Songerein App
31 December 2023 14:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
not_42Player: Tanks
Age: 42
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
Tanks4thememory
Current Characters: N/A
Character: Hermes
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV- canon point is a day or so before the Warrior of Light arrives in Elpis and we meet him in game
Age: Unknown, but given that his race is functionally immortal and that he was both in charge of a major research facility and being considered for a seat on his society's ruling council when we first meet him in canon, it's safe to say he's a few centuries old at least. Appearance- wise, he looks to be in his late 20's or early 30's
Background Information: Hermes on the FF XIV wiki
While the wiki covers a lot of the basics, it's also important to understand a bit about the society Hermes comes from. Most characters in game refer to his people as Ancients (due to when they existed), Ascians (what they later became), or Amaurotines (after their society's capital city), though they referred to themselves simply as man or mankind; I'll be calling them Ancients for the rest of the app, just to avoid confusion. As stated above, Ancients were functionally immortal, and possessed vast quantities of aether, basically making them all but bottomless wells of mana. Everyone from children on up learned to use 'creation magic' (more on that in the abilities section), and things like war, violence, poverty, sickness, want, prejudice, and most other forms of suffering were virtually unknown among their people. Sounds wonderful, right?
Well in some respects it definitely was. But in others, not so much. The Ancients sought to ultimately make their world- or 'star' as they called it- perfect. To that end, everything they created, from devices to creatures, was thoroughly tested before being allowed to become part of the world at large. Which was fine, except that it meant that any that didn't make the cut for whatever reason were destroyed, including entire test populations of creatures. There was no deliberate cruelty involved- effort was taken to spare destroyed animals any pain-, but there was little to no empathy for them either; even clearly sentient familiars were seen as creations and nothing more. If one failed to make the cut, it was unfortunate only because the work and effort put into developing it hadn't panned out.
Empathy was generally reserved only for their fellow Ancients, but even that was problematic. Given that they were functionally immortal, death among the Ancients was a deliberate choice. If someone felt that they had fulfilled their life's purpose, they chose to die and return to the aetherial sea- or the Underworld, as they called it-; a sort of 'becoming one with the Force' type of thing. It was seen as a beautiful thing, a sign of a life well lived, and a continuation of the cycle of life and rebirth as the star became ever more perfect. Accidental deaths did occasionally happen, but they were rare. Mourning the dead was virtually unknown. They had been happy and satisfied, having given their utmost in service to the star; what was there to be sad about?
If you think all that sounds rather emotionally repressive and unhealthy... you're right. Ancient society held the welfare of the star and of society as a whole as being far more important than the desires of the individual. Conformity was encouraged, right down to how people dressed. Everyone wore similar long, hooded robes- generally black, though a few had pale gray ones-, and even their faces were obscured by masks that hid the upper half of their features; members of the Convocation of Fourteen- their society's ruling council- wore specific masks symbolic of their stations, but everyone else wore identical birdlike masks. Some leeway was given to children, but under most circumstances, it was all but taboo for an adult to be seen in public without their mask and hood.
All this conformity helped with that lack of prejudice mentioned above, but it also meant that anyone whose feelings or opinions were different than the generally accepted views seldom voiced them. Holding the general good as being far more important than the desires of the individual was good to a point as well, but only further encouraged those with differing viewpoints to keep quiet about them, and to conceal any feelings or desires that might be considered selfish or burdensome. And with society as a whole focused on a achieving perfection for the star, anything that detracted from that perfection, that would be considered expressly negative or destructive... well, I'm sure you can see the issues with that.
This was the society Hermes lived in, and it not only set the stage for his and his world's eventual fate, it also shaped his personality. Which, of course, we'll get into next.
Personality: Hermes is, to put it bluntly, really depressed. Which is bad enough normally, but given that his society really doesn't have a word for it, and that his people were encouraged to put the good of society/the star before their own feelings and desires? That added an extra level of suck to it. Especially given that he's generally a very gentle-hearted and empathetic person.
