Kratos Aurion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
simulsimul) wrote2017-01-18 03:45 pm
simulsimul) wrote2017-01-18 03:45 pm
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tushanshu; cw for discussion of suicide
Player Information:
Name: Pur
Age/18+?: Indubitably
Contact: PM to journal
Other Characters Played: None now
Most Recent AC Link: Nope
Character Information:
Name: Kratos Aurion
Canon: Tales of Symphonia
Canon Point: After Colette’s rescue from Derris Kharlan, before opening the seal
Age: ~4000; appears 28
Type of Character: Canon
Reference: http://aselia.wikia.com/wiki/Kratos_Aurion
Setting Concepts:
Aselia is the name of the planet on which the canon takes place. Its residents include a varied range of life-forms, the most sapient of which are elves, dwarves, humans, half-elves and summon spirits.
Mana is the life-force of the planet, without which Aselia would be barren. It’s produced by the Great Seed of the world tree; in the past it was produced by the world tree, the Great Tree of Kharlan, before its death due to the Kharlan War. Mana is a form of magical energy, though ‘magic’ is never used in canon, and mana has been scientifically quantified. It can be used to perform artes (which are basically spells lbr), though usually only someone of elven blood can use it in such a way. Mana is inherent in all things, but is a finite resource. It is customarily separated into elemental alignments, though there are some mana-based artes which fall into no elemental category (healing being predominant).
The Kharlan War was a conflict which occurred four thousand years before canon, and at that stage had already been fought for a thousand years. At that time most of Aselia was ruled by two kingdoms, Tethe’alla and Sylvarant, whose warring with each other caused the planet’s mana to decline to the brink of extinction thanks to their use of magitechnology. To save the world, the planet was split in two dimensions, one containing Tethe’alla and one containing Sylvarant, with each unaware of the other. Their mana is regulated between the two like an hourglass in an effort to preserve what little is left, managed by an organisation called Cruxis.
The Four Seraphim are four heroes of the Kharlan War who realised the conflict was killing the Great Tree. They comprise of Martel and Mithos Yggdrasill, half-elven siblings, Yuan Ka-Fai, a half-elven commander of Sylvarant, and Kratos Aurion, a Tethe’allan knight. In the course of their journey to save the world, all four became angels, and thus immortal. They split the worlds in order to preserve the planet’s limited remaining mana, with intent to germinate the Great Seed; but Martel was killed before they could do so, and to save her life Mithos joined her soul with the Great Seed. The remaining three founded Cruxis, with Mithos as their leader.
Cruxis is the organisation of angels who ostensibly sustain the world for the goddess Martel. Their secret goal is to resurrect Martel by using a girl with matching mana as a host, though doing so will kill the Great Seed and thus doom both worlds. For four thousand years Cruxis has maintained control over both worlds using the Desians and the Church of Martel. Most angels in Cruxis are half-elves.
The Renegades is an organisation who fights Cruxis, also comprised mostly of half-elves. They primarily use infiltration tactics. Their primary goal is to prevent the resurrection of Martel and germinate the Great Seed so the worlds can be reunited. The Renegades were created by Yuan after he realised Mithos was going way, way off the rails.
Derris-Kharlan is an asteroid made of pure mana whose close orbit changed Aselia’s surface and allowed Aselia to begin producing life. It’s Cruxis’s seat of power and is currently moored to the planet.
Magitechnology is the powerful technology used during the Kharlan War, whose use fed directly off the mana sustaining the world. Magitech is essentially self-sustaining and can run for an unknown length of time (the Toize Valley Mine has automated mining equipment running for four thousand years). In limited quantities magitech is safe to use, but its overuse will result in taxing the planet’s mana resource.
Exspheres are inorganic crystal lifeforms which feed off the emotional life-force of sapient beings while providing extreme augmentation to the host’s body. It can also be attached to machines as a power source, though an exsphere used in this way will convert its inorganic host into an exsphere crystal structure if not properly maintained. In rare cases this can also occur to organic hosts. Cruxis crystals are an advanced form of exsphere which turns the host into an angel by granting them special snowflake powers using mana. Both forms of exsphere require limiting technology called a key-crest, which regulates the mana between host and crystal and dampens the exsphere’s negative effects. Without a key-crest, removing an exsphere will cause the host’s body to mutate into an unthinking and monstrous being, while a cruxis crystal without a key-crest will eventually turn the host into a lobotomised puppet, or ‘lifeless being’.
Aionis is a special mineral found only on Derris-Kharlan. When ingested (yes, apparently some people eat rocks) it grants a human the permanent ability to use elemental mana-based artes the way elves and half-elves can.
Summon spirits are physical embodiments of elemental mana or abstract concepts. Each of these spirits is bound by a physical seal at a physical location. The eight elemental summon spirits are used as tethers to protect the Great Seed and manage the mana flow between the two worlds, but the worlds are separated through the power of the summon spirit Origin, the lord of space and time. To split the world in two, Origin created for Mithos the Eternal Sword, which can only be used by a half-elven magical swordsman – since it was made specifically for Mithos, a half-elven magical swordsman. To make a pact with Origin, the person also needs the Eternal Ring; and while Origin does have a seal at a specific location, he is also sealed inside Kratos. In order for Origin’s seal to be unlocked, Kratos must either die or voluntarily release all his mana. Which results in death. Happy fun times.
Personality:
Kratos is, at his core, faithfulshut up Pur has a type, dutiful, and thoughtful. He can be simultaneously apathetic and forgiving, slow to move and relentless, ruthless and kind; he is nearly always opaque in his motives and words, but rarely ever manipulative, and far more honest than his secrecy implies. And he’s more than a little suicidal, but only under specific circumstances, for a few reasons which are as much to do with being Origin’s seal as his psychology.
Do you forgive anything someone does, no matter how horrible, just because he’s your friend?!
Being an angel himself, Kratos doesn’t have faith in a higher being or a mighty power; he’s seen too much war, and been too involved with the moulding of the planet, to buy into the Church’s propaganda about Martel – let alone anything else. His faith is a more subtle thing woven between other traits, and constitutes mostly a faith in people. Kratos in his heart wants to believe in the goodness of people. He wants to believe badly enough that he trusts Martel and Mithos when they claim the Tree is dying; he trusts that his king will do the right thing; he trusts that Mithos can and will save the world. Even after Mithos breaks his trust, over and over, Kratos finds the will to keep believing – even in Lloyd, knowing that Lloyd’s chosen path is not much different than the one Mithos had walked.
