards fell over time until the Source was seven times rejoined, the life on it far tougher and more powerful than on the other worlds. Fandaniel's direct role in this was rather distant, as his purpose was preservation of survivors so there's life TO be rejoined to begin with, but the early Garlean expansion's strikes on local villages and cities kills Fandaniel's current vessel by accident, throwing him back into the reincarnation cycle. He is relocated again not long after Bahamut's re-imprisonment, and reawakened.

Until this point, Fandaniel had lived as Lyndon Harlan, one of many of Limsa Lominsa's ex-pirate troublemakers. Much to his embarassment now, that life was painfully mediocre, possibly because Lyndon was not born with the keenest of eyesight and then attempted to make his living as a lookout. Nothing at all remarkable can be found in that life, though it has left him with a strong fondness for his most recent home nation of Limsa Lominsa, certain very strong opinions about specific pirate crews, and a familiarity with how to get around Summerford Farms while drunk, half blind and in the dark. Fandaniel's mortal family still exists, and he does his best to hide from his fellow Ascians the lingering sense of obligation and affection he has for them. He visits not infrequently, still maintaining the charade of being their son and brother, his reawakened skillset making their small (and by their admittance unwanted) orange farm remarkably prosperous.

Personality: When you get down to it, Fandaniel doesn't much like people. Doesn't much like anyone, really, except for a scattering of precious individuals he cherishes each and every lifetime; he prefers the company of plants. Plants don't judge, plants don't complain, plants don't care if he'd utterly failed in his role as Protector and 'allowed' his people to be exterminated by Hydaelyn. It's easy to defend a plant, or see them thrive, not so much people, especially the sundered. Knowing one day he might have a direct hand in killing every single individual he encounters puts a certain dampener on his willingness to get involved too much, especially when he knows what they could be as opposed to what they are. It's lent an appearance of arrogance and disdain for the people he interacts with, something that is occasionally true, and more often a comfortable and familiar mask to prevent anyone from knowing what he's truly thinking or feeling. So, in this process of not really liking people and viewing them with something of an edge of superiority (he doesn't really /dislike/ most people either, as that would take a more personal regard than he cares to give), he can and frequently does seem well, snobbish.

It's a defense mechanism, built up over countless thousands of years of grief, loss, pain and guilt. Fandaniel has for his entire existence gotten attached very easily to people and locations, whether or not he likes it, and mortals by definition die - again and again and again. It's worse than having and losing a pet, because the sundered folk are so very nearly real people that it's agony to watch them grow old and die, or get sick and die, or pretty much anything at all and inevitably perish. Each one is another life he hadn't been able to save, from Amaurot to Doma, and it weighs him down as surely as it does the rest of his kin. It's hard to go that long and not change in some way; Emet-Selch might have become bitter and jaded over his time, Lahabrea simply completely mad - Fandaniel does his best to try to hold onto his Ascian roots. These days, 'Ascian' is synonymous with unhesitating evil, and he remembers when it meant a people of great selflessness and determination. He still gets attached, if he's not careful, and this inclination has led to him being very good at his assigned task of seeing to it that at least SOME people survive each and every cataclysm that befalls the Source.

Everything he does is through the lens of being tempered. Zodiark, forged of nothing but the best intentions but excruciatingly aware of the price that must be paid to achieve great things, passes much of His perspective onto His subjects and Fandaniel is no exception. Zodiark's goals are his own, and he's incapable of separating his God's views from his own. Zodiark is devoted to His people; Fandaniel is too. Zodiark considers all His creations precious, so too does Fandaniel. Zodiark learned the hard way that hope is never enough, and sometimes harsh action is required - and so has the Ascian. It's left him with little interest or concern for ideologies or the philosophical, prefering the facts of reality and the here and now. Being idealistic never helped him (or Zodiark, who also does not dream and idealize anymore), and practicality got him through rough times where dreams did not. Disillusioned with high optimism and idealistic nonsense with the sundering of the world and imprisonment of his god, he tends to take the cynic's track, and inevitably prepare for the worst case scenarios without even considering the idea that the best scenario might work out. The worst is more predictable, and its inevitable painful sacrifices, which Fandaniel accepts without hesitation. A price must always be paid, after all. Being over-prepared for any given situation is one of his many bad habits; it's hard to catch him off balance or by surprise with chains of events, and these usually when they don't conform to the facts and laws that govern his reality. Although undeniably brilliant and with the ability to conceptualize things beyond the average person's knowing, the abstract is alien and uncomfortable; he'll take structured familiarity over it any day. This doesn't mean he avoids new things; if it's not some frivolous idea, if it's a workable concept of something solid and doable, something more than frivolous talk, he'll be quite attentive indeed. Something he can touch, can manipulate or work with is something bound by the laws of reality and therefore perfectly acceptable.