Unusually for an Ancient, Hermes cares about the creations and familiars he works with. He does everything in his power to make sure the creations that come through Elpis make the cut to become part of the world at large, and grieves whenever he has to put one down. He also feels grief over the death of his mentor, even though everyone insists that his choosing to die after feeling he fulfilled his purpose is a beautiful thing. He alternates between internal anger at his fellow Ancients' lack of empathy, and wondering if maybe everyone else has the right of it, and he's just crazy. He generally feels lost and wonders if there's any point to life, eventually becoming so desperate to find meaning that he created a group of familiars specifically to send out into the universe and seek it outside his world. All of which combines to make him not the most mentally stable guy.
Not that he's violent, mind you. He'll defend himself if need be, or use magic to take down a rampaging creature if there are no other options, but even that causes him grief. It took basically being cornered and having a mental breakdown to turn him into boss battle material.
Coming from the society that he does, he's rather naive about certain things, which was a contributing factor to both his and his creation Meteion's mental breakdowns. Though highly intelligent, he doesn't always plan things out well when his heart is doing the thinking, and he can be somewhat selfish. He'll feel terrible about it once he realizes it, but by then whatever damage it might have caused has already been done.
When it comes to social interaction he's generally polite- sometimes a bit overly so- and fairly reserved, but like most nerds, will open up a bit and become more talkative if someone engages him on a topic he enjoys. Animals, especially birds and other flying creatures, are a particular favorite topic of his, as well as his field of expertise. Magic is generally a good one too.
And he'll also be more likely to engage- albeit cautiously at first- with people who express empathy, or feelings of grief or depression. Hermes has felt alone in his suffering for a long time, and finding out that he's not will likely be good for him. Being taken from a day or so before the arrival of the Warrior of Light in Elpis, he hasn't yet encountered anyone like that in his own world.
In short, Hermes is guy who's desperately looking for a new way of living and for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, after failing to find it among his own people. Maybe he'll find it in Reverien? We shall see.
Abilities & Inventory: Starting with inventory because that's the easy part. He'll arrive with the basic set of hooded robes, simple footwear, and birdlike halfmask that most all Ancients wore, and a pouch of birdseed that's in one of the pockets. He clearly was not prepared to be swept off to a dreamworld.
As an Ancient, Hermes has access to creation magic. On a basic level, creation magic is the ability to tap into a source of aether- in the case of the Ancients, their own huge reserves of the stuff- to manifest things in the physical world. Creation magic can bring anything into being, from simple objects all the way up to living creatures, and it was the Ancients' all-solving hammer. Even their children were able to use it on one level or another.
It's a bit more complicated than 'poof! here's a thing' though. The more complex the object to be brought into being, the better understanding of it one needs to have; this was true of both devices and living creatures. Just like someone shouldn't attempt to build a complex machine without the skills and know-how to be reasonably sure it won't blow up in their face, one couldn't really create a living creature without a good bit of knowledge of its biology and how it would function in an environment. And since not even an Ancient could remember every detail of every creation, those details- or 'concepts'- were recorded for reference in data storage devices known as 'concept crystals'. Even for someone like Hermes, accurately creating something as complex as a living creature without the relevant concept crystal would be exceptionally difficult.
And of course, just going around creating things willy-nilly is a recipe for trouble, especially in the time of the Ancients when everyone could do it. At that time, new creation concepts had to pass through various testing phases and be approved by a government office called the Bureau of the Architect (because apparently paperwork is truly eternal) before they were given the go ahead. While there'd be no real bureaucracy in place for it in Reverein, Hermes is intelligent enough to not go crazy creating things just because he can.
All that said, Hermes has had plenty of practice with his creation magic, and while he's not the most powerful of the Ancients, just being an Ancient makes him pretty darn powerful magically. Once he's properly settled in, he'll likely be able to create relatively simple, inanimate objects like say, a chair, on demand. If he were to get a hold of the relevant concept crystals, he could also bring more complex creations- including life forms- into being, though whether he would or not is another story. Ancients were rather dependent on their creation magic, however, so if he was ever in a situation where he lost access to magic, he might struggle a bit.