It’s this desire to believe which keeps Kratos going no matter what happens, even when the belief is directed at entirely the wrong people. It’s also this belief which creates a massive blind spot. When all Kratos has left is belief, he doesn’t dare turn his thoughtfulness on it, and as a result there’s a lot of thingsabout four thousand years’ worth to which he’s turned a willingly blind eye. Mithos was falling for a very long time before canon starts, and although there’s a lot Mithos kept from Kratos to avoid Kratos trying to stop him, there’s a lot that Kratos pretended he didn’t know, too. He outright turns off his hearing if he doesn’t want to hear it; he’s made a career of Not Noticing.
This is where his duty comes into play. Kratos was a trained knight, the romantic kind; dutiful to people rather than to law or king. Once he’s chosen something to protect, combined with the abovementioned desire to believe, he’s nearly impossible to uproot as a protector. When he was younger, it took feeling as though his king had betrayed his duty to the world to make him turn his back on his country; even then, everything that Kratos did was aimed toward saving it, just as he’d done as a knight. Later, he attends to his duties as Mithos’s teacher, Mithos’s general, and Mithos’s weapon with a steadfastness which turns into outright inertness. Kratos in his duty is solid and resolute, with a tendency to find a change of course difficult – even when it’s needed.
Feel the pain of those inferior beings as you burn in hell!
For all that, Kratos is not blindly unthinking. If anything, he thinks deeply, and contains it all inside. His passion is the slow-burning kind which emerges as a desire to teach and to guide – only very rarely to punish. It’s not that he doesn’t notice Mithos falling, because he does; but he made a promise to Martel to take care of Mithos, and he chooses to believe that his presence might help keep Mithos stable. There are times when he tries to mitigate Mithos’s crimes; for instance, Kratos is responsible for the creation of the android Tabatha, intended to house Martel’s soul in lieu of a living being. While travelling with Lloyd, Kratos spends a great deal of time teaching him in turn; pushing him to ask questions, to use his head, to deny unthinking acceptance of the status quo. Though Kratos often fails to act when he should, when he does, it is nearly always the right choice – he considers all avenues and all consequences before making a move, even one which is risky. If anything, the fact he does this means that his riskier moves are more likely to succeed.
Kratos notices things, even if he rarely airs them. He notices that Raine is afraid of water before the others; he notices Sheena following them before anyone else; he notices that Yuan is the leader of the Renegades long before canon even begins. The way Kratos engages with the world is insular, but academically curious and thorough. Though he’s no genius, when he engages with Raine and Genis it’s on their level, and throughout the game it seems as though he knows a bit of something about everything, to a point where mere age and experience aren’t a sufficient explanation. He’s gone looking. He’s clearly written books; he knows languages enough to teach them; he’s capable of repairing a machine from the Kharlan War, despite having been a knight and not an engineer. (Canon explicitly notes that this machine has been under research for years because no one has been able to fix it; inside of an afternoon Kratos comes in and repairs the thing.)
On a more general level, he keeps an open mind, and always has – he was the first to believe Martel and Mithos, even when their own people did not (looking at you, Yuan). When Lloyd looks forward to killing Magnius, a Desian leader, it is Kratos who points out that even taking the life of an enemy is still taking a life, and should be considered a burden. Regardless of who he faces and why, Kratos rarely seems to forget that a person is a person, even when he has to kill them. Unless it’s Kvar. Because fuck Kvar.
I defeated Kratos, the angel, who betrayed us. And I forgive Kratos, the hero of the Ancient War, who saved us.
Kratos has a duality to him, thanks to his epic levels of impassiveness contrast with his gooey centre. Though he seems to turn easily away from those in need, he also doesn’t begrudge the more idealistic of the group their ability to see hope. He may not be able to see hope for himself anymore, but he can still see hope for the world; and there’s a lot enacted against him which he forgives on the merit of saving that world. (Yuan earnestly tries to kill him at least twice just in the course of the game, and Kratos doesn’t even get angry. They have a special relationship.) Although Kratos can get stuck in one course of action for too long, once he’s chosen his course he is relentless in its pursuit. Once the decision is made to destroy the Asgard ranch, he pursues Kvar with a single-mindedness even the others notice; once he’s made the choice to deliver the Eternal Sword to Lloyd, he does not stop in his quest to forge the Eternal Ring, even when Mithos destroys the village of Ozette in an attempt to stop him.
When Kratos raises his sword, he doesn’t hesitate, not even against the Desians who are supposed to be his own subordinates; most people who recognise him, recognise him with fear, if not respect. His outward ruthlessness approaches the point where Renegade footsoldiers believe he would let Lloyd die rather than allow Yuan to use Lloyd against him. Yet for all his apparent ruthlessness, it’s commented often by party-members that Kratos is gentler than he appears in face and bearing. While this is usually noted with regard to Lloyd, Kratos does offer to teach Genis angelic (despite how suspicious it is that he knows the language); he does try to help Colette’s transformation into an angel with advice (‘If you can’t sleep, you should count stars. There’s more than can be counted in a human’s lifetime.’); and he does his level best to salve Raine’s pride in cooking by being tactful (and ultimately failing by having to use First Aid on himself, but he tries.)
Over his many years Kratos has learned to be equanimous no matter the situation, a fact which makes him hard to judge. Even though he spends half of canon apparently opposed to the main group, in reality he never stops working with them. He’s just truly terrible at actually communicating his intent, and not only because he’s trying to maintain plausible deniability; even after all gloves are off and Mithos knows he’s in the process of a betrayal, Kratos neglects to sit down with Lloyd and explain what he’s doing and why. That being said, he never outright manipulates the group into doing things for him; when he makes requests, he makes them honestly, even though he rarely explains his reasons. During the first leg of the game, before he reveals he’s an angel, it’s astounding how much he doesn’t lie about his past and his feelings – even while never revealing the full truth.
I thought I’d finally earned the right to die … but you’re as soft-hearted as ever.
Despite everything, Kratos is actually pretty stable. He knows who he is and while he has epic amounts of remorse about the blood on his hands and his choices of inaction, he doesn’t generally let guilt trick him into making stupid decisions. In fact, he’s usually the one counselling Lloyd on how to handle his own without letting it get the best of him. His sense of duty keeps him generally straight, in as far as not throwing his life away for no reason; though at this canonpoint he does have an intent to die.