Fandaniel is a creature of habits. He is slow to change and steadfast in his opinions, and he upholds tested and established proceedures as reliable and preferable. He clings to his favored routines and behaviors with great tenacity, only allowing changes when he feels they're of benefit instead of simply trying something new for the sake of trying something new. It's hard to get him to do so if he doesn't want to, in fact, if something isn't the way he thinks it should be, he has an incredible amount of stubborn obstinance he can bring to bear to dig in his heels and make a situation wretchedly miserable until people finally see it his way - or stop trying to get him to do it their way, at any rate. It's very difficult to sway his point of view, and usually requires a lot of personal trust from Fandaniel himself. As he has few people he trusts in such a manner it doesn't happen often. Not even his fellow Ascians typically actually count for this. Spending eons with the exact same people has a way of making it easy to forget their good traits and amplify their bad, and the only one of his fellow Convocation members he can and will tolerate easily for long periods of time is Deudalaphon, whom he often shares duties with. It's Deudalaphon that keeps Fandaniel grounded more often than not, and keeps him from getting TOO attached to whatever mortal civilization he's supposed to be shepherding. It's also Deudalaphon that first brought to his mind the niggling doubt that Zodiark might ever want them to sacrifice all of Zodiark's own creations back to Him in trade for resurrecting the lost Ascians, as those aren't lives the Ascians own to give away to begin with, and giving a God His own life back somehow rings strange and hollow. Perhaps it won't be necessary, after all, once the worlds are all rejoined.

Although he had a hand in outright creating his God, Fandaniel is deeply devout and unwaveringly certain of Zodiark's divinity. On Zodiark, the will of the star and savior of life, he has based all of his beliefs, his faith, his morality and his purpose. He enjoys teaching others about Zodiark, and unless mightily inconvenienced in some fashion never fails to attend to daily prayer at the least. To him, Zodiark is a god of mercy and grace, and beneath the shadow of His sheltering wings does life thrive and all of reality churn on. It is by Zodiark's will that he protects life as best he can, and sometimes by necessity cull it too, to encourage growth and change and progress. A little pruning is always required, a bit of sacrifice to preserve the whole. Zodiark deals with life in broad strokes, and so tries Fandaniel, but frequently he gets bogged down on the individual level; he tries to see it all on a planetary scale, the great orchestra of life and what must be done to see it all reunified and perfect again, but while he knows it's true and right he struggles to get beyond the local. But he does his best, and when called to serve directly, he does not waver when it comes to torture, crippling, mutilations and murder with the only hesitation being on how to carry out his God's will as swiftly and effectively as possible.

Sometimes sacrifices must be made.


Key themes: Protection, Guardianship, Devotion To A Higher Being, Grumpiness

Main Motivation: See to it that the mortal races and species actually survive long enough to see a full Rejoining.

Skills: While in theory Fandaniel's power is vast and only limited by the amount of aether he has, these days he's rather limited - and entirely because he thinks he is. He is capable of using creation magic in countless small ways, such as conjuring clothing, utensils, simple weapons or if he tried particularly hard a kitten, but as he believes being a fractured soul has broken his ability to use his native power properly, it no longer works the way it should. So long as doubt remains, those limits remain. He favors creation of plant life, as broadly that remains 'unaffected', though if that plant is of the more mobile aware seedkin, this tends to go .. poorly. Like all Ascians he's well versed in Summoning, though he's reluctant to try it without dire circumstances as the right crystals are perishingly rare out of his universe and thus it would drain his own aether.. and he's used to such things requiring a life-price be paid. He is functionally immortal; while it's POSSIBLE to destroy him completely with enough raw energy, there are at least eight more shards of him out there that can be reawakened and become a new Fandaniel, ordinary death of the body doesn't really do much to him. It just knocks him back into a state of pure aether, forcing him to look for a body to steal. If he can't find one, he, like all life Zodiark managed to preserve in those last few moments, is forced into the altered lifestream to reincarnate as a new individual. As infants simply don't have the mental capacity to retain thousands of years of memories, this causes him to start basically from scratch - unless one of the unsundered Ascians can locate him and reawaken those memories.