Being an Ancient also means that he's functionally immortal. He doesn't age, heals quickly- though not instantly- from injuries, is immune to any mundane form of disease, and requires less food than a similarly built human to function. In his native reality, Hermes would be several times the size of a modern human, but as this as a dream world, he'll be scaled down to human size under normal circumstances for ease of interaction. In terms of non-creation magic, wind elemental spells are his forte. If sufficiently pressed, he can an also transform into his boss battle form. In this form he uses powerful wind elemental attacks and can pelt his opponents with magically manifested meteors.
He's also highly intelligent and has vast knowledge of animals- particularly flying animals-, though he wouldn't always put it in terms of modern biology and would include things like the animal's aetheric properties. He has a great deal of research experience, both in terms of going through reports and data as well as conducting fieldwork, and has experience managing a vast research complex.
Expect him to compare Dreamotion energy to dynamis and be rather surprised that he can use it at all, at first, since having the vast quantities of aether that Ancients do would normally making it difficult- if not impossible- for them to make use of dynamis. He'll likely experiment with Dreamotion along lines he's familiar with at first, such as wind effects and manifesting objects, but later, who knows?
Suitability & Plans: Not gonna lie, my main purpose in apping Hermes is to give him a happier ending than his tragic canon one. I want get him out of the situation which eventually led to his mental breakdown and perhaps give him a chance to find better answers to his questions about life than the ones he got. And while he's far from a social butterfly, just being among people who don't share the Ancients' problematic and unhealthy views on emotions and empathy, and who can show him he's not alone in experiencing deep grief and suffering, will help him a great deal in the interaction department. I don't foresee any problems at all finding CR for him, and if anything, he'll be curious to interact with people not of his canon.
Test Drive Sample: Sample
Questions: None at the moment!
Age: 42
Contact:
Current Characters: N/A
Character: Hermes
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV- canon point is a day or so before the Warrior of Light arrives in Elpis and we meet him in game
Age: Unknown, but given that his race is functionally immortal and that he was both in charge of a major research facility and being considered for a seat on his society's ruling council when we first meet him in canon, it's safe to say he's a few centuries old at least. Appearance- wise, he looks to be in his late 20's or early 30's
Background Information: Hermes on the FF XIV wiki
While the wiki covers a lot of the basics, it's also important to understand a bit about the society Hermes comes from. Most characters in game refer to his people as Ancients (due to when they existed), Ascians (what they later became), or Amaurotines (after their society's capital city), though they referred to themselves simply as man or mankind; I'll be calling them Ancients for the rest of the app, just to avoid confusion. As stated above, Ancients were functionally immortal, and possessed vast quantities of aether, basically making them all but bottomless wells of mana. Everyone from children on up learned to use 'creation magic' (more on that in the abilities section), and things like war, violence, poverty, sickness, want, prejudice, and most other forms of suffering were virtually unknown among their people. Sounds wonderful, right?
Well in some respects it definitely was. But in others, not so much. The Ancients sought to ultimately make their world- or 'star' as they called it- perfect. To that end, everything they created, from devices to creatures, was thoroughly tested before being allowed to become part of the world at large. Which was fine, except that it meant that any that didn't make the cut for whatever reason were destroyed, including entire test populations of creatures. There was no deliberate cruelty involved- effort was taken to spare destroyed animals any pain-, but there was little to no empathy for them either; even clearly sentient familiars were seen as creations and nothing more. If one failed to make the cut, it was unfortunate only because the work and effort put into developing it hadn't panned out.