We don’t know a great many details about how Kratos became Origin’s seal, but given his sense of duty and the fact that Mithos was his apprentice, it’s almost certain that he volunteered. Kratos doesn’t hesitate to invest his life in action, even if it means he’ll lose it. That being said, even though he’s sticking it out, their plans were never meant to run this long; he’s very tired, and at this point sees death more as a reward for seeing out his duty than an end to be avoided. Given the circumstances, it’s unlikely that Kratos hasn’t tried to kill himself in the past – there have been a few times where he’s tried to walk away and failed, regardless of what ‘walking away’ might have entailed. (‘It seems I’ve failed to die once more’ is an actual piece of dialogue, but aside from opening Origin’s seal, he doesn’t try to die throughout the game; so he must have tried at some point prior.)
Mostly, Kratos holds no hope left for himself. He doesn’t mind dying, since he’s lived for quite a while and for a long time all he’s ever wanted was to see the worlds reunited and stable; it doesn’t matter what happens to him, if that can be achieved. On the flipside, he is not beyond the desire to live. Though he isn’t quite there yet at this canonpoint, when Yuan saves him from dying due to opening the seal and Lloyd points out that the future is bright with the changes he can make, Kratos does listen. He wants to die because he can no longer see a future for himself, or see himself as anything other than a roadblock to Lloyd’s happiness; but he is willing to live, in the hope of developing such a future.
In Tushan, the circumstances in which Kratos’s death would be helpful aren’t applicable. He can’t access Origin’s seal from Keeliai, and there’s no point in throwing his life away if it isn’t going to matter; so he probably won’t have too many problems with suicidal tendencies, besides his utter lack of regard for himself as anything other than a tool.
Appearance: Mercenary outfit, angel outfit, and wings.
He’s probably not wearing exactly those clothes when he comes in; the game has an equipment mechanic, but doesn’t change the outfit accordingly. He’ll be coming in with his angel armour.
Abilities: WELL
Magical swordsman powers
Kratos is one of the special snowflake humans who ate a rock sometime in his past. As such, he can use spells for certain elements, but only up to a second-tier level (out of three tiers). His elemental affiliations are lightning, earth, fire and wind, though this is probably the same for all magical swordsmen, as Zelos’s spells are in the same elements.
Gameplay-wise, artes are usually split into two branches, Strike and Technical, and the player can only choose one or the other; however, Kratos in his AI battles displays the use of artes from both sides, so he’s not limited to that. For some reason. Since he’s so butt-old, I generally assume he can use all the artes he’s capable of learning in the game, regardless of branch.
His full arte list is here, but going by AI he does favour some artes over others, so I’ll be detailing those below. His elemental predilections favour lightning and earth the most, and the faster low-tier attacks he can chain as a combo (the bastard).
Special attacks
Demon Fang (long-range shockwave)
Double Demon Fang (long-range shockwave)
Fierce Demon Fang (short-range shockwave SERIOUSLY HE USES THEM BOTH THEY ARE MEANT TO BE OPPOSED, KRATOS)
Light Spear (short-range aerial which lifts enemy)
Lightning Blade (elemental; adds lightning to a thrust)
Guardian (defensive shield)
Super Lightning Blade (elemental; adds lightning + shockwave to a thrust)
As per app restrictions:
- Grave: Area of effect restricted to a 30ft radius;
- The Demon Fang artes can be used a combined total of 6 times a day, i.e. Demon Fang can be used 6 times per day, or Double Demon Fang and Fierce Demon Fang can be used 3 times each per day;
- Judgement can only be used 2 times a day.
Spells
First Aid (basic healing to one person)
Grave (second-tier earth spell; creates jutting stones which crushing the enemy)
Judgement (massive beams of light ALL OVER THE FIELD)
Angelic powers
Kratos has a cruxis crystal, which means he gets all the augments of an exsphere and then some. He’s a sparklebutt angelthis is totally a technical term, as opposed to a featherbutt, which means that he’s got better control of his mana than most half-elven angels; wings during the initial transformation are made of pure mana, but can settle into a permanently physical form due to a lack of mana control on the part of the host. Kratos has maintained the pure mana state.
Angelic powers can generally be allotted in two categories: augments to organic capabilities (like speed and strength) and the addition of powers caused by the crystal’s inorganic nature (like telepathy).
Mundane augments
As a seraph Kratos has heightened speed, strength and senses, which is just what it says on the tin; eyesight and hearing are specifically mentioned in-game as being extremely acute for an angel, and given some of Kratos’s quick response times, his reactions and defensive instincts are also augmented.
He can sense mana, since magic-use and mana-sense tend to go hand in hand, and it’s unlikely he could maintain the control necessary for sparklebutt wings if he couldn’t sense it. This doesn’t constitute being able to read emotions or anything of the like; just that he has a sense of lifefulness, or lack thereof.
The cruxis crystals also augment the body’s natural healing ability, to the point where angels are extremely difficult to kill, and can take copious amounts of damage without the benefit of healing artes. Kratos seems to be especially good at self-regeneration, since his Personal exsphere skill is for passive self-regeneration on the battlefield, as long as he's not taking any other actions; none of the other angel characters, protagonist or antagonist, have a similar non-activated self-healing mechanic.
Canon never tests how far angelic fortitude can be taken; Martel’s physical body is killed despite being an angel, but Mithos only truly dies when his cruxis crystal is broken, and Martel gets sort-of resurrected due to her crystal having been maintained by the Seed. Mostly I assume that, short of complete immolation or decapitation, an angel can theoretically survive long enough to be healed provided their cruxis crystal isn’t damaged; but since Kratos witnessed Martel being stabbed, he’s not about to test the nuance of that theory.
Kratos’s natural elemental resistances are light and lightning, thanks to the cruxis crystal; he doesn’t have any inherent elemental weaknesses.
Inorganic augments
In the course of transforming into an angel, the host loses most basic human needs. Angels don’t need to sleep, don’t need to eat, don’t feel pain, heat or cold; they don’t even need to breathe. They also develop telepathy, which non-angels can receive but not reciprocate. Angels are capable of living unharmed in a vacuum.
Once the transformation is over, sparklebutt angels able to turn all of these senses on and off at will, and to scaling degrees – Kratos in particular canonically has a habit of scaling or turning off his hearing entirely in order to avoid hearing things he doesn’t want to overhear.