If he CAN find a body to steal, however, Fandaniel's takeover is complete and generally permanent; whoever or whatever the original personality and memories were, they are gone forever, and Fandaniel's all that remains. He's capable of reshaping this stolen body to better suit his aesthetic interests. Too much body hopping in too short a time can literally drive an Ascian insane, however, so he doesn't indulge very often if he can avoid it, and tends to take meticulous care of any vessel he happens to have at the time. He can possess a fresh corpse as well, which returns it to physical life immediately and repairs the damage that had killed it to begin with; as this method doesn't require repressing someone else's soul or mind, he generally prefers finding a corpse instead of a living body but will make do with anything in a pinch.

This will not be used on players.

By way of magic, Fandaniel heavily relies on illusions and defensive power, creating shields, barriers and even aetherial cages to restrain enemies or protect allies. He can combine parts of this with creation magics, allowing him to use entangling vines as those cages and barriers instead, though this tends to leave odd looking plants and hedges everywhere. He can teleport from point to point as easily as breathing, though anything that repulses darkness type magics will also prevent him from coming and going as he pleases. (And for purposes of the train, anything plot requires.) He knows numerous small spells for healing and regeneration, enough to at least stabilize an injured person and prevent immediate death, though great healing or reattaching of limbs and such is beyond him. Like all of his bretheren tempered by Zodiark, his elemental affinity is primarily Dark, and he can use this affinity as his only true offensive spellcraft, able to briefly conjure dark-aspected lightning or blasts of pure shadow magic. This power is stronger when there's not much light around, and weaker the brighter it is. His illusions are just that - illusions. They can seem tangible for a short time, can be smelled, heard, felt and seen but won't hold up to any form of damage or prolonged physical contact. He utilizes them freely and regularly by way of bluff and intimidation, as his skillset currently isn't very beneficial to fighting on his own for long.

As the Echo is simply fragments of an Ascian's true power, technically Fandaniel possesses it, but by way of the usual list of skills it grants a user, he only seems to have an instinctive knowledge for understanding any written or spoken language he encounters, and an awareness of the ebb and flow of magic around him, allowing him to know what spells are being cast in his vicinity, their general strength, occasionally what the spell does if it's unfamiliar to him, and who's doing the casting.

Like all Ascians in his reality, Fandaniel is capable of hearing the voice of his God, the incarnation of Darkness and the planet's will, often during moments of prayer or meditation as guiding whispers towards what He desires. This, very broadly, is 'in the best interests of life as a whole', though very often it's not in the best interests of localized or individual life. What's good for the life on an entire planet might not be very good for a city or town or even entire nation or continent, after all. Zodiark never assigns a task that cannot be completed, and seems as devoted to the wellbeing of His people as they are to Him; if asked, He provides the best advice He can, though this can be painfully abstract. Zodiark is not omnicient, and incapable of directly reaching out into any world, but the connection is strong and remains still. Where Fandaniel goes, so too does Zodiark, after a fashion, the eyes and ears of an imprisoned god in a great wide universe. This is not, it should be noted, normal two way conversation; Fandaniel can't hold ongoing dialogue with Zodiark and also can't act as an intermediary for others to hear or perceive Zodiark unless they too are already tempered.

This can be used if desired for plot purposes, though Zodiark will never steer Fandaniel or any other tempered Ascian into direct harm without being certain they are aware of the potential sacrifice that is being asked of them.

Finally, Fandaniel is generally utterly immune to any and all attempts at mind control or mental manipulation. Due to the multiversal nature of the train and its inhabitants, this may not always be guaranteed.

Item: Nothin'.

Sample: Some here.

Notes: Anything that needs to be limited or nerfed can be pretty easily. So as not to cheapen out the buying of items in the train's shop, Fandaniel will not be creating ANYTHING AT ALL for people without mod permission, with the exception of fruits and veggies likely to already be on the train. ICly he simply won't want to waste the aether.