Empathy was generally reserved only for their fellow Ancients, but even that was problematic. Given that they were functionally immortal, death among the Ancients was a deliberate choice. If someone felt that they had fulfilled their life's purpose, they chose to die and return to the aetherial sea- or the Underworld, as they called it-; a sort of 'becoming one with the Force' type of thing. It was seen as a beautiful thing, a sign of a life well lived, and a continuation of the cycle of life and rebirth as the star became ever more perfect. Accidental deaths did occasionally happen, but they were rare. Mourning the dead was virtually unknown. They had been happy and satisfied, having given their utmost in service to the star; what was there to be sad about?
If you think all that sounds rather emotionally repressive and unhealthy... you're right. Ancient society held the welfare of the star and of society as a whole as being far more important than the desires of the individual. Conformity was encouraged, right down to how people dressed. Everyone wore similar long, hooded robes- generally black, though a few had pale gray ones-, and even their faces were obscured by masks that hid the upper half of their features; members of the Convocation of Fourteen- their society's ruling council- wore specific masks symbolic of their stations, but everyone else wore identical birdlike masks. Some leeway was given to children, but under most circumstances, it was all but taboo for an adult to be seen in public without their mask and hood.
All this conformity helped with that lack of prejudice mentioned above, but it also meant that anyone whose feelings or opinions were different than the generally accepted views seldom voiced them. Holding the general good as being far more important than the desires of the individual was good to a point as well, but only further encouraged those with differing viewpoints to keep quiet about them, and to conceal any feelings or desires that might be considered selfish or burdensome. And with society as a whole focused on a achieving perfection for the star, anything that detracted from that perfection, that would be considered expressly negative or destructive... well, I'm sure you can see the issues with that.
This was the society Hermes lived in, and it not only set the stage for his and his world's eventual fate, it also shaped his personality. Which, of course, we'll get into next.
Personality: Hermes is, to put it bluntly, really depressed. Which is bad enough normally, but given that his society really doesn't have a word for it, and that his people were encouraged to put the good of society/the star before their own feelings and desires? That added an extra level of suck to it. Especially given that he's generally a very gentle-hearted and empathetic person.
Unusually for an Ancient, Hermes cares about the creations and familiars he works with. He does everything in his power to make sure the creations that come through Elpis make the cut to become part of the world at large, and grieves whenever he has to put one down. He also feels grief over the death of his mentor, even though everyone insists that his choosing to die after feeling he fulfilled his purpose is a beautiful thing. He alternates between internal anger at his fellow Ancients' lack of empathy, and wondering if maybe everyone else has the right of it, and he's just crazy. He generally feels lost and wonders if there's any point to life, eventually becoming so desperate to find meaning that he created a group of familiars specifically to send out into the universe and seek it outside his world. All of which combines to make him not the most mentally stable guy.
Not that he's violent, mind you. He'll defend himself if need be, or use magic to take down a rampaging creature if there are no other options, but even that causes him grief. It took basically being cornered and having a mental breakdown to turn him into boss battle material.
Coming from the society that he does, he's rather naive about certain things, which was a contributing factor to both his and his creation Meteion's mental breakdowns. Though highly intelligent, he doesn't always plan things out well when his heart is doing the thinking, and he can be somewhat selfish. He'll feel terrible about it once he realizes it, but by then whatever damage it might have caused has already been done.
When it comes to social interaction he's generally polite- sometimes a bit overly so- and fairly reserved, but like most nerds, will open up a bit and become more talkative if someone engages him on a topic he enjoys. Animals, especially birds and other flying creatures, are a particular favorite topic of his, as well as his field of expertise. Magic is generally a good one too.
And he'll also be more likely to engage- albeit cautiously at first- with people who express empathy, or feelings of grief or depression. Hermes has felt alone in his suffering for a long time, and finding out that he's not will likely be good for him. Being taken from a day or so before the arrival of the Warrior of Light in Elpis, he hasn't yet encountered anyone like that in his own world.
In short, Hermes is guy who's desperately looking for a new way of living and for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, after failing to find it among his own people. Maybe he'll find it in Reverien? We shall see.