Flight is also a thing, though there’s two ways this can happen. One is just ordinary flight with wings, but the other is akin to teleportation. Since angels are light-aligned beings, and they vanish into light as they teleport, it’s probably a light-speed type of flight. (For obvious reasons, Kratos won’t be able to use either to go past the constraints of the turtle.)
By implication, cruxis crystals can also encode knowledge – specifically angelic artes, but probably including things such as language. Colette learns angelic artes just by wearing the crystal and having the next stage of her transformation activated, without anyone explicitly training her, so there must be knowledge bestowed directly by the crystal. Lifeless angels on Welgaia display evidence of using their minds like a computer; one angel states they have removed all knowledge of Lloyd’s group from their thoughts in order to avoid interfering with their telepathic communications.
Origin seal
Kratos has a unique relationship with the summon spirit Origin and, by extension, the Eternal Sword. Kratos isn’t a summoner, and so can’t summon Origin himself; and it’s debateable whether he can communicate with him, though he visits the unmoving location of the seal regularly. Origin’s seal can only be opened if Kratos is killed or he willingly expels all his mana at at the unmoving seal, which has a 99% chance of him dying as a result.
In Tushan, he won’t be able to communicate with Origin or voluntarily unlock the seal, but the seal will remain present in him, with all of the following effects. Most of the effects the seal has on him are canon-supported extrapolation, but aside from the above, canon never outright tells us the seal's constraints. Onward!
Origin’s seal gives Kratos an insanely powerful survival instinct, to the point where he will react violently if he (or the seal) feels threatened. The game shows this in the numerous instances where Kratos pulls his sword and attacks in response to someone pulling their sword first while in the same breath declaring a lack of desire to fight, or otherwise reacts violently just to someone standing behind him. Additionally, there’s a point in the game where the logical option to achieving his own goals would be to let someone kill him, and Kratos doesn’t, despite explicitly stating that he wants to die.
The effect seems to be scaled depending on how often Kratos has been threatened and by whom – Yuan is able to stand behind him just fine up until a certain point in the game, so Kratos/the seal still recognise Yuan as friend despite their estrangement; whereas Lloyd gets a blade in his face just because he walks up behind him.
This survival instinct also means he can’t kill himself, since, as stated, he wants to die; if he could have made that happen by now to help stop Mithos, he would have.
Entirely mundane abilities
Being four thousand years old and having been directly involved in literally shaping both worlds, Kratos is pretty worldly. In the past he wanted to be an actor, and he still has a love for language and a desire to pass on history. He’s the initial narrator for the game, and there’s a book you can discover where he blames the translator for the book’s use of big words – implying that he was the one who wrote the original. He also volunteers to help Genis learn angelic, despite the fact that doing so is suspicious given the cover he’s maintaining at the time.
He’s a teacher in every sense of the word, not only by circumstance; Mithos was his apprentice and Lloyd later becomes so as well, and both are accomplished swordsmen. As mentioned, Kratos helps teach Genis in angelic, and when the group takes a test at a university, Kratos makes no objection to performing in the test (receiving a score of 380 out of 400; third to Genis and Raine, who both get 400).
It’s probable that he helped develop angelic. Given his history, he knows every living language still used on Aselia, and some of the dead ones; which is only mildly helpful given that no one from Earth will recognise them.
He’s an astronomer. When Colette stops being able to sleep, Kratos recommends counting stars to pass the time, and there’s a line in supplemental material which suggests he uses the stars to keep track of Cruxis’s victims. He was likely born into aristocracy, so he’s got a good knowledge of politics and diplomacy; when Martel and Mithos tried to get an audience with the Tethe’allan king, he’s the one who taught them how to act and what to wear to better their chances of being heard.
Kratos has a comprehensive knowledge of battle tactics. He was a knight, then an angelic commander, and there’s numerous times throughout the game when his AI is terrifyingly good despite the early levels and lack of available buffs. Story-wise, he’s the one who advises on the party’s battle plans. When he’s a member of the party and not politely betraying them, anyway.
His poker face is nearly impenetrable, to the point that even Yuan, who has known him for four thousand years, can’t be completely sure whose side he’s really on until late-game. The only time Kratos gets angry during the game is right after being confronted by the man responsible for the death of his wife, and said man taunts him with it. To his face. Other than that, he’s Mr McStoicy Stoiciton. Generally, he acts as though there’s nothing he doesn’t know, which is equal parts faking it and actually knowing a shit-ton.
Inventory:
- Some under-armour clothes, boots, etc
- Cruxis crystal and key-crest (worn over his glove)
- Flamberge, his sword (deals fire damage)
- Arredoval, his shield (resistant to magic; we’re never told what Kratos’s shield is made of, but canon outright states that polycarbonate developed during the Kharlan War is heavily resistant to magic, so it’s probable that at least some of Kratos’s angelic gear is made from it)
- Brunnhilde, his armour (see Arredoval’s note above)
- Sigurd, his helm (again see note on armour)
- Faerie Ring (halves the amount of mana needed to perform an arte)
- Thunder Cape (increases defence, evasion, and resistances to wind and lightning)
- Some gald.
Soul Gem: Necklace.
Writing Samples:
Third Person: Torent Forest was calm tonight. It was the kind of stillness of the world holding its breath; the awareness that something was going to happen. Some inhabitants of the forest were smarter than others. It wasn’t the first time Kratos had come to visit.
It was the first time he’d stayed, and waited. The forest noticed.
The stars were out, and visible from the clearing, shining like dewdrops against the vast swath of night. Kratos looked silently up at them, unbreathing, his hands resting on the sheathed sword across his lap. It was a pity he’d never get to see them any closer.
He was seated up against the tablet marking Origin’s seal; it looked like a ruin, understated and innocuous, compared to the seals for the other summon spirits. Even still, the power of that seal beat against his back, and arced through him in an unseen line toward the Tower of Salvation. It was a cord he’d never been able to break.
Soon.
Surely Lloyd couldn’t be much longer. Accounting for time to travel, regroup, take stock, discuss the situation until it became clear there was no other way – it had been a few days. Surely Lloyd didn’t need more than a few days to decide that Kratos had to die. Kratos was, after all, a traitor.
So was Zelos, and he left with them.
That was a chilling thought. What if Lloyd decided, despite everything Kratos had done and said, that Kratos deserved a second chance? He’d doom the world.
Kratos rested his head against the tablet and shut off his sight, his hearing; shut off all his senses until all that was left was his sense of mana and the thrum of the seal within him. The other spirits had been aware, in some measure, of what occurred while they slumbered. Was Origin?