Abilities & Inventory: Starting with inventory because that's the easy part. He'll arrive with the basic set of hooded robes, simple footwear, and birdlike halfmask that most all Ancients wore, and a pouch of birdseed that's in one of the pockets. He clearly was not prepared to be swept off to a dreamworld.
As an Ancient, Hermes has access to creation magic. On a basic level, creation magic is the ability to tap into a source of aether- in the case of the Ancients, their own huge reserves of the stuff- to manifest things in the physical world. Creation magic can bring anything into being, from simple objects all the way up to living creatures, and it was the Ancients' all-solving hammer. Even their children were able to use it on one level or another.
It's a bit more complicated than 'poof! here's a thing' though. The more complex the object to be brought into being, the better understanding of it one needs to have; this was true of both devices and living creatures. Just like someone shouldn't attempt to build a complex machine without the skills and know-how to be reasonably sure it won't blow up in their face, one couldn't really create a living creature without a good bit of knowledge of its biology and how it would function in an environment. And since not even an Ancient could remember every detail of every creation, those details- or 'concepts'- were recorded for reference in data storage devices known as 'concept crystals'. Even for someone like Hermes, accurately creating something as complex as a living creature without the relevant concept crystal would be exceptionally difficult.
And of course, just going around creating things willy-nilly is a recipe for trouble, especially in the time of the Ancients when everyone could do it. At that time, new creation concepts had to pass through various testing phases and be approved by a government office called the Bureau of the Architect (because apparently paperwork is truly eternal) before they were given the go ahead. While there'd be no real bureaucracy in place for it in Reverein, Hermes is intelligent enough to not go crazy creating things just because he can.
All that said, Hermes has had plenty of practice with his creation magic, and while he's not the most powerful of the Ancients, just being an Ancient makes him pretty darn powerful magically. Once he's properly settled in, he'll likely be able to create relatively simple, inanimate objects like say, a chair, on demand. If he were to get a hold of the relevant concept crystals, he could also bring more complex creations- including life forms- into being, though whether he would or not is another story. Ancients were rather dependent on their creation magic, however, so if he was ever in a situation where he lost access to magic, he might struggle a bit.
Being an Ancient also means that he's functionally immortal. He doesn't age, heals quickly- though not instantly- from injuries, is immune to any mundane form of disease, and requires less food than a similarly built human to function. In his native reality, Hermes would be several times the size of a modern human, but as this as a dream world, he'll be scaled down to human size under normal circumstances for ease of interaction. In terms of non-creation magic, wind elemental spells are his forte. If sufficiently pressed, he can an also transform into his boss battle form. In this form he uses powerful wind elemental attacks and can pelt his opponents with magically manifested meteors.
He's also highly intelligent and has vast knowledge of animals- particularly flying animals-, though he wouldn't always put it in terms of modern biology and would include things like the animal's aetheric properties. He has a great deal of research experience, both in terms of going through reports and data as well as conducting fieldwork, and has experience managing a vast research complex.
Expect him to compare Dreamotion energy to dynamis and be rather surprised that he can use it at all, at first, since having the vast quantities of aether that Ancients do would normally making it difficult- if not impossible- for them to make use of dynamis. He'll likely experiment with Dreamotion along lines he's familiar with at first, such as wind effects and manifesting objects, but later, who knows?
Suitability & Plans: Not gonna lie, my main purpose in apping Hermes is to give him a happier ending than his tragic canon one. I want get him out of the situation which eventually led to his mental breakdown and perhaps give him a chance to find better answers to his questions about life than the ones he got. And while he's far from a social butterfly, just being among people who don't share the Ancients' problematic and unhealthy views on emotions and empathy, and who can show him he's not alone in experiencing deep grief and suffering, will help him a great deal in the interaction department. I don't foresee any problems at all finding CR for him, and if anything, he'll be curious to interact with people not of his canon.
Test Drive Sample: Sample
Questions: None at the moment!