Do you realise how close we are to the end, my old captive? My old jailer?
There was no unusual movement through the forest, no familiar mana-signatures seeking the path. Nothing but the ordinary, the beasts too dumb to realise what might be happening. It was late. Lloyd wouldn’t arrive this night.
Kratos had been waiting for a very long time to die.
He could stand to wait a little longer.
Network: [The man in the video sits with his back straight, arms crossed and face alarmingly impassive, eyes half shaded by his bangs so it’s difficult to tell what’s in them. He’s openly wearing a sword and some top-notch filigreed armour, with a thrown-back cape and a shield on his back. Is that … is that plastic? The shield looks plastic.]
My name is Kratos Aurion. I’m a blade for hire with a specialty in bodyguarding and escort missions. I don’t kill for money. If you require such services, contact me at this location. I’ll be waiting here for the rest of the day.
[There is an attached console location for the café he’s in.]
Name: Pur
Age/18+?: Indubitably
Contact: PM to journal
Other Characters Played: None now
Most Recent AC Link: Nope
Character Information:
Name: Kratos Aurion
Canon: Tales of Symphonia
Canon Point: After Colette’s rescue from Derris Kharlan, before opening the seal
Age: ~4000; appears 28
Type of Character: Canon
Reference: http://aselia.wikia.com/wiki/Kratos_Aurion
Setting Concepts:
Aselia is the name of the planet on which the canon takes place. Its residents include a varied range of life-forms, the most sapient of which are elves, dwarves, humans, half-elves and summon spirits.
Mana is the life-force of the planet, without which Aselia would be barren. It’s produced by the Great Seed of the world tree; in the past it was produced by the world tree, the Great Tree of Kharlan, before its death due to the Kharlan War. Mana is a form of magical energy, though ‘magic’ is never used in canon, and mana has been scientifically quantified. It can be used to perform artes (which are basically spells lbr), though usually only someone of elven blood can use it in such a way. Mana is inherent in all things, but is a finite resource. It is customarily separated into elemental alignments, though there are some mana-based artes which fall into no elemental category (healing being predominant).
The Kharlan War was a conflict which occurred four thousand years before canon, and at that stage had already been fought for a thousand years. At that time most of Aselia was ruled by two kingdoms, Tethe’alla and Sylvarant, whose warring with each other caused the planet’s mana to decline to the brink of extinction thanks to their use of magitechnology. To save the world, the planet was split in two dimensions, one containing Tethe’alla and one containing Sylvarant, with each unaware of the other. Their mana is regulated between the two like an hourglass in an effort to preserve what little is left, managed by an organisation called Cruxis.
The Four Seraphim are four heroes of the Kharlan War who realised the conflict was killing the Great Tree. They comprise of Martel and Mithos Yggdrasill, half-elven siblings, Yuan Ka-Fai, a half-elven commander of Sylvarant, and Kratos Aurion, a Tethe’allan knight. In the course of their journey to save the world, all four became angels, and thus immortal. They split the worlds in order to preserve the planet’s limited remaining mana, with intent to germinate the Great Seed; but Martel was killed before they could do so, and to save her life Mithos joined her soul with the Great Seed. The remaining three founded Cruxis, with Mithos as their leader.
Cruxis is the organisation of angels who ostensibly sustain the world for the goddess Martel. Their secret goal is to resurrect Martel by using a girl with matching mana as a host, though doing so will kill the Great Seed and thus doom both worlds. For four thousand years Cruxis has maintained control over both worlds using the Desians and the Church of Martel. Most angels in Cruxis are half-elves.
The Renegades is an organisation who fights Cruxis, also comprised mostly of half-elves. They primarily use infiltration tactics. Their primary goal is to prevent the resurrection of Martel and germinate the Great Seed so the worlds can be reunited. The Renegades were created by Yuan after he realised Mithos was going way, way off the rails.
Derris-Kharlan is an asteroid made of pure mana whose close orbit changed Aselia’s surface and allowed Aselia to begin producing life. It’s Cruxis’s seat of power and is currently moored to the planet.
Magitechnology is the powerful technology used during the Kharlan War, whose use fed directly off the mana sustaining the world. Magitech is essentially self-sustaining and can run for an unknown length of time (the Toize Valley Mine has automated mining equipment running for four thousand years). In limited quantities magitech is safe to use, but its overuse will result in taxing the planet’s mana resource.
Exspheres are inorganic crystal lifeforms which feed off the emotional life-force of sapient beings while providing extreme augmentation to the host’s body. It can also be attached to machines as a power source, though an exsphere used in this way will convert its inorganic host into an exsphere crystal structure if not properly maintained. In rare cases this can also occur to organic hosts. Cruxis crystals are an advanced form of exsphere which turns the host into an angel by granting them special snowflake powers using mana. Both forms of exsphere require limiting technology called a key-crest, which regulates the mana between host and crystal and dampens the exsphere’s negative effects. Without a key-crest, removing an exsphere will cause the host’s body to mutate into an unthinking and monstrous being, while a cruxis crystal without a key-crest will eventually turn the host into a lobotomised puppet, or ‘lifeless being’.
Aionis is a special mineral found only on Derris-Kharlan. When ingested (yes, apparently some people eat rocks) it grants a human the permanent ability to use elemental mana-based artes the way elves and half-elves can.
Summon spirits are physical embodiments of elemental mana or abstract concepts. Each of these spirits is bound by a physical seal at a physical location. The eight elemental summon spirits are used as tethers to protect the Great Seed and manage the mana flow between the two worlds, but the worlds are separated through the power of the summon spirit Origin, the lord of space and time. To split the world in two, Origin created for Mithos the Eternal Sword, which can only be used by a half-elven magical swordsman – since it was made specifically for Mithos, a half-elven magical swordsman. To make a pact with Origin, the person also needs the Eternal Ring; and while Origin does have a seal at a specific location, he is also sealed inside Kratos. In order for Origin’s seal to be unlocked, Kratos must either die or voluntarily release all his mana. Which results in death. Happy fun times.
Personality:
Kratos is, at his core, faithful
Being an angel himself, Kratos doesn’t have faith in a higher being or a mighty power; he’s seen too much war, and been too involved with the moulding of the planet, to buy into the Church’s propaganda about Martel – let alone anything else. His faith is a more subtle thing woven between other traits, and constitutes mostly a faith in people. Kratos in his heart wants to believe in the goodness of people. He wants to believe badly enough that he trusts Martel and Mithos when they claim the Tree is dying; he trusts that his king will do the right thing; he trusts that Mithos can and will save the world. Even after Mithos breaks his trust, over and over, Kratos finds the will to keep believing – even in Lloyd, knowing that Lloyd’s chosen path is not much different than the one Mithos had walked.
It’s this desire to believe which keeps Kratos going no matter what happens, even when the belief is directed at entirely the wrong people. It’s also this belief which creates a massive blind spot. When all Kratos has left is belief, he doesn’t dare turn his thoughtfulness on it, and as a result there’s a lot of things
This is where his duty comes into play. Kratos was a trained knight, the romantic kind; dutiful to people rather than to law or king. Once he’s chosen something to protect, combined with the abovementioned desire to believe, he’s nearly impossible to uproot as a protector. When he was younger, it took feeling as though his king had betrayed his duty to the world to make him turn his back on his country; even then, everything that Kratos did was aimed toward saving it, just as he’d done as a knight. Later, he attends to his duties as Mithos’s teacher, Mithos’s general, and Mithos’s weapon with a steadfastness which turns into outright inertness. Kratos in his duty is solid and resolute, with a tendency to find a change of course difficult – even when it’s needed.
For all that, Kratos is not blindly unthinking. If anything, he thinks deeply, and contains it all inside. His passion is the slow-burning kind which emerges as a desire to teach and to guide – only very rarely to punish. It’s not that he doesn’t notice Mithos falling, because he does; but he made a promise to Martel to take care of Mithos, and he chooses to believe that his presence might help keep Mithos stable. There are times when he tries to mitigate Mithos’s crimes; for instance, Kratos is responsible for the creation of the android Tabatha, intended to house Martel’s soul in lieu of a living being. While travelling with Lloyd, Kratos spends a great deal of time teaching him in turn; pushing him to ask questions, to use his head, to deny unthinking acceptance of the status quo. Though Kratos often fails to act when he should, when he does, it is nearly always the right choice – he considers all avenues and all consequences before making a move, even one which is risky. If anything, the fact he does this means that his riskier moves are more likely to succeed.
Kratos notices things, even if he rarely airs them. He notices that Raine is afraid of water before the others; he notices Sheena following them before anyone else; he notices that Yuan is the leader of the Renegades long before canon even begins. The way Kratos engages with the world is insular, but academically curious and thorough. Though he’s no genius, when he engages with Raine and Genis it’s on their level, and throughout the game it seems as though he knows a bit of something about everything, to a point where mere age and experience aren’t a sufficient explanation. He’s gone looking. He’s clearly written books; he knows languages enough to teach them; he’s capable of repairing a machine from the Kharlan War, despite having been a knight and not an engineer. (Canon explicitly notes that this machine has been under research for years because no one has been able to fix it; inside of an afternoon Kratos comes in and repairs the thing.)
On a more general level, he keeps an open mind, and always has – he was the first to believe Martel and Mithos, even when their own people did not (looking at you, Yuan). When Lloyd looks forward to killing Magnius, a Desian leader, it is Kratos who points out that even taking the life of an enemy is still taking a life, and should be considered a burden. Regardless of who he faces and why, Kratos rarely seems to forget that a person is a person, even when he has to kill them. Unless it’s Kvar. Because fuck Kvar.
Kratos has a duality to him, thanks to his epic levels of impassiveness contrast with his gooey centre. Though he seems to turn easily away from those in need, he also doesn’t begrudge the more idealistic of the group their ability to see hope. He may not be able to see hope for himself anymore, but he can still see hope for the world; and there’s a lot enacted against him which he forgives on the merit of saving that world. (Yuan earnestly tries to kill him at least twice just in the course of the game, and Kratos doesn’t even get angry. They have a special relationship.) Although Kratos can get stuck in one course of action for too long, once he’s chosen his course he is relentless in its pursuit. Once the decision is made to destroy the Asgard ranch, he pursues Kvar with a single-mindedness even the others notice; once he’s made the choice to deliver the Eternal Sword to Lloyd, he does not stop in his quest to forge the Eternal Ring, even when Mithos destroys the village of Ozette in an attempt to stop him.
When Kratos raises his sword, he doesn’t hesitate, not even against the Desians who are supposed to be his own subordinates; most people who recognise him, recognise him with fear, if not respect. His outward ruthlessness approaches the point where Renegade footsoldiers believe he would let Lloyd die rather than allow Yuan to use Lloyd against him. Yet for all his apparent ruthlessness, it’s commented often by party-members that Kratos is gentler than he appears in face and bearing. While this is usually noted with regard to Lloyd, Kratos does offer to teach Genis angelic (despite how suspicious it is that he knows the language); he does try to help Colette’s transformation into an angel with advice (‘If you can’t sleep, you should count stars. There’s more than can be counted in a human’s lifetime.’); and he does his level best to salve Raine’s pride in cooking by being tactful (and ultimately failing by having to use First Aid on himself, but he tries.)
Over his many years Kratos has learned to be equanimous no matter the situation, a fact which makes him hard to judge. Even though he spends half of canon apparently opposed to the main group, in reality he never stops working with them. He’s just truly terrible at actually communicating his intent, and not only because he’s trying to maintain plausible deniability; even after all gloves are off and Mithos knows he’s in the process of a betrayal, Kratos neglects to sit down with Lloyd and explain what he’s doing and why. That being said, he never outright manipulates the group into doing things for him; when he makes requests, he makes them honestly, even though he rarely explains his reasons. During the first leg of the game, before he reveals he’s an angel, it’s astounding how much he doesn’t lie about his past and his feelings – even while never revealing the full truth.
Despite everything, Kratos is actually pretty stable. He knows who he is and while he has epic amounts of remorse about the blood on his hands and his choices of inaction, he doesn’t generally let guilt trick him into making stupid decisions. In fact, he’s usually the one counselling Lloyd on how to handle his own without letting it get the best of him. His sense of duty keeps him generally straight, in as far as not throwing his life away for no reason; though at this canonpoint he does have an intent to die.
We don’t know a great many details about how Kratos became Origin’s seal, but given his sense of duty and the fact that Mithos was his apprentice, it’s almost certain that he volunteered. Kratos doesn’t hesitate to invest his life in action, even if it means he’ll lose it. That being said, even though he’s sticking it out, their plans were never meant to run this long; he’s very tired, and at this point sees death more as a reward for seeing out his duty than an end to be avoided. Given the circumstances, it’s unlikely that Kratos hasn’t tried to kill himself in the past – there have been a few times where he’s tried to walk away and failed, regardless of what ‘walking away’ might have entailed. (‘It seems I’ve failed to die once more’ is an actual piece of dialogue, but aside from opening Origin’s seal, he doesn’t try to die throughout the game; so he must have tried at some point prior.)
Mostly, Kratos holds no hope left for himself. He doesn’t mind dying, since he’s lived for quite a while and for a long time all he’s ever wanted was to see the worlds reunited and stable; it doesn’t matter what happens to him, if that can be achieved. On the flipside, he is not beyond the desire to live. Though he isn’t quite there yet at this canonpoint, when Yuan saves him from dying due to opening the seal and Lloyd points out that the future is bright with the changes he can make, Kratos does listen. He wants to die because he can no longer see a future for himself, or see himself as anything other than a roadblock to Lloyd’s happiness; but he is willing to live, in the hope of developing such a future.
In Tushan, the circumstances in which Kratos’s death would be helpful aren’t applicable. He can’t access Origin’s seal from Keeliai, and there’s no point in throwing his life away if it isn’t going to matter; so he probably won’t have too many problems with suicidal tendencies, besides his utter lack of regard for himself as anything other than a tool.
Appearance: Mercenary outfit, angel outfit, and wings.
He’s probably not wearing exactly those clothes when he comes in; the game has an equipment mechanic, but doesn’t change the outfit accordingly. He’ll be coming in with his angel armour.
Abilities: WELL
Magical swordsman powers
Kratos is one of the special snowflake humans who ate a rock sometime in his past. As such, he can use spells for certain elements, but only up to a second-tier level (out of three tiers). His elemental affiliations are lightning, earth, fire and wind, though this is probably the same for all magical swordsmen, as Zelos’s spells are in the same elements.
Gameplay-wise, artes are usually split into two branches, Strike and Technical, and the player can only choose one or the other; however, Kratos in his AI battles displays the use of artes from both sides, so he’s not limited to that. For some reason. Since he’s so butt-old, I generally assume he can use all the artes he’s capable of learning in the game, regardless of branch.
His full arte list is here, but going by AI he does favour some artes over others, so I’ll be detailing those below. His elemental predilections favour lightning and earth the most, and the faster low-tier attacks he can chain as a combo (the bastard).
Special attacks
Demon Fang (long-range shockwave)
Double Demon Fang (long-range shockwave)
Fierce Demon Fang (short-range shockwave SERIOUSLY HE USES THEM BOTH THEY ARE MEANT TO BE OPPOSED, KRATOS)
Light Spear (short-range aerial which lifts enemy)
Lightning Blade (elemental; adds lightning to a thrust)
Guardian (defensive shield)
Super Lightning Blade (elemental; adds lightning + shockwave to a thrust)
As per app restrictions:
- Grave: Area of effect restricted to a 30ft radius;
- The Demon Fang artes can be used a combined total of 6 times a day, i.e. Demon Fang can be used 6 times per day, or Double Demon Fang and Fierce Demon Fang can be used 3 times each per day;
- Judgement can only be used 2 times a day.
Spells
First Aid (basic healing to one person)
Grave (second-tier earth spell; creates jutting stones which crushing the enemy)
Judgement (massive beams of light ALL OVER THE FIELD)
Angelic powers
Kratos has a cruxis crystal, which means he gets all the augments of an exsphere and then some. He’s a sparklebutt angel
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Angelic powers can generally be allotted in two categories: augments to organic capabilities (like speed and strength) and the addition of powers caused by the crystal’s inorganic nature (like telepathy).
Mundane augments
As a seraph Kratos has heightened speed, strength and senses, which is just what it says on the tin; eyesight and hearing are specifically mentioned in-game as being extremely acute for an angel, and given some of Kratos’s quick response times, his reactions and defensive instincts are also augmented.
He can sense mana, since magic-use and mana-sense tend to go hand in hand, and it’s unlikely he could maintain the control necessary for sparklebutt wings if he couldn’t sense it. This doesn’t constitute being able to read emotions or anything of the like; just that he has a sense of lifefulness, or lack thereof.
The cruxis crystals also augment the body’s natural healing ability, to the point where angels are extremely difficult to kill, and can take copious amounts of damage without the benefit of healing artes. Kratos seems to be especially good at self-regeneration, since his Personal exsphere skill is for passive self-regeneration on the battlefield, as long as he's not taking any other actions; none of the other angel characters, protagonist or antagonist, have a similar non-activated self-healing mechanic.
Canon never tests how far angelic fortitude can be taken; Martel’s physical body is killed despite being an angel, but Mithos only truly dies when his cruxis crystal is broken, and Martel gets sort-of resurrected due to her crystal having been maintained by the Seed. Mostly I assume that, short of complete immolation or decapitation, an angel can theoretically survive long enough to be healed provided their cruxis crystal isn’t damaged; but since Kratos witnessed Martel being stabbed, he’s not about to test the nuance of that theory.
Kratos’s natural elemental resistances are light and lightning, thanks to the cruxis crystal; he doesn’t have any inherent elemental weaknesses.
Inorganic augments
In the course of transforming into an angel, the host loses most basic human needs. Angels don’t need to sleep, don’t need to eat, don’t feel pain, heat or cold; they don’t even need to breathe. They also develop telepathy, which non-angels can receive but not reciprocate. Angels are capable of living unharmed in a vacuum.
Once the transformation is over, sparklebutt angels able to turn all of these senses on and off at will, and to scaling degrees – Kratos in particular canonically has a habit of scaling or turning off his hearing entirely in order to avoid hearing things he doesn’t want to overhear.
Flight is also a thing, though there’s two ways this can happen. One is just ordinary flight with wings, but the other is akin to teleportation. Since angels are light-aligned beings, and they vanish into light as they teleport, it’s probably a light-speed type of flight. (For obvious reasons, Kratos won’t be able to use either to go past the constraints of the turtle.)
By implication, cruxis crystals can also encode knowledge – specifically angelic artes, but probably including things such as language. Colette learns angelic artes just by wearing the crystal and having the next stage of her transformation activated, without anyone explicitly training her, so there must be knowledge bestowed directly by the crystal. Lifeless angels on Welgaia display evidence of using their minds like a computer; one angel states they have removed all knowledge of Lloyd’s group from their thoughts in order to avoid interfering with their telepathic communications.
Origin seal
Kratos has a unique relationship with the summon spirit Origin and, by extension, the Eternal Sword. Kratos isn’t a summoner, and so can’t summon Origin himself; and it’s debateable whether he can communicate with him, though he visits the unmoving location of the seal regularly. Origin’s seal can only be opened if Kratos is killed or he willingly expels all his mana at at the unmoving seal, which has a 99% chance of him dying as a result.
In Tushan, he won’t be able to communicate with Origin or voluntarily unlock the seal, but the seal will remain present in him, with all of the following effects. Most of the effects the seal has on him are canon-supported extrapolation, but aside from the above, canon never outright tells us the seal's constraints. Onward!
Origin’s seal gives Kratos an insanely powerful survival instinct, to the point where he will react violently if he (or the seal) feels threatened. The game shows this in the numerous instances where Kratos pulls his sword and attacks in response to someone pulling their sword first while in the same breath declaring a lack of desire to fight, or otherwise reacts violently just to someone standing behind him. Additionally, there’s a point in the game where the logical option to achieving his own goals would be to let someone kill him, and Kratos doesn’t, despite explicitly stating that he wants to die.
The effect seems to be scaled depending on how often Kratos has been threatened and by whom – Yuan is able to stand behind him just fine up until a certain point in the game, so Kratos/the seal still recognise Yuan as friend despite their estrangement; whereas Lloyd gets a blade in his face just because he walks up behind him.
This survival instinct also means he can’t kill himself, since, as stated, he wants to die; if he could have made that happen by now to help stop Mithos, he would have.
Entirely mundane abilities
Being four thousand years old and having been directly involved in literally shaping both worlds, Kratos is pretty worldly. In the past he wanted to be an actor, and he still has a love for language and a desire to pass on history. He’s the initial narrator for the game, and there’s a book you can discover where he blames the translator for the book’s use of big words – implying that he was the one who wrote the original. He also volunteers to help Genis learn angelic, despite the fact that doing so is suspicious given the cover he’s maintaining at the time.
He’s a teacher in every sense of the word, not only by circumstance; Mithos was his apprentice and Lloyd later becomes so as well, and both are accomplished swordsmen. As mentioned, Kratos helps teach Genis in angelic, and when the group takes a test at a university, Kratos makes no objection to performing in the test (receiving a score of 380 out of 400; third to Genis and Raine, who both get 400).
It’s probable that he helped develop angelic. Given his history, he knows every living language still used on Aselia, and some of the dead ones; which is only mildly helpful given that no one from Earth will recognise them.
He’s an astronomer. When Colette stops being able to sleep, Kratos recommends counting stars to pass the time, and there’s a line in supplemental material which suggests he uses the stars to keep track of Cruxis’s victims. He was likely born into aristocracy, so he’s got a good knowledge of politics and diplomacy; when Martel and Mithos tried to get an audience with the Tethe’allan king, he’s the one who taught them how to act and what to wear to better their chances of being heard.
Kratos has a comprehensive knowledge of battle tactics. He was a knight, then an angelic commander, and there’s numerous times throughout the game when his AI is terrifyingly good despite the early levels and lack of available buffs. Story-wise, he’s the one who advises on the party’s battle plans. When he’s a member of the party and not politely betraying them, anyway.
His poker face is nearly impenetrable, to the point that even Yuan, who has known him for four thousand years, can’t be completely sure whose side he’s really on until late-game. The only time Kratos gets angry during the game is right after being confronted by the man responsible for the death of his wife, and said man taunts him with it. To his face. Other than that, he’s Mr McStoicy Stoiciton. Generally, he acts as though there’s nothing he doesn’t know, which is equal parts faking it and actually knowing a shit-ton.
Inventory:
- Some under-armour clothes, boots, etc
- Cruxis crystal and key-crest (worn over his glove)
- Flamberge, his sword (deals fire damage)
- Brunnhilde, his armour (see Arredoval’s note above)
- Sigurd, his helm (again see note on armour)
- Faerie Ring (halves the amount of mana needed to perform an arte)
- Thunder Cape (increases defence, evasion, and resistances to wind and lightning)
- Some gald.
Soul Gem: Necklace.
Writing Samples:
Third Person: Torent Forest was calm tonight. It was the kind of stillness of the world holding its breath; the awareness that something was going to happen. Some inhabitants of the forest were smarter than others. It wasn’t the first time Kratos had come to visit.
It was the first time he’d stayed, and waited. The forest noticed.
The stars were out, and visible from the clearing, shining like dewdrops against the vast swath of night. Kratos looked silently up at them, unbreathing, his hands resting on the sheathed sword across his lap. It was a pity he’d never get to see them any closer.
He was seated up against the tablet marking Origin’s seal; it looked like a ruin, understated and innocuous, compared to the seals for the other summon spirits. Even still, the power of that seal beat against his back, and arced through him in an unseen line toward the Tower of Salvation. It was a cord he’d never been able to break.
Soon.
Surely Lloyd couldn’t be much longer. Accounting for time to travel, regroup, take stock, discuss the situation until it became clear there was no other way – it had been a few days. Surely Lloyd didn’t need more than a few days to decide that Kratos had to die. Kratos was, after all, a traitor.
So was Zelos, and he left with them.
That was a chilling thought. What if Lloyd decided, despite everything Kratos had done and said, that Kratos deserved a second chance? He’d doom the world.
Kratos rested his head against the tablet and shut off his sight, his hearing; shut off all his senses until all that was left was his sense of mana and the thrum of the seal within him. The other spirits had been aware, in some measure, of what occurred while they slumbered. Was Origin?
Do you realise how close we are to the end, my old captive? My old jailer?
There was no unusual movement through the forest, no familiar mana-signatures seeking the path. Nothing but the ordinary, the beasts too dumb to realise what might be happening. It was late. Lloyd wouldn’t arrive this night.
Kratos had been waiting for a very long time to die.
He could stand to wait a little longer.
Network: [The man in the video sits with his back straight, arms crossed and face alarmingly impassive, eyes half shaded by his bangs so it’s difficult to tell what’s in them. He’s openly wearing a sword and some top-notch filigreed armour, with a thrown-back cape and a shield on his back. Is that … is that plastic? The shield looks plastic.]
My name is Kratos Aurion. I’m a blade for hire with a specialty in bodyguarding and escort missions. I don’t kill for money. If you require such services, contact me at this location. I’ll be waiting here for the rest of the day.
[There is an attached console location for the café he’s in.